by Dee Holmes
“It makes sense, but what you said earlier also makes sense. They didn’t find what they were originally looking for, and you didn’t have it, so they returned and really tore the place apart.”
“So if there is anything, it’s still here.”
“Let’s get started.”
Two hours later, Hunt had unbuttoned his shirt and Molly had shed her hose. She sat Indian-style on Vern’s bed in front of a fan. She’d opened the buttons of her dress to the lace of her bra, uncaring that she was so exposed. Nor did she care that she’d hiked her dress up so the air could reach her legs.
Hunt’s chest was damp and his frustration obvious. “I don’t know where else to look. We’ve combed through everything, and there’s nothing even marginally suspicious. Your brother was either brilliant in his ability to hide something or he never hid anything here in the first place.”
“He was brilliant.”
“Or canny.”
“Both.”
Hunt grinned. “Okay. So where would a brilliant and canny brother hide something important?”
Suddenly Molly scrambled off the bed. “Oh, my God.”
“What? What?”
“Hunt, I know. I know.” She danced around like a hundred-million-dollar lottery winner. “Behind the baseboard in the kitchen.” She hurried past Hunt and into the tiny kitchen, where she looked for a baseboard. There was none. Counters and appliances covered all the exposed wall space.
“Damn. There has to be some. When we were kids, Vern used to hide money he won playing poker behind a baseboard. It was his secret hiding place and he swore me to silence when I caught him one day. He used that money to buy food when our parents took off and left us. Vern told me to never hide anything in a bedroom—it’s the first place a thief looks.”
“A baseboard would only work as a hiding place in an old house. New ones have plastered walls or wallboard.”
“This is an old house.”
“That it is.” Hunt opened the pantry door and pulled a light cord. The closet was stuffy and suffocatingly hot, but Hunt pointed to the back wall and the baseboard. “What do you think?”
“See if any are loose.”
He moved a few six-packs of beer aside to give him room to work. The tight space plus the pantry shelves made the back wall just barely accessible.
Hunt lay down on his back and twisted to see underneath a low shelf. “Molly, get me a knife, not too long.”
She opened drawers and found a table knife. She stooped down and handed it to him.
“Thanks.” He picked blindly along the top of the molding. The inaccessibility and the darkness of the area made it impossible to see what he was doing. Molly heard his strained breathing, a few grunts and finally a soft thud.
“You found a loose baseboard?”
“Yeah.” He coughed. “Now let’s see if there’s anything here.”
Molly hovered in a stooped position behind him, her hands clenching and unclenching around his thigh, her pulse racing. “Did you find something?”
“Just a sec. I hope no rats took up residence in here.”
Molly shuddered, and then in that split second, she remembered that her brother had always kept a mousetrap in his hiding place.
“Hunt, be careful—”
A tinny snap. Then his yowl.
“Dammit!”
Molly flinched, pressing her teeth together in an empathetic grimace. Then the mousetrap skidded past her.
“Nice guy, your brother,” Hunt grumbled. “He didn’t even trust the mice.”
“Is your finger okay?”
“No. It hurts like hell.”
She grinned and patted his thigh. “I promise we’ll get it all washed and make the hurt go away.”
“I’m gonna hold you to—Molly, I found something.”
“What is it? What?”
“Scoot back.”
She did as he said and watched as he worked his way out of the tight space. Finally he was on his feet, wiping the sweat from his forehead.
Molly reached up and picked some cobwebs from his hair and shirt. In his hand, the same one with the rapidly swelling finger, was a small gray notebook.
Molly grinned, her excitement obvious, and Hunt winked. “We make quite a team. Come on, let’s get out of this hot room and see what we’ve got.”
Back in the bedroom, they sat side by side on the bed and Hunt opened his find.
A number of pages were written on, and the writing was in columns. Numbers and letters.
“This is the same sequence—”
Hunt clamped a hand over her mouth, then held a finger to his lips. She nodded.
Hunt continued to stare intently at the numbers and letters. Then his finger stopped at one, but before Molly could ask any questions, he tumbled her back on the bed and kissed her.
His head angled and his body moved against hers. When he lifted his lips, her eyes were glazed, and as much as she hated to admit it, she wanted him.
“Are we going to—?”
“Get outta here,” he whispered against her ear. “Should have considered the possibility earlier, but the jerks who trashed the place could have planted a few bugs.”
“Oh.” She tried to hide her disappointment. “I thought you just wanted to kiss me.”
“That, too.” He grinned, and unable to resist any longer, he dipped his head and kissed the top of her breasts, where they spilled from the open dress. Her skin was warm and fragrant, and when he nudged one breast from the lacy bra cup, her nipple was too hard and sweet to resist. Molly slipped her hands into his hair holding his mouth against her. He suckled, and her breathless sigh sent him after her other breast. He pressed kisses on her while his hand moved to the juncture of her legs. He touched her and felt the heat of her desire.
With his mouth brushing kisses from her breasts to her cheeks, he murmured, “Want me, don’t you?”
“Yes.” Her bold affirmation brought a new and deeper hunger into his eyes.
“I do love an honest woman.”
“You’re supposed to say you want me, too.”
“Do I have to say it? Isn’t it obvious?”
“I like hearing it as much as I like feeling it.”
He leaned closer and whispered in her ear.
Her cheeks burned, but she placed her mouth against his ear and repeated back to him that she wanted the same thing.
Hunt groaned, nestling against her so that their hips rubbed with a sizzling heat. “A few more comments like that and I’m not going to wait until we get home.”
She smiled the smile of a woman who knew she was in control and loving it. “Then I won’t have to beg and coax you.”
“No, ma’am.”
He rolled off her, pulling her to her feet, once again holding his finger to his mouth to indicate silence.
She gathered her hose and shoes and purse. Hunt took her arm as they made their way through the apartment. Hunt closed the windows and locked the door on their way out.
“We’ll have to come back,” Molly said. “I have to clean things out.”
Hunt nodded.
In the car, he cranked up the air conditioner, handed Molly the notebook to hold and drove to the nearest pay phone.
“SEAN SULLIVAN,” Hunt said, when the precinct desk answered.
“Not here. Who is this?”
“Hunt Gresham. Do you know where I can reach him?”
“Should be back here by four,” the officer said, deftly avoiding Hunt’s question.
Hunt hung up, dumped some more change in the slot and dialed Sean’s cell phone. The phone wasn’t on. Hunt stood, his hand resting on the receiver, trying to think where his old partner might be. Then he grinned, dumped in more change and dialed another number.
On the fourth ring, it was answered by the one woman Hunt knew who could wear a feather boa over a leather jacket and not look like she’d stumbled out of a flea market clearance.
“Julie, this is Hunt Gresham. Sean there with you?”
“Yeah, well, life’s just a jungle of missed opportunities, isn’t it?” He’d never been to any party with Julie in Cambridge or anywhere else, but to Julie if you were male, then you must have been somewhere with her at sometime.
“Sean is getting dressed.” Her voice lowered to a seductive rasp. “So why don’t you ever come and see me?”
“And risk my life if Sean found out? Sorry, but I don’t have a death wish.” In fact, he’d never been interested in Julie Bliss, but it stretched the truth to say Sean would have cared one way or another. Their relationship had been off as much as on, and Sean had made no secret of the fact that she was willing and convenient. Since his divorce, five years ago, he’d sworn off anything with a woman more serious than an afternoon romp in the sack. Julie gave him that.
Now her giggle broke through his thoughts and Hunt rolled his eyes. He glanced back at the car where Molly waited and realized what a profound difference there was between what Sean had with Julie and what he and Molly had done the previous night. Even while Hunt was insisting it was just sex, he knew better. The hell of it was that sex was easy to walk away from; what he had shared with Molly was complicated and tangled. And her giving him her virginity…
“Hunt, how the hell did you find me?”
“Process of elimination.”
Immediately on the defensive, Sean said, “I had a couple of hours off.”
“Was I asking?”
“Just want you to know I’m not messing around on taxpayers’ time.”
“You never did, Sean.”
“Damn right. So I presume you got something.”
“The mother of all pieces to this puzzle.” Hunt went on to tell him about finding the notebook and where, the columns and the number and letter sequence. “You remember a few years ago when I worked that case where Rudy Moschetta was gunned down at his summer cottage? The address was 354 Old Beach Drive?”
“Yeah, I remember the case, but the address doesn’t ring any bells.”
“It made an impression on me because the 354 was part of my old phone number, but my point is that the notebook had a notation 354 OBD. That would be short for the address, and since all the entries are coded in the same way, I figured Wallace must have had trouble remembering addresses so he wrote them down. But he did it so that they wouldn’t be easily recognized. There were five entries after that and then the 827 BOS. We’re looking in the wrong direction. My guess is that all these entries are addresses.”
“Well, I’ll be damned. How many are there?”
“A few dozen.”
“I don’t suppose there’s any secondary coding that would clue us in as to towns or cities.”
“No such luck, but there are dates, and with a match to past hits that Wallace was contracted for, we should have the Pascale connection. The hits for Pascale and the ones for Solozi.”
“My God! We might be able to nail them both and stop the next hit. What about a date on the last entry?”
“None. Wallace must have waited until the contract was complete to date it.”
“Okay, we’ll use a database and see what we can find. Digging through all the streets in Massachusetts is going to take some time. Got a new guy here we call the cyber cop. He’s been working on crimes committed by computer. This isn’t his thing, but he might have some ideas on the fastest way to track it down. Thanks, Hunt. This wasn’t supposed to be your problem, but sending you off with the sister was a good move.”
“Yeah.”
“How did the funeral go?”
“The boys were no-shows. After Molly made Pascale and his pals look like three extras from a bad gangster movie, I think they decided to let things cool down.” Hunt told Sean about Molly’s phone call to the apartment and the search after the police had been there.
“I’ll get on this. Staying with her wasn’t so tough, was it?”
Hunt reminded himself to stop at a drugstore for condoms. “I’m making sure I’m prepared for anything.”
“Good, good. Julie, cut it out. I gotta get back to work.” Sean groaned.
Hunt chuckled. “I’ll check with you later. Don’t forget you’re due back at four. Tax dollars don’t cover your personal overtime.”
“Screw you, Gresham.”
Hunt laughed, hung up and went back to the car.
“Well? What did Sean say?”
“I’ll fill you in on the way to the drugstore.”
“I already bought some at the convenience store.”
Hunt scowled. “Bought what?”
She opened her purse and took out an unopened box of condoms.
Hunt thought he was long past being astonished by a woman, but Molly was something else.
“Pretty sure of yourself, aren’t you?”
“I was only anticipating. Last night wasn’t planned, and I’m sure I’ll be okay, but…” As his face grew darker and his mouth grimmer, she said, “You’re angry.”
“I don’t like being maneuvered, Molly. One night doesn’t mean more nights.”
“But at Vern’s apartment—”
“I was trying to keep you from talking.”
“We talked earlier and you didn’t act worried.”
“Before wasn’t as important,” Hunt said vaguely, but he knew he simply hadn’t considered a bug. Or had Molly flummoxed his thought processes?
“So the kiss was all a diversion. It meant nothing to you?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Then what are you saying?”
“That I don’t intend to spend the rest of the time we’re together in bed with you.”
She turned away, and he knew he’d hurt her pride and probably attacked her need to not appear young and innocent. She wanted to be bold and sexy. He really should apologize, but at the moment having her think he was a bastard made it a hell of a lot easier to avoid making use of those condoms.
CHAPTER TWELVE
MOLLY SAW THEM sitting on the top front step.
The woman was waiflike, her complexion pale against her dark hair. Sunglasses shielded her eyes. She wore a gray sleeveless blouse tucked into a blueand-gray pleated skirt. Clutched close to her was a loosely woven straw bag the size of carry-on luggage. Seated beside her was a small boy in shorts and a T-shirt. A Boston Red Sox cap, worn with the bill backward, nearly covered his hair. In his hands were baseball cards, which he shuffled absentmindedly. He looked bored, and she looked anxious.
Molly knew exactly who they were.
She had the car door open when Hunt’s hand gripped her arm and stopped her. “Be careful what you say,” he warned.
Still stung by their conversation of just moments ago, she asked, “Am I allowed to identify myself or should I call myself Ms. X?”
She didn’t miss his scowl. “Don’t be a smart mouth. We don’t have any idea what her connection is or why she’s here.”
“I’ll leave that to you to figure out She’s my sister-in-law, and that’s my nephew, and I don’t intend to let you make our first meeting an inquisition.” She slid from the car and closed the door before he could say anything more.
The woman got to her feet, sliding her sunglasses up into her hair. Her eyes were toffee colored and wide, unblinking when she saw Molly. Her fierce determination was an attitude Molly understood and identified with.
The boy peered up at her, lower lip pushed out, his head tipped to the side. She saw the stubbornness in his expression that so perfectly mirrored Vern’s when he’d been that age. Molly was awed by the resemblance.
“You’re Francine, and this must be Brandon. I recognize you from the pictures,” Molly said, her voice cracking slightly with emotion. This was her family…her only connection to her brother. The realization rushed at her with an all-consuming intensity. She had so many things she wanted to ask and say that she had to hold herself in check so as to
not bombard Francine.
Behind her she heard Hunt approach, then he stopped, making her think he’d decided to stay back and let her have this time with Francine and Brandon.
“I hope you don’t mind me just coming here,” Francine said, her gaze sliding from Molly to Hunt and back to Molly.
“Of course not. I’ve so hoped to meet you. But how did you know where to find us?”
“I followed you after you left the funeral home yesterday. You were so obviously upset I decided to wait another day.”
Puzzled, Molly said, “I didn’t see you there. I would have contacted you, but I had no address. I hated that you had to find out through an obituary.”
“Actually, I learned about it first from a newspaper story. Then I came here to Fernwood and saw the obituary.” She adjusted her straw bag on her shoulder. “I was late getting to the funeral home, and there were so many visitors, then the chaos after you disappeared. I didn’t go into the viewing room until everyone had left. But I saw your friend outside near the parked cars.” She nodded toward Hunt. “He was very upset.”
Molly turned around. Hunt was leaning against the front fender, his own sunglasses in place and his arms folded. He reminded her of some macho bodyguard ready to draw and fire on a split second’s notice. His sphinxlike stillness made her feel both secure and nervous.
One moment she thought she knew him, and the next, like now, he was as distant as a stranger. He apparently viewed even reasonable situations, such; as this meeting, as needlessly complicated. Obviously police work had jaded him to the point where he took nothing at face value.
Francine continued. “Your friend drove off, and when I asked a man where you were, he said he didn’t know but that your friend Would be back. So I waited.”
Molly glanced at Hunt again. He’d removed his sunglasses. “Did you see them at the funeral home?”
“At the time, I was more worried about finding you.” His words betrayed little emotion, his eyes focused on Francine.
To Francine, she said, “Oh, this is Hunt Gresham. He was with me at the hospital when Vern died. He’s my…” She stopped herself, realizing she didn’t need to explain. “He didn’t want me to come to the funeral alone.” She studied Francine. “I don’t understand why I never noticed you yesterday.”