Stalked in Silver Valley

by Geri Krotow

  Warren picked up his feet again, striding forward. He moved past the office and through the various piles of discarded construction material. No one was in sight. Certain that he should be able to see some evidence of the commotion, Warren continued his walk. The farther away he got from the office, the more the darkness engulfed him. He half wanted to turn back, but he made himself carry on.

  They’re here somewhere.

  On cue, that same flickering light came into view, just past an enclosed utility trailer. Cautious now, Warren moved toward it. When he reached the wheeled structure, he at last spied the source of both the noise and the voices. About thirty feet away, just inside a circle of freshly planted trees, were two men. One had a shovel in his hands, the other held a wavering flashlight. The former of the two was younger, shorter and skinnier than the latter, who was gray-haired and quite heavyset. Warren didn’t recognize either of them, but that wasn’t surprising. While he was acquainted with many of the men and women who worked on-site, it would’ve been impossible to recognize every one of them. That didn’t stop the men’s presence from being puzzling. But as Warren continued to stare, the fact that they were there ceased being the most confusing aspect of the scenario. Instead, that honor belonged to holes that dotted the ground.

  In the dimness, Warren gave his eyes a quick rub, his mind trying to process what he was seeing. The area where the men stood was a designated greenspace. The trees would eventually grow in a thick grove. A large pond would be the centerpiece. When complete, it would be a beautiful space. Right then, though, the planned park area was the source of Warren’s very long, very bad day. The fallen-through permit had something to do with the proposed irrigation. Did the current activity relate to that in some way?

  Then, as if they’d read the turn of his thoughts, the younger man spoke up.

  “You’re telling me this couldn’t have been done before the construction got this far?” he asked.

  “You think it wouldn’t have been done, if the boss had known?” replied the older man.

  “How does something like this get overlooked?”

  “Clerical error. Bureaucratic mix-up. Kind of like the one that created the permit failure that let us be here today. Now dig, before you wind up in one of these holes, just like she did.”

  The shovel clanged obediently. And a chill, colder than the wind, slapped into Warren. The pair didn’t belong there in any legal capacity. The realization was like a physical blow. He stumbled, lost his footing, then hit the ground hard. To his ears, the thump sounded as loud as the thunder overhead. He scrambled backward, sure the two men would immediately turn his way, and equally sure the result wouldn’t work in his favor. Drawing in a shallow breath, he prepared to defend himself. No one changed their focus. The shovel hit the dirt and gravel. The beam of light bobbed up and down.

  Warren exhaled, and he shifted, carefully trying to push himself to his feet without attracting any notice. Except when he slid his hand over the dirt, his index finger caught on something. He gave it a tug. There was a momentary resistance, then his hand came free, and with it the item that had held it captive—a silver necklace, heavily tarnished and caked with mud. By itself, the object was unexpected. But as Warren’s eyes focused on the pendant that hung from the delicate chain, his confusion became a raging storm. He knew the pendant personally. He’d picked it himself, from a local artisan, and he’d fastened it around a girl’s neck. Twenty-five years earlier.

  It was impossible. Wasn’t it?

  Yet when he blinked, the necklace remained where it was, how it was.

  The world swam. Warren wondered if he was about to find out what it felt like to faint.

  What in God’s name is happening?

  “Hey!”

  The shout cut through the surreal blur, but it still took a too-long moment for him to clue in that the shout was directed his way. He’d been seen.

  Reacting instinctively—if belatedly—Warren sprang to his feet. Squeezing the necklace tight in his hand, he ran at dead speed all the way back to his truck, hopped in and peeled away without looking back. They would follow him. He knew it. But he also knew he had to try to get away.

  * * *

  Jeannette Renfrew was tired. And not just the need-a-bit-more-sleep, working-too-hard kind of tired. She was bone weary, what-possessed-me-to-take-this-shift tired.

  She yawned, and it was so wide and emphatic that it would’ve been embarrassing if there’d been anyone around to see.

  “So freaking tired,” she muttered, wiping a cloth over a saltshaker that she may or may not have wiped down a half a dozen times before. “Why did I agree to this?”

  Of course, she knew exactly why she had. And just what had possessed her, too. Cold, hard cash. Or maybe it would’ve been more accurate to call it lukewarm cash. In the form of a terrible hourly wage and the possibility of some equally terrible tips from the postbar crowd.

  Blearily, she lifted her eyes to the strawberry-shaped clock up on the wall. One minute past midnight. It meant she’d been there for a little over two hours. And that she’d be there for just under six more. There were also at least two hours before the bar patrons in question turned up. If they did.

  Rowan—the girl whose shift Jeannette was working—had told her that it was kind of a fifty-fifty thing. Sometimes, they picked More Coffee as their drunken haunt. Other times, they hit up a fast-food restaurant for a greasy poutine. Right then, Jeannette couldn’t decide which one she hoped for.

  “I just hope you and that dumb boyfriend of yours managed to make up, Rowan,” she said aloud to her not-present coworker.

  Rowan was exactly twenty-two years, three months, and eight days old. The other woman had told Jeannette so just that afternoon. And she’d added that she had no intention of rolling into her thirties—middle age, for crying out loud—as an old maid. Her mouth turned up into a half smile as she thought about the way the pretty brunette had clapped her hand over mouth, then gasped, “Not you!” as she realized who she was speaking to. But of course, Jeannette did kind of fit the dreaded description. Thirty-six. (And the months and days didn’t matter.) Presently unmarried. No kids. No prospect of either thing in her near future.

  By design, she reminded herself.

  Although maybe it wouldn’t be fair to say that the circumstances leading up to her current life state were a result of choice.

  As she stifled a sigh that would undoubtedly turn into yet another yawn, Jeannette realized that at some point over the last few minutes, she’d slid into one of the soft-backed booths and closed her eyes. She forced herself to lift her lids. But when she tried to stand, her body heaved a cranky protest.

  “Okay,” she said in the empty restaurant. “A ten-minute break. Then coffee, and then we get back to work. Or at least we do some of our homework while we wait for some customers to show up.” She paused. “And maybe stop talking aloud to ourselves. Myself, I mean.”

  She pinched the bridge of her nose and attempted to shift her mind onto something productive. Schoolwork was definitely a good option. Especially considering that she was going to be far too tired to get much of anything done the next day. And for a short bit, the refocus worked. The project she had due at the end of the following week for her third-year English class was worth a big chunk of her grade, and Jeannette felt like she’d barely started it. In fact, that worry had come up a lot lately. She was so close to being done with the program. She’d worked hard to get there. Overcome so much and put her past behind her. So why didn’t it feel like achieving her goal was going to bring the sense of satisfaction—the ownership of her life—that she’d assumed it would?

  Stop it. School is where you’re meant to be.

  And for a moment, her brain hung where it ought to. She debated whether a colorful, automated slideshow would be a better choice for the project, or if she should kick it old-school and make a cardboard fol
dout. Jane Eyre was a classic, and it deserved to be showcased in a way that would attract attention.

  Maybe I should come dressed in a period costume.

  A laugh bubbled up at the thought of her classmates’ reaction. There’d be attention all right. And maybe some teasing. Okay, possibly lots of teasing. They already ribbed her good-naturedly about her mature student status and her visible passion for learning. She didn’t mind. Not most of the time, anyway. But truthfully, just over three years ago, when she’d more or less started her life over, she hadn’t exactly thought it would go this way. She hadn’t expected to be unable to find a job in her field—early childhood education—and she hadn’t anticipated going back to school. When she had started down the road to becoming a teacher, she’d imagined roomfuls of like-minded people. Not a group of students who looked like kids.

  Jeannette’s smile fell off, and she wondered at what point she’d become a fist-shaking old lady who couldn’t pull an all-nighter.

  Just think about something else. Anything else.

  But the thing that popped to mind was almost as bad, though in a different way. It was a pair of blue eyes. A specific pair.

  “Really, Jeannie?” she grumbled. “You’re going to go there?”

  Pushing to her feet and grabbing her cloth, she tried to tell herself that it made total sense to think of the man attached to those eyes. After all, he was a customer. She was at work. And he hadn’t come in this morning on her regular shift, so he’d peppered her thoughts all day. Was he sick? Away? But for the last two years, he’d dropped in like clockwork at 7:17 a.m. Large coffee, black. The daily pastry special. Except for today—a fact noted not just by Jeannette, but by her boss and by Vishal, the other daytime barista.

  Jeannette gave the table an unnecessarily rough scrub. Mr. Blue Collar. That’s what they called him. And it was an apt nickname. He came dressed in work clothes, was unfailingly friendly and had the to-die-for baby blues. Of course, she knew more about him than that. She knew his name was actually Warren Wright and that he lived in a small town almost an hour away. She was aware that he’d worked his way up from construction helper to construction foreman to his current job—the owner of Wright Designs, a contracting company. But she would never admit any of that—or anything else she knew, either—to her coworkers. They bugged her enough about the imaginary love affair that they’d concocted.

  She finished the extra-thorough wipe down, then turned and tossed the cloth toward the sanitizing bucket. As the white fabric left her hands, the roar of an engine carried in from somewhere outside the front of the café. The noise startled her so badly that she couldn’t properly complete the throw. The cloth still almost hit its target. But instead of landing inside, it smacked the lip, sloshed the liquid up in a wild spray, then splatted to the ground in a puddle.

  Jeannette wrinkled her nose at the mess. “Could this night get any worse?”

  Then—as if provoked by the words—the front door slammed open so hard that it shuddered against the wall on the other side. Jeannette jumped, her heart in her throat. She turned toward the entrance, half-afraid of what she’d find. But if she’d had to make a guess as to who she’d see standing there, it certainly wouldn’t have been Mr. Blue Collar.

  Copyright © 2021 by Melinda A. Di Lorenzo

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  ISBN-13: 9780369713674

  Stalked in Silver Valley

  Copyright © 2021 by Geri Krotow

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

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