Sweat trickled down between her breasts; the bottoms of her sandals were melting into the pavement, and the sunscreen she’d lathered on her face and arms was giving up the fight. Jordan had dark auburn hair but a redhead’s complexion, and it didn’t take much sun for her to burn and freckle. She supposed she had a choice. She could either sit in the car and die of dehydration while she waited for the engine to cool down, or she could stay outside and be slowly cremated.
Okay. She was being a little overdramatic. That’s what the heat will do to you, she thought.
Fortunately, she had her cell phone with her. She never left home without it. Unfortunately, since she was temporarily stranded in the middle of the vast flatland, she couldn’t get a signal.
Serenity, Texas, was fifty or sixty miles away. She hadn’t been able to find out much about the town, only knew that it was so small the name warranted only the smallest typeface on a map of Texas. The professor had called Serenity a charming oasis. But when she’d met him he’d been wearing a heavy wool, tweed blazer in the summer heat. What did he know about charming?
She had checked the professor out before leaving Boston, and although he was strange and eccentric, he was the real deal. The man was multidegreed and certified to teach. An assistant in the Franklin College administration building, a woman named Lorraine, had raved about his teaching abilities. According to her, the professor made history come to life. His classes were always the first to fill up, she said.
Jordan found that nearly impossible to believe. “Really?”
“Oh my, yes. The students don’t mind his accent, and they must be hanging on every word because no one ever fails his classes.”
Ah, now Jordan understood. An easy grade.
The woman also mentioned that he’d taken early retirement, but she hoped he would reconsider and come back.
“Good teachers are so hard to come by,” she had remarked. “And on the salaries they’re paid, most can’t afford to retire at such an early age. Why, Professor MacKenna is barely in his forties.”
Lorraine obviously didn’t mind divulging personal information about a past faculty member, and she hadn’t even asked Jordan why she was so interested. Granted, Jordan had lied and told the woman she was a distant relative, but Lorraine hadn’t required any verification.
She was a talker, no doubt about that. “I’ll bet you thought he was much older, didn’t you?”
“Yes, I did.”
“I did too,” she said. “I could look up his birthday for you if you’d like.”
Good heavens, she was accommodating. “That won’t be necessary,” Jordan answered. “You said he officially retired? I thought he’d taken a sabbatical.”
“No, he retired,” she insisted. “We’d be thrilled to have him back. I doubt he will ever teach again though. He received such a nice inheritance,” she continued. “He told me he had no inkling that he was getting it, that the money was quite a surprise. He made the decision then and there to buy some land far away from the hustle and bustle of the city. He was doing research into his family’s history, and he wanted a place where he could work in peace and quiet.”
Looking around her now, Jordan imagined the professor had found his peace and quiet. There wasn’t a soul in sight, and she had a feeling that Serenity was just as stark as the surrounding landscape.
A half hour passed, the engine cooled, and she got back on the road. Since there wasn’t any air-conditioning, she kept the windows down, and the blistering hot air felt like blasts from a furnace on her face. The terrain was as flat as one of her soufflés, but once she drove around a yawning bend and saw the fences on either side of the road, the area seemed less desolate. At least there were signs of habitation. A rusted barbed-wire fence that looked like it had been constructed about a century ago enclosed empty pastures. Since she didn’t see a single crop growing, she assumed the fences were for horses and cattle.
The miles rolled by, but the scenery didn’t change much. Finally, she drove up a couple of gentle slopes, and then the road curved. Around a sharp bend she spotted a tower off in the distance. A sign on the side of the road announced that Serenity was just a mile away. As she made the turn, she picked up her cell phone and saw that she had a signal. The road dipped and then topped a hill. There, spread out before her, was the west side of Serenity.
It looked like a place too tired to die.
The speed limit dropped to thirty miles per hour. She passed several small homes. A rusted pickup truck sat on blocks in the front yard of one house. The tires were missing. Another house had a discarded washing machine in a side yard. What little grass there was among the weeds was untended and burned out. A block farther on she passed an abandoned gas station with one pump still standing. Vines grew up the side of the vacant building, and she could only guess what sort of critters could be living in it.
“What am I doing here? I never should have sold my company,” Jordan whispered.
Pride. That’s what got her into this ridiculous adventure. She didn’t want Noah Clayborne mocking her. “Comfort zone,” she muttered. “What’s wrong with wanting to be in my comfort zone?”
She thought about driving on through Serenity to the next big city, returning the rental car with a few choice words, and getting on the first flight to Boston, but she couldn’t do that. She’d promised Isabel that she would meet the professor and then call and tell her what she’d learned.
Admittedly, Jordan was a little curious about her own ancestors as well. She certainly didn’t believe that all of her Buchanan ancestors were savages, and she wanted to prove it. She also wanted to know what caused the feud between the Buchanans and the MacKennas in the first place. And what about the treasure? Did the professor even know what the treasure was?
Jordan drove on and reached the main street. The houses looked lived-in, but the lawns were parched and brown, and the shades were drawn.
Serenity was as inviting as purgatory.
The red light on her dashboard began to flash, indicating the engine was overheating again. She found a small convenience store a couple of blocks away and pulled in. It was so hot she felt like her back was glued to the seat. She parked in the shade, turned the motor off so it would cool down, then pulled out the notepad with the professor’s phone number and dialed.
On the fourth ring, his voice mail picked up. She left her name and number and was putting her phone back in her purse when it rang. The professor must have been screening his calls.
“Miss Buchanan? Professor MacKenna here. I have to hurry. When do you want to meet? How about dinner? Yes, dinner. Meet me at The Branding Iron. It’s off Third Street. Just head west and you’ll run into it. There’s a nice motel right across the street. You could check in, refresh yourself, and meet me at six. Don’t be late.”
He hung up before she could say a word. He’d sounded nervous, worried maybe. She shook her head. There was something about him that made her uneasy. She wasn’t sure if it was simply because he was such a nervous man, always looking over his shoulder as though he expected someone to pounce on him, or if it was something else that bothered her, something she couldn’t quite define. No matter the reason, her philosophy was simple: better be safe than sorry, and so she would only meet him in a public place.
An air-conditioned public place, she qualified. She was hot and sweaty and trying hard not to be miserable. Think positive, she told herself. After she peeled off her clothes and took a nice shower, she’d feel much better.
She still wished she could keep on driving so she could get back to Boston sooner, but that was out of the question. The car she was driving had a high probability of breaking down on the road, and just picturing herself stranded in the middle of the night made her shudder. No, that was definitely out of the question. Besides, she’d promised Isabel, and she couldn’t go back on her word. And so she would meet Professor Weirdo, talk to him about his research over dinner, get photocopies of his research, and leave Serenity first thin
g in the morning.
Good, she was already feeling better. She was determined now, and she had a plan.
“Oh, no,” she whispered.
The plan crashed and burned when she pulled into the motel parking lot and got a good look at the hellhole Professor MacKenna had recommended. She was pretty sure Norman Bates ran the place.
The driveway was a gravel pit all the way up to each of the units. There were eight in all, slapped up against one another like warehouse boxes. The white paint was chipped, and the single window in each of the rooms was coated with grime. She couldn’t even begin to imagine how awful the rooms must be. Bedbugs would run from this place. They had higher standards.
But she could handle it for one night. Right?
“Wrong,” she said aloud.
Surely she could find something better, a place where she wouldn’t have to be afraid to take a shower.
Jordan didn’t consider herself pampered or a snob. She didn’t care if the motel was a bit run-down, but she wanted it to be clean and safe. And this place didn’t measure up to either one of her basic standards. Since she had no intention of spending the night, she didn’t need to see the rooms.
Jordan put the car in park and leaned out the window to get a good look at the restaurant across the street. She made the mistake of resting her arm on the hot edge of the window. She flinched and jerked her arm back inside the car.
The Branding Iron reminded her of a train because the building was long and narrow with a barrel-shaped roof. On the side of the road was a billboard with a purple neon horseshoe. She presumed it was meant to look like a branding iron.
Now that she had her bearings and knew where the restaurant was, she pulled out of the lot and drove on. She was almost certain that the car rental agency didn’t have a branch in Serenity, which meant that she was stuck with this lemon until she drove to a larger city, the closest being over a hundred miles away. Jordan decided that once she checked into a motel for the night, she’d notify the rental company, then she’d find a mechanic to patch up the radiator, and she would be sure to buy a dozen gallons of water before she headed out of town. Just thinking about driving into the middle of nowhere with a malfunctioning car made her nervous. Mechanic first, she told herself. Then decision time. She might leave the car here and take whatever form of public transportation was available. Surely there were buses or trains or something.
She soon came to a wood-plank bridge with a sign announcing that she was crossing Parson’s Creek. The creek didn’t have a drop of water in it, and as she clattered across, she read a warning posted on the railing that the bridge was impassable during high water. Not much of a concern today, she thought. The creek was as dried up as the town appeared to be.
On the other side of the bridge, a wooden sign painted forest green with bold white letters greeted her: WELCOME TO SERENITY, GRADY COUNTY, TEXAS. POPULATION 1,968. In smaller, hand-painted letters were the words, “New home of the Grady County High School Bulldogs.”
The farther east she drove, the larger the homes became. She pulled to a stop at a corner, heard children laughing and shouting, and turned toward the sound. On her left was a neighborhood swimming pool. Finally, she thought. She didn’t feel like she was in a graveyard anymore. There were people and noise. Women were sunbathing while their children played in the pool, and the life-guard, baking under the sweltering sun, sat on his perch half asleep.
The transformation after crossing the bridge from one county to another was astonishing. On this side of town, people watered their lawns. The area was clean, the houses well kept, the streets and sidewalks new. There were actual signs of commerce with shops open on either side of the main thoroughfare. On the left, a beauty shop, a hardware store, and an insurance office, and on the right, a bar and an antiques shop. At the end of the block, Jaffee’s Bistro had tables and chairs set outside under a green-and-white awning, but Jordan couldn’t imagine anyone wanting to sit outside in this heat.
The sign on the door said “Open.” Her priorities immediately shifted. Air-conditioning sounded like heaven at the moment, and so did a nice cold drink. She’d find a mechanic and a motel later.
She parked the car, grabbed her purse and her satchel with her laptop, and went inside. The blast of cold air made her knees weak. It was blissful.
A woman sitting at one of the tables rolling silverware into napkins looked up at the sound of the door opening.
“Lunch hour’s over and dinner isn’t being served yet. I can do you up a nice tall glass of iced tea if you’d like.”
“Yes, thank you. That would be lovely,” Jordan replied.
The ladies’ room was around a corner. After she washed her hands and face and ran a comb through her hair, she felt human again.
There were ten or twelve tables with checkered cloths and matching cushions on the chairs. She chose a table in the corner. She could see out the window, but the sun wasn’t in her face.
The waitress returned a minute later with a frosty glass of iced tea, and Jordan asked her if she could borrow a phone book.
“What are you looking for, honey?” the waitress asked. “Maybe I can help.”
“I need to find a mechanic,” she explained. “And a clean motel.”
“That’s easy enough. There are only two mechanics in town, and one of them is closed until next week. The other one is Lloyd’s Garage, and that’s just a couple of blocks from here. He’s kind of difficult to deal with, but he’ll get the job done. I’ll get you the phone book, and you can look up his number.”
While she waited, Jordan pulled out her laptop and set it up on the table. She’d made some notes the night before and a list of questions to ask the professor, and she thought she’d look them over again.
The waitress brought her a thin phone book open to the page with the listing for Lloyd’s Garage.
“I went ahead and called my friend Amelia Ann,” she said. “She runs the Home Away from Home Motel, and she’s getting a room ready for you right now.”
“That’s very nice of you,” Jordan said.
“It’s a lovely place. Amelia Ann’s husband died several years ago and didn’t leave her anything, not one dime of life insurance, so Amelia Ann and her daughter, Candy, moved into the motel and started managing it. They’ve made it real homey. I think you’ll like it.”
Jordan called the number for the garage on her cell phone and was curtly informed that no one could look at her car until tomorrow. The mechanic told her to bring it in first thing in the morning. “Figures,” Jordan said with a sigh as she flipped her phone shut.
“Are you just passing through Serenity, or did you get lost?” the woman asked. “If you don’t mind me asking,” she hurriedly added.
“I don’t mind you asking. I’m meeting someone here.”
“Oh, honey. It isn’t a man, is it? You didn’t follow a man here, did you? Tell me you didn’t. That’s what I did. I followed him all the way from San Antonio. It didn’t work out though, not for long anyway, and he up and moved on.” She shook her head and made a tsking sound. “Now I’m stuck here until I can earn enough money to move back home. My name’s Angela, by the way.”
Jordan introduced herself and shook the woman’s hand. “It’s nice to meet you, and no, I didn’t follow a man here. I am meeting a man for dinner, but it’s business. He’s bringing me some papers and information.”
“Nothing romantic then?”
She pictured the professor and almost shuddered. “No.”
“Where are you from?”
“Boston.”
“Really? You don’t have that accent, at least not much.”
Jordan wasn’t sure if the comment was good or bad, but Angela was smiling. She had a lovely smile and seemed to have a sweet disposition. In her younger days she’d been a sun worshipper, Jordan guessed, because she had deep creases in her face, and her skin looked a bit like dried leather.
“How long have you lived in Serenity?”
&n
bsp; “Close to eighteen years.”
Jordan blinked. The woman had been saving for eighteen years and still didn’t have enough to move back home?
“Where are you going to meet this businessman for dinner?” Angela asked. “You don’t have to tell me. I’m just curious is all.”
“We’re having dinner at The Branding Iron. Have you ever been there?”
“Oh, yes,” she said. “But it’s not as good as the food here, and it’s located in a bad part of town. The restaurant’s a local landmark, so it stays open, and they do a real good business on weekends. It’s not safe after dark. Your businessman must be a local, or maybe a local told him about the place. No one outside of Serenity would even know to suggest The Branding Iron.”
“His name is MacKenna,” she said. “He’s a history professor, and he has some research papers for me.”
“I haven’t met him,” Angela said. “Of course, I don’t know everyone in town, but I’ll bet he’s new to the area.” Angela turned to leave. “You go ahead and enjoy your tea, and I’ll leave you alone. Everyone thinks I talk too much.”
Jordan knew the waitress was waiting for her to disagree. “I don’t think you do.”
Angela turned back, a big smile on her face. “I don’t think I do either. I’m just friendly, that’s all. Too bad you can’t have dinner here. Jaffee’s making his special shrimp dish.”
“I think the professor suggested the restaurant because it’s right across the street from a motel he recommended.”
Angela’s eyebrows lifted. “The Lux? He suggested The Lux?”
Jordan smiled. “Is that what the motel’s called?”
She nodded. “There used to be a big old sign that lit up. The word ‘luxury’ flashed off and on all night. Only the first three letters still light up, and that’s why folks call it The Lux. They do a good business at night…all night as a matter of fact.” Her voice dropped to a whisper as she added, “The creep that runs the place charges by the hour. Get my drift?”
She must have thought that Jordan didn’t understand because she hurriedly explained, “It’s a whore place is what it is.”