by Joanne Rock
“You can tell that?” She sounded doubtful.
He couldn’t deny taking a little pride in anything that had the power to impress her. But that momentary wave crashed as the notion of the very real danger she faced chilled his soul. He wouldn’t let anything happen to her. She’d shown him more empathy, more understanding about an admittedly convoluted and screwed-up past than any other woman he’d ever met. Including his wife.
No way would he let the ugliness of her ex-husband’s world touch her. Not while he drew breath.
“Damn straight I can.” He checked his watch as he sketched out a mental plan for how the day would unfold. “Pack up whatever you need in case we do an overnight and I’ll meet you back here in ten.”
She nodded, already standing. He appreciated the level of trust she gave him by agreeing to go so readily. Damn but he’d do anything to keep her safe.
“And don’t forget—” He caught her arm before she headed for the stairs. “Bring your cell phone.”
CHAPTER 16
TENSION VISE-GRIPPED Tabitha’s neck as they drove through her old Connecticut neighborhood and she found herself wishing for a bag of potato chips. Doughnuts. Godiva chocolates. The need for a distraction, an indulgence, left her wound-up to the point of shaking as Warren turned onto the cul de sac where she’d lived.
“You okay?” Warren’s voice across the console of his pickup truck sent her old habits running for cover, the desire for potato chips disappearing when she could be fulfilled by his concern for her instead.
She reached for him. Squeezing his forearm as he downshifted. Did it make her weak to need his touch? Was she only trading one crutch for another? Logically she understood that it was healthier to need a person than to need to control her food intake. But she didn’t want to put Warren in the awkward position of saving her from herself. Bad enough he’d had to protect her from a killer.
“Fine. Better than if I was by myself for this trek, that’s for sure.” She kept the words light on purpose, hoping to convey her appreciation without making him feel obligated. Her hand rubbed along the warm muscle of his forearm. “That’s it right there.”
She pointed to the house she’d moved into with so much hope once upon a time. The mammoth residence had been a tangible way for Manny to flaunt his growing wealth but Tabitha had seen it as a commitment to a quieter lifestyle outside the fishbowl of the Manhattan film industry. Too bad Manny had opted to spend most nights at their apartment in the city—without her. That should have been her fist clue.
The yard appeared more sterile than when she’d lived there since the side garden had been the one place where she’d imprinted herself, planting a wild cottage garden where flowers of all colors grew stem to stem in a pretty ramble. Manny had hated the disorganization of it and apparently the new owners hadn’t thought much of it, either. Neatly pruned rosebushes had been planted in the space that used to be her cottage garden, although nothing bloomed now as the wind blew cold through the mature trees lining the dead-end street.
“This is the house of the all-white room?” Warren had stopped the car to study the place with her.
“This is the one. I bet the new owners loved it.” Seeing the old place made her grateful for her small apartment with its profusion of mismatched furniture and antique scarves covering the weathered lamp shades. She’d take character over perfection any day.
“Should I park here?” Warren checked the rearview mirror and then peered around the quiet street.
“No. Manny practiced shooting in the woods at the end of the cul de sac.” She pointed to the paved circle of pavement and the dense trees behind it. “Park over there.”
Five minutes later they were walking through the wooded area worth a small fortune in real estate dollars. Tabitha knew that because Manny had wanted desperately to buy the land and build on it. She couldn’t remember when she realized that her ex was far more concerned with making money than with making films, but that awareness was the beginning of the end for them. When they first met he’d listened so carefully to her creative ideas, even investing in film projects she deemed strong contenders. But then he became more interested in producing than directing and he began paying attention to more important opinions than hers. She’d morphed from someone who could help his financial ends to someone who managed his household, a position she’d compromised with the cottage garden, no doubt.
Oddly, the realization soothed some of the old anguish she’d felt about his affair. She’d lashed out at Evelyn because she hadn’t understood where else to cast blame for her unhappiness, but now she saw the way she’d conspired in her own divorce. Her lack of awareness about what made her happy left her an easy target for someone with Manny’s carefully applied charm.
“We should be getting closer,” she called out to Warren as she tromped over a fallen branch at the top of a short hill.
Sunlight permeated the woods despite the dense trees since the branches were still bare. A few patches of snow dotted the ground in low places. Tabitha hadn’t ever walked down here with Manny since she’d wanted nothing to do with the gun and she knew there were local ordinances against firing a weapon in an area with residential buildings so close by. But she’d taken refuge in the trees at other times while Manny was at work, the natural setting making her worldly problems seem small and unimportant. On one of those outings—the day she’d waited for a taxi to pick her up the morning after she’d discovered Manny’s affair—she’d noticed the tree riddled with shell casings from target practice.
“Bingo.” Warren’s shout from a few feet away caused her to turn.
“That’s it.” She spotted the tree that had caught his eye and she watched him pull on gloves to sift through the dead leaves at the base of the maple.
Her stomach lurched at the idea they could be collecting evidence to prove Manny was far worse than a cheating husband. Could she have been married to a killer all those years? The corn muffin she’d had for breakfast churned uncomfortably in her belly.
“Can you tell anything just by looking at it?” She wondered how long they’d have to wait for an answer.
“Nothing definitive.” His search under the tree seemed to come up empty so he went to work extracting a slug from the trunk. “We can’t be certain without some lab work, but if there’s a mark on this casing that looks similar to the one we collected from the murder scene and from your apartment—”
He broke off as the bit of metal came free from the trunk of the tree. The casing glistened dully in the sunlight as he held it at the end of a tool that looked like long, industrial-strength tweezers. Turning the bullet around, Warren studied every angle.
“Well?” Her heart stuttered at a silence that seemed too long. Too pregnant with meaning.
“I have to collect a few more so we have a thorough sampling.” He swung his gaze her way. “But my first impression is that Manny’s gun definitely killed de Milo.”
* * *
WARREN HADN’T EXPECTED the news to be easy to take. He knew how devastating it could be to find out that someone you loved and trusted possessed the ability to take a human life. Memories from his first screaming match with the officer who arrested Andy came floating back to him now as Tabitha wobbled unsteadily on her feet.
“I can’t have been married to a murderer.” Her breathy voice sounded close to hyperventilating as he tugged a second casing out of the tree.
“You might not have been.” He regretted the need to bring her here, but he couldn’t have left her behind. Not after what had happened last time.
“What do you mean?” Pacing around the trees while he worked, Tabitha finally sat down on a dead stump of a fallen tree.
“Just because it was Manny’s gun doesn’t mean he fired it, remember?” Warren knew that her ex’s girlfriend could have access to the weapon, but he should have reminded her of that before she panicked at the thought of Manny being a killer.
Still, Warren couldn’t help but think her ex had th
e best case for being bitter about their split. No matter that he’d been the one to cheat on her. This guy’s identity seemed bound up in his ego and Tabitha’s public denouncing of him had obviously hit him between the eyes.
Or maybe Warren just hated the guy because he’d hurt a woman Warren had grown to care about. A lot. There was a chance Warren’s anger was as tied up in this case as Manny’s ego was tied to his image.
“If you think there’s a better chance that Manny is the—” she swallowed “—the guy you’re looking for, don’t you think we ought to keep the appointment I set with Braeden tonight?”
“Braeden could have accessed Manny’s gun if the two were friends.” He remembered Tabitha saying they’d maintained their friendship long after Braeden’s ex-girlfriend had hooked up with Manny. But what motive would Braeden have for the stalking crime that seemed too personal? It would be one thing for the guy to stalk his ex. But Tabitha had been as duped by Manny and Evelyn as Braeden had.
“But you don’t think Braeden took the gun, do you?” Tabitha seemed to read his mind as he dropped the last shell casing into a bag for evidence.
“I think we need to go into the city so I can get to my lab anyway. If we pull some backup for the meeting with Braeden, I guess it couldn’t hurt to hear what he has to say.” Warren wouldn’t be taking any risks where Tabitha was concerned until they had their suspect in custody.
His feelings for her had expanded and grown in ways he hadn’t anticipated this week, but from the shock etched in her gaze, he suspected she wouldn’t be in a place to return those feelings anytime soon. Just his luck that the one time he was finally able to put aside his past long enough to really connect with someone, her past had to rear up and deliver a knockout punch like this. Finding out your ex was allegedly capable of murder would sour anyone on relationships.
Anger hovered over him like a black cloud as he shoved the evidence bag into his jacket pocket. He stalked around a tree to get to Tabitha when the sound of gunfire cracked through the woods.
* * *
TABITHA THOUGHT she’d lost it when Warren announced that Manny’s gun had killed porn star de Milo. But the minibreakdown she’d experienced in the woods at that time couldn’t compare to the heart failure she was going through in the passenger seat of Warren’s truck as they raced out of Connecticut at a high speed, a siren propped in the dash to let traffic see the law enforcement affiliation.
Holy crap.
Her heart slammed into her ribs in erratic explosions, each beat making her whole body reverberate in response while Warren radioed in the incident to his dispatcher. Or maybe it was a local police dispatcher. She had no idea.
“I don’t see anybody behind us.” Warren’s voice still sounded tense, but he spoke more softly now that he’d set down the handset to the police radio.
They were only scant miles from the woods and Tabitha froze as she realized someone might be following. If anything, that’s what Warren had been expecting since they were doing ninety miles an hour up the interstate across the state border into New York. Somehow, she’d thought they’d escaped the worst when they’d made it into the safety of the car after a shot had pierced the air.
“But you thought we weren’t being followed when we left the Catskills this morning.” She didn’t mean to give him a hard time, but fear made her mouth run fast as the scenery whipped past in a blur. “I just mean—”
“I know what you mean,” he said tersely. “And while a car may possibly be following without me knowing, there’s probably a better chance there’s another tracking device planted in the truck.”
She tried not to look at the speedometer that nudged over ninety miles an hour.
“How could—”
“Remember how the motion detectors went off the other night?” Finally slowing down, he steered the car off the highway to an exit ramp. “Someone could have dropped a device in the vehicle then. We already knew there was someone lurking around the property, right?”
She remembered Warren’s neighbor had called the cops about the stranger’s car parked nearby.
“So what do we do now?” She couldn’t staunch the urge to look out the rear windshield, convinced her ex-husband would be barreling down on them in his Audi. No, wait. His neighbor said she’d seen a white sedan. Had to be a rental car.
“We’re going to comb through the vehicle to see if we find anything and get something else to drive. Then we’re getting a warrant for Manny Redding and bringing his girlfriend and his former attorney in for questioning.”
“Okay. Yes. Under arrest is good.” She scoped out the gas station they seemed to be heading for. “Assuming we can find him before he…you know…shoots me. Or you.”
Her voice croaked on that last note and she regretted dragging him into the mess of her life.
“We’re going to be fine. Nothing will happen to either of us.” He spoke with stern authority when he had no way of ensuring that a bullet didn’t hit him during his self-imposed guardianship. But then, his thoughts seemed a million miles away as he ducked into an open service bay while the station attendant yelled at them to back out.
“But if I hadn’t been hiding from life for the last year, maybe I would have seen that my husband was involved in something illegal.” The reality that he could be peddling underage porn along with the other host of crimes still hadn’t fully sunk in. And oh, God, how could she have missed something so evil?
Anger burned away some of the fear she’d felt back in the woods as Warren jumped out of the car and flashed his badge at the attendant. In quick response, the manager lowered the garage door to hide their truck from the street while two other mechanics circled the vehicle, looking at her curiously.
Feeling strangely disconnected from what was happening, Tabitha slid out of the truck and backed out of the garage through a second open bay. Warren juggled a phone in one hand while he went through the truck bed with the other.
He looked so strong. Vital. She couldn’t fathom this dynamic, capable man falling victim to one of the bullets he’d made it his mission to study, but when all was said and done his body could be pierced as easily and as lethally as anyone else’s.
She’d backed so far from the hubbub in the garage that her butt suddenly hit a gas pump, startling her. In a minute she would go back inside and join the search for a tracking device but right this moment she needed to gather her strength to combat the surreal quality of this day. She wouldn’t be weak with Warren the way she’d been weak—blind—with Manny.
She refused to go through another relationship telling herself over and over that everything would be okay when it wouldn’t. Her marriage hadn’t been okay, and damn it, Warren wouldn’t come through this in one piece just because she willed it.
“Tabitha.”
The sound of her name dawned like the censuring voice of her conscience. She startled a step and then realized that Braeden O’Leary had pulled up alongside her in a dark blue BMW.
Did he know his former best friend was probably a killer? Could he have the information that would prove it and put Manny behind bars?
“Braeden.” She tried to process his presence there. Were they close to the New York State Thruway? Judging by the thick traffic on the interstate, maybe six o’clock wasn’t that far off.
“You headed to our meeting point?” He had a map spread out on his dashboard. “It’s only a couple of miles but I ran out of gas.”
Were they really that close to their meeting place? She’d lost all sense of time and direction during their high-speed flight out of her old neighborhood, but she supposed they’d covered some distance given that they were going ninety or a hundred miles an hour at one point. Maybe they were close to Tarrytown but it was tough to tell with all the smaller towns north of the city blending into an endless chain of strip malls.
Glancing toward the garage, she wondered how to convince Braeden to conduct the meeting at the police station, but as she turned back to him, she realize
d he was opening the passenger side door.
Near her.
She meant to step back but her sluggish brain was still stuck on a truckload of scattered thoughts from the last hour. Before she could react, Braeden yanked her arm down and sideways with brutal force.
She screamed then, recognition penetrating her gray matter at the same time the stick shift jabbed into her temple. The car lurched forward, her feet still hanging out the door.
Tires squealed in time with her hoarse shout until the stick shift jammed down into another gear and knocked her in the teeth. She had a last vision of the gray March sky and telephone poles whipping past the windshield. Then a noxious odor on a damp white cloth filled her nose and mouth. Her senses rebelled, sickened. She arched back away from it, a seat belt buckle biting into her head.
Her last thought before her senses caved to the drug was that Warren didn’t get to see the face of the man who took her.
CHAPTER 17
BRAEDEN “RED” O’LEARY had always been a man who prided himself on his ability to remain quietly grounded in a business full of high-strung personalities. He negotiated good deals for his clients by keeping his cool. And he’d recently discovered that he understood the justice system so well that he could eliminate his enemies without getting caught. The successful dispatch of John de Milo proved it since de Milo knew about Braeden’s tie to the black market company called Red Light District—a front for lucrative underage porn.
And now thanks to a stolen weapon and a few tracking devices he’d be able to eliminate Tabitha Everhart as easily. She might not have remembered their long-ago cocktail party conversation in which he’d questioned her about the porn industry her husband had worked in for years, but there was no telling when the information might rise to the surface. Especially now that she had an NYPD detective sharing her bed 24/7.
