From Father to Son

by Janice Kay Johnson

It was with relief that he escaped after a silent goodbye.

  As luck would have it, the first person he saw when he arrived at the public safety building that housed the police department was his brother Duncan. Captain Duncan MacLachlan, only one rung below the police chief who was currently under fire for publicly making a racist remark and who was at risk for being fired. Even though Duncan was a hard-ass, he backed his officers and was known for being fair, smart and the soul of integrity. The general hope was that the city council would give the job to him, rather than hiring from outside the department.

  Niall had very mixed feelings for his brother.

  They were a hell of a lot closer than they’d been even a year ago, though. Duncan had mellowed when he’d fallen in love. Niall had watched the process with bemusement.

  Duncan had pushed through the doors on his way out, and the two of them stepped aside so they weren’t in the way of traffic. Although barely midmorning, it had to be eighty degrees already. A humid eighty degrees.

  “You just getting here?”

  “I found my landlady dead.”

  Duncan nodded without apparent surprise. “What’ll that do to your lease?”

  Niall grinned. Trust his big brother to hold no sentimental feelings whatsoever. Except where Jane was concerned, of course. Niall shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess I’ll find out.”

  Rather than offering another brisk nod and continuing on his way, Duncan kept standing there. He was wearing one of the suits that made him appear more like a politician than a cop, and he had to be looking forward to the air-conditioning in that big SUV he drove. But instead of heading for it, he shifted his weight, hemmed and hawed.

  “I was going to call you today,” he finally said.

  Niall was entertained by the unexpected and unnatural sight of Captain MacLachlan looking irresolute.

  “Yeah?”

  “Jane wants you to come to dinner. Tonight or tomorrow?”

  “Is there an occasion?”

  Expression strangely vulnerable, Duncan met his eyes. “Jane’s pregnant.”

  Niall found himself momentarily speechless. “This a surprise?” he asked at last.

  Duncan shook his head. “No. I’m thirty-seven, Jane’s thirty-two. We didn’t want to wait too long.”

  “My brother, a daddy.” Niall smiled broadly. “Congratulations.”

  “Thanks.”

  “How far along is she?”

  “Three months. She wanted to wait until she was past the danger point before we let people know. You’re, uh, the first.”

  Niall nodded, feeling honored even though—face it—there wasn’t a whole lot of competition here. Jane was alienated entirely from her family, and Niall was the only member of Duncan’s who had a relationship with him. Mom had made no effort to stay in touch with any of them, and Duncan had rebuffed Dad’s one attempt to reconnect. Conall hadn’t spoken to Duncan in close to ten years. That left—ta da!—Niall.

  “I’ll be an uncle,” he said, disconcerted by the idea.

  His brother shared one of his rare grins. “Yeah, you will.”

  “Huh.”

  Still smiling, Duncan clapped him on the back. “Dinner?”

  “Tomorrow night.”

  “I’ll tell Jane.” With long strides, he headed across the parking lot.

  Niall stood where he was, watching him go. Well, damn, he thought, and felt a funny ache inside. He might have labeled it as jealousy, except he didn’t want any of what Duncan had.

  Still, a baby MacLachlan. Who’d have thunk?

  HOMICIDE AND MAJOR CRIMES detectives almost never fired a gun outside of the range, where they were required to keep their skills sharp. The telephone and the internet were their tools. They spent a lot of time on hold. They talked. They listened. They pretended to understand and sympathize with scumbags.

  Which was probably why Niall was a little slower than he should have been reaching for his Glock.

  During a belated lunch break, he had pulled into the bank parking lot with the intention of going in to deposit a check. Before he could get out of the car, his attention was caught by the sight of a guy hustling out of the bank gripping the arm of a woman who was walking really, really close to him. The incongruous part was that with both hands she clutched a black plastic trash bag, stuffed full. And—oh, hell—she looked scared out of her skull.

  At the exact same moment Niall’s brain clicked into gear, the guy looked at Niall’s car which, while unmarked, shouted cop car. Plain maroon, but a big, powerful sedan. Grille behind the driver’s seat. Serious radio antenna. Then his eyes met Niall’s and he lifted a handgun.

  Niall flung open the door and dove out at the exact moment the passenger window exploded.

  He snatched his Glock from the holster and groped for his radio. “Shots being fired. Bank robbery in progress,” he managed to spit out before stealing a peek over the trunk.

  Another shot rang out. Brick chips flew from the wall a few feet from his head.

  Damn, damn, damn. The guy had dragged the woman behind a minivan in the lot. He had a hostage, and he was seriously willing to do anything to get away. Including killing a cop.

  Niall hadn’t taken a shot yet. He wouldn’t until he thought he had a good one. God. Even aside from the hostage, there were other people in the parking lot, businesses across the street, passing cars.

  Niall swiveled on his heels and saw a woman who had gotten out of her RAV4 standing not fifteen feet away with the keys in her hand, her mouth forming a horrified O. He gestured vehemently, relieved when she gasped and threw herself out of sight around the front of the vehicle. Other people farther away were gaping, too freaking stupid to realize a stray bullet could catch them. A man came running out of the bank yelling, but ducked back when a bullet chipped more bricks inches from him.

  Niall’s car jumped when another burst of fire found metal. He dropped flat to the pavement so he could see the feet beneath the minivan. Black bag, too. He wondered if the teller had gotten a dye pack in it. He grunted. Man, this was going to be a mess no matter how it played out. The FBI would be all over it, and who wanted to deal with them? Although he wouldn’t mind if they showed up right now.

  The feet were moving. Toward the rear of the vehicle. So it wasn’t the guy’s minivan, or the woman’s, either. The guy was figuring to bolt for cover behind another car. Make his way to his own, maybe. Time was his enemy. He had to get away before more cops arrived and he got surrounded.

  Sirens sounded, but not close.

  Niall rose to a crouch and crab-walked forward, rounding the hood of his car. He snatched a quick look, his finger tight on the trigger, and saw that the guy had pushed the woman out into view. She once again clutched the trash bag in front of her as if it were a shield. Niall had never seen such terror on anyone’s face. Was she a teller? An unlucky customer?

  Wait. Wait.

  The guy appeared. Not enough of him—he was using the woman for cover. He took a wild shot to pin Niall down, but it was the back window of the car that imploded. Good. He’d miscalculated which direction Niall would move.

  Wait.

  Niall had never felt so steady, so cool. He was thinking, waiting with extraordinary patience, willing the instant to come when he could kill this bastard without unduly risking the woman.

  There. The woman stumbled. Niall pulled the trigger and the Glock jerked in his hand exactly as it did at the gun range. Bang, bang, bang. Blood blossomed; glass on the minivan exploded; the woman fell forward, then, screaming, began to crawl away.

  The bank robber was down, broken glass all around him. His handgun skittered away across the pavement from inert fingers. He lay sprawled, unmoving.

  Glock held out in the firing position, Niall walked
cautiously forward until he stood only feet from the man. There was one hell of a lot of blood. Dead, he thought coldly. His second dead body for the day. At least he’d only killed one of them.

  This was also, however, his second shooting resulting in a fatality in the past year. The first was a crazy guy who’d intended to slit Jane’s throat. Niall had gotten there ahead of Duncan, so he’d been the one to take the shot. He’d as soon this didn’t become a habit, he reflected, in that weird way a mind worked at a moment like this.

  Sirens rose to a crescendo. Police cars slammed to a halt blocking both exits from the bank parking lot. Officers leaped out and took cover. A lot of weapons were drawn on Niall.

  Something made his glance slide sidelong to the broken windows of the minivan, and a monster of fear rose in him. There was a child car seat inside. A Mercedes-Benz of car seats, it occurred to him, even as he realized there was a kid in that seat, slumped forward. Blood was shockingly red against the dandelion-pale fluff of hair.

  Please God, don’t let me have killed that kid.

  THERE WERE ONLY A FEW mourners at Enid Cooper’s funeral. Her contemporaries were gone, or in assisted living. A couple of neighbors were there, and Rowan Staley and her father. Not Mom; she and Dad had separated and filed for divorce.

  At least Rowan had persuaded her parents-in-law not to attend. She had been able to leave the kids with them. Maybe at six years old Desmond had been old enough to attend a funeral, but why should he have to? It wasn’t an open casket; Rowan wouldn’t have that. Gran had had a thing about dignity; she would have hated the idea of everyone filing past gazing at her wrinkled, dead face.

  Gran’s tenant, whose name escaped Rowan, was here, too. When she’d seen him coming and going at Gran’s, he’d never stopped to introduce himself or anything like that. A couple of times he had given a distant nod before disappearing inside the tiny cottage. Despite his unfriendliness, Rowan had actually been glad to know he was there. After her divorce, she’d had the wistful thought that she could live in the cottage, but it wasn’t big enough for her and the kids. And even though Gran had room in her house, she was too old and not patient enough to live with a rambunctious kindergartener and a wistful four-year-old. Never mind the dog. Gran didn’t hold with animals being in the house. Rowan hadn’t had any choice but to take the kids and move in with her in-laws, relieved that Gran would be safer having a law enforcement officer living right there behind her house.

  She’d been told he was the one who’d found Gran. And he’d cared enough to come today to pay his respects. Rowan wondered if he would bother speaking to her or her father after the service was over. She was betting not.

  The minister was talking, but it was like the sound of running water to Rowan. Pleasant but holding no meaning. He hadn’t even known Gran. She hadn’t attended a church service in at least ten years, maybe more. He was young, new. This was his standard spiel. His tone was filled with warmth and regret, which she appreciated even though he couldn’t possibly feel either emotion. This was like a stage performance for him, she supposed.

  I should be listening.

  Dad’s gaze was fixed somewhere in the vicinity of the pastor, but his expression was abstracted. He and his mother hadn’t been close; as she’d gotten older and crankier, she’d also become increasingly disapproving. Gran had been one hundred percent disgusted with her son’s recent conduct. But still. He must have good memories. Regrets that were way more genuine than the pastor’s. As mad as Rowan often felt at her dad, what if he died and she had to sit at his funeral trying to remember the last time she’d said “I love you?” Remembering the angry words they’d exchanged?

  She gave a shudder and stole a look sideways, to find that Gran’s tenant had turned his head and was watching her. Goose bumps chased over her skin. He had a craggy face, dark red hair cut short and flint-gray eyes. Eyes that were—not cold, Rowan had decided the first time she’d seen him. Remote. As if he stood a thousand paces from the rest of humanity. Didn’t know her, didn’t want to know her. Or anybody else.

  It had to be her imagination. Maybe it was a typical cop look, cynicism to the nth degree. Or maybe he didn’t like her. Did he think she’d neglected Gran? The thought filled her with outrage. She glared at him, saw his eyebrows twitch, then he inclined his head the slightest amount to acknowledge her existence and turned his attention to the front.

  Why had he been looking at her at all? Did he guess she was Gran’s heir and therefore his new landlady? Or would he have assumed he would be dealing with Dad?

  Dad had been a little put out when the will was read and he found out his mother hadn’t left either her relatively modest savings nor her house to him, but to his credit he’d mostly been rueful.

  “The two of you always were close,” he had said, shrugging. “And you’ve been trying to take care of her.”

  Rowan wished now she had been able to do more.

  Or maybe Gran had known. Guessed, anyway. Rowan hadn’t talked even to Gran about her marriage, or her shame at feeling relieved when Drew died. She hadn’t admitted how miserable she was living with his parents, who were entirely fixated on her children. Their Andrew, her husband, had been an only child.

  “Desmond and Anna are all we have left,” one or the other of them said, too often. The hunger in their gazes when they looked at their grandchildren unnerved Rowan. There was too much need, too much desperation, too many expectations being fastened on young children who didn’t understand any of it.

  The Staleys had been shocked when she informed them that she had inherited her grandmother’s house and would be moving into it with Anna and Desmond. She couldn’t cope without them, they declared, and they didn’t like it when she insisted that she could. It was true that she hadn’t been able to cope before this, not financially, anyway. She worked as a paraeducator—a teacher’s aide—at the elementary school. She didn’t make enough money to pay for daycare for Anna, as well as rent. But now she would be able to afford a preschool for Anna. She would own her very own home, and have rental income, as well, from the cottage.

  Paid by the man with the russet hair and chilly gray eyes. She didn’t know how she felt about the idea of him living so close. Perhaps she’d scarcely see him. It hadn’t sounded as if he and Gran had much more than a nodding acquaintance.

  Rowan hoped he liked dogs. She might be able to keep the kids away from him, but Super Sam the dog didn’t grasp the concept of boundaries. Thank heavens Gran’s backyard was fenced. The unfortunate part was, the cottage was inside the fence. The kids and tenant both would have to learn to close gates.

  She stole another look at him to find that he appeared entirely expressionless. Somehow she felt quite sure he wasn’t thinking about Gran any more than Dad was.

  Any more than I am. Rowan felt a quick stab of guilt. Oh, Gran. I did love you. I will be grateful for the rest of my life for this gift you’ve given me.

  Freedom.

  STILL SWEATING OVER the bank parking-lot shooting, Niall hadn’t gotten to sleep until nearly 3:00 a.m. This had been a hell of a few days. Only yesterday he’d had to face an Internal Affairs panel to justify his actions, as if he wasn’t second-guessing himself already, the way any good cop would. Then his sleep wasn’t restful, any more than it had been the past few nights. No surprise to wake filled with horror. The last images of the nightmare were extraordinarily vivid. In his dream he’d reached for the little kid with the pale fluff of hair, lifting the child’s chin to see dead eyes that still accused him even now.

  Damn it, he thought viciously, scrubbing his hands over his face. Enough already.

  Niall got up to use the john, splashed cold water on his face and stared at himself in the mirror.

  Bad enough he’d shot and killed a man. He’d learned a lesson last year, when he’d killed for the first time: you paid a price for taking a lif
e, even if taking it had been the right thing to do. Mostly, he thought it right and just he should suffer some doubts, be plagued by nightmares. Killing wasn’t something anyone should take lightly.

  The little girl, though, that was something else. She’d come within a hair’s breadth of having her head blown off. God. What if it had been my bullet? As much as her face, that was the question driving him crazy.

  Knowing sleep would be elusive, he went back to bed, where he lay staring up at the dark ceiling, hitting the replay button over and over and over until the tape should be wearing out. The gray of dawn was seeping between the slats of the window blinds before he fell asleep again.

  The sound of slamming doors, shrill, excited voices and a barking dog jerked him from sleep. What the…? With a groan, he rolled his head on the pillow to peer blearily at the bedside clock. Eight-thirty. He was going to kill someone.

  Even half-asleep with his head pounding, he winced at that. Now that he actually had killed two men, those words didn’t come as lightly to him as they once had.

  He sat up and put his feet to the floor. A woman was laughing, a low, delighted trill. A kid yelled something and the dog went into another frenzy of barking. There were other voices—several adults. The racket had to be at the next-door neighbor’s. Enid was barely in the ground. Her estate couldn’t possibly be settled.

  He staggered from his bedroom into the combination living room/kitchen/dining room and separated the slats of the blinds on the front window enough to give him a view of Enid’s house. Then he stared in disbelief.

  Oh, crap. Oh, hell. Oh…

  A U-Haul truck had been backed into the driveway. The cargo door was already rolled up. A couple of people were currently hauling a mattress out of the truck and down the metal ramp. A dog was running in crazed circles on the lawn, chased by a boy and, trailing well behind, a tiny girl in pink overalls and purple shoes that, to Niall’s dazed eyes, seemed to be flashing sparkling lights. The back door of Enid’s house stood open. A woman was carrying a lamp in. She’d no sooner disappeared inside than a different woman came out empty-handed. She called something to the kids, who were too busy running in frenetic circles to acknowledge her.