“I thought so, too. The only people I could think to worry about last night were Susan and Aurore. That is, until I saw that man in the garden.”
Dylan looked more closely at Tammie then, saw the droop of her posture, the dark lines under her blue eyes, which were puffy, as if she hadn’t had much sleep.
Well, at least he hadn’t been the only one.
“There’s time enough to ask them about it later,” he said. “Why don’t you take a load off while I pick up some things from the campground store? We can throw together some breakfast here. Carol, the waitress at the diner, is a sweet girl, but she has big ears. She can retell a conversation verbatim to the other waitresses the moment her customers walk out the door. I’ve seen her do it.”
Tammie laughed. “You have?”
He nodded. “You wouldn’t believe the things you learn when you know how to listen when no one is noticing.”
“Such as?”
“Serena Davco has lived her whole life in that mansion. Right here in this town. Yet hardly anyone ever sees her. I know how to read people. Every time I asked about her, people knew her name, but couldn’t say much about her. For someone who is the daughter of a prominent member of the community, people don’t know her at all. I find that strange.”
“Maybe it’s best to stay a little hidden for a while. Given the fact that Serena is practically my double, I’d rather the whole world not come to the conclusion that I’m her.”
“If they haven’t already,” Dylan added.
#
Chapter Five
Tammie sat at the picnic table at the campsite while Dylan walked to the campground store. She was still on West Coast time, and the hour she’d gotten out of bed this morning was totally illegal, as far as her body’s clock was concerned. But it hadn’t made much sense to stay in a bed that wasn’t even hers, when she couldn’t sleep.
The house had been quiet when she left. Serena had still been in bed. If Aurore was around, she hadn’t seen her. As Tammie came down the stairs, she’d seen Susan carrying a load of freshly laundered towels, but she didn’t think Susan had seen her.
Not that it mattered. She wasn’t hiding from anyone. But she had given a moment’s thought to whether or not they’d let her back in the door when she returned. It wasn’t as if she had a key.
Tammie was half in a daze, her fist propped under her chin and her elbow resting on the table, when she heard whistling. She turned to see Dylan walking up the dirt trail, carrying two paper bags brimming with groceries. Tammie lifted herself from the position she’d been sitting in and met him halfway down the trail to retrieve one of the bags.
“Thanks,” he said with a smile.
“Are you always this chipper in the morning?”
He glanced at the sky. “No, not always. But I figure there’s a blue sky and a bright sun hanging over me. The birds were singing as my eyes opened, and kids were playing in the park across from the store. That makes it a good day. If you’ve seen as many foreign lands as I have, witnessed the carnage that can go on in the world, you learn to take each day as a blessing, despite the frustrations of life.”
Tammie smiled, almost ashamed that her mood had remained glum and she hadn’t taken notice of the day like Dylan had.
“It’s been a long time since I’ve felt that way, I’m afraid.” She bounced the bag in her arms. “What do you have in here, anyway—textbooks? It’s so heavy!”
“I just about grabbed everything I could get my hands on. I was ready to eat the whole store,” he said, shrugging. “I skipped dinner last night.”
“Ah. My mother always said to never go shopping on an empty stomach.” She stopped short at the memory. But Dylan didn’t seem to notice how the mention of her mother affected her.
He opened the camper door and stepped inside, holding the door for her to follow. “Scrambled eggs okay with you?” he asked.
“I’d kill for some scrambled eggs right now.”
“I wouldn’t say that too loud. Someone might take it the wrong way. Are you a good cook?”
She chuckled. “Passable. But no one has ever complained.”
“That’s good enough for me.”
The camper was an older model, with a bedroom in the far end and a tight living room and kitchen area. At least it afforded enough elbowroom that two people didn’t have to bump into each other every time they turned around.
Tammie opened the cabinet above the stove and found an assortment of plastic dishes and cups in a variety of colors. She pulled out the four-cup coffeemaker and set it on the counter.
“I hope you bought a lot of coffee. We’re going to need a refill on this.”
Dylan chuckled and lit the pilot light on the burner. As he began whipping eggs and pouring them into a buttered pan, Tammie filled the coffeemaker and looked for the largest mugs she could find.
Questions that had been rolling around in her head the night before started to become clearer again as the smell of coffee filled her senses.
“What happened to your brother?” she finally asked.
Dylan stirred the eggs, seeming to weigh his words as he thought. It made Tammie wonder all the more about what a former Marine turned Providence cop was doing in this small Massachusetts town. What could have happened to Cash to bring him out here?
“You don’t know my brother,” he finally said.
“So tell me about him.”
He shook his head. “You won’t understand what I’m trying to say.” His voice was low, betraying a worry that Tammie was sure he felt every day. If someone she loved went missing, she didn’t know how she’d handle it.
“What’s the problem?”
He stopped stirring the eggs, turned off the burner and grabbed the plates Tammie had put down next to the stove.
“It’s not that easy to explain the kind of man Cash is. Without that, I’ll end up sounding like I’m defending him. He doesn’t need defending. There are those who’d just as soon hang him as look at what I see in him.”
Startled, she turned directly to him. “Hang him?”
He stopped short, pausing with the pan over a half-filled plate of eggs, then resumed. “That’s just a figure of speech. But trust me, sometimes it feels like a lynching. You see, despite Cash never being in the military, he had a way about him that always reminded me of a code. Honor and respect are at his core.”
“Both are admirable traits.”
“Yes. Even though he’s always been good at taking care of himself, I’m afraid he let his judgment of others slip.”
She lowered her eyes and then raised them back to him. “You mean with Serena.”
“Among others. If you don’t know him like I know him, it’s easy to come to the same conclusion as everyone else.”
“I’m not like everyone else.”
“I’m beginning to believe that.” And then he looked at her directly and smiled.
Tammie fought hard to keep from showing her surprise. Bill always challenged her thinking. Told her she was being ridiculous where her suspicions were concerned. It was refreshing to hear someone say he believed her.
“So tell me about Cash.”
“He’s a good man, Tammie. I’m not saying he didn’t get into his share of mischief when he was a kid. We both riled up our parents pretty often with our pranks, and my mom attributes all her gray hairs to us.” He flashed a quick grin.
“That’s just kid stuff. I’ll bet most mothers of boys would say the same thing.”
“Exactly. But there are some people in the DEA that are trying to paint Cash in a bad way.”
“He was in the Drug Enforcement Administration?”
Dylan nodded. “What they’re saying just doesn’t add up to the man I know.”
She smiled. “It does sound like you’re defending him. You don’t have to do that.”
Dropping the empty pan into the sink, he picked up the plates of scrambled eggs. “Well, there are a whole lot of people judging him. Or they would be, if they could
find him. I guess I’m being overprotective.”
“What do you mean?”
“Let me back up. Sonny—that’s my kid sister, Sonia—had written to me when I was overseas that something funny was going on with Cash. She couldn’t quite put a finger on what it was and for a long time I just thought she was exaggerating. I mean, she was a kid. She’d just finished college and she…was a little emotional about everything. I thought it was just drama and growing up stuff making her paranoid.”
“I’m sure she appreciated your cliché assessment of her worries.”
His lips lifted to a half grin. “No, she didn’t.”
She took a paper plate and stacked the buttered toast she’d prepared while Dylan talked. She put it on the table, and poured the black coffee. She motioned to indicate the milk in her hand.
“A little bit, thanks,” he replied.
After stirring the coffees, she brought them to the table and sat down opposite him.
“Cash never said anything to you about what was going on?”
“Not a word. Not to Sonny, my parents, or me. That in itself was odd. But as I said, he was DEA. I just figured it was something he couldn’t talk about. Plus…”
“What?”
He shrugged. “It’s hard to read between the lines in letters. Sonny beat around the bush a little. She always wrote me, but the letters started coming more frequent. And then one day Sonny spelled it out so I wouldn’t get it wrong, sending me a letter that just said I needed to come home. Now.
“The timing was right. I was getting ready to reenlist for another four years. Had the paperwork all filled out just not submitted to my CO. I decided to come stateside instead. It wasn’t until I got here that I saw how right Sonny was and how foolish I’d been not to take her concerns seriously.”
Dylan seemed so naked when he talked of his family and Tammie was struck by how comfortable he seemed to be that way. Even with her. It was clear that he loved his family and held them in great regard. It was refreshing. Too often, she’d met men who preferred to strike out on their own. Family life became a token visit once a year during the holidays or for a family function. But there was no real connection.
Tammie had grown up as an only child. While she had close friends, she’d missed the kind of relationship one could have with a sister or brother. She’d always wondered if that would have helped with the loneliness she felt after her parents’ deaths.
“If he didn’t say anything to you and he didn’t tell your sister, how did you know?”
Dylan’s face changed. She tried to read his expression, but he showed his pain for only a brief moment and then it was gone.
“When I came home, I confronted him about Sonny’s concerns. He wouldn’t look me in the eye.”
When she didn’t say anything, he shook his head and went on. “You have to understand, we’re brothers. No matter what, Cash and I had never kept secrets from each other. We were partners in crime growing up.”
He seemed to wince at his own words, as if he’d realized what he’d said, and he paused for a moment. His voice was low when he continued.
“From the time we were able to walk, we shared everything. We roomed together, from the cradle all the way through college, until I went into the Marines. You learn things about a person when you’re lying in the dark like that. You’re not afraid to say things when you think no one is looking at you, judging you.” He pointed to her eggs. “You should eat before that gets cold.”
Tammie had been so engrossed in the conversation that she hadn’t even touched her breakfast. She picked up her fork, but just pushed the food around on the plate.
“Do you have any sisters or brothers?”
Tammie thought of Serena. “I didn’t grow up with any siblings.” Just saying the words pierced her heart. What family she knew was dead. Except...
She wouldn’t go there. There was no evidence, other than what she’d seen at the Davco mansion. Looking like Serena and Serena’s mother didn’t make them immediate family. There were lots of cases of doppelgangers walking around, not knowing that there is someone also walking around who looks just like them. For all she knew, Serena was a distant relative. She couldn’t get her hopes up that Serena was her sister.
Dylan nodded. “Family is important. It has a way of keeping you steady. When you grow up with a brother or a sister, you just know things about them that aren’t expressed in words. Something was up with Cash, something he didn’t want anyone to know. And Serena Davco is at the core of it.” His face grew hard, but she knew his anger wasn’t aimed at her. He clearly blamed Serena for his brother’s disappearance.
“I don’t get it. Why do you think I’d judge Cash?”
He looked at her directly now, a flash of anger striking his eyes and then disappearing. “Because he’s being judged by everyone, and now hunted down like a dog because of it.”
“You’re talking in riddles.”
Dylan sighed, dropped his fork and sat back in his seat. “A few months ago I learned he was being investigated for drug trafficking.”
“Oh, I see.” She hadn’t expected anything like that.
“No, you really don’t. Right before he went missing, he was arrested. None of us knew about it. He told no one. No one but Serena Davco.”
“Serena?”
“Yes. At first, I thought it was all a mistake. Cash must have been undercover and this was just a ploy to get more information about drugs coming into the US. But the DA in Miami said they had a strong case. Fingerprints and video. He didn’t do what they said he did.”
“Your loyalty to him is admirable. I’m sure I would—”
“He didn’t do it,” he insisted. “You see, it’s not just that I love my brother and know he could never be a party to giving drugs to kids. It’s more than that.”
“That is what they’ve accused him of?”
“More or less.”
Trying to remain neutral, Tammie tried to take the side of reason. “You said they had fingerprint and video evidence that led the authorities to that conclusion.” When he just stared, she added. “I’m not saying I don’t believe you. I’m just wondering how the authorities could have charged him with a crime as serious as drug trafficking if they didn’t have some kind of evidence against him. I’m just trying to understand it from your point of view.”
That would be impossible, and Tammie knew it. She didn’t know Cash. She didn’t love him the way Dylan did. And she didn’t have the unconditional trust that came from living and sharing a home with someone all your life.
Dylan seemed to understand the tactic she was taking. “My brother was DEA. Had been for years.”
“You mentioned he was in the DEA earlier.”
“He’d made a trip to Colombia not long ago. He said it was business, but...” He scratched his head. “The people at the DEA said he didn’t have business in Colombia. Or Miami which is where they’d arrested him. He didn’t say anything to me about it and I never questioned him traveling. He traveled a lot for his job. So it wasn’t unusual. The prosecutor is claiming that the only business he had in Colombia was to arrange to bring drugs into Miami.”
“The prosecutor just pulled that out of thin air?” she asked delicately.
Dylan leaned back in the seat and scrubbed his hand over his head, leaving his hair slightly disheveled. “No. They found a stash in his car. A brick of cocaine. The bag had been pierced as if someone had used it as a sample. Cash was framed.”
“You know that for sure?”
“I’m a police officer and I’d been in the military for years. My instincts are spot on. When someone offers a brick of cocaine as a sample of goods, they leave it for the buyer. They don’t take it with them. Now, the prosecutor could easily say that he’s the buyer, but Cash doesn’t have that kind of money. I’ve been to his apartment. Since I’ve been back in the States, I regularly watch his place when he travels.”
“Collect the mail and feed the fish?” she asked.
He smiled for the first time since the conversation about his brother started. “Something like that. I’ve seen his bank account. The papers were on his desk. He always was a bit of a mess.”
Dylan chuckled and shook his head. Then he sobered. “I knew Cash was in trouble before he even got home. I went over to his place, like usual, and it had been raided. At first I thought it was a break-in. But the DEA came in while I was there. They were pissed I was there, as if I’d somehow interrupted something. I showed them my badge before they had a chance to use some muscle on me. They had a warrant. That’s how I found out Cash had been arrested. I’m not sure he would have told me if I hadn’t confronted him.”
“Maybe he just didn’t have a chance. You said he was down in Miami.”
“Everyone gets a call. He didn’t call me. Why? I saw the police report. I made sure I went over it with a fine-tooth comb. The report is clean. Too clean. It’s like someone scripted the whole scene as a test to give new officers. But he’s looking at getting locked away for life for something he didn’t do.”
She took a sip of her coffee, which had started to get cold, held both hands around the cup and stared at it.
“You don’t believe me.”
Tammie raised her gaze to him and shrugged. “I don’t really know you or your brother at all. But I believe you believe he’s innocent.”
“Because of the charges, and the fact that he traveled so extensively, the judge set bail at a cool million. Serena Davco paid it. She put up one hundred thousand dollars for Cash to be released. You don’t do that unless you know something.”
Tammie didn’t know what to say. “The woman I saw at the mansion was incapable of walking. I can’t imagine how she could have handled getting funds for a bail bondsman to free Cash.”
“The last thing Cash said to me was that he was coming to Eastmeadow because Serena needed him. She wasn’t safe. He’d never uttered her name before. He didn’t tell me who she was or what she was to him. Just that he had to go. I’ve never seen him like that. No one has seen him since.”
“I can understand now why you were so eager to talk to Serena.”
Reckless Hours: a Romantic Suspense novel (Heroes of Providence Book 3) Page 7
