Unforgettable
Molly Rice
She Was Seduced By Her Past…Stacy Millman's search was supposed to lead to her family's secrets–not to a romantic fantasy! But there was no avoiding the rugged and oh-so-seductive Derek Chancelor. His small-town charm quickly captured her big-city heart. But how would the sexy sheriff react when he learned the real reason she'd come to town?He Was Seduced By Her Presence…First the red-haired siren lured him under her spell. Then she unveiled her hidden agenda–and Derek found himself caught between love and the law. There was no way he could help Stacy uncover her family's secret…without exposing one of his own.
Unforgettable
Molly Rice
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
This book is dedicated to the babies: Myranda Sequoia Adams, Matthew Eugene Goepfert and Ashleigh Morgan Edwards—last, but not least—with my love.
And to Debra Matteucci, Bonnie Crisalli and Barbara White-Rayczek, the kind of editors who help a writer keep the faith. Thank you.
And to my very first official fan, Cindi Loudermilk.
Contents
Chapter One (#ua9bba9f8-37c6-5f86-8d67-0a96907bcb9a)
Chapter Two (#u67b5e3e9-01ce-5644-a05a-ea7555c7ebc3)
Chapter Three (#ud4247342-4c66-5b1a-a81f-0a49696b298f)
Chapter Four (#u291400f8-c7ab-5981-9b28-3a41649ca129)
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)
Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter One
The scene shimmered and blurred and then came into focus. There was a road that seemed to go on forever and along the side, a sign.
She tried to read the sign but found her vision too blurred to make sense of the letters. She looked around.
There was a twisted tree near the sign and its branches brushed the ground like fingers searching for hold. Stacy felt herself walking along the road, could feel the gravel crunching beneath her feet, smelled the goldenrod waving in the breeze. But when she looked down at herself, she couldn’t see her body, nor the feet that trod the road. She turned in a circle. Turned, turned, turned. Dizziness. She fell and in the falling...
* * *
STACY GRASPED the next rung of the ladder and laid her forehead against her hand. One, two, three... She lifted her head, forcing herself to focus. She was in her own studio, standing on a ladder, a long-handled, paint-laden brush in her hand, working on her latest painting, a huge, detailed landscape created from the watercolor studies she’d done on-site the previous summer. She slid down the ladder on rubbery legs and stuck the brush in a can of turpentine before she stumbled over to the old davenport across the room beneath the wall of windows. Warm sunlight caressed her hair, and she waited for it to obliterate the chill that seemed to form from within even as she wiped the dampness of perspiration from her face with the paint-stained rag she kept in her overalls pocket.
There was a phone on a wobbly three-legged table next to the sofa. When it rang, she jumped. She leaned to the side and grabbed the receiver, knocking the table over in the process.
She swore vehemently as she bent to retrieve the table and almost dropped the phone.
“A simple hello would do it for me,” her agent, Beth Harri, drawled.
“That’s how I’d feel about a simple goodbye,” Stacy retorted.
“Don’t hang up, Stacy,” Beth shouted as Stacy was about to do just that.
Sighing heavily, she put the receiver back to her ear. “You’ve got thirty seconds. Go!”
“I got you a show and they want to hang a dozen of your paintings and a couple of dozen studies and watercolors and you’re booked for the third of December and that means you’ll get the big holiday play in the press as well as the street traffic and—”
“Whoa!” Stacy interrupted. She sat back and stared at the receiver. Gingerly she returned it to her ear, a doubtful expression on her face. “Start over. Slow.”
Beth repeated her good news, slowly, happily enunciating every word.
“The third of December?” Stacy counted under her breath, using her fingers. “That’s nine months away.”
“Are you saying you can’t turn in a measly dozen paintings in nine months?”
Stacy frowned. “I have six finished and one on its way. I guess they’ll be dry by then.” She looked over at the unfinished seventh and shook her head. “I don’t know, Beth. Maybe if I did the last five in acrylic.”
“Do it. I’ve been telling you for years, acrylic is as compelling and expressive in its own way. You’re just addicted to the smell of turpentine.”
“I know. If I go without it for a couple of days, I start seeing things.” Another chill shook her as she recalled the strange vision she’d had. She had to force herself to concentrate on what Beth was saying.
“Hey, I’ve an idea. Why don’t you paint some of those things you see, we could offer them up as ‘fantasies of a turp-starved artist.’”
They shared laughter, Stacy’s a bit shaky.
“Hey, Stace, what’s the matter? You don’t sound as thrilled as I expected.”
It began to sink in. This was the big career push she’d worked so hard for, for so many years. And Beth had worked just as hard, always believing in Stacy’s talent.
Beth deserved a better reaction than she’d given her.
Taking a deep breath to steady herself, Stacy put her legs up under her, tailor fashion, and leaned against the couch cushions. She curled a lock of her red hair around her finger.
“So, Harri, how about we do the big celebration number. You can buy since you’re going to be coming into this whopping commission in December.”
“When can we stop pretending that I’m rich and you’re broke?” Beth whined.
Stacy laughed, unremorseful. “C’mon, Beth, we both know you’re sleeping on a fortune. When are you going to get up off that mattress and take the stuff to the bank?”
“If I do that, then everyone will know what I’m actually worth,” Beth said slyly.
Stacy laughed. “I knew it. Wait till I tell the gang.”
“Okay,” Beth grumbled, “I’ll treat. And you, Stacy, you keep your mouth shut and try to show up in something besides overalls.”
They set a time and place. As she hung up, still chuckling, Stacy glanced again at the landscape on the opposite wall. The remnants of humor faded from her face and she stared, puzzled, at the painting. Something was out of synch. She unfolded her legs and got up to go to her easel. The studies she’d done were taped along the sides of the tall, studio-style wooden easel. She glanced from study to painting and back again.
All of a sudden she snapped her fingers. “There it is!” She tore the study from the easel and carried it up the ladder. There was no doubt about it, the painting on the wall was slowly changing, no longer a copy of the watercolor sketch. She’d remained true to the colors but added things that weren’t there. Like a gnarled tree alongside the road, and from the highest branch...
“What is that?” She leaned forward, touching thick wet paint. “A rope?” She slid down the ladder, still clutching the watercolor, and bounded across the room to get perspective on the oil painting.
It was a rope! It dangled from the limb, but she had a sense that it was about to be knotted into a noose. And she had put it there.
“Why?” She frowned. “And when?” Her words, spoken aloud, seemed to echo in the quiet studio.
A tremor of fear swept over her skin and she staggered back to the couch.
Had someone come into her studio and played a practical joke? Was she losing her mind? She rubbed her arms and stared at the painting. It had to be one or the other, because she couldn’t remember making those changes.
Suddenly she snatched up the phone and tapped out a number.
“Kelly here,” a male voice answered.
“Millman here, and I don’t think you’re very funny, Jack! I would have thought even you would be too mature to stoop to messing with another artist’s work.”
“Whoa! What’s this all about? Someone’s done something to your work?”
“As if you didn’t know.”
“Wait a minute, Stacy. I swear I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Stacy’s breath went out of her like a balloon deflating, and she realized that she’d actually been praying this was all part of a prank played by one of her friends. Given Jack Kelly’s propensity for practical jokes, he’d been the likeliest suspect.
“You really don’t know, do you?” Her voice had lost its fervor.
“You wanna tell me what’s happened, Stacy?”
She thought about telling him, and realized that it was going to make her sound like she was losing it. She tried forming the words in her mind. Someone or something has been making changes in my painting and I have no memory of doing it myself.
She’d just as soon tell him about the strange dreams she’d been having of late.
“Forget it, Jack, it’s nothing. Really.”
“Come on, Stacy, you didn’t call me up ready to hang me from the nearest tree for nothing.”
Stacy gasped. Had his choice of words been deliberate?
“What does that mean?” she snapped.
“Look, we’re not on the same wavelength today. Maybe you want to hang up and call me back and start over.” His injured tone sounded sincere.
“No, thanks. Sorry I bothered you, Jack.”
She hung up the phone and closed her eyes, taking long, even breaths. When she opened them, the rope and the gnarled tree would be gone and she’d be able to attribute the whole scary thing to exhaustion.
But when she opened her eyes, the changes in the painting were still there. If anything, they seemed brighter, more dominating than before.
She jumped to her feet and snatched up her brush. “I’ll paint them out!” She climbed to the scaffolding, muttering affirmations as she went.
“It’s just one of those things that happen in such a large painting. However they got here, this is my painting. I’m in control, and they’ve got to go.”
She worked feverishly for hours, continuously reminding herself of the goal at the end of the year. Her own show, a chance to move her work and her name into the mainstream. Her pictures hanging in the homes of well-known art collectors and distinguished museums, feature articles on her work in the leading artists magazines.
The sun was just dawning through the windows on the east side of her studio when she stumbled down the ladder and, unable to summon up the strength to go to her bedroom, toppled onto the couch where she fell instantly asleep.
* * *
BETH HARRI made a last check in her compact mirror, tucking a stray blond wisp behind her ear and removing a tinge of lipstick from the corner of her mouth with her little finger. She was just replacing the compact in her Gucci bag when she spied Stacy getting out of a taxi at the curb in front of the garden café.
“It’s about time,” she called over the hedge that lined the sidewalk, “you’re only twenty minutes la...” Her sentence trailed away in a gasp of horror as Stacy turned full face toward her.
Clenching her fists in her lap, she waited until Stacy had seated herself at the table before leaning forward to whisper urgently, “What the hell has happened to you?”
Beth rested one fist on the tabletop, and Stacy placed her hand over it, pleading for Beth to calm down. Stacy’s hand was cold as ice.
“It’s nothing, Beth. I’ve just been working too hard.”
Beth stared at her friend, speechless for a moment. When she found her voice it was hoarse with anxiety.
“You’ve got almost nine months till the show, Stacy. Why would you be pushing yourself to the point of looking like a...”
Stacy’s laugh was a short bark of self-derision. “Like a ghost?”
“Or like you’ve seen one. Have you been sleeping? Eating? You look as though you’ve lost twenty pounds.”
“Eight. No big deal. And yes, I’ve been sleeping. Only...”
“Yes? Only?” When Beth leaned forward she could smell turpentine on Stacy, though for once her friend and client was wearing regular street clothes rather than her usual paint-stained overalls. Her nose twitched at the smell.
She might have commented at the odor but then Stacy’s composure gave way. Her mouth twisted wryly and her eyes widened as if she were seeing some horrific vision. Tears slid from them as though they’d been bottled up just behind the lids and waiting for this very moment to pour forth.
Beth reached into her bag for tissues and handed them across the table to Stacy. “Do you want to go to the ladies’ room?” she asked in a whisper.
Stacy mopped at her eyes and nose and shook her head. “Just give me a minute, Beth. I have so much to tell you and I want to think about how to start.” Her tears seemed to be abating. “How about ordering me a gin and tonic.”
Stacy was in control by the time the waiter brought her drink. After a healthy swallow of it, she began to enlighten Beth as to what had passed in the last few weeks.
“I thought I had painted all of the changes out,” she said, “but when I woke up the next afternoon, not only were they still there, but other things had been added.” She reached for her drink and took another gulp, barely noticing when Beth raised her hand to signal to the waiter for another round.
“Other things?” Beth prompted.
Stacy’s eyes were huge and round. “Another rope alongside the first one, and further into the painting a doll lying on a path and moonlight streaming down onto the path. Th-there was a group of men standing beneath the tree. And Beth...they...they had no faces.” She shuddered and drank from her glass again.
“Wait a minute,” Beth ordered. “Isn’t that painting a day scene as all the others are?”
Stacy’s voice cracked. “Yes. But the moonlight is in the interior of the painting, as if time had changed from the beginning edge to that point.”
Beth sat silent and thoughtful for a moment and Stacy automatically began on her second drink.
Finally she asked, “Have you had someone else look at the painting, dear?”
Stacy’s mouth fell open. “You mean as in ‘Maybe you’re imagining the whole thing, dear’?”
“No...no of course not,” Beth protested. “I only meant—”
“Listen, Beth, it isn’t only the painting.”
Beth waited, afraid of making another mistake with Stacy. “Go on,” she said, softly.
“I’ve been having dreams that wake me up in a cold sweat. And visions.”
“Visions?”
“You know, like daydreams, only they usually happen when I’m painting. When I come out of them, I’m dizzy and disoriented and totally wiped out.”
“Have you seen a doctor?” Beth was already searching her bag for her address book and pen. “I can give you my doctor’s number. He’s—”
“No!” Stacy took a breath and lowered her voice. “It’s not physical, Beth, I’m sure of that.”
“Honey, it’s obviously affecting your health.”
Stacy’s chin took on a familiar jut of defiance. “I don’t have time for tests and examinations, Beth. This is something I have to nip in the bud as quickly as I can.” Her voice cracked again. “I can’t go on like this.”
Beth’s common sense took hold and she sat back, her own chin lifted in a businesslike manner.
“Okay,” she said, “let’s look at your options.”
Stacy took a small sip of her drink this time and nodded.
“First, you can see a psychiatrist, in case this is some kind of little breakdown.” She ignored Stacy’s gesture of refusal and pushed on. “Or maybe this is actually some kind of occult thing...like, oh, you know, possession. In which case you could see someone at the Psychic Institute.”
“A ghostbuster?” Stacy’s laughter came out a gurgle.
“Or,” Beth continued, giving her friend a frown of disapproval, “something from your past is trying to break through and you could see a hypnotist.”
She stopped, waiting for another snort of derision from Stacy, but this time Stacy’s eyes widened with surprise and she sat back and put her hands to her mouth.
“Well?”
“I think you’re onto something, Beth,” Stacy said, lowering her hands slowly. “One of the things that happened last week is that I came across an envelope addressed to my mother. It was at the back of a drawer and the envelope was empty. But it had a clear postmark, dated 1969, from a place called Hunter’s Bay, Minnesota.”
“Hunter’s Bay? I’ve never heard of it.”
“Neither have I. But though my mother refused to ever tell me about her past, or mine, she did tell me that I was born in Minnesota.” She leaned toward Beth again, moving her place setting out of her way. “The strange thing is, when I took a magnifying glass up to the painting, I saw that I’d printed in the letters HUN on the signpost by the roadside.”
“Before or after you found the envelope?”
“Before.”
They shared a moment of troubled musing and then Beth said, “I think you should go there.”
“To Hunter’s Bay?”
“Yes.”
“I can’t just up and leave my work to go to a strange place to look for...what?”
“The answer to whatever is trying to break through your subconscious. And as for your work, you do all your studies on-site with watercolor. We’re three days from May. From what little I know of Minnesota, you ought to be able to find some gorgeous springtime landscape environments there. You can combine your painting with a little detective work. If all else fails, it seems to me it would be good for you to get away from your studio for a while.”
“My studio? Why?”
“Because that’s where you’re having these...episodes. Think about it, Stacy. It’s just possible that it’s your studio, and not you, that’s haunted.”
* * *
THE DRIVE NORTHWEST had been uneventful. Stacy took her time, enjoying the changing of the season in the various states through which she passed. At times she’d leave her car at the side of the road to snap pictures of scenery with her camera. She stopped when the driving became tiring and stayed in motels, prolonging her arrival at her final destination. The drive was so free of the visions and her sleep so undisturbed by dreams, that she hated to leave the serenity of the road.
But by the fourth day, she realized she was only wasting time, putting off the inevitable, and since her map showed her destination only four hours’ drive from the motel where she’d spent the night, she couldn’t justify delaying any longer.
A last glance in the bathroom mirror before she checked out assured her that the meals she’d eaten en route and the restful night hours had restored her to her natural healthy look. Her red hair was shiny and bouncy and her green eyes clear as spring water. The pasty look was gone from her face and she even appeared to have put back a few of her lost pounds.
She settled behind the wheel with a sigh of satisfaction. Perhaps Beth had been right. The feeling of being haunted was gone. And if indeed her studio contained some presence from beyond, she didn’t have to worry about that until she returned from her trip.
She reached the outskirts of St. Paul feeling hungry and only a little bottom sore. She checked her map and decided this was a good place to stop for breakfast.
“About two hours to Hunter’s Bay,” the waitress told her as she refilled Stacy’s coffee cup. “You going to visit family?”
Family. Almost a foreign concept to Stacy, who couldn’t remember anything about her father and who had been raised by a silent, aloof mother who had died two years before, leaving no hint of any relatives anywhere.
“No. I’m on a little traveling vacation.”
“You got lucky. We’re having a really early spring for Minnesota.”
Stacy laughed. “I know. Everyone told me to bring woollies, but so far I haven’t needed more than a sweater in the early mornings and late evenings.”
“Yeah, well, hang on to those woollies, though. Around here we could just as easily meet with a blizzard next week as anything else.”
The threat of bad weather aside, Stacy finished the last lap of her journey with an air of optimism. She found a classical station on her radio and was humming along with Vivaldi when she turned off Highway 61 onto a ramp that swung toward the river.
The road went uphill for a short stretch and then fell away to reveal a town nestled around a bay that led out to the river. For a moment she felt as if she’d ended up back on the East Coast, in one of the many small Colonial-imprinted New England towns. And then she looked to her right and saw a huge gnarled tree at the road’s edge. The shape and size were so familiar that Stacy felt a surge of the old dizziness take hold. She clung to the wheel, pushing repeatedly at her brakes as a road sign came into her view. She saw the letters HUN and then her vision blurred and she lost control completely.
* * *
WHEN SHE CAME TO, she was in an unfamiliar room. She squinted to clear her vision and saw a group of people surrounding the bed upon which she lay. A man in a white coat with a stethoscope dangling from his neck. Obviously a doctor. Beside him, a young, pretty woman also dressed in white. A nurse. Stacy didn’t need the smell of medications to tell her she was in a hospital.
She turned her head slightly, wincing at the pain at the back of her neck. There were two men and two women, all elderly, to the right of the bed and at the foot, a man in a sheriff’s uniform.
“She’s come to,” one of the women whispered.
“Shh,” someone else muttered.
“Hello there,” the doctor said, taking Stacy’s wrist in his hand. “I’m Dr. Farbish. Do you know where you are?”
Stacy made the mistake of shaking her head. “N-no,” she said, cringing at another onslaught of pain. She put her hand to the back of her neck. “Hurts.”
“Yes. You gave yourself a slight whiplash, but I didn’t find any other signs of trauma. No broken bones or such.”
He lifted her eyelids and put a light to her eyes. She could smell his after-shave and a hint of tobacco. She wanted to comment but couldn’t summon the humor.
“Do you know your name?” Dr. Farbish asked.
“Anastasia. But everyone calls me Stacy. Stacy Millman.”
A murmur came from her right. Stacy blinked and tried to focus on the faces of the older people who had gathered in her room.
A movement from the foot of the bed caught her attention as the sheriff shifted to catch her eye.
“I’m Derek Chancelor, sheriff of this county. I found your car just outside Hunter’s Bay and brought you in.”
“Did I hit someone?” Stacy asked.
The sheriff scratched his head and then shook it. “Nope. You didn’t hit anyone and your car isn’t damaged. About the only thing disturbed was the signpost you knocked down, and we can right that easily enough. But you must have thrown on your brakes awfully hard to have given your neck such a twist.”
Stacy stared at the young sheriff, a man of about her age, who, she suddenly realized, was terrifically good-looking. He had thick blond hair cut short in the back but long enough on top to fall over his brow in a careless wave. His eyes were cerulean blue and his complexion that ruddy gold that came from spending a lot of time outdoors in all kinds of weather.
He cleared his throat, distracting her from her preoccupation with his looks, and she felt herself grow warm with embarrassment. Would he believe she’d been staring at him with an artist’s eye, or was he used to women reacting foolishly to his vibrant masculinity?
“I...I’m sorry,” she stammered, putting her hand to her head as if she were confused. “What did you say?”
“I was just commenting on the force with which you hit that sign. It was cemented into the ground.”
The memory of the painting in her studio flashed into Stacy’s mind. She remembered the way it had stood up in the first version and then, a couple of days later, she’d discovered that she’d repainted it, lying on its side. A chill ran up her spine and she pulled the bed sheet up to her chin.
“That means,” she said in a near whisper, “that somehow I knew it was going to get knocked down, long before I ever got here.”
Chapter Two
The four people who sat around the table in his office were all talking at once.
Derek Chancelor, whose chair was balanced on the two back legs let the front legs fall to the floor with an authoritative thud. “Quiet down!”
The clatter dwindled away to silence.
“Okay, now let’s start over. First of all, what were the four of you doing in Ms. Millman’s room at the hospital?” He turned and faced the older of the two men. “Mayor?”
William Hunter tugged on his beard and glared at Derek. “I’m the mayor. It’s my job to know everything that goes on in this town.”
“In other words, you were snooping around the sheriff’s department again and you heard it over the radio?”
The man shrugged, his mouth held in a tight, stubborn line.
Derek decided not to point out that the mayor needed to keep busy at his own work rather than meddling in the sheriff’s.
“So you called your family and decided to go make a courtesy call on a stranger?” He grinned, leaned back in his chair. “That’s a little noblesse oblige even for the Hunters, isn’t it?”
None of the group responded to his sarcasm.
Derek tried another approach. “Carly, what’s this Stacy Millman got to do with any of you and why are you all so concerned about her arrival?”
Carly Samos looked at the others and patted the collar of her blue knit dress with self-importance. “Let’s just say that she doesn’t belong here,” she said, snapping her mouth shut around her words.
“Let’s just say I find that no answer at all. Since when do we ostracize tourists?”
“Tourists!” Mayor Hunter’s tone reverberated with derision.
Derek turned to him. “You think Ms. Millman is here for something other than a holiday? What?”
The mayor shrugged. A sly look crossed his face. “Maybe she’s been sent to get some dirt on us so MacroData decides this isn’t a good place to build their new plant.”
Derek frowned. “What kind of dirt?”
The elderly man shrugged again. “Who knows? This is a fair-size county. Any of the other towns could have an administration that’s not quite up to scrutiny. They’d probably love to make us look bad.”
Derek looked at Bob Hunter, the mayor’s brother and publisher of the local newspaper. “This is what’s bothering you, too, Bob?”
But before Bob could answer, his wife, Isabelle, spoke up. “It doesn’t matter what we think, Derek. The point is that we know nothing about this girl and we can’t afford to take any chances at this time. We need that plant badly, as I’m sure you know. We’re already losing too many young people from the area due to the shortage of jobs.”
For some reason, Derek was having trouble believing any of what he was hearing. He knew they were right about the county needing the economic boost of new industry. But these four elderly citizens, the elite of Hunter’s Bay, had not reacted so much upon hearing of the stranger in town as to hearing her name. Derek rubbed his forehead, trying to tie in the name Millman with anyone he knew or had ever heard of. He drew a blank.
“I’m going to warn you all, now. I want you to stay away from Stacy Millman and that includes your little welcoming committee descending upon the hospital. We don’t know if she’s on her way elsewhere or planning to visit but I won’t have you harassing her, whatever her reason for being here.”
The others got to their feet, all four wearing identical expressions of belligerence. They might, or might not, obey his edict but it was clear they didn’t like the fact he’d issued it.
When they’d left the office, he pulled his notebook out of his jacket pocket and reread the words he’d jotted down just after leaving Stacy Millman’s room.
What on earth could she have meant about the sign? “I knew it was going to get knocked down long before I ever got here.”
There was certainly a mystery there. But somehow it didn’t support the fear the Hunters had expressed, that Stacy Millman was some kind of spy. Not that he could entirely exclude that premise. As a lawman he’d learned to play devil’s advocate before taking sides. This looked to be one of those situations.
His mind wandered back to when he’d found her in her car at the side of the road. A strange accident. She was unconscious and her head was bent at an awkward angle. But there were no other cars or signs of traffic, no damage to her vehicle. As he’d told her earlier, his deputy had had no trouble driving it to the hospital, where he’d left it in the parking lot.
Could a deer have crossed her path unexpectedly, causing her to step on the brake so violently as to give her whiplash?
Clearly there were a few more questions she could answer for him. He thought about the way she’d looked, lying in that bed, her hair a fire flash against the white pillowcase. He’d sensed, even before she opened her eyes, that they would be that wonderful heather green color. He couldn’t detect any makeup on her face, but her skin was flawless and her cheeks just slightly flushed to a sort of apricot color.
A most alluring woman. But the question was, was she a spy for one of the other counties in the state who were hoping MacroData would build there instead—or an innocent traveler who’d had the misfortune of ending up in a town populated by a bunch of hardheaded, paranoid old folks?
He got to his feet, flipping the notebook closed and returning it to his pocket. Whatever had motivated her visit, he was looking forward to another session at her bedside.
“Going back over to the hospital, Jed,” he told the deputy on dispatch duty as he passed through the outer office. “Should be back in thirty.”
“Take your time, boss,” Jed Marek called out as he shot another alien plane down on the monitor of his computer.
Derek laughed and went out to where his car was parked at an angle in front of the sheriff’s building. As big as the county was, there just wasn’t enough crime to keep his men busy most days. They had their busier times, like Halloween, when the kids from both towns and farms went a little nutso, but in the spring, most people were planting and didn’t have time to look for trouble. Every now and then an escapee from one of the prisons closer to the Twin Cities made it downriver, but with the help of the state troopers, the convicts had always been caught and taken back. The river, itself, had spewed up a couple of bodies in Derek’s time, but it was soon proven that they had drifted downstream from out of his jurisdiction. Not a pretty sight, those bodies, but ultimately not his business, either.
He waved at Pam Rocca. She waved back and continued sweeping the steps up to the broad veranda that fronted the Hunter’s Bay Inn. A gorgeous-looking woman, that Pam, and a great cook. Not for the first time he wondered why she’d never married and why she’d choose to stay in a small town where there really wasn’t much action, at least during the off-season. She was good company. A couple of nights a week, when he’d worked the late shift, he’d gone over to the inn to have a nightcap with her. She was a good friend.
Too bad she was ten years his senior. For that matter, there weren’t many women his own age around anymore. Most of those he’d grown up and gone to school with had moved to the Cities or out of state if they hadn’t married someone else. Which proved what the Hunter family had argued in his office.
He turned the wheel to the left with one finger and drove up onto the blacktop in front of the hospital’s main entrance, parked and got out.
Dr. Farbish was just coming out of the front doors.
“How’s our patient, Doc?” Derek called out.
Matthew Farbish shook his head and ran his hand across the back of his neck. “She’s not our patient anymore, Sheriff.”
“What? What happened?”
The doctor shrugged. “Checked herself out. Said she was fine and I couldn’t find any reason to keep her.”
Derek was surprised at the degree of disappointment that shot through him. “Do you know where she was headed?”
“Nope. She gave her home address as New York City, but I got the impression she wasn’t headed back home.”
“Yeah, well, I guess she had a right to move on if she wasn’t badly hurt.”
Derek slid behind the wheel and backed out of the parking space. Was he disappointed because he’d thought he had something to occupy him in his professional capacity? If that was so, maybe he’d better start reconsidering offers he’d had from both the Ramsey County sheriff’s department and the Minneapolis police department. If it was action he craved, what was keeping him in his hometown, where he was more a peace officer than a crime fighter?
On the other hand, if it had been Stacy Millman, herself, who had intrigued him, maybe it was time for him to spend some weekends in the Cities doing the dating thing.
He shrugged and signaled his turn onto Main Street. It was a moot point either way. The girl was gone and life would continue in its usual ho-hum manner until the middle of June when the tourists would start arriving to liven up the place with lost traveler’s checks, broken-down vehicles, and the infrequent boating accident.
He had almost driven past the inn when he spotted Stacy Millman’s car in the driveway.
* * *
“YOU COULDN’T HAVE COME at a better time,” Pam Rocca said. “It’s too early for the tourists and I have plenty of rooms and can give you a fair discount.”
“That would be very nice,” Stacy said, rubbing her neck again as she gazed at the long, curved stairway to the second floor. The walk up seemed daunting.
“Do you have a room on the first floor?” she asked.
“Yes, though they’re smaller, as they used to be maids’ rooms. But they have all the amenities of the larger rooms upstairs. They’re at the back of the house so you won’t be bothered by the comings and goings on this floor.”
She turned the registration book so Stacy could sign in. When Stacy had filled in her name and address, and turned the book back, a strange look came over the innkeeper’s face. “Do you have family around here?” Pam asked.
“No. At least...why? Is my name familiar?” A beat of hope made her breath catch in her throat.
Pam frowned. “No. Not at all.” She closed the book and managed to avoid Stacy’s gaze. “Just that you’re such a long way from home.”
“I’m a painter,” Stacy told her, “and I decided to combine my work with a trip to a place I haven’t been. I’ve already seen so much beautiful scenery in the area.”
Pam seemed to recover. She met Stacy’s look with directness. “It’ll get even prettier as the days go by. How long do you think you’ll be staying?”
“A few weeks, anyway. Do I need a fixed date right now?”
“No. Just so long as you let me know before the first of June. My first reservations will be arriving on the tenth.”
Her room was just as she expected, given the marvelously authentic decor she’d already seen. The legend on the sign out front had informed that the building had been erected in 1880, and it had the true characteristics of turn-of-the-century Victorian river mansions, including a widow’s walk at the peak of the roof.
Her windows opened onto a long stretch of lawn dotted with flower beds that would soon be in bloom. Meanwhile, she had the feeling of a garden within the room, what with the flowered chintzes that covered the windows and chairs and the leaf-printed bedspread. A small bathroom boasted a pedestal sink that would have conflicted with the more modern narrow shower stall but for the flowered chintz shower curtain covering the plastic curtain beneath.
She marveled at the luxury of the room, especially given the moderate price Pam Rocca was charging her. She’d paid more at the motels on her way north, and one of them had been borderline sleazy.
She stretched out on the bed. Thinking of Pam had made her remember the woman’s strange reaction to Stacy’s registration. Could she have only imagined that Pam had been alarmed by the sight of Stacy’s name? If her parents had come from Hunter’s Bay, or any of the surrounding areas, was Pam Rocca old enough to have known them? She must be in her early forties. Stacy had been born in 1966. She did some figuring in her head. In 1966 Pam would have been about thirteen years old. Hardly one of the Millmans’ peers, but old enough to have known who they were, especially in such a small town as Hunter’s Bay.
And that brought her thoughts back to the hospital. The two elderly couples, her nurse had explained after their brief visit, were Hunters from the original founding family. When Stacy had asked why they’d been there, the nurse had shrugged and said, “Just nosy, I guess. The Hunters like to know everything that goes on in their little dynasty. And we don’t get many outsiders here except during the summer tourist season.”
Outsider. But was she? In that first confused moment of coming to in the hospital, she’d had the strangest feeling of déjà vu. A feeling that she’d looked up into those same elderly faces before, though in fact she hadn’t actually recognized any of them.
A shudder chilled her skin and she went to close the window that faced the back garden. She was just about to return to the bed when a knock at the door startled her.
She opened the door to find the handsome young sheriff standing there, hat in hand. She was amazed at how delighted she was to see him again. But then she saw that his face was set, his expression almost officious.
“You skipped out of the hospital pretty suddenly!”
No greeting, no preliminary. Just the accusation. Had she broken some law she didn’t know about? Not likely. She decided to play it light.
“I wouldn’t put it that way, Sheriff. I did get an official release from my doctor, and I gave my insurance information to the business office.” She grinned. “I even said goodbye to the nursing staff before I left.”
The sheriff’s face softened as she’d hoped it would. He returned her grin and then cleared his throat. “Right. Still, I have a few more questions for my report.”
“More questions?” She looked over her shoulder at the rumpled bed cover, the opened suitcase with clothes spilling out of it. The messiness made the room appear even smaller. “In here?”
He looked down at her feet, clad only in ankle socks. “Or you could slip on some shoes and we could go over to my office.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s muddy out.”
“I mean why do I have to go to your office?”
“Are you being deliberately obtuse, Ms. Millman?”
She had figured him for the most likely person to approach to help her begin the search for clues to her past, but now he seemed less approachable. A little more official.
“And if I don’t choose to go to your office, Sheriff,” she teased, “what will you do, arrest me?”
“I just want to ask a few questions, Ms. Millman.” He looked over his shoulder down the long hall that led to the front of the house. “I suppose we could talk in one of the parlors, or the bar?”
“Fine. I’ll meet you in the bar in a couple of minutes.” She shut the door in his face.
And then collapsed against it as her bravado left her on a long, shaky sigh. “You’re off to a great start, Millman,” she muttered aloud.
She crossed to the bed, considered just climbing in and pulling the covers over her head. “And let that Wyatt Earp clone swing in the wind!”
And make an enemy of the one person who would have the greatest access to the secrets of Hunter’s Bay. Not to mention the fact that he’s the first hunk I’ve run into in ages.
She hurried into her loafers, ran a brush through her hair and grabbed her purse and room key.
The bar was adjacent to the main dining room, a dark mahogany cave that was both formal and intimate at the same time. Stacy hesitated in the doorway, wondering if she should have donned something more appropriate than blue jeans and a sweatshirt. But the sheriff gestured for her to come ahead and, from behind the bar, the bartender smiled at her. She crossed the Oriental carpet and joined Derek Chancelor at a small table with banquette seating.
He had a pilsner of beer in front of him. Stacy nodded to the bartender to bring her the same. “I didn’t think law enforcement officers were allowed to drink on duty,” she said while they waited for her beer.
“I’m my own boss.”
The sheriff was slouched back against the banquette, one hand on his glass, the other in his pants pocket. The picture of a man totally relaxed and at ease. Yet he sent out threatening vibes and Stacy bit back one of her smart remarks.
“What have I done to offend the law?” she asked instead, sounding almost meek.
“Nothing that I know of.”
“Then why are we here?”
“There are a few things about your accident that are still bothering me.”
“You don’t look bothered.” She made a frank survey of his relaxed posture. Her hands itched for a sketch pad and a charcoal stick.
“It goes with the territory. I don’t like loose ends.” He sat forward and put two fingers on the back of her hand. “Are you feeling better?”
Stacy shivered at his light touch and nodded. He removed his hand as the bartender approached with her drink.
“So, tell me, Ms. Millman, are you driving through or planning to stay awhile?”
“Do you question all visitors this way? It must be hard keeping up when the town is full of tourists.” A swallow of beer, cold in her mouth, warm in her stomach, sharpened her sense of unease. Despite his casual attitude, her experience with police was that they didn’t just ask questions out of curiosity. Did he know something about her, something that would be a start in her own search?
“I question all accident victims,” the sheriff said, drinking from his own glass. He wiped foam from his lip and his expression grew stern. “I wonder if something crossed the road to make you lose control of your car?”
“Like?”
“Like a deer. They get pretty frisky in the spring and that road is one of their crossings.”
“I don’t remember seeing anything.” What if she told him that the road sign and the old tree had unnerved her to such an extent? He’d think she was short a few marbles.
As if reading her mind, he withdrew a notebook from his pocket and flipped it open with one hand. “You said something very strange when you were in the hospital. Do you remember what it was?”
Stacy shrugged and tried not to stare at the way his hair had fallen forward across his brow, giving him a boyish look. “I can’t imagine. I’d been unconscious and I woke up to a room full of strangers. Anything I said at the moment might have been—”
He interrupted her, reading from the small notebook.
She recalled the words, the thought, but hadn’t realized she’d voiced it aloud.
Still, to someone who didn’t know the whole story, it could be passed off as the mumbo jumbo of a person experiencing post-accident trauma.
“I can’t imagine,” she said, lowering her head so he couldn’t read her eyes in the dim light that streamed through stained glass windows. “Perhaps it was part of something I’d been dreaming when I was unconscious.” She pretended to be absorbed with making sweat rings on the tabletop with her pilsner.
The sheriff nodded. “Mmm-hmm.” She couldn’t bear the silence that followed the enigmatic sound and lifted her head to meet his gaze.
“It really doesn’t make sense, does it?”
“No,” he admitted, “not to me.” He flipped the notebook closed but left it out on the table.
“What do you do, Ms. Millman?”
“Look, if this meeting is going to go on for any length of time, do you mind using my first name? ‘Ms. Millman,’ the way you say it, sounds formidable.”
His blue eyes glinted like steel. Stacy decided he just didn’t have any sense of humor.
“If it will make you take my questions seriously.” He put out his hand. “Derek.”
She was surprised at her response to a simple handshake. His hand was warm and dry, yet once again she felt a chill go up her spine at his touch. She withdrew her hand hastily under the guise of lifting her glass.
“I’m an artist, Derek. A painter.”
He looked surprised, which surprised her. Clearly this wasn’t what he’d expected.
“Um...I see. And you’re here because...?”
The exchange of first names hadn’t reduced the tension; he was still questioning her, still suspicious. Of what?
“Do I need a reason? Aren’t people free to wander the country anywhere and anytime they please?”
“You just don’t strike me as a wanderer.”
She felt defiance growing in her chest and in the stiffening of her spine. “You are very much a sheriff, however, and if I haven’t broken some obscure law peculiar to Hunter’s Bay, I’d like to get back to my room for a nap.”
The sheriff’s chuckle was a mixture of amusement and menace. “You seem very much on the defensive for someone who’s wandering around and just happened to stumble over our little hamlet.”
“I don’t remember saying that I came here by accident.”
His eyes darkened, piercing her.
“So do you mind telling me just what brings you to Hunter’s Bay, Ms.... Stacy.”
Maybe she was blowing any chance of enlisting his help but Stacy just couldn’t resist. “What else, Sheriff? I’m an artist. I came here for the scenery.”
She didn’t realize she was baldly staring at him until he leaned forward and almost whispered, “And are you enjoying what you see, Stacy?”
She blinked. He was close enough for her to feel the warmth of his breath on her face. His eyes were focused on her mouth, as though he wanted to see her answer. Read my lips, she thought, smiling inwardly at the clichéd expression, so appropriate in this case.
She thought if she ever had a chance to draw him, she’d want to do it in pastels, capturing in the soft chalk, the gold tones in his hair, the blue eyes that seemed to gray with each change of mood, the jut of his jaw, the fullness of his lips. She’d use her fingertips to soften and highlight, to mold the chalk to define each bone in his finely shaped chin and cheekbones, the landscape of his rugged face.
“Would you like to model for me?” she murmured.
He sat back, as if surprised at her request.
“With or without clothing?” he asked with a wry grin.
“With or without,” she said, feeling the breath catch in her throat. She had a feeling Derek Chancelor could be dangerous, both as a sheriff and as a man.
He drank beer and frankly returned her gaze. “I tell you what, Stacy Millman, you tell me, here and now, the real reason you’ve come to Hunter’s Bay, and I’ll take off my clothes for you right out there in the village square.”
Chapter Three
Morning was shrouded in gray, a heavy fog coming off the river to diminish visibility and turn buildings and trees to phantom shapes. Not a day for painting and certainly not for driving. Stacy’s restlessness drove her out of the inn on foot, hoping the damp, fresh air would clear the cobwebs of a dream-haunted sleep.
Not to mention the exchange with Derek Chancelor in the bar. God, but the man was attractive. And wouldn’t I just love to see him stripping in the town square. Talk about your incentive to win a point!
It would be very easy to forget he was the sheriff and concentrate on his earthy maleness. She didn’t meet many men like him in New York, that was certain. The men she knew, were career-absorbed or, the other extreme, looking for a free ride. They didn’t seem to know how to handle the recent liberation of women. Did the city itself bring out the worst in men or had she just been unlucky in her associations?
She realized that as much as she loved New York it had a brutal quality that might rub off on people who weren’t strong enough to resist it. She supposed that a small town like this one might be a good place to find serenity, at least during the day when she was awake.
But walking the eerily silent streets, unable to see more than a few feet in front of her, she began to feel an unease that resonated the same quality as her dreams. She seemed to be the only person out in the fog and yet she had a strange sensation of being observed. She found herself frequently looking over her shoulder, listening for ghostly footsteps. She’d walked only a few blocks but she felt disoriented, not sure in which direction she’d left the inn, nor which way to turn to find her way back.
The promise of a leisurely stroll forgotten, Stacy picked up her pace, desperate to find her way out of the fog, out of the isolation and the silence that seemed as heavy as the fog itself.
A lighted street lamp loomed up suddenly, and though its rays were only able to penetrate a limited stretch of mist, Stacy cried out in relief. She had obviously come to the beginning of the small business section. There would be people, lights, noise.
But the first store that appeared out of the gloom was dark and deserted; a sign in the window read Open June 1. The same was true of the next two shops she passed and she felt a heightening of her discomfort.
“It’s a damned ghost town,” she muttered, peering through a storefront window at the dark shapes within.
“Twilight zone,” she cried aloud in frustration when the next shop turned out to be vacant, a For Rent sign on the door.
She realized she’d come to the end of the block as her foot slipped off a curb. She started across the street, the fog enveloping her like a curtain. She wanted to run but her limited vision made her move warily, afraid of falling, of bumping into something. Or someone.
She stopped and wiped dampness from her face with the sleeve of her denim jacket. Being lost in the fog, alone in what appeared to be a deserted town, she mustn’t let her imagination become grist for the mill of fear.
She began to walk again and then stopped, her heart suddenly lurching in her chest. Were those footsteps she heard echoing behind her own? She turned around but could see nothing.
“Hello?” Her voice wavered and she called out again, louder, more authoritatively.
There was no answer. She took a few steps forward. “Is someone there?” Her question met with silence.
Without more thought she turned and began to run, heedless of any danger that might lie in front of her, only conscious of that which might be at her heels.
She stumbled on a curb but righted herself and kept running, positive she could hear footsteps pounding the pavement behind her.
The brightly lit drugstore was like an oasis in the desert. With a last burst of fright-induced adrenaline, Stacy threw herself at the front door and flung it open.
* * *
DEREK RAISED HIS GAZE from his newspaper as the door of the drugstore flew open and Stacy Millman rushed in, looking as if the hounds of hell were pursuing her. Her complexion was ashen, her green eyes darkened to near-black, and strands of her red hair, pulled loose from a ponytail, fell in wet tendrils down her cheeks.
Derek started to rise, to go to her to see if she needed help, but almost immediately she ran forward and sank onto the first stool at the soda fountain, brushing her hair back with one shaky hand, reaching with the other into her jacket pocket for tissues.
Still unaware of his presence, she wiped her face, blew her nose and looked over her shoulder at the front door. As if she were expecting someone to come in after her, he thought.
The damp strands of hair that drifted down her neck and across her cheek were already beginning to dry into curls, softening her profile, giving her an old-fashioned look that was contradicted by her denim jeans outfit and scruffy sneakers.
Contradictions seemed to be her specialty, he mused, thinking of the way she’d arrived in town, the reaction of the Hunters, her answers to his questions. Was she the lost waif she’d seemed in the hospital or the feisty independent big-city gal she’d portrayed in the bar? Was she truly here as an artist, planning to capitalize on the beauty of the Minnesota countryside, or did she have a hidden agenda as the Hunters feared? And did that agenda have something to do with MacroData?
If so, that would make her a threat to the entire county and to his determination to see it regain financial security. So far they didn’t have the problems of homelessness that afflicted the bigger Minnesota cities, but he knew for a fact that the county’s welfare budget was being stretched to its limit, and for the first time in memory, his office was having to serve eviction notices on people who couldn’t pay their rents or mortgages. Maybe that was why he’d never followed through on any of the feelers the other law enforcement agencies had sent in his direction. And maybe that was why he was so anxious to find out if Stacy Millman could bring havoc down on the community. He realized his thoughts had come full circle.
He shook his head. She had an amazing effect on him, stirring his libido one minute, his mistrust the next.
His movement caught her attention and she turned her head, her expression registering recognition, though not warmth.
“You okay?” he called.
She looked hesitant and then nodded, her expression noncommittal. She glanced around and he saw she was looking for a server.
He could have told her that Mavis had run over to the county jail to bring the prisoners lunch. Or he could have called out to Dexter, the druggist who was dozing up on his perch in the pharmacy room at the back of the store. Instead he got up and went around the counter, picking up the coffeepot on his way to Stacy’s place at the other end.
“Coffee?” he asked politely, his tone impersonal.
“Moonlighting?” Her proclivity for sassiness didn’t deter her thirst. She uprighted the mug that sat at the edge of the paper place mat and lifted it to him.
“Just doing a favor for a friend,” he said, taking the opportunity to study her face at close range as he filled her cup. She’d definitely had a scare of some kind. The kind that would be the business of the sheriff? Probably not, or she’d have said something by now. Or maybe, as seemed to be normal for her, he’d have to work through her machinations before he got a straight answer from her on this score, too.
He put the pot down, jutted one hip against the counter and folded his arms across his chest. “If you’re hungry I can get you something from the pastry case. Anything more complicated, you’ll have to wait for Mavis to get back.”
She shook her head, her ponytail waving girlishly. She had her hands around the mug, as though warming them, and was inhaling the aromatic steam before taking the first sip. Derek grinned. “Enjoying our weather, Ms. Millman?”
She shrugged visibly. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen fog like that. Do you have many days like this?”
Derek shrugged. “It’s the price we pay for living along the river, especially in spring. But if the sun comes out it’ll burn off the fog and it’ll be as though it had never happened.”
“Gone, but not forgotten,” Stacy muttered, shuddering again.
Derek frowned. “It’s only vapor. It couldn’t have bothered you that much, surely?”
She leveled a strange look at him. “You weren’t there.”
“Something spook you, Stacy?” He made an effort to put sympathy into his tone, hoping she’d relax and open up to him.
She put her cup down and shook her head again. “Just my own imagination, I guess. But I had the weirdest feeling of being lost and...followed.”
Derek refilled her cup. Perhaps he was better off not knowing what had shaken her up.
“Pretty hard to get lost in a town this size.” He hesitated a moment and then added, “And how could someone follow you in that pea soup? Hard to see a foot in front of you this morning.”
Her laugh was mirthless. “Yeah. Like I said, my imagination.”
“Unless...?”
Stacy stared at him as the word hung in the air between them. He could see the belligerence rise in her, making her eyes steely, jutting her jaw, thinning her lips.
“Unless what, Sheriff?”
“Unless you’ve made an enemy in town?”
The absurdity of his question struck him the moment the words were out. She’d been in town less than two days and had spent one of them in a hospital. He laughed, embarrassed.
She, apparently, didn’t see the humor.
“So far you’re the best candidate in that department, Derek Chancelor.”
He sobered.
“I’m only an enemy if you get on the wrong side of the law.” He waited a beat and then added, “Or if you’re a threat to my community.”
Irritation rose in Stacy. Was this guy always so suspicious, always looking for threat where there was none? Did it go with the territory or was it paranoia, a facet of his personality?
“Listen, Sheriff,” she snapped, “I’ve told you why I’m here, who I am, what I do. Which part of that didn’t you understand?”
“The part you left out.”
Stacy grinned behind her coffee cup and let her eyelashes flutter flirtatiously. “Oh yeah, I forgot. Well, you see, it’s like this, Derek. I had to come see for myself, because all they’re talking about in New York is this gorgeous young sheriff in the boondocks of Minnesota, secure, single, and...heterosexual?”
The sheriff flushed and Stacy almost regretted her mischievous sense of humor.
His retort proved him equal to her wicked tongue.
“Yes to all of the above and, as to the heterosexual part, well, Ms. Millman, that’s something you’ll have to prove to your own satisfaction.” He glanced at his watch. “I’m off duty at six. Do you want to proceed with your investigation then?”
“Touché,” she said, laughing. She lifted her cup as if to toast his response. On impulse she decided the ice was broken between them, that this might be a good time to enlist his help.
She gestured to the stool on her left. “Why don’t you join me and I’ll tell you the deep dark secret of my mission.”
He looked skeptical for a moment but then nodded. She watched him walk away to replace the coffeepot.
Nice butt. She smiled, thinking of how Beth would react to him. Beth would notice the broad shoulders, too, and the way he sort of swaggered when he walked.
But you’re not Beth, so give it up, Millman. This guy could go either way, friend or foe, and mixing it up with him could definitely get you into trouble.
He went around the counter to retrieve his own coffee mug and newspaper before joining her.
“Why don’t you start by telling me why the Hunter family is in a snit over your arrival in town,” Derek said, as he sat down on the adjacent stool.
“The Hunters?” She had to think a minute. “You mean those senior citizens who did the twenty-questions routine at the hospital?”
“The same.”
“Why...I don’t know...what do you mean?”
She was thoroughly taken aback. Or she’s a hell of an actress, Derek thought.
“I can’t imagine why anyone would be concerned by my arrival.” Stacy hesitated. An image of Pam’s reaction to her signature came to mind. Could her name, alone, be raising questions in the locals’ minds?
“But on the other hand, maybe it all makes sense.”
She told him why she’d come to Hunter’s Bay: the images she’d painted into her pictures, the dreams, the feeling that she had unfinished business in the town in which she’d been born but had lived for only the first three years of her life.
“And I guess I need to know something more about my parents’ life here,” she finished.
Derek was still sifting through all she’d told him. “Your parents. The Millmans?”
Stacy nodded, holding her breath.
Derek shook his head. “I was born here. I don’t recall ever hearing that name before.”
Stacy expelled her breath on a sigh, disappointed. “How old are you?”
“Thirty-two.”
She figured in her head. “You’d only have been about seven years old when we left. Maybe you’ve just forgotten.”
Derek shrugged. “Maybe. But why the big mystery? If what you’ve told me is true, why should the Hunters react to you as a stranger and make no mention of recognizing your name?”
She looked confused and Derek told her that the Hunters had feared she’d been sent to find reasons why Hunter’s Bay should not be the location for the new MacroData plant.
Now she was really perplexed, and she said so.
Derek explained in detail. “At one time, Hunter Manufacturing was a thriving industry, employing people from all over Wabasha County. In the seventies they had a big government contract, but when the war in Vietnam came to an end, and the country went into a recession, the company folded, putting a lot of people out of work.” He ran his hand through his hair and sighed heavily. “Since then the area has largely depended on tourism—which in this part of the country only lasts from June through early fall when the leaves change color—and anybody who works in manufacturing, and is lucky enough to have a job, has to commute the long distance to the Cities.
“Now we have a chance to recoup. MacroData has targeted the old HM compound for their new plant and if it goes through, all of the county will benefit.”
“And the Hunters think I’ve got something to do with all that? That I’m here to throw a clinker in the works?”
“That’s what they’re saying.”
“But you don’t believe it, do you?”
He leveled a searching look at her. “Stacy, this town means everything to me, and I’m totally committed to the welfare of everyone who lives here.” He shrugged. “Your story is certainly a far cry from what the Hunters suspect. But to tell you the truth, both their fears and your strange tale raise a lot of doubts in my mind.”
“Such as?”
“Well, I admit I can’t see you as an industrial spy. But on the other hand, I don’t hold much with occult stories, and your tale of involuntary painting and ESP dreams doesn’t convince me, either.” He was momentarily distracted by the sight of Mavis coming around the counter. He waved at the waitress and then turned back to Stacy. “No, what I think is that the Hunters are either suffering from mass senility or they’re outright lying, and you... Well, let’s just say I’m reserving judgment until I can get one of you to tell me the whole truth.”
Stacy stared at him, mouth slightly agape. “You still think I’m lying, that I made up such an absurd story?”
Derek chuckled. “At least we both agree it was absurd.”
Exasperation didn’t deter her. She made a face at him and said, “Then I suppose you won’t want to help me unravel my little mystery.”
“Help you how?”
“You know everyone in this town. Maybe you could ask around, find out if anyone remembers my parents.”
He was about to answer when Mavis approached them, coffeepot in hand, menus tucked under her arm.
“Morning, Derek, miss. Breakfast?” She set a menu in front of each of them.
“I had mine earlier over at the truck stop,” Derek said, “but maybe Ms. Millman would care for something.”
Derek watched Mavis’s face but she seemed to have no reaction to Stacy’s name. She nodded when Stacy ordered buttered toast and turned to the back counter to pop bread in the toaster.
“I’ve got to be getting back to my office,” Derek said as he got up from his stool. He handed Stacy his newspaper. “Here, something to read with your breakfast.”
“What about it, Sheriff, are you going to ask around for me?”
Derek nodded toward Mavis. “I just did. Mavis knows everybody in town and she didn’t react to your name at all.”
Stacy stared after him as he strode out of the drugstore, grabbing his Stetson off the hat rack on his way out the door. “Jerk!”
“Not so,” Mavis said, putting a plate with toast down in front of Stacy with a bang. “That’s just about the nicest young man hereabouts.”
She started to turn away, then added, “And if I were you, in a strange town, where nobody wants you, I’d watch my step, miss.”
The toast fell from Stacy’s hand as she stared at the woman and gasped, “You’re threatening me! You do know who I am.”
The older woman shook her head. “I don’t know nuthin’. I just know we don’t take to strangers here excepting for tourists and you sure ain’t that!”
Before Stacy could retort, Mavis stamped away, going to the other end of the fountain to busy herself with preparations for the little bit of lunch business the locals provided.
Stacy sensed she wasn’t going to get any information out of Mavis, but her spirits lifted as she realized the woman’s threat had proven she had known the Millmans and that there was a conspiracy afoot to keep Stacy from learning anything about them. She could tell Derek about this and he’d have to believe her now.
She threw a five-dollar bill on the counter and left the drugstore, exhilaration canceling her dread of the fog.
She was almost halfway across the street when the headlamps of a car broke through the fog, just a few feet to her right, and then picked up speed and headed straight for her.
Chapter Four
It wasn’t until the sounds of screaming and screeching tires penetrated her mind that Stacy realized the screams were coming from her own throat and that she had acted on impulse and jumped away from the oncoming car. She lay on the pavement, her arms protectively curved over her head, and began to sob hysterically.
When she felt the hands prying at her arms, she screamed again and fought off her assailant.
“Stacy, for God’s sake, stop that screaming and let me see if you’re hurt.”
For a moment, when she recognized Derek’s voice, she wanted to rush into his arms for comfort and safety. But suspicion came rapidly.
“You tried to kill me!” she shouted.
“Are you nuts?” he shouted in return, “I heard your screams and came to find out what happened.”
“And you just happened to be in the neighborhood.”
Derek fought for calm. “I was in front of my building, not ten feet from here. I heard your screams and came running.”
“T-ten f-feet?”
Derek recognized the teeth-chattering as a symptom of shock. He knelt beside Stacy and took off his jacket. “Here, you’re chilled. Let me get you over to my office and give you a hot drink.”
She let him guide her through the fog because she felt helpless to do otherwise. Somewhere out there in the eerie grayness that covered everything was someone who had been determined to run her down. Someone who would probably try again.
She stammered her fear of that as Derek poured hot water over a tea bag in a pottery mug in the small kitchen behind the sheriff’s office.
“No way,” Derek said, generously spooning sugar into the tea. “If someone were deliberately trying to kill you, they’d have turned around and made a second try. No...” he shook his head and handed her the mug. “It was probably more likely that the driver couldn’t see you in time in all that fog.”
“Then why didn’t he—or she—stop to find out if I was all right?”
Derek shrugged, a gesture Stacy was beginning to recognize as one of his personal mannerisms.
“Might have been a kid who didn’t want to run up against the cops, or a driver without the required insurance.”
“Why don’t you ever believe me?”
“Why would anyone in this town want you dead?”
They stared at each other, mirror images of irritation and belligerence.
Derek broke first. “Drink your tea, Stacy.” He sounded tired, and the least little bit patronizing.
She flinched at the syrupy sweetness but obediently drank most of the hot liquid. The sugar went to her bloodstream almost immediately, restoring her energy, while the heat of the beverage chased away the last of the chills. She held out the mug for a refill.
“Good,” Derek said as he took the mug, “now maybe we can approach the situation logically.”
Men thrived on logic, she knew, while women put more faith in intuition. He was going to have a perfectly logical argument for what had happened, while she was going to continue to hold on to her belief that there was someone in this town who was stalking her and at the very least intended to give her one hell of a scare.
“Derek, would you consider this, maybe we’re both right. Nobody is trying to kill me. You’re probably right about that. But at least give me this, someone is trying to scare me.”
“Why?”
“To get me to leave town.”
“Why?”
“Because...because they don’t want me to find out about my parents.”
“Why?”
Exasperation replaced calm. “I don’t know! That’s what I wanted you to find out!”
She didn’t wait for his retort but threw his jacket off her shoulders and rushed back out into the fog.
* * *
PAM LIFTED THE RECEIVER on the third ring, keeping her place in the account ledger with her index finger. “Yes,” she said, after she’d exchanged greetings with her caller, “I got your message. She’s still out but when she comes in, I’ll give you a ring.”
She tapped manicured fingers on the ledger page as her caller went into a lecture reminding Pam where her loyalty belonged, how dangerous it could be for Stacy Millman to be allowed to do too much digging.
“I know all that,” Pam reminded, fighting to keep her tone respectful, always mindful of the fact that the Hunters held the mortgage on the inn.
“Well, let me just make one last reminder, Pam, you don’t own the inn free and clear yet and if you let us down, you could lose it.”
Bile rose in Pam’s throat. She could kill Stacy Millman. Her arrival in town had shaken Pam’s world right down to the foundation. And if the girl won out, despite all the effort being made to keep her in the dark, she, Pam, would be blamed for failing to fulfill her part in the plan. She could lose everything.
“Don’t worry,” she said into the mouthpiece. “She’s staying under my roof. I’m sure I can keep tabs on her.”
“See that you do.”
Pam heard the click and after a breath-held moment, she replaced her own receiver. She got up and went to the window. The fog seemed to be lifting; at least she thought she could see more of the front yard as she peered through the glass.
Where could the Millman girl have gone in this mess? The locals usually didn’t venture out in it; they knew the hazards of such limited visibility. If she’d been on her toes, she’d have been aware that the girl had left the inn before breakfast. But she only had a chef for the dinner hours, during the off-season, so she’d been in the kitchen preparing the morning meal herself when Stacy Millman had apparently gone out.
She went back to her desk and tried to concentrate on the figures in the ledger. The echoes of threat in her caller’s tone kept recurring in her head and she finally slammed the ledger cover shut and reached for a cigarette. It wasn’t only the call that was bothering her, she knew. There was also the business of seeing Millman in the bar with Derek Chancelor. It had given her a less than peaceful night, tossing, turning, wondering how they’d got so cozy so quickly.
She knew she didn’t have a right in the world to be jealous; Derek had never responded to any of the signals she’d sent his way. Even when he complimented her on her appearance, it had always been in the spirit of friendship. Maybe she’d been too laid-back, waiting for him to see her attributes and make a move. Maybe she should have out and out seduced him, shown him that their ten year age difference really didn’t matter at this stage in their lives.
It wasn’t only that Derek was the last eligible bachelor in town, it was also that she’d had a secret crush on him since he was eighteen years old and a lifeguard at the public beach. He’d asked her to put suntan lotion on his back and shoulders. At that first feel of his smooth, sun-warmed skin, his hard muscles beneath, she’d felt her stomach lurch and her blood heat with immediate lust. She had only to think of that day to remember caressing him, wanting him, willing him to feel what she was feeling.
He never had. But that didn’t mean he never would. Unless he was actually taking an interest in the Millman bitch.
Yes, she could cheerfully kill the girl. She flicked ashes and was about to take another drag when there was a knock at her door.
“Come in.” She stubbed out the cigarette and turned an expectant face to the door. Incredibly, it was the person foremost on her mind.
“Hi. I hope I’m not bothering you, Pam. I just wondered if you have a lockup policy at night.”
Pam forced a smile. “Lockup, Ms. Millman? Oh, you mean the front doors?”
“Call me Stacy, please. Yes. I wondered if your guests have a curfew or whether we get a key to the front door in case we’re in after lockup.”
Pam laughed. “This is a very small town, Stacy. We don’t lock doors here. There’s never been any need.”
And if there had been, where would Stacy Millman have to go until late at night in this burg? The only answer to that would be Derek. Fury rose in her chest, tightened her breathing.
“I never thought of that,” Stacy said, laughing at her own stupidity. “It would never occur to a New Yorker.”
Pam made herself pretend a friendly interest. “Yes, I’ve seen TV shows where New Yorkers have two or three locks on their doors.”
Stacy nodded. “I guess that’s one of the things I won’t miss while I’m here.”
“Then you plan on staying awhile?”
“You sound surprised. Is there any reason I shouldn’t?”
“Why...why, no, of course not. I did tell you, didn’t I, that my rooms fill up almost entirely the first part of June.”
“Yes, and I will let you know soon, if I plan to stay that long.” She looked around the well-appointed office, at the ashtray at Pam’s elbow, an accounts journal in front of her. She smiled. “Well, I won’t keep you from your work. I think I’ll go to my room and rest before lunch. I’ve had a pretty stressful morning.”
Despite herself, Pam expressed an interest. “Stressful? Oh, you’re probably not used to our fog, it’s quite formidable at times.”
“As a matter of fact, I had a near accident. A car came at me in the fog and almost ran me down.”
Pam didn’t have to fake surprise. “You weren’t hurt, I take it?”
“Just a little bruising from falling out of the way. But other than that, I was mostly shaken up. If Derek...uh, the sheriff...hadn’t come along and delivered hot tea and sympathy, I might have been worse off.”
Pam bit her lip. Derek again. Coming to the rescue of a damsel in distress. “Well, good for our sheriff. And I guess you’ve definitely earned that rest. Would you like me to knock at your door when lunch is ready?”
“Yes, please, I’m sure I’ll be restored by then.”
As the door closed behind Stacy, Pam swiveled in her chair and reached for another cigarette.
A near accident. Too bad. If she’d been driving she might have done a better job of it. She lit the cigarette and mused. Surely the person who wanted to keep Stacy from finding out... No! Nobody would go that far just to prevent a little information from leaking. Would they?
She shivered suddenly. How desperate was the situation? She remembered the threats. Maybe she was better off not knowing. She opened the journal and forced her attention back to her work.
* * *
DEREK ENTERED THE LIBRARY, removed his hat, looked around. There were none of the usual patrons in sight and Edie was behind the desk, leisurely cataloging a new shipment of books.
“Hi, Mom,” he called out as he strode toward her.
Edie looked up, an expression of surprise on her round, still pretty face. She had a pencil tucked behind her ear and her short gray blond hair was tousled. “Hi, son. This is a surprise. Am I under arrest or did you get lost in the fog?”
Derek chuckled. “Okay, so I’m a bad son who doesn’t visit his mother often enough.”
“So, what catastrophic event makes today different?”
“Mom, you ever hear of any family around here named Millman?”
“No, never!” The pencil fell and Edie bent to pick it up, knocking a stack of books off the counter. She swore under her breath and Derek rushed around the counter to help her pick up the books. They bumped heads and Edie fell back on her rump, laughing and moaning and rubbing her forehead. Derek helped Edie to her feet and set her down on the stool. “Sit there. I’ll get the books.”
He stacked them on the counter and then turned to his mother. “Where were we? Oh, yeah. The Millmans. You’re sure you never heard of them?”
“I’m sure. What’s your interest in these people anyway, have they committed some kind of crime?”
Derek shrugged. “No, not that I know of. For that matter, I don’t even know if they ever lived around here.”
“So, who are they? Where did you get that name?”
Derek pondered how much to tell his mother. Now that he thought about it, she’d answered his question much too quickly, as though she’d been primed for it and rehearsed her response. With all the names Edie came upon through her work as head librarian, she should have had to stop and sift through her memory before answering.
“I met someone who thinks her parents came from here. Name of Millman.”
“Her parents? And she doesn’t know for sure where they came from? What’s her name?”
“Stacy. Short for Anastasia. Stacy Millman.”
Was it only his imagination or did his mother blanch at Stacy’s name? But she immediately bent to get something from the shelf under the counter and he couldn’t be sure. When she raised her head, she was her usual composed head librarian persona. She had her purse in her hands and was removing tissues. She blew her nose delicately and shook her head.
“Sorry, I can’t help you, Derek, and in my opinion, people shouldn’t go digging into the past, anyway. Tell your friend it’s better to live in the present than go snooping around into the past.”
Derek chuckled. “I’m not sure I’d call us friends. But as for your advice, it doesn’t apply unless you know of something someone has to hide.”
“Really, Derek, this is too much. I don’t see you for days in a town that has about a five-mile radius, and when I do you pump me for information and accuse me of hiding things from you.”
“Gee, Mom, how did you get all that out of a simple question about a family name?”
Her sputtering came to a halt and Edie fixed her son with a no-nonsense glare. “I’ve got work to do, Derek. Go away.”
He laughed and leaned forward to pinch her soft, reddened cheek. “See ya, Edie.”
He snatched his hat off the counter and ambled out. Standing on the front steps of the library, he set the Stetson on his head and surveyed the street. The fog had lifted and hung about seven feet over the pavements so at least people could walk around now and see where they were going. At this rate it would have dissipated by early afternoon and life would go on as usual.
What was unusual he mused, as he went down the steps to the street, was his mother’s strange behavior. First of all, she definitely knew something...the name was not unfamiliar to her. And secondly, she wore the stereotypical image of a small-town librarian to a tee, never allowing anything to ruffle her feathers, never raising her voice, even when bringing up a feisty boy with a father who was more of a dreamer than a disciplinarian.
Did those conclusions lead to support of Stacy’s determination that someone in town was out to get her, or to scare her away? Not necessarily. And then he realized what he’d left out in talking to his mother.
Hurriedly he retraced his steps, bursting into the library to find his mother on the phone.
She hung up as soon as she saw it was Derek.
He blurted his question before she had a chance to react to his return.
“Mom, can you think of any reason the Hunters would be upset by Stacy Millman’s arrival in town?”
“The Hunters? Why should they be? What makes you think they are?”
Again she’d answered too quickly. It made him think of something else that had begun to bother him lately.
“Mom, why did the Hunters pay for my college education? Whenever I’ve been around old Mrs. Hunter she’s been downright disagreeable, as though she dislikes me, so why should she give you money for me?”
He’d only found out about the money recently. At the time he’d been too stunned to question it.
“Mrs. Hunter has always valued industry in young people. When you juggled your job at the beach with gardening work on the estate, she felt you were entitled to help. You know she’s always seen herself as the town benefactress and she thought you were deserving of her charity.”
“Why should we need charity from the Hunters?”
He could see she was becoming exasperated by his questions. She slapped her eyeglasses on in the way she had always done to show the conversation was at an end as far as she was concerned.
“I don’t know,” she snapped. “Why don’t you ask them!”
Once again Derek left the library feeling that his mother was not being wholly truthful with him, and once again he was dismayed by her unaccustomed deceptiveness.
Funny, before Stacy Millman had shown up on the edge of town, he’d had fleeting thoughts that there were undercurrents of something unhealthy happening around him, but he’d always been able to push them away. He’d been a busy lad, never working less than two jobs from the time he was fourteen, and then the college years and three years in the army as a military policeman. When he’d returned home, he’d been hired immediately into the Wabasha County sheriff’s department as a deputy. When Sheriff Townsend had retired, Derek had run for sheriff, and though his election had been a landslide, there’d been plenty of work to occupy his mind with the campaign beforehand.
Now he was being forced to pay more heed to his unease concerning the Hunters, his parents, and some of the other townsfolk.
He glanced at his watch. He had a meeting with Sheriff Job over in Dakota County at two. From the looks of things, the fog was on its way out, and he’d be able to keep the appointment. He had time for a quick trip out to the Hunter estate before lunch. He’d check into the office and if everything was quiet, he’d drive out there.
He wasn’t a kid anymore. Old Mrs. Hunter could no longer intimidate him. He’d get some straight answers from her; she’d never been one to sidestep the truth, it was almost a weapon in her hands.
The Hunter estate, consisting of a huge white stone house with extensive grounds all around, was located just a mile outside of the town proper. Derek eased the car under the portico alongside the kitchen entrance at the side of the house.
He knew the cook, Vera, not only as a neighbor but from his summers of working the grounds. She’d always made it a point to have icy fresh lemonade for him on hot days and she used to add little treats to the lunches she’d been told to provide for the gardening crew.
Vera announced his arrival to Mrs. Hunter from the kitchen intercom and, after a deliberate pause, Derek heard Mrs. Hunter tell Vera to send him into the library.
“You know the way, Derek,” Vera reminded him. “And on your way out you’ll stop and have a slice of fresh cinnamon cake, yes?”
“If I can take it with me, Vera. I’m on my way to lunch from here.”
The library was a large square room, with a fireplace on the south wall and tall windows overlooking the gardens on the north. Bookshelves rose to the ceiling and wooden ladders on a ceiling track made the upper shelves accessible.
Selma Hunter was wrapped in an afghan, sitting in a wing chair in front of a blazing fire. To Derek, who hadn’t seen her up close in quite some time, she seemed more frail than he remembered, but that might have been a trick of the flames reflecting on her face or the gloom from outside that penetrated the room from the windows on the north wall.
“You’re looking well, Mrs. Hunter,” Derek said politely as he approached her.
“As are you, Sheriff. Sit down, please.”
Derek found the heat from the fire oppressive, but he sat in the chair across from the old woman, holding his Stetson on his lap.
“This is a surprise visit, Sheriff. Has one of my employees done something wrong?”
It was like her to assume that he was there regarding one of her help rather than herself and that she keep referring to him by his title rather than his name though she’d known him most of his life and had used to call him Derek before he became sheriff. He knew it was her way of keeping him in his place. Public servants were no more of the elite than the servants who worked on the estate.
“I came to ask a few questions, Mrs. Hunter. First of all, I’m wondering if you’re familiar with any family from around here by the name of Millman.”
Mrs. Hunter’s face was smooth as glass. “No.”
Derek was taken aback. He was beginning to recognize a pattern in that facial expression, the quick way people said no without even having to give it some thought.
“Would have been twenty-five years ago, they lived here, if indeed they did,” Derek prompted. “Maybe you’d like time to think back.”
“No need, Sheriff. I know what I know. Time won’t alter facts. Is that all you wanted?”
“Would you mind telling me why you paid my way through college, Mrs. Hunter?” He could see he’d caught her off guard with this question.
“Why...why...however did you...” She banged her small, freckled fist on the arm of her chair. “I meant the gift to remain anonymous. I will certainly take your mother to task for telling you.”
“But why should you have done it in the first place?”
“Young man, what I do with my money is my own business. You should show a little more gratitude and quit snooping in things that are none of your
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