Most Wanted Woman

by Maggie Price

  Vaguely aware of the heavy feel of his holstered Ruger against the small of his back, Creath unwrapped a piece of peppermint and popped it into his mouth. Mindful that a stray piece of evidence could trip up the most brilliant plan, he slid the cellophane wrapper deep into the pocket of his khaki pants.

  With no breeze stirring, the row of tall cypress trees on the opposite side of the ragged backyard stood as still as death. Although it wasn’t yet noon, the intense heat of the Louisiana sun had upped the humidity level, making the air nearly thick enough to swim in.

  His hands sweating inside the latex gloves he’d pulled on, Creath edged closer to the rear of the house, noting that every grimy window and door stood open.

  He had spotted his watcher for the first time the previous evening as the man ducked into an aging Chevy. The car’s tag had led to a Daniel Langley with a rural route address. Moments later, Creath and his partner had gotten called to a homicide scene, so he’d had to put off tracking down the exact location of the address until this morning. And running a background check on the Chevy’s owner.

  Daniel Langley, private investigator.

  After a more in-depth check, Creath knew that Langley was small change, a camera for hire. Earned a living doing low-rent surveillance. Maybe running drug or gambling money when he was desperate for cash. Several years back, an arrest for assaulting a cop had resulted in Langley’s P.I. license getting suspended until a technicality got the charge dropped. Since then, Langley had kept his nose clean.

  Until he’d started watching Creath.

  For who? Creath wondered, stepping silently onto the cement back porch that held only a pink metal lawn chair. Who the hell had an interest in him?

  “Before today, I only spoke to Miss Kincaid once, the day she hired me.”

  It wasn’t just the rough-as-pine-bark voice coming through the patched screen door that stopped Creath cold. It was hearing her name.

  “She sounded scared spitless,” the voice continued, mixing with the faint, rapid click of a keyboard. “Considering what I’ve dug up since then, I don’t blame her. Not that I can prove anything, mind you. But considering he lived in the system since he was born, it’s no wonder he learned how to manipulate it and everyone in it to his advantage.”

  Easing beside the door, Creath did a quick peek through the screen. The dark-haired, rail-thin man he’d spotted last night now wore a plaid shirt and brown slacks, and was sitting alone at a kitchen table. He had a phone wedged between his cheek and shoulder while he typed on a laptop.

  “Okay, I just e-mailed the info I put together on Creath to Miss Kincaid. And I attached that article I told you about. Let me know if you need me to do more than just keep the bastard under surveillance.”

  Susan.

  Pain sliced through Creath, just as sharp after a year’s passage. Hate instantly followed, its vicious claws scrabbling up his throat at the thought of how she’d turned her back on him. Rejected him.

  Tossed him away.

  The merciless heat and humidity pressed in on Creath, jumping his mind backward in time. He remembered the stifling dark closet with only the thin band of illumination at the bottom. He had huddled, a small boy, on the bare floor near the light, near the air. He could see the woman’s feet coming his way. Hear each step. The closet was ripe with her musky scent.

  She had driven, like a spike into his brain, the knowledge that she’d never wanted him. That she kept him only because the state paid her money to do so. Money she used to buy booze and drugs and men. Men who abused her and, on occasion, the boy who cowered in the closet, unable to make himself small enough to go unnoticed.

  Despite his young age he understood she wasn’t to blame for his misery. He spent hours every day locked in the matte-black sweltering hell because another woman had tossed him away.

  His mother.

  Even after so many years, his hatred for her was liquid and cold, like mercury flowing through his veins. He felt the same hatred for Susan Kincaid.

  Creath forced his breathing to even. Willed back the icy fury in his blood. He deserved to savor the taste of the hunt, of closing in, of cornering his prey.

  His prey. Lifting his chin, he breathed deeply, like a dog seeking the scent of her.

  He flexed his gloved fingers, unflexed them. The air of expectation thickened around him like mist hovering above the still, black waters of the bayou. The holstered Ruger pressed against the small of his back like a hand urging him to jerk open the screen door and rush in.

  But Creath was not a man who allowed his impulses to control him. Fools did that all the time, and they got caught. He was smarter. More clever. Disciplined. He would wait until the P.I. ended the phone call.

  Then he would make his move.

  And finally, finally Susan Kincaid would be his.

  “That had to have been a hellish childhood,” Regan said late that afternoon as she sat on a stool in Josh’s kitchen, her laptop before her on the granite-topped cooking island. She continued to scroll through the information Langley had e-mailed during his phone call with Josh.

  “You feeling sorry for Creath?” Josh asked, handing her a glass of lemonade.

  “For the child whose mother stuffed him in a garbage bag when he was less than an hour old and tossed him in a Dumpster,” Regan qualified. “For the child who got fished out of that dumpster and wound up with a foster mother who was later convicted of abuse and fraud.”

  Josh settled onto the stool beside her. “Problem is, that little boy grew up to be a monster.”

  “Yes.” Her throat dry, Regan sipped lemonade while her gaze moved down the monitor’s screen. “And five years ago, he dated a woman who disappeared without a trace.”

  “Two days after she broke off their engagement,” Josh added.

  Regan’s mind cataloged the information they’d learned from Langley who, after finding out about Creath’s missing ex-fiancée, had dug into the cop’s background all on his own.

  One aspect of that information was like an ice pick stab to Regan’s heart. “I had no idea Creath had Steven’s body exhumed.”

  “Which supports the theory that when you disappeared, Creath had to backtrack to set you up. Like Langley said, after you split, Creath conducted a search of your apartment in New Orleans. Your former roommate still lives there, so it’s not like everything got cleared out when you moved to D.C. During his search of what had been your bedroom, Creath claimed he found a hidden cache of fentanyl, the same drug that killed Steven. That was enough for Creath to get the exhumation order and request a quantitative tox report. The report would show the exact impurities, cutting agents and precise percentages of each in the fentanyl Steven ingested. Creath knew an analysis of the fentanyl he planted in your bedroom would show it was from the exact same batch that killed Steven.”

  “Which made it look like I murdered him.”

  Josh nodded. “You were Steven’s fiancée, you found his body without a witness around. You skipped town secretly after attempting to harass and distract the detective investigating your fiancé’s death and in your haste to flee you left behind some of the exact same drug that killed the doctor. At that point, Creath had enough to make a circumstantial case against you and get the murder warrant issued.”

  “It must have been so easy for him. So simple,” Regan said, struggling to stay calm. “And there’s no way to prove I didn’t do any of those things.”

  “There’s a way.” Scooting her glass aside, Josh wrapped his hand around hers. “We just have to figure out what it is.”

  Regan looked down at their joined hands, then slowly lifted her gaze. The night she’d first set eyes on Josh at Truelove’s Tavern, he’d looked both dangerous and competent. Now, sitting beside her, dressed in gray slacks and a black pullover, the thin scar winding up his throat, he looked just as dangerous. Just as competent.

  Yet the thought of all that could go wrong had dread curling in her stomach. “You sound so sure of yourself.”
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br />   “I am.” He sent her a quick, smug look. “Have I mentioned that during my rebellious youth, I operated three-card monte games? Hawked designer knockoffs of expensive watches? Forged IDs so my pals and I could buy beer and get into clubs?”

  “Quite an impressive résumé,” Regan said and shook her head. “Are there any laws or rules you haven’t broken?”

  “A few.” His thumb did a slow caress over her knuckles. “My point is, I mostly got away with that stuff. But there was always someone—usually someone wearing a badge—who knew enough to spot the weak link in my scams. Setting someone up to take the fall for something they didn’t do is just a different kind of scam. And, trust me, that weak link is there. The trick is to dig in the right place to unearth it.”

  “The problem is finding that place.”

  Josh thought for a moment, his forehead furrowing. “As a paramedic you had knowledge of what drugs do what, and you were Steven Vaughn’s fiancée. Meaning you had the means and opportunity to kill him. What would have been your motive?”

  “Money,” Regan answered instantly. “Steven’s grandfather and father were both prominent doctors. His mother’s grandfather made a killing in oil and real estate. Neither of Steven’s parents had siblings. Steven was an only child. When his parents died in a plane crash, Steven inherited millions.”

  “Millions,” Josh repeated. Crossing his arms over his chest, he studied Regan. Before they’d left for Dallas, she’d changed into narrow white jeans, sneakers and a soft white blouse, tied at her waist. Her sleek, black hair was anchored in a ponytail. He tried to envision her as a New Orleans socialite, married to a wealthy doctor, but the image wouldn’t gel. The only man he could picture her with was himself.

  “Hypothetically,” he said, “if you wanted Steven’s money, wouldn’t you need to wait to kill him until you were married?”

  “No. After we got engaged he set up a trust fund in my name, which I could access in the event of his death. I told him to wait until after the wedding, but he said he loved me and wanted to provide for me in case something happened to him.”

  “Creath happened,” Josh said quietly.

  “Yes.” There were no tears in her eyes, no fear. Just an unbearable weariness. “My life is balanced on that single point in time. I can’t remember what it was like to wake up and not be afraid. To wonder if that would be the day someone found out the truth.”

  “That day’s past. And we’re looking for a different truth.” He slid his hand down her ponytail. “What will Susan Kincaid do when her nightmare ends and she’s free to collect the money in that trust fund?”

  “I don’t know.” Considering the question, she took a long, slow drink of lemonade. “I’m not that same woman anymore. And New Orleans seems so far removed it might as well be on another planet.”

  That geographical distancing was to his advantage, Josh thought, since he intended to make her a part of his life. After he dealt with Creath.

  He looked back at the laptop’s screen. “Let’s check the attachment Langley sent with his e-mail.”

  “You said it’s a newspaper article?” Regan asked as she typed in commands. “About Creath receiving an award from some civic organization?”

  “Cop of the year,” Josh said dryly. “Now there’s a scam.”

  When the article blipped onto the screen, Josh got his first look at Payne Creath. He was good-looking in a mildly beat-up way. A big man with broad shoulders, big hands, a nose that had been broken a couple of times. He had a heavy tan, like a beach bum, but he was too old for that. Late thirties, Josh judged.

  “I can’t stand to look at him,” Regan said, her voice a shaky whisper.

  “Then don’t.” Settling his hands on her shoulders, Josh swiveled her sideways on her stool, their knees bumping. Just seeing Creath’s picture had turned her face as pale as ice and put the haunted look back in her eyes. She was trembling, yet poised to move, he noted. To run. Slicking his hands down her arms, he firmed his grip and locked her thighs between his.

  She wasn’t going to take off on him. He’d be damned if he let her. “I’ve never been in love,” he said quietly. “Never even close. I am now. I want to make a life with you.”

  She shook her head. “Don’t.”

  “Don’t what?” he asked firmly, though his hands remained gentle on her arms. “Notice you’re on the verge of taking off? I want a future with you, Regan. If you bolt that can’t happen. If you want promises—”

  “No,” she said quickly. “I don’t want anything I can’t give back.” She dragged in a shuddering breath. “My life is a mess. I may never be able to give you anything.”

  He bit down on his frustration. He wanted her to tumble into love with him, as quickly and completely as he’d tumbled into love with her. He wanted that, even knowing how unreasonable he was to expect a woman who was adrift, afraid and in trouble to focus on what was going on in her heart.

  “You can give me your trust,” he said levelly. “Trust me to protect you. To find the evidence that will clear you. You can give me your word that you’ll stay in Sundown.”

  “I do trust you.” And love you. She could hardly bear knowing she was hurting him by denying him her promise not to leave Sundown. But that was preferable to his winding up dead. “Creath is another matter. If he finds me here, I don’t trust that he will just put me in jail and be done with it. I know what he’s capable of. And maybe you won’t be the only one he’ll perceive has blocked his way to having me. He might focus on Etta because she gave me a job and a home. Then there’s Howie and Deni, my coworkers. I worked with Bobby, and he’s dead.”

  At that instant, Josh’s cell phone trilled. Regan took a deep breath while he checked its display.

  “Decker,” he said. “Probably calling about the peeper case.”

  While Josh answered the call, Regan eased off the stool and moved across the kitchen. She dumped the remainder of her lemonade in the sink, then lifted her gaze and stared out one of the room’s expansive windows. As always, she found the panorama of rolling, tree-lined hills and the lake of crystal-blue water staggering.

  As was the knowledge that Sundown felt more like home to her than New Orleans ever had.

  With Josh’s phone conversation a murmur in the background, she clenched her hands on the counter. After over a year of hiding, of holding her secrets close, it seemed surreal that she had revealed everything to Josh. And that she’d stood just outside a Dallas phone booth listening to him talk strategy with Langley. If it was foolish to allow herself one bright pinpoint of hope that this nightmare might end soon, then she’d be foolish. But also realistic. And she would do whatever it took to prevent one more person from dying on her account.

  “Since you’re tied up, I can interview the next person on the list this evening,” Josh said.

  Regan turned, frowning when she saw how somber his expression had turned.

  “In that case I’ll do the interview tomorrow when she gets back to town,” Josh said after a moment. “I just need one of your cops available in case something about jurisdiction comes up.”

  When Josh ended the call, Regan asked, “Is there something going on with the peeper investigation?”

  “Maybe.” He laid his cell phone on the counter, then crossed to her. “Decker isn’t going to be able to deal with it right now. This morning, the sheriff who had jurisdiction over Sundown County and a few others died of a heart attack. Decker’s been named acting sheriff, so he’s got his hands full.”

  “I’m sorry to hear about the sheriff. The ladies in Sundown will be on edge until the peeper’s caught.”

  Josh angled his chin. “Right now, there’s only one lady in Sundown on my mind,” he said, tugging her forward.

  While he’d talked to Decker, Josh had studied Regan, wondering what thoughts were going through her mind while she stared out the window. He had not missed the tenseness in her shoulders or the way she gripped the counter until her knuckles turned white. Realizin
g she’d looked fragile enough to break had him ratcheting back his emotions. If he continued pushing at her, she might just shove him away. “How about we agree to take things one day at a time?”

  “I’ve got a lot of experience at that.” Inching her head back, she framed his face in her palms. “You can’t know what your believing in me means. There’s no way I can ever repay you for that.”

  “I can think of a way,” he murmured, then settled his mouth on hers.

  And ravished.

  Her heart kicked hard in her chest, driving the breath out of her body. Instantly, all the emotions that had been roiling inside her honed down to one: desire. Her hands slid down his throat to his shoulders and gripped, as much for balance as for the sudden need that shot from him to her and fused them together.

  His fevered mouth raced over her face, streaked down her throat. On a moan, she pulled his lips back to hers.

  She wanted him, as she had never wanted before. It made no difference they had spent the previous night making love. The ache of wanting him was so huge it left no room for reason. No doubt.

  But she forced away the need and fought to regain her sanity while she still could. “I have…to leave for work in about five minutes.” She gazed up at him, her hands still locked on his shoulders, her lungs pumping. “I don’t think that’s enough time to repay my debt to you.”

  “Not nearly,” he agreed, nipping her bottom lip. “So we’ll get back to that later. You might be interested to know there’s another way you can work on that repayment.”

  “Oh, really?” She leaned back against the counter, trying not to pant. “What?”

  “The next day or two, you can come here and make lemon tea bread.” He curled a finger beneath her chin, nudged it up. “I imagine we could figure out a creative way to pass the time while it’s baking.”