Kitabı oxu: «Wednesday's Child»
Rave reviews for In Plain Sight
“Gayle Wilson is one of the best romantic suspense writers in the business.”
—Chronicle Herald (Halifax, Nova Scotia)
“In Plain Sight sizzles from start to finish. I couldn’t put it down.”
—New York Times bestselling author Carla Neggers
“Wilson’s novel mesmerizes from first page to the last, with chilling twists and a compelling plot.”
—Romantic Times
“Gayle Wilson pulls out all the stops to give her readers a thrilling, chilling read that will give you goose bumps in the night.”
—ReadertoReader.com
More praise for Gayle Wilson
“Gayle Wilson is one of the Divine Ones, a writer who combines impeccable craft with unsurpassed storytelling skills. Her books are dark, sexy and totally involving. I can’t recommend her enough.”
—bestselling novelist Anne Stuart
“Gayle Wilson will go far in romantic suspense. Her books have that special ‘edge’ that lifts them out of the ordinary. They’re always tautly written, a treare trove of action, suspense and richly drawn characters.”
—New York Times bestselling author Linda Howard
“Rich historical detail, intriguing mystery, romance that touches the heart and lingers in the mind. These are the elements which keep me waiting impatiently for Gayle Wilson’s next book.”
—USA TODAY bestselling author BJ James
“Writing like this is a rare treat.”
—Gothic Journal
Also by Gayle Wilson
IN PLAIN SIGHT
DOUBLE BLIND
Wednesday’s Child
Gayle Wilson
www.millsandboon.co.uk
Monday’s child is fair of face.
Tuesday’s child is full of grace.
Wednesday child is full of woe.
Thursday’s child has far to go.
Friday’s child is loving and giving.
Saturday’s child works hard for its living.
But the child that’s born on the Sabbath day Is bonny and blithe, and good and gay.
To Meg Ruley
for her continuing support and enthusiasm
for my work,
for always being there when I need her,
and for having the most wonderful laugh
in the entire world.
Thank you!
CONTENTS
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
EPILOGUE
PROLOGUE
WORKING FOR an almost artistic perfection, he draped the body over the steering wheel, carefully aligning the top of the head with the starred crack he’d created in the wind-shield. He was almost finished. And as soon as he was—
There was a rustling from the bushes behind him. He backed out of the car so quickly he slammed his head into the top of the door frame. Stifling a curse, he peered into the darkness, hardly daring to breathe. For endless seconds he waited, but there was no repetition of whatever he’d heard.
Coon, he thought. Or maybe a beaver, although he hadn’t heard the distinctive slap and glide into the river. Something that wasn’t human, in any case. And humans were the only witnesses he cared about.
He eased back through the open door of the SUV, being careful this time to duck below its frame. He tried to position the corpse higher over the wheel, but its dead weight and the angle he was working from made that impossible.
It doesn’t matter, he told himself. This body wasn’t going to be found. Trying to place it so the location of the head wound made some kind of sense was simply a precaution.
But then, he was a careful man by nature. Nothing left to chance. Nothing forgotten.
He took one last look around the interior of the car, his eyes searching with the aid of the bright moonlight for anything he might have overlooked. That, too, was unnecessary. He’d gone over the car with a fine-tooth comb. And he’d found what he’d been sent to retrieve. The river would take care of any other evidence. Just as it would take care of the marks on the body. And even if it were found—
But it wouldn’t be. He intended to make sure of that.
He reached across the driver’s seat, leaning in behind the corpse, to locate by feel the lever of the emergency brake. His fingers closed around it as his thumb depressed the release. Despite the angle at which it was parked, the car didn’t move.
His cheeks puffed slightly with the breath of relief he released. So far so good.
Satisfied that everything was going as planned, he withdrew his torso from the vehicle to take one more slow survey of his surroundings, evaluating the stillness. He’d been out here long enough that the normal night sounds along the river had resumed. Tree frogs and crickets. The occasional plop of a fish jumping. From the distance came the throaty call of an owl.
Satisfied, he eased the door closed, pushing hard enough at the last to make sure the latch caught. Again he listened, but other than a slight hesitation in the nocturnal symphony, there had been no reaction to the noise.
He’d driven the SUV off the bridge entrance and parked it on the reinforced slope leading down to the river. If he had left the headlights on—as he’d thought about doing in order to monitor its descent—they would now be shining down into the swift, rain-swollen current. All he needed was a little luck. And if he got it, the car would never be seen again.
As he walked up the incline toward the rear of the vehicle, his eyes once more searched the woods and the two-lane blacktop that led to the bridge. It was an automatic precaution. There was no traffic. Not here. And especially not now. Nobody was going to be out in Linton at 3:00 a.m. on a Sunday morning.
Taking a deep breath, he put his hands against the back of the SUV and pushed as hard as he could. Despite the incline and the fact that he had left the car out of gear, nothing happened.
He fought the urge to open the door and check that the brake was off and that it was indeed in neutral. Instead, he put his shoulder against the rear door, trying to rock the heavy vehicle to get it started. Still it didn’t move.
The first curl of panic fluttered in his stomach. In desperation he bent his knees, trying to bring the muscles of his buttocks and thighs to bear on the task. The soles of his shoes slipped against the concrete, making it hard to get traction. And then, like a miracle, he felt the SUV shift.
That small indication of success was enough to intensify his efforts. With a grunt of exertion, he threw his body against the metal again, feet churning, as they had when he’d butted the practice dummy on the high-school football field.
Just as that seemingly immovable object had eventually given in to his determination, this one did, too. The car moved so suddenly that he fell to his hands and knees as it slowly rolled away from him.
He scrambled up, slipping and sliding down the incline in time to watch the front tires enter the water. Eyes straining to follow the car’s path through the darkness, he felt a sense of vindication as the current caught it.
As he’d anticipated, the car was too heavy to be carried downriver, but the rushing water turned the SUV as it began to sink, aligning it so it was parallel to the base of the bridge.
Then, as if on command, the car began to nose downward into the exact resting place he’d designed for it, directly beneath the old concrete supports. Exhilaration filled his chest.
Suddenly, by a bizarre trick of moonlight, the rear window seemed to be illuminated. He could see straight through it and into the back seat of the car that was by now more than half submerged. He watched, unable to pull his eyes away, as water covered the infant seat that had been strapped into the back. He didn’t look away until the SUV and all it contained had disappeared forever beneath the surface of the river.
CHAPTER ONE
Seven Years Later
“MRS. KAISER?” The masculine voice on the other end of the phone sounded hesitant. Almost uncertain.
Wrong number, Susan Chandler thought as she considered how to respond. A telemarketer. Some kind of survey. Nothing to get excited about, despite how he’d addressed her.
“Who is this, please?”
“Wayne Adams with the Johnson County Sheriff’s Department, ma’am. I’m trying to get in touch with a Mrs. Richard Kaiser.”
Despite the fact that by now she had realized this might be the call she’d waited for for so long, Susan knew she still couldn’t afford to let down the emotional barriers she’d struggled so hard to put into place. Not yet. Not until she was sure this was somehow connected to Emma.
She closed her eyes, taking a deep breath before she repeated, her voice sounding remarkably steady, “Johnson County? And where is that, please?”
“Mississippi. Johnson County, Mississippi. Sorry, ma’am. You get used to folks you’re calling knowing that, I guess.” A hint of amusement, clearly self-directed, colored the words.
Amusement. Then in all probability…
“What’s your call in relation to, Mr. Adams?”
“Sheriff Adams,” the caller corrected a little pompously. “You are Mrs. Kaiser, then? Mrs. Richard Kaiser?”
“That’s right.”
She didn’t bother to explain the divorce she had finally obtained four years ago, granted on the grounds of desertion. If she mentioned she was no longer Mrs. Kaiser, there was always the possibility he might hang up without giving her whatever information he had.
She needed to hear what he had to say, but she also needed to maintain a tight rein on her emotions until she had. Too many times in the past she’d anticipated being told something positive, only to be devastated when that didn’t occur.
“Then…I’m afraid I have some bad news, ma’am.”
“Bad news” wasn’t one of the phrases she’d been preparing for. Not after his previous tone. Her heart rate accelerated, its too-rapid beating filling her throat and sending blood rushing to her brain until she was almost light-headed.
“What kind of bad news?”
“There’s been an accident.”
When she had first walked into that eerily empty house seven years ago and gone from room to room, calling their names, that had been one of the first things she’d thought of. There’s been an accident. Something terrible has happened to them….
Even later, during the long, sleepless nights after they’d told her what Richard had done, she had paced the floor, trying to work out some other explanation. Something that would explain the nightmare she was living.
She licked her lips, which had suddenly gone dry. “What kind of accident?”
“It’s your husband, ma’am. We found his car submerged in the Escatawpa River. Looks like he must have run past the entrance to the bridge in the dark. It’s a tricky turn if you don’t know the road.”
“Richard?”
“I’m sorry, ma’am. His body was in the car. I should have told you that at the first.”
“He’s dead.”
Her voice was too flat. Unemotional. She could imagine what the sheriff in Mississippi must be thinking. Even so, she was unable to summon up any regret that Richard’s life had ended. After all he’d put her through—
With that thought came another. A terrifying one.
“Was there anyone in the car with him?” Her heart now hesitated, refusing to beat again as she waited for the answer.
“No, ma’am, there wasn’t. There was no one else inside.”
He probably thought she was concerned about another woman. And at one time she might have been. Long before she understood there were anxieties far more compelling than those.
“As a courtesy, we asked the Atlanta PD to go to the address on his license,” the sheriff went on. “The folks living there now didn’t recognize the name, so we ran it through the national databases and found…Well, I expect you know what we found. I wasn’t sure this number would still be active after all these years. There hadn’t been any updates since the initial report was filed, but I figured it was worth a shot.”
She’d had to sell the house almost immediately, but due to the circumstances, the phone company had allowed her to keep this number. It wasn’t as if Emma had known it, but they told her it was customary with cases involving missing children.
Only then, in thinking back to those first terrible weeks, did she realize the significance of what the sheriff had just said. “Are you saying Richard had identification on him? That his driver’s license gave that name and address?”
She had long believed Richard was living somewhere under an assumed name. That’s why they hadn’t been able to locate him. How could he have escaped those countless inquiries if he’d kept his real name? Especially if he were still in the South?
“His wallet was in the car. Surprisingly, despite all the time it had been in the water, most of the things it contained were in pretty good shape. Of course, his license was the easiest to read since it was laminated.”
There was a disconnect between the sheriff’s words and what she’d been thinking. It wasn’t until she allowed them to replay in her mind that their import began to dawn.
“I don’t understand. You said it was an accident.”
“Yes, ma’am.” The uncertainty was back in his voice.
From what Adams had said, she’d been operating under the assumption that the accident he referred to had just occurred. Obviously, that assumption was wrong.
“Just how long do you believe my husband’s body has been in the water?”
There was a long beat of silence.
“Actually, the coroner can’t tell us that for sure—not yet. Given the condition of the car and the body…We’re guessing shortly after you notified law enforcement he was missing.”
Shortly after you notified law enforcement…
The words seemed to exist in some parallel universe. All the months she’d spent searching for him—and for Emma—Richard had already been dead, his car submerged, his body slowly decomposing.
Images of the black SUV sinking into the murky water of some Mississippi river were suddenly in her head, despite her near desperation to keep them out. Refusing to allow herself to entertain those kinds of thoughts was an art she had believed she’d perfected. She’d been wrong.
Despite the endless number of times she had attempted to imagine what Emma would look like now, it was always her daughter’s face the last time she’d seen her that was forever in her mind’s eye. A picture as clear as the August morning she’d left for the airport and the children’s literature conference. She’d had an appointment with an editor who had shown an interest in her illustrations—an appointment which had led to her first freelance assignment with the publisher she still worked for.
Emma had been fourteen months old then. Her hair slightly curling and dark blond. Her eyes, almost the same clear, dark blue as her father’s, were surrounded by impossibly long lashes that spiked, jeweled with tears, whenever she cried.
She had cried that morning. She had held up her arms to Susan, begging to be taken. Laughing, Richard had swooped her up and begun dancing her around the kitchen to allow Susan to escape. That was the last time she had seen either of them.
She had long ago accepted that unless something extraordinary happened or unless Richard decided to contact her, she would probably never see Emma again. And now…
“My daughter,” she managed, pushing the words past the constriction in her throat.
“Ma’am?”
“My daughter was with my husband when he disappeared. I was away for the weekend, and when I got back—” There was no need to give him those details. All she wanted was what he knew about Emma. “He took her with him when he disappeared.”
Unable to afford two, they had swapped the toddler seat between their cars. It had been in Richard’s SUV that morning. And when she’d returned…
“Her safety seat was in his car,” she finished. The images of the dark water closing over the top of the SUV were back in her head, no matter how hard she tried to block them.
The sheriff’s hesitation lasted so long this time her knees went weak. She sagged against the kitchen counter, closing her eyes against the burn of her tears.
“There was an infant seat in the car, ma’am, but there was no baby in it. I told you. There was nobody else inside your husband’s SUV when it was found. Are you sure she was—”
Her strangled sob interrupted his question. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t been over this a dozen times with the police. Richard, the SUV, the infant seat and Emma had all been missing when she’d returned to Atlanta the following Monday.
“Is there someone there with you, Mrs. Kaiser? Or someone you could call?”
It was concern she heard in the deep voice this time. In spite of the emotional stoicism she’d adopted to deal with the law enforcement community through the years, his sympathy was her undoing. Still holding the phone, Susan slid down the side of the kitchen cabinets until she was on the floor. Sobs, finally unleashed again after all these years, shook her body.
Richard was dead. He had been dead for seven years, making a lie of all the times she had told herself that no matter what else he might be guilty of, Richard had genuinely loved Emma. Loved her enough to give up his life for her. The thought that, no matter what happened, he would take care of their baby was all that had kept her sane.
Now she knew that wherever Emma was, there was no one of her own to look after her. And there had been no one during all those long years she had prayed and longed for her daughter.
WHEN SUSAN MET Sheriff Adams the following day, she realized immediately that he was older than she had pictured him during their conversation. She estimated now that he must be in his mid or maybe even late forties.
His face bore the perpetual tan of someone who virtually lived outdoors, however, so her guess could be off by several years. His skin’s darkness was unrelieved except for the pale green eyes and the delicate web of small white lines radiating from their corners. Even now, despite the bright sunshine of the October afternoon, he wore neither hat nor sunglasses.
His features were angular, matching the rangy body. The slight paunch around his midsection gave additional evidence for her estimate of his age, although he wore his fading blond hair longer than she would have expected from the sheriff of such a rural community. Or maybe that was because it was still the style here rather than any attempt to appear younger.
As soon as she’d arrived in Linton, he had taken her in his squad car out to the site where the SUV had been found. The old two-lane bridge across the narrow river stood side by side with a wood-and-metal railroad trestle.
According to the sheriff, it had been a train derailment that had led to the discovery of Richard’s body. During their efforts to recover the railcars that had gone into the river, the salvage company had stumbled across the submerged SUV.
“Gave that crew a shock, I can tell you.” His eyes were focused on the cranes, still parked on the riverbank below. Since it was Friday afternoon, they were idle.
“And they’re the ones who pulled the car out?”
“Thought it was a junker. Some folks just as soon roll ’em into the river or push ’em over a ravine as take ’em to the junkyard. You know how people are.”
Apparently realizing how far off the subject of her husband’s death that had taken him, the sheriff turned from his contemplation of the equipment to look at her.
“Sorry. That ain’t got nothing to do with why we’re here.”
“And that’s when they discovered his body?” she asked, ignoring his attempted apology.
“They called the office, and we notified the coroner.”
“And no one found any evidence Emma had been in the car?”
“Nothing but that infant seat. Like I told you, there was no second body, Ms. Chandler.”
Almost without her conscious volition Susan’s eyes returned to the slowly moving water below. There were questions she didn’t want to ask right now because she was afraid of the answers. Since Adams’s phone call, she had managed to regain control of the emotions that had momentarily escaped the long restraint she’d forced on them. She didn’t want to do anything that might put that fragile containment into jeopardy.
“Were the windows rolled up when the car was found?”
“All I can tell you is they were when I got here. The driver’s-side door was open, however.”
The men would have had to open it to find the body, she supposed, but the information made her wonder if Richard might have tried to get out. He was a good swimmer, and the current didn’t look strong enough to keep him from reaching shore. Unless he’d been too badly injured to try.
“But was it open when they pulled it out of the river?”
Adams’s mouth pursed slightly as if he were thinking about that. After a moment he shook his head.
“Don’t know. Have to confess I didn’t ask. We all knew what had happened. If you live around these parts, you know all about this place. More cars than I can count have missed that turn in the dark. No guardrail. Nothing to keep you from driving right off into the river if you misjudge the entrance. State ain’t gonna do nothing about it since they built the new bridge up on 84. Now this road don’t get enough traffic to make fixing this worth their while. It could even have been raining that night. Slick pavement. Poor visibility. Your husband a drinker?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“A lot of folks who miss that turn have had a few too many, if you know what I mean.”
“Richard didn’t drink. Not to excess.”
How confident she sounded. Almost smug. And how ironic that was coming from a woman who’d had no idea her husband was planning to disappear, taking everything they owned with him. Everything including their daughter.
“The current doesn’t look very powerful.” She was still thinking about the terrible possibilities of that opened door.
The sheriff’s lips pursed again as he looked over the water. “Can be. Depends on the rain upriver. And if you’re out in the middle of the channel, it runs a lot faster. Could have been what happened that night.”
“I’m sorry?” She turned, her eyes questioning as they focused on his weathered face.
“If the door was open, I mean. Maybe the current just took her out of his hands.”
Emma. He means Emma, she realized, sickness stirring the pit of her stomach.
But if Emma had been in the car when it had gone off the bridge, she knew Richard well enough to know Emma would have been strapped into her seat. Open door or not, there was no way the current could have washed her out of those restraints.
“She would have been strapped in.”
The sheriff shrugged. “Maybe when your husband realized what was happening, he tried to get her out. Maybe he had her free and the current just took her—”
“No,” Susan said.
The single syllable was loud in the afternoon stillness. The scenario he had just suggested wasn’t an idea she was willing to entertain. Not yet.
Adams had already admitted that he didn’t know if the door had been open when the car was pulled from the water. And if it had been, then why hadn’t Richard, an experienced swimmer, gotten out of the car and swum to safety.
Because he was trying to locate his baby in that dark, rushing water? Struggling to unfasten straps he couldn’t see? Trying desperately to get them both to safety?
“I didn’t mean to upset you, Ms. Chandler. I’ll be glad to find out about the doors and the windows. Did you ever think that maybe your husband left your daughter in the care of a relative or some friends? Maybe she wasn’t with him at all when he come down here.”
Did you ever think…
There was literally no one she hadn’t questioned about that possibility. No relative or mutual acquaintance that she had been aware of—and some she hadn’t been aware of until after Richard’s disappearance—that she hadn’t asked about Emma. And about Richard, of course.
None of them had professed any knowledge of their whereabouts. And despite her desperate need for information, there had not been one of them she’d doubted. Now she knew they’d been telling the truth. Richard had contacted no one in the weeks after his disappearance because he had been here, hidden by the waters of this narrow, marshy river.
“When will they be back?”
“Ma’am?”
“The people those belong to.” She tilted her chin toward the cranes on the bank below. “Will they be back out here on Monday?”
“I’m not sure what their schedule is. I can call the main office of Southern Georgia first thing Monday morning. See if I can talk to the men who were here that day. I’ll let you know what they say as soon as I find out. You do understand that nobody had any idea at the time that we ought to be looking for your daughter.”
There should have been a cross-reference to Emma in the national database of missing persons the sheriff had searched for Richard’s name. Apparently that had been another bureaucratic screwup. There had been plenty of those.
Emma had always been listed as an abducted child. Susan had been advised that was the best way to draw attention to her case. Not that she had ever been able to tell it had made any difference. After all, Emma was with her father. And Susan, unaware at that time of how the system worked, had admitted that Richard had no history of mistreating their daughter.
That was the truth, of course, as well as what had kept her sane through the years. But it had lowered the urgency with which the various agencies had responded to her pleas for help.
“I’d like to talk to those men myself, if you don’t mind,” she said, thinking of all the other “comforting” platitudes she’d listened to during those first few months.
There was too much at stake to trust that another set of law enforcement officials would do everything in their power to find her baby. She was no longer as naive as she had once been.
She had been given another chance to find Emma. A chance to right all the things she had done wrong seven years ago.
“In all honesty, ma’am, I don’t think that’s such a good idea,” Adams said. “First place, it’s bound to be upsetting. And those men might not tell you everything they’d be willing to say to somebody who’s not as…emotionally involved in this.”
“Is there a motel nearby?” she asked, ignoring his advice.
That was something else she had done the first time. Listened to all the people who were supposed to know the best thing to do. And look where it had gotten her.
“A motel?”
She couldn’t remember seeing any near the exit to Linton. It seemed there had been only miles and miles of trees along both sides of the interstate, their leaves just beginning to be tinged with color from the fall nights.
“Somewhere I can stay while I’m in town.”
The green eyes widened in surprise, exposing the network of lines at their corners. “Plenty of motels in Pascagoula.”
Which was more than sixty miles away. Despite the fact that most of the distance was state highway and interstate, she didn’t want to make that commute every day. And until she found out what had happened to Emma…
“I mean here. Somewhere I can stay in Linton.”
Somewhere close enough that she could talk to anyone who might have encountered Richard—and please, dear God, encountered Emma—while they were here.
“No motels around here. We had a hotel at one time, but—” The sheriff stopped abruptly, his lips still slightly parted.
“What is it?”
“I was gonna say that the hotel closed due to lack of business once the state highway opened up, but then I remembered Miz Lorena’s.”
“Miz Lorena?” The title the sheriff had used was the old-fashioned Southern one that had nothing to do with women’s rights and a great deal to do with age and respect.
“Miz Lorena Bedford. Got a big ole house a few miles outside the city limits. Tried to make it into one of those bed-and-breakfast places, aiming to get the Yankees heading to the Gulf and the casinos. Once that stretch of the four-lane opened, there wasn’t enough traffic on the Linton cutoff for her to make a go of it. Same thing that happened to the hotel. That’s what made me think of her place.”
“And you think she might rent me a room?”
The sheriff shrugged, looking back down on the river. “Got no idea how she’d take to the idea, but she’s got the space and the bathrooms. Had ’em put in special for all those guests that didn’t show up. It’s worth a try. I can tell you how to get out there. You tell Miz Lorena what you’re here for, and I doubt she’s gonna turn you down.”
Susan nodded, taking a last look at the sluggish current below. She wasn’t going to leave Linton until she had some answers. Maybe that determination was simply a recognition that this place represented her last chance of finding Emma, but in her heart—the one that had been frozen for the last seven years—there was again a delicate flame of hope.
CHAPTER TWO
DESPITE THE SHERIFF’S repeated reference to Lorena Bedford’s “big ole house,” Susan’s first sight of it through the trees was a shock. Classic Greek Revival in style, its graceful columns soared from the porch to the roof of the second story. The structure was situated at the end of a long, unpaved driveway, bordered by two perfectly spaced rows of oaks, strands of picturesque Spanish moss hanging from their low branches.
She slowed the car as she made the turn onto the property. The rays of the dying sun touched the white paint with gold and shimmered off the glass of the front windows. The house looked like some Hollywood producer’s fantasy of the antebellum South.
As she approached, reality was less kind. There were areas of flecked paint on the Doric columns, and the side veranda was devoid of furniture. The foundation plantings were neatly trimmed, however, and the grass, although not closely mown, was still, despite the season, thick and green.
The driveway circled around a garden, which had been planted directly in front of the steps leading up to the front door. A few of the small old-fashioned roses that comprised most of it were, surprisingly, still in bloom.
She pulled her car parallel to the steps and shut off the engine. Before she got out, she sat a moment in the twilight stillness. The murmur of insects could be heard from the surrounding woods. There were no other sounds. No traffic out on the two-lane she’d followed here. Not even the small-town noises she’d been aware of in the hours she’d spent in Linton.
She opened her door, stepping out again into the heat and humidity. She had discarded the jacket to her navy linen suit before she and Adams had gone down to the river. She thought about retrieving it from the back seat and then decided the temperature should preclude any such attempt at formality.
She brushed her hands over the wrinkles on the front of her skirt, deciding that, too, was a lost cause. Miz Lorena would just have to take her—or leave her—as she was.
Her keys still in the ignition, she walked around the front of the car and climbed the steps. Her heels echoed as she crossed the wooden boards of the porch.
The front door was open, probably as a concession to the late-afternoon heat. She tapped on the molding of the screen door, the sound echoing down the inside hallway she could see only dimly. She waited, politely looking at the roses beyond her car rather than watching for someone to answer her knock.
After a few moments without any response, she turned back to the door. She could hear no movement from inside the house. She cupped the outside of her hand against the screen, peering in under her arched palm.
Was it possible no one was home, despite the open door? Of course, the screen might be latched. Maybe this far out of town that was considered protection enough against intruders. She touched its frame, pulling the door toward her just enough to determine that it wasn’t fastened.
She let the screen slip back into place and again tapped on its molding. Although she tried to apply more force than before, the resulting sound didn’t seem appreciably louder.
This time she watched the hallway as she waited. Again there was no response.
She should have phoned before she drove out. The sheriff hadn’t suggested that, and, as he apparently had, she’d assumed the old woman would be home.
Despite the fact that the hotel in town had closed, she had noticed a café on the square. She could drive back into Linton, look up the Bedford number and place a call from there. Actually, she would probably be wise to have dinner in town, she realized. Even if Miz Lorena agreed to rent her a room, the sheriff hadn’t said she would also be willing to provide meals.
Decision made, Susan crossed the porch and descended the front steps. Her hand had already closed around the handle to the car door when a creak announced the opening of the screen.
Her eyes were drawn back to the porch. Since her arrival the daylight had faded enough that, under the overhang of the second-floor balcony, the area was now as dark as the interior hallway had been. She could see a figure in the open doorway, but little else.
“Mrs. Bedford?”
“She’s not here.” The voice was masculine, its accent not local, and its tone decidedly unwelcoming.
“Could you tell me when she’ll be back?”
The pause after her question stretched far past politeness. So much for Southern hospitality.
“That depends on who wants to know.”
Susan controlled a spurt of anger at the man’s rudeness, acknowledging most of that was due to emotional exhaustion rather than his treatment of her request. After all, she’d shown up here without so much as a phone call asking permission.
Mrs. Bedford’s house was no longer a commercial establishment. It was someone’s home. And she needed a favor from the owner. Whoever this was, he might be able to exert some influence in that direction.
“My name is Susan Chandler.” She tried to make her voice as pleasant as possible, considering the circumstances. As she talked, she walked back around the front of the car and headed toward the steps. “I had hoped Mrs. Bedford might rent me a room for a few days. I’m aware she’s no longer in business—”
“Then why ask to rent a room?”
He had apparently turned on a light in the front of the house as he’d come to the door. His body was silhouetted against its glow, wide shoulders almost filling the frame.
Looking up at him from the foot of the steps, Susan’s impression was that he was also taller than average. In spite of the width of his shoulders, his torso narrowed to a lean waist and slim hips. She could still see nothing of his face.
“Because Sheriff Adams suggested I ask her. It’s…”
She let the sentence trail. She might have been willing to try and explain her compulsion to stay in town to another woman, but something about this man’s attitude made her doubt he would sympathize with anything she might say.
“It’s what?”
“Are you a relative of Mrs. Bedford’s? Or…”
A guest? The yardman? As she tried to settle on a second option, he made the process unnecessary.
“You seem to have a proclivity for unfinished sentences.”
Obviously not the hired help. Not unless handymen were better educated down here than she was accustomed to. And just as obviously determined to be rude.
“My husband’s body was pulled from the river here two days ago,” she said, deciding she had nothing to lose by a matching bluntness. “I need a place to stay until the coroner can tell me how he ended up there.”
The silence stretched longer this time. In the few minutes she’d been here, the night creatures had joined the insect chorus, the combined noises the only sound for several seconds.
“I’m Jeb Bedford. Lorena is my great-aunt,” he said. “At the moment I’m also her guest—a paying one, in case you were wondering.”
She hadn’t been. She didn’t give a damn about whatever arrangements he had with Lorena Bedford.
Actually, she was beginning not to give a damn about any of this. The commute back and forth to Pascagoula was becoming more appealing by the second.
“Lorena’s gone to the monthly fellowship supper at the church. Judging by previous ones, she should be back in less than an hour.” His tone had changed. Still not welcoming, it didn’t contain the edge of sarcasm. “If you’d like to wait.”
Would she? A better question might be whether there would be any point. After all, she still didn’t know that Mrs. Bedford would rent her a room.
“Actually…” she began, and then hesitated, unwilling to burn any bridges. Of course, she also didn’t want to be reminded of her so-called proclivity for unfinished sentences. “I’d rather not wait if she’s likely to turn me down. If I’m going to have to try to find a room in Pascagoula on a Friday night, I should probably get started in that direction now.”
“Lorena’s not going to turn you down. Not…under the circumstances. However, you might want to see the accommodations before you decide. What some people consider quaintly charming, others view as not having all the modern conveniences. All the rooms have private baths. And despite the area’s reputation, those are inside the house.” There was a hint of amusement or self-deprecation in that, but no sarcasm. “No coffeepots or microwaves, but with Lorena around you aren’t likely to need either. She enjoys waiting on people.”
Which sounded more inviting right now than he could probably imagine.
“The beds have feather mattresses,” he went on. “Not orthopedically sound perhaps, but you soon get used to them.”
He certainly seemed to have changed his tune. She hadn’t intended to play the grieving widow, but he’d driven her to it. Given the results, right now she couldn’t regret that she had.
“She should hire you for PR. You’re quite a salesman.”
“I couldn’t sell ice in hell, but frankly Lorena can use the money. If you’re going to spend it somewhere, it might as well be with her. Do you want the grand tour or not?”
The abrasiveness was back. For some reason her remark, intended to be humorous, hadn’t had the desired effect. So much for trying to mend fences.
“With you as guide?” she couldn’t refrain from asking.
Something of her irritation must have come through in the question. He responded in kind.
“Since I’m all that’s available. Take it or leave it.”
Her inclination was to tell this arrogant jackass what he could do with his aunt’s room. Only the knowledge that she would be cutting off her own nose prevented her from getting back into her car and heading toward the interstate.
“Lead the way,” she said, stepping onto the bottom step.
The screen door creaked again. She glanced up in time to watch him step back into the hallway. Although she was aware there was something awkward about the movement, it was not until he was inside and illuminated by the overhead chandelier that she understood what. He moved a couple of steps back in order to allow her to enter, heavily favoring his left leg.
Despite the fact she had continued to climb the steps as if nothing had happened, an unfamiliar emotion stirred in the pit of her stomach. Guilt, perhaps, that she’d returned his rudeness with her own? Embarrassment? Pity?
As he held the screen door for her to enter, she kept her eyes averted, examining the hallway instead of looking directly at him. The floor was of some dark wood that had been fashioned into narrow, irregular planks. It was probably a dozen feet wide and stretched into the darkness at the back of the house.
Pocket doors opened onto a formal parlor on one side and a dining room on the other. Both were furnished in keeping with the age of the house. In the sitting room an old pianoforte sat in the corner. Several pieces of sheet music were scattered on its stand and on the upholstered bench.
“When Lorena operated the house as a bed-and-breakfast, all the downstairs rooms were available for the use of the guests,” her guide said. “I’m sure that will still be the case.”
With his comment, there was no way Susan could avoid looking at him. She turned, prepared to make some politely conventional reply. All of them, instilled in her brain since childhood, flew out of her head.
She wasn’t sure what she had expected Mrs. Bedford’s great-nephew to look like, but certainly nothing like this. His close-cropped hair was so black the chandelier over their heads created no highlights in its midnight depths. In contrast, his eyes were a deep, clear blue. Black Irish, her grandmother would have said. Given the strong Celtic heritage of most of the South’s population, in this case she would probably have been right.
His skin was almost as darkly tanned as the sheriff’s. It didn’t have the same weathered texture, but then this man was probably a decade or so younger. Although Jeb Bedford wasn’t handsome in any conventional sense of the word, no woman would ever have overlooked him in a crowd.
She suddenly became aware that her lips had parted to reply to what he’d said, but no words had yet emerged. She was simply staring at him, stupidly open-mouthed.
“That’s nice,” she managed.
He was probably used to having this effect on women, she thought with a trace of disgust. She, however, wasn’t accustomed to reacting to a man in this way. Not to any man. And certainly not in this situation.
She owed no loyalty to Richard, of course. He was the one who had walked away from their marriage. The sense of guilt her attraction to this man’s rugged good looks produced was because she had something far more important to concentrate on right now—her desperate need to find out what had happened to Emma.
“The guest rooms are upstairs.”
He tilted his head down the hall to where a narrow staircase climbed to the second floor. It was uncarpeted, its wooden treads visibly worn from the passage of thousands of feet going up and down them through the years.
“How old is the house?” she asked, more as an attempt to get back on some normal footing with him than because she had any real interest in its history.
He had already taken a step forward, but at her question he turned, looking back at her over his shoulder. “It was built in 1852. It’s been in the hands of the family ever since. When Lorena dies…” He shrugged a dismissal.
“But surely there’s someone—”
“My grandfather and Lorena were joint heirs to the property. Now that he’s dead, there is no one else.”
“Perhaps your father…” He was right, she realized. She did have a proclivity for not finishing sentences, maybe because she always seemed to be stating the obvious.
“My father died two years ago. He and my mother were divorced several years before that. Believe me, she wouldn’t have anything to do with this place. Or with the Bedfords.”
This time she avoided the obvious reply. Whether or not he chose to sell the house or to let it go to rack and ruin when his great-aunt died was none of her business. She wasn’t even sure why she had bothered to pursue what he’d said. Maybe to postpone the moment she would have to follow his limping progress up the stairs.
“I…I really don’t need to see the room,” she stammered. “I’m sure it’s fine. After all, from what the sheriff told me, there isn’t any other accommodation near town.”
The blue eyes told her that he knew exactly what she was thinking. They held on her face long enough that she felt color rise along her throat.
“You have a bag?” he asked, finally breaking the standoff.
Ridiculously, for a second or two she didn’t know what he was talking about. “It’s in the car.”
“Then if you’re going to take the room, I might as well get it before I show you up. Keys?”
Whatever she had seen in his eyes when she’d attempted to keep him from having to climb those stairs was back. In force. Challenging her to make another excuse.
That wasn’t a mistake she would make again. Whatever was wrong with his leg, he obviously didn’t want her concern.
And in all honesty, despite the limp, he looked like someone who was well able to take care of himself. Someone who was accustomed to doing that.
“They’re in the ignition. My suitcase is in the trunk.”
For an instant there was a gleam of something that looked like approval in his eyes. Whatever the emotion, it was quickly masked by a downward sweep of coal-black lashes. They weren’t long, but both their thickness and their proximity to the blue irises made them noticeable.
Without another word, he started down the hall toward the front door. As he passed her, Susan pretended to look up the stairs as if the bit of the second story she could see from this vantage point was so interesting she couldn’t pull her eyes away. Then, drawn by a compulsion she didn’t pretend to understand, she turned, watching him limp toward the door.
She’d been right about the breadth of his shoulders. The damp material of the olive-drab T-shirt he wore stretched tautly across them, revealing the contoured muscles of his upper back. The shirt was tucked into a pair of faded black sweatpants.
Despite whatever was wrong with his leg, he looked like an athlete. She wondered if he might even have been working out when she’d disturbed him. That would explain the V of moisture at the neck of his shirt as well as the slight color along his cheekbone and dew of perspiration she’d put down to the heat.
“Only one?”
Startled, she looked up from her contemplation of the play of muscle in his back to find him looking at her over his shoulder, waiting for an answer before he opened the screen door. It must have been obvious that she’d been watching him.
He seemed amused by her scrutiny rather than annoyed. For the first time the hard line of his mouth was relaxed.
“Just the one.”
“First room on the right,” he said. “I’ll bring the suitcase up, but you don’t have to wait.”
She wasn’t sure why, but the instructions felt like a reprieve. At least a concession. As if she had just passed some kind of test and earned a grudging acceptance.
“Thank you.”
“You want me to move your car around back?”
She hesitated, wondering if she’d missed a sign indicating that’s where guests were supposed to park.
“Don’t worry,” he said when she didn’t answer immediately. “As long as it’s an automatic, I shouldn’t be able to do too much damage.”
“I’d be very grateful,” she said, ignoring the attempt to intimidate her with the blatant reminder of his disability. “And it is an automatic. I never learned to drive a stick.”
There was a slight upward movement at one corner of his mouth. “Somehow I was sure you hadn’t.”
She didn’t know what that meant, but it didn’t matter. Without giving her a chance at a parting shot, he allowed the screen door to slam behind him, leaving her alone in the wide hall. She drew an unsteady breath, wondering if she had made a mistake in coming out here.
She had sworn she would never trust officialdom again, and yet, because of what the sheriff had told her, she was in an isolated house with a rude stranger who carried an outsized chip on his shoulder. And she had just agreed to rent, sight unseen, a room in that house, never having met her hostess.
If the accommodations were truly awful, she could always leave in the morning. She’d been vague enough about her intentions to allow for that.
At least then she wouldn’t have to pretend she wasn’t aware of the absolute masculinity of the man who had gone out to retrieve her luggage. Sexual awareness this potent was a feeling she’d almost forgotten. And one she wasn’t sure she was ready to experience again. Especially not now.
She turned, looking up the narrow stairs once more. Whatever the room at the top of them was like, it was hers for the night. Everything would probably look different in the morning. As for right now…
Right now she needed a hot shower and a bed with clean sheets, even if it had a feather mattress. If Lorena Bedford’s house could provide either of those, she’d deal with everything else. Including Miz Lorena’s arrogant nephew.
CHAPTER THREE
“MY GOODNESS,” Lorena said. “I’d been thinking about that poor man’s family. Wondering how they must feel to finally know what happened to him. I knew some of them would come to Linton, but I never dreamed they might end up staying here. I’ll have to thank Wayne the next time I’m in town. What’s she like?”
Jeb wasn’t sure his impression would be the kind of information his aunt was looking for. Since he’d been wounded, his reaction to people was too frequently measured by their response to his physical condition. It was a fault he was aware of, but unable to entirely suppress.
When he had turned around tonight and found Susan Chandler watching him, resentment that his limp now seemed to be the most interesting thing about him had resurfaced. In the past, before Iraq, his relationships with women had been based on any number of things: mutual sexual attraction, shared interests, even simple proximity. Now he seemed to be defined by only one thing.
He wasn’t sure at what point during the course of his rehabilitation he’d become aware of that. Certainly not in the beginning. He’d been too focused on his own adjustment to his new physical limitations to notice how others reacted to them.
Maybe it had been coming back to Linton, where he’d spent a large part of his adolescence, that had made him aware of how differently the people he’d known then treated him now. Some were openly curious, which he’d been surprised to discover didn’t bother him. Others pretended not to notice, as Mrs. Chandler had done tonight when he’d opened the door for her.
Some—and those were the ones he detested—were determined to be “helpful.” There was nothing more certain to set his teeth on edge than solicitude. Especially from a woman to whom he was physically attracted.
In that respect, he would have to give his great-aunt’s guest credit. In a matter of minutes, she had been able to conceal, if not destroy, any tendency to try to protect him. She hadn’t wanted him to climb the stairs to show her the room, which had been a strike against her. She hadn’t tried to circumvent his determination to retrieve her suitcase or move her car, however, and thank God she hadn’t met him halfway up the stairs to take her bag from him. Despite that ridiculous announcement that she didn’t need to see the room she was about to rent, he grudgingly gave her full marks for the rest.
“Exhausted,” he said aloud in answer to Lorena’s question. “And obviously still stunned.”
“Why, I should say so. Bless her heart. What a thing to have happened. I swear they ought to close that bridge, as many people as have gone off into the river through the years.”
“Maybe between the train wreck and this, they will.”
He was leaning against the kitchen counter watching Lorena take things out of the refrigerator. Although she was almost ninety, she moved exactly as she had when he’d spent those long-ago summers down here. Her motions were quick, almost birdlike, an impression that was magnified by her size and her thinness.
“I didn’t promise her supper,” he said when she pulled a loaf of homemade bread out of the bread box and began unwrapping it. “Actually, I didn’t promise her anything but the use of the room. You don’t have to fix her a meal.”
“You think she’s already eaten?” Gnarled fingers paused over the loaf she had baked this morning, she looked up at him, faded blue eyes questioning.
“I doubt it,” he said, reluctant to add hunger to the many problems Susan Chandler faced. “She’s probably used to eating later than we do.”
Most nights Lorena had supper on the table by six. Of course, since they both began the day shortly after five, Jeb wasn’t complaining. The timing had been an adjustment, however. As he imagined it would be for Mrs. Chandler.
“From Atlanta, you say?”
“That’s what her tag says.”
“That poor woman.” Lorena’s eyes and hands had returned to her task. “I can’t even imagine what she must be feeling.”
“According to the paper, her husband’s car had been submerged for years. She’s had a long time to come to terms with his disappearance.”
Maybe this was only a welcome closure for something she had dealt with long ago.
“Still…” Lorena said. “I mean she was married to the man. She must have loved him. And then…I guess he just disappeared, and she never knew what happened to him. It breaks my heart to think about that.”
Jeb watched as she laid the two thick slices she’d cut off the loaf on a plate she had taken from the cabinet. After she’d spread mayonnaise thickly on both, she began piling ham on one.
“Did you like her?”
His great-aunt’s question caught him off guard. For one thing, he wasn’t sure whether he had or not. There was no denying that he’d found her attractive. And he had also admired her. Despite the day she’d had, she hadn’t backed down when he’d challenged her about the car. And even as much as she obviously wanted the room, she hadn’t been willing to cater to his rudeness. More pluses than minuses.
“Well enough to offer her a room.”
“You knew I’d want you to do that,” Lorena said.
“Still, I wouldn’t have. Not unless I thought she was someone we could share the place with. At least for the night.”
“Is that all she’s staying?” Lorena looked up from the act of slipping a slice of tomato onto the ham. “Seems like it would take longer than that to work out the arrangements.”
“Actually, I don’t know how long she’ll be in town. We didn’t discuss it in detail. And she may decide she wants something more modern after tonight.”
“Maybe I can convince her to stay,” Lorena said, fitting the second piece of bread on top. “I think hot tea, don’t you? I’ve got some chamomile. That should help her sleep.”
“Judging by her eyes—” Jeb began and then stopped.
He’d been about to say that she would be tired enough to sleep without any of his aunt’s herbal remedies. When he remembered what Susan Chandler had been through today, he thought she might appreciate something to help remove the images that must be in her mind.
“What about her eyes?”
“Like I said. She looked exhausted. More emotionally than anything else, maybe, but…I think she’d like that tea.”
His great-aunt reached over and turned the gas on beneath the kettle that always sat in the exact same place on the back of the stove. “Did you show her where the extra quilts are? There’s supposed to be a cold snap, either tomorrow or Sunday.”
“Why don’t you wait until you find out whether she’ll be staying that long before you go worrying about extra cover. She’ll be fine tonight.”
“Maybe I should spoon up some of that peach cobbler.”
“You don’t even know if she’s eaten, Lorena. Why don’t you ask her about dessert before you carry it up?”
The kettle began to whistle, putting an end to his attempt to rein in his great-aunt’s innate hospitality. There was some part of him that welcomed the idea that Susan Chandler’s stay in the house would end after tonight. Another part admitted a degree of interest in her plans that went beyond casual curiosity. She was an extremely attractive woman. Woman being the operative word. At thirty-five, Jeb wasn’t interested in someone who thought JFK referred only to an airport.
Susan Chandler was probably a few years younger than he. Late twenties, early thirties, maybe. Her fair skin showed little signs of aging, but with that dark auburn hair, she would have had no choice but to stay out of the sun.
Physically, she wasn’t the type he was normally attracted to, both taller and thinner than he preferred. Even as that negative assessment formed, he rejected it.
Given his profession, he’d never been interested in long-term relationships. He had judged women he became involved with on their willingness to accept that. As well as on their physical attributes, he admitted. Something he wasn’t particularly proud of. Not considering his present situation.
Despite Susan Chandler’s ability to mask her initial feeling of pity, he’d been aware of it. And the look in her eyes wasn’t one he wanted to see in a woman he was attracted to.
“There now,” Lorena said, stepping back to admire the tray she’d prepared. “What do you think?”
“I think she’s damn lucky Wayne Adams sent her here.”
“Don’t you curse, Jubal Bedford,” Lorena scolded, although it was obvious the compliment pleased her. “Remember, you’re an officer and a gentleman.”
So far, he thought. So far.
“IT’S A BED-AND-BREAKFAST on the outskirts of Linton,” Susan said into her cell phone. “There isn’t a motel around here, but this will do for the time being.”
“Are you sure you don’t want Dave to come down?” her sister asked. “You know he’s more than willing.”
“Dave’s place is there with you, taking care of my very precious nephew.”
After years of trying, including more expensive in vitro attempts than they could afford, Charlotte had finally conceived. Although the pregnancy had been difficult, she was only a couple of weeks away from delivery now. And no one, including her doctor, believed she would go that long.
“I just hate to think of you doing all that by yourself.”
“I’m fine. Just tired. A little overwhelmed with the thought of the possibilities.”
Although she and Charlotte had already discussed the fact that Emma had not been in the car when it was found, Susan hadn’t shared the information about the open door. She had decided there was no point in doing that until the sheriff had had time to confirm whether it had been open when the crane had pulled the SUV from the river.
“And you really think Emma might still be in that town?”
“All I know is that for some reason Richard was here. I need to know what he was doing in such an out-of-the-way area. That’s one thing I need to find out. And maybe then…” She hesitated. “Maybe if someone here remembers seeing him, then—”
“They might have seen Emma, too,” Charlotte said softly.
“She has to be somewhere. God knows I’ve already asked everyone any of us ever knew and gotten nowhere.”
“Well, you keep us informed, you hear? If you don’t call me every day, I swear I’m going to send Dave down there whether you like it or not. And you take care of yourself.”
“I will. You, too. Take care of you and my sweet Davey.”
“He’s fine. We’re both going to be fine. I can feel it,” Charlotte said with a laugh. “Everybody’s so uptight about all this, and I swear, Suz, I’m gonna breeze right through this delivery and pop this baby out quicker than anyone ever has before. Maybe I don’t get them or carry them worth a damn, but I’m gonna be spectacular at birthing them.”
Pulsuz fraqment bitdi.
