by Nora Roberts
“It’s exactly that, and that’s how you’re going to put it to the police. There are laws against it. I knew a woman up in New York. Her ex-boyfriend wouldn’t leave her be, kept popping up, calling her, following her around. She lived scared for six months before they did something about it. It’s not right you should have to live scared.”
“She knew who he was,” Jo pointed out.
“Well, you have to figure out who this is.” Because the pictures spooked her, Lexy set them aside. “Did you break up with anybody close to the time this started?”
“No, I haven’t been seeing anyone in particular.”
“You don’t have to think it was in particular,” Lexy reminded her. “He has to think it. Who were you dating—even one date?”
“Nobody.”
“Jo, you had dinner with someone, went to a show, had a quick lunch.”
“Not dates.”
“Don’t be so literal. Problem with you is everything’s just black and white in your head. Just like your pictures. Even those have shades of gray, don’t they?”
Not entirely sure if she was insulted or impressed by her sister’s analogy, Jo frowned. “I just don’t see—”
“Exactly.” Lexy nodded. “You think up a list, then you think of another for men you turned down when they asked you out. Maybe somebody asked you a couple, three times and you figured he gave up.”
“I’ve been busy this past year. There’s hardly anyone.”
“That’s good. It’ll make the odds better on finding the right one.” Lexy crossed her legs, put herself into forming the plotline. “Maybe there’s someone in your building in Charlotte who tried to draw you out, make conversation when you bumped into each other in the hallway. Open your mind now,” Lexy said impatiently. “A woman knows when a man’s got an interest in her, even if she’s got none in him.”
“I haven’t paid much attention.”
“Well, pay attention now, and think. You’re the one who has to stay in control here. You’re not going to let him know he’s got you scared. You’re not going to give him the satisfaction of thinking he can put you in a hospital again.” She reached over, gave Jo’s shoulder a hard shake. “So you think. You’ve always been the smartest one of us. Use your head now.”
“Let me take the wheel, Jo.” Gently, Kate pried Jo’s tensed hands away. “You sit down, take a breath.”
“She can breathe later. Right now she’s going to think.”
“Lexy, ease off.”
“No.” Jo shook her head. “No, she’s right. You’re right,” she said to Lexy, taking a good long look at the sister she’d allowed herself to think of as fluff. This time what she saw was substance. “And you’re asking the right questions—ones I never thought to ask myself. When I go to the police, they’re going to ask the same ones.”
“I expect they are.”
“Okay.” Jo let out an unsteady breath. “Help me out.”
“That’s what I’m doing. Let’s sit down.” She took Jo’s arm, sat with her. “Now, first think about the men.”
“There aren’t many. I don’t draw them like bees to honey.”
“You would if you wanted to, but that’s another problem.” Lexy waved it away with a flick of her hand. Something to be solved later. “Maybe there’s one you come into contact with regularly. You don’t pay much attention, but you see him, he sees you.”
“The only man I see regularly is my intern. Bobby was the one who took me to the hospital. He was there when the last package came in the mail.”
“Well, isn’t that handy?”
Jo’s eyes widened. “Bobby? That’s ridiculous.”
“Why? You said he was your intern. That means he’s a photographer too. He’d know how to use a camera, develop film. I bet he knew where you’d be and what your schedule was whenever you were on assignment.”
“Of course, but—”
“Sometimes he went with you, didn’t he?”
“As part of his training, sure.”
“And maybe he has a thing for you.”
“That’s just silly. He had a little crush at first.”
“Really?” Lexy lifted a brow. “Did you accommodate him?”
“He’s twenty years old.”
“So?” Lexy shrugged it off. “Okay, you didn’t sleep with him. He was a regular part of your life, he was attracted to you, he knew where you’d be, he knew your routine and he knew how to use a camera. Goes to the top of the short list, I’d say.”
It was appalling, even more appalling than the faceless, nameless possibilities. “He took care of me. He got me to the hospital.”
He said he hadn’t seen the print, Jo remembered as her stomach muscles fisted painfully. It had been only the two of them there, and he said he hadn’t seen it.
“Does he know you came back to Sanctuary?”
“Yes, I—” Jo cut herself off, closed her eyes. “Yes, he knows where I am. Oh, God, he knows where I am. I just talked to him this morning. He just called me.”
“Why did he call you?” Lexy demanded. “What did he say to you?”
“I’d left a message for him to get in touch with me. Something I ... I needed to ask him something. He got back to me today.”
“Where was he calling from?” Kate flicked a quick glance over her shoulder.
“I didn’t ask—he didn’t say.” With a supreme effort, Jo reined in the thudding fear. “It doesn’t make any sense for Bobby to have sent the prints. I’ve been working with him for months.”
“That’s just the kind of relationship the police are going to be interested in,” Lexy insisted. “Who else knows where you are—that you’re sure of?”
“My publisher.” Jo lifted a hand to rub her temple. “The post office, the super at my apartment building, the doctor who treated me at the hospital.”
“That means anybody who wanted to know could find out. But Bobby stays top of the list.”
“That makes me feel sick, sick and disloyal. And it’s logical.” Pausing, she squeezed the bridge of her nose between her thumb and fingers. “He’s good enough to have taken the shots—if he worked at it, took his time. He’s got a lot of potential. He still makes mistakes, though—rushes, or doesn’t make the right choices in the darkroom. That could explain why some of the photos aren’t as high-quality as others.”
“What’s wrong with them?” Curious, Lexy slipped some of the prints out again.
“Some of them have hard shadows, or the framing’s off. See here?” She pointed to the shadow falling over her shoulder in one. “Or this one. It’s not crisp, the tones aren’t well defined. Some are mottled in a way I’d say means he used fast film, then overenlarged. Or some are thin—underexposed negatives,” she explained. “And others just lack creativity.”
“Seems pretty picky to me. You look good in most all of them.”
“They aren’t as carefully composed, certainly not as artfully composed, as the others, as the ones taken in Charlotte or on Hatteras. In fact ...”—she began to frown as she went through them again, shot by shot—“if I’m remembering right, it looks to me as though the later the photo was taken, the less professional, the less creative it is. As if he’s getting bored—or careless.
“See here, a first-year student with some talent and decent equipment could have taken this shot of me in the hammock. The subject is relaxed, unaware, the light’s good because it’s filtering through the trees. It’s an easy shot. It’s already laid out. But this one, the beach shot, he should have used a yellow filter to cut the glare, soften the shadows, define the clouds. That’s basic. But he didn’t bother. You lose texture, drama. It’s a careless mistake. He never made them before.”
Quickly, she pulled photos out of the other envelope. “Here’s another beach shot, from Hatteras this time. Similar angle, but he used a filter, he took his time. The texture of the sand, the lift of my hair in the wind, the position of the gull just heading out over the waves, good cloud definition
. It’s a lovely shot, really, a solid addition for a show or gallery, whereas the one from home is washed out.”
“Was Bobby on assignment with you there? On Hatteras?”
“No. I worked alone.”
“But there’s a lot of people on Hatteras, compared to Desire. You might not have noticed him. Especially if he wore a disguise.”
“A disguise. Oh, Lexy. Don’t you think I’d have clued in if I saw some guy walking around in Groucho glasses and a funny nose?”
“With the right makeup, a wig, different body language, I could walk right up to you on the street and you wouldn’t recognize me. It’s not that hard to be someone else.” She smiled. “I do it all the time. It could have been this intern of yours or half a dozen people you know. Dye the hair, wear a hat, sunglasses. Put facial hair on or take it off. All we know for sure is that he was there, and he was here.”
Jo nodded slowly. “And he could be back.”
“Yeah.” Lexy put a hand over Jo’s. “But now we’re all going to be watching out for him.”
Jo looked at the hand covering hers. It shouldn’t have surprised her, she realized, to find it there, to find it firm and warm. “I should have told both of you before. I should have told all of you before. I wanted to handle it myself.”
“Now there’s news,” Lexy said lightly. “Cousin Kate, Jo says she wanted to handle something herself. Can you imagine that, the original ‘Get out of my way I’ll do it myself’ girl wanted to handle something on her own.”
“Very clever,” Jo muttered. “I didn’t give you enough credit either, for being willing to be there.”
“More news, Kate.” Lexy kept her eyes on Jo’s. “Why, the bulletins just keep pouring in. Jo didn’t give me enough credit for being an intelligent human being with a little compassion. Not that she or anyone else ever has, but that’s the latest flash coming off the wire.”
“I’d forgotten how good you are at sarcasm—and since I probably deserved both those withering remarks, I won’t ruin it by proving I’m better at sarcasm than you can ever hope to be.”
Before Lexy could speak, Jo turned her hand over and linked her fingers with Lexy’s. “I was ashamed. Almost as much as I was scared, I was ashamed that I’d had a breakdown. The last people I wanted to know about that were my family.”
Sympathy flooded Lexy. Still, she kept a smirk on her face and in her voice. “Why, that’s just foolish, Jo Ellen. We’re southerners. We admire little else more than we admire our family lunatics. Hiding crazy relations in the attic’s a Yankee trait. Isn’t that so, Cousin Kate?”
Amused, and bursting with pride in her youngest chick, Kate glanced back over her shoulder. “It is indeed, Lexy. A good southern family props up its crazies and puts them on display in the front parlor along with the best china.”
Her own quick laugh made Jo Ellen blink in surprise. “I’m not a lunatic.”
“Not yet.” Lexy gave her hand a friendly squeeze. “But if you keep going you could be right on up there with Great-granny Lida. She’s the one, as I recollect, wore the spangled evening dress day and night and claimed Fred Astaire was coming by to take her dancing. Put a little effort into it, you could aspire to that.”
Jo laughed again, and this time it was long and rich. “Maybe we’ll go shopping after all, and I’ll see if I can find a spangled evening dress, just in case.”
“Blue’s your color.” And because she knew it was easier for her than for Jo, Lexy wrapped her arms around her sister and hugged hard. “I forgot to tell you something, Jo Ellen.”
“What’s that?”
“Welcome home.”
IT was after six before they got back to Sanctuary. They’d gone shopping after all and were loaded down with the bags and boxes to prove it. Kate was still asking herself how she’d let Lexy talk her into that frantic ninety-minute shopping spree. But she already knew the answer.
After the hour spent in the police station, they’d all needed to do something foolish.
When they came in through the kitchen, she was already prepared for Brian’s tirade. He took one look at them, the evidence of their betrayal heaped in their arms, and snarled.
“Well, that’s just dandy, isn’t it? That’s just fine. I’ve got six tables already filled in the dining room, I’m up to my elbows in cooking, and the three of you go off shopping. I had to drag Sissy Brodie in here to wait tables, and she hasn’t got any more than a spoonful of sense. Daddy’s mixing drinks—which we’re giving them the hell away to make up for the poor service—and I just burned two orders of chicken because I had to go in there and mop up after that pea-brained Sissy dumped a plate of shrimp fettuccine Alfredo on Becky Fitzsimmons’s lap.”
“Becky Fitzsimmons is in there, and you got Sissy waiting on her?” Tickled down to her toes, Lexy set her bags aside. “Don’t you know anything, Brian Hathaway? Sissy and Becky are desperate enemies since they tangled over Jesse Pendleton, who was sleeping with them both nearly at the same time for six months. Then Sissy found out and she marched right up to Becky outside church after Easter services and called her a no-good toad-faced whore. Took three strong men to pull them apart.”
Reliving the scene with gusto, Lexy pulled the scarf loose and shook her hair free. “Why, a plate of shrimp fettuccine’s nothing. You’re lucky Sissy didn’t take up one of your carving knives there and go after Becky good and proper.”
Brian drew a breath for patience. “I’m counting my blessings right now. Get your pad and get your butt in there. You’re already an hour late for your shift.”
“It’s my fault, Brian,” Jo began and braced herself for the attack when he whirled on her. “I needed Lexy, and I suppose we lost track of time.”
“I don’t have the luxury of losing track of anything, and I don’t need you standing in my kitchen taking up for her when she’s too irresponsible to do what she’s supposed to.” He rattled the lid off the chicken breast he was sautéing and flipped the meat. “And I don’t want you trying to smooth it all over,” he said to Kate. “I don’t have time to listen to excuses.”
“I wouldn’t dream of offering any,” Kate said stiffly. “In fact, I wouldn’t dream of wasting my breath on someone who speaks to me in that manner.” She jerked her chin up and sailed into the dining room to help Sam with bartending duties.
“It was my fault, Brian,” Jo said again. “Kate and Lexy—”
“Don’t bother.” Lexy waved a hand breezily to mask her simmering temper. “He isn’t about to listen—he knows all there is to know, anyway.” She snatched up a pad and stomped through the door.
“Flighty, irresponsible bubblehead,” Brian muttered.
“Don’t talk about her that way. She’s none of those things.”
“What is this? Suddenly the two of you have bonded over the discount rack at the department store? Women buy shoes together and all at once they’re soul mates?”
“You don’t think much of the species, do you? Well, it was women I needed, and women who were there for me. If we were a little later getting back than suits you—”
“Suits me?” He flipped the chicken onto a plate, clenching his teeth as he concentrated on adding side dishes and garnishes. Damned if he’d have women destroying his presentation. “This isn’t about what suits me. It’s about running a business, holding on to the reputation we’ve been building up here for twenty-five years. It’s about being left in the lurch with close to twenty people wanting a good meal served in a pleasant and efficient manner. It’s about keeping your word.”
“All right, you’ve every right to be angry, but be angry with me. I’m the one who dragged them off today.”
“Don’t worry.” He filled a basket with fresh, steaming hush puppies. “I’m plenty angry with you.”
She looked at the pots steaming on the stove, the vegetables already chopped on the cutting board. Dishes were piling up in the sink, and Brian was working awkwardly, hampered by his injured hand.
Left in the
lurch was exactly right, she decided. And it had been poorly done by all of them.
“What can I do to help? I could get these dishes—”
“You can stay out of my way,” he said without looking at her. “That’s what you’re best at, isn’t it?”
She absorbed the hit, accepted the guilt. “Yes, I suppose it is.”
She slipped quietly out the back door. Sanctuary wasn’t barred to her, she thought, not as it had been in her dreams. But the road to and away from it was forever rocky and full of potholes.
And Brian was right. She’d always been expert at staying away, at leaving the pleasures and the problems that brewed in that house to others.
She wasn’t even sure she wanted it to be otherwise.
She cut through the forest. If someone was watching her, let him watch, let him snap his goddamn pictures until his fingers went numb. She wasn’t going to live her life afraid. She hoped he was there. She hoped he was close, that he would show himself. Now. This minute.
She stopped, turned in a slow circle, her face grim as she scanned the deep green shadows. A confrontation would suit her mood perfectly. There was nothing she would enjoy better than a good, sweaty physical fight.