“Mm-hmm.” The warmth of his body and the security of being tucked so close to him lulled her at once.
“Sweet dreams,” he added, squeezing her hand.
That was the last thing she remembered as she fell into a deep, sound sleep.
Chapter 8
It was already 10 a.m., and Charlotte’s ID had not yet arrived.
In preparation for their departure, Lucas helped Saul guide his midnight-blue Camaro through the gate at the side of his house and into the backyard. There, the dense foliage concealed their activities as they packed the trunk with enough supplies to last them until the motion hearing on Friday. The plan was to leave Lucas’s truck in the driveway to mislead The Entity into thinking they were still in the area.
Contributing only the single suitcase Saul had loaned her, Charlotte, dressed in her disguise, chafed to leave. She stood in the kitchen watching the men pack the vehicle with weapons and bags. The likelihood that The Entity now knew of her location kept her on pins and needles, anticipating their departure.
Lucas came into the kitchen for a glass of water.
“Monica returned my text,” he announced. “She’s agreed to testify in person.” He chugged his glass without looking at Charlotte.
“Good,” she said. It couldn’t be any more apparent that Monica hoped to mend bridges with Lucas. Why else would she have agreed to state in front of Dwyer, who would obviously be in attendance, that he had instructed her to steal for him? Her testimony was bound to get her fired, at least for as long as Dwyer remained the DEVGRU commander.
“Look at that. She’s showing you she cares about you more than she cares about her job,” Charlotte pointed out.
Lucas put his glass down with a thud. Wiping a droplet of water from his chin, he faced her squarely. “I think we should tell Fitz what happened last night,” he said, ignoring her comment.
“No.” Charlotte’s response was purely instinctive. “He asked you to protect me, and no one has grabbed me yet, so I’m fine. He doesn’t need to know where we’re going either.”
Lucas considered her opinion with a furrowed brow.
“All right,” he finally agreed. “But if something goes south, he’s the first person I’m reaching out to.”
“Fair enough,” she acceded.
As if on cue, the doorbell rang. Charlotte’s heart threw itself against her ribs as Lucas snatched up his Glock and approached the door cautiously.
“It’s FedEx,” he said, peeking out the window at the truck idling at the curb. Jamming his gun into the waistband of his jeans, he cracked the door and smiled at the deliveryman, who requested his signature.
Seconds later, Lucas handed her an official-looking envelope. Charlotte used the scissors in the butcher block to open it. With Lucas peering over her shoulder, they inspected her new ID together.
“Looks real to me,” he pronounced.
Examining her photo, Charlotte wondered if she’d be wearing similar disguises as a case officer in the CIA. To the casual eye, the woman in the photo looked nothing like her.
“Just for the record, I like your red hair better,” Lucas told her.
“Thanks.” Lifting her head to smile up at him, Charlotte realized he was standing close enough to kiss her if he wanted. He must have had the same thought, for his gaze dropped to her lips. The air in the kitchen seemed suddenly denser and hard to breathe.
Perhaps they shouldn’t have slept in the same bed the night before, Charlotte thought. It had them both acting weirdly today.
“I’m all set to leave,” she said, moving away to put her new ID into her purse.
“Yep.” Lucas strode abruptly toward the door. “I’ll go tell Saul.”
Lucas kept his eyes peeled for a tail, as Saul, having dropped his dog off at the sitter’s earlier, sped them toward the highway. Twisting in his seat at one point to peer out the back window, Lucas caught Charlotte looking at him. He quickly looked away, but not before her lips curved toward a smile that caused his own lips to twitch and his stomach to somersault.
Facing front again, he fretted over his response to her. How could he have known her for merely a few days? He felt like he’d known her for ages. The thought of The Entity pursuing her totally unsettled him. He didn’t like the fact that she was forced to disguise herself. The real Charlotte was beautiful—Justice Strong not so much. Ironically, despite the present danger, he anticipated spending the next few days hunting for clues about her supervisor’s death.
It took a full hour to cross the Hampton Roads Bridge Tunnel and one more hour of driving through stop-and-go traffic before Lucas could breathe easily. They zipped through the drive-through of a fast-food restaurant for lunch. Then civilization fell away, leaving nothing but fields and farmhouses and the occasional church, all basking in the dog days of summer.
“Hot damn,” Saul exclaimed on a gleeful note. “We’re in the hicks now!”
Lucas didn’t want them letting their guard down. “Let’s set a course of action.”
Saul cut him a dry look, which he ignored.
“We need to know why Elwood went to Sabena in the first place. What’s out here that sparked his interest?”
“How are we supposed to figure that out?” Saul asked.
“By talking to the locals,” Charlotte suggested from the backseat. “Someone is bound to know something.”
Concern had been gnawing at Lucas for some time. “Don’t you think we’re going to raise some eyebrows, the three of us going around asking questions?” He didn’t bother mentioning the likelihood that someone would recognize him.
“We should split up,” Saul suggested. “You and Charlotte can stay at the B&B. I’ll do my own thing.”
Lucas knew Saul could look after himself, but staying alone with Charlotte in the same room wasn’t going to lessen his growing fixation with her.
“I shouldn’t be your sister, either,” she added, unsettling him further. “I don’t know any brothers and sisters our age who go on vacation together. We should say we’re married. Easy enough, since I took your last name.”
Her solution both dismayed and intrigued Lucas. “We’re not wearing wedding rings,” he pointed out.
“Because we eloped,” she suggested, “and now we’re looking for rings in one of the antique stores. Sabena is known for its antique stores,” she added persuasively.
With no more reason to protest, Lucas consigned himself to playing a married man for the next few days. Don’t fall in love with her, he ordered himself.
“Five miles to Sabena,” Saul announced, taking the next right on two tires.
They drove through a thick copse of trees, past a church and a sprawling graveyard. The road then spit them out onto a two-lane trestle bridge that hummed beneath Saul’s tires.
Glancing down at the body of water beneath them, Lucas figured it looked deep enough for big boats to navigate when the bridge swung open.
“The Rappahannock River,” Saul said, reading the map on his console.
A marina with a restaurant marked the edge of town. Saul slowed so they could take in Sabena’s nineteenth-century stores and houses, each charmingly distinct from the next and interspersed with century-old boxwoods, oaks, and maples.
“It’s so quaint,” Charlotte exclaimed, poking her head between the two front seats.
Lucas glanced the map on Saul’s console. “Next left coming up, Chief.”
They turned into a road flanked by Victorian houses, complete with turrets and towers and porches, all trimmed in ornate lattice work. Huge oak trees blocked out the bright sun and dappled the large front yards.
The road dead-ended at the head of a driveway.
“This is it,” Lucas said, reading the hand-painted plaque on one of the brick pillars. “Magnolia Manor, 1796. Wow, it really is a historical landmark.”
Saul stopped the car at the head of the driveway and set the parking brake. His hazel eyes twinkled with devilment as he pushed out of the driver’s sea
t.
“Y’all be on your best behavior, now,” he ribbed them.
Lucas exited and let Charlotte out of the backseat. Watching Saul stuff his pistol into his duffel bag, he remembered that The Entity was probably already looking for them.
“Check in with me every few hours, Chief.”
“Yes, sir.” Sending Charlotte a wink, Saul shouldered his bag and headed back toward Main Street. He wore his hair in a ponytail, revealing the gold hoop in his left ear. There was a rip in his jeans, and the sleeves of his shirt were torn away, exposing the fearsome tattoo on one arm.
Over the top of the car, Lucas caught Charlotte grinning as she watched Saul saunter off.
“He looks exactly like a drifter,” she marveled before ducking into the car.
Assuming the driver’s position, Lucas had to adjust the driver’s seat and mirrors to accommodate his height. Charlotte watched him all the while.
“You seem nervous,” she commented.
He glanced at her sidelong. “You don’t,” he noted. In fact, she looked like a woman in her element—a completely different woman than the one who’d quaked with fear the night before. Armed with the new ID, she really was a new woman, he supposed.
“Relax,” she advised. “No one knows where to find us. Plus, we have a pretty good cover, provided no one recognizes you.”
“Maybe I’m the one who needs a disguise,” Lucas muttered, pulling them forward down the long, shaded driveway.
Charlotte’s eyes widened as the bed-and-breakfast emerged from behind the trees. The whitewashed, clapboard structure was original to the Colonial period and looked like an inn Thomas Jefferson might have frequented, complete with a wraparound porch and dormered third-story windows, all sheltered by impossibly tall pines and oaks.
Lucas parked their car in the designated area, next to two other cars.
“You made reservations, right?” Charlotte asked him.
“This morning,” he affirmed.
Feeling guilty for all the expenses he was having to incur while protecting her and helping Jonah, she pushed out of the Camaro and drank in the view.
“It’s so peaceful here,” she remarked, hearing nothing but songbirds and the sloughing of wind through the trees. “Do you smell that?” She lifted her nose to the warm air. “We’re next to the water.”
“I can see it.” He nodded toward the front of the house then bent to collect their luggage from the trunk. “Come on. Let’s go check in. I got it,” he added when Charlotte tried to take her suitcase from him.
With a shrug, she preceded him up the steps to the covered veranda. At their approach, the solid wooden door swung open.
An older woman with white hair and plump cheeks beamed at them. “Hello. You must be the Strongs,” she guessed, her eyes bright with curiosity. “I’m Eleanor Digges. Welcome to Magnolia Manor.” Stepping back, she beckoned them inside.
They stepped into a cool foyer comprised of old oak floors and French blue walls above white wainscoting. Charlotte’s gaze went from the oil-on-canvas portrait of an unknown woman to the grandfather clock ticking loudly in the quiet. Then she glanced up the broad wooden staircase winding toward the second and third floors. There were other bed-and-breakfasts in Sabena. Why had Lloyd, who was particularly frugal, chosen this elegant and probably most expensive one to stay in?
“It says on your reservation form you’re from Texas,” Mrs. Digges remarked as she moved toward an antique desk. “What brings you all the way to Sabena?”
“It’s our honeymoon,” Charlotte said, casting Lucas a love-smitten grin.
“Oh, isn’t that marvelous?” Mrs. Digges gushed. “Congratulations. Won’t you sign your names in our guest book?”
“I’ll do it,” Charlotte offered.
With alacrity and enjoying their role-playing, she penned Mr. and Mrs. Lucas Strong into the book. Then remembering Lloyd, she flipped back a page and experienced a pang of sorrow as her gaze landed on his distinctive signature.
As she eyed the names written near Lloyd’s to see if they rang a bell, it occurred to her this B&B was the last place he had laid his head. Grief turned her heart as heavy as an anchor. None of the other names meant anything to her.
The sound of Mrs. Digges opening a small cabinet brought her back to the present.
“I’ve given you the honeymoon suite, courtesy of the manor,” the matron announced, taking an old-fashioned key out of the cabinet and handing it to Lucas.
“Thank you,” he said, sliding it into his pocket. The tips of his ears had turned red.
He really needs to work on his poker face, Charlotte thought, highly amused.
“Let’s get you settled then. Right this way, please.”
Following the woman’s ample hips up the staircase, they were regaled with a detailed history of the manor from its construction in 1796 to the present day. The creaking treads underscored the manor’s antiquity.
As the matron paused on the second story to catch her breath, Charlotte seized her chance to mention Lloyd.
“Didn’t the man who died in a hit-and-run stay here?”
The question earned her a startled look. “Well, aren’t you well informed,” Mrs. Digges commented.
Charlotte shrugged casually. “It was in the newspaper.”
“Yes. That poor man.” The innkeeper’s jowls wobbled as she shook her head sadly. “He was such a pleasant guest. I hate thinking about what happened to him.”
“Do you think his death was really an accident?” Charlotte pressed, ignoring the warning hand Lucas placed on the small of her back.
Pale blue eyes focused on her intently. “What do you mean, dear?”
“Well, I hear it was a hit-and-run, yet no one’s been accused. I just have to wonder if he wasn’t murdered.”
“Heavens, no.” The mere idea apparently shocked the proprietress. “We don’t have crime like that out here. Don’t you fret, dear. This area is as safe as they come. This way to your room.”
She led them down an L-shaped hallway, lit with intermittent windows that cast bright rectangles of light on the freshly papered walls.
“I’m sure you’ll love your room. The entire manor was renovated last year. All the beds have memory foam mattresses, and the bathrooms have rain showers.”
Charlotte couldn’t resist unsettling Lucas by leaning into him. “Oh, rain showers, honey.”
The tips of his ears turned red again.
“Try your key,” Mrs. Digges invited.
Inserting the old-timey key into the lock, Lucas released the catch and swung the door open. Charlotte swept in, thoroughly enchanted with what lay inside.
The proprietress backed away. “If there’s anything you need, just dial zero. You can leave a message if I don’t pick up. Breakfast is served from six to ten each morning. Enjoy your stay!”
“Thank you.” Lucas put down their bags and closed the door quietly between them.
Charlotte was busy taking inventory of the room. A four-poster, queen-sized bed occupied the center of the large space. But there was other furniture as well, including an armoire, a vanity and a secretary desk. The walls boasted chair rails and flowered wallpaper.
“Are these real antiques?” Charlotte wondered, sliding open a drawer on the vanity to look at the dovetail grooves. “An excellent reproduction,” she decided. “Don’t you love this place?” she asked Lucas, who was stowing his suitcase in the large armoire.
“It’s nice,” he agreed. “I’ll sleep in the armchair,” he added, nodding at the overstuffed chair as he tucked the pistol he’d removed from his bag into his waistband.
The sight of it reminded Charlotte that they weren’t on vacation.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” she retorted. “We can share a bed like we did last night. I promise not to take advantage of you,” she quipped, keeping her tone deliberately light.
Stepping into the bathroom, she noted the white and black tiles and the electric candles in the wall sconces. “O
h, my gosh, there’s a claw-foot tub! I’m so going to take a bath,” she declared.
Glancing into the mirror, she was taken aback by her unfamiliar reflection. Tucking a stray red hair back under her wig, she articulated the thought that had occurred to her earlier, speaking loudly so Lucas could hear her. “I don’t understand why Lloyd would have stayed in a romantic, expensive inn of all places. I know it can’t be cheap, and Lloyd was definitely tight with his money.”
“Maybe something to do with the view?” Lucas suggested from the other room.
Drawn by his tone of voice, she emerged to find him standing at the window where he’d drawn aside the sheer curtains.
Joining him, she looked down to see an immaculate lawn sloping toward marsh grass and the same body of water they had driven over earlier. The bluish-gray water looked about a hundred feet across. On the other side sat a pier and an old warehouse. Red and black lettering on the weathered siding read Sabena’s Crab and Oyster Company. One old fishing boat rocked at the pier, but the pilings and the docks appeared brand new.
Something about the view didn’t add up.
“I didn’t smell anything fishy outside, did you?” she asked Lucas.
He turned a thoughtful gaze to her. “No.”
Charlotte looked back at the warehouse. “Maybe crabs and oysters aren’t lucrative anymore.”
“I wonder what is,” Lucas said, pulling out his phone.
“Are you texting Saul?”
“Asking him to check it out,” he affirmed.
Charlotte waited for him to finish his text. “Speaking of checking things out, why don’t we take a walk into town and start looking for our wedding rings?”
The guarded look he shot her made her add, “We don’t have to buy them, Lucas. We’re merely adding credibility to our cover.”
“I know,” he said, but he still struck her as uncomfortable.
“You are nervous,” she said, repeating her earlier observation. “Because you’re alone with me?”
“Of course not,” he averred, but his gaze had fallen to the cross he’d given her.
Every Secret Thing Page 10