Tempting the Devil

by Potter, Patricia;

  “For breakfast,” she said mildly.

  “There’s closer places.”

  “I wondered about that.”

  “Not a good thing now to be seen with a reporter. I used to come in here years ago when I went hunting. Don’t know why I told you I would be here.”

  She did. Or thought she did. He needed someone to talk to. Somehow during those ride-alongs they had become friends. He’d told her he couldn’t talk to his wife about some of the things he’d seen as a cop. He said other cops had much the same situation. They couldn’t take their jobs home.

  “You probably needed to talk,” she said simply.

  “If anyone knew I met with you …”

  “They won’t.”

  He stared at her for a long time.

  She took a sip of coffee. “Is there anything you can tell me?” she finally asked.

  “Orders are that everything come from the boss.”

  “The sheriff?”

  He nodded.

  “You told me before that you guys in the sheriff’s department don’t think much of the county police.”

  “They’re still cops,” he said roughly. “They have families.” His hand shook slightly as he raised his own cup of coffee and took a long swallow.

  “Training as good as yours?”

  He turned as the waitress approached with a plate full of eggs, ham, potatoes along with a waffle.

  She waited, afraid that more questions might spook him. He’d agreed to meet her for a reason whether he realized it or not.

  “You gonna stay on the story?” he finally asked.

  “For a while, anyway,” she said. “Any ideas where to look?”

  “Stay with the press conferences.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  He took a bite of waffle, chewed it much longer than it deserved. Then he looked at her again. “I like you, Robin. Probably too much. If I weren’t married …”

  He let the words die, then shrugged. “Not that you had any interest.”

  She didn’t say anything. She liked him, but he was right. She had no romantic interest. She was surprised that he said what he had. She was no beauty, and now she was hampered by the brace on her leg. Not exactly seductive.

  He gave her a sideways look. “I think that’s why. No bullshit. No cute denial. You’re the only woman I’ve ever talked to about my job.”

  She gave him a minute, then asked, “Why should I stay with press conferences?”

  “Because someone killed three cops to keep a secret,” he replied bitterly. “I don’t think they would stop at a nosy reporter. And you are the nosiest one I know.”

  “Surely they’re gone now. Cop killers wouldn’t linger around.”

  His eyes hardened, but he didn’t say anything.

  She leaned over. “You know something. Or suspect it?”

  “I’ve already said too much.” He took some money from his pocket and threw it on the table. “I have to go.” He looked at her again. “Just do what I say. Don’t go snooping on your own.”

  Then he was gone.

  She didn’t follow. She knew he wouldn’t answer any more questions, nor did she want to press him. Not now.

  She would wait. He would tell her more. She felt it.

  “I don’t think they would stop at a nosy reporter.”

  Who were “they”?

  The press conference was as useless as she knew it would be.

  There were “leads” but nothing that could be discussed at this time. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation had joined the investigating team. The medical examiner had given his preliminary report. One man had been beaten. All three died from a small-caliber bullet to the back of the skull. One each.

  “Is it a professional hit job?” one electronic reporter shouted. Robin recognized him as an investigative reporter for the highest-ranking local news show.

  A dumb question in her view. Of course it was a professional job.

  “We can’t say that at this time,” the sheriff said.

  “How could the killers get the drop on three officers?”

  “If we knew that, we would probably know who committed this outrage,” the sheriff replied.

  “What about tire tracks?” asked another reporter.

  “We don’t discuss details of the investigation,” the police chief said, regaining his place at the microphone.

  “What can you tell us?” The last exasperated question came from still another television reporter.

  “That we’ve formed a task force and we’ll find the people who did this.”

  Bored with the expected answers, Robin glanced around. Her gaze caught a man standing about ten feet behind her. He didn’t have the casual wear of most print reporters, nor the professional finish of television ones. Instead, he wore a pair of slacks and a blue shirt with the sleeves rolled up. But it was his face that captured her interest. She certainly would have remembered it if she’d seen it before.

  She’d read of hawk faces but had never seen one before. A true definition of features: a lean, sharply angled face and profile. His hair was dark and well cut except for a cowlick that defied control and fell on his forehead. His eyes were deep-set and dark as navy coffee but it was the intensity in them that drew her attention. For a second it seemed as if her perusal drew his own. His gaze riveted on her face, and the intensity in it was so strong she fancied the ground shook. She felt an unwelcome surge of heat in her cheeks and hoped he didn’t notice it as well. Then she thought she saw a flash of contempt in his eyes before he shifted his gaze away.

  She felt judged without knowing why, but her gaze lingered on him as she wondered whether that impression had been her imagination. He was lean but not thin, and his foot tapped with an impatience that, like that cowlick, she sensed he couldn’t quite control. A reporter? She knew she hadn’t seen him before. She certainly would have remembered his face. But then she’d been away for nearly a year and had been out of the press mainstream since her return. She simply had not had the energy to socialize as she had before, not with the brace and crutches …

  “There will be press conferences daily.” The police chief’s words jerked her attention back to him. He was obviously winding things up.

  She glanced back toward the speaker, heard the fruitless additional questions that echoed former ones, then turned back to where the dark-haired man had stood.

  He was gone.

  She turned to the reporter next to her. She knew him from the Press Club.

  “That dark-haired guy who was standing in the back …”

  The reporter turned, then shrugged. “I don’t see anyone.”

  “He must have just left. I just wondered if you noticed him. Dark-haired. Lean. In a blue shirt and dark slacks.”

  The reporter’s eyes narrowed. “Why?”

  “I just hadn’t seen him here before.”

  “Sorry. Didn’t notice anyone.” He turned his attention back to the sheriff and police chief, who were going into the courthouse.

  “Damned useless,” the reporter muttered.

  She nodded in sympathy, then smiled a good-bye. “I have to file my story.”

  The reporter moved away. She waited a few moments, then limped inside the courthouse when she felt no attention was on her. The image of the stranger went with her. He had been in back of the others, but she’d had a strong image of a man alone, that he had nothing in common with the others who’d stood poised with their pencils and recorders and cameras.

  So why was he there?

  Only an onlooker? Maybe an attorney from one of the many small law firms that surrounded the courthouse. But then why the intensity she’d felt even at a distance?

  Had anyone else felt it? Or just her?

  Or was her curiosity running away with her? She pushed the image away and strode down the hall of the courthouse to the justice of the peace’s office. She would go over to the police department later and try to get some officers to tell her more about the thr
ee dead officers. But right now she wanted to talk to Graham Godwin, the courthouse historian and gossip.

  Godwin was ancient. He admitted to being eighty but she suspected he was a decade older than that. The joke around the courthouse was that the only way he would leave was in a hearse. He was also a lecher who had, more than once, tried to grope her.

  But he knew more than anyone about the county and the people in it.

  “Ah, Miss Stuart,” he said with a leer when she entered the open door of his office. He pushed over a candy dish full of peppermints as his gaze undressed her. “Have one.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Been to the news conference?”

  “Yep. It wasn’t very helpful.”

  “Didn’t think it would be.”

  “What do you think happened?” she said.

  “Crime is coming to our peaceful little county,” he said mournfully.

  “Did you know the police officers?”

  “Knew two of them. Their families, too. Third came from somewhere else.”

  “Families always lived here?”

  “As long as I have.” He chuckled. “Damn long time. Went to school with Jesse’s grandfather.” He leaned over. “Now I know that would surprise you but …”

  His hand touched hers. She fought not to snatch it back.

  “Good cop?”

  He nodded.

  “Why did he join the police department? Why not the sheriff’s department?”

  He drew his hand away and leaned back in his swivel chair. “Sheriff’s department was closed.”

  “How closed?”

  “Just … closed. Friends of the sheriff’s.” His eyes gleamed as he waited for the next question. It was obvious he enjoyed her attention, and he didn’t have the fear that she’d sensed in Sandy.

  “I hadn’t heard that before.”

  “Not exactly something we talk about.”

  “You are.”

  “Sammons can’t fire me. I have as many friends as he does. I also know where all the bodies are buried.”

  She sat up in her chair. “Now that’s a provocative statement. Would you like to tell me about a few of them?”

  He chuckled. “Thought that might get your attention. Maybe sometime …” He let the likelihood drift in the room.

  She returned to something more substantial. “The sheriff’s not your friend?”

  His face didn’t change, nor did he answer. He merely rocked again in his chair.

  “He’s not?”

  Godwin only smiled at her. A Cheshire cat smile.

  She tried again. “Do you think it has something to do with drugs?”

  “Why would you think that?”

  “I can’t think of anything else that would be so valuable that someone would risk killing three police officers.”

  “I can think of several things,” he said. “A love nest discovered that someone wanted to keep private.” He leered again.

  “Wouldn’t killing cops to protect a love affair be rather extreme?”

  He shrugged. “To some people, life is cheap.”

  “What people?”

  “Now that’s for the sheriff and police chief to discover.”

  He was playing games with her. He had done it before but she’d usually gleaned some kernel of truth from him. Otherwise he knew she wouldn’t come back, and his game would end.

  She took another candy and stood. “Thanks for the peppermints.”

  “Come back and see me.”

  “I’ll do that.”

  She left, turning over his words in her mind. She stopped in the hallway and jotted down notes.

  She glanced at her watch. It was nearly noon. Time to phone in her first story for the early editions. She would write the final in her office for the morning delivery. Hopefully.

  She didn’t really have anything new, certainly nothing that the other news media didn’t have. But she did have some hunches.

  Now if only she could get anyone—several anyones—to speculate …

  She just had to find the right people.

  chapter four

  Ben knew he shouldn’t have gone to the press conference, but it was outside on the steps of the courthouse, and numerous onlookers were attending as well as the press. He would be lost in the crowd.

  If not, if someone noticed him, Holland would be displeased. Maybe even more than displeased. But something in him just wouldn’t let it go.

  He hadn’t wanted to wait for a personal invite to the investigation.

  It was his day off, one of the few he willingly took. He had no private life. Working was his life, always had been, and it became even more so after his divorce. He couldn’t afford romantic relationships even if he wanted one. And he knew now that another marriage probably wasn’t in the cards for him. His childhood had been full of betrayal, and he’d learned early to trust only himself.

  He’d broken that rule for Dani, and she’d betrayed him in more ways than he could count. Although he knew meth was responsible, he’d been wounded to the core that she hadn’t trusted him enough to come to him when things might have been fixed.

  Because he had never really let her inside?

  Since their divorce, he’d turned reticence into an art form. Mentally. Emotionally.

  Holland often accused him of not being a team player, and he knew he wasn’t being one now. He’d been told to take the day off, to forget about the murders.

  Rather than taking that break, he found himself driving up the expressway to a slumbering town that had been thrust into the headlines. He’d tried to dress like a reporter. No tie. No suit. He stood in the crowd, but felt apart from it. He studied each of the participants and those who obviously were only onlookers, staying alert for anyone who looked out of place.

  Then he noticed the woman. Judging by the notebook in her hand, she was obviously a reporter. Yet she was one of the few who wasn’t trying to grab the spotlight, who stood quietly even as her eyes roamed over the crowd.

  His gaze had been drawn to her mainly for that reason. He’d listened with disdain to what he considered inane and often stupid questions. He’d studied each of the onlookers, his mind cataloging anyone who looked out of place. Perps sometimes attended press conferences, though he doubted it would be the case this time. That was for amateurs. This was a professional hit. Still, he wasn’t going to miss this. Then he noticed the slightly bemused look on her face. She was obviously puzzled by some of the questions as he was. He waited for her questions, but they didn’t come. Instead, her gaze had continually moved, finally catching his.

  Awareness jolted through him. In that second something passed between them. A shared amusement at the questions, perhaps. A connection that startled him.

  And from the startled look on her face, he saw she felt it, too.

  He forced his gaze away. The last thing he needed in his life was some absurd attraction, particularly with a reporter. He hadn’t wanted to be noticed. This was not the relaxation Holland had in mind. Still, even as he turned away, her image stayed with him. Blue eyes the color of a summer sky at dusk. Short honey brown hair that was windblown rather than tamed and streaked with lighter colors he would swear came from the sun rather than a bottle. She wore a tailored short-sleeve sky blue blouse that was tucked into dark blue slacks. One leg of the slacks looked different, and he noticed she wore a brace on her left leg and heavy black shoes.

  His most striking image, though, was not the leg but the vitality that radiated from her, even as she stood silent. He felt it even at a distance. He also realized she was soaking in everything. Not just the words being spoken, but the inflections in them, and, more than that, the crowd. She studied every face with the same concentration he did.

  The press conference was drawing to a close. He finished his perusal of the crowd. Was the killer—or killers—there? If so, he saw no hint of it. Nothing that gave anything away.

  Time to go.

  He strode across the street and f
rom there watched as she talked to another reporter and glanced to where he had been standing. Then she limped into the courthouse. Unlike the other reporters, she wasn’t putting a phone to her ear or running toward a vehicle.

  He watched as people dispersed back into the courthouse or into the several restaurants around the square. Nothing else to do here.

  He had, though, memorized faces and reactions. He’d listened to the anger in the sheriff’s voice and the police chief’s, and shared it. He suspected from what they said, and didn’t say, that they had zilch. Nothing.

  It had to be a professional hit. Nothing else would be that clean. Bullets to the back of the head. One each.

  Must have been tire tracks. Shoe impressions. They hadn’t said anything about the ground being smoothed out. Or had too many locals trod over the scene? They wouldn’t want to admit that.

  Damn, he wanted in on the investigation.

  How many perps had there been to take three cops down? More than one, certainly, to cuff three trained cops. At some point, they would have seen what was coming and tried to defend themselves. One man wouldn’t have been able to control three trained officers. How many? Two? Three? More?

  Multiple shooters didn’t keep secrets that well. He suspected other bodies would turn up soon.

  He returned to his car and started the air-conditioning. Yet he sat there several more moments. He’d never been in this town before and it was like a flashback to a classic ’50s or ’60s movie. A place where everyone knew each other. Wouldn’t last much longer. Not the way Atlanta was spreading.

  Why here?

  Location, no doubt. Meredith County sat astride an east-west interstate. Although the first fingers of an ever-growing Atlanta were beginning to reach into the county, it was predominately rural with plenty of undeveloped land. There were probably private airports that would make it the perfect portal into Atlanta. He made a mental note to check on private airports or airstrips. Perhaps there was even one of those developments that seemed the rage these days, houses with their own private airfield where the owner could taxi to his own home.

  Composing his mental list, he drove onto the street that led to the interstate. He was surprised that the image still remaining in his mind was the woman.