Amanda Stevens Bestseller Collection: Stranger In Paradise/A Baby's Cry

by Amanda Stevens

  Stuart rose from the couch. “This is all just a bunch of nonsense, if you ask me. I don’t know how I let you talk me into this, Emily.” He turned to his wife. “Get your coat, Caroline.”

  “I left it upstairs,” she murmured, then quickly left the room.

  Across the parlor, Nella rose reluctantly from the piano bench. “Perhaps I should be going, too.”

  “You don’t have to,” Emily said. “Stay and have a cup of tea.” With both Nella and Mrs. DeVere present, Emily was certain Trey would leave.

  And, sure enough, he undraped himself gracefully from the mantel, remarking slyly, “I must say, it was a thoroughly Emily Townsend evening. I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.”

  Emily just shrugged, refusing to rise to his bait. “I can’t imagine what you all did for entertainment before I moved back here.”

  Trey grinned. “Oh, it was deadly boring, I assure you.”

  Behind her, Stuart grumbled, “What the hell is keeping Caroline?”

  Glad of an excuse to leave, Emily said, “I’ll go see about her.” She started out of the room, but a piercing scream, echoing eerily through the house, stopped her in her tracks. Her heart started to pound with fright. “Caroline,” she said.

  “My God!” Stuart exclaimed.

  “What the hell—?” Trey muttered as he brushed past Emily and started up the stairs. Stuart was right behind him, followed on his heels by Emily and then Nella and Mrs. DeVere, bringing up the rear.

  Caroline was standing in the hallway, her hand clapped to her mouth as if to stifle another scream. The door to Matthew’s room was open, and her eyes were fixed on something inside. The moment Stuart reached her side, she began sobbing and turned her face into his shoulder. Stuart’s arms came around her, holding her gently and more protectively than Emily had ever seen him. But he, too, was staring at something inside Matthew’s room. Staring in horror.

  Emily hurried past them, then stopped dead. A scream rose in her throat, and like Caroline’s, Emily’s hand flew to her mouth, as if she could physically hold back the sound.

  Trey stood just inside the room, but beyond him, Mike Durbin lay sprawled on the floor, his clothes covered in blood, his eyes open and staring. And kneeling over the body, his hands bloody and his expression grim, was Matthew Steele.

  Chapter Thirteen

  A dark cloud hung over Paradise. A cloud that could not be so easily dispelled this time. Two murders, fifteen years apart but undeniably linked, had been committed, and both remained unsolved. Paradise’s image would never be the same.

  But, as if to show they had nothing to hide, the whole town turned out for Mike Durbin’s funeral. Emily stood beside Matthew at the graveside service and thought about everything that had happened in the three days following Mike’s murder.

  Her life had turned into a nightmare. She’d been staying with Stuart and Caroline, because not only was the Other Side of Paradise Inn a crime scene, it had also been besieged by the media and by the gruesomely curious.

  It was hard to believe now that Emily had ever wanted to tap into that morbid curiosity for the sake of publicity, but she also knew that her perspective on the fifteen-year-old murder of a stranger had been far different from her feelings about the slaying three days ago of someone she knew. Mike Durbin had certainly had his faults, but he hadn’t deserved to be stabbed to death with a butcher knife from Emily’s kitchen. No one did.

  It was the knife that had seemed to interest Sheriff Willis the most that night, when he finally arrived on the scene. “Do you have any idea how long that knife has been missing from the kitchen?” he’d ask Emily. “Could someone have taken it before tonight?”

  “It’s possible,” Emily had to admit. “I didn’t use that particular knife very often.”

  “So in other words, anyone who had access to your kitchen could have come in and taken it—say a week ago—and you might not have missed it. Someone—let’s just say for the sake of argument—who was staying at your inn.”

  Emily knew what Willis was driving at. Someone like Matthew Steele. He had found the body. There had been blood on his hands, and just as his brother had been fifteen years ago, Matthew was a stranger in Paradise. No one knew anything about him. Who better to point the finger at than him?

  As she thought about the night of Mike’s murder, Emily’s gaze traveled over the people standing around Mike’s grave, studying this one, lingering on that one, and she couldn’t help but wonder if she was staring into the face of a murderer.

  Everyone who had been at the séance was present today except Mrs. DeVere, who had packed her bags that night and left the inn, muttering something about negative vibrations as she beat her hasty retreat.

  And so the Other Side of Paradise Inn was completely deserted. No one was allowed inside the inn until the sheriff had finished his investigation. Matthew had moved temporarily into a motel on the outskirts of town, and Emily had hardly seen him at all in the past three days. She’d missed him terribly.

  After the service, Matthew took Emily’s arm and steered her toward her car, trying to avoid the crush of reporters, but Sheriff Willis waylaid them.

  “I need a word with you, son.” He put his hand on Matthew’s shoulder.

  “I’ve been in twice to talk to you in the last three days,” Matthew said, and Emily shuddered, remembering how Willis had taken Matthew into custody the night of the murder. She’d been frantic, not knowing what to do to help him, but Matthew had been released a few hours later.

  “There’s nothing more I can tell you,” Matthew said now.

  “Why don’t you let me be the judge of that?” Willis’s hand rested heavily on Matthew’s shoulder, as if he were afraid Matthew might try to make a run for it. “I got a real interesting fax this morning from the state capital. I think you might like to take a look at it. In fact, I think I’m going to have to insist.”

  “All right,” Matthew said, with an edge of exasperation. “Give me a minute, will you?”

  “A minute’s about all I got, boy. Make it snappy.”

  Matthew took Emily’s arm and guided her away from Willis. Emily stared up at him, her eyes full of concern. “What’s going on? Why does he want to talk to you again?”

  Matthew shrugged. “He said something about a fax from Little Rock. I’ll go along with him and see what he’s found out.”

  Emily bit her lip. “Matthew, I think it’s time we called in a lawyer. Maybe I should talk to Stuart about it.”

  “Don’t worry about me,” Matthew assured her. “I’m not about to be railroaded into anything.”

  “Yes, but Wade probably thought that, too, and look what happened to him.”

  “Wade misjudged what and who he was up against in this town. I won’t make that same mistake.”

  “Matthew—” Emily broke off, unable to voice her fears. The thought of something happening to Matthew, of her never seeing him again, was almost unbearable.

  As if sensing her deep emotion, Matthew gazed down at her tenderly. He took her hand and lifted it to his lips, skimming her fingers with a kiss so soft, so gentle, Emily’s eyes teared.

  “Nothing’s going to happen to me,” he said. “I’ve got too much to live for. Now.”

  Emily’s breath caught in her throat. What was he saying? Was he talking about…her? Emily hardly dared believe it. Hardly dared hope that he could feel for her what she felt for him.

  “I’ll be back as soon as I can.” He bent and brushed his lips against hers.

  Such a light kiss, Emily thought, to cause such explosions of excitement inside her.

  As Matthew walked away, Stuart and Caroline came up to Emily in the parking lot.

  “I’m glad you’re here, Stuart,” she said. “I need your advice.”

  Stuart looked stunned. “Do you feel okay?”

  Emily barely registered his sarcasm. “I really do need to talk to you.”

  Stuart shrugged and turned to Caroline, handing her the keys to hi
s BMW. “Why don’t you go ahead and start the car? I’ll be right there.”

  Caroline tossed Emily a curious look, but took the keys and did as she was told. Stuart turned back to Emily. “I expect this has something to do with Steele and Willis leaving together?”

  Emily nodded. “This is the third time Willis has had him come in for questioning. How long does Matthew have to put up with this harassment?”

  “It’s not harassment,” Stuart told her. “Matthew Steele is a suspect in a murder investigation.” When Emily started to protest, he held up his hand. “We all are. Everyone who was present that night. But Steele even more so, because he was found with the body.”

  “His fingerprints weren’t on the knife,” Emily pointed out.

  “No one’s were. The knife had been wiped clean.”

  “But that doesn’t prove anything. Matthew didn’t kill Mike. In fact, he tried to revive him.”

  “So he says. But for all we know, he could have gotten that blood on his hands when he stabbed Durbin.”

  Emily stared at Stuart for a moment. “Matthew’s not a killer, Stuart.”

  “How do you know that? How much do you really know about this guy?”

  “I know I trust him.” She lifted her chin, gazing at her brother in defiance.

  “And love him?”

  “Maybe…. Yes…. I don’t know!” Emily finished in a burst of frustration. The days since the murder had been agony without him. “I think I do.”

  “For God’s sake, Emily.” Stuart ran a hand through his thinning hair as he released a long, weary breath. “This is just like your Eugene Sprague debacle all over again. You didn’t know anything about that guy, either, and look what happened.”

  “Matthew isn’t anything like Eugene,” Emily said defensively. “If you knew him at all, you’d realize that. And besides, I’m not nineteen anymore. I’ve learned a few things along the way. I learned them the hard way,” she finished, with a touch of uncharacteristic bitterness.

  “I know.” Stuart’s smile was sad. “I could see it in your eyes, when you first came back to town. It hurt me to see what that man had done to you, Emily.”

  His words surprised her. They were so unusually perceptive, so tender, for Stuart. Emily’s eyes smarted with sudden tears, and for the first time in years, she wanted her brother to take her in his arms and hold her, as he’d done years ago, when he told her their parents were dead.

  But open displays of affection were as out of character for Stuart as spontaneous bursts of devotion were perfectly natural for Emily. And besides, there’d been too many years of estrangement. One hug wouldn’t fix everything that had gone wrong between them.

  But, for the first time in a long time, Emily felt a glimmer of hope that someday, just maybe, she and her brother could be close again.

  Stuart cleared his throat awkwardly, as if the moment had affected him, too. “I’ll talk to Willis, see if I can get him to back off a little. I can’t make you any promises, though.”

  Emily felt a rush of gratitude. She reached out and touched her brother’s sleeve. “Thank you, Stuart. I just don’t want Matthew to be railroaded like his…like Wade Drury was.”

  “I’ll see what I can do,” Stuart said. He hesitated, as if there were something else he wanted to say. Then, with a shrug, he turned and strode across the parking area to join Caroline in the car, calling over his shoulder, “I’ll see you back at the house.”

  By the time Emily had climbed inside her own car, most everyone else had already left the cemetery. Though it was only about four o’clock, the overcast day made it seem much later. Emily turned on her lights as she pulled out on the highway and headed back toward town.

  Fog, rolling down from the mountains, curled like smoke in the beams from her headlights. The heater in the Volkswagen was still on the blink, so the defroster didn’t work. Emily leaned forward and wiped her hand across the windshield, trying to improve her visibility. It didn’t help much, and neither did the wipers.

  The car picked up speed going downhill, and Emily applied light pressure to the brakes, to slow in time for the turn she knew was coming up. The car didn’t respond.

  Emily pressed the brakes harder. The Volkswagen continued to gain speed.

  In a full blown panic now, Emily pumped the brakes furiously, but to no avail. To her right was the limestone face of the cliff. To her left, the steep drop-off. She was approaching a hairpin turn, and she knew she couldn’t make the curve at this rate of speed.

  Trying to calm herself, Emily gripped the steering wheel. Maybe if she could somehow bounce the right front fender off the cliff, just graze it, the car would slow enough for her to make the turn.

  Emily eased the wheel to the right, a little more, until she heard the scrape of metal against rock. The jolt snapped her head back, then forward, but for a moment Emily thought her plan had worked. The car slowed.

  But as the tires once again connected with the wet pavement, they went into a spin. The steering wheel whirled in her hands. Emily valiantly fought for control, but the car skidded sideways on the slick road, spun completely around, and then took a nosedive off the embankment.

  For what seemed like an eternity, the car plunged down the hillside at a dizzying speed, bouncing over rocks and tree stumps, careening wildly first one way, then the other.

  A tree loomed before her, and Emily screamed, throwing her arm up to protect her face as the Volkswagen slammed into the trunk. She heard the awful sound of crunching metal and shattering glass, and then, as the car’s engine sputtered out, all was silent.

  The impact had knocked the breath out of Emily, and for a moment she couldn’t move. All she could do was sit there and wonder how badly she was hurt. Strangely, she didn’t feel much pain. Gingerly she moved her arms and legs. She felt a few twinges here and there, but nothing major. No broken bones, she was fairly certain.

  It came to her suddenly that she needed to get out of the car. She’d seen enough action movies to know that crashed cars sometimes exploded. The door was stuck, but, using her shoulder, she finally managed to free it and tumble out onto the slippery hillside.

  The fog was even thicker down here. Emily could barely see the road above. Slipping and sliding, sometimes having to use tree roots for leverage, she managed to climb up the embankment to stand on the side of the road. She swiped her hair back with a muddy hand. Surely someone would be coming by in a moment. At the very least, the men who’d stayed behind to cover the grave would be along shortly.

  Sure enough, Emily had been on the side of the road no more than three or four minutes before she heard the sound of an engine. From the position of the headlights as the vehicle came around the curve, Emily thought it must be a truck. She stationed herself on the side of the road and began to wave and shout frantically, fearing that she might not be seen in the fog. But as the truck lumbered around the curve, she heard the driver downshift and apply pressure to the brakes.

  The vehicle was a tow truck with heavily tinted windows. Emily couldn’t see anyone inside, and for a long moment, the driver remained obscured.

  A shiver skittered down Emily’s back as the window rolled down slowly and a familiar voice said, “Have a little accident?”

  Emily’s heart pounded in terror as she gazed at Tony Vincent, but she tried to hide her fear. Tried not to think about how very vulnerable she was at the moment.

  “What happened?” he asked.

  “The brakes went out on my car. I—I lost control,” she stammered. “It went over the embankment.” She pointed downhill, shivering.

  “Wow,” Tony said as he got out of his truck. He peered down the embankment, where Emily’s car was barely visible in the fog. “You could have been seriously hurt.” He turned to her, and though Emily couldn’t see his expression clearly in the misty twilight, she could hear the frustration in his voice. “How many lives have you got, anyway?”

  Her fear gave way to panic. Emily began to back away from him. “W
h-what do you mean?”

  Tony took a step toward her. “I mean, anyone else would have been dead right now. But not you. You’re like a cat.”

  “You did that to my car,” she said hoarsely. “Why?”

  “Because you ask too many questions. You just have to keep prying into affairs that are none of your concern, don’t you? I guess there’s only one way to shut you up for good.”

  Emily whirled and tried to make a run for it, but Tony, in spite of what his drinking had done to his body, was still quick and strong, still very much an athlete. He caught her easily, pinning her hands behind her back as he jerked her toward his truck.

  Emily struggled, tried to break free, but his hands on her wrists were like vises. He dragged her toward the truck, and Emily held back, making it as difficult as possible for him.

  Releasing her with one hand, he opened the truck door, and as he did so, Emily turned and kicked him as hard as she could. She’d been aiming for his groin, but the slippery pavement gave her very little purchase. She connected with his knee instead, but Tony howled in pain, screaming over and over, “My knee! My knee, you bitch!” And Emily suddenly remembered that the injury that finally ended Tony’s football career had been a shattered kneecap. Purely by accident, she’d found his Achilles’ heel.

  He fell to the ground, clutching his knee, and Emily didn’t waste time. She jumped over him and headed down the highway, hoping the mist would swallow her up before Tony was able to pull himself together.

  But she’d gone only a few yards when she heard him running behind her. If he caught her this time, Emily knew he wouldn’t let down his guard. She’d wouldn’t stand a chance. She had to get away from him now.

  Heart hammering in her chest, she abandoned the road for the embankment, slip-sliding her way downhill, using the fog for cover. She heard Tony up on the highway, cursing her, but she knew he wouldn’t be fooled for long.