Blue Twilight_[11] Page 7

  She nodded.

  He released her hand. “We should get some sleep. Get an early start.”

  “Yeah. Just…one more thing first.”

  He looked down at her. She swallowed hard and gathered up her courage—drew it straight up from her ovaries, she thought. “I never thought of you as a gelding, Lou. I don’t believe for one minute you’re too old to react to a little flirting.”

  She watched his brows go up. He seemed to be searching for words, so she shook her head. “I’m not trying to put you on the spot for a response to any of that. I just—I thought you needed to know.”

  With a firm nod, she turned and walked down the hall to her bedroom and just left him standing there.

  7

  One vehicle seemed more practical than two, so Stormy left her Miata safely at the house in Maine, and Lou drove Maxie’s Bug. Not because he was the man, Stormy supposed, but because he was still pretending Maxie’s lousy driving was the reason he’d come along in the first place. She knew better and, personally, thought the two of them were pretty pathetic. Meanwhile, though, they were both still way too overprotective of her. God, it was getting old fast. She could only imagine how much worse that would be if they knew what was really going on with her.

  Hell, how could they? She didn’t even know.

  Either way, the upshot of it was that Lou drove, Maxie sat in the front of her own car, beside him, and Stormy had the small but comfy back seat all to herself.

  Not that she minded all that much. She leaned with her back against the side of the car, and her legs on the seat, knees bent. She’d rolled up Maxie’s ever-present car blanket to use as a cushion. The position gave her a chance to observe the two of them. Much more pleasant, she thought, speculating on the state of their issues than wondering about her own.

  Lou seemed stiff, guarded, as he drove. He must feel the tension—it was emanating from Max in waves a dead man couldn’t have missed. Not anger, not exactly. Or not purely anger, anyway. She was pissed off, sure, but mostly, Stormy thought, she was frustrated and impatient with him for so thoroughly misreading her for the past six months. She must feel like all that flirting had been totally wasted. And she’d done some class-A flirting!

  Lou didn’t talk much, except about where they were going, driving directions or when to stop. Stormy didn’t blame him. He was a male, which meant Max’s mood was likely confusing him. He had no idea what he’d done wrong, so he didn’t dare say much, in case he made things worse.

  Poor clueless man.

  Max was off her game this morning, too. A little awkward, unsure of herself, and probably resenting the hell out of him for making her feel that way. She couldn’t relate to him as she usually did, with teasing, flirting and baiting, because he’d called a halt to that, and she hadn’t yet figured out the next best way to talk to him, so she didn’t talk at all. It wouldn’t be long, though, before Max had a brand-new approach. In the meantime, she was unnaturally quiet. Someone who didn’t know her as well as Stormy might think she was brooding, but Stormy knew better. Maxie was regrouping, working out a new plan of attack.

  Meanwhile, though, the usual teasing banter between them was gone. Stormy found herself missing it.

  She leaned back in her seat, bored with pondering her two hardheaded friends. Instead she wondered what it would be like to see Jason Beck again after all this time. He would be older, more experienced, maybe harder than he’d been before. Life seemed to have that effect on people. She wondered if he would look drastically different—whether he’d let himself go, grown a beard or put on a ton of weight. Whether he’d let his hair grow back or kept his head shaved, the way he used to. She wondered if he would still be the conservative ’fraidy cat he’d been before.

  What if he wasn’t? What if he’d opened his mind, grown a little more outgoing over the years? Stormy swallowed and closed her eyes, told herself she wasn’t going to New Hampshire to audition Jason as her new love interest—she was going to help him find his sister. Period.

  Besides, she’d agonized over her decision not to pursue more than friendship with him in the first place. He was too buttoned-up, too tight-assed. He wasn’t for her. She would have driven him crazy, or he would have clipped her wings. Neither was a happy outcome.

  Whatever she might have expected of Jason, though, it couldn’t have prepared her for the reality she faced four hours later.

  They drove into town a little after noon, rolling past a green sign that read Welcome to Endover, followed by another that read Curfew Enforced. Stormy frowned and wondered about that, but she wasn’t sure if either Lou or Max had noticed. They were both focused on the opposite side of the road, where a brick building stood at the rear of an empty blacktop parking lot. The letters attached to the red brick face spelled out Visitor Center.

  Stormy felt a cold shiver go up her spine. She rubbed her arms, and the motion drew Max’s attention. “What’s wrong, hon?” she asked, turning to look over the seat at her.

  “Just a chill.” Max narrowed her eyes, and Stormy hurried on. “That would be a likely place for a stranger in town to stop, don’t you think?”

  The visitor center was behind them now, but Max looked back at it. “Good point. We should check it out.”

  Stormy nodded, glad that Max was now distracted from worrying over her. She watched as Max rummaged in her shoulder bag for a notepad and jotted something on it. Probably a reminder to snoop around that visitor center.

  They drove on through the town, which seemed to be little more than a few houses, leading up to a strip that apparently comprised the “business district.” They drove by a gas station/convenience store, a doughnut shop, a hardware store, a small grocery, a pharmacy and a post office. Lots of brick buildings—nearly all of them were brick, in fact. It made for a neat, orderly facade, even if there were weeds and grass sprouting between the sections of sidewalk. One of those brick buildings seemed to house several offices, including the one that had Endover Police Department painted on the pebbled glass in the door.

  There was little traffic, only one light. A handful of people walked along the sidewalks in groups of two or three.

  The short strip of businesses came to an abrupt end, with a handful of homes, the elementary school and a long, winding strip of nothing. Trees lined the road, and now and then she caught glimpses of the ocean beyond them.

  She glanced down at her driving directions. “That motel should be coming up in a couple of miles. I’ll call Jay and tell him we’re nearly there.”

  “No you won’t,” Max said. She held up her cell phone, to show her the screen. “No reception. Hasn’t been since we got into town.”

  “Makes you wonder,” Lou said, “how Jason’s sister managed to call him from here.”

  Max tipped her head to one side. “There could be spotty reception somewhere. Or maybe she has a different company or a more powerful phone than any of ours.”

  “Or maybe she was never here.”

  Max was already a little irritated with him, and by the way her face darkened, Stormy knew she’d just shifted that up a notch. He should have stuck to his policy of keeping quiet.

  “What are you saying, Lou?” Max asked. “That Jason made it up?”

  At her tone, Lou shot her a sideways look. “I’m not calling him a liar. He might just be mistaken.”

  “Not likely. He’s got an IQ that falls somewhere between genius and freak. And he wouldn’t lie to me, Lou. He’s one of my dearest friends.”

  “Was one of your dearest friends. You haven’t seen or heard from him in, what? Five years now?” He sighed. “People change, Maxie.”

  “Not Jason.”

  He pursed his lips, sent her a lingering look. “Maybe not. I hope not. I just want you to be careful.”

  That was better, Stormy thought. If Max thought he was only being protective of her, she would let just about anything slide.

  Then the idiot added, “Don’t go charging in half-cocked the way you usua
lly do.”

  Max’s jaw went tight, and she faced front, not saying a word.

  Damn, Stormy thought. He blew it.

  They parked the car in the lot of the North Star Motor Lodge. The L-shaped building that housed the guest rooms was tan with brown trim and seemed well kept. A concrete sidewalk unrolled in front of it, and each door had a gold number on the front. The motel office was a small square structure that stood apart from the rest. A freshly mown lawn spread out around the blacktop and held a handful of picnic tables. Behind the motel, she glimpsed a shaggy meadow backed by woods. But when she got out of the car, she could smell the ocean and knew it must be close.

  The three of them strode up to room number two and knocked on the door.

  Jason opened it, and Stormy sucked in a breath and then pressed a hand to her mouth. He sported a deep purple half moon under one swollen eye. His lower lip was split. A bruise on his cheekbone stood out darker than the rest of his skin.

  “What the hell happened to you?” Maxie blurted. “You look like you went ten rounds with a bear.”

  He lifted his brows, opened his arms. “Not even a hello before you start with the questions, Mad Maxie?”

  Max hugged him briefly. Then she stepped back, and he turned to Stormy. “Long time, huh?”

  “Too long,” she said. He embraced her—more tentatively than he had embraced Max, though. But suddenly white light blasted the center of Stormy’s brain—blinding and hot. She jerked her arms tightly around Jason in reaction and slammed her eyes closed against the flash, but the images came anyway. Fists pounded her face. She felt the blows, and the sharp toe of a booted foot in her rib cage. And then it was gone.

  She released Jason, only to find him staring at her oddly. Sure he was—he couldn’t know why she’d hugged him as if trying to break him in two just now. She stepped awkwardly out of his arms. Lou extended a hand.

  “Beck.”

  “Hello, Lou. It’s good to see you.”

  “I wish it were under more pleasant circumstances,” Lou said.

  “So what happened to you?” Max asked.

  Jason ran a hand over his nape. “Idiocy, that’s all. I was out in the woods, looking for Delia,” he said. “Not a real bright idea in the dark. I took a bad fall.”

  Lou frowned, shooting a quick look at Max, his lips thin. Stormy didn’t think he believed Jason had gotten those bruises from a fall, and she knew damn well she didn’t. She didn’t know what was happening to her, but she was pretty sure that flash she’d just experienced had been a look at what had really happened to him.

  “Why were you looking for her in the woods?” Lou asked.

  “It seemed like as good a place to look as any.” He opened the door wider, stepping aside. “Come on in. Now that you’re here, maybe you’ll come up with a better idea.”

  “Does that mean you want us on the case, Jay?” Max asked.

  “That’s why I called you, Maxie. And I don’t expect a free ride, either. I’ll pay whatever you charge.”

  “I’d do it for free.”

  “I wouldn’t ask you to do that. I couldn’t, Max.”

  “Then we’ll give you our special rate—for old friends and former members,” Max said with a wink. “Don’t worry, Jason. We’re here now, and we’ll find Delia. Doesn’t matter that we’re new to this—’cause we aren’t. Not really. Just new to doing it on an official level. And it doesn’t matter that a missing teenager isn’t our area of expertise. We’ll find her, because we care more than anyone else would. And that’s gonna make all the difference.”

  Jason met Maxie’s eyes, but he couldn’t seem to hold her gaze for more than a beat or two. He quickly lowered his, then stepped aside so they could troop into his motel room. It was tiny, with a queen-size bed, TV stand and bathroom. Not a hell of a lot more. Jason had a map laid out on the bed, hand-drawn on a large sheet of white paper that might once have been a take-out food bag.

  As they gathered around it, Jason leaned down and pointed. “This is the road into town. There’s an information center right here.”

  Stormy nodded. “We saw it on the way here.”

  Lou said, “Jason, what makes you think your sister is here, in Endover?”

  He frowned as he looked up at Lou. “I…it’s where she was when she called.”

  “Are you sure? We haven’t been able to pick up any reception for a couple of miles now.”

  Jason nodded firmly. “I’m sure.”

  “Why? What makes you so sure?”

  Max sent Lou a quelling look. “If he says he’s sure, he’s sure, Lou.”

  “He said her message was broken up, full of static.”

  “Still—”

  “It’s okay, Max.” Jason put a hand on her shoulder. “I did hear her pretty clearly when she said ‘Endover, New Hampshire,’ Lou. And the bad reception here is probably why the call was so choppy, and why we got cut off. If anything, it makes me even more certain I heard her correctly.” He shrugged. “Since she hasn’t called again, I’m assuming she’s still someplace where she can’t call out. Still here, in Endover.”

  “How could she call again? Your cell phone isn’t working here, is it?” Lou asked.

  Jason’s gaze shifted from the bed, to the dresser, to the window. “I…no. It’s not. But she hasn’t called home, either. I’ve been checking the machine.”

  “Have you asked anyone around town about her?”

  “I, uh—I talked with the police chief.”

  Lou frowned. “When was that?”

  “Right after I arrived here.”

  Nodding slowly, Lou said, “Before you called us?”

  “Right.”

  “Then why did you say you didn’t want the police involved?”

  “Lou, that’s enough.” Max barked the words at him. He sent her a look of impatience, but he stopped grilling Jason.

  Jason lowered his head, pushed his hands through his hair. “Look, I barely know if I’m coming or going here. I went to the Endover police because it seemed like the thing to do. It was a waste of time, though. There’s only one cop in town and he was no help at all. I figured I’d have to do this on my own.” He looked from one face to the next, as if trying to read them.

  Stormy thought Lou was suspicious as hell of Jason. And she wasn’t entirely sure she didn’t agree with him. Max, on the other hand, seemed to believe him—clearly she wanted to. She kept touching his arm, his shoulder, as if to comfort him.

  Stormy turned to the other two. “Where do you want to start?”

  “I’d like to see that visitor center,” Max said. “I think you were right, Storm. She could have stopped there for directions or something.”

  “The visitor center is closed,” Jay said. “I stopped there on the way into town. The place is abandoned.”

  “Then we can case the town, check for any other place where she might have stopped. Diners, gas stations, that sort of thing.”

  Lou nodded. “I’d like to talk to the local police chief myself, see what he has to offer. Helpful or not, it’s a good idea to let him know we’re here and we’re looking for her, put him on alert to keep an eye out and contact us if anything turns up.”

  “There’s no point, Lou,” Jason said. “The local cop doesn’t even believe she was ever here,” Jason said.

  “It won’t hurt anything to talk to him,” Lou said. “What was she driving?”

  “Little red Neon,” Jason said. “Only two years old.” He swallowed hard. “She works part-time waiting tables to make her payments.”

  “You have the plate number?” Lou asked.

  He nodded. “Yeah.”

  “So we can have the local cop keep an eye out for the car, too. Like I said, it can’t hurt.”

  Max stroked Jason’s upper arm. “Lou’s right, hon. We should use every resource we can, even if it does seem unlikely to pan out.” She glanced at Stormy. “I think we should run a check on this town. See if anything like this has happened before.” />
  “I’ll get the laptop out of the car,” Stormy replied.

  Lou put a hand on her shoulder, stopping her even as she turned to go. “Let’s book ourselves some rooms first, huh? Set the computer up in one of them?”

  Stormy heard it in his voice, loud and clear. He didn’t trust Jason. He wanted a place where they could talk without him hearing every word. “All right.”

  “I’ll take care of the rooms,” Max said.

  Lou shot her a look and seemed about to say something, then bit it back. Maxie rolled her eyes at him. “A double for me and Stormy, and a single for you,” she told him. “That suit you, Lou?”

  “Fine.” He pulled out a wallet, reached for a credit card.

  Max put a hand over his. “This is going on the company card,” she said. “It’s our first official case.” She headed off to book the rooms.

  Lou sighed, turned and went after her. Stormy didn’t blame him. She was liable to have him sharing a bed with her if he didn’t keep an eye on things. And he’d pissed her off all morning without even meaning to.

  Once they had gone and she found herself alone in the room with Jason, she cleared her throat. He walked to the bed, folded up his map.

  “Is it going to be hard, working with me?” she asked.

  He looked up at her, sent her a sad smile. “If I have trouble working with every girl who ever turned me down, Stormy, I’m in for a pretty tough existence. No. It’ll be fine.”

  She thinned her lips.

  “I heard you’d been in the hospital,” he said. “Nothing serious, I hope.”

  She shrugged. “Bullet to the head, a few days in a coma, no big deal.”

  He swung around to face her, his features expressionless. “Tell me you’re kidding.”

  “’Fraid not,” she said. “But it’s okay, really. I’m fine now.” She wasn’t. Far from it, in fact, but that wasn’t anything he needed to know.

  “Someone shot you?”

  She nodded.

  “Who, for God’s sake?”

  “The bad guy.” She rolled her eyes. “Sheesh, who did you think?”