Ropes and Revenge (22 page)

“Well, I’m sorry to hear it,” Clint said. “We enjoyed having you around. Just know you’re welcome back any time. The bad thing about small towns is there’s no escaping your exes.” He grinned a lopsided grin. “But the good thing is we all learn to get over our grudges a whole lot quicker.”

“I might be back,” she said, knowing it was best never to say never. “Yasmin invited me to go to Mardi Gras with her this year.”

Clint nodded, his smile going melancholy around the edges. “That should be fun. She knows how to have a good time.” He nodded toward the bedroom. “I’m just going to pop back and clean out my drawer. I’ll be out of your hair in ten minutes.”

“Of course,” Percy said, watching him go. “No rush.”

As soon as Clint was out of sight, Percy reached for her cell on the table beside the couch, wondering if she should text Yasmin and let her know Clint was at the apartment. But in the end she decided against it. Clint was harmless and she could understand why he’d come over to fetch his things when he knew Yasmin wouldn’t be at home.

Percy wished she had a way to say goodbye to Peyton and Carter without seeing John tomorrow morning. It was going to be a long time before she would be able to look into his face and think of anything but how much she wanted to kiss him, touch him, to know that he was hers and she never had to say goodbye.

She was so deep in her painful thoughts that she yipped in surprise when her phone buzzed in her palm and an unfamiliar number flashed on the screen. She answered on the second hum, not sure who would be calling her at this time of night.

“Good evening, Miss Styles,” a familiar voice said from the other end of the line. “I hope I’m not interrupting anything. This is Jenner Sloan.”

“No, you’re not interrupting. It’s good to hear from you,” she said, pushing off the covers and standing to walk to the living room window. “What can I do for you?”

“Well, you said to call if I thought of anything else I wanted to tell you,” Jenner said. “Nothing has come to mind, but I had drinks tonight with one of the girls in the band I photographed in Lonesome Point last March. We were talking about that afternoon and I told her what happened to Lily. It seemed to jog her memory. I don’t know if the information will help, but I figured it couldn’t hurt to pass it on.”

“Of course, please do.” She knew it would be better to put Jenner in touch with John and remove herself from the equation, but she figured she could do this one last thing for him before they went their separate ways. Sparing him a conversation with Jenner wasn’t much, but as long as he was unwilling to fight for what they had, it was all she could offer.

“Kendall said the bartender walked out of a storage room right after Lily and I started across the street to the Mexican restaurant,” Jenner said. “She asked him where he’d been while a woman was getting roughed up in his bar—she’s not the type to hold her tongue—and he said that people who cheated got what they deserved.”

“What?” Percy’s brows snapped together. She cast a glance toward Yasmin’s bedroom to find the door still closed, before continuing in a softer voice, “But that doesn’t sound like Clint. Are you sure it was him, and not the other bartender?”

“She said it was a good-looking man with a goatee. An older guy, which to Kendall means anyone over the age of thirty. I obviously can’t say for sure without a picture to show her, but that sounds like the man who served us the other day.”

“A picture,” Percy said. “I may be able to get that for you. Pretty quickly. Can you give me a few minutes?”

“Sure,” Jenner said. “And if you can text it to me, I’ll text it to Kendall. She’s a night owl so I’m sure she’ll still be up.”

“Thanks so much, Jenner. I’ll call you right back.” Clasping the phone to her chest, Percy did a quick scan of the room, her gaze homing in on the photographs hanging from a thin strip of wire on the wall leading into the hallway.

She had barely glanced at the pictures before, but now she crept over to take a closer look, finding what she was hoping for halfway down the line. She lifted her phone, capturing the image of Yasmin and Clint grinning for the camera in front of a pyramid of pumpkins. Yasmin was dressed like a purple alien and Clint as a pirate, but he was easily recognizable, even with a patch covering one eye.

Percy glanced down, making sure the picture was clear before she texted it to Jenner. She was about to call him back when Yasmin’s door opened behind her, making her jump.

“Hey, did you get everything you came for?” She spun to face Clint with what she hoped was an innocent smile.

She felt bad for doing this behind his back—that line about cheating wives seemed out of character for him—but the picture should set the record straight. For all she knew, the other bartender was a handsome older man with a goatee, too. It wasn’t like there was a shortage of good-looking men with facial hair in Lonesome Point.

“I did.” Clint moved down the hallway, a small duffle bag hitched over one shoulder. “We were only together a couple of weeks so not too much to pack up.”

Percy frowned. “Really? But you seemed so close.”

“We were friends first,” he said, pausing beside her to gaze at the pictures. “And sometimes things move fast, when it’s the right person.”

She peeked at him out of the corner of her eye, wanting to ask why he’d ended it if he and Yasmin were so right for each other—surely they could have found a way to reconcile their different dreams for the future—but Jenner could be calling back any moment.

“Well, I’m headed out,” Clint said, moving around her. “Would you tell Yasmin that I left the key beside her bed? And that she can keep that old ball cap she likes so much? It looks better on her than it ever did on me anyway.”

“Of course,” Percy said. “It was nice to meet you Clint.”

“You too,” he said, holding out a hand. Percy reached out to shake goodbye, but regretted it the moment her palm fit into his.

Cold rushed up her arm, but this wasn’t the internal cold of a ghost shifting beneath her skin. This cold was surface, electric, stinging a trail across her nerve endings and setting her heart to jerking in her chest. This cold locked around her throat and made her forehead ache like she’d eaten ice cream too fast, but the taste in her mouth, as she tore her hand from Clint’s, was anything but sweet. It was cloying and ugly, the taste of something long dead fouling her tongue. It was the taste of evil and regret and secrets kept too long and Percy knew immediately that Clint wasn’t what he seemed.

Still, she tried to pull herself together, to hide the revulsion convulsing her midsection, making her stomach threaten to lose what little she’d managed to eat during her last dinner at John’s house. “I’m s-sorry,” she stammered. “I um…I think I ate something. Something bad. I feel sick all of a sudden.”

“Do you need me to get you something? Medicine or some water?” Clint asked, in that sweet, concerned voice she knew now was a lie, a smokescreen to hide what he really was and all the terrible things he’d done.

It wasn’t just Lily. There were other women, other victims. At least four or five. Maybe more. All Percy knew was that the room reeked of the death this man had brought to the world, the suffering he’d caused for his victims and their families, and if he didn’t leave soon, she wasn’t sure she’d be able to keep from running out the door to escape him.

“No, I’m fine,” she said, swallowing hard. “I just need some time alone. I’ll give Yasmin the message.” She backed toward the bathroom, forcing herself to smile and wave. “See you the next time I’m in town.”

“All right,” Clint said. “But give me a call if you get too sick. My name’s in the book.”

She thanked him again before walking straight to the bathroom at the end of the hall and shutting herself inside. Quietly, she locked the door and backed away, coming to sit on the floor near the bathtub. She hugged her knees tight to her chest and strained to hear what was happening outside, not relaxing until she heard the front door close behind Clint.

She was still struggling to bring her stomach and rapid breathing under control when a text from Jenner buzzed the phone clasped in her hand.

Clint’s the bartender Kendall talked to. And she said he was, and I quote, “an expert dick” when he was serving them. Guy must have multiple personalities or something.

No, not multiple personalities, one personality that shielded his darker compulsions. Percy had no idea why Clint had decided Lily should be one of his victims, but she would bet her hands that he was the one who’d killed John’s wife.

She wasn’t going to leave Lonesome Point without solving this mystery, after all.

Now she just had to think of a way to tell John that wouldn’t send him straight over to Clint’s house with a shotgun.

“Call the police first,” she mumbled to herself as she stood, her legs feeling steadier now that she had a plan. The LPD had reopened Lily’s case, after all, and should be willing to receive new information.

So she’d call the police and tell them Clint had confessed to her. He could deny it all he wanted, but that would get him on their radar and she wouldn’t have to go through the pointless exercise of trying to convince small-town cops that psychic phenomenon were real. Then, she’d call John, and tell him what she’d learned and that the LPD was already on the case. That should keep him from doing anything rash while also making sure he was able to apply pressure to the chief and his men until they proved Clint was responsible for Lily’s murder.

He had to have left some evidence behind. No one committed the perfect murder.

But what if he did? And what if you put John and the boys in danger by alerting the police before you make sure they’ll be able to put Clint behind bars?

Percy chewed her lip, torn about what to do next. Finally, she decided to get dressed and head back into town. She would go talk to Yasmin and kill two birds with one stone. Yasmin believed in her abilities and would listen with an open mind, and this way she would also be able to warn her new friend to stay far away from Clint.

Already rehearsing the gentlest way to tell Yasmin that her ex-boyfriend was a serial killer, Percy unlocked the bathroom door and stepped outside. She made it three steps before she heard movement behind her and spun to see Clint emerging from the darkness of Yasmin’s room, a blank look on his usually friendly face and the base of a lamp clenched in his hand.

Percy turned to run, but she’d barely made it halfway down the hall before something hard collided with the back of her head and pain flashed through her skull. She cried out as she fell, the carpet rushing toward her as the world went black.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

John

John took a right on Cedar and then a left on Sagebrush, following Yasmin’s directions to her apartment, guiding the truck through a portion of downtown he hadn’t passed through in years.

Here, the streetlights were few and far between, spilling out small puddles of yellow in the darkness. The houses were mostly old mansions on two- and three-acre lots, set far back from the road. Some of the homes were still owned by the families who had lived in them for generations, but many had been sold to developers and subdivided into apartments. Still others had become a mixture of the two. Yasmin’s garage apartment was one of many, a way for owners to afford increasingly expensive upkeep on their aging homes.

John had good memories associated with Sagebrush Street—his buddy Pete had hosted many a keg party at his garage apartment in the years before Pete and his wife were married—but as he slowed, searching the faded numbers painted on the sidewalk, he was feeling anything but nostalgic. His chest was aching and his jaw muscles clenched so tight his teeth had started to ache. He gripped the steering wheel until his knuckles went white and he couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong, something aside from Percy being so upset with him that she’d left without saying goodbye.

A sense of urgency pulsed through his veins, insisting he hurry. It didn’t matter that logic said there was no reason for Percy to be in danger—no one aside from himself and Yasmin knew she was alone at the apartment—he still needed to see her. He needed to get her pretty face in his sights and his arms around her to be sure everything was okay.

She won’t want your arms around her. She’ll probably tell you to leave her the hell alone.

John’s brow furrowed. She might ask him to leave, but he wasn’t going anywhere until he told her what he’d learned. And if she still insisted on staying at the apartment alone, he would sleep in the truck in Yasmin’s driveway and keep watch until morning. Mom was at his place with the alarm system armed. She and the kids would be fine until he could make sure Percy was on her way out of town tomorrow.

The thought of her leaving still hurt like hell, but it didn’t matter. All that mattered was getting Percy out of Lonesome Point before what they’d set in motion ended in disaster. He still wasn’t sure how Clint fit into the puzzle or if he could trust a message from Wayne Wheeler, but his gut told him he was close to getting justice for Lily.

As long as her killer didn’t find him first.

As soon as Percy was on her way to the airport in Dallas, he was going home and booking flights for his mother and the boys. He would send them away for a surprise vacation and spend the time they were gone making sure it was safe for them to come home. He needed to be able to focus completely on getting answers and he couldn’t do that while he was scared to death someone was going to hurt the kids or the woman he loved.