Protector With A Past

by Harper Allen

  "I don't even know what happened that day. You still haven't told me."

  She tensed, waiting for the tremors to overtake her, but to her surprise they didn't come. Tascoe's confession had released her, she thought shakily. For the first time since those terrible and tragic hours on the ledge she was capable of relating the events of that day with some semblance of self-control.

  "Hall had botched a bank holdup. From what Tascoe said tonight I guess it was a last-ditch attempt to strike it rich so he could provide for Christie when he was gone. Anyway, he managed to make his way back to the apartment of the woman who was baby-sitting Christie for him that day, and then within minutes the police arrived to arrest him. He panicked and ended up on a ledge just past the apartment's balcony—with Christie."

  "And once they knew a child's life hung in the balance, you were called in." Cord nodded. "Go on."

  She'd relived the scene so many times in her dreams, she thought sadly. It never could have had a completely happy ending, she knew that now.

  "I was called in," she agreed. "I had a harness attached to me, and I stood on the outer edge of the balcony, getting as close as I dared to Harry and Christie. I couldn't look down." She shuddered. "I was there for two and a half hours, talking to Harry, telling him he didn't want to do it, telling him that however bad things seemed we could help him. I promised that I would help him, that I'd make sure Christie was taken care of."

  "After the way Tascoe had poisoned his mind against you, he would have read that as a threat." Cord's eyes were dark with remembered anger. "You never had a chance to talk him down."

  "I never had a chance," she echoed softly, seeing for the last time the desperate expression on the man's face, the terrified child in his arms. "I didn't know that then. Finally he started to edge toward me, and I thought I'd somehow gotten through to him, that he was coming in. I told him to hand Christie to me. He looked at me—we were only about five feet apart by then. I saw his eyes, Cord, and right then and there I knew that somehow I'd miscalculated terribly. He—he jumped. We were on the tenth floor."

  "But Christie was saved?" Even though he'd heard what she'd told Tascoe earlier, the corners of his mouth were white with tension.

  "A SWAT team had been put into place during the situation. I don't think Hall even realized what was going on, but a team member had rappelled down from the roof to within a couple of feet of where we were." The tremors had come back, Julia realized. But this time she was able to overcome them. "He was the real hero that day—when Harry jumped, the SWAT member jumped, too, and managed to grab Christie out of her father's arms before Harry plunged to his death."

  "Dear God." He was obviously visualizing the scene she'd so tersely described. "There must have been a moment when you thought—"

  "A moment?" She gave a brittle laugh. "Not a moment, Cord. Years. Every night for the last two years I've dreamed about that split second—Harry stepping off that ledge, Christie's eyes, my hand reaching out and missing her. Except in my dreams I watch her fall all the way to the street below. In my dreams I was always responsible for her death."

  "But it didn't play out that way. Even if it had, and even if Hall's decision to jump hadn't been influenced by Tascoe, there was no way you should have held yourself responsible for a tragedy that was unavoidable." His expression was once again guarded, his tone reserved. "If you hadn't shut me out of your life months before, I would have been there for you. We could have faced this together."

  She'd started this day by attending the funeral of her two closest friends, Julia thought, her temples pounding, and then she'd gone through the emotional turmoil of Tascoe's shattering revelation. Now the man she'd loved all her life was coming too close to finding out the one thing she'd never wanted him to know.

  Something inside her snapped.

  "But you thought I was perfect, Cord!" The words rushed from her like an accusation. "You thought the woman you loved was perfect! That's why you loved me—that's why you haven't been able to forget me these last two years. How was I supposed to come to you and destroy that flawless image—reveal just how damn far from the truth it really was? How could I have?"

  "That's right—that would have been a mistake. I'd have stopped loving you right there and then, Julia." His tanned face had paled with anger. "I'd have been out of there so goddamn fast you wouldn't have known what had happened. Good thing you ordered me the hell out before I could let you down."

  "That's not what I'm saying." Her eyes blazed. "But you—"

  "That's exactly what you're saying. You should have come right out and said that two years ago, so that I could have gotten on with my life." With a swift stride he was before her, his hands on her arms, his face in hers. "Yeah, you're right—I thought you were perfect. I saw the flaws, I saw the stubbornness, I even saw the fear sometimes when you forgot to hide it, and you still were perfect in my eyes. You were everything I'd ever wanted in a woman, Julia. You had me—all of me—and you thought it was all a lie."

  "Let me go, Cord." She had to tip her head back to meet his furious gaze. "Let me go or I'll—"

  "You'll what, Julia?" He was so close to her that she could see the single fleck of green in his right eye that she'd teased him about in the past under vastly different circumstances. "Anything you could do to me, you've already done. There's nothing left to take away." His hands dropped to his sides, and he shrugged. One corner of his mouth lifted slightly. "I'll let you go. You've been telling me to for long enough, haven't you?"

  He turned away from her. Walking to the dresser, he emptied the pockets of his jeans, tossing a handful of change into the glass ashtray that sat there. He met her eyes in the minor.

  "Do you want the shower first?"

  There was nothing at all in his voice but casual courtesy. Julia shook her head, and even that small movement was an effort. "No. No, go ahead and use it. I'll—I'll have mine later."

  "I'll leave you a dry towel, then." Cord gave her an impersonal smile and stepped into the bathroom, closing the door behind him.

  I'll let you go. You've been telling me to for long enough…

  When he'd left the first time some part of her had known, even if she couldn't acknowledge it, that the tie that bound them together hadn't been severed completely. It had stretched like an invisible cord across a whole continent—she'd known in her heart that distance and time meant nothing, that it was capable of bridging worlds, if necessary, and that it would endure beyond death.

  On one particularly bad night at the lake house she'd been lying in bed, King twitching fitfully in deep sleep on the floor beside her. Her eyes had been wide open in the dark, and outside the bare branches of the trees had been turned to silver foil by the full moon. It had only been weeks since her hard-won battle against the destructive crutch she had come to rely on, and she'd wondered if she had the strength to keep up the fight—wondered if she even cared enough to keep fighting.

  She'd heard the rush of great wings from just beyond the window and had thought at first that an owl had pursued some terrified prey right up to the porch. A huge silhouette had momentarily darkened the moon, the silken rush of wings had come closer, and then she'd seen the bird alighting, noiseless and massive, on the low, wide sill of her bedroom window.

  It had been like no owl she'd ever seen. Even in the moonlight she could tell it was some kind of eagle. Its beak curved dangerously down and its eyes seemed almost luminescently golden, and her first reaction had been fear. King had lifted his head, aroused by her indrawn breath, and she'd expected him to lunge at the silent shape only feet away.

  Instead, his tail had thumped once, solidly, against the floorboards, and he'd given a curious puppy-like little whine—the same whine he gave when he saw her coming down the stone-pebbled path after being away for the day.

  Unmoving, her gaze fixed on the apparition, she'd felt the fear slowly dissipate. A deep calm had overtaken her, and when she'd finally fallen asleep, the bird still standing guard at h
er window, the nightmares for once had remained at bay that night.

  Cord's mother had told her that the Senecas' name for themselves was the Nundawaon—the People of the Great Hill. They were rich in legends and stories of otherworldly encounters. Cord had grown up with that heritage.

  A few days ago she'd told him she didn't believe in magic. She'd lied. Where Cord was concerned, she'd always believed—from the day he'd given her the perfectly round, perfectly smooth lake stone for luck, right up until a few minutes ago when suddenly all the magic had gone out of her world.

  The dull drumming roar of the shower had been providing a subconscious background to her thoughts, but now she heard it being cut off. There was a clanking metal sound as the outdated shower mechanism abruptly switched the running water to the taps of the bath, and then the slight squeal of the taps being turned off.

  Cord didn't like getting caught in cold water. He'd always ended his showers that way, and at one time it had been something she'd teased him about—that she suspected his aversion to cold showers could be part of the reason he so often came back to bed with her in the mornings, his skin still damp and warm, his desire for her urgent and heated. They'd made each other late for work more times than she could count, Julia remembered.

  In a few moments he would step into the room, and instead of hours of sweet, languorous lovemaking, there would be a few stiff, awkward exchanges between them. She would have her shower, and when she came back he would probably pretend to be asleep. She would slip into the bed, taking care to keep from accidentally touching him. His breath would be too even, her limbs would be kept rigidly still.

  She wasn't going to be able to do this, Julia thought hopelessly.

  But this time she had no badge to turn in, no gun to hand over, and the option of turning her back on this case and walking away simply didn't exist. She'd made a vow—a vow that still held, even though Sheila and Paul were gone. If she believed in anything, she had to believe in the sanctity of the promise she'd made five years ago, standing beside Cord in a small, unpretentious church, with a tiny, red-haired baby squalling lustily at a baptismal font.

  They were still bound together, she thought—but by an old obligation that neither of them could ignore. Until they tracked down Paul and Sheila's killer, Lizbet could still he in danger, could still he snatched away, never to be heard from again, just as Jackie Redmond's daughter—

  That was the key.

  Julia froze. The daughter was the key—the key to the fear in Jackie Redmond's voice, the guilt in her eyes when she'd asked about Lizbet. She'd been the traitor—who better to hand over information about the department than the woman across whose desk every vital document, every confidential piece of information passed before being given to her boss? Paul had been right, except that the person betraying him hadn't been a fellow officer, she'd been the chief of police's personal secretary.

  And like the most famous betrayer of all, she'd been stricken with guilt when she'd realized the enormity of what she'd done.

  Redmond would have been vetted thoroughly before being given such a sensitive position, Julia thought, her mind racing. She would have been assessed as completely trustworthy. For her to act so out of character could only mean that whoever was manipulating her had discovered the one threat—or promise—that she couldn't withstand.

  They had her daughter. She had dozens of photographs of the girl—photographs that she hadn't been able to take her fear-filled eyes from this evening—but whoever was threatening her, had the girl herself. And from Tascoe's protective attitude, he was well aware of the situation.

  Except now the situation had changed. Tascoe was in custody, Jackie Redmond was all alone, and the killer she'd unwillingly aided would be wondering if her usefulness to him had come to an end. Julia heard Cord moving around in the bathroom beyond, and all of a sudden she made up her mind.

  Grabbing a sweater and snatching her keys from the dresser, she slipped outside into the night.

  * * *

  Chapter 10

  «^»

  Twice on the drive to Jackie Redmond's apartment Julia almost turned around and headed back to the motel and Cord. He'd be furious when he found she'd gone, she knew—furious and alarmed. No matter what had passed between them tonight, he still thought of her as his partner on this case. He was her backup. She was his. He wouldn't understand why she'd ignored that basic rule.

  She was finding her reaction hard to understand herself. All she knew was that Cord's remoteness was unendurable, but that made no sense at all. If anything, eliminating the last remnants of any kind of personal relationship between them would make it easier for her to concentrate on the task in front of her—finding and catching a killer before he could strike again. But as she parked in front of the apartment they'd left only an hour or so earlier, she found that she had to force herself to get out of the car.

  What she really wanted to do was to fold her arms over the steering wheel, put her head down and cry, she thought with a flash of impatient honesty. Only the knowledge that Lizbet's safety was at stake kept her going.

  The front door was still unlocked. It was a wonder that Tascoe hadn't taken steps to beef up the security himself, since Jackie's well-being was obviously all-important to him, but the man was an enigma in more ways than one. Running lightly up the first flight of stairs and rounding the landing to the second floor, she frowned.

  How much did the ex-cop know about Paul and Sheila's death? What was his agenda? She'd based her belief in his innocence on a conviction that he was incapable of harming a woman or a child, but his confession tonight had proven her wrong. He'd nearly caused the death of Christie Hall two years ago, and by doing so his actions had almost destroyed Julia's life. She was suddenly glad that the likelihood of him returning while she was interviewing Jackie Redmond was almost nil.

  Reaching the next landing, she halted abruptly, momentarily disconcerted. Above her, the third floor hallway was in darkness.

  It was an old building. If there was a superintendent on the premises, which was a dubious possibility in the first place, it was now well after midnight and not even the most dedicated handyman would be replacing light bulbs at this time of night. Giving herself a mental shake, she forced her suddenly leaden feet up a few more stairs. She was here now, and Tascoe was otherwise occupied—if the woman was ever going to talk, this was probably the best time to catch her off guard. Scuttling away because of one burned-out light was just plain stupid.

  As she reached the third floor, her nervousness eased. There in front of her was the braying pewter burro door knocker, easily visible in the illumination coming up from the second floor. The same pair of old-lady shoes she and Cord had noticed before still stood side by side on the rubber mat, and the very homeliness of these details was somehow reassuring. Nothing sinister had happened here. Nothing was going to happen.

  Something crunched underfoot.

  Without even having to think about it she knew exactly what it was, and with that knowledge the fear came flooding back in full force. She'd thought there was nothing about the job she'd forgotten, but this was one aspect she'd pushed to the back of her mind—the way that fear became a physical entity. It swept over her like wave, cold and wet.

  She'd stepped on broken glass. The bulb hadn't burned out. It had been deliberately taken out and smashed by someone who preferred the darkness to the light.

  Sheila was shot. Paul was stabbed—pierced through the chest. Two down, two to go, and then the child, alone and unprotected…

  Her mind was trying to operate on two levels, and although she knew that the theory it was desperately scrambling to put together was nearly complete, she shut it out with almost brutal force in order to focus all her attention on what her senses were telling her.

  When you're a rabbit, think like the rabbit. Don't think like the fox, because the fox will always be able to do that better than you.

  With crystal clarity the memory came into her mind—
Cord's father, Davey and Cord walking beside him in the woods, herself perched high on his shoulders as he pointed out the twin tracks of a desperate flight for life and a pursuit of prey in fresh-fallen snow. He'd shown them the spot where the fox must have sat waiting in ambush, and the deep, twisting claw marks in the earth where, a split second before he could have known for sure he was in danger, the rabbit had reacted instantaneously to nebulous alarm and had escaped.

  She was the rabbit here, and already her pupils had opened as widely as possible, taking in light she hadn't even known was there and catching the dim gleam of the brass knocker on Jackie Redmond's door. The angle was wrong, Julia instinctively realized. Without analyzing it she knew that she was seeing the knocker as it would appear if the door wasn't completely closed, and immediately she froze, her back against the wall and her lips slightly parted to minimize the sound of her breathing.

  She was the rabbit, and danger was near. She should run—her thigh muscles were already tensed, waiting for the command, and her heart was working overtime in her chest, pumping the oxygen-laden blood that it knew she would need to her limbs.

  But she was also the fox. She hadn't expected to find her quarry tonight—the best she'd hoped for was to catch a glimpse of his tracks through Jackie's eyes—but if he was here she had no right to put her personal safety first. She was the fox, and she was protecting her own.

  She inched cautiously along the wall, her palms flat against it. No doubt she was leaving her own tracks, Julia thought, trying to judge just how far away she was from the slightly open door. Tomorrow there would be smeared handmarks on the smooth painted plaster.

  And then her sixth and last sense belatedly kicked in.