Becky Cramer took one look at the picture and tapped her cheek, studying him thoughtfully. Tension knotted his gut but he just smiled and waited patiently.
Finally. She knew something.
It didn’t matter whether she told him or not. She knew something and he’d find out what it was.
“Mind if I ask why you’re looking for her?”
“That’s between us, but I’ve reason to believe she’s in danger.”
Becky’s eyes didn’t even flicker. She wasn’t going to tell him jack. But she knew something. And she’d seen Tracy. “Then perhaps you should consider approaching the authorities and not a real estate agent,” she advised coolly, handing the photograph back to him.
Joel inclined his head. “Sorry to have bothered you.”
He left, making note of the cars in the parking lot as he strolled away. Getting into her office would be child’s play.
All he had to do was find out to whom she had sold houses recently. His gut told him that Tracy hadn’t settled down until recently. She would have kept moving for a very long time.
How many young, single females would have bought houses in this area in the past few years? Small as it was, it couldn’t be that hard to narrow it down.
* * *
Becky watched as he walked away—wasn’t a hardship. The man had one fine ass. But he also had very, very hard eyes.
There was something dangerous about him.
And Becky had seen something fragile about Emory Hughes the minute she’d seen the younger woman.
Was this an ex? A private investigator? Becky didn’t know, but she’d be damned if she’d lead the man right to her. Waiting until he disappeared from sight, she turned to her computer and clicked on the file. She reached for the phone. Couldn’t hurt to call, right?
A chill danced along her spine and she shivered a little as she cradled the phone on her shoulder. She started to punch in the number, but the line went dead.
Frowning, she hung up briefly and tried again. Still just dead air.
Damn it.
Hanging up the phone, she reached for the cell lying on her desk. But it read “Out of service”. “What the hell?” she muttered.
Scowling, she grabbed a piece of paper and a pen. From memory, she jotted down the first three numbers and then glanced at her computer screen. Her pen fell from numb fingers.
The computer screen had gone black. Her breath came out in frozen little puffs as she found herself staring at the misty face of a woman.
It was a young woman—her features vaguely familiar. Becky cringed and stood, backing as far away from the thing hovering in front of her as she could, a whimper rising in her chest.
He won’t hurt her.
The words had no sound, just an echo that seemed to circle through Becky’s mind as she stared at…whatever it was. Logically, Becky knew what she was staring at. But she couldn’t, wouldn’t admit it.
“Huh…huh…who?” Becky squeaked out.
There was a laugh that seemed to ripple through the air, unlike the voice that didn’t really have a sound. The air warmed just a little. You know who I’m talking about. She’s safe—safer with him than she’s been in her whole life.
“She’s fine here.” Nothing ever happened here, not in Bethlehem.
She won’t be. Not for long. And I’m sorry. I wouldn’t do this if I wasn’t trying to take care of her.
The cold came back, wrapping her in its icy grip. A wave of black rose up, crashing over her, pulling her down in its grip. Her breath lodged in her throat and Becky fell helplessly into oblivion.
* * *
Her back ached. Becky sat up slowly, rubbing at her neck and wincing. The office was dark. Confused, she looked around.
The hands on her watch glowed slightly and she blinked as she realized it was close to ten. “Damn it.”
All the lights were off. It was quiet. Too damned quiet. It finally dawned on her why—her computer was off, too. The ever-present hum was missing.
Shaking her head, she reached over and clicked on the little table lamp.
Her head ached. Must have come from falling asleep. Too much work, not enough sleep. She started to try and sift through the files she hadn’t taken care of but finally just stacked them up neatly on her desk.
“Later,” she mumbled. “I’ll do them later.”
Reaching into the desk drawer by her right side, she pulled out her purse. With a sigh, she rose. Halfway to the door, she paused.
Glancing back to the desk, she frowned. Had she talked to somebody? Seen somebody?
Putting her hand to her temple, she scowled.
“I really need a vacation.”
* * *
Vincent moved through the cool, quiet splendor of the silent mansion.
Where was Tracy?
He couldn’t think.
Couldn’t focus.
He remembered Joel coming in, remembered the flare of pain as Joel punched him. And Simmonds, holding a gun on Tracy while Joel put his down. Vincent had had a gun…hadn’t he?
Now he was staring down at a pool of blood, at Simmonds’ unmoving body.
They’d killed Simmonds… Fuckers. They’d pay for that.
But wasn’t there something he needed to do first?
A gray cloud rose up and took his mind and for a while, he just drifted. Lost in the fog.
It was almost peaceful there. Drifting was easy. But it was getting harder.
People kept intruding.
There were new voices. New faces.
“Mr. Grainger, we need to talk to you…answer some questions…know you can hear…”
“…insane…he’s in a catatonic state…”
“His eyes are open…he moves…”
The voices rattled on and on, sometimes making sense, but more often than not, they were just nonsense.
He couldn’t keep blocking them out.
Tracy…
* * *
The alarm went off and Emory woke up, rolled over and smacked it with the palm of her hand. The cell phone on the bedside caught her eye and she sighed, pushing up onto her elbow. Long hair fell into her face and she shoved it back.
It was phone call day. Every month she called Aleisha. Reaching for the phone, she punched in the number. As it started to ring, she flopped over on her back.
Three rings, four…five.
She lowered the phone before the voice mail could pick up and hit the disconnect button.
That wasn’t right.
It was early. Eight o’clock. Aleisha wouldn’t be in court yet—just barely in the office. She always kept the cell phone with her. Always.
Just call later…rolling out of bed, she got up, leaving the cell phone on the bedside table.
* * *
Damned construction zones. The roads around St. Louis pretty much sucked all the time anyway, but with the road work going on I-64, it was worse.
Aleisha heard the phone ring and knew who it was. She started to reach for her purse but somebody cut her off and she had to slam on her brakes to keep from rear-ending the bastard.
Her purse went flying into the floor and she groaned. “Sorry, babe. I’m going to have to call you later.” She had an early meeting anyway that she had to get to.
She’d call Emory from there.
“I hate early meetings,” she muttered. Only reason she had agreed to this one was because this asshole had finally agreed to give her client a divorce.
Slowing down, she hit her blinker and started to try to move over.
Just as she did, the car in front of her slammed the brakes. Aleisha tried to slow down.
When the hit came from the back, she didn’t have any place else left to go.
* * *
Emory tossed the phone down.
Two days had passed.
Damn it. Her gut churned with worry. There was a limit to how long she was supposed to wait before she gave up getting hold of Aleisha and started running again.
/> She was so tired of running, even though part of her had been terrified of slowing down. But after three years of doing nothing but moving town to town, talking to nobody but her lawyer in hurried conversations, settling down had been heaven.
Aleisha would tell her if something was wrong. If there was something to worry about.
And there was nothing to worry about.
It hadn’t been easy.
Even being around anybody was enough to make her break out into a sweat. So many times before, she’d made friends only to realize they were people who were on her husband’s payroll.
People he used to try and trip her up, catch her in nonexistent lies, and spy on her. After a while, she’d just stopped trying to make friends. After so many years of self-imposed solitude, coming out of her shell was almost painful.
Joel had been her only true friend. And she’d lost him…losing people hurt. She knew that. She’d lost her dad when she was eight. Her mama had been everything to her, then she’d met Vincent. Mama had gotten sick, and weak, but Vincent had assured her that he’d take care of her.
Yeah, he had. So he could use the dear woman against her.
And then Joel…but thinking of him hurt.
But friends. She needed friends…places to hide if she needed to. The woman who lived a couple hundred yards away from her was a young, unbelievably perky blonde by the name of Shelley. Shelley was married to a doctor who worked in the ER of the hospital in one of the nearby towns. Madison, Emory was pretty sure.
When Shelley had invited her to go shopping in Madison, it had taken everything she had in her not to refuse.
But now that she was out, she was having fun, giggling and talking with Shelley as if they’d been friends for years. As Shelley leaned over to whisper something about two of the Sheriff’s deputies who had just left the Pepper Café, Emory felt a tightening in her chest.
She’d missed this.
Lunch dates with friends, laughing over a weird haircut, or eyeing some guy and pretending not to.
Something caught her eye.
As Shelley chattered on about the deputies, Emory felt a cold chill race down her spine.
There had never been any sign that anybody followed her. No sign that anybody thought she was other than who she claimed to be.
But fear settled in her throat as she sat there staring at the nondescript green Ford Taurus parked just across the street from the Pepper Café. Through the tinted windows, she could just barely make out the outline of a man—broad-shouldered, tall.
Just sitting there.
“Hey…hey, you okay, Emory?”
Jerking her eyes to Shelley’s face, she forced a smile. “I don’t know. My…my head just suddenly started hurting.”
A sympathetic smile crossed Shelley’s face. “Migraines? Man, I used to get the worst…c’mon. Let’s get you home.”
By the time they paid their bill and got outside, the green Taurus was gone.
“Imagining things,” she muttered to herself as she walked through the house one more time, checking all the locks, checking the windows.
She even got her gun out. Emory hated the cold, lifeless feel of it, but she’d be damned if she didn’t feel a little better as she checked the chamber.
Passing by the hall mirror, she paused and studied her pale reflection. She looked like a ghost.
A scared ghost.
How in the hell could just seeing a car do this?
Shaking her head, she started up the stairs, leaving the lights on behind her as she went.
Moving into her room, she closed the door and started toward the bed. She needed to get some sleep. Tomorrow…
“Hello, Tracy.”
That voice…swallowing, she turned slowly, lifting the gun and leveling it at the man who had been hiding behind the door.
Joel! For one split second, she almost flung herself at him. She stopped just in time…it had been four years. Four damned years.
“What are you doing here, Joel?”
A slow smile creased his face. “Watching you. But you already know that. You saw me earlier, didn’t you?”
“Is Vincent here?”
His dark blue eyes flashed at her. “If he was, do you think I’d just be standing here?”
Emory swallowed and shook her head. “I don’t know. Joel, it’s been a long time…”
“Four years,” he murmured. “I’ve been trying to find you for a year now. You hid well.”
A year… “You’ve been looking for me?” she asked, her voice tight and rusty. Then she shook her head. “Why now? It’s been four years.”
For a moment, Joel just studied her. “You don’t know, do you?”
“Know what?”
He skimmed a hand back over short hair before he took another step toward her. “I went to prison, Tracy. I signed a plea bargain, plead guilty. I accepted a shortened term in exchange for giving states’ evidence on some of Vincent’s other…acquaintances.”
Processing that, she turned away. All those words bounced around in her head. Latching on the one simple thing, she blurted out, “My name is Emory now. Tracy is gone—dead. For four years now.”
“Okay.”
Said so simply, she looked back and her breath caught at the sight of the smile on his face. She knew that smile. Knew it well…seconds later, he pulled her into his arms and she moaned as he slanted his mouth across hers, pushing his tongue deep inside, kissing her deeply, his tongue rubbing across hers, sweeping over the roof of her mouth, across the surface of her teeth.
Tasting her—like he had been starving for her.
She should stop this. Four years had passed. Four long, lonely, scared years.
But all she did was whimper and press against him. She had been starving for him. That worry, the gut-deep fear slowly faded away as he touched her. When he touched her…it didn’t feel as though even a minute had passed since he had last kissed her.
He paused just long enough to mutter, “Fuck, I’ve missed you.” His hands stripped her clothes away as she rose onto her toes, burying her fingers in his hair. Cool air bit her flesh and then his hands were on her hips as he spun around. She felt the wall against her back, and then…oh, please. She whimpered as he let go of her for a second, but then she heard the rasp of his zipper.
Then he was pressing against her, and Emory sobbed. “Joel!”
“I’ve been dreaming of you…the entire time. Fuck, I thought I’d never find you,” he rasped against her mouth as he pushed inside her, his cock hot, thick, and naked against the wet folds of her pussy. “Mine. I’m keeping you, Tracy…”
The name…it was wrong, but she didn’t care. He wanted her—did the name really matter? She had been Tracy, once…his tongue stole into her mouth again and she closed her teeth around it, biting him gently. He growled against her lips as he circled his hips into the cradle of her thighs. The head of his cock rubbed against some hidden place inside her, and she felt as though her entire body lit up at that touch.
“Missed you,” he rasped as he tore his mouth away, kissing a line down her throat, down her neck, raking the sensitive skin with his teeth before plumping one breast in his hand, pushing it up as he dipped his head and caught the nipple in his mouth.
“Fuck, this body is amazing…you’ve always been so perfect, how can you be even more perfect than before?” he whispered, lifting his head to stare down at her as he pulled out, working his cock back in as she struggled to catch her breath.
“Joel, please,” she whispered, clutching at his shoulder desperately. “Stop talking…I need you.”
“Shhh…” he crooned against her lips, his hands gliding down her sides, over her hips, cupping her ass for a moment and then he gripped her thighs, taking her weight in his hands, so that she was pinned between his body and the wall.
He pumped inside and she gasped, the climax rushing up on her, hard and fast.
“Come for me,” he whispered.
She forced her eyes to o
pen, staring up at him. His blue eyes, those midnight dark eyes, stared down at her, hungrily, greedily, the same way she imagined her eyes looked. Under the layers of clothing that kept his body from her, she could feel him, that long, powerful body that had brought her so much pleasure.
She wanted to see him as she came—wanted to know this was real, not a dream. His deep blue eyes stared into hers, his face stark with hunger. Her hands pressed against his shoulders, jerking at the coat that still covered him, wanting to feel his flesh against her.
But she couldn’t focus—not long enough to jerk at the buttons, not long enough to push back the climax building in her.
As he lowered his lips to kiss her, a soft, gentle kiss, so at odds with the harsh, hungry motions of his body, Emory felt her heart tremble, just a little. He had really missed her…
“You aren’t ever leaving my sight again,” he muttered, nuzzling her neck. She shivered as he gently squeezed the flesh of her buttocks, slowing the greedy movement of his body against hers, his hands gentling just a little. “You don’t know what it did to me.”
Emory whimpered, trying to hook her legs around his hips, trying to ride the thick stalk of flesh impaling her, but using his grip on her hips, he wouldn’t let her. She threw her head back as he continued to stroke slowly within her, his lips brushing against her neck.
Joel shifted and she arched against him as he hooked one arm under her left knee, opening her more fully. She clenched her inner muscles around him and he laughed shakily. “Slow down, baby. We have all night.”
Damn it, I don’t want all night—I want now! She tried to scream it, but her breath was locked in her lungs.
Pushing away from the wall, he carried her over to the bed, lowering himself onto it, with her still astride him. Greedily, she tried to pump her hips, but he clamped his hands around her again, slowing her frenzied pace. “All night…forever,” he whispered.
Her eyes widened as he arched up against her, rocking just ever so slightly within the embrace of her pussy. “Joel…”
His hand trailed up her thigh and she sank her teeth into her lip as he brushed his fingers against her clit.
The sensation of his touch darted through her and she clenched around him, arching her back. He did it again, and a third time, before she hissed and leaned forward, planting her hands on his chest and rocking against him.