Chapter 17
Emily parked across the road from Austin’s house.
Her antiperspirant had long since melted in the ninety-eight-degree heat.
Even with every window in the SUV open and the shade from the maples, her clothes plastered to her skin in five minutes flat.
She couldn’t stop thinking about that little weasel, Fairgate, and what he’d said.
Somehow the worries about her father had overridden the urgency of this.
She stared at the aging farmhouse. She had thought nothing would ever distract her from this sacred mission.
But she needed to understand what was going on with her father.
Every instinct warned that her father’s business with Fairgate somehow related to Clint Austin.
Fairgate had said her father had kept his secret all these years.
But Fairgate could be toying with her. She could be reading too much between the lines.
Coupled with the rumors floating around regarding Austin’s innocence, doubt as to what she thought she knew had taken far too formidable a foothold.
Fairgate was the only loan shark in town. That both Ed Wallace and Clint Austin had been involved with him wasn’t such a stretch. Except for the idea that this was her father she was talking about. He didn’t do shady.
She needed answers. For more than a decade she had focused on Heather’s murder and keeping Clint Austin behind bars. Had her parents needed her and she hadn’t been there?
Her gaze settled on the house across the road.
If she asked him for information regarding Fairgate, would he tell her what he knew?
She had to be out of her mind to even consider it.
But then she was desperate. The idea that her parents needed her help had shaken her from the obsession that had been her whole existence for so very long.
Her heart rate accelerated at the idea of getting close enough to him to carry on a conversation.
She closed her eyes and blocked the sensations.
Every day of his time in prison she’d hated him .
. . wanted him to die. Now he was out and she couldn’t stop those damned feelings she’d thought were dead and buried.
That she could still feel anything for him other than sheer hatred made her sick with shame.
Maybe she was losing it. Her eyes popped open. Maybe her parents were right and she did need Dr. Brown.
No. It was being here, in Pine Bluff, surrounded by all those crazy rumors about Austin’s innocence, getting to her. Had to be. She was doubting herself, that was all.
Austin’s red Firebird appeared in her rearview mirror, roaring along the dirt road, dust flying behind it. He slowed when he neared her car, turned unhurriedly into his drive without looking in her direction, parked in his usual spot, and went inside the house.
If she worked up the nerve to ask him about Fairgate, Austin would just lie to her even if he knew the truth.
She was the last person on earth he would want to help.
He should be the last person she would ask for help.
She had to get her head on straight and start thinking clearly. Did she dare ask her parents?
Her brain abruptly registered Austin exiting the house.
Where was he going now? So far he’d come home each evening and stayed put, at least until she left at ten or so. He hadn’t changed clothes. Same worn jeans hugging his long legs and grease-stained T-shirt stretched over his muscled torso that he’d been wearing when he got out of the car.
“What is he doing?” she muttered.
He strode right past his car and down the drive.
Toward the road . . . toward her—
Instinct had her grabbing her cell phone.
She jerked it loose from the charger, her pulse reacting to an adrenaline dump as Austin crossed the road.
She sat there and watched him come closer .
. . something implacable and lethal in his stride.
As he neared her car, the fury on his face .
. . in his eyes registered. Her danger gauge abruptly kicked in full throttle.
The real fear she should have felt ten seconds prior tore through the dim-witted curiosity muddling her good sense.
He stopped at her door, glared down at her with such ferocity that the oxygen stalled deep in her chest. “Get out of the car.”
For an instant she couldn’t find her voice. The way he looked at her . . . such anger . . . such . . . pain. Confusion scattered her thoughts. “Stay away or I’ll call the police.” Her voice shook as badly as her hands.
His jaw tightened with that fury blazing in his eyes. “Call ’em. Call right now.”
He hadn’t made a move to open her door or even touch her vehicle, but she couldn’t be sure he wouldn’t do just that any second now.
He was in a rage. Was this the kind of rage he’d been in when he entered her bedroom uninvited that night?
Her mind argued with her. He’d looked terrified that night. Frantic. Nothing like this.
Her fingers fumbled across the keypad. When the 911 dispatcher had finished her spiel, Emily gave her location and asked that the police be sent right away.
She ended the call and reluctantly met his gaze once more. “The police are on the way.” She meant to warn him to step back from her car, but the words got stuck in her throat.
The fury she’d seen seconds ago had dissolved into something she couldn’t readily identify. A mixture of pain and desperation she couldn’t adequately assess.
He thrust his fingers through his hair and backed away from her car, but his eyes, hollow with grief, didn’t leave hers.
A shiver rushed over her skin, prompted by a chill wind from the grave even as she sat sweating in this damned car.
Some crazy part of her urged her to do something .
. . to reach out to him. Before she could stop the reaction, she’d gotten out of the car.
“What’s wrong with you?” Her voice was small, fragile.
“Why?”
The anguish in that one syllable unsettled something lodged so deep inside her that she couldn’t respond. What was happening to her?
“Why?” he repeated, fury conquering the agony. He moved in closer, trapping her against the car. “Why did you do this?”
She trembled as her senses reacted to his nearness.
She told herself it was the fear that had stolen the very air from her lungs.
But that was a lie. It was him. Just like before when she’d dreamed of being so close to him.
Of being the one he wanted. An ache pierced her.
Oh, God, how could her emotions betray her like this?
Her hands went against his chest as if that action could somehow stop this insanity. She mustered her voice: “Move.”
Pushing against him was like running headlong into a mountain.
His heart drummed beneath her palms. The contour of muscles testing the thin material of his T-shirt making her dizzy.
The heat from his body, so close to her own, made her feel restless.
Afraid. She needed to run. She needed to get away from him.
But she couldn’t move. She could only stare into those haunting eyes.
The dust swirling in the distance drew her gaze toward the spot where the road intersected the highway. A truck. Blue light throbbing on the dash.
The police.
Thank God.
The truck skidded to a stop next to her car and the driver’s side door flew open.
Chief Ray Hale rounded the hood. “Get in the truck, Clint.”
Austin didn’t move, didn’t shift that unrelenting gaze from hers. The caress of his ragged breath on her face had her quivering with something she couldn’t label as fear.
“Clint,” Ray repeated, “get in the truck. Now.”
Austin looked at Ray for the first time since his arrival. His face a hard, expressionless mask, he didn’t say a word, just backed away from Emily and walked over and got into Ray’s truck.
Relief made her knees weak.
“Are you all right?” Ray stood next to her now.
“Yes.” Her voice quaked. “He . . .” She shrugged, at a loss for the right words. “I don’t know what happened. He went in the house and he came out . . . like this.”
“Do you mind,” Ray’s voice was gentle, “telling me what you’re doing out here? My officers have reported seeing your car a couple of times.”
Austin sat completely still in the passenger seat of Ray’s truck. But his eyes, that unyielding, penetrating gaze, remained on her as if she’d committed some unthinkable offense.
“Emily?”
She dragged her attention away from Austin and peered up at Ray. “I’m sorry. What did you say?”
“What’re you doing out here?” That he looked more concerned than perplexed told her he thought she was just as crazy as her parents did. Her parents had probably warned him.
“I’m . . .” No use lying. He was the chief of police. He would figure it out even if Austin didn’t tell him. “I’m watching him.”
Ray studied her a moment; then he nodded. “I see.” He glanced at his truck and then at Austin’s house. “Why don’t you go on home and we’ll talk later. Right now, I need to find out what’s going on with Clint.”
Ray didn’t say that he figured she had done something to antagonize Austin. He didn’t have to. The innuendo was there, hanging in the tension suddenly vibrating between them.
“Thank you for coming.”
“I was already on the way when dispatch relayed your call.”
He was? But why?
“Are you certain you’re all right, Emily?”
“I’m fine.” She looked away from Ray’s prying gaze, got into her SUV, and started the engine, but she didn’t drive away immediately. She watched until he had pulled his truck into the driveway next to Austin’s car and the two of them had gotten out and gone inside the house.
Her actions on autopilot, she shut off the engine. She wasn’t going anywhere until she knew what the hell happened to have the chief of police headed here even before she called. If whatever had happened was relevant to Heather’s murder, she wanted to know.