She was still on the stoop when Jim Hazlett arrived some time later. The FDLE detective hadn’t taken time to change out of his tennis shoes and baggy Bermuda shorts. His bald crown gleaming in the wash of floodlights, he nodded to Steve.
“Evenin’, Sheriff.”
“Hazlett.”
The terse reply made the detective blink and told Jess she wasn’t off Steve’s shit-list yet.
Eyebrows elevated, Hazlett turned to her. “Well, Colonel, you’re sure do keep things lively.”
“That’s one way to put it, I suppose.”
“Care to tell me what happened?”
She waved a hand toward the shattered glass next door. “I was standing at the door and saw what looked like a shadow on the dock. The next instant, the glass exploded.”
“Why were you standing at the door? Had you heard something?”
“I, er…”
She avoided looking at Steve while she fumbled for a way to keep his name from being irrevocably linked with hers. To her dismay, he bulldozed right in.
“Like a fool, she was watching me drive off. In the process, she made herself a perfect target.”
“I didn’t expect someone to be out on the dock with a rifle to his shoulder.”
“You should have! What the hell did we talk about right before I left your place tonight?”
Hazlett’s brows soared again. So did those of every deputy and neighbor within earshot.
Enough was enough. Gathering her dignity, Jess rose.
“I need to put some iodine on these cut. Shall we finish this interview inside?”
Ignoring her firm declaration that she could tend to the cuts herself, Steve followed her into the bathroom. He didn’t say a word as he unwrapped the towel and held her arm under the cold tap, but the grim set to his jaw broadcast his feelings with perfect clarity.
While rivulets of pale pink washed down the drain, he ran his fingers lightly over the shallow, dagger-like slashes in her skin to make sure she’d removed all the glass splinters. Jess relaxed under his gentle touch, only to jump and yelp out a protest when he ruthlessly poured a half bottle of hydrogen peroxide over her arm.
“Hey! That stings!”
“Tough.”
The rest of the bottle splashed onto her skin.
“Steve, for Pete’s sake!”
Yanking, she tried to break his hold. His fingers almost crunched the bones in her wrist as he jerked her forearm back over the sink.
“You know,” she said through gritted teeth, “getting shot at tonight pissed me off royally. You’re about to generate precisely the same reaction.”
“Is that right?”
He crowded her against the sink, his eyes blazing a clear, blue fire.
“You might have been pissed, but when dispatch radioed the location of the ten-thirty-three your neighbor called in, I was scared shitless. And then, when you ran onto the dock…”
His mouth clamped shut. His throat worked. Fascinated, Jess counted the number of times a muscle ticked on one side of his jaw. The count was up to eight when he broke the strangled silence.
“When I left here earlier, I was pretty sure that what I felt for you leaned a whole lot closer to love than lust. Now, I can’t decide whether to kiss you or wring your neck.”
“Better go for the kiss. There’s a FDLE detective in the other room, remember?”
He didn’t go for either. With an indistinguishable sound halfway between a grunt and a groan, he gathered her in his arms and held her. Just held her.
When they joined Hazlett in the great room, their adrenaline had stopped pumping and the cold reality of a crime scene had set in. One uniformed officer snapped shots with a Polaroid. Another stood by, waiting until he finished to gouge into the wooden front door and retrieve the bullet. A third meticulously swept glass shards into plastic evidence bags.
Detouring to the kitchen, Jess put on a pot of coffee before joining Steve and Jim Hazlett in the great room. The two men had covered much the same ground she and Steve had covered earlier. Both cops were now convinced that the incident on the Mid-Bay Bridge was no accident…any more than the shooting tonight. Someone wanted Jess dead.
“Why?” Hazlett puzzled, studying her thoughtfully. “What do you know that someone doesn’t want you to know?”
“I don’t have any idea.”
“Think,” he urged. “Did your mother ever talk to you about the men who assaulted her?”
“No.”
“Did Whittier drop any surprises or unexpected tidbits of information when you confronted him?”
“No.”
“What about…?”
Steve cut in. “Maybe we’re wrong.”
“Wrong how?”
“We’re assuming these attempts on Jess’s life are related to the incident involving her mother,” he said slowly. “Could be we’re wrong.”
“Could be,” Hazlett agreed. “It’s the most logical connection, but you and I both know logic doesn’t always play in the mind of a killer.”
Leaning his elbows on his knees, Steve followed his train of thought. “What about your job, Jess? Is there anything going on at the base that could have made you a target?”
What wasn’t going on? She’d taken over from a commander under criminal indictment for allowing the illegal dump of solvents. She’d butted heads with the EPA over clean-up measures. She’d shut-down Eglin’s pipeline and put out a polluted fuel alert that curtailed flying operations at bases all along the coast. One of her first acts as commander was to demote a belligerent tech sergeant…
Abruptly, Jess yanked the reins on her thoughts. She refused to go down that road. Despite their rocky start, she trusted Ed Babcock. She’d put him in charge of a massive fuel recovery operation.
Just to be sure, though, she made a mental note to stop by the Credit Union and have a chat with Eileen Babcock. It wouldn’t hurt to find out if her ex-husband had dropped by her apartment tonight, as he apparently did on a regular basis.
Hating the doubts and danger swirling around her, Jess blew out a long breath.
“There’s a lot going on at the base. If you want me to go through it all, we’ll need the pot of coffee I just put on. We’ll also need to notify Eglin’s Office of Special Investigations that you’re requesting information regarding military matters.”
“You get the coffee,” Steve suggested. “I’ll notify the OSI through appropriate police channels.”
Dawn streaked through the plantation shutters covering the windows when the conclave in Jess’s great room finally broke up. Special Agent O’Daniels left with a pad full of scribbled notes and a promise to brief the officers in his chain ASAP. Jess intended to do the same as soon as she showered, changed into her uniform, and drove to the base. She wasn’t looking forward to another session with Colonel Hamilton – or to running the gauntlet of media gathered in the parking lot outside her condo.
She peered through the shutters as Hazlett and O’Daniels waded into the throng. The OSI agent declined all comment. Hazlett, apparently, provided minimal information, just enough to whet their appetites, Jess guessed. Sighing, she snapped the shutters shut and caught Steve’s eye.
“You know they’re going to glom onto the fact that you were here last night.”
“I know,” he said with complete indifference. “I’m sure they’ll also glom onto the fact that I’ll be here tonight.”
“Come again?”
“I’ll be here every night, until we nail whoever wants you dead. Or…” He swept the condo a considering glance. “You can move in with me. The quarters are tighter, but the Gone Fishin’s remote location and private road give the media less access. Your choice, Jess.”
She might have taken umbrage if her thoughts hadn’t drifted along very similar lines just before a bullet shattered her front door.
“What if I choose neither A or B?” she asked curiously.
“Not an option. Your place or mine?”
“Mi
ne,” she conceded. “At least I have TV.”
His rapier swift smile promised little tube time. “I’ll go out and feed the sharks. One of my deputies will follow you into work. Call me when you’re ready to come home.”
Considerably sobered, Jess went to shower and change into her uniform.
Whatever Steve fed the sharks seemed to placate them. The headlines that blazed across the front pages of the local papers the next morning detailed the shooting at Jess’s condo. But they made no mention of the fact that the sheriff had taken up residence with a woman whose name figured repeatedly and mysteriously in the demise of three local men.
It wasn’t until two days later, when Congressman Calhoun was found dead of a broken neck at the Silver Acres Retirement Center, that the media went for the jugular.
This time, the headlines all but accused Jess of pushing the congressman’s wheelchair down the short flight flagstone steps to the patio where he’d been found just before breakfast. And this time, Steve made no bones about the fact that he’d been in Jess’s bed, making love to her, the entire night before.
Editorials in the print media pilloried the Walton County Sheriff. TV and radio talk show hosts pontificated at length about his loss of objectivity and questioned his ability to conclude this or any other investigations. The former deputy who campaigned against Steve in the last election painted an even blacker picture, barely skirting a lawsuit with hints that sheriff had been seduced by a vengeful daughter who had now eliminated four of the five men who’d wronged her mother.
Although the initial investigation found only Congressman Calhoun’s prints on his wheelchair and concluded he’d rolled off the steps accidentally, his funeral attracted network attention. When neither Steve nor Jess would provide a comment, the three-ring circus focused on a solemn-eyed Dub Calhoun. Suitably weepy, Maggie clung to his arm.
Chapter Nineteen
The last days of July gave way to a blistering hot August. Slowly, Jess grew used to Steve’s presence in her house and in her bed. She even grew accustomed to his habit of returning every scattered magazine and carelessly tossed uniform item its rightful place.
She experienced a good deal more difficulty adjusting to her leash, however. That was the only way she could describe the tight surveillance shared by the Air Force Office of Special Investigations, the Eglin security forces, and the Walton County Sheriff’s department.
“It’s been two weeks since the shooting,” she pointed out to Steve over a late evening meal of salad, parmesan-crusted chicken, and spinach fettuccine. “Almost a week since Calhoun died. When will we get the official lab report on the rifle shell and the boot print your people lifted from the dirt by the dock?”
“The official report won’t give us any more information than the unofficial call I got the day after the shooting,” he said between rhythmic crunches on the raw carrot slices decorating his salad. “The shell is a Remington Extronx 50 electric primed rifle cartridge. They come twenty to a box, ten boxes to a case, and are available at any hunting supply store in the country for twenty-five dollars a box.”
Frowning, Jess nursed her wineglass in both hands while he forked in more carrots. The man ate the most regular meals, she’d discovered. Healthy, nutritious, and disgustingly balanced. Anticipating the mini-feasts he insisted on crafting each evening, Jess had resorted to satisfying her fast-food addictions at lunch with quick forays to Anthony’s Pizza or the Burger King on base.
“The boot print might have yielded better details,” he continued calmly after he downed his carrots, “if a certain gun-toting lieutenant colonel hadn’t run through it two or three times.”
She didn’t dignify that with a reply. “It’s still hard to believe that everyone on our list of possible suspects produced air-tight alibis.”
The number of people with a possible grudge against her had left Jess more than a bit shaken. In addition to Bill Petrie, the list included the grieving widows of Ron Clark and the Reverend McConnell, both of whom had been questioned about their knowledge of their husbands’ involvement in an incident at the Blue Crab twenty-five years ago. They had to hate Jess for coming back and opening old wounds, smearing their husbands’ memories in the process.
The original list had included Congressman Calhoun. His son. His daughter-in-law. Ed Babcock. Even the captain of the tugboat who’d delivered the polluted fuel and now faced stiff fines for improperly purging his barges. Like all the others, the produced witnesses to vouch for his whereabouts. He’d been off-loading fuel in Texas at the time.
After two weeks of interviews and questions and soul-searching, she and Steve were no closer to an answer than they were before.
“How long do we continue the surveillance?” she asked, swirling the wine in the blue-glazed goblet.
“As long as it takes.”
“I run an organization as big or bigger than yours. I know these extra patrols and escorts are eating into your operating budget.”
“I’m not worried about my operating budget.”
“Then what about your professional reputation? How many more editorials and talk shows will it take to convince your constituents to initiate a recall?”
Calmly, he knifed into his chicken. “We’ve had this discussion before. Several times, in fact. Serving as sheriff of Walton County is just a job, Jess. It won’t destroy me if I’m voted out of office.” His eyes met hers over a forkful of steaming, crusted chicken. “Not like it would if the shooter got to you.”
Her heart pinging, she lifted her glass and tipped it to her lips. A sardonic glint came into his eyes.
“You suppose the day will come when you won’t put some barrier between us every time I try to tell you how I feel about you?”
She hid behind a flippant grin. “Anything’s possible, Paxton.”
Blowing out a breath, he let his glance stray to the framed 3x5 photo on the shelf above the sink.
“You said you were like your mother in every way that counts.”
“I am.”
“Was she afraid to let down the barriers, too?”
“If you listen to the people around here, my mother let down her barriers all too often.”
The comment held only a trace of rancor. It was truth from any perspective but hers.
“Tell me about her, Jess.”
“Why?”
“I’ve always heard that a man can see the daughter in the mother. I’d like to know if you measure up to your mom.”
That brought a smile. “I try.”
“So tell me about her.”
Swirling the ruby red Merlot in the bottom of the goblet, she gathered her thoughts. How to describe the woman who’d given Jess such unconditional, uncritical, and unceasing love?
“Mom didn’t have much luck when it came to choosing her men. She quit high school to run off with a drummer. If I remember the story right, that affair lasted less than three months. She went through a whole string of bums after him, including the man she thinks was my father.”
Jess could almost catch the flash of her mother’s irrepressible grin in the garnet depths of the Merlot. Helen had always managed to shake off the hurt of being dumped, claiming it didn’t matter as long as she had Jess. And it hadn’t mattered, until the daughter was old enough to understand the labels others attached to her mother’s approach to life and love.
“Money was tight, but I never remember lacking for school clothes or Christmas presents. She worked hard. Picking cucumbers. Sewing tobacco. Wiping down cars at one of those automatic car washes. Waitressing. Mostly waitressing.”
Jess used to hang out at the pancake house in Pennsylvania. She’d eaten most of her meals at the Sonic in North Carolina where Helen car-hopped for a few months. Gradually, the jobs had grown scarcer and the establishments where her mother worked less and less family-oriented.
“I don’t remember when she started drinking. I think I was about five or six. The drugs started not long after that.”
She
lifted her gaze and flashed a warning. She didn’t want pity, and refused to accept anyone’s vision of the past but her own.
“I never went to school hungry. I never had to wash my own clothes or put my hair in ponytails. Whatever she did at night, my mother always, always dragged herself out of bed in the morning and got me off to school.”
“Sounds like you were her anchor.”
“She was mine, too. All we had was each other until she met Frank.”
“Your step-father?”
“My father. He adopted me right after he and mom married.”
The memories came faster now, spinning through a collage of Arizona’s desert heat, afternoons spent in the garage where Frank wrestled with rusted radiators, her mother’s painful weaning from alcohol and drugs. The joy of Jess’s commissioning and early years in the air force. The agony of watching Helen die.
Absently, she massaged her right hand. “Frank never finished high school, either, but he’s the kindest, most generous man I know. You’d like him, Steve.”
“Sounds as if I would.”
Unlike the fiancé she’d brought home for such a short, disastrous visit. Steve would see past the dirt under the nails and the ill-fitting dentures, just as the down-to-earth mechanic would look beyond the lazy smile, the weathered skin, the Arnold Schwartznegger shoulders and pecs.
And the badge. The badge wouldn’t freeze Frank as it had Jess for so long.
“Maybe you should call him,” Steve suggested. “Let him know what you’ve been going through.”
“I started to last week, just to hear his voice. I don’t want him to know about this…this mess, though. There’s no point in upsetting him.”
“You might want to reconsider, Jess. Your mother could have told him something she didn’t tell you.”
Her fork stilled. Blankly, she stared at Steve. It had never occurred to her to ask Frank about the Blue Crab. The roadside dive was part of Helen’s past, Jess’s past. What happened in that smoky back room took place years before they’d drifted into Arizona.
After Midnight Page 18
