Love Under Two Detectives

by Cara Covington

  Chapter Seventeen

  Mary certainly understood the concept of suspense. That was, she understood it in a purely literary sense. She knew how to sow tiny little seeds and water them, as it were, through the course of a story. While she didn’t outline to the extent of actually listing plot points, she somehow knew there had to be some, and generally—at least according to the copious number of five-star-reviews she received—she did that very well.

  Suspense in real life? That was a different creature, entirely. Putting it bluntly, she was not a fan.

  However, as she hosted Kate Benedict and Samantha Kendall for an early afternoon tea, she had been giving herself rave reviews at hiding the way she felt about suspense in real life.

  In the last couple of weeks, they’d learned quite a lot with regard to their stalker. They knew that Joey Conway had indeed flown from Casper, gotten a connecting flight in Denver, and then landed in Dallas. They knew he’d rented a car, and thanks to the private investigation firm of Richardson-Talbot-Jessop, they knew that the day after Joey landed in Dallas, he’d garaged his rental in Waco, where it still remained.

  They’d learned a lot about Joey’s movements over the last week, and Connor Talbot had even located a farmer outside of Waco who’d sold Joey another car. They were pretty sure he had indeed torched the car he’d been in when he’d followed them to the roadhouse.

  Adam had reported that they’d caught that car—the one he’d bought from the farmer—on their video feed a few times as it made its way through Lusty and back. But since the car had been registered to an area resident, and not reported as stolen, it hadn’t set off any alarms.

  They even knew where Joey had stayed his first week in Waco. They just didn’t know where he was staying right now.

  Mary knew that, in real life, investigations moved more slowly, almost boringly so, than they did in fiction. But this baby-step-by-baby-step progress was wearing on her nerves.

  The only real progress she had made in this situation was she’d convinced Anthony and Toby to back off and give her a bit of space. She wasn’t the one Joey Conway had his sights fixed on. In order to ease her men’s concerns, she had admitted it was possible Joey might use her as a pawn. Though she couldn’t see how, surrounded by family the way she was. Finally, and in the further interests of their peace of mind, she had freely given up a small measure of personal privacy.

  But as far as she was concerned, they couldn’t find that little peckerhead soon enough.

  “You seem tense, sweetheart. Is it because they haven’t located Joey Conway yet?”

  Mary looked up and encountered Grandma Kate’s sharp gaze. Aunt Samantha’s gaze was fixed on her as well. There was no trying to put anything over on either of these two dynamic women.

  “This hanging on the edge, it’s driving me nuts! I’m not the only one who’s tense, either. It’s harder for Toby, of course. He wants this whole thing over, feels he’s responsible for bringing danger to the family, but at the same time, he doesn’t want anything bad to happen to Joey.”

  “Uncertainty is never an easy proposition,” Aunt Samantha said. “We tend to want things to be in neat little bundles, everything just so.”

  “When the truth is that life often is messy,” Grandma Kate said. “And unpredictable.”

  “Those are two words that fit how I feel right now,” Mary said. “Messy and unpredictable.”

  “You’re not alone,” Aunt Samantha said. “I was watching news reports last night. It looks awful in Italy. The entire country has locked down, and the people are cooperating, because it is the sensible thing to do.” She shook her head. “It’s horrible that so many people are sick and dying. And so many have been infected at once that the hospitals are stretched to the limit.”

  “It’s heartbreaking,” Mary said. “Between the pandemic and Joey Conway, I’m nearly at my breaking point. I’ve decided to limit my intake of the news.”

  “Smart woman,” Aunt Samantha said. “I’ve decided to do the same. No sense in torturing myself.”

  “What does Toby say about the younger Mr. Conway?” Grandma Kate asked.

  “Mostly that he hopes he doesn’t shoot himself in the foot. In that regard, we don’t have any idea, yet, if he’s even armed.”

  “Waiting is hard on the nerves,” Aunt Samantha said.

  “It is. But as you get older, those times in the past that seemed to stretch forever, they don’t feel that way when you remember them. I’ll make you a bet now, sweetheart.” Grandma Kate reached over and patted her hand. “Even if this crisis lasts more than a year, in five years, it won’t seem as if it did.”

  “I’ll accept that as true,” Mary said.

  “How’s the latest book coming?” Aunt Samantha asked.

  Mary grabbed at the new topic. “I’m nearly done with my first draft. I think my characters have really surprised me this time, and I don’t quite know what to think about that.”

  For the next half-hour, they talked writing. Both Grandma Kate and Aunt Samantha were working on their journals. As well, they both had good friends who were authors. It surprised Mary how much knowledge these two women possessed. There were myriad myths about writing that the general public bought into, that both women laughed at the same way an author would.

  “My friend, Gina, who writes romance told me about an interview she had, where the journalist asked her if she drew on her own sexual experiences when she wrote her love scenes.”

  “Oh, dear,” Grandma Kate said. “That’s a very tacky question.”

  “I think I’ve met your friend,” Aunt Samantha said. “What was Gina’s answer?”

  Mary grinned. “She knew the same journalist had interviewed me. She told him she would agree to answer that question if he had also asked me if my murder plots were drawn from my personal experiences killing people.”

  “Was he completely stupid in his response?” Grandma Kate asked.

  “I’m afraid so,” Mary said. “He told her, ‘MJ Kendall writes mysteries. You just write porn.’”

  “Not the sharpest knife in the drawer, that interviewer.” Samantha Kendall shook her head.

  “Dull as dishwater,” Mary agreed.

  A few moments later, Mary saw her guests to the door. She hugged each in turn and promised Aunt Samantha that she and the guys would attend Sunday supper the next day.

  For a long moment, the silent house felt odd. The quiet settled around her, and while she loved this house—more than she’d ever loved her apartment—today it wasn’t making her feel…what?

  Mary walked back to the kitchen to deal with the cups and teapot. The house itself was spotless, so it didn’t need tidying. An untidy house made her feel unsettled. It wasn’t so much that she felt unsettled at the moment. Despite her admission recently that she hated having things hanging, that wasn’t quite how she felt just then, either. Her eyes widened as realization hit.

  She didn’t feel safe.

  Mary reached for a knife in the block, but an unfamiliar voice behind her stopped her.

  “I thought those old bags would never leave.”

  Mary turned around, keeping her actions slow and measured. Her heart was pounding, and she already felt the effects of adrenaline coursing through her body.

  See what you get when you wish for something to change? Mary consoled herself that she now knew two things.

  She knew where Joey Connors was, and she knew that he did, indeed, have a gun.

  A gun that he used as a pointer as he indicated her cell phone. “Why don’t you pick your cellphone up off the table there and invite your lover Toby to our little party?”

  * * * *

  “Do you guys think you’re going to have to hunker down in Waco if the virus gets as bad as they say it might?” Adam asked.

  They’d just finished target practice at the gun range. On this particular Saturday, Anthony was glad for the distraction—and the extra practice, itself, actually. There are just times when you’re so frust
rated you want to shoot something.

  Anthony looked at Adam. “We sure as hell hope not.”

  “We’d rather hunker down here,” Toby agreed. “It depends on how things develop. If it gets bad, we’ll have to make a choice. We won’t go back and forth and put the family at risk.”

  “Grandma Kate thinks, and I agree, that we might have use for the extra cop power here,” Adam said. “All the different worst-case scenarios we discussed at yesterday’s meeting? If any of those come close to being true…”

  “I really hope those were all just the products of our twisted and dark imaginations. In any event, we’ll just have to see how things are as we go along,” Anthony said.

  They’d finished cleaning their equipment and had put their empty shell casings in the canister for Gord Jessop to fill. They were about ready to leave, so he picked up his earpiece and put it back in. He tapped the first channel. “Hey, Matt. We’re back online. Anything to report?”

  The voice of Matt Benedict, deputy sheriff of Lusty, Texas, sounded in his ear. “Nope, just the ladies talking about writing and some asshole journalist I’d like to throttle.”

  Anthony grinned, as did Toby, who’d put in his own earpiece in time to hear Matt’s comment.

  “Okay, buddy, we have it. Thanks,” Toby said.

  Anthony looked over at Adam, who had also inserted his earpiece. He’d caught his best friend and deputy’s comment. “One thing you can safely say for every damn one of us Y-chromosome carriers in the family, we’re all of us protective of every one of our womenfolk.”

  “That’s a hell of a testament, if you ask me,” Anthony said.

  “And I don’t think the women really mind, do they?” Toby held the door, and they left the range area of the complex. They turned left instead of right and headed toward the door to the outside.

  Adam turned and gave his cousin a look that could only be termed “piteous.” “Not as long as we remember that they are people in their own right and are entitled to make their own choices,” Adam said at last. “Son, life was hell before Jake and I figured that one out. So consider yourselves the recipients of a few free words from the wise.”

  Anthony grinned, because he’d heard Adam and Jake’s account of wooing their Ginny. And because his main focus was listening to his woman, he said, “Sounds like your mom and Grandma Kate are leaving.” He could easily envision the scene. “I guess that makes our timing on finishing here damn near perfect.”

  Adam grinned. “Lucky bastards. I still have a few hours until I can head for home.”

  Anthony didn’t say what he was thinking. He looked over at Toby, whose wry grimace said it all. They weren’t as lucky as Adam surmised, and wouldn’t be in the foreseeable future. Mary refused to get intimate as long as those listening devices in the house were turned on—and they were never turned off.

  They’d even tried to coax her outside for a little moonlit naked rumba, but that hadn’t worked too well for them, either.

  It wasn’t just that they wanted to make love to her. They were aching to propose to her, and yes, they wanted to be completely private when they did so.

  Toby opened the door to the outside. “Yeah, we’re lucky bastards all right.”

  “I thought those old bags would never leave.”

  Anthony jerked to a stop. His gaze shot to Toby and then Adam.

  “Fuck, that’s Joey’s voice.” Toby’s certainty kicked them into gear. They began to jog.

  “Why don’t you pick up your cell phone off the table there and invite your lover Toby to our little party?”

  “Why don’t you stop waving that gun around like it’s a pointer. Guns make me very nervous.”

  “This gun is going to do more than make you nervous if you don’t get calling.”

  “Okay, Okay. I’m calling. But I don’t know if I can reach him. He said something about being in a meeting this afternoon.”

  Toby stopped and yanked out his phone and turned it off.

  Adam directed him over to his cruiser. “Smart woman,” Adam said. “Buying us some time.”

  “The smartest,” Anthony said. While Adam took his phone out and began calling their backup, Anthony focused on what he could hear from the surveillance equipment they had installed in Mary’s small house.

  “Do you want to sit down? You don’t look so good.”

  “You wouldn’t either if you’d been camped out in the fields for a couple of days.” Joey coughed, a dry, irritated-throat kind of sound. “I thought Texas was hot, but I can’t get fucking warm.”

  “Hey, Toby, it’s me. Call as soon as you get this, please.”

  “Yeah, he’s at the house right now.” Adam lifted his phone away from his mouth. “Do we know exactly where they are, in the house?”

  “Probably the kitchen,” Anthony said. Toby motioned for him to ride shotgun. Adam finished up his call and got behind the wheel.

  “Mel and his team are meeting us at the corner,” he said. “We can figure out our approach then.”

  “You know, them in the kitchen would be the second-best place for us,” Toby said. “Living room would be best, strategically.”

  “He likely got in by jimmying the patio door in the bedroom,” Anthony said.

  “That’s what I figured, too.” Toby’s words, low and quiet, told him where his partner’s head was right then.

  They were both mentally with Mary, praying she’d be all right. So far, she’d handled herself like a pro.

  It didn’t take Adam long to get them into town. He parked on Main, well out of sight of the house. Connor and Mel were there, as was April Jessop. All three were armed and looked exactly like what they were. A team of professionals more than capable of carrying out this rescue.

  Rescue. It was the hardest thing Anthony had ever done, shutting down his mind from dwelling on the fact it was their woman they were about to rescue.

  “Listen, I’ve been sitting on this hard kitchen chair for hours, and my back is killing me. Can we go into the living room? I’m sure it won’t be long before Toby calls. And hey! You look like you could use some sweet tea. I have some right here on the counter. I’ll pour us a couple of glasses, okay?”

  “Yeah, all right. No funny business. My gun’s trained on you, and I will pull this trigger. Ol’ Toby’s got himself a whiny woman.” He tried to chuckle but coughed instead. The coughing subsided, but his breathing sounded rough. “Looks good on him.”

  Anthony looked at Toby. At first, he thought that Mary was just trying to maneuver Joey into a better position for them to take the bastard out. And she was, but he had the strong sense she was doing more than that. He thought back on the conversation he’d been listening to over the last few minutes.

  “Hold up.” Anthony looked over at the four who were ready to lay it all on the line for his woman. Then he turned back to Toby. “What’s she been telling us?”

  “I thought her chatter had just been that, chatter,” Adam said.

  “Not Mary,” Toby said. Anthony could see he was thinking. “She knows we’re listening. She told me to duck her call to give us time, and then she decided to give us every advantage she could. She got him to agree to move into the living room, which means we can sneak in the way he did and grab him.”

  “She’s told us more than that. She got him to confess he’s been camped out for a few days, and that he doesn’t feel well. For her to have said that, he must really look like crap.” His eyes widened as he looked at Toby.

  “What?” Adam asked.

  Anthony thought about what he’d been hearing. Joey’s dry-sounding cough, his raspy breathing, and his confession that he couldn’t get warm—meaning, he felt cold. He shouldn’t be feeling cold today because it was into the nineties. And he wouldn’t feel cold… unless he had a fever.

  Oh, God. The implications of all those symptoms, taken together, made Anthony shudder. He ran his hand through his hair.

  “Damn it, Adam, I think we have an unexpected complicatio
n.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Mary sat quietly in the corner of the sofa, facing a very unwell-looking Joey Conway. It was coming up on twenty-five minutes since Joey had announced his presence in her home. He’d managed to drink most of his sweet tea, but the way he winced slightly with each swallow didn’t bode well for any of them.

  Her cellphone, which he’d insisted she set down on the cushion beside her, began to ring. The sound startled her, because the silence of the last few minutes had been tense. She looked down.

  “Toby.”

  “Answer it, on speaker.” Joey’s voice sounded rough as if he needed to clear his throat. He did, and that became a small dry-sounding cough.

  Mary did exactly as he asked and nearly wept with relief when she heard Toby’s words.

  “Hey, baby, sorry the meeting ran a few minutes late. I should be there in ten minutes. Need anything from the store?”

  “She’s got company.”

  “Who’s …. Joey? Joey Conway, is that you? What the hell are you doing there?”

  “Why don’t you get your ass here, cop, and find out? Hang up now, bitch.”

  Mary did and winced as Joey once more erupted in a cough. Closing my eyes and scrunching myself is no way to avoid whatever is coming out of his mouth.

  No, it wasn’t. And maybe what was coming out were ordinary every-day influenza droplets. Maybe she’d been doing just a bit too much obsessing about that damn virus lately, but Mary had a really bad feeling in the pit of her stomach.

  “He said ten minutes.” Joey looked at her. “It takes an hour fifteen to get here from the PD in Waco.”

  He’s likely followed the guys plenty to know that. “The meeting wasn’t in Waco. It was at the fitness facility north of town.” Time to try and distract him some more.

  “So…how do you know Toby? Are you like, one of the guys he put away when he worked in Wyoming?”

  Joey smirked. “Nah. He didn’t have a clue about me back there. I was pulling one over on him and the old man, and neither of them even had a fucking clue. Some detectives they are.”