Best Kept Secrets(119)

Himself. Understand? Understand!" He shook Plummet

again, then released him. He rounded on Mrs. Plummet, who

had flattened herself against the wall in horrified silence.

"Wanda, I'm warning you, take him home. Now!" the sheriff

bellowed.

Demonstrating more courage than Alex would have expected

from her, she grabbed her husband's arm and virtually

dragged him toward the staircase. Together, they stumbled

up the steps and disappeared around the corner at the landing.

Alex didn't realize how shaken she was until Reede's eyes

moved to the hand she had pressed against her pounding heart.

"Did he touch you, hurt you?"

"No." Then, shaking her head, she repeated, "No."

"Don't bullshit me this time. Did he make any threats?

Say anything I could use to nail his skinny ass?"

"No, just garbage about me selling out to the unrighteous.

He considers me the traitor in the camp."

"Get your things. You're going home."

"You don't have to ask me twice."

He took her coat off the rack near the door. He didn't hold

it for her; in fact, he almost threw it at her, but Alex was

touched by his evident concern for her safety. He pulled on

his leather, fur-trimmed jacket and cowboy hat as they went

upstairs and out the front door.

The Plummets must have taken his advice and left. They

were nowhere around. Darkness had fallen. Most of the

square was deserted. Even the B & B Cafe had closed for

the night. It catered to the breakfast and lunch crowd.

Her car was cold when she slid beneath the steering wheel.

"Start your motor to warm it up, but don't leave till I come

around in my truck. I'll follow you to the motel."

"That's not necessary, Reede. As you said, he's probably

a coward. People who make threats rarely carry them out."

"Yeah. Rarely," he said, stressing the word.

"I can take care of myself. You don't have to worry about

me."

"I'm not. It's me I'm worried about. You asked for trouble



when you came here, and you're getting it. But no female

assistant D.A. is gonna get raped, maimed, or killed in my

county. Got that?"

He slammed her car door. Alex watched him disappear

down the dark sidewalk, wishing she'd never heard of him

or his infernal county. She commissioned him to the fiery

hell Plummet frequently expounded upon.

When she saw the headlights of the Blazer approaching,

she backed her car into the street and aimed it in the direction

of the motel that had been home for far too long. She resented

being escorted home.

She let herself into her room and locked the door behind

her, without even waving her thanks to Reede. Dinner was

a tasteless meal ordered off the room-service menu. She

thumbed through the yearbooks again, but was so familiar

with them by now that the pictures hardly registered. She

was tired, but too keyed up to go to sleep.

Junior's kiss haunted her thoughts, not because it had

sparked her sensual imagination, but because it hadn't.

Reede's kisses haunted her because he had so effortlessly

accomplished what Junior had wanted to.

Angus hadn't needed a script to know the kind of scene

he'd walked into when he had entered the hangar and found

her with Reede. His expression had been a mix of surprise,

disapproval, and something she couldn't quite put a name to.

Resignation?

She tossed and turned out of fatigue, frustration, and yes,

fear. No matter how many times she denied it, Plummet

disturbed her. He was a wacko, but his words held a ring of

truth.

She had come to care what each of her suspects thought

of her. Winning their approval had become almost as important

as winning her grandmother's. It was a bizarre fact,

one she had difficulty admitting to herself.

She didn't trust Reede, but she desired him and wanted

him to reciprocate that desire. For all his laziness, she liked

Junior and felt a twinge of pity for him. Angus fulfilled her



childhood fantasies of a stern but loving parent. The closer

she came to uncovering the truth about their connection to

her mother's death, the less she wanted to know it.

Then, there was the cloud of the Pasty Hickam murder

lurking on the horizon. Reede's suspect, Lyle Turner, was

still at large. Until she was convinced that he had killed the

Mintons's former ranch hand, she would go on believing that

Pasty had been eliminated as an eyewitness to Celina's murder.

His killer considered her a threat, too.

So, in the middle of the night, when she heard a car slowly

drive past her door, when she saw its headlights arc across

her bed, her heart leaped in fright.

Throwing off the covers, she crept to the window and

peeped through the crack between it and the heavy drape.