Читать книгу Mistletoe And Murder - Florence Case - Страница 10

The force slammed Shamus upward and away from the building, sucking the breath out of him. He hit the snowy asphalt a few feet away and lay there, stunned, as all the emotion he’d buried since his wife’s death tumbled back onto him along with the debris from the bomb. Emotion over another woman.

Mallory.

Did she make it? He pushed himself onto his knees. Swiveled around to face the building. His head spun. He made himself focus, but he didn’t see her. She had to still be inside.

Annoying, do-gooder Mallory, who just had to stay late to give him a present so he wouldn’t feel left out. Who couldn’t believe her client could actually hurt someone. Who wouldn’t leave him behind even though she’d had the chance…

He had to rescue her. He could not have another woman’s death on his conscience.

Finding his gun on the ice, he holstered it, then lunged toward the building. At least, his muddled mind thought he was lunging, but he was startled to find he was only limping slowly. No matter. He pushed onward, trying to move faster, his ears ringing and his head spinning when he tried to turn it.

Sucking in a deep breath of clean air, he plunged inside the doorway and found a dazed Mallory against the outer wall, clutching Mosey’s Santa. Fire licked at what was left of the wall near the receiving window. Smoke poured into the area. Get her out. He had to get her out.

Fighting the stars that threatened to push him into darkness, he lifted her into his arms and carried her outside into the parking lot and away from the swirling smoke and dust. She didn’t speak, not one word, and something inside him—he wasn’t going to call it his heart—clenched.

His wife hadn’t spoken when he’d found her, either. She was already dead.

When he was far enough from the building to be safe, he picked a dry spot on one of the cement parking blocks near an overhead light post and sank down on it, keeping her in his arms and ignoring the ache in his knee.

Sirens whined in the distance.

He looked down into her heart-shaped face. Her eyes were closed, but she still gripped the Christmas toy she’d considered worth her life.

“Mallory!” he called to urge her awake, loudly because he could hardly hear and figured she was at least as bad off. He had to make sure she’d be okay in case he passed out. “Mallory, open your eyes.”

She did. They were deep, sea-green eyes, he saw in the lamplight. He’d seen them before, of course, but he had purposely not noticed their color. Not noticed anything but how they smiled when she smiled. Didn’t want to notice now.

But he did.

“You saved me,” she said. She covered one ear and frowned. “I can’t hear.”

“What?” he asked her.

“You saved me,” she said again, louder, and coughed with the effort. Her lips lifted in a gentle smile that gifted him more than any present she could give him. She took a breath and said loudly, “I owe you.”

“No, you don’t,” he said just as loudly. He didn’t want anyone to owe him, especially not a woman like Mallory. “I saved you for a purely selfish reason. So you don’t owe me anything.”

“What reason?”

Oh, great. Now he had to hurt her again, because he wasn’t lying. Everything he did lately was for selfish reasons.

“I would have to take a bunch of your cases over if you ended up in the hospital, and I’m overworked as it is.”

The smile left her lips, and she shut her eyes again. Wonderful. That was why he didn’t get involved with people anymore. He just hurt them, and he couldn’t seem to stop.

The regret that he’d tried his best to bury burned once more in him. But if he made amends, she might get the idea he wanted to be friends. He didn’t. All he wanted was to be left alone.

Stop thinking, he told himself. Shut down. Observe. Watch for anyone who looked familiar, who might be behind the bombing. Protect Mallory from him. Since he’d spent years in the Shepherd Falls Police Department, being on guard was easy to do, and much better than actually feeling anything.

People gawked from the parking lot across the street, probably too afraid of another explosion to come closer and offer help. He searched their faces, hoping to see someone he’d arrested in the past who might want to kill him. But the growing darkness made it difficult to see into the shadows. Actually, he and Mallory were the ones in the light—from the overhead safety lamps the city had installed to keep the probation officers safe.

The irony of that didn’t escape him. He was a sitting duck.

Fire and rescue screeched around the corner as Shamus watched, followed by police cars, their flashing red-and-blue lights adding to the red-and-green Christmas ones decorating the Shepherd Falls business district.

“Help me stand up, Shamus,” Mallory said, jolting him. He’d thought she’d passed out. With some relief that she had survived the blast better off than he’d thought, he helped her to her feet. She was wobbly, but remained upright as the paramedics pulled up nearby.

“I’ll fill in the police. You go to the hospital,” he told her, hoping she didn’t try to argue with him.

She didn’t. Instead, she held Mosey’s Santa out with both her trembling hands. “I’m trusting you to keep this safe for Mosey. It was—”

“His daughter’s. Yeah.” He didn’t want to touch it. He couldn’t believe he’d criticized her for saving it, and she still wanted him to take it.

“I trust you to get it safely back to Mosey.”

It was too much, her looking at him like he’d hung the moon. Unable to refuse, he took it into his hands and debated smashing it into a million pieces because it had almost cost Mallory her life. But he couldn’t, not with her sea-green gaze fastened on to him.

After she was tucked into an ambulance, he refused to have his leg checked. It wasn’t bleeding, so he’d survive. He always did.

The ambulance rolled away. Shamus started limping in the direction of an officer to see who was lead investigator on the bombing, and that’s when he spotted the present Mallory had given him. Its silver ribbons and shiny red wrapping paper were wet from the snow, torn up and blackened some from the blast, but the box was still in one piece.

He picked it up but refused to open it, pretending his knee didn’t hurt, pretending he wasn’t angry he didn’t stop the bombing somehow…and pretending he wasn’t worried about Mallory.

Bowing his head, he thanked God for saving him and Mallory both, and promised that he would not get attached to her, no matter what.

It should be easy enough not to. They had nothing in common. From what he’d observed in the last month, Mallory Larsen always had a kind word about and for everyone. He didn’t like to talk at all. She thought she could really help her probationers. He was under no such delusions about his. She was always concerned and wanted everyone to be happy. He had no desire to be happy.

She was sunshine, and he was a thundercloud. Judging by that, when she came to her senses, she wouldn’t want a thing to do with him.

And that suited him just fine.

Wondering if she should try calling Shamus again, Mallory nestled into the soft cushions of her best friend’s plush white sofa, which was like a balm to her aches and bruises. Ginny had rescued Mallory on Friday night from having to go to her parents’ house to recuperate by insisting she’d be more comfortable in Ginny’s penthouse. Her mother couldn’t even argue with the truth.

Thank goodness.

She watched Ginny gazing out her huge picture window overlooking a major part of Shepherd Falls. Her friend had been pacing for almost an hour and, despite her anxiety over the bombing, still looked every bit like the highly paid fashion model she’d once been, blond hair and makeup perfect. How did she do that?

“Please don’t worry, Ginny,” Mallory told her. “They’re looking for Tripp, and when they find him, they’ll get to the bottom of whoever is behind the bombing.”

“I know,” Ginny agreed. “But until then, whoever was behind this is out there somewhere, and he might set off more explosions.” She moved from the window to her ceiling-high, white-branched Christmas tree to fiddle with the silver-and-blue decorations. “We’ll still be in danger.”

“But we’ll be guarded, since they’re moving us to the courthouse, remember?” The basement, anyway, but it was still good. She’d found out about the move when Bess, the chief probation officer, had phoned them to check on her. “We’ll have little to nothing to worry about.”

Ginny didn’t respond, so Mallory went back to the romance novel on her lap. Her mind, however, was on Shamus. Why wasn’t he calling back? She’d left three messages on Saturday, and one earlier that afternoon.

She’d call him one final time, she decided. And in this message, she would use gentle persuasion.

“Maybe I ought to hire a bodyguard for you.”

Her gaze flew to meet Ginny’s. Her friend had more money than she could ever spend from a trust fund and investments made while she’d been a model, but Mallory couldn’t let her do that. She did not want to be that far in debt to anyone.

“I don’t want a bodyguard. God will watch over me.” Even though Ginny wasn’t a believer, Mallory reminded her anyway, hoping to be a witness of her faith.

Ginny just stared at her.

“Not only that,” Mallory continued, “you’ve done plenty as it is, letting me stay here so I wouldn’t have to go to Mom and Dad’s. Mom was sweet in the hospital, but she kept begging me to move back home where I’d be safe. You were a lifesaver. I was close to buckling under the pressure.”

“Sure you were.” Ginny, who knew better, grinned. She stepped away from the tree to join Mallory at the other end of the sofa.

“Your dad was there when I arrived to get you. How did it go?”

“He told Mom if I came home I needed to pay room and board.”

Ginny winced, her brown eyes filling with sympathy. “You almost got blown up, and that’s all your father said?”

Mallory shrugged. After years of that kind of thing out of Gideon Larsen, she’d come to expect it. That didn’t mean the words didn’t hurt, but there was nothing she could do. No one could change the past, or her part in it.

But it wasn’t important now. She had her own life, and her parents had theirs. She picked up her cell from beside her. “It’s time for me to try Shamus again. He’s going to talk to me whether he wants to or not.”

“Since he hasn’t answered all your other messages, I’m thinking that’s a definite ‘not,’” Ginny said, tucking her feet underneath her. “Why on earth would you want to talk to him that badly? He’s a jerk.”

Mallory held up her hand for Ginny to wait a couple seconds, then answered the other woman’s question in the message she left for Shamus.

“Hi, Mallory again. I know you’re probably busy trying to help the police find Bud Tripp, and I’m sorry for bothering you so much. It’s just, now that I’m well, I have to get started on my promise to help Tara, and I’ve decided the fastest way to do that would be to find Mr. Tripp myself. I just really wanted to talk to you before I start looking. Thanks.”

Mallory tapped the disconnect button triumphantly. “That ought to get a response.”

It did. Ginny’s feet hit the floor, her long, blond hair swinging. She stood up, her eyes filled with concern.

“Tell me you were going for shock value to get Shamus to call back,” she said. “Tell me you’re not truly planning on…” Her voice drifted off as her gaze turned horrified at the sight of Mallory’s resolute one.

“Oh, Mallory. You are going to look for Tripp.”

“Of course I am.” Mallory put the phone back down beside her. “If I find Mr. Tripp and persuade him to turn himself in, it solves three problems. The police and the FBI will be that much closer to the person behind the bombing and Tara’s kidnapping. I won’t have to revoke Mr. Tripp’s probation, and Tara will have her father home when they find her, not sitting in some jail cell.” The teenager would have someone with her who really cared, unlike what had happened to her after…

Ginny shook her head and sat back down. “It’s too dangerous for you to get in the middle of this. Whoever is behind the bombing might be just playing games right now while he gets ready to kill someone. Why be a target?”

“If the man was a killer, he wouldn’t have told Mr. Tripp to get Shamus and me out.” She’d had plenty of time to leave before the bomb went off. Getting trapped had been her own fault. “But you agree Tripp couldn’t have been behind this?”

“Sure. It’s not logical. Why would he want to blow up the building? You said he was basically honest, with a conscience. Plus, you said he was scared to death.”

“He was.” It felt really good knowing Ginny agreed with her, when the detective in charge had not ruled out Tripp’s involvement. Kidnappings, he’d said, had been faked in the past for all sorts of reasons.

“But don’t change the subject,” Ginny told her. “You might not think Tripp is dangerous, but sometimes you’re a little too trusting of people. What if Tripp is ordered to kill you if you try to take him to the police department to be questioned? If the mastermind threatens his daughter’s life, who do you think Tripp is going to choose?”

Mallory had to admit she was right about the danger. But she had promised Tara Tripp she would help her, and she couldn’t back down. To make Ginny feel better, Mallory compromised. “How about if I just gave my ideas on where to find Tripp to the police?”

Ginny’s face filled with relief. “That would be wonderful. And you’ll stop talking to Burke, too, right?”

“Uh, no.” She wasn’t giving in on that. “Why should I stop talking to Shamus?”

“Because he’s got to be the one the bomber is targeting, and you could get caught in the middle.”

“We don’t know Shamus is the target yet.” The police weren’t telling her a thing.

“Of course we do,” Ginny corrected. “You said the man talking to Tripp through the microphone mentioned Burke? I’m betting someone wants to get revenge on him again, the way that man did when he killed Burke’s wife.

“Think about it, Mal. In the five years I’ve been at the probation department, no probationer has attacked us in our building—until Shamus came to work there. Very few people take offense at being monitored by a kind probation officer, but I’ll bet a lot did when Mr. Personality was arresting people. He’s probably a maniac magnet.”

“He hasn’t always been like he is now. I told you that when he started working with us.” Mallory’s face flushed. Keeping calm was an effort, but she was determined to do it. “He was happy. Interested in everyone, and always trying to do things for others.”

“I didn’t mean to get you upset—you’re supposed to be recuperating.” Ginny looked genuinely sorry as she picked up a pillow and cradled it in her arms. “I remember when you told me about already knowing him. I never said anything then, but I need to now. You said Shamus was that way at church, and you didn’t know him otherwise socially. He could have been putting on a front for all of you there to fit in, maybe to please his wife. Who knows? For certain, there have been no signs of the man you’re describing in our office. Not one.”

Mallory took a deep breath. “I don’t think he’s a hypocrite, Ginny.” Her voice was so calm. God was helping her.

Ginny stared at her for a long moment. “You might want to consider if your heart isn’t getting in the way of your common sense where Shamus is concerned.”

“I don’t have romantic feelings for him.” She didn’t. Shamus might never change back to the man he once was, and the man he was now was too much like her father. “I was just trying to live my faith and be kind to him.”

“Faith.” Ginny brushed the idea away with her manicured fingertips. “All month he’s ignored you, scowled at you and turned down every offer of friendship, no matter how hurt you looked. What kind of Christian would do that?”

“One who is suffering a great deal of pain,” Mallory said firmly.

Ginny put down her pillow and stood. “Sometimes I think you carry Christianity too far, Mal. I don’t get how you can let someone walk all over you like Shamus did, and still defend him. I can’t. I hope he continues to ignore your calls, because I’d hate it if you got caught right in the middle of his battle with a demon from his past.”

Mallory watched her walk down the hall to her kitchen, then stared down at the cell phone by her side. Was she being naïve about Shamus? Was he a hypocrite, putting on a show at church when he was another way at home?

She put that question aside and considered what she knew for certain about him.

He’d saved her life by going back into a burning building for her.

He’d shown true concern for her in his unguarded moments in the parking lot afterward, when he’d held her in his arms.

He’d taken charge of Mosey’s Santa so it wouldn’t get lost or broken, despite the fact that he was furious she’d gone back for it. For a second she’d thought he would smash it down on the asphalt, but he hadn’t.

All that meant Shamus had integrity and feelings—he was just keeping them buried now. Ginny’s defenses were up when it came to Shamus for some reason, so she would just keep all of this to herself, along with her plans to find Tripp.

When Ginny returned with a soda and a box of expensive chocolates to share, she didn’t mention Shamus or the bombing again, and Mallory was relieved. She loved Ginny like a sister and didn’t want anything coming between them. So when her cell phone vibrated in her pocket, she told Ginny she was going to her room for a nap, waited until she got far enough down the hall so Ginny couldn’t see and checked the number.

It was Shamus.