Playing Dead in Dixie

by Paula Graves

  They certainly wouldn't be looking for her in Georgia, as long as she stayed of the books.

  She could still go. Tell the Stricklands she'd been wrong to impose on their hospitality and then hitch a ride back to Savannah. Maybe Chief Wes would drive her back there himself.

  "Long day?"

  She jumped at the sound of Wes's voice, her eyes flying open. "Big lunches make me sleepy."

  He leaned against the doorjamb, a lazy smile playing across his mouth, making her heart flip-flop. "Sorry Floyd talked you into trying fried okra?"

  She made a face. "I was fine until he showed me what it looked like raw. Somebody should have told me it was hairy."

  Wes chuckled. "You should try it boiled."

  Something in his expression told her she most certainly should not.

  "It was good of you to help Bonnie out after lunch. She enjoys having you here. Gives her something to think about besides Steve." The words themselves were spoken in a quiet, even tone, but Wes's dark eyes flashed a warning Carly heard loud and clear. Hurt my family and you'll be very sorry.

  "I was thinking, you were right about Savannah. I'm sure there are plenty of jobs there." Carly licked her lips. "Could you give me a ride into the city tomorrow?"

  "No."

  His refusal caught her by surprise. "You'd rather I hitch a ride with some stranger, Chief Wes?"

  "You're not going anywhere. Not yet." His voice was low and rimmed with steel. "You put yourself into the middle of my family's grief. You can't just run away when it gets messy."

  Her throat felt tight. "I thought you wanted me gone."

  "Changed my mind." He pushed away from the doorway, closing the distance between them in two long strides. He stood over her, big and hard-eyed. "I think I like you better where I can keep an eye on you. For now, at least."

  Though she bristled at his tone, she could hardly blame him for his suspicion. He had good reason to doubt her. Lifting her chin, she met his dark gaze. "Am I under house arrest?"

  "If I said yes, would you be good and stay put?"

  She didn't bother to reply. He already knew the answer. She could see it in the half-smile flirting with his lips.

  A shiver of pure female awareness skittered through her as he bent closer, parting those lips to speak to her in soft, intimate tones. "I'm going to find out who you are, Carly Devlin. I'm going to find out what you're about."

  Her stomach fluttered with unease, not all of it alarm. She forced herself to smile, to give a flirty tilt of her head and a little thrust of her breasts, tricks she'd learned long ago, when it became clear that people were more interested in what was in her bra than in her brain. "Knock yourself out."

  His eyes darkened. "You could save us both a lot of trouble if you just came clean."

  She crossed her legs, noting with satisfaction his gaze following the slow, deliberate movement, settling on the creamy expanse of thigh exposed as her skirt slid back toward her lap. "But it's so much more fun this way. Don't you think?"

  He looked up sharply, his lips tightening. "Not sure I'd use the word 'fun.'" He straightened up, taking a step back, and she knew she'd won this round.

  She tugged the hem of her skirt back down to her knee and looked up at him with an innocent half-smile. The spark of anger behind his dark eyes assured her she'd struck her mark.

  "I've got to head out."

  "J.B.'s waiting?"

  His brow wrinkled.

  "Bonnie said you were taking supper to J.B. A friend?"

  He shook his head. "My dad."

  There was a story behind the sudden current of sadness that drifted through his expression. If small towns down here below the Mason-Dixon Line were like small towns up north, she'd hear that story before long.

  It was one advantage she had over Wes Hollingsworth, she reflected. What secrets he had, she'd uncover a whole lot sooner than he'd uncover hers. Especially if he was looking for someone named Carly Devlin.

  "YOU SHOULD HAVE COME with me to Aunt Bonnie's." Wes placed a glass of iced tea on the table at his father's elbow.

  J.B. made a growly noise and fumbled with his fork. Ten years after the stroke, he still hadn't quite mastered eating left-handed. His right hand had long ago curled into a useless claw, thanks to his refusal of any physical therapy.

  "It's dead," he insisted whenever Wes tried to get him to try to exercises the therapist suggested to re-stimulate his paralyzed hand. In a room at the back of the house, a couple of boxes full of peg boards, marbles, squeeze toys, all the things the therapist had suggested might help him relearn to use his crippled hand, lay covered with dust, untouched for years.

  J.B. had learned to walk again out of sheer pride, hating the walker they'd given him at the hospital. But he'd never conquered the rolling, unsteady gait that came from having one leg neither fully dead nor fully alive.

  Wes turned a chair around and straddled it, facing his father. "Ardelean Guthrie asked about you. She told me to be sure you got a piece of her pecan pie."

  J.B. grunted and shoveled a spoonful of squash casserole into his mouth.

  "You remember Miss Ardelean's pie. You used to buy a slice every time the Ladies' Auxiliary had a bake sale." Wes tried to keep impatience from spilling into his voice. "She says Ludlow asked you to go with him to the V.F.W. meeting next Saturday but you wouldn't go."

  "Bunch of old farts pretending they're war heroes."

  "Most of them were, J.B." Anger eclipsed impatience. "You damned well know it."

  "You gonna jaw me to death or let me eat in peace?"

  Sucking a deep breath through his nose, Wes pushed back from the table and crossed to the stove in two angry strides. He replaced the aluminum foil over the dishes of food Aunt Bonnie had sent with him. Over the last few days, as word of Steve's death spread, neighbors and friends had dropped by casseroles and cold plates, cooked hams and meat loaves, more than Bonnie and Floyd would ever get through, even with their unexpected guest joining them for meals.

  He carried the dishes to his father's refrigerator, trying to put Carly Devlin's creamy, well-toned thigh out of his mind. The little wretch had known exactly what she was doing, pulling that sexy leg-crossing maneuver. God knows what other tricks she had in her arsenal.

  He glanced at his watch. Nearly five. He hadn't planned to go to the station today because of the funeral. But that was before Carly Devlin had sashayed her way into his cousin's wake.

  The least he could do for Bonnie and Floyd was make a few calls, find out just what kind of woman they'd welcomed into their house.

  BONNIE WAS CRYING, a soft, hiccoughing noise, barely audible through the wall separating the Strickland's bedroom from the one where Carly lay, trying to will herself to sleep.

  She shouldn't have let Wes bully her into staying around. He'd been wrong; having Carly around didn't seem to be giving Bonnie Strickland much comfort at all, only a constant, bitter reminder of what she'd lost.

  She should just go. Pack up, sneak out of the house and walk to the main highway. It was a little after ten. Most traffic on the four lane would be tractor-trailers. She'd heard truckers were salt of the earth—surely one would give her a ride back to Savannah without turning out to be a serial killer.

  If not, she'd keep walking until she found another place to hole up for the night.

  Making the decision filled her with a palpable sense of relief, a giddy bubble of freedom rising in her throat. She threw on a pair of jeans and the only sneakers she'd bought at the thrift store and shrugged into a long-sleeved overshirt in case August nights in Georgia weren't as warm as folks claimed. She tossed the rest of her things into her bag and padded quietly toward the bedroom door.

  She was almost out the door when she realized she'd left the bed a mess.

  Guilt prickled a path down her spine. No way was she going to leave poor Mrs. Strickland with an unmade bed. Not after all the poor woman had done to make her feel welcome, on a day like today of all days.

  Sh
e made quick work of the bedding, straightening the quilt over the sheets and patting it flat with a soft slap. Satisfied that she'd done what she could to keep the promise she'd made to Steve, she slipped through the bedroom door and headed toward the porch door.

  The door unlocked silently. But try as she might to ease the screen door open, the hinges still made a low, groaning noise as she edged out onto the stone porch. She paused in the doorway, listening behind her for noise from inside the house. When she was certain Bonnie and Floyd hadn't heard her exit, she closed the door behind her and headed for the steps.

  She was almost to the railing when a low voice asked, "Going somewhere?"

  Her heart stuttered. Blackness edged her vision, blotting out the pale blue light of the moon spilling across the stone porch. She clutched the porch rail to keep from falling.

  He found me. Oh God, Dominick found me.

  "Carly?"

  Her heart started beating again. He'd said Carly. Not Lottie. She took a deep breath and turned around.

  At the end of the porch, Wes Hollingsworth sat in a weathered rocking chair, his arms dangling so low that his fingertips brushed the porch floor. His legs stretched in front of him, muscular and lean in a pair of faded Levis. Moonlight bathed half his face, leaving the other half in shadow.

  Carly's heart rate evened out, but a different sort of nervous energy sluiced through her to replace the first jolt of fear. Wes Hollingsworth might not be Dominick Manning, but he was dangerous in another way entirely.

  "You're not going to tell me why you're sneaking out of my aunt's house in the middle of the night?"

  "It's barely after ten," she said softly.

  "Stop arguing semantics, Jersey."

  "Bonnie's crying," she said softly, as if that explained everything. Maybe it did.

  Wes's expression shifted, etched with pain. "She just lost her son."

  "And I'm a constant reminder."

  Wes unfolded himself and moved toward her in deliberate strides, his boots clicking on the stone porch floor. "Right now, breathing's a constant reminder, sugar."

  She told herself that she hated when he called her that. Demeaning, chauvinistic, condescending—and sexy as sin. She licked her lips as he moved closer, his body heat curling around her. "I'm not doing anybody any good being here."

  "Not even yourself?"

  She shook her head. Especially not herself.

  "I called the sheriff up in Bollingwood, Virginia," he said. She recognized the name of the town closest to the bus crash site. "We went over the tour bus manifest over the phone. There wasn't a Carly Devlin on the list."

  She relaxed a little. "There wouldn't have been."

  He quirked an eyebrow. "Why not?"

  For the first time since she'd arrived in Bangor, Georgia, the truth was her best ally. "Because I sneaked on the bus in Atlantic City."

  AGENT JIM PHILLIPS STARED at the waterlogged bag lying on the steel morgue tray, his heart sinking.

  Banks, the morgue attendant who'd let him into the exam room after hours, yawned and scratched his belly. "That what you're lookin' for?"

  Phillips drew a pen from his breast pocket and slid it beneath the flap of the pink faux-alligator bag. Inside lay a flat black wallet, a tube of lipstick, a little plastic container of melted breath mints and a cheap ball point pen. He pulled the wallet out with the tip of his own pen, reaching for a box of latex gloves sitting on the end of the morgue tray. Snapping on the gloves, he carefully opened the wallet.

  Anything in the wallet that had been made of paper was soaked through and illegible, but three plastic credit cards and a driver's license remained intact.

  Phillips looked at the driver's license photo first. It was Lottie, all right. Wavy black hair, sea-green eyes, and a face that even the D.M.V. couldn't render anything but gorgeous. He glanced at the name and vital statistics just to be sure, then released a disappointed sigh.

  "Why'd you go and run, Lottie?" he murmured to the pretty girl in the driver's license photo, ignoring the look Banks shot him. He considered, briefly, the idea that Dominick Manning had found a way to rig the bus to wreck, but the facts didn't lend themselves to such a theory. Manning couldn't have made the big rig jackknife at just that point on the highway, for one thing.

  And nobody had known she was going to make a run for it.

  It was supposed to have been just another Tuesday at the Palais Royale Casino. That was how he'd told Lottie to play it. Let Manning continue to believe she was just the clueless little bookkeeper pulling another eight hours of crunching numbers while in face, she was gathering evidence to put Dom Manning in prison where he belonged. But Phillips should have known Lottie would play it her own way.

  The last time they'd met, he'd seen leaving on her mind.

  "I WAS GETTING TIRED OF New Jersey." Carly sat on the top step of the porch, her face lifted toward the moon. The cool, blue light turned her features to alabaster, like a statue of some mysterious, ancient goddess frozen in time.

  Wes lowered himself beside her, wrapping his arms loosely around his knees. "And you figured south was the way to go?"

  She gave a little shrug. "Already been north."

  "Any particular reason you wanted to leave Atlantic City in a hurry?"

  She made a short, waving gesture that could have meant just about anything. "Why does anyone leave Atlantic City?"

  "The money ran out?"

  "Something like that."

  He digested her answer, testing it for believability. He wasn't quite sure why he was bothering to give her the benefit of doubt; normally he was the suspicious sort. He was a cop. Came with the territory.

  And there was at least one problem with her version of the story: he'd found in her bag. Folks with two hundred bucks on them didn't risk sneaking aboard a chartered bus. Two hundred would've paid for a ticket on Greyhound and a cheap motel room for a couple of nights, giving her time to find work in a place like Charlotte or Atlanta.

  Anywhere but Bangor, Georgia, where the biggest business in town was the lumber mill south of Hollow Road.

  And that was problem number two. Nobody came to Bangor, Georgia. They came from Bangor, came through Bangor, sometimes even came back to Bangor, as he had. But nobody from the outside ever came to Bangor on purpose. Not to stay.

  His sad excuse for a sex life was proof of that.

  "Did you lose big at the tables?"

  She glanced his way. "The numbers weren't on my side."

  Odd way of putting it. "I hear the house always wins."

  She tucked her legs up, resting her chin on one knee. "So they say."

  Her vague answers annoyed him. "What's your game, blackjack or craps?"

  She turned her head to look at him, her eyes glimmering in the moonlight. "What's your game, good cop or bad cop?"

  He leaned toward her, noting with satisfaction the way her pupils widened until only a narrow edge of moonlit silver rimmed the dark center. "Which do you prefer?"

  She leaned away, turning her face back to the moon. "I'm not in the mood for playing. I wouldn't think you'd be, either, since you just buried your cousin."

  The words were designed to hurt. Wes had to admit they met their mark. He leaned away, resting his head against the porch rail post.

  He'd offered to identify Steve's remains, not wanting his aunt and uncle to have to see his cousin's body before the funeral home had time to make him look like the son they remembered. He flew north on the bus company's dime to identify his cousin, relieved to find that his wounds wouldn't be hard to conceal. Easier on the family that way.

  Not many families had been as lucky. Some were still waiting, might be waiting for months or years for their loved ones to finally wash ashore downriver from the crash site.

  "Does your family know you're okay?" he asked Carly.

  She sat silent a moment, her face still lifted toward the silvery moon. "Nobody's worrying where I am."

  She probably hadn't intended the faint note o
f sadness that rasped along the edge of her voice. He'd known her less than a day and already he knew that much about her. She'd see vulnerability as weakness, unless she was wielding it as a weapon.

  "What kind of job are you going to look for?" he asked.

  "Here or in Savannah?"

  "Either."

  She nibbled her lower lip. "I did some bookkeeping back in New Jersey. Some retail sales, that sort of thing."

  "Do you have a resume with you? Any references?" He watched carefully for her reaction.

  She shrugged. "I've never had trouble getting a job without those things."

  Looking at her now, a moon-bathed goddess, he believed it. A woman who looked like Carly Devlin wouldn't have trouble getting a job. She probably wouldn't even have trouble keeping it, if she was halfway competent.

  "You should talk to Floyd in the morning. He might have an opening at the hardware store." Even as the words left his lips, he couldn't believe he'd uttered them. Had he just offered this secretive stranger a job at his uncle's store?

  She turned her head to look at him, as surprised as he was by the suggestion. "Didn't think that one through, did you?"

  He gave a bark of laughter, suddenly feeling lightheaded.

  Lightheaded, hell. Knocked flat on his ass.

  Carly Devlin might not turn out to be a criminal, but she was one hell of a dangerous woman.

  Chapter Three

  "I know it doesn't seem like a lot of money, but we've been having a few lean months." Floyd leaned against the checkout counter, offering a rueful half-smile.

  It wasn't much money, but Carly was grateful to have it. She was certainly in no position to quibble about her salary. She'd managed to put off talk about W-2 forms and Social Security numbers for the moment by promising to get the information to Floyd when she got her missing I.D. sorted out.

  At least she had a place to stay. The Stricklands had insisted that she continue living with them to save money. Carly would have taken the job for half the salary Floyd was offering just to pay them back for their hospitality. In addition to the part time job at the hardware store, she was helping Bonnie around the house as well, and she still didn't feel like she was doing enough..