The Stolen Bride

by Jacqueline Diamond

  “Sorry.”

  “According to Norris, they’d discussed my application on the golf course and your father opposed it. So he passed the word along to Chief Lima.”

  “Dad always liked you,” she said. “And men don’t usually like the boys who date their daughters, do they? Besides, you did get hired. That ought to prove something.”

  “It proves Chief Lima wasn’t in thrall to the town’s VIPs the way Norris is,” Joseph said. “I had the highest score on their aptitude test, and he gave me a chance. Look, I don’t know why your father felt that way. Maybe he thought I’d be better off working in another town. He might have figured he was doing me a favor.”

  Erin rubbed her temples. “I’m sorry. I think I’m on overload. I just hate to believe Dad would say something like that.”

  Joseph rocked forward in his chair and for a moment she thought he was going to reach out. She wanted him to touch her. She wanted him to make the pain go away.

  Instead, he said, “You’re right. I’m asking too much of you. You need to sleep.” When she opened her mouth to protest, he said, “Don’t argue. By the way, when’s the last time you ate?”

  Erin tried to think. “Lunch, I guess. I had some soup at home. I ought to be starved.”

  “You may not know this, but I’m a gifted gourmet cook,” he said.

  She spotted a playful quirk around the edges of Joseph’s mouth. “Are we talking Fiddle Faddle with chocolate milk?”

  He clapped a hand to his heart. “Your skepticism wounds me.”

  “Frozen lasagna?”

  “Ye shall be surprised.” He moved her suitcase to the floor. “I’ll have dinner ready when you wake up.”

  “As long as the food doesn’t bite me back, I’ll be happy.”

  Joseph left without any further fuss. Yet she felt more cared for than if he’d hovered over her.

  Slipping off her shoes, Erin crawled gratefully under the covers. As her body relaxed against the sheets, she wished she could remember what had happened the day of her accident. If only she could describe the driver, it might help them solve this puzzle.

  When she was eleven, she’d had a tonsillectomy. She remembered lying in the operating room before the surgery. One minute the anesthesiologist had been murmuring words of comfort and the next minute she’d awakened in the recovery room. She could have sworn she’d simply closed her eyes and then opened them again.

  The Saturday six weeks ago was like that. She had to have awakened in the morning, dressed and gone to the carnival. She’d obviously talked to Bea at one point. No one had given her anesthesia, yet it was all a big blank. Vanished without a trace.

  Why didn’t she remember setting the cash box on the pavement? Why couldn’t she recall a darn thing?

  Chocolate. And nuts. A big, thick bar.

  Erin almost tasted it. She doubted it had anything to do with that day, however, because she’d sworn off unhealthy treats long ago. It had to be her hunger pangs talking.

  Focusing on the promise of a meal to come, she drifted off.

  OKAY, SO HE’D exaggerated his culinary skills, but they weren’t bad if you considered the circumstances. When Joseph was younger, his mother had done all the cooking, and during college he’d been too busy working and studying to do more than grab a burger now and then.

  During the past few years, as he entered his late twenties and began hearing the unwelcome news that youth didn’t last forever, he’d decided he needed to eat right. So he’d done what any red-blooded American male would do: He’d asked his mom for cooking lessons.

  She’d declined.

  What a shock, Joseph reflected as he took out a package of frozen burritos. From the cabinet, he retrieved a can of low-fat refried beans and a box of Mexican rice. With fat-free sour cream, grated cheese and a salad, they’d have a passable meal.

  He’d figured out by himself how to throw a meal together. It was definitely the hard way to learn to cook. He’d eaten more burned, bland and just plain lousy food than he cared to admit. On a policeman’s salary, he couldn’t afford to throw anything away unless it verged on medically hazardous.

  Suzanne Lowery hadn’t been trying to give her son a hard time when she turned him down. She was too busy, she’d explained apologetically. Between working as secretary at a law office and heading up her homework organization, she rarely cooked even for herself.

  Even so, she was a great mom. Without her, Joseph couldn’t imagine how he’d have kept his balance through the shock of what had happened to his father.

  She’d never grown bitter, despite the devastating loss of her husband, who’d been killed in prison when he tried to break up a fight. She’d moved on, because there was no point in doing anything else. And, perhaps, to set a good example for her son.

  She’d succeeded, Joseph mused while waiting for the water to boil for the rice. He’d put the past behind him, too. Well, except for a bit of digging through news articles from the time, since he didn’t dare request a copy of the old police reports.

  He’d found precious little.

  The known facts weren’t complicated. One night when Joseph was seventeen, a merchant named Binh Nguyen, who designed and sold jewelry at the Mercantile Building—one of the Marshalls’ properties—had received a shipment of gems valued at $2.5 million. He’d put a deposit on them, expecting to pay off the balance with profits from custom jewelry orders.

  Aside from the Nguyen family, only the police department and Marshall Security had been notified of the shipment. In case their watchfulness wasn’t enough, Binh Nguyen had made a last-minute decision to sleep over at his shop that night.

  It had proved to be a fatal mistake.

  That night, someone had disabled the alarm and sneaked into the building. Confronted by a baseball-bat-wielding Nguyen, the robber or robbers had grabbed the weapon, beaten him savagely and escaped with the jewels.

  In the morning, police had found him dead. In a nearby alley, they’d located Lewis Lowery, with alcohol in his system and a head injury he apparently suffered when he’d tripped and fallen.

  Lewis claimed he’d gone to the building to make sure everything was all right and that someone had attacked him. He’d attributed the trace of alcohol in his blood to someone pouring it down his throat, but the prosecutor had persuaded the jury he’d been roaring drunk the night before.

  The night watchman assigned to the Mercantile Building, one Alfonso Lorenz, testified that Lewis had ordered him to stay away that night. He’d presented a convincing, cohesive story and never strayed from it.

  When police found Joseph’s father in the alley, he was carrying a photocopy of security plans for the building that included the alarm code. The murder weapon, left at the scene, bore his fingerprints.

  The prosecutor had argued that after an unexpected confrontation, Lewis had killed Nguyen and then been so overwhelmed with guilt that he’d drunk himself into a stupor. His motive for the robbery—this had bothered Joseph more than anything—had supposedly been the desire to fund his son’s college education.

  The jewels had vanished. Only a few had ever been identified, years later, and they’d been sold overseas.

  The evidence and testimony had been strong enough to convince the jury. Later, Lorenz had departed for a Caribbean island that lacked an extradition treaty with the U.S. Although he was certain the man had been involved, Joseph didn’t believe Lorenz was smart enough to have pulled off the job alone.

  The only other suspect had been a small-time crook named Todd Wilde who, a few days before the crime, was released from the county jail after serving a sentence for theft. Detectives had questioned him routinely but found no link to the murder of Binh Nguyen.

  On the Internet, Joseph had learned that, six years ago, Wilde had been convicted in Los Angeles for a string of burglaries. He’d gone to prison for a long stretch.

  It all brought matters back to square one. Joseph’s vague suspicions about the chief didn’t amount to a hill of
beans. Or a can of refried beans, for that matter.

  On the stove, the water boiled furiously. He’d better pay more attention to his cooking.

  After stirring in the rice, Joseph went to check on Erin. She slept with the covers pulled up to her chin, her chestnut hair spread across the pillow. This was supposed to be her wedding night, he remembered. If not for his interference, she’d be Chet Dever’s wife now.

  A wife taken by fraud and deceit. Joseph would never regret what he’d done, even if it harmed his career. Erin belonged here until they cleared up this mess.

  He refused to torture himself with delusions about them having a future together. That diamond choker and tiara had said it all. He didn’t belong in a high-stakes world like that, and he didn’t want to.

  He cared passionately about his work: the abused wife he’d convinced to take her children and flee to safety. The heart attack victim he’d kept alive with CPR until the paramedics arrived. The little girl he’d found, lost and frightened in the woods, because he’d called softly while earlier searchers had terrified her by making a racket.

  He’d made a life for himself. But there was something missing.

  Gazing at Erin, Joseph wished they were just two people whose bodies got excited every time they brushed each other. Just two people who, as teenagers, had been willing to take it slow because they had all the time in the world. Just two people who might be falling in love again.

  Refusing to dwell on what might have been, he decided to check on the rice. He’d just stepped into the kitchen when he heard the rumble of a car. Because of the way sounds echoed in the canyons, it was impossible to tell whether it was moving toward the house, down the street or on another road entirely.

  After switching off the burner, Joseph went to peer out the front. Below and to the left, at the nearest house, he glimpsed a midsize sedan, possibly green, moving through the dusk. The house, a rental, had been vacant for weeks. Perhaps the owner had found a new tenant.

  In the kitchen, the phone rang. As he hurried to grab it, he reflected in annoyance that he should have turned off the ringer on the bedroom extension. Worst-case scenario: Erin would awaken sleep-dazed, forget where she was and answer.

  Sure enough, he heard her voice a split second before he, too, said, “Hello?” into the mouthpiece.

  On the other end, the caller hesitated. Someone was there. He could hear breathing.

  The line cut off.

  Joseph hung up and counted to ten. If it was his mother or a friend confused by hearing a woman’s voice, the phone would ring again.

  It stayed silent.

  He dialed Star-69 to return the call. It didn’t go through. The caller must have turned off his cell phone.

  It could be anybody. There might be no correlation between the car next door and the phone call. Or maybe there was.

  Joseph checked a slip of paper on the refrigerator and dialed the rental owner in Santa Barbara. The man, pleased to have a policeman next door, had given it to him in case a tenant created a disturbance.

  When the owner answered, he said he hadn’t rented the place nor had he authorized anyone to use the cabin. Of course, the car might belong to someone who’d noticed the For Rent sign and decided to inspect the premises.

  Joseph promised to keep an eye on things and rang off. Uneasily, he headed for the bedroom.

  Whoever had phoned knew Erin was there. If this meant trouble, he intended to be ready for it.

  Chapter Six

  When the dial tone sounded in her ear, it occurred to Erin that she wasn’t supposed to answer the phone. She hoped it had simply been one of those careless callers who didn’t have the decency to apologize for a wrong number.

  Her mind still sleep-fogged, she rose, smoothed out her clothes and dug the brush from her purse. Inside the bag, something slid over her hand. A gold chain. She’d brought the jagged-heart pendant from her mother’s house.

  She wondered what Joseph would think if he saw it. Perhaps he’d forgotten about it entirely. He’d obviously moved way past their high school days.

  She tucked the pendant into a drawer and pulled the brush through her tousled hair. After restoring a semblance of order, she freshened her powder and lipstick.

  Even in adversity, Erin took pains with her appearance. Alice had forbidden her to run outside barefoot as a child or, as a teenager, to leave the house without inspection, saying Marshalls had to maintain their dignity. It was a good thing she hadn’t seen Erin posing as Mrs. Santa Claus or fraudulently decked out as a Girl Scout during another escapade.

  A tap at the door heralded Joseph’s entrance. “What’s so funny?” His eyebrows puckered in the middle, making him appear half-amused and half-dubious. The indentation begged to be explored by Erin’s finger—and her lips.

  “I was remembering stuff,” she said. “Like when Letty Brownling arrived for a Friends of the Library speech and was too publicity shy to meet with reporters.”

  The two of them had decided to score a coup for the school newspaper by interviewing Letty, one of their favorite young-adult authors. Since she’d written about her love for Girl Scout cookies, Erin had borrowed Tina’s uniform and she and Joseph had ferreted out the number of Ms. Brownling’s hotel room.

  They’d sold four boxes of cookies and landed the interview. Letty had also given them an autographed copy of her latest book, which Erin, pricked by her conscience, had donated to the school library.

  “That was fun,” Joseph said. “Sorry to bring this up, but about that phone call…”

  “I made a mistake.” She returned the makeup to her purse. “I forgot I shouldn’t answer.”

  “I know. It’s not your fault, but there may be a problem.” He glanced out her window through the blinds. “A car just pulled up to the neighbor’s house, which is supposedly empty.”

  Erin went cold inside. “What should we do?”

  “It may be a potential renter, but I’m going to take my binocs outside for a closer look. Lock yourself in the bathroom until I get back.”

  Erin refused to crouch in the bathroom like a hunted animal. She’d already wasted a month blaming herself for her vague suspicions when they apparently had a basis in fact. Instead of terrifying her, the situation made her angry.

  “I’ll stay inside if you like, but I’m tired of playing the victim,” she said. “If someone breaks in, I’ll go for the gun.”

  Joseph’s mouth twisted. “You’re getting feisty.”

  “You’ve inspired me.”

  “Far be it from me to try to keep you down.” He dimmed the lights and peered out again. “I don’t see movement. If anything happens, dial 911 before you start playing Rambo.”

  “Got it.”

  “Stay clear of the window, too. Stray bullets can kill.” About to leave, he glanced out again. “Oh, hell.”

  “What?” Her heart gave a painful skip.

  “Someone’s coming up the hill on foot from the next house.”

  Erin came and looked out. Trees striped the slope, black against gray in the near darkness. After a moment, she detected a figure slipping furtively up the uneven ground, accompanied by a moving pinpoint of light. It stumbled, and she heard a man curse loudly.

  “I think we can rule out a professional assassin,” Joseph murmured.

  A chill ran along Erin’s spine. “Was that what you expected?”

  “Where there’s big money, it’s possible.” He glanced out again. “Weird guy. He reached the driveway and he’s continuing right out in the open. I’d better give him a welcome. Maybe he’s just lost.”

  In the living room, she inhaled the scent of Mexican food and discovered she was hungry. Having to delay dinner made her even crankier at their uninvited guest.

  Joseph snagged his holster from an end table and strapped it on. By the door, he flicked a switch and lit up porch.

  He fitted his eye to the peephole. “Here he comes.”

  “Who is it?”

  “I can’
t tell,” Joseph said. “Please look out the back. Either this guy isn’t up to anything or it’s a trick, in which case he may have help.”

  Erin hurried to obey. Her gaze swept over the redwood deck and yard, which were also illuminated. “Nothing that I can see.”

  The doorbell rang. She twitched instinctively.

  Joseph pointed to a high-backed swivel chair near Erin. If she sat facing away from him, she realized, she’d be hidden from view.

  As soon as she complied, Joseph snicked open the bolt. “Have trouble finding my driveway?” he asked someone.

  Erin waited to hear who would answer.

  “I didn’t want anyone to see my car parked in front of your house,” the reply came in a familiar, slightly nasal voice.

  Gene Norris. His father must have told him she was here, but what on earth did he want? It certainly wasn’t a social call. Although she’d known him for years, Erin didn’t think the two of them had ever conducted a one-on-one conversation in their lives.

  “By anyone, you mean all those thousands of people who drive by?” Joseph asked. “Or maybe the gossipy pigeons in the trees?”

  “You never know who’ll drop by,” Gene said stiffly. “I have sensitive business to discuss. Where’s Erin?”

  “Why?”

  “What do you mean, why? Is there some reason I can’t talk to her?” He ought to lose the whiny tone, she thought. Heaven help him if he had to make a speech on Chet’s behalf.

  “That depends,” Joseph said.

  “On what?”

  “First of all, did you call here and hang up?”

  She found herself hoping he’d say yes. At least that would resolve one nagging worry.

  “I didn’t hang up,” Gene said. “I got cut off. The service is crummy in these canyons. I just wanted to make sure you were home.”

  “So you could park at my neighbor’s house and sneak up.” Joseph wasn’t cutting the guy any slack. Nor should he.

  “I need to talk to her about Chet.” Gene had apparently decided on the direct approach.

  “He’s using his campaign manager as a go-between?”