Deathmarch (Broslin Creek Book 7)

by Dana Marton

  “How’s the foot?” Harper asked as he strode into the apartment.

  “Better.”

  “How’s your head?”

  “No headache.” She got up and hobbled out to the kitchen. “Thank you for bringing me food. I’ll set the table.”

  “Sit,” he ordered and pulled out a chair for her. “I’ll take care of it.”

  She ignored him and reached for the water glasses on the top shelf, which meant she had to put her weight on her toes, which sent pain shooting to her sprained ankle.

  She must have hissed or flinched, because he was next to her in a blink, and then she was in his arms as he carried her to the table. “Stubborn.”

  “Independent.”

  “You can be independent and still accept help when it’s freely offered.” He settled her in her chair.

  That thought too prickled. She had a chair at Harper’s table, one she’d come to think of as hers, because she’d been eating her meals in that same chair since the night of the hit-and-run.

  “I like taking care of you,” he said, and the words were just wrong enough to tip her unease over into frustration.

  “I don’t need to be taken care of.”

  “That’s where you are wrong,” he said calmly and reasonably as he unwrapped the food. “That you never had anyone really take care of you is a sad and terrible thing. All the more reason why you should let me do it now, to make up a little for the past.” He headed to the cabinets for the place settings. “Did you do anything exciting this morning?”

  He obviously didn’t want to fight. Fine. She didn’t either. “Lined up some shows. Also, researched Susan B. Anthony. I’m thinking about adding her to my repertoire. You?”

  “I don’t think I could credibly impersonate Susan B. Anthony.”

  She couldn’t help the smile. He’d always known how to make her laugh.

  “Is my car at Shannon’s?” she asked.

  “Still at the station. Plenty of room there in the big garage. Figured it’d just get snowed in at the B and B and get in the way of whoever shovels for Shannon. But I can drive it over if you want it there.”

  She shook her head, hesitated. He was right, asking a friend for a favor wouldn’t make her a helpless mess. “I was thinking about getting an oil change since I’m not driving for a few more days anyway. I should have gotten one last month, but time got away from me.”

  “Billy Picket does them for under fifty bucks still. I’ll take care of it.”

  “Thank you. Any development in the case?”

  “Some new information. No huge leaps forward.”

  “Be careful.”

  He shot her a glance as he finished setting the table and sat. “Don’t tell me you worry about me.”

  “Of course I worry about you.” She shook out her napkin and laid it on her lap. “You’re chasing a killer.”

  “I’m a tough nut to crack.”

  She bit her lip.

  He raised an eyebrow. “What?”

  “Never mind.” She bit her lip again.

  “You have something to say about me being a nut?”

  “So much.”

  He grinned. “Look at you, all mature and holding back.” Then he gestured at the platter. “Barbeque ribs or buffalo wings?”

  Both came with french fries and a salad. “I think I’ll try both.”

  “Now that’s the Allie I remember.”

  She was not ashamed of her lack of restraint. Finnegan’s was famous for their secret sauces.

  She took a bite of falling-off-the-bone rib meat, the sweet and savory taste nearly making her moan with pleasure. She liked good food, but rarely had the chance to indulge. Her usual motel rooms didn’t come with kitchens, so she didn’t cook. Most of the time, she lived on rest-stop food. Her culinary expectations didn’t reach beyond those prepackaged apple pie pockets.

  She took another bite and let her eyes flutter closed, let the rich spices suffuse her entire being. Heaven. When she opened her eyes at last, she didn’t even care that Harper was staring at her. “Do you know what’s in this?”

  “My mother makes the sauce.”

  “She won’t tell her own children?”

  “She said she’ll whisper the recipe to her favorite on her deathbed.”

  “Who’s her favorite?”

  “I guess we’ll find out then.”

  She licked her finger. “Good to know I’m not the only person she doesn’t trust.”

  Harper picked up a wing. “She’s not a bad person, you know.”

  “I didn’t say she was. But she thinks I’m a bad person.”

  He flashed her a long-suffering look. “Why can’t the two women in my life get along?”

  She nearly choked on a french fry. “I’m not a woman in your life.”

  “You’re living with me.”

  “Until tomorrow. You said forty-eight hours,” she rushed to remind him. “Have you tracked down Zane?”

  “Working on it.”

  “I still can’t believe he’d physically hurt me.” She fell silent for a few seconds. “But I wouldn’t have thought he’d be a stalker either. It makes me feel stupid for having bad judgment.”

  “It’s not a woman’s fault if a man decides to behave like an ass.”

  “I should have seen through him sooner.”

  “As you said, with your job being what it is, you didn’t spend a lot of time together.”

  True. But… “Here’s the thing. In a few days, I’ll go back on the road. I’m not going to have any more free time than before. How am I ever going to judge whether a man who asks me out is a good guy or someone who’ll try to run me over with his car later?”

  “You could just date people you already know.” Harper reached for another wing.

  She ran the handful of men she’d dated through her head. The only one she could imagine spending more than a few hours with was Harper. “No, thanks. Anyway, I probably shouldn’t see anyone for a while. A new boyfriend would really set off Zane.”

  Harper wiped his fingers, then reached over to take her hand. “Forget about the idiot. You can live your life anyway you want.”

  He said the words with so much certainty, she actually believed him.

  “Why don’t you have a girlfriend?” She pulled her hand away. She didn’t know what to do with the tingles that kept running up her arm for as long as Harper was touching her. “Do you have a girlfriend? I guess just because you live alone, it doesn’t mean—”

  “No.”

  She needed to examine why that filled her with relief. Later. “Ever been serious with anyone?”

  “There was someone at the police academy, but it didn’t work out. We wanted different things. She wanted to be a city cop, work big cases, drugs, organized crime, then end up at the FBI. Guess I’m not that ambitious. I just want to protect the people I love and grew up with. I didn’t want to move to Philly.” He shrugged. “Not sure it would have worked anyway. I was pretty immature.”

  “And now you’re all mature?”

  “Practically God’s gift to women.” He pondered that for a second. “All right, maybe not God’s. Maybe a minor saint’s?” He punctured the air with his last barbeque rib when he thought of the right one. “St. Jude.”

  “Patron saint of lost causes?”

  He grinned.

  She grinned back.

  For a few seconds, they ate in companionable silence. Then he said, “You know, I had it all planned out. Back when I was a know-it-all nineteen-year-old, sure as shit that I had my act together. I was going to run away with you.”

  She stared at him. When she spoke, the words came out breathless. “But I ran away first.”

  He drank up his water. “Timing was not on our side.”

  The understatement of the century.

  “We both needed to grow up,” she said after a moment.

  “Me more than you, but I won’t disagree in principle.” He watched her. “And now?”

 
“I’m leaving as soon as my foot heals enough to drive long stretches. Another day or two?”

  “Bad idea to drive on an injured foot. You’d want to be healed all the way. In an emergency, being able to slam your foot on the brake fast enough, hard enough, might make all the difference. You should wait a week, then see a doctor for a checkup, make sure you’re cleared.”

  She couldn’t afford to sit out a whole week.

  “You don’t get a vote,” she snapped.

  He watched her. “Have you noticed that ever since you came back, we’re always fighting? We never used to fight.”

  “Because I had a planet-sized crush on you, and I just followed you around like a puppy dog and said yes to everything you cooked up.”

  “Fond memories.”

  “Now I’m an independent woman who takes shit from no one.”

  He leaned back in his chair. “Or maybe you’re always disagreeing with me because it’s your way of fighting your attraction for me.”

  “How does your head not explode? It’s a medical mystery. Maybe you should see a doctor.”

  Instead of a retort, he rose and walked around the table. When she turned toward him, he dropped to his knees in front of her and brushed the hair out of her face. “You know, my head does have something wrong with it lately. I’m constantly fighting to push you out of my mind. It takes a lot of energy.” Then he added, “I wish you would stay.”

  And then he leaned forward.

  He was going to kiss her. The thought speared through her stunned mind as he closed the distance between them and brushed his warm lips over hers.

  The rush was like plunging from the high point of a roller coaster: sheer exhilaration, breathlessness, half a heart attack.

  She made a sound. She hadn’t meant it to be encouraging, but it so obviously was, he kissed her deeper.

  Nobody kissed like Harper. God, she’d almost forgotten how he would begin slow and soft and seduce her mouth little by little until she was hopelessly lost, until she was ruthlessly conquered.

  Definitely a roller-coaster ride. Except this roller coaster didn’t come to a gentle stop at the end. It slammed her into the solid brick wall built from the memories of their past.

  Allie pulled away, breathing hard, begging. “Harper, I can’t.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Since Harper had decided not to waste any more time on trying to stop himself from thinking about Allie, he let his brain dwell on their kiss. It would have been impossible to keep her from his mind anyway. Her car smelled like her: boot leather and apple pie. She was a complex woman.

  As he drove her Chevy over from the station to Billy Picket’s garage postlunch, he glanced at the little sticker in the upper left corner of the windshield. Her next oil change had been due at 86,125 miles. She was at 92,543.

  He looked from the odometer back to the sticker as he pulled up in front of Billy’s. Stared. Blinked. “That’s it.”

  He backed out of the parking spot and tore off. It had stopped sleeting, and the temps ticked up a few degrees, so the wet wasn’t freezing to the road.

  When he reached Brody Cash’s place, he ran up the walk, banged on the guy’s door, and didn’t bother with niceties when the door opened. “Mind if I take a look inside your car?”

  Cash grabbed the keys from the hall table and just about threw them at him. “Here you go. Won’t find anything from Chuck in there.”

  “Not looking for that. Looking for your alibi. How many times have you taken the car out since the oil change on Monday?”

  “Let’s see.” Cash squinted as if that’d help him think. “Just the once. When you called me down to the station. Why?”

  “Hang on.” Harper turned on his heel and hurried to the vehicle in question.

  He opened the door on the driver’s side and ducked his head in, looked at the oil change sticker on the upper left corner of the window. The mechanic wrote the mileage on it, so Cash would know when he’d gone five thousand miles and was due for his next oil change. The sticker said 32,476 miles.

  Harper put the key in the ignition and turned on the engine. The odometer showed 32,480 miles. About right. Cash lived roughly two miles from the police station. He hadn’t driven to the victim’s place Monday night. Cash and Lamm lived on opposites sides of town. Cash hadn’t driven since his oil change at all, like he’d said, except to the police station and back.

  “You’re cleared in the investigation,” he told Cash as he returned the man’s keys.

  Then he left without an explanation. He had no time to waste. Dicky Poole was the killer. Harper was so close to an arrest, he could almost taste it.

  He was turning at the end of Cash’s street when his phone rang.

  “I couldn’t reach you on your radio,” Leila said. “Everything okay?”

  “I’m in Allie’s car.”

  Meaningful silence. Then she cleared her throat. “Brittany Wallingford is here. She says she wants to confess.”

  “She’s just looking for attention. I’ll deal with her later.”

  “She seems genuinely distressed. Gabi tried to talk to her, but she says she’ll only speak with you. I put her in the interview room. She’s crying in there.”

  Harper ran through a silent string of curses. “All right. I’ll be right there.”

  Dicky was supposed to come to the station anyway. Leila had managed to catch him on the phone and schedule him for 3:00 p.m. He would have no idea Harper was on to him. He would show up, if for nothing else than to figure out where the investigation stood and to throw Harper off the scent. Harper would arrest him then.

  Who else was on duty? Mike? No. Joe Kessler. Harper called him. “Do you have some time?”

  “What do you need?”

  “Surveillance. Could you go over to Dicky Poole’s place? If he goes anywhere before I call you back, just follow him and let me know. Don’t lose him. I think he’s our killer. I’m on my way to the station. I’m going to put in for an arrest warrant for him and for a search warrant for his place.”

  Harper trusted Joe to get the job done, but he was still frustrated when he walked into the interview room half an hour later, having emailed all his notes to Captain Bing. Hopefully, he was between training sessions. He was good friends with one of the judges in West Chester, and if he sent the warrant request, it tended to be approved at double speed.

  “What is it, Brittany?”

  Her always-spotless makeup was ravaged by tears. “You have to promise not to be mad at me.”

  He gripped the back of a chair, too wired to sit. “All right. Talk.”

  She swallowed and dropped her hands onto her lap, lowered her gaze. Mumbled. “I drove the black SUV the night of Allie’s stupid performance at the Historical Society.”

  Harper leaned forward. “What did you say?”

  She looked up, her eyes begging. “I think she came back here for you. I saw her at Finnegan’s on Monday. She’s trying to get you back, Harper.”

  That ephemeral thought Harper had been chasing clicked in his brain, and he cursed himself for it not clicking sooner. Jason Allen, the guy whose SUV was “borrowed” that night, was visiting his grandparents who lived next to Brittany’s parents. “Of all the idiotic…”

  “You promised you wouldn’t be mad! I didn’t plan it, all right? Dad confiscated my keys because Kennan told him I drove drunk Monday night. And the SUV in the driveway next door wasn’t locked. I just wanted to hang with Zoey for an hour. Nobody would even have known I borrowed the car. But then I saw you walk Allie to the B and B. And you didn’t go in with her, but then she ran back out for you, the little conniving…”

  She trailed off at Harper’s hard look, continuing with “And I just—I wanted to scare her so she’d freaking leave already!”

  Harper was gripping the back of the chair hard enough so he wouldn’t have been surprised if his fingertips left imprints. He relaxed his muscles and drew a deep breath. “One of these days, Britt, somebody is
going to have to have a serious discussion with you about you getting your act together and maybe becoming a decent human being. But I can’t be that man today. I don’t have the time. Do you have your phone?”

  She nodded.

  “Call your father and tell him to call his lawyer.”

  “But I didn’t mean to hit her! And I came to tell you because, see? No need for her to live with you. She’s in no danger from anyone. I only hit her by accident, and I won’t do it again. I swear. She’s safe. She can move back to the B and B. Or move along.” Brittany offered a tremulous smile as she reached for him. “I apologize. So now you have to forgive me, right?”

  He stepped back. “Not how criminal law works.”

  “Maybe Daddy could talk to Captain Bing?” She finally reached for her phone. “Will you stay with me until he gets here with the lawyer?”

  “I don’t have any time for hand-holding. I’m investigating a murder. Ready or not, looks like today is the day you’re going to have to grow up, Brittany.”

  * * *

  “I guess some people never change,” Allie told Harper over the phone, halfway down the stairs. Her head had been hurting half the night, so she hadn’t gotten enough sleep. She was desperate for another cup of coffee. “I’m glad to know who it was since I’m moving back to the B and B today.”

  “No.”

  “Isn’t it a shame I don’t take orders?” Not even from a man who could make her go cross-eyed with a kiss. Especially not from a man who could make her go cross-eyed with a kiss. “My ankle is better, and now we know Zane isn’t stalking me.”

  She gripped the railing and went slowly, one step at a time, down the stairs. She managed. Putting weight on her ankle didn’t pain her nearly as much as it had right after the accident. Her hobbling progress made her feel oddly exhilarated. “You realize I haven’t been out of your apartment since Thursday night? I’m starting to have cabin fever.”

  “I’m going to arrest Brittany,” he sounded pained, “after the official recorded interview I’ll conduct once her lawyer is present, but she’ll be bailed out immediately.”