by Rebecca York
It was pretty neighborly of Hempstead to go to this much trouble. Alex was now in his debt, although not too deeply.
His caller ID told him that the other three calls were all from pay phones. The first two were hang-ups.
When he pressed the button to retrieve the third call, a familiar voice came on the line.
“Alex? Where the hell are you, Alex? I’m away from home and I don’t have your cell phone number.”
It was Lee!
“I need to talk to you. But I’m not going to leave a message on an answering machine.”
No. Stay on the line, Alex silently screamed. The order did no good.
The connection snapped off, and Alex stood there cursing. He punched the replay button and listened to the call again, trying to pick up clues. First he focused on Lee’s raspy voice. It sounded like Lee Tillman, but it could be someone imitating him. The person who had killed Lee or who was holding him for ransom. Or maybe the kidnapper was standing there with a gun trained on Lee.
Damn! If he only had Tillman’s voice on a previous tape, he could send the two messages in for voice analysis. Even Lee’s own machine had a computer-generated voice.
After pacing to the window, Alex came back to the desk and checked the times on the caller ID.
He’d assumed all of the calls had come from Lee. But now he noticed all three had come in after his fight with the intruder. Suppose someone knew about that and was checking to see if he’d arrived home safely?
The speculation got him wondering again if Lee’s problem was tied to Sara’s problem.
Frustrated, he ran a hand through his hair. He needed to think. He needed to sleep. But he was still too keyed up. And too aware of the woman upstairs in his guest bedroom.
He hadn’t slept with anyone else in the house since he’d asked Cindy to leave. And now here was Sara occupying the spare bedroom.
Cindy. Sara.
His mind switched gears, from missing persons to interpersonal relations. He couldn’t stop himself from juxtaposing the two women. Cindy represented the failure of his marriage. Well, more than that, actually.
He’d had a few sessions with a therapist to try and sort it out, and the shrink had assured him it wasn’t a failure on his part. He had no control over his wife’s behavior. Making a commitment to one man hadn’t worked for her, and there was probably no way he could have made it work.
But deep down he couldn’t help believing that it had been his fault. If he’d been a better husband, or a better lover, she wouldn’t have needed to turn to anyone else.
He gritted his teeth, then deliberately relaxed his jaw. There was no point in giving himself a headache to go with his throbbing arm.
He switched from Cindy to an equally disturbing subject—Sara. She represented something else. At least the Sara from the long-ago encounter in the car. That was back in the days when Alex Shane had been God’s gift to women. When he could have any chick he wanted. When he was arrogant in his knowledge of how easily he could please them, how easily he could get what he wanted from them.
It must be one reason why he was so wound up with her now. She represented the good old days. But there was another aspect to the picture, too. He’d once thought he loved Cindy, and she’d betrayed him. Did the disaster with Cindy influence his thinking now? Was it making him suspect that Sara was holding back information? In the back of his mind, he was waiting for more confirmation that his judgment sucked—at least with regard to women.
He simply wasn’t capable of logical thought, or of sorting out the emotions churning through him.
Striding down the hall to the kitchen, he switched on the light by the back door. After opening the dead bolt, he stepped out onto the low wooden deck. In the far corner was a hot tub. When he’d first looked at the house, he’d been intrigued with the idea of sitting in it out here—in the privacy of his rented acres.
He’d used the tub several times a week since he’d moved in, and knew that the hot water would soothe his aching body—although keeping the injured arm dry was probably a good idea.
He glanced back toward the house, thinking that it might not be such a bright idea to get naked out here when he had company upstairs. Particularly when his houseguest was Sara Ellen Delaney. Then he reminded himself how anxious she’d been to avoid him. He’d bet he wasn’t going to see her until morning.
With a shrug, he turned on the gas heater and the water jets but left the underwater lights dark.
Then he pulled a towel from the locker against the house, shucked off his clothes and tossed them on a white resin chair. The night air was chilly, and he stood for several moments, enjoying the feel of it against his naked skin before he stepped into the heated water.
The bubbling warmth enveloped his body as he sank onto one of the seats and leaned back against the side of the tub, stretching out his arms against the top ledge and sighing with pleasure as he let the liquid heat soothe his bruises.
Head tipped back, he stared up at the stars, marveling at how much brighter they were than in the city. He spent ten minutes staring at the heavens. Then, yanking his mind back to earth, he forced himself to focus on the mystery of Lee Tillman and the two attacks on Sara, trying to figure out how they fit together.
He’d been acquainted with Lee Tillman for a good part of his life, and he’d made certain judgments about the man. Now he realized that he hardly knew him. He was a small man, with a small man’s built-in inferiority complex. He liked to give orders and insisted on having things his way. When he liked you, he could be a good friend—on his terms. But he had a secret life Alex had never suspected. And a pornographic art collection that added another dimension to his personality.
Was Lee using him? Or had Lee gotten himself into deep trouble? Perhaps because of some unusual sexual encounter, Alex reasoned. And what about Sara? How did she fit into the equation?
He’d had a long hard day, and as the hot water relaxed him, his eyes drifted closed. He was thinking that he might be able to get some sleep after all, when a noise by the back door startled him.
A figure stood silhouetted in the doorway. For several charged seconds he cursed his own negligence at leaving his gun on the chair on the other side of the deck.
Then he took in the outline of the slender feminine figure and realized that it was Sara, barefoot, dressed in a T-shirt and shorts.
“Damn,” he muttered under his breath.
“Alex?” she asked, her voice not quite steady.
He sat up straighter in the water. “I’m in the hot tub. Not exactly dressed for company. What are you doing here?”
She lifted her arm, then let it fall back to her side. “I couldn’t sleep.”
“I know the feeling.”
“Alex—” She broke off abruptly.
“Yeah?”
She didn’t answer for several seconds, and he figured she’d decided that coming out here was a bad idea.
In the moonlight, he saw her lean back against the door frame. “I’ve been tossing around in your guest bed upstairs, thinking that I haven’t been—” She stopped, sucked in a breath, then let it out in a rush. “I guess I should admit that I’ve been lying to you.”
Chapter Six
Alex started to surge out of the water, then he remembered he was naked. He sat back down.
He’d been unconsciously waiting for this, he realized. Waiting to find out that she wasn’t playing it straight with him.
“Maybe you’d better clarify that statement.” Although he’d tried to keep his voice steady, he was pretty sure she’d caught his reaction.
“I don’t mean I stabbed you in the back,” she murmured.
“What do you mean?”
She stepped out onto the deck and onto one of the resin chairs, and he saw her fold her arms under her breasts.
“You asked me questions. I didn’t like the way you were prying into my life and…I didn’t want to think about the answers, so I ignored some stuff.”
“Like what?”
“You asked if I knew that guy. The one who was in my house.”
Again he felt the tension gathering in the pit of his stomach. “Do you know him?”
“Well, not his name.”
“You’re sure?”
“Of course I’m sure!” She huffed out a breath. “But I’ve seen him around town. I mean, I think he might have been following me. Him and…some other guys.”
“Someone’s been tailing you? Consistently?”
“Not all the time. All I can tell you is that I’ve started noticing these guys. Not anybody I’d recognize.”
He gave her time to spell out more details. When he didn’t speak, she unfolded her arms and turned her palms up. “I don’t know if you could actually say they’re following me. But they’re there.”
“Anything distinguishing about them?”
“Well, I don’t like to put people into categories.”
“Now’s not the time to be politically correct.”
“All of them are white. They all have a kind of redneck look.”
“What does that mean?”
She laughed. “I don’t know. Like they didn’t get enough protein for adequate brain development when they were growing up. Like they think the world owes them something they’re not getting. I’ve never seen them wearing anything besides jeans and a faded T-shirt, with maybe a plaid shirt over the top. And big boots. Sometimes they have on baseball caps so I can’t see their faces. Most of them have short hair. At least it doesn’t stick out much under their caps. There’s nothing more I can be precise about.”
“Thank you for leveling with me.” He cleared his throat. “Now, why do you think they’re interested in you?”
She scuffed her foot against the boards of the deck. “Are you naked in there?”
“Yeah.” He didn’t add that despite the nature of the conversation they were having, he was aroused.
“Maybe I’d better go in.”
“Don’t use my state of undress as an excuse for bailing out.”
When she didn’t answer, he prompted, “I can’t help you unless you tell me the whole story.”
He saw her heave a large sigh. “Maybe…maybe it has something to do with my father.”
That was the last thing he’d expected. “Like how?”
“He’s gotten into some trouble recently.”
“Why don’t you tell me about it.”
“It’s hard to talk about it.”
“Trouble with the police?” he suddenly asked, recalling something she’d said back at her house.
Her head came up. “What do you know about that?”
“I just remembered that you thought about calling the police on me but then you changed your mind. I figured you had a reason.”
She shrugged.
He’d felt as if he was making progress, and she’d shut him out again. He tapped his fingers against the rim of the tub, thinking that he might get further if she wasn’t talking to a naked man.
Yeah, maybe that was making her nervous. It wasn’t doing anything for his concentration either, not when he kept imagining what it would be like if she took off her clothes and climbed in here with him.
Resolutely, he pushed that little fantasy out of his mind and cleared his throat. “Listen, why don’t I get dressed? Then we can have a more civilized conversation.”
“Okay.”
“You could make us some hot chocolate.”
“You drink hot chocolate?” she asked, sounding surprised.
“What? You only picture me with a macho drink like bourbon on the rocks?”
She laughed. “Something like that.”
“Go on in. The mix is in the first cabinet you come to on the right. The kettle is on the stove.”
She hurried into the kitchen, and he waited until he saw a light on before climbing out of the tub and grabbing his towel.
He dried off and pulled on his jeans. Then in the laundry room he found a clean T-shirt.
When he moved his arm in the light, he caught a flash of white. The bandage. He’d forgotten about getting cut. Gingerly he felt the wound through the gauze. It was healing remarkably fast. Other Randolph agents had told him of the salve’s miraculous powers, but he’d only half believed them. Now he simply grinned in silent agreement.
He thought about taking a quick trip down the hall to his office for the background information he’d dug on Sara this morning. It had included something about her father. Now Alex couldn’t even remember the guy’s name.
Well, if she didn’t tell him what he wanted to know, he’d do more digging on his own.
By the time he entered the kitchen, he saw Sara standing by the counter. She’d only turned on the low light over the sink, but the illumination caught the strands of her hair and turned them to gold. She stood with her back partially to him, her head bent as she stirred chocolate mix into a mug. He wondered if she was keeping her face averted because she wished she hadn’t agreed to the discussion.
He paused near the doorway, shoving his hands into his pockets as he searched for some way to ease into the conversation.
She’d set a plate of Oreo cookies on the round wooden table.
“I see you found my stash of cookies,” he observed.
Forced to acknowledge his presence, she looked up. “I hope you don’t mind.”
“No. I was thinking they’d go perfectly with the hot chocolate,” he answered as he pulled out a chair and sat down. She brought over the second mug and seated herself.
He wrapped his hands around the crockery, absorbing the warmth, then decided to take the direct approach. “So your father’s in some kind of trouble?”
She looked up for the first time, meeting his eyes. “His life hasn’t been easy. It’s taken a turn for the worse.”
“He’s sick?”
“No. He worked for White and Sandler.”
White and Sandler, a manufacturer of power tools, had been one of the main industries on the Eastern Shore. But its business had fallen off over the past few years, and the plant that had provided jobs for so many of the area’s people had considerably reduced its workforce.
“He got laid off?” Alex asked.
“Yes. He’s got a small pension and some social security, but it’s not enough.”
Alex kept his gaze level, remembering that she gave her dad two hundred dollars a month. He wanted to know more, but he might have to go around the barn to get it. “My old man had some problems, too. Problems with his eyesight, actually. He didn’t want to admit he was losing his vision. One night he plowed his boat into a bridge piling and killed himself. I was nine at the time. My brother Billy was seven.”
Compassion warmed her gaze. “Oh, I’m sorry.”
“My mom was short of money. She did her best to raise us. But we were…pretty wild kids. My mom didn’t have many marketable skills. She’d married my dad out of high school and worked as a maid for several families in the area, including Lee Tillman. He saw she was going under, and he gave her extra hours when she needed them and paid her more than the going rate, too. So that’s part of the debt I owe him.”
Her eyes widened. Then she said, “You seem to have turned out okay.”
“It was touch-and-go. I finally realized that I was heading for a dead-end life.” He shifted in his seat. “Lee did more than help my mom. He offered to pay my tuition at the University of Maryland. I’ve paid him back what he spent on me.”
Again he saw her shocked reaction.
“He made the same offer to my brother. Billy turned him down, got into worse trouble than when he was a teenager. He did a few years in jail. He’s out now, and most likely looking for trouble to get into again.”
“I’m sorry.”
“So am I.”
To fill the silence that descended, they each picked up their mugs and sipped the chocolate. Alex reached for a cookie and took several bites.
“Is your mother still alive?” she finally
asked.
“She died.”
“Mine, too,” Sara murmured.
“So what about your father?” he asked, steering the conversation back where he wanted it.
Sara sucked in a breath and let it out in a rush. “He’s probably been an alcoholic since I was a little girl. I didn’t know it back then. He kept it to weekends. I guess he drank because my mom liked to make sure he understood his failings. We had a pretty dysfunctional family.”
“In my work, I’ve discovered that most families are dysfunctional.”
He watched as she reached for a cookie and began rolling it around the plate.
“Mom had a lot of gripes. About our income, about how Dad didn’t take care of the house, about how we never had a decent car. But her biggest complaint was that he had a low sperm count, and he couldn’t give her any children.” She made a small sound. “Low sperm count—one of my earliest verbal memories.”
Alex took that in. “But you…”
“I’m adopted.”
“Sounds like you were plunked into the middle of a messy situation.”
“No! I mean, both my parents loved me. But I didn’t know how to cope with the friction between them.” She moved restlessly in her seat. “I feel guilty about airing dirty laundry in public.”
“This isn’t public. It’s with the security expert who wants to figure out who’s coming after you.”
She nodded.
“So you think that someone who’s mad at your father might be looking for a way to hurt him through you?”
“I guess it’s possible. At least you got me thinking about it.”
“Yeah. Do you know who he’s, uh, angered?”
“Chief Hempstead has some disorderly-conduct reports. That’s all I know.”
He followed the pointed question with another. “Did your father have any reason to be angry with Lee Tillman?”
“They didn’t get along,” she clipped out.
“Why?”
She pushed back her chair and stood up. “This conversation is making me uneasy.”