by Jo Leigh
Jack didn’t take long to decide. He needed to sit down. Take a pill. Make sure the kid upstairs hadn’t fallen off the couch. “Yeah,” he said. “I’ll be around.”
A female paramedic Jack didn’t know circled the police car and knelt beside Roy. She put her kit next to her knee and gestured to Paul to back off. The young cop did as she asked, but he didn’t seem real happy to be brushed aside.
Jack didn’t give a damn. He had his own problems. He nodded to Haggart, then started the long voyage home. Walking across the parking lot was hard enough. The stairs were going to be murder.
THE KID WAS STILL SLEEPING when he got back. After three pain pills and about half an hour of sitting still on the lounger, Jack was able to stand again. He crossed to the girl, noticing for the first time that she had a doll clutched in her right hand. It wasn’t a very nice doll. The hair was all ratty, with big holes in the scalp where the strands had been tied. One eye was open, the other closed in a perpetual wink. There was a stain on the doll’s cheek that looked like blue ink.
What a damn mess. He didn’t like dirty cops, and he didn’t like cryptic deathbed messages, and he didn’t like the fact that the sun was going to rise any minute and he hadn’t slept. The kid was going to wake up eventually, and she’d want to know where her parents were, and she’d cry and carry on and…oh, hell. Jack made it back to the lounger and sank gratefully onto the cushion. The smart thing to do was call family services as soon as possible. Go to the captain and tell him what he heard and what he saw. End this thing before it went any further.
Even if there was a crime to be solved, he wasn’t the man to solve it. Not anymore. Not with this body. All he was good for was watching daytime television.
HE WOKE UP to a pair of blue eyes. Big round blue eyes, inches from his face. The kid was up and she’d climbed onto his lap, somehow avoiding his bad hip. One inch to the right, and he’d have been one sorry ex-cop.
“Where’s my daddy?”
The girl had her doll under one arm and her quilt under the other. She looked amazingly calm, as if she woke up in a stranger’s house all the time.
“I have to go potty.”
Perfect. She had to go potty. He had no idea what that entailed—well, except for the fundamentals, of course. Was he supposed to help her? Lead her to the bathroom and leave? Change her diaper?
She wasn’t wearing a diaper. He could see that from the way her Little Mermaid pajamas fit. “Climb down,” he said. “Carefully.”
She obeyed him, moving slowly and cautiously until she stood next to the chair, but she never took her eyes off him, not even for a second.
“Can you do it by yourself?”
“What?”
“Can you go potty by yourself?”
She nodded, the curls on her head waving with the movement.
Jack pointed to the hallway. “It’s right over there,” he said. “Just walk down the hall.”
She blinked at him, then turned, her quilt trailing behind her as she padded toward the bathroom. He focused on his own problem: getting up and making coffee. He swallowed another pill, then went to the kitchen for a water chaser. His leg felt stiffer than usual, but he expected that. The doctors had said the pain would be temporary, lasting just a few months. In his opinion, four was more than a few. So when was this miraculous recovery supposed to kick in?
At least he’d gotten his morning routine worked out. He’d set up the kitchen to require the fewest steps necessary. Coffee, filters, the machine, all next to the sink. After he finished pouring and counting, he checked his watch. Seven-thirty. He’d call family services at eight.
He heard a shuffle and looked in the living room. The girl stood by the hallway, staring at him. “Where’s my daddy?” she asked again.
He didn’t know what to say. How to say it. The kid was so young.
She blinked a few times, as if she was trying to get him into focus. “I want Hailey,” she said.
Hailey. Who the hell was—“You mean that woman down the hall? The blond lady?”
The girl nodded. “Hailey. She’s my baby-sitter.”
“Hailey,” he repeated, thinking about where he’d seen her. In the laundry room, that was it. A couple of months ago. With the kid. She’d helped him carry his clothes upstairs. “Let’s go see Hailey, okay?”
The kid nodded. “Is my daddy there?”
“We’ll see,” he said, chickening out. He started toward her, and she went to the door. She put her doll on the floor and grasped the doorknob. It took her a few tries, but she got the door open, and then she picked up her doll again. She didn’t say anything. She didn’t look scared. She waited patiently for him to reach her side and then closed the door behind them.
Something wasn’t right. He didn’t know much about kids, but even he knew she ought to be scared out of her wits.
She led him down the walkway, past the five doors that separated his place from Hailey’s. Then she stopped. Shifted her doll under her arm and put her thumb in her mouth.
Jack knocked on Hailey’s door. Checked the kid, then knocked again, praying the woman was home. Then he heard the dead bolt slip and the door swung open.
She was still in her bathrobe. She looked at him with a question in her eyes, then she saw the girl. “Megan!”
“Is my daddy here?”
Hailey’s gaze moved back to Jack. “What’s going on?”
“Can we talk?”
Her brow furrowed with concern, but she didn’t press him. She picked Megan up, then held the door open for him. The second he walked inside, he knew he’d done the right thing. The kid would feel safe here. Hell, he felt safe here. And he hadn’t felt safe in about a hundred years.
Chapter Two
Hailey Bishop closed the door and turned to her guest. She recognized him, although she didn’t remember his name. John or Jack or something like that. She also knew he was a police officer, although she’d never seen him in a uniform.
He stood in the middle of her living room, leaning on his cane, favoring his left leg. She wondered if he’d been hurt on the job, but then Megan tightened her grip on her throat and Hailey forgot about the policeman’s problems. “What happened?” she asked him as she rubbed Megan’s back to calm her down.
He shook his head, and she realized he didn’t want to speak in front of the child. She didn’t like this. Her stomach clenched and the hairs on the back of her neck bristled. Even so, she smiled as she walked near the television and lowered Megan to the floor. Gently she took the girl’s quilt out of her hand and spread it on the carpet. “What kind of juice do you want?”
Megan thought a moment. “Apple.”
“Apple it is.” Hailey turned on the television, changing the channel until she found cartoons. Then she went to the kitchen and got one of the juice boxes she kept on hand. By the time she got back, the little girl was sitting cross-legged, her doll tucked safely into her lap. When Hailey handed her the juice, the girl smiled, then went back to watching Tom and Jerry.
Hailey turned to the policeman. He really didn’t look good. Aside from his obvious discomfort, his cheeks seemed hollow and his skin pale. He hadn’t shaved for a while and his dark stubble made him look gruff and hard. But his eyes told her something different. His gaze was on Megan, and the way he looked at her said worlds about the man. The little one was in some kind of trouble and he knew it. More than that, he was concerned about her.
As she signaled him to join her in the kitchen, she looked beyond the stubble and the brooding eyes. She’d thought he was handsome the first time she’d seen him, and that hadn’t changed. She wanted to know what had happened to him, whether someone was taking care of him. But that was for later.
He made it to her dining room and sat down heavily in the first chair he came to. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Standing must hurt.
“Coffee?” she asked.
He nodded. “That would be great.”
“How do you like it?”
“Black,” he said, watching her keenly as she went into the kitchen. “I’m Jack McCabe,” he said. “I’ve seen you around.”
“Yes, I recognized you, too. I didn’t know you knew Roy and Megan.”
“I don’t. I mean, I’ve seen him a few times, said hello, but that’s all.”
She poured the coffee into two mugs and brought them to the table. He took his with a grateful but worried smile. “So what happened?” she asked.
“Did you hear the sirens this morning?”
She nodded. “I didn’t realize they were at the complex. I’m so used to hearing them these days.”
“They were here, all right. Roy,” he said, lowering his voice to a whisper, “was killed this morning.”
Hailey almost dropped her mug. She put it down on the table as she fought for breath. “Killed? Are you sure?”
Jack nodded. “I’m sure.”
“How?” she asked too loudly. Moving closer to Jack, she asked again, “How?”
“He was shot.”
“What? Were you there? Was Megan there?”
He shook his head. “Megan was safe. She didn’t see a thing. It wasn’t a random shooting. Whoever killed him did it on purpose.”
“Oh, my God,” Hailey said, more to herself than to Jack. She couldn’t quite wrap her head around this horrific piece of news. Roy, dead? It was too absurd to be true. “How did you get Megan?”
“I didn’t have much choice. Roy came to my door this morning. He shoved her at me, then ran off. He said he had to go to the hospital. That his wife was sick.”
“Wife? He’s not married. His wife died several years ago.”
Jack looked over at Megan, sitting so quietly. Somehow he wasn’t surprised that Roy had lied. “Does she have any other family?”
“I think so. But not here in Houston. There might be an aunt in Florida. What did the police say?”
“Not much. But I’m gonna go to the station this morning and find out all I can.”
“You want me to watch her?”
He nodded. “Until I can get social services out here.”
The thought of Megan being surrounded by strangers, even well-meaning strangers, was unbearable. “No, please,” Hailey said. “Don’t call them. I’ll watch her.”
“That’s fine for today, but at some point…”
“Let’s deal with that later. After Megan has some time to get used to…” She sighed. “Poor little thing.”
“Yeah,” he said. “It stinks.”
“Do you have any of her things? Her clothes?”
“There’s a pillowcase stuffed with her things back at my place. I haven’t looked in it.”
“What do you say we do that now? I want to get her dressed, and then I’ll fix her some breakfast.”
“You don’t have to go to work?”
She shook her head. “I work here, out of my apartment. I design web sites.”
Jack looked at her again, more carefully this time. She was sort of attractive, but that wasn’t what drew him to her. There was a calmness about her, a serenity, that he’d never felt from another person before. No wonder Megan had wanted to come here.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
He shook his head. “We’d better go.”
She gave him a questioning look, one that forced him to focus on her eyes. Blue, very blue. And kind. He could see where a man would go for a woman like her.
“I’ll go dress and be right back,” she said. “There’s more coffee if you want it.”
He nodded as she headed for her bedroom. When she was gone, his gaze moved to the girl. She seemed calm. But what did he know?
As he waited for Hailey to return, he tapped his fingers on the tabletop, thinking about this morning. About the Taurus. Maybe it hadn’t been an HPD vehicle. It was dark. He wasn’t exactly at his mental peak. It certainly didn’t make sense. He knew most of the cops, at least from downtown. No one he knew would have done something so blatantly illegal. So if it wasn’t cops, then who? Roy had known someone was after him.
Hailey came back, dressed in worn blue jeans and a pale blue sweater that buttoned down the front. The outfit showed off her curves very nicely. She went straight to Megan. “What do you say we go get dressed?”
Megan looked up. “It’s bath time after Sesame Street.”
“I see,” Hailey said. “Perhaps Mr. McCabe will let us use his bathtub.”
Megan looked at him briefly, then back to Hailey. “I want to go home.”
Hailey picked the girl up. “Gosh, you’re getting so big!” she said. “Pretty soon, you’ll be taller than this whole building!”
Megan giggled.
“We can’t go home, sweet pea,” Hailey said, her voice as soft as a feather pillow. “Not just yet.”
Megan didn’t respond. She simply laid her head on Hailey’s shoulder.
Jack stood up, glad he’d taken that extra pain pill. His hip hurt, but not too badly. As Hailey walked to the door, he headed for the quilt and the doll, still on the floor in front of the television.
“Oh, wait,” she said, guessing what he was about to do. “I’ll get those.”
“I can do it.” A quick flash of anger seared his insides. “Just take care of the kid.”
“Sorry.”
He hadn’t meant to be so gruff with her. But dammit, he wasn’t totally helpless. To show her, he leaned over his cane neatly and came up again with Megan’s things.
“That didn’t hurt?” she asked.
He shrugged. “It’s not so bad.”
She sighed as she turned to the door. “It must be hard to be so macho all the time.”
He grinned. “Later, if you’re nice, I’ll crush a beer can on my forehead for you.”
“I don’t know if my girlish heart could take it.”
He made his way slowly out the door, grateful the woman had a sense of humor. He had the feeling she’d need it.
HAILEY PUT MEGAN DOWN beside Jack’s recliner. The room was so dark it was hard to believe it was daytime. It reminded her of a bear’s cave, albeit one with a large-screen television set as a centerpiece. There wasn’t a picture on the wall or even a plant. Old newspapers were piled up beside the couch, and empty beer bottles, three of them, sat on the small table by his chair. The place needed a good cleaning and a lot more light.
“There’s the pillowcase,” he said, pointing to the end of the couch. “I guess you can take her back to your place, huh?”
She smiled at him, making a decision that second. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to bathe her here.”
Jack looked at her as if she was nuts. “Why?”
“I’d just feel better waiting with her here. Until you get back.”
He shrugged. “Suit yourself. The bathtub is pretty clean. There are towels in the cupboard. He turned and walked down the hall to his bedroom.
His apartment was identical to hers, at least architecturally. But where hers was a warm nest, his was a place to hide from the world. She wondered again how he’d been hurt. And how awful it must be for a man as virile as him to be trapped in a broken body.
She noticed a book peeking out from underneath the TV guide, and her curiosity got the better of her. She lifted the guide and saw that it was a paperback edition of The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway. Interesting.
Jack came back a second after she stopped snooping. He’d changed into a plain white business shirt, open at the collar, but he still wore his jeans. He also had on a leather jacket, and with his somehow dangerous face and those deep brown eyes, she felt a shock of physical awareness hit her where it counted.
“Here,” he said. He held out a piece of paper to her. She took it but she didn’t look at it. She was too busy wondering about her reaction to him. He wasn’t her usual type. She liked kind men, calm men. Men who called their mothers on Sunday nights.
“My pager number,” he said. “Just in case.”
All her wayward thoughts vanished in
the blink of an eye as she was brought back to the moment by a dose of cold reality. There was a killer loose. A murderer. “You don’t think…”
“Just in case you need me to bring home some milk or something.”
“Right,” she said, not believing him. She took Megan’s hand in hers, while Jack adjusted his jacket, and it was then she caught sight of his gun, neatly holstered against his rib cage. It shook her to realize it was a real gun, capable of killing, meant to kill. She’d never been this close to a gun before.
“Are you going to tell her?” he asked, lowering his voice, even though Megan was right there.
She squeezed Megan’s hand gently. “Yes. Now go on. Find out what you can. We’ll be here when you get back.”
He looked at them one more time, then made his way to the door. She wondered how he was going to drive, but it didn’t seem prudent to bring that up. Instead, she led Megan down the hall to the bathroom, listening for the sound of the door shutting and his key in the lock. She heard both, and she breathed a little easier. Although she didn’t think she would relax completely until this whole thing got straightened out.
Who would want to kill Roy Chandler? He’d always seemed like such a nice man. He paid her generously for baby-sitting. He certainly loved Megan. Perhaps Jack was wrong, and it was just one of those horrible mistakes, a drive-by shooting or something.
It didn’t matter really, not to the little one. Either way, her father was dead. She had no one now. Not even an aunt in Florida. Hailey hadn’t liked lying to Jack, but there was no way she would let social services take this child away.
Megan put her doll on the sink counter, then pulled off her pajama top. That spurred Hailey to start the water running in the tub. She got down on her knees and tested the temperature until she got it right.
She had to admit the bathroom was cleaner than she’d imagined. Except for the Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition on the floor, it was very nicely put together. Clean towels, a sparkling sink, and the tub was spick-and-span.