Confer, Lorelei - Deadly Deception (Siren Publishing Classic) (17 page)

His biggest problem plaguing him now was finding somewhere to lie low for the night.

The road he’d turned onto hadn’t been traveled in some time. It had deep ruts and holes that the car had bottomed out in a couple of times already. Looking ahead, he saw it a rougher terrain with deeper ruts and holes and would only be getting worse. He looked around on both sides of the road—if it could be called a road—at the scenery and kept driving.

After rounding a turn, he slowed and came to a stop. His eyes widened in surprise and his mouth opened in wonderment. Perfect! On his left, he saw what once was probably someone’s nice little house but now was a barely standing, ramshackle shack with a sagging roof, its windows broken out, and overgrown trees leaning toward the faded wooden building. Perfect for cover, he could put the car on the far side out of sight and get a good night’s rest. He could also think without anybody yapping or squealing around him. Then he would come up with a plan and somehow, find the girl first thing in the morning, get her to Boss by midnight Tuesday, get paid, and get outta town.

He would change his name. He never did like Sneed for a last name anyway. He would alter his appearance, so much that his mother, if she were alive, wouldn’t recognize him. Maybe he would even shave his head.

Then he would disappear somewhere Spike would never find him. He would build his own organization soon, and then he would take care of Spike.

He drove to the back of the house and couldn’t believe his luck. It was perfect. The overgrown trees provided complete coverage to hide a stolen car. He parked the car and took out a flashlight to get a closer look for tracks of the four-footed, four-wheeled, and two-legged kinds. He didn’t see evidence anyone had been around there for a long time.

He walked through the open door hanging by one screw on the inside onto a wobbly, weak, wooden floor and shone the flashlight around. The inside walls were still intact, no furniture except a few remaining table or chair legs for kindling. He didn’t need any furniture. He usually slept on the floor anyway, had for most of his life.

He walked around the other rooms. One appeared to have been a kitchen at one time with an old pump handle sitting on a piece of wood beside what probably had been a sink but now was only a dark hole. He reached to open a cupboard door and the door fell off from its hinges into his hand. He looked inside for any food or crumbs left behind by the former human occupants but found nothing.

Another room, a bedroom with a window opening toward the back of the property, no closet, no furniture, just some pieces of newspaper or trash that probably had blown through the window opening during the last storm.

He heard some scurrying behind him and quickly turned. Shining the flashlight in the general area of the sound, he saw an ugly, long-tailed rat scavenging for food. It scampered away into the receding darkness outside.

Joe decided to make his bed under the front opening beside the open doorway because it faced the road. If he was being followed, he wanted to be able to see them coming before they saw him.

Joe lay down on his back and folded his arms behind his head. He had to think.

Chapter 30

After Dave left, Wyatt and Isabella sat in silence, both in deep thought. Isabella had a ton of questions she wanted to ask but feared the answers. She tried to come up with reasons why she should trust Wyatt. He hadn’t lied to her about being a cop. He just hadn’t told her. And she hadn’t asked about his past. He didn’t know everything about her past. Neither knew each other well.

She lowered her head, studying her hands while she thought. She chanced a peek at him. He had moved to the desk, and she heard the clicking of keys on his laptop. He stopped to look back at her. Neither said anything for a moment or two.

Finally, Isabella got up the needed courage. “Wyatt, I need some answers.”

He looked at the laptop, then back at her. “I’m sure you do, and I’ll be glad to give them to you but first I need to finish what I’m working on. Then we’ll talk. I’ll just be a few minutes.”

She waited patiently, pacing in front of the couch, similar to Wyatt’s actions.

He finished within minutes, closed his computer, and turned to her. “Okay, Isabella, you have my undivided attention. What can I answer for you?”

Isabella looked him directly in the eye. “I want to know when you planned to tell me you were a cop. And what’s happening at three in the morning? I’m not used to someone else making decisions for or about me or my life. I need to know where I’m going and what I’m doing. I barely know you and to be perfectly honest, I’m not sure I can trust you.”

Wyatt slowly got up from his chair, walked toward her and grasped her hands as she stood in front of the couch.

“I have no reason to hide anything from you. I’m not sure I have all the answers you’re looking for either. Sometimes it’s safer not knowing.”

She nodded. “Okay, I can agree with you on that point.”

“I didn’t think you needed to know I was a cop because it was in the past and I knew you had an aversion or some kind of fear of them for some reason from the first time I met you. I wanted—no, I needed to find out why first. I thought it might be more due to embarrassment from something you did in your past, in your high school or college years. I had already told you Dave and I worked together as partners years ago. I worked on growing my dad’s company. That’s when you found me.”

She looked deep into his eyes and not only didn’t see any deceit, as if she could recognize it, but only saw sincerity and sympathy. “But you and Dave know each other so well. Usually when you leave a job, you leave the people you work with behind as well.”

Wyatt turned around, picked up his water bottle, and took a long drink while contemplating his answer.

“Dave and I grew up together, we’ve been friends since kindergarten, and we’ve been through a lot. When you’re partners you rely on each other with your life if necessary, and cover each other’s back, so to speak. You create a bond, a special bond, and many times, that special bond is never, ever broken. And sometimes you do keep good friends.”

She nodded her head a little hesitantly.

“Then what’s all this about a safer place and going somewhere at three? You can’t just leave me here, Wyatt.”

He looked around the room at the large windows and doors as if someone could be watching. “We, you and I, are going to leave here and go to a safer place. I think you’ll like it there. It’s remote and very secure and we can both relax. You don’t need to know any more about it right now. In the meantime, it’s getting late and we need to think about something for dinner. How does lasagna sound to you?”

“It’s one of my favorites, but what do you mean by a safer place?”

“Here, we’re too close to the park and your kidnappers. We’ll be safer when we’re away from the immediate area.”

When she continued with questions about where, he finally said, “You’ll need some clothes for a couple of days, so why don’t you take this time to go upstairs to the quest room, the room my sister uses, and see what clothes she left behind in the closet you can wear. You’ll need at least two or three days’ worth of clothes and some nightwear, of course. I’ll get dinner started, and we can talk more while we eat.”

She looked at him, studied him, but he had already dismissed her and she knew he wouldn’t waver. She turned and proceeded to follow him up the stairs, then continued to climb to the third story.

* * * *

Wyatt didn’t think he could feel as protective of someone he just met but he felt like he had known Isabella all his life. He knew her tells when she was frightened, sincere, or overwhelmed. He wanted to spend more time with her and looked forward to going to his mountain retreat. He sighed, bowed his head, and rubbed his eyes. He had a lot of work to do, not a lot of time to do it in, and needed some peace and quiet.

He wished he could share everything with her, tell her his innermost concerns, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. But not yet.

Chapter 31

Isabella walked into a bright and beautiful bedroom decorated in soft, light pastels with matching print valances and comforter on a king-size bed. A night table sat on each side of the bed, a sitting bench at the foot of the bed, and a beautiful wood dresser on the side wall under a row of long and narrow windows.

She paused when she noticed the window, then slowly walked to it and looked out. Good, it faced the street, not the woods. She loved the woods and all the trees around, much like her childhood home in
Colorado
.

Her mother, she thought, must be frantic. She wondered if she had filed a missing persons report for her or if she had realized she was missing yet? She hoped the police would find her mother safe and that she hadn’t missed her at all. If she could, she would do anything to spare her any agony.

She walked to the bedside table, picked up the phone, started to dial, then quickly hung up. What if her mother’s phone had been tapped? What if they were holding her mother captive waiting for her to call or were threatening her mother for information? What if they were monitoring Wyatt’s phones? And they found out where she was, then what? She decided she had to wait, talk to Wyatt about her mother. She would have to trust him for now.

She sat down on the bed and closed her eyes. Wyatt’s face came before her eyes, and she inhaled deeply, butterflies jumped in her stomach whenever he came near her. She lost all her reasoning while her other senses became enhanced. She could recognize his scent, the feel of running her hand though his hair, the sight of his deep blue eyes. She especially enjoyed his kisses. She could almost feel his arms around her and his hands moving up and down her back.

She was so entranced by her attraction to him that she could feel the warmth of his breath on her neck and could hear his deep even breathing. It seemed so real, his breath so hot.

What?
She opened her eyes. He was sitting beside her on the bed.

“Are you okay? You looked so far away, as if in a daydream.”

She pulled a pillow from the bed in front of her chest. “Y-yes, yes, I’m just, just thinking about my mother and how upset she must be.”

“Really? Do you always have a flushed face and a dreamy look on your face when you think about your mother?”

She gave him an incredulous look. What now? Could he read her thoughts? She quickly stood. “Where is the closet?”

When he pointed to the door on the wall behind her, she walked around the bed into an enormous walk-in closet. When she turned around to look back at him, she nearly bumped into him. He had followed her into the closet and stood behind her.

“This closet is huge!” she blabbered to cover her embarrassment. “It’s about the size of my bedroom in my apartment at home. Did your sister decorate this room too? It’s beautiful and very light and airy.”

“No, I did this room myself for Amy when she visits, but she left her handiwork in the closet.”

She turned back to the closet, which contained an entire wardrobe with any type of clothing for any activity, fancy party or cocktail dresses, jeans, sweats, skirts, sweaters, silks, satins, so many belts and bags, and too many shoes to count.

“There are so many things in here. Does Amy have any clothes at her place in
New York
?”

Wyatt threw his head back and laughed—a deep, loud rumble that echoed off the high ceilings. She looked at him and smiled. It comforted her to hear him laugh, his face lighting up—similar to the picture on his desk—revealing beautiful dimples on both his cheeks.

“What’s so funny?”

“She rarely ever wears anything twice, especially the things here. My sister wouldn’t miss these clothes if you took every single piece and never returned them.” He handed her a lightweight duffle bag. “Go ahead, help yourself.”

She stared at him, disbelieving, turned back to the closet dumbstruck.

“Wait, don’t get the wrong impression. She’s a very successful businesswoman. She’s probably a lot like you. When she finds a pair of jeans she likes and they fit good, she buys two or three pairs. Then she leaves one pair here so she can ‘travel light’ when she comes for the day or for any length of time.

“She travels all over the world on buying trips and sometimes she’ll leave from
Norfolk
. She always leaves extra clothes here in case she decides to stay here longer.”

She looked back at the clothes neatly hanging or folded on shelves in the cedar-lined closet. “But, Wyatt, your sister might need these when she comes to visit. I really don’t want to impose on either you or your sister. No, no, I couldn’t really. I’ll wash the clothes I wore here and wear them. Where did you put them?”

Wyatt, a little insolent, replied, “Sorry, I burned them.”

She was shocked at his audacity. “Why? Why would you do that to them?”

“They were rags, that’s why. Especially after all the rips and holes you got in them while running here.”

Isabella looked around the closet, beginning to acquiesce.

“This is going to be hard. Clothes have never really been important to me,” she mumbled to herself.

* * * *