Harlequin Intrigue, Box Set 2 of 2

by Julie Miller

  “Then that’s what I’ll have. Add fries and a chocolate shake. How about you, Lily?”

  “The same,” she said because it was easier than thinking about it.

  The waitress hustled off and they took turns studying the other staff. There looked to be two beefy guys working the kitchen behind the window and four females and two males taking orders and delivering food. The girls all looked about Betsy’s age. One had very long red hair she wore in a high ponytail that she whipped around like a horse’s tail on a hot fly-infested afternoon. Another girl was a slender blonde who bit her fingernails when she thought no one was watching, and the last two had dark hair, one cut short, another shoulder length, both kind of nondescript. They all moved about the restaurant and back into the kitchen with quick, sure steps. The operation looked efficient, friendly and unremarkable.

  Their food arrived a lot faster than Lily had thought it would. The waitress asked what else they wanted. Chance said nothing but Lily lowered her voice. “Is Tabitha Stevens working here tonight?”

  “Why do you want to know? Did she sass you or something? If she did, don’t tell her grandfather, okay?”

  “Her grandfather?”

  “Pastor Stevens. At least he used to be a preacher. Anyway, he’s real strict. Tabitha is a handful but I hate to see her in trouble and it isn’t because I have a kind heart, she just acts out her hostility and the customers complain and then the manager calls her grandfather and things get worse. She’s been real moody lately anyway.”

  “Don’t worry,” Lily said quickly. “She didn’t do anything. I just know her mother and since I was traveling through this way, thought I’d say hello to Tabitha. I heard she worked here.”

  “Tabitha’s mother has been dead three years,” the woman said. “Her grandpa raises her now.”

  “I know,” Lily said, scrambling to think of some excuse for wording her comment in the present tense, but she shouldn’t have worried. Another table demanded attention and the waitress left to comply.

  “You’re a lousy liar,” Chance said.

  “I know.”

  He took a bite of his hamburger and made a contented sound in his throat. Lily looked down at the food and started to push it away, but took a French fry instead. Eating hadn’t exactly been a priority lately but that fry tasted like greasy ambrosia and she ate another. Then she tried the hamburger. By the time she slurped down the last of the milkshake, her headache had disappeared and she felt ready to track down her missing son. She would find Charlie tomorrow, come hell or high water. They were running out of time in White Cliff and for some reason she couldn’t pin down, she wasn’t anxious to meet Robert Brighton, the man behind the place.

  “Nice to see you eat a meal,” Chance said.

  “I was hungrier than I thought.”

  He leaned toward her. “I’ve been meaning to ask you something,” he said as he lowered his voice. “Have you seen any sign of McCord in White Cliff?”

  “McCord? You mean that guy who works for Jeremy? No, of course not. Why would he be up here?”

  He started to answer when the waitress with the red hair showed up at their table. Gone was the ponytail. Her hair now hung loose on her shoulders, completely covering one eye in an old Veronica Lake look that appeared way too sophisticated for a teen in Greenville, Idaho. She’d also undone a couple of buttons, revealing an eyeful of cleavage, and knotted her blouse above the waistband of skintight jeans. The tennis shoes all the waiters wore had been exchanged for pointy red heels and she’d applied makeup with a heavy hand. The expression in her dark-rimmed eyes was calculating, her stance challenging. “I heard you were asking about me,” she said, directing her comment to Chance.

  So this was Tabitha Stevens. “Yes, we were,” Lily said. “Would you like to sit down for a minute?”

  “I wouldn’t mind,” the girl said. “My shift is just about over anyway.”

  Before Lily could move her coat and purse to make room, the girl claimed the scant twelve inches on Chance’s side of the booth. He slid along to make more room for her but she seemed to ooze along with him.

  Her behavior with Chance struck Lily as surprisingly brazen. There was no doubt he’d been endowed with his share of the Hastings male charm and good looks and often affected women with a certain rakish gleam in his eye; it just seemed odd this girl would feel so comfortable with a stranger twice her age.

  Tabitha tore her gaze from Chance and stared at Lily. “Why were you asking about me? How did you know my mother?”

  Lily saw Chance’s lips twitch, probably because he was anticipating how she would dig herself out of this hole. “I didn’t know your mother,” Lily said. “We just wanted to ask you a few questions.”

  “So, ask.”

  “We were hoping you could tell us something about Wallace Connor.”

  Tears seemed to shoot into Tabitha’s eyes. “Poor Wally,” she lamented. “I don’t know if I can bear to talk about him. I was sick for weeks after that maniac stabbed him to death.”

  “It must have been horrible for you.”

  “How about Darke Fallon?” Chance ventured.

  Tabitha groaned. “Not him again. I told the police I never met anyone named Darke Fallon. What kind of name is that, anyway? I’m sick of hearing about him. He murdered Wally. Let him burn in hell.”

  “We weren’t actually planning a rescue party to the underworld,” Chance commented.

  Tabitha turned to look up at him, the unshed tears making her eyes look huge and innocent. She smiled and said, “That’s funny.”

  “We’d just like to talk to the Fallon family,” Lily said.

  “You and everyone else. I can’t help you. As far as I know, he was just one of those homeless, nameless freaks that ruin other people’s lives.”

  “How about a woman named Maria Eastern?”

  Tabitha tilted her head to the side as though thinking. “No,” she said. “Who is she?”

  “She owns a store right outside White Cliff.”

  “Those freaks!” she said. “Why would I know someone like that? Hey, wait, are you one of them?”

  “No,” Chance said. “We’ve only known Maria for a day or two. We’re staying up at White Cliff. I know she has a son about your age, so we just wondered if you’d met her.”

  “A son? What’s his name?”

  “Dennis,” Chance said.

  “There’s another son named Jacob,” Lily added.

  Tabitha shook her head. “Never heard of either of them. Those kids don’t go to our schools and we don’t go to theirs.” She drummed acid-green fingernails on the tabletop. “Is that all you want to know?” When Chance nodded, she slid out of the booth, started to walk away and turned. The tears were gone and the look she cast Lily was concentrated venom. “I think it was cruel of you to even ask me about Wally. You’re as bad as Betsy.”

  “His sister?”

  “Betsy the bitch,” she said. “She’s always coming in here. She sits in my section and glares at me. I’m the only one who loved Wally and she is stupid and ugly and mean.” With that she stalked off.

  Chance put enough money on the table to cover the bill and a tip, and they got to their feet. Sitting near the door at a table they hadn’t noticed before, they found Betsy sipping on a cola. “I told you she was awful,” she said as they passed.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  When they went outside, they found the rain had let up, though the moon did little to penetrate the still hovering clouds. “Time to get back to White Cliff,” Chance said with little enthusiasm as he found the place oppressive.

  How did little Charlie feel about it?

  He helped Lily into the truck and for a few minutes, they just sat there. He could feel the energy drain from Lily and touched her arm to urge her across the seat and cl
oser to him. With his arm around her shoulders, he whispered against her cool, silky hair. “You’re exhausted,” he said.

  She turned and looked up at him. They were parked in a dark corner of the lot so there wasn’t much of her to see except the whites of her eyes and the glimmering ivory of her coat. “I’m not so much tired as discouraged,” she said. “But I’ve made a decision. I’m going to show up at the school tomorrow and talk to the kindergarten people, then I’m going to go find Robert Brighton and level with him. If he kicks me out of there, then I’m calling the police. It’s been three days now since Charlie was taken and I’m no closer to finding him than I ever was. I don’t care what Jeremy says, something has to be done.”

  “I don’t blame you,” Chance said, “but I suggest we start with Maria. She already kind of knows us and maybe as a woman and a mother, she’ll be easier for you to reason with.”

  “I’ll think about it,” she said. He felt her fingers touch his face, and he sighed.

  “I’m sorry I called you a quitter. It’s really not true,” he said.

  “Yes, it is,” Lily murmured. “But my reasons for running have always made sense to me. I don’t know, I guess I’m just so scared all the time.”

  “Are you scared now?”

  “For Charlie, of course.”

  “Are you scared of me, Lily?”

  She nuzzled his neck. “I’m scared of what you represent to me.”

  “And what’s that?” he asked, kissing her ear and then her cheekbone.

  “Security,” she said. “Eternity. Big old concepts that seem to unilaterally unhinge men.”

  “Not all men,” he said, bestowing soft kisses on her eyelids.

  “I’m afraid of wanting what I won’t be able to have,” she said, and before he could respond, guided his lips to her own. The kiss lingered, tender and almost shy at first, but gaining momentum as the seconds slipped by. His fingers lay across her throat and he could feel the pounding of her heart. It was intoxicating to taste her, absorb her. If he’d been sixteen, he would have tried to strip off her clothes and make love to her in the front seat, but those days required a recklessness he no longer possessed. Besides, one way or another, he was going to make her his if only for one night and that night was not going to take place in a truck.

  Still, when her hands crept up under his shirt, he shivered deep inside. His fingers roamed her body as well, sure she would put him off as he undid the clasp on her front-closing bra but she didn’t. Her freed breasts felt gloriously warm and soft, and the tight, excited nubs of her nipples made his hunger for her jump off the charts.

  His head kept screaming, Stop or lose it right here, right now, until the warning finally fought its way upstream through a tidal wave of hormones. She seemed to have been struggling with the same war of need versus poor planning. The kisses began to taper, grew gentle again, hands avoided decidedly sensitive areas and his erection throbbed with disappointment.

  They finally separated and took deep breaths. “Wow, Chance,” she said. “That was some kiss. I can see why all the town girls follow you around.”

  “It’s a gift,” he said, lowering his head to kiss her neck.

  She laughed softly. “I know I’m sending you mixed messages,” she whispered.

  “Sort of.”

  He could hear her readjusting her clothes. “I’m sorry about that,” she said.

  “You don’t need to be sorry, Lily.”

  “You just seem to be the epicenter of my crisscrossed desires.”

  “I’ll take that...for now,” he said. “But I’m warning you the next time we take it that far and don’t finish it my head is going to explode.”

  “Okay,” she said softly.

  “Because it’s surely no surprise that I find you irresistible.”

  “I thought you found me annoying,” she whispered.

  “I do. That’s part of your irresistibility.” He leaned forward and kissed her again, then straightened up. “Time to go or we’re going to get locked out of White Cliff.” He reached for the keys and noticed how thoroughly they’d managed to fog up the windows. He ran his hand against the cold, wet glass, causing a sparkly river of condensation to cascade down the glass. Beside him, Lily breathed in quickly. “Look,” she said as she peered past his head. He turned to see what had caught her attention.

  “Over there, walking down the street.”

  “Is that Tabitha?”

  “Yes. Look at the wobbly way she moves in those high heels.”

  “She must be freezing,” Chase said as the girl passed beneath a street lamp. She’d topped her jeans and knotted shirt with a lacy, flimsy shawl that billowed out behind her. “I wonder where she’s headed.”

  “She’s on her way to meet someone,” Lily said. “Dressed like that, I’d wager it’s a guy.” Tabitha left the lamplight and Chase was about to look away when another figure passed under the light, this one stealthily.

  “That’s Betsy,” he said softly as though she might hear him. “She’s following Tabitha.” He turned to Lily. “Are you game?”

  “Why not?”

  They quickly got out of the truck using one door and locking it behind them. The last thing Chance wanted was for someone to steal his truck, and with it, his guns.

  They walked quietly up the slight incline to the sidewalk on which they’d seen the girls. Chance wasn’t sure why Lily was willing to follow them—he wasn’t even sure why he wanted to. Curiosity? Partially. But it also had to do with Carolyn and Otto Connor and their loss. Betsy was their only child now and she was sneaking around following Tabitha on a dark, overcast night.

  They could no longer see Tabitha, but they could catch glimpses of Betsy and by the covert way she was moving, it was obvious she was still on Tabitha’s trail. Many of the houses along the way had put Halloween decorations out on their lawns so they had to dodge the lights cast across the grass. And then there were the occasional cars whose headlights swept over them as they moved. Chance thought that an aerial picture of Betsy following Tabitha and them following Betsy would be worth a chuckle to an onlooker.

  Chance estimated they’d walked a dozen blocks when they lost sight of Betsy. A car came along and illuminated the sidewalk up ahead for a moment but there was no sign of her. After the vehicle passed, they saw the girl emerge from the shelter of a parked car and resume walking. They followed. She crossed the street and they claimed a hiding place behind a large tree. They waited a few seconds before carefully peeking out to see what Betsy was up to.

  She stood on the opposite sidewalk staring at a dark building situated on a large, partially overgrown corner lot. A steeple rose into the night sky. Chance realized it was an old church, but judging from the boards across some of the windows and a general feeling of neglect, it wasn’t used as such anymore.

  Betsy stared for a few more seconds, then she seemed to shake her head. She turned and they realized she was coming back their way. Standing very still, their hopes were simple: that she would stay on that side of the street and that a car wouldn’t come by to expose them. She was walking faster now that she wasn’t trailing anyone and eventually disappeared from view.

  Chance and Lily cautiously crossed the street. “This is the east side of town,” Chance said. “Remember Betsy told us she saw Tabitha over this way before?”

  “Yes. But why was she following her?”

  “Who knows?” Chance said, his gaze on the hulking building in front of them. “Maybe she was as curious as we were.”

  “I have a flashlight on my key chain,” Lily said as she dug it from her handbag. It emitted a tiny little stream of weak light but it was marginally better than nothing. “Let’s see if we can figure out where Tabitha went and what she’s up to.”

  They climbed the church stairs but found the door boarded and lo
cked. When they reached ground level again, Lily’s flashlight revealed an overgrown path leading around to the back of the church. As it had rained earlier, it was impossible to tell if anyone had used it until Lily pointed at a couple of muddy footprints, each with a corresponding puncture like a high heel would make.

  They practically tiptoed along the path that ran behind the church and beside an iron fence. The fence appeared to surround an old graveyard. Most of the tombstones were weathered and tilting. Once past the gate leading into the graveyard, the path came to a circular area that must have once been a garden. Leading off that was another stairway, this time to a back door. Boards stacked beside the door might once have been nailed across the opening to discourage access, but they’d been taken off. The knob turned easily in Chance’s hand and when Lily’s flashlight picked up traces of mud inside the building, they knew Tabitha was in the church somewhere.

  The room they entered was empty. It led into a much larger space where old pews were still lined up in two rows on either side of an open aisle. The pulpit stood at the front, but little else remained. A tiny bit of outside light made it through the cracks between the boards.

  One side of this room had several open doors leading from it and they checked out each in turn, disturbing dust at times. Near the front, they found a closed door and listened with ears against the wood for a few seconds to make sure they couldn’t hear voices on the other side. At last they opened the door and found themselves at the head of a rickety-looking stairway leading down.

  Chance took the flashlight from Lily. “I’ll go first.”

  She rested her hand atop his shoulder and he actually smiled to himself. Unable to resist the temptation, he turned around and kissed her briefly and wondered how and when they’d managed to get to the point where he could do that without her slugging him or running off.

  The stairs were sturdier than they looked and descended to a small cement area that held nothing other than what appeared to be a couple of old wooden panels that had been deposited against the wall. Another closed door stood directly in front of them and from the room beyond came the sound of two voices, a male and a female. Chance handed Lily the flashlight so he could investigate the panels. She immediately turned off her light and just in time, because the door suddenly rattled. Chance pulled her under cover of the wooden panels right as the door opened. The tight quarters prevented them from seeing anything, but they could hear every word and it was Tabitha’s voice that dominated.