Gray nodded once. "A little more than a day and a half."
"Skippy had to be somewhere during that time, right? The kidnapper had to stash him somewhere." She paused. "I think it was in that storage shed. I think that’s where Skippy spent his final day."
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Tyler wiped the sweat from his brow with the sleeve of his T-shirt and wished the breeze blowing through the open window of his truck would cool his skin.
A morning rainstorm put a damper on a lawn-care business, making the grass more difficult to mow and creating humidity that rivaled a sauna.
Tyler pinched the bridge of his nose. Not that it had taken much these last few days to foul his mood. His attempts to warn Karen that Gray considered her a suspect in the attempted hit-and-run of Cara Donnelly had been fruitless.
He’d left repeated messages on her cell phone but she hadn’t returned any of them. Knowing Karen, she probably hadn’t listened to them when she saw they were from him. Tyler would have driven across the state to her conference in St. Petersburg to warn her in person if he didn’t think it would make a bad situation worse.
She was due back to Secret Sound tonight. His plan was to go home, shower, grab a bite to eat and wait for her to arrive. If he were lucky, he’d get to her before Gray did. No matter what happened, he expected fireworks. Karen wouldn't take the news that he'd set the law on her lightly.
He and his crew had finally completed the last job of the day, which was only a few streets from Karen’s parents' house. On impulse, he asked the employee driving the truck to cruise past it, fully expecting nobody to be home.
Karen’s Lincoln Continental was in the driveway, the trunk open as though she were in the process of unloading. The door to the house stood wide open.
"Stop the truck, Buddy,” Tyler said.
Buddy McAllister, who was barely out of his teens, was lost in the rhythm of a raucous rap song. The radio blared and his head bobbed to the music. Tyler leaned across the seat, laid a hand on the driver’s arm and shouted.
"Stop the truck."
Buddy slammed on the brake, and Tyler automatically stretched out his arms to anchor himself so he wouldn’t crash into the dashboard. The seatbelt tightened and cut into his shoulder.
"Jesus." Tyler reached for the radio to turn down the volume. "Where’d you learn to drive, Buddy?"
"My dad taught me," Buddy said earnestly, his eyes open wide. "Why’d you ask me to stop, boss?"
Tyler gave up on sarcasm. He wasn’t very good at it anyway. "I’m getting out. You take the truck back to the shop and knock off for the day."
"You sure you wanna get out here?" Buddy looked doubtful as Tyler opened the door and hopped from the cab. "How you gonna get back?"
"I’ll figure out something," Tyler said, rapping the hood of the truck once in dismissal. Buddy drove off, sparing him a backward glance. Tyler glanced down at his work boots, dirt- and grass-stained jeans and old T-shirt. Buddy probably thought he was woefully out of place in this neighborhood.
He gazed up at the mansion, wondering for the first time if their different social stations could be the crux of his problem with Karen. He’d dropped out of college after a year because he hadn’t needed a higher education to start a lawn-care business. What began as a one-man operation had grown into a profitable company employing three full-time workers and a couple of part-timers.
He could have justified spending all his time on the intricacies of running the business but liked getting his hands dirty. It was an honest living only a snob would condemn, and he didn’t think Karen was a snob.
He walked over to her black Lincoln, lifted the last of her suitcases from the trunk and slammed it shut before proceeding to the open door of the house. He stamped his feet on the welcome mat to shake the dirt off his work boots.
"Karen?" he called. "It’s Tyler, Karen."
His reply met with silence. A fly buzzed past him into the house, and he stepped inside the foyer, pulling the door closed. He called her name again, louder this time. Again, no answer.
Sighing, Tyler put down her suitcase. By entering her house uninvited, he'd given her yet another reason to yell at him. Before he could finish plotting his defense, she suddenly appeared from the back of the house. She paused under a skylight and for a moment she was bathed in light.
She'd obviously been in the process of undressing. Her pretty feet were bare and she'd untucked her bright yellow blouse. It complemented an electric blue skirt that ended well above the knee, revealing her incredible legs. Her hair looked more gold than brown. Tyler thought she resembled an outrageously stylish, shockingly sexy angel.
She gaped at him, too. He doubted it was in approval."What in the hell are you doing here?" she asked.
"It’s nice to see you, too, Karen." He smiled despite himself. He couldn’t help it. The mere sight of her made him happy, even when she was spitting mad. "You left the door open, and bugs were getting in."
"It never occurred to you that you’re about as welcome as the bugs?"
"Nope," Tyler said. "I’m easier on the eyes. Besides, I brought in your suitcase. Looked to me like you got bored in the middle of unloading."
She ignored that, although it probably wasn't far from the truth. Something had distracted her and she'd forgotten that she'd left open the car trunk and front door.
She crossed her arms over her chest. "So you're saying you came all the way over here to save me from an infestation?"
"I came over because I need to talk to you." He walked two steps toward her, itching to touch her. She retreated the same number of steps backward. "You’d know that if you bothered to return my phone calls."
"Gee, and here I thought it might penetrate that thick skull of yours that I didn’t want to talk to you."
"I still need to talk to you." He smiled because her body language was at odds with her biting words. She wouldn't quite meet his eyes either, which was so unlike Karen that he almost whooped. No doubt about it, he was making her nervous. That was progress.
"Oh, all right." She still didn't look higher than the level of his chin. "I need to finish changing first. I’ll give you five minutes. You might as well wait in the family room."
She disappeared into the back of the house, not bothering to direct him to the family room. He shrugged, figuring he could find it. The foyer opened into a luxurious kitchen that gleamed so much it hurt his eyes. White cabinets stretched from floor to ceiling and an island floated in the middle of sparkling tile.
A circular breakfast table of heavy white marble was off to the side, and it was piled high with papers. Tyler grinned. Karen must have dumped the contents of her briefcase on top of the heap. Curious, he picked up the top paper and read the heading: "Leadership for Middle Managers." The media studies institute that had hosted the conference didn't have much imagination when it came to naming its seminars.
He put down the report, and a sheet of yellow construction paper near the bottom of the stack caught his attention. He could only see one corner, but it looked as though somebody had cut out letters from a magazine and pasted them onto the paper. He carefully extracted the paper from the stack. Dread hit him like a slap across the face.
Leave Secret Sound While You Still Can, it read.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Karen dashed across the kitchen and snatched the incriminating paper from Gray's hand.
"What do you think you’re doing with that?" she challenged but her voice cracked and her heart raced.
He whirled, his face more ravaged than she'd ever seen it. Oh God, what had she done?
"What do you think you’re doing?" he shouted, his face infused with color, the veins in his neck bulging. "Were you going to send this to Cara? Were you, Karen? Is that what you were going to do with this?"
"You don’t have to shout," Karen yelled back at him.
"I damn well do. Why would you go and do a fool thing like this? Gray already thinks you might have been driving the car
that tried to run that poor girl down."
Karen’s chest seized. Just when she thought her situation couldn't get any worse, it had. "I wouldn’t do something like that. I didn’t even know somebody tried to run her down."
"Don’t you think I know that?" Tyler asked, still yelling. "But what’s Gray supposed to think when you’re threatening her with phone calls and sending her get-out-of-town letters?"
She dropped her eyes. So Gray knew she'd made the phone call. It hardly mattered how. "I wasn’t actually going to send that letter."
"Damn it all." Tyler swiped at the papers on the table and a few of them floated to the floor. His anger abruptly seemed to fade, replaced by what looked like despair. He lowered his voice. "Are you really this hung up on Gray? I didn’t want to believe it. I guess I’ve been fooling myself."
"It’s not the way it—"
"What is it about me that turns you off?" He grabbed her by the shoulders and brought her so close that she could see the glittering hazel of his eyes and smell dirt, sweat and man. Blond stubble covered his lower face and a pulse beat furiously in his neck. A smear of dirt marred his cheek. She had never been so aware of a man in her life. "Is it my job, Karen? Is it beneath you to love a man who makes a living with his hands?"
"No," she managed. "No, it’s not—"
"Or is it just me?" His hands squeezed her upper arms but she didn’t cry out. His eyes were so intent she felt as though he were hypnotizing her into silence. "Because if it is, tell me right now. Tell me and, God help me, I’ll never bother you again. But you better be damn sure that’s what you want, Karen, because you’ll never find another man who loves you like I do."
Her lips parted in wonder. Love. He was talking about love. Her blinders suddenly seemed to lift, because she could finally see that love was what gleamed in his eyes. Love was what she had been fighting. Tyler Shaw loved her. Her. Flaws and all.
She’d been wrong when she thought he wanted too much from her. He didn’t want anything she didn’t already have to give.
The jarring ring of the doorbell cut through the thick air between them. She saw the resignation bloom in Tyler’s eyes. He loosened his grip on her shoulders.
"You better answer that," he said roughly. "That’s probably Gray, and he’s not going away until he talks to you."
She nodded mutely, still filled with wonder that Tyler Shaw loved her. She moved to the door in a daze, absently rubbing her shoulders. He really loved her.
She was smiling when she swung open the door to reveal Stoney Gillick, the blade of the knife he held in his right hand glinting in the fading afternoon sun.
Karen tried to slam the door in Gillick’s face. He was too quick for her. He jammed the door with his foot and shouldered his way inside, waving the knife as he invaded her sanctuary.
"You thought you could get away with ruining my life, didn’t you, bitch?" he growled. "Now you’re gonna pay. I’m gonna stick you until the life bleeds out of you. That boyfriend of yours won’t be able to help you this time. Nobody will."
He advanced on heavy steps, his face ugly with rage. Karen experienced the terror Mary Gillick must have felt each time he cocked his arm and threw a fist at her.
She opened her mouth to scream for Tyler’s help but swallowed her cry. Tyler must have realized what was happening and circled through the rooms of the house, because he'd positioned himself off to Gillick’s side. Fury narrowed his eyes and tightened his jaw.
"Wrong again, Stoney," Tyler said in a deceptively soft voice before he charged.
He came at the smaller man low, like a linebacker bent on making a vicious tackle. Gillick barely had time to turn before Tyler broadsided him, crashing them both into the priceless sculpture of the leaping dolphin that her mother had picked up in Malaysia. It shattered as it hit the marble floor. The knife left Gillick’s hand and clattered across the tile.
Tyler took hold of one of Gillick’s arms, twisted and pinned the other man to the floor, bringing back a vague memory Karen had of watching him at a long-ago high school wrestling meet. He hadn’t raised his fist and pounded it into his opponent’s face back then. That was what he did to Stoney Gillick now.
The impact of flesh against flesh made her wince. Then Tyler reared back and threw another punch, and she heard what she thought was a bone breaking. Blood spurted from Gillick’s nose. Tyler hit him again and again.
"Tyler, stop!" she yelled.
He didn't seem to hear her. His fist connected again and she feared for the other man’s life. Gillick probably deserved to die, but Tyler would have a tough time living with the knowledge that he'd killed him.
She raced across the room, intent on pulling Tyler off the other man. Before she reached him, Gray rushed through the open door. He sized up the situation with alacrity and got to Tyler before Karen could.
"Ty, stop it! Stop!" Gray yelled. Tyler reached back his fist another time. Before he could connect, Gray tackled him broadside, wrapping his arms around Tyler’s shoulders.
Tyler rolled off the bruised and bloodied Gillick and ended up tangled on the floor with Gray. Gillick was unconscious but, Karen saw, still breathing.
Gray held Tyler in an arm lock until he stopped resisting, then released him and stood up. Tyler pulled himself to a sitting position. His eyes glinted green as he stared at the police chief, his color high and his breathing fast.
Karen hurried to Tyler’s side and crouched down beside him, running her trembling hands over his face and his battered knuckles to make sure he was okay.
"Gillick forced his way into the house and came at me with a knife. It's on the floor over there," Karen explained to Gray without looking at him, still examining Tyler. "Tyler had to hit him."
"I would have kept on hitting him if you hadn’t gotten here. I wanted to kill him for preying on women like he does," Tyler all but hissed at Gray. "Are you going to arrest me for that, pal?"
Tyler’s question was heavy with challenge and sarcasm, neither of which Karen understood. She looked from one man to the other, trying to figure out what was going on. Neither man’s eyes wavered from the other’s.
"The only person I’m arresting," Gray said after a long moment, "is the bastard lying there on the floor."
Karen would have liked to decipher the unspoken language passing between the boyhood friends, but then caught sight of a rivulet of blood streaming down Tyler’s arm.
"You’re cut," she exclaimed in dismay. Although it must have hurt, Tyler barely glanced at the wound.
"It’s nothing," Tyler said, dismissing her concern. "The blade probably caught me when I dove for him."
"Let me take a look." Gray bent down and visually examined his friend’s arm, then tried to stop the flow with his hand. "It’s more than nothing. Karen, get a rag so we can make a tourniquet. Then call an ambulance. Tyler needs to go to the ER."
Karen stood up so quickly she saw stars. She ignored them. She wouldn't get lightheaded, not at a time like this. "A towel will have to do. And we don’t need an ambulance. I’m taking him to the hospital."
"I don't think—," Tyler began.
"Don't you try to talk me out of it, Tyler Shaw." She waved a finger at him. Gray opened his mouth. She wagged her finger at him, too. "You neither, Gray DeBerg."
"I wasn't going to do anything of the sort."
"Good," she said before hurrying off to the kitchen, her eyes stinging with tears at how Tyler had put his life on the line. For her.
Darkness descended on Secret Sound long before Gray walked through his front door, his heart sighing with every step he took. It had been a long, frustrating day, and tomorrow promised to be another.
After booking Stoney Gillick for attempted murder and issuing a strong recommendation that he be denied bail, Gray had spent the next hour at Secret Sound Hospital. He’d checked on a sleeping Cara first.
Then he’d gone another round with clerk Betty Rowlands, who had finally informed him that Tyler was getting stitches to close up
the cut in his arm while Karen waited in the hospital cafeteria.
Over cold, bitter cups of coffee, Karen had answered all his questions. She’d readily admitted making the threatening phone call and added that she’d almost mailed a follow-up threat before thinking better of it.
She didn’t have an alibi for her whereabouts when Cara had been nearly run down or when she’d been hit on the head. Gray didn’t buy Karen as the guilty party, though.
Although Karen was often thoughtless and impetuous, she could also be empathetic and considerate. He didn’t doubt her sincerity when she apologized for telling him about Suzy’s deception and expressed the hope they could still be friends.
He blew out a breath. Even if he believed Karen guilty, he couldn’t make an arrest, because he didn’t have any evidence against her. That was his problem, Gray thought as he pulled the door shut behind him. He had no evidence against anyone. Not even Curtis Rhett.
"Gray? Is that you, son?"
"Yeah. It’s me, Dad," he said.
His father appeared from the direction of the kitchen. His bolo tie was askew and his shirt halfway untucked. Dark circles rimmed his eyes.
"Cara wasn’t answering her door, so I used a key, and she’s not there." His voice shook. "Her car’s in the driveway. I tried calling—"
"It’s okay, Dad.” Gray cursed himself because he hadn’t thought to call his father after Cara’s attack. Of course he would be worried. He laid a hand on his father’s arm. "She’s in the hospital.”
"In the hospital? Oh, God. Is she all right?"
While he told his father what had happened, Gray steered him to the kitchen and gently pushed him into a chair. Then he took two of the light beers his father always kept on hand from the refrigerator. He pulled the tabs and set one in front of the older man.
Gray took a long pull from his own beer. He would have opened the pack of cigarettes he’d bought that afternoon had he been alone but was reluctant to subject his father to secondhand smoke. He contented himself with the beer and the companionship.
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