Читать книгу Lakeview Protector - Shirlee McCoy - Страница 11

Nighttime was the worst for Jasmine. The empty space beside her in bed. The silence. The hollowness of the house. The best thing, Jazz found, was to keep busy until she couldn’t keep her eyes open any longer, then fall into a restless, dream-filled sleep. Often John and the girls would be waiting for her there, their laughter following her from dreams into daylight. That was when she understood how deep and true love was, how impossible it was to measure or to confine. It reached beyond time, beyond death, filling the heart even when arms were empty.

Tonight, with Sarah settled into her room and the tap of icy rain hitting windows and roof, Jazz still felt the aloneness of the night, the emptiness that yawned beside her in bed. At a little after midnight, she was still awake, sketching illustrations for an alphabet book. A tiger. Friendly-looking to go with the cute little rhyme that would be on the page. The only problem was Jazz’s tiger looked more ferocious than friendly, his snarling face and jagged stripes enough to scare even the bravest toddler away.

“Focus, Jazz. This thing is due in ten days.” She muttered the words as she ripped the drawing from the pad, tossed it into the trash can and tapped her pencil against the bed. This should be easy, so why was she struggling with it?

Maybe because being bombarded with photos of John and the girls that sat on every table and shelf in Sarah’s house had stolen her ability to concentrate. Maybe because she was still worried about the financial help she’d given Sarah and what Sarah’s response to that would be. Maybe because she was still thinking about the guest in Meadow Lark cabin—his rifle case, his warm smile, his hard eyes.

Maybe all of the above.

And maybe she should just forget all those things and finish the tiger, the umbrella bird, the vixen, the walrus, the yak and the zebra so she could mail the assignment out.

She smoothed a hand over a clean page, glancing at the storyboard she’d been sent. An easy assignment. Get it done. Get it out the door. Decide if this was really what she wanted to spend the rest of her life doing—drawing pictures for someone else’s stories while her Danielle Donkey stories were reprinted over and over again. That was all she needed to do. Simple.

A line. Two. Curves. Shapes, coming together to form the sketch. She’d just finished the tiger’s smiling mouth when a scream rent the air, high pitched and terror filled, heartrending in its fevered intensity.

“Sarah!” Jazz ran across the room, the sketch pad falling from icy fingers, her heart tripping in her chest as she raced for her mother-in-law’s room, shoved the door open.

The light was off and she flicked it on, inhaling the musty scent of age and medicine, and the coppery scent of fear. Her mother-in-law pressed up against the headboard of her bed, her eyes wide and feverishly bright against pale skin, her gaze fixed on the window.

“Sarah? What’s wrong? Are you okay?”

“It’s out there, watching me.” The hoarse whisper was almost as terrifying as Sarah’s scream.

“What? What’s out there?” Jazz moved toward the window, fear quivering in her throat and belly, images flashing through her head. Bogeymen, ghosts, other things that didn’t exist except in the imagination.

“The thing that’s trying to kill me.”

“There’s nothing there.” Was there? Jazz pressed her face against the glass, peering into the darkness and trying to see shapes in the shadows.

“Call the police. Call them now before he gets in.”

“You saw a man outside the window?” That made more sense, though the idea of a man lurking outside seemed almost as unbelievable as a phantom creature. Even a serial killer would hesitate to be out on a night like this.

“I saw something. A shadow with milk-white eyes.”

“Sarah…”

“Someone was out there. Call the police before he gets away.” She sounded more rational now, more believable, and Jasmine grabbed the phone from the bedside table, dialing the sheriff’s department rather than 911. No sense tying up the emergency line for something that probably wasn’t an emergency. Maybe her mother-in-law had had a nightmare, or maybe she’d really seen something. One way or another, Jazz was pretty sure they were safe inside the house.

Sirens drew Eli Jennings to the living-room window of his rental, their screaming frenzy carrying over the sound of the winter storm. Outside, ice still fell, collecting on the grass and trees and sparkling in the light that spilled out from the window. Down the hill and to the left, blue and white lights flashed. Unless he missed his guess, they were near the small rancher he’d visited earlier. Not that it was any of his business. Then again, he’d never cared too much about whether things were his business. That was why he was in Lakeview, Virginia, instead of at home in Atlanta. And that was why he was about to take a midnight walk in icy rain.

He grabbed his jacket from the coat closet and stepped out the front door. Probably this was a bad idea. Probably he shouldn’t be doing it. But two women lived down in that rancher, one too frail to protect herself, one so brittle Eli thought a strong wind might shatter her.

Not his business, sure, but Eli was hardwired to protect. The weak, the fragile, the frail. Those who couldn’t fight for themselves. It was why he’d joined the military and why he’d still be in it if he could. Unfortunately, the choice had been taken out of his hands. A roadside bomb and suddenly he was Stateside, near deaf in one ear, and sporting a roadmap of scars and a pronounced limp. Seeing as how five of his buddies hadn’t survived the attack, Eli figured he had more to be thankful for than to complain about.

He made his way down the steep slope that led away from the cabin, moving past his SUV and along the gravel driveway that led to the Harts’ house. He’d done his research before he’d arrived, knew exactly who his landlords were. At least who they were on paper. Jasmine Hart—well-known children’s book author and illustrator, faded to obscurity after the death of her husband and daughters, living a quiet life in New Hampshire until her mother-in-law fell down a flight of stairs and fractured her skull and her hip. Sarah Hart—owner of Lakeview Retreat. Widowed young. Raised a son. On the verge of losing the property she’d worked so hard for.

Those were the facts.

Reality was different. Reality was the frail, older woman who’d shuffled along with a walker while offering him tea, and the younger woman who’d looked like more trouble than Eli had time for. From the tip of her multicolored knit cap to the soles of her scuffed brown boots, she had the kind of can’t-hurt-me attitude that could put a person into all kinds of dangerous situations. Tough. Strong. A survivor. But brittle, too. Like overstressed glass, she might shatter at any moment.

He’d met other women like her. In Africa, Afghanistan and Iraq. Different places. Same stories. Military life had put him in contact with plenty of people whose lives had unfolded in horrifying tableaux. Jazz was no different.

Except for her eyes.

Not blue. Not green. A mixture of colors that reminded him of Asia’s deep valleys and lush jungles, of hazy mornings and strong, dark coffee. The fact that he’d noticed just proved how much trouble she was going to be. He had a job to do, and that job didn’t include comparing a woman’s eyes to foliage.

Two police cars were parked in front of Sarah’s house, and he skirted around them, stopping when a harsh voice called from the open doorway of the rancher. “You looking for someone, friend?”

“Just making sure everything is all right.” He waited until the officer moved into sight. “I’m Eli Jennings. One of the Harts’ renters.”

“Must be a pretty new one. As far as I know, none of the cabins have been rented in over a year.”

“I just drove in today.”

“Staying long?”

“At least a month.”

“For?”

“Business.”

“What kind of business?”

“Not the kind that’s going to cause you any trouble, Officer.”

“Sheriff. Jake Reed.” The man offered a hand, but his scowl said he wasn’t happy with Eli’s response. Too bad. It was all he was getting. Until Eli got a better sense of which Lakeview residents were important to his investigation, he planned to keep his purpose for being there close to the cuff. If the sheriff questioned him privately, he’d tell all. Otherwise, he had nothing more to say about his “business.”

He plastered a good-old-boy smile onto his face and leaned a shoulder against a porch post. “Good to meet you, Sheriff. So, is everything okay?”

“Everything is fine, Mr. Jennings. Sorry for the disturbance.” Jasmine emerged from the house, drowning in gray flannel pajamas, her hair a halo of wild curls around a sharp-angled face, her eyes huge pools of uncertainty.

Fine?

Eli doubted it. “It seems that if everything were okay you wouldn’t have two police cars sitting in front of your house.”

“Sarah thought she saw someone outside her window. I’m sure—”

“That she’s a crazy old fool who’s too muddled in the head to know what she’s looking at.” Sarah Hart appeared in the doorway, leaning heavily on her walker, her lined face pale, her knuckles white with tension.

“You know that isn’t what I think.” To her credit, Jasmine sounded hurt at her mother-in-law’s accusation, though Eli wondered if she actually did believe Sarah’s thinking was muddled.

“I know what I saw and what I saw was a face staring in the window at me.” Sarah sagged a little as she spoke, grimacing and in obvious pain.

Jazz put a hand on her shoulder. “You need to sit down, Sarah. Jake will handle things out here. Give me a few minutes and I’ll come in and make you a cup of tea.”

The older woman’s shoulders stiffened and her chin went up. She reminded Eli of a younger version of his grandma Fern. Soft as warm butter until someone got her back up, then she was hard as steel.

“I can handle making tea myself, and I’ll handle this investigation myself, too, if no one is willing to take me seriously.” She shot the sheriff a hard look that was only slightly less effective because of her frailty.

Eli turned his attention to Jake, watching for his reaction. The way he saw it, a man could be measured by the way he treated a lady. In his estimation, anyone who didn’t treat a lady right didn’t deserve to be called a man.

Apparently, the sheriff had the same philosophy. Despite Sarah’s obvious anger, Jake’s response was gentle, his words calm. “I’m taking you very seriously. If someone was here, we’ll find out who and why.”

“If?”

“Sarah, I’ve known you enough years to know that you’d rather hear the truth than a pretty lie, so I’m going to tell you what I think. I think you saw something. Whether or not that something was a person still has to be determined.”

Good answer, Reed. Not too coddling, not too gruff. The truth. Plain and simple. Eli’s opinion of the sheriff rose, and he pushed away from the porch pillar, ignoring Jasmine’s quelling look, the sheriff’s scrutiny, and the voice inside telling him to mind his own business. “Did you see a face, Mrs. Hart? Hair color? Eyes?”

“I’ve already taken her statement, Jennings. There’s no need to go over it all again.”

“Just wondering why she thought it was a person.”

“I saw eyes. White eyes.” Sarah shuddered, and Jasmine put a hand on her arm, aiming a dark look in Eli’s direction.

“Let’s go have that tea, Sarah. Would you like to join us, Sheriff?”

“Thanks, but I’m going to join my men, look around some more, then be on my way. If we find anything, I’ll stop back in.”

“Thank you.”

“If you see anything else that has you worried, give me a call. Doesn’t matter how trivial it seems.”

“We will.”

The sheriff nodded, then headed out into the rain, rounding the side of the house and disappearing from view.

“I guess you’ll be heading back to the cabin now.” It wasn’t a question. As a matter of fact, Eli was fairly confident it was a request.

“Am I?” He purposely drawled the words. “And here I was hoping to join you two for a cup of tea.” His mother would smack him upside the head if she knew he’d just begged an invitation, but something was going on here, and he wanted to know what.

“Since when do men drink tea?”

“We’d love to have you.”

Jasmine and Sarah spoke simultaneously, and Eli answered both. “Thanks for the invitation, Mrs. Hart. I’ve spent a lot of time overseas and picked up the habit there.”

“Overseas? Are you military, Mr. Jennings?” Sarah shuffled back into the house as she spoke and Eli followed, passing by Jasmine, who hovered near the open door. She looked confused, her blue-green eyes wide with anxiety as if she wasn’t quite sure how he’d ended up in the house and wasn’t exactly sure what she wanted to do about it.

“I was military. A marine. I’m retired now.”

“My husband was a marine. Went to Vietnam and never came home.” Tears pooled in Sarah’s eyes, and Eli wished he’d left the two women alone. He’d wanted to find out what was going on, not dredge up Sarah’s painful past and bring her to tears.

Which, by the way, he wasn’t very good at dealing with. Sure he had four sisters, but they were more likely to cry on each other’s shoulders than his.

He cleared his throat, put a hand on Sarah’s thin shoulder, wondering why it was taking Jasmine so long to follow them into the kitchen. “That must have been painful for you, Mrs. Hart.”

“Call me Sarah. And it was painful. It was also a long time ago. I shouldn’t be getting teary eyed about it anymore. Chalk it up to fatigue and pain.” She offered a watery smile, and Eli smiled back, thinking again that Sarah was a lot like his gran. Tough and soft all at the same time.

“I imagine that’s to be expected after hip surgery.”

“Hip surgery? How do you know she’s had hip surgery?”

He turned to face Jasmine, surprised at the quick leap in his pulse when he met her gaze. She wasn’t pretty in the conventional sense of the word, but there was something about her that commanded attention. Commanded his attention, anyway. The strong line of her jaw, the wide blue-green of her eyes, the dark arched brows and full lips made him want to look again and again. “My grandmother had hip surgery two years ago. She used a walker for a while. I just assumed that might be the case.”

“Did you?” Jasmine’s eyes bored into his, her suspicion obvious. Good instincts, but he wasn’t going to admit the truth. Telling her he’d paid a fair amount of money to find out everything he could about the Hart women wasn’t on Eli’s agenda for the night.

“Did your grandmother have an easy recovery?” Sarah’s question saved Eli from doing some verbal backpedaling, and he smiled in her direction.

“She sure did. Gran was riding horses six months later. Seeing as how she’s probably a decade older than you, I’d say you’ll be back to your normal activities in no time.”

“I’ll be back to my normal activities if I survive long enough.”

Survive long enough? Now they were heading in the direction Eli wanted to go. “Is there some reason why you wouldn’t?”

“Someone is trying to kill me.”

“Why would someone want to do that?”

“If I knew maybe I’d be able to figure out who it was. As it is, I can’t get anyone to take me seriously.”

“The sheriff seemed to be taking you seriously.”

“Do you think so?”

“I’m going to start the tea,” Jasmine interrupted, grabbing a teapot from the stove and making a loud production of filling it with water, her tight, short movements the equivalent of a three-minute lecture titled: You Shouldn’t Be Having this Conversation with My Mother-in-law.

Too bad he didn’t agree. A woman had gone missing two months ago. Probably it had nothing to do with Sarah Hart’s belief that someone was trying to kill her.

Probably.

On the off chance it did, Eli figured conversation on the subject wasn’t out of line. “Has someone threatened you, Sarah?”

“Threatened? Pushed me down the stairs, that’s what someone did. Broke my hip, gave me a concussion. It’s only by the grace of God I’m still alive.”

“Grace of God? If He was really gracious, He would have kept you from falling.” Jasmine pulled teacups from a cupboard, her shoulders stiff, the bitter words surprising Eli. According to the report he’d received, Jasmine attended church every Sunday, gave copious amounts of money to charity, illustrated children’s books for a Christian publishing company.

“I didn’t fall. I was pushed.”

The conversation had a well-worn feel to it, and Eli suspected the subject had been hashed out more than a few times. Might as well stick his nose into it and see where that took him. “Pushed by the same person who was at your window?”

“Probably.”

“No.”

Once again, the women spoke in tandem. This time, Eli focused his attention on Jasmine as she poured steaming water over tea bags. “It is possible, you know.”

She raised her gaze from the tea, her feelings hidden in the blue-green depth of her eyes. “Of course it’s possible, but is it likely? Ice is spitting from the sky, the ground is slick, only a fool would come out on a night like this. A fool couldn’t push a woman down the stairs with dozens of people around and not be seen.”

“A fool couldn’t, but someone very, very smart and very, very determined might be able to.”

Her eyes widened at his words, tea sloshing over the rim of the cup as her hand jerked. “That’s not very comforting.”

“Comforting is hot chocolate on a cold day. It’ll warm you, but it won’t keep you safe.”

“What will?” She sized him up, her eyes moving from his head to his feet and back again. “A big strong hero?”

“I’m flattered.” He grinned, not at all bothered by her sarcastic tone and more than willing to volunteer his services. “But I was thinking more along the lines of knowledge. And a good security system.”

“A security system. That is a good idea. We should call someone tomorrow, Jasmine. See about putting one in.” Sarah lowered herself into a chair, took the tea Jasmine had set on the table.

“Sure. We can do that.” Jasmine passed a cup of tea to Eli, her fingers brushing against his as he took it from her. A zing of warmth ran up his arm, lodged somewhere in the vicinity of his chest and made his heart race.

What was it about this woman?

Her eyes?

Her lips?

The toughness that barely hid her vulnerability and sadness?

Yeah. That was probably it. Eli was a sucker for the downtrodden. This time, though, he was going to have to keep his distance. He’d come to Lakeview to do a job. Getting distracted was a surefire way to be certain it didn’t get done. He’d gotten the information he’d come in the house for, found out what had happened, made a practical suggestion for keeping the women safe. It was time to go.

He took a few sips of weak tea, then rinsed his cup and set it in the sink. “I’d better be on my way so you ladies can get some rest. Thanks for the tea.”

“Anytime.” Sarah smiled and started to rise, but he put a hand on her shoulder to keep her in place.

“No need to get up, Sarah. I can see myself out.” With that, he strode from the room, determined to get back to planning his strategy for finding Rebecca McKenna. Grown women didn’t just up and disappear. Not unless they were running from something. Or someone.

According to Eli’s friend and former commander, Marcus Trenton, Rebecca wasn’t the kind of person who’d have enemies or reasons to hide. Maybe he was right, or maybe Marcus just wanted to believe his sister innocent of what her husband had accused her—falling in love and running off with another man. One way or another, Eli was going to find out what had happened to Rebecca. He owed Marcus a lot. Even if he hadn’t, he wouldn’t have turned his back on a friend.

Cold wind blew across the lake, slapping icy rain into Eli’s face as he made his way to the cabin. He’d come to Lakeview to find Rebecca. That was where his focus needed to be. But even as he told himself that, his mind was at the Harts’ house, his brain replaying the conversation he’d had with Jasmine and Sarah. Something was going on there. Not just something. Trouble. Whether it was part of the plan or not, Eli had a feeling he was going to be seeing a lot more of the Hart women.