He turned into a section of condos in the newer part of town, one that bordered Violet’s cookie-cutter neighborhood. The condos were all upscale, with stone and brick and stucco exteriors. But as we drove past the well-manicured lawns, I couldn’t help noticing how boring the landscaping looked.
When he pulled into a driveway, I looked through the windshield at the two-story four-plex that loomed ahead. “So this is where you live?”
“This is it.” As he led me through the front door I noticed the car that had been following us was parked at the curb across the street. Mason locked the door.
“Do you think he’d come here looking for me?”
Mason stopped and hesitated as he searched my eyes. “Yes. Crocker is bat-shit crazy and obsessed with making you pay for what he thinks you’ve done to him. I have no doubt he’d come here or anywhere looking for you.”
“Oh.” That wasn’t the answer I expected.
“Stay away from the windows.” He disappeared upstairs and came back out carrying a handgun.
“Is that really necessary, Mason?”
“Yes.” He set it on the kitchen counter.
He was being so matter-of-fact, so different from how he’d been last night, that I suddenly worried he’d decided I was too much trouble. “Mason, are you mad at me?”
His head swung around, his eyes wide as he placed a box of pancake mix on the counter. “Why on earth would I be angry with you?” He came around the counter and pulled me into his arms. “No, I’m freaked out. He was in your house with you and he could have…” His voice trailed off. “I should have stayed with you. I should never have left but I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to resist you if I stayed and Jeff was so sure—”
“Mason, stop.”
He squeezed me tighter. “Jeff said they had Crocker cornered in Shreveport, but it just didn’t make sense to me that he would have run that far.”
“Why?
“Because he’s obsessed with you.” He released me. “Do you like pancakes?”
I blinked, stunned by his bombshell followed by a complete change in topic. “Yeah.”
He grabbed a bottle of syrup out of the cabinet.
“I’m beginning to think everyone eats better than I do.”
He glanced over his shoulder as he spooned pancake mix into a measuring cup. “What do you usually eat?”
“Canned soup.”
He grimaced. “Then just about everyone does eat better than you.”
“Thanks.” I laughed, but it was forced. I was eager to find out what Mason knew. “I know that I shouldn’t have touched the note he left, but I wasn’t thinking straight.” I shrugged. “I saw the sofa and I just—”
Mason turned around to face me. “It’s okay. You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“Do we have to eat now? I keep thinking about him being in my house and it makes me feel like I’m going to throw up.”
He was around the counter in seconds, pulling me off the stool and into his arms.
I rested my cheek on his chest and wrapped my arms around his back. “You found the note?”
“Yes.”
“Was that blood on the sofa?”
“No, it was catsup.”
“Thank God. I was worried someone or some animal had gotten hurt.”
“No one got hurt. That I know of.”
I leaned my head back to look up at him. “How do you know he’s obsessed with me?”
“I did some digging after what that boy from your neighborhood said about Crocker’s guys threatening you.”
“Oh.”
“The sheriff’s department has been investigating, but they didn’t do much legwork because they seemed like idle threats. Crocker’s known associates had been lying low and Crocker was behind bars. Until the guards at the county jail realized he wasn’t in his cell around three a.m. two days ago.”
I shuddered.
“I get the rose petals and the rolling pin.” His voice softened. “But why the geode?”
I stiffened, remembering the day of Crocker’s arrest. “I guess it wasn’t in the report.” I forced a smile. “And I know you’ve read the report. Sometimes I think you know more about me from reports than I do.”
He grimaced.
“I’m teasing—or trying to. If you were investigating Crocker’s threats, of course you would have looked at the report.”
“There was nothing about a geode in there.”
“When I went to the warehouse to save Joe, I got Crocker to take me upstairs to keep him distracted so he wouldn’t shoot Joe. I may have…questioned his masculinity.”
“That wasn’t in the report, Rose. All it says is that he took you up to the office, then the bust unfolded and Joe came upstairs to save you.”
I shook my head. “That’s not how it happened.”
He guided me to one of the chairs at the kitchen table and then disappeared for a moment, returning with a legal pad and pen. “Start from the beginning. The first time you saw Daniel Crocker was at the DMV, correct?”
“Yeah, when I saw the vision of me dead on Momma’s sofa with my head bashed in. I passed out before I could blurt out that he was going to murder me. He left his paperwork and disappeared.”
He nodded. “Okay, I have that part down.”
“The next time I saw him was at the bar in Jasper’s. My blind date had left while I was in the bathroom, so I decided to head to the bar and scratch an item off my wish list—drink wine.”
Mason looked up from writing. “Wait. Some guy left you at Jasper’s?”
“To be fair, he didn’t want to go out with me at all. Violet coerced him into it. And he was terrified that I had killed Momma.”
Mason shook his head and lowered his gaze to the paper. “What an idiot. What happened next?”
“Sloan was the bartender.”
He looked up again, his eyes wide. “Sloan Chapman?”
“Yeah, just one more coincidence that dug me even deeper into the whole mess. I’d never had wine before, so I had no idea what to order. He was really sweet and helped me figure it out. Then Daniel Crocker came in. He’d seen me in the restaurant with my date, but he didn’t recognize me because I had a different hairstyle and was wearing makeup. I looked different. Still, he said he knew he’d seen me somewhere, and it was driving him crazy that he couldn’t place me.” I paused, taking a breath. “Sloan saw Crocker hitting on me and came over to intervene. He told Crocker that I was his sister and to back off. Crocker did, but he wasn’t happy about it.”
Mason looked up. “Do you realize the risk Sloan took defending you?”
I nodded, tears in my eyes. “He was shot a few days later, after Crocker came back to the DMV and figured out who I was. He had been looking for me every day while I was off for Momma’s funeral. He figured out that Sloan wasn’t my brother, and then he asked me if he was an undercover cop. I was horrified and told him no. But I didn’t know anything then. I had no idea that Sloan was working with the state police. I got him killed.” My voice broke. “I’ve lived with the guilt of that ever since.”
“Rose. It wasn’t your fault. You had no way of knowing.”
I shook my head. “The next time I saw Crocker was at Sloan’s visitation. That was the night that I had another vision of myself dead. It was also when I finally figured out why he was interested in me: He thought I was the DMV informant with a flash drive of information. He told me to meet him the next night at The Trading Post at 10:00 p.m. and bring him the flash drive. But I was clueless about what was supposed to be on it.”
Mason kept his eyes on the legal pad. “The report says you went and gave him a flash drive with false information, and then Joe showed up and helped you escape out the back window. That’s pretty skimpy.” He looked up again. “What else happened that night?”
“Why do you think something else happened?”
His face hardened. “Crocker has a…reputation.”
I hesitated. “When Joe realized
I really wasn’t part of the whole mess, he drove me to my car, which was still at the funeral home, and gave me the fake flash drive. The reason I agreed to meet with Crocker was that I was trying to save Violet—Crocker had put a photo of her under my door to remind me what was at stake.” I swallowed and looked toward Mason’s shiny stainless steel refrigerator. “He’d expressed an interest in how I was dressed at the funeral home the night before, so I wore a low-cut shirt and tried to dress sexy, hoping to distract him from the fact that I didn’t have what he wanted. When Joe gave me the flash drive, he told me I had the right idea but warned me not to let Crocker get me into bed. He was known to be…rough.”
Mason continued writing, his knuckles turning white from his strong grip on the pen.
“When I showed up, Crocker seemed eager to show me how interested he was in me. After his men did a quick check of the flash drive and it passed, Crocker insisted on celebrating with tequila shots.”
I heard Mason’s pen scribbling.
“After the first three shots and some sloppy kissing, I excused myself to the bathroom to throw up. Joe was in there waiting for me. He told me to go back out and said that he’d help me escape the next time. So I did three more shots with Crocker, with some kissing in between, and then I went to the bathroom to throw up again. And I escaped with Joe.”
Mason scribbled down several more lines and then looked up, expressionless. “And when did you see Crocker again?”
“The next day. After we left The Trading Post, Joe took me to his house and hid me in his attic. Crocker’s men showed up, but Joe swore he hadn’t helped me, that he’d been home alone all night. They said they’d kill him if he was lying. When Joe went off the morning of the big bust, I had a vision of him getting shot, but he insisted he’d be fine and that I needed to stay in his house until it was done.
“Instead, I chased Muffy behind Joe’s house. While I was out there, Crocker’s men showed up and busted Joe’s door down and found my shoes in his house. The ones I’d been wearing the night before. I knew my vision was going to come true, so Muffy and I stole Miss Mildred’s car and drove out there with a gun that Joe had planted in my shed. We broke in the back of Crocker’s warehouse. Muffy and I hid in a storage room until Crocker came storming out of his office, demanding that Joe tell him where I was. So I rushed out and told Crocker that Joe had nothing to do with it. I said I’d left on my own because I was looking for a real man.”
Mason stopped writing and looked up at me wide-eyed.
“What?” I shrugged. “I had to come up with something.”
He still didn’t say anything.
“Crocker was going to shoot me, but I told him he should prove he was a real man before killing me, so he dragged me up the stairs to the office.”
Mason kept watching me, expressionless.
“When a commotion broke out downstairs, I bit his lip and he stumbled backward, then I pulled out my gun and shot him in the leg. But Joe heard the gunshot and ran upstairs with Muffy. She attacked Crocker and he started hitting her. I had to make him stop, so I picked up a geode off his desk and threw it at his head, knocking him out. Joe tied him up with a light cord, and then the state police took him away.”
Mason was silent for several seconds. “Do you know what his unfinished business is?”
I swallowed the bile rising in my throat. “I have a good idea.”
Chapter Ten
“They’re going to catch him,” he said, his eyes focused on the gun on the counter. “The sheriff’s office and the state police are canvassing the county right now. Maybe he’ll realize that stalking you isn’t worth getting caught, but that’s what a sane person would do. Crocker is a psycho. You can’t go home.”
“What am I supposed to do? I don’t want to stay with Violet.”
He shook his head. “No. You’d only put her in danger, anyway. The sheriff’s office wants to put you into witness protection.”
“But what about my landscaping job? How long will I be gone?”
“As long as it takes. I suspect they’ll try to flush him out, but Crocker is smart, so he might realize that you’re not really at your house.”
“Where will I stay if I can’t go home and I can’t go to Violet’s?”
“You can stay with me until they find a safe place for you. We’re outside Henryetta city limits, which is why the undercover sheriff’s deputy who followed us is watching my condo.”
“So why can’t I just stay with you until it’s over?”
“Because I have to go to work, and even though the deputy can stay with you while I’m gone, it would be too obvious. Crocker and his men would find you in no time. We need to keep you hidden.”
“But how long will it take to catch him?”
“Hopefully they’ll be able to flush him out in a day or two. But I don’t want to take any chances. It needs to be somewhere outside of Henryetta city limits but still in Fenton County.”
Suddenly the answer came to me, so obvious that I felt blind for not seeing it before. “My birth mother’s farm.”
His mouth parted. “Where is it?”
“About thirty minutes out of town. My Uncle Earl has kept it up. When I asked him about it a week ago, he told me he’s been paying the electric and gas bills with my trust. He said the water comes from a well.”
“Who else knows about it?”
“Uh…” I wrinkled my brow as I counted. “Violet, of course. And her husband, Mike. Joe. Jonah. Neely Kate and my aunt and uncle. But only my aunt and uncle know where it is. Like I told you yesterday, I haven’t been out there yet.”
“And who knows about the existence of your birth mother?”
“The same people. No one else. Well, except for you, of course.”
“This could be good. It’s a secret and it’s remote. Give me the address and I’ll have the deputies check it out.”
“So I’ll just hide out at the farm?”
“If the sheriff thinks it’s a good idea, then, yeah. With sheriff’s deputies there to guard you.”
Even though I’d been the one to suggest the farm, I was having second thoughts. What if I was stuck there for days or even weeks? “I suppose I was going on Sunday anyway,” I said.
“We were going on Sunday.”
I smiled at him. “We.” We’d only made those plans two days ago, but it seemed like weeks. A new worry hit me. “Unless you changed your mind.”
He looked incredulous. “Why would I have changed my mind?”
I looked down at the table. “I don’t know…last night you couldn’t keep your hands off me and now you’re acting like Mr. Assistant DA. Maybe you decided I’m too much drama. Joe considered breaking up with me last July after the whole Bruce Wayne and Jimmy DeWade mess. Maybe you’ve decided to escape while you still can.”
“Is that what you think?” he asked in disbelief. “You think this has become too intense and I’ve changed my mind?”
I looked up into his face. “I wouldn’t blame you.”
He shook his head. “Come here.” He reached over and grabbed my wrist, pulling me around the side of the table and into his lap, wrapping an arm around the small of my back. He looked up at me with a soft smile. “Are you forgetting how we met? You were like this tornado that swept into the courthouse with the sole intent of throwing my entire life off its axis. I knew you were a pack of trouble the moment I laid eyes on you. And when you stood in front of me, completely lopsided because of your broken heel, and verbally berated my lack of manners, threatening to hunt down my mother and tattle on me, I knew I could search to the ends of the earth and never find another woman like you.”
I cringed. “I was horrid.”
“I deserved every word you unleashed.”
“Mason, I’m like a magnet for trouble. Joe hated it.”
“Joe’s an imbecile. And lucky for me that he is.” He kissed me softly and I sighed into his lips. Even in this situation, with Daniel Crocker after me, I felt safe with M
ason. Cherished.
I turned to face him better, grabbing the sides of his head and holding him in place in case he changed his mind.
But my actions ignited something in him and he slid his hands under my T-shirt and up my back, setting my skin on fire.
Mason groaned and grabbed my shoulders, pulling me back. “I didn’t touch you because I knew I wouldn’t be able to stop once I started. As much as I want you, it’s more important for me to make sure you’re safe. And if I’m the one in charge of protecting you, I’ll do a shitty job of it, because when I’m kissing you a damn nuclear bomb could go off and I wouldn’t even notice.”
“Oh.” I could see his point. “So does that mean you’re not going to kiss me?”
His eyes watched my mouth. “I don’t see how I can be this close to you without kissing you, but we can’t get too carried away. At least not until we get you somewhere safe, somewhere with a real protection detail.”
“Then why are we still here?”
He laughed and when he kissed me again, I could see what he meant about a nuclear bomb going off. There was a knock at the door, but the sound didn’t register until Mason set me on the ground and reached for his gun.
“Why are you getting your gun? Do you really think Daniel Crocker would knock on the door?”
“I wouldn’t put anything past that mental case.” He checked the chamber. “Now go hide in the bathroom. It doesn’t have any windows.”
The blood fled my head. “You’re serious.”
He looked down at me, determination squaring his jaw. “I’m dead serious. Now go.”
“No! What if it’s him and he shoots you?” Panic made my voice tighten.
His face softened. “Rose, no one’s going to shoot me. It’s probably Jeff. He told me he was going to come by after he checked out the crime scene, but I don’t want to take any chances, okay?” The pounding grew louder. “Now, go.” He pointed to a partially open door under the staircase.
I did as he asked, mostly because I didn’t know what else to do. I went inside and he pulled the door to the powder room shut on his way to the windowless front door. I sat on the toilet lid, my ears straining to hear what was happening while I studied his décor. It was all sleek and shiny with chrome and dark wood with straight lines. His living room and kitchen were the same—stainless steel and granite counters, contemporary looking sofa and chairs with glass tables. I couldn’t imagine a house more different from mine.
Thirty-One and a Half Regrets (Rose Gardner Mystery #4) Page 11