Jailbird

by Heather Huffman

  “It’ll be over soon. I really feel it.”

  “Please don’t go charging after him by yourself… and Rachel Cooper doesn’t count as backup.”

  “How’s Sheriff Taylor?”

  “Holding up. And nice job changing the subject.”

  “I thought so. Now go get your shower. I’ll call Anjelita.”

  He made a face at me, but handed me his phone nonetheless. After a brief admonishment for not calling her sooner, Anjelita and I fell into an easy conversation as if no time had passed. Apparently Isabel didn’t like the music teacher any better than Cara did. The formerly happy-go-lucky second-most-eligible bachelor had turned into a real crab and it was the talk of the town.

  She was happy to hear we were having a boy, happier that I’d been to a doctor and the baby was healthy.

  Charlie said he’d explained the situation. Still, it took me by surprise when she offered to send Manny to help get Elena back.

  “Thanks to his past life, he’s really good at getting past security systems.”

  “That’s comforting.”

  “Seriously. He could be a help to you.”

  “And he doesn’t need to be taking off work to come risk going to jail for me.”

  “Nonsense. He’s finished his Valentine’s Day orders. Mother’s Day is months away. It’s too early to plant crops. He’s driving me crazy with nothing to do. Please say you’ll call when you need him. You owe me, for not calling sooner.”

  “I owe you, eh?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “I do, but not for the reasons you say I do.”

  “Neena, stop being difficult and just say you’ll tell him when you head that way.”

  “How do you know I’m not heading there now?”

  “You just told me Charlie isn’t coming back until Saturday. I know you’re not going to waste precious time with him chasing after Daniel Winslow.”

  “I would if I thought it would end this. But I’m waiting to hear from Rachel Cooper. Until then, there’s nothing to do but sit on my hands.”

  “Oh, I think you’ll manage to fill the time.”

  “I did miss him.”

  “I know, sweetie. I know.”

  “I can’t wait to come home.”

  “It had better be soon. Rita is worried you won’t be back in time to make her dandelion jelly this summer.”

  Dandelion jelly—the thought of it made me miss my home even more. I couldn’t wait until summer. I’d lie in a field of dandelions with Charlie and we’d watch marshmallow clouds drift across a blue sky.

  “What has you smiling like that?”

  “Dandelions.”

  “Oh,” he looked confused, but let it drop. “The shower’s all yours.”

  It felt good to wash my hair. It felt better to shave my legs with the complimentary razor from the hotel. I hoped Charlie hadn’t planned on shaving.

  After my shower, I toweled off and stood in front of the mirror, looking at my profile. I felt like a whale. It was a pleasant surprise that pregnancy hadn’t actually turned me into one. Certainly, it had rounded me out a bit—softened me. I’d want to lose every pound the second the baby was born. But I didn’t mind them so much for the moment.

  “You are beautiful.”

  Charlie’s voice startled me and I blushed furiously at being caught staring at myself in a mirror.

  “Sorry,” he put his arms around my waist and pulled me against him. “I didn’t mean to embarrass you.”

  “You look good,” I changed the subject. He did look good in designer slacks and a dark blue button-up. I didn’t recognize the material. It was ridiculously soft, though. It wasn’t his normal style, but he wore it well.

  “Please tell me I can go back to wearing jeans and a t-shirt when I go home.”

  “Absolutely. You look yummy in your old jeans and that gray t-shirt.”

  “Yummy? No one has ever called me yummy before.”

  “Good.”

  “Get dressed. I’m taking you out to a real dinner in a real restaurant.”

  “What if someone recognizes me?”

  “Trust me, honey. Between your hair being lighter and the pregnancy, you look nothing like the woman in the pictures they’re flashing. If you don’t act guilty, no one will even look twice. I think the wardrobe Rachel sent you is brilliant.”

  “How so?”

  “You will not look like a fugitive in those clothes. Come on.”

  I followed Charlie back into the room to look at the clothes she sent me for the first time. They were nice. I imagined the small wardrobe cost more than the meager amount I’d earned in the past year. It was hard to decide what to wear first. After a long deliberation, I chose a pink alpaca sweater and a pair of gray slacks. I brushed my hair and pulled it back loosely in a barrette. We made a pretty good-looking couple, if I did say so myself.

  For the entire evening, Charlie insisted on opening my door for me. He took me out for a steak dinner. The food was amazing, but I was stuffed to the gills by the time we made our way back to the hotel. That night was much more laid back, and our time was spent piled up on the bed making fun of B-movies.

  Oddly enough, I enjoyed that as much as the night before. There was an intimacy that was hard to explain.

  The days faded one into the other and then it was Saturday morning. I’d known Saturday would come; it does once a week. But I wasn’t ready for this particular one when it arrived.

  I knew it was selfish to be that way. Cara needed her Daddy more than I did. She was an amazing kid to share him as well as she did. His work would have piled up while he was away and he was already busier than any man should be.

  Knowing these things didn’t make letting go of him any easier. I tried not to cry. I really did. Stupid hormones.

  I took consolation in the fact that he was clinging as tightly to me as I was to him. Eventually, though, I pried myself away from him. The pain it caused was almost physical, but I did it. I pulled myself free, planted one last kiss on his cheek, and pushed him out the door.

  I might have spent the next half hour leaning against the door sobbing and remembering the feel of his lips on mine. When the tears were spent, I pulled myself together and called to check on Gabrielle before calling Rachel. No time like the present to end this thing.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Rachel had been right. The time was exactly what she needed. I’d assumed she’d gone back to New York but she had in fact stayed in Alexandria, spying on Daniel Winslow. I got directions to her hotel and made my way north.

  She nodded appreciatively at me when I stood in her doorway. “That new intern did a good job shopping.”

  “I totally need to get me one of those,” I muttered to myself as I walked in the room. “Thank you, for the clothes, by the way. You didn’t have to do that. You didn’t have to do any of it. Charlie insists I pay you for at least the clothes.”

  “Don’t be silly. The network bought those—and the room. Consider it small payment for what you guys have been through. Really.”

  I left it at that, but I wasn’t sure Charlie would. I handed her the files before I could forget again. She flipped through them quickly, the look on her face reminiscent of a kid in a candy store.

  “If you were to ask Charlie, the most important thing in the world is dethroning Daniel Winslow. Personally, I’d love to see Nathan and Julie Smith so busy with the IRS they couldn’t keep up the fight for Cara.”

  “Did you say you had some emails, too?”

  “Sure. I forwarded them to my address. I’ll give you the login.”

  “Good, good. Do you have luggage? I can help you bring it in.”

  “I got it. You do your thing,” I motioned to the files, stopping to write down my email login information before I went to grab my things from the car.

  “Hey baby sister,” Conrad was leaning against the El Camino when I got to the parking lot.

  “Fancy meeting you here,” I grinned knowingly at h
im.

  “I’m here to help you,” he rolled his eyes.

  “You can start by helping me carry my stuff in,” I bumped him out of the way with my hip and reached behind the seat to grab the plastic bags with my worldly belongings.

  “Charlie head back to Hampton?”

  “Yeah,” I closed my eyes briefly. His name sliced right through me. “I had to shove him out the door, though.”

  “We’ll get you home soon.”

  “That was really nice of Rachel to arrange all of that, huh?” I changed the subject.

  “Don’t start,” he plucked the bags out of my hands as I kicked the door closed behind me.

  “She’s good people.”

  “Neena,” he growled. I smiled.

  “Oh, hey, Manny is pretty insistent on coming down here.”

  “That doesn’t surprise me. Doesn’t he have to work?”

  “Don’t you?”

  “I head back tomorrow. Actually, I would feel better knowing he was here keeping you out of trouble while I’m gone.”

  “I don’t need a babysitter.”

  Conrad snorted at that. “I’ll give Manny a call tonight.”

  “Jerk.”

  He gave me a lopsided grin and used his free hand to rope me in for a kiss on top of the head.

  Rachel didn’t seem at all surprised to see Conrad with me when I came back in the room. She did seem pleased—or maybe I was just seeing what I wanted to there.

  “Neena, you were sitting on the mother lode.”

  “Really?” hope sparked in my voice.

  “Really. These transfers into their account are all coming from an offshore account. You know who just got busted for accepting payments from an account like this?”

  “Vasquez Oil,” Conrad jumped in. “The account was funded by a family in Saudi Arabia.”

  “Turns out, shortly after the payments began, Vasquez tabled plans to research alternative fuels.”

  “That was a really good piece, by the way,” Conrad commented quietly to Rachel. I bit the inside of my cheek so I wouldn’t smile.

  “You think the same family is bribing Nathan?”

  “I recognize that account,” Rachel tapped the paper. “I’m going to start looking through emails now to see if I can figure out what they want for that money.”

  “Well, it’s that money they’re using to steal Cara away from Charlie,” I scowled. That somehow made it worse—they were using dirty money to take Cara away from her home.

  “Come on, you can make my rounds with me. She’ll be in her own little world for a while now,” Conrad informed me.

  “Have you two been here together all week?” I cocked my head and looked from Rachel to Conrad and back again. Neither answered. Rachel seemed to be staring so hard at the computer screen she was looking right through it. Conrad was studying a spot on the ceiling. “Huh.”

  “So, are you coming with me or not?”

  “Sure. Let me go to the bathroom first.”

  It was a sad fact of pregnancy. Bladders turned into thimbles. There was still an uneasy silence in the room when I reappeared, ready to go with Conrad. I opened my mouth a few times but wasn’t quite sure what I really planned to say.

  “You’re allowed to have a girlfriend, you know,” I finally settled on what to say.

  “She’s a big city reporter, sis. I’m a blackjack dealer who’s hardly stepped foot off the res. I wouldn’t exactly call her a girlfriend.”

  “Charlie and I are a pretty unlikely couple.”

  “You and Charlie are two peas in a pod.”

  “But if you just look at the surface, we’re pretty unlikely. You’re just looking at surface stuff.”

  “I don’t know,” he didn’t seem convinced. I let it go. I didn’t even ask where we were going. It had been a whole thirty minutes since I’d obsessed about missing my husband. Now seemed as good a time as any to lean my head against the window to stare into space and conjure his face in my mind.

  “You are one love-sick little puppy, you know it?” Conrad shook his head.

  “What?” I scowled at him for interrupting me. “I did really well for a long time. Now I want to go home.”

  “I know. At least you aren’t her,” Conrad nodded to his left as he slid the truck into a spot along the curb.

  It took me a second to recognize Elena. Her clothes were nicer, but she had lost weight. She looked gaunt. And she was sporting a bruise on her right temple and cheek.

  “I thought Rachel said Elena was okay?”

  “She was, last time you talked to Rachel. Elena just turned up with the bruise a couple of days ago.”

  “She should have called. Let’s go get her.”

  “Nope,” he snagged the back of my shirt when I made to leave the truck. “Winslow keeps her guarded round the clock. But Rachel’s really close to being able to expose him. It would be better if we could show up on his doorstep with the FBI.”

  “But she’s hurt.”

  “We’ll pull her if we think she’s in danger. And maybe stewing in it for a little while will make her appreciate her father’s intelligence after all. He tried to warn her.”

  “But that doesn’t mean she deserves to be hurt.”

  “She has a much better chance of making it out alive if we plan what we’re doing.”

  “I don’t like it one bit.”

  “There’s lots of things in life I don’t like, little sister.”

  I pursed my lips in disapproval and slouched down in my seat. I couldn’t imagine having to live with Todd Winslow for a week, let alone with the monster who created him.

  Turns out Conrad’s rounds were pretty boring. They consisted of sitting in his truck an inconspicuous distance from Daniel Winslow’s house. The inaction was making me cranky, so we didn’t talk much.

  A couple of hours into our silent staring, it occurred to me that I really needed to pee again. I was just about to ask Conrad if we could leave when he appeared. The resemblance to his son was enough to make me catch my breath every time I saw him.

  Goosebumps swathed on my arms when he looked towards the truck. Even from the distance, I could see those lifeless eyes of his. “He sees us, Conrad.”

  “He can’t see through the windows.”

  “I think he suspects.”

  “Probably.”

  “Should we leave?”

  “Not while he’s staring us down.”

  “I don’t like this.”

  “Me neither.”

  An uncomfortable silence settled over us. A creepy grin spread across Daniel’s face—and then he gave us the bird.

  “Oh, well that’s classy,” I snapped.

  “He’s a real winner all around,” Conrad growled. “I’d love to just snap his scrawny little neck right now and be done with this whole mess.”

  “That would be helpful.”

  “I didn’t say I would. I just said I wanted to.”

  “Fair enough.”

  “Alright, he’s going back inside now.”

  “Thank God. Can we please go back to the hotel now? I really have to use the restroom.”

  “Didn’t you just go?”

  “You try having a kid use your bladder as a trampoline and let me know how that works out for you.”

  Conrad just shook his head and fired up the truck. The ride back to the hotel was as quiet as surveillance had been. Rachel was waiting expectantly for us when we walked through the door, and that lifted both of our moods a little.

  “I think I’ve figured it out. I think it really is as simple as buying a politician.”

  “That’s good news, right?” I was still too befuddled from seeing Daniel Winslow to think straight.

  “That’s great news. I’m heading to Springfield first thing in the morning to try to get an interview before we run the story. The guys in New York have followed a money trail that ties Nathan Smith to the Saudis. These emails tie it all up in a neat little bow for us.”

  “Julie
, too, or just Nathan?”

  “There’s no way she didn’t know about this,” Rachel assured me.

  “Thank God,” I wondered if I should call Charlie or wait to see how it all played out. Conrad was already on the phone with Manny, telling him the story and asking if he could come babysit me.

  I figured Manny would just tell Charlie, so I called him. Hearing his voice gave whole new meaning to the phrase bittersweet.

  “I miss you already,” he answered the phone. I filled him in on how quickly Rachel had run with the files on Nathan Smith and about seeing Daniel Winslow and about Manny coming to Louisiana. “Good. Maybe this whole mess will wrap up soon so I can focus on Daniel Winslow—and I really want to see if I can prove Marty Ross took a bribe to lose your case. Well, I really want to beat him to a bloody pulp, but I’ll make do with having his license revoked and maybe some jail time.”

  “That’s comforting.”

  “Just being honest.”

  “Hey, I miss you, too. And tell Cara I said I miss her, too. Oh, and not to let the music teacher get to her. Sounds like he needs a girlfriend or something.”

  “I might leave off that last part, but I’ll tell her the rest.”

  “Give me a call when you get home. I want to know you made it okay.”

  He promised to call and we exchanged “love yous” and then I was left staring at the phone. Conrad was right. I was a pathetic, lovesick puppy.

  Rachel ordered pizza to celebrate what she was certain would be another feather in her career-cap. She and Conrad had a beer with their dinner. I had an orange juice and stared longingly at the beer. Funny the things you don’t care about until you can’t have them.

  That night I dreamt of walls and fences again. Dark places followed me. And those soulless eyes, they were everywhere. I tried to get to Elena—I could see him choking her, hurting her. I clawed at the darkness and yelled at it. I screamed in fury at my inability to stop him from hurting her. And then the darkness was clawing me, shaking me, yelling at me. I punched the darkness with all of my might.

  “Sonofa… Kali!” Conrad’s voice cut through the fog in my brain. I jolted up in bed, cracking my skull against his. We both let out a curse at that one.