Chapter Twenty-Eight

Even in my sleep there was no escaping the long arm of the law. I dreamed that Sheila and I were running through a maze of fire-orange azaleas, with Marshall Weathers right behind us. Every now and then he'd yell out, "Wake up and smell the coffee, Maggie! Wake up before it's too late!"

"Go away!" I cried. "Leave me alone!" But he just kept on coming, closer and closer. I could smell him. I could hear his breath, panting behind me. Finally, I could feel him, shaking me and calling my name.

"Maggie! Maggie! Wake up!"

I opened my eyes. The lights in the house were all on, and Marshall Weathers was sitting by my side, shaking my shoulder and calling my name. I smelled coffee and realized this was not a nightmare, it was my worst possible reality.

"What are you doing here?" I sat up too quickly and my brain slammed against my skull. "Ouch!" I grabbed my head and rocked slowly forward. I felt sick.

"Maggie, what is wrong with you? I knocked on the doors, both of them, for five minutes at least. Then, when I saw your car, I knew you had to be here. Maggie, you didn't even have the chain on the front door. I just popped the door and walked right in."

Marshall Weathers looked concerned. He was frowning and looking at me like I was a strange form of lab specimen.

"Maggie, I couldn't wake you up. Did you take something?"

So now he thought I was a drug addict. How much lower was I going to go in his opinion?

"No, unless you count aspirin," I said. "I forgot. I went out to the Mobile Home Kingdom around lunchtime and-"

He didn't let me finish. "Didn't I tell you not to go there?" he fumed.

I just stared at him. "You want me to tell you, or do you want to lecture me?"

He just shrugged. "I made some coffee. I didn't know what was wrong with you. I thought maybe you'd overdosed or something. You kept moaning and telling me to go away. I figured coffee might be better than calling nine-one-one."

"Coffee beats nine-one-one any day of the week." I looked past him, trying to see out into the hallway. "Why didn't Sheila let you in?"

"Sheila's not here, Maggie. There's no one here but you and me."

"Oh, God!" I jumped up and ran past him. Sheila's room was empty. She was gone.

He stood right behind me, his hand on my shoulder. "So, you want to let me know what's going on?" he asked.

Well, did I? Did I want him scrambling all over Greensboro, looking for my daughter? And what if he found her and I wasn't there? Gould Sheila tell him the truth without making herself look like a teenage serial killer? Somehow, given Sheila's tendency to play the drama queen, I doubted it.

"Nothing's going on," I said. "I lay down to take a nap and thought Sheila was going to wake me up in time to get ready for work before you got here, that's all." I led him back into the kitchen, looked at the clock on top of the stove and caught my breath. If I didn't leave within fifteen minutes, I'd be late and Sparks would fire me.

"You're not going to like this," I said, setting my coffee mug down carefully on the counter, "but I'm fixing to be late for work. I know I said I'd talk to you but-" He cut me off. "Oh, you're gonna talk to me, all right. You're gonna start talking now and finish when I say we're through."

I tried to stare him down, but my heart wasn't in it. I was late for a job I loved too much to lose and worried sick about my baby. Weathers was the low man on my totem pole tonight.

"All right." I sighed. "Here's the deal. Let me get changed and I'll talk to you until I have to walk out the door."

"No, this here's the deal," he said. "You change. I'll drive you to work, and if you've answered all my questions, I'll let you go inside. If not, I'll just head the car on downtown and take you along with me."

"Then how'll I get home?" I said.

"You've got friends." The sarcastic glint was back in his eye. "And if you don't, then I reckon I'll just have to swing back by and get you."

That was just what he wanted. He wanted me in a little cage where he controlled my movements and saw everything I did. He didn't trust me, which was fine, because I didn't trust him either.

"All right. I guess we'll play it your way." I brushed past him and headed for the walk-in closet. Fine. Let him have his way about the small stuff. It didn't matter. What mattered was keeping him away from Sheila until I'd had time to find her, civilize her, and drag her sorry tail down to the police station. I could handle Weathers. Sheila wouldn't last two minutes with his rapid-fire questioning. Heaven knew what she'd end up telling the man, and heaven only knew what he'd end up making her believe.

I grabbed a black sequined number and stalked off to my room. He was right behind me.

"If you don't mind," I said, putting my hand on my hip and looking down my nose at him.

He grinned. "No, Maggie, I don't mind at all."

"I'd like a little privacy!"

"And I'm too old to fool twice. No way you're going out that back door again."

It was a standoff, and he wasn't budging. He stood there, all six feet of long, cool cowboy, his arms folded over his chest and a knowing gleam in his crystal blue eyes. This was a game to him, and one he had no intention of losing.

"All right, cowboy." I looked at him like it was no skin off my nose. "Come on in. Make yourself comfortable in that rocking chair over there."

I got to it before he could, swinging it around so that it faced the back corner by the door.

"Now you can keep your eye on the door."

My heart was starting to pound along with my head as I watched him walk across the room. I was remembering the first night I'd seen him, in his tight, faded blue jeans. This was not at all the way I'd pictured our future.

"Don't turn around," I cautioned.

"Don't give me a reason to," he answered. "Now start talking." He was off again, making me answer every little question he had about my movements the day before.

I stood behind him and slowly unzipped my jeans. He was talking and made no indication that he even cared that I was behind him, stripping down to my underwear.

"When did Vernell give you that pistol?" he said. I stepped out of my jeans and tossed them across the bed.

"I don't know. Six or seven years ago, I guess."

"Any particular reason?" I lifted my sweatshirt up over my head and threw it on top of the jeans. I was down to a pink satin bra and panties, Weathers was six feet away from me, and there was no more hope for romance in that room than there had been in the three years I'd been divorced from Vernell.

"He gave me the gun in a foolish attempt to save our marriage," I answered, as I pulled the black sequined dress off its hanger.

Weathers moved suddenly in the chair and I jumped into the dress.

"Save your marriage?" he said.

"Yeah, I dragged him to a marriage counselor and she said we ought to share a hobby. The gun was Vernell's idea of a hobby. He thought we'd go off in the country and shoot at tin cans or something. I just hope he hasn't been as foolish with his second wife."

Weathers laughed. "Target shooting?"

"Well, we've all got our notions of what's a romantic outing," I said, slipping my feet into spiky black heels.

Something in the husky tone of his voice made me look up and stare in his direction. Weathers hadn't moved a muscle and I could suddenly see why. From where he sat, if he stared just a little to the right, my every movement was reflected in the dresser mirror.

"Oh my God!" I shrieked.

"Something wrong?" he asked innocently.

I stared at the back of his head for a second. Could he really see from there? Maybe I was wrong. I walked up behind his chair and squatted down until I was at his eye level. All he would've needed to do was turn his head, just a little bit to the right.