The Stranger: The Heroes of Heyday (Harlequin Superromance No. 1266) (17 page)

So Greta had damn well better show up, and information had better pour out of her like water from a pitcher. She'd held out on him three years ago. She'd caused him to run a story that missed a lot of basic facts, like the fact that it had actually been the Heyday
Nine.

But she wasn't going to hold out on him today. Today there was a lot more at stake than a story.

Finally he saw her car pull into the driveway of the upscale, two-story brick colonial house. The garage door, activated by remote, began lifting noiselessly. She pulled in, but Tyler joined her just as she swung two long, shapely legs out of the silver Mercedes.

“I couldn't help it,” she said defensively, looking up and obviously recognizing his frustrated expression. “Ray's plane was late taking off. I couldn't just leave him there. He would have been suspicious.”

This had been her excuse for missing the Friday meeting, too. Her husband had a trip planned, and only when he was safely out of town would she agree to talk to Tyler. But Ray's flights, she said, kept being delayed.

“Let's go inside, okay?” She grabbed an Ann Taylor bag from the seat next to her. Obviously she'd done a little shopping to help buck up her courage for this interview. “Want some coffee?”

“What I want,” he said, “is some answers.”

“Well, I want coffee. I need some caffeine.” She stuck a key in the door to the house and went in, without showing any interest in whether Tyler followed her.

But he did, and it was a nice view, watching her glossy brown hair swing from side to side, so long it just skimmed her rear end. Her bright green dress fit her so tightly that he could see the muscles in her thighs move as she walked. The only thing that kept that dress from being criminally oversexed was the fact that she'd paid about five hundred dollars to make sure it didn't cross the line.

The interior of the Woodley house was cool and smelled as fresh as a model home, as if no one lived here at all. The plasma television in the living room was at least fifty inches, and the ceiling-high picture window looked out onto a shady brick patio and bright blue swimming pool.

Tyler raised his eyebrows. He'd heard that Ray Woodley, who had been Greta's favorite client during her Heyday Eight days and then had become her husband, was well-off, but this was impressive.

According to Tyler's research, Ray was forty-eight, a day trader who worked from home, and something of a legend in model-train circles. The adjective that
most often came up about him was “obsessive.” The second favorite was “weird.”

But Greta had been having sex with Ray for years, in exchange for the money to buy pretty things. So Tyler suspected this arrangement, which at least came with a legal contract, suited her fine.

She led him into a large kitchen, where everything was ultramodern, done in elegant shades of copper and beige. She tossed her large key ring onto the counter. To Tyler's surprise, her little gold tiger, the highest prize of the Heyday Eight, was attached to the key ring as a decoration, right between a medallion with the Mercedes insignia, and a silver charm that read “#1 Wife.”

He lifted the tiger and looked into its diamond eyes. “Cute,” he said. “I'm surprised you've still got this. What does Ray think about that?”

She laughed. “Ray
doesn't
think about it. He's never even noticed it.” She took it from Tyler and rubbed her fingers across the tiger, as if to polish its golden surface. The gesture was a little wistful.

“Sometimes respectability can be a little bit boring.” She glanced up at him, smiling wryly. “So I keep this to remind me that sometimes excitement isn't that great, either.”

He smiled. She never had been the type to sugar-coat the truth much. He liked that.

“So have a seat,” she said, indicating the comfortable, high-backed bar stools that lined the counter. “Want a hard-boiled egg? That's really all there is
right now. I don't cook a lot. Ray likes pizza, thank God, so—”

“Greta,” he broke in, though he tried not to sound too impatient. “I've already waited more than an hour, and I don't have a lot of time. I need to ask you some questions.”

She kept her back to him as she took out a bottle of instant coffee and stuck a mug of water into the microwave, ignoring the glossy, high-tech coffeemaker right next to her elbow.

“I still don't know why you're so hot to talk to me,” she said. “I know about your book, but I told you everything when you were here before. If it wasn't for me, you know, you wouldn't have had a story at all.”

“And if it wasn't for your willingness to talk to me and to the D.A., you might have ended up in jail. But there were some things you didn't tell either of us, weren't there?”

While the microwave counted down the seconds, she turned to Tyler, putting her hands on her hips, a move she'd perfected to accentuate her tiny waist. “Things like what?”

“When you gave me the list of your clients, you left somebody out.”

The microwave beeped at her, and she turned to tend it, but not before Tyler observed the flash of awareness in her pretty green eyes.

He was relieved to see it. His worst nightmare was that her list
had
been complete, which might mean the blackmailer hadn't ever been one of their clients. Then
the best lead, the Heyday Eight connection, would dry up completely.

“Didn't you, Greta?”

She was busy spooning an amazing amount of artificial sweetener into her coffee. “Gosh,” she said. “I don't remember. We had a lot of clients. You'd be surprised how many men get turned-on by the idea of doing it with a pretty little college girl.”

She glanced over her shoulder with a teasing grin. “Or would you? I always thought maybe, if you hadn't been even
more
turned-on by the idea of writing our story, we might have been able to come up with something that interested you.”

Now there was the Greta he remembered. Bright, sassy, really more a salesman than a prostitute. A graduate of the Moresville College School of Business Management. Good at reading people, knowing what they wanted and then offering it to them.

Tyler smiled. “You certainly tried your best.”

“Yeah, but you're tricky,” she said. She leaned one curvy hip against the counter and eyed him curiously. “Most men, they fall into one of two categories. They like to boss, or they like to
be
bossed. Right off, I pegged you for a boss. You've got testosterone vibes that just bounce off the walls, you know? Of course, later I found out you were a McClintock, which explains that.”

“Greta. You're trying to change the subject. Tell me about the list. How many people did you leave off?”

She sipped her coffee. “What makes you think I left
anyone off? I mean, I told you about Ray, but that was off-the-record. You can't write about that unless you find proof somewhere else. I checked about what
off-the-record
means before I told you anything.”

Yes, Greta was quite the businesswoman. Ray's Heyday Eight association was so secretive that Greta hadn't even told the other girls, though it meant she had to work harder to earn her little gold tiger pin. But it had worked. Even the cops hadn't been able to pin anything on Ray. And her loyalty had paid off. Now she was Mrs. Ray Woodley, and had about a hundred thousand dollars worth of expensive kitchen equipment she didn't use.

“I'm not talking about Ray,” he said. “Who else?”

“Nobody.”

But Tyler had done a lot of thinking about this. Greta had left Ray's name out because she had high hopes that their relationship could lead to marriage. And she'd left Dorian Swigert out because she was trying to protect Mindy, their newest initiate, the ninth girl, the only one who had any hope of escaping undetected.

So what other reasons were there for her to hide a name? Tyler could think of only two good ones. The man could be so powerful that he could retaliate in some way. Or he could be physically dangerous, someone who just plain frightened her.

Given what he'd seen in Mallory's bookstore yesterday, Tyler was ready to bet on the scary guy.

“Think harder, Greta. There was somebody…
maybe somebody who actually made you nervous. You said you serviced two kinds of men. The ones who liked to be dominated and the ones who liked to do the dominating. Was there one of them who liked it a little bit too much?”

She gave him a long, appraising look over the rim of her coffee cup. “Something's not right here,” she said slowly. “I don't believe you're just pushing to get more names all for no reason, you know? So I'm thinking…has something happened?”

Tyler had to make a quick decision. What kind of person was Greta Swinburne Woodley, really? Did she have enough basic decency to care what happened to other women, now that she was safely out of the whole mess?

In spite of everything, he thought maybe she did.

“Well?” She looked serious. “What is it? Has somebody been hurt?”

“Not yet,” he said honestly. “And I'm trying to make sure it stays that way. But I need help. I need names.”

She screwed her mouth up sideways and squinted her eyes, a habit she'd always had when she was thinking hard. It had the effect of making her look very young, in spite of the heavy makeup and the tight green dress.

“Can you keep me out of it?”

He nodded. “I think so. I'll do my best.”

She grinned a little. “I'll bet your best is pretty good, too.” Then, sobering again, she put her coffee
cup down and took a deep breath. “Okay, there were two names I didn't give you. I was ready to see the club get put out of business, but I wasn't ready to get any of the girls hurt, you know? And these two guys were really jerks.”

He nodded. “Okay. Who were they?”

“One of them was the mayor. Heyday's mayor. He was a hitter, liked to slap you around, and sometimes it got out of hand. Toward the end, Pammy Russe was the only one who would even take an appointment with him.”

Tyler wasn't particularly surprised. Joe Dozier was fairly smooth himself, but his wife had that terrified mouse look that often meant abuse. It could be just emotional abuse, of course, but Tyler wasn't shocked to learn there was a physical component, too.

“And the other one?”

“A low-rent guy named Slip Stanton. Another hitter. He owns a couple of bars and a motel just outside Heyday. The Absolutely Nowhere, which is where this guy is going, if you ask me. He used to like to take the girls to his motel, because that way the room didn't cost him anything. Sometimes he was okay. But if he'd been drinking, he could really mess you up.”

Slip Stanton. The guy who had bought the Black and White Lounge from Tyler just a couple of months ago. Greta was right about the low-rent comment, though Slip would have been furious to hear it. Slip was a blue-collar guy desperately trying to bleach himself into the white-collar world. Tyler hadn't liked him
much, but he'd put his aversion down to Slip's smarmy social climbing.

“Did either one of them show an unusual interest in Mindy Rackham?”

Greta's eyes widened. “Wow, you
have
been doing your homework! Poor kid—I hope you won't put her in your book. She nearly puked her guts up the one time we sent her on a date. Even if your articles hadn't shut us down, we wouldn't have kept her. That kind of flower just wilts too easily, you know what I mean?”

“Yes,” he said. “I think I do. But did either of those men seem particularly interested in her? Did they ask for her? You told me once that only you knew all the names of the Eight. But could they somehow have found out that she was joining the club?”

Greta frowned. “I don't remember if I told them. I did tell one guy, and—” She broke off abruptly. “If you're looking for somebody truly creepy, there's someone else you might want to think about. Someone who
was
on our list.”

“Another hitter?”

She shook her head. “No, that's what was so weird. He never did anything wrong, exactly. But he insisted on being the first to get any of our new girls. He had a thing for virgins. Pretty damn medieval, don't you think? My theory is that a fetish about deflowering virgins usually means you've got some serious masculinity issues, you know what I mean? Maybe some psychiatric issues, too.”

“But he never did anything violent?”

“Not exactly. By the end, though, none of the girls wanted to date him. They said he creeped them out. So when he asked for Mindy, I said no way. I knew she couldn't take it. And besides, I told him, that's just too bloody weird for me, buddy. Aren't you still married to her
sister?
”

T
HE POWER COMPANY HAD HOPED
to restore electricity to the downtown area by the end of the day, but so many hundred-year-old trees lying on top of downed lines, and power poles broken like toothpicks, had proved too much for them.

They planned to work through the night, they said, but many businesses, including Mallory's bookstore, were still dark and might well remain that way for at least another twenty-four hours.

Meanwhile, they'd have to struggle on without benefit of electricity. Mallory hadn't ever been without power for more than an hour or two before, and she had a new appreciation for the comforts it provided.

She'd worked in the bookstore, in the dark, for almost two hours, after she left Mindy at the park.

Mindy had insisted that she wanted to talk to Freddy alone. Though Mallory had found it wrenching to abandon her, she understood why Mindy needed to slay this dragon by herself. All Mallory could do was try to infuse their goodbye kiss with all the courage and confidence she could muster.

Though the main phone lines were out, Mindy had Mallory's cell number, and she'd promised to call as soon as she had the privacy, and the emotional equilibrium. She had warned Mallory that, if things didn't go well, she might not feel up to talking about it for a little while.

Reluctantly, Mallory had agreed to wait without calling. She had promised not to hover.

It was a harder promise to keep than it was to make. Mallory had busied herself downstairs as long as she could, reshelving books until the light was so bad she couldn't even read the authors' names. Then she'd gone upstairs, and, for want of the electricity needed to do anything more productive, like laundry or bookkeeping, vacuuming or e-mail or even checking the news, she tried to distract herself by straightening up the stacks of books.

But her mind kept wandering. She kept realizing that she was always listening for the sound of her cell phone.

Or the sound of Tyler's footsteps on the stairs.

She wondered where he was. Several people at the park cleanup had asked her about him. But she had no answers. She hadn't seen even a single glimpse of him since their argument this morning.

Perhaps he'd gone straight to the police station.

But if he had done that, wouldn't someone be here already? Wouldn't they want to investigate the crime scene, the ugly, ruined books, now packed away and out of sight, but still, she knew, covered in incriminating DNA?

For a moment she wondered whether he might have
left Heyday completely. Could he have decided he would rather be back in Washington, where the stories he investigated were significant? Not tawdry and pathetic, like this one.

But, of course, there was still the book.
The Heyday Eight.
That tied him here, at least for a while. The book had the power to hold him, a power that apparently the town, his inheritance, his brothers—and even Mallory herself—did not possess.

She heard a noise on the stairs. Her heart lifting, she hurried back into her apartment and pulled open the door to the back hallway. But the corridor was dark and, apparently, empty. Disappointed, she closed the door quietly. She must have imagined the noise.

From that moment on, though, she felt slightly on edge, the skin on her back prickling, as if something unseen disturbed the air behind her. She heard creaks and whispers that were undoubtedly normal to the old building, noises that ordinarily were smothered by the drone of air conditioners, refrigerators, televisions and computers.

She went outside so that she could take advantage of what light remained. Out here, at least she could hear the distant sounds of people still working at the south end of the park, and that was comforting. She didn't feel quite so alone.

Looking down, she realized there was a figure standing at the edge of the park just opposite her store. The light was too dim. She couldn't tell whether it was a man or a woman.

It could have been someone taking a break from the hard cleanup work. Any one of the shopkeepers along this street might stroll across to the park for a few minutes, just to escape the practical worries of drenched merchandise, soggy carpets and spoiled food.

She knew she had no reason to be filled with dread. And yet her nerve endings shimmered with a primitive, inexplicable alarm.

She rubbed her arms, irritated with herself. This was ridiculous. She needed to take action, not just sit around here twiddling her thumbs, waiting for Mindy to call, waiting for Tyler to appear. She knew what needed to be done, and she was perfectly capable of doing it.

She glanced at the motionless figure one more time. Then she went back into the apartment, scooped up her purse and cell phone, dashed down the outside stairs to where her car was parked and drove to the Heyday Police Station.

 

M
INDY STARED
curiously at her hands.

At least she assumed they were her hands. Except for the fact that they were attached to her arms, she would never have recognized them. Every single one of the pretty pink fingernails, which she had shaped and oiled and buffed and painted into perfection, was broken down to the quick. She had three bleeding knuckles, a coating of sawdust, and dirt in every crease.

But the strangest, most foreign thing of all was what she
didn't
have on those hands.

She didn't have a diamond ring.

But right now she was just too darn tired to cry about it. Which was, of course, what she had hoped would happen when she joined the cleanup crew two hours ago.

“Hey, squirt.” Roddy Hartland came up behind her and tickled her hair with the leaves of a small branch he had just picked up. “Didn't anyone ever tell you not to play in the dirt with your party clothes on?”

“Sorry. I hadn't heard there was a dress code for this event,” she said, turning around and countering his branch with a thrust from her own handful of twigs. “Or maybe I shouldn't mention dress codes. I hear that's a sore subject with you. Where
is
your skirt, by the way?”

“Mal told you about that?” He grinned. “I've got it on under my jeans. Wanna see?”

“God, no!” She grimaced, but she wasn't really annoyed. She was actually relieved that he'd finally come over and broken the ice. The two of them had both been out here for at least an hour, but he hadn't said a word to her. And she had been too emotionally drained after the discussion with Freddy to make the first move.

It was ironic, really. In the past two hours her body had become exhausted, but her heart had grown a little bit stronger. Maybe, she thought, physical labor really was good for the soul.

And so was Roddy. Her own obnoxious, lovable pretend big brother. Just having him around to trade insults with made her feel like herself again.

Soon, though, the cleanup would be finished, and Roddy would go home just like everyone else.

She looked around the park, which was gradually emptying out. Most of the big tree trunks had already been sectioned and carted away. The sun was falling, casting a glaze of honey light over everyone. She wished she could make it freeze in the sky so that she could go on tugging and digging and hauling…and never have to go home alone and think.

“Have you seen Mallory?” Mindy had thought her sister would have come back by now—unable to resist the urge to check up on Mindy. “She left a long time ago.”

“No.” Roddy glanced around, too. “That's weird. I haven't seen Tyler, either. You think maybe they've run away together? I've been hearing all kinds of rumors about them. Apparently there've been lots of smoldering glances and stuff. When Tyler got cut up in the tornado, the man was damn near bleeding to death, but he wouldn't go to the hospital until he found out whether Mal was okay.”

Mindy tried to cover up how surprised she was to hear that. Tyler and Mallory? Tyler
Balfour?
Could it possibly be true? Or was Roddy making one of his usual over-the-top jokes?

Certainly Mindy hadn't picked up any vibes, hadn't seen any signs that Mallory was interested in Tyler.
The last she'd heard, Mallory hated the guy. But then, Mindy hadn't really been paying much attention lately to anyone but herself. Mallory could have tattooed “I love Tyler” across her forehead, and her self-absorbed little sister wouldn't even have noticed it.

Roddy plopped down on the top of a picnic table and wiped his filthy face with an equally filthy hand. “You know, there oughta be a law. Those McClintocks are making off with all of Heyday's best-looking chicks.”

She smiled. As if he couldn't have any girl he wanted. He had a zillion dollars, and he had the best body in town. He was shirtless right now, and even sweaty and covered in grime, that inverted pyramid torso and washboard stomach were just about perfect.

“Thanks a lot,” she said. “And here I thought I was one of Heyday's best-looking chicks.”

Roddy leaned back, as if the picnic table were his own massage pad, and groaned as he stretched out tired muscles. He twisted, trying to crack his back.

“Used to be, you were,” he said between cracks. “Now you're just another cookie-cutter ingenue in training to be a trophy wife. Borrrrr-ing.”

She knew he was goading her, but, on this subject, at least, she didn't have the spunk to fight back. She tried to think of something to say that could dodge the subject completely, but there was just a pulpy, unformed mass of pain in her mind where all the sharp comebacks used to be.

As the silence dragged on, Roddy gave her a frown
ing look. He rolled slowly to a sitting position, unwittingly showcasing those iron abs.

“Squirt? Are you okay?”

She opened her mouth, but nothing came out. She shook her head and put up her dirty palm, asking him to let it go.

He frowned. “Hey, I was just kidding, squirt. You know I think you're—”

“No,” she said. “It's not that. It's just that—” she held out her bare ring finger “—Freddy and I have called off the engagement.”

If she'd thought Roddy would gloat or make fun, she had underestimated him. He took her muddy hand gently, by the fingertips, as if he were a knight ready to bestow a respectful kiss. He rubbed the empty spot on her finger with his callused thumb.

He looked at her. “What happened?”

She suddenly wished she'd spent her afternoon thinking up a good story. One that would help her save face. A story that might make her feel less like a piece of trash that had been crumpled up and thrown away.

But the truth would have to do. Wasn't it trying to hide from the truth that had gotten her into this mess in the first place? Supposedly all this sacrifice was about starting over. If she began with another lie, then what was the point?

And if she couldn't tell the truth to Roddy, then who could she tell it to? Roddy was the least judgmental person she knew.

“I had been lying to Freddy,” she said. “I had an
ugly secret in my past, and I'd been keeping it from him. Finally I decided I had to—”

She stopped. “No, that's not exactly true. Mallory
convinced
me that I had to tell him the truth. I was afraid to, but I didn't have any choice. So I told him, even though I knew it would probably mean we'd break up.”

Roddy was still frowning. “And did it?”

“Yes.” She had to shut her eyes for a minute. She could still see Freddy's face. He had been so shocked, so betrayed. So heartbroken.

Much as she'd like to demonize him, make him the bad guy in this story, she knew that he had loved her, and that losing her was tearing him up inside. It was just that they both knew he couldn't give up his dream, not without coming to hate her in the end.

Roddy growled. “God damn the man. I knew he was a stick, but I didn't know he was a gutless son of a bitch.”

“He's not,” Mindy said. “I was the gutless one. I let it go too far. I should have told him six months ago.”

“Told him what? How bad could it be? Unless your dirty secret is that you're really a guy under all those curves, I can't see how it would make a damn bit of difference.”

She hesitated. Even now, it was hard to say it.

“It's pretty bad,” she said. She licked her lips and gathered enough breath to force the words out. “I—I was a member of the Heyday Eight.”

He stared at her a long minute, not even blinking.

Oh, God, she was going to lose him, too. He'd been her best friend, her protector…and now this.

“Just once,” she said. “Just one night. One man. But it's enough. You know how ruthless campaigns can get, and if Freddy were ever running for office, and this got out—”

Without warning, Roddy stood and took her into his arms. “Aw, squirt,” he said, his voice strangely husky and warm. “I'm sorry, sweetheart. I'm so damn sorry.”

She held herself stiffly erect for as long as she could. All day, she had tried so hard not to cry. And she'd been successful. Even with Freddy, she hadn't broken down.

But then, because Roddy's arms were familiar and completely safe, she finally let go. She cried without noise, but without embarrassment. She cried until the tears had washed her face clean. And then, as soon as she'd cried herself dry, he relaxed his hold on her and let her go.

“Is that all?” He reached out and straightened her hair, which had plastered itself to her cheeks. “That's your only secret?”

She touched her hands to her belly. “No. I'm also going to have a baby.”

“No.” Roddy squeezed his eyes shut and groaned. “Aw, man. The
stick's
baby?”

She frowned. “Roddy.”

“Sorry.” He shrugged. “It's just that…well, I don't give a damn about that stupid Heyday Eight stuff. It bothers me a heck of a lot more to hear you're going to have the stick's baby.”

“Roddy!”

He grinned. “Sorry.
Mr. Earnshaw's
baby. Yeah, that's definitely more of a problem to me.”