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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.
