The FBI Thrillers Collection

by Catherine Coulter

  “I gather you play?”

  “Oh yes, my father gave me my first lesson when I was about Keely’s age. There are a couple of old guys who sit out in front of City Hall playing chess, probably been there since the Depression. I’ve never had the nerve to challenge either of them.”

  He laughed and said in a voice that was too good an imitation of Reverend McCamy’s, “It’s a pity your husband left you and you lost your focus.”

  She laughed, too, but it was forced since she really wanted to spit. “Can you believe he actually said that?”

  “You handled him very well.”

  “Maybe, but Elsbeth still didn’t let me taste the brownie batter.”

  Miles looked at her straight on. She’d French-braided her hair again, and a few tendrils had worked loose to curl around her ears. He really liked that French braid, and those tendrils. She was wearing her usual oxford shirt and jeans, and scuffed low-heeled boots. “I saw a cream-colored straw hat on the coatrack by the front door. Do you ever wear that hat?”

  “Oh yes. To be honest, there’s just been so much happening, that I haven’t thought of it. I’m lucky to remember my coat.”

  “Eastern Tennessee is a very beautiful place, Katie.”

  She nodded. “Yes, it is. It’s the mountains, really—always there right beside you, going on farther than the eye can see. Then you’ll look at this incredible hazy blue glaze over the Appalachians. You know, I’ve always found it strange that people think we’re country bumpkins, living out here. But the fact is, we aren’t exiled here. We look up and see more stars than any city person can ever hope to see, and you know what? We actually sometimes feel the urge to talk to strangers. You’ve seen the cows, the dairy farms, the rolling farmlands. We’re rich here, Miles, more than rich, we’re blessed.”

  Miles studied her face as she spoke. “Yes, I can see that.” He paused, looked toward the kids, then said, “I won’t be here in the winter, Katie.”

  “No,” she said slowly, “I don’t suppose you will.”

  He slashed his hand through the air in frustration but he kept his voice low so the kids wouldn’t hear. “Usually I ask a woman I’m interested in to go out to dinner, maybe a show in Washington. Yet here I am living in a woman’s house and I’ve known her for what—four days?”

  “I’m the sheriff, that’s different.”

  “Is it?”

  She made a restless movement with her hand, then smoothed out her fingers along her thigh. “You know what’s funny? My husband never lived here.”

  He let her sidetrack him, it was safer. “What did you do with the jerk?”

  She turned on the sofa, tucked one leg beneath the other, and leaned toward him. “The jerk’s name is Carlo Silvestri, and he’s the eldest son of an Italian aristocrat, and you’re right, he’s a jerk all the way down to his Ferragamos.”

  “An Italian aristocrat? You’re kidding.”

  “Nope. His father is Il Conte Rosso, a big shot who lives near Milan, into arms manufacturing, I believe.”

  “How ever did you meet an Italian aristocrat?”

  She gave a really big sigh. “I still feel like I should punch myself in the head for being so stupid. Carlo and two of his buddies were visiting Nashville. They wanted to see Dolly Parton’s breasts, one of them told me, so they drove east. When they landed in Knoxville, one of them, a Frenchman who must have thought it was Le Mans, was speeding like a maniac on Neyland Avenue, one of Knoxville’s main streets. I stopped them after a bit of a chase. The idiot had been drinking and nearly went over the guardrail into the Tennessee River.”

  “So you hauled his ass off to jail?”

  “Yeah, I did. Carlo decided he didn’t want to leave when his buddy got sprung. He said he fell in love with me when he saw me clap on the handcuffs. It was a whirlwind romance, I’ll tell you that. I was twenty-four years old, he was thirty-six, and I knew he was too old for me, knew the last thing he could ever do was leave Italy for good and live in Tennessee, but none of it mattered. I stopped thinking and married him. It didn’t matter that he was a spoiled egotist, too rich to have a clue about what responsibility meant. Women do that, you know. Stop thinking.”

  “So do men.”

  “For men, it’s lust. For women, it’s romance. You can get blindsided by both. I got pregnant right away. The problems started probably about a week later and never stopped. When Keely was about a month old, Carlo’s father, Carlo Silvestri senior, Il Conte Rosso, shows up on our doorstep in Knoxville, announces that his son called him to come and save him. I really got a good laugh out of that one. I told Carlo senior that I’d removed his son’s handcuffs a very long time before.”

  “So what happened?”

  “Daddy did something that will endear him to me and this town for the rest of our collective lives.”

  Miles sat up. “What did he do?”

  “He offered to buy me off for a million dollars if I would divorce Carlo without fuss, change Keely’s name to Benedict—my name—and never contact them again.”

  “You’ve got to be joking.”

  “No, I’m not. I remember I just sat there and stared at him, trying to picture all those zeroes following a one and all those commas actually written out on a check, and wondering: Will they all fit in that little space?

  “He actually believed I was playing him, that I was a tough cookie, and so do you know what the dear man did? He actually upped the ante. I’ll tell you though, I made sure the money was wired into my account before I agreed. Then both Silvestris were out the door within four hours.”

  “What was the final buyout?”

  “A million and a half big ones. I used it to put my dad’s company, Benedict Pulp Mill, back on its feet, which guaranteed a lot of folks around here continued employment and thereby, truth be told, got me elected sheriff of Jessborough. I’m the first woman sheriff of Jessborough or, for that matter, just about anywhere in eastern Tennessee.” She frowned at her boots, then said, “I don’t know if they would have elected me without the bribe.”

  “It was more a by-product of the bribe, wasn’t it? It’s not as though you’re incompetent.”

  “You’re a sweet-talking guy, Miles,” she said, laughing. “I’ll tell you the truth though, I was the best-trained candidate for the job.”

  “Wade was the one who wanted to be sheriff, wasn’t he? The one you beat out for the job?”

  She nodded. “Wade’s a good man, but he’s never worked on the streets of a good-sized city where there’s actual crime.”

  Sam turned around and said, “Katie, since you’re the sheriff, can I be your assistant?”

  “You know, that might not be a bad idea. But you might end up becoming something else, like president, so you just keep playing.”

  Sam chewed on this a moment, then sprawled back onto his stomach, his nose nearly touching the spinner on the game board. They heard Keely say, “If I become president, I’ll make you vice president.”

  Sam nodded. “Okay, that’d be cool.”

  “I can give you orders all the time and you’ll have to listen to me.”

  Miles sat back, crossed his arms over his chest, and shook his head. “You did good, Katie—the proper use of money. Well done.”

  “Thank goodness I’ve had no complaints since I’ve been sheriff.” She frowned. “This is farm and dairy country—lots of cows—and tobacco country, you know, and that means lots of cheap cigarettes and lots of teenagers smoking. I’ve cracked down on that something fierce.”

  “How are you doing that?”

  “I know most of the teenagers. I see one with a cigarette in his mouth and I take him and his cigarettes to jail. I can’t lock him up since it’s not against the law, but I call his parents. You’d be surprised at what a screaming mother can do to a teenage boy, even the mothers who smoke. It warms a sheriff’s heart.”

  He laughed at that. “If my mom had ever caught me with a cigarette, I’d have been grounded for a month. Now, as
for your mom, she makes good tuna casserola, and she didn’t raise a dummy.”

  She was pleased, and he saw it. “Thank you,” she said. “Casserola—what comfort food. I guess that’s why she made it for all of us Monday night.”

  Katie rose and stretched. He was watching her, she felt it, and quickly lowered her arms, slouched forward a bit.

  “Sorry, I didn’t mean to do that in front of you.”

  “Think nothing of it.”

  “I mean, I didn’t mean to preen in front of you.”

  “Maybe that’s too bad.”

  30

  There, that’s it. You’re going to be a dentist, Sam, and I’m going to be an astronaut!”

  Katie came down on her haunches beside them. “Okay, career choices are set, let me tell you that it’s nearly nine o’clock. Time for you guys to get to bed.”

  It wasn’t as much of a production as either adult expected, no more than five minutes of whining. After Katie settled Keely in, Miles did the same with Sam down the hall, they traded places, without thinking much about it, and that made Katie frown down at her toes. What did Miles think about tucking her daughter in and being pulled into reading the next chapter of Lindy Lymmes, Kindergarten Girl Detective?

  She offered to read to Sam from one of Keely’s books, but that made him gag—loudly—so she gave him a big hug and kissed his ear. If she wasn’t careful, she thought, she’d fall in love with this little boy.

  When Miles had gone to bed, she went outside to speak to Jamie and Neil, who’d gotten Cerlew’s Buick unlocked. She gave them a thermos of coffee she’d made, checked and locked all the doors and windows, and fell into bed.

  The storm hit hard around two in the morning, rattling windows, slapping tree branches against the house. It was time for a shift change in deputies guarding the house. Katie checked on Keely, who was sound asleep, and went back to bed. Katie had always loved storms, and they never bothered Keely, but tonight, Katie was antsy and wide awake. She finally gave it up, went to the kitchen and put on the teakettle. She was standing in front of the sink, looking out over the thick stand of maple and poplar trees not more than ten feet from the house, leached of their beautiful colors in the heavy gray rain.

  “You got two tea bags?”

  She turned around at Miles’s voice, well aware that she was wearing only her nightshirt and her empty ankle holster. Even her feet were bare.

  Miles walked straight to her, and wrapped his arms around her, trapping her own arms to her sides. When she pushed against him, he immediately released her, but then she simply wrapped her arms around his back. She felt his smile against her cheek, felt the strength of him against her. He was wearing only a pair of jeans and a dark blue T-shirt. She said against his neck, “You feel good,” and that was a lie because he felt far more than good. And he made her feel things she hadn’t felt in a very long time.

  “So do you,” and she could hear tension in his voice, hear that he was lying, too.

  He was nuzzling her neck, and said against her jaw, “I like a tall woman. We fit together perfectly.” And he kissed her.

  Katie hadn’t kissed a man in approximately two years and three months, and that kiss had been on the wet side with a beer aftertaste. How far back did she have to go for an astounding kiss, a kiss like this one? All the way back to Carlo.

  The teakettle whistled, shrill and loud, and they both jumped. He took her arms in his hands, looked at her a moment, and stepped back from her.

  “Do you drink your tea straight?”

  Katie nodded. She wished the teakettle hadn’t been so loud. He’d given her comfort, and so much more than that, and it had felt right, just right. And she wanted more, and she didn’t want a teakettle sounding off in the middle of it. Life was strange. She hadn’t even known this man before last weekend.

  She watched him fetch two mugs down from the cabinet, dangle two Lipton tea bags over the sides of the mugs, and pour the boiling water over them.

  He said without turning, “I like the holster around your ankle. It’s sexy.”

  She looked down, saw that her red nail polish was chipped on her big toe. She grinned at him. “You’re pretty easy, Miles.”

  “Not I.” He handed her a mug, picked his up, and clicked it against hers. “To us,” he said.

  What did that mean? She sipped her tea. The wind howled, and the rain pelted hard against the windows like pebbles thrown hard by angry children.

  “I get to meet with the TBI again tomorrow,” Katie said, and added at his frown, “The final meeting, I hope.”

  “Do you need any witnesses?”

  She shook her head. “They spoke to Glen Hodges again by phone this afternoon, and of course to Savich and Sherlock before they left. I suppose they might want to speak with you, but no one’s mentioned it yet. And I have my deputies, all eager to defend me, even Wade, if he has a clue what’s good for him. The TBI investigator checking out everything calls this case a corker—his word—and he wants to hang around. I’m hoping he gets a call from his supervisor to finish things up.”

  Suddenly Katie heard something, no, it was more than that. She felt something dangerous and close. She ran to the living room window and looked out through the thick rain. No deputy car was out there.

  She didn’t hesitate. “Miles, grab Sam, quickly!”

  Miles didn’t ask for an explanation, didn’t hesitate. He raced to the guest bedroom to see Sam sitting up in bed, half-asleep. “I heard something, Papa. Out there.”

  “Come with me, Sam.” Miles grabbed him up, wrapped him in blankets and ran with him back to the living room. Katie was there with Keely.

  “Sam was awake. He heard something. What’s the matter?”

  “I don’t know,” Katie said. “I don’t know, but something’s not right. Danny and Jeffrey were supposed to show up at two, but they’re not there. We’re getting out of here right now.”

  “Katie, you’re not dressed.”

  She was losing it. Not good, but her fear was building. “Hold the kids, let me throw on some clothes. I’ll bring you a shirt and your jacket. Oh damn, the kids need clothes, too. Miles, don’t let either of them move. I’ll get everything.”

  Two and a half minutes later, both adults were on their knees quickly dressing Sam and Keely.

  “We’re outta here,” Katie said. Miles knew she was afraid and trying hard not to let that fear transmit itself to the children. He also knew she’d give her life for any of them.

  Katie smashed her hat on her head, grabbed all the coats, and said, “We’re outta here, now!”

  Sam whispered as he clutched his father’s neck, “What’s the matter, Papa? What did I hear? Are those bad men after me again?”

  “If they are, I’ll knock their heads together, then I’ll let you stomp on them, okay?”

  “Okay, Papa,” Sam said, less fear in his voice, thank God.

  Keely twisted around in Miles’s other arm to face her mother. “What’s the matter, Mama?”

  “Shush,” Miles said. “We’ve all got to be very quiet, okay?” He squeezed both children close to him.

  Just as Katie fumbled with the dead bolt on the front door, there was a loud explosion behind them that sent flames and heat out at them through the kitchen hall. Someone had tossed a bomb into the kitchen, where he and Katie had been drinking tea not more than five minutes before. Miles automatically turned his back to the heat to protect the children. Katie bounced back, blinked to clear the shock out of her head, and said, so mad she was stuttering, “The house, s-some idiot just b-blew up my damned house!”

  There was a crackling of flames behind them.

  Katie pulled the door open and ran out. “We’re alive, thanks to you,” Miles said as he raced out the door behind her.

  “Wait!”

  Her gun was out, and she was crouched down, making a sweep. She couldn’t see anything through the deluge. There was nothing else she could do. She waved them forward. Miles, huddled over the ki
ds, raced after her.

  The rain pelted them, soaking them to the skin within seconds, and there were gusts of wind that forced them to bow forward and brace themselves. Katie led them straight to her truck. “Get in, Miles!”

  She turned the key in the ignition and slammed the car into reverse, but the wheels spun. The ground had turned to sucking mud in the heavy rain.

  The wheels finally gained traction when Katie ripped the truck back in reverse a second time. She barely missed the huge oak tree that was the oldest thing in her yard. Mud was flying from under the wheels, splashing the side windows, but they were free and that was all that mattered.

  In that instant there was a sharp ping, like the sound of something hitting metal, and then another.

  “Someone’s shooting at us,” Katie said low, her voice controlled. “Get the kids down, Miles.”

  He worked both children down into the space in front of the passenger seat. They were holding each other tightly, not making a sound. How much more of this could two little kids take?

  “Keep your head down,” Katie said, all matter-of-fact. “I’m getting us out of here.”

  She hit the gas the instant after she shifted into drive, and the truck shot forward. They heard a tremendous explosion that rocked the truck. Katie stopped the truck and jerked around, even as she dialed 911.

  “Those bastards—my house is on fire!” She got her night dispatcher, Lewis, and snapped out instructions to him. “Get every deputy out to my house along with the fire department. And Lewis, Danny and Jeffrey never showed up at two o’clock to take over guard duty.”

  “Sheriff, they told me they were just going to be a few minutes late. Some kids busted out both their back tires.”

  “Yeah, right, some kids,” Katie said. “Well, at least they’re okay.”

  When she’d hung up, she said, her voice flat and calm, “Miles, you take the kids to the sheriff’s office. Lock yourselves in a cell. Keely, Sam, it will be all right. Do what Miles tells you. I’ll be with you as soon as I can.”