Stalked In Conard County (Conard County: The Next Generation Book 41)

by Rachel Lee

  “Wonder what?” he prompted when she said no more.

  “Maybe coming back to Flora’s house in some way has made me feel like a child again. Maybe I’m slipping in time a bit, emotionally speaking. Sheesh, you’d think years of therapy would have gotten me past that. Years of therapy, years of growing up, becoming independent. I’m not that little girl anymore.”

  “Of course not,” he agreed. “You’re clearly a capable woman. What does that have to do with this? Trauma is trauma, and if something happens to refresh it, life gets rough for a while. I know any number of vets who would tell you that. Other people, too. Miss Emma, the librarian. You said you remembered her, right? Emmaline Conard Dalton?”

  Haley nodded. “She was always so kind to me when Flora would take me to the library.”

  “She’s a kind woman. She survived a vicious rape and was left for dead in a dumpster.”

  “Oh, my God,” Haley breathed. “That’s beyond horrible.”

  “She never finished college because of it. She simply couldn’t go back. But, like you, she’s a strong woman and has made a life with Gage Dalton, the sheriff. I bet she still has the occasional nightmare, though. Want to talk to her?”

  Haley quickly shook her head. “I wouldn’t want to stir it up for her. No, I’ll get past this. I always do.” She straightened a bit in her chair and determination filled her. “I will get past this. But...why is Emma Miss Emma to everyone?”

  Roger shrugged. “I’ve never heard her called anything else. I suspect it’s just an old-fashioned courtesy. I wouldn’t be surprised if it began with parents teaching their kids a respectful way to address her, but I don’t know. It sure has stuck.”

  “Even my grandmother always called her that.” Remembering Flora at once lightened her mood and filled her with the sorrow of loss. Odd how that seemed easier to deal with than things that went bump in the night.

  She released another sigh and, with it, some of the tension that had been gripping her for so long she was aware of it only because it was slipping away. “Why did you get annoyed with me?”

  “Annoyed?” He looked genuinely surprised. “I wasn’t. I was frustrated with myself is all. I can’t see any way to help you. I’d like to, but unless you tell me some way, I’m stuck. I don’t want to come off as pushy, I don’t want to tick you off or offend you, and now that I think about it, my parents might have overdone it in the courtesy department.”

  “What?” she said on a surprised little laugh.

  “I mean it. Keep your mouth shut. Don’t gossip. Don’t be nosy... Oh, a whole bunch of things that are probably wise, but here I sit now and I don’t even want to press you. But I will anyway. Just promise me you’ll let me know if there’s anything I can do.”

  “I will,” she answered promptly, although she wasn’t sure what she could ask of him. She enjoyed his company immensely and wanted to see a whole lot more of him. But as long as she was so unsettled inside herself, bouncing around about whether to change her entire life, and wondering if she should even consider staying where she felt as if threats were closing in on her...

  “God,” she said aloud.

  “What?”

  “I just had a thought that astonished me.” She hesitated, but now that she was aware he was reluctant to press her out of politeness, she just went ahead and told him. “I feel like there’s a threat here.”

  “Here? In this house? In this town?”

  “Not in this house exactly, although you couldn’t guess that from my reaction to strange noises last night. No, I don’t know what it is. I always used to love it here. Surely, I can’t be letting that voyeur get to me so strongly.”

  “Well, I’d agree, except you told me you were kidnapped out of your bedroom window. So this creep did exactly the right thing to upset you completely. It would be bad enough without what you went through.”

  “I guess. Oh, man, I’m tired of myself. I wasn’t like this before. Really, Roger, I hate it. I wasn’t afraid of my own shadow until the other night.”

  “I believe you.” He rose, carrying his mug. “Want more coffee?”

  “No thanks. I’m too jittery already.”

  He refilled his mug then returned to the table. When he’d placed it at his seat, he picked up the plate she’d used for the cheese and crackers and put it beside the sink.

  Haley closed her eyes, wishing she could make the inner turmoil just vanish. This was an overreaction, certainly. A guy had looked in her window. He hadn’t tried to get in, had disappeared the instant he realized she could see him. Getting his kicks out of watching sleeping women was hardly on the same level as kidnapping or physical violence.

  She had to get over this. At this moment, she wondered if returning to Baltimore would really make things any better. A chest of memories had been dragged from a cave into the open, and a few of her recollections seemed as fresh as yesterday.

  She absolutely couldn’t allow herself to give in to this. She’d worked hard to recover from her kidnapping, to become a reasonably stable adult and nurse. She couldn’t allow a creep to destroy all that.

  She rose from the table. “I still have some of my grandmother’s clothes to get ready for donation. Is there anywhere around here that deals in vintage clothing? I found some outfits that people might like. It seems Flora had a taste for some finer things in her youth.”

  Roger nodded. “There is, and I’ll help you.”

  Together they climbed the stairs.

  Chapter 5

  The next several nights passed quietly, mainly because Edgar was almost afraid to go out. He didn’t need to, except to exercise Puddles, and he pretty much shortened his walk and headed away from anywhere Haley might have reason to go.

  He needed to get her out of town. For now he was grateful not to be teaching a summer class. No reason to show his face again in daylight. He and Puddles could do their exercise well after nightfall. The dog made him seem so harmless that people didn’t even give him a second look if he was out with her at midnight.

  Getting Puddles may have been the smartest move of his life, he thought irritably.

  Damn, why had he ever kidnapped that girl to begin with? His reasoning, such as it was, had grown into a muddy memory after all this time. He’d been angry with her father for firing him over a theft of just under six hundred dollars.

  Furious. He’d wanted to get even. He’d never once thought how lucky he was that Jack McKinsey hadn’t called the cops. He might have spent the next year in jail instead of hiding out in Alberta.

  He’d asked for a paltry ransom, too. A hundred grand. But stupid as he could be, he wasn’t stupid enough to think McKinsey was made of money. Wildcatting could pay a lot of money when an oil well produced, but the profits had to be shared with the landowner McKinsey leased from, and the roughnecks who did the actual drilling had to be paid. When wells came in dry...the costs were heavy. He’d heard enough wildcatters talking to know they were doing okay, but not that great.

  Edgar had figured a hundred thousand might be possible. At worst, McKinsey might be forced to sell some of his drilling equipment, very expensive stuff.

  Then he’d done the one thing he was sure would hurt the man: he’d taken his daughter.

  Instead he’d gotten a big surprise himself when the news informed him that the FBI was on the case. The FBI? Edgar might not be brilliant, but tangling with the Feds wasn’t on his bucket list. So he’d let the girl go.

  He’d thought he’d been done with it after all these years, until he’d heard Flora McKinsey’s granddaughter was in town. He’d snuck a look and almost wet his pants. She’d grown up, but he still recognized her. A race to a computer at the school had given him even worse news. There was no statute of limitation on kidnapping.

  If Haley recognized him, he was done for. The rest of his life in prison. For kidnapping. Maybe for the way he�
��d touched her a couple of times out of curiosity. Shame had stopped him. One of the very few times in life when he’d been ashamed. Not that that would help him if she recognized him.

  Six hundred dollars... It had seemed like a lot of money way back then, and he’d needed some hefty car repairs he couldn’t quite pay for. But he’d needed the car to get to work.

  He’d been aware the boss kept cash in the construction trailer. Everyone knew it, and maybe that was why he’d had a false sense of security about dipping into it. The cash was there for unexpected expenses, and Edgar hadn’t taken all of it, just what he’d needed. He’d thought the boss wouldn’t even notice for a while.

  But two days later he’d been nailed and fired. How? Had someone seen him? Or was there a camera in the place? He never knew. Back then, security cameras had been unusual, not common at all. He hadn’t even thought about the possibility.

  He’d been furious. Just furious. He’d offered to pay McKinsey back in installments, but all the man had said was “I can’t trust you now. I need to be able to trust the people who work for me.”

  An icy response. McKinsey was coldly angry, even more frightening than blowing up, at least as far as Edgar was concerned.

  Out the door, into the chilly Wyoming night, with nowhere to go and no job. That’s when Edgar had started to seethe. Maybe seething had gotten in the way of thinking. Hell, he’d done his job as well as anyone. He wasn’t a slacker. McKinsey owed him a second chance.

  Furious, not wanting to explain anything to curious friends about why he wasn’t working on the rig anymore, he’d packed his measly belongings and left town. Got away from the scene and the questions. Living in his run-down car.

  But he’d continued seething, wanting to get even with McKinsey more and more with each passing day. It wasn’t like he hadn’t offered to pay the money back out of his next several paychecks. He had, even though it would have meant withholding his rent for a little while. But no, that wasn’t good enough. Trust? Trust had to be a two-way street, and if McKinsey had a camera in the construction trailer, then he wasn’t very trusting of his men, was he?

  Then the idea had hatched. In retrospect, it had been stupid, but at the time it had seemed brilliant. McKinsey had deprived him of his job. He wanted to deprive McKinsey of something equally important, and that obviously wasn’t money or the man would have let him pay back the six hundred bucks.

  He’d never intended to hurt the girl. He’d figured she might get a scare, but she’d get over it. Her father, on the other hand, would be forced to feel as helpless as he’d made Edgar feel. He’d feel the pain of losing the most important thing in his life, for just a few days. Or, at least, that’s what Edgar had hoped.

  Apparently the only one who had lost had been him. Again.

  Now he stood to lose everything. His freedom. The job he’d come to like.

  If asked, Edgar would have said that he’d been stupid in his youth but had grown considerably. He was a law-abiding, upstanding citizen now. An instructor at a junior college.

  He was not the same man.

  Except right now that argument was sounding awfully thin even to him. He was considering committing another crime. Hell, maybe he’d started when he’d looked in her window.

  This was driving him nuts. Earlier, for a couple of minutes, he had believed she had recognized him as he’d passed her on the far side of the street with Puddles. But then she’d gone back to talking with Roger and the chief of police. She’d been smiling, he’d noted when he’d glanced over his shoulder before turning the corner.

  How could she recognize him, anyway? He’d worn that damn ski mask almost every minute he’d been with her. She’d seen him only once when he’d believed her to be asleep and he’d pulled it off because it was itching. When he’d turned around, he’d been looking into her open eyes.

  At the time he hadn’t been sure she’d even been really awake. She’d cried herself to sleep out of exhaustion. God, that had been maddening, that unending sobbing. But when she’d seen his face, her eyes had fluttered closed again. When he read in the newspaper that she hadn’t been able to describe him, he’d been relieved, then really put the pedal to the floor to get to Alberta. No one there would be looking for him. No one knew who to look for.

  The articles had told him other things, too, like the fact that Jack McKinsey had a few enemies, bigger ones than a lowly roughneck. The paper had taken delight in mentioning the names of many who had been questioned. Since Edgar’s name had never come up, Edgar had assumed that McKinsey had mentally dismissed him as a threat.

  Which was fine. Edgar hadn’t made a dime, the girl had gotten back to her family quickly and Edgar didn’t feel like he’d done anything terrible enough to require prison time.

  But now? Hell, now. Banging his fist on the arm of his chair, he vented some of his anger, fear and frustration. Any chance that woman could identify him could mess him up seriously.

  Maybe the only way he could be safe would be to kill the woman. Either that or leave the new life he was building, where he felt respected and had some friends, and head out again the way he had so long ago.

  He didn’t want to run again, but unless he found a really good way to make Haley go home, he was going to have to do something to solve this situation before he went nuts. He didn’t deserve to live the rest of his life in fear, or to lose everything he’d worked so hard for.

  No. He didn’t.

  Puddles gave a little whimper then jumped up into his lap. The dog evidently sensed his mood. A good dog. Loyal and loving.

  That’s what Edgar deserved, not the terror that now loomed ahead of him.

  But how could he take that woman out? It wasn’t like he had ever murdered anyone. He hadn’t any idea about how to start, how to get away with it.

  Because if he did anything, he had to get away with it.

  Well, he had once before. If he could do it once, he could do it again.

  Satisfied with himself, he settled in the chair and petted Puddles. He’d figure it out. He was smarter now than all those years ago. He just needed the time to think.

  One week, he decided. He’d spend the week thinking about how to handle it, and if he didn’t get a clear sign she was heading back to wherever she came from, he’d have to take her out.

  He had a lot to protect. And that Roger guy... If he didn’t stop hanging around so much, he’d have to go, too. Damn fool was acting like a cat that smelled catnip. Regardless, he was very much in the way.

  Yeah, one week.

  * * *

  The summer evenings were long, but as twilight deepened, Haley called a halt to sorting and packing.

  “This is overwhelming,” she admitted. “I had no idea how much Flora had saved. When I was a kid, I explored, but I guess I wasn’t interested in how much was here stashed in drawers, closets and armoires.”

  “Don’t forget the attic,” Roger reminded her. “I never had any idea that Flora was something of a hoarder.”

  “I don’t think I’d call her that. You can still use every room in the house, but right now, if I hadn’t cleaned a little closet space, I wouldn’t have been able to hang my own clothes.”

  They were on the second floor. She was avoiding the attic, which, while clearly organized to some extent, held furniture items that might be antiques, and probably some stuff that someone in the past had meant to repair and had never gotten around to.

  Standing and stretching to ease her back, she brushed her hands on her jeans. A glance out a nearby window told her that night was once again lurking. Only then did she realize a buzz of uneasiness was running through her.

  “Damn,” she said.

  “What?” Roger folded the last box closed and reached for packing tape.

  “I’m getting edgy again. I should be able to control it. There’s no real reason to be afraid here. I just need
to toughen up.”

  “Yeah.” Then he snorted. “Toughening up means running until you can do a mile in five minutes, or lifting weights or...”

  She almost laughed, despite her increasing uneasiness. “What exactly are you trying to say?”

  “When you figure out how to lasso emotions, let me know. They pretty much happen regardless.”

  She couldn’t much argue that. Every time she looked at this man, she felt urges and needs she couldn’t seem to corral. They just washed over her and tried to force their way into her mind to push her into action. She knew it. He was probably right about all the rest of it.

  “Where are you sleeping now?” he asked as they went downstairs to get a soft drink and possibly some Bagel Bites.

  “In Grandma’s room. I am not letting that creep take that away from me.”

  “Brave decision. Good on you.”

  Good on her? Maybe it was merely another thing to raise her anxiety levels. But she did have a backbone, and she was trying to stiffen it. Just how much of her past was she going to allow to ruin her present?

  But the butterflies in her stomach warned her she might be losing the battle.

  “I’m not a coward,” she remarked as they reached the kitchen. “Cola or beer?”

  “Beer, please. One of the major food groups.”

  Again a smile twitched at her mouth. Roger was good for her in a lot of ways.

  As she brought the drinks to the table and sat, he asked, “How much more do you think you have to do?”

  “I’m pressing it,” she admitted. “There’s pressure. But with each passing day, I’m wondering why. I don’t think I’m leaving, Roger. I want to stay. It means upending my life in every way, but I have this inescapable feeling that would be good for me.”

  He nodded. “I like the idea of you staying. If you leave, I know I’ll miss you like hell.”

  Her heart slammed and she dared to look into his eyes, where she could have sworn she saw heat. Did he want her? She hoped so, regardless of where it might lead. Still, even though she was working on stiffening her backbone, she didn’t have the courage to reach out. Not yet. Mainly because she couldn’t be sure, and if she was having problems now, imagine how a rejection would make her feel. No thanks.