Hot

by Julia Harper

  Still, best to be cautious. “No, I’d rather see you somewhere more neutral.”

  “Fine,” Victoria said smoothly. “I can meet you at a restaurant or coffee shop.”

  “Well . . .” She tried to think of a Madison restaurant with an open floor plan. Her mind was blank.

  “Or I’m not too far from the capitol square,” Victoria suggested. “We could meet on the north side.”

  “Yes.” Turner relaxed a little. The capitol square was big and open. She’d be able to spot Victoria and look for any police before approaching her. “That’s perfect.”

  “Good. Tomorrow at 12:30.”

  “Okay.”

  “Bye.” Victoria broke the connection.

  Turner hung up thoughtfully. Victoria had known about the bank robbery and Calvin’s safe deposit box. The other woman might assume that Turner had masterminded the robbery, as the FBI seemed to think. She might very well be in contact with John and the other FBI agents. There was a real possibility that Turner would be walking into a trap when she met Victoria. But what choice did she have? She’d already weighed the odds. Victoria knew her. She would be far more likely to believe her accusations against Calvin than would a stranger in the Office of the Federal Prosecutor. In the end, the benefits outweighed the risks. Turner shook her head. She could spend all day debating this, and her decision would still be the same. Better to get on with what she had to do. Beside her, Squeaky tried to stretch but was hampered by the steering wheel. He whined.

  “Me, too,” she muttered to the dog.

  She got out with Squeaky and leaned against the Chevy while he investigated the calf-high yellow grass by the side of the road. The sun was out again today, hot and dry and too bright already. A crow flew out of the woods, cawing, and Squeaky paused to watch it.

  Her thoughts turned to the phone conversation she’d had with John last night and the frustration she’d heard in his voice at the end. How had that happened? They’d started out talking about stars and myths, each of them far apart physically, each looking at the same night sky. They’d avoided more explosive topics, like John’s determination to find and arrest her and her opposing determination to avenge Uncle Rusty. How had talking quietly with him led to talk of kissing him? That had just not been her. She wasn’t the type to be turned on by pursuing FBI agents.

  Even when she’d had a boyfriend—and she could count the guys she’d linked up with on one hand—the sex had been plain vanilla. Most of the time she didn’t even come during intercourse, and it had never bothered her. She could take care of herself all by herself. Few of her boyfriends noticed, but the ones who had seemed deeply threatened by her self-sufficiency. That had led one ex-boyfriend to give her the number of a sex therapist when they’d broken up. He’d handed the slip of paper to her with his brow wrinkled in honest concern for her so-called impairment.

  She’d thanked him and thrown the number away at the first opportunity. Sex just wasn’t that important to her. It involved body fluids. And getting really, really close to another human being, both physically and emotionally. There were embarrassing noises and smells, and a horrible lack of control over one’s own body. Heck, you were supposed to, in theory, have a very intimate event— an orgasm—with another person right there in the same room with you. Right there in you. How that could possibly be appealing to anyone was beyond her. Sometimes she wondered how someone could relax under those circumstances. She just wasn’t that much of a sharer.

  And yet, last night she’d been totally turned on by just the sound of John’s voice. Turner shivered. Wasn’t that kinky in some vague way? God alone knew what would happen if John ever actually put his hands on her. She’d probably spontaneously combust. And wouldn’t that be messy? What was it about John that let her relinquish control? Was it the situation? The adrenaline rush of being on the run, the near miss at the Rice Lake Kwik Trip?

  A hawk circled high overhead, searching for a hapless mouse or songbird for breakfast. She wished—she really wished—that she could pin her arousal on the situation or the adrenaline. But she couldn’t. When she imagined John and her, alone, touching each other . . . Turner squirmed, her face heating. Her reaction was very different. It wasn’t the situation. It was the man.

  And wasn’t that a terrifying thought?

  Squeaky flushed a turkey just outside the tree line. The big, dark brown bird did a flapping run into the woods, and the dog gave chase enthusiastically. Turner could hear them crashing through the tall coniferous forest. She took the cell phone out of her pocket and looked at it. The urge to call John was almost overwhelming. She wanted to hear his voice. To ask him how he felt this morning.

  No. No. No. She was an adult woman. Over thirty, and sophisticated, like those women in the Sex and the City reruns. Only in small-town Wisconsin. No. She wasn’t going to call John, and she wasn’t going to encourage him. No matter what he could make her feel, sexually and emotionally. Their relationship was just not healthy. Besides, she wasn’t entirely certain she could say anything without stuttering and blushing. She put the cell away again. Back to business. She had to find Calvin’s cabin and figure out a way in.

  “Squeaky!” she called. Would the dog even know his name by now?

  There was a crashing from the trees and Squeaky bounded out of the forest, mouth agape and grinning. He ran up to her and tried to put his paws on her shoulders.

  “No.” She gently knocked him aside and fished his red water bowl out of the truck. “Did you catch the turkey?”

  He wagged his whip-thin tail and gulped the water she poured into his dish. A colony of burrs clung to his backside near his tail. Turner picked them off. She’d have to check him for ticks later. Taking care of a dog was proving to be more complicated than she’d initially figured on. Squeaky looked up from his bowl and showed his gratitude by slobbering water down her front. She picked at her T-shirt and sighed. She needed to find a place to wash up, anyway.

  Time to get back on the road.

  Chapter Twenty-six

  O h, man. He was getting too old for this.

  It was nearly seven-thirty a.m. when John climbed from the Crown Vic’s front seat. He moved slowly, like an old man. An arthritic old man. An arthritic old man who’d been beat up the night before. He actually heard his joints creak. Maybe it was time to seek out a boring desk job.

  He stretched and then swore when his damn shoulder cramped up. God, he was just falling apart. He massaged his right shoulder while he limped to the edge of the woods to take a piss. In the light of day, the Crown Vic stood out clearly. He’d have to find a better place to park. He was stuck here without food or a place to shower until Turner showed, and he needed a shower bad. Maybe he should go into Rhinelander, clean up and eat. But then he risked missing Turner, and he couldn’t—wouldn’t—do that.

  His cell went off in the car where he’d dropped it the night before. Could Turner be calling him this early? He loped back to the Crown Vic and found the cell on the passenger seat. Crap. It was Torelli. Just who he wanted to talk to first thing in the morning.

  He answered the phone. “MacKinnon.”

  Torelli didn’t waste time on a greeting. “We’ve got another lead on Turner Hastings,” he said, his East Coast accent strong this morning.

  “Yeah?” John leaned into the Crown Vic and found his coffee mug in the console holder.

  “A woman named Victoria Weidner, works in the Office of the Federal Prosecutor in Madison, called the office in Milwaukee just now. They transferred her to me.”

  John knit his brow. “What did she call about?” He lifted the coffee mug to his lips and drank the cold swill left over from yesterday morning. He shuddered at the bitter liquid.

  “Hastings contacted her.”

  John lowered the cup. “What?”

  Torelli ignored his surprised interjection. “Apparently, Turner Hastings wants to meet with Weidner and show her evidence that Calvin Hyman has embezzled from the Winosha bank.”

/>   Why, that little witch. If she had evidence, why the hell didn’t she trust him with it? “Why Weidner?”

  “Weidner grew up in Winosha. She and Hastings know each other from high school.”

  Huh. “And Weidner turned her in?”

  “She is a federal prosecutor,” Torelli said neutrally. “She read about Hastings in the newspaper and figured she should alert us about her.”

  “Some friend.” John sighed and ran a hand through his hair. Good thing he had it short, otherwise it might frighten the squirrels after his night in the car. “When are they meeting?”

  “Tomorrow. Twelve-thirty hours on the north side of the capitol square in Madison.”

  John squinted at the early morning sun. “Why the delay?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “She doesn’t have the evidence yet,” John answered his own question.

  Torelli was silent, waiting.

  “Okay,” John said. “I still think she has to show up here, sometime today or tonight. Rhinelander is four hours from Madison, and she needs to search Hyman’s cabin to find that evidence before she meets with Weidner.”

  “Yeah,” Torelli said. “That fits with what Weidner said. She indicated Hastings didn’t have the evidence yet.”

  “Good.”

  “Do you want me to contact the Madison police to stake out the capitol tomorrow?” Torelli asked.

  “No.”

  “Mac—”

  “That’s an order,” John growled.

  He could hear the other man sigh over the phone. “We know she’ll be in Madison at twelve-thirty hours tomorrow. You can’t let this chance slip away.” Torelli didn’t mention the Kwik Trip incident yesterday, but the disgust was strong in his voice.

  Damn it. He couldn’t let Torelli go rogue on him now. “Listen. She needs to come to Rhinelander first. I’ll catch her here, before she ever gets to Madison.”

  “And if you miss her again?”

  “I won’t.”

  “You did before.”

  Asshole. John took a breath. “If I miss her, I can still be in Madison in less than four hours.”

  “But—”

  “This isn’t open for discussion, Torelli.”

  The younger man muttered something under his breath. It was probably just as well that John didn’t catch the words. Then, “Yes, sir.”

  “I don’t want outside help.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “No calling in the locals.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And no going to the SAC behind my back,” John said in a low, lethal voice. “Got it?”

  “ Yes, sir.” Torelli sounded as if he were spitting through gritted teeth.

  John smiled grimly. As long as Torelli obeyed him, he didn’t care how pissed off the other man got.

  “Good. Keep me informed.” He pushed the End button before his subordinate could respond.

  John poured out the remains of yesterday’s coffee onto the sparse grass. God, what a crappy way to start the day. Now there was no chance of going into Rhinelander. He knew Turner had to show up right here sometime in the next twenty-four hours. He sighed and stretched. At least he had the box of granola bars he always carried with him. And he’d bought a couple of bottles of water yesterday. He popped the trunk and rummaged for the box. He’d have to move the car. Too noticeable in daylight. That meant staking out the cabin by squatting in the woods with all the ticks and mosquitoes and other wildlife. Not to mention the heat. Oh, joy.

  He found the box of granola bars and pried it open. He was way too close to this case. He knew it and, what was worse, Torelli knew it. If Torelli went over his head, he might not have a credible defense this time. Had he requested the help of the state patrol yesterday, Turner probably would’ve been captured. John knew that. He could plead anxiety for citizen safety and the FBI’s normal reluctance to involve other agencies as reasons for not calling in the state patrol. But that defense got real thin when it came to Madison and Turner’s meet with the woman who worked in the Federal Prosecutor’s Office. The fact was that he should involve the Madison police, and he would, normally. But this wasn’t a normal case.

  This case was about Turner.

  He tore open a peanut butter granola bar and crunched into dry oats and peanuts. What was it about Turner? She wasn’t spectacularly beautiful. In fact, she was ordinary-looking, in a petite, girl-next-door sort of way. And yet he hadn’t felt this intensely about a woman in ages. The women he’d dated in the years since his divorce had usually been nice enough, but there’d been something missing. A deeper level of connection that he hadn’t seemed to be able to reach with any woman. A part of him had feared that he’d missed his chance altogether. That he’d spend the remainder of his life essentially alone. And he’d been reconciled to that idea. Mostly. Although now that he had a chance at a woman he felt he could truly communicate with, he sure was pursuing her, wasn’t he?

  John smiled wryly. Maybe he hadn’t been that reconciled, after all.

  She fascinated him. Turner seemed to have spent the last four years carefully hiding her attractiveness under glasses and the facade of a clichéd small-town librarian. She went out of her way to blend into the background. The exact opposite of what most women wanted. The average guy would’ve overlooked her. Hell, if he’d met her in any other way, he would’ve overlooked her. He didn’t give himself credit for being particularly sensitive. But he hadn’t overlooked her. From the moment he’d seen that secret little smile caught for a second on the bank surveillance tape, he’d been drawn in by the puzzle of her. What kind of person had the strength of character to lie in wait for a chance at revenge for so many years?

  He wanted to open her up, dig around in her psyche, find out what made her Turner. He wanted to spend time asking her questions, picking apart the details of her life. How long had she had those red heels at the back of her closet? Why had she become a librarian? Was it a disguise, or had she found her profession convenient when she’d decided on a course of revenge against Hyman? Why had she cut her hair now? There was something essentially erotic about his need to pursue. To capture and reveal her. He was the predator, and she was his wily, seductive prey. The game they played was a sexual one. He could feel it, and he thought she could, as well.

  The problem was that she was obsessed about her uncle’s death. That obsession, the fact that she’d waited four years, for Pete’s sake, to enact her revenge, was typical of her character. It was part of what fascinated him about her. But it was frustrating, as well. He felt like he was competing against a dead man, and that fight he couldn’t win.

  John sighed and looked around the clearing in back of Hyman’s cabin. Okay. First order of the day: move the car so he wouldn’t be immediately obvious when Turner arrived. He’d have to find a spot in the woods to wait where the ticks weren’t so bad. Then he would call Turner. Because he wanted to find out how she felt about last night. He wanted to see how she was this morning. And he needed to ask her where she was. Even though she wouldn’t answer.

  He needed to ask her anyway.

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  F ry ’em.” Luther Hindenburg tapped a nail-bitten finger on the Formica table for emphasis. “That’s what I say. Fry ’em on the first offense. Not the second or thirty-third, for fuck’s sake. And none of this waiting around for years on appeal. If a guy gets the death penalty, he oughta be cold meat by the following evening.”

  There was a rumble of agreement down the long row of folding tables. Calvin swallowed a bite of gluey pancake and opened his mouth.

  But he was beat to the punch by Harvey Johnson, waving a sausage on a fork. “And why’s it so damn hard to convict these guys? Pedophiles that’ve raped dozens of kids, and slimeballs that’ve killed their entire family? I tell you why. Defense lawyers. Where’s it say these guys have a right to one of them slick attorneys?” Harvey shoved the entire sausage in his mouth and chewed aggressively.

  Calvin knit his brow
s. “Well, technically, the Bill of Rights—”

  “If they can’t afford to pay one of those bottom-feeding scum-suckers, these criminals ought to get up and defend their own sorry asses in court.” Harv banged his fist on the table, hitting a puddle of pancake syrup and coming away sticky. Not that he noticed. “I’d like to see that.”

  A round of nodding heads and mumbled assent.

  “Yeah.” Luther laughed. He was completely bald—probably shaved his head—and owned the hardware store in town. Luther could sling a newly repaired lawnmower into the back of a pickup without breaking into a sweat. “Can you see some murderer trying to explain himself? I didn’t mean to do it, really. Her head got in the way of the shotgun.”

  Loud masculine laughter reverberated through the hall.

  It was Tuesday morning, and they all sat in the former Elks Lodge in Winosha. The Elks Lodge was now used mostly by the Kiwanis Club, since the last two Elks were ninety-two and ninety-four, respectively. It was a dark-timbered building with a concrete floor. At one end was a podium. Over the podium was a dusty mounted elk head, so old the fur was molting onto the floor in tufts.

  This was the annual Kiwanis Club pancake breakfast fund-raiser and he, Calvin, was the guest of honor. He was a little vague on what, exactly, the Kiwanis were raising money for, but he was certain of his part here: make a speech that would get out the vote. Fortunately, he would be preaching to the choir. As far as he knew, the Kiwanis in Winosha were one hundred percent Republican, except for Ed Riley, who lived in the woods and never bothered attending meetings.

  “That’s exactly why I feel,” Calvin finally got his two cents in, “that when I’m elected, there must be a three-strikes law instituted in this state. And I will do my level best to see such a law enacted. Furthermore—”

  “Yeah, Cal, but what about them defense attorneys?” Harvey asked rather pointlessly. Harv was a small man, only about five-four or so, but he enjoyed picking arguments. Fridays he’d get drunk at the bar and try to take out a tourist or two in a fistfight. That was in summer. In winter he drove his snowmobile through town after midnight. The next morning the wobbly tracks could be seen between the bars and his home.