At Any Cost Read online

  Ignoring the button behind the desk, she hurried to the door to manually unlock it. “Good afternoon,” she said, smiling and holding the door open. The woman with the bouffant hair style and big round glasses rushed inside as though she’d never experienced snow, and Jenna closed the door. For a second she was startled by the windblown brown cowlick on the crown of the woman’s head, then realized that she was wearing a synthetic wig. “You must be Mrs. Bolton.”

  “Guilty as charged,” she laughed, reaching up to smooth her “hair.” “And you must be Jenna. I recognize your voice from our phone conversation. Goodness, it’s cold up here.” Without waiting for Jenna to reply, she continued into the foyer, her head swiveling as she took in the high ceiling, cream-and-pink wallpaper, huge silk flower wreaths and swags, and wistful window treatments. The Victorian age had been all about excess, and Aunt Molly had decorated the foyer—the entire inn, for that matter—with that in mind. To the right, a curved wall held built-in shelves filled with pretty jars of jam, fragrant candles and assorted candies, figurines and lace doilies.

  “How absolutely lovely,” Audrey Bolton said. “I can’t wait to see the rest of the inn.”

  “And we can’t wait to show it off,” Aunt Molly called, smiling as she descended the stairs in her Victorian trappings. “Welcome to the Blackberry.” She offered her hand to the woman. “I’m Molly Jennings, prior owner and current hanger-on. The inn belongs to my niece now.”

  Bolton put down her bag, then slipped off a glove to clasp it, her features telegraphing her delight at Molly’s period dress.

  “When you’ve registered,” Molly went on, “I’ll show you to your room and give you the tour. In the meantime, I’ll freshen the coffee on the dining room buffet, and add a few pastries. We like to leave a little something out for our guests.”

  “Wonderful.” Beaming, the woman walked with Jenna to the desk. “I can’t tell you how glad I am to have found your listing in the phone book.” She slid the long strap of her purse off her shoulder, then reached inside for her wallet. “I usually stay in hotels when I do an audit. This is my first stay at a bed and breakfast.”

  “Well, we certainly hope it won’t be your last.” Jenna slid a card and pen across the desk and pulled up Mrs. Bolton’s registration on the computer. “Let’s see… You gave me most of your information over the phone. You’ll be with us for two nights, correct?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Great. Then I’ll just need your driver’s license, credit card and signature.” No wonder she was chilled to the bone, Jenna thought, reading the woman’s home address on the screen. She’d forgotten that Audrey Bolton hailed from North Carolina.

  “About my credit card,” Bolton said, producing her credentials, then signing the card and sliding it back across the desktop. “I’m one of those dinosaurs who doesn’t care to use plastic. I think it’s the bane of civilization, with people using it indiscriminately and getting themselves in all sorts of trouble. I only have a card because some hotels insist upon two forms of identification, and I travel a lot. So if you don’t mind, I’d prefer to pay cash.”

  Jenna understood perfectly. “Cash works for me.” She didn’t think credit cards were the bane of civilization, but she couldn’t deny wishing she’d cancelled hers before someone hacked into her account. “I’m afraid we do need to have a credit card on file to cover any additional charges.” She turned the computer screen toward her guest. “But when you’re ready to check out, I can delete the card number you used to reserve the room.”

  “Thank you. I’d appreciate that.” Easing close to the monitor, she appeared to check the room charge, then tucked her credentials back into her wallet and removed several bills. “If it’s okay, I’d like to settle up in advance. I won’t be making any long distance calls while I’m here, and if I decide I need a jar or two of your lovely jams, I’ll pay for them with cash.”

  “Sounds good,” Jenna said, but she was suddenly feeling a little distrustful. Maybe it was the wig, or the cash thing. Or the wig and the cash thing. Or maybe her suspicion was based on her own paranoia. She shook off those thoughts. She had no choice but to trust the woman. She couldn’t run an inn and doubt every guest who walked through the door.

  “Here you go,” she said, handing Mrs. Bolton her room key. “You’re in the Blue Room. Aunt Molly will be back in a minute to show you the way, but it’s the second door on the left at the top of the stairs. If you have a problem after lights out, just give me a call.” She nodded toward the wide archway leading to the turquoise-and-gold parlor and the hallway beyond. “If there’s anything you need, my room’s at the end of the hall, and my number’s on the nightstand in your room. Oh—and if you go out and need to get back in, you’ll need to tap today’s code into the security pad located next to the side door. It’s one-forty-two plus your room number—three.”

  “One-four-two-three,” she said. “Got it.” Then she smiled at the brass key in her open hand. “I thought these things were extinct. No plastic key card with a magnetic strip? With the exception of the security pad, I feel like I’ve fallen into a time warp.”

  Jenna laughed softly. “I don’t know about that, but you’ll find we’re pretty laid back around here.”

  “Great.” The woman wearing the dangling peace sign earrings gave Jenna another bright smile. “‘Laid back’ is exactly what I was hoping for.”

  * * *

  Beau opened a can of soup, dumped it in a saucepan, and turned on the burner beneath it. He’d stayed at the Blackberry until after six this evening to make up for the time he’d lost, but with guests in three of Jenna’s rooms, he’d had to keep the noise down. The work he’d planned to accomplish today would have to wait until tomorrow. Then again, maybe making up the work had nothing to do with his staying late. Maybe he’d hung around in case Jenna wanted to talk. He stirred the soup…couldn’t get her out of his mind. Couldn’t get the guy with the cane out of his mind, either.

  Two sharp reports broke the stillness of his kitchen, and Beau whirled from the range—froze—then turned off the soup and grabbed a jacket and flashlight. He rushed outside.

  The night was cold and clear after the daylong flurries, and every star in the heavens twinkled in a black, moonless sky. Quickly, he checked the perimeter of his house and the inside of his garage, then sprinted across the dusting of snow behind the garage to his carpentry shop. In a second, he’d unlocked the door and reached around the corner to flick on the overhead track lights. Long bright tubes illuminated every corner of the forty-by-forty foot space.

  Inhaling the pleasant smell of cut wood, he stepped inside, then took a slow walk over a concrete floor lightly coated with sawdust. Nothing seemed to have been disturbed. Not the stacks of lumber against the wall, or the oak cabinets draped in clear plastic that awaited a coat of stain. Not the neatly piled rolls of insulation left over from his last job. He crossed the floor to his line of power tools. No problem there, either…and all of his hand tools hung just as he’d left them on the peg board above his long work bench. Both windows were tightly locked.

  So what had he heard? Gunshots? Kids outlawing deer? A car backfiring? All three were possibilities since he lived in the boonies where no one could complain about the irritating ring of power tools or his lousy singing voice.

  He stood there for another long moment. Then he locked the shop and returned to the house he’d purchased last year, scanning the woods around him as he walked. But nothing moved in the pines and leafless trees, and in a minute he was stirring soup again.

  He liked his one-story ranch house. It wasn’t a showplace like Jenna’s—not yet. But it suited him, it was paid for, and as soon as he finished the Blackberry’s renovations, he’d be tearing down walls, ripping up flooring, and eventually making this the home he’d longed for since he was a kid. It wasn’t much, but it had potential and it was miles from the shack on the other side of the railroad tracks where he’d grown up.

  For the fi
rst eighteen years of his life, he’d lived—or maybe existed was the better word—in one of the old tannery row houses that were still standing at the time. Theirs was a dilapidated wood-frame with peeling paint that should’ve been condemned long before it was torn down.

  He stopped stirring for a moment.

  Funny how one thought spawned another, like a flat stone skipping across a pond. He hadn’t thought of that place in years, and now every nail hole in the walls—every cracked section of linoleum—seemed to sharpen in his mind as he recalled one of his first memories in that house. It was a memory he’d never shared with anyone. He was a three-year-old watching his mother walk out the door thinking—wrongly—that she’d be coming back. He had no memory of his father, had no idea who he was and had no interest in looking for him—or his mother.

  The only family he’d ever known was the grandfather who’d raised him out of duty, and there’d been nothing grand about him. Considering the late Jasper Travis’s cold, unyielding nature, he didn’t blame his mother for skipping out. He only blamed her for not taking him with her.

  Beau took the soup off the stove, dumped it in a bowl and carried it to the department-store table that had come with the house, his thoughts rolling on. His life was different now. Military service, trade school and a dozen years of decent living had blunted his old reputation. But to some, he would always be that wild Welfare kid from tannery row. Small towns had long memories. People still talked about the spree he and his friends had gone on one night years ago, raiding gardens and painting the headlights of a dozen cars black. The owners of the vehicles had gone ballistic—demanded that they all be jailed on the spot or shipped off to juvvie. And for a while there, it looked like the district magistrate would do it.

  Thank God for Molly Jennings. When Jasper refused to pay his fines and sneered that juvenile detention was the best place for him, like a skinny angel in high button shoes, she’d marched inside the magistrate’s office and told Jasper that wasn’t going to happen.

  Beau smiled. He still wasn’t sure if she’d saved his skin out of Christian duty, or if she’d just decided that he needed straightening out and she was the woman for the job. She’d made him an offer that day. She’d pay his fines and his share of restitution to the owners under two conditions. He was to work off his debt doing odd jobs for her, and he was to start attending church regularly.

  He was a better man today because of Aunt Molly.

  Beau slid the box of saltines closer, opened one of the wrapped stacks, and crushed a few crackers into his chicken noodle soup. There was nothing he wouldn’t do for his skinny little benefactor. And as of today, that meant watching over the niece she loved like a daughter. He’d do it for her…and for Jenna. Because like it or not, his old feelings for her were coming back.

  He just wished he knew what or whom he was supposed to protect her from.

  * * *

  At seven-forty-seven that night, he stood before the bathroom mirror in his Pittsburgh hotel room, staring at his clean-shaven reflection and newly colored hair. Smiling, he fashioned it into a short ponytail at the back of his head. He was beginning to enjoy this masquerade.

  Wandering into the nearly dark bedroom, he poured wine into the glass tumbler beside the ice bucket, then walked to the long plate-glass window to consider the Pittsburgh skyline. The city at night was stunning, millions of lights shining in the darkness from every soaring skyscraper to the lowliest shop…outlining the bridge on the Monongahela River and the ships moving beneath it. It was a far cry from where he’d been this morning.

  He sipped and savored, his thoughts rolling on until those he didn’t want to contemplate intruded, and the wine turned to vinegar in his mouth.

  Whirling away from the Golden Triangle’s bright lights, he strode to the nightstand, clicked on a lamp and picked up his disposable cell phone. He speed-dialed the employees he’d met earlier at The Tall Spruce Travel Lodge—two shadowy forces who came highly recommended, and would do as he asked without blinking an eye because the money was good, and that was how they made their living. He waited through nearly a dozen rings, then impatiently disconnected and dialed again. This time, the tall one with the shaved head and muscular physique answered on his own disposable phone.

  “What took you so long?” he snapped coldly.

  “I was indisposed.”

  How he hated smart-mouthed thugs. “I’m paying you to be available to me 24-7. That’s your only priority. Did your partner accomplish his task this evening?”

  “He did. The subject left his home to investigate. He didn’t appear to find anything.”

  “Good.” When—or if—the bullet holes were discovered, the shots fired into the sign on Travis’s shop would be blamed on vandals, barely investigated and quickly forgotten. He knew the immaturity of the act was beneath him. But making Travis scramble gave him an enormous sense of satisfaction for several reasons—not the least of which was the fact that she liked him. “Let me know when the woman contacts you.”

  “I will.”

  Pushing the disconnect button, he returned the phone to the nightstand, his thoughts shifting, hatred heating his blood. After watching the inn for the past week without catching a glimpse of her, he’d been startled to see her at that little diner today. It had taken every ounce of his willpower to stay away from her, to stay calm. But it was important that he remained hidden. He wanted to strip her of everything that gave her pleasure before he faced her. Every last thing. Then…then when the time was right, when her fears were at their peak and her life was in shambles, they’d have a short, sweet talk about consequences.

  Then he’d kill her.

  FOUR

  Outside, night wrapped the Blackberry in a quiet cocoon, pressing against the windows and doors…keeping goodness in and evil out? Jenna flicked a glance at the grandfather clock in the foyer, saw that it was a few minutes before nine, then leafed through her Rolodex for the Michigan number she’d called earlier. A minute later, she’d identified herself to the secretary, and the woman had put her through to the lead investigator in her case.

  The instant she heard Detective Sergeant Ray Caspian’s out-of-breath baritone, Jenna regretted calling; she’d apparently phoned at a bad time. She was surprised when the olive-skinned, slightly overweight officer offered his own apology.

  “Ms. Harper, this is Ray Caspian. Forgive me for not getting back to you earlier. I’m afraid I inherited some chaos when I came in at four. But I did get the message that you wanted to speak with me.”

  “There’s no need to apologize, Detective. But yes, if you have a few minutes, I did have a question. I imagine you know what it is.”

  “Yes. And actually, when I heard you’d phoned, I made a few calls.” He gentled his voice. “Now, obviously your case is still open, but it’s been two years, and unfortunately current cases get more attention. Unless someone comes forward with new information, we have to center our efforts on other crimes. I’m truly sorry, but out of necessity, your case has been back-burnered.”

  Jenna’s spirits sank, but she pressed on. “So these phone calls you made… I guess none of Courtland’s friends or associates have heard from him.”

  “No ma’am, and I get the sense that if they had heard something, they would’ve let us know. I don’t believe the guy was well liked.”

  Based on what she’d seen, she had to agree—which should’ve been an immediate tip-off to her that there was something not quite right about him. He’d barely mentioned friends and family, and when they’d gone out, usually to the theatre or a trendy restaurant, the people he’d spoken with were business associates. None of them had returned his greeting with anything approaching warmth. Four dates. They’d had four dates. And she hadn’t seen who he was until he began to— She drew a breath and shook off the memory.

  “Well, thank you for looking into this again,” she murmured, trying to hide her disappointment. “I just— Well, he’s been on my mind lately, and I was hoping th
at he’d surfaced somewhere and you’d heard about it.”

  Her reply seemed to sharpen Caspian’s interest, though nothing changed in his understanding tone. “Believe me, Ms. Harper, if we’d heard something, I would’ve notified you personally. Can I ask why he’s been on your mind? Did something happen? Or is it just the two-year anniversary that prompted you to call?”

  Jenna stilled as gooseflesh covered her skin. November seventeenth. Four days from now. She hadn’t thought about it consciously. But…was it the two-year anniversary that brought back the clawing fear? Had the date been simmering in her unconscious mind for a while, just waiting for something out of the ordinary to bring it to the fore? Something like identity theft or a stranger with a limp?

  “Ma’am?” he prodded. “Is there something you want to tell me?”

  For just a second, she nearly said yes. But he was busy, his jurisdiction was miles away and suddenly she realized she might have jumped to some incorrect conclusions. “No. No, there’s nothing. Thank you for making those calls. I hope I didn’t pull you away from your work at a bad time.”

  He didn’t say she had or hadn’t. He simply told her to call him anytime. He wanted to see the case resolved as badly as she did. Then they wished each other a good night, and Jenna hung up. She was standing behind the desk with her hand still on the cordless handset when her great-aunt came quietly into the foyer—no mean feat wearing clunky high button shoes.

  “You called Detective Caspian.”

  Jenna smiled wanly. She’d wanted to make the call secretly to minimize her aunt’s concern. Obviously, she’d failed. “Reading my mind?”

  “No, I’m afraid I was eavesdropping on the way to my room.”