Reclaim My Life (15 page)

“It’s the least I could do.” She gave him a look filled with chagrin. “It’s my mom’s fault, you know.”

“Your mom’s?” Elizabeth frowned at her. “What do you mean?”

Then the resemblance zoomed into focus, and his brain connected the dots. “You’re Hazel Porter’s daughter, aren’t you?”

“Afraid so. She’s a maniac with wasp spray and rat poison, I’m sorry to say.”

Wil reached for his wallet and handed her two twenties. He had no idea if the amount was appropriate. When

Iris tried to refuse, he said, “Take it, darlin’. It’s the least I can do for interrupting your Saturday night.”

“Well, I
am
currently unemployed …” She took the bills and stuffed them into the pocket of her shorts.

“It’d probably be better if we kept this between us, all right?” Damn. He hoped that hadn’t sounded as if he was bribing her.

“I understand.” She dismissed his concern with a wave of her hand. “Do you know what’s going to happen to all this? Dr. Hodges said she’d taken out a huge loan to open her practice, so will her equipment be repossessed?”

“Her mother will have to make those decisions,” Wil said. “She told my deputy she plans to be here next week.” And Wil owed Cathleen Hodges’s estate for the vitamin K1. He’d need to find out the cost. Jamie probably knew from the computer files she’d examined.

“It’d be nice if she could sell it to another veterinarian who’d take over and reopen, but I guess that’s wishful thinking.”

Elizabeth nodded, her eyes strangely liquid as her gaze swept the room. She was probably remembering her dead friend. But question marks littered Wil’s mind. If she wouldn’t explain why a trained veterinarian would become an English professor at a small college and want it kept secret, he’d have to redouble his investigation of her.

Elizabeth hadn’t lied. Not exactly.

She lay in bed staring at the illuminated dial on her clock radio. Four o’clock in the morning and she should’ve been sound asleep. Instead, her mind replayed the night’s events. She had told Wilson she used to work in a veterinarian’s office, which was true. Of course, she’d neglected to mention that she’d worked as a veterinarian. Or that she held a degree in veterinarian medicine. She wasn’t a vet, though—not anymore. She wasn’t certified to practice in the state of Florida, nor could she be until she caught up on her continuing education hours.

So she hadn’t lied. But she’d broken role, something her handler said could get her killed. Unfortunately, Elizabeth had reacted to the emergency without thinking. It had always been her nature to rescue and treat animals, even before her veterinary science training. After earning her English degree and then deciding to go to Auburn to get her DVM, she didn’t surprise anyone who knew her well. Last night, her immediate concern was saving the golden retriever from poisoning, and her training kicked in automatically. Too late, she realized her
faux pas
.

The keen-minded sheriff wasn’t fooled, either. He recognized her training in saving Sophie. He dropped her off at home after they closed up Hodges Animal Clinic and saw her safely inside her house. Then he gave her the opportunity to explain, but she ignored it. There was no good night kiss or even a close encounter. She saw question marks in his eyes, not romance.

“Just how long did you work in that vet’s office, darlin’?” he asked. He may not have figured out the truth yet, but he was curious. He’d probably google her name the first chance he got, not that he’d find anything for Elizabeth Stevens. The question haunting her now—who would he tell?

Abandoning her bed, she got up and padded to the kitchen. By the glow of her nightlight, she brewed a cup of tea and carried it into her darkened living room. Curling her legs beneath her, she settled into the sofa to enjoy her hot drink. The woodsy scent of Wilson’s cologne lingered in the fabric of the slipcovers where he’d sat Friday evening, reminding Elizabeth of her foolishness.

She’d let him get close—closer than any man since Brendan, though that lying creep could hardly be called a man. How many times had she reminded herself that she could be relocated with little notice at any time? If Sullivan’s hit men figured out where she’d moved, she couldn’t afford a moment’s delay. Once her handler called her, she had to be ready to move. How could a relationship work under such circumstances?

Now she’d compromised herself. It may mean nothing. Or it could lead to her exposure. She feared there’d come a time when she’d be cornered and have to decide whether or not to confide in Wilson. Her instincts, known to be defective, told her he would safeguard her secret. She liked him—too much. Kris nailed it when she said he’d proven not to be a shallow jerk. Kris would tell her to trust him. But should she trust
Kris?

Kris had moved to Foster County about the same time as Elizabeth had, but so had Cathleen and Sunny. Did that make them suspicious? She’d read somewhere that a hundred thousand people moved to Florida each week, so newcomers to Drake Springs—particularly a college town—weren’t unusual. Her handler said to confide in no one, though, so she didn’t. All three women considered her a close friend but knew little beyond her phony biography. Maintaining the charade exhausted her.

Unlike Cathleen, who rarely spoke of her family or home, or Kris, whose parents had used her as a pawn in the battlefield of their divorce, Elizabeth had grown up in a loving, happy family. She’d been close to all of them—so close that her heart ached still to talk to any one of them. To do so would endanger not only her but them, too. She’d been warned that she couldn’t risk e-mail, either.

She finished her tea and sat up straight, an idea taking root. She often surfed the internet. Would anyone notice if she logged on to her hometown newspaper? If keystrokes were recorded, couldn’t she access a number of cities’ newspapers to leave a trail of confusion? Seventeen months ago she’d traveled to Georgia by taking flights to various cities under different names. Her handler later set her up in Drake Springs and gave her the Chevy S-10, which she drove to her current identity’s new life. She could follow the same convoluted path with the internet.

Elizabeth powered up her computer, squinting against the sudden brightness of her monitor in the darkened room. Thanks to Ian Davis, she had a high-speed internet connection. He’d installed the software and switched her over from dial-up the first time she’d cooked dinner for him and Sunny.

An hour later she’d soaked up dozens of articles at
courier-journal.com
, news from Louisville, Kentucky, and southern Indiana. She browsed the headlines, then read through local news. Her favorite restaurant had closed after forty-nine years.
Damn!
She scanned the obits and saw no familiar names, thank God. Fall racing was about to start at Churchill Downs. She skipped that article. Any racetrack brought back painful reminders of the events that had landed her in this mess.

A tiny ad in the sidebar caught her attention: “Mustang Sally’s Garage—for the best in auto restoration.” Her heartbeat quickened. That had to be her sister-in-law’s business. Mustang Sally’s Garage had outfitted her secondhand motor home for her mobile veterinary business. Sally hadn’t owned a computer at the time, but now she appeared to have entered the information age. Or Sally had sold the business, for all she knew.

She’d missed so much of her family’s and friends’ lives since she’d gone into hiding. Against her better judgment, she clicked on the link. MustangSallysGarage. com filled her screen, and a smile filled her face. Right away she recognized the handiwork of her brother Joey. She touched a finger to the screen as if to bring her in contact with him. Had he and Sally started a family yet? What exactly was the name of his employer? Could she find anything about Joe on their Web site?

In her moment of weakness, Elizabeth started to save Sally’s Web site to her favorites but reconsidered. She could remember the URL easily enough, and it wouldn’t do to send trouble to Sally’s door. It wouldn’t do for her to do a search on her brother, either. Up until now, the Feds had succeeded in protecting her family, going to great lengths to paint a picture of her as estranged from the Desalvo family. Fortunately—if anything about this mess could be seen as fortunate—she’d lived and worked in Lexington, not Louisville, seventy miles from the closest family member.

Seventy miles or seven hundred miles: would it matter to a man on trial for murder and racketeering?

Exhaustion finally claimed her. Yawning, she shuffled back to bed without turning off her computer. She’d be up again in two hours and could check for new posts on the Shakespeare forum before going to the early service at St. Helen’s, the tiny Catholic church in downtown Drake Springs. Attending mass was her one concession to her previous identity. This was no time to give up praying.

At 10:30, she’d pick up Kris. Or should she call first? If Kris had followed through on her idea to invite Adam over for the evening, she may have gotten lucky. Barely finishing that thought, Elizabeth fell asleep.

Sunday morning, Wil swung by the Nite Owl Convenience Store on First Street, grabbing a breakfast burrito and hot coffee on his way to the station. He missed his usual breakfast at the diner but couldn’t blame Boyd and Lorraine for closing one day a week. He missed seeing Elizabeth, too, although he’d been with her last night. The entire episode with Sophie had unsettled him, not that he wasn’t grateful for Elizabeth’s help. In fact, he’d been so focused on saving his dog he’d overlooked a few things that later resurrected in his thoughts.

Elizabeth seemed at home in a strange veterinary clinic, using language and expertise beyond that of a former aide. Or had she actually said she’d worked as an aide? Something else niggled at the back of his brain—something she’d said that he’d meant to follow up on but now couldn’t recall. He definitely intended to spend more time investigating her, if for no other reason than to satisfy his curiosity.

Still, her behavior last evening had triggered his detective radar. He’d learned to trust his instincts, and he couldn’t ignore his misgivings about her even if he did lo—like her.
Lo
—
like
covered it perfectly because he was halfway in love with Elizabeth. And he had yet to kiss her.

With so many troubling thoughts, he’d slept poorly and then overslept, which pushed him to get to the office by ten. He’d intended to go in at eight. To his amazement, he hadn’t forgotten his weapon and holster. Ordinarily, the county sheriff could take a Sunday off. But Wil had an unsolved homicide and a police force working extra shifts to find evidence.

He unlocked the back door that led directly to his office, and slipped inside. After finishing off his breakfast, he toured the station, speaking to Rebecca Gibbons, the dispatcher on duty. “Any trouble this morning?”

“Not since I came on, Wil.” She handed him the clipboard containing the printout of the day’s calls. “Here’s the log.”

Wil scanned the list of traffic and disorderly conduct calls. “Amazingly light for a Saturday night.”

“Especially the first weekend after classes start. The biggest trouble came late last night, when Fred Fischer caught Ralph Sapp breaking into the Dairy Queen again.”

“Fred didn’t arrest him, did he?” Ralph Sapp had the mental capacity of a seven-year-old and had a weakness for Dilly Bars. Most folks in town helped his elderly mother keep him out of trouble.

“Of course not. Had to wake Mrs. Sapp, though. That’s about all the excitement Nancy had to report when I relieved her.”

He handed back the log. “Thanks, Bec—I mean, Rebecca.”

“Aw, Wil, I don’t mind if
you
call me Becky. Just not in front of the deputies, okay?”

Rebecca and Wil had known each other since middle school. Her husband, Otis, owned the county’s biggest real estate firm and managed the property leased to Cathleen Hodges. Which reminded Wil he needed to return the keys to the property before the family of the deceased arrived to collect her belongings.

“Sure, Becky.” He held up his empty Nite Owl cup. “Do you know if there’s fresh coffee?”

“Made it myself less than an hour ago.”