The Man from Nowhere Read online

  He shook his head. “No trouble at all, Trish. Tell you what I can do.”

  “Yes?”

  “I can do a stop and identify. Ask for his ID. Maybe we can get a little more info on the guy. But that’s all I can do unless he does something he shouldn’t.”

  She nodded. “Thanks. Thanks, Gage. I’d appreciate it. But I guess I should just forget about it. It’s probably all perfectly innocent.”

  “That’s what I’m supposed to be telling you. And most of the time it is. But since I can’t say so for absolute certain, I’ll try to get a little more information.”

  She thanked him again. He finished his coffee and headed for the door. “We’ll keep an eye out, Trish. We won’t just ignore it.”

  She was certain of that.

  Put it from your mind, girl. Let it go.

  But not until she checked her e-mail.

  Powering up her laptop in her tiny home office, she checked her work e-mail account. And there, answering her uneasiness, was finally a response from the company’s CFO, the man who had trained her at the corporate headquarters in Dallas:

  Trish, thanks for alerting me to this. Sorry my reply was so slow in coming, but your memo somehow got routed to the bottom of the stack on my desk. Apparently my secretary didn’t see the urgency.

  I’m having an independent auditor come look it over. Of course, I hope you just mismatched some things, but if not, we’ll find out. Either way, you’ve done your job exactly as you’re supposed to. I tried to call this morning and they told me you’re on vacation. Enjoy the time. And thanks again for the great job you do. Hank.

  There it was. Done. No need to remain on tenterhooks any longer. No suggestion that if she’d screwed up she was in trouble. The head office in Texas had basically said she’d done exactly what she should.

  She put the message in her private file on her home computer, then logged off.

  Nothing to worry about. Nothing at all.

  Except the stranger who sat out in front of her house every night.

  Chapter 2

  He was out there again. This time she started watching early and saw his painful approach as he limped down the sidewalk and finally dropped onto the park bench with evident relief.

  She had twitched the curtain aside just the tiniest bit so that she didn’t have to hold it as she peered out, because she didn’t want him to know she was spying on him.

  And now, watching him, seeing the way he stared at her house as if nothing else on the street existed, made her feel like a creep herself. Was she losing her marbles or something? Her house was locked. She had a shotgun upstairs, a hand-me-down from her father, which she could load with birdshot in no time at all. If the guy tried anything, he wouldn’t be able to get away with it. With birdshot she wouldn’t even need a good aim to plaster him painfully enough that she could escape.

  So what was wrong with her? Why couldn’t she just ignore it? What if it had been someone local, someone she knew by sight, doing the same thing? She wouldn’t be at all worried.

  But he wasn’t local, and that made her nervous.

  Okay, she told herself, try being rational. The guy obviously had suffered some kind of injury, which made him less than threatening to begin with. Maybe the injury had also affected his neck and he was having trouble turning his head.

  Possible, yeah. That stare might be nothing but a stiff neck.

  Maybe she just needed to cool it and stop acting and thinking like someone on the edge.

  Of course she did, but the realization didn’t help. At some level something was niggling at her and wouldn’t give up.

  She saw a deputy’s cruiser pull up near the bench. The man didn’t move, so apparently he wasn’t disturbed by the approach of the police. Then Gage climbed out after training his spotlight on the man, who made no attempt to shield his face from the light.

  Man, she thought, Gage was working a long day. And all because of her. But his concern warmed her. He wasn’t treating her nervousness as if he thought she was simply a ditzy spinster with too much time on her hands.

  She watched as Gage walked over to the bench. Apparently he said something, because the man pulled out his wallet from his hip pocket and passed something to Gage. Gage took it, spoke for a minute, then returned to his patrol car.

  No doubt running the guy’s ID. Finally Trish allowed relief to trump over nerves. Gage would sort it out, and the stranger was on notice that he had been seen. Good.

  The man had turned on the bench so that he was looking directly at the sheriff’s car and away from her. So maybe he did find it difficult to turn his head.

  All right, she should just go to bed and forget it. Gage would let her know if anything should concern her.

  Except that she remained rooted. A sign, she decided, of having had too much time on her hands. She wasn’t the type to stand at her window and watch the goings-on outside, unlike some of her nosier neighbors.

  After a few minutes Gage climbed out of his vehicle again, approached the man and handed him something—probably his ID or driver’s license. They chatted for a moment and then Gage got back in the car and drove off.

  Okay, so there was no immediate evidence that the guy was a threat. She glanced over at the digital clock on her DVD player and realized there were only minutes before the guy moved on again, assuming he followed his usual, almost compulsive, schedule.

  Driven by some impulse, maybe the need to put the matter to rest now, she hurried into her kitchen, poured two mugs of the coffee she’d made a couple of hours ago, still hot and rich-smelling. Then she slipped on her jacket and went out the front door with the two mugs.

  As she approached him, the man on the bench appeared startled in a way he hadn’t when Gage had stopped to speak with him. She guessed he hadn’t expected a homeowner to come out at this hour.

  Reaching him, she could finally make out his features. Nicely chiseled, although not Hollywood handsome. She couldn’t tell the color of his eyes and could see only that his hair was dark, short, but unkempt. The rest of him, seated as he was, remained mostly a mystery within a heavy jacket, jeans and work boots.

  “Coffee?” she asked.

  “I was just leaving.” Nice baritone, smooth enough to indicate a nonsmoker and probably a good singer.

  “Well, you can drink fast,” she said, thrusting a mug at him. “It’ll be cold in a minute or two, anyway.”

  He couldn’t refuse the mug without being rude. Which was exactly why she’d done it. She took the other end of the bench and sipped her own coffee. Yeah, it was already cooling down.

  Then she looked straight at him. “Why do you sit out here every night?”

  “Because there’s a bench.” Yet the reply hinted at a question, almost as if he was wondering if she was looking for a particular response. If she was, she didn’t know herself what it was.

  “You limp pretty badly,” she said bluntly.

  “Accident.”

  “Will it heal?”

  “Eventually.” He made eventually sound like a very long time, not something that might happen in the next couple of months.

  “I’m sorry.”

  He shook his head slightly. “Things happen. I was the lucky one.”

  He spoke that like a mantra, as if it was something he told himself again and again, yet didn’t quite believe. Some part of whatever had happened, she guessed, was never going to feel lucky, but she didn’t feel she could press it.

  She offered her hand. “Trish Devlin.”

  He hesitated, and finally shook it. “Grant,” he said. Not a full name.

  Trish let it pass, thinking that Gage probably had all the rest of it now, anyway, and maybe a lot more. She watched him take a gulp of coffee and realized he was about to make a quick getaway.

  Despite running to the sheriff with her paranoia, Trish had never been a wimp. She wasn’t going to let the stranger off that easily.

  “You’ve been making me nervous,” she said. “Sitting
out here every night staring at my house.”

  He seemed to grow still, as much inwardly as outwardly. Then he said, “I guess that’s why the sheriff stopped.”

  “Could be.”

  She thought she saw the faint flash of a small smile. “Could be,” he agreed. “I didn’t mean to make you nervous.”

  “Well, you did. You keep staring at my house.”

  He shrugged. “It’s right in front of me.” He gulped more coffee.

  “So it is,” she agreed, then waited, trying to let silence do what her questions couldn’t: make him talk.

  “Sorry,” he said. “I’m just resting, for obvious reasons.”

  He was a lousy liar, she decided, because she didn’t believe that, even if it did fit. But if he was a lousy liar, that was a good thing. It meant he wasn’t practiced at deceit.

  “Okay,” she said finally. “Don’t let me keep you.”

  But he didn’t move. Instead, he said something she wondered if she’d heard right. “Everything’s wrong tonight.”

  “What?”

  Again that little shake of his head. Then, “Look, I’m really sorry. I don’t sleep well at night, never have. So I’m walking. Waiting, I guess.”

  She seized on one word. “Waiting?”

  He drank more coffee, this time sipping, as if to put off his moment of departure, quite different from when she’d first approached. “Do you know anybody who doesn’t have a rucksack full of emotional baggage?”

  “That’s some question!”

  “But an honest one.”

  So she gave him an honest answer. “I guess not. More for some than others.”

  “Well, mine’s pretty full. So I guess you could say I’m waiting for some resolution.”

  “Don’t you usually have to work at that, not just wait?”

  “I am. Believe me, I am.”

  In spite of herself, Trish was growing more intrigued. But then he sighed and passed her back the empty mug. “Go inside before you get chilled,” he said. “Thanks for the coffee.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I’m going to walk back to the motel. Maybe pop into the truck stop for a wee-hours breakfast.”

  The truck stop was indeed the only twenty-four-hour business for miles.

  He rose, and even in the darkness she could see him grimace. “Nice talking to you, Ms. Devlin.” He started to limp away. But after three steps, he paused and looked back. “If you want to join me at the truck stop, I should be there in about thirty minutes.”

  She hesitated. “I could give you a ride.” The instant the words escaped she wanted to snatch them back. Was she nuts? Completely nuts? She knew nothing about this man.

  “Sometimes,” he said, “walking is the only way.” Then he resumed his painful departure.

  Trish watched him until he vanished into the shadows. Only then did she realize she was growing cold.

  Damn! Meet him at the truck stop? Give him a ride? Had some evil spirit taken over her brain?

  Shaking her head at her own behavior, she went back inside.

  Forget about it and go to bed. Wise advice to herself. Except she couldn’t forget about it and didn’t seem to want to get ready for bed despite the late hour. She grabbed the new novel she’d started earlier and tried to read it. But all she could think about was meeting the stranger at the truck stop and maybe learning more about him. Actually seeing his face in the light. Getting his measure.

  It would be safe at the truck stop, a busy place at any hour. Safer than what she had just done by accosting him on the darkened street.

  A minute later she was grabbing her keys and heading out the door.

  The truck stop restaurant was indeed brightly lit, and in addition to the staff held about a dozen drivers, all eating some version of early breakfast or late dinner, every occupied table boasting a generous carafe of coffee. Some of the drivers seemed to know each other. Others greeted each other, table to table, strangers in a common place and time.

  Grant sat alone at a table backed up to the wall. He already had coffee, and she noted that an extra mug was at the seat facing him. Whether for her or for someone else she didn’t know.

  She ignored the interested looks she received from the truckers as she eased her way between tables to Grant’s.

  “Hi,” she said. In the light he proved to be good-looking, if a bit wan. Silvery threads of gray sparkled in his dark hair. His eyes were dark, that brown so deep it would sometimes appear black. He returned her greeting with a faint smile and motioned her into the seat facing his.

  “I got you a cup,” he said.

  “You knew I’d come?”

  “Anyone who’d come out onto a dark street to beard a stranger who frightened her must have more curiosity than a dozen cats.”

  In spite of herself, she smiled back and took the chair. “It gets me into trouble sometimes.”

  “I imagine so. On the other hand, you probably don’t run through life with a load of nagging questions.”

  “Not often.”

  He reached for the carafe and filled her beige mug. The table already held a saucer full of little half-and-half containers. She reached for one, opened it and poured the contents into her coffee. At this hour of the night, even her beloved beverage could give her heartburn. The half-and-half would help.

  “I haven’t ordered yet,” he said. “Take a look at the menu. I’m buying.”

  “I can buy for myself.”

  “I’m sure you can. But since I caused all this uproar for you, this seems like the least I can do. And believe me, I can afford it.”

  So she reached for the menu and began scanning a list that exceeded Maude’s City Diner in variety, but probably not in saturated fats. Here she could even find artificial eggs and vegetarian omelets. It gave her a glimpse of the new generation of truck drivers.

  But what the heck. She settled finally on their “fluffy” pancakes.

  The waitress came and took their orders, his a full-size breakfast with all the trimmings. He certainly wasn’t worrying about his weight or his cholesterol.

  With the menus tucked back into the wire holder behind the salt, pepper and ketchup, they stared at one another over coffee mugs. Trish found herself strangely reluctant to grill him, even though she’d started their conversation back on the bench by doing precisely that.

  Finally he spoke. “So what can I tell you that will ease your mind?”

  “What do you want to tell me?”

  “That I mean you no harm. A statement that is absolutely meaningless without anything to back it up.”

  She couldn’t argue with that. “Seems like one of those lines in a bad sci-fi movie that always winds up being the prelude to something terrible.”

  “Hey, I like those old science fiction movies. The older and more awful, the better.”

  “The ones with nuclear bombs that are both the cause and the solution to whatever is ravaging the world?”

  He chuckled. “Yeah, those. Science as the be-all and end-all.”

  “I take it you don’t believe that.”

  He hesitated. “Not anymore,” he said finally.

  She eyed him directly. “What changed your mind?”

  “Let’s just say I have reason to believe that science is less of an answer and more of a question. It should be a search, not a conclusion.”

  “Interesting way of putting it.”

  The waitress interrupted, serving their breakfasts with a smile that seemed almost obscene at this hour of the night. Either the woman was a native night owl, or the need for tips made her pretend to be one.

  After a bite of pancake, which did indeed prove to be very fluffy, she posed a question. “What brings you to Conard City? Sure, the state highway runs through, but it’s not the kind of place where people usually stop and stay without a reason.”

  “I’ve been on the road for a long time. Guess I finally realized you can’t outrun yourself. Seemed as good a place as any to wa
it for the rest to catch up.”

  The answer sounded pat. Too pat. She looked down at her mug, then picked up the spoon to stir her coffee pointlessly. “Really,” she finally responded.

  “Really,” he said. “Sounds like a bad novel, right?”

  She met his gaze again. “No, not exactly. Just…stock.”

  He nodded slowly. “There’s a difference between citing a cliché and meaning it.”

  “Well, yes.”

  “And clichés become clichéd because they’re often true. Otherwise people wouldn’t use them so much.”

  In spite of all her suspicions, she felt more intrigued that ever, and sensed the beginnings of an actual liking for this guy. She didn’t want that.

  He shrugged finally. “It’s true. I ran from myself. From an unhappy time in my life. And like all people who run, I found all the troubles and grief just came along with me. Some memories can’t be erased. They stick like burrs on your cuffs.”

  “Yes, they do. Would you want to erase your memory?”

  “There’ve been times I’ve actually thought that would be a good thing. But other times…well, frankly, Ms. Devlin, you can’t give up the bad without giving up the good.” He looked out the window, but there was clearly nothing to be seen beyond the reflections of the interior of the restaurant. Darkness turned the windows into mirrors.

  “I had to put my favorite dog to sleep a couple of years ago,” he said slowly. “Best dog I ever had. She taught me a lot about being a better person.”

  “How so?”

  He looked at her again, and there was no mistaking the heaviness in his sad, dark eyes. “I could be lazy. I could be impatient. I sometimes made her wait for the smallest of her needs. Sometimes I yelled at her for no better reason than that she was asking for a simple thing like a walk, or water. Because she was interrupting something I thought was more important at that moment. But she never held it against me. She’d go away and wait quietly, and the minute I gave her the attention she had asked for, she was hopping with joy and gratitude.”