Mean Streak

by Sandra Brown

  He didn’t contradict her or argue, so she continued. “You use your size and stern demeanor to keep people at arm’s length, afraid of you. But I’m one of the few who’s been given a glimpse into your heart.” She pressed her hand against his heart, thrilling to the strong beats against her palm. “And I love what I’ve seen.”

  She didn’t expect an avowal of love or any such romantic profession from him. When he turned in the circle of her arms to face her, he looked as forbidding as ever. “You think you’re smart, don’t you? You think you have me all figured out.”

  “I think I’m close, or you wouldn’t be angry.”

  “You want to know why I can’t look in a mirror, Doc? Want to know what I’m running from, why I can’t get far enough away from Westboro?”

  Knowing that they’d reached the bottom of his personal hell, she already knew what he was going to say.

  “Because given the same situation, under the same set of circumstances, with Eric in the crosshairs, I would still pull the trigger.”

  Footsteps approached the door. The key was inserted into the lock. Connell blustered in. She and Hayes quickly stepped apart, but Connell picked up on the charged atmosphere immediately.

  “What’d I miss?”

  “Shut the damn door,” Hayes muttered.

  As he reached behind him to pull the door closed, Connell repeated, “What’d I miss?”

  “Not that it’s any of your business, but I told her what I’ve been doing since Westboro.”

  Connell had brought in several carryout sacks. He set them on the table. Addressing her, he said, “He told you about the people on his shit list and why they were on it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Huh,” Connell said. “I thought you’d be discussing Jeff.”

  “In a way, we were,” Hayes said. “He’s next on my list.”

  Chapter 38

  The two were even more disreputable-looking than Jeff had expected them to be. Their natural raw-boned appearances were embellished by bruises, bandages, and the external rods holding one’s broken jaw in place.

  They were reclined in side-by-side hospital beds, their swollen and bloodshot eyes fixed on the TV mounted on the wall from which blasted the inane dialogue of a sitcom rerun.

  As he strolled into the room, he smiled at them pleasantly. “Hello. My name is Jeff Surrey.”

  Norman looked him up and down. “So?”

  “You’re Norman, correct?” Jeff moved to the foot of his bed. “I’d heard it was Will who’d suffered the more serious injury.” He looked toward Will with a moue of sympathy.

  “You heard right,” Norman said. “And my brother likes to do his suffering in private. You ain’t a nurse. If you’re a doctor, we got enough already. If you’re from the billing department, we get all this for free on account of we’re out of work and on welfare.”

  “I’m not affiliated with the hospital.”

  “Then what the fuck you want?”

  “Hayes Bannock.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Not a what. A who. I’m Emory Charbonneau’s husband.”

  The name struck a chord. Apparently they had been watching news broadcasts as well as sitcom reruns. Norman looked over at his brother and ordered, “Shut that off.”

  Will, who’d been in charge of the control for the TV, fumbled with it and muted the audio. Jeff had won their undivided attention.

  “May I sit down?”

  Norman made a gesture of consent. Jeff dragged a chair from beneath the window, positioned it between the two beds, sat down, and casually crossed one leg over the other. “I was told about the unusual circumstances under which you met my wife.”

  “She went by Dr. Smith.”

  “She lied about her name. She’s been lying a lot recently. Ever since she was abducted by your neighbor.”

  “Bannock, you say? He was stingy with his name. We never knowed it.”

  “With good reason, as it turns out. He’s wanted by the FBI.”

  “No shit?”

  “No shit.”

  Norman looked over at Will. “You called it right.” Norman came back to Jeff. “We had a bad feelin’ about him. What the feds want him for?”

  “You know how they are about their cases. Very tight-lipped. But I’ve met with the agent who’s been trying for years to capture Bannock.”

  “Years? Then whatever he did must’ve been bad.”

  “I shudder to think,” Jeff said. “His attack on you was psychopathically vicious. And now he’s kidnapped my wife. For the second time.”

  Norman turned his head and exchanged a long look with his brother, as though silently consulting with him. When he came back to Jeff, he scrutinized him as he shifted his weight and resettled more comfortably in the bed. Then he flashed a grin, made particularly ugly by the damage done to his face.

  “You sure she didn’t just run off? ’Cause it didn’t strike us that she was with this Bannock against her will.”

  “He’s brainwashed her.”

  Norman guffawed. “Get out.”

  “Maybe not in a literal sense,” Jeff said, “but something to that effect. I can tell you with certainty that she’s not herself. She’s behaving irrationally, and…and I fear that if she’s ever returned, she won’t be the woman she was before. The one I knew and loved.”

  He covered a light cough/sob with his fist and hoped to God the playacting was convincing. He also hoped they understood at least a few of the multisyllable words.

  They understood enough of them. Norman was no longer grinning. “He’s got our ma and sister all moony-eyed, too. Sum’bitch just sauntered into our house and made himself all cozy in our business.”

  “That’s why I—”

  “But truth is,” Norman continued, interrupting, “he’s meaner’n a snake, and we don’t want no more truck with him, especially with him being wanted by the feds and all. We don’t need that shit, nor nothing like it. No thank you.”

  In the next bed, Will confirmed that with as much of a nod as he could manage.

  Bolstered by his brother’s endorsement, Norman expanded. “Now, I’m sorry about your wife preferring him. That sucks, all right. But it ain’t our problem, it’s yours. So…” He hitched his chin toward the door. “Don’t let it hit you in the ass on your way out.”

  Jeff remained where he was and brushed an imaginary piece of lint off his trouser leg. “Of course my marital issues are entirely personal, and I wouldn’t have aired them to you at all, except for the fact that they have become your problem.”

  “How’s that?”

  “I’m prepared to leave Bannock’s fate to the federal government. My wife is my only concern. His influence has turned her into a criminal and made her mentally and emotionally imbalanced. For instance, yesterday she told detectives from the sheriff’s office that the baby your sister miscarried was…” He looked away, as though unable to speak the nasty allegation.

  “Wuz whut?”

  “Was…” He let out a long sigh. “Fathered by one of you.”

  Despite his broken ribs, Norman jack-knifed up. “Hell you say!”

  Jeff raised his hands in surrender. “Not I, Norman. Emory.”

  “Well that’s a damn lie,” he said, jabbing the air with his index finger for emphasis.

  “I should hope so. The incest notwithstanding, any sexual congress with Lisa would be statutory rape because of her age. As I’m sure you’re aware.”

  Norman looked across at his brother, whose reaction was hard to decipher, but Jeff decided it contained equal portions of fear and fury.

  Jeff fed both. “Lisa was questioned by a female deputy. I wasn’t privy to that interview, but based on how fondly Emory spoke about your sister, I got the impression that the two of them have forged a strong bond.”

  “Lisa thinks the sun rises and sets in Dr. Smith.”

  “Hmm.” Jeff tugged his lower lip as though he found that very troublesome. “I guessed as much. I’m a
fraid your sister will back anything Emory told the authorities about you. Which is why I felt compelled to inform you that while you’re sequestered in here, your family name is being maligned. You’re being accused of the worst sort of depravity and an egregious crime.”

  He purposefully used the big words this time. The brothers probably didn’t know all of them, but the language tolled impending doom for the Floyd brothers, and that was Jeff’s intention.

  Norman looked over at Will. “We gotta get out of here. Shut this down before it goes any further.”

  Will gave his brother a thumbs-up and began bicycling his legs to push the sheet off them.

  Jeff stood. “Wait! You can’t leave the hospital. Your conditions are far too serious. I wouldn’t have told you if I thought—”

  “Don’t you worry about us, mister.” Norman started tearing at the tape that secured the IV shunt to his hand. “Thanks for coming by and letting us know. We’ll take it from here.”

  “Well,” Jeff said, “since you’re insistent on taking immediate action… It had occurred to me that we could be of help to each other.”

  Norman stopped pulling on the tape. Will hummed his eagerness to learn what Jeff had in mind. He even made a rolling motion with his hand as though to say, Let’s hear it.

  Jeff kept his expression thoughtful and serious, but up his sleeve he was laughing.

  * * *

  Hayes’s statement caused Emory’s heart to lurch. “Jeff is next on your list? What does that mean?”

  “I know what it means,” Jack said. “For God’s sake, Hayes, you can’t take this matter into your own hands.”

  Hayes turned away from them and went over to the table. “What did you get to eat?” He removed a sandwich from one of the bags, folded back the foil wrapper, and inspected the ingredients between the thick slices of bread.

  “Did you hear what I said?” Jack asked.

  “I can’t take matters into my own hands.”

  “Before I’ll let you do something stupid, I’ll have you thrown in jail for the Floyds. Swear to God, I will.”

  “Enough with the threats, Jack. Eat.”

  He sat down at the table and motioned Emory into the second chair. “You take the bed,” he said to Jack as he passed him a Styrofoam cup of coffee and a breakfast sandwich.

  Emory sat down as instructed but left the food untouched. “You won’t do anything illegal, will you?”

  “Like tear Jeff limb from effing limb? I would love nothing better. But you said the key word. Illegal. I refuse to give him a loophole to wiggle through in court. Our job,” he said to Jack, “is to make damn certain we have a solid case for the prosecutor.” Hearing an approaching vehicle, Emory turned to look through the open blinds. The familiar SUV was pulling into the parking space directly in front of the room. “It’s Knight and Grange.”

  “The cavalry,” Hayes said.

  “They know who you are,” Jack said, and in response to Hayes’s angry reaction, he added, “I had to tell them. Last night after you snatched Emory off that balcony, every officer in the area was out beating the bushes for you. If I hadn’t told them who you were, you could’ve been shot on sight.”

  When the knock came, Emory asked, “Should I let them in?”

  “The plan was for us to regroup here at eight o’clock,” Jack said. “They’re right on time. Open the door.”

  If the situation hadn’t been so serious, she would have laughed at the detectives’ dumbfounded expressions upon seeing her. “Good morning.” She stood aside so they could come in. Both stumbled to a halt when they saw Hayes sitting at the table, his carryout breakfast spread out before him.

  Knight was the first to recover his powers of speech. “I gotta say, you two never fail to surprise.”

  Jack said, “Sam Knight, Buddy Grange, this is Hayes Bannock.”

  Emory noticed that it was with reverence and awe that Grange approached Hayes to shake hands. “You’re the stuff of legends. Never thought I’d have the honor, sir.”

  Hayes replied with a terse thanks, and, after shaking hands with Knight, continued eating.

  “How’d you get the bruise on your chin?” Knight asked Connell.

  “I slipped in the shower.”

  Emory could tell that neither he nor Grange believed that. They both looked toward Hayes, whose only reaction to their speculation was to ball up the empty wrapper of his sandwich and toss it into the sack.

  Knight said, “Gotta tell y’all, I’m dying to know how this little get-together came about.”

  Jack took it upon himself to explain. He gave them a broad-strokes overview, then filled in the details. “When you arrived, we were about to address how solid the case against Jeff Surrey is. You were the first to suspect him. What’s your take?”

  Knight thoughtfully tugged at the rubber band around his fingers. Turning to Hayes, he said, “We don’t have a crime scene, and even if we did, you compromised it when you removed that rock.”

  “I realize that. I haven’t forgotten all my training. But there was weather moving in, which would have compromised it anyway. Or the rock could possibly have gotten overlooked. Jeff could have started thinking about it, gone back to the spot, and removed it. Best option I had was to take it with me. I was wearing gloves, so the last person to touch it was the person who used it as a weapon.”

  “Why a rock?” Grange asked. “Not a very reliable murder weapon.”

  “Jeff wanted it to look like an accident,” Hayes said. “Like Emory fell.”

  “Are you sure you didn’t, Dr. Charbonneau?” Grange asked.

  “No. The first time you questioned me, I told you I couldn’t remember specifically what happened, and I still can’t. If it came to trial, I couldn’t swear under oath that I didn’t just fall.”

  That disturbed the detectives, and Hayes noticed. With discernible irritability, he said, “Show them the thing off Jeff’s jacket.”

  Emory removed the silver charm from her pocket. While the detectives were examining it in turn, Hayes explained how he’d found it.

  Knight asked her, “You couldn’t have dropped it there yourself?”

  “No, and I’m positive about that. The last time I saw it, until last night, it was dangling off the zipper pull of Jeff’s ski jacket.”

  “What happened last night?”

  “Hayes showed it to me out on the balcony of the hotel.”

  “Huh,” the older detective said. “So that’s what convinced you to hightail it with him.”

  “Yes. I realized instantly what it signified, and that I was still in danger from Jeff.”

  Hayes said, “He didn’t get the job done up on that trail, but he was there.”

  “What were you doing up there last Saturday?”

  He explained, this time without referring to her black tights. “It took me a while to circle around. By the time I found her, at least a half hour had elapsed, possibly a little more. She was cold.”

  “Time enough for Jeff to intercept her, do his thing, and get away without you seeing him,” Grange said.

  “Obviously.”

  Knight snapped the rubber band. “Okay, let’s assume—optimistically, because I’m afraid that a defense lawyer will brutalize that timeline—let’s assume that if we can place him on that trail, we’ve also got a classic motive. You’re loaded.”

  Emory flinched at the word but didn’t make an issue of it. “Jeff also has been having an affair.”

  Grange said, “So you do know about that? We weren’t sure.”

  “I suspected. He’s now admitted it. He told me it was over, but I don’t believe anything he says at this point.”

  “The romance might be over, but he still needs her as his alibi. Alice Butler vowed to me that she and Jeff were together from Friday evening until Sunday afternoon.”

  Later, Emory wondered how she managed not to cry out and give herself away. Without realizing the blunder he’d made, Grange continued talking, but she was deaf to wh
at he was saying and insensible to everything except the soul-crushing betrayal.

  She felt the pain of Alice’s betrayal even more keenly than Jeff’s. Alice was the trusted and admired colleague with whom she’d built a practice. She’d poured out her heart to Alice about Hayes. Worse, she was the friend to whom she’d shared doubts about Jeff’s fidelity, the future of their marriage, and her suspicion of his culpability.

  As though reading her mind, Hayes interrupted Grange. “Alice knows that Emory suspects him.”

  Everyone looked to her for an explanation, but when she didn’t immediately launch one, Hayes told them about her phone conversation with Alice. “She attributed Emory’s distress to fatigue, medications, like that. Poo-pooed her suspicions, said no way could Jeff have harmed her.”

  “Love can make you stupid,” Connell said. “Maybe she truly believes that.”

  “Maybe. But she’s still lying to protect him.”

  “Up to us to prove she’s lying, though,” Knight said.

  “Put her love to the test. If Jeff is actually arrested and charged, she may rethink her story.”

  Grange seemed to like Hayes’s suggestion. “Let’s get a warrant for him and see what happens.”

  “Do you know where he is?” Jack asked.

  “At the suite hotel,” Knight said. “We stopped there on our way here, asked him if he’d heard from his wife overnight. We didn’t expect he had,” he said, dividing a droll look between her and Hayes. “But we wanted to test his reaction. He told us he’d been going crazy with worry all night. So much so that as soon as it got light this morning, he went to the hospital to see if she’d been admitted to the ER as a Jane Doe.”

  “He’s putting on quite a performance,” Jack said.

  Grange pulled his cell phone off his belt. “I’ll get a deputy over to the hotel to watch his room, make sure he doesn’t go anywhere while we’re waiting on that warrant.”

  As he turned away to make the call, Knight said to Jack, “If an FBI agent was waiting on that warrant, too, it might add some heft and speed things along.”