Keeping Watch (9781460341285)

by Choate, Jane M.

  “Why?”

  “Why what?”

  “Why do you go with him instead of someone else?”

  She appeared to think about it. “Convenience, I suppose. We know each other. We don’t have to worry about things getting serious.”

  “And this Victor. He doesn’t mind escorting you when he knows nothing’s going to come of it?”

  “He’s okay with it, I guess.” But her voice lacked certainty.

  “But you’re not sure.”

  “Why are you asking about Victor? He was there for me when my mother disappeared. He’s been a good friend.”

  “I’m trying to get a fix on who’s in your life. Whoever’s doing this knows you. Knows how to get to you.” He didn’t bother softening the words. He wouldn’t be doing his job if he downplayed the danger.

  “You’d do better to concentrate on the people I’m prosecuting. None of my friends or colleagues have any reason to hurt me.”

  “You’d be surprised by why people feel they have reason to carry a grudge,” Jake said. “I’ve seen one tribe decimate another because of a slight to the chief’s daughter.”

  Dani pointed a finger to herself. “I’m hardly one to be surprised at what one person can do to another. I’m a D.D.A, remember? I’ve seen it all.”

  He doubted that. “Then you ought to know better than to take people at face value.” He saw that his words weren’t going over well.

  A knock at the door made her look up. “Come in.”

  Clariss stood there, a quietly pleading look on her face. “I’m sorry, Dani. I couldn’t stop him.”

  An impatient man brushed past her. “Dani, darling. When I heard what happened, I had to see you.”

  He started to round the desk, but Jake blocked his way. When the man tried to get past him, Jake refused to budge.

  The man turned a hurt gaze in Dani’s direction. “What’s going on?”

  “It’s all right, Jake,” she said, placing a restraining hand on his arm. “Victor’s a friend.” She turned to Victor. “Jake’s my bodyguard until this mess is over.”

  Victor Wingate regarded Jake with frank skepticism. “A bodyguard, huh? Is that really necessary? I mean, you’ve got the police department.”

  “It wasn’t my idea,” Dani said. “My father hired him.”

  Wingate nodded. “I see. I’m pleased that you’re taking precautions.”

  “Are you?” Jake challenged. He took stock of the man. So this was the ex-boyfriend. Blond hair, worn a little long for Jake’s taste. South Beach tan. Trendy clothes that screamed, “Look at me.” A Breitling watch on his left wrist that cost more than Jake’s first car.

  Wingate had the bland good looks and cocky self-assurance that, Jake supposed, some women might find attractive, if they were the type to be impressed by two-hundred-dollar haircuts and pricey watches.

  Wingate appeared to take umbrage at Jake’s question. “What are you implying? Dani is special to me. Of course I’m glad she has protection.”

  “Then you won’t mind buzzing off. Dani’s had a hard day and needs to get home.”

  “Is that what you want, Dani?” the man asked.

  “It has been a long day,” she confessed. “But I appreciate you stopping by, Victor. Maybe we can catch up later.”

  “Of course. Just know that I’m here for you. Whatever you need.” He bent to kiss her, narrowing his eyes when she turned her cheek toward him rather than her lips.

  Jake barely kept from snorting. Wingate’s pretty-boy looks and superior manner set his teeth on edge. He’d run up against a few such officers in the army, full of themselves and more interested in strutting their power than serving their country.

  “You were rough on him,” Dani said after Wingate saw himself out.

  “I’m here to protect you, not make nice with your boyfriend.”

  “Ex-boyfriend. Victor’s no threat. His biggest sin is defending the creeps of the world.” She swiped a hand across her brow. “Sorry. I try not to judge the people I prosecute, but sometimes... You were right. It has been a hard day.”

  Jake grabbed her jacket and her purse, handed both to her. “C’mon. Let’s get you home.”

  “I won’t say no.”

  * * *

  Jake took a different route to his house than they’d used yesterday. At her raised brow, he explained, “Never take the same route home twice in a row. Routine makes it easier to be followed.”

  His words made sense. And she wished they didn’t.

  “How does pizza sound when we get home?” he asked.

  “Sounds great. But what about Shelley?”

  “She texted me. She won’t be home for a few hours.”

  While Jake ordered a large pizza with the works, Dani changed into jeans and a sweatshirt.

  After hanging up her suit, she knelt by her bed. “Dear Lord, thank You for Your constant care. Thank You for keeping me safe. And thank You for sending Jake. I know I didn’t want him here, but I need him.”

  She closed the prayer, but remained on her knees. For most of the day, she had to answer to others. This time was for herself and for listening to the Lord’s voice. She knew He was there, guiding her.

  After a long moment, she stood and rejoined Jake in the living room.

  “Pizza’ll be here in twenty minutes,” he said.

  “Good. I’m starving.”

  When the pizza arrived, they made short work of it, arguing over who got the last piece.

  In the end, they split it.

  “I love pizza,” Dani said, dabbing at her mouth with a napkin.

  “No kidding. I was lucky to get a piece.”

  “Is that a case of the pot calling the kettle black?”

  “No. It’s me telling you that you eat like a truck driver.” He held up a hand. “Don’t apologize.”

  “I wasn’t going to.” She flashed a smile. “My mother was always telling me to eat like a lady, to take tiny, little bites and to never let anyone see that I was enjoying the food.”

  “Sounds pretty foolish.”

  “Mother was a true lady and was frequently appalled at my behavior.” Her smile faded. “It didn’t keep me from loving her, though. Or her from loving me.”

  “You miss her.”

  “Every day.”

  “Do you have any idea what happened to her?” A frown pulled his dark eyebrows together, as though he was trying to make sense of something that would never jell. Hadn’t she wondered the same? Her mother’s disappearance had never added up.

  “As I told you, my father hired the best investigators there were. They couldn’t find anything. At last, we had to accept that she didn’t want to be found.” Dani was sorry to hear the note of bitterness that clogged her throat with those last words. Hadn’t she promised herself that she was finished grieving?

  She’d discovered, though, that grief had no timetable.

  “Was she troubled about something before she disappeared? Worried? Did she have a problem with anyone?”

  Dani shook her head. “Everyone loved Mother. My father most of all. He adored her. She was the only one who could stand up to him and get him to back down.”

  “I’d say you do pretty well in that department yourself.”

  Grateful to remember good times, she smiled. “I’m not in Mother’s league. She could have him eating out of her hand with only a flutter of her lashes.”

  Things had taken a big shift over the past day and a half, she reflected. Far from resenting Jake’s presence in her life, she was beginning to depend on him, and not just for protection. He had a way of keeping her on an even keel. For that alone, she had reason to be grateful to him.

  After a moment’s reflection, she felt herself pulling back from her thoug
hts. She’d been grateful to a man before, and it had turned out badly. Gratitude alone wasn’t enough on which to base a relationship. She’d learned that lesson the hard way and wasn’t about to forget it.

  She realized she’d been talking about herself without attempting to get to know him better and asked, “Are you and your mother close?”

  Jake’s eyes went cold. “I haven’t seen my mother in over twenty years. She abandoned Shelley and me as soon as I could get a job.”

  “I’m sorry.” She winced at the inadequacy of the words.

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  But it did. Judging from his expression, it mattered very much. Dani still grieved over her mother’s disappearance, her heart twisting in remembered pain, but at least they’d had a loving relationship for many years.

  Jake had been denied that. Her heart went out to him, but she knew better than to offer any further words of sympathy. When she gazed at him, she saw that his eyes were shadowed with his own memories and with empathy for hers.

  “Don’t waste your sympathy on me,” he said, echoing her thoughts. “Shell and I got along fine. It’s been the two of us for as long as I can remember. I made sure she always knew she was loved. I always will.”

  Dani nodded. “I’m sure you took good care of your sister.” She wanted to say more, but what was there to say? She couldn’t insist that his mother had cared about him and his sibling when she obviously hadn’t. Her heart ached for the young boy and his little sister.

  “What about your father?”

  “Our old man was never around. He took off before Shelley was born. He said he couldn’t stand one brat, much less two. When I was fifteen, our mother left. I guess she figured I was old enough to take care of Shelley. Truth was, she was never much of a mother even when she was there.

  “I made up my mind then and there that Shelley would always know that she was loved unconditionally—by me.”

  Dani pictured a lanky teenage boy trying to hold down a job, go to school and take care of a little sister.

  “Shelley is the best thing in my life. She started the business. She probably saved my life when she asked me to join her. I was on the fast track to nowhere.”

  The quiet intensity in his voice reached down inside Dani, and she felt her heart constrict. Jake was more than she’d first thought. Much more.

  THREE

  They started with Jerry Brooks. A man who put his wife in the hospital, then threatened her life wouldn’t be above sending the prosecuting attorney hate mail and nasty gifts.

  Jake and Dani found Brooks at his job at a garage.

  The smells of diesel and cigarette smoke combined in a rancid brew that caused her throat to tickle and her eyes to water.

  Dani spoke first. “Hello, Mr. Brooks.”

  A beefy man with hands the size of a small engine block looked up, swiped a grimy hand over his face. “You.” He divided a glare between Jake and Dani. “Who’s he?”

  “The name’s Rabb,” Jake answered. “Jake Rabb. We’re looking into some threats made on Ms. Barclay.”

  Brooks made a rude noise. “Whoever’s doing it, more power to him.”

  The look he sent in Dani’s direction was so filled with venom that Jake was surprised she didn’t flinch, but she held her ground.

  “You cost me my marriage, my job, my position in the community. I had a good life. You took that from me. You took everything.” Brooks gestured around him. “Look at me. I’m a grease monkey.” He pulled up his pant leg. “I have to wear this thing day in and day out.”

  Jake saw the ankle monitor. “From where I’m standing, you’re the one who’s cost yourself everything.”

  Brooks slammed a wrench against a workbench, then advanced toward Dani, his expression one of pure hatred. In one quick movement, Jake put himself between Brooks and Dani. “You stuck your nose in where it doesn’t belong.” Spittle collected at the corners of his mouth, flecked his face. “A man’s got a right to give his wife a cuff when she needs it. The Bible gives him that right.” Self-righteousness hung in every word.

  “Check again,” Dani said. “Nowhere does it say a man’s got the right to beat his wife senseless.”

  Jake kept his hands at his sides with an effort. “No man worthy of the name hits a woman.”

  “Keep your stinking advice to yourself,” Brooks said, big fists raised.

  Jake almost wished the man would take a swing at him. Let him see what it felt like to face an opponent who could fight back. “Tell us where you were two nights ago.”

  Brooks pointed to the monitor. “You want to know where I was, check with the records on this thing.” Bitterness rang in every syllable.

  “We will.”

  “You ask me,” he said with a sneer in Dani’s direction, “you got what’s coming to you. Give you a taste of your own medicine.”

  “You’ll have your day in court, Mr. Brooks. Until then, stay away from me and your wife.” She turned on her heel.

  “He’s a piece of work,” Jake said as he and Dani walked out of the dark garage into the sunlight.

  “He is that. He seems to think that I’m the cause of all his problems.”

  “A man like that will never admit he’s in the wrong, that his problems are of his own making. He’ll always have an excuse of why it’s not his fault.”

  Once more, Dani was struck by how Jake cut to the heart of the matter. He was right about Brooks. The man was so caught up in his own arrogance that he would always put his faults onto someone else.

  Their next stop was to see Patricia Newton. Her third-floor walk-up was in a run-down building where the stairway was filled with the smells of cooking cabbage and onions, and of garbage that had sat too long. Shouts, a baby’s cry and the blare of a television competed for attention. Jake took Dani’s hand as they stepped over shards of broken glass.

  He rapped on the door.

  A blowsy-looking brunette opened it. “What do you want?”

  Jake pushed past her and, without waiting to be asked, took a seat. “To talk.”

  Newton sent Dani a look of pure loathing. “What’s she doing here?”

  “Good to see you, too,” Dani said with heavy irony and sat opposite Jake. Her smile was tiger bright as she regarded the other woman.

  “Someone’s been making threats against Ms. Barclay,” Jake said. “After you were found guilty, you promised you’d get even with her.”

  Newton lowered her considerable bulk into an easy chair, its seams barely contained with layers of duct tape. She leaned forward, looking comfortable despite her obvious displeasure at her visitors’ appearance. “Yeah, so what?”

  Home advantage, Jake thought. She was the one with the favor to grant. He and Dani were merely supplicants. He didn’t care for the feeling. “She’s been receiving threatening letters and phone calls.”

  “Wish I’d thought of it.” Bitterness dripped from Newton’s voice. And something more. Satisfaction. “She said I tried to kill that old man, when all I did was take care of him. If it weren’t for me, he’d have croaked months ago.”

  “If you call poisoning him taking care of him.” Jake didn’t bother trying to keep the contempt from his voice. Anyone who conned a senior citizen deserved what she got.

  Newton jerked a thumb in Dani’s direction. “That’s what she says.”

  That didn’t deserve a response, and Jake didn’t bother giving one. He posed the same question he’d asked Brooks. “Where were you two nights ago?”

  “None of your business.”

  “I’m making it my business. Tell me, or we can have a chat with the nice detective at the Atlanta P.D.”

  “I was at home.”

  “Any witnesses?”

  “No. I did not think to need an alibi.”
<
br />   “A word of advice—find someone to back up your story. The police will be paying you a call.”

  “You have no right to accuse me. I am innocent. Maybe the judge... He will go easy on me.” A pious expression crossed Newton’s face, and her voice suddenly developed a decided and convenient accent. “I am foreigner here. I do not know all the laws.”

  Jake seriously doubted that. The woman was a scam artist. She looked out for herself and nobody else. “Try it on someone who’ll believe you.”

  All pretense of piety and innocence had vanished. Her face hardened as she glared at Dani. “I hope you get what you deserve.”

  It was with relief that Jake and Dani took their leave.

  Though he believed in treating everyone, regardless of their standing, with respect, Jake had no use for Patricia Newton. Anyone who took advantage of an elderly man didn’t deserve his—or anyone else’s—respect. He sincerely hoped the woman received the maximum sentence for her crimes.

  Still, neither Newton nor Brooks gave off any vibe of having sent the threatening letters or the gruesome gifts. Dani was right. They were both bullies, preying on those who were weaker and vulnerable, but they lacked the patience, the planning to execute the terrifying tactics with which she was dealing.

  He’d check both Brooks and Newton out further. He couldn’t afford to overlook anything or anyone, but he had a feeling Dani’s stalker was closer to home.

  That filled him with a dread he couldn’t shake. Despite her job, Dani was too trusting. She believed herself to be tough and invincible, when the truth was she had a vulnerability about her that called to him on a level he didn’t want to acknowledge.

  And that, more than anything else, scared him.

  Remaining heart-whole had never been a problem, except for a brief lapse with a woman who had been only using him. He’d quickly gotten over any feelings for the woman.

  He wouldn’t allow himself to be vulnerable to a woman again. His mother had taught him well.

  * * *

  “What did you think of Brooks and Newton?” Dani asked once she and Jake were back at her office. She was anxious for his impressions of the two. Jake had a sharp mind, a way of looking at things that brought them into focus.