“Right, but I called the Fort Myers Library reference desk instead. According to their city directory, Helen Murtaugh is a retired preschool teacher.”
“Shouldn’t we call her? Tell her we’re coming?”
“We don’t know her involvement in David’s scheme. She may try to hide Brittany. Better catch her by surprise.”
With Helen Murtaugh’s address in hand and the Lincoln speeding through the city toward the interstate, she allowed herself to anticipate a reunion with her child. With a sigh of contentment, she leaned back in her seat, feeling as if a load of stones had been shifted from her shoulders.
The only hitch in her happiness was the enigmatic man beside her. She had grown to care too much for him, a man with too many secrets, a man who held too much of himself in reserve.
She’d made a mistake when she’d married David, accepting him at face value. Too late she’d learned of the controlling, obsessive personality he’d hidden beneath his suave and cultured demeanor.
Jordan lacked the unpleasant characteristics she’d noted in David soon after her marriage. But she’d caught occasional glimpses of Jordan’s wounded soul in the depths of his eyes and seen flashes of deep sorrow before he’d hidden it behind his devil-may-care grin.
Even if she proved her innocence in David’s murder, she had no future with Jordan, a man anchored in the past, haunted by the ghost of the woman he loved.
The impossibility of a life with Jordan saddened her, but she refused to allow her melancholy to blunt the joy of her reunion with Brittany. Precious memories of her daughter made her smile, and she clutched those images fiercely, drawing comfort from them during the two-hour trip through monotonous stretches of pines and palmettos.
When Jordan exited the interstate into Fort Myers, her anticipation mushroomed. Within minutes, he located the quiet street and parked the car in front of an apartment building set in a neatly trimmed lawn of saint augustine grass and shaded by royal palms and poinciana trees aflame with lacy orange blossoms.
Before he could turn off the engine, she leapt out of the car and ran up the walkway to Murtaugh’s apartment on the bottom floor. Anxious to hold her baby and anticipating Brittany’s delight at seeing her, she rang the bell.
No one answered.
Jordan came up behind her, and she rang the bell again.
“Maybe Mrs. Murtaugh’s out,” he said.
A wiry, gray-haired man carrying a shuffleboard cue came out of the apartment next door. He stopped when he spotted them. “You folks looking for Helen?”
“Do you know where she is?” Angel asked.
“Gone,” he said. “She and the girl—cute little tyke—moved out three days ago.”
Chapter Ten
At Angel’s horrified reaction, Jordan slipped quickly into his former role as investigator. “Did Helen have any close friends here in the complex?”
“Her and Inez were buddies. Went everywhere together.” The old man nodded toward the corner apartment, then scurried away toward the shuffleboard courts visible behind the building.
Angel met Jordan’s gaze with bleak eyes. “What if—”
“Don’t torture yourself.” He shot her an encouraging smile and guided her toward the corner unit. “Let’s see what Inez can tell us.”
A few minutes later they were back in the car, following Inez’s carefully drawn map to a subdivision halfway between the city and Sanibel Island.
The traffic thinned, and Jordan glanced at Angel from the corner of his eye. She sat ramrod stiff, her hands strangling the shoulder harness, her face drawn and pale. Overwhelming love and a zealous desire to protect her from all hurt vibrated through him, awakening his fears and amplifying his inadequacies. He had despised his own company for the past year yet had somehow survived. But if anything happened to Angel or Brittany, if he failed them as he had failed Jenny, he wouldn’t be able to live with himself.
Reaching across the wide front seat, he ran his knuckle down her cheek and felt her shiver beneath his touch. “Relax. We know Brittany’s there, and Inez telephoned Mrs. Murtaugh and told her we’re on our way.”
She turned, and tears muddied the brown of her eyes. “I’m scared.”
“That she won’t know you? You haven’t been apart that long.”
“How can I keep her safe with hired killers after us?”
His vow to protect them died on his tongue. Never promise what you can’t deliver. Frustrated at his inability to ease her apprehension, he squeezed her shoulder and returned his hand to the wheel. “There’s only one solution.”
“James and his killers must be caught.” She wiped her tears with the back of her hand and stiffened her spine. “This nightmare can’t go on forever.”
He wanted to contradict her but couldn’t. His nightmare had lasted over a year, with no end in sight.
Twenty minutes after leaving the apartment complex, he pulled the Lincoln alongside the curb at the address Inez had given them and killed the motor.
Helen Murtaugh’s new home was a quaint little bungalow surrounded by a white picket fence almost hidden by yellow bougainvillea. The front door opened, and a woman with a remarkable resemblance to Fiona stepped onto the porch. In her arms, she held a sweet-faced toddler with golden Shirley Temple curls.
With a joyful cry, Angel bounded from the car and sprinted toward the house.
The woman set the child on her feet, and Brittany tottered toward Angel on pudgy legs.
“Mommy! Mommy!”
Angel scooped up the girl and clasped her tightly. When Jordan reached them, she was murmuring, “Mommy’s come to take you home, sweetheart.”
He swallowed hard against the tightness in his throat at the picture they made—Angel, her face wet with tears, and Brittany, her tiny hands gently patting her mother’s damp cheeks.
“Brittany,” Mrs. Murtaugh said, “take your mommy around back and show her your playhouse while I talk with Mr. Trouble.”
Brittany squirmed, and Angel set her on her feet.
“’Mon, Mommy. See.”
As if suddenly remembering he was there, Angel sent him a questioning look.
“It’s okay,” he said. “I’ll explain everything to Mrs. Murtaugh.”
Angel’s honey-maple eyes sparkled with happiness, and the beauty of the smile she bestowed on him made him struggle for breath. Her look communicated much more than the joy of her reunion with her daughter.
He forced himself to turn away. He couldn’t accept the love she’d offered him, the promises her eyes pledged. He was too broken, too scarred, and Angel deserved better.
“Sit here, Mr. Trouble.” Mrs. Murtaugh patted the glider seat next to her.
Jordan climbed onto the porch, sat beside her and handed her the custody documents he and Angel had picked up at Angel’s apartment on their way out of Sunset Bay.
Mrs. Murtaugh studied them through her bifocals, then raised her head. “I never made a connection between the murdered man on the news and Brittany’s father.”
“If you need to call the police to verify—”
“That won’t be necessary. Brittany’s delight at seeing her mother is all the proof I need.”
“Then taking Brittany with us won’t be a problem?”
She dabbed at her forehead, moist from the heat, with a lace-edged handkerchief. “It’s such a shock. Mr. David—or I should say Mr. Swinburn—told me Brittany’s mother had died. And now he’s dead himself, poor man.”
Jordan kept his opinion of David Swinburn to himself. “If you’ll show me Brittany’s things, I’ll load them in the car.”
By the time Angel and Brittany returned to the front of the house, he had packed Brittany’s luggage and secured the child carrier in the back seat. After Mrs. Murtaugh’s tearful goodbye—she’d obviously adored the little girl—Angel climbed into the back seat next to Brittany and he headed for home.
Just a few minutes north of Fort Myers, he glanced into the rearview mirror. Angel was watching he
r sleeping daughter as if afraid Brittany would disappear if she looked away.
He pulled his gaze back to the interstate. The muscles of his neck and shoulders ached from his state of constant alert, and the return to Sunset Bay meant even greater vigilance. Frank and Sidney were looking for them, and it was up to Jordan to keep Angel and Brittany beyond the killers’ reach.
ALTHOUGH THE SUN HAD SET an hour earlier, Jordan wore his dark glasses until he’d slipped into the rear booth of the diner, across from Maggie Henderson. Dressed in fitted jeans and a tweed blazer, the petite detective with her red hair blazing in the soft light looked deceptively fragile, alone on the padded bench.
He grinned. Maggie’s illusory delicacy had caused the downfall of many a lawbreaker. He’d witnessed her sending a two-hundred-and-fifty-pound drunk and disorderly truck driver to his knees through the skilled use of pressure points, right before she slapped the cuffs on him. Wanted for assault and battery on his girlfriend, the trucker never knew what hit him. The guys at the station called her Mighty Mouse—behind her back. No one had the guts to say it to her face.
“You alone?” he asked.
She narrowed eyes as brilliantly blue as an October sky. “Why all the secrecy?”
“Remember the fraud case I was working last year?”
Sadness etched her heart-shaped features. “Wish I could forget.”
“I have a new lead.”
“Yeah, Carleton James, according to your fax. Panowski caught the fraud case after you. Shouldn’t you be talking to him?”
“The fraud case is connected to the Swinburn murder.”
“You’re sure?”
Jordan waited while a teenage waitress poured coffee and took their order before launching into his story of everything that had happened from the night Angel walked into his life.
Later, when he’d related Frank’s comments about James’s mole in the police department, Maggie shoved aside the slice of pie and wiped her fingers. “Everyone in CID has worked together for years. Are you sure you heard right?”
“How else can you explain Spacek showing up at the hearing and agreeing to post such a ridiculous bail?”
She wrinkled her freckled nose thoughtfully. “A departmental spy would also explain how the scam artists knew you and Jenny were cops that night last April.”
“That’s why I asked to see you alone, Mags. You’re the only one I can trust.”
She eyed him keenly. “And you’re not that sure of me, are you?”
He shrugged. “At this point, I have no choice. I have to trust someone, because I need help.” He finished his story, describing Angel’s account of Swinburn’s murder, and dug into the pocket of his windbreaker. “Here’s a copy of the backup disc of Swinburn’s computer files. It contains the information about James I faxed you this morning.”
She took the disc and slid it into her blazer pocket. “This is a start, but not enough for a conviction.”
“I’m hoping you’ll find the evidence you need here.” He dangled a small key across the table. “This was in the envelope with the disc.”
She took the key and turned it over in her small hand. “To a safety deposit box?”
“Swinburn’s. You’re the lead investigator in his homicide, so you should have no trouble gaining access.” He scribbled his cell phone number on a napkin and pushed it across the table. “In case you need to contact me.”
Her sky-blue eyes locked with his. “I want you to back off the case. If this James was Jenny’s killer, there’s no way you can be objective.”
He met her gaze without flinching. If James had been responsible for Jenny’s death, it would take more than Mighty Mouse Henderson to keep him away. “I’ve found the Swinburn kid, so you can call off the search.”
“Where is she?”
“Safe, with her mother.” He reached for the bill, but Maggie beat him to it.
“This one’s on the department. And, Trouble?”
“Yeah.”
“Watch your back.”
While Maggie paid the tab, Jordan pushed through the glass doors and walked a full circuit of the parking lot, scanning the cars, before mounting Henry’s cycle and roaring off.
SITTING ON THE BENCH in the cabin cruiser’s stern, Angel clasped her knees against her chest and watched the evening star slide toward the western gulf. Only hours ago, after Jordan returned from meeting Detective Henderson, Angel had kissed Brittany goodbye.
Fiona and Henry had driven away with her daughter, waving happily from her carrier in the back seat of their ancient Chevy. As much as Angel hated another separation, she’d had to admit Brittany’s safety was more important than her mother’s desire to keep her close.
“Two weeks ago,” Fiona had said when Angel and Jordan returned from Fort Myers, “Mr. Swinburn sent Henry and me to Orlando to clean and stock his new condo near Sea World. I suspect he meant to spend weekends there with the wee lass, well out of your sight.”
“If you like,” Henry said, “we can take Brittany there until the difficulty here is sorted out.”
“And those dreadful men are behind bars,” Fiona added.
The Erskines’ suggestion had been an answer to a prayer. The couple had been surrogate grandparents to Brittany since the day she was born, Sea World was her favorite place, and, since ownership of the condo was listed under an obscure corporation name, Frank and Sidney wouldn’t know to look for her there.
Angel hugged her knees tighter, longing for Brittany. Her daughter’s absence ached like an unhealed wound, but at least her child was safe and happy and knew her mother would be coming for her soon.
“It’s not too late.” Jordan interrupted her musings.
Angel glanced over her shoulder toward land, where Sunset Bay’s lights illuminated low clouds in the eastern sky. “It’s almost midnight.”
He sank beside her, pulled her back against his chest and wrapped his arms around her. “It’s not too late for you to join Brittany in Orlando.”
“Not until the men who’re after us are caught. I can’t risk leading them to her.”
“Taking you to Orlando without them picking up your trail would be easy.” His breath warmed the back of her neck.
“If I can’t prove my innocence, I’ll go to prison and be separated from Brittany for good. If clearing my name means bringing James down—”
“It’s too risky. I don’t want you involved.”
She swiveled in his arms to confront him. “I make my own decisions.”
He held her closer, and his dark eyes glimmered in the starlight. “Stubbornness can get you killed. Let me drive you to Orlando, away from all this.”
She shook her head. “I remembered David’s floor safe. I may think of something else that’s helpful.
“You’re in danger here.”
She snuggled contentedly against him. “I trust you to keep me safe.”
His sharp intake of breath whistled through his teeth, and when he spoke, his words were quiet, tortured. “Jenny trusted me, too.”
Frowning at the pain in his voice, she cradled the rough stubble of his cheeks in her hands. She suspected Jenny’s death was the source of the pain he so often tried to hide with his slow, easy grin and teasing words. “Would talking about her help?”
He stood so quickly she had to catch herself from toppling onto the deck. She followed him to the opposite side of the deck, not knowing which drove her more—her own curiosity or her desire to help him exorcise his personal demons.
With his back to her, he gazed across the gulf. Expecting him to twist away, she placed her hand in the center of his warm, bare back. He didn’t move.
“You never speak of her. Don’t you trust me?”
“Trust has to work both ways.” He leaned briefly against the pressure of her hand before stepping away. “If I tell you about Jenny, you’ll never trust me again, and I don’t think I could live with that.”
“It can’t be that bad.”
He tur
ned toward her, his face a mystery of angles and shadows in the starlight. “I don’t want to lose you, Angel.”
Despite her joy at his admission, she recognized the underlying horror in his voice, and her elation plummeted with a quickness that made her giddy.
He clutched her fiercely against his chest and buried his face in her hair. Wrapping her arms around his waist, she laid her cheek against his thundering heart. “Nothing you say can turn me away from you.”
His bitter, tortured laughter echoed across the dark, calm water. “You give me too much credit.”
“And you sell yourself short.”
He released her and drew back, his face grim with resignation, but his gaze never left her face. “You’ll find out sooner or later. It was in all the papers a year ago. I’m surprised you don’t already know.”
A year ago she’d been preoccupied with breaking free from David and forging a new life for herself and Brittany. News events in those days had washed over her like white noise. “If it’s bad, I’d rather hear it from you.”
He laughed again with a rancorous chuckle that ended like a sob. “It’s bad all right. Bad enough that I tried to drown myself in the bottom of a bottle for months afterward.”
She tensed, holding her breath, prepared for the worst, but doubting his revelations could be as appalling as he’d hinted.
He dropped his gaze and grew suddenly still. As if in sympathy, the breeze died, and the lap of waves against the hull ceased. The only sound was the rasp of his breathing.
“You think Frank and Sidney are responsible for Jenny’s death,” he said.
“That’s what they told David.”
He shook his head, slowly, deliberately. “Carleton James’s paid killers didn’t shoot Jenny.”
She jerked her head up in surprise. “Who did?”
When he met her gaze, his eyes reflected the agony of a man who had stumbled into hell and couldn’t find his way out.
“I killed her,” he said.
Chapter Eleven
“I don’t understand.” Angel had lost her memory, but temporary amnesia hadn’t hampered her ability to gauge people. He had confessed to a crime, but Jordan Trouble wasn’t a murderer.
A Woman of Mystery Page 15
