by Janet Dailey
As for Bannon—hell, he didn’t have time to spy on the guy at the moment. Hoebel dragged the stapled reports and spreadsheets back in front of him.
The department was going to have to cut back. No overtime for the officers; involuntary furloughs for some of the non-uniformed staff. He could kiss the walnut paneling he wanted for his office good-bye—if he put in for a new pencil cup to go begging with, he’d be lucky to get it.
Like his jurisdiction didn’t have enough problems. The beautiful rural country around Wainsville wasn’t immune to crime, and the statistics confirmed it. The numbers for residential burglaries and related crimes were trending up—that made a lot of folks unhappy. Especially rich folks. They felt entitled to complain to high-level officials who could put him through the wringer because the corresponding numbers—for arrests—were down. The bad guys were getting smarter and they kept changing the rules of the game. Dealers in cheap black-tar heroin had abandoned the city street corners and come out here to sell to college kids and middle-class types who couldn’t afford their painkillers—they were doing a booming business out of their cars, and they delivered. Tough to catch.
And don’t even get him started on meth. The last lab his boys had busted had to have been bringing in a million a year. That kind of money was tempting, but he didn’t want to work with tweakin’ freaks. He glanced at the first page of that thick report and slammed a hand down on it.
Jolene chose that moment to come in with his coffee. He looked up, glaring at her, then saw that the unexpected noise had made her spill a little of it. She was brushing at the front of her dress.
Good. Once she’d put it on his desk, she would have to bend down and sop up the drops beading on the varnished floor with the paper napkin in her hand. He wouldn’t mind watching her do that.
“Did I startle you?” he asked blandly. “Sorry. Put the cup right there.” He moved a stack of reports aside.
Jolene set it down along with the napkin, then turned to walk out.
“You spilled some coffee,” he said, stopping her in her tracks.
She cast a contemptuous look over her shoulder. “The cleaning service is here. I’ll send someone in.”
Hoebel grunted. How did she get to be so full of herself? But it wasn’t like he could make her scrub floors. He returned to his perusal of the reports and budgets, in a worse mood than ever.
When he was done, he sipped the coffee. It was lukewarm by now. Asking Jolene to bring him another was asking for trouble. And he needed to stay focused. The chief took out a pad of paper and began making notes on who around here was going to stay and who he could do without. He chewed on the end of his pencil, thinking. His son-in-law he had to keep. But Doris could go on furlough. The archiving project wasn’t that important. And he didn’t like the way she spoke her mind sometimes. It occurred to him that she might be the one who’d been egging Jolene on. He thought it over and wrote down a few words. Jolene—stay or go?
He did like looking at her, even if she was a bitch sometimes. And she got along well with everyone else. He wrote the answer next to her name. Stay.
Hoebel leaned back, scratching his head. He couldn’t make cuts in the ranks. And the officers were going to complain about the no-overtime thing, but that couldn’t be helped. He knew most of them would keep on working hard anyway. The Wainsville PD attracted good men and women to serve on the force, some locals, some from away. The town itself was a pleasant place to live, affordable for civil servants and cops. But he wanted more than that—no, he deserved more than that.
For a second or two he felt almost ashamed of what he was doing on the side. Then he looked at the budget reports and thought that his pay might be the next thing on the cutting block. The chief blew out an irritated breath and the feeling of shame vanished.
All this paperwork was beneath him. But he had to respond to it. Hoebel turned to his monitor, which had gone dark again, and pulled the keyboard toward him. The GPS tracker map was still up but the icon that tracked the beacon’s movements wasn’t moving, just blinking. He grabbed the mouse and clicked on that part of the screen, enlarging it.
Blink blink. Jones Road at the intersection of Broad. What the hell—
Bannon wasn’t out at the Montgomery stables. He was here.
Hoebel swiveled and looked at the door that Jolene had closed behind her.
“Go right in,” he heard her say.
He stood.
“Hello, Bannon.”
The young detective glowered at him.
“I haven’t signed those papers.” Why were Bannon’s hands in his pockets? The chief was glad his gun was where he could reach it, in the top desk drawer. Locked and loaded.
“That’s not why I’m here.”
Hoebel stayed behind his desk. He wasn’t going to sit down. Bannon was taller than he as it was.
“I’m not interested in a game of Twenty Questions. Don’t waste my time,” the chief snapped. “You can see I’m busy.”
“Yeah. Seems like you get around.”
Hoebel folded his arms over his chest. “What are you talking about?”
“I found a receipt with your name on it. From that café out on the county road.”
“You going through garbage now?” He tsked. “Hard times. Things are tough all over.”
Bannon gave him a fierce look and actually had the nerve to take a couple of steps closer. “You and somebody else went out for breakfast. Pancakes, two coffees. I talked to the waitress out there, confirmed that it was you. And a tall guy. She remembered that his hand was bleeding right through a dirty bandage.”
“So?”
“I think he cut it on window glass.”
Hoebel knew better than to take the bait and ask where. He said nothing.
“We got prints off the receipt and found a match on the national database.”
“Who’s we?”
“I’m talking, you’re listening. Let’s keep it that way.”
Instant anger mottled the chief’s face. “Don’t talk to me like that.” He dropped his arms and made a move toward the call button on his desk, but stopped when Bannon pulled out a small ziplock bag that held the receipt. He waved it at the chief.
It was like a red flag in front of a bull. Hoebel leaned over and made a grab for it, but Bannon stepped back. Hoebel used his meaty hands to brace himself on the desk and get his balance back. He wanted to wrap them around Bannon’s neck.
Upright again, he stared at Bannon, breathing hard.
“Funny thing,” Bannon began, “the day you had breakfast out there was also the day somebody—somebody tall—tried to break into a certain house. For the first time. The second time was when he dropped the receipt. We got him on vidcam for less than a second. Turned out that was all we needed. Want me to send you a printout of your friend’s face? Suitable for framing.”
“Up yours,” Hoebel muttered.
“Same to you, Chief.”
“You’re fired.”
“Not yet. And as far as the receipt, I’m assuming you didn’t give it to him. The guy must have something on you, Hoebel.”
The chief stared at him. “I don’t know anything about this.” Which was pretty much the truth. He didn’t expect the detective to believe him. “But I have a proposition for you. You can be thrown out of here. Or thrown in jail. Take your pick.”
Bannon stood his ground. “Don’t screw around with me. Like I said, we got a positive ID on the guy. Not just fingerprints. A match on FaceBase.”
“Good for you,” Hoebel snarled.
“His name is Lee Cutt. You’re hanging out with a parolee. An ex-cop with a hair-trigger temper who’s done hard time. Bad to the bone.”
“Do I know someone named Cutt?” The chief pretended to think.
“A ten-dollar cup of coffee says you do.”
“Now that you mention it, he must be the guy who hit me up for a free breakfast.”
“Yeah, right.”
“That’s my sto
ry.” Hoebel barely controlled himself. “I don’t have to explain or answer questions.”
Bannon shrugged. “You will when the state commissioner starts asking them. Or a grand jury prosecutor.”
The chief let out a vicious curse.
“Get one thing straight.” Bannon pointed a jabbing finger at him. “Keep Cutt on a short leash. If I find him . . .”
Bannon didn’t finish the sentence. He was too coolheaded to make a threat that would incriminate him. The detective turned and walked out, closing the door again. He came back in, holding up a small object.
“Almost forgot. Your GPS gizmo. I stomped it in the parking lot before I came in.”
Bannon threw it at him, but the chief wasn’t quick enough to catch it.
Out he went.
Hoebel heard Bannon say a friendly good-bye to Jolene before he dropped into his chair, cursing under his breath. What was going on and where was Cutt? A short leash wouldn’t do it—hell, he was going to have to choke-chain the guy. The chief picked up the receiver of his desk phone, then replaced it slowly.
No. He’d call later, on a discount-store cell phone he could throw away. He didn’t want Cutt’s number traced here.
Calling the chief’s bluff had felt damned good. Bannon was okay to leave it at that for now. He’d bought time. Erin would be safer. Not completely safe, not free to go back to the house. But safer.
Next step: Find Cutt.
Bannon wasn’t going to do that alone. But he did want to go back to the house himself to try to find blood spots he’d missed. Fingerprints and DNA and the time-tagged vid image would be more than enough to put the crazy bastard behind bars for a long time. Judges didn’t let parole violators slide too often. His gaze narrowed on the road ahead.
On the way home his cell phone rang and he checked the number. Could it be Linc, who’d called in sick to stay with Erin while Bannon paid his call on the chief? No, it was Doris. He couldn’t tell her much, but he did want to talk to her. He flipped the phone open and put it to his ear.
“Hey,” he said, “what’s up?”
Doris answered right away. “Bannon, I wish I had good news. But it’s bad.”
He was instantly on his guard. “What’s the matter? Are you okay?”
She seemed startled by the question. “Sort of. I mean, I didn’t get hurt or anything. But I got furloughed, along with some other people.”
Bannon blew out his breath. Not the end of the world, but even so.
“Budget cuts. We’ve been hearing rumors. So it wasn’t that much of a surprise.”
“That’s not why, Doris.”
She paused. “Want to explain that?”
“No. How’d you hear?”
“The chicken way. Not in person. Hoebel sent an e-mail to us lucky ones. Budget considerations, blah blah. Box your personal stuff and go.”
“You did that?”
“Like I have a choice? Yes, I did. But it just so happened that Petey was grabbing lunch while I was clearing out my desk.”
Bannon couldn’t help smiling. He knew Doris. “Yeah? And?”
“So I let myself into the evidence locker and guess what I found.”
“His dirty magazines?”
She sniffed. “No. The Montgomery photos. Do you remember all the ones you had to give back to me?”
“You talking about the originals with the little girl and Luanne Montgomery? Yeah, I remember them.”
“I took those. And a bunch of other stuff I didn’t have time to look through before I filled up the box and sealed it and put it in my car and drove away.”
“You’re amazing.”
“Well, if I’m on furlough, I need something to do.”
Her bad news was more than good. He had a feeling she knew it. “You home? Want me to get the box?” he asked.
“No, it stays here. Come on over later, Bannon. Pick a time.”
He thought about that. “I’ll have to call you back. But I want you to bring me up to speed on the case. Any new developments?”
“Several.”
CHAPTER 19
Erin looked at herself in the bathroom mirror. Her morning routine was the same as always and she’d just finished it. Brush teeth, comb hair, deal with practically invisible flaws like every other woman did. And her face was the same.
But whose face was it? She didn’t resemble Hugh Montgomery at all, if he was her father, and she had no idea what his wife looked like. She might never know. Now she understood why her parents—the Randalls, if that was their name—hadn’t looked like her. When she was little, she’d thought that was because they were so much older.
Come to think of it, she couldn’t remember ever hearing either of them say the usual things like, oh, that nose runs in the family, or you have your mother’s beautiful eyes. Just . . . nothing.
Who were they? What Bannon had found out so far radically altered everything she thought she knew about the quiet couple who called themselves her mom and dad. Her brother, perhaps, was really their child. Erin was not.
There had been other cases like hers—the media usually had a field day with them. That she was somebody’s long-lost daughter was a staggering thought. Not confirmed. But very likely so.
Montgomery’s aristocratic manner didn’t invite questions or confidences. Still, if it turned out that she did resemble his wife, then he probably had come to the same conclusion as Bannon. Or at least entertained it. She couldn’t forget how unnerved she’d been by his scrutinizing gaze, or the odd sense of déjà vu she’d felt in his presence.
So the old Montgomery mansion might have been her first home. Her brief tour of the interior with Bannon had made her feel—was homesick the right word? And then there was the portrait of the little girl. Was it possible to look at your own face and not know it? It had been half in shadow. What had she said then? She couldn’t quite remember. Or maybe she didn’t want to.
It’s like Ann is still here. Waiting.
Not anymore, apparently. Wait until everything hit the headlines. It occurred to her that she didn’t want to be on the news. Let the inaccurate likeness be her public face. She’d survived. Let that be enough.
National news and tabloids blared stories for months of children taken, often hidden in plain sight not far from where they disappeared, raised by strangers who had to have them for one wrong reason or another. Some were found years later, often by chance. Sometimes because some dedicated cop or social worker took a second look in the right place and asked hard questions.
Some were never found at all, even when they lived. Worse things happened to abducted kids. The absolute worst had not happened to her. She’d been isolated. Lied to. That was all.
Erin felt numb. And hollow. Only Bannon could make both go away. All he had to do was hold her like he had last night. But right now he wasn’t here, replaced by his brother. Linc’s presence only emphasized the fact that the man in whose arms she wanted to be more than anything else in the world had left before she’d woken up.
Erin looked into the mirror again. She was tempted to pick up the bar of wet soap and rub it over the glass to erase her own reflection. She turned away and rested her head against the cool tiled wall.
No matter what, she couldn’t fault Bannon. He had gone through her things without asking, true, but that wasn’t the sticking point—she had showed him most of that stuff on her own. It was his nature to put two and two together when clues cropped up, and he had.
He had come when she needed him. Literally put his life on the line for her. The growing tenderness she’d been feeling for him was mixed with overwhelming gratitude. And fear.
Heaving a sigh, Erin bent over the sink and splashed cold water on her face, again and again, until it almost hurt.
She lingered in the bathroom for another few minutes, then went out and saw Linc sitting on the sofa, working on Bannon’s laptop. The family resemblance between the brothers was unmistakable, but Linc had lighter brown hair, and his eyes were gray
. Same cheekbones, though. Different chin. She wondered what the third and youngest brother looked like, and felt a flash of envy for their closeness. They didn’t know how lucky they were to have each other.
He got up when she came into the room, looking a little awkward himself.
“Bann’s on his way back,” he said quickly.
“Okay.” She gave him a tremulous smile. “I think I’ll call him.”
“Sure. Good idea.”
She picked up her cell phone and headed into the bedroom, dialing his number on the way.
Bannon picked up in a hot second. “Erin? Hey. I’m almost home.”
“Pull over.”
“What’s going on?”
“I don’t want you to get stopped for distracted driving.”
He snorted. “All right. If you say so.”
The noise on his side of the call lessened. Maybe he’d done what she asked. “I don’t know why you had to leave—”
“Erin,” he said, “it had nothing to do with you.”
“It’s okay. I’m not that needy.”
He was quiet for several seconds. “Both of us are lying.”
“Forgiven. And forgive me. If you don’t mind, I’m going to see Montgomery.”
“That’s up to you.”
They left it at that.
Five minutes later, she came out of the entrance door of the condo building, noticing Bannon behind the windshield of his parked car. She waved, hoping he would stay there. Linc was still inside, for which she was grateful. Erin didn’t want his brother to overhear. She used her hip to push against the door and hold it open as she went through, clutching the handle of the tackle box that held her art supplies and somehow holding the large sketchpad under one arm at the same time.
Bannon opened his door. “Hey, let me help you,” he called to her as he got out.
“It’s okay. I can manage,” she said. She kept on walking to her rental car.
“You sure?” he asked. “What about when you get to the stables? Who’s meeting you?”
“I’m going to Mr. Montgomery’s house, not there. He isn’t feeling strong enough.”