by Nancy Gideon
Stan laughed. "I haven't recovered from the last fleecing he gave me."
"It's your face, Stan. Your secrets are written all over it."
Pleasantries exchanged, Chaney looked down at Tessa's three-piece set of matched Gucci luggage without a blink. But he frowned at the sight of the cat carrier and the pair of glittering yellow eyes glaring out at him through the mesh door. Noting his disapproval, Tessa hoisted up the carrier, giving a defiant lift of one brow.
"Tinker goes with me. Love me, love my cat." A dark brow arched. "An interesting but unlikely suggestion."
Wondering which part he found the most distasteful, Tessa stated, "I'm ready, Mr. Chaney." She picked up the medium-size suitcase. "Can you get the other two?"
"Yes, ma'am. Your chariot is out front. It's the Dodge Ram. Just toss your stuff in the back."
Frowning to think he meant Tinker, as well, she was distracted by Stan's quick hug and peck on her cheek.
"Behave," he warned in a whisper.
"I will if he will."
* * *
After Tessa started toward the stairwell, Stan confronted the younger man candidly.
"She's tougher than she looks."
"I hope so, for her sake."
"You behave, too."
Jack offered a lopsided smile. "Don't I always."
Stan rolled his eyes. Then the merriment was gone. "Watch over her, Jack. Keep her under wraps until I can find out if there's any truth to what she's saying."
Jack gave a snort. "Or to what she wants to believe."
"Somebody beat the hell out of her. I'm not willing to take any chances that it wasn't just a coincidence."
"You think her father is innocent, Stan?"
The P.I. frowned a minute then answered. "Right now, I don't care. Rob D'Angelo is beyond their reach, but she isn't. I don't want anything else to hurt her, Jack."
"What about the truth?"
"By the time I find it, she'll be ready to hear it. Like I said, she's tougher than she looks."
Jack shrugged noncommittally. "If you say so."
"What shall I tell anyone who asks about her?"
"Tell them she's going to camp."
* * *
"Saying your goodbyes to the old homestead?"
Tessa, who'd been staring up at the curtain-covered windows of her apartment, gave a start then a rueful smile. Saying goodbye to the sleepless nights, to the insidious terror that had her checking behind doors and under the bed in a manic cycle of fear? Good riddance was more like it. Whatever she was heading toward had to be better than that.
She suddenly realized that she didn't want to return to the rooms with the upscale address she'd so proudly decorated with trendy furnishings that toted her independence. She now saw the shadowed corners of the second-floor rooms as a prison when they'd once represented her freedom. She couldn't open the front door without seeing the glass glittering on the floor, without hearing the sinister whisper of her attacker's voice.
No, she would never put her belongings back in that place where she no longer belonged.
For now, she was making her home with Jack Chaney. And after that… Well, she'd just have to improvise.
"Let's go, Mr. Chaney."
"Before you change your mind?"
She met his smug assertion with a cool glance. "Or you change yours."
He opened the door for her to climb up into the four-wheel-drive vehicle, then scowled at the sight of the cat carrier on the floor of the passenger side.
"Not an animal lover, I take it."
"Sure. I love them with gravy and potatoes on the side." He shut her inside the truck before she could manage a curt reply.
Sticking her fingers through the wire grid, Tessa murmured, "Don't mind him, Tinker. He's just being … difficult." A wet nose touched her fingertips in seeming agreement.
Chaney dropped behind the wheel and started the vehicle, provoking the engine into a series of coughs and grumbles. The smell of something scorching filled the cab.
"We could have taken my car," she posed diplomatically.
"Your car is easily traced to you. Just swallow your pride and enjoy the ride." He shifted and the beater shuddered away from the curb with a roar. "From now on, you're officially undercover."
And off the face of the known world, she mused, staring out the window as familiar scenery whizzed by. She let it go without regret.
"You never asked where we were headed," her driver observed as he checked the crooked rearview before blending into freeway traffic.
"It doesn't matter," was her philosophical reply. Then, after a pause, she asked, "Where are we headed?"
"No place you could ever find on your own, even if a map existed. No man's land."
No woman's land, she'd be willing to bet as she studied his profile. A nice profile. Clean, strong, good bones, firm chin. Handsome in a dark, effortless way. Like a pirate.
He was the kind of guy who would have had girls lining the street in front of his house when he was a teen. With his easy confidence and dark, melting eyes, he could have been anything from class president to class clown, star quarterback to under-the-bleachers bad boy. But studying him more closely, she figured him for the cool, sardonic loner who could have had anything he wanted and shunned all of it. She'd hated guys like that, the ones who never lived up to their potential. Had Jack Chaney grown up knowing he wanted to be a government hit man? Had he planned from an early age to skirt the fringe of acceptability with a wry, indifferent scorn?
She could see ex-military in him. In the way he carried himself, erect, alert, even when he seemed relaxed behind the wheel. She saw it in the crisp cut of his glossy black hair and squared-away look of his clothing. Efficient, without an extra inch or ounce on him. His dark eyes were always on the move, cutting between the mirrors in a precise circuit that allowed for no surprises.
And it disturbed her to find that he made her feel safe.
Suddenly uncomfortable with the turn of her thoughts, she tried distracting them with conversation.
"So how do you know Stan?"
"What did he tell you?"
"He did a lot of talking but never really answered my question."
Jack nodded his approval and for a minute Tessa didn't think he would answer. Then, with a casual shrug, he said, "He and my father were partners on the force a lot of years ago."
"The police force?" Why did the notion of Jack coming from a law enforcement family surprise her so? Because usually law and order was passed on as a tradition. Apparently not in his family.
"You said you owed him."
"I said too much," he muttered, but he didn't withhold the information. "About twenty years ago they got caught in a cross fire. My dad was hit. Bad. Stan could have left him and gotten to safety but he didn't. He stayed at my dad's side, keeping him from bleeding to death, keeping the scumbags off until reinforcements showed up. He rode with him to the hospital and later broke the news to us that Dad had been shot and would never walk again. Stan stayed with my dad through therapy and bankruptcy—with a whole lot more loyalty than my mom who figured the going wasn't going to get any better so she got going and never looked back. They don't come any better than Stan Kovacs in my book. That answer your question?"
And then some.
"Stan said your call sign was Lone Wolf. That sounds a little…"
"Unfriendly? Aboriginal?" he finished for her. His tone hadn't changed but a certain tightness sharpened the edges of his swarthy features until she could see the hint of American Indian in the sculpted highs and lows. "On my mother's side, way back. Just enough so I could run a casino if I wanted to. But that's not where I got the moniker. Lone Wolf isn't my Indian name, if that's what you're wondering."
"Where did you get it?"
"From my enemies, because I prefer to hunt alone. And I prefer my own company to those who never seem to run out of nosy questions that are none of their business."
Well, he didn't need to put a finer poi
nt on it than that.
The rest of their drive passed in a taut silence.
* * *
In the lull, it was easy for Tessa to drift into a sleep-deprived REM state. She'd only meant to close her eyes for a moment but when she blinked them open, it was to find that man-made structures had given way to soaring examples of nature's architecture. Spreading oaks ablaze with color, ramrod-straight pines standing at attention and ghostly poplars with their pale white trunks and flutter of graceful yellow leaves lined a two-lane highway upon which they were the only travelers. She'd fallen asleep in the inner city and had awakened to a deeply forested Oz.
Tessa leaned away from the window where her cheek had left a circular print and immediately checked for any trace of embarrassing drool. Chaney caught the movement and quirked a smile in her direction.
"You snore."
Great. Just the kind of intimate details she wanted known from the maddeningly enigmatic man beside her.
"Not usually."
"You should never let your guard down so completely, even around those you think you can trust."
His remark needled more than it instructed. Her reply was curt.
"I'll keep one eye open from now on."
"I always do." Then he added ominously, "I would if I were in your position."
All sense of security fell away at that cool observation. She wasn't safe. Not even here with this man she'd hired to protect her and to teach her to protect herself.
He was right. She trusted too easily, in unfamiliar situations, with unknown strangers. She'd grown up to privilege, private schools, safe streets and a good job. The closest she ever came to the seamier side of life was in the courtroom. She'd never had reason to check her back seat before getting in or to glance into shadowed alleyways anticipating a threat.
Until now.
Sitting stiff and duly chastised, she looked around, observing her surroundings. She was Little Red Riding Hood to his huntsman and there was no grandmother's house in sight.
"Are we—"
"There yet?" he finished for her. "Almost. It takes about fifteen minutes to the front door once we leave the highway."
Fifteen minutes to reach what? Exactly where was he taking her? Her lack of preparatory knowledge came back to haunt her. She'd been in such a hurry to leave her fears behind, she'd forgotten to ask what she'd be walking into. Or driving into. And since she'd seen fit to naively snooze the better part of the drive away, she had no idea where "there" might be. North, he'd said. There was a lot of North in Michigan.
When Chaney finally left the highway for the fifteen-minute last leg of the journey, it wasn't to pull onto a paved street. At first glance she hadn't even seen a break in the trees to indicate there was a road. Two-track, she believed best described the spine-jarring roller coaster of dust and sudden dips. Stray branches scraped against the sides of the vehicle as they bounced along the twin ruts cut deeply into uneven ground. It wasn't an obstacle course her Lexus would have appreciated.
Tessa clung to the door handle with one hand and braced her other palm against the dash as Tinker's carrier slid back and forth between her firmly planted feet. She locked her ankles tight on either side of the case hoping the suspiciously silent tabby hadn't already had the stuffings shaken out of him.
Then the Ram made a sudden turn and Chaney's compound appeared as if hewn out of the forest. Her mouth dropped open in helpless awe.
North woods had conjured up the image of rustic in her mind's eye. A log cabin, hopefully with indoor plumbing. But Jack Chaney's retreat was a veritable fortress in the wilderness. Squares and turrets of stone and log collided with huge ultramodern walls of glass and steel in what should have been a jarring juxtaposition. It wasn't. Pulled together under long sloping roofs of rough-hewn wood shingles, the massive structure seemed to blend with the rugged surroundings, easing the stark modernistic elements back to the basics of quarried rock and peeled timber. Only the high-tech satellite dish broke the harmony of new age and natural beauty. Tessa perked up. Not Club Med, perhaps, but certainly a far cry from the dour cabins she remembered from camp. Chaney's dwelling was huge, impressive, and as Jack wheeled the vehicle to the left, obviously not her destination.
They jounced down another dirt-and-gravel track until they reached a footbridge that spanned a winding stream. On the other side squatted a single-story barracks of log and stone. No soaring vistas, no dish TV. Just the raw basics of survival.
Welcome back, Camp Minnetonka.
Prepared to grin and bear it, Tessa climbed out of the truck and took a minute to twist and stretch her back. There was a brief stab of discomfort where a rib was still healing. She made the movements easier, babying the hurt. As she glanced to the right, through a parting of the trees, she could just make out one of the massive stone porches running along the side of the main house. She blinked and began to frown in uncertainty of what she was seeing.
There on the porch, just on the edge of the shadows, stood a small, slender girl of about twelve years old. In the muting tones of near twilight, all she could make out was the fact that the girl was Hispanic. As Tessa stared in surprise at finding a child in Jack Chaney's home, her astonishment doubled as a woman appeared to place her hands on the girl's shoulders to steer her back inside.
Just as it had never occurred to Tessa that Jack might live in a forest paradise, she'd never once considered that he might not live alone.
* * *
Chapter 3
« ^ »
Stark and utilitarian. Scout camp revisited.
Tessa tried to keep the dismay from her features as she surveyed her new home away from home.
There was a main room furnished with mission-style chairs around a slab-topped table. One wall held a projection screen, the opposite a large dry-erase board and cork wall studded with idle pushpins. Obviously a corn center for covert planning. She could see Chaney heading up a briefing session while equally hard-eyed operatives sat attentively around the table. She couldn't see herself curled up comfortably with a novel and there was no television in sight. On the rear wall, a countertop housed a microwave, minifridge and small sink. So much for luxuries.
While watching her for any telltale misgivings, Jack gestured to the right and left. "Take any room. They're all the same. Connie will bring you some dinner. Until then, make yourself at home."
Her home was here. His home was there. With the woman and child.
"I will," she said with as much enthusiasm as she could muster. She said it to deaf ears because Jack Chaney was already gone. And she was alone.
Setting the carrier next to her luggage on the floor, Tessa sighed. "Just you and me, Tinker. Like always."
The big tabby came out of the carrier hissing and puffed up in an affronted bristle. After sniffing the air, he immediately began yowling. Tessa wasted no time setting up his litter box in the spartan bathroom. With his business tidily covered, Tinker plopped beneath the table to groom and calm his distressed nerves. Tessa picked up a bag and went to pick a room.
It really didn't matter which one she picked. All were equally unwelcoming. Half a dozen on one side of the war room and half a dozen on the other. For its convenience to the bathroom, she took the first door on the right.
Now she understood Chaney's amusement over her baggage.
The room contained a twin-size bed covered with a brown chenille spread. There was a drawerless night table hosting a homemade lamp with a glass base filled with beer bottle caps. A nice decorative touch. The only one. The small single window was covered by heavy brown curtains. There was one chair, as ugly and uninviting as the rest of the room, and a closet. The closet was a recessed hole in the wall featuring a clothes bar with a baker's dozen wire hangers and two plank shelves, one above and one a foot off the plain brown rug. She could envision steel-toed boots lined up neatly beneath a stack of olive drab chinos, a line of T-shirts on the hangers and who knows what on the top shelf. Certainly not her designer exercise wear
and brand new Nikes.
She was in the wrong place. Chaney had tried to tell her. Stan had tried to tell her. Maybe she should have listened to one or both of them.
Too late now. Too late to do anything but make the best of it. And make herself at home.
She unpacked one bag. There didn't seem to be any point in emptying the others. She'd obviously have no use for the more civilized outfits she'd packed. She set her toiletries on the baseless sink in the bathroom and after checking for hot water and towels, returned to her cubicle.
Tinker had deposited himself on the foot of the bed to finish up the meticulous currying of his tail. He paused to eye her irritably then continued the task, not breaking the rhythm as she sat beside him on the bed. The mattress gave slightly, promising unexpected comfort. She lay back, only meaning to test the springs. Her exhausted body and soul had other ideas.
The soft sound of a door closing woke her to complete blackness. Two things about the north woods became abundantly clear. It was quiet and it was dark. Not the need-to-adjust-the-eyes-to-get-around kind of darkness that one had in the city but the pitch, unadulterated inkiness of nothing but stars and a sliver of a moon. No neons, no streetlights, no glancing headlights from passing cars, no glow from the telephone number pad or TV remote. Nothing. Nada. Darkness.
She crept from the room, her hand on the wall to guide her. And then the smell of something absolutely delectable pro-vided a beacon into the main living area. After fumbling around, she located a light switch to illuminate the big, empty room. A casserole dish sat next to the microwave on the counter. Her stomach rumbled in encouragement. She and Tinker sat to a hearty beef and rice mixture washed down with several glasses of the milk she found in the minifridge.
Fed, rested, and with dishes rinsed, Tessa allowed herself to be drawn back to the puzzle of the main house. Shut-ting a disgruntled Tinker inside, Tessa slipped out onto the narrow front porch. Immediately taken by the chill and the isolation, she wrapped her arms around herself and looked toward the only light in the vast black backdrop surrounding her.
