Читать книгу Shadows Of Truth - Sharon Mignerey - Страница 9

The following morning, Rachel headed for work, hearing her father’s voice in her head. “Be bold as a lion, Rachel,” had been his advice right after Angela’s arraignment last spring. “Only the guilty have reason to hide in the dark.” Except, she felt guilty, even if only by association.

As her dad had said to her recently, the words didn’t offer comfort. Though she still heard his voice in her head, she no longer confused it with God. Though her loss of faith had hurt her father, she couldn’t pretend to believe.

These days she related most to Job’s trials. Like the biblical figure, Rachel was sure there could be no purpose to all she had endured over the last several years—the death of her husband when an aneurysm had burst in his abdomen, the betrayal by her best friend, the loss of her business. Unlike Job, she thought of fleeing, though she had no idea where she would go or whether she would be able to make things better for her children.

“As with Job,” her father had told her, “all this is a test of faith.”

“Is that the category for your visits to Angela? A test?”

He’d looked genuinely shocked. “Of course not. She’s in need of my care, of spiritual guidance.”

“Even though she betrayed me?”

“Especially because of that.” And, as he’d said a thousand times before, he had told her, “My ministry to another doesn’t lessen my love for you.”

“Your visits to her feel like another betrayal,” Rachel had confessed angrily.

He’d looked at her sternly, then, in the way that had always, always made her obey him. “You know better than that. Prayer and study will show you that that is as ridiculous as your assertion that God has abandoned you. I’m so disappointed in you.”

Like the Look, his “I’m so disappointed” speech usually guaranteed she’d strive to please him even as the phrase cut her to the quick. But for the first time in her life, she had retreated, feeling lost and confused and emotionally abandoned. Now she no longer called her father except to make arrangements for her children to visit him.

She felt as though the support, understanding and compassion she wanted for herself had been given away to others, especially Angela. And, her dad seemed to believe she was asking him to choose between his ministry and her. Yet she had simply wanted some of his boundless compassion for herself. Maybe the wanting made her selfish, but she hadn’t been able to banish it.

Seven blocks from her home, she drove past the brick-front building that had housed Victorian Rose Antiques. The green awning shaded the front window, which still posted the sign that the business had been closed by the DEA. Since their merchandise was tainted by the drug trade, it had been seized. The day Angela had been arraigned, the bank had called in the loan that had secured the purchase of all that merchandise.

And now it was all her problem.

Rachel’s daily refrain echoed in her head. What in the world had Angela been thinking? Even Angela herself hadn’t been able to answer. All Rachel knew was that Angela had plea-bargained the charges against her and provided the names that had led Agent Micah McLeod to the bigger fish he had really been after.

But was that bigger fish now after her?

Rachel’s hands grew clammy with the memory of the rock shattering the window and bringing her out of a restless sleep. Since she no longer had the e-mail or the letter with their simple, one-line demands—I want my $500,000—the police had no reason to think the rock was anything more than a prank. She had told them about the notes, immediately knowing how lame her story sounded.

“Call us,” the investigating officer had told her, “if another note comes.” A month had passed since then, and until Micah McLeod had showed up yesterday afternoon, she had hoped the police were right about the rock and notes being a prank.

The fear was back, and she hated it.

Think about today, she told herself. Today would be a good day because of the appointment she had after work. Jane Clark, one of her best—and wealthiest—clients from the antique shop, had a referral for Rachel. The whispered promise of returning to the work that she loved sang through her. Today, she reminded herself, was a new day.

After a half-hour on the road, Rachel parked her car behind one of the hotels that lined I-70. She went through the service entrance, clocked in and went to work for the first of her three jobs—this one as a maid.

She was so used to being invisible that she didn’t even look twice when a man came out of one of the rooms and approached her. His steps slowed, and she looked up.

Micah McLeod, his dark-brown eyes steady on her.

Her heart gave a familiar lurch—it always did when she saw him. She didn’t want to notice that he looked good, but he did. He wore jeans, a Western-style shirt, cowboy boots and a Stetson with the ease of a man who had grown up in the clothes rather than adopting them like some packaged country-music singer. She knew under his hat was a full head of hair, the dark strands liberally streaked with gray.

She forced herself to look away and wished he would walk right past her, somehow knowing that he wouldn’t. He came to a halt next to her cart, blocking her way back into the room she was cleaning.

“What in the world are you doing here?” he asked.

“Working.” She stuffed the linens she had just stripped off a bed into the hamper at the bottom of the cart.

“Working,” he repeated. “Why?”

A sharp retort was at the tip of her tongue when she noticed one of the hotel managers at the end of the hall. Jason Laird, a young man fresh out of college. His pretentious attitude grated more often than not, and he had made it clear maids were to be seen and not heard.

“For the usual reasons,” she said managing to keep annoyance out of her voice as Jason came closer. “Is there something you need?”

“Not anything you can give me here.” Micah turned around to see who she was watching.

“Good morning, sir,” Jason said to Micah. “Is everything okay?”

“Fine,” he responded.

“Enjoy your stay.” Jason raised an eyebrow at her and cocked his head toward the room she was cleaning, his unspoken message as clear as a command. Get back to work.

Rachel pulled clean sheets from her cart while Micah stood there watching her as though she were some exotic species he was studying in a zoo. “If you’ll excuse me,” she said as she brushed past him.

He followed her into the room. “If you’re going to work in a hotel, why not turn your house into a bed-and-breakfast like you once talked about?”

The suggestion frayed her temper. How could he know so much about her hopes and dreams when she had clearly known nothing about his? Once he had told her about a ranch in Wyoming, his description of a home so vivid she had imagined living there. Like everything else last spring, that had most likely been a lie, too.

She snapped a clean sheet open and it floated across the mattress. Efficiently, she tucked the sheet around the mattress and did her best to ignore Micah’s large presence.

He simply stood there, waiting with the patience that was so much a part of him. She finished making the bed and did a visual scan of the room to make sure she hadn’t missed anything. All that was left was to vacuum.

When she retrieved the vacuum cleaner from the hallway, he blocked her way back into the room.

“Rachel, talk to me. Why are you working here?”

“Because I need the job.”

He moved to the side so she could enter the room, then followed her. “This is the best job you could get?”

Mentally counting to ten, she plugged in the vacuum. “There’s nothing wrong with this job.”

“Okay, maybe that was out of line, but you’re the most capable person I know. I’ve never known anyone smarter than you. You could have gone back into banking or—”

“So why would I stoop so low?” she interrupted, turning around to face him, last spring’s events so much at the surface she trembled. “Have you ever stuck around after your investigations are concluded to see what happened next? Or is it just on to your next assignment with your carefully taken notes so when you get called back to testify you remember the…how did you put it? Oh, yes…the pertinent facts of the case.”

He took off his hat and thumbed the brim before looking at her. “I remember everything, Rachel. And I regret—”

“Regret doesn’t feed my children,” she said, the last tenuous thread on her temper shredding. “And as for going back to work at the bank, nobody would hire me to be a teller, much less a financial analyst—not after learning my business partner had been convicted of money-laundering.”

“That was Angela London, not you.”

“And weren’t you the man who once told me that the quality of a man’s character can be measured in the friends he has?”

“I’m sorry.”

“No doubt.” She looked up then, and met his gaze. “Go away, Micah McLeod. If I never see you or talk to you or—” She swallowed the lump in her throat and willed the tears burning her eyes to go away.

“What’s going on?” Jason Laird stood in the doorway.

“Nothing,” Micah said. “I’m leaving.” He slipped past Jason who watched with his arms folded over his chest.

“You come with me,” Jason said to Rachel. “Right now.”

She knew what was coming, but like so much else over the last few months, being chewed out for talking to a guest was one more thing to be endured.

“Your services are no longer needed,” Jason said as soon as he sat himself down behind his desk.

“You’re firing me?” She had expected to be bawled out—not dismissed.

“You know the rules about contact with guests,” he said, “and your behavior toward our guest just now is completely unacceptable.”

Locking her jaw so her chin wouldn’t tremble, Rachel stared at a point beyond Jason’s shoulder while he finished dressing her down. Fifteen minutes later she clocked out and left the motel. It wasn’t yet 9:00 a.m.

She got in her car and sat there a moment, feeling her debts weighing her down and the empty light on the fuel gauge taunting her with this latest failure.

She needed the money from this job, meager as it was. She couldn’t go home. Be bold as a lion, she told herself, gazing down the road where another dozen motels lined the street. She hated the idea of another maid’s job, but it was routine work that fit with the schedule for her other jobs. Bold as a lion would be to march down to the bank and apply for her old job in the trust department.

But today she was only bold as a hungry kitten so, irritated with her own lack of temerity, she headed for a motel a block away where she filled out her first application. Once more the anonymous demand for the half-million dollars flitted through her head, this time making her laugh silently. Like she would be looking for a sustenance job if she had access to that kind of money.

Even with the promise of better money that would likely come as a result of her appointment with Jane Clark, any income would be weeks to months in coming. Which made today simply another one to survive.

By the time she filled out her ninth application, any humor she had seen in her situation had long since vanished.

“Hello, Tommy,” Micah said to Angela London’s old boyfriend, surprised he had found the man the first place he looked—an upscale pool hall a couple of blocks from the historic Colorado Hotel. The clientele this early in the day was thin—Tommy Manderoll was playing alone. Waiting to score a sale, Micah was sure, since he was the one who had introduced Angela to drugs and the promise of easy money.

The man was nice-looking enough that Micah understood why Angela had gotten involved with him. But he was a user through and through.

Tommy didn’t look up until he had taken his shot, neatly pocketing a ball in the side hole. His eyes narrowed when he recognized Micah. “I don’t have anything to say to you.”

Micah shrugged and held out his hands in a placating gesture. “I haven’t asked you anything.”

“Yet.” Tommy moved around the table, chalking up the end of his cue as he went. “Whatever you’re selling, I’m not buying.” He hit another ball, this time missing. Scowling at Micah, he accused, “You’ve been following me.”

“I just got to town,” Micah said, leaning against an adjoining table and crossing his ankles as though he had the whole day. “You have some reason to think you’re being followed?”

Tommy snorted. “Like I’d tell you.”

“I dunno,” Micah said crossing his arms. “A man paranoid enough to think I’m following him probably has something to hide.”

“I’m an open book. Ask my probation officer.”

One thing the man had proven last spring was his knack for self-preservation. He’d provided the DA the final pieces of evidence that had convicted Angela, all for the price of his freedom, of course. The man had copped a misdemeanor plea and had been given probation and community service. And Micah knew as sure as he was standing here that Tommy was still dealing and equally certain that if he searched the man or his car, he wouldn’t find anything but chewing gum in his pockets or his car.

“Have you seen Simon Graden lately?” Graden had been the big fish that got away last spring without so much as an indictment touching him. Though Graden hadn’t been charged, it was only a matter of time, since too many paths of money trickled toward his door. Even if Angela hadn’t told him that Graden had threatened her a week before she was sentenced, he would have been Micah’s first suspect.

Tommy took longer lining up the next shot, and once more he missed pocketing the ball. “We don’t exactly run in the same circles.”

Micah knew that to be true. Upscale as this place might be, it lacked the five-star amenities that Graden would expect.

The man was quite wealthy—to most people he was merely one of Aspen’s millionaires. Unlike most others involved with the drug trade at his level, the man had no discernable organization. In spite of all the smoke and mirrors he hid behind, Micah was sure they would soon get him.

Since Tommy had turned on Angela for a price, he figured the man was capable of doing the same to Rachel. “There’s a rumor he’s looking for a missing half-million dollars. You wouldn’t know anything about that?”

“Nope,” Tommy instantly said without looking at Micah.

Micah didn’t believe him. “And you wouldn’t know why he thinks Rachel Neesham has it.”

Tommy jerked his head up, his gaze colliding with Micah’s. So that had surprised him. Interesting.

“Miss Goody Goody?” Tommy shook his head. “That boggles the mind.”

“I don’t hear you denying anything.”

Once more Tommy shook his head. “The only rumor I’ve heard about Rachel Neesham is she’s in debt up to her eyeballs and that she’ll probably lose her house.”

That news kicked Micah hard. He supposed he should have seen that coming, but he hadn’t. Just like he hadn’t imagined her working as a maid in a hotel.

“What about Two-bits Perez?” Micah asked. Two-bits had been a paid snitch and a good “friend” of Tommy’s.

Tommy took his time lining up another shot, his hand steady as a rock when he hit it. “Haven’t seen him since last spring.”

“Even though you’re buddies.”

Tommy shook his head. “He’s no friend of mine.”

If the friendship had dissolved, it could be for a lot of reasons, Micah thought. Tommy could have found out Two-bits was a snitch. Or Tommy could have stopped supplying Two-bits with his drugs. Since Micah had a few questions to ask the man, he hoped the informant was healthy and easy to track down.

Micah pulled a business card out of his pocket and handed it to Tommy. “If you hear anything I might want to know, you’ll call me?”

“What’s it gonna pay?”

Micah gave the young criminal a threatening smile. “The opportunity to keep living as a free man.”