by Paula Graves
His green eyes snapped up to meet hers. “Yes,” he answered warily.
She slid the rest of the way into his grasp, anchoring her fingers on the ladder rungs. The hard heat of his body behind her felt like solid ground.
“As soon as I sober up, we’re doing that again. Understood?”
She felt his body shake lightly behind her as laughter whispered in her ear. “Understood.”
Step by careful step, they reached the safety of the patio together just as the fire trucks pulled into the driveway.
* * *
“THERE’S NOT MUCH to salvage, I’m afraid.” Delilah kept her voice low as she crossed to where Seth sat next to Rachel’s hospital bed. The E.R. doctor had insisted she stay overnight for observation, given how much smoke she’d inhaled. But he was optimistic that she’d be fine in a day or two.
“I know she’ll hate losing the mementos of her family,” he murmured, brushing his thumb against the back of her hand where it lay loosely in his palm. “But I don’t think she’ll miss that damned attic.”
“You’re right about that.” Rachel’s voice, thick with sleep, drew his attention back to the bed. Her eyes fluttered open. “So, we lived, huh?”
He squeezed her hands. “Yes, we did.”
She rubbed her reddened eyes. “I feel like I swallowed a smokestack.”
“You nearly did.”
The door of the hospital room opened, and Rafe Hunter breezed into the room on the sheer force of his personality, his wife, Janeane, bringing up the rear. Rafe nudged Seth aside and grabbed his niece’s hands. “Rachel, darling, are you all right?”
Rachel gave Seth a quick look over her uncle’s shoulder.
“I’ll be back in a little while,” he promised her, backing out of the room to let her family have time with her. Delilah came with him, laying her hand on his arm as he started to slump against the wall.
“There’s a waiting room down at the end of the hall,” she said, hooking her arm through his. “Ivy and Sutton need to talk to you.”
Seth didn’t like the bleak tone of Delilah’s voice. “What’s going on?” he asked as she led him into the small waiting area at the end of the corridor.
Inside were a handful of hospital visitors scattered among the rows of chairs and benches. At the far end, near the big picture window looking out on the eastern side of Maryville, Sutton Calhoun and Ivy Hawkins had their heads together with a grim-looking Antoine Parsons.
All three turned when he and Delilah walked up. “What’s happened?” Seth asked, his gut tight with dread.
“Paul Bailey is dead.”
Seth stared at Antoine. “I thought you caught him and took him into custody.”
“We did. We booked him, and he was waiting in his cell for his lawyer. The guard near his cell had to go referee a fight between a couple of drunks down the hall, and, when he got back, Bailey was dead.”
“Murdered?”
“We’re not sure.” Antoine sounded apologetic. “We don’t know if he ingested something or what. The coroner’s got the body already and should have the autopsy done in a few days.”
“He didn’t do all of this by himself,” Seth said firmly. “Someone was pulling his strings.”
“That’s what we think, too,” Ivy assured him. “This case isn’t over.”
Seth ran his hand over his jaw, his palm rasping over the day’s growth of beard. “Is Rachel still in danger?”
“Probably not,” Sutton said gently. “Paul Bailey was clearly the link. If he was in charge of the company, then whoever had control of him had access to the trucks. Without him, there’s no entry point. Whoever did this will just look for another fool to manipulate.”
“So the man behind the curtain just gets away with five murders and weeks of tormenting Rachel?” Rage burned in Seth’s gut, as hot and destructive as the fire that had licked at his heels in Rachel’s house.
“He won’t get away with it if we don’t let him,” Delilah said. “I’ve been thinking about what you told us. About Adam Brand.”
There was an odd tone to his sister’s voice that he hadn’t heard before. A vulnerability that she’d never really shown, not even as a girl. He looked at her and saw anxiety shining in her dark eyes.
“What about him?” he asked.
“I’ve been trying to reach him, going around the obvious channels. I called some people we both knew back in the day. And that story about his being on vacation? It’s bull. It’s just the official story, at least for now.”
“What’s the real story?” Sutton asked curiously.
Delilah’s expression went stony. “The real story is that he’s gone AWOL. And the FBI is investigating him for espionage.”
Seth shook his head firmly. “No way. Not Brand.”
His sister’s eyes blazed at him. “Something’s really wrong, Seth. Because there’s no way in hell Adam Brand would do anything to hurt this country. And now I’m wondering if what’s going on with him has anything to do with his reason for having you follow Rachel.”
“How?” Seth asked, not sure how to connect the two ideas together.
“I don’t know,” Delilah admitted. “I can’t see an obvious connection.” Her chin lifted. “But I’m going to find out.”
She pulled out her cell phone and walked over to an empty spot on the other side of the room.
Sutton’s gaze followed her movement briefly, then turned back to Seth. “I guess we owe you an apology.”
Seth shook his head. “Not yet. Let me get a few more years of the straight and narrow under my belt and then maybe you’ll owe me.”
“You’re really out of the life?” Ivy asked, more curious than disbelieving. “I hear it has a way of sucking you right back in.”
“I don’t want the guilt,” he said simply. “It’s not a life you can live if you have any sort of conscience, and apparently my daddy didn’t blow mine up in that explosion after all.”
Sutton looked at him through thoughtful eyes and gave a brief nod. “Good for you, Hammond. Prove everybody wrong.”
“Speaking of daddies, you talked to yours recently?” Seth asked.
“I went by to see him once I was back in the country,” Sutton answered. “He’s getting back a lot more of his functions than I think he ever believed he would.”
“I should have insisted he keep up with the therapy,” Seth said with regret. “I’m sorry.”
“He wasn’t ready then. You couldn’t have made him.” Sutton shrugged. “You went above and beyond. I owe you.”
“Not yet,” Seth repeated with a faint smile.
He waited a few more minutes, giving Rachel time with her family, until he could stand it no longer. He left the waiting room and headed back down the hall to her room.
Her aunt and uncle had gone, but Rachel was still awake. “Where’s the family?” he asked as she smiled sleepily at him.
“I asked them to call Diane,” she told him, her smile fading. “To let her know what’s going on with Paul.”
She didn’t know Paul was dead, he realized. He was tempted to keep that information from her until she felt better.
But that wasn’t fair, was it? Keeping things from her would only convince her she couldn’t trust him. He’d damned near been burned—literally—by his secrets. If he was serious about the straight and narrow, serious about becoming a man who could deserve a woman like Rachel Davenport, he had to start by telling the truth, even when it was unpleasant.
Even when it hurt.
He pulled up a chair by her bed and took her outstretched hand. “I just talked to Ivy and Antoine about Paul.”
Her fingers tightened around his. “He’s in really bad trouble, isn’t he? That’s why I wanted Uncle Rafe to talk to Diane. She’s always liked him. H
e’ll break it to her gently.”
“I don’t know how to say this but just say it. Paul is dead.”
Her fingers went suddenly limp in his. “Dead? How?”
He told her what he knew. “It’s possible he smuggled something into the jail. If we’re right about someone pulling his strings, it may be that he found death preferable than whatever his puppet master had in store for him.”
“He used to gamble in college—Diane used to bail him out all the time—but he went to rehab for it.”
“Sometimes—a lot of the time—good intentions aren’t enough. Sometimes, rehab doesn’t stick.”
Silence fell between them as they each considered the double meaning of his words. Rachel spoke first. “Someone made Paul do this. I don’t think he’d have done anything this terrible if he wasn’t under extreme pressure.”
Seth wasn’t as inclined to give Paul Bailey’s motives the benefit of the doubt, but he couldn’t argue with her logic. “The police are looking into Paul’s background, trying to figure out who he owed. If we figure that out, we’ll be able to protect you better.”
“So you think I’m still in danger?” She sounded deflated.
“Not the way you were, no. We don’t think so. Paul was the leverage to get a foothold in the trucking company. Without him, whoever was pulling his strings can’t get control over the trucks, and we’re pretty sure that’s what he wanted.”
“You don’t have any idea why he wanted control of the trucks?”
“Obviously the idea is to use them to ship some sort of contraband. We just don’t know what.”
“Couldn’t they buy their own trucks?”
“Probably not without greater scrutiny.”
“So he might already be under investigation?”
Seth thought about Adam Brand. Had the FBI agent tugged the tail of the wrong tiger? “Probably. We just have to match the suspect to the crime.”
“We do?” She quirked an eyebrow at him. “You’ve joined the Bitterwood P.D. now, hero?”
He smiled at the thought at first, but his smile quickly faded. It was a surprisingly tempting idea, he realized. And if he hadn’t burned his reputation to the ground, maybe he’d have had a chance to try his hand at being one of the good guys. “No, but I’m interested in the outcome of the case.”
Her lips curved again. “Because of me?”
Helpless to say no, he nodded. “Because of you.”
Her smile widened briefly but quickly faded. Tears welled in her eyes, and she brushed them away with an angry swipe of her fingers. “Poor Diane. She’s lost everyone.”
“She didn’t lose you. Right?”
Her fingers tightened around his. “Thanks to you.”
He kissed her knuckles. “There were a few minutes there I thought I was going to have to stay in that attic with you until the fire got us.”
“I wouldn’t have let that happen,” she said firmly.
He smiled at her confident tone. “Yeah, you say that now.”
“I meant what I said up there.”
Heat flushed through him as he remembered what she’d said, but he didn’t want to assume they remembered the same thing. She’d been drugged, after all. “Which part?”
Her lopsided smirk reassured him that they were thinking of the same thing. “You know which part.”
He shook his head. “What am I going to do with you?”
Her smirk grew into a full grin. “You need me to remind you?”
“I’m still a risky bet, Rachel. Not everyone’s going to be able to see beyond my past. They’re going to think you’re crazy for wanting to be with me....”
She pushed herself upright in the bed, leaning toward him to place her hand on his cheek. “I’m a big girl. I can take it. What I can’t take is life without you in it.”
Gazing into her shining blue eyes, he realized she meant every word she was saying.
He closed his hand over hers where it lay on his cheek. “I’m going to do everything I can to make sure you never regret your decision. I promise.”
She leaned closer, brushing her lips against his. “That’s a good, solid start. Don’t you think?”
He wrapped his arms around her, careful not to get tangled in her IV tube. “Yeah, it is,” he growled in her ear, breathing in the smoky sweet smell of her, letting it fill him with hope. “It’s a very good start.”
* * * * *
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Chapter One
JUST INSIDE THE door, she stopped to take a look around the apartment to make sure she hadn’t forgotten anything. This place, like all the others she’d lived in, held no special sentimental value for her. Neither would the next one, she thought. She’d learned a long time ago not to get too attached to anything.
The knock on the other side of the door startled her. She froze, careful not to make a sound. The building super, Mr. McNally, again, wanting the back rent? She should have left earlier.
Another knock. She thought about waiting him out, but her taxi was already downstairs. She would have to talk her way out of the building. It wasn’t as if this was the first time she’d found herself in a spot like this.
She opened the door, ready to do whatever it took to reach her taxi.
It wasn’t Mr. McNally.
A courier stood holding a manila envelope, a clipboard and a pen.
“Dee Anna Justice?” he asked.
She looked from him to the envelope in his hand. It looked legal. Maybe some rich uncle had died and left Dee Anna a fortune.
“Yes?”
He glanced past her into the empty apartment. She’d sold all the furniture and anything else that wasn’t nailed down. Seeing him judging her living conditions, she pulled the door closed behind her. He didn’t know her. How dare he? He had no idea what kind of woman she was, and he certainly wasn’t going to judge her by the mess she’d left in the apartment.
She cocked a brow at him, waiting.
“I need to see some identification,” he said.
Of course he did. It was all she could do not to smile. Well, sneer, as she produced a driver’s license in the name of Dee Anna Justice. She’d known where to get a fake ID since she was fourteen.
He shifted on his feet and finally held the pen out to her and showed her where to sign.
She wrote Dee Anna Justice the way she’d seen her former roommate do it dozens of times, and held out her hand impatiently for the envelope, hoping there was money inside. She was due for some good news. Otherwise the envelope and its contents would end up with the rest of the trash inside the apartment.
“Thanks a lot,” she said sarcastically, as the courier finally handed it over. She was anxious to rip into it right there, but she really needed to get out of here.
It wasn’t until she was in the backseat of the cab, headed for the train, that she finally tore open the envelope and pulled out the contents. At first she was a little disappointed. There was only a single one
-page letter inside.
As she read the letter through, though, she began to laugh. No rich uncle had died. But it was almost as good. Apparently Dee Anna had a cousin who lived on a ranch in Montana. She ran her finger over the telephone number. According to the letter, all she had to do was call and she would be on her way to Montana. With a sob story, she figured she could get her “cousin” to foot most if not all of her expenses.
She had the cabdriver stop so she could buy a cell phone in the name of Dee Anna Justice. After she made her purchase she instructed the driver to take her to the airport, where she bought a first-class ticket. She couldn’t wait to get to Montana and meet her cousin Dana Cardwell.
ISBN: 9781460315835
Copyright © 2013 by Paula Graves
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