Cold Malice

by Toni Anderson

  “I saw you downtown earlier today, but couldn’t place you,” she admitted. “I hate puzzles. I think my brain has been subconsciously trying to figure out where I recognized you from ever since.” She had no reason to hide the information. She hadn’t been following him. “You were arguing on the street with a woman in a red coat.”

  “You saw that?” He was looking at her funny now.

  “She was hard to miss.”

  He groaned and swore colorfully. “It wouldn’t surprise me if it appears on CNN tonight.”

  “So who was she? The woman in the red coat?” Tess didn’t know why she felt compelled to ask such a personal question. Except this man had never asked permission to gatecrash her life. She wanted to know.

  “Got any coffee?” he asked.

  What?

  “Coffee. It’s a warm beverage that forms ninety percent of the blood of most law enforcement personnel.” He was already filling the jug like he was an old friend, not a virtual stranger she hadn’t seen in twenty years.

  She pulled the ground beans out of the freezer and filled the dispenser, careful not to get too close as he filled the reservoir with water. Him being a cop made a weird kind of sense.

  Kenny Travers had never truly fitted in with the rightwing extremists she’d grown up with. For starters, he’d always been kind to her. He’d never spouted hatred or spite. Sure, he’d attended the Pioneers’ church and made all the right noises, but he hadn’t seemed like the rest of the people in Kodiak Compound. She’d felt safe with him.

  “That lady in the red coat is my ex-wife,” he said finally, leaning casually against the counter as they waited for the coffee to brew.

  She hadn’t thought he was going to answer. “She didn’t look that ex to me.” She watched him warily, needing to judge his veracity. Needing to judge him.

  His mouth tightened. “Her second husband just left her. She thinks she can get back at him by getting back with me.”

  “You’re not interested?” Apparently, it was her day for prying.

  He shot her a look. “I make it a habit not to make the same mistake twice.”

  She smiled at him and batted her eyelashes innocently. “Something else we have in common.”

  He laughed and the sound rolled over her body. He’d always had a voice that soothed nerves. She remembered him gentling a terrified colt once, not long after he’d started coming out to Kodiak. He’d talked the foaming creature into a quivering, but trusting wreck, and that horse had followed him everywhere until her daddy had sold the animal to a neighboring rancher. Thinking about it, she’d followed him everywhere, too.

  Heat burned her cheeks. But this man had been one of the few bright spots of her childhood—why wouldn’t she have gravitated toward him? Hell, she’d wanted to marry him…

  “Well, your ex is very pretty.” All blonde and perfectly made up. Tess didn’t know why she was belaboring the point, except it told her his type was not lanky brunettes with frizzy hair.

  “Heather hates being called pretty. You’d think it was an insult. She prefers elegant or beautiful.” His gaze moved over Tess’s features and landed on her mouth. “I’ve always been partial to pretty.”

  Those warm looks of his suggested interest, but she couldn’t allow herself to forget why he was really here, and it wasn’t to catch up over coffee. He was playing her. She knew it but it still had an effect on her pulse. She pulled two mugs from the cupboard as the coffeepot filled.

  Time to bring them back to what separated them—the events of that long-ago night. “Did you really get shot during the raid? Daddy said you’d been killed.”

  His mouth tightened. “No, I wasn’t shot. I made it look like I was so I could crawl through the back of the barn and get out before all hell broke loose.” A muscle in his jaw clenched. “Those were my orders.”

  So he’d definitely been an undercover cop back then.

  Most of the people in the compound had given up without a fight. Despite their fighting words the Pioneers had crumbled like sandcastles in the rain. All except Harlan Trimble and her parents.

  “Did you know I almost joined the fighting when they told me you’d been killed?” Her lungs felt as if they’d iced over and every inhalation formed cracks in her chest. “Momma gave me a gun and Daddy told me to look out my window and shoot anyone I didn’t recognize.” Dense silence filled the kitchen at her admission. “It was only the warning you gave me before you left that night that stopped me. Instead I took Bobby and Sampson and hid inside my bedroom closet.”

  So he’d almost gotten her killed, but he’d also saved her life. The admission hung in the air between them like acrid smoke. It spoke of a trust that didn’t exist anymore.

  He took a half step toward her then stopped, grimaced. “I wanted to get you and your baby brother out before the raid, but my bosses wouldn’t allow it. Said it might alert the Pioneers something was going on. I shouldn’t have even said what I did.”

  “It saved my life.”

  “You saved yourself by hiding.” He sounded angry.

  She nodded. He was right. She’d been a ten-year-old girl and left in the firing line when hell had broken loose. It gutted her to have it spelled out quite so starkly.

  Pity entered his eyes.

  She hated pity. She raised her chin a notch and went for the kill. “What about Ellie?”

  The coffeepot hissed. He turned to stare out of her kitchen window and she watched his Adam’s apple bob up and down his throat.

  “Harlan shot Ellie.” He turned away from the window.

  “In the back. I read about it in the newspaper.” Her voice got gravelly. She never talked about her sister’s murder. How could she without revealing who she truly was? “So if you were a cop back then the law must have realized she’d been married off despite only being thirteen and they did nothing, correct?”

  His eyes flashed dark and stormy. “It wasn’t illegal. Fuck, it’s still not illegal.”

  “It’s disgusting and you know it. And every day Harlan Trimble raped my sister—despite that ridiculous piece of paper it was rape and pedophilia—the cops knew all about it but did nothing to save her. They didn’t think she was worth rescuing, did they? Just like me and Bobby. None of us were worth saving.”

  “They said it wasn’t enough.” He swallowed tightly and his eyes glistened. But she didn’t trust him. He was obviously a talented actor. He’d pretended to care and then left innocents to take their chances with a bunch of sociopaths and a thousand rounds of live ammunition.

  She didn’t bother to hide her bitterness or disgust. He didn’t give a damn about her or her wellbeing. It was too late to pull that bullcrap. This visit down memory lane was about him doing his job, no matter the cost.

  “You’re here because of the murders, aren’t you?”

  * * *

  “What do you know about the murders?” he said, watching her carefully.

  “I’m not an idiot—Kenny. We were both there in church every Sunday when my father preached about committing these exact sorts of atrocities.” Her teeth bit into a lush lower lip. She was nervous and he didn’t blame her one bit. “Don’t you people usually travel in pairs?” A touch of nasty entered her tone, which beat hurt hands-down.

  “I’m not here in an official capacity, Theresa Jane. I don’t want to expose you to any trouble if you haven’t done anything wrong. I just have some questions I need answered.” He kept his voice low and gentle, but she flinched anyway.

  Before tonight he’d always thought of Theresa Jane as that cheeky kid with the wavy hair and rampant freckles who’d regarded him with adulation wherever he went. The image of her standing on a chair by the kitchen sink, the setting sun making her glow like an angel was an endearing memory that snuck up on him occasionally and made a nice change from dead bodies that haunted him. The fact he’d left that same kid in the center of a gun battle was a permanent bruise on his conscience.

  And she knew it.

&nbs
p; Tess Fallon might have the same long dark hair as Theresa Jane Hines, but she was no kid anymore. Her eyes were the same hazel-green as her mother’s. There the resemblance ended.

  Whereas Francis Hines had turned his blood cold, the grown-up version of Theresa Jane…didn’t.

  That clear hazel gaze followed him, but it wasn’t filled with adulation anymore. It was full of intelligent suspicion.

  He took a half step toward her then stopped. Fuck. He’d been a good cop, and the op had been considered a success, but that didn’t necessarily make him a good person. Tess Fallon was smart enough to appreciate the difference.

  “I’ll say one thing about your daddy. He did give one hell of a sermon.” He stared at the coffeepot, willing the jug to fill faster. “It’s not Kenny Travers. It’s Assistant Special Agent in Charge Steve McKenzie of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.”

  Her brows rose at the information. “Sounds impressive.” Her tone was decidedly unimpressed. “Scottish?”

  “Great, great, great Granddaddy came over during the gold rush of ’48 from the Highlands.” The smile he gave her was supposed to charm. Her glower suggested he needed to keep working on it.

  The coffee was finally done and he filled both mugs with strong Colombian roast while she grabbed milk from the fridge. It was unnerving how at ease he felt in her kitchen. More at ease here than having lunch with his ex.

  “Sugar’s in the jar near the stove.”

  He froze in the act of reaching for it and turned to stare at her. “You remember how I take my coffee?”

  Her lips pinched for a moment, reminding him of her mother.

  “Turns out I have a fantastic memory for absolutely meaningless trivia. Probably why I remembered your face,” she said dryly.

  Ouch. He wondered if he could use that in some way.

  “It’s one of the things that makes me a good accountant.” Her chin lifted belligerently.

  He recognized the chink in her armor, her battered pride, and remembered how her family had treated her. Like she was stupid for not going along with the party line. It was one of the many reasons he’d liked her so much.

  Was she still that funny little girl? Or had what happened that awful night, and in the twenty years since, warped her?

  He handed her a mug and raised his in a toast. The coffee was hot and strong and gave his system a kick. “Nothing wrong with having a good memory.”

  “Sometimes there is.” She gave a humorless little laugh as she raised the mug to her lips.

  Damn. His voice grew soft. “It was a long time ago.”

  She stared at him like he was crazy. “Some things you don’t forget. Not ever.”

  He grimaced. She wasn’t letting him off the hook that easily. His attention shifted lower, to the damp terrycloth robe clinging to a lean body that was curvy in all the places that mattered.

  “You still have the tattoo?” he asked, nonchalantly sipping his drink.

  She pulled the robe tighter, maybe not realizing that gave him a better view of the outline of her body. Or maybe she did realize it and was playing him like a guitar string ripe for plucking.

  She chewed her lip in a nervous habit she’d had even as a kid. It jolted him back to that time and filled him with regrets.

  But she was right to be nervous.

  If she was innocent she’d be worried he’d upend this life she’d built for herself. If she was guilty, and an FBI agent who’d been associated with her life at Kodiak Compound turned up out of the blue? Yup. He’d be nervous, too.

  “Why do you want to know about the tattoo?” Those eyes of hers drilled into him.

  “You know why.” He wasn’t letting her off the hook, either.

  Her eyes flared wide. That tattoo would prove exactly how attached she was to her daddy’s ideology. She put her coffee mug down on the counter and slipped the bathrobe over her shoulder. He found himself holding his breath. She slipped her sleeve lower, careful to hold the material in place with a hand between her breasts.

  He put down his mug and crossed the room toward her. She tensed when he reached out and stroked the skin of her upper arm, smooth as velvet.

  When she was nine, her father had taken it upon himself to have every member of the Pioneers tattooed with the number fourteen. It was less obvious than a swastika but meant basically the same thing—to white nationalists at least. Kenny had escaped by claiming he was allergic to the ink.

  “Pi?” He shot her a grin.

  She raised her brow in mock surprise. “You recognize it?”

  His lips quirked. Touché. “My high school math teacher offered ten bucks to whoever memorized pi to the most decimal places.”

  “You won?”

  He nodded.

  “How many decimals did you memorize?”

  “Fifty.”

  “Because you’re competitive?”

  His smile lost its humor. “Because I needed the money.”

  She tugged the robe back up her shoulder, firmly adjusting the belt. She smelled like strawberries, and his palms itched like a neon warning sign.

  This was not how he’d imagined he’d react to this woman.

  “Altering the tattoo was my adoptive mother’s idea. I was already a math nerd.” Up close there were thin streaks of gold amongst the browns and greens of her irises. “I’d been wanting to get it removed before any of the other kids at school spotted it and asked questions. She thought I might be able to reclaim what they’d done to me by making it my own. I was eleven when we got this done.”

  Mac stared at her intently, much too close in the cramped confines of her kitchen.

  “Do you want to check me for others?” If she’d been aiming for sarcasm it came out wrong.

  The flash of heat that crackled between took them both by surprise. He stepped away, picked up his coffee. The silence between them suddenly taut with a different kind of tension.

  “Were you always a federal agent? Back then I mean?” she asked after a few awkward beats.

  He said nothing for a moment, then tipped back his drink, draining the mug. Then he washed his cup in the sink, placing it upside down on the drainer. “I was an Idaho State Trooper back then. Kodiak was my first assignment. Joined the Bureau a couple years later.”

  “My parents would have been livid to discover you were a cop.” She gave the appearance of being amused by the idea. Not many people had fooled David or Francis Hines.

  He wandered into her living room without an invitation. On paper, she lived alone, a single woman with no live-in-lover or kids of her own. But that meant nothing in the real world. She might have a long-term boyfriend or rent out rooms on the side.

  She followed him, cupping her mug in both hands. Not willing to let him out of her sight. Frankly he didn’t blame her.

  He’d been shocked to discover she lived so close to DC, in a quiet residential neighborhood of Bethesda. Close enough to pop into town for a quick triple homicide. He’d decided to check her out for himself.

  He wasn’t sure what he was looking for. Dog-eared copies of The Turner Diaries or other white nationalist hate literature? Maybe a confederate flag tacked to the wall?

  There were two framed POOM certificates with fancy silver characters decorating them. He peered closer. Tess Fallon was a two dan black belt in taekwondo. Impressive.

  “Who’s this?” He pointed to a framed photograph on the mantel.

  “My mom.”

  “Seriously?” He turned to her in surprise. “You realize she’s black, right?”

  “I did notice,” she said drolly. She stared at him for a few moments as if gauging how much to say. “No one wanted me. People wanted Bobby, but they didn’t want me. She was the only person who’d take us both.”

  Shit. A whole new dose of guilt hit him. There were all kinds of prejudice in the world and children from right-wing compounds were pretty low on the cute and fuzzy scale. He didn’t like to think how she might have suffered. He couldn’t afford to go easy on
her.

  “She fostered us for a year and then filed for adoption. I grew up in Leesburg.”

  “This Bobby?” A picture of the three of them was also on the mantel, showing an overweight teenager with dark hair and glasses.

  She nodded.

  There was a resemblance to David Hines in the boy. How deep that resemblance ran was what interested him most.

  “You and your mom are close?” he asked cautiously.

  Her expression closed down and she looked away. “We were. She died. Last year. Heart attack.”

  He deliberately adjusted the frame on the mantel, cleared his throat. “There’s something I need to ask.”

  She tensed.

  He made himself ignore her vulnerability and her pain and the guilt of all she’d endured simply because of who her parents had been. He had a job to do. A job he’d dedicated his life to. Instead he thought about the dead judge and his wife, murdered as they’d prepared for a normal day. “Where were you on Monday morning between seven and eight a.m.?”

  Chapter Nine

  Abel Zingel locked the doors to the synagogue and gave them a rattle just to be sure. There had been a series of break-ins recently and he didn’t want any vandals getting inside because he’d failed to lock up. Rabbi Hirsch would never let him hear the end of it.

  The corns on Abel’s feet throbbed as he started the long trek home. His wife always took the car on Tuesdays to go grocery shopping. Usually he liked to walk, but he liked to walk less when the cold made his ears burn. He pulled his hat lower and dug his hands into the pockets of his overcoat, trying to keep out the bitter wind.

  His wife was cooking lamb chops and roast potatoes for dinner tonight and his stomach was rumbling in anticipation. His daughter, Ruth, and her fiancé were coming over to discuss wedding plans.

  He smacked his lips together. He could already smell the sizzling, succulent meat. Judith was the best cook he’d ever known. He’d have married her for that alone, but she was also beautiful, in mind and body and they’d produced four wonderful children together. All of whom had gone on to college and gotten respectable jobs.