by Janet Dailey
He’d follow her anywhere. “Sure. Name the day.”
“Soon. Let me check my social calendar,” she teased him.
She led the way down the hall and back down the stairs, exiting with him through the front hall, carefully punching in numbers on the keypad while he waited. This time he took her hand as she put her foot on the first outside step. Erin didn’t pull away.
A tall figure stood outside the glass doors of Duncan, Hobert & Giles, his expression lost in the subdued lighting of the office building at night. He scowled when Olliver Duncan came hurriedly down the hall and unlocked the door from the keypad on his side.
“Hello, Hugh,” Olliver said a little breathlessly, holding open the door, “come on in. Sorry to keep you waiting. I was alone—”
Hugh Montgomery swept past, ignoring his lawyer’s greeting and heading down the hall to the office where they usually transacted business.
“Did I interrupt something?” Olliver asked, catching up and rounding his desk to go to his swivel chair. “Sit down, please. You did say to contact you if Bannon—”
“Here I am. Get to the point.”
“Right.” Olliver Duncan put on his glasses and began to type on his computer keyboard. “Let me see if I can pull this up—shoot. No. Wait a minute—”
Montgomery slammed a hand down on the desk. “I was at a horse auction. And I want to get back. There’s a party afterward and people I need to talk to.”
“Of course, of course,” Olliver said soothingly. “Now I have it.” He turned his monitor around so Montgomery could see the screen, then got up and stood behind him, holding the tiny remote control for the computer and clicking its arrowed button.
“Good.” The single word from Montgomery held icy condescension.
“After the story broke on the news, I assigned our security tech to review the daily tapes—well, these aren’t tapes, of course. It’s all digital now. Much better images.”
“I hope so. The system is costing me a fortune.”
In jittery black and white, Erin and Bannon made a fast-forward entrance to the house and went through the rooms again and again. Olliver paused the digital feed here and there when Hugh told him to.
“There’s our boy,” the lawyer said. “Wonder what he’s looking for.”
“Spycams, what else,” Montgomery said dryly. “I didn’t get the feeling he was stupid, did you?”
His lawyer didn’t answer that question. “Should I make a call, get him busted for trespassing?”
Montgomery shook his head, watching the screen closely. “The girl had the right code or the security alarm would have gone off.”
“Obviously. If you don’t mind my saying so.”
Montgomery shot the lawyer a quelling look. “I do mind.”
“Sorry. But Bannon wasn’t supposed to be there. And who is she, anyway?”
Montgomery interrupted him with a curt gesture. “Shut up. Stop it right there. On her, full face, not profile. And zoom in.”
The pixels formed and reformed into mosaics, changing continually until the young woman’s face filled the screen. Montgomery’s cold gaze moved over the image.
“Recognize her?” Duncan wasn’t following the order to shut up.
It was a while before the older man answered. There was a slight hitch in his voice when he did. “No.”
CHAPTER 5
Erin’s house was small, with weathered white paint that clung to what looked like hand-hewn clapboards. Bannon had said an immediate yes to her two-days-later invite and she’d met him in town. Now he went up the front steps behind her, glancing briefly at the Blue Ridge looming overhead. Where she lived was much closer to the mountains than Wainsville. The sparse woods that marked the edge of the valley thickened on the slopes, covering the rugged land in forested folds of deep blue and gray.
She took a key out of her pocket, unlocked the door, and turned to him with a slight smile. “Come on in.”
Without commenting on it, Bannon noted that the lock was new. Its bright brass gleamed reassuringly in the afternoon sun. A good thing, since her house seemed to be some distance from town, if you could call the scattering of houses that. He could just make out part of the sign for the old-fashioned general store and gas station fifteen miles down the road, at the solitary stoplight they’d driven through, as he followed her in his car. He’d scoped it out—definitely the kind of joint where you could get a MoonPie and a bottle of RC Cola to wash it down, and find out where the trout were biting while you were at it.
She motioned him inside and Bannon stepped over the threshold, looking around at a large, sunny room that had been turned into a studio. “Great place. How long have you been here?”
“About three years. Actually, it belongs to a friend who moved to Vermont to teach art at a college there. She didn’t want to leave it empty and she asked me to house-sit at no charge.”
“Aha. Good deal.”
“Yes, it is.” Erin waved toward pine plank shelves filled with art supplies and pads of paper. “It has everything I need already built in.”
He nodded. There were cardboard boxes on the bottom shelves marked with the same word over and over. Home. Home. Home. A lot of life could get packed up in boxes that never got unpacked. He had a few in one of the condo’s closets.
He counted about twenty on her shelves, different sizes. He’d guess they held mementos, maybe toys, letters, and albums. His first look around didn’t catch any family pictures or photos of anything like a farmhouse. He’d sort of expected one or two of her as a knock-kneed kid on a porch, with her mom and dad.
His gaze moved next to the high windows. Their glass was old, the same type she’d admired at the barn restaurant, but the panes were thinner and more fragile. At least the thumb locks on top of each frame were turned. For what it was worth. Vintage windows were easily forced. The breeze outside, strengthening again, rattled them audibly.
Erin went to one window and pressed a hand against it to steady the frame. “I should caulk these, but I never seem to get around to it. The house is old—probably older than the Montgomery mansion, don’t you think?”
He shrugged. “Could be.”
“The answer is yes.” She laughed. “And I feel it every time the wind blows. But my friend doesn’t want to install new windows. Anyway, I love the light. It’s always changing.”
Bannon nodded and put his hands in his pockets, not sure where to sit, or even if he wanted to. There were a lot of things he wanted to look at without seeming nosy, beginning with a tall easel that held a thick pad of watercolor paper she’d been sketching on.
She put her things on a drop-leaf table by the door and went into the kitchen area.
“Should I start some coffee?” she called.
“Sure.” They’d finished a late lunch at another out-of-the-way place, a farmhouse that doubled as a B&B and served meals on the weekends. The generous portions had made them too full for coffee afterward, but he was ready for some now.
“Want cookies? I made them.”
“Hell yes. Thanks.”
He moved in front of the easel, studying the large, unfinished drawing of a horse in her distinctive style, standing to one side in a vast, featureless landscape. Idly he wondered why so much of the paper had been left blank.
“I like this,” he said when she came back into the room, gesturing toward the empty part of the paper. “But there’s more to come, right?”
She nodded. “Good guess. It’s for a book cover. The title goes here”—she ran one finger along the top of the sketchpad, then the bottom—“and the author’s name goes here.”
“That leaves room for a whole herd of horses in the middle.”
Erin laughed. “Nope. There’s only going to be one.” She gestured at the paper. “They want a gorgeous sunset in the background. But it can’t be more gorgeous than the hero. He’s supposed to stand next to the horse, hand on the bridle. I was hoping to find a photo in this I could use.” She picked
up a glossy equestrian magazine and riffled the pages with a sigh before she tossed it back down. “No luck.”
“Too bad.” He remembered the photo he’d seen on Facebook of her working from a torn-out magazine page. “What kind of man are you looking for?” He had to laugh a little at what he’d just said. “Uh, that didn’t sound right. Sorry.”
Erin’s pretty lips turned up at the corners. “I knew what you meant.”
Bannon covered the awkward moment by saying, “Fill me in. How do you get a book cover assignment living way out here? Do you have an agent in a big city or something?”
“No. The art director for the publisher tracked me down online. Like you.” There was a teasing light in her eyes.
“Wait a minute,” he said with mock indignation. “You contacted me, if I remember right.”
“Bannon. You said—”
“Okay, okay. I did plan to find you one way or another.”
She smiled to hear that. “Anyway, I have a really good computer and scanner and all that—a friend set it up for me. So I don’t really need an agent.”
A friend. That term, according to his second-date interpretation, meant ex-boyfriend. They hadn’t gotten around to discussing priors. He told himself he didn’t care if the guy was smart or whatever. No picture of him on display, no problem.
For most of the afternoon they had both avoided discussing the case that had brought them together in the first place and he wasn’t about to bring it up now. Doris hadn’t found anything new and Chief Hoebel hadn’t bothered her. Bannon was relieved about that.
“And here we are,” Erin said.
It had been tough to wait two whole days to see her again, but he didn’t want to seem too eager. He hadn’t been expecting to be invited to her house that fast. He liked what he saw. It was sunny and small, the opposite of the Montgomery mansion, whose brooding atmosphere still lingered in his mind.
“I like your place. Feels friendly.”
“Thanks,” she said simply. “So where do you live? You never really said.”
“In a condo. It’s basically a big white box. Boring, huh? The painting I bought from you is the best thing in it. It’s up on the mantel.”
Erin seemed pleased. “Oh. I hope I get to visit. It’s always interesting to see what work looks like in someone else’s house,” she added.
“Sure, of course. Whenever.” He made a silent vow to clean up the second he got back. A forgotten beer bottle or two and tossed socks didn’t count as interior decoration.
Bannon switched back to the previous subject, looking at the pad of paper on the easel again. “So, have you designed book covers before?”
Erin shook her head, studying the sketch herself. “No, this is my first. But it pays well. I’d love to do more.”
“You will,” he said emphatically.
“Think so? I wish the art director had been more specific—he wants the first sketches in two weeks,” she said with a sigh. “If he likes what I send, then I get the job.”
“Your work is really good, Erin.”
Her answering smile warmed him and so did the aroma of brewing coffee. The coffeemaker beeped and Bannon walked away from the easel to follow her into the kitchen.
She took out two cups, one tall, one short, from a cabinet above the sink, stretching up with the lithe grace he’d noticed the first time he’d met her. He caught a flash of smooth skin when her movement briefly bared her waist, and his mouth went dry. He swallowed hard, looking at her hands instead.
In swift movements over the counter, she collected an old sugar bowl and spoons before she put two different saucers under the cups. “Nothing matches,” she said cheerfully. “Hope you don’t mind.”
He shook his head. “Why would I?”
“If something breaks, I don’t have to care. Life is easier that way, don’t you think?” Her light, chatty tone caught him off guard for a second.
“I know what you mean,” he replied. “And I don’t have to answer to anyone but a cat. He hasn’t complained yet.”
Okay. He had officially declared himself single with no significant attachments at all, something they hadn’t gotten around to talking about. He had to hand it to Erin. Somehow she had managed not to ask that important question directly, but now she had her answer.
“A cat, huh? What kind?”
“Tiger-striped. His name is Babaloo. For no good reason. But he answers to it.”
“Cats are good company. Dogs too. I always had a big mutt growing up but after my parents died”—she hesitated—“I was moving around too much to take care of one.”
The thought of her being alone bugged him in one way, pleased him in another. He remembered the online photo of her working and the man’s shirt she’d been wearing in it. If he got a chance to check the back of the doors, he could see whether the shirt was hanging on one, look at the inside of the collar for a laundry mark with a name—no. There was no way in hell he was going to do that.
Police training was a curse sometimes.
Erin was looking at him, her china blue eyes wide and thoughtful. “Milk or cream?” she asked.
“Neither. Black is fine. And no sugar for me.”
She lifted the lid of a fat, brightly striped jar and took out several irregularly shaped cookies that smelled fantastic. “Here you go. Baked yesterday.”
“Sign me up.”
Erin arranged everything on a tray and turned to head toward the studio. Bannon went ahead of her, assuming they would eat at the drop-leaf table, but she didn’t bother to clear it off, going over to the pine shelving instead. She set down the tray on a cleared-off shelf. Resting on the floor underneath it was a steamer trunk with studded trim and leather handles. She pulled it out, unfolded two chairs, and positioned the tray on top of the trunk. “Sorry. I don’t have much in the way of conventional furniture.”
Bannon chuckled. “This works fine for me. Hand over the cookies and nobody gets hurt.”
She settled herself gracefully and picked up the plate, extending it to him.
They ate a few, then sipped their coffee. He was having a hard time reading her, and he was usually pretty good at it. Still, it had been a while since he’d been this close to a beautiful woman. Bannon hardly knew what to say, and he was glad she’d given him the tall cup with the extra coffee so he could stall for time with it.
She finished hers and set it down with a satisfied sigh. “I needed that.”
He murmured agreement as he looked at her over the rim of his cup, riveted for a fraction of a second by the absentminded but sexy way she patted her lips with a napkin.
Erin folded her hands over her crossed knees, looking thoughtful. “Hey, I meant to ask you if there were any more leads on the Montgomery case. We didn’t talk about it. Unless you don’t want to.”
He set down his cup, empty at last. “No, it’s okay. The answer is nothing much. But I have to check in with my contact at the TV station. I know they got thousands of e-mails—my guess would be that they’re still sorting them out.”
Erin had seen the segment, of course, but she knew nothing about Kelly Johns. And Bannon wanted to keep it that way.
“I wonder if they plan to film the Montgomery mansion,” she mused. “Would you know?”
“Ah—no, I don’t. But they might. With that level of interest, they’re likely to keep the story on the front burner.”
Erin nodded, thinking it over before she spoke again. “Was that your plan?”
Bannon was taken aback by the blunt question. She had a knack for getting to the point sometimes. He hadn’t told her much of anything about the reasons for his decision to bring the cold case back into the public eye. “More or less,” he hedged. “It was kind of a fluke that I saw the Montgomery files in the first place. I got interested from page one.”
“Why? You never did say.”
He took a deep breath. Maybe he shouldn’t explain, but he trusted her. “Because it was headline news for months back then and
never solved,” he said finally. “It seemed to me that the case shouldn’t be declared cold, and it was about to be. Forensic techniques have changed a lot since then. We can pick up a lot of information we used to miss. I thought it was worth a try.”
Erin nodded. “You’re not the only one working on it, are you?”
“No. Technically, I’m on official leave anyway. So a colleague at headquarters is doing the research for now.” He couldn’t tell her everything.
“I didn’t realize that.”
Somehow he’d assumed that she would automatically look him up online, find out the particulars of his background if she could. Didn’t everyone do that these days? Not her, apparently.
“Once I stumbled on it, I realized a case like this could get me up to speed again. So I took it on.”
Erin nodded. “Why exactly were you on leave?”
Bannon took a deep breath. A few minutes of life-threatening terror and two years of numb despair didn’t add up to much. Keep it simple, he told himself.
“A drug bust went wrong, and it was me or the dealer’s two little boys. So I put my hands up and played target dummy. He blew a few holes in me. Took a while to recover.”
“What happened to the boys?”
“They lived,” he said shortly. “He escaped with them. I don’t know where they are now.”
Erin smiled. “You’re a hero.”
“Sort of. I could have done better.” He was in the hot seat. Bannon hated to talk about himself in those terms. His back chose that moment to twinge painfully but he kept his expression impassive. “They were just kids. I still feel responsible.”
She looked at him for a long moment, her china blue eyes unfathomable. “I’m not going to argue with you. You were there. I wasn’t.” Then she rose to take the tray and cups back to the kitchen. He watched her walk away, her skirt swishing against her bare, shapely legs, and felt an agonizing pang of desire.
This is a second date. Take it slow, he told himself. But he couldn’t really call their tour of the Montgomery mansion a first date. It had been more like an excuse for making a connection with her. That, and necessary research on the case. He should have accomplished something in the way of following up by now, whether or not Doris’s clandestine investigating had stalled.