Page 78 of Eldritch

“Taggert. We didn’t invite you in. It’s time for you to leave,” Sybil said.

The sound of another car pulling into the driveway made him look around.

She glanced over his shoulder and glimpsed Doug’s truck. Surprise and profound relief washed through her.

Taggert turned to look at Sybil again. “Who is that?”

Sybil swallowed hard, more than one emotion rising inside her. Apprehension. Desire to escape. Taggert’s expression had turned from smarmy charm to tight and angry.

“A friend of the woman who owns this house. We have work to do, Taggert. Time for you to leave,” Sybil said.

Doug’s truck door slammed, and she spied Doug coming toward the front door. He came up behind Taggert, and Taggert turned around to face Doug. Looking at them both, she couldn’t help but do an immediate comparison. Taggert stood maybe an inch taller than Doug. Six foot four, if she remembered right. He had way too much muscle. He’d always worked out, but even with his winter coat, she could tell he’d bulked up more. A black cowboy hat covered his bald head, while a handlebar mustache decorated his upper lip. She wondered if he’d added another tattoo to his flesh because he had so many of them. Under that coat and shirt she’d find an American flag emblazoned on his chest and on both biceps the word freedom. She hadn’t seen the tattoos because she’d been intimate with him, but because she had seen him swimming at a pool party. He had spent an excessive amount of time pontificating about freedom, liberty, and patriotism when he only meant liberty for people who thought just like him.

Relief flooded her as Doug walked their way.

“Doug,” she said. “Glad you’re here.”

Doug’s expression held caution. “Hey there.” Without missing a beat, he held his hand out to Taggert. “Douglas MacKenzie.”

Taggert didn’t hesitate to take Doug’s hand and shake it. His smile turned brittle. “Taggert Hemming. Sybil’s boyfriend.”

Everything inside Sybil froze. Several things happened at once. She caught Doug’s expression. He gave away nothing, except maybe for the slightest glimmer of something in his eyes. Not anger. Not curiosity.

Before she could respond to Taggert’s lie about her being his boyfriend, Doug said, “Great to meet you. “Sybil, I talked with Clarice on the phone this morning, and she asked me to come by and check out something on the security system. She said she isn’t hooked in on her phone. It’s not working on her end. Is there any way I can use the computer in the office to make sure the settings are correct?”

“Absolutely,” she said. “Please come in.”

Taggert and Sybil moved away from the doorway and Doug headed into the mansion and made a sharp left toward the office. She heard Letisha’s voice and then Doug’s and their voices moved away. For a split second, she wondered if Doug would ask Letisha about Taggert.

Taggert stared at Sybil, all the charm in his expression gone. Nothing about this bald, tattooed, cowboy wannabe man had changed. That “lay-it-on-thick” bullshit he’d started when he walked in the door didn’t fool her now.

Before she could tell him to leave, he walked into the Great Hall.

Angry, she followed him. “Taggert, you’re not welcome here. This is a private home I’m working in. No one else is allowed in here.”

As he looked around, he said with certainty, “Well, Douglas is allowed in here, isn’t he?”

“He works for my client.”

Doug stood in the middle of the Great Hall and tilted his head back and looked at the ceiling. He placed his hands on his hips and drew in a deep breath. He looked everywhere else, like a thief assessing the value of everything he wanted to steal.

“Taggert—”

“I was hoping I’d catch you alone.”

She hadn’t expected that. Hadn’t been ready for any of this today. He stepped forward, and her throat tightened. Her stomach muscles clenched, her breath quickened. He stopped in front of her. Not intimately close, but near enough to make everything inside her clench with memories. Bad, bad memories both ancient and new.

“First of all,” she managed to say around the tension in her throat, “you are not my boyfriend. And how did you know I was here?”

“Simple. See, I put a little something on your car a long time ago. Before you left Denver. One day when you weren’t looking.”

The tightening in her muscles grew worse. She slipped her hand into her pocket and clenched her hand around the solid heft of her phone. The only comfort she had was that Doug, Letisha, and the other ladies were within screaming distance.

She went into the old mode. The one that had kept her alive. “Why are you tracking me?”

“Why do you think?” he asked, thick annoyance layered in his slow Killeen drawl.

He’d done nothing violent, but she’d always felt something simmering in the background. As if she might say the wrong thing, look the wrong way, dress the wrong way and there would be consequences to pay.

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