Amanda Stevens Bestseller Collection: Stranger In Paradise/A Baby's Cry Page 5

  And tonight he would be sleeping in her house.

  They would be completely alone.

  Anything could happen with a stranger.

  Emily glanced up, absorbing Trey’s features. He was handsome, powerful and wealthy. An irresistible combination, some might think, but to Emily he’d never seemed less attractive, less appealing. She could muster up no feelings for him whatsoever, not even regret, and yet just one glimpse of a stranger on a motorcycle had set her pulse to pounding like the pistons of a runaway locomotive. The sound was so loud in her ears, Emily thought Trey must surely hear it.

  But she needn’t have worried. Trey had forgotten all about her. His gaze remained focused on the street, where the powerful bike had passed only seconds before. The look in his eyes, the expression on his face, startled Emily. She’d seen it once before, when she’d told him in no uncertain terms that she wouldn’t marry him if he was the last man on earth.

  It was a mixture of disbelief, fear, and cold black rage.

  Chapter Four

  Emily stared at the newspaper the next morning, unable to believe what she was reading. A shaft of sunlight streamed in through the bay window in the kitchen, highlighting the headline that read Bed-and-breakfast owner vows to solve fifteen-year-old murder.

  She groaned, cradling her head in her hands. Mike Durbin had certainly wasted no time in moving the story to the front page, and Emily had no doubt that he would do whatever was necessary to keep it there, in spite of Trey’s warning last evening.

  And now, if she didn’t at least make some token attempt to solve the murder, she’d look like a complete fool, which was exactly why Trey had goaded her into that ridiculous position in the first place. All the publicity and interest Mike’s initial article had generated in the Other Side of Paradise Inn would die down if people thought Emily was just another crackpot.

  Of course, everyone in Paradise would naturally assume that this was just another of her harebrained schemes, anyway, and that sooner or later she would fall flat on her face, just like all the other times when she’d tried to dazzle them with her cleverness.

  Emily could hear Stuart and Caroline’s endless tirades now, and her head ached, just from thinking about it. She wished with all her heart that for once in her life she could be the one to look her brother straight in the eye and shout, I told you so! I told you so!

  But there was only one way she could do that now. She had to prove Stuart was wrong about her. She had to prove to him and to the whole closed-minded town that Emily Townsend could succeed at something when she set her mind to it.

  Sighing, she got up to start a fresh pot of coffee. It was early, and she had no idea what time Matthew would appear for his breakfast, but she was determined to be ready. Publicity was all well and good, but the final proof of her success would be in her ability to keep guests coming back once she had attracted them. Matthew was her first customer and she wanted to make a good impression.

  For more reasons than one. The thought fleeted across her mind as she pulled a pan of freshly baked cinnamon buns from the oven. Emily slid the pan onto a cooling rack and flung off the oven mitt, annoyed with herself for the direction of her thoughts.

  Didn’t she have enough to worry about without making a fool of herself over a stranger? Wasn’t it enough that she’d made a fool of herself over this murder business? The “unfortunate incident” in Paradise’s past?

  “Good morning.”

  Emily whirled at the sound of Matthew’s deep voice. He’d managed to startle her, even though he’d been on her mind all morning.

  “Good morning.”

  Emily ran a quick assessment of herself through her mind. Had she forgotten anything important when she’d dressed this morning? Decent jeans, soft leather boots, flannel shirt with a pink camisole peeking through the neckline. So far, so good.

  “Beautiful day, isn’t it?” she asked as Matthew walked into the room. She couldn’t help noticing the way he was dressed, also. The faded jeans that molded his long legs, the black T-shirt that hugged his muscular arms and chest, the way his own dark hair glistened with moisture, as though he’d just stepped from the shower.

  A tantalizing image, that.

  He was undeniably attractive, undeniably masculine, and undeniably powerful, in a way Trey Huntington would never be, and he affected Emily as Trey—with all his money and prestige—never had and never would.

  Matthew Steele’s appeal was far more subtle, more indefinable, and Emily had the feeling that, to her at least, it could be far more dangerous.

  His gaze dropped to the paper lying open on the table. “I see you’ve made the front page.”

  Emily grimaced. “Don’t remind me.”

  “Having second thoughts about solving the murder?”

  “Try third and fourth thoughts.” Emily poured Matthew a cup of coffee and offered him cream and sugar, which he declined. “If you’d like to go into the dining room, I’ll bring in your breakfast.”

  “What’s wrong with in here?” Matthew asked, indicating the breakfast alcove in the kitchen. “The paper’s already here, the sun’s shining in, and something smells delicious.”

  “Cinnamon rolls. You can eat in here, if you want.” Though his nearness would probably make her so nervous she’d break half the dishes in the kitchen.

  Matthew sat down in the sunshine, and Emily bustled about, setting the table, replenishing his cup, and when they’d cooled sufficiently, she brought him a plate of rolls.

  Matthew sampled one. “My grandmother used to make cinnamon rolls like this,” he said. “I haven’t tasted anything so good in years.”

  His warm gaze rested on Emily, and she blushed just like a kid with her first crush. Good grief, it wasn’t as if she hadn’t been around the block a time or two. Or three.

  While Matthew read the paper and savored his coffee and rolls, Emily savored the moment. There was something so exquisitely intimate about serving a man breakfast in the kitchen.

  She thought about all the mornings she’d eaten alone during her marriage. Eugene had never gotten out of bed before two in the afternoon, and when he did get up, it had only been to stumble into the kitchen for a cup of coffee that he immediately carried back to the shower with him. He’d never sat and read the paper with her, never even kissed her good-morning. Sometimes a careless wave of his hand had been the only indication Emily had that he even knew she was there.

  Eugene had hated her cinnamon rolls.

  Matthew’s plate was already empty. Emily gave him seconds, and he smiled his appreciation.

  “Don’t know why I’m so hungry,” he muttered.

  “It’s the mountain air,” Emily said. “It always affects appetites that way.”

  “I think you may be right.” His dark gaze held hers, then moved downward and over her, in a manner so smooth and covert, Emily might have thought she’d imagined it, except for the delicious tingle running up and down her spine.

  The attraction between them was almost a tangible thing. Emily thought that if she could capture and market this feeling, she’d be an overnight millionaire. As it was, all she could do was fumble with the top button of her flannel shirt and shift from one foot to the other.

  “Why don’t you sit down,” Matthew said, indicating the chair opposite his, “and tell me how you plan to solve this murder?”

  His words were like a splash of ice water. For a few moments, Emily had managed to put that predicament out of her mind while she contemplated this new and more exciting predicament. Now she had to turn her thoughts to murder again.

  She sighed heavily and dropped into the wicker-backed chair. “I haven’t a clue,” she said morosely. “I don’t even know where to start.”

  Matthew pushed back his empty plate. “Why don’t you start at the library? Look up all the old newspaper accounts of the murder. Maybe something will click and give you a lead.”

  Emily snapped her fingers. His suggestion made so much sense. “Now, why d
idn’t I think of that?”

  “I’m experienced,” Matthew said. Then he added, “Like I told you yesterday, mysteries are somewhat of a hobby of mine. I like solving them. That’s why I came to Paradise.”

  “Then you want to solve the Wilcox murder, too?”

  “I’m interested in the story,” Matthew said, his tone noncommittal. Then he shrugged. “I might be able to help you. Why don’t you tell me what you know?”

  Emily hesitated. Could she trust him? Should she trust him? But what harm could there possibly be in telling him the story that Rosabel Talbot had told her? Besides, he’d soon be reading all about it in Mike’s articles, anyway. And if he could help, so much the better. Emily needed all the assistance she could get.

  told him about her and Mike’s conversation with Miss Rosabel, all about Jenny Wilcox and Wade Drury and Tony Vincent, and when she’d finished, she sat back and folded her arms across her chest.

  “So you see, everyone in town believed the stranger was guilty. There were no other suspects, and the fact that he just up and disappeared like that made him look even more guilty. The way I see it, all we really have to do is find out what happened to Wade Drury. Then the case will be solved.”

  Matthew’s expression remained the same, one of polite, casual interest, but something flashed behind his eyes, a look that made Emily’s heart jolt as he said softly, almost indifferently, “But what if Drury didn’t do it?”

  Emily faltered for a moment, taken aback by the look in Matthew’s gray eyes. Then she said, “But…he had to have done it. If he didn’t, that would mean that the murderer might still be alive and well and…living…here…in…Paradise.” Her voice trailed off as the very air between them became electric with awareness. Not sexual tension this time, but something far more dark and deadly.

  Their eyes measured each other for a long, silent moment. Suddenly, for the first time since she and Mike Durbin had started digging into the past, the impact of what she was doing hit Emily. She was looking for a murderer, someone who had viciously stabbed a young woman to death. Someone who had covered up the brutal crime for fifteen years.

  Someone, possibly, that Emily had known all of her life.

  Or someone, possibly, that she had just met.

  SO NOW SHE KNEW it wasn’t a game.

  Murder was never amusing, Matthew thought as he watched Emily from the front window of her house. She got into her dusty blue Volkswagen, shifted into reverse and backed the little car out of the driveway. Then, shifting again, she headed down the street toward town and the Piggly Wiggly store where she’d said she did all her grocery shopping.

  Don’t bother locking up if you go out, she’d added. Nothing ever happens in Paradise.

  Nothing except murder.

  Matthew started to turn away from the window. Now that Emily was safely out of the house, he had some investigating of his own to do. But a movement caught his eye, and he stilled. A curtain fluttered at an upstairs window in the house across the street, then fell back into place, as if someone had turned away from the window the moment Emily was out of sight.

  Matthew frowned. There was something ominous about the house across the street. The turrets and towers and lacy scrollwork were all pleasant enough, but the massive oaks surrounding the yard cast huge shadows over the house, giving the place an air of perpetual gloom, even in midday. Perhaps in the heat of summer the shady yard would offer welcome respite, but in October, with the promise of the first snowfall not so very far away, the house looked cold and bleak and empty. Soulless.

  As he continued to watch, the front door opened and a woman stepped out on the wide wraparound veranda. Her gaze settled on the Other Side of Paradise Inn. She walked down the porch steps, never taking her eyes off the front of Emily’s house. As if lured by some strange, irresistible force, the woman crossed the street and came to a standstill on the sidewalk in front of the inn.

  Matthew drew back from the window, but he continued to watch the woman. She was sixty at least, thin and wiry, with scraped-back hair, a narrow face and piercing black eyes. The term battle-ax came to mind, but Matthew knew looks were often deceiving. However, in this case, he very much doubted that his immediate impression of the woman was far off the mark.

  There was something about the absorbed expression on her deeply creviced face as she stared at Emily’s house that brought an uneasiness to Matthew. He didn’t ignore the feeling. In his line of work, he’d been trained, and had learned from his own experiences, to discount nothing, especially his own instincts. There was something about this woman he didn’t trust.

  As he continued to watch her, her gaze lifted, and Matthew thought she must be looking at the window of his bedroom. The window of the room in which Jenny Wilcox had been murdered. She raised her hand—it was her only movement—to absently caress the wrinkled skin at her neck, and Mike Durbin’s account of the murder suddenly came rushing back to Matthew. Jenny Wilcox had been brutally stabbed fifteen times. The fatal wound was the one to her throat….

  Matthew crossed the room, opened the door and stepped onto the porch before the woman had time to leave. She glanced at him and visibly started. The color drained from her face, leaving the unattractive features, the bulging eyes, the hawklike nose and the lipless mouth, to stand out starkly. The hand at her throat moved to her heart. For a moment, Matthew thought she might actually pass out.

  He walked down the steps into the sunlight, her gaze following his every move. “It’s Cora Mae, isn’t it?” he asked softly. “Cora Mae Hicks?”

  Her eyes narrowed on him. “Do I know you?”

  Matthew smiled. “I thought you looked as if you recognized me.”

  “I was mistaken,” she said quickly. “You couldn’t be—Never you mind. How do you know my name?” Her dark eyes flashed with an emotion Matthew was hard put to define.

  He said truthfully, “When I was looking for a place to stay in Paradise, your name was mentioned. You own a bed-and-breakfast, don’t you? The one across the street. The This Side of Paradise Inn, isn’t it?”

  As if connected by a common string that had suddenly been yanked, their gazes moved to the shingle hanging from Emily’s front porch. The Other Side of Paradise Inn. Clever girl, Matthew thought approvingly.

  Cora Mae obviously didn’t share his opinion. “I could sue her for that,” she snapped. “She has no right using that name, capitalizing on all my hard work. I’ve operated the This Side of Paradise Inn for over a quarter of a century. It’s the best one in town. In the whole county. Everyone knows that. Now here she comes along with all her highfalutin ideas, trying to steal away my customers by stealing the name of my inn. Well, I won’t stand for, I tell you. I won’t let her get away with this.”

  Matthew couldn’t believe the venom in the old woman’s voice. He wondered if Emily had any idea of the extent of Cora Mae’s resentment. He tried to make his tone sound only mildly interested when he said, “So you’ve operated your bed-and-breakfast for over twenty-five years. That means you were right there across the street when Jenny Wilcox was murdered.”

  Cora Mae’s lips thinned to nothing more than a jagged line. “Who are you?”

  “My name is Matthew Steele.”

  She considered the name for a moment. “Used to be some Steeles lived down in Newport, but I heard tell they moved away years ago. Worthless lot, best I recollect. You any kin to Delbert and Fannie Steele?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “I don’t think so, neither,” she said. Her words seemed to have a double meaning. “What brings you to Paradise?”

  “I read Mike Durbin’s article in a newspaper, and it grabbed my attention. I decided to come see for myself where the murder occurred.”

  “Why?” Cora Mae demanded, her eyes glinting with cold suspicion.

  Matthew shrugged. “Call it curiosity.” Or revenge.

  Cora Mae’s gaze went back to the upstairs window. Her eyes took on a sort of feverish glee. “That girl was
stabbed, you know. Fourteen times in the heart and in the face.” Her gaze darted back to Matthew’s. “And once in the throat. A crime of passion, they called it.”

  “So I read.” Matthew felt a chill creep over him as the old woman continued her unblinking regard.

  “Rosabel Talbot owned this place then. Tried to make a go of her bed-and-breakfast, but she weren’t no competition for me, and after the killing, her business was finished anyhow. The bloodstains wouldn’t come up. They never do. Don’t matter what you use on them. No one wanted to stay in the house after that.”

  “I guess that was a lucky break for you, wasn’t it?” Matthew murmured.

  But Cora Mae was staring up at the window again. “This place should have been burned to the ground a long time ago. Emily Townsend is doing the devil’s work, opening it up again. She’s inviting evil back into Paradise.” Cora Mae paused for a moment, her gaze flashing back to Matthew. “Unless someone does something to stop her.”

  Demented, Matthew thought. Undoubtedly certifiable. But that did nothing to alleviate his unease about Cora Mae Hicks. If anything, she was even more dangerous than he’d first thought. Matthew would have given a lot to know her exact whereabouts on the night Jenny was killed.

  He watched Cora Mae turn and make her way across the street. When she reached the safety of her own porch, she looked back and made the sign of the cross in the air, as if to ward off evil spirits.

  Matthew wasn’t sure whether the gesture had been directed toward Emily’s house, or at him.

  AS EMILY DROVE through the tree-shrouded streets of Paradise that afternoon, she couldn’t help but admire the beauty of the town. The fall foliage was nearing its peak, and the maples lining Main Street were on fire in the sunlight.

  Quaint little houses—painted pink or country blue or white—had been turned into art galleries, craft stores and restaurants with window boxes spilling over with purple pansies, red geraniums, and showy bronze chrysanthemums.

  But beneath the sunlight and beyond the charming pastel houses and the windswept hillsides, a darkness simmered. Paradise wasn’t at all what it seemed, Emily thought bitterly, remembering her unhappy childhood. The people here were sheltered, secluded from the rest of the world, which sometimes bred narrow-mindedness and intolerance. Oh, they put on a good show for the tourists, but if one of their own stepped out of line, they could be mean-spirited and sometimes merciless.