Tommy's Mom

by Linda O. Johnston

  “So?” he prompted.

  “So, I’m the daughter of a cop.” Holly took a sip of wine. Okay. You started it. Your turn to spill all.

  With a sigh from deep inside, she explained about her father who was always on duty, always available for his fellow cops and never there for his daughter. Or his wife, though her mother accepted that he wouldn’t be around for birthdays, anniversaries, skinned knees, car wrecks…unless they happened to affect fellow officers. He just wasn’t there for his family. Her mother joined a group of other cops’ wives for support—as if that made up for Holly’s absent father.

  “I see.” Gabe drew the words out.

  He put his glass on the coffee table, rose and took the few steps to bridge the gap between them. Holly scooted to the far end of the sofa. She didn’t want his sympathy. And she most certainly didn’t want him any closer.

  “Your childhood experience with police officers was the opposite of mine.” He sat on the sofa but at the far end.

  It didn’t matter. She was aware of his proximity. Very aware. “You could say that.”

  “Then why did you marry a cop?”

  “Because he was like every other cop I know,” she spat. “Demanding. Persistent. Persuasive. He promised me, though, that he was different. But as soon as he got what he wanted—me—he showed his true colors. He’d met the challenge and won. That’s all I’d been to him—a challenge, because I said no so many times. After we were married, he didn’t want me much anymore. And after Tommy was born, he turned into my father!”

  To her chagrin, her eyes began to fill. Worse, Gabe was suddenly beside her. Holding her.

  Worst of all, she wanted him to.

  “Go away,” she whispered perversely.

  “Soon,” he whispered. He kissed her on the cheek, as gently as if she were her small son.

  “You can’t do that,” she grumbled and turned toward him. This time his kiss wasn’t gentle at all.

  She reveled in the feel of his lips on hers. On her cheeks. Her neck. And lower.

  Was this it? Was she going to let him make love to her? Was she going to make love to him?

  Yes! something inside her shouted…just as the phone rang.

  She pulled away and stood, her breath ragged. Their eyes caught. His were heavy-lidded with desire. They slid down her body in a caress, then back to her lips. And the phone rang again.

  They both laughed, and Holly hurried into the kitchen to answer.

  “Hello?” she said.

  “Hello, Holly.” It was the same horrible, echoing voice that had unnerved her before. “Have you found it yet?”

  She gasped. “I—I still don’t know what you’re talking about.” She didn’t want to stammer. She wanted to come across as cool and forceful. “Tell me what you want, and then I’ll—”

  “Haven’t you guessed? You know I was in your house looking for it. And where did I look?”

  Her breathing grew erratic and quick. Someone had gotten into her house. She’d known she hadn’t imagined it, but she’d almost hoped she had.

  Gabe had joined her. He stood beside her, fury narrowing his eyes and setting his jaw. He bent his head so he could hear, but he didn’t say a word.

  “You were in Thomas’s office.” Somehow, Gabe’s presence lent to Holly some of the strength she’d failed to grasp before. “So you were after some paperwork?”

  No reply.

  “Hello?” Holly said.

  “I’m still here,” the voice said. “You’re a smart woman. What do you think I want?”

  “There are a lot of papers,” Holly said. “How should I know—”

  “Because you knew Thomas. And I know that he told you. I’ll be in touch,” the voice said. “We’ll make arrangements for me to get it. Because if I don’t, I’ll do more than just search your house…when you’re out.” She heard a click.

  Gabe grabbed the phone. Again he pressed in *69. Another pay phone, he told her in a minute. He then called the station, ordered whoever answered to send a car to the location where the pay phone was located and to call the phone company to find out how the call was paid for. He had installed a small recorder with Holly’s permission, and he checked to make sure the exchange had been taped.

  When he was done, he faced Holly. His expression was as resolute as a stone statue’s. He didn’t even seem to see her.

  This was why this cop was here. He had a case to solve. Her presence was secondary to his assignment. His duty reigned over all. As it should in this case. She needed answers, too.

  “What papers was that guy talking about, Holly? What was Thomas up to? What did he tell you?”

  “Nothing. At least nothing that makes any sense. I’ve tried to figure it out, but I still don’t know what that creep means.” She tried to speak firmly, but her voice wobbled.

  And the skepticism in Gabe’s ominous green eyes told her that, this time, he didn’t believe her.

  Chapter Nine

  “Look who’s awake, sport,” Gabe said the next morning. As before, he had risen earlier than Holly and helped Tommy wash and dress. Planning ahead this time, he had brought a change of clothes: blue shirt, gray trousers. His coat and tie remained in his car. His shoulder holster was at the bottom of his overnight bag and his gun was in his pocket.

  Holly had just walked into the kitchen. Tommy jumped down from the chair at the table where he had been finishing his cereal and threw himself into her arms. “Good morning, sweetheart.” She hugged him back and smiled. “And thanks,” she said, looking directly at Gabe, “for helping Tommy again.”

  That was good. She had stopped looking directly at him last night right after that second threatening phone call.

  Had it been an act, or had he hurt her by asking whether she actually knew what her husband had allegedly hidden from the son of a bitch who kept calling?

  Or had she been embarrassed after explaining her antipathy toward cops? With the cops she’d had around, it was no wonder she regarded him sometimes as if he was a carrier of foot-and-mouth disease. But she still had to deal with him and his officers for her protection and Tommy’s.

  And the reminder that her marriage to Thomas had been thornier than a real bed of roses? Don’t even think about that, McLaren. He’d given himself that order more than once in bed the night before.

  Rebound was rebound.

  After he’d questioned Holly about the call, they had spent a little more time in each other’s company before she fled upstairs to bed, but not much. Her cordiality had apparently evaporated as a result of his inquisitiveness.

  “Thank Tommy this morning, not me,” he said now. “He did all the hard work, like combing his teeth and brushing his face.”

  Tommy laughed, even as he shook his head in the negative.

  “No?” Gabe asked. “Oh, that’s right. He cleaned his hair with toothpaste and picked the pajamas he wanted to wear today.”

  “No!” Tommy said aloud, still laughing.

  “No?” Gabe said, smiling not only at Tommy but also at the joy on Holly’s face. Maybe a kid who started the day by saying one word would continue by talking more.

  Tommy shook his head.

  “Well, what did you do?” Gabe asked as if befuddled.

  Tommy looked up at his mother, who had a hand on his shoulder, and then at Gabe. He opened his mouth as if considering what to say.

  “Did you brush Gabe’s teeth?” Holly asked.

  Tommy regarded her with wide eyes, as if surprised at her teasing, then grinned. Slowly, he climbed back into his chair but didn’t eat more cereal.

  “That’s okay, sport,” Gabe said. “Maybe tonight, at bedtime, we can eat some lunch together, all right?”

  His grin broadened as he shook his head.

  Holly walked behind her son’s chair and ruffled his hair. She smiled conspiratorially at Gabe.

  He raised his eyebrows in silent acknowledgment.

  Holly wore a pastel pink shirt and black slacks. Her dark hair w
as a soft and attractive frame about her face, which was beautiful, as usual, this morning—except for the tell-tale shadows beneath her tired eyes.

  She must not have slept again. Funny thing about that. Neither had he. Partially for the same reasons: mulling over the call and who’d made it. And considering what Holly had said about cops.

  Their respective insomnia had also been at least partially for different reasons, though, for Gabe had spent time in Thomas Poston’s office. He’d gone over old territory, since Jimmy Hernandez’s crew had been through it twice before—once as routine after the Poston murder, and once after the alleged break-in. But as far as Gabe knew, few of Thomas Poston’s personal effects had been removed as possible evidence.

  He’d found a few things that triggered questions, but nothing that should have merited someone stressing over, let alone being a reason to scare a widow or her child.

  Unless Holly had already hidden whatever it was.

  He had checked Poston’s computer for suspicious files but found only baseball statistics and Internet access. He’d thought it odd to find a credit card statement addressed to Thomas at the station rather than at home, but the charges didn’t appear irregular. Still, he’d felt more like a snoop than a trained investigator while going over items involving the Postons’ personal finances.

  He had also taken advantage of being assigned Thomas’s former bedroom. But going through drawers and closets had felt like an ugly intrusion, worse than viewing the Postons’ old bills. He’d become a voyeur, not into some anonymous suspect’s possessions, but into the life of the former husband of Holly Poston, to whom, despite himself, Gabe was mightily attracted.

  It couldn’t get much more distasteful than pawing through Thomas’s clothes, his uniforms, even his pockets and underwear looking for something he couldn’t even identify. He’d found nothing, but the search had bothered him enough, along with everything else, that he’d stayed wide awake far into the night.

  At least that gave him more time to plan the next steps in his investigation. Both investigations.

  Now, after Tommy had finished eating and settled in front of his favorite public television show, Gabe led Holly back into the kitchen and told her what he had done last night.

  “You went through Thomas’s things? What gave you the right?” As anticipated, she wasn’t pleased. In fact, judging by her incensed expression, she was downright furious.

  As he’d noted before, she was particularly sexy when angry.

  Pervert. “Common sense gave me the right,” he retorted. “You want me to get a warrant, just say so, but you’ve cooperated so far. You’ve been threatened because of some alleged paperwork left by your husband. You claim you don’t know what the papers are. Assuming you’re telling the truth, I looked in some of the most logical places to find those mysterious papers.”

  “I am telling the truth,” Holly shouted. “But you wasted your time. The thug who threatened me admitted he’d already gone through Thomas’s office.” She paced the kitchen. Her slender, lithe body moved sinuously, like a stalking lioness. “Why did you think you’d find whatever he wanted there when not even he could find it?”

  “Or she,” Gabe corrected automatically, his tone cooler than hers. He purposely leaned against the doorway, near the phone where Holly had taken both the threatening calls. “Good question. But I figured it wouldn’t hurt to try. And since no one has found anything there, not even our favorite fiend, I tried the bedroom, too.”

  Her glare deepened as she continued moving. “Looking for something personal? I already searched Thomas’s bedroom but haven’t cleaned out his drawers yet.”

  Gabe felt himself redden. He’d done what he had to, but she’d struck a nerve. And she’d already looked? That could be helpful, if she intended to cooperate. And if she didn’t… “I didn’t find anything helpful there, either,” he said. “Where else might Thomas have hidden papers?”

  Holly finally stopped stalking and stared at him. Her rage visibly relaxed into realization. “The garage!” she exclaimed. “I doubt whatever it is has anything to do with the car or warranties on our major appliances, but he kept a box out there with receipts and brochures. Maybe it’s there.”

  They checked to make sure Tommy was still engrossed in the TV program. Holly showed Gabe the box in the garage. Rather than leave the child alone in the house, he lifted the heavy carton and carried it into the kitchen. There, he pushed two chairs beside one another at the table.

  Page by page, they sorted through the box’s contents. Holly sighed more than once and discarded warranty information on some appliance that Thomas and she had replaced.

  But nothing in the carton appeared to be enough to trigger the current campaign of terror.

  By the time they reached the papers at the bottom, Holly had wilted. Whatever insufficient rest she got the previous night must have drained away with her adrenaline. She threw the last brochure into the grocery bag they used for trash, then looked at Gabe bleakly. “It wasn’t there, was it?”

  “No,” he said gently, “it wasn’t.” He rose and approached her chair. He gripped her slender and slumping shoulders, intending to be reassuring. A big brother, a family member, trying to make it easier for a cop’s widow. But the heat that surged from the palms of his hand to his groin wasn’t brotherly. Not at all. And it only became more electric when she rose and put her head on his chest.

  “What am I going to do, Gabe?” she whispered brokenly. “I don’t know what it is, and if I don’t find it, that horrible creature already showed he could break in here. He terrified my son with that damned doll. He’s probably the one who killed Thomas and beat up Sheldon. What would he have to lose by hurting us?”

  “I won’t let anything happen to you, Holly,” he whispered against her fragrant hair.

  But she pulled back. Her eyes were bright with unshed tears, but her small chin was raised in resignation. “I know, Gabe. You’ll try to keep us safe. For now. Until the next big case comes along and you need to direct manpower toward solving it. That’s the way it works in a police force. I understand.”

  “No!” Gabe contradicted. “You don’t understand. There’s more that I can’t tell you about—”

  He stopped. He couldn’t explain why he’d actually been hired in the first place. Why he thought the murder he’d come here to investigate on his own time was related to her husband’s killing, and therefore related to the way her son and she were being terrorized.

  And why he would never give up until the cases were solved. Related or not.

  He had come to Naranja Beach under partially false pretenses. He did not want to implicate his aunt in potentially scandalous and damaging claims worse than nepotism. And therefore, he couldn’t explain. But looking down into Holly’s shining, puzzled eyes, he had to do something. And so he kissed her. Again.

  It wasn’t a brotherly kiss. That was for certain. Not the way it all but blew his briefs off. But it was quick, for he had stayed here much too long this morning already.

  “I’ll make sure the patrols come by today,” he said as he pulled away. His tone was almost conversational, except for the way it was syncopated by his erratic breathing. “I’ve got to get to work. See you two later.”

  OF COURSE he had to get to work, Holly thought a short while later as she pinned together some carefully cut pieces of fabric for a wall hanging she had just conceptualized.

  All cops had to leave for work the moment someone needed them. It was their duty.

  She’d learned not to expect more from her father. Her husband. And Gabe McLaren was no relation at all, not by marriage or otherwise.

  Even though he’d claimed all cops were family.

  Right.

  She would have to be careful for Tommy’s sake. Her son had latched onto Gabe as if they were family. Tommy was vulnerable. He would already be hurt when Gabe stopped coming around. But somehow she had to keep him from becoming even more attached.

  The quicker the
case was solved, the better.

  The telephone rang. Holly froze. Please, not again.

  She went to her bedroom and answered the extension there. “Hello?”

  “Holly? Is that you?”

  “Yes, Sheldon.” She was so relieved to hear it was someone she knew that she felt her legs wobble. She leaned against the bedroom wall.

  “Are you okay? You sound ill.”

  She assured him she was fine. “In fact, I’m doing so well that I’ve started a new wall hanging. It’s full of bright reds, oranges and yellows. The scorching sun burning Naranja Beach in the middle of the hottest summer day.”

  The colors meant a lot more than summer to Holly—heat and rage and exposure and vulnerability…and unsatisfied, unquenchable desire for Gabe. But she wouldn’t explain that to Sheldon. She would simply work out her misery in her art.

  “Great. I’ll look forward to seeing it. Meantime, are you coming in soon? I want to show you some displays I have in mind, see if you can add something to them.”

  “Sure,” Holly said. “Real soon.”

  Maybe. But she couldn’t go anywhere without Tommy. Was he ready to go with her to Sheldon’s?

  They had another appointment with the child psychologist early this afternoon. Holly would ask then.

  WHEN GABE REACHED the office that morning, a couple of female patrol officers asked if he would see them. They seemed so anxious that he couldn’t say no.

  They explained how they were concerned about his administrative policies. Both had been striving to make detective under Mal Kensington. In the three months since Gabe’s arrival he hadn’t clarified what his promotion criteria would be.

  He didn’t know yet, either, though he didn’t admit it to the enthusiastic young cops. “I’ve been considering that issue,” he told them, which was true—though he’d not had time to focus on it. “I’ll issue a written policy soon. Meantime, be assured that I fully intend to reward hard work and dedication with promotions. Okay?”