Читать книгу The Devaney Brothers: Daniel - Sherryl Woods, Sherryl Woods - Страница 11

4

Daniel tried to spend as much time as possible burying himself in work. Even so, for the next few days he made it a point to stop at Jess’s at various times, and at least once a day. He hoped to catch a glimpse of Kendra, but mostly he wanted to keep Molly rattled and aware that he was not letting her off the hook. He hadn’t quite decided what time to show up today—probably around dinnertime, maybe not until just before closing when she’d be breathing a mistaken sigh of relief that he hadn’t turned up.

In the meantime, he went out to do follow-ups on five cases, checking on at-risk kids to make sure that their situations at home were under control. The unseasonably hot temperatures could escalate tensions, and family members who’d been making positive progress could suddenly revert to old ways. He tried to show up unexpectedly often enough to make sure that didn’t happen.

But as he went from home visit to home visit, he couldn’t shake the image of Molly from his head. Why the devil did she have to be so damned stubborn? Couldn’t she see that she was just prolonging the inevitable? Sooner or later he would talk to Kendra. It would be best if their first meeting wasn’t when he walked through the door with her parents. He liked to make sure such reunions went smoothly, but right now his back was to the wall, thanks to Molly.

He picked up a tuna on rye and a can of soda from the vendor in the basement of his office building in Portland, then climbed the stairs to his office. He found Joe Sutton waiting for him, his feet propped on Daniel’s tidy desk, his chair tilted back precariously, his eyes closed. Though it was barely noon, he looked as rumpled as if he’d slept in his clothes.

“About time you got back,” he said, startling awake when Daniel knocked his feet off the desk.

“Some of us spend our days out in the field checking on clients,” Daniel said.

Joe stared hopefully at the sandwich Daniel was unwrapping. “Is that tuna on rye?”

Daniel sighed. Joe was notorious for always stealing whatever food was around. Apparently there was plenty to be found, because he was at least thirty pounds overweight. That didn’t mean he couldn’t move when he had to.

“Here,” he said, handing the policeman half of his sandwich.

“No chips?” Joe asked, disappointment etched in the lines on his face.

“There’s a vending machine at the end of the hall. You’ll have to buy your own.”

“It’s out. I already checked.”

“Then you’re out of luck.”

“So how’s the Morrow girl doing?” Joe asked Daniel as he chewed.

“Haven’t seen her,” Daniel admitted.

Joe’s eyes filled with surprise. “Why the hell not? It’s not like you to brush off a case.”

“I’m not brushing it off, believe me. I’m at an impasse. A temporary impasse,” he corrected.

“How so?”

“Molly refuses to admit she’s there.”

“She’s there. I saw her.”

“I know that,” Daniel said. “I spotted her, too. But it’s as if the two of them have a sixth sense about when I’m going to walk through the door and, poof, Kendra vanishes out the back.”

“Any idea why Molly’s lying to you?”

“Because she thinks she’s helping Kendra. She’s not giving her up until she knows what’s going on back at the girl’s home. Have you made any progress on that front?”

“I’ve poked around the neighborhood and Kendra’s school,” Joe said. “From everything I’ve seen and heard, they’re a model family. Mom’s a chemist. Dad’s a brilliant physicist. Everybody’s squeaky clean, as near as I can tell. The kid’s some sort of genius. She’s skipped a few grades.”

“Which is probably why she’s been able to run circles around everyone who’s been looking for her,” Daniel concluded, then added, “with a little help from Molly, who’s no slouch when it comes to making up her own rules.”

Joe studied him quizzically. “What’s that about?”

“What?”

“That edge in your voice when you mention Molly? I heard it the other day, too.”

“Ancient history,” Daniel said, trying to make light of it.

Even so, Joe reacted with dismay. “Why the hell didn’t you say something about having a relationship with Molly when I asked you to go over there? I thought you were just reacting to the fact that the kid was serving chowder in a bar.”

“What would have been the point?” Daniel asked with a shrug “You needed someone to go to Widow’s Cove and check things out. That’s my job. Besides, whatever there was between Molly and me ended a long time ago.” Or at least it had, he acknowledged, silently, if you didn’t count his reaction to seeing her again.

Joe shook his head. “There are other people in the department.”

“But you came to me because Widow’s Cove is my turf. Come on, Joe, we’ve got more important things to worry about than my history with Molly Creighton. Are you ready to pick up Kendra?”

“I’ve been thinking about it,” Joe said. “That’s what I ought to do. I ought to call her folks and say I’ve located their daughter and bring on the happy ending.”

Daniel frowned, sensing the unspoken hesitation. “But you’re not going to do that, are you?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Gut instinct. Good kids—smart kids—don’t take off from perfect parents just for the thrill of it. I want to know what’s going on. It’s got to be about more than them not letting her wear lipstick or go out on a date with some boy they disapprove of.”

“The department could have your badge for not acting on this sooner.”

“It’s not my case. And I haven’t actually seen Kendra Morrow close enough to ID her beyond a reasonable doubt,” Joe said. “Have you?”

“No,” Daniel admitted. “But we both know it’s her.”

“Do we really?” Joe pressed.

“Come on, Joe, we’re breaking every rule in the book by not reuniting that kid with her family. You know that. Have you even spoken to the investigating officer and told him you think you’ve located her?”

“I’ve told him. He’s willing to let me do some more digging.” Joe leaned forward, his expression intense. “What’s the goal here? Yours and mine? It’s to keep the kid safe, right? She’s not on the streets. She’s with Molly. She’s safe. We don’t know that she would be if we sent her home. I want to know that, in my gut, before I shake things up over in Widow’s Cove. I’m going to see the parents, see what my gut tells me about them. You keep trying to get close to the kid. Go around or through Molly, if you have to. Just see her.”

Daniel chuckled. “You must not know Molly all that well if you think anybody goes ‘around’ or ‘through’ her. That doesn’t happen unless she wants it to.”

“Want to switch roles? You can go talk to the parents, and I’ll work on Molly.”

“No way,” Daniel said quickly. Too quickly.

Joe gave him a knowing grin. “Didn’t think so. Guess that history’s not so ancient, after all.”

“Go to hell.”

“If I’m wrong about this and everything’s peachy keen with the Morrows, I probably will,” Joe said. “But every time I think I might be wrong, I take another look at that picture. That is one unhappy kid. Could be nothing more than hormones and teen angst, but I won’t rest until I know for sure.”

Daniel trusted Joe’s instincts almost as much as he trusted his own. “Then let’s get to work,” he said, rising to his feet, his own half of the tuna sandwich still untouched. He could always eat at Jess’s.

Joe grabbed the sandwich as they headed for the door. “No need to let this go to waste,” he explained.

“You’re gonna owe me lunch when this case is over,” Daniel said.

“Chowder at Jess’s?” Joe suggested slyly.

Daniel shook his head. “I’m thinking a good steak at the fanciest restaurant here in town.”

“Boy, you do have it bad for Molly, don’t you?”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“I’m never wrong about these things,” Joe insisted.

“You’re a forty-year-old bachelor, for heaven’s sake.”

Joe laughed. “How do you think I’ve stayed that way? Great instincts.”

“Well, you’re wrong about this,” Daniel said defensively. “There’s nothing between Molly and me. Not anymore.”

“Never said there was. I said you had it bad. I’d have to spend a little time around the two of you together to say how she feels.”

“Trust me, she’s not interested in rekindling an old flame.”

And much as he hated himself for giving a damn, the truth of that still stuck in Daniel’s craw.

* * *

Daniel was about to drive Molly right over the edge. He’d been appearing at the bar more regularly than customers who’d been coming in for years. Midmorning, lunchtime, dinnertime...she never knew when she was going to look up and see him sauntering through the door with that grim, determined expression on his handsome face.

He’d been at it for a solid week now, and she was about to scream from the effort of being polite when what she actually wanted to do was throw a mug of beer in his smug face. At this very moment, he was sitting at the bar toying with the same soda he’d been pretending to drink for the past hour. He wouldn’t even touch a real drink.

Molly braced herself and walked behind the bar. “Are you planning to move in? Given the amount of time you’re spending in here, I should charge you rent, since the cost of that soda hardly compensates for the space you’re occupying.”

He leveled a look straight into her eyes. “You could get rid of me easily enough.”

“Oh?”

“All you have to do is produce Kendra Morrow and let me talk to her.”

“Give it a rest, Daniel,” she said, grateful that she’d sent Kendra off for the day with Retta’s daughter. Leslie Sue had taken a liking to the girl, and Kendra enjoyed spending time helping her out baby-sitting several neighborhood children, especially since it meant avoiding Daniel’s impromptu visits to the bar.

“I can’t give it a rest,” he told her.

“Why not?” Molly asked plaintively. Lying to him was beginning to get to her. Honesty and trust were big issues to her, and Daniel knew it. She was violating her own sense of decency, and it didn’t matter that Daniel didn’t deserve any better from her.

“Because she’s thirteen years old, Molly. She has a family.”

“How much of a family could they be if she felt the need to run away from them?” She very nearly blurted what Kendra had told her, that her parents intended to send her away. Molly hadn’t been able to get the girl to say any more than that, but it was just the kind of thing that might make Daniel leap to Kendra’s defense. After all, who knew more about the anguish of kids being sent away by their parents?

He met her gaze evenly. “Kids make some stupid decisions in the heat of the moment. This one could wind up with her getting hurt.”

“That won’t happen,” Molly said, eyes blazing.

“Because she has you to protect her?” he asked quietly.

Too late, she saw the trap. So far she’d managed to avoid admitting that she’d ever seen Kendra, much less that she’d provided her with a safe haven. She’d kept their conversations about Kendra purely hypothetical, or at least she thought she had. All the lying was getting to be more and more complicated.

She tried to dance around any admission. “Because she’s obviously a smart kid.”

“How do you know that?” he pressed.

“She must be, if she’s eluded you and Joe Sutton for all this time.”

He gave her a wry look. “She’s had help doing that, though, hasn’t she?”

Molly refused to look away. “I certainly hope so. All children should have someone willing to offer a helping hand when they need it.”

“You’ll get no argument from me on that score. Usually that’s what I am, a helping hand. I could be that for Kendra, if you’d stop standing in the way.”

He said it as if there wasn’t a doubt about Kendra being there, so apparently Molly wasn’t half the liar she’d tried to be. Given the number of opportunities she’d had lately to practice, she was bound to be better before this mess was cleared up.

“I have a legal right and the experience to look out for her,” Daniel added. “You have nothing. In fact, quite the opposite. You’re interfering in a police matter.”

Molly felt her temper kick in at his reasonable tone and at the suggestion that he could be relied on to be anyone’s help in a crisis. “I know all about your kind of help,” she snapped. “Believe me, wherever she is and whoever she’s with, she’s better off on her own.”

Daniel actually winced at the cutting words. Molly hadn’t thought he could ever be wounded by anything she said, but it was apparent that he was. Not that she was going to take back her words or apologize for speaking the truth.

“I’m sorry you believe that,” he said quietly. “I won’t hurt her, Molly, and I never meant to hurt you. I was trying to protect you.”

“Is that what you call turning your back on your own baby and on the woman you claimed to love? Protection?” She could hear her voice climbing, so she turned aside before he could see the tears she was trying desperately to blink away.

She heard him move and thanked heaven that he had the sensitivity for once to go and leave her in peace. But before she could even finish the thought, she felt his hand on her shoulder, gentle, comforting.

“Molly, I’m sorry,” he said, his voice thick with emotion.

When she finally risked looking at him, there was so much torment, so much emotion, in his eyes that it nearly stole her breath.

“I really am sorry,” Daniel said, brushing awkwardly at the tear that slid down her cheek. He’d never been able to bear making her cry. “What I did was stupid and careless, but I honestly believed I was doing the right thing. I had no idea how it would turn out.”

She sniffed. “It could hardly have had a happy ending now, could it?”

“No, but I never thought you’d lose the baby. I never wanted that.” His hand cupped her chin. “Believe me. A part of me would have given anything for you to have my child, even if it meant watching him or her grow up from a distance. You would have been a wonderful mother.”

Because she so desperately wanted to believe him, because a part of her wanted to block out the past and live in the moment, Molly brushed away his hand. “I can’t talk about this anymore. Go away, Daniel. If you ever cared anything at all for me, stay away.”

“I can’t do that,” he said, a hint of regret in his voice.

“Because of Kendra,” she concluded, resigned.

He shook his head. “Not entirely. Because of you, too. I don’t want things between us to end like this.”

She almost smiled at that. “Like this? Daniel, they ended years ago. This? This is a piece of cake compared to the way they ended then.”

“Maybe they should never have ended at all.”

She stared at him as if he’d started spouting French or some other incomprehensible language. “You can’t mean that.”

He looked uncomfortable, as if he regretted saying it, but he wasn’t taking it back. She waited and waited, but he let the words hang in the air.

Maybe they should never have ended at all.

What was he thinking? Was he crazy? He was the one who’d ended it. He was the one who’d been so insistent that she and their baby would be better off without him. And now, when it was too late to matter, he was saying he’d gotten it all wrong?

She gazed into his dark blue eyes and looked for the man she’d once loved, but she couldn’t find him. Didn’t want to find him. Not at this late date. It would make what had happened such a waste, even more tragic than it had been.

“Leave, please,” she all but begged. “Just for tonight, go.”

He lifted his hand, almost reached for her, then dropped it back to his side. “Good night, Molly.”

“Goodbye, Daniel.”

His lips curved slightly as he noted the hopeful distinction she’d made. “Not goodbye,” he said.

After he’d gone, she sank onto a stool at the bar and rested her head on her arms. How was she supposed to get through day after day of having him around, deliberately goading her, trying to get under her skin, reminding her of what had once been between them?

There was only one sure way to get rid of him. She would have to turn over Kendra. But that was not an option. Molly had made a promise and she intended to keep it, even if she lost her own sanity in the process.

She lifted her head as Kendra quietly slipped onto the stool next to her. Her dark eyes studied Molly intently.

Molly sighed. “I thought you were with Leslie Sue.”

“I was, but it’s late. I came back. Seems to me like I got here just in the nick of time.”

“Why would you say that?”

“The guy was getting to you.”

Molly frowned at her, refusing to admit what was obvious not only to her, but apparently even to a thirteen-year-old. “Daniel can’t get to me,” she insisted.

“Yeah, right,” Kendra said, then fell silent.

The silence stretched out for what seemed like an eternity before Kendra said, “Tell me about this Daniel Devaney.”

Molly knew what she was really asking, but she said only, “He’s a child advocate for the state. That’s all you need to know.”

“He’s not hanging around here just because of me,” Kendra said with confidence. “He’s got the hots for you. And it goes both ways, doesn’t it?”

“Don’t be ridiculous!”

“Not that I’m any expert,” Kendra said, ignoring her denial, “but it sure looked that way to me. You get all flushed when he’s around. And I saw that picture you were holding in your room the other night. It was him, wasn’t it? He’s the guy who hurt you, the one you never talked things out with.”

“That doesn’t matter.”

“Sure it does,” Kendra insisted. “If you two had a thing once, it’s no wonder he gets you all worked up.”

“He gets me worked up because he makes me furious,” Molly retorted. “He thinks he knows everything. Have you forgotten that he’s looking for you? He wants to send you home.”