Читать книгу For Her Eyes Only - Sharon Sala - Страница 8

That night, Jessica ate her evening meal by the light of the moon. Although the power had been restored all over town, she still felt the need to escape, and the dark of her backyard was as far as she could go. She sat on her porch with a can of pop in one hand and a peanut butter and jelly sandwich in the other, unwilling to move indoors.

Grape jelly squished out of the edge of the bread as she took a big bite. Before it could drip, she caught it with the tip of her tongue and swallowed it whole. It wasn’t exactly fine dining, but for Jessica, who at her best was just a fair cook, it sufficed.

Thanks to a co-worker at the lodge, her car was back in her driveway and her purse and cell phone were safely on a chair in her bedroom. But her stitches kept pulling beneath the bandage and her long hair was driving her crazy. The longer she sat, the more she thought about cutting part of it off. At least, the part that was making her nuts.

It shouldn’t be all that hard. She had scissors, and thanks to the power company, a good light by which to see. Since she could work any computer program on the market, she could surely cut her own hair without making a mess. Besides, Dr. Howell had given her a jump start by shaving the part around her stitches. All she had to do was tidy it up a bit.

An hour and a half later, she stood before her bathroom mirror, staring at herself in disbelief. Yes, she was a whiz with figures, but she should have remembered that she couldn’t sew on a button without bringing blood.

The length was gone, just like she’d wanted. But so was the shape and the style. And for hair that was remarkably straight and limp, she’d somehow given it a life of its own. It no longer lay on her head. Instead, it sort of sprang from it, like new sprouts on a severely pruned tree. Oddly enough, the new cut gave her gamine features an engaging quality that her old style had not. The flyaway do was, in its own way, quite charming. But Jessica couldn’t see the charm for the harm. She dropped the scissors in the sink and sighed.

“Mouse poop.”

That pretty much said it all.

* * *

The next day dawned with an inevitability she couldn’t ignore. She needed to go to Squaw Creek Lodge and finish the payroll. When she got in her car, her nerves began to draw. A short while later, she turned into the parking lot and sat with the engine running, staring up at the grand log-and-stone edifice with dread. And as she stared, the same thought kept running through her mind. This is where it happened.

But she wasn’t referring to the accident. It was what happened afterward that was making her nuts. While she sat, lost in thought, someone knocked on her window. She turned with a jerk, expecting to see Olivia Stuart’s ghost.

But it wasn’t a ghost. It was Sheila Biggers, administrative assistant to the manager of the lodge. Jessica glanced at herself in the rearview mirror as she killed the engine. No use putting this off any longer. At least she wouldn’t have to go inside alone.

Sheila squealed. “Jessica, ooh, your poor little head.” She pushed aside a swag of Jessica’s gypsy-cut hair to peek at the bandage beneath and made a face.

But Jessica didn’t bother to answer, because Sheila Biggers could shift conversational gears faster than a drag racer on a hot track. They started toward the lodge, and Sheila continued without taking a breath in between.

“Did you hear! That bride-to-be, Randi Howell, disappeared the night of the blackout! The Stuart wedding never did take place!” She took a deep breath and moved on to another subject. “I love, love, love your hair! Who did it?”

Jessica’s mouth dropped. “Really? You don’t think it’s too drastic a change?”

Sheila reached out to touch the ends of Jessica’s hair. “I always said you looked like a younger Goldie Hawn. Didn’t I say you looked like Goldie Hawn?”

“Yes, you did, although I must say I never saw why.”

“Never mind, because I was wrong. I see it all now. It’s the hair that does it. It’s not Goldie Hawn. It’s Charlize Theron.” She fluffed the back of Jessica’s hair with her fingers and shrieked in delight when it fell back in disarray. “Cute, cute, cute!” She glanced up, realizing that she was already at her office. “Gotta run. Talk to you later.”

Jessica continued down the hallway, wondering how far a cute chin would take her in life. She opened the door to her office and turned on the lights, then hesitated, almost afraid to shut herself in the place where she’d first had the dream. When nothing out of the ordinary happened, she stepped inside and closed the door.

A dark stain shadowed the carpet near the bank of file cabinets. Blood. Her blood. She shuddered. A couple of steps farther, she saw her umbrella sticking out from beneath the desk where it had rolled after she’d tripped. She picked it up and put it safely on top of the cabinets where it belonged.

When she sat down behind her desk and turned on the computer, a feeling of well-being settled upon her. The familiarity of her desk, her computer, her things, eased the tension she’d been feeling. Now maybe everything would return to normal.

Before the program came up on the screen, she caught a glimpse of herself in the reflection and grimaced. Everything else might be normal, but her hair was not. Although it still made her look like a waif, there was an unplanned benefit to the shaggy style. The wild fall of bangs across her forehead hid the lump of white bandage quite nicely. Then the program came up and her reflection disappeared and she forgot about everything except payroll checks.

Less than an hour later, she picked up the house phone. Her part of the job was finished. Now all she needed was Jeff Dolby’s signature on the checks and she, along with the other employees of Squaw Creek Lodge, would get paid.

It should have been a simple call. Punch in the three numbers that dialed the manager’s office, then tell Sheila that the checks were ready to be signed.

She punched the numbers, and as she’d expected, Sheila answered the phone. But Jessica didn’t tell her the checks were ready. Between dialing and waiting for her call to be answered, something else started to happen. When she heard Sheila’s voice, she started to shake. And when Sheila raised her voice to repeat her hello, Jessica heard herself shouting.

“Your house is on fire!”

Sheila’s gasp was audible. “Who is this? If this is a joke, it’s not funny.”

Sweat beaded on Jessica’s upper lip as she stared down at her desk. The checks were right before her, but she didn’t see them. All she could see were tiny orange-red tongues of flame eating their way up a kitchen wall. Her voice deepened, and she spoke in a vocal shorthand, trying to impart the urgency of what she was seeing.

“In the kitchen! Up the wall. Fire! Smoke! Hurry! Hurry!”

The line disconnected, and Jessica dropped the phone and laid her head on the desk, fighting an overwhelming urge to cry.

Some time later, she made herself get up. Her hands were still shaking as she walked down the hall toward the manager’s office. When she went inside, she made herself look. Just as she’d expected, Sheila’s desk was empty.

What have I done?

But there were no answers, only questions. Taking a deep breath, she knocked on Dolby’s door. When he called out for her to enter, she did.

Trying to focus on something besides the vision she’d just had, she laid the checks on the manager’s desk.

“I thought you might want to sign these now, since we’re a couple of days late getting them out.”

He looked pleased. “Good job! I wasn’t sure you’d show up. I take it you’re not suffering any ugly aftereffects of your fall?”

“Hardly any at all.” Except for losing my mind.

“Wonderful! Wonderful! This was smart going with paper checks since direct deposit could have been screwed up during the storm and take days to fix.” He picked up a pen. “Have a seat, will you? Give me a couple of minutes and they’ll be ready to go out.”

As she sat down, she realized that Jeff Dolby was sporting a new hairpiece. For once, she was thankful she had something besides her own problems on which to concentrate. It was all she could do not to stare. This month’s hairpiece was dark and wavy, which was a unique contrast to the one he’d worn before. This one rode his bald dome like a loose saddle on the back of a swayback horse. It was there, but it just didn’t fit.

Jessica sighed and closed her eyes. She knew about not fitting in. It had been the story of her life. Now, with this thing that kept happening to her, she felt like more of an outcast than ever. Tears burned at the back of her throat as she struggled with her composure.

Dolby’s pen scratched across the surface of the checks as he wrote his name in small and contained flourishes. When he got to the last one, he looked up.

“If you don’t mind, Miss Hanson, I would appreciate it if you would distribute these. Normally that’s Sheila’s job, but she got an emergency phone call and had to leave, and since these are already late—”

He shoved them toward her, expecting her instant acquiescence.

Jessica stared at the checks, but couldn’t bring herself to move. She tensed, then cleared her throat.

“She did?”

He nodded, unaware that his hairpiece went one way as his head went another. In spite of the oddity of Jeff Dolby’s hair, it was what he’d said that gave her pause. She licked her lips, wanting to ask, but afraid of what he might say. Moments passed, and finally, she could stand the suspense no longer.

“I hope it wasn’t serious.”

“Well, yes, I believe that it was,” Dolby said. “She called me just before you came in.” He paused, and then continued. “You know, it was the strangest thing. She got an anonymous phone call here at the office. Someone said her house was on fire.”

“Oh, my,” Jessica said, and felt the skin on her neck starting to crawl.

“As it turns out, the call was on the up and up. If it hadn’t come, her house would have burned down. She said most of the damage was confined to the kitchen.”

And then Dolby gasped and suddenly bolted from his chair. His hairpiece slid forward over his left eye as he made a grab for Jessica. But he was a couple of seconds too late.

She slid out of her chair in a faint.

* * *

Smelling salts stunk. Enough so that wherever Jessica had gone when she fainted, she came back in a rush.

“Easy now,” someone said.

She looked up, noting that Mr. Dolby had more natural hair up his nose than he had on his head.

“Don’t move just yet. Take a couple of deep breaths and relax. When you feel able, we’ll help you up.”

One of the maids was cradling Jessica’s head in her lap while another mopped at her face with a very wet cloth that smelled of disinfectant.

At least I will be clean when I die. “What happened?”

“You fainted.”

She covered her face with her hands.

“Bat barf.”

Dolby patted her arm. “Now, now, you’re going to be fine. I appreciate the fact that you came in this morning to finish payroll, but I think you came back too soon. We’ve called for an ambulance. They’re going to take you—”

She pushed them aside and sat up with a jerk, then clutched her head with both hands, reeling as the room began to spin. Someone pushed her head between her knees and she found herself looking at a dried raisin that was stuck in the carpet. It was a fitting analogy to the way she felt.

“I’m not going back to the hospital,” she said. “I don’t need a hospital.” All I need is a new brain. Mine broke.

The sound of sirens could be heard coming up the road leading to the lodge.

Jessica groaned. “Send them back.”

Her request was too late. Paramedics came in on the run, followed by a couple of curious cops who’d been on their way to the lodge to interrogate the hired help about the missing bride and had decided to follow the ambulance instead.

When Stone Richardson followed the medics inside, it had been in the line of duty. A “just in case he was needed” decision that soon brought him up short. At first, he didn’t recognize the woman on the floor. But then she looked up, and he saw past the new haircut to the face beneath and found himself on the floor at her side.

His gruff voice and gentle touch were nearly her undoing.

“Damn it, Jessie, what have you done to yourself now?”

Jessica’s hand went to her hair, then she paused, uncertain as to which disaster he was referring—her hairdo, or the fact that she was about to go for another ambulance ride.

“She fainted,” Dolby said.

Jessica eyed the paramedic, who was fastening a pressure cuff on her arm. She refused to lie down. “I’m fine. They shouldn’t have called you, and I am not going back to the hospital.”

Stone heard what she said, but he had his own opinion of what she needed. She was pale and near tears, and the thought of Jessie unconscious and helpless did things to his heart he didn’t want to consider.

“You will if they say so,” he said, angry with himself and the emotions he kept feeling whenever Jessie was around.

Stone’s bossy attitude was more than Jessica was ready to accept. She gave him a sidelong glance. “Don’t you have someplace else to be?”

“No.”

Disgusted at being the center of so much unwanted attention, she closed her eyes and slumped forward, laying her head on her knees in a gesture of defeat.

Jeff Dolby patted his hair, making certain it was still in place, then touched Jessica’s shoulder in a comforting gesture.

“We can muddle along without you. I suggest you take off as much time as you need to recover from your injury. If need be, I’ll call in a temp.”

She groaned. Just after she’d started working at the lodge, she’d come down with a virulent flu bug that had taken its toll on the whole staff. Then the temp agency had sent a man who’d reorganized her entire filing system and crashed the computer. Fixing Dolby with a crushing stare, she gave him fair warning.

“If they send Lester Cushing, I quit.”

Dolby looked taken aback and then nodded nervously. “Don’t worry. I’ll see to it personally. You just get well. That’s all that matters.”

The paramedic began gathering up his things. “Miss Hanson, your vitals are normal, but I think you should see a doctor just the same. You can’t be too careful about head injuries.”

“I’ll call Dr. Howell when I get home,” she said. “I just need to go get my purse and keys.”

Restraining her intent, Stone pointed at one of the maids who was standing nearby.

“Would you please go to Miss Hanson’s office and get her purse?”

Jessica started to argue, when he silenced her with a look.

“Look, Jessie. I suggest you use what’s left of that hardheaded brain of yours. You just passed out. You are not going to be driving anywhere. I’ll take you home.”

Jessica slumped again, this time muttering the most disgusting slur she could summon on short notice.

“Tick teeth.”

Stone grinned. “Yeah, well, the same to you, lady.”

Startled, she looked up in time to see him wink. She felt herself blushing and looked away in disgust. I am immune to his charms. I am immune to his charms. The mantra did not work.

While Jessie was stewing quietly, Stone stood up. His partner, Jack Stryker, made no attempt to hide a grin.

“Stuff it,” Stone said as they walked to the other side of the room.

Jack whistled softly between his teeth and shrugged. “I didn’t say a thing.”

“You didn’t have to,” Stone said. “I saw that smirk.”

“I take it we’re going to delay the investigation of Randi Howell’s disappearance.”

A faint flush spread across Stone’s cheeks. “Look, Jessie is a good friend, okay?”

Jack’s grin widened. “From the way you hit the floor when you saw her down there, I’d say she’s more than your friend. However…I could be wrong.”

Ignoring his partner’s comments because they were too damned close to the truth to comment upon, Stone turned and then suddenly bolted across the room. Jessie was struggling to her feet. He should have known she wouldn’t do a damned thing he said.

A few minutes later, Jack leaned in the car window, sympathetically eyeing Jessica’s pale face as Stone fastened her seat belt. He knew Stone had been right in wanting to help her. This storm had messed up a lot of lives. He supposed it was fortunate they’d happened along.

“Miss Hanson, I’ll bring your car to your home when I pick up Stone, but I need to talk to a couple of people here at the lodge first,” he said.

Jessica’s lips trembled as she handed him the keys to her car. “Thank you. I appreciate your help.”

Stryker walked back toward the lodge as Stone pulled out of the parking lot. He gave Jessie a sideways glance.

“How come you appreciate Jack’s help and mine annoys you?”

Jessica stared out the window. Maybe because I don’t dream about going to bed with your partner. She took a deep breath and fought back new tears.

“Detective Richardson, I appreciate your help.”

He tried to laugh off the hurt he kept feeling as she continued to shut him out. “Dang, you sweet-talking woman. You’re just liable to sweep me off my feet.”

She refused to comment.

Stone tried another subject. “I see you cut your hair.”

She burst into tears.

Startled by her reaction, Stone swerved the car to the side of the road and jammed it into Park. Worried, he slid his hand up the back of her neck.

“Are you sick? Do you want me to—”

His touch, his consideration and those damned gray bedroom eyes were going to be her downfall. Desperate to put some distance between herself and the man who could be her Waterloo, she turned on him without warning.

“Stone Richardson, if you don’t put this car into gear and take me home, I will never forgive you.”

Torn between anger and dismay, he moved back to his side of the car.

“Lord love a duck, Jessie Leigh, you’d make a preacher lose his religion.”

Then he grabbed the steering wheel with both hands. The car took off from a parked position like a turpentined cat, leaving black rubber and smoke to mark its passing. A short while later, he turned the corner leading down her street and slid to a stop at the side of her driveway, leaving just enough room for Jack to park.

Jessica breathed a quiet sigh of relief and reached for her seat belt, anxious to make a getaway before she embarrassed herself even more than she already had.

“Thank you for bringing me home.”

This time his laugh was little more than a gruff bark. “You don’t get rid of me this easy.”

Before she could argue, he was out of the car and helping her up the walk. When they reached the door, he stopped and turned.

Pinned beneath his watchful gaze, she realized he was waiting for her to open the door.

“Just a minute,” she said, fumbling through her purse for the keys. “I know they’re in here.” And then she remembered she’d given them to Stryker. She looked at Stone. “Oh, no, I gave them to your partner.”

“Allow me,” he drawled, and before she could think to argue, he had pulled the lock pick from his pocket and, once more, picked the lock to her front door.

She started to comment, but changed her mind when he stepped aside and pointed forcefully.

“You! Inside!”

“But I—”

He took her by the hand and pulled her after him, shutting the door behind them.

“Damn it, honey, you are trying my patience to—”

It was once too many times to ignore. Without thinking, she drew back and let fly, thumping his arm with the bulk of her purse.

“Stop calling me ‘honey’! You gave up that right when you walked out of my life!”

Stunned by the fact that not only had she hit him with her purse, but she was yelling at him, Stone yelled back.

“I’m not the one who walked out, you are.”

In spite of the ominous swing to the purse she still clutched in her hand, Stone held his ground and wished he hadn’t given up the right to hold her. Right now he would give a whole lot to have her in his bed and his arms. The blue in her eyes had turned dark and angry. Staccato bursts of her breath brushed his face. Stone remembered thinking that she was close—but not nearly close enough to suit him.

The next thing he knew, he’d yanked her into his arms and was kissing those sweet, pouting lips. Tasting her shock and the echoes of her words, and knowing it was never going to be enough.

Jessica went from stunned to surrender in just under three seconds, unprepared for the jolt of emotion that tore through her. The only thing she remembered thinking was that she’d wasted the last two years. She hadn’t gotten over a thing.

Stone took a deep breath and turned her loose, and in those moments before he moved away, something precious passed between them that they couldn’t take back. Unspoken, but obvious, just the same.

“Stone, I—”

His voice was gruff, but his hands were shaking. “Get in bed.”

She took a sudden step backward. Where had all the tenderness gone?

He groaned. “I didn’t mean it like that,” he said softly, and took a deep breath while trying to calm his racing pulse. He reached out, lifting the fringe of her bangs to look at the white bandage beneath. “You have to be careful. I still think you should call the doctor. Head injuries are tricky.”

Her fingers brushed the surface of her mouth. “Not nearly as tricky as you.”

He flushed but held his ground. “I will not apologize for what just happened.”

She lifted her chin and walked back to the door, then opened it and stood aside, waiting for him to leave. As he stepped out, she slammed the door behind him. When she was certain there was at least three inches of solid wood between him and her, she shouted, “I don’t recall asking for an apology.”

Stone froze in midstep and then pivoted. His hand was on the doorknob just as a familiar click sounded. His eyebrows arched in disbelief. The little witch! She’d locked him out.

“What about your car keys?”

“Drop them through the mail slot, and thank you for the ride.”

“You call the doctor or I’ll do it for you!” he shouted.

She didn’t answer, and he could hear the sounds of her footsteps as she walked away. Torn between elation and frustration, he kicked at a rolled-up newspaper lying on her porch and sent it flying. It landed on top of a nearby bush.

“Damned woman.” He dropped down on the top step, waiting for Stryker to come with her car.

It didn’t dawn on him until later that he’d actually thought of her as a strong, capable woman, not one who cried and begged and blamed as Naomi had. But by the time he’d come to that conclusion, Stryker was pulling into the driveway in Jessie’s car.

Jack got out with a mile-wide grin on his face. “What are you doing out here?”

“None of your damned business,” Stone muttered.

Jack held up her keys. “What about these?”

Stone stuffed them through the mail slot in the door. They rattled as they hit the floor, and the moment they were out of his hand, he realized he should have kept them. Now there was nothing to keep her from getting back in the car and driving. And she was just stubborn enough to try it.

He sighed in frustration and headed for his car. Maybe he could find peace of mind in his work.

* * *

Jessica sat huddled on the floor in the hallway, listening for the sounds of Stone’s departure. She was afraid to sleep—afraid she would dream. But the real truth was, she was even afraid to think. She hadn’t been asleep when she’d seen Sheila’s house on fire. She’d been at her desk and minding her own business.

Her lips still tingled, and she thought of Stone and shivered with sudden longing, wishing that things were different. Wishing that she wasn’t so certain she was about to come apart at the seams.

He was an officer of the law, trained to help, trained to serve. She’d been injured. It only stood to reason he would consider it his duty to offer assistance. However, she reminded herself, he’d had no earthly reason to kiss her just now as he had. Except, she reminded herself further, she had been irritating him unnecessarily. Maybe he’d done it just to shut her up. She inhaled on a soft, helpless sob. Well, it had worked. She felt lost and rudderless, uncertain of what would come next.

She leaned her head against the wall and closed her eyes. Tears trickled out from beneath the lids, and she bit her lip to defend herself from the threatening flood. The truth be told, Jessica Hanson was afraid—afraid of herself, and afraid of what she might see next. She got to her feet and went to bed. Right now it was the only place she felt safe.

* * *

Horror shattered the joy in Olivia Stuart’s eyes as a hand clamped across her mouth and she was shoved forward, pinned between the table and the unyielding body of her attacker. The overpowering scent of gardenias mingled with a sudden pain in the back of her leg. Moments later, another pain, different and more threatening, mushroomed in the center of her chest. Her arms flailed outward and upward. She would never see her son again.

* * *

Jessica woke with tears streaming down her cheeks and the scent of gardenias swirling around her. She sat up with a jerk and took a long, deep breath.

“Why,” she whispered, and buried her face in her hands. “Why is this happening?”

She crawled out of bed and walked through her house toward the kitchen, comfortable in the darkness and with the familiarity of her own things. She poured herself a cold drink of water and drank it from start to finish without pause. When it was empty, she set the glass in the sink and then looked out the window to the night beyond.

Moonlight bounced off the nearby hedge, coloring the neatly clipped branches in a cold, silver glow. She shuddered as echoes of the last three days crept back in her mind.

Olivia Stuart’s attack.

Her sister’s lost keys.

Olivia Stuart’s attack.

The fire at Sheila Biggers’s house.

Olivia Stuart’s attack.

Something she hadn’t considered suddenly occurred. She hadn’t been wrong about where Brenda’s keys had been. She hadn’t been wrong about the fire at Sheila’s house. She started to shake.

Then, what if I’m right and they’re wrong about the reason for Olivia Stuart’s death?

The longer she stood, the more certain she became of what she must do. Like it or not, she had to talk to the authorities. If she didn’t, someone would be getting away with murder!