Anne Stuart - Into The Fire

“Stop calling her that! I love my mother.”

“Of course you do. Even though she doted on Nate and barely noticed you were alive. You’re a glutton for punishment, Jamie.”

“Not anymore,” she snapped, pushing away from the table. “I don’t suppose you have a car I could drive?”

“None of my beauties. They’re worth too much to risk in the hands of an unlicensed driver,” he said in a lazy voice.

“You know I really hate you, don’t you?”

“I believe you’ve mentioned it before. As long as your mother’s whispering in your ear I wouldn’t expect you to change your mind.”

She was already at the door. “Would you want me to change my mind?”

She’d managed to startle him. He paused, clearly giving it some reflection. “It might prove interesting.”

She slammed the door behind her.

The sound of it was satisfying. The bite of the winter air wasn’t. She’d gone storming out with nothing but a sweatshirt and a pair of sneakers, and the snow was at least three inches deep on the ground.

She turned back to look at the door. There was no way she could walk back in there, not after her grand exit. She was going to have to stand out there in the cold for at least a half an hour, and in that time she’d probably develop pneumonia, which would solve everything. She’d go into the hospital, or Dillon would creep into her room at night and open the windows over her fevered, prostrate body to hurry her along. And she wasn’t quite sure which of those options was preferable.

She was shivering, her body racked with cold, when the door behind her opened. She should have stomped off, but Dillon’s garage was in a particularly unsavory part of an unsavory town, and even in broad daylight she didn’t feel too safe exploring.

She didn’t turn, keeping her back rigid, trying to control the shivers. He could apologize until he was blue in the face. Though actually she was the one who was turning blue.

“He’s gone into the garage to work,” Mouser said. “Come in before you freeze your…freeze to death.”

She turned to look at the little man. “Dillon is an asshole,” she said flatly.

Mouser’s wizened face creased in a smile. “Can’t argue with you on that one. He’s always been a difficult son of a bitch. Doesn’t mean you need to catch your death of cold. Because if you get sick while you’re here I don’t think he’s going to be bringing you chicken soup and aspirin. He’s not exactly the nurturing type, is he?”

“Not exactly,” Jamie said, following him into the kitchen and closing the door behind her. It was warm, blessedly warm, and she rubbed her hands together to try to bring some life back.

“You’re as stubborn as he is, aren’t you?” Mouser said. “That’s going to be trouble.”

“No, it’s not. I’m going to get out of here and never see him again. I don’t know what his problem is—you can’t tell me he couldn’t come up with a car I could use and a hundred bucks to cover gas.”

“I wouldn’t tell you that Dillon couldn’t do anything. He’s very resourceful. Must be he doesn’t want to help you.”

“I can believe that. But I’d think getting rid of me would be more important than his dislike of me.”

Mouser’s smile exposed a set of startlingly perfect teeth. Undoubtedly dentures. “You think he dislikes you?”

“Of course. He dislikes me just as much as I dislike him,” Jamie said flatly.

“Well, if you put it that way, that’s a possibility,” Mouser said in a dry voice. “But bottom line, Jamie, is that I’ve known him well for the last five years, and I know what he thinks about things. And in your case, dislike doesn’t have much to do with it.”

“Okay, hatred,” Jamie supplied.

Mouser shook his head. “Not exactly. You’ll have a chance to figure it out in the next few days, both of you. It’ll be a good thing. Too much unfinished business between the two of you.”

“What makes you think that?” Jamie demanded. “I can’t believe he’s ever even mentioned me. Even thought of me in the last five years.”

“You forget, Nate was here. You were mentioned. Why don’t you ask Killer about it. He just might tell you.” Mouser was shrugging into his heavy jacket, preparing to head out into the icy Wisconsin weather.

“You think I won’t?” Jamie said. “I’m here for answers.”

“Good for you. And if you pay attention, maybe he’ll give them to you. If you really want them.”

And he closed the door gently behind him, leaving Jamie alone in the kitchen. Wondering if she really did want all the answers, after all.

He could smell the cinnamon and hazelnut floating up toward him. Funny, he’d forgotten what it was like to eat, to feel warm, to touch, but his sense of smell was still powerful. He could recognize the smell of Killer’s shampoo, he could tell when Jamie was moving far beneath him. Trapped as he was, he could feel everything, smell everything, know everything. Except how to escape .

Unfinished business, isn’t that the sort of thing that kept ghosts tied to a place? Nate had unfinished business, and as soon as he figured out what it was, he’d be able to leave.

It might be as simple as killing Dillon. Or getting someone to do it. Or maybe he had to be finished with Jamie, as well. A murder-suicide pact would be perfect, but highly unlikely. Unless Jamie could be persuaded to shoot Dillon.

It wasn’t outside the realm of possibility. Anything could happen, and there was a lot of history between them. They were just as haunted by the past as they were by his shadowy presence.

It still waited to be seen which of the two would prove the stronger. And the more destructive.

J amie considered herself riddled with flaws, but cowardice wasn’t one of them. Yes, she wanted to get the hell out of there rather than confront the past and the possibly unpalatable truth about Nate, but fate, or her mother, had decreed otherwise. She was stuck here for at least a couple of days, and she wasn’t going to spend that time avoiding Dillon. Besides, the bigger a pain in the butt she was, the more motivated he’d be to help her leave.

She shoved her hair back from her face and straightened to her full height. She was too short, almost a foot shorter than Dillon, and she always thought that he would have been easier to deal with if he didn’t tower over her. He thought he could bury his head inside a car engine and ignore her, but she was about to disabuse him of that notion. She was going to be a total pest until she got out of there.

She opened the door to the cavernous garage and was immediately assaulted by noise, a vast rumbling that had been almost completely muffled. She closed the door behind her and began to sort through the cacophony. The rush of white noise was actually some kind of space heater, spewing hot air into the vast expanse of the room. The music was loud, too, Nirvana, Jamie suspected, though she’d never been that fond of the group. But Dillon had always favored the raw-pain sound of Kurt Cobain.

Beneath it all was the rumble and roar of a car engine, punctuated with the steady sound of a hammer on metal. And then a stream of curses as Dillon emerged from beneath the hood of the Duesenberg.

She’d half hoped to watch him for a bit without him realizing she was there, but he honed right in on her, his eyes narrowing. It was too loud to do anything other than shout, and Dillon wasn’t about to bother raising his voice. He simply disappeared back beneath the hood of the old car, leaving Jamie with two choices. She could go back into the kitchen and wait. Or she could go over there and make him talk to her.

The kitchen option sounded immensely appealing, but Jamie was made of sterner stuff than that. She wasn’t about to turn off the heat—her sojourn in the alleyway still hadn’t worn off completely—but she could put a stop to the cacophony blaring from the huge stereo system.