“Something’s happened,” she said, pushing her wheelchair closer. “What is it?”
How did she know? he wondered. He’d tried to maintain a sober expression. But since she’d seen through him, there was no reason not to tell her. At least some of it.
“I saw my father.” He felt like a washing machine, with his emotions tumbling around within him like shirts on the spin cycle. He’d tried to work it through all the way to Clancy’s apartment.
His father hadn’t completely abandoned him and his mother. He’d gone because he had caused his mother too much grief. And he had tried to look after them in his own fashion, by sending money. His mother had never told Mitch any of this. She had shut him out, made him feel like an orphan.
He recalled the expression in her eyes whenever she’d looked at him. It had been one of confusion. He had known she’d loathed him because he was his father’s son, and yet, according to her beliefs, it was wrong to hate your own child. That was why there had always been that distance between them, that gap that could never be bridged. That was why he had always felt so completely alone.
In the end, his mother’s dilemma had driven her to the brink of madness. And she had taken her own life because she couldn’t find peace any other way.
Clancy nearly rose in her seat before she restrained herself. Not yet, she thought. Not yet.
“Where?” she asked eagerly. “When?”
Part of him felt as if it hadn’t really happened. It seemed too fantastic. “At my apartment. He was waiting for me.” He saw her eyes narrow in surprise. She was wondering the same thing he had. “He was always good at monitoring the comings and goings of his marks.”
Why had the man suddenly appeared after all this time? Was he asking Mitch to back off because he was his son? Was he the burglar, after all?
“What did he have to say?”
He had to make a call, but he needed a moment longer to get his head together. Talking to her always helped. It leveled things out. “That he wasn’t responsible for the burglaries.”
She couldn’t tell whether Mitch believed his father or not. “What else?”
Time was growing short. He didn’t have the luxury to indulge himself. Impulsively, he kissed her, surprising them both.
“I’ll tell you later.” Mitch crossed to the telephone in the living room and tapped out McAffee’s number.
You bet you’ll tell me later. Every last word. There’s no more hiding from me, Mitch. Not if I have anything to do with it.
“I’ll hold you to that.”
Clancy thought of what she had wanted to tell him. Of the two things that had been on her mind all day, one more wondrous than the next. It was all she could do to keep from spilling them out.
But these weren’t things she could just blurt out, and he’d had enough surprises for one day. She’d save hers for a more opportune time.
That he didn’t elude her with shrugs or silence, that he had told her what was bothering him was a giant step forward for them.
There were other steps she wanted to discuss with him. But they could wait. Sometimes, she told herself, waiting made things even better.
“Hello, Alicia? This is Mitch. Is Simon there?” Mitch heard a surprised response from McAffee’s wife before she passed the telephone on to him.
McAffee was as stunned as his wife. There hadn’t been a single occasion when his partner had called him at home. “Something wrong, Mitch?”
“Maybe, maybe not.” Mitch rubbed the back of his neck impatiently. This was far too delicate a matter to bring to the captain. And he didn’t want to go into his father’s background with the sergeant. Mitch wasn’t one for sharing personal information and he wasn’t about to start with Rafferty.
But he couldn’t bring in the burglar on his own. He needed help from someone he could trust.
And he knew he could trust McAffee.
Mitch glanced over his shoulder at Clancy. She hadn’t moved an inch. If he hadn’t opened up to her, he wouldn’t be able to talk to McAffee now. It was because of her that he could take the next, necessary step.
It was because of her that he could do a lot of things, he thought.
Mitch took a breath. “I just got a tip about our burglar. You up to pulling stakeout duty tonight? Unofficially?”
There was a pause on the other end of the line. “The brass doesn’t know?”
Mitch wondered if he had misjudged McAffee. “No. It’s sketchy at best. I don’t want it to get around, in case it’s wrong.” He’d fill him in on the details, tell him about his father, once McAffee agreed to it. But not before. And only when they were alone.
Protocol demanded that the sergeant be informed. But Mitch wasn’t reckless or foolhardy. There had to be reasons for his behaving this way. When it came down to it, McAffee trusted Mitch a hell of a lot more than he would Rafferty. He knew Mitch wouldn’t ask if there was another way. That was good enough for him.
“Okay. Where and when?”
The expression on Mitch’s face was grim. It wasn’t over by a long shot and he might be getting McAffee mixed up in something he shouldn’t. But no broken eggs, no omelets. Another one of his father’s sayings, he realized.
“I’ll be right over. I’ll fill you in then.” Mitch replaced the receiver into the cradle.
When he turned, Clancy was still sitting there. There was disappointment in her eyes.
“You don’t have time for dinner?”
He shook his head. He knew she’d undoubtedly gone to a lot of trouble, but this was important. His faith in his father, fragile, nascent, was riding on it. “Maybe later. You can keep something warm for me, but I’m not sure when I’ll be back.”
“I’ll keep me warm for you,” she promised, smiling. He was already edging toward the door. “Does this have something to do with your father?”
“In a way.” It was too long a story to go into now. But he would go into it with her. Later.
Well, at least he had told her that much. He was going out on a stakeout. Uneasy, Clancy threaded her hand over her queasy stomach. “Good luck.”
He nodded in reply, then stopped at the last moment before leaving. Returning to her, he took her face in his hands and kissed her.
“Thanks.” The word wafted along her skin.
* * *
Clancy lay awake, staring at the ceiling. It had been hours since he’d left. Mitch hadn’t returned or called. She’d stayed up waiting for him until ten and then had given up. He might be gone all night. Some stakeouts lasted a long time, didn’t they?
But going to bed hadn’t helped. All it had accomplished was that she was nervous lying down instead of sitting up. She couldn’t sleep. Everything was far too quiet for her. Each time she heard a car approaching, she thought it was Mitch.
She was driving herself crazy.
Clancy tried to find a comfortable position on the bed and couldn’t. There wasn’t one. Not without him beside her. This was the way it had been, she remembered, when Mitch had left her two years ago.
Every sound made her tense with anticipation, waiting for him to walk back into her life.
It’s not like that now, she insisted to herself. Mitch was out on a job. A stakeout. This had nothing to do with leaving her.
But what if he was hurt?
What if—
She smothered the questions, stifling them. Mitch was what he was. A policeman. This went with the territory. If she was going to remain with him, this type of situation was something she was going to have to accept and not dwell on. Otherwise, she really would drive herself crazy.
Easier said than done.
“You sure can pick them,” she murmured to herself. But it wasn’t a matter of picking. It was a matter of being lucky. Lucky to have had him, to have had love walk into her life.
Clancy heard the front door opening and wondered if it was her imagination again. Over the last few hours she’d heard so many sounds that hadn’t been what she thought them to be.
She could be mistaken again.
Her heart pounded anyway.
If it was Mitch, would he just go to his room? Or would he stop in hers? She held her breath, her fingers crossed.
A moment later, she saw him silhouetted in her doorway. He was just shrugging out of his shirt. The gun was gone from his side, probably left on top of the refrigerator again.
She watched through slitted eyes as the tall, shadowy figure stripped off his trousers and then slid quietly into bed beside her. Her mouth curved.
Gotcha!
She turned her head toward him on the pillow. “How did it go?”
He was slipping. He had thought he had managed to get into bed without disturbing her. He’d considered going to his own room, had actually gone in there, then retraced his steps. He didn’t want to sleep without her. He’d have to soon enough.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you. Go back to sleep,” he told her.
She stretched, her arm brushing against him. “You didn’t wake me. I can’t sleep without you anymore. So tell me, how did it go?” She wondered if she’d have to prod him. With Mitch, it was two steps forward, one step back.
“The burglar didn’t show.” Mitch stifled a yawn.
Damn, it had been a long day. And it was going to be a long night for McAffee. After telling him the whole story, he’d instructed his partner to get a few hours’ sleep and then relieve him at two. Mitch had just left him parked near the Monroe house. McAffee was going to be bleary-eyed when they made their rounds. But maybe it was for a good cause. Maybe McAffee would catch him.
“McAffee took the second shift.”
He was sharing with her. Clancy smiled in the darkness. “Are you going out again tomorrow night?”
“Yeah.”
Until the job was done. He was that kind of a man. She curled against him, ready to collect on his promise. “Tell me about your father now.”
He was bone weary and had to get up in a few more hours. But he had promised. Stifling another yawn, he gathered her to him. “You never told me you liked bedtime stories.”
She laughed. “I never told you a lot of things. But I will. Whatever you want to know, whenever you want to know it.”
That’s because she had no secrets, the way he had. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
Getting comfortable, he began to tell her about the visit his father had paid him earlier. He was too engrossed in the telling to realize how good it felt to have someone to share it with.
Chapter Sixteen
The streetlamp cast a pool of light along the pitch black ground. The monotony of sitting here hour after hour, waiting, doing nothing, reverberated inside the unmarked car.
This was the third night Mitch had sat on stakeout, strictly on his father’s say-so. Boredom was compounded by frustration. He hated leaving Clancy alone.
Maybe he was being a fool for believing Sam.
Whether he was a fool or not, this was the last night he’d be outside the Monroes’ high-hedged estate. According to Sam, the couple was returning from Europe the day after tomorrow. Tomorrow the house would be alive with a cleaning crew, intent on relieving the twelve-bedroom house of any dust that had accumulated during the Monroes’ absence.
That meant the burglar had to strike tonight or not at all.
Mitch stretched his legs out before him in the car. The seat was pushed as far back as he could get it. The space still felt cramped. There was no way to get comfortable in the vehicle.
The day shift had patrolled the area. Nothing had taken place. Maybe the beefed-up security had frightened the burglar away, made him more cautious.
Or maybe this was just a whimsical joke on Mitch, perpetrated by his father. Sam had always had a strange sense of humor.
Three days and nights of this and Mitch felt like he was becoming a zombie. He scrubbed his face with his hands.
He might as well come to grips with it. For whatever reason, he’d been had. He’d set his life on hold and gone chasing fireflies.
Clancy needed him. Insurance benefits had ended last week. Her last visit from a physical therapist had been on Friday. He should be home working with her, not sitting here drinking cold, stale coffee that tasted like the paper cup holding it.
Mitch glanced into the rearview mirror. McAffee’s car, its headlights off, pulled up behind him. Changing of the guard.
Mitch got out, wondering if he should tell McAffee to forget about it and go home. He hadn’t gone to check out Slattery’s storage unit. To search it, he’d need a warrant. And warrants didn’t come without just cause. His father’s say-so didn’t come under that heading.
Stretching, Mitch crossed to the beige car behind his own. McAffee’s window rolled down. “Anything?”
Mitch shook his head. Out of habit, he trained his eyes on the house, though he didn’t expect to see anything unusual. “I’m beginning to think it’s all been a wild-goose chase. Sorry.”
McAffee glanced at the full thermos of coffee on the seat beside him. Looked as if he wasn’t going to need it, after all.
“Hey, at least you trusted me, even if it meant I had to lose some beauty sleep.” McAffee grinned. He felt as if they were finally real partners. Trust had to operate both ways before that happened. “I can always make it up on the weekend.” He shrugged good-naturedly.
“You might as well get started now.” Mitch began to back away from the car. “I’ll see you tomorrow morning at the—”
He stopped abruptly, squinting into the darkness. He thought he’d seen something moving quickly across the lawn. A dark shadow.
McAffee tensed immediately. He looked, too, but his vantage point was wrong. “Something?”
All traces of drowsiness were gone. “I’m not sure. Might just be a shadow.” But he didn’t think so. Mitch began to move toward the house.
McAffee craned his neck out the window. “Want me to call for backup?” he called in a hoarse whisper.
Mitch still didn’t want to get ahead of himself. This might turn out to be nothing.
“For a shadow? No, let me check it out first.” He heard the car door opening behind him and swung around. McAffee was getting out. “You stay here in case he runs out past you.”
Quickly, Mitch sprinted across the lawn. He made his way over the fence easily. He had inherited some of his father’s agility, he thought absently.
The alarm failed to go off.
He’d been right; someone was on the premises. Whoever it was had deactivated the alarm system.
So his father hadn’t lied to him. This had been the next house that was targeted. Mitch wondered if he had been right about Slattery as well.
It had been a simple matter to discover who the Monroes employed. Armed with a name, Mitch had paid a call on the maid. One look at his badge and the woman had told him all about the paintings Maxwell Monroe kept in his study. She’d given him a rough layout of the first floor, too. The study was in the back, just off the game room.
Like a homing device, the layout imprinted on his mind, Mitch made his way to the rear of the house. He couldn’t wait for this to be over with. He wanted to get home to Clancy.
Home. It was her apartment, he reprimanded himself, not his. Her home.
Mitch shook his head, as if to clear it. She had no place in his thoughts right now. She would only slow him down.
Using the beam of a pencil-slim flashlight, Mitch made his way to the study. Softly, the way instinct had taught him to move.
The way his father might have moved, Mitch thought cynically.
He stopped at the study doorway. There wasn’t a sound coming from the room. He felt the man’s presence rather than heard it.
Easing his service revolver from the holster, he held it in both hands as he edged closer, his back to the wall. With every fiber in his body tensed like a coil about to spring, Mitch looked into the room.
There was only moonlight peering into the study. Moonlight and a thin beam that lay on the floor. It gave h
im just enough light to make out a tall, dark figure to one side. His back to the doorway, the figure had just cut the painting from its frame.
Bingo.
Mitch stepped into the room, his legs apart, the gun trained on the burglar. “Put your hands over your head. You’re under arrest.”
* * *
Restless, Clancy looked at the clock. Waiting was driving her crazy. She wanted to tell him. Whether it was over or not, she was going to tell him tonight. She was going to burst if she didn’t.
She’d had an appointment with the doctor today. One she hadn’t mentioned to Mitch. Determined to be independent, she had called a local transportation service that dealt strictly with the handicapped. They’d driven her to the doctor and then, two hours later, had returned to pick her up. It had taken longer than it would have had Mitch brought her, but he was busy and couldn’t spare the time off. She hadn’t even asked him.
This was something she had wanted to do on her own.
The prognosis had been positive. Dr. Kleinschen had been nothing short of amazed. And delighted.
“I know these things at times clear up quickly, but it is still very humbling to be a witness to it. You have made stunning progress, liebschen.“ He had leaned closer and patted her hand. “But there are times when love provides a medicine that we poor doctors cannot, eh?” He’d made a notation on her chart and then closed it. “He did not bring you, your young man?”
Her young man. The phrase had a wonderful ring to it. “He’s working. I brought myself.” That wasn’t quite right. “A van—”
He had risen. “Yes, I am acquainted with the social services offered in the county.” He’d smiled down at her. “I will see you in two weeks. Who knows? You are mending wonderfully. Perhaps by then you will even be driving on your own.” He’d tapped the folder. “The swelling has gone down considerably. The spinal cord is almost back to normal.” She’d had a comprehensive MRI the week before. Mitch had brought her then, silently holding her hand until they’d slipped her into that long, cylindrical tube. “The exercises are doing wonders.” The doctor had covered her hand with his own. “Would that all my cases ended like yours.”
He’d all but foretold her complete recovery. Clancy couldn’t wait to get home and tell Mitch.
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