Night Mist

She pressed her lips together. Not for a moment did she believe that man. She also didn’t think his reticence had anything to do with a penchant for privacy. He was hiding from something, or someone, she knew it.

How strange his expression had been when she’d asked about a twin. She’d only posed the question because she couldn’t think of any other way to explain his uncanny similarity to Joe. Obviously, she’d touched a tender nerve. All she had to do was figure out what it was.

From the moment he’d first seen her, he’d known she would be trouble for him. It gave him no pleasure to have her prove him right.

As he lay on his bed with sleep farther away than ever, he linked his hands behind his head and swore at the stabbing pain. That damned hand would be his downfall yet!

Shifting to avoid putting any further weight on it, he again berated himself for being a clumsy fool. He’d injured himself trying to keep Mudcat’s building from falling around him, holding up sheet metal paneling as he’d reached for the drill. There was, however, no such thing as a successful shortcut—at least, not for him. He’d discovered that as a kid when he’d written a book report based on the cover jacket and received a failing mark; he’d had the lesson drilled into him every time impatience or pride had lured him into beating around the bush instead of doing something the right way. Now his throbbing hand reiterated the old lesson.

At least the derisive and damnably desirable doctor had been right about the ointment. The burning had about stopped. But the thing was still stinging like a nest of vengeful scorpions.

Dr. Rachel Gentry…what was he going to do about her? He’d never doubted the legitimacy of her credentials; however, just as there were cops who were crooked and politicians who were worse, he figured it was entirely feasible for a doctor—especially one who was so easy on the eyes—to be not quite on the up-and-up. What else explained what a woman with her understated class was doing in a moldy sinkhole like Nooton?

He’d known her name almost from the moment she’d moved in. The Duchess had told him when he’d gone downstairs to pay for another month’s rent. He’d let the drifty old landlady lure him into her parlor—crammed with everything except spiderwebs—and prattle to her heart’s content. It had been a sacrifice considering the god-awful cologne she doused herself with. The mere thought of how the artificial sweetness had conflicted with the strange smells drifting out from the kitchen made him shudder. But he’d sat and listened, her voice reminding him of a scratched-up vinyl record.

“…Dr. Rachel Gentry of the Washington Gentrys. I’m sure you’ve heard of them.” He hadn’t. “Oh, my dear, impeccable lineage. They’re connected to the Georgia Gentrys, you know. Rachel—she insists I call her Rachel, isn’t that sweet?—well, Rachel inherited that delightful complexion that’s become world renown. But I digress…”

She’d about digressed him into a coma. These days he couldn’t afford to give a damn about the hide on peaches, women or anything else; he had been pleased that he’d come away with enough information to justify his uneasiness about his new neighbor.

Rachel Gentry, he’d concluded, might be a legitimate physician, but she was no more a good Samaritan doing her bit for the underprivileged in this parish than he was the pope’s son. He would have to stay alert until she made her move.

Pity she was such a looker, though, and sharp. That had probably been the idea—send in the primo bait to sniff him out. He’d never made it a secret that he had an appreciation for independent women who had as much brainpower as beauty. Someone must have tipped them off and they’d decided to test the theory, since nothing else seemed to be working in their attempt to locate and flush him out.

Well, let them try. He enjoyed a game of cat and mouse as much as anyone, and he’d been getting more than a little restless, anyway. How the devil did Garth stand it around here? he wondered, then reminded himself that the snake lived on an estate surrounded with all the toys other people’s money could buy.

Feeling a new surge of bitterness, he jackknifed off the bed and paced the confines of his room. Room—ha! he thought with a new surge of sarcasm. The price of obtaining privacy had meant taking this man-size version of a toaster oven. Fog or no fog, the temperature remained lethal up here regardless of the hour, and the closest thing to air-conditioning crazy Adorabella provided was the oscillating fan on the dresser. Most of the time he refused to run it, because the ancient thing had almost no safety guard left and sounded as though it was still busy grinding up fingers of previous tenants.

He stopped before it, tempted to turn it on despite all the reasons he shouldn’t. He was drenched with sweat, and the hot, humid breeze would have to feel better than this. Of course, best of all would be a beer.

If he had to stay here much longer, he was going to have to look into getting one of those small refrigerators and a quiet fan…and then he could wile away the hours by wondering if he would live long enough to get his money’s worth out of them.

He reached for his cigarettes and lighter, reminding himself for the umpteenth time that life was easier without complications. Maybe somebody should have told bright-eyed Dr. Gentry that. Hell, she seemed too young to have her license, let alone be involved in this kind of filth.

His cigarettes and lighter lay beside the man-eating fan. Pulling one from the pack, he stopped it inches away from his mouth, then slammed it back onto the dresser. Down to almost three a day and she’d nearly ruined it for him.

He ran his good hand over his hair. Like the rest of him, it was soaking wet, another warning that he was edging toward an explosion.

What the hell, he thought, thinking about the beer again. Hadn’t he already reserved himself a first-class ticket to hell? He might as well make it a worthwhile trip.

He headed for the door.

CHAPTER FIVE

He thought his door might well be the only one in the house that didn’t squeak when opened. Humidity served as the culprit. With all the windows lifted to invite reluctant breezes, it had its run of the place. But he’d offset its effect on the hinges by keeping them oiled. As a result, when he eased out of his room and paused in the hall, he did so in near silence.

As was the case in his own room, the only light came from the blue-gray glow seeping through the window at the end of the hall. Because he lived in the darkness as much as he could in order to develop his night vision, he didn’t mind.

He took a moment to listen at Rachel Gentry’s door. There was a brief rustling and a squeak—as she turned in her bed?—followed by stillness. Without consciously intending to, he found himself picturing her as she slept, or rather the way he preferred to imagine her…wearing only the night’s wet kiss, her slim body graceful in a half twist like a ballerina in midleap, her hands lost in the dark silk of her hair. Just as unintentionally came the stirrings of arousal heating his body.

Like he needed this, he thought, berating himself for his weakness. He couldn’t afford to keep letting his thoughts drift to her, regardless of whether it made the hours of isolation pass more quickly or not. She already had too much of an effect on him, and that could prove problematic if things started coming apart.

Thirstier than ever, he made his way down the hall, treating the carpet runner like a serpent to be avoided. He’d learned that if he stayed on either the left or right side of it, he could usually reach the stairs without making a sound. It had become another game to him—a potentially lifesaving one. He’d taught himself the tone of each creak, too. Now when he heard someone coming, he knew exactly where they were positioned and who they were by their weight displacement on the hardwood floor.

But because of the relentless effects of the dampness combined with the age of the house, it was impossible even for him to get through without at least one squeak, and he found it, a new one, three feet in front of the landing. Silently cursing, he made a mental note of the spot.

The stairs were supposed to be easier because he’d learned to balance the bulk of his weight by resting his right hand on the railing, his left against the wall, and using a variation of a sailor’s method of descent in a ship. Under the circumstances, however, that maneuver was impossible, and the childlike tactic of sliding down on the railing wasn’t going to work, either, if he couldn’t easily stop himself. Deciding he needed the discipline, he started down the hard way.

Once he reached the second floor, he knew he could move more swiftly without having to worry about noise. The codger on this level snored loud enough to block out any noise he made, and no doubt the divorcee had yet to return from her nightly manhunt. But at the first level, he stopped.

There was something about this part of the house that bothered him. Something odd. If he put any merit in his landlady’s prattling, he would blame it on the spooks she claimed roamed around here. On the other hand, he’d met the voodoo queen, her housekeeper, and he figured she was the one who left him feeling he had a bull’s-eye painted at the base of his neck.

Even so, he enjoyed his periodic raids down here to swipe something from Jewel’s refrigerator. He never touched the food, though, no matter how hungry he was. Most of it looked strange enough to persuade him to turn down the Duchess’s frequent invitations to “family” dinners. The voodoo queen did, however, share his appreciation for beer, even if hers was a cheap local brand.

That’s what he’d come down for, and upon reaching the refrigerator, conspicuous by its modernness in a kitchen that was otherwise a throwback to forty, maybe fifty years ago, he carefully opened the right-hand door. The room filled with light and, uncomfortable, he quickly reached for a can on the bottom shelf. That’s when he felt it.

It had happened before, although never this powerfully. The only way to describe the intense awareness was that it felt like being in the cross hairs of the scope of a powerful rifle zeroing in on his skull. Without so much as drawing a breath, he dove beside the refrigerator, letting the door continue swinging open. It swept the huge kitchen with a yellow light, and he saw…

Nothing. Nothing at all. Except that the curtains, hung in lieu of a pantry door, were shifting. From the breeze of the swinging refrigerator door, he told himself.

Maybe.

He shifted to a crouch, then rose to his feet. He took a step forward, a knot of tension hardening in his gut, and then took another. With every expectation of a barrel appearing and discharging into his midsection, he grabbed both sides of the curtain and yanked it open.

“Jeez.” He backed away in shock and disgust.

Rachel jerked upright in bed, an unpleasant feeling, at once frightening and disorienting. But knowing the sensations passed more quickly when she didn’t fight them, she leaned back against the headboard and waited, completely still and silent, until the jumpiness and nausea passed. And to gain some insight into why she’d been jarred to consciousness this time.

Her mouth felt as though someone had stuffed it with the down from her pillows. Her shirt clung to her perspiration-dampened body like an unwelcome hand. Convinced that nothing more than the oppressive weather had intruded on her sleep again, she leaned over and checked the time.

Dismayed to see she hadn’t been asleep for even an hour yet, she kicked off the sheet tangled around her legs. At this rate she would be a basket case within the next week, she moaned silently, brushing hair out of her face and climbing out of bed. She went to the window to see if anything had changed—if there was a chance of a shower or a breeze. Something had to give, even if neither of those possibilities looked likely.

What unholy weather. That wasn’t only her opinion—everyone was saying so. Normally, a number of natives had explained to her, something would give one way or another. The logical ones blamed the persistent fog on global warming. A few strange characters pointed to UFO interference, the coming of the Age of Aquarius or Armageddon. Rachel saw logic in the theory about the troubled environment, but her instincts were edging toward a conclusion even stranger than the UFO idea.

“No more,” she moaned, massaging her temples with her fingertips. “Not tonight.”

Maybe a cup of water and two aspirin would relax her enough to get back to sleep. Shifting to massage her neck, she headed for the door. If she didn’t get some rest, Sammy was going to give her heck when she went in to relieve him in the afternoon. That kind of trouble she didn’t need. Up to this point in her career, she’d managed to show all her supervisors that she could handle her share of job stress; she wasn’t about to prove otherwise.

After moving the chair, she was about to free the secondary lock on her door, when she froze. What was that? A footstep?

She pressed her ear closer to the door and listened. For a moment everything remained silent, and then…it wasn’t exactly a step she heard, but a slight shifting of the floorboards, as though someone was trying to hide their movements.

Could it be Jay Barnes? What was he doing up?

The question was, how could anyone sleep in this sauna?

Rachel shut her eyes and tried to think. Maybe his hand hurt him worse than he’d admitted.

No doubt he’s been lying about a number of things, but if you open that door you may find out more than is healthy to know.