After Midnight (18 page)

He left her standing inside the glass storm door, wondering just what the heck ‘this’ referred to. While moths beat against the porch lamp, she leaned against the doorjam and watched the night swallow the taillights on his cruiser. When the red glow had faded into the distance, her glance drifted to the docks fifty or so yards from her door.

If they worked ‘it’ out, Steve could moor the Gone Fishin’ at the dock. Or Jess could shoehorn some of her belongings into a stateroom the size of a closet and camp out at his private bayou. The realization of how far she’d come since the first night she opened the door to Steve had Jess shaking her head.

She had the door half shut when she caught a movement one the dock. She gave the drifting shadow only a passing glance, would have written it off as the tilt of a mast on a swell if it hadn’t taken shape and definition. Strange that someone would be out on the pier so late.

Squinting at the indistinct figure, Jess saw him raise something to his shoulder and caught the glint of moonlight on steel. The glint transfixed her for a fraction of an instant. That was all she needed to decide the gleam might not look, sound, or smell wrong, but it definitely felt wrong. She jumped to the side, out of the light spilling from inside the condo, and was about to slam the heavy wood panel when the crack of a rifle shot split the night.

The glass storm door shattered. Deadly splinters cut into the wooden door, flew sideways, sliced into Jess’s hand and arm.

Her first reaction was shock. Her second, fury.

No! Not again! She wasn’t letting this unseen bastard have another chance at her.

Whirling, she snatched the Baretta from the coffee table and raced for her bedroom. She was out the back patio door and running for the far end of the building before the echo of the rifle shot had stopped ringing in her ears.

Bent low, Jess rounded the end of her building and darted through the pool of shadows cast by the live oaks to the bay’s edge. The thick tangle of native palmettos lining the shore had been thinned to give the condos’ residents an unobstructed view, but enough of the shrubbery remained to provide a dark backdrop as she ran for the dock.

Halting just short of the wooden pier, she crouched beside a spiky palmetto. Her heart jackhammered against her ribs. Her breath came in raw gasps. Biting down hard on her lower lip to silence the painful rasps, she searched for the fatal gleam of light on steel, tried to separate the shadows, filter out the faint tinkle of the boats’ rigging hitting the masts, sense movement, any movement.

To her disgust, she heard nothing, saw nothing but porch lights popping on all up and down her row of condos. Cautiously, occupants poked their heads out to investigate the mysterious sounds they’d heard just moments ago.

Jess agonized for a few seconds, reluctant to reveal her position but more afraid the shooter might take aim at her innocent neighbors.

“Stay inside!” she yelled. “Call 911! Someone fired a shot through my storm door. He may still be out here.”

Most of the curious ducked back and slammed their doors. One brave soul shouted to someone inside his place, then made a dash for the utility pole near beside the tennis courts. When he tore open a metal box and flipped a bank of switches, powerful, high-intensity floodlights illuminated the courts, the sand volleyball pit, and the dock.

Jess had no idea how long she squatted beside the palmetto, her pulse hammering and her eyes aching as she scanned the dock, the tennis courts, the buildings all around. It felt like hours, but was probably only minutes before the wail of a siren pierced the night. Minutes more before an unmarked cruiser screamed into the parking lot and fishtailed to a stop. Bubble light flashing a furious red, headlights blazing, the vehicle provided a solid bulkwork between Jess and the pier.

Her heart in her throat, she saw Steve throw himself out of the cruiser and into a defensive crouch, his head low, his weapon high in a two-fisted grip.

“Steve! The shot came from the dock.”

“Get down!”

“I think it was a rifle.”

“Put your face in the dirt, dammit!”

He took off at a run, and Jess didn’t even consider dropping down to the dirt. Someone had tried to kill her. Twice! The first time had scared the hell out of her. This time, it infuriated her.

More to the point, she wasn’t letting Steve charge into harm’s way without someone to cover his back. Her breath hitching, she raced toward the dock, hunched-over, awkward, the slap of her bare feet lost amid the thud of his boots. Every nerve in her body bunched in expectation of another flash of fire, another deadly crack.

Gasping with relief, she almost fell against the tree trunk-sized piling at the foot of the dock. “Do you see anything?” she panted to the figure shielded behind the opposite piling.

“No,” he snarled, “but right now you’re in a hell of a lot more danger from me than from your shooter!”

She believed him. He looked so furious she wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d turned his gun on her and pumped a bullet into her foot to keep her from following him onto the pier.

“Temper, temper,” she murmured, her eyes on the long plank passageway leading to the end of the dock.

Steve whipped his head around, sure that the blood roaring through his arteries had affected his hearing. He couldn’t detect the slightest echo of fear in her voice, and her face showed only a fierce determination.

“There must be at least twenty boats moored at the dock,” she whispered, seemingly oblivious to the danger she’d put herself in. “He could have taken cover in any one of them. How are we going to do this?”

“We aren’t going to do anything,” he ground out. “We are going stay right here and wait for the back-up I called for.”

“I’ll back you up.”

“The hell you will.”

The scream of sirens cut off further argument.

The drama ended within a half-hour.

A phalanx of deputies peeled into the walled community in response to their boss’s call and spilled out of their squad cars. At Steve’s shouted direction, they cordoned the area around Jess’s building. When a special response team in helmets and thick, bullet-proof vestments moved forward, Steve yanked Jess from her crouch and fell back.

They stood behind his cruiser while the response team searched the dock, boat by boat. She sensed long before they finished that they wouldn’t find the shooter. He must have made his escape while Jess raced around the end of her building. Disgusted, she plopped down on her neighbor’s stoop to keep out of the way while Steve and his deputies went door to door. Only then did she notice the blood streaking down to her wrist. Grimacing, she plucked several long slivers of glass from her forearm before accepting the towel offered by her neighbor.

She was still on the stoop when Jim Hazlett arrived some time later. The FDLE detective hadn’t taken time to change out of his tennis shoes and baggy Bermuda shorts. His bald crown gleaming in the wash of floodlights, he nodded to Steve.

“Evenin’, Sheriff.”

“Hazlett.”

The terse reply made the detective blink and told Jess she wasn’t off Steve’s shit-list yet.

Eyebrows elevated, Hazlett turned to her. “Well, Colonel, you’re sure do keep things lively.”

“That’s one way to put it, I suppose.”

“Care to tell me what happened?”

She waved a hand toward the shattered glass next door. “I was standing at the door and saw what looked like a shadow on the dock. The next instant, the glass exploded.”

“Why were you standing at the door? Had you heard something?”

“I, er…”

She avoided looking at Steve while she fumbled for a way to keep his name from being irrevocably linked with hers. To her dismay, he bulldozed right in.

“Like a fool, she was watching me drive off. In the process, she made herself a perfect target.”

“I didn’t expect someone to be out on the dock with a rifle to his shoulder.”

“You should have! What the hell did we talk about right before I left your place tonight?”

Hazlett’s brows soared again. So did those of every deputy and neighbor within earshot.

Enough was enough. Gathering her dignity, Jess rose.

“I need to put some iodine on these cut. Shall we finish this interview inside?”

Ignoring her firm declaration that she could tend to the cuts herself, Steve followed her into the bathroom. He didn’t say a word as he unwrapped the towel and held her arm under the cold tap, but the grim set to his jaw broadcast his feelings with perfect clarity.

While rivulets of pale pink washed down the drain, he ran his fingers lightly over the shallow, dagger-like slashes in her skin to make sure she’d removed all the glass splinters. Jess relaxed under his gentle touch, only to jump and yelp out a protest when he ruthlessly poured a half bottle of hydrogen peroxide over her arm.

“Hey! That stings!”

“Tough.”

The rest of the bottle splashed onto her skin.

“Steve, for Pete’s sake!”

Yanking, she tried to break his hold. His fingers almost crunched the bones in her wrist as he jerked her forearm back over the sink.

“You know,” she said through gritted teeth, “getting shot at tonight pissed me off royally. You’re about to generate precisely the same reaction.”

“Is that right?”

He crowded her against the sink, his eyes blazing a clear, blue fire.

“You might have been pissed, but when dispatch radioed the location of the ten-thirty-three your neighbor called in, I was scared shitless. And then, when you ran onto the dock…”

His mouth clamped shut. His throat worked. Fascinated, Jess counted the number of times a muscle ticked on one side of his jaw. The count was up to eight when he broke the strangled silence.

“When I left here earlier, I was pretty sure that what I felt for you leaned a whole lot closer to love than lust. Now, I can’t decide whether to kiss you or wring your neck.”

“Better go for the kiss. There’s a FDLE detective in the other room, remember?”

He didn’t go for either. With an indistinguishable sound halfway between a grunt and a groan, he gathered her in his arms and held her. Just held her.

When they joined Hazlett in the great room, their adrenaline had stopped pumping and the cold reality of a crime scene had set in. One uniformed officer snapped shots with a Polaroid. Another stood by, waiting until he finished to gouge into the wooden front door and retrieve the bullet. A third meticulously swept glass shards into plastic evidence bags.

Detouring to the kitchen, Jess put on a pot of coffee before joining Steve and Jim Hazlett in the great room. The two men had covered much the same ground she and Steve had covered earlier. Both cops were now convinced that the incident on the Mid-Bay Bridge was no accident…any more than the shooting tonight. Someone wanted Jess dead.

“Why?” Hazlett puzzled, studying her thoughtfully. “What do you know that someone doesn’t want you to know?”

“I don’t have any idea.”

“Think,” he urged. “Did your mother ever talk to you about the men who assaulted her?”

“No.”

“Did Whittier drop any surprises or unexpected tidbits of information when you confronted him?”

“No.”

“What about…?”

Steve cut in. “Maybe we’re wrong.”

“Wrong how?”

“We’re assuming these attempts on Jess’s life are related to the incident involving her mother,” he said slowly. “Could be we’re wrong.”

“Could be,” Hazlett agreed. “It’s the most logical connection, but you and I both know logic doesn’t always play in the mind of a killer.”

Leaning his elbows on his knees, Steve followed his train of thought. “What about your job, Jess? Is there anything going on at the base that could have made you a target?”

What wasn’t going on? She’d taken over from a commander under criminal indictment for allowing the illegal dump of solvents. She’d butted heads with the EPA over clean-up measures. She’d shut-down Eglin’s pipeline and put out a polluted fuel alert that curtailed flying operations at bases all along the coast. One of her first acts as commander was to demote a belligerent tech sergeant…

Abruptly, Jess yanked the reins on her thoughts. She refused to go down that road. Despite their rocky start, she trusted Ed Babcock. She’d put him in charge of a massive fuel recovery operation.

Just to be sure, though, she made a mental note to stop by the Credit Union and have a chat with Eileen Babcock. It wouldn’t hurt to find out if her ex-husband had dropped by her apartment tonight, as he apparently did on a regular basis.

Hating the doubts and danger swirling around her, Jess blew out a long breath.

“There’s a lot going on at the base. If you want me to go through it all, we’ll need the pot of coffee I just put on. We’ll also need to notify Eglin’s Office of Special Investigations that you’re requesting information regarding military matters.”

“You get the coffee,” Steve suggested. “I’ll notify the OSI through appropriate police channels.”

Dawn streaked through the plantation shutters covering the windows when the conclave in Jess’s great room finally broke up. Special Agent O’Daniels left with a pad full of scribbled notes and a promise to brief the officers in his chain ASAP. Jess intended to do the same as soon as she showered, changed into her uniform, and drove to the base. She wasn’t looking forward to another session with Colonel Hamilton – or to running the gauntlet of media gathered in the parking lot outside her condo.

She peered through the shutters as Hazlett and O’Daniels waded into the throng. The OSI agent declined all comment. Hazlett, apparently, provided minimal information, just enough to whet their appetites, Jess guessed. Sighing, she snapped the shutters shut and caught Steve’s eye.

“You know they’re going to glom onto the fact that you were here last night.”

“I know,” he said with complete indifference. “I’m sure they’ll also glom onto the fact that I’ll be here tonight.”

“Come again?”

“I’ll be here every night, until we nail whoever wants you dead. Or…” He swept the condo a considering glance. “You can move in with me. The quarters are tighter, but the Gone Fishin’s remote location and private road give the media less access. Your choice, Jess.”

She might have taken umbrage if her thoughts hadn’t drifted along very similar lines just before a bullet shattered her front door.

“What if I choose neither A or B?” she asked curiously.

“Not an option. Your place or mine?”

“Mine,” she conceded. “At least I have TV.”

His rapier swift smile promised little tube time. “I’ll go out and feed the sharks. One of my deputies will follow you into work. Call me when you’re ready to come home.”

Considerably sobered, Jess went to shower and change into her uniform.

Whatever Steve fed the sharks seemed to placate them. The headlines that blazed across the front pages of the local papers the next morning detailed the shooting at Jess’s condo. But they made no mention of the fact that the sheriff had taken up residence with a woman whose name figured repeatedly and mysteriously in the demise of three local men.

It wasn’t until two days later, when Congressman Calhoun was found dead of a broken neck at the Silver Acres Retirement Center, that the media went for the jugular.

This time, the headlines all but accused Jess of pushing the congressman’s wheelchair down the short flight flagstone steps to the patio where he’d been found just before breakfast. And this time, Steve made no bones about the fact that he’d been in Jess’s bed, making love to her, the entire night before.

Editorials in the print media pilloried the Walton County Sheriff. TV and radio talk show hosts pontificated at length about his loss of objectivity and questioned his ability to conclude this or any other investigations. The former deputy who campaigned against Steve in the last election painted an even blacker picture, barely skirting a lawsuit with hints that sheriff had been seduced by a vengeful daughter who had now eliminated four of the five men who’d wronged her mother.