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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.
