“Probably right, but I’m just saying we need to be on our guard. We don’t have one damn clue who’s after us or why.”
“Maybe the clue’s in here.” She patted her purse.
It was a stroke of luck that Anna had stuffed the folder full of clippings in her bag and had it on her shoulder the entire time. In all the chaos, he never would’ve remembered to grab the file, and if earlier in the evening he’d doubted they would find something important among the clippings, getting shot at while looking for them had convinced him otherwise. “Okay. So if we’re not going to the police station, where are we going to go?” He’d been away so long, no place immediately sprang to mind.
Anna tapped her chin only a moment before her face lit up with an idea. “Someplace safe and out of the way. Someplace where we can look at the clippings without worrying about getting shot at—my Uncle Joe’s cabin. It’s an hour’s drive, but Simone and I spent time there as kids, so there’s also a chance she could’ve taken Bobby to the cabin. That’s a long shot, I guess, but at least the place is isolated. I think we’d be safe long enough to get our ducks in a row.”
He hated to burst Anna’s bubble, but rows of ducks might not be enough to stop a killer. “I don’t suppose there’s a gun at your Uncle Joe’s cabin?”
She fished a bobby pin out of her purse, twisted her hair and fastened it out of her eyes. “Will a .45 Colt do?”
“NO SIGN OF SIMONE.” Anna didn’t try to conceal the disappointment in her voice. She hadn’t really expected to find Simone at the cabin, but she had hoped, more than she’d realized, that they would be lucky enough to find her here. She wanted desperately to keep Simone and Bobby safe from Boots, and frankly, she wanted desperately to ask Simone what the hell was really going on. Playing cat and mouse with an armed gunman in the Tangleheart Library wasn’t exactly her idea of a good-time Tuesday night.
She paced to the window and peered through the curtains and breathed out a relieved sigh. She saw no one creeping around the cabin and no suspicious headlights coming up the road—only Charlie’s Camaro parked in the drive, showing off its custom wax job under the spotlight of a full moon. “I hope the police are having better luck than we are.”
“We’ll find her soon,” Charlie said. Even in summer, the nights grew cool in the hilly areas surrounding Tangleheart, and Charlie had built a small fire in the hearth. He generally accomplished everything he set his mind to, and that was presently manifesting itself in the way he kept poking one particular log. He didn’t give up until it flamed to life and filled the cabin with the smell of cedar and homespun memories.
Uncle Joe’s cabin was one of the few places she’d felt happy as a child. In the first few months after her mother went to prison, Grandma and Uncle Joe brought her here nearly every weekend to escape the taunts of the neighborhood bullies. Of course, not every neighbor was a bully. There was gentle Simone.
And there was Charlie.
After Charlie took her under his wing, no one dared to treat her unkindly. Maybe it was a good thing he left town when he did or she might never have learned to fight her own battles. She fisted her hands, and her nails bit into her palms. No matter how many times she told herself he had every right, every reason, to go, it still felt like a kick in the gut—the same kick in the gut she felt the day her mother officially signed her over to Grandma for her own good.
Even as she willed them to relax, the muscles in her abdomen tensed. She placed her hand over her belly and exhaled. Her whole body felt restless. She needed to go for a run to clear her head, needed to run until she was spent, needed to run until she’d replaced all her anxieties with total body exhaustion.
Her eyes fell on Uncle Joe’s .45 Colt she’d retrieved from the safe and placed on the kitchen counter.
There would be no run for her tonight.
“Anna?” Charlie called to her from the bedroom.
After grabbing the Colt, she joined him.
He waggled his brows at her. “Put that thing down, will you?”
Carefully, she laid the gun atop a crocheted doily on the nightstand by the bed, wedging it between Grandma’s Bible and a jar of Vicks VapoRub. And then without her realizing he’d crossed the room, he was behind her, pressing his pelvis against her buttocks.
Reaching his arms around her waist, he took her hands in his. “You’re shaking.”
“It’s been a wild night,” she replied, even though she knew that wasn’t the reason she trembled. His body was growing full and hard against her, and he turned her around, worked one knee between her legs.
“Peaches,” he whispered the endearment in her ear, and she could almost believe they were innocent again. She could almost believe that he’d never gone away. Almost believe that he wouldn’t go again just as soon as this nightmare was over.
Almost.