Marilyn Pappano - One Stormy Night

With a breath for courage, she got out of the car, walked to the restaurant and stepped inside. The dining room was full, but locating Taylor was easy; he and his officers occupied the largest table and made the most noise. At least until they became aware of her.

The place literally fell silent as Taylor stood. He was exactly as Jen had described him—blond, blue-eyed, tanned, with a cleft in his chin and a crook in his nose. He had a nice body, though not as nice as Officer Mitch, a devil whispered in Jessica’s head. He looked strong, capable, authoritative, the kind of man who had always appealed to Jen’s fragile-woman sensibilities. How sad that she’d fallen so hard for his outside that by the time she’d learned what he was like inside it was too late.

When he smiled, it would probably stop women in their tracks, but he wasn’t smiling now. He simply stared, showing no surprise, no emotion at all. Of course, he’d had about seven hours to get used to the idea that she was back. Since her oh-so-nosy neighbor had blabbed.

And speaking of the devil, sitting to Taylor’s left was Mitch himself. Unlike everyone else in the place, whose attention was ping-ponging back and forth between her and Taylor, his gaze was fixed on his boss, watching him as if he might see straight through Taylor’s head and into his thoughts.

Curious.

Now what should she do? Approach Taylor? Snub him? Join him at his table and see if he would send everyone else away? Take a table of her own and wait for him to come to her?

He came to her before she could decide, stopping too close, but she held her ground. “Jennifer. Nice of you to come back.” His expression was bland, his words very soft, but he was very angry. She didn’t need to know him to recognize that.

“Taylor.” Her fingers itched to punch him just once…okay, as many times as she could before his goons pulled her off. She wanted to hurt him, to make him pay for what he’d done to Jen.

That’s why you’re here. To make him pay. Never forget that .

“Were you planning to let me know you were back?”

“You knew. Our friendly neighborhood cop told you, did he? But even if he hadn’t, I would have called you today. Tomorrow. Sometime.”

He smiled thinly and lowered his voice to a chilling whisper. “It wasn’t nice of you to let us think you were dead.”

“Sorry about that. I was more concerned with recovering from my injuries than with what people back here were thinking.”

His jaw tightened, his gaze narrowing. “You took something that belongs to me. A lot of things. I want them back.”

When she’d walked inside the diner, it had been only a few degrees cooler than outside. Suddenly she was so cold that she thought she might never get warm again.

Whatever Jen’s evidence was, as long as he’d thought it had disappeared with her, it was only a minor worry. Virtually any type of evidence—paper, computer CD, flash drive, photographs—would have likely been destroyed in the storm.

But if Jen survived, so did the threat to him. And that made him an even bigger threat to Jessica.

“Sorry,” she said again. “I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’d like to get some breakfast.” With a polite nod—and a private sigh of relief—she moved around him, walked to the nearest empty booth and sat down.

Taylor stood motionless for a moment, staring where she’d stood. Abruptly he came out of it and actually snapped his fingers at his men. Everyone jumped to his feet except Mitch, who rose but slowly.

When he came even with Taylor, Taylor stopped him, murmured something, then followed the rest of the officers out the door. Jaw taut, Mitch returned to his chair, settled in and picked up his coffee. He didn’t look like a happy camper.

Hands trembling and heart pounding double time with delayed reaction, Jessica ordered the morning’s special, then downed a glass of water. It was foul but still left a better taste in her mouth than the encounter with Taylor had.

Jen had warned her that coming here would be dangerous, that Taylor would kill her if he got the chance. Their brief encounter had left Jessica with no doubts about that. Taylor Burton was one very angry man. His career, his freedom and his life were at stake. He wouldn’t lose a moment’s sleep if he killed his supposed wife to protect himself.

He might want her dead but not until he recovered whatever Jen had taken.

A group of diners left and another came in, a posse of old men wearing faded work clothes and gimme caps. They headed automatically toward the large table but stopped when they saw it was occupied. One of them flagged down the nearest waitress. “It’s after nine o’clock,” he grumbled. “That’s been our table for twenty years. They get to use it before nine. Not after.”

The waitress looked at Mitch—who was ignoring them and showing no intention of leaving—shrugged helplessly and headed for the kitchen with an armful of dishes.

While the men complained among themselves none too softly, Jessica slid to her feet and walked to the table. “I take it you’re the designated…babysitter? Spy?”

Mitch studied his coffee cup for a time before meeting her gaze with open hostility. It was his only response.

“I figured. Why don’t you keep tabs on me from over there—” she gestured to her booth “—and let these gentlemen have their table.” Without waiting for an answer, she returned to her seat and began eating the breakfast that had been delivered in her absence.

He slowly stood, dropped what looked like a ten on the table, then started her way. No one else from his group had paid, she realized. They’d left their plates mostly clean and walked out without so much as a quarter for a tip. Free meals and good service—two of the benefits of being a cop, Taylor the scum used to say.

Dear God, Jen had told her so much that she felt as if she knew the man.

A moment later, the air took on a shimmer of tension, then Mitch sat down across from her. She chewed a bite of ham, took a nibble of buttered toast, then sprinkled salt and hot sauce over her hash browns. “This is some job you have, Officer Lassiter. Surveilling the boss’s wife.”

“Estranged wife,” he corrected.

She allowed a small smile. Once Hurricane Jan had blown through, Hurricane Jen would have swept Taylor right into divorce court—and, hopefully, criminal court. He would have soon been her ex-husband and grateful to see the last of her. But she hadn’t gotten the chance.

“Would you like my schedule for the day?” she asked helpfully. “When I leave here, I’m going to the bank. That should take about ten minutes. Then I need to stop by the post office—five minutes or so, depending on the line. Then the grocery store. I cleaned out the refrigerator before the hurricane, so I need to restock. Though I wouldn’t be surprised if you already knew that.”

She raised her gaze to his face, watching the muscles in his jaw tighten. “Truthfully, I wouldn’t be surprised if you people had been in my apartment on numerous occasions in the past three weeks. Searching for signs that I’d planned to evacuate, looking for clues, for evidence, for…oh, whatever might catch Taylor’s fancy.”

His hard gaze turned even harder as she murmured, “No, I wouldn’t be surprised at all.”

Chapter 2

Mitch’s coffee had long since gone cold, so he quit pretending interest in it. He was pissed off at being assigned babysitting tasks, pissed even more by Jennifer’s condescending recital of her morning plans and most of all by her implication that he’d done something wrong in checking out her apartment.

“No response, huh?” She looked as if she expected nothing more. “What is it Taylor says? ‘Admit nothing. Deny everything.’”