Best-Kept Lies

by Lisa Jackson

  He was already bending down and seeing for himself. “You’re sure that you didn’t—”

  “No. I’m telling you someone was in here!” She tamped down the panic that threatened her, and fought the urge to kick at something. No one had the right to break into her home. No one.

  “Who else has a key?”

  “To this place?”

  “Yes.”

  “Just me.”

  “Not Donahue?”

  “No!”

  “Sharon? Your brothers?”

  She was shaking her head violently. Was the man dense? “I’m telling you I never gave anyone a key, not even to come in and water the plants.”

  “What about a neighbor, just in case you lost yours?”

  “No! Geez, Striker, don’t you get it? It’s just me. I even changed the locks when I bought the place so the previous owner doesn’t have a set rattling around in some drawer somewhere.”

  “Where do you keep the spare?”

  “One with me. One in the car. Another in my top desk drawer.”

  He was already headed down the hallway and into the living room with Randi right on his heels.

  “Show me.”

  “Here.” Reaching around him, she pulled open the center drawer, felt until her fingers scraped against cold metal, then pulled the key from behind a year-old calendar. “Right where I left it.”

  “And the one in your car.”

  “I don’t know. It was with me when I had the accident. I assume it was in the wreckage.”

  “You didn’t ask the police?”

  “I was in a coma, remember? When I woke up I was a mess, broken bones, internal injuries, and I had amnesia.”

  “The police inventoried everything in the car when it was impounded, so they must’ve found the key, right?” he insisted.

  “I… Geez, I’m not sure, but I don’t think it was on the report. I saw it. I even have a copy somewhere.”

  “Back at the Flying M?”

  “No—I cleared everything out when I left. It’s here somewhere.” She located her briefcase and riffled through the pockets until she found a manila envelope. Inside was a copy of the police report about the accident and the inventory receipt for the impounded car. She skimmed the documents quickly.

  Road maps, registration, insurance information, three sixty-seven in change, a pair of sunglasses and a bottle of glass cleaner, other miscellaneous items but no key ring. “They didn’t find it.”

  “And you didn’t ask.”

  She whirled on him, crumpling the paper in her fist. “I already told you, I was laid up. I didn’t think about it.”

  “Hell.” Kurt’s lips compressed into a blade-thin line. His eyes narrowed angrily. “Come on.” He pocketed the key, slammed the drawer shut and stormed down the hallway to the bedroom. In three swift strides he was inside the closet again. He unzipped the overnight bag and handed it to her. “Here. Pack a few things. Quickly. And don’t touch the damn boots.” He disappeared again and she heard him banging in the kitchen before he returned with a plastic bag and started carefully sliding it over the dusty cowboy boots. “I’ve already got your laptop and your briefcase in the truck.”

  Suddenly she understood. He wanted her to leave. Now. His jaw was set, his expression hard as granite. “Now, wait a minute. I’m not leaving town. Not yet.” Things were moving too quickly, spinning out of control. “I just got home and I can’t up and take off again. I’ve got responsibilities, a life here.”

  “We’ll only be gone for a night or two. Until things cool off.”

  “We? As in you and me?”

  “And the baby.”

  “And go where?”

  “Someplace safe.”

  “This is my home.”

  “And someone’s been in here. Someone with the key.”

  “I can change the locks, Striker. I’ve got a job and a home and—”

  “And someone stalking you.”

  She opened her mouth to argue, then snapped it closed. She had to protect her baby. No matter what else. Yes, she needed to find out who was hell-bent on terrorizing her, but her first priority was to keep Joshua safe, and the truth of the matter was, Randi was already out of her mind with worry. Striker’s concerns only served to fuel her anxiety. She was willing to bet he wasn’t the kind of man to panic easily. And he was visibly upset. Great. She began throwing clothes into the overnight bag. “I can’t take any chances with Joshua,” she said.

  “I know.” His voice had a hint of kindness tucked into the deep timbre and she had to remind herself that he’d been hired to be concerned. Though she didn’t believe that the money he’d been promised was his sole motivation in helping her, it certainly was a factor. If he kept both her and her son’s skins intact, Striker’s wallet would be considerably thicker. “Let’s get a move on.”

  She was through arguing for the moment. No doubt Striker had been in more than his share of tight situations. If he really felt it was necessary to take her and her son and hide out for a while, so be it. She zipped the bag closed and ripped a suede jacket from its hanger. Was it her imagination or did it smell slightly of cigarette smoke?

  Now she was getting paranoid. No one had been wearing her jacket. That was nuts.

  Gritting her teeth, she fought the sensation that she’d been violated, that an intruder had pried into her private space. “I assume you’ve got some kind of plan.”

  “Yep.” He straightened, the boots properly bagged.

  “And that you’re going to share it with me.”

  “Not yet.”

  “You can’t tell me?”

  “Not right now.”

  “Why not?”

  “It’s better if you don’t know.”

  “Oh, right, keep the little woman in the dark. That’s always a great idea,” she said sarcastically. “This isn’t the Dark Ages, Striker.”

  If possible, his lips compressed even further. His mouth was the thinnest of lines, his jaw set, his expression hard as nails. And then she got it. Why he was being so tight-lipped. “Wait a minute. What do you think? That this place is bugged?”

  When he didn’t answer, she shook her head. Disbelieving. “No way.”

  He threw her a look that cut her to the bone. “Let’s get a move on.”

  She didn’t argue, just dug through the drawers of her dresser and threw some essentials into her bag, then grabbed her purse.

  Within minutes they were inside Kurt’s truck and roaring out of the parking lot. Yesterday’s rain had stopped, but the sky was still overcast, gray clouds moving slowly inland from the Pacific. Randi stared out the window, but her mind was racing. Could Sam have found out about Joshua? It was possible, of course, that he’d somehow learned she’d had a baby, but she doubted he would do the math to figure out if he was the kid’s father. The truth of the matter was that he just didn’t give a damn. Never had. She drummed her fingers against window.

  “I don’t know why you think just because Donahue’s in town that Joshua’s not safe. If he drove by, it was probably just a fluke, a coincidence. Believe me, Sam Donahue wouldn’t give two cents that he fathered another kid.” She leaned against the passenger door as Kurt inched the pickup through the tangle of thick traffic.

  “A truck belonging to Donahue has cruised by Sharon Okano’s apartment complex twice this afternoon. Not just once. I wouldn’t call that a coincidence. Would you?”

  “No.” Her throat went dry, her fingers curled into balls of tension.

  “Already checked the plates with the DMV. That’s what tipped Brown off, the license plates were from out of state. Montana.”

  Randi’s entire world cracked. She fingered the chain at her throat. “But he’s rarely there, in Montana,” she heard herself saying as if from a long distance away. “And I didn’t tell him about Joshua.”

  “Doesn’t matter what you told him. He could have found out easy enough. He has ties to Grand Hope. Parents, an ex-wife or two. Gossip travels fast. I
t doesn’t take a rocket scientist to count back nine months from the date your baby was born.” Striker managed to nose the truck onto the freeway where he accelerated for less than a mile, then slammed on the brakes as traffic stopped and far in the distance lights from a police car flashed bright.

  “Great,” Striker muttered, forcing the truck toward the next exit. He pulled his cell phone from the pocket of his jacket and poked in a number. A few seconds later, he said, “Look, we’re caught in traffic. An accident northbound. It’s gonna be a while. Stay where you are and call me if the rig goes by or if there’s any sign of Donahue.”

  Randi listened and tried not to panic. So Sam Donahue was in the area. It wasn’t as if he never came to Seattle. Hadn’t she hooked up with him here, in a bar on the waterfront? She’d been doing research on her book and had realized through the wonders of the Internet that he’d been in a rodeo competition in Oregon and was traveling north on his way to Alberta, Canada. She’d e-mailed him, met him for a drink and the rest was history.

  “Good. Just keep an eye out. We’ll be there ASAP.” Striker snapped the phone shut and slid a glance in her direction. “Donahue hasn’t been back.”

  “Maybe I should call him.”

  A muscle in Kurt’s jaw leaped as he glared through the windshield. “And why the hell would you want to do that?”

  “To find out what he’s doing in town.”

  Striker’s eyes narrowed. “You’d call up the guy who’s trying to kill you.”

  “We don’t know that he’s trying to kill me.” She shook her head and leaned the back of her crown against the seat rest. “It doesn’t make sense. Even if he knew about Joshua, Sam wouldn’t want anything to do with him.”

  “So why did you two break up—wait a minute, let’s start with how you got together.”

  “I’d always wanted to write a book and my brothers had not only glamorized the whole rodeo circuit but they had also told me about the seedy side. There were illegal wagers, lots of betting. Some contestants would throw a competition, others drugged their horses, or their competitors’ mounts. The animals—bulls, calves, horses—were sometimes mistreated. It’s a violent sport, one that attracts macho men and competitive women moving from one town to the next. There are groupies and bar fights and prescription and recreational drug abuse. A lot of these cowboys live in pain and there’s the constant danger of being thrown and trampled or gored or crushed. High passion. I thought it would make for interesting reading, so, while interviewing people, I came across Sam Donahue.” Her tongue nearly tripped on his name. “He grew up in Grand Hope, knew my brothers, was even on the circuit with Matt. I started interviewing him, one thing led to another and…well, the rest, as they say, is history.”

  “How’d you find him?”

  “I read about a local rodeo, down towards Centralia. He was entered, so I got his number, gave him a call and agreed to meet him for a drink. My brothers didn’t much like him but I found him interesting and charming. We had a connection in that we both grew up in Montana, and I was coming off a bad relationship, so we hit it off. In retrospect, I’d probably say it was a mistake, except for the fact that I ended up with Joshua. My son is worth every second of heartache I suffered.”

  “What kind of heartache?” Striker asked, his jaw rock hard.

  She glanced through the window, avoiding his eyes. “Oh, you know. The kind where you find out that the last ex-wife wasn’t quite an ex. Sam had never quite gotten around to signing the divorce papers.” She felt a fool for having believed the lying son of a bitch. She’d known better. She was a journalist, for crying out loud. She should have checked him out, seen the warning signs, because she’d always made a point of dating men who were completely single—not engaged, not separated, not seriously connected with any woman. But she’d failed with Sam Donahue, believing him when he’d lied and said he’d been separated two years, divorced for six months.

  Striker was easing the truck past the accident where the driver of a tow truck was winching a mangled Honda onto its bed and a couple of police officers were talking with two men near the twisted front end of a mini-van of some kind. A paramedic truck was parked at an angle and two officers were talking with several boys in baseball hats who appeared unhurt but shaken. As soon as the truck was past the accident, traffic cleared and Striker pushed the speed limit again.

  “So you didn’t know he was married.”

  “Right,” she replied, but couldn’t stop the heat from washing up the back of her neck. She’d been a fool. “I knew that he was divorced from his first wife, Corrine. Patsy was his second wife. Might still be for all I know. Once I found out he was still married I was outta there.” With one finger she drew on the condensation on the passenger-door window.

  “You loved him.” There it was. The statement she’d withdrawn from; the one she couldn’t face.

  Striker’s fingers were coiled in a death grip around the steering wheel, as if somehow her answer mattered to him.

  “I thought I loved him, but…even while we were seeing each other, I knew it wasn’t right. There was something off.” It was hard to explain that tumble of emotions. “The trouble was, by the time I’d figured it out, I was pregnant.”

  “So you decided to keep the baby and the secret.”

  “Yes,” she admitted, strangely relieved to unburden herself as Striker took an off-ramp and cut through the neighborhood where Sharon Okano’s apartment was located. She hesitated about telling him the rest of the story, but decided to trust him with the truth. “Along with the fact that Sam didn’t tell me he was married, he also failed to mention that he and some of his friends had actually drugged a competitor’s animals just before the competition. One bull reacted violently, injuring himself and his rider. The Brahman had to be put down, but not before throwing the rider and trampling him. The cowboy survived, but barely. Ended up with broken ribs, a shattered wrist, crushed pelvis and punctured spleen.”

  “So why wasn’t Donahue arrested?”

  “Not enough proof. No one saw him do it. He and his friends came up with an alibi.” She glanced at Striker as he pulled into a parking space at Sharon’s apartment building. “He never admitted drugging the bull, and I’m really not sure that it wasn’t one of his buddies who actually did the injecting, but I’m sure that he was behind it. Just a gut feeling and the way he talked about the incident.” She mentally chastised herself for being such a fool, and stared out the passenger window. “I’d already decided not to see him anymore and then, on top of all that, I discovered he was still married. Nice, huh?”

  Striker cut the engine. “Not very.”

  “I know.” The old pain cut deep, but she wasn’t about to break down. Not in front of this man; not in front of anyone. Her jaw slid to one side. “Man, can I pick ’em.”

  Kurt touched her shoulder. “Just for the record, Randi. You deserve better than Donahue.” She glanced his way and found him staring at her. His gaze scraped hers and beneath the hard facade, hidden in his eyes, a sliver of understanding, a tiny bit of empathy. “Come on. Let’s go get your kid.” He offered her the hint of a smile, then his grin faded quickly and the moment, that instant of connection, passed.

  Her silly heart wrenched, and tears, so close to the surface, threatened.

  She was out of the truck in a flash, taking the stairs to the upper-story unit two at a time. Suddenly frantic to see her baby, she pounded on the door. Sharon, a petite woman, answered. In her arms was Joshua. Blinking as if he’d just woken up from a nap, his fuzz of red-blond hair sticking straight up, he wiggled at the sight of her. Randi’s heart split into a million pieces at the sight of her son. The tears she’d been fighting filled her eyes.

  “Hey, big guy,” she whispered, her voice hoarse.

  “He missed you,” Sharon said as she transferred the baby into Randi’s hungry arms.

  “Not half as bad as I missed him.” Randi was snuggling her son, wrapped up in the wonder of holding him, smelling the
baby shampoo in his hair and listening to the little coo that escaped those tiny lips, when she heard a quiet cough behind her. “Oh…this is Kurt Striker. Sharon Okano. Kurt is a friend of my brother Slade’s.” With an arch of her eyebrow, she added, “All of my brothers decided to hire him as, if you’ll believe this, my personal bodyguard.”

  “Bodyguard?” Sharon’s eyebrows lifted a bit. “How serious is this trouble you’re in?”

  “Serious enough, I guess. Kurt thinks it would be best if we kept the baby with us.”

  “Whatever you want.” Sharon gently touched Joshua’s cheek. “He’s adorable, you know. I’m not sure that if you left him here much longer I could ever give him up.”

  “You need one of your own.”

  “But first, a man, I think,” Sharon said. “They seem to be a necessary part of the equation.” She glanced at Kurt, but Randi ignored the innuendo. She didn’t need a man to help raise her son. She’d do just fine on her own.

  They didn’t stay long. While the women were packing Joshua’s things, Kurt asked Sharon if she’d had any strange phone calls or visitors. When Sharon reported that nothing out of the ordinary had happened, Kurt called his partner and within fifteen minutes, Randi, Kurt and Joshua, tucked into his car seat, were on the road and heading east out of Seattle. The rain had started, a deep steady mist, and Striker had flipped on the wipers.

  “You’re still not going to tell me where we’re going?” she asked.

  “Inland.”

  “I know that much, but where exactly?” When he didn’t immediately respond, she said, “I have a job to do. Remember? I can’t be gone indefinitely.” She glanced at her watch, scowled as it was after three, then dug in her purse, retrieved her cell phone and punched out the numbers for the Clarion. Within a minute she was connected to Bill Withers’s voice mail and left a quick message, indicating she had a family emergency and vowing she would e-mail a couple of new columns. As she hung up, she said, “I don’t know how much of that Withers will buy, but it should give us a couple of days.”

  “Maybe that’s all we’ll need.” He sped around a fuel truck, but his voice lacked conviction.