Dangerous

3

Kilraven felt uncomfortable when he remembered how upset Winnie Sinclair had been at the Christmas party. When he got over his initial anger, he realized that she couldn’t possibly have known about his daughter’s fascination with ravens. After all, who could have told her? Only he and Jon knew. Well, his stepmother—Jon’s mother—knew. But Cammy had no contact with Winnie.

There was another thing. How had he known that Winnie had painted the picture for him? It was all secret. It was disturbing that he’d felt it so certainly, and that he’d been right. Her tears at the sight of his angry face had made the connection for him. He was sorry about his behavior. The deaths were still upsetting for him. He couldn’t find peace. In seven years, the pain hadn’t eased.

Winnie had feelings for him. In another time, another place, that would have been flattering. But he had no interest in women these days. He’d dated Gloryanne Barnes before she’d married Rodrigo Ramirez, but that had been nothing more than friendship and compassion. Winnie, though, that could be a different matter. It was why he tried not to let his attraction to her show. It was why he avoided her. If only, he thought, avoiding her had kept him from wanting to get closer to her.

He was going back to San Antonio soon. He was going to take a leave of absence and try to help solve the cold case that had haunted him for seven long years. Perhaps he might finally have peace, if the killer could be brought to justice.

It was good that Senator Fowler and his protégé, Senator Sanders, had stopped fighting them about reopening the case. It was bad that some powerful politician might be involved, even on the fringes of the crime. Their names would make it a high-profile case, and the tabloids would have a field day. He cringed at the thought of seeing the autopsy photos while he was standing in line at the supermarket, where the tabloids were displayed at the checkout counter. These days, some reporters thought nothing of the family’s right to privacy. After all, a scoop was still a scoop.

He put the case to the back of his mind, as he tried to most every day. He only had a few days left in Jacobsville. He was going to do his job and then pack up and go home. In between, he was going to try to explain to Winnie Sinclair why his attitude toward her had been so violent at the Christmas party. He didn’t want to encourage her, but he couldn’t leave with the image of her hurt expression in his mind.

WINNIE HAD JUST SPENT a harrowing half hour routing two police cars to a standoff at a convenience store. In fact, it was one of only three convenience stores in the entire county. The perpetrator, a young husband with a history of bad decisions, had gotten drunk and decided to get some quick cash to buy a pretty coat for his wife. When the clerk pulled out a shotgun, the young man had fired and hit the clerk in the chest. He’d holed up in the store with the wounded man when patrons had called the police.

Winnie had dispatched a Jacobsville police officer to the scene. Another officer had called in to say he was going to back up the first officer. It was a usual thing. The officers looked out for each other, just as the dispatchers did.

There was no hostage negotiator, as such, but Cash Grier filled the position for his department. He talked the young man out of his gun. Thank God, the boy hadn’t been drunk enough to ignore the chief and come out shooting. Cash had disarmed him and then had Winnie tell the paramedics to come on in. It was routine for paramedics to be dispatched and then to stage just outside the scene of a dangerous situation until law enforcement made sure it was safe for them to go in. It was just another example of how the emergency services looked out for each other.

THE CLERK WAS BADLY INJURED, but he would live. The young man went to the detention center to be booked and await arraignment. Winnie was happy that they were able to avert a tragedy.

She drove her little VW back to the ranch, and she felt happy. It was hard to go through the day after Kilraven’s pointed snub at the Christmas party. She was still stinging, and not only from that. Her mother’s visit had unsettled her even more.

When she got home, she found Keely and Boone waiting for her in the living room.

“There’s a carnival in town. We’re going,” Keely said, “and you’re going with us. You need a little R & R after all that excitement at work.”

“How did you know …?” Winnie exclaimed.

“Boone has a scanner,” Keely pointed out, grinning.

Boone grinned, too.

Winnie laughed, putting the coat she’d just shrugged out of back on. “Okay, I’m game. Let’s go pitch pennies and win plates.”

Boone threw up his hands. “Honey, you could buy those plates for a nickel apiece at the Dish Barn downtown!”

“It’s more fun if you win them,” Winnie said primly. “Besides, I want cotton candy and a ride on the Octopus!”

“So do I,” Keely said. “Come on, sweetheart,” she called to Boone as they went through the back door. “The cotton candy will be all gone!”

“Not to worry,” he said, locking up. “They’ll make more.”

THE CARNIVAL WAS LOUD and colorful and the music was heady. Winnie ate cotton candy and went on the Octopus with Keely, laughing as the wind whipped through their hair and the music warbled among the bright lights.

Later, ankle deep in sawdust, Winnie stood before the penny pitching booth and the vendor gave her a handful of change in exchange for her two dollar bills. She was actually throwing nickels or dimes, not pennies, but she always thought of it in terms of the smaller bits of change. Just as she contemplated the right trajectory to land a coin on a plate, she spotted Dr. Bentley Rydel standing very close to Cappie Drake. Behind them, and closing in, was Officer Kilraven, still in uniform. Winnie paused to look at him. He spoke to the couple and laughed. But then he saw Winnie over their heads and his smile faded. He turned abruptly and walked right out of the carnival. Winnie felt her heart sink to the level of the ground. Well, he’d made his opinion of her quite clear, she thought miserably. He hadn’t forgiven her for the painting. She turned back to the booth, but not with any real enthusiasm. The evening had been spoiled.

CASH GRIER CALLED Kilraven a few days later and asked for his help. Cappie Drake and her brother were in danger. Her brother had been badly beaten by Cappie’s violent ex-boyfriend, just released from jail on a battery conviction stemming from an attack on her. Now he seemed to be out for blood. Eb Scott had detailed men to watch Cappie, but Kell was going to need some protection; he was in a San Antonio hospital where he’d just undergone back surgery to remove a shifted shrapnel sliver that had paralyzed him years ago. Cash asked Kilraven to go up and keep an eye on Kell until San Antonio police could catch the perp.

Kilraven went gladly. It was a relief to get out of town, even for a couple of days. But it was soon over, and he was back in Jacobsville again, fighting his feelings for Winnie. He was still no closer to a solution for his problem. He didn’t know how he was going to deal with the discomfort he felt at leaving Winnie Sinclair behind forever. And there was still that odd coincidence with the painting. He really needed to know why she’d painted it.

In the meantime, Alice Jones had called him with some shocking news. The bit of paper in the dead man’s hand in Jacobsville had contained Kilraven’s cell phone number. Now he knew he’d been right to ask for that time off to work on his cold case. The dead man had known something about the murders and he’d been trying to contact Kilraven when he’d been killed. It was a break that might crack the case, if they could identify the victim and his contacts.

THE NEXT WEEK, WINNIE worked a shift she wasn’t scheduled for, filling in for Shirley, who was out sick. When she got off that afternoon, to her surprise, she found Kilraven waiting for her at the door.

She actually gasped out loud. His silver eyes were glittery as he stared down at her.

“Hello,” she stammered.

He didn’t reply. “Get in your car and follow me,” he said quietly.

He walked to his squad car. He was technically off duty, but still in uniform. Officers in Jacobsville drove their cars home, so that they were prepared any time they had to be called in. He got in his car and waited until Winnie fumbled her way into her VW. He drove off, and she drove after him. Glancing to one side, she noted two of the operators who were on break staring after them and grinning. Oh, boy, she thought, now there’s going to be some gossip.

Kilraven drove out of the city and down the long, winding dirt road that led to his rental house. The road meandered on past his house to join with a paved road about a mile on. His house was the only one on this little stretch. He must like privacy, Winnie thought, because this certainly wasn’t on anybody’s main route.

He pulled up at the front door, cut off the engine and got out of his car. Winnie did the same.

“I’ll make coffee,” he said after he unlocked the door and led her into the kitchen.

She looked around, curious at the utter lack of anything personal in the utilitarian surroundings. Well, except for the painting she’d done for him. It was lying on the counter, face up.

She felt uncomfortable at his lack of small talk. She put her purse on the counter near the door that led down the hall to the living room. “How’s Kell Drake?” she asked.

He turned, curious.

“We heard about it from Barbara last week,” she said, mentioning the café where everybody ate. Barbara was the adoptive mother of San Antonio homicide detective Rick Marquez. “She has Rick at home. He’s getting better, but he sure wants to find whoever beat him up,” she added grimly.

“So do we. He’s one tough bird, or he’d be dead. Somebody is really trying to cover up this case,” he added.

“Yes. Poor Rick. But what about Kell?”

“That ended well, except for his bruises. He’s going to walk again,” he said. “I guess you also heard that they caught Bartlett in the act of knocking Cappie Drake around,” he added. “It seems that Marquez and a uniformed officer had to pull Dr. Rydel off the man.” He chuckled.

“We, uh, heard that, too,” she said, amused. “It was the day before Rick was jumped by those thugs. Poor Cappie.”

“She’ll be all right. She and Rydel are getting married in the near future, I hear.”

“That’s fast work,” she commented.

He shrugged. “Some people know their minds quicker than other people do.” He finished putting the coffee on and turned to glance at her. “How do you take it?”

“Straight up,” she said.

His eyebrows lifted.

“I don’t usually have a lot of time to stand around adding things to it,” she pointed out. “I’m lucky to have time to take a sip or two before it gets cold.”

“I thought Grier gave you one of those gadgets you put a coffee cup on to keep it hot,” he said. “For Christmas.”

“I don’t have a place to put it where it wouldn’t endanger the electronics at my station,” she said. “Don’t tell him.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it.” He set out two mugs, pulled out a chair at the table and motioned her into another one. He straddled his and stared at her. “Why a raven?” he asked abruptly. “And why those colors for beadwork?”

She bit her lower lip. “I don’t know.”

He stared at her pointedly, as if he didn’t believe her.

She blushed. “I really don’t know,” she emphasized. “I didn’t even start out to paint a raven. I was going to do a landscape. The raven was on the canvas. I just painted everything else out,” she added. “That sounds nuts, I guess, but famous sculptors say that’s how they do statues, they just chisel away everything that isn’t part of the statue.”

He still didn’t speak.

“How did you even know it was me?” she asked unhappily. “The gifts were supposed to be secret. I don’t tell people that painting is my hobby. How did you know?”

He got up after a minute, walked down the hall and came back with a rolled-up piece of paper. He handed it to her and sat back down.

Her intake of breath was audible. She held the picture with hands that were a little unsteady. “Who did this?” she exclaimed.

“My daughter, Melly.”

Her eyes lifted to his. He’d never spoken of any family members, except his brother. “You don’t talk about her,” she said.

His eyes went to the picture on the table. They were dull and vacant. “She was three years old when she painted that, in pre-school,” he said quietly. “It was the last thing she ever did. That afternoon, she and her mother went to my father’s house. They were going to have supper with my father and stepmother. My father went to get gas for a trip he was making the next day. Cammy hadn’t come home from shopping yet.”

He stopped. He wasn’t sure he could say it, even now. His voice failed him.

Winnie had a premonition. Only that. “And?”

He looked older. “I was working undercover with San Antonio PD, before I became a Fed. My partner and I were just a block from the house when the call came over the radio. I recognized the address and burned rubber getting there. My partner tried to stop me, but nobody could have. There were two uniformed officers already on scene. They tried to tackle me.” He shrugged. “I was bigger than both of them. So I saw Melly, and my wife, before the crime scene investigators and the coroner got there.” He got up from the table and turned away. He was too shaken to look at her. He went to the coffeepot and turned it off, pouring coffee into two cups. He still hesitated. He didn’t want to pick up the cups until he was sure he could hold them. “The perp, whoever it was, used a shotgun on them.”

Winnie had heard officers talk about their cases occasionally. She’d heard the operators talk, too, because some of them were married to people in law enforcement. She knew what a shotgun could do to a human body. To even think of it being used on a child … She swallowed, hard, and swallowed again. Her imagination conjured up something she immediately pushed to the back of her mind.

“I’m sorry,” she said in a choked tone.

Finally, he picked up the cups and put them on the table. He straddled the chair again, calmer now. “We couldn’t find the person or persons who did it,” he said curtly. “My father went crazy. He had these feelings, like you do. He left the house to get gas. It could have waited until the next morning, but he felt he should go right then. He said later that if he’d been home, he might have been able to save them.”

“Or he might have been lying right beside them,” Winnie said bluntly.

He looked at her in a different way. “Yes,” he agreed. “That was what I thought, too. But he couldn’t live with the guilt. He started drinking and couldn’t stop. He died of a heart attack. They said the alcohol might have played a part, but I think he grieved himself to death. He loved Melly.” He stopped speaking and drank the coffee. It blistered his tongue. That helped. He hadn’t talked about it to an outsider, ever.

Her soft, dark eyes slid over his face quietly. “You think this may be linked to the body they found in the river,” she said slowly.

His dark eyebrows lifted. “I haven’t said that.”

“You’re thinking it.”

His broad chest rose and fell. “Yes. We found a small piece of paper clenched in the man’s fist. It took some work, but Alice Jones’s forensic lab was able to make out the writing. It was my cell phone number. The man was coming here to talk to me. He knew something about my daughter’s death. I’m sure of it.”

His daughter’s death. He didn’t say, his wife and daughter. She wondered why.

His big hands wrapped around the hot white mug. His eyes had an emptiness that Winnie recognized. She’d seen it in military veterans. They called it the thousand-yard stare. It was the look of men who’d seen violence, who dealt in it. They were never the same again.

“What did she look like?” Winnie asked gently.

He blinked. It wasn’t a question he’d anticipated. He smiled faintly. “Like Jon, actually, and my father,” he said, laughing. “She had jet-black hair, long, down to her waist in back, and eyes like liquid ebony. She was intelligent and sweet natured. She never met a stranger …” He stopped, looked down into the coffee cup, and forced it up to his lips to melt away the hard lump in his throat. Melly, laughing, holding her arms out to him. “I love you, Daddy! Always remember!” That picture of her, laughing, was overlaid by one of her, lifeless, a nightmare figure covered in blood …

“Dear God!” he bit off, and his head bent.

Winnie was wary of most men. She was shy and introverted, and never forward. But she got up out of her chair, pulled him toward her and drew his head to her breasts. “Honest emotion should never embarrass anyone,” she whispered against his hair. “It’s much worse to pretend that we don’t care than to admit we do.”

She felt his big body shudder. She expected him to jerk away, to push her away, to refuse comfort. He was such a steely, capable man, full of fire and spirit and courage. But he didn’t resist her. Not for a minute, anyway. His arms circled her waist and almost crushed her as he gave in, momentarily, to the need for comfort. It was something he’d never done. He’d even pushed Cammy away, years ago, when she offered it to him.

She laid her cheek against his thick, soft black hair and just stood there, holding him. But then he did pull away, abruptly, and stood up, turning away from her.

“More coffee?” he asked in a harsh tone.

She forced a smile. “Yes, please.” She moved to the table and picked up her own cup, deliberately giving him time to get back the control he’d briefly lost. “It’s gone cold.”

“Liar,” he murmured when she joined him at the coffeepot and he took the cup from her. “You’d blister your lip if you sipped it.”

She looked up at him with a grin. “I was being politically agreeable.”

“You were lying.” He put the cup on the counter and gathered her up whole against him. “What a sweetheart you are,” he ground out as his mouth suddenly ground down into hers.

The force of the kiss shocked her. He didn’t lead up to it. It was instant, feverish passion, so intense that the insistence of his mouth shocked her lips apart, giving him access to the heated sweetness within. She wasn’t a woman who incited passion. In fact, what she’d experienced of it had turned her cold. She didn’t like the arrogance, the pushiness, of most men she’d dated. But Kilraven was as honest in passion as he was otherwise. He enjoyed kissing her, and he didn’t pretend that he didn’t. His arms forced her into the hard curve of his body and he chuckled when he felt her melt against him, helpless and submissive, as he ground his mouth into hers.

Her arms went under his and around him. The utility belt was uncomfortable. She felt the butt of his automatic at her ribs. His arms were bruising. But she didn’t care. She held on for all she was worth and shivered with what must have been desire. She’d never felt it. Not until now, with the last man on earth she should allow herself to feel it for.

He felt her shy response with wonder. He’d expected that a socialite like Winnie would have had men since her early teens. The way of the world these days was experience. Virtue counted for nothing with most of the social set. But this little violet was innocent. He could feel it when she strained away from the sudden hardness of his body, when she shivered as he tried to probe her mouth.

Curious, he lifted his head and looked down into her flushed, wide-eyed face. Innocence. She couldn’t even pretend sophistication.

Gently, he eased her out of his arms. He smiled to lessen the sting of it. “You taste of green apples,” he said enigmatically.

“Apples?” She blinked, and swallowed. She could still taste him on her mouth. It had felt wonderful, being held so close to that warm strength. “I haven’t had an apple in, well, in ages,” she stammered.

“It was a figure of speech. Here. Put on your coat.” He helped her ease her arms into it. Then he handed her the cup.

“Am I leaving and taking it with me?” she asked blankly.

“No. We’re just drinking it outside.” He picked up his own cup and shepherded her out of the door, onto the long porch, down the steps and out to a picnic table that had been placed there, with its rude wooden benches, by the owner.