The Masked Man

Her eyes felt as if they had sand in them. She was bone tired. Her head pounded. And she was sore and scared and angry and as vulnerable as she’d ever been. She just wanted the deputies to leave.

She wasn’t waking up her father at this time of the night. Not when he’d been too sick earlier to attend the party. Nor was she going to a friend’s. She just wanted to go to sleep in her own bed and pretend none of this had happened.

“I’m staying here. I’ll lock the doors from the inside with the slide bolt. The windows are locked. I doubt he’ll come back tonight, anyway.” She saw the deputies exchange a look, but she didn’t give a fig what they thought at this point.

“I suggest you get your locks changed,” Duncan said. “In the meantime we’ll see if Trevor’s keys turn up. You have my number.”

She nodded and followed them downstairs to lock and bolt the door, then she checked the entry to the bakery. Double locked and bolted.

Back upstairs, she headed for her bedroom. She would straighten up the mess in the morning. Tonight all she wanted was to get out of this ridiculous costume, take a hot shower and go to bed.

By the time she finished, she was so exhausted she crawled between the clean sheets and fell into a comalike sleep haunted by men with ski masks—one masked man in particular.

JILL AWOKE to pounding. Without opening her eyes, she reached for the man next to her in the bed, the memory of their lovemaking so fresh—

Her eyes flew open, and her hand jerked back from the empty space next to her, the memories coming in nauseating waves. Trevor. Murdered. Trevor, the man who had betrayed her.

She sat up, remembering the other Scarlet silhouetted in the doorway, the woman’s words echoing in her head. A woman who called Trevor “darling” and had planned to run away with him last night.

Jill groaned as she recalled that last night she, the woman who’d made love only once before, and that with her fiancé, had made love—an amazing and passionate and wonderful experience—with a complete stranger. And now she was a suspect in Trevor’s murder.

She wanted to bury her head under the covers and stay there, but the pounding wouldn’t stop and she realized someone was downstairs banging at the outside door. She glanced at the clock, shocked to find she’d overslept. It was almost three-thirty in the morning.

Hurriedly, she pulled on a pair of jeans, a sweater and her slippers. As she opened her bedroom door, she saw her ransacked apartment and remembered the man in the ski mask. A shiver of fear skittered up her spine.

In the wall mirror she caught a glimpse of herself. She looked as if she’d gone ten rounds in a boxing ring—and lost.

At the bottom of the stairs she turned on the outside light and was relieved to see Zoe Grosfield, her baking assistant. Zoe mimed that she’d forgotten her key, then mimed a heartfelt apology.

Oh, why hadn’t Jill thought to call Zoe to tell her not to come in today?

“Hey,” Zoe said as Jill unlocked and opened the door. “Sorry. You know me, airhead extraordinaire.” She pretended to refill her head with air as she breezed in, bringing the fresh, cold morning with her.

Just the sight of Zoe cheered Jill immensely, and she realized that she needed to bake today, needed that normalcy and the comfort her work afforded her. She could lose herself in baking, and today that was exactly what she needed.

“So you want me to start the breads?” Zoe asked with her usual exuberance as she headed for the kitchen.

Zoe’s hair was green today, spiked with a stiff gel that made her head look like an unkempt lawn. She’d filled her many piercings with silver and wore makeup that gave her a straight-from-the-grave look. Frightening. Especially at this hour of the morning.

Jill had thought twice about hiring Zoe. For one thing, she was young—only seventeen, not even out of high school. Cute as a pixie, but her makeup was heinous, her many piercings painful-looking and her neon-bright, short spiked hair changed color with frightening regularity. Jill had been afraid the girl would scare the older customers.

Plus, Zoe had an ever-changing string of boyfriends whose appearance rivaled her own. And it was no secret that the girl loved to party. Almost every T-shirt Zoe owned proclaimed it. Everything about Zoe screamed “unreliable bakery assistant.”

But from the first day, Zoe had seemed fascinated by the workings of the bakery, so Jill had weakened and given her the job.

Zoe had proved to be a good worker, prompt and dependable. And Jill had felt guilty for judging the girl by her appearance.

Also of late, Zoe had fallen in love. Which wasn’t rare. But this one had lasted for more than a week. Which was.

“Breads. That would be great,” Jill said. “If you want to get started, I’ll be right down.”

“Rough night?” Zoe asked, eyeing her.

Had she heard about Trevor’s murder? Jill knew from her glance in the mirror that she looked bad.

“Just a late night,” she said. “That stupid costume I was wearing.” She raised her hand to the knot on her head. It was tender. So was the spot beneath her left eye. “I kept running into things.” So true.

Zoe nodded knowingly. “One of those hoop-skirt things, right? Man, can you imagine dressing like that all the time? Too weird. And in your case, too dangerous!”

Jill laughed. Yes, Zoe was exactly what she needed.

“I’ll get some coffee going first,” Zoe said. “You look like you could use a cup.”

“Thanks, I really could.” She was grateful that she wouldn’t have to discuss last night—or Trevor. If Zoe knew about Trevor’s murder she’d be asking a dozen questions. “I’ll be down in just a few minutes to get going on the cinnamon buns.”

“Cool,” Zoe said, and headed for the bakery’s kitchen. Beyond it, Jill could see the dark shapes of the tables and chairs of the small coffee shop. And beyond that the dark street. What caught her eye was a car parked across the intersection. A shiny black sports car. Was there someone sitting in it behind the tinted windows? Someone watching the bakery?

“Jill? Are you sure you’re all right?”

She blinked and focused on Zoe, who’d turned to look back at her in concern.

Jill nodded. “Just tired.” She hurried back upstairs to her apartment, ran a brush through her long brown hair and plaited it into one long braid down her back. After she brushed her teeth, she put on makeup, something she seldom wore, to cover the worst of the scrapes and bruises. Not great, but definitely better.

She tidied the apartment a little and returned to the kitchen to find Zoe hard at work getting the bread doughs started.

“How was your night?” she asked the girl, who was sifting flour into a large metal bowl. It was the way they started their days. With Zoe’s stories about her dates, her parents, her friends and the latest love of her life, a guy known only as Spider. “Did you see Spider?”

“Finally.” Zoe measured flour into the large floor mixer and sighed. “He promised to take me to a party, but he didn’t show up in time.”

Jill knew the feeling. “I’m sorry.”

“He came around later, said he’d been working.”

Working. Jill had heard that one before, too.

“But we went out on the beach, parked and talked.” Zoe shrugged shyly. “He’s the coolest guy I know. Older, you know. And he likes me.” She grinned. “A lot. But I’m taking it slow. You know, kinda playing hard to get.”

“Good idea,” Jill agreed, curious about this Spider. Older. That was the first time Zoe had revealed that. “How much older?”

Zoe shrugged. “He drives a great car.”

“Really?” Jill glanced out the front window thinking it might be a black sports car. But the car was gone.

“It doesn’t happen to be black, something sleek and sporty, does it?” Jill asked.

Zoe laughed. “Not likely. It’s old. You know, one of those cars from, like, the sixties that’s been made cool again.”

“Cool.” Jill felt relieved Spider’s cool car wasn’t a black sports car. She knew she was just being paranoid, but then, she had a right to be, all things considered. She lost herself in making the cinnamon-roll dough.