Roan (32 page)

Hard on the words, he took to his heels, disappearing around the house with Beau after him. A moment later, Tory heard a car start and roar away into the night. Beau continued to bark for a few minutes longer, then he came trotting back to her for approval.

Tory crooned to the big bloodhound and scratched behind his ears, soothing him and herself as she smoothed
out his ruff. At the same time, her thoughts raced like an overheated engine.

She couldn't stay at Dog Trot, not any longer. Her presence would bring a media feeding frenzy. She was a liability to Roan; everything he'd done for her, or tried to do, would be dragged in the dirt. He'd be held up to ridicule, or worse, accused of all the ugliness inventive minds could conceive. When it was over, he'd be notorious, him and his sleepy, peaceful little town. And the backlash against him would probably drive him out of office.

She couldn't do that to him, couldn't let it happen to his family that she held in affection and respect. They didn't deserve it, any of them.

And Roan didn't deserve to have his life endangered because of her, either. She couldn't stand it if anything happened to him, or to Jake or Pop if they got in the way. The problems she had with Harrell were hers to solve. It was time she faced them. It was time she went home.

The strange thing was, she was ready. She'd changed over the last few weeks, had become more her own person. She knew what she wanted out of life, had decided, finally, what was important to her. She was ready to stop drifting, stop letting other people make decisions for her. She was ready to stop running away.

Except, of course, for this one last time.

She knew where the tool that unlocked the monitor was located since Roan had returned it to where it was before. She knew, of course, where the keys to the Super Bird were kept. She knew the way back to Sanibel.

The only thing she didn't know was if she'd ever see Turn-Coupe again.

Or the man who was the sheriff of Tunica Parish.

T
ory was gone.

No lights burned in the house when Roan and the others pulled up on the drive. The back door was locked. Beau met them just inside, whining and dancing around them as if disturbed and with the skin between his eyes folded into wrinkles. Roan flipped on the kitchen light at the same moment that he noticed the broken glass.

Jake pushed past him and loped up the back stairs, calling as he went. His voice echoed in the emptiness. No one answered, no one appeared.

Roan dropped a hand to Beau's big head as the dog leaned against him. “Where is she, boy?” he asked under his breath. “Where's Tory?”

“Son?” Pop called from the patio, his voice taut. “You might want to look at this.”

Roan's dad had been the last one out of the car, the last one to head for the kitchen door. He'd paused on the patio. As Roan glanced toward him through the open door, he saw him staring down at something on the bricks in front of him.

A cold heaviness settled around Roan's heart. He stepped
to the switch beside the door and flipped on the outside light. “What is it?”

Pop looked at Roan from under his brows. Then he nodded toward the dark stain at his feet.

Roan went to one knee and reached to touch the spot. It was wet and a little tacky. Swiveling on his heels, he held his fingers to the light.

Blood.

He felt as if somebody had kicked him in the stomach. He couldn't breathe, couldn't think. His brain seemeed hot and too big for his skull. The fear and rage that gripped him was so vast that he had to remain absolutely motionless in order to contain it.

“Don't,” his dad said. “It doesn't have to be hers.”

It didn't have to be, no, but she had been alone. Who else's could it be?

“Is there more of it?” he asked, his voice sounding strange even to his own ears. The smeared stain in front of him was small, the size of a quarter, with half dozen or so drops scattered around it.

“Looks like a few over here, near the walk. Then they disappear in the grass and the dark.”

“Get a flashlight, will you? Mine's in the car.” Roan was already moving onto the grass as he spoke, scanning the ground with his gaze. He was helped by the fact that Jake had turned on some of the upstairs lights so their glow illuminated the backyard.

“Dad? Dad, up here!”

It was Jake, calling from the upper balcony. Roan turned to look up at him, narrowing his eyes to make out his son. He was alone.

“You found her?” Roan waited, hands clenched into fists, for the answer.

“She's not here, but…”

Jake's voice had cracked; that was one reason he'd stopped. His words were thick, and carried an undercurrent of fear, fear for Tory. He'd grown close to her in the last few weeks, Roan thought. But there was something else, something he couldn't quite say.

“Tell me!” Roan called, while his heart throbbed in his chest. “What is it?”

“This,” Jake said, and leaned over the balcony to fling down something dark and heavy and circular in shape. Roan shot up an arm to catch it by purest instinct. The instant his fingers closed around it, he knew.

It was the monitor. Tory's monitor.

“Where was it?” he asked. “Her bedroom?”

“Nope, yours.”

The answer was tight, and an instant tip-off that Jake had known where to look for Tory. The boy must have gone to her room first, Roan thought. Seeing no sign of her, he'd moved along to the next possible place where she might have been sleeping. He should have known it was impossible to keep what was between them a secret. If there was anything between them worthy of the name.

Roan swung around with the monitor and stalked to where he could see in the light from beside the kitchen door. He half expected the mechanism to be cut. It wasn't. The lock had been opened. He stared down at it, smoothing the ball of his thumb over the silky smooth leather that had been polished by Tory's ankle in an unconscious gesture.

Had she found the tool and released herself? But if it was that easy, why has she waited until now? What had triggered her release? Had someone forced her to do it? Had she been hurt? Where in the name of heaven had she gone?

The swinging beam of a flashlight approached from around the house. The gleam caught the monitor in his
hand, steadied on it for an instant. Roan's dad said nothing until he was close enough to flip off the light and speak in a normal voice.

“You think Melanka was here?”

“I have to go with that idea, because—”

“Because the risk is too great otherwise. If you assume she left of her own accord, and do nothing, she may die.”

“Exactly.”

“And you couldn't take that.”

Roan gave a short, humorless laugh, even as pictures of the mutilated bodies he'd seen earlier that evening flashed through him mind. “If he touches a hair on her head, I'll kill him with my bare hands.”

“I thought so,” his dad said with satisfaction. “Now then. What are you going to do?”

It was a good question. Roan closed his eyes briefly as he tried to sort through his options. The way he saw it, there were only two: he could go, following on Tory's trail, or he could stay put, send out an APB and wait to see what happened.

He wasn't much for waiting.

“Dad?”

The interruption came from Jake on the veranda above him. He cast an impatient glance in that direction. “Yeah?”

“I'm not real sure with the dark and all, but it looks from up here as if the barn door might be open.”

The barn. The Super Bird was there.

It had been there. The dark interior was empty. His car, his pampered classic with unmarred paint, shiny chrome, and Hemi engine, was gone.

Tory had taken it this time. She had taken it and headed home, back to Florida.

But what if she hadn't? What if it had been stolen by whoever had come for her? It didn't matter. Either way, he
wanted his Super Bird back. He wanted it, and he'd have it if it was the last thing he ever did.

There was no time to waste. With his mind made up, Roan began to click off tasks and duties in methodical order. He made certain Tory had not left a note, checked her closet to see what she'd taken with her, which proved to be nothing at all, and contacted her stepfather's Florida residence only to be told that he had no information. He talked to his office to make certain things would run smoothly while he was out of town, and also to ask for an APB on the rental car Melanka had been driving, since he'd made a note of the plate number. He left instructions with Jake and his dad, in case Tory got in touch, then he went back upstairs to load his pockets with extra rounds for his weapon and to throw a few things into an overnight bag. He was jerking the zipper closed when his dad appeared in the doorway.

“So what's the deal?” Pop asked, his voice gravelly with something that sounded a lot like concern.

“Why am I going? I thought we settled that.”

“Oh, I know you're following after Tory for her protection, but then what? Are you going to straighten things out between you, or just drag her back out of sheer stubborn pride, because she got away and it's your damn duty to see she stands trial?”

“Hell, Pop!”

“Don't take that tone with me, son, because this is your old man talking. I may not be as young as I used to be, but I still know what's what. That woman meant something to you, just as you meant something to her.”

“Yeah, I meant something to her, all right,” Roan answered, his gaze on what he was doing. “I was her jailer.”

“Because that's the way you wanted it, the only way that felt comfortable to you. As long as you controlled what
was between you, you were all right. But the minute you began to lose that, you backed off so far you were near out of sight.”

“She doesn't belong here, Pop, she never did. She has a grand life somewhere else that she'll go back to eventually. The little we had together didn't mean anything. She was just marking time.”

“You figured she was going to leave you, just like Carolyn, so you bowed out in advance.”

“That's not so!” He looked up, but couldn't quite focus on the man in front of him for thinking, wondering.

“Not all women need freeways and fancy shops and restaurants and lots of different things to do. Some happen to enjoy peace and quiet and a lake view. Not all women are like Carolyn, Roan. They don't leave without good reason.”

“Fine. So we'll talk about the future, if we get the chance.” It wasn't true. But it was apparently what his dad expected from him, and Roan didn't have time to argue.

“Now you're talking! We'll be waiting, Jake and me, to hear from you. And from Tory.”

He didn't answer. What was there to say?

But he wasn't through with explaining himself yet, or so it seemed. Jake was waiting for him, leaning on the passenger door of the car, when he came out of the house.

“I want to go with you, Dad,” he said, his voice so low it was little more than a mumble. “I can't stay here wondering what might be happening to Tory.”

First his father, now his son. Victoria Molina-Vandergraff had somehow managed to get under the skin of every male on the place, including Beau's. It was going to be a long time before she was forgotten. Roan threw his bag into the back seat and slammed the door. Then he turned to his son.

“Look—” he began with as much patience as he could scrape together under the circumstances.

“I know what you're going to say,” Jake interrupted, his head coming up. “I'm too young, I'll just be in the way, you need to move fast, blah, blah. I don't care! I want to do something to help. She may be out there hurt somewhere, or maybe kidnapped again and tied up where she can't get away. She needs us, I know she does, and she's my friend. I have as much right as you do to go after her.”

The boy had a point. More than that, Roan was proud of him for his protective instinct toward Tory. It showed that he was growing up, becoming a man and a true Benedict. All the same, he couldn't let him go.

“I know you're worried about her,” he said, as he reached to put his hand on his son's shoulder. “So am I. But I don't even know if what I'm doing is worthwhile or a wild-goose chase. Somebody needs to stay here in case she calls, or to pass on any other news that might come in.”

“Pop will be here.”

“You're right. But there's another problem. I can't deal with a killer if I have to watch out for you as well as Tory.”

Jake's lips tightened before he said, “I can take care of myself.”

“In a fair fight, yes, but this guy doesn't fight fair. If I was forced to choose between saving you or saving Tory, I don't—” He stopped abruptly, unable to go on.

“Yeah,” Jake said slowly. “I get it.”

Roan nodded, cleared his throat. “If you have any problems here that Pop can't handle, call Clay or Luke. Kane has his hands full right now.”

It was Jake's turn to nod.

“Fine.” He turned to go.

“Dad?”

He glanced back with a lifted brow.

“You…take care of yourself.”

Roan smiled. “Yeah. I'll do that. Don't worry.”

“Bring Tory back.”

He couldn't promise that, and didn't try. With a quick pivot, he caught his son in a bear hug, then stepped back, buffeted him on the shoulder in the traditional rallying gesture of males embarrassed by their own emotion, but acknowledging it anyway. A moment later, he climbed into his patrol unit and drove off. When he turned onto the highway at the end of the drive, Jake was still standing where he'd left him, watching him go.

On his way through town, Roan put gas in his unit and called the hospital to check with Kane, pausing long enough to congratulate his cousin on being the father of a fine new baby girl. Regina was tired, Kane said, but had done a wonderful job. Roan, hearing the preoccupation in his cousin's tone, didn't bother to explain what was going on with Tory but only congratulated him again and hung up.

As he pulled out on the road, he placed a final call to the office to check on the search for Melanka's rental car. It had been found; Melanka had turned it in at the airport. He had taken a flight to Florida, and he had been alone. Only one ticket had been charged to his credit card. No one by the name of Tory Molina-Vandergraff had been on that departing plane.

For about two seconds, Roan allowed himself the luxury of relief. Melanka had left town. Tory hadn't been with him.

But there was still the blood. What about the blood?

Suppose Melanka had killed Tory and hauled her body off somewhere to dump it? Suppose he had taken the Super Bird so the rented vehicle would be free of evidence, and
had plunged both car and Tory off into the lake or the river? Or what if he'd hired some creep to do the job for him while he, the picture of innocence, dropped off his rental car and flew home? Tory would simply disappear. He might never know what happened to her, or what might have been between them.

God. He was going nuts, not knowing, but only guessing. Maybe guessing wrong.

Roan weighed the radio mike in his hand, about to put out a bulletin on the Super Bird. If Tory was driving it, heading for the sunshine state, he could have her picked up even if it was in Mississippi, Alabama, or in the Florida panhandle.

Yes, but hadn't he done enough to her? She didn't need to be chased down by some gung ho officer like Cal, one who might do a body search, cuff her without giving a damn about her hurt shoulder, then throw her in a tank with dope dealers and hookers where anything could happen to her.

No. He couldn't stand the thought of that, either.

If Tory wasn't in the Bird, what did it matter? If she was gone, lying somewhere in the swamps, then he wanted her killer. He wanted Melanka's head, and he'd have it if he had to drive to hell itself.