by Gayle Wilson
She realized from the shock in his eyes that Jared thought she was echoing his own doubts about her uncle. She wasn’t, of course. That was exactly what it had sounded like—a question.
And if Jared really believed someone had killed those three men, then it was the only question that mattered now. Her uncle had had nothing to do with those deaths, so who, other than James Marshall McCord, had a reason to want those men dead?
IF THIS WENT ON MUCH longer, Jared thought, they were going to run out of hot water. But apparently neither he nor Robin was eager to have it end. The business part of showering had been taken care of a long time ago. The pleasure part had occupied the remaining time they’d spent in the small enclosure. They had managed a couple of pleasurable interludes. Very pleasurable.
And there was even the possibility of a third, he realized, his lips trailing slowly down the front of Robin’s throat. She was leaning against the old ceramic tile of the enclosure, eyes closed, head back, her hands resting lightly on his shoulders.
Suddenly, her body tensed. That was something he had devoted a lot of time to. Erasing the long day’s tension.
“Listen,” she commanded.
He did, but whatever she had heard eluded him. He reached out and cut off the water, just as the phone rang again. For at least ten seconds, he debated not answering it, but he couldn’t afford to do that. Too many things going on. Too much at stake.
“Don’t move,” he said. “I’ll be right back.”
He pushed open the creaking door and grabbed a towel, wrapping it around his hips as he ran. He grabbed the phone off the bedside table, expecting to hear nothing but a dial tone, since it had rung a couple of times while he was on the way.
“Donovan,” he said.
“We’ve got a match,” Brad Simpkins said. “And you aren’t going to believe who it is.”
JARED’S “I’ll be right back” had stretched to several minutes, so Robin had gotten out of the shower enclosure, anxious about the phone call. She opened cabinet doors until she found a stack of clean towels. She was securing the end of one of them over her breasts when Jared reappeared in the bathroom doorway. She glanced up and knew immediately that something was wrong.
“Something’s happened to Uncle Jim,” she said.
Jared shook his head. “They got a match on the print.” Which should be good news. Except it was obvious by the way he’d said those words that it wasn’t.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, her heart beginning to race. Dear God, please don’t let it be his print, she prayed. She hadn’t even been aware she harbored any doubt about her uncle.
“They ran them all,” Jared said. “I told Brad to run them all. I meant the survivors, but... the bureau misunderstood.”
She waited, not understanding what he was trying to tell her. That they had also run Uncle Jim’s fingerprints?
“And when they did,” Jared said softly, “there it was.”
“Uncle Jim’s?”
His gaze sharpened at her question, his eyes really meeting hers for the first time. She knew she’d surprised him, but obviously something was going on, and that was the only thing she could think of that might elicit this kind of response.
“Henry Edwards,” Jared said.
For a moment she couldn’t place the name. And when she did, she realized why Jared looked like this. Captain Henry Edwards. The man Jim McCord had supposedly killed.
“He’s dead,” she said, shivering as if a sudden draft of cold air had touched her. “He’s been dead for thirty years.”
“Apparently not.” Jared’s voice was soft, but very sure.
She tried to think of any way a dead man’s fingerprint could have gotten on that bomb. Jared had had longer to deal with this. He had probably already been through all the possibilities her mind was suggesting. And in the end, he had come up with only one that was really possible. The man McCord thought he had killed so long ago was alive, and the secret he had protected for almost thirty years wasn’t what he had thought it was.
“And now,” Jared said softly, “now we know who else would want those other survivors dead.”
“IT ISN’T POSSIBLE,” McCord said. “I was there. I’m telling you Edwards was dead when we left him.”
They had gotten him out of bed, and he had thrown a bathrobe on over his pajamas. He had taken time to put on his prosthesis, however, and he was limping back and forth in front of the night-blackened wall of windows in his hotel suite.
“So how does his print show up on that bomb?” Jared argued.
“Somebody put it there,” McCord said stubbornly. And then, apparently realizing the massive problems in doing that, he said, “Hell, I don’t know how it got there. I don’t know what it means, but that man was dead when we left him. That I do know.”
“How about the search for the ordnance expert? The last guy on the team?” Whitt Emory asked. “Anything turn up yet on him?”
“The FBI is still running down leads,” Jared admitted. “And the department’s looking into the possibility that one of the protesters out front might be our missing man. That’s a long shot, but Bolton’s got to be somewhere.”
“If you find Bolton,” McCord said, “he’ll tell you the same thing I’m telling you. Henry Edwards was dead when we left him.”
“Look,” Robin said. “This makes sense. It’s the only thing that does make sense. Everybody believed the suggestion the tabloids made yesterday because you were the only one who might benefit from the deaths of those men. They were all dead, so no one else on the team could be questioned about what happened. But what if Jared’s right? What if Edwards wanted that story to come out? What if he intended to see to it that it came out—right now and in such a way as to completely discredit you?”
“Why?” Whitt asked.
“Hell, I shot the man,” McCord said in exasperation. “I thought I’d killed him. I meant to kill the SOB.”
“So after thirty years, he suddenly decides to get back at you?” Whitt asked, his voice skeptical.
“We think Uncle Jim’s decision to run for the presidency set this off,” Robin said. “Edwards couldn’t stand the thought that the man who had...” She hesitated, her eyes finding her uncle. “He couldn’t stand that the man who had shot him might reach such prominence. That he might achieve his dream.”
“Whacko Edwards,” McCord said, his voice soft, filled with memory, his gaze directed out the windows again.
“Was he really?” Robin asked.
McCord turned, his mouth as tight as it had been when he’d seen the tabloid story. “He was a murderer,” he said, the word sharp and distinct and very ugly. “And I was his executioner. I’ve never regretted pulling that trigger. Not one single second since I did it. I’ve regretted what this has done to my family. To my reputation. But if ever a man needed killing, Hal Edwards did. I’m just sorry I didn’t do it right when I had the chance. If I had...” He hesitated before he finished, “If I had, maybe those others would still be alive today.”
The silence was complete. It lasted for a long time, until Robin’s quiet question broke it. “What are you going to do?”
McCord’s mouth pursed, and then he walked over to the table where the afternoon editions were spread out, their headlines more daring than the tabloid’s had been. He picked one of them up and let his eyes run across the line of print, and then, as he had this morning, he threw it down.
“I’m going to tell them. I’m going to tell them everything. About the bomb and the fingerprint. I’m going to tell them about a vindictive bastard who has waited thirty years to take his revenge. About a son of a bitch who’s already killed three good men. And then, after I’ve told them, I’m going to ask for their help. Somebody out there knows where Hal Edwards has been hiding all these years, and I’m going to ask everyone who’ll be watching that broadcast tomorrow night to help me find him.”
Chapter Fourteen
She and Jared had spent the remainder of the night
, what little was left of it, in her room at the hotel. And Robin didn’t think either one of them had gotten much sleep.
There had been too much to think about. The identification of the print left on the bomb. McCord’s decision. And the fact that after tomorrow—after today, she amended, aware that the sun was already filtering in—everything between them would again go back into limbo. Nothing resolved. Nothing changed.
She hadn’t even decided where she would be going when she left New York. To her apartment in Washington or back to the Altamira? And Jared, of course, would still be here.
Nothing had changed. This week, the time they had spent together, had only been an interlude. An intermission, maybe, in a relationship whose outcome had probably always been inevitable.
She had discovered, however, sometime in the darker hours before dawn, that she couldn’t regret they had had these days. And these nights. They had at least reaffirmed what she had always known. Jared loved her. Really loved her.
Just not enough to give up the other thing that he loved. And maybe it wasn’t fair to ask him to. Maybe she was the one who was wrong. Uncle Jim had warned her that she would wake up one day and find she had missed out on everything worth having in life. The car bomb should have been proof of that, she supposed. Instead, it simply reinforced all the old fears.
“What’s wrong?” Jared asked.
She could feel the warmth of his breath against her neck. They were curled together, her back against his chest. His hand flattened over her stomach, a small, caressing movement.
“Thinking about tomorrow,” she said.
“Today,” Jared corrected, lifting enough to see the clock.
“I can’t do anything about what will happen today.”
He was still a moment, obviously trying to understand, and then, when he had, his arms tightened, pulling her closer to the warmth and strength of his body. Exactly where she wanted to be.
“Stay with me,” he whispered. “God, Robin, I don’t think I can stand it if you leave. I swear to you—”
“I can’t,” she said, interrupting whatever he wanted to promise her, because it wouldn’t be the one thing that would make a difference. “I can’t do that again, Jared. I can walk away from you tomorrow, but...I can’t do the other.”
“Robin,” he whispered in protest, but she ignored it.
“I buried my mother,” she said. “And then I buried my father. I can do whatever else I have to do, Jared, but...” When her voice faltered, she strengthened it. “I can’t bury you, too,” she said softly, the absolute bottom of the pit that had always loomed before her.
She felt the depth of the breath he took before he stirred, propping himself on one elbow so he could see her face. She lay back against the pillows, missing the feel of his arms around her.
The planes and angles of his face were harder than she could ever remember. And then his head began to lower, very slowly, giving her time to evade the descent of his lips if she wanted to.
And she didn’t, of course. Whatever happened tomorrow, there was still today. Each hour of it spent with him. Each moment to be savored, cherished and remembered, through the long cold loneliness that would follow. A loneliness that would be of her creating. The result of her cowardice. Her failure.
His mouth was suddenly over hers, and her lips opened willingly to receive his tongue. Each precious hour, she thought again. Then, as his body eased on top of hers, there was no more thought. And no time for regret.
“DETECTIVE CROCKER, Manhattan South,” the voice on the answering machine at Jared’s apartment said when he called to pick up his messages. “We’ve got the protester you were looking for if you want to come down and ID him.”
“Son of a bitch,” Jared said, feeling a surge of excitement he fought to suppress. This didn’t necessarily mean anything.
“What is it?” Robin asked, leaning out of the bathroom door.
“They think they’ve got our protester,” Jared said.
“The bearded guy?”
“They want you to come down and take a look at him.”
“I guess we can do that on the way back,” she said.
“Back?” Jared asked.
“I have to buy a dress.” She disappeared into the bathroom.
Jared shook his head as he pulled the phone directory out of the drawer. He wondered briefly if that was hormonal, too.
“You aren’t going to ask me why?”
Jared had sat down on the edge of the bed and was thumbing through the directory, looking for the listings for the New York Police Department. “Okay, I’ll bite,” he called, picking up the phone and punching in the number for Crocker’s precinct. “Why do you need a dress?”
“Maternity dress,” Robin said, her voice no longer distant.
He looked up and found her standing in the doorway. His eyes fell to her waistline. The peach-colored slip she was wearing pulled tautly across her stomach, riding up in front.
Maternity dress, he thought. Somehow, he hadn’t been thinking that far ahead. He remembered his sisters, looking like they had swallowed a watermelon during those last few months. Robin was still so slim that he was having a hard time reconciling those images, but of course...
“I can’t wear anything I brought with me,” she continued, “and if I have to buy a dress, I thought I might as well make it something I can wear for a while.”
Jared nodded, thrown off balance by the whole notion. Of course, if Robin had her way, he wouldn’t be around at the watermelon stage unless something changed. And from what she had said this morning, that something was going to have to be him.
“Are you calling them back?” she asked.
“We need to make sure they’ve got the right guy.”
“You think he could be Edwards?” Robin asked.
Not something he had considered, but anything was possible. He had thought the protester might be Bolton, so...
“Could be, I guess. Maybe they know something more about him now. The message is a couple of hours old.”
Robin nodded and disappeared into the bathroom. When Jared finally reached Detective Crocker, he found out that they did.
“His name’s Michael Hartley,” Crocker said.
“You print him?” Jared asked.
“First thing. He’s had some minor scrapes with the law. One arrest for vagrancy. An old warrant for a bad check,” Crocker said, obviously reading from a rap sheet. “Nothing like what you’re looking for, though. Nothing connected with bombs.”
“You sure you got the right guy?”
“Description matches. He’s not denying he was at the hotel the day of the riot. He feels the Y2K issue to be vital to the planet’s security,” the Manhattan South detective said, an obvious vein of sarcasm underlying the comment.
“Could you check his prints against military records?”
“That’ll take awhile. Is your friend willing to press assault charges so we can hang on to him?”
“If she has to,” Jared said.
“We’ll hold him as long as we can, but I have to tell you, his ID looks good to me. The picture on his sheet matches.”
“Give me the name again.”
“Michael Hartley,” Crocker said. He spelled the last name, using the military code words after each letter.
“How about sending a set of his prints to Brad Simpkins at the bomb lab?” Jared asked.
“Can do,” the detective agreed. “You need to bring your friend down and do the paperwork today. Sorry about the holiday, but if I’m gonna hold this guy until we check all this stuff out, I’m gonna need a signature on a complaint.”
Holiday. The word reverberated. New Year’s Eve.
“Man, am I glad I’m just on standby tonight,” Crocker continued. “Once a year is enough for me. But once a millennium... Ya know what I mean? This is gonna be worse than a full moon.”
“We’ll get down there today. And thanks,” Jared said.
“Anytime. We got lots o
f empties. At least until tonight.”
Jared put the phone back on the cradle and stood a minute looking down at it. If the guy’s identification checked out, then chances were he wasn’t Carl Bolton. Or Hal Edwards. Either of which would have been a neat conclusion to what had been going on. Apparently nothing about this was going to be neat.
“They don’t think he had anything to do with the bomb?” Robin asked. It was obvious she had been listening.
“They don’t think he’s Bolton. Or Edwards,” he admitted.
“And you really did.”
“It seemed a possibility.”
“So where does that leave us?” Robin asked.
Right back where we were, Jared thought. Very close to nowhere. At least nowhere nearer to having this over.
“LOOK, I NEVER HAD nothing to do with dynamite. I done some other stuff, sure, but I never had nothing to do with no bombs.”
They were watching the interrogation of the bearded man through a two-way mirror. Robin would have to sign an assault complaint against Hartley if they couldn’t get enough to stick on the car bombing to hold him. And the way it looked now, they weren’t going to. His prints didn’t match the one on the bomb.
They hadn’t gotten verification yet that they weren’t a match for Bolton’s, which would be assurance that the ordnance expert hadn’t simply created this alternate identity. Listening to Hartley, however, was rapidly removing that idea from consideration. “I never had nothing to do with dynamite” was not the phrasing one would expect from a demolitions expert.
Apparently, he really hadn’t been targeting Robin that morning. Apparently that had been exactly what she had believed at the time. She had simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time and had gotten caught up in passions of the moment.
“I don’t think he’s your man,” Crocker said, his eyes still on the occupants of the interrogation room. “He doesn’t sound like any demo guy I ever heard. And believe me, I’ve heard a few. A long time ago, maybe, but you don’t forget.”
