Whispers at Midnight (31 page)

“What now?” Matt asked, sounding resigned. His hand tightened briefly on Carly’s, and then he let go and allowed his sister to pull him aside.

“I’m just going to run inside and get my purse,” Carly said
brightly, glad of the distraction. She had suddenly recollected that she was wearing her oldest undies and a ratty bra and she needed a shower and her makeup was nonexistent and…

If sleeping with Matt was on the agenda, and it might very well be, she had to make some massive changes fast.

By the time she was inside, she was practically running, stripping off the bandanna and then unbuttoning her shirt as she went. She was unzipping her jeans as she stepped over the bathroom threshold. Throwing off her clothes, she took the world’s fastest shower, shaved her legs and underarms with a haste that gave razor burn a whole new meaning, and stared in dismay at the nest of blond curls tangling around her face before deciding that trying to tame them was a waste of time and effort. Running—all right, yanking—a brush through them, she fluffed them with her fingers and left them to do their own thing. She smoothed tinted moisturizer into her skin for that lovely glow promised on the packaging, added the barest suggestions of blush and eyeshadow, treated her lashes to a quick coat of mascara and her lips to a slick of watermelon lip gloss, and approved her appearance in the mirror—had Matt really said she was beautiful? Just thinking about it made her feel all warm and squishy inside. She wrapped a towel around herself and sprinted for her bedroom.

She’d accomplished a minor miracle in ten minutes, tops. Matt would hardly have had time to miss her yet.

If he were to figure out that she was showering and primping and changing her undies and in general making herself as attractive as possible in anticipation of having sex with him, she would be mortified. Of course, knowing Matt, he might very well guess. But if she hurried, and got back downstairs before he had really had time to wonder what the heck she was doing, she hoped it might not even enter his mind.

“Just so you know, the sheriff had to leave.”

Sandra was sitting on the edge of Carly’s bed as Carly flew through the door. She was wearing her favorite attire of black leggings with an oversized black tee shirt, which made her absolutely impossible to miss against the white spread. This particular tee shirt had Mini-Me’s
likeness on the front. Her earrings were dangling silver smiley faces; in contrast, she was looking uncharacteristically serious as she watched Carly’s frantic progress.

“What?” Carly froze in the act of rushing toward her dresser to swing her gaze around to Sandra.

Sandra nodded. “He said to tell you he’d pick you up in half an hour. On the motorcycle, so wear jeans.”

Carly’s heart started beating again. For a moment there, she’d been terrified that she’d been the victim of another patented Matt Converse kiss-and-run.

In which case he would have died a slow and agonizing death.

“Where did he go?”

Moving at a dignified pace now, she continued toward her dresser. When she reached it she opened her lingerie drawer and started searching through the contents. Luckily she still had some really nice things left over from when she’d still been having sex what seemed like a whole lifetime ago. A black lace demi-cup bra caught her eye. Somewhere in the drawer should be tiny matching panties….

Just the thought of Matt seeing her in such sexy scanties was enough to weaken her knees. The last time he’d seen her undies, she’d been wearing white cotton panties that covered her from her navel to the tops of her thighs. Fortunately, she’d been too flat-chested to have to worry about a bra, because if she’d been wearing one it would have been equally white and cotton and lacking in sex appeal.

Kind of like she had been.

“You sure you want to hear this?” Sandra asked.

The way Sandra said it, Carly was pretty sure she didn’t. Still, she nodded.

“Apparently that Shelby woman gave his sister a ride over here. She was waiting in her car. That was what the sister pulled him aside to tell him. The sheriff went down to talk to her. He called a few minutes later on his cell phone to say that he was taking her home and would be back to pick you up.”

Carly’s hand tightened into a fist on the panties, and she didn’t even realize it until she glanced down. It was almost embarrassing to
admit even to herself how much she really, truly didn’t like the idea of Matt’s being with Shelby. Then she remembered how, up on the roof, he’d asked her if she was jealous.

If she’d been telling the truth, she would have had to say yes. But not nearly as jealous as she was right now.

“You know, the sheriff’s a real hunk, and Antonio seems to think he’s a good guy,” Sandra said, sounding worried as Carly stared unseeingly down at the panties crumpled in her hand. “But you might just want to rethink this. He’s got a reputation as a love ’em and leave ’em kind of guy. Antonio says that he goes through girlfriends as fast as he goes through socks because he’s allergic to any kind of long-term relationship. He’s a Scorpio, you know—I asked Antonio when his birthday is—and Scorpios are all about sex. Well, look at him, anybody can tell that. As long as you’re just wanting to have a good time, that’s great. But you’re just now starting to feel like climbing back in the saddle where sex is concerned, and that makes you kind of vulnerable. And honey, you sure look to me like you’re getting ready to do something real stupid like fall in love.”

Sandra had comforted and counseled and cursed and cried with her through the whole rocky road that had been her divorce. She knew how badly Carly had been hurt, and Carly had no doubt that her warning sprang from a deep well of caring and concern. In fact, she knew that listening to what Sandra was trying to tell her was probably the wisest thing she could do. Accordingly, Carly took a deep breath and mentally turned her emotions over for careful review.
Was
she getting ready to fall in love with Matt? Now that she thought about it, she decided, that was almost funny.

She turned around and leaned back against the dresser as she met Sandra’s gaze.

“Actually,” she said dismally, “I think I’ve been in love with Matt almost my whole life.”

“That’s bad.” Sandra’s expression turned sympathetic. “That’s real bad. Last thing you need is to get your heart stomped again. What are you going to do?”

“I don’t know,” Carly said slowly, thinking about it. “If he—”

“Sandra! Carly!” The bellowing voice belonged to Antonio, Carly
realized a second or so after it reached her ears. The urgency of the summons was impossible to mistake. She and Sandra exchanged alarmed glances. Carly straightened away from the dresser. Sandra jumped off the bed. “Get down here quick! There’s something wrong with this dog!”

23

I
T WAS A LITTLE MORE
than an hour later when Carly, with Sandra, Erin, Antonio and Mike behind her, walked out of the veterinarian’s examining room and into his waiting room. The bright fluorescent lights combined with the air-conditioning to make the place seem almost deathly cold. The smell—a medicinal, antiseptic-type smell with undertones of urine and fear—was nauseating. Shivering in her tee shirt and jeans, Carly wrapped her arms around herself and rubbed her upper arms in a vain attempt to warm herself. She felt drained, exhausted, and heartsick. To see Annie suffering so had been almost more than she could bear.

“Yo,” Matt said. At least, she was pretty sure that was what he’d said, although she couldn’t really hear him. He was standing outside the glass door, which was locked, peering in. Carly crossed to the door and fumbled with the lock. But Antonio had to reach around her and actually unfasten it, because her fingers didn’t quite seem to want to work properly. She felt almost as if she were underwater, as if she were seeing—and feeling—things through a rippling veil.

Matt pushed the door open, took one look at Carly’s face and pulled her against him. His arms wrapped around her, gentle and strong and protective, holding her close. Too spent to even remember all the reasons why depending on him so utterly was probably a mistake,
she rested her forehead against his chest and clutched the front of his tee shirt and let him take most of her weight. He was warm and solid, and his chest was firm with muscle and his arms were hard with it, and it felt so good to be held by him that it didn’t even occur to her that they had an interested audience or that she should maybe pull away. This was Matt, and there was more comfort for her in his arms than anywhere else in the world. The knowledge would have worried her if she’d had enough strength left to worry about anything.

“So what happened with the dog?” Matt was asking the others, talking over her head, but it was Carly who replied, lifting her head to look up at him.

“She was poisoned.” Remembering the ordeal Annie had gone through, Carly shuddered. She kept seeing Annie’s eyes, darkly luminous and terror-filled, seeming to say
Help me, help me
as she writhed in torment in the grass. Terrified herself, Carly had scooped her up and run….

“
Poisoned?
What kind of poison?” Matt’s voice was sharp.

“Could have been anything. Rat poison, weed killer, even antifreeze.” It was Antonio who answered. “Bart—” Bart Lindsey was the vet “—said he won’t know for sure until he runs some tests.”

“It was an accident though, right?” Matt sounded like he was frowning.

“Probably.” The door between the waiting and examining rooms had swung open in time to permit the veterinarian to hear Matt’s question. Bart Lindsey was a small, round-faced man with rimless spectacles and a soft stomach that protruded slightly over his belt. With his blue lab coat unbuttoned and his gray hair untidy, he looked rumpled and a little tired. “It’s impossible to know, but I’d say the chances are slim that it was anything else. Oh, by the way, good to see you, Matt. I just wish the circumstances were a little more pleasant. You remember my brother Hiram, don’t you?” He nodded at the burly, white-haired man in khaki slacks and a blue lab coat like his own who followed him into the reception area. “Hiram used to own this clinic, but he sold out to me twenty years ago and moved to Macon. He would have been the vet here when you were a kid.”

“Sure I remember Hiram,” Matt said, nodding.

“I’d be willing to give you odds it was nothing but plain old rat poison,” Hiram Lindsey said. “The symptoms are classic.”

Carly shuddered, and Matt’s hold on her tightened.

“It was a good thing we saw her.” Erin’s voice was soft and low, but something about its husky timbre reminded Carly of Matt’s. “Everybody else had either gone in or gone, but Mike and I were still standing out in the yard talking when the poor little dog started trembling and foaming at the mouth and throwing up. Then she just kind of fell over.” Erin sounded as if she were shuddering too. “Bart said that if we hadn’t gotten her in here right away she would have died.”

“You mean she’s not dead?” Matt sounded mildly flabbergasted, as if their reactions had led him to expect a different conclusion to the day’s tragedy.

“No,” Carly said, resting her forehead against his chest again. “Dr. Lindsey said she’s going to be all right.”

Then she closed her eyes and clung tighter to his shirt and just breathed, terrified that she was going to burst into tears right there in front of them all.

“Christ.” Matt tightened his hold on her, hugging her close. As usual, he seemed able to divine what she was feeling. “Can we get out of here or does somebody need to wait for the dog or something?” This he said in a louder voice and was presumably addressed to the vet.

“She’ll need to stay at least overnight, and possibly a little longer,” Bart Lindsey answered. “Poor little dog, she’s been through a lot. I had to put her under in order to treat her, and I pumped her stomach, so it’ll be at least twenty-four hours before I feel comfortable about letting her go.”

“We really appreciate what you did for her.” Sandra had been shaken by the degree of Annie’s suffering, too. She still sounded subdued. “Do you want us to go ahead and pay now, or when we come to take her home?”

At least Sandra was now thinking of their house as Annie’s home. Even such a hideously dark cloud as this one seemed to have the slenderest of silver linings.

“When you come to pick her up will be fine,” Bart Lindsey answered.

“Okay, let’s go. Thanks, Bart,” Matt said. “Good to see you again, Hiram.”

“Have a good one,” Bart replied, while his brother added, “Good to see you too. Sorry it wasn’t under happier circumstances.”

Matt’s arm, heavy with muscle, stayed looped around Carly’s shoulders as he ushered her outside. Carly was grateful for his strength because she had precious little left herself. The wall of heat she walked into when she stepped outside helped some. It wrapped around her like a warm blanket, embracing her, slowly leaching away the worst of the chill. The vet’s office was located on the very edge of downtown, which meant, in practical terms, that it was about four blocks from the town square, although the chamber of commerce’s beautification efforts had not extended out quite this far yet. The four-way intersection beside which it was located was also home to a 7-Eleven store, a Rite-Aid pharmacy and Benton Liquors.