Читать книгу Most Wanted Woman - Maggie Price, Maggie Price - Страница 10

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.

From somewhere came a creaking sound.

Her pulse rate shot into the red zone. Downstairs, she thought, straining to hear past the roar of blood in her head. Had someone broken into the tavern? Creath?

No, she countered instantly, shoving back a wave of paranoia. Langley was watching him. If the homicide cop had left New Orleans, Langley would have sent her an e-mail.

Another creak had her swallowing a lump of fear. She slid out of bed, her knees almost giving out as she groped her way into the pitch-black living room. She felt her way to the couch, grabbed the phone on the end table. The dial wasn’t lighted; she didn’t want to waste time fumbling for buttons, so she stabbed redial.

After three rings, Etta answered, her voice thick with sleep.

“Etta, it’s Regan,” she said, keeping her voice whisper soft. “Someone’s broken into the tavern. I need you to call the police.”

“Lord, child, where are you?”

“Upstairs. If I try to leave, I might run into whoever it is.”

“You stay where you are and keep the doors locked. I’ll get the police there.”

In less than ten minutes, a car pulled to a stop at the rear of the tavern where Etta’s car and Regan’s Mustang sat parked. Inching back the sheer curtain that covered one of the French doors, Regan narrowed her eyes when she realized the vehicle wasn’t the Sundown police car she’d expected.

In the bright headlights that reflected off the tavern’s rear wall, she made out the sleek lines of a convertible. And the tall, lanky form of the driver who climbed out without bothering to open the driver’s door.

“McCall,” she murmured as the headlights went out, plunging the building’s exterior back into darkness. Her hand moved up to rub at her throat where her nerves had shifted into over-drive. Great. Just great. If she’d thought Etta would have called him instead of the Sundown PD, she’d have opted to take her chances with the burglar.

She could almost picture McCall keeping his back snugged against the wall as he moved soundlessly up the wooden staircase. When he gained the top step, he clicked on a flashlight, swept its beam toward the far end of the balcony.

She waited to unlock the French doors until he reached them. “What are you doing here?” she whispered.

He slipped through the door as silent as smoke, the edgy violence in the set of his body making her mouth go dry. The knots in her stomach tightened when she saw the automatic gripped in his right hand.

For a moment, no more than a blink of the eye, the image of him coming for her, arresting her for murder clawed in her brain.

“The Sundown cop on duty is on the other side of the lake, handling a domestic disturbance that involves a shooting,” he said, keeping his voice low. “Chief Decker’s there, too.”

In the beam of the flashlight the rugged lines of his face looked as if they were set in stone and he had a cop’s intensity in his dark eyes. “When the dispatcher told Etta it’d be at least an hour before a Sundown cop could get here, Etta called me.” He took a step closer. “Tell me what you heard.”

“A creaking noise. Footsteps. I heard them twice.” Fear crimped her voice, but she couldn’t help it, not when she was afraid of so much more than just the sound she’d heard.

“From downstairs?”

“I think so,” she said, brushing her bangs aside.

His gaze ranged across the small living room. “Is that the door to the interior staircase that goes down to the tavern?”

“Yes. The door at the base of the stairs is locked. I’ve got the key.”

“Give it to me. I’ll check things out.”

She moved to the coffee table, retrieved her key ring, found the key in question. “It’s this one.”

He stepped to her, his fingers brushing hers when he accepted the key ring. “Lock this door behind me.”

“All right.” She struggled to steady her heartbeat. It took all her control to keep her voice low and even. “This isn’t your job. You don’t have to do this.”

Pausing, he flicked the flashlight’s beam over her, his gaze traveling the length of her. “Seeing you in that outfit makes up for any inconvenience,” he said, then turned and strode toward the door.

Realization came with a quick jolt, followed by a rush of heat into her cheeks. Her brain had been so muddled by sleep, then fright, it hadn’t occurred to her to grab a robe. From the gleam she’d glimpsed in Josh’s eyes, she had a good idea what she looked like, standing there in an air-thin camisole and silky boxer shorts.

She watched him unlock the dead bolt, then shift to one side before he eased the door open. In one smooth move, he aimed his weapon and the flashlight’s beam down the steep staircase.

He glanced at her across his shoulder. “Lock this behind me,” he repeated, then slipped like a shadow into the stairway and pulled the door shut.

Swallowed again by darkness, Regan moved to the door and engaged the dead bolt. Closing her eyes, she leaned against the door while the look that had flashed in Josh’s eyes replayed in her brain. In that heartbeat of time, it hadn’t been a cop gazing at her, but a man. And the rapid surge in her pulse that she felt even now had everything to do with hot-blooded desire and nothing to do with fear.

She pressed her shaking hands to her lips. She was walking a tightrope between passion and danger, but the knowledge didn’t lessen the need.