Emily laid her head against Matthew’s leather-clad back, shielding herself from the sharp sting of wind against her face as they roared downhill. In spite of the speed and the cold and the death-defying road, she felt warm and oddly protected so near him. A part of her wished she knew more about him, and a part of her was glad she knew nothing at all. She didn’t want anything to diminish the thrill of the moment.
But by the time they arrived in Batesville, the thrill had diminished a little on its own. Emily was frozen, and when she got off the bike her legs were stiff and her butt was numb. It wasn’t quite the sensation she’d been expecting.
Matthew got off the motorcycle and reached down to remove her helmet. He laid it on the seat behind him. When Emily took a few hobbling steps away from him, he said sympathetically, “It takes a little getting used to. You have to be somewhat of an aficionado to appreciate riding a bike—even a Harley—in this kind of weather. Or maybe you just have to be plain crazy,” he added with an ironic smile. “Next time, we’ll take your car, if you want.”
“That takes a little getting used to, too,” Emily said, trying without much success to fluff her flattened hair with her fingers. “Especially when you have to push it uphill.”
They walked up the steps of the nursing home, and Matthew held the door for her. Emily stepped through, relishing the warmth. The thermostat was set high, and by the time they’d been ushered down the long hallway to Miss Rosabel’s room, Emily had removed her coat and slung it over her arm. Matthew did the same.
The attendant who accompanied them pushed open Miss Rosabel’s door and stuck her head inside. She called gaily, “Miss Rosabel, you have visitors. That nice young woman from Paradise is back. And she’s brought another young man to see you.”
The attendant, who had to be fifty if she was a day, slanted an admiring look up at Matthew as she turned away from the doorway and disappeared down the hallway.
Maybe Nella had been reacting to Matthew’s looks, Emily thought, but when they went inside Miss Rosabel’s room and the old woman’s gaze fell on Matthew, the same expression of astonishment crossed her features.
What in the world is going on? Emily wondered.
Miss Rosabel was sitting by the window again, and as if suddenly chilled, she pulled her blue shawl around her shoulders.
Emily, made uneasy by Miss Rosabel’s reaction, said hesitantly, “May we come in and talk to you for a few minutes?”
Miss Rosabel motioned for them both to enter, but her eyes never left Matthew. She watched him cross the floor, and when he and Emily were standing in front of her, the old woman’s hand fluttered to her heart. Her voice shook when she said, “I don’t believe my eyes.”
Emily knelt beside her. The look on the old woman’s face alarmed her. “What’s wrong, Miss Rosabel?”
“He’s the spitting image,” she muttered. The hand clasping her shawl trembled.
“Spitting image of whom?” Emily asked. When Miss Rosabel still didn’t answer, Emily touched her arm, and the woman visibly started. Emily said, “Are you all right, Miss Rosabel? Can I get you something?”
Miss Rosabel batted Emily’s hand away. “I’m fine,” she snapped. “I’m not the one you should be concerned about.”
Matthew knelt beside them. “My name is Matthew Steele,” he said in a soft, reassuring voice.
“Matthew Steele,” Miss Rosabel repeated. She looked at once relieved and doubtful. “For a minute there, I thought you were someone else,” she murmured.
“He has the kind of face that always reminds people of someone they know,” Emily repeated dryly, giving Matthew a look that clearly said, Just what is going on around here?
“Yes, that must be it,” Miss Rosabel agreed, but her gaze never left Matthew’s face.
Emily was beginning to feel as though she’d stepped into the “Twilight Zone.” Why was everyone acting so strangely? Was it because Matthew was so devastatingly attractive and so obviously appealing? Or was it something else? Something more sinister?
Was it because he rode a motorcycle and had gray eyes? Did he remind everyone of Wade Drury, the man accused of a brutal murder?
Did everyone in town know something Emily didn’t?
Your paranoia is showing, Emily scolded herself. She said briskly, “Matthew read Mike Durbin’s article in a Memphis paper and became interested in the murder. We’d like to talk to you about it, if you don’t mind.”
“I don’t mind. I’m glad to have the company.” Miss Rosabel finally tore her gaze away from Matthew and looked at Emily. “I don’t know what more I can tell you, though.”
“Sometimes, the more you talk about an incident, the more you remember.” Emily paused for a moment, then continued, “I went to the library this morning to do some research, and I spoke with your niece.”
Miss Rosabel’s eyes seemed to sharpen on Emily. “You saw Nella?”
Emily nodded. “We talked about the night Wade Drury and Tony Vincent had their fight.”
Miss Rosabel’s lips thinned almost imperceptibly.
“Nella said Wade Drury could easily have killed Tony that night, if he’d been of a mind to. She said Tony started the fight, but Wade was the one who walked away. You told Mike Durbin and me yesterday that the sheriff had to come in and break up the fight, remember?”
“Did I?” Miss Rosabel frowned, evidently trying to recall. Her eyes clouded a bit. “The sheriff did come. I remember that plainly, but I think Nella’s right. Wade had ended the fight before Willis ever got there. At any rate, Nella would remember more about that night than I,” she murmured.
“Why?”
There was a long silence, then Miss Rosabel said, “Well, she’s younger, of course. Her memory’s bound to be clearer.” Her logic made perfect sense, but for some reason, Emily didn’t think that easy explanation was what Miss Rosabel had been thinking at all.
Emily, wondering why Matthew was being so quiet, decided to try another tactic. “I got the impression from something you said yesterday that Nella had a crush on Wade Drury. Did she?”
Miss Rosabel turned to stare out the window. Her frail shoulders lifted and dropped as she gave a long, weary sigh. “I guess you were bound to find out sooner or later,” she said softly. Her gaze met Emily’s again, and there was something in the older woman’s eyes that Emily couldn’t quite discern.
“You have to understand how it was for Nella,” Miss Rosabel explained. “She was new in town and didn’t have many friends. Wade was kind to her. He was handsome and mysterious, and more than a little wild, I suspect.” Her gaze drifted back to Matthew.
“Those qualities are devastating to any teenager, but to someone like Nella, well…She felt things more deeply than most girls her age. She’d had…infatuations before, you see, one rather serious. That’s why her father had sent her to me that year. She’d fallen madly in love with one of her teachers, and there was some trouble, because the man was married. There was a lot of talk, and, well, we decided—my brother and I—that it would be best for everyone if Nella came to stay with me until all the fuss blew over.”
Emily couldn’t have been more shocked. She would never have guessed that quiet, unassuming Nella Talbot was a woman with a sordid past. But still waters ran deep, and far be it for Emily, with her own less-than-sterling past, to cast stones at anyone else.
Matthew said grimly, “Did Wade know how she felt?”
“He’d have had to be blind not to. But he was never anything but kind to Nella. She was just a child, and he never led her on. Truth be told, I don’t think Nella ever expected, or even wanted, anything else from him. It was so obvious which direction the wind was a-blowing as far as his own affections were concerned, and Nella adored Jenny. In spite of the differences in their ages, Jenny was the first real friend Nella ever had.”
The plot thickens, Emily thought, glancing at Matthew. A romantic triangle had certainly been motive for murder before, and if you added the volatile angle that was Tony V
incent, who knew what might have happened that night?
Matthew stood and moved to the window, staring out with a brooding frown. Emily studied his profile—the strong, chiseled jawline, the bold slash of dark brows over beguiling gray eyes, and she thought, as she’d thought a dozen times since she’d first laid eyes on him, Who are you, Matthew Steele? Who are you really?
Miss Rosabel was obviously still affected by him, too. Her faded blue eyes, bright with an emotion Emily couldn’t quite decipher, watched Matthew with an absorbed, unblinking regard, and Emily tried to tell herself, Well, why not? The woman was old, not dead. She could appreciate a good-looking man the same as anyone else. But Emily had the impression that Miss Rosabel’s interest in Matthew was more than just admiration for an attractive man. She seemed fascinated, intrigued, and maybe just a little bit frightened by him.
And so had Nella.
Matthew turned from the window, and Emily thought she saw Miss Rosabel catch her breath as he trained his gray eyes upon her.
“Did you ever hear of a group that called themselves the Avengers?”
There was no mistaking the fear that flashed in Miss Rosabel’s eyes. “Oh, no,” she said. “Don’t tell me they’re at it again.”
“Not that I know of,” Matthew said. “I just wondered what you could tell me about them.”
Again Emily had the distinct and unpleasant feeling that she was on the outside looking in. She said, frowning, ‘“The Avengers’ was an old TV show, wasn’t it?”
“Would that that were true, child,” Miss Rosabel said cryptically. Then, to Matthew: “How in the world do you know about them, unless—?”
Matthew cut her off. “I’ve done some research.”
He glanced down at Emily, and she glared up at him. Obviously, he’d been holding out on her. Emily didn’t say anything, but she knew the look on her face told Matthew plainly enough that when they left here, he had a lot of explaining to do.
Miss Rosabel, unaware of the silent tension between her two visitors, said, “I haven’t heard anything about the Avengers in years. Hadn’t even thought about them. No one talks about them, you know. We never did.”
“Who were they?” Emily asked.
“No one really knew. It was a secret society. All the members dressed in black clothing and wore ski masks to cover their faces. They called themselves vigilantes, but they were little better than thugs,” she said in disgust.
“What did they do?”
“What didn’t they do? They roamed the streets of Paradise one whole summer, upholding law and order, they claimed, but it got so innocent folks were afraid to go out at night. Afraid the Avengers might accuse them of some crime for which they’d have no defense. Those few months when they prowled the streets at night were a terrible time. People afraid in their own homes. Young boys beaten up because they’d had the misfortune to be caught out on the streets after midnight. Property vandalized. One poor family run clean out of town.” Miss Rosabel shuddered. “There was nothing they wouldn’t do.”
“Were they operating in Paradise at the time of Jenny Wilcox’s murder?” Matthew asked.
“The summer before Jenny came to town they were. Their activities had let up some by fall, but I’ve often wondered…” Miss Rosabel faltered. She tugged her shawl around her again, then, lifting her chin, said, “I’ve often wondered if they didn’t have something to do with Wade Drury’s disappearance.”
Emily gasped. “You mean…you think they did something to him?”
“I’m not saying they hurt him,” Miss Rosabel rushed to explain. “Not physically. But I wouldn’t put it past them to have threatened him in some way. I think Wade was afraid to hang around town to try and clear his name. He knew the Avengers—not to mention the sheriff—would have railroaded him into a conviction.”
“Then you don’t think he killed Jenny?” Matthew asked.
Something flickered in the old woman’s eyes. “There was a darkness inside him. Make no mistake about that. I saw it when he went after Tony that night. But Wade knew how to control it. He knew when to walk away. I never could bring myself to believe he was a killer.”
“But…if he didn’t kill Jenny Wilcox,” Emily said slowly, “haven’t you wondered all these years who did?”
“Every night of my life.”
“Then why didn’t you ever say anything to anybody?” Emily asked in amazement.
Miss Rosabel shrugged. “Nobody ever asked until now. And besides, who was I supposed to tell? The sheriff? I always suspected he was in up to his eyebrows with the Avengers. Everyone in town wanted to believe Wade Drury was guilty. It was easier that way.”
Emily let out a long breath. “My God,” she said. “I can’t believe this. I can’t believe that Jenny’s murder has gone unsolved all these years. And I can’t believe a bunch of thugs dressed up in Halloween costumes used to roam the streets of Paradise, frightening people half out of their wits. And no one knew who they were? Forgive me, Miss Rosabel, but in a town the size of Paradise, I find that very hard to believe.”
“Oh, we had our suspicions,” Miss Rosabel allowed. “But we kept them to ourselves. We didn’t dare do otherwise.”
“This is unreal,” Emily said, rising from the stool. She dragged her fingers through her hair. “How come I never knew anything about this group? I lived in Paradise until I was out of high school. There was never any talk about a vigilante group, or any other kind of group, that I remember.”
“They were only active for a short time, that one year, and like I said, the whole thing was kept hush-hush. If word had gotten out, it could have hurt the tourist trade, and I don’t have to tell you, Emily, that other than Huntington Industries, tourism is about the only thing Paradise has going for it.”
“So this group of turkeys got away with murder, more or less, because the good citizens of Paradise were afraid of bad publicity.” The more things changed, the more they stayed the same, Emily thought bitterly.
“Groups like this were hardly unique to Paradise,” Matthew said. “Fifteen, twenty years ago, just like now, there were a rash of paramilitary groups cropping up all over the country, usually in small communities and rural areas. Among them were survivalist groups and militias, but the vigilante groups like the Avengers were the most dangerous, because they didn’t have a cause. They didn’t believe in anything. Their actions weren’t motivated by fear of big government or anything else. They were power-hungry, pure and simple. They wanted absolute control over the people who lived in their communities, and they used violence and fear to get it.”
“How could I not have known about this?” Emily demanded. “How could I have been so blind?”
“You were only a child,” Miss Rosabel reminded her. “And you’d lost your parents that same year. Your brother would have naturally wanted to protect you from anything else that might have been distressing to you.”
“Distressing? I would have been outraged. I am outraged. No wonder I never fit in in that town,” Emily said, whipping her hand through her hair again. “I should never have come back.”
“But the Avengers aren’t around anymore,” Miss Rosabel pointed out kindly.
“Maybe not as a group,” Emily said. “But the people who hid behind those black ski masks and terrorized innocent people are still living in that town, just as…” She paused, taking a deep breath as her gaze met Matthew’s. She didn’t bother saying the rest. She didn’t have to, because she knew they were both thinking the same thing.
Just as Jenny Wilcox’s murderer might still be living in Paradise.
“HOW COULD I not have known?”
It was late afternoon, and the sun was setting, as Matthew and Emily strolled around the manicured yard at Shady Oaks, talking over what they had just learned. Matthew took Emily’s arm, steering her toward a wooden bench that had been placed beneath the gnarled branches of one of the old trees from which the nursing home had taken its name.
They both sat down, and Matthe
w rested one arm along the back of the bench, barely touching Emily’s hair. She felt his touch, though. Felt it all the way to her toes.
She concentrated very hard on a verdigris sundial situated in the center of the garden. A gray squirrel, foraging for acorns, scattered the red and gold leaves blanketing the flower beds.
Matthew said softly, “Don’t beat yourself up over this, Emily. You were just a kid. There was nothing you could have done about it.”
“Except close my eyes and pretend nothing was wrong, like everyone else in town did.” Emily shook her head. “I can understand why some people would have been too afraid to step in or speak up, but my God, the sheriff, of all people, should have done something.”
“Miss Rosabel seems to think he might have been involved.”
“Comforting thought, that, isn’t it?”
Matthew shifted his arm, and his hand brushed her hair again. Emily wanted to lean back and rest her head against his arm. She wanted to close her eyes and forget all about the murder and the Avengers and everything else that had gone on in Paradise fifteen years ago.
She wanted to concentrate on the here and now, this very moment, to savor the new and exciting emotions Matthew Steele had awakened inside her. She wanted to turn her head and look at him for as long as she desired, to drink in every nuance of his masculine countenance and explore every line and angle of his handsome face.
She wanted badly to kiss him, and the yearning became an almost physical ache inside her. They were sitting so close, and Emily knew that if she gave the slightest signal, showed him even a hint of what was in her heart, he would probably grant her wish.
But if Emily had learned anything in the past few years, it was that her impulses could be, and often were, dangerous. She’d gotten herself into trouble more times than she cared to remember by following her heart instead of her head, and after her disastrous marriage to Eugene, she no longer trusted her own instincts. She didn’t dare give away her heart again, because she was tired of having it broken.
So she kept her eyes straight ahead and said, “What I can’t understand is how people like my brother could have let something like that go on. In many ways, Stuart is the typical Southern redneck. He’s always had an almost fierce devotion to truth, justice and the American way, and a group like the Avengers, who took the law into their own hands, would have been abhorrent to him. The only thing I can think is that he must not have known about them, either.”
Amanda Stevens Bestseller Collection: Stranger In Paradise/A Baby's Cry Page 7