OVER HER DEAD BODY: The Bliss Legacy - Book 2 (10 page)

“Actually, I haven’t thought about it at all—and don’t plan to.”

“You intend to keep the house open, then?”

“I do.”

Exactly the answer he expected. He paused, gathering words for a workable lie. He had to get into that house. “I’d like to come and—”

“Where are you? Right now, I mean,” she interrupted.

“At the Jasper Inn on the edge of town.”

“Look, I’m a bit rushed at the moment. I’ve got a paintbrush in one hand and a soup ladle in the other, so why don’t I—” She stopped abruptly. “No. Why don’t
you
come for dinner? It’s roast beef … say in an hour?”

The invitation caught him off guard. “Sure, I—”

“Perfect. I’ll see you then. I’ve got papers for you to take back to Mrs. Marsden. Some kind of tax receipts I found when I was reorganizing Mary’s office. She might need them.” He heard the phone drop, a muttered “Damn it.” and she hung up.

Gus was left holding his phone and staring a call-ended message. He’d expected problems getting back into Mayday House, not an invitation to a roast beef dinner.

Now all he had to do was figure out how to move in.

When Gus spotted the display of cut flowers outside the corner store, he swerved to the curb and jumped out. Roses were overkill, he thought, so he opted for a handful of white daisies wrapped in gaudy purple paper. Fifteen minutes later he was at the front door of Mayday House.

The door opened the second he poised his finger over the bell.

Keeley Farrell looked at his raised hand. “It doesn’t work anyway. Come in.” She caught sight of the flowers then and her eyes widened, their expression a mixture of surprise and confusion. “For me?” she said, staring at the unimpressive bouquet as if it were a handful of diamonds.

He’d planned to smile, but he was too taken by the sight of her coppery hair, which seemed on fire under the too-bright entry hall light, then the true shape of her, this time visible under a blue T-shirt and jeans that came damn close to fitting. She was thinner than he’d first thought, with a surprisingly small waist, and she had freckles on her arms. But damn, she had curves, and in all the right places. Feeling oddly juvenile, given the direction of his thoughts, he held out the flowers.

“They won’t do much for a second-rate motel room in Erinville.”

“Thank you. I love daisies.” She took them, tilted her head, and smiled up at him. “Tell your mother she raised a very nice boy.”

“I will.”
When I see her in hell.

She stepped aside and he walked in. The place didn’t look any better than when he’d been here three days ago, just a different kind of mess in different places. “You’re making progress,” he said.

“And you’re a good liar.”

This time he almost did smile. This woman gave no quarter. He’d have to remember that. “And you’re wearing new jeans—that almost fit.”

Her lips twitched.

Bridget came down the stairs then, also wearing jeans but with a bright red T-shirt. Neither hid her painful thinness. Her eyes met Gus’s and slid away shyly. “Hi,” she said. “Gus, right?”

“Uh-huh. And hi back.”

“Dinner ready?” Another woman followed Bridget down the stairs. A beautiful woman, dark hair, tall, straight, and big as a goddamn house. Expensively dressed. Other than the big-as-a-house thing, she was a darker version of Dinah, all streamlined sophistication. Stopping on the bottom stair, she gave Gus a slow once-over with an edge of sexuality. “And who do we have here?” She kept her eyes fixed on him and moistened her lower lip. It was the kind of assessing, check-him-out look he used to get from Dinah’s friends.

“Gus Hammond.” He offered his hand. “I’m a last-minute dinner guest.”
And when I get some time, I’ll do some checking-out of my own.
Somehow she didn’t look like a woman you’d expect to see in a woman’s refuge. She looked tough as sheet metal.

“Erica Stark.” She took his hand and held it too long.

“Shall we eat now?” Keeley said. “If we’re lucky, I kept the paintbrush out of the soup pot and the ladle out of the paint can.” She looked at each them and smiled. “But I can’t guarantee that.”

She led the way into the big kitchen, where mismatched dishes were set neatly in four place settings. Unlike the entrance hall, there’d been some progress in the kitchen. Two walls were painted yellow, not a screaming yellow, more like the color of bananas, and most of the junk was gone. And the smell of whatever was cooking, made his stomach take notice. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d sat at a kitchen table for dinner. Maybe because he never had.

“Sit,” Keeley instructed them all.

When they’d each taken a seat, she ladled soup, something made with squash and coconut, into their bowls, then, with Bridget’s help, set steaming dishes of roast beef, potatoes, and mixed vegetables in the center of the table.

“Camp style,” she said. “Easier this way.”

Also delicious, Gus thought, taking his first spoonful of soup.

“Any paint taste?” Keeley asked, a brow raised, her mouth quirked.

Gus shook his head and took another spoonful. “A bit of turps, though. Really kicks it up.”

She laughed.

He liked her laugh, liked her no-nonsense style, too. He couldn’t imagine anyone wanting to harm this woman. Certainly not Dinah.

“Speaking of camps,” Erica said, reaching for a warm bun and looking at Keeley, “how long were you in Africa?”

The remnants of humor seemed to rearrange themselves on her face. “The last time? Two years.”

“Where, exactly?”

“Darfur. Sudan. I was a nurse working for MAL, Medics At Large.” That said, she bent her head and gave her full attention to the roast beef she’d put on her plate. The woman liked to eat.

“That must have been hell.”

Keeley raised her head and met Erica’s curious gaze. “Hell enough that I don’t like to talk about it.”

Erica studied her a moment, shrugged. “Fair enough. I guess we all have things we don’t like to talk about.” Turning her attention to Gus, she said, “Like good-lookin’ here, I’ll bet he’s got more than most.”

He raised his hands and met her speculative gaze. “Me? I’m an open book.” No need to tell her the book was pure fiction.

“Right, and I’m Tinker Bell.” She snorted. “Well, Mister Open Book, would you please pass the potatoes?”

“They’re in there.” Keeley, who’d taken the last of the garbage out after dinner and shooed both Bridget and Erica up to their beds, arrived back in the room and pointed to a door off the hall directly outside the kitchen.

“Excuse me?” Gus said, not a clue what she was talking about.

“Those papers I mentioned? She probably won’t want most of them, but there’s definitely some receipts she’ll need for tax reasons.”

“Right.” Gus tossed the towel he’d been handed after dinner with a terse you-can-dry instruction on the counter. Among a million other things, this place could use a new dishwasher, one that worked. “Let’s have a look.”

The office rivaled a recently excavated landfill site. Keeley went to a battered three-drawer metal cabinet behind a wooden desk and tugged on a stubborn bottom drawer, pulling it far enough out for her to reach the back end.

She removed a bulging hanging file and put it on her desk. After ferreting through it, she pulled out several sheets of paper. “Here they are.” She handed them to him. “I don’t know how Mary did things, exactly, because I haven’t had much time to dig around in here, but you might as well take these back with you, considering there won’t be any more payments this year. It’ll save me a stamp.”

When he took the papers, she smiled, then glanced at her watch.

Gus felt dismissed and vaguely embarrassed, both new sensations. Hagan really was stupid; there was nothing “easy” about Keeley Farrell. He’d learned to get what he wanted from women using well-honed charm and what they considered his good looks. Farrell, it seemed, was immune to both, which would be refreshing if it weren’t so inconvenient, although it was nothing he couldn’t handle.

He turned his attention to the papers and did a quick tally.
Whoa.
Based on these numbers, Dinah had forked over about a hundred grand a year to Mayday House. There had to be a reason, and chances were, some clue to it was in that fat, sloppy file Farrell had left open on her desk. He tossed the papers back on the desk. “I’m not going back.”

Her brow furrowed. “But I thought … That’s why you came tonight, to pick up the papers. You didn’t say—”

“You didn’t give me a chance to say anything. You hung up on me, remember?”

She grimaced. “You’re right, I’m sorry. I get, uh, overly focused at times.” She sat in silence, then said, “So why did you come?”

He sat on the edge of the desk and met her curious eyes, but didn’t bother with his practiced smile. “I wanted to see you again.” He let the words linger, undisturbed by the element of truth in them, and watched her carefully before adding, “Plus there was the home-cooking aspect of things.”

As he’d intended, her attention caught on the first reason rather than the second. Farrell might have been a nun for a few years, but she’d been a woman all her life. And women were his area of expertise, them and cold steel. All he needed to do was concentrate.

She stared at him and frowned so deeply it looked painful; her expression darkened. “You’re lying. Why?”

“Why would you think I’m lying?” He picked up a pencil from the desk, balanced the lead point of it on a paper block near the phone.

“It’s in your face, behind those dark eyes of yours.” She stopped and seemed to consider her next words. “I get the impression you know exactly what you’re about, Gus Hammond—and you keep it all to yourself.” She took the pencil from his hand, put it down on the desk, and stood. “And, as I have no use for lies or liars …” She raised her eyes to his. They weren’t angry eyes, more disappointed. “I’ll ask you to leave. I’ve got work to do.”

When she moved to walk around him, he gripped her wrist, easily enfolding it in his hand.
Warm. Surprisingly delicate.
“What you’ve got is trouble, Sister Farrell. And I think a good part of it is in that file.” He gestured to the sheaf of papers spilling onto her desk.

“The obvious response to that statement,” she said, tugging her arm from his grasp, “is what business is that of yours?” Rubbing her wrist, she leveled her gaze on him with the dead-eye focus of a sphinx.

At least she didn’t deny it. “Because someone wants me to make it my business.” He saw no reason not to use the truth when the truth served his purpose.

She leaned a hip against the desk and crossed her arms under her breasts. Gus was pretty damn sure that if she could turn him to stone, she’d do it in a heartbeat “And why would they do that?”

“That’s the million-dollar question. Why don’t you tell me?” Not much chance she’d start spewing Mayday’s dark secrets, but it was worth a shot.

She studied him for a long time, the anger in her eyes giving way to consternation. She paced a circle around the office, stopped at the high undraped window facing the front yard. The room was quiet except for the sound of rain on the porch roof and the occasional clanking of old pipes from somewhere overhead. She turned and again folded her arms across her breasts. “Who hired you, Mr. Hammond?”

So it was “mister” now. “Hagan Marsden. Dinah Marsden’s ex-husband.” Gus shifted away from the desk, walked the eight feet between them, and stood directly in front of her.

“And why you?” she asked. “Don’t you work for Dinah?”

“Past tense. And he hired me because my business is security.” He pulled out his wallet and gave her a card.

“August Hammond, Personal Protection,” she read, then looked at him, her eyes no less wary, no less distrustful. “That makes you what? Some kind of bodyguard?”

“Among other things, but in this case that’s as good a description as any.”

“My most valued patron’s ex-husband sends
me
a bodyguard. Here’s the obvious question. Why?”

“He wants you, and this house, to stay safe,” he said, amazed his lie didn’t lodge in his throat and cut off his air.

“Considering your Mister Marsden doesn’t even know me, how about trying again? The altruistic ring in those words was like a lead ball hitting a mattress.”

Gus ran a knuckle along his scar. “Okay, how about this? Hagan Marsden is a mean bastard. His and Dinah’s divorce made headlines a few years ago. It was as ugly as they come. Dinah cleaned him out financially. He hates her and the feeling is mutual. Hagan sees a chance to get his pound of flesh, which to him means as much of his money back as he can get. To do that he needs something to use against her. He believes that ‘
something
’
is here—in Mayday House.”

She frowned. “So what you’re telling me is Dinah Marsden’s ex-husband hired you to protect me from her, while you dig up the information he needs to blackmail her?”

“That’s about it.”

“And you’re going along with it—this blackmail scheme. What kind of a man are you?” She looked at him as if she knew exactly what kind of man he was, the dirt bag kind.

“If I was going along with it, would I tell you?”

“Why
are
you telling me?”

“Because you need to know the truth. First off, if you and your precious Mayday House have fallen between the Hagan/Dinah firing lines—you
are
in danger. Hagan, and Dinah, if she senses a threat, will tear this place apart if they don’t get what they want. Dinah’s already played her first hand, trying to buy you out. She’s capable of more—and Hagan even worse. That said, Dinah and I have”—he stopped, thought a second—“a history. I owe her. I don’t owe Hagan. If there is something here she wants kept secret, it stays that way. Hagan gets zero.” Gus wanted that to be true, but his gut rolled all the same. In the end everybody did what they had to for their own ends. He was no different. Especially if it meant finding April.

“And you suspect what? The bones of Dinah’s illegitimate baby hidden in the attic?” Her expression ran short of a sneer. Barely.

“Something like that. Considering this place has seen its share of unwed mothers for the past forty-odd years, it’s no stretch to think in terms of an abandoned kid.”