Blood And Bone (13 page)

She turned and walked into her room, shutting the door behind her.

He dropped onto the couch. Her fragrant scent—green tea body wash, he smirked—wafted to his nose from the bedding in his arms. His head filled with visions of slipping into bed beside her, running his hands over her smooth, slender body, touching her, easing inside her—

Sex wasn’t an option. He needed to focus on something else, like how to stop Tic. But even if he did somehow manage to get Tic locked up, he still had Heddi to contend with.

And nothing would stop her from getting what she wanted.

Chapter Nine

“Robert’s choice to leave his first wife for the married Gwendolyn Grey created a great deal of animosity within the community, especially from his eldest son, Sam. He despised the woman.”

—excerpt from
Blood and Bone
by Shayne Reynolds

Des stormed across the driveway, up the stone steps and pounded on his grandmother’s door. The sun beat down on him, the air thick and hot despite the early hour. Sticky sweat slicked his skin and his irritation amplified. He closed his hand into a fist and beat harder on the thick oak.

The door opened a half foot and Deirdre’s bulldog face filled the opening. “What do you want? She hasn’t asked for you.”

Des ignored the housekeeper, shoving the door open the rest of the way, striding past without a backward glance.

“Wait! You can’t—”

“Watch me,” he snapped as he strode down the hall. He glanced into the parlor, then the library. No sign of Heddi. He made his way deeper into the house to check her sunroom. If she was awake, that was where she’d be. Her refuge from the world where she was not to be disturbed. Well, he’d disturb her all right.

Deirdre made no attempt to follow him. Instead, she scurried to the kitchen. Probably going in search of Hudson to toss Des out of the house. In the mood he was in, despite still being stiff and bruised from his last beating, Hudson would have a fight on his hands if he tried.

Des stormed into Heddi’s sunroom and froze, shock stealing away some of his anger.

“Vivian.” Heddi’s dry voice pulled his attention from the peach and turquoise wallpaper to his grandmother on a rattan love seat surrounded by ugly floral cushions the same hideous colors as the walls.

“She did this? When?” His grandmother had added the sunroom to the original house years ago, and no one was allowed entrance without Heddi’s explicit permission.

“While I was in the hospital. I suspect she didn’t think I’d be leaving it, at least not upright. Now this room looks like the inside of a goddamned Florida nursing home.”

She wasn’t wrong.

No wonder his aunt had been on edge these days. She’d probably spent the last four months waiting for the proverbial ax to fall. There was little Heddi enjoyed more than a surprise attack.

“Mrs. Grey?” Hudson’s deep voice rumbled inside the small room and Des stiffened.

Heddi’s dark eyes filled with black humor and she smiled. “You may go, Hudson. I’ve been expecting Desmond.”

Without another word, Hudson left, heavy footfalls on the wood floor fading. Alone again, Heddi waved at the chair next to her. “Sit. I understand you had an eventful evening last night.”

The mere mention of Tic sent a fresh wave of fury rolling through him, and he fought to keep his expression bland, refusing to give the old hag a glimpse of the storm roiling inside him. He dropped onto the seat she’d indicated. The wicker creaked beneath his weight.

Heddi watched him with narrowed eyes. “What have you been doing with that woman?”

“What makes you think I’m doing anything with her?”

Her dark glare bore into him. “You’ve spent the past two nights with her.”

He didn’t bother to ask how she knew. Among Avery, Hudson and his landlady, Heddi had an entire network of spies to report on his every move. He shifted in his seat. The sunlight spilling through the glass walls turned the air stifling, despite the air-conditioning pumping from the vents.

He shrugged. “After such an
eventful evening
, I didn’t want her out there on her own. I stayed on her couch.”

“How noble.” Her bony fingers curled around the arms of the chair. She leaned forward until her face was inches from his. Her sour breath stunk of illness. Of death. “But what were you doing with her at all?”

“I was filling her in on everything I could remember from that night,” he sneered.

Heddi jerked back as if he’d slapped her, fear glinting in her black eyes. “You did what?”

It was probably mean to torment the terminally ill, but he didn’t give a rat’s ass. “I was two years old when it happened. I don’t remember anything from that night.”

She glared darkly. “Not funny. Now tell me what you were doing there?”

“I was telling her to stay away from me and to forget Julia altogether.”

“Of course, your sweet sister.” Heddi cackled. He turned his gaze to the window and the deep green lawn spilling down to the water’s edge.

“Since the writer hasn’t yet abandoned the house, I assume last night’s incident wasn’t enough to frighten her off.”

Dread tightened his stomach. “No. Tic and his boys put on a hell of a performance, but she doesn’t scare easily.”

Heddi frowned. “Avery told me you didn’t recognize any voices.”

“I’ve got enough problems with Tic, I don’t need more.”

“Not so noble now, are we?” Her face lit with vicious delight.

Des gritted his teeth, but didn’t speak.

“Why have you come? Have you changed your mind about my offer?”

He dipped his head in an abrupt nod. “What exactly do you want me to do?”

“I need you to keep an eye on her, tell me whom she’s seen and what she’s learned.”

“And if I do this, I don’t have to pay back the money.”

“Of course,” she told him.

“I’ll want something in writing.”

“If you think you need it.”

“Oh, I do.”

“I’ll arrange for the paperwork today. You’ll have it first thing tomorrow morning.”

He nodded again, his stomach churning sickly. Why couldn’t he shake the feeling he was selling his soul? “Call off Tic. No strong-arm tactics or I won’t do it.”

“Are you afraid of him?”

An image of Shayne with Tic flashed through his head, making his insides quiver. “He’s a psychopath. Even you would have a hard time controlling him.”

“How do you suggest I drive her away?”

“I’ll provide you with the names of her sources. You can pay them off to keep them from talking to her.”

She cackled, the sound going through him like tinfoil on a filling. “You do have a devious side. Your way will be expensive.”

“It’s this way, or I won’t do it.”

“Are you in any position to be giving ultimatums?”

“My way, or I. Don’t. Do. It.”

She smiled her creepy, toothy grin, but her eyes glinted dangerously. “Fine, we’ll do it your way. But if you even think of crossing me, I’ll make you sorry you were ever born.”

“Leave a message. I’ll get back to you.”

Shayne sighed and pressed the End button on her phone as Anderson’s terse voice-mail instructions slipped into the beep. No point in leaving another message. He hadn’t bothered returning any of the others. She flipped her cell closed and nipped at the corner of her lip.

Why wasn’t the man phoning her back? He’d wanted her to call him. He couldn’t know she didn’t buy into his
I’m innocent
claim, or she wanted to ask him about the possibility of his late wife’s being involved with another man. Where was he?

She glanced at the clock on the dash of her car. Five to one. She didn’t have time to worry about him now. She’d try again later.

She hit a button next to the radio and the convertible roof started to close. A low hum filled her ears as the canvas slowly stretched overhead, blotting out the brilliant midafternoon sun.

With the roof closed, she opened the car door, got out and started toward the convenience store/gas station/garage.

How did places like this stay open? Alone on a deserted stretch of highway, the yellowed white paint on brick, and the faded sign mounted above the door with the words “Pump and Buy”—except the first
P
had vanished and the sign read “ump and Buy”—certainly gave the impression finding the placed boarded up and abandoned wasn’t that far off.

Warm wind stirred the leaves in the forest rising up behind the squat garage. A patch of dandelions growing through the stones on the gravel parking lot bowed under the invisible pressure.

An odd sense of isolation wrapped around her, fueling her already-keyed-up nerves. Was anyone even here? Or was this some kind of setup?

She thinned her lips and tried to will her beating heart back to a normal pace. After last night, she’d been edgy, looking at every man who glanced her way as a potential attacker, wondering if he was the one who’d smashed her window and threatened her.

She hated the nerves jittering beneath her skin like frayed live wires. Hated jumping at shadows like a frightened child. Hated the men who had left her feeling this way.

Her gaze shifted to a rusted silver hatchback parked next to a navy pickup at the side of the store. The place wasn’t entirely deserted, but the realization did little to ease her apprehension.

Shayne opened the steel-and-glass door, and an electronic chime announced her arrival as she stepped inside the small convenience store. Though,
store
seemed somewhat lofty for the one rack of potato chips, another for candy, and a fridge with pop and energy drinks. Shelves of cigarettes hidden by gray metal shutters and a rack of newspapers rounded out the -ump and Buy’s inventory.

The stink of mothballs and motor oil filled the hot air inside. Her stomach gave a small lurch in protest. Ugh. She hated the smell of mothballs. A rotating fan at the far end of the counter blew the stale air into her face, and she bit back the urge to gag.

A woman sitting behind the counter and flipping through a gossip rag looked up. Her dull brown gaze met Shayne’s and she stared, a scowl etched into her worn features. The fan turned and blew her frizzy brown hair up like a strange parody of the flying nun.

“I’m looking for Sam Anderson,” Shayne said.

The woman snorted and dropped her gaze back to the paper on the counter. “They always are.”

Shayne managed not to roll her eyes, but couldn’t quite mask the irritation in her voice. “We have an appointment. Do you know where I can find him?”

“Through there.” The woman nodded at a closed the door to the left, her gaze never leaving the colorful pages before her.

“Thanks.”

Shayne pulled the door open and stepped inside the dimly lit garage. A tall, dark-haired man fiddled with something—a motor maybe, she’d never been mechanical—at a long workbench. His messy black hair fell across his forehead as he worked, his gaze intent on whatever it was he was doing. As the door clicked closed behind her, he didn’t look up.

Sweat trickled down Shayne’s back. The day’s heat intensified inside the small space despite the gritty film of dirt on the windows filtering the sunlight from outside. To her left, a battered pickup truck on the lift hovered over the stained, cracked cement floor. The scent of motor oil and old gasoline hung so thick in the air she could almost taste it.

Better than mothballs, though.

“What do you want?” The man’s voice made her jump.

With a deep breath, she squared her shoulders. “Sam Anderson?”

Bright gray eyes—like his father’s, his brother’s—held hers. “Yeah.”

No, not like Des. Where Des’s eyes glinted with humor or promises of things she needed to stop thinking about, Sam’s were flat, cold. A glower curled his mouth and he tightened his grip on the wrench in his hand. She could easily imagine him yelling through her smashed window…bludgeoning her with that wrench.

Shit, pull it together
. She swallowed hard, the sensation like rubbing sandpaper on the back of her throat, and forced her feet forward, extending her hand. “I’m Shayne Reynolds. We spoke on the phone.”

“I know who you are,” he told her. He ignored her hand and set down the wrench. A wave of relief swept through her and her knees trembled. She locked them.

“Is there somewhere we can sit and talk?”

He shook his head. “Ask me what you want to know, and make it quick.”

If he didn’t have time to be interviewed, why the hell did he have her drive all the way out here? She bit back the question, forcing a smile and digging her recorder out of her purse. “I hope you don’t mind?”

She moved closer to him and set the player on the workbench. The faint hum of a car speeding by seeped through the cement walls. A sign of life just outside the door.

“I’d like to ask you about your father.”

“Do it, already.” He lifted his gaze, those eyes all but glowing within the long, straight lines of his face. The angles and planes gave him an almost-predatory look, his dark, curly hair wild and unkempt. Like his father’s. She could easily imagine Robert with the same hard-assed attitude thirty years ago.

Maybe that had been what had drawn Gwen in the first place. Some women liked the bad-boy type. Shayne hadn’t been foolish enough to get seriously involved with a guy like that since high school.

No, instead you married Mr. Perfect who threw you aside like a defective appliance once he realized you had a faulty uterus.

Travis might have been a jerk, but that didn’t mean she should hook up with the first lousy real-estate-agent-in-a-bad-Hawaiian-shirt she met. Even if he did turn her to mush with long, slow kisses.

Her face heated and she shoved thoughts of Des aside. “What was your father like? What do you remember about him?”

Sam picked up the wrench again, and her heart leaped in her chest, only to settle when he turned his attention back to the motor. “Do you want me to tell you he was abusive? That he hit me and my mom?”

“Did he?”

“Nope. He was all right. He used to read to me. Took me fishing. Brought me here. Taught me about cars.”

“This was his garage?”

For a moment, the taut lines of Sam’s face softened and she caught a slight resemblance to Des. “Yeah. I apprenticed here with Dad’s partner. Bought him out about ten years ago.”