by EC Sheedy
What was that expression? As easy as shooting fish in a barrel. Quinlan Braid smiled again.
It was the second time today.
Chapter 20
Phylly, after a winding drive through mountains, on a road bordered by streams, rocky cliffs, and friggin’ trees—glowering trees, tall enough to intimidate the nastiest choreographer she’d ever worked with—finally came to a crossroad. Simple enough—to the left, the last gas station attendant had told her, was a place with the unlikely name of Ucluelet and to the right was Tofino.
Right, it was.
More trees, endless trees. Only now, this close to the ocean, the winds off the Pacific mauled them, making them bend and thrash their branches around like boneless arms—as if they were pissed off at being disturbed. Even though the sun was still fairly high, the tall trees were a wall of dark on the western side, their shadows sprawling across the road ahead of her.
It creeped her out. God, when the sun really went to bed for the night, this place would be black as a coal mine. More and more she felt, not as though she’d driven a car to another part of North America, but that she’d boarded a spaceship to another planet. That was homesickness, no doubt about it, making her feel so weird and dislocated. And she missed Cornie something awful.
Shaking off her sad and useless thoughts, she sped up, knowing she had another half hour of driving at best. Which meant she was almost at Noah’s place, a realization that put her brain into meltdown and made her stomach a bag of thumbtacks—all of them electrified.
It was going to take every last vestige of her confidence to face Noah again, plus whatever acting talent she had—not much—to even look as though she were in her right mind. Taking a drink of water from the bottle in the cup holder, she reminded herself she had it all figured out. If Noah was married, she’d do the old-friend-passing-through routine. She looked out the window at the unfamiliar landscape, the darkening trees, heard the low howl of the wind. Jesus, she’d have to be Meryl Streep to carry that one off.
God, please don’t be married, Noah. I just need a soft place to fall—just for a while. I’ll figure out how to fix things, then it’s back to Vegas where I belong. A Vegas without Rusty . . .
She took another drink of water, refused to cry. Rusty would hate the idea of her wasting that fresh makeup job she’d done in the restaurant ladies’ room a while back— and she’d really hate the tears. I don’t know what I’m going to do without you, baby.
She sniffled and forced herself back to thinking about Noah, what she’d do if he wasn’t married which, while it might be the best-case scenario, also set her nerves on high-speed jangle. No matter how many lotions and potions she’d used against Mother Time—the bitch—it had been over fifteen years. She was definitely frayed around the jaw-line. Not that she’d come planning a seduction. No way. All she wanted from Noah was a safe hidey-hole until she could figure out what to do about Henry Castor. She and Noah had parted friends, and it was a friend she needed. And you didn’t mess with friends. You were straight with them—as straight as you could be.
Twenty minutes later, she stopped in Tofino and peered out the car window. Christ, this wasn’t a small town, it was a village. She spotted a gas station which she hoped would provide the quickest route to his address. If she could’ve done that Google thing Cornie was so good at before heading out on this insane safari, she’d already have it. But even if she could commune with a computer—which she couldn’t—she hadn’t laid eyes on one since scurrying out of her apartment like a rat given advance notice of pest control.
The lone gas attendant was reading some kind of fancy comic book. “Excuse me,” she said.
He looked up—and up. His eyes widened, and if he had a tongue, he was having a hard time working it.
Maybe she was overdressed for this tree garden. But, damn it, she’d tried to dress down: Jeans with a single line of studs down the sides, gold mesh belt, a leather jacket with faux leopard skin lapels. But other than her diamond studs—which she never removed—she wore zero jewelry and a plain beige Tee. Pretty simple really. But her height and platinum hair she couldn’t do anything about. Although maybe the hair—her trademark—would have to go. She didn’t want to think about that.
She glanced at his name patch. “You do have a functioning voice box, don’t you?” She said with a smile. Didn’t want to insult the natives.
“Yeah . . . sure, uh, I’m Mike, what can I do for you?” He coughed, came around the counter, where his eyes immediately dropped to her feet and stayed there. Barely a three-inch gold heel, and he was acting as if he’d never seen feet before.
“I need some directions—but I’m not sure of the address.”
He pulled his gaze from her feet and looked up at her. “Who are you looking for? This is a pretty small place, I might know them.”
“Noah Bristol?”
“Oh, sure, I know Noah.” He summoned up a shy kind of smile. “Nice guy. Writes books and stuff.”
That was news to Phylly. She smiled back. “Really, and what’s his wife doing these days. God . . . I’ve forgotten her name.” She feigned a frown.
“I don’t remember. She’s been gone maybe five years now.”
“Gone,” she repeated. “Not as in dead, I hope.” Her heart tripped. Oh, Noah . . .
“No, as in divorced. She didn’t much like it here, I guess.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.” Yes! She set aside her shaft of guilt over her gleeful reaction, and asked, “But I’d appreciate that address—and maybe some directions?”
He went back behind the counter, reached under it, and pulled out a map. “Sure, but . . .” He still held the map.
“Uh-huh?”
“You’ve got to hear this all the time”—he turned a flamingo pink—“but you really are beautiful.”
God, she pinked right along with him. She had her share of compliments in her time, but for some reason this one broadsided her. Hell, maybe when a woman was staring into the jaws of serious middle-age, she got a little desperate—had to be when a compliment from a twenty-something gas jockey in Road’s End, Canada, made a woman feel like she was fresh from an Extreme Makeover. “Thanks,” she finally mumbled, waiting for the directions he’d promised. But it seemed he’d used his current supply of words on the compliment. All he did was look at her. “Uh . . . Mike, that address and directions?”
“Oh, yeah.” His blush did an encore as he flattened the map over the countertop. It was one of those with cartoons and ads they used as placemats in small-town diners.
Phyllis listened attentively—the last thing she wanted to do was get lost—and from what the boy was telling her, Noah was quite a way off the diner map grid.
A half hour and one wrong turn later, she found Noah’s property. There was no gate, just a lamp sitting on top of a stone pillar, its neck curving to light one word: Bristol. Thirty acres, Mike had said, five of them facing the ocean. The road in, too long to be called a driveway, was gravel and ran a close parallel to the shoreline.
It was, of course, lined on both sides by trees. She took a deep breath, then another. Neither stopped her from shaking.
This was it.
Phylly drove the twisting length of the driveway, and concentrated on the uneven road. The shafts of brilliance from the sun on her left turned the road into a light show. Blinding when it pierced through open slots between the trees, black where a tough grove of them banded together to block its way.
The road started to climb. Not long after that, she saw it.
Noah’s house perched like a glass nest on a cliff overlooking the ocean. You could see into it, and you could see through it. Its deck was massive, prow-shaped with a point that jutted from the land the house sat on and over the cliff’s edge like a stubborn jaw. One side of the house, where the sun reflected itself on walls of glass, was drenched in gold; the other side, all beams and angles, rested in shadow. Behind the house was a wall of forest. If there were any lights on, she c
ouldn’t make them out. But then, any kind of man-made light would wash out under the glare coming from the full sun, descending now to meet a glowing, sun-scorched ocean. A set of wide stairs led up to the house level.
When she was unable to get any closer by car, she parked beside a couple of cedar trees that looked older than sin and turned off the motor. The surging roar of the surf below replaced the vehicle’s mechanical growl.
She opened the car door and stood, feeling woozy and off balance. When she got the beat of her heart under some kind of control, she took her first shaky steps toward the house.
Leaving the cover of the trees, the sun momentarily blinded her. She shielded her eyes and glanced up.
He was standing on the deck.
Phylly’s stomach kicked, and her heart did a monkey-in-a-cage routine. From this distance and with the sun mostly behind him, he was in shadow. Phylly didn’t know whether his back was to her or his eyes were on her. But she assumed the latter, put her shoulders back, and made for the stairs. Easier said than done on pebbly gravel over uneven ground— even in her mini stilettos—mini being anything under five inches. When she wasn’t listing to one side or another, her heels kept sinking into the earth under the gravel. God, she probably looked drunk.
The shadow on the deck didn’t move. She didn’t know why, but she was sure his arms were crossed over his chest. A dog sat beside him, big and golden, and as still as he was, except for an occasional sweep of his tail.
With Noah watching, it made the short trek to his stairs a hundred times harder than any bare-ass, bare-breasted strut she’d ever done on a Vegas runway.
“You need new shoes, Phylly.”
At the sound of his voice, the smile in it, she looked up from the bottom of the stairs. She still couldn’t make out his face. “And you need some asphalt.”
When she stepped onto the deck, the dog stood and wagged his tail. Phylly put her hand out, let him sniff her, before stroking his head. As a temporary diversion, he was a soft one.
“His name’s Chance,” Noah said.
“He’s nice.”
Phylly stopped petting the dog and faced Noah, and for a long moment neither of them spoke. Phylly didn’t know what he was seeing, but what she saw made her breathless.
Noah looked as if the years had skipped over him. Oh, his dark hair had some gray, and there were a few new lines forking out around his eyes, but he was as lean and . . . potent as she remembered. When she’d thought of Noah through the years, it was never his physical presence that came to mind—in that he was ordinary compared to most men she’d been with. No, it was always his personality. Strong, decisive, and focused, that was Noah then, and she had the sense it was Noah now.
He took her hand, stood staring at her. “You’re more wonderful than I remember. The same fantastic dream. But this time come to life.”
She bent to kiss him. “Don’t you know you’re supposed to say, you haven’t aged a day?”
He smiled at her. “You’re telling me ‘wonderful’ and ‘fantastic’ aren’t enough? You want me to lie as well.”
She laughed. “Bastard.”
“Come here.” He pulled her into his arms, held her. “I’ve been waiting to hold you since Mike called me. The kid could barely get the words out, but when he said the most spectacular woman he’d ever seen was coming to knock on my door, I knew exactly who he meant.”
God, she was going to cry. His arms felt so good, so safe. “Oh, Noah, I’ve missed you so much.” She let herself relax for the first time in days. “I never stopped thinking about you.”
He stood back from her. “And I thought we never lied to each other.” He said it without ill humor and stroked her cheek.
Phylly’s thoughts flew to Cornie, the daughter he didn’t know they had. As lies went, that one packed the wallop of an A-bomb. Instead of answering, she smiled, put her hand over his.
“I’ve been right here, Phylly. All these years,” he went on, resting his warm hand on her neck. “I waited for you. For a long time. A very long time.”
She didn’t know what to say to that, so she said nothing.
“I married. A few years ago now,” he said. “It didn’t work out.”
“I know.”
He raised a questioning brow.
“Mike told me.”
Shaking his head, he smiled, his expression wry. “Small towns. Gotta love them.”
“I’m sorry—that it didn’t work out,” she said. “Knowing you, that would have been tough to take.” She swallowed and added, “Any kids?”
“No, which, as things turned out between us, was probably for the best.” He ruffled the dog’s head. “There’s just Chance and me.”
She nodded, unable to read anything into his pat phrasing, while wondering why she’d asked the question in the first place.
He put his hand on her shoulder, moved his thumb over her throat. “But none of that matters now. You’re here, and that’s not ‘tough to take’ at all.”
“No questions?”
“A million of them.”
“Think you can hold off on them for a while?”
He studied her, with that calm expression she remembered so well. “Sure, I can do that,” he said. “After all, we have all the time we need to get to them.”
No, we don’t, Noah. We don’t have any time at all.
It was as if a dark fist clasped Phylly’s heart and squeezed. She closed her eyes and again went into his arms, hugging him fiercely, not wanting him to see the fear in her eyes. Holding him, feeling the strength and goodness of him, she was suddenly paralyzed by the realization that she’d run to him blindly, without thought—that she’d put him in danger.
Noah hated lies, and she’d come to him with two: One painfully tangled—Cornelia, and one life-threatening—Henry Castor.
The truth? Now?
Impossible. She wouldn’t know where to begin.
Noah ran his hands down to her waist, set her back from him, his expression puzzled. “Are you okay, Phylly?”
“No,” she said, dredging up some showgirl verve and a smile as real as silicone implants. “What I am is tired and hungry. So if you’ve got something trapped in a can somewhere, how about letting it out, and tossing it in a pot?”
He didn’t answer right away, only stared at her for an uncomfortably long moment. “Food it is, then a night’s sleep.” He put his arm around her and started toward the glass doors leading into his house. Before sliding the door open, he added, “Like I said, the questions can wait. But you will answer them, Phylly. Something’s wrong or you wouldn’t be here.” He paused. “We were more than lovers, you know. We were friends—even though you were, and obviously still are, the world’s worst liar.”
Chapter 21
Joe, April, and Cornie arrived in Seattle in the late afternoon, and the three of them were standing outside Julius Zern’s mansion on the hill—at least that’s what it looked like to April—within an hour of leaving Sea-Tac.
After passing through the gate security system, they reached the front door. Doors, really. Massive doors. Made of oak planks. High and wide with burly black wrought-iron hardware, they looked as though they were built to withstand a battering ram. It was Kit who opened them.
“Everything a go?” Joe asked Kit, herding April and Cornie into the house ahead of him.
“First thing tomorrow morning,” Kit said. “A hop to Vancouver, then another to Tofino. You should be there by noon. And I’ve arranged a car.”
“Good.”
April and Joe exchanged glances, grateful that Kit’s answer was vague enough that Cornie wouldn’t figure out the reservations were for two. Time enough for that incendiary information later.
Joe said, “Is Julius home?”
“On the back patio.” Kit jerked his head toward a half-open door, but kept his eyes on Cornie. His eyes behind his glasses looked both curious and hesitant.
Joe made the necessary introductions, and while April listen
ed, she couldn’t stop her head from swiveling. The foyer was white, its floor black marble, and the art on the walls a clash of colors and style. All of it expensive. A round table sat in the center of the foyer, but where she would have expected an extravagant floral display, there was only a soft, worn leather briefcase. There was no other furniture. Julius Zern’s house was seriously minimalist and stunning. April was impressed.
Cornie, after she stopped frowning at Kit—for God knew what reason—and scanned her surroundings, actually looked cowed. “One guy lives here?” she asked. “In all this?” She waved a hand to encompass the massive foyer.
“One guy, two dogs,” Kit answered, before looking at Joe. “He’s been waiting for you.”
Joe, familiar with Julius’s house, started toward the far end of the foyer. April, Cornie, and Kit followed in his wake. Midway to an entry that obviously led to the patio, he stopped, gestured to a door on his left and said to Kit, “Why don’t you take Cornie to tech central, show her around.”
Cornie’s expression turned suspicious. “You trying to get rid of me?”
“Yes.” Joe’s expression, until now preoccupied and intense, softened when he looked at the girl. “I’ve got some business to discuss with my partner, Cornie—and it’s not all about Phyllis Worth. We’ll only be a few minutes. Promise.”
“I don’t—”
Kit interrupted, “Trust me, they’ll bore you stupid.”
Cornie’s mouth went in motion before her manners. “And you won’t?”
He blushed a fiery red. “I might . . . but Julius’s magic room won’t.”
“I didn’t mean . . . I’m—Oh, hell,” she said, gesturing with her head toward the door Joe had indicated. “Let’s go.” To cover a blush even pinker than Kit’s, she shot Joe a firm look. “Fifteen minutes tops,” she instructed then strode off.
