Nemesis (Southern Comfort) (8 page)

But Sadie Rose was the closest thing to a female friend he could lay claim to, and the fact that he also wanted to jump her in the worst possible way was making the situation intolerable.

He didn’t care about the women he had sex with and he didn’t have sex with women for whom he cared. Which up until the thong queen had blown back into town, hadn’t exactly presented a problem.

Shit.  This was ridiculous.  He needed her away from him right now. 

Her cell phone rang, interrupting his musings.

With a start, she pulled it out of her handbag and scanned the number before ignoring the call.

Dec said nothing, but wondered if it was the infamous jilted fiancé.  Maybe the man was trying to haul her back.  Hell, who wouldn’t?  But from what he’d heard, the guy was an arrogant ass.  Kathleen had blabbed some of the details – not that he’d wanted to know them – when she called to thank him for last night.

She probably just wanted to make sure he hadn’t done something dastardly to Sadie.

Well, she had nothing to fear from him on that point, because he was going to do precisely nothing to Sadie Rose.  In fact, after he dropped her off, he was going to erase her from his memory –  Zap! – like those little light sticks from that movie Men In Black. 

Sadie Rose May-who? 

And if that didn’t work, maybe the damn fiancé would show up and pluck this particular monkey from his back.

Within moments, the phone started to trill again.

He snatched it up before Sadie could stop him.

“Sadie Rose’s phone, but she’s a little busy right now.  I’ll have her call you back when her mouth’s freed up for talking.”

Sadie gasped and made a grab for the phone.  Her eyes shot daggers that would have pierced his heart if he had one.

“Hello?” she answered tentatively, turning toward the window to get away from Dec’s scrutiny. “Oh, happy New Year to you too, Dr. Webster.  I did receive the letter of recommendation you emailed.”

Eavesdropping on the conversation, Dec gathered the woman on the phone was her former boss.

And from the blush creeping up her neck, that Sadie found his secretarial skills lacking.

Good.  Easier for them both if she thought he was an ass.

The hotel came into view just as Sadie completed the call, and she turned toward him with renewed hostility.  “Thank you for the ride.” 

She had the door open before the Jeep rolled to a stop.

CHAPTER SEVEN

JOSIE
Nash rubbed her cheek against the dirty carpet on the floor of the van.  If she could just get the edge of the duct tape loosened, she might be able to peel it away from her mouth. 

And then she’d be able to scream.

Not that she knew whether or not there was anyone around to hear her.  There were no windows in the back of the van.  Only the weak light filtering through the crack between the doors let her know that another night had passed.

How long had it been since she’d taken her trash to the curb, only to find herself grabbed from behind?  Two days?  Three?

The endless hours of terror were running together.

But she still remembered the initial thrill of fear when that hard hand had clamped across her mouth.  From the moment she’d recognized Skeeter’s old buddies, she’d known she was as good as dead. Skeet had messed up big time by falling in with those boys, but Josie hadn’t been able to turn her back on him when he
’d called her.  More fool her. 

Because now the Marshalls were going to kill her.

Only by holding out on the last piece of information she knew had she managed to make it this long.  She’d led them as far as Charleston, denying any knowledge beyond that.  They suspected she was lying. 

But as soon as the Marshalls found Skeet, she’d be of no use to them anymore.

Cheek growing hot from where the carpet abraded it, Josie ignored this latest assault to her flesh.  There’d been enough other wounds inflicted by the tip of Wilson’s knife that some rug-burn was hardly worth mentioning.  Glancing down, she noted the stains darkening her soiled sweater.

And remembering exactly how those drying stains had come about, rubbed against the carpet even harder.

A noise outside froze her in place.  She lifted her aching head to listen.  It sounded like… a car door?  Was it possible they’d parked the van in some kind of lot?

Hope fizzed like shaken soda through her veins,
bubbling to the surface of her despair, and she rubbed against the carpet even harder.  Just a little more.  Just a little…

One of the back doors swung open to reveal Brady’s smiling face.

“Good morning, Josie! You’ll never guess who Wilson and I ran into last night.”

The duct tape finally loosened, just in time for Josie to scream.

CHAPTER EIGHT

DESPONDENT,
Sadie sat in her car in the empty driveway, staring at her grandmother’s house.  It wasn’t quite the crack den Kathleen had caused her to visualize last night, but time, not to mention numerous renters, hadn’t exactly been kind.  The wooden structure – a traditional example of Low Country architecture, with its wide porches, tabby foundation and cat slide dormers darkened by plantation shutters tightly closed – looked sad and forlorn amidst the tangle of azaleas that had grown wild in the passing years. The white boards might lack graffiti, but they could certainly use a decent coat of paint.  And the enormous live oaks crouched over the house made it look like something from a dark fairy tale, the Spanish moss dripping onto the rusting tin roof the tattered robes from which their bony fingers pointed.

Perhaps more depressing than anything else, a wooden privacy fence now ran the length of the lot, separating the property from the neighboring Murphy’s, where once they’d freely mingled together.

Everything had changed, she thought, looking at the house, which seemed somehow smaller than she’d remembered.  Even her.

She sat in the car, paralyzed, while her internal emotional clock worked furiously toward recalibration. 
It was no longer the home of her childhood memories, but change or no change, she was here and she intended to stay.

Sadie approached the porch steps and rapped forcefully on the front door.  The brass knocker was black and pitted from prolonged exposure to the salty air.  Silence greeted her from within, as she’d sort of suspected it would.  When she’d picked up the keys from the rental agent, the woman explained there’d been no contact with the sub-lessee in the past week, and she thought he’d probably cleared out.  Personally, Sadie thought that the woman could have put forth a little more effort into checking into the situation – not to mention taking better care of the house – but that was neither here nor there. 

She also felt guilty that she herself hadn’t taken more of an interest in the handling of the property.  The sight of that fence, which Patrick Murphy had obviously erected to shield his own immaculately-kept home from the neighboring view, brought a warm flush to her face.

She knocked again, one more effort at perfunctory courtesy, before inserting her key in the lock.  The door swung inward with a creak of hinges.

No scent of baking cookies drifted out to greet her, no hint of lavender sachets or Murphy’s Oil Soap.  Not even the mothballs she’d detested as a kid.  The smell was one of mildew and emptiness, of a house which had been lived in but not made a home.  Sadie stepped into it with a mixture of warmth and regret. 

Most of the furniture still sat where memory dictated, although it lay covered in an inch of dust.  A clunky air-conditioning unit was tucked into one of the windows overlooking the privacy fence, where once she’d been able to see into the
big bay window of the Murphy’s kitchen. Another change, but this one was more acceptable. 

Sadie walked down the
wide hall, past the powder room, and found herself in her own kitchen.  The smell here was even less pleasant.  Dirty dishes filled the old porcelain sink, and an overflowing garbage can peeked out from the painted cabinets.  “Lovely,” she muttered, wondering what kind of jerk wouldn’t at least empty the trash before moving out.  

She glanced around, noting the small telephone table blooming with the flowers she
’d hand painted when she was thirteen.  Not much more than abstract blobs of color, but her Granny had oohed and ahhhed. The memory ached, so Sadie pushed it away, focusing on the archaic answering machine hooked up to the rotary phone.  Its light blinked frantically in the dimly lit kitchen, a digital “9” flashing in the in-box. 

She crossed to the machine, pressed the play message button, which released the rental agent’s nasally drawl.  Two further messages contained more of the same.  Sadie hit stop and eyed the nearby stairs.  Might as well see what the three
small bedrooms and – heaven help her – bathroom looked like. 

Taking the worn wooden treads one heavy step at a time, she ascended into another layer of memories.

The bedroom which had been used as her grandmother’s sewing room stood silent and dark, and she moved past it to her childhood bedroom. Noticing the faint holes from posters long discarded, she tried to recall the movie hunks and garage bands that must have hung there, but could come up with only vague images.  The room itself seemed a pale reflection of the festive retreat it had once been, whatever ghosts of her youth having passed.

Melancholy over the relentless march of time, she crossed the hall toward her grandma’s room, the space her renter had obviously chosen for himself.  The bed – a queen sized four poster that had been her grandmother’s pride and joy – was unmade, an ugly brown comforter and cheap-looking white sheets tangled in an unattractive heap. 

And a pair of… tightie-whities lay forgotten in a corner.

Gross.  The guy had left dirty underwear for her to find? 

This did not bode well for the state of the bathroom. 

Grout which had once sparkled between the old black and white tiles looked gray and dingy with age, and the toilet seat – left up, thank you very much, male renter – was both cracked and stained with urine.  She’d be making a trip to Home Depot for a new one b
efore she ever planted her tush on that.  The beautiful, vintage claw-foot tub looked like it hadn’t seen a scrub brush since about nineteen-eighty-eight. Wrinkling her nose in disgust, Sadie stepped over to open the shutter-covered window, thinking a little light might make things look better.

Unfortunately it just highlighted the fact that the marble-topped vanity was encrusted with dried toothpaste residue and remnants of shaving cream.  In fact, both a toothbrush and razor lay abandoned near the lip of the sink.

Feeling uneasy suddenly – because who moves out and leaves their toothbrush behind? – Sadie made a quick inventory of drawers and cabinets, noting a whole host of health and beauty supplies, some of which seemed to date back to her own years in residence.  She made a mental note to have it out with the property manager for all those between-rental cleanings she’d paid for over the years. 

Back in the bedroom she found a few more articles of clothing in both drawers and closet, but not enough to make her worry that perhaps her erstwhile renter hadn’t quite moved out.  Apparently he just hadn’t been thorough.  Or maybe moved out in a rush.

That was something she could relate to.

“Okay.  I guess I’ll just… get busy,” Sadie pep-talked herself, thinking that she really didn’t want to start cleaning.  All she wanted was some more aspirin and a bed.  But she didn’t want to waste funds by hiring a service.  So she trudged back down to her car, unloaded her newly purchased cleaning supplies, and went to work
, determined if not precisely enthusiastic.

DECLAN
kicked back in his leather recliner while he finished the remnants of his lunch.  Alone, just the way he liked it.  He wiggled the toe that was peeping out of the hole in his sock and turned up the big screen’s volume, simply because he could.  No nagging sisters around to tell him to keep it down. No one to complain about his ratty attire. Nobody to remind him that the living room wasn’t meant for dining.  Just him, a remote, and a few beers.  Everything a smart man could want for. 

He’d just cracked open his second adult beverage when the knock sounded on the front door. 

He froze in the act of bringing the bottle of Harp to his lips. It had been years since anyone had been stupid enough to disturb him at home on this particular holiday.

It wouldn’t be his family – if there’d been trouble, they would have called, and they’d long ago stopped attempting to include him in the annual consum
ption of pork roast, hop ‘n john and collard greens that was their particular New Year’s tradition.  The year he’d thrown his plate at the wall had pretty much done the trick.

And he tried to discourage visits from his neighbors as much as was humanly possible.

He’d put up that damn fence, hadn’t he?

Maybe he needed to get a Doberman or motion-detecting sirens or something if people around him were going to be so thick-headed that they couldn’t understand he didn’t want to see them.  Hell, the damn mat on the front porch said
Go Away
.