A Family of Her Own

by Brenda Novak

  “Looks as though he’s telling the truth,” he said at last.

  The lines in Orton’s forehead deepened into grooves. “So that was Katie’s car we found?”

  “She’s not on the title yet, or the registration, either,” Clanahan mused. “Evidently she didn’t take care of any DMV paperwork before she left San Francisco. But the Martins say they sold it to her, and this here looks like a valid Bill of Sale to me. Even her signature is legible.”

  If only the Martins had been home to answer the phone earlier, Booker thought. Maybe he’d be on his way by now. But he couldn’t blame them. He should’ve handled his own DMV paperwork and sent in the Certificate of Nonoperation he’d been planning to file.

  “Whether the Bill of Sale looks valid or not, I think we should contact Katie and see what she has to say about all this,” Orton said.

  Irritation showed on Clanahan’s face. “It’s after eleven o’clock, Orton. I’m not going to call Katie Rogers right now. It would wake her for nothing, and it’d be a waste of our time. If she’d had her car stolen, don’t you think she would’ve reported it?”

  Orton moved closer to his boss’s desk. “Probably. But something’s off.”

  “What?” Booker demanded, growing impatient after so many hours. “Like I said before, her car broke down before she ever reached town. After I fixed it, she couldn’t pay me. So she gave me the car in trade. I tried to sell it, but it wasn’t generating any interest, so I finally decided it was a waste of space and moved it out of the way. What’s so hard to understand about that?”

  Booker knew better than to tell the story as it had really happened. Number one, he’d paid Katie in cash, so he couldn’t prove, without involving her, that money had changed hands. And number two, he knew Orton and the others wouldn’t understand why he’d buy a car only to hide it in a gully.

  Bennett was standing at Clanahan’s elbow, his lips pursed as he gazed down at the Bill of Sale. “I saw the car for sale at Booker’s shop,” he said, obviously more convinced by Booker’s story than Orton was. “It sat there for a good coupla weeks, at least.”

  “I saw it, too,” Orton said. “But that doesn’t mean he came by it honestly.”

  “Katie would’ve said something,” Clanahan insisted.

  “So why is he hiding it?” Orton asked. “Tell me that.”

  Booker kept his eyes hooded. He knew his insolent expression angered Orton, and couldn’t resist for that reason. “What I do with my own property is my business. I can shoot it full of holes if I want, right? Just so long as I own it.”

  Orton’s jaw tightened and his eyes glittered coldly. “Listen to him, Chief. Are we really gonna let him wriggle out of this?”

  “Wriggle out of what?” Clanahan said. “Unless you boys found something else at his place today, something you didn’t tell me about that ties him to the Small robbery or some other crime, we don’t have anything to hold him on. The mayor’s already called here twice. I’m not pushing this any further.” He shoved the Bill of Sale off to the corner of his desk. “Now, you two take Booker home.”

  Orton shook his head and cursed under his breath, but when Clanahan fixed him with a pointed glare, he looked at Booker and muttered, “Come on.”

  Releasing a long, silent sigh, Booker followed Orton across the reception area.

  Bennett moved ahead of them and held the door.

  “Where’d you put the stuff you took from Jon Small?” Orton asked as soon as Booker stepped outside.

  “You tell me,” Booker said with a taunting grin. “You boys are the ones who searched my house and my shop.”

  “This isn’t over,” Orton promised.

  “I agree with you there,” Booker said and headed to the patrol unit.

  WHEN ORTON PULLED OVER a mile outside of town, Booker stiffened in surprise. “What now?” he asked from the back seat of the same police cruiser they’d used to bring him into the police station earlier.

  “Let him out,” Orton said to Bennett, who was riding in the passenger seat.

  Bennett shot a surprised glance at Orton, then seemed to take in the raw land on both sides of the dark highway. “What? Here? He’s probably a good twelve miles from home.”

  “And I’m not driving him a mile closer. If this asshole wants to get home, he can friggin’ walk.”

  “Clanahan said—”

  “Clanahan’s not here.”

  “But—”

  “But nothing. Let him out.”

  “Clanahan won’t like it,” Bennett said.

  Orton arched a challenging brow. “And who’s gonna tell him?”

  Worry creased Bennett’s forehead as he looked back at Booker. “What if he does?”

  Orton shrugged, and a menacing smile curled his lips. “I’ll just tell Chief he was cursing and calling me names and generally making my life miserable, so I refused to take him any farther. We don’t have to give him a ride home. It’s a courtesy. Anyway, it’ll be his word against ours. Who do you think Clanahan’s going to believe?”

  Bennett hesitated, but Booker knew he’d cave in eventually. Bennett wasn’t strong enough to fight Orton on anything. “Whatever, man,” he said.

  Orton jerked his head toward the door. “Get going.”

  A moment later, Booker slid out of the car while Bennett held the door. In a previous time, Booker would have evened the score between him and Orton. But he was determined not to let Orton get under his skin. Allowing his temper and his outrage to get the better of him would only complicate matters. He’d learned that the hard way. Now he had a home and a successful business to take care of, and he had Delbert to think about. Delbert would be shipped off to that special home in Boise almost immediately if Booker ever went to jail for any length of time.

  “Maybe you boys should start looking for whoever’s robbing the good citizens of Dundee instead of wasting your time harassing me,” he said.

  Bennett slammed the door and climbed back in front.

  “Except that I’m pretty sure we don’t have to look any farther than right here,” Orton said, chuckling.

  Booker bent down to see Orton’s mocking face through Bennett’s open window. “Which doesn’t say much for the intelligence of our police force.”

  Orton’s smile faded, and he stepped on the gas, spewing dirt and gravel as he wheeled around and headed back to town.

  His jaw and hands clenched, Booker stood watching until the cruiser’s taillights disappeared. What he wouldn’t give for five minutes alone with Orton, he thought, and started walking.

  THE POLICE STATION WAS locked up tight. Katie knew that either Orton or Bennett patrolled Dundee each night until the Honky Tonk closed, catching drunk drivers and breaking up fights. But she hadn’t seen a cruiser as she passed through town, and had no idea where Orton or Bennett might be. So she decided to drive out to the farmhouse to see if maybe Booker had come home since she’d tried calling there.

  When she arrived, she found Booker’s truck sitting in the drive and his motorcycle parked just inside the garage. She could also see Delbert through the kitchen window, pacing worriedly, his lips moving constantly as though he was muttering to himself.

  Taking Troy with her, she knocked on the door. Delbert glanced up and seemed to recognize her, but he wouldn’t respond. He just kept pacing and muttering.

  Katie tried the door and, fortunately, found it unlocked. “Delbert?” she said, carrying Troy inside.

  Delbert blinked faster and increased the speed of his pacing, but that was it.

  “Are you okay?” she asked.

  No answer.

  “Where’s Booker?”

  Again, no response. But when she paused long enough, she could hear what he was muttering.

  “He’ll be back soon. He said he’ll be back. They won’t put him in jail. He lives here. He hasn’t done anything wrong. He’ll be back soon. He said so. They won’t put him in jail….”

  She’d never seen Delbert so agitated. “Well, no
w I know why you’re not answering the phone,” she said. “This whole thing has you in quite a state.”

  Setting Troy’s infant seat on the floor, she went over to stop Delbert’s rapid movements and capture his full attention. “Delbert, listen to me,” she said, touching his arm while using the most soothing voice she could muster.

  He kept muttering, but he didn’t fight her.

  “I’m going to find Booker, okay?”

  His frantic eyes latched on to her face.

  “You don’t have to worry about him. Everything will be okay. Do you understand?”

  The volume of what Delbert was saying increased, but that was the only sign he’d even heard her.

  “I’m going back to town to see if I can find him,” she reiterated. “Do you want to come with me? I’ve got Mike Hill’s little Nissan, which doesn’t have much room with Troy’s car seat in there, too. But I think you might feel better if you came with me.”

  “He’ll be back soon. He said he’ll be back—”

  “Delbert! I know you’re upset. But if you want to come with me, please answer.”

  He shook his head, which meant her words had registered, after all. They just didn’t have much impact. Pulling away, he resumed his pacing.

  “Okay. You wait for him here,” she said. “I’ll be back as soon as I know something.”

  “Katie says to wait here,” he responded, adding that statement to his litany. “Booker will be back soon. He told me he’d be back. He said, ‘Sit tight, I’ll be home in a few hours…”’

  With a sigh, Katie lifted Troy and headed out to the truck. Booker must’ve gone to the Honky Tonk, she decided. Where else could he be? It was nearly midnight. But with both his vehicles, as well as Hatty’s Buick, right here, how was he planning to get home?

  An image of Ashleigh flashed across her mind, but Katie refused to believe Booker was with Ashleigh or any other woman. He wouldn’t leave Delbert at home, frantic. He’d have come back…if he could.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  BOOKER COULD HAVE SWORN the little Nissan that passed him a few minutes earlier was the truck he’d seen Katie driving around town. But it had to be someone else, he told himself, most likely someone staying in the cabins farther up the mountain. Katie was probably at home with her new baby. She had no reason to be out in the middle of the night, no reason to be anywhere near the farmhouse….

  Pulling up the collar of his leather jacket against the chill wind that whistled through the trees around him, he shoved his hands in his pockets and kept moving. He’d been walking for nearly an hour, but the passing miles had done little to soothe the old aches, the ones inside that he thought he’d outdistanced. He felt dark, sullen and, for the first time in a long while, he was craving a cigarette.

  Headlights appeared as a vehicle came around the bend in the road up ahead. Booker hunched deeper into his coat and waited for it to pass. If it had been going the other way, he would have stepped off the road into the trees, as he’d been doing all night. He had no intention of drawing anyone’s attention. He was too angry to ask anyone for a ride, too angry to need anyone. He just wanted to be left alone.

  The truck passed before he realized it was the red Nissan he’d seen earlier. Standing in the road, he turned to glance behind him. The person he’d briefly glimpsed behind the wheel had certainly looked like Katie….

  Whoever was driving threw on the brakes. The truck came to a sudden stop, then the gears shifted and the engine whined as the driver backed up.

  A moment later, Katie rolled down her window and stared out at him.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked, not at all sure he was happy to see her.

  “What do you think?”

  He didn’t know what to think. Katie hadn’t come to the farmhouse since she’d moved out. “Where’s Mike?”

  “At his house, I guess.”

  “And the baby?”

  “In here with me.”

  “Isn’t it a little late to be taking him out?”

  “Someone had to find you.”

  He zipped up his jacket. Now that he’d stopped moving, the air felt even colder. “I can take care of myself.”

  She let her breath go in a dramatic sigh. “To be honest, I’m beginning to wonder about that, Booker. The ‘T’ in your middle name must stand for trouble.”

  When she smiled, he felt a responding grin twitch at the corners of his mouth—but resisted the lightening of his mood. “You’re not the first person to draw the connection.”

  She peered in her rearview mirror. “Are you going to climb in before I get rear-ended?”

  The wind whipped his hair across his forehead. “I’m not good company tonight, Katie.”

  “I’m not asking you to entertain me. I just want to know you’re home safe so I can sleep. And maybe I want to hear why the police think you’ve stolen another car.”

  He raised his eyebrows. “Maybe?”

  “If it’s not going to upset me.”

  Booker’s momentary levity disappeared. “Are you afraid I did it?”

  She seemed to sober, too. “I know you didn’t, or I wouldn’t be out here.”

  She meant it—he could tell—and the fact that she trusted him seemed to press back the darkness and the cold.

  “Why are you walking?” she asked.

  “Let’s just say Orton wasn’t as excited about giving me a ride home as he was about hauling me down to the police station.”

  “I don’t like that man.”

  “That makes two of us.”

  Headlights bore down on them as an approaching car rounded a bend farther up the mountain. “Someone’s coming up behind you,” he said. “You’d better get going.”

  Katie gave the truck some gas, but only enough to pull over, out of the way. “Come on.” Her voice carried across the road. “Delbert’s about to have a nervous breakdown.”

  Booker raised his voice above the engine of the advancing car. “He’s not asleep?”

  “He’s pacing a hole in your kitchen floor, muttering over and over that you’ll be home soon.”

  “Oh, boy.” Finally overcoming the stubbornness that had driven him all day—the last hour especially—he waited for the car to pass, then jogged over and climbed in next to Troy. Immediately the comforting smell of fabric softener and baby powder enveloped him and made him feel more like the man he’d been for the past few years than the angry child of the first twenty-five.

  Maybe everything was going to be okay. Maybe he was what he thought he was and not what he used to be….

  “Baby’s asleep, huh?” he said, staring down at the tightly wrapped bundle that was Troy.

  “He likes the movement of the truck.” Katie turned the Nissan around and headed toward the farmhouse. After a few minutes, she looked over at him. “So where did the car come from?”

  “What car?” he asked, stalling.

  “The car the police found in the gully.”

  He shrugged.

  “You don’t have any idea?”

  He turned to stare out at the dark trees moving past his window. “I guess it was abandoned—more or less.”

  “And the police now realize this?”

  “That’s why they let me go.”

  “What about the robbery at Jon Small’s?”

  “Orton still seems to think I had something to do with it, but they didn’t find any evidence linking me to the robbery when they searched the farmhouse or my shop. They don’t have any witnesses, no one who so much as saw my truck in the neighborhood that night.” He propped his elbow on the window ledge, shifting so he could see her better in the darkness. “They can’t arrest me on suspicion alone.”

  “Good.”

  Booker checked her ashtray, halfheartedly hoping for a toothpick, and was surprised to actually find one.

  Her eyes flicked his way when he opened the wrapper and stuck it in his mouth, and she smiled again, but she didn’t say anything.

  “What’s
Mike doing tonight?” he asked a few seconds later.

  “I haven’t seen him.”

  She fell silent, but the expression on her face indicated she was deep in thought.

  “What are you thinking about?”

  She pulled into the drive and cut the engine. “Mike.”

  “You’ve been together a lot lately.”

  “Yes.” She bit her lip, as if she had more to say, and Booker braced himself for what was probably coming next. You know I’ve been in love with him my whole life, Booker. Now things are changing between us, and I wanted you to know I’m hoping to marry him in a few months. I feel I should tell you, just in case last night meant something to you. I didn’t want you to get the wrong idea about what happened….

  Briefly Booker closed his eyes at the memory of watching Katie nurse. The incredible purity of a mother’s love for her child, and the intimacy of being a witness to it, had touched him deeply. He’d almost told her right then that he was still in love with her, that Troy might not be his baby but he knew he could be a good father to him.

  Obviously, he’d been delusional to think she might welcome such a confession. Rebecca had said Katie wasn’t responsive to Mike, but he couldn’t imagine why she wouldn’t be. Mike was everything she’d always wanted. She must have figured that out.

  Clenching his jaw, Booker forced himself to look at her. “What about Mike? You got some kind of special announcement to make?”

  Her chest rose as though she’d just taken a deep breath. “Yes, I guess I do.”

  He’d been expecting it, and still the impact of that admission hit him hard. He wished he could let her ease her conscience and then reassure her that he had no false hopes. But he wasn’t capable of it. Not tonight. He felt too open, too…vulnerable. And he was afraid he might embarrass himself again by trying to convince her that he could make her happy—like he’d tried to do once before.

  “I’d rather skip this next part, if it’s all the same to you. But I hope the two of you will be happy,” he said. Then he got out and headed for the house, hoping she’d give him a break and leave it at that.