Dillon’s mind raced. “Then who?”
“You mean you haven’t figured it out?” Fitz shook his head as if disappointed in Dillon’s deductive powers. “No, of course you wouldn’t have. He would be the last person you’d suspect. The informant is Al Mylinski.”
Chapter Sixteen
A scream rose in Jacqueline’s throat. No. It couldn’t be true. Al Mylinski couldn’t be Swain’s informant. He had her baby. Her baby. If he was working with Swain—
She looked to Dillon.
He didn’t even glance at her, his attention riveted on the district attorney. “Where did you get that damn fool idea?”
“I knew you wouldn’t believe me. That’s why I put out the warrant. I wanted to get Mrs. Schettler and her daughter in protective custody before the detective returned from his trip to New York. Now, where’s the little girl?”
Trembling inside and out, Jacqueline opened her mouth to speak.
Dillon threw up a hand to silence her. “Why do you think Mylinski is the informant? What evidence do you have?”
“After the antics you’ve pulled the past few days and your personal ties to the detective, do you really expect me to lay the evidence out for you? Where’s your head, Reese? If you haven’t figured it out by now, you’re officially off this case.” He turned to Jacqueline, his gaze cutting into her, sharp and pointed as a laser. “Where is your daughter, Mrs. Schettler?”
Jacqueline’s head spun. She should be able to feel if Amanda was all right, shouldn’t she? She should be able to feel it in her heart. In her soul. But she felt nothing. Nothing but the cold edge of dread. Nothing but bloodcurdling fear.
Had she put her baby in the hands of a murderer?
A chill claimed her, more bitter than the icy water of the river. She looked to Dillon. For answers. For reassurance. For anything.
Gaze riveted on the district attorney, Dillon didn’t meet her eyes. A muscle along his jaw clenched, but his eyes betrayed no emotion.
Look at me, damn it, her mind screamed. Look at me. But she couldn’t force a sound from her lips. Panic shot through her, strong as searing pain. Her knees trembled. Her heart felt as if it would explode. Look at me.
Neil Fitzroy watched her closely, as if dissecting her every movement. A deep frown creased his forehead. “You gave your daughter to Detective Mylinski, didn’t you, Mrs. Schettler?”
A strangled whimper issued from her throat. She covered her mouth with her hand. Look at me, Dillon. She reached out and touched his arm.
“Where did Detective Mylinski take her, Mrs. Schettler? There might still be time to stop him.”
Dillon finally turned to look at her. His eyes were calm, deep and dark.
And then she knew.
She didn’t have faith in the police. She didn’t have faith in the district attorney. She didn’t have faith in the system.
But she had faith in Dillon.
And if despite what Neil Fitzroy said Dillon still trusted Al Mylinski, then so did she.
She drew in a shaky breath, raised her chin and met Fitzroy’s eyes. “I don’t know where he took her. I can’t tell you anything.”
DILLON TOOK IN THE TILT to Jacqueline’s chin, the confidence in her eyes. She trusted him. Even with her daughter’s life on the line, she trusted him.
And he couldn’t let her down.
Turning back to Fitz, Dillon narrowed his eyes on the district attorney. Pressure pierced the back of his neck like a rattler sinking in its fangs. “Why are you so hell-bent on tracking down Mylinski? If he is working with Swain as you say, there isn’t a chance in hell that Amanda’s still alive.”
“Maybe not, but do you want to take that chance, Reese?” He turned his eyes on Jacqueline. “Do you, Mrs. Schettler?”
Unflinching, she returned his scrutiny.
Anger tinged Fitz’s hairline red. A snarl contorted his movie-star face. “What is wrong with you people? I know Mylinski is your friend, Reese, but you can’t sacrifice a little girl’s life out of some kind of misplaced loyalty. Where did he take her?” His voice cracked with rage. With desperation.
Desperation.
Events flashed through Dillon’s mind. Jancy’s aborted interview with Mark Schettler. Val’s not-so-secret location. Mylinski’s sudden orders to fly to New York. The material-witness warrant for Jacqueline. Fitz had a controlling hand in every situation.
And Swain’s well-placed shots on the river. He hadn’t been merely toying with them. He’d been driving them like cattle. To the railroad bridge. To Fitz.
Son of a bitch, Fitz was the informant.
Dillon looked into Fitz’s red-rimmed eyes. Revulsion clenched his gut. Why hadn’t he seen it before? “Does Swain have us lined up in his sights right now, Fitz?”
Fitz didn’t move. There was no sound except Jacqueline’s sharp intake of breath.
“Did you order him to pull the trigger as soon as I tell you where Amanda is? Or will he wait until we lead you to her? What’s the plan, Fitz? Surely you’ve worked this out.”
Fitz stared at him as if he really didn’t have a clue what Dillon was talking about. His eyes darted from Dillon to Jacqueline and back again. “Is this some kind of joke?”
Dillon didn’t buy the innocent act for a moment. “I have a better sense of humor than that. The only thing I can’t figure out is why in Sam Hill did you get into league with Swain in the first place? You’re the district attorney—why would you feed information to some two-bit criminal?”
Fitz sank his hands into the pockets of his overcoat. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Reese. Now, are we just going to sit around and talk nonsense, or are we going to rescue the Schettler girl?”
“Rescue?” Dillon almost choked on the word. “I doubt rescue is what you have in mind.”
A lighter struck flint, and cigarette smoke wafted toward them like a bad omen. “It sure as hell isn’t what I have in mind.” The smoke-roughened voice came from behind them, out of the tangle of sumac at the edge of the railroad tracks.
Jacqueline gasped.
Dillon’s gut clenched. Slowly he turned around. “Hello, Swain.”
Dressed head to toe in camouflage fatigues that were soaked to the waist, Buck Swain strode out of the tangle of naked trees and brush. He cradled a military-style sniper’s rifle in his arms, the barrel pointed directly at Jacqueline’s chest. His finger was poised over the trigger, the skin of his hand and arm scarred red and slick from the wartime heroics that had earned him the Purple Heart. “Hello, Reese. Long time no see. You look a little pale.”
Dillon stared into Swain’s eyes, dead and black as a devil’s straight out of hell.
“What? Nothing to say?” Swain clenched the cigarette between thin lips. Smoke rose from the tip and curled around his head. “Not as talkative as you were in court, eh, Reese? But then, you don’t have a jury to lie to here.”
Jacqueline shifted closer to Dillon. Eyes narrowed into slits, she glared at Swain. Her clenched fists trembled at her sides.
Dillon turned to locate Fitz. The D.A. faced him from the crook of his vehicle’s open door, a .38 nestled comfortably in his hand. Dillon had figured out the identity of Swain’s informant, but he’d done it too late. Too late for him. Too late for justice.
And too late for the woman he loved.
He looked to Jacqueline. Shivering from cold and fear, she stared Swain straight in the eye and raised her chin a notch.
Dillon swallowed into a dry throat. He loved her. With every fiber of his body, his heart, his soul. And it couldn’t be too late for her, for them. He wouldn’t let it be too late.
He swung his gaze to Fitz. Anger surged up inside him. Blistering anger. “How could you do it, Fitz? How could you help a snake like him?”
Swain raised an eyebrow in Fitz’s direction. “You mean he didn’t tell you? We’re business partners from way back. Fitzroy here is one corrupt son of a bitch. I brought him the poor, downtrodden criminals, and he fixed their
cases. For a price.”
Fixing cases. Selling justice. Bile rose in Dillon’s throat. Under all that polished political veneer the man was as rotten as any murderer he’d ever put behind bars. “Why, Fitz?”
“In a word?” Fitz said, his voice measured, precise, as if he was explaining the rules of evidence to a first-year law student. “Money. Money to look like a winner. To live in Maple Bluff, to drive the right car, to buy the right boat, to afford the friends that can put me in the district attorney’s office. The state senate. Or the governor’s mansion.”
Political ambition. It had always been Fitz’s weakness. Dillon just hadn’t realized how deep and how twisted Fitz’s ambition had become. “And Harrington? Was he responsible for letting Swain’s foster brother off with a slap on the wrist, or was that you, too?”
Fitz crooked a sardonic brow. “Harrington was fresh out of law school and more idealistic than he should have been. He was easy to manipulate.”
“And the leak in that armed robbery case? Was that you, too?”
Fitz shrugged, as if he’d been caught doing nothing more heinous than jaywalking.
Abhorrence washed through Dillon in a wave. Just the sight of Fitz turned his stomach. “And to think I believed you cared about justice.”
“Face it, Dillon. There’s no such thing as justice. Not for victims, not for their families, not even for the criminals. The system is about making deals. Pure and simple. But I never meant for it to lead to this.”
Swain let out a bitter bark of a laugh. “To murder? No. You never had the guts for anything like murder. It was up to me to keep things under wraps. To do what needed to be done.”
Fitzroy focused a condescending sneer on Swain. “And if you had done a better job in the first place, it wouldn’t have had to go so far.”
For a moment Swain looked as though he might turn his weapon on Fitzroy and put a bullet in his accomplice right then and there. Instead, he knocked the ash off his cigarette and took a long drag. “The only blood on my hands is Liz’s. My darling Liz who stumbled on our little enterprise. And I wouldn’t have offed her if she hadn’t been going to talk to the attorney general.”
Liz Kroll. Swain’s first victim. The one who had started the dominoes falling. Dillon could still picture her bloody body, still see the ribbon of red across her throat, the precise stab wound in her heart. The scene had been stripped of evidence. No murder weapon, no fingerprints, no fibers of any use. If Mark Schettler hadn’t seen Swain tossing his bloody clothing into the Dumpster behind the Schettler Brew Pub, Swain would have gotten away free as the snake who killed Janey.
Beside Dillon, Jacqueline shifted, her boot soles grinding against gravel. “You admit you killed that woman?”
“Yeah. I did Liz. But your husband? Reese got him killed. Reese and his trial. And that bartender, too. Just like Reese and his trial are forcing me to kill you and your little girl.”
Jacqueline bristled, and for a moment Dillon thought she might launch herself at Swain, rifle or no. But she remained rooted to the spot, eyes shooting daggers. “Leave Amanda alone. She won’t be any danger to you.”
“I gave you a chance to run. A chance to keep your kid safe. But you didn’t take it. It ain’t only Reese’s fault. Your daughter’s blood will be on your hands, too.”
Jacqueline took a step toward Swain before Dillon could grab her.
Swain chuckled and raised the gun barrel, aiming at Jacqueline’s face. “I’d stop if I were you, Jackie. Unless you want to make your daughter an orphan right now.”
She stopped, her body rigid. “You bastard.”
“I’ve been called worse. Just ask your boyfriend here. He’s called me worse in open court.”
Dillon willed Jacqueline to remain still, keep silent. He wanted to pull her behind him, shield her from Swain with his body. But he didn’t dare move, didn’t dare breathe, didn’t dare do anything that could set Swain off and give him an excuse to pull the trigger.
“Quit screwing around, Swain,” Fitz said, his voice tight, riding the edge. “You’re wasting time. Get serious. We need to find out where the girl is. Al Mylinski is hiding her.”
Swain brushed Fitz’s voice away with a twitch of his head, as if he was brushing away the annoying buzz of a fly. He kept the rifle barrel steady, pointed straight between Jacqueline’s eyes. “I waited far too long for this moment. Didn’t I, Reese? I listened to far too many of your lies, your insults. I’m a hero, damn it. A war hero. And you made me look like Satan himself. You’re not going to get off easy on this.”
Fitz’s sigh of disgust echoed through the still air. “No, of course not. You want to wait until some hapless witness stumbles across us so you have to kill him, too. You bungling idiot.”
Swain’s face grew red. He swung the rifle to face Fitz. A pop split Dillon’s eardrums and echoed off the river bluffs.
Fitz slumped against the Lexus and slid to the ground.
Jacqueline gasped and shuddered, staring at Fitz’s crumpled body.
Unthinkingly, Dillon reached for her. His hand closed around her wrist. He had to get her away from Swain, away from—
The rifle barrel swung around, focusing once again on Jacqueline. “Trying to protect your lady, eh, Reese? Touching, but not so fast. Let go of her. I’m not done with the two of you.”
Dillon dropped Jacqueline’s wrist.
“Over there, Jackie.” Swain motioned to the white Lexus with a nod of his head. “Just in case your boyfriend has any heroics in mind.”
Jacqueline moved away from Dillon, to the spot Swain had indicated. Eyes on Swain, she stumbled on Fitzroy’s body and fell to the ground beside him.
“Get up,” Swain ordered. “Unless you want a bullet in your back.”
She scrambled to her feet. She raised her chin and looked at Dillon. Large and round with fear, her eyes still held a spark of fire.
His lady had guts.
She glanced down and then back to Dillon. He followed her gaze. Fitz was turned slightly to the side, the butt of his .38 poking from under his still body.
Determination solidified inside Dillon, hard as iron. He had to find some way to reach the gun. Some way to save Jacqueline. Some way to save them both. “Now you’ve done it, Swain.”
“Done what? Killed him?” Swain nodded to Fitz’s still body. “Never mind him. He would have made a lousy governor, anyway.”
“That’s not what I’m talking about.” Dillon forced a cocky smile to his lips. “With Fitz you had a direct pipeline into the D.A.’s office, you had a chance of finding the little girl. Now that he’s dead, you’re out of luck. If you want to find her, I guess you’ll have to keep us alive.”
Instead of slipping, Swain’s smirk just grew wider. “Reese, Reese, Reese. You’re familiar with modern surveillance equipment, aren’t you? There are nice little devices that let a person listen in on a conversation, even when the people talking are in the middle of a river.” He turned his eyes to the bright blue sky. “It’s an awful nice day to play in Mount Hosmer Park, isn’t it?”
Dillon’s insides went cold. Mylinski and Amanda were sitting ducks for Swain and his rifle. It was over. All over.
Unless he could get his hands on Fitz’s gun. But to do so, he’d have to reach Fitz’s body. Impossible with the barrel of Swain’s rifle pointed square at Jacqueline, his finger poised on the trigger. Swain would shoot her before Dillon could take his second step.
But Dillon would have to find a way. “What do you want, Swain?”
“I want to enjoy the victory. I want you to admit I’ve won.” A full-fledged grin crept over his face, showing an even row of nicotine-yellowed teeth. He threw back his head and belted out a harsh laugh. “Can you feel it? I sure can. It feels sweet. It feels like justice.”
Justice. The word left Dillon cold. What the hell did Swain know about justice? Or Fitz, either? Their ideas of justice were as distorted and crooked as snakes in a cactus patch.
He glanced at Jacquel
ine. Her blue lips, her teeth chattering with cold, her narrowed eyes burning with rage and strength and love.
Was his own idea of justice any better? Or was it just as warped?
Ten years. Hundreds of cases. Punishing Janey’s killer with each one. Punishing himself.
His need for vengeance had so blinded him he hadn’t even realized he loved Jacqueline until it was too late. Too late to take her in his arms. Too late to tell her how he felt. Too late to make this twisted nightmare turn out differently.
He wanted Jacqueline and Amanda safe in his arms, for now and for always. He wanted a new chance at life. For them and for him. A chance to make up for the mistakes of the past. A chance to forge a new future. A future of love. Love Amanda deserved. Love Jacqueline deserved.
Love he deserved.
And he sure as hell wasn’t going to let Swain rob him of that chance.
Swain leveled the barrel of his weapon on Dillon. “Say it, Reese. I’ve won. I’ve beat you. I want to hear it from your lips.”
Dillon set his feet, tensed his muscles to launch himself at Swain. “Go to hell.”
A shot rang out.
Too late. Dillon steeled himself for the hot pain of a bullet slicing through his flesh.
But the pain never came.
Instead, Jacqueline plowed into Swain, sending his shot wild.
This was his chance.
Dillon leapt for Fitz’s body. His fingers closed over the .38. He swung around, pointing the gun just as Swain focused the barrel of his rifle on Jacqueline.
Dillon squeezed the trigger. The .38 jumped in his hand. Once. Twice.
And Swain slumped to the ground.
Chapter Seventeen
“Jacqueline.” Dillon closed his hand over her trembling shoulder. “It’s over, darlin’. Swain’s dead.”
She stared straight ahead, her eyes seeing but not seeing. Finally she tore her gaze from Swain’s crumpled form. She looked up at Dillon, her wide, haunted eyes searching his. Her face was pale, her skin as white and delicate as tissue paper. “He was going to kill you.”
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