by Janet Dailey
Bannon stood by and let her do what she needed to do.
He wanted to go to her.
Breathing hard, she stopped her circular motions and turned on the cold faucet full blast, rinsing the powder and tiny scraps from the sponge down the drain. Then she held her hands under the water until they were red, staring fixedly into the swirling water in the sink.
He had to do something. Bannon went over and turned the faucet off, handing her a dish towel, deliberately not making eye contact. Then her legs began to buckle.
Bannon caught her before she fell, wrapping her in his arms and letting her take out her fury and fear on him. At least a minute ticked by as she hammered at his chest, and she hit hard. Bannon took the punishment for the man who’d stalked her and found her. He held her close, outwardly calm until her raging emotions began to subside. She didn’t have to know that he considered himself to blame for putting her in harm’s way.
He should have been here. Next time—hell. There wasn’t going to be a next time. He’d keep her safe.
When she lifted her face to his gaze, his heart damn near broke. Swollen and blotchy were his new words for beautiful and strong. Bannon pressed his lips together to keep from kissing her.
“I—I guess I’m done,” she murmured. “No guarantees, though.”
“Punch me some more. Whatever it takes.”
She managed a wan smile that didn’t last long. “No. Sorry. Did I hurt you?”
“A couple of times, yeah, you actually did. You’re tougher than I thought, Erin.”
She shook her head. “I don’t think so. But I would have gone for the guy with the hammer.”
Charlie came over to her and brushed against her leg, then stayed there.
“Glad he was here. I can’t tell you how glad,” Bannon said flatly.
“I’m not sure I’m going to be able to give him back.”
“Ah—” Bannon hesitated. “We can talk about that some other time. He’s yours for as long as you need him.”
She nodded and turned toward her bedroom. “That’s good to know.” Then she stopped and looked back toward Bannon, her blue eyes huge and vulnerable. “I can’t go in there. I just can’t.”
“You don’t have to. What do you need?”
“Clothes. I want to change,” she said weakly.
“I’ll bring some things out.” Bannon took her by the shoulders and used a little body language to get her to sit down in one of the chairs.
“I guess I should shower first,” he heard her say as he went into the bedroom. He looked over his shoulder. She’d gotten up and was pacing.
“You can do both at my place.”
She waited a beat before replying with a distracted “What?”
“You’re staying with me. Where else are you going to go?”
He grabbed armfuls of clean, sweet-Erin-smelling jeans and tops and socks and bras and panties from random places. Then he went back to where she was.
“Hadn’t thought about it. Hey—” She came over and picked up a few items. “There’s enough here for a month.”
“Yeah. I’m giving you the bedroom. I’m taking the couch. Got a duffel bag or something?”
She gave him a dazed look. “Somewhere.”
“Don’t forget to bring your art supplies. You can pack those yourself. And don’t worry about being in my place alone if I’m not there. It’s secure. My brother rigged a system for me. Flip a switch, you’re safe. And there are neighbors.” He couldn’t think of their names. Not a selling point.
“Bannon—”
She was bent over and reaching into a lower shelf. She dragged out a gigantic duffel bag that would hold everything in his arms and then some.
“One more thing. Don’t argue.”
Erin unzipped the bag. “I’m not sure this is the right thing to do.”
“It’s not permanent. But you can’t stay here.” He dumped the armload of clothes into the bag and she zipped it right back up, her mouth set in an unhappy line.
A short-order cook flipped the last pancake onto a plated stack and let the roadhouse waitress take it away. She brought the breakfast order to a lanky man slouched with his hands in his jacket pockets, the solitary occupant of a booth with two place settings. “Syrup?”
He nodded without looking at her. She took a couple of steps over to a condiments-and-cutlery station and got it for him.
“I guess you want to get started on that before your friend gets here.”
He didn’t answer, not picking up the cup of coffee she’d provided a few minutes ago, only staring at the wall opposite him.
“Let me know if you need anything.” The woman walked away. This time his eyes followed her, blinking at every swish of her pleated skirt.
Cutt felt the air move when the door opened and Hoebel breezed in. The chief’s heavy tread came his way and in a few seconds they were facing each other across the speckled tabletop of the booth.
“How’s it hanging?” Hoebel asked, looking over his shoulder for the waitress.
The other man didn’t bother to reply. He reached for the syrup jar and drenched the pancakes, then used his fork to steady the stack, sinking his knife into it until it clicked against the plate.
Hoebel turned back to him and noticed the gauze carelessly wrapped around the middle of Cutt’s hand. Dark red blood was seeping around his thumb as he ate. The sight made the chief frown. “What happened to you?”
“I was fixing a window this morning. It broke.”
The chief eyed him warily. “Looks like you need stitches.”
“Maybe so. It won’t quit bleeding.” Cutt held up his hand to show his palm and a queasy look flashed over the chief’s face. That side was worse. A lot worse.
“Go to Valley General. Tell ’em I sent you. You got work to do.”
“Okay. Like what?”
The chief leaned over the table and lowered his voice. “Need you to follow up on some accounts. Rough up the no-pays all you want. We’ve got cash flow problems.”
“Want a report?” Cutt tugged at the wrapped gauze, adjusting it.
“No gory details. I don’t want to lie under oath if you get carried away. Just bring me the money.” He took a piece of folded paper out of his jacket pocket and slid it across the table to the other man. “Here’s the list.”
Cutt unfolded the paper and glanced at the handwritten names underneath it. “Doesn’t Montgomery owe you?”
Hoebel shrugged. “Yeah, but he’s stalling me. I can’t exactly shake him down hard. Think of this as a helluva fast way to raise capital on our own.”
“If you say so. I’m no businessman.”
The chief smirked. “You’re the muscle. I’m the brains.”
“Is that so.” Cutt shoveled bites of pancake into his mouth one after another, hardly chewing before he swallowed. The greedy way he devoured his meal made Hoebel put a menu in front of his face.
“Just coffee for me,” he told the waitress when she came over.
“Okay. Coming right up.” Her voice was as sunny as her smile. But she walked away quickly when she noticed the bloody bandage on Cutt’s hand.
The men left together about an hour later. Hoebel led the way to Valley General, waving Cutt onward into the parking lot as he drove off, whistling tunelessly. In another couple of minutes he was zooming up the ramp of the highway that would take him to Wainsville.
High time he put in an appearance at the station, just to let everyone know who was boss. His second-in-command might get ideas otherwise.
Seemed like a minor scandal was brewing over missing and tainted evidence. A nitpicking judge was about to flush a high-profile trial down the courthouse toilet because of Petey’s lazy mistakes signing materials and folders in and out. The whole damn police department would be blamed for the lapses and a couple of felons might go free. Hoebel didn’t need the bad publicity. His son-in-law had better pull up his socks and put down the girlie magazines he was always reading or Hoebel would
have to fire him.
Unfortunately, Petey had no other way to provide for Hoebel’s darling daughter, who didn’t work. He sighed irritably, switching lanes just for something to do. No, she would come whining to him for money the second Petey got the ax. Nothing doing.
Hoebel had learned a couple of things from being married to her mother: don’t share and don’t play nice. The fat bonus he planned to pay himself when that punk hacker started draining Monty’s accounts was going to make the blackmail money look like chump change, and it was going to be all his.
He pulled off the highway and took a two-lane back road to Wainsville to give himself more time to think. There was another problem he’d let slide.
Bannon.
The chief had no idea why Montgomery hadn’t complained directly to him about the TV interview and the attendant publicity—it sure as hell wasn’t because the tough old guy was intimidated or anything by having to pay him off. That was a business arrangement, nothing more. Hoebel personally didn’t know what the detective was up to. Bannon had always been too improvisational, to his mind. And too damn smart for Hoebel’s good. The chief pondered the situation as he drove on. Might be worth slapping a hidden GPS beacon on Bannon’s car to follow his movements for a while, see if any patterns emerged.
Such as back-and-forth trips between the old Montgomery mansion and Bannon’s place. The young detective had gone there once that Hoebel knew about. Return visits would mean he was looking for something. It’d be almost funny if he had something on Montgomery too.
Like what?
Hoebel pondered the question, thinking that Bannon was most likely after the reward. If so, he was following a trail gone cold decades ago. But maybe that could be it. He knew the detective was broke or close to it. His continuance-of-claim forms were clogging the in-box on Hoebel’s desk, along with a thousand other things that Jolene had tagged for him to sign. He hated paperwork. The chief considered himself a man of action, and he had the aviator sunglasses to prove it. He adjusted them in the rearview mirror.
Bannon’s involvement was one more reason for Hoebel to do an end run around Montgomery. The old man did seem to be nervous about the reward money, judging by the after-midnight fiddling around with his hidden accounts. But he’d be crazy to think that little Ann was still alive. More likely Montgomery just needed the dough.
Hoebel did too. And if the two million ended up with him, and sooner rather than later, it wasn’t stealing per se. Montgomery hadn’t settled his bill—and never would. He grinned. That was the beauty of blackmail. He wondered how the old man would react when the reward got sucked out of the trust. He’d probably have a stroke. Join the crowd, Hoebel thought cynically. Bluebloods like Montgomery were a dying breed.
Coroners’ reports for the oldest family names in Virginia landed on Hoebel’s desk now and then, when the circumstances of the death were ambiguous.
Cirrhosis of the liver could look like poisoning. Suicide could be faked by interested parties, including the victim, for a major insurance payoff. Then there were the riding accidents. Broken necks and not a horse in sight. Or fun with guns. Men got shot for fooling around with other men’s wives. By the angry husbands. Or their own wives.
Montgomery seemed to toe that particular line. But he wasn’t long for this world, in Hoebel’s professional opinion. Too many secrets, too much stress. A stroke would be better than blowing his brains out, if the old man got that lucky. No one would cry.
Not Hoebel, that was for sure. No, the chief would have to skip the funeral, if it came to that.
The police station building came in sight as Hoebel mentally reviewed his plan for early retirement. Buy a beach house for cash, sock the rest away in an offshore account where his soon-to-be ex-wife couldn’t get her claws on it. He’d let her pay for the divorce. Georgina wouldn’t miss him much.
His thoughts turned again to his least favorite detective. Interesting that Bannon had latched on to the case just as Hoebel was in the process of making the documentation on it disappear into storage. At least the TV reporters had stopped yammering about it during the last few days. The chief guessed that their appeal to the public hadn’t turned up any significant new leads. He’d left it to Jolene to sort out the letters and e-mails sent directly to the station house. Not that he’d looked at any. What for?
That little girl wasn’t ever coming back. If any remains turned up, he could make ’em disappear.
He parked in his reserved slot and got out, going quickly up the steps to the front doors. When he saw his reflection, he smoothed down his hair, telling himself that it looked okay for a man on the far side of forty. Not thick. Not thin. But hanging in there, like the rest of him.
Hoebel breezed past the rookie at the front desk, whose name escaped him at the moment.
“Morning, Chief.”
Hoebel nodded rather than reply. He could see Jolene from here, and he’d much rather chat with her. Even though she was on the phone right now. Probably that boyfriend again. He’d met the guy—he seemed too young for Jolene. Hoebel hooked his thumbs on either side of his belt buckle and walked to her, stopping by the side of her desk to get her to hang up.
She said good-bye in a low voice as he let go of his belt and reached across her for a stack of mail.
“Was that a personal call, Jolene?”
Her hand blocked his as she looked up. “No. I was talking to Doris. And I haven’t opened that stack yet.”
“Bad girl.”
His teasing fell flat. “I was catching up on other things. And I wasn’t sure if you were coming in.” She gathered up a sheaf of pink-paper memos and a thick pile of letters stapled to the envelopes they’d arrived in. “Here’s your messages and the correspondence from yesterday.” She thrust all of it at him and he had to take it.
It rankled him a little that she didn’t call him chief or sir, but he still felt like flirting. “Looks like I’m popular.”
That got him a frosty smile. “I wouldn’t know.”
Exasperated, the chief opened his hands and dropped the whole mess on her desk in front of the framed picture of her boyfriend. Jolene needed to get her priorities straight.
But he wouldn’t write her up for insubordination. She was wearing a short skirt, from what he could see of it. He’d ask her to come into his office to make sure.
“Open today’s mail and put the important stuff on top. Bring everything to me in five minutes.” Hoebel went into his office and shut the door behind him.
Jolene got busy with a sharp letter opener, slitting one envelope after another without looking up again until Doris came down the hall.
“Jolene, how come you hung up on me?”
“I had to.” The younger woman cast a meaningful glance at the closed door. “He wants his mail served on a silver platter.”
“Aha. So he decided to show up,” Doris said in a low voice. “Big of him.”
“Isn’t it?” Jolene put the last of the morning’s letters on top of the pile. “When I came in there were five burglaries posted on the board. In this town that counts as a crime wave. And we’re getting tons of mail about the Montgomery case, not that he cares. The way he swaggers in here makes me sick.”
She got up, imitating the way Hoebel walked with his thumbs behind his belt, taking several steps.
Doris laughed.
“It’s not that funny,” Jolene said with a small smile on her lips. “He’s always hitting on me.”
“File a lawsuit.”
“You have to have proof and it takes years. All I want to do is quit. But I can’t afford to. Nick and I want to get married and have a nice honeymoon.” Jolene grabbed the letters and papers. “Be right back.”
Doris parked herself on the edge of the younger woman’s desk. “Leave the door open. I’ll sit here where he can see me.”
Jolene winked at her as she walked to Hoebel’s closed door and knocked.
“Come on in. I’m ready for ya.” The chief’s drawled reply
made Doris roll her eyes with disgust. The women exchanged a conspiratorial smile.
Turning the knob, Jolene went in, opening the door wide and flipping down the stop with her foot, to his obvious annoyance.
Doris made it worse by grinning cheerfully at him. “Hey there. We decided to go out for coffee,” she announced. “Can we get some for you?”
Jolene went along with the ruse, nodding at Doris. She set the organized pile of mail on top of his messy in-box, straightening the different-sized papers before they all slid out. “I know how you like it,” she purred.
“Uh—” He stopped mid-sentence when he realized he’d been had.
“Skim milk and no sugar, right?” Jolene asked. “Georgina told me you’re on a diet.”
“Yeah,” he muttered.
Bannon unlocked the door to his condo and stepped aside to let Erin go in ahead of him. They had stopped on the way to get her some things at a big-chain drugstore. He’d tried to be unobtrusive, but she hadn’t seemed to mind him hovering at the end of various aisles.
You never knew.
He’d checked his rearview mirror often enough on the way here. The roads had been largely free of traffic and no one seemed to be following them.
She had stared straight ahead, holding a sketchpad to her chest like it was a shield. The rest of her art supplies were in an old tackle box next to the large duffel bag that held her clothes.
He had that slung over his shoulder as he entered. Bannon put the duffel down on one of the boxes from the TV station, moving it with his foot to line it up with the other one. His place looked like a storage unit as it was, even without the two giant cartons by the door. Kelly had kept her part of their bargain, maybe too well. Both were probably packed with crazy letters and a gazillion printed e-mails. Too bad he’d forgotten to be careful what he wished for.
“Home sweet home,” he said to Erin. “It’s kind of a mess at the moment. Sorry about that.”
She shook her head. “I don’t care. And it’s not like you were expecting me.”