by A. D. Roland
“Oh, bite me.” West grabbed her arm and did as she ordered, letting go of the wheel. The bent axles jerked the truck sideways where it jolted off the pavement and onto the shoulder of the road. West cursed and snatched the wheel so the truck jounced back to the road. Laughing, he pushed his glasses back up on his nose and lit another cigarette, holding the wheel steady with his knee.
“Jerk,” she growled, slouching down in the seat and rubbing the pleasantly-throbbing spot on her arm.
Chapter Twelve
Mattie dreamed about Elaine and West, as children. She dreamed about them playing around in the old orange grove. A little dog chased them through the vibrant orange trees, nipping at their heels.
They came to the big oak tree in the middle of the grove. West skipped around the tree roots. Elaine started to follow but tripped and fell. A black hole opened up under her and sucked her down. Mattie fell with her, screaming, clawing thin air for a handhold.
Snagged out of midair, she fumbled at the hands of the man holding her upright.
K! He had her by the neck in a chokehold. His hands were hooked like claws, ripping and shredding her T-shirt. Mattie screamed for West. He would save her. He wouldn’t let that pervert hurt her anymore.
K snarled something in her ear and thrust her aside. She fell into the hole again, sobbing.
It took a few moments for the dark bedroom to register in her mind, for her brain to recognize West’s worried features highlighted by moonlight and shadows.
“West?”
“Yeah. You all right?”
Mattie nodded and glanced toward the window. The blinds were up, hanging crookedly because one string was broken. The crank-style windows were open. Bugs hit the screen with soft thumps. Just beyond a low rise, dead orange trees reached toward the sky, the tops just visible. The oak tree embraced the full moon, surrounded by millions of stars.
West let her go. “You were hollering.”
“Bad dream.”
“I figured that much. What was it?”
She couldn’t think of a way to tell him without opening herself up to questions she didn’t feel like answering. “I don’t even know. It was just scary.” She curled up on her side, facing the window. The oak tree was the only tree visible from the angle she was laying at. The wind made the leafless branches wobble, barely visible against the dark sky.
“You’re freezing.” West pulled her into his arms. “You’re shaking, too.”
“I’m fine, West. Really.” Part of her wondered why he was being so nice to her. The last few days had been decent. West told her all about running the business and showed her the layout of the land. He had acres of potted trees, shrubs, and flowers. He sold enough to keep himself afloat. Most of the sales were to landscaping companies owned by people that had known his father. His main goal was to get his plants into the garden centers and supply stores. The local discount stores with garden centers always used local growers, but he hadn’t been able to sell any of the managers on his products.
She was making some headway convincing him to move more into his landscaping and lawn maintenance. The nursery wasn’t even breaking even, and most of the money he made in lawn care went to cover the nursery’s costs. It was frustrating, seeing month after month, year after year, of the same things. The man had talent!
He was the kind of guy that needed to hang on to something to sleep; a pillow, a woman, it didn’t matter. During the night he’d always spoon against her, burying his face into her hair, mumbling. As he drifted back to sleep, he looped his arm around her chest and pulled her against him. One hand cupped her breast.
He felt so good like that, cuddled up against her. The two weeks they had been married hadn’t been the nightmare he expected. Battle lines of a sort had been drawn on that first day as man and wife. They kept to their respective boundaries, only lapsing into something a little more than nothing and a little less than friendship when they were in bed. He touched her then, even if it was unconscious. The contact made her suck in her breath and close her eyes against the heady comfort of human contact.
During the day, they worked together, side by side in the nursery or fernery, or out on a job. She had some good ideas for his nursery, and he respected those. Mattie tugged the blanket higher and smiled to herself. Proving herself to him felt good. Maybe sometime soon he’d start to realize that she wasn’t the idiot everybody seemed to think she was.
Tomorrow she would go look around the property to see if she could figure out where Elaine might be buried. The first part of her dream stuck in her head.
West said the night that Elaine disappeared, he saw somebody carrying something he assumed was the little girl past his window. In his childish, sleep-addled mind, he couldn’t identify the man, and he definitely couldn’t say for sure if the thing the person was carrying was a kid.
If he even saw anything that night. He’d only been six years old. How reliable could a sleepy six- year-old be?
Ruth Ellen Carruther believed he’d really seen something. Mattie sighed to herself. Well, whatever. Tomorrow, she’d try to find some clue, although after twenty-odd years, how much of anything would be left?
West grunted in his sleep and dug his elbow into her ribs. “Hey, that hurts,” she hissed, squirming away. The thin veil of sleepiness that had descended over her mind, locking her into her thoughts, dissolved abruptly, dumping her into full awareness.
Aware of how quiet it was in the trailer. How quiet it was outside. West’s slow, heavy breaths puffed against her ear. Other than that soft sound, she didn’t hear anything else.
The nightmare featuring K’s hands digging into her throat resurfaced. A wobbly, cold fear wound around her stomach.
If he found her here, in another man’s arms, he’d kill her. He’d kill West.
No. No. I won’t let him hurt West.
In the dark of the night, Mattie realized she was going to have to find a way to stop K, forever. If she didn’t, he would only keep hurting her. When he couldn’t hurt her anymore, he’d move on to Molly.
***
The store-front office had an old, musty smell, and some of the fluorescent lights in the back of the space flickered continually, lending a sense of disorientation and cheapness to the place. West paced the front of the narrow, deep space, anxious and unsure. Was this the right thing to do?
Of all the private investigators McKendrick could have hired, he’d hired the cheapest one in town. The air conditioner gusted to life. The smell of bologna wafted across West’s face. He grimaced and shifted as far as he could out of the air flow.
He was exhausted. The night before, Mattie had woken him it seemed like every couple of hours, caught in the throes of some nasty nightmares. The last one had been about four AM, and neither one of them had been able to go back to sleep. More than once she’s hollered out in utter panic.
Frank, the P.I., looked up from his desk as he hung up the phone. “All right, Mr. West. What can I do for you?”
“Uh, McKendrick wanted me to check in and see if you’d found anything else. And there’s some new stuff we wanted you to look into.”
Using McKendrick’s name might get him in trouble. Especially after the bill comes. There had to be more to Mattie than a perfect credit report. McKendrick wouldn’t care about the extra fees if there were real results this time. West shifted in his chair and heard the rustle of the plastic bag in his pocket.
Mattie would be so hurt if she knew he was doing this. No, she knew he didn’t trust her one- hundred-percent. Mattie was weird. She just accepted mistrust and doubt. Her eyes would go blank and her jaw would set and she would go on with whatever task she was involved in. Wouldn’t speak a word for hours, then abruptly that hard look would fade from her eyes and she’d be her usual self. It was almost like she was used to it, something that had been part of her life forever. Maybe it had. Maybe he should just trust her. Suddenly he felt bad for betraying her. “Basically, we’re still a little concerned about Matil
yn’s identity.”
“I gave Mr. McKendrick all the information I found.”
“I found the same stuff on the Internet when I Googled her name.” Frank sighed and sat back, eyes narrowed.
“You saying I didn’t do my job?”
“No. I’m saying that we need more. We need you to go way back on her.”
The man shrugged. “I did what I could. It’s almost like she’s never existed before now.” West sighed and pulled a plastic baggie containing a wide cuff bracelet out of the pocket of his baggy cargo pants. “Can you run fingerprints?”
“I got a friend in the Sheriff’s Department that’ll run ‘em, if she can lift them.”
“That’d be great.” “You know it’s going to up my fees. You’re asking for some considerable expenses here. Travel expenses, et cetera.”
“Yeah, I figured. McKendrick won’t care. He’ll be happy to find out who this imposter is.” The title of ‘imposter’ left a nasty taste in West’s mouth. He was betraying Mattie. Over the week he’d softened a little bit toward her. They were mostly on the right track back to being friends again. Maybe he should just let her be. She fit in, into his life at least. She didn’t hesitate getting her hands dirty out in the nursery or dealing with upset customers on the phone.
Emeline’s bright blue eyes flashed in his mind, accompanied by a silver-blonde flick of her hair. I’m doing this for her. For Emeline. Yeah, for Emeline. But why? Em doesn’t care about me anymore. Mattie...Mattie does.
“That Mattie seems like a sweet girl,” Frank said, leaning back in his chair. “Cute.”
“Yeah, I guess.”
“Nothing like her sister, though, huh? I heard you had to marry Mattie to keep from losing your land.” West glanced at the clock on the wall above the windows.
“Yeah.” Frank picked up a pen, examined the end, chewed on it thoughtfully. “If there’s anything to find on the woman, I will.” West nodded somberly and got to his feet. He placed one of his business cards on the desk.
“Um, when you get anything, let me know. McKendrick’s sort of put me in charge of all this. Since I married her, and all.”
Frank raised an eyebrow. After a long second, he shrugged. “Whatever.”
“Another thing. Mattie’s said it a couple of times and it might be worth looking into.”
“What?”
“More than once she’s told me about a woman named Carmen who raised her. Once she even said that the woman had worked for Ruth Ellen.” Frank perked up and scribbled down the name.
“I’ll look into it. West left the dark, dingy office with a heavy heart. Rather than free of his burdens, guilt made his shoulders heavier than ever. Mattie really was trying. He flushed, remembering his stealthy middle-of-the-night rummage through her purse. Wasn’t real proud of it, and it hadn’t even turned up anything other than a cache of tampons that rivaled Wal-Mart. The only unusual thing in the bag had been the pink-crystal pacifier necklace tucked in one of the side pockets, wrapped in a small twist of tissue paper. He hadn’t noticed when she stopped wearing it.
At his hip, his battered old cell phone rang. “Hello?”
“Hey, man, got a call about McKendrick’s irrigation system not working right. He wants you out there a-sap.”
“Damn it. Fine, whatever. What’s wrong with it?”
“I don’t know. Emeline didn’t really know. Just said it wasn’t working right.”
Emeline had called about the irrigation system? That was weird. Maybe McKendrick had been too busy and asked her to call for him—
Or, it was just a ruse to get him out to the house. “You sure it was Em?”
“Fransisca just said the McKendrick lady called.”
“Why is Fransisca on the phones? She can barely speak English.”
“I don’t know, man. Mattie had her there when I came in.”
“Well, whatever. I’ll deal with it when I get home. I’m headed out toward the McK’s, I guess.” He hung up and shoved the phone back into his pocket.
Even though it could have been Justine who called, he was sure it was Em. His heart leapt and his blood rushed. It had been two whole weeks since he’d really got to talk to Emeline. He’d tried to pull her aside at the wedding and tell her that the whole thing was just temporary, that it didn’t change the way he felt about her. Unfortunately, the boy-toy that had been attached to her hip had kept her way too occupied.
He’d taken his frustration out on Mattie, giving her the silent treatment. It was her fault, after all. If she hadn’t offered him that ridiculous deal, none of this would have happened.
“Yeah,” he muttered to himself as he struggled with the door of his truck. An accident long ago had made the driver’s door one bitch to open. Almost as bad as the passenger side door. “I wouldn’t have caught her screwing around in the club.”
His perfect little vision of sweet Emeline wouldn’t have been tainted. He couldn’t even think of her now without seeing her in the club, being ravaged by two guys. How many other guys had she messed with?
West got in the truck and slammed the door. “What the hell am I doing messing with her anyway? I’m six years older than her.” She’s a kid with no sense of commitment. No idea of what a relationship even entails. I’m too old for her, and I want completely different things than she wants.
He flicked on the radio, accidentally changing the station to one that featured pop music. Shakira’s “Hips Don’t Lie” blared through the speakers, startling him and immediately making him think of Mattie.
He knew when the singer was playing on her MP3 player because she would do this ridiculous hip-happy dance. He grinned; he couldn’t help it. Mattie had no compunctions about being herself. Doing whatever felt right, whenever it felt right.
Damn vibrator. His groin tightened. Maybe it was time to think in terms of him and Mattie. Even if it was just as friends. A random thought shouted, Friends have sex! It’s called benefits!
If he had to guess how Mattie was in bed, she would be wild. Passionate. Just like she went through her days, losing herself in the moment, whether it was shaking her booty to Shakira while doing dishes or cutting fern. The few moments they’d been intimate had been close to mind-blowing. The nights were getting longer, colder, hornier. She wasn’t bashful about using that little toy of hers, and feeling her body tense up, hearing her soft gasps, nearly undid him and his stupid resolve.
Twice she’d grabbed his hand and guided it between her legs. Her soft, breathy, “Please,” sent bolts of pure lightning through his groin. He hadn’t denied her, sliding his fingers inside her while she worked her clit with the vibrator.
The deep blast of a semi-truck’s horn jolted him out of his daydream. He snapped the steering wheel to the right, correcting his drift into the other lane. With his heart pounding, he realized he was close to the turn-off to the McKendrick house.
When he reached the gate, he keyed in the code and waited for the ponderous iron gates to slide along their tracks. The garages were all empty. Neither McKendrick nor Justine were home, and Emeline’s Navigator wasn’t anywhere in sight.
Maybe there really was something wrong with the irrigation system. He got out and headed for the garage. The controls were in the kitchen, in an alcove just inside the interior garage door.
The box checked out fine, and all the diagnostics he ran on the uber-expensive computer- controlled system didn’t show any irregularities.
“It’s the sprinklers in the back,” Justine said, startling him so bad he jumped and whacked his knuckles on the wall painfully. “They aren’t extending out of the ground like they should.”
West put a hand to his chest, willing his heart to slow down. “Justine, those aren’t supposed to extend. Those stay flush to the ground. The ones by the patio hedges come up, and the ones in the front yard.” He frowned. “Is Emeline here? Jose said she called.”
“I called. I said I was Emeline, though, to make sure it was you who came out.”
&nbs
p; Something’s up, West thought. This was way too creepy. Justine wasn’t acting right. The weird vibes she was throwing off gave him the chills. “I’m sure it’s okay, Justine. The computer here would tell me if anything was broken, or even damaged.”
“No, something’s wrong. I know. I’ve watched these sprinklers every day since you put them in.”
She practically hissed the last part, glaring at him. He held his hands up in defeat. “Okay, I’ll check them out.” He followed her through the house.
She sighed, trailing her fingers along the walls. “Elaine was such a hyper child,” she said softly. Her voice echoed through the big living room. “Barely manageable. You didn’t help that any, as wild as you were.”
“Um, sorry,” he replied.
“Emeline barely got any attention from Karen, and definitely not her father. Sweet little Emeline. I wished she were mine, you know.”
“Oh.” He didn’t know what to say, and he was beginning to feel really, really uncomfortable. Silently, he willed his phone to ring, a tornado to hit, something to happen to get him away from this woman.
“Elaine’s death was for the best.” A jolt of ice-cold, red-hot adrenaline shot through him. He froze mid-step.
“Her death?”
Justine shuddered. “She wasn’t even James’ child. We knew it the day she was born. I couldn’t stand the thought of what his whore of a wife did to him. The idea that we would raise Elaine...” Justine shook her head, a ferocious expression on her face. She spoke slowly, enunciating, “We assumed she was dead. Her father and I. We assumed. A child just doesn’t disappear in the middle of the night.”
“I saw somebody carrying her away.” West clenched his hands, not liking the thoughts going through his mind.
“You dreamed it,” Justine said. “Do you hear me? You dreamed it.” Her eyes narrowed and she leaned close. Her breath smelled of halitosis and toast. “Has Ruth Ellen been telling you anything different? We all know she coddled your ideas that someone kidnapped Elaine. But she’s dead, Brant. I promise you, she’s dead. That whore you’re married to, she isn’t Elaine, and if she pursues what should rightfully be Emeline’s, I’ll take care of her, too!”