His Witness, Her Child

by Ann Voss Peterson

  The task force. Jacqueline’s heart pounded. Swain’s informant could have sent the police to look for them. Her hands started to tremble. That was the most likely scenario. And the most frightening.

  If Swain’s mole was behind the police’s visit, she and Amanda had to get out of here. Now.

  Chapter Twelve

  Dillon looked around the cavernous white room with warehouse-high ceilings. Big cameras and stands of lights scattered the studio, their cords taped to the floor. On one side of the room a desk perched on top of a short riser, the television station’s call letters looming large on the backdrop behind it. The set of the local news.

  Jancy Brock stood near the desk, examining her makeup in a hand-held mirror before her stint on the noon show. He’d seen her only a handful of times, but it always surprised him how petite she was. Much smaller than she appeared on television. Yet not fragile. There was a scrappy quality to her. And he knew from personal experience that once she got her teeth into a story, she dug in like a Jack Russell terrier.

  Dillon strode toward her, his boots echoing on the waxed floor.

  Looking up, she crooked a perfectly shaped eyebrow. A cagey smile spread over her lips. “Dillon Reese. I can honestly say you’re the last person I expected to see walking into the studio. What’s up? Are you one of the wagons Fitzroy is circling after my big interview with Harrington on Saturday?”

  “Fitz didn’t send me.” Fact was, Fitz would be none too happy if he knew Dillon was here. Where the media was concerned, Fitz believed in treading lightly.

  “Really? Then what brings you to my neck of the woods? Do you have a hot scoop for me? Something I can use to write my ticket to a larger market?” Her eyes fairly twinkled with curiosity.

  “No, ma’am. But you have a scoop for me.”

  “Me?” An eager smile blossomed over her face. “What could I possibly know that you don’t?”

  He didn’t waste a beat. “Did you call Mark Schettler the night he was killed?”

  Jancy’s eyes moved over his face, studying, assessing. She crossed her arms over her chest. “Why? Am I in trouble?”

  “That depends. Did you call him that night?”

  “Yes, I did. I wanted to interview him.”

  “How did you get his phone number?”

  “He was at home.”

  “Yes, but his phone number had been changed. Who gave it to you?”

  She shrugged. “He gave it to me. The man liked to see his face on TV. A lot of people are like that. I didn’t dig out his phone number by any illicit means, if that’s what you’re implying.”

  “And you called him from a pay phone on State Street?”

  She thought for a moment. “I was doing a story about college binge drinking at the fraternities, and I hopped over to State Street to use a telephone. So? What’s the point to all this?”

  “When you called Mark, did you arrange to meet him later that night?”

  “Hold on a second here, Counselor.” She propped her fists on her hips. Her eyes narrowed, and she cocked her head to the side. Apparently Jancy Brock had answered all the questions she planned to. “Have you checked the constitution lately? I can meet with whomever I want.”

  “Did whomever you want include Mark Schettler on the night he was murdered?”

  “If I answer that, what do I get in return?”

  Now it was Dillon’s turn to stand his ground. He gave her an I-mean-business stare. “I’m not here to make deals. Did you meet with Schettler the night he was murdered?”

  “No.” She smiled at him, a mischievous twinkle in her eye. “But I tried.”

  “What happened?”

  “Your office nixed the idea. Really, that boss of yours loves us media types when we can be of use to him. But the moment he’s sitting on top of a powder-keg case, he won’t allow any media coverage. Zip.”

  And in this case, like most others in the past, Dillon agreed with him. “Maybe that’s because he’s interested in justice.”

  She shrugged. “I suppose. Me? I have no use for justice. Injustice makes for a better story.”

  Dillon ignored the comment. He was here to get answers, not to discuss ethics with Jancy Brock. “So Fitz called off your meeting with Mark Schettler?”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “Who called off the meeting?” If she didn’t give him a straight answer this time, he might just strangle her.

  “My sister, actually.”

  Dillon arched his eyebrows in surprise. “Your sister? Who’s your sister?”

  “Kit Ashner.”

  Kit? Dillon’s heart picked up a beat.

  “My sister is one of those justice-loving types. You know, like you and your boss.” Jancy shook her head as if loving justice were a sin. “She found out about the meeting somehow and nixed it.”

  Dillon clenched his fists at his sides. Kit had called off the meeting. At least with Jancy. But Mark had gone to the pub anyway. Had he gone for his own reasons, or because Kit never called him to cancel the meeting?

  AFTER HE LEFT the television station Dillon had planned to go directly to Mylinski’s house to see if he could catch the detective at home, but something—a nagging itch at the back of his neck, the tinge of a headache behind his eyes—had prompted him to go to the motel to check on Jacqueline and Amanda first.

  He pulled his rental car in to the small parking lot behind the motel and climbed out. The constant hum of cars speeding by on the beltline highway was the only sound disturbing the still, brittle air. But Dillon could swear something was different about the motel.

  Something was…disturbed.

  He swept the parking lot and shabby, one-story motel with his gaze. A handful of cars, mostly rusted-out buckets of junk, scattered the small lot. The drapes in all the rooms were drawn. Everything looked exactly the same as when he’d left this morning.

  The hair on the back of his neck rose like the fur of a cat smelling danger. Something had changed. He could feel it. He pulled the motel key from his pocket and started for the room. The chill creeping up his back might just be paranoia, but he’d be damned if he’d ignore it. Paranoia might be the only thing standing between Jacqueline and Amanda and death.

  He had to get them out of here.

  Automatically he sank his hand into the pocket of his duster. His fingers touched nothing but lining. Damn. He’d left the Defender with Jacqueline. But if she had the gun, surely she’d be okay. She had to be.

  He reached the weather-beaten door of room twenty-eight and slipped the key into the lock. The lock mechanism ground roughly. He pushed the door open and stepped inside.

  The rumpled bed and an unopened box of breakfast cereal stared back at him. Jacqueline and Amanda were nowhere to be seen.

  Alarm washed over Dillon in a wave the size of Texas.

  He strode across the room. The bathroom door stood open. The interior was just as deserted as the rest of the room. They were gone.

  Swain couldn’t have found them. If he had, he would have shot them where they stood. Dillon clenched his fists and gritted his teeth against the image that flitted across his mind.

  No. Swain hadn’t found them. There must be another explanation.

  The sense of foreboding clenching his stomach didn’t let up. The explanations he came up with ranged from bad to horrible. He turned away from the empty bathroom and headed back out into the sunshine. He’d ask at the motel office. Maybe they would know something. Anything.

  “Dillon.”

  He stopped dead in his tracks and spun in the direction of the whisper.

  “Next to the car.”

  He followed the direction of the voice. Jacqueline’s head peeked out from behind his rental car, her face white as the snow on the hillside behind her. The hood of a purple parka bobbed next to her, barely visible above the car.

  Relief just about knocked him over. They were safe.

  Raking the parking lot with his gaze, he ran back to the car. Without a wo
rd he unlocked the doors and they clambered inside, hunching down in the back seat the way they had the night he’d brought them to his house.

  He lowered himself into the driver’s seat, started the car and drove out of the parking lot and into the flow of traffic. “What the blazes is happening? Why did you leave the room?”

  Jacqueline’s pale face glowed in his rearview mirror. She swallowed hard and glanced at her daughter. “The police. I overheard two officers asking the man at the motel office if he’d seen a woman and a little girl. At first I thought something had happened to you. But—” Her voice faltered. She drew a deep breath and coughed. “They went from room to room. I—I didn’t know if we could trust them.”

  “Damn.” He gripped the steering wheel. Fitz had promised to wait. He’d promised to give Dillon two days before he issued the material witness warrant. He’d said he would assign someone from outside the task force to investigate. Why would he suddenly change his mind?

  Had he received pressure from the media? From Dex Harrington’s campaign? Possibly. Whatever the reason Fitz had gone back on his word, it was clear that Dillon couldn’t trust him to put this case above politics. Dillon was on his own.

  “Why are the police looking for us?”

  He looked back into the mirror. “Apparently there’s a material witness warrant out for you.”

  Jacqueline peered questioningly at him, her eyes sunken, haunted. “A material witness warrant? Like an arrest warrant?”

  “Kind of. It’s a warrant that directs the police to bring you into custody as an important witness. It’s used for uncooperative witnesses.”

  “But we’re cooperating. Don’t they know we’re with you?”

  He filled her in on his meeting with Fitz.

  By the time he’d finished, her eyes were round with alarm. “So now we’re running from Swain and the police?”

  Her question echoed to the very marrow of his bones. He’d never been on the other side of the law in his entire life. But unlike most first-time criminals, he knew the immense power and resources he faced.

  The fear on Jacqueline’s beautiful face told him that she, too, understood what they were up against. “So what do we do next?”

  It was a damned good question. And he’d better come up with a damned good answer.

  He clenched the steering wheel and stared ahead at the light traffic on the highway. There was one place he could go where neither Swain nor the police would think to look for them. At least, not right away. A place they would be safe while he figured out what to do next.

  He raised his eyes to the rearview mirror and offered Jacqueline and Amanda his best attempt at a confident smile. “How do you feel about taking a little fishing vacation?”

  JACQUELINE HUDDLED in the back seat of the rental car and tried to sort through the names and questions jumbled in her mind. Kit Ashner. Dex Harrington. Jancy Brock. Buck Swain. Who was in league with whom? Who could they trust? And how could they prove the guilty parties were indeed guilty? The questions kept coming, pounding relentlessly like a stiff, cold rain. She hugged Amanda closer. So much had happened in the past few days, but here she was back where she started. Afraid of the police. Distrusting the system. On the run.

  Except one thing was different. One thing had changed since the night she’d smuggled Amanda from the pub. She’d been alone then. Utterly alone with the entire weight of Amanda’s survival on her shoulders.

  Dillon was with her now. And if anyone could keep them safe, he could.

  She looked at his strong shoulders. The dark hair curling around the collar of his black duster. She thought of the determination in his eyes. The tenderness in his voice. The passion in his kiss.

  And now he was risking his career to protect them.

  She swallowed into a parched throat and pulled herself out of her thoughts in time to feel the car jar over potholes and sink into mud. They traveled at least a mile down the winding dirt road. Finally they came to a stop.

  “We’re here.” Dillon’s smoky drawl reached into the back seat. He swung out of the car and opened the rear door.

  Cool afternoon air wafted into the vehicle, fanning Jacqueline’s cheeks. Crisp. Refreshing. Amanda climbed off Jacqueline’s lap and out the open door. Jacqueline followed.

  She blinked back the brilliant afternoon sun and looked around. They seemed to be firmly planted in the middle of nowhere, nothing but the naked branches of trees and brush to witness their arrival. Her eyes were drawn immediately to the curving bed of the Wisconsin River. Chunks of ice floated past in the powerful current. Scrub brush dotted the bank. Each naked, twisted branch glistened with ice, multifaceted as fine-cut diamonds. The air smelled wet and fresh with the late-winter thaw.

  Jacqueline filled her lungs with the sweet fragrance and raised her arms over her head, attempting to stretch the tension from the muscles in her back. “It’s beautiful.”

  Dillon strode up and stopped next to her. His masculine scent stirred the calm air and urged her pulse into a faster tempo. “It’s Mylinski’s cabin. He brought me here about a year ago. Forced me to stay for two days and fish. Didn’t catch a thing, but I sure did a heap of relaxing.”

  She looked at him skeptically. She’d seen for herself how driven he was, how he lived and breathed his work. It was evident in everything from the intensity of his eyes to the decor of his home. “You? Relax? Yeah, right.”

  He gave her a caught-me-in-a-lie smile that sizzled along her nerves. “You got me. This place drove me crazier than popcorn on a hot skillet. Nothing to do but watch the river current and pace. Mylinski finally agreed to drive me back to civilization because he was afraid I’d wear a path in his green vinyl floor.” He shook his head at the memory. “But I can see how it might relax other people. Normal people.”

  A chuckle rose effortlessly from her lips.

  “Was that a laugh I heard?” Dillon smiled. “See? You’re relaxing already. Mylinski swears the place has magical powers.” The smile faded from his lips, and he looked down at her, his eyes filled with a softness she hadn’t seen before. “You’ll be safe here. At least for a little while.”

  Safe. She drank in the word like a woman dying of thirst. After the scare she and Amanda had had with the police this morning, it had felt as if they would never be safe again. They had hidden in the alley. No car. No money. Nowhere to go. Until Dillon had shown up. Until he’d brought them here.

  “Mommy, look at this little house.”

  She turned in the direction of Amanda’s excited voice.

  Her little girl stood outside a building about the size of a linen closet. “Can I go in here? Can this be my fort?”

  Jacqueline stifled a smile. At least this river refuge had fired Amanda’s imagination, and that was enough magic to have Jacqueline believing in anything Mylinski could dream up. “Sorry, punkin, but that’s the bathroom.”

  Amanda looked at her as if she’d lost her mind. “The bathroom?”

  “It’s called an outhouse.” Dillon unlatched the door and pulled it open. “The cabin has running water in the kitchen, but there’s no bathroom. This is what you city folks call ‘roughing it.’”

  Amanda planted her boots at the entrance and, leaning forward, peered inside. She looked back to Jacqueline and screwed up her face. “It’s a bench with a hole in it, Mommy.”

  Dillon’s chuckle tickled the air. “That’s right. It’s a bench with a hole. And I’m going to toss you right in.” He swooped Amanda up in his arms and kissed her cheek.

  The sweet sound of her little girl’s squeal and giggle brought tears to Jacqueline’s eyes. She’d been so afraid she’d never hear that carefree laugh again. So afraid she’d never again see her sunny, imaginative daughter.

  And once again, she had Dillon to thank.

  How did he know just what to do, what to say to draw Amanda out of her fear? As far as Jacqueline knew, he’d never had children of his own. Yet he seemed to know instinctively just the right amount of t
easing, just the right touch of encouragement her little girl needed to emerge from her cocoon like a butterfly in summer.

  Jacqueline drew a deep breath of fresh, wet air into her lungs and feasted on the music of Amanda’s laughter. A contented smile stretched over her lips. An inner peace beckoned her. Dillon seemed to know exactly what she needed, as well.

  Is this what he’d be like if he didn’t have this crusade hanging over his head, controlling his life? A great father figure for Amanda? A tender and caring lover for her?

  Her smile faded. The familiar worry replaced it, nipping at her heels. What would Amanda do without him when this was over?

  And what would she do?

  He set Amanda back on the ground and gave her a wink and a grin. “Let’s check out the inside of the cabin. I’ll race you.”

  Amanda took off in the direction of the cabin, her little legs churning through the snow as fast as they could go. Dillon dashed after her. Inhaling another breath of fresh, sweet air and blocking the worries from her mind, Jacqueline walked on behind.

  Perched on stilts to keep the floodwaters at bay, the cabin huddled on the edge of the woods. It was small, a one-story affair with green-painted clapboard siding and louvered windows. Amanda scampered up the steps leading to the door. “I won, Mr. Reese. I won.”

  Dillon stopped at the bottom of the stairs and smiled up at her. “First of all, you need to call me Dillon. And secondly, you sure run faster than my old bones can carry me.”

  Amanda giggled again and yanked on the doorknob. It didn’t budge. “It’s locked, Mr. Ree— Dillon.”

  “Yes, it is. But…” Dillon reached under the cabin, feeling along the edge with his hand. He straightened and held a key in the air with a flourish. “For a cop, Al Mylinski is remarkably trusting.”

  He joined Amanda at the top of the stairs, unlocked the door and pushed it open. Amanda scampered inside. Judging from the patter of her footsteps audible in the still afternoon air, she was running from one room to another. Exploring, like a normal seven-year-old.