One Stormy Night
Marilyn Pappano
Experience the thrill of life on the edge and set your adrenalin pumping! These gripping stories see heroic characters fight for survival and find love in the face of danger.She fled while a hurricane raged Jessica Randall knew there were secrets that had to be uncovered in this community.A corrupt sheriff, an estranged husband, a killer to be caught – all these she could handle. Now Jessica was in the eye of the storm! Then lawman Mitch Lassiter came to find out the truth about her and what she wanted.She meant to keep her distance, but his strong arms made her want to rest her burden, if only for a little while. Still, she needed justice – and for that, Jessica would risk her own future.
“You protect and serve even in the middle of the night. How diligent.”
This guy was a hunk. He didn’t need a weapon to make a woman swoon; just one good look at him in his current state of undress would do the trick. Tall, dark and hot. That meant he was Mitch Lassiter, and she’d been right on one point. He was the enemy. And she was pretending to be his best friend’s wife.
“I suppose you have a reason for harassing me inside my apartment.”
“Other than the fact that you’re supposed to be dead, no.”
“Dead? I assure you, I’m very much alive, Officer Lassiter.”
Jennifer Burton was alive, well and back in Belmar. Scowling, Mitch rubbed the throbbing area between his eyes. There was a lot he didn’t like about his friend. Though there was a lot he didn’t like about life in general, and Jennifer Burton’s return was probably going to add a few things to that list.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Marilyn Pappano brings impeccable credentials to her career – a lifelong habit of gazing out of windows, not paying attention in class, daydreaming and spinning tales for her own entertainment. The sale of her first book brought great relief to her family, proving that she wasn’t crazy but was, instead, creative. Since then, she’s sold more than forty books to various publishers and even a film production company.
She writes in an office nestled among the oaks that surround her home. In winter she stays inside with her husband and their four dogs, and in summer she spends her free time mowing the garden, which never stops growing and daydreams about grass that never gets taller than two inches. You can write to her at PO Box 643, Sapulpa, OK 74067–0643, USA.
Dear Reader,
Hurricanes fascinate me, as much when I’m watching the news coverage as they did when I lived on the coast and kept a hurricane evacuation list handy. (First to go into the car: family photographs. Second: books, of course.) I never had an up-close-and-personal experience with a hurricane, though I did have to leave Charleston when Hurricane David hit, and I moved to Mobile a few weeks after Frederick. Being an Oklahoma girl, I never wanted to be up-close-and-personal.
Hurricane Jan is both an ending and a beginning for Jessica Randall. It brings her to the Mississippi coast and introduces her to Mitch Lassiter, who isn’t at all what he seems. I love heroes like Mitch – ones where you can’t figure out whether they’re really as bad as they act. It’s a question Jess wrestles with, because, like Mitch, her life depends on everyone believing she’s something she’s not.
Hope you enjoy the storm!
Marilyn Pappano
One Stormy Night
MARILYN PAPPANO
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Contents
Cover (#u0776a8d0-0a98-58b1-93aa-4034403c6c29)
Excerpt (#u76238171-9897-58c2-b89c-e43becb362bb)
About the Author (#ub7718f6e-ed78-5996-8a6f-100e0754926f)
Title Page (#u72add754-3c46-570b-a55e-3e164bd21182)
Prologue (#ub6db2d04-a3ca-54a3-b8f7-c3d829f2b1cb)
Chapter One (#u54331e1e-2f60-5e99-a141-64597503f038)
Chapter Two (#u9a7cad4e-ddb9-5f92-b452-63548c305a19)
Chapter Three (#uadc1b8f0-c0d5-562b-a16f-63da405e67aa)
Chapter Four (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)
Preview (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
Prologue
The house creaked as the winds buffeted it. Jennifer Burton spared only a glance for the scene outside—night-dark sky, pouring rain, trees flailing wildly—before turning back to her task.
Hurricane Jan was just off the coast of Belmar, Mississippi, and everyone with any sense had already evacuated inland. Jennifer planned to join them just as soon as she found what she’d come to the house for. As chief of police, Taylor was far too busy to worry about what his wife was up to; he’d never dream that she’d returned to their house, a scant mile off the beach with Timmons Creek flooding through the backyard.
He would never dream she’d found the backbone to search for, much less run off with, evidence to use against him.
Something smashed into the house, vibrating through the boards and brick, making her jump as she opened the door into Taylor’s study. The forbidden room—that was how she’d come to think of it in the three years they’d been married. The day they’d returned from their honeymoon and moved her belongings into the house, he had taken her to the closed door. This is my room. You don’t clean it. You don’t look for anything inside it. You don’t even cross the threshold. Understand?
Her sister, Jessica, never would have allowed a man to ban her from entering a room inside her own home. She would have made a habit of going in just to spite him and she would have left traces that she’d been there.
Jessica never would have allowed much of what Taylor had done.
Encouraged by the thought of her sister, Jennifer stepped inside. The overhead lights flickered as the wind continued to batter the house. Phone service was already out and the roads were flooding—she’d had to take a detour to get there. Soon the storm would come ashore and damage or destroy everything in its path.
She hoped Taylor was in its path.
Her hand trembled on the flashlight she’d brought along just in case. She didn’t know what she was looking for, but she knew in her bones that, whatever it was, Taylor was hiding it here. Financial records, perhaps; there was no way the city paid enough to account for even half of his extravagant lifestyle.
Maybe blackmail records. She’d heard whispers that the police department coerced and intimidated regular payments from most of the businesses in town.
Maybe…maybe… She didn’t know, and the thunder of a tree crashing into the house next door reminded her that she had precious little time to waste. She would take everything she could—the contents of the file cabinet, the desk drawers, the closet on the far wall.
She packed quickly, first into boxes, then slid the boxes into black trash bags to protect them from the rain. As she filled each bag, she carried it down the back stairs, then ran back to start again. She worked without thinking about what she was doing or about how furious Taylor would be. What he might do to stop her. How much she had once loved him.
Until she opened the closet door and found herself at eye level with a shelf of DVDs. Every one of them was labeled, in Taylor’s writing, with a date and a woman’s name.
Or a girl’s name.
She’d dropped several into her bag when she picked up the most recent, marked May of that year, along with the name Tiffani Dawn. Everyone in Belmar knew who Tiffani Dawn Rogers was. Pretty, blond, sixteen years old, grew up on the wrong side of town, wild and rebellious, in trouble on a regular basis since she was ten…and now dead. She’d gone missing after attending the rowdiest of the high school graduation parties, and her body had been found three days later.
Two days after the date on the DVD.
Dear God.
Hand shaking badly, Jennifer carried the DVD to the entertainment system that filled one entire wall. The press of one button turned on the television; another powered up the DVD player. It took two tries to press the Open button, three failures in opening the jewel case.
She didn’t want to see this. She’d accepted that Taylor wasn’t the man she’d thought he was. He was sometimes cruel, always arrogant and, though she’d denied it to herself for two and a half years, corrupt. He misused his position as police chief and abused his authority. He was petty, his charm a camouflage for a mean spirit and an ugly soul.
But, please, God, surely he’d had nothing to do with Tiffani Dawn Rogers’s murder.
Outside the wind howled, swaying the house fractionally. Still clutching the closed case, she went to the window to peer out, but darkness and churning rain blurred everything. She’d never been in a hurricane before. She was a California girl; earthquakes and mud slides were more her speed. She didn’t know how much time she had to escape.
But she needed to see the DVD. She needed to know whether her husband was just a common criminal…or a murderer.
She was turning away when a flash of light caught her attention. It was a car half a block away, moving slowly in her direction. Who, besides her, was so late in evacuating?
The answer came when the vehicle—an SUV, not a car—eased to a stop at the end of her driveway. It was black and white and bore the seal of the Belmar Police Department. Heaven help her, it was Taylor, probably come to retrieve his own valuables, accompanied by the assistant chief.
Panicked, she stared at the DVD. If he caught her with it, he would be enraged. Darting across the room, she shoved the tray on the DVD player shut, then turned off the power. Downstairs the front door slammed. She stretched onto her toes and dropped the case behind the decorative molding on top of the entertainment center. Voices sounded at the stairs, one muffled, the other growing louder as it came nearer.
Grabbing the bag with the other DVDs, she raced out of the room and toward the back stairs. She reached the turn in the staircase just as Taylor’s voice became audible and stopped, creeping from one step to the next.
“…take me a minute, then we can get the hell out of—”
His curse was loud and colorful. He must have discovered the door to his study open.
She was two steps from her goal—the kitchen, the gloom outside making the lights look brighter. They shone like spotlights on the two plastic bags there—would shine like a spotlight on her for the few seconds it would take her to dart out, then around the corner to the garage door.
One step…then Billy Starrett’s voice rang out. “Hey, Burton, why are all these lights on? And why’d you leave the garbage sitting in the middle of the kitchen fl—” He stopped in the doorway, eyes widening when he saw her huddled there on the last step. His hand groped automatically for his pistol but found his yellow slicker instead. While he fumbled to get it open, she balled the open end of the bag around her fingers and ran, not to the garage door but to the back door.
His yell for Taylor was snatched away by the wind as she ran, head ducked against the driving rain, bag cradled tight to her chest. She ran to the end of the deck, scrambled down the steps and tore off across the lawn. Waterlogged grass grabbed at her shoes, slowing her steps, but she pushed on, into their neighbor’s yard, sticking close to the solid shadows of the house as she headed toward the next yard.
She thought she heard Taylor scream her name, but that didn’t slow her. Heart pounding, legs pumping, she ran mindlessly, her only destination away. When a powerful flashlight beam sliced through the dark, she ran harder, veering away from the houses and their obstacles, cutting across open lawn. The street was beyond the houses to her right—faster for her, but faster for Taylor, as well—and Timmons Creek ran to her left, flowing over its banks, its normally sluggish pace churning now.
A crack sounded nearby—a breaking limb or a gunshot?—and she dashed toward the trees that lined portions of the creek. She gave the bag a great heave into the brush but didn’t slow even though her lungs were burning, her muscles quivering.
Just ahead her trail ran out. A six-foot-tall fence ran right down to the water’s edge. She could run along it, which would take her to the street, or she could go into the water. She was a strong swimmer. She would take her chance with the creek.
She was only a few feet from the water’s edge when something slammed into her from behind. Taylor. She would know his touch anywhere. She landed facedown, his weight suffocating her, half in the water, half out. Then the weight was gone. Kneeling astride her, he flipped her over, staring down at her with such rage that she hardly recognized him.
“You disloyal bitch!”
She struggled with him, bucking her hips, clawing at his hands, his arms, his face. They moved deeper into the water, the current tugging her one way, Taylor the other. She landed a few blows and took a few that made her vision go blurry.
And then suddenly the rushing water won, pulling her away. It lapped her face, eased her aches, and the upsurge blocked Taylor’s shouts as he splashed after her. Falling to his knees, he disappeared under the water’s surface, then struggled to his feet again and shouted a curse as she washed out of his reach.
For the first time since meeting him, she was free.
Chapter 1
By one o’clock on Tuesday morning, Belmar, Mississippi, was pretty much asleep. The stoplights on Main Street were turned to flashing yellow, the bars had had last call, and nothing remained open for business but the twenty-four-hour convenience stores and gas stations on the east and west ends of Main.
“This will never work,” Jessica Randall murmured as she cruised down a deserted street, making mental notes of places Jen had already told her about—the grocery store, the hair salon, the bank, the church she had attended with Taylor and, of course, the house she’d shared with him, as well as the police station. One place Jessica couldn’t avoid—and one she would try to stay hell and gone away from.
“Of course it will.” Jen’s face smiled at her from the screen of the cell phone mounted on the dash. “We’re identical, all the way down to the matching appendectomy scars, though I think mine is neater than yours. Besides, look at all the times we took each other’s places growing up—and we never got caught.”
“Me going out on a date for you is one thing,” Jessica retorted. “Trying to fool your husband—”
“Estranged husband.”
“—is totally different.”
“Taylor knows I have a sister, but he doesn’t know we’re twins. He also knows that we’ve kind of lost touch since the wedding. You won’t have any problem. Now, I’ve told you about the apartment, the house and the people. I have some things in a storage unit on Breakers Avenue. I don’t think I would have hidden anything there, though. I mean, it’s so obvious, and Taylor does tend to pick up on the obvious.”
Jessica’s mouth tightened. Kind of lost touch? For twenty-five years they’d been as close as two people could be, and it had taken less than a week for Taylor Burton to come between them. A stupid Caribbean cruise—that was where they’d met, where he’d charmed her into marrying him before the ship returned to Miami. And it wasn’t even supposed to have been Jen on the cruise. Jessica had made the reservations for herself, but when business had called her to Hong Kong, she’d persuaded Jen to go in her place.
It was fate, Jen had all but cooed when she’d finally resurfaced to tell Jessica—by phone, no less—that she’d gotten married, and without her twin.
Shouldn’t fate be good for more than three lousy years? Shouldn’t it take longer than thirty-four months for Prince Charming to turn into a toad? And a criminal-scum toad at that.
“Jess? Are you listening to me?”
“Yeah, I’m listening. You haven’t remembered anything else? What I’m looking for? Whether it’s bigger than a bread box?”
“Not a thing.” Jen sounded regretful. “I wish I knew, I wish I could retrieve it myself. But…”
She coudn’t. And because she couldn’t, the solution was obvious: Jessica would. She was the older—even if only by three minutes—the bolder and the braver.
She turned onto the other main street, Ocean Street, then moved into the right lane. All her driving and she hadn’t seen a single police officer out on patrol, though there had been three cars parked in the reserved lot behind the station. It looked as if when the town called it quits for the day so did the police department. Did the criminals also call a nighttime moratorium? Or in Belmar were the police and the criminals one and the same?
If their chief was anything to judge by, the answer to that was a resounding yes.
The Sand Dollar Apartments had once been the Sand Dollar Motel, until competition from the newer motels on the east and west sides of town had put it out of business. The building had been renovated into apartments, small, plain, nothing fancy. Jen’s was on the back side of the building, facing a narrow parking lot and a park complete with playground, soccer fields and noisy children on most nice days.
What had once been twelve units on the ground floor was now six one-bedroom apartments, with four two-bedroom apartments on the second floor, and every third parking space had been turned into a tiny patch of yard with spindly trees in some, flowers in others. She parked in front of #8 and cut off the engine. She’d seen Taylor’s three-hundred-thousand-dollar house, and yet Jen had spent her last two months in Belmar living in a converted thirty-dollar-a-night motel. How intolerable had the house—or, rather, the marriage—gotten?
Jessica hadn’t brought much with her—her laptop, a small bag with toiletries. She would wear Jen’s clothes, her perfumes, her jewelry. She’d already had her hair cut to match Jen’s short, sleek style and had indulged in fake fingernails in Jen’s usual pale pink to disguise her own shorter nails.
She was there and she was ready to begin the charade. As soon as she got a good night’s sleep.
Streetlamps at the corners of the parking lot drew halos of insects that buzzed ceaselessly. The air was muggy, both temperature and humidity higher than she was accustomed to. Dim lights burned in a few units, but there was no sign of life. No televisions blaring, no parties going on, no traffic on the street out front.
She gathered her belongings plus a grocery bag. Bringsnacks, Jen had warned, and she’d stopped at one of the convenience stores for that and water. Singling the key from the others on the ring, she fumbled it into the lock, then swung open the door.
Musty. Unbearably hot. Stale. The apartment had been locked up since the hurricane, the air-conditioning off. Wishing she’d bought a can of air freshener or scented candles, Jessica flipped the light switch next to the door, but nothing happened.
The weak illumination from the parking lot lights showed a pale shadow about the right height for a lamp shade in the near corner. Jessica felt her way toward it, found a lamp, turned the knob—and again nothing happened.
Okay, Jen liked balance. If there was a lamp at one end of the couch, there would be another at the other end. Jessica eased her way along the edge of the couch, making it halfway before stubbing her toe on something. Glass toppled with a crash, then rolled off the edge of what seemed to be a coffee table and landed on the carpet with a thud.
Damn, she should have brought a flashlight—and worn tennis shoes. Her big toe was throbbing, and she’d probably chipped the polish, after subjecting herself to a pedicure at Jen’s insistence.
Finally she reached the end of the sofa, finding another table and another lamp that didn’t work. Great.
Surely the kitchen had an overhead light. She headed that way, bumping her hip hard into a side table on the way, knocking over something more substantial. Swearing softly, she extended both arms in front of her in the hopes of preventing any more damage to herself as well as Jen’s furnishings. Her hands connected with the smooth surface of a countertop, swept back to the wall, then up. She’d just found a couple of light switches when something hard pressed against the base of her skull.
“Police. Who are you and what are you doing here?”
The voice was male, deep, menacing, and it made swallowing all but impossible over the lump that had suddenly appeared in Jessica’s throat. Showtime, Jen whispered inside her head, but when she opened her mouth, nothing came out but a squeak.
She was the older, the bolder and the braver, she reminded herself.
And he’s got a gun!
As the protest formed, the pressure on the back of her head eased and she felt the space between them widening. He was backing off—the better to shoot her without getting blood and brains on himself, the hysteric in her warned.
“Hands in the air, then turn slowly.”
Her left hand was already in the air, she realized. She drew the right back from the light switch, raised it, as well, then turned slowly, as he’d instructed.
With the dim light at his back, all she saw was shadows, but that was intimidating enough. He was at least six foot two, with shoulders broad enough to fill the doorway. Hulk was the first word that came to mind. He had a gun and he worked for Taylor the scum.
And she was pretending to be Taylor’s wife.
She drew a breath, straightened her shoulders and said, “You protect and serve even in the middle of the night. I’ll be sure to tell my husband how diligent you are.”
For a moment the air in the room seemed to vibrate. Just as quickly, the moment passed, and there was a rustle of movement, the click of a switch, then light flooded the dining area. The enemy stared at her and she stared back.
She’d been close with hulk but definitely one letter off. This guy was a hunk. Tall, broad, great chest, narrow hips, long legs, muscular and golden brown all over. She could see that because he wasn’t wearing anything but boxers that rode low on the aforementioned hips. He didn’t need a weapon to make a woman swoon; just one good look at him in his current state of undress would do the trick nicely.
Tall, dark and hot. That meant he was Mitch Lassiter, and she’d been right on one point. He was the enemy.
His expression was impossible to read. Shock? Dismay? Suspicion? Doubt? He could be feeling anything or nothing, and she’d never know, thanks to the utter blankness on his features.
Feeling as if she were taking a chance she shouldn’t, she lowered her arms and crossed them over her middle instead. “I suppose you have a reason for harassing me inside my own apartment.”
He moved as if to put the gun away, but there was no place to put it. He settled for laying it on the glass dining table a foot to his left. “Other than the fact that you’re supposed to be dead, no.”
“Dead.” Holding her arms out to her sides, she turned in a slow circle. “I assure you I’m very much alive, Officer Lassiter.” Jen had never encouraged familiarity with any of Taylor’s employees, though she’d had little choice with Billy Starrett, the assistant chief. He and his wife, Starla, had constituted the bulk of their socializing.
Starla Starrett. Can you imagine? I’d’ve kept my maiden name.
His gaze narrowed as he studied her. His hair was dark brown and so were his eyes. If eyes were the windows to the soul, this man’s soul was hard. “Where have you been?”
“I wound up in a hospital, then a shelter. My sister came back to the U.S. after the hurricane, and I spent some time with her.”
“And you never thought to call your husband?”
The same husband who’d punched his wife and held her head underwater? It would be all Jessica could do to see him without smacking him hard. “Estranged husband,” she pointed out.
“Does he know you’re back?”
“I’m sure he will once you scurry home and call him like a good little police officer.”
His gaze narrowed even more, and a muscle clenched in his beard-stubbled jaw. I don’t like Mitch, Jen had said. Though she hadn’t mentioned it, the feeling was evi dently mutual.
“He’s been worried about you.”
“So worried that he tells people I’m dead?”
“You were seen leaving the apartment with your car loaded. Your car was found a few days after the storm where it had washed off the road near Timmons Bridge, with everything still in it. You didn’t call anyone.”
“I called my sister.”
He looked as if he wanted to say something to that, but she didn’t give him a chance. “It’s late, Officer Lassiter. I’m tired. And I’m sure you’re just dying to get to a phone so you can report in to Taylor. Please close the door on your way out.”
A moment passed before he finally picked up his pistol, then turned to the door. His muscles were taut—heavens, he had a great back and backside, too—and his movements graceful as he stalked across the room, walked outside and left the door standing open.
Another moment passed before Jessica was able to move. Lacking his grace and trembling more than a little, she hurried over, closed and locked the door, then put on the security chain for good measure. Not that it would stop someone determined to come in, but it gave her a small measure of extra comfort.
As she righted the items she’d knocked over in the dark—a vase on the coffee table, a statue on the side table—she admitted that she was probably going to need whatever comfort she could get in the days to come.
Jennifer Burton was alive, well and back in Belmar.
As Mitch dialed Taylor’s number, he wondered how his boss would take the news. He was sure as hell disappointed by part of it. Not that he wished Jennifer dead, of course. But he had thought that if she’d escaped the hurricane alive, she would have had the sense to not come back to Belmar. After all, it was Taylor’s own private kingdom, where she was his own private property. He wasn’t the sort to let a woman go unless he wanted her gone, and there had seemed something not quite right about her car at the Timmons Bridge. As if the scene had been staged.
About half of the town had presumed she was dead, and Taylor had been among them. If it had been his wife, Mitch wouldn’t have given up hope until there was none left to hold on to. He would have personally searched every shelter, walked every inch of the county looking for a clue and gone to every hospital, clinic and doctor’s office within a three-state area. He would have printed flyers and offered rewards.
Not Taylor. And yet all through their separation he’d sworn he loved her and wanted her back.
On the third ring, Taylor picked up, his voice groggy, his words slurred. “Thish better be ’mergency.”
“Depends on your point of view, I guess.”
“Hey, Bubba.” That was followed by a loud yawn. “What’s up?”
That was what Taylor had called him ever since they were kids, when Mitch had come to Belmar to live with his grandmother just down the road from the Burtons. They’d been nine years old and adversarial in the beginning. After Mitch—three inches shorter and fifteen pounds lighter—had whipped Taylor’s ass, they’d become good friends and remained so, though not as close as they once were. After college, Taylor had returned to Belmar, while Mitch had taken a job in Atlanta. They’d kept in touch, though, and eventually Mitch had found himself back in town again.
Mitch wasn’t sure about the etiquette for breaking the news to someone that his loved one wasn’t dead, so he said it bluntly. “Jennifer came home tonight.”
There was utter silence on the line. Mitch would give a lot if he could see Taylor’s expression. Most people weren’t as good at hiding their feelings as Mitch was. Just a flicker could tell him a lot.
“So she’s alive.” Taylor sounded wide-awake now and his voice was quiet. Thoughtful. “Is she all right? How does she look?”
“Fine.” Mitch smiled without humor. She looked so damn much better than fine that it was laughable. Jennifer Burton was a beautiful woman. Blond hair, blue eyes, a cute little nose, a mouth made for kissing. She was five-six, maybe five-seven, slender but with enough curves to make a man grateful. Whatever part of the female anatomy a man preferred, she fulfilled every fantasy and then some. She was sexy as hell in a wholesome girl-next-door type of way.
The married girl next door.
“Did she say anything about where she’s been?”
Mitch repeated what Jennifer had told him.
“Her sister, huh?” Taylor said, then the silence returned. He’d never met Jennifer’s older sister and had never wanted to. Jennifer’s life was with him, in Belmar, he’d proclaimed. Everything and everyone in her past should stay there.
As if you could just shut out family because someone else told you to. Mitch hadn’t even been raised in the same state as his brothers, but he still had regular contact with them.
“She’s alone?”
“Apparently.”
But the rustle of background noise on the phone, followed by a murmur—a sleepy female murmur—indicated that Taylor wasn’t. When he’d mentioned the marriage in a call to Mitch six months after the fact, he’d joked about how long he would be able to stay faithful to his wedding vows.
Jeez, his wife had presumably died only three weeks ago, and he had another woman in his bed.
Scowling, Mitch rubbed the throbbing between his eyes. He and Taylor had been friends for more than twenty years, but there was a lot he didn’t like about the man. Though there was a lot he didn’t like about life in general, and Jennifer Burton’s return was probably going to add a few things to that list.
“Thanks for calling, Bubba.”
“Are you going to see her?” Mitch asked, aware it was none of his business.
“I’ve waited three weeks. Another night won’t matter. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Slowly Mitch hung up. In the first week after the hurricane, Taylor had been the personification of the grieving husband, especially after Billy Starrett had located her car. Even his worst enemies—about half the town—had felt sorry for him. Now, fourteen short days later, his dear, beloved wife had suddenly rejoined the living, and he couldn’t be bothered to leave his girlfriend in bed to go see her.
Mitch moved his gun to the nightstand on the right side of the bed, then went to the kitchen to get a bottle of water from the refrigerator. He stood at a counter identical to the one where he’d first spotted Jennifer and stared disinterestedly. The room was the standard motel room turned into a living room, a dining area and a tiny kitchen. The former connecting door led into the bedroom and bathroom. The cheap motel shag had been replaced by a decent-quality carpet, and the walls had been painted bland off-white. It was boring but clean, everything worked and it wasn’t even in the same universe as the worst place he’d ever lived.
Though it well might be the worst place Jennifer Burton had ever lived. It was sure as hell a huge step down from Taylor’s house over on Beachcomber Drive. She was a tad materialistic. Though she’d worn jeans and a sweater tonight, he would bet they were hundred-bucks-plus jeans, and the sweater was probably silk or cashmere. She was expensive, Taylor had often said with pride, because he could afford to keep her.
He made sixty-two thousand dollars a year and paid his officers less than a third of that. Yet he lived in a four-thousand-square-foot house in the best part of town, drove a Hummer that was less than a year old, took regular ski vacations to Colorado, an anniversary cruise every summer and three-times-a-year gambling trips to Las Vegas. His wife dressed in designer clothes and had enough jewels to stock a small shop. His fishing boat must have set him back forty grand, and her recently junked Beemer had had less than five hundred miles on it.
Something wasn’t right in Belmar, and Mitch wanted in on it. Taylor had promised him the time was coming, but he was growing tired of waiting. This apartment might be a hell of a lot better than the worst place he’d ever lived, but it was also a hell of a lot worse than the best. He wanted to move on.
Water gone, he returned to the bedroom. He’d rented furniture when he’d moved in—bed, nightstands, dresser and a desk, plain and functional. The sheets were white cotton, the bedspread light brown. The only items of a personal nature in the room were his pistol, his wristwatch and his laptop.
There was nothing personal he wanted anyone in Belmar to see.
A thump came from next door, drawing his gaze to the connecting door that had survived the renovations. Jennifer’s bedroom was on the opposite side of that door. Her bathroom backed up to his, and sometimes, before the hurricane, he’d heard her shower running while he’d been in his. Sometimes he’d fantasized…but not often. She was a married woman. Married to his boss. His oldest friend.
That meant something to him even if it didn’t seem to matter to Taylor.
He slid between the sheets, shut off the light and, with a weary sigh, closed his eyes.
The rumble of a finely tuned engine woke Jessica Wednesday morning. She blinked, needing a moment to remember where she was, then rolled over to glare at the drape-covered window. To her, cars were transportation, nothing more, nothing less, but whoever owned this one—likely male—was probably extraordinarily proud of the noise it made.
Probably next-door male, she reflected. Mitch Lassiter.
The prospect of seeing him wasn’t what drew her out of bed and across the room. She just wanted to see if it was daylight yet—such grumbling should be illegal between the hours of sunset and sunrise.
She parted the curtains an inch or so and peered through the gap. The car, parked a few spaces away, was an old Mustang, midnight-blue and a convertible. That was the best description she could offer. The owner was next-door male, and he was fiddling with something under the hood.
He wore clothes this morning—khaki trousers, khaki shirt with dark green epaulets, green tie, black shoes and black gun belt, complete with gun. Black and lethal was the best description of that she could offer. His hair was a shade short of shaggy, and his jaw was clean-shaven. He looked sinfully handsome. Dangerous.
He straightened, wiped his hands on a rag, then closed the hood. Abruptly he looked over his right shoulder. She dropped the curtain, then took a few steps back for good measure. Her face flushed, as if she’d been caught spying on him. Granted, she had, but the odds that he knew that were minimal. He couldn’t possibly have seen her, couldn’t even know she was there.
Unless he noticed the slight sway of the curtain as it settled.
Shivering in the morning chill, she grabbed her robe, adjusted the thermostat, then went into the bathroom. When she emerged thirty minutes later, showered, shampooed, powdered and lotioned, the Mustang’s rumble was gone.
Older, bolder and braver, she scoffed. Officer Lassiter could intimidate her with nothing more than his presence—and he wasn’t even the real danger. According to Jen, Taylor was the boss in both his law-abiding and lawbreaking pastimes. Everyone else, including Mitch, just did what they were told.
Not that he struck her as much of a follower.
In the kitchen, she rooted through the grocery bag for something to calm her stomach. The choices were chips, popcorn, cookies, cupcakes and a half-dozen of her favorite candy bars—her idea of “staples.” She settled on popcorn, washed down with a bottle of diet pop, then sat down at the glass table.
She was going to have to face Taylor today. Given her choice, she wouldn’t see him at all, but the odds that he would let her waltz into town after having been missing for three weeks without seeing her were somewhere between slim and none. Belmar was a small town. The first time she walked out that door, the gossip would start to fly. People would be watching Taylor for a reaction, and he wouldn’t let them down. She wouldn’t let them down.
Every weekday, according to Jen, Taylor had breakfast at the diner across the street from the police station. Joining him were a select few of his officers—his corrupt officers. She thought they did it as a show of force, reminding the other customers that they stood together, that they were in charge and there was little anyone could do about it.
A restaurant seemed as good a place as any for Jessica to meet her brother-in-law—correction: her pretend estranged husband. Public. Safe.
She dressed in a skirt and blouse from the closet. The labels were pricey, the fabric and workmanship excellent, but puh-leeze…the skirt was a floral print that covered her knees and the blouse had a ruffle around the modest V-neck. Granted, it was a wide, kind of flirty ruffle that draped nicely, but she hadn’t voluntarily worn ruffles since she was two, when they’d covered the butt of her diaper-padded sunsuit.
“Oh, Jen,” she said on a sigh as she studied herself in the mirror. “What did he do to your fashion sense?”
She applied makeup with a very light hand—Taylor likes the natural look—and sprayed on Jen’s top-dollar perfume, then grabbed her purse and left the apartment. The clothes made her feel more like an impostor than ever.
The day was sunny, and already the combination of heat and humidity was oppressive. She drove the half-dozen blocks downtown and found a parking space in the middle of the block. Flipping down the visor, she checked her face in the mirror, then cut her gaze to the cell phone dangling from her purse strap. “I could use a little encouragement,” she murmured, but the phone remained silent.
With a breath for courage, she got out of the car, walked to the restaurant and stepped inside. The dining room was full, but locating Taylor was easy; he and his officers occupied the largest table and made the most noise. At least until they became aware of her.
The place literally fell silent as Taylor stood. He was exactly as Jen had described him—blond, blue-eyed, tanned, with a cleft in his chin and a crook in his nose. He had a nice body, though not as nice as Officer Mitch, a devil whispered in Jessica’s head. He looked strong, capable, authoritative, the kind of man who had always appealed to Jen’s fragile-woman sensibilities. How sad that she’d fallen so hard for his outside that by the time she’d learned what he was like inside it was too late.
When he smiled, it would probably stop women in their tracks, but he wasn’t smiling now. He simply stared, showing no surprise, no emotion at all. Of course, he’d had about seven hours to get used to the idea that she was back. Since her oh-so-nosy neighbor had blabbed.
And speaking of the devil, sitting to Taylor’s left was Mitch himself. Unlike everyone else in the place, whose attention was ping-ponging back and forth between her and Taylor, his gaze was fixed on his boss, watching him as if he might see straight through Taylor’s head and into his thoughts.
Curious.
Now what should she do? Approach Taylor? Snub him? Join him at his table and see if he would send everyone else away? Take a table of her own and wait for him to come to her?
He came to her before she could decide, stopping too close, but she held her ground. “Jennifer. Nice of you to come back.” His expression was bland, his words very soft, but he was very angry. She didn’t need to know him to recognize that.
“Taylor.” Her fingers itched to punch him just once…okay, as many times as she could before his goons pulled her off. She wanted to hurt him, to make him pay for what he’d done to Jen.
That’s why you’re here. To make him pay. Never forget that.
“Were you planning to let me know you were back?”
“You knew. Our friendly neighborhood cop told you, did he? But even if he hadn’t, I would have called you today. Tomorrow. Sometime.”
He smiled thinly and lowered his voice to a chilling whisper. “It wasn’t nice of you to let us think you were dead.”
“Sorry about that. I was more concerned with recovering from my injuries than with what people back here were thinking.”
His jaw tightened, his gaze narrowing. “You took something that belongs to me. A lot of things. I want them back.”
When she’d walked inside the diner, it had been only a few degrees cooler than outside. Suddenly she was so cold that she thought she might never get warm again.
Whatever Jen’s evidence was, as long as he’d thought it had disappeared with her, it was only a minor worry. Virtually any type of evidence—paper, computer CD, flash drive, photographs—would have likely been destroyed in the storm.
But if Jen survived, so did the threat to him. And that made him an even bigger threat to Jessica.
“Sorry,” she said again. “I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’d like to get some breakfast.” With a polite nod—and a private sigh of relief—she moved around him, walked to the nearest empty booth and sat down.
Taylor stood motionless for a moment, staring where she’d stood. Abruptly he came out of it and actually snapped his fingers at his men. Everyone jumped to his feet except Mitch, who rose but slowly.
When he came even with Taylor, Taylor stopped him, murmured something, then followed the rest of the officers out the door. Jaw taut, Mitch returned to his chair, settled in and picked up his coffee. He didn’t look like a happy camper.
Hands trembling and heart pounding double time with delayed reaction, Jessica ordered the morning’s special, then downed a glass of water. It was foul but still left a better taste in her mouth than the encounter with Taylor had.
Jen had warned her that coming here would be dangerous, that Taylor would kill her if he got the chance. Their brief encounter had left Jessica with no doubts about that. Taylor Burton was one very angry man. His career, his freedom and his life were at stake. He wouldn’t lose a moment’s sleep if he killed his supposed wife to protect himself.
He might want her dead but not until he recovered whatever Jen had taken.
A group of diners left and another came in, a posse of old men wearing faded work clothes and gimme caps. They headed automatically toward the large table but stopped when they saw it was occupied. One of them flagged down the nearest waitress. “It’s after nine o’clock,” he grumbled. “That’s been our table for twenty years. They get to use it before nine. Not after.”
The waitress looked at Mitch—who was ignoring them and showing no intention of leaving—shrugged helplessly and headed for the kitchen with an armful of dishes.
While the men complained among themselves none too softly, Jessica slid to her feet and walked to the table. “I take it you’re the designated…babysitter? Spy?”
Mitch studied his coffee cup for a time before meeting her gaze with open hostility. It was his only response.
“I figured. Why don’t you keep tabs on me from over there—” she gestured to her booth “—and let these gentlemen have their table.” Without waiting for an answer, she returned to her seat and began eating the breakfast that had been delivered in her absence.
He slowly stood, dropped what looked like a ten on the table, then started her way. No one else from his group had paid, she realized. They’d left their plates mostly clean and walked out without so much as a quarter for a tip. Free meals and good service—two of the benefits of being a cop, Taylor the scum used to say.
Dear God, Jen had told her so much that she felt as if she knew the man.
A moment later, the air took on a shimmer of tension, then Mitch sat down across from her. She chewed a bite of ham, took a nibble of buttered toast, then sprinkled salt and hot sauce over her hash browns. “This is some job you have, Officer Lassiter. Surveilling the boss’s wife.”
“Estranged wife,” he corrected.
She allowed a small smile. Once Hurricane Jan had blown through, Hurricane Jen would have swept Taylor right into divorce court—and, hopefully, criminal court. He would have soon been her ex-husband and grateful to see the last of her. But she hadn’t gotten the chance.
“Would you like my schedule for the day?” she asked helpfully. “When I leave here, I’m going to the bank. That should take about ten minutes. Then I need to stop by the post office—five minutes or so, depending on the line. Then the grocery store. I cleaned out the refrigerator before the hurricane, so I need to restock. Though I wouldn’t be surprised if you already knew that.”
She raised her gaze to his face, watching the muscles in his jaw tighten. “Truthfully, I wouldn’t be surprised if you people had been in my apartment on numerous occasions in the past three weeks. Searching for signs that I’d planned to evacuate, looking for clues, for evidence, for…oh, whatever might catch Taylor’s fancy.”
His hard gaze turned even harder as she murmured, “No, I wouldn’t be surprised at all.”
Chapter 2
Mitch’s coffee had long since gone cold, so he quit pretending interest in it. He was pissed off at being assigned babysitting tasks, pissed even more by Jennifer’s condescending recital of her morning plans and most of all by her implication that he’d done something wrong in checking out her apartment.
“No response, huh?” She looked as if she expected nothing more. “What is it Taylor says? ‘Admit nothing. Deny everything.’”
Yeah, he’d gone to her apartment, gotten the key from the manager, let himself in and searched the place, but it had all been part of a missing-person investigation. Taylor had met him there, and they’d looked through her closet, her drawers, her cabinets. Taylor had made a list of the obvious things missing—some clothing, two suitcases, makeup and photographs—and then he’d asked Mitch to leave him. He’d wanted time alone in the apartment.
And Mitch had left. Separated or not, Jennifer was still Taylor’s wife. He’d feared the worst from the beginning. He’d been emotional. Though not too emotional this morning upon seeing her for the first time since he’d thought she’d died.
Mitch studied her, making no effort to hide it. She looked pretty damn good in a married-minivan-soccer-mom sort of way, but he liked her better in last night’s tight jeans and snug top. There was something entirely too demure about the over-the-knee skirt and the prissy top.
Seeing that she was married, estranged or not, he should find “demure” good. He shouldn’t be thinking that she needed to show more leg, more skin in general, or that she should only wear clothes that hugged her curves.
He shouldn’t be thinking about her as a woman at all.
“You don’t have much to say about your work, do you?” Jennifer asked. “Let’s try something else. Where do you come from? You’re obviously not from around here.”
“‘Obviously’?” he echoed cynically. “I lived in Belmar from the time I was nine until I went away to college. You’d think Taylor would have mentioned that.”
Her cheeks tinged a faint pink that quickly faded. “Taylor tells people what he wants them to know when he wants them to know it. All he ever said was, ‘Bubba and I go back a long way.’ With Taylor, that can mean a month or twenty years.”
“Twenty-four years, to be exact.”
That was an accurate description of Taylor, though. Hadn’t he talked to Mitch a half-dozen times after his wedding before he’d mentioned it? Even then, he’d been stingy with information. Jennifer Randall. From California. No one you’d know. Over the next couple years he’d offered little more: they’d met on a cruise; she’d taught grade school in California; she had an older sister; she wasn’t much of a cook.
Taylor liked holding his cards close.
“Does your family still live here?” she asked.
“They never did. I lived with my grandmother. She died while I was in college.”
“I’m sorry.” She sounded as if she meant it. “So where does your family live?”
“My mother’s in Colorado. My brothers live in Georgia.”
“And your father?”
“Died when I was nine.” The child-support checks had stopped coming, and his mother had sent him to her mother. It sounded an awful lot like abandonment but hadn’t felt that way. He’d liked his grandmother and she’d liked him. Living with her had been easy.
“So you came here, but your brothers didn’t. Were you a problem child?” She asked it with a wry smile that he couldn’t read. Because she was stating the obvious or because she didn’t really believe he’d been bad enough to send away?
He smiled thinly. “I was an illegitimate child. When the old man died, his sons—my half brothers—continued to live with their mother. My mother sent me here.”
Except for the monthly checks, his father had never acknowledged him. His brothers and their mother hadn’t known he existed until Sara had come across the record of those checks when settling his estate. She had invited Mitch for regular visits, given him time with his brothers and treated him more like a son than his own mother had. She had even asked him to live with them, but he’d chosen to stay with his grandmother. Even so, he considered Sara more family than his mother.
“I’m sorry,” Jennifer said again, and he realized he’d just told her more about himself than even Taylor knew. Not good.
“Why did you come back?”
He turned the question on her. “Why did you? Half the town was betting that the storm would be the shove you needed to leave Belmar and Taylor for good.”
“And what did you think?”
“I didn’t. Frankly it didn’t matter to me either way.” A lie. He’d been curious. Had thought it one hell of a waste if she was dead. Had hoped if she was alive, she was smart enough to stay gone. Had thought she deserved better than Taylor.
“You didn’t answer,” he reminded her. “Why did you come back?”
She poked her fork at the last bits of hash browns on the plate, then laid it down and pushed both away. “I had unfinished business here.”
Her only business in Belmar, unfinished or otherwise, was with Taylor. Settling matters between them? Divorce? Reconciliation? Revenge?
He figured Taylor’s interests lay more in line with revenge. People didn’t go without his say-so. If an officer decided to leave the department, Taylor fired him before he got the chance. Back in college, when word had gotten out that he was going to be cut from the football team, he’d quit first. He wouldn’t have liked that Jennifer had left him. He’d want to win her back, if for no other reason than so he could turn around and leave her.
Hey, no one had ever accused Taylor of maturity.
“You should have gone back to California with your sister,” Mitch said flatly.
She glanced at the check, then left a generous tip on the table before meeting his gaze again, hers straight, blue, steady. “Is that a threat, Officer Lassiter?”
He kept his gaze just as straight and steady. “Why, ma’am, I’m an officer of the law. I don’t make threats.”
Her snort showed just what she thought of that. His brief experience with the Belmar Police Department—two months and counting—supported her opinion.
There had to be some advantage to a job that paid what this one did, Billy Starrett often repeated.
He followed her to the counter, where she paid her ticket, then out the door. Her car was parked down the street; his was around the corner. She walked a few feet away, then turned back. “Remember—bank, post office, grocery store.” Then, with a smirk, she walked off.
Damn Taylor for giving him this order. Mitch had better things to do, things that actually fell under his job description. Using department assets to find out what the chief’s wife was up to wasn’t exactly appropriate. But, when compared to all the other inappropriate things going on within the department, this one didn’t begin to matter.
He climbed into his unit, switched the AC to high, then fastened his seat belt. He’d spent more years in a patrol car than he wanted to count at the moment. With a shotgun secured to the dash, a heavy-duty flashlight in the passenger seat, the radio, the computer and the extra handcuffs tossed onto the console, he felt comfortable here, more than anywhere else in Belmar.
There were three banks in town, but he didn’t have to guess which one Jennifer was going to. She tapped the horn as she drove past, just to make sure he didn’t miss her. She was entirely too accommodating about being watched to be up to anything. It promised to be a long, boring morning.
She went inside the bank and spent eleven minutes and got in and out of the post office, with a handful of mail, in six. Her next stop was the grocery store nearest the apartments. He parked behind her car and across the aisle and watched as she went in.
Ten minutes passed. Fifteen. The engine was running and so was the AC, but the temperature inside the car was steadily rising. Southern Mississippi was always hot and humid in September but seemed even more so that morning. Maybe it was Hurricane Leo, idling out in the gulf, deciding which way to blow. Maybe it was this assignment, being used as a babysitter—spy—on city time, that was making him hot. Or, hell, maybe it was the whole damn job.
Restless and needing to do something that felt productive, he called in the tag on her car to the dispatcher, Megan, who ran it and notified him, predictably, that it came back to a rental company. He asked her to call the company and find out who had rented it. She said something to someone there in the office before replying affirmatively, and he recognized her voice from last night’s call to Taylor.
So Megan was sleeping with the chief. Great for job security…until she did something to tick him off or he found someone he wanted more. Like his wife?
It took a few minutes for Megan to call back with the info, and she did so on his cell phone. “The car was rented by Jessica Randall, who lives in Los Angeles. You think she’s related to Taylor’s wife?”
You think?
“I know she’s back. What do you think she wants? Where has she been? What has she been doing?” Dispatcher and department gossip—Megan’s unofficial title.
“You’ll have to ask Taylor. Thanks for the info.” Mitch hung up as a vision of blond hair, golden skin and frilly clothing came out of the grocery store, only one small bag in hand, and started his way. He rolled down the window as she neared. “Why is your car rented in your sister’s name? Why didn’t you do it?”
Dark glasses covered her eyes, hiding their expression. He wore dark shades, too, but she wouldn’t be able to read any more if she were looking straight into his eyes.
“What do you need to rent a car, Officer?”
“Driver’s license and credit card.”
“And what did you find inside my washed-away car besides two suitcases, some jewelry, cosmetics and a few mementos?”
Her purse, with her driver’s license and credit cards.
“Jess rented it for me before she left. She knows I’m good for it. And speaking of good…” She held up the shopping bag a moment before depositing it in his lap. “I realized this is going to take me a while, so I thought you might need to cool off.”
One part of his anatomy was quickly turning ice-cold until he lifted the bag and looked inside. It held a bottle of chilled water and an ice cream sandwich.
For the first time in a long time, he was taken by surprise. Under the circumstances, she was the last person he would have expected a thoughtful gesture from. “I—thank you.”
She flashed a smile. “I’ll be out soon as I can.” She strolled back into the store, long legs taking long steps, hips swaying. When had he ever seen Jennifer Burton stroll? When had he ever watched her do anything?
God, he needed a break. A date. A woman.
Any woman who could make him forget all about his boss’s wife.
Jessica loaded more groceries and cleaning supplies than she could possibly use into the trunk of the rental, climbed behind the wheel and glanced at Mitch before backing out. He’d finally shut off the engine and rolled down the windows and he looked hot. Sweat dotted his forehead and likely dampened his shirt as well as his hair. Damp was a good look on him. Wet would probably make her steam.
The cell phone beeped and she punched the speaker button. “It’s about time you called.”
“How’s it going?” Jen asked, her voice ethereal and disembodied through the small speaker.
“I met Taylor this morning and he’s a jerk. What a loser.”
“Oh, I thought he was amazing when we met. He was so handsome and charming and adorable.” She sighed. “Of course, I didn’t know then what I know now.”
“I also met your next-door neighbor.”
“Mrs. Foster? She’s kind of a pain—oh, you mean Mitch Lassiter.”
Who was also kind of a pain, Jessica thought with another glance in the rearview mirror.
“You know you can’t trust him.”
“As if I need you to tell me that.” Bad cop or not, Taylor’s friend or not, Mitch Lassiter was the sort of man any smart woman watched out for. Handsome enough to make Taylor look like a toad, sexy enough, too, but lacking in charm, and adorable simply wasn’t in the vocabulary that applied to him. He was dark. Hard. Dangerous.
And, according to Jen, if not already on Taylor’s payroll in more ways than one, soon to be. No matter how handsome and sexy, a corrupt cop…she just couldn’t stomach that.
“Do you have a plan?”
Jessica laughed. “Yeah. Getting the groceries out of this heat and into the kitchen while Officer Mitch sears to a crisp in the parking lot.”
“Taylor has him watching you.”
“Bingo.” Jessica turned into the Sand Dollar, slowed to about five miles per hour and drove to the rear of the building.
“You can’t search for anything with him watching you.”
“I can start inside the apartment, though I’m pretty sure he and Taylor have already checked it out.” He’d refused to confirm or deny it over breakfast, but it stood to reason. Jen had been missing; they were cops. Knowing that Taylor had been inside the apartment Jessica was temporarily calling home, touching things that she was touching, looking at the clothes she was wearing, was creepy. Knowing that Mitch had created an inappropriate sensation all its own.
“Listen, I’m home and Officer Mitch is pulling in beside me. Give me a call later.” She disconnected and climbed out before he’d had a chance to shut off the motor. She opened the apartment door first, the metal hot enough to burn, then carried two handfuls of bags inside to the kitchen counter.
When she turned, he was blocking her way, sunglasses off and the rest of the bags in his strong grip. She swallowed hard, her chest tight, backing up until the refrigerator stopped her and giving him access to the countertop.
She’d been right about the sweat dampening his hair and his shirt—right that hot and sweaty was a good look for him. Of course, the way he’d gotten hot and sweaty could make it an even better look, she thought, then chided herself. He was the enemy, remember? It was a given that everyone who worked for Taylor was on his side. Trust no one, Jen had intoned, and she hadn’t laughed when Jessica had. She’d been deadly serious.
If Jessica didn’t keep her guard up, she could end up seriously dead.
He set down the bags, then retreated to the dining table, and suddenly she could breathe again. “Th-thank you.” For carrying in the bags? Or for giving her space? She didn’t know. Didn’t care.
He shrugged as if both his actions and her words meant nothing.
“Tell your boss I’m planning to spend the rest of the day at home, so you’ll be free to do your real job.”
Something flashed through his eyes—annoyance, perhaps. With her for being smug? Or with Taylor for assigning him to such a mundane task? “I don’t think he’s likely to take your word for it.”
“Well, if he makes you stay, at least you can stay inside. You won’t die of heat exhaustion. I keep it cool.”
Where had that come from? The last thing she needed was a cop hanging around while she looked for evidence that would incriminate his boss and quite likely him—and the last thing she wanted was more time in his company.
He gave her a narrow look, assessing, as if he might discover her ulterior motive for the invitation if he looked hard enough. Abruptly, though, he turned away. “The heat’s not going to kill me.”
It felt as if the statement was unfinished—but something else might—but that was all he said. With a muttered, “Later,” he left the apartment, and this time he closed the door behind him. A moment later, she heard the distant thud of her trunk closing. She walked to the window and peeked through the crack in the drapes and saw him leaning against a tree barely tall enough to support his weight in the tiny lawn next to her car, his cell phone to his ear, no doubt calling Taylor.
Now there was a conversation she would love to eavesdrop on.
She was still standing there, minutes after he’d ended his call, when another police car rolled around the corner. It stopped behind her car, and Mitch walked over to talk for a moment to the man behind the wheel. Then he got into his own car, backed out and drove away, and the new guy took his space, right next to her rental.
The guy was probably older than he looked—he looked about eighteen—and wore mirrored sunglasses above a scraggly mustache. He’d been with Taylor in the diner that morning, which meant he wasn’t to be trusted. What was the world coming to, some TV show character had once asked, when you couldn’t even trust the police to be honest?
Amen to that.
She double locked the door, closed that little gap in the drapes, then returned to the kitchen. Except for a few frozen dinners, most of her food purchases had been of the junk-food variety. She and Jen had been blessed with a good metabolism that allowed them to eat that way without worrying about their weight. There at the end, Jen had been spitefully pleased that Taylor tended to get fat if he didn’t exercise religiously and stay away from sweets.
What about Mitch? Those muscles hadn’t appeared out of thin air, but did he work out because he needed to or simply liked to?
“What does it matter?” Jessica asked aloud, loading her voice with every ounce of frustration. “He’s one of the bad guys, remember? Just this morning you were criticizing Jen for falling for a pretty face, yet you’re on the verge of doing the same thing.”
Letting out a low, annoyed growl, she turned, hands on her hips, to survey the living room. It was time to start searching. She knew Taylor’s men had already searched the apartment and had, presumably, found nothing. That meant one of three things: Jen had hidden it extraordinarily well, in plain sight or someplace else.
She had her work cut out for her.
Wishing she could open the drapes and let in the sun without the kid cop being able to see, she turned on every light in the room—and discovered the reason the lamps at either end of the sofa hadn’t worked the night before: they were unplugged from the wall. Jen had always unplugged things like hair dryers and can openers before leaving the house, believing they were fire hazards. With a faint smile, Jessica stuck the plugs back into the outlets and the lights immediately came on.
After plugging in the television, she tuned it to a music channel, then started her search. It was a good thing the apartment was so small. Because she intended to do a very thorough job.
“Is he in?” Mitch asked as he passed Megan. Without interrupting her broadcast, she nodded in the direction of Taylor’s office.
He wound between desks, passed the interrogation room and paused long enough for a sharp rap at the door before opening it and inviting himself inside.
Taylor leaned back in his chair, hands folded over his stomach. “Well?”
After moving a stack of files from the lone chair that fronted the desk, Mitch sat down and made his report—every stop Jennifer had made, why and for how long. The only parts he left out were the ice cream and his helping carry in her groceries. There wasn’t any reason not to tell him about either. Mitch just didn’t want to.
That done, he said, “As long as she knows she’s being watched, she won’t do anything interesting, so I’m going out on patrol.”
“That’s fine for now. I’ve got Jimmy Ray over there. Sitting in the car watching the apartment just might be what he does best.”
What Jimmy Ray did best, Mitch thought, was threaten people. He looked so young, so harmless, that no one suspected he was mean as the devil until it was too late. Not that he would ever do anything without Taylor’s order. Tough as he was, he knew Taylor was tougher.
“But I want you to watch her at night and on weekends.”
Mitch stared. He’d like to believe Taylor wasn’t serious, but he’d lost whatever illusions he’d had about his old friend weeks ago. “I’m not being paid—”
“You will be.” Taylor’s voice was as level as his expression. “You keep an eye on Jennifer on your time off and you’ll find a nice raise in your next paycheck.”
Mitch settled back, crossing one ankle over the other knee. “Using department resources and department money to investigate your wife… And I suppose if I find anything that could be useful, say, in a divorce, that would probably earn me a nice departmental bonus, wouldn’t it?”
“I’m not worried about a divorce,” Taylor said dismissively. “You have a problem with making some extra cash?”
Mitch considered it, then lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “Depends on how much cash we’re talking.”
“It’ll be enough. Trust me. Just keep an eye on her. She’s a beautiful woman. It won’t be hard. Okay?”
Again Mitch waited a beat before agreeing. “Okay.”
He was at the door before Taylor softly added, “Bubba? Just an eye. You lay a hand on her…I’d hate to consider the consequences, what with you and me going back so far.”
Mitch opened the door, then glanced back. “I don’t fool around with married women.” He looked pointedly in Megan’s direction. “There’s something about those vows…”
Taylor didn’t even look uncomfortable, much less guilty.
As Mitch returned to his car, he wondered what had happened to Taylor over the years. His parents were still together after some forty years; they spent summers in Alaska and winters in South Florida and they’d always seemed happy. His father had been a lawyer, his mother a stay-at-home mom, and in their retirement they did regular volunteer work with children’s charities in both states.
Through high school and college he and Mitch had had far more in common than not. They’d shared an apartment, taken the same classes, even had the same plans of going into law enforcement. Taylor had returned home to Belmar, though, while Mitch had gone to Atlanta for big-city police work within a few hours’ drive of his brothers.
Somewhere along the way, though, Taylor had changed. He’d become more controlling, more self-centered, less honest. He’d always been a little on the wild side and more than a little full of himself, but within limits. Back then he’d given a damn about something besides himself and power and money. Mitch felt as if he hardly knew him anymore.
Felt as if he hardly knew himself.
One thing about working law enforcement in a town where most of the police department was corrupt—there wasn’t much other crime to investigate. Since coming to Belmar, Mitch’s days were mostly spent writing traffic citations, with the occasional teenage vandalism, burglary or drug bust. People on the chief’s good side got special attention when they were the victim of a crime and a blind eye when they went speeding through town. That had been the toughest problem Mitch had faced since coming to town—keeping straight who was on the chief’s good side.
Until Jennifer had returned.
“Don’t lay a hand on her,” he scoffed. As if he needed to be told. He’d kicked Taylor’s ass twenty-four years ago and could easily do so again in a fair fight. Not that Taylor fought fair. He used his badge, his authority and his department to intimidate and frighten. He was rarely seen without one or more of his officers. He believed in making a show of force and in letting others do his dirty work.
That was the man Mitch had called friend for twenty-four years.
He drove to the north edge of town, where an abandoned gas station stood across the street from a big, relatively new truck stop. What the station owner hadn’t hauled away, thieves had, and vandals had broken the rest. The only thing that still worked on the premises was the pay phone, only because it was around the corner, on the side of the building where weeds grew tall. He backed his car into the weeds, beaten down because it was one of his few routines. With the highway coming into town and the speed limit dropping from fifty-five to thirty in the space of a few hundred yards, it was a good spot to work radar.
Leaving the coolness of his car, he dropped a few coins into the pay phone, then dialed his brother’s cell phone.
“Calloway.” Loud music played in the background, raunchy and punctuated by louder, rowdier male voices.
“Jeez, it’s not even noon and you’re already in a strip joint?”
“It’s noon somewhere,” Rick said. “Besides, I get paid to be here. I’m tending bar. You still in Mississippi?”
“Where else?”
“How does the small time compare to Atlanta?”
“I’m more likely to die of boredom here than there.”
“Yeah. Some guy gets bored and shoots you to liven up his day.”
Mitch had heard the joke before, but he still grinned. Wouldn’t that be something—after eleven years on the streets in Atlanta, to get killed in the line of duty in a nowhere place like Belmar. “The only person liable to shoot me down here is my boss, and that’s only if I get too friendly with his wife.”
“She worth getting shot over?”
He didn’t even need to close his eyes to summon up an image of Jennifer in last night’s second-skin jeans and sweater. When he’d first come up behind her in the dark, he’d smelled her fragrance, subtle, just enough to tease a man, and felt the heat radiating from her before he’d taken a step back for safety. His, not hers.
“She could be, if she wasn’t married,” he replied, earning a grunt from Rick. Funny thing about Mitch and the Calloway boys—having a father who wouldn’t keep it in his pants had given the meaning of fidelity one hell of an impact. He hadn’t been kidding when he’d told Taylor there was something about those marriage vows.
“Other than the boss being a tad possessive about his wife, how’s it going down there?”
“Okay. He offered me a raise if I keep an eye on her.”
“She’s worth getting shot for, and he’s not sticking close enough to keep track of her himself?”
“They’re separated. Remember? She went missing in the hurricane, he thought she was dead. She’s not and she’s back, and he wants to know everything she does.”
“Why doesn’t he hire a private investigator who specializes in divorce cases?”
“When he can let the city pay me to watch her?” Mitch scowled as a car sped past on the way into town. The city manager’s teenage son was behind the wheel and he was at least twenty miles over the limit. Lucky for the brat that his father was on Taylor’s good side.
“Funny thing,” he went on. “Taylor’s not worried about a divorce.”
Rick was silent for a moment, considering that. Mitch thought about it, too. Taylor didn’t have a prenup—he’d mentioned that before. He had a lot of assets, most of which couldn’t have been funded by his salary. It was hard to imagine that he could possibly have anything on Jennifer that would make her walk away from the marriage with nothing. Taylor, guilty of something worthy of blackmail? Sure. No doubt. Jennifer? No way.
“Maybe he plans to win her back,” Rick suggested.
“Maybe.” Or maybe he had other plans for her. But this was neither the time nor the place to discuss that in depth. Anywhere else in the country, phone calls, especially from pay phones, were relatively safe as far as privacy. But Belmar wasn’t anywhere else.
“Well, there are worse people that could be watching her.”
“And worse people to have to watch.” But damned if he could think of a single one. If there was a woman in town with the ability to screw with his concentration the way Jennifer had, he hadn’t met her yet.
“When you get that raise, why don’t you come up here and take us out for a weekend on the town?”
“Isn’t that a night on the town?” Mitch asked drily.
Rick snorted. “A night’s not even enough to get started. Mom said to tell you she misses your ugly mug and she wants to know when you’re coming to visit.”
“I’ll call her when I get a chance.”
“Yeah, just be careful what you say.”
Mitch rolled his eyes. What was it with people stating the obvious to him? Did he look that dumb? “Jeez, thanks for the advice. I probably would have blurted out everything, going all the way back to that pretty blonde who lived across the street from you guys and taught me everything a fifteen-year-old boy could bear to know when I spent the summer there.”
Rick gave a low whistle. “Kayla Conrad. Son, she taught all of us all we could bear to know. Man, I haven’t thought of her in years. Tell you what—you stay there in Mississippi and I’ll go home for a visit. I’ll give Mom—and Kayla—your best.”
“You do that.” Though if anyone could take his mind off the crappy state of his life at the moment, it might be Kayla.
Jennifer could make him forget. For a while. Then they would put their clothes back on and come back to their senses, and life would be even crappier because he would have broken one of the few rules he lived by. Taylor would find out and Mitch would suffer the consequences—and with people like Jimmy Ray on Taylor’s payroll, suffer was definitely the right word.
Scowling, he said goodbye to his brother, then returned to the car and switched on the radar unit. He was frustrated and annoyed, a prime combination for writing traffic tickets.
Taylor might be paying him illegally from the city’s coffers. But at least Mitch would know he’d done his best to increase those coffers first.
Chapter 3
A minute shy of six o’clock, Jessica ran out of steam.
She’d taken every CD and DVD out of its case, checking for original labels, and flipped through the pages of every book. She’d looked behind every picture and painting and underneath every shelf and drawer. She’d unzipped the sofa and chair cushions and tipped the furniture upside down, searched for loose tiles in the kitchen and bathroom and crawled the perimeter of the apartment checking for places where the carpet might have been pulled up. She’d heaved the mattress and the springs off the bed, dragged the frame from the wall so she could see behind it and taken every single item from every drawer, cabinet and the closet.
In the process, she’d discovered that Jen had been an amazing housekeeper, gotten hot and dirty and found nothing. Now, after a shower, she was calling it quits for the evening and heading out to dinner. Snacks could only take a woman so far.
“Going somewhere?”
She started as she locked the door but thought she did a decent job of hiding it. Letting her key ring dangle from one finger, she turned to find Mitch kicked back in a folding lounge chair underneath the scrawny oak. He wore denim shorts, faded and soft, and a Belmar High School basketball jersey that looked about twenty years out of date.
He looked incredibly hot—and she didn’t mean his temperature.
“To dinner.” She moved to the edge of the grass, wishing she were barefoot like him and could curl her toes into the cool green growth. There she could see a beer can on the ground next to the chair and a book open in his lap. She recognized it as the one she’d read on her last flight from Hong Kong—a thriller about a vulnerable woman taking on police corruption.
She chose to ignore the book. “Drinking on duty. Why am I not surprised?”
“Not much surprises you, does it?”
She shrugged.
He picked up the can, drained the beer, then crumpled the aluminum. “I’m not on duty.”
“Uh-huh. After following me around town this morning, you just happen to be sitting outside my door now by coincidence?”
“No coincidence. I sit out here most nights. I’ve been doing it since I moved in here—which, by the way, was before you moved in. Look.” He rolled to his feet with more grace than any man should show and lifted the chair easily in one hand. “There are places worn in the grass from the legs.”
The three faint lines showing where the chair had spent many hours were impossible to deny. So was the foolish feeling that curled through her. You could have told me that, Jen.
Of course, there was no response from her sister.
“I’m going to that little barbecue place out on the east side of town,” she said. “In case you lose sight of my car on the way.”
Tilting his head, he studied her a moment before saying, “I told you, I’m not working. But if you want my company for dinner, all you have to do is say so.”
She blinked at the remark, thoroughly unexpected. She wanted his company like she wanted a hole in her head. He was Taylor’s buddy. The enemy. Not to be trusted.
But someone was going to be watching her. Better him than the creepy kid who’d hung around part of the morning and all afternoon. Even with the drapes drawn, she’d known the kid was there, had felt his presence.
“I assume this restaurant requires shoes and a real shirt.”
“This is a real shirt,” he protested.
She looked at the jersey. Truthfully, it was perfectly adequate, particularly in a beach town. But it showed a lot of smooth brown skin and muscle and sinew and all that other sexy physical stuff. She would be lucky to taste her dinner, and the same could probably be said for any other female diners in the restaurant. Since she was a firm believer that barbecue, especially Southern barbecue, required all of a diner’s attention, she repeated, “Shoes and a real shirt.”
Scowling, he carried the chair, book and can into his apartment, then returned two minutes later wearing a pair of disreputable running shoes without socks and a black T-shirt with the same denim shorts.
He still looked hot.
“We’ll take my car,” he announced.
Jennifer was used to Taylor making unilateral decisions. Jessica was used to making decisions for herself. “What if I want to drive?”
He looked from the Mustang to the rental and his lip curled in a sneer. “Yeah, right.”
He was right. The temperature had dropped by fifteen degrees, but it was still a warm evening, with a nice breeze blowing in off the gulf. Who in their right mind would choose the standard rental-car sedan over a vintage Mustang convertible?
He headed toward the Mustang. It took her a moment to get her feet moving. Somewhere deep inside her brain she was sure both her sister and her conscience were telling her what a bad idea this was, but some other part of her she didn’t even want to put a name to—the risk taker? the woman? the fool?—was sticking her fingers in her metaphorical ears and babbling to block them out. It was just a short ride to the restaurant. Dinner. A short ride back. They would actually be alone ten, fifteen minutes tops. No big deal.
The Mustang’s leather seats were midnight-blue to match the exterior and still held the sun’s heat. She settled into the passenger seat, squirming a little, and fastened the seat belt. As Mitch started the engine, she dug a pair of sunglasses from her purse, put them on, then glanced at him. “Is it supposed to vibrate like that or is something wrong?”
He gave her a look she’d seen before—the condescending car guy pitying the uninformed noncar guy. “Nothing’s wrong.”
She wasn’t about to admit it, but she kind of liked the quiet rumble that all but growled “power.” She wondered how fast the car would go, how a hundred and twenty miles an hour would feel through her hair, whether he ever kicked it up and let it out. She liked the sun on her face, as well, and the feeling of openness and freedom. Maybe she would buy a convertible when she returned to Los Angeles…and choke on all that L.A. smog.
She was enjoying the ride enough that it took her a few moments to realize that they weren’t headed east. She looked around, not recognizing the road he’d turned on, then jerked her gaze to him. “This isn’t the way to the barbecue place.”
“This is the way to my favorite barbecue place. It’s better.”
“But—” She swallowed hard, the skin on her neck prickling. The street they were on was apparently part of Belmar’s poorer side of town. While the downtown area held a certain old-fashioned charm and the highways leading into town were the stereotypical gas station/motel/ fast-food strips, these blocks were just shabby. The businesses were run-down, built of cinder blocks or occupying converted old houses. The houses themselves were dilapidated, as well, and interspersed with the businesses, as if the concept of residential versus commercial hadn’t made it to this neighborhood.
“Relax,” Mitch said, then suddenly grinned wolfishly. “Trust me.”
Yeah, right.
As buildings of any sort came farther and fewer between and her heart rate started edging into double time, he slowed and turned into a gravel-and-shell parking lot. Down Home Q had once been someone’s home, with a steeply pitched tin roof and a wraparound porch. The roof was streaked red with rust, the siding aged to silver. If paint had ever coated the boards, there wasn’t so much as a flake remaining. Dark screens covered the open windows, and music and voices drifted out, along with tantalizing aromas.
Mitch parked at the end of a ragged row of cars, and they climbed the steps to the porch, where a screen door opened into the foyer, now a waiting area. The floors were wide planks of wood, the finish worn over the years, and faded cabbage-rose paper covered the walls. A wide doorway to the left opened into one dining room, a similar door on the right led to another and a hallway straight ahead went into the kitchen.
For a moment Jessica again debated the wisdom of coming here with him. Hadn’t she been stared at enough for one day? Then she took another look around. Down Home Q wasn’t Taylor’s sort of restaurant. Jen had given her pretty much the minutiae of his likes and dislikes, and this place hadn’t been mentioned at all. So far, none of the diners, plentiful in both rooms, had given them more than a disinterested glance.
A young girl came from the kitchen, her broad grin doubly bright against her ebony skin. She was about twelve, tall and gangly, waiting to grow into both her body and her beauty. “Hey, you. Daddy’s been wonderin’ where you are. Pick a table, and I’ll see if I can find someone willin’ to wait on you.”
“Aw, Shandra, you know your older sisters all fight to wait on me,” Mitch said with a wink.
She pretended to be unimpressed, but the corner of her mouth was twitching with a smile. “Yeah, you bein’ such a good tipper and all.”
“We’ll be outside.”
Mitch Lassiter, Taylor’s thug, teasing with a twelve-year-old girl. Not much surprises you, he’d told Jessica earlier, but that did.
She followed him back out the door and around the corner. There were two tables on the porch there, each with four chairs, and a box fan was braced on the railing and turned to low.
“To discourage the bugs,” he said as he sat down.
She sat opposite him, out of reach of the sun’s setting rays. The chairs were metal, mismatched and painted different shades. The table was metal, too, sporting layer upon layer of paint. The most recent was lavender; chipped places showed flamingo-pink underneath. In the center were salt and pepper shakers, a bottle of pepper sauce, ketchup, a roll of paper towels and packets of moist towelettes.
She folded her hands on the tabletop, moved them to her lap, then rested her arms on the chair arms. “The food smells good.”
“It’s the best you’ll find in town.”
She thought of the familiarity with which the girl had greeted him and the mention of her father. “You’re a regular?”
“I’m here two or three times a week. Willis’s barbecue is the best part of coming back to Belmar.”
“I hope that says more about my cooking than it does the town.” A tall, round man, presumably Willis, set two glasses and a pitcher of iced tea in front of them, then offered a menu to Jessica. “I’m Willis Pickering.”
“Jennifer Burton.”
His gaze cut to Mitch only for an instant, then he shook the hand she offered. “I know what Mitch wants—once he finds something he likes, he doesn’t change—but I’ll give you a minute to look over the menu.”
“That’s all right.” She set the menu aside. “I’ll have what he’s having.”
“Two megaplatters coming up.”
After he left, Mitch remarked, “Maybe you should have looked at the menu.”
“I’m sure I’ll like whatever I get. I’m easy to please.”
He practically choked on his tea at that, tightening the muscles in her jaw. Jen had always been as easygoing as they came. She’d never asked for much out of life—a job she liked, good friends and family, someone to love. That big house, the new BMW, the expensive gems and fussy clothes—those hadn’t been her choices. She would have been happy living in a trailer park wearing hand-me-downs as long as she loved her husband and he loved her back.
“Have you known Willis long?”
“Since middle school. We played football together.”
“So he knows Taylor.”
“Everyone in the county knows Taylor.”
“And he doesn’t like him.”
Mitch shrugged.
“Most people in the county don’t like Taylor,” she said, mimicking his tone and his shrug.
That had been Jen’s first clue that something wasn’t quite right. From the beginning it had been clear that a lot of the people Taylor was sworn to serve and protect didn’t think too highly of him—or of her for marrying him. There had been subtle digs, discomfort, sometimes outright hostility. It had bewildered her—she’d always gotten along well with everyone—but she’d written it off as an occupational hazard. Police chiefs made enemies.
Especially, she’d learned nearly three years later, corrupt ones.
Jessica pushed that subject to the back of her mind. “So Willis is about your age and he has multiple teenage daughters. Did he get an early start or are you the late bloomer here?”
Mitch shifted to prop his feet on the chair between them. “His wife had their first girl about three weeks after graduation and had another every year after until Shandra was born. She’s number four.”
“And you haven’t even got number one yet.” Not that he struck her as a particularly paternal man. She would have to see past his sexy-as-sin exterior to put him in the role of doting father—and she was having trouble with that. Enough trouble to be a concern…later.
“Nope, no kids. I did have one marriage, though. It started out great but ended when we realized we had nothing in common anymore.”
“How long did that take?”
“Four years to find out. Another to do anything about it.” His brow furrowed as he frowned at her. “You’re pretty good at getting me to volunteer information I don’t normally share.”
She coaxed a faint smile and shrugged again. “I used to teach third grade. My students always found me easy to talk to.”
“You’re comparing me to a third-grader?”
His mildly insulted tone strengthened her smile. “I think most men have quite a lot in common with third-graders. And second-graders. And kindergartners.”
“So why aren’t you teaching here?”
Jen had wanted to teach. She’d wanted to do anything besides sit home alone all day or socialize with Starla Starrett and the few others on Taylor’s approved-friends list. But Taylor had refused. How would it look if his wife was working instead of home where she belonged?
Because she didn’t like the answer to the question, Jessica ignored it, returning instead to a comment Mitch had made earlier. “So you played football. And basketball. Were you any good?”
“Good enough to get a football scholarship to Ole Miss. I played two years, had surgery on my knee, decided I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life limping around and quit.”
“I don’t like football. Or basketball. Or baseball, golf, fishing, tennis, track…”
“Don’t be shy,” he said drily. “For years I lived football and basketball. I’m a die-hard Braves fan. And the first thing my brothers and I do when I go for a visit is head out on the river to fish a few hours.”
“Your half brothers.”
Mitch took another drink of tea, brewed strong and sweet enough to put a diabetic in a coma, and wondered why she stressed the “half” part. Did she have half or step-siblings that she didn’t like to give the same acknowledgment as her real sister?
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