by Nora Roberts
“Yeah, I guess it was. If you come out of the Country Bear Jamboree with a frown on your face, you’re hopeless. I figured Carly’d get a charge out of it, wouldn’t she? It’s got to be about the best place in the world when you’re seven. At least I thought so when I was.”
She stepped back out of the closet to study him. He was sitting on the bed, buck naked, his hair all tousled, a dreamy half smile on his face as he thought, not about the City of Lights or Roman holidays, but magic mountains and flying elephants.
“You want to take Carly to Disney World?”
He turned his head, shrugged. “You can come, too. I’ll buy you some mouse ears.”
There was a threat hanging over them, she thought. It was very real, and it was very close. His connection to her put him every bit as much in the crosshairs as it did her. But he thought of taking her little girl to Disney World.
She walked to the bed, sat beside him. Taking his hand, she looked into his eyes. “Duncan.” And love moved through her like a sigh. “Duncan.”
His dimple winked. “Phoebe.”
“Would you marry me?”
“Would I…what was that?”
His hand jerked, just a little, in hers, and she saw the coordinating shock on his face. She didn’t mind either. “You’re the best man I’ve ever known, and that’s going some since I have Carter and Dave in my life, and they’re such good men. You make me laugh, and you make me think. You’re generous and you’re smart—which is an important combination since one without the other is almost always annoying. And your innate loyalty is something I respect and admire.”
“You forgot the sex.”
Now she smiled. “No, I didn’t, not for one quick minute. Since I’m being so complimentary, I’ll tell you I’ve never had better, and it does, of course, factor into this proposal. My life is complicated, and it’s heavy with responsibilities. You’re the only one I trust enough to ask to share that. The only one I love enough. And I love you, Duncan. I love you so much.
“Wait, wait,” she said quickly when she saw the change in his eyes. “I need to finish. I love all the things about you I’ve just said, and all that was the bunch of things I was going to tell you tonight. The proposal, that wasn’t on the map. But then, well, I got lost in Disney World.”
“Disney World was the kicker?”
“Oh yes, yes, it was. I know we haven’t known each other for very long. Just since—”
“St. Patrick’s Day.”
“St. Patrick’s Day. So you’ll probably need to think about it, and God knows things need to settle down, but—”
“Where’s the ring?”
“The ring?”
“What kind of half-assed proposal is this?” he demanded. “You didn’t get me a ring?”
Her breath came out in a whoosh. “I’ve been a little busy.”
His sigh was patient, long-suffering, and quite a bit exaggerated. “I don’t know as I can take this very seriously without a ring. But I guess I can make an exception, this once.” He leaned down, met her smiling lips with his. “I was going to ask you in Disney World.”
“You…Really?”
“I figured on getting you dizzy on the teacups, or weak-kneed on Space Mountain, hit you while your defenses were down some. Of course, I’d’ve had a ring.”
She shoved him back on the bed, rolled on top of him. “I like things clear. Is that a yes?”
“You had me when you walked into Suicide Joe’s apartment.”
Her eyes narrowed. “As far as you knew at that point, I could’ve been married with six children, or a lesbian.”
“Then I’d’ve pined for you the rest of my days. But I’m a lucky man. Been on a streak for a while now, and it’s been heading straight toward you. You had me, Phoebe, the minute you walked in, and from that minute I’ve been sliding into love without even looking for a handhold.”
He tucked her hair behind her ear. “I don’t mind complications, and responsibilities are just part of living if you’re doing it right. We’ll do it right, you and me. So yes, I accept your ringless proposal.”
She laid her lips on his, then rested, cheek to cheek. “I haven’t even started on the complications. I have to live in this house. I can’t—”
“I like this house. That’s not a complication, it’s a great old house on Jones Street.”
“My mother—”
“Is great. If I couldn’t get you, I was going to go for her. She likes me.” He trailed a finger down Phoebe’s spine. “Women tend to.”
Phoebe shifted to look down at him. “I’d expect…I’d need you to be a father to Carly.”
“Piss me off if you didn’t. Relax, Phoebe.” He drew her down until her head rested on his chest. “You don’t have to negotiate this. It’s a done deal.”
“I’m so happy. It seems strange to be so happy when so much is wrong.”
“Whatever’s wrong, we’ll fix. That’s something we’re both pretty good at.”
“It’s nearly morning,” she murmured with her eyes on the window. “It’s nearly time to start again.”
“Close your eyes awhile. Close your eyes while you’re happy, and get a little sleep.”
The next thing she knew, the sun was beaming into her eyes, and her daughter was banging on the door. Thank God she’d left it locked.
Phoebe gave Duncan a good, hard shake, got a grunt in response, before she sprang out of bed. “Just a minute, honey.”
“Mama, why is the door locked? Mama, are you okay?”
“Fine, fine.” In a flurry of motion, Phoebe rushed to the closet and yanked out her robe. “Just fine, Carly. Why don’t you go on downstairs? I’ll be right down.”
“Your door’s locked, Mama. I’ll go tell Gran.”
“No!” Sweet baby Jesus. “No, no, just a minute.” Moving like the wind, Phoebe dragged on the robe as she bolted out of the closet. Yawning hugely, Duncan stood beside the rumpled bed lazily pulling on jeans. At a loss, Phoebe put her finger to her lips, then, unlocking her door, cracked it open an inch.
“I was sleeping, honey. I got home very late. I’ll be downstairs in a few minutes.”
“But your door was locked.”
“Yes, I guess it was. I’ll be—”
“Duncan’s car’s outside. But he’s not downstairs, and he’s not in Steven’s room either.”
“Oh. Well. Why don’t you go see if Ava wants to make waffles for breakfast?”
“Is Duncan in there?” Carly shifted right and left to try to see through the narrow opening. Phoebe shifted left and right to block her. “Did he sleep with you last night?”
The child was a dog with a bone, Phoebe thought. Before she could speak, Duncan said, “Busted,” and eased the door open. “Hey, Carly.”
“Hi. Mama’s door was locked so I couldn’t come in.”
“We got home very late,” Phoebe repeated.
“How come you slept in Mama’s room?” Carly asked Duncan.
“And aren’t you full of questions this morning, before I’ve even had my coffee.”
“You said you have to ask questions,” Carly reminded her mother. “Did you have a bad dream, Duncan? I sleep in Mama’s bed sometimes when I do.”
“Actually.” He gave Phoebe a poke in the arm to shift her aside. “Let me ask you a question. How do you feel about your mama and me getting married?”
Carly’s eyes narrowed on Duncan’s face, then tracked to her mother’s and back. “Because you’re in love and want to sleep in bed together?”
“That’s right.”
“You’d be my stepdaddy?”
“I would.”
“Can I have a new dress for when you get married?”
“That would be a priority.”
She smiled, and Phoebe recognized the slyness. “My friend Dee got a stepdaddy, then she got a new baby brother named William. Can I have one of those, too?”
“Could be a sister, but we can name her William.”
Wi
th a giggle, Carly shook her head. “Girls aren’t William. We could get a puppy first, and namehim William, then—”
“You’re pushing your luck, kid,” Phoebe warned.
“We’re having a conversation here,” Duncan said to Phoebe, then hunkered down so his face was level with Carly’s. “I’ll see what I can do about that. If I pull it off, what’re you going to give me?”
Carly’s face went pink, then she touched her lips, very primly, to Duncan’s cheek.
“Little peck like that, for a baby and a dog? You Mac Namara women are tough.”
She giggled again, and the pink deepened as she hooked her arms around Duncan for a hug, and gave his cheek a noisy, smacking kiss.
Not once, Phoebe thought as she stared down at them, not once had she seen Carly and Roy hold each other. Not once had she ever seen her little girl grinning in her father’s arms.
“Now that’s more like it. I’m going to grab a shirt, so I don’t make the women in the house swoon when I come downstairs.” He set Carly back on her feet. “We’ll be right along.”
“Okay.” She dashed off, shooting him a dazzling smile as she ran for the stairs.
“Guess she approves. Now we’ll see what Essie has…What?” Panic streaked across his face as he turned and saw the tears sliding down Phoebe’s. “What’d I do wrong?”
Her throat was so thick she could only shake her head as she wrapped herself around him, held tight. Tighter. “We got along without you, you know,” she managed. “We got right along. But, God, oh God, things are so much better with you.”
“Happy crying.” He let out a little breath of relief. “I get that.”
“Very happy.”
“That’s good. So…how about that puppy?”
29
The timing was perfect, and the location—that had come about largely due to luck. Or maybe, he thought, it was fate. It was Angie looking down, guiding hands.
It would be today.
A pity, a goddamn pity, pieces of Mc Vee hadn’t flown all over Barnard Street. His slut of a neighbor had intervened there. Bastard had flown some though, he thought with some satisfaction. Oh yeah, the bastard had done a little fucked-up Superman.
It had taken all the willpower he’d had not to yank out his nine from under the windbreaker and put bullets in the son of a bitch and the neighborhood slut where they lay bleeding on the side of the road.
But as satisfying as that would’ve been, asright as it would’ve been, it could have cost the rest. And the endgame was in sight.
Better if Mc Vee died, and there was always the chance of that. Better yet if there was time and opportunity to take out the boyfriend, just for good measure. And it was a damn shame he had to abort the plans to stake out the pansy-assed brother in front of the house where they grew up—with a vestload of explosives.
Cowards, a couple of dickless cowards is what they were, hiding out in that house, behind the women’s skirts. Not worth his time, Walken told himself, not worth his trouble.
He continued to load his gear with careful hands.
They’d be looking for him now. Let them look. In a couple of hours, they’d know just where to find him. And he’d be where he wanted to be, doing what he’d planned to do.
Before he was done, everyone would know Phoebe Mac Namara had killed an angel, just as sure as the bullet. And when it was over, it would be fucking over.
“He turned in his papers and moved out of his apartment. He had two months left on his lease, left a check to cover it.” At Dave’s bedside, Phoebe went through the checklist. “He had two credit cards at that time. Neither have shown any activity in these three years. He’s contacted no one, not his best friend, nor his former commanding officer. He had a checking account, and a savings account totaling six thousand and change, and a safety deposit box. He cleaned everything out on the same day he quit the department. There was an oh-one Chevy pickup registered to him. He sold it, for eight thousand cash, to a Derrick Means, in the same apartment building. We’re checking that out, but don’t expect it to go anywhere. Also registered to him were a nine-millimeter Smith and Wesson and a thirty-two Remington semi. His friend knew him to own a hunting rifle, with scope, a thirty-thirty, and a twenty-two pistol which had been his father’s.”
“Likes guns.”
“Yes, he does. He’s a trained sniper, and had training in explosives during his time in the army. He also worked with our own bomb squad before he requested and received the transfer to SWAT. He’s somewhere in or around Savannah, but as far as we know, you’re the only one who’s seen him.”
She lifted her hands. “I don’t know what to do. I negotiate, I don’t investigate.”
“A puzzle’s a puzzle, Phoebe. It’s all pieces.”
“I have some of them. He blames me for Angela Brentine’s death, maybe because there isn’t anyone else to blame. He was on the team that day, Dave. He was on the incident where she died. His scope trained on the bank, waiting for the go. We didn’t know the names of the hostages, or the injured. He didn’t know she was in there, dead or dying, while he waited outside, while all those hours passed.”
“Ineffective. Impotent.” Dave nodded, then closed his eyes as the slight movement stirred pain in the base of his skull. “Lancelot didn’t rescue Guinevere.”
“That’s what he can’t live with. That he was there, waiting while she bled out. While I had them wait, while I talked her killers down so they walked out with their hands in the air. They lived, she died, because of decisions I made. That’s what he believes. That’s what he has to believe. But it doesn’t help us find him.”
“Why’d he go after Roy?”
Think it through, Phoebe reminded herself. Empathize. “The connection to me—we had a child together, we were married. Husband—a symbol. Harder, much harder, to get to Brentine than to Roy. And Roy was mine. He wants to destroy what’s mine, as I destroyed what was his.”
“Not just the woman.” Dave reached for the water glass, then settled back to sip through the straw as Phoebe picked it up, held it to his lips. “Thanks. Not just the woman,” he repeated. “His self-image was destroyed. Didn’t save the day. Followed orders, hung back with the rest instead of walking solo out into the street for the showdown.”
“But this time, he is, he will. Moving up the line,” she mused. “Roy, then you. Everyone knows we’re close. And that I’m a negotiator because of you. Therefore, I was at the bank because of you.
“Do you want me to call the nurse?” she said when he shifted, when she saw pain tighten his face. “You should rest, you should—”
“No. Keep going. It keeps my mind busy. You call the nurse, she’s going to come in here with a needle and take more blood. I swear, being in a hospital’s like being in a den of vampires. They never get enough of your blood. Keep going.”
Wishing she could do more, Phoebe tucked and smoothed his sheets as she spoke. “All right. The dead animals, to defile my house, to undermine my sense of security. Snake, rabbit, rat. He’s probably based outside the city. Somebody’s going to notice if you shoot a rabbit otherwise. Smarter to have a place outside the city, quiet, secluded. Nobody’s going to bother you or notice you overmuch, not if you keep to yourself. Get along,” she said. “Like he got along with his teammates. A house, a bungalow. He’d need transportation. They’re still checking on how he got to Hilton Head.”
She turned to the window. Urban sprawl, she thought, so roads led to suburbs, and suburbs gave way to swamps and woods. Bridges ribboned their way to islands.
So many places to hide.
“Every cop in the city, every cop on the islands, has his picture. He has to know that. He has to know you lived, that you saw him, and that we’re looking for him now. I see he’s got two choices—to cut and run, or to finish. He won’t cut and run.”
“You need to be ready when he comes at you.”
She nodded. “I’m trying to be.” She turned back. “I never asked how you felt this m
orning.”
“Glad to be alive.”
“I’ve had to tie the rest of the family down to keep them from coming to see you. And I’m under orders to putyou under orders to come to the house when they spring you from here so Mama and Ava can spoil you while you recuperate.”
“Would that include peach pie?”
“I can guarantee it. When are you going to ask Ava out on a date?”
“Excuse me?”
“When are the two of you going to stop sending wistful glances at each other’s backs? You’re both grown-up, divorced people. I don’t think she got any sleep last night.”
“Well, I…”
“I don’t know how many times this morning she asked me about you, or argued with me about coming to see you herself, or told me to tell you she was thinking of you.”
“She’s a friend, she’s been a friend a long time.”
“Dave, my mama is your friend.” Exasperation eked through enough to have her fisting her hands on her hips. “Are you going to lie there on what might have been your deathbed and tell me you feel the same about Ava you do about my mama?”
“I don’t think—”
“What do you want?” She approached the bed again. “I know how to find out what people want in emotional and stressful situations. If you’re too flustered to tell me—and it’s awful cute to see you blush—I’ll tell you. You want to ask Ava out for a romantic, candlelight dinner when you’re back on your feet.”
He stirred again, but this time Phoebe could see it wasn’t about pain. “It happens I was thinking about her—about that—when I was walking home yesterday. Before. I was thinking the timing for doing that was lousy.”
“Timing’s lousy on most everything half the time.” Smiling down at him, she brushed at his hair. “I asked Duncan to marry me. He said yes.”
Dave’s mouth opened and closed. “You’re full of surprises this morning.”
“I surprise myself. I love him like I’ve been waiting to find him my whole life, just waiting for the rest of my life to start. You’ll give me away again, won’t you? I’m betting this one sticks.”
“I’m betting it will, too.” Reaching up, he gripped her hand. “I’m happy for you.”