Risky Alliance

by N. C. Anderson

  Self-preservation. That was what was wrong with the Robert-committing-suicide scenario. Robert was a classic fighter, not one to succumb without a showdown. At barely eighteen, he had saved himself and a multitude of others, and with a gaping gunshot wound in the shoulder. Some people would save themselves by leaving, a sometimes wise decision, while others put-up-their-dukes, even in no-win situations, and for Robert it would have been the fists.

  If the Sheriff's men had overlooked anything at the Delaney's, he would find it. He would find it if he had to examine every inch of that house.

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  Chapter 2

  Sunnyville, California

  Saturday morning

  Abby Campbell liked to set aside what she called life's nerve-jangles every Saturday. She always looked forward to a few hours with friends, maybe going to a movie with one or several, but not today. Today it seemed that each and every one of her nerves jangled, and she couldn't do a thing about it. “I can't keep up this pacing, Spike,” Abby told her cat when she passed near her front door for the umpteenth time.

  The fifteen-pound, half-Persian half-Siamese cat jumped onto the settee in the foyer and sat watching her while washing his face. Most of Spike's heavy body was a muted whitish grayish stripe, but his nose and chin looked like someone had shoved his face in a bowl of dark chocolate. He could, also, display a fierce temper, but Abby easily overlooked his faults and considered him beautiful.

  Across the white carpeting in the living room, across the blue-slate tiled foyer, she kept walking anyway—anything to relieve the tension that was storming her. When things went wrong for her son, they really went wrong. Three times in his thirty-five years she had seen tears in his eyes: when he was twelve and his dog died, when he was twenty-five and his father died, and when Sue and the kids boarded that airplane eighteen months ago. And, he looked darned close to them when he raced out this morning.

  First she heard rushing footsteps, then she looked through the thick lace curtains covering the tall, vertical window flanking the double front doors and saw Lieutenant Tim Benson cross her front verandah. She reached out and opened one half of the heavy entry doors. His hand was out in front of him, exactly where he would have lifted the doorknocker had it not suddenly swung away from him. “Why, hello, Tim. I haven't seen your welcome face for a while."

  He sucked in a deep breath. “Dang, but you scared me, Abby. Opening that door like you were reading my mind."

  Abby couldn't help but chuckle at his wide-eyed seriousness. “Not reading your mind, Tim, I heard you coming.” She opened the door wider and motioned him to come inside. “What brings you around with such a solemn expression?” It wasn't possible for him to know about Jacob's reason for being gone. Jacob didn't have time to tell anyone.

  “I've just come from J.T.'s house. Someone broke in about thirty minutes ago and set the alarms off at the station."

  “Broke in?” Her knees suddenly shaking, Abby sat down on the plump cushion that lined the wicker settee in the foyer. When Spike growled at Tim, Abby brushed her hand down his back to quiet him, and he curled up on the other cushion, but he didn't take his eyes off of Tim.

  Jacob wouldn't take this well, not on top of everything else. “Can you tell if anything was taken?"

  Tim shook his head. “Someone did a number on the office, then the house—and in the damned broad daylight. I've seen places trashed before, but never anything quite like this. The blasted thieves get more brazen everyday.” She felt his hand, gentle on her shoulder. “I need to find that son of yours right away. He needs to inventory and see what's missing—"

  “He's forty thousand feet in the air,” Abby interrupted. She searched the pocket of her sweater for a handkerchief, found it and gripped it tightly. Tears were something she'd spent her life shedding in private, and it irritated her that anxiety was getting the best of her.

  “What?”

  “I should have just gone with him.” She dabbed at the unexpected wetness in her eyes. “Something awful has happened to our Sue. And Michael and Andee are not at home.” Abby shook her head. “I wanted to go to her, but Doctor Baid said I can't miss my check-up Monday and he has new medication for me.” She called the doctor because Jacob insisted she couldn't go with him unless the doctor approved. He was right, of course, but she just hoped she wouldn't be sorry for not going.

  “Easy, sweetheart,” Tim said, kneeling beside her with one knee resting on the slate floor. Ignoring the glaring cat, he took her hand in his, rubbing it gently. “What's happened to Sue and the kids?"

  “That's the worst part, I don't know. Her mother called and said someone had attacked her in her apartment, however Kathleen hadn't seen her yet. She said the kids weren't in the apartment, but she also said they usually have softball practice early on Saturdays.” Tim's hands holding hers gave her a new strength. “Jacob grabbed a suitcase and left for the airport around quarter to eight, and I've been waiting beside the phone ever since.” She slipped her hands from his and glanced at her watch, and was amazed to see that not much more than an hour had passed.

  “We'll wait together, Abby."

  “Don't you need to see about Jacob's house?” She looked at Spike, who was getting progressively louder. “And you can stop that. You know Tim's a friend.” The cat had a name in the neighborhood as the attacker. Sometimes she thought he lived to defend her—even if she didn't need defending.

  “I left two lab men looking around when I came over here. They hate it when I hang around while they're working."

  She studied the pleasant creases in Tim's face; the firmness of his jaw; the deep blue of his sharp, knowing eyes; the clean glisten of his short-cropped salt-and-pepper hair. “Thank you, Tim,” she said, feeling some of her anxiety easing. Long ago Tim had been her husband's partner on the beat, always a friend, and after Kenyan died, Tim had been there whenever Jacob needed him—and when she needed him.

  He stood and held his hand out to her. “Got any coffee?"

  Abby took his hand, allowing him to tug her to her feet. “Well, the last time I looked, the pot was full and keeping company with a plate of chocolate-chip cookies."

  “Now,” he said, smiling. “That's my kind of kitchen."

  Just as they entered the archway to the kitchen the phone rang, and Abby grabbed the white receiver from its wall unit. “Hello,” she said breathlessly, then listened as Sue's mother, Kathleen Borgson, explained why she was calling from Sue's apartment house, that Sue hadn't been the one attacked, beaten, and that she needed to speak with Jacob right away and tell him about the mistake.

  “Kathleen,” Abby said, trying to get a word into the conversation. “Jacob is already on his way to Iowa. At least I think he is. I'll call the airport to make certain."

  “Oh, I'm so sorry, Abby. It was all such a mistake. Karen looks so much like Sue they could be sisters. Her neighbor and the police thought it was Sue because it is her apartment."

  “Then, you know exactly where Sue and the kids are?” Hysteria lurked in her mind as she envisioned the children being kidnapped.

  “I knew Sue intended to go to her dad's office this morning, so I called Raymond and he said Sue had just left him. He said the kids were at softball practice and Sue had come by for paperwork.” There was a long pause. “Poor, Jacob—such a mistake."

  Abby sighed, relieved that the children were safe, that Sue wasn't the one injured, yet troubled for her daughter-in-law's friend. “It's a mistake that's bringing Jacob to Iowa, Kathleen. Of course, I don't know if he'll stay there long enough for anything positive to happen.” Like some real communication, she thought.

  “Maybe they'll talk—I mean, really talk,” Kathleen said with hope filling her tone, and seeming to read Abby's mind. She took in a deep breath. “I promise to keep you posted."

  So many months of waiting for Jacob and Sue to really talk had dimmed some of Abby's hopes. “I'd appreciate it,” Abby said, twisting the coiled phone cord between he
r fingers. “I'll check and see if there were any unexpected delays at the airport. If I don't call you back, I missed him. You'll have to call the airlines about arrival times, Kathleen. Then you must have him call me as soon as he gets there.” Abby quickly explained about the break-in and destruction at Jacob's house, and then said her good-byes.

  Jacob had jotted the number to the airport on the small chalkboard she had on the wall beside the phone, so she dialed it and found out she had missed Jacob's flight by twenty minutes. He'd managed to catch a commuter plane to LA in order to make connections. She could phone the airlines there and leave him a message. But, she wouldn't. What happened would be a terrible trauma for Sue and the kids, and Jacob needed to go to Iowa and see his family.

  Strange, she thought, two break-ins on the same morning, eighteen hundred miles apart, and involving the same family.

  “Sue and the kids are okay?” Tim asked.

  Abby jumped. She'd forgotten he was there. “Yes. Kathleen said that the injured woman was a close friend of Sue's.” But, it could have been Sue, it could have been the children, and the thought made her shiver.

  Tim touched her arm encouragingly. “You know Jacob will phone as soon as he knows what's going on there.” He gestured toward the coffeepot and cookies. “Does your invitation still hold?"

  Abby chuckled, relief finally reaching some of her tense muscles. “I'll get the cups."

  * * * *

  West Des Moines, Iowa

  “Hell's bells!” Amanda Sue Campbell gasped in surprise as she turned her mother's car onto the normally quiet Rosemond Street where she lived. A rare abundance of police cars and pedestrians, along with a huge fire engine and an ambulance, blocked the street in front of her apartment building.

  Sue parked the classic ‘56 hardtop convertible, her mother's pride and joy, near the curb a half block away, grabbed her sack of groceries from the passenger seat, and hurried toward the mob. Since she didn't see any smoke, she didn't think a fire caused the commotion. No wreckage blocked the street. Someone could have had an accident in their home, or, since there was more than one police car parked on the street, a break-in. Anyway she looked at it, this was a little much for West Des Moines. And if it was a robbery or something, city crime elements ordinarily stayed east of Fleur Drive. When she left the house at eight to drop the kids off and pick up paperwork at the office, all had been quiet on Rosemond Street.

  An accident, a crime, whatever, she hoped it didn't have anything to do with her parent's apartment building—especially since she was the manager of this one.

  “Sue!” a familiar voice shouted above the grumbling fire truck engine and the twittering from the people standing around on the sidewalk, the yards, the street.

  “Mom?” Sue spun around, searching for the owner of the voice.

  Her mother sidestepped a boy on a bicycle and hurried across the sidewalk. “Oh, darling. Thank goodness you're all right. I know your father said you were, but I needed to see for myself."

  Kathleen Borgson's arms hugged Sue until she felt dizzy from the lack of oxygen. “Mom, please,” Sue wheezed. “What's going on around here?” Her mother's concerned words and tone intensified Sue's alarm. “Something happen at the apartment house?"

  Kathleen released her fierce hold. “It's your friend Karen. Someone broke into your apartment and attacked her. When your neighbor called me and said it was you,” she rushed on, “I hurried right over and—"

  “What!” Sue interrupted, still trying to get a rational grasp of her mother's words. She started for the ambulance. Why would anyone hurt Karen? No one even knew she was in town, and she wasn't the type to make enemies.

  “Sue, wait,” Kathleen puffed, taking hold of Sue's arm. “There was a fire."

  Sue stopped. “A fire?” That did mean the apartment house. Glancing around, she could see nothing black or charred around the redbrick building.

  “Your alarm went off immediately, and your neighbor Mr. Gier put it out. Thank goodness the firemen and police got here so fast, because that's when they discovered Karen. There wasn't any serious damage to the apartment. The firemen are getting rid of the smoke now. The police let them back in right after they finished collecting and doing whatever-it-is that they do.” She hesitated, sucking in a deep breath. “You know, they even turned all the trash cans upside down. What a mess. And so quickly, couldn't have taken them fifteen minutes."

  Knowing her mother's penchant for giving out information in slow dribbles, and not exactly as it happened, Sue clutched her mother's hand, pulling her with her toward the ambulance and the slight figure lying on a stretcher. “You'll have to give me the rest of the details after I see about Karen."

  Blood covered Karen's small features, matting her ash-blond hair at the temples. Clear liquid in a plastic bag hung from a pole attached to the stretcher; tubing directed the liquid into a vein on Karen's arm. Two male paramedics and a nurse were preparing to lift her into the ambulance.

  “Will she be all right?” Sue whispered throatily, her stomach rolling. Stay calm, she told herself. Get a grip.

  “Are you a relative?” the closest paramedic asked as he adjusted the plastic tubing in Karen's arm.

  “Karen Orr is my friend. She was staying in my apartment, and just visiting for a few days."

  He picked up a clipboard from beside Karen, and asked Sue several questions to verify Karen's identity, about any health problems, and her home address. When finished, Sue stepped back and out of the way.

  “Please tell me how she is. Her mother's going to be frantic.” Sue knew she wouldn't call Karen's mother unless Karen told her to, or, as a last resort. At the moment, Karen and her mom weren't the best of friends, she wouldn't want her to make a rash call, and she didn't want to think about what a last resort meant.

  The second medic eyed Sue a moment. “Your friend has a broken nose, multiple cuts and abrasions, and a possible concussion and broken wrist. We would appreciate your coming to the hospital so someone is there for her who knows about her, but you will let us do the notifying unless the doctor there says otherwise. Since there's no way for us to know how long she'll be unconscious, we could need more information before we can make any calls."

  Sue nodded her head. “Did they catch the person who did this to her?"

  The medic gestured toward some neighbors clustered tightly together on the lawn behind them. “The police are questioning those people now. I don't know if they have any answers yet.” He and the other man lifted the stretcher slightly, the legs collapsing as it slid neatly into the ambulance.

  “Where are you taking her?” Sue asked, as she turned her head and gazed at the police officer. It wasn't just neighbors congregated around him. Reporters with their microphones held in the air were shoving closer to him, too. For the first time she noticed the channel thirteen and channel five news vans parked across the street.

  “Mercy Hospital emergency is expecting us in ten minutes,” he said as he shut the doors, enclosing Karen, the nurse, and the other medic. Seconds later the high-pitched wail of its siren shattered the air as the vehicle pulled away, and then made a perfect U-turn.

  Did a burglar do this? She would have to see if anything was missing. Her mother said there was a fire. A fire to destroy Karen? The mugger, or muggers must have wanted Karen dead? Wanted to cover up what happened? Sue turned her attention to her mother. But what she really wanted was to talk to that policeman.

  Kathleen nervously straightened her blue cardigan sweater, then ran her fingers through her curly gray hair. “Lord, I hope she'll be all right."

  “Mother,” Sue said gently as Kathleen wrung her hands. “I need you to get the kids from the school grounds in about fifteen minutes and take them to your house. Are you going to feel up to it?"

  “Yes, yes of course, dear,” Kathleen answered and reached for the grocery sack Sue clutched tightly. “You'd better give me that before you flatten the bread completely. You're going to talk to that policeman before
going to the hospital, right? When Sue nodded, she added, “The kid's softball practice is nearly over so I'm leaving.” She paused. “Call me, please."

  “Right on all counts,” Sue said, handing over the wrinkled sack. “I'll call you when I'm ready to leave the hospital. Oh, and Mike has a camera class at one. Tell him to cancel it for today.” She paused, studying her mother's slight frown. “Thanks, Mom, for watching the kids. I hope this isn't ruining any plans for you."

  “Oh, Sue, dear,” Kathleen began, her voice breaking, her cheeks glowing pink.

  Sue recognized the tone. Her mother had done something, and Sue wasn't certain she wanted to hear about it. “Mom?"

  “Mr. Gier called me right after he called 911. He was talking to me when they found Karen.” Kathleen glanced down as if inspecting her low-heeled leather pumps. “He thought it was you lying on the living room floor. When Mr. Gier said it was you, said the children were nowhere in sight, I—I panicked and called Jacob—"

  “Oh, Mom, you didn't,” Sue burst out, feeling a headache coming on.

  Kathleen shifted the grocery sack into both arms as if it were a shield and cleared her throat. “I'm sorry, Sue. But, yes, I did. I also tried to call him and correct the mistake.” She paused, her tone dropping. “But Abby said he's on his way here."

  Sue stared at her mother. What could she say? Her mother loved her and the kids. Her mother had panicked. If things were reversed, she might have called Jacob, too. And though Jacob tended to seem laid-back to most people, it was a fallacy, and he was a lightening-fast mover when the occasion arose. “Okay. I guess we'll take one problem at a time.” And once he became upset, a usually cool Jacob posed a heady problem. He thought she was in the hospital and he had no idea where Mike and Andee were—Oh, Lord, upset was a tranquil idea. J.T. would be one raging man by the time he got here. “Like you said, I want to talk to that policeman, then go to the hospital. And if you don't hurry, you'll miss the kids."