Kitabı oku: «The Man from Nowhere»

For Kristin T who daily makes lemonade out of some of life’s sourest lemons. I admire you!

Chapter One

Patricia Devlin, Trish to her friends, felt edgy, edgy enough to come to the sheriff’s office. A pretty woman of about thirty, with auburn hair and moss-green eyes, she drew a lot of male attention and spurned all of it. She had and kept her secrets. Only children and fools did otherwise.

Gage Dalton welcomed her warmly in his back office at the Conard County Sheriff’s Department. With his burn-scarred face and tortured past, he’d once earned the nickname in the county of “Hell’s Own Archangel.” Nobody thought of him that way anymore. Today he was the “new sheriff,” a moniker that would probably take years to erase after he’d replaced the town’s long-time and well-beloved sheriff, who’d retired a few years ago. But it was “Hell’s Own Archangel” Trish was here to see. The man Gage had once been, maybe, would understand.

“Hey, Trish,” he said when he saw her at his office door. He smiled and waved her in. “What can we do for you this morning?”

Trish, dressed in the local uniform of jeans, cowboy boots and a light jacket over her shirt, returned his smile and slid into the creaky old wood chair. She wasn’t at all sure she was doing the right thing. “Well, I’m not sure you can do anything, Gage. I’m probably just being paranoid.”

He leaned forward a bit to rest his arms on the desk. “I never ignore paranoia.” His tone was encouraging.

“Yeah, but I don’t like to give in to it.”

“Apparently, something is bothering you enough to come here, so just tell me. We’ll figure out how to handle it.”

She hesitated, biting her lower lip. “I don’t want to get anyone into trouble.”

“I doubt you’ll get anyone into trouble who doesn’t deserve it. What’s going on?”

His logic made her smile again, uncomfortable as she was. Once more she hesitated, reconsidering, but then reminded herself this was the whole reason she’d come here: to get information so she could put this matter out of her mind. She had enough on her plate already without worrying about some stranger who was acting a little…odd.

“Well, there’s this guy who comes and sits in the park across from my house every night at one in the morning. At first I just thought he was resting there, but…” Again a moment of hesitation. It sounded so stupid when she said it out loud, but she forced the words out, anyway. “He sits in the same bench every night, Gage, and it’s like he’s staring straight at my house. He just sits there and stares. Not at my windows or anything specific that I can tell. Just at the house. Then about twenty minutes later, he gets up and walks away.”

Gage frowned slightly.

“I know, I know,” Trish said quickly. “Public park and all that. And he limps so badly, he’s probably just resting. And if he was any threat, why tip his hand by doing it every night?”

Gage held up a hand. “Hold on. Every night?”

“Since I first noticed him. I mean, honestly, I thought it was nothing, but when it kept happening night after night…well, finally I started checking to see if he’s there. He is, every night.” She sighed and looked down at her hands, feeling even more awkward now that she’d framed her concern out loud. “It’s probably nothing. I’m making too much of it.”

Gage shook his head. “You’re not. You have every reason to feel uneasy. And you’re not the only one who has noticed this guy, although I hadn’t heard before that he’s going to the park.”

Trish’s curiosity rose. “What does he do?”

“He’s staying at the motel. Walks into town every night at the same time, gets a drink at Mahoney’s and leaves. It’s enough to get a few people speculating, but not enough to get anyone wound up. But this park thing…You’re sure he’s looking at your house?”

“It could be coincidence. The bench is right across the street. But it’s like…” She spread her hands, trying to find the right words. “He never looks around. Never looks away. Just right at my house. Now maybe I’m overreacting from all the stress at work lately. I haven’t been sleeping very well, which is why I’m looking out my window at that hour. But if he’d just turn to look in another direction I wouldn’t even be worrying about it.” Which might not be exactly true, but she’d be worrying a whole lot less.

Gage nodded. “Okay, I’m going to check him out. We’ll run a wants and warrants on him, a background check, find out what’s going on. Trust me, if there’s anything squirrely, we’ll uncover it. Should I call you at work?”

“Try my cell.” She reached into her pocket and pulled out a small wallet, withdrawing a business card. She passed it to him. “I’m taking a few days of vacation time to try to relax.”

Gage smiled. “I could use a few of those myself. Emma wants to take a cruise, but I have trouble imagining being confined to a boat for a week.”

Trish laughed. “I hear they come into a port every other day. You’d survive.”

He winked. “What Emma wants, Emma gets.”

She knew full well Emma would get her cruise, because Gage would lay the world at her feet if he could, and not because she’d give him a hard time. She laughed, anyway, knowing that’s what he wanted to see.

After she left the office, she stood on the sundrenched street, feeling the kiss of autumn, that amazingly wonderful sensation of crisp air and warm sun that always made her glad to be alive.

Even if she was worried to death about work.

With a supreme effort of will, she forced her job from her mind. She’d taken these few days to get away from that, and she refused to spend her vacation time worrying about her work problems.

The problem, however, was that in taking her vacation on impulse like this, she’d made no plans about how to spend her time, hadn’t made arrangements with her friends to take off at the same time so they could go backpacking or drive into a bigger town for some shows and shopping.

A planner by nature, she laughed at herself now for not having thought this through, then decided she’d practice winging it. Her friends often teased that she wasn’t happy unless her life was laid out two weeks ahead in her datebook. The criticism might be a little on the extreme side, but there was more than a kernel of truth to it.

So, here she stood, and decided there was no time like now to try making up her day as she went, first with a trip to the bookstore down the street. It would be a perfect day, she decided, to curl up with a novel in her backyard. A little chilly, but that’s what she had the clay fireplace out back for. She could light it, drink hot chocolate and coffee, and enjoy the luxury of uninterrupted reading until the sun sank too low.

Feeling her spirits lift, she hurried down the street to the bookstore, a tiny, musty and wonderful place full of new and used books that covered the entire spectrum. A fictional world was just what she needed right now. Vampires, maybe, or ghosts and ghoulies. Something so far away from everyday that she could truly escape.

Bea’s Books seemed to be open all the time, but maybe that was because Bea lived above her store and loved books more than anything in the world. She could sit in a cozy corner of her shop with a mug of coffee and delve into new arrivals by the hour, distracted only when she had a customer. On weekends the place was usually full, but on weekdays it was a place where you could sit and read, and Bea never pressed you to buy the book first.

But today Trish was on a mission, and the weather was too beautiful to want to spend it inside. She chatted for a few minutes with Bea, who directed her to a stack of recent acquisitions that hadn’t yet been shelved. In ten minutes Trish found three books that appealed to her and paid for them.

Outside she inhaled a deep breath of the fresh air and began her walk home, books tucked under her arm. It was such a perfect day, she thought. Exactly the kind of day she had returned to Conard County for, that and being able to walk almost everywhere she needed to go. Not until she’d moved away to go to college and then to take a job with a big accounting firm had she realized how much growing up here had taught her to yearn for the outdoors and open space.

People she passed on the street, even those she didn’t know except by sight, all nodded and smiled. Many said hello. The breeze ruffled the leaves, making them whisper of approaching winter even as they brightened with autumn color. Not colors like she had seen in the northeastern part of the country, but still colors.

The breeze seemed to push gently at her back, hurrying her along the sidewalk toward her house. Gradually a spring came into her step, and she started smiling about nothing at all. It just felt good to be alive.

That mood lasted until she neared her house and saw the park bench where the stranger sat every night. Immediately the nervous feeling returned, much as she had tried to minimize it, both in her own mind and when she had spoken to the sheriff. Deep inside somewhere, she didn’t really believe the stranger’s presence was an accident.

Even though he wasn’t there now and probably wouldn’t be back until late that night, her sense of pleasure in the day evaporated. Maybe she shouldn’t sit outside, just in case. Maybe she should stay inside until Gage told her there was no threat at all.

Maybe she was nuts, but she ought to take just a few reasonable precautions. After all, she’d been growing increasingly uneasy even before the stranger’s appearance. And sometimes, she had learned, it paid to listen to your intuition.

In the end, she decided not to sit out back in her own yard, but rather to wait inside for news. Opening a window in the living room to allow fresh air to enter was the only compromise she would make.

Gage paid her a personal call that evening just after dusk. “Sorry it took so long to get back to you, but we had to do an intensive search.”

She invited him in and offered him coffee. “What do you mean?”

“I’d love coffee. Then we’ll talk.”

Nodding, she went to get that mug of coffee for him and refreshed her own mug. When he’d stepped through the door, she’d felt the cold clinging to him, a reminder that days were growing short, and as they shortened the winter chill approached, especially at night.

She joined Gage on the couch and wrapped her hands around her mug, looking at him. “So it’s nothing?”

“I can’t say for sure at this point. I couldn’t find out anything at all about him. No criminal record, period. No outstanding traffic warrants. No driver’s license record at all, in fact. No real estate holdings here in Wyoming, and he wasn’t born here. He pays cash in advance at the La-Z-Rest. Came to town about a month ago and didn’t use a credit card. Now before you get nervous, none of that means anything bad. Lots of ordinary citizens come up blank on a background check.”

Relief started to creep through her, then she had a thought. “Nothing? You couldn’t find anything? I mean, you’re cops. You should have been able to search in ways I couldn’t.”

“You’d think.” He hesitated, sipped his coffee, then set the mug on a coaster on the end table. “But there are limits on where and how I can search without a warrant or a subpoena, and I don’t have probable cause for either. I’m sure he has bank records, but I wouldn’t know where to look for them. There’s a half dozen people with similar names in the credit agencies, but none of them near his age.”

“So he’s using a phony name?”

He shook his head. “Look, there are people who live off the grid, as they say. People who don’t own anything and haven’t done anything that would pop up on a background check. Some just don’t like using credit. Some want to be anonymous.”

“I can’t imagine a good reason for that.”

“That’s the thing. Like I said, not everyone who chooses to live that way is necessarily a bad guy. You see the problem?”

She hesitated, aware that her nerves had begun to coil again. “I don’t like this.”

He sighed, rubbed his hands together as if to warm them, then reached for his mug again. “How nervous are you, Trish? How far do you want me to go with this? Because there are limits to what I can legally do.”

She couldn’t find a reasoned answer, which surprised her. Generally speaking, she was a reasonable person.

“What’s got you so nervous? Apart from the fact that this guy sits in the park every night for a little while?”

She lifted her brows. “What do you mean?”

“I’ve known you long enough to know that you don’t shake easily. Yeah, the guy sitting out there every night might get your attention, and you’d watch him, but you wouldn’t worry about him.”

“Maybe I wouldn’t.” She hesitated, then finally said, “I’ve got a little thing going on at work. I think I found that some product is missing, but I’m not a hundred percent sure. So I notified the CFO about it, but I haven’t gotten an answer yet. And I’m wondering if I messed up.”

“Messed up how?”

“Well,” she admitted with a wry smile, “I’m the chief accountant. If it turns out I did my numbers wrong, I’m likely to be the ex-chief accountant.”

“Ahh.” He took a deep drink of his coffee, then shook his head. “Relax, Trish. Nobody gets fired for one mistake.”

“Yeah, maybe.” And he was probably right. She should just stop worrying, check her office e-mail before she turned in for the night in case the CFO replied, and then put it out of her mind.

But part of what made her such a good accountant was her accuracy, and sitting around wondering if she’d made a mistake, no matter how many times she had rechecked her numbers, made her feel utterly unsettled.

And that, she decided, was the only reason she’d even gotten paranoid about the guy sitting in the park. She was just in a paranoid mood to begin with. “Sorry I put you to so much trouble, Gage.”

He shook his head. “No trouble at all, Trish. Tell you what I can do.”

“Yes?”

“I can do a stop and identify. Ask for his ID. Maybe we can get a little more info on the guy. But that’s all I can do unless he does something he shouldn’t.”

She nodded. “Thanks. Thanks, Gage. I’d appreciate it. But I guess I should just forget about it. It’s probably all perfectly innocent.”

“That’s what I’m supposed to be telling you. And most of the time it is. But since I can’t say so for absolute certain, I’ll try to get a little more information.”

She thanked him again. He finished his coffee and headed for the door. “We’ll keep an eye out, Trish. We won’t just ignore it.”

She was certain of that.

Put it from your mind, girl. Let it go.

But not until she checked her e-mail.

Powering up her laptop in her tiny home office, she checked her work e-mail account. And there, answering her uneasiness, was finally a response from the company’s CFO, the man who had trained her at the corporate headquarters in Dallas:

Trish, thanks for alerting me to this. Sorry my reply was so slow in coming, but your memo somehow got routed to the bottom of the stack on my desk. Apparently my secretary didn’t see the urgency.

I’m having an independent auditor come look it over. Of course, I hope you just mismatched some things, but if not, we’ll find out. Either way, you’ve done your job exactly as you’re supposed to. I tried to call this morning and they told me you’re on vacation. Enjoy the time. And thanks again for the great job you do. Hank.

There it was. Done. No need to remain on tenterhooks any longer. No suggestion that if she’d screwed up she was in trouble. The head office in Texas had basically said she’d done exactly what she should.

She put the message in her private file on her home computer, then logged off.

Nothing to worry about. Nothing at all.

Except the stranger who sat out in front of her house every night.

Chapter Two

He was out there again. This time she started watching early and saw his painful approach as he limped down the sidewalk and finally dropped onto the park bench with evident relief.

She had twitched the curtain aside just the tiniest bit so that she didn’t have to hold it as she peered out, because she didn’t want him to know she was spying on him.

And now, watching him, seeing the way he stared at her house as if nothing else on the street existed, made her feel like a creep herself. Was she losing her marbles or something? Her house was locked. She had a shotgun upstairs, a hand-me-down from her father, which she could load with birdshot in no time at all. If the guy tried anything, he wouldn’t be able to get away with it. With birdshot she wouldn’t even need a good aim to plaster him painfully enough that she could escape.

So what was wrong with her? Why couldn’t she just ignore it? What if it had been someone local, someone she knew by sight, doing the same thing? She wouldn’t be at all worried.

But he wasn’t local, and that made her nervous.

Okay, she told herself, try being rational. The guy obviously had suffered some kind of injury, which made him less than threatening to begin with. Maybe the injury had also affected his neck and he was having trouble turning his head.

Possible, yeah. That stare might be nothing but a stiff neck.

Maybe she just needed to cool it and stop acting and thinking like someone on the edge.

Of course she did, but the realization didn’t help. At some level something was niggling at her and wouldn’t give up.

She saw a deputy’s cruiser pull up near the bench. The man didn’t move, so apparently he wasn’t disturbed by the approach of the police. Then Gage climbed out after training his spotlight on the man, who made no attempt to shield his face from the light.

Man, she thought, Gage was working a long day. And all because of her. But his concern warmed her. He wasn’t treating her nervousness as if he thought she was simply a ditzy spinster with too much time on her hands.

She watched as Gage walked over to the bench. Apparently he said something, because the man pulled out his wallet from his hip pocket and passed something to Gage. Gage took it, spoke for a minute, then returned to his patrol car.

No doubt running the guy’s ID. Finally Trish allowed relief to trump over nerves. Gage would sort it out, and the stranger was on notice that he had been seen. Good.

The man had turned on the bench so that he was looking directly at the sheriff’s car and away from her. So maybe he did find it difficult to turn his head.

All right, she should just go to bed and forget it. Gage would let her know if anything should concern her.

Except that she remained rooted. A sign, she decided, of having had too much time on her hands. She wasn’t the type to stand at her window and watch the goingson outside, unlike some of her nosier neighbors.

After a few minutes Gage climbed out of his vehicle again, approached the man and handed him something—probably his ID or driver’s license. They chatted for a moment and then Gage got back in the car and drove off.

Okay, so there was no immediate evidence that the guy was a threat. She glanced over at the digital clock on her DVD player and realized there were only minutes before the guy moved on again, assuming he followed his usual, almost compulsive, schedule.

Driven by some impulse, maybe the need to put the matter to rest now, she hurried into her kitchen, poured two mugs of the coffee she’d made a couple of hours ago, still hot and rich-smelling. Then she slipped on her jacket and went out the front door with the two mugs.

As she approached him, the man on the bench appeared startled in a way he hadn’t when Gage had stopped to speak with him. She guessed he hadn’t expected a homeowner to come out at this hour.

Reaching him, she could finally make out his features. Nicely chiseled, although not Hollywood handsome. She couldn’t tell the color of his eyes and could see only that his hair was dark, short, but unkempt. The rest of him, seated as he was, remained mostly a mystery within a heavy jacket, jeans and work boots.

“Coffee?” she asked.

“I was just leaving.” Nice baritone, smooth enough to indicate a nonsmoker and probably a good singer.

“Well, you can drink fast,” she said, thrusting a mug at him. “It’ll be cold in a minute or two, anyway.”

He couldn’t refuse the mug without being rude. Which was exactly why she’d done it. She took the other end of the bench and sipped her own coffee. Yeah, it was already cooling down.

Then she looked straight at him. “Why do you sit out here every night?”

“Because there’s a bench.” Yet the reply hinted at a question, almost as if he was wondering if she was looking for a particular response. If she was, she didn’t know herself what it was.

“You limp pretty badly,” she said bluntly.

“Accident.”

“Will it heal?”

“Eventually.” He made eventually sound like a very long time, not something that might happen in the next couple of months.

“I’m sorry.”

He shook his head slightly. “Things happen. I was the lucky one.”

He spoke that like a mantra, as if it was something he told himself again and again, yet didn’t quite believe. Some part of whatever had happened, she guessed, was never going to feel lucky, but she didn’t feel she could press it.

She offered her hand. “Trish Devlin.”

He hesitated, and finally shook it. “Grant,” he said. Not a full name.

Trish let it pass, thinking that Gage probably had all the rest of it now, anyway, and maybe a lot more. She watched him take a gulp of coffee and realized he was about to make a quick getaway.

Despite running to the sheriff with her paranoia, Trish had never been a wimp. She wasn’t going to let the stranger off that easily.

“You’ve been making me nervous,” she said. “Sitting out here every night staring at my house.”

He seemed to grow still, as much inwardly as outwardly. Then he said, “I guess that’s why the sheriff stopped.”

“Could be.”

She thought she saw the faint flash of a small smile. “Could be,” he agreed. “I didn’t mean to make you nervous.”

“Well, you did. You keep staring at my house.”

He shrugged. “It’s right in front of me.” He gulped more coffee.

“So it is,” she agreed, then waited, trying to let silence do what her questions couldn’t: make him talk.

“Sorry,” he said. “I’m just resting, for obvious reasons.”

He was a lousy liar, she decided, because she didn’t believe that, even if it did fit. But if he was a lousy liar, that was a good thing. It meant he wasn’t practiced at deceit.

“Okay,” she said finally. “Don’t let me keep you.”

But he didn’t move. Instead, he said something she wondered if she’d heard right. “Everything’s wrong tonight.”

“What?”

Again that little shake of his head. Then, “Look, I’m really sorry. I don’t sleep well at night, never have. So I’m walking. Waiting, I guess.”

She seized on one word. “Waiting?”

He drank more coffee, this time sipping, as if to put off his moment of departure, quite different from when she’d first approached. “Do you know anybody who doesn’t have a rucksack full of emotional baggage?”

“That’s some question!”

“But an honest one.”

So she gave him an honest answer. “I guess not. More for some than others.”

“Well, mine’s pretty full. So I guess you could say I’m waiting for some resolution.”

“Don’t you usually have to work at that, not just wait?”

“I am. Believe me, I am.”

In spite of herself, Trish was growing more intrigued. But then he sighed and passed her back the empty mug. “Go inside before you get chilled,” he said. “Thanks for the coffee.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to walk back to the motel. Maybe pop into the truck stop for a wee-hours breakfast.”

The truck stop was indeed the only twenty-four-hour business for miles.

He rose, and even in the darkness she could see him grimace. “Nice talking to you, Ms. Devlin.” He started to limp away. But after three steps, he paused and looked back. “If you want to join me at the truck stop, I should be there in about thirty minutes.”

She hesitated. “I could give you a ride.” The instant the words escaped she wanted to snatch them back. Was she nuts? Completely nuts? She knew nothing about this man.

“Sometimes,” he said, “walking is the only way.” Then he resumed his painful departure.

Trish watched him until he vanished into the shadows. Only then did she realize she was growing cold.

Damn! Meet him at the truck stop? Give him a ride? Had some evil spirit taken over her brain?

Shaking her head at her own behavior, she went back inside.

Forget about it and go to bed. Wise advice to herself. Except she couldn’t forget about it and didn’t seem to want to get ready for bed despite the late hour. She grabbed the new novel she’d started earlier and tried to read it. But all she could think about was meeting the stranger at the truck stop and maybe learning more about him. Actually seeing his face in the light. Getting his measure.

It would be safe at the truck stop, a busy place at any hour. Safer than what she had just done by accosting him on the darkened street.

A minute later she was grabbing her keys and heading out the door.

The truck stop restaurant was indeed brightly lit, and in addition to the staff held about a dozen drivers, all eating some version of early breakfast or late dinner, every occupied table boasting a generous carafe of coffee. Some of the drivers seemed to know each other. Others greeted each other, table to table, strangers in a common place and time.

Grant sat alone at a table backed up to the wall. He already had coffee, and she noted that an extra mug was at the seat facing him. Whether for her or for someone else she didn’t know.

She ignored the interested looks she received from the truckers as she eased her way between tables to Grant’s.

“Hi,” she said. In the light he proved to be goodlooking, if a bit wan. Silvery threads of gray sparkled in his dark hair. His eyes were dark, that brown so deep it would sometimes appear black. He returned her greeting with a faint smile and motioned her into the seat facing his.

“I got you a cup,” he said.

“You knew I’d come?”

“Anyone who’d come out onto a dark street to beard a stranger who frightened her must have more curiosity than a dozen cats.”

In spite of herself, she smiled back and took the chair. “It gets me into trouble sometimes.”

“I imagine so. On the other hand, you probably don’t run through life with a load of nagging questions.”

“Not often.”

He reached for the carafe and filled her beige mug. The table already held a saucer full of little half-and-half containers. She reached for one, opened it and poured the contents into her coffee. At this hour of the night, even her beloved beverage could give her heartburn. The half-and-half would help.

“I haven’t ordered yet,” he said. “Take a look at the menu. I’m buying.”

“I can buy for myself.”

“I’m sure you can. But since I caused all this uproar for you, this seems like the least I can do. And believe me, I can afford it.”

So she reached for the menu and began scanning a list that exceeded Maude’s City Diner in variety, but probably not in saturated fats. Here she could even find artificial eggs and vegetarian omelets. It gave her a glimpse of the new generation of truck drivers.

But what the heck. She settled finally on their “fluffy” pancakes.

The waitress came and took their orders, his a fullsize breakfast with all the trimmings. He certainly wasn’t worrying about his weight or his cholesterol.

With the menus tucked back into the wire holder behind the salt, pepper and ketchup, they stared at one another over coffee mugs. Trish found herself strangely reluctant to grill him, even though she’d started their conversation back on the bench by doing precisely that.

Finally he spoke. “So what can I tell you that will ease your mind?”

“What do you want to tell me?”

“That I mean you no harm. A statement that is absolutely meaningless without anything to back it up.”

She couldn’t argue with that. “Seems like one of those lines in a bad sci-fi movie that always winds up being the prelude to something terrible.”

“Hey, I like those old science fiction movies. The older and more awful, the better.”

“The ones with nuclear bombs that are both the cause and the solution to whatever is ravaging the world?”

He chuckled. “Yeah, those. Science as the be-all and end-all.”

“I take it you don’t believe that.”