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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?
