by Marta Perry
“Hello?” She blinked, rubbing her eyes.
“Kate, are you okay?” Mac’s voice was sharp with concern.
She swung her feet to the floor. “Fine. Sorry if I sound foggy. I’d fallen asleep.”
“Too bad I couldn’t wake you in person.” His voice deepened. “Sorry.”
Kate pushed away the image that brought to her mind. “Any news?”
“A couple of things. Kristie called. She’s gone through the tapes and wants to talk to you about what she found. Okay if she comes over now?”
“Yes, of course.” Kate ran her fingers through her tangled hair. “Are you coming over?”
“Can’t. A couple of leads to Bolt have surfaced, and I need to follow up. You can fill me in later. Listen, about tonight...”
“I’m fine on my own,” she said quickly. “No dizziness, no blurred vision, just tired. I don’t need a babysitter.” And if he came, they’d be together in that shared intimacy that was bound to lead to more. He shouldn’t, because of the case. And she shouldn’t, because...well, because she was leaving, wasn’t she?
“You’re probably right. There’s too much at stake to let things between us get out of control. But I’ll check in with you later if I can, okay?”
“Okay.” Now was the moment when she should tell him she’d arranged to meet Nikki. But if she did, he’d only object, and she didn’t have the energy for an argument. She’d rather act first and apologize later.
When he’d hung up, Kate splashed some water on her face and made a few necessary repairs. She’d barely run a brush through her hair when she heard the doorbell. Kristie must have been on her way even before Mac called.
She hurried to the door to let Kristie in. The girl looked her over as she entered.
“I heard you’d had an accident. Wow.”
Kate fluffed her hair over the by-now-spectacular bruise that she suspected was going to turn into a black eye. “Not as bad as it looks,” she lied. “What do you have for me?”
Kristie dumped her backpack on the floor next to the sofa and burrowed into it. “Here’s the flash drive back, like I promised.” She waved a folder. “I didn’t do a transcription of the whole thing, but I separated the references by his individual recordings.”
Kate took the folder, flipping it open. It didn’t take more than a glance at the first page to see that Kristie more than lived up to Mac’s recommendation.
“This is excellent work.” She leafed through it. “I didn’t dream you’d be able to identify so many references.”
“Once a fantasy geek, always a fantasy geek.” Kristie grinned. “I didn’t run across anything I didn’t either know or could find out by some quick research.” She hesitated. “We had the same taste in games and fiction. Makes me wish I’d known him.”
Kate nodded, her throat suddenly tight.
“’Course I didn’t know who he meant—well, most of the time.” Kristie hurried on, as if embarrassed by the moment of emotion. “But I figured if you knew what each character was like, you’d be able to make a pretty good guess.”
“What about that one character he mentions toward the end? Baldicer, I think it was.”
Kristie nodded. “He was kind of cagey about that—almost like he wasn’t sure and didn’t want to commit himself, you know? But in the fantasy series where Baldicer appears, he’s a shape-shifter, able to take on different forms. He also switches from one side to the other, always with his own gain in mind. You know?”
“I see.” She didn’t, not entirely, but knowing this much was a good step to understanding. “I can’t wait to go through the journal again with your notes in front of me.”
Kristie rose, gathering up her backpack and slinging it over her shoulder. “I hope it helps.”
“Wait a second.” Kate grabbed her bag. “You have to let me give you something for your time.”
“No, no.” Kristie looked horrified at the suggestion. “I don’t want anything. My folks would kill me if I took money for helping. And I don’t know what Mac would say.” She scurried to the door. “Good luck. Let me know if you run into anything you don’t get, okay?”
She was gone before Kate could protest again.
Kate sat for a moment, staring at the printed pages. It would have been easier for her if she’d been able to pay Kristie. Why?
Because she didn’t want to accept help from anyone. If she paid, it was like employing a professional to do what she couldn’t.
That didn’t seem as admirable as she’d thought. Was there something wrong with a person who couldn’t accept the generosity of others? She had a feeling that Mac, at least, would think so.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
KATE REACHED THE Lamplight before Nikki. Nodding to Pete behind the bar, she snagged a table for two near the back wall. With the jukebox blaring, it was unlikely anyone would be able to hear them talking. Assuming, that is, that Nikki actually showed up.
Well, Nikki or not, she’d made a little progress this afternoon with the help of Kristie’s explanations. It hadn’t taken much imagination to identify Russell Sheldon as the King, and Kristie had added a brief explanation of the plot of a popular game which had a courtier killing the aged king in order to take his throne. A reference to Bart? It sounded so. From what Jason said, he believed Sheldon was being pushed into a retirement he didn’t want.
Had anything other than pushing gone on? Maybe Bart had just been lucky that the course of Sheldon’s illness seemed to accelerate.
The shape-shifter references had been harder to track down, mainly because it wasn’t clear whether the character belonged to his office life or his personal life. Larry? She could imagine Larry playing both sides. Or could he have referred to Nikki? She certainly seemed to have her eyes open for any chance of furthering her own ambitions.
Her thoughts had reached that point when she spotted Nikki herself, weaving her way through the occupied tables toward her. The tavern had been filling up steadily, but mostly in the bar area, where it was smoky and noisy.
Nikki plunked herself down in a chair. “Whew! Just in time. I need a beer.” Before Kate could speak, she was waving a server over. “You don’t mind, do you? If you don’t grab someone fast, they forget about you.”
“Good idea. You want something to eat? A sandwich or an appetizer?”
“Let’s get some wings to share.” The server was there, so Nikki ordered, adding nachos to the wings. Apparently if someone else was buying, she was hungry.
Kate passed on the beer, ordering a soft drink instead. If she had to take one of the pain pills to sleep tonight, she didn’t want any alcohol in her system.
Once the server left to put their order in, Kate focused on Nikki. “You look like it’s been one of those days,” she commented.
“So do you,” Nikki said.
“But I have a good excuse,” she said, smiling. “I fell down the stairs.”
“Yeah, I heard.” Nikki eyed her curiously. “That all there was to it?”
Kate shrugged. “Apparently it was a false alarm about a burglar in the building.” No burglar, just someone intent on harming her. “What about you?”
Nikki consulted her face in a pocket mirror before answering. “Boring, as usual. Until late this afternoon. Then everything blew up.”
“What happened?”
“Mr. Sheldon called. He hardly ever uses the phone anymore, from what I heard, but it was him, sure enough. He wanted to talk to Bart, and he wasn’t taking no for an answer.”
Kate’s attention sharpened still more. “Why do you say that? Didn’t Bart want to talk to him?”
Nikki shrugged. “Didn’t act like it. He tried to say he was too busy, and Mr. Sheldon told me to interrupt him. So I told Bart he’d better take it.”
“What did they sa
y?”
“You think I’d listen?” Nikki grinned. “I tried. But Bart came to the door and glared at me, so I had to hang up. I could tell he didn’t want anyone else to hear.”
“How much did you manage to hear?”
“Mr. Sheldon said he’d talked to the chief. Said he wasn’t going to put up with having Jason blamed for something he didn’t do. Said Jason was innocent, and everyone should know it.”
Kate sucked in a breath, hardly able to take in what she was hearing. “Let me get this straight. Sheldon said he’d already talked to Mac?”
“I think so. Yeah, I’m sure that’s what he said.”
If Mac had known about this, if he’d known and hadn’t told her...
She forced herself to set that aside for the moment. “What did Bart do next?”
“Came storming out of his office, swearing like a crazy person. He charged out the door without a word to anyone.” Nikki leaned back, pleased with the effect of her words.
Kate paused, considering. “How did Lina react to that?”
“I don’t think she liked it much, but she knows when Bart’s in that kind of mood, there’s no talking to him.”
“You think he was going to see Mr. Sheldon?”
“Maybe.” She seemed a little doubtful. “He didn’t say he was.”
Kate looked down, turning her glass and watching the wet circles form on the scarred table top. “Did you ever get the feeling that Bart wanted to push Mr. Sheldon out of the business?”
“I don’t know about pushed.” Nikki seemed to develop some belated caution. “I’d guess he wanted to take over, all right. He’d say things sometimes about Mr. Sheldon being too conservative. He wanted to move investments faster, he said, to take advantage of the market.”
Thinking of the courtly old gentleman, Kate could imagine what Sheldon thought of that.
“You know, the person Mr. Sheldon really trusted for advice was Lina,” Nikki said. “He always said she knew as much about the business as he did.”
Kate nodded. That was her impression of the office dynamic as well, both from what she’d observed and what Jason had said. The office manager often was the linchpin that held the place together.
Their food arrived then. Kate let Nikki help herself. Her own mind was too busy for eating.
“What do you think it meant? What Mr. Sheldon said about Jason being innocent?”
Nikki shrugged. “Dunno. But he sure sounded determined about it. You should talk to him yourself.”
“I will.” That was a promise. She glanced at her watch, realizing it was already too late for calling on Sheldon. He was probably in bed already. But soon.
As for Mac, and whatever he knew that he hadn’t told her—the only thing to do was to ask him. She shouldn’t start blaming him without the facts. But there was a cold lump in the pit of her stomach that told her she wasn’t going to like the answers.
A sudden change in the level of chatter in the room had her looking up. Mac stood just inside the door, flanked by Foster and another of his part-timers. His gaze scanned the space, and when it reached her it paused for a fraction of a second.
Even from across the room she could see his jaw tighten. Then he continued his survey of the place. He wasn’t here for her. He was here in pursuit of someone, and she was right in the middle of it.
* * *
HE MIGHT HAVE known that Kate wouldn’t stay quietly at home where she belonged. She should have told him she was meeting with Nikki tonight. Now she’d put herself right in the middle of his arrest.
Not that he expected Bolt to cause any trouble. He’d outfoxed the system enough times that Mac wouldn’t doubt he could do it again. If Mac had a choice, he wouldn’t be doing this in a crowded room, most especially with Kate here. But Bolt had eluded him for too long, and Mac wasn’t taking a chance that he’d do it again.
The roar of talk, which had died down a little when he came in, reasserted itself. Mac had spotted Bolt, leaning against the end of the bar. He acted as if he hadn’t noticed them, but he was casting surreptitious glances at the mirror.
A slight gesture of Mac’s hand had the two patrolmen separating, working their way casually toward either end of the bar. Mac headed toward the bar, nodding to Pete.
Pete, seeming to sense something, sidled toward the spot under the bar where Mac knew he kept the small baseball bat his kid had outgrown. He always said it was the ideal size to discourage the rowdy without seriously injuring anyone.
Mac shook his head slightly, and Pete eased off, though his hand lingered near the bat. Mac would prefer to do this without the need for baseball bats or any other weapons. A nice, clean, uncomplicated pickup was all he wanted—all that was usually necessary in Laurel Ridge, barring the occasional combative drunk.
When he got about eight feet from the man, he said his name. “Ax Bolt?”
Bolt turned slowly, his narrow face insolent. “Who wants to know?”
“Police. We’d like to have a word.”
Bolt shrugged, turning back toward the beer on the bar. “So talk all you want. I got nothing to hide.”
“Not here.” Mac took a step closer even as the men standing next to Bolt moved away, as if advertising the fact that they weren’t with him. “Let’s step outside.”
“Hey, you can let a man finish his beer, can’t you?” Bolt reached for the bottle. “What’s it all about, anyhow?”
“Your buddy, Larry Foust, ran into a little trouble.”
“Not my business. I hardly know the guy.” Bolt’s voice sounded casual, but his hand moved toward the neck of the bottle.
“Then our talk won’t take long.” Mac moved a step nearer even as the patrolmen closed in from either side. The usual tavern noise had ceased, as those at the bar found a reason to back away. “Let’s go.”
Bolt grabbed the bottle. Whirled toward him, slamming the bottom of the bottle against the bar. He swung the jagged edges toward Mac, beer splashing.
Mac gave an elaborate sigh. “Now, what did you want to go and do that for?”
“Stay away from me!” Bolt swung the bottle in an arc that included the two patrolmen.
“What good is this going to do?” Mac kept his voice casual. Easy. Nothing would be gained by escalating the situation. “You know this will just make things worse. Even if you get out of here, I’ll have to put out an alert on you, and half the police in the county will be looking for you for resisting arrest. You can’t win that way.”
“You move over there.” Bolt gestured to the left with the bottle.
In answer, Mac pulled out his handcuffs. “No, I’m not going to do that. You just drop the bottle and keep your hands where I can see them. Come on now. Don’t make a bad situation worse by overreacting.”
The room seemed frozen, as if the crowd held its collective breath. Mac kept his gaze focused on Bolt’s face, but from the corner of his eye he caught Foster edge closer, saw Pete’s hand emerge holding the bat.
Mac waited. And saw the exact moment when Bolt decided not to fight. Slowly, both hands visible, he put the bottle on the bar.
“Good decision.” Mac stepped forward, and the other two closed in. In a moment Bolt was handcuffed.
Some of his bravado came back as they moved toward the door, and Foster began to read him his rights. “Forget it. I’ve heard it all before. Whatever happened to Foust, I didn’t have anything to do with it. And you can’t prove any different.”
“We’ll see about that.” Foster propelled him through the door.
Mac did a quick mental list of all that had to be done—find Bolt’s vehicle, for one thing. Notify the DA, in case he wanted to sit in on the questioning. And do a detailed search of the place where Bolt had been staying.
Not enough staff for all that had to be done, bu
t they’d manage. He wanted Laurel Ridge’s problems kept right here, under his control. He’d deal with them, like always.
As for Kate...well, he was going to have more than a few words to say to her about tonight, but not now. If he could get the truth out of Bolt, it might be that Kate’s problem would be resolved, or at least as much as it was ever likely to be. That was the thing she’d have trouble accepting, he knew. Even if she found the truth, it wouldn’t be enough to take away the pain.
* * *
WHEN THE DOOR closed behind Mac and his prisoner, Kate realized she’d been barely breathing throughout the encounter. She sucked in a breath and ran the palms of her hands down her pant legs. Despite everything that had happened since she’d come to Laurel Ridge, she’d never really imagined Mac putting his life on the line in the course of his work.
She’d often thought that in Philly, of course—every time Tom was late coming home she’d wondered. But not here. It left her without words.
Not so with Nikki.
“Wow! I never saw an actual arrest before. Did you? I didn’t know what to do. What if that creep had had a gun? What if he cut somebody with that bottle? Mac could have been killed, right?”
“Don’t!” The force of her response startled her. “I mean, I’m sure he had everything under control.”
That seemed to be what Mac wanted in every area of his life. Control. She understood why, at least in part. He’d seen the innocent die because a situation went out of control. Not that it had been his fault, but no one would ever convince him of that.
Nikki, finding Kate nonresponsive, turned to the next table and was soon involved in marveling about what had happened with someone else, leaving Kate prey to her own thoughts.
What was Bolt’s arrest going to mean? Did Mac have some evidence implicating him in the attack on Larry? Or the one on her? She came back up against the question that haunted her. Why?
If Bolt had supplied the pills Jason had taken, he might have been afraid Larry had ratted on him. He might think she had some evidence from Jason of where he’d gotten the pills.