One Deadly Sin (17 page)

“I keep my off-season things here,” Ellen explained.

Edie closed the closet door, closing it, too, on her quest. Hannah was gone, and whatever she knew was gone, too. Nothing left but the stale air inside a room she hadn’t occupied in a decade.

The weight of the last few days lifted, and Edie felt suddenly giddy and untethered. She thanked Hannah’s daughter, and made to go, but Ellen wouldn’t hear of it until she’d had tea and a lemon square. “I made them myself,” she said with pride.

With more enthusiasm than she’d given the rest of the meal, Edie ate the cake, admired its tart sweetness, and sipped a cup of tea, before finally escaping outside. She was free. Free! She almost twirled with relief. Nothing left to discover, no one left to ask.

Except, of course, that one, final name on her list. The one name she couldn’t bring herself to think about, let alone approach. And now she didn’t have to.

She could leave James Drennen alone, put his connection to the past back there where it belonged, and concentrate on his wonderful, gorgeous, sexy son.

Edie’s smile was back in place that night. Every song on the jukebox was platinum, every customer her best friend.

“Well, look at you,” Lucy said. “Someone got some, I think.” Her brows waggled.

“I were you,” Edie said, plopping a pitcher of beer on a tray with an arch grin, “I’d watch that thinking stuff. Burn right through that brain of yours.”

Lucy hooted and went to deliver her beer. And in the midst of all the good feeling, James Drennen walked into Red’s.

Holt had never told Edie outright to keep their relationship on the down low, but she sensed that the pairing of Redbud’s most eligible bachelor with the town’s tattooed lady might not go over well. Which was why she didn’t talk about him, no matter how hard Lucy pried.

So when Holt’s father slid onto a bar stool, Edie couldn’t help a bump of anxiety. He wasn’t a regular. In fact, he hadn’t been back since that time weeks ago when he came with Holt. She would have slipped him an angel then if she’d had them with her. Now, she was glad she hadn’t. But that didn’t mean she wasn’t a little nervous around Holt’s father. Especially when he showed up out of the blue. Alone.

“Hello, Edie,” he said pleasantly, and ordered a beer.

She pulled it for him, hoping he wasn’t there for “the talk.” How she wasn’t the settling-down type, and Holt needed a mama for his baby girl, and not a hoochie mama either.

“You doing okay?” he asked when she set the beer in front of him.

“Couldn’t be better.”

“Good. Good. That must mean you’re taken with our little town.”

Uh oh. He sipped the beer, and she braced herself. “I like it fine. Just fine.”

“You a small-town girl?”

“Some. Part city girl, too.” She wasn’t going to lie to him.

“Which is the bigger part?”

She’d spent ten years in Redbud, the rest everywhere else. “City, I guess.”

“Oh, yeah? Where?”

“Chicago. St. Louis. Worked a bar in Nashville, too.”

“Looking for Eden?”

The name alone was enough to send an ice shard through her chest. But it was accompanied by a cold, piercing look that froze whatever blood she had left. And suddenly “the talk” she’d expected turned into something very different. And very deadly.

She wanted to avoid those eyes but didn’t. She shrugged. Forced a smile on her face. “Who knows? Maybe.”

James Drennen, ex-sheriff, father of her lover, last name on her list, gave her another pleasant smile, then drank his beer.

“Hey, Edie!” A customer waved her down to the other end of the bar, and when she returned, the only thing left at James Drennen’s place was a five-dollar bill.

And along with it lay every last slick of dread she thought she’d eradicated.

Holt’s father knew who she was.

19

T
he rest of Edie’s night passed in a horrified blur. Had she heard James correctly? Had he told Holt yet? Twice she spilled a drink, which made Lucy and Red both stare at her.

“What’s wrong with you tonight?” Red threw her an extra towel for the cleanup on the second one.

“She’s got a bug up her ass named Drennen,” Lucy grinned.

Edie didn’t bother telling her she was right… and wrong. It was a Drennen, but not the one she had in mind.

The minute last call was over, she hightailed it to her bike and set off out of town, not bothering with a helmet. Speed grabbed her by the throat, blasted her cheeks, shot through her hair.

Would anything in Redbud ever go her way? Something here, some sick streak of karma, was working against her just as it had her parents. She should have stayed away. Should never have come. Aunt Penny was right.

She passed the edge of town, inhaled the hot night air, and forced herself to calm down. Look at her, full of regret, and her not the regretting kind.

At least, she didn’t use to be.

She tried to look at the up side. Wasn’t there always an up side? If she hadn’t come to Redbud, she wouldn’t have met Holt.

Some up side. More like a sucker’s play. Because if James Drennen knew who she was, he’d say so. Eventually. And then Holt would know she had lied both about who she was and about her connection with those black angels. Would he understand? Forgive even? Or would everything explode around her and he’d walk away?

Or worse, lock her up.

Her stomach churned. To outrace the gloom, she turned off the highway onto a country road and accelerated into blackness. The moon made shadows of the landscape slipping past her. A dark void of fenced-in fields. Humps of trees. She wanted to charge forward. Surround herself with the thick, inky air and get away as fast as possible. Now, before it all ended the way it inevitably would. Badly.

She poured on the speed, needing to devour the miles. But unexpectedly, the road curved, forcing her to turn wildly. She pumped the brakes to slow down and heard a dull pop. In the same instant, the hand brake went spongy, and her heart thrashed. She’d lost control of the front tire.

She thrust down hard on the foot brake. Her rear tire skidded out from under her. Oh, God. Something slick was all over the road.

Beneath her, the bike careened, spinning out of control. The bike went one way and she went another. The scream of metal over pavement screeched in her brain. Panic overwhelmed her, and her last fleeting thought as she flew through the air was she wouldn’t have to worry about Redbud or Holt anymore. Not if she was dead.

20

E
die groaned. Moved her neck. Something scratched, itched. Grass. She was lying on grass. She inhaled the smell of fields and manure. Remembered in an instant what had happened and where she was.

Her bike.

She tried moving arms and legs. Her right elbow ached but everything worked. She rolled over slowly. Sat up. Bones creaked. Her head swam. But somehow, she wasn’t dead.

She stood, wavered, leaned against the fence at her back. After a moment she tried a step. Hallelujah, her feet worked. She limped over to where her bike had landed against the fence on the opposite side of the road. Hauled it upright.

And realized her hands were shaking. Her whole body was trembling. She made herself breathe through the rush of feeling. Happy to be alive? Scared spitless to be almost dead? She grasped the handlebars, steadied herself against the solid metal. Eventually, the emotion faded enough to let her think again.

She found the flashlight she kept just for these emergencies and scanned the brake lines with it. Put a finger through a jagged slit in the front line. That explained why she’d lost control of the hand brake. Also what she’d skidded on—leaking brake fluid.

She ran the light over the rest of the bike. The rear fender was dented but otherwise in decent enough shape, considering. She wiped the rear tire clean with a rag. Tested the foot brake. It was fine. If she was careful, she could make it back to town using the rear brake alone. Get Andy Burkett to fix the front brake line. He’d been wanting to get his hands on her bike anyway.

She let out a long, slow breath. Too much drama for one night. Holt’s father nearly exposing her. Nearly dying. After tonight she needed a week or two of nothing going on.

But she wasn’t going to get it. Not, it seemed, in Redbud.

All the way back she thought of that jagged cut. She could have sliced open the brake line on the road. A rock, a nail. A stray piece of glass from a broken beer bottle. There were plenty of them around Red’s.

Then a new thought occurred, and every drop of saliva in her mouth turned to sand. She always parked her bike in the alley. Anyone could have gotten to it. Even—she gasped as the picture of him rose in her mind, sitting on the bar stool, all pleasant smiles and knife-blade words—James.

The shakes began again, and she had to stop to calm down.

People were dying all around her. Was she next?

21