As the sleek car roared away from the curb, Cole headed inside, but he knew he wasn"t going to take Deeds"s advice. One of his first acts as a free man would be to confront Eve.
Hang the consequences.
She had to keep moving.
Couldn"t waste time.
Eve headed to the cash register, pulling out bills. She didn"t want to think about her father"s culpability or innocence or anything else about the trial. It was all water under the bridge, and the fact that she"d wondered if Roy Kajak"s reference to "evidence" had something to do with Tracy Aliota"s death was just her own way of admitting she didn"t completely trust the father she"d thought she loved.
She finished paying her bill and walked outside to a day that was even gloomier than before. Purple clouds sc.r.a.ped the tops of the spindly pines in the perimeter of the lot. Raindrops pounded and splashed on the cracked asphalt, forcing Eve to make a mad dash to her car.
Samson howled in his cage, and as she shushed him she spied water on the pa.s.senger seat. Swearing under her breath, she grabbed the towel she kept in the car for just such emergencies. In the past few weeks the window had begun to slip a bit, refusing to seal. Kyle had looked at it a couple of times but hadn"t been able to repair the d.a.m.ned thing. She mopped up the small puddle then leaned across the bucket seat, pressed on the b.u.t.ton to raise the window, and heard the electric motor whine to no avail. The gla.s.s didn"t budge. She"d just have to live with it and call a mechanic once she got home.
If she ever made it.
Her headache had dulled, the edges softening, and she wasn"t going to let something as inconsequential as the broken window bother her. She could even put up with Samson"s now-intermittent mewling.
She drove out of the lot and onto a side street before locating the ramp to the freeway again. Nosing her Toyota into the flow of traffic heading toward the gulf, she tried to relax. So Cole was a free man. So what? She wondered if he would return to New Orleans. Her sister-in-law was right about one thing: it was d.a.m.ned ironic that he had regained his freedom on the very day she decided to take the reins of her life again.
Fate?
Coincidence?
Or just bad luck?
Not that it mattered.
Because she wanted to see him again. Intended to face the b.a.s.t.a.r.d.
She had a h.e.l.l of a lot of questions for him.
Within a few miles, the rain let up then stopped completely. Her wipers were suddenly sc.r.a.ping and screeching against the gla.s.s, and sunlight, so long filtered by the clouds, bounced off the pavement in bright, blinding shafts. Maybe things were getting better. Even the cat had stopped crying. Eve switched off the wipers just as her cell phone jangled. With one eye on the road, she pulled the phone from a side pocket of her purse and flipped it open.
She put the phone to her ear. "h.e.l.lo?"
"He"s free," a raspy voice hissed.
"Excuse me?"
The phone went instantly dead.
"h.e.l.lo...?"
A tingle of fear plucked at her spine.
She wanted to think that someone had dialed her incorrectly, that the call had been a mistake, but she knew differently. The message was meant for her, to tell her that Cole had been released from prison.
"No s.h.i.t, Sherlock," she muttered, scowling as she tried to read the display on the small screen. Caller ID failed her: Unknown Number Unknown Number was all she learned for her efforts. was all she learned for her efforts.
She dropped the phone into the pocket of her purse again and fought a tiny drip of panic. So some idiot had called to...what? Inform her? Warn her? Scare her? So what?
It was no big deal.
Then why did whoever called hang up?
Why not finish the conversation?
The gravelly, almost hissing timbre of the voice in those two small words, He"s free He"s free, caused latent goose b.u.mps to rise on her forearms.
She glanced in the rearview mirror and felt the spit dry in her mouth. A dark pickup was following her. Surely it wasn"t the same shadowy truck she"d seen in the parking lot of the restaurant nearly an hour before? The one with tinted windows where a man had been smoking...?
Don"t go there, Eve. Don"t panic. You, of all people, know how dangerous that can be.
But her heart rate jumped and her palms began to sweat.
Don"t do this.... It was nothing. NOTHING! A phone call. Nothing more.
Her gaze flicked to the rearview mirror. Had the pickup closed the gap? Was he hanging on her b.u.mper? She knew all about incidents where someone would intentionally rear-end a victim on the pretense of an accident, but when the victim pulled over, the a.s.sailant would get the upper hand, pull a gun or a knife or...
Her heart was pounding crazily now.
She stepped on the accelerator and switched lanes, speeding past an eighteen-wheeler carrying gasoline. The pickup followed, and her heart thumped even more wildly, and she considered calling 911.
Get a grip, she told herself. she told herself. The guy"s just pa.s.sing the semi. It happens all the time. The guy"s just pa.s.sing the semi. It happens all the time.
She was breathing shallowly again, and the cat, d.a.m.n the cat, as if he were infected with her own fear, started yowling again. She checked the mirror as she shot past a minivan and two cars, the needle of her speedometer twenty miles over the speed limit. Fine. Let her get a ticket. Be pulled over by the police. That would solve the problem!
But as she flew past the last vehicle, the dark truck she"d thought was so malevolent lagged far behind, soon disappearing from view.
He hadn"t been following her.
It probably wasn"t even the same truck that she"d seen at the rest stop.
She"d overreacted.
Again.
"No reason to borrow trouble," she told herself, remembering one of her grandmother"s favorite phrases: Why borrow what you know is already coming your way? Why borrow what you know is already coming your way? "Oh Nana," she whispered, instantly missing the woman who had helped raise her once her mother had died fifteen years earlier. "Oh Nana," she whispered, instantly missing the woman who had helped raise her once her mother had died fifteen years earlier.
Her sudden anxiety attack melted away, and she slowly let out her breath. For the next fifteen minutes she tried to concentrate on the radio, talking nonsense to the cat, obsessively checking her rearview mirror every few seconds. The menacing dark truck failed to reappear.
Maybe Anna Maria was right. She was still far from a hundred percent of being herself. Then again, would she ever be the woman she was before she"d been shot?
Of course not.
No one could ever be.
Not when she knew that the man she loved, the man she had trusted above all others, had tried to kill her.
His breath came in short gasps.
His heart was thundering so loudly that the freeway noise, usually crushing, couldn"t be heard. He snapped the stolen cell phone shut and licked his lips. Though he stared straight ahead, driving by instinct, his mind was full of her, recalling, relishing the sound of her voice as she"d answered.
h.e.l.lo.
Innocent.
Trusting.
One little word, and it caused so many emotions to roil deep within him. His fingers gripped the steering wheel more tightly, and he smiled. A tingle swept through his blood, causing his groin to tighten just as the sunlight broke through the clouds. He stepped on the accelerator. The truck nosed up a small rise. Through the bug-spattered windshield, he spied her car again as she switched lanes, the Camry half a mile ahead, gliding easily around another eighteen-wheeler.
His heart thumped in his chest.
Behind his sungla.s.ses, his eyes squinted as if he could focus sharply enough to see her. His fingers stretched over the steering wheel.
Come on, baby. One glimpse...that"s all I want.
Then her car disappeared around a long, sweeping curve. But he knew she was close, could feel feel her. He knew where she was going, but he couldn"t let her get too far ahead, out of sight, just in case she took a detour. her. He knew where she was going, but he couldn"t let her get too far ahead, out of sight, just in case she took a detour.
No, he had to remain within view.
Without checking his mirrors, he floored the pickup and sped around an ancient Mercedes burning too much oil, black smoke pluming from the exhaust pipes.
More speed!
He was losing her!
He pushed down on the gas. His truck roared past a newer Ford Focus with heavy-metal music throbbing loud enough that he could feel the thrum of the ba.s.s through his closed windows.
Still his eyes remained straight ahead, his gaze focused on the little red Toyota with Eve at the wheel.
He"d blown it the first time at the cabin.
She"d lived.
He wouldn"t make the same mistake twice.
CHAPTER 4.
Eve couldn"t make it all the way to New Orleans. The needle on the gas gauge was hovering near empty, while her bladder was stretched to full. With less than eighty miles to the city, she was resigned that she"d have to stop, so she pulled into a gas station/mini-mart that shared a parking lot with a coffee hut. Across a small access road was a McDonald"s where cars and trucks were stacking up at the drive-up window and vying for spots near the doors.
Eve eased her car to a pump and waited for the minivan in front of her to drive off. Finally she filled her tank, pulled around to a parking spot, took Samson out of his cage for a couple of strokes of his long fur, then offered him water from her bottle. He clung to her like crazy, rubbed the top of his head against her chin as she told him what a good boy he was. He meowed pitifully when she returned him to the crate. "Just a little longer," she promised, leaving him in the car and wending her way through the vehicles parked in front of the market. The convenience store was doing a banner business. Inside, there were people standing in line to buy their gas, sodas, nachos, cigarettes, and beer. At the restroom she waited for nearly five minutes before it was her turn. After using the facilities and washing, she eyed her reflection in the small mirror, scowled, but didn"t bother to repair the damage. Who cared that her hair was a mess and her lipstick had faded hours earlier? She walked out of the restroom and through the crowded little store, where she grabbed a pack of M& Ms, a small container of aspirin, and a bottle of Dr. Pepper.
As she waited in line, she noticed a mirror mounted high overhead. Convex, the reflective gla.s.s gave the cashier a distorted but panoramic view of the interior of the market. In the reflection she saw several customers searching through the shelves, eyeing products, selecting their purchases, but one man was standing alone, not shopping, just looking at the entrance of the store through dark wraparound sungla.s.ses...or...was he looking at her?
Don"t be silly, she told herself and glanced over her shoulder. She couldn"t see past the products stacked on the highest shelf and told herself she was imagining things. No one was lurking, ogling her behind the rolls of paper towels and boxes of cold cereal, for G.o.d"s sake!
No-this was all in her head. She"d been edgy ever since she"d gotten that weird phone call.
"Get over it," she muttered to herself. Then, when the girl behind the counter peered at her oddly, Eve offered an embarra.s.sed smile and quickly paid for her purchases and tank of unleaded.
Outside, beyond the overhang covering the gas pumps, the clouds had lifted to a high, thin haze that was rapidly burning off. The sun hung low in the sky, promising darkness within the hour, but for now it was bright enough to be bothersome, reflecting harshly against gla.s.s and metal, creating tiny rainbows on the oil swimming on the surface of puddles caught in the uneven asphalt.
Eve rotated her neck, heard it crack, then slid into the driver"s seat, where she tore open the bag of candy and unscrewed her bottle of soda. After popping a couple of M& Ms and aspirin and washing them down with the Dr. Pepper, she set the bottle into one cup holder and the open bag of candy into the other.
As she turned the key and her car started, she noticed a dark pickup parked near the coffee hut. A ripple of fear slid through her. Was it the same truck that she"d thought was following her earlier?
There are thousands of trucks like that, she reminded herself. She couldn"t make out the smudged plates from this distance, but they were definitely from Louisiana. The bed of the truck wasn"t empty. A toolbox positioned near the back window had been bolted into the truck"s bed.
Probably a construction worker or handyman or farmer...no big deal. Right?
But as she pulled out of the lot, she glanced in her rearview mirror and saw a tall man in wraparound shades slip through the gla.s.s door of the mini-mart to stand and stare at her. "Sweet Jesus," she whispered. She told herself she was overreacting, that the guy was probably just looking across the street at the drive-in lane at McDonald"s, where a vanload of kids were yelling at the speaker box.
BEEP!!.
Eve gasped and stood on her brakes.
Her car rolled just short of the access road as a red, low-riding sports car, hip-hop music blaring, jetted by, just inches from her front b.u.mper. The three teenaged boys inside yelled obscenities and flipped her off.
She sucked in a breath, her heart knocking wildly. She"d been so caught up in her own personal paranoia, she"d neither seen the car approaching nor heard it roaring down the road. Had there been an accident, it probably would have been her fault regardless of the other vehicle"s speed.
"Stupid, stupid, stupid."
Glancing backward, she saw no one. The man in the doorway had moved. Probably to get into a car and go about his business. It had nothing to do with her. "Get a grip," she growled to herself as she eased onto the narrow road and squinted against the lowering sun. At a red light near the ramp leading to the freeway, she leaned over the pa.s.senger seat and opened the glove box, where she"d stashed her dark gla.s.ses.
A manila envelope that had been crammed into the small compartment fell to the floor. Dozens of sc.r.a.ps of paper, that looked like jaggedly cut clippings and articles, spewed onto the floor mats and between the seats.
"What the devil?" she whispered as the light turned green.
The driver of the SUV behind her laid on the horn, and Eve stepped on it, somehow accelerating onto the entrance ramp and merging with southbound traffic.
But her heart was thudding, her eyes darting from the road ahead to the scattered pieces of paper. She grabbed one off the pa.s.senger seat. It had sharp, jagged edges, and Eve realized the article had been clipped with pinking shears. Her heart was thudding as she held the piece of paper against the steering wheel and scanned the headline: TWENTY-YEAR-OLD MYSTERY SOLVED.
WOMAN"S DEATH RULED A HOMICIDE.