After Darke

by Heather MacAllister

  Incredible. “I will not dignify that by a response. Except to point out that I paid for our tickets today.”

  “I had a ticket, and I would have used it if you hadn’t taken me to a restaurant frequented by gangsters.”

  “I didn’t know it was frequented by gangsters.”

  “You didn’t know anything about it! You took me there so we wouldn’t see anyone you knew!”

  Since that was very close to the truth, Jaron went on the offensive. “How has a discussion that started about a cell phone deteriorated to this?”

  The look she gave him said she wasn’t fooled. “Just call.”

  Jaron started to punch in 911, then stopped. He wouldn’t get New York, he’d get the local emergency response center.

  After making a disgusted sound, Bonnie went back to her purse and withdrew Frank Quigg’s business card.

  By calmly stating his business, Jaron managed to get put on hold three times. “I want to speak to Captain Frank Quigg,” he repeated for the fourth time. “And he will want to speak to me. Trust me, this isn’t a normal operating-hours kind of call.”

  Bonnie grabbed the phone. “Tell Quigg I have pictures and I’m going to the press.”

  “What are you doing?”

  She held up a finger. “May I have your name? They’ll want to know who was responsible—yes, I’ll hold.”

  Jaron rolled his eyes. “It’s late. He’s probably not even there.”

  A smile bloomed across Bonnie’s face. “Captain Quigg? This is Bonnie Cooper—yes, he’s here with me. We’re fine. I don’t want to tell you—”

  It was Jaron’s turn to grab the phone. “Some protection you provide, Quigg!”

  “Ask how Sorenson is,” Bonnie whispered.

  Jaron nodded. “How’s Sorenson?”

  Quigg’s gravelly voice sounded in his ear. “Bump on the head. Scalded his hand on coffee. He’ll live.”

  Jaron gave Bonnie a thumbs-up. “But the question is, will we?”

  Bonnie started making cutting motions by running her finger across her neck. “They’re tracing us! They do it on TV all the time!”

  “Where are you?” Quigg asked, as Jaron knew he would.

  “We went to Bonnie’s home—Cooper’s Corner.”

  “Oh, great!” Bonnie threw up her hands and started circling him. “You told him! What did you do that for? After all the trouble I went to so nobody would know where we—”

  “What’s the matter with her?” Quigg asked.

  “Too much television.” Jaron cleared his throat. “She’s worried that someone in the police department tipped off the guys who came looking for us this morning.”

  “Yeah, so am I,” Quigg said.

  What? “You’re not supposed to agree with her.”

  Quigg sighed heavily. “I gotta consider it, but I think it’s more likely that you were recognized.”

  “Yeah, thanks for alerting the media.”

  “I didn’t have anything to do with it.”

  “So what do we do now?”

  “I’m packing and getting out of here,” Bonnie said.

  “And going where?”

  “Somewhere else, and nobody is going to know.”

  Quigg spoke. “Tell her to hang loose for a bit. I’m looking up something. Darn computer.”

  Bonnie grabbed her suitcase. “Adios.” She stepped over the sleeping bag and headed for the door.

  “Go. I don’t care,” Jaron said. She’d said it to him once.

  “Don’t let her leave,” Quigg warned.

  Jaron swallowed the first word he’d thought of, because it wasn’t the brightest thing in the world to swear at the captain of detectives. He ran past Bonnie and leaned against the door.

  Giving him a filthy look, she returned to her cot, sat on it and crossed her arms over her chest. Yeah, that lower lip was definitely in pout mode.

  Jaron stayed by the door, just in case.

  “Ask Bonnie if she knows the Twin Oaks Bed and Breakfast,” Quigg said.

  “We’re hiding out in the attic as we speak.” This place must have a good reputation if somebody like Quigg knew about it. He didn’t look like the B and B type.

  “Does Maureen know you’re there?”

  “Who?”

  “Maureen Cooper. She owns the place, along with her brother, Clint.”

  Didn’t anyone in this place have a different last name? “Relatives of Bonnie’s?”

  Bonnie dropped her arms when she heard her name.

  “I guess. For now, you two stay put and let me talk with Maureen.”

  “Why? Why do you want to talk with Maureen?”

  “He wants to talk with Maureen?” Bonnie echoed.

  Jaron shushed her with a wave of his hand.

  “This will have to be on a need-to-know basis,” Quigg said.

  “I need to know! What’s going on?”

  But Quigg ignored him. “It’s late now, so until we know what we’re dealing with, lie low. I’ll call Maureen in the morning.”

  “So we’re still at status quo? You haven’t caught Sonny or his minions yet?”

  “No.”

  After Jaron punched the off button, Bonnie lit into him. “How could you tell him where we were?”

  “He’s on our side, Bonnie.” Jaron crossed the room and flipped her phone to her.

  She caught it and put it back into her purse. “What’s going to happen now?”

  Jaron squatted and finished untying the sleeping bag. “He said to stay right here. He knew the place.”

  “He did?”

  Nodding, Jaron unrolled the sleeping bag. It looked like a veteran. He imagined he could smell smoke from a long-ago, or maybe not-so-long-ago, campfire. Great. So not only did he look the part of an L.L. Bean fanatic, he’d smell like one, too. “Quigg will call Maureen in the morning.” Jaron unzipped the bag. “Is she your sister?”

  “Distant cousin. I wonder why he wants to talk with her.” Bonnie absently slipped off her shoes and Jaron’s jacket. “I really hate to get her involved with this.”

  “What did you think was going to happen when you came here?”

  Bonnie unzipped her suitcase. “I guess I thought all the bad stuff would go away. Stupid, huh?”

  “Yeah, but I understand completely.”

  She gave him a tired smile, at last losing some steam. “There’s a rest room off the gathering room downstairs. I’ll just be a minute.”

  It was more than a minute when Bonnie, clad in a fleece robe with sheep on it, came padding back into the room.

  The robe covered her from neck to ankles, and Jaron stalled, wondering what her sleepwear looked like.

  In a second, Bonnie removed the robe and tossed it across the foot of the cot. She was wearing matching flannel pajamas with enough sheep to count a person into a deep sleep.

  He should have known. Smiling to himself, Jaron crept down the stairs.

  * * *

  “FRANK!” MAUREEN COOPER HADN’T been expecting to hear from him, and was jolted as always when her former life as a New York City police detective reached out and touched her new life. In fact, it was precisely because she didn’t want that former life that she and her brother had moved here.

  Automatically, her eyes darted to the breakfast table, where her twin daughters were eating their cereal and playing with their Super Slide Kelly. Maureen had no illusions that as soon as she turned her back, Super Slide Kelly would take a dunk in the milk. If only that was all she had to worry about. If anything happened to the twins...

  “Is this about Nevil? Have you heard back from forensics? Did he send the letter?” Owen Nevil was an ex-con and brother of a man she’d sent to prison for murder, Carl Nevil.
Carl had vowed revenge, and Maureen believed he would try to get it through Owen.

  The envelope, with no return address and marked “personal,” had arrived at the station after she’d moved to Cooper’s Corner. Even now she could hear the heart-stopping message Frank Quigg, her former boss, had read to her: “You can’t hide from me. I will find you.”

  A strand of hair had come loose from her ponytail. Maureen tucked it behind her ear as she cast another look at her daughters. She smiled as they sent Super Slide Kelly into a bowl of milk.

  “Sorry, Maureen. We couldn’t tie it to him. But don’t worry—”

  “Oh, right.”

  “We’re keeping tabs on him. And the note was addressed to your married name here at the station. He doesn’t know you’re living in Massachusetts.”

  “I hope that’s true.” She paused a moment. “If you weren’t calling about Nevil, then what’s going on?”

  Frank cleared his throat. “I need a favor.”

  “I am not coming back to work. My first responsibility has got to be my daughters—”

  “Whoa, whoa.”

  Maureen was surprised at how hard her heart was pounding. She’d considered herself tough when she was on the force, but now she had the twins to consider, and that made her vulnerable.

  “We had some trouble in Little Italy.”

  “I heard.”

  “We’ve got witnesses.”

  “I knew about that columnist, but who else?”

  There was a beat of silence and Maureen braced herself.

  “A relative of yours—Bonnie Cooper.”

  Maureen gasped before she could stop herself. “Bonnie? What was she—”

  “She and Darke had been out for dinner and happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. And they didn’t see just any hit, they saw Sonny O’Brien take out Maurice Fenister. He was Sonny’s interior decorator, and the scuttlebutt is that he was having an affair with both Sonny’s wife and his daughter. Now, personally, I gotta sympathize with the guy, but he got all hotheaded, and lucky for us, he wasn’t discreet. He made the hit himself.”

  “And Bonnie saw it? Is she okay? Can I talk to her?”

  “In a little bit.” Frank cleared his throat again.

  Maureen narrowed her eyes. “Allergies acting up, Frank?”

  “Yeah. Must be it.”

  “You don’t have allergies and you’ve never minced words with me before. Talk.”

  “They were recognized. Before he went off, Sonny was having dinner with Seamus McDormand. McDormand is apparently a Jaron Darke fan. Sent him a bottle of wine.”

  Maureen listened in growing horror as Frank related the events of the past twenty-four hours. “Where’s Bonnie now?”

  “Staying very well hidden, if you don’t know. They called me last night from your B and B.”

  The room reeled around her. Two people had sneaked into her home and she hadn’t even known it. She hadn’t even been gone from the force a year and she’d already lost her edge.

  “And I want them to stay there where you can keep an eye on them,” Frank continued.

  “They can’t stay here! I’ve got children to consider. Bonnie and her friend have got Seamus McDormand after them. I want you to send them far, far away and assign your best people to guard them.”

  “I am. You.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Maureen—ten years. Ten. That’s how long we’ve been after him. You know what I’d give to get to McDormand?”

  She did. “You know what I’d give to keep my kids safe?”

  There was another beat of silence, and Maureen realized Frank was changing tack. “Bonnie and Darke successfully escaped or they’d be dead by now. Moving them will only draw attention to them, and to you. Besides, you’ve got to know that this is huge and is going to take precedence over Owen Nevil.”

  “Frank—”

  “Now, you know I’ll try my best, but having to worry about my two star witnesses and tracking down a possible leak in the department will take time away from the Nevil case. That’s just the facts, Maureen.”

  “No, that’s blackmail.” But she did see Frank’s point. And, too, she’d been unable to relax completely for months, always watchful and always nervous, especially after the threatening letter and the disappearance of one of her guests on the B and B’s opening weekend. That had proved to be unrelated to her own situation and the man had been found safe, but Maureen was still wary.

  As long as she was on guard, she might as well be looking after the columnist and Bonnie, too.

  Quigg had been silently waiting, knowing that she had to work it out first. Knowing she’d see things his way. “In exchange for them staying here, I want the Nevil case on the front burner.”

  “Absolutely. In fact, I’ll run checks on all your guests. Just fax me the info.”

  “Okay.” That would be a relief.

  “Now, here’s the cover story we’ve worked out for them.”

  After hanging up the phone, Maureen stared at it before turning to discover that a milky sea had swamped the table and was dripping onto the floor.

  “Uh-oh.” Randi nudged her twin.

  “Uh-oh,” echoed Robin.

  But to their surprise, their mother swept them into a huge hug.

  * * *

  “BONNIE, ARE YOU IN there?”

  Bonnie awoke with a start and sat straight up in bed. From somewhere nearby she heard Jaron do the same. What time was it?

  “Bonnie?”

  “Maureen?”

  The door opened and Maureen strode in. “Bonnie, are you all right?” When she got closer, her eyes widened. “Your face! What happened?”

  “Ran into a wall.” Bonnie touched her cheek. It didn’t hurt as much this morning. “Maureen, I—”

  With a hard, quick hug, Maureen cut off what she’d been going to say. “I’ve already spoken to Frank Quigg this morning.” Peering over the crate table, she said, “You must be Jaron Darke.”

  “Only if you’re one of the good guys.” Jaron raked his fingers through his hair. It responded by arranging itself into perfect layers. He didn’t even have hat hair from the baseball cap he’d worn yesterday.

  Bonnie tried dragging her fingers through her own hair, but they got stuck in the tangles and she gave up.

  “I need to tell you both something and it can go no further than this room.”

  “Sure.”

  “I mean it, Bonnie.” Maureen looked over at Jaron, who nodded.

  “Okay. What is it?”

  “Before Clint and I came here, I was a detective with NYPD. A sergeant. Frank Quigg was my boss.”

  “Small world,” Jaron said.

  “But that’s great!” Bonnie was only half-surprised. She’d met Maureen a couple of times before she moved back to Cooper’s Corner, and had had the impression of a very strong, self-confident woman. “Why wouldn’t you want anyone to know?”

  “Because I was very good at what I did and there are people who would like revenge. One of them is after me now.”

  “So you’re also a member of the small but exclusive club of people suffering for doing the right thing,” Jaron said.

  Maureen shrugged. “I accepted threats as part of the job, but that was before my husband took off and left me to raise the girls. I’m all they’ve got. So when Uncle Warren left Clint and me this place, it was literally the answer to my prayers. Nobody knows what I did before except Clint and one other man who needed to know. And now you two.”

  “So why are you telling us now?” Bonnie asked.

  “Because Frank wants you to stay here. You managed to elude the McDormand clan and he figures I can keep an eye on you.”

  “And what does Quigg want me to
do?” Jaron asked.

  “He wants you to stay here, too.”

  “I don’t think so.” Jaron extricated himself from the sleeping bag. He still wore his T-shirt and jeans and looked attractively rumpled.

  Bonnie figured she just looked rumpled. “Why not?”

  “I would rather take my chances with Sonny than stay in this attic for days on end.”

  “You don’t have to stay in here,” Maureen said.

  “I can’t go wandering around now that my face has been plastered all over New England.”

  “You know, you don’t look a whole lot like your picture,” Maureen said.

  Bonnie beamed. “I told you! He’s got his Jaron Darke clothes with him, but I made him shave. Believe me, he looked exactly like his picture before.”

  “Well, this is good. It fits in with the plan,” Maureen said. “As far as we know, McDormand doesn’t know who Bonnie is, and since she planned to stay here during the renovations and is from Cooper’s Corner anyway, she’s set. But Jaron is the problem.”

  “I’ve heard that before.” Jaron wandered over to the attic window.

  “You can’t be yourself, so Quigg is setting up a new identity for you.”

  “I like my old identity,” he grumbled.

  “You’re going to be Jay Drake, computer expert from Syracuse. Shaving the beard was good. You should also wear glasses—”

  “Hold it.” Jaron turned.

  He was backlit by the window and Bonnie couldn’t read his expression, but she didn’t really need to.

  “I don’t know much about computers and even less about Syracuse.”

  “Learn,” Maureen told him.

  He stepped away from the window, and Bonnie saw that his expression was grim. “Oh, sure, I can read up on Syracuse. I do use the Internet and write my columns on a laptop, but that’s my total knowledge. What if someone asks me to fix a computer?”

  “Say okay, take it with you and drive someplace and get it fixed,” Bonnie said. Didn’t he have any imagination?