Nemesis (Southern Comfort) (13 page)

Sadie worried over that just as a knock sounded on the bedroom door.

“Come in,” she called, or tried to.  The drugs had left her vocal cords a little rusty. Or maybe it was all the screaming she’d done last night.

Kathleen’s head peeped around the corner
, her expression one of obvious concern.  “Okay if I come in?”

“Sure.”  Sadie waved her in with a Q-tip, which elicited a wave of pain in her shoulder that had Sadie swallowing a groan.  Kathleen, however, was on top of it.

“Declan said it was time for your pain meds.” She offered some of the pills they’d given Sadie at the hospital and a tall glass of water to wash them down. 

“Thank God.” She sucked both the pills and the water down greedily.  Kathleen also produced an antibiotic and she popped it dutifully as well. Then she ran a hand over hair that hadn’t been brushed since her bout with the storm, deciding it best not to contemplate her appearance.

“So.  Did you break a mirror or something before you left Denver?  Because your luck’s been for shit since you got here.”  Kathleen planted herself on the end of the double bed, cross-legged, just like she’d always done when they were kids.

“Thank you for those warm words of comfort.”

“Seriously though, Sadie, I talked to Dec and the Mount Pleasant PD, but you know I have to ask you some questions about last night, simply for my own peace of mind.”

“Okay,” Sadie said with a sigh
, although she’d already told the cops everything she could remember.

“You sure Rick had nothing to do with this?”

Sadie could only blink, mouth gaping.

“It’s not as crazy as you think,” Kathleen insisted, correctly interpreting the look.  “A guy like Rick’s not used to having the rug pulled out from under him, so maybe he thinks he can shake you up a little to get you to come running back.  Believe me when I tell
you, I’ve seen that kind of stunt before.”

“Rick
would never stoop to something so… dramatic, Kathleen.  Hiring thugs to break in and terrorize me?” It was so B movie, and Rick was so not.  “That’s just completely out of his realm.”

Kathleen looked doubtful, so Sadie continued.  “Look, he
certainly wasn’t happy when I broke things off, but it’s not like he went crazy or anything.” He hadn’t really even tried to talk her out of leaving.  “I think those guys were there to burgle the place, and didn’t realize that anyone was home.  My car’s in the shop, remember?  And the only light on was in the bathroom.”  

“Okay,” Kathleen said
, her tone remaining skeptical.  “But the thing is there haven’t been any reports of burglaries in the area recently. Which doesn’t mean anything, of course, except that from the evidence I’ve seen these guys weren’t amateurs.  Your back door has glass in it, but instead of breaking the glass and reaching in, they picked the lock. And your power was dismantled from the line outside the house.  If these guys were that good, why – no offense – would they have picked your place to break into?  Simply because they thought it was empty? Anybody with eyes could have seen that there probably wouldn’t exactly be a wealth of big ticket items in the house.  I think we may need to consider the possibility that you were targeted, specifically.”

Sadie blew out a frustrated breath, but Kathleen continued before she could protest.  “And they went after you, Sadie.  What professional burglar in his right mind is going to attempt to run down a homeowner fleeing the scene?  They don’t.  Trust me.  They just cut their losses and move on. Unless there was some very specific reason they didn’t want you to get away.”

“Maybe they were rapists,” she countered, wondering how that thought was supposed to be better than the idea that this had something to do with Rick.

Kathleen’s nose wrinkled in disagreement.  “It’s a pretty rare thing for sexual predators of that sort to operate in pairs. 
Not unheard of, just rare.  And I’m not saying that burglars haven’t stumbled upon a lone female during their forays and taken advantage of the situation, and a number of rapists do start their ‘careers,’ so to speak, with breaking and entering. But still, chasing you down like that…”  She shook her head. “If they didn’t know you were there then rape wouldn’t have been on the initial agenda, and if rape wasn’t on the initial agenda why did they bother to run you down?  Why not just let you go and vamoose while they had the chance? There’s something here that’s just not right.”

“I was a witness,” Sadie pointed out.  “Maybe they were worried that I could identify them.”

“After having encountered them at night, in a darkened house, in the middle of a thunderstorm?  By your own descriptions to the officers last night, they were ‘large lumbering shapes’ and ‘one of them was wearing work boots.’  They had to know you couldn’t see shit.  Hell, it was so dark you couldn’t even see the privacy fence until you rammed yourself into it.” 

The doorbell rang, interrupting their conversation.  “I’d better get that,” Kathleen said.  “From the sound of things Declan is still out back assuaging his guilt.”

Assuaging his… Sadie turned to look out the window, where the high pitched whine of the chainsaw had grown more distant as Declan moved farther down the fence. 

Kathleen thought he was chopping down the fence because he felt guilty?   About what?  Surely not what had happened last night? 

Sadie’s eyebrows snapped together.  Honestly, she knew her friend was really good at her job and everything, but she was starting to wonder if being a cop hadn’t warped Kathleen’s brain.  She was awfully suspicious of things that Sadie thought were obvious:  she’d been at the wrong place at the wrong time when a couple of burglars had broken into her home, and Declan Murphy was completely off his rocker.

No real mysteries there.

And the idea that Rick had anything to do with it – Sadie would have laughed if several ribs didn’t feel like they’d been cracked during her nosedive from the roof last night.  She poked at a couple of them with her puffball of a hand until Kathleen reappeared in the doorway.  “The detective you spoke to last night is here with a couple of questions.”  She checked Sadie out with a critical eye.  “Do you need some help getting dressed or doing… something with your hair?”

Sadie frowned and
darted a glance at the mirror over the dresser.  Ugh.  Just as she thought.  Her hair was a fright wig. 

“I, uh, think I can manage.”  Although she wasn’t entirely sure she could.  “But I might need to borrow a brush.  And some… clothes.”  She looked down at herself in horror, realizing that she was wearing only a T-shirt.  With absolutely nothing on underneath it.  The elastic in her underwear had been torn during her trek through the window.  She’d managed to salvage the wet, filthy jeans for the ride home from the hospital, but…

“Oh, shit.”

“What?”  Kathleen looked up from where she was rooting something out of the closet.

“Nothing.”  No way was she going to admit that Paul Bunyon out there had stripped her of her jeans – getting a crotch shot to beat the band – right after she’d inadvertently sucked his face.  

Sadie had forgotten until just that moment.

How the hell could she have not remembered?  Percocet or no, that was like seeing Bigfoot, or experiencing an alien abduction, and then letting it slip your mind.  A freak experience that rare and horrifying should have been emblazoned upon her psyche.

Maybe she’d blocked it, like a trauma.

“What do you feel like wearing?” Kathleen asked, oblivious to Sadie’s crisis.  “This dress looks like it would be easy to get on – the armholes should be big enough to poke your hands through.”

It took Sadie, in her traumatized state, a moment to realize what Kathleen was saying.  Then she glanced at the dress her friend was holding up, recognizing it as her own.  “That’s mine,” she said blankly, wondering how it had come to be in Declan’s guest room closet.

Kathleen looked at her like she was mentally deficient.  “I know it’s yours, Sadie, which is why I suggested that you wear it.”  She shuffled around and produced a thong.  “Do you own no other kind of underwear?”  Shaking her head, she tossed the garments onto the bed.  Then she continued foraging like a small woodland mammal until she came up with Sadie’s brush.

“How did my stuff end up over here?” Sadie wondered, spying more of her clothes hanging in the closet.

“Declan went over and grabbed your suitcase last night.  Here,” she knelt on the bed beside Sadie, “let me see if I can manage your hair.”

Between them they got her dressed and presentable, though Sadie still felt like Alice after she
’d fallen down the rabbit hole.  She followed Kathleen down the stairs, gaze so vacuous and dazed that she almost blundered into a wall.  “Are you all right?” Kathleen asked, turning to steady her with a hand on the shoulder.  

“I’m fine.”  Demented, maybe, but coherent.  Because unless her memory was faulty, she’d damn well enjoyed that kiss. 
Kisses, that is.  And all the other stuff that had gone with it.

Pushing that little nugget aside like some cud she’d have to chew on later, Sadie mustered up some reassurance.  “Let’s go talk to Detective Miller.”

They met up with the detective in the kitchen, where Kathleen had deposited him with a cup of coffee, and the man rose from the table as they walked in.  “Ms. Mayhew.” He extended one meaty paw for Sadie to shake, before looking awkwardly at her bandaged hands.  “Uh, sorry.”  

“No problem.”  Sadie lowered herself gingerly into a chair, careful to rest her weight on her unscathed butt cheek.  Miller resettled his hefty bulk while Kathle
en said something about making some toast for Sadie so that she had something in her stomach with the medication.  “Kat… uh, Detective Murphy said you had a few more questions about last night?

“Yes.”  He pulled a little notebook from his pocket.  “You said that you were alone in the house – cleaning the bathroom – when you heard the noise downstairs.”

“That’s right,” Sadie nodded, “just after the power went out.”

The detective proceeded to run through events as she’d relayed them, and Sadie kept nodding along
, correcting him a time or two when he seemed to have the timeline confused.  She was wondering where the new questions were in this when he pulled a plastic zip-lock bag out of his pocket.  “Are you sure you were alone?” he asked, amiable tone hardening.

Just as Sadie was about to assure him she had been, two things happened simultaneously: the door to the kitchen opened to reveal Declan and Detective Miller tossed the bag on the table.  Sadie wasn’t sure which appearance was more horrifying, Declan’s chest gleaming sweatily sans shirt, or her erstwhile renter’s dirty underwear.  Then, another bag containing the unfurled Trojan XL landed on top of the tightie-whities, effectively settling that question. 

Suddenly, she found herself the cynosure of three pairs of eyes. 

“Oh no,” she sputtered, realizing where this was going.  “This is not what you think.”

Declan moved in close behind her, and she could smell his musky scent, which did strange things to her Percocet-hopped hormones. Having him listening to her attempts to explain the condom was simply too much after what happened last night, and her left eye began to twitch. She sent a panicked glance toward Kathleen. 

Get him out of here
she telegraphed madly, using the universal heavy-blink-and-head-jerk system of Friendship Code.

But Kathleen just sipped her coffee, gaze laughing across the rim of her cup
as she leaned against the counter beside the toaster, no sympathy in evidence whatsoever. 

“Why don’t you tell me what this is, then, Ms. Mayhew?”

Sadie returned her attention to the cop, who was no more compassionate regarding her embarrassment than Kathleen.  Must be something they taught at the academy. 

Sadie sniffed, and gestured toward the baggies, determined not to let them see her sweat.  “The underwear belong to my old renter – at least I’m assuming they do
, as I found them discarded in a corner of the bedroom – and, uh, probably the condom also.  I found the box under the sink.” 

“The condom appears to have been opened recently.  And incidentally, wasn’t used.  Are you certain it was your… cleaning that got interrupted?”  He cast a meaningful glance toward Declan.

Sadie bristled while Kathleen choked on her coffee.  God only knew how Declan reacted.  The implication was about a thousand times more embarrassing because of that little incident in the guest room last night.  Thank God neither of the cop types knew about that.

The detective raised his brow in the face of her obvious ire.  “Look, I understand that you, uh, left your fiancé recently and maybe don’t want people privy to your personal matters, but from our standpoint we really need to know exactly what happened, if we want to close the case.  You’re sure this wasn’t some kind of…” he waved a hand vaguely “domestic dispute that got out of hand?”  Another glance at the looming Declan.  “Maybe your ex stumbled upon something he wasn’t too happy to see?”

Sadie rubbed her eyes with one of her Q-tips.  Why was everyone trying to bring this around to Rick?  What, did Miller think she’d just concocted the whole story?  Maybe she and Dec – with whom he obviously thought she was embroiled in some kind of raging affair – actually
had
killed Rick last night and buried him in the garden. And this was their brilliant cover.

Did she look like a complete moron? 

“Everything happened just exactly like I told you. This was in no way domestic, nor was there any dispute.  As to the condom,” she swallowed hard in order to fight off her embarrassment, “I opened it last night after I found them.  Curiosity.”  She shrugged, and figured that was enough said.

“Okay.”  Miller sounded skeptical, but he appeared willing to leave it at that.  “So the box of men’s clothes we found – that belongs to your renter also?”

“Yes.”  Sadie let out a breath, glad the condom issue was behind them.  “I’m not sure what his story was, but he left some things behind, and I placed them all in the box.  I was planning to leave it with the property management company.”

“You got a name on him?  A forwarding address?”

Sadie shook her head in apology.  “I’m sorry, but I don’t know anything about him.  I can give you the name of the rental agent over at Coastal Property Management.  She must have some information on file.”

“Okay.”  He snatched the plastic bags back, slowly stuffed them in his pocket.  “We’ll see if we can track him down.”

“You think he had something to do with it?”  Sadie asked as she relayed the agent’s name and number.

Miller shrugged his beefy shoulders, tucking the notebook back in his coat.  “Can’t say.  But it’s an avenue we’ll be looking into. Thanks for the coffee, Detective.”  He nodded his head toward Kathleen.  “
Mr. Murphy,” he sort of grimaced in Declan’s direction.  “I’ll show myself out.”

The sound of the front door closing broke the uncomfortable silence which had settled.

“So,” Kathleen finally said, biting her lips in evident hilarity.  “Curious about the condoms, eh?  What, you and Rick didn’t practice safe sex?”

From behind her, Declan grunted irritably, pushing himself away from Sadie’s chair before she could answer.  “I’m taking a shower.”  He stomped out of the room without further ado.     

Sadie glared daggers at her friend.  “Thanks for that.” 

Kathleen grinned, and Sadie shook her head.  Why she’d been so eager to get back home, she was no longer quite certain. “Now if we’re all through with the Embarrass Sadie Variety Hour, I believe I’ll get my stuff together.
  I can make my own toast at home.”

“
DON’T
make me repeat myself, Sadie Rose.  You are not staying over there alone.”  Declan grabbed the shirt she’d just stuffed into her suitcase, tossing it back into the closet. 

“Look, Declan.” She retrieved th
e shirt, and stood quivering in indignation. “I appreciate all the help last night and your… interesting brand of hospitality, but the fact is I have to live in that house and it’s just ridiculous to be afraid of it.  I just called a locksmith to come add deadbolts to the doors and, per Kathleen’s suggestion, a security company to see about an alarm.  And aside from that, how stupid would those burglars have to be to try a repeat of last night?  There are far more juicy plums to be picking, which they surely have figured out.”  She marched past him toward her suitcase.

Damn the stubborn woman and damn Kathleen for dumping her on him.  Had to get back to work, eh?  And what about his job – that was chopped liver?
He could just take off and play nursemaid for several days? Not to mention the fact that he
did not want
Sadie under his roof, for a multitude of obvious reasons.  Hell, he’d almost molested her just last night.  When she’d been injured and terrified and essentially incapacitated, no less.  Clearly he couldn’t be trusted.

But even less did he want some asshole messing with her or bringing her to any more harm.

“Let’s just say you cool your jets here for a couple more days until the security people get done installing your alarm.  And it will give the police a chance to make sure your friggin’ ex-fiancé doesn’t need to be killed.”

Well.  That certainly got her attention.  “I see you’ve been talking to Kathleen.”  She gave a little laugh, but she wasn’t amused.  “What is it with you people?  Have you all gone slowly insane?”  She went back toward the closet, but he blocked her, causing her to hop about like an angry hornet.  “Rick did not hire thugs to
scare me, and I am not staying here with you!”

“What are you going to do over there, Sadie? You can’t clean, you can’t
paint, you can’t do much of anything with those hands.”  He stabbed his own hand through his shower-damp hair over the reminder of what she’d been through.  No way was he letting her wander around unattended until they knew just what the hell was going on.  “Just chill out and approach this like a reasonable human being and you’ll see that you’re being stubborn.  Probably to punish me because I got you all hot.  Or to punish yourself because you liked it.”

And the elephant came out of the closet.

Sadie brought out the big guns, and took the thing on.  “You actually think that my unwillingness to stay here with you has anything to do with that… that pathetic kiss?”

Pathetic, was it?  Declan was tempted to jog her memory a little simply to prove that she lied like a rug.  They’d both liked it, too damn much, but there were larger issues here that needed to be dealt with.  So, recognizing a bluff when he saw one, he tossed another chip onto the table.

  “Yep.  I think that sums it up.  You want me, and you’re worried about your self-control if you stay here.”  Talk about projecting, but this was his hand and he was going to play it.

Sadie’s laugh was just a tinge too hearty.  “You know what, Declan?  You are out of your tiny little mind.  I would have absolutely no problem keeping my hands off you, even if they weren’t encased in gauze.”

“Fine,” he said easily. “Then you’ll stay here.”  He made a move and confiscated the suitcase, stuffing it back in the closet.  Behind him he could practically hear the wheels turning in Sadie’s head as she realized all her chips were gone.

“Why did you chop down your privacy fence?”

Maybe not all of her chips.  She’d snuck an ace out of her sleeve and knew just how to use it against him. 

“Firewood,” he said without turning.

Her indelicate snort conveyed disbelief. 

But t
hen, to his surprise, he felt a gauzy hand tentatively stroke his back and he figured it was game over.  Even through the layers of bandages, her touch was an erotic brand.  She drew a breath, gave a whispery little sigh that flowed into his veins like wine.  “I’m sorry for dragging you into this.  I should be saying thank you. For everything.  Honestly, Declan, I don’t know what I would have done last night without you.  You’ve been… a real friend.”

Just take him out and shoot him now.  “You’re welcome, Sadie Rose.”  He straightened and turned from the closet.  But he kept his gaze over her head because if he looked at those big baby-doll eyes every chip he’d earned was going to tumble right out of his pocket.  “I’m going out to clean up the wood from the fence, so just call me if there’s anything you need.”

SHE
needed him.

Sadie stared in frustration at the shampoo bottle
on the counter.  Despite Kathleen’s ministrations with the brush, her hair was an itchy, gritty, dirty mess after cleaning all day and then basically crawling around in pine straw and mud in the middle of a raging thunderstorm.  Plus, she’d slept on it again, having been knocked flat by the pain pills and the full breakfast Declan had made her.

Groggy and a little disoriented, s
he’d stumbled to the bathtub, where she’d managed to clean herself, sort of.  However, without the use of her hands, washing her own hair was out of the question.

She could wait for Kathleen.  She’
d be off work later this evening.  Sadie lifted her bandaged hand to wipe away a circle of condensation from the bathroom window, and judged by the slant of the sun angling through the trees that it was sometime around noon.  Which meant she’d only have to endure her gritty, dirty, itchy hair for about another… eight or nine hours.

Sadie sighed, and faced facts.

She’d have to ask Declan to help her.

Steeling herself, she hanged the towel wrapped around her on the hook on the bathroom door, slipping back into the dress Kathleen had picked out earlier.  She didn’t bother with a bra because the clasp was beyond her ability to manipulate at the moment, and the fabric of the dress was heavy enough that
it shouldn’t be that noticeable.