by Anne Stuart
She didn’t really know why he still hung around. It certainly wasn’t to see her. She’d had no more than a glimpse of him in the last two weeks, and she wished she hadn’t even had that. She’d gone out to Maude’s, to thank her for the loan of her car while her own had been repaired, and had seen Tanner in the distance, astride Shaitan. He’d been absolutely beautiful, more at home on the big black stallion than she could ever be. Man and horse were made for each other, and the knowledge was acid eating into her soul. She didn’t go back to Maude’s without calling first.
It was Maude who’d told her he’d be leaving the next day, Maude, her dark eyes bright with concern, her voluble mouth for once silent. Apparently Tanner had warned her, and Maude had listened. While her expression was compassionate, her words were matter-of-fact. Tanner was leaving, and he wouldn’t be coming back.
Ellie dragged herself out of bed, rubbing abstractedly at her knee before reaching for her cane. What she needed after such a sleepless night was a strong cup of coffee, maybe two or three. And then she needed to keep busy, keep her mind running so fast that she wouldn’t have time to stop to listen for his footsteps on her back porch, for that lazy drawl of his insinuating itself into her consciousness. Forty-eight hours and he’d be gone. Surely she could last that long without breaking down?
She glanced at her reflection in the mirror before she reached for her robe. She looked tired, but sleep had been hard to come by recently. She looked miserable, but that was to be expected. How else were you supposed to look when your heart was crushed and bleeding?
She made a face at her nightgown. She should have followed her instincts, should have thrown it away at Maude’s. Instead she’d gone back there, just a week earlier, found the paper bag with the crumpled nightdress and brought it back home. She’d washed it, mended it, and with an obsessive manner she didn’t care to examine too closely she wore it to bed every night, wrapping her arms around her narrow body, pretending it was Tanner holding her.
Common sense told her that there’d be other men. Kinder men, gentler men, men who were willing to accept the kind of love she could offer. She knew she’d find them. She just wasn’t ready to believe it.
She belted the old flannel robe around her waist and headed down the long dark flight of stairs. One more morning, she promised herself. One more morning she’d have to walk down those stairs, limp down the hallway and make her coffee in the vast empty kitchen. One more morning...
The kitchen wasn’t empty. The coffee was made. Tanner was sitting there, a half-drunk cup of coffee by his side, reading the speech she’d written for the dedication.
She clutched the cane tightly in one hand, in the other she reached up and pulled the robe more closely around her. He looked up then, his blue eyes as handsome and as unfeeling as the blue sage that grew so abundantly around there, and she shivered.
“Still got the cane, Ellie?”
“What are you doing here, Tanner?” She limped into the kitchen, exaggerating her lameness, doing it deliberately. It got the reaction she wanted. His mouth tightened, whether in dismay or irritation, she couldn’t be sure. It was enough to be able to affect him at all.
“I came to say goodbye.”
She managed a credible look of surprise. “Are you leaving?”
He wasn’t fooled. “Maude told you yesterday,” he said flatly.
“Okay.” She poured herself a cup of coffee. He made it too strong, but she’d gotten used to the taste of it black. She took a sip, keeping herself from shuddering, and surprised just the faintest trace of softening in those icy-blue eyes of his. “You’ve leaving,” she agreed. “To quote you on one memorable occasion…goodbye.” She opened the back door and stood there, waiting, one hand on the doorknob, the other balancing her coffee cup and the cane.
“Close the door, Ellie. I’m not leaving yet.”
“You are if I have anything to say about it,” she snapped.
“You don’t. Close the door and sit down. I have to talk to you.”
“You could have written a letter.”
“Stop being a prima donna and get over here.” He was getting riled now. It gave her an obscure pleasure. Maybe she could get even more reactions out of him if she tried. “If you don’t come over here,” he continued, “I’ll come get you. The neighbors watched me drive in, they know I’ve been in the house since just after six, and I’ll be more than happy to give them more to gossip about if you don’t move. It would be a shame, wouldn’t it, just when you’ve gotten back in their good graces?”
She slammed the door, and some of the hot coffee splashed down her front. It soaked into the flannel wrapper, going straight through and scalding her. She let out a little yelp of pain, and a moment later Tanner was there, pulling the sodden material away from her skin.
She batted at his hands, ineffectually, with the cane getting in her way. “Stop it, Ellie. You’re just going to make it worse.” He yanked off the old dressing gown and tossed it on the floor. And then his hands stopped in midair as he realized what she was wearing.
“Damn it, Ellie,” he said, his voice unutterably weary. “What are you doing?”
“What do you mean?”
“Why are you wearing this?”
She pulled herself away from him, moving to the table and scooping up the sheets of yellow paper. “Let’s just say it reminds me of something I’d better not forget again.”
“And what’s that?”
“Not to believe something merely because it’s what I want to believe. Not to do something when I know it’ll cause me nothing but pain. To think with my head and not my heart. All those nice sorts of things that most people learn in their adolescence. I guess I’m a slow learner, but I’ve made real strides the last couple of weeks.” She started toward the hall.
“Come back here and sit down, Ellie!”
“You can’t make me.”
She’d forgotten how fast he could move. He caught her by the door, scooped her up and deposited her none too gently on the hard wooden chair. Then he took her cane, that twisted length of hickory, and brought it down across his knee. It broke, splintered, and he tossed it in one dark corner of the kitchen. “I can make you do anything I want,” he said flatly, taking the other chair.
She could feel the color drain from her face. She didn’t look at the broken remnants of her cane, she didn’t look at the man opposite her. She looked down at her hands, clasped tightly in front of her. “I expect you’re right,” she said quietly. “What do you want, Tanner? You’ve said goodbye. What else is there?”
“I came to warn you.”
She allowed herself a bitter grin. “Too late, Tanner. I’ve already been seduced and abandoned.”
“I can stop that mouth of yours.” The threat was lightly spoken and completely sexual. Ellie shut up.
He took his time, draining his cup of coffee, his long fingers fiddling with the thin china cup that had been part of Mrs. Lundquist’s prize set. Ellie allowed herself a brief, surreptitious glance at him. If she looked pale and tired, he didn’t look much better. His dark-blond hair was slicked back, still damp from however he’d managed to bathe, he hadn’t shaved, and the lines in his tanned face seemed to have deepened, scoring deep grooves between his nose and mouth, over his forehead, around his eyes. He looked like a man on the edge, and Ellie had to wonder just what had put him there.
“All right,” she said finally, when she thought all danger had passed. “Warn me. Though I don’t see what there is to warn me about. The incidents have stopped. No more desecrated gravestones, no more dead animals.”
“Pete Forrester’s prize hunting dog was found this morning,” he said flatly. “His wife saw someone dressed like me lurking around the barn last night when she got up during the night.”
Ellie’s reaction was a quick intake of breath. “How did you find this out so early?”
“Easy enough. I was on my way over here when Dave Martin stopped me. He was more than happy to tell m
e all the details, in exchange for my alibi.”
“Did you have one?”
“I was alone at the cabin.” Tanner shrugged. “There wasn’t much either of us could do about that. Anyway, that’s not the problem. The problem is, the incidents aren’t over. Whoever is doing these things hasn’t stopped.”
“Maybe not,” she said, fighting the urge to look over her shoulder.
“I want you to do me a favor.”
“Don’t count on it.”
“I don’t want you to give that speech tomorrow. I don’t want you to show up at the dedication.”
“Why not?”
“I can’t get rid of the idea that something’s going to happen there. That everything’s been building up to a repeat of fifteen years ago.”
She stared at him, aghast. “You certainly have some sick fantasies.”
“It makes a twisted kind of sense, doesn’t it? Someone’s going around, repeating the same weird things my father did, right before he flipped out completely. I’m just afraid someone else is going the same route.”
“Who?”
He hesitated, and she could see an emotion dance briefly across his face, one she might almost have called vulnerability. “I asked Doc whether he thought it could be me.”
“I beg your pardon?”
He met her gaze. “I asked him whether I could be doing it all and not remembering.”
“What did he say?”
“He said no.”
Ellie let out her pent-up breath. “I’m glad to hear he’s got more sense than you have. Of course you haven’t been doing those things. It has to be someone else.”
“There aren’t any other strangers in town.”
“True enough,” Ellie said, her animosity and nerves fading. “So if what you think is true, then it has to be someone who grew up here. Who’s been here all along, seemingly normal, while he or she got sicker and sicker.” A sudden thought struck her. “Maybe it’s me.”
“This isn’t a parlor game, Ellie,” he snapped, disgusted.
She smiled with mock sweetness. “There are times, Tanner, when I wish I could take an M-l rifle to a selected few.”
“I’m sure I’d be tops on your list.”
“Count on it.” She shivered in the warm kitchen. “It isn’t something to joke about,” she said, in a more subdued tone.
“No, it isn’t. Particularly when it might be about to happen again.”
“You don’t know that. You haven’t even come up with any possibilities as to who might be doing it.”
He held his breath, visibly controlling his irritation. “I realize that. Just humor me, will you? Don’t go to that dedication tomorrow.”
“Why should I do one damned thing for you?”
“Because I don’t want you to run the risk of being killed if some madman decides to take a gun to Morey’s Falls again.”
“Why not?”
He grimaced, shoving his chair back and standing up. “Call me a sentimental fool.”
She didn’t even flinch. “Why not?”
He was halfway to the door. He kept moving, pulling it open, letting the bright morning sunshine flood her gloomy kitchen. He looked back at her, his eyes bleak. “I’ll let you guess.”
“Where are you going to be?”
“Right now? Back at the cabin, I expect. Waiting for a lynch mob, maybe.”
“They won’t come get you. Most people in town are afraid of your father’s place, Pete Forrester included. They think it’s haunted.”
“Maybe it is,” he said.
“Are you going to the dedication?”
“Wouldn’t miss it for the world.” His voice was grim.
She met his gaze. “Then I’ll see you there.”
He started toward her. She could see the conflicting emotions wash across his face, emotions she didn’t dare hope she was seeing. She’d hoped to goad him into touching her, into making some kind of commitment. There were things she could see, roiling beneath his controlled exterior, but she couldn’t be certain if they were really there or whether it was just wishful thinking on her part.
He stopped before he reached her, and the seething emotions vanished once more, leaving him cool and distant. “Suit yourself,” he said. And left without looking back.
She stared after him, controlling the urge to run to the window, to savor every fleeting glimpse of him. She felt more hopeful than she had in two weeks. He wasn’t immune to her—far from it. No matter what he told her, no matter what he told himself. That was more than enough to keep her going.
Even if she wanted to she couldn’t back out of going to the dedication. It was the last thing she was going to do for the town, the final gesture, and then she’d be free. If she didn’t go through with it, she might always feel as though she owed them something.
As for Tanner’s fears, they were disturbingly contagious. But common sense told her it couldn’t happen again. Lightning didn’t strike twice in the same place. The tiny town of Morey’s Falls couldn’t produce two mass murderers.
It was probably someone out to cause trouble. Maybe mischievous teenagers out to spook people. Maybe Pete Forrester himself, trying to frame Tanner and drive him out of town. There were endless possibilities, none of them leading up to murder.
She took a shower and got dressed, feeling more optimistic than she had in days. Her car had been repaired and brought back to her in two days flat. More’s the pity, she’d thought. She’d had the fleeting hope that it had been totaled, but the Buick lived on. She drove the few short blocks to town, parking it outside Lonnie’s office. There was no sign of life in there, which was surprising. Lonnie was usually sitting there in the mornings, reading the Helena paper, drinking coffee, waiting for the news to come to him.
The park was deserted. The monolith was still covered with a canvas dropcloth, its ends secured with tent stakes. She knew what it looked like—a cross between a headstone and an obelisk, carved in depressing Vermont granite. All the names of Charles Tanner’s victims were engraved on its rough sides. She’d refused to have her name listed as the sole survivor, and the town fathers had reluctantly agreed. After all, it was her money that was paying for the thing.
She walked slowly around the monument, trying to still the uneasy feeling that washed over her. When she got to the back she noticed that one of the tent stakes was loose. Someone must have gotten too curious, she thought, moving closer. As far as she was concerned the unveiling could wait till doomsday, but apparently someone else was more impatient. She was about to move on when she noticed the granite chips lying in the dirt.
She stood for a moment, hypnotized, afraid of what she might find. Slowly she moved closer, squatting down by the edge of the monument, ignoring the pain in her knee. With one shaking hand she lifted the corner of the tarp.
They were all there. Seventeen names, carved in granite. Sixteen of them neatly chiseled in Roman lettering. And there at the bottom, hacked into the stone so crudely that she could scarcely read it was one new name. Eleanor Johnson Lundquist.
* * *
Chapter Nineteen
* * *
Ellie began to shake all over. She put out a hand to steady herself, then yanked it back as if it had been burned. The last thing she wanted to touch was that horrific monument.
She stood up, so swiftly that dizziness washed over her. She looked around, but there was no one in sight. No one at all, in the middle of a hot July day, which was strange in itself. She stumbled out of the park, getting tangled in her own feet in her haste to escape. She was heading blindly for her car when she heard voices.
Pete’s Fireside Cafe was jammed with people. For once no one was looking out the windows into the empty streets; they were all turned intently to something inside the diner. The voices, angry, muffled, were coming from that building.
As surreptitiously as she could Ellie crossed the street and edged up to the building. She needn’t have worried. No one even glanced on her direction
.
Pete’s diner was the real McCoy—a refurbished chrome railway car set up high. Ellie could press against the shiny metal and no one would see her unless they craned their necks outside the high windows that were open to the listless breeze. No one bothered.
“Things have gotten out of hand,” Pete was saying in his most blustery voice. “Are we going to sit around and let this happen again? Are we going to risk losing our loved ones, our wives and our babies and our parents, just because we were afraid to take a stand?”
There was a rousing chorus of “Hell, no!” and “No way!” A voice rang out, one Ellie couldn’t quite place. “Now, Pete, I’m sure we all agree with you.” Belatedly Ellie recognized Terry, the dentist’s suavely reasonable tones. “But I for one am not about to go out Route 5 to smoke him out.”
“No one’s asking you to, Terry,” Pete replied. “None of us need to. I sure as hell don’t want to—that place gives me the spooks as much as it does anyone. He’ll turn up, sooner or later, and when he does we’ll do something about it.”
“Like what?” This was Sally Richmond speaking.
“Like escort him out of town and make sure he’s in no shape to come back. The man needs to be taught a lesson. We’ve suffered enough around here at the hands of the Tanners. We don’t need any more of them hanging around, shooting our animals, desecrating our graveyards, messing with our women.”
The chorus of angry voices rose again. “What about his grandma?” someone shouted out. “And what about Ellie?”
“Hell, Ellie would probably buy the rope,” Pete chortled. “As for Maude, she’s too far out of town to know anything till it’s over. She didn’t help that trashy daughter of hers—why should she help her grandson? No, there’s no one who’ll lift a finger to help him. We’ll take care of him, all neat and clean, and there’ll be no one to blame unless you blame all of us.”