Close to Home

  “Then come up with another word,” she snapped, tired of being the bad guy. “I screwed up, okay? I know it. You know it. Jade knows it. Soon the whole damned world will know it. But I can’t change it.” She paced across the room, then walked up to him, the toes of her shoes a hairbreadth from the end of his boots. “And I’m not going to spend the rest of my life feeling bad about it. I did what I thought was best at the time, and if you don’t like it, too bad. So sue me,” she said before the weight of her words hit her full force. Would he? Would he actually sue her for custody?

  “There are legalities that have to be dealt with.”

  “You want a paternity test? Get a paternity test.” She was standing too close to him, but she wouldn’t back down.

  “Maybe I will.” They stared at each other in challenge.

  “Go ahead.”

  “I do believe you,” he finally admitted. “Jade and I talked. I know her birth date, and I see the resemblance.”

  “Okay, so . . . what? You want to see a lawyer for partial custody?”

  “I don’t know, I—”

  “Because if that’s what you want, you need to consult with Jade. She’s old enough to have some say in her future. I’m still her mother,” she added, before he could speak, “so, yeah, you can be a part of this family, if you want, but that’s it.”

  “That’s where the lawyers come in. To ensure that—”

  “Fine,” she cut him off again. “Get your damn lawyer.”

  “Damn it, Sarah, let me finish.”

  “I know what you’re going to say. Look, Clint, I’ve apologized. Up and down and sideways. I’m done with it. The apologies are over. If you need a lawyer to figure out what’s next, so be it. I do want you and Jade to have a relationship, but I’m the primary parent and always will be.” She just needed him to know the parameters.

  “Got it,” he said in a flinty voice. His eyes held hers for a second, then he turned his head and called, “Jade? Would you mind coming back in here a second?”

  Sarah braced herself as her older daughter, carrying a cup of cocoa and looking wary, reentered the living room. Gracie and the dog were in her wake, but they hung back in the hallway.

  “Come on in,” Clint suggested, waving Sarah’s youngest into the room. Gracie moved in cautiously, but Xena galloped into the living area and started circling near the fire, making a nest in the afghan and sleeping bags strewn near the hearth.

  “Great guard dog,” Jade said in an aside to Sarah. Then she explained to Clint, “For some reason Mom thought we needed one.”

  Sarah corrected, “I wanted an alarm dog or watchdog, and a pet. I’m glad Xena’s a new member of the family.”

  “Getting a lot of those,” Jade said beneath her breath.

  Clint’s stern expression relaxed some, and he almost smiled.

  “We got the dog because of all the ghosts,” Jade told him. “They see them, you know. Mom and Grace.” Jade blew across her cup as she took a seat on the hearth. “Don’t know what’s wrong with me. Guess they don’t like me.”

  “Jade,” Sarah protested.

  “You just don’t look,” Gracie told her. “Or maybe they don’t want you to see them.”

  “You are seriously whacked,” Jade retorted.

  Clint rubbed his chin and said, “You know, I used to fight with my brother all the time too. Not just with words. We’d wrestle and kick holes in the wall and throw punches. My dad had a way of handling it, though. He would make us go out to the barn and the stable and shovel manure for hours.”

  “What does that mean?” Jade asked, making a face.

  “Do I have to paint you a picture?” Now he did smile.

  Gracie regarded him suspiciously. “You plan on disciplining us?” she asked in a tone that suggested he was out of his mind.

  “He just means that bad behavior has consequences,” Sarah intervened.

  “You’re not planning on moving in or anything, right?” Jade asked, not bothering to keep the horror from her voice.

  Sarah was about to assure her daughter that nothing was further from the truth when Clint said dryly, “Not yet, but if I hear that you’re giving your mom trouble or forever getting at each other, I might consider it.”

  He was lying, but Jade took him at his word. “Oh, God. I just wish I could get my car back from the shop and go home,” she moaned.

  “This is home,” Sarah told her.

  “No, it’s not, and it never will be. And you—” She frowned at Clint. “Don’t get all parental on me, cuz I don’t even really know you.”

  “Deal. As long as you don’t get all teenager on me,” he said.

  “I want my damn car,” Jade said again. “How hard could it be to fix a Honda?”

  Sarah could tell Clint was more amused at Jade than annoyed, which was a good thing, but his talk of lawyers made her feel cold inside nonetheless.

  “I’ve got to run,” Clint said. “Got a dog waiting for me and chores to do. Also have about fifty head of cattle and a few horses, so there’s a lot of you-know-what to shovel at my place.” He threw a smile at Jade, whose face was shuttered, as if she were seriously worried that Clint expected to jump in and start parenting both her and Grace right now. To Sarah, he added, “Why don’t you walk me to the door?”

  Sarah followed him out. As they circumvented a couple of boxes in the foyer, he said, loudly enough for Jade and Gracie to hear, “You have any trouble with them, just give me a call.”

  “You know they’d have a fit if you tried to tell them what to do,” she pointed out, once they were on the porch and out of earshot.

  “Oh, yeah. I was just joking with them.”

  She thought he would leave, and truthfully, she was feeling wrung out and ready to be alone, but he hesitated, then gave her a searching look. “Ghosts, Sarah?” he asked.

  She shrugged, faintly embarrassed.

  “I thought you got over that.”

  “Gracie’s obsessed with Angelique Le Duc. She thinks she’s seen her spirit and that she should help her pass to the other side.”

  “And you’re buying that?”

  “Not exactly, but something’s going on. Earthly, unearthly . . . I don’t want to completely shut her down and say there are no ghosts.”

  “You saw a ghost when you were about her age.”

  “That was a hallucination,” Sarah said quickly, sorry she’d ever confided so much in him. “I was sick. Feverish.”

  “Jade said you accused her of being upstairs, in a room on the third floor, when she was downstairs.”

  Sarah gritted her teeth. She really didn’t want to have this discussion with Clint, but there seemed no way around it. “Okay, I did think someone was upstairs. I guess I’m just nervous, what with the move and all.” She glanced at the darkened acres surrounding the house. “Sometimes I think we’re being watched. By something or someone.”

  “That’s why you got the dog.”

  She nodded.

  Clint’s gaze held hers for an instant, and for one crazy second she thought he might kiss her, but all that changed as he stepped away. “I do have to get back, but this isn’t finished.”

  “It’s just beginning. You’re Jade’s father.” She placed a hand on the doorknob.

  He seemed to want to argue with her, but just said, “I’ll talk to you soon.”

  “Good-bye.” Sarah closed the door. She was weary of everything, especially of herself, because, though she wanted to deny it right down to the soles of her feet, the truth was she was still attracted to Clint Walsh. And Jade’s father or not, Clint was off-limits. She couldn’t, wouldn’t get involved with him. All those fantasies she’d had as a girl when she’d found out she was carrying his child—that she and Clint would someday get together—had been pure fiction, the daydreams of a young, scared, and pregnant girl. She’d grown up and tucked those girlish thoughts into the mental closet of her youth, the one with the firmly locked door.

  Clint was the last man
on earth she should consider romantically. It was going to be hard enough just navigating through their new family dynamics.

  Hearing the rumble of his truck head down the drive, she had to force herself to keep from watching him leave through one of the windows.

  Expelling a pent-up breath, she headed back to the living room. She just needed to keep reminding herself that, for her, Jade’s father was off-limits.

  CHAPTER 24

  “For God’s sake, pull yourself together!” Rosalie was nearly hoarse from yelling at the idiotic girl in the far stall, but Candy just kept sobbing and mewling and carrying on. “We have to find a way out of this place.”

  More sobs.

  “Look, are you athletic? Can you, like, climb up over the stall walls and get out, then come and let me out?”

  Sniffing and snorting. Oh, the girl was useless. “Come on. We have to find a way out of here. Do you like to play sports? Maybe swim?” Rosalie was wracking her brain and hoping beyond hope that she could get through to the girl.

  “I—I’m a flautist.”

  “You mean like a gymnast?” For a second Rosalie’s heart soared. Maybe this girl was the next Olympic contender and could jump, balance, do backflips, anything to get them out of here.

  “I play a flute. In the band.”

  Rosalie slid down the wall, her legs giving way, and dropped her head into her hands. She wanted to scream obscenities, but took in a deep breath and yelled instead, “Can you try to climb over the wall?”

  “How?”

  At least she had the girl’s attention, so she explained how she’d tried to climb over. “Look for anything mounted in the sides of the stall that you can grab onto, or step into, like a crack between the boards of the wall, so you can wedge your toe in and start climbing up and over.”

  “I don’t think there is anything,” she complained in a whining tone that suggested she was staring wide-eyed in the dark and wringing her flute-playing fingers.

  Rosalie said, “You have to try!”

  “Haven’t you?”

  “Yes, but my stall might be different. Nothing’s worked so far. But I’m not giving up. And neither are you.” Oh, please, God, “Come on, you can do it. You have to look for a way to get out.”

  “I just want to go home.”

  “Then you’ve got to find a way to get out of here!” Rosalie pointed out tautly.

  “Okay . . . ,” Candice finally agreed, sniffling loudly. “But it’s so dark.”

  “I know. Do what you can tonight, feel around—”

  “Ick! There could be rats and spiders and poop!”

  All of the above, “When it starts to get light, look around. Everywhere. Examine the place, every nook and cranny. Just see if there’s any way to get out of the stall.” Trying to calm Candice down—to scream some sense into her, and get her motivated—was an uphill battle.

  “I don’t know . . .”

  “So far, those two dickheads have never come back in the morning, so we’ll have some time.” Rosalie crossed her fingers and prayed she was right, but what did she know? It sounded as if the perv who’d abducted her was getting anxious and pressured, so things could change.

  What was it he’d said about her temperament?

  “It’s good that you’ve got that little bit of fire in you, He’s gonna want to see that you’ll give him a bit of a fight,”

  She shivered.

  Who the hell was “he,” the guy pulling her abductor’s strings? Worse yet, what was it he intended to do with her?

  His night goggles in place, pistol strapped to his belt, he crept through the woods surrounding Blue Peacock Manor. Fortunately, the area was so vast there was little chance anyone would see him, and he’d parked his truck in an abandoned lane off a spur of the county road and then hiked along the deer trails, the same paths he’d used when hunting in his youth. Back then, he’d been convinced these woods were haunted and had seen ghosts and demons and even Satan himself flitting through the thickets of fir and pine, causing the skeletal branches of the deciduous trees to rattle, kicking up tufts of dry leaves, causing them to whirl and dance and blow their cold demon’s breath through the gorge and down his spine.

  Even now, as a grown man, he heard them whispering in the dark, the rush of the wind a cloak for their gravelly voices.

  “You’re evil,” they murmured, causing his blood to run cold. “God knows and he will punish you.” And at that moment a twig snapped, and he whipped around, peering through his goggles, and spied a skunk waddling off.

  His heart was thudding crazily, and he closed his eyes for a second to ground himself. He didn’t believe that these woods were haunted, he didn’t. Those were just wild exaggerations, make-believe tales that had been passed down for generations to those who had lived around Stewart’s Crossing. Have faith, he told himself and managed to bring his heartbeat down to a normal level and continued following the winding path, refusing to see the wraiths and phantoms he’d learned about so long ago. A coyote showed up in his range of vision, but as if realizing it could be seen, it quickly dodged behind a boulder and vanished.

  Maybe it was a werewolf, his fertile imagination teased, and for just a second his skin crawled, and he imagined the beast reappearing, ten times its original size, as it lunged at him with snapping, bloody jaws.

  Resolutely, he tamped down his fears. They were nothing, just the stupid ghost stories older kids told younger ones to keep them in line.

  Thankfully, the forest gave way to brushy, unused farmland, though, of course, that damned cemetery was nearby, and being so near to grave sites set his teeth on edge.

  He pushed his fears aside, told himself he was a fool, then started forward to the fallen log that had been so perfect for viewing the house before. This time he stopped.

  Someone was there.

  Someone or something!

  A black figure stretched out on the ground.

  The hairs on the back of his neck raised, and he reached for his pistol.

  A demon?

  Ghost?

  Angelique Le Duc, her undead self?

  Maybe even the Prince of Darkness.

  Holy shit! His heart went into overdrive, and his fingers clasped around the grip of his Glock.

  The figure, all in black, moved, starting to turn from its belly, gathering itself, ready to flip over and pounce.

  Blam! He didn’t think twice, just pulled the trigger.

  The demon squealed, its body twitching.

  The gunshot seemed to echo through the hills.

  Blam! Blam! Blam!

  Three more shots, and the figure stopped moving; only a long, gurgling moan issued from it. He was breathing hard, adrenaline firing his blood as he stared at the dark form. Vaguely, he became aware of a dog barking in the distance. Farther away yet, a train rolled on distant tracks.

  Inhaling a deep breath, he waited for the unworldly specter to vanish, leaving no trace that it had ever existed.

  But the being didn’t disappear, didn’t wither away into a netherworld mortals couldn’t view. It just lay there, stone-still.

  Because it’s a person, you idiot! Why do you think the night goggles caught it? Because it was alive, jerkwad! You just killed a man! What the fuck were you thinking? Your damned imagination got the better of you, Thermal imaging, man, You know ghosts and demons don’t emit heat! They’re icy son of a bitches, their breath so cold it would freeze a man’s skin, For the love of St, Peter, now what?

  He was breathing hard. Sweating. Carefully approaching his target, he kept his Glock drawn, trained on the downed man . . . just in case he wasn’t human. What if the demon had taken on the shape of a man, even going so far as to emit heat in order to fool anyone who came by? Then, when least expected, the beast could morph into its monstrous shape again and pounce.

  The spit had dried in his mouth. He prodded one of his kill’s legs with the toe of his boot.

  Nothing.

  He pushed a little harder.
br />   Still the form seemed lifeless.

  So he bent down to roll the thing over, had just flipped it onto its back when it let out a horrific groan, eyes staring wide, lips pulled into a hideous grimace as blood spurted from its mouth.

  He dropped the body, stumbling backward, gun drawn, as if he expected the beast to rise into a grotesque creature of the night. Instead, the thing lay motionless again, and he told himself to grow some balls. Approaching once more, he studied the bloody victim and realized he’d seen the guy around town, maybe in the diner. No demon. No beast. No damned ghost. A man. Now a very dead man.

  What the hell had he been doing here?

  Now that he realized his victim wasn’t unworldly, he began looking around and noticed a pair of high-powered binoculars that had fallen to the ground on the far side of the log. So the guy had been spying, just as he’d intended to do.

  With rapid speed, he searched the guy’s pockets, pulled out his wallet, cell phone, and keys—where the hell was his vehicle?—then decided it was time to get the hell out. He couldn’t risk surveillance tonight.

  Suddenly he was aware of a dog’s agitated barks, coming from the damned house.

  Not good.

  Not good at all.

  He thought about dragging the body into the woods and hoping the coyote he’d spied earlier, or some of the canine’s friends, would feast on the man’s remains, but as he heard the dog barking, he knew he couldn’t be slowed down with his victim. Nor did he want to leave a bloody trail leading toward the place where he parked his vehicle.

  And he was running out of time if anyone got concerned about the idiot dog barking its fool head off.

  Spurred into action, he drew on all of his courage, lifted the body, and carried it to the overgrown cemetery with its bleached white headstones poking through the brambles. Here, he speculated, is where the dead man belonged. He tossed the unlucky voyeur over the uneven pickets of the fence, and as the corpse landed with a soft thud, he took off at a jog for his truck. He’d change into the fresh set of clothes he kept in the van, then stop by a local watering hole, establishing a bit of an alibi.

  The night had turned into a fuckin’ disaster.