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An hour later, Josh stood in the clearing with Jim Decker, Sundown’s police chief. A few yards away, the coroner wheeled a gurney over the baked grass toward a hearse. The body bag on the gurney glistened like a mound of wet, black clay beneath the sun’s blazing rays.
“A shame the girl didn’t make it.” The navy-blue uniform that hugged Decker’s tall, lean frame had creases sharp enough to carve rock. Signaling his rank, silver eagles nested on each collar point of his tapered shirt. Mirrored aviator sunglasses completed the look. Josh knew that the man was in his sixties, but his dedication to keeping fit—along with a head of thick, black hair that was only now showing threads of gray—made him look a decade younger.
“Amelia was here for the summer, visiting her grandparents,” Decker continued. “They’re good folks. Now I have to go tell ’em she’s dead. And for what? A beer and a fast ride.”
Josh scrubbed a hand over his face. He’d been at the scene less than two hours, but it felt like twenty-four. “Death notices are one of the downsides of our profession.”
“That they are.”
When Decker shifted his stance, Josh’s gaze followed the chief’s across the clearing to where Regan sat in the shade of a massive oak. Her knees were up against her chest, her arms wrapped around her legs as she stared toward the road where a cop directed traffic.
Decker dipped his head. “Etta’s bartender. There’s an interesting young woman.”
The undertone of guarded curiosity in his voice told Josh the chief wasn’t referring to Regan’s physical attributes. “What’s interesting about her?”
“From what I heard when I got here, Regan Ford knows a lot about taking care of injured folks. A hell of a lot. When I asked her about it, she said she took a couple of first aid classes.”
Decker’s comment underscored what Josh now knew for certain—there was a lot more going on with Regan than met the eye. “I’d say she took more than a couple.”
Decker crossed his arms over his chest. “I drop into Truelove’s now and then, sometimes when Regan’s tending bar. She sure doesn’t have a lot to say. Now that I think about it, she does a good job of detouring around me.” Josh didn’t need to see past the dark lenses of Decker’s glasses to know the cop’s eyes held a look of narrowed speculation. “Can’t help but wonder if it’s me, or the fact I’m the law.”
“Maybe you’re just not charismatic enough?” Josh ventured.
Decker dipped his head. “Maybe you’ve forgotten that night about fifteen years ago when I happened upon you and Etta’s oldest boy with your dates out by the lake? As I recall, the four of you had made a lot of headway getting your clothes off. You were underage and had beer. I could have run the lot of you in, but I didn’t. I figure I was pretty damn charismatic that night.”
Josh chuckled. “Forget what I said, Chief. You’re the most magnetic guy I know.”
“Yeah.” Decker glanced back at the hearse, let out a breath. “Suppose kids’ll ever learn booze and speed don’t mix?”
“Wouldn’t count on it.”
“I’m not. See you later.”
Josh watched Decker climb into his sky-blue cruiser with the gold police chief’s badge on the door. So, it wasn’t just him. Regan had an aversion to other cops, too.
Why? he wondered as he headed across the clearing. Did she have something to fear from the law?
She looked up when his shadow slid over her. The paramedics who’d arrived with the ambulance had given them alcohol wipes to get the blood off their skin, but that hadn’t helped their clothes. Her crop top, shorts, even her socks sported numerous bloodstains and smears.
Up close, her skin looked pale. Sallow. Her eyes still held the devastation that had settled in them when Amelia died while they worked to save her.
“Decker talked to the hospital,” he said quietly. “The doc expects Easton to recover fully.”
Her gaze tracked the hearse as it crept toward the road. “Wish we could say the same about Amelia.”
Josh crouched, settled a hand on her shoulder. “It’s not because we didn’t try.”
She instantly tensed, leaned away, forcing him to drop his hand. Okay, she didn’t want to be comforted. He didn’t have her full measure yet, but he would.
“Regan, are you a doctor?”
She kept her gaze focused on the road. “No.”
“A nurse?”
“No. I’ve taken some first aid classes.”
“I’d say more than a few.” When he shifted closer, he felt the tension thicken around them on the hot air. “I spent a lot of years riding a black and white and I’ve seen plenty of EMTs in action. It’s obvious you have a lot of training and experience. You’re damn good at the job. So, here I am, wondering what a woman with your skills is doing tending bar instead of riding with an ambulance crew. Or working at a hospital.”
She surged up. “I have to go.”
He rose as she did, locked a hand on her upper arm. “That couple who stopped first to help saw you in action. They’ll tell people what you did for those kids. Hell, I already heard Quentin tell one of the cops you’re a doctor. Word of what happened this morning will spread like wildfire across Sundown. Every time you turn around someone’s going to ask how you know what you know. Where you learned your skills. Why you’re not using them. You think telling them you’ve had a couple of first aid classes is going to cut it?” He stepped closer. “Doesn’t do it for me. Don’t you know that the less you tell someone, the more they want to know?”
She jerked from his touch. “I have to pick up some things at the market for Etta before I take her lunch.”
“I’ll run with you as far as your place.”
“No.” Her face was flushed now from either the heat or emotion. Maybe both. “I told you, I prefer jogging alone.”
“What is it about cops that makes you nervous?”
Something flickered in her eyes, then was gone. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Then I’ll explain. Chief Decker says when he stops by Truelove’s, you make a point to avoid him. I have to wonder why, since he’s a decent guy. You sure as hell didn’t want him to know you list ‘skilled in emergency medicine’ on your résumé. Then there’s me. I come around, I get the impression you check for running room.”
She sent him a cool smile. “Cops aren’t my favorite people. Nothing personal, McCall.”
“Sorry to hear that. Some of us can be real charming if we put our mind to it.”
“Charming men don’t impress me. Now I’ve got to go.”
He stepped forward, blocking her retreat. “I watched your face while you worked on that girl. You’re not just good at emergency medicine, you’ve got a passion for it.”
“You have no idea how I feel,” she shot back. “About anything.”
“You’re right. I have no clue what stopped you from being out there, helping people. Saving lives. Or why you’ve stuck yourself in an out-of-the-way, small-town tavern.”
“I’m not stuck. I tend bar now.” Her hands clenched. “That’s what I do. What I want to do. There’s nothing wrong with that.”
“Didn’t say there was.” He dipped his head. “I don’t know you well enough to have you figured out. Yet. But Etta does—or thinks she does. She cares about you. Her feelings matter to me. If whatever is going on with you harms her, you’ll have me to deal with.”
Her eyes went hot. “I love Etta. She gave me a job, a place to live. I owe her. I would never hurt her.”
“I’m sure you’ll understand if I don’t just take your word for it. I intend to keep an eye on you.”
“Do it from a distance.” He saw the tremor in the hand she used to shove her bangs out of her eyes. “I don’t want to jog with you, McCall. I don’t want to eat breakfast, lunch or dinner with you. Is that clear?”
He kept his eyes cool and steady on her face. “Crystal.”
“Fine. So please leave me the hell alone.”
He watched her dash toward the road, her tanned legs pumping, ponytail bouncing.
“Not a chance, sweetheart,” he murmured.
Chapter 4
Five minutes into that evening’s shift, Regan knew Josh McCall’s prediction had been right—word of what happened that morning had spread like a wildfire across Sundown. Every customer seated at the bar had commented on the accident and her part in aiding the teenage victims. Even the pair of grizzled regulars whose usual topic of conversation was the catch of the day had shifted their focus to the wreck at Wipeout Curve.
While she poured drinks, washed glasses and filled bowls with peanuts, Regan had made sure to shrug intermittently and comment she’d taken a few first aid classes. That had satisfied some of the questioners. Others had given her a skeptical look, but hadn’t pushed for additional details.
At two hours before closing time, most of the talk had shifted to which fisherman had racked up the most points so far in Paradise Lake’s fishing derby. That, and the fact McCall hadn’t darkened the tavern’s doorstep, had Regan hoping she’d weathered the storm. If she could just fade back into obscurity and keep her distance from McCall for however long he spent in Sundown, her luck might hold.
That feeble hope went up in flames when Burns Yost, owner of the Sundown Sentinel, settled onto a stool at the bar.
“I need a beer and an interview, Regan.”
Icy panic jabbed through her while the balding, middle-aged man pulled a pen and small notebook from the pocket of his gray shirt. Yost had been only second to the police chief in people she’d made a point to avoid during her six months in Sundown. Especially after Etta told her Yost had once been an investigative reporter for a major newspaper and had gained fame by sniffing out a huge corruption-at-the-Pentagon story. A few years later, Yost had been fired when a high-profile exposé of his turned out to be fraudulent. He’d come home to Sundown and bought the Sentinel.
As far as Regan was concerned, a reporter was a reporter, no matter what was in his past. And this one apparently smelled a story.
She filled a frosted mug, set it in front of him. “Here’s your beer. You want one of Howie’s hamburgers to go along with that?”
“No, I want to interview you about what you did today.”
“I witnessed an accident and watched a young girl die, Mr. Yost. That’s not something I want to talk about.”
“Amelia’s death was unfortunate,” Yost said over the clatter of pool balls, loud talk and blare of a boot-scootin’ boogie from the jukebox. “I’ve just come from her grandparents’ house and they’re beyond grief.” He sipped his beer. “When I told them I planned to interview you, they asked me to give you their thanks for helping Amelia.”
“I did what anyone else who’d taken a few first aid classes would have done.”
Yost’s mouth curved. “I also talked to Helen and Quentin Peterson. They’re the couple who stopped at the wreck the same time as you and Josh McCall. The Petersons think you’re a doctor.”
“People tend to get impressed when someone checks a pulse while tossing out a few medical terms. That doesn’t mean they have M.D. after their name.”
“Okay, so you’re not a doctor. What are you?”
“A bartender.”
“That’s what Josh McCall said.”
The bands around her chest tightened. “You interviewed McCall?”
“Tried to. He wouldn’t even invite me in, just stood on his front porch sipping a beer and saying the same thing as you. He doesn’t want to talk about the young girl who died.”
For an instant Regan was back in that twisted, glass-strewn car with Josh, working feverishly to save Amelia. And when the girl died, Regan had looked into his dark eyes and felt a connection snap into place. A searing, wrenching link. Now, it wasn’t just her body reacting to him, it was her emotions, too.
For a woman wanted for murder to allow herself to feel any sort of connection with a cop was ridiculously reckless. As was talking to a reporter.
“Neither McCall nor I want to comment about Amelia,” Regan said. “Looks like you struck out all the way around, Mr. Yost.”
“More like I’ll have to wait until the next inning to score.” He took a long drag on his beer. “McCall also refused to comment about what he’d witnessed you do while the two of you were in that car, tending to Amelia. Since he’s a cop, I don’t take his stonewalling personally. The boys in blue trust the press about as much as they trust politicians and lawyers.”
Yost grabbed a handful of peanuts out of the nearest bowl, began shelling them. “Besides, you’re the story, not McCall. There might not be a lot of people in Sundown, but the ones who are here have a right to know what’s going on in their town. At present, you’re what’s going on.”
The dread inside Regan built. There was no way she could get away from Yost as long as he chose to sit at her bar. She was going to have to deal with him, the same way she’d dealt with McCall. Which, in retrospect, had only heightened his curiosity.
“All right, Mr. Yost, I’ll give you a comment. First, my heart goes out to the families of those two teenagers. Second, it’s time the Sundown city council does something about Wipeout Curve. You should research how many accidents have occurred there, find out how many people have been injured and/or died in those accidents. Your running articles on that in the Sentinel could prevent more deaths.”
Yost made a note on his pad, remet her gaze. “An exposé on Wipeout Curve won’t appease the curiosity of my readers, Regan. They want to know about you—where you’re from. How you wound up tending bar in Sundown. Why you’re doing that instead of working in the medical field.”
In a finger snap of time her thoughts shot back to Josh. Don’t you know that the less you tell someone, the more they want to know?
Until this moment, she hadn’t realized, not fully, the repercussions of what she’d done today. Having the attention of both a cop and a reporter focused on her was the last thing she needed. Both had the potential to discover she was using a fake identity. If that happened, the next logical step would be to try to find out her real name. Armed with that, the murder warrant would pop up on some computer run.
She took a slow, deep breath to try to control the adrenaline spewing through her system. She could almost feel Payne Creath’s hot breath on the back of her neck.
“You’ve got my comment.” She tightened her unsteady fingers on the rag in her hand and wiped it across the bar’s scarred, polished wood. “It’ll have to do.”
Yost tossed a couple of bucks beside his mug, flipped his pad closed and slid off the stool. “We’ll talk again soon, Regan.”
At closing time Regan dealt with her duties, then said good-night to Howie. If the cook wondered why this was the first night she’d declined to help with his janitorial chores, he didn’t comment on it. He just kept sweeping up peanut shells while assuring her he would lock up when he left.
Upstairs, she went through the motion of checking the doors and windows, then booted up her computer to see if she had an e-mail from Langley. There was nothing in her inbox from the P.I., which told her Creath was still in New Orleans.
For a year that had been enough to assure her, to afford her breathing room. Over the past twenty-four hours, she’d lost even that small comfort. She had McCall and Yost curious about her. Watching her. She could maybe get by with one or the other, but not both.
She flipped off the lamp beside the couch. The weak light from the fixture on the balcony seeped in through the French doors and her bedroom window, guiding her way into the bedroom.
There, she changed into a camisole and silky boxers. The way she’d exposed her background at the accident scene—topped by Yost’s visit to the tavern—convinced her she had to leave Sundown. Had to turn her back on the small apartment that had begun to feel like home. Say goodbye to the people she’d come to care about.
Etta, she thought, her throat tightening. She couldn’t just pack her meager belongings tonight and leave without saying goodbye to Etta.
First thing in the morning, Regan resolved. By this time tomorrow night, Sundown would be just a memory for her.
With exhaustion and despair overwhelming her, she didn’t bother to pull down the pink chenille spread, just toppled onto her bed.
Seconds later, she dropped off the edge of fatigue into sleep.
With a scream stuck at her throat, Regan shot up in bed. She sat unmoving in the inky darkness, her heart hammering.
Her trembling fingers clenched into fists, she gulped in air. Thinking she must have clawed her way up through the slippery slope of a nightmare, she tried to pull back some memory of it.
Nothing. She remembered nothing.
If she hadn’t had a nightmare, what had woken her? She shoved her hair away from her face, then glanced down. Her watch didn’t have a luminous dial, but she should be able to see the hands.
The realization hit her that she was shrouded in total darkness. When she’d fallen asleep, there’d been light seeping in the window from the fixture out on the balcony. There was no light now, just darkness.
