by Sandra Brown
After Jasper left the house, there was no point in eavesdropping. Drex stored away the audio surveillance gear, booted up his laptop, and began rereading the information he had collected over the years about the eight women who had disappeared. If the material were converted to hard copy, the contents would fill a moving van.
Today, he applied what he now knew or sensed about Jasper Ford, searching for a connection to his victims. Had one of the women been a gourmet cook? Had one favored the bourbon Jasper drank? Had one shared his preference for Dijon mustard over ketchup? One small thing, previously overlooked, could be the link Drex was desperate to find, especially now that he feared his culprit had an even darker side.
Was it invisible to his victims until it was too late? Had his victims sensed it but ignored it? What had made them susceptible? What had made Talia susceptible?
He was still dwelling on that question several hours later when there came a knock.
He sat with his hand cupped over his mouth, absorbed in whatever was on his computer screen. When she tapped on the doorjamb, he came out of his chair so abruptly, it went over backward and landed on the hardwood floor with a loud clack.
“Mercy.” Talia pressed her hand against her thumping chest. It would be hard to say which had startled her most: his sudden reaction, or seeing him shirtless and barefoot, wearing only a pair of cargo shorts. Flustered, she said, “I didn’t mean to scare you.”
“I scare easily.”
She doubted that. A man with reflexes that lightning quick would have little to fear.
He righted the chair, closed his laptop, and came over to the door. She asked, “What are you most afraid of?”
“Failure.”
She’d been teasing, but he hadn’t paused to think about it, and he’d answered so unequivocally, she knew he was serious. Feeling awkward and rethinking the wisdom of coming over, she said, “Should I have called ahead?”
“You don’t have my number.”
“Oh. Right.”
He smiled. “If you’ve come to borrow a cup of sugar, I’m all out.”
“Oh. Well then…” She heaved a sigh and turned as though to leave.
He chuckled. “What’s up?”
She came back around and glanced beyond him at the setup on the table. “I don’t want to pull you away from your work.”
“Please. Rescue me.”
“I’m not bothering you?”
He looked on the verge of saying something, but apparently thought better of it. To this point they’d been talking through the screen door. “Want to come in?”
“Only to be nosy.”
He grinned and unlatched the lock.
“I’ve never been up here,” she said as she stepped inside.
“I doubt you’ll think the view is worth the climb up those stairs.”
She stood in the center of the room and pivoted to make a complete circle. When she came back to him, he grimaced and reached up to rub the back of his neck.
“I know,” he said. “It’s not even—what’s the term?”
“Shabby chic?”
“This is shabby shit.”
She laughed. “It has potential. With a can of paint and…”
“A hundred thousand dollars.”
They shared another smile. She gestured behind her toward the window. “The tree is lovely, though. The moss seems to have been draped by a decorator.”
“Yeah. It gives me something to stare at while I daydream.” He wasn’t staring at the Spanish moss in the tree, however. He was looking into her eyes. Abruptly he said, “Excuse me a sec.”
He went around her and into the bedroom, pushing the door partially closed. She walked over to the window. He didn’t exactly live in the shadow of their house as Jasper had said, but through the branches of the tree, she could see the back of it almost in its entirety. Screened porch, kitchen windows, the windows of the master bedroom upstairs. Since the Arnotts’ departure in June, she hadn’t had to concern herself with keeping the window treatments closed at night. She realized the need to now.
Hearing him reenter the main room, she turned. He’d put on a faded t-shirt and his docksiders, but she didn’t comment on the change, because it would make them each mindful that she’d caught him bare-chested and wearing a pair of shorts that hung tenuously from his sharp hipbones. It seemed best to pretend she hadn’t noticed.
The t-shirt was faded. His chin was bristly. He had bed-head, the saddle brown strands even more unruly than they’d been the night before. But his eyes—agate in color and ringed in black like those of a tiger—looked anything but sleepy as they focused on her.
“I didn’t know you wore glasses,” she said.
He took them off and, with a puzzled expression, inspected them. “Who put those there?”
She laughed.
He set the horn-rims on the table next to his laptop. “What’s Jasper up to this morning?”
“He went to our country club.”
“He’s a golfer?”
“No. The club has an Olympic-size pool. He swims laps. A serious number of laps.”
“Every day?”
“Unless it’s lightning and they close the pool.”
“Huh. That explains his well-defined traps. You swim, too?”
“No.”
He snapped his fingers. “Your aversion to sun exposure and water.”
“Right. I can stay afloat, but I don’t really get anywhere.”
“So what do you do for exercise?”
“Spin class. Stationary bike.”
“Ah. That explains your well-defined…” He stopped, looked away from her, tipped his head down and scratched his eyebrow with his thumb. Then said, “Would you like something to drink?”
“Sure.” She said it brightly, maybe a bit too brightly, because she was wondering what of hers he found well-defined and why he’d changed his mind about telling her.
The kitchen was open to the rest of the room, demarcated only by a rectangle of vinyl flooring. The handle on the refrigerator door was loose and rattled when he pulled on it. “Water, Diet Coke, beer.”
“What are you having?”
He looked at her over his shoulder. “Wanna play hooky and have a beer?”
She raised her eyebrows in a yes.
He uncapped two bottles and brought them over. They clinked bottles before drinking. The beer went down cold and bitter. “Playing hooky is fun.”
He studied her for a second, then snuffled.
“What?”
“Be truthful now,” he said. “You’ve never played hooky a day in your life.”
She ducked her head. “My parents had great expectations.”
“You sought their approval.”
“Yes, but I was stricter on myself than they were on me.”
“No naughtiness? Not ever?”
“Not often.”
“Hmm. I see potential here. Stick around,” he drawled. “I can corrupt you in no time at all.”
“Jasper said you’d be ballsy enough to try.”
“He said I’m ballsy?”
“He did.”
“Remind me to thank him.”
He saluted her with his beer bottle, and she saluted him back, then walked over to the table. She set her index finger on the blank top sheet of a stack of paper that had seen wear and tear. “Your manuscript?”
“Or a pile of manure. Hard to differentiate.”
“I doubt it’s that bad.”
“Trust me.”
“Is this your only copy?”
“Only hard copy. I back up each day’s work on two thumb drives.”
She ran her finger up the curled corners of the sheets. “I don’t suppose you’d let me take a peek.”
“Absolutely not.”
“I’ll give you an honest assessment.”
“I already have an honest assessment. Mine. It sucks.”
“Then a second opinion could be beneficial.”
He shook
his head. “Not yet.”
Jasper was patently suspicious of Drex. Her reservations weren’t that steep, but she admitted to being intrigued by his reticence. Reading his book, even though it was fiction, could provide insight into the man behind the disarming dimple. But even as she had asked to read it, she’d known with near certainty that he would refuse. She didn’t try to persuade him. Rather, she said, “I Googled you this morning.”
His brow arched eloquently. “I’ve fantasized being Googled by a beautiful woman.”
Without acknowledging either the compliment or the innuendo, she set her bottle of beer on the table and crossed her arms over her middle. “Another joke, another deflection. Aren’t you going to ask me why I plundered the Internet in search of information on you?”
“I’m not that vain.” Then he seemed to reconsider. “Well, I guess I am. What about me sent you plundering?”
“Is Drex Easton a nom de plume or your real name?”
He formed a slow grin. “You didn’t find anything, did you?”
She didn’t admit it, but her silence confirmed his guess, and his grin widened.
“I told you last night, Talia. Even I’m bored with me.”
“Is it your real name?”
“Yes. Given to me by my dad.”
She hesitated, then asked softly, “What happened to your mother?”
“I haven’t the faintest.”
She flinched. “What do you mean?”
“Exactly what I said. It’s the God’s truth, and that’s all I’m going to say on the subject.”
“Why the secrecy?”
He set down his beer bottle hard enough to make a thump against the tabletop. “What difference does my past make to you? Or, for that matter, my present and future?”
“Because of Elaine.”
Chapter 10
Drex seemed taken aback by her answer, which wasn’t the whole truth, but it had moved them off the track that she’d been following—his past. It was the one subject that made him restive and annoyed.
Now, his forehead wrinkled with perplexity. “Elaine? Am I missing something?”
“Jasper told me you planned to invite her to dinner.”
He raised his shoulders in a silent So?
“I’m not sure…That is, I hope…” She stopped, pushed her fingers through her hair, and said, “I’m botching this.”
He placed his hands on his hips and tilted his head slightly. An attitude of impatient waiting.
She took a deep breath. “In the time I’ve known Elaine, she’s had a string of romantic disappointments. A man expresses interest, she tends to become infatuated very quickly and then falls hard, only to discover that he was less attracted to her than to her—”
He held up a hand. “I get it. You want to protect her from a man like me who has no visible means of support and is looking for a rich…” In search of an appropriate word, he twirled his hand. “Patroness?”
“I’ve insulted you.”
“No shit.”
“That wasn’t my intention, Drex. It’s just that Jasper and I have become very fond of Elaine. Because she’s innately affectionate and generous, she sets herself up to be taken advantage of. We don’t want to see her hurt.”
“By a snake like me.”
She blew out a breath. “Insulted and angered.”
He didn’t say anything.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have interfered.” She turned to go, but he hooked his hand in the bend of her elbow and gently brought her back around.
“Look, taking Elaine to dinner seems like an appropriate way to thank her for her hospitality on Sunday. That’s my only agenda. Okay?”
She looked up at him with chagrin. “Now I feel small.”
He let several seconds lapse, then placed his hand flat on the top of her head before drawing it toward his chest to measure her height against his collarbone. “You are small.”
With him looking down on her, and her looking up at him, they smiled at each other. Smiles that didn’t show teeth. Small, olive branch–extending smiles that faded with continuance and, as they aged, assumed a different, uncertain, and unsettling nature, until they didn’t count as smiles at all.
He was the first to speak. Huskily. “What night?”
“What?”
He cleared his throat. “What night would be best for you and Jasper? You say, then I’ll check with Elaine. And, yes, she gave me her number. But, no, I didn’t ask for it.”
Talia figured she deserved that dig. “Thursday?”
“Perfect. What are you in the mood for?”
“Oh!” She thumped her forehead with the heel of her hand. “That’s the reason I came over. Jasper told me that you had requested a list of good restaurants. He asked me to compile one for you.”
She took a sheet of notepaper from the front pocket of her jeans and passed it to him. “These are within a reasonable driving distance. They’re all reliably good. I prefer the Italian.”
Without even glancing at the list, he said, “Italian it is.”
She began backing away from him toward the door. With a flick of her hand toward the table, she said, “Thanks for the beer. I don’t remember when I last drank one.”
“See? You’re already halfway to being corrupted. A cupcake for breakfast. Beer for lunch.”
She laughed and moved toward the door. He got there first and opened it for her. She stepped out onto the landing, where she halted and came back around, standing in the wedge between the threshold and screen door he held open. “How did you know I had a cupcake for breakfast?”
His parted his lips to speak, but nothing came out.
“Drex? How did you know that?”
Again, he hesitated before raising his free hand and whisking the pad of his thumb across her cheek near the corner of her mouth, then holding his thumb up to where she could see. “Chocolate icing.”
Following Talia’s visit, the afternoon dragged on torturously. Drex almost wished she hadn’t come. Almost. Because now he couldn’t escape seeing her in this tacky room. She’d stood there. She’d touched that. Her voice and laughter echoed off the ugly wallpaper. Her scent permeated the stuffy air.
He tried to immerse himself in the case files, but having studied them for years, he knew their contents almost by heart. By reading the first few words of a sentence, he already knew its ending. The material held his attention for only minutes at a time before his mind drifted to something Talia had said or done.
At dusk, he gave up, shut down shop at his computer, and went for a run through the neighborhood. As he was returning, the Fords were backing out of their driveway in Jasper’s car. Both waved to him.
He smiled and waved back, when what he felt like doing was to drive his fist through the windshield. Despite the difference in their ages, he had to admit they made a striking pair.
Before showering, he carted Jasper’s box fan down the staircase and to the door of their screened porch, where he left it outside. He used a corner of it to anchor a note of thanks he’d written on a sheet of typing paper. He added the name of the restaurant where he’d made a reservation. Thursday night. 7:30. Party of four.
Elaine had accepted his invitation. It would worry Talia to know how exuberant her acceptance had been.
He watched a detective show on his laptop while eating his dinner of frozen pizza. The apartment’s antique oven had given it an old grease-smoke taste. He didn’t finish it. He wasn’t hungry anyway.
He didn’t go out, fearing that Talia and Jasper would come home during his absence, and he would miss an informative conversation.
Ten o’clock came, and they still hadn’t returned. Ready to climb the walls, he called Mike and Gif. “They’re still out, but I thought I’d go ahead and report the day’s events.”
He started by relating the breakfast table conversation and concluded by saying, “Jasper’s nursing suspicion of me, but hasn’t come after me with a hatchet.”
“Ye
t,” Mike said.
Drex asked if there had been anything out of Rudkowski. Not a peep.
“Which is a good thing,” Gif said.
“Or not,” Mike intoned. “If we’d heard rumblings, at least we’d know what he was up to.”
Drex agreed. “It’ll be eating at him that I inquired about Marian Harris, and then left for a two-week vacation to an unknown destination. He’ll be looking for me. I’m on borrowed time here.”
He cited the little he had to show for the time he’d already spent in residence and, pursuant to that, finally worked his way around to telling them about Talia’s visit. “She just appeared, took me completely off-guard.”
He told them about scrambling to close his laptop before she could see what was on the screen, making himself decent, and ensuring that his pistol, ID, and night vision binoculars were out of sight. “Fortunately I’d already put away the surveillance equipment.”
Mike gave a grunt. “She came uninvited?”
“Like I said. She was hand-delivering a list of good local restaurants. I had hoped to get a sampling of Jasper’s handwriting. Instead, Talia brought over a typewritten list she had compiled. At his request.”
“How long did she stay?”
“Hmm, ten, twelve minutes.” At least twice that long.
“What all did you talk about?” Gif asked.
“She asked to read my manuscript. I told her no way in hell. Words to that effect. Then she started in on me, asking about my past. I turned the tables on her and asked why she should care.”
“Why should she care?” Mike asked.
“She’s afraid her friend will develop a crush on me.”
“Her friend Elaine?”
“Yeah. Talia was mother-henning. I set her straight on why I asked Elaine to dinner.” He gave them the basic info, skimmed over the details.
He skimmed over a lot. He didn’t describe to them Talia’s old, holey jeans and how perfectly they fit her well-defined buns. Did they really need to know what her high, round B-cups did for a plain white t-shirt? He didn’t mention the beer. For sure as hell he didn’t tell them about lifting the speck of chocolate off her face with his thumb and wishing he could have licked it off and then stayed to tease the corner of her lips until they parted for him.
