Between Love and Duty (16 page)

“Detective,” he said wryly.

Niall waited, eyebrows raised. The amusement still lurked; he wanted to make Duncan ask. Which, of course, he had to do, now that he’d come all the way down here.

“Did you get the message that was mailed to her?”

Niall opened a manila envelope and slid the piece of colored paper onto his desk blotter. Duncan already knew what it said. What he hadn’t counted on was the impact of seeing the ugly message itself. Rage rose in his throat.

“And she didn’t think this was threatening?”

Niall made a noncommittal noise.

“You’ll check for fingerprints?”

“No, I brought it with me so I could post it on the bulletin board. What do you think?” He carefully shook it into the envelope.

Duncan struggled to tamp down the red tide of fury. “What did you learn?”

“Quite a lot.” Niall riffled several pages of his notebook. “I’m currently trying to determine which of the people Ms. Brooks named are even remotely likely to be possibles.”

“You haven’t eliminated any?” Duncan demanded.

Niall glanced at his watch. “I’ve had barely an hour since I got back to my desk,” he said mildly.

“Was she frank with you?”

“I think so. Do you have reason to believe she wouldn’t be?”

His mouth compressed. “No. Yes. She has qualms about divulging names.”

“So I gathered. She did, however.”

He nodded, relieved. “And then there’s her pigheaded determination to believe Ortez is a good, kind man who’s fated to be named father-of-the-year.”

He probably shouldn’t have said “pigheaded.” That made him sound too emotionally invested.

Niall rocked in his chair, a smile playing around his mouth. “Rubs you wrong, does she?”

“Like sandpaper,” he heard himself admit, then had the uncomfortable realization of how accurate that was. Sandpaper was certainly not pleasant to the bare skin, and it could rub you raw. But what it left behind could be something smooth and glossy and rich. Sensuous to the touch, when it wasn’t before.

His body was beginning to crave the scrape of her personality.

Before his brother’s all-too-knowing eyes could see entirely too much, Duncan said shortly, “
Have
you eliminated anyone?”

“Actually, yes. Two possibilities, a Roger Griswold, a former foster father who apparently issued some threats when Ms. Brooks encouraged the return of a child to the mother, and Jeff Cotter, a father who sued for custody of his kids and lost.”

“Have they moved away?”

“Griswold did. Cotter has apparently reconciled with his ex-wife and lives with his kids. They’re talking remarriage. It was the judge—Brikoff,” he added as an aside, “who tells me that Cotter claims that losing in court was the wake-up call he needed to make changes in his life. He’s gone through an anger management program and is in counseling with his ex. Brikoff feels the change is genuine and doubts the guy holds a grudge against your Ms. Brooks.”

“Could be deceptive.”

Niall shrugged. “Maybe, but he’s looking pretty unlikely.”

“You’ll keep me informed?”

“Have I ever mentioned that you’re a control freak?”

Duncan glowered and left.

HE MADE A POINT OF CALLING Tito in the after-school hours. He suggested they shoot some baskets at the open-gym tonight at the high school, and he could tell Tito hated to say no. He wanted to stay home, however, because Raul, the former brother-in-law, was supposed to be coming by. The boy must have realized he couldn’t realistically do anything to help his sister, and there had been no hint the useless ex-husband—or were they actually divorced?—was violent. He was determined to be there, though, perhaps only to glare.

“Did Jane let you know what happened last night?” Duncan asked.

“
Sí.
Yes.” Tito sounded animated. “She said someone broke her windshield while we were in McDonald’s eating. That she had to have the police come. We couldn’t find you after the movie, so Papa drove me home.”

“You like the movie?”

Sí, sí.
It was
muy bueno.
Much excitement. There had been a good deal of blood and death, according to Tito, and a train had hit a car, although the hero had flung himself out in the nick of time.

Although Duncan regretted Jane’s troubles, he couldn’t be sorry he’d missed the blood and death and mayhem.

Damn it,
he thought; he’d forgotten to ask Niall whether the “blood” on Jane’s windshield had been paint. He’d feel better to know it was. If it had been real blood, even animal blood, that suggested a greater level of intent.

He kept himself from calling Niall, though.

Instead, he phoned Jane at home.

“Hello?” she said cautiously.

“Don’t you have caller ID?” he snapped.

“Duncan,” she said sweetly. “How nice to hear from you.” Abandoning the tone, probably as a lost cause, she said, “I don’t use my home phone much. So no. I’ve actually been thinking of dropping the landline.”

Maybe he had been rude. Rubbing his neck as he prowled through his house, his cell phone to his ear, Duncan said, “I called to be sure you’re okay. That nothing happened today to shake you up.”

She was quiet for a moment. “That’s…nice of you. But no, except for talking to your brother, it was a standard day.”

“Did Niall suggest you start parking on the street? Enter and exit your store through the front door?”

“You know there’s never enough street parking downtown. The alley isn’t that lonely a place. All the other proprietors park out there, too, and we all have to take our garbage to one of the Dumpsters we share.”

“You don’t sound willing to take any safety precautions.” His irritation, he vaguely knew, covered something he was more reluctant to acknowledge. Like fear.

She didn’t take it well either way. “I lock my doors. I look both ways before I step into the street. I’ve taken to carrying pepper spray in my hand when I scuttle across the alley. Does that satisfy you?”

No.
But Duncan didn’t know why. Believing Hector was responsible for the threats should reassure him. Because she’d challenged Hector’s machismo, his belief that, however inadequate his status in the greater world, at home he was in charge, Hector might want to scare her. Belittle her. But hurting her, that was something else. Even stewing in his resentment, would Hector set out with malice aforethought to hurt her?

“I wish you had a home security system,” he muttered.

“And I wish you’d quit saying that! All you’re doing is making me more nervous.”

“Nervous translates to careful.”

“Is this why you called?” She sounded really mad now. “If so, can we say good-night?”

Aware he’d bungled the whole thing, Duncan again dug his fingers into the knotted muscles of his neck. “I suppose so. Just, um, don’t hesitate to call if you need me. Okay? I can be there in five minutes.”

There was a little silence. Then he heard a sigh.

“Sometimes you annoy me more when you’re nice than when you’re not.”

He blinked.

“Good night, Duncan,” she said firmly, and hung up. On him. Without waiting for him to say good-night, or anything else.

Weirdly, that made him grin. Sandpaper, he thought, was a hell of an analogy for Jane Brooks.

RAUL BROUGHT A CHECK THAT made Lupe’s face pinch. The amount must be very small, Tito thought. She backed up and stood stiffly in the kitchen doorway, arms crossed as if she was guarding it. Keeping Raul from coming farther into the apartment. But she didn’t stop him from cuffing Tito in a friendly way and then flopping onto the couch to wrestle with the little ones, making them giggle in delight. He didn’t, Tito noticed, ask to see the baby. Babies were women’s work; a man didn’t change diapers or give bottles.

One thing Tito did know: a man should put food on the table for his family.

It was a relief when he left after only a short visit. He promised that he would come back soon, perhaps even that weekend. He had a better job now, he told Lupe, he thought he would be promoted any week, any day, and then he could give her the money she deserved.

Tito edged closer to his sister and stood at her side as she listened without expression to promises she knew better than to believe in. When the door closed behind Raul, she sagged.

“Gracias a Dios,”
she exclaimed. “Now, to bed! To bed,” she told the little ones.

When the phone rang, she left Tito to answer it. It was Papa, who said it was Tito he had wanted to talk to, anyway. He didn’t seem to remember that Raul was to have come by. Tito was disappointed that his father wasn’t yet offering any help to Lupe. Of course, he was saving what money he was earning so that he could rent a place of his own, and that was important, too, but Tito thought about how much an extra hundred dollars would make to Lupe, whose worry lines seemed to deepen every day.

Then Papa asked, as if he was only a little curious, whether Tito had found out why Jane and Duncan never came to the movie last night. When Tito told him, Papa said, “Somebody took a baseball bat to her windshield, did they?”

Tito felt a cold trickle inside, as if last night’s icy rain had sneaked inside his shirt collar. His father sounded…happy.

“How do you know it was a baseball bat?” Tito asked.

“I don’t, of course,” his father said, too quickly. “Anything could have been used. But a baseball bat would work to do what you describe. Did she think it was only a kid? A vandal?”

Papa didn’t like Jane. Tito knew how much he disliked being watched as if he needed a babysitter. But Papa wouldn’t do something like that.

He had arrived late to the restaurant, though. Tito remembered being surprised. It was because of the rain, he had believed. Now he remembered how very wet Papa was when he came in. Perhaps too wet for someone who had hurried from his truck to the door. Had he seemed…pleased?

Tito felt guilty for even wondering.

He chattered about his day, what his friend Miguel had said about this girl he liked, about how the PE teacher, Mr. Speaks, had commented on what a good shot Tito had become on the basketball court. He tried to pretend he had never thought such a thing about his father, but failed.

Would Jane wonder, too? Or Duncan? Tito shivered, thinking about what might happen if Duncan suspected that Papa had taken a baseball bat to the windshield of Jane’s car. Neither of the two men even tried to hide the anger they felt for each other. It scared Tito.

He thought—no, prayed—that perhaps the police who came would know what broke the glass. And if it was
not
a baseball bat, he could forget having such a dumb idea. And it was—it must be—a dumb idea.

He felt sick to his stomach when he ended the call. Tito made an excuse to his sister and turned out the lights early, pretending he was sleepy.

CHAPTER NINE

DUNCAN COULDN’T MAKE IT to the next outing. Jane told herself she was glad, but knew perfectly well she was lying.

It was soccer again. The rain had let up, although the grassy field squelched underfoot and the area in front of the goal, worn bare, was a mudhole.

When they arrived, Tito ran, yelling in delight, and slid into the mud. Hector followed, laughing, and although he didn’t throw himself down, was soon mud coated, anyway. The two became distinguishable only by height.

While they played, Jane marched around and around the long field, working up a sweat,
not
thinking about Duncan or what his terse “I have to work” had meant.

If he’d been here, would he have been tempted to dive into the mud, too?

When she was a kid, she’d have
longed
to dive in. To wallow.

Another circuit. As she walked behind the goal they were using, Hector flung himself to stop Tito’s kick and slid headlong through the mudhole. A few wet globs flew through the air and one splattered her cheek. Jane gritted her teeth, swiped it away with her hand and kept walking, although by this time her feet were soaking wet and cold and she wanted to go
home.

Fortunately even Hector conceded he and his son were too filthy to go to a restaurant. Jane looked from Tito to the relatively clean upholstery in her car and decided to let him ride with his father.

“You can get
both
seats in your truck dirty,” she told Hector heartlessly.

He clearly hadn’t thought about the problem of getting them home, but did rummage in the bed of the pickup and found some rags and an old coat to put on the seats.

Tito had already hopped in and slammed the door when Hector said to Jane, “Tito told me about what happened at McDonald’s. It was only the windshield, then? You’ve had it fixed?”

“Yes,” she said. “Fortunately, my insurance covers it. It made me mad, though.” Not for anything would she have told him how scared she’d been.

Frowning in apparent concern, he said, “I’m sorry we’d already driven away, but glad the captain was still there.” He hesitated. “Do the police think they can find who did it?”

She made her shrug casual. “How can they, unless somebody saw something? And why wouldn’t they already have said?”

“Did the police look for fingerprints or anything like that?”

“Remember how hard it was pouring. I don’t think they even tried.” She actually didn’t know what was done to her car once it had been towed, only that it had been returned to her the following afternoon with the windshield already replaced.

Hector nodded. “I must not have been parked near you, or they might have broken my windshield, too. I have only the liability insurance they make me buy. The truck is so old.”

She nodded her understanding. In this state, at least, liability insurance was legally required to drive, while collision coverage was a luxury.

“It would not pay for a new windshield.”

Jane summoned a smile. “Then it’s lucky it was my car and not yours. It was no big deal, Hector. Although I did miss the movie.”

He actually laughed, his teeth very white against his muddy face. “You would not have liked it,” he said, lowering his voice as if to be conspiratorial, giving one merry glance over his shoulder at his son, who was watching them anxiously. “But Tito did.”

Jane laughed, too. “Yes, so he said. And you’re right. I wouldn’t have liked it.”

She felt better now, parting. Well, semi-parting; she followed Hector’s pickup truck to Lupe’s apartment building and watched Tito climb gingerly out, the mud probably beginning to harden into a body cast on his jeans and long-sleeved T-shirt. Lupe would be thrilled to see him. As he drove on, Hector waved a hand in goodbye to Jane, not seeming as if he minded the fact that she hadn’t entirely trusted him to bring Tito straight home.

Had he really become reconciled to her supervision? she wondered.

Twenty minutes later, standing under a hot shower, she let herself examine her uneasiness. No, she didn’t believe Hector had been the one to smash her windshield or glue all those letters to a piece of paper to spell out the ugly message. But…he could have.

And I,
she realized,
will be very glad when I’m done playing the awkward third wheel. Even if I have grown fond of Tito.

Even, she thought with a sinking feeling, though it would mean no longer seeing Duncan.

DUNCAN SAT IMPATIENTLY through the meeting that had kept him from joining Jane at the soccer field. He’d had no choice, although he hadn’t contributed much to a strategy meeting called by the city attorney, who was preparing a defense against a lawsuit.

As they argued a million small points on the way to consensus, Duncan discovered that, if he turned his head only slightly, he could see the clock above the door without being obvious. Time crawled.

Probably there would be other people out on the soccer fields. Maybe. After all the rain—maybe not. Duncan discovered he didn’t like the idea of Jane out there alone with only Hector and Tito, who might keep his mouth shut no matter what his father did.

He was so preoccupied, he missed whatever conclusion wrapped up the meeting, snapping back to himself only when the city attorney thanked everyone for coming and began stowing files in his briefcase as everyone else stood.

He’d call Jane. If they were going on to lunch from soccer, he might still catch them. He’d feel better, anyway, Duncan admitted, once he heard her voice.

She didn’t answer. The cell phone rang and then went to voice mail. His gut tightened with anxiety. Damn it, she wouldn’t have been careless enough to have left her phone at home or in the car, would she? Duncan strode for the exit.

He was overreacting and he knew it. She’d suffered some petty, nasty-minded vandalism and that was all. But he couldn’t get out of his mind that moment when he’d spun to see her running across the parking lot to him, fear on her face. Or her shivers when she burrowed into him.

The threat might only be implicit, but it was there.

Despite the fact that he wasn’t dressed for it, he steered his SUV for the soccer fields on the outskirts of town.

Halfway there, he tried her number again, and this time she answered.

“Where are you?” he asked, pulling over to the shoulder.

“Home. Why?”

“I thought I’d join you for lunch.”

“No lunch. Hector and Tito were too disgusting. They were both positively caked with mud by the time they finished.”

A reluctant smile tugged at his mouth. He’d played sports in his day and never minded a little mud.

“But not you, I take it.”

She snorted, although he wasn’t convinced. “Soaking wet feet were bad enough.”

“Ah.” He realized with dismay that he’d
wanted
to meet her for lunch. To hell with Tito and his father, it was Jane he had wanted to see. Somewhat cautiously, he said, “Have you eaten?”

“No, I was about to make a sandwich.” She chuckled. “Tito was crushed because he’d counted on pizza.”

“Want to go out for lunch?” he heard himself say. “Snow Goose Deli? If it’s a sandwich you really want?”

The silence was long enough, Duncan tensed. Damn. Had he just asked her for a date? And was she about to say,
You’ve got to be kidding?

He could let them both off the hook by adding something like,
I wanted to talk to you about Tito. Or Hector.
Make it business.

But she was already talking. “Um… Actually, that sounds nice. I was going to settle for peanut butter and jelly.”

Relief, out of proportion, flooded him. “I saw the board as I passed a minute ago. The soup is curry lentil and the special is a Southwest wrap.”

“Yum. Shall I meet you there?”

“No, I’ll pick you up.” After all, he thought, somewhat dazed, that’s what a man did when he took a woman out.

She came out her front door the minute he pulled up in front. Duncan leaned across and opened the door for her. When Jane hopped in, she swept him with a glance.

“I feel underdressed.”

He’d like to see her even more underdressed. Preferably naked.

He cleared his throat. “I’m the one who’s overdressed for a deli.”

Slim-cut blue jeans hugged her long legs and a snugly fitting blue sweater—cashmere, he thought—barely reached the waistband of the jeans. When she twisted to reach for the seat belt—ah, there it was, a flash of creamy skin. His eyes rose to her small, high breasts, outlined by the soft cashmere. Flushed a little, she looked at him once she had fastened the seat belt.

Her eyes were a particularly deep blue, heightened by the color of the sweater. Her hair, loosely bundled on her head, was less glossy than when it lay smooth and sleek. Caramel, he decided. The perfect word to describe it.

Damn, she was so sexy he was paralyzed.

“You’re staring.”

He ran a hand over his face. “Sorry.”
I want you.
“Long, boring meeting.”

“Oh.” Jane smiled. “I was afraid you’d had to go in because something awful happened.”

“Something awful did,” he said dryly. “Awfully boring, full of legalese.” Pulling himself together, he put the 4Runner in gear. As he drove, he told her the bones of the incident that had resulted in the lawsuit. “The city will win,” he concluded, “but not without killing an unconscionable number of man-hours to do it.”

He was able to park only half a block from the deli, and they walked to it side by side, Jane at least pretending interest in storefronts on the way. Dance Dreams wasn’t on this main shopping street, where rents would run way higher. She hadn’t needed to be situated here, since hers was a destination business not dependent on impulse customers.

“You’ve taken a lot of Saturdays off,” he realized.

She grimaced. “No kidding. I thought about going in this afternoon, but I’d already scheduled staffing, so…” She shrugged. “What about you? Do you usually work Saturdays?”

And so it went. It was strange, he thought as they continued to talk, because they’d already spent a whole hell of a lot of time together, but now they were asking those first-date questions. What do you like? Not like? How do you arrange your life? What really matters to you?

He knew some of what mattered to her. Maybe most of it. What he didn’t entirely get was
why,
and Duncan found he was intensely curious. The store…well, that wasn’t subtle. Nobody had fed her dreams when she was a child, so she was committed to making the dreams of thousands of other little girls as beautiful as she could. The fixing families—again, fairly obvious on the surface. What he didn’t understand was why she hadn’t tried to accomplish something miraculous for herself. Was being a businesswoman really what she’d wanted most? And why not create her own family?

No, that he understood. When you grew up with a dysfunctional family, you were likely to eye outwardly perfect, loving families and wonder what was wrong with them behind closed doors—not so likely to imagine creating one of your own. By the time Conall graduated from high school, Duncan had been ready to swear in blood that he would never have children. Been there, done that, and his brothers had hated him for what he did. Lately he’d begun to wonder if having his own kids would be the same. It was Tito, strangely enough, who gave him an occasional pang.

His realistic side said
, More like a muscle twinge, the kind you ignored to push on for ten more bench presses, another mile, a hundred more shots from the free throw line
.

Jane had a bowl of the soup and a giant lemon-poppyseed cookie. Duncan went with the Southwestern wrap and an equally gigantic blueberry muffin. They’d managed to grab a small table to one side, out of the line of traffic. While they ate, Duncan had had to exchange greetings with a few people he knew, Jane with a couple of others, but mostly they were left to themselves.

Jane was a season ticketholder to the Pacific Northwest Ballet in Seattle. She used her second ticket sometimes to take a friend with her, sometimes one of the older dance students. She didn’t mention taking a man, Duncan noticed. Of course, most men he knew would rather go to a Seahawks game than the ballet. He admitted that he’d never seen a ballet. It occurred to him that he’d like to see one with her—to watch her face while she watched the dancers. Or maybe not; how much grief would she feel?

Was he musical? she asked. He confessed to having started the trombone in fifth grade and giving it up as hopeless by eighth. He told her about the bagpipes, too. Jane was fascinated, even more so than Tito had been, perhaps because she’d actually attended the Highland Games.