“I meant to warn you about my mother,” Harlan said sheepishly enough to worry Dallas for a moment until he remembered.
“I’ve read the bio on every member of the family,” he reassured. “I know your mother has OCD. Some of her triggers include people wearing red and the volume on the television being set at a level that bothers her. I’ll be honest, I don’t have much experience with it, but I read a little on the diagnosis. I’ll be as sensitive as possible.”
“Right,” Harlan said, looking at first relieved and then annoyed. “You have a bio on everyone in the family? Even me?”
“Especially you,” he grinned. “Yours was eight pages long if I remember. Your brothers put it together and no detail was spared. Favorite color, allergies, where you spent your summers as a child. That birthmark on your lower back, kind of over to the left.”
“They put that in there?”
“No,” he laughed. “I saw that for myself last night when you took your dress off.”
Harlan’s mouth snapped shut as she fought a smile and pushed her way through the front door.
“Girls,” she called happily down the hall. “I’m back.”
Thundering feet came pounding down the long curved staircase. There were only two, but the way they rushed forward created a blur of pigtails and rosy cheeks. Dallas had been shadowing Harlan and her daughters for nearly a week before she knew he’d been hired. It was a delicate balance, trying to keep them safe without intruding on the tiny simple moments that make up life. He’d watched her carry all their dance gear to the car and load them all in, never complaining. One daughter needed a boo-boo kissed while the other got her hair braided. His own mother had been a saint, but he’d been too young and dumb to appreciate what it took to raise children alone. There seemed so little of Harlan left when she was done giving herself away.
“Anna and Logan, this is Dallas,” Harlan explained as she squeezed the girls tightly in her arms. “He’s going to be doing some work with Mom for a little while in the study if you girls want to stay here a while longer.”
They cheered and squealed as they argued over who would get the next turn playing with grandma’s jewelry.
“It’s nice to meet you,” Dallas said, crouching to their level. “Your mom tells me you are both very nice girls.”
“Are you mom’s boyfriend?” Anna asked as casually as someone might inquire about the time of day. As though the answer would be as finite and as simple as letting her know it was three o’clock.
“Anna,” Harlan scolded, giving her a very serious look. “I’ve asked you not to ask that of every man we come across. Remember when you asked Mr. Lonson at the grocery store? His wife wasn’t too happy about that.”
Dallas couldn’t hold back his laugh. “I’m just a friend of your mom. She’s helping me with something important. It’s a big job.”
“My mom doesn’t do that,” Logan said in her squeaky little voice as she furrowed her brows. “She doesn’t do work.”
Harlan stuffed back any evidence that the words wounded her. Like a good mother she smiled and brushed back her daughter’s wispy bangs.
“I don’t know,” Dallas said thoughtfully. “Does your mom make ham and cheese sandwiches? Does she drive you around? Give you a bath? Tuck you in? Read you stories? Does she play with you and teach you things? Those sound like pretty important jobs. And she’s going to help me do some police work tonight. I don’t know what I’d do if she wasn’t here to work with me.”
“Really?” Anna asked, looking impressed at her mother’s responsibilities for the night.
“Yes,” Dallas reiterated, “you’re lucky to have her, and tonight I am too.”
“You guys go and play. Tell Grandma I’ll be upstairs to see her soon. I’ll bring up sandwiches.”
The girls planted kisses on her cheek and scuttled off as fast as they’d arrived.
“You didn’t have to say all that,” Harlan offered quietly. “Kids don’t ever really appreciate all that small stuff we do.”
“They don’t,” Dallas agreed. “I know I didn’t. I wish I had. I didn’t get to say it to my mother, but I’m glad you heard it. You have the means to never have to really lift a finger for them, but you do it all. I know you aren’t happy I was assigned to you without you knowing I was there. That can’t be very comfortable for you. But know that when I was on duty, it was refreshing to see your relationship with your daughters. You’re doing a great job.”
Tears filled Harlan’s eyes alarmingly fast, unsettling them both. “I . . . um, thanks,” she stuttered out as she whipped at her eyes. “They make it easy. They’re such good girls.”
“Do I get the crust cut off my sandwich again?” Dallas teased, trying to add some levity to the heavy moment.
“We’ll see,” she said, waving him to follow her into the study. “I apparently have some very serious police work to do first. Where do we even start?”
“Where do you want to start?” He shrugged. “You’re the fresh eyes. Maybe it’s better for you to take this where you want.”
“Tell me again who you wanted to kill,” she said as they sunk into the plush leather chairs separated by a small glass table with intricate metal woven around the legs. The room was dim, but intentionally so. The shades were tightly shut, and the wood on the desk and bookcases was all deep mahogany. A few small lamps sat in the corners of the room but provided very little light.
“Larry Monroe,” Dallas said, knowing his entire demeanor changed as he uttered the familiar name. A sour taste filled his mouth as he thought through the damage one idiot could do.
“Who is he?”
“The one witness who testified against Tim. He’s a guy who’s done his share of petty crimes and pointed the finger at Tim. The police had tunnel vision and never chased down any other leads. Larry had been picked up about a month and a half after the murder. He’d been caught breaking and entering some pawnshop. Apparently he told the arresting officer he knew where the body of a restaurant owner, Angus Durrah, was and who’d killed him.”
“That’s pretty convenient.”
“At that point Angus was just some missing person case sitting in a file somewhere. His wife had reported him missing the night he didn’t come home from closing the restaurant. Monroe led them to the body and told them Tim had killed him.”
“That can’t possibly be enough to convict someone,” Harlan said with wide disbelieving eyes. “That’s just hearsay isn’t it? There must have been more to it.”
“The case was weak,” Dallas said, raising his voice defensively. “There were no forensics linking Tim to the scene, no other witnesses, no one else saying they heard Tim talking about committing a murder. It was Larry spinning some story, and they were desperate to close the case. They took him at his word.”
“Where was Tim that night?” Harlan asked hesitantly, and Dallas could hardly blame her. If he didn’t know Tim so well it would be hard to believe someone could be put away for life if they were truly innocent.
“Tell me where you were the first Tuesday of this month in the afternoon,” Dallas challenged. “You can look at your phone, check your calendar on it. Whatever you need to do. Where were you?”
“Um,” Harlan said, pulling out her phone. “Well, on Tuesday we have dance class for Anna after school.”
“And you’re sure you went that week?” Dallas asked. “Did you go anywhere before or after? Account for the entire afternoon.”
“One day that week Anna had a cough, so we skipped dance. But I’m not positive which day it was. Usually before we go to dance we’ll stop at the library and drop off some books.”
“Did you that day?” Dallas pressed on.
“I can’t say for sure,” Harlan replied, but she still didn’t look completely convinced.
“Most people couldn’t account for a full afternoon a month and half later. Then add in the stress and anxiety of getting arrested out of the blue and being interrogated about it. They kept hi
m in there for nine hours.”
“But wait,” Harlan said, seeming to suddenly connect some dots. “Larry didn’t just pick some random guy to accuse of murder. He must have known Tim, right?”
“Yes,” Dallas said tentatively. “They met in juvie when they were younger. Tim felt some kind of obligation to stay in touch with Larry over the years. He was like that. Always thinking he could be around to help when people needed him.”
“The speech about Mother Theresa Tim, who you know beyond a shadow of a doubt could never do anything wrong, feels a little weak now. Unless you want to tell me he was in juvie volunteering with his church group or something. Otherwise I have to wonder if maybe your perception of Tim might be different from reality.” Harlan leaned back and folded her arms across her chest as though it was now up to Dallas to convince her otherwise.
“He wasn’t guilty then either,” Dallas said, knowing how pathetic that sounded. “Don’t make that face at me.”
“I’m sorry.” Harlan shrugged. “I’ve got to be honest. I think you might be blinded by friendship.”
“Tim was arrested when we were sixteen. But I was the one who should have been. I got caught up with a bad group for a while, and one night we were going to steal a bunch of beer from a restaurant one of the kids worked at. Tim found out and showed up to talk me out of it. The cops came when we triggered the silent alarm, and we all ran. Tim was the one who got caught. I told him I’d face up to it and tell the truth, but he knew the cops wouldn’t believe he was innocent. Tim told me there was no point in both of us paying when only one of us had to. He did six months and that’s where he met Larry.”
“I’m sorry,” Harlan said. “I was wrong. You aren’t blinded by friendship. You’re riddled with guilt. That’s what’s screwing you up.”
“Neither,” Dallas said, shaking his head. “The only reason I’m not letting Tim rot in jail is because he’s innocent.”
“I’m not really in a position to agree with you, considering I don’t know him, or any more about the case. I’m along for the ride though. To make sure I’ve got it all, Angus Durrah goes missing. A month and a half later the cops pick up Larry for some robbery charge, and he tells them he knows where a body is buried and who killed the guy. They pick up Tim and interrogate him and what? He can’t come up with an alibi?”
“He was home for most of the afternoon that Larry says he was out murdering Angus. Tim lives alone and couldn’t completely account for the rest of the day. Do you know why?”
Harlan shook her head, awaiting his explanation.
“Because it was a normal day like any other. Nothing of any consequence happened that day and on days like that you don’t remember where you were every minute. The cops tried everything to crack him. He was rattled, but he never once gave any indication he was involved.”
“And you’ve chased down the leads yourself? You’ve tried to corroborate his alibi on your own?” Harlan scratched down a few notes.
“Of course,” Dallas replied, feeling attacked even though that wasn’t her intention. That’s how it was those days, if you weren’t one hundred percent with him, you were the enemy, and it was destroying his life. But seeing the problem and fixing it were two very different things. “There’s just nothing there. The last people to see Tim were a bank teller and the guy who sells newspapers on the corner at about noon. Then there’s no trace of him. He went home and stayed in the rest of the day.”
“So you won’t be able to prove him innocent,” Harlan said with such definiteness it felt like a blow to his chest. It wasn’t as though he was relying on Harlan to be the hero to this case. The odds that she could find a trail he hadn’t already traced were slim. But he did think she’d be open-minded enough to hang around a while and keep him from going mad.
That thought was dashed now as she stood and leaned on the large wooden desk in front of him. “If you can’t account for where he was, and a jury already determined one witness’s testimony was enough, you don’t have enough to prove it wasn’t him. You don’t have what it takes to get a new trial, even if Melissa is still holding out hope.”
Dallas shot to his feet, angry to hear another person give up on something he knew deserved every ounce of energy he had. “Remind me not to let you on my jury if I’m ever wrongfully convicted. I should get going. You’ve got sandwiches to make, and I’ve got to help Tim.”
“Don’t get all worked up,” Harlan demanded, catching his tense arm before he could fly out the door of the study. “We can’t prove him innocent, so we have to prove someone else guilty. A jury convicted him because they were told one version of a story and believed it. We’ve got to find a different version and make sure there’s enough evidence to exonerate Tim. Let’s not find evidence to exclude Tim; let’s catch a killer.”
Harlan stood there, a determination in her eyes that nearly matched his own. It wasn’t defeat she was declaring; it was war. War against whoever committed this crime.
The intensity and surprise on his face was enough to make her slowly drop her hand from his arm. He suddenly looked self-conscious and nervous. She was searching his expression but before she could figure out what her words had meant to him, he was on the move. His lips were crushing down on hers. His body pressing her to the desk as he wrapped a hand in her long dark hair. The kiss was hungry and frantic. The start of something wild and animalistic. Dallas raised a hand to the buttons on her shirt ready to rip them free when a thud overhead startled them both.
“The girls,” Harlan whispered, her lips centimeters from his, but it felt like miles. “We can’t.”
“Of course,” Dallas agreed, releasing his tight grip on her and clearing his throat. “I’m sorry.”
“Just be sorry you have to leave me feeling like this,” she said coyly as she licked her lips seductively. “Be sorry I’m dying for more.”
“Trust me,” he said, sitting back in the large leather chair. “I’m damn sorry about that.”
Chapter 9
“You sure you don’t want to stay for dinner?” Harlan asked as they made their way toward the door. “My mom likes the company, and the girls like it here so much more than they like our little place. The house is quiet without Rylie, and I think they notice it more there.”
“I appreciate that,” Dallas smiled, his hand on the door knob. “I appreciate everything today. But I should let you guys enjoy your dinner. I’m going up to visit Tim tomorrow. He’ll be glad I’ve got someone helping me. He worries when I’m on my own. Some days I think he worries more about me out here than himself in prison.”
“Just be glad it’s not my brothers,” Harlan laughed as the girls snuck in. “They’d just keep hiring strangers to follow you around to make sure you’re okay. You’d never have a moment alone again.”
Dallas opened the door and waved at the two tiny faces peeking from behind Harlan. “Goodnight, girls,” he said, and they giggled and hid again.
A loud siren outside began to blare and a strobe light in the distance flashed. Some shouting off in the darkness was enough for Dallas to be alarmed. “Get down,” he commanded, jumping back in and slamming the door behind him. Scooping up the girls in his arms he dragged Harlan back, her shirt clutched in his hand. “Away from the windows. Take them upstairs.”
“It’s the perimeter alarm,” Harlan said over the eardrum piercing noise. The girls were crying now, their tiny hands clutched over their ears. “It was probably just an accident, someone set it off by mistake.”
Dallas put the girls back on their feet at the bottom of the stairs and pulled a gun from the holster on his belt. “Go upstairs and get in a room with a lock on the door. The security team you have here tonight, they haven’t changed right?”
“Not in a while,” Harlan said, looking over her shoulder as she moved the girls up the stairs. “It’s two men at the gate and one who walks the perimeter. Three total, I think.”
“Go,” Dallas shouted, his gun held skillfully in his large hand as
he moved back toward the front door.
“Junebug,” Harlan said loudly. “That’s the code word for the security team here tonight. That’s how they’ll know you aren’t a threat.”
Dallas nodded and disappeared out the front door as Harlan moved the girls down the hallway to her mother’s room.
“Mom,” she called. As she entered she saw her mother standing at the large bay window. “Away from the window. Take the girls, stay on the bed, and lock the door behind me.”
“What’s happening?” her mother asked, both girls huddling under her arms. There were people you could count on in a crisis and people who fell apart. Her entire life her mother was the latter, and that left a void Harlan had learned to fill herself. Crisis was a part of life, an unavoidable inevitability, and she’d learned long ago you couldn’t wait around for the next person to stand up and help. She was plenty capable.
“It’s nothing,” Harlan assured, waving the whole thing off. “Someone probably just tripped one of the alarms. Dallas is checking it out, and the security team is out by the gate. It’ll be fine, but stay here.”
“They normally turn it right off if they trip it,” her mother said, her eyes wild with worry.
“It’s nothing,” Harlan repeated, willing her mother to toe the line so the girls would not be any more afraid than they already were. “Just lock this door and put the TV on. I’ll be right back.”
Racing down the stairs, Harlan was skipping every other one and sliding her way back to the front door. She pushed aside the heavy curtain and peeked out the small window, trying to see if the security team was making their way toward the house.
Harlan did everything possible to convince herself that she and her kids were no longer in danger. Her father had crossed Marc Azeela, a notorious criminal in Boston. She and her children had been used as pawns in an effort to collect money. A deal was struck, and her freedom, along with the girls’, was part of that deal. But people went back on deals all the time. Their safety hinged on her unreliable father staying out of trouble, something he hadn’t been able to do her entire life.
Loyal Hearts (The Barrington Billionaires Book 4) Page 5
