by Lauren Carr
“You want a piece of me, Finnegan! Come on!” David was ready to take her on, only to find Bogie blocking him with the deputy chief’s massive hand against his chest.
The silver-haired deputy chief, possessing the solid build of a wrestler, stood up with his arms straight out to his sides to hold the battling man and woman apart. Neither David nor Randi could get beyond the enormous officer between them.
Bogie’s gray hair and weathered face fooled many rookies. The officer had been with the Spencer police department longer than some of the younger officers had been alive. More than once, Bogie had been forced to adjust a cocky young rookie’s attitude by using his years of experience and massive muscles to pin him to the mat.
“I take it from her attitude that she’s a fed,” Mac asked Bogie.
“Randi Finnegan. US Marshal,” Bogie replied. “Archie occasionally checks in with her in Cumberland. A few times, she’s come into the station to see David, usually to give him grief about security in Spencer.” His salt-and-pepper eyebrows went up toward his gray hair. “Those meetings are never pretty.”
Her dark eyes boring on David’s blue eyes, Randi approached him like a gun slinger ready to do battle. “You just leave your police cars sitting around so assassins can use them to commit murder?” With both hands, she wrestled against Bogie’s hand, which was blocking her access to the chief.
“Now you listen here, Finnegan,” David argued, “my department’s procedures are none of your business.”
“They are when my charges are put in danger. Why didn’t you call me when you let your cruiser get stolen?”
“I only discovered it was missing minutes before this went down.”
“And you didn’t warn her?”
“He did warn me,” Archie said. “David called me about the missing cruiser, but I didn’t think—”
“You didn’t think?” With a sarcastic laugh, Randi redirected her attention. “Archie, that’s how killers get close to you—It’s the oldest ploy in the book! They pretend to be police officers.” She gestured at the cruiser. “They steal police cars.”
“Archie did think,” Mac said. “In case you haven’t noticed, she’s still standing, and they’re not.”
Finnegan looked the bare-chested man in the damp sweatpants and bare-feet up and down. “No thanks to your police chief.”
“Now you take that back!” Mac charged at her to find Archie holding him back.
The group of law enforcement officers turned into an angry mob with the police chief and Mac trying to get at the US Marshal. Squeezed in the middle, Archie and Bogie tried to keep the peace by holding them all back.
“David O’Callaghan is the best police chief in these parts,” Mac told her. “He’s taken very good care of Archie—better than you—considering that I haven’t laid eyes on you until today and, frankly, with that attitude, I don’t care to see anymore of you.”
Grasping his arm, Archie tried to lead him away. “Mac, calm down.”
“I don’t want to calm down.” Mac shook her hand off and pointed at the marshal. “I have a question for you, Finnegan. How did Cruze’s men find Archie? How did they know she was here?”
All eyes were on US Marshal Randi Finnegan. Her attitude drained from her body. Her face turned white.
Bogie repeated the question. “How did they know?”
“Tommy Cruze got out of jail eighteen days ago,” she said. “A judge let him out when it turned out that one of the feds who investigated his case was found to be dirty.”
Archie shrieked.
Mac gasped, “Are you kidding me?”
David stuck his finger into Randi’s face. “How is it that you, me, and more importantly she,” he pointed at Archie, “weren’t informed about this? If I knew, I would have been prepared to protect her. Instead, she had to take care of it herself.”
“I had no idea,” Randi said. “I only found out when I contacted the home office after Archie called me about this.” She whipped out her cell phone. “Get in the car, Archie.”
“What?” Archie asked while Mac clasped her arm as if to hold her there.
“I said to get in the car. We’re relocating you. Now!”
“No.”
The federal marshal lowered her cell phone from her ear. “We don’t have time to talk about this. Cruze is out. He knows where you are. You’re in danger. We don’t even have time to pack—”
“I’m not going.” Archie turned around and clung to Mac.
“I’m not letting her go,” Mac said.
When Randi stepped toward Archie as if to forcibly take her, Gnarly stepped in between them and barked. Archie clasped his collar to hold him back.
David and Bogie took positions on either side of Archie.
“We’ll take care of her,” Bogie said. “We’ve been taking care of her for this long, and we’re not stopping now.”
David said, “As you can see, she does pretty good at taking care of herself.”
“She got lucky this time,” Randi said.
“I’m not letting you take her away from me,” Mac said.
“If you want to be with her, fine. You can go into the program, too.” Randi waved her arm in a gesture for them both to get into the car.
“I’m not going into the program,” Mac said. “I have friends and family. I’m not going to leave them all behind to hide from a killer.”
“That’s your decision.” Randi said, “Archie, I understand how you feel. You’re in love. But don’t be a fool. Cruze and his people are ruthless. They’ll stop at nothing, including killing the people you care about.”
“I did nothing wrong,” Archie said. “Why am I the one hiding? Cruze is the one who did something wrong. He killed innocent people, and now he’s tried to kill me.” She folded her arms across her chest. “If anyone should be running scared, it’s him.”
Chapter Three
“I can’t believe I let you talk me into this.” Cursing, Randi Finnegan punched the button on her radio to turn off the station David had turned on without her permission. “I should be back at Spencer Manor with Archie, trying to talk some sense into that pretty little head of hers.”
“Mac, Bogie, and my officers will protect her, and Gnarly won’t let her out of his sight.” David pressed the button to tune in to the sports station to catch the score for the ball game that he was missing. That was another thing he needed to get Tommy Cruze for.
“You really don‘t know Cruze’s people.” She shook her head before punching the button off again. When David reached for it, she slapped his wrist. “My car. My radio. My station. I hate baseball.”
“I sensed from the first time we met that there was something seriously wrong with you. Now I know.”
She grumbled, “I am so fired for letting your people take Archie without me going with her.”
“I need you with me to see your boss,” David said. “You admitted it. Without you, he won’t talk to me about who the possible leak is. For all we know, it’s him.”
“Wilson is the most straight up guy there is,” she said with a shake of her head. “He knew J. Edgar Hoover.”
“Just because he’s old doesn’t mean he’s not crooked.”
“It’s not Wilson.”
“Then maybe it’s you,” he said. “You know everything about Archie’s whereabouts, habits, and cover.”
“How do I know it’s not you?” She shot back. “It was your cruiser that got stolen. Who gave them the key to the garage? How many people on your force know about Archie?”
“Bogie and I are the only ones who knew about her. No one else.” From the passenger seat, he shot a glare in her direction. “They didn’t use any key to break into the garage. They took out the security camera before breaking the lock with bolt cutters.”
“To the field office I work out of in Cumberland.”
“Why aren’t you taking the freeway?”
“This way is faster,” Randi said. “It’s more direct.”
“It’s not faster,” he said. “It’s longer. It’ll take us through every mountain ghost town in Maryland.” He pointed across her to the side window. “Take the next left and go up to the freeway.”
She gritted her teeth. “My car—”
“I know!” He mocked her. “My car, my radio, my driving—grrr! Next time I’m driving!”
“Hopefully, there won’t be a next time.”
They continued to ride along in silence, both of them were worried about where Archie was, and if she was safe. They would have preferred to be back at Spencer Manor standing guard over her, but this was something they had to do now. They needed to find the leak who had betrayed their friend and find out what other information he or she had divulged to Tommy Cruze.
“How’s your mother?” Randi jolted David out of his thoughts.
He sat up in his seat in time to notice a goat and her baby on the porch of a dilapidated farmhouse located only a couple of feet from the road. With a slight swerve of the car, they could have been driving across the front porch to run down the critters. “She’s in a nursing home.”
“Really?” Randi’s tone went up an octave. “I’m sorry. When did that happen?”
“A couple of months ago,” he said while staring out the passenger window. “I had to put her there after she stabbed me with a fork.”
“What did you do? Change her radio station?” It was a hollow attempt to lighten his mood that failed.
“She thought I was Dad,” he said. “I tried to ignore it or handle it or whatever. Her nurse kept saying that she was becoming more difficult. Every time Mom would see me, she’d be more hateful…”
“Because she thought you were your father?” Randi asked, “What did your dad ever do—”
“Dad didn’t do anything. She had imagined it all in her mind. She was convinced Dad was having an affair with Robin Spencer. It got worse after Mac moved to Spencer. Dad was already dead, but her dementia got the best of her and she took it out on me. One day, she stabbed me in the chest with a fork.” He rubbed the left side of his chest. “I ended up in the ER. Luckily, it wasn’t too deep. The next day, I sent her to the nursing home.”
“Why did her dementia get worse when Mac Faraday moved to Spencer? What does one have to do with the other?”
David turned to look at her profile. “You don’t see it?”
She glanced over at him.
David’s eyes narrowed. He cocked his head at her. “If you look, you can see that the only difference between me and Mac is that my hair is blond and his is brown. He gets that from Robin. I got my hair from my mother. We both have Dad’s eyes.”
“Mac…Robin Spencer’s illegitimate son… you mean your father—” She had to fight to keep her car on the winding country road while looking over at David to see the family resemblance that she had missed.
“It was before he had met Mom. He wanted to marry Robin, but she was only seventeen years old and her parents would have none of it. They sent her away to college. By the time Robin came back, Dad had married my mom. But Dad swore to me, and so did Robin, that he never broke his marriage vows.” He sighed. “But Mom let herself get so consumed with jealousy that she lost her mind.” He said in a low voice, “When I go to see her, she either won’t talk to me, or tries to attack me. Last time, the doctor told me that I shouldn’t see her alone anymore. Me, big, old police chief, needs a body guard when he visits his own mother.”
“I’m sorry.”
David responded with a shrug. “How’s Butch?”
“Butch?”
“Your husband.”
“We’re divorced.”
“Really?” David turned to her. “When did that happen?”
“It was final six weeks ago.”
“Archie never mentioned it.”
“She never mentioned your mother.”
“What happened?” David asked. “If you don’t mind my asking…”
“Butch was offered a transfer to another part of the country. He wanted to go. I didn’t. I told him to stay. He said he’d rather go. I said if he went, I’d want a divorce because I never heard of a cross-country marriage that worked, especially in our profession. He said fine. That was that.”
“Let me get this straight,” David said, “You gave him a choice of staying and being married to you or leaving, and he left?”
“Yes.”
“Where was the transfer?”
“Alaska.”
David laughed.
“It’s not funny,” she insisted.
“Depends on how you look at it.”
“Which is?”
“Your husband moved to Alaska to get away from you.” He continued to laugh.
“He did not.”
David shrugged. “If I was your husband, I’d move to Alaska to get away from you.”
“If you were my husband,” she sputtered in anger, “I’d slip pesticide into your coffee.”
“If I was your husband, I’d drink it.”
“I’ve imagined you moving your toothbrush in here under much more pleasant circumstances.”
The sudden sound of his voice made Archie jump to knock over her cosmetics case and spill the contents all over Mac’s bathroom floor. Fighting to keep the nervous tears out of her eyes, she stooped down to pick up the rolling perfume bottles, make-up cases, and loose earrings. “I’m sorry. Look at the mess I’ve made.”
“Will you stop apologizing?”
He was kneeling on the floor with her, his hand on hers, which was clutching a ruby earring. In a flash, she remembered him giving it to her along with the matching necklace that Valentine ’s Day. Was that really only last month? Everything seems so long ago since the shooting.
After Bogie had released her from the scene of the shooting, Archie went to her cottage to change her clothes into slacks and pack some of her belongings to move into the more secure manor. She had returned to the master suite to find that Mac had showered, dressed in jeans and a light sweater, and mopped the bathroom floor from where he had been plunging his clogged toilet.
Mac cupped his hand under her chin. “You’ve done nothing wrong.”
“I made a mess of things.”
“No, you haven’t,” he said. “Cruze did.”
She smiled softly at him. “Cruze didn’t drop his stuff all over this floor. I did.”
He smiled. “Mess or not, I’m glad you’re here…in my room…staying with me.” He kissed her. “When this is over, I may never let you go back to the guest cottage.”
She swallowed. “Mac, it’s been over ten years since Cruze put out that contract on me. It’s not going to be over until one of us is dead.”
“The one who’s going to end up dead won’t be you.”
“How can you be so sure?”
He cupped her face with both his hands. She peered into his blue eyes, so much like his birth father, Patrick O’Callaghan, a man Mac had never met. She had met him, and could see why Robin Spencer had fallen in love with him. Mac had been blessed with the best qualities of both his parents—his father’s quick thinking and courage, his mother’s imagination and wisdom, and both of their unbending strong-will.
“I won’t let anything happen to you,” Mac said.
She threw her arms around his shoulders to kiss him. The jewelry she had gathered up was still in her hands. As they parted, they gazed into e
ach other’s eyes.
The clearing of a throat made them realize they were not alone.
“I don’t mean to interrupt,” Bogie’s voice came in from the bedroom, where he had stepped away to allow them their privacy, “but there’s a phone call for Archie. It’s Misty from the Doggie Hut.”
“Oh, no!” Archie almost knocked Mac over in her haste to get up and out of the bathroom to grab the phone from Bogie. “Misty! Gnarly’s appointment. I completely forgot!”
Feeling her excitement, Gnarly jumped up onto the bed where Archie sat to talk on the phone. He hung his head over her shoulder as if to listen in on the call.
“You missed an appointment with Misty?” Bogie asked. “Do you know how hard it is to get in to see her?” He turned to Mac. “Gnarly will be lucky if he can get back into her scheduled before Christmas.”
“Poor Gnarly.” Mac’s tone dripped with sarcasm.
“Misty is the hottest dog groomer in all of Deep Creek Lake,” the deputy police chief said. “I once pulled over a Mercedes with an Irish Setter that had just left from seeing Misty. She smelled of Irish Crème and was wearing a crisp emerald green bandana. Cutest dog you’ve ever seen.”
“What about the driver?”
“Gave her an eighty-five dollar ticket for speeding,” Bogie said, “but her dog was really cute.” He glanced around behind Mac into the bathroom where the plunger was resting next to the toilet. “You got a clog?” After Mac nodded his head that he did, the deputy chief said, “I was a plumber’s apprentice back when I was in school—before getting drafted—before I became a cop. Want me to take a look at it?”
Mac stepped aside and gestured for Bogie to go to work. “Be my guest.”
Archie hung up the phone with a whoop. “We did it, Gnarly.” She grabbed his head in both hands and kissed the German shepherd on the snout.
“What did we do?” Mac asked.
“Misty can squeeze Gnarly in tomorrow.”
“You can’t take him in tomorrow,” Mac said.