by Jana DeLeon
She pulled two bottled waters from the refrigerator and placed them on the table with the sandwiches before sliding into the chair across from Tanner. “You think he’ll be back?”
“Until he gets what he wants.”
She sighed. “And we don’t even know what that is.”
“It all seems to have started when you began construction, so we can only assume they don’t want you to succeed in opening the bed-and-breakfast.”
“So someone who knows I’m broke.”
“And thinks your only option outside of the B-and-B is to sell.”
She blew out a breath. “You’re back to the selling again. I know it seems the logical path, but if that’s the case, then why hasn’t a buyer pursued me more aggressively? Sam contacts me occasionally to ask about it, but I haven’t felt pressured in the least. If his client was really serious, wouldn’t they be upping the ante?”
“Maybe they want to get the property at a steal or maybe they don’t want to draw attention to themselves by offering a higher price. The fewer options you have, the less money you have to take for the property.”
“Seems they’d get the best price if the bank forecloses and sells it at auction.”
“Perhaps, but it could take a year before the bank put the property on the auction block. There’s a lot of foreclosures right now for banks to get processed.”
“Okay,” Josie conceded. “That makes sense, but we still don’t know why anyone would want this property badly enough to harass me over it.”
Tanner frowned. “Do you know who the potential buyer is?”
“I’ve never asked. It didn’t seem relevant.”
“Maybe you should.”
She took a bite of the sandwich and thought while she chewed. The more Tanner talked, the more it made sense, and the more she wanted an answer to that question. Unable to relax until she knew, she jumped up from the table and grabbed the phone off the kitchen counter.
“Sam,” she said when he answered. “This is Josie. Listen, I was just wondering about that offer on my property. I’m not ready to make up my mind or anything, but I wanted to know about the buyer—you know, what they intend to use the property for. I wouldn’t want to make a decision that’s bad for Miel.”
“No, no, of course not,” Sam said. “I’m not supposed to give out this information, but as a resident, I share your concerns. The man’s name is Frederick Shore. He’s a businessman from New Orleans and is looking for a big old house in a small town as a sort of retreat. He’d seen yours in some old article on historic homes and found it ‘charming.’”
“Frederick Shore?”
“Yeah. Are you reconsidering? Because if so, I can definitely counter with a better price. I think he’d pay it.”
“No, I’m still not ready to sell, but I thought it was smart business to make sure I had a clear understanding of all my options.”
“Of course. You know, if you’re not busy some night, I could go over the offer with you, maybe over dinner?”
She rolled her eyes at Tanner, who shook his head as she turned Sam down once again.
“I have to give him points for persistence,” Tanner said after she’d hung up the phone.
“Yeah, well, he’s really racking them up. The buyer’s name is Frederick Shore. Sam said he wants some weekend-retreat sort of thing to get away from his business in New Orleans. He saw the house in a magazine and decided he had to have it. It was featured in Southern Historical Homes magazine a couple of years ago, so that seems a reasonable story.”
Tanner scrunched his brow. “I’ve heard that name before. Let me call Max and see what he can come up with.”
Josie nodded as Tanner called his brother. He gave Max the name and what he wanted and disconnected. The entire exchange took less than a minute.
“That’s it?” Josie asked.
“What do you mean?”
“You call your brother and give him a name, and he just gets information for you, no questions asked?”
Tanner gave her a blank stare. “He’s a detective. That’s what they do.”
Josie laughed. “Men are so different. A woman would have wanted to know why you needed the information, had the guy been harassing you and then she’d want to help you kick his butt.”
“Women are complicated.” He frowned. “Would she really want to kick his butt?”
“If he was harassing me, yeah. That’s what girlfriends are for.”
“Maybe I need to get some girlfriends, then. They sound handy.”
She grinned. “I don’t know...multiple girlfriends often present problems for men.”
“That’s okay. I’ve always been the one-woman sort.”
He looked directly at her and she felt a flush run over her.
His cell phone rang and he glanced down at the display. “Guess I’ll stick with brothers for the butt-kicking, then,” he said as he answered.
He listened for a couple of minutes and Josie tried to wait patiently until he wrapped up the call.
“So?” she asked, the second he hung up.
“Shore owns a manufacturing plant in New Orleans, so the money part checks out. He’s loaded. No police record but plenty of lawsuits from ex-employees, competitors—the usual sort of thing for a big business owner.”
“Oh.” She couldn’t help feeling a little disappointed.
Tanner smiled. “Did you expect a bio that said ‘psycho killer who likes to wear costumes and stalk young women’?”
“No, but I was hoping... I don’t know.”
“I’m new to this investigating business, but my guess is that most criminals don’t stand out on paper or in a crowd. Not if they’re any good at it.”
“They’re careful. Yeah, I get that. Although some of the things that’ve happened here don’t seem all that careful. I mean, why let my horses loose? It got me outside, but there was no follow-up. Someone could have taken a shot at me and ended it all right there.”
“Some of it seems less calculated, but maybe it’s all just aggravation intended to pile up and make you break. A murder would bring down a horde of cops and likely lock the place down until the investigation was over.” He sighed. “But I don’t know, really. I can’t think like a disturbed person.”
She crossed her arms over her chest, a chill running over her, even though the kitchen was warm. “Is that what you think—that the person is disturbed?”
“Love and greed can make you do crazy things, but it takes a certain kind of mind to hack up an animal to bait a bigger animal to your barn.”
“Yeah.”
She stared out the window and into the backyard. The sun had set hours ago and only the back porch lights and the light at the barn entrance pierced the black night. The storm that had been threatening to drop all day was still holding off, but Josie knew that before the night was over, the downpour would come.
Would he strike again that night? She’d locked the barn up tight with a padlock. No one was getting in there without bolt cutters or a blowtorch, but she still worried. As she lifted her sandwich off the plate, she saw something move out of the corner of her eye. Immediately, she dropped the sandwich and jumped up from her chair.
“What is it?” Tanner asked as he joined her standing at the back window.
“I saw something moving in the shadows around the barn.”
He grabbed his pistol from the kitchen counter and tossed her the phone. “Call Emmett and stay put.”
Before she could protest, he ran down the hallway into the laundry room and slipped outside. Josie punched in Emmett’s number and was thrilled when he answered on the first ring.
“There’s something moving outside around the barn,” she said. “Tanner’s gone to check it out.”
“I’ll be right there. Get your gun and don’t leave the house.”
The sound of the phone slamming down echoed through her ears. She looked out the back window and realized how vulnerable she was standing in front of all that glass. H
er pulse racing, she grabbed her gun and turned off the kitchen light. The laundry room door had a window that offered a decent view of the barn. She’d go there to watch.
And pray.
* * *
TANNER SLIPPED DOWN THE hedges toward the barn, listening for the periodic sounds of movement he’d caught as soon as he’d stepped out of the laundry room. Something was definitely out there, and he didn’t think it was an animal. The sounds were too vague, as if an attempt was being made to minimize or mask them.
At the end of the hedges, he stood partially hidden in the bush and peered through. At first, he saw nothing. Then the clouds moved and a dim glow of moonlight filled the pasture. At the edge of the barn, he saw someone wearing a ball cap and swinging something large and square in his hand.
A second later, the smell of gas wafted by.
A flash of anger went through him and he launched out of the hedges and set off toward the vandal at a dead run. The vandal froze when he heard the footsteps and glanced wildly around, trying to locate the source. That was all the time Tanner needed to close the gap and tackle him to the ground just as he was turning to flee.
They slammed onto the hard dirt ground surrounding the barn and rolled around in a frenzy of thrashing arms and hands. Tanner managed to flip the guy over and scramble on top of his back, holding his arm up high on his back to prevent him from attempting to move any more.
A spotlight hit him and a second later, Emmett ran up. He pulled off his belt and handed it to Tanner to secure the guy’s arm. While he was tightening the belt, he heard the door to the laundry room slam shut and Josie joined them a couple of seconds later.
“You caught him!” Josie said.
“Yeah,” Tanner said. “Now let’s see who’s been causing all this trouble.”
He stood and flipped the man over and yanked away the ball cap that had slid down and was covering his face.
Then they all stared in shock.
Chapter Seventeen
“Marquette?” Josie looked down at the angry young woman, unable to formulate an educated question.
“Why are you harassing Josie?” Tanner asked.
Marquette struggled to sit up, then glared at all of them. “Josie, Josie—everything’s always about Josie. Prom queen Josie. All the men want Josie. My brother went into the military because you left. Sam hasn’t asked me for a date again since you’ve been back, and now you have him shacking up with you.” She pointed at Tanner.
Josie stared at Marquette, completely floored and starting to get angry. “I never dated your brother, I have turned Sam down every time he’s asked me out and I am not shacking up with Tanner. He is a professional working here.”
“Yeah, just like before, but you never paid attention to him then,” Marquette spat out. “You never paid attention to anyone but your little crew of rich, spoiled, popular friends.”
Josie looked over at Tanner, assuming that Marquette had confused him with someone from their high school days, but one look at his stricken face and she knew Marquette was right. All of a sudden, it hit her—the young boy who worked the fields for her father, the shy kid who sat in the back of the class, the boy with the drunken mother who everyone in town whispered about.
She sucked in a breath, then turned and ran for the house. It had all been a lie. Tanner had never cared about her or saving her home. He was just living out some high school fantasy, and she’d played right into his hands.
Slamming the door behind her, she went to the kitchen and poured herself a shot of scotch. Her hands shook as she swallowed the warm liquid. It burned her throat on the way down and she put the shot glass in the sink, disgusted with Tanner, Marquette, Emmett, her father and even her mother, for dying too young. But mostly, disgusted with herself, for letting down her guard when she’d promised herself she would never do it again.
She grabbed the phone from the counter and dialed the sheriff’s department. As soon as possible, she wanted crazy Marquette and lying Tanner off her property. Tomorrow, she was going to call Sam and tell him to get her the best offer he could for the house. She’d give Emmett whatever he needed, then use the rest to get as far away from Miel as she could.
A knock sounded at the front door and she walked to open it while the phone started ringing at the sheriff’s department. She yanked open the door, not even stopping to think that it was long past a decent hour to be visiting.
Marquette’s brother, Rob, stood in her doorway. A single glance at his face and the pistol he had leveled at her, and Josie knew she’d just made the worst mistake of her life.
* * *
JOSIE’S SCREAM MADE Tanner’s blood run cold. It took only a second for him to realize that he’d made a critical error in assuming Marquette had been working alone. There was no way she could be the creature. She didn’t have the build for it.
“Watch her!” he yelled at Vernon as he took off in a dead run toward the house.
The scream was far too loud to have come from inside the house, so he started at the back. There was no sign of a struggle and the back door and laundry room door were both locked tight. He raced around to the front of the house, and his heart dropped when he saw the door standing wide-open.
Panicked, he pulled out his pocket flashlight and scanned the ground in front of the porch, trying to determine a direction. At the far end of the porch, he finally found footprints in the loose dirt. They pointed directly into the swamp.
He raced to the edge of the swamp and quickly located the signs of passage. Josie was not going willingly. There were no more screams, which meant he’d probably taped her mouth, but the signs of a struggle were detailed like a storybook in the broken branches and vines stripped of leaves. She was doing everything possible to create a trail.
He ran through the swamp, following the signs Josie had left, certain that he’d catch up to them soon. Fear and regret coursed through every inch of his body, and he only hoped he wouldn’t be too late to save her. To tell her he was sorry for hurting her. To help her save the one thing she had left.
A thick hedge of brush rose in front of him and he burst through it, then slid to a stop in a clearing. The moonlight streamed down in between the cypress trees, creating a spotlight effect in the small opening.
Marquette’s brother, Rob, stood at the opposite edge of the clearing, his arm wrapped around Josie’s neck, a gun pressed to her head. Duct tape covered her mouth, and a trickle of blood ran down her forehead onto her cheek. The stark terror in her eyes made Tanner’s heart drop.
He’d failed.
“Drop your weapon,” Rob said.
“Why?” Tanner asked. “You’re going to kill her, anyway, aren’t you? Why didn’t you just do it at the house?”
“Let’s just say I wanted my ten minutes alone with Josie. Ten minutes to torture her like she did me in high school. I thought I’d get to my truck before you caught up with us.”
Tanner clenched his jaw, knowing exactly what Rob had planned for Josie’s last ten minutes on earth. “The jig is up. We’ve got your sister.”
“That stupid bitch. I tried to stop her, but she snuck out of the house. I figured she was headed here. I told her to stay out of this and let me do my job, but she couldn’t resist the chance to get back at Josie.”
“Josie never did anything to any of you.”
“That’s where you’re wrong. She was a stuck-up bitch who thought we were all beneath her. When I got the offer for this gig, I couldn’t believe my luck. All that money and the opportunity to settle the score with Miel’s princess. If she would have just given up and left weeks ago, it wouldn’t have come to this. It’s really all her fault, you see?”
The glow of the moonlight provided Tanner a clear view of Rob’s face as he spoke. What he saw made his heart beat faster. Tanner had no medical training at all, but he’d bet everything he owned that Rob was mad. Completely and utterly insane.
Josie’s muffled cries filled the air, and Rob ripped the tape from he
r mouth with a single pull, then wrapped his arm back around her neck. She cried out as the tape tore her skin and Tanner clenched his hands, wishing for any opportunity to take Rob down.
Then his heart stopped when he caught a glimpse of Rob’s biceps as he repositioned his arm. He had the eye tattoo.
“You got something to say?” Rob said to Josie. “Now’s the last chance you get. Give me a good reason for your daddy to run around bragging about how you were better than all of us. He was a righteous bag of hot air, that old man.”
Her face was wet with tears and blood and Tanner could see drops of blood already forming on her cheeks where the tape had been ripped away. She was scared, but for the first time, he saw something else in her eyes. She was angry.
“I turned you all down because I knew I’d always planned to leave here after high school. You all knew that. If you have a problem with my wanting more out of life than being barefoot and pregnant, then I don’t care.”
Rob smirked. “And look at what good all those big plans did you. You landed right back in Miel, anyway, but with no money and no man. You shoulda taken up with a good man when you had the chance, Josie, and then maybe you wouldn’t be losing your family home.”
“You wouldn’t know what constitutes a good man,” she said. “Your sister told me you were married and had a daughter. What’s going to happen to them now?”
“They’re all going to be fine. Once I take care of you and lover boy, it’s all going to be better than ever.”
“Who hired you?” Tanner asked.
“A very important man who needs this land.”
“Frederick Shore?”
“I see that idiot Sam ran his mouth. Between being a loudmouth and a pansy, that was enough for Shore to know he wouldn’t be a good ally for the more delicate work involved in his plan. But that fool Sam will likely get a nice commission off my work once Vernon sells.”
“Vernon has your sister. When she gets done talking, he won’t sell.”
Rob laughed. “You think I told my crazy sister about any of this? She thinks I’m settling some high school score, and my employer has the perfect alibi in place for me. The word of an insane person won’t hold up against the word of a multimillionaire, and trust me, Marquette is off her rocker. With Josie gone, there’ll be no reason for Vernon to stick around. He’ll sell.”
