by Adrianne Lee
So, in a way, the choice was his.
Kerrie wondered at the pained look in Roman’s eyes. Something told her she knew the cause of that distress, but she couldn’t bring herself to recall why or what. Not that it mattered. He’d said all she needed to hear. He didn’t want a wife. He didn’t want children. She hugged Maureen tighter, uncertain whether her pity was all for her child.
He reached for his jacket. “Guess I’d better get out of here, so you can get that little angel back to bed.”
DIM LIGHT FILTERED into the hospital room. The killer leaned against the closed door, hugging a clipboard against the borrowed lab coat with damp hands. Soft snores echoed in the room, telling the killer the patient was fast asleep. It would be so simple to cross the few steps and silence the irritating snorts. But this patient was not the object of the killer’s concern.
Two doors down the corridor from here was an armed police guard sitting outside Glynna Muldoon’s room. Why? Did her daughter suspect the knife attack this afternoon had actually been meant for her mother? Was Kerrie Muldoon that clever? Or was that damned Donnello starting to put the pieces together?
The killer squinted in the near darkness, ruminating. No. Not yet. It’s too soon and I have been too clever. The plan is going as scheduled First Donnello, then Grimes and now Muldoon. They’re learning how it feels to lose someone you love. Soon, they’ll learn what death feels like firsthand.
But what to do about Glynna? Maybe I should choose another target, someone even closer to Muldoon, say one of her daughters.
Chapter Five
Trying to hide the tension gripping her, Kerrie tucked Maureen back into bed and covered Gabby who, as usual, had kicked off her covers, but was still fast asleep.
“Ni-night, Mommy,” Maureen murmured.
“See you in the morning, Pumpkin.” Kerrie kissed her cheek, then tiptoed to the door and quietly closed it behind her.
What a day. Her nerves were like hot wires beneath her skin, burning, jumpy. She paced the house, straightening the straightened, fluffing the fluffed and turning out lights, eventually ending up in the kitchen. The Boston fern stared forlornly at her from the sink, reminding her of Nick—no—Roman. Of the lies. His lies. Her lies.
Oh, God, all the lies.
For the second time that night tears stung her eyes. She blinked them away. Breaking down would solve nothing. What was she going to do? She plucked at the wounded plant, her mother’s favorite. Suddenly the need to save it seemed all important, as if by sustaining this one small thing, she could think of a way to sustain the life she’d built for her daughters and herself.
Under the sink, Kerrie found a plastic planting pot about the same size as the broken clay one. She scooped the Boston fern and as much of the dirt as her hands could manage into it, then added more, gingerly covering the roots and finally tamping the loose soil around the fern’s shoots, until it looked like one she could buy in any nursery-
But she was no gardener. Glynna was the one with the green thumb, and she’d treated this plant with a love and tenderness otherwise reserved for her granddaughters. Would the fern survive? Or had shock snatched at its life as shock had snatched at her life tonight?
Absently Kerrie turned on the faucet, splashed a little water into the plant, then turned the full force of the spray on the dirt-covered plastic bib still in the sink. Outside, the motion detecting light flared Kerrie’s attention jerked to the uncovered window over the sink. Was that a man lurching into the shadowed darkness at the corner of the house? She flipped off the inside light and peered out at the alley. Nothing moved. Except her heart thumping against her ribs.
Was it a thief? A carjacker? Perhaps, Roman hanging around to. spy on her? An inexplicable uneasiness swept her. Without considering why, she collected her gun from the top shelf in the entry closet and hurried into the living room, lit now only by the soft glow of the porch light. She tugged a corner of velvet drape away from the picture window and peeked out.
Roman’s car was gone. Well, what had she expected…that he’d actually spy on her? The Nick Diamond of her nightmares might have, but Roman Donnello? Not likely. He had no cause. He hadn’t suspected her of keeping anything from him.
Guilt swirled through her stomach.
She craned her neck for a better look into the street, angry at the guilt. Angry at Roman. Angry that the secret she held would mean little or nothing to him. An annoyance. An inconvenience, perhaps. He was childless by choice. Single by choice. All his come-ons the past two days amounted to nothing more than his desire for another roll in the hay. Nothing that involved a lifetime commitment.
Daughters involved a lifetime commitment. Deserved a lifetime commitment.
She stayed where she was, eyes on the street, ears peeled for any sound, gun tucked in her waistband, the safety on. Was she obligated to tell Roman about his daughters if he wasn’t going to give them that commitment? Seconds stretched into minutes, until she was stiff from the pose. A car came down the street A neighbor. And Professor Plum, Sophia Sommerville’s orange-and-black tabby. Was that who’d set off the light? Had the shadow she’d seen been a love-hungry cat or a sneak thief? Mirage or murderer?
Loverboy?
The thought struck her like a slap of cold wind. Loverboy? Was that why she’d gotten the gun. God, she was losing it for sure—thinking Seattle’s latest psychopath had discovered where she lived and was sneaking around outside her house. Kerrie let out a taut breath, feeling as if she’d just released an invisible stranglehold on her chest, and grinned at herself. For the first time in hours the tension gripping her shifted and broke apart.
She returned the gun to its shelf, double-checked the door and window locks, reassured herself the twins were sleeping, then went to her bedroom. Talk about making mountains out of molehills. Talk about stress-induced paranoia. Oh, yes, it had been one hell of a day.
Tomorrow would be better, despite the explanations Glynna would demand of her. Kerrie wouldn’t think about that now. She quickly went through her bedtime ritual and climbed between the sheets. As her head met the pillow and her eyes fluttered shut, an erotic vision of Roman, as real and seductive as an aphrodisiac, washed through Kerrie. She could almost feel his hands on her body, his mouth exploring her, his scent filling her nostrils, her limbs growing languid. An aching need coiled in her lower belly.
Hell and damnation. She punched the pillow and rolled to her side. She would not think about him, or dream about him. But she did. All night. In the morning, tired and grumpy from lack of sleep, she had made up her mind. She owed Roman Donnello exactly nothing.
She would not tell him about his daughters.
“YOU HAVE TO TELL HIM about Maureen and Gabiella,” Glynna said for the tenth time on the ride home from the hospital.
Kerrie concentrated on the rain hitting the windshield, on the rush of traffic in the neighboring freeway lanes, on keeping her speed limit legal as they traversed the West Seattle viaduct. She had steeled herself for this argument, and would indulge her mom’s need to express her opposing views, but her mind was made up and nothing Mom had to say would change it. “Why?”
“Why?” Glynna’s voice rang with incredulity. “Because he’s not the criminal you thought he was. Because he’s their daddy.”
Kerrie exited the viaduct and began the ascent toward California Avenue. “Only biologically.”
Glynna sniffed disdainfully. “Those darling little girls of ours have the right to know their daddy.”
“He’s nobody’s daddy.” Slowing for a stoplight, Kerrie hit the brake harder than necessary, then spoke through gritted teeth. “I told you he doesn’t want children.”
“Oh, sure, go on. Be stubborn. But mark my word, you’ll just keep on paying one price after another for loving this man.”
Kerrie jerked toward her mother. Anger flared inside her. “I don’t love Roman Donnello.”
“Oh, dear heart.” Glynna clucked sympathetically. “I saw the way you look
ed at that man yesterday. I was a little shaken at the sight of him myself, but I’m not blind. I know love when I see it.”
The truth throbbed through Kerrie. “My feelings for Roman are not the point.”
“Aren’t they?” An abiding tenderness filled the softly spoken rebuke.
“No!” The wipers steady swish-swish was deafening in the silence that followed her denial. Kerrie took the next street corner faster than was safe on the wet pavement, causing the rear of the car to fishtail.
She could feel her mother’s reproving gaze, could hear the unspoken accusation that she was protesting too much.
Glynna sighed.
Kerrie gathered her mental armor around her and pulled to a stop in front of her house.
As she disengaged her seat belt, Glynna said “You’re making an awful mistake—setting yourself up for a disaster you evidently haven’t considered.”
“What disaster?” Kerrie snapped, her patience gone.
Glynna got out of the car and retrieved her returned Christmas shopping bags from the backseat, then hurried up the walkway after Kerrie who’d gone ahead to unlock the door. “The disaster that will occur when. Gabby and Maureen are grown and discover you’ve kept their father from them their whole lives—all for your own selfish reasons.”
The indictment stung. She didn’t want to hear this, didn’t want to acknowledge a kernel of truth in what her mother was saying. Her eyes felt sandpaper dry and scratchy. “I won’t have them hurt by his rejection.”
“They’re two years old, Kerrie. They won’t know about his rejection for years to come and—if you’re right and he wants nothing to do with them—well, by then we’ll have had more than enough time to soften the impact.” Glynna set her packages on the foyer rug, an Oriental blend of deep wines and brilliant blues. She touched Kerrie’s arm. “Aren’t you really afraid it’s you he won’t want?”
“No!” Again denial came too fast, too strong, and both women knew it Heat sprang into Kerrie’s cheeks. Was Mom right? Was her major concern at the moment not that Roman would want to be a part of his daughter’s lives, but that he wouldn’t want to be a part of hers? No. That couldn’t be it Whatever this feeling still smoldering inside her for Roman Donnello was—it wasn’t love.
Kerrie startled to shut the door, heard her mother’s gasp and glanced over her shoulder. Glynna was pointing outside, her eyes rounded in alarm. “A crow. A single crow.” Her gaze shifted to Kerrie. “Sorrow.”
Another superstition. Kerrie rolled her eyes.
“Kerrie Carleen, you can’t ignore this sign. You must do the right thing. You must tell him today.”
“Mom, I have murderers to catch today.”
“Mark my words, that bird is a warning, and throwing up roadblocks won’t make the problem go away. Don’t put off telling him. Don’t let him disappear from your life again without resolving this, or you’ll never have another moment’s happiness.”
Kerrie sighed. “I’ll think about it.”
“Be sure you do.” Glynna turned toward the hallway and let out another startled gasp. “Ye Gods, where’s my fern?”
Perhaps, Kerrie thought, the crow was foretelling Glynna’s sorrow over the plant and had nothing whatsoever to do with her. Leaving her mother tending to the fern, she hurried out to her car. The crow was gone. So much for omens.
THE HOMICIDE DIVISION of the Seattle police department bustled with the usual clatter of typewriters, telephones and people.
Tully Cage’s desk faced Kerrie’s. He was there, his chair tipped off its front legs, his blond crew cut smearing Bryicreem on the window they shared, a phone at his ear. His eyebrows were tugged in a frown, accentuating the scar that sliced through the left one. Like her, he wore jeans and a heavy, long-sleeved cotton shirt, his blue, hers white. His teal blue eyes lifted as she approached.
“Talk to you later.” He slipped the phone onto its cradle and dropped forward in his chair, the front legs meeting the floor with a thump. “You look like hell.”
“It’s been that kind of morning.” Kerrie plopped her shoulder bag on her desk, glanced out the window at the dismal day and sighed.
“What’s going on?” He shoved aside the tablet he’d been jotting in. “Is your mom okay?”
“Mom’s fine.” Kerrie forced her gaze from the window. “Thanks for asking.”
He nodded in acknowledgment. “Then what’s got you looking like you’ve lost your best friend? Anything you care to share?”
Kerrie dropped into her chair. Cage stood, then settled a hip on the edge of her desk, somehow managing to look like a big brother—maybe it was the crew cut—offering his kid sister a shoulder to cry on. But she had no inclination to cry on anyone’s shoulder, nor would she confide her troubles.
Cage knew she had twin daughters, but that was as far as it went. She’d told him any talk about the girls’ father was off limits. He’d respected her boundaries, as she respected his. She didn’t enlighten him now, but she did tell him about Roman’s confession.
“Federal…huh. And you’re sure he wasn’t lying?”
Was she sure? She’d thought she’d been, but now that Cage brought it up, she realized she still had doubts. Had Nick lied about being Roman? Faked the proof? Stolen Roman Donnello’s papers? Or did she just want him to be lying? Kerrie shook her head. “I’m not sure of much today.”
“I could always check him out.”
Maybe she just needed confirmation to finally accept the truth and let go of the doubts. Maybe Nick Diamond was making a fool of her. “Why don’t you do that? I’d hate to think I took his word too easily, only to find out later that he really was Loverboy, yanking my chains.”
Two hours later, she had her answer. Cage dropped a faxed photograph onto Kerrie’s desk. “He’s who he says he is all right. And furthermore, his peers think’ pretty highly of him, say he’s a hell of a cop and a real decent guy.”
Kerrie stared down at Roman’s arresting image, and her throat tightened. This decent guy had turned her life upside down and inside out.
“You look like you could eat Donnello’s liver for lunch. Whatever he did to you in a past life must have been brutal.”
“You wouldn’t believe it.” And what had she done to Roman? She didn’t want to think about that, about how she’d let him leave her house last night knowing full well that he thought Maureen was another man’s child. Didn’t want to think about that odd pain she’d seen in his eyes. Or about her mother’s warning of a lifetime of sorrow if she didn’t tell him he was the father of twin two-year-olds.
She scrubbed at her tired eyes and glanced toward the window again. A crow was perched on the window ledge. Kerrie reared back as if the bird could step through the glass that separated them. Her pulse skittered.
“What the—?” Cage waved his hand at the bird.
The crow ignored him. Its dark glassy eyes pinned Kerrie with a cold gaze. She couldn’t look away. Her mother’s warning screamed through her head.
“Get out of here, pest.” Cage thumped the window with his knuckles.
The bird squawked and flew away. Kerrie shivered.
“Spooky bird. Don’t often see crows this high up. Starlings, but not crows.” Cage smiled wryly. “You been putting crumbs on the window ledge, Muldoon?”
Kerrie feared her face was colorless, readable. Silently, she cursed her mother’s superstitions…and her own stupidity at letting a bird scare her. “I’ve got better things to do than worry about scavengers.”
She shoved out of the chair and gathered all the info on Roman Donnello. “I think we should show this to the lieutenant and bring him up to speed.”
“Be my guest.” Cage went back to his own chair and planted himself with a plop.
“Coward.” But she didn’t blame him for not wanting to accompany her. This newest shift in their case wouldn’t make the lieutenant happy. With the papers hugged like a bullet-proof vest to her rapidly beating heart, she struck out for his-office.
She was back minutes later. A headache teased her temples. The wonder was that it hadn’t developed into a full-blown thumper hours ago.
Cage looked up from the papers on his desk. “How’d he take the news?”
“One guess.” Trying to make light of it, Kerrie gave her best imitation of their boss. “’I want this killer found. Instead, some damned Fed has us chasing our tails. If you run into that damned Donnello, tell him to stay out of our case. I don’t care if he did know the first victim. I don’t care if he was married to her. That doesn’t justify his poking into this.’“
“Whew! Didn’t you tell him we have another stakeout at McRory’s scheduled for tonight?”
She nodded She wasn’t looking forward to another “date” with Jeremy Dane. “It didn’t go far to assuage his anger.”
Cage shrugged. “Look at it this way, at least you’ll be able to blow off some steam at Donnello next time you see him.”
Next time she saw him. The thought kicked the ache at her temples a notch higher. “Hopefully I won’t have the opportunity.”
SHE MIGHT HAVE KNOWN Roman would be at McRory’s. At their table. Again. Seeing him was like a slam to the solar plexus. The last thing she needed tonight was to deal with him, with their personal situation. Not when she had a killer to unmask, to hopefully capture.
“Donnello is here,” she whispered into the microphone hidden beneath her sweater.
Cage responded, “Are you going to relay the lieutenant’s message to him?”
“I’m going to ignore him.”
“What if he won’t ignore you?”
Kerrie gritted her teeth. Roman was unpredictable. She couldn’t chance his blowing this operation and scaring Loverboy off. “All right…I’ll talk to him.”
Roman watched Kerrie skirt the table with the Reserved sign propped in its center and start toward him. His mouth watered at the sight of her, she wore a short black skirt and a fuzzy black sweater, the color a breathtaking contrast to her wild red tresses, which rained across her shoulders with every step. Her determined expression lent an appealing glow to her striking features. She seemed unaware of the male heads turning as she passed.
