Dead End by Stella Cameron Page A

problem, not that he’d needed her confirmation on top of what he was seeing here. “Whatever’s going on with you
is
my problem because I’m making it so. We’re far from strangers. We’re old friends, good friends, with unfinished business.” When had his timing turned so lousy?
    Reb shuddered. She looked over her shoulder at the dust-covered windows, and overhead, as if she might be attacked through the broken panes there. The great breath she took was obviously meant to calm her. She took another and another and let her hands go limp on his muscles.
    “You are fearful, cher. Terrified. Are you in danger?”
    Her body tensed again, and she pushed against his chest. From somewhere close by came a thump followed by a series of small clunks. Reb’s eyes filled with tears, but he wouldn’t let her shrug away from him.
    “Just more plaster coming down,” he told her.
    “Okay,” she said quietly. “You want me to tell you something you can’t do a thing about. You can’t let a person have her own dignity and make sure she isn’t imaginin’ things before she starts shooting her mouth off, so I’ll give you your way, of course.”
    “Are you imaginin’ things?” he said, growing agitated again. “Is some nonexistent threat turning you into a jumpy woman afraid of her shadow—and dreaming up a few shadows maybe?”
    “That is so like you to laugh at my concerns.”
    Pushing with both fists, she really struggled to get away from him. If he let her go he was sure she’d fly out of the house and he’d be chasing her until she got too tired to run anymore. “Settle down, Reb. Let’s get some tea.”
    “I don’t want any
tea.
Okay, this is the way it is. The killings you mentioned yesterday, the ones that happened a couple of years back. I got involved—professionally—because I was the first doctor on each scene. Afterward I was threatened. If I didn’t say certain things—tell lies—I’d die too. Then it was all over, just like that.” She passed a hand across her mouth. “A man was arrested and convicted of attacking another woman. He wasn’t found guilty of the murders, but everyone around here believes he did them. I didn’t get any more warnings after that, so I thought it had gone away.”
    “Shh,” Marc said. “It’s okay. Everything’s okay now. You’re overworked is all, and dealing with what happened in that belfry shook you up. I’m not going to make things hard for you, cher. Simple questions are all I’ve got. This other thing you’re talkin’ about is in the past. Forget it.”
    “It’s
not
in the past. It’s come back. And dealing with Bonnie made me sad, not shaken up.” She was dry-eyed again, but colorless.
    “You think you—”
    “I don’t think, I know. You don’t. It’s started again. They’re after me. I’m being followed, and this afternoon they showed how easy it’ll be to get at me…when I’m alone.”
    She closed her eyes, and terror passed over her face like pain. “It’s just been little things I noticed that made me suspect I was being watched. I hoped I was wrong. Now I know I wasn’t.”
    Mark laced his fingers around her neck and supported her head. And when her eyes started to open again, he kissed her.
     

Eight
     
     
    No way was the bitch he’d married going to hold him up and squeeze him dry. No sir. Chauncey Depew checked himself over in the bathroom mirror and slicked his hair back one more time.
    She’d put him off for days, since the deputy pulled him in, but tonight was showdown time. He’d remind Precious that regardless of what she thought she could hold over his head, he was bigger, stronger, and smarter than she was.
    “Down, Big Boy,” he muttered, smiling at himself. The thought of teaching Precious a lesson had brought the big boy to attention.
    He heard the bedroom door close and turned so he could see his dear wife in the mirror, but she wouldn’t see him until she got a lot closer. She walked in, pausing