Stranger In His Arms Page 11

  Dylan tossed her the backpack and grinned. “How could I scare you to death when I’m in Atlanta and you’re supposed to be in New York City?”

  Anger had replaced her fear, but it was tempered with such happiness at the sight of him, she didn’t know whether to smack the smug expression off his handsome face or throw her arms around him and tell him how glad she was to see him again. Conflicted, she did neither.

  “Are you following me?” she accused him.

  He placed his fists on his hips and stared down at her. “If I had been following you, I’d have headed north. What are you doing in Atlanta?”

  “It’s a long story.”

  “You’re full of long stories, aren’t you?”

  The rain had increased in intensity, and rivulets were running off her hair and into her eyes. She turned up the collar of her jacket against the deluge. “It’s raining cats and dogs, and that was the last bus for the next hour.”

  He jerked his thumb over his shoulder, and she recognized his pickup truck parked across the street. “I’ll drive you wherever you’re headed. That’ll give you a chance to tell me your long story.”

  The rain fell harder. He broke into a run for the truck, and she dashed behind him, anxious for cover from the cold downpour and piercing wind. Once inside, she pushed soggy wisps of hair from her eyes. “Why are you here?”

  “I asked you first.” He started the engine. “Where to?”

  She gave directions to her place and leaned back against the seat. The wipers swished across the windshield in a hypnotic rhythm, the truck’s heater blew comforting hot air on her wet, cold feet, and for the first time in days she felt safe again—now that her initial panic had passed.

  When Dylan had grabbed her off the bus she’d been terrified and had turned, expecting to find that Larry Crutchfield’s hit man finally had her in his clutches. She’d never been so glad to see Dylan, but she wouldn’t tell him so. Ever since he’d learned about the lies she’d told, disapproval of her had been stamped all over him. No point in encouraging a man who apparently wanted nothing to do with her.

  Then why was he in Atlanta?

  “Is this it?” He had pulled the truck into a parking space along the curb in front of the ancient house where she’d rented a two-room apartment on the second floor.

  “Home, sweet home.” She reached for the door handle. “Want to come up? I brew a mean cup of tea.”

  “I’m still waiting for your long story.”

  “That, too. First, I want to shuck these wet clothes.”

  They left the truck and raced through the raindrops to the rickety stairs that climbed the outside of the building. On the top landing, Jennifer fumbled for her key in her backpack, unlocked the door and stepped inside. Dylan followed.

  She crossed to a table behind the sofa and flicked on a lamp. Its soft glow filled the room but did nothing to hide the shabbiness of her surroundings. She hadn’t noticed before how faded and worn everything looked, but seeing it through Dylan’s eyes, she winced. At least it was clean.

  “This is only temporary,” she said.

  He shook rain from his jacket, hung it on a hook by the door and turned to her with a perceptive smile, but not before she’d glimpsed the revolver tucked in his belt at the small of his back. For the first time since his unexpected arrival, she remembered that he was a policeman and that she still had secrets to hide.

  “I’m sure all will be explained in your long story,” he said.

  “You want a towel?”

  “No, thanks. Only my jacket got wet.”

  “Make yourself comfortable. I’ll be back in a minute.”

  In the bathroom, she removed her wet clothes, tugged on dry jeans and a sweatshirt and grimaced at herself in the mirror. With her hair hanging in wet, lank strands, she looked and felt like a drowned rat.

  Why should you care what you look like? she asked herself. You blew your chances with Mr. Law-and-Order days ago.

  With a sigh of resignation, she pulled a comb through her damp curls and went into the kitchen. In a few minutes, she had prepared a tray with a pot of spiced tea and a plate of bakery muffins, warmed in the microwave.

  Stiffening her spine for the upcoming interrogation, she swept into the living room and forced herself to smile. “Better get it while it’s hot.”

  Dylan turned from gazing out the front window, took the tray and placed it on the coffee table. She perched on the sofa, filled a mug and handed it to him, avoiding his scrutinizing stare, a look that made the hairs on the back of her neck stand erect. He was a hard man to keep secrets from.

  “Your long story?” he prodded.

  She drew a deep breath. “When you left me at the Asheville airport, I had every intention of flying to New York.”

  “So you said,” he noted skeptically.

  “The airlines couldn’t book me a flight straight through to New York for over six hours—so I decided to backtrack and come through Atlanta.”

  Dylan nodded. “We have a saying in our part of the country. If you die and go to Hell, you still have to layover in Atlanta first.”

  Her hopes rose at his touch of humor. Maybe he hadn’t written her off entirely after all. “In spite of the longer distance, that route meant I’d arrive in New York sooner and pay less for my ticket,” she explained.

  “So,” he said, “you’re still here. Miss your connecting flight?”

  She shook her head. “On the trip from Asheville, I kept thinking about Miss Bessie and how I’d let her down. I’d give anything if I could go back to Casey’s Cove and make things up to her.”

  He nodded, eyeing her warily as if unsure whether to believe her. “Your return would mean a lot to Miss Bessie. And to a lot of the folks in town who befriended you.”

  She hadn’t lied about Miss Bessie. The eccentric but affectionate old woman had been the closest thing to family she’d experienced in years. Jennifer felt genuinely sorry for deserting her during the festival.

  What Jennifer neglected to mention was her reluctance to leave Dylan as part of her motive for returning to Atlanta. Because he so obviously disapproved of her, she wanted to do something to reinstate herself in his good graces, and she’d realized she couldn’t do that by running away.

  “I can’t go back to Casey’s Cove until it’s safe, and it won’t be safe until Larry Crutchfield is behind bars.”

  The wariness in his expression dissolved, replaced by what appeared to be grudging approval. “You said a few days ago you were too scared for your life to return here.”

  She lifted her face and met his gaze squarely. “I am scared. But if Crutchfield isn’t caught, I’ll be scared the rest of my days. That’s no way to live.”

  “So you’ve decided to give up life on the run?”

  Encouraged, she continued. “I’ve decided to stay in Atlanta to see what evidence I can dig up that points to Crutchfield. That’s what I was doing in the library this afternoon, researching every news article I could find about Max Thorne’s murder.”

  She stopped and sipped her tea. Dylan continued to stare at her, but his expression had turned guarded, as if hiding his feelings.

  “Now,” she said, “it’s your turn. Why are you in Atlanta? And how did you find me?”

  “I wasn’t looking for you.”

  She experienced a painful twinge of rejection. “It’s an awfully big city to run into someone by accident.”

  Dylan turned to the window and gazed out at the rain, his back as stiff and straight as his principles. “Let’s just say it was coincidence.”

  “I don’t believe in coincidence.”

  “Call it what you like. We were both at the public library because we’re looking for the same thing—information on Max Thorne’s murder.”

  “Isn’t Atlanta quite a ways out of your jurisdiction?”

  Dylan nodded, unwilling to tell her the other reason he was after Thorne’s killer. “As a lawman, I have knowledge, thanks to you, that relates to a
crime that I think I can solve. Anything I uncover, I’ll turn over to the Atlanta homicide division. I don’t like killers running loose.”

  She wrinkled her attractive face in puzzlement, and he remembered how her lips had tasted the night of the Apple Festival dance. He used all his self-restraint now to keep from kissing her again.

  “What about your job in Casey’s Cove?” she asked.

  He shrugged. “I took vacation time.”

  “Whew, talk about a busman’s holiday.” She studied him as if she knew he’d left out a large part of his motive.

  He wanted to tell her his whole plan. His heart had sunk to his boots when he’d watched her enter the air terminal on Monday and had realized he might never see her again. He could only hope that Michael Johnson had taken the false lead and headed to San Diego. If not, Jennifer remained in imminent danger. Even if Johnson had gone to San Diego, he’d find out soon enough that Jennifer wasn’t there, backtrack and stalk her in New York City. No place in the world was big enough to hide from a professional hit man.

  Dylan knew her only hope was to neutralize Crutchfield by placing him behind bars. His plan had been to come to Atlanta, find the evidence needed to effect the attorney’s arrest, and then write Jennifer in New York, telling her to come home to Casey’s Cove.

  To come home to him.

  In spite of her irritating predilection for telling falsehoods, he couldn’t erase the woman from his mind. His main reason for coming to Atlanta was to get her back.

  But he couldn’t admit to her that he cared, because he couldn’t trust his own feelings. Not yet. Not until he learned whether the affection he’d sensed from her was genuine or just another of her many deceptions.

  He pulled himself from his reflections to find her staring at him curiously.

  “What did you turn up on the Thorne case?” he asked.

  She pointed to her backpack. “I copied every article I could find, but I haven’t had time to read through them yet.”

  He gestured toward the rain beating against the windowpane. “Today’s not good for much else. Want some help?”

  “That would be great.” She extracted the copies, a legal pad and pencils, and placed them on the table by the window. “With your expertise, you might pick up on something significant I might overlook.”

  He couldn’t help smiling at her enthusiasm. “Let’s just say two heads are better than one, especially when it comes to investigations.”

  He sat opposite her at the dilapidated table, took half the articles, and began to read. Jennifer settled into the chair across from him and perused the other half of the stack. Every now and then, she scribbled notes on the legal pad. With Jennifer only an arm’s length away, he enjoyed the intimacy of the tiny room, warm and dry with the rain pounding the roof. He noted her green eyes focused on the pages, her delectable pink tongue sometimes visible at the corner of her tantalizing mouth, and had to force himself to concentrate on the articles about Max Thorne’s murder.

  About an hour later, she rose and took the teapot into the kitchen for a refill. “Find anything helpful?” she asked when she returned.

  He laid down the article he was reading and rubbed his aching eyes. “Nothing that points to the major piece of the puzzle that’s missing.”

  “What’s that?”

  He stretched his arms above his head to ease the tension in his shoulders, then gratefully accepted a fresh cup of tea. “Motive.”

  “I know Crutchfield killed him.”

  “Yes, but we don’t know why. Crutchfield, if your recollections are accurate, had the means—a gun—and the opportunity—the meeting with Thorne in his office. But if we intend to prove our case against your former boss, we have to know what made him decide to blow his biggest client to kingdom come.”

  She closed her eyes, as if remembering. “Their meetings had always been friendly, until that final one.”

  “Did you hear any of the specifics of their argument that night?”

  She opened her eyes and cast him an apologetic glance. “I was trying not to eavesdrop. All I can remember is Thorne screaming, ‘you had no right,’ and calling the boss some nasty names I won’t repeat. Crutchfield just laughed at him, an evil-sounding laugh. A couple of seconds later, I heard gunfire.”

  “What you think was gunfire,” he corrected her.

  Her expression drooped. “Don’t you believe me?”

  “I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t. But that’s the response the homicide detectives will give you, unless we can come up with concrete proof.”

  She twisted her mouth in a cynical grin. “You’d think two bullets in Max Thorne’s heart would be enough to corroborate my theory.”

  “We cops are a distrustful bunch. We need lots of convincing evidence before we throw a man in jail.”

  Jennifer raked slender fingers through hair that had dried into a mass of blond ringlets. He remembered the picture Michael Johnson had shown him of her with long red hair and freckles spattered across the bridge of her nose and her cheeks, a glamorous photo that made her look like a model. She was the most attractive woman he’d ever seen. And an expert at disguise. And deceit. Yet here he sat in her living room, taking his hard-earned vacation time to follow her on a wild-goose chase. What had happened to his common sense?

  “So, Dick Tracy, what do we do next?”

  Her teasing voice jerked him from his reverie. “Let’s review what we know about Max Thorne.”

  She picked up the legal pad and scanned her notes. “He was forty-five when he died. Married with two teenaged children. A millionaire several times over since his worldwide delivery service went public.”

  “Money problems?”

  She shook her head. “None that the office was aware of. He was Crutchfield’s biggest account, a real cash cow. The boss always rolled out the red carpet when Thorne appeared.”

  Dylan thought for a moment. “Had Crutchfield screwed up somehow? Bungled the account and was trying to hide his mistakes from Thorne?”

  “It’s possible, but if there was a problem, no one else in the office was aware of it. And I’d have known if Crutchfield was hiding a paper trail. I handled all the documents.”

  Dylan shoved away from the table and paced the floor of the living room. “We need a two-pronged approach to our investigation. One, to discover Crutchfield’s motive. The other, to find physical evidence that connects him to Thorne’s murder.”

  She settled in an overstuffed chair, draped a denim-clad leg across the arm, and swung her bare foot, a pose that threatened to scatter his concentration. “If Crutchfield wasn’t covering his own mistakes, what could his motive have been?”

  “Revenge, money, ambition—”

  “Jealousy?”

  “Is Crutchfield married?”

  She shook her head. “He doesn’t even have a steady girlfriend. But I was thinking of professional jealousy. Crutchfield loved the limelight. When Thorne’s company stock skyrocketed, Max became Atlanta society’s golden boy.”

  “Could be the reason,” Dylan admitted. “I’ve heard of stranger motives.”

  “Such as?”

  “I read about a case in Detroit where one man killed another because his feet smelled.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “In another, a woman skewered her husband with a barbecue fork because he overcooked her steak.”

  Jennifer shook her head. “If Crutchfield’s motive is that bizarre, we’ll never figure it out.”

  “Those examples were of stupid people, both drunk at the time. Was your boss drinking that night?”

  “He sounded sober, and I’ve never known him to overindulge. He’s the kind of man who always likes to be in control.”

  “And since he’s not a stupid man, we’ll probably find his motive a logical one, at least to a killer’s mind.”

  She pointed to the newspaper articles. “These have been no help. What do we do next?”

  He glanced out the window. The rain had
stopped and the reappearing sun hung below the clouds in the western sky. “There’s still daylight left. I’d like to get a look at Crutchfield. How far are we from his office?”

  “Not far. But you’ll never see him there unless you go inside. He takes the elevator directly to the parking garage. You might catch him at his townhouse. It’s just a few blocks from his office.”

  Disinclined to leave her now that he’d found her again, he asked, “Ever been on a stakeout?”

  “I’ve seen them on TV and in the movies. Does that count?”

  “Close enough. I have a thermos in the car. Can you make coffee, extra strong?”

  “Sure, and while it’s brewing, I’ll find some dry shoes.”

  He sprinted down the stairs to his truck, grabbed the thermos and returned. Jennifer was lacing sneakers over thick white socks. She had changed her sweatshirt for a white blouse whose crisp collar peeked above the neckline of a pale yellow sweater, a perfect foil for her golden hair.

  “Better bring a jacket, too,” he warned. “The temperature’s diving.”

  A few minutes later, they were in the truck with a filled thermos and a blanket borrowed from Jennifer’s bedroom in case their stakeout lasted into the night.

  “Where’s the nearest pizza place?” he asked.

  She directed him to one nearby where he ordered two large pizzas to go while she waited in the truck.

  “We’ve got coffee, pizza and a blanket,” she said when he returned, “but no binoculars or high-tech listening devices like I’ve seen in the movies.”

  “No doughnuts, either,” he answered with a pseudo-serious expression, “but somehow we’ll manage.”

  “Turn left,” she directed as he drove from the parking lot. “Crutchfield’s apartment is about a mile south of here.”

  Traffic was thickening as the rush hour approached, but as they reached the posh suburb of Crutchfield’s townhouse, hardly a car passed them.

  “This isn’t good,” Dylan said. “In this neighborhood, my truck will stick out like a sore thumb.”

  “Maybe the neighbors will think you’re a tradesman working late.”