My Deadly Valentine - By Valerie Hansen & Lynette Eason Page 0,4
if the eyes of a thousand enemies were upon her. Watching. Menacing. Waiting for her to relax and let down her guard so they could pounce.
Nervous beyond logic, she glanced up and down the familiar street. Nobody strange was hanging around as far as she could tell. There was the usual early activity in and out of the bakery as folks grabbed a quick cup of coffee and pastry. Someone was delivering that day’s newspapers to the rack across the square. And the regular maintenance man was using a noisy leaf blower to clear dried leaves off the sidewalk and out of the flower beds around the courthouse. All in all, it just looked like another peaceful day in paradise.
The frightening thing was Rachel’s certainty that tranquility was nothing more than an illusion.
As Jace made his way slowly up and down the aisles of the small shop, he kept his gun in hand. He doubted the perpetrators were still there but as long as there was a slight chance, he planned to be ready.
Finally satisfied that all was well, he holstered the weapon, returned to Rachel and pushed open the door. “You can come in now. There’s no sign of whoever broke in.”
“Are you sure?”
“Positive. You’ll have to get a locksmith to repair that back door today though. I couldn’t make it catch.”
“Okay. What now?”
He stepped aside for her to pass. “Now, we go over the store bit by bit and you tell me if anything is missing or damaged.”
“Okay. Give me a second to grab my coat from the back room, will you? I’m freezing.”
Accompanying her, he stayed close, just in case. When they reached the storeroom she stopped so abruptly he almost bumped into her. “What’s the matter?”
Rachel pointed. Her hand was shaking. “My—my jacket,” she said in a near whisper. “I always hang it right there on that hook.”
“I don’t see any coat,” Jace said, scowling and peering at the spot in the corner she was indicating.
“That’s what I mean,” she replied. “It’s gone. You know what that tells us?”
“Yes.” Nodding, he braced himself and pivoted to recheck every corner, every possible hiding place. When he saw the young woman sway slightly, he took her elbow to steady her. “Are you all right?”
“No. I’m not all right,” Rachel said. “I’m terrified. They were still here when I came in. It wasn’t just my imagination. They had to be watching my every move.”
THREE
“Praise the Lord, Mrs. McCafferty isn’t due to come to work till ten,” Rachel told Jace. “Eloise isn’t nearly as resilient as she pretends to be and I don’t want to frighten her needlessly.”
“Did she have trouble like this in the past?”
“Not that I know of.” It had been Rachel’s fondest hope that she could relieve her old friend and mentor of a lot of the stress she’d been dealing with lately, but troubling events like the one this morning were not going to be easy to tone down or cover up.
Another thought popped into Rachel’s head and made her shudder and whisper, “Please, God, don’t let Harlan tell my father what’s been going on or I’ll never hear the end of it.”
“I beg your pardon?” Jace was scowling at her.
“I was just imagining what my dad’s reaction to all this would be. Like I said before, he’s the reason I don’t particularly take to cops.”
“That’s too bad.”
“Yes, I suppose it is. I know everyone is not like him. It’s just a hang-up I happen to have. No offense meant.”
“None taken.” Jace continued to scan the dimly lit room. “Are there any more lights back here or is this the best it gets?”
“I have another bank of overheads. Just a sec. I’ll turn them on.”
Reaching behind a stack of unopened stock, she started to flip the switch. Her fingers brushed something fine, like a spider web, and she recoiled with a sharp intake of breath.
Jace was immediately at her side. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
“A web, I think. It startled me, that’s all. I was bitten by a brown recluse spider last year and it was not a pleasant experience. I had to take antibiotics for weeks.”
“I don’t doubt that.” He shifted the top box until they could both peer at that portion of the wall. Instead of a real spider-web, they found a mass of gossamerlike threads arranged in a loose pattern across the switch plate.
Rachel leaned closer. “That looks like the stuff they make fake webs out of in the movies.”