“Where were you earlier this morning?” Dylan began.
“I already told you that I haven’t violated the restraining order. The judge would throw me in jail.”
“This isn’t about a restraining order.” Dylan caught sight of a tall gun cabinet at the back of the room and injected his voice with friendly interest. “Hey, you like guns, too?”
“Yeah. They’re my hobby.”
“Mine, too,” Dylan lied, “but on a cop’s salary, I can’t afford them. Mind if I take a look?”
Andy shed his belligerent, hangdog expression. “Help yourself. You a hunter?”
“No.” Dylan opened the cabinet’s glass door for a better view of the rack of target rifles. “Never liked bloodshed. Target shooting is my interest.”
Heather said nothing, and Dylan hoped Andy wasn’t watching her, because her face registered bewilderment at his lies.
Dylan removed a Remington Model 700 with a scope, held it to his shoulder and pretended to take aim out the front window. “This is a great piece.”
“That’s my favorite,” Andy said. “I bought it right before…a few weeks ago.”
Dylan opened the bolt and sniffed. “Smells like it hasn’t been cleaned since it was last fired. Did you shoot it this morning?”
Andy’s uneasy expression returned. “Yeah, what of it?”
“Nothing.” Dylan shrugged, slid the gun back in its cabinet and made a mental note of the make and caliber of the other rifles. “Just wondered where you practice.”
“The police range in Tampa.”
Dylan remembered the pistol cartridges retrieved in the packing house. “Do you ever shoot handguns?”
“Nope. Don’t even own one. I prefer rifles.”
Dylan closed the cabinet. “Do you shoot alone or compete with a group?”
“Alone, especially during the week. I try to beat my own score.”
Dylan moved closer to Heather, who stood quietly, eyeing Andy as prey views a predator. “Where were you yesterday morning and the morning before that?”
“At the rifle range, like every day since I lost my job.” Andy’s face hardened into ugly lines, and he shot a hate-filled gaze at Heather. “What’s this all about? Has Lea been complaining about me?”
“Can anyone at the range vouch for your presence?” Dylan asked.
“How should I know? I go to shoot, not chitchat. What’s going on?”
“I’m investigating a kidnapping and attempted murder,” Dylan said.
“Attempted murder!” Andy blanched and comprehension lit his eyes. “With a rifle?”
Dylan nodded.
Andy licked his lips and clasped his shaking hands beneath his armpits. “Look, man, I got enough trouble between my wife leaving and losing my job. I swear, I’m not mixed up in any murder attempt.”
“Then you don’t have anything to worry about,” Dylan said. “We won’t take any more of your time.”
He grasped Heather’s elbow and steered her ahead of him out of the house.
When they were halfway to the car, Hayward called from the front door. “Heather?”
She turned, and Dylan tensed, ready to throw himself between her and any harm Andy could inflict.
“Please,” he whined. “Tell Lea I miss her.”
Heather’s expression was a collage of pity, anger and disgust. “I’ll tell her.”
“DO YOU THINK ANDY was the one who shot at me?” Heather asked over lunch at an outdoor table of a fast-food restaurant.
Dylan shrugged. “He had motive and opportunity, but I’ll reserve judgment until I’ve seen the ballistics report on the slugs taken from your kitchen.”
“What if the slugs are the same caliber as Andy’s rifle?”
“Along with the threats Andy made to you, Cramer might have cause for a warrant to confiscate the gun for testing.”
The first throbs of a tension headache drummed behind her eyes. Her earlier attempt to circumvent the attack with coffee hadn’t succeeded. Emotional strain and the unaccustomed chaos in her life were taking their toll. She set aside her half-eaten salad, dug aspirin from her purse and swallowed them with the last of her iced tea.
“You sure you’re up to another interview?” he asked.
“I’m sure. The sooner we find out who’s behind all this, the sooner my life and Chip’s can return to normal.”
Normal meant without Dylan, but she could endure the chronic, aching loneliness better than her unblunted desire to throw herself in his arms.
“Sounds as if you’ve been happy with that life.” His tone was neutral, and she couldn’t read the expression in his eyes, hidden by the reflective lenses of his sunglasses.
“Motherhood agrees with me.” That much, at least, was true. “What about you? Is Clyde Heller still your partner?”
A sudden and ominous stillness settled over him. “Clyde’s dead. Eight months ago.”
Shock robbed her temporarily of speech. A year younger than Dylan, the fun-loving, wisecracking Clyde had ridden with him for years. “What happened?”
“We responded to an alarm at a convenience store. Three kids, teenagers, hopped up on drugs, had robbed it. We met them coming out. One of them panicked and shot Clyde in the face.”
Her stomach twisted in horror. “Did they shoot you?”
“They tried to take me out, but my vest stopped their bullets.” His tone remained flat, but a muscle ticking in his jaw transmitted his distress. “Clyde hung on for six weeks, but he never regained consciousness.”
“How are Annie and the kids coping?”
“They have Clyde’s pension and life insurance, but Annie still cries at the mention of his name. Her boys are having trouble sleeping and problems in school.”
“It seems so unfair.”
“We arrested the shooters, but they’re juveniles. They’ll be back on the street before they’re my age.” Bitterness tainted his voice.
“Maybe I can visit Annie when we return to Dolphin Bay.”
He nodded. “She always liked you. Seeing you might cheer her up.”
She blinked back tears. “Poor Annie.”
“I warned Clyde,” Dylan said flatly.
“About the robbery?”
“About marriage. Police marriages don’t last. If divorce doesn’t break them, death does. He should never have married Annie.” His voice implied more torment than censure. “He ruined her life.”
Anger stripped away her sadness. “How can you say that?”
“Because it’s true.”
She leaned toward him, tense with indignation. “Clyde loved Annie. In the grand scheme of things, even if he hadn’t been a cop, he might have died young, hit by a car or struck down by disease. At least this way, he and Annie had several years of happiness together before his death. And Annie has her children and her memories.”
He set his jaw in the stubborn pose she remembered with such clarity. “I wonder if she considers those memories worth the pain.”
“Have you asked her?”
He flinched, as if shocked by the question. “No.”
“Then maybe you should.” Fury, too long suppressed, over the attitude that had driven her away, unleashed her tongue. “No marriage comes with guarantees. Loving is always a risk, because, sooner or later, we’re all terminal.”
“Since when are you a fatalist?”
“I’m a realist,” she countered. “Yes, Clyde died young. If he’d lived to the ripe old age of eighty and they’d been together sixty years, do you think Annie would hurt any less when he died?”
Did he really believe cops shouldn’t marry, or was his conviction a smoke screen for his reluctance to commit himself? She longed to rip the sunglasses from his face to expose the look in his eyes.
As if reading her thoughts, he pulled off his glasses and hooked them onto the neckline of his shirt His gaze, filled with pain and uncertainty, met hers. “I never considered that angle.”
Her outburst had depleted her anger
, and embarrassment filled the void. Twice today she’d lost control, once through desire, again through anger. Harrowing circumstances were loosening her grip.
“Sorry about the lecture. Since I was shot at this morning, my emotions have been running riot.”
“Considering what you’ve been through, your composure is remarkable.” His compliment made her blush. “Ready to tackle Robert Tipton?”
Relieved at the change of subject, she nodded. “I looked in the pay phone directory while you were ordering. Tipton isn’t listed, but the school office will have his address.”
“Do you want to phone for it?”
“School’s only a couple of blocks away. I can check my faculty mailbox and get the address at the same time.”
During the short drive to the school, Dylan remained unusually quiet, but she couldn’t worry whether her comments on love and marriage had offended him. They had needed saying. If she’d been smarter, she would have cleared the air between them on the subject before she’d withdrawn from his life.
He pulled the Jeep into the faculty parking lot of the low, modem building and followed her into the school’s administrative offices.
Darlene Winburn, the school secretary, a willowy redhead with a predominant overbite, rose from her desk and approached the counter when they entered.
“Thank God you’re here. I’ve been calling your house for the last two hours.”
“Chip?” Heather asked anxiously.
“No, honey, it’s not about Chip.” Darlene’s eyes widened in surprise when she spotted Dylan with Heather, but she quickly recovered her composure. “Someone was here earlier, asking how to locate you on a matter of life and death.”
“A bearded man, medium height?” Dylan said.
“You remember Dylan Wade?” Heather asked Darlene.
Darlene inclined her head in recognition. “The person looking for Heather was a woman.”
“A woman?” Heather thought immediately of Margaret Wade and her anxiety over Chip returned, until she remembered Margaret could have reached them on Dylan’s mobile phone. “Did she give her name or say what the urgent matter was?”
“She wouldn’t tell me anything. Just kept insisting she had to find you. When I told her we don’t release teachers’ addresses without their permission, she got snippy. Said she has your address but you’re not home.”
“Give us her description,” Dylan said.
“She was tall, slender. Couldn’t tell much about her hair or eyes because of her hat and sunglasses.”
“How old was she?” Heather asked.
“It was hard to tell. She looked fit and tan, maybe my age—early forties—but she could have been much older.”
Dylan quirked an eyebrow. “Why do you say that?”
“Everything about her screamed money—the cut of her beige linen dress, the rocks on her fingers, her Italian shoes. Any woman that loaded could easily afford a face-lift.”
Heather attempted to place such a woman and drew a blank. “Did she say anything else, like how I can get in touch with her?”
Darlene shook her head. “She refused, even after I told her I didn’t know where you were.”
“So she left?” Dylan asked.
Darlene nodded. “She turned on her expensive heels and marched right out to her car.”
“Did you get a look at the vehicle?” Dylan persisted.
“It would have been hard to miss. The parking lot’s practically empty this time of year, and none of us drives a fancy white Mercedes.”
Chapter Nine
“A white Mercedes?” Heather’s look of astonishment reflected Dylan’s surprise.
“Late model, two-door?” he asked.
“That’s right.” Darlene sighed with relief. “So you do know her? That’s good. She seemed so frantic, I was getting real worried for you, Heather.”
As if in shock, Heather didn’t comment.
“The address you came for?” Dylan prompted.
Heather blinked, as if coming out of a fog. “I need an address for Kayla Tipton’s father.”
Darlene’s face brightened. “That pretty, dark-haired girl in your senior honors class? I’ll only take a minute.”
The secretary returned to her desk behind the counter and clicked a few keys on her computer. “The Tiptons live on Shell Island.”
Heather jotted the house number and street as Darlene read from the screen.
“Do you have a place of business for the father?” Dylan asked.
Darlene scrolled down the page and produced an address on Beach Drive near the waterfront. Heather added it to her notes. “Thanks, you’ve been a big help.”
“No problem,” Darlene said with a toothy smile. “Say, if that woman comes back, what should I tell her?”
Dylan pulled out his card, wrote his cell phone number and a number for Detective Cramer on the back, and handed it to Darlene. “Try to detain her, and call one of these numbers.”
The secretary regarded Heather with a frown. “You’re not in some kind of trouble?”
Heather opened her mouth, as if to explain, then shook her head. “Thanks again.”
Before the secretary could ask more questions, Dylan steered Heather out of the office and waited until they were out of earshot before speaking. “Think carefully. Is it possible Chip’s kidnapper was a woman?”
Confusion clouded her green eyes. “Maybe. He—she could have worn a wig and beard to hide that fact I can’t remember the voice. I was too terrified by the words. A woman athlete or one who weighttrains could have been that strong, but wouldn’t the Rowlands have recognized a woman’s voice when the kidnapper questioned them this morning?”
“Not necessarily. We had a female dispatcher a few years back with a voice deeper than mine.” He opened the Jeep door for her, then circled the vehicle and climbed in.
“Suppose,” she said, as he drove away from the school, “the woman in the white Mercedes has nothing to do with the kidnapping or murder attempts?”
“I’ve heard of stranger coincidences,” he admitted, “but if she’s not the kidnapper, it’s more likely she’s connected to him and came to the school either to locate you or to warn you.”
“I’ve never met Mrs. Tipton,” Heather said.
“What?” He couldn’t follow the leap of Heather’s thoughts.
She strained against her seat belt as she turned toward him, and the pressure of the strap across her high, firm breasts generated vivid memories of their earlier embrace. Desire drove all other thoughts from his mind and urged him to stop the car and take her, right there on Fourth Avenue North, in front of God and everybody.
He shoved the air conditioner control to high, aimed the vent at his overheated face and forced himself to concentrate on what Heather was saying.
“Robert Tipton is a very wealthy man. If his wife drives a white Mercedes, maybe he’s the man behind this nightmare. If he is, it’s almost over.”
The eagerness in her voice saddened him. He understood her desire to end the threats against her and Chip, but wondered if she was just as anxious to return to her former life without Dylan. Replaying their conversation at lunch, he recalled her insistence that love was always a risk.
Risk?
He tamped down a snort of disgust. Love was risky all right, and he should know. He’d loved her, and she’d left him. She’d been right about another thing, too. In spite of the pain he’d suffered at her desertion, he wouldn’t trade anything for the years they’d spent together.
He turned onto Beach Drive, found the number Heather read from her notes and parked beneath the canopied shade of a banyan tree. Robert Tipton’s law office reeked of affluence, from the lushly landscaped, brick-paved parking lot to the Tiffany-glass panels in the entrance of the converted Victorian mansion.
Plush burgundy runners muffled their footsteps on the polished hardwood floor of the entry hallway, and an elegantly coiffed receptionist raised her head at their approach to her desk.
“May I help you?” Her quiet, genteel voice matched the decor.
Dylan showed his shield. “I’m Officer Dylan Wade of the Dolphin Bay Police Department. I need to speak with Robert Tipton.”
If the badge fazed her, she didn’t show it. “Have a seat. I’ll see if Mr. Tipton is free.”
She cast an inquisitive glance at Heather, but Dylan declined to introduce her. He wanted to note Tipton’s expression when Heather walked in unannounced.
Heather settled onto a sofa and clasped her hands in her lap. The strain of the past few days had caused violet shadows beneath her eyes and worry lines between her brows, but despite those traces of weariness, her resolute posture and the determined set of her jaw signaled her resistance to despair. A woman of less character would be cowering in fear after all she’d been through, but her irrepressible spirit remained undaunted.
Admiration, love and desire ambushed him, but he thrust the emotions aside. He had a job to do. Then he would get the hell out of her life before wanting her drove him nuts.
“Let me speak to Tipton alone first,” he said.
“Okay.” Her smile burned through him like sweet acid, a reminder of all he’d lost when she left him.
“Officer Wade.” The receptionist had returned. “Mr. Tipton will see you now.”
He followed the elegant blonde to the end of the hall. She opened one of the paneled double doors and motioned him inside.
Robert Tipton rose behind a massive mahogany desk set in a bay alcove overlooking a walled garden. In spite of distinguished gray hair and deep lines in his tanned face, his physique and agility matched that of a much younger man. Buttoning the double-breasted jacket of his expensive suit, he stepped from behind his desk with a congenial smile and extended a hand.
“How can I help you, officer?” The attorney’s strong grip matched his appearance. He released Dylan’s hand and waved him toward a wing chair upholstered in soft burgundy leather. “Coffee?”
“No, thanks.” Dylan scanned the room with a practiced eye, taking in photographs in ornate silver frames displayed on a credenza behind Tipton’s desk. “Nice family.”
“My wife, Catherine.” Tipton sat in the matching chair opposite Dylan and pointed to the photo of a tall, slender woman with her arms around a pretty but sulky teenager. “And my daughter, Kayla.”
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