by Kylie Brant
If there was a part inside that slyly reminded him that unrequited lust had never packed quite this kind of wallop, he was in the mood to ignore it. The way he would ignore Addison Jacobs until he was positive he could look at the woman without wanting to shake her for hiding from the truth.
Except…except that there wasn’t a dishonest bone in her body. She was painfully truthful with everyone, with the exception, perhaps, of herself. He wished he knew what brought that sheen of panic to her eyes, just when he thought that he’d reached her on some level. He wished she trusted him enough to tell him.
He gave a humorless laugh. While he was harboring futile hopes, he might as well wish she’d show up at his door this morning wearing nothing but whipped cream. One possibility was as unlikely as the other.
He strode over to his computer and stood looking over the notes the two of them had taken last night. They’d made some progress, and the lead that intrigued him the most was Frank Benson. Someone had committed the murder that the man had been convicted of. If by chance Benson was telling the truth, it’d be interesting to see if he had any ideas on the identity of the killer.
Moving quickly, he gathered up some of his materials and headed for the office. He’d get answers more rapidly using his resources there. And the Register held a distinct advantage over his own home. There the rooms wouldn’t hold images of Addie nor be filled by her scent. He was uncomfortably aware that the mental pictures he carried of her wouldn’t be as easily evaded.
Two hours later he strode into Reetz’s office and slapped a folder down on the man’s desk. “You’re a brilliant man, Creighton, you know that?”
“Uh-huh.” Reetz twirled around in his chair and kept wary eyes on the reporter. McKay in this good a mood generally boded trouble.
“You knew what I needed before I did. A vacation, you said, remember?”
The editor searched his memory. “Yeah. I guess.”
“So I decided to take your advice. I’m going on vacation.”
Brows shooting upward, Reetz said, “You can’t do that now. You’ve got columns due, assignments to cover…”
Dare tapped the folder he’d dropped on the man’s desk. “There’s a week’s worth, but I might not need that long. I’ll let you know.” Already he was striding from the office.
“You gonna try Cancun?”
“Nope.” Stopping at the door, Dare tossed him a grin. “I’ve got a flight to Indiana in two hours.”
The taxi let A.J. out a block from the Fidaldo Café. When Song had given her a message from Paquin requesting a dinner meeting, her first instinct had been to decline. She wasn’t eager to sit down with the man on a good day, and today certainly wouldn’t qualify as such. She’d gotten little sleep the night before.
She ducked that memory and focused on the matter at hand. Professional curiosity had eventually gotten the best of her. She couldn’t imagine what the other attorney had to say, but she wasn’t going to pass up the opportunity to hear it. Not when it offered a possibility of gleaning his trial strategy.
The restaurant was located in an area that developers hoped to turn into a trendy piece of real estate. The neighborhood had been left to deteriorate for years, with boarded-up buildings lining the sidewalk and crack vials piled in the gutters. A few brave souls, believing in the developer’s plans, had opened businesses in the area. So, newly renovated buildings stood among the shabby ones, dotting the area like dazzling jewels landscaping a slum.
The street in front of the restaurant was closed for repair, and as she made her way to the restaurant she stepped carefully over the broken concrete on the sidewalk. Although her appetite was uncertain, she wasn’t averse to the idea of keeping busy. Especially since the alternative would have her going home and spending the evening alone.
It was amazing how quickly she’d gotten used to Dare’s company after work. It had only been a couple of days, after all. But like every other aspect of her life, he’d wound his way into her subconscious, so that too many minutes of the day were spent thinking of him. And remembering the fool she’d made of herself last night.
That wasn’t the sort of thought to guarantee a return of her appetite, so she deliberately shifted her attention. A man stumbled from an alley just ahead of her, and she slowed, looked around at the near-deserted streets warily. There was a couple window shopping across the street, so she relaxed a bit when the man came in her direction.
“Is it six o’clock yet?” he asked, when he’d reached her.
Keeping her distance, she checked her watch. “Half past.”
“Damn. She stood me up again.” He stalked past her muttering something about knowing better, and she felt a wave of understanding. She’d known better to than to let her guard down around Dare McKay, but that hadn’t stopped her from relaxing it, had it?
The window shoppers entered one of the buildings and A.J. examined the canopy of her destination up ahead. The Fidaldo was supposed to serve a very decent French meal, and she felt a stir of interest. If the meeting with Paquin was productive, she might find herself hungry, after all.
And then all thought fled as an arm shot out of the alley she was passing and yanked her inside.
Shock warred with disbelief, but it didn’t keep her immobile for long. She jabbed her elbow out and wielded her briefcase like a club. But another body joined the first, this one crowding her from behind. And while she wrestled to free herself from the first shadowy figure, the other wrapped an arm around her throat, clamped a foul-smelling rag over her nose. Shapes, colors danced before her eyes before her knees crumpled beneath her and everything went black.
Indiana’s maximum security prison was rimmed with massive concrete walls, which were topped with electric fencing. Rifled guards stood watch in towers dotting its perimeter.
The sound of his footsteps rang in the nearly deserted corridor as Dare followed the guard to the visiting area. Frank Benson’s lawyer had been understandably eager to have his client meet with an investigative journalist. Of course, he’d probably assumed Dare’s interest in the case was due to the upcoming appeal, and Dare didn’t try to disabuse him of the idea. He was extremely interested in Benson’s appeal, especially in the information the other man thought would free him.
He seated himself at a long wooden table in the room the guard showed him to, and waited impatiently for the inmate to be brought in. There were already several other people seated nearby.
A door clanged open and Dare raised his head, watched a guard escort another prisoner into the room. He recognized the man immediately from the grainy photos that had appeared in the newspaper articles. Short and stocky, with dark hair and a swarthy complexion, Frank Benson was dressed in the regulation prison-issued blue jumpsuit.
The guard waved the man to a chair across from Dare’s and directed a look that encompassed them both. “Keep your hands where they can be seen at all times. No touching, no passing anything across the table.” He shuffled away, and Dare looked at the man he’d come to meet.
“I’m Dare McKay, Mr. Benson.”
“The reporter. Right.” The man settled as comfortably as possible in the chair and regarded him from narrowed dark eyes. “My lawyer says you might be interested in my story.”
“Only if you have specifics to support your claim.”
“Oh, I got specifics, all right. I didn’t do the murder, I can tell ya that right up front.” The man had a smoker’s voice, low and raspy. He drummed the table with blunt, short-nailed fingers.
“I read the newspaper reports from the trial, but I’d like to hear your side of the story.” Dare took a notebook and pen out of his pocket.
“Well, if you read the papers, you know I was supposed to have iced Andrew Dorsey. Andyman, they called him. He was running a trade in Gary, west side. I had a legitimate business, a dry cleaners there.”
“I assume the government thought you were running a similar ‘trade’ from your dry cleaners,” Dare guessed wryly.
The man wagged his finger. “They thought it. They didn’t prove it, though. I was found innocent of those bogus charges.”
“Go on.”
“Well, there’s another guy on the east side, Paddy Mulcahy, and he’s into everything. He’s got the bookies, the sharks, drugs…” Benson spread his hands. “Greedy bastard, too, tries to horn in on everybody else’s interests.”
Dare dropped his pen, sat back. “I’m still waiting for specifics.”
“I’m getting to ’em.” Benson looked around, leaned forward, and lowered his voice. “Well somehow this Mulcahy gets the same idea the police got, that I was trading from my legitimate business. But he was wrong, like the cops was wrong.” He waited until Dare nodded his understanding. “So Paddy gets himself the idea that he can get rid of Dorsey and me at once by killing one and framing the other. That’s how one of my cards gets left in Dorsey’s pocket, like maybe he’d had some dealings with me. And then the cops come and talk to me, and I tell ’em I don’t know nuthin’, which I didn’t. But they get a warrant to search my place, and damned if they don’t come up with a knife and Dorsey’s blood on one of my shirts.” He pushed away from the table, slouching in his seat, as if disgusted by the retelling. “Like I’d be dumb enough to ice Dorsey and then keep the evidence.”
“That’d be stupid, all right.” Dare almost smiled. The man’s outrage seemed as much for the insult to his intelligence as to the supposedly wrongful conviction. “But you must have something more if you’ve been granted an appeal.”
“Sure I got more.” He reached up, scratched a jaw already stubbled with shadow. “It just so happens that I know a hit man was in town at the time. Goes by the name of Paulie the Knife.”
An itch worked its way up Dare’s spine and under his skin. “How’d you know he was in town?”
Benson gave him an impatient glance. “’Cause I saw him, okay? Came into my place a couple times. Recognized him right off, ’cause him and me, we did some time at Leavenworth back in the eighties.”
He’d have to check his notes to be sure of the date, but Dare did recall reading that Delgado had served one sentence at the Kansas prison.
“Go on.”
“So he says he was in town, came by to look me up. I never thought nuthin’ about it. He knew I was moving back to take over the family business when I got out. So we talked some, mostly about guys we both knew in the joint.”
“Did he have that nickname in Leavenworth?”
“Earned it there. Had a real bad temper, Paulie did, and there was a guy in the dining hall who’d come by his table a couple times a week, and he’d like—” the man folded his arm, made a jabbing motion with his elbow “—nudge him, ya know? Make him spill something. So Paulie, he said how he ain’t gonna take that.”
A minor offense, Dare considered, for which to contemplate violence. “What’d he do?”
“One day he causes a diversion, palms another guy’s spoon. And he takes it back to his cell and works on it every night after lights are out, till he’s got a pretty decent shiv. Then he waits till he catches the guy in the shower. The next thing ya know, the guy’s in a body bag, and he sure as hell ain’t gonna be nudging Paulie at lunch no more.”
“And you saw him do the killing.”
“Sure I saw it. Me and a couple other guys. But we all left before the guards came round.”
“Did you ever tell anyone this story?” At the man’s blank expression, Dare continued, “I assume there was an investigation.”
Benson lifted a heavy shoulder. “Yeah, sure, but none of us said nuthin’. The guy shouldn’t have been nudging no one like that, anyway. No one’s gonna take that.”
Drawing in a breath, Dare wrote furiously for a few minutes using a shorthand that made sense only to him. When he was finished, he set the pen down, studied the man. “So you knew Paulie was in Gary. How do you get from that to him killing Dorsey?”
“It took me some time,” the man admitted. “But I got an associate in here, just showed up couple of months ago. Used to do some work for me, and he disappeared before my arrest, with some of my…” The man stopped, frowned and seemed to struggle for the right wording.
“With some of your dry cleaning?” Dare asked dryly.
“Yeah.” Benson smiled, showing nicotine-stained teeth. “Yeah, he used to deliver some of my dry cleaning and then he disappeared with a delivery. So when I see him in here, I says to him, you owe me something. And he says he don’t got no money.”
“So you threatened him.”
“I made him some promises,” the man corrected. “So then he says he’s got something better to give me, he can give me some information. I says I gotta hear it first and then we’d see if it’s worth saving his—” He stopped himself, reworded. “We’d see what it’s worth. So he tells me how Paulie gave him five grand to take him one of my shirts and then later to hide a package in my place at the dry cleaners. On account of he was in and out of there all the time.”
Dare regarded the man for a moment. “And he can identify Paulie?”
“Sure he can.”
“And do you know what Paulie’s real name is?”
Benson looked at him as if he was crazy. “Of course, I was in the joint with him, wasn’t I? It’s Delgado. Paul Delgado.”
It was dark. So dark. A.J. attempted to drag her eyelids open, but they seemed weighted. Consciousness was returning in an ebb and flow. Sickness swirled and rose in her stomach; her head pounded. She could hear voices—their pitch but not the words. Were the words important? She wished she could think.
She tried to wet her lips, which felt parched and dry, and found she couldn’t. Panic rose swiftly, battling with the fuzziness in her mind. Jerking her head, she tried again. Again she failed.
“She’s waking up.” The voices abruptly stopped, and footsteps approached her. When words were spoken again they came from right in front of her. “Hey. You awake?” An ungentle hand slapped her cheek a couple of times. “Nighty-night’s over.”
There was a high-pitched giggle, quickly muffled. “Maybe she thinks it’s still night ’cuz of the blindfold,” the giggler suggested.
Comprehension returned sluggishly. Her eyes were covered. And she must have tape over her mouth. Flexing her limbs, she discovered she was seated. Her arms were tied in back of the chair, her legs bound together.
“I’m gonna take this tape off, but if you try to scream, it goes back on, right after I clip you on the jaw. Got it?”
She would have agreed to almost anything at that point. She started to nod vigorously, stopped when the hammering in her head increased.
There were fingers on her face, then the tape was ripped off in one painful motion. A.J. filled her lungs, then something wet splashed her face. “Here, drink this.” A metallic-tasting cup was pressed against her lips, and she sipped. Water.
“What the hell am I doin’ this for. Get over here.” It took her a moment to realize he was talking to the other man. “It ain’t my job to play nursemaid.”
The cup was removed before her thirst was quenched, which was probably best. Just the taste she’d had was already stirring uneasily in her stomach.
“Okay, whadda we do now?”
The one who seemed to be the boss sounded impatient. “How many times do you gotta be told this? We wait. We wait until we hear something.”
Although her faculties had returned, she couldn’t make sense of their words. She remembered…Fidaldo’s. She was going to meet Paquin at the restaurant he’d suggested. A man had spoken to her, then passed by. Was he the one who had grabbed her? But no, there had been someone in the alley. The second man? And what did they want with her? Her mind whirled with questions. But there was only one answer she was certain of.
She’d never been in so much danger.
Dare slept in the next morning until nine, a luxury for him. He’d taken a red-eye flight out of Gary and arrived home after midnight. He’d still been keyed up and had toyed with t
he idea of calling Connally then and telling him what he’d discovered. He’d figured the detective wouldn’t thank him for it. But this morning when he tried to contact the man, neither he nor Madison were at their desks. Dare left a message for the detectives to call him and dropped the phone in disgust.
It was hell having some hot news and having no one to share it with, no one with whom to hash over the possibilities. He thought of Addie and then immediately discarded the idea. The memory of her reaction the other night was still too raw, too painful. And he was in no hurry to reopen that particular wound. It would be easier from now on to work directly through Connally and let him feed her the information she needed. A bit laborious, perhaps, but a man’s ego was a fragile thing. It could only take so much battering.
He wanted, desperately, to believe that ego was all that was involved.
He showered, shaved and fixed breakfast. Over eggs and waffles he reflected that he could really get used to this vacationing thing. As he was clearing the dishes to the counter, the phone rang and he answered it cheerfully. “You’ve got McKay.”
“Mr. McKay, I hope you don’t mind me calling you at home.”
His brows drew together as he tried to place the voice. Automatically he walked over to check the caller ID box. Chicago Courthouse. His tone was decidedly more cautious when he said, “May I help you?”
“It’s Song Wynn. Addison Jacobs’s assistant.” The inflection at the end of her statement made it seem a question.
Just the mention of Addie’s name had his muscles bunching. “Sure, Ms. Wynn. What’s up?”
“I’m wondering…well, this may seem strange, but…have you seen Ms. Jacobs?”
Something in her voice tipped him off—a thin veneer of calm, over ragged nerves. “Not since the night before last. Why?”
“I’m sure it’s nothing to be worried about. She just hasn’t come in yet this morning, and there’s no answer at her home. It isn’t like her to be late, especially when she had a meeting scheduled this morning with Mr. Beardmore.” The woman lowered her voice. “He’s already asked for her twice. I know there has to be a good reason for her tardiness, but it’s unlike her not to phone in. I tried the hospital where her mother is, but the nurses haven’t seen her since the night before last, either. And I don’t know anyone else to call.”
