by Meg Benjamin
Joe gave her a dry smile. “Trying to put off the explosion, darlin’?”
“As long as I can.” She managed a smile. “Great burger, by the way.”
Joe shook his head. “This staffing problem had better get straightened out, Ms. Maldonado, or the restaurant’s going straight down the tubes.”
Kit felt a quick drip of ice water down her spine. If the restaurant went down the tubes, Mabel wouldn’t have much trouble convincing Resorts Consolidated to close it. Particularly after the disaster the last chef had caused at the inn. “I’ll work it out,” she promised. “Tomorrow at the latest.”
“I’ll look forward to it. Meanwhile, you might want to go back home and get yourself some sneakers.” He nodded toward her sandals. “Those are gonna rip your feet to shreds if you’re waiting tables.”
Kit closed her eyes for a moment, massaging her toes again. “Tell me about it.”
“Brody.” Toleffson narrowed his eyes.
Nando nodded.
“Chief Brody? The guy who swindled the city out of several thousand dollars while he was extorting conventioneers? The guy who tried to steal an antique map and ended up almost killing my sister-in-law?” His jaw tightened.
“That’s the only Brody I know about.”
“Did she actually say ‘Chief Brody’?”
Nando nodded, staring around the half-empty hospital parking lot. They’d already had an abbreviated version of this conversation over the phone, but Toleffson had headed over immediately and dragged him down here where they were less likely to be overheard, at least theoretically. “She said ‘Brody’ and then she closed her eyes. And then she said ‘Chief Brody’. The nurse said she’d probably be in and out of consciousness now, but eventually she’ll be fully awake.”
Toleffson leaned back against the side of his truck, sighing. “This makes no sense. You know that. If Brody was back, somebody in town would have recognized him. It’s not like he left all that long ago.”
Nando shrugged. “Maybe he looks different now. He’s been on the run for a few years. Hell, maybe he’s dyed his hair or shaved it off.” He had a momentary mental image of Joe LeBlanc but dismissed it. The guy was way too young anyway.
“Still.” The chief kicked a piece of gravel across the parking lot. “If he’s here, where the hell has he been hiding for the past month? He can’t have been out in the open that much—he couldn’t take the risk of somebody recognizing him. And if he was holed up somewhere in town, there’d be gossip about the strange guy who didn’t come out of his room.”
“I don’t know. I’ve been thinking about this since Helen woke up.” In point of fact, he hadn’t been thinking about much of anything else since Helen woke up. “He could be living in someplace like Johnson City or Mable Falls, but even if he was actually living here in town, most people probably wouldn’t notice. I mean, if I knew Brody was around, I might recognize him. But if I didn’t expect to see him, I probably wouldn’t. Especially if he’s lost weight or dyed his hair.”
“You mean you wouldn’t see him or you wouldn’t recognize him?”
Nando shrugged. “Both. The guy was in his forties when he took off. There are a lot of men in that age group around here. And I always saw Brody in uniform—everybody did. Seeing him in civilian clothes might be like camouflage. To tell you the truth, the SOB could walk right by me now in the right getup and I’d likely not know it was him unless I was looking close.”
Toleffson stared down at his boots for a moment, then glanced back at him. “You said you wouldn’t recognize him if you didn’t expect to see him. But what if you knew he was here?”
Nando shrugged. “Then all bets are off. From now on, I’ll be checking out every middle-aged man I see, trying to make sure it isn’t Brody. From now on, I’ll be looking for him.” And hoping he’d be the one who found the bastard.
The chief blew out a long breath, staring back toward the hospital entrance. “I don’t suppose we’ve got any pictures of Brody around the station.”
Nando shook his head. “Not that I’ve seen. They used to have a portrait of the chief hanging up there, but they took Brody’s down when he ran off, and then Olema wasn’t around long enough to rate a picture of his own.” He glanced at Toleffson, frowning. “Anybody ask for one of you?”
Toleffson gave him a dry grin. “Nah. Maybe they decided not to spring for another picture, seeing as how they’d had so much turnover. I like Al’s cartoon over at the Coffee Corral better anyway.”
“We can look around the station. That old portrait might be stored someplace.”
“That would be real helpful since I don’t have a clue what this asshole looks like.” He shrugged. “Maybe there’s something on line.”
“Lots of people in town might recognize him if they knew he was around,” Nando said slowly. “Are you going to let everybody know?”
Toleffson stared down at his feet again for a long moment, then shook his head. “No. You know how that would be. All of a sudden everybody in town would start seeing him everywhere they looked. They’d have us running all over creation checking out false sightings. We need to be the ones doing the looking.”
“But the only cops who know what he looks like are me and Ham. And Helen once she comes back. Rollie moved here after you did, Dawson’s been here for less time than that and Delaney’s the newest of us all.”
The chief shrugged. “Which is why we need a picture of him.”
“So we don’t tell anybody?” Nando tried to keep the worry out of his voice.
Toleffson shook his head. “Wait until Helen’s talking. Maybe we can get some more information from her. Meanwhile, we’ll keep doing patrol. And we’ll tell the boys to keep quiet about it.”
“And Ham?”
The chief sighed. “Him too. I’ll brief him on it. And tell him to keep his mouth shut, which we both know he won’t do. Hell.”
“Maybe we should just let the news leak,” Nando said carefully. “No big announcement, but let people in town find out. They need to know what’s going on. Brody’s always been a loose cannon, and now he may be desperate.”
Toleffson stared back at him, his eyes dark. “Look, I’ve got family concerns here too. I don’t think it was an accident that he went after Docia’s shop. Or Margaret Hastings’ place. They were the two women he attacked before. Maybe he was getting a little payback while he threw us off the scent.”
“What about Allie?”
The chief shrugged. “She’s Docia’s friend. And maybe he thought it would be too obvious if Docia and Margaret were the only ones he hit.”
Nando’s jaw set. “Look chief, I think Docia needs to know. Margaret too. And Allie. If this gets out and we didn’t tell them, they’re going to be pissed. And they’re going to be scared. And they’ll have a right to be. We don’t know what’s on Brody’s agenda, but it’s not likely to be anything good.”
Toleffson rubbed a hand across his jaw, narrowing his eyes. Then he shrugged. “Okay, you’ve got a point. I’ll call Docia and Cal. Ham can talk to Margaret. You can talk to Allie or Kit, assuming she’ll tell Allie herself.” He gave Nando another dry smile. “They’ll undoubtedly tell other people, like Wonder, so it’ll be all around town in a couple of days, but at least we’ll have a head start.”
Nando nodded. “Okay. I’ll get on it.”
“And we’ll need to keep somebody at the station from now on, particularly at night, in case he decides to come back for whatever it was he was trying to get the first time.”
“You don’t think he got it?”
The chief shook his head. “I’d bank on him not getting anything. He’s dangerous but he’s not stupid. After he hit Helen he must have taken off. He had no way of knowing if anybody else was around.” He pushed off from his truck. “I’ll call the county crime lab too. Chances are they have some of Brody’s DNA on file already—they could compare it against the sample we found in Docia’s shop. It wouldn’t hurt to have some concrete confirma
tion for whatever Helen saw.”
Nando nodded. “It wouldn’t at that.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Nando waited until evening to head over to Allie’s place. He hoped Kit would be there by herself after she’d gotten off work. He had a feeling it would be easier to explain the whole Brody situation without a lot of other people around, and Allie and Wonder together constituted a lot of people.
At first, when he saw Allie’s darkened house, he was afraid Kit wasn’t there at all, but then he saw her battered Civic at the side. He took a deep breath and climbed the steps to her front door.
Kit opened it before he could knock. Her smile started an ache in his groin that he knew was going to last for a while, probably until he could get her underneath him, no matter how long that took.
“Hi,” she said softly. “I didn’t know if you’d be working tonight.”
“I’m on days this week.” He tried unsuccessfully to keep his mouth from sliding into an idiot grin. “Can I come in?”
She stepped back to let him pass into the cool dimness of the house. “I just got home a few minutes ago. You want some wine? I’m having a glass.”
“Sure.”
He followed her into Allie’s dining room. The subdued light from overhead cast shadows around the corners, emphasizing the sculpted planes of her face. She reached up to the top shelf of the china cabinet to get him a glass, pulling the fabric of her knit top tight against her breasts.
His groin gave another throb. He took another deep breath.
“It’s Australian shiraz,” Kit said as she poured red wine into the glass. “It’s okay, but not as good as Cedar Creek.”
He took a sip. “Tastes all right to me. Not that I’d recognize the difference.”
“You don’t like wine? Even though your family makes it?”
He shrugged. “I like it well enough. I just avoided learning too much about it whenever my dad tried to teach me. Call it my version of youthful rebellion.” He managed a grin that he hoped was a step above idiot grade.
Her lips edged up slightly. “So what brings you here?”
He took another of those deep breaths, then set the glass back on the table. “You, mainly.” He slid one arm around her waist, pulling her close enough to smell that slight mixture of floral scent and musk. Ah, Kit.
Her lips tasted of wine, and he took his time, exploring her, letting one palm slide down the curve of her side. The bottom of her shirt pulled free at her waist, and he slipped his hand underneath, feeling the weight of her breast, the slight roughness of her lace bra.
After a while, Kit leaned back to look at him, her eyes smoky. “Mainly?”
He gritted his teeth—he’d really hoped she hadn’t been listening that closely. On the other hand, maybe if he got this over with quickly they could go back to more interesting things. “I’ve got some news. About the burglar.”
She brought her fingertips to her mouth, her eyes suddenly wide. “Oh my god, Helen. I forgot. Is she all right?”
“She will be. She was out for a while, but she woke up this afternoon. The doctor thinks she’ll be okay.”
“Good. Allie said she’d bring her some scones when she was up to eating them.”
“My guess is that would be any time now.” By the time he’d left that afternoon, Helen had been close to her usual prickly self. He figured she’d be more than ready for scones and decent coffee tomorrow, particularly if they made her spend another day in the hospital.
“So what’s this about the burglar?” Kit raised one elegant eyebrow.
Nando felt another jolt and willed his loins to calm down. “Helen saw him, and she recognized him.” He paused for a moment, trying to decide how to tell her the rest without just blurting it out.
“And?”
“It was Brody,” he blurted. “Chief Brody. Ex-Chief Brody.” He blew out a breath. Not really the way he’d planned on telling her.
Kit’s eyes widened in shock. “The one who ran away? The fugitive?”
“That’s the one.”
“Oh my god,” she said again. She moved into one of the dining table chairs. “Why didn’t anybody recognize him?”
Nando didn’t particularly want to rehash his entire conversation with Toleffson. He stuck to the short version. “He’s been away for a while. People may have forgotten him by now. And he probably looks different.”
“I saw him,” she said slowly.
His pulse accelerated. “When? Where?”
She shook her head impatiently. “Not now. Back when he was here before. I was in town that summer when it all happened, when he ran away. My sister and I were staying with Allie.”
He dropped into a chair beside her. “Do you remember him?”
“Vaguely.” She shrugged. “Mainly I remember his uniform and his size. And his voice.”
“His voice?” He frowned. “What about it?”
“Very deep and macho.” She shook her head. “But maybe he was putting that on. He turned out to be a hollow man at the end. He looked great as a police chief, but that just shows you can’t judge character based on how great somebody looks.”
“Right.” He wondered how he could get her back into his arms again. She didn’t look like she needed comforting, unfortunately.
She frowned. “Does everybody know? Does Allie?”
He shook his head. “We’re telling the people he burglarized, or probably burglarized—Docia and Margaret and Allie. But not the whole town. We figured they’d find out soon enough.”
“But you haven’t told Allie yet?”
He shook his head again. “I thought maybe she’d be here.” Of course, he’d also hoped she wouldn’t be.
“She’s at Wonder’s place.” Kit’s forehead furrowed. “We should call her. She needs to know.”
Nando felt like groaning. If they called her, she’d probably come home, which would pretty much screw up his plans for the evening. You’re the one who said she needed to be told. Indeed he had, which just demonstrated the perils of being conscientious.
He sighed. “Go ahead and call. I can talk to her if you want.”
Allie got home within fifteen minutes, not enough time for much besides some incendiary kisses on the couch that left him so hard he felt like putting a pillow in his lap.
Fortunately, Allie had other things on her mind besides the state of his arousal. “Brody? Brody’s back?”
“Apparently.” Nando shifted on the couch trying to find a more comfortable position. He avoided looking at Wonder since he had a feeling the man was grinning. “We don’t have any hard evidence yet, but Helen was sure.”
“She should be sure. The man tried to kill her.” Allie dropped into one of the wing chairs opposite the couch. “Why did he break into my bakery?”
Nando shrugged. “Why did he do any of those burglaries? He must have been after something, but so far we don’t know what.”
“Did he leave anything behind at the station when he took off the first time, after he tried to kill Docia and steal Dub’s map?” Wonder moved beside Allie, rubbing a hand across her shoulder.
“Probably almost everything.” Nando narrowed his eyes, thinking. “He ran before the Rangers could find him, once he figured they knew about what he’d done after they arrested his accomplice. And he never came back to town after he kidnapped Docia, so he probably didn’t have a chance to grab anything from the station. That didn’t give him much time to pack things up. He had to leave with what he had.”
Allie shuddered. “He tried to kill two women the last time he was here. Now he’s tried to kill another one. He’s definitely not the kind of guy you want around.”
Nando was still caught up thinking about what Brody could have left behind, but he knew he was supposed to be the one who offered comfort here. “He may not be around anymore, Allie. He must know Helen recognized him.”
“He might figure she wouldn’t remember—she had a head injury,” Wonder said helpfully. “And besides,
he’s come this far. He probably doesn’t want to stop until he gets what he came for.”
Nando gave him a dark look. He could have a point, but he sure as hell wasn’t making Nando’s job any easier. “Still, he has no reason to come after you, Allie. You didn’t see him. He’s already been through your bakery, so anything he wanted from there he could have taken. My guess is you were just sort of a ‘target of opportunity’. The burglary at your bakery was supposed to distract us from whatever he was really after.”
“Great,” Allie said dryly. “That makes me feel so much better about those cleaning bills I had after taking care of the mess he left behind.” She sighed. “Does Docia know?”
Nando nodded. “The chief was going to tell her.”
“Well, that’s something. She’s someone he might have a grudge against. Her and Margaret.” Allie paused as she got up again. “Docia and Margaret. I didn’t even think of it until now. They’re the ones who found out what he was up to before. That’s why he hit both their stores, isn’t it?”
“Probably.”
“Anybody want coffee? I’ve got some date-walnut loaf from yesterday.”
Nando watched her walk toward the kitchen. Apparently she was going to settle in, which meant no more playtime with Kit. Ah, well.
Kit leaned against him for a moment, running a hand over his arm. “You know,” she murmured, “you never did show me your place.”
“That’s right.” He smiled down at her. “Want to see my place, chica?”
“I thought you’d never ask.” Her hand moved from his arm to slide across his chest, and suddenly every nerve in his body was on fire.
“Then let’s see how many speed records we can break getting there,” he croaked, pulling her to her feet.
Halfway to Nando’s apartment, Kit remembered that he lived with his brother. She had a few minutes to wonder just what she’d say to Esteban when she saw him. She had a feeling there wouldn’t be much time for polite conversation before she disappeared behind Nando’s bedroom door. Not that she was complaining about that, necessarily.
