Hidden Judgment

by Diane Benefiel

  Judy put a hand on his shoulder and nodded to Ellie. “Sam tell you he used to sit at this very booth and do his homework when he was a boy?”

  Ellie smiled. “No, he didn’t tell me that.”

  “When I stayed with my aunt, I’d come here after school until she could pick me up. My mom had worked here, and Judy was one of her best friends.”

  “So you’re family,” Ellie said to Judy.

  “You bet I am.” Judy sniffed, squeezed his shoulder, and pulled a handkerchief from her pocket to wipe her eyes as she walked away.

  Sam shook his head at Ellie’s distressed expression. “That was the perfect thing to say to her. She’s never quite gotten over my mom’s death. Mom had been covering a shift for Judy the night she was killed.”

  “Oh jeez. What a burden to carry.”

  “Yeah.” He motioned to the plate in front of her. “Eat up, or Judy will be back to find out why you’re picking at the food.”

  As always, the chili was excellent, and Ellie dug into her salad. He’d been on dates with women who acted afraid to enjoy their food. He was glad to see Ellie wasn’t like that.

  She speared a slice of avocado, brows lowering over her eyes in a way that made him think she was carefully choosing her words. Keeping her voice low, she said, “Sam, you need to consider that Drew could be behind the threats against you. He carries a gun and is aggressive in defending it as his right. That suggests affinity with pro-gun rights ideology espoused by FD.”

  “It’s not a crime to support the Second Amendment.”

  “As long as that support isn’t extreme. He made a comment that every day you send hardworking men to prison, called them ‘true patriots.’ That suggests anti-government beliefs that may come down on the wrong side of the law.”

  Sam set his butter knife against the plate with the corn bread. “It’s not him. I’ve considered it, but it’s not him.”

  “Is that an emotional assumption, or a logical one based on evidence?”

  “Drew’s my brother. Despite the current issues between us, he would never do anything to hurt me, and certainly wouldn’t have taped a brick of C-four in the wheel well of my car.”

  Her expression was troubled, and he knew as clearly as if she’d said it out loud that she wasn’t convinced of his brother’s loyalty.

  “What happened to Drew’s mother?”

  He sighed in relief at the change in subject. “She passed away when he was a teenager.”

  “Your family has had it rough.”

  “Yeah.” He cut a piece of corn bread and slathered on butter, offering it to her. “He took it hard.”

  “Who wouldn’t?” She took the corn bread, and when she bit into it, closed her eyes with a hum of appreciation. “Wow, that’s good.”

  He moved the corn bread between them. “Have as much as you want.”

  “Thanks. I could make a meal of the corn bread alone.”

  “Tell me about your mother.”

  The quick flash of her eyes told him he’d surprised her. “Margaret Bollinger is the best mom in the world. She was a rock when my dad abandoned us.”

  “How old were you when he left?”

  “Twelve.”

  “Vulnerable age for a girl.”

  “Yeah. Things hadn’t been right before that. Dad would take off for these long weekends without us, so it felt like there was buildup to him leaving. He worked for the military as a civilian. We found out he’d been stealing weapons and explosives and selling most of it on the black market. Mom was shocked, and she was hopping mad, but maybe not as much as you’d think because she had an inkling something was up. But no matter what she felt, she kept it together for her kids. Made us all go to family therapy.”

  “That help?”

  “I think so. My brothers were hurt and angry. I guess we all were. Seth tended to bottle things inside. Still does. I was more emotional and prone to rants, and Linc was somewhere in between. The therapist was good and we worked through it as best we could.”

  “How’s your mom now?”

  “Awesome. She married the marshal in charge of Dad’s case. He’s the best thing that could have happened to her.”

  “Betrayal like that from a family member is hard to overcome. Some people never do.”

  She wondered if he was talking about her family or his. “Arch Bollinger, that’s my stepdad, he doesn’t know the meaning of the word ‘quit.’ He told me that when he met my mom for the first time, his heart did this hard flip in his chest, and he thought ‘there she is.’ He said he’d been waiting for her his entire life. At first Mom brushed him aside, refused to go out with him. He’d step back, take a breath, and try again.”

  Sam frowned. “I know that name. Chief Deputy Archer Bollinger.”

  “You’ve met him?”

  “Yeah, I’ve met him. He oversaw the Marshals Office assigned to the Ninth Circuit when I was clerking. He’s a good guy.”

  “Yes, he is.”

  “And now you and your brothers are all marshals, and on the team to locate your father.”

  “We’re getting closer. We’ll find him and bring him to justice.”

  “I have no doubt.” Sam pushed the empty chili bowl aside, thanking Judy when she warmed his coffee and cleared his dishes. He waited until she was out of earshot to speak. “You okay to be at home alone this afternoon?”

  Ellie gave him that grin that warmed her eyes, the one that made him wish for an instant that the engagement wasn’t fake.

  “Who’s the marshal here? I think I can handle your brother if he decides to show up again. Or anyone else, for that matter.”

  “We don’t know what they’re planning. Whoever made that threat may have moved onto plan B since running me over with a truck didn’t work out.”

  “I’ll be on the lookout. Don’t worry about me.”

  “I don’t think that’s possible.”

  She gave him a sharp look as Judy slid the check across the table to Sam as she passed. Ellie held out her hand. “I’ll pay. We can put it on my expense account.”

  “I got it.” She scowled, and he said, “I pay when I take my fiancée to lunch, Eleanor. Deal with it.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Ellie drove through the largest intersection in town and headed toward Sam’s house. If something didn’t break soon, she’d go crazy, as in running-down-the-street-naked crazy. She and Sam had settled into a rhythm and it’d been working for ten days. But she felt like she was a spring being wound tighter and tighter, and it was only a matter of time before she exploded. God knew where she’d end up when she finally sprung free.

  There hadn’t been any more disturbances at the house. No unexplained footprints, no trucks spinning out under the oak tree. Sam had hired a lawn crew to clean up the mess in the backyard and they’d evened out the soil and replaced sections of sod.

  She and Sam went on outings together, took the dogs for walks and held hands for the neighbors, and even attended a social function where they’d acted the part of besotted lovers. Then they returned to the house where the barriers went up and they were roommates. Roommates whose mutual attraction was so palpable, it hung in the air.

  Which resulted in her being on the brink of crazy.

  Being around Sam meant being in a constant state of unrelenting lust.

  Her perpetually aroused state wouldn’t be so bad if she had an inkling that Sam reciprocated her feelings, but after the first weekend, the austere Judge Creed had returned. Now, he pretty much ignored her when they were home.

  He no longer sat in the front room with her in the evenings, instead closing himself in his office until well after she’d gone upstairs. They still ran together in the mornings, taking a different route every day, but even then conversation was kept to a minimum.

  She put on her blinker and glanced in her side mirror and saw the same work van that had followed her out of the grocery store parking lot was still behind her. The van turned left before the bridge. Could be
nothing, but she recorded a voice memo on her phone noting the make, model, and time she thought its driver might have started to surveil her.

  Once home, she brought the dogs in, set the alarm to “at home,” and got to work on her laptop. Late in the afternoon, she tapped on the meeting app to join the team for a conference call.

  Seth started with a general overview of their current status, then each team member gave an update of what they’d learned.

  “I’ve interviewed more of the female staff about sexual harassment at the courthouse,” Bella reported, her tone even and devoid of emotion. “The issue seems confined to Gordon Finster. An additional woman has sought to join the other complainants against him. Their case appears solid.

  “Finster followed a pattern of staying late into the evening beyond his normal hours when the women were often working alone. He would use the opportunity to take advantage of them sexually. All the women feel indebted to Judge Creed, and believe his support provided them credibility and gave them the courage to make their cases. They are grateful to him.”

  Ellie made a conscious effort not to roll her eyes at the overly professional tone her friend adopted, particularly when she was around Seth, which was most of the time. Bella could be warm and fun, and interesting, but put her near authority and she projected all the emotion of a robot.

  Ellie got Bella’s reserve, and couldn’t blame her given what she’d been through in her life, but Ellie couldn’t seem to convince her that being a good marshal didn’t mean she had to follow all rules and protocols to the letter. For Bella, rules brought security, though Ellie thought being constantly vigilant and afraid of making a mistake must be exhausting.

  “I talked with other staff,” Seth stated. “Not one claimed to be friends with Finster, and most find him obnoxious. He doesn’t have much of a filter. He’s the kind of guy who walks up to people and starts talking to them, but it’s not a conversation. He simply disgorges whatever is on his mind, then moves on. He spewed out the details of his divorce, which apparently got nasty. Sympathy was with his kid for being the bone both parents were fighting over. The only topic he holds back on is his side business selling guns. Few people knew about that.”

  “Any rumors of someone on staff having a beef with Sam?” Ellie asked.

  “No. He’s well-liked and respected. I got the impression one of the women has a crush on him.”

  “Any talk of love interests?” Linc asked. “We haven’t looked at Sam’s romantic background. The threatening emails don’t scream spurned lover, but could be there’s an angry ex with an imagination messing with him. You’d have to be really pissed to duct tape C-four to your ex’s car, but it’s been done. He mention anyone to you, El?”

  “No. He must have bought this engagement ring for someone, but he hasn’t been exactly forthcoming.”

  Linc looked thoughtful. “I think a woman would be more personal, but a dude might go for explosives. El reported a visit from a close friend who is gay. Could be Creed is too.”

  “He’s not,” Ellie said, shaking her head.

  “Have you asked him, or whether he has any angry exes?” Linc was sitting back in his chair, brow raised in a look of inquiry that for some reason always annoyed her.

  “I haven’t asked, but he’s not gay.”

  She should have been more careful because Linc pounced. “And how do you know he’s not gay?”

  “Shut up, Linc. I know, okay?”

  “Do you have anything for us today, Ellie?”

  Grateful for Seth’s rescue, Ellie mentioned the vehicle she thought had followed her. “Right now, I’d give it a fifty percent chance that it wasn’t random and was following me.”

  “Anything more on Drew Martin?”

  “Sam won’t talk about him. My feeling is that Drew is angry and resentful because he hasn’t made any economic advances in his life. He was counting on inheriting part of the ranch, and Sam is in the way of that. Losing his mother, not inheriting property he felt he deserved, and feeling overshadowed by his successful older brother are all adding up for him. The right-wing groups he identifies with reinforce this idea of injustice.”

  “Your analysis is on point,” Seth said. “Joining a militia group would give him a sense of empowerment.”

  Ellie nodded. “The feeling that he never fully belonged to the Creed family has led to a nasty mix of anger and bitterness. One appeal of extremist groups is they make you feel like you’ve found your true home. They feed the anger and resentment to pull in the disaffected. If Drew found a place where he feels wanted within the right-wing militia movement, that could be our connection.”

  “Agreed,” Seth said.

  They concluded their meeting, and Ellie sat in the quiet house watching through the window as the last glow of daylight faded. A glance at her phone to check the time brought a frown. Every day, Sam was home from work shortly after five, and it was already six. She began to text him, then hesitated. Their engagement was fake and checking up on him felt too much like what a girlfriend would do. Which was stupid. She was a marshal, and her job was to protect her fiancé.

  She tapped out a text, keeping it to a simple You good? before hitting send.

  It took him a couple minutes, but his reply of Fine, home soon worked.

  She went to the kitchen with Cleo and Tony following close behind. Getting the hint, she filled their dishes with kibble, then began gathering the ingredients for dinner that she’d purchased that morning at the grocery store.

  Twenty minutes later she had a pot gently simmering on the stove. She was reaching for a wineglass when Tony and Cleo both sat up, ears perked. Her first thought was that Sam was home. Finally. But she hadn’t heard the Land Cruiser or seen headlights of the vehicle driving to the back. The security lights on either end of the garage illuminated the area vacant of vehicles, so unless Sam had somehow already parked in the garage without her noticing, it wasn’t him who had alerted the dogs.

  Opting for caution, she ran up the back stairs and retrieved her Glock from the gun safe, tucking it into the back waistband of her jeans. Gumbie lay curled up and asleep on Ellie’s bed so she shut the door rather than worrying about the cat getting out while she was looking for possible bad guys. She returned to the kitchen using the back stairs.

  In the mudroom, she turned on the lights and opened the back door. The beagles bulleted out, barking furiously as they raced to the back fence. Movement, more of a shifting shadow at the side of the house than anything else, caught her attention. She dashed back inside, leaving the dogs out, flipping off lights as she went through the house so no one could see in.

  From the side window of the library, she watched a dark figure leap from the rock wall to blend into the darkness under the low branches of a trio of trees.

  Ellie stood still, waiting. After several minutes, she reached for the phone in her back pocket. The shadow moved, quick and furtive. Then the window exploded with a crash and she reeled back as shards of glass flew past her.

  She dove for cover behind a couch and a thud sounded as something landed on the floor. Even with her eyelids squeezed shut and instinctively pressing her hands over her ears, she could detect the flash of light and explosive crack of sound.

  The siren for the house alarm went off, sounding oddly muted. Ellie grabbed her Glock and rose cautiously to her feet. A quick look showed no fire. Slamming shut the door to the room, she ran for the front door, gun in hand.

  The yard was empty, and the porch light on the neighbor’s house came on. She tucked her gun back into the waistband of her jeans. Headlights gleamed through the trees as a vehicle raced up the street, barely slowing to take the turn into the driveway.

  Sam’s Land Cruiser skidded to a stop at the walkway and he jumped out of the car and raced toward her. The expression on his face as he ran his hands over her arms and shoulders had the breath backing up in her lungs.

  Over the past week she’d decided he was indifferent to her, but now she realiz
ed he was a consummate actor. Silver glinted in his eyes as his wide palms reached up to frame her face as his thumbs brushed her cheeks.

  “You okay? What the hell happened?”

  His voice sounded like it was coming from deep in a well. She shook her head, trying to clear it, not sure if the feeling of disorientation was from the flashbang or the raw fear emanating from Sam.

  “I think I’m fine, but I can’t hear very well.”

  “Were you attacked?”

  “No. Someone was outside by the wall. They threw a flashbang into the house. I ran outside but they were already gone.”

  “You could have been seriously hurt.”

  His grip tightened as his eyes blazed. This was the first time she’d seen Sam truly angry.

  “But I wasn’t.”

  “What room was it?”

  “The library.”

  He nodded. Despite sounding muffled, she could hear the dogs in the back howling at the approaching sirens of three police cars, one arriving right after the other. They parked on the street, the fire truck following them coming up the driveway. The sirens were silenced, leaving circling blue and red lights slicing through the night.

  As police officers approached, Sam took off his coat to drape around Ellie’s shoulders. She sighed when he pulled her against his side, and she absorbed his heat like he was her own personal campfire.

  “Be better if they didn’t wonder why you’re carrying.”

  Oh. Right. Sam’s coat would hide her gun. At least he was thinking sensibly, while she’d been getting all warm and fuzzy feelings because of his apparent concern.

  An officer, older than the others and with an extra stripe on the sleeve of his coat, asked them to follow him away from the house.

  “Judge Creed.” He nodded to Sam. “Are we looking for an intruder?”

  “No. Whoever threw the device through the window took off. It sounds like it was a flashbang.”

  The officer relayed the information over his radio. “You in the house when all the fun started?”

  Sam shook his head. “I was about two blocks from home when my phone alerted that the house alarm had gone off. Rachel was standing in front when I arrived.”