by Diana Palmer
Jon chuckled, too. “I’ve never known my mother to be at such a disadvantage with anybody.”
“Me, either,” Kilraven replied. “But let me give you some advice, if you ever get engaged, make sure she wears body armor. If Cammy’s that bad about me, just imagine how she’ll be about you.”
“No worries there. I’ve got too much work on my desk to be thinking about women. Plus Giles Lamont is due for parole soon,” he added darkly.
Kilraven felt uncomfortable at the mention of the man’s name. Jon was the arresting officer in a federal case that had put Lamont, a gambler with underworld ties, behind bars for five years. He’d sworn that he’d kill Jon if he ever got out of prison, even if it meant going back in stir forever, or getting the needle. “You could go to the parole board,” Kilraven began.
“And do what?” Jon asked curtly. “Do you know how many death threats I get a week? He’s just one more. Like they’re going to keep a man in prison just because he threatened a federal officer!”
“Terroristic threats and acts,” Kilraven began.
“Without witnesses,” Jon replied.
Kilraven cursed under his breath. “Listen, you watch your back. You’re the only brother I’ve got.”
“Thanks, I’m fond of you, too,” Jon quipped. “On a more cheerful note, guess who just bought a first-class plane ticket to Nassau?”
Kilraven’s heart skipped. “Senator Sanders’s wife?” he asked hopefully.
“The same. She’s leaving tonight.”
“Then we’re leaving first thing tomorrow,” Kilraven told him. “Keep me in the loop if you hear anything else, okay?”
“Will do. Have a nice trip, and don’t seduce Winnie.”
“What?”
“If she stood up to Cammy, your opinion must be important to her,” came the quiet reply. “Don’t break her heart trying to solve the case.”
Kilraven felt his temper bristling. “My daughter was murdered,” he reminded Jon. “I’ll do anything, hurt anybody, whatever it takes to find her killer. I can’t help it. She was my whole life,” he gritted.
Jon drew in a long breath. “I know how much you loved Melly,” he said gently. “I’m working as hard as I can on the case. But you just remember that several people are already dead because they knew too much, and the people responsible have assaulted two police detectives assigned to the case. Get my drift?”
“I’ll watch my back,” Kilraven promised. “Keep digging. If we can get anything on Hank Sanders, anything that connects him to the DB in Jacobsville or the assaults, we can hang him out to dry. Then we have a way to bargain with him.”
“Bargain with a killer?”
“I’m not convinced that he is one,” Kilraven said suddenly. “It doesn’t sound like a decorated navy SEAL, does it? His big brother likes young girls and he has enough money to buy and sell them. I can’t get that fourteen-year-old girl he drugged out of my mind. Rogers is going to try to find her and talk to her when she gets out of the hospital. If we can get her to talk to an assistant D.A., maybe she’ll implicate the senator. He might plead to lesser charges and confess something.”
“You’re assuming that the Sanders boys were responsible for Melly,” Jon said quietly. “You have no evidence, not a shred, to base that assumption on. Just because one man operates outside the law, it doesn’t mean he kills people.”
“I know that.”
“So walk softly,” Jon continued.
“I will.”
“Sure you will, wearing steel-toed combat boots with spikes.” Jon sighed. “Remember when we were on the FBI Hostage Rescue Team together?” he added, smiling at the memory.
“I do,” Kilraven said. “Those were good days, while they lasted.”
“You jumped in and got shot, thumbing your nose at proper procedure,” Jon reminded him. “That’s why they threw you out.”
“Well, the CIA caught me when the FBI tossed me,” Kilraven mused. “They like people who think outside boxes.”
“Just don’t do any more jumping. Okay?”
“Hey, if I lose it all, I can go back to the ranch and be a cowboy,” Kilraven said. “Or move to Jacobsville and work for Cash Grier.”
“You’d never fit in a small town or on a ranch,” Jon said quietly. “You live for the adrenaline rush.”
“It’s the only thing that keeps me sane,” Kilraven said heavily. “I don’t need a lot of time to sit around and think.”
“That’s why we have video games,” Jon replied. “I’ve got a new one for Xbox 360, Dragon Age Origins and I just signed up for World of Warcraft on the PC.”
“I’m still working my way through Halo: ODST,” came the amused reply. “In fact, I was up until daylight playing it.”
“Gamers are not sane.”
“Speak for yourself.” Kilraven chuckled.
“You take care,” Jon told him. “And if you need help, call me.”
“Hey, I’m taking my own personal dispatch person along with me,” Kilraven replied. “If I need help, she can get it for me immediately!”
Jon chuckled, said goodbye and hung up.
Joceline stuck her head in the door. “I’m going to lunch,” she said. “Would you like a sandwich?”
Wary of her, because she never offered to bring him food, his eyes narrowed as he stared her way. “Would I like…?”
She nodded. “They make great ones at Chuck’s, near the airport road. But if you’re going, you should go now, it gets crowded early,” she told him, grinned and closed the door again.
He threw a book at the door.
“I saw that!” she called back, and kept walking.
KILRAVEN WALKED BACK into the kitchen. “I’ve just booked us on a flight to the Bahamas, first thing in the morning,” he told Winnie, who looked stunned. He glanced at Matt. “Sorry, sport, but you’ll have to go back to the ranch for a while.”
“That’s okay,” Matt said. “Boone’s going to teach me how to ride a horse!”
Winnie grinned. “You couldn’t be in better hands,” she assured him. “I’ll miss you.”
“You could take me along,” Matt told her, grinning.
“Oh, sure, we’re pretending to be on a honeymoon with my kid brother tagging along. I’m sure everyone would believe that,” Winnie mused.
“Just kidding,” Matt said. He shook his head. “Life’s funny, isn’t it? A few days ago it was just Mom and me. She got shot and now I have a whole family.” He looked at Winnie affectionately. “It’s nice.”
She smiled. “Very nice.”
Kilraven glanced at his watch. “If we’re going to see your mother, we need to leave pretty soon. We’ll have to have time to get the future Halo champ moved.”
“Me?” Matt asked. “I’ve only gotten past the first level.”
“In one day,” Kilraven said with mock disgust. “Took me three.”
“Wow!” Matt enthused.
“Let’s go,” Kilraven told his companions.
“But the dishes,” Winnie began, nodding toward them, stacked in the sink.
“The dishes can wait,” he said. He wasn’t rude, but he said it with an odd note in his voice, as if he didn’t like having her work around his apartment.
She held up both hands. “Okay. It’s your apartment,” she said, and managed a smile. “I’ll just grab my purse and my coat. Matt, can you get yours…?”
“Sure.” He buzzed off toward the spare bedroom.
KILRAVEN WAS SOMBER all the way to the hospital. He smiled at Matt and talked video games with him, but there was a sudden coolness in his manner toward Winnie. She couldn’t help but notice it. She wondered if she’d offended him by making breakfast.
They found Gail sitting up in bed, but less animated than she had been.
“Third day,” Kilraven said, nodding. “It’s always the worst one.”
“I’m finding that out,” Gail replied after she’d hugged Matt and her daughter lightly. She was favoring the arm on the
side where she’d been shot. “It hurts like hell and I’m running a temp. The doctor is gloating. I tried to make him let me go home yesterday, and he wouldn’t. Now I see why. It would be all right if he wasn’t so damned smug about it,” she muttered.
Kilraven chuckled. It was the first hint of humor in him since they’d left the apartment. “He was the same way with Marquez,” he told her. “But he might have a case on you. He’s divorced.”
“He’s years too old for me,” Gail said haughtily.
Kilraven lifted both eyebrows. “He’s a year older than you are.”
“Exactly,” Gail said.
Winnie burst out laughing.
Gail’s eyes twinkled at her. But she was feverish and subdued because of the pain.
They didn’t stay long. Winnie and Matt didn’t want to tire their mother. Winnie made sure she had Boone’s cell phone number.
“Yes,” Gail said softly. “He and Clark and Keely came to see me last night. I didn’t realize how much Clark and Matt favor each other.”
“Boone was probably reserved, wasn’t he?” Winnie asked, nodding when her mother looked surprised at the comment. “He’s always like that until he gets to know you. It’s been a long time.”
“He’s very much like your father,” Gail said. “He has the same strength and he’s just as reserved, but you always know you can depend on him.”
“Yes,” Winnie said, and she smiled.
“Clark’s a great gamer,” Matt told her. “He’s been showing me new ways to use grenades! It’ll be great training for when I grow up and join a rolling SWAT team,” he added with twinkling dark eyes.
Gail groaned. “No! You are not joining a SWAT team, and I don’t care how fast you are in that thing!” she indicated the wheelchair.
“That’s just jealousy,” Matt told his sister. “She tried to get into SWAT, but they said she was too old.”
“Too old!” Gail burst out. “Can you imagine?”
“Delicately aged wine requires careful handling,” Kilraven said smoothly, repeating one of his favorite adages.
Gail looked at him. “You drunk?” she asked sharply.
He glowered. “I was trying to make you feel better.”
“Good idea. Go find the so-and-so who put me in the hospital and lock him up for twenty years, that will make me feel better!”
“Sorry, we have another priority right now. Winnie and I are flying down to Nassau tomorrow.”
Gail’s eyes narrowed. She turned to Matt. “How about taking a dollar and getting me a soft drink at the canteen?” she asked him.
“Sure! You want a Coke?”
She nodded. She started to reach in her drawer, but Kilraven was quicker. He handed Matt a dollar bill. “Don’t use it to impress girls,” he teased.
“Some impression this would make,” Matt scoffed. “These days, it takes a Jaguar.” He pursed his lips. “You’re my brother-in-law. How about loaning me the Jag in four years when I start dating?”
“Get out of here,” Kilraven said in mock anger.
Matt chuckled all the way out the door.
Kilraven moved closer to the bed, all teasing gone out of him. “The senator’s wife is on her way to her beach house. It sides on property the Sinclairs own,” he said. “Winnie’s going with me so that we can get to know her, in hopes that she might feel confident enough to share some information about her brother-in-law.”
“You got married to pump a suspect’s relative?” Gail exclaimed.
Kilraven glared at her. “I’m not ruining Winnie’s reputation by having her live with me for several days while we court the senator’s wife.”
Gail smiled. “You’re not a bad guy, Kilraven.”
“Yes, he is,” Winnie mused, but her eyes twinkled.
Kilraven gave her a wink, laughing when she flushed.
“Well, both of you be careful,” Gail cautioned. “These people play for keeps.”
“You’re good with hunches,” Kilraven said. “What do you think? Are we following a cold trail, or could the senator’s brother have a stake in this case?”
Gail was silent for a minute. “I don’t really know. I think the senator’s up to his ears in parts of it,” she said. “I want to talk to the mother of that young girl who was found dead.”
He was somber. He’d thought about questioning the teen who lived, but never about asking the mother of the girl who was found dead. “You think she might know something more than she told the police at the time it happened?”
“Could be. She supposedly went on a date and turned up dead in a condition where her own family wouldn’t have recognized her, just like our DB on the Little Carmichael River. Her car was even found next to a river. It just seems too close to be a coincidence.”
“I agree. But it would be a long shot.”
“I’m famous for long shots.”
“You won’t get out of here for several days,” Kilraven said.
“Not unless I can K.O. the doctor.” Gail sighed.
“When we get back, maybe we’ll have some new information to work with. Meanwhile, I’ve got a buddy watching out for you, just in case your assailant comes calling again.”
“I’m a cop,” she pointed out.
“Yes, and your department’s budget is less than my annual video game allowance,” he said sarcastically, “so I don’t imagine they’re lining up for overtime to trail you.”
She grimaced.
“My buddy is between jobs and he loves catching crooks. You won’t see him or know who he is, but he’ll be around.”
“Thanks, Kilraven,” she said.
“You’re my temporary mother-in-law.” He chuckled. “It’s the least I can do.”
“Don’t turn your back, even in Nassau,” Gail cautioned them. “The senator’s wife may accept you being there on face value, but I’m betting her husband wouldn’t. One thing I did find out before I was shot—there’s an old family retainer, Jay Copper. He’s very protective of Senator Sanders. There’s been gossip that he’s really the senator’s father. He was in prison for several years for a messy homicide, got out on a technicality. Anyway, he was charged at least once with intimidating a reporter who was digging into that statutory rape case. Threatened to have his family blown up with a shotgun.”
Kilraven’s intake of breath was audible.
“Yes, I thought that might sound familiar.” Gail nodded, her eyes cold. “Copper doesn’t like Hank Sanders or the senator’s wife, Patricia. One of my contacts said that the main reason Patricia stays out of the senator’s way is because she’s afraid of Copper.”
Kilraven’s eyes narrowed. “I heard something about that old guy. They called him copperhead, back in the seventies, when he was supposedly involved in drug trafficking in Dallas.”
“That’s the one. He’s still on the job, intimidating everybody he can to keep the senator nice and safe.”
“What about Hank Sanders?”
She pursed her lips. “Now isn’t that an interesting question. I went to see Garon Grier down at the Bureau a few days before I was shot, and guess who was waiting for him in the parking lot, trying not to be seen?”
Kilraven’s heart jumped. “Hank Sanders.”
She nodded. “Why is a notorious criminal keeping company with one of the more notorious conservative FBI agents?”
“There’s another curious fact. Hank was a decorated navy SEAL.”
She pursed her lips. “That turns us in a whole other direction. And I have a theory.”
“So do I,” Kilraven replied. “But we’ll keep that between us until Winnie and I get back from the Bahamas. Maybe we can find out more.”
“Even if Jay Copper didn’t go with Patricia Sanders to the Bahamas, ten to one he’s got one of his goons there keeping an eye on her,” Gail added. “Word was that she was trying to divorce the senator, until Copper mentioned that it would hurt the senator in the polls and he wouldn’t like her to try it. She backed off at once.”
> His eyes narrowed. “I get the idea.”
“Be careful,” she told him firmly.
“I’m always careful.” He smiled as he glanced at Winnie. “And don’t worry. I’ll take care of your daughter.”
Winnie smiled, but she wished he’d said “my wife” instead of Gail’s daughter. Still, it was early days yet. She had time to make an impression. He was quite obviously hungry for her. And where there was smoke, there was fire.
13
They got off the plane in Nassau with the rest of the business-class section and even though it was winter back in the United States, it was perpetual summer in the Bahamas. They looked out the window of the terminal as they came onto the concourse. People were walking around in shorts.
“Why did I wear a coat?” Winnie groaned.
“Because you were cold?” Kilraven mused. “Come on. Let’s get in the line for customs.”
“It will be slow. It always is.”
“Are we in a race?” he asked.
She hit him.
THEY LOOKED LIKE A society couple. Winnie was wearing a trim, very expensive cream-colored couture pantsuit with designer high heels and purse. Kilraven was wearing silk slacks and shirt and an expensive jacket. He made a point of telling the customs official that he and Winnie were newlyweds on their honeymoon. They walked out of the terminal past a steel drum band, unconsciously moving to the rhythm of the music.
A limousine that Kilraven had hired when he made the reservations was waiting for them. It whisked them along the winding road that led from the airport, past Cable Beach, to the road that led to the exclusive section of New Providence where so many millionaires had summer homes.
“Isn’t it beautiful?” she asked, looking out the tinted window. “The first time we came here, I must have been about four years old. I saw the white sand and all the incredible shades of aqua and turquoise of the water and asked my parents if it was a painting.”
“I know what you mean,” he said. “Those colors look too vivid to be real.”
“Have you been here before?” she asked.
