Married by Monday (Weekday Brides)

by Catherine Bybee

  The man glanced at Zod and walked into the room. “We know you want to be alerted to anything out of the ordinary we catch on the monitors.”

  Eliza stopped chewing her food and slowly placed her fork on her plate.

  “What was it?”

  “Probably nothing. Shortly after we left this afternoon, Zod bolted out his door barking. The cameras didn’t pick up anything. Could have been an animal, or anything. The offsite surveillance team didn’t warrant a drive by, but I thought it better to tell you.”

  Eliza’s smile fell. So much for their quiet dinner.

  “Pete and I searched the yard. There’s no evidence of anything out of place.”

  “How long did Zod bark?” Eliza asked.

  “Not long. The motion detectors caught him searching the bushes in the side yard before he moved on. He barked a couple more times and then returned to the house.”

  Carter thanked the man and Russell walked away.

  “Trained police dogs don’t bark at neighborhood cats,” Eliza told him when they were alone.

  That didn’t sound good.

  She moved food around her plate a couple times and gave up. “I need to see the video.”

  He shoved his chair back and followed her up the stairs.

  They invaded the small security room where Russell took watch. Pete followed behind them.

  Russell moved the control on the computer. They all watched Zod sense something and run out the dog door. The leather flap on the small opening had a magnetic key lock attached to Zod’s collar. Only he could open the thing, or a criminal would have to pry the collar off the deadly dog’s neck to gain access. That wasn’t likely.

  Even though Carter expected it, Zod’s obsessive barking on the screen brought a wave of panic over him.

  “The stationary camera catches him here, and then the sensory camera turns on and catches him here.” Russell pointed out each camera angle.

  Zod scurried into the bushes and the barking stopped. When he emerged, he held something in his teeth.

  “What’s that?”

  Russell sent them a wry smile. “One of Mrs. Billing’s shoes I’m afraid.”

  Carter peered closer. Sure enough, the shoe he’d tossed in the trash sat happily between Zod’s teeth.

  “Most dogs bury bones,” Eliza murmured.

  “Maybe he thought someone found his hiding place.”

  Eliza shook her head and turned for the door. “I knew he wouldn’t have run after a cat. Unless the cat found a hidden shoe, then maybe. Damn dog.”

  Carter patted Russell’s back and walked with Eliza back to the kitchen.

  Zod met them at the door and cocked his head to the side before giving a happy bark.

  “Bad dog.”

  Zod’s eyebrows shot up, and he looked between the two of them. Damn dog looked like he wanted a Scooby snack or some damn thing.

  ****

  Harry didn’t make it in jail because he was a stupid man. In fact, his intelligence paved his way to the big house with other peoples’ money. There was one thing that Harry wasn’t. Violent. He’d taken a few hits when he first arrived at the state penitentiary but that had been years ago and the pain long forgotten.

  At Blake’s request he’d quietly ripped up every newspaper clipping, every picture, and flushed them down the toilet. He kept only one. A snapshot of his life when it was whole. His wife and daughters sat beside him on a yacht he once owned, they smiled for the camera, and he stood there wearing a pompous smile.

  Everyone in the jail became a suspect. Who had Blake warned him about? It wasn’t until Harry was told he had a phone call that he knew the name of the man. The caller didn’t identify himself and his voice wasn’t familiar. Betting man that he was, Harry would lay money that the voice had been disguised. His words, however, were clear as ever.

  “Ricardo Sanchez,” the caller said. Followed quickly by, “Solitary.”

  Harry couldn’t decide if the caller made a request or sent a warning. For two days, Harry watched. He quickly determined that more than one set of eyes followed his burly roommate around.

  “How you doing, Harry?” one of the block guards asked in passing.

  “Fine, fine.” Harry’s gaze found its way across the communal area to where Sanchez stood alongside his friends.

  “You let me know if you have any trouble.”

  As if. The code of prison conduct was to take care of trouble on your own. Telling the guards would land you in the hospital ward or worse. Eventually the inmates who put you there would return from solitary.

  Harry swallowed hard and realized he was staring at Sanchez when the man turned his way and scowled back.

  Thoughts circled in Harry’s mind. Sadly, everyone of them had him bloody and broken.

  ****

  “Come with me.”

  They’d been over this before. “You have work to do. And I’m meeting with Agent Anderson tomorrow.” Agent Anderson was the FBI liaison working with marshals and occasional detective like Dean and Jim in regards to the witness protection program in the state of California. Fewer and fewer people were coming forward to turn in hardened criminals because of the reach so many criminals had from prison. Eliza found sanity in her cause to make the system better. To keep witnesses protected while giving them their lives back became her mantra.

  Carter had been at Eliza’s side every night since Zod’s little scare session in the yard. The fact that he wanted to force her to go on his trip to Northern California proved he wasn’t ready to let loose his hold. The attention was nice at first. But his constant surveillance was interfering with his campaign.

  “Postpone it.”

  Eliza cocked her head to the side and sent him a wry look. “No. Please, Carter, this has to stop.”

  “What has to stop?” He forged innocence with his sad eyes and tousled hair, but she wasn’t fooled.

  “Please. You know what I’m talking about. You’re neglecting your campaign. People depend on you. You can’t let them down because you’re worried about me.”

  “But—”

  “No buts. We got married to provide me with protection. You’ve done that. If I thought for a minute you were going to neglect your own life for mine, I wouldn’t have said yes.”

  Although she knew her words were true about her past, she neglected to tell Carter how much she loved her life with him. How much she loved him. Even with his concern and suffocating hold, she wouldn’t change their marriage for the world. Telling him her feelings now might make him hold tighter. And if there was one thing Eliza didn’t want to be responsible for, it was Carter’s career taking a dive. He was a born ruler and she very much wanted him to achieve his goals. Even if that meant keeping some of her deeper feelings to herself. At least for now. Besides, it wasn’t as if Carter was free with words of love and forever. Perhaps she’d feel differently if he were.

  “Are you saying you only married me for my protection?” Oh, damn…he actually looked hurt.

  “Your skills in bed don’t suck,” she teased, attempting to bring a smile to his lips.

  “You didn’t know about those skills when you said I do.”

  “Your lip-locks made my knees buckle, Hollywood. I knew.”

  He smiled then, reached out, and grabbed her around the waist. She settled between his thighs as he leaned against the counter in the kitchen. “Buckle, huh?”

  Eliza rolled her eyes with as much drama as she could. “I knew you’d run with that.”

  He kissed her then, until her heart sped and her knees went weak.

  They drew apart, breathless. “Are you sure?” he asked one more time.

  “I’m sure.”

  Later that night, although Eliza decided she’d never admit it, sleeping in their big bed all alone was impossible. Apparently, her husband wasn’t the only needy one in their relationship.

  ****

  Agent Anderson was a petite woman in her mid-forties. She talked a hundred miles an hour, but w
hen she listened you knew everything was being downloaded and stored for later use.

  Eliza felt a genuine compassion from the woman when they spoke on the phone. Face to face, that feeling grew. Thirty minutes into their meeting, Eliza stopped talking about her case and about the letters, and pushed forward with solutions. “We agree things need to change.”

  “Yes. With government funding, or the lack of funds driving many of the decisions we make, I’m not sure how to work toward making the system better.”

  “Sometimes the easiest answers are right in front of us. If the criminals have committed a crime so heinous that they’re a threat to those who testify, why not sever their ability to contact the outside world entirely? Why segregate the good guy and let the bad guy hold all the rights?”

  Anderson shook her head. “There are more inmate rights groups than witness protection rights groups.”

  “Maybe that’s the problem. It costs the state, the feds, a hell of a lot of money setting up long term protection.”

  “Actually the short term is where the money is spent. If your parents had survived, they would have been dropped from the system within a few years. You stayed in the system because of your parents. That and I think Dean has a soft spot for you. But you’re right, the criminals hold too many rights in these cases. The only way to change that is to rally witnesses, their families. Changing the law takes time.”

  “Time well spent if you ask me.”

  “You have a friend in me, Mrs. Billings. You have people talking in Washington, and that’s a start. It doesn’t hurt that you’re now family to a senator.”

  Eliza lifted her eyebrows. “I’m not sure how much help he’ll be.”

  Agent Anderson waved a hand in the air. “I find that the power behind movements of people lie in the wives and husbands. Most political wives don’t hold down day jobs which affords them the time to lobby for change.”

  Where had she heard that before? Maybe a phone call to Sally, Max’s wife, was in order. Sally had to have connections. Years of them.

  “If you were me, Agent Anderson, where would you start?”

  “You have a gaggle of letters. Those people will be your army. Find your leaders among them and put them to work. The ultimate goal of law enforcement is to encourage witnesses to come forward. Good Samaritans don’t want to be victims, however. Placing a proverbial red target on one’s back is the number one reason people stay silent. We need to remove that threat.”

  “Isolate the prisoner. Keep him from contacting the outside world.”

  Anderson shrugged. “For every rule there is an exception. Maybe you can lobby for change there. I don’t have the answers. For every step forward you make, there will be three back. I hope you’re ready for that.”

  Eliza glanced at the stack of mail she’d brought in with her. It would take an army of victims, of families. But it was the right thing to do. She thought of her father’s words. “Do what’s right, pumpkin, and you’ll always sleep well.”

  She stood and placed her palm out for the other woman to shake. “Looks like I have some work to do.” That work would require help from her husband and his family.

  Before Eliza committed herself to a cause that would involve hundreds if not thousands of other people, she needed to know her own life was secure. She twirled the chunk of diamond around her ring finger and smiled.

  Please don’t let me be wrong about Carter’s intentions.

  ****

  “What’s that noise?” Carter asked while on the phone with Eliza. He had one more night away from home and he’d be tucked in bed with his wife. He couldn’t wait.

  “I’m at the back door waiting for this dog to do his thing and the wind is blowing.”

  “Our pilot said something about Santa Ana winds.” The hot wind that blew off the desert often reached tornado strength and was responsible for devastating fires throughout southern California. They also delayed flights of smaller aircraft.

  “For once the weatherman was right.” The wind beyond Eliza’s voice shut off. “I hope you’re done for the night, furry beast.”

  “Please tell me you’re talking to the dog.”

  “I am. So when will you be home tomorrow?”

  Carter stretched out on the hotel room sofa and kicked his feet up on the table. “I have that luncheon and then I’ll be outta here.”

  “By dinner then?”

  Carter smiled into the phone. “You sound excited to see me.”

  “Need to feed your ego much?”

  His grin grew wider. “I missed you, too.”

  There was a pause on the phone and for a minute, he thought the line went dead.

  “Call me from the airport,” she said. “I’ll order our pasta and chill the wine.”

  Our pasta from our place.

  God, he loved this woman.

  “Oh, damn.”

  “What is it?”

  “The power went out.” Her phone made a clicking noise. “And my cell is nearly dead.”

  Power outages in Southern California were rare. Outside of fallen trees and earthquakes, the power company didn’t have to deal with many weather related issues. “I’m sure it will kick on soon. Russell has a back up phone, and the alarm system will run for a few hours on battery backup. There’s a flashlight in the pantry on the wall and another in my nightstand by the bed.”

  He heard Zod bark a couple of times.

  “Oh, you big baby. How you ever passed police training is beyond me,” he heard Eliza say. “Where do you keep the candles?”

  “I only have the long ones we use on the dinner table. You sure you’re okay?” The thought of her stumbling around in the dark made him itch. “I can call Blake, have you go there.”

  “It’s just a power outage. I’m fine. Hey, Russell.”

  Carter listened to Eliza and Russell talking about candles, and reassured himself that she had protection in his absence. The phone beeped in his ear.

  “I better go before the call drops. I’ll see you tomorrow,” she said.

  He looked forward to it. “Sleep well.”

  “Dream of me.”

  Oh, he would.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  According to the battery-operated scanner on Russell’s desk, the power outage was due to a transformer blown a few blocks from the house. The battery backup ran low, and it appeared that they would be in the dark for a while. Pete, the second guard, said, “I’m not comfortable without another form of backup. If the batteries die, we’re blind, surveillance is down and we’re screwed. I’m going by the office to pick up another unit before this one goes down.”

  Zod’s special doggie door automatically stopped working in the event of a power outage, which put Eliza on alert for the dog’s needs. She didn’t mind. The eerie wind and dry air made her itch. She considered attempting to weed through the stack of letters to find the most articulate people to lead others, but concentrating on her work was difficult in the silent house. Strange how she became used to the hum of the refrigerator or the sound of one of the guard’s radios upstairs.

  The soft glow of the candle flickering off the walls of her bedroom blanketed the room with warmth.

  She missed her husband. Power outages and candlelight would prove more romantic with her husband by her side instead of the dog. She made certain the door was open a crack so Zod could move about before she curled up on her side of the bed with the second book in a series she’d been awaiting for, for months. She hoped the author hadn’t been in the mood to write a passionate love scene within the first few pages. That would suck on this lonely, dark night.

  ****

  Five minutes before the final bell tolled, signaling all inmates to return to their cells, Harry sat with his back against the wall pretending to read a book. One of the other inmates, Michael…or maybe it was Mitchell, hesitated as he walked by. He stopped long enough to make eye contact with Harry, dropped a piece of paper on the floor, and then walked away.

&nbs
p; Harry bent down and retrieved the paper, hiding it between the pages of his book to open it. He glanced up several times, certain that someone watched him.

  On the wrinkled paper was a note. HE CALLED A HIT. HOPE YOUR KID ISN’T CAUGHT IN THE CROSSFIRE.

  Everything inside Harry froze.

  He’d waited too long.

  ****

  The soothing sound of the heater turning on and off in the room finally filled Carter’s noisy brain. He must have drifted off to sleep only moments before the shattering ring of the hotel phone shot him out of bed like lightning through a turbulent sky. Still, it took until the third ring for his mind to fully engage.

  “Hello?”

  “Carter?” It was his dad.

  “Hey?” He sat up in bed and turned on the bedside light. “Is everything okay?”

  “Were you sleeping?”

  Carter glanced at the glow of his cell phone clock. 11:23, yep, he was sleeping. “Not anymore. What’s up.”

  Cash hesitated.

  Warning bells went off inside Carter’s head.

  “Dad?”

  “I just heard from an old friend at San Quentin.”

  Eliza!

  “What happened?”

  “There was a disturbance tonight. Some information leaked out.”

  “What information, Dad?” Carter was wide awake now and kicking the covers off.

  “My sources came across a note claiming Sanchez called out a hit. There weren’t any names on the paper, but I have to assume he meant Eliza.”

  The air inside Carter’s lungs escaped and he grew dizzy. He knew the possibility of Sanchez making that call was there. Hearing it confirmed brought a sand paper blanket of prickly dread over him. “How long ago was this?”

  “An hour, maybe more.”

  Carter stretched the limits of the phone cord and retrieved his pants, yanked them on. “Did you call Eliza?”

  “The line wasn’t working. The power’s out over half the city.”

  “Hold on.” Carter unplugged his cell and dialed Eliza’s cell. It went straight to voice mail.

  “I’ve got to go.”

  “I’m on the first flight out,” his father said.

  “Yeah…okay.”