Protector With A Past

by Harper Allen

  "I figure there was a wide enough window of opportunity for him to have killed Paul and Sheila and then driven hell-for-leather across town, just in time to take his place at the banquet and go up to collect his award. If that's the way it was, it explains why he couldn't waste any more precious minutes looking for Lizbet at the house—he had it timed down to the second."

  He got out of the car, and she clenched her hands tightly in her lap as she watched him in the cold white light cast by the Ford's high beams. He picked up a medium-size rock at the side of the road and hefted it appraisingly in his hand before striding to the back of the car. She gave an involuntary start as he slammed the rock into the passenger-side taillight with such force that the idling vehicle rocked with the impact, but she was ready for the next one, and as he rejoined her and pulled onto the road again she spoke, her voice even and controlled.

  "How do you want to handle this?"

  "We'll back in from the road and I'll cut the engine just before we get to the red maple by the side of the driveway. The phone line runs in right about there." He frowned. "If someone cut it deliberately that's where they'd do it, and if that's the case then we'll know immediately what we're dealing with."

  She was struck by a sudden thought. "Cord—what are we going to do about King? Mary lets him out at night to patrol the property. He'll raise the alarm before he realizes it's us."

  Ahead of them a big buck rabbit shot across the road, briefly illuminated in the headlights' glare, and Cord swerved slightly, missing the animal by inches. He looked at her.

  "Honey, if it's Donner, he would have taken out King before he even tampered with the phone," he said gently.

  "Of course." Julia bit down on her lip, hoping the physical pain would counteract the lancing sorrow that had just shot through her. Of course Donner would have killed King, she thought numbly. He was after a child—an animal would be merely an annoyance, to be dispatched as emotionlessly as if he was swatting a mosquito. The big German shepherd whose loyalty and unconditional love had served her so truly and so well since the day Cord had placed the squirming little puppy with big feet and a huge red bow around his neck into her arms would have been the first threat that Donner would have eliminated.

  "Let's assume the worst-case scenario," she said hoarsely. "Say the phone line's been cut—what then?"

  "The important thing is getting to Lizbet and the twins. Donner's a city boy—if Mary's two can slip into the woods behind the house they're home free, and if she's still unharmed she'll try to get them there," Cord said. "Frank keeps a shotgun in the house, but Donner would probably guess that there was a weapon of some sort on the premises. He'd have made sure Frank never got a chance to use it."

  The first time she'd met Frank Whitefield, a few days ago, Julia had been struck by how much the tall, lanky man reminded her of Cord's father. He'd had the same gentle humor, the same patience with his children and the little girl he and his wife had taken in. And as Jackson Hunter had been a Vietnam vet, Frank had seen military service during Desert Storm. There was a chance he might have delayed Donner from getting to Mary and the children long enough for them to escape, Julia thought. But the price would have been high.

  "I'd better douse the lights."

  As Cord spoke, the brightly lit road ahead of them was plunged into blackness, and he lessened their speed a little. A second later Julia's eyes began to adjust to the lack of artificial light, and she saw that the moon was nearly full, a shaved round of ancient gold in the heavens.

  "A hunter's moon." Already Cord had lowered his voice, but there was a sudden fierceness in his words. "That's good. I'm in a hunting mood tonight," he added, almost to himself.

  It was a side of him she'd only seen once before, and then it had frightened her, because she hadn't been able to relate to the Cord who'd come back from the Bradley farmhouse, his eyes dark with the horrors he'd witnessed and his energies completely focused on tracking down the killers who'd perpetrated them. Now the implacable anger in him struck a faint answering chord in her.

  "Leave the keys in the ignition. If the twins and Mary get to the woods they'll be safe, but city boy or not, Donner won't stop looking for Lizbet—not this time. Whoever finds her first, their main priority is getting her safely away." She looked at him. "That means you leave me behind if you have to, Cord."

  He gave a grudging nod. "She's our first concern, agreed. But I don't intend to leave her or you behind."

  She'd have to be satisfied with that, she told herself as they slowed for the half-hidden laneway that led to the house. Just when she thought he must have missed it in the dark, he braked, then put the Ford into reverse.

  When his father had lived here, the lane had been a neatly trimmed avenue of greenery, but now the arching, spiny branches of barberry and the whip-like stems of the overgrown mock orange bushes had taken on a wild unruliness, and she jumped as a springy limb from a flowering currant brushed against her through her opened window.

  "This is far enough." Cord looked at her as he killed the engine. "I'll have to climb the pole to check on the phone line."

  He opened the car door noiselessly, and she followed suit, but as she stepped out she realized that he'd already melted into the darkness. The telephone pole was a stone's throw away, and casting her eyes in its direction she saw him, a shadowy figure near its base, starting to climb it.

  The house was still out of sight, but out here sound carried, she thought edgily. She should have been able to hear some evidence that just a few hundred yards away was a family setting down for the evening, but the silence was total. She slid her Ruger from her shoulder holster and snapped the safety off, slowly scanning the shadowy landscape for any movement and keeping low to the ground, her knees bent, to minimize her silhouette. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Cord climbing down the pole, and her foot nudged something solid.

  In a blur of motion she pivoted toward it, her heart in her mouth and her finger tensing instinctively on the trigger of the gun; but even as she did a cloud passed over the moon, and for a moment all she could see was a denser shape of black against the ground.

  Then the moon sailed serenely out from behind the cloud, and she suddenly knew what she'd found.

  "King!"

  Snapping the safety on and holstering her gun, she dropped to her knees beside the big German shepherd, groping blindly for him in the dark. Her fingers felt fur, already damp and cool with the night dew, and then the cold, ropy thickness of blood beginning to congeal.

  "The line's been—aw, hell, Julia." Cord was there, hunkering down beside her, and he reached quickly for her. "God damn him. God damn him," he repeated under his breath, his curse sounding like a deliberate request to the Almighty rather than a casual obscenity.

  "Oh, King—oh, my brave boy," she whispered unevenly, her trembling hand ineffectually trying to smooth down the stiff, matted fur. She felt Cord's hand on her hair, offering silent comfort. He said nothing, and she knew that he, too, was trying to hold back the pain.

  Her vision wavered. A moment, perfect and frozen in her memory, came suddenly into her mind—King as a puppy, sitting side by side with Lizbet at that long-ago third birthday party, patiently bearing the little girl's sticky hugs and grinning foolishly under the hat she'd put on him.

  That strong heart had been loyal to the end, she thought, anguished. He'd given his life for the child he'd loved. With a delicate finger she touched the velvety muzzle that she'd stroked so often in the past.

  "Like a gentleman, boy."

  Softly echoing the words she'd rewarded him with so often during his life, Julia stroked him as if at any minute that big tail would beat in pleasure at her praise, and those brown eyes would open and gaze in unquestioning adoration at her. "You died like a gentleman," she whispered, the tears thick in her throat. "Good boy. Such a good dog."

  Her fingers brushed against something unfamiliar and, knuckling the tears from her eyes almost angrily, she peered closer. Strong white f
angs, partially visible under a bared top lip, caught the moonlight. Between them was a scrap of heavy material, and she gently pulled the fabric from his teeth.

  It was a piece of denim, raggedly ripped. King had gotten one lunge in before Donner had killed him, she thought with a rush of primitive satisfaction. Cord took the scrap from her and examined it.

  "He must have encountered the bastard as he finished cutting the line," he said in an undertone. There was a raw edge to his voice, and he cleared his throat and went on. "We'll bury him under that pine he used to like to lie under, honey. He'll sleep well there."

  "I—I'd like that." She fought back the wrenching sense of loss that washed over her, and giving the cold muzzle one last, loving stroke, rose stiffly to her feet.

  "We should keep going." He got to his feet, too, and inclined his head to hers, keeping his voice low. "You okay?"

  She wasn't okay. Right now she felt like nothing was ever going to be okay again. King was dead. As wrenching as that fact was by itself, it had other, even more ominous implications.

  The big dog had been the first line of defense around Lizbet. That line had been breached. Julia felt panic rising under her rib cage like a fear-crazed bird.

  "I shouldn't have left her with anyone else," she muttered under her breath. "I should have kept her by my side—I never should have let her out of my sight."

  "That just wasn't possible—not while we were trying to find out who killed her parents. You know that as well as I do." His voice hardened. "Stay focused. We've got a job to do."

  His brusqueness brought her to her senses, and she forced the panic away. Looking at King's still body, she felt something shift in her mind, as if an extra pathway of synapses that had previously been blocked had just opened up.

  Deep inside her, a spark of cold, bright anger flared, wavered and then steadied to a brilliant and terrible flame.

  Cord glanced at her. She nodded decisively, and then the two of them were moving silently through the shadows, their progress cautiously swift. Cord knew this property like the back of his hand, but she knew it, too, she thought. As a little girl she'd spent more time here than she had at her own house, and the shadowy shapes of bushes and rocks that surrounded them, far from seeming threatening and alien, were familiar and beloved landmarks on the misty but never-forgotten map of her childhood.

  To her left she noted the jagged stalks of last year's clump of feverfew, the daisy-like flower Jane Hunter had dried and used in a recipe for insect repellent that she'd learned from her mother. Over there on her right was the large round shadow of the snowball bush, and farther on she thought she could see the moonlight gleaming on the spikes of monkshood that Cord's father had once warned her never to touch. The purple flowers did look like hoods, she remembered, but the plant was also called wolfsbane, since it was so deadly poisonous that the extract from its roots had been used to kill predators. Native American tribes had tipped their arrows with that same juice, and death to an enemy struck by one of those arrows was swift and certain.

  Cord was beside her, and she flicked a sideways glance at him, almost immediately shrinking into the shadow of an iron-wood tree, her hand touching his arm in warning. He froze and inclined his head to hers.

  "Just over there by that lilac." Her mouth was beside his ear, and a short strand of his hair brushed her lips. "The shadows seem more solid. I think there's someone there."

  He darted a quick look in the direction she'd indicated and then nodded wordlessly, motioning for her to stay. Reluctantly she sank deeper into the darkness. He bent down, and at first she thought he was picking something up off the ground, but as he straightened she saw the pinprick of moonlight, immediately hidden, on the blade in his hand.

  She felt no revulsion at the sight of the knife. It was the most noiseless of weapons, she thought coldly. If there was any possibility that Donner had one of his new "family" here with him standing lookout, a shot would immediately galvanize him into murderous action. She couldn't see Cord at all, and she realized he would have circled the area to come around from the back. Whoever was waiting for them a few feet away would be taken by complete surprise. Staying to the shadows, she edged closer.

  She was just in time to see Cord's broad-shouldered silhouette surge from the darkness and merge with the shadowy figure she'd been watching. She heard a low grunt of pain, and then saw the gleam of light on the flat of the blade that Cord was holding to the man's throat, but by then she'd covered the last of the dew-soaked grass between her and the two struggling figures.

  Not struggling, she corrected herself. The man's head had been pulled up and to the left by Cord's powerful grip, and he had frozen at the first touch of cold steel on the exposed side of his neck. The stranger was a fraction of an inch away from sudden death, and he knew it.

  "Who are you working for?" Cord's softly whispered question held barely controlled fury. "Tell me now, goddammit, or you're a dead man."

  The other man's face was away from her, his head bent so cruelly back that his attempt at responding was a mere croak, but something about him seemed suddenly familiar to Julia. Cord lowered his head enough for him to speak, and she suppressed a gasp.

  "Tascoe!"

  The discredited ex-cop shot an incredulous glance at her, then froze again as Cord tightened his grip.

  "See if he's armed."

  Remembering Cord's ankle sheath, she started at Tascoe's feet and instantly discovered the small but deadly .38, obviously kept there as a backup weapon. Patting each meaty leg to his thighs with a grimace, she found nothing else until she flipped back the light windbreaker the man was wearing and relieved him of his shouldered police-issue .45.

  "He's clean now," she told Cord curtly, her eyes never leaving the other man's face.

  The arm around Tascoe's neck was released so abruptly that the man staggered, his hands going immediately to his windpipe.

  "You—you damn near crushed my larynx, Chief." He raised his head and glared at Cord. "Where the hell did you come from?"

  "We'll ask the questions, Tascoe." Cord bent swiftly and sheathed the knife he'd been holding. After pulling his pant leg over the weapon again, he straightened to his full height, his attitude still tensely watchful. "Down at the station," he added grimly.

  The heavy features clouded with confusion, and then Tascoe gave a low laugh. "You got the wrong man, Chief. I'm on your side here."

  "It doesn't look that way to me. There's a dead dog over there by a cut telephone line, and you're creeping around in the dark armed to the teeth." Cord ground the words out. "Come on, we're taking you to Lopez."

  "He's wearing polyester," Julia said slowly, looking at the awful pants Tascoe had on. "Whoever King bit was wearing jeans." She drew a shallow breath and holstered her gun as she confronted the ex-cop. "What's going on here, Tascoe?"

  "I told you—I'm on your side." Wincing and rubbing the arm that Cord had reluctantly released, Tascoe looked at him. "Give me back my weapons, Chief, because I'm going to need them. Gary Donner's in the house—I followed him here."

  His confirmation of their worst fears hit Julia like a blow to the heart, and she felt the blood draining from her face.

  "I've had my eye on that murdering bastard ever since he walked out of his second trial a free man," Tascoe said, his beefy features tight with hatred. "But I only found out he'd been using Jackie to get information the night you came to her apartment. I went looking for him the minute Hendrix and Dow let me go, but she must have been—" He swallowed heavily, his eyes squeezing shut briefly before he continued, his voice hoarse with pain. "He must have killed her almost as soon as we all left that night. I knew Lopez would haul me in again, so—"

  "What the hell were you thinking?" Julia asked, her face inches from his. "There's a child in that house—Paul and Sheila's little girl! If you hadn't been so set on playing Lone Ranger we might have had Donner in custody by now."

  She stopped suddenly, her hand going to her throat. "Oh, my G
od," she whispered, her eyes wide with horror. "You knew he killed Paul and Sheila, didn't you? You knew it—because you were following him the night he went to their house!"

  "I followed him there, yeah," Tascoe muttered, not meeting her accusing gaze. "But my first thought was that Durant wasn't as lily-white as he pretended to be—I figured Donner was in on something with him."

  "You're scum," Cord said tightly. "You were a dirty cop, so you figured Paul was, too. While you were waiting for Donner outside he was murdering my best friends. If I hadn't shown up he would have added a child to his victims. I should have killed you a few minutes ago, Tascoe."

  "Maybe you should have, Chief." The other man raised his head and shrugged wearily. "I haven't been able to live with myself since that night. If I'd only known he was starting already…" His voice trailed off, and he passed a meaty hand across his brow. "But all I knew was that he was in the house for about half an hour. Then he came out again like a bat out of hell, got into his car and took off so damn fast I nearly lost him."

  "He had to make the awards banquet," Julia said emotionlessly. "We're wasting time here. Cord, give him back his guns. We've got to get to Lizbet before Donner harms her."

  "He's not planning on killing the kid, for crying out loud." Tascoe looked surprised. "I thought you'd figured it out, too."

  "Figured what out?" Cord snapped. "If you've got some inside information about what Donner's plans are, Tascoe, spill it. He's trying to duplicate a series of murders from the past, right?"

  "Maybe that's the way he sees it." Tascoe nodded slowly. "But it's really all about revenge. He's duplicating the deaths of his 'family' in their last standoff with the police. And Lizbet's Steven—he won't kill her. He's just going to make sure you never see her again."

  "My son had been stolen from me!"

  Donner's uncharacteristic outburst during the meeting in her father's office resounded in Julia's mind with the force of a thunderclap. "He wants to kidnap her—to raise her as his own, just the way he thinks Steven was taken and turned against him," she breathed.