The Betrayed (15 page)

“Maybe he was going through the paperwork while you were in the shower and wasn’t able to find what he was looking for before you finished. When you came down the hall, he couldn’t get out in time, so he attacked you instead.”

Her heart began to pound in her temples. “He was inside the main house today. That’s the only way he could know I took the paperwork home with me.”

Zach nodded. “That’s what Carter and I believe.”

“We’re going to have to watch everything we say—whisper or go into our cars to talk—but I refuse to stop my investigation. I must be onto something if he’s willing to risk coming inside my cabin. If I’d been able to get my pistol in time, I would have shot him without hesitation.”

“I know you would have. It’s one of the things I like best about you.”

Despite the seriousness of the situation, the unexpected comment made her smile. “So what now? Carter won’t be back until tomorrow, and I don’t see the point in calling this in. He was wearing gloves, and I haven’t found the scissors, so I have to assume he took them with him. He didn’t even stick around long enough to leave a speck of blood.”

“We’ll tell Carter tomorrow when he gets back. In the meantime, pack up some clothes. You can stay with me in the caretaker’s cabin.”

“No.” Her reaction was instant. “Surely he’s not stupid enough to come back here tonight.”

“I’m not going to bet on it. The caretaker’s cabin is basically one big room and a bathroom. It’s even easier to secure than this place, plus I have some spare locks that I can use to change the ones on your place and the house tomorrow.”

“You carry around spare locks?”

“Contractor, remember? I do a lot of rehab work. The last thing I want is equipment walking away in the middle of the night because I was foolish enough to leave the old locks in place.”

Tired, frustrated and knowing she didn’t have a good argument to the contrary, she rose from the bed and pulled a backpack out of the tiny closet.

“Give me a minute to pack,” she said. “And I want to bring the paperwork with us. If that’s what he’s after, then the last thing I want to do is make it easy on him.”

Chapter Fifteen

Zach pushed open the door to the caretaker’s cabin with one hand and clutched his shotgun with the other. It only took him a minute to ensure the cabin was empty, then he hurried back to his truck to open the door for Danae.

“Go ahead inside,” he said. “I’ll grab the box.”

She jumped out of the truck, hesitating long enough to scan the swamp on each side of the cabin, then hustled inside. He grabbed the box from the backseat and followed close behind her.

She stood in the middle of the small room, clutching her backpack and looking extremely uneasy.

“There’s only the pullout sofa,” he said as he placed the box on the kitchen counter. “Amos gives
minimalist living
a whole new definition, but I can take the recliner. It appears to be the one thing the man splurged on.”

“I can’t ask you to give up your bed.”

“Who said you are? Make yourself comfortable...if that’s possible. Are you hungry?”

“No,” she said as she dropped her backpack on the floor and sank onto the couch “My stomach’s kind of in a knot.”

“A drink, then.” He grabbed a couple of glasses from the cabinet and poured them both half-full with scotch.

“A happy client gave this to me,” he said as he handed her the glass and took a seat beside her. “I’m normally a beer guy, but I have to admit, this is really smooth.”

She took a sip and nodded. “I’ve bartended long enough to know this is expensive. He must have been really happy.”

Zach took a sip and nodded. “Happy and loaded. I figured it wasn’t cheap as he took it out of his own collection, but I’ve been afraid to look it up. I figure I’ll never be able to afford another bottle.”

She took another drink and stared straight ahead, and for a moment, he wondered if she’d even heard a word he’d just said.

“She was an addict,” Danae said quietly. “Rose—the woman who took me in. It started with alcohol, but eventually, it wasn’t enough.”

He froze, wavering between being thrilled that Danae was finally talking to him and wanting to express outrage at what she’d just said.

“I’m sorry,” he said, deciding keeping it simple was best. “I can’t imagine how difficult it must have been for you.”

“Awful, horrible, terrible... All those words put together aren’t enough to describe it.
Living hell
may be as close as I could come.”

She took a deep breath and blew it out. Wisely, he kept silent, afraid that if he asked a question, she would stop talking.

“We had a house at first,” she continued. “A shack, really, about this size, but it had four walls and a good roof, and we were happy there. Until we weren’t. With her issues, Rose didn’t hold jobs for very long, but she managed okay when it was just alcohol. When I hit junior high, she tried cocaine, and later, heroin.”

Her eyes grew misty and he slid closer to her, taking her hand in his and giving it a squeeze.

“I wasn’t really surprised when we lost the house. The landlord had been more than understanding, but he had bills to pay, as well. We lived at a shelter for a while, but when they caught Rose using, they kicked us out. For a while we lived in her car. Then she met some guy at the truck stop she was waitressing at, and we moved in with him. I think she’d known him less than a week.”

“That’s so dangerous,” he said.

Danae nodded. “It was—is—but that didn’t stop Rose. The worst part is, I can’t even tell you his name. He was the first of many men that Rose used for shelter and money. The fix was really all she cared about.”

“Was she physically abusive?”

“Not often, but it happened. Usually, she wasn’t mean when she was high or drunk. She was just...I don’t know—checked out, I guess. I don’t think Rose’s childhood was all that great. I always figured she was hiding from her past with a bottle or a needle.”

“She should never have taken you in, knowing she had problems.”

“I’m sure she did it for the money. Twenty thousand dollars probably covered Rose’s meager expenses and alcohol for years. She never cared anything about having me around, except to wait on her and clean house, but she was only physically abusive a couple of times. The men were another story.”

Zach felt his back tighten. “Did they...?” He clenched his free hand into a fist, unable to even finish the question.

“No, nothing like that.”

Relief coursed through him so strong it made him dizzy. “Thank God.”

“But that’s the direction it was going. Once I turned thirteen and started to develop, I saw the way they looked at me. Even then, I understood what it meant and how wrong it was. I also knew that not only would Rose not be strong enough to defend me, but that for the right offer at the right time, she may even sell me. So I left when I was fifteen.”

“And went where?”

“A rent-by-the week motel far enough away from Rose that she wouldn’t find me. I’d been hustling on the street for a while. Nothing illegal—at least, not that I’m aware of. Mostly delivery for local businesses. I was cheaper than delivery services or gas and parking fees.”

Zach stared, trying to wrap his mind around a fifteen-year-old girl managing on her own. “What kind of motel rents a room to a minor?”

“Probably any in that area of town, but I had ID that said I was eighteen. That’s the only illegal thing I’ve ever done. There was a guy who lived down the block from one of Rose’s many shack-ups. He dealt in fake IDs, social security cards, that sort of thing.”

Suddenly, something that Zach had wondered about fell into place. “That’s how you were able to come here under an assumed name and not raise any questions. You had identification.”

She gave him a questioning look.

“Carter told me,” he explained. “Jack scowled at him a couple of times and I asked about it. He brought me up to speed on the local gossip.”

“Before I came to Calais, I wandered around from town to town, but nothing ever felt right. I met some nice people, but I didn’t get close to anyone. I couldn’t afford to when I was a minor. I was afraid I’d be put into the system. I’d met street kids who’d been in the system and it didn’t sound any better than living with Rose.”

She sighed. “It was self-preservation at first, but I guess it became habit. Not that it didn’t prevent me from making some mistakes. I trusted the wrong people a time or two and quickly learned my lesson. A lot of people are not anything like what they appear. My distance allowed me the time to see them for who they truly were.”

“And in all that time, no man ever passed your assessment?”

“No.” She looked over at him. “I mean, I’ve been with other men... I’m not... It just didn’t go anywhere. No matter how sincere they appeared, I couldn’t trust them. Then I came to Calais and everything felt different. Maybe I was simply tired of living a shadow of a life.”

“Maybe it’s because Calais is where you belong.”

“Do you really think so?”

The hope in her expression as she looked at him made his heart break for the lost little girl who had spent a lifetime looking for her place in the world.

“Yes, I do. Everyone here seems to like you. I haven’t met your sister, but I like Carter, and he doesn’t seem like the kind of man who would settle down with a questionable woman. So I’ll go out on a limb and say that Alaina is probably a good person and happy you’re here.”

Her eyes misted up and she nodded. “Alaina is a great person—one of the best I’ve ever met. I felt a connection with her immediately. She’s worried about me, and I can tell it’s real because it feels so strange. Nice strange, if that makes sense.”

“It does. Danae, you’re a wonderful woman who’s overcome a past that most people would have crumbled under. I know it’s not in your nature to let people in, but your life would become so much more if you took that risk. Sometimes it comes with great heartache, but without risking heartache, you can’t experience great joy.”

She sniffed and gave him a small smile. “How did a contractor get so philosophical?”

“My dad was a funeral director, and my mom died when I was five. I learned about the fragility of life at a young age. All of us have only so much time on this earth, and none of us know how much time that is.”

“So I should live life as if it were my last day?”

“Well, maybe not your last day, but perhaps second-to-last?”

She laughed softly as she stared at him, her amber eyes looking so deeply into his that he wondered if she could read his mind. He hoped not, because at the moment, his thoughts were anything but pure.

She was so beautiful—the fine bone structure of her face, her full lips and glossy black hair. Sitting on a broken-down couch, wearing shorts and a T-shirt, she was the most gorgeous woman he’d ever seen.

“Maybe I’ll start living that second-to-last day now,” she whispered and leaned over, brushing her lips against his.

He told himself it was a bad idea—to take when she was so vulnerable—but nothing could have stopped him from responding. Danae had awakened parts of him that he’d never known were there. She’d already taken his heart and soul. The only thing left to give was his physical self, and he’d been fighting that urge for too long.

He wrapped his arms around her and deepened the kiss. She ran her hands up his back, and immediately, he wanted her hands everywhere—his hands everywhere. He lowered his mouth to kiss the nape of her neck and she groaned, leaning her head back so that he could trail kisses across her chest.

He slipped one hand under her T-shirt and found her bare breast, giving silent thanks that she’d dressed in haste and left off the bra. Her smooth skin sent his body into overdrive, and he decided there was entirely too much cloth between them.

With a single flourish, he pulled her shirt over her head and dropped it on the floor. When he took her full breast into his mouth, she trembled and tugged at his shirt.

“I want you now,” she whispered.

No more prompting needed, he rose and pulled off his clothes, then snagged a condom from his wallet. Danae pulled off her shorts and he pushed her gently back on the couch before rising above her.

In one fluid motion, he entered her and gasped.

She clutched his back and he kissed her again, then set the pace that quickly sent both of them over the edge.

* * *

C
ARTER
PULLED
INTO
C
ALAIS
around 2:00 a.m. He’d originally planned to stay the night in New Orleans, but his day had revealed so much information, he knew he’d be too restless to sleep for a long while. Finally deciding there was no use paying for a hotel room when he wasn’t going to use the bed for hours, he jumped into his truck and headed back home. His bed there was more comfortable and free, and this way, he’d be able to talk to Danae first thing in the morning.

He debated between a shower or food—it had been a long time since he’d had either—but food finally won out and he fixed a sandwich and ate it standing over the sink. If Alaina were there, she’d fuss at him for the bachelor behavior and he smiled thinking about it. He missed his fiancée, more than he’d ever thought possible. She’d slipped so easily into his life, making it complete when he hadn’t even realized something was missing.

A few minutes later the hot spray and shower steam relaxed his muscles, which had tightened during the seemingly never-ending drive on the lonely highways from New Orleans to Calais. It had been a really long but productive day, and he was glad he’d finally gotten to the bottom of the odd habits of Trenton Purcell, aka Raymond Lambert. He couldn’t wait to tell his mother, who’d always loathed the man, that her instincts were right, as always.

He was almost waterlogged when he heard his cell phone ringing. Frowning, he jumped out of the shower, grabbing a towel as he hurried into the kitchen to grab his phone. He’d notified dispatch when he was on his way back to Calais, but tomorrow was his day off, and the deputy he’d hired a couple weeks before was on call.

The display showed the sheriff’s department number, and he felt his heart rate tick up a beat as he answered. Something was seriously wrong for them to call at this hour.

“I’m sorry to call you in the middle of the night,” said Margaret, the night dispatcher, “but we’ve got a bad situation at Jack Granger’s place.”

Carter clenched the phone, praying that the cook hadn’t gotten drunk and done something incredibly stupid. He’d never been brought up for domestic violence before, but he was a mean drunk and had been a pressure cooker of emotion lately.

“What did he do?” Carter asked.

“He was murdered.”

Involuntarily, his jaw dropped, and for a moment, his mind went completely blank. “Come again?”

“He was murdered. The deputy’s on the scene, but he’s panicking.”

“You think?” Ten days on the job in a town that usually boasted drunk-driving citations, poaching and the occasional bar brawl, and the completely green twenty-two-year-old had been called to a murder scene in the middle of the night.

“Give me a second to throw on clothes. I’ll call you from the road and you can fill me in on what you know.”

He tossed the phone onto the kitchen table and ran into the bedroom to throw on jeans, tennis shoes and a T-shirt. Not even taking time to run a brush through his wet hair, he strapped on his pistol, grabbed his phone and ran out the door and into his truck. He dialed dispatch as soon as he pulled out of the driveway.

“What do you know?” he asked, wanting to get as much information as possible before he walked onto the scene.

“His girlfriend, Cherise, was out of town with the kids, helping her sister, who’d just had surgery. She called that evening for Jack, but he never answered and no one at the café had seen him since he left work. She waited awhile, but by ten o’clock, decided something might be wrong and headed back here to check.”

“Please tell me she didn’t have the kids with her.”

“She was smart enough to leave them sleeping at her sister’s, and it’s a good thing. Deputy Finley said he’d been stabbed repeatedly—
hacked
was the word he used. He sounded like he was going to pass out when he called in. I figured Cherise was in even worse condition than the deputy, so I called Doc Broussard while I was waiting on you to call back. He’s on his way.”