Donnell Ann Bell

by Donnell Ann Bell

  Lt. Crandall moved so close she could smell his aftershave, glimpse the muscle ticking in his jaw and the makings of a five o’clock shadow.

  She wasn’t about to retreat.

  “Maybe so, Melanie. But if Drake Maxwell gets wind of your location, I’ll be the best friend you’ve got.”

  Feeling like he’d butchered Mary’s little lamb, Joe escorted Melanie out of the building. When she’d stared up at him with huge, fear-filled eyes, he’d wanted to pull her close and kiss her senseless.

  No one deserved to be that afraid. So what had he done? Terrified her even more by reminding her of Drake Maxwell’s impending release from prison.

  Joe watched for a moment as she cleared the snow off her car, then ordered patrol to make sure she got home. He would’ve offered to drive her, but figured she’d sooner scratch his eyes out than be anywhere in his vicinity. He did manage one compromise before she left. He insisted on picking up the boys from practice. With Luke’s bum ankle, and in this weather, no way could the slender Melanie Norris maneuver someone of Luke’s stature into her car.

  Looking back, Joe should’ve seen that the kid didn’t resemble her in the slightest. Fair skinned and blond, Luke was far different from his stepmother’s auburn hair and golden coloring. When Luke grew to be a man, he’d bear the physique of a Viking warrior.

  What was it about her that brought out the antagonistic asshole inside Joe? She had every right to demand an apology. He had indeed crossed a line by going to such lengths to discover her past.

  Melanie deserved better from him.

  Simon Rivers had explained that for years Maxwell had touted his plans for revenge to anyone who would listen. Then, in the last few years, he’d grown moody and silent. When asked about the change, he’d shrug, claim some ridiculous notion like he’d found Jesus, or that he’d put Melanie Daniels behind him.

  Not many in positions of authority bought the convict’s story, and because of Melanie’s marriage to Carl Norris, she now fell under the protection of the Department of Corrections. Before Carl had died, he’d asked the warden to look out for his family, to protect Melanie from the man who’d threatened her life.

  Simon Rivers had been the idea man behind the Norris’s move to Colorado Springs. The Springs, he’d explained, was close enough that if Melanie needed him, he could get to her, and, ideally, the last place Maxwell would look since it was where the crime had been committed.

  Because Melanie had taken her husband’s last name, the plan was secret, furtive and logical. With only one hitch, Simon never thought to check out the neighbors.

  Joe secured his weapon, then reached for his trench coat. With snow falling and an apology due, a long night lay ahead of him. Exactly how did one apologize to the woman he’d sent to prison, who’d then turned her life around and moved in next door? This was a new one for the manuals, one that would never be found in print. Joe shrugged into his coat and grimaced. For one thing, no one would ever, ever believe it.

  Mel shoved boxes aside, the single-car garage she used for storage a combination of clutter, cobwebs and dust. Surveying the area, she paused to rub her arms to ward off the chill in the non-insulated space. She should’ve rented a storage unit, but with plans to sell the majority of items come spring, she’d chosen to keep the stuff nearby.

  When she caught sight of the box she wanted, dread filled her. Years had passed since Carl had packed it away. In an old microwave container, it sat harmless. Once removed however, whether she used it or not, Mel could be opening the proverbial Pandora’s Box. Steeling her disenfranchised nerves, she wrapped her arms around an old microwave box marked with her husband’s name, then backtracked through the maze she’d created and hurried into the kitchen.

  What a fool she’d been. Simon had assured her that in Colorado Springs she and Luke would make a new start; that Drake Maxwell had recanted on his plans for revenge. So, if that were true, why had Lt. Crandall brought up the subject, and why had Simon been adamant that she and Luke keep a low profile?

  Fear prickled her spine. She’d discovered the truth. They suspected Drake would come for her.

  Mel checked her watch. Practice was over, and most likely the lieutenant had reached the high school by now. Frantic to get this job done, she grabbed a steak knife from the kitchen drawer and sawed through the worn packing tape. Her hands shook as she removed a heavy oaken carrier, then trembled further when she felt for the key Carl had taped to the bottom.

  Odd, in the garage she’d been freezing. In the kitchen, sweat trickled from her brow. As she unlocked the box, her heart sank. No longer could she claim to be a law-abiding citizen. By opening it, she’d committed a crime that, if discovered, could send her back to prison. Tucked in gray foam, Carl’s Smith and Wesson .357 Magnum lay exactly as he’d placed it fifteen years before.

  “You mean more to me than a chunk of steel,” he’d told her. An honorable man, her husband had respected the law that felons couldn’t keep handguns in their possession. Without a backward glance, he’d locked the powerful weapon away and pulled her close. “We’ll keep it for Luke, give it to him when he’s older.”

  The day after their marriage Carl had taken the gun and left it at a friend’s for safekeeping, who, when Carl passed away, promptly returned it to Mel.

  Tears welled. “Dear God, Carl, forgive me.” She couldn’t save it for Luke. If Drake Maxwell came anywhere near her or her son, she wouldn’t hesitate to pull the trigger.

  The phone rang, and she nearly jabbed herself with the knife. Shaking, she tossed it away from her. It was as though every law enforcement agency in the country had just witnessed her duplicitous act.

  Swallowing hard, she answered the phone.

  “Hey, Mom, it’s me Luke.”

  Why her son felt the need to identify himself, as if anyone else in the world called her Mom, she would never know. It did, however, lessen the tension and brought a smile to her face. “Hey, baby, where are you?”

  “We’re through with practice and Matt and Lt. Crandall invited me to dinner. Can I go?”

  Mel’s smile faded. With Carl so sick, Luke had chosen to stay by his father’s side and hadn’t hung out with friends. Frankly, with the move to Colorado Springs, he seemed happier than ever. She’d wanted Luke and Matt to remain close, but with Joe’s underhanded interference, she wasn’t so sure anymore.

  Still, Matt couldn’t help who he was related to, and in her haste to retrieve Carl’s gun, she’d completely overlooked dinner. Luke had to eat, and with nothing prepared, Mel wasn’t thrilled about going out in this weather.

  “Mom?”

  “I’m here.” She overheard the interfering cop say something in the background. “Lt. Crandall says he’ll grab something for you, too, if you want.”

  She gritted her teeth. “Tell him ‘no, thank you.’ You can go, Luke. But not too late, okay?”

  “No sweat. Later, Mom.”

  No sweat? Mel wiped her damp forehead. Easy for you to say.

  She hung up, relocked the box and carried it to her upstairs bedroom. She tucked it on the far side of her closet, then positioned two shoe boxes in front of it for added measure. Convinced the oaken chest was hidden at all angles, she shut the closet door, then scanned the room for a hiding place for the key. She finally taped it to the left hand corner of her nightstand drawer.

  Her illicit act accomplished, she dropped to the window seat and pulled back the sheers. As white blanketed the city, Mel’s stomach knotted in grief and despair. She hugged herself tightly. What did the future hold for her and her son?

  Chapter Eight

  All Drake wanted when he caught the taxi at Los Angeles’ Ontario Airport was to escape the crowds, check out the newest rides cruising traffic and get lost in the California terrain. Instead, he’d gotten stuck in gridlock and in the backseat of a nonstop-tal
king cabby.

  Now, if the pony-tailed loser didn’t shut the fuck up, Drake was going to ram the guy’s head into the steering wheel and do it for him. He sure hadn’t gotten the message from Drake’s one-word replies.

  Several times he’d caught the dude staring from the rearview mirror. Finally, gabby came right out with it. “You from around here, man?”

  “Nah, just got out of the pen.” Maybe that would keep his trap shut.

  “No shit.” The driver, sporting a string of tattoos on every visible part of his body, adjusted his rearview mirror. “I got a cousin in Folsom.”

  What was that supposed to do, make them related or something? Drake tamped down his annoyance.

  “What were you in for?”

  Drake tore his gaze away from the window, met the dude’s dark eyes in the mirror. “Murder.”

  “Huh,” the cabby replied. “Is that right?” He jerked his head back toward the road.

  Drake smirked. Worked every time. Two days out of prison, and he knew how the dinosaurs felt when they’d slid into the La Brea Tar Pits. It had taken him hours to board one of the flights leaving Denver. With no valid driver’s license or passport, and only a Colorado Department of Corrections letter of release, he’d been escorted to a shit-can room off the concourse where some suits with badges badgered him to make sure he wasn’t on some kind of no-fly list.

  Pissed as hell that no one had warned him, and that his brother had wired very little money, Drake had finally managed to catch a plane west.

  Everywhere he looked he took in the unfamiliar. Where were the Riverside pasturelands of his youth? Once home to thousands of dairy cows, the area had evolved into nothing but tract housing. From the window, he caught sight of the foothills. LA’s smog often masked their visibility, but it was December, and the Santa Ana winds must’ve sent the pollution packing. His bearings out of whack, anger merged with uncertainty. Fifteen years. Fifteen irreplaceable years stolen from his life.

  The driver made yet another unrecognizable turn. Clutching the armrest, Drake leaned forward. When he’d left years ago, Maxwell Construction had been located in a low-rent part of the city, made up mostly of warehouses and rundown buildings.

  “You sure you know where you’re going?”

  “3820 Marauder Drive,” the cabby said.

  “You ever heard of Maxwell Construction?”

  “Who hasn’t? They got it going on all over Southern California.”

  Well, well, well. Drake settled back in his seat. If the cabby recognized the company by name, and knew what he was talking about, that meant Drake’s trust was intact. What’s more, with the money untapped, it’d grown larger.

  “Step on it,” he said.

  Ten minutes later, the driver pulled alongside a curb. Drake didn’t know what to gape at more, the shock of the cab fare or the transition of Maxwell Construction.

  The company, housed in an impressive two-story adobe structure, was set back several feet behind a massive sign and a landscape of grass, cactus, hedges and palm trees. Certainly not the real estate he’d known in his childhood.

  Dumbfounded, he grabbed his gym bag and slid out of the cab.

  All around him Hispanic workers mowed lawns or pruned hedges. For most, the scent would have smelled like cut grass and fertilizer. Drake inhaled freedom.

  Inside the lobby, however, his high came crashing down. Behind a marbled counter, an uptight bitch with red lips and claws looked him up and down. “You’re here to see whom?”

  He’d been preparing a biting reply when another woman carrying files rounded the corner, took one look at him and dropped the entire load.

  Drake stared into the enormous blue eyes of Marcy Davidson, now Marcy Maxwell, his sister-in-law. They’d had some good times in the shed behind her house in their early teens. Her nervous display in front of an employee chapped his ass. “Yeah, Marce, it’s me. Do I get a welcome home kiss?”

  She skittered back, straight into the arms of her husband.

  Adam Maxwell greeted Drake with the same stunned reaction. Some reception committee.

  In their youth, people had said the Maxwell brothers looked similar. Based on his waistline, Adam hadn’t missed a meal ever, but Marcy still had a pert little ass. Seeing what flab did to a man, Drake was glad he’d spent his prison years in the weight room, pumping iron.

  “What are you doing here?” Adam finally blurted. “I told you I’d send a driver when you got into town.”

  “I missed you too, brother. I lost your number so I came on over.” Drake glanced around. “Nice place. You want to handle our business in front of these people or what?”

  His sister-in-law’s face had gone ashen. Adam whispered something only she could hear. Whatever he said had the effect of someone granted a stay of execution. Leaving the scattered files where they lay, Marcy made a beeline away from the area.

  “Hey, Marce,” Drake called after her. “Good seeing you. We’ll catch up later.”

  By Adam’s flaring nostrils, he was ready to snort fire. “Let’s go to my office.”

  Drake winked at the equally startled receptionist. She shifted her gaze from his, back to the computer screen. Ah. Even the staff knew all about him. Good to know.

  Walking with Adam down a fancy corridor, Drake stared at the various construction jobs displayed on the walls and all but drooled. Hospitals, schools, manufacturing facilities. No wonder these people were scared. They were about to lose part of a goldmine.

  Adam motioned Drake into a large corner office, shut the door and rounded on him. “How dare you talk to my wife like that? And just look at you. Couldn’t you have gotten a hotel room, showered and shaved before you came?”

  Drake narrowed his gaze. His sandy blond hair was plastered to his head and he’d been wearing the same clothes for the last two days. “With all that money you sent me? And I’ll talk to your wife any damned way I please.”

  Dropping his bag, Drake left Adam where he stood and ambled to an oversized desk. It dwarfed most of the other furniture in the room. “What’s this, your need to compensate?”

  Adam’s frown said he wasn’t amused.

  A framed picture of a couple of school-aged kids Drake had never met sat on the polished cherry wood surface. No one had cared enough to send a birth announcement. “These yours?”

  His brother closed the distance between them and yanked the picture out of Drake’s hands. Placing the frame facedown, he said, “My instructions were plain. The minute you reached L.A. you were to call and I’d send my driver. Not that I’m surprised, but why would you ignore something so simple? And why would you come here of all places?”

  So the very important man doesn’t want to lay claim to his ex-con brother. “Because I wasn’t about to be put on your leash, and I imagine the last place you’d tell your driver was to bring me here.”

  Adam looked like he’d swallowed something sour. Moving to his desk, he sat behind it, while Drake continued to circle the up-scale room. This office was plush―statues, awards, a leather sectional, conference table and chairs―hell, it even included a wet bar.

  “Looks like you made a bundle with our parents’ money. So why don’t you save all that hot air for some exercise equipment and let’s get down to business.”

  “What business?”

  “My inheritance.”

  The anger seeped from Adam’s beefy face, replaced with unmitigated shock. “Your what?”

  “My inheritance. I’m here to collect.”

  “You’ve got your nerve. Our mother’s estate was settled years ago. Your inheritance? Not only did we spend your share, but a great deal of our own, on that high-powered lawyer who saved you from life in prison.”

  Drake strolled to the bar, took out a glass and poured two fingers of Chivas Regal. He swallowed t
he scotch in one single gulp. It burned all the way down, reminding him that he was alive. Fifteen years in prison, a man wasn’t sure. He poured another and drained the second as well.

  “My God,” Adam stammered. “It’s nine-thirty in the morning.”

  Raising his glass, Drake said, “So it is. When the bottle’s empty, I tear this place apart. Starting with you, Adam. My money, I want it.”

  Adam lifted his hands from behind the desk and held them, palms up. “Don’t you get it? The last time I came to see you in Cañon City I tried to explain, but you were too incensed to listen. Mother revoked your trust, Drake. She disowned you. She left you nothing.”

  Memories of his childhood flashed in his brain. His mother had doted on Adam and his younger sister Kristina, while Eileen Maxwell called Drake a disappointment.

  Still, Adam was right. At Drake’s trial she’d spared no expense. To cut him off without a dime? She wouldn’t. Rage tore at his insides. “You’re lying.”

  Adam withdrew a file from the lower right side of his desk, dropped it on the smooth cherry finish, then said defiantly, “It’s all here in black and white. That is if pushing dope with those drug-addict friends of yours didn’t deter your ability to read.”

  For a man who appeared to be smart, pushing Drake was a very stupid thing to do. He poured another glass of scotch.

  “I’ve never understood,” Adam went on. “You had everything. Education, money, looks, and some even say, charm. You threw it all into the sewer, then dove in after it. When you teamed up with that Rander character, that pretty much sealed your fate, didn’t it―”

  “Why are you bringing up all this shit?” Drake said, through gritted teeth.

  “Speaking of the sewer rat,” Adam continued, “he came to see me last month. Asked for a job. I might have considered it, but he refused the company drug test.”

  Drake set the tumbler upon the desk. “You’re almost out of time, Adam. All I care about is my money, which so far is in your checkbook.”