by Sandra Brown
She took baby steps to shrink the distance between them, then pressed her forehead against the center of his chest. He slid his hands over her shoulder blades onto her back, drawing her incrementally but inexorably closer, and when their bodies were flush, she turned her head and rested her cheek directly over his heart.
He lined his fingertips along the groove of her spine and moved them up and down until one hand came to rest in the small of her back. And stayed. And rubbed circles there and applied enough pressure to tilt her up and form a fit with him in the notch of her thighs that caused her breath to catch.
Then they both stopped breathing.
She tilted her head back and looked up into his face with those limpid eyes, and, when she did, all bets were off. He had to have her. He would go through hell to be inside her. He was sinking, sinking, sinking…
His mouth was almost on hers—so close to kissing her, he could feel the moisture of her breath on his lips, taste it—when he caught himself. He whispered, “You almost got me, Doc.”
She jerked her head back and blinked up at him. “What?”
“I almost fell for it.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Hell you don’t. Smelling good. Nothing but sexy you under that shirt.” He dragged his fingers across the top curve of her breast that swelled in the open collar. “Looking soft and sweet enough to make my mouth water.”
He rubbed against her suggestively. “You know what I want, and you thought that if you gave it to me, then I’d be placated and would take you home. You had just as well have climbed up onto an altar and laid yourself out.”
He made a derisive sound. “I appreciate the gesture. Truly. To say nothing of the view.” He angled his head back so he could see down her entire length. “But I’m not into sex with a martyr.”
Angrily, she pushed against his chest and tried to worm out of his grasp.
But he held on and, in fact, yanked her closer, grinding against her open thighs with unmistakable implication. “But here’s a warning, Doc. You give me another opportunity to put my hands on you, and I’m going to put them all over you. Got it? I’m not gonna imagine you naked, I’m gonna see you naked. Offer up yourself again, and I’ll ignore every reason why I shouldn’t fuck you.”
Later, he wondered what would have happened in the next few seconds, if the truck hadn’t slid off the road and crashed into the tree.
Chapter 11
Brakes squealed.
He released Emory and made it to one of the front windows in time to see the rattletrap in a fishtail skid before it plowed into a tree across the road from his gate.
In the same instant he recognized the pickup, Emory streaked toward the door. “Shit!” His hand shot out and caught a handful of flannel shirttail, bringing her up short.
She gave a small cry, but he turned her around, jerked her up hard against him, and clapped his hand over her mouth. “Listen to me. Stay quiet and out of sight.”
She wiggled and tried to throw off his hand.
“Goddamn it, listen to me! Those men? You don’t want them messing with you. They would hurt you bad. Trust me, please. Okay? I’m serious, Doc. You think I’m a threat, you can’t imagine the party they’d have with you.”
Somehow, he got the message across. Her eyes remained wide and fearful, but she stopped struggling.
“I’ve got to go out there, but can I trust you to stay inside?”
She nodded.
“I’m not bullshitting you. They’re bad news. Okay?” She bobbed her head again, and he removed his hand from her mouth. “Don’t let them see you.”
Moving quickly, he snatched his coat off the peg, opened the door, and stepped out onto the porch, hollering, “Stay where you are.”
The two men had crossed the road to his gate but stopped when he shouted at them. He covered the distance in long strides, smelling them before he got halfway to the gate. They reeked of wet wool, stale tobacco, sour mash, and body odor.
Scraggly, unkempt beards covered the lower two-thirds of their faces. They wore stocking caps pulled over their brows. Dressed almost identically in heavy coats and canvas pants tucked into rubber boots, the only features distinguishing one from the other were the couple inches’ difference in their heights and the double-barreled shotgun cradled in the shorter one’s left arm.
They were his nearest neighbors but they’d never spoken, and the only interactions he’d had with them had been contentious.
On more than one occasion he’d had to clear his yard of empty liquor bottles and beer cans that had been chucked out the window of the pickup as it jounced past. Twice the wall of his shed had been peppered with buckshot, possibly fired from the shotgun the shorter of the two was holding now. One day he’d returned home to discover a dead raccoon on his porch. It hadn’t died of natural causes. Its head had been severed.
Meanness for meanness’ sake. He detested that.
He figured the pair were trying to provoke him into retaliating. He didn’t give them that satisfaction. Instead, he’d ignored the incidents and had looked the other way whenever they drove past.
He’d been biding his time.
Now, he’d almost reached the gate when the one with the shotgun leaned forward and spat tobacco juice over the fence in his direction. The stringy mess landed just shy of his boots. The other was somewhat more polite. He touched the rolled edge of his cap in a mock doffing motion.
“Hey, friend. I’m Norman Floyd. This is my little brother, Will.”
Norman waited for him to introduce himself.
When he didn’t, the elder Floyd hitched his thumb over his shoulder. “We got a bit of a problem.”
“I see that.”
The pickup probably hadn’t been road-worthy to begin with. One of the front fenders was missing. All four tires were bald. The camouflage paint job looked as though it had been applied by an amateur hand. The loose tailpipe had been attached to the rusted rear bumper with a strand of barbed wire.
Now the front grill was wrapped halfway around the trunk of an evergreen that had been partially uprooted upon impact and was listing thirty degrees. The truck’s busted radiator was emitting steam.
“You shouldn’t have been on the roads today. Too icy.”
“Well, yeah, you’re pro’bly right.” Norman shrugged and gave him a goofy grin, which he would have to be a fool to trust.
Meanwhile, the other, Will, was looking beyond him into the yard, curiously taking stock of his pickup, the shed, the cabin. He hoped to God that Emory had taken his advice and was staying out of sight.
He would kill the two Floyd brothers if he had to, but he’d rather not have to today.
Norman said, “We’re neighbors, you know.”
“I’ve seen you drive past.”
“You know where we live?”
He did but thought it best not to let on that he did. He nodded toward their wrecked truck. “You shouldn’t try to tow it until the roads are clear.”
“What we figured.”
“Well, be careful. You should be okay if you stick to the shoulder so the gravel can give you some traction.” He disliked turning his back to a man holding a shotgun, but he hated even worse the idea of the brothers thinking that he was afraid of them. He made to turn, but Will spoke up for the first time.
“You figuring on us walking home?” He expressed his opinion of that plan by spitting again.
“What we thought,” Norman said in a whine, “was that you might give us a lift. It ain’t but a mile, mile and a half, up the road to our place.”
“If it’s no farther than that, you can easily make it before dark. If you start now.”
Beneath his beetled brow, Will’s eyes turned even more hostile. He shuffled forward a few inches and assumed a more combative stance.
Ordinarily, the subtle threat would have amused him. He would have been thinking, Go ahead, you hillbilly jackass, dare me. He would have waited for one or the other to co
me at him, and then he would have mopped the floor with both of them. He looked forward to that time. But today wasn’t the day. He had to take Emory’s safety into account.
“Walk, huh?” Norman glanced up at the sky and held out his palm to catch snowflakes. “Don’t look to me like this is gonna let up any time soon.” He scratched at something in his beard as he looked over his shoulder toward the truck. “For me ’n’ Will the walk wouldn’t be nothing. Even in this shit weather. ’Cept…”
He gestured behind him at the pickup.
* * *
Emory watched through a sliver of space between the window frame and the muslin curtain as the man she had tried unsuccessfully to seduce worked the combination on the padlock, went through the gate, and crossed the road to the wrecked pickup, where the passenger door stood ajar.
He bent down, looked inside, appeared to be speaking to someone. After a sixty-second conversation, he turned back to the two men. His expression was dark and dangerous. Tight-lipped, he said something to the pair, then strode through the gate and across the yard toward the cabin, leaving the gate open.
She backed away from the window as he burst through the door. “Stay out of sight, but keep an eye on them. Tell me what they’re doing.” He went to the end of the sofa, lifted it, and moved it several feet, then knelt and flipped back the corner of the carpet.
“What’s going on? Who are those men?”
“The brothers Floyd. Norman and Will.”
“Are they asking for your help with their truck?”
“It’s beyond help. They want a ride.”
“To where?”
“Their place. What are they doing?”
“Helping someone out of the pickup. Who’s that?”
“Their kid sister.”
During this terse exchange, he’d pulled up a section of the wood flooring. In the rectangular cavity under the floor was a metal locker like the one she’d found beneath the bed. He flipped the latches and raised the lid.
Firearms. Many. Of all types.
He lifted out a handgun, checked the clip, then tucked it into the waistband of his jeans and pulled down his sweater and coat to conceal it. While Emory stood there, mute with astonishment, he closed the trunk, replaced the flooring and the rug, and moved the sofa back into place.
He said, “Secret’s out,” and motioned down toward the hidden armory. “If the need arises, help yourself. Do you know how to shoot?”
She gaped at him as he went to the bed and stripped the pillowcase off the pillow. Then he picked up her shoes and tossed them into the pillowcase. “If you should run out of firewood before I get back—”
“Back?” she exclaimed. “You’re not seriously thinking of going with them?”
But apparently he was, because the trio outside were making their way toward his pickup. The one toting a shotgun looked eager to check it out. He went ahead while his brother, with noticeable impatience, ushered their sister around the icier patches in the yard.
“As I was saying, firewood is stacked on the outside of that wall.” He raised his chin in the direction of the wall that held the bookshelves. Patting his coat pockets, he located his gloves and pulled them on. He dropped his cap and scarf into the pillowcase, gathered the top of it in his fist, and tossed it over his shoulder like a Santa sack. “I won’t be long.”
She planted herself between him and the door. “Are you crazy? They look dangerous.”
“They are.”
“Then—”
“I’ll be okay.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I know.”
“That’s no answer.”
“Move, Doc.”
“They could slit your throat.”
“Not their style.”
“What do you know about their style?”
“More than I want to.”
“You’ve had confrontations with them before?”
“Not exactly.”
“What does that mean?”
“I knew who they were, but until today, we hadn’t met. They’re my neighbors.”
“Which you claimed not to have.”
“Yeah, well, I lied about that.”
“How close do they live from here?”
“I don’t have time to go into it now. Move out of my way before they come to see what’s taking me so long.”
He tried to go around her, but she side-stepped to block him.
“You’ve been using the icy roads as your excuse for keeping me here.”
“They’re still treacherous. Which is why that damn heap crashed into the tree.”
“Then why are you driving them home?”
“Because it’s too far for the girl to walk.” He reached behind her, lifted his key ring off the hook, and dropped it into his coat pocket.
She grabbed his sleeve. “You can’t leave me here.”
For the first time since coming back inside, he paused to really look at her, then, with a sudden move, dropped the pillowcase and closed his hands around her head. He ran his gloved thumb across her lower lip.
“I swore to myself I wouldn’t touch you. But I wish like hell I’d fucked you anyway.”
Then he bracketed her hips between his hands and forcibly moved her aside. “Stay out of sight until we’re gone. If they come back in place of me, shoot the sons of bitches and ask questions later.” In one fluid motion, he bent to pick up the pillowcase, opened the door, and left.
* * *
Following his interview with the detectives, Jeff was banished to the chaotic lobby, where the floor had been tracked with muddy, melting ice. He’d eaten a snack from a vending machine and washed it down with bitter, tepid coffee, also from a machine. He’d then claimed a vacant chair and camped in it, so to speak, while he waited for something to happen.
The longer he sat there, the angrier he became.
He had called in sick to his secretary earlier, but he was reconsidering whether or not he should notify his boss and tell him where he actually was and what was going on. But he talked himself out of that, deciding there was no sense in sounding an alarm until the situation called for it.
Alice had been worried about Emory yesterday afternoon. By now, she would be climbing the walls. He knew he should call her, but talked himself out of that, too. It would look bad if Knight and Grange discovered that he’d contacted his illicit lover while his wife was unaccounted for.
He read the Wall Street Journal and played a game of Scrabble on his phone, all the while stewing in resentment over being ignored. An hour crawled by. When he couldn’t stand the inactivity any longer, he took to swearing under his breath, and, when he got truly fed up, he risked losing his seat by leaving it to go to the reception window and demanding that the deputy seated there summon Sergeant Detective Sam Knight immediately.
A few minutes later, Knight came through the connecting door, seeming to be in no apparent hurry, uselessly trying to tug his off-the-rack trousers up over his belly. “Must be mental telepathy, Jeff. I was just about to come get you. Come on back.”
He was Jeff now?
Knight held the door for him. The lady with the collapsed barn roof was no longer in the squad room. Personnel were talking to one another or on their phones. Some were at their computers. But no matter how they were engaged independently, they simultaneously paused to follow his progress over to Knight’s desk, where Grange was already waiting, looking as dour as an undertaker.
“Oh God,” Jeff moaned. “What’s happened?”
Grange answered by pointing him into a chair.
He remained standing. “Damn you, answer me.”
“Nothing’s shaking so far,” Knight replied as he lowered himself into his desk chair. “Sit down, Jeff, please.”
“That’s all you people seem capable of doing. Sitting. Why aren’t you doing something constructive to find my missing wife?”
“We’re doing everything we can.”
“You’re just sitting her
e!”
Realizing he had called even more attention to himself, he sat down—hard—and glared at the two detectives.
Knight said, “It wouldn’t do any good for us to go chasing around, burning up fuel, when we don’t know where she went after she left the motel.”
“What about her credit cards? Wasn’t Marybeth—”
“Maryjo.”
“Whatever. Wasn’t she supposed to be checking on charges and ATM withdrawals?”
Grange joined in. “It would have speeded things up if you’d had Emory’s credit card numbers.”
“I explained that,” Jeff said, practically having to unclench his teeth to get the words out. “Emory has her accounts. I have mine. She pays her bills—”
“Actually she doesn’t.”
Jeff looked from Grange to Knight. “What’s he talking about?”
“The accountant who keeps the medical clinic’s books also pays Emory’s personal bills. He charges her a small stipend each month. He gave us her personal account numbers.”
“Great. Fantastic. Did Maryjo follow up?”
Knight said, “Friday afternoon shortly after leaving Atlanta, your wife gassed up her car using a credit card at a service station. We’ve got that transaction on security camera video. By the way, she was dressed just like you described.”
“Why would you think she wouldn’t be?”
“Could be she’d stopped somewhere between your house and the service station and…you know…switched clothes.” Before Jeff could respond to that inanity, Knight went on. “Anyhow, she charged her motel room to the same card and used it again to pay for her dinner on Friday night. None of her cards has been used since.”
Jeff gnawed his lower lip. “Since Friday night?”
“Do you know how much cash she had on her?”
He shook his head, then cleared his throat and said, “But I doubt it was much. She isn’t in the habit of carrying a lot. It’s sort of a joke between us. She never seems to have any cash.”
After a lapse of several moments, Grange said, “We’ve also retrieved her cell phone records. Last call she made was Friday evening.” He smiled, but it wasn’t a friendly expression. “To you.”