Anytime Darlin' (26 page)

“If I see an all-night truck stop,” replied Jake. “We can get something to eat too. Have you eaten since lunch?”

“Was that today?” asked Devlin with a wry grin. “I don’t remember.”

Jake glanced at her. “Yeah, me neither.”

Devlin fiddled with her purse strap for a moment. “So how did you know?”

“What happened, you mean?”

“Yes. What happened.”

“Janice came down with a guilty conscience. After you took off, she came to look for me. She told me what she said to you.”

Devlin turned the diamond on her finger. “It was the ring.”

“The ring,” Dev replied. “She saw the ring. I think that’s what set her off. The first thing she said to me, before I had a chance to look up at her, was, ‘Nice ring.’”

Jake was silent.

Devlin stared out the window at the road. “Who’s Trevor’s father?”

“I have no idea,” said Jake. “I only know it’s not me.”

“Did you sleep with her after I left?” Dev asked. “Because if you did, I would understand.”

Jake snorted and rolled his eyes at her. “You might understand, but I wouldn’t. No, I didn’t sleep with her.”

“Then why…” Dev couldn’t finish the question.

Jake sighed. “When you left without a word, I ended up at a bar. Mike’s partner, Ed, found me there, passed out on the pool table, or so I understand. He called Mike, and they took me home, alone, and left me at my door. In the morning, I woke up with a nasty hangover. When I sat up, I saw Janice laying there, in my bed. She claimed we’d slept together, but it was obvious to me we hadn’t. I threw her out of my apartment.”

“How did you know for sure? That you didn’t sleep with her, I mean.”

Jake looked pointedly at her. “I would know.” Then he added, “Just to be on the safe side, I insisted on a blood test after her baby was born. According to the test results, there’s no way he could be mine. If there was even the slightest possibility, I would have sued her for custody. I’d never let Janice raise my kid.”

“You should have told me.”

“I thought about it,” replied Jake, “but I couldn’t bring myself to say anything.”

“Why?” she asked.

Jake drove in silence for a moment. Then he said, “Because, I felt so…so…”

“Used?” Devlin finished for him.

“Yes,” he answered, grimacing, “used.”

Devlin laid a hand on his arm. She understood his feelings very well. Jake turned toward her. She saw that his mouth was set in a tight line.

“Jake,” began Devlin, “you’re the same man you were before it happened. No one will blame you.” She paused. “Did you blame me? For what my uncle did to me?”

“Of course not.”

“There’s your answer,” she said. “That day in the hospital, I was able to tell the police what he did because I knew you believed none of it was my fault. I could only tell the story if you were there. I knew you blamed him, not me. Until I met you, I blamed myself.”

“Why would you blame yourself?” Jake asked, appalled.

Devlin considered her answer. “I blamed myself for being weak. I wasn’t able to stop him from beating my aunt. I wasn’t able to prevent him from forcing himself on me, from raping me. And I got sick, so I couldn’t kill him like I planned. If I had killed him, my aunt would be alive. Not a single day goes by that I don’t think about it. About what could have been.”

Jake reached over and took her hand.

“But if I’d succeeded,” she added, “I would never have known you.”

Jake gave her hand a comforting squeeze. Devlin saw that his mouth had relaxed.

“Do you remember the afternoon I ran out of the courthouse? I told you that I felt like a tree falling in the forest, and I wondered if I made a sound?” she asked him.

“Do I make a sound, Jake?”

“Yes, Dev, you definitely make a sound.” Jake laughed. “Especially when you’re coming.”

Devlin squealed and punched him in the arm. “You are one bad man, Jake McKenna.”

“So I’ve been told on several occasions by a skinny redhead,” he said with a wolfish grin.

“I’m not skinny,” grumbled Devlin. “I’m slender.”

“There’s a truck stop at the next exit,” said Jake. He reached beneath Devlin, pinching her bottom. “What do you say we put some meat on your slender bones then?”

“Just for that, I may not eat,” she chided him.

“Oh, you’ll eat,” he teased, wiggling his fingers beneath her. “You need to build up your strength. I’ve got plans for tonight.”

Devlin secured a booth while Jake headed straight for the pay phone in the corner.

“What the hell are you trying to do?” yelled Ken when he realized it was Jake. “Kill my wife and baby? Mary’s been hysterical for forty-five minutes. She was ready to call the sheriff’s department out there!”

“Sorry,” said Jake. “I’m really sorry. I spotted Devlin in the airport, and I couldn’t let her get away. This is the first chance I’ve had to call back.”

“How is she?” asked Ken, his voice calmer.

“She’s fine. Everything’s okay. Tell Mary. Let her know we’ll call her tomorrow.”

“Where are you staying?”

“We’re on our way to Devlin’s house now. We just stopped to call you and get something to eat.”

“Sorry, man, I didn’t mean to lose it,” Ken apologized. “But this has been really hard on Mary, and I don’t want anything to go wrong with the pregnancy.”

“No apology necessary. I know exactly how you feel. Give Mary my love, and tell her Devlin’s fine. Kiss Katie for me.” Jake added, “Would you mind giving Mike and Beth a call?”

“Yeah, I will. Listen, I’m really glad you found her. No more drama, okay?”

“I’ll do my best,” said Jake. “Hey man, we’re talking about Devlin here.”

Ken laughed into the phone as he hung up.

By the time Jake made a visit to the men’s room and returned to the table, Devlin had already ordered a large fruit plate, a double cheeseburger with fries, a grilled cheese sandwich on whole wheat, and two extra-thick chocolate milkshakes. The fruit plate arrived first. Dev apologized as she inhaled the strawberries and cantaloupe. Jake didn’t care. He was happy to see her eat. He took some grapes and berries and left the rest for her. She skipped the fries this time but ate everything else, downing her milkshake, and asking him if he’d split a piece of peach pie with her. He agreed readily.

Devlin with an appetite was encouraging. It told Jake she felt secure with him. She’d always had an edge to her, more so when she was under stress. It was something Jake appreciated. He found her energy attractive. But in the past, he’d seen her nearly starve herself. When she was under stress, food was the farthest thing from her mind. He was reassured by the fact that, despite the events of the day, she ate.

Devlin leaned back against the plastic bench. “God, that tasted good,” she said, stretching her arms above her head and arching her back.

Jake looked at her nipples pressed against her thin tee shirt and grinned.

Devlin noticed his look. “Do you ever
not
think about sex?” she asked with a matching grin.

“I’m a man.” He shrugged. “So the answer is no. I never
not
think about sex with you.”

Devlin laughed softly. “Good answer.”

“Ready to go?”

“After a quick trip to the ladies room.”

Jake paid the bill and was leaning against the counter when she returned. Climbing back into the car, Devlin told him which exit to take and instructed him to wake her up when he got off the freeway. Then she made herself as comfortable as possible and promptly fell asleep. Jake shook his head. It amazed him how quickly she could fall asleep, even in cramped quarters. Then he remembered her mentioning that she usually slept lightly, or at least she had since William Franz. From now on, she would sleep securely. He would make certain of it.

William Franz sat in the local tavern nursing his third beer. He’d been by Devlin’s house earlier in the evening. She wasn’t there. Again. He’d parked his compact car out of sight on a dirt path and walked through the rows of corn, taking care to keep his head down. It wasn’t difficult to approach her place. Her closest neighbor, a bachelor farmer, he’d learned, lived over a mile away as the crow flies. From his hiding place, Bill had watched him surreptitiously for the past three days. He saw him pick up her mail, check the padlock on the barn, and inevitably lock her back door as he left.

Where the hell was the little bitch? He couldn’t hang around town too much longer without arousing suspicion. And who knew when Ben Matheson would report his credit card missing? That was the fortunate thing about doctors. They didn’t have time to pay attention to domestic details like missing credit cards.

So far Franz had been lucky. He’d managed to pick through a few wallets in the surgical locker room. He was surprised at how easy it was. There was no security. All he needed was a pair of discarded scrubs. Most of the doctors didn’t even lock up. He’d tried a couple of the cards at fleabag motels in Denver before he left, and they’d already been cancelled.

Not Matheson’s. He was an arrogant son of a bitch. Probably hadn’t reported his driver’s license missing either. The asshole never did pay much attention to what went on right under his nose. Stealing Matheson’s credit card was just for fun. He wished he could run up more charges on it, but he didn’t want to take the risk. He took the other credit cards to keep it from looking like Matheson had been specifically targeted. He didn’t need them. It was the driver’s license he needed.

Franz needed Matheson’s driver’s license doctored with a phony picture so he could visit Bitsy. Sometime over the past four years, he’d lost his copy of the key to the safe deposit box. He needed hers.

He had to give Bitsy credit. She was one devious bitch. She’d hidden the key in plain sight, wrapping it in cellophane and taping it with duct tape to the bottom of her mailbox. He went by in the middle of the night and it was still there. Thanks to her, he’d left the country four and a half years ago with two hundred and fifty thousand dollars stashed in a bank in Hong Kong. She hid another two hundred and fifty thousand in large bills in a safe deposit box at FirstBank in Colorado Springs. They’d taken it out under the names of Rebecca and Ben Matheson, as an insurance policy. She’d paid for five years up front and asked for two keys. She told the clerk she was going abroad, to Switzerland. Of course, Franz laughed to himself, Bitsy always believed the money was for the two of them. As if he’d be seen anywhere with that old bat.

He had to return to the States to get it. There was no way Bitsy could pay a bill for a safety deposit box from a prison cell, and he couldn’t take the risk that someone would open up that box and get his money. Besides, he wanted the passport she had left in there. When Bitsy had rented the box, she brought him her husband’s birth certificate and Social Security card, and he’d managed to apply for a passport in Ben Matheson’s name, using Bitsy’s home address. Unfortunately, he had to leave the country before he could get it. He left a copy of his own passport in a brothel in Bangkok when he decided to come back to the States, just to throw the authorities off the track.

The bartender stopped by. “Can I get you anything?”

Franz winked at her, shaking his head. Margie had a horse face, nice body, though, and she became a fount of information once he got her in the sack. Bartenders, especially those in small towns, knew everything about everybody in their community. Even more so when they were single, female, and lonely. All it took was a few minutes between her legs and a steak dinner to get the information flowing.

Franz told her he was working with the college, claiming he was a consultant from a firm in Chicago. He even dropped the name. He said he’d been called in to help out with the endowment. He could talk the talk, easy as pie. She was plenty impressed. Besides, he’d cleaned up in Denver before he left. A neat haircut, new clothes, a nice rental car with Illinois plates from a small agency in the Quad Cities.

He still had it where the ladies were concerned. In his early fifties, Franz was leaner than he’d been four years ago, harder, tougher, with an air of danger that women seemed attracted to. The past four years hadn’t been a complete waste of time. He had a nice setup in Thailand. All the young girls money could buy. But he had some unfinished business here. Devlin Barre. Not a day passed in over four years that he didn’t think of her and how she’d fucked up his life. If it wasn’t for her, he’d be home free, living the high life. He wouldn’t be on the run looking over his shoulder all the time. Without Devlin, the stupid cops never would have figured out that he had a hand in the accident. And it was Devlin’s fault he had to shoot Carolyn when he did.

Devlin was a monkey wrench thrown into the works, but by the time Carolyn had wheeled her into the house in Denver, he had it all planned out. He figured she wouldn’t be any more of a challenge than Carolyn was. All he had to do was show her who was boss, threaten her and threaten her aunt, and she’d cave quickly enough. Once she turned eighteen, she’d sign the money and property over to him, and then she’d vanish without a trace. He and Carolyn wouldn’t even bother to file a missing person’s report. After all, who was left to care? With his assistance, Carolyn might attempt suicide again, only this time he wouldn’t be home to call 911 for her.

Margie came by, and Bill ordered another beer. He eyed her ass as she turned away. He’d work off some steam with her tonight, as long as he didn’t have to look at that face. He could do it from behind.

Damn, he should have killed Devlin that night. He almost had. Who would have believed that skinny bitch had the balls to interfere with anything he did? Let alone stab him in the leg with a steak knife? When he’d left Carolyn sprawled on the kitchen floor and dragged Devlin down the basement steps, he was half out of his head. He was determined to show Devlin who was boss, but she was so fucking tight he couldn’t get in. He’d changed his tactics and shoved his dick in her mouth. He’d banged against the back of her throat until she begun to gag and retch and he’d realized he might suffocate her. Then there was no way he’d get the money. So he’d spread her wide and viciously rammed himself inside her. He didn’t care how much she screamed or how much she bled. He’d wanted to break her so she’d never cross him again. And if he had to show her over and over until he got his money? He was happy to oblige.