by Leslie Kelly
An undercover investigation into a high-end club drug ring run by a slime named Ricky Stahl had ended in a number of indictments…and a few embarrassed public officials with druggie kids they’d rather nobody knew about. It had also meant a transfer for Mike. His bosses claimed the area had gotten too hot for him. Mike thought the transfer was more likely payback from embarrassed politicians.
Whatever the true motivation, he’d been shoved straight into 1PP, aka headquarters. He now spent most of his days pouring through musty, yellowed logs and evidence files that smelled as if they belonged in some grandmother’s basement. When not there, he was on the streets, tracking down hesitant witnesses with failing eyesight and dim memories. Every one of whom wanted to serve him coffee cake while they relived the worst experience of their lives…the murder of a loved one.
Somehow, though, despite his initial insistence to anyone who would listen that he was being wasted, he’d grudgingly found himself getting interested in what he was doing. Maybe it wasn’t that surprising. He’d read his grandfather’s ancient Ellery Queen and Mickey Spillane mysteries by the gross as a kid. Solving puzzles, sifting through clues, he’d gotten a real charge out of that stuff once. Who knew he’d get a charge out of doing it for real as an adult?
It challenged him, exercised his brain in a way that posing as a buyer or a john certainly never had. His first successful cold-case closing—solving the 1998 murder of a shopkeeper who’d been gunned down in his own storage room—had given him more satisfaction than he’d ever experienced in Vice. Not just because of how grateful the family had been, but because he’d felt triumphant at having solved an unsolvable mystery.
He’d been a cold-case junkie ever since. Fascinated by the past, putting together one piece at a time of each intricate puzzle. So maybe that was why he couldn’t drive past the stranger…because she was a puzzle. Alone on the road five miles from town. Furious. Armed. And hot.
“Yeah. Time to stop,” he muttered, not knowing whether the puzzle or the hot interested him more.
Behind him, on the back seat, the closest thing Mike had to a commitment—a scruffy dog—lifted his head off his paw and yawned audibly. “We’re not there yet, go back to sleep,” Mike said, not even watching to see if the animal obeyed. He knew he would. Lie down was the only command the lazy mutt ever heard.
Tapping his horn in warning, Mike pulled onto the shoulder behind the brunette. She swung around immediately, but, thankfully, the tire iron stayed down by her side.
Remaining where she was, she watched warily as he stepped out. He shaded his eyes from the late afternoon sun setting over the town of Trouble ahead, squinting through his dark glasses to make out the woman’s features. He still couldn’t determine much, beyond the suspicion that her shape from the front was as good as it had been from behind. Maybe better, judging by the plunging neckline of her halter dress.
Damn, the woman had more curves than a Spirograph.
She’d stopped right beyond a battered road sign, which read Trouble Ahead. Somehow, he already knew the sign was right.
“Afternoon,” he said with a nod.
The woman wasn’t dressed for changing a tire. Or walking barefoot down a country road, for that matter. No, she looked more like one of the rich princesses who strolled down Park Avenue shopping for glittery purses with their tiny Chihuahuas.
“Having trouble?” he asked as he approached her, the sun continuing to interfere with his vision. “Do you need help?”
“Do you happen to have a gun handy?” was her shocking reply.
Actually, he did. Not that he was going to reveal that to someone eager to arm herself. “Sorry. Not today.”
He slowed his steps. Though he still didn’t sense she was dangerous to him, she felt bloodlust toward someone else. Maybe the person who’d stranded her out here sans car and shoes.
“Then I don’t need your help,” she said, her words jagged, choppy, as if now that she’d stopped walking she could finally suck in a few breaths of air. The harsh way she punctuated each word underscored his first impression—she was mad as hell.
And, he suspected, even more hot from the front than she’d been from behind. That dress was cut lower than he’d thought, and the filmy fabric outlined some generous hips. “Are you lost?”
She frowned. “Do I look lost?”
“No. You look stranded.”
“Score one for the big guy. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have another five miles to walk into town.”
As he moved to within two feet of her, the woman’s own form blocked most of the sun until just a few rays spiked out from behind her head, like a huge halo. The effect was dazzling—blinding—but he still pushed his sunglasses up onto his head.
No one had ever accused him of being sentimental or sappy. But the way the light caught her hair, reflecting on individual strands of brown, gold and red and turning it into a veil of color, he couldn’t help staring.
When he forced himself to focus on the stranger’s face, he suddenly had to suck in a quick, surprised breath of his own. Because that face was good. Very good, with the high cheekbones and hollowed-out cheeks that women begged plastic surgeons for.
She also had a small, straight nose and dark eyes that were a swirling mix of blue and stormy gray. They were framed by heavily lashed lids. The strong jaw, and a slight jut to her chin said she was determined. Despite being tightly clenched, her mouth was obviously designed with sin in mind. Her naturally full lips would never need that crap women used to make themselves look like injected-to-death movie stars.
She wasn’t too young—probably right around his age, or maybe even older. There was a maturity in the strength of her profile, in the confident way she carried herself.
He liked what he saw. A lot. This was the first time in ages that he’d liked the looks of a woman so much he’d actually begun to wonder whether he owned any unexpired condoms.
And she was staring at him with pure malice.
“Bad day, huh?”
“You could say that.”
“So, uh, why do you need a gun?”
“To shoot someone,” she snapped, looking at him as if he were stupid. “Two someones, actually.”
He quickly scanned the woman’s features, looking for her true intent. He’d met a lot of criminals in his seven years on the force, and he knew angry, frustrated threats from legitimate ones. This one, judging by the resigned irritation in her tone—rather than rage—was all bark and no bite. At least, he hoped. But he still thought about his service weapon, and wondered if he was going to have to use it to stop her from following through on her threats.
Wouldn’t be the first time he’d stepped between a murderous woman and her intended target. Just the thought of that incident made the scar in his right shoulder ache…and the one around his heart grow a little harder.
“Dumb question.” Glancing at the object in her hand, he tried again. “Why are you carrying a tire iron?”
She frowned, appearing puzzled by the ridiculousness of the query. Tilting her head to the side until her long hair brushed her arm, she explained, “Because I don’t have a gun, of course.”
Well, color him stupid for not knowing that. “Is there someone in particular you plan to kill or would anybody do?”
“Don’t worry. You’re quite safe,” she said, that jaw still tense but some of the stiffness easing out of her shoulders. “However, two little old ladies from hell better have gone into the witness protection program before I get back into town.”
“Killing little old ladies.” He tsked and shook his head, growing even less alarmed. But he didn’t let his guard down completely. “That’s not very polite.”
“You don’t know these particular old ladies.”
Something that felt like a smile began to tug at his mouth. “I know it’s against the law to kill them.”
He quickly squashed the smile. Mike wasn’t used to smiling…. He didn’t have a lot to be happy about on the job, and h
is personal life was almost nonexistent. Having lived for his work for the past few years, he hadn’t developed more than a nodding relationship with anyone outside the force. With his brothers living busy lives, he seldom got together with them these days. He hadn’t laid eyes on Max or Morgan since Max’s wedding in December. And now that his grandfather, Mortimer, had taken up residence in a shoddy town that looked like the setting of a Stephen King story, he never saw him, either. Other than the drooly dog in his Jeep, he was about as unencumbered, serious and solitary as a twenty-seven-year-old New Yorker could be.
“Believe me, it’d be justifiable homicide.”
“You a lawyer?” He tensed, as any cop did at the thought of a defense attorney…almost always an enemy in the courtroom.
“No. I just play one on TV.”
At first he thought she meant she was an actress—because she could be. Not only because she was so attractive, but because she had definite character. Then she rolled her eyes and huffed out an annoyed breath that he hadn’t immediately caught her sarcasm. “I watch Law and Order, the original and all ninety of its spin-offs, okay? Now, unless you have a spare pair of women’s size eight Nikes in your car, I really need to say goodbye.”
As if assessing the chances, her eyes dropped to his feet, and for the first time, Mike realized, she really looked at him. She was finally seeing him. She’d been too ticked off, too frustrated to even spare him a real glance until now.
Now she glanced. Oh, she definitely glanced.
Her unusual eyes darkened to almost charcoal-gray and her lips parted as she drew in a few more deep breaths. He could see the way her pulse fluttered in her neck as she cast a leisurely stare from his boot-clad feet, up his faded jeans, his Yankees T-shirt, then his face. She stopped there, a flick of her tongue to moisten her lips indicating she’d seen the guy women spent a lot of time coming on to until they realized he was interested in nothing more than the few hours he could kill with them.
“Sorry, no spare footwear,” he finally said. He waited for a flirtatious comment, a come-on, a request for a lift.
He got none of those. Just a shrug, a sigh and a frown. Without warning, she swung around and started striding away, saying over her shoulder, “Okay. Have a nice—”
“Wait,” he said, jogging to catch up to her. He put a hand on her shoulder, stopping her in her tracks. But the moment his hand landed on her warm skin he realized his mistake. Looking at her had affected him. Touching her nearly stopped his heart.
Her skin was smooth. Silky. Warm and supple under the sun’s strong summer rays. And though she probably should have smacked his hand away, given that he was a complete stranger, she didn’t. She simply watched him, her eyes leaning more toward blue now, slowly shifting colors like one of those old-fashioned mood rings girls had been so crazy about when he was a kid.
“Yes?” she asked, her voice sounding thick, more throaty than it had before, which was when he knew what mood her blue eyes indicated: Awareness. Interest. Heat.
Definite heat. It was instantaneous. It was mutual. And it was also entirely unexpected considering the woman was a complete stranger…a stranger in need.
Finally, after a long, thick moment, Mike pulled his hand away, noting the whiteness his touch had left against her sunpinkened skin. Her pale, creamy complexion wouldn’t do well for much longer in this heat. He cleared his throat, wondering why his mouth had gone so dry. “Can I give you a ride somewhere?”
She hesitated, as if still affected by his touch, before replying, “Thanks, but I’m not that desperate. I don’t get into cars with total strangers.”
Smart. He didn’t blame her at all, especially considering some of the stuff he’d seen on the job. Still, he didn’t want the woman to keep stubbornly walking down the road until her feet blistered and her soft skin turned apple-red. “Do you want to use my cell phone to call for help?”
She paused, pursing her lips as she thought about it. Then, with a sigh, admitted, “There’s nobody to call. AAA wouldn’t come out unless my car was actually here. And the only family I have in town are the ones who stranded me.”
“The old ladies.”
“My aunts.” Still frowning, she added, “I don’t think I’d want the police to come help me out considering I am planning to kill those two when I get back to town.”
That startled a one-syllable laugh out of him, which he immediately halted. He also made a mental note not to tell her he was a cop. “Don’t you know anybody else in Trouble?”
“Nobody I could call, except maybe just an elderly friend of my aunts’, who we ran into at the store yesterday. I can’t even remember his whole name. It’s Ports, Potter…something like that.”
“Potts. Mortimer Potts.”
“You know him?” she asked, sounding surprised—and hopeful.
“I’m on my way to his house.”
A relieved smile finally appeared on her pretty face. “Are you, by any chance, one of his grandsons?”
“Yeah.” He put out his hand. “Mike Taylor.”
She reached out and put her hand in his, and again he couldn’t help noticing how damned soft the woman was. As if she regularly bathed in some milky lotion that made her skin constantly feel like silk.
“I’m Jennifer Feeney. Jen. Your grandfather mentioned you were coming into town today. He seems like a…nice old man.”
Mike noted the hesitation. No doubt, Mortimer was a nice old man. But that obviously hadn’t been the first word that had come to the woman’s mind. No. People usually described Mortimer as many things other than nice—eccentric, wild, dashing.
Nutty.
Not that Mike or his brothers much cared what other people thought of their grandfather. They knew him; they’d lived with him, traveling around the world on one adventure after another. There wasn’t a single thing any of his grandsons wouldn’t do for the man. Including taking down anyone who ever hurt him.
Though now eighty-one years old, Mortimer was remarkably healthy, except for some arthritis that had limited his physical activities. Anyone who saw him would think he was a sturdy seventy-year-old, with his shoulder-length white hair, tall and lanky frame, and blazing blue eyes. Of course, if he was in one of his moods, and happened to be wearing a 1940s military uniform, an Arabic thobe or chaps and a holster, they might go right back to that nutty part.
“You’re the one who lives in New York?”
He nodded.
“Me, too. I’m just visiting.”
“Small world.” Only, not. Because New York was one big city and he was constantly amazed when traveling by how many people he ran into from there. “So does this mean we’re not strangers, and you’ll let me give you a ride into town?”
She hesitated, then glanced down at her bare feet. She didn’t have much choice—if she stayed on the gravel shoulder, her feet would be torn to shreds. If she moved to the hot blacktop, they’d be fried.
Turning her head to look over her shoulder at the long road winding toward Trouble, she finally nodded. “Okay.” Then she narrowed her eyes and stared at him, hard. “But be warned, I’m keeping the tire iron. I can defend myself.”
The fierce expression was such a contradiction to the soft, silky rest of her that Mike had that unfamiliar impulse to smile again. Instead, he merely murmured, “Consider me warned.”
JENNIFER FEENEY HAD NEVER liked the town of Trouble. Not since the first time she’d laid eyes on it as a little girl. Her parents had brought her here twenty years ago, to visit her father’s reclusive sisters. She’d heard stories about the town of Trouble, and her elderly aunts Ida Mae and Ivy, since she was small. They had come to visit once or twice, but nothing had prepared Jen to visit them in Trouble.
Even as a child, she’d felt the strangeness of the place. From the wary watchfulness of the residents to the tangled bramble where parks had once stood, the town laid out an Un-welcome mat that urged visitors to leave. It was hard to imagine her cheerful, teddy bear of a father had gro
wn up here.
Worst of all had been the two shadowy buildings where the aunts resided. The old Victorian homes hovered over the north end of town, side by side, two dark birds of prey on vigilant watch for fresh meat. Though she’d only been eight during that visit, Jen had already had a good imagination. When she’d seen the two houses, with their sagging facades, shuttered windows and worn siding, she’d immediately thought of them as the sisters.
Ida Mae’s house was dour and forbidding, what was left of its paint the color of a stormy sky, angry and wet. Its jagged railings and the spiky bars over the windows had given it the appearance of a prison. The black front door seemed like an open mouth waiting to swallow anyone who ventured onto the crumbling porch. Unadorned, ghostly against the clouds, the place had perfectly matched its owner, the dark and stern Ida Mae.
Ivy’s was even worse.
It had apparently once been a gentle yellow, but any cheery gentility had long been eradicated. Tangled vines crawled like garden snakes up toward the roof. Cracks in the water-stained walls revealed odd shapes that had looked too much like spiders and monsters to her eight-year-old eyes. And the whole foundation had appeared slightly sunken on the right, as if the house were a stroke victim whose face hadn’t quite recovered.
Where Ida Mae’s house was merely dark and unwelcoming, Ivy’s was a freakish combination of lightness and rabid death. Garish and frightening. Much like the old lady herself.
Of the two of them, Ivy had scared her the most, because she was so terribly unpredictable. At times a charming hostess, then a raging shrew, she was the one Jen should have tried to avoid. But she’d also been the most interesting, so often talking to herself, or to invisible, long-dead friends.
The one-sided conversations and stories the woman told had fascinated Jen. She’d often sat unnoticed, listening, until Ivy snapped out of one of her trances long enough to shoo her away. Sometimes with a threat to sell her to the child catcher who, in Jen’s dreams, looked just like Ivy. Rail-thin, bony and menacing.
