With her heart clanging and the blood funneling like a hurricane in her ears, she couldn’t think. She couldn’t piece together what to do next.
He didn’t move, just stood there and waited for her to do or say something.
She reached for the ignition, but Heather’s face, frozen in cameo on her gravestone, suddenly flashed in Emily’s mind.
No.
This was a public road. It was a free country. She could park here if she damn well wanted to. He couldn’t touch her, not without risking an assault accusation. Daring him, she wrenched open the door. He backed up a step to avoid being hit by it as she got out.
She grabbed on to her fledgling courage with both hands and pretended not to be scared to death. “Is there a problem?” she demanded, staring directly into those seething gray eyes, her hands planted on her hips in challenge. He was bigger than she remembered, taller ... his shoulders broader. And then there was the scar, marring the angle of his jaw and the hollow beneath that lean cheek. She shivered at the idea of how he may have gotten it before she could stifle the reaction.
He looked away a moment, as if he didn’t trust himself to continue holding that stare or even to answer her question. Or maybe he was justconfused that she hadn’t run. He’d better get used to that, because she wasn’t the same scared little girl he once knew.
When that cold steel gaze latched on to hers once more, he demanded, “What do you want?”
Her pulse scrambled. Since he hadn’t testified at the second trial, it was the first time she’d heard his voice in ten years. Not since the trial when, after the summations from both sides, he’d risen from the defendant’s chair and told the jury what a mistake they would be making if they found him guilty. He was innocent, he’d insisted. He had stood there, wearing that cheap suit his court-appointed attorney had probably instructed his mother to buy, and met the gaze of every person in that jury box. He’d looked young and humble and terrified.
Emily had barely noticed. Her entire focus had been on seeing that he got what was coming to him.
That old familiar fury kindled inside her. The one emotion of which she was fully capable of experiencing the full range. “What do I want?” She laughed, the sound laden with bitter contempt. He didn’t really want to know, but since he’d asked, she would damn sure tell him. “I want you back in prison where you belong.” She bit down hard on her lip to prevent its blasted trembling as the rage catapulted through her. “I want you to pay for what you did until you draw your last pathetic breath.”
She blinked back the burn of tears. God, she would not cry in front of him. She’d cried enough and it hadn’t changed a damned thing. Heather was still dead ...shewas still dead.
For the first time she realized just how dead. Her life was a road that went nowhere ... an abrupt stop. She felt nothing except anger ... she was nothing. Because ofhim.
He started to turn away but changed his mind. A muscle in his tightly clenched jaw contracted before he spoke. “Your efforts would be much better spent,Miss Wallace, trying to find out who else was in your room that night and whether or not it was actually you they were after. Otherwise, you should do yourself a favor and stop wasting your time on me.”
10
Tuesday, July 16; 7:55 a.m.
Pine Bluff’s finest had cruised by Clint’s place at seven that morning, but he hadn’t expected to find the same sort of welcoming committee at Higgins Auto Repair Shop as well. Guess that made him a celebrity.
As he pulled into a slot in the parking lot next to the shop, he recognized the uniform at the scene. Ray Hale. So the chief of police himself had come to make sure Clint went to work like a good, law-abiding citizen. Would the chief be following him to the bank when he cashed his paycheck? Stocked up at the Piggly Wiggly? Took a piss?
Nothing should surprise Clint at this point. Having Emily Wallace stay parked outside his house until almost midnight despite his show of force had been surprising enough.
The idea that she’d sat out there watching him had made him madder than hell. He knew what she was up to; he just hadn’t realized how deeply it would get under his skin. His every move had been watched and dictated in prison. He’d had to learn to live with that constant surveillance; he didn’t like putting up with it now.
Part of him had wanted to scare the hell out of her so she’d go away and leave him alone. But he couldn’t do that. He needed her—she just didn’t know it yet. So he’d stormed right up to her SUV with the intention of rattling her cage, of making her think twice about what she’d always believed happened that night.
And what had he done? He’d gotten caught up in looking at her. Big brown eyes and a wide, lush mouth that she had tried to hide with her long, silky hair back in high school. He’d dreamed of kissing that mouth long before he’d taken the liberty, even though she’d used it a million times to tell him to get lost.
Just hearing her voice again had damaged him somehow.
He had planned for ten damned years what he would do and say when he had the chance, and he’d gotten that close and most of the things he’d intended to say had vanished from his stupid brain.
When she’d dared to get in his face to tell him off just like she used to, his gaze had ignored his objections and roamed every inch of her. The long skirt that only served to make him want to hike up the hem far enough to see those smooth thighs ... to maybe get a glimpse of lacy panties. She had a nicely curved bottom and high, full breasts that wouldn’t be disguised behind a buttoned-to-the-throat blouse.
That was the part that burned him the worst. Going into trial he’d been guilty of just one thing: lusting after Emily Wallace. That was it! And look what it had cost him.
Evidently she’d experienced a delayed flight reaction to his aggressive move. He’d seen neither hide nor hair of her this morning. He climbed out of his car and headed toward where Ray and Higgins stood talking. The conversation no doubt had to do with Clint, since both men looked less than happy.Welcome to my life.
Clint hadn’t worked on a car in a hell of a long time, not since he’d tinkered with his first heap back in high school. But he didn’t mind getting his hands greasy. He had to support himself; this was as good a way to do it as any.
As he neared the front of the shop he heard the tension in the two men’s voices before the clipped conversation came to an abrupt stop.
Then Clint saw the reason why. Big letters spray painted on one of the garage doors readHiring Killers Is a Sin.
