The Ideal Man (30 page)

M
ax was waiting for Ellie downstairs. They said good night to her parents and her aunts and went up to the apartment. Max had left the window unit on low, and the bedrooms and hall were quite pleasant. The kitchen and the living room, however, were sweltering.

Ellie tripped out of her clothes, tossed the bloody and torn dress into the trash can, and got into the shower. She stood under the cool water with her eyes closed and tried to get her muscles to relax. She washed her hair, being careful to scrub around the cut, but she didn’t bother to blow it dry. She brushed it over her shoulders, put on her cotton nightgown, her moisturizer and body lotion, and was ready for bed.

The storm outside had picked up. Lightning lit up the bedroom, followed by loud claps of thunder. Rain pelted the windows.

Ellie didn’t ask Max if she could sleep with him. She pulled the sheet back and slid into bed beside him. He was on his stomach, one arm over the side of the bed, sound asleep. His gun, holster, and badge were on his bedside table. She rolled over to glance at the alarm clock and was shocked to see that it was after midnight. She closed her eyes. It had never taken her more than a minute or two to fall asleep, but tonight was different. Ten minutes passed, then ten more, and she was still wide-awake. This certainly was different for her.

Ellie replayed the day’s events, but when she got to Patterson, she felt her heart pounding in her chest. She took several deep, calming breaths. The threat was over; he was locked up and couldn’t bother anyone. This, too, was different. She could go anywhere and do anything now, couldn’t she?

Not quite. There were the Landrys and the possibility that a man named Cogburn might come after her.

And then there was Max. He was going back to Honolulu, and she would probably never see him again. It was for the best, she decided. He’d be safer there where people like Patterson weren’t shooting at him. Ellie knew she wasn’t being rational, but she was so rattled inside, she couldn’t think straight. Was she reacting to Patterson’s attack or was it the realization that Max was leaving?

No-brainer, she decided. It was Max. Ellie wanted to cry. She’d told him not to get attached to her, and look what she’d done. She’d fallen in love with him. So not acceptable.

She had to distance herself, or she’d become a blubbering idiot when he left. If she continued to lie there thinking about him, she’d start weeping now. She swung her legs over the side of the bed and tried to get up. Max stopped her.

“Can’t sleep?” he asked as he pulled her down beside him.

“No, I can’t.”

“Come here.” His voice was warm and husky. He covered her with his body and began to nuzzle the side of her neck. He rubbed her arms, then moved to her sides. “Your skin’s cold.”

As he moved against her, his chest grazed her breasts, and the pleasure was so intense, she moaned. Ellie threaded her fingers through his hair and pulled him toward her. His mouth took absolute possession, their tongues wild as they mated.

Max wanted to savor the feel of her, and when she wrapped her legs around his and moved seductively against his arousal, his mouth covered hers again, and he thrust inside her. Their lovemaking was wild, both of them losing control. Ellie screamed his name when the sensations began to spiral. Her orgasm lasted longer than his, and he held her tight in his arms until she recovered.

The scent of their passion clung to them, and they were both soaked with perspiration. Max could feel her heart pounding under his. He kissed her chin and lifted up to ask her if she was okay. Words weren’t necessary. Ellie was asleep.

A
nnie wouldn’t take the test until Ellie arrived.

 

“What took you so long?”

“It’s nine o’clock,” Ellie said. “And I had to pack and change the sheets and help get everything in the car.”

“Are you riding with Max?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“But didn’t you have a rental car? Isn’t that how you got here?”

“Agent Clark took it last night. He’ll return it to the rental company. Now stop stalling.”

Annie grabbed the pregnancy kits and went into the bathroom down the hall. Ellie waited in her bedroom. She could hear the aunts chatting downstairs. Even with all the commotion, they seemed to be having a good time.

Ellie kept checking the time. Five minutes passed, then five more. No pregnancy test took ten minutes. She knew Annie was getting up her nerve. Just when Ellie was about to go get her, the bedroom door opened, and Annie walked in. She quietly shut the door behind her.

As soon as Ellie saw the smile on her face, she said, “Okay, you’re not pregnant. I know it’s selfish of me, but a tiny part of me was hoping you were.”

“I am pregnant,” she said, and she was smiling about it.

“You’re going to be a great mother,” she whispered.

“And you’ll be a wonderful aunt. Ellie, did you mean it when you said I could live with you? For a little while, anyway?”

“Of course, I meant it, and not just for a little while. I’d love to help raise my niece or nephew.”

Ellie told her what prenatal pills to take and what she could do to help with morning sickness.

“Are you going to tell Mom and Dad?”

“Of course,” Annie said. “But not until after the wedding.”

“What about Ava?”

“After her honeymoon. She’ll be there for me, too,” Annie said.

Ellie wasn’t so sure, but she kept her opinion to herself. The bond between twins was different from the bond between mere sisters. Ava used to boast that she and Annie were telepathic, which Ellie thought was ridiculous, but they did have a strange connection as children and could sometimes communicate with each other without speaking. But if they were so alike, how could Annie grow up to be so sweet and Ava such a viper?

“Max is waiting,” Ellie said.

“What about Max? I really like him,” Annie said.

Ellie understood what she wanted to know and decided not to mince words. “I do, too, but . . .”

“But what?”

“He’s not looking for anything long-term.”

Ellie was walking out the door when Annie said, “One last question and I won’t nag you about him again.”

“Yes?”

“Are you in love with him?”

She sighed. “Yes.”

 

 

Her parents walked Ellie and Max to their car. Ellie had lipstick on both cheeks from her aunts’ kisses. They thought they would be seeing her at the wedding, and she didn’t tell them she wouldn’t be back that soon.

Max backed out of the drive, and Ellie watched her parents’ faces as they waved good-bye.

“They look relieved,” she said.

Max had to agree. “They don’t have to worry about Patterson any longer.”

“That’s true, but they also don’t have to worry about me ruining Ava’s wedding.”

“Now that Patterson is out of the picture, how could you ruin it?” he asked. He turned the corner and headed for Highway 169.

“I don’t know. Something would happen, and she’d blame me,” she said. “Max, when we get to St. Louis, will you go back to Honolulu?”

“Yes. I have to get back right away. Are you going to miss me?”

“No, I’ll be too busy.”

Ellie thought she’d handled herself okay. Her voice hadn’t quivered when she’d asked him if he would be leaving, and she thought she’d been very calm and collected after he’d answered. She was getting a little too good at not telling the truth.

W
hen Willis Cogburn had first arrived in Winston Falls he thought he’d found the perfect spot for the ambush. It took several days to convince him otherwise.

He’d come prepared with a high-powered rifle, a couple of his favorite guns, and his surveillance equipment in the trunk of his rental car. It hadn’t taken much finesse to find out that Dr. Sullivan was going to Winston Falls for a wedding. As soon as he’d gotten the information, he’d rented a car under a fake name and started driving.

Once he reached the small town, he checked into the Rosewood Inn under another false name and slept ten hours. Then he got down to business. He located where Dr. Sullivan’s parents lived and spent the better part of the day sitting in his car a block away watching the house. He didn’t see any sign of her until a car pulled into her driveway, and she came running out. She obviously knew the man who got out of the car. She threw her arms around him. At first, Cogburn thought he was her boyfriend, but then he saw the gun at his side. And when the man walked up the porch steps and turned slightly, Cogburn saw the badge clipped to his belt. He didn’t need his binoculars to know that badge. It belonged to an FBI agent.

A text gave Cogburn answers a few minutes later. It told him that an FBI agent was on his way to Winston Falls to guard Ellie Sullivan.

Cogburn knew he had to find a way to get her alone, and that wasn’t going to be easy with an FBI agent shadowing her. He needed time to think about it and to come up with a plan. He started his car and drove around the town for a little while, then stopped in a fast-food place for a hamburger.

He needed to get the lay of the land first, he realized. He started his car and drove back to her neighborhood, looking for possible places to hide, spots where he could get a good shot. Nothing satisfied him.

Baseball cap low on his forehead, he parked the car at the corner of the Sullivans’ block and got his surveillance equipment out of the trunk. He wasn’t worried he’d be spotted using it because it was just a small earpiece. Anyone walking by would think he was using a Bluetooth. It was the first time he’d used this new earpiece, and he was impressed. According to the literature, he should be able to hear whispers as far as two blocks away. The ad hadn’t exaggerated. Willis adjusted the magnification, sat back, and sipped on a limeade while he listened. A woman carrying a grocery bag walked up the sidewalk toward him, so he dropped his head and pretended to be talking. She smiled as she continued on.

For the first hour, Willis was able to catch only snippets of the conversation inside the house. He was thinking about getting some dinner when he got lucky. An upstairs window in the Sullivan house was open, and the voices of the people inside began to come through loud and clear. He heard an older man’s voice talking about the falls and how Ellie should take Max to them. Cogburn assumed Max was the FBI agent because he knew Sullivan’s first name was Ellie.

All right, he was in business. He hadn’t found a place to hide near the Sullivan house, but maybe he had discovered something even better. Now he just needed to find out where the falls were.

 

 

The people of Winston Falls were proud of their town. Each time he stopped for gas and food, he was asked if he’d had time to visit the falls yet. “Everyone does,” he was told. “Why, you can’t come to Winston Falls and not go to the crystal clear water.”

Willis promised all the friendly townspeople he met that, yes, he would go to the falls.

He made good on his promise. It turned out the natural wonder was everything he’d been told and much more, for it was at the falls that he found the perfect spot for the ambush.

He expected Dr. Sullivan and the FBI agent to appear at any moment. She’d want to show him the town’s pride and joy, right?

Wrong. For two long days and nights Willis sat cross-legged in the brush with his high-powered rifle in his lap, waiting. He wasn’t alone. Hundreds of gnats and mosquitoes kept him company. There were also hordes of teenagers taking turns having sex behind the waterfall. Willis guessed the kids believed the water hid them from view, and he wondered why they hadn’t realized that, if they could see out, anyone walking by could see in. One teenage boy brought two different girls to the falls, at different times, of course.

Willis felt as though he were watching porn, bad porn, with lots of grunting and groaning. He would have left and formulated another plan if the spot he’d chosen hadn’t been the perfect place to kill someone. The noise from the water crashing down into the pool below would mask the sound of the rifle. And he was well hidden. Three teenagers walked right past him and never saw him.

He had a lot of time to think while he waited, mostly about his little brother, George. He missed the stupid kid. He’d told the Landrys that George was too young and not to entice him into their dirty business. They’d ignored him, and George was so eager to impress and so foolishly impatient, he’d gone and gotten himself killed.

George and he had such grand plans. They’d wanted to start some kind of business together. Nothing big, maybe just a pack-and-ship kind of place, but something legit. A stint in prison had been hard on Willis, and he didn’t think he could go back inside again. George would never have made it inside. He was too soft, too childlike.

Going straight proved to be impossible now. Once the Landrys had their tentacles around him, he couldn’t get away. They knew the day he was released and contacted him that evening. “Welcome back,” Cal Landry had gushed.

The money was too good to pass up. A hundred thousand to pop the doctor. Who could turn that down?

He thought it would be so easy, but the second day of being eaten alive by bugs changed his plans. He had to find another way to get her. But where? He knew he could get the doctor in St. Louis, but why wait? Why not get her here in her hometown where there was less law enforcement? He’d come to the conclusion that he might have to kill the FBI agent assigned to her as well, and that thought gave him chills. He’d get the needle in his arm for sure if he got caught.

Prison had changed him. It hadn’t hardened him; it had made him fearful.

Willis finally came up with a new plan. He went over it several times until he was satisfied it would work, then he got up, zipped the rifle in the duffel bag with his two guns, and headed for his car. It was time to get his audio surveillance equipment out again. He’d driven around the area enough times to know that there was only one road anyone could take from Winston Falls to the airport. Now he just needed to find out when they’d be on it.