Manhunt

Exhaustion weighed her down as she left her small, private quarters and entered the large kitchen. Now she would begin the process of baking muffins and biscuits, browning sausage and frying bacon and all the other tasks that would result in a breakfast to remember at the Redbud Bed-and-Breakfast.

There had been a time when she’d done these chores with joy, but lately the daily grind was beginning to take its toll on her. She was tired, tired all the time, but this morning the weariness weighed heavier than usual.

Of course, it didn’t help that she got very little sleep the night before, she thought as she rolled out the dough for biscuits. Knowing Nick Mead was beneath her roof had kept sleep at bay.

As she worked, she thought about the handsome FBI agent. Just because she’d had horrible visions about him didn’t mean they would come true. She’d long ago learned not to take what she saw in them at face value.

Sometimes they were just what they were, but other times they were filled with symbolism and meaning she only understood after the events in the vision had come to pass.

But, no matter how she twisted and turned the images her latest vision contained, they still frightened her, especially now that the man in her vision was here in town.

She tried to shove thoughts of Nick and her visions out of her head as she worked. She needed to concentrate on what she was doing in order to make the kind of meal guests had come to expect from her.

Dawn was breaking in the east, a sliver of light peeking over the last of the night clouds when she sat at the island with a cup of coffee.

It was almost six and even though breakfast officially started being served then, guests were rarely up that early. It was usually seven before anyone appeared in the dining room.

This was Alyssa’s favorite time of day, when all the preparations for breakfast were finished and she had these few precious moments to sit and reflect.

It was at this time of the morning when whisper-thin memories of her mother visited her. There were few memories, as Alyssa had lost her mother when she’d been four. But she still remembered a familiar scent, a sweet voice and loving hands roughened from basket weaving.

Her grandmother had been a basket weaver, as well. Alyssa had lived with her maternal grandmother until she was eleven, then her grandmother had passed away and Alyssa had been taken into the James family and raised with Savannah, Breanna and Clay by the loving, exuberant Rita Birdsong James and her husband, Thomas.

“Good morning.”

She gasped and tensed at the familiar deep voice. She turned on her stool to see Nick standing hesitantly in the kitchen doorway.

If she’d thought he looked handsome the night before, today he practically made her breathless. Clad in a lightweight, light gray suit, he looked coolly professional. “Something smells wonderful,” he said.

“If you’ll take a seat in the dining room, I’ll be glad to bring you some breakfast,” she replied.

“Actually, a cup of coffee will do me just fine for the moment.” Without waiting for an invitation, he walked over to the coffeemaker, poured himself a cup of coffee, then carried it over and sat on the stool next to hers at the kitchen island.

He was close enough to her that she could smell the scent of a subtle expensive cologne, see the long, individual lashes that framed those startling blue eyes of his.

Before his bottom was firmly planted on the stool, she jumped up from hers, not wanting to be near him. “Would you care for a muffin or something to eat with your coffee?”

There was a small part of her that resented that he was an early riser, that his presence had cut short the time she always allowed herself to just sit and relax.

There was a small part of her that resented that instead of sitting in the dining room like other guests, he’d invited himself into the kitchen area and poured himself a cup of coffee.

“No, thanks. I’m not much of a morning eater,” he replied, looking as comfortable as if he’d spent the last five years’ worth of mornings sitting in her kitchen.

“If you aren’t a breakfast eater, then you probably would have been better off getting a room at the motel out by the highway. It would have been cheaper.” She sounded like a disgruntled crab even to her own ears.

“Yeah, but they don’t offer turndown service.” His eyes twinkled, and there was a tone to his voice as if he was trying to flirt with her.

She turned her back and stirred a pot of gravy warming on the stove. Drat the man anyway. The last thing she wanted was him flirting with her. The last thing she needed was him having anything to do with her.

“I really prefer if my guests stay out of the kitchen,” she said as she turned back to face him. “You understand, liability reasons.”

“Of course,” he said, but didn’t make a move to stand. He took a sip of his coffee, his gaze lingering on her. “You intrigue me, Ms. Whitefeather. I sometimes stay at bed-and-breakfast establishments, and most of the time I find the proprietors cheerful and friendly, or motherly, or overeager to please. You don’t seem to fit the mold.”

His words made Alyssa realize just how odd and unfriendly she’d been around him. Perhaps she was drawing more attention to herself from him than necessary by being so distant and cool.

“I apologize,” she said and forced herself to sit on the stool next to him once again. “I’m usually not unfriendly, although I can tell you I have never wanted to mother any of my guests. You’ve just caught me at a bad time…with the murders happening in town and all.”

Instantly, whatever twinkle had lightened his eyes was doused. Instead, his eyes turned cold, like chunks of blue ice. “It’s been my experience that a murderer on the loose makes everyone on edge.”

He stood, grabbed his coffee cup and smiled. “And now I’ll go into the dining room like a proper guest should do.”

She breathed a sigh of relief as he left the kitchen. Her stomach had been in a knot since the moment he had said good morning. It was the visions, she told herself, and the fear of what might happen, that created the twist in her tummy. It had nothing to do with the fact that he was as handsome as the devil and charming as could be.

Within a half an hour the Harolds had joined Nick. The Harolds were a couple from Kansas City who were staying in the green room. They had been here for two nights and were checking out at noon that day.

As Alyssa filled the table with an array of breakfast foods, she listened to how easily Nick conversed with the older couple on a variety of topics.

He was as charming with them as he’d been with her and that made her feel better. He probably hadn’t been flirting with her at all, he’d just been being himself and that just happened to be exceptionally charismatic.

Within thirty minutes Virginia Maxwell had joined the group. Virginia, a pretty blonde, was the wife of the first victim of the serial killer. She’d moved into the bed-and-breakfast almost immediately after her husband’s murder, and was staying in the pink room.

The fourth person who rented a room from Alyssa rarely made it down for breakfast with anyone else. Michael Stanmeyer was something of a recluse. He’d been a guest of Alyssa’s for the past two years and he usually came down the stairs to the dining room after all the other guests had eaten.

From the kitchen, she heard Nick’s deep voice, although she couldn’t make out what he had said, but Virginia’s peals of tinkling laughter grated on her nerves.

In the three months Virginia had stayed here, Alyssa had found herself alternating between feeling sorry for the pretty woman and wanting to wring her neck.

She gathered up the last of the freshly baked biscuits and took them out to set on the table. “So, Ms. Whitefeather, when do you eat breakfast?” Nick asked.

“Ms. Whitefeather…my, how formal. Call her Alyssa and you can call me Virginia,” Virginia said. “And this is Dave and Cindy.” She gestured to the couple, who beamed at Nick with smiles that looked surprisingly alike. “And even though you’ll probably never see him, weird Michael is in the purple room.”

“Weird Michael?” Nick raised a dark eyebrow quizzically and looked at Alyssa.

“Michael Stanmeyer, and he isn’t weird. He’s just extremely shy.” Alyssa wanted to glare at Virginia, but instead she kept her focus on Nick. “Mr. Stanmeyer is a very nice man.”

“Speaking of nice men…” Nick looked at his watch and pushed away from the table. “I’ve got a couple of my friends to meet. I hope you all have a pleasant day.”

Alyssa could have sworn his gaze lingered on her for just a moment longer than on the others and she felt the beginning of a headache thrum at her temples.

No, she thought desperately. She was not going to have a vision…not here…not now. She had to control it. She had to suppress it. She’d done it before, felt the pressure of a vision trying to get through and had managed to back it away.

What she needed to do was get away…escape to the isolation of the kitchen where she could focus on refusing the vision entry into her mind.

“Excuse me, I forgot something…” She ran for the kitchen and sat on the stool where she had been sitting when Nick had first entered the room.

Gripping the edge of the countertop, she closed her eyes and fought against the dizzying blackness that sought to possess her. “No,” she whispered, the words a half sob.

But, no matter how hard she fought, the blackness came and immediately following the dark was a vision…the vision. Nick’s lips on hers, his hands stroking heat into every area he touched and finally her begging him to take her, to make love to her.