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Hank grinned at them. “With her cell phone, I’ll bet. I take it you two have introduced yourselves.”
“No.”
Once again they spoke in unison. This time, Jodie kept her eyes on Hank and said, “I’ll have to take a rain check on that introduction.” She backed toward the door. “My lunch hour is nearly over. I’ve barely got time to meet Sophie and Irene before they head off to their meeting.”
“You going to pay for that rope?” Hank asked.
“Oh.” She could feel the heat rising in her cheeks as she said, “Just put it on the Rutherford House account.” To the stranger, she managed a nod. “Another time. ’Bye.”
She was halfway down the block before she remembered to breathe. The last thing she needed was to be introduced to another intriguing stranger. Especially one who made her feel hot one minute and icy cold the next. Strangers were dangerous, especially tall, attractive ones. Billy had taught her that.
SHANE SULLIVAN STEPPED out of the sporting goods store just as Jodie Freemont paused at the corner to wait for the traffic light. She would be getting her rain check sooner than she expected—in about fifteen minutes to be exact. That was when he’d agreed to meet Sophie and Irene Rutherford at Albert’s Café.
It was just by chance that he’d run into Ms. Freemont in the sporting goods store. But then Shane believed in chance. It had always served him well in the past.
This time, too, he thought. It had given him the opportunity to assess Jodie Freemont before they were formally introduced. He made it his business to get to know anyone who might stand in his way. And right now, Jodie Freemont might be the biggest obstacle to his goal.
He’d come to Castleton, New York, because he had a hunch that she might know more about the five million dollars her ex-fiancé had embezzled than she’d told the police.
Narrowing his eyes, Shane studied Jodie as she stepped up on the curb and walked quickly and purposefully toward Albert’s.
Now that he’d met her, he could see that the picture in her file didn’t do her justice. It hadn’t captured her smile or the light that came to her eyes when she laughed. Her hair was different, too. In the picture, it had fallen halfway down her back. Now, cropped short and framing her face, it made her look exactly like the homeless waif everyone in town thought her to be.
Shane frowned. Why was he so sure she wasn’t just what she appeared to be? And why was he wondering again, just as he had back there in the store, exactly how she would feel pressed close against him?
His frown deepened. The only thing he should be wondering about was whether or not she was mixed up with her embezzling ex-fiancé, Billy Rutherford. In the six months since his arrest, the man had steadfastly maintained his innocence, refusing to reveal the location of the money. And not one cent had been found.
A quick gust of wind set bells jingling overhead, and Shane let his gaze sweep the street, decorated in picture-book fashion for the Christmas holidays.
The money was here. Shane could feel the familiar tingling in his fingers. Billy would make a break for it soon. Castleton was the perfect hiding place, and Jodie Freemont made the perfect cover. Who would suspect her of hiding five million dollars for the man who’d swindled her out of her home?
He did. He shifted his gaze back to Jodie as she ducked into Albert’s Café. Or he had until he’d met her. Shrugging off the thought, he started down the street. This wasn’t the time to start second-guessing his hunches. His job was to recover the five million, and he had just enough time to store his new fishing pole in his car before he joined the Rutherford sisters. Then he’d get his long-awaited introduction to Jodie Freemont.
“DID YOU GET the gun, dear?”
“No. Hank Jefferson flat out refused to sell me one,” Jodie announced as she joined the Rutherford sisters at their regular table in the window of Albert’s Café.
“It’s for the best,” Irene, the younger of the two sisters said as she patted the peach-colored curls that framed her face. “Guns make me nervous.”
“Everything makes you nervous,” Sophie declared. “And Hank Jefferson’s an idiot.” In her early seventies, Sophie Rutherford still dressed with military precision and wore her iron-gray hair pulled back and twisted into a neat bun. Sophie reminded Jodie of a tank, and she had a personality to match.
“It’s your constitutional right to bear arms,” Sophie added. “You could sue him.”
“Hank would probably persuade the jury that he’d saved my life,” Jodie replied.
Irene shivered. “Firearms are dangerous. An accident could happen.”
“I don’t think Hank was worried about an accident,” Jodie remarked dryly. “He thought I wanted the gun to shoot myself.”
Irene stared at her. “Why ever would you do that?”
“Because of Billy,” Jodie said.
“What does he think you are? Some poor Ophelia pining away for her Hamlet?” Sophie demanded.
“He wanted to introduce me to a perfect stranger,” Jodie said. “I think he was going to ask the guy to take me to the Mistletoe Ball.”
“Well, Hank’s got it all wrong. Billy’s coming back to you, dear. He didn’t desert you by choice,” Irene said. “When the police came to the house, he tried to resist arrest. That shows how much he really cared for—”
Sophie set her teacup down with such force that it rattled every piece of crockery on the table. “When are you going to stop defending that good-for-nothing nephew of ours? It’s thanks to him that Jodie lost her house, and we have to turn ours into a bed-and-breakfast!”
Irene clapped her hands over her ears. “I’m not going to listen to anything bad about Billy. He’s innocent until proven guilty.”
Jodie took one look at the expression on Sophie’s face and hastened to intervene. “How are the preparations for the Mistletoe Ball going?”
Immediately a smile lit up Irene’s face. “It’s going to be the best one ever. Having it in Slocum Hall instead of the library gives us so much more room for dancing. It was Sophie’s idea.”
“You’re the one who thought of having the caterers dress up as Dickens characters this year. People are going to remember that longer than they remember the extra dancing room, my dear.”
Breathing a silent sigh of relief, Jodie leaned back in her chair as the two women continued to talk about the ball. For as long as she could remember, the Rutherford sisters had cochaired the Mistletoe Ball, an annual fund-raiser for the Castleton College Library. It was scheduled for the Friday before Christmas, and practically everyone in town would be going.
“Hank Jefferson could be right about one thing,” Sophie said, turning suddenly to Jodie. “You really should have a date for the ball.”
“Absolutely not,” Jodie said. “No sympathy dates for me, thank you. Besides, attending the Mistletoe Ball is part of my job. I have to stand at my boss’s side and make sure he knows the names of all the important contributors.”
“It’s time that Angus Campbell resigned from that job if he can’t keep track of the contributors,” Sophie said. “And you shouldn’t let him intimidate you. Did you forget your motto of the day?”
“No,” Jodie said. How could she, when Sophie tore them off a calendar and stuck them on the refrigerator door each day? According to the publishers of the calendar, if she incorporated them into her daily life, she was going to be a new person in just 365 days.
Privately, Jodie had her doubts about how effective a bunch of mottos was going to be in transforming her. The expression of pity she’d seen earlier on Hank Jefferson’s face testified to the fact that they hadn’t done much good so far. In the eyes of the residents of Castleton, she was still the same “poor Jodie” who’d allowed Billy Rutherford III to turn her into a complete patsy.
“Jodie!” Nadine Carter hurried toward them, a teapot in her hand. The pretty blonde had been Jodie’s student assistant until she’d decided to quit college six months ago and start waitressing at Albert’s. So far Jodie had been unsuccessful at getting her to go back to school.
“I’ve got this new herbal tea I want you to try. It’s supposed to be great for pulling you out of depression.”
“I’m not depressed,” Jodie said, but she knew as she met Nadine’s eyes that she had about as much chance of convincing her of that as she’d had of getting Hank Jefferson to sell her a gun.
“Just try it,” Nadine urged. “I hear you’re feeling a little down today.”
Jodie stared down at the teapot Nadine had placed in front of her. It had bright-yellow daisies dancing all over it, mocking her. Alicia Finnerty had been busy, she thought. By this evening, everyone in town would know.
Suddenly, she’d had it. She glared down at the dancing daisies. “Take it away. I’m through with herbal tea. I’ll have a…a cappuccino.”
Nadine stared at her in exactly the same way Hank had when she’d asked to hold one of the guns in his display case. “But you…you don’t drink caffeine.”
“Well, today I’m just going to go for it,” Jodie said, lifting the teapot and placing it firmly back in Nadine’s hands.
Nadine opened her mouth, shut it. Finally she said, “I don’t know—”
“On second thought, make that a double-strength cappuccino,” Jodie said.
Sophie waited until the waitress had walked out of earshot before she reached over to pat Jodie’s hand. “Atta girl. You did remember today’s motto.”
“Go for It,” Jodie recited. “And I’m throwing over my herbal tea habit. Whoop-de-do,” she muttered sarcastically.
“You tried to buy a hand gun, too. And Hank Jefferson had no right not to sell it to you. Did you tell him about the prowler?” Sophie asked.
“He told me to go tell the sheriff, and he patted me on the arm.” Jodie frowned. People were always patting her—on the head, on the arm, on her back. Somehow she brought that out in people. She hadn’t liked it at eleven and she didn’t like it any better at twenty-six. “I don’t think he believed me. He almost refused to sell me the rope.” She gestured toward the package she’d carried into the café. “I’m sure he’s worried that I might use it to hang myself.”
Both women reached for her hands.
“You wouldn’t,” Irene said.
“You couldn’t,” Sophie said.
As Jodie looked into the eyes of the two older women, she smiled for the first time since she’d left Hank Jefferson’s sporting goods store. “Of course not,” she said.
She’d known the Rutherford sisters ever since she was a little girl. Born into a once affluent family of New York city bankers, they’d never married. And when the family had fallen on hard times, they’d moved into one of the Rutherford family’s summer homes on Castleton Lake. Both women served on the board of trustees at the college, and they’d convinced the dean of the college to hire her as assistant librarian once she’d graduated.
Irene cleared her throat. “What are you going to do with the rope? If you don’t mind my asking.”
“Not at all,” Jodie said. “It’s Plan B. Sort of. Remember last Monday’s motto—There’s More Than One Way to Skin a Cat?”
Sophie shot a triumphant glance at her sister before she turned to Jodie. “Those mottoes are starting to work. They’re becoming part of you.”
“I guess,” Jodie said. The truth was that while she’d been working all morning at the library and trying to visualize the gun in her mind, she’d begun to have second thoughts about whether or not she’d have the nerve to actually use it. Pulling a paper out of her pocket, she spread it out on the table. “While I was helping one of the students do some research work on the Internet this morning, I came across this.”
Irene frowned thoughtfully. “What is it?”
“A snare trap,” Jodie replied. At the bemused expressions on the sisters’ faces, she continued. “It’s some kind of guerilla warfare thingamajig that they use in the jungles. Clyde Heffner, the student who downloaded it for me, is coming over this evening to help me rig this up in the attic. The next time that prowler starts poking around up there, he’ll find himself hanging by his feet from the ceiling.”
Leaning closer, the two sisters studied the diagram.
Sophie turned it upside down. “It looks very complicated.”
“Do you think it will work?” Irene asked.
“They work out in the woods. Clyde uses them to trap game.”
“I hope no one ends up hanging from their necks,” Irene fretted.
“I say we go for it!” Sophie said. “I, for one, do not want to end up murdered in my bed.”
“Well, I don’t think we’ll have to worry about that anymore,” Irene replied as she began to refill her teacup. “And Jodie won’t have to build that thingamajig, either, now that Mr.—Ouch!” Wincing, she broke off and shot her sister an apologetic look.
Jodie glanced from Irene to Sophie. “Why won’t we need it?”
They stared back at her uncomfortably for a moment.
“We…that is…how about some lemon?” Irene asked, offering a plate.
“I’m not having tea,” Jodie said. “Why don’t we need my snare trap?”
“We were going to tell you this evening as a sort of surprise.” Pausing, Sophie cleared her throat. “Irene and I have also come up with a Plan B.”
“It’s not nearly as complicated,” Irene said.
Jodie pocketed the diagram and leaned back in her chair. “You had your committee meeting for the Mistletoe Ball today. And then you were supposed to be at the newspaper office placing an ad for a handyman. What else did you do?”
Irene beamed a smile at her. “We’ve taken in a boarder.”
“But you’ve already got one—me,” Jodie said.
“You’re not a boarder. You’re like family,” Irene said. “And this is different. Mr. Sullivan’s a carpenter and an electrician. When we got to the newspaper office, he was in line ahead of us, placing an ad to get work as a handyman. We got to talking, and we ended up hiring him. The best part is he needs a place to stay, and he agreed to accept room and board as part of his wages.”
“It was fate,” Sophie said. “We decided to go for it.”
“You’re inviting a perfect stranger to live under the same roof with you? Don’t you realize how dangerous that is?” Jodie asked.
“He won’t be living under the same roof,” Sophie explained. “We offered him the apartment over the garage.”
Irene coughed delicately, then leaned forward and spoke in a low tone. “We explained to him that there was only one bathroom, in the house, and that until we add on another…well, there might be certain…lack of privacy issues. He said the garage would be fine with him.”
“But he’ll still be living on the property with you—with us—and we don’t know anything about this man. He could be a serial killer!” Jodie said.
“I have references.”
The voice. Jodie was sure she recognized it. What were the chances of two different strangers in town speaking in the same low, gravelly tone? Absolutely none, she decided as she turned and found herself looking into the laughing eyes of the man from Hank Jefferson’s store.
“Jodie, this is Shane Sullivan, our new handyman,” Irene said.
“I’ve been looking forward to this introduction, ma’am.”
Shane? Oddly enough the name suited him. He looked like a lone cowboy, and he probably talked to his horses in just that tone, Jodie thought. Except this was Castleton, New York, not some fictional Western town she’d read about in seventh grade. “Your name is Shane?” she asked.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Pull up a chair,” Sophie said. “We were just telling Jodie about you.”
“See,” Irene said as Shane snagged a chair and straddled it. “He doesn’t look like a serial killer.”
“Ted Bundy didn’t look like one, either,” Jodie said.
“Right you are,” Shane said. “Everyone who knew him described him as charming.”
“Except for the women he killed,” Jodie pointed out.
Shane grinned at her as he pulled an envelope out of his pocket. “Right you are again. I can’t blame you for being cautious. But these are the references I mentioned.”
