and waited.
It didn’t take long. Eve walked in, closed the door, and stood looking down at him, her eyes more curious than surprised. Before coming in, she had swept her dark hair up from her neck and loosely pinned it, which gave her a rakish air, and the generic skirt suit could not hide the sensual curves beneath it. Lily had guessed her age at thirty-two, but Eve’s figure said twenty-five. She probably spent hours in the gym, but she clearly had genetics on her side. And she knew it.
“I thought you were going to call me,” she said.
“The police just arrested Danny Buckles. You’ve got thirty seconds to explain how you knew about him before I get a detective over here to do the same to you.”
Eve leaned back against the door. “Why didn’t you bring one with you?”
Waters said nothing.
“It’s because of Mallory, isn’t it?”
Waters reached for the phone.
“What can you tell the police?” Eve asked.
“The truth. And Cole Smith can back me up.”
“Cole needs a little backup himself these days.” Her eyes gently mocked him. “I called you about a house I have for sale. I also have a buyer for Linton Hill. That’s all we talked about.”
“There a connection between you and Danny Buckles. There has to be. The police will find it.”
Eve slowly shook her head. “No one could ever find it, Johnny. I advise you to trust me on that.”
For some reason, he believed her.
“Besides, I saved Annelise a terrible experience. Why would you want to hurt me?”
“What are you really up to? This has to be about money. So let’s go ahead and get to the bottom line.”
She looked genuinely hurt. “I don’t care about money. I want to talk to you. That’s all.”
“Talk.”
She licked her lips as though about to confide in him, but then she shook her head. “Not here.”
“Why not?”
“Because what I have to say can’t be heard by anyone. Especially anyone here. We’re going to be spending a lot of time together, and we don’t want people suspicious from the start.”
She was speaking to him like a fellow conspirator, and her low, confiding tone gave him a surreal feeling of complicity. “You’re out of your mind, lady.”
Eve glanced at the door and whispered, “Look, this one time, we could go to my house.”
“Your house?”
“A house on the market, then. An empty house? That’s perfect cover.”
He couldn’t believe her persistence. “Whatever you have to say, say it right here. Right now.”
She took a step closer to the desk. Her proximity made his skin tingle. Here was a woman he had never really met, yet he felt as though they already shared the invisible connection of secret lovers.
“I’m not who you think I am, Johnny.”
“Danny Buckles wasn’t who anyone thought, either. Who are you? And don’t tell me Mallory Candler.”
Eve’s dark eyes became liquid. “I’m the girl you first said ‘I love you’ to under the Faulkner quote on the front of the library at Ole Miss.”
Waters’s mouth fell open. Who knows that? he asked himself. Who the hell knows that? Someone, obviously.
She smiled at his reaction. “I’m the girl you first made love to at Sardis Reservoir.”
His hand slipped off the desktop. “Who the hell are you, lady?”
“You know who I am. Johnny, I’m Mal—”
“Shut up!”
“ Please keep your voice down. We have to figure out what to do.”
He tried to think logically, but her knowledge of his intimate past had somehow short-circuited his reason. “I’m leaving,” he said, and stood.
“Please don’t. I’ll meet you anywhere. You name the place. Somewhere we used to go.”
“Where would that be?”
“The Trace?”
Waters couldn’t believe it. He and Mallory had spent countless hours on the Natchez Trace, a wooded highway crossed by dozens of beautiful side roads and creeks. “Anybody could have guessed that. Lots of kids went there.”
“Did they go to the creek under the wooden suspension bridge?
Megan Michaels
Ophidia Cox
N.J. Walters
Kell Frillman
C.J. Berry
Opal Carew
John Lawrence
Melynda Beth Andrews
Jade Lee
Jane Haddam