“Happy?” Duncan pushed away from the counter. “When you’d opened your mouth and said, ‘Oh, yes, Your Honor, I’d like nothing better than to continue to enrage some homicidal maniac!’” His voice had risen to a roar now.
She refused to retreat one iota. She’d never been able to. You gave up one little piece of yourself, one bit of independence, and the next thing you knew, it was all gone and you were nothing. A doormat. Her mother, her sisters. Most of the women in the congregation. All purpose and will given into the keeping of others: men.
“Why won’t you listen?” Jane cried. “I’ve told you. Hector’s not…”
She might as well not have spoken.
“I’ll tell you one damn thing. You’re done with the Ortez case. You won’t be supervising any more visitations.”
Jane was too shocked to do more than whisper, “What?”
“I called Lehman. Told him what’s been happening.” He paused. “Why haven’t you?”
“Because I don’t believe Hector has anything to do…”
Duncan talked right over her. “He agreed that you shouldn’t be put at risk. He’s going to assign someone else.”
She’d never known it was possible to see red. Literally.
“Let me guess,” she said flatly. “A man.”
“That’s right. A man.”
Jane hadn’t known disillusionment hurt so much. Except she knew quite well it wasn’t anything that simple. Dear God. How had she let herself love a man who, like her father, needed to dominate and control any woman in his life? Or did he need to dominate and control everyone? Either way, she couldn’t bear it.
“None of those decisions are yours to make,” she told him, her eyes dry and burning, her heart as arid. Death Valley. “How dare you go behind my back to the judge?”
“Decisions? One. One decision. Not decisions, plural. And my job is to keep you safe. Continued involvement with Hector Ortez endangers you. Lehman agreed, I might add.”
She shook her head. “I will discuss it with him in the morning. This was none of your business, Duncan. It never was.”
“Wasn’t it?” He looked so damned confident. Angry, too, but mostly sure of himself and his right to do as he saw fit with her life, all in the name of taking care of her.
He was no better than her father.
“No.” Hungry and bitter both, she took in his face: heavy brow, creases worn by the burden of responsibility, blunt, battered bone structure. And she grieved. “I’ll say this clearly, once only. It is not your business. I’m not your business. Thank you for what you’ve done for me. Obviously, I gave you the wrong impression. I’m correcting that now.”
Those winter gray eyes narrowed. “What the hell are you talking about?”
Jane walked out of the kitchen. She went straight to her bedroom—no, not her bedroom at all, his guest room. Grabbed the overnight case and took it to the bathroom. The guest bathroom. With a couple sweeps of her hand, she dumped her toiletries in and turned. Duncan blocked the door.
“Excuse me,” she said politely.
“You’re not leaving.”
“Oh, yes, I am. Get out of my way.”
In a remote part of her mind, she saw how stunned he looked. She couldn’t let herself think about it, not really. She hurt enough already. Jane marched into the bedroom and began scooping clothes into the shopping bags they’d come in.
“You intend to go home,” he said in disbelief.
“Yes.”
“Goddamn it, Jane! What are you going to do, sit on the front porch and wait for the bastard to come?”
“I’m going to retreat behind my very expensive new security system.” Her arms were full now. She started toward him, willing him to step aside. “If I hear anything I don’t like, I’ll call 9-1-1. Like I should have done in the first place.”
He stepped out of her way.
At the front door, she struggled to free a hand to turn the knob but managed. After dumping everything in the trunk of her car, she turned around and went in to get the next load.
It took three trips. Duncan stood right inside and watched her come and go. With the last armload, she swept past him, but stopped momentarily on the threshold, locked in place by a spasm of anguish.
Thank you. No, she’d already said that. Goodbye. Why bother?
After a moment, she unfroze her muscles and kept going.
The first time she’d loved anyone since she hugged her little sisters goodbye, and it hurt. It hurt so terribly much.
WHAT IN HELL HAD HAPPENED?
His front door still stood open. Jane was gone. He’d caught a glimpse of her car as she reversed into the street, then accelerated forward.
It felt like a hit-and-run. She’d driven over him, been aware of the bump of the tires and kept going, anyway.
He hadn’t known devastation like this since his mother said, “I’m leaving.” Since he had stood there in the silence after she went and seen his fate.
After a while, he closed the front door and went to the kitchen. If he’d ever needed a drink… Or five or six or ten. But he didn’t go to the cupboard where he kept a bottle of whiskey, or to the refrigerator for a beer. Getting drunk solved nothing.
He should call Niall and tell him what she’d done. But he didn’t reach for his phone, either. The only thing he did do was pull out a chair from the kitchen table and sink into it.
She was gone.
Was it his fault? He’d spent eighteen years telling himself it wasn’t his fault his mother had abandoned her family. She’d told him he was a good boy. No, it was Dad’s fault. Niall’s. Conall’s. If Conall had only cleaned up the kitchen that day, the way she’d asked him. If Niall hadn’t chosen right then to get tossed into juvie. If they’d been home, if she’d had to look them in the eye, would she have gone?
Did I blame them? he wondered dully.
Yeah. Maybe.
This was different. He couldn’t summon any anger at all. He knew Jane well enough to have guessed how she’d react to him telling her what to do instead of suggesting. To him calling Lehman behind her back. Why had he done it?
Because she was too reckless to take sensible precautions. Because keeping her safe had to come first.
Because… His heart constricted. Because I don’t know any other way.
No other way to protect someone he loved. No other way to…hold them. He was good at building Cold War style concrete walls topped with multiple strands of barbed wire. Maybe necessary for Niall and Conall. Maybe not.
It worked.
As a management style in a police department, it worked, too. It was all he knew.
The last time he’d trusted someone, she left.
He hadn’t trusted Jane, and she’d left, too. Probably ripped to shreds by the barbed wire. Devastated, he still knew that she hadn’t stormed out in a fit of pique. She had been genuinely hurt. Maybe even as hurt as he was.
Would saying “I’m sorry” be good enough? Duncan couldn’t imagine. Not when he didn’t altogether understand why she’d gone off the deep end like that. Yeah, he’d been dictatorial. The admission didn’t come easy to him, but he knew he had overstepped.
Not because she was a woman, whatever she thought. Because he loved her. For the first time in his entire, lonely life, he loved a woman. And he’d lost her because he was who he was, and didn’t know how to be anyone else.
But that wasn’t the worst part. No, the really bad part was that by now she’d have reached home. She was all by herself in that goddamn house, having to walk into a bedroom stripped nearly bare, put her clothes away in empty drawers and a closet that should have held her long-accumulated possessions. Having to make up that bed, imagine sleeping in it tonight.
She was completely vulnerable, and it was his fault.
Eventually Duncan did pick up the phone. He told Niall, “Jane’s gone home. She’s there by herself.”
Strange how silence seemed more alive when it was conveyed by a telephone
connection. At last Niall said thoughtfully, “The security system is good.”
Duncan grunted his opinion. It wasn’t good enough. It didn’t stop someone smashing a window and climbing in. It made noise; it’s main use was for repelling burglars. No one would slip in and out by stealth. No, Jane wouldn’t come home to any more surprises, at least not ones left indoors. But her stalker was flat-out crazy. If he’d worked his way up to the final act, he wouldn’t care about walking away afterward.
“Couldn’t you talk her into staying on with you for now?” Niall asked.
Up and pacing his kitchen, Duncan admitted, “I pissed her off. We had a court hearing today. Lehman wanted her to supervise another month of visits between the Ortezes. I called the judge later, told him what’s been going on and got her taken off.”
His brother let out a low whistle. “Without talking to her first?”
“I talked. She wouldn’t listen.”
“And there’s the brother I know and love,” said Niall, sharp-edged.
“What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”
“You know what it means.”
He felt hollow. Carved out like a jack-o’-lantern. He didn’t answer.
“Ortez isn’t our guy,” Niall said.
“What?”
“I got confirmation this afternoon. There’s no way he could have done Jane’s bedroom. He was at work all day, even had lunch there. Someone went off and grabbed burritos for everyone. The boss had given permission after closing for Hector to use the lifts and tools to work on his truck. A couple of guys hung around and helped him.”
Duncan closed his eyes. “You’re sure?”
“I’m sure.”
He swore. “Then who?”
“I’m down to a couple of good possibilities. The one that makes me uneasiest is a guy named Richard Hopkins. There was an ugly court battle over whether he’d be allowed to see his daughter. Apparently everyone concerned thought he was sexually abusing her in some way or another, but a physical exam didn’t confirm and the girl wasn’t talking although she started puking every time about an hour before Daddy was due to pick her up for visits. Jane put a lot of pressure on the judge in the case, and in the end he ruled all visits had to be supervised. The father was steamed.”
“How long ago was this?”
“Two years. Jane didn’t supervise the visits—she says she doesn’t do long-term ones like that, and especially when one party is so hostile to her. Here’s the thing, though. The visits got less and less successful. Hopkins got madder and madder. Started not showing sometimes, much to everyone’s relief. Then, when the daughter refused to see him one time because she had something going on—this was a year ago, and she’d turned thirteen—he dragged her out kicking and screaming. Threw her against the wall when she fought him. She had several broken bones. He lost all visitation, needless to say. Mom and daughter quietly moved, afraid enough of him to try to disappear. After that, child support was supposed to go through the state, but Hopkins quit paying it, left his job and dropped off the map. He may be trying to find his ex and their kid.” Niall paused. “Or he may have channelled his rage at Jane, if he blames her for everything that went wrong.”
“Find him.”
“You think I’m not trying?”
Duncan rubbed his neck. “No,” he made himself say quietly. “I know you are. I’m…” He couldn’t finish.
“Scared out of your skull? I know. Duncan, you’ve got the power to arrange some patrol unit drive-bys. If the guy is lurking, we might get lucky.”
“I can do that.” I can also go sit outside her house and watch it. All night.
How long could he do that and still do his job during the day? And what would Jane say if she spotted him?
He knew. I’m not your business. She couldn’t have been any clearer.
But what if this guy got to her? Duncan felt as if he was being ripped in half.
“Thanks,” he said gruffly to his brother, and ended the call.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
SLEEP ELUDED HER.
Gee, what a surprise. It didn’t help a bit to pop out of bed, pad downstairs and check the security system control panel to be sure it was engaged. Several times.
She wasn’t trying to sleep in her own bed; the guest room looked way more appealing. It’s true her own bedroom was spotlessly clean. But she thought she might paint it after all. Maybe even have the carpet torn up and replaced with hardwood. She’d thought about doing that, anyway, someday.
Although she lay tense, listening for every sound, it wasn’t fear keeping her awake, she finally admitted. Or…not only fear.
No, it was Duncan. Seeing his face as he realized she was really walking out on him. She’d been shocked by how much he looked like that expressionless stranger who had met her at the door the first time she went there to talk to him. The man who didn’t look as if he knew how to smile—although he’d surprised her. Icy cold, controlled and guarded. His face had since become so much more readable to her, or perhaps he had let himself open to her.
No longer.
She kept replaying the whole scene. What he said. What she said. The awful part was, the more times she ran through it all, the more clearly she could see that she’d screened everything Duncan said and did through the filter of her childhood, of her greatest fears.
He was controlling, manipulative, impatient. But he wasn’t like her father, either. Seeing that was hard for her. Friends told her how, when they went home for the holidays, they found themselves reverting to old, often immature patterns. Long-forgotten resentments rising. Conditioned responses taking over. Well, Jane didn’t go home for the holidays. But she did have conditioned responses, and Duncan had a way of tapping them.
Aching inside, she tried to figure out why she hadn’t told him off. Fought to defend her competency. Convinced him to butt out. He was used to being in charge, used to being obeyed, but she’d discovered before that he was educable. Her father could never have said, “I was wrong.” Or, “I don’t like it that you won’t do this my way, but I’ll let you try your way even if you fail.” Duncan, she thought, had acted out of fear for her, not of her and what her defiance represented. That was the difference between him and her father.
One of the differences.
She struggled to articulate the bigger difference. Something someone had said recently had almost triggered a revelation. She hadn’t had time to let it catch hold…
Her eyes opened in the dark when the memory flooded back. It came in Hector Ortez’s voice.
He makes himself feel big by trying to make everyone else small.
That was what her father had done. He wasn’t confident enough in himself to make any judgments of his own. He believed in their small sect’s version of God, the leader’s interpretation of the Bible, his dictates on morality and propriety and politics and everything else, because Dad desperately needed someone to tell him what to do. His security lay in living within certain rigid rules laid out by someone else. And yet, deep within, he must know the truth: if thrust out into a world where he had to make his own decisions, he would be lost.
Like everyone else, he needed to feel strong. Big. He could only do so at his family’s expense.
Jane lay stiff, staring at nothing—no, at the past—and marveled. She’d never understood before quite what a threat she was to her father.
He had acted the despot out of weakness.
Duncan had become dictatorial out of strength. Strength, she thought, and a powerful sense of honor.
He had become the man he was because he couldn’t walk away from his brothers. Because people depended on him, because he felt responsible even when others would shrug and figure, It’s someone else’s problem. As with Tito.
And her.
Would she feel the same about him if he didn’t adhere so unshakably to what he thought was right?
She’d turned to him every time she was scared. Flung herself into his arms, leaned on him, ac
cepted his protection and his expertise. And then—oh, what an idiot I was—she’d expected him to stand back and let her decide what she needed and didn’t need to stay safe. Boy, had she sent mixed messages! Duncan, please come, I’m scared. And then, This was none of your business. It never was.
Of course it was. She’d made it his business. She’d given herself fully to him, and known when she was doing it that he would do whatever he had to do to keep her safe.
Tears blurred her eyes. With shock, she swiped at them.
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