All That Glitters. Mary Brady

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      “Thank you so much for your offer of shelter,” she said to the bartender and started to leave.

      The door to the tavern burst open and six people entered—two women and four men—sodden, weary and breathing hard except the man who had pulled her away from the falling FRANCINE. He stood tall, brooding and soaked, taking inventory of the people in the tavern as if he were somehow responsible for each one of them—and ignoring her.

CHAPTER TWO

      ADDY’S SAVIOR FROM the docks signaled a farewell to the bartender and turned to leave.

      “Where’s ah— Where’s he going?” The stout white-whiskered man asked from his bar stool at the near corner of the bar’s U shape.

      One of the newcomers stepped forward. “Said he had to get back to—”

      The bartender shot a hand into the air and he, too, seemed to make a point of not looking at Addy.

      Addy studied the red-haired man and the retreating newcomer for a moment. The retreating man was her quarry.

      He had to be Zachary Hale.

      As impossible as it seemed, tall, rough looking and seething was Zachary Hale. Stripped of his business suit and the affable expression, the whiskered man with his wet hair plastered to his head seemed like a Maine fisherman instead of a criminal tycoon. She was such an idiot for not seeing it in the first place.

      She started after him.

      “Leave him alone, miss.” She had taken only a step when the sharp demand stopped her.

      When she turned, the short white-whiskered man was no longer on his bar stool but standing inches behind her.

      “He’s not who you think he is,” the man finished in a deadly calm voice.

      Facing him squarely she looked directly into the faded blue eyes and told a lie that at least might fool him for a moment while she fled. “It’s a family thing.” If anyone would understand this, it would be a man from Maine.

      The man’s look did not change.

      She fled the tavern in time to see the SUV pull away from the curb.

      Uncaring any more about the drenching rain, she flew to her car and jumped inside. Gripping the steering wheel as tight as she could, she headed out after the beckoning taillights.

      The road was still deserted except for her car and the SUV.

      No other reporters. Wally Harriman and Jacko Wilson would be sitting snug in their dry Boston condos waiting for the storm to pass, sure no one would be gutsy enough to travel in such weather.

      “He’s not who you think he is”? This man was Zachary Hale and he was hers.

      She followed, pushing the rental car as much as she dared as water ran down the back of her neck, down her body and into her bra. She wiggled her shoulders. This, too, would pass.

      The street was worse than when she arrived in town. A slick of water covered most of the surface spraying out from the tires of the SUV and then filling back in.

      When she passed it, she could barely see the old church through the blowing rainfall, so she spared the historic building a nod.

      The hammering of the wind had escalated in the short while she had been in the town and every time the car took a broadside shot of the gusty stuff, she was sure the bitsy rental was going to tip over and tumble her like towels in a clothes dryer. But each time, the hatchback car held on to the ground and kept up the insane pace she asked of it.

      Doggedly, she followed the SUV’s taillights off the town’s main street onto a side road leading away from the ocean and climbing gently up a hill. The rain slashed and the wind ripped at the trees surrounding the bungalows lined up along the road. The press of houses eventually thinned out and the road began to climb and curve through pine trees that seemed to close in behind her as she drove.

      When a large tree branch plopped down onto the almost absent shoulder of the road, it brushed Addy back toward the center and she stayed there.

      If she hadn’t been so fired up about clinging to the sight of Mr. Bad Guy’s taillights, she knew she would have been scared boneless. Now she held on to determination as a way of survival both mental and physical.

      The SUV ahead of her turned once again, this time onto an impossibly narrow road or a driveway she would not have seen if he hadn’t turned there.

      She slowed and followed with growing trepidation. He for sure knew she was tailing him, but he might also know she was a reporter. If his cell service worked, surely someone at the bar would have called him.

      A thought occurred to her that tried to be amusing, but wasn’t. He could be trying to lead her to some remote place where he could get rid of her and hide this minuscule car and no one would ever be the wiser.

      The folks of the town would be convinced she had gone away. Or because they would think she was trying to bring down one of their own, especially one who was so obviously a part of the community, they might help him cover up her disappearance.

      Was the story worth dying for?

      Was she crazy for thinking such things?

      Heck, yeah.

      But if she could wipe away the memory of the hopeless look on her sister’s face when she first told her story to Addy, it was worth every slick road, every gust of wind and even facing down a fleeing tycoon.

      But, she wasn’t going to die. He didn’t frighten her. The FBI agent she had interviewed had said scam artists rarely seriously hurt anyone. They were usually cowards, often helpless if they were forced into a face-to-face confrontation.

      After what she had seen of this guy, she had to admit he wouldn’t be terrified of her. Maybe he’d want to come clean, bare his soul to cleanse himself.

      Keep dreaming, she told herself.

      She squeezed the wheel and followed the lights. After a quarter mile or so of the steeper, rocky grade, and one particularly deep water-filled rut, she patted the steering wheel. “It’s okay, rental car, you can do this.”

      The road turned suddenly and a stand of trees gave her a small respite from the wind. Wherever they were going they had to be arriving any time. She breathed a long sigh. The sun would be setting soon and she wasn’t relishing the darkness.

      Where Hale was going and what she would do when they arrived hadn’t been very well planned in her head. Somehow, she had always seen herself confronting him in an office, a bar or a coffee shop, or even on the front steps outside his condo building in downtown Boston.

      “You’re leapin’, but you’re not lookin’,” her granddad always told her when she did thoughtless things as a child.

      Well, she was nothing if not adaptable. When she found out he had left town, she ran toward the place few people knew about. She would chase СКАЧАТЬ