“I don’t mind the smell,” Libby replied, setting her paper bag of toiletries on the cheap-looking kitchen table. “In fact, it sort of reminds me of the smell in the pawnshop. It’s the scent of old furniture, history, people’s lives,” she finished, suddenly feeling awkward. Other than the kitchen table and the dresser, the only other piece of furniture in the room was the double bed, which looked incredibly small. “I…I think I’ll just go take a shower,” she murmured, feeling her face flushing heatedly. She picked up her sack of things and disappeared into the bathroom.
Tony breathed a sigh of relief when she was gone. He had sensed her sudden awkwardness and had responded with one of his own. God, it had been years since he had been in a motel room with an attractive woman. In fact, the last time had been when he’d been in college.
He smiled at the sudden memory. In those days there had been no such thing as coed dorms. His girlfriend of the moment had snuck out of her sorority house on a forged overnight pass and he had rented a motel room much like this one. What should have been a romantic, exciting tryst had instead ended in a heated argument. His girlfriend had been angry that he’d brought her to such a seedy place, ignoring the fact that he was a struggling student with very little money to spend. The night had ended in frustration, and there had been no lovemaking.
“And this night will be the same,” he said softly aloud, irritated when he recognized a certain wistfulness in his voice.
Damn, Libby was definitely getting under his skin. Libby and her big, azure eyes that did nothing to hide her feelings. She was so damned honest, so up-front—and yet so vulnerable. He was beginning to like her, and that was what scared the hell out of him. He could handle pure lust, a total sexual attraction, but he wasn’t so sure of the new feelings that he was experiencing.
He expelled a groan of confusion and aggravation and sat down on the edge of the bed. He reached for the phone and punched in the long-distance numbers that would connect him with his friend at the police department back in Kansas City.
“Marchelli,” the voice said on the other end of the line.
“Cliff, it’s Tony. Do you have anything for me?”
“Do I? Tony, where the hell are you?” Cliff asked worriedly. “I’ve been trying to get in touch with you all day.”
“I’m in a little town called Muddy Creek, someplace deep in the Ozarks area.”
“What in the hell are you doing down there, and why did you want to know about those men?” Cliff demanded. “Damn it, Tony, are you involved with the Higgens murder case? I told you we’d been pulled off that case and the red flag is out for the local authorities to keep their noses out of it.”
“I can’t do that,” Tony answered firmly. “My nose has been put out of joint with this.”
“Your butt is going to be burned if you don’t back off and get in touch with the chief. You may have quit the department, but the chief wants to know exactly what you’re doing in the middle of all this.”
“Tell him I’m on vacation,” Tony replied. “Just tell him I’m in a motel room with a beautiful blonde and I’ll be back in town in a couple of days.”
“Yeah, right,” Cliff said dryly. “And while I’m at it, I’ll tell him you and this fictional blonde were kidnapped by a UFO and last seen flying over Omaha.” Cliff sighed impatiently. “Come on, Tony, be straight and tell me what’s going on.”
“I can’t right now, because I don’t know,” Tony admitted. “Tell me what you got off the license number I gave you.”
“The car is registered to one Richard D. Hawkins, and Mr. Hawkins is not exactly a model citizen. I pulled everything I could on him, and the man has a record a mile long, everything from arson and armed robbery to conspiracy to commit murder. Unfortunately, the man has a lot of money behind him and hasn’t spent more than two years at a time in prison. Seems he’s fallen out of sight recently, and he’s suspected of being affiliated with an underground organization called the New Republic of Man. This organization is another offbeat supremacist group that is looking for an opportunity to rule the world. The one thing that makes this different from all the other cults and kooks is that the New Republic seems to be extremely well organized and well financed. These are not your ordinary nut cases.” Cliff paused to take a breath.
“What about known associates?” Tony asked, thoughtfully digesting all that Cliff had been able to find out. Thank God Cliff was conscientious. Tony knew he’d gone to a lot of trouble to find out everything he’d told him so far.
“One William Radford Taylor, an albino. Tony, this is one bad dude,” Cliff exclaimed. “He’s a known mercenary, trained in every lethal art there is, and he is a sociopath with no conscience, no ethics, no loyalty. Whatever you’ve become involved in, Tony, you’re in way over your head.” He exploded once again. “Damn it, Tony, you aren’t exactly Rambo.”
“Thanks for your vote of confidence, partner,” Tony replied dryly, then continued. “You don’t happen to know anyone trustworthy in the CIA, do you?”
Cliff expelled another breath of colorful language. “I don’t know what you’ve gone and gotten yourself involved in, but you’d better get yourself uninvolved real quick. These men are not two-bit hoods—they’re professionals and they’re deadly.”
“If I could get myself uninvolved, I would. I’m no hero,” Tony said truthfully. “But, Cliff, there really is a beautiful blonde involved.”
“Yeah, and my mother was a centerfold forPlayboylast month,” Cliff remarked with a snort, then sighed with resignation. “If I can’t talk you into coming back and dropping this whole thing, the least you can do is keep in constant touch and call for reinforcements if you need them. Will you at least do that much?”
“You’ve got a deal,” Tony agreed. “And one last thing…. Did you happen to read or learn anything about Jasper Higgens’s associates or assistants before you were pulled off the case?”
“Yeah, come to think of it, I do remember seeing something about a Jonathon Maxwell. He was a lab assistant with Higgens. I think they were getting ready to run a check on him before we got pulled off.”
“Great. Thanks a lot, Cliff,” Tony said.
“Tony, be careful,” Cliff said, as Tony slowly hung up the phone.
* * *
Libby stood beneath the spray of water, grateful that the shower was wonderfully warm and the spray was full and relaxing. She felt as if she’d accumulated a full week’s worth of grime in this single day. She scrubbed at her arms, trying to banish the remembered feel of the albino’s hands on her.
She lathered her hair, liberally using the shampoo she’d bought in the general store.
