by Karen Harper
“Number one, Atlanta. Two, the first place WITSEC put me, a quiet, rural area. Then, again, about a thousand miles away where I put myself when I went on the run. But I figured they’d never think I’d dare to come back here until the trial.”
It made Alex feel really tense that Logan, who usually had nerves of steel, seemed uptight, but this was pretty cloak-and-dagger. Reese was around fifty with impeccably styled, silvering dark hair and wore contact lenses that made him blink too much. Usually he had a steady demeanor that went with his compelling voice and inspiring confidence, but not today. Hell, that’s how he’d felt for months, Alex thought, like he wasn’t his assured, in-control self anymore.
“Where are you staying?” Reese asked.
“I’d rather not say.”
“If you can’t trust me, you are a goner. You’ve dumped the WITSEC protection, right?”
“Right, because that all went wrong.”
“Why don’t I find you a safe place, close to the office? A busy, common place where we can meet to go over the depositions again, plan more of our attack.”
“Because attacks on me are what I’m afraid of! At best, I tell myself that Marv Boynton—or whoever’s after my head—just wants to scare me to shut up, withdraw my testimony. The thing is, after their first attempt on my life went wrong, I think they’ve decided to play cute. Kidnap someone close to me, so I give myself up to them. They’d make it look like I just disappeared and I’d never be found again. Or they plan to make it look like I committed suicide or had a fatal accident.”
Alex was on a fishing expedition now to see how much this guy knew about what he’d been through. He’d love to know if he and Gerald Branin were still in touch. They quit talking when their server brought their coffee.
“I need more details on all of that,” Logan insisted, leaning forward on his elbows. “We can use it all in court. But who could they kidnap to get you to surrender to them? You’re not supposed to be in contact with anyone from your past.”
“I have a friend with me, a woman.”
“Are you nuts?” Logan exploded, dinging his cup down so hard he slopped coffee into his saucer. “You’re on the run with a woman? From here? Okay, okay, I can see you’re going to stonewall me. We can put her up, too, but how about adjoining rooms so you and I can work on things without being overheard—and you can keep her identity even from me if you’re so paranoid.”
“Yeah, that would be best anyway. And you think you wouldn’t be running scared if you’d been a target, even a moving one?”
“Give me your cell number, and I’ll set it up. The Grand Hyatt near Grand Central is so busy that no one pays any attention to anyone, and it’s near the firm. I can send a car for you this evening. Where to and when?”
“No car, but call me when it’s set. We’ll get there.”
“You’re not—on the streets? Or at her place? Listen, Alex,” he said, punching the air between them with an index finger, “you realize Boynton and maybe the Chinese too could find out the addresses of both of the women you were dating here.”
“More later,” Alex said only, and downed the rest of his coffee. “And I’d appreciate it if you don’t let Gerald Branin, WITSEC or that security firm you hired know I’ve turned up or even contacted you. What? Why are you looking like that?”
His stomach clenched. As stone-faced as this man could be, he looked like he’d swallowed hot tar instead of black coffee.
“Branin was in to see me just yesterday.”
“He’s here in town and not D.C.?”
“He told me you’d skipped out of where he had you stashed, as he put it. He said he wasn’t sure you hadn’t turned rogue, but he was following leads to contact you again.”
“Damn, hope that wasn’t contact me with a contract on me. He could have been bought off. With the money at stake here, as well as reputations and prison time, not to mention an international incident with the Chinese, I’m sure money’s no obstacle. Look, I’ve got to go. It’s probably a good idea to keep moving, so I’ll take you up on the Grand Hyatt invitation, if you make the arrangements yourself with no middleman.”
“You have my word. I’ll arrange for you to get in by this evening without even checking in under an assumed name. See you there. I’ll pay with cash to avoid even using my credit card.”
“Call me when it’s set up and the coast is clear.”
Alex made for the door as he checked his second-best watch. It felt so strange to be able to glance down at one again. He’d given Ella his new one, under protest. The Amish didn’t wear them, yet they seemed always to be prompt. Another mystery about the Amish, another admirable trait to show they could do without the time- and techno-run, selfish and screwed-up world. But damn, it was nearly 10:45 a.m. He’d have to rush to get there before she did.
23
THE LITTLE STORE inside the spa entranced Ella. It seemed to have a lavender theme and it smelled so much like her field of flowers that tears stung her eyelids. She could probably find ideas here for her own shop at home.
Turning away from stocking the shelves, a beautiful Asian woman with shiny, straight black hair dressed in a lavender-hued blouse and skirt smiled and said, “Welcome! Are you here to make a spa appointment or may I help you with some products? Our herb of the month is lavender.”
“Yes, I’m interested in your lavender products. I grow some lavender myself.”
“Oh, where?”
“In the Midwest.”
“We have a spa in Chicago and one in Pittsburgh. Are either of those near you?”
Ella wasn’t certain how much to reveal, but it was a good thing she didn’t say Ohio, because on the side wall, in a huge, slightly blurred black-and-white photo, almost like wallpaper, was a smiling Connie Lee! She’d walked into the spa that Connie Lee owned?
“That’s our founder, Constance,” the woman, whose name tag read Michelle, said, still smiling.
Ella’s thoughts raced. Connie had told her from the first that she and her husband were from New York City and had a spa there, but Ella had never asked its name. The Home Valley Spa they were building outside Homestead was the only name she knew, and, of course, that wouldn’t be the same. As for the lavender products, Connie had not been making it up that they were hoping for new ones. So maybe she had not just come to Ella to find out more about Andrew. But the fact that the Lees had so suddenly appeared in the Home Valley area—could they have been funded or set up there to keep an eye on Alex Caldwell? No, surely they were there before Andrew. But they could have been approached and hired to watch him then—hired by the Chinese because they were of Chinese heritage.
“Miss, are you all right?” Michelle asked, leaning forward across the counter.
“Oh, yes. Fine. That’s just such a striking picture. They call what your founder is holding in the photo body candles, right? Good for the fragrance and then the massage.”
“Absolutely. May I show you some of those, though I must admit we’re still perfecting our lavender-scented ones.”
Ella wanted to flee. What if Connie Lee was in New York or found out they were here nearby? The lavender connection aside, she still didn’t trust her. Was it coincidence that her store was just blocks away from Andrew’s—Alex Caldwell’s—home here? No, no. She was jumping to conclusions.
“The body candles are an innovation here at the spa,” Michelle was saying when Ella had forgotten what she’d asked. “People are absolutely too stressed-out by technology and their schedules today—lots of issues and problems. I can show you those candles in several fragrances and you can use them at home, of course, not just in a luxe spa like ours.”
At home. Where was home? Ohio? With Andrew? Anywhere they could be safe?
Ella cleared her throat. She had to say something so she didn’t seem like the fool she felt she was. “I was so entranced by your lovely window, I forgot I have grocery items that will melt. But I will come back,” Ella told her, forcing a smile. She started
for the door. “So are there any more Herbal Spas being built in the Midwest?”
“Absolutely. Asian luxury for busy Americans. We don’t like to announce new sites until the facilities are ready to take guests, but there is another one being built in a rural area, far from the madding crowd, so to speak. That area will be the perfect escape and hideaway spot.”
But, Ella thought, that had not been the perfect escape and hideaway spot for Andrew.
“Here, let me give you a sample of our lavender and lilac bath salts,” she said, and brought Ella a small silver-wrapped package tied with the same signature silken crimson cording she’d been tied up with when she’d been abducted from Hannah’s wedding, the same stuff that had uncoiled all over the road the night Connie’s son might have tried to run down Andrew.
“That ribbon—so distinctive,” Ella said.
“Absolutely. Another marvelous product from the land of acupuncture. And there’s a little trick about these ties that has to do with the innovative texture of them—see. If you pull it taut, then release it—just the opposite of trying to loosen and untie it—it comes free. But if you retie it again—voilà! Magic, just like the spa products beneath the wrap.”
“Thank you. That’s amazing, and I never would have guessed,” Ella said, and put the package in the bakery sack.
Strange, she thought, as she hurried out the door onto the busy sidewalk, but the usually calming scent of the lavender in that store hadn’t calmed her at all.
* * *
“So, how are you settling in here?” Ray-Lynn asked Jack’s deputy Win Hayes as she refilled his coffee cup herself. The handsome guy sat at the Dutch Farm Table counter where he could watch who came in and out.
He smiled up at Ray-Lynn just as his eggs-and-ham special was delivered by Leah. “I guess telling you is like telling the man himself, right?” he asked. “Congrats on your engagement. The truth is, I like this quieter area a lot. Wooster was the big city compared to Homestead and Eden County. But this gives me more time to get to know people instead of rushing from case to case. And the sheriff thinks I’m good luck since there have been no bad crime flare-ups since I came, at least not like the serial arsons and the graveyard shootings.”
“Or my being almost killed when my car was shoved off into the ravine,” Ray-Lynn added with a shudder.
“But you’ve come back from all that just great,” he said, salting and peppering his eggs. “It’s pretty obvious you’re one of the hubs of this community, an important lady to know. Of course, in my case, having more time for locals means caring more about them. Speaking of which, have you heard if the members of the Lantz family who were sick are any better?”
“Jack mentioned that?”
He shrugged. “Either he did, or I read it in his daily records. We both keep good track of where we go when. You better realize you’re going to have to clock in with him when you two tie the knot,” he said, and chuckled.
Ray-Lynn could see why people liked Win, despite the fact that his can-do, take-over nature was eating at Jack, however grateful he was for his capable assistance. She said only, “Enjoy your breakfast,” instead of the other tactics she could think of to draw the guy out. For once, she would keep her mouth shut. Anyway, for claiming to be a people person, Win Hayes still seemed kind of a loner to her, someone who played his cards close to his vest, as her daddy used to say.
She was no more back to the front desk when Connie Lee came barging—ding-dang, that was the word for it, all right—in the front door.
Wearing canary-yellow slacks and a pale green frilly blouse, with high heels that looked like sandals and perfectly matched her huge purse, she was overdressed for around here as usual.
“Good morning, Mrs. Lee,” Ray-Lynn greeted her, hoping she wasn’t the one she was looking for as the woman’s dark eyes lifted over Ray-Lynn’s shoulder to skim the restaurant.
“I hope it’s a good morning,” she told Ray-Lynn, looking back at her. “We’re having union problems, because we want to hire Amish carpenters to finish the interior of the spa. They work for less and refuse union membership. I swear they’d be hung out to dry in New York, but obviously that’s the Amish way here, and the lesser costs coupled with excellent craftsmanship are fine with me. But the local unions are horning in, trying to make trouble for them and us.”
“If you’re looking for Amish builders or union men, I can tell you neither are in here, not right now, at least.”
With a clatter of bangle bracelets, the woman’s hand shot to her hip. “No, I’m looking for Deputy Hayes, but I don’t see him.”
“He probably sees you. He’s at the counter, not in a booth.”
“Oh, thanks. I want him to patrol our project, keep an eye out, the sheriff too, of course. Until we get this settled, I don’t want any pro-union high jinks going on at our site. Excuse me. Oh—I see you sell Ella’s Lavender Plain Products here,” she said, gesturing at the small display of them. “I’m hoping to help her really build her business up, but I haven’t seen her for days. Do you know how she is—or where?”
Ray-Lynn almost said that Win Hayes had just asked the same, but what was the point? She’d tell Jack, no one else, so she told the woman, “How she is—I hear she’s been ill. Where—probably keeping to her bedroom and fretting she’s not out tending her fields.”
“Her sister and her mother seem to have taken over. I’ve dropped by but gotten nothing out of them. And that Pennsylvania cousin of theirs who used to help with the lavender seems to be ill—or missing too. I’m just hoping that he wasn’t really someone trying to get a monopoly on her products before she signed with us. He seemed rather unfriendly and secretive to me.”
So that was the big interest in Ella and the mysterious Andrew Lantz, Ray-Lynn thought. “Oh, the Amish won’t sign anything like a contract,” she assured her, “but Ella’s word can be trusted. The word of the Amish is their bond, so they don’t need detailed legal contracts. That’s the problem between the labor unions and the Amish too, the same reason I don’t have any sort of contract with my Amish servers here. It’s all on the up-and-up, based on trust and being true to God’s word to live honest lives.”
“Thanks for the advice,” Connie said. “I’m going to see that you and the sheriff get a family gift certificate if I ever get this project off the ground.”
As Ray-Lynn watched her walk away, two things struck her.
Just like Win Hayes, Connie Lee seemed to know she and Jack were engaged. And she had the strangest feeling that Connie’s quiz about Ella’s location was part of the woman’s real mission here today.
Ray-Lynn gasped as Connie dared to walk behind the counter, evidently so she could talk to Deputy Hayes face-to-face. They spoke quietly—he looked annoyed—but Ray-Lynn did catch the word Lantz again. Was she asking him what he knew about Ella?
Win was nodding now, so Connie had obviously gotten what she came for. But then, Ray-Lynn had a feeling that woman always got what she wanted, so look out labor unions and Win Hayes if he didn’t cooperate. Ella too, and—if Connie’s crazy theory about Andrew Lantz really being a competitor for Ella’s lavender was true—that meant he was on her hit list too.
* * *
Ella was relieved to see Andrew standing near the fire escape when she arrived with her sacks of food. “Wait till you hear what happened!” she told him, out of breath.
Frowning, he took the biggest sack from her. “Tell me.”
“Connie Lee’s family owns a spa in this neighborhood! I went in because they had lavender products in the windows. The sales lady wouldn’t say they were building the Home Valley Spa, but Connie Lee’s photo was on the wall big as the side of a buggy. I didn’t tell the lady I knew Connie.”
“You mean the Herbal Spa on Wooster Street? Never been in there, but I can’t figure how the Connie connection can tie to me. But it’s another good reason we’re going to move.”
“We’re moving again? So soon? I mean, I guess I’d feel better
somewhere else, but where?”
“Let’s get upstairs and put what we’ll need into my suitcase this time. We’re going to a hotel arranged by my lawyer. I’ll start working with him to prepare our case again. Ella, I want you with me, but I’m going to try to find a way to send you home soon.”
There it was again. Home. Yes, she longed to go home, but to leave him, go to Ohio without him? Nothing would ever be the same there or anywhere for her.
She blinked back tears as they climbed the fire escape with her sacks. While he packed their things in a beautiful, leather suitcase, she fixed them a large lunch, trying to use many of the perishable things she’d bought. He’d said they were leaving here late afternoon for another part of town, just when she’d started to know this neighborhood. But she had to admit she felt panicked, even more than when she’d found out the Lees owned that spa.
At least her panic attacks were a thing of the past, but she was hovering close to bursting into tears right now. Too much change, too many wild emotions, too close to this man she had almost begged to possess her last night. And she didn’t feel one bit ashamed, though she was sure she should, that he had been the one with the will to stop.
“We’ll take some of the food you bought in a sack so we don’t have to go out much,” Andrew told her. He was so nervous, his mind obviously racing about working on his case again, that he wasn’t picking up on how upset she was. Where was the old Andrew? Alex Caldwell was back again. “And until I can have my lawyer contact Sheriff Freeman and be certain he or Deputy Hayes can keep a good eye on you there,” he went on, “you’ll have your own room at the hotel, so don’t worry about having to hide out when my lawyer and I go over the embargoed evidence, our case.”
She jumped up to take the dishes to the sink. “Are we going in a taxi?” she asked, trying to keep the catch out of her voice. “I guess, except for an airplane I’ve been on about everything else around here.”
“No, we’re not going in a taxi, and I turned down a car he wanted to send for us. We’re going to get there on our own, subway to Grand Central Station, which is right next door to our hotel.”