Peppermint Creek Inn (8 page)

A frightened look shot across his face. Then all too quickly it vanished and he promptly tried to change the subject.

“Are your father-in-law and your husband away on business?”

“Actually he doesn’t live here anymore.”

“Your husband?”

“Garry. My father-in-law.” She opted not to mention her husband. Maybe if he thought she had a husband he wouldn’t get any funny ideas about jumping her bones the first chance he got.

And she could stop thinking about jumping his, too, especially after getting such a close and intimate exploration of his gorgeously, almost too long cock. After all, he was a stranger and a criminal. He’d confessed as much.

“Garry lives in New York City. His being a criminal lawyer and you being a—” She caught herself before saying the word “criminal”. “You being in need of some help. It’s the only thing I can think of as to why someone might send you here.”

“Maybe they wanted me to try your delicious peppermint tea,” he joked and suddenly his eyes fluttered sleepily.

“Maybe,” she said softly and smiled as his eyes closed and a few minutes later, his chest rose and fell slowly.

Shoot. She’d lost him to sleep once again.

She didn’t have anything more to go on now than she had before except he seemed comfortable with the idea of being a criminal, but not at all comfortable with the idea of seeing a criminal lawyer.

Perhaps she was being naive, but after the way he’d been treated by the police, wouldn’t he welcome a helping hand from a lawyer? Unless—

Sara frowned at a new idea taking hold. Unless he was afraid of what a private investigator might find out and even a good lawyer wouldn’t be able to save him.

—

The gray New York moonlight glistened brilliantly off the NY Chief of Police’s white hair making it easy for Detective Pauline Brown to spot him. He was standing in the wide-open space near the towering oak tree at the north end of the park.

She wished they hadn’t picked this particular park to meet. It was the closest to the cop station and there was a good chance someone would be lurking around watching them. Ever since that unfortunate incident last week when they’d been caught red-handed by that fool Matt, she’d been a nervous wreck. For one week, they’d waited on pins and needles, expecting all hell to break loose. But it hadn’t.

Tonight she’d received the call they’d been waiting for. Unfortunately, it was bad news. Really bad news. She didn’t want to be the one to tell the chief, but she had no other choice. He wasn’t going to like this. Not one bit.

She frowned and walked briskly toward Chief Jeffries, her high heels clattering loudly against the cobblestone. A chilly gust of night air rumpled her long, straight blonde hair into a momentary static frenzy. The cold air made her clutch her Spring jacket closer to her chest as she approached the white-haired man.

Instantly she spotted the happy smirk plastered on his face. She hated his positive attitude. Overconfidence, especially at a time like this, was extremely dangerous. It allowed people to make mistakes. Real stupid mistakes.

“I trust you have some good news for me, Paulie.”

“I got here as soon as I could.” Pauline forced a smile as she planted a kiss on his cheek. “What did you find out about our man?”

“They had him.”

“Where?”

“A ghost town called Jackfish, a few miles outside of the hick town Rainbow Falls. A couple hours outside of Thunder Bay. Sound familiar?”

“Like in Ontario, Canada? Where Justin lives?”

She nodded.

His face broke into an enormous smile and he rubbed his hands together with eager anticipation.

“So, he went up to Canada, did he? Did he honestly think he could escape me by hiding in the Canadian woods? Wait a minute. What do you mean they had him?”

“He escaped.”

To her shock, the chief smiled. “Really? Well, I like a good game of cat and mouse.”

Pauline blinked a few times. She hadn’t expected this. There was a wanted man on the loose. A man who knew everything about what shady dealings they were involved in, and everything could explode around them any minute and the chief was in a happy mood? It was beyond her comprehension.

His eyes narrowed into tiny suspicious slits. “C’mon now, don’t hold it back. What else?”

“They were holding him at the ghost town, waiting for Scout to get there and pump the information out of him when he escaped. A local cop went missing. He was last seen chasing after our man in the wilderness. Justin thinks our man killed him.”

His smile widened. “Really? We’ll just have to add that to our man’s wanted list. I want you to head up that way and keep a lid on things with Justin. We need our man alive until we get what we want.”

“There’s more.”

His white bushy eyebrows shot up in wonder. “Still more?”

Pauline nodded. “Justin says our man has amnesia.”

“How interesting.”

“Don’t you find that a little too convenient, Chief?”

“He always was a smart fellow. But he wouldn’t pull a stupid trick like that. Not unless it was true. You should know him better than anyone.” He draped a comforting arm across her shoulder. “Don’t worry though. You’ll be his widow soon enough.”

“What should we do next?” she asked, suddenly shivering in the chilly breeze. Or was it from his cold touch?

“Find him. Hold him for questioning. Then he, along with any potential witnesses, must be eliminated.”

Pauline shivered violently as the seriousness of his words reached home. She wished it was over and not just beginning.

—

Dark, narrow alleyways, seedy smoky bars, traffic congested, smog-infested streets, hooker and drug dealing neon nights in which he felt numb, oddly not a part of.

And yet, here he stood talking and laughing with the professional ladies of the evening, buying their pimps drinks, lugging back a few himself just to be sociable. Paying off crooked cops with astronomical amounts of money in return for favors, dancing with some tall, sexy, blond bombshell he didn’t even like.

Another dark night lured him deeper…

He was trapped in a suffocating, cold, black, damp room. Someone was leaning over him, checking to see if he was still alive after the violent beating they’d given him. Ash gray cigarette smoke twirled crazily on the night breeze, floating toward heaven, escaping through the tiny cracked openings in the rotting, sagging moss-covered ceiling.

How he wished he could escape the cold and these miserable handcuffs that burned raw fire deep into his wrists. He yearned to hop onto a smoke particle, using it as a magic carpet and quickly drift out of this hellhole.

The cigarette smoke hugged his clothes, seeped into his skin. The tart smell lingered in his nostrils, made his nose itch, burned a scratchy trail down his throat.

He could even taste it!

Tom’s eyes snapped open.

Raw orange sunlight bore shards of pain deep into his eyes sockets. Yet he couldn’t blink.

The shadow stood there. A black silhouette.

Right there! Outside the window. Watching him sleep.

For a split second, he figured he must still be in the trenches of his dream. But the unmistakable cigarette smoke curled like a billowing gray cloud through the open screen window, striking his face with offending odor. He swallowed back a cough. Cold perspiration shot across his forehead at lightning speed.

The shadow moved slightly, as if realizing it had been spotted.

Then it disappeared.

He wanted to laugh. Downplay what he’d just seen. Tally it up to some weird daydream, a side effect to the familiar pounding gripping his right temple. But the cigarette-scented air wouldn’t allow him to let it go so easily.

Sara!

Was she in danger?

Bolting upright, he bit back a groan as pain sliced a sizzling arrow through his back and belly, yet he counted on it. Welcomed it. Used it to keep his mind focused on Sara, and not the paralyzing panic gripping his insides. He whipped aside the blankets and swung his weak legs out of the bed.

The room tilted precariously for a few seconds then everything righted itself. Gritting his teeth, he hoisted himself off the bed.

He hadn’t gotten a good look at the person. But it hadn’t been Sara. He didn’t know how he knew she didn’t smoke, he just did.

Adrenaline surged into his limbs urging him to run. To find her. To protect her from danger. Yet he couldn’t bolt out of his room blindly, possibly rushing headlong into the enemy. He’d be useless if he got caught.

And Sara would be dead.

Despite the panic edging into his system, he knew he needed to stay calm. Assess the situation. Proceed with caution.

Thoroughly expecting trouble, the tiny hairs on his neck prickled to attention as he stumbled naked to the open window where the shadow had stood only moments earlier.

Leaning his bandaged hands on the inside sill, he pressed his face against the screened window and looked out. Nothing moved. Only the tall blades of green grass in the lush meadow swayed as the wind sailed against them.

If anyone had been here, they’d gone around the side of the house.

Grabbing the first thing he could, a pink towel draped over a nearby chair, he wrapped it securely around his hips. If he had to make a run for it, at least he’d be presentable to the surrounding forest.

With a trembling hand, he reached out and grabbed the steak knife on the twig table, then limped across the floor to inch the door open slowly. Seeing no one, he tiptoed into the quiet hallway.

The unmistakable aroma of fresh baked bread filtered into his nostrils. His stomach growled in hunger, but it was instantly pushed aside by the acrid taste of fear in his mouth as he moved quickly down the hallway and into a cozy living room. He barely registered the pull-out sofa with the neatly made up bed before he headed for the adjoining kitchen and stopped short as he spotted the giant sheet of plywood nailed over the broken window. Had Sara done the repairs herself? Or had she asked someone to come out? Perhaps that’s who’d been at his window. A handyman taking a drag.

But where was she?

Had she taken off? Had his confession of being a criminal frightened her and she’d decided to hoof it out to the highway and get the cops? Had she left him a sitting duck for the cops to finish the job?

Maybe she was on a personal basis with them. She’d said her husband had been a cop. What about the cop who’d been racing down the road? He was the same one who’d been holding him in that basement. What had he been doing on her road? Looking for her instead of him? Warning her about him?

Running a shaky hand through his scruffy beard, he shook his head in denial.

No!

No way. She hadn’t even been here when the cop had come calling. Besides, she’d believed him when he told her they wanted him dead.

So where was she?

The familiar panic sifted through him again but he forced himself to hold it in check. Pushing against the screen door, he inched it open and winced as it sent out a violent creak.

Hesitantly he stepped onto the veranda and he sucked in a breath at the carnage that greeted him.

It looked like a bomb had exploded in the front yard. Parts of the beech tree lay scattered everywhere.

An owl hooted from a faraway pine tree startling Tom. And then he heard a strange sound. A metallic clatter. Like something falling over in the direction of the barn. Silence followed.

Swearing under his breath, he gritted his teeth and moved tenderly down the creaking wooden stairs.

The cold cement slabs of the walkway sent shivers shooting up his legs as he hurried barefoot along the path, heading in the general direction of the barn. A split second before he hit the clearing between the house and the barn, turbulent snatches of memory crashed into him, almost making him topple over.

Visions of a large, tilled plot of land surrounded by a pretty white picket fence. A brightly painted red hand pump stood proudly in the middle of the garden. He looked to his left and there it was. The tilled garden. The white picket fence. The red pump.

What the hell was going on? How did he know about all this and about the motorcycle he knew he’d find inside the barn? He hadn’t felt these weird deja vu feelings of being here before. But maybe it was because the house and barn had been shrouded in almost total darkness when he’d arrived a few nights ago.

Or maybe he’d been just too darn tired. That night it had taken every last piece of energy he could muster just to climb up the front stairs and plop himself onto the cozy porch when the storm had hit.

The eerie deja vu feelings must mean he’d been here before. He must have met Sara. That’s why she seemed so familiar. Why did she say she didn’t know him?

But then again, she had admitted she’d given his description to the cops. Had said she knew him that night he’d arrived. Then she’d changed her story. Even given him a new name.

Why? What was she hiding?

Suddenly impatient, he ignored the angry protests of his sore muscles as he cautiously proceeded, quite intent on finding the shadow, Sara and answers to his arsenal of questions.

—

Muttering angrily under her breath, Sara picked up one of the two metal buckets she’d just sent sprawling onto the floor. Cripes! She was all thumbs today. First she’d spilled some red paint over the brightly colored Navajo rug covering the pine floor of her painting loft, and now she was knocking over her buckets. Ever since awakening from the dream, she’d been tense, on edge, as if waiting for something to happen. Surprisingly, along with the dream came that old familiar inkling of wanting to paint again. Something she hadn’t done since
it
had happened.

But when she’d picked up the paintbrush and dipped it into the paint container, her hand had shaken so badly, she’d spilled the contents of the watercolor all over the desk and floor.

Sara sighed with frustration.

She’d been stupid to think she could start where she’d left off. It had been a dumb idea. Why she had even bothered to try again was beyond her.