Lover Beware

by Christine Feehan

  “Do you reckon he did it?”

  Jane glanced at the red-haired woman who’d paused beside her, a toddler clasped on one hip. Yolanda Perkins was a plump, happily married mother of four. She and her husband, John, owned a small farm, and John also operated a lucrative earthmoving business. Yolanda had often been heard to say that, given John’s indifferent skills with anything that had hooves or ate grass, the D-eight bulldozer was the only thing that kept them solvent.

  Jane lifted her final bag of groceries into the rear of the station wagon and transferred her attention to the small crowd that had gathered on the sidewalk, which included a TV news crew, who had materialized out of a brightly painted van. “No,” she said flatly. “He didn’t do it.”

  Macie Hume, the barmaid at the local pub, stepped out of the shade of the supermarket overhang, a shocking pink handbag, which clashed wildly with her lime green microskirt, in one hand, and a polystyrene cup of coffee from Stevie’s take-out bar in the other. She eyed the police station and grinned. “I don’t care whether he did it or not, I can think of a better use for those cuffs.”

  Marg Tayler, who had managed the local drapery since time immemorial, and whose family Tayler’s Creek had been named after, emerged from the narrow frontage of her shop, crossed her arms over her thin chest, and eyed Macie. “He’s taken,” she remarked gruffly.

  Macie set her coffee down on the car parked next to Jane’s, rummaged for sunglasses, and slid them onto the bridge of her nose. “Do tell. Who’s the lucky girl, then?”

  “That’s nobody’s business but his own.”

  Macie settled her hip against the car bonnet and sipped her coffee. “I might decide to make Rider my business. I’d hate to see all that man go to waste.”

  “Like you haven’t tried already,” someone called from beneath the shady overhang. “What are you gonna do, Macie, write to him in prison?”

  Macie sipped her coffee and flipped her middle finger in the general direction of the comment.

  Marg frowned at the gathering crowd, her eyes glittering with the light of battle. “Why don’t you people just go home and leave the boy alone. When he’s been here at all, he’s never done anything but help.” She fixed an older man with a sharp glare. “You can attest to that, Mason. Didn’t he help dig that cow of yours out of the river last spring?”

  Mason Wheeler, another local identity whose family had been one of the original settlers of Tayler’s Creek, looked uncomfortable. “That he did.”

  “And did he try to shoot you while he was about it?”

  A crease formed between Mason’s bushy eyebrows. “Don’t be ridiculous—”

  “I’m not being ridiculous.” She tapped her forehead. “I’m using this. Wish Tucker was capable of doing the same; maybe then we’d get some crimes solved. For my money, Tucker needs to retire. I’d put Rider in the job.”

  Mason looked outraged. “He can’t take Tucker’s job. He has to be trained.”

  “He’s trained,” Marg retorted flatly. “Afghanistan, Bosnia, Bougainville, Timor…You want me to go on?”

  Mason crossed his arms over his chest. “That doesn’t mean he can do a policing job.”

  Marg rolled her eyes. “What it means is he’s been doing a policing job, and he’s got the medals to prove it. Ever heard of peacekeeping, Mason? It’s in the papers a lot these days, on account that some people can’t settle their problems with common sense and discussion, they have to use a gun to finish their arguments. That’s the job Rider’s been doing, and he picked up a bullet a couple of years back for his trouble. If Tucker ever comes near a live round, aside from a misfire because he’s dropped his gun, I’ll eat every hat in my store. And that,” she muttered beneath her breath, “would probably kill me.”

  Someone muttered that it would take a hell of a lot more than that to kill the old bird.

  Marg didn’t bother to turn her head. “I heard that, Owen,” she said calmly. “I was talking to your mother this morning. Shouldn’t you be in Winslow today, picking up your benefit? Or have you finally got a job?”

  There was a muttered imprecation, as Owen Mullens, a lanky blond youth who had more of an affinity for surfboards than anything that might have a paycheck attached to it, slunk back into the shadows.

  There was a small silence as Marg marched pointedly back to her shop, which was wedged between the supermarket and the police station.

  Ely Murdoch, the head of the community council, and Tayler’s Creek’s self-appointed mayor, cleared his throat and adjusted the bill cap shading his craggy face. “Well, whoever did do the crime stole the Dillons’ home theatre that was worth upwards of twenty thousand dollars. And all the videos.” He shook his head. “Apparently the screen was one of those fancy new ones you hang on the wall.”

  There was another small silence, then someone murmured, “Wonder what was on the videos?”

  Jane snapped her boot closed, abruptly sickened by the prurient interest in the petty details of the crime, when Rider was probably at this very minute being read his rights and questioned. She was more certain than ever that he could never have committed such a crime. Marg had hit the nail on the head when she’d stated that Michael wasn’t a criminal, he was one of the good guys.

  She glanced at Mason, who seemed set and determined that Michael was guilty. “In this country people are innocent until proven guilty. Michael hasn’t been proven guilty yet.”

  Mason’s expression was cold. “The police don’t cuff people for no reason. An arrest’s been made, which means they must have evidence.”

  Cold skimmed the length of Jane’s spine. Her mind replayed the image of Michael being pushed down the path to the entrance of the police station, and it registered that her own inner certainty aside, she knew less about her neighbour than she’d thought. She knew he was a special forces soldier; she knew he was trained to kill, and neither fact was reassuring.

  Nothing about Michael Rider was designed to make people feel comfortable. He was too overtly male, too mysterious, a double handful of everything that was wild and dangerous. She was beginning to think she was crazy, fixating on him for so many years.

  He was an unknown quantity. Even more so than she’d imagined, because according to Marg, he wasn’t single as Jane had thought; he was involved with someone.

  The fact that he had a girlfriend should have filled her with relief, given that she’d spent the last three days hyperventilating about the possibility that he might want her. But she didn’t feel relieved. After months of living in an emotionless limbo, something had finally broken through her numbness. Against all odds, against all common sense, imagining Michael Rider sprawled in bed, naked, with another woman hurt.

  Yolanda shifted her toddler to her other hip and stabbed a finger at Mason. “You’ve changed your tune. I heard you say just the other day that Michael Rider was a hero.”

  “That was before Aubrey Dillon got shot, and his wife got raped.”

  “There are plenty of men in this town who had their eye on Carol Dillon; I don’t think Rider was in the running. Carol must be in her forties, a little old for Rider.”

  “Rape is rape. Age don’t come into it.”

  Macie made a sound of disgust. “God give me strength, we have an expert.” She viewed Mason over the rim of her coffee cup. “Why would a guy who looks like Michael Rider bother with rape?”

  Mason looked triumphant. “Everyone knows rape is a power crime.”

  Macie rolled her eyes. “Take one look at Rider, buddy. I don’t think he has any issues with power. He’s been beating women off ever since his wife left seven years ago. I know,” she said wryly. “I’m one of them.”

  “Way to go, Macie.”

  Macie flipped another finger in the direction of the supermarket overhang. “And if Rider didn’t do the deed, that means the murderer is still out there, maybe lining up his next target.”

  “Maybe the murderer’s a woman.”

  Yolanda snorted and gave Mas
on an incredulous look. “Get a grip, Mason. There was a rape. The police took samples, which means there was semen. I could be wrong, but I don’t think women have managed to produce semen yet. If they had, we’d be able to cut men out of the reproduction process. Now, that would be world news.”

  Mason’s neck flushed bright red. “I’m going to tell your husband you said that.”

  Yolanda rolled her eyes. “Oh yeah, four kids down the track and one vasectomy later—like he’s going to be threatened. He knows that if he so much as comes near me with sperm, I shoot to kill. Look, maybe they’ve got the right guy, and maybe they haven’t, but I’m not going to take it for granted. If I were you I’d get an alarm system installed and lock up tight, because until I hear that Rider did do the crime, I’m going to assume that the murderer is still out there.”

  “I heard Rider’s got guns, including a twenty-two.”

  Jane jerked her keys from the boot lock. “Practically everyone in the district has a gun, and Rider’s got more reason than most to own guns. He’s a professional soldier.”

  “He’s used to killing.”

  “Yeah, right, so he’s bright enough to leave the SAS and open fire on his hometown? I don’t think so.”

  “John Tucker brought him in cuffed,” Mason said stubbornly. “There’s no smoke without fire.”

  Jane eyed Mason coldly. There hadn’t been any logic in this conversation from the get-go, she didn’t know why she expected any now. “In five years, Tucker’s biggest arrest was that crew from Winslow who were stealing farm bikes and rustling cattle. Apart from that he rousts drunks and prosecutes shoplifters. Homicide is not exactly his strong suit.”

  “I don’t care what Tucker’s expertise is. He’s got a suspect, and that’s good enough for me.”

  “Then you’re easy to please. I hope you sleep well tonight, Mason, because I won’t be.”

  There was a general murmur of assent, punctuated by a sharp cracking sound as Macie crumpled her coffee cup.

  “I don’t care if he did do it.” Macie glanced in the direction of the police station as she straightened with a graceful movement and slung the strap of her purse over one shoulder.

  “Speaking for every female on the planet, it would be criminal to lock that up for any length of time.”

  Chapter 4

  GRIMLY, MICHAEL STEPPED out of the police cruiser onto the gravel drive that formed a circular area in front of his house. In contrast to the dry heat of the day, the evening was hot and brassy, laden with the pressurized steam-bath heat that presaged cyclone weather. The humidity was already climbing out of his comfort zone so that his skin was sheened with sweat, and his leg was aching, which meant it was going to rain. His head was aching, too, but that was because he’d been battering it against Tucker’s entrenched police procedure all day long.

  He’d had no alibi, since apart from the hour he’d spent at Jake Robertson’s house, he’d spent that evening home, alone, so they’d had to wait on the sketch that the police artist had put together that morning with Carol Dillon, along with the fingerprint records, which hadn’t yet been entered into their data system and had to be faxed along with the sketch.

  While they’d waited for the paperwork to feed through the machine, he’d gone through the rigmarole of having his prints taken. Tucker had wanted a DNA sample as well, but Michael had held his ground on that one. The hell he was going to have a needle stuck in his arm on Tucker’s say-so, when he didn’t have to. It was bloody-minded—he wouldn’t miss the few cc’s of blood they required to get their DNA, and basically he didn’t begrudge it, because he had no intention of committing any crimes—but by that time he’d been seriously pissed.

  When the fax had come through, the print had been so dark, no one had been able to make out any conclusive detail, so an officer had been dispatched from Winslow with a copy of the evidence file.

  When the records had finally arrived, the sketch had shown a male Caucasian with long, dark hair, which had, apparently, been another deciding factor in the decision to take him into custody, but the hairstyle had been wildly different from his. For some reason no one had seen fit to tell Tucker that while the murderer did have long hair, it was distinctively styled: cropped short on top, with rat tails hanging around his shoulders.

  On the evidence of the sketch alone, Tucker’s case was shaky, because there was no way Michael could have grown his hair back to full length in the two and a half days that had passed since the murder and rape had taken place. When they’d finally confirmed that his prints didn’t match any of those found either at the Dillons’ residence or any of the other sites of the recent wave of home invasion crimes, Tucker had had no choice but to let him go.

  Michael watched while his guns were unloaded and deposited on the lawn beside the drive, his cold gaze on Parker as the nervous officer nearly dropped the Ruger again.

  When the cruiser accelerated down his driveway, leaving behind a cloud of dust, Michael took a deep breath, and let it out slowly. “Welcome to Tayler’s Creek.”

  Sonovabitch.

  Sometimes he wondered why he bothered to come back.

  Although, he’d seen the reason today, and her expression had been so blank, he had to wonder if she even knew he existed.

  Broodingly, he surveyed the house, and what land he could see. The paddocks weren’t in great shape, because he’d leased them for grazing for years, but that was nothing he couldn’t fix up with hard work, sweat, and herbicide. In contrast, the rambling old colonial farmhouse was in good condition because he’d systematically renovated and repaired it every time he’d had leave to burn. He’d scraped paint, replaced weatherboards, repainted, and replaced the roof. He’d built a deck off the family room and, when he’d finished on the house, he’d put in a lot of time renovating the stables and the implement shed. He’d kept his hands and his mind busy; otherwise he would have gone crazy wondering what was happening over at the O’Reilly place.

  The house had originally belonged to his parents, who had bought the property fifteen years ago, but when his father had died, his mother had decided to move to a tidy little two-bedroom town house in Winslow, rather than cope with the large, sprawling homestead. Michael and his ex-wife had bought the place because at the time it had suited their needs—the farm was large enough that it would provide enough income that he could quit the SAS and they could start a family. The second he’d laid eyes on their new neighbour, Jane O’Reilly, that plan had crashed and burned.

  He’d toyed with the idea of selling up and moving elsewhere with Clare, but he’d known instantly that that wouldn’t work. Normally, he was disciplined and focused—a real pain in the ass to most people. He was used to controlling every area of his life, including his libido, but no matter how hard he’d tried he’d found he couldn’t make himself want Clare. He’d wanted Jane, it had been that simple.

  He hadn’t wanted to hurt Clare, but as hard as he’d tried not to, he had hurt her, although from all accounts, she hadn’t taken too long to get over him, and was now happily married to a barrister in Auckland.

  Eyes narrowed, Michael surveyed the sky, which had turned leaden; the clouds churned and clotted, and were struck through with molten shafts of light as the sun dipped into the west. The air was thick with moisture and tasted like brimstone. After weeks of drought, there was going to be an unholy bitch of a storm, and the bad weather suited his mood.

  Michael went down on his haunches beside the guns, picked up the Ruger and examined the walnut stock. There was no evidence of a scratch, which meant Zane could live, although he wasn’t making any promises about Tucker. If he ever turned up on his property again in an official capacity, Michael was likely to put a hot round in his butt and the jail term be damned.

  Jaw tight, he began carting the guns and ammunition into the house and securing them in his gun safe. When he was finished, he took a shower, changed into fresh jeans and a T-shirt, and grabbed the keys to his truck. Jane’s driveway was situ
ated a kilometre north on the main road, although as the crow flies her house was a lot closer, the walking distance from his house to hers, less than half that.

  He could walk over there now, but it was ingrained in him not to take that casual an approach. He’d always taken pains to keep his distance and preserve a certain formality in his dealings with both Jane and Patrick, unwilling to hurt a dying man, because he couldn’t keep his hands off Patrick O’Reilly’s wife, but right now he was too steamed to walk anywhere.

  When he drew up next to the O’Reilly cottage, the long extended twilight had condensed into early dusk, helped along by the thick mantle of cloud. All the lights were off in the house, and Jess was barking.

  Michael knocked on the front door. When there was no reply, he walked around the side of the house, his gaze brooding as he knocked on the kitchen door, then scanned the smoothly mown lawns, the neatly weeded vegetable garden, and the lush shrubbery. Jess was tied up, which meant Jane was out.

  He strolled over to the kennel and went down on his haunches beside the little dog. She whined and shoved her muzzle at his hand. He rubbed behind her ears. “At least you’re not afraid of me.”

  He had a strong suspicion that Jane was frightened out of her skin of him, and the way he felt right now, she should be.

  He did a quick circuit of the outbuildings, automatically testing the locks, the urge to check the security of the buildings ingrained. The O’Reilly place was, in stark contrast to his, as neat and tidy as a new pin. A small herd of southdown sheep grazed in the paddock adjacent to the house, their wool recently clipped. The fences and the stockyard were in good repair, and the barn had just had a fresh coat of paint. He checked her garage and saw that it was empty.