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Songbird's Call

Page 3

by Herron, Rachael


  But there was a reason every woman he’d ever dated had called him hard-headed. He shook his head once to clear it of the stars, and then sailed his body sideways, into the woman’s frame as she tried to dart out the door he was blocking. He’d seen in the Maglite’s beam that she was unarmed. It was a safe takedown. One he’d done a million times in his career, usually to furious men.

  He thought taking the woman down would be easy.

  Colin was wrong.

  She roiled under him like an angry cat coming up out of a barrel of water. If she’d known any self-defense moves, Colin would have laid good odds that she might have gotten away from him – she was as strong as sin and pissed as hell. She didn’t land any solid blows, though, and every time she jerked an arm free, he tightened his hold. They were half in the doorway, half out of it, and Colin had the first half of a thought about how funny they must look to someone standing in the street, and then her left leg got free, and he had to stop imagining how they would appear to an onlooker. He rolled her from her side to her stomach, pinning her arms behind her back. She gave an oomph and then stayed still. He could feel her energy coiling itself, but he also knew he had the upper hand and he could wait her out if he had to.

  “You’re under arrest,” he said.

  Her body went still under him. He had the unwelcome thought that her light, sweet perfume was the only pleasant thing in the disgusting café.

  “You’re a cop?” Her voice was low.

  “What did you think I was?”

  “A robber? A rapist?” Her words were breathy and, he realized, terrified. Fear rose from her body in waves, and Colin suddenly felt sick.

  He stood, slowly, ready to relaunch at her if he needed to. “Who the hell else yells freeze? Of course I’m a cop. Stand up. Slowly. Keep your hands behind your back and turn to face me.”

  She stood, her hands shaking. Her head remained high as she turned. Improbably, she was wearing a pair of yellow pajamas covered with Kermit the Frog playing the banjo. What kind of burglar wore pajamas? On her feet were silver flip-flops. Also not the best bet for a criminal getaway. There was something going on here that Colin didn’t understand, and he hated not understanding things.

  “Back out slowly into the parking lot,” he said. The faster they got out of the café, the better. Besides the light floral fragrance he’d caught on the woman, the rest of the smell was made of old grease and something that reminded him of boiled cabbage, except less pleasant. He should snap the flex-cuffs on her, he knew he should. One dangled from his fingers – he’d grabbed it automatically as he’d stood up. Something had stopped him, though. Maybe it was the look on her face. She had the look Nikki got sometimes – utter surprise that something could go so wrong, so quickly. “Move slowly. Don’t run.”

  The woman took ten paces backwards. Her face remained implacable. Colin pretended to himself that he couldn’t notice how pretty she was, with her dark-brown hair falling just to her shoulders, and her curves that made her flannel pajamas look almost indecent. God, she was familiar. Did he know her? She wasn’t a local, but…

  “There. That’s far enough. Sit down.” The direction was automatic. He didn’t really think she’d run – she didn’t have the look anymore. It was better to have her seated. Safer.

  She sat on the curb at the edge of the small parking lot and drew her knees up, wrapping her arms around them.

  “Now. Name.” He wasn’t in uniform – he’d been on his way home after finishing the three reports he’d been behind in when he’d seen the bouncing light inside the defunct café – but he always had a citation pad inside his jacket pocket. You never knew.

  “Molly.”

  “You got a last name?”

  “Darling.” She stuck out her chin as she said it.

  Oh, crap. “That’s it. I knew I recognized you.”

  She nodded, her nose now as high as if she were the queen. As if she expected him to apologize.

  Which he wasn’t going to do. “You shouldn’t have been in there.”

  “I wasn’t trespassing.”

  “How the hell was I supposed to know that in the pitch dark?”

  “Maybe by asking.” Her eyes were dark in the dim streetlight, but the anger in them sparked so hot he could feel it in his gut.

  “I told you to freeze. The next step would have been to establish your identity.” Colin rubbed his cheekbone. “I’m probably going to have a black eye tomorrow.”

  Her frosty expression melted. “No. Really? My dad taught me how to throw. I didn’t mean to –”

  Colin sat on the curb next to her. “It’ll be fine. Not like I haven’t had black eyes before. Lots of “em.” He put his palms on the sidewalk and leaned back. “You’re not under arrest anymore, by the way.”

  “Oh, good.”

  “You weren’t worried.” She’d known she’d been allowed to be in the café – it was her café, after all.

  “I wasn’t worried about the burglary rap, no. But apparently I also just assaulted a police officer.”

  “Eh.” Colin rubbed at his cheekbone again. He could use an ice pack, that was for sure. “Welcome home,” he said.

  “Thanks.”

  “Don’t think I heard you were coming back. Surprise visit?”

  In the corner of his eye, he saw her stiffen.

  “We know each other?”

  “Colin McMurtry.” He waited for her to remember.

  It took a moment. Then, there it was. “Oh, no.” She leaned forward, her elbows on her knees, her head in her hands.

  “Yep.”

  “I hit you with my car.”

  “You did.” Colin pushed back the unexpected laugh that built in his chest.

  “It was more like a tap, really,” she said.

  “That’s what you said then, too.”

  “But it was. You had time to jump onto the hood of my car.”

  She’d turned right at a stop sign without checking the crosswalk first. He’d been in it and in order to keep from getting more injured, he’d thrown himself onto the car to avoid getting dragged underneath it. “I think my jumping was precipitated by your hitting.”

  “I didn’t actually hurt you. And your cousin agreed with me.”

  God, Donnie had been with him that day. He’d forgotten. That was right before Donnie got put away for aggravated burglary. McMurtrys were always on one side of the bars or another, usually the wrong side. “But I’ll always be able to say a Darling Songbird hit me with her car.”

  She slid him a glance he couldn’t interpret. “I bet you don’t have call to brag on that often.”

  “In Darling Bay? Sure I do. Your albums are still on repeat in half the businesses in town.”

  “Oh, God. Why am I here?” She looked up into the foggy night sky.

  “That’s a big question. I’m a cop, not a priest.” Like any of his family could have made that cut.

  She sighed, continuing to gaze upwards.

  It was quiet, the only sound was an owl on the hill behind them and the constant low whoosh of the ocean just out of sight, at the bend of the road.

  “It’s so silent here,” she said. “Does anything ever change?”

  “All the time. I can barely keep up.”

  At that, she smiled. Lord, have mercy on a man. Molly had always been his favorite Darling Songbird. Colin would bet every man in town had one that suited his preference, from the fairer and thin Adele to the jet-black-haired bad girl Lana. But his preference had always run to healthy-looking women, and Molly, the lead singer with the voice of a fallen angel and the curves to match, had always been the one he couldn’t take his eyes off.

  “Like what?”

  Colin strained to remember what she’d said before he’d started comparing her to the other Darling girls. “Changes. Well. You heard about the fire at Skip’s Ice Cream.”

  “I did, actually.”

  “They’re in a new spot. Along with the bagel place.”

  “Woo.”
Her voice was dry.

  “I hear Dot Rillo at the post office is thinking of painting the inside again.”

  “What color is it now?”

  “Off-white, I think. I heard a rumor she’s thinking about eggshell, but a neutral taupe was also mentioned.” Colin wished he was making it up. He could give a rat’s ass about the color of the walls inside the post office, even though it was the talk of the town. Literally. He heard about it at the bagel shop in the morning, and he heard about in the Golden Spike at night. Once, Dot had proposed a pale eggshell blue at one of the town hall meetings, and the place had exploded. Terry Dunlap had ended up punching Herbie Sanchez over the paint-chip samples and Mabel Mellor had gone into hysterics. Colin had had to shut down the meeting for the citizens” safety.

  “So that’s the biggest news in Darling Bay.”

  Well. There was darker news, too. There had been a meth-house bust just the week before and two out-of-towners were going to prison for at least the next seven years. No one wanted to hear about that. No one wanted to talk about the four men who had been arrested in the last five months for beating their wives. A kid had tried to kill himself with a shotgun and instead had shot off his ear, but the only rumor he’d heard about it was that it had been a gun-cleaning accident. Darling Bay protected its own. Nothing changed, and the town was always idyllic. That was the way it had to be.

  “Yep. Painting the inside of the post office. Next year they’re talking about repainting the outside of the police department. I can’t get too excited about that or I won’t sleep a wink from now till then.”

  “I’m sorry that I hit you with my car.”

  He shrugged, and the night owl hooted again behind him. His mother had thought hearing an owl was good luck, but then again, she had heard them a lot, and she’d had some really rotten luck in her life, so he didn’t put much stock in it. “You were sixteen.”

  “I think my driver’s license was still wet from being printed.”

  “Have you hit anyone since?”

  “No.”

  “Then I think you’re doing okay.”

  “Thanks.”

  He should stand. He should get in his patrol car and drive out of town to the cliff-side house that would be dark and cold, having been empty all day and night. Like usual.

  But something about this felt good. Sitting on the concrete with someone he’d tackled as a suspect. He would do his damnedest to forget how very, very soft she’d felt underneath his body. That was unprofessional, and he was a good cop, not a bad one.

  “So, are you here to stay?”

  “Nah.”

  Her answer came too fast. “Really? Seems like your sister’s here for the long haul.”

  “Adele’s in love.”

  “Happens to the best of us.”

  “Doesn’t it, though?” Molly sounded wistful, and Colin wondered who the lucky guy was. He must be something, to have caught her eye.

  “So, you’re sticking around for the new year?”

  “Yeah. Probably.”

  “You girls going to reopen the café?”

  “No way. Did you see what was in there?”

  Really, he’d only seen her. “Yeah.”

  “It’s horrible. We should burn it down and collect the insurance.” She met his eye for a split second. “Whoops. Sorry. I forgot I was talking to a lawman. Just kidding?”

  “Check with your sister before you get too carried away. I don’t think she has insurance on it yet.”

  “You’re joking.”

  “Nate told me she got the hotel and the bar insured, but I think the underwriter balked when they saw the state of the café.”

  “I don’t blame them.”

  His cheekbone throbbed. There was a pause that he didn’t know how to fill. He’d been seventeen when she’d smacked him with her new, bright-blue Nissan. The Darling Songbirds were just getting hot then, and there had been a glow of imminent fame surrounding the girls like pink, sparkly halos. Colin had thought Molly was so pretty he wouldn’t mind her knocking him down every day in crosswalks all over town as long as he remained mostly uninjured.

  He’d gone to see the girls sing once when he’d been about nineteen. She’d talked to some friends of his after the concert, and hadn’t ever looked his way. He’d thought maybe she’d been embarrassed about hitting him with her car, but it had always struck him as all too possible that she just hadn’t remembered him. Just another McMurtry no-nothing.

  “You should go back to bed.” He gestured at her pajamas. “Assuming that’s where you came from.”

  Molly arched an eyebrow, then she stood slowly. One of her silvery flip-flops had slipped off, and she put her foot back into it. Her toenails were dark red, and the gleam of the polish made him feel like he was looking at something intimate. “Not a bad idea.”

  “Morning’s going to come too early.” His mom used to say when she’d tucked him in at night. Funny, he hadn’t said that phrase in years.

  “Sure you don’t need to arrest me or anything?”

  He dipped his head, wishing he was wearing his old, battered cowboy hat that he wore on weekends. He felt the need to touch the brim. Instead, he touched the star-shaped badge he kept clipped on his jeans when he was off duty. “Not tonight, I guess. We’ll see how it goes tomorrow.”

  “I expect I’ll rob the bank in the morning.”

  “I’ll tell Jessie Huss to watch out for you.”

  “Good idea.”

  Both of them were stalling. He could feel it. “Are you staying here? At the hotel?”

  “Yeah. I’m in the one room that probably won’t come down around my ears overnight.”

  “You want me to walk you there?” Colin had an image fill his mind – her standing with her back to her door, him dipping his head until his mouth reached those full lips of hers. Oh, man, he was losing his damn mind.

  “No,” she said. “I think I’m brave enough to make it there myself. As long as no cops jump out of the bushes at me.”

  “Here. I have something for you.” He pulled a plastic star-shaped badge out of his pocket, a replica of his own, and handed it to her.

  She held it sideways so she could read it by the streetlight. “Junior Deputy? You just happen to have this on you?”

  “For kids.” The heat of embarrassment climbed up his chest. “You know, for bravery.”

  Her right eyebrow lifted, but then she smiled, and it was like the streetlight’s wattage suddenly surged. “Yeah, well. I could use a little of that.”

  “Good night, then.”

  “Yes. Okay.” She turned and was through the parking lot and up the hill through the garden so fast it was as if she hadn’t been there at all.

  Like she was a ghost of Christmas past. Like she’d come to tell him something important.

  He wanted to listen.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Molly woke to Adele pounding on the door.

  “Up and at “em! Things to do! I need your help!”

  Molly groaned and pulled the covers over her face. Then Adele used her master key.

  “Unfair.”

  “You can’t keep me out!” Adele pulled back the curtains to let in the winter sun and then handed her a key ring. “Use my car. Go get bagels and lots of cream cheese. I’ll take two everything bagels. Nate wants one blueberry and one onion. Here’s money, get what you want.”

  Molly’s head felt full, her thoughts thickened. The tipsiest she’d felt was in that dang parking lot with Sheriff McMurtry, and by then the Christmas wine had worn off. “You can’t eat two bagels each.” It wasn’t a question.

  “I didn’t think I could, but then Nate bet me I couldn’t and now it’s our Saturday-morning tradition. Oh, and get the paper, too, huh? Meet us in the saloon? Nate’s working on a new garbage disposal, and I’m helping by telling him he’s doing it wrong every few minutes.” Adele gave Molly a quick hit-and-run hug – so Adele – and then left.

  The bagel place was mobbed. Dar
ling Bay seemed to have gotten the message that Molly was back in town and everyone seemed to know her. They exclaimed. They hugged. Two old ladies kissed her cheeks, and one old man tried to kiss her on the lips, but she’d been dodging overly friendly elderly men on the cruise liners for a long time, and she easily slipped his grasp. Fifteen minutes later, she was back in the car, panting with the overwhelmingness of it all.

  Darling Bay.

  Growing up spending summers and holidays in a town named by their great-grandfather had always made it sound like they’d had money, like it was their town. But they hadn’t, and it wasn’t. Molly’s parents had been mostly broke all their lives, struggling to make it big in Nashville. They had come to visit Uncle Hugh every summer, still broke. Even poor, however, they’d always been treated well on account of nothing more than their name. It had loaned them status. The three girls had been the tiny coastal town’s mascots, and that had been multiplied a hundred times over after they’d started the band. The Darling Songbirds” rise to fame had been swift and sure, taking them to the top of the country charts.

  Until it had all fallen apart.

  Fitful rain spattered the windshield. Dark clouds over the marina scudded in rapidly, and she watched the man at the newsstand pull his racks of papers inside.

  There had been a time when being in Darling Bay during a rain storm had been Molly’s favorite place in the whole world.

  Maybe it still was. A feeling that was almost happiness crept up her spine. She wished for lots of rain. She wished hard for buckets of it. She wanted to sit with her sister on the front porch of the Golden Spike Saloon in that old porch swing and watch heavy, fat drops hit the sidewalk. She wanted to watch people walk past carrying umbrellas, and she wanted Adele to tell her the name of each kid who splashed in the puddles. Molly had been working on board for so long, she couldn’t remember the last time she’d had neighbors let alone known their names. That’s what Darling Bay was all about. Knowing your neighbors and then gossiping about them.

  Several blocks before the Golden Spike, she passed a police car. She couldn’t tell who was sitting in it and she tried not to be too conspicuous about peering into it as she drove past.

 

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