There were no cars parked in front of any of the cabins. “Maybelle will see you’re taken care of tonight and then Charlie will get your car running in the morning.” Emmett glanced over at him and must have misread his expression. “Don’t worry, Gus. Charlie is one hell of a mechanic.”
Augustus wouldn’t put money on that. But he nodded, thanked Emmett and, taking his bag from the back, climbed out. He stood in the rain, hardly feeling it, watching the old man drive away as he realized that Emmett had called him Gus. Only one person in this town even knew his name and she called him Gus.
He felt a chill quake through him that had nothing to do with the rain or the cold as he glanced back down the highway toward Larkin & Sons Gas and Garage.
Charlotte “Charlie” Larkin.
His killer was a woman.
Chapter Two
Charlie Larkin stood in the dark of the office watching the stranger through the rain and night, wondering who he was and why he’d come here. Especially now. More to the point, she wondered why he’d pretended he’d driven the rental car all the way from Missoula with the engine running that badly.
He’d lied about it getting worse. But why? A carburetor just didn’t get that out of adjustment. Any decent mechanic would know at once that the engine had been fooled with.
She glanced out at the car. A tan sedan with a Missoula, Montana, license-plate number and a car-rental sticker on the back bumper.
A set of headlights blurred past, the rainy glow changing from a wash of pale yellow to blurred bright red as the car braked. She watched Emmett Graham offer the stranger a ride down to Murphy’s, wishing perversely that she hadn’t called Emmett and asked him to give the guy a lift. Maybe a walk in the rain would do the man some good. But she knew Emmett would be headed home and that he wouldn’t mind and she didn’t have the patience to wait for the man to walk that far.
She waited until she saw Emmett’s car turn off the highway into Murphy’s before she slipped the heavy wrench into the pocket of her overalls, then picked up the key from the counter and headed for the rental car.
No reason to look under the hood again. She didn’t expect any more surprises with the engine, nothing more to learn there about the man than she already had.
She opened the driver’s-side door and slid in, closing it firmly behind her, feeling vulnerable for those precious seconds when the dome light illuminated her through the rain. Now in the dark again, she saw Emmett back out of Murphy’s, the right side of his car empty. The stranger would be checking in. She had time.
“HOW LONG WILL YOU be staying?” the elderly desk clerk inquired as she peered at Augustus through the lines of her trifocals with obvious curiosity. The air around her reeked of cheap perfume. Gardenia, maybe. Whatever it was, it made his eyes water.
It seemed Maybelle Murphy had been in a hurry. Tendrils of bottle-red hair poked out from under a hastily tied bright floral scarf. Her freshly applied red lipstick was smeared into the wrinkle lines above her lips and her cheeks flamed at two high points along her jawline where she’d slapped on color. She seemed a little breathless.
He could only assume guests at the motel were so infrequent they’d become an occasion. He couldn’t imagine that her getting all dolled up had anything to do with him since she’d been behind the desk when he’d entered the office and she couldn’t have known he was headed this way since he hadn’t known himself until fifteen minutes ago.
She cocked her head at him, making the tarnished brass earrings dangling from her sagging lobes jingle, as she waited for his answer.
How long would he be staying? He’d planned to stay in different hotels as he always did, having found that was the safest—and the most private. But it obviously wasn’t going to be an option in Utopia.
“I’m not sure,” he admitted, just anxious to get a room, a hot shower, dry clothes, food. Mostly, he needed time to think. About Charlie. He was still shocked she was the one he’d come so far to find.
“It’s cheaper by the week,” the woman offered sweetly.
It was cheap enough by the day and he doubted this would take a week. “Let’s just start with one night.”
She nodded. “Car’s broke down, huh.”
Either news traveled fast or car trouble was the only reason anyone slowed down, let alone stopped, in Utopia.
“Yes, car trouble,” he said, sliding his credit card across the worn counter toward her, hoping to hurry her up.
She pushed his card back without even bothering to look at it. “Sorry, we don’t do credit.”
Of course not. He opened his wallet, took out three tens and handed them to her, putting his credit card away. “I’ll need a receipt.”
“Oh, so you’re here on business, Gus?” the woman said as she counted out his change.
“No, I just like to keep track of my expenses,” he snapped, annoyed that, like Charlie and Emmett, she’d called him Gus. Then remembering she hadn’t even bothered to glance at his credit card, figured Charlie must have called Maybelle just as she had Emmett.
“Well, you’re obviously not a hunter and it’s the wrong time of year for a vacation up here, so…” She eyed him closely. “That doesn’t leave a whole lot.”
Nosy little busybody, wasn’t she? “Just passing through,” he said coldly and scooped up the room key, catching sight of a newspaper out of the corner of his eye, the headline bannered across the top: Missing Missoula Man Found At Bottom Of Freeze Out Lake. Foul Play Suspected In Doctor’s Death.
“If you give me just a minute, I’ll have that receipt you asked—”
He tuned Maybelle out as he snatched up the newspaper and quickly skimmed the story. Maybelle put the receipt and room key on the counter. He grabbed up both.
“Now let me show you how to find number five. It’s—”
“I can find it,” he said, tossing two quarters on the counter for the newspaper and drawing up the hood on his jacket as he pushed his way back out into the rain.
CHARLIE SAT perfectly still in the darkness of the rental car, listening to the rain hammer the metal roof over the pumps, wishing she could get a sense of the man. A different impression of him than the one she’d picked up earlier in the garage.
The car smelled of his aftershave. A scent as masculine and confident as the man himself. She took hold of the wheel and closed her eyes for a moment, searching, as if he’d left something behind she could sense, something that would reassure her.
After a moment, she opened her eyes to the rain and the night, feeling empty and cold inside as she let go of the wheel. She’d been spending a lot of time alone in the dark lately.
Turning on the dome light, she quickly glanced around the car, not surprised to find it immaculate. No personal possessions of any kind. No beverage containers, spilled chips or empty fast-food bags with cold French fries in the bottom. The car looked as clean as when he’d rented it. Too clean for a drive halfway across Montana. He was a man
