Traceless (13 page)

"Deal," he agreed. At least it was a deal until he decided differently. This bitch should know better than to trust him.

She smiled, purred like a little harmless kitten. "Excellent." She lowered his zipper, reached inside. "Just one last thing, baby." Those skilled fingers wrapped around him, made him groan. "Tell me how you want it."

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

5:10 p.m.

Emily parked across the road from Austin's house. Her an-tiperspirant had long since melted in the ninety-eight-degree heat. Even with every window in the car open and the shade from the maples, her clothes plastered to her skin in five minutes flat. She skimmed the list of most frequently violated parole conditions she'd made, but she couldn't seem to concentrate on that. She needed to understand what was going on with her father.

Every instinct warned that her father's business with Fair-gate somehow related to Austin. That weasel Fairgate had said her father had kept his secret
all these years
. But Fairgate could be toying with her. She could be reading too much between the lines. Coupled with the rumors floating around regarding Austin's innocence, doubt as to what she thought she knew had taken far too formidable a foothold.

Fairgate was the only loan shark in town. That both Ed Wallace and Clint Austin had been involved with him wasn't such a stretch. Except for the idea that that this was her father she was talking about. He didn't do shady.

She needed answers. All these years she had focused on Heather's murder and keeping Austin behind bars. Had her parents needed her and she hadn't been there?

Her gaze settled on the house across the road. If she asked
him
for information regarding Fairgate, would he tell her what he knew? She had to be out of her mind to even consider it. But then she was desperate. The idea that her parents needed her help had shaken her from the obsession that had been her whole existence for more than a decade.

Her heart rate accelerated at the idea of getting close enough to him to carry on a conversation. She closed her eyes and blocked the sensations. All those years he'd been in prison she'd hated him... wanted him to die. Now he was out and she couldn't stop those damned feelings she'd thought were dead and buried. That she could still feel attracted to him made her sick with shame.

Maybe she was losing it. Her eyes popped open. Maybe her parents were right and she did need Dr. Brown.

No. It was being here, in Pine Bluff, surrounded by all those crazy rumors about Austin's innocence, getting to her. Had to be. She was doubting herself, that was all.

Austin's red Firebird appeared in her rearview mirror, roaring along the dirt road, dust flying behind it. He slowed when he neared her car, turned unhurriedly into his drive without looking in her direction, parked in his usual spot, and went inside the house.

If
she worked, up the nerve to ask him about Fairgate, Austin would just lie to her even if he knew the truth. She was the last person on earth he would want to help. He should be the last person she would ask for help. She had to get her head on straight and start thinking clearly.

Her brain abruptly registered Austin exiting the house.

Where was he going now? So far he'd come home each evening and stayed put, at least until she left at ten or so. He hadn't changed clothes. Same worn jeans hugging his long legs and grease-stained T-shirt stretched over his muscled torso that he'd been wearing when he got out of the car.

"What is he doing?" she muttered.

He strode right past his car and down the drive.

Toward the road... toward her—

Instinct had her grabbing her cell phone. She jerked it loose from the charger, her pulse reacting to an adrenaline dump as Austin crossed the road. She sat there and watched him come closer... something implacable and lethal in his stride. As he neared her car, the fury on his face... in his eyes registered. Her danger gauge abruptly kicked in full throttle. The real fear she should have felt ten seconds prior tore through the dim-witted curiosity muddling her good sense.

He stopped at her door, glared down at her with such ferocity that the oxygen stalled deep in her chest. "Get out of the car."

For an instant she couldn't find her voice. The way he looked at her... such anger... such...
pain
. Confusion scattered her thoughts. "Stay away or I'll call the police." Her voice shook as badly as her hands.

His jaw tightened with that fury blazing in his eyes. "Call 'em. Call right now."

He hadn't made a move to open her door or even touch her vehicle, but she couldn't be sure he wouldn't do just that any second now. He was in a rage. Was this the kind of rage he'd been in when he entered her room uninvited that night? Her mind argued with her... he'd looked terrified that night... frantic. Nothing like this.

Her fingers fumbled across the keypad. When the 911 dispatcher had finished her spiel, Emily gave her location and asked that the police be sent right away.

She closed her phone and reluctantly met his gaze once more. "The police are on the way." She meant to warn him to step back from her car, but the words got stuck in her throat. The fury she'd seen seconds ago had dissolved into something she couldn't readily identify. A mixture of pain and... desperation she couldn't adequately assess.

He thrust his fingers through his hair and backed away from her car, but his eyes, hollow with grief, didn't leave hers.

A shiver rushed over her skin, prompted by a chill wind from the grave even as she sat sweating in this damned car. Some crazy part of her urged her to do something... to reach out to him. Before she could stop the reaction, she'd gotten out of the car. "What's wrong with you?" Her voice was small, fragile.

"Why?"

The anguish in that one syllable unsettled something lodged so deep inside her that she couldn't respond. What was happening to her?

"Why?" he repeated, fury conquering the agony. He moved in closer, trapping her against the car. "Why did you do this?"

She trembled as her senses reacted to the raw masculinity of his nearness. She told herself it was the fear that had stolen the very air from her lungs ... but that was a lie. It was him... just like before when she'd dreamed of being so close to him... of being the one he wanted. An ache pierced her. Oh, God, how could her emotions betray her like this?

Her hands went against his chest as if that action could somehow stop this insanity. She mustered her voice: "Move."

Pushing against him was like running headlong into a mountain. His heart drummed beneath her palms ... the contour of muscles testing the thin material of his T-shirt making her dizzy. The heat from his body, so close to her own, made her feel restless... afraid. She needed to run. She needed to get away from him. But she couldn't move... she could only stare into those haunting eyes.

The dust swirling in the distance drew her gaze toward the spot where the road intersected the highway. A truck. Blue light throbbing on the dash.

The police.

Thank God.                                                          

The truck skidded to a stop next to her car and the driver's side door flew open.

Chief Ray Hale rounded the hood. "Get in the truck, Clint."

Austin didn't move, didn't shift that unrelenting gaze from hers. The caress of his ragged breath on her face had her quivering with something she couldn't label as fear.

"Clint," Ray repeated, "get in the truck.
Now
."

Austin looked at Ray for the first time since his arrival. His face a hard, expressionless mask, he didn't say a word, just backed away from Emily and walked over and got into Ray's truck.

Relief made her knees weak.

"Are you all right?" Ray stood next to her now.

"Yes." Her voice quaked. "He..." She shrugged, at a loss for the right words. "I don't know what happened. He went in the house and he came out... like this."

"Do you mind," Ray's voice was gentle, "telling me what you're doing out here? My deputies have reported seeing your car a couple of times."

Austin sat completely still in the passenger seat of Ray's truck. But his eyes, that unyielding, penetrating gaze, remained on her as if she'd committed some unthinkable offense.

"Emily?"

She dragged her attention away from Austin and peered up at Ray. "I'm sorry. What did you say?"

"What're you doing out here?" That he looked more concerned than perplexed told her he thought she was just as crazy as her parents did. Her parents had probably warned him.

"I'm ..." No use lying. He was the chief of police. He would figure it out even if Austin didn't tell him. "I'm watching him."

Ray studied her a moment; then he nodded. "I see." He glanced at his truck and then at Austin's house. "Why don't you go on home and we'll talk later. Right now I need to find out what's going on with Clint."

Ray didn't say that he figured she had done something to antagonize Austin. He didn't have to. The innuendo was there, hanging in the tension suddenly vibrating between them.

"Thank you for coming." She looked away from Ray's prying gaze, got into her car, and started the engine, but she didn't drive away immediately. She watched until he had pulled his truck into the driveway next to Austin's car and the two of them had gotten out and gone inside the house.

Her actions on autopilot, she shut off the engine. She wasn't going anywhere until she knew what the hell had happened in there. If whatever had happened somehow violated Austin's parole, she wanted to know.

Determination charged through her and she was out of the car and marching up the driveway before her brain caught up with her emotions. She slowed as she reached Ray's truck. Technically she was trespassing.

Her heart thundering, her legs still a little wobbly, she continued toward the porch. The front door opened and Ray stepped out, stopping her cold at the bottom of the steps.

"What happened in there?"

To her surprise, the question came from her.

"Emily, you should go home now."

She shook her head, climbed those steps, and went toe-to-toe with him. "I want to know what's going on here." She had a right to know. Well, maybe she didn't, but she was taking the right. She needed answers.

Ray dragged off his hat and exhaled a heavy breath. "Somebody vandalized the house. It's chaos in there."

"What exactly do you mean by that?"

Ray glanced around as if he didn't want anyone to hear what he had to say next. "Look, Clint's out back; you can come in for a minute and see for yourself. I wouldn't even let you go in except that I need you to understand his side of this."

Before she could question his motives or argue with the idea that she could ever understand anything about Austin, Ray took her by the arm and led her inside as if she were a child and couldn't be trusted not to break something or run away.

New emotions crowded in on Emily. Curiosity. Apprehension. Then regret followed by sadness. The house looked as if it had been tossed in an effort to find valuables.

"They broke a lot of things. Tore photographs into bits. Basically made a hell of a mess."

Ray kept talking, but Emily stopped listening... her full attention narrowed to the damaged items scattered about the living room. Broken picture frames, the photos once protected there ripped apart. It was easy to mentally piece together the strewn parts. Clint Austin and his mother. Broken shards of something porcelain, pink and white. The shattered face of a woman with long red hair.

The screen on the small box-style television had been smashed. Furniture overturned.

"... see anything?"

Emily pulled her attention back to Ray. "Did you say something?"

"Clint thought maybe you might have seen someone leaving his house when you arrived."

Surely he didn't think she had anything to do with this. He did... he'd asked her why she did this.

"There wasn't anyone here when I arrived," she said. "I'd been here maybe twenty minutes before he showed up, but I didn't get out of my car until he came out there acting crazy."

"You didn't meet anyone on the road that you recall?"

"No." She mentally replayed the drive from town. She'd been distracted, but 18 was always deserted. To have met another vehicle would have been unusual. "I don't think so." She abruptly felt exactly like Principal Call must have that night. She couldn't answer the question with any real accuracy. Did that mean that someone other than Austin might have been in her neighborhood that night... in her house? Her pulse skipped, then hammered hard.
Stop it
, she ordered. She didn't need to play guessing games. She had been in the room that night.

Ray rested his hands on his hips, his hat still clutched in one. "Emily, I know how hard this has been for you."

God, she was so sick of hearing that. Before she could tell him as much, he went on. "I want you to know that I really do understand how you feel. Heather was your best friend. She died in your arms. To you, Clint must represent all that's wrong in the world. But he's done his time. He deserves the chance to get on with his life." Ray sighed. "And so do you."

The merging of anger and frustration and shock had her reeling. Shock at the idea that he would believe her capable of this kind of ugliness. Frustration at the whole world thinking she could simply get on with her life. And anger, dammit, at the suggestion that Clint Austin deserved anything. Anger at herself for waffling on the whole damned subject.

Clint Austin was guilty. He didn't deserve to breathe the same air she did. But this—she surveyed the devastation in his living room—was a disgrace, an offense against his mother and all she'd worked so hard to hang on to.

"I didn't have anything to do with this, Chief Hale," Emily said with a pointed look at the man who should know her better than that. "I can't imagine who would be low enough to do such a thing." She planted her hands on her hips just as he had. "But mainly I'm disappointed that you or anyone else in this damned town would believe for one second that Clint Austin deserves anything but a return trip to that rock he slithered out from under day before yesterday."

Her emotions got the better of her then. The confusion, the anger and frustration... the self-loathing. She had to pause a moment to compose herself. When Ray would have spoken, she held up a hand. "I'm not finished." He kept his mouth shut. "He's a killer; as far as I'm concerned he won't have paid for what he did until he's dead and rotting in hell. Is that plain enough for you?"

The sound of glass crunching beneath a heavy foot jerked her gaze beyond Ray's right shoulder.