by Debra Webb
She closed her phone and reluctantly met his gaze once more. “The police are on the way.” She meant to warn him to step back from her car, but the words got stuck in her throat. The fury she’d seen seconds ago had dissolved into something she couldn’t readily identify. A mixture of pain and … desperation she couldn’t adequately assess.
He thrust his fingers through his hair and backed away from her car, but his eyes, hollow with grief, didn’t leave hers.
A shiver rushed over her skin, prompted by a chill wind from the grave even as she sat sweating in this damned car. Some crazy part of her urged her to do something … to reach out to him. Before she could stop the reaction, she’d gotten out of the car. “What’s wrong with you?” Her voice was small, fragile.
“Why?”
The anguish in that one syllable unsettled something lodged so deep inside her that she couldn’t respond. What was happening to her?
“Why?” he repeated, fury conquering the agony. He moved in closer, trapping her against the car. “Why did you do this?”
She trembled as her senses reacted to the raw masculinity of his nearness. She told herself it was the fear that had stolen the very air from her lungs … but that was a lie. It was him … just like before when she’d dreamed of being so close to him … of being the one he wanted. An ache pierced her. Oh, God, how could her emotions betray her like this?
Her hands went against his chest as if that action could somehow stop this insanity. She mustered her voice: “Move.”
Pushing against him was like running headlong into a mountain. His heart drummed beneath her palms … the contour of muscles testing the thin material of his T-shirt making her dizzy. The heat from his body, so close to her own, made her feel restless … afraid. She needed to run. She needed to get away from him. But she couldn’t move … she could only stare into those haunting eyes.
The dust swirling in the distance drew her gaze toward the spot where the road intersected the highway. A truck. Blue light throbbing on the dash.
The police.
Thank God.
The truck skidded to a stop next to her car and the driver’s side door flew open.
Chief Ray Hale rounded the hood. “Get in the truck, Clint.”
Austin didn’t move, didn’t shift that unrelenting gaze from hers. The caress of his ragged breath on her face had her quivering with something she couldn’t label as fear.
“Clint,” Ray repeated, “get in the truck. Now.”
Austin looked at Ray for the first time since his arrival. His face a hard, expressionless mask, he didn’t say a word, just backed away from Emily and walked over and got into Ray’s truck.
Relief made her knees weak.
“Are you all right?” Ray stood next to her now.
“Yes.” Her voice quaked. “He …” She shrugged, at a loss for the right words. “I don’t know what happened. He went in the house and he came out … like this.”
“Do you mind,” Ray’s voice was gentle, “telling me what you’re doing out here? My deputies have reported seeing your car a couple of times.”
Austin sat completely still in the passenger seat of Ray’s truck. But his eyes, that unyielding, penetrating gaze, remained on her as if she’d committed some unthinkable offense.
“Emily?”
She dragged her attention away from Austin and peered up at Ray. “I’m sorry. What did you say?”
“What’re you doing out here?” That he looked more concerned than perplexed told her he thought she was just as crazy as her parents did. Her parents had probably warned him.
“I’m …” No use lying. He was the chief of police. He would figure it out even if Austin didn’t tell him. “I’m watching him.”
Ray studied her a moment; then he nodded. “I see.” He glanced at his truck and then at Austin’s house. “Why don’t you go on home and we’ll talk later. Right now I need to find out what’s going on with Clint.”
Ray didn’t say that he figured she had done something to antagonize Austin. He didn’t have to. The innuendo was there, hanging in the tension suddenly vibrating between them.
“Thank you for coming.” She looked away from Ray’s prying gaze, got into her car, and started the engine, but she didn’t drive away immediately. She watched until he had pulled his truck into the driveway next to Austin’s car and the two of them had gotten out and gone inside the house.
Her actions on autopilot, she shut off the engine. She wasn’t going anywhere until she knew what the hell had happened in there. If whatever had happened somehow violated Austin’s parole, she wanted to know.
Determination charged through her and she was out of the car and marching up the driveway before her brain caught up with her emotions. She slowed as she reached Ray’s truck. Technically she was trespassing.
Her heart thundering, her legs still a little wobbly, she continued toward the porch. The front door opened and Ray stepped out, stopping her cold at the bottom of the steps.
“What happened in there?”
To her surprise, the question came from her.
“Emily, you should go home now.”
She shook her head, climbed those steps, and went toe-to-toe with him. “I want to know what’s going on here.” She had a right to know. Well, maybe she didn’t, but she was taking the right. She needed answers.
Ray dragged off his hat and exhaled a heavy breath. “Somebody vandalized the house. It’s chaos in there.”
“What exactly do you mean by that?”
Ray glanced around as if he didn’t want anyone to hear what he had to say next. “Look, Clint’s out back; you can come in for a minute and see for yourself. I wouldn’t even let you go in except that I need you to understand his side of this.”
Before she could question his motives or argue with the idea that she could ever understand anything about Austin, Ray took her by the arm and led her inside as if she were a child and couldn’t be trusted not to break something or run away.
New emotions crowded in on Emily. Curiosity. Apprehension. Then regret followed by sadness. The house looked as if it had been tossed in an effort to find valuables.
“They broke a lot of things. Tore photographs into bits. Basically made a hell of a mess.”
Ray kept talking, but Emily stopped listening … her full attention narrowed to the damaged items scattered about the living room. Broken picture frames, the photos once protected there ripped apart. It was easy to mentally piece together the strewn parts. Clint Austin and his mother. Broken shards of something porcelain, pink and white. The shattered face of a woman with long red hair.
The screen on the small box-style television had been smashed. Furniture overturned.
“ … see anything?”
Emily pulled her attention back to Ray. “Did you say something?”
“Clint thought maybe you might have seen someone leaving his house when you arrived.”
Surely he didn’t think she had anything to do with this. He did … he’d asked her why she did this.
“There wasn’t anyone here when I arrived,” she said. “I’d been here maybe twenty minutes before he showed up, but I didn’t get out of my car until he came out there acting crazy.”
“You didn’t meet anyone on the road that you recall?”
“No.” She mentally replayed the drive from town. She’d been distracted, but 18 was always deserted. To have met another vehicle would have been unusual. “I don’t think so.” She abruptly felt exactly like Principal Call must have that night. She couldn’t answer the question with any real accuracy. Did that mean that someone other than Austin might have been in her neighborhood that night … in her house? Her pulse skipped, then hammered hard. Stop it, she ordered. She didn’t need to play guessing games. She had been in the room that night.
Ray rested his hands on his hips, his hat still clutched in one. “Emily, I know how hard this has been for you.”
God, she was so sick of hearing that. Before she
could tell him as much, he went on. “I want you to know that I really do understand how you feel. Heather was your best friend. She died in your arms. To you, Clint must represent all that’s wrong in the world. But he’s done his time. He deserves the chance to get on with his life.” Ray sighed. “And so do you.”
The merging of anger and frustration and shock had her reeling. Shock at the idea that he would believe her capable of this kind of ugliness. Frustration at the whole world thinking she could simply get on with her life. And anger, dammit, at the suggestion that Clint Austin deserved anything. Anger at herself for waffling on the whole damned subject.
Clint Austin was guilty. He didn’t deserve to breathe the same air she did. But this—she surveyed the devastation in his living room—was a disgrace, an offense against his mother and all she’d worked so hard to hang on to.
“I didn’t have anything to do with this, Chief Hale,” Emily said with a pointed look at the man who should know her better than that. “I can’t imagine who would be low enough to do such a thing.” She planted her hands on her hips just as he had. “But mainly I’m disappointed that you or anyone else in this damned town would believe for one second that Clint Austin deserves anything but a return trip to that rock he slithered out from under day before yesterday.”
Her emotions got the better of her then. The confusion, the anger and frustration … the self-loathing. She had to pause a moment to compose herself. When Ray would have spoken, she held up a hand. “I’m not finished.” He kept his mouth shut. “He’s a killer; as far as I’m concerned he won’t have paid for what he did until he’s dead and rotting in hell. Is that plain enough for you?”
The sound of glass crunching beneath a heavy foot jerked her gaze beyond Ray’s right shoulder.
Clint Austin stood in a doorway that probably led to the kitchen. He made no effort to avert his gaze when hers collided with his. She didn’t know how long he’d been listening, but she had a feeling he’d heard all she had to say.
She didn’t care. She meant every word. For the first time in more than a decade, denial crashed into her. She shook with the force of it.
“Emily, maybe—”
She didn’t wait for Ray to finish whatever he’d started; she left. She had to get out of there. Stupidly, she cried all the way home. It made absolutely no sense. She hadn’t said a damned thing that wasn’t the God’s truth and still the tears refused to stop.
Maybe because of what some fool had done to the memory of Austin’s mother. She deserved better than this. That had been her home, her things. Austin ended up with her property by genetic default.
Emily parked in the driveway of her parents’ home and got out. She was just tired. Tired and overreacting. Tomorrow she would figure out where she went from here. Her father’s situation with Fairgate had to be top priority. Tonight she was just too mentally exhausted.
If she hadn’t been so caught up in her thoughts she might have paid more attention, might have noticed the car parked at the curb and been able to prepare, but she hadn’t.
She walked into the house and found her parents waiting for her. With her parents were Heather’s parents, Mr. and Mrs. Baker. All four looked at Emily with that same deeply troubled expression.
“Emily,” her father said, “we need to talk.”
Austin Place
6:15 P.M.
Clint picked up the pieces of the porcelain trinket his mother had cherished. His chest felt ready to explode. Fucking cowards. They should have taken up their beef directly with him. Doing this, he surveyed the carnage, was not right—not fair. But since when had his life been fair? The magnitude of emotions he hadn’t been able to suppress all channeled into one—fury.
Someone would pay for this.
“I’ll take these to a fellow I know who might be able to reconstruct them for you.”
Clint glanced at Ray, resisted the impulse to lash out at him. The man was only trying to help. He’d worked diligently to gather the torn pieces of photographs into several plastic sandwich bags. The knowledge that Clint should be grateful didn’t alleviate the rage quaking inside him. He placed the remnants of shattered porcelain on the mantel. He had to get out of here.
He strode out onto the porch, sucked in as much air as his cramped chest would accommodate. Emotion burned in his eyes and he closed them tight. What the hell had he been thinking, coming back here? He couldn’t make these people see how wrong they were. Ray had warned him that digging around in the past wouldn’t help … maybe he’d been right.
But how could Clint go on with his life without setting the record straight? He’d paid big-time for someone else’s crime; he could live with that. His mother had gone to her grave with this ugliness hanging over her head. She’d called herself a failure. Had told Clint over and over that this wasn’t his fault … it was hers.
That he couldn’t live with.
Goddamn it! His fists clenched at his sides and it was all he could do to restrain the desire to get in his car and drive straight to Troy Baker’s house … then Keith Turner’s … then one by one to each of their friends’.
Ray joined him on the porch, but Clint refused to look at him. Clint just wanted the man to go. He didn’t want to talk right now. He didn’t even want to think. What he really wanted, considering pounding heads was not a viable option, was to get drunker than hell and escape this whole shitty reality.
But that would be a freaking violation of his parole.
“Emily didn’t have anything to do with this, Clint,” Ray urged. “I hope you believe that. She’s just doing the only thing she can to assuage the hurt driving her. She doesn’t mean any real harm.”
Clint laughed out loud. Like hell she didn’t mean any harm. She’d made her intentions abundantly clear. She wanted him back in Holman or dead, whichever came first.
“That’s the one thing,” Clint countered, “that’s perfectly clear in all this.” He turned to Ray, looked him dead in the eye. “I know exactly what Emily Wallace wants from me.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
9:45 P.M. 302 Dogwood Drive
Justine finished her yoga session, turned off the DVD player, and headed for the shower. Tonight she’d selected the extended session, needing the extra relaxation benefits. This had been one hell of a week, and it was only hump day.
The squad was coming along nicely, but a couple of the girls still needed to understand who was boss. Justine Mallory did not put up with any back talk or any breaking of the rules from her girls.
Slipping off her formfitting suit, she considered her body in the mirror that spanned floor to ceiling and half the length of one wall. She liked watching herself work out. A smile tugged at her lips, then faded. It wouldn’t be long now until things would start to go drastically downhill. She worked out every day, sometimes twice, but no one got to keep their good looks and firm body forever. At least not naturally, and she had no desire to deal with the surgical lines of work. Even lipo came with unsightly little marks.
None for her. She would just have to increase her already rigorous regimen. And then what?
She stared at her face. Not so bad for a woman approaching forty. The very best skin treatments and, most important, sunscreen, along with good genes, had ensured a minimal amount of lines. She turned her head left, then right, assessed any changes. But every year the new students arrived looking even younger. Pretty soon she’d be just another oldlady schoolteacher. She couldn’t live with that. That was the very reason she had to plan better for her future. She needed long-term security. There was only one man in this town who could give her that, but the timing had to be just right.
Pushing aside the troubling thoughts, she treated herself to a long, leisurely shower. She’d no more stepped out onto the fuzzy bath mat when pounding thundered from her front door. She loathed unexpected company, and since she had no plans for the evening, whoever was at her door hadn’t been invited.
“The people in this town,” she muttered as
she slipped on her robe and tucked her hair up out of the way. They simply didn’t have any manners, much less class.
Annoyed that her routine had been disrupted, she stamped into the living room. With her wet hair twisted in a claw clip and wearing no makeup, it would take an absolute emergency for her to allow anyone to see her like this. She checked the security peephole in her door and sighed, as much from relief as frustration.
She gave the lock a twist and opened up. “Misty, what’re you doing here at this hour?”
Misty pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose and shuffled across the threshold. “I need to talk to you.”
Telling Misty to go home wouldn’t do any good. When she got like this the only thing Justine could do was ride it out with her. They’d talked about the incident at the beauty shop, for the good it would do. Resigned, Justine offered, “How about some tea?” Not the sweet iced kind everyone around here preferred, but a nice green tea with benefits like antioxidants.
Misty plopped onto the sofa as if she owned the place. “No thanks.”
Justine closed the door and joined her. Misty knew Justine had a routine, but she simply disregarded that knowledge whenever she felt needy. “What’s the problem?” Justine was spending more and more time holding Misty’s hand these days. She needed to stop obsessing about the things that might go wrong. There was simply no purpose in it. From the moment Austin’s release had been announced, Misty had been in a tizzy.
Justine wished her friend would pay a little more attention to herself instead. She could be attractive if she tried. Even after spending forty bucks at the beauty shop for a cut and style, she still stuck her hair into a ponytail. And those baggy clothes. The whole image got on Justine’s last nerve.
“It’s him,” Misty said, squeezing her hands between her knees. “He won’t leave.”
Justine had watched Misty get like this before. She was a perpetual worrywart, and once she latched on to an idea she simply wouldn’t let go. Justine couldn’t say she hadn’t expected this.
