DEATHBLOW

by Dana Marton

  “Go ahead.”

  She settled in and pulled a blanket over herself as she glanced at his stack of papers. “I thought police work was all chases and excitement.”

  “That’s how we get suckered in. Nobody tells you that most of it is mind-numbing paperwork.”

  She flipped through the channels, picked some cooking show, and turned it way down, probably so she wouldn’t disturb him. She glanced toward him. “I’m sorry we’ve taken over your house. I’m sure you didn’t expect us to stay this long.”

  “I want you here.”

  That had her eyes widen. “Why?”

  Strategy was for football. When you loved a woman, you laid your cards on the table. Another morsel of wisdom from Amber. In case his little sister had that right, Joe put down the paper in his hand and held Wendy’s gaze. “Because I’m falling in love with you.” A bitter laugh escaped him. “And to think that I used to be known for my impeccable timing.”

  She stared at him. “What are you talking about? I’m the one who lost the baby.”

  “I’m not looking for a baby-making machine.” He ran his fingers through his hair. “To be honest, I didn’t think I was looking for anything. And then you came along.” He shook his head. “I can’t explain it.”

  “Can you forgive me?”

  “I already told you none of this was your fault. If anyone’s, it was mine.” He moved over to her and took her hands. God, just being able to hold her hands again meant more to him than all the other women he’d dated before put together.

  “I’d like to kiss you.” He asked for permission, like that first time.

  She looked as torn as she had back then. But, after a moment, she leaned toward him.

  He pulled her into his lap, his arms around her. He wasn’t ever going to let her go, he promised himself, and then he brushed a kiss over her lips.

  “I missed you,” he whispered against her mouth.

  “I missed you too.”

  “I know you want time to yourself to figure out what you want.” He nibbled. “I’m not going to push.”

  “Okay.” She kissed him back.

  “I’m falling in love with you, and I don’t know how to handle it,” he said after a long moment. “This never happened to me before. I don’t know how to do this.”

  “That must hurt the ego,” she joked with him.

  “Yes, it does. I’m used to being good at things.”

  “You’re doing fine.” She pressed her lips against his again.

  Yes, that was more than fine. He took it from there. Hell, he had the ball. If he knew one thing, it was how to run with it. The knowledge that he could have lost her along with the baby gave a whole new layer of emotion to the kiss.

  Some woman on TV rambled on about crème brȗlée, but the words never connected into a sentence in his head, his thoughts and feelings lost in Wendy.

  Her arms went around his neck as she held on to him.

  His right hand snuck up her rib cage, stopped under her breast, hesitated. She shifted, and her breast slid into his waiting palm. Had he ever thought that she wasn’t stacked? Who would even want that? She was perfect.

  He ran his questing fingers over her, going hard as her nipple pebbled under his touch.

  He could barely pull away long enough to say, “Hold on.” And then he went for the hem of her nightgown and gently eased it up, running his fingers along warm flesh, dragging the material over her head.

  He anchored her by holding on to her hip and leaned forward to claim her nipple with his lips.

  She was it. This was what Amber had had with Daryl before cancer had taken him, the kind of love Joe couldn’t even understand back then. And now he had it.

  No way was he ever going to lose this. No way.

  He laved her nipple, tasting her, breathing in her scent, wanting her more than he’d ever thought possible to want a woman. She ran her fingers through his hair, held him to her, her head falling back, her neck bared for him. He traveled up with a row of kisses, then back again, then eased her down onto the couch and settled himself between her legs.

  He kissed one nipple thoroughly, then the other, moved lower, her slim fingers in his hair.

  But then her hands went still. “Joe.”

  He kept kissing his way down.

  “Wait.”

  He stopped. Too fast. He looked up. He’d promised not to push her.

  But she wasn’t looking at him. She was staring pale-faced at one of the papers that had fallen on the floor from the couch.

  He reached for the paper. “What is it?”

  “That’s Keith’s signature. What are these?”

  “I’m still working on the murder of that friend I told you about. Which one?”

  She pointed to a line in the middle. “That’s Keith’s signature.”

  He looked closer, his body rapidly cooling. Now that she brought it to his attention, he could make out the letters in Kline. And if he squinted a little, he could see where the man had scribbled Keith. “Sonofabitch.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “Is that good?”

  “I don’t know yet.” He had Keith in the pool of suspects for another crime. If Keith was the one who’d killed Phil, it would mean that the bastard would go away for a good long time, possibly forever. Wendy would never have to worry about him again.

  He kissed her, long and hard, then pushed to his feet. “I better call the captain.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  The first thing Joe did the following morning was look at local traffic camera footage for the day of the murder. He had the make and model of Keith’s car, the license plate number.

  The murder didn’t look premeditated. The killer hadn’t brought a weapon, had used the phone he’d picked up in Phil’s office. And if the murder wasn’t premeditated, the murderer wouldn’t have come in a rental. He would have used his own car.

  Scanning through the footage on his computer ate up Joe’s entire day. But he didn’t care about any of that when he spotted Keith’s Lexus on the screen. He paused the recording, rewound, played, paused again. He couldn’t fully make out the face behind the windshield, but the license plate matched.

  He printed the screen and strode into the captain’s office with it.

  “I think I have something.” He laid the image on the captain’s desk. “Keith Kline was in one of Phil’s anger management classes. And he was in Broslin the morning of the murder. Means and opportunity.”

  The captain leaned forward and examined the printout. “What about motive?”

  “I’ll be sure to ask him about that when I catch the bastard.”

  * * *

  Wendy kept glancing at the antique high chair in the corner of the kitchen as she was preparing dinner. Joe had fixed it in the garage, good as new, and brought it in. Justin had grown out of it, and she wasn’t going to need it anytime soon, after all. But having it stand in the corner of the kitchen set something right inside her. Fixing it was a gesture of kindness and thoughtfulness. The chair itself felt like some kind of promise.

  She was smiling when her phone rang.

  “Hi. This is Eileen from the diner. I was wondering if you’d like to go over to the battered women’s shelter in West Chester with me next Thursday. I give free cooking classes. Try to sneak some other stuff into it, the difference between a temporary restraining order and a permanent restraining order, some statistics. Over seventy percent of domestic-violence murders occur after the victim leaves. I want those women to be careful.”

  Eileen paused a beat. “Maybe you could do something with photography. If you have the time. Bring some makeup and take some pictures. Self-image is a huge issue. Abused persons see themselves as less than others, unworthy. And if they left everything behind when they ran, they might not have so much as a picture of their kids. Maybe you could help with that.”

  “I’d love to,” Wendy said without having to think about it.

  “Oh, that’s wonderful.” Eileen’s voi
ce was full of warm pleasure. “How are you doing?”

  “I’m doing better every day.”

  “That’s what I like to hear. How about if I pick you up Thursday, and we drive over together?”

  “That would be great.”

  “I also have another friend interested in a window display consultation, the beauty salon on the corner. Would it be okay if I gave Sharon your phone number?”

  “Of course.”

  She thanked Eileen then hung up and thought about the beauty salon assignment. She had three customers.

  “Hey, this could be the start of something.” She picked up her son and twirled him around.

  Justin squealed. “Again! Again!”

  But before they could swing a third round, her phone rang again. She picked it up with a smile on her face, thinking Eileen was calling her back with some detail. But the voice coming through the line belonged to Keith.

  “Hey, babe.”

  Dark fear filled her up, all the way to the brim. She steeled her spine. “I don’t want to talk to you. I don’t want to ever see you again.”

  “I’m sorry, babe. I lost it the other day. You know how I get. Doesn’t mean I don’t love you. I feel so bad about what happened. I swear it’s not going to happen again. Hey, I signed the custody papers. My way of apologizing.”

  Those three little words—signed custody papers—grabbed hold of her and wouldn’t let her hang up. “Did you really?”

  “I should have done it before. You’re a good mother. All I’m asking is that you have dinner with me. Just the two of us at Torrino’s. It’s our restaurant. Let me apologize in person. Let me give you the paperwork.”

  Torrino’s wasn’t really their restaurant. They’d gone there a couple of times during the short period when things had been working between them.

  “How about at eight?” he pushed.

  She would do anything to have full custody of her son, and he knew it. “All right,” she told him. “I can have Sophie watch Justin.”

  There was a moment of cold silence on the line. “If you tell her about this, the deal is off. This is between the two of us. I don’t want that bitch to be filling your head against me. She’s done enough of that already. She’s the one who poisoned our relationship.”

  Wendy didn’t contradict him. She didn’t want him to get angry. She wanted those papers so badly she could taste it. “I’ll say that I have to run over to the apartment for something. She won’t mind.”

  “All right. See you soon then. We’ll set everything straight.”

  “Okay. But I don’t think I can make it into Wilmington by eight. Would you mind if we met in Broslin? It’d be nice if I didn’t have to drive into the city. There’s a quiet little diner on Main Street. We could get a booth in the back and have more privacy there than we could at Torrino’s.”

  He hesitated so long, she was sure he would say no. But he said, “Of course. No problem. See you at eight.”

  Chapter Twenty

  Keith let the rented black van idle in the back of the restaurant’s parking lot. He flipped on the windshield wipers every couple of minutes to clean off the drizzle so he could see the cars coming and going. She should be here any minute. He had everything in the back he needed, plenty of rope and duct tape.

  Wendy was his. She’d be his or nobody’s. He certainly wasn’t going to allow her to become some cop’s whore. She needed to learn her place. She needed discipline. His jaw tightened when he thought of her calling the cops on him because he’d lost his temper a little in her apartment. He’d been fired because of that arrest, because of the police going to his place of work to ask questions about him.

  Of course, he’d lost his temper again at the bastard cop’s house. She’d provoked him. What the hell did she think was going to happen if she moved in with another guy? Keith had gone to Sophie’s place to read her the riot act. But some old couple opened the door, and they told him that Wendy no longer lived there.

  She should have been moving back with him. At the very least, should have gone back to her own place. Not move in with another man. She didn’t think. Sometimes she could be incredibly stupid. God knew, he’d been trying to be patient with her.

  But she kept pushing him, pushing him right over the edge. Almost as if she wanted him to hit her.

  He loved her so much. But their relationship was so messed up. They needed alone time, without anyone’s stupid interference, to work things out. They needed to talk to each other. Maybe they needed to move back to New York. He could get another job. He was a good broker.

  She wouldn’t have to work. He would take care of her and Justin, but the new pregnancy had to go. He was prepared to forgive her for cheating—women were weak—but he wasn’t going to raise some cop’s bastard. She didn’t even look pregnant. She should have no trouble getting rid of the kid.

  They needed a fresh slate.

  He would take them across state lines tonight, to a beach house in Jersey he’d rented with his college buddies a few times back in the day. He still remembered the way. The house would be empty this early in May, the beach deserted.

  He had plenty of cash on him, and the back of the van was full of canned food. That would hold them for a while. Wendy needed quality time with him so he could show her how much he loved her. She needed to see just him, without Sophie the bitch whispering into her ear.

  Once he made love to her, over and over again, she would know that there could never be another man for her but him.

  She would never want to leave him.

  If she did….

  The dark rage took him swiftly, the urge to hit, to pummel the resistance out of her. He started the breathing exercises he’d learned in anger management. Gave up after a few minutes. Fuck Dr. Brogevich. The idiot wouldn’t stamp the paperwork that Keith had completed classes. So he’d missed a few—fine, missed most—so what? Keith clenched his hands. None of that mattered now. He’d gotten his stamp in the end. And now the job was lost anyway.

  He closed his eyes and drew a slow breath. That was over and done with. No way to connect the doctor’s death to him.

  He’d found the shrink while driving through Broslin one day, following Wendy to make sure she was really going to Sophie’s place like she’d told him. He’d pulled over for the coffee shop on the corner of the medical complex, saw the shrink’s office.

  Since he’d made that deal with HR, he called the number listed on the door plaque, asked if the guy could recommend an anger management group somewhere out this way. He sure as hell wasn’t going to go to one in Wilmington where he could run into coworkers or clients at the hospital. But Brogevich had his own group. Keith had lucked out with that.

  He opened his eyes again and scanned the parking lot. Where the hell was Wendy?

  They needed to be back together. This time, she wouldn’t leave him. She loved him too. She was just confused about it right now. He would keep her at the beach house and make love to her for as long as he had to, to make her acknowledge her feelings.

  He saw her pull in behind a tour bus in her new red Prius, wearing a trench coat against the chill of the evening, a silk scarf over her head to protect her from the drizzle when she got out. He could barely see her face.

  Keith waited until Wendy parked, then pulled the van into the parking spot next to her on the driver’s side, put it in Park but didn’t turn off the engine. He crawled into the back, and when he heard her car door, he yanked the van’s side door open.

  Grabbing her and yanking her over into the back of the van would take one second. He’d have her tied up in a minute. In three or four minutes tops, they would be on their way.

  * * *

  Joe plowed into the man and they fell into the back of the van together.

  “Broslin PD. You’re under arrest.”

  But before Joe could gain the upper hand, Keith punched him hard in the face.

  Where the hell was backup?

  Chase and Harper were undercover
inside the diner, but Captain Bing was supposed to be observing the parking lot, ready to jump in as needed. Jack was sitting in his car on the other side of the building, ready to block the exit if Keith tried to give them the slip.

  As Joe grappled with Keith, fighting to keep the guy down long enough to slap cuffs on him, he could hear the tour bus beep as it backed up. Maybe it blocked Bing’s view of Keith’s van. The bus stopped at last, somewhere right behind the van to let people off. School girls, judging by the squealing.

  Then as the girls hurried to the diner in the cold, one of them must have decided to run through in between the black van and the Prius, because she let out a piercing scream right behind Joe as she spotted the silent struggle.

  “Get back!” The last thing Joe needed was a civilian getting hurt.

  But that split second of diversion gave Keith the upper hand. He kicked Joe back, out of the van.

  And in the next blink of an eye, the bastard had a Taser in his hand. Zap!

  Jeezus, that hurt.

  As the girl screamed and screamed, Joe convulsed against the Prius, the hand that had been going for his weapon useless for the moment, his finger jerking on the trigger so he ended up shooting a round into the pavement.

  The rest of the girls started screaming too as they ran in every direction.

  He lifted his gun at Keith, but the van’s door was already slamming shut. Then the vehicle lurched forward, over the concreted divider, nearly hitting one girl.

  “Police officer. Everybody stay down!” Joe shouted once he could speak.

  Of course, nobody listened to him.

  Hell, they were all over the place. Joe couldn’t even take a shot at the van’s back tires without risking one of them running in front of him. Especially with his hands not entirely steady.

  He could see Bing’s car roaring forward, but the black van veered sharply to the right and went up the grassy divider in the back, crushing some bushes as it crossed over to the parking lot of the next business.

  Chase and Harper were running from the diner, weapons drawn, but they were too late.