Читать книгу Twice A Hero, Always Her Man - Marie Ferrarella, Marie Ferrarella - Страница 12

Chapter Four

Jerry appeared to be dozing in the news van, but he snapped to attention the moment the passenger-side door opened.

“So, how did he take it?” the cameraman asked her.

“Take it?” Ellie repeated absently as she climbed into the van. After closing the door, she pulled on her seat belt and snapped it into place.

Jerry watched her intently for a moment. “You didn’t tell him that he was there the night your husband died, did you?”

Ellie shrugged, settling into her seat. “I didn’t get an opportunity.” She avoided looking at Jerry as she said, “The timing wasn’t right.”

Jerry turned his key, starting up the van. For an instant, the music he’d had playing on the radio stopped, then resumed. Someone was singing about surviving.

“This isn’t the game-winning pitch to home plate we’re talking about, Ellie. Don’t you think the good detective should know that he tried to save the husband of the woman who was interviewing him?”

“I don’t see how that would make any difference to this story,” she countered stubbornly.

“No,” Jerry allowed, “but it might make a difference to him.”

There was a measure of defiance in Ellie’s eyes as she turned them on Jerry.

“Why? I’m going to treat him fairly. We’ve got nothing but glowing words for him in this spot. His CO seemed pretty high on him and I’m sure if we interview a couple of the people whose paintings were recovered, they’ll talk about him like he’s their patron saint come to earth.”

Jerry sighed as he barreled through a yellow light before it turned red, narrowly missing cutting off a tan SUV.

“He’s a good guy, yes, I get that. But that doesn’t change the fact that you should tell him about your connection,” he insisted.

She didn’t see what good it would do and telling Benteen would force her to relive a night she couldn’t seem to permanently bury.

“Why?” she challenged.

Jerry gave her a look. “Because you shouldn’t be keeping it from him.”

She didn’t normally get annoyed, but “normal” was no longer part of her daily life.

“How did I get to be the bad guy in this?” she asked.

“You’re not,” Jerry told her in a voice that was much lower than hers, “but if you don’t tell him, this is going to be something that’ll just fester between you and him—until it finally comes out. Think how uncomfortable you’ll feel then.”

“Well, it’s not like we’re going to be working together or we’re a couple,” she pointed out impatiently. “Once the story airs, we probably won’t ever even run into one another.”

The funny thing was, Ellie thought, that the detective was just the kind of man her mother would have picked out for her once upon a time. There was a lot about him that reminded her of Brett.

The next moment, she shut all those thoughts down. “For now,” she said, addressing the point that Jerry had raised, “let’s just say that maybe I didn’t want to make him feel uncomfortable.”

“Is that it?” Jerry asked. “Or is it that you just want to hold something back and maybe, oh, I don’t know, spring it on him later?”

Why in heaven’s name would she want to do that? Ellie shook her head.

“I think that you’ve been watching too many procedurals, Jerry,” she told him.

The light turned red, forcing Jerry to come to a stop and allowing him to really stare at her as he said, “No, it’s just that I care about you.”

“Do me a favor. Care a little less,” she requested. “I can take care of myself.”

Jerry frowned. The light turned green and he hit the gas again. “I’m not so sure about that.”

What had gotten into him? Jerry had always been her chief supporter. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It’s just that sometimes I get the feeling that you’re just sleepwalking through life, that you’ve decided to check out.”

He pulled into a parking spot but made no effort to get out. He’d faithfully followed her around and they made a great team, but she wasn’t about to hold on to him against his will.

“Are you telling me that you want to switch news reporters?” she asked suddenly. “Because if you do, I’m not going to stand in your way.”

“No, I don’t want to switch reporters.” He frowned. “You know, you never used to be this touchy.”

“Things change,” she said vaguely.

His eyes narrowed as they bore right into her. “Do they?”

“Okay, now you’re really beginning to sound like my mother, and while I really love her, I do not need two of her,” she informed him, one hand on the car’s doorknob. “You heard me. Once the piece you got today is edited, I did promise Detective Benteen that we’d let him have the final okay. When he does okay it, then I’ll tell him. Does that meet with your approval?” she asked.

She realized that she was being short-tempered with Jerry because she knew he was right. But at the same time, she didn’t want to go there, didn’t want to revisit the pain that went with all that.

“You don’t need my approval, Ellie.”

“No,” she told him pointedly, agreeing. “I don’t. I also don’t need you glaring at me, either.”

“I’m not glaring,” he protested. “I was just looking at you. The rest is in your head.”

Ellie sighed. “How does your wife put up with you, anyway?” she asked as the tension began to drain from her. She’d overreacted and she knew it. Now all she wanted to do was just forget about it and get this piece in to the editor.

Jerry laughed. “Betsy worships the ground I walk on—you know that.”

“Uh-huh,” she murmured, getting out of the van. “Let’s go get some of our background material for this story.”

Jerry got out on his side, taking his faithful camera with him. “Your wish is my command.”

Ellie spared him a glance as she rolled her eyes. “If only...”

* * *

Colin sighed. It had been a long, long day.

After his morning had started out with all four burners going, what with the lucky catch of that thief and his cache and then that knockout news reporter coming to ask him questions, his afternoon had turned into a slow-moving turtle, surrounding him with a massive collection of never-ending paperwork. Paperwork that he’d neglected far too long.

The trouble with ignoring paperwork was that it didn’t go away; it just seemed to sit in dark corners and multiply until it became an overwhelming stack that refused to be ignored. Unfortunately, he’d reached that point today. He supposed it was a way to keep him humble, even though he wasn’t given to grappling with a large ego. Philosophically, he’d rolled up his sleeves because he knew he had to do something to at least whittle down the pile a little before it smothered him.

Rather than begin at the beginning, which might have been the orderly thing to do, Colin decided to start with the most recent file since that case had been the one that brought the reporter into his life.

Besides, there was nothing like the feeling that came from actually being able to close a case rather than having it linger on indefinitely, doggedly haunting him because he hadn’t been able to solve it.

What he especially liked about this last case—other than the fact that it had introduced him to the sexy reporter—was that the thief had been taken down, so to speak, without his having to fire a single shot. Not all cases involving robbery ended so peacefully.

More often than not, someone was hurt, sometimes fatally. Colin didn’t admit it out loud, but he took it hard when that happened. It wasn’t that he thought of himself as some kind of superhero who should be able to prevent things like that from happening. He didn’t think of himself as a hero at all, but the fact that he wasn’t able to prevent a fatality really ate away at him for a long time.

Maybe that was why before Heather had become his responsibility, he had lived a faster life, determined to enjoy himself as much as possible. Partly because life was short and could end at any time and partially to erase certain images from his mind.

Images like having a would-be hero’s blood pool through the fingers of his hand as he desperately tried to stem the flow, desperately tried to keep the man alive. But he’d come on the scene just minutes too late. Too late to stop the gunman from firing that lethal shot, but at least not too late to take the gunman down.

It still kept him up at night sometimes or disturbed his dreams, intruding like an uninvited, unwanted visitor determined to disrupt everything. Those were the nights when Heather came into his bedroom to wake him up instead of the other way around.

They were a pair, he and Heather. Both trying to act as if nothing bothered them. She was becoming more like him each day, he realized, wondering how Ryan would have reacted to that little piece of news.

He found himself wishing Ryan was around to react to anything.

Colin rotated his shoulders, then just got up from his desk altogether. There was only so much sitting at a computer, inputting information, that a man could be expected to do.

He needed to get some air, he decided.

“See another art thief darting by?” Marconi, another detective sitting close by, asked as he looked up to see him walking out.

Colin took the remark in stride. “Very funny. I need to stretch my legs.”

“Hey, Benteen, so when do we get to see that chiseled profile on TV?” another detective, Al Sanchez, asked, speaking up.

Colin merely shrugged. That alluring reporter had said she’d get back to him, but she hadn’t mentioned when. “Beats me.”