Was that how Brody had ended up on this road? Had the man wanted him to come here? What sense would that make? Neither Felicity nor her aunt gave any indication they were waiting for someone.
He sat up and pulled his blanket closer around his shoulders. There was a new chill in the air as the fire began to wane in its wall-ensconced cubby.
The three of them had made the decision to sleep around the warm flames tonight. The ladies had offered him a couch, but he’d refused. Aunt Bonny slept on the other one now, snoring away under a pile of blankets. He’d stretched out in an old recliner instead.
A moment of envy shot through Brody as he looked at Aunt Bonny. What he wouldn’t do to sleep so well. He hadn’t slept that well since Andrea . . .
He shook his head. Why did his thoughts keep going there? He’d done a good job staying busy and keeping his thoughts occupied. But now thoughts of her kept pouring into his head, unwilling to retreat.
He sighed, his gaze moving to Felicity again. In the dancing light of the fire, she also looked peaceful, though deep down inside he wondered if she was asleep at all. She seemed too on edge to rest.
Just like he was.
Despite all of that, they’d had a fairly relaxing game of dominoes, then Uno®, and finally pick-up sticks—all Aunt Bonny’s idea. It was a nice distraction from having to talk, having to face sharing any more information than he had to. With Brody’s help, they’d heated some hot chocolate and cooked popcorn over the flames.
He squinted as he looked more closely at Felicity. Was that her . . . gun . . . beneath her pillow?
He crept closer. It sure was. She didn’t trust him. At all. Not that he could blame her, after what he’d done when he’d come out of his unconscious state. But she really wasn’t taking any chances, was she?
“Skeleton key . . .” Aunt Bonny muttered, her hand flopping toward the floor. She was obviously dreaming.
He couldn’t help but smile. Her pirate stories sure were interesting. As a kid growing up around here, he’d wanted to believe that Blackbeard’s treasure was stashed in this area. Every kid had. It was part of the intrigue of living in a coastal community like Hertford, and all of eastern North Carolina, for that matter.
He looked up at the sword. Wouldn’t that be something if Blackbeard really had owned that? What were the chances? A house like this had to have a rich history. As the old saying went . . . if these walls could speak. They’d have incredible stories to tell.
Just then he heard a creak, and his instincts went on alert.
Chapter Nine
Brody’s muscles tightened. What was that? The house settling? The wind?
His gut told him no.
His pumping adrenaline propelled him forward, urging him to action.
Quickly, he slid the gun out from beneath Felicity’s pillow. She might hate him for it, but he had no choice.
He stayed close to the wall as he neared the kitchen. He felt nearly certain that was where the sound was coming from.
He peered around the corner. Sure enough, a man stood outside at the door. Playing with the lock. Trying to get inside.
He rushed toward Felicity and shook her. Her eyes fluttered open, and when she spotted him, she scowled before drawing back.
“Someone’s outside,” Brody rushed. “Get your aunt and go to a bedroom. Lock yourself in until I give you word to come out.”
Instantly, she threw her legs over the edge and reached for her gun. “My . . .” Her gaze met his and she scowled. “You have my gun?”
“I don’t have time for this now. Someone’s trying to get inside.”
With one more dirty look, she darted toward her aunt. Once they were on their way down the hallway, Brody started back toward the kitchen.
He peered around the corner in time to see the man push the door open and step inside.
Brody scanned him quickly. At his waist was a gun. But it wasn’t in his hand. Not yet.
Holding Felicity’s Glock, Brody stepped from the shadows. “I’ll shoot first and ask questions later.”
The man’s head jerked up. He wore a black mask over his face. But, even with the mask, Brody saw his eyes widen in surprise.
Brody raised his gun and held his breath, waiting for the man’s reaction. Fight or flight?
A tense moment stretched between them, every second that passed crackling with indecision.
Then, the man ran.
“Was it Blackbeard’s ghost?” Aunt Bonny asked as she huddled in the corner of a spare bedroom with Felicity.
Felicity kept her arm around her aunt, hoping she wouldn’t do anything impulsive or irresponsible. “No, not a ghost. Brody thinks someone was trying to break in.”
“It’s a good thing he was here then.”
Was it? Or was the man trying to get in because Brody had brought trouble with him?
The thought left her unsettled.
She could hardly breathe. Tension pressed on her chest. What was happening out there? How had a simple bad weather situation turned into this? What if she’d never seen Brody outside?
No, she couldn’t think like that. She was glad she’d found him when she did. She just wished all this trouble hadn’t ensued.
“Your parents would be proud of you, you know,” Aunt Bonny muttered.
Where had that thought come from? Here they were in the middle of this situation and now she brought this up?
“Thank you, Aunt Bonny.” She nudged the blanket up higher around her aunt’s shoulders.
“My heart broke after what happened to them.”
“Mine too,” Felicity said.
She tried to push away the memories, but they flooded her mind anyway. Suddenly, she felt like she was back in time, ten years earlier. It was a month before she left for college, and she was living in Wilmington with her parents.
Her mom and dad had gone on a mission trip with the church and were on their way home. They’d headed back a day earlier so they could spend a week at the beach with Felicity. It had been a late graduation/going-away-to-college gift. Their plane had crashed, killing all 258 passengers on board.
Her life hadn’t been the same since.
Someone rapped on the door and pulled her from the memories.
“Stay here,” she whispered to her aunt.
She grabbed a heavy vase from the dresser and held it like a baseball bat as she approached the door. She hesitated as she stood in front of it.
“Who is it?” she asked, unwilling to take any chances.
“It’s Brody.”
She released her breath, but refused to throw caution to the wind. She kept the vase raised, just in case. She turned the lock, and her hand twisted the knob and pulled the door toward her until a crack appeared.
She saw Brody’s face there.
Without invitation, he slipped inside and closed the door behind him.
She quickly soaked him in. His breathing was rapid. His shoes had bits of snow on them. The gun was still in his hand.
If he’d fired, she would have heard it.
“He ran away,” he said. “Any idea who it might have been?”
“The same person who left the footprints earlier,” she guessed.
“Whoever he was, he doesn’t want to announce his presence. Why?”
She shoved a finger into her chest. “You think I know?”
He stared at her a moment before shaking his head. “No, I’m just thinking out loud. Nothing is making sense.”
“Have you remembered anything else?”
He shook his head. “No, nothing.”
She shivered involuntarily. “I don’t even feel safe here anymore.”
“I’ll stand guard for the rest of the night so you and your aunt can get some rest.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
“No, let him. He should earn his keep!” Aunt Bonny chirped in the background.
Felicity let out a quick breath—almost a chuckle, but not quite.
“She’s
right,” Brody said. “I’ve intruded on your plans, your house, and your sense of peace. The least I can do is make sure all of this isn’t my fault.”
She stared at him a moment before nodding. “Fine then. Have it your way.”
She hoped she didn’t regret this, because he still had her gun.
Chapter Ten
As the early morning sun peaked through the slits in the curtains, Felicity rose and pulled on a sweatshirt to ward off the cold. Apparently her aunt was already awake because the smell of bacon wafted through the house. The power must be back on.
She rubbed her eyes, trying to get the cobwebs out of her brain. The events of yesterday flashed back to her. Had that been real? Or was it all just a nightmare?
When she glanced across the room and saw blankets on both the couch and the recliner, she knew everything really had happened.
Brody Joyner was in her house.
Everything had been crazy in the past twenty-four hours, turning her life upside down. No, she thought. If that were the case, then her life would finally be right side up. It had been upside down for a long time now.
“Breakfast is on!” her aunt called.
Where had Brody gone?
When she walked into the kitchen, she spotted him sitting at the table, chatting with her aunt as if they were old friends.
She gave her aunt the eye. Traitor.
She sat down and stared across the breakfast table at him. He looked even more rugged this morning. His five o’clock shadow had become thicker and more pronounced. His eyes were somehow more shaded. The overall effect gave him a rugged, bad-boy look—a very appealing bad-boy look.
“After last night, I’m not sure how safe you’re going to be staying here.” Brody glanced out the window. “The snow has stopped, but I’m estimating we got more than six inches. It’s going to take a while for that to melt.”
“They’re saying it’s going to start raining. You know what the weather’s like around here.” Aunt Bonny wiped down the stovetop. “Sunny and eighty one minute, and thirty and snowing the next.”
Felicity wanted to argue with her, but she couldn’t. It was true. The weather changed faster than her ex-boyfriend’s moods, it seemed. It kept life interesting, to say the least.
“When is your leave up with the Coast Guard?” Felicity took another bite of eggs.
“I still have three weeks.” His jaw hardened as he said the words.
Her spine clenched. What wasn’t he telling her? Had he been disciplined by the Coast Guard for unscrupulous actions? Was that why he’d supposedly taken leave? Had he had a mental breakdown?
Maybe she’d been too hard on him and should give him the benefit of the doubt. He’d proven to be helpful in his time here. Her paranoid instincts may have been working overtime since she’d been here in Hertford.
“I’d like to trek out to my truck today and see what I can find there.” Brody wiped his mouth with a paper towel from the center of the table.
All at once, she had a vision of what it might be like to sit here every morning. To have coffee and breakfast and read the newspaper with someone. With someone like Brody.
Her cheeks heated. Where had that thought come from? She quickly pushed the idea aside. She couldn’t even trust the man. There was no need to start imagining a future with him.
She cleared her throat. “It’s going to be a cold walk.”
“I’ll be okay. I’ve been through worse.”
“Come see this, guys,” Aunt Bonny said.
They both stood from their bacon and eggs and went into the living area. The tinny sound of the TV filled the room, and her aunt stood in front of the screen.
“We got only six inches of snow instead of the twelve they were calling for. Plus, the weather service is saying it will rain and warm up pretty quickly. That’s the good news,” Aunt Bonny said. “In other words, Sonny Boy here might not be stuck with us for too much longer.”
She gave a pointed look to Brody. Her aunt’s feelings about the man seemed to match Felicity’s own—skeptical one minute, wanting to believe the best the next. But that did not mean she and her aunt were anything alike.
Felicity felt like she should apologize for her aunt’s rudeness, but she couldn’t. She felt the same way, even though she might not have worded it quite that way.
“Now listen to this.” She turned up the volume.
A picture of a white-haired man appeared on the screen. The news reporter talked in the background, “The body of an unidentified man has been found in Hertford. A state trooper discovered him this morning off Highway 17. The medical examiner has not yet determined a cause of death. If you have information . . .”
“Poor man,” Felicity muttered. “I hope he didn’t freeze to death out in those elements.”
When Brody didn’t respond, she glanced back at him and noticed that he’d gone pale.
Brody’s mind reeled.
That was the man from the side of the road. Images of picking him up filled his thoughts. Each memory felt like a punch in the gut.
What had happened to the man?
Brody felt certain he hadn’t died of natural causes. Or had he? If only he could remember everything.
“Brody? Brody?”
He snapped back to the present and saw Felicity staring at him.
“Everything okay?” she asked.
He nodded, knowing he couldn’t share his thoughts. She already suspected he was up to no good. This might only confirm that in her mind. “Yeah, everything’s fine. I’m going to head out to my truck before the rain starts.”
She shrugged. “Suit yourself.”
He bundled up, using everything he could find to keep him warm. It didn’t matter if he was cold. Nothing was going to stop him now. After muttering something to Felicity and Aunt Bonny, he stepped into the white, damp outdoors.
Despite the fact that it wasn’t snowing anymore, the cold still felt extreme. His legs sank into the snow, completely covering his boots. The sky overhead was gray, as if promising more precipitation.
Without the curtain of snow coming down, he could clearly see his truck in the distance. Before he ventured to it, he checked the backyard for evidence of the intruder. He easily saw where the man had come to the back door last night and then retreated. Where had he gone?
He’d check that in a moment. Right now, he had to see his truck. He needed answers as to what had happened to him. Then he’d figure out the rest.
Walking through the snow expended four times the energy of normal walking. Each step required fighting with the thick wall at his feet. He finally reached his truck, a gray 2005 Ford F150. It was the first vehicle he’d bought, right out of high school.
And it was wrapped around a tree.
He’d call his friend Ryan Shields, who owned a garage in town, and see if he could send a tow truck out to retrieve it after the snow cleared.
He looked behind him. There was a good distance between the truck and the house. Somehow he’d managed to sludge through the thick snow and make it far enough that Felicity had found him. He must have seen the house in the distance and gone for help.
As he glanced through the side window, he sucked in a breath. There was a bullet hole. Bullet holes.
One went through his windshield. Another pierced his shattered back window.
Someone had been shooting at him.
He’d run off the side of the road. Hit a tree. That must have knocked him out.
Then the old man he’d picked up had either been grabbed or escaped on foot. Who had been shooting at them? Had that person grabbed the man and run? Maybe the shooter thought Brody was dead.
He opened the door and peered inside his truck.
Blood had frozen on the steering wheel and some had dripped onto the dashboard. He touched his head. That had to be from his head wound.
Brody had obviously gotten mixed up in . . . something. But what? Figuring that out was the key to discovering who the man was at the door las
t night.
Whatever was going on, it wasn’t good.
Just as he took a step back, he heard a click behind him.
A gun. Being cocked.
Chapter Eleven
As soon as Felicity saw the bullet holes, she knew that Brody Joyner was trouble. This only confirmed it. There was something he wasn’t telling her, and she wanted to know what.
First, there was his reaction to the man on TV. He’d gone pale. Then he’d hurried out to his truck like a man on a mission. She’d seen the bullet holes. Seen the blood.
Maybe this whole temporary amnesia thing was a scam.
She was not going to welcome a criminal in her home.
“What are you doing, Felicity?” Brody’s back was still toward her, but every muscle visibly tight.
Had he seen her coming? Had he known she’d come after him? “How’d you know it was me?”
“I can see you in the side-view mirror.”
Her jaw clenched, and she wished she had more training for this type of thing. She wished she could ignore the way her nose tingled from the cold and the snow melted into the edges of her boots.
He raised his hands. “Don’t do something stupid, Felicity.”
Her eyes narrowed with irritation. “I should say the same thing to you. It looks like there’s more to the story than you’re telling me.”
“Can I turn around?”
“Slowly.”
“I blacked out, Felicity. I’m telling you the truth. There’s a one- or two-hour period that I can’t remember. Bits and pieces keep coming back.
The gun trembled in her hand, partly because of her surging anxiety and partly because of the cold that nipped at her. “Like the man on TV?”
He pressed his lips together before nodding. “I didn’t know who he was. When I saw his picture, I had a flashback.”
“Did you kill him?” She held her breath as she waited for his response.
His eyes widened. “Kill him? Who do you think I am?”
“I have no idea who you are.”
“You heard me talking to the police chief. He can verify who I am. Now, why don’t you put the gun down before you do something stupid?”
Wait Until Dark: Carolina Moon Series, Book 3 Page 6
