Midnight Exposure (18 page)

“They haven’t found that woman yet?

Standing in front of the desk in his office, Nathan took Mandy’s hand between his. “No.”

He was pathetic. Mandy was not only his employee, she was nearly half his age. He shouldn’t have started this affair, but she’d been the one bright spot in his life for the last three months. Being with Mandy made him feel alive, instead of halfway to the grave. Half of his life was over. The best half. It was all downhill from here.

“That’s so scary. One minute she’s going about her business. The next, she’s gone.” Mandy shivered but she didn’t move closer.

Nathan rubbed a hand down her arm. “Keep in mind we don’t know anything about her. She could have a drug or drinking problem. She could be mentally unstable.”

“I guess.” Mandy didn’t sound convinced. “It makes you think, though, about life and the future. It can all end in the blink of an eye. We have to make the most of every second.”

Nathan pressed his mouth to Mandy’s and gathered her close. She was going to end it. He could feel it. Her lips were warm as usual, but stiff, and her body was far too rigid. On the other side of the closed office door, the commercial dishwasher hissed in the empty diner. Nathan’s gut clenched. He rested his temple against the long, soft fall of her shining dark hair and closed his eyes.

Here it comes. Wait for it.

His hand reflexively squeezed her hip.

Mandy’s hand splayed in the center of his chest. “Stop. We need to talk.”

He froze at her sharp whisper. Regret gripped his heart
. I love you
. “What is it, baby?”

“It’s us, Nathan. It’s not working.” Huge blue eyes glistened as she looked away. “If you really cared about me, you wouldn’t insist we keep our relationship a secret.” Stepping back, she turned away and paced the few feet between his desk and the wall. She stopped at the window and hugged her arms. Her gaze pieced him with equal parts misery and anger. “I don’t understand. You’re not married. There’s no reason we can’t be together.”

If she only knew
. “People will talk. You’re twenty years younger than me.” And oh, so beautiful. So perfect. So clean and fresh. The blackness in Nathan’s soul expanded and threatened to swallow them both. He had no right to corrupt something so pure. But that fact didn’t stop him from wanting her. “Besides, I have Uncle
Aaron to take care of right now. His cancer isn’t responding to treatment. I can’t deal with any more stress. Like your mom. Mae would kill me if she ever found out about us.”

His attempt at humor failed. Mandy wasn’t buying any of his lame-ass excuses.

“Mom’d be OK with it.
She
wants me to be happy.” A tempest of emotions filled her eyes as she left the rest unsaid: that he didn’t.

He cared, more than she knew, which was the reason he had to let her go. The only thing Nathan could give her was more misery.

“And you can’t wait to get out of this town,” he said.

“I’d stay for you.” Her eyes welled up, sparkling pools of baby blue in a porcelain face. How short, sturdy Mae Brown had given birth to such a perfect creature was beyond comprehension.

“And likely regret it for the rest of your life. There’s a big world out there, and you should see it. I’m holding you back.”

Only Mandy could make a shrug simultaneously innocent and sexy. “I’m not sure I can leave anyway. Mom needs me at the inn. She’s getting older. She can’t run it all by herself. That old place barely generates enough income to cover expenses. If you didn’t let me work here, I wouldn’t be able to cover my tuition. There’s Bill to think of, too. My brother is a perpetual seven-year-old. He’ll never be independent.”

Nathan knew all about sacrifices made for family, but the thought of Mandy giving up her life for her mother and brother compounded the ache in his chest. “You shouldn’t give up your dreams for another person. You’re young and smart. You’re meant for bigger things, Mandy. What about your degree?”

“I can finish that here.”

He shook his head. “Honey, we’re in different phases of our lives. The road in front of you is wide open. For me, it’s all in the rearview mirror.”

Mandy’s breath hitched but she didn’t disagree. She could have a long, full life. She was beautiful, kind, and intelligent.

Mandy gave her cheek a quick forefinger swipe. “I just don’t want to sneak around anymore.” Her eyes turned toward the door before her face followed. She’d already decided, he thought, before she’d even come in here. Good. If the breakup was her idea, she’d move on faster. “I want a real relationship.”

“I know. But I can’t give you what you need.” Except for his son, Evan, she was the only thing that kept hopelessness from dragging him under. What would Evan think of his affair with Mandy? She was closer to Evan’s age than Nathan’s. One more reason to end it now. “I’ll miss you, though.”

What else did he have to live for?

His uncle’s death wouldn’t be easy or quick. Nathan would care for him until the gruesome end. What kind of life could he offer Mandy?

Mandy sniffed and shook her frame straight, bringing Nathan back to the issue. She was through with him. “You know I don’t care what people say.”

“I know you don’t.” Nathan’s arm itched to pull her back, to hold her close, to beg her not to abandon him in the dark. But he didn’t. Even though her exit from his life was like the final seal on his coffin, he needed to let her go. It was better this way. Really.

So why did he feel like cannonballing off the bridge? His responsibilities would weight him down better than concrete blocks.

“Can I give you a ride home?”

The Black Bear Inn was only a few blocks away, but Nathan would feel better if he saw her inside just the same. Just because she was through with his sorry old ass didn’t mean he wouldn’t continue to love her.

“No. Jed’s waiting outside.”

“You shouldn’t string him along like that, Mandy.” Nathan felt the fatherlike frown pull at his mouth. It wasn’t the first time he’d felt paternal toward her, and that dynamic to their relationship disturbed him. Mandy’s dad had died when she was young. Had Nathan taken advantage of her yearning for a father? If so, he was a poor excuse for a human being.

Again, the river called.

Mandy shook her head. Denial tinged her voice with irritation. “Jed and I are just friends. I’ve known him since grade school.”

“Honey, that man is in love with you. Probably been that way since grade school.”

“No way. Yeah, he cares, but like a brother.”

Nathan held back the retort. Mandy was clueless about Jed. The hunting guide looked at her with big soulful eyes like one of his faithful Labrador retrievers. Jed wasn’t very smart, but he’d figured out that he wouldn’t have a future with Mandy. Still, the hunter would do anything for her. Nathan saw the pain in Jed’s eyes every time he was in the same room as Mandy. Nathan could empathize. He felt like a million gallons of water were pressing on his chest as she turned and walked out of his office—and his life.

The jingle of the bell on the glass door and the
vroom
of Jed’s truck punctuated her exit. An empty silence, hollow as Nathan’s heart, filled the diner as he grabbed his coat and headed out the back door, the confines of his small office suddenly intolerable.
His official office in the municipal building next door was more spacious but lacked privacy.

White flakes danced in the beam of the streetlight. Slush packed under his feet. He sniffed, looking for that crisp dampness to refresh him, but the winter night just felt dark, cold, and endless.

His SUV huddled alone in the back lot. He’d plowed the rectangle several times, although a few inches had accumulated since the last once-over. South of Maine, the East Coast had gotten slammed. Three feet of snow was a state of emergency in the lower states, but in this neck of the woods it wasn’t a big deal.

Plows had cleared Main Street and moved on to the secondary roads with practiced efficiency. The two-mile-long trip home took all of ten minutes. Evan had run the blower. Neatly cleaved banks of snow flanked the driveway. Nathan parked in the attached garage and depressed the automatic door button.

With the engine still running, he sat for a few long minutes. Wouldn’t be a bad way to go. Easier than a swan dive off the bridge. Peaceful. Quiet. Painless. Sure as hell beat a slow decaying of the brain. How long would it take? A garden hose hung on the far wall.
That
would speed things up. All his problems would just fade away.

Evan’s inside.

If his son heard the door close and the engine still running, he’d be out here in a minute. Besides, Nathan couldn’t abandon his boy. Evan was far too young to be saddled with their uncle’s long, drawn-out illness and death.

Uncle Aaron wouldn’t go gently into that good night.

Nathan turned the key and shut off the engine. He held his breath as he pushed open the door and stepped into the kitchen.
Evan was pouring boiling water from the kettle into a cracked old teapot on the granite island. Nathan exhaled. Nothing terrible had happened. Maybe they could have an almost normal, quiet evening.

He turned and hung his coat on the rack in the corner, then toed off his boots.

Evan turned. The blond goatee didn’t make him look as old as he hoped. At twenty-two, Evan could pass for sixteen. “Hey, Dad.”

“Hey. Uncle Aaron’s tea?”

“Yeah.” Evan set the steaming kettle on the unlit stove. The aromatic concoction of his uncle’s special tea wafted toward him. Uncle Aaron was grasping at the straws of alternative medicine. Nathan could hardly blame him. Once his uncle had been a professor. To watch the former scholar in him slide into madness broke Nathan’s heart. “Think this stuff is OK for him to drink? I thought mistletoe was poisonous.”

“The berries, yes. But with the leaves it depends on the variety.” Nathan shrugged. His uncle’s disease was progressing, defying all medical treatment. “Doubt it matters much.”

Uncle Aaron was dying. But the end wouldn’t come before he’d endured a year of suffering, just like Nathan’s mother, Aaron’s sister. Nathan almost wished he had the balls to end it for his uncle now, but there was always that grain of hope germinating in the back of his mind.

Uncle Aaron’s voice carried from the basement stairwell, the place where they’d stored his collection. “The crow. The crow is here again.”

Evan sighed hard. “He keeps talking about a crow following him around down there. Been at it for hours.”

Hallucinations were new. The relief Nathan felt at arriving home and finding relative peace evaporated in one beat of his pulse.

Crows portended death.

Jayne awoke to darkness, and for a brief second she was back in that dim, frigid basement. Sweat-dampened sheets clung to her limbs. Despite the warm blankets that covered her, a chill burrowed into her body and lodged itself in her bones.

Her body tumbled onto concrete. She rolled, helpless and limp. A distorted and blurry shadow loomed. Callused hands grasped her wrists. Metal bit into her flesh as her wrists were bound. Fingers stroked her face, lovingly circled the scar on her cheek. A knife sliced her palm. Her stomach heaved.

The scene was extinguished as quickly as a struck match in the rain, leaving behind a lingering scent of evil as distinct as burnt sulfur.

Reality returned with the feel of flannel sheets against her cheek, the softness of the pillow under her head. Jayne turned her head toward the nightstand. Large orange digits on the clock read three fifty. She shuddered under the pile of thick covers. The room felt cold and empty, and she was alone in Reed’s guest room.

She was safe.

For the moment.

But tomorrow—no, today—she’d leave Reed’s house and the security it represented. Helplessness clawed at her throat. There’d be no more sleep for her tonight.

She flipped back the comforter and rose into the chill of the bedroom fully dressed. The woodstove’s warmth didn’t penetrate the back of the house as efficiently as the front rooms, but the guest bed was more comfortable than the couch. Jayne drew a second pair of socks onto her feet and sought the warmth of the living room. The fire burned brightly, and Jayne held her hands out to absorb its dry heat. She peered in the stove’s small glass window. Someone had added fresh logs recently.

She paced to the bookcase, stuffed with dog-eared bestsellers. None of the many titles appealed. She was too tense to read. She perched on the edge of a chair, closed her eyes, and attempted a few deep breaths. The nightmare had imprinted images and sensations on her mind. Even after she opened her lids to the reassuring sight of Reed’s living room, her chest constricted and her heart pounded relentlessly.

Rubbing the knot beneath her sternum, Jayne crossed to the wide window and looked over the yard. Light glowed in the windows of Reed’s workshop. The electricity must have been restored during the night. But why was he working at three o’clock in the morning?

Maybe he couldn’t sleep either.

The possibility of companionship pulled at her. There were several hours still until dawn, hours that would drag if she passed them alone. She stepped into a pair of boots and donned Scott’s parka. A shoveled path led to the old converted barn that housed Reed’s workshop.

Jayne stepped out into the cold.