BRIDGER'S LAST STAND

by Linda Winstead Jones

  The hand left her shoulder suddenly, and Bridger took the chair to her right, sitting down to face his friend across the table. "Are you out of your mind?"

  Frannie expected Harry's wide grin to disappear at this rude question, but he kept smiling. "Probably."

  "Don't you remember the summer Leigh Ann was sixteen? How about Mark's senior year?" Bridger wagged an accusing finger in the sergeant's direction. "You had brown hair in September, and by May you were as gray as you are now. You said—"

  "I said a lot of things," Harry interrupted.

  "You said kids make you old before your time," Bridger said through gritted teeth. "You said, more than once, that if you were smart you never would've had kids. Dammit, Harry, Mark and Leigh Ann are grown and out of the house, and here you are nearly fifty years old and you're going to start all over?"

  Harry ignored Bridger and turned all his attention to Frannie. "I knew he would do this. Ignore him, he'll get over it in a minute. This is good coffee."

  Bridger mumbled something, and Frannie ignored him just as Harry did. "Thank you."

  "You see," Harry said as he leaned slightly toward her. "Paula's my third wife. I have two kids, Mark and Leigh Ann, by my first wife, and none, thank heaven, by the second." He grinned. "You'd like Paula. We should get together, the four of us, and maybe…" He glanced at Bridger and changed the subject. Frannie didn't want to look to her right and see exactly how Bridger had squelched the invitation. A glare would do it, she supposed.

  "Paula doesn't have any kids of her own," he continued. "Everything I said to Mal about having kids was true … at least, I meant it at the time. But there are good things about babies, too. When they're little they're so cute, and helpless, and pure. We don't see a lot of pure in our business."

  Bridger stopped mumbling. Frannie risked a glance in his direction to see that he stared at Harry, listening closely. "Well, hell, congratulations, old man." The beginnings of a smile might have touched the corners of his mouth. "If you're happy, I'm happy for you."

  "I never doubted it," Harry said as he offered his coffee mug for a refill.

  The phone rang while Frannie was pouring Harry his second cup of coffee. Bridger answered it quickly, obviously expecting it to be for him. He said hello twice and then returned the receiver to the hook.

  "Wrong number, I guess," he said to Frannie as she placed Harry's coffee on the table.

  * * *

  Mal didn't like leaving the house without Frannie, not even for a few minutes, but she'd insisted, and Harry had insisted. In the end, he'd simply been outnumbered.

  He needed a shower, a shave and a change of clothes, but he wondered if Frannie would open her door to him when he returned. Maybe. Maybe not. She didn't see danger the way he did, didn't seem to see any threat at all.

  Frannie Vaughn was such a naive, trusting woman. The thought didn't comfort him at all.

  She was so certain last night's break-in had been a simple mistake. Maybe she didn't want to face the fact that she might be in serious trouble. Hell, he didn't like it, but he didn't dismiss the possibility because it was unpleasant.

  Much as he hated to admit it, she was right about one thing. He couldn't simply move in and take over her life. He didn't know what came next any more than she did.

  His own apartment was familiar and uncluttered, unlike Frannie's little house. He'd never been one for fussing over the place where he slept, as she obviously did. The furniture in his apartment had been reasonably priced and comfortable, and he'd never had the urge to pretty the place up with pillows and little doodads here and there, the way women did. There was a place to lay his head, a television, a microwave and a functioning refrigerator, and that was all he needed.

  Away from the situation, distanced from Frannie for the space of time it took him to drive to his apartment and take a shower, he realized that this situation was going to be a tricky one. The man who'd broken into her house might try again tonight, next week, next month … or not at all. How could he expect to watch her all that time? Especially since she obviously didn't want his assistance.

  Mal towel-dried his hair vigorously as he walked down the carpeted hall to his bedroom. He couldn't move in with Frannie, he couldn't adopt her, he couldn't devote his life to watching over her, but he still felt responsible for her. He grumbled as he tossed the towel onto the floor. Dammit, he didn't want to feel responsible for her.

  It was not his job to baby-sit witnesses and crime victims, no matter how physically appealing they might be. His duty was to find the man who had killed the blonde in the stairwell and get him off the street. His only obligation was to the woman who'd been murdered.

  As he chose a dark blue suit from the closet, he mumbled to himself. Well, that reasoning sounded good, but he didn't feel any less responsible for Frannie Vaughn.

  In front of the mirror he straightened his blue and burgundy tie. Why couldn't Paula have introduced him to Frannie over a barbecue and idle conversation? Why couldn't it have been Frannie as a blind date instead of that whiner with the three kids or the skittish woman who had jumped every time he opened his mouth? Frannie wouldn't have asked him to fix her speeding tickets, or wondered aloud at the end of the evening if he wouldn't mind having a talk with a thirteen-year-old who'd decided he shouldn't have to do his homework anymore.

  It would've been different with Frannie. Could've been. Would never be…

  He strapped on his gun and then his badge. No, he couldn't make a life's work of looking out for Frannie, and if she kept pushing him away every time he got too close they'd never get to finish what they started at the Riverwatch Hotel. But he could, and he would, make damn sure she could take care of herself.

  This afternoon, he was taking Frannie shopping for a gun.

  * * *

  Frannie glanced over her shoulder one more time. Her house was a couple of blocks behind her, and there was no one else on the sidewalk that was shaded by ancient trees and lined, in places, by low-growing flowering plants. So why couldn't she shake the feeling that someone watched her?

  Nerves, she decided as she looked ahead once again. Last night's excitement had shaken her, and she wasn't quite over it yet. She wondered, as she remembered the man pointing the gun at her, if she would ever get over it.

  She'd have to, wouldn't she? God, she refused to be afraid all the time, to stay locked in her house behind shuttered windows, afraid of every sound and every shadow. Afraid to live.

  Frannie tried to dispel the feeling that someone was watching. She needed a new cable for her phone, since the intruder had frayed the connection when he'd ripped the cord out of the wall. Fortunately the wall jack itself seemed to be fine, and they'd surely have phone cable at the hardware store on the corner.

  Harry had suggested that she wait for Bridger to get back before running her errands, but she'd stood firm. She would not let the creep who'd invaded her home change her life, would not let him make her afraid to venture out in her own neighborhood.

  The small hardware store had just what she needed, and Frannie purchased the cord and stuck it in her purse. She'd sleep better, she knew, if the bedroom phone was in good working order.

  That errand done, she walked another block and a half to a neighborhood drugstore. The prices were a little bit higher here than at the discount stores, but it was convenient and she stopped here often. The large, friendly woman with big red hair at the cash register recognized her, then smiled and waved before returning to her magazine. Cosmo.

  Frannie walked toward the cosmetics section. She needed a few things, and killing time here was definitely better than sitting at home all alone, all day long. She had no idea how long it would be before Bridger returned, but if he got there before she did, well, it wouldn't hurt him to wait in his car for a while and wonder where she was.

  She smiled as she looked over a selection of lipsticks. Bridger was obviously not often kept waiting. There wasn't a patient bone in the man's body.

  The
bell above the door rang softly, and she heard the cashier say hello again. The greeting was more subdued this time, and Frannie lifted her head to see who the new customer was.

  She recognized the little man as soon as her eyes lit on him. By the light of day the Riverwatch Hotel's desk clerk looked even more wrinkled and sour and old than he had two nights ago.

  Frannie lowered her head, hoping he wouldn't see and recognize her. She stared at the lipsticks, and after a few seconds of perusal she moved on to the nail polish.

  "Well, hello."

  She lifted her head slowly to see that the old man stood right beside her, an unexpected and somehow wrong smile on his wrinkled face.

  "Hello," she said softly.

  "I remember you," he said, shaking a gnarled finger in her direction. "You were with that cop the other night."

  She nodded once.

  "Did you hear what happened?" He lowered his voice to ask the question. "Did you hear about the murder?" His eyes gleamed, bright in a grayish face.

  "Yes." She didn't like the expression on his face, not at all. She reached out and picked up a bottle of red nail polish, just to have something else to study. That smile gave her the creeps. "It's such a shame." She started to walk past him, to steer around the old man and make her way to the cashier with a bottle of nail polish that was much too red for her tastes.

  "A shame? What for?" His whispered response stopped her, and she made herself look up at him.

  "She was a tramp, and she got what she deserved … I imagine."

  "You knew her?" Bridger had said they didn't even have a name for the victim, but this man was condemning her. Maybe he knew something, more than he was telling the police.

  The old man caught her eye, and his grin turned into a smirk. "Nope. Don't have to know her to know what kind of woman she was. The only kind of women who frequent the Riverwatch are tramps. We get hookers, adulterers, loose women. We don't exactly get good girls renting rooms for an hour or two, or a night or two."

  His eyes and his smirk were condemning, and Frannie wanted nothing more than to escape. She turned her back on him and decided to take the long way around to the cashier.

  Frannie didn't look back. When she reached the cashier she placed her nail polish on the counter. "You know," she said softly, "I changed my mind. This isn't my color."

  The cashier didn't seem to mind. She shrugged and set the bottle of nail polish on a low shelf behind the counter, and Frannie stepped through the door and onto the sidewalk with a sigh of relief. What an offensive old man! She would have argued with almost anyone else, and told them that she was a good girl, thank you very much, but she really didn't care what that creep thought, at least not enough to endure a longer conversation.

  There was a small antique store a few doors down, and that's where she headed. It was a good place to browse on a lazy afternoon, and she had time to kill. Lots and lots of time.

  Terri, the owner, stood behind the desk with a stack of bills and a checkbook. She glanced up and smiled and said hello, and then she went back to her work. She knew how Frannie liked to come here and rummage through the merchandise, searching for treasures.

  There was something so comforting about these old things that she quickly put the creep from the Riverwatch from her mind. These objects had a history—every book, every chair, every odd and every end. Frannie and her mother had moved so often, there had never been any time to make a history of their own. No family heirlooms passed from hand to hand, no single pieces that were constant from year to year. Everything changed, frequently and usually without warning.

  She picked up and studied a pair of ceramic mushroom salt and pepper shakers. They were ugly as sin, so ugly Frannie was tempted to buy the pair just to save them from the inevitable junk pile. But she eventually returned the mushrooms to the table and continued her journey through the store.

  After a while she felt almost calm. Things here were familiar and safe. Some of these pieces had been here for months, and the smell of old books and dust tickled her nose in a comforting way. Not everything changed in a heartbeat. Some things were constant and solid and real.

  As she neared the end of a table of knickknacks she saw the angel.

  The ceramic figurine was no more than six inches high, a rat-faced cherub with wings and a halo and a flowing blue robe. There were a number of small chips around the hem of the gown, and some of the gold halo paint was scratched.

  She smiled as she approached the counter with her prize. "Fifty cents?" she said to Terri as she fished through her purse for change. "That's a bargain I can't pass up."

  The phone near the cash register rang as Frannie dug up a second quarter, and Terri snagged it as she opened the cash drawer.

  "Terri's Trash and Treasure," she drawled, and then she handed the receiver to Frannie. "It's for you."

  She knew who it was, and her peace of mind fled as her anger grew. Bridger! He'd had her followed, and he was checking up on her as if she were a child. How many times did she have to tell him that she did not need him to take over her life?

  "Hello," she snapped.

  Frannie heard a long sigh on the other end of the phone, Bridger searching for patience she supposed. She was about to hand the receiver back to Terri when he spoke.

  "Where is it, Frannie?"

  Not Bridger, that was the first thought that went through her mind. Not Bridger, but she recognized his voice. She remembered too vividly the deep whisper that had come to her in the dark last night.

  "What do you want?" she asked softly.

  "You know what I want. She gave you something."

  "No," Frannie insisted, shaking her head as she answered. "You're wrong."

  That sigh again. "I'm running out of patience, Frannie." And then he hung up.

  She held on to the phone even after the dial tone replaced the harsh whisper. Terri tilted her face to look into Frannie's eyes.

  "Are you okay?"

  Frannie returned the phone. "No," she whispered.

  Bridger was right. The man who'd broken into her house, the man who'd called her—she shivered as she realized that she had not imagined she was being followed as she'd walked down her street—was the same man who'd killed that poor woman in the stairwell. And for some reason she could not fathom, he thought she had something. Something worth killing for.

  Frannie glanced through the big window at the front of the store. She saw no one unusual on the sun-washed street, but that didn't comfort her at all. That old man who thought she was a tramp could be out there. The intruder who'd placed the phone call might be out there. Either or both of them might be patiently waiting for her to leave this place. Alone.

  Bridger had been right, dammit. She wasn't safe.

  Frannie pointed to the telephone moments after Terri had set the receiver in place. Her hand shook slightly, the finger that pointed, trembling. "Can I use your phone?"

  * * *

  Chapter 7

  « ^ »

  Mal wanted to ask Frannie why she hadn't called him from the antique shop, but he didn't. He decided to be satisfied that she'd had the sense to call the police station, and that the officers she told her story to had paged him so he could pick her up and drive her home.

  He was angry, much angrier than he was willing to let Frannie know. While the words "I told you so" hadn't once left his lips, he kept wanting to remind her how he'd insisted that she play it safe. Walking off to run a few errands had been carelessly foolish, and he knew Frannie Vaughn was not normally a careless lady.

  That carelessness wasn't all that had him steamed. Right now, Harry and at least one other detective were paying a visit to Clarence Doyle, the unsavory Riverwatch Hotel manager who had confronted Frannie in the drugstore. That encounter seemed to bother her almost as much as the phone call she'd received.

  She hadn't recovered from the shock yet. Pale and shaken, she sat on the fat white sofa in her living room, feet tucked beneath her, eyes locked somewhere around he
r knees, arms crossed as if the room were chilly. It wasn't.

  Frannie lifted her head. "You were right," she said softly, and then she smiled. It was a slow, reluctant smile that tugged at something deep inside him. "I can be so blind sometimes. If I don't want it to be so, then it must not be. I really, really didn't want that man who was in my house last night to be the same one who killed that woman."

  Mal's simmering anger was replaced by something near fury—at the man who'd turned Frannie's safe and comfortable life upside down, at her for sitting there with an accepting and peaceful smile on her face, at himself for being in the middle of it all. "We're going to take care of this," he said. "Tomorrow morning we'll file for you to get a gun permit. I'll take you to the shooting range, and until your permit is approved—"

  "No," she said firmly, her smile gone. "No gun."

  He took a deep breath to calm himself. "Frannie, you have to be able to defend yourself."

  "No."

  "You're being unreasonable."

  Her eyes were an unwavering and steady blue fire. He expected an argument, an angry response he could answer in kind. Unfortunately, what he got was an unruffled, very calm reply. "I know myself better than you do, Bridger. If I had a gun, I wouldn't use it."

  "You don't know what you'd do if you needed protection."

  "But I do know," she whispered. "I'd take that gun and I'd point it at the man who threatened me, and then I'd begin to wonder. I'd wonder if he had a family, if he was high on drugs and had no idea what he was doing, if he was really, really the danger he seemed to be. And in that instant he'd have the opportunity to take the gun from me or fire his own. I lose, any way you look at it."

  So she was one of those: a peacemaker, a dove, a woman who shuddered at the sight of a gun. But then again, she hadn't shuddered at the sight of the Smith & Wesson revolver on his belt, the backup weapon he wore in place of the Colt that had been confiscated right after the shooting on Tuesday. She hadn't so much as cringed as he'd told the story about Thrasher's death.