Hide From Evil (5 page)

Mild cleithrophobia, the shrink had said. Unlike claustrophobia, where someone was scared of tight spaces, Sean got antsy if he felt like he was confined, even if the space was a mostly empty forty-by-fifty-foot work shed. He’d refused the anxiety meds they’d offered and discovered that as long as there was a door or at the very least a window open, he could keep it all in check.

When he’d bought the prefab shed to use as a woodworking shop, he’d special ordered a model that had oversize windows along one side. He slid three open and took a deep, bracing breath of the cold, clean air. He picked up a hickory two-by-four and slammed it onto his table saw.

He could hear Krista outside, stomping around in the gravel, and he hoped to hell she was heading back to her car to haul her ass out of here.

There were a lot of people he had no interest in seeing—ever—and she was right there at the top of the list for a lot of reasons. Coming around and stirring up shit he wanted nothing more than to leave behind was the least of it.

He clenched and unclenched his hands, willing himself to relax, to stop shaking. If he wasn’t careful he was liable to lose a finger working on the handmade rocking chair.

He slid on a pair of safety goggles to protect his eyes from sawdust, picked up his iPod, pushed his earbuds in, and cranked the music up loud. Loud enough to muffle the sharp whine of the saw, loud enough to drown out the questions buzzing in his mind, questions he didn’t want to think about, didn’t want to answer.

Krista Goddamn Slater. Couldn’t she just leave him alone? He shouldn’t have been surprised she showed up unannounced, but her appearance had hit him like a hammer to the chest. He had hoped she’d get the point when he hadn’t returned her calls. Damn stubborn woman.

Why couldn’t she just leave it alone? Leave him alone? He just wanted a little peace, for fuck’s sake. He was still getting used to life on the outside, something he was afraid was going to take a lot longer than anyone could have anticipated. The two years in solitary with minimal contact had left worse scars than any wound he’d received in combat. And then at the end, facing the certainty of his own death…

In order to survive he’d checked out, shut down, and months after he was freed he was still struggling to emerge from the numbing fog.

Things were piercing through it though, things like Jimmy’s suicide. Their friendship had ended ugly even before Sean’s arrest, but the news of Jimmy’s death made him feel like he’d lost a limb.

They’d once been closer than brothers, seen each other through shit straight out of a nightmare. And now Jimmy was dead. Rather than face his life for another day, he’d decided to eat the business end of his Glock.

Sean could relate to the feeling. So much so he’d left his handgun back in Seattle in a gun safe in his sister Megan’s closet.

There were a few too many nights by himself, one shot of Jack too much, when he craved the taste of the gunmetal. When it got bad, he kept the urges at bay by telling himself that if he just kept moving forward, just made it through one day and then another, eventually the pain of the past few years would fade and he’d start to feel normal again.

But now Krista had to show up and blow everything to hell. Calling everything into question one more time, even Jimmy’s death. Making him wonder if Nate, the third brother, their betrayer, had somehow reached beyond the grave to cause Jimmy’s death.

Questions, still so many questions unanswered, questions Sean had managed to force from his head. He had his own suspicions about Nate and whether he’d been working alone. But now that he was out, Sean only wanted to move forward, to put the past away for good. Too much blood had already been shed, too much pain had already been caused.

Christ, he’d nearly lost his own life. Worse, his baby sister had nearly been killed proving his innocence. Didn’t he deserve to get on with the future, free and clear? He carefully guided the plank against the blade, let the hum of the saw calm him as he felt the machine’s vibrations rumble through his hands and up his arms as he held the plank steady.

He tried to focus on the project, lose himself in the process of taking raw lumber and turning it into something else.

What if Jimmy really was murdered? Don’t you care about your friend?

His hand jerked, jogging the plank to the right. The plank spit out a chunk of wood, and only the safety shield kept his fingers from being pulled into the blade.

He swore as much at the ruined lumber as at Krista for barging into his life with all of her questions about stuff he’d just as soon let die.

Like Jimmy died.

Guilt twisted in his gut as he tossed the wood aside and went to work on an armchair that needed a final sanding. What if Jimmy had been murdered? What if it had something to do with Nate and the people who might have helped him cover up not only Evangeline’s murder but the other murders as well?

Goddamn it, he did not want to think about it.

Maybe someday he’d want answers, but not now. Right now it was all he could do to hold his own shit together. And even if they had gone after Jimmy—much as it made him sick to think about it—it had nothing to do with Sean. He didn’t know anything about what Jimmy and Nate might have been up to, and as long as he kept his head down and minded his own business, Nate’s mysterious colleagues seemed content to leave him in peace.

Exactly like he wanted. And if that made him self-centered and uncaring, too bad.

And if Krista Slater wanted to go looking under rocks for slugs, that was her damn business.

He was content here, alone, working on his furniture and hitting town once a week or so to have an in-person conversation. He’d had enough trouble in the past few years. The last thing he was going to do was go chasing it.

Yet as he sanded the final rough spots from the wide armrest of the chair, he couldn’t get the damn woman out of his mind. What was it about her that got so far under his skin? It wasn’t just that she was beautiful. Sean had been with lots of beautiful women in his life, and no one ever gave him that grabbed-by-the-balls feeling that had overcome him at the sight of her standing in his driveway.

She wanted to make things right, did she? Right now he could think of about a thousand different ways she could make a lot of things right in his world.

He ran his hand over the smooth maple of the armrest, oiled and polished to a high sheen. Her skin would be even smoother, he thought. And the color of cream instead of the warm gold of the wood. Warm and giving under his hand.

He snatched his hand away, felt his face warm along with the rest of his body as he realized he was getting a hard-on.

What the fuck?

He’d chalk it up to needing to get laid, which given that he hadn’t had sex since before his arrest would make sense. Three years and counting.

Problem was, he wasn’t exactly plagued with unfulfilled lust. Despite his longest dry spell since the time Mary Hinky had given him a blow job under the bleachers sophomore year in high school, his balls weren’t tightening up for anyone. Not for Wendy, the pretty single mom who ran one of the two bed-and-breakfasts in town. Not for the attractive travelers passing through town—though granted this time of year the pickings were pretty slim.

Lack of prospects was no excuse, or it hadn’t been in the past. Sean had had some dry spells during his years in the Army Rangers. And while he wasn’t proud of it, his standards had gotten a little compromised after a six-month deployment with nothing but a bunch of smelly guys and his own right hand. At that point, any girl in a bar with a pretty smile and a pulse would have done.

But in the months since he’d gotten out, his body had barely reacted to a woman. And if it had, he quickly lost interest when one of two things happened: The woman would recognize him and get a look on her face that said she was scared shitless, or worse, even more turned on that she was about to score with a convicted felon. And if she didn’t recognize him, Sean would have to explain what the fuck he’d been doing in the three years he’d been out of the army. He could skirt around the issue as much as he wanted, but Sean wasn’t a liar, and he wasn’t about to keep his prison time a secret just so he could get laid.

And nothing killed the mood like telling a woman you’d been on death row.

Then there was that damn numbing wall he couldn’t break through. Wasn’t sure he wanted to. But it was deadening his body along with his emotions, and he knew that if he didn’t figure some way out of it, it would eventually kill his soul.

So he should take it as a good sign, he thought bitterly, that the blood was running thick and hot through his veins and he was as hard as a spike behind the fly of his jeans. And he would have, if it had been for anyone but her.

What kind of sick fucker was he that the only woman who could make his dick stand up and say hello was a woman who had once wanted him dead? Granted, once she’d realized her mistake, she’d done everything in her power to make sure he was released from prison and his name was cleared.

But that couldn’t give him back two years of his life—three if you counted the agonizing year of the trial. Couldn’t take back the suffering of his sister, both from the emotional pain of Sean’s trial and conviction and the physical danger from Nate, the sick fuck who’d been walking around free. Free to foster his obsession with Megan. Free to torture and kill helpless women.

And what if he hadn’t been working alone? What if Krista was right and there was more to the murders than just Nate getting his fix and covering his tracks?

Sean shoved the thought aside. Don’t borrow trouble. He’d learned it the hard way when he’d tried to help Evangeline Gordon and ended up framed for murder and gotten within days of the death chamber.

And regardless of his body’s perverse reaction to her, every cell in him screamed that Krista Slater was nothing but trouble. He took out his earbuds. It took a few seconds for his eardrums to recover from the scream of Alice in Chains. He heard nothing but the rush of wind through the birch and pines and the squawk of birds.

She had to be gone by now.

He checked his watch and saw that he had enough time for a run to siphon off some of the energy surging in his veins and still get the finished chair delivered. The run wouldn’t be nearly as satisfying as a long, lusty fuck with a certain prosecutor, but it would serve to take the edge off, not to mention be infinitely better for his sanity.

He cleaned the shop, vacuumed up sawdust, and put the tools away in their proper places, a process that had been drilled into him first by his father and then reinforced in his years in the army.

He stepped outside and reflexively lifted his face to the sky and sucked in a deep lungful of fresh air. Like his brain wouldn’t accept he was outside until he looked up and saw the sky. The soles of his work boots crunched on the gravel driveway. The air smelled like wet dirt and pine needles, and through it the cold bite of winter still clinging to the mountain air.

He grabbed an extra armful of firewood as he walked past the pile. Even though it was mid-May, he’d have to get the wood-burning stove cranking before bed if he wanted to stay warm tonight. He pushed open the front door of the cabin and was greeted by the familiar smell of the cedar paneling and wood smoke.

There was something else underneath it, a hint of something that didn’t jibe with the smell he’d always associated with the cabin. Something kind of flowery and soapy and…

Exactly like Krista Slater, who was perched on his leather couch, wearing his green fleece pullover and holding a cup billowing steam like she owned the fucking place.

He closed his eyes, hoping it was a lust-induced hallucination, but nope, she was still there when he opened his eyes, a sheepish smile and an apologetic look in her eyes. “What the hell are you still doing here?”

Her smile slipped and he could see her cup shake a little as she set it carefully on his slate-topped table. “My car won’t start.”

His eyes narrowed. “Really? What a coincidence.”

She rose from the couch. “What? It’s not my fault the roads around here beat the hell out of my Camry.”

“You shouldn’t have come up here in the first place,” he pointed out.

“I would have called a tow truck, but I couldn’t find your phone.”

His boots thumped across the wood floor as he walked into the kitchen to wash the sawdust from his hands. “That’s because I don’t have a landline.” He splashed water on his face to get the worst of the dirt off.

Her eyebrows, two shades darker than the butter-colored hair that hung past her shoulders, drew together over her nose. “What number did I call?”

“My cell.”

“I don’t get any service up here,” she said, flashing her phone at him.

“Neither do I.”

“Then how do people get in touch with you?” she asked like she couldn’t comprehend a world where people weren’t available twenty-four/seven.

He dried his hands and face on the kitchen towel next to the sink. “There’s a spot about a mile down the road where I get reception. A couple times a day I take a walk, pick up messages, and return calls if I feel like it.”

Her blue eyes narrowed. “And you didn’t feel the need to call me back.”

“Getting the hint yet?” He grabbed her purse off the table and fished around until he found her keys. “Let’s go take a look at your car.”

She followed him through the doorway and out to the driveway. He ate up the distance in long strides, and he could hear her breath speeding as she struggled to keep up in the higher altitude. The soft panting did nothing to quell the tight ache in his groin. He walked faster.

Undaunted, Krista trotted beside him as they neared the end of the drive. “I don’t understand why you won’t just listen to what I have to say. What happened to you didn’t start and end with Nate Brewster. There are still people out there messing with people’s lives—”

Something in him snapped. A red fog flooded his brain and he turned on her, grabbing her by the shoulders and lifting her bodily off the ground. “And now you want to mess with mine? Whatever they were doing, it has nothing to do with me, and I want to keep it that way. I just want to be fucking left alone. Don’t you get it?”