The Smoky Mountain Mist (5 page)

The rain had washed away all but a few remnants of red. Seth picked up one of the stained leaves and took a closer look.

Blood. There was blood here on the ground. Was this where he’d been attacked?

No. Not him. There had been someone else. An image flitted through his pain-addled mind, moving so fast he almost didn’t catch it.

But he saw enough. He saw the body of a man, curled into a ball, as if he’d passed out trying to protect his body from the blows. And passed out he had, because Seth had a sudden, distinct memory of checking the man’s pulse and finding it barely there.

So where was the man now? Had whoever left this throbbing bump on the back of Seth’s head taken the body away from here and dumped it elsewhere?

If so, they’d apparently taken the discarded cell phone, as well, because it was no longer in the pocket of his jacket.

He trudged through the rainy woods, heading for the clearing ahead. His vision kept shifting on him, making him stagger a little, and it was a relief to reach the Charger after what seemed like the longest fifty-yard walk of his life. He sagged against the side of the car, pressing his cheek against the cold metal frame of the chassis for a moment. It seemed to ease the pain in his skull, so he stood there awhile longer.

Only the sound of a vehicle approaching spurred him to move. He pushed away from the car and started to unlock to door when he realized the Charger was listing drastically to one side. Looking down, he saw why—both of the driver’s-side tires were flat.

He groaned with dismay.

The vehicle turned off the road and into the parking lot. Seth forced his drooping gaze upward and was surprised to see Rachel Davenport staring back at him through the swishing windshield wipers of her car. She parked behind him and got out, her expression horrified.

“My God, what happened to you?”

He caught a glimpse of his reflection in the Charger’s front window and winced at the sight. His nose was bloody and starting to bruise. An oozing scrape marred the skin over his left eye, as well.

“Should’ve seen the other guy,” he said with a cocky grin, hoping to wipe that look of concern off her face. The last thing he could deal with in his weakened condition was a Rachel Davenport who felt sorry for him. He needed her angry and spitting fire so she’d go away and leave him to safely lick his wounds in private.

But she seemed unfazed by his show of bravado, moving forward with her hand outstretched.

Don’t touch me,
he willed, trying to duck away.

But she finally caught his chin in her hand and forced him to look at her. Her blue eyes searched his, and he found himself utterly incapable of shaking her off.

Her touch burned. Branded. He found himself struggling just to take another breath as her gaze swept over him, surveying his wounds with surprising calm for a woman who’d been swinging from the girders of Purgatory Bridge just the night before.

“Did you lose consciousness?” she asked.

“A few seconds.” Maybe minutes. He couldn’t be sure.

She looked skeptical. “Do you remember what happened?”

“I remember coming here to talk to your friend. He wasn’t in his room.”

“Right, but you found his cell phone.”

He felt relieved to know his memory was real and not some injury-induced confabulation. “Right.”

“But you cut me off. Said you had to go.”

He caught her hand, pulling it gently from his chin and closing it between his own fingers. “Rachel, it’s fuzzy, and I may be remembering things incorrectly—”

“Just say it,” she pleaded.

He tightened his grip on her hand. “I think your friend Davis may have been murdered.”

Chapter Five

The cold numbness that had settled in the center of Rachel’s chest from the time she’d gotten Davis Rogers’s call began spreading to her limbs at Seth’s words. “Why do you think that?”

He told her.

She tugged her hand away from his and started walking toward the edge of the mist-shrouded woods. Seth followed, his gait unsteady.

“I can’t prove any of it,” he warned. “If you call the Bitterwood P.D., they won’t believe a word of it. I’m not high on their list of reliable witnesses.”

“I need to know for myself. Where was the blood?” Her feet slipped on wet leaves as she entered the woods.

Seth’s hand closed around her elbow, helping her stay upright, despite the fact that he was swaying on his feet. “Over here.” He nudged her over until they came to a stop near a large stand of wild hydrangea bushes. A fading patch of rusting red was trickling away in the rain, but it definitely looked like blood.

Rachel picked up one of the red-stained leaves and lifted it to her nose. A faint metallic odor rose from the stain. “It’s definitely blood.”

“I don’t know what happened to him. I swear.”

She turned to look at him. He really did look terrible, blood still seeping from a scrape on the right side of his forehead and his nose crusted with more of the same. “You don’t remember who did this to you?”

“No. Everything’s a blur.” He looked pale beneath his normally olive-toned skin. As he swayed toward her, she put out her hands to keep him from crashing into her.

“You’re in no condition to drive.”

He shot her a lopsided grin. “Neither is my car.”

When they got back to the parking lot, she saw what he meant. Both of the driver’s side tires were flat. She couldn’t tell if they’d been punctured or if the air had just been let out of them. Didn’t really matter, she supposed.

“Get in my car,” she said, ignoring the wobble in her own legs. She didn’t have time to fall apart. There was too much that needed to be done. She’d think about Davis later.

“Bossy. I like it.” Seth shot her a look that was as hot as a southern summer. An answering quiver rippled through her belly, but she ignored it. He sounded woozy—probably didn’t know what he was saying. And even if he did, neither of them was in any position to do much about it.

“I’m going to call the police and report Davis missing,” she told him as she slid behind the wheel. “I’m going to have to include you in my statement.”

He shook his head, then went stock-still, wincing. “Ow.”

She turned to face him. He tried to do the same, but she could tell the movement was painful for him. Just how badly had he been beaten? “Seth, I can’t leave you out of it, because you’ve left a trail that leads to you. You gave your name to the clerk. Your car is sitting here in the parking lot with flat tires, and if we call a wrecker to come get it, that’s just another trail that leads to you.”

His expression darkened. “You don’t know what it’s like to be everyone’s number one suspect.”

“You’re right. I don’t. But I can tell the police what I do know. I was talking to Davis when the line went dead. Then when I called Davis’s phone, you answered—” She stopped short, realizing how that would sound to the police.

Seth’s eyes met hers. “Exactly.”

“If Davis is dead, I can’t just do nothing.”

“Just don’t tell them I answered the phone.”

He wanted her to lie to the police? “I can’t leave something like that out of my statement.”

He looked as if he wanted to argue, but finally he slumped against the seat. “Do what you have to.”

She leaned back against her own seat, frustrated. What was she supposed to do now? Ignore his fears? Tell him he was overreacting?

She couldn’t do that. Because she didn’t plan on telling the police everything, did she? She certainly wasn’t going to tell them she’d spent most of the previous evening apparently so drugged out of her head that she’d thought a balance beam routine on the girders of Purgatory Bridge was a good idea.

“I know what it’s like to have people judging your every move,” she said quietly.

He slanted a curious look her way.

“I don’t want the police to know what happened to me last night. And you haven’t pushed me at all to tell anyone the truth.”

“I figured if you wanted it known, you’d tell it yourself.”

She nodded. “I won’t tell them you answered Davis’s phone.”

He released a long, slow breath. “Rachel, you know I didn’t do anything to him. Right?”

She wondered if she was crazy to believe him. What did she know about him, really? He kept to himself at work, making few friends. She’d heard stories about his years as a con man, though she and her father had decided to judge him on his current work, not his checkered past. And he’d been a good worker, hadn’t he? Showed up on time or early, did what he was asked, never caused any trouble.

But was that reason enough to trust what he said?

“I guess not.” He reached for the door handle.

She caught his arm. He turned back to her, his gaze first settling where her fingers circled his rain-slick forearm, then rising to meet hers. In the low light, his eyes were as deep and mysterious as the rainy woods outside the car.

“You saved my life last night, and you’ve asked for nothing in return. You didn’t even try to use it against me just now, when you could have. Any con man worth his salt would have.”

He grimaced. “I’m no saint.”

“I’m not saying you are. I’m just saying I believe you.”

The interior of the car seemed to contract, the space between their bodies suddenly infinitesimal. She could feel heat radiating from his body, answered by her own. Despite his battered condition, despite the million and one reasons she shouldn’t feel this aching magnetism toward him, she couldn’t pretend she didn’t find him attractive.

He wasn’t movie-star handsome, especially now with his nose bloody and purple shadows starting to darken the skin beneath his eyes, but he was all man, raw masculinity in every angle of his body, every sinewy muscle and broad expanse.

He had big, strong hands, and even with a dozen conflicting and distracting thoughts flitting through her head at the moment, she could imagine the feel of them moving over her body in a slow, thorough seduction. The sensation was fierce and primal, intensely sexual, and she had never felt anything quite like it before.

“What now?” he asked, breaking the tense silence.

Her body’s response came, quick and eager.

Take me home with you.

Aloud, she said, “I guess I call the police so they can start looking for Davis.” She pulled out her phone and made the call to 911.

“I need to clean up,” Seth murmured.

“Here.” She reached across to the glove compartment, removed a package of wet wipes and handed them to him. “Best I can do.”

He looked at the wet wipes and back at her, one eyebrow notching upward.

“Habit. I was a librarian,” she said with a smile. “I dealt with a lot of sticky hands all day.”

He pulled a wipe from the package and started cleaning off the blood, using the mirror on the sun visor to check his progress. When he finally snapped the wet wipe package closed, he looked almost normal. His nose wasn’t as swollen as it had appeared with all the blood crusted on it, and the scrape on his forehead, once cleaned up, wasn’t nearly as large as it had looked. Only the slight darkening of the skin around his eyes gave away his battered condition, and the rusty splotches where the blood from his face had dripped onto the front of his dark blue shirt.

“Better?” he asked.

She nodded. “You’re going to have to answer questions regardless.”

“I know.” He slanted another wry grin in her direction, making her belly squirm. “I’d just like to look my best when I talk to the cops.”

Uniformed officers arrived first to take their statements, but within half an hour, a detective arrived, a tall, slim black man with sharp brown eyes and a friendly demeanor. He’d come around the trucking company asking questions last month after a couple of their employees had been murdered, Rachel remembered. Antoine Parsons. Nice guy.

He didn’t look particularly nice as his gaze swept the scene and locked, inevitably, on Seth’s battered face. “Seth Hammond. You do have a funny way of showing up at all my crime scenes lately.”

Seth’s smile was close to a smirk. Rachel felt the urge to punch him in the shoulder and tell him to stop making things worse. But apparently he just couldn’t help it. “Antoine, Antoine, Antoine. Still sucking up to the Man, I see. How’s that working out for you?”

Antoine barely stopped an eye roll. “We have a missing person?”

Rachel stepped in front of Seth to address the detective. “His name is Davis Rogers. I was talking to him on the phone when I heard a thud and the phone went dead.”

“You came here to look for him?”

“He’d left an earlier message on my voice mail, telling me where he was staying. It seemed the obvious place to look. I got here and found his car parked in the lot. But he’s not in his room. And I found a patch of blood in the leaves nearby.” She waved toward the woods.

Antoine’s gaze slid back to Seth’s face. “Who gave you a pounding, Hammond?”

“Not sure,” he answered.

“What are you doing here? You with Ms. Davenport?”

“I came looking for Rogers. He wasn’t in his room, so I was about to leave when I thought I saw something in the woods.”

“Just happened to see something in the woods?” Antoine was clearly skeptical. Rachel was beginning to understand why Seth hadn’t wanted her to include him in this police investigation at all. Maybe he’d earned the distrust, but clearly nobody in the Bitterwood Police Department was going to give him any benefit of the doubt.

“I heard something, actually.” Seth slanted a look her way. She saw fear in his eyes but also rock-hard determination in the set of his jaw. “I heard a cell phone ringing. I found it on the ground beneath those bushes.” He pointed toward the hydrangeas.

He was telling the truth about the phone, she realized with a thrill of surprise.

“It was Ms. Davenport, calling Rogers.”

Antoine’s brows lifted. “You said you were looking for Rogers. Why?”

She saw the hesitation in Seth’s face. The truth, she realized, could be a scary thing. And not just for Seth. For her, too.

But it was better than the alternative.

She took a deep breath and answered the detective’s question for Seth. “He was trying to find out what happened to me last night.”

* * *

I
T
TOOK
ALMOST
two hours to work through all the questions Antoine had for both of them. His attitude toward Seth had settled into guarded belief, though Seth knew it would last only as long as it took to get in trouble again.

At least Antoine had asked good, probing questions. Unfortunately, neither Seth nor Rachel had any good answers. She still couldn’t remember most of what had happened the night before, and Seth’s memory of the attack that had left him bruised and half-conscious was similarly spotty.

He’d refused a trip to the hospital, though the paramedics thought he’d sustained a concussion. His mind was clearing nicely, and most of the aches and pains in his body had faded to bearable. He probably did have a mild concussion, but he didn’t think it was any worse than that. He’d go spend the night at Delilah’s and let her play nursemaid.

Except apparently Delilah was out of town for the night. “She said she was driving down to Alabama for a business meeting,” Rachel told Seth after he’d assured the paramedics he’d have his sister keep an eye on him.

Well, hell. He’d just have to keep an eye on himself.

“You could stay with me tonight.” Rachel’s blue eyes locked with his, but her expression was impossible to read.

“That’s kind of you—”

“I’m not sure it’s kind,” she said, the left corner of her mouth quirking upward. “I could use another set of eyes and ears in the house. I’m not inclined to stay there alone after all of this.”

So when Antoine finally agreed to let them leave, Seth called a wrecker service to take the Charger to the local garage and got into the passenger seat of Rachel’s car.

“You don’t have to do this,” he told her as she buckled herself in behind the steering wheel. “I’ll be okay.”

“I was serious. I don’t want to be alone. I’m not sure I’m safe alone with everything that’s going on.”

She probably wasn’t, he realized. “I’m sorry about Davis. I hope I’m wrong about what happened to him.”

Her lips tightened. “I wish I believed you were.”

“Do you know why he was here?”

“He must have come to the funeral.” She looked close to collapse, he realized, so he didn’t ask anything else until they reached the sprawling two-story farmhouse on the eastern edge of Bitterwood, a few miles south of Copperhead Ridge and light years away from the hardscrabble life Seth had lived growing up on Smoky Ridge.

Until her father’s cancer diagnosis, Rachel had kept her own apartment in Maryville, living off her earnings as a public librarian. But everything had changed when a series of doctors confirmed the initial diagnosis—inoperable, terminal liver cancer. Too late for a transplant to help. They’d given him four months to live. Chemo, radiation and a series of holistic treatments had prolonged his life by a few more months, but shortly before his death, George had said, “No more,” and spent the remainder of his time on earth preparing his daughter to run the trucking company he’d built.

Seth knew all these intimate details about Rachel’s life because Davenport Trucking was like any business that maintained a family atmosphere—everybody knew everybody else’s business. Few secrets lasted long in such a place.

But he didn’t know what Rachel thought about the drastic change in her life. Did she regret leaving the library behind? From what he knew of her work at Davenport, she had a deft hand with personnel management and seemed to have a natural affinity for the finance end of the business. People who’d grumbled about her selection as her father’s successor had stopped complaining when it became clear that the company wouldn’t suffer under her guidance.