Protector With A Past

by Harper Allen

  He had to be Vincent DiMarco.

  All he was wearing was a silk dressing robe that stopped well short of his bony knees and was dangerously close to slipping completely open in front. Even as the thought went through her mind, the opulent fringed tie belt came undone. He was also wearing a pair of chartreuse silk boxers, she saw in relief.

  "How the hell—" Cord was staring at Vittorio, who returned his look blandly. "The department's been looking for him for days!" he exploded.

  "Obviously not in the right place," Vittorio said. "There are two highly accomplished Swedish girls he's been seeing lately … twins. You think we interrupted his language lesson?"

  "Let me go, damn you!"

  His robe flapping ridiculously open, revealing a chest that looked like a bear rug and a number of glinting gold chains, Vincent DiMarco shouted into the impassive faces of the men propelling him forward.

  "This is a betrayal, Vittorio!" As Falcone's men shoved him roughly toward their table, his arms still firmly pinioned to his sides, the man's attitude was blusteringly outraged but his Adam's apple bobbed as he spoke, betraying his fear.

  "A betrayal of what?" Falcone's voice was icy and Julia knew she was seeing a side of him that she had deliberately closed her eyes to before. "You've been dealing in eroina, no? Heroin?" DiMarco opened his mouth but before he could speak the old man waved a contemptuous hand. "No lies, remember? You have been watched for some time now, Vincenzo, and I know almost all of it already. This interview would have come soon enough, but this way I can do a favor for a friend. You thought to expand your turf, and you decided that maybe the old falcon was too blind and too weary to know what was happening in his territory. That was a mistake, but not your first one … and not your biggest one."

  He frowned. "However, for now we want to know what your involvement was in the deaths of the police detective and his wife. Again—lying is not in your best interests, Vincenzo."

  There was steel in the old man's voice, but something else too, Julia thought. The hairs at the back of her neck prickled apprehensively. It came to her that for the first time in her life she was hearing what pure, unadulterated hatred sounded like not anger, not fury, but a hate so dark and so deep that it seemed like no human emotion at all.

  The flip side of hatred was love. Suddenly she knew why Vittorio Falcone, Anthony's grandfather, hated Vincent DiMarco so thoroughly and so well. She was looking at a dead man, she thought. Her stomach lurched.

  The next moment Cord's hand had reached for hers under the table. His attention was still fixed on DiMarco, awaiting his answer, but his strong fingers wrapped around hers firmly, as if he knew how much of an ordeal this was for her.

  She'd told herself she couldn't start depending on his strength again, that it wasn't fair. To hell with fair, Julia thought, gripping Cord's hand as tightly as she could and wishing she never had to let go. Tomorrow she could start being fair and sensible and detached again. Right now she needed him, and the touch of his hand on hers made her feel like she'd come home after being lost for a long, long time.

  "No, Don Falcone! That was nothing to do with me—I swear it!" DiMarco's complexion was ashy. He had been trying ineffectually to pull the edges of his robe together, but now he abandoned the attempt. "I may have been considering how best to deal with the problem—yes, I confess, I had set up a small sideline that I had not yet informed you about, but—"

  "You're lying again. I have no time for this." Falcone made a small motion of dismissal and turned to Cord. "I will call you in a few hours. We will have the truth for you then."

  "I can prove it, Don Falcone!" The half-clad man looked as though he was about to faint. He swayed in his chair, and his hand clutched at Falcone's arm desperately.

  "Never touch me." Vittorio repressed a shudder and Julia knew that her suspicions had been correct. "An alibi is worthless. You paid someone to do the deed for you, Vincenzo."

  "Yes—I did." Sweat glistened on the pallid face. "I paid someone to attach a device to his car, Don Falcone! If Durant had lived until the next morning, when he started his car it would have exploded. That's what I had planned."

  "He's telling the truth," Cord said flatly. He turned to Julia. "Lopez told me this afternoon that they'd seen signs that Paul's vehicle had been tampered with. Luckily somebody used their head and called in the bomb squad before another cop got killed. And that information hasn't been released to the media, Falcone," he added to Vittorio. "Even you weren't aware of that detail, am I right?"

  The old man shook his head. "I have my sources, but there wasn't even a whisper."

  "You're lucky, DiMarco." Cord stood up. Even beside Falcone's men he gave a formidable impression of sheer physical strength and dangerous power, but unlike them he had a quality of restraint holding that strength in check.

  "This was not what you had hoped for. I'm sorry," Vittorio started to get to his feet.

  "I can give you a name, Don Falcone!" DiMarco had been dabbing at his forehead with a paper serviette, but now he leaned forward eagerly.

  "We should leave," Cord said in an undertone. "If he starts spilling information about mob business I'll have to pass it on, and that could implicate Vittorio. Come on." He started to turn away.

  "No—wait!" This time DiMarco's clutching fingers fastened on to the edge of Cord's sleeve. He half rose from his seat, but sank back when one of Falcone's men took a step forward. "This is to do with the killings! It's not me you should be talking to—you should be looking in your own back yard!"

  "What are you talking about?"

  Cord turned to the man. Bending over and bracing himself on the tabletop, his palms flat on its surface, he brought his face to within inches of DiMarco's.

  "What do you mean, in my own back yard? Was it another officer who did this?" With a sudden, violent movement he straightened, grabbing the gaudy lapels of the silk gown and pulling DiMarco from his seat. "Tell me!"

  "I don't know!" He struggled ineffectually in Cord's grip, his breath coming in harsh, labored gasps. "But a man came to us weeks ago—said he was willing to sell us inside information about the investigation that your friend was conducting. He said that whatever we wanted to know about Durant, he could find it out for us."

  "His name, dammit!" Cord's face was so close to DiMarco's that they were almost touching. The seam of one of the silk lapels ripped.

  "He said he was a cop—but when I looked into it I found out he'd been fired a few years ago." With a mighty effort DiMarco wrenched out of Cord's grasp, his chest heaving. "His name was Tascoe—Dean Tascoe."

  * * *

  Chapter 7

  «^»

  "I don't want you going back to the house tonight. We'll phone Mary and Frank and tell them we won't be coming by to see Lizbet for a day or so." Cord tapped the brakes of the rented Bronco as a driver in front of him made an illegal lane change. His fingers tightened on the steering wheel. "Tascoe could be following us right now, and I'm not about to lead him to the child."

  "We don't know that DiMarco was telling the truth. You saw the man, Cord—he would have said anything." Julia swallowed. "Do you—do you think the police will get to the club in time?"

  As soon as they'd left Vittorio she'd insisted that they phone Lopez and tip her off to DiMarco's whereabouts. Cord had seen her distress and had complied, but now he glanced quickly at her.

  "They would have been there within minutes of our leaving, believe me—it'll take a lot to convince them that he's not their number one suspect in the murders." They were driving into the setting sun, and he flipped the visor down. From the breast pocket of his jacket he pulled out a pair of Ray-Bans and put them on.

  With his eyes concealed by the dark lenses he looked like a stranger, and Julia found herself studying his face as if he was someone she'd never met, as if he wasn't Cordell Hunter, the boy next door who'd loved her all his life, the familiar best friend of her big brother who'd substituted for Davey after he'd died and until she'd grown up en
ough to see him in a more adult role.

  If she was just meeting him for the first time now, she thought, she would never guess at the tenderness he was capable of. If all she had of him was a passing glance on the street or a few moments of sharing an elevator in silence, she would see the firm mouth, the high, hard cheekbones with the tiny but obvious scar, the thick, midnight-black hair that he raked out of his eyes in an impatient, unconscious gesture now and then. He would seem dangerous and tough and forbidding.

  And for a split second, passing by him on that street or brushing his sleeve as she exited that elevator, she wouldn't be able to repress a sudden weakness, a momentary breathlessness, as she wondered what he would be like in a more intimate setting.

  He exuded total maleness, she thought. And it was foolish pretending that she would only be susceptible to that overwhelming physical aura if she met him as a stranger. He geared the Bronco down and the impenetrably dark lenses were turned her way.

  "Why are you so worried about him, anyway? Falcone's one of the few who draws the line at hard narcotics, I know, but he's not going to have one of his top men whacked for it."

  "DiMarco supplied Falcone's teenage grandson with angel dust six years ago," Julia said flatly. "He had to be trying to get to Vittorio through his family, or maybe he wanted to eliminate the next generation of power so that he could take over when the old man stepped down. I don't have to be a palm reader to know that his lifeline just got abruptly shortened, now that Falcone's guessed it was him who tried to eliminate Anthony."

  "I knew I was missing something during that meeting," Cord said slowly. "You're sure about this?"

  "I saw the hate in Vittorio's eyes." Her own were bleak as she looked at him. "You're right. He wouldn't let a business problem bother him. What he felt toward DiMarco was very, very personal … and maybe I don't blame him for what he wants to do to the man."

  She felt guilty even for admitting it, but along with the guilt was a flicker of defiance. Vittorio Falcone's code was simple, and if someone broke it his retribution was brutal, but there was one part of it that she couldn't argue with. Children were to be protected. No matter what internecine war was raging around them in his world, they were to be kept out of it. DiMarco had violated that code.

  "It's easy to let the boundaries blur when you're dealing with scum like DiMarco." There was a warning note in Cord's voice. "Look at Dean Tascoe—he used to be a pretty decent cop before be decided he could mete out his own brand of justice. Now there's a good chance he's a murderer."

  "How do you figure that? Even if DiMarco was telling the truth, all we know is that Tascoe was willing to sell information," she argued. "He's bitter and he blames everyone except himself for losing his badge, but why would he target Paul specifically—even to the point of killing Sheila and wanting to hurt a little girl?"

  "Paul backed me up on that report I made on Tascoe," Cord said shortly. "Without his corroboration it would have been my word against a detective who'd been on the force for almost twenty years. Tascoe had major clout, and there I was trying to get him ousted because Paul and I had walked in on him and a buddy pistol-whipping a sadistic little pimp that everyone thought deserved it anyway." He hesitated, and Julia saw his mouth tighten. "Hell, even I wouldn't have shed any tears if I'd been told that Billy Wolfe's body had been found in an alley somewhere."

  "So why did you report Tascoe, if you felt like that?"

  "Because sometimes it doesn't matter what you want or what you need or what you feel—you just have to take a stand and do the right thing," he said softly. They had come to an intersection and he had stopped for the red light, but he kept his gaze fixed straight ahead. When he spoke it seemed as if he was telling her something that he'd told himself many times before. "Maybe making that decision tears you apart. Maybe years later you still sit up nights wondering how your life would have turned out if you'd acted differently. But I have to look at myself in the mirror every day, Julia. I didn't want to be ashamed of the man I saw looking back at me. I couldn't stay quiet about what I saw Tascoe doing to Wolfe, and neither could Paul."

  The light changed. Accelerating through the intersection smoothly, he went on, his voice hardening. "Anyway, Tascoe might see the loss of his career as motive enough for murder." He signaled and slowed the Bronco, turning into the parking lot of the motel that he'd checked into two days previously. Her car was parked outside Cord's unit around the back where she'd left it after driving in to meet him before the funeral had that only been a few hours ago? It felt like days, at least, she thought. There was a No Vacancy sign in the window of the office, so she wasn't going to find a room there, Julia thought wearily, noticing for the first time the grass stain on the front of her blouse—from where she'd fallen after Falcone's eager muscle man had coshed her, she surmised. She didn't even have a change of clothes with her.

  "Maybe you should get out of town for a while." Pulling up beside her car, Cord turned off the ignition. He made no move to get out. She stared at him, her weariness suddenly forgotten.

  "Why?" Her voice rose in astonishment.

  "Because Tascoe saw you with me today and he knows that you're important to me. If he killed Sheila, what's to stop him from coming after you?" He reached up and took off his sunglasses, tiredly pinching the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger. "If Tascoe's our man, then I'm the second half of his revenge equation. He knew he wouldn't have to come hunting for me in California, that I'd be back to attend Paul's funeral."

  "You're forgetting something. You came to me, Cord."

  Her angry retort was loud enough so that an older couple exiting the motel looked apprehensively toward them.

  "Let's discuss this inside. Among other things, it's probably not good police procedure to shout out our theories to all and sundry," Cord said shortly.

  Slamming the Bronco's door behind her with more force than she needed, Julia waited while he locked the vehicle and then stiffly followed him to the door of the unit. As soon as they stepped inside she whirled around to face him.

  "You came to me—because we're both responsible for what happens to Lizbet! It wasn't just you standing alone at that baptismal font five years ago promising to take care of her if the day ever came that Paul and Sheila couldn't. I was there, too! I made the same vow! And now you expect me to simply walk out on her when her life's in danger?" She had never been so angry with him. But then, he had never misjudged her so completely.

  "I came to you because I hoped she'd be able to tell you what she saw, give you some clue as to what the killer looked like or what he sounded like—something." Cord shucked off his suit jacket and threw it on the bed. He loosened his tie with a jerk. "But dammit, she hasn't said one word since I got her out of her house. Mary told me that she won't even talk to the other kids when they're playing."

  "She's responding to me better than before," Julia protested quickly. "She lets me hold her now, and yesterday when King chased a squirrel she actually laughed a little." She paused and then went on reluctantly. "But no, I don't think she can help us much with what she saw that night. Not in the near future, anyway."

  "And now you won't even be able to visit her." Cord looked at her with a frown. "When I showed up on your doorstep the other night you made it crystal clear that you didn't want to become involved. I don't understand why we're even arguing about this."

  "Because I did get involved, dammit!" She faced him, hazel eyes blazing. "You pulled me back in and now you want to push me back out again. I've got to look in the mirror every day too, Cord—and for the last two years I haven't felt that proud of the person I see staring back at me."

  She stopped. She'd said too much, she thought.

  "Lopez said you'd gone down in flames. Exactly what the hell happened in those last few weeks after I left, Julia?" She was standing close enough to the bed so that he could reach out and touch her, and he did, his hand grasping her wrist lightly. "You told me you were planning to give the job up, but it wa
sn't as simple as that, was it?"

  "I screwed up. In that job screwing up can cost a child's life, so I handed in my badge a little sooner than I'd planned. That's all you need to know, Cord—that and the fact that I'm staying on this case."

  Pulling her wrist away, she turned and walked into the bathroom, leaving the door slightly ajar. She stripped off her jacket and draped it over the shower rod, then unbuttoned her blouse and shrugged out of it, her back to him.

  "When I was on the force I worked with people who were under stress, people who were lying or who had something to hide. I learned to read them pretty well. Tascoe might have been a dirty cop, but I just don't see him gunning down a woman in cold blood. It doesn't fit with his profile."

  "He profiles as violent and ruthless. What doesn't fit?" From the room behind her Cord's voice took on an edge. "And by the way, it would be a whole lot easier on me if you'd keep your clothes on while we're discussing this."

  "You've seen me with less on hundreds of times." Bending over the sink, Julia filled it with cold water and threw the blouse in to soak. "And I'm not Bootie Palace material. You should be able to keep yourself under control for a minute or two. Can I borrow one of your shirts?"

  She was wearing a plain white cotton sports bra—no more revealing than a bathing suit top, she thought, and sensible rather than sensuous. Bras and panties were about the only clothing purchases she made these days, and the most erotic undergarment she owned were the panties she had on under her skirt. They were pale blue with a pattern of dancing carrots on them, for some Freudian reason.

  "Take your pick." Without getting off the bed he gestured expansively at the small wardrobe beside the bolted-down television. "Nothing I own will fit you, anyway. And in case you're interested, I still think you're the most beautiful woman I've ever seen, bony elbows and all. I used to love the way your breasts would fit exactly in my hands—no more, no less."