Most Wanted Woman Read online

  Josh gestured toward the envelope in Decker’s hand. “Is that the file?”

  “Copies of everything in it.”

  “Come up and have a seat in the shade.”

  “Appreciate it.” Decker slipped off his glasses, hung them by the earpiece in the pocket beneath his badge.

  After they settled in chairs, Josh said, “Why don’t you tell me about this guy? I’ll take a look at the file later.”

  “Late last year we started getting reports from ladies who heard noises outside their bedroom windows at night. In every instance, the suspect unscrewed the bulb in any outdoor fixture he could reach.”

  “Cuts down on the chance of a witness getting a physical description of him,” Josh commented.

  “The reports died down, so I figured he’d stopped or left Sundown. Then he started up again this month.” Decker batted a fly away. “The night before the peeper showed up on Regan’s balcony there was another incident. It’s what makes me think the guy’s getting braver.”

  “What’d he do?” Josh asked.

  “If my theory’s right, he unscrewed the back porch light on Virginia Nash’s house then went in through an unlocked door, which opens into the laundry room. There was a basket of clean clothes sitting on the dryer. It looks like he helped himself to a pair of black panties. Thongs, they’re called.”

  “Thongs?” Josh scowled. “Virginia Nash is eighty. Are you telling me she wears black thongs?”

  “Lord no, and that’s an image I don’t need in my head. Virginia’s granddaughter is staying with her. Karen’s twenty, has red hair, nice looking. She swears her thong was in the basket that evening when she left to meet friends at Truelove’s. That’s the same night you were there.”

  The image of a shapely redhead who’d shared a booth with two other women slid through Josh’s mind. “I noticed her.” Which was amazing, he thought, since his attention had been riveted on the tavern’s sexy, dark-haired bartender with secrets in her eyes. Now, he knew one of those secrets. Thinking about the way Regan had melted against him, about how her heated mouth had yielded to his solidified his determination to learn the rest.

  With Decker sitting beside him, Josh broke away from that thought and shifted his mind to business. “Anything else missing from the Nash house?”

  “Just Karen’s thong.”

  “Could be a case of ‘if you can’t get the candy, steal the wrapper,’” Josh murmured. “Do you think Karen being at Truelove’s had something to do with the burglary?”

  “It’s possible. Do you know Seamus O’Toole?”

  “The name doesn’t sound familiar.”

  “He was also at the tavern. On the nights he goes there without his wife he sits at the bar, tosses back shots of whiskey, then stacks the glasses in a pyramid.”

  Josh nodded. “I saw him. Big guy. Small eyes, thin mouth. You think he’s the peeper?”

  “Maybe. One of Virginia’s neighbors couldn’t sleep, so he went outside to smoke. He saw O’Toole walking in the area a little after one o’clock.”

  Josh rubbed his fingers over his stubbled jaw. One o’clock was about the time he delivered Etta’s apple pie to Regan’s apartment. “Have you questioned O’Toole?”

  “Not yet.” Decker’s gaze went to the house next door. “I want to talk to Regan first. From what I hear, she has to boot O’Toole out of the tavern at closing time on a regular basis. If he’s had too much to drink, she takes his keys and makes him walk home. I need to find out if that’s what happened the night of the burglary. And exactly what condition O’Toole was in.”

  Josh nodded. “Does he live here full-time?”

  “No, in Dallas where he owns a used car dealership. He and his wife first came to Sundown about three years ago so Seamus could compete in Paradise Lake’s derby. When they’re here, they rent the house that belongs to the widow Throckmorton.”

  “Does O’Toole have a record?”

  “Two old arrests. For B and E and soliciting a prostitute.”

  “A burglary and a sex crime,” Josh said. “If your theory’s right about the Nash house, it’s the same thing you’ve got going with the peeper.”

  “It’s a tie-in I can’t ignore. So’s the fact that O’Toole has been in Sundown every time there’s been a peeper sighting.”

  Both men looked up when a dusty brown pickup rumbled into view. “A.C.,” Decker said. He rose, waved at Etta’s fiancé, then handed Josh the manila envelope. “Do you want to sit in while I talk to Regan?”

  Josh ran his fingertips over the envelope’s flap while Regan’s request that he keep his distance crowded in. If the sleepless night he’d spent was any indication of his involvement with her, he questioned his ability to stay away.

  But that was on a personal level, he reasoned. He was now consulting on the peeper case, and his sitting in on Decker’s interview was business.

  He rose. “Lead the way, Chief.”

  “That sore looks dang ugly.” Etta looked up from her unwrapped ankle. “Is it supposed to be so red?”

  “It’s still infected,” Regan said, using gloved fingers to finish applying antibiotic cream to Etta’s ankle. “The good news is it looks better than it did yesterday at the clinic.”

  “That’s a relief.”

  “Your fever’s gone, too.” Regan tore open a pack of gauze, applied a pad to the wound, then taped its edges. “All done.” She smiled. “You’re a good patient, Etta.”

  “One who’s kept you from your morning run.”

  “I’ll get to it,” Regan said.

  Quite simply, she had put off jogging because she hadn’t wanted to encounter Josh. She didn’t know what to do about the fact that a cop now knew she was on the run. Hiding. Didn’t know what to do if the little she’d told him about her past didn’t satisfy him. She was confident her Regan Ford identity could withstand a cursory check, but what if Creath had posted information about her—including her picture—on law enforcement Web sites that Josh had access to? Just the prospect of him chancing onto one of those sites had her stomach in knots.

  Then there was the matter of what had happened between them last night. Dammit, it felt as if her mouth was still on fire from his. And what, she wondered, was she supposed to do about the sexual buzz that had kept her system churning all night? Still had it churning.

  “Folks here are saying you’ve got a real knack for medicine, Regan.” The sunlight slanting through the windows gleamed on Etta’s gray hair when she settled back in the pillows propped behind her. “They’re right.”

  “I wish I could have saved Amelia.” Regan placed a hand beneath Etta’s calf, then positioned the cast back into place. “Her grandparents must be grief stricken.”

  “They are. And I feel bad I can’t get into the kitchen and fix a casserole to send over.” Etta sniffed the air. “Speaking of food, whatever it is you’re baking has my mouth watering.”

  “It’s a surprise,” Regan said while gathering the paper that had held the gauze. “Move, Anthracite,” she said, nudging the kitten aside with one foot on her way to the trash can beside Etta’s pine vanity. “And you’ll be in the kitchen, fixing that casserole before you know it.”

  “How? Doc Zink said he’ll skin me if he finds out I’ve been on my feet.”

  “A.C.’s picking up the wheelchair that belonged to Howie’s mother.” Regan glanced at her watch. “He’ll be here soon.”

  Etta’s forehead furrowed. “A wheelchair?”

  “It’s a temporary fix to get you back in the kitchen,” Regan said, patting Etta’s thin shoulder. “I’ll put the ingredients you need for the casserole on the table. You can mix it there.”

  “You’re a godsend, Regan.” Etta smoothed her pale yellow robe. “It was my lucky day when your car broke down in Sundown.”

  “You gave me a job and a place to live.” Without warning, a ball of emotion wedged in Regan’s throat, turning her voice raspy. “You saved my life.”

  Etta reached out a han
d, her eyes clouded with concern. “Tell me what’s weighing so heavy on you, child.”

  “It’s…nothing.” Settling onto the side of the bed, Regan gripped Etta’s hand. “My hormones are stirred up is all.”

  Etta nodded slowly. “Seems to me they started getting stirred about the time Josh came to Sundown. If there’s one man who can get a woman’s hormones going, it’s him.”

  “There’s nothing…” Regan shook her head, thinking how close she had come last night to lowering all her defenses. “I don’t want there to be anything between us.”

  “That’s your choice. But yesterday at the clinic, I saw how he looked at you.” Etta patted her hand. “Mind you, I’ve seen him around more than a few women. He never looked at them the way he was looking at you.”

  “What way?”

  “Serious.”

  Regan arched a brow. “I think the fever you had made you a little delirious.”

  Etta shook her head. “No. That man’s plenty interested.”

  That man is a cop. And she was wanted for murder.

  “Even if you’re right, things wouldn’t work out between us,” Regan said. “I told him we should keep our distance.”

  “Do you mind me asking how he took that?”

  “He agreed.”

  Etta pursed her mouth. “Doesn’t sound like the Joshua McCall I know. Growing up, when he saw something he wanted, nothing slowed that boy down. I don’t expect he’s changed all that much.”

  A sharp rap on the front screen door brought Regan’s head around. “That must be A.C.” She slid her hand from Etta’s as she rose. “We’ll have you in the kitchen in no time.”

  “Can’t wait,” Etta said.

  Regan headed out of the bedroom. She spotted A.C. Konklin standing on the other side of the screen door at the end of the hallway. Etta’s fiancé was in his sixties, six feet of solid muscle with a linebacker’s shoulders, a square-jawed face and a head as bald and shiny as a new dime. Regan adored him.

  “Hi, handsome,” she said, unlatching the screen.

  “There’s my girl,” he said, engulfing her in a bear hug. “I brought the wheelchair and a couple of fellas with me.”

  “Who…?”

  She peered around A.C.’s arm and met Josh’s gaze. Then her eyes flicked to Chief Decker and she froze like a dazzled rabbit.

  “Morning, Regan,” Decker said, sending her a nod. “I need to have a word with you.”

  Warning bells shrilled in her head. “I… I’m busy with Etta right now.”

  “This shouldn’t take long,” Decker said. His voice was even, his tone all business. Despite the mirrored sunglasses shielding his eyes, she could tell he regarded her with a cool, assessing look.

  The warning bells were lost under the thunder of her heart.

  “You talk to the chief,” A.C. said, sweeping her deeper into the hallway as if she weighed nothing. “I’ll see to Etta. The chief and Josh did some heavy lifting, getting that chair out of my pickup and hefting it up the porch steps.” While he spoke, A.C. took control of the wheelchair Josh angled through the door. “You have something cold in the icebox for them?”

  “Lemonade.” Regan said the word quietly, keeping her expression set as she forced herself to meet Decker’s gaze. “What…did you need to talk to me about?”

  “A case.” He slid off his sunglasses. “I’d appreciate some of that lemonade. I imagine Josh would, too.”

  Regan flicked her gaze back to Josh while panic sliced through her. Had he gone to Decker, told the chief that she was running, hiding? Had Decker somehow found out her real name? Was he here to arrest her for murder?

  Oh, God. Oh, God.

  She clenched her fists, vaguely aware that her vision was dimming at the edges. “A case?” she managed.

  Decker studied her with eyes that gave away nothing. “I need some information about one of your customers at the tavern.”

  Regan blinked. “A customer,” she repeated, looking at Josh. “Why are you here?”

  “Good to see you, too.” He angled his chin. “I work sex crimes, so the chief asked me to sit in while he talks to you.”

  “Sex crimes?”

  “Yeah,” Josh said. “How about we adjourn to the kitchen?” He sniffed the air. “Think the chief and I can talk you into sharing some of whatever it is that smells so good?”

  “Lemon tea bread.” Knowing her secret was still safe, Regan felt something loosen inside her. “It’s cooling. I haven’t glazed it yet.”

  Josh’s mouth curved. “I’ve got all day.”

  “I don’t,” she tossed back just as Decker’s cell phone rang. He pulled it off his uniform belt, answered.

  A streak of black whizzed by and landed on one of Josh’s shoes. Chuckling, he scooped up Anthracite, ruffling her fur as he regarded Regan. “Want to go to the kitchen while the chief finishes his call?”

  “I’m done,” Decker said. “The mayor decided to schedule a meeting this morning and I have to be there.” He looked at Josh. “I figure you know what questions to ask Regan. You and I can get together this afternoon and discuss things.”

  “Works for me.”

  “Regan, give my best to Etta,” Decker said.

  “I will.” She waited for him to step out the door, then turned and headed for the kitchen. She could hear Josh following on her heels. Despite the relief she felt at Decker’s departure, her nerves jittered over the prospect of spending time with the man who had her system churning.

  She retrieved a glass from a cabinet while he settled the kitten beside her food bowl. Making himself at home, Josh opened the refrigerator, pulled out the pitcher of lemonade.

  “Aren’t you having some?” he asked when she handed him the single glass.

  This close, Regan caught his faint scent, dark, musky, overtly male. The sexual awareness that had tormented her throughout the night began buzzing a little louder.

  “I’m not thirsty,” she said, her voice sharper than she’d intended. Wanting to put distance between them, she gestured toward the table in the kitchen’s center. “Have a seat.”

  He glanced at the table, then back at her, watching as she pulled a mixing bowl from the dish drainer.

  “Are you going to join me there?”

  “No. I need to mix the glaze while the bread’s still warm.”

  “Then I’ll stand here and watch you work.” He dipped his head toward the counter where a loaf cooled on a wire rack. “It looks like a pound cake, but that’s not what you called it.”

  “It’s lemon tea bread. For Etta.” Regan sent him a pointed look. “She gets the first slice.”

  “Good thing there’s plenty to go around.”

  He looked so…male, Regan thought, leaning back against the counter with his ankles crossed while he drank lemonade. He was dressed in jogging shorts, a gray T-shirt and running shoes. His dark hair was rumpled, stubble darkened his jaw.

  The remembered feel of that stubble against her face sent a quick thrill racing through her. A thrill she needed to make herself immune to.

  Her hands were ice-cold as she gripped Etta’s cast-iron skillet and shifted it out of the way.

  “Since you’re working with Chief Decker he must not hold your criminal past against you,” she said.

  “I’ve redeemed myself. Want some help with the glaze?”

  “I need fresh lemon juice.”

  “I’m ace at squeezing lemons.” Josh retrieved a knife from a drawer, then snagged a lemon from a nearby bowl. “The customer Decker wanted to ask you about is Seamus O’Toole.”

  “O’Toole?” Regan paused in the process of dumping powdered sugar into her mixing bowl. “What did he do?”

  “Decker doesn’t know if he did anything. So you need to keep what we talk about between us.”

  “All right.” She finished with the powdered sugar. “What about O’Toole?”

  “Think back to his behavior three nights ago. That’s the same night I came into Truelove’s.�
�

  Regan nodded. “O’Toole sat at the bar. Had shot glasses stacked in front of him. I remember you giving him a look.”

  “I do that to anyone who tosses back that many shots of whiskey,” Josh said, squeezing a lemon half over a small bowl. “How much juice do you need?”

  “I never measure. Just do a couple of lemons.” She furrowed her brow. “O’Toole sits at that same spot at the bar on the nights his wife isn’t with him. She wasn’t there that night, unfortunately.”

  “Why unfortunately?”

  “Because he got loaded. More so than usual. He gave me a lot of grief when I tried to get him out the door at closing time.”

  “What sort of grief?”

  “He kept insisting on us going upstairs to my place to party. When I turned him down he stabbed a finger in my face, accused me of being a man-hater. I gave the lamebrain’s thumb a good twist and dropped him to his knees.”

  Josh slid her a look. “I’ll keep in mind you know that move. What happened after that?”

  “I made O’Toole give me his car keys and told him to walk home.” Regan shifted the loaf from the cooling rack to a platter. “We’d been through that routine before so I reminded him the keys would be in a drawer behind the bar and he could pick them up when he was sober.”

  “So, he’d had a few too many. But not enough to where you thought he couldn’t make it home on foot?”

  “Right. Well, maybe.” Using the back of a wrist, she pushed her bangs off her forehead. “I started worrying that O’Toole might be too plowed to get home. And that if something happened he might sue Etta since Truelove’s is where he got drunk. Howie offered to drive O’Toole’s route to make sure he hadn’t stumbled over some curb and hit his head.”

  “Do you know if Howie did that?”

  “He never said. And I didn’t ask.” She furrowed her brow. “What does your working sex crimes have to do with O’Toole getting drunk at Truelove’s?”

  “His pride would have taken a hit when you did that job on his thumb. A man gets dropped to his knees by a woman, he might hold a grudge. Want a little payback.”

  Regan nodded. She knew all too well about men who held grudges.