Send Me a Hero

by Rita Herron

  “That’s right,” he said quietly. “Gerald’s in the middle of a campaign, there’s enough gossip about Barrett—”

  “And you think I’ll have a bad effect on his reputation.” Veronica tried to squelch the hurt building in her chest. She was his goddaughter and she’d trusted him. She thought he loved her.

  But when it came to his family, she was an outsider, someone with a past that could hurt his precious son.

  “Don’t worry, Eli,” she said in a hard voice. “I don’t plan to get romantically involved with Gerald.”

  “Wait, Veronica,” Eli sounded desperate. “You don’t understand.”

  “Oh, I understand perfectly,” she said, walking toward the door and opening it for him. If she’d had the slightest hope she would handle the family’s business or be a part of Eli’s life, the idea had just died. Being her godfather had simply been a responsibility he’d carried out for her parents’ sake. No emotional ties.

  Well, she could handle that. She’d never had anyone to depend on but her grandmother anyway. “I really have work to do now, Eli.”

  He frowned, his gray eyebrows knitting together. “I’m sorry if I’ve offended you, dear. That wasn’t my intention.”

  “It’s fine,” Veronica said, forcing a smile. “I’m glad you came by.” But don’t bother to again.

  Eli hesitated as if he wanted to say something else, then shook his head and walked out the door.

  “SCROGGINS, glad you could see me,” Nathan said, pushing his way through Scroggins’s front door.

  The older man gave him a surly look and stepped into the marble entryway. “I didn’t exactly say I could see you.”

  Nathan grinned. “Well, now I’m here, I think you can make time for me. After all, you and I have a lot in common.”

  “How’s that?” Scroggins asked, his frown deepening.

  “We both stand for the law. I’m a detective and you were once the police chief.”

  Scroggins’s hand shook as he rubbed his balding head.

  “I’ll just take a few minutes of your time, sir,” Nathan said, finding his way through the house.

  Scroggins followed him into a den filled with fancy furniture, but piled with magazines and ashtrays. A bulldog growled from his post in the corner near the stone fireplace. “Have a seat,” Scroggins said sarcastically, pointing to the newspaper-covered sofa.

  Nathan swiped a stack of papers to the side and lowered himself onto the expensive furniture, aware Scroggins wanted him to hurry. He didn’t intend to.

  “I thought I told you to let the past alone,” Scroggins said, settling himself in a brown recliner angled toward the large-screened TV.

  “Well, sir, I’d like to do that, but it seems someone else doesn’t want to do that.”

  “What are you talking about?” Scroggins asked.

  “You know Veronica Miller?”

  He nodded. “Course I do. Everyone knows who she is.”

  Nathan winced at his snide remark. No wonder she was skeptical about people’s reactions. “I’m trying to find out who’s harassing her.”

  Scroggins frowned. “And how do you think I can help?”

  Nathan explained briefly about the intruder, Veronica’s call for help, the message on her machine, the newspaper articles. “Someone is either out to hurt her or—”

  “Or she’s doing it herself,” Scroggins said.

  “I was going to say ‘or they’re trying to drive her crazy.”’

  “Why would someone want to do that?”

  “I thought you could tell me,” Nathan said. He steepled his fingers in front of him and leaned forward with his elbows on his knees. “Tell me about her parents and the night they died.”

  “I don’t see how that can help.” Scroggins huffed and adjusted his recliner.

  “Humor me,” Nathan said, aggravated at Scroggins’s lack of cooperation. “You investigated the case. I suppose you knew her parents.”

  Scroggins nodded, closing his eyes briefly. “It was a sad thing. The Millers were nice folks. Mrs. Miller was pretty as a peach, sweet and good with the little girl.”

  “And the father?”

  “A nice man, good lawyer. Everyone in town respected him.”

  “He didn’t have any enemies, no cases pending or ones he’d lost that could have angered someone enough to hurt him?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  “Did you investigate it?” Nathan asked, growing angry.

  Scroggins patted his bulging belly. “Look, it was a long time ago. I did everything I could.”

  “What happened to Mr. Miller’s files?”

  Scroggins shrugged. “Burned up in a fire couple days later.”

  Nathan bit back an expletive. “Didn’t he have any backup copies?”

  Scroggins shook his head. “Look, we weren’t so big in computers then, it was hard to copy and store papers. Took up too much space to keep extras.”

  “Didn’t you think the fire was a little suspicious?”

  “Maybe.” Scroggins rolled a cigar between his fingers. “But there wasn’t anything I could do about it. Hell, I knew everyone in town—didn’t know a soul who’d hurt Miller and his wife. Had to be a murder-suicide.” Scroggins heaved a breath, then continued. “At first, the grandma wanted me to keep investigating, then she changed her mind. She was glad I closed the case, said she didn’t want the child dragged through any more trauma.”

  Nathan narrowed his eyes at Scroggins. “Look, you were a cop, for God’s sakes.” The man said nothing, and Nathan paused, realizing Scroggins must have a strong connection to the townspeople. Had he given up so easily because he’d been afraid he might step on someone’s toes? “How about the Millers? Did they have a happy marriage?”

  “Had a squabble or two like most married folks. Mostly little petty things.” Scroggins paused as if remembering. “Except for that night. It was a terrible one.”

  “If no one was there, how did you know about the fight?” Nathan asked.

  Scroggins scratched his head. “Well, Ms. Trudy, woman who lived a couple houses down, had set out to carry the Millers some fresh jelly she’d made. Drove up and heard the fight. She got scared, rushed home and called.”

  “Do you know what prompted the argument?”

  Scroggins shook his head. “Don’t know. Little girl’s the only one that knows that.”

  Or the murderer. Veronica has amnesia. “Veronica says someone else was there. She sees a shadow in her dreams.”

  The old man’s eyebrows arched, the wrinkles beside his eyes drawing out in thin lines. “She was just a kid, Dawson. Poor little thing was traumatized. Why, she was in shock when they carried her to the hospital. Took her a few weeks before they could even get her to talk.”

  Nathan’s gut clenched. This was getting him nowhere. “And you called the case a murder-suicide. What did you base that on?”

  “Wasn’t nothing else I could do,” Scroggins said, lighting his cigar and glaring at Nathan as if he dared him to argue. “Weren’t no witnesses. House was a mess, furniture overturned, lamps broken. Ms. Trudy claimed she heard the Millers screaming at each other. By the time we got there, they were both dead.”

  “And Veronica?”

  “She was sitting ’side the bodies. Covered in blood. Had the danged bloody knife in her hands.”

  Exactly the way he’d seen her the first time. Nathan chewed his lip in thought. “I read the articles. Someone suggested Veronica might have murdered her parents?”

  “Yeah, but I couldn’t go with that. She was just a little bitty thing. I don’t think she could have done it.”

  Nathan agreed. But still…if someone was there and she’d seen them, and that person knew she was a witness…“Was there a suicide note?”

  “Nope. That worried me.” Scroggins blew out a puff of smoke. “I figured it must have been a crime of passion. Man stabbed the woman in anger, then couldn’t stand himself for killing his wife so he killed himself.”
>
  “Makes sense,” Nathan said, knowing it was possible. Domestic violence cases were more frequent than he’d ever dreamed.

  “Would you mind if I looked over your file on the case?”

  Scroggins snapped his head up. “What you want that for?”

  “I wanted to do some checking on my own.” Maybe he would find out why Scroggins was so reluctant to help him, too.

  “Look, Dawson. I know you want to protect the Miller woman. But have you considered the fact she’s doing all this to get attention?” Scroggins scraped his fingernails up and down the chair. “It was common knowledge she had some emotional problems after her parents died. Her grandmother took her away, but I heard she had to see one of them psychiatrists. Even heard one time she tried to commit suicide when she was a teenager. Took some sleeping pills or something.”

  Nathan hadn’t heard that. He remembered her wrist wound and hearing the paramedics asking her if she’d cut herself on purpose. Then he remembered how vulnerable and afraid she’d looked the night she’d called them, and he couldn’t bring himself to believe she’d done that to herself. But if it were true, he would find out.

  And if Scroggins was holding something back, he would find that out, too. “Thanks for your time,” he said in a clipped voice. Then he strode out the door, slamming it behind him.

  Back in his car, he headed toward the precinct. Maybe Ford had something on Barrett. He picked up the phone and dialed Sherry. “Hey, Sherry. It’s Nathan.”

  “Hey, sugar. What’s up?”

  “Got anything on that voice print on the Miller tape?”

  “Yeah, but we couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman’s. It was computerized.”

  “How about the results from that knife?”

  Sherry paused. He knew she was consulting the computer database. “Only one blood type identified. Ms. Miller’s. Oh, and there was evidence of a sleep-inducing drug in her system.”

  “Hell.” Nathan stopped at a red light and tapped his hand impatiently on the steering wheel. “No other blood? DNA?”

  He heard Sherry snap a piece of gum in her mouth. “DNA tests indicate the possibility of another person’s blood on the knife, but the tests are inconclusive.”

  Nathan silently cursed, contemplating his next move. Veronica had been certain she’d cut the intruder’s arm. Back to square one. “I need you to run another check for me.”

  “Okay, what is it this time?”

  “I’d like a list of all the townspeople who lived in Oakland at the time of the Miller murder-suicide.”

  “That’ll take some time.”

  “I know, but it could be important.” Nathan hesitated, a frisson of guilt shivering up his spine. “Pull up anything you can find on Veronica Miller. I need to know everything about her life after she moved to Florida with her grandmother.” He paused again. “And, Sherry, she’s had some…some emotional problems. Find out the names of any psychiatrists she’s seen over the years.”

  As he hung up, a knot of apprehension tightened his stomach. Veronica’s face flashed into his mind. He wanted her, and he wanted to believe her. But he had a job to do. And he had to know the truth, even if it killed him.

  AFTER AVOIDING the media all day and finishing her paperwork, Veronica hurried home, needing to be in the sanctuary of her own apartment where she was safe from the questions and phone calls about Barrett. And where she could nurse her hurt over Eli’s rejection.

  Working all day was really a blessing—she’d been too busy to think about Nathan Dawson and the strange feelings he evoked in her. She’d been too busy to worry about the threatening phone call the day before. She was grateful she’d had Louise call a locksmith to have the locks changed for her. She kicked off her shoes as she entered and started undoing her blouse, peeling the silky fabric away as she made her way to her bedroom. A jog would help ease her tension.

  Maybe four or five miles.

  She would jog until she dropped from exhaustion, both physically and mentally. The faint scent of a man’s cologne made her pause but she dismissed it, thinking it must be the potpourri she’d put in the bathroom. Or maybe Nathan’s lingering scent. She tossed her blouse onto the bed, shimmied out of her skirt and dropped it to the floor, then reached for her hose. But out of the corner of her eye, she spotted something odd. Slowly she glanced up, caught sight of the mirror and gasped.

  Someone had been in her apartment. Again. And this time they’d written all over her mirror in bright red lipstick:

  “Leave the past alone. Bury it or you’ll be buried alive.”

  Veronica’s legs wobbled as she sank onto the bed and reached for the phone. She considered dialing 911, but instead grabbed Nathan’s card off her dresser and punched in his number.

  “Hello?” His husky voice calmed her immediately.

  “Nathan, this is Veronica.”

  “Yeah?”

  She heard her own shaky breath and tried to find her voice.

  “Veronica, what’s wrong?”

  She shuddered. “Someone…someone broke in…can you—”

  “I’ll be right there, Veronica. And don’t touch anything. I’m on my way.”

  Seconds dragged into torturous minutes as she waited for Nathan to arrive. Veronica twined her hands and rocked herself back and forth, then jumped when a pounding sounded at the door. Wrapping her robe tightly around her, she stumbled to answer it.

  “Veronica, it’s me. Open up!” Nathan yelled.

  She swung open the door and stared at him, her heart pounding at the look of concern on his face.

  “Are you okay?” he asked, gripping her by the arms and checking her all over.

  “I am now,” she whispered. Then she fell into his arms and sank against him.

  Chapter Eight

  With one arm still around Veronica, Nathan closed the door. “Shh, it’s okay,” he muttered softly as he stroked her trembling body and felt her chest heave against his. His own breathing was erratic, his pulse racing, his mind still trying to erase the fear that had jolted through him when she’d called. On the way over to her apartment, he’d envisioned a number of disturbing scenarios, and to see her now and know she was all right sent a wave of relief rushing through him.

  She was a gutsy woman or she could never have become an attorney, but she felt small and fragile in his arms, and anger burned through his veins at the thought of someone terrifying her. In the back of his mind, the evidence was piling up. Scroggins’s information taunted him—as a child she’d had to see a psychiatrist; as a teenager, she’d taken sleeping pills and tried to commit suicide; then when the blood tests came back on the bloody knife from the attack, there had been a sleep-inducing drug in her system.

  Damn. She didn’t look emotionally disturbed. She looked beautiful and sexy as hell. Her long ebony hair fell in silky strands that tempted him beyond reason. She smelled like peaches and soap, and some womanly scent all her own that was as intoxicating as an aphrodisiac.

  Questions needled him. He could be wrong about her. But he shoved the thought aside. It felt too right to hold her, too perfect to have her snuggle against him as if he were her savior. You couldn’t save your partner, and he died because he trusted the wrong person. And you almost died trying to help him. What if you can’t save her? Your heart is at stake here. Will you die trying?

  He loosened his hold and rubbed his hands up and down her arms, hoping to soothe the tension from her stiff muscles and get his own irrational emotions under control. Her body felt so welcoming and his own reacted as a man to a lover’s, not as a cop to a woman in distress.

  And if you’re sloppy because you’re involved with her and someone is trying to hurt her, you could cost her her life. The thought sobered him immediately.

  “Thanks for coming,” Veronica said softly, raising her dark eyes to look into his. The fear and vulnerability trapped him, held him hostage, and he watched with admiration as she made a valiant attempt to gather her own composure. He wanted to
make love to her. Now, more than ever. Not because she was afraid, but because she didn’t want him to see it.

  Instead he reminded himself that if he finished this case, he would be done with Veronica. And more than likely she wouldn’t want anything to do with him. They’d met under such stressful circumstances that they’d connected. But could it last?

  He tilted her chin up and stroked her jaw with the pad of his thumb. “You want to show me what they did this time?”

  The slight nod of her head was her only answer. He released her and took a deep, calming breath while she led him to her bedroom to see the violence someone had inflicted upon her—the most primal part of him wished she were leading him to her bed instead. The soft sway of her curves beneath the satin robe drew his eye, but he forced himself to scan the room, his gaze finally resting murderously on the message written on her mirror.

  “Son of a—” he muttered, striding over to examine the lipstick-scrawled words.

  “I don’t know how they got in,” Veronica said, hugging her arms around her. “I had the locks changed today.”

  When he glanced at her, an unsettling thought hit him in the gut. He’d never seen a more innocent-looking face. But as he studied the writing, something nagged at him. He’d seen Veronica’s signature on her client list. The person who wrote the damning message dotted their is with an open circle just like Veronica.

  She smiled slightly and lowered her hands by her sides. He jerked his gaze away. “Who changed the locks?”

  “I don’t know. I had my secretary call and set it up.”

  “Louise, the woman I met?”

  “Yes,” Veronica said. “I was in a meeting all afternoon. She met the locksmith, then brought me the new keys.”

  Nathan frowned and pointed to the mirror. “You didn’t touch it?”

  Veronica shook her head. “No, I went straight to the phone and called you.”

  He met her gaze and saw his own need and desire reflected in her turbulent eyes. She ran her tongue over her lips and combed her fingers through her hair. Her hand was trembling.