Colder Than Ice (21 page)

He licked his lips, looking nervous.

“I went through the family bible, too. The pages in the back had records of more than two hundred births, deaths, marriages. Not a word about you or Bryan.”

“Look, Beth, it's not what you think. I told you we were estranged. I explained all that.”

She glanced at him quickly. “No, that's not good enough.” She was quiet for a while, following the directions she knew by heart, over roads that got progressively smaller, narrower and bumpier. “I know you're having a bad day, Josh. I wanted to put this off, but I have a feeling it would be a mistake to wait any longer for the truth. You're lying to me. I won't live with a man who lies to me.”

He blinked. “Are you throwing me out?”

She pursed her lips. “You can pack your things while I'm at the funeral.”

“Bullshit. I'm going to the funeral with you.”

The town was coming into view now. She slowed down to within five miles an hour of the speed limit and called it good
enough as she drove through the place. “Come on, Josh, there's no need to keep up the pretense.”

“What pretense?” he asked, his voice impatient.

“That you even knew Maude Bickham, at least prior to your arrival here. Somehow you convinced her to play along with this scam of yours. And it must have been a damn good story, because it would take a lot to get Maude to lie to me. I didn't believe it was even possible, but now I know it has to be. Nothing else makes sense.”

She cussed herself for the way her throat was tightening up, the feeling of pressure in the middle of her chest, when he said, “Okay. All right, you win.”

She glanced at him, almost missed the driveway and had to brake too hard. “I win?”

He nodded. “I've been lying to you. I want to tell you the truth. I want to make things right with you again, Beth, but you have to give me a chance.”

She shook her head, refocused her attention, and got the car moving again, pulling it into the driveway and shutting it off. “Did Mordecai send you here?” She had to ask the question, even though her heart knew it couldn't be true.

“Of course not.”

She pursed her lips, tears brimming now, so it was no use trying to hide them. “Would you tell me if he had?”

He didn't answer that, so she wrenched open her car door and started toward the house. She heard Joshua get out, and then he was behind her, gripping her arm and tugging her around to face him.

“I came here to protect you from him, Beth.”

She stared at him, pinning him with her eyes. “You work for the government.” It wasn't a question.

“No, not really, I—”

“You do, you work for the government. You came here spouting lies as some kind of…of cover.”

“No.”

“No?” He averted his eyes, so she knew she had hit the truth. “Is anything you ever told me true? The things you told me about your past, your ex-wife's death, your son?”

“Everything. All of it. I've never lied to you, Beth.”

“You've done nothing
but
lie to me. God, how can you expect me ever to believe a word you say to me again? How do I separate the truth from the lies?”

“Beth—”

“Were you lying last night, Josh?”

He shook his head. “No.”

She sighed. “See? Now how am I supposed to believe that? I don't trust the government. I don't trust the men who work for it. And I don't trust you.” She unlocked the front door and went to open it, surprised when it wouldn't budge. Then she remembered Josh's early morning project. She held out a hand. “Give me the keys for the dead bolts.”

He fished both of them from his pocket, handed them to her. She tried one, got it right the first time, opened the door, and marched through the house and straight up to her room.

 

Josh told himself to calm down. He hadn't blown it. Not by a long shot, not yet. He could still salvage this. He knew he could.

One thing he knew, she cared about him. Maybe she was even falling for his seduction routine, because otherwise, she wouldn't have had such an emotional reaction to finding out he had lied to her. And what had she homed in on? What was
the one lie she seemed to hate the most? The one he'd told her last night: that he thought he might be falling in love with her.

That spoke volumes, didn't it? He was all right; he was still all right.

He just had to alter the plan, that was all.

God, it did stuff to his insides to see her as wrought up as she was. It twisted him up, tugged knots in his spleen. It shouldn't. This was a case, she was a client—willing or otherwise—and his job was to do whatever it took to keep her alive. If her feelings got hurt in the process, too bad. At least she would be alive when this was over.

But while his head knew all of that, the rest of him was having some trouble with it. Maybe he was becoming more sensitive in his old age, or maybe being a real, full-time father to his son for the first time was making him soft somehow. At any rate, just because it made him feel like hell, that didn't mean he could change his tactics.

So he would tell her the truth. Not the whole truth. Just his real reason for being there—who he worked for, how he'd gotten the job and how he planned to protect her. But he would keep on lying to her about everything else, laying it on thick with the attraction, because that had been working up to now. And because it was so easy.

Maybe a little too easy. But he wasn't going to start analyzing himself about that, not now. There was too much at stake. Her life.

And he damn well wasn't going to cost Beth her life for a second time.

J
oshua filled out the dark suit as if it had been designed just for him. He stood very close beside her at the cemetery, holding her hand in his and using his body to shield her from the brisk autumn wind. It was whipping hard today, colder than it had been so far this year, stripping leaves from the trees with every gust, so that it seemed as if it were raining in Technicolor.

Beth couldn't shake Joshua off without causing a scene, and she found she didn't really want to. Let him pretend to care—she could pretend it, too, for an hour or so. She would take a little comfort wherever she could find it.

It didn't matter, in the end. It almost had, though. She had almost let it matter, almost started to believe she might be able to have a man in her life besides Mordecai. She'd been an idiot. She would never have anyone else in her life. Never. Mordecai would not allow it.

When the service was over, Beth tossed a handful of soil onto Maude's casket, then turned and walked to the car, not even waiting for the well-wishers to come up to her. It was too much. All of it was just too much.

Josh kept pace with her all the way to the car, and then he drove her home.

 

“Doesn't look like they're getting along too well, does it?” Bryan whispered.

“Looks like she's been hurt again. What do you suppose he did to her?”

“How do you know he's the guilty one?”

Dawn rolled her big expressive eyes.

Bryan sighed. “As long as we're in this deep, I should probably be as open with you as you've been with me,” Bryan said. “It's pretty clear you're not working for the other guy.”

“Gee, thanks. Why, what haven't you told me?”

“My father is a private security specialist. A…bodyguard.”

Dawn blinked.

“He was hired by the government to come out here and protect Beth. It was supposed to be routine, but—”

“So he's been playing up to her romantically in order to do his job?”

“Look, he's trying to keep her alive. Hell, it's not like I haven't told him I think it's a huge mistake to go about it the way he has been, but—”

“That's what it is, then. She knows,” Dawn said softly. She nodded toward the couple as Beth marched to the car and Josh went after her. “She must know. Look how angry she is.”

Bryan shook his head. “He looks pretty upset, too.”

“Well, duh. That's because he really does like her. If he
thinks otherwise, then he's just too dense to have figured it out yet.”

Bryan stared at Dawn in surprise. “You think?”

“Look how miserable he is,” she said. “We oughtta follow them home, see what he intends to do to fix this mess.”

“That might be too much information for me to handle,” Bryan said. Then he frowned, tapped Dawn on the shoulder and pointed. “Besides, I think we have more important things to do.”

She looked and saw what he did, the dark form standing alone in the distance, amid trees and tombstones, watching the proceedings. “I knew he'd show up here,” Dawn whispered harshly. “I knew it.”

“So now what?”

“We follow him.” She trembled when she said it.

Bryan swallowed hard. “You sure that's a good idea?”

“How else are we going to know where to find him, much less who he is?”

“I thought you already knew who he is.”

“I know who he
really
is. We need to know who he's pretending to be. What kind of getup he's wearing, what cover he's using.”

“Suppose he sees us?”

“He won't need to see us to know we're there.” She turned to Bryan, clasped his forearm. “Bry, we have to be very careful. He's…powerful.”

“Powerful like The Rock?”

“Powerful like Gandalf.”

“Gray or white?”

She frowned, considering. “Gray,” she said with a firm nod.

“Okay. Gray we can handle.” He smiled at her.

She didn't smile back, and that worried him.

“We'll keep a safe distance,” she said. “Just get a look at where he goes and then back off. Okay?”

He nodded. “Okay.”

They got into Dawn's Jeep, which was parked several rows away in one of the dirt lanes that crisscrossed the cemetery. Then they moved it until they could see the man, and watched until he walked back to his own car, which was hidden among the greenery. “Did you call your friends in California?”

“From the airport,” Bryan said. “Told them I'd be a couple of days later than planned and would call with the new details when I knew them.”

“They won't call your father to verify?”

He shook his head. “I don't think so.” Then he nodded toward the strange man's car. “He's moving. Let's go.”

 

Beth had gone straight to her room upon returning to the house. She didn't think she would come out again until Joshua and his phony longing looks and potent kisses were gone. She was exhausted, having barely slept the night before—largely because of what he'd told her. That he was falling in love with her. What garbage! And to think she'd spent half the night lying awake torturing herself over it, believing it was true. She was so gullible. Worrying about how to let him down easily, waffling over whether to let him down at all.

God.

At least now that she knew it was all make-believe, she could sleep. And she did.

She slept, and floated into a deeper and darker place. A place of stillness, silence. A place where she had been before.

The word
coma
whispered through her mind. But it didn't
frighten her. Instead it was almost comforting. A familiar warm, safe place where no one lied, no one hunted her. No one even knew her there.

And then there was a gentle warmth on her hand, a soft, but familiar voice speaking close to her ear. “I'm sorry. God, I'm so, so sorry.”

Frowning, she whispered, “Joshua?”

“Right here,” he said.

She opened her eyes, and a tantalizing aroma tickled her senses. Josh was standing in her doorway, as if just entering the room. In the dream he'd been right at her side. But he hadn't been. Not really.

“I was just coming to see if you were awake. I'm making dinner.”

She tightened her lips, about to say she wasn't hungry, but her stomach growled so loudly it gave away the lie before she even told it.

He took her hand and tugged her gently until she sat up and the blanket fell away. She was wearing the same clothes she'd worn to the funeral. “Come on. I ran you a bath.”

“You ran me a bath?”

He nodded, tugging until she was out of the bed, on her feet. “Yeah. Dinner won't be ready for a half hour, and I'll keep it warm if you want to soak longer. Come on now.”

Frowning, she let him tug her into the hallway. “But my bathroom is—”

“I didn't want to wake you, so I ran your bath in mine. Here we go.” He opened the bathroom door.

There were no lights on, only candles, dozens of them, lining the room, and the scent of roses rising into the steamy air. Music, soft and low—Celtic harp music, she thought—wove
a mystical spell. And a white muslin nightgown and warm terry robe were hanging on the hook, with a pair of new slippers on the floor underneath.

“Enjoy,” he told her. “And call if you need me…if you want me.”

She blinked in shock as he backed toward the door.

“Joshua, what is this?”

“It's…an apology. An overdue one. Just relax and enjoy it, okay?” He closed the door.

She looked at the tub, at the steam rising and the candles reflecting on the water. Hell, he did owe her an apology, she thought, and she began to undress. Then, almost as an afterthought, she turned and locked the bathroom door. If he thought he was going to seduce her, make her stupid enough to believe his lies by getting her into bed, he'd better think again.

She stepped into the water.

Besides, women didn't lose brain cells at the thought of sex. Only men did.

She sank slowly down into the hot, scented luxury and closed her eyes. He'd added bath salts, something soothing. She identified the smell of roses, but there were others mingling with it that were harder to identify. Combined, it was heady and more. It wasn't just aromatherapy she was experiencing here, she thought. The salts in the water were soothing, working knots out of her muscles and relaxing her.

She decided to take his advice and just enjoy it without worrying about his motivations. She could handle Joshua Kendall.

 

Mordecai had watched three of them walk into the airport and only two walk back out again. The boy was leav
ing. Either Beth or her new lover must have sensed the impending danger and sent young Bryan away. It angered Mordecai, nearly sent him into a panic. If his heir was sent away, then his mission would be a failure! But his guides assured him that he would have ample opportunity and easy access to the boy soon. Very soon. He wasn't to worry, only to trust in them. And for right now, he must focus on Beth, on getting to her, on destroying her.

He drove back to Blackberry, substituted for Nancy Stillwater's social studies classes, and checked her notes to learn which students had been taking tutoring lessons from Beth Slocum before the rumors he'd started had destroyed her reputation. He paid special attention to those students. Because even if they were no longer working with Beth, she would still care about them. He might need to use them to cause her further pain soon.

After classes ended, he drove to the Brookside Cemetery, where he stood among the shadowed tombstones, beneath the cavelike canopy of a weeping beech tree and watched Maude Bickham's funeral service. The preacher was terrible, in Mordecai's opinion. Typical, but terrible. Talking about what a great woman she was, never mentioning the shortcomings of others or wrongs they might have done her. Funerals were the perfect time to drive home the need for redemption. People faced with death became powerfully aware of their own mortality. It was easy, then, to lay them down low, humble them until they prostrated themselves before almighty God in remorse and vowed to sin no more.

This fellow did nothing but try to take away the sting of death. The fear of it. He did nothing more than try to comfort the mourners and make it easier on them, rather than
using death as a scourge with which to whip them into submission to the All Holy. He was useless—unworthy of the collar he wore and the Bible he held.

“I should remove him from the planet. It would be a service to the Father.”

If and when you have the time, Mordecai. But you can't let anything sidetrack you from your goal. Look, look at the two of them. Something's wrong.

Mordecai heeded the voice of his guide, and focused on Beth and Joshua. They were holding hands, but Beth's face revealed a great deal. She wasn't happy to be holding Joshua's hand. She stood as far from him as his grip would allow, and there was more on her face than grief. There was anger. A wariness. A mistrust of her companion.

Mordecai smiled broadly, relief flooding him. There was something wrong between the two of them.

Don't be so selfish, Mordecai.

If she loves him, you can bring her down harder. Her love is your most powerful weapon.

Don't rejoice in its loss.

He pursed his lips. “I'm sorry,” he whispered. “But maybe she doesn't love him. Maybe she's not meant to.”

This is a temporary setback. She'll be in his arms by sunrise.

Mordecai lowered his head and closed his eyes against the rush of acidic moisture. His stomach clenched, and his throat tightened.

It's for the best, Mordecai. Let them be now. You have homework to do.

Indeed he did. He had begun digging into Joshua Kendall's past. Mordecai was well networked and powerfully connected, and his sources should be reporting back by now. Be
fore this night was out, he ought to know as much about Kendall as the man himself did.

 

Bryan and Dawn kept a safe distance from the madman. It wasn't hard to keep his car in sight, even so. It was a small town. There were few roads and scant traffic. They followed him from the cemetery to the nearby hamlet of Bonnie Brook, where he pulled into the driveway of a beautifully restored Victorian house, right off the main road. There were several houses like it nearby, though each one was unique. The one he was apparently using was white, but the fancy trim and scrollwork were painted pink and green, as were the shutters, porch posts and window casings.

“He always did have great taste in houses,” Dawn muttered.

“Did he?”

“Yeah. You should have seen the place he had in Virginia. It was like a dream-house.”