Shattered Blue: A Romantic Thriller

by Jane Taylor Starwood

  Beth ordered two green-chile enchilada plates and two margaritas on the rocks.

  “No margarita for me,” Shane said, “I’m driving. Beth, I don’t think I can eat right now.”

  “Of course you can. You’re going to need all your strength if you’re going to fight it.”

  “Fight what?”

  “It. Him. Personally, if I were twenty years younger, I’d roll over and let him scratch my tummy right now.”

  “You’re impossible. And crazy. He’s nothing but a nuisance, something I guess I’ll just have to put up with.”

  “Are you sure you don’t mean put out for?”

  Shane narrowed her eyes at her friend. “You see this glass of ice water? If you don’t stop that nonsense this instant, it’s going down your front, every freezing cube.”

  Beth smiled slyly and made a key-twisting motion over her lips.

  By the time their food came, they were well into a discussion of her solo exhibit and Shane was hungry again. But, even as they talked, she couldn’t get that wicked, charming grin and those intense brown eyes out of her head.

  FOUR

  Jordan followed Shannon through the mountains east of Silver City, expecting her to turn off at any moment. She kept driving for nearly an hour, leading him through a desiccated landscape of brown hills.

  When she turned off the two-lane highway and crossed a bridge over a sandy riverbed to head up Mountain View Drive, he backed off a little. But as far as he could tell, she was oblivious to the fact that the same car had been behind her all the way from Silver City, so he continued following her at a distance, up a hill and around a curve, where she stopped and got out to open a mailbox. From where he was, he couldn’t see what was beyond the mailbox. He watched her get back in her truck, which quickly disappeared below the horizon.

  He waited a few minutes, then drove fifty yards past her mailbox and stopped. He got out of the car and watched Shannon’s truck reach the bottom of the hill, cross a ditch on what looked like nothing but a sheet of rough metal, and head up another steep, dusty hill to park outside a ramshackle structure of adobe and wood. His mouth twisted in disgust.

  So this was where the beautiful Shannon Malone had ended up? Apple of her stepdaddy’s eye, darling of New York society, up-and-coming young artist? If only they could see her now, amid this squalid collection of buildings caught in the ugly brown hills like so much trash.

  He almost felt sorry for her. What a comedown from the Sutton Place penthouse, the Southampton beach cottage, the ski lodge in Aspen. All gone now. Everything gone, because that little bitch, with her big, innocent eyes and her crocodile tears, had convinced dear old Dad to confess his sins, bringing the brilliant and elaborate house of cards Jordan had so painstakingly built down on top of them all.

  A fiery ball of resentment churning in his gut, Jordan took powerful binoculars from the glove compartment. He watched the door of the battered Ranger open and those long legs emerge, followed by that lithe, taut body. It was a woman’s body now, no longer a little girl’s. He studied its new curves with delicious anticipation, imagining how that grown-up body would feel, resisting and then yielding under his masterful hands. She was his, and his alone. Their time apart had only strengthened his hold over her.

  But he would be patient, because drawing out the game, savoring it step by brilliant step, made it all the sweeter. He resolved to take all the time he needed to meticulously plan each phase. Shannon wasn’t going anywhere, that much was clear. For reasons he couldn’t begin to fathom, she had made a new life for herself in these desolate mountains.

  Before getting back in the car, he scanned the surrounding terrain. Beyond the foothills loomed a rugged line of taller mountains, dark in the distance. On a nearby hilltop stood the timber frame of an unfinished house. Studying it through his binoculars, he saw a tent next to the open structure.

  Jordan frowned. A potential witness wasn’t good news. On the other hand, it presented a challenge that might make the game more intense. He got back in the car, powered up his laptop, accessed the satellite connection, and studied the route from Silver City to Shannon’s place, noting the location of roads and towns. The only nearby town was San Miguel, a wide spot in the road where they’d turned onto the secondary highway. During the half hour he’d been parked on the road above Shannon’s place, no other vehicles had come along. Light traffic suited his purposes just fine.

  He headed back the way he came. At the bottom of the hill that led to Shannon’s access road, a big red pickup truck passed him, going up the hill. It was the same one he’d seen parked outside the Mexican restaurant in Silver City. The back was now loaded with bales of hay, or straw, or whatever they called that stiff yellow stuff.

  Curious, he made a U-turn and followed the truck, stopping when he saw it slow down and turn at Shannon’s mailbox. Jordan pulled over, grabbed his binoculars and walked to the top of the hill, where he ducked behind a scrubby tree.

  The red pickup was powering up the steep track to the hilltop overlooking Shannon’s house, where the unfinished timber frame stood. He focused the lenses on the man climbing out of the truck. Dark hair. Rangy but muscular build. Confident swagger. He watched the man pull on gloves, move to the back of the pickup, lower the gate, grab a bale and lift it down with apparent ease. He carried the bale closer to the structure and placed it on the ground, then went back for another one, lifting it just as easily.

  Jordan lowered the binoculars and smiled. If he did happen to stick his nose in, Mr. Blue Collar might make a worthy opponent. He was just the muscle-bound sort who couldn’t resist coming to the aid of a beautiful woman in distress. He wondered if this guy and Shane had eaten together at the restaurant, if they were together. If they were sleeping together. The thought angered him, but he tamped it down.

  Several hours later, just before dusk, Jordan drove up to a motel on the outskirts of Silver City in a van-sized motor home stocked with a week’s supply of food and water and outfitted with GPS and a satellite modem.

  Inside his room, he made sure the curtains were closed tight, then turned on his laptop and pulled up satellite views of the area surrounding Shannon’s pathetic home. He was looking forward to introducing himself to her new menagerie, whatever misfits, cripples and strays she had collected.

  His stepsister had always played nurse to lost and wounded creatures: orphaned kittens; abandoned fledglings; even once, in Aspen, a repulsive lizard with a broken leg. She fancied herself a healer, lavishing love on the misbegotten; she didn’t do so well when her little charges turned up dead.

  It was after midnight when he finished outlining his preliminary plan for the next phase of the game. No good to set it in stone; he prided himself on staying nimble.

  Jordan stripped, stood under water hot enough to redden his skin, dried himself with a threadbare towel, put on clean boxers and a clean T-shirt and crawled under the sheets. The bed was lumpy and sagged toward the middle, but even that couldn’t keep him awake. He fell asleep imagining the look on Shannon’s face when she recognized him, and slept through the night like an innocent babe.

  FIVE

  Shane spent most of the weekend at the big frame loom in her sunny studio, finishing the weaving for Beth’s wealthy customer and thinking about the new pieces for her exhibit.

  When she was outside, running the hills or feeding her animals, she studiously avoided looking up at the skeleton of Matthew Brennan’s house. She knew when he was up there and when he wasn’t, because she heard his truck coming and going. She could hardly miss it, the way he gunned the engine. Show-off.

  He was building that house whether she liked it or not, but she didn’t have to look at it.

  The large weaving was going well; Shane thought it was going to be her best piece yet. At three feet wide by four feet tall, it was certainly the biggest. She’d had to build a new frame loom to accommodate a piece this size, but she planned to put the new loom to good use in the next couple of weeks.


  Late on Sunday afternoon, when the sun had begun its descent behind the hills, she stepped back to rub the stiffness out of her neck and study the almost-finished piece. Woven in natural, hand-spun wool, it combined various shades of white, brown and black in an open, swirling pattern threaded with long, twisting seedpods and small animal bones.

  Shane collected the branches, seedpods and bones in the hills around her ranch and on occasional day trips into the Black Range. As she resumed tying a tiny bone into the weave, she knew she’d have to find time in the next several days for another foray into the mountains; her stash was running low.

  Fifteen minutes later, Shane wove in the last bit of weft and stood back to admire the finished piece. The sun was almost behind the hills now, its dying rays shining through the cobalt-blue bottles strung along the eaves of the workshop, casting ghostly blue glints across the Saltillo tile floor.

  Shane stretched her stiff back, sank onto the faded cushions of an old twig chair and watched the light disappear from the sky behind the row of blue glass. She loved those bottles. They’d been there when she bought the place, hundreds of them, stuck on tree branches, strung along eaves, propped on nails atop the wooden gates and fences. They were every shape and size, from tiny medicine bottles to oversize wine bottles.

  The former owners—aging hippies who were moving even farther away from civilization—had told her the legend. Evil spirits, the tale went, were attracted to the pretty bottles, flew inside and became trapped, keeping those who dwelled in the house safe from harm.

  Sometimes, when the wind from the mountains blew across them just right, the bottles whistled and moaned. The legend said those were the cries of the evil spirits, bemoaning their fate.

  That night, as she got into bed, Shane heard the moaning of the wind across the bottles. She shivered, then drew the covers up to her neck and relaxed into a dreamless sleep.

  On Monday morning, Shane awoke to the ringing phone. Probably Beth, she thought, wanting to know when she was bringing the new piece in. She looked at the clock on the bedside table: seven fifteen. No way; it was much too early for Beth. That idiot telemarketer, then. If this kept up, she’d have to change her phone number again. A lot of good the unlisted number fee was doing her. Determined not to let it jerk her around, she took her time getting dressed.

  Downstairs, Shane checked the missed-calls readout: Unknown Caller. Damn. She pushed the message button and listened to five seconds of soft breathing. She almost cut it off before she heard something else. Or thought she heard something else. She pushed the button again and listened harder.

  The soft hiss of breathing, once, twice, three times, and then—what was that? She hit the button again, holding her breath this time until she heard it.

  Soft, sibilant, as insubstantial as the breaths that came before: Shannon. The voice whispered Shannon.

  The blood rushed out of her head. Her heart knocked hard in her chest. Her knees buckled and she grabbed the counter to keep from falling. She was starting to hyperventilate, had to calm it down before she was taken by a full-blown panic attack.

  Paper bag. Think. Think! Drawer below the silverware, next to the sink. Over the nose and mouth. Breathe slowly, slowly.

  Shane held the bag to her face and slid to the floor with her back against the cabinets, legs splayed, lungs heaving.

  It couldn’t be him. It couldn’t be Jordan. Jordan was dead.

  But still her stomach churned and the bitter taste of bile rose in her throat.

  Don’t throw up, don’t throw up, don’t you dare throw up!

  As her breathing gradually calmed, her heart slowed and her stomach settled, Shane let her eyes droop closed, then forced them open, taking in the bright sunlight splashing over the tiles, pushing away the images that threatened to drag her down into the darkness behind her eyelids.

  After another minute, she lowered the crumpled bag, pushed to her feet. She rubbed her hands over her face, felt the dampness on her cheeks. She didn’t even know she’d been crying, and that—the helplessness, the loss of control—made her furious. Somehow that was worse than the panic attack itself.

  Shane stepped to the sink and splashed cold water on her face. She ripped a paper towel off the roll, dried her face, and then stared out the window at nothing.

  Who the hell was that?

  Probably some sleazy reporter, trying to break down her defenses, soften her up so she’d talk to him when he approached her. But how had he found her?

  She’d given only three people her phone number: Beth; her grandmother in Phoenix; and her stepfather, Ray. The voice sounded male. Ray was the only man on the list, but it couldn’t possibly be him. He’d died in the prison hospital over a month ago.

  When she allowed herself to dwell on it, it still made her sad to think of him there, his mind rotting away from Alzheimer’s. He’d started showing the effects of the disease during the trial: confusion, memory loss, emotional outbursts. The prosecutors thought it was a ploy, but it wasn’t. And the last time he called her from prison, a few minutes into their conversation he forgot who she was. He’d sounded so old, so frightened. He had no idea why he was in prison and no memory of cheating all those people out of their life savings. Or rather standing back while Jordan did the cheating, spending his share on houses and vacations, jewels and furs.

  Ray hadn’t started the scheme, but she couldn’t forgive him for going along with her stepbrother. He never turned him in, never tried to stop him. By going along with it, he’d made his wife and stepdaughter complicit in their crimes. It had taken Shane a very long time to stop feeling dirtied by the whole thing.

  She stood in her sun-drenched kitchen, arms crossed, frowning at the telephone. She couldn’t figure out this phone-whisperer thing, but she wasn’t going to let some sadistic idiot control her life. The grand jury had refused to indict her because there wasn’t a shred of evidence against her. Beyond being Raymond Ripley’s stepdaughter, she’d never had anything to do with Ripley Investments, and she damn well didn’t have the so-called “missing millions.” As far as she knew, they didn’t exist.

  Now that she knew some jerk-off was out there, she wasn’t going to let him blindside her again. And when she found out who it was, she’d make him sorry he ever messed with her head.

  In the meantime, the best revenge was getting on with her life as if he didn’t exist. Screw the phone whisperer. She wasn’t Shannon Malone anymore. She wasn’t that scared little girl, that timid young woman. Shane MacKinnon was a hell of a lot stronger than some creep whispering on the phone.

  All at once an old Helen Reddy song from the women’s-lib years came into her head. Her mother used to play it for her and they’d sing it together. Shane laughed. A little shakily, but she laughed. She had the CD somewhere. Move over, Bonnie Raitt. She’d dig it up and blast it all the way to Silver City.

  A couple of hours later, after her run, after she’d fed the animals and herself, Shane carefully wrapped the new weaving between sheets of cardboard and braced it in the extra cab space behind the Ranger’s seats. Beth’s customer was going to love it, and Shane would soon be richer than she’d been in a long time. Not rich—been there, done that, didn’t work out real well—but plenty rich enough. She had everything she needed and nearly everything she wanted.

  Life was good. For the first time in a very long time she felt comfortable with herself, at peace with who she’d been and who she’d become, and she’d be damned if she’d let some crank phone calls spoil that.

  She slid the Helen Reddy album into the CD slot, maxed the volume and let her own defiant, slightly off-key voice ring out: I am Woman!

  She revved the engine and took off down her driveway in a cloud of red dust, heading for the highway to her adopted home town.

  SIX

  Matt paused in his labor to watch his neighbor’s pickup bump down her driveway, across the arroyo and up the access road, kicking dust. Strains of music drifted up to him, but he couldn’t qui
te place the tune. He smiled. She was barreling up that road like something just bit her on the ass.

  He wiped his face with a sweat-stained red bandanna and went to his truck for another bale, picturing that fine, firm ass in skinny black jeans, and the fire in her eyes as she glared into his. Tough gal, definitely. Fiery and tough, but sweet and hot when it counted, he’d be willing to bet. Smart, too. Not afraid to stand up for herself. Maybe a little rude, but hey, he’d surprised her.

  Yes, Shane was definitely worth getting to know. He wasn’t sure how he was going to manage that just yet, considering she apparently still hated him, but he had time. All the time in the world. She wasn’t going anywhere, and neither was he. He set another heavy bale in the frame and went back for the next one.

  When he finished stacking the bales, Matt decided to drive over to the Post Office Café in San Miguel for a late lunch. He’d concluded since he’d been here that a few things about one-intersection towns were pretty handy, like collecting the mail, checking messages, buying basic groceries and chowing down on a pretty decent burger and fries, all in the same building.

  Not getting a cell signal at his property wasn’t handy, but it was part of the reason he’d chosen such a remote spot. It was out of Vanessa’s constant reach, and that made it nearly perfect. He couldn’t picture his ex-wife making the climb up his hill in her stiletto heels and pencil skirts, or even jouncing up it in a pickup truck.

  Wait—as a matter of fact he could picture it, and the picture made him laugh out loud.

  At the holding tank near the well head he turned on the spigot, washed his hands, ducked his head under the icy shock of water from eight-hundred feet underground. The well had been his biggest expense besides the property itself. He thought with satisfaction of his plans for a gutter system with rain barrels and a cistern to take advantage of runoff during the rainy season.