Chapter 1 #9
Jack thought at once of Josephine, whom he’d been unable to reach by phone, and the Armstrongs, who he’d been unable to find.
Every time he’d tried to call, her phone had gone directly to voicemail.
He tried it again, standing in the crowd.
Voicemail. He disconnected and pushed his way through the crowd to flash his credentials at one of the cops trying to hold back the curious.
Distracted, the cop barely looked at the ID, waving him through as the officer rushed to stop a very loud, angry man with a camera trying to push his way past the barrier.
Jack felt the cold brush of mist from the sea as he walked toward two uniformed men standing at the edge of the cliff. The closer he got, the stronger the wind blew, the more chilled he felt.
Don’t let it be Josephine. He repeated the mantra in his head with each step. Heart in his throat, he neared the edge, and even then, he hated to look down for what he feared he would see.
A woman lay broken on the rocky shore below, her blond hair fanned out around her head.
* * * * * * * * * *
CHAPTER 8
Even with Darwin’s hand still on her throat, Josephine started at the knock at the back door. For just an instant she held some hope. But then she saw Darwin Armstrong’s expression as he reached to open the door. It wasn’t Jack Rawlins standing on the step, but the other Armstrong twin, Wayne.
That’s when she knew things were about to get much worse.
Unless she could talk her way out of it and quickly.
“Glad you stopped by,” she said, Darwin’s massive hand loosening a little on her throat. “I have news.” She saw the interest in their faces. “Look in the front of the shop.”
Darwin let out a growl of laughter. “Right. Like I’m going to let go of you to look at what you’ve done with the shop.”
“Wayne,” she said, “Go see what I have planned.” She knew his curiosity would get the better of him—assuming she was right and the main reason they were here was to get their money back that she’d won from them.
“Don’t let her go,” the twin said as he left them to go look in the front of the shop. He didn’t come back as quickly as she’d expected, but when she saw his face, she knew she had at least one of them.
“What is this?” Darwin asked, no longer sounding as tough as before, and his grip on her throat was almost gentle now.
She managed to smile. “Poker. Isn’t that why you came all the way out here to the West Coast? You want to win your money back and then some, right?”
“What’s she talking about?” Darwin demanded of his twin.
“Check it out,” Darwin said. “I’ll keep an eye on her.”
The moment Darwin let go and stepped away, Josephine leaned against the wall and rubbed her throat.
There was no reason to try to escape, which would have been foolish at best. Both Armstrongs were terrible gamblers, but they were the kind who believed that if they just kept trying, they were bound to win big.
It was the fallacy of the gambling mind.
Maybe I lost last time, but all I have to do is make it back.
She knew that if she had Darwin, his twin would go along as well.
“How do we know you won’t cheat us again?” Wayne said to her.
“I promise you will both walk away with more than you lost if I have to take it out of any money I win,” she said.
“You did all this for us?” he asked suspiciously.
She laughed and shook her head. “I’m stuck out here for a while. I don’t want to run a bridal shop, so what else can I do?”
“When is this game?” Wayne asked as Darwin returned.
“The first game is as soon as I can get enough players to make it…interesting,” Josephine said confidently.
“Wait, what about our money?” his brother demanded.
“She’s promised our money and more,” Wayne said.
Darwin shook his head. “And you trust her?”
“Leave me your phone number and I’ll let you know when the game is,” she said quickly. “It won’t be long before you hear from me.”
Wayne asked for her phone to put his number in, even as his twin tried to argue that she could disappear again with their money.
She pretended to search her pockets for her phone, but she’d already remembered where she’d left it. “Not sure where it is. Where are you staying? I’ll get word to you.”
-#-
Jack saw the Armstrong twins leaving the back of Seaside Vows. As badly as he wanted to go after them, he had to make sure that Josephine was all right. He parked in the alley. Finding the back door unlocked, his fear amplified.
“Josephine!” He’d started up the stairs to the apartment when he heard a noise downstairs.
Quickly he turned and raced back down. He found her standing in the shop’s reception area among the poker supplies she’d bought.
“Josephine,” he said like a curse, then repeated it like a sigh as he headed for where she was standing.
The moment he got close, he saw the red marks on her neck. He moved quickly to her, lifting her chin for a better view and swore when he saw that it was already starting to bruise. “What the—”
“I’m fine,” she said pulling away. “I took care of it.”
He shook his head, thinking about the woman lying on the rocky shore below the cliffs. It could have been Josephine. Next time it might be.
When he left the scene on the cliff, he overheard one of the cops say, “One witness said he saw her jump and other said she slipped and fell. One woman swore she saw her arguing with a man who pushed her.” The cop shook his head.
“Who knows, but this area has the highest rate of suicides in the entire state.”
“Probably just got too close to the edge and fell,” the other cop said. “These sandstone cliffs are treacherous this time of year. One little slip and down you go.”
He swallowed at the memory and tried to assure himself that Josephine was just as she said, fine.
“I’m all right,” she said. He could feel her studying him. “Are you okay?”
He tried to shake off the image of the woman below the cliff and the Armstrongs leaving out the back of Seaside Vows. Josephine was fine. For the moment. He reminded himself that she hadn’t needed his help. Hell, she didn’t even want it.
“How exactly did you take care of the Armstrongs?” he asked, knowing he wasn’t going to like the answer.
“They’re coming to my first poker game. I promised they would win what they both lost and a little more.”
He swore. She was in trouble and he wasn’t sure how seriously she was taking all of this. “Six thousand dollars. How can you promise they’ll get that back and more if they are as bad poker players as I suspect?”
“I’m not going to cheat, if that’s what you’re worried about. Since you insist on being there, I thought the two of us could make it happen. Unless you’ve changed your mind.”
Jack shook his head. He wished he could change his mind about Josephine. But his mind had little to do with the way he felt about her. “You know I’ll help.”
“Good, then there is nothing to worry about,” she said as she stepped to him to place her palm over his heart. “I do appreciate you being here.”
He nodded, wondering how true that was. She hadn’t needed him with the Armstrong twins. She hadn’t needed him all the time they were apart. It didn’t appear that she needed him at all.
-#-
Josephine could tell that something more than the obvious was bothering Jack. When she told him she was going down to the pub to talk to Shane about her poker party she had planned, he’d said he’d catch up with her.
It wasn’t until she walked into the pub and heard about the young woman who had fallen from the cliff at the edge of town that she wondered if Jack had also heard about it.
“Quite a crowd had gathered,” Shane said. “Happens too often,” he said with a shake of his head as Jack walked in and took a stool next to her. “I saw you talking to the cops at the edge of the cliff. Pretty gruesome, huh.”
“Not something I ever want to see again,” Jack said, his gaze holding hers.Josephine felt the horror of it.
Jack had been there. He’d seen the woman at the bottom of the cliff.
She swallowed. He’d thought it might be her.
No wonder he’d looked so frightened when he’d come into the shop looking for her.
“Did the cops tell you anything?” Shane was asking.
“They don’t know what happened, several different stories from alleged witnesses, but they thought she’d probably walked too close to the edge and slipped and fell. Just wasn’t being careful,” Jack finished, his gaze coming back to Josephine.
When Shane stepped away to get a couple drinks, she said under her breath, “You don’t have to beat me over the head. I got the message. I’m being careful.”
“So, tell me about this poker party,” Shane said as he returned. She was more than glad to do just that and wasn’t surprised when he told her some men had shown an interest in the game.
“Great, let me know who all would like to attend and we’ll set a date,” she told him.
Next to her, Jack’s only comment was to order a drink, saying, “Make it a strong one, Shane.”
-#-
Jack had Josephine run through the plan a third time as he walked around the table. He wanted to know as much as possible about everyone who planned to come. The poker table for eight would seat Jack, Josephine, Wayne and Darwin Armstrong and four locals.
He’d checked into the four locals. Hank Langhor owned the local hardware store, Pete Brooks drove a seafood supply truck, Ridge VanBuren was a bartender at the pub, and Nels Green worked for a local building contractor.
No red flags came up on any of them to make Jack suspicious.
In their mid-twenties, Pete and Ridge were the youngest. Hank, the oldest, was a nice-looking gray-haired sixty-seven-year-old, and Nels, a chubby balding man, was in his mid-thirties.
None of them had any connection he could find with Josephine or her Aunt Clara.
The only one with a connection to Montana was Ridge.
He’d gone to Montana State University in Bozeman.