Hearts on the Line

by Margaret Daley

  “Nothing fancy or gourmet, but I wouldn’t classify it as simple, either. In the winter I love to make soups and stews. In the summer things like taco salad, three-bean salad. Then there’s the old standbys like lasagna and spaghetti. I made things my sister and brother would eat. How’s that help you?”

  “I’m trying to get a feel for the work space you’d need.”

  “I don’t cook as much anymore since Caitlin went into the Air Force a few months ago. With just me and my killer work schedule at times, it’s hard to come home and fix a hot meal. But hopefully one day I’ll do more.”

  Quinn leaned back against the counter and folded his arms across his chest. “No boyfriend to cook for?”

  She glanced away from him. “I haven’t had a lot of time to date much, especially now with working and going to school.”

  “What are you studying?”

  “Psychology, with an emphasis on abnormal behavior. I took two classes during the spring semester, which practically did me in. This summer I’m taking it easy and only taking one, on Tuesday nights. I don’t think it will be a hard class. I begin this week.”

  “Okay. This is a start. Let’s go back to your house and let me get some measurements in the kitchen.”

  “For a man who doesn’t work on Sunday, you’re sure doing a good imitation of working.”

  “Measuring’s nothing. I could do it in my sleep.”

  The mention of sleep brought Becca back to the fact that the past few nights—ever since Quinn and she had connected on the rooftop—she hadn’t gotten a full night’s rest. In her line of business that could be dangerous. She needed to exorcise the man from her thoughts, but then, that might be most difficult if he was in her house day after day renovating it.

  “I thought all cops liked coffee and doughnuts,” Quinn said, taking a seat at Becca’s kitchen table later that afternoon.

  She splayed her hand over her chest. “I’m crushed. You must watch too much TV.”

  “TV? What’s that?” He couldn’t remember the last time he had sat down to watch even the news.

  “Occasionally I’ve caught glimpses of one in people’s houses.”

  The twinkle in her eyes spoke to him on a level he hadn’t responded to in a long time. Her renovation project was just what he needed to get back to what he loved doing at Montgomery Construction, what he had done before his father had retired. “I live on coffee,” he said while Becca stood at the old stove waiting for a copper kettle to heat.

  “I refuse to bring coffee into my house. Nasty stuff.” Retrieving two mugs from the cabinet, she poured some hot water into each one and then dunked tea bags into them. “Here, try this. Tea is much better for you than coffee.” After handing him a cup, she slid her own from the counter, then took the chair across from him. “This is chai tea. You can even have it cold if you like.”

  He stared at his mug as though it were a monster terrorizing him. “It looks like dirty dishwater.” He sniffed it, a blend of spices peppering the air. “What in the world is in it? I like my coffee black, no sugar, strong.”

  She took a sip of hers, watching him over the rim of her mug, but she didn’t say a word.

  “If I try this, then you’ll have to try my coffee. You haven’t tasted coffee until you’ve had a cup of mine.”

  “You aren’t gonna convert me.”

  Quinn smiled. “I’ve been told I have powers of persuasion.”

  Her laughter rang in the air, filling it with a sweet sound. “Sam’s tried. Even your brother. Nope, I don’t change my mind often once it’s set.”

  He cupped the mug in his hands. “So no one can change your beliefs?” Somehow he got the impression they weren’t talking about drinking tea or coffee but something much deeper. From a couple of comments she had said, he didn’t think she believed in God. Is that why You have nudged me toward Becca, Lord?

  “I’m slow to form an opinion but just as slow to let it go, too.”

  Quinn took a sip, winced, then firmly set the mug on the table. “Doesn’t hold a candle to my coffee. Is that the best you have to offer?” He relaxed back in the chair, enjoying the lightheartedness of the conversation. So much had happened lately that was serious, it had been nice for a brief time this afternoon not to have to think about Escalante seeking revenge against his family.

  She shot to her feet and stalked over to the cabinet, thrusting open its door. “Take your pick. I probably have thirty different kinds of tea for different moods.”

  “What mood is chai for?”

  She narrowed her gaze, but that twinkle still danced in her depths. “It’s for helping me to be patient.” After closing the cabinet, she sat again and drank her tea as though she was seeking that patience she had talked about.

  Sliding the mug away from himself, Quinn broke the silence with, “As I said before, I’d like to start Wednesday morning. I’ll be in and out at first because I’m still overseeing a few projects. And since the explosion last month at the hospital, we will start rebuilding that physical-therapy wing soon. I’m training Chad Morrison to do some of what I’ve been doing.”

  “How do you want to handle getting into the house? I can have irregular hours and won’t always be here in the morning to let you or your crew in. And I can’t guarantee my neighbor will always be home, either. How do you suggest we do this?”

  “You could give me a key.”

  Surprise danced across her face for a few seconds before she masked her expression and took a long sip of her hot tea. “That’s probably the best way to handle it. It’s just that…” Her voice faded into the silence.

  “What? You don’t trust anyone else with your key? Your neighbor has one.”

  “I’ve known Mrs. Williams all my life. She used to babysit me when I was young.” She shifted in her chair and looked him right in the eye. “No, I’m not a very trusting person. I realize you’ll have to have a key, but I would rather you be the only one who has access to it.” She finished the last of her tea then added, “I know I don’t have much to steal, but my personal space is very important to me.”

  “The renovation may be delayed at times. Are you okay with that?” he asked, her trust in him producing a grip on his heart that frightened him. There were too many similarities between Becca and Maggie, especially in their work. He was starting to care and that was just too risky.

  She nodded, relief in her expression.

  “Then we’ll do it that way and anyone working here with me, of course, will be trustworthy. That’s a promise.”

  His fervent look generated a tightness in her throat. She swallowed and said, “Great. I’ll have one made. I’ll make it a point to be here Wednesday to let you in and give it to you.” She shook her head. “I should have thought about this before I decided to renovate. But as you can see, all I could think about was how much this house needs in order to come into the twenty-first century. Actually, I’m thinking the latter half of the twentieth century.” She pointed toward the carved markings in several of the drawers. “That was done by my brother sixteen, maybe seventeen years ago. He got creative with a knife. Hey, maybe I should have pushed him in the direction of carpentry.”

  “I probably did some of that in my younger years. But what happened there?”

  Becca glanced where Quinn was looking, even though she already knew what he was referring to. “That was the final straw. Last week the cabinet door fell off. That’s when I decided I had to do something fast. Luckily I persuaded you to help me.”

  Closing the notepad he had been writing on, Quinn came to his feet. “I’d better be going. It’s getting late and I have a meeting at church. I’m on the building committee. Go figure.”

  “No! I would say you are more than qualified.”

  He paused in collecting his elaborate tape measure, which put her yardstick to shame. “With God you don’t have to have experience. He’ll take you any way you want.”

  “If you say so,” she murmured, remembering how the Lord h
ad turned His back on her family. He took her father then her mother, leaving two small children without their parents and her as their only hope. Remembering that time submerged her in a renewed feeling of overwhelming helplessness she had fought hard not to experience ever again.

  “I don’t. The Bible does.”

  Her partner’s faith was strong, and there had been a few times Sam had tried to talk to her about the Lord, but their partnership worked because he respected certain boundaries. She could remember crying and pleading with God to spare her mother. It hadn’t helped. She’d still died, leaving her alone at twenty with two young siblings and no ready means of support.

  Quinn headed for the front door. The quiet that had descended between them thickened. Before he left, he gave her a weak smile, a sadness in his eyes that made Becca feel she had let him down somehow.

  As she closed and locked the door, she couldn’t shake that feeling, and it bothered her that she cared what he thought. Her anger surged to the foreground. She marched back toward the kitchen to make herself another cup of tea, deciding it was best to keep Quinn at arm’s length.

  The blare of the phone startled her. Instead of going to the stove, she crossed the room and lifted the receiver. “Hello.”

  “Becca, this is Sam. I’m at the station. Stark is ready to cut a deal.”

  FOUR

  “If you ask me, Ritchie—” Becca leaned close to the man who slouched at the table in the interview room, his clothes reeking of day old sweat “—claiming Dahlia is the one who hired you to kill O’Brien is mighty convenient since she’s not around to defend herself.”

  Stark’s thin shoulders hunched even more and a scowl creased deep lines into his brow. “I ain’t lying. She’s the one. Had me up to her big fancy office at the museum after hours so’s no one would see us together. Never been in such a cold place.”

  Becca had felt the same way about Dahlia Sainsbury’s office when she’d gone through it after the woman’s murder. Maybe Stark was telling the truth. She lifted her gaze to Sam, who was lounging against the wall a few feet away. “There’s no deal if we don’t find evidence to support your accusations.”

  Sam sauntered forward, parking his body on the other side of Stark, who swiveled his head back and forth between him and Becca. “Got any suggestions where we can look for evidence to help your case?”

  “Evidence? Like what?” The man rubbed his beard-covered chin, staring at the table before him.

  “Let’s start with why she would want Neil O’Brien killed.” Becca straightened, his body odor churning her stomach.

  Stark shrugged, his hands plopping down on the wooden top with a plunk. “I knew better than to ask why. I just followed orders.”

  “So you’re just a lackey?” Sam backed off, too. “Working for a woman.”

  Stark glared at Sam. “She wasn’t calling the shots. She took her orders from someone else.”

  Becca sat on the edge of the table, her arms folded over her chest. “Who?”

  “Don’t know. But she was followin’ orders just like me. I knows these things.”

  “Did you ever hear her use the name Escalante?” Becca asked, hoping he was connected somehow to O’Brien’s murder. It made sense that Escalante was with all that had happened the past few months.

  “Es—Es—cal…” Stark shook his head. “All’s I know is her.”

  Becca walked to the door and called an officer waiting outside the room to take Stark back to his cell. As he disappeared around the corner, Sam came to her side in the hallway.

  “Looks like we have some more searching to do,” she said, turning to her partner.

  “We should start with her office at the museum tomorrow morning, since it’s closed right now. I’ll get the search warrants we’ll need in the meantime. I don’t want any lawyer able to exclude evidence if we’re lucky enough to find some.”

  “Let’s hope there’s something there to help us, because we’re running out of leads.”

  The sound of Becca’s shoes on the blond hardwood flooring in the hallway of the Colorado Springs Impressionist Museum echoed as she and Sam approached Dahlia’s office. The museum was nearly empty. The funeral for its curator was in a couple of hours. She and Sam would be attending.

  Pushing open the door, Becca entered a few steps in front of Sam. She took in the various shades of cream, surprised there were so many of one color. The sparse furnishings and minimal personal touches left Becca with a cold feeling, as if Dahlia had meant to be in Colorado Springs only temporarily.

  She headed for the desk situated before a large window that afforded a view of the front of the building and the street below. Perfect to keep an eye on who entered the museum, Becca thought as she pulled open the first drawer. While she carefully went through the desk, Sam checked a closet.

  Backing out of it, he said, “Nothing. How about you? Anything of interest?”

  “It doesn’t look any different than when we went through it right after she was murdered. I was hoping with a different perspective there would be something that could help us.” Becca shut the last drawer. “We need to check everywhere, even if it seems unlikely.”

  “Like the scene of a crime.” Making his way to the bookcase, Sam began to empty it, checking each item carefully as he did.

  Becca rose from the cream-colored chair and ran her hands over its leather. She turned it over and looked in every crevice. She would take any scrap of information. After inspecting the desk chair, she strolled to the settee and examined it thoroughly. Tamping down her frustration, she moved on to the table and lamp next to the small couch.

  “Maybe whoever murdered her took any evidence of her involvement, especially if that person was her cohort.” Becca left the table and strode to the sand-colored brick wall, where an Impressionist painting hung. “I wonder if this is the real thing.”

  Sam glanced up from a book he was flipping through. “I’m no expert, but it looks like it is.”

  Becca read the signature on the oil canvas. “Monet. Wow. Even I know who he was. They let one of these just hang in here?”

  Sam chuckled. “It is a museum with a good security system.”

  Becca hesitantly placed her hands on the sides of the painting, half expecting alarms to go off as she removed it from the wall. Carefully, she gently put it on the floor to examine it.

  “You think she’d hide something in a Monet?”

  Becca shrugged. “Just because she was an art lover doesn’t mean she wouldn’t use it if she thought it was to her advantage.” Again she trailed her fingers over every square inch of the oil canvas and found nothing.

  She hoisted it back up to rehang when she caught sight of something funny looking. One brick appeared different, as though it had been removed then slipped back into the wall. The mortar around it was crumbling. Becca leaned the painting against the wall and stepped closer.

  As she pried the brick out, she said, “Sam, I found something.”

  “What?” He covered the width of the office.

  Becca stuck her hand into the hole, her fingers tingling. She’d seen a movie once where a person was tested by putting his hands into several containers, the contents hidden from view. In one was a deadly viper. She felt something cool to the touch. She probed the metal object. Quickly she withdrew her hand, clutching a key.

  Sam stepped even closer and bent his head to inspect it in the palm of her hand. “Looks like a safety-deposit-box key.”

  “That would be my guess, but which bank?”

  “Hopefully at a nearby one. We’ve got our work cut out for us, if not.”

  Becca closed her hand around the key and slipped it into her pocket. “Let’s finish up. Maybe we’ll find something else. Then we need to get to the funeral.”

  “It sure would solve some of our problems if Escalante decided to pay his last respects to Dahlia.”

  “But he’s changed his appearance since the plane crash last year. Even with Alessandro’s description it
may be hard to tell who he is, especially if he’s wearing a disguise.”

  “Yeah, I know.” Sam walked across the office to complete his inspection of the massive bookcase along one brick wall. “Besides, if Dahlia was involved in the drug ring, that means she was a partner with Escalante. So did they have a falling out or did someone else kill her?”

  “Even if they had a falling out, what would make Escalante kill her? She was still able to move freely around Colorado Springs, since we didn’t have enough evidence to tie her to the drug ring.”

  “We need to delve deeper into Dahlia Sainsbury’s background. Maybe we can find an answer to that question.”

  Becca moved on to the next picture on the wall, a pen-and-ink drawing of the Tower of London. It wasn’t even noon and already the day was long. After the funeral she and Sam would go to Dahlia’s apartment and search it again. She slid her hand into her pocket to reassure herself the key was there. Something told her this would be all they would find.

  Becca cupped the mug of hot tea in her hands and breathed deeply of the orange and spices that flavored it. Scanning her kitchen, she noted another cabinet door hanging lopsided and was so glad that Quinn would start today. At least one thing in her life would get fixed.

  After spending all day Tuesday calling banks in the area, she and Sam hadn’t turned up where Dahlia’s safety deposit box was until near closing time for the banks. She’d finally located one where Dahlia had opened a box recently. Sam would procure a search warrant first thing this morning, and they would drive to the bank outside Colorado Springs off the interstate going to Denver. Dahlia sure hadn’t made it easy for them or for anyone else who might have discovered the key.

  Becca blew out a long breath, then took a sip of her warm tea. Checking her watch, she realized Quinn should have arrived fifteen minutes ago. Hurriedly she finished eating her bran muffin and drinking her tea. As she took her plate and mug to the sink, the doorbell chimed.