When he was about even with the last two rooms, he crossed the highway and walked right up to the door she’d used earlier. Her quarters appeared to encompass two rooms, one marked 18, the number removed from the second door. He assumed she lived alone---Granny and the crazy woman hadn’t gone near the rooms all day—and there were no lights on inside.
Quickly he twisted the knob on 18. It was securely locked. Without breaking stride he crossed the few yards to the unmarked door. Also locked. Not quite ready to break down doors, he circled behind the building and hit pay dirt. There was nothing in back of the end room, not even a tiny grimy window, but in an effort to make the rooms a little homier, a portion of the wall of number 18 had been knocked out and replaced with a sliding glass door that opened onto a small secluded patio.
He’d never liked sliding doors. Most people failed to secure them properly. Without some type of bar, they were notoriously easy to open from the outside, even when locked. Hannah’s was no exception. He opened the door just wide enough to slip inside, closed it again, then listened. There was the quiet hum of a refrigerator somewhere to his right and the expected steady drip from a sink nearby. Other than that, there was no other sound.
He felt for and found a light switch, and a single bulb lit up, illuminating a tiny kitchenette and another light switch. That light showed the living room, a long narrow rectangle better suited for two beds and a night table than a sofa, chairs and television.
A green banker’s lamp sat on the desk near the connecting door. He turned it on, then rifled through the drawers and found nothing of interest. No address book. No letters. No photographs of beautiful sexy Elizabeth arm in arm with plain blond Hannah.
There was nothing in the drawers of the two end tables. Nothing in the purse on the sofa or the overnight bag she’d left on the coffee table. The drawers of her nightstand. Her dresser drawers. Her bathroom drawers.
Muttering a curse, he turned to leave the bathroom when his gaze fell on the contents of the wastebasket under the sink. For a long blank moment, he stared, so stunned that he almost didn’t grasp the significance of what he was looking at. Numbly he picked it up, turned it over in his hands, then abruptly spun around and headed for the closet.
His slow smile started with relief, but turned bitter before it formed. Surely plain blond Hannah would return to her room soon, and when she did, he would be waiting. He had plenty of questions.
By God, she would give him answers.
A station wagon with mismatched panels pulled into the parking lot, its headlights making Hannah blink before they went dark. She watched as an elderly woman with an enormous bag climbed out and came inside. Brightly colored yams spilled across the registration counter when she laid the bag down. Hannah brushed one away from the books she’d been trying for the past hour to balance and smiled halfheartedly. “Hi, Ruby.”
“Hannah. Did you enjoy your little getaway?”
“It was fine.” She’d given the same response to the last fifteen people who’d asked. Not a soul in Sunshine hadn’t heard that she’d spent a couple of days in Tulsa, and not a soul who’d come in for dinner had missed asking about it. Ordinarily such lack of privacy made her feel smothered. Tonight she felt guilty.
“You look a little peaked. Are you coming down with something?”
“Maybe. I thought I’d go to bed as soon as I get these books balanced. I’m having a little trouble concentrating.” How could she care whether she had eighty dollars in the drawer or eight hundred when she’d helped get a woman killed?
“I’ll take care of that. Just let me get a cup of coffee, and then you can go on.”
On a normal night Hannah would have turned down her offer, gotten the coffee herself and stood right there until everything balanced. Tonight she nodded, waited until Ruby was coming back through the swinging door with a coffee mug in hand and left with a listless good-night.
She walked past a row of empty rooms to her own, let herself in and automatically locked the door behind her. Without turning on a light she tossed her keys in the direction of the couch and made her way around shadowy lumps of furniture, through the closed door and into the bedroom.
She was four steps into the room before she realized something was wrong. She never closed the bedroom door except on the rare occasions she had company, and when she’d left this afternoon, she’d left the two rooms in darkness. Now the lamp beside her bed was turned on, and its shade was tilted to direct the light onto her bed and the items lined up there: a skinny white tank top, a curling iron and an empty box retrieved from the trash that had held one application of temporary rinse in Burnished Copper Sunset.
Her heart thudded so hard that she pressed one hand to it. Her throat tightened, squeezing off all but the slightest whisper of air, and her legs became paralyzed, unable to obey her brain’s command to run. All she could do was stand in the middle of the room, a picture-perfect case of terror, and stare at the bed in horrified fascination.
The voice came out of the shadows somewhere behind her, startling her even though she expected it, making her tremble. “You’re good. I’ve been watching you all afternoon, and I never even suspected... Even now I can’t say for sure.” Cool and smooth disappeared with his abrupt icy command. “Take off your shirt and put on the tank top.”
She raised her hands to her T-shirt hem, but couldn’t obey his demand, couldn’t make her fingers curl around the fabric and pull it up.
“What’s the problem, darlin’? You want my help, like Saturday?” Cool steady hands touched her from behind, inching the shirt above her waist, fingers brushing her skin. When he tugged higher, she shrugged away and yanked the shirt over her head. The air-conditioning, comfortable only a moment ago, was cold on her bare breasts, raising goose bumps all the way down to the waist of her jeans.
Forcing herself to move, she pulled the tank top on. It covered her but was sadly lacking in modesty. The fit was snug, the fabric nearly sheer, the overall effect just the other side of decent Those were the reasons she’d bought it Saturday morning. Exactly the reasons she’d worn it Saturday night.
“Turn around.”
She did slowly, her eyes working to adjust from the bright light of the lamp to the shadows that filled the rest of the room. After a moment she could see work boots and faded jeans, but from midthigh up, her visitor was in darkness. There was no denying it was Mick Reilly, though. She knew the voice. She knew the fear.
“Still hard to tell if you’re the right woman. The one I’m looking for had a headful of hot red hair and a make-you-hard smile and a voice...” He made a sound that was halfway between regret and arousal, then walked in a slow circle around her. “What’s with these jeans, darlin’? There’s room for you and me both in there.” Grasping a handful of denim, he yanked her hard against his body. Her hands went to his chest to stop herself from falling. “You’re about the right height...the right age...your breasts and hips are right But there’s really only one way to be sure....”
He shoved her back on the bed and followed her down. Panic rising in her chest, she struggled, pushing against him, but he easily subdued her, easily pinned her hands above her head and forced her thighs apart, so he could grind his hips hard against hers. “Oh, yeah. I remember this. You’re the one,” he murmured, rubbing suggestively. For a moment he closed his eyes, and a familiar look—arousal, hunger, almost-there satisfaction—came across his face, and a familiar feel—long, solid, hard—came in contact with her body. Then he looked at her, and instead of arousal, there was contempt. Instead of desire, there was hostility. Clasping both her wrists in one hand, he slid the other into her hair and knotted his fingers, bringing tears to her eyes. “Oh, yeah, you’re the one. You’re the lying bitch who’s trying to screw up my life.”
“Please,” she whispered. “Don’t hurt me.”
He leaned closer until his body covered hers, until his mouth brushed hers, until his coldly furious gaze locked with hers. “Hurt you?” He whisper
ed, too, a soft deadly sound. “Oh, darlin’, I ought to kill you. But I need you.” He stood up from the bed in one swift move, adjusted the lamp shade, turned on every other light in the room.
By the time she struggled into a sitting position, he was leaning against the edge of the dresser, watching her with his intense brown gaze. His palms were braced at his sides, his boots crossed at the ankle. His stare was bold, his manner cold. He wasn’t the least bit embarrassed by the erection that stretched his jeans taut, wasn’t the least bit disturbed that intimidating her had turned him on.
Well, she was embarrassed. And afraid. Sick. Distraught. Guilty. Ashamed.
She retrieved her T-shirt from the floor and pulled it on over the tank top, then removed the band that had secured her ponytail and shook her hair loose. That done, she sat motionless, waiting for some action from him. One long moment slid into another, and his stare never wavered. His anger never lessened.
When he finally spoke, he asked exactly what she expected. “Why did you do it?”
Her shrug was jerky and as far from casual as possible. “I like pretending to be someone I’m not. I like picking up strange men.”
“Bullshit. You weren’t any good at it.”
“I got you here, didn’t I?”
“Only because I’d gone without for a long time. I would have left with any woman in the place that night. My only requirement was that she be warm and breathing.”
It was foolish even to think about ego at a time like this, but her feminine vanity was pricked by his claim. She had demeaned herself, sold off her principles along with her body, and now the unwitting partner in her prostitution was telling her that she’d been nothing special; any woman would have done.
Dear God, she wished she’d never heard of Blue Water Construction, Eagle’s Haven Resort, Brad Daniels or Mick Reilly.
“Who sent you after me?”
“No one. I picked you out in the bar.”
“Then why the disguise? I would have taken you like this, given the right incentive. Why the fake name? Why all the effort to make it look like we were never in that room? What’s your game, Hannah?”
The only answers she had were the truth, and Brad had made clear what would happen if she told Reilly that. Rather than the lame excuses that were all she could offer, she dropped her gaze to the floor and simply, stubbornly, shook her head.
Before her mind could register that he’d moved, he was standing directly in front of her. He jerked her to her feet, gave her a shake and got right in her face again. “Who are you afraid of?”
“You.” That was the truth. But she was infinitely more afraid of Brad.
His grip gentled on her arms, and he took a step back. “Who are you covering for? Who sent you to pick me up?”
Once again she said nothing.
He released her completely and took one more step away. “You know whoever it was killed my wife. You’re protecting a murderer.”
“I’m protecting myself.”
“He threatened you?”
She looked away, rather than meet his speculative gaze. “Look, I’m sorry for what happened. I didn’t know...” She drew a deep breath, then sighed. “I didn’t know.” Had she been incredibly gullible, incredibly stupid or just incredibly desperate? Brad’s story had made sense to her. She’d known women whose divorce settlements had miraculously become more equitable when proof of their husbands’ infidelity had become a matter of record. She’d known too many women whose husbands had amused themselves with outside diversions to doubt for one moment Brad’s claim that Sandra Reilly’s had. She had believed the scheme was basically harmless: Sandra got what she wanted, Brad got what he wanted, and Hannah got out from under a ten-thousand-dollar debt she couldn’t pay—more than adequate compensation for a night’s sex with a stranger. The only person who would lose was the philandering husband, who deserved to lose.
Only it had been Sandra Reilly who paid, and the price had been dear beyond belief. Now Mick would pay, too, and Hannah, and Merrilee and Sylvie, while Brad...Brad would get what he wanted. The only guilty one in this mess, and he would walk away free.
“The police can protect you. If you talk to them, if you tell them—”
Hannah cut him off. “I can protect myself. I can keep my mouth shut, and everything will be all right.”
“Not for me, it won’t!”
His shout made her cringe, but it didn’t sway her. “I’m sorry about that, but I’ve got to look out for myself. There are people depending on me, and I can’t help them if I’m in prison or dead.”
He turned away, but she could see his reflection in the dresser mirror as he made an obvious effort—deep breathing, clenched muscles—to control his temper. When he turned back, he wasn’t noticeably calmer. “You’re going to talk to the sheriff. We’re leaving here together, and we’re going to his office, and you’re going to tell him the truth.”
The courage to stand up to him came from pure terror. She stood straighter, folded her arms across her chest and regarded him with a flat, even stare. “The only truth I know is that I was out of town this weekend. I went to Tulsa Saturday morning, and I didn’t come back until this afternoon. The truth is, I don’t know you from Adam. I didn’t see you Saturday night. I didn’t spend the night with you. I can’t provide you with an alibi for the time your wife was killed.” She swallowed hard over the disgust and revulsion building inside her. “I’m sorry. But that’s what I’ll tell the sheriff and anyone else who asks.”
I’m sorry. The deceitful little bitch said it as if she meant it. Mick scowled. Hell, maybe she did. Maybe she really was sorry that she had royally screwed him over, that his one lousy night with her might cost him his life. But sorry wasn’t going to change her mind. It wasn’t going to clear his name.
Shoving his hands in his pockets, he walked to the door and stared at the shabby furniture. One lousy night. One lousy, incredibly sexy, steamy, wild night. If things had turned out differently, he still would have gone looking for her. Once the divorce was taken care of and he was legally free again, he would have tried to find the elusive Elizabeth, would have seen if that night was a fluke or if there really was something between them.
But things hadn’t turned out differently, and there was something between them, all right—starting with her lies. Her stubborn refusal to talk. The information she knew he needed.
How to get it from her when she was obviously scared? He could think of only two options: coax it out of her, or scare her more. He disliked the first idea and hated the last He wasn’t in the habit of terrorizing women. Besides, how could he say or do anything that might compete with the threats her accomplice had already made? After all, her accomplice had already murdered one woman. If the success of his—or her—whole elaborate scheme was at stake, would he hesitate to kill another?
He glanced over his shoulder. She still stood beside the bed, arms folded, posture rigid. She thought she looked tough, but in truth, she just looked small and very afraid. “Get an old broomstick or a dowel cut the width of the stationary patio door and keep it in the track. It’ll stop someone from getting in as easily as I did.”
He was halfway across the living room before the overhead light flickered on and she appeared in the doorway. “That’s it? You’re leaving?”
“Are you going to the sheriff with me?”
“I can’t.”
“Then I’m leaving.” He opened the front door, then looked at her once more. “Right now, Hannah, you’re probably the only person in the world who knows who killed Sandra. All he has to do to keep his secret forever is kill you.” He watched with satisfaction as the color drained from her face. “Keep that in mind, darlin’.”
He stepped out into the night’s heat and closed the door behind him. For a time he just stood there, half hoping she would come after him, all too sure she wouldn’t When five minutes had passed with no sound from inside, he strode across the parking lot and the highway to his truck.
“Can I help you?”
“I need a room.”
“No credit cards. Cash only.” She slid the register to him. “For one night?”
“Indefinitely.” He scrawled his name and Oklahoma City address in the book, then pulled out his wallet. Luckily he’d gone to the bank Friday. He should have more than enough to get what he wanted tonight.
“I’ll put you in room 9—”
“I want 17.”
She shook her head, and her thick glasses slid down her nose. “Sorry. We only book that room when—”
“—the rest of the place is full.” He’d heard that line before.
“Which you can see for yourself it’s not. Nine’s exactly the same room.”
“I want 17.” His smile was the best he could manage, the best he’d managed since Sunday morning. “It’s my lucky number.”
“I’m sorry, sir. I can’t let you have that room. It’s not made up, and it needs cleaning. There’s not even sheets on the bed.”
“I can make the bed myself. I’ve done it before.” He drew a thin stack of bills from his wallet and fanned them out on the counter. “The first week’s rent in cash for room 17.”
Her eyes widened, then she let out a great laugh. “Oh, honey, that would buy you a whole month in any of our other rooms.”
“But I’m not interested in the others.” Except 18. “Forget your policy, take the money and give me the key. Your boss won’t mind. A place like this can always use the cash.”
The old woman’s look turned indecisive. She would have to be a fool to turn down the money he was offering, regardless of Hannah’s preference for privacy. At last, with a great sigh, she returned the key she held to the Peg-Board and picked up the one he wanted, instead. “I don’t know about this,” she grumbled. “Policy is policy...but that is a lot of money. You can have the room tonight, but you just might have to take it up with the owner tomorrow.”
The Overnight Alibi Page 4