Dangerous (23 page)

“I heard,” she said.

“Excuse me?”

“Plasma rifles, sniper rifles, grenades…”

“Sorry,” he said as he sipped coffee.

She laughed. “Don’t feel guilty. When I have days off, I do the same thing. I wasn’t really sleepy, either,” she confessed, avoiding his suddenly amused glance, “but I finally drifted off myself. Matt slept like a rock.”

“I always sleep like a rock,” Matt said with a grin.

Kilraven didn’t reply. He slept fitfully, and it was rare even now that he spent an entire night asleep. The past haunted him.

Winnie saw the pain in his face that he couldn’t quite hide, and she felt a stab of conscience that she couldn’t be the person he wanted her to be. She couldn’t spend a night in his arms and go on with her life, she thought miserably, even if he could.

He sipped coffee, ignoring the food.

“Aren’t you hungry?” Matt asked. “These biscuits are really good.”

Kilraven glanced at him, frowning, then at the platters of food. “Good Lord,” he exclaimed, looking at Winnie. “You made biscuits?”

She nodded. “I can do all sorts of breads.”

He reached for one, pulled it apart, buttered it and put on strawberry jam. He bit into it and his eyes closed. He almost groaned. “I haven’t had a homemade biscuit since I was a kid,” he confessed, smiling. “We had this cook, Laredo, who could do almost anything with flour, even cakes. He made the most delicious biscuits, but these are even better.”

Winnie smiled. “Thanks.”

He reached for the platters of bacon and eggs. “I’m not used to a hot breakfast, but I’ll bet I could adapt, if I tried.”

Matt chuckled as he reached for another biscuit. “Me, too. Homicide detectives don’t have time to do a lot of cooking.”

“Neither do Feds,” he pointed out.

“Or 911 operators.” Winnie raised her hand.

“This lady at dispatch saved Mom’s life last year,” Matt related. “She went to interview a witness in a homicide and he turned out to be the perp. Mom managed to hit 911 on her cell phone, inside her coat while the guy was threatening her with a gun.” He grinned. “She had two squad cars in less than two minutes, believe it or not, with sirens and lights going full tilt. While they were diverting the suspect, Mom disarmed the perp, knocked his legs out from under him and cuffed him, all this before the uniformed officers even got to the door!”

“Wow,” Winnie said, impressed.

“The dispatcher knew Mom,” Matt continued, “and she found two squad cars in the vicinity on her computer and sent them.”

“Quick thinking,” Kilraven said. He grinned at Winnie. “Your sister saved my butt in a similar manner.”

“You did?” Matt asked, waiting to be told how.

Winnie shrugged. “I just had a hunch that he needed backup.”

“Yes, and sent it before I was able to call and ask for it,” he added pointedly.

“Mom knows stuff before it happens, too,” Matt said. “She was at the hospital when they brought me in, after her ex-husband tried to kill me.” His face was somber. “She said she knew. She saw it, in her mind. It’s sort of scary, sometimes.”

“Yes, it is,” Winnie confessed. “I see things that I wish I couldn’t see.”

“Well, I’m glad you saw that I needed help,” Kilraven informed her, “or we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

She grinned at him. He grinned back.

H
E FINISHED BREAKFAST
and pulled out his cell phone. “I’ve got to call my brother and find out if there’s any new intel on the case.”

He moved into the next room. The phone rang and Joceline Perry answered it.

“Hi, Perry,” he said, using her last name, as he always did. “Is the boss in?”

“I understand that he doesn’t do many concerts these days,” she cracked, referring to the real “Boss,” Bruce Springsteen.

“Funny girl,” he muttered.

“And that was a movie with Barbra Streisand,” she said with mock excitement.

“Give me my brother or I’ll come down there and anoint you with India ink.”

“Terroristic threats and acts!” she exclaimed.

“Joceline…!”

“That’s more like it,” she told him.

There was a click. “Blackhawk,” Jon’s voice came over the line.

“Can you do something for me?” Kilraven asked.

“Sure. What do you want?”

“Go out into the waiting room, find something wet and dump it over Joceline’s head.”

“Let me check the deductible on my medical insurance first,” Jon mused. “What do you want? Advice on how to manage the ‘little blond chain saw’ or how to calm Cammy down?” he added with a chuckle.

“Cammy’s been talking to you,” he replied.

“Not talking so much as shouting,” Jon replied complacently. “I’d just turned my cell phone on when I got back from New York and walked into my apartment, and it was already ringing. I gather that Cammy’s sense of superiority was temporarily displaced by feelings of inadequacy.” He chuckled. “I have to meet Winnie. She must be a firecracker.”

“Actually, she’s not,” Kilraven replied pensively. “She’s shy and quiet around people she doesn’t know. But Cammy was pretty overbearing, especially when I mentioned that Winnie was a 911 operator. I’m sure she knew that Boone Sinclair was recently on the cover of the nation’s top cattle magazine because we all subscribe, but she didn’t connect Winnie with him until I put the magazine in her hand.” He chuckled. “She does now.”

Jon chuckled, too. “I’ve never known my mother to be at such a disadvantage with anybody.”

“Me, either,” Kilraven replied. “But let me give you some advice, if you ever get engaged, make sure she wears body armor. If Cammy’s that bad about me, just imagine how she’ll be about you.”

“No worries there. I’ve got too much work on my desk to be thinking about women. Plus Giles Lamont is due for parole soon,” he added darkly.

Kilraven felt uncomfortable at the mention of the man’s name. Jon was the arresting officer in a federal case that had put Lamont, a gambler with underworld ties, behind bars for five years. He’d sworn that he’d kill Jon if he ever got out of prison, even if it meant going back in stir forever, or getting the needle. “You could go to the parole board,” Kilraven began.

“And do what?” Jon asked curtly. “Do you know how many death threats I get a week? He’s just one more. Like they’re going to keep a man in prison just because he threatened a federal officer!”

“Terroristic threats and acts,” Kilraven began.

“Without witnesses,” Jon replied.

Kilraven cursed under his breath. “Listen, you watch your back. You’re the only brother I’ve got.”

“Thanks, I’m fond of you, too,” Jon quipped. “On a more cheerful note, guess who just bought a first-class plane ticket to Nassau?”

Kilraven’s heart skipped. “Senator Sanders’s wife?” he asked hopefully.

“The same. She’s leaving tonight.”

“Then we’re leaving first thing tomorrow,” Kilraven told him. “Keep me in the loop if you hear anything else, okay?”

“Will do. Have a nice trip, and don’t seduce Winnie.”

“What?”

“If she stood up to Cammy, your opinion must be important to her,” came the quiet reply. “Don’t break her heart trying to solve the case.”

Kilraven felt his temper bristling. “My daughter was murdered,” he reminded Jon. “I’ll do anything, hurt anybody, whatever it takes to find her killer. I can’t help it. She was my whole life,” he gritted.

Jon drew in a long breath. “I know how much you loved Melly,” he said gently. “I’m working as hard as I can on the case. But you just remember that several people are already dead because they knew too much, and the people responsible have assaulted two police detectives assigned to the case. Get my drift?”

“I’ll watch my back,” Kilraven promised. “Keep digging. If we can get anything on Hank Sanders, anything that connects him to the DB in Jacobsville or the assaults, we can hang him out to dry. Then we have a way to bargain with him.”

“Bargain with a killer?”

“I’m not convinced that he is one,” Kilraven said suddenly. “It doesn’t sound like a decorated navy SEAL, does it? His big brother likes young girls and he has enough money to buy and sell them. I can’t get that fourteen-year-old girl he drugged out of my mind. Rogers is going to try to find her and talk to her when she gets out of the hospital. If we can get her to talk to an assistant D.A., maybe she’ll implicate the senator. He might plead to lesser charges and confess something.”

“You’re assuming that the Sanders boys were responsible for Melly,” Jon said quietly. “You have no evidence, not a shred, to base that assumption on. Just because one man operates outside the law, it doesn’t mean he kills people.”

“I know that.”

“So walk softly,” Jon continued.

“I will.”

“Sure you will, wearing steel-toed combat boots with spikes.” Jon sighed. “Remember when we were on the FBI Hostage Rescue Team together?” he added, smiling at the memory.

“I do,” Kilraven said. “Those were good days, while they lasted.”

“You jumped in and got shot, thumbing your nose at proper procedure,” Jon reminded him. “That’s why they threw you out.”

“Well, the CIA caught me when the FBI tossed me,” Kilraven mused. “They like people who think outside boxes.”

“Just don’t do any more jumping. Okay?”

“Hey, if I lose it all, I can go back to the ranch and be a cowboy,” Kilraven said. “Or move to Jacobsville and work for Cash Grier.”

“You’d never fit in a small town or on a ranch,” Jon said quietly. “You live for the adrenaline rush.”

“It’s the only thing that keeps me sane,” Kilraven said heavily. “I don’t need a lot of time to sit around and think.”

“That’s why we have video games,” Jon replied. “I’ve got a new one for Xbox 360,
Dragon Age Origins
and I just signed up for
World of Warcraft
on the PC.”

“I’m still working my way through
Halo: ODST,
” came the amused reply. “In fact, I was up until daylight playing it.”

“Gamers are not sane.”

“Speak for yourself.” Kilraven chuckled.

“You take care,” Jon told him. “And if you need help, call me.”

“Hey, I’m taking my own personal dispatch person along with me,” Kilraven replied. “If I need help, she can get it for me immediately!”

Jon chuckled, said goodbye and hung up.

Joceline stuck her head in the door. “I’m going to lunch,” she said. “Would you like a sandwich?”

Wary of her, because she never offered to bring him food, his eyes narrowed as he stared her way. “Would I like…?”

She nodded. “They make great ones at Chuck’s, near the airport road. But if you’re going, you should go now, it gets crowded early,” she told him, grinned and closed the door again.

He threw a book at the door.

“I saw that!” she called back, and kept walking.

K
ILRAVEN WALKED BACK
into the kitchen. “I’ve just booked us on a flight to the Bahamas, first thing in the morning,” he told Winnie, who looked stunned. He glanced at Matt. “Sorry, sport, but you’ll have to go back to the ranch for a while.”

“That’s okay,” Matt said. “Boone’s going to teach me how to ride a horse!”

Winnie grinned. “You couldn’t be in better hands,” she assured him. “I’ll miss you.”

“You could take me along,” Matt told her, grinning.

“Oh, sure, we’re pretending to be on a honeymoon with my kid brother tagging along. I’m sure everyone would believe that,” Winnie mused.

“Just kidding,” Matt said. He shook his head. “Life’s funny, isn’t it? A few days ago it was just Mom and me. She got shot and now I have a whole family.” He looked at Winnie affectionately. “It’s nice.”

She smiled. “Very nice.”

Kilraven glanced at his watch. “If we’re going to see your mother, we need to leave pretty soon. We’ll have to have time to get the future
Halo
champ moved.”

“Me?” Matt asked. “I’ve only gotten past the first level.”

“In one day,” Kilraven said with mock disgust. “Took me three.”

“Wow!” Matt enthused.

“Let’s go,” Kilraven told his companions.

“But the dishes,” Winnie began, nodding toward them, stacked in the sink.

“The dishes can wait,” he said. He wasn’t rude, but he said it with an odd note in his voice, as if he didn’t like having her work around his apartment.

She held up both hands. “Okay. It’s your apartment,” she said, and managed a smile. “I’ll just grab my purse and my coat. Matt, can you get yours…?”

“Sure.” He buzzed off toward the spare bedroom.

K
ILRAVEN WAS SOMBER
all the way to the hospital. He smiled at Matt and talked video games with him, but there was a sudden coolness in his manner toward Winnie. She couldn’t help but notice it. She wondered if she’d offended him by making breakfast.

They found Gail sitting up in bed, but less animated than she had been.

“Third day,” Kilraven said, nodding. “It’s always the worst one.”

“I’m finding that out,” Gail replied after she’d hugged Matt and her daughter lightly. She was favoring the arm on the side where she’d been shot. “It hurts like hell and I’m running a temp. The doctor is gloating. I tried to make him let me go home yesterday, and he wouldn’t. Now I see why. It would be all right if he wasn’t so damned smug about it,” she muttered.

Kilraven chuckled. It was the first hint of humor in him since they’d left the apartment. “He was the same way with Marquez,” he told her. “But he might have a case on you. He’s divorced.”

“He’s years too old for me,” Gail said haughtily.

Kilraven lifted both eyebrows. “He’s a year older than you are.”

“Exactly,” Gail said.

Winnie burst out laughing.

Gail’s eyes twinkled at her. But she was feverish and subdued because of the pain.

They didn’t stay long. Winnie and Matt didn’t want to tire their mother. Winnie made sure she had Boone’s cell phone number.

“Yes,” Gail said softly. “He and Clark and Keely came to see me last night. I didn’t realize how much Clark and Matt favor each other.”

“Boone was probably reserved, wasn’t he?” Winnie asked, nodding when her mother looked surprised at the comment. “He’s always like that until he gets to know you. It’s been a long time.”