Faces Of Evil: Traceless Part 3

Edward Wallace set his fork aside and peered down the length of the table with sympathy in his brown eyes, the same brown eyes that stared back at Emily every morning from the bathroom mirror. Only sans the emptiness.

"You're welcome to stay as long as you like, Em."

There was a but coming and then the event she dreaded with every fiber of her being each time she visited. Emily settled her hands atop the linen napkin in her lap and braced for the talk. They were about to enter the deeply troubled zone.

"But your mother and I are worried about your reasons for taking this abrupt vacation." He searched her eyes as if he hoped to see the answer he sought there. Evidently he didn't find it, so he went on. "We know how you feel, honey."

Impossible. The word resounded inside her, but she didn't allow it to cross her lips. Any argument from her would only accelerate the disintegration of the already unstable climate. What she felt was dead. When she didn't feel dead inside, she felt angry. Like now. They couldn't know.

"What your father is trying to say, dear," Carol Wallace jumped in, as if they had a.s.signed parts and had carefully rehea.r.s.ed, "is that it's a crying shame that boy's not still in prison, but nothing you do is going to change the facts. Em, you're twenty-eight years old; it's time you paid attention to yourself... to your future. We don't want you going backward."

Carol was a lovely woman no matter that she shopped in the plus-size departments these days and wore the gray invading her black hair like a badge of honor. Despite a nursing degree, she'd spent her life serving her family, her church, and her communitya"in that order. The same could be said for Ed Wallace. Long hours at his investment firm had never once prevented him from being a loving, devoted father.

As much as Emily's parents loved her and wanted to believe they felt just as she did, they didn't. Holding that against them wouldn't be fair. It wasn't their fault.

It was hers.

They waited expectantly for some revelation that would show progress on her part. A mere smidgen of hope that she intended to divert her life toward some more conventional course could close this argument right now. Tension would recede and the parental scrutiny zone would drop back down to curiously indulgent.

But Emily couldn't give them what they wanted.

"I have to do this." Emily placed her napkin on the table next to her scarcely touched plate. Inside she was shaking, but outside she held on to her calm to avoid inciting their suspicions further. She'd gotten really good at that kind of deception over the past few years. "If I don't do what I know in my heart is right, I'm not sure I'll ever be able to move on. I realize you can't understand that, but that's the way it is."

Another visual exchange in that unspoken language gained through thirty-five years of marriage transpired before her father took the next turn at battle. "Dr. Brown would really like you to come back to counseling. He believes that's the best way, Em. Your mother and I agree."

Counseling. It was like a bad penny; it showed up every time. She'd tried therapy. It hadn't worked. Once Dr. Brown had released her, a whole year after her four-week stay at the Calhoun Treatment Center, she'd never gone back to him. She didn't intend to now. Wouldn't that be doing exactly what her parents feared? Going backward?

"You'll have to excuse me." Emily stood. "Thank you for dinner," she said to her mother, then managed a tight smile for her father before walking away from the table.

Deeply troubled. She didn't have to look back to know, Emily could feel the weight of their troubled gazes on her back as she left the room. The telephone rang, but she didn't slow her retreat. It wouldn't be for her. She hadn't been here long enough in the last decade for anyone to a.s.sociate her with the address or the number.

She no longer belonged in Pine Bluff.

She didn't actually belong anywhere.

Her mother's voice drifted down the hall behind Emily. The caller was obviously Emily's brother, James. The change from troubled to elated in her mother's tone related the ident.i.ty of the caller without the mention of a name.

James was in medical school, was on the dean's list. James hadn't prematurely self-destructed. Too bad his success couldn't be enough for Emily's parents.

Emily went into her room and closed the door. She leaned against it and surveyed the s.p.a.ce she barely recognized. It felt more like a hotel. She'd spent her senior year in this room, but there was no connection... nothing. She'd slept here and dressed here and that was about it.

Her mom had gone out of her way to try to make this new house home... this new room Emily's room. Some of her stuff was carefully arranged on shelves or pieces of furniture. Cheerleading trophies. A neatly framed picture of Bon Jovi, another of Mel Gibson. Stuff. Junk. Nothing that mattered. The items that were important had been hidden away. Packing away all those mementos of the past had been her mother's idea of moving on. Unfortunately, nothing new had filled the emptiness. No diplomas matted and framed for bragging rights. No wedding pictures or snapshots of grandchildren to show off to visitors.

Just a room. With beige carpet. And beige walls.

There was nothing that stood out or defined the s.p.a.ce or... Emily. She was beige... almost invisible.

The panic started its dreaded creep beneath her skin. Her heart reacted, bouncing into a faster rhythm only to flail helplessly like a fish dropped on the bank right next to the river's edge. Relief was in sight, but you couldn't quite reach it no matter how hard you tried.

The overwhelming sense of doom would descend next, and then there would be no stopping a full-blown anxiety attack. She'd had her first one six months after the murder. She'd taken several different types of antianxiety medications until she'd gotten fed up with the futile efforts and/or dependency and she'd stopped.

She couldn't be here right now.

Her purse and keys were in her hand before second thoughts could slow her. A drive would help. Give her a chance to think without any interference or static, no matter how well-meaning. Her mother was still on the phone with Emily's brother. Her father had settled into his recliner with the day's paper.

They wouldn't even know she'd gone.

Outside, the suffocating July heat and humidity still hung in the air even at quarter of eight. Emily wrenched the car door open and dropped behind the steering wheel. She closed her eyes, leaned her head back, and struggled to regulate her respiration, to slow her heart's frenzied pounding.

When she could breathe normally again she opened her eyes and stared out at the street where her parents lived... in a house that had never been home to her. They'd sold the house on Ivy Lane right after Heather's death. No place had felt like home since. Regret closed around Emily's chest in ever-tightening bands triggering another rush of adrenaline.

Just go. She shoved the key into the ignition and started the engine, then pulled out onto the street with no particular destination. The streets of Pine Bluff were pretty much rolled up for the night and it wasn't even dark yet. A couple of fast-food restaurants were still open. The neon glow from the Sack&Go reminded pa.s.sersby of the dozens of brands of beer available most any time of the day or night.

Emily wound past a row of newly built houses in an upscale subdivision on the edge of town. Ten years ago the location had been just another field. As a child she'd felt certain that real life didn't exist outside Pine Bluff's city limits. Beyond those borders there had been only two things: cotton fields and sweeping pastures where cattle dozed in the Alabama sun.

Pine Bluff was nestled amid the mountains and lakes of northern Alabama. A place br.i.m.m.i.n.g with old-fashioned values, where folks shunned urban sprawl and big-city troubles.

Until one of those would-never-happen-here problems had found its way to her hometown.

Drive; don't think. Breathe, slow and deep.

The cotton fields on either side of the road gave way to fields of tall corn, some partially harvested already. The change prodded a vague recognition.

County Road 18.

She slowed at the turn that would lead to his house. Not that she'd actually intended to show up at his place at this time of the evening. But why not? She wasn't afraid of him.

What more could he do to her? Kill her? How did you kill someone who was dead already?

After making that final turn, she parked on the side of the dirt road next to a cl.u.s.ter of shady maples. The narrow, curvy road wound through the woods at the base of the mountain, finally reconnecting with 18. There wasn't another house for as far as she could see. The red Firebird was parked in front. He was home. His first night outside those prison walls.

She thought about those seconds this afternoon outside the courthouse when he'd stared right at her from across the street. He didn't look that different. There were small changes; his hair was shorter, his skin paler. He looked heavier or maybe just more muscled. There was a scar that hadn't been there before. On his left cheek.

But the eyes were exactly the same.

Her fingers clutched the steering wheel as she recalled the way that silvery gaze could reach right inside her and make her feel totally lost. He'd been very good at making her feel vulnerable and helpless ... and needy.

She'd fallen in l.u.s.t with him at sixteen. No one in the world had known except Heather. Emily's best friend's crushes had fluctuated between Keith Turner and Marvin Cook, both football players, with their lettermen jackets and ma.s.sive egos.

Not Emily. Nope, she'd picked a guy who'd barely managed to survive his senior year. He'd missed nearly as many days as he'd attended. Austin had had a bit of an ego himself, but his vast charm had rendered most females blind to its presence. Emily's father had called him a thug.

Em, you stay away from that boy. He's trouble.

She'd known it was true, but that hadn't kept her from fantasizing about him. After all, fantasies were supposed to be about the forbidden.

A detail as simple as the way his clothes had fit made her heart beat wildly and her foolish adolescent hormones surge. The T-shirts that had molded to his body, the faded, tattered jeans that had wrapped his lower anatomy, were nothing short of sinful. Everything about him, the way he talked, the way he moved, all of it, had been designed for s.e.x appeal.

He would slide those dark sungla.s.ses into place and spin out of a parking lot in that racy red Firebird and she would long to go with him. To have the wind rushing through her hair... to have him put his hand on her bare thigh and foster all those forbidden sensations that just breathing in the same airs.p.a.ce as him had the power to ignite.

She remembered the way his lips would tilt when he smiled. That s.e.xy curl that no mere woman, much less a teenage girl, could hope to resist. He'd teased her, flirted with her ruthlessly. Each time, she'd turned her back on him. Pretended not to notice. She'd been a good girl; she hadn't a.s.sociated with boys like him outside her fantasies.

At first he'd laughed at the way she ignored him. Then it became a sort of challenge to him. See just how far he could go before she turned tail and ran.

Once they'd even kissed.

At the movie theater he'd sneaked up behind her and put his hands over her eyes. She'd whirled around to face the culprit. He was the last person she'd expected to see. He'd never gotten quite that close before, never once touched her Shock had frozen her to the spot when their gazes collided and his fingers lingered against her hair. Something had shifted in her small world as he'd stared into her eyes. She had known in the deepest recesses of her soul that she was about to be kissed.

It was her first.

His lips had met hers and she'd leaned into the incredible sensations... had reached her arms around his neck and let her trembling body rest against his strong, lean one. He'd kissed her long and deep, used his tongue in ways she'd only read about. His palms had cupped her face, those long fingers threaded into her hair. A kind of heat she'd never before experienced had flowed through her, settling between her thighs.

As if the voice of reason had suddenly kicked in, he'd drawn away, winked, then walked off without so much as a word. She'd been humiliated. Even that infuriating episode hadn't made her stop wanting him.

A deep shadow fell across the driver's side window and jolted her back to the present. She looked up, blinked. He stood right outside her open car window.

Fear exploded in her veins.

How could she have not heard his approach?

Her brain issued all the appropriate flight commands, but her hands... her fingers refused to act.

With her heart clanging and the blood funneling like a hurricane in her ears, she couldn't think. She couldn't piece together what to do next.

He didn't move, just stood there and waited for her to do or say something.

She reached for the ignition, but Heather's face, frozen in cameo on her gravestone, suddenly flashed in Emily's mind.

No.

This was a public road. It was a free country. She could park here if she d.a.m.n well wanted to. He couldn't touch her, not without risking a violation of his parole.

Daring him, she wrenched open the door. He backed up a step to avoid being hit by it as she got out.

She grabbed on to her fledgling courage with both hands and pretended not to be scared to death. "Is there a problem?" she demanded, staring directly into those seething gray eyes, her hands planted on her hips in challenge. He was bigger than she remembered, taller... his shoulders broader. And then there was the scar, marring the angle of his jaw and the hollow beneath that lean cheek. She shivered at the idea of how he may have gotten it before she could stifle the reaction.

He looked away a moment, as if he didn't trust himself to continue holding that stare or even to answer her question. Or maybe he was just confused that she hadn't run. He'd better get used to that, because she wasn't the same scared little girl he once knew.

When that cold steel gaze latched on to hers once more, he demanded, "What do you want?"

Her pulse scrambled. It was the first time she'd heard his voice in over ten years. Not since the trial when, after the summations from both sides, he'd risen from the defendant's chair and told the jury what a mistake they would be making if they found him guilty. He was innocent, he'd insisted. He had stood there, wearing that cheap suit his court-appointed attorney had probably instructed his mother to buy, and met the gaze of every person in that jury box. He'd looked young and humble and... terrified.

Emily had barely noticed. Her entire focus had been on seeing that he got what was coming to him.

That old familiar fury kindled inside her. The one emotion of which she seemed capable of experiencing the full range. "What do I want?" She laughed, the sound laden with bitter contempt. He didn't really want to know, but since he'd asked, she would d.a.m.n sure tell him. "I want you to make a mistake. I want you to go back to prison for the rest of your worthless life." She bit down hard on her lip to prevent its blasted trembling as the rage catapulted through her. "I want you to pay for what you did until you draw your last pathetic breath."

She blinked back the burn of tears. G.o.d, she would not cry in front of him. She'd cried enough and it hadn't changed a d.a.m.ned thing. Heather was still dead... she was still dead.

For the first time she realized just how dead. Her life was a road that went nowhere... an abrupt stop. She felt nothing... she was nothing. Because of him.

He started to turn away but changed his mind. A muscle in his tightly clenched jaw contracted before he spoke. "Your efforts would be much better spent, Miss Wallace, trying to find out who else was in your room that night and whether or not it was really you they were after. Otherwise, you should do yourself a favor and stop wasting your time on me."

CHAPTER SIX.

Tuesday, July 16, 1:55 a.m.

Pine Bluff's finest had cruised by Clint's place at seven that morning, but he hadn't expected to find a welcoming committee at Higgins Auto Repair Shop as well. Guess that made him a celebrity.

As he pulled into a slot in the parking lot next to the shop, he recognized the officer at the scene. Ray Hale. So the chief of police himself had come to make sure the ex-con went to work like a good, law-abiding citizen. Would the chief be following him to the bank when he cashed his paycheck? Stocked up at the Piggly Wiggly? Took a p.i.s.s?

Nothing should surprise Clint at this point. Having Emily Wallace stay parked outside his house until almost midnight despite his show of force had been surprising enough.

The idea that she'd sat out there watching him had made him madder than h.e.l.l. He knew what she was up to; he just hadn't realized how deeply it would get under his skin. His every move had been watched and dictated in prison. He'd had to learn to live with that constant surveillance; he didn't like putting up with it now.

Part of him had wanted to scare the h.e.l.l out of her so she'd go away and leave him alone. But he couldn't do that. He needed her. So he'd stormed right up to her car with the intention of rattling her cage, of making her think twice about what she'd always believed happened that night.

And what had he done? He'd gotten caught up in looking at her. Big brown eyes and a wide, lush mouth that she had tried to hide with her long, silky hair back in high school. He'd dreamed of kissing that mouth long before he'd taken the liberty, even though she'd used it a million times to tell him to get lost.

Just hearing her voice again had damaged him somehow.

He had planned for ten stinking years what he would do and say when he had the chance, and he'd gotten that close and most of the things he'd intended to say had vanished from his tongue.

When she'd dared to get in his face to tell him off just like she used to, his gaze had ignored his objections and roamed every inch of her. The long skirt that only served to make him want to hike up the hem far enough to see those smooth thighs... to maybe get a glimpse of lacy panties. She had a nicely curved bottom and high, full b.r.e.a.s.t.s that wouldn't be disguised behind a b.u.t.toned-to-the-throat blouse.

That was the part that burned him the worst. Going into trial he'd been guilty of just one thing: l.u.s.ting after Emily Wallace. That was it! And look what it had cost him.

Evidently she'd experienced a delayed flight reaction to his aggressive move. He'd seen neither hide nor hair of her this morning. He climbed out of his car and headed toward where Ray and Higgins stood talking. The conversation no doubt had to do with Clint, since both men looked less than happy. Welcome to his life.

Clint hadn't worked on a car in a h.e.l.l of a long time, not since he'd tinkered with his first heap back in high school. But he didn't mind getting his hands greasy. He had to support himself; this was as good a way to do it as any.

As he neared the front of the shop he heard the tension in the two men's voices before the clipped conversation came to an abrupt stop.

Then Clint saw the reason why. Big letters spray painted on one of the garage doors read: Hiring killers is a sin.

"Clint." Ray acknowledged his arrival with a nod.

Higgins glanced nervously at him and muttered, "Morning."

"What's going on?" Asking was a mere technicality, a way to enter the conversation. It didn't take a detective's shield to figure it out.

"A little vandalism. Nothing we can't handle, right, Higgins?"

The shop owner shot a look at his defaced door and then at Ray. "Sure, no problem," he said to Clint. The empathetic expression Higgins pasted on his face was not a good fit.