Change of Heart (20 page)

“Lots of them. Bears and deer. And a few dinosaurs. But the government has them in electrical cages. I hope they hold.”

“If you’re trying to be funny, you aren’t succeeding.”

Eli got more supplies from the car and began clearing an area to build a fire. “I want you to tell me about yourself. Hold still.”

“What?”

“Don’t move.”

Chelsea froze her body into place but her face moved into a form that told him what she thought of him.

Slowly, Eli stepped around her, picked up a stick, and flicked a rather fat snake away from her. The two of them watched it slowly move away into the woods.

“I’m leaving,” Chelsea said and went to the car. It was locked. She glared at him. “Give me the key.”

“Nope,” Eli said as he squatted down to tend to the fire. “I have you all to myself and that’s where I plan to keep you.”

“This is kidnapping.”

“Probably,” he said, unperturbed. “I had Jeff get all the things needed to make s’mores. Remember how much you always liked them?”

“When I was eight. I’m grown-up now and I like adult things.”

“Do we change?” Eli said as he looked at the fire. “Most of the time I feel like that kid who just wanted to save the world.”

“Isn’t that what you do?” Her tone was angry and she hadn’t moved away from the car, but she knew Eli wasn’t going to give in. If he was nothing else, he was stubborn.
Nothing
could make him get off course once he’d made up his mind.

Tentatively, and looking where she stepped, she went to the fire. “What are you working on now?”

“Can’t tell you,” he said as he put a marshmallow onto a piece of wire. “What about you? Thinking of starting a ladies’ polo team?”

“For your information, I help Rodrigo with his business. It takes work to stay on the polo circuit.”

“I bet,” Eli mumbled. He handed her a toasted marshmallow. “You’d better tie your hair back or—” He broke off when a breeze caught her long hair and wrapped it around the sticky marshmallow.

Chelsea’s anger showed on her face. “I
knew
this would happen! What next? A family of bears
shows up?”

“I hope not,” Eli said cheerfully. “How about a sandwich?”

“Only if I can throw it at you.”

He smiled at her. “Jeff sent a bucket of KFC. Sound good?”

“Fried?! You want me to eat something that has been
fried
?”

“It’s your choice. You’d better get your camera equipment because it’s starting to rain.”

A fat drop hit Chelsea in the face. “I hate you, Eli Harcourt,” she muttered as she grabbed her gear and zipped the lid of the case closed. She started toward the car but as the rain began to come down harder, Eli held the tent flap open.

Grimacing, she went inside.

A moment later Eli entered, a big red-and-white paper bucket in his arms and four bottles of beer.

It was two hours later that Eli looked at Chelsea, asleep in the down-filled bag, and smiled. It had taken work on his part but he’d managed to get her to use the container of wet wipes to remove all the makeup from her face. She’d pulled her hair back in a ponytail and had eaten heartily of the fried chicken.

And in between she’d talked. Over the years, he’d been able to deduce a lot about her life from photographs and tidbits he’d heard from people. But he couldn’t know the whole truth from being on the outside. Was she truly in love with her latest boyfriend? Had she found something that occupied her life so she felt as she had when they were kids? Whenever one of their projects worked, they’d put ginger ale in champagne glasses and toasted, “To saving the world.”

To Eli’s mind, he was still trying to do that, but what was Chelsea doing now?

The rain pounding down on the little tent, the light from the lantern, the closeness, plus the food and beers, had made Chelsea open up as he doubted she had in years—or ever.

As he looked at her sleeping, he didn’t lie to himself. His desires were all selfish. He still wanted her for himself. There was something about her that . . . well, made him feel as though the half of him that had been missing for so very long had been returned to him.

As he snuggled down in the bag beside her, he knew the camping trip had worked. Of course he knew she hated camping. One of his favorite memories of their childhood was when Chelsea had climbed a tree to avoid the “creatures of the night” as she called them. Since they’d been in her parents’ backyard, there hadn’t been a lot of danger.

But to Chelsea’s mind, it had always been “one of the worst experiences of my life.”

As he’d hoped, this camping trip, short as it was, had made her so angry, had so completely taken her out of her comfort zone, that she’d told him more than she would have if they’d been in some pretty hotel. He’d seen that she tended to dazzle everyone around her and he didn’t want that.

Smiling, he went to sleep.

He awoke to a flood of complaints. It was as though their camaraderie of the night before had never happened.

“I can’t appear in public like this!” she said as she tried to comb marshmallow out of her hair. As other women before her had discovered, it wasn’t possible.

To Eli’s dismay, Chelsea pulled a little case out of her big handbag and proceeded to darken her eyelids to the point where he hardly recognized her.

By the time they were ready to leave, it was strained between them.

“Is there a bug in my hair?” Chelsea asked as they got out of the car. “Or maybe a thousand of them?”

Eli grit his teeth. “No bugs. No dirt. No mosquito bites anywhere. You are model perfect.”

“That was mean,” she said. They’d been driving back to Edilean and had stopped at an off-road diner to have lunch.

“Sorry,” Eli said. “It’s just that your incessant complaining is getting me down.”

“I told you I didn’t want to spend time in the woods. No bathroom, no—”

“No hairdresser,” Eli said. “I get it. It’s just that the Chelsea I knew—”

She threw up her hands. “Don’t start on me again! The Chelsea you knew was a myth. Something you made up. I became an adult.”

“And chose to dedicate your life to your hair,” Eli said under his breath.

“I heard that. At least I
have
a life! All you do is stare at a computer screen and make up games that live out your fantasies. Where are the
real
women in your life?”

He turned to her. “Maybe they’re dating the men who are no longer in
your
life.”

Glaring at him, she stepped around an old car that was parked over the line. She wasn’t surprised when the rusty bumper reached out and grabbed the side of her white jeans and held on. She heard the fabric rip. “Perfect,” she muttered, then tried to unfasten it, but it stuck.

Eli was holding open the door of the restaurant for her. Not only had she remade her face as though she were about to go on a photo shoot, she’d put on some white outfit he was sure had a designer’s name attached. When she kept fiddling with her clothes, he went back and stood there watching.

“You could help, you know.”

He unsnapped the leather holder at his side, withdrew a big knife, and opened the blade. Before she could protest, he cut the fabric that was being held by the rusty metal.

“You just cut a hole in my pants. Do you have any idea how much these cost?”

Eli wasn’t paying any attention to her. “This would never pass a road inspection.”

“You mean my trousers?”

He gave her a look.

“Oh, yeah, right. The car.” It really was a dreadful piece of junk. The body was covered in several shades of paint, all of it worn and dirty. The front windshield was cracked and the wipers had no blades. The passenger door was wired shut. “I wonder if it still runs.”

“Unless it was towed here, it has to.”

Chelsea walked around the vehicle. The trunk was tied down with burlap string and a taillight was missing. She looked around at the road. To the right was just forest. There were four cars besides Eli’s parked in front of the diner, and the old junker stood out from the others for the sheer horribleness of it. But something about the car wasn’t right. It was almost as though it were disposable, something to be discarded once a job was done. She looked at Eli. “You don’t think there’s a robbery going on, do you? Or maybe there’s someone tied up in the trunk.”

Eli started to say that was ridiculous, but he was glad to hear about anything besides her physical discomfort. He went to the back and used his knife to cut the string holding the trunk down. The lid sprang up. Inside was a lot of trash, old food containers, empty beer cans, and a threadbare tire—what would be expected in a junker. But oddly, spread over the tire was a snowy-white linen dinner napkin and on top of it was a briefcase.

“No one’s tied up,” Eli said.

Chelsea was staring at the contents. “That case is Stefano Ricci and they cost about three grand. Think it was stolen?”

Before Eli could answer, Chelsea reached for the case. “Keep watch,” she said as she opened it and looked inside. There were some papers with Longacre Furniture written at the top, and a side pocket was full of business cards. As she took a few cards, something in the bottom caught her eye. Reaching inside, she pulled out a Rolex watch and held it up to the light. “This watch cost about forty-five grand.”

Eli blinked a few times, then said, “Someone’s coming.”

Quickly, Chelsea put the watch back, closed the case, and set it on the cloth. Eli pulled the trunk lid down just as an older couple came out of the diner. They looked at Chelsea and Eli, then at the old car. Something must have looked suspicious because they hesitated.

“My wife caught her pants leg on the rusty bumper,” Eli said as he quickly retied the trunk. Since the string had been cut, it was almost too short to tie.

Chelsea went around the side. “Look at this!” She showed off the hole Eli had cut. “Cars like that shouldn’t be allowed on the road.”

“I don’t think they are,” the man said. He was smiling so sweetly at Chelsea that his wife pushed him in the other direction.

Eli went to stand by Chelsea and put his arm around her shoulders as they waved good-bye to the couple.

“Think they’ll call the police?” Chelsea asked as the couple drove away.

“Because we looked like we were trying to rob a car that’s not worth a hundred bucks? I don’t think so.”

They went inside the diner, and for a moment Chelsea stood looking around. There were eight tables and four booths along a wall. Only five of them had customers. Who owned the old car? she wondered. Who was hiding a multithousand-dollar watch and briefcase—and why?

Eli caught Chelsea’s hand and pulled her to the left. There was another room that sold snacks and maps and toiletries. Grabbing a basket, he led her to the aisle of chips: blue, flavored, corn, potato. There seemed to be a half mile of them.

“Look,” he said, “as you have said to me about a dozen times in the last twenty-four hours, you and I aren’t kids anymore. Why that man has a couple of expensive items in his trunk is none of our business.” He glared at her. “We are not Robin and Marian, certainly not Les Jeunes.”

“Are you saying that with all your famous friends you can’t find out anything about this man?”

Her words were a challenge to him, and after a moment he sighed. “All right, get something.” He pulled out his phone.

“Who are you texting? Pilar?”

“Can’t tell you. You don’t have the security clearance. What’s the guy’s name on the business card you lifted?”

“You don’t have my clearance to see it.”

Eli looked at her in disbelief, but she just smiled. “Okay, I’m sending the license number to a cop friend of mine. He’s not supposed to do this but he owes me. Now will you give me the name?”

“Let me type it in.”

Reluctantly, he handed her his phone and she tapped in the name Orin Peterson, plus the name of the store she’d seen on the papers.

When a man came down the aisle, Eli and Chelsea grabbed bags of chips and left. Around the corner were drinks.

“What do we do now?” Chelsea whispered as she reached for bottles of water.

Eli put a six-pack of ginger ale in the basket. “We just wait until Steve gets back to me.”

“It’s Saturday!” Chelsea said. “Nobody is at work today. Most people are out having fun. But
you
made me sleep on the ground last night so we’re not. Did you think that all that outdoors was going to put me in the mood to . . . To what? Be seduced by you?”

He leaned toward her. “I thought maybe you’d be inspired to take some pictures. As for seducing you, I leave that to the sheriff’s brother. He’s a three. I’m a one, remember?”

When the other customer moved to their aisle, they went to the refrigerator case. Chelsea tossed containers of Greek yogurt in the basket Eli was holding, while he pulled out a couple of ready-made sandwiches.

“What does Sheriff Frazier have to do with any of this?” she asked.

“Not him, his brother, Lanny. The guy at the bar, remember? And how do you know Colin?”

“I don’t,” Chelsea snapped and moved to the candy aisle. “Wait a minute. Lanny? Is his real name Lancaster?”