Full Contact (13 page)

She didn't.

J
AY FOUND
E
LLEN LEANING
against a corner of the building, her phone turned sideways and her fingers moving along the screen as though she was playing a game. He had a touch screen MP3 player that kidnapped him anytime he picked it up. There was this bird game…

“Sorry. Hugh's playing the stock market with a hundred dollars and an internet account. He wanted to ask my opinion of some charts he'd downloaded.”

“You know about the stock market?”

“Some. Not enough to give advice, though, and I told Hugh that. So that chat…” He cast his mind for a private place where they could talk—one that wouldn't distress her. He couldn't take her to his place and had no intention of going within half a mile of hers. Maybe a bench on Montford's campus.

“We could take the motorcycle someplace,” she said.

“We could.” Riding therapeutically was one thing. Having her on the back of his bike, stopping, having intimate conversation—intimate to him, at least—and then riding some more…

Could be a recipe for disaster.

“I know a place at the base of a mountain about thirty miles outside town,” she said. “We could go there.”

She was trusting him. Jay couldn't offer a negative response to that.

Leading the way to his bike, he unlocked the trunk case, pulled out the helmet Ellen used and handed it to her before climbing onto the bike and waiting for her to settle herself.

They were old hands at this part. Almost like a couple. Something they would most definitely never be. He'd suffocate in a town like Shelter Valley. Who was he kidding? Settling in any town would smother him.

And even if a woman was willing to freestyle it with him, he'd suffocate in a long-term relationship.

Which was why he didn't trust himself to help Cole.

 

“W
HAT IS THIS PLACE
?” Turning off the bike, Jay held it steady while Ellen climbed off. She'd guided him to an undeveloped, unpopulated spot. They'd taken the highway to a dirt road, then had off-roaded it for a short stint, until a path formed by tire tracks appeared, leading to a clearing that abutted the south side of the mountain. The area was surrounded by an unusually thick grouping of Palo Verde trees, enclosing it, hiding it from the rest of the world. Making it the perfect place for illicit activity.

He pulled out his earbuds and remained on the bike, his feet firmly on the ground. “What are you doing bringing me here? I mean, I'm glad you trust me this much, but a guy could easily get the wrong idea being brought here.”

Hooking her helmet over the seat, Ellen crossed her arms over her chest and walked toward a rock face. Wearing that colorful pullover and jeans, she didn't look intent on seduction.

Even so, he couldn't seem to stop thinking about sliding his hands underneath her top.

What in the hell was wrong with him? He wasn't a predator. He was here to come clean with her.

“You said we needed to talk,” she said, leaning against the mountain. “We needed privacy, which, in case you haven't noticed, is almost impossible for me. So here we are.”

“For a woman with trust issues, this is pretty bold.” He couldn't get off the bike. Didn't trust himself to get too close to her.

“You might think so…until you made one inappropriate move,” she said.

Frowning, Jay wondered if the morning's session had taken a greater toll than he'd thought. Should he have called Shawna? Was he in way over his head? Hurting Ellen when he thought he was helping her? Sending her into a make-believe world because she couldn't deal with reality as it was?

“This place is called Rabbit Rock.” She stepped away from the mountain and pointed upward. “Look at the formation—it's like a rabbit.”

After a second or two, he saw the resemblance.

“When my parents were young, kids used to come here and make out. During Sheriff Richards's high school days they did drugs and hallucinated here. About fifteen years ago, this rock was used as a gang initiation site. Boys had to hijack pricey cars, bring them out here and ram them at full speed into the rock. Sheriff Richards's father was a victim of one of the hijackings. Got hurt pretty bad. The kids left him for dead but he lived another ten years—in a vegetative state.”

Jay listened, still worried about her unawareness of the potential danger she'd put herself in.

“You see, the sheriff, my mom, Becca and Will, Tory and Ben, Cassie—they've all suffered through life's challenges. They've been hurt, and they've grown from it. Rather than becoming embittered, or mean, they've banded together to build a town where people can find peace and be happy.”

Or a town where they could hide from the world. Depending on your perspective.

“And as for Rabbit Rock, I'm perfectly safe here.” She resumed her position against the stone surface. “You should know me better than to think that I'd put myself at such obvious risk. Even with you.”

He liked the
even with you
part—tucked it away for further examination later.

“We're being watched,” she said.

There were in the middle of freaking nowhere. God, what if she was really losing it? “Watched? Really?”

“Joe Frasier. A friend of mine.”

To verify, he looked around. He would have known if they had been followed.

“Where is he?”

“Up there.” She pointed upward.

“In the sky?”

Did she think angels were watching over her? Was that it? Did she think they would protect her from being hurt again?

“No, on the mountain,” she said, her expression serious. “He lives out here. He's the one who told Sheriff Richards what was going on with the Phoenix gang. He's also a…client…of mine. Greg introduced me to
Joe several years ago. A couple of times a month the two of us bring Joe groceries and stuff. Sometimes I come alone.”

Jay glanced around again and studied the mountain more seriously.

“You won't see him,” Ellen said. “Joe's serious about being left alone. He's got a cabin not far from here, but he spends a lot of time exploring, too.”

“How do you know he's watching us?”

“Joe hears every vehicle that comes anywhere near this place. He was probably listening to your bike ten miles out. Plenty of time to get to his lookout.”

She didn't sound crazy. She sounded perfectly rational. Sane. And confident that she was perfectly safe.

“Does he have a gun?”

“Of course.”

“Is he a good aim?”

“I assume so.”

He'd heard about backwoods fathers on porches with shotguns protecting their daughters' virtue, but a hermit on a mountain?

“How old is this guy?”

“I'm not sure.”

Or she wasn't saying. If Joe was her client, she couldn't talk about him. Jay respected that.

“He knows about you.”

That didn't surprise him. Not around here. If anyone ever needed to be famous, all they had to do was ride a motorcycle into Shelter Valley and talk to Ellen Moore.

“I guess the sheriff warned him.”

“No, I told him about the therapy. I…talk to Joe sometimes. I trust him. And I respect his judgment. After our first two bike rides I wanted a sounding
board and knew that I couldn't talk to anyone at home about it.”

Hmm. She had continued the therapy, so Joe couldn't be completely opposed. “He didn't warn you against such unusual therapy or me?”

“No, actually. He said I need the therapy. He wants me to get married.”

Did this Joe want to be the bridegroom, too? Jay didn't ask. The answer was none of his business. It didn't have anything to do with her healing.

That led him to why they were here. Jay would rather ram a car into Rabbit Rock than tell Ellen that he was attracted to her.

“I have something I need to talk to you about.” He couldn't work on her again unless she knew.

“Okay.”

“Can we sit?” He indicated a large boulder in full view of the mountaintop. Ellen sat. Leaving several inches between them, he did, too.

What to say? Depending on how he handled the next few minutes, he could lose all chance of helping Ellen.

Despite this inability to stop thinking about her sexually, he still believed that he could be a part of her healing process. If he could send her into the world able to love fully, into the arms of a man who would cherish her and make her happy…

“Is this about your dad?”

It took him a second to catch up with her. “No.” But he should have figured that she'd think so. And that was going to make what he had to say that much more shocking to her.

“It's about us.”

“Us?”

He couldn't identify the tremor in her voice. Fear? Or something else?

“I'm struggling, Ellen.”

“About what?”

The way they sat, they faced out at different angles, which made not looking at her a little easier, a little less like avoidance.

“The lines are blurring. I still believe I can help you—partly because you're so committed to helping your self.”

“I hear a
but
in there. If you're trying to tell me that you want me to stay out of your business, then fine. I'll stay out.”

He should accept her offer. Instantly.

“I'm trying to tell you that I don't think of you as only a client.”

The sun was hot, but this late in the afternoon, it was behind the peak of the mountain, giving Jay some relief. Dry heat was much better than air that hung with moisture, but it was still hot.

“How do you think of me?” He could hear the tremor again.

“I'm not sure.”
Liar.
“I find you attractive. But it's more convoluted than that.”

“How so?”

Sweat trickled down the back of his T-shirt. He thought of the guy watching them, and wondered if he was aiming his gun.

“I was there. I was asleep in my crib in the next room when it happened.” An abrupt change of subject, but he wasn't sure how to get her to understand something he'd never articulated for himself. “A friend stopped by,
heard me crying…found my mother— They called my mother's sister.”

Her sharp intake of breath registered first. He could feel her gaze boring into the side of his head. Jay didn't move, didn't turn to meet her eyes. He couldn't say all that needed saying if he saw the compassion, the
pity
in her eyes.

“I know I was an infant, completely incapable of taking care of myself let alone anyone else. But…I have always wondered if I heard what was going on. Did I hear anything? Sense the danger? Did I know on some level what was going on? And if I did…if I'd cried sooner or something, could I have saved her?”

“What could you have done? Sure, you might have cried sooner, but who knows? And maybe it was for the best that you didn't. If the guy had known you were there, he might have gone after you, too.”

“Possibly. In any case, I spent a lot of time thinking—especially in prison—about that day, wondering if I'd heard something. You have a lot of time on the inside, and I couldn't get away from the idea that I might have been able to make a difference for her. I was right there…”

“You couldn't have known.”

“Of course not. But I determined that as soon as I got out, I was going to find my mother's killer. It was something I
could
do. I had some idea that I might subconsciously know something, or recognize some thing, that would lead me to him. I was the only witness.”

“They never caught the guy?” Her question was barely above a whisper, so close to him he could almost feel her breath.

“They have now.”

“And?”

“He's on death row here in Arizona.”

Her breath caught again and he turned toward her. Ellen's compassionate expression, the open under standing in her gaze, grabbed at him.

“Because of you?”

“It took me more than ten years to track the guy down. In the end, it was a series of newspaper articles that put it all together. My aunt had gone on about this handkerchief that my mother had had. It belonged to their grandmother. My aunt claimed that handkerchief was missing. No one paid any attention to her. My aunt couldn't remember when she'd last seen it and nothing else was missing from the house. My aunt couldn't really even remember distinctly what it looked like. But she was insistent she'd know it if she saw it and was equally insistent that my mother would never ever have disposed of it.

“As I've told you, my aunt was a bit…odd. She tended to glom on certain things and, frankly, I agreed with the police that the missing handkerchief—if it really was missing—had nothing to do with my mother's murder. Then one night I was reading through other unsolved cases against young women in their homes in the United States—one of which had been in Wyoming. A newspaper article said something about a chain missing. Something that mattered a lot to the victim.”

Through this part of his story, Ellen had maintained her stare. Jay didn't focus on her. He couldn't get lost in that gaze.

Because she was his client. And because, other than as a therapist, he had nothing to offer. She didn't need
what he had to give. And he didn't have to give what she needed.

Neither fact stemmed his growing desire for her.

“I started looking through newspapers from all over the West and hounding police departments for any unsolved cases where something of emotional importance to the victim was reported missing. Turns out there were two others. One in Montana and one in Oregon. When I looked at all four cases, I was able to discover enough similarities and compile enough evidence from the four separate cases that, when put together, gave law enforcement officials sufficient evidence to find the guy.”

“And they got a conviction.”