Sinful Suspense Box Set

by Tess Oliver

  This time I was ready for the darkness. The fuzzy feeling in my head, left behind from his slap, had cleared. I quickly began moving boxes, suppressing cough fits by holding my breath. The last thing I needed was to have anyone above hear me. The boxes, some heavy with old books, had obviously been there before, during and after the library fire. It seemed after the building had been destroyed, no one had bothered to check the cellar for books.

  Many of the boxes had chewed edges. The thought of hundreds of tiny eyes staring at me from all the cracks and crevices made me shiver. This place would be a dream come true for Rusty. I hurried my pace. People would be worried about me, and they needed my help. I needed to get free of this place, of Griggs.

  The window was so crusted with dirt, no light could stream through it. But one side of the old wooden frame had been rotted through by moisture. That thin space was enough to usher through the cool outside air. Otherwise, I might never have found it.

  I glanced around for something to help pry open the window. An old mop and bucket were propped up beneath the stairs. I pulled them out. The long strands of cotton on the mop end had decayed away, leaving behind the metal bar that’d once held the cleaning end in place.

  I made my way around the maze of boxes to the table and climbed up on it. I pushed the metal bar against the wood frame. It crumbled beneath the pressure of the metal as if it had been made of sand instead of wood. It would be easier than I’d expected. The frame was really no longer a frame at all. Animals, insects and bad weather had destroyed the integrity of the wood. It peeled apart in long strips. More fresh air seeped into the cellar, and I drank it in like cool, refreshing water on a hot day. The window had only a tenuous hold on the wall once the frame had been stripped away.

  Footsteps sounded in the hallway above the stairs. Voices rumbled through the ceiling. Whoever it was, they’d stopped to have a conversation. It was my only chance. The table shook beneath my feet as I stood on top of it. I grabbed hold of a pipe running along the ducts overhead. With all my strength, I shoved the window with my foot. It fell out just as a pair of men’s shoes appeared outside. I jumped off the table and shrank back in the dark. The person stopped and lowered his face to look inside the cellar. My hand flew to my mouth to cover my cry of relief.

  Jackson peered around and found me standing there amongst the piles of boxes.

  “Hey, Charli.” He climbed inside, jumped off the table and glanced around at the disarray I’d created during my escape plan. “I came to rescue you, but it seems I’d forgotten that you were the type of girl who could pry open a cellar window and find her own way out of danger.”

  I glanced down at the shirt, his shirt that was now covered in dust. “I’d hug you, but I’m really dirty.”

  He grabbed my hand and pulled me into his arms. “Well, then you’re in luck.” He kissed my nose. “Because I like dirty just fine.”

  Voices sounded in the hallway.

  “We better get out of here.” Jackson led me to the window where daylight seeped into the lightless room. His blue eyes deepened with concern as he took hold of my chin and turned my face to get a better view of the red mark. “Did Griggs do this?” Rage sparked between the words.

  “I hit him with a dusty box.”

  Even in the poor light, I could see his jaw clench tight. Footsteps stopped at the cellar door. Jackson gave me a leg up and out the window. I crawled out onto the grass and turned around to give him my hand. He was no longer on the table. I lowered my head inside. Jackson was standing at the base of the stairs just off in the shadows. He waved for me to get back. I leaned out of sight but could still see into the room. My pulse raced as the cellar door opened.

  Griggs plodded down the creaky steps in his spit-polished loafers. “Sonavabitch,” he growled as he noticed the open window. He turned to shout back up the stairs, but his call for help was stopped by Jackson’s fist.

  Griggs flew back into the piles of boxes, kicking up another dust storm. Jackson reached down and yanked him up by the shirt. “You see, when you grow up with a brother like Gideon, you either learn how to hit or you end up doing all your brother’s chores.” He hit him again. The sickening, thudding sound of knuckles smacking flesh and bone echoed off the walls.

  Footsteps thundered along the ceiling above the cellar.

  “Jackson,” I called into the room.

  He held onto Griggs as he fired his fist into him again. “That was for Emma, you sick fuck.” He hit him again and blood sprayed from Griggs’s mouth. “If you ever come near Charli again, I will kill you. I will fucking kill you.” Jackson released his grip, and Griggs toppled into the boxes.

  Jackson hopped up onto the table and pulled himself through the open window. He grabbed my hand, and we ran to where he’d parked the car, off the road and out of sight of the speakeasy. I climbed inside. A gunshot was fired. I ducked down below the window. Jackson turned the crank and the motor roared to life. He nearly fell into the car as another shot rang out. Before he drove off, he leaned over and kissed me.

  “We are being fired upon,” I mentioned unnecessarily as he pulled his mouth from mine.

  “Yep. But I was so damn worried, and now you’re sitting here in the car with me so I had to kiss you.” He pushed down the lever. A cloud of dirt lifted around us as he drove away from Griggs and his awful men.

  Chapter 25

  Jackson

  The set up had been arranged to draw Griggs and his men out. Once rumor was out that the feds were getting warrants to arrest the whole lot of them, Breakers had been emptied of its damning evidence, and the windows had been once again boarded up, just like they had after the library burned down.

  Gideon and I rolled slowly along the road, completely unsure of what would happen. It was hard to know if Griggs and his men had stuck around. One thing was certain, if they had, they would want full revenge on the Jarrett brothers. Not only were we the ones to connect Griggs to the murder, but we were now working directly with the moonshine customers on Capitol Hill. Mr. Albert had come through on all his promises, and we’d come through on ours, delivering high quality white lightning to his door at a lower cost and without the shady racketeer connection.

  Gideon glanced in the mirror. His face blanched some. “We’ve got a friend,” he said darkly.

  I nodded without making any sudden movements. We were just two men traveling through Arlington, with no worries or idea that we were being followed. The federal agents had planned everything well, but there was always that one unpredictable question— would Griggs and his men take us out before we reached the end of our journey?

  Gideon kept his face straight ahead, but his eyes kept flicking to the mirror. “Five heads and I’m sure the smaller one in back is Griggs. They’re staying about twenty feet back.”

  Our car reached the bridge. The wheels sounded like thunder as they rolled across the wood planks. The Potomac was bustling today, lots of barges and merchant traffic. It meant the canal would be crowded as well.

  “Not sure why they decided to do this in broad daylight in the middle of a business week,” Gideon said.

  “Think they wanted more eyes out on the road, so we’d have a better chance of making it to our destination.”

  Gideon’s eyes flitted to the mirror again. “Lots of activity now. I’d say they’re getting weapons ready.” Gideon threw down the lever and lifted his foot from the pedal. The car lurched into high gear as the wheels left the rough surface of the bridge. Gideon swung a wide, wild turn down to the canal. “They’re giving chase,” he said.

  I pulled out my gun and turned back. Two men, one on each side of the backseat, hung out with weapons aimed at our car. The first bullet made both of us duck but Gideon held tight to the steering wheel. The back window shattered. I flew up off the seat, smacking my head on the ceiling of the car as Gideon drove onto the gra
vel path leading down to the water. The gunshots had gotten the barge workers’ attentions. Some of them dove into cargo holds or ducked behind crates as they saw the scene on the shore unfold.

  Another shot was fired. The car leaned heavily to one side. They’d taken out the tires. Gideon came to a full stop. Federal agents and local police came out of every corner with weapons drawn. Gideon and I were in the center of it all. We ducked down as a fierce gun battle broke out. Bullets arced over our car, and we covered our heads with our arms. It took only a few minutes. Griggs and his men were outnumbered five to one.

  Once the gunfire slowed, Gideon and I climbed out of the car. Griggs and his men were being cuffed. His long reign of terror in this region was over, and Emma’s death would be avenged.

  Chapter 26

  Jackson

  I’d finished the inner wall between the bedroom and the kitchen. I stepped back and admired my work. It wasn’t bad. Ole Roy had taught me how to use a hammer and nails, but he’d always been a little sloppy in his work. I took pride in doing things precisely. I wanted this house to turn out right.

  Gideon pulled into the clearing in the car. I went back to my task and waited for him to walk up. The footsteps on the floorboards were too light. I turned around. Charli was standing in the sunlight, a light made even more golden by her unusual copper hair and glittery brown eyes. I took a deep breath. The sight of her always caused me to take a deep breath.

  There was a touch of sorrow in her face. It had been four days since the fire. She’d stayed at the site helping clean-up. Many of the workers had gone on to the train station to head back to families or places where they had job prospects. The Ringling Brother’s Circus was just a hundred miles away, and many traveled that direction hoping to join up with them. Buck had family, a sister in Texas, and he was planning on driving there with Dodie, Rose and Charli. At the time Charli told me of the plans, it’d felt like someone had smacked me. I hadn’t given enough thought to the idea that she’d leave me someday, that Harper’s Cross wasn’t her permanent home. But now looking at her in the wood frame of the house I was building with my own hands, she looked completely at home.

  I walked up to her. Mabel had found some second hand clothes for the carnival workers. Even in a faded dress two sizes too big, Charli looked breathtaking.

  “Just came to let you know that we’d be leaving in the morning.” She walked over to the place where the kitchen window would eventually be. “It’s starting to look like a real house, Jackson.”

  I looked around and nodded. “Sort of. Only, even with the walls and roof in place, it won’t be a home.”

  “What do you mean?”

  I walked over and stood next to her, gazing out the imaginary window. The blue haze was sharp and clear over the mountain range. “Growing up, I loved someone. She was— she was everything to me. When I lost her, I told myself that was it. Ella had taken my heart with her, and I would never be able to love anyone like her again.”

  Charli gazed up at me.

  “I was wrong.” I took her hand and dropped down to one knee. Her hand flew to her mouth. “Charli Starfield, will you be my wife? I know I’m just a two-bit bootlegger and I know Harper’s Cross isn’t much of a town, but—”

  “Yes,” she cried. She took hold of my face and leaned down to kiss me. “Yes, Jackson Jarrett. I will marry you.”

  I stood up and kissed her properly. Gideon blew the horn on the car. “I guess he figured out what just happened.”

  “Yes, I’m sure he did because he got down on his knee in front of Rose an hour ago.” Charli waved at the car. I saw that Rose was in the front seat with Gideon.

  “That brother of mine, he’s always got to one up me. Still, I’m the one who ended up with The Enchantress.” I kissed her.

  That Time with Sugar

  By Tess Oliver

  Chapter 1

  I twirled the thin braid of hair between my thumb and finger. The strands were every color of brown, as if someone had swirled together every form of chocolate; milk, semi-sweet and bittersweet. Every level of sweetness, sort of like the girl. Sugar’s hair was no particular color and looked different in every light. Most days she’d had it pinned up hastily behind her head in a sloppy knot where strands stuck out in every direction like the blades of a pinwheel.

  I slid the lock of hair into my book for safe keeping. Sugar had been so pissed at me that day when she’d given me her lock of hair. I’d been such an asshole. My self-constructed stone wall always went up when Sugar came near. Self-preservation, I’d told myself then. But cowardice seemed more appropriate sometimes.

  It was impossible to erase that time, that time with Sugar. Nothing, no hurricane of drugs, blow to the head or fucking lobotomy could take that time away. I’d still be thinking of Sugar when they were dropping me six feet in the ground. That was the kind of person she was, the kind who you wouldn’t let go of even after your heart had shaken out its last beat.

  “Guess you won’t be missing those prison coveralls when you walk out of here tomorrow, eh, Tommy?” Big Hal, as we called him, had a big, plump face that looked as if some kid had modeled it from a mound of soft clay. The structure of his face seemed to change with each expression as if the cartilage just moved around freely. I was six foot two, but the guy towered over me, putting him somewhere on the edge of seven feet, a pituitary problem he’d said. But he was as harmless as a butterfly. Or at least he was now, wrapped in prison orange. On the outside, he’d killed a man with his bare hands for crawling into bed with his wife. Word around the yard was that Hal had nearly torn the guy’s head off. That didn’t seem too farfetched. They’d put Hal in charge of the library because he’d worked in one as a teen. Murderer and librarian, both titles suited him.

  “Nope, I won’t miss ‘em at all, Hal.” I lifted my fist to his. “Wish I could say the two years raced by but every fucking day seemed like a week. If it weren’t for this library and the exercise yard, I think I would be leaving this place with my hair pulled out like a chicken that’s been plucked.”

  His gigantic hand waved toward my book. “You going to catch up to her when you get out of here? The girl who belongs to that braid of hair you’re always fingering?”

  “Don’t think so.” I spoke the answer with such ease as if it was not big deal that Sugar was out of my life, as if she hadn’t taken a part of me with her. Sugar had written letters for the first seven months I’d been stuck in jail, and during those seven months, I’d been so busy trying to secure my place on the damn prison pecking order, trying to show that I couldn’t be fucked with, or fucked literally, for that matter, that I’d hardly had time to write back. I’d gotten myself thrown in solitary twice and was grateful for it both times.

  I’d wanted to write back. It just hurt like hell, pressing a pen between my fingers, trying to spill everything out onto paper. The words got stuck just like they had when I was a kid with a stutter and the words stuck at the end of my tongue. I had too much to say to Sugar and I had nothing to say to her. She was like that. She could make you want to spill your fucking guts out and render you speechless in the same moment. In her last letter, she’d told me that her mom had cancer and that she needed to take care of her. She had one of those textbook case, tumultuous relationships with her mom, but Sugar loved to take care of others. She lived to please people, to help them. The only person she didn’t like helping was herself.

  I’d kept Sugar’s letters, all of them, like one of those pathetic saps in one of the cheesy romance novels my mom liked to read. They were tucked in the stained shoebox I used to keep my bar of soap and toothbrush. I didn’t know if her mom’s cancer was the reason Sugar had stopped writing or if my lack of responses had just made her decide to quit. After her letters stopped, I’d started walking the perimeter of the exercise yard fence. Like an animal that had been caged, certain that if I went aroun
d enough times, I’d find a way out. I’d find a way outside, outside to Sugar. Blood would pool in my crap-ass prison shoes, but I kept walking. For a month, I walked circles so that there was a groove in the dirt all the way around the yard. If Julian had been keeping track of the distance, like he had kept track of his wall climbing at Green Willow Recovery, I would have reached Everest’s summit twice.

  Only it didn’t matter. I never found the way out, and I never reached her. It was for the best, my brain had told me. ‘For the best’ the same stupid phrase my dad had used when he’d taken Brutus, my dog, away for digging up the flower beds. ‘Thomas, it’s for the best’, he’d said. But for who, I kept asking myself. For my dad, I supposed, and for my mom’s flowers. But it hadn’t been the best for Brutus or me. My dog’s tongue was hanging out and his tail was gyrating like a tornado as my dad drove him away. I’d watched the car disappear around the corner, hoping that my dad would change his mind and turn back. But he didn’t. I walked upstairs and put a fist through my bedroom wall. It had been the fourth hole in a year. A day later, Gerald, my dad’s personal assistant, came in to patch the hole again. My dad told him not to paint it though. It stayed spackle white to remind me to control my temper. By the time I was shipped off to military school, there was more spackle than paint on my bedroom wall.

  Big Hal put his hand on my shoulder. It felt like a sack of cement. “Well, Jameson, I’m going to miss you around here. This library is going to be a ghost town now.” He yanked out a chair and sat. It looked like a doll’s chair beneath him.

  I glanced around. There was only one other person in the library, Percy Tucker, a skinny, perpetually nervous inmate who was at the bottom of the prison food chain. He sat at the far end of the library with his stack of picture books. He hated the exercise yard where the other prisoners taunted him just as he had, no doubt, been teased in the school yard. But here there were no bird faced proctors to blow whistles at trouble. Here the guards just looked the other way, not wanting to bother with the dynamics on the yard unless blood was drawn. And even then, if it wasn’t their own blood, they turned a blind eye.