“No doubt about it. He pulled off about two car lengths behind you and tailed you home. I was right behind him.”
He slapped his forehead. “Shows you how tired I am. Imagine not looking in my rearview mirror. Did you get his license-plate number?”
“Yeah, and I checked it out, but it’s a fake. I didn’t see his face, but he’s tall, judging from the way he sat behind the wheel. That’s all I got. I put a tail on him, but if he’s clever, he’ll shake it. All for now.”
“Good job, buddy. That guy’s getting antsy.”
Imagine missing something that important. He’d been right at the outset. He shouldn’t have let her get inside of him, possess him so completely that he couldn’t protect her, or, for that matter, himself. For that’s what had happened. She’d given him such a wallop to the gut that he had a fogged brain, but it wouldn’t happen again. From now on, he’d make sure his head was screwed on right.
He showered and got ready for bed. What was that she’d said? Good Lord! Right before his eyes! How could he have missed it? The man who gave Raven that package of cocaine thought Raven had revealed his identity to Kate, and information about his drug dealings. And he’d stepped up his harassment since her trip to Cumberland. That was it, and the threats Raven mentioned to Kate confirmed it. Now, he had a motive, and that was all he’d needed.
But he wanted to know for whom that package had been intended. Raven’s lawyer hadn’t called him to the witness stand, so the question hadn’t been asked. He had traced the handlers through his underground source and broken up the ring, but the bosses had escaped.
Ten-fifteen. He called Rude Hopper. “Rude, this is Luke. Remember that cocaine case that surfaced right after you brought your boy to me?”
“Raven?”
“He’s the one. I need to know where that stuff was headed. I’m not interested in how you find out or who tells you. Got it?”
“Right. Rent a car and come over here about six tomorrow. Wear a wig, a pair of clear glasses and some beat-up jeans. We’re risking a lot on this one, brother. And, Luke, I don’t want to know a thing. That way, I can’t tell a thing.”
“You have my word on it. See you at six.”
Kate wandered from room to room. Finally she rested her hands and forearms against the wall of her foyer and let it take her weight as she pressed her head against it. Her father hadn’t shown any bitterness; indeed, he’d seemed at peace. The thought lightened her spirits, and she sat down and wrote him. This time, she put her new postal box address on the envelope in the hope of getting an answer.
Her phone rang the next morning as she prepared to leave home. “Hello.”
“Hello, Ms. Middleton. This is Officer Cowan. I’m out front, but wait for me before you come out. I’ll ring your bell.”
Now what? “Okay, but…well, all right.” She hung up and looked down at Randy. “You’ll have to skip your French class today.”
His eyes brightened, and a grin bloomed on his face. “Oh, man!”
“You’re going to the store with me.” That took care of his grin.
The doorbell rang, and she took her son’s hand, looked through the peephole and stepped out to join Cowan. “Any problem?” she asked him.
His blank expression provided the answer. “Walk directly behind me. Both of you.”
She put Randy between herself and the detective and followed him to his unmarked car.
Cowan pulled away from the curb, and cold tentacles of fear coursed through her body when she glanced at the rearview mirror and saw a black Cadillac pull away right behind them.
“You interested in a black Cadillac?” she whispered to the detective.
He speeded up and headed in the opposite direction of her store. “I sure am,” was all he said. He pulled up in front of the Second Precinct and parked. “We’ll wait here a bit.”
Cowan answered his cell phone, and she heard that deep sonorous voice and relaxed.
“Hickson. Everything under control?” Cowan explained his position. “All right, we’ll scout the area. Then you change cars and take them to the store. Good job.”
Business was slow, and her nerves rioted each time she heard the store’s buzzer.
“What’s wrong with you, Kate? Honey, you act like you have to go out and meet a wildcat, I do declare. Girl, you better relax, take a vacation or something. So jittery.”
“You’re imagining things,” Kate told Jessye.
Her cousin rolled her eyes toward the sky. “I suppose I was born this morning. Well, I do declare. Look who’s at the door.” She raced to open it.
“Luke, honey, you’re just what a girl needs to raise her spirits. One little glimpse of you is worth my food and air.”
The hussy, Kate thought. Making such a play for Luke with her less than two yards away. But she needn’t have concerned herself.
“Where’s Kate?” he asked.
“Somewhere around.”
He sat on the sofa that faced the cash register. “Would you please ask her to come here?”
Kate rounded the row of bookcases. “You want to see me?”
He patted the space beside him in invitation. “Yes, I do. Would you sit down, please? Both of you.”
It didn’t surprise Kate that Jessye sat beside Luke as closely as she could without sitting on him.
He turned toward her. “Jessye, I’ve tried to do this in ways that wouldn’t embarrass either of us, but I see you need it straight. Jessye, Kate is the only woman who interests me. I’m in love with her, and have been since I first saw her. And the longer I know her, the more she means to me. There’s no chance that anyone else will get my attention, not for years to come, and maybe never. Those are the facts.”
“I…I thought things had cooled down between you two.”
He braced a hand on each knee, giving the impression that he was about to stand. “We disagree about something important, but that’s irrelevant to the way we feel about each other. Have I made myself clear? It’s not my intention to hurt you, but I’m sure you want to hear it the way it is.”
Kate reached for Jessye’s hand. “I tried to warn you, because I didn’t want you to be hurt.”
Jessye shrugged. “I knew it all the time, but I couldn’t help trying. It…It got to me. I’m going home next month in time for school opening. My fifth-grade kids will be waiting for me.” She looked at Luke, then lowered her lashes. “For the last seven weeks, I hardly remembered that old Ed, that walking disappointment, ever existed, and I can thank you for that.”
“Jessye, what about Axel? He loves you,” Kate reminded her, hoping to relieve the bitterness she detected in her cousin’s voice and demeanor.
Jessye looked into the distance. “He’s a nice guy. If I’m lucky, I’ll miss him. But right now, I don’t see us being more than friends.”
Kate squeezed her cousin’s hand. “I’m sorry, Jessye. I really am.”
Jessye got up, effectively closing the conversation. “Don’t cry for me, Kate, because I haven’t been all that nice to you. I’m going home, and if nothing else, I’ll get to eat plenty of good old butter beans and okra.” She winked at Luke. “You’re the best, honey.”
Luke took Kate’s hand and walked to the door of her office, but—realizing that Randy was in there—she didn’t open the door. “Marcus and his family will be at my place in Biddle for about ten days. Do you want Randy to stay out there with them? They’d all be at my house.”
She didn’t hesitate. “That would be wonderful.”
“All right. Marcus will pick him up here tomorrow afternoon. Okay?” She nodded. “See you.”
She stared at him, unable to believe he’d leave cold, with not so much as a smile. “Uh…okay.”
She turned her back to him and let him go. After his strong remarks to Jessye about his love for her—and right in her presence, too—he’d had the guts to walk off from her without so much as a peck on the forehead. If he’d been sending her a message, she got it, and how.<
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“I’d like to stop by the post office on my way home,” she told Cowan that evening as they left her store.
“Sure. I’ll go in with you. Never can tell.”
She took the letter from her box, looked at it and stuck it in the outer pocket of her purse out of Cowan’s sight—the first letter she’d received from her father in six years.
“If you’re going to Biddle tomorrow, let me know what time.”
She must have gaped at him, because his fair skin flushed red with embarrassment. “You can’t do that,” she said. “You won’t get home until midnight.”
He shrugged both shoulders. “It’s my job, and I’m glad to do it.”
She thought for a minute. It didn’t seem right that he should spend so much time on the job because of her. “Tell you what. I’ll close at three o’clock, and you can be back home by nine.”
Cowan seldom smiled, but when he did, it was worth framing. “That works for me,” he said, his smile enveloping his whole visage. “Be there at three.”
She closed her apartment door, sat down at once and opened the precious letter. Her father had answered by return mail, and she wondered whether he was hungry for news.
Dear Katie,
I was happy to hear from you so soon after your visit, but your letter disturbed me. How can you hold anything against the man who arrested me? He did his job, and if I don’t blame him for it, how can you? What would you have done if you’d been in his place? Ignored what you found? My daughter, maybe you’re just looking for an excuse to break up with him. If you are, don’t let him believe you don’t want him because he’s an honest cop. I found him to be a gentleman. Thank you for that visit. It’s still with me.
Love, Papa
She reread the letter, folded it and put it away with his picture. She knew she wasn’t using her father’s tragedy as an excuse to break with Luke; she wanted and needed him too much. But from childhood she’d been taught the importance of family loyalty and support, and she couldn’t bring herself to take a position against her father. And thinking about it, she realized that probably accounted for her tolerance of Jessye’s occasional meanness.
She packed a bag for the weekend, wondering if she’d see him and how they would behave with each other if she did. One thing was certain; she wasn’t taking that trip in Cowan’s car when she had a perfectly good one of her own. If he insisted on tailing her, that was between him and the police department.
To her amazement, Cowan didn’t contest her right to drive her own car.
Shortly after noon that day, Luke got in his car and headed for Biddle. Rude had shaken him up the previous evening with accounts of what he’d discovered about the Raven case. Jethro’s lawyer was an employee of the cocaine ring, which accounted for the man’s lackadaisical performance at the trial. Raven hadn’t stood a chance because his lawyer wanted him to be convicted. But he’d have another day in court as soon as Luke arrested Miles Atkins—or Nero Peale, or the same guy by any of his other aliases. At three o’clock he brought the Buick to a stop in front of his house in Biddle, and a little of the emptiness that had plagued him in recent days eased away when Amy and Marc ran out to meet him and get their hugs.
“Uncle Luke, my daddy took Marc and Randy and me surfing on his back. We had so much fun. Can we go surfing on your back?” Amy asked.
Was he supposed to believe that? “If he shows me how he does it with the three of you at once, I might.”
Each of them took one of his hands and walked with him into the house. He couldn’t understand it. Where was the peace, the carefree mood that usually settled over him as soon as he turned the nose of that Buick toward Biddle?
“Where’s your daddy?” he asked Amy.
“He’s cooking dinner. We’re having something good, and Lady’s making apple turnovers and ginger snacks.”
“You mean gingersnaps.” His half smile was as much as he could manage. If you had a secret, you wouldn’t let Amy know about it.
He hugged Amanda and Todd. Then he saw Randy standing afar, watching him, and he walked over and hugged the boy. The child’s fierce response took him aback; the boy needed a father’s love. He walked into the kitchen, where Marcus assembled shish kebabs.
“I didn’t expect you so early. What’s up?”
“I don’t know. Something. My nerves don’t stampede like this for no reason.”
“You got a handle on it?”
“From some chilling news I got last evening, I suspect this business with whoever’s pursuing Kate is about to come to a head. Would you believe it’s tied to that Jethro Raven drug bust?”
Marcus stopped cubing meat. “What’s the connection?”
“Raven is Kate’s father.”
Marcus blew out a long sharp whistle. “And somebody thinks she knows something.”
Luke sat on the step stool beneath the window, and stretched his legs. “In a nutshell. It’s clear.” He answered his cell phone. “What? Where are you?”
“At the intersection of Highway 168 and the exit to Route 34. Baker’s with me.”
“I’ll meet you coming north on 168,” he told Cowan, “leaving now. This time, we’ll get him. But be sure to get between him and Kate. Watch for me.”
“One of my officers just spotted my man tailing Kate here,” he said to Marcus. “Later.”
He felt in his back for his revolver, stopped and turned around to look at his brother.
“What is it? What’s the matter, Luke?”
“I’ve got to get to her in time. I can’t let anything happen to that woman. She trusts me, and I love her. I can’t let him get to her.”
Marcus interrupted him. “And he won’t, because you’re the best in the business.”
Luke whirled around. “Thanks, brother. I’d better get my megaphone and that sub out of my trunk.” The two of them raced out to the car and put the megaphone and submachine gun on the front seat.
He told himself to slow down, that if the man had followed Kate three-fourths of the way to Biddle, he wouldn’t give up until he caught her. As he approached the exit to Leeds, he saw Kate slow down to turn off at the exit and flash the turn signals of her red Taurus. He signaled Cowan. Baker flashed his headlights, and Luke flashed his in return. Then he phoned Kate.
“Kate, this is Luke. Pull over right now, stop and lie down on the seat. Now!”
She didn’t question him, thank God. The black Cadillac turned in three car lengths behind her, but Cowan sped up and darted in between the two cars. Baker stopped behind the suspect. When the hunted man attempted to back up, Baker blocked his way and turned on his red light. Luke pulled up behind Baker.
“You’re under arrest, Atkins,” Luke said, using his megaphone, “and if you make one false move, you’ll have a long rest somewhere.” Atkins backed up to ram the front of Baker’s car, but Luke anticipated the move, swung out and shot the man’s rear tires. Cowan shot the front ones.
“Get out with your hands over your head. And you’ve got just one minute. One—”
The driver’s door opened, and Luke ducked seconds before a round of bullets whizzed by him. Cowan put a neat hole in the man’s shoulder. They tied up the wound, handcuffed Atkins, and Cowan and Baker headed back to Portsmouth with their prisoner.
Luke locked the Cadillac and phoned the local sheriff. Then he looked up at the red-streaked horizon, breathed a word of thanks that he’d been there when she needed him and took slow deliberate steps to Kate’s car.
“It’s over, sweetheart. He’s in custody.” He opened the car door, slid in and wrapped her in his arms. He wondered if she could hear his heart pounding away in his chest, and if she could feel his joy that she was safe, that he’d protected her. He squeezed her to him, and brushed her forehead with his lips. Lord, how he loved her!
“You feel up to driving?”
“I guess so. I didn’t know anybody was following me except Officer Cowan. That was scary, but I’m okay.”
He ran hi
s hands over her face and her hair, cradling her as if she were an infant. “If you’re sure. If not, Marcus and I can come back for it.”
She smiled, reached up and kissed his cheek. “I’m sure.”
“Then let’s go. I’ll tell you all about it after supper.”
At supper with Marcus’s family, Randy and Luke, Kate managed to chew and swallow her food, but she didn’t taste it. She talked with little interest in the conversation, though she did her best to put up a good front. Her thoughts didn’t linger on the afternoon’s events, dangerous though they had been, but on what remained of the night. In spite of the cool evening breeze, moisture accumulated at her temples, and, for the first time in years, she had to control an urge to bite her fingernails.
At last, Luke came over to her, reached down and took her hand, and she stood, surprised that her knees didn’t knock.
“I’ve read to the children and put them to bed. All of them. Let’s go over to your place.”
“Shouldn’t I say good night to Amanda and Marcus?”
He pointed to the dimly lit corner, where the two sat wrapped in each other’s arms. “Do you think they’d hear you?”
Don’t stall, girl, her mind warned her. This is probably your last chance. She squeezed his fingers. “Let’s go.”
“Would you like something to drink?” she asked after they entered her house.
He shook his head. “The man we got this evening was the one who gave your father that package of cocaine. He was after you, because he thought you knew something. When the men he hired failed to do more than annoy you, he gave himself the task of finishing it. He’ll give us the name of his partner because he won’t go to jail for fifty years while the other man enjoys his freedom. So you’re safe now.”
“I can’t thank you and your men enough. You know that.”
“It isn’t necessary. You saw what happened today. Tell me what you feel.”
She’d been over and over it, and the only thing that concerned or distressed her was his being endangered. “Who fired those shots?”
His frown suggested that he might not like the question. “Cowan fired the last one, and the other six came from Atkins.”
Secret Desire Page 30