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Hotshot P.i.. B.J. Daniels
Читать онлайн.Название Hotshot P.i.
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Автор произведения B.J. Daniels
Жанр Зарубежные любовные романы
Издательство HarperCollins
“How convenient that you were asleep at the murder you committed,” Jake said, bitterness oozing from his every word. He slammed a palm to the wall on each side of her. “And how inconvenient for my father that you just happened to wake up in time to see him kill Lola Strickland.”
“Yes.” She ducked under his arm and ran down the hall, blinded by tears and regrets. Behind her, she heard him. The sound was a low, pained howl, the cry of a wounded animal. It tore at her heart. She wanted to take him in her arms, to comfort him. But nothing she could do or say would do that. She’d told the jury the truth. She didn’t know what else had happened that night at Hawk Island Resort because she’d been asleep—walking, but sound asleep. Sleepwalking had always been her private shame. A frightening weakness that was best kept a secret. Until the night Lola Strickland was murdered. Now that horrible memory had come back to haunt her—just the way her sleepwalking had come back.
Jake slammed a fist into the wall, too stunned to chase after her. Sleepwalking? She’d been sleepwalking the night of Lola’s murder and the night Dex Westfall was killed in her garret? And last night on the dock? His brain tried to assimilate this information but couldn’t.
That’s why her story had sounded like a lie. Could she really not remember anything? Was that why there’d been so many holes in her story? Because she’d been asleep?
His mind refused to accept it. Just as it had ten years ago.
She was lying. Again. Sleepwalking! Again.
He charged after her, only to run headlong into a group of students on some kind of career day. The teacher tried to gather her flock, but they scattered like errant chicks. Jake forced his way through to reach the elevator door just as it closed. He watched the numbers overhead to make sure Clancy was headed down before he took off at a run for the stairs. She didn’t really think she could get away from him, did she?
He burst out of the stairwell and into the main lobby as the elevator doors were closing again. He raced over to them, slapping the doors open and startling the only occupants, an elderly couple.
“Sorry,” he said. “I was looking for a blond woman.
About five six. Cute.” Incredibly sexy. And innocentlooking. He started to make a curvaceous outline with his hands, but stopped himself. “Nice figure. Wearing a navy shirt, jeans and sandals?”
They both gave him a knowing smile. The elderly woman pointed across the hall to a door marked Women. “She seemed a little upset,” the woman said, clearly blaming him.
“Thanks.” As the elevator doors closed again, Jake made a beeline for the bathroom, cursing himself for letting Clancy out of his sight for even an instant.
He stormed through the doorway, propelled by a flammable fuel of high-grade anger. “If you think I’m going to believe this latest story of yours—” he said, taking up the conversation right where they’d left off.
His voice echoed off the tiled walls. A half-dozen women looked up, startled. Clancy wasn’t at either of the two sinks powdering her nose. That left only the row of four stalls.
“Sir, you’re in the wrong rest room,” one woman politely informed him as if he didn’t know.
He politely informed her that he didn’t care, then he leaned down to look for Clancy’s sandaled feet in the occupied stalls. No Clancy. The last stall appeared empty; someone had put a handmade Out of Order sign on it.
Most of the women had the good sense to flee from the room, though they did it in high indignation, telling him in no uncertain terms what they thought of his behavior.
You want to see bad behavior, he thought to himself, wait until I get my hands on Clancy. A couple of women stayed to give him grief. He ignored them, waiting for the stalls to empty out. As he glanced around the room, he assessed the situation. There was only one door. Clancy hadn’t had time to come back out.
Jake waited for the last woman to exit. As she stomped past, he noticed that the summer breeze coming through the open window at the end of the room smelled sweet with the scent of freshly mown grass. Jake could hear the sound of a lawnmower buzzing just outside at ground level. In front of the window, someone had upended a trash can.
Jake cursed himself and his stupidity as he pushed open each stall door on his way to the window. All the stalls were now empty, just as he knew they would be. And on the corner of the metal window frame was a small scrap of navy blue material that perfectly matched the shirt Clancy had been wearing.
Damn her hide, she’d given him the slip.
Chapter Five
Clancy caught the first flight out of Kalispell. She thought she’d feel safe once the plane was in the air. Instead, she couldn’t shake the feeling that someone was after her. And not just Jake Hawkins.
She glanced around at the other passengers but saw no one she knew. No one even appeared remotely interested in her. As the plane banked to the east, she looked out the window and told herself she had to calm down and think clearly. Her life depended on it. And yet she’d never felt more afraid, more alone.
Except for one other time in her life. The night of the resort fire. The night Lola Strickland was murdered. Clancy closed her eyes and tried to fight back the painful memories. But the memories came, edged with one penetrating truth: she’d walked in her sleep that night, just as she had the night Dex Westfall died.
It had been late that night ten years ago when she’d come down the stairs, awakened by the sound of her parents arguing. Her parents never argued. Until that moment, she’d led an idyllic life on the island. The only dark spot in her whole childhood had been her required yearly visits back East to see Aunt Kiki and get a little culture so she didn’t grow up a wild heathen. Clancy had hated the visits, the stiff, prissy dresses, the long, boring lessons in social graces, her aunt’s endless lectures on the value of money and the Talbott name.
But it was her aunt’s low opinion of Clancy’s father that made her call Kiki the Wicked Witch of the East. Kiki had always thought her sister had married beneath the family name when she’d married Clarence Jones. Clancy idolized her father.
Clancy had stopped on the stairs when she heard her father’s voice saying that he couldn’t go to the police, wouldn’t go to the police. Warren was his best friend.
But her mother had argued that Warren was stealing from the businesses and had been for some time. Clancy felt a sick, sinking feeling, knowing that their lives had suddenly changed and would never be the same again.
When her father left by boat to meet Warren at the resort, Clancy followed by land, afraid for her father for reasons she couldn’t explain then or now.
But when she reached the resort office, she could hear her father and Warren inside and decided to wait in one of the boats tied at the dock. She’d fallen asleep.
Later, she’d woken only to find that she’d walked in her sleep. To this day,’ she had no idea where she’d been or what she might have seen. All she remembered was waking to find herself standing outside the office.
Her father’s boat was gone. Inside the office she could hear voices raised in anger. From the shadows, she watched in horror as Warren Hawkins struggled with Lola Strickland. Lola stumbled backward into an adjoining room. Both figures disappeared for a few moments, then Warren emerged at a run. Behind him the office burst into flame, and within seconds the fire consumed the building.
Just thinking about that night brought back the incredible regret. Lola’s death and Warren Hawkins’s arrest ended the life she and Jake had known on Hawk Island. Jake and his mother left Flathead; Jake left hating Clancy. Clancy’s parents had moved to Alaska to start over. They’d lost everything. Kiki purchased the lodge at Clancy’s pleading. Clancy had foolishly