by Megan Hart
* * * *
"You look tired." Deacon knew the way to win a woman's heart usually meant not telling her she looked tired. But Lisa did. Gray circles shadowed her sexy gray eyes, and her cheeks were pale.
She paused while flipping through the pad of designs they were going over. She sighed, seemed about to speak, then stopped. She worried her lower lip between her teeth.
"Lisa?" he asked, really concerned now. For the past week, she'd been subdued. At first, he'd thought it was because she was feeling awkward around him again, but now he saw something had to be bothering her. "What's wrong?"
To his surprise, tears glistened in her eyes. Her fingers trembled as they flipped through the pages on her lap so fast he knew she couldn't possibly be really seeing them. He reached out and put his hand on hers.
"Talk to me," he said softly.
She looked up at him, still biting at her lower lip. Soon she would draw blood. Lisa's mouth opened, then closed. She struggled to speak. Finally, whatever had been holding her back let go, and a torrent of words poured out.
"It started with my watch," she said. "Then my glasses. And they were in the microwave! But the burrito was on the counter. And my stuff went missing from the laundry, but I just thought maybe Allegra had borrowed it. But she says she hasn't, and she has a closet full of new clothes I've never seen, but where's my stuff? And--"
"Slow down," Deacon said. Her rapid-fire, slightly hysterical response alarmed him. He'd never seen her so distraught. "Take a deep breath and start over."
A few deep breaths seemed to calm her. She even managed a weak smile as she looked at him. "Sorry."
"It's okay."
They sat like that in Lisa's tiny office just staring at each other. With anybody else, it might have quickly become uncomfortable, but Deacon didn't mind just looking at her. Lisa flashed a weak smile at him.
"A lot of strange things have been happening, that's all." She sighed. "Terry seems to think I'm working too hard."
Deacon knew Terry's real problem with Lisa's recent work assignment and it wasn't the long hours. "It's too bad he isn't more understanding."
Lisa nodded, and for just one second, Deacon felt a flash of guilt. It wasn't right to take advantage of her mood like this. Then he thought of Terry Hewitt's arms around Lisa and the guilt vanished.
Lisa peered up at him with wet eyes. Then she smiled. "You are a dog."
"What?"
"You," she repeated slowly, "are a dog! Deacon Campbell, are you trying to cause trouble for Terry?"
She'd caught him out. Damn. Why did he always forget how smart Lisa was? The best response seemed unrepentant honesty.
"Sure am," he said with a grin.
Lisa laughed. The sound was a welcome relief from her earlier worried tone. She punched him lightly on the shoulder.
"He should be more understanding,'" she mocked, putting a lot prissier tone into the statement than he had. "More like you maybe?"
Now his defense was up. "Well, yeah, like me."
"Why?" Lisa asked him. "Why are you trying to cause trouble?"
Deacon, who usually had a ready answer for any question, remained silent. He couldn't tell her it was because he was jealous. He couldn't tell her the truth that he wanted her in his arms again and he wanted a second chance to prove to her he was the kind of man she could fall in love with.
Instead, he shrugged. "I guess I'm just a troublemaker."
"I guess you are," she said, and seemed to be waiting for more.
All at once, the tiny office seemed even tinier. Had their knees been touching this entire time and he only now noticed? Deacon realized he could smell her perfume, a mouth-watering scent like vanilla. He swallowed hard to keep the drool from dripping out of his mouth. Three years ago, he would've kissed her and damn the consequences.
"It's getting late," he said. "We'd better finish up these designs."
Did she look disappointed? He wouldn't let himself think so. Deacon turned his attention back to the pile of papers they were looking at.
"Yes, we should. I have a date tonight with Terry and I promised him I wouldn't be late this time." Lisa paused and he felt the weight of her gaze burning a hole in the side of his cheek.
Deacon pretended to be engrossed in the designs. She was testing him. The only problem was he didn't know which response would make him pass, and which would make him fail.
"Let me just check my email," she said. "The funds officer from Bank of St. Mary's said she'd send me the details about the draws for payment. Dad's been asking me about the money for all the supplies we've used so far."
Deacon grabbed a pen and his binder and began labeling some updated items they'd been discussing. He wasn't paying attention to Lisa's monitor until her gasp made him look up. Images flashed on the screen--and they weren't from any bank.
"How do I make it stop?" Lisa clicked frantically with her mouse.
It appeared to be some sort of automatic slide show program that opened from an email attachment. No matter what keys she hit or how much she moved the mouse, nothing stopped the pictures from coming. Deacon hadn't seen the first few, but the ones showing up now grew increasingly more lurid and pornographic with each one.
Images of every sort of aberrant sexual practice replaced shots that might have come from a men's adult magazine. Pictures of violence and death began replacing the sex shots, and when a close up photo of a gunshot victim filled the screen, Deacon reached over and simply turned off the monitor.
"What was that?" Lisa cried, shaking. Her cheeks had paled again. "How did that get on my computer?"
"Maybe it was some sort of joke," he said, helpless to explain to her. "A sick joke."
"Who would send something like that to me?" Lisa pushed her chair away from the computer as though it might contaminate her.
Deacon took her hands in his, concerned to find them icy cold. He rubbed them between his own trying to calm her. Truthfully, the pictures had made him sick to his stomach, too. There'd been nothing funny about any of them, and if it was a joke, it had come from someone with the Marquis de Sade's sense of humor.
"Lisa?" Doug Shadd stood in the doorway, holding a file. "What's going on?"
"Dad," Lisa cried. "There was something terrible on my computer!"
Doug eased his way past Deacon's chair and stood beside his daughter. "One of those chain letters? Or a virus?"
Lisa shook her head. "I don't think so."
"It looked like some sort of slide show," Deacon said.
"Dad, the pictures were really horrendous." Lisa seemed a little calmer now, though her cheeks were still pale. "Porn and dead people..." She trailed off shuddering.
"Let's take a look," Doug said, and pushed the monitor's on button. "Ha, ha," he read aloud. "Like what you see?"
Doug clicked the mouse and the message vanished, replaced by the normal Inbox screen of Lisa's email. "It's gone now."
"Which message did it come in?" Deacon asked. "Who sent it to her?"
Doug barely glanced at him and fiddled with the mouse. "How can you tell? I don't know how to work email."
Deacon had spent hours in front of the computer during his sentence. Good behavior had earned him limited internet access and visits to the library where he'd read every computer book he could get his hands on. He'd never be a programmer, but he knew how to work almost any system.
"Let me see." He pushed his chair over and looked at the messages, scanning the headers. "That one."
"Pix 4 U," Lisa read.
"Do you recognize the sender?" Deacon asked. "It's [email protected]."
Lisa shook her head. "Doesn't sound familiar."
"Could it be a mistake?" Doug asked, still rubbing Lisa's shoulder comfortingly. "A what do you call it--a ham?"
"Spam," Deacon corrected, looking at the message. He clicked the mouse a few times to bring up the message's properties. "I don't think so. See? The message was sent here to Lisa's Garden Shadd internal mail address, not the o
ne she usually uses for outside correspondence. And it was directly addressed to her with her full name and the address."
"It was sent from inside our system?" Dismay colored Lisa's voice.
"No," Deacon said, trying to reassure her. "But it did come from someone who knows your internal address. So it's someone who knows you."
"It's not a funny joke," she said vehemently with another shudder.
"I can try to find out more," Deacon said. "But I'll have to open it up again."
Lisa nodded, her mouth thinned in a grim line. "Okay, but I'm not going to look."
With a click of his mouse, the screen filled again with the lewd and increasingly disgusting photos. Deacon tried several commands before finally hitting one that shut down the program before it reached the end. "Ha, ha. Like what you see?" He hit another few keys, hoping to pull up more information. "Sounds like a virus header, but I don't think it's a virus. Or a joke."
Doug came around the other side of Lisa's chair to better watch what Deacon was doing. "You seem to know an awful lot about computers, Deacon."
At first, Deacon took the man's comment as a compliment. "Thanks."
The silence that greeted his reply made him turn to look at Lisa's father. A grimace of suspicion tugged at his mouth. His eyes were hard.
"You seem to know a lot about that message, too," Doug continued. "Like I said, I don't know too much about email. Can you really tell all that from just a few clicks on the keyboard?"
Or did he know from some other way, Deacon knew the man meant. Like being the sender himself. "You can tell a lot about computers by just hitting a few keys, Doug."
"Too bad you can't do the same for people," Doug Shadd said. "Come on, honey. Let's get you out of here."
Lisa followed him willingly enough, with nothing more than a see-you-tomorrow for Deacon, left to stare at the mocking screen of her computer. His fingers poised over the keys, waiting while his mind struggled with how to react to Doug's silent accusation. He could try to learn more about who sent the message, but what would he do with the answer? Bring it to Lisa on a platter like some sort of offering? Cast himself further under suspicion?
Deacon didn't hesitate any longer. Maybe the message was a fluke. Maybe it was a joke. But whatever it was, it wasn't his problem.
A click of the mouse, a tap of some keys, and the message disappeared into the far reaches of cyberspace. Just like his hopes of putting the past behind him.
Chapter 7
* * *
"I wish you'd reconsider," said Marcia Shadd quietly. She reached out to touch Lisa's arm. "Your old room is still here, you know. Any time you want it."
"I'm not Allegra," Lisa meant the comment to sound light. It came out harsher than she'd intended and she winced when she saw her mother's hurt look. "I'm sorry, Mom. I just meant that I'm okay. I'll be fine."
"Alone in that house all by yourself? You two girls worry me," Marcia fretted. She turned back to the kitchen counter and toyed with the several plastic bowls lined up along its edge. "Why you had to move all the way across town is beyond me."
Lisa sighed mentally. "Mom, I'm a big girl. And I like living where I live."
Marcia nodded. "I know, honey. I just wish you and Terry would finally settle down--"
"Mom!" Thankfully, they were the only two in the kitchen, so she didn't have to listen to any comments on her mother's admission. "Terry and I... We... What makes you think I'm going to marry Terry?"
"Well, aren't you?" Her mother looked surprised. Pursing her lips, she bent to pull a paper grocery sack from a drawer and began putting the containers in it. "Allegra says you two spend every evening together. She says you and Terry are getting serious."
"Allegra should mind her own business." Lisa grabbed a glass and got some cold water from the faucet. "Mom, I don't need all that food."
"What?" Her mother often pretended deafness when she didn't want to hear what was being said. Lisa didn't bother repeating it. "A mother can't send some leftovers home with her daughters?"
"It's a ten-minute drive from here." Lisa slipped onto one of the worn, red vinyl kitchen chairs. "And we both cook. You act like we're starving to death."
"It's not for you anyway," Lisa's mom answered in a bit of a huff. "Your sister will appreciate it, if you won't."
That could be because her sister didn't know how to do a damn thing for herself, Lisa thought resentfully watching her mom pack the bag. She thought about letting her mother in on a little secret--the food she sent would grow green hair and start to ooze before Al even noticed it was in the fridge, and it would stay in there until Lisa couldn't stand it any more and threw it all away.
"I swear," Marcia said fondly, tapping the top container which had once held non-dairy whipped topping. "I send over these containers and I never get any of them back. What do you do, eat them?"
Great. Now Lisa would have to make sure she washed the containers and sent them back home. "Not exactly."
"Honey, is that thing about your email still bothering you?" Marcia poured herself a cup of coffee from the ever-present supply and sat down across from Lisa. "Dad said it was pretty graphic."
It was more than the email. It was all the strange things happening to her lately. It was Allegra's selfishness, and it was Terry's recent insistence on taking their relationship further than she was prepared to go. In short, it was just about everything in her life.
"Dad said he thinks Deacon Campbell had something to do with it. Not that he can prove it, of course, but you can bet he'll be keeping an eye on him."
"Deacon had nothing to do with it," Lisa said. Didn't that sound familiar? It seemed she'd been saying the same phrase over and over quite a bit lately.
From the other room came a burst of raucous laughter and Allegra's outraged squeal. "You're cheating!"
Family Fun Night. A tradition since Lisa's childhood, somewhat changed since most of the kids were grown and moved out of the house. The addition of spouses and grandchildren added to the fun, but also to the frenzy.
Allegra burst through the swinging doors and into the kitchen, breathing hard. "Troy sucks!"
"Allegra," Marcia admonished. "Your brother does no such thing."
Lisa bit back a laugh at her mother's unintentionally funny comment. "I thought you were playing Monopoly."
Allegra whirled to the fridge and whipped out a bottle of water. Gulping half the contents, she flung herself into the chair next to Lisa's. "They can play by themselves."
"Troy bought Park Place and Boardwalk again?" Lisa asked, knowing it was her youngest brother's favorite ploy, and Allegra's biggest pet peeve.
"That's just not fair," Allegra said. "I'm barely halfway around the board! Where's the cake?"
"I swear, how do you girls keep so thin?" Marcia gave Allegra a fond look that made Lisa want to choke.
"Nerves," Lisa said.
Allegra's eyes narrowed, but she didn't comment. "Are you staying over tonight?"
"No," Lisa said. "I'm meeting Terry in about an hour."
"Don't you think it's time you brought Ter-Bear over to the house for Family Fun Night?" Allegra asked coyly. "He is practically part of the family."
"That would be so nice," Marcia enthused. "We'd love for Terry to come. Why don't you invite him, Lisa?"
Lisa felt like slamming her head onto the table. Repeatedly. At least then the headache she felt pinching above the eyes would make sense.
"Maybe next time," she answered instead, knowing the answer might be enough to put off her mother, but wouldn't satisfy Allegra. A warning look might do that, and she gave her sister one of those.
Allegra switched tactics. "What are you two doing tonight? Just thought I'd ask, since I'm going to crash here tonight. You know, in case you two want to get busy."
Lisa growled. The sound hurt her throat, but she was powerless to stop it. Marcia looked startled, and Lisa could see her mother's mind slowly processing the exact nature of what Allegra had said.
&nbs
p; "Oh, Allegra," Marcia scolded. "Such talk!"
Al shrugged. "She's an adult, Mother. She's entitled to a sexual relationship. Not that I agree, of course," she added with a moue of false saintliness.
That's rich. Allegra had slept with more guys in the past two months than Lisa had in her entire life. But she could see her mother smiling dotingly at Allegra. The look she gave Lisa was slightly scandalized. Telling the truth as she knew it about her sister wouldn't win her any points and would only cause problems.
"On that note," Lisa said stiffly, pushing away from the table. "I'll be going now."
"Oh, honey, don't run off like that," Marcia protested. "Al was just teasing."
Lisa forced a smile to her mouth and bent to kiss her mother's cheek. "Great meal, Mom. Allegra, don't forget to take that stuff home with you. 'Bye. I'll call you later."
Allegra squeaked as she looked at the food on the counter. "Can't you...?"
"Nope, sorry," Lisa said blithely. "Gotta run. 'Night!"
And she was free. She slipped out the back door and stood in the summer night air, gulping it in like it was water and she was in the desert. From the back porch, she could see inside to the living room and her family gathered around the table. She loved them, she really did. But sometimes it was easier to love them from afar.
She hadn't bothered driving from home since the walk was only about twenty minutes. She'd never been afraid to walk by herself before, but now as she stepped out onto the cracked and bumpy sidewalk, Lisa couldn't stop a small shiver from tickling her spine. She told herself not to be ridiculous. The incident in The Evergreen's parking lot had been a fluke thing. She hadn't been hurt, had she?
Still, as the dusk made the automatic street lamps begin to turn on, she walked a little faster. The night was cooler than the day had been, but the goosebumps rising on her bare arms did not come from the night air. Lisa rubbed her arms briskly once, then forced herself to act nonchalant.
She had already made the left onto Russ Street and was heading toward Ida, meaning to take it all the way to Depot Street, then down to her house on Curry Avenue. Suddenly, walking through the dark, residential streets became incredibly unappealing. She'd walked that route a hundred times since moving out of her parents' home, and those streets a thousand times in the years she'd lived in Saint Mary's.