Heaven Preserve Us (31 page)

Where was George?

His absence raised the hairs on the back of my neck. This was
exactly the situation I had been determined to avoid, and yet it
appeared I was here alone with Jude.

Had he killed Philip? He was definitely strange. But did that
make him dangerous. I hadn't felt any danger while we'd been together downstairs. Maybe he was just a big, shy, kind of weird guy
with bad social skills.

Taking a deep breath, I shook my head at my rationalizing.
Didn't matter. He was the best suspect for Philip's murder so far,
with a possible motive plus Hannah Oxford's theoretical preserved
beets. I was leaving. Whether it made him suspicious or not, I
would tell Jude I'd called home and had to leave right away.
Meghan needed me. For what? An emergency massage call? Lame.
So what? I'd figure something out. I'd meet him over at Heaven
House with his stuff in a couple of hours, or even come by and
pick him up here, get the last box or two. Only I'd be sure to bring
reinforcements the second time around.

Just one last check for those beets, and then I was gone.

A quick glance out the front window showed Jude still shoving
boxes around. I hurried back into the kitchen and began opening
cupboards. Nothing of any interest whatsoever. Stumped, I set my
water glass in the sink and stared out the small window in the
back door. The narrow driveway that ran beside the house, half
obscured by overgrown rhododendrons, led to a detached one-car
garage. I darted a look toward the front door as I slipped outside.

The breeze picked up a few stray raindrops from a holly bush
and flung them against my bare neck. I ducked my head and trotted to the long horizontal window in the garage door. Palms cupped
around my eyes, I pressed my forehead to the glass.

Too dark to see.

With my fingertips, I rubbed at the dirt that partially obscured
my vision and tried again.

No luck.

Around the corner, a small door accessed the garage from the
side. The wobbly round knob turned easily enough, and I was
inside.

"George? Are you in here?"

The smells of old motor oil and dust, mildew and ancient wood
shavings assaulted my nose from the dim shadows. Most of the
space was taken up by a champagne-colored Monte Carlo. A lawn
mower crouched in the corner. A vast assortment of hand tools arranged with precision on pegboard hooks covered one wall. A
shelving unit in the corner held jars of... wait a minute. I edged
around the car and inspected the contents.

False alarm.

Each canning jar held a specific size of nut or bolt or nail. Shaking one in my hand like a giant rattle, I sighed.

Wait a minute. I squinted in the darkness. There. On the bottom shelf.

Bingo.

Excited, I squatted on my haunches and rearranged the dusty
remains of Hannah Oxford's preserves. All the jars were unlabeled,
but the contents were easy to ascertain. Cucumber pickles. Picalli-
lly relish. Green tomatoes. Marinated mushrooms. Green beans.
Jellies and jams.

No beets.

But there wouldn't be any beets. Jude wasn't an idiot. He'd
have disposed of them.

Okay, enough was enough. I rose to my feet. Time to get the
heck out of Dodge. I turned.

And froze.

Jude stood in the doorway, face obscured, utterly silent. He
leaned one shoulder against the door jam, arms crossed, blocking
my exit.

"Hi!" I said. "Ready to go?"

"What do you think you're doing?" His voice was so soft I had
to strain to hear.

I licked my lips. Then I jammed my fists onto my hips and demanded, "What kind of a question is that? I was looking for
George, and I couldn't find him in the house. Thought I'd check
the garage to see if he was out here."

"He left."

"Really." I approached him, all Miss Chatty. "Without his car?
Sure hope it doesn't rain."

Now I could see Jude's eyes. The cold gaze was less than encouraging. He didn't budge, so I couldn't get out the door without
physically pushing him aside. He was a lot taller than I'd realized.
I smiled up, a big friendly grin.

I was so tense I could hardly swallow.

Then he looked down at the ground and shuffled his feet. The
familiar gesture was oddly comforting. "George is a hardy soul. He
doesn't mind getting a little wet."

Once again, I wondered about Jude leaving George so abruptly,
and with such little notice. Anyone who would beat up Ruth
wouldn't stop at hurting George.

Jude reached for me then, and without thinking about it, I
drew back. His gaze probed mine, and I tried another breezy smile.
I could feel it waver on my face, lips twitching. Fear radiated from
every pore, coming off me in waves. His eyes flicked to the shelving unit in the corner.

He suddenly looked unbearably sad. "So you know."

"Know what?" I asked, too quickly.

He shook his head. "Don't even try, Sophie Mae. I can tell. I
knew it was too good to last."

That comment threw me. "What was?"

"Finally having what I wanted. What I deserved. And I really
liked you a lot. If you weren't dating that cop, I'd have asked you
out."

I crinkled my eyes and tried to look accessible. "Barr and I aren't
that serious, you know."

"Stop it. I'm not an idiot."

I held my hand up. "I'm only saying. Don't think I haven't noticed you're a pretty good-looking guy."

"Shut up!"

I shut up. Which was just as well because I'd started shaking in
the cool air of the garage, and I had to clench my teeth to keep
them from chattering.

Every nerve was tuned to a sudden move from Jude while my
mind worked over the walls and windows, searching for a way out.
The garage door wasn't an option; I'd never get it open before Jude
managed to stop me. Again, I noted how big he was.

Funny how I'd never really noticed that before.

He backed out of the doorway, and I wanted to throw myself
past him. "Come on," he invited. He didn't sound very friendly,
though.

"Where?"

"I have to pick up something at HH."

"You can take my truck, if you want. I'll finish packing."

He looked at me, and I knew there would be no more packing.
"Come on," he repeated. "You're driving."

Fine. Just get me into the open air, and I'd run like a deer. I
ducked as far away as I could as I passed him in the doorway, but
it wasn't far enough. His hand shot out, fingers hooking into the
sleeve of my sweater, twisting until the grip started to cut off my
circulation.

"Ow. Stop that"

His grip loosened an iota, and suddenly his other hand was in
the pocket of my jeans.

"Hey-" I protested, trying swing away. God, what did this
weirdo have in mind?

He removed his hand and jingled my keys in my face. "We're
going out front, and you're going to behave. We're getting in your
truck. You're going to drive me to Heaven House. Park in the alley.
We'll both go in, and I'll get what I need, and then we're going to
leave again."

"And go where?"

"You'll see. Let's go."

"And if I don't?"

He yanked my arm. It felt like my shoulder was going to twist
out of the socket.

"Ow. I mean it: knock that offl" I yelled.

He yanked again. "Get in the truck."

Fear stabbed through me. Something horrible would happen if
I got in the truck with this nut bag. I began to fight, twisting and
trying to pull away while kicking at his knee. He instinctively
turned his hips away, or else I'd have had a chance at his gonads. I
jammed the heel of my palm toward his face, hoping to connect
with his nose, but he jerked his head out of range.

This was a guy who couldn't pound a nail in a wall? I pulled my
arm back again.

His hand came out of nowhere. When it connected with the
side of my head, my vision filled with little dancing sparks of
light.

"Get in the truck, or I'll have to hurt you." So much for shy and
awkward.

"Like you did Ruth?" The thought of what Jude had done to
her made me so mad my vision cleared.

"I didn't mean to hit her that hard," he muttered.

"Right. And George? What about George? Is he lying in some
closet inside, all beat up because you're such a tough guy?"

It was such an incredibly stupid thing to say, but if he hit me
some more, so be it; all I knew was that whatever Jude had in mind
with this little trip to Heaven House was going to be very, very
bad.

But he didn't hit me again. He looked ... upset. "I would never
do anything to hurt George. He's my best friend in Cadyville."

"So where is he?"

"Over at his friend Marvin's house. He goes over there to watch
All My Children. And I think he's kind of upset about me leaving.
Didn't want to watch. You know?"

I stared at him. He sounded like the same old Jude, a little odd,
seeking approval.

Nice as pie to his landlord.

"George is fine," he said. "Now let's go."

He started pulling me toward the street. I continued to resist.
He stopped and looked at me, considering.

"If you don't stop being a pain in the ass, I'm going to have to
hit you again."

I shoved my chin into the air. "Go ahead. I'll fight you with
everything I've got. And somebody in this neighborhood is bound
to notice. Lots of nice retired folks who stay home all day, I bet."

What was I waiting for? I opened my mouth to scream.

"I'll hurt the little girl. Meghan's kid."

My mouth snapped shut. I hadn't thought I could be any more
scared.

Turned out I could.

THE RAIN WAS BACK, spitting out of a mercury sky onto the windshield of the Toyota. There were times when the precipitation of
the Pacific Northwest got to be too dang much. I craved sunshine
and warmth and air that sucked the moisture right out of your nasal
passages in only a few breaths. I wanted high desert. I wanted to be
anyplace where it wasn't so verdant, so green, so dank and damp
and dark. The earlier blue sky and sunshine had been a tease, a
glimmer of summer snatched away after only an hour or two.

That may have had something to do with my bad mood, but
the real explanation was probably the killer sitting in the passenger
seat beside me.

"What are you going to do?" I asked. Meaning what are you
going to do to me?

Jude didn't answer, appearing to concentrate on the road in
front of us. His eyes flicked over to the speedometer, which was
pegged at exactly twenty-five miles an hour. I should have been
speeding, should have tried to get pulled over by one of Barr's buddies at the cop shop, but stupid me, I hadn't thought of that. I
was still trying to get my mind around the fact that Jude had
threatened Erin. What kind of bastard did that? I had a new appreciation for Ruth's fear that he might hurt her uncle Thaddeus.
My attitude toward her dilemma had been too cavalier by far.

I asked again, "What are you going to do?"

He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose between thumb
and forefinger. "I'll work something out."

A carton shifted in the bed of the truck as I went around a corner. "There's no real evidence against you in Philip's killing," I said.
"The Health Department is sure they have the real culprit, you
know, beetwise. No one even thinks it was murder."

He got a little pale when I used the word "murder." Kind of
sensitive for a killer, in my opinion.

"But you know," he said. "You'll tell."

"Tell what? I've got nothing. And anything you told me is hearsay. Even if I took out a sandwich board advertising what you did,
you'd get off in court. Never see any jail time. I bet it wouldn't
even get as far as court."

"My reputation would be ruined."

"Jude, you don't have a reputation in Cadyville."

"But I will. If I don't ruin it, then I will."

"If you hurt me, then you'll get caught. People wouldn't think
much of that, now would they?"

"I won't get caught if you can't tell them."

I didn't like the sound of that at all. "There are people who
know I'm helping you move."

"Good"

"But they'll know you're responsible if anything happens to
me.

"No. They'll know you helped me out. Then you left. I don't
know where you went. Gosh, I'm sure grateful she helped me
move, I'll tell them. George saw you there. I don't know what happened to you after we unloaded the truck. I wish I did."

"You're banking on no one seeing us."

"Monday is Maryjake's day off. Heaven House is closed up."

"Barr will know. He knows I suspect you, and he's not the only
one.

Fear and anger infused his face, and he ran a shaking hand
through his hair. Then he dropped it into his lap. His eyes took on a
speculative gleam. "Does he also know you have a stalker? Because
you know how those situations can get out of hand, Sophie Mae. It's
on the news all the time."