To Trust a Stranger (36 page)

“I don't believe this.” Trying not to shiver, Mac shook his head in complete and total frustration. “I'm talking about somebody trying to kill you here, and you're talking about a beauty pageant. Let's try to get a handle on our priorities, shall we? What we need to do is get you the hell out of Dodge. Lie low somewhere out of state, maybe, until we get some answers. Forget the damned beauty pageant.”

“No,” Julie said, fists on hips as she scowled at him. “I won't forget it. This is my business. And those girls are counting on me. Anyway, please explain to me exactly why I need you, because I don't have a clue. Let's just say, for a moment, that you're right about this hit-man thing. If I really thought I was in danger, I'd run to the police so fast you wouldn't see me for the blur.”

“And they'd be real polite, and write up a nice little report, and that would be that.” Mac's voice was flat. “Until you were dead. Then they might start an investigation. But,
oopsy
, too late for you.” Julie's eyes shot sparks at that. Mac supposed that his words hadn't been all that tactful, but he was tired and wet and cold and his eyes burned and her attitude was not only driving him totally around the bend, it was dangerous. For her. And it bothered him a whole hell of a lot to realize that anything that was dangerous for her scared the socks off him. “You know what?” she said with that little clenched-teeth smile he was beginning to know way better than he wanted to. “I'm prepared to take my chances. So you can just go away. You know, leave. Vamoose. Scram. Shoo. Whichever one of those works for you.”

He returned her unflinching stare for unflinching stare, then took a calming minute to return his gun to its accustomed position inside his waistband. She could lose her temper all she wanted to, he told himself He was going to keep his.

Then at least one of them would be operating with a full order of french fries. “Give it up, Julie,” he said tiredly.

“I'm not going anywhere. At least, not without you. You want to know why you need me? Because, whether you believe it or not, I'm pretty sure your life is in danger here. Which means you need somebody watching out for you, and from where I'm standing, darlin', it looks like I'm all you've got.”

27

BY SEVEN P.M., JULIE WAS SO TIRED her eyes felt grainy. Tara Lumley was the last of her clients, and her handler had wanted some eleventh-hour beading added to her aqua evening gown. With Carlene out of the picture-a fact every single girl had bemoaned, right down to the shedding of tears, even while they schemed how best to take advantage of the loss of the widely acknowledged favorite-the pageant had been blown wide open. It was a free-for-all, and Tara wanted to do everything she could to catch the judges' eyes. They all did.

In consequence, Julie sewed and stuffed and whittled and trimmed as she never had before in her life.

“You'll be there tomorrow night, won't you, Julie?” Tara asked anxiously as Julie let her and Linda Wheeler, her handler, out the front door, which, to pacify Mac, she'd kept locked at the cost of great inconvenience to clients and staff alike all day.

“I'll be there for the duration. Don't worry, you're going to do great.” She hugged Tara, and Linda, then watched them walk out into the still-bright evening.

“Like hell you will,” Mac said, appearing in the doorway between the showroom and the office, where he had spent most of the day alternately talking on the phone and using her computer, just as she walked past it. He was wearing a fresh pair of jeans and a plain black T-shirt that he'd had his ,assistant, Rawanda, bring him early that morning, and he looked so handsome that the girls had fluttered at the sight of him. Several had asked her covertly who he was when he had disappeared back into her office again after the cursory vist1al check he subjected all arrivals and departures to. Julie had told then that he was a visiting dress designer who went by the name of Debbie, and had taken perverse satisfaction in watching their faces fall.

“What?” Julie stopped and glared at him. She was getting tired of this master-of-the-universe thing he'd had going on all day. “I said, you're not going to that beauty pageant.” Mac returned her glare with stony-eyed determination. His eyes were bloodshot, and there were lines she'd never noticed before around them and his mouth. In addition, his disposition had been deteriorating steadily all day. “Everybody and his mother expects you to be there. Let's try to at least make the guy who's trying to kill you work hard to earn his money, okay?” Julie simmered. “I've got a news flash for you, bubba: You don't tell me what to do. Anyway, I've been thinking: Exactly why is Sid supposed to want to kill me? It can't be over money: I signed a prenup. It can't be because I made the colossal mistake of sleeping with you: He didn't know about that until just a couple of minutes before that car hit Carlene. Are you suggesting he wants to kill me just so he won't have to endure the trauma of divorce? Sorry, I don't buy it. So what's your rationale here?”

Mac's lips compressed. “I don't know exactly yet.” Julie made a derisive sound. “That's what I thought.”

“Julie, what time do you want me in the morning?” Meredith emerged from the dressing room where she'd been tidying up. She couldn't have heard their conversation-it had been conducted in little more than hissed whispers-but she must have sensed the atmosphere between them, because she stopped in the doorway and looked self-consciously from Julie to Mac and back.

“Oh, sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt.”

“You're not interrupting,” Julie said with a sigh, pointedly turning her back on Mac to smile at Meredith. Her head ached from doing so much close work with her needle-those bugle beads were tiny, and the design Tara had wanted had required hundreds-and she massaged the area just above her nose with a forefinger.

“There are no appointments tomorrow, so why don't you just plan to meet me in the auditorium tomorrow night? Be a little early, in case any of the girls’ gowns need work.”

Meredith smiled. “I'm so excited. I've never been to the governor's mansion before.” “It should be fun.” Mac still stood in the doorway, silently smoldering, and Julie glared at him while Meredith went to retrieve her purse.

“I'm going now,” Meredith said, returning with her purse tucked under her arm. Julie wasn't sure how much Meredith actually knew about what was going on, but obviously she knew that Amber was no longer there-Julie had left a message on Amber's answering machine firing her when she didn't come in again that morning-and something major was up. If nothing else, Sid had called twice and both times Julie had refused to take his calls, which she never did; and Mac's largely silent but impossible to overlook presence all day was a dead giveaway. But she hadn't asked any questions, and Julie appreciated that.

Now Meredith glanced from Julie to Mac and back, then seemed to hesitate. “Uh, Julie-do you need me to stay? Are you going to be all right?”

“I'll be fine. You go on,” Julie said, while Mac, obviously knowing when he was being insulted, however subtly, leaned one shoulder against the jamb, crossed his arms over his chest, and looked sardonic.

“See you tomorrow night, then,” Meredith said. “Thanks for all your hard work today.” Julie walked her to the door and smiled at her as she left. She was glad to see that Meredith was looking slightly reassured as she set off down the sidewalk.

“You will not,” Mac said, scowling, as Julie locked the door and turned back into the room, “see her tomorrow night.”

“Want to bet?” Julie smiled sweetly as she walked toward him. “Oh ah” , ye . “Excuse me.” The words were pointed, because he still blocked the doorway to her office as she reached it. He didn't move, and she had perforce to stop, glaring at him. He met her gaze with a meditative expression. “Know what I've been doing today?”

“Besides being a total jackass and guzzling enough coffee to float the ark?” Julie asked. “No clue.”

“I've been checking payroll records for Rand Corporation.”

“What? How?”

Mac held up his hand. His key ring dangled from a finger. “With this.” He touched a black spark-plug-Iooking thing that hung on the ring with the keys. “I used it to download files off your computer yesterday. Sid's business records make interesting reading.”

“Aren't you the sneaky one!” Julie marvelled, punching him none too-gently in the stomach and then, as he stepped back with an ooph and rubbed his belly in reaction, shoving past him into her office. “But I must say that it's a nice change to hear you actually admitting that you used me to get information on Sid.”

“I am not admitting ... “

Julie interrupted ruthlessly. “Know what? I don't care.”

Silenced, Mac eyed her in exasperation as she retrieved her purse from under the desk. Josephine, who was stretched out beside Julie's purse, looked up and wagged her tail inquiringly. The poodle was once again wearing her sparkly pink collar, and looked adorable. Like Mac, she had been a big hit with the girls.

“Time to go home,” Julie said to her, straightening, purse in hand. “Your father received a steady pay check from the Rand Corporation until fifteen years ago. Then it stopped. The same month as Kelly Carlson disappeared. The same month as ... “

“Will you stop?” Julie headed for the door. “Enough with the conspiracy theories already. I'm tired, I'm hungry, and I've got a headache. For your information, I believe that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. I believe that Princess Diana's car crash was an accident. And I believe that you've gone totally out of your mind.”

She jerked open the door and looked pointedly at him. “And now, would you please walk out this door so I can lock up?” Mac gave her a narrow-eyed look, then snapped his fingers for Josephine. The poodle appeared, stretching and yawning luxuriously, and Mac scooped her up. “Too bad you're not more like your dog,” Julie said as Mac walked. “She's a past her into the soft bright warmth of the summer evening sweetheart. You're a sweetheart, Josephine.” Josephine wagged her tail. “So what do you want for dinner?” Mac asked as she finished locking the door and turned to find him waiting. “Are you suggesting that you and I might be going to have a mutual dinner? Not a chance.” After taking a careful look around-not that she really, truly believed Mac's nonsense, mind you, but it has raised just enough doubt in her mind to make her slightly paranoid and, anyway, she couldn't get Carlene's awful fate out of her mind -Julie headed toward her car.

Mac and Josephine fell in beside her. “If you don't feel like eating, fine. You can watch me.”

'I'm having dinner with my mother. She's cooking. She's still very upset because I'm getting a divorce. She needs to vent.” Just the thought made Julie feel gloomy. She was going to hear about the folly of divorcing Sid for approximately the next hundred years.

“Call her and tell her you have other plans.” Mac obviously had never dealt with her mother.

“No.” But the idea was tempting. Oh, so tempting. She was so not in the mood to be harangued. Julie reached the protection of the Infiniti's back end and stepped between it and the Blazer. If there did happen to be more to Mac's hit man theory than hot air, at least she wasn't going to get run over if she could help it. The image of Carlene somersaulting over the roof of the car that killed her had replayed itself in her mind every time she had closed her eyes. As a result, she'd been awake most of the night. If Mac was right, that should have been her. The thought made her shiver. Maybe she should go to the police. Only Mac had said they wouldn't be able to keep her safe .... “Okay, here's the ... “ deal, she started to say, but broke off as Mac handed her Josephine then dropped to his hands and knees on the pavement. While she watched, astonished, he peered underneath the Blazer. “What are you doing?”

He took his sweet time looking, then rose lithely to his feet, dusting off his hands and knees and retrieving Josephine from her. “Checking for bombs.”

“Oh, my God.” Julie rolled her eyes. That was it. This was getting bizarre. And scary. She hated to admit it, but it was also getting very scary. She didn't know which part was scarier, though: the idea that Mac was insane, or the idea that he wasn't. In any case, she was going to the police-right after she had dinner with her mother.

“If you're planning to follow me out to my mother's again tonight, you can just forget it.” Her voice was tart. She scowled at him.

“You don't have to worry. I'm not.” He opened the Blazer's back door and deposited Josephine inside. Closing that door, he opened the front passenger door and did something to the inner panel. Then he looked at her. “Get in.”

“What? No.” Julie turned to the Infiniti. Before she could punch the button that unlocked the door, he gave an unamused sounding laugh and scooped her up from behind.

“What are you doing? Put me down!” She kicked wildly. She would have punched him, but her arms were trapped by his. Without replying, he stuffed her into the front seat of the Blazer with practiced efficiency and shut the door on her. As he walked around to the other side, Julie immediately tried to get out. The door wouldn't open. She realized with a burst of fury that he had depressed the tiny button on the inner panel of the door that activated the childproof locks. “What the hell do you think you're doing?” Snarling, she turned on him with clenched fists as he slid inside. “You let me out!”

“Put your seat belt on,” he said, and started the car, backing up in a smooth arc.

“I am not going anywhere with you! Nowhere, do you hear? I knew it all along: you're a dangerous lunatic! This is kidnapping, you no-good, lying . . .” Left groping for words bad enough to describe him, she grabbed for the keys, which were dangling from the ignition, instead.