by B. J Daniels
Impulsively, she leaned over and kissed him.
He was as startled as she was by the kiss. It was a short, sweet impulsive kiss.
“Thank you for a lovely evening,” she said and, opening her door, climbed out before she heard his door open. He was out of the car when she came around.
“At least let me see you to your door,” he said.
She thought of Trask. If he was out there in the dark watching, she hoped he wasn’t fool enough to do something more stupid than he already had by coming back here. “That’s not necessary, but I appreciate the thought. I really did have a nice time.”
Lillie went straight to her door, opened it and slipped inside. She was breathing hard as she locked it and, leaning against the door, realized that she was crying. Damn Trask.
With relief, she heard Junior drive off. She’d been afraid Trask might go after him. It would be a foolish thing to do, but probably no more foolish than threatening to kill your boss in front of witnesses and then skipping town when someone did kill the man. He’d already proved to this town that he was a hothead.
She remembered how angry her brother Flint had been. “Your boyfriend is looking at more than assault. He’s looking at murder. How can you be in love with a man like that?”
Lillie still didn’t know the answer to that one. Love knew no reason. But right now, as she went upstairs, she found herself waiting for Trask to show up and hating herself for loving him.
It was much later that she heard the footfalls on the stairs and braced herself.
To her surprise, it wasn’t Trask. Darby knocked at her door. Trask would have come right in.
“How was your date?” he asked and noticed that she’d been crying. “If Wainwright tried something with you—”
She reminded him that this wasn’t high school. “Anyway, he was a perfect gentleman. I actually had a good time most of the date.”
“So what are the tears about?”
She looked at him with what she knew was her hangdog face until he swore and said “Trask” under his breath like a curse of its own. “Are you ever going to get over him?”
“I don’t know. I thought with time...”
“Nine years weren’t enough?” he demanded.
“Apparently not. You don’t have to tell me how stupid I am.”
He softened his words as he came over and sat down next to her. “You’re not stupid.”
“Pathetic?”
“Yeah, definitely that.” He put an arm around her.
She leaned into her twin, leaving fresh tears on his shirt. “I don’t know what I would do without you.”
“You’re never going to have to find out.”
“I hope not.”
“See you tomorrow,” he said as he got up and headed for the door. “Get some sleep. Things always look better in the morning.”
“You sound like Mom,” she said to his retreating back as he closed the door and was gone.
She couldn’t help but wonder if his life was as complicated as her own. As close as she was with her brother, she didn’t know that much about his life away from their bar.
For hours after she’d gone to bed, she lay there listening for the sound of Trask’s boot heels coming up her stairs. She thought she caught a whiff of his male scent mixed with the night air. She thought she felt the whisper of his touch. She thought she felt his breath against her cheek.
She finally fell into an exhausted restless sleep in which she was searching for something in her dreams, something that left a horrible ache inside her.
Lillie was awakened at first by what she thought was a dream. She shot up, wild-eyed in the middle of her bed, feeling like a dangerous animal hunkered in the room with her.
CHAPTER TWELVE
LILLIE TRIED TO talk herself out of it. Only a crazy woman would do what she was about to do because of some...intuition. The realization had come to her in that gray area between deep sleep and wide-awake. As she’d sat up blinking, she couldn’t throw off the feeling that had awakened her.
Before she’d fallen asleep, she’d been thinking about Trask, wondering what he was doing tonight. No wonder it had come to her. When she’d awakened, she’d known what Trask would be doing tonight—and what she needed to do.
She quickly changed her clothing and, taking her keys, binoculars and flashlight, headed for her pickup. She’d seen how worried he was about Johnny. He’d said he thought something was going on at the construction company—the one Gordon Quinn had been involved in.
It all made a strange kind of sense when she thought about it. If Trask hoped to clear his name, he had to find out what was going on with Gordon nine years ago. Trask would have waited until tonight—Friday night when he was sure everyone was gone from the construction lot for the weekend.
She shivered. She had tried to convince herself that she didn’t know this Trask who’d come back. But she knew him. She knew how he thought. Which meant when she’d thought about it, she knew exactly where he would go tonight.
The office of Pyramid Peak Construction was located outside of Gilt Edge at the bottom of a hill. The complex took up several acres. Large construction equipment stood silent in rows to one side of the property. Near a creek on the other side was a small nondescript rectangle building that served as the office just as it had before Gordon’s death. Inside the office was where Johnny had found the bracelet belonging to Gordon’s wife after Caroline’s tryst with his partner Skip Fairchild.
The single large outdoor light inside the construction company’s property illuminated the tall chain-link metal gate barring the entrance. She could see that the gate was padlocked as she assumed it would be on weekends when no one was around.
Trask wouldn’t have any problem picking the lock, but he would be seen by anyone driving past. Not that the road out there got much traffic. But there were two ways into the construction site and he would know that. So she assumed he would come in through the back way that ran from the mountains along the creek.
She parked on the side of the hill where she had a good view of the office. Her truck was partially hidden by the pines as she killed her engine to wait. Darkness settled in around her. Her eyes ached after a few minutes of watching the office through the binoculars.
The night was chilly. It didn’t take long for the pickup cab to grow cold. She should have grabbed a coat, but she’d been in too much of a hurry. Had she lost her mind coming out here in the middle of the night? She told herself she would be in her warm bed asleep right now if it wasn’t for Trask.
But she couldn’t leave yet. The feeling when she’d awakened so abruptly had been too strong. Trask would show up. As time passed, all she could think about was Trask’s handsome face grinning down at her and how empty her bed was going to feel if and when she ever got back to it. She hated the old feelings he evoked in her.
She’d never thought of herself as a fool. But only a fool would be out there in the middle of the night because of intuition and some crazy idea about a psychic connection between them. Where was that connection over the past nine years? She wanted to know.
It made her angry with herself. Even angrier with Trask that worrying about him had her freezing, sitting in her pickup and waiting for him. He’d left a cannon-ball-sized hole in her heart. And now he thought he could just walk back into her life with a grin and another worthless promise? Maybe her brother was right about him.
So where was he staying when he wasn’t breaking into her house? Up in the mountains, camped out, probably.
She couldn’t bear the thought of the only man she’d loved being out in the cold when she was snug in her bed. The thought made her shake her head angrily. She wasn’t warm and snug in her bed. She was sitting in a cold pickup staring down at an empty construction company office.
Still, she had to wait just a little longer. Trask was a wanted man on the run. She knew Flint wouldn’t hurt him if he caught him. But what would one of her brother’s trigger-happy deputies do if they stumbled across him? A deputy like Harper. The thought sent a shudder through her. Harp would definitely use force to bring Trask in.
Nothing moved below her. She sighed. She’d been so sure this was where Trask was headed.
Cold and cussing herself, she was reaching for the ignition key to leave when she saw something move on the hillside below her.
A dark figure came out from behind one of the large heavy equipment rigs and moved toward the office building. In an almost primal way, she recognized the way the man moved and felt again those old emotions that made her heart ache.
Trask.
She’d been right, but it gave her little satisfaction. Now that she was there, she realized she had no idea what she planned to do. This kind of behavior wasn’t like her. She always thought things out. Except for that one time when she’d agreed to run away with Trask, an alleged felon on the run.
This was ridiculous. Did she really think she could protect him somehow? She saw that Trask had disappeared into the office, having no doubt picked the lock.
She should go home, go back to bed... As if she would get a minute’s sleep knowing where he was and what he was doing. Still...
A set of headlights topped the rise on the back road into the construction site and then went out. She watched with growing terror as a vehicle with its headlights off pulled into the back of the construction lot. A friend of Trask’s? Not likely.
He’d told her that Johnny wanted nothing to do with any of this. She doubted Trask had trusted anyone else with the news that he was back in town.
Through the binoculars, she saw a man exit his vehicle. Something about the way he moved seemed familiar. The man headed toward the office. He was almost there when he pulled an object from his coat pocket. It glinted in the starlight for a moment before the man dissolved into the shadows.
The man had a gun.
* * *
OPENING THE OFFICE door was a piece of cake. Trask slipped inside and took a moment to lock the door and close the blinds before he pulled out a small flashlight and looked around.
When Gordon was alive, there’d been two small offices. Skip Fairchild had the larger one to the back, no doubt where Johnny had found Caroline’s bracelet. The outer area had been a general office for the other partners, since neither J.T. Burrows nor Gordon Quinn spent much time there. Skip had seen to the day-to-day running of the place.
It hadn’t changed since Trask had come by there years ago to see Johnny. Even the old file cabinets looked the same. Trask quickly went through the desk drawers but found nothing of interest in either desk. He feared he was looking for a needle in a haystack. He had no idea what might be going on there, just a feeling he couldn’t shake that Johnny was in trouble and that it might have something to do with Gordon’s murder nine years ago.
Trask moved to the filing cabinet. Nothing of interest in the first four. He reached for the bottom one. Locked.
His interest peaked. He hadn’t found any keys in the desk drawer. Nor was there a small file drawer key on the board on the wall where keys were kept for the construction rigs parked outside.
Why would there be a locked drawer? Fairchild wasn’t stupid enough to leave money at the office. But what about paperwork he didn’t want anyone to see? Or was it possible that the old file drawer had been locked since Gordon was part of the company and no one had cared what was in it?
Trask quickly picked the simple lock and pulled open the drawer. To his surprise, there were only three thin file folders.
He took them over to the desk and sat down. Shining the flashlight on the folders, he saw that the first was marked Project A. He opened the folder. On top was a letter from the bank. The date jumped out at him. March 3 nine years ago. He quickly scanned the letter. The president of the bank, Robert Wainwright, had approved a business loan request for Gordon Quinn. Not the construction company, but Gordon alone.
Trask opened the second file folder, noticing that it was marked Project B. Inside was another letter approving the loan. He started to open the third folder when he heard a sound outside. He quickly scooped up the folders, stepped to the filing cabinet and quietly closed and locked it like he’d found it—sans the file folders—before extinguishing his flashlight. Heavy footfalls sounded on the steps outside. The door handle jiggled.
Glancing around the office, he realized he was trapped. There was only a small window at the back, certainly too small for him to escape through. Nor was there anywhere to hide except for the bathroom, since there was no back door in such a small office. Climbing under one of the desks was also not an option.
He stepped toward the bathroom. It had only a sink and a toilet and an even smaller window. He would instantly be discovered in there.
The door handle jiggled with more force. Trask noticed a small narrow door in the corner of the bathroom. Opening it, he found the hot water heater, some old mops and brooms, and a sliver of a space that he might be able to wedge himself into.
At the sound of breaking glass, he knew he had no choice. He had barely squeezed himself into the broom closet and closed the door as much as he could when he heard the front door bang open.
Heavy footfalls thudded across the floor. Trask held his breath as he heard desk drawers being ransacked, then metal file drawers. It sounded as if the contents were being dumped on the floor.
Clearly, the man was looking for something in particular. The file folders he was holding? Trask heard him try the bottom file drawer. A loud curse came from the office. The walls were so thin that Trask thought he could smell the burglar’s sweat.
The man began to beat the file cabinet, apparently unable to get the drawer open. Silence fell over the office and for a moment Trask thought that maybe the burglar had left. Or worse, that he was coming into the bathroom. Maybe looking for something to pry the drawer open with in the broom closet?
He tensed, prepared to take the man by surprise.
But then he heard grunting and groaning as the man must have found something in the desk to use. There was a loud pop, a curse, and then the mangled file cabinet door was jerked open. Another loud curse filled the office followed by what sounded like a metal file drawer being kicked.
Trask hugged the three folders to his chest, his adrenaline racing as he heard more swearing before the man began to destroy the office. Would he be content with just the office area? Or would he feel the need to wreck the whole place, bathroom included?
The noise stopped so abruptly that Trask held his breath, all his senses zeroed in on the next room.
Heavy footsteps started toward the front door but stopped to kick something out of the way. Then the footfalls turned and headed toward the bathroom.
Trask readied himself as much as he could for what he feared was coming. The floor groaned under the man’s weight. A moment later the bathroom light flipped on.
Through the crack between the broom closet door and the wall, Trask blinked at the sudden light. The man’s face came into view as he stepped toward the broom closet door. Shock ricocheted through him as he recognized him.
As the man reached for the broom closet door handle, the sound of a car horn filled the air outside, almost blocking out the roar of an engine clearly headed in their direction. Trask heard a loud crash, metal meeting metal. It took him a moment to realize that someone had just crashed through the front gate.
The burglar turned quickly and hurried out, the front steps into the office groaning under the man’s running weight. Trask realized he was still holding his breath as the night fell silent again. What the hell, he thought as he eased open the broom closet door and looked out.
The front door of the offic
e stood open. Past it, a familiar pickup sat running, the front dented from where the driver had just rammed through the closed metal gate of the complex. If he hadn’t already been crazy in love with Lillie, he would have fallen for her right then and there.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
LILLIE GRIPPED THE steering wheel of her pickup as the passenger-side door swung open.
“I have never been so glad to see you,” Trask said as he climbed in.
“Have you lost your mind?” she cried, still too shaken to even look at him. As she had crashed through the gate, barreling toward the construction company office, the man with the gun had come running out to disappear behind the construction equipment.
She’d thrown on her brakes, coming to a dust-boiling stop in front of the office, petrified that she was too late. She’d heard the man’s vehicle motor, the sound growing fainter as he left, while she sat praying that Trask was alive and would come out that office door.
For too many breathless moments, no one else had emerged from the office. She’d imagined the worst. Trask dead, lying in a pool of his warm blood, shot to death. The thought of him dead...
“I can see that you’re upset,” Trask said.
“Upset?” She swung to look at him, glaring, angrier with him than she’d been years ago as she fought tears of relief.
“I get it. I scared you. Drive me up to my truck and I’ll follow you to your place. The construction company security firm checks in soon, so we have to get moving.”
How did he know that? He’d been staking out the place. He’d been taking all kinds of chances before tonight.
Remembering how terrified she’d been, she wanted to yell at him, to pummel him, to...to beg him to hold her. She fought the conflicting emotions as she shifted the pickup into gear with hands that shook.
“Good thing you have a guard bumper on this thing,” he said with a grin and a shake of his head. “I can’t tell you how surprised I was to see you. Or how glad.” His grin broadened. “You do care.”