MADIGAN'S WIFE

by Linda Winstead Jones

  “And you didn’t care enough to choose me over your job.” She breathed deeply, painfully. All along she’d known there wasn’t a chance for them, and still it hurt to face the truth head-on. “You didn’t even care enough to come after me.” She would’ve gone home with him if he had. If just once she’d opened the door and it had been Ray standing there…

  He turned his head and pinned his eyes on her. “Would it have made any difference?” he asked, dark and caustic.

  Yes. She wanted to scream at Ray, she wanted to make him understand. But screaming at him wouldn’t fix anything. They were beyond repair. “Would it make any difference if I asked you not to go to Mobile?” she whispered, knowing what the answer would be.

  “Well, that settles that,” he said, throwing the sheet aside and reaching for the clothes he’d tossed to the floor hours earlier. “I think I should just settle on the couch for the duration. We may be good in bed, darlin’, but beyond that what we want is too different. Nothing’s changed in the past six years.”

  “No,” she said. “Nothing’s changed. I can’t go through that again, Ray. I just can’t.”

  He stepped into his boxers and then his jeans, his back to her the whole time. Why did they always go so wrong? Just when she thought things were beautiful, that everything was going their way at last…

  But she hated to give up so easily. “I can’t fall in love with you and then live the rest of my life waiting for you to get killed.”

  Ray glanced at her from the doorway. “Nobody’s asking you to, Gracie. We’re not married anymore.” He said it as if he was reminding himself, not her. “All we are now is…” he shrugged his shoulders. “I scratch your itch, you scratch mine.”

  She grabbed his pillow and threw it at him. Hard. He caught it and headed for the couch.

  *

  Freddie lay in the bed with his hands behind his head, as the sun came up. It hadn’t taken him long to dig up the information he needed, while Gillian had worked yesterday. He knew everything he needed to know about the woman who’d witnessed the hit. Grace Madigan, divorced, parents retired to Florida, one older brother she saw once a year, if that. Decent income, small savings account, and until she’d come to Huntsville, no social life.

  Ray Madigan was the one he’d have to worry about, when the time came. The P.I. was always armed, and he hadn’t left his ex-wife’s side since the hit, as far as Freddie could tell. He spent the night at her place, drove her everywhere, watched her like a hawk.

  The witness wasn’t Madigan’s only ex-wife. There were three of them. Freddie had to wonder if the man was as protective of his other ex-wives as he was of Grace. Only one way to find out.

  “I made breakfast,” Gillian said, coming into the bedroom wiping her hands on a towel.

  He took one look at her and smiled widely. “Call in sick again.”

  “I have to go to work today, Jimmy,” she said, looking as if she regretted the necessity as much as he did. “I missed Monday this week. If I call in sick again I might lose my job. But we can have breakfast together before I go.”

  Freddie dismissed his unpleasant but necessary thoughts of all the Madigans. He liked Gillian, he liked her a lot. He was in no hurry to finish his business in Huntsville. “Come home early,” he said as he sat up and reached for her.

  *

  She’d been curious about Ray’s new business, so she didn’t object when he said they’d be stopping by his office on the way home from Dr. Dearborne’s on Wednesday evening. Anything to delay the inevitable tense and uncomfortable evening in her much-too-small house.

  Last night he’d driven her to exercise class, in the hopes that the widow Lanford would be in attendance. He’d waited for her in the parking lot, refusing to leave for even an hour. Of course, Louise had not been there … not that Grace would’ve had a clue as to what to say to her if she had been.

  “My goodness, you do still work here,” the middle-aged woman behind the desk said as Ray led Grace through the door. “I was beginning to wonder.”

  “Hello, Doris,” Ray said with a smile. “Messages?”

  “A good-sized pile.” Doris lifted the stack of messages, but kept her eyes on Grace. “New client?”

  “Doris, this is Grace,” Ray said, sighing as if he knew what was coming and knew just as well that he wouldn’t like it much.

  “Number one,” Doris said with a wide smile as she came to her feet.

  Grace noted that the solidly built Doris was not very tall, probably no more than five feet in height. Her eyes sparkled with intelligence and humor. No wonder Ray liked her. “Most people just call me Grace.”

  Doris rounded the desk and slapped the messages into Ray’s hand. “I’m late getting out of here. Again.” She rolled her eyes. “Ray, if you’re not going to be around you need to hire some help. There are three new possible clients in that stack of messages. If you don’t call them back they’ll find someone else.” She reached up to pat him on the cheek, a warm maternal gesture delivered just a bit too soundly.

  While Doris grabbed a sweater from the coat tree she looked Grace up and down, scrutinizing. “I like her better than the other two,” she said bluntly. “She’s got class.” Doris looked Grace square in the eye. “Are you sure you were really married to this lug?”

  “Once upon a time,” Grace said, trying to keep her voice carefree.

  Doris grabbed her purse and left, mumbling about getting dinner on the table. The office was oddly empty once she was gone.

  Ray locked the door behind his secretary and sat at her desk to peruse the messages. “She runs the office,” he said with out looking up.

  “I’m sure she’s very capable.”

  “She is.”

  He laid the messages aside and leaned back in Doris’s chair. “I guess I should call these new clients and refer them to someone else,” he said absently. “I’ve got my hands full with the Lanford case, and after that…” he shrugged his shoulders.

  “You won’t be here.”

  “I won’t be here,” he repeated softly.

  The Lanford case was driving him to distraction, she knew that. He ran into one dead end after another. Sometimes he told her about what was going on. More often he did not. They lived together, he took her everywhere she went, and still they rarely spoke.

  “Ray.” She approached the desk, feeling safe here in this office. This was neutral ground. They hadn’t kissed here, they hadn’t made love here. There were no memories to cloud her mind.

  “What?” He leaned back in the chair, feet on the desk, eyes neutral and still.

  “Things are kind of a mess right now.” In more ways than one. “But I do want us to be friends.”

  He made no move, said nothing. His face was completely passionless.

  “I don’t know if we can,” she added softly. “But maybe if we tried…”

  “Friends shouldn’t have to try,” Ray interrupted, his eyes growing hard. “I’ll be honest with you, Gracie. I don’t think I can be your friend. It’s too damn hard.”

  She nodded, and turned her back to him while he finished reading through his messages. She almost managed not to cry at all.

  *

  Chapter 11

  «^»

  From her seat at one of the round tables on a raised platform in the middle of the restaurant, Grace nervously glanced toward the restaurant door and the sunlit sidewalk beyond the glass doors and sparkling windows. A newly arrived couple wearing expensive suits and carrying leather briefcases waited to be shown to their seats. The usual Thursday clientele laughed and talked too loud, the waiters and waitresses bustled to please the lunch crowd, and in Grace’s sweeping line of vision there was no sign of the killer or Ray.

  Ray would have a fit if he found out she was not having lunch in her office, as he’d ordered her to do. Like he had a right to order her to do anything! Right now she needed a friend or two, she needed to forget, for a while. She needed to forget the killer and Ray.

>   “Are you all right?” Nell Rose asked, leaning forward to get a better look at Grace’s face. Her chin-length blond hair danced as she dipped her head to the side. “You’re downright pale.”

  “She’s right,” Sandy said, her South Alabama accent more of a true Southern drawl than Nell Rose’s. She flipped her pale brown hair over her shoulder. “Have you been sleeping?”

  “Not very well,” Grace admitted.

  Before they could ask her to elaborate, their waiter arrived. They all ordered the usual: chicken salad with honey-mustard dressing and iced tea.

  The three of them had a standing rule. They didn’t talk about work and they didn’t talk about the old days. Anything else was fair game. As the waiter moved away Nell Rose began a spiel about her oldest son’s latest exploits on the baseball field. Grace had to smile, since little Kyle was all of four years old. Sandy asked if either of them had seen the latest Antonio Banderas movie, and when they said no she gave them a detailed rundown of the plot.

  And then they both turned their curious eyes to Grace.

  “You sure are quiet today,” Sandy said softly. “What’s up with you?”

  Grace started to shake her head, then capitulated too easily. She needed someone to talk to. “I found out what happened to Ray,” she said, “I know why he quit.”

  Sandy and Nell Rose exchanged a quick glance.

  “The girl,” Grace added. “The reporter with the broken nose.”

  “I guess we shoulda told you ourselves,” Nell Rose said. “But it just seemed senseless to drag the whole mess up at this point. It’s over and done, and I didn’t know how you’d react. I mean, the whole thing made me so mad I wanted to go punch that Morgan guy out myself, and I was never married to Ray. It was just so unfair.”

  “Yeah,” Sandy added. “Billy and Earl tried to go to bat for Ray, but it didn’t do any good. I mean, you wave a lawsuit in front of the mayor’s nose and you know what happens.”

  “How’d you find out?” Nell Rose asked.

  “I found some of the story in old articles on the Internet. The rest Ray told me himself.”

  Sandy’s eyebrows shot up. “He did? Grace, are you and Ray… I mean … are you two…” Her fingers danced restlessly.

  “Grace,” Nell Rose snapped. “Are you and Ray together again?”

  Grace felt the warming rush of a blush in her cheeks. “No.” After all, they hadn’t slept together since Monday night, and Ray had barely spoken to her since then, except to tell her that they couldn’t even be friends. It was apparently too hard. But he was always there, watching over her.

  “Yes,” she whispered. Like it or not there was something going on, something unresolved. “I don’t know,” she finally added.

  They were silent while the waiter placed three tall glasses of iced tea on the table, but as soon as he was gone Nell Rose leaned over the table and whispered, “What do you mean you don’t know? You are or you’re not. There’s no in-between.”

  “There’s a lot of in-between,” Grace said softly. “And that’s where we are. In-between.”

  Sandy leaned forward, too. Her mischievous eyes sparkled. “Are you sleeping with him?”

  Grace nodded. Then she shook her head. Nell Rose slapped her gently on the arm.

  “Honey, when it comes to sex there’s no in-between. You did or you didn’t.”

  “Did,” she whispered.

  After a moment of what could only be stunned silence, her two friends leaned back and smiled.

  “I predict a June wedding,” Nell Rose said smugly. “No matter what you said, I always knew you and Ray would get back together.”

  “May,” Sandy said with a widening smile. “They’re not going to wait until June.”

  Grace’s heart lurched, her insides tightened. Nothing was so simple. “We are not getting remarried,” she said decisively. “I can’t go through that again. Besides,” she added, drawing on her reserve of serenity and strength. That reserve was drawing low, and she needed it now. “Ray’s moving to Mobile. He’s going back into narcotics and I’m going to stay here and … and…”

  “And what?” Sandy asked, her smile long gone.

  “I don’t know,” Grace said softly. “I honestly don’t know.”

  *

  The investigation was moving too slowly to suit him. Ben McCann had been uncooperative during his brief interview. Hatcher had filled in a lot of the business blanks where Lanford was concerned, but couldn’t add any personal dirt.

  Ray hadn’t been able to get close to the assistant D.A. who had once had an affair with Louise Lanford. The grieving widow had not attended the Tuesday night exercise class he’d driven Grace to.

  Friday night was the key. They would all be there Friday night, at the Charity Ball for the Children’s Hospital. Ray didn’t want to wait even one day. The more time that passed, the harder a resolution would be.

  The intercom on his desk buzzed and snapped. “It’s the FBI,” Doris said. “At least, that’s what the man says. I don’t buy it. An Alan Chambers. I don’t think he’s FBI. He sounds perfectly normal…”

  “It’s about time,” Ray grumbled into the phone as he snapped the receiver up and brought it to his ear.

  “You’re welcome,” Chambers said sarcastically. “I did a little digging around and I came up with three possibles. I’m sending you a fax. These three guys are pros that fit your general description. It’s a long shot, but this is all I’ve got.”

  It was a long shot, and Ray knew it. Whoever had had Lanford killed could’ve hired a bartender or a friend or a bum to do the murder. He didn’t think so, though. The job was too clean not to be professional. He gave Chambers his fax number, and seconds later the fax machine came to life, spitting out pages.

  “For your sake, I hope none of these are your guy,” Chambers said. “There’s not a teddy bear among them. You have an army standing by?”

  “Am I going to need one?”

  “Maybe. I wouldn’t want to go up against any one of these guys without an army of my own.” Chambers sighed. “There was a time when I would’ve loved to go up against any one of them, preferably alone. Hell, who wants to share the glory?” He sighed tiredly. “No more. I guess I’ve spent too many years behind a desk. I used to like chasing bad guys, when I was young and full of adrenaline.”

  “Well, I’ve still got a little adrenaline left,” Ray muttered into the phone, Grace’s words about him being a danger junkie coming to mind.

  “Be careful.”

  “Thanks,” Ray said as he rolled his chair back to collect the first page.

  “Just keep my name out of this,” Chambers insisted. “Unless you find out that one of these is your man. Then I want to know. I have to know, you got it?”

  “I got it,” Ray said halfheartedly.

  “If one of these hit men is after your witness, I’ll … I’ll send somebody down,” Chambers said before he hung up the phone.

  Ray laid the three pages, pictures with stats beneath, on his desk. All bad guys, all fitting Grace’s vague description and the rough sketch that had been drawn from her description. He picked up the phone and dialed Dr. Doolittle’s number.

  The receptionist answered the phone with a professionally crisp, “Dr. Dearborne’s office.”

  “Hi, put me through to Grace,” he said.

  “I’m sorry, Grace is out to lunch. Can I take a number and have her call you back?”

  “She’s taking her lunch break in today though, right? This is a personal call. You can put me through.”

  A short, warning pause put Ray on alert. “No, she’s not here. A friend picked her up a few minutes ago.”

  Ray saw red, but his fury didn’t come through in his voice as he asked, “When do you expect her back?”

  “Not for about forty-five minutes,” the receptionist said.

  “This is her hus…her ex-husband, Ray. We met the other day. It’s Amy, right?”

  “Oh yeah,” she said brightly. “
You’ve been around a lot lately.”

  “That’s right,” he said calmly. “Amy darlin’, do you know where Grace is having lunch?”

  *

  They were finishing their salads when Ray strolled into the restaurant. Shoulders squared, head high, he looked like a soldier sauntering into battle. His eyes landed on her immediately, as if he’d spotted her the moment he walked in the door. Maybe before. At the foot of the stairs he planted his feet and glared at her, looking oddly fierce for a man in blue jeans and a blue-checkered shirt.

  “There you are,” he said, bounding forward, taking the steps to the center platform two at a time. There was no hostility in his voice, but she could see it in his eyes. A flash, and then it was gone.

  Sandy and Neil Rose smiled widely and greeted Ray like the old friend he was, and he did the same, telling them both to say hello to their husbands, Sandy’s Billy and Nell Rose’s Earl. He was his usual charming self.

  But when his eyes landed on Grace they were cold as ice. “We have to go.”

  “The waiter hasn’t brought our checks yet,” she said, not anxious or even willing to let Ray rush and bully her out of the restaurant.

  He reached into his pocket, impatiently pulled out a twenty-dollar bill and handed it to Nell Rose. “This should cover it.”

  “I’m not quite finished with my tea,” Grace said, not looking at Ray as she swirled what was left in her glass. The ice clinked loudly. She held her breath.

  Ray placed his hands on the table and leaned in. He smiled, placed his cheek on hers, and whispered softly in her ear. “You can stand up and walk out of here with me right now, or I can toss you over my shoulder and you can leave that way.”

  “Ray,” she said, trying to remain calm, not succeeding. Her heart beat too fast, her knees shook. “You can’t…”

  “Feet on the ground or ass in the air,” he breathed. “Your call, Gracie.”

  He backed away and she stood slowly, collecting her purse from where it hung on the back of her chair. Blushing, she was sure, she told Neil Rose and Sandy goodbye. They both tried, unsuccessfully, to hold back wicked smiles. Like they thought this was entertaining and charming and adorable. Ray was many things, but adorable was not one of them.