Blind Tiger by Sandra Brown

Aware of Miss Eleanor Wise’s seemingly uninterrupted vigilance, Thatcher didn’t go any farther, but took cover behind the catty-corner neighbor’s detached shed. He slid down the exterior wall of it, worked his butt around until he’d created a depression for it in the ground, and settled in to wait.

What he was anticipating, he couldn’t say. The sudden reappearance of Mrs. Driscoll? A surefire giveaway of the doctor’s guilt?

He was irrationally annoyed with Bill Amos for lending credibility to his notions about the physician. If the sheriff had instead laughed himself silly over them, Thatcher wouldn’t be sitting here in the dark, swatting at mosquitoes, accomplishing nothing.

Time passed. He whiled most of it away thinking about Laurel Plummer. She’d charmed Mr. Martin into increasing his order, and had seemed damned pleased with herself for having done so. Her features hadn’t looked as strained as they had the other times Thatcher had seen her. The smile she’d given the café owner looked genuine.

She’d been dressed different, too. Her skirt was shorter than any he’d seen her in before. It was nipped in at the waist. And, right off, he’d noticed the good fit of her blouse.

He wished he’d thought of an excuse to touch her during the brief time she’d been in the café.

As mouthwatering as her pie had been, Thatcher was certain her mouth would be even more delicious.

He’d enjoyed the sight of her bottom wiggling its way through that door, and couldn’t help thinking back onto what it had felt like when it had bumped up against his front during the rooster episode, as he’d come to think of it.

The contact hadn’t lasted more than a few seconds, but it had flooded him with lust then, and remembering it did now, not for the first time. He meant no disrespect. He had no control over the fantasies about her that came to his mind, some so vivid and arousing they justified Landry’s insinuating grin.

He wished he’d punched that sly mug.

As the lights in the Driscoll house began to go out, he pushed the image of Laurel from his mind. The last light to be turned off was on the second floor, the bedroom no doubt.

Thatcher stood up and looked toward the old busybody’s house. “I guess we can get to bed now.”

He slipped out of the cover of the shed and headed toward the boardinghouse, hoping he wouldn’t be spotted walking the streets where he didn’t belong, skulking around in the dark, like a criminal returning to the scene of his crime.





Twenty-Five



Laurel pulled her Ford into the gravel drive that led around to the back of the house. Irv had told her always to park facing out toward the street in case she ever had to leave in a hurry. “It’ll probably never happen, but…you know.”

Tonight may be the night when taking the precaution would pay off.

Although it wasn’t something easily done, she executed the three point turn and killed the headlights. She reached beneath the seat for the pistol Irv had insisted she begin keeping with her. She couldn’t feature an instance where she would actually fire it, but it was a comforting weight in her hand now.

Her heartbeat thumped as she made a rapid sweep of her surroundings, then took more time to probe the shadows for a possible ambush, seeking out anyone who might have followed her from Martin’s Café, which had been the last stop on tonight’s round despite her claim of having more deliveries to make.

As she’d pulled away from the alley behind the café, she’d had no indication that she was under anyone’s surveillance. Nevertheless, during the drive home, she’d half expected someone to roar up behind her.

She waited inside her car for several minutes longer, but no one showed himself, nothing stirred. Weak with relief, she dropped the pistol in her lap, placed both hands on the steering wheel, and pressed her damp forehead against the backs of them. She took deep breaths.

Of all people to happen upon: the perceptive Mr. Thatcher Hutton. While standing face-to-face with him, one of Mr. Martin’s cooks was out back retrieving four jars of moonshine from the trunk of her car.

At the sight of Mr. Hutton, her heart had almost burst. But, despite the unexpectedness of their near collision, she’d recovered reasonably well, she thought now. Mr. Martin had kept his head and had given nothing away. Of course, he wasn’t the novice that she was. Since the county had been dry for decades, Clyde Martin had been pouring illegal alcoholic beverages for drinking customers for as long as he’d been in business. Or so Irv had informed her.

Neither Mr. Hutton nor the man with him, whose name now escaped her, had seemed the least bit suspicious of her transaction with Mr. Martin, or of the order he had placed for three pies, which, in the coded language they’d worked out between them, translated to that many pies, plus twice that number of jars of corn liquor.

She’d taken her money and run, getting a nod from the cook on her way through the kitchen that the transfer of fruit jars from her car to a hidden compartment in the kitchen had been conducted without detection. Nothing had gone awry.

All the same, she felt she had escaped a close call.

Deciding it was safe to do so, she turned off the engine and got out. She let herself into the house through the back door and went directly upstairs to her bedroom, relieved that she didn’t have to explain her shakes to Irv, who was helping Ernie at the still tonight.