by Nancy Gideon
Jack wasn't sure what he expected but it certainly wasn't the gorgeous, composed and overjoyed woman standing there. She leaped forward with a glad cry to embrace her daughter.
"Oh, Tessa. Tessa, sweetheart. What a surprise! I'm so happy to see you!"
And from the way Tessa stood rigidly within those perfumed arms, the feeling was definitely not mutual.
* * *
Chapter 7
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"More coffee, Mr. Chaney?"
Jack shook his head at the elegant woman proffering a silver pot. "No, thank you, ma'am."
Everything about Barbara D'Angelo was elegant and composed and genteel. From Tessa's descriptions he'd expected to find a swollen-eyed wailer draped immobile upon her mourning couch. Though signs of weariness and past weeping were evident, Barbara's smile was genuine.
"I appreciate you bringing Tess home, Mr. Chaney. I see too little of her as it is and under the circumstances…" She drifted off, looking uncomfortable and not wanting to place her guests in the same awkward position. "Stan mentioned on the phone that you thought I might have some evidence of what Robert was working on."
"You spoke to Stan?" Funny, he'd been given the very distinct impression that the private investigator was not welcome in the D'Angelo home. He glanced at Tessa, who was amazingly stoic.
"Oh, we talk at least once a day. Dear man, he's so worried about me. The feeling's mutual, you know. I would hate to think that Robert's death would have any … any adverse effects on him."
She meant sending him back to the bottle. "No, ma'am. I don't see that as happening."
"He speaks very highly of you, Mr. Chaney, and of your father. I remember Michael from when Robert was working his way up and used to spend night and day between the station house and court. I used to take sandwiches down to them."
He blinked, trying to picture the Barbara D'Angelo who sat across from him, in cashmere and silk, carrying food to the overworked at the precinct. But then he looked beyond the perfect makeup and professionally touched-up hair, the designer clothes and jeweled setting, beyond all the surface things, and he saw the kindness in her soft brown eyes, the humanity in her gentle smile. And he could see a woman toting a baby and a parcel of sandwiches. And he saw strength, the deep core determination he saw when he looked at her daughter. Where had Tessa gotten such a skewed idea of her mother?
Even now Tessa was doing everything she could to isolate herself from the gracefully grieving woman. The moment she'd been freed from her mother's hug, she'd led the way into the living room to select a purposefully distant and single chair. Barbara chose the posh white leather sofa and Jack sat opposite on the edge of a flimsy brocaded settee. With Tessa wrapped up in her hostility and Barbara adrift on the huge couch, Jack was at a loss as to how to relate to the two women. So he concentrated on the widow.
"I know questions can be difficult…" he began.
"How can I help you, Mr. Chaney? I told everything I knew, which wasn't much, to the police."
"What was your husband working on before he died?"
"It had to do with that councilwoman he was going to be running against, Ms. Martinez. Robert was a very private man when it came to his work. He preferred to leave it at the office. But I could tell this was really bothering him. He wasn't sleeping well. He'd make phone calls at odd hours of the night. I think they were overseas calls. I heard him speaking Vietnamese. He was terribly upset about something but when I'd ask him, he'd tell me it was nothing. He was lying, Mr. Chaney. There was something very wrong.
"Do you have your phone records?"
"I kept a copy. The police took the originals for their investigation."
"I'll have Stan pick them up. What about the money, Mrs. D'Angelo?"
She shook her head in a disbelieving fashion. "A quarter of a million dollars. It just appeared in our account. It was a wire transfer, but the police were unable to trace the source. We're comfortably set in our lifestyle, Mr. Chaney. Robert doesn't—didn't bring money problems to me but I think he would have mentioned if we'd had a sudden windfall."
"Where do you think it came from?"
"I don't know. We thought it might be an anonymous campaign contribution at first, but when all this nasty business surfaced, all sorts of nasty things were implied. Blackmail, drug money, hush money. Ridiculous, of course. Robert would never have involved himself in any of those things. My husband was ambitious but his integrity was above reproach. He was an honest man and those were the things he spent his career attacking." She took a deep breath and her composure faltered. She stared down at the hands knotted in her lap, where the huge diamond ring she wore reflected the light, and her eyes filled with tears just as dazzling.
Giving her a moment to pull herself together, Jack looked away, to where Tessa sat stiff and unmoved by her mother's pain. And she was the one who finally spoke in a remote, all-business tone.
"Mother, did he bring anything home with him? Papers? A disk?"
Again she shook her head. "It wasn't work he was obsessed with those last few days. It was the past. He was going through his old Special Forces mementos. I thought it odd because he never looked back at that particular time and he never talked about it. His campaign manager was always trying to get him to play up the medals he'd brought home with him. He thought a war hero would sell big. But Robert wouldn't let him. He said to leave the past in the past, that his current record was enough to get him to whatever his future held."
"And yet he went back to the past himself."
Barbara looked up at Jack. "Yes. You're military. You know how impossible it is to get that part of your life completely closed away.
Jack's features tensed. He nodded.
"Robert was very good at it. He never fit in with the military lifestyle but he saw it as a stepping-stone to where he wanted to go. They were in their first year of college, Robert and his roommates Chet Allen and Tag McGee. The war was winding down when Tag's number came up. And just like that, the other two enlisted. They were inseparable back then. I was finishing high school when they went for training and by the time I graduated, I was married to Robert and they were in some jungle a world away. Robert wrote faithfully but he never mentioned the war or what he was doing over there. For all I knew, he could have been on some grand vacation. He wrote about the future, about his plans for us after he got out of law school. It was as if the tour he did in Nam never happened."
"What did happen?"
"He was wounded, nothing serious but enough to send him Stateside, in the same action that killed his friend Chet. Tag went into some special program and we never heard from him again. I used to look for his name among the casualties and MIAs. I even read the Wall but I never did find out what happened to him. 'He came home,' was all Robert would say. And then he put that part of his life behind him. Until recently."
As delicately as he could, he broached what could not be ignored. "I know it's classified but it's rumored that your husband did a lot of missions across borders we weren't supposed to cross. There were rumors that he made drug connections while he was over there."
"My father would never be involved in drugs." Tessa jumped up from her chair and began to pace the room with a restless energy. Barbara watched her through pain-filled eyes while struggling to restrain her need to go to her, probably realizing the offer of comfort would be rebuffed.
"She's right, Mr. Chaney. Robert would never have done the things they suggested. He saw things in one of two ways. Right or wrong. Drug trafficking was an evil he never would have condoned. Never."
Tessa paused in front of a large, decorative fireplace. There, she studied the photos arranged upon the mantel in varying-size silver frames. They were of family. Portraits of them posed together and candids through their growing-up years. An attractive all-American family. She looked but didn't touch. "Never," she reaffirmed softly.
Jack cleared his throat to get out what he needed to ask. "Mrs. D'Angelo, could your husband have taken his
own life?"
He heard Tessa's sharp intake of breath but his focus was on the woman across from him, the woman whose features suddenly aged and twisted with an intense inner anguish. But she answered with a quiet truthfulness.
"Robert was a man to whom image, integrity and respect was everything. He didn't just do a job. He was the job. If he thought those things were compromised, if he thought he couldn't do his job—"
"What are you saying?" Tessa demanded.
Barbara didn't flinch from her daughter's furious outburst. "The thought of the investigation, the knowledge that his career was ruined… Even if he was proven innocent, he'd never successfully run a political campaign. His name would always be linked to scandal and that destroyed every dream he'd ever held. And it destroyed him, too, Mr. Chaney. The idea that people would believe such lies about him, it broke his spirit. Could he have taken his own life? Yes."
Without a word Tessa stormed out of the house. Barbara watched her go, a heartbreaking sadness imprinted upon her perfect features. Then she returned her attention to Jack.
"Do I believe he did? No, Mr. Chaney. Tessa is very much like her father. They're not quitters. Robert was down but he wasn't out. He would have regrouped and he would have fought one spectacular battle. If there was a way for someone else to have been in that room with him, to have pulled that trigger, I would have believed everything my daughter claimed. But it wasn't possible. His office was on the fourteenth floor of a sky-rise. The door was locked from the inside. There was no other way out of it. He was alone in that room when the shot that killed him was fired, no matter what Tess wants to believe." She studied Jack's face. "But you believe her, don't you?"
"Your daughter has a lot of passion behind her purpose. I believe she believes it. I believe someone else believes it, too. Mrs. D'Angelo, are you safe in this house alone?"
She blinked. "Yes, I think so. The community has guards who patrol at night. Robert had a top-notch security system installed. I used to tease him about living in Fort Knox but he'd say he was just protecting his family jewel." The tears returned and she wiped them determinedly away. "Forgive me, Mr. Chaney."
"Yes, ma'am."
"You think I'm in danger?"
"I think I'd feel better if Stan stayed here with you for a little while."
"Mr. Chaney, I don't think that's necessary."
"It would make you feel better, too, Mrs. D'Angelo. You don't want to be alone right now." He put forth his most charming, empathetic smile. "And I'd like you to show Stan everything your husband was looking through."
"Of course." Then her brows lowered. "Is my daughter in danger? Tessa swore to me that the incident at her apartment was just a coincidence. Was it?"
"No, ma'am. I don't believe it was. I think someone believes she has information regarding your husband's death. But I think you might have it and not know it."
Barbara was silent for a long moment. When she spoke, there was no alarm, no fright, in her tone. Just concern. "I'll do whatever I can if you'll make me one promise."
"And what's that, Mrs. D'Angelo?"
"You take care of Tess. You keep my daughter safe."
Now he was the one alarmed. But he kept that discomfort behind his impassive game face. "Yes, ma'am. I plan to."
* * *
She was sitting in his truck with all the animation of a crash test dummy.
Take care of Tess. Yes, ma'am.
What was he thinking? Taking care of Tessa wasn't in his job description. And neither was searching out clues to her father's death. She wasn't his problem. He had problems of his own. He jerked open the door to the driver's side with unnecessary force but she never glanced his way as he swung up behind the wheel. The engine growled to life just like his frustrations snarling inside him.
He didn't want to be responsible for this woman.
He took a breath to calm his thinking but unfortunately that inhalation sucked up the scent of her beside him. Warm, desirable female. Vulnerable. Dependent upon him.
He swore softly and put the truck in gear. He'd take her back to the compound. He'd do what he'd been coerced into doing. He'd get her fit and competent and ready for trouble. And he'd send her out into the thick of it without a second thought. No matter what Barbara D' Angelo had made him promise.
He swore again. Tessa D'Angelo was not going to get under his skin.
"You must think I'm a spoiled brat the way I acted back there."
Her quiet self-deprecating tone startled him out of his grim mood.
"You're not paying me to think."
He thought she was gorgeous, gutsy, fierce and … well, yes, a brat.
She rubbed trembling hands over her face. "I don't know what it is about her that brings out the very worst in me."
"Must be a mother-daughter thing." A woman thing. Two women pulling a man between them, both vying for attention he didn't have time to give. At least that's what he'd think if he had any business coming to conclusions.
"She thinks he killed himself. Who'd know better than the grieving widow, right?"
He didn't answer. He felt her gaze but wouldn't meet it. Stay objective, Chaney. Don't compromise the mission by getting involved. There's no percentage in it.
"What do you think?"
"Why ask me?" His voice was a little sharper than necessary.
"Because I want to know. Because I need a little perspective right about now."
She was still staring at him. What did she expect? Some sage advice that might just get her killed? Oh, no. No way he was getting pulled into that trap. If he said, Back down, I think you're spinning your wheels on emotion, and then a killer went free, she'd blame him for an eternity. If he said, Stick to your guns, and those guns turned in her direction … well, hell, he couldn't be damned for more than one eternity, could he? This one was already taken.
"I think I'd like to see his office."
The words just came out, surprising both of them.
"I mean, this whole thing hangs on whether or not someone else had access to your father in that room, doesn't it?"
He hadn't expected her to balk. "The police said it was impossible. I don't know what you think you might find."
"I'm a Little bit better than the police when it comes to this sort of thing. But it's up to you. Take a left or a right?"
A left would take them toward the freeway and his refuge. A right would pull them downtown, to the scene of the crime, so to speak.
He glanced at her. Her features were a mask of indecision and something more.
Fear.
"We don't have to—"
But she brushed off his easy out.
"Take a right, Jack. It's time to get back on the horse."
* * *
She hadn't been back to the office since the night it happened. She'd made excuses for not returning, logical reasons to stay away. Didn't want to compromise a police investigation. There was nothing there to find. Nothing there to see.
But there was.
She was afraid she was going to see it all again and her fragile soul wasn't ready to endure that agony.
They entered the front lobby. Her heart started beating faster, in a frantic little flutter.
"What's the guard's name?"
Jack's question distracted her from the marquee by the elevator doors. D'Angelo, Robert. She glanced at the burly black man in uniform standing at attention behind his desk.
"Maurice."
"And when Maurice isn't here?"
"Gary. He works nights." He'd been working the night she'd gone up in the elevator alone. "The police already questioned them."
"Is this elevator the only way up?"
"There's a service elevator in back that the cleaning crew uses but it has a key lock."
"How about stairs?"
"Two sets." She pointed across the lobby. "There and in back. But the doors are locked at night. Just like the main doors are locked. The guard has to let you in. Only tenants and employees have a key to
the garage entrance."
"And you always speak to the guards by name?"
"Yes."
"Good. Always make sure they know you're in the building, especially after hours."
"We have to sign in and out once the doors are locked."
"But not during the day."
"No. Not during the day." She nodded toward the guard. "Hello, Maurice."
"Nice to see you, Ms. D'Angelo," he responded with a polite smile. And that look in his eyes. That sympathetic, you-poor-thing look that she got from those who didn't know what else to say. What could he say? "Sorry your life went down the toilet"? "Don't forget to wash your hands"?
Jack was pressing for the fourteenth floor. "What about alarms?"
"What?"
"What kind of alarms do you have in the building?"
"The usual, I guess. Fire. The one in the elevator."
"Make sure you know where they are so if you need to get some attention, some help, you can make a lot of noise."
Then she understood his questions weren't purely concerned with her father's case. It was to shift her thinking into yellow alert. She stood a bit straighter and swept the lobby with a glance that really noticed who else was in it, to assess potential threat.
"And there are cameras," she added. "Here in the lobby and at the elevators in the parking structure. The police have the tapes from the night my father died."
The doors opened and again Tessa felt the grip of reluctance to go in, to go up to the rooms where such great, ambitious plans had come crashing down. She hesitated, just for an instant, but it was long enough for Jack to notice. He didn't say anything. He didn't offer any of the pat statements meant to comfort and assure that things would be all right. He touched his hand to the small of her back. A simple gesture, one that didn't impel her forward or extend sympathy. The connection was basic, bracing, just like the words he spoke so matter-of-factly.
"Get angry."
Someone had killed her father and, so far, had gotten away with it. They expected her to give up, to back down, to crawl away and hide. Part of her, when faced with what waited on the fourteenth floor, wanted to do just that. But the other part of her began to get mad. She stepped into the elevator car and stabbed the correct button. Jack followed. He hadn't moved his hand from where his fingertips pressed lightly just above the waistband of her pants. Heat and strength flowed from that point of contact. Though they didn't speak as they went smoothly, quickly upward, that continued touch told her what she'd needed to know for a very long time.
