Glass Slipper Bride

by Arlene James

  “Gabler?”

  “Yeah. Listen, I hate to say it, but I lost him. Sorry.”

  Zach’s mind whirled into full cognizance. He sat up, hissing a particular curse. “What happened? Did Eibersen know you were on him?”

  “Looks that way. I can’t figure how he spotted me, though. It was almost as if he had the slip set up before he left the room.”

  Zach went cold. That meant he could have screwed up himself. Eibersen had either spotted his truck on the tail or he had recognized Jollian and stayed so cool about it that she hadn’t realized she’d been made. Neither boded well for his client this night, however. He shot up from the bed and carried the phone into the closet, swatting at the switch on the wall that controlled the overhead light. “How far are you from the Waltham house?”

  “I’m still in Mesquite.”

  “Damn.” He squinted in the brightness, yanking at jeans and such.

  “Padgett’s closer. I’ll give him a ring and tell him to meet you there.”

  “Right,” Zach said, shimmying into clothes. “Then you get back to Eibersen’s room and see if he’s blown the joint”

  “Will do.”

  Zach clipped the phone to his belt and stomped into his boots, remembering what had happened the last time Eibersen had decided to pay a visit to his former fiancée. He hoped this controlled panic was for nothing. The security system was activate, after all. If Eibersen was at Camille’s, the cops would be on their way, too. Still, Zach couldn’t help feeling that something wasn’t right and that he, ultimately, was responsible. Grabbing his keys and wallet, he literally ran out of the building.

  He decided on the truck and was soon squealing his tires as he took the curves down the garage ramp to the street. He tried to tell himself to slow down, calm down, but a strange panic was building in him, a certainty of wrongness and threat. He ran a red light at a deserted intersection, praying no enforcement cameras had been mounted at that site, and sped on. Within minutes he was pulling up in front of Camille’s house.

  Killing the engine, he sat in the darkened silence, waiting for his senses to tell him that everything was all right, but the sense of wrongness built. He grabbed the binoculars from the glove compartment and checked the surrounding landscape. He saw a battered, once-silver English-built car at the end of the block behind some bushes. The binoculars fell to the floor as he bounded out of the truck and ran to the house. At the front door, he paused again, trying to order his thoughts. No alarm was wailing. If Eibersen was trying to get inside, it would sound. The best thing he, Zach, could do right now was scout the perimeter. He started to turn away, but a glance in the long, narrow window flanking the front door momentarily froze him in place.

  The keypad for the security system was mounted on the wall right behind the door, and as he watched, one number after another silently lit Seven. One. Seven. Damn! Someone was keying in the deactivation code on the other pad. Galvanized, Zach punched the doorbell over and over while pounding on the door and screaming for Jillian at the top of his lungs. Then he took off at a dead run around the end of the house toward the back door. He skidded around the corner, and a figure all in black whizzed past him. Fighting the impulse to check Jillian first, he turned and went after the perpetrator, but it was too late; whoever it was—and he had no doubt that it was Eibersen but no proof, either—had melted into the night. Doggedly, he ran toward the spot where he’d seen the car parked, but long before he got there, the car rolled away silently, its lights off. Zach cursed loud and long. If only he’d brought the binoculars he might have been able to get a license plate number, something to tie that car to Janzen Eibersen and Eibersen to a possible break-in.

  Defeated, Zach jogged back to the house. He went to the front door and rang the bell until Camille came to let him in.

  “What on earth? Was that you a few minutes ago?”

  He brushed past her, demanding more gruffly than he’d intended, “Where’s Jillian?”

  “In bed, I assume. What the devil is this about?”

  “Eibersen was here,” he told her, striding through the house.

  “Here? But—”

  He left her standing in the den as he strode through the house. The back door was standing open, just as he’d known it would be. Catching up with him, Camille gasped. “What’d you expect?” Zach snapped. “If you’d had the locks changed like I told you to...”

  “But the security sys—”

  She suddenly clamped her mouth shut, and he had a pretty good idea why. Rage surged through him, and he countered it by walking away from her. He needed to see Jillian, to be sure she was okay. A door opened into the hallway, revealing Gerry standing in a rectangle of light.

  “What is it?”

  “Ask your daughter,” he snapped, moving on to Jillian’s door. Raising his hand to knock, he aborted the effort and grasped the doorknob, instead. Fragmented light from the open doorway showed him a sleeping form huddled in the center of a full-sized bed. Only then did his heartbeat slow to something near normal. Quietly, Zach walked across the floor and looked down at the bed. She lay on her side, one hand tucked beneath her cheek. Even in this dim light he could trace the pattern of a blue vein that lined one eyelid.

  “Jillian?”

  She jerked slightly, then her eyelids fluttered and lifted as she rolled to her back. “Zach?” She smiled lazily; then her eyes went wide in panic. “What’s wrong?”

  He sat down just as she jerked upright, and suddenly she was in his arms, her heart beating wildly. “It’s all right, honey. I got here in time to scare him off.”

  “Janzen?” She pulled back just enough to push her hair out of her eyes and exhale her relief. Puzzlement rushed in behind it. “But your men—”

  Zach winced. “He gave us the slip somehow, which means that he knew we were watching him. Jillian, are you absolutely sure he didn’t recognize you today?”

  She bit her lip. “If he did, he gave absolutely no sign of it.”

  Zach sighed. “Whether he made us or the sub, he’s still smarter than I gave him credit for. But that doesn’t explain how he knew the deactivation code to the security system.”

  Jillian moaned. Someone coughed behind him, and he released Jillian to turn in that direction. Camille and Gerry crowded the doorway. Camille was staring at Jillian. Gerry was studying her toenails. Zach realized for the first time that Gerry’s uncovered hair was steel-gray, about an inch long and plastered to her skull like paint. He also realized that he’d been left out in the dark about something important. Getting up off the bed, he brought his hands to his hips and took a deliberate measure of each of the three women. None of them would look at him. He struggled to tamp down his temper.

  “All right, who gave out the code? And who did you give it to?”

  No one said a word. He bit back the explosion waiting to erupt and took a deep breath.

  “He knew the code. I saw the numbers lighting up on the key pad. You get two tries with this system before it alarms. He couldn’t have pulled those numbers out of the air. Somebody had to—”

  “He could have guessed,” Jillian said in a small voice.

  “Five digits,” Zach pointed out, targeting her. “I watched the first three punched in correctly. He obviously got the other two, because I’m not hearing any alarm, am I? What are the odds of guessing five correct digits on the second try? He knew that number, damn it!”

  Jillian swallowed. “What I mean is, he could have guessed that the code was one of our birth dates.”

  Birth date. No. Surely not. No one could be that stupid, but when he whipped a stare in Camille’s direction, he saw confirmation in the bowed head and the grim line of her mouth. He had to swallow twice before he could get the next question out.

  “Who...whose birth date?”

  “Mine,” Jillian said softly.

  He closed his eyes and balled his hands into fists in an effort to hold at bay the anger crowding him. “Did no one,” he asked in a low v
oice shaking with suppressed fury, “consider that a former fiancé just might remember family birth dates?” He roared at the end; he couldn’t help it. “What in heaven’s name were you thinking?” he demanded of Camille.

  “You pressured me!” she wailed. “I couldn’t think of anything else!”

  “So you used your sister’s birth date! And it never occurred to you that he might know it, might remember it! How stupid is that? Why didn’t you just use your own? He wouldn’t have needed a second try then!”

  “I didn’t think it mattered!”

  “Didn’t matter?” he bawled. “Are you insane?”

  “I thought you would take care of him!” she cried. “I thought you would have it under control by now! Excuse me for having so much faith in the great Zach Keller!”

  He was trying to devise a suitable comeback to that and maintain his tenuous hold on his temper at the same time when she did the unexpected and burst into tears. He’d wager that he looked no more horrified than Gerry did, but the unexpected display of vulnerability did cool his anger somewhat. “There’s no need for that,” he grumbled. “We’ll just change the code and—”

  His phone rang, and he snatched it off his belt like a drowning man grasping a lifeline. “What?”

  It was Padgett. As luck would have it, he’d picked up Eibersen. on his way over to the Walthams’ and trailed him back to the motel, where he showed every sign of staying put Brief questioning revealed that Eibersen had exited his car dressed in shorts, T-shirt and sandals. The black garb worn during the break-in was not in evidence. No doubt he’d tossed it out the window or crammed it under the seat before Padgett came across him. Frustrated. Zach hung up and reported the conversation.

  “So where does that leave us?” Jillian asked from his bed.

  “Square one, that’s where,” Gerry said scathingly. “He’s still out there, and we have no protection!”

  “We’ll change the code in the morning,” Zach muttered.

  “And what about tonight?” Gerry demanded.

  “I have a man watching him.”

  “You had a man watching him earlier!” she snapped, and it didn’t help that she was absolutely right. She folded her arms imperiously. “You’ll just have to stay and guard us.”

  Camille sniffed dramatically. “I—I won’t sleep a wink if you don’t. I’m not even sure I can sleep in my own room if you don’t check it out first.”

  Zach barely restrained the urge to roll his eyes. “I hardly think—”

  Camille lifted her eyelids, fluttering them prettily as big drops rolled over their rims and down her cheeks. “It’s wearing me down,” she said weepily. “I’m so tired of it all.”

  Zach felt like the world’s biggest heel, despite the fact that she was as responsible for this mess as he was, if not more so. He couldn’t think what to do beyond stepping forward to awkwardly pat her shoulder. “You just need some sleep,” he told her.

  When she turned to him and pressed her face to his chest, he was taken aback. After a long, awkward moment of trying to decide what to do with his arms, he reluctantly looped them around her, casting a look at Jillian over his shoulder at the same time. The very blankness of her expression told him far more than he wanted to know. She couldn’t hide the envy and uncertainty in her huge, expressive eyes. He felt disloyal somehow, and it irked him. She was nothing to him. He owed her nothing. At the same time, it irritated him that she could think he might come to like her sister better than her. He dropped his arms to his sides and stepped back from Camille, who sniffed and dabbed at her eyes with her fingertips.

  “I won’t sleep a wink if you don’t stay,” she said breathlessly.

  Zach sighed inwardly and nodded acquiescence. He looked again at Jillian lying in her bed, one arm curled beneath her head, her slight form gently twisted beneath the covers. Images from his disturbed dreams flashed before his mind’s eye, and he knew that he wasn’t going to sleep any more this night anyway. She drew him, literally, so that he was walking toward her before he even realized what he was doing. He didn’t know quite what to do with himself when he got there, but he knew that he couldn’t stand there staring down at her without touching her. Carefully, he straightened the edge of her covers and brushed his fingertips across her forehead, fighting the urge to press his lips there, instead.

  “Get some sleep,” he said. “I’ll hang around till morning.”

  She nodded and rolled onto her side. Thankfully, she would never know how hard it was for him to turn his back then and walk away.

  Chapter Six

  Zach closed the door to Jillian’s room behind him. “Try to get some sleep,” be told the pair flanking him. “If you’re not up in the morning when I have to leave, I’ll set the security system before I go.”

  “What about the code?” Gerry asked.

  “I’ll take care of that before I go and write the new code on a card that I’ll slip under the bedroom door.”

  “Speaking of which,” Camille. said, sniffing, “I know it’s foolish, but I’d really appreciate it if you’d check my room, just to be sure he didn’t open any windows or anything like that.”

  Zach allowed himself the luxury of rolling his eyes this time and started off down the hall. “What about you, Gerry? Want me to check under your bed?”

  “I’ll check under my own bed,” the older woman said loftily, as if the idea of him going into her bedroom was unspeakably vulgar. “If I find anything miss. I’ll let you know.”

  “You do tried,” he muttered.

  The door to Camille’s bedroom was standing open. He went in and groped around for the light switch, found it and flipped it on. She followed him inside and closed the door. He’d known, of course, that she had something more in mind than getting her closets checked for nonexistent bogeymen. Turning, he brought his hands to his hips. “Let’s get this over with.”

  She stared at him for a moment, seemed to make a decision and folded her arms. “All right. Here it is. I’m worried about my little sister.”

  “Jillian’s safe enough at the moment.”

  “I’m not talking about Janzen. I’m talking about you.”

  His hackles instantly rose. “What about me?”

  Camille turned and walked over to the bed, then dropped down onto its edge, hands braced against the mattress. “Surely you’ve noticed that she’s developed an interest in you.”

  What I’ve noticed is that I’ve developed an interest in her, he thought. He said, “Oh?”

  She kicked her shoes off and lifted her feet to curl them beneath her silk robe. “I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t encourage Jilly. I wouldn’t want her to develop unreasonable expectations where you’re concerned.”

  “Unreasonable expectations?” he echoed flatly, appalled at the implication. “You think that for Jillian to expect me to return her interest is unreasonable? Lady, you’ve got some warped sense of your sister’s needs and capabilities.”

  “I think I know my sister a little better than you do,” Camille said reasonably. “I just don’t want you to encourage her by paying her too much attention.”

  “How can you put your sister down like this?” he demanded. “Or am I supposed to be flattered that you’re painting me as some unattainable godlike creature that the hopeless little waif dare not approach?”

  Camille stared at him for a long moment, her lips twisted into a small smile. “Do you have intentions toward my sister, Zach?”

  Intentions. The word fell like a stone through his mind, and he instinctively sidestepped it. “What has that got to do with anything?”

  She adjusted the hem of her robe carefully. “Just answer the question. Do you have intentions toward my sister?”

  He opened his mouth, then closed it again. His only intention toward Jillian was to keep as much distance between her and him as possible. Not that he’d had much luck at it so far, but he wouldn’t give Camille the satisfaction of hearing him say so. He didn’t have to. The smugn
ess of her expression told him that much.

  “Then I want you to leave her alone,” she said evenly.

  He just stared at her, making no promises, but in his heart he knew that she was right. Now more than ever he really should stay far, far away from Jillian Waltham. The question was, could he?

  Jillian lay in her bed listening for the sound of his footsteps in the hall. What was he doing in Camille’s room for so long? No matter how shaken up Camille was, it couldn’t take this long for him to put her fears to rest. She saw him standing here in her own room, his arms around her sister, and her stomach turned over. Camille was so pretty. Camille was successful and confident. She was experienced with men, too. She would know how to attract a man, how to fix his interest. Sighing, Jillian closed her eyes and tried not to think about it, but when she finally heard the opening of the door and the sound of muffied footsteps on the carpet, her heart leaped into her throat. She sat up. hoping... hoping... But the footsteps passed right by her door without a pause. Disappointment made her slump over her knees, her hands going to her hair.

  Who was she kidding? A man like Zach Keller couldn’t seriously be interested in her. True, when he’d first awakened her, she’d been dreaming about that kiss, but then reality had intruded and she’d known something was very wrong. Going into his arms had seemed the most reasonable and right thing to do, but a momentary safety was all he had offered. Perhaps it was all he had ever offered. Yes, she had almost certainly read much too much into his actions.

  Collapsing back onto her pillow, she tried to make her mind a blank and find sleep, but long minute after long minute passed, and even relaxation escaped her. It was no use. She wasn’t going to sleep any more this night. Sitting up again, she mentally surveyed her options. At the moment she was out of reading material. She’d intended to make a stop by the bookstore on her way home this evening, but the day hadn’t exactly gone as planned, not that she was complaining. The only accessible television was in the den, which was where Zach had most likely camped, so that was out. She considered making an entry in the journal that she kept sporadically, but she knew the results would be maudlin at best. No use feeling sorry for herself. Looked like a warm glass of milk was the best solution.