Читать книгу Shattered Vows - Maggie Price, Maggie Price - Страница 7

Coming up empty-handed after spending hours searching for her brother who’d commandeered her car didn’t make Victoria Dewitt McCall feel like an ace private investigator.

Instead, she felt like a volcano waiting to blow.

Now, minutes after a fellow P.I. had dropped her off, Tory stalked upstairs to her bedroom. She tossed her purse on the upholstered chair near the floor-to-ceiling window, stripped off her black leather jacket, then shoved back one side of the heavy drapes. Mouth set, she stared out the frosted pane, her thoughts as dark as the January night.

The eighteen-year-old brother she’d raised had clearly been in the popcorn line when common sense got handed out. Danny was out on bail, his license suspended over unpaid parking tickets. If he got stopped by a cop while driving, he’d be back in a cell for failure to pay those tickets.

And her car would wind up in the police impound lot—a complication she didn’t need.

Tory huffed out a breath, leaving a small foggy circle against the window. In truth, it wasn’t just Danny’s latest stunt that had her grinding her teeth.

Life sucked. Her life, specifically.

She hadn’t turned on the bedroom light, so when she glanced across her shoulder, the bed, bureau and chest of drawers crouched like shadowy forms in the weak light spilling from the hallway. The heavy, dark wood furniture wasn’t to her liking, but then, little in the house was. It wasn’t her house, after all.

It belonged to her husband.

Estranged husband, Tory corrected. Her own common sense had taken leave one evening nearly a year ago. That’s when Lieutenant Bran McCall gave Danny a break and hauled him to her doorstep instead of booking him into juvie hall for illegal gambling. With a hand clenched on Danny’s upper arm, Bran had sent her a slow, reckless grin which she’d instantly decided was the sexiest thing she’d ever seen. Two nights later she and the cop were in bed.

Even now, those first heady weeks she’d spent with the rugged widower were a blur of searing lust and hot sex. As was the weekend she and Bran both lost their minds and eloped.

Huge mistake. Huge. No way could a union based primarily on physical attraction and set-your-hair-on-fire sex survive long. Not when the parties involved were both independent, take-charge and used to running the show. Bran’s walking out three months ago proved that he, too, believed they’d made one hell of a mistake.

A sudden shift in the shadows at the far side of the front lawn snapped Tory’s senses to alert mode. Narrowing her eyes, she leaned closer to the window. With the quarter moon ghosting through fat gray clouds, it was possible the movement had been nothing more than wind rustling the thick copse of evergreens.

Seconds later the shadow oozed fully out of the trees. An alarm shrilled in her head.

In full P.I. mode now, she assessed the figure clad entirely in black, including a baseball cap pulled down low. A man, she determined, watching him move. Tall, judging by the way he dwarfed the spiky hydrangea bush he crept past.

Adrenaline jolting her system, Tory jerked on her leather jacket while watching the man skulk toward the east side of the house. Her pride might have taken a hit with Danny eluding her, but she could still deliver any number of well-placed kicks that would take down some sneaky prowler.

And if her varied self-defense skills didn’t do the trick, she had backup. She stabbed a hand in her purse, pulled out her trusty Sig-Sauer P226.

Leaving the lights off, she pounded downstairs. It took only seconds to cut through the dark living room and cross the expansive kitchen. At the back door her finger flipped off the Sig’s safety, then floated to the trigger. Twisting open the deadbolt, she eased outside. A slap of freezing air hit her face.

Her mind had already settled on a plan. She wanted the advantage of surprise, so she would approach the man from behind.

The Sig hidden against her thigh, she veered west, moving soundlessly in the dark across the winter-dry grass.

Bolting around the house into the backyard, Bran McCall had no presentiment, no intuition, no flash of cop instinct warning him of another presence. He never even sensed the black-clad figure until he plowed over it, toppling it backward as he lost his footing and stumbled forward.

Bran landed with a jarring smack on top of the figure. In the glow of a neighbor’s backyard light he caught a glint as something metallic flew through the air. Gun.

There was no way he could draw his own weapon, not with whoever was beneath him flailing and twisting violently while trying to knee him in the groin. Fists punched the sides of his head; the curses spewing against his parka were so muffled he wasn’t sure if they came from a male, a female or a plague of angry wasps.

Even as he clamped a hand around one thrashing wrist, then another, a scent as subtle and alluring as moonlight hit him—Tory’s scent—and he knew his wife was the kicking, spitting demon trapped beneath him.

“Tory, it’s me.”

When he felt her hesitate, he braced his forearms on either side of her shoulders. He eased his chest off hers. The next instant she pried one booted foot out from beneath his leg and delivered a stunning kick to the side of his shin that had stars springing into his head.

“Get off me, you jerk!”

Expelling an explicit curse, he locked his leg back over hers. “Dammit, woman, it’s me.”

“I heard you the first time,” she hissed.

As if accepting she was outweighed and out-muscled, she stopped squirming. Rays from the far-off streetlight slanted across her face, picking up the flashing anger in her green eyes as she glared up at him.

“I looked out the bedroom window and saw some prowler skulking in the dark. I thought you were on the other side of the house.”

“I doubled back. Decided to look through the garage window for your car.”

“You ought to know better than to prowl around at night. I came out prepared to take you down.” She jerked her chin in the direction the Sig had flown when she crashed to the ground. “Shoot you, if I had to.”

Bran set his jaw. Her reaction was typical Tory—grab a situation by the throat and deal with it. In contrast, his first wife would have stayed safely indoors, phoned the police and reported the prowler. But Patience was long dead, and at this instant the woman squirming beneath him was the primary concern of both his mind and his body.

His hands tightened around her wrists. “When you spotted me, you should have called the cops. Let them take care of things.”

“No self-respecting private investigator needs a cop’s help to take down a measly prowler.”

He hooked a brow. “This coming from the P.I. presently smashed beneath said measly prowler.”

Her eyes narrowed. “What do you want, Bran?”

“If you’d returned one of my phone calls you wouldn’t have to ask.”

He stared down at her for the first time in three months, inspecting her with intensity. Her thick blond hair was still long, looking like polished gold in the faint light as it flared across the dry grass. He didn’t have to wonder how it would feel to stroke that soft cheek or settle his mouth on those lush lips. Despite his parka’s thickness, he was aware of the long, lean lines of her warm, supple body. The sparks they’d forever generated in bed had made for register-on-the-Richter-Scale sex. Problem was, they always had to come up for air and that was when their clashing personalities and opposing needs sent everything to hell.

The heat swarming into his blood had him clenching his teeth. Dammit, he hadn’t come here to sate his physical needs. Not when an escaped killer had threatened revenge against him and three other cops.

Bran thought back to the panic that had hit him when he’d glanced through the garage window and seen that Tory’s car was gone, which was unusual this late at night. Fearing that bad-ass Vic Heath had beat him here, then left in Tory’s car, he’d bolted around the side of the house, intending to use his key to get in the back door and check her welfare.

Instead, he’d collided with her.

Relief that Heath hadn’t gotten his hands on her seeped into him like water soaking into sand. “Where’s your car?”

“Being worked on.” She squirmed. “Dammit, Bran, let me up.”

He nearly groaned when he felt himself stir. “All right.” He pushed to his feet. “Look, I’d like to come inside. We need to talk.”

She sat up, flicked a look at the hand he offered, then rose without his help. “About?”

Not us, he thought, feeling the same wariness he saw in her eyes after she scooped up her Sig and turned to face him.

“A cop got killed this afternoon.”

“Not someone in the family, right?” Her free hand flew to her mouth in shock, then dropped. “Bran, tell me it’s not—”

“It’s not.” His grandfather and dad had retired from the Oklahoma City Police Department. He had two brothers, three sisters and several soon-to-be brothers-in-law currently serving on the department. Whenever word of a cop getting hurt came down, the entire McCall clan held its collective breath.

Reaching out, Bran brushed a blond wave off her cheek. “We’re all fine.” He had never questioned her love for his family. Her feelings for him were a different matter.

As if to prove that, she took an instant step back, forcing him to drop his hand. “Good. Okay.”

He looked across his shoulder past the shadow-laden side of the house toward the front yard. He saw nothing. Heard nothing. Felt nothing.

“Is someone out there?” Tory’s voice was a whisper on the freezing air.

“My gut tells me no,” he said, keeping his gaze trained on the sliver of front yard he could see. “But there’s a bad guy loose who’d like to ambush some cops. Which is why I parked a couple of blocks over and walked here. Skulked, as you call it,” he added, looking back at her.

He’d never thought of Tory Dewitt as easy on the eyes. There simply wasn’t anything easy about her. She was tall—nearly his height—model-thin, with a face as angular as her body. A pointed chin, sharp cheekbones and sensual mouth combined to create a tough, stubborn, sexy face. At the moment, though, she looked more dangerous than sexy, standing inches away in her black jeans and worn leather jacket, one hand gripping the Sig while her breath made quick puffs of steam in the frigid air.

He dipped his head. “The dead cop was a corrections officer. You didn’t know him, but there’s a chance the bastards who killed him might come after me. They could show up here. You need to know what’s going on.”

Her mouth thinned, and he sensed her fingers tightening on the Sig. “All right.”

She led the way along the shadowy cobblestone walk that Bran and his brother-in-law had laid during a sweltering summer five years ago. Now, Ryan Fox was dead, the only cop in the McCall clan who’d died in the line of duty. Bran hoped to hell there would never be another.

He followed Tory inside, closed the door and set the deadbolt. He realized the house had looked uninhabited from the front because the only light came from the one she flicked on when she walked through the door.

He missed this house, Bran thought as he glanced around the homey kitchen, its soft yellow paint setting off deep blue counters. When he and Patience had bought the place, they’d done so with a sense of permanence, of putting down roots, building a life together and raising a family. Growing old together. That dream had ended three years ago on the day his high-school sweetheart went off to play tennis. She’d suffered a brain aneurysm on the court, and she’d come home in a coffin.

Bran closed his eyes, opened them. He was keenly aware that the air in the kitchen held no lingering aroma of delicacies fresh from the oven. Unlike Patience, who’d nearly lived in the kitchen, Tory didn’t cook. Other than the refrigerator, the only appliance that got more than a passing glance was the espresso maker he’d bought her to brew the lattes she seemed to exist on. He’d surprised her with the espresso maker last Valentine’s Day, right after they’d eloped.

Now, eleven months later, their marriage was circling the drain. Bran walked to the long bank of windows on his right and began closing blinds, thinking he and Tory sure as hell wouldn’t be spending the holiday made for lovers together this year.

“Want a latte?” she asked.

He turned, shrugged out of his parka. “Sounds good.”

He studied his wife as she abandoned the Sig on the nearest counter, then peeled off her scarred leather jacket. Her jeans, ripped at one knee, hugged her narrow hips and endless legs. The long-sleeved T-shirt tucked into the jeans was plain white cotton, and her unhampered breasts pressed nicely against the soft fabric.

The sudden image of himself greedily feeding on those breasts while she writhed beneath him speared heat through his system. But it was loss that hollowed his chest as he draped his parka over a chair at the small wooden table near the windows.

He glanced up to find Tory studying him with cool, measuring eyes as she poured milk into a metal pitcher. “When I saw you out the window, I didn’t recognize the parka.”

“Got it for Christmas.” He pulled out a chair and settled at the table. “From Grace.” Bran relaxed enough to smile. “Speaking of Grace, an FBI agent she once had a thing with is back in the picture. Name’s Mark Santini. He’s working out of the Bureau’s local office. It’s looking like they’re together for good this time.”

“He was all Grace talked about when I met her and Carrie for the first fitting on our bridesmaid dresses.” Smiling, Tory carried the metal pitcher to the espresso maker. “Grace is crazy in love with Santini.”

“Yeah,” Bran agreed, thinking how quickly Tory had bonded with his three sisters. That the youngest, Morgan, had asked Tory to be a bridesmaid after the split underlined just how deep that bond went.

He pulled off his baseball cap, shoved his fingers through his hair. It suddenly hit him that his baby sister’s wedding to Sergeant Alex Blade was on Valentine’s Day. Dandy, Bran thought. He and his estranged wife would spend a portion of that made-for-lovers holiday together after all.

The sound of beans grinding filled the kitchen. A few minutes later, the espresso machine began spewing steam, sounding like an angry, hissing snake.

“Tell me about the corrections officer,” Tory said a minute later, carrying two oversize white ceramic mugs to the table. “And why whoever murdered him might show up here looking for you.”

While she settled into the chair opposite his, Bran sipped his latte. A welcome zing of caffeine shot into his system.

“Did one of my sisters mention the shootout I was involved in a little over a week ago? What happened today ties to that.”

“Your mother called to let me know you were okay. Roma didn’t want me getting upset when I saw your name in the newspaper the next day.” Tory met his gaze over the rim of her mug. “Tell me about it.”

“Dispatch put out a silent alarm at a credit union,” he began. “I arrived first, three other patrol cars pulled up behind me. We heard a shot inside the building, then the front doors flew open and two guys wearing ski masks rushed out. I ordered them to drop their weapons. Instead, they started firing. Five seconds later, they were dead.”

“Sounds like they asked for it.”

“They did.” He shrugged. “We figured they chose to go out in a blaze of glory because they’d murdered one of the credit union clerks. Tox tests showed both had been flying on meth, so that screwed their judgment.”

“What do the dead robbers have to do with the corrections officer who got killed today?”

“The cop died because of them.” Bran set his mug aside. “Andy and Kyle Heath were the do-wrongs who hijacked the credit union.”

“Brothers?”

“Cousins. Andy has an older brother named Vic. He’s spent the past three years in prison for conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine. Turns out I’m the cop who nailed Vic on those charges.”

“Small world, that you wound up on the call at the credit union.”

“I doubt Vic has missed the irony in that.” Bran frowned. “He’s been a model prisoner, a real poster boy for scumbag good behavior. Because of that, his request to attend his brother’s and cousin’s joint funeral was approved. This afternoon he was put in leg irons and cuffs and driven to a Tulsa funeral home by a corrections officer named Perry Paulson.”

“Is he the cop who got killed?”

“Yes. When Heath got there he asked to view the bodies. The funeral director showed him and Paulson into the room where the caskets were, then left. When he came back about fifteen minutes later, Paulson was dead. His wrists and ankles were duct taped together and his throat cut. Tulsa cops did a ground search and house-to-house check for Heath, but came up empty.”

“Handcuffed and shackled, he would have had a tough time doing that on his own without someone hearing the struggle,” Tory pointed out. “Where’d the duct tape come from?”

“It wasn’t the funeral home’s. Neither was the knife that killed Paulson.” Bran leaned in. “The theory is that Heath had at least one accomplice.”

“Any idea who?”

“Not yet. Our vice guys are talking to snitches to see if they can get names of Heath’s associates.”

“You said he might show up here. I take it you think Heath wants revenge for you arresting him? And for your part in killing his brother and cousin at the credit union?”

“Right.”

“Is that cop instinct or did Heath make that threat?”

“A threat was made, but not by Vic,” Bran answered. “His mother was at the funeral. She spouted off about how ‘her Vic’ was going to get back at the cops who killed their kin. One of the Tulsa cops overheard her and called OCPD. Since I was ranking officer at the credit union, the chief okayed our chopper to fly me to Tulsa this afternoon.”

“Did you talk to the mother?”

“You bet.” Bran shook his head at the memory of the hard-faced woman with skin the color of cold oatmeal. “Mamma Heath is a foulmouthed old crone with mean eyes. She took pleasure in telling me that Vic’s coming after all the cops who’d been at the credit union. That Vic’s going to eat our hearts out.”

“Lovely family,” Tory murmured. “Do you believe her?”

“I believe in not taking chances. The address and phone numbers for cops are unlisted, but if you’ve got a computer, some skill and enough time, you can find anybody. It’s been over a week since the shootout and we don’t know what information Heath has, if any. If the threat is real and he finds the addresses of the cops who were at the credit union, the logical place for him to start looking for us is at home. Which is why I’m here. And the reason I tried to call you for hours. And sent my brothers by here, too,” he added.

“I’ve been out.” Bran almost missed the elusive shadow that flickered across her eyes. Almost. “I got home about fifteen minutes ago.”

He waited a beat, watching her. “Where’s your car?”

“In the shop, remember? Sheila Sanford picked me up,” Tory said, referring to a P.I. she often teamed with on jobs.

Bran felt his frustration surface; he’d spent hours trying to contact her and getting no results. Worrying about her.

“What about your cell? In addition to the machine here, I left messages on your voice mail. Said they were urgent.” He leaned in. “I realize we haven’t spoken to each other for three months. We’ve got issues to deal with. But when I call and say it’s important that you get back to me, I’m not playing games.”

Her chin came up. “I left my phone in the car.” She shoved back her chair, walked to the V in the counter where the answering machine sat. “It doesn’t show any messages waiting,” she said, turning back to face him.

“Well, darlin’,” he drawled, “I sure as hell left one. And I’ll make a wild stab at what happened. While you were gone, Danny dropped by and checked to see if any of his pals left him a message. Brother dear just couldn’t go to the trouble of leaving you a note to call me. Sound familiar?”

Thinking of his reprobate brother-in-law put knots in Bran’s gut. He couldn’t blame the breakdown of his marriage on Danny. But the way Tory had dealt with the kid’s screw-ups had magnified the problems in their marriage and ignited the final blowup that prompted him to pack his bags.

Tory’s chin went up another notch as she gripped her hands on the counter behind her. Her breast-skimming blond hair was still tousled from their rolling around on the ground and his comment about her brother had color rising over her cheekbones. Watching her, Bran felt his chest tighten. How many times had he seen her look much the same after a long, searing bout of sex?

Standing there, just standing there she was getting to him, filling him with need he didn’t want to feel, stirring up images of her that he’d spent days, weeks, months trying not to think about.

“We aren’t going to talk about Danny,” she said in a voice that had gone very low and very cold. “Ever again.”

“Seems to me we have to,” he countered, feeling his own face heat as three months of pent-up anger kindled bright and hot. “Because your story doesn’t add up, and I figure it’s because of Danny. You depend on your cell phone for your business. If you had forgotten and left it in your car while it was being worked on, you’d have gone back and picked it up. Of course, that’d be a little hard to do if you didn’t know the whereabouts of your car.” He narrowed his eyes. “Danny took it and disappeared. That’s where you and Sheila have been, right? Cruising around looking for your brother and your car? Think maybe I ought to track him down? Remind him his license got suspended when he chose not to pay all those traffic tickets he’d racked up? Remind him of what happened to him after he got tossed in jail?”

“I doubt Danny needs a reminder of that. Any more than I need one about the questionable choices I’ve made.” She used her hand to make a sweeping gesture of the kitchen. “Not when they’re all around me,” she added in a voice that sounded like chipped glass.

“You don’t like the house, you can always move out.”

“I plan to, as soon as you sign the divorce papers my lawyer sent you.”

“Sent me? Your slick attorney didn’t just send them. He had a process server track me down at the briefing station and slap the damn papers in my hand.” A muscle ticked in his jaw. “Every cop on the shift knew what was going on.”

“I didn’t know.” The flicker of surprise in her eyes verified that. “I had no idea my attorney planned to serve you that way.”

“Well, now you know.”

“I talked to him yesterday. He said he hasn’t received them back from you. Why haven’t you signed them?”

Bran curled his hands into fists. He’d sat in his ratty apartment, staring at the document for hours, telling himself to just sign the damn thing and be done with it. The fact he had no clue why he hadn’t was like a splash of alcohol on his rekindled anger. And, hell, maybe he was ticked because she’d beat him to the punch and served him first!

“I’ll let you know when I sign them.”

“Why wait?”

Rising, he sent her a caustic look. “Why hurry?”

She lifted a palm, dropped it. “Look, we made a mistake. We ran off and got married when the only thing we knew about each other was how good we were together in bed. If we’d just stayed there, we would have been much better off. Instead, we’ve spent the past eleven months trying to force each other into molds in which we’ll never fit.”

She stabbed a hand through her hair, closed her eyes. When she reopened them, an aura of weariness had replaced the agitation.

“You left, Bran. You walked out. You belong in this house, I don’t. I’ve found a condo I want to buy. Legally, it’ll be a lot easier to do that after our divorce is final. Why won’t you do both of us a favor and sign the papers?”

He damn well wished he had an answer for that. Since he didn’t, he flipped the topic. “Let’s get back to the reason I’m here,” he said, closing the space between them. “Vic Heath.”

“Fine.” She thrust her tumbled hair behind her ears. “Fine.”

“His mother might be right about Vic being in eye-for-an-eye mode. And my having put him in prison gives him even more reason to come after me. If he shows up here, I don’t want him to find you. You can bunk with Morgan, Carrie and Grace until he’s picked up.”

“You’re the one who should stay at your sisters’ place. Heath’s after you, not me.”

“True. But if he can’t find me, he might settle for my wife. I don’t want you hurt, Tory.”

“I don’t want you hurt, either,” she said quietly.

“Well, that’s something we agree on. You can pack a bag now. I’ll drive you over to my sisters’ place.”

“Has Heath been spotted since he left the funeral home in Tulsa? Does anyone even know if he’s still in Oklahoma?”

“No, to both questions.”

“If the threat was to me, I’d go.”

Bran caught her chin in his hand as she started to move away. “Victoria Lynn, this is serious. Life and death.”

Beneath his fingers he felt her soften. Something like regret, only more complex, flickered in her green eyes. He eased out a breath. When it came to standing on her own the woman never gave an inch. “No one’s going to view you as dependent if you bunk at my sisters’ house for a few days.”

“I carry a gun for a living, too,” she said, shaking off his touch. “I know how to take care of myself.”

“The corrections cop probably thought the same thing. We’ll never know since he’s on a slab at the morgue.”

“I appreciate you letting me know about Heath.” As she moved to slip past him, her shoulder brushed his. He felt the instant connection. The pull. She was right, he thought dourly. They should have just stayed in bed having mind-blowing sex and bypassed the wedding.

When she reached the counter opposite him, she turned. “I’ve got three active cases going right now. All have surveillance involved, which means I won’t be spending a lot of time here over the next week or so. When I am here, I’ll activate the security system. Keep my guard up.” She patted the Sig she’d left beside her leather jacket. “I’ll keep my eyes open. If you have a picture of Heath, that would help.”

“His picture’s all over the television by now.”

“I’ll turn it on. Memorize his face. You’ll let me know when you find out who helped Heath escape?”

“The minute I know, you’ll know.”

He gave her a considering look. As long as she chose to stay here alone, there wasn’t much he could do about it. And, he conceded, when she’d gone with him to the police pistol range she’d proven she was his equal with a gun. She also held her own in hand-to-hand combat—he might have had her on the ground outside, but the way she’d moved had kept him from going for his weapon. Yet knowing all that, he still wasn’t satisfied.

“I’ve arranged for extra patrols of the neighborhood by both uniformed cops and plainclothes,” he said.

She slanted him a look. “Is one of those extra patrols going to be you?”

“Not officially. Everyone involved in the shootout is on desk duty until the review board completes its report.” He lifted a shoulder. “That doesn’t mean I can’t drive by, simply as a concerned citizen checking the safety of a neighborhood.”

“I’ll be careful. You don’t need to worry about me.”

A vicious case of frustration had his head pounding. He wished to hell he had even an ounce of control over the situation. Over her.

“If something happens, call my cell. Even if you get a bad sense about something, I want to hear it. That goes for everyone in the family. You need us, we’ll be here for you. You know that.”

“I know.” Her eyes softened. “It’s nice to have dependable backup who all carry badges.”

“Yeah.”

She wouldn’t call him, Bran would stake his life on that. She’d spent the entire time they’d been married showing him how independent and take-charge she could be. It was ironic, he thought, that his innate nature was to protect, comfort and soothe and he’d married a woman who wanted no part of that.

Patience had. She had always considered him her protector.

Turning, he walked back to the table. He jerked on his parka, wincing when the age-old injury to his right shoulder kicked in.

He had always figured he and Tory would get around to dealing with their unfinished business. After tonight, he wondered if the smart thing to do was just to let things go. Make the break before they heaped more emotional debris on what they’d once had.

He crammed his black ball cap low on his head. Maybe when he got to his apartment, he would sign the damn divorce papers and be done with it.

That would be the smart thing.