by Amber Malloy
“Yes, it’s Tara Penske.” She squinted at the screen. “Did something happen to her?”
“Why do you ask?”
“After the city claimed they found Matthew, but nothing matched his medical records, I went to the press,” she admitted while passing his phone back. “Tara came to the hotel, saying she could help me.”
“Did she say how?” he pushed.
“Uh—” Nancy licked her lips. “An acquaintance of hers held irrefutable evidence. Tara’s exact words were, ‘What happened to Matthew is so big, you could own this city.’”
“When was the last time you spoke with Tara?”
“Last September. She promised she would get back to me soon.” Nancy swallowed hard. “But I haven’t spoken with her since.” Her lower lip trembled, her tightly held composure starting to crumble. “He’s dead. I can’t change that.” Tears welled up in her eyes. “I’m not a fool. It’s just all the lies.” Nancy snatched a tissue and dabbed away her tears.
“What do you think happened to your son?” Lane asked softly, reaching across the desk. “You’re his mother, Nancy. What do you think happened?”
“I think—” Nancy stared off into space for a moment before she accepted Lane’s kind gesture and grabbed her hand. “—someone took his kidney, and if I weren’t so rabid with anger, I would have demanded to look at his body. Now….”
Grief blanketed the room and sucked the air out of it. Jax felt like a shit. This woman had already been through too much, but he sat, quietly waiting for the paralyzing emotion to loosen its grip on her.
“Urban legends,” she sniffed. “This is stuff my kids sit around and tell each other.” She pointed beyond them to the outer walls of her office before she let out a ragged sigh. “According to Tara, this was an organized operation that could cost a lot of big wigs their jobs.”
Somewhere in the facility, a school bell rang, cutting their talk short. Nancy stood up. Jax looked at the clock on the wall as they joined her.. “Tara, she’s dead, isn’t she?”
“I believe so,” he told her. Already in way over his head and close to drowning, he found no good reason to start lying now.
“Is it because of me?” Nancy asked. Fresh tears threatened to spill down her face.
“Not unless you killed her,” he said with finality on the subject, hoping to assuage any guilt she had about Tara Penske.
“What now?” She led them back down the hallway toward the entrance.
Kids piled into the main room, younger children guided by older ones. Some of them made eye contact, but most avoided even a glance in their general direction.
“If you can go to a relative’s house or take a vacation, it would be for the best,” he warned her. Nancy appeared to be strong with a good head on her shoulders. He didn’t want to see another person hurt because of him.
She opened the door, allowing the outside world in as the sun dipped low. Night came faster than usual. Much darker than it was a half an hour ago, he wondered how long the calm weather would last.
Nancy stared off into the distance. “Is this where we’re at?” Her voice sounded far away.
“We’ll do our best to keep in contact.”
“I’d appreciate it,” she said.
Matt’s mother stared straight through him in an unnerving way. A chill ran through Jax by the dissection of her gaze. Hopefully, he could keep his promise and tell her what she needed to hear—that everyone responsible for her son’s death would be held accountable.
***
Fairies with wings danced in front of Lane. She giggled at the little girl who had a flock of ghouls and assorted superheroes next to her.
“I love Halloween. It’s one of my favorite holidays.” She sighed wistfully while they stepped onto the sidewalk. Children happily went by the Bed and Breakfast they planned to stay in for the next week.
“Not Christmas?” Jax asked.
“Maybe if I had a family.” She shrugged. “But no. Halloween takes the cake.”
More kids dashed by them as they made their way up the stairs to the yellow Victorian house. He wrapped his arm around her waist and kissed her.
“Halloween is a nightmare for the beat cops, and don’t even get me started on New Year’s.” He pushed the doorbell and turned his face into her hair while they waited. An attack of teenage giddiness got a hold of her.
“Did you just sniff me, Jackson Thornbird?”
“You smell good.” He pulled her even closer.
“Hi,” said a sunny blonde with a bowl of candy. “You two aren’t trick-or-treaters or are you?”
“No, we’re newlyweds,” she said sugary sweet. “We heard about your B&B. We just couldn’t resist stopping by and checking it out.” Lane believed it was the perfect cover to give them the privacy they needed to work on a plan.
“Oh, customers!” the woman said. “Maw Maw will be so happy. We don’t usually get very many this time of year.” She shoved the screen door wide and held it open for them to enter. “Welcome. I’m Shelly. How long did you plan on staying?”
Lane glanced at Jax for confirmation. He mouthed something she couldn’t understand. Confused, she waved him off and decided to wing it. “A week.”
“Great. Next week is the fall fair, and we’ll be booked up. I’m sure you two want your privacy.” She opened her mouth to respond, but Shelly fired off another question before she could answer the last one. “When did you two get married?”
“Last weekend. Got one in the oven,” she quickly belted as she rubbed her belly.
“What the hell?” Jax whispered from beside her, but she ignored him since she had no idea what had gotten into her.
“Congratulations,” Shelly squealed. She led them through the cozy house made up with different types of oak and an overabundance of lace.
Dainty touches of fall were here and there. A bowl of potpourri decorated a beautiful, mirrored vanity while a pumpkin sat on top of the check-in desk. The dark and light colors worked wonders with the simplicity of the house. If she hadn’t been on the run from two crazed cops, she would have been more than thrilled to stay there.
“Don’t worry about the sign in,” the innkeeper told them. “You guys are it for the week. Besides, Maw Maw just baked some desserts for her poker game and we need testers.”
Led more by her nose and less by the perky blonde, Lane trailed the woman around the corner. They followed her into an airy kitchen where a ton of pastries greeted them.
“Maw Maw, we have newlyweds,” Shelly announced.
Lane’s insides rumbled. She fought the urge to grab Shelly’s grandma into a tight and crushing embrace. The tiny woman was damn cuter than print-dress-wearing, beehive-flaunting Aunt Bee from The Andy Griffith Show. She had always wanted an Aunt Bee but never got the privilege of having one.
“Well, isn’t that wonderful,” Maw Maw said. She cleaned off her hands and offered a goody. Delighted, Lane grabbed her into a deep hug, never wanting to let go. “Please, help yourself.”
The kitchen table held a spread of two fresh-baked pies, a dozen cookies, and a pan of brownies. Puzzled by how big Maw Maw’s poker game could possibly be, the rumbling in her stomach helped her to abandon any thoughts of contemplation.
For the past few days, her appetite had been nil. The shock of her sham marriage, along with another dead body, sent her nerves into overdrive. But the delicious display laid out in front of them forced her to accept the brownie Maw Maw passed over to her.
She pulled the square apart to see the moistness inside as Jax picked up a cookie and sniffed it. Satisfied, she raised the chocolate treat to her mouth, but he stopped her before she could eat it. “Uh, sweetheart, maybe we shouldn’t. We had so much cake.”
“Are you shi—?”
“And you said you didn’t want to gain too much weight.” He put his hand on her stomach and made sweet puppy dog eyes at her, which didn’t lessen the urge to slap him. “For the baby.”
“But I’m having cra
vings, and I want the brownie,” she growled through gritted teeth. She ignored his complaints and went for it again, but this time he hip checked her, and she dropped the dessert on the floor.
“Could you show us our room?” he asked before she could pick it up. “I don’t want the wifey to tax herself.”
“Wifey is about to—”
Sweeping her off of her feet, he whispered in her face, “Trust me, baby.”
He grinned before he kissed her hard. Heated from the mere touch of his mouth, Lane decided to go with the path of least resistance.
“Well damn.” Shelly fanned herself with an oven mitt. “Let me show you that room.”
***
On bare feet, Lane tiptoed across the cold floor to the antique armoire and sniffed at the froufrou décor. Someone’s soap opera taste deemed wrought iron and Chantilly lace appropriate for their newlywed suite.
“The truck is well out of sight and the room’s paid up for a week.” Jax walked into the room.
“What’s our name again?” She finished unpacking her bag and started on Jax’s clothes. She folded his shirt and placed it in the armoire.
“Lana and Clark.”
“Kent.” She hoped, suddenly wanting to bone Superman.
“Franklin,” he said. Lane snapped her fingers at the missed opportunity while he gave her a curious look. “Oh, I almost forgot.” He took a Snickers out of his pocket and tossed it on the bed.
She tore into the wrapper, not the least bit amused by his poor substitution for the brownie. “If you think this is going to get it, buddy,” she complained.
“There is the cutest corner store at the end of the block.” He stripped off his jacket. The T-shirt underneath hugged his muscled arms just right. “This place is really like any small town U.S.A.,” he joked. “Everything right down to the pot-baking grandma.”
“No kidding!” she mumbled over her tasty mouthful of chocolate, caramel, and nougat.
“Yep. We almost left in search of somewhere else. The last thing we need is the DEA raiding this place.” He flopped down on the bed.
“What did Raff say?” she asked, wanting the scoop on what he found out before he drifted off.
“Either Tara or your mark, Johnny Mac, were blackmailing the Lockland’s.” He yawned. “For months, Dustin Lockland took out lump sums from his account but stopped around the time Tara went missing.”
“Which would point to her being the blackmailer,” she suggested.
“Not really. It could have been your mark. He probably grew scared when Tara went missing though,” he grunted. “Life and death. The stakes got too high.”
Lane continued to put their clothes into the drawers. He crooked his finger in her direction. Tilting her head, she considered his request for a moment before she bounded over to the bed.
“Tomorrow, I’m meeting with Army.” He pulled her on top of his body. The mattress creaked under their weight. “And see if he can do anything with what we found.” Jax gave her a sweet kiss that didn’t push for more—not that Lane would have minded.
“Everything we found is good enough to clear you.” She rested her hand on his chest. The strong beat of his heart calmed her.
“It’s a whole lot of circumstantial,” he murmured before he closed his eyes.
She wiggled from beneath his arm, positive he’d gone to sleep since his breath had grown shallow.
“Don’t you dare go downstairs and get one of those weed brownies,” he grumbled.
“How did ya…? Oh, forget it!” When he flipped her on her back, tickling her until she couldn’t breathe, she peeled off into a fit of giggles. It conjured about the same uncontrollable spiral that falling in love with him would. Gravity-defying helplessness.
“What?” he asked.
“I was just thinking.”
“About?”
“Uh….” Too afraid to admit it out loud, Lane chickened out. “Nothing.” She shook her head. “Go back to sleep.”
“For a minute, I thought you were going to say something about us,” he mumbled, his eyelids drooping closed again.
“We’re an ‘us’?” She held her breath in anticipation for his answer.
“Of course, we are. Why wouldn’t we be?”
She smiled in reply before he grabbed under her arms to pull her up to his lips.
Chapter Twenty-Four
The next day, Jax tried to figure out how to get concrete proof he’d been set up. He had the why; he just didn’t have the how.
While Lane helped the elderly B&B owner wash their dinner dishes, he snuck out to meet Army. Cloaked within shadows, he waited for him in the backyard.
The Watergate feel of the whole thing became laughable. But the threat to their lives wasn’t.
“Thornbird, what do you have to tell me that couldn’t have been relayed over the phone?” the fed complained with no discernible emotion on his face.
“This required your undivided attention,” he said through gritted teeth. Unfortunately, Army wanted to draw out the sting of it. “I found out the ifs, ands, and whys of this whole mess.”
“Perfect. Where’s the evidence?”
They stared at one another. Twist the screws harder. At this point, his old college competitor most likely knew more about this case than he did. “Still looking.”
“Great, well when you find some….” Army turned to leave.
He grabbed his arm to stop him. Right now, his life was difficult enough without the theatrics of a temperamental FBI agent. “Trust me, this shit goes wide.”
“I believe you, man.” Army shrugged his hand off of his overcoat. “I’ve got someone in Chicago poking around for me. This could be a career-defining case, but I can’t do anything without concrete evidence, Thornbird. You’re aware of this.”
Pushed to the limit, he punched the air. “Give me a week,” he said once he exhausted himself.
“What difference will a week make?”
They stared one another down in the yard of a Midwest town. Jax anticipated the other would take a swing. Army would have loved for him to take the first hit, but he couldn’t give him the satisfaction.
“At this point, Thornbird, I’d be more inclined to arrest you. It would probably be the only thing to keep your thick skull alive.”
With the simple truth spoken, Jax began to let his guard down.
“Look, man, the Chicago P.D. will back off the minute the FBI gets involved,” Army told him.
Tempted, he considered a deal. The agent could take him in on the contingency that they would place she into protective custody to keep her safe. On the verge of suggesting the ludicrous deal, the object of his desire came out the B&B’s door. Thankfully, she interrupted them.
“Hot toddy,” she offered, all smiles. She balanced a tray of drinks in her hand. Her hair fell into her face in the most seductive way as her full breasts and hips came closer to them.
If he could make it through this and out to the other side, he would make Lane his. Her beauty became his ammunition not to cave.
“Army, this is Lane, Parker Lockland’s ex-wife.”
“Hey, Army, you want a drink?” she asked.
By the way Army couldn’t take his eyes off the knockout, he was pretty sure by the way he stared she’d mesmerized the jerk. Army took the drink without a single snarky comment. “Thank you.”
“And you, sir,” she tempted him.
“You’re buzzed, aren’t you?” He smiled, barely resisting her offer to accept the alcoholic drink.
“Yes, I am,” she admitted, laying her hand on his chest. “And working my way toward drunk if Maw Maw Alma keeps this up.” She jerked her head toward the B&B. “Besides you wouldn’t let me have a brownie.”
Jax laughed in spite of himself and admired her perfect backside as she worked her way into the house.
“Huh, now I get it. She’s not your usual, Thornbird. How do I put this?” Army took a drink from the hot concoction of liquor. “You’re into flighty, an
d she’s more of a free spirit.”
“Isn’t that a nice way of saying stupid?” he asked dryly.
“In your case, yes, but not hers. She’s more like an open book type of gal.”
Finding the urge to defend her even though she didn’t need it, he couldn’t help but brag. “She shot out the tires of two psycho cops at seventy miles per hour.” Jax wanted nothing more than to wipe the smirk off of the FBI agent’s face.
“Well, hot damn. Your witness slash lover has just been upgraded from hot to sexy as hell.” Army nodded at Lane on her way to the house.
With a mild touch of admiration twisted into a strange amount of respect he had never experienced for the guy, he had to agree with him.
“You got a week” He drank every last drop of the hot toddy she had given him. Just like old times. Army handed over the empty mug. “After that, I’m going to arrest you for your own freaking safety.” He took off in the opposite direction of the house. “Hey!” he mock whispered halfway to the fence past the shed. “What was wrong with the brownies?”
“The old lady who runs this place laced them with marijuana.”
“Not surprised,” he shouted. “She’s growing the shit over here.” He pointed at something Jax couldn’t quite make out by the limited light. “I’m thinking busting grandma would make a better case than what you got.” The FBI agent laughed and worked his way over the fence.
Jax hitched his thumbs in the loops of his jeans and wondered if Army was right. Maybe the pot-pushing granny was a better bust than his homicidal squad in Chicago.
***
Chest deep in bubble bath, Lane decided cozying up to the inn owner had its perks.
“This stuff isn’t going to make me smell like a girl, is it?” Jax moaned from the opposite end.
Bigger than a regular tub, the porcelain claw-foot accommodated both of them. Of course, it wasn’t at all comfortable, but at least they could be in it together.
“Not the suds, but the rose oil Alma let me borrow is a whole other story.” She wiggled her purple painted toes as he massaged the sole of her foot. The hot water and even hotter man gave her a heady rush she could relax with.