From the Shadows Page 2

  “Lee?” he called, stepping past the formal living room. It was dark and silent, the shades drawn.

  Alex looked toward the broad, curving staircase. The office was at the top of the landing. Surely, he thought, Lee would have heard him if he were up there. Guessing that the man might be on the back terrace, Alex headed down the marble hallway.

  “Lee?”

  Silence.

  Feeling uneasy, Alex stepped into the kitchen beyond the butler’s pantry. Lee loved to cook, and he’d provided himself with a kitchen that was a gourmet’s dream, with a six-burner stove, two microwaves, granite countertops and a sink large enough to bathe a Labrador retriever.

  Alex’s mind was starting to play tricks now, and it was a relief not to stumble over a body laid out on the ceramic-tile floor. Stepping under a rack of copper pots, he checked the big sink. It and a dish towel were wet, and the electric coffeepot held warm brew. Through the French doors Alex scanned the long expanse of fieldstone terrace at the rear of the mansion. No Lee. With an exasperated sigh, he stepped into a hallway lined with a series of closed doors. A quick check of the first two rooms revealed what looked like guest bedrooms. The third door, however, opened into a room darkened by heavy velvet drapes. Alex found a light switch, then blinked as a series of bright lights snapped on, illuminating the room.

  He gave a short laugh at what he saw. An art gallery, a very private gallery. Near the door was a three-foot-tall white marble statue resting on a pedestal. It was a graphic depiction of Leda and the Swan—the myth about the Greek god Zeus taking the form of a bird and then seducing a human woman.

  The large, gilt-framed pictures on the walls were as explicit as the statue. One showed a naked couple on a narrow bed with satin sheets. The woman’s hands were tied to the elaborate brass headboard.

  Alex turned away only to have his gaze come to rest on a romanticized painting of two lesbian lovers lying together on a fur rug in front of a blazing fireplace.

  Everywhere he looked, he found similar works of art, all of them sexual in nature. Prurient interest kept him standing there, taking it all in until he shook himself out of the trance.

  There was one empty place on the wall. Moving closer, he saw a rectangle of paint that was darker than the surrounding wall. And a small hole indicated where a hook might have been driven into the plaster.

  But the picture that had no doubt hung there was gone.

  Interesting. Had Lee taken down one of the paintings? Or had someone else?

  He looked around, seeing no evidence of the missing artwork—if the stuff in here could be called art. When he stepped from the room and closed the door, the images from the room behind him added to his growing feeling of uneasiness.

  It seemed that Lee Tillman had been hiding some very kinky personality traits.

  He cleared his throat, called out again, “Lee?”

  When he got no answer, he took the stairs to the office on the second floor. The fifteen-by-twelve room with its floor-to-ceiling bookshelves behind the antique desk was empty. But there was something missing, he noticed almost at once: the oriental rug, which he remembered well because he’d thought it looked opulent enough for a sultan’s palace.

  It flitted through his mind that Lee could have sent it out to be cleaned while he was away on vacation. But then his memory zeroed in on a case his friend Cal Rollins had caught when they’d both been in the Howard County Police Department. A serial murderer had hit his victims over the head, then carried them out of the house rolled in their own rugs.

  Yeah, a nice thick rug would make a damn good wrapper for a body, Alex thought as he found himself wondering what would happen if a crime team did a Luminol test. Would they find traces of blood on the walls or the floor? He’d once seen the walls and floor of a bedroom that looked perfectly clean come alive with the green glow of the chemical, highlighting a grisly attack on a pregnant woman who had been murdered by her lover. The murderer assumed he had scrubbed away the evidence before going bowling with the guys. The chemical test had shocked him into a confession.

  Alex snorted. No doubt, testing for bloodstains was premature. Yet from his earliest days as a cop, he’d learned to trust his hunches, and he sensed that there was something wrong here—if for no other reason than Lee’s urgent call less than an hour ago.

  Turning toward the desk, Alex saw a thin, unsmoked cigar.

  Would an aficionado leave a cigar lying out if he was going on a trip? Maybe if he was in a hurry.

  Damn, where was Tillman?

  Alex walked closer to a calendar pinned to the cork-board on the wall beside the closet door, and focused on today’s date—May 22. In the rectangle was a notation that said “vacation.” The trip Lee had mentioned. Although many appointments were listed for the first part of the month, there was nothing after today in either June or July. Had Tillman planned nothing after the end of May, or had he just neglected to note anything on the calendar?

  Alex was about to go through the desk drawers, when a noise coming from outside stopped him. A car door slamming.

  Certain it had to be Lee, he was surprised by the degree of relief he felt. Tillman might be a pain in the ass at times, but in his gruff way he had befriended Alex’s family twenty years ago when they’d been in trouble. Alex’s dad had gotten himself killed in a boating accident, and his mother struggled to support two children. She’d already been doing part-time domestic work for Lee, and he’d increased her hours and recommended her to several of his poker buddies. Alex had always suspected that the guy had also slipped her some cash to keep her solvent while she got on her feet, which was one of the reasons he’d taken this present assignment.

  Still, that didn’t mean he was at Lee Tillman’s beck and call. There had to be limitations.

  When Alex heard the front door open and close, he started across the office, prepared to make it clear there would be no more urgent appointments. But he’d only taken three steps when he froze, listening to the sound of heels clacking on the floor of the foyer.

  They weren’t from Lee’s shoes, not unless Lee had started wearing high heels and taking quick, feminine steps. And they weren’t the footsteps of Lewis Farmer, who did odd jobs around the place.

  The clicking heels proceeded up the stairs—firm and sure of where they were going. Alex did a quick inventory of other possibilities. It couldn’t be Lee’s housekeeper, Adele, or her daughter, unless they’d taken to cleaning house in their Sunday clothes. But what about Dana Eustice, Lee’s longtime mistress? She’d certainly have access to the house and probably a key.

  He had only a few seconds to decide what to do. He could brazen out a confrontation or he could duck into the storage closet and find out who was marching up the stairs as if she owned the place.

  He chose the closet. It was small and lined with shelves of office supplies and magazines, but there was enough room in the center for him to stand. He snorted softly at the five-year supply of Penthouse stacked on the shelf beside him, figuring it went with the art gallery downstairs. Leaving the door open a crack, he leaned back against the shelves and stood quietly in the darkness.

  The high heels drew near, and a woman stepped into the office. From his hiding place, Alex had an excellent vantage point to look at her.

  She was wearing large sunglasses, so he couldn’t see all of her face. But to his discerning eye, she appeared to be in her mid- to late-twenties. Blond. Slender, but with curves in the right places. Five five. In her trim suit and cream-colored blouse that exposed a discreet but tantalizing amount of skin below her throat, she looked as though she was on her way to an office or a business meeting.

  It wasn’t Dana Eustice, who was closer to Lee’s age.

  The spike heels that had sounded so authoritative on the steps were the kind that made a woman’s legs look sexy, although Alex had always figured they must be hazardous to navigation.

  Her blond hair didn’t exactly fit the business image. It was long and loose and fell to her
shoulders in soft waves. Pausing, she took off her sunglasses and tucked them into her purse. As she passed close by the closet, he noted that her eyes were light.

  A memory tickled at the back of his mind. He knew her from somewhere. But where?

  A long time ago…when they’d both been a lot younger…

  Even with the professional outfit, she didn’t seem like Lee’s usual kind of business associate. More like somebody he might hire as his personal masseuse. Alex scratched that thought immediately. She looked too wholesome to be a party girl, and she had a slim, zipper-type briefcase wedged between her right arm and her body. She stood holding her lower lip between her teeth as she surveyed the empty office.

  He watched her shake her hair, then roll her shoulders, as though something was making her restless. He hoped to hell it wasn’t some subliminal vibration he was giving off.

  She served him up a couple of bad seconds when she turned to focus on the wall to her right. Was she looking at the calendar or the closet? As she stood with eyes narrowed, the breath froze in his lungs. Then, to his vast relief, she set the briefcase on the corner of the desk and pivoted toward the bank of file cabinets.

  He was still trying to figure out where he’d met her before as she reached the last cabinet on the left, pulled open the third drawer and extracted one of the folders. Straightening, she gazed around the room again, her expression pensive. Then, with a sigh, she reached inside the vee neck of her blouse and adjusted a bra strap that must have slipped down when she’d bent to pillage the drawer.

  Very nice. Alex thought, grinning as he watched her move her full breasts into their properly subdued place. The maneuver had an unconscious sexiness about it that he found extremely arousing. Not like the stuff in the art gallery downstairs. This was real. And vibrant. And innocent.

  Vibrant…innocent….

  Then it struck him like a bolt of lightning where he’d seen her before.

  Sara. No last name. Just Sara. Grown from a sweet little high-school girl into a very appealing woman. But now that the memory had leaped into his mind, he felt as if he’d been poleaxed.

  Emotions and images flooded through him. Muncaster Park at night. The grove of trees. The dark riverbank. One of the beer parties that had been the chief activity during his senior year in high school.

  The usual gang was there. The tough boys and girls from St. Stephens High. And then a group of girls from the local Catholic school had stepped into the haze of cigarette and marijuana smoke polluting the night air. Girls who didn’t know that they were in over their heads with this crowd.

  They had a few beers, sticking together in their own little group. Then the alcohol had loosened them up. They started giggling and egging each other on, seeing who was brave enough to flirt with the bad boys from St. Stephens. One of them came up to him, acting seductive, only, he could see she didn’t quite know how to pull off the moves.

  He gave her his heartbreaker grin, offered her a beer and waited until she’d downed some of the contents. Then he asked if she wanted to join him in the back seat of his car.

  She cast a triumphant look back at her friends, then came along. Past a couple of motorcycles, right into the den of the Big Bad Wolf. He was thinking that he’d use his well-practiced techniques on her, go as far as he could—hopefully all the way.

  But one draft of her, and everything changed. He discovered innocence in her kiss. An edge of fear and a fresh summer sweetness.

  Ruthlessly, he cut off the memory.

  Sweet little Sara might have been in over her head all those years ago, but she certainly seemed to know what she was doing now.

  Teeth clenched, he watched her pick up the briefcase and shove the folder inside. On her way to the door, she paused beside the desk, and he tensed as he waited to see her rifle through the drawers. Instead, she selected a peppermint from the dish beside her, unwrapped it and popped the candy into her mouth.

  For a moment, she stood with the wrapper in her hand, staring at the trash basket. If she pitched it, Alex reasoned, she wasn’t worried about who knew she’d been here.

  After a slight hesitation, she rolled the paper up and stuffed it in her briefcase. Then she headed out the door, having been in the office, he guessed, for less than two minutes total.

  He let the breath he’d been holding ease out of him.

  Sara.

  He knew nothing more about the girl—or about the woman she had become. Back in high school he’d wanted to find out more. But he’d stopped himself because he’d known that Alex Shane was no damn good for her.

  Had she stayed sweet and nice, or had she metamorphosed into something else? Was she retrieving a folder Lee expected her to pick up—or was she stealing evidence of a crime?

  And what crime? Murder?

  One thing was certain, she’d known exactly which file drawer to open and what to take. And he was going to find out why.

  Chapter Two

  His hands clenched in frustration, Alex waited until he heard Sara descend the stairs before stepping out of the closet. As soon as the front door closed, he sprinted across the landing to a window. From there, he watched as she got into what looked to be a three- or four-year-old burgundy Dodge parked in front of the house. He muttered an oath when he realized the angle of the porch roof prevented him from seeing the license plate.

  Did he have a chance in hell of catching her? Maybe—if she was heading into town, which would mean she would have to pass the work crew repaving the highway. Cursing Lee’s order to park so far from the house, he barreled down the steps and out the back door, then tore along the edge of the river, making it to the truck in less than three minutes.

  He backed down the dirt road at breakneck speed and reached the highway, pulling in front of a pickup and ignoring the angry shake of the driver’s fist, as he headed east toward St. Stephens.

  His luck and his reckless driving were rewarded when he spotted Sara’s car near the front of the queue at the construction site. Determined not to let his quarry make a timely escape, Alex pulled onto the shoulder, leaned on the horn and raced past several cars.

  The construction worker directing traffic flipped him a rude hand gesture as he squeezed back into line and zipped past. About a mile down the highway, he eased in two car lengths behind her.

  Alex managed to move in behind her Dodge before the traffic light on Main Street. The license number was MOD270—one of those green-and-white Save-the-Bay plates with a heron and cattails.

  He was right behind her now, no longer afraid of losing her. As the tension eased, his mind began to stray back to that night, back to the party.

  It was a pleasant memory. Much better than the dream that had awakened him so early in the morning.

  Even at eighteen, he’d known how to please a woman. How to arouse her. Thrill her. Make her willing to give him what he wanted—because she knew they were both going to have a very good time.

  But this girl, who told him her name was Sara, had turned the tables, without even realizing what she was doing.

  He remembered his emotions that night. He remembered thinking a few minutes after they climbed into the back seat of that car that he should send her back to her friends. But he simply couldn’t let her go. Not without satisfying the need that was suddenly clamoring inside him.

  Her kisses started out unsure and tentative. But the honeysuckle warmth of her mouth lured him to deepen the contact, to drink in that sweetness, to teach her how a man and a woman could please each other.

  When he cupped her breasts, she’d stiffened and told him to stop. He did as she asked. But then he soothed away the protest with more kisses and soft, reassuring words. When she was warm and pliant in his arms, he gently stroked the sides of her breasts, going slowly, letting the heat build gradually. It wasn’t long before he was slipping his hands under her T-shirt and unhooking her bra so he could play with her hardened nipples.

  He brought her to the edge of control—and found that he was r
ight there with her. He wanted to plunge inside her and satisfy the craving that vibrated through him.

  But some unaccustomed little voice in his brain told him that he’d surely hate himself in the morning if he took her innocence. Because that innocence was never in doubt.

  So he’d pulled her onto his lap, facing him, urging her down so that her sex was pressed to his, separated by only a few layers of clothing. Too many layers, his mind screamed. But he kept it that way, moving his hands to her hips, moving her body against his, the friction and the pressure taking him higher and higher until he heard her cry out, felt her body convulse above his—and felt her take him with her.

  The innocence and the eroticism had left him shaky, and when her eyes had blinked open, he’d been at a loss for words, overwhelmed by an experience that he couldn’t explain either to her or to himself.

  He’d wanted to keep her with him and do it again. Be inside her this time. Start something long term with her. But he’d known that she didn’t belong with tough and cynical Alex Shane.

  When he saw the dreamy, heavy-lidded expression on her face, he knew that he was on the edge of doing something stupid.

  So he made his voice brusque and told her she’d better go back to her friends before she got into real trouble.

  Her eyes snapped open, and she gave him a wounded look.

  “Go on.”

  At that, she scrambled out of the car so fast that she’d hit her knee on the door handle.

  He’d never seen her again. Not until today.

  The memory had his blood boiling. Again he ordered himself to cool down. He’d made assumptions about Sara long ago. He couldn’t afford to do it now. Now he needed no rose-colored impressions. Only the facts.

  And he was trained to get them.

  He stroked the stubble on his chin, thinking about the cocky kid he’d been at eighteen and the man he was now. Back then, he’d been as innocent as the girl he’d kissed in that car. Not about sex, of course. He’d had that all nailed down. But about life. About the way the world worked.