by Terry Spear
“The guy I saw didn’t look like he would have written much of anything, except maybe on the art of torture or something,” Deidre said.
“No, nothing like that, that I recall. I picked them up from the post office while you boated with Dave and dropped them off at the apartment. I meant to check out the whole works. I had it in mind I’d send a note to each of the victims with maybe a suggestion or two on how to revise their work. Only problem was I was running out of money, so thought I’d stay with you and earn some dough in the real estate business. I’d worked in the field before, still had a good license, so I figured…”
Dave stirred and Deidre whispered to Charlie, “Maybe when you take me home, I can take a look at those manuscripts. Maybe there’s a clue in there somewhere.” She licked her lips. “Can you get a little water for me? I think the pain medication has made my throat dry.”
“Sure.” He rose from the chair.
She’d been so wrapped up in her own world she hadn’t even asked him how he had done on his first day at the job. “Any luck with sales?”
“First day on the job and I listed two pieces of property.”
Deidre smiled. No matter what, her brother always made her proud. “I knew you could do it. And sales?”
“Only been a day on the job.”
“Sure. Staying up with me all night isn’t going to help either.”
“I slept for a while. It’s poor old Dave who’s finally got a bit of sleep. He’s been holding the fort until now.”
“Did they ever figure out who the guy was in the morgue?”
“A hired killer.”
Dave twisted in his chair. “Deidre.”
He jumped up from the chair he was sleeping on and hurried over to the bed.
Charlie patted her hand. “I’m going to get a bit more rest before work. Dave said he’d take you home and watch over you as soon as they release you from here. Tells me he’s got a story to write and since you’re the focus of the piece, he’ll just have to stick to you.” He kissed her cheek. “See you later this evening.”
Dave sat in the chair beside her. “The police questioned me last night—asked me if I’d shot the man. I couldn’t remember. Did I?”
Chapter 10
Feeling terrible that Dave thought he had shot the raccoon man when Deidre had done so, she shook her head. “You didn’t shoot the man, Dave. You were really out of it.” She closed her eyes, picturing the killer’s perfectly white teeth, and then opened her eyes. “Is he really dead?”
“Laid out in the morgue dead.”
“What had he wanted so badly?”
“Nobody knows. They only found out he’s been hired to kill before, but they don’t know who hired him for this job. Without knowing a why, we can’t figure out what is going on.”
“We?”
“Well, I mean, the police. Of course, I’ve given it a lot of thought being an ex-military police officer. And as you said a reporter on the job likes to know the who, what, when, why, and where of a situation.”
“When can I go home?”
“The doctor’s planning to release you today. He wasn’t happy hearing you returned home in the middle of the night.”
“Maybe I was just sleepwalking.”
Dave smiled.
She could tell something was percolating in that temple of his, just what she wasn’t sure. Maybe he was considering her walking through the corridors with a gown open at the back. She hoped she hadn’t done such a thing. The problem was she rarely remembered sleepwalking. And when someone did tell her about one of her bouts, she’d never remembered a thing. Kind of spooky.
“Charlie was going to get me a drink of water.”
Dave pushed the nurse’s call button. “Water coming right up.”
“Can you see if they’ll release me sooner?”
“You know bureaucracy. They’ll get to it when they have time.”
The nurse brought in a picture of ice water and a cup. “Police just arrived.”
Deidre closed her eyes and opened them. The thought had occurred to her that she had used excessive force. Would she be charged with a crime? Couldn’t she just have wounded him…a little?
The nurse left the room and two officers poked their heads in after her. “Miss Roux? Can we have a word with you for a moment?”
“Sure.”
Dave didn’t move from his place as he held Deidre’s hand.
“Ahem,” the officer said, his blond hair a little longer than military cut, his sharp blue eyes taking in her and Dave, analyzing the situation. “So can you explain what happened exactly?”
“He tried to throw me off my balcony.”
The officer raised his blond brows.
Dave muffled a chuckle. “She means the first time she met the man.”
“Oh, well I was referring to the auto accident and subsequent shooting, Ma’am.”
“He tried to kill me. Three times, Officer. Isn’t that grounds for protecting myself?”
He smiled a little at his partner, a black-haired man with brown eyes nearly black. “All right, miss. In your own words tell me what happened.”
Deidre took a deep breath. The trial had begun and the judge wouldn’t allow all of her testimony. It wasn’t fair. She wouldn’t have shot the man to death just because he’d caused Dave to wreck his vehicle.
“He broke into my apartment and tried to throw me from my balcony. And then he chased me down earlier tonight and tried to ram my car into a concrete overpass.” She took a deep breath as the police officer scribbled down the notes. He nodded to her and she continued. “He had a knife and came at me with it after he blocked our lane with his truck, causing us to crash, for me—the second time that night. I fired. Three times, I think. But I wasn’t sure if he was still standing the third time the gun fired.”
“Yeah, well he had three slugs in him. Just for the record, why did he want you dead?”
“I haven’t a clue. He was searching for something in my apartment, then when he caught sight of me, he tried to kill me.”
“But he got away.”
“With a broken nose, it appeared,” she said.
“What I don’t understand is you were in an earlier wreck caused by the same man. Then you’re in the hospital and leave? The next thing, you’re on the road again, this time in this gentleman’s truck, and the potential killer wrecks Mr. Carter’s vehicle. Why in the world did you leave the hospital in the first place?”
“I don’t like hospitals, Officer. Especially when no one believes someone’s trying to kill me, and I had no one watching my back.”
He took a deep breath. “All right, well, I’ve done a little bit of checking, Miss Roux, and learned a man accosted you at the mall on Friday evening. Was this related?”
“No, not as far as I know.”
Dave was staring at her, a look of disbelief in his dark brown eyes. Yeah, he didn’t have a clue the trouble she could be.
The investigative officer flipped through his book. “And there was this incident at Bremerton’s Dance Club. What about that?”
“No, sir. Not related.”
Dave’s jaw dropped some.
So…she’d been a little busy lately.
“All right. Guess you’ve just had a little more than your share of trouble lately.”
When the officers left the room, Deidre avoided looking at Dave. The silence was killing her.
Before either could say a word, a medical tech rolled a wheelchair into the room. “Cpt. Roux, you’re free to go.”
“I can walk.”
“Hospital policy.”
“I’ll take her down,” Dave said.
Deidre pulled at her cover. “Can you give me a moment, Dave? I need to get out of my designer gown.”
“Certainly. Be waiting outside your room.”
***
As soon as Dave left Deidre’s room, he had one of his men contact the police to get records concerning all police cases she’d be involved in
during the past few months. He couldn’t believe the other cases could be just random. How could she have been involved in all of this trouble?
When she was ready to leave, he helped Deidre into an SUV, and hurried to the driver’s side.
After he was seated beside her, she touched his shoulder. “Are you sure you weren’t injured at all?”
“A bruised rib where the airbag hit the button on my shirt, but otherwise I’m okay.”
Looking relieved, she relaxed. “You don’t think whoever hired this one thug will hire another, do you?”
“I spoke with Charlie about his previous job. I’ve heard this literary agent he worked for was into all kinds of other illegal ventures. Maybe they thought Charlie was involved in some of that.”
“He wasn’t.” She tried to couch the irritation in her voice, but she couldn’t manage.
Dave had to walk carefully around the subject without implying her brother had done anything illegally. They didn’t think so. No evidence had pointed that way. But they just didn’t know for certain. “No, but maybe whoever hired this killer thought he was.”
“I wondered if it had something to do with one of the manuscripts sent to him.”
“Could be. Does he have them? Maybe I could look over some of them after I return you home.” In truth, agents had read through all of them. They just couldn’t find anything in them that meant anything. But they had to keep to the story that he was clueless about what was going on behind the scenes.
Deidre smiled. “Did Charlie tell you some are kind of racy?”
Dave chuckled. “No, he didn’t mention that. Should be fun reading then.” He ran his fingers over her hand in a tender caress. “What was this incident at the mall, the officer spoke of?”
“Just appeared to have been a drug user. He tried to snatch my purse,” she said dismissively.
Even though one of his men was on it, Dave wanted to hear what had happened in Deidre’s own words. It sounded like she was in the midst of criminal acts all of the time.
“And the other? At the dance club? You didn’t say a thing about it.” That had his ire stoked. Was that the reason she’d disappeared for so long? The reason she had to return to the parking lot? Police were outside, questioning her?
“An woman’s angry ex-fiance’.”
“And he did?”
“He threatened the woman with a knife.”
Dave shook his head. “You should have told me.” He noted the shuttered look in her expression, which meant she was keeping something from him. Was she some kind of after-hours vigilante? And here he thought of her as so sweet, innocent, and unable to handle the bad guys.
You’re better than an all right kind of guy, but somehow I don’t think if you knew I had second vision, you’d be too pleased. It was definitely time to change the subject. “What did the editor say about your story?” Deidre asked.
“Who?” He rubbed his chin. “Oh, uh, the paper. They know I can handle the story. Sorry, I guess I didn’t get as much sleep as I needed.”
“I’ll be all right, you know if you want to get some sleep at your place.”
“I don’t think so. Well, maybe, you could stay at my place just in case somebody returns. I’ve been thinking over the matter concerning the killer. One of the police mentioned to me while you were sleeping he had suffered some injuries. I guess from his fall when he jumped from the balcony. It seemed he was more interested in revenge killing rather than looking for whatever he thought you had hidden in your apartment.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah, well, he had a swollen ankle still from spraining it, but more than that, a broken nose, and well, it’s kind of a delicate topic—”
“Yes?” Deidre knew very well where the conversation was headed. Dave probably didn’t think she could be so feisty when it came to defending herself.
“He injured a testicle to the point he had to have it removed. None of the local hospitals knew about it so he must have had the work done on the sly. He was one tough dude, I can tell you.”
She had a time keeping a straight face. “He had all Sunday to rest up, and all of Monday, too.”
“You wouldn’t happen to know how he got a broken nose and lost a—”
“A little Army trick.” Between her brother’s martial arts moves and the Army’s training, she could handle herself in most any situation thrown at her, except when it came to vehicles used as deadly weapons.
“Hand-to-hand-combat training. All right. I’d considered that but he was so big and burly and you’re so petite and fragile looking…”
Deidre laughed. “Tell you what, let’s get one of Charlie’s manuscripts, and we can have a cup of coffee, your place or mine, and go from there.”
“One of the racy ones?”
She chuckled.
***
For an hour, they read on Dave’s couch. Then Deidre’s back hurt while sitting, so they moved to his bed. With her lying on her back, he sat beside her and handed her a page from one of the three manuscripts they selected to read. She read a few lines.
Dave shook his head. “Poor, Charlie. I can’t imagine ruining a good pair of eyes on some of this garbage. Misspelled words, poor grammar, lousy dialogue, no plot that I can see.”
“I can’t see that anyone would have wanted this manuscript back. Look at this. ‘Sir, I have to speak to you.’ Shoot, the author has a technical sergeant speaking to a sergeant major. A sergeant is always addressed as sergeant. An officer is always addressed as a sir. I remember one time one of my cadet friends called a drill sergeant sir. ‘I’m a sergeant not an officer,’ he said. ‘I work for my living.’”
Dave continued to scan over a page while crescent-shaped dimples appeared on his cheeks as his mouth curved up. “Uh-huh.”
“And look here. The sergeant major is in charge of the office, so he’s a command sergeant major, but the author says he’s the commanding officer! Boy, would my boss flip over writing like this. Maybe the killer was a former sergeant in the military and learned of this author’s work and wanted to burn it before it got published.”
Dave chuckled.
“And then look at this. The sergeant major is making the tech sergeant take a class of sixth graders on a field trip. No soldier would be made to perform an unauthorized nonmilitary task. Sixth graders.”
Dave pulled her page from her grasp and handed her another. “Look for reasons someone would want to steal this.”
“Only to burn it.” She scanned over the next page and chortled.
“This one doesn’t appear to have anything in here that would’ve been of any importance,” Dave said. “I wonder how many Charlie’s got stacked up in the closet.”
“Plenty, I’m sure. They reached up to the bottom edge of several of his shirts. Be sure to get a more interesting read for the next one.”
***
After two hours, they finished combing through the first of the manuscripts. “No, nothing.” Deidre raised her hand for the first page of the next one.
She didn’t turn her head as it hurt every time she did. Instead of getting a sheet of paper, warm fingers wrapped around her hand. She smiled and pressed Dave’s hand back. “Yes?”
“You’ve had enough for the moment. You wince every time I hand you a page. Don’t you think it’s about time to take some more pain medication?”
“All right, Doctor Dave.”
He kissed her cheek and hurried out of the room.
She closed her eyes, and when he walked back into the bedroom she opened them.
“The doctor said you needed to get plenty of rest.” He helped her to sit and offered her a pill and a glass of water. “Would you be more comfortable with just one pillow to sleep on?”
“Yes, thank you.”
He pulled the extra pillow away, then threw it on the other side of the bed. After easing her back, he covered her with his quilt. “I’m going to scan through the next manuscript right next to you.”
“All right.”
She closed her eyes while the bed jiggled as he sat.
For half an hour, she reran the visions of the black-haired man in her mind. Then she slept, drifting in and out of consciousness as stabs of pain shot across her upper back.
In her vision, a grumpy voice invaded the quiet as papers rustled. More shuffling, more grumbles, and then silence. The silence meant he knew she stood watching him—an invader into his private business—whatever that was.
He rose from his crouched position, his back still turned to her. He was rusty-haired and tall like Dave and her brother. She held her breath, waiting for him to turn. Did he have gleaming white teeth like raccoon man? Were his eyes as black and hard and cold as steel?
His hands worked in front of him, hidden from her view. She’d turned to stone…her feet cemented to the floor. Her pulse beat rapidly. She couldn’t tear her eyes from him. Then a funny noise disturbed the quiet—a gurgle in his throat? What was the noise she heard?
She turned her head suddenly, wrenching her neck in pain. In the next instant, she grinned as Dave’s head dropped back, his mouth wide open, created snoring sounds.
Manuscript pages lay scattered all over the bed and one still rested on his lap. Either the story put him to sleep, or all of their late night excursions had plum tuckered him out.
She reached over and read one of the pages.
Avery slid his fingers into her blouse…just another inch and he’d feel the…
Deidre chuckled. No wonder he had wanted her to sleep for a while. He wanted to read one of those racy manuscripts. Sighing deeply, she tossed the page to the bed. She studied his tan legs. He had the best looking legs she’d ever seen on a man. And his T-shirt fit snugly across his firm chest. She reached up and touched his cheek.
Crawling over carefully so as not to disturb him or hurt her back, she rested her head against his chest and draped her arm over his waist. Her fingers caressed his stomach, and his snoring stopped. With his heartbeat thumping rhythmically in her ear, she slept. This time no nightmares disturbed her slumber.
***
Dave woke to find Deidre cuddled on top of him. He hated to disrupt her peaceful sleep, but he had to check in with his men. With as much care as he could take, he slipped out from under her, resituating a pillow underneath her to prevent her from moving her back and causing more pain.
