The Masked Man Part 14

Jill hung up, angry and frustrated. Who knew how long it would take the sheriff's department to find the Saturn and the other woman? And now she had Trevor's cell phone and only her word that she'd taken if from the other Scarlett.

She looked up to see Mackenzie Cooper's pickup in the line of funeral cars leaving the cemetery. Like the rest of Bigfork, he'd witnessed her confrontation with the other Scarlett from a distance-just too great a distance to prove anything.

As she s.h.i.+fted the van into gear, she watched his pickup head down the lake road and wondered again why he had come to the funeral of a man he'd never met.

IN HIS REARVIEW mirror, Mac saw The Best Buns in Town van tailing him. He took a quick right, a left, then another right. When he looked back again, the van was still there. He couldn't outrun her in the pickup, not with the camper on the back.

He cursed and pulled over to the curb, waiting until she pulled in behind him before getting out and walking back to the van.

She rolled down her window.

"What the h.e.l.l do you think you're doing?" he asked.

"Following you." She had the same determined set to her jaw that he'd seen last night. No gun, though, which was a plus. "You lied."

He stared at her. "What?"

"You felt something the other night."

"Is that what this is about?" Her look dared him to lie again. "All right, I felt something. Happy?"

"Something amazing. Something more than great s.e.x."

He smiled in spite of himself. "Something amazing. Something more than great s.e.x. Okay? Now that we have that settled, don't follow me." He turned to walk away.

"I know where you can find Marvin Dodd," she said. "You are looking for him, right?" she said when he was standing at her driver's-side window again.

That was the trouble with a small town like Bigfork. But he knew his trouble ran much deeper. "Just because it felt like more than great s.e.x the other night-"

"This has nothing to do with that," she said.

He gave her a give-me-a-break look.

"Do you want to find Marvin or not?"

He waited for her to ask him why he was looking for Marvin, but she didn't. "What's the catch?"

"No catch. Marvin worked for Trevor on the island. That's why you're looking for him. You're trying to find Trevor's murderer."

It was news to him that Marvin had also worked for Trevor, but he shouldn't have been surprised. She looked so pleased with herself he hated to bust her bubble.

"Wrong. I'm looking for my nephew."

"Whatever," she said. "I guess I'll just have to find Trevor's killer on my own." Her brown eyes flashed, reminding him of another fire he'd seen burning in all that amber when he'd kissed her last night on his houseboat.

"Have a death wish, do you?"

"No, just the opposite. I guess because I was Trevor's fiancee-well one of them, anyway-I'm involved. Up to my neck, and I think you are, too. If you won't tell me what's going on, I'll just follow you and find out for myself. And I should warn you, I've had a really bad day so far."

He cursed under his breath and turned on his heel. "Get in the truck," he said over his shoulder.

She scrambled from the van, catching up with him at the pickup.

He didn't look at her as she climbed into the pa.s.senger side. Couldn't. He was too angry with her. "I'm trying to protect you."

"Well, stop," she said, looking out the winds.h.i.+eld, waiting for him to start the engine.

What the h.e.l.l was he going to do with her? "You are an incredibly stubborn woman."

"Thank you."

"That wasn't a compliment."

She smiled and looked over at him. "Why is it so hard for you to be honest with me?"

"You have heard of privileged information, haven't you? I'm on a case." He put the truck into gear.

"Trevor's dead," she said.

"It's another case." He could feel her gaze on him.

"Turn right up here and head down the lake toward Polson," she ordered.

"Why were you chasing that woman in the red Saturn?" he asked as he pressed the accelerator.

"That woman was the other Scarlett and she was driving my my car!" car!"

"Seems she's still driving your car."

She shot him a warning look. "You could have helped me."

"I didn't realize you needed help. Did you get her name?"

"No, I only know her first name-Rachel. She got away before I could get anything but mad," Jill said. "She's driving my my car and she says Trevor gave it to her." car and she says Trevor gave it to her."

"He probably did." Mac watched her tug at her lower lip with her teeth. "I take it the two of you had words?" He was surprised to see tears in her eyes.

"She told me I was a cold fish, and that's why Trevor-"

"Bull," Mac snapped. "Trevor was a fool and obviously not much of a lover." He handed her his handkerchief. "Trevor was out of his league with a woman like you."

Jill looked over at him and smiled through her tears. "You can be pretty nice when you want to be."

He focused his attention on his driving, warning himself that being too nice to Jill was trouble. Too easily he could find her in his arms-and they both knew where that would lead.

"Turn up here on the right," she said, all business again. "Marvin lives in a trailer out on Finley Point." She smiled. "I grew up in Bigfork. News travels fast. Especially if you know who to ask."

"You've been asking questions about me?" He wasn't happy to hear this. "Who told you I was looking for Marvin?"

She smiled. "You're actually looking for a nineteen-year-old named Shane Ramsey. Marvin Dodd used to be his roommate. Well?"

"Nice work. You really are determined to get yourself killed, aren't you."

"I thought your investigation had nothing to do with Trevor's death."

"Did you ever think that just being around me might be dangerous?" he asked, shooting her a look.

Her smile broadened. "After the other night in the cottage, I know just how dangerous you can be."

He growled under his breath and tried to change the subject. "So you've lived here your whole life?"

"You sound aghast at the thought. I'm content here. It's a great place to live."

"I don't doubt it." He remembered the last time he was content somewhere.

"I'm sure you've heard gossip about me around town," she said. "How bad is it? What's everyone saying? What a fool I was to think Trevor wanted to marry me?"

"Everything I heard about you was glowing," he said. "True, people wondered what you saw in Trevor... What did did you see in him?" you see in him?"

She stared out at the pa.s.sing green blur of pines for a long moment, so long he didn't think she was going to answer. "Trevor could be quite charming. I think he was an actor-he would play whatever role he thought you wanted." She shrugged. "And he paid attention to the small things." She looked away.

"Like what?" he asked, needing to know what she'd seen in the man. Now more than ever.

"I had this horrible experience when I was sixteen," she said. "I never hitchhiked, but this one night I was at a party and my ride's car broke down and I was frantic to get home on time, so I did something really stupid. I took off by myself, walking down the lake road. It was really late, one of those dark cloudy nights, and this car stopped for me."

Mac felt his chest constrict. Dear G.o.d.

"I never saw his face. It was just a voice in the darkness of the car. He asked if I needed a ride. I didn't even pay any attention to the car. It was just large and black and I started to get in. Then, I don't know why, I changed my mind. I guess somehow I...knew." She looked out her side window, away from him. He saw her chin quiver, and it was all he could do not to reach for her. "The driver grabbed my wrist, but I was wearing this bracelet my aunt had given me for my birthday. The bracelet saved me. It came off and I was able to pull free and run. I ran into the trees. He got out of the car and started to follow me, but must have changed his mind. I heard the car leave. I'd never been so scared in my life."

Mac reached over and took the hand resting on her thigh. It was cold as ice. She was shaking. But so was he. "You must have been terrified." She nodded. "And you told Trevor about this?" He took his hand back to steer the pickup down the narrow, twisting road to Finley Point. In places, as it wound through cherry orchards and pines, the road was like a tunnel.

"The day after I told Trevor, he brought me a present," she said. "A silver charm bracelet with my name on it like the one I'd lost. Trevor said the bracelet had brought me luck once before-and would again." She looked over at Mac, tears in her eyes. "That's the kind of thing Trevor did." She rubbed her bare wrist.

Mac felt as if he'd been kicked in the chest as he thought about the charm bracelet Trevor had given her. The same one the burglar had taken the other night. A bracelet like the one she'd lost when she was sixteen? Or the exact same bracelet? If Mac was right about Trevor Forester...

He pulled over to the side of the road. He could see the lake stretching clear blue to a horizon, broken only by a single white sail in the distance. "There's something I have to tell you."

He'd been worried before, but now he was terrified for her. He told himself that Trevor was dead. Jill was safe. But her apartment had been burglarized. Worse, the burglar had attacked her, taken the bracelet-and asked about the engagement ring.

Mac couldn't pretend it had been someone Trevor owed money to. Not anymore. Nor could he keep the truth from Jill anymore.

"My nephew was involved in a robbery-with Trevor Forester," Mac said. "They stole some coins. Trevor's now dead and the coins are missing. But there's more." He looked into her eyes. Deep and brown. The flecks of gold s.h.i.+mmering in the summer sunlight.

"I picked up your engagement ring that night in the cottage, along with your panties. The ring appeared to have been old and the inscription filed down. I called a friend of mine who's a cop in Kalispell. I had a feeling that the job Trevor pulled off with my nephew probably wasn't his first."

"You aren't telling me that the engagement ring Trevor gave me was stolen?"

"Jill, the ring belonged to a teenaged girl who disappeared from Bigfork seven years ago," Mac said. "She was never found."

Chapter Eleven.

Jill felt the blood drain from her head. "No." She remembered the stories in the papers over the years. Teenaged girls who'd come to the area to work for the summer just disappearing without a trace.

"I sent the skull I found on the island to Kalispell this morning," Mac said, his voice sounding far away. "I know I told you it was probably an old gravesite, but I'm afraid that skull hasn't been in the ground very long."

Jill shook her head, feeling the sting of tears in her eyes. "You think Trevor..."

"I think whoever killed those girls kept a piece of their jewelry as a souvenir," Mac said softly. "I also think there is a good possibility that the killer buried the girls on the island."

A chill quaked through her as she recalled the skull she'd seen in Mac's duffel bag. "Tell me Trevor couldn't do something so horrible." But she thought of how he'd lied and stolen and cheated. How he'd planned to leave the country.

"He gave you the ring," Mac said.

Yes, he'd given her the ring. The ring he'd said was an old family heirloom. A lie. But could it really have been Trevor Forester in the car that stopped for her on the lake road that night fourteen years ago? She'd been sixteen. Trevor would have been twenty. Old-sounding to a sixteen-year-old.

She closed her eyes, remembering the headlights as the car came up the road and stopped. She squeezed her eyes shut more tightly, trying to remember, to see into the darkness inside the car. A large, dark car. His father's car? The whir of the electric window on the pa.s.senger side coming down. A voice from the blackness inside as she leaned down and took hold of the door handle, thinking only about getting home on time.

Her eyes flew open, the taste of fear in her mouth, the sound of her heart hammering in her ears as he grabbed her wrist, and then her pulling free, running, running for her life.

She warned herself not to cry. The last thing Mac needed was a bawling woman on his hands. Actually, he didn't seem to need any woman at all, especially her.

He handed her a tissue from the glove box.

She didn't cry. She balled up the tissue in her hand. She wasn't a sixteen-year-old girl anymore. No, she was a strong, independent woman. And the past few days had only made her stronger, more resilient, definitely more outspoken-almost brazen and, surprisingly, less afraid of her feelings. "It could have been him."

"I know. That's what scares me." His words sent a shaft of heat through her.

She looked at him and their eyes locked.

After Trevor, she knew she should have been gun-shy when it came to men. But Mackenzie Cooper was a different breed of male. She was intimately aware of that, she thought as she gazed into the deep blue of his eyes. He hadn't forgotten the other night in the cottage any more than she had.

He reached for her, cupped the nape of her neck just as he'd done last night on the boat and pulled her toward him as if he needed to feel her in his arms as badly as she needed to be there. "This is just l.u.s.t," he whispered against her hair.

"Mmm-hmm."

"We'd both regret it if we make love again."

"Mmm."