The Trouble with Temptation (35 page)

He had been warning her. Perhaps even mocking her.

And now he was doing it again.

Hannah gripped the penlight tighter as the fear slowly gave way to another emotion. It started out as an ember and she fanned it, nursed it until it was a raging inferno, one born of fury.

Anger was better than fear any day.

The fear didn’t die and she was fine with that because Hannah understood the value of fear, just as she understood the value of anger.

Fear wasn’t a bad thing in and of itself.

Fear could be healthy. Fear could keep you alive.

But she needed the anger.

Slowly, she pushed away from the doorframe and used her penlight to stare into the apartment. First, she checked the floor. It had been a lightbulb, the one from the lamp by the door most likely.

Clothes, movies, books, knickknacks and pictures were thrown across the floor, like an isolated tornado had been set loose in her home and been given free reign.

Her gaze landed on the picture of her and her mother. The last one that had been taken of them before her mother died.

The frame lay shattered on the floor and a knife had been driven through the picture and backing. One of her steak knives. Something, probably that knife, had been used to jab ugly gouges into the picture, ruining it forever.

“You son of a bitch,” she said softly.

Her voice echoed in the confined space, the way it does when you’re alone.

And she knew.

Whoever he was, he was gone.

She lifted her phone and dialed
9-1-1
as she strode into the kitchen and pulled out the Maglite she kept for emergencies. Then she flipped it on and moved back to the door, refusing to risk being caught in a small, dark space, even though all her instincts screamed that whoever had done this was gone.

She used the beam of the light to sweep the room and it landed on a phone sitting on her coffee table. She recognized the model immediately. It was just like Shayla’s had been. She saw the note and felt a smile twisting her lips.

“You
evil
son of a bitch,” she said again.

A voice came across her phone just as she had said it.

“
Nine one
…” There a pause as the woman on the other end of the line processed what Hannah had been saying and then she continued. “
One.
Please state the nature of your emergency.”

Hannah gave her name and address, then said “Somebody’s broken into my apartment. I’m pretty sure he’s gone now but he’s totally trashed my place. And he left a message for me. Call Chief Gideon Marshall and tell him to get his ass over here.”

“Is anybody in the apartment with you now?”

“I don’t think so. But I can’t be sure.”

“You need to vacate the premises.”

Hannah stared hard at the message that had been left for her. “No. I’m not vacating the premises. Get Chief Marshall. I want him here. Now.”

“Ma’am, I’m advising you to get out of the apartment—”

“Look, the longer you argue with me, the longer I’m in this apartment alone.”

The call-taker paused and Hannah heard the resignation in her voice. “I’m contacting the police. Please stay on the line.”

Bet your ass I’ll stay on the line
.

*   *   *

Gideon punched in a number. It rang. And rang. And rang. When it finally went to voice mail, he left a short, pissed-off message. “Something’s going on with your woman, Brannon. Get your ass to town.”

Then he hung up and swung through the door that led up to Hannah’s apartment.

He should have sent Deatrick over, but he felt responsible for Hannah and not just because she was a citizen of the town he’d sworn to protect. She was a friend of Neve’s. She was involved with Brannon. Gideon was so tangled up with the McKay family, he knew he’d never be free of them, even if he ever did find a way to sever the ties that held him to Moira.

He thought of the pretty deputy with the sheriff’s department and told himself he should ask her out.

He’d refrained from getting involved with anybody—physical relationships weren’t the same thing as getting involved, but even his physical encounters were limited to when the need just became too strong.

But he was tired of fooling himself, tired of waiting, tired of hurting. Deputy Maris Cordell would never be Moira, but he was starting to realize he and Moira were just never going to happen.

Yeah, it had taken twenty years, but Gideon hadn’t ever claimed to be a quick study. Especially not when it came to matters of the heart.

What he needed was somebody who
wasn’t
Moira. Somebody who wouldn’t cut him to ribbons every time he thought of her. Every time he saw her. Every time she looked away and pretended she didn’t feel exactly what he felt.

Of course, what he needed right now was five more uniformed officers and a couple more detectives. A double of himself wouldn’t be a bad thing.

But since none of that was possible, he’d focus on what was.

Gideon was a man who believed in priorities.

Right now, he needed to find a man who had probably killed at least two people and just might be involved in whatever was going on with Hannah Parker. One of his uniformed officers met him at the top of the steps, eyes bright, almost viciously so. “Her place is trashed, Chief. Seriously trashed.”

“Where’s Hannah?” he asked.

Officer Stanton grimaced. “Ah. Inside her apartment. She won’t leave. Hasn’t touched anything, she says, but she won’t leave.”

“Son of a bitch,” Gideon muttered, shaking his head. He grabbed his phone, checked it. Brannon still hadn’t called.

Then he strode down the short, wide hallway. The building boasted four units. The upper two units were for residential apartments and the lower two were business units. The apartment on the left only had a sporadic occupant—a professor from the nearby college campus. She spent most of her nights with a boyfriend, but liked to have her own space. It was an arrangement that had been going on for quite some time. Gideon didn’t even have to check with the woman to know she wouldn’t have seen anything. She only came into Treasure on the weekends, and that was just once or twice a month.

They weren’t likely to have any witnesses. But because he was thorough, he nodded at the other door. “Track down Dr. Huxly out at the campus. See if she was here at any time over the past forty-eight hours.”

Stanton pulled out his notebook. “Already did. She was here last weekend, but not since. Didn’t notice anybody suspicious—unless you count Barney and Bert.”

Cocking a brow, Gideon waited.

“They were having a row.” Stanton shrugged.

“That’s normal, not suspicious. I’d want to know if they weren’t having a row.” Gideon ducked into Hannah’s place and found himself staring at what looked like the remnants of passing tornado.

“Damn.”

Hannah was standing at the window.

She turned her head and stared at him over her shoulder, then nodded slowly. “That about sums it up, Chief.”

He pinched the bridge of his noise and then looked back at Stanton. “Get Lloyd…” Then he stopped, shook his head. Lloyd Hansen was back in prison, serving out the rest of his sentence. And his wife had left the state, moving up to Wisconsin, living with a cousin. Couldn’t be Lloyd. “Okay. Okay.”

Hannah turned and pointed to the coffee table.

His eyes narrowed on it and he saw the phone lying there.

“That’s not yours, is it?”

“No.” Her voice was faint, but steady as she said, “Shayla had one just like it. I don’t think it’s hers, but the message is pretty clear.”

What did you see?

What did you hear?

Gideon stared at the words, printed out in block print on plain, ordinary white paper.

He imagined it was the kind of paper anybody could buy in reams of five hundred at just about any office supply or discount story anywhere in America.

The block print was simple, the kind of font that could come off just about any computer, found in just about any house anywhere in America.

He wouldn’t find shit from it.

But at the same time, he felt a slow, satisfied smile spread across his face.

“Well, Chief,” Hannah drawled. “I’ve lost a great deal of my personal possessions. He trashed a lot of my clothes, cut into them and dumped bleach on what was left. He ruined the last picture I ever had taken with my mother. But it appears this sick fuck has amused you. I’m so pleased.”

Hannah’s eyes were hot with fury when he looked into them.

“He fucked up, Hannah,” Gideon said, turning his head and taking a good long look around her apartment. “All of this? He’s pissed off and he’s scared. I’m sorry for what he did here, but this means he’s scared. That’s a damn good thing.”

He took another thorough look around the place as he drew out a pair of gloves, unease starting to burn inside him. One thing wasn’t adding up for him.

It had nothing to do with the trashed apartment and everything to do with the watchful woman.

“You heard from Brannon?”

*   *   *

When things were bad, you went home.

As far as Brannon was concerned, they were pretty miserable.

He stood out on the dock that faced out over the slowly rolling river and he brooded.

He had to fix things with Hannah, but the problem was, he just didn’t know how.

A wind kicked up, blowing his hair back from his face and the scent of rain danced in the air, but he didn’t notice.

He was thinking about Hannah.

Only about her.

When the old boards of the dock creaked behind him, he didn’t bother looking back.

Neve was in town.

So was Moira, working.

Not too many people would follow him when he was clearly in a temper. It took him a while to get to one, but once he did, most people steered clear.

Ella Sue had never been one to steer clear of anything, though.

She came to stand next to him, neat and tidy in a pair of pressed khakis and a shirt the color of roses. She was sixty-five if she was a day, but if he didn’t know her, he wouldn’t have thought she had even seen the first blush of forty. She had that ageless quality about her and a serenity that rarely failed to give him some measure of peace and comfort.

But it failed him now.

He jammed his hands into his pockets.

“I fucked up, Ella Sue.”

She lowered herself to sit on the edge of the dock, staring out into the water. “You know, my daddy used to take me fishing out here on the river. All the time. Wasn’t far from here. Your grandfather was alive then. He’d sometimes join us. I was terrible at fishing then. Didn’t know how to be quiet for anything.”

Brannon sat down next to her, knees drawn up to his chest.

She turned her head and looked up at him. “Out of all of the McKays I’ve known—and honey, I’ve known a lot—I’d have to say you are the most like him. Your grandfather. He was determined to protect every single person he knew. When my daddy died, he showed up on Mama’s door and offered her a job.”

She sighed and looked up. “My mama, God love her. She didn’t want to work.” Ella Sue laughed. “Not for anybody, but definitely not for some rich white man. Do you know what she did?”

Brannon flicked her a glance.

Ella Sue was still staring up at the sky. “My mother, while I was in my bedroom, crying into the doll Daddy had given me for my birthday, told your grandfather that she’d be just happy to take his money. What did he have in mind? And he said that he knew they needed a typist or two at one of his businesses. You people.” She shook her head. “You already owned so much of the town. He talked about the little local airline they owned—your daddy sold it when you was just a baby, but your grandpa, he asked Mama what she’d think of being a stewardess. She said, no. She didn’t think she’d like that. Or being a typist. None of that would really work, because she had a little girl, didn’t he see? So he asked her just what she thought would work.”

Ella Sue sighed. “She told him she’d be happy to go to bed with him. Thought maybe once a week, for a thousand dollars. Your grandma didn’t never have to know.”

“Ella Sue.” Brannon swore and went to stand, blushing now, all the way down the collar of his shirt. This woman who was like a mother to him. He didn’t want to hear this.

She laid a hand on his arm. “How do you think I felt? I was ten years old. He told her no. She left town three weeks later, left me with my aunt and I never saw her again. I don’t know where she went and I can’t even claim to understand why she did what she did.”

Brannon stared at her hand on his arm, watched as she patted it and then she stood. “My mama died a couple of years later. She wrote me, you know. A letter, every week. But she never sent them. She was embarrassed. After she’d died, when my aunt had to go and identify her body, she was given the letters and she brought them back. I was twenty before she gave them to me. I’d been angry at your grandfather for a long while.”

“At…” Brannon stopped, scowled.

“Oh, baby.” She brushed his hair back from his face. “I didn’t understand what I overhead that night. I just heard this rich white man telling my mama he’d help her, and then he said he wouldn’t. A few weeks later, she left me. I was alone. I spent a lot of time angry over the wrong things. Then I read the letters. If she’d sent them…” Ella Sue stopped. “But she didn’t. She was too embarrassed over the mistake she’d made. Over
her
fuck up.”

Brannon felt his shoulders tightening.

Shrewd eyes bore into his and she lifted a brow. “Now … why don’t you tell me about whatever it is that has so you sad, boy? And don’t you be lying to me. Whatever it is, you can fix it. But not if you run from it. Not if you stay down here at the river and hide.”

“Fix it.” Brannon tipped his head back and stared up at the leafy green canopy overhead. “How do I fix it? She’s loved me most of her life, she told me.”

“Boy, I know that.” Ella Sue gave him a look like she was talking to an idiot. Then her face softened and she reached up, cupped his cheek the way she had when he was a child. “She loved you and she waited. Because I think some part of
her
knew just what I’ve always known—that you loved her, too.”