Not that alcohol usually helped. In most cases she’d observed, liquor tended to fuel the fire. But as she watched, the man reached over to take the woman’s hand and rub the back of his thumb over her knuckle line, and the woman smiled into her apple martini.
Ah, bliss.
As people came and went, laughing and ordering drinks, or picking at the nuts and pretzels, Sophia caught snatches of conversation. Just bits and pieces, but a lot more of it swirling around James Cahill. Actually, since Megan Travers had gone missing, business in all of James’s enterprises, including the hotel and bar, had picked up. Which was kind of sick, when you thought about it.
Fame or infamy—both always got people’s attention.
Two thirtysomething guys took seats at the bar: Gus Jardine, the taller one, and Bruce Porter, shorter and stockier in his ever-present Yankees baseball cap. Both worked for James. Sophia knew who they were, just not a lot about them. They both smelled of smoke, and Jardine kept fiddling with his lighter. Over shots of tequila, they were not only discussing the national basketball rankings and their latest hunting trip; they’d also figured out what happened to Megan.
“. . . he did her and then he did her, if ya know what I mean.” Unshaven, his black hair long and curly, Gus confided to Bruce as Willow, that stealthy kitchen assistant, hurried in with fresh ice. She poured it into the refrigerated tub near the soda machine, and it rattled so loudly Sophia had a hard time catching the end of the conversation. She thought Gus said, “Something went wrong.”
“Well, duh. Of course it did,” Bruce agreed. “The fucker was doin’ two chicks at once.”
Sophia’s back stiffened, and she glanced in the mirror, to see if he had figured out she was one of the “chicks.”
Apparently not, because Bruce didn’t catch her eye. Instead, his gaze followed after Willow as the thin woman, her black braid swinging behind her, hurried back through the swinging door to the kitchen. Good riddance, Sophia thought. Willow, barely out of her teens, hung out with unreliable Zena. Worse yet, Sophia had caught Willow staring at James with a quiet fascination that bothered her, that had really gotten under her skin, which she’d forced herself to get used to. Even pregnant Zena had followed James with her eyes from time to time.
It was exhausting. And irritating.
The problem was Sophia recognized that look, knew what it felt like to want something so badly, so out of reach that you ached inside.
Well, too damned bad.
James was off limits!
“The double-chick thing isn’t a bad gig if you can get away with it,” Gus was saying, still musing aloud about seeing two women at once and finally stuffing his lighter into his pocket.
“But not many guys can.” Bruce’s attention was back to his drinking /hunting buddy.
“Unless the chicks are dumb as shit.” Gus threw back his drink, wiped his mouth with his sleeve, and slammed his shot glass. His buddy followed suit.
They both laughed. Ugly, guttural snickers. Then signaled for another round.
Sophia, inwardly burning, considered cutting them off . . . or doing something worse, but she had to keep her cool and hope they didn’t read the papers, see her name tag, and put two and two together.
She saw the woman who’d nursed her Jack Daniel’s quickly gather up her things, fling a bill on the bar, and abruptly leave.
For a second, Sophia thought Marshall had said something offensive. Or maybe it was Gus or Bruce. Then, through the window, she saw the headlights through the trees separating the hotel property from the lane to James’s home. Her heart soared. He was home! She caught a glimpse of the woman with the red hat hurrying out the front doors.
She’d been waiting for James.
As Sophia had suspected.
A quick flash of jealousy cut through her—and then a deeper emotion as she finally remembered where she’d seen the woman. On TV.
“Crap,” she whispered under her breath.
Ms. Whiskey Straight Up was really Charity . . . Charity Spitz, no, Spritz, like wine spritzer. She was occasionally on TV as a local reporter whenever a station in the tri-cities to the east, or Seattle and Tacoma in the west, needed local talent to report on a story, usually weather.
Sophia had only seen her a couple of times, but she recognized that face and, more importantly, the questions lurking in her eyes. Maybe the men in their thirties hadn’t recognized her, but Charity Spritz certainly had.
And now she was going to talk to James.
“Hey! How ’bout another?” Bruce asked. “We’re getting thirsty.”
“Right away,” Sophia said automatically and pinned her for-the-customer smile on her face. “The same?”
“Si, si,” he said. “Another shot of Jose for me and my amigo!”
They both laughed uproariously, and it was all she could do not to spit in their drinks.
* * *
This was crazy, Rebecca thought, shivering in the night. Certifiably crazy.
And illegal.
And possibly emotional suicide.
Nonetheless, Rebecca trudged through the snow along the lane to James Cahill’s house and managed to keep her footsteps in the already packed-down trail, her breath a cloud. As the drive opened to a clearing, with a rise upon which the farmhouse had been built, she still kept to the deep ruts that had already been broken by the footsteps of cops and rescue workers, reporters and curious neighbors who had wandered over before the place had been cordoned off. With any luck, the new snowfall would cover her tracks, and she wouldn’t be exposed. Inside the pocket of her jacket, she crossed her fingers, then glanced over her shoulder for the umpteenth time to assure herself that she wasn’t being followed.
In the dark of the night, with snow everywhere, she imagined she saw a figure hiding behind a tree or lurking just on the other side of an outbuilding, but
