Protector With A Past

by Harper Allen

  The last word came out in a roar of rage, and he lunged for the man in front of him, but even as he leaped for Cord's throat, those huge hands outstretched, Cord pivoted and smashed the side of his shoulder into the burly ex-cop like a battering ram, both of them crashing into the small telephone table. Tascoe fell heavily to the floor, but Cord retained his balance and stood over him, his gun suddenly in his hand.

  It had all taken only a second. Julia let out a shaky breath, feeling like she'd been holding it for hours.

  "Dean! Are you all right? You're bleeding!"

  Her pink quilted gown crumpling stiffly around her, Jackie sank to the floor beside a dazed Tascoe. She was right—along the side of his face was a long cut. Blood had trickled into his eye, and with the back of his hand he wiped it away.

  All the fight had gone out of him. Rising painfully to his feet with the thin blond woman nervously fussing over him, he seemed somehow defeated. As he stood he looked at Julia for the first time.

  "I used to hear about you. They called you the Guardian Angel, did you know that?"

  "I've been called a lot of things," she replied, disconcerted by his question. "But I'm not on the force anymore."

  "Because of Christie Hall."

  Tascoe wasn't asking a question, he was stating a fact. She stared at him in shock. Not only were her personal problems common knowledge, she thought with sudden anger, but the events leading up to them seemed to be known by everyone—even Dean Tascoe, who had already left the department at the time of the incident. It wasn't something that would be in her file, because she'd never divulged to a single soul what had prompted her abrupt departure from her job.

  "How do you know about—about Christie?"

  Instead of answering her, Tascoe turned to Cord. "I'm not a cop killer. I know why you think I might have wanted to see Durant dead—because you and he got me fired. And like I told you today, there was a time when I wanted revenge on you two so bad I could taste it. But not now. Not for a long time."

  "What changed?" Cord's voice was skeptical, his eyes watchful. He was still holding the gun on Tascoe.

  "I got it," the ex-cop said simply. "I got my revenge. I haven't been able to live with myself since." He passed a big hand over his eyes, but this time he wasn't wiping away blood. "Harry Hall was one of my informants," he said to a frozen Julia. "I know why he jumped with his daughter. And you weren't responsible—I was."

  * * *

  Chapter 9

  «^»

  "So I guess we're back at square one."

  Julia wearily tossed her shopping bags onto the motel bed as Cord laid his keys and his gun on the nightstand and shrugged out of his jacket.

  "Looks like," he replied, his back to her. "But Tascoe's not out of the woods yet. Lopez is going to keep him for questioning a few hours, at least."

  After his shattering revelation, the ex-cop had allowed them to notify the authorities of his whereabouts and had voluntarily agreed to meet with Cindy Lopez. Whether or not he'd really had a choice was a dubious point, Julia thought, but telling himself he was cooperating with the people he used to work with was obviously more palatable to his pride.

  She didn't want to think about Tascoe. The man had ripped her life apart, had accelerated her descent into two years of hell. But tonight he had tried to make amends, and unwillingly she found herself replaying the scene in her mind…

  "Harry was one of my informants before they took my badge away." As he'd stood there facing her, Julia had had the feeling that Dean Tascoe was barely aware that there was anyone else in the room. His words had been directed solely at her, and in his eyes she could read self-condemnation. His mouth had worked soundlessly before he'd been able to go on.

  "He was small-time all the way—a petty thief, sometimes tried the odd con job. But he'd have made more money flipping burgers. Harry wasn't very successful at what he did, and I guess that was part of his trouble."

  He'd sighed. Jackie had been watching him with wide, frightened eyes, and Cord had still been holding his gun, but Tascoe might have been in a confessional, with no one to hear him except the one who could forgive him.

  "Anyway, when he heard what had happened to me I guess he felt like we were supposed to be buddies or something. Once in a while he'd meet me in a bar and buy me a beer, just to have the chance to talk. He'd been going through a rougher patch than usual, and he was worried about his little girl."

  "Christie," Julia had said woodenly. "Her name was Christie."

  "Yeah, Christie. She was the only person that sorry son of a bitch ever cared for in his life, and when he found out he had cancer he was crazy with worry, wondering what would happen to her. He'd heard about you, and he asked me if I thought you could help him find a family to adopt her before he died."

  "Why me? Why not contact Family Services? That would have been the normal course to follow." She'd felt as if her knees were about to buckle, and beside her Cord put a supportive arm around her shoulders.

  "I told you—he'd heard about the Guardian Angel, the woman who went to the wall for kids that no one else gave a damn for, the cop who seemed to be able to get inside their heads and know exactly how to help them." He'd shrugged wearily. "It had taken a few months for it to sink in that I was really through with the force, that no one was about to stick their neck out for me and get me reinstated, and that night I thought I saw the perfect way to get back at the bastard who'd wrecked my life."

  "Me." Cord's voice had been a knife slash. "I was the one you wanted, so why didn't you take me on directly? Why the hell did you involve Julia?"

  "Because I knew hurting her was the worst thing I could do to you. That was just before you left for the coast, and I didn't know that you two were about to break up." Tascoe's grimace had been full of self-loathing. "All I could think of was how much I hated you for the way my life had gone. I figured you'd broken the code—betrayed a fellow officer—and so I decided to do the same to your lady here. I told Harry to stay away from her, that if she ever got Christie away from him she'd have the girl into foster care so quick he'd never know what had happened to her. I told him that it was all a sham, good publicity for the department, that this Guardian Angel stuff was crap.

  "You made him afraid of me?" Julia had felt the color drain from her cheeks. "You made him afraid of me?"

  Wrenching out of Cord's grasp, she'd grabbed Tascoe by his jacket. "Do you know what you did?"

  Cord had moved forward and then stopped.

  "God help me, of course I know." Tascoe had stood there unflinchingly, making no attempt to defend himself His face had been a mask of grief. "I knew as soon as I heard what had happened that what I'd told him about you a few weeks earlier had turned him against you. I—I wanted to tell you. I knew you would take it personally, think that something you'd said or done had caused him to jump with Christie—"

  "I left that same day. I never went back. For two years I've seen that child's face in my nightmares, Tascoe—seen her falling away just as her fingertips touched mine, heard her screaming in terror because her father had decided to take his seven-year-old child with him on a suicide leap."

  Slowly Julia had released her hold on him, but her eyes had never left his. "You almost caused her death! Thank God for the miracle and the SWAT member who saved her—because if Christie Hall had been killed I swear I—"

  She hadn't been able to look at him any longer. Shaking with reaction, she'd turned on her heel and walked to the door of the apartment, waiting there silently while Cord had made the call to Lopez and Dean Tascoe had sat, his head bowed and his shoulders slumped, on the sofa. Jackie Redmond had approached her once.

  "He's made some terrible mistakes, Miss Stewart. But we all have—every one of us." Her hands had been trembling but she'd gone on, with more force than Julia had thought she was capable of. "Are you so blameless that you can afford to judge him? Can't you even try to understand that sometimes people make the wrong choices—or that sometimes it seems li
ke they don't have any choice at all?"

  But Julia hadn't been able to answer her. She'd simply stared at the woman, until finally Jackie Redmond had turned and walked back to Tascoe…

  "I asked the front desk for an early wake-up call." Cord's offhand statement broke into her thoughts, bringing her back to the present, and she looked up. He was standing beside the dresser, his arms folded. "I thought we'd try to get some more information on the DiMarco—Tascoe connection tomorrow."

  "You don't think Tascoe was responsible for the killings, either, do you?" She frowned, her temples throbbing. "What really bothered me was the way Jackie reacted when she thought Lizbet had been killed along with Paul and Sheila She's hiding something, and Tascoe's part of it."

  "But you just said you didn't think he was responsible for the killings." He shook his head. "No—after tonight I can't see it. All we ever had against him was the word of a mobster who would have said anything we wanted to hear and a possible motive for revenge that had its roots in an incident that took place years ago."

  Shot, then stabbed … because he came up those basement stairs faster than the killer expected. Paul wasn't supposed to have been shot at all—the killer wanted him to die in a particular way. The pattern … the pattern got messed up…

  "What is it?" He was beside her, his hands on her shoulders, and she realized that she was shaking.

  "Nothing. I just keep having these flashes, but then they disappear again." Julia put her hand to her forehead.

  "Is it like the feelings you used to get when you were trying to connect with a child?" Cord drew in a tense breath. "You're not trying to get inside the head of the killer, are you?"

  "No." She shuddered.

  "Is it possible that you've unconsciously picked up some clue, some faint impression from Lizbet? I know she hasn't talked to you, but I've seen you with her. Your eyes are always on her. You note her every reaction."

  I watch her because I'm afraid for her. I watch her because I'm terrified something's going to happen to her, and I won't be able to prevent it.

  Julia kept her expression calm. "I'm not picking up anything from Lizbet. I doubt that anyone could right now—that little girl's completely closed off whatever she saw that night, and that worries me. If we don't find the killer in the next few days, Cord, we're going to have to get her into some kind of treatment."

  "I know." A shadow crossed his strong features. "We're running out of time. I don't want her out of hiding just yet, but I agree—if we haven't caught whoever did this within a couple of days she's going to have to see a professional." His eyes darkened. "I saw Paul's body, Julia. Someone out there is filled with rage, and I don't want him catching even a scent of Lizbet's presence."

  "I still think Tascoe knows something that he's not telling us." Her brows drew together. "He's a vigilante type—even when he was on the force he took matters into his own hands. Do you think it's possible that he might have been investigating this on his own and stumbled across some information that he's keeping for himself?"

  "Thinking that if he solves the murders of a detective and his wife in a blaze of glory he'll be offered his old job back?" Cord raked his hand through his hair, his eyes narrowed. "That fits his style. Even before the Billy Wolfe incident Tascoe was always skirting the edge. He was assigned to the Donner case before Paul and I took over, you know."

  "No, I didn't know." Julia looked up, repressing the shudder that always ran through her at the memory of the Gary Donner killings. "What happened? Why was he taken off the investigation?"

  "He was doing his usual cowboy thing—conducting searches without a warrant, grilling suspects on his own, withholding information from the rest of the investigative team. He was a damn good detective, but he was a loose cannon, and that case was just too high profile. The department couldn't afford to have him on it, so he was quietly moved to another assignment, and Paul and I took over."

  "At which point the two of you borrowed a leaf from Tascoe's book and acted like cowboys yourselves," Julia said sharply.

  "Me, a cowboy? Now, that's a low blow." His teeth flashed briefly white against his skin. "My folks were always on the other side, remember?"

  "You know what I mean." She looked at him, not amused. "You almost got killed on that job, Cord. You became obsessed with tracking down the Donner family, and I had to stand by and watch you turn into someone I didn't know. You were going through hell and you wouldn't let me help you. I couldn't even get close to you during that time."

  It still hurt. But she'd made a mistake in revealing herself to him, she realized belatedly. He smiled at her again, this time with no humor at all in those dark eyes.

  "Now you're the one who's crossed the line."

  Walking over to the window, he stood to one side of the slatted metal blinds, bending them open slightly and looking out into the darkness for a minute. His back was to her, and she could see the slight bunching of muscle in his shoulders under the T-shirt. He spoke without turning around.

  "But since you've made this conversation personal let's keep it that way." He let the blinds snap shut and turned to face her. "Why the hell didn't you tell me that your whole life was falling apart? Why did I have to find out about tonight—and from Dean Tascoe, for God's sake?"

  "You weren't even around when it happened, Cord. You'd left by then," she started defensively.

  "I'd been gone a couple of weeks, dammit—and because you wanted me gone! But before that we'd been everything to each other. You knew all you had to do was pick up the phone and I'd be there for you."

  Slow comprehension spread across his features. "It started way before the Christie Hall incident, didn't it? All the time we were together for those last few months you were just barely holding on, and you didn't think that was something I should know. You let me believe everything was just fine—you made sure I believed that. I was out of your life long before you told me it was over, wasn't I, Julia? I was just too damn stupid to figure it out."

  "It wasn't like that!" Taken off guard, she tried to deflect his accusation with one of her own. "Yes, I was stressed—it came with the territory. We both were, sometimes. Like I said—when you were working the Donner case I felt like I didn't know you anymore!"

  In the silence that followed her outburst she could hear the steady whine of nighttime traffic speeding by on the road beside the motel. Cord, standing by the window a few feet away, was just outside the pools of light cast by the twin table lamps that flanked the bed. Looking at him in his dark T-shirt and jeans, Julia suddenly had the unsettling impression that he was merely a deeper shadow in the shadowy room—a shadow that would at any moment melt back into the darkness. He lifted his head and met her eyes.

  "I felt like I didn't know myself for a while. I felt like I didn't want to know what I was turning into during that investigation, Julia—and when it was over I vowed I would never let a case get to me like that again."

  She stared at him in appalled compassion, but before she could speak he went on. "Maybe I should have talked to you about the things we uncovered during that investigation, the unspeakable horrors we witnessed. Maybe I should have shared the nightmare—but I just couldn't do that to you. What we found in that farmhouse…"

  He passed a hand across his eyes, and she saw him swallow heavily. "God help me, I needed to keep that out of our life. I needed to be able to come home and have you in my arms at night and know that there was one part of my world—the most important part—that Gary Donner and his evil hadn't tainted." The rawness in his voice was a revelation. She hadn't realized that the man who'd headed the Donner investigation—the man who'd been photographed striding grim-faced and uncommunicative from crime scenes that had seemed chillingly mundane, like the Bradley farmhouse, the man who in the end had put his life on the line to bring about the end of Gary Donner's psychopathic "family"—had taken strength from her. She hadn't known, Julia thought. She hadn't known. She'd never even thought it possible.

  "I'm
glad," she said in a low tone. Lifting her head, she met his bleak gaze. "I'm glad I could help you through that. I'm glad I was your—your refuge."

  "Yeah." His voice was toneless. He'd been standing with his back against the wall, but he straightened and let out a deep breath. "I wish I could have been yours. But that wasn't the way you wanted it. I never really knew you at all, did I?"

  "How can you say that? How can you even think that? Of course you knew me—you knew me better than anyone, Cord!" He had it all wrong, she thought swiftly. Whatever she'd done, she done it because she had loved him.

  "Oh, I thought I did. But I only saw what you wanted me to see, and you obviously kept the real Julia Stewart out of sight." He searched her face with sudden intensity. "Why? What were you so afraid of?"

  "I wasn't hiding myself from you." She averted her eyes from his piercing gaze. "All my life I'd run to you with my little problems, told you all my secrets. Maybe I'd just realized it was time to stand on my own feet and try to handle things by myself—"

  "We're not talking about the time you broke the boathouse window with a softball, dammit!" With an impatient stride he moved toward the bed and looked down at her in sudden anger. "We're talking about two people who were planning to get married—and you couldn't even trust me enough to tell me that you were on the verge of a nervous breakdown! Did you think I'd walk away from you if I found out? Is that why you sent me away first—because you didn't think my love was strong enough to see us through?"

  His voice had a hoarse, incredulous rasp. From the unit next door she could hear the canned laughter of a television sitcom, and with stiff edginess she got to her feet and crossed to the dresser, needing to put some space between them. The room was so damned small, she thought with a flicker of resentment, hugging her arms around her body. And why did it suddenly seem so cold?

  "I gave you my reasons two years ago. Why can't you accept that people change … that I'd changed? It's simple enough, Cord—I wanted a different life than the one we had all mapped out for us. I was tired of beating my head against the wall in a heartbreaking job, and what happened with Harry and Christie—"