Into the Fire - Anne Stuart [79]
“Just lie there for a while. I brought a sweatshirt of mine you can put on—I’m afraid my wardrobe doesn’t consist of bras, but you don’t need one, anyway.”
“Go to hell,” she said wearily, turning her face away.
He stood up, and she wanted to reach out and grab his hand, to hold it. She wanted, needed to touch him, to feel some kind of connection.
But she didn’t move. “Who did this to me?”
He shrugged. “Whoever locked you in the garage with the cars running.”
“Was it you?”
He didn’t blink, didn’t answer. He just turned away from her.
“I’ll change the tire on your car, and then you can leave whenever you want to,” he said, moving away.
She sat up, holding the damp towel against her chest. “What are those boxes in the back seat?” she asked, trying to sound as cool as he did. As if being cut with a knife was an everyday occurrence.
“Those are Nate’s things. I thought you wanted to take them back to the Duchess….” His voice trailed off, and he was staring at her car, an abstracted expression on his face.
“What’s wrong?”
“I thought I put those boxes in the trunk,” he said, his voice remote. He seemed to have forgotten her. He was concentrating on her old Volvo, heading toward the trunk, and she could see the dread in his body.
“There’s no spare tire in the trunk,” she said, forestalling him. “I had a flat last week and I forgot to pick up a new one.”
“I’m not looking for a spare,” he said in a dull voice. And he opened the trunk, staring down into it in silence.
She dropped the towel, grabbed the sweatshirt he’d brought and pulled it over her head. She started toward the car, and he spun around, shielding it.
“Don’t come any closer, Jamie!”
His voice was raw with grief and rage, and there was no way she was going to obey him. She tried to push past him, but he caught her arms in an iron grip and dragged her away, hurting her. But not before she could see what lay in the trunk of her car.
He dragged her across the garage to the yellow Cadillac, and she started to struggle. He ignored her flailing, wrapping his arms tight around her, ignoring her grunt of pain as he pressed against the wounds on her chest. He picked her up and dumped her in the front seat of the car. Behind the steering wheel. He leaned over and started the car, and she sat still, staring up at him.
“This puts the top up,” he said in a monotone. “The rest of it is pretty standard. It has a full tank of gas and snow tires, though it gets lousy mileage. You need to get out of here, right away.”
“Who was that…?”
“In your trunk? Mouser. Or what’s left of him.” He closed his eyes for a moment, and she could see the pain wash over him. And then he focused on her again, all business. “Where’s your purse?”
“I don’t remember.”
He reached into his back pocket and tossed his wallet into her lap. “There are credit cards and plenty of cash. Enough to get you back to Rhode Island. Just dump the car somewhere—I don’t need it anymore. It’s served it’s purpose.”
“But what about my car?”
“It’s going to disappear. Mouser has no one, and he wouldn’t want ugly questions surfacing that no one can answer.”
The Cadillac was purring like the perfectly maintained machine it was. As it had twelve years ago. “Did you murder him?”
She’d been frightened of him before, but in comparison to this it had been no more than a mild nervousness. The look he turned on her would have frozen anyone.
“I’ve never hit a woman,” he said in a contemplative voice. “I’m more than willing to start with you. Get the fuck out of here and don’t come back.”
“I don’t have any shoes.”
“What?”
“I can’t drive off into a snowstorm in bare feet.”
His reply was short and obscene. “Put the fucking top up.” A moment later he threw a pair of his own sneakers into the open window.
“These won’t fit—”
“Shut the fuck up and get out of here before it’s too late.”
There was nothing left to say. Except the obvious. “Then who killed Mouser? Who tried to kill me?”
“You’re smarter than that, Jamie. You should have figured it out by now.”
“Well, I haven’t. I don’t have