The mailbox was set far enough off the pavement and the shoulder was wide enough that other vehicles had plenty of room to get past. And if anyone didn’t like it—well, tough shit; she was the chief of police, and even though she lived in the county instead of inside town limits, no one in the sheriff’s department was going to hassle her over something as mundane as how she collected her mail. She didn’t get a whole lot of perks with the job, but she’d gladly use the ones she did.
She put the transmission in park and got out, tugging hard on the door of the battered mailbox because it was slightly warped from being attacked by a couple of teenagers with a baseball bat. She pulled out the usual assortment of sales papers, flyers, a bill or two, and one thick oversized envelope that didn’t have a return address. Huh. Bo eyed the envelope, examining the postage—just the right amount, a post-office sticker rather than extra stamps—and the location and date. It had been mailed three days before from New York City.
Double huh. She didn’t know anyone in New York City—or state, for that matter.
Common sense told her a mail bomb would come in a box, not an envelope, even if she had any reason to be wary of a mail bomb, which she didn’t. Hamrickville wasn’t exactly a hotbed of crime, or of anything else.
She flipped the envelope over and looked at the back. Blank. The envelope was a heavy cream-colored paper, about the size for a largish birthday card. And it was definitely addressed to her, using her formal name of Isabeau instead of just Bo.
It wasn’t her birthday. Nowhere close.
A pickup truck blew past with a toot-toot of the horn and a wave: Sam Higgins, school bus driver. She returned the wave, then curiosity got the better of her and she put the rest of the mail on the Jeep’s hood so she could open the envelope.
The card she extracted did indeed say Happy Birthday. In full, it said Happy Birthday to a Wonderful Sister. What the hell? She had a couple of half-brothers and/or -sisters whom she’d never met; she considered herself an only and liked it that way. It had to be a case of mistaken identity, but how many Isabeau Marans could there be? There was only one in Hamrickville, West Virginia, that was for certain.
She opened the card. Glued to the interior was a small photograph of someone she definitely recognized, because a shit turd was always recognizable as what he was even though it had been years since she’d seen him and with luck it would be many more, as in the-rest-of-her-life more.
Underneath the photo was written, “Hope you enjoy the present I sent. Take good care of it.” There was no signature, but she didn’t need one.
“You didn’t send me a present, you asshole!” she snarled at the photo. Even if he had, she’d have burned it.
As soon as she had that thought, a small yellowish flame flashed across the card. She yelped and dropped it; the whole thing turned black and dissipated into thin ash before she could even stomp on it. She stomped anyway, just for good measure. Just thinking about her asshole former stepbrother could make her temper flash almost like whatever chemical he’d used to treat the card. If that thing had dropped into her lap she could have been incinerated too—not that he’d have cared. He’d always thought crap like this was funny.
She didn’t know why she’d been so abandoned by good fortune that he’d get in contact with her now, after all these years—if a flash-burning card could be called “contact”—but he’d succeeded in putting her in a foul mood. She was so angry she stomped the ashes another couple of times.
Breathing hard, she looked down at the ashes. If she could have gotten her hands on him, she’d have tried to strangle him. He’d always had that effect on her. She’d had the same effect on him. It had been mutual hate at first sight when her mother had married his father, but thank God the union hadn’t lasted very long. If it had, she had no doubt that either she or Axel would now be in prison for murder. Well, that was the past, even if the jerk had for some ungodly reason thought sending her a booby-trapped birthday card was funny. How in hell had he known where she was, anyway? It wasn’t as if they’d kept in touch.
She grabbed the remainder of the mail and slammed into the Jeep. Tricks immediately sensed the change in her and gave her a quick, sympathetic lick on the hand as Bo refastened her seat belt. “Everything’s fine,” she said, rubbing behind Tricks’s left ear. And it was. The jerk’s lunatic card had made her mad, but it was just a card and she’d already indulged in a mini–temper tantrum. That was enough; he didn’t deserve the effort of more.
After checking for traffic—none—she pulled across the road to her driveway, which cut through a stretch of woods, curving up and away from the road; the house was a half mile away, perched on the flat top of a small rise and hidden from view from the road. She had no close neighbors; the nearest house was a mile back down the road toward town. The isolation of her home wasn’t ideal, but she hadn’t had any other option so she dealt with it. At least she had plenty of room for Tricks to romp and play, and that wasn’t a small thing.
It was a pleasant drive; she’d become accustomed to it and even enjoyed a sense of homecoming now. For a few years she’d resented having to live here, resented the havoc the housing crash had caused in her life and her plans, but after a while she’d become more philosophical about it. She had her own share of blame in the state of affairs, after all. If she’d taken others’ advice, she wouldn’t have been landed in the predicament of sinking all her funds in a house and then having the buyer walk away, leaving her broke with a house she didn’t want and couldn’t sell.
That house she hadn’t wanted was now home. She was comfortable there, even though hands-down she would have preferred a condo in a city. The lemons-to-lemonade theory had given her friends, a surprising sense of belonging, and Tricks. She glanced at the dog and had to smile at the expression of bliss on the furry face. Tricks loved riding anywhere, but she knew she was going home; she recognized the routine with the mailbox, and the drive. Home meant comfort and familiarity and all her toys, as well as a late-afternoon romp and then supper.
Bo rounded the last curve, and the house came into view. An unfamiliar vehicle, a new-looking black Chevy Tahoe, was sitting in the driveway. She stopped the Jeep, then had a horrifying thought: My God, what if Axel had come to visit and that nasty surprise card was his way of announcing himself? She narrowed her eyes; if it was Axel, he could leave the same way he got here, and the sooner the better. He wasn’t welcome in her home.
But it wasn’t Axel who slowly exited the SUV. A quick look was all she needed to know this was a stranger, a tall man with somewhat shaggy dark hair. She reached into the glove compartment and pulled out the pistol Jesse had insisted she get. Beside her, Tricks’s attention was riveted on the stranger, and she gave an excited “Woof!” She was leaning against her harness, eager to exit the Jeep. ln her world, strangers were someone new to play with her.
Bo’s world wasn’t as optimistic. She didn’t turn off the ignition, in case she needed to get away fast; instead she lowered the window and called out, “May I help you?” The words were courteous; the tone was the one Jesse had taught her to use, louder than a woman would normally speak, and more authoritative.
The man put his arm on top of the SUV. “Are you Isabeau Maran?”
“I am.” The fact that he knew her name didn’t mean she was any less cautious. Besides, he looked like a ghoul, with a dead-white face and sunken eyes ringed with dark circles.
He wiped a hand across his face. “My name is Morgan Yancy. Your stepbrother sent me to you.”
CHAPTER 4
I DON’T HAVE A STEPBROTHER,” SHE SAID FLATLY, COMPLETELY unappeased by the obvious conclusion that this man was the “present” Axel had sent. She didn’t know what he’d meant by that and didn’t care. She wasn’t having anything to do with Axel or his present—not that this guy looked like any kind of present other than a gag gift, and she wasn’t laughing.
“Axel MacNamara,” he clarified. His voice sounded funny, kind of thin and breathle
ss. He was a big guy—tall, anyway, because his head was well above the top of the SUV, so the thin voice was out of place.
“I know who you were talking about. Doesn’t matter.”
“He said you’d feel that way.” The man looked around, his gaze moving slowly from object to object as if it was an effort to move even his eyes. She got the impression he was buying time more than anything else. Suddenly she realized that he didn’t look ghoulish, he looked unhealthy. A sheen of sweat coated his face though the day was too cool to warrant sweating from just sitting in a car.
“He was right.”
Then something clicked in her brain, and Bo narrowed her eyes, studying him. People who were sick and weak had that thinness to their voices, as if they didn’t have the strength to draw a good breath. The pallor of his skin emphasized the stark angles of his face and the dark stubble of several days’ growth of beard, the dark circles under his sunken eyes.
She got the sudden impression that his outstretched arm on the top of the SUV was all that was keeping him upright. She looked at his hand. Yes; the tips of his fingers were white from pressing hard against the metal. He was sweating from the effort he was making to stand upright.
“What’s wrong with you?” she demanded, her tone still wary but underlaid by a note of concern she couldn’t help feeling.
He raised his other arm, wiped his shirt sleeve across his face. “Got shot.” He gave her a hard look that she felt even across the distance between the two vehicles. “It wasn’t fun, don’t want to do it again. So I’d appreciate it if you’d put away that weapon.”
He couldn’t see the pistol in her hand, but he must have seen her lean over and accurately guessed she was getting a weapon from the glove compartment. Mindful of their isolation, she wasn’t scared but that didn’t mean she had to abandon caution. With a touch of irony she said, “I’m sure you would, but I’ll hold on to it for now. What are you doing here?”
“I told you. I was sent.”
“For what reason?” Not that she didn’t have an idea, simply because she knew how Axel’s perverted brain worked.
“Recuperation, and under the radar.”
Beside her, Tricks had evidently decided she’d been patient long enough. She butted Bo’s arm and woofed again; her ears perked up and her dark eyes locked on the stranger she hadn’t yet been able to greet properly. The man gave her a brief look and then dismissed her as no threat. Well, Tricks wasn’t a threat—except to clean clothing—but Bo didn’t trust people who didn’t like animals, so her misgivings swelled higher again.
“I don’t think so. I don’t know you. I don’t want to know you, and I sure as hell don’t want you as a roommate.”
“Paid roommate,” he qualified. Slowly he pulled a cell phone from his pocket. “Here, call Axel. He’ll explain.”
“I don’t want to talk to the asshole.”
“I don’t expect he wants to talk to you, either, but he does what needs to be done.”
Meaning she didn’t? Bo gave him a hostile, distrustful look. It was wasted because he chose that moment to close his eyes and swallow, as if he were fighting to stay conscious.
He might be a good actor, but even an Oscar winner couldn’t make his face go gray. She had the alarming conviction that he was about to face-plant right there in the gravel driveway.
Shit!
Swearing under her breath, she put the Jeep in park and shoved the door open. Tricks bounced as much as she was able, wanting to get out. “Stay,” Bo said firmly as she got out and slammed the door shut. Her boots crunched on the gravel and a chilly breeze blew in her face, bringing with it the sharp, clean scent of impending rain or snow. Tricks began barking, keeping up the doggy litany of displeasure at being left behind as Bo rounded the Tahoe SUV, the pistol still in her hand and a sharp eye on her unwanted visitor.
She might as well have saved the effort. She doubted he’d be able to hit anything other than the ground. He was literally clinging to the vehicle, his right knee braced against the frame, right arm across the roof, left hand clamped on the door.
“Sit down,” she said sharply. “Sit.” It was the same tone she used on Tricks when Tricks decided—as she did on a regular basis—to test whether Bo was still boss.
The tone worked on men as well as it did on dogs—either that, or he didn’t have any choice. He let out a shaky breath and all but collapsed into the driver’s seat, half-sprawling before he gathered himself and managed to sit upright.
In the Jeep, Tricks gave the bark that signaled she was really running out of patience, that she was deeply unhappy about being kept harnessed now that she was home, where she normally had the run of the place.
Bo ignored the bark. “Let me see your ID,” she commanded and stood at a safe distance while he placed the cell phone on the dash and laboriously fished his wallet out of his back pocket. Taking it in his left hand, he extended his arm back toward her, evidently intending that she take wallet and all. She did, stretching out and snagging it, then moving farther away in case he suddenly recuperated and jumped at her. She didn’t think he would, or could, but that wasn’t a chance she was willing to take.
There was cash in the wallet, enough to make a nice thick bulk, some credit cards, and a driver’s license. Looking back and forth between him and the wallet, she saw that the Virginia license did indeed say Morgan Yancy. The Morgan Yancy in the photograph looked much healthier than the one sitting in her driveway. The face had the hard, sculpted look of a man who kept himself in peak physical shape—not a handsome face, but definitely a masculine one. Brown hair—check. Blue eyes—check; she was close enough to see that. They were a particularly striking shade of blue, fierce and icy, as if an eagle had been born blue-eyed. Six-foot-two, check. Two hundred thirty pounds? No way in hell. He was at least thirty, forty pounds shy of what the license said, which explained why his clothes hung on him like shapeless bags.
On the plus side, the ill-fitting clothes were clean and in good shape, nothing fancy, just jeans and boots and a flannel shirt. On the not-so-plus side, Ted Bundy had been clean-cut and nicely dressed, so that didn’t prove anything.
Tricks barked again.
He retrieved the cell phone from the dashboard and tossed it to her; startled, she juggled the wallet and made a one-handed catch of the phone that she considered nothing short of miraculous, given that she’d never played any kind of sports. She should have let it drop in the dirt. Who threw cell phones around? “Call him,” he said, leaning his head back against the seat and closing his eyes again. He was breathing kind of heavily.
“I don’t know his number.”
“It’s the only number programmed into that phone.”
Well, wasn’t that all special and spy-ish? And useless, because—“I haven’t talked to him in seventeen years. I wouldn’t recognize his voice.” Besides, she didn’t want to hear Axel’s voice again—ever.
“So work it out.” The guy didn’t open his eyes. “Maybe he knows something about you that no one else does.”
He was taking a lot for granted, she thought with resentment, a complete stranger showing up uninvited and evidently expecting her to take care of him. Or maybe he was at the end of his endurance and didn’t have the energy to move on down the road. From the way he looked, she had to reluctantly go with that last conclusion.
Damn it. She didn’t want to get hooked into anything, but at the same time she didn’t see how she could send him away when he was incapable of going.
She took a few more cautious steps away from him, just in case he was faking and tried to charge her while she was distracted by the phone. She didn’t think so, but yeah, she was cautious—and suspicious. Looking back and forth between him and the phone, she examined it; it was a cheap dumb phone, keypad instead of a touch screen. She pressed the call button and put the phone to her ear.
There was some unusual clicking. She waited and was beginning to think the call hadn’t gone through when there was another clic
k and a man’s voice said, “Yes.”
She said, “Who is this?”
“Nice to talk to you, too.” The voice was male, mature, and no way in hell could she tell if it belonged to her former stepbrother.
“Sorry,” she said briskly. “You won’t be talking to me a second longer unless you tell me something that identifies you.”
He snickered. “One word: stripes.”
Dismayed, she shook her head. Even if “stripes” hadn’t verified his identity to her, the adolescent snicker would have. She was caught: this was indubitably Axel MacNamara. No one else, not even her mother, had known that when Bo was thirteen, for some unknown reason she had decided having tiger stripes on her legs would be cool and make her stand out in a crowd. In retrospect, she could only wonder at herself, but maybe being thirteen was answer enough.
She had painted stripes of sunblock on her legs, then lain out in the sun. The resulting effect had made her look as if she had a skin disease. The only remedy then had been to paint the tanned portions of her legs with sunblock—which had taken a long time, which was why Axel, the stepbrother from hell, had caught her at it—and try to tan the pale stripes to their surrounding color. That had ended up being the summer she never wore shorts.
“Okay,” she said grudgingly. “I know who you are. What the hell do you think you’re doing, sending a stranger here and expecting me to—”
“Cut the dramatics,” he said with the cool disdain that had always set her teeth on edge. “Even I wouldn’t have sent anyone dangerous. Let me amend that: he isn’t dangerous to you. He needs a secure place to recuperate until I can handle a delicate situation. I don’t know how long it will take.”
“So I’m just supposed to house a stranger for an unspecified length of time?” She cast a weather eye at the stranger in question. His eyes were still closed. He was still sitting mostly upright, but she wasn’t at all certain he was conscious.