Into The Fire
Without a word Dillon started the car, the headlights spearing the darkness. It had to be late—the sky stayed light till almost ten that time of year. Would her parents wonder where she was when they got back from their cocktail party? No, they’d assume she was at the prom, safe in the care of a good boy who’d look out for her and keep her safe.
But that good boy had dumped her. And even her beloved Nate was doing a piss-poor job of seeing to her welfare, leaving her in the hands of a…a…she couldn’t even think of the word for Dillon.
She tried to sit up, but Dillon simply put a hand on her shoulder and shoved her down again. “You need your rest,” he said, pushing her head down to rest on one hard thigh. She couldn’t have sat up if she tried, but then she heard the telltale sounds from the back seat and realized that Nate and his girlfriend were doing more than necking. And she definitely didn’t want to be seeing that.
She stopped resisting, letting her head fall against the soft denim that covered Dillon’s leg. “That’s right,” he murmured, so quietly that the two in the back couldn’t hear him. Not that they were paying attention. “Just stay put and you won’t see anything you don’t want to see.”
Dillon had pulled out of the parking area and was driving down the tree-shrouded back road, fast, with one hand holding the steering wheel, the other draped casually on her shoulder. He was stroking her, absentmindedly, she assumed, his long fingers brushing against her arm, trailing up the side of her neck to brush her hair away. She had no illusions that he’d let her sit up—every time she tried he simply exerted enough pressure to keep her down. She gave up fighting, letting out her breath and letting her head rest on his thigh.
“That’s better,” he said, softly enough that the words were torn away by the wind rushing past them. And she closed her eyes, breathing in the night air, the smell of beer and denim and spring flowers. The scent of her on his hand as he slowly stroked her neck.
She almost fell asleep. She could hear the noises from the back seat, but she didn’t want to think about it. Didn’t want to think about what Dillon had done to her. Didn’t want think about anything but the quiet sense of calm that surrounded her as Dillon stroked her neck.
She heard the music first, echoing through the woods, loud and insistent. Dillon pulled the car to a stop, and this time when she tried to sit up he let her, let her scurry over to the far side of the car, while he showed nothing more than a faint smile.
At least Nate and his friend had resurfaced, flushed, half dressed, but finished with whatever they were doing. Nate scrambled out of the car, leaving his girlfriend to follow after him, but he paused to give Jamie a hand. A good thing, too, because her legs were still shaky. People surged around them, all of them strangers, most of them drunk or stoned, and she turned back to look for Dillon.
He already had his tongue down the throat of some girl who’d plastered herself against him. Except that he was holding on to her, holding her hips against his, and she’d already managed to unfasten the final buttons of his shirt. The shirt he’d unbuttoned for her.
She knew she hadn’t made a sound, but he broke the kiss for a moment, turning back to glance at Jamie. She couldn’t read his expression, and she knew she must have looked totally pathetic. “Hey, Pauly,” he said to somebody standing nearby. “Nate brought his little sister along. Look after her, will you?”
She didn’t even bother to correct him. Nate had already disappeared into the crowd, and Dillon had his hand on the huge breast of the girl who’d greeted him so enthusiastically. Totally forgetting about her.
“Hey, there, Jamie.” And she realized with a shock who Pauly was. Paul Jameson, quarterback of the football team, president of the student council, tall, gorgeous, every girl’s dream. He was slightly drunk, and his dark hair was flopped over his forehead in an endearing tangle. “Wanna drink?” He had a bottle of tequila in his hand.
She looked back toward Dillon, but he’d disappeared, without a backward glance. “Sure,” she said. And he handed her the bottle.
Jamie wasn’t accomplishing a goddamned thing, remembering that night. She’d put it out of her mind long ago, with a combination of determination, a good therapist and the judicious use of tranquilizers. Whenever the memories hit her she usually just popped a pill and the clawing anxiety would pass.
But the pills were in her purse, and her purse was gone. And the couldn’t spend the day in her room, hiding.
She sat up, then froze in horror. The door was open, and Dillon was standing in the darkened hallway, watching her, that same unreadable expression on his face. He was so different from the boy in the Cadillac all those years ago. He was exactly the same.
“Someone took my purse,” she said.
He looked neither surprised nor shocked. “Did you leave it in the car?”
“No. I brought it up here. Someone came into my room and took it.” She wasn’t certain of her ability to get to her feet with complete grace, so she stayed where she was, sitting on the thin mattress.
“And you think it was me? Not likely, sweetheart. I have no particular interest in keeping you around here, and the lack of your purse is going to slow your departure considerably. I know you like to blame me for everything that’s ever gone wrong in your and Nate’s life, but this time I’m innocent.”
“For some reason the very notion of you being innocent of anything is beyond my comprehension. And don’t call me sweetheart!” There was no question that Dillon brought out the worst in her. She’d spent her life trying to be compassionate, calm and forgiving, and Dillon made her shake with anger.
“What do you prefer I call you? Baby girl?”
It was like a punch in the stomach. He hadn’t forgotten that night. She didn’t even have that small comfort. At least he’d been too out of it to remember details.
She ignored it. “So if you didn’t take my purse, who did? The dead rat? Nate’s ghost?”
“You never can tell.” He made no effort to come into the room, but it was little comfort. He still loomed over her, and she decided it was better to scramble to her feet and risk looking clumsy than to keep staring up at him from such a subservient position. She knew enough about body language and politics to know this was only making her sense of powerlessness worse.
She got to her feet without stumbling, and even took a step toward him, just to show that she wasn’t afraid of him. “Where did you say the telephone was?” she said. “I need to call my mother and have her wire me some money.”
“Down in the garage. But you’ll have to call collect, princess.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. You have to have more than a pay phone here!”
He shook his head. “No need. There aren’t that many people I want to talk to.”
“Or who want to talk to you?”
“You got it. You shouldn’t have any trouble finding it. I’m going to take a shower.”
“I’d appreciate the privacy.”
“Whereas I couldn’t care less. If you have any interest in joining me in the shower—”
“I don’t!” He was saying it just to annoy her, but it worked, to her utter shame.
“Give the Duchess my love, then,” Dillon said lazily. And he closed the door behind him.
He was lying to her. Nate hovered overhead in a dreamlike state. He’d always been a good liar, and he could recognize when his old friend was lying, as well. What did Dillon want with jamie? Maybe what he’d always wanted with Jamie and had never admitted .
It didn’t mean that Nate didn’t know just how fixated Dillon Gaynor had always been with little Jamie. And now she was here, stuck in the old building with no one to play chaperone but the ghost of the one person they had in common .
He was going to enjoy this .
5
A t least he’d left the door open to the kitchen, so that light filtered into the bottom of the stairwell. There’d be no dead rats beneath her bare feet this time, thank God. Just the live one upstairs in the shower.
Jamie didn’t want to think about that. Dillon and a shower meant Dillon naked, and that was one image she could happily do without. The only mental image she wanted of Dillon was with his head on a platter.
No, she didn’t even care that much, she reminded herself as she crossed the now surprisingly neat kitchen. She just wanted to be gone. To take Nate’s few possessions and get the hell out of there. Dillon unsettled her, even after all these years. Unsettled her more than the unanswered questions about Nate’s death. She’d loved her cousin, deeply, but in the last few years she’d lost most of her illusions about him. Nate was a bad boy, maybe almost as bad as Dillon Gaynor. He’d done drugs, he’d broken the law, he’d broken her mother’s heart. With his charm and good looks he’d managed to talk himself out of the consequences for his bad behavior. Until at the end, when someone, maybe even his childhood friend, had had enough and killed him.
Nothing was going to bring him back. Nothing would make the loss of him less painful, not the truth, not revenge. In fact, they’d lost Nate long ago. He needed to rest in peace.
But her mother wasn’t about to accept that simple truth, and Jamie would have done anything Isobel asked of her. Except that this time it was too much, and she needed to get the hell out of there.
She dreaded going into the garage to use the pay phone but she had no choice. “Why in heaven’s name are you calling me collect, Jamie?” she greeted her in the faint, slightly querulous tone she’d taken to using in the last few years. “You have a cell phone and a phone card.”
“I’ve lost my purse,” Jamie said flatly. And then guilt hit her. “How are you feeling, Mother?”
“The same,” Isobel said with a sigh. “What can one expect? How did you happen to lose your purse? Where are you, for that matter? Have you seen that man?”
Jamie had no doubts that “that man” was Dillon. “I’m here in Wisconsin. At his garage. My car went off the road, I lost my purse, and I need to get home.”
“How unfortunate,” Isobel said in her faint voice. “And a bit careless of you. How long have you been there?”
Jamie took a deep breath. “Twelve hours. Twelve hours too long. I need you to wire me some money, and any form of identification of mine you can find. Bella can look for you. She could even call the motor vehicle department to see what I need to do about my driver’s license. I can’t rent a car without one, even if I have a credit card.”
“I try not to ask my nurse to do personal favors for me,” Isobel said stiffly. “She’s got enough to do, taking care of an old woman in a wheelchair.”
Jamie pounded her forehead against the wall beside the pay phone, just once. Isobel never missed a chance to use her crippling arthritis as a weapon. “I don’t think Bella would mind in an emergency,” Jamie said.
“I don’t see that it’s an emergency. You’re staying with Dillon, aren’t you?”
“Yes, but—”
“Then that’s perfect. Your cousin died there, Jamie. Our Nate was murdered there, and now you have the perfect chance to find out what happened.”
“I’m not Nancy Drew, Mother.”
“Don’t be flippant with me,” Isobel said in her faint tones. “You care just as much as I do—you can’t fool me. A few days there won’t do you any harm. I’ll call my lawyer and have him put something in motion to get your paperwork back for you, but in the meantime you stay put and pay attention. Nothing happens without a reason. I think fate must have wanted you there.”
Jamie didn’t bother arguing. She loved her mother dearly, but Isobel did tend to think fate worked at Isobel Kincaid’s whim. She was a Kincaid, after all, twice over. She’d even married her second cousin Victor, and Nate used to say she’d done it just to keep the name.
“I really don’t want…” she tried one more time, but Isobel sailed right over her, her voice uncharacteristically strong.
“I don’t think your wants should be paramount right now, Jamie. I’ll call Miss Finch’s—I’m sure they can make do without you for a few days. In the meantime you should concentrate on what happened to Nate. Why he was even there, what he did during his last days. Anything.”
That tone of desperation had slid into Isobel’s voice, the one that always destroyed Jamie’s defenses. “All right, Mother,” she said wearily. “I’ll give it a few days.”
“Thank you, Jamie. I knew I could count on you. After all, we both loved him so much.”
“Yes, we did,” Jamie said. “Let me give you…”
“Goodbye, darling.”
“…the telephone number here.” But Isobel had already hung up. Jamie stared at the phone in frustration. She could always try calling her back, but knowing Isobel’s gift for getting what she wanted, she probably wouldn’t answer the phone. Either that or she’d refuse to accept the collect charges.
She was trapped. She resisted temptation, putting the telephone back into its cradle very carefully. Her mother was right—a couple of days wouldn’t kill her. And surely she could do something herself about getting her license and credit cards back. If only Dillon had a goddamned private telephone line.
She headed back toward the kitchen, then paused, looking at the cavernous garage.
It must have been some kind of warehouse or factory in the distant past. The place was huge, with a line of cars along both ends, half of them covered with tarps. She recognized an old Thunderbird, a Mustang Cobra and a stately ’49 Oldsmobile. For some reason she had always been good at recognizing cars, and the ones she could see in Dillon’s garage were beautiful and rare.
There were two more in various stages of disarray. The one missing an engine was a Ford from 1954 or 1955. The other was nothing less than a Duesenberg.
She took a step, irresistibly drawn to it. It had taken the years with surprising dignity, and even in its current state it had a certain grace and elegance that filled her with a rare covetousness. She’d never been particularly materialistic—her needs had always been more emotional and elemental. But looking at the old Duesenberg, she wanted it.
She turned her back on it, resolutely, and stalked to the kitchen. There was no sign of Dillon, thank God, and she was hungry. It was no wonder the man was still skinny—there wasn’t even enough food in his cupboards to feed the dead rat. She half expected to find pellets all over the place, but whatever rodents had taken possession of the kitchen had left no sign behind.
She gave up looking, starting to eat stale Wheaties from the box, when the door opened and a very small guardian angel stepped in. Or more specifically, Mouser, with a boxful of groceries.
“Hi, there, sugar,” he greeted her. “I brought you some food. Dillon never has a damned thing in the house, and I figured you’d be starving about now. Don’t eat those Wheaties—I think the guy on the box was in the 1936 Olympics.”
She set the box down hurriedly, swallowing her last dry mouthful. The little man was unpacking milk, orange juice and a bakery box that smelled like divine intervention.
“Cinnamon buns, no nuts, right?” he said.
She’d already opened the box, but she jerked her head up at his words. “How did you know that’s what I like?” she demanded sharply.
Mouser shrugged. “Nate musta said something. I got a good memory for things like that.”
“But Nate didn’t. I don’t think he had any idea whether I liked nuts or not.”
“Well, hell, I musta got you mixed up with someone else. I’ll get them with nuts tomorrow,” he said, unabashed.
“No, this is perfect,” she said hurriedly, realizing she must have sounded rude. Isobel had drummed good manners into her, good manners above all things. Besides, what did it matter if someone knew she didn’t like nuts on anything?
“And some decent coffee,” Mouser added, setting a tall cardboard mug in front of her. “Dillon uses the stuff he makes to strip the rust off old car parts.”
“I’d resent that if I didn’t know you’d brought me some, too,” Dillon said from the open doorway.
Jamie turned at the sound of his voice, and then quickly looked away. He was shirtless, his long hair wet, his feet bare. She should have known he’d look even better than he had at eighteen, the glorious golden bad boy of Marshfield, Rhode Island. She took the top off her cup of coffee, and the scent of hazelnut wafted up, as tempting as…tempting.
“Hey, I’m a sucker,” Mouser said, sitting down at the table and opening the box of cinnamon buns. “Aren’t you going to work today?”
“I was planning to.” Before he took a chair beside her he put his shirt on, but didn’t bother to button it. And his feet were still bare. “Hand over my coffee.” Dillon took a big gulp from the paper cup Mouser handed him, then looked at it in horror. “What is this shit?” he demanded.
“Hazelnut coffee. I thought it was time to broaden your horizons.”
“My coffee horizons are just fine as they are,” Dillon said, grimacing as he took another deep drink. “Now, if you want to talk about something more interesting, like a ’49 Studebaker, then—”
“I need to get out of here!” Jamie broke in.
Dillon turned to look at her, as if he’d just realized she was there. “And I’d like to get rid of you,” he said affably. “The perfect partnership. What do you expect me to do?”
“My purse is gone.”
“So you said. Call the Duchess and have her wire you what you need.”
“I did. She says she will. Eventually. In the meantime she wants me to stay here.”
She’d managed to surprise him. “The Duchess wants you in my evil clutches? Any reason why she’d choose you to be the virgin sacrifice?”
Virgin sacrifice . The phrase should have been light, comical. But it held too many loaded memories. For her, not for him. The years of alcohol and drugs had probably blotted out unpleasant memories for Dillon Gaynor. Sooner or later it would begin to show on his face. Right now he just looked older, sexier. His mouth was just as tempting as it had always been. It had tasted of cigarettes and beer, she remembered vividly. Even after all this time, no matter how much she wanted to, she couldn’t forget Dillon’s taste.
“What are you staring at?” he said, reaching for the pack of cigarettes on the table.
Mouser slapped his hand. “I thought you were trying to quit.”
“I am. But not at this particularly stressful time in my life. I’ll wait till I don’t have guests,” he said, lighting one. “You didn’t answer my question. Why does the Duchess want you here?”
“She wants me to find out what happened to Nate.”
“He died.”
The knowledge still hurt, but she wasn’t about to show it. “Tell me something I don’t know.”
He took a deep drag of the cigarette, his eyes narrowed over the exhaled smoke. “I could tell you a lot of things you don’t know, child. There are none so blind as those who will not see.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” she demanded.
“It means that even if I told you, showed you, you wouldn’t believe it. You’ve set up your own belief system long ago, and nothing could ever shake it. Not that it should. You can go back to Rhode Island and live in your safe little cocoon. Didn’t you ever want to leave there?” he added with a swift change of topic.
“Not particularly.” It was a lie, but he wouldn’t know that. She felt stifled in the small college town where she’d spent her entire life. Anything, even a run-down garage in the middle of nowhere, would have been preferable.
“So what’s needed to get you the hell out of here?” he said, reaching for the last cinnamon bun. It wasn’t until that moment that Jamie realized she’d eaten the other three, out of sheer nervousness.
“My purse with all my credit cards and identification, for one thing.”
“I haven’t seen it,” Dillon said flatly. “What about you, Mouser? Did you run off with the lady’s purse?”
“Not me, Killer,” Mouser protested, absolutely innocent.
Jamie was about to finish her coffee, but she set it back down with a steady hand. “Why do they still call you that?” she asked.
He shrugged, stubbing out the half-finished cigarette. “Maybe I deserve it. Or maybe my fame follows me wherever I go. So no one knows where you left your purse. What do we do next?”
“I need to have my car working, and I need enough money to pay for gas to get me back to the East Coast.”
“Little enough to ask, and I’d be more than happy to pay you off to get you out of here. But your car’s been towed to a place across town, and Mick isn’t sure when he can get to it. And it’s against the law to drive without your license on you.”
“I’ll risk it,” she said dryly. “Besides, when did you ever care about what’s legal and what’s not?”
He shrugged again. “Just thinking of your lilywhite reputation, Ms. Kincaid. Accept it—the car’s out of reach for the time being. You can stay until it’s fixed, or you can come up with another solution.”
“Like what? I need money. I need my credit cards. I need my cell phone and my driver’s license. I can’t rent a car or buy an airplane ticket without a credit card and proper identification.”
“Then I guess you’re shit out of luck,” he said mildly. “And I’m doomed to have an unwanted guest for the next few days. Don’t worry about it, sweetheart. Mick’s an old friend, and if he knows we’ll end up killing each other if you don’t get out of here he’ll put a rush on it. In the meantime, you’re going to have to sit back and put up with me. But then, you’re good at enduring, aren’t you? You’ve had to put up with the Duchess all your life.”
“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?”