CHAPTER 8

“Let’s go get something to eat,” Tony suggested. “I saw a little restaurant down the road a ways and I don’t know about you, but I’m starving.”

“Sounds good to me,” Libby agreed, still contemplating the night and the sleeping arrangements to come.

* * *

They looked at each other dubiously as a sullen waitress led them to a table in the back of the Muddy Creek Restaurant. The room was dark and dank and smelled of old age and mildew.

“If the food is as good as the atmosphere, we may not have to worry about those goons finding us,” Tony said as the waitress departed with their orders.

“Why is that?” Libby asked, swatting at a lazy fly that buzzed irritatingly around her head.

“Because we’ll die of ptomaine poisoning long before the night is over.” He smiled at her ruefully.

Libby laughed, but then her grin slowly left her face and she looked at him reflectively. “You know this afternoon, while you were sleeping in the car…?”

Tony nodded. “What about it?”

“I found this beautiful spring creek with a big rock jutting out in the water. I sat on the rock for a long time, contemplating throwing the necklace into the water or burying it in a hole.” She reached up and touched the necklace, fingering the locket in the center. “I figured, why not? Nobody would know where it was. It would probably never be found again.”

“So why didn’t you?” Tony asked softly.

“That was the problem…that nobody would know where it was. Just because I threw the necklace into the water, that wouldn’t stop those men from chasing us. And what would happen if they caught me and I didn’t have it anymore—if I told them I threw it away?” She shivered at the very thought. She had a feeling the albino’s rage would be a horrendous sight to behold. “Anyway, I decided if I get rid of the necklace, it has to be in a way those men will know with a certainty that I no longer have it.” She shrugged and smiled at him, raising her chin a fraction of an inch. “Besides, they’ve made me mad, and I’m intrigued. I want to know what it is about this necklace that’s worth so much excitement.”

Tony smiled at her in open admiration. “You’re one hell of a woman, Libby Weatherby. Most women who found themselves in your shoes would find a hole to crawl into and never come out.”

“I have a feeling these particular men would find whatever hole I was in and drag me out by my hair,” she said, ignoring the warmth of pleasure that coursed through her at his compliment.

This is ridiculous, she scoffed to herself. Why should she care if Tony Pandolinni thought she was a special kind of woman? All she wanted from him was his expertise in eluding the men who chased them and getting the necklace into the right hands.

“What are we going to do if we get to this lab and we can’t find anyone who has any answers?” she asked, refusing to dwell on the strange warmth his words had evoked inside her.

“I’m hoping that won’t happen,” he replied thoughtfully. “I’m hoping Jasper Higgens had friends, associates, somebody who was close enough to him to have some answers. But if he didn’t, I’m hoping we can get a lead through the sports car and the men chasing us. I got the license number, and I’m hoping that Cliff can tell me exactly who they are. That information might bring some additional answers.”

Libby nodded and they both fell silent as the waitress appeared with their orders.

Surprisingly enough, the food was excellent. Tony’s steak was thick and juicy, cooked perfectly to his requested medium rare. Libby’s hamburger was nearly platter-size, loaded with the works. The French fries were the thick, home-style kind, fried to a deep, golden brown.

Conversation ceased as they devoured the food in front of them. Even though Tony gave the aura of being relaxed, Libby noticed his gaze shot to the door of the restaurant each time it opened. Libby knew it bothered him that the men in the sports car were close by. It bothered her, too. She wondered if she would ever be able to forget the feel of the albino’s cold hands around her throat, the look of death that had radiated from his eyes.

She shook her head, refocusing her attention on the food. Who knew when they would get a good meal again in the next day or two?

It was some time later when Tony shoved his plate away and looked across the table at Libby. “When you’re finished, we’ll go back to the motel room and I’ll make a couple of phone calls.”

“I’m finished,” Libby replied, also pushing her plate away with a contented sigh. “I can’t remember when I ate that much in a single sitting.”

“It’s been a long day,” Tony said with a smile.

“Ah, the master of the understatement,” Libby replied dryly, a small smile lifting one corner of her mouth. “It’s definitely a day I won’t forget for a long time to come.”

They left the restaurant and made one stop before going to their motel room. Libby spotted a tiny general store and asked Tony to stop so she could pick up a few toiletries. Within minutes she was back in the car with a large brown bag.

Tony parked the car in the wooded area at the side of the small dilapidated cabin. “I can’t believe we paid good money for this place,” Tony complained as they went inside. He wrinkled his nose at the musty scent that greeted them. “At least it looks clean,” he added grudgingly.

Libby nodded, surprised to find it so. The antiquated stove and refrigerator on the other side of the room gleamed with cleanliness and no dust lay on the cigarette-scarred dresser. The gold bedspread was partially turned down on the double bed, revealing pristine white sheets.

“Once the windows are opened a bit, maybe the smell won’t be so bad,” Tony said, opening one of the small windows in the front of the cabin.

“I don’t mind the smell,” Libby replied, setting her paper bag of toiletries on the cheap-looking kitchen table. “In fact, it sort of reminds me of the smell in the pawnshop. It’s the scent of old furniture, history, people’s lives,” she finished, suddenly feeling awkward. Other than the kitchen table and the dresser, the only other piece of furniture in the room was the double bed, which looked incredibly small. “I…I think I’ll just go take a shower,” she murmured, feeling her face flushing heatedly. She picked up her sack of things and disappeared into the bathroom.

Tony breathed a sigh of relief when she was gone. He had sensed her sudden awkwardness and had responded with one of his own. God, it had been years since he had been in a motel room with an attractive woman. In fact, the last time had been when he’d been in college.

He smiled at the sudden memory. In those days there had been no such thing as coed dorms. His girlfriend of the moment had snuck out of her sorority house on a forged overnight pass and he had rented a motel room much like this one. What should have been a romantic, exciting tryst had instead ended in a heated argument. His girlfriend had been angry that he’d brought her to such a seedy place, ignoring the fact that he was a struggling student with very little money to spend. The night had ended in frustration, and there had been no lovemaking.

“And this night will be the same,” he said softly aloud, irritated when he recognized a certain wistfulness in his voice.

Damn, Libby was definitely getting under his skin. Libby and her big, azure eyes that did nothing to hide her feelings. She was so damned honest, so up-front—and yet so vulnerable. He was beginning to like her, and that was what scared the hell out of him. He could handle pure lust, a total sexual attraction, but he wasn’t so sure of the new feelings that he was experiencing.

He expelled a groan of confusion and aggravation and sat down on the edge of the bed. He reached for the phone and punched in the long-distance numbers that would connect him with his friend at the police department back in Kansas City.

“Marchelli,” the voice said on the other end of the line.

“Cliff, it’s Tony. Do you have anything for me?”

“Do I? Tony, where the hell are you?” Cliff asked worriedly. “I’ve been trying to get in touch with you all day.”

“I’m in a little town called Muddy Creek, someplace deep in the Ozarks area.”

“What in the hell are you doing down there, and why did you want to know about those men?” Cliff demanded. “Damn it, Tony, are you involved with the Higgens murder case? I told you we’d been pulled off that case and the red flag is out for the local authorities to keep their noses out of it.”

“I can’t do that,” Tony answered firmly. “My nose has been put out of joint with this.”

“Your butt is going to be burned if you don’t back off and get in touch with the chief. You may have quit the department, but the chief wants to know exactly what you’re doing in the middle of all this.”

“Tell him I’m on vacation,” Tony replied. “Just tell him I’m in a motel room with a beautiful blonde and I’ll be back in town in a couple of days.”

“Yeah, right,” Cliff said dryly. “And while I’m at it, I’ll tell him you and this fictional blonde were kidnapped by a UFO and last seen flying over Omaha.” Cliff sighed impatiently. “Come on, Tony, be straight and tell me what’s going on.”

“I can’t right now, because I don’t know,” Tony admitted. “Tell me what you got off the license number I gave you.”

“The car is registered to one Richard D. Hawkins, and Mr. Hawkins is not exactly a model citizen. I pulled everything I could on him, and the man has a record a mile long, everything from arson and armed robbery to conspiracy to commit murder. Unfortunately, the man has a lot of money behind him and hasn’t spent more than two years at a time in prison. Seems he’s fallen out of sight recently, and he’s suspected of being affiliated with an underground organization called the New Republic of Man. This organization is another offbeat supremacist group that is looking for an opportunity to rule the world. The one thing that makes this different from all the other cults and kooks is that the New Republic seems to be extremely well organized and well financed. These are not your ordinary nut cases.” Cliff paused to take a breath.

“What about known associates?” Tony asked, thoughtfully digesting all that Cliff had been able to find out. Thank God Cliff was conscientious. Tony knew he’d gone to a lot of trouble to find out everything he’d told him so far.

“One William Radford Taylor, an albino. Tony, this is one bad dude,” Cliff exclaimed. “He’s a known mercenary, trained in every lethal art there is, and he is a sociopath with no conscience, no ethics, no loyalty. Whatever you’ve become involved in, Tony, you’re in way over your head.” He exploded once again. “Damn it, Tony, you aren’t exactly Rambo.”

“Thanks for your vote of confidence, partner,” Tony replied dryly, then continued. “You don’t happen to know anyone trustworthy in the CIA, do you?”

Cliff expelled another breath of colorful language. “I don’t know what you’ve gone and gotten yourself involved in, but you’d better get yourself uninvolved real quick. These men are not two-bit hoods—they’re professionals and they’re deadly.”

“If I could get myself uninvolved, I would. I’m no hero,” Tony said truthfully. “But, Cliff, there really is a beautiful blonde involved.”

“Yeah, and my mother was a centerfold for Playboy last month,” Cliff remarked with a snort, then sighed with resignation. “If I can’t talk you into coming back and dropping this whole thing, the least you can do is keep in constant touch and call for reinforcements if you need them. Will you at least do that much?”

“You’ve got a deal,” Tony agreed. “And one last thing…. Did you happen to read or learn anything about Jasper Higgens’s associates or assistants before you were pulled off the case?”

“Yeah, come to think of it, I do remember seeing something about a Jonathon Maxwell. He was a lab assistant with Higgens. I think they were getting ready to run a check on him before we got pulled off.”

“Great. Thanks a lot, Cliff,” Tony said.

“Tony, be careful,” Cliff said, as Tony slowly hung up the phone.

* * *

Libby stood beneath the spray of water, grateful that the shower was wonderfully warm and the spray was full and relaxing. She felt as if she’d accumulated a full week’s worth of grime in this single day. She scrubbed at her arms, trying to banish the remembered feel of the albino’s hands on her.

She lathered her hair, liberally using the shampoo she’d bought in the general store.

In fact, the general store had been heaven-sent in making an unexpected night in a motel room more pleasant. Not only had she purchased shampoo, but also toothbrushes and paste, two T-shirts and several other items. At least she and Tony wouldn’t have to sleep in the same clothes they had worn all day.

She flushed at the thought of sharing the same bed with him all night long. She lowered the temperature of the hot water, suddenly finding it a little too warm.

Somehow, someway, Tony Pandolinni had crept beneath her defenses. She’d thought she wanted to remain alone, a divorced woman rediscovering her independence. But suddenly she was beginning to realize there was a difference between being independent and being alone. She’d liked being married, liked sharing her life with somebody special. She missed having that special connection. Yes, in the months since her divorce, she’d been independent, but she’d also been lonely.

Tony was so unlike Bill. From the first day of their marriage, Bill had set about to destroy Libby’s sense of independence, forced her to be a mere reflection of what he wanted and demanded. She had a feeling Tony would want a woman who knew her own mind, who strove to maintain her own identity. And therein lay the danger…

She stepped beneath the stinging spray of water to rinse the shampoo from her hair and banish any thoughts of a relationship with Tony from her head.

She had a feeling that a relationship with Tony would only lead to heartache. He gave his charm easily, he’d give physical pleasure, but he would never, ever, give his heart. In that respect, she had a feeling Tony Pandolinni was a horribly stingy man.

Yes, she’d be a fool to allow anything to happen between she and Tony, and Vinnie hadn’t raised a fool. Smiling confidently, she turned off the water and stepped out of the shower.

* * *

Tony looked up as the bathroom door opened and Libby stepped out. Immediately the room filled with the fresh, clean scent of the soap and shampoo she had used. Tony’s chest suddenly ached as his breath became caught someplace between his ribs. God, she looked so clean and fresh, so beautiful. She was clad only in a huge T-shirt that fell almost to her knees. She didn’t seem aware of the fact that the cotton material clung to her rounded breasts and emphasized rather than hid the darker circles of her nipples. Her face had the clean, scrubbed beauty of good health, and her pale hair was drying in a fluffy cloud of softness.

“Did you get your phone calls made?” she asked, sitting down primly at the small kitchen table.

He nodded slowly, hoping the tumultuous emotions he felt weren’t reflected on his face.

“What did you find out?” She leaned forward eagerly, the top of the T-shirt falling away from her body, exposing her delicate collarbone.

“Uh…we’ll talk about it after I shower,” he murmured, jumping off the bed and disappearing into the bathroom.

“There’s a bottle of shampoo and a new T-shirt in there for you,” Libby called after him, her hands folding and unfolding nervously on top of the table. She took a deep, tremulous breath. What she’d seen in his eyes just before he’d disappeared into the bathroom had made her feel breathless, so totally alive. It had been a long time since she’d felt her stomach quiver, her nerve endings tingle from the look in a man’s eyes.

She stared at the bed, wishing it didn’t look so small, so intimate. This whole situation would have been so much easier had the room boasted a sofa, or a love seat…someplace where a person could stretch out and sleep instead of the bed. There wasn’t even a bathtub, only a stand-up shower stall.

She paced around the room, looking into the drawers of the dresser, checking the contents of the kitchen cabinets, wondering how long they would have to remain in the small confines of the room before they could get back on the road. The room was small, and she had a feeling that with Tony’s presence, it would shrink considerably.

She looked up as Tony came out of the bathroom. His dark hair stuck up wetly and he was clad in the new T-shirt and his jeans. “Whew, that felt good,” he exclaimed, his eyes darkly inscrutable. Whatever she had seen in them moments before was now gone, smothered beneath a distant blankness that was somehow comforting to her.

“So…uh…what did you find out from your phone calls?” she asked.

Tony paced the room, quickly repeating what he had learned from Cliff, leaving out his friend’s words of warning on just how dangerous the men were. There was no reason for her to know everything.

“So, what does this information tell you?” she asked when he was finished.

He shrugged and sat down on the edge of the bed. “It tells me it’s more important than ever that we get to that lab and find out some answers about the necklace. If the men who want it belong to some sort of subversive group trying to take over the world, then we need to discover how this necklace holds the key.”

Libby nodded. “At least we now have a name of somebody to talk to. Jonathon Maxwell…let’s hope he has some answers for us.”

“Oh, by the way, I also talked to my neighbors. They’re going to take care of your demon cat until we get back, and I called your ex-husband.” Tony smiled. “I’ve been fired.”

Libby laughed. “He might have fired you, but I haven’t. I have a feeling before this is all over I’m going to need my guardian angel more than ever.”

“I have a feeling we both need an angel in our pocket to get through this mess.”

“What’s our next move?” she asked.

“Sleep. Who knows what tomorrow will bring, so we’d better rest while we can.” He walked over to the light switch on the wall, his eyes still dark orbs of blankness. “I’ll take this side, closest to the door,” he said, pointing to the bed.

She nodded, reluctantly leaving her chair and approaching the side of the bed. She slid in beneath the sheets and looked at him expectantly. As he turned out the light and the room plunged into darkness, she moved over so she was lying on the outer inches of the bed. She didn’t want a shoulder to bump, a thigh to accidently rub. She wanted to make certain she stayed on her own side.

She heard the whisper of a zipper and knew he was taking off his jeans. Her mind filled with an image of him without them, and she shook her head to dispel the erotic vision.

As the mattress sagged beneath his weight, she squeezed her eyes tightly closed, wondering why her breathing was suddenly so irregular.

She could smell him—the clean scent of soap, the fragrance of the shampoo, and beneath that, the subtle scent of maleness that teased and taunted her.

Although he didn’t touch her at all, she could feel the heat that seemed to radiate from his body, a heat she’d like to crawl into, remain in for eternity.

“Good night, Libby,” he said, his voice sounding strangely full.

“Good night, Tony,” she answered, wondering how on earth she would ever manage to sleep when all she wanted was for him to reach out to her and take her in his arms, drive her insane with his kisses and caresses.