Merciless

by Diana Palmer

  She flushed and scrambled to her feet. She fumbled the catch of her bra back into place, pulled down her sweater and tried to smooth her hair with her hands.

  “There’s a brush on the dresser,” he said helpfully. He was lying with his face propped on a hand, watching her with obvious pleasure.

  She went to get it. She smoothed it over her hair and then noticed his. Without thinking, she went and sat down on the bed beside him and ran the brush over his long, thick hair. He sat up to give her access.

  “Your hair is beautiful,” she said while she brushed it. “Your brother and I saw it all tangled when you were shot. We said you’d hate having it out of place.”

  “I would.” He watched her face, smiling. “I’ve never let a woman brush it.”

  She smiled. “I’m flattered.”

  When she finished, he took the brush from her and brushed her own hair. “Mutual grooming. A predictable behavior in primate society.”

  She laughed. “Is it?”

  His fingers touched her swollen mouth. “How long have we been together?” he asked.

  “A long time. Almost five years.”

  “And we didn’t know each other at all.”

  She nodded silently. Reality was working its way into her mind. She’d let her boss kiss her. More than kiss her. He had a mother who ate live rattlesnakes and who hated her guts. She had a child who would complicate everything.

  “Stop thinking,” he told her firmly. “We’ll take it one step at a time. No pressure.”

  She met his eyes worriedly. “Your mother hates me,” she stated.

  “Cammy is a puff adder.”

  She blinked. “Excuse me?”

  “It’s a snake. Friend of mine from Georgia told me about them. They’re nonpoisonous, but they can raise up on their tails and spread their cheeks and hiss like a cobra. But if someone goes at them with a stick, they faint from fear.”

  She burst out laughing. “A defensive behavior.”

  “Yes. Cammy’s like that. She’s all marshmallow inside. But she’s learned to hide it from people by being obnoxious.”

  Joceline didn’t think that was the case. But it was so new, and wonderful, to have Jon looking at her this way that she didn’t voice her opinion.

  She stood up. “We should get back to work.”

  He smiled. “Yes. We probably should.”

  She put up the brush and sat back down with the notebook computer in her lap. He stared at her warmly for a long moment before he began dictating again.

  Joceline didn’t know how to handle the new situation. She was afraid that Jon was going to want more from her than she could give. She had grave misgivings about her place in his life, and a real fear of his mother’s reaction if they became involved. Then, too, there was Markie. How he was going to fit into this scenario was the most frightening part of it.

  And into this worry came, quite suddenly, two new complications. There was a call. It came into the main phone line at the ranch, and picked up by the message machine. The caller was brief, and blunt, and threatening.

  “You’re all dead, now,” he said. “The kid goes first. You don’t hurt my family and live to tell about it.”

  Jon heard it before the others did. He had a trace put on the call, but it came from a cell tower miles away, and they couldn’t get beyond that. He called the local FBI office. They sent out a couple of men with electronic equipment to set up a network.

  Then Joceline made some phone calls and discovered to her utter shock that Harold Monroe had been formally charged with the murder of McKuen Kilraven’s little girl, Melly. There was a witness who had come forward to offer testimony, a man who had been in the cell with Monroe and who had heard him brag about his part in the killing during his weeks in jail waiting for trial on the human trafficking charge that was dropped. Monroe had been stupid enough to tell the man about the murder weapon and his ingenuity in hiding it in a public place. The police, led by Rick Marquez, on a tip from Jon, who’d spoken to a contact, had subsequently searched the culvert right outside the San Antonio Police Department and found the shotgun—the murder weapon—tucked in a garbage bag with Monroe’s fingerprints on the stock of the gun, they said. A stupid mistake. A very stupid mistake, by a stupid man who thought the police were too dumb to ever catch and convict him.

  Jon was in shock, as well. None of them had ever thought that Harold Monroe, the idiot nephew-by-marriage of Jay Copper, was even smart enough to use a shotgun, much less kill a child with it. All the evidence had pointed to Copper’s nephew Peppy Hancock. It was the most convoluted set of circumstances Jon had ever seen in his years of law enforcement, and it went against the odds in every way. It was almost as if the charge had been contrived, for some inexplicable purpose.

  Jon was worried about what his brother might do. Mac had loved his child very much. They were certain that a dead man, Dan Jones, had been involved in her murder, and Jay Copper had been arrested and prosecuted for engineering it. Mac had even heard Copper say that Peppy had been sent to assure that the hit went down. But now it seemed there was another shooter, in fact, the main shooter, whom no one had suspected and who was just being charged. Monroe blamed Jon and even his “secretary” and her child for his getting caught.

  Jay Copper had dangerous contacts. The voice on the phone, which had to have been Monroe’s, had promised retribution and Jon couldn’t afford to underestimate the caller’s intent.

  So he called his brother, reluctantly, and asked him to get Rourke to come to the ranch and provide extra backup.

  “I thought you liked him,” Joceline said curiously when he told her about it.

  “I do.” But he didn’t look as if he did. He was remembering his mother’s comment that Rourke was unmarried and apparently interested in Joceline. He didn’t want the competition, especially right now, in the beginning stages of a new, breathlessly romantic relationship between them.

  “Do you like him?” Jon asked her with faint antagonism.

  “Well, yes, but only as a friend,” she said at once.

  He seemed less rigid after that.

  But Joceline was remembering something that the trip had knocked out of her mind. Someone had broken into her apartment. She’d burned the diary, but what if someone had photographed it?

  She was still brooding about the break-in when Kilraven showed up at the ranch without Winnie, and in a cold and threatening mood.

  “They’ve got Harold Monroe in jail again,” Jon said at once. “But this time he won’t slip through the cracks, with or without some hotshot attorney paid for by his wife’s uncle Jay.”

  “You think so?” Kilraven asked in an icy tone. “He just made bail.”

  Jon sat straight up in bed, wincing from the movement. “He what?”

  “He has contacts,” Kilraven said icily. “Those contacts have contacts. They found a judge who released him on a half-million-dollar bond. His attorney assured the judge that he was no flight risk.”

  “Which judge?” Jon wanted to know.

  Kilraven named a young judge just elected to the bench the previous year.

  “Him,” Jon said irritably. “He’d sign off on a serial killer’s bond, on humanitarian grounds.”

  Kilraven’s eyebrows arched. It was unusual, to say the least, to have his somber and politically correct younger brother sound off about a judge or anyone connected to the judicial system.

  “He’s naive for someone that intelligent.”

  Jon’s black eyes glittered. “Somebody, probably Harold Monroe, called here and made threats,” he told his brother. “Most significantly, he’s threatening Joceline’s son.”

  Kilraven studied him quietly. “Like the boy, don’t you?”

  “Yes,” Jon said at once. He smiled. “He’s intelligent and quite talented with an art pencil. I told Joceline he should have lessons.”

  “Melly liked to draw,” Kilraven replied, his eyes somber as he recalled his daughter’s last drawing before her tra
gic death.

  “She had talent,” Jon agreed. “I’m sorry,” he added gently. “I know it must sting to have another hand in Melly’s murder revealed. But he won’t get away with it, in spite of the judge’s little faux pas.”

  “I’m not so sure. Jay Copper has property down in the Caribbean. Monroe could fly down there and hide out forever.”

  Kilraven just smiled.

  “What do you know that I don’t?” Jon demanded.

  “Monroe has his own personal shadow,” he said complacently. “And no, I will not tell you who it is.”

  “Rourke,” Jon said at once, glowering.

  Kilraven’s eyebrows arched. “I’ve got Rourke watching Joceline and her son.”

  “He’s here?” Jon exclaimed, and sat up straighter, wincing again, as he looked around as if he expected to find the man in his room.

  “He’s been here since they arrived,” Kilraven informed him. “He keeps a low profile, so that nobody knows he’s around until they need to know.”

  “If my employees missed him, several of them will be looking for new jobs,” he said flatly.

  Kilraven chuckled. “That old-timer of yours spotted him immediately and stuck a .45 revolver in his back. Rourke said he almost had to change pants, it was such a shock.”

  Jon smiled in spite of himself. “You know who that old-timer is.”

  “Of course I do.” He grinned.

  “I feel better, knowing that. I don’t like people walking around here under the radar.”

  “It has to be that way,” Kilraven said gently. “We can’t put Joceline’s child at risk.”

  “No. We certainly can’t.”

  “I need to talk to her. About the break-in at her apartment.”

  Jon frowned. “Do they have a suspect?”

  “Not unless you mean Harold Monroe,” he said, “or one of his cronies. No, it’s about something in the apartment that they might have been looking for. Rick Marquez can’t get an expense voucher to fly up here and question her, so I’m standing in for him.” The way he said it was just a little too casual.

  “Really?” Jon murmured, unconvinced.

  “Really.” Kilraven had a straight face. “Why are you so suspicious?”

  “It’s not like you to do favors for the police.”

  He shrugged. “Rick isn’t your typical detective.”

  Jon thought about that, and then relaxed. “No,” he replied after a minute. “He’s not. She’ll be in the kitchen, I imagine. She sees to Markie’s meal before she has hers.”

  “I’ll just pop in and have a word with her,” Kilraven said.

  “You sound like him.”

  “Him?”

  “Rourke,” he said, and made the man’s name sound like a snarl.

  Kilraven had to fight back a grin. It was quite obvious to him that his brother was jealous of Rourke, and not because of the sort of work he did.

  “I’ll work on my accent,” he replied. “You doing better?” he added with genuine concern.

  “Yes. It’s just slower than I’d like. I want to get back to my office and make sure Harold Monroe doesn’t leave the country before his trial.”

  “I’m going to make sure of that,” Kilraven said quietly. “If he had a hand in Melly’s death, and I think he did, he’ll never escape justice.”

  “Just make sure you aren’t dishing it out,” Jon replied firmly. “I don’t want to lose the only brother I’ve got. And you have a child on the way. Any day.”

  “I know that.” Kilraven sighed heavily. “It’s just hard, dealing with this. I thought it was all wrapped up when we knew Dan Jones had done the killings on orders from Jay Copper. I never dreamed there was another shooter. Then we were so sure it was Peppy Hancock, but he had an airtight alibi from a young woman for the night in question. How the hell did Monroe pull off something so involved without blabbing before this? He can’t keep his mouth shut.”

  “I don’t know. It’s odd, isn’t it?”

  “Jay Copper said he sent Peppy to help make sure Dan Jones did what he was told. We couldn’t prove it because without the missing tape it was just hearsay evidence, so Peppy couldn’t be formally charged for involvement. And now it’s Hancock’s idiot brother-in-law Harold Monroe, of all people, who’s been arrested for the murder of my wife and child.”

  “After weaseling out of a human trafficking charge.” He frowned. “Why did he target Joceline and the boy? Was it because she works for me?”

  “Why else?” Kilraven asked with a bland expression.

  Jon laid back down with a long sigh. “I hate having her in danger, having the boy under a threat.”

  “We’ll take care of both of them,” Kilraven assured him. “You just concentrate on getting well. Okay?”

  Jon smiled. “Okay.”

  Kilraven shrugged. “I’m glad you’re going to be all right.”

  Jon’s eyes twinkled. “Thanks.”

  Kilraven chuckled. “You’re the only brother I’ve got, even if your hang-ups are an ongoing embarrassment to me.”

  “Look who’s talking!”

  “And on that note, I’m leaving,” Kilraven said with a grin. “I’ll see you again before I leave.”

  “I’ll count on that.”

  10

  Kilraven found Joceline in the kitchen, just mopping up Markie’s face. He was laughing as she tickled his nose with the napkin.

  They both looked up when he entered the room.

  “Well, that must have been a good lunch,” he told the boy with a smile.

  “It was great!” Markie said.

  “Megs is putting that new cartoon movie on for you to watch in the living room,” he told the child. “I hear you really want to see it.”

  “Oh, I do! Thanks!”

  “Our pleasure.”

  Megs came to the door and motioned to the boy, smiling at the adults as she did so.

  “See you later, Mom,” Markie called as he ran toward Megs.

  “He’s a really fine youngster,” Kilraven said quietly.

  “Thanks. I think so.”

  He turned back to her, and he wasn’t smiling. “Ever hear of the Locard Exchange Principle?”

  She searched his eyes. “Of course. Every criminal who steals something leaves some trace of his presence behind.”

  “Rourke has few peers in evidence gathering. He found a partial fingerprint on the table by your bed. It’s consistent with prints on file.”

  She bit her lower lip. “Whose prints?”

  “A former cat burglar who did odd jobs for Jay Copper.”

  Her face grew taut. “Why was he in my apartment? I don’t have anything worth stealing.”

  “You kept a diary, Rourke said,” he replied.

  She bit her lower lip, hard. “I burned it.”

  “Any decent burglar can make a photographic copy of a document without taking the original.”

  She swallowed her fear. “That would indicate a blackmail attempt. But I don’t know anything that could hurt anyone else.”

  “Come in here a minute, will you?”

  He opened the door to the library. She hesitated, but he looked so somber that she went inside and let him close the door behind them.

  “You went to a party with Jon a little over four years ago,” he said without preamble. “He was given a psychotropic drug, without his knowledge, and he wound up in the hospital. You drove him there.”

  “Yes. It was a sick joke by the boyfriend of the girl he rescued from a kidnapping,” she said.

  “Soon after that, you tried to quit your job. And very soon after that, you became pregnant.”

  She averted her eyes. “I went out with a friend and we had too much to drink…” she began.

  “My brother is the father of your child. Here, look out…!”

  He caught her as she started to fall. He put her on the sofa and pushed her head down, gently, until the wave of nausea passed.

  “Damn,” he exclaimed softly. “I’
m sorry. I should have been more careful.”

  She swallowed, and then swallowed again. Tears welled up in her eyes. “You’re just guessing,” she bit off.

  “I’m not,” he replied quietly. He sat down beside her. “Your son’s blood type is A positive. So is Jon’s. I checked dates. According to the police report, you went to the party with Jon almost exactly nine months before Markie was born.”

  “Dates can be coincidental. And a lot of people share the same blood type,” she began helplessly.

  “I don’t know what was in that diary, but I can guess,” he continued. “You have to tell Jon, before he finds it out from Harold Monroe or someone in his organization.”

  She looked up with tortured eyes. “And you think he’d believe me?” she asked, incredulously. “Why do you think I kept it to myself all this time?”

  “You were the only woman he ever took to a party,” he said.

  “Yes, and he’s rich and I could barely pay my rent,” she said coldly. “He didn’t even know me that well. He’d have thought that I was blaming him to make a nice little secure nest egg for myself.”

  “That’s cynical.”

  “Sure it is,” she replied. “But it would have been his first thought. It would probably still be your mother’s. We all know how she feels about her son.”

  He searched her tormented eyes. “Would you rather he heard it on the six o’clock news? That’s the sort of thing Monroe would consider good fun.”

  She sat up straight. “You’re assuming that Harold Monroe is the one who sent the burglar to my apartment. You’re also assuming that he photographed my diary.”

  “They’re good assumptions. Why else would he have been there?”

  She frowned. “How would he even have known about the diary?”

  He was frowning now, also. “Then why go into your apartment?”

  “Exactly. He was looking for something he thought I had.” Her eyes narrowed in concentration, then suddenly she sat up abruptly “Wait a minute… I’d forgotten something… There was a file detailing personal and criminal information about Bart Hancock. I was going to transcribe it, but the day Jon was shot I took the file home to work on it. It was the day of the robbery at my apartment…!”