Seeing Red (21 page)

Her stomach churned.

There was nothing to do but wait for dawn.

A sharp noise jerked Ellis awake. With a quick, startled breath, she grabbed the gun and sat up straight.

Blinking, she realized it was the telephone—and that it was daylight.

Pain stabbed in her neck from having fallen asleep slumped in the corner of her sofa.

She snatched up the phone. “Nate?”

“I’m on my way. I ran into a little snag,” he said. “Don’t leave there without me.”

“Thank God you’re all right.” Her insides quivered with relief.

“Has something happened?” Alarm colored his voice.

With a tension-relieving sigh, she said, “No. But you said you’d only be gone a short while. And I tried to call . . . .” Her voice trembled. Now that she knew he was safe, she realized just how terrified of losing him she’d been.

“Sorry. The boat motor cut out, and my flashlight went dead, so I couldn’t find the damn screwdriver to fix it. It’s a freakin’ long way to paddle against the outgoing tide.”

“Why didn’t you call?” Anxiety channeled quickly over to irritation.

“While I was groping around trying to find the screwdriver in the dark, my phone fell out of my pocket into the water.”

“What are you calling on now?”

“I have another one; it wasn’t with me.” Before she could question him, he said, “Listen, I’m almost to the gate. Call security and tell them to let me in. I’m driving a black Hummer.”

What kind of person has more than one cell phone? “Why didn’t you call me as soon as you got to the plantation?”

“I didn’t want to wake you.”

She shot to her feet. “Goddammit! You think I could go to bed when you were out there possibly in trouble?”

“You were supposed to be asleep long before you would have even considered I was in trouble.”

She gritted her teeth and growled. Then she hung up on him.

After she called the gate, she stood at the sliding glass door and waited.

When he stepped out of that shiny black Hummer, her heart took a skipping lap around her chest.

He looked up and saw her watching. He grinned. Dear Lord in heaven, what that smile did to her. It cooled her anger and warmed her heart. The hours away from him and the worry that he’d been hurt had acted as a crucible, burning away everything except the purest of emotions. It was startling to realize just how much she wanted him.

She reminded herself that not only was she pissed at him, but also that he’d been her cousin’s boyfriend. Sure, it had been a lifetime ago, but something still felt just a little taboo about lusting after him.

She used those feelings to mask what was in her heart. She could not open that door with her desire for him running wild. Nate was far too perceptive not to notice.

Standing at the door, she waited. When she saw him through the peephole, she jerked it open. “You’re lucky I don’t shoot you—”

The look on his face dried her words in her throat. Following his gaze, her breath stopped when she saw what had been tapping against her front door.

C
HAPTER
S
IXTEEN

N
ate’s throat was tight when he said, “Are these like the one you found on your car?”

Revulsion shone in Ellis’s eyes as she stared at the cluster of longstemmed roses. They hung from her door knocker by a length of black ribbon. Their petals were bruised and withered, darkening their color to that of dried blood.

A note dangled from the ribbon. Nate knelt to read it.

Still waiting . . .

“Yes.” Her answer was a low whisper. She wrapped her arms around her middle. “I thought . . . ” She bit her lip.

Nate reached out, pulled her into his arms, and held her shaking body tight against him. She buried her face against his shoulder and sighed, the warmth of her breath reaching the skin beneath his shirt.

Stroking her hair, he wished he could make all of her hurt, all of her fear, go away.

“I shouldn’t have left you alone.” God, what if Alexander had wanted to do more than leave a disturbing message? A dark sickness the color of those battered roses welled in Nate’s gut.

She pulled away. “I was safe . . . the alarm . . . the gun. He wouldn’t have hurt me.” Her trembling had stopped. The inner strength that had always amazed Nate reemerged; it shone in her eyes and was written in her posture.

As much as he admired her strength, a little part of him wanted her to
need
him.

He gave a quick nod. “Call the police. Let’s see if he left us anything useful.”

As Ellis made the call, Nate studied the rose and the door knocker more closely. The brass knocker was a horseshoe; he wondered if Ellis had chosen it because of her love for horses or for good luck.

Ellis doesn’t count on luck.

He nudged the door closed with his foot and joined her in the kitchen.

“They’re sending someone right away,” she said. Her fingers lingered near her lips. It looked like she was going to speak again.

“What?” he prompted.

“Nothing.” She turned away and started making coffee.

Nate watched her carefully. She was tired. Maybe he wasn’t reading her right. Still, something seemed hidden in those eyes, as if there was something she wasn’t telling him.

Fifteen minutes later, a Belle Island police officer arrived and took Ellis’s statement. The man seemed distracted, in a hurry. It was clear he didn’t view two mysterious appearances of roses as a threat to person or property—even after they explained Hollis Alexander to him.

He bagged the roses and took several fingerprints from the knocker and the doorknob. He left with a reminder for Ellis to be cautious and the air of a man who wanted to be someplace else.

Ellis crossed her arms over her chest and watched him descend the stairs. “Well, that was a waste of time.”

Nate lifted a shoulder. “Maybe, maybe not. Maybe we’ll get lucky with one of those fingerprints.”

Ellis scoffed.

“We’re not any worse off than if we hadn’t called them,” Nate said. “At least now it’s on record.”

“Uh-huh.” Ellis didn’t sound convinced. “I’ve got to get ready for class.”

Greg was in the shower, washing off the fatigue of his long night, when his cell phone rang. He reached out, wiped his hand on a towel, and picked the phone off the top of the toilet tank. Looking at the ID, he saw it was Bradley.

Greg answered, “What do you have for me?”

“More than you can guess.”

Greg shut off the water.

“Some stuff with this guy isn’t matching up.” Excitement built in Bradley’s voice. “On the surface, everything is legit. He was in the marines and now works security for an international shipping and courier company. But, when you scratch just a little deeper, the guy has some serious money, too much tucked away in too many holding companies and offshore accounts for a man in his position.”

“And?” Greg prompted.

“And?” Bradley mocked. “Dude,
international shipping.
Big money in moving illegal crap—drugs, weapons, stolen goods, people. Very lucrative. Why else hide the money?” Bradley paused, as if letting Greg catch up with his line of thinking. Then he said, “If this guy isn’t being investigated by the government, he needs to be.”

Greg had never been so glad he’d followed his gut instinct. He’d ignored it once, and the result had cost him everything. Never again.

He had to get Nate Vance away from Ellis.

As Nate drove Ellis to the park, he seemed to be retreating further from her with each rotation of the wheels. His hands gripped the wheel just a little too tightly. His attention cut to the rearview mirror a little too often. The steady hum of the all-terrain tires was the only noise in the car. The drone faded and returned with every stop sign, each time emphasizing the lack of conversation just a little more.

Not that she wanted to talk. It would be hard to discuss what was going on and not expose her underlying worry that Rory was behind the roses. Right now, she was too tired to think clearly, let alone decipher a mystery. She had to save what energy she had to help her girls.

She watched out of the passenger window as they drove through downtown. People around here drove nice midpriced sedans, minivans, and pickup trucks. This widestanced black Hummer stood out like a combat helmet on a beauty queen.

Nate pulled into the park’s gravel parking lot. It was shaded by the wide reach of the live oaks. Some of these trees were well over three hundred years old and had branches larger than most tree trunks. Ellis always felt insignificant, a tiny speck in the vastness of time, when she stood beneath their boughs.

Nate had been the first to make her see the oaks that way. She looked over at him and wondered if he still felt that way about them. Maybe later, when his face didn’t look so stony, she’d ask.

Looking around the lot, Ellis noticed a couple of cars parked a bit farther down with drivers sitting behind the wheel. She recognized the closest one as Chelsea Obermeir’s mother. She was glad to see parents being extra vigilant; her warnings about Hollis Alexander had made an impact.

She gathered her backpack from the floorboard and climbed down out of the Hummer. Chelsea’s mom lifted a hand in a rather tentative wave. Ellis waved back as she headed for the spot where the girls had already gathered for class.

She’d gone about ten feet when she turned to see Nate climbing up to sit on the hood of his vehicle. Even though he was wearing sunglasses, she could tell he was scanning the area. He paid particular attention to the dense woods at the edge of the park.

She looked in that direction. The thought that Alexander could be hidden there watching sent an icy finger of revulsion down her spine. For some reason, even though it was daylight, the thought of him skulking around when she was out in the open was much more disturbing than him looking through her windows in the dead of night.

As soon as she got near the girls, they all started talking at once.

“You were right, Ms. Greene!”

“Oh, my God, did you hear?”

“It was on the news, but my mom already knew because—”

Ellis held up her hands. “Whoa! Slow down.”

Jessie Baker stepped up as spokeswoman. “You were right about us needing to be careful. A girl was attacked and killed last night.” Her eyes were huge and her face grave. “It was on the morning news.”

Ellis went cold; her skin felt the stab of a thousand tiny needles. The distraction of the police officer now made sense.

It was impossible to think this attack was unrelated to Alexander. If he left the roses, he was definitely in Belle Island last night.

Chelsea Obermeir added, “My uncle’s a cop, and he called my mom this morning. The girl’s roommate found her on the beach at Seaside Apartments this morning.”

With numb lips, Ellis asked, “Did your uncle say if they had any idea who did it?”

“He just told my mom not to let me go anywhere by myself.”

“He’s right. None of you girls should.” Ellis quickly reorganized today’s lesson in her mind. What would be the most valuable defense tactic she could give these girls? “I see some of your mothers brought you. Did anyone walk here alone?”

They chorused, “No way!”

“Good. Good.” She set down her bag. “Listen, I want you all to pair up and practice your defense of an attack from behind, like we did yesterday. I’ll be right back.”

She trotted over to Nate.

He slid off the hood and stood, removing his sunglasses. His gray eyes were as sharp as a surgical blade and his body rigidly tense.

“Did you know a woman was killed last night?” she asked.

She could see the muscles in his jaw tighten as he clenched his teeth.

“Where?” he asked.

“Seaside Apartments. She was found on the beach this morning.”

He scanned three-hundred-sixty degrees. “Okay. You should be all right here for a while. I’m going to go see what I can find out. I’ll be back before your class is finished.”

“Okay.”

He made her doublecheck to make certain she had his new cell number in her phone.

She started away, then stopped and looked back at him. She finally voiced the question that she’d pushed from her mind the instant the girls had shared the news. “Why someone else and not me?”

He stepped closer. “Maybe because you’re making it too difficult for him . . . ” He blinked slowly and shook his head. Then he gently cupped her cheek. “I really can’t say for sure—but I’m damned thankful.”

The fierce caring she saw in his eyes made her light-headed. She’d waited her whole life for someone to look at her like that, as if he’d willingly lay down his life for her.

She swallowed, but her mouth was so dry the muscles in her throat bunched into a knot.

Instead of making a fool of herself by wrapping her arms around his waist and pressing her ear to his chest to hear if his heart was beating as fast as hers, she whispered, “We have to catch him.”