Seeing Red (20 page)

She swallowed dryly and said, “I-I’d better go back in.”

She turned and started away, guilt nipping at her heels. She’d let her guard down with Nate in a way she never had with Rory. She
trusted
Nate. Nate who’d deserted her years ago and had just blown in on the wind, not Rory who’d patiently worked to earn the trust she stingily withheld.

“Ellis,” Nate called after her.

She turned.

“What was that about discovering who left the rose?” He hadn’t moved to follow her.

She’d forgotten. “There was a rose on my car when I finished teaching class yesterday.”
Some things are worth waiting for.
“I thought Rory had left it . . . .” She didn’t finish; she wasn’t about to admit that she thought Rory had misled her when she’d asked him.

“And you don’t know who did?”

“No.” She turned and hurried away, trying to deny what she saw in Nate’s eyes.

The idea that it had been Rory’s attempt to manipulate her was only slightly less unsettling than the thought that the rose had been left by Alexander.

Nate let Ellis return to the hospital emergency room ahead of him, trailing behind yet keeping her in his line of sight.

He should be ashamed of himself. He’d wanted her boyfriend to think they were lovers. He’d stood there with an air of possession of something that didn’t belong to him—no matter how much he was beginning to want it.

Instead of following Ellis through the double doors that led to the treatment area, Nate lingered in the waiting room. Too agitated to sit, he stood, leaning his back against the wall with his arms crossed over his chest. He stared at the television, but the only image in his mind was Ellis’s face.

He had no right to come here and insinuate himself into her life. Not only was his future not his own, but his presence also brought additional risk. There were people in his world who wouldn’t hesitate to use her. That’s why he never got close to anyone . . . and why he’d buried his connection to this town. He hoped someday he could return and live a normal life—if that day didn’t come, he’d need a place to hide.

C
HAPTER
F
IFTEEN

H
ollis walked quietly in the dark night. He kept to the shadows created by the tall shrubbery bordering the deep, narrow lot on which Justine’s house sat. He needed supplies for tonight’s project, things he couldn’t keep at the halfway house, things he couldn’t risk keeping in his van.

He’d been hinting around to Justine about how much he’d love a digital camera. With a digital camera, he wouldn’t even need a darkroom any longer.

He’d told her about the Nikon SLR with the telescopic lens that would be perfect for his wildlife photography.
Wildlife.
Wild life. Too true. He sniggered at his own play on words. A camera like that cost serious money. And his cash was going for more urgent needs at the moment.

Her eyes had lit up when he’d talked of his passion for photography and his dream camera. He hoped she gifted him soon, or she was going to miss her chance.

He thought of the technological advances he’d been denied while in prison. Digital cameras . . . what a miracle. And just one of many things he’d missed out on. The Internet opened a whole world of opportunity.

Not for the first time, he damned his infatuation with Laura Reinhardt. She’d muddled his judgment, made him take risks he never would have considered for another woman. He hadn’t been able to resist going to the hospital; the need to look at her broken and bruised had burned like a fever. It should have been safe. And it would have been, if not for that screaming kid.

Well, she’d pay. No good deed went unpunished.

He sniggered again as he dug in his pocket for the key.

Turning on his flashlight, he slipped in through the basement door.

The basement was safe. There was no lift to bring Justine to this level, and the outside door was down in a well of five steep steps.

He went to the coalbin door and unlocked the padlock.

Humming softly to himself, he gathered what he needed: compact binoculars, latex gloves (another wonderful improvement, latex gloves available at every drugstore), stolen license plate, knife—

“Hollis?” Justine’s strained voice called from the door on the first floor. “Are you down there?”

He froze, holding his breath. Damn woman was always upstairs by this time in the evening.

“Is anybody there?” she called again, with less conviction.

Hollis waited.

Finally, he heard her mumble, “Must be my imagination.”

The door at the top of the stairs closed. He heard the lock—which was never engaged—slide home.

Oh, yes, can’t be too careful
. He barely suppressed a chuckle.

After a minute, he heard the drone of the lift carrying her to the second story, and he got on with his business.

At eleven-thirty, Nate and Ellis walked across the hospital parking lot toward her car. The specialist from Charleston had finished surgery on her dad around five in the afternoon. It had gone well.

Shortly after the surgery, Ellis and Rory had had a private conversation. Ellis had returned without him and in an unreadable mood. Questions about their relationship had gnawed at Nate as he’d watched them throughout the afternoon. It didn’t matter that it was none of his business.

As he and Ellis walked through the muggy night, he held out his hand. “I’ll drive.”

She looked like she was going to argue, then handed over the keys. “How is it you’re still so chipper? You don’t even have dark circles under your eyes.”

“I’m used to going without sleep.” He unlocked the Mustang and opened the passenger door for her. “You know,” he said, “your choice of cars surprised me.”

“Why?” She stopped in front of him and looked up.

His heart sort of stumbled in his chest when she looked up at him like that, her green eyes sparkling, her lips slightly parted as if inviting a kiss.

And he wanted to. Kiss her until Rory disappeared completely from her mind and her heart.

She isn’t yours to kiss.

He took a slight step back, and she got in the car. “You always were all about the environment. I expected a nice earth-friendly hybrid, not a muscle machine.”

“You’ll note it’s even a GT. I want some power when I step on the gas.”

Nate easily read between the lines. Ellis lived her life with a constant eye to personal safety. She wanted a car that could outrun, or run over, anyone who threatened her.

As they drove, he decided the decent thing to do was apologize for stepping across a line and making a problem for her with Rory. He didn’t really want to. He wanted to make his air of possession something more than a mirage. But it was wrong. He was leaving, and Rory was a safe, stable guy who could give her a future.

As he turned to speak, her head, already leaning against the passenger window, bobbed. Her eyes were closed.

He was glad not to deal with the subject. The less he thought about Ellis with another man, the better.

He pulled her car into the garage.

She roused as soon as he shut off the engine, blinking sleepily. “Sorry, I dozed off.”

He nearly reached out to brush the hair from her face but stopped himself. He wasn’t going to take any more advantage of her emotional state, no matter how much he wanted to carry her upstairs and crawl into bed next to her. The mere thought of curling himself against her bare back and holding her throughout the night made him shift uncomfortably in his seat.

He smiled, hoping she hadn’t read the carnal look in his eye. “Hospitals are exhausting. Let’s get you upstairs.” He opened the door and got out before he gave in to the weakness he was quickly developing for her.

After closing the garage door, he followed her on the walk around the corner of the building to the stairs, trying not to notice the graceful sway of her hips.

He put the key in the lock and opened the door.

He entered first and then allowed her to step around him and shut off the alarm.

After closing the door and locking it, he started a systematic search of the condo. “I need to get the boat out of here before the tide goes out. I should only be gone a couple of hours.”

Ellis followed along behind him as he checked the condo. She was so tired; he didn’t think she realized what she was doing.

Once he’d inspected under the bed, behind the shower curtain, and in every closet, he returned to the front door. “Try to get some sleep while I’m gone. And keep the gun on your nightstand. Remember, shoot first, ask questions later. Lock the door and set the alarm behind me. You have my cell number if you need me. Don’t answer the door. I’ll call you when I’m back. And be sure to check the peephole before you open up.”

“Now if a bedtime lecture like that won’t lull a girl into a restful night’s sleep, I don’t know what will.”

Even dog-tired the girl showed spunk. He grinned and slipped his hands into his jeans pockets to keep from touching her.

She smiled an exhausted smile and let him out.

He stood outside until he heard the dead bolt slide home and the
beep-beep-beep-beep
of her alarm.

After checking for, and not finding, Alexander anywhere on the grounds, Nate climbed the fence by the marsh and untied the aluminum johnboat. The tide was already going out; he had to push it into water deep enough to start the motor.

There were a few things stashed at the plantation that he needed, things Ellis didn’t need to know about. It was time to go on the offensive.

Once out into the water, he climbed in, slick with mud and wet to the waist. He pushed the little motor to its limits as he navigated through the marsh to the river. He looked up into the clear night sky. He knew how to navigate by the stars, but it took him a few minutes to reorient himself to the northern hemisphere.

When this was all done, he would go back to his life. He’d thought he was content with his choices. Now . . .

One thing was certain—he had to get back to that life, before it came looking for him.

Ellis roused from sleep and blinked to focus her eyes on the digital time readout on the cable box beneath her TV. Four-thirty.

Why wasn’t Nate back?

Tip-tap.

The sound was barely audible under the hum of her air conditioner.

Tap.

She sat up on the sofa where she’d fallen asleep with the light on.

Holding very still, she listened. She could hear the soft buffet of the breeze against her windows, the hushed murmur as it rounded the corner of her building, and the tinkle of the wind chime on her downstairs neighbor’s balcony.

She switched off the lamp and moved to the sliding glass door.

She’d never installed window coverings on the slider; there was no traffic this deep in the complex and nothing but trees and marshland across the street. That was one of the things she’d liked about this place; she could always keep an eye on what was going on outside. But now, with Alexander out there, she realized how exposed she’d left herself.

Keeping a foot or so back from the glass, she studied the darkness outside. The black outline of treetops moved against the cloudy night sky.

She concentrated on the area beneath the old oak where she’d seen the cigarette glow but saw nothing.

Tip-tap
.

She spun around. The sound was coming from her front door, or near it. Faint, yet definitely there.

Digging in her pocket, she pulled out her cell phone and dialed Nate’s number.

As it rang, she inched closer to the entry.

“
The phone you are trying to reach is not in service.
”

“Damn,” she whispered. Where was he?

Tiptoeing over to her thermostat, she shut off the AC. There wasn’t anything she could do to quiet the wind.

Turning her head so one ear was toward the door, she waited.

Finally,
tap.
It was so soft this time that she almost didn’t hear it.

Scriiiitch.
Tip-tap.

Moving as if approaching a sleeping tiger, she neared the door and leaned to look out the peephole.

The fish-eyed view showed her porch to be clear.

Tap.

Was something up against the door, too low for her to see?

There was no way she was opening it to find out.

She waited for several minutes in silence. Just as she turned away from the door,
tap.

It had to be something to do with the wind.

Moving quickly through the darkness, she retrieved the gun, just in case she was wrong.

Then she sat on her sofa and stared at the white outline of her front door.

Where in the hell was Nate? Had he run into Alexander? With the way Nate had disarmed her the other night, she assured herself, he could handle Hollis Alexander.

Worry continued to stir in her mind. Maybe Alexander had been waiting out there by the boat. Maybe he’d ambushed Nate.