“What happened?” he asked.
“They said it was a drive-by shooting,” Sophie said. Her voice was strained. “Jack, that’s just like Miami.”
He saw that Morgan and Georgia were watching them both, puzzled and a little afraid. Sophie’s terror was communicating itself. He had to put a stop to that. Now.
He got up and kissed her. “It’s fine. Don’t worry.” The words were for the two children at her feet, for he knew Sophie would never stop worrying. “I’ll take care of it.”
He went out to the hall, picked up the telephone and dialled a number he had looked up and memorized just yesterday. The phone at the other end rang only once before being answered.
“I want to speak to Isobel Van Allen,” he said.
“Ms. Van Allen is in a meeting and can’t be disturbed. Who is this please?”
“My name is Jack Laubreaux. She’ll talk to me.”
“One moment please.”
He was put on hold but because it was a residential phone, the hold didn’t run to elevator music. It was just a dead silence.
Sophie had followed him out and stood watching him. He wondered if she was aware that she was wringing her hands.
“Jack.” Isobel’s voice. “You’re being a bit casual, aren’t you?”
“You killed him, Isobel. I want you to know that I know and I know you’re coming after me next.”
“Jack, what on earth…”
“Just shut up and listen. I won’t be here when you get here. I’m leaving. If you find me on the road somewhere, then fine. We’ll play it out there. But I won’t be here.”
Silence.
“Do you understand me?”
“Yes.”
There was a wealth of information in that single word. Most importantly, it confirmed everything he’d learned in the last two days. He was aware of the relief trickling through him even as his hand gripped the phone in fury.
“Seven people on the plane and now Dempsey. I sure hope you sleep at night, Isobel, because you’re not going to sleep where you’re going when you die.”
“The body count stops when you die, Jack. You might consider that before you start running again.” Her voice was cool, impersonal.
“I’ll be gone from here in an hour. You consider this, Isobel. While I’m out running, you don’t know where I am. I could rock up on your doorstep one night and take you out, now I know who you are. You’re a public figure. I can always find you. After today, you won’t find me again.”
* * * * *
Isobel put the phone down slowly, thoughtfully.
“He threatened?” Michael asked from the depth of his comfortable wing chair.
“He’s scared,” she said. “He informs me he’s hitting the road again.”
Michael smiled. “Trying to take the heat off his woman.”
She considered this. “It changes nothing. But you should go tonight. Catch him before he gets too far. Are you all set?”
“Yes.”
“Don’t forget your long underwear. It’s cold out there.”
“I won’t be there long enough to care.”
* * * * *
Sophie caught at his arm as he hung up. “You’re really leaving?” she asked, her heart thundering in her chest.
“I want her to think that.”
“Will it work?”
“I don’t know.” His expression was distant, his thoughts were far away.
“Jack, please, I’m scared. Tell me what you’re thinking.”
She watched him pull out of himself, focus on her. “I’m thinking that tonight we have to play it normal. Cool. You’ve got two little ones to think of. It’s Christmas Day—don’t ruin it for them.”
“Okay.” She could feel the calm seep in, coaxed back by his common sense answer. “Normal. I can do normal.”
He smiled a little. “I was cutting cake when we were interrupted, right?” He took her hand and led her out to the kitchen. “Why don’t we turn the TV off and stay in the kitchen for the rest of the night? All of us.”
She let him shepherd her into the kitchen, knowing he was taking charge, taking control, because he’d seen hers slip. She was ashamed of herself and spent the next few hours being as calm and normal and as spirited as she could be.
But when the children were finally in bed and asleep, clutching their new toys, she felt utterly drained. She trod lead-footed, back to the den.
He was at the window again. She wondered if he was aware of how much time he spent staring out that window. She went to him and put her arms around him and listened to his heartbeat against her cheek.
“I have something for you,” he said and drew her to the sofa.
“Another present?”
“A long overdue one,” he told her and reached into his shirt pocket. “This is something I should have had on me the day I stepped on that plane. Did I ever tell you I watched you get on that plane and for one long moment wished I moved in your of world so I could get to know you?”
She found herself smiling a little. “We’ve come a long way from there, haven’t we?”
He uncurled his hand. A ring sat on it, looking bereft and ordinary without a velvet box or wrapping. It was a pretty ring, with three small emeralds clustered together.
“Green to match your eyes,” Jack said. “And there’s no box, because as far as I’m concerned, this ring is at least ten years old and the box would have been thrown away long ago.” He picked up her right hand and slid the ring on her third finger. “I can’t ask, Sophie. I would do anything to change that but life is what it is. So wear it, knowing that if I could have asked, I would have put this on your other hand in Colorado, ten years ago.”
Her throat was hurting, so tight and closed down as it was. “I wish you had asked,” she said and her voice wobbled. Just a little. “I would have gone with you to the ends of the earth.”
“Shh.” He touched her lips. “No regrets, okay?”
She nodded, mute. Then she remembered. “I have something for you too.” She turned and reached into the cupboard beneath the bookshelves and pulled out a large gift-wrapped parcel. She put it on his lap.
“Maybe I shouldn’t have wrapped this, either, as it’s also ten years old.”
He unwrapped the gift and unfolded the dark blue sweatshirt and spread it across his knee. The white University of Chicago badge was still whole and complete, none of the edges flaking or turning yellow. Even the medieval book at the top of the shield was clear, the fine Latin text on the open pages still visible.
“It was yours all along, wasn’t it?” Sophie said. “I figured it out later, when I got back to my apartment in Los Angeles and finally got to sorting out the stuff I brought home from the hospital.” She spread the back of the collar so that the white manufacturer’s label showed in the lamplight. The lettering, hand-written in black marker ink, was clear—J.L.
He was smiling. “Did you keep this in a vacuum? It looks just like it was when I had it.”
“I’ve worn it and worn it. It kept me warm, Jack, just as you promised it would. Now it’s your turn to wear it.”
“Thank you,” he said, folding it up.
“And there’s just a teeny question I have,” she asked.
“What?”
“What did you study there? I looked it up on the internet, to see what degrees they offer, trying to figure out what you might have taken. But they offer so many.”
His smile turned into a grin full of good humour, then a chuckle.
She found herself smiling a little. “Share the joke,” she said.
“What would be the most useless degree a Chicago cop could have?” he asked.
“God, I don’t know…animal husbandry?”
“There are plenty of animals on the streets of Chicago, both human and other species.” He shook his head. “One-eighty degrees useless. Wilderness Management.”
She did laugh then, a small, tension-releasing laugh.
* * * * *
Later
, much later, when the house was quiet and they lay together in the big bed, he stroked her thigh, the one with the scar. The strokes turned to caresses and the passion ignited again.
Until finally, she fell asleep in his arms, listening to his heartbeat and watching the moonlight catch the emeralds in her ring.
She woke the next morning to find herself alone in the bed and wandered downstairs to get coffee, knowing Jack as usual had risen before her and probably already had drunk his first cup.
Jinni was sitting at the kitchen table, her head in her hands. She looked up and Sophie came to a stop, her heart leaping. Jinni’s cheeks were wet with tears.
“Jinni, what’s the matter?” she whispered, but she knew, she knew already….
Jinni pointed to the end of the table, where an envelope with Sophie’s name in Jack’s sprawling flourish-filled handwriting sat propped up against the steel thermos flask he’d used at the mill.
Cold gripping her, Sophie turned and dashed up the stairs two at a time, pulling her robe up around her thighs to keep it out of the way. She burst into the room that he’d been using for the first few weeks, where he’d kept all his belongings, including the big professional H-frame hiker’s backpack, which hung on the wall, sagging and empty.
The room was as empty and lonely as it had been before he moved in.
The backpack was gone.
Chapter Twenty-One
Sophie knew she had to pull herself together but couldn’t. Shell-shocked, she sat at the kitchen table, the letter in her hands, while Jinni fussed over Georgia and Morgan.
The letter was simple.
Sophie,
I’m sorry I didn’t tell you what I was planning but I had a hard enough time getting myself to leave—I didn’t want to put you through it too.
This is it, Sophie. The moment we figured would come sooner and hoped would be later.
I will always believe that fate was smiling on me the day I met you and it gave me the chance of a lifetime to see you once more before the end.
Love,
Jack.
“Sophie.”
“Yeah.” She roused herself.
Jinni patted her shoulder. “I’m going to take the pair of them down to the lake to go skating. Get them away for a while. I saw the Nieces’ kids and the Petersons go down there, so they’ll have someone to play with. Okay?”
“Oh. Will you be okay? Walking?”
“I’ve got the WD-40 to deice with. I’ll be fine.” Jinni shuffled away.
After a while there was silence and the house was quiet.
Sophie stirred herself when her body protested and went through the motions of showering and dressing, her mind in a daze. She came downstairs and made toast and coffee in the same mechanical, automatic way.
Then she sat at the table again, the plate and mug in front of her.
The concept was too big, too awful, to absorb. She could understand the idea that he was not here now but then she would try to apply that to the rest of her life and drew a blank. She couldn’t visualize it.
Jack wouldn’t do this to me. The words kept sliding through her mind.
When the front doorbell sounded, the toast and coffee sat untouched. The coffee was quite cold.
Sophie went to the door.
Peter stood there, in uniform, knocking snow off his hat brim. She looked past his shoulder. “It’s snowing,” she said, barely surprised.
“I saw the news last night and came straight over this morning,” Peter said. He looked at her, his eyes narrowing. “Jesus Christ, he left, didn’t he?”
“What?”
“Let me in, Sophie. You’ll freeze, standing there.”
“Sure.”
She backed up and let him in and Peter stripped off his jacket and hat and hung them over the newel post of the stairs. He went into the lounge room.
“Where’s everyone else?”
“Skating.”
“When did he leave?”
“Last night.”
Peter’s lip curled a little. “Does he really think that’s going to work?”
“Excuse me?” Sophie felt the stirrings of indignation.
“He took off, expecting them to leave you alone if he was out of the picture. But they already took out seven people on a plane and a district attorney, just to get to him. Does he really think running away will stop them coming after you?”
She sank to the sofa, considering that one. “No, he wouldn’t think that,” she said slowly. So why did he leave?
“Uh-huh,” Peter replied. “So he ran anyway, leaving you holding the fort. Brave guy.”
She looked up at him, her mind finally, finally starting to work. “I don’t know why he left,” she said, speaking slowly, picking her way past half-formed ideas, suspicions. “But it’s not because he’s afraid.”
“Doesn’t matter, does it?” Peter said. “You’re here. He’s gone. They don’t know that.”
“Yes, they do. He told them last night. He phoned her. Told her…told her he’d be gone when she got here, so don’t bother…”
“He phoned her?”
“Yes.”
“And said that?”
“Yes.”
“What else did he say?” Peter demanded.
Sophie recalled what she had heard Jack say and repeated it.
“He was angry,” she added. “So angry I thought he was going to crush the phone with his hand.”
“Jesus Christ…” Peter whispered.
The front doorbell sounded again.
“Grand Central Station this morning,” Sophie murmured. She answered the door.
There was a man there, in his twenties, dressed in a suit and long coat, his hair slicked back. Black eyes, black hair and fine white skin with high color on both cheeks. “Sophie Kingston?”
“Yes?”
Even as he reached beneath his coat, she knew. Horror burst through her and she backed up hurriedly, trying to get her body to move, to run away. Her feet, wearing socks only, slipped on the polished floorboards and she landed on her backside, jarring her arms. The pain echoed at the base of her skull.
The gun lined up on her on the floor and he stepped inside, shutting the door. That brought him in line with the arch into the lounge room and the gun swung around to line up on Peter, who was standing in the middle of the room, staring at Sophie where she sprawled.
“The police chief. How wonderful,” the man with the gun said. “I’ve never done a police chief before.”
“Holy shit,” Peter said, lifting his hands.
“Just stay real quiet for me, thanks. Reach with your left hand and pull out your gun.”
Peter reached for his gun, slowly. “Who the hell are you?”
“Who the hell do you think it is?” Sophie demanded feeling a small spurt of anger. Her initial horror had burst through her and dissipated, just like that. Now there was a growing fury. All that worry, all that fear—now the moment was here and she was confronted with the reality, all her fear had gone too, because it was just as bad as she had thought it might be. It was worse. He didn’t seem to care that Peter was here and had calmly pronounced that Peter would have to be killed as well.
She sat up, brushing off her hands. The man moved into the lounge enough to have both her and Peter in his line of sight. Peter was holding out his gun.
“Toss it,” he told Peter. “Toward me.”
Peter tossed it. The man leaned down and picked it up, holding the gun on Peter. He glanced at the gun then pocketed it. “Sit,” he told Peter.
Peter staggered backward until his knees hit the rocker recliner. He felt into it, holding up his hands. His face had gone gray.
“Don’t hurt me,” he said softly. “I don’t know what you want but just take it and go.”
Disgust curled through her. “Are you going to start crying now, Peter? Figure that might convince him?”
The man looked at her. “You can come in here too,” he told her.
Sh
e picked herself up and walked into the lounge, past Peter. She sat on the coffee table, not sure why she did so, except that she didn’t want to sink deep into an overstuffed chair that was hard to get out of. She looked at Peter. “You might as well quit trying to convince him you don’t know anything. He’s going to kill you, anyway, just because you’ve seen him.”
“Very astute,” the man said.
She looked at him. “My kids aren’t here. They’re at the pond skating. They don’t know anything, the older is barely seven. You can leave them out of it.”
He considered that. Nodded. “That’s fair,” he agreed.
“Then you’d better get this over with.”
“Sophie, what are you doing?” Peter demanded.
“I want him to leave before the kids come back,” she blazed. “If they don’t see him, they don’t have to die.”
“You’re telling him to hurry up and kill you!” he said, his voice high and choking.
“Yes, I know, Peter.”
His mouth opened and closed. Nothing came out.
Her disgust was complete. She turned to the man. “Come on.”
“First, where’s Jack?”
Not Jack Laubreaux. Just ‘Jack’. “You know him, don’t you?”
“Where is he?”
“Under the circumstances, I’m guessing that you’re Michael Callahan.”
“Very good. Where is he?”
“He’s not here. He’s gone. He left last night.” She considered it. “He told you that last night.”
“He hasn’t left,” Michael said with complete certainty. He pointed to the mantle shelf where all the family pictures were ranged in small wooden frames. “He’s not going to leave his family the day after Christmas.”
There were two new pictures up there. One of Jack, Georgia and Morgan rolling on the floor, fighting for one of Morgan’s stuffies that had spontaneously become the object of the game. The other was a shot Jinni had taken of all of them sitting on Jack’s knees.
Michael curled his lip. “He’s not going to leave you,” he added, pointing the gun at her.
“There’s a letter on the kitchen table. I was reading it when you arrived. Get it. It’s from Jack. You’ll see I’m right.”
Dead Again: A Romantic Thriller Page 25
