Against the Wind (10 page)

“He's not new, is he? He's been doing this a while?” She gave him a nod. “You're a lifesaver, Dottie. Thank you very much.” She hung up the phone and looked up at him with a grin. “Here's our man.”

“I didn't realize I had myself a first-class detective.”

She laughed. “It's a start. Unfortunately, we need to find out if Mr. Rimmer is legitimate, and I haven't the foggiest notion how to do that.”

“I'll call my brother, see if he's back from Mexico.” Jackson sat down in the chair instead of sitting next to her on the sofa as he wanted to do. He had pressed her enough for now. In boxing he'd learned to bide his time, to read his opponent, then wait till the moment was right before striking. He had a lot left to learn about Sarah Allen.

Jackson picked up the receiver and called Arizona. Dev wasn't at his Scottsdale home, or in his Phoenix office, but he had been calling for messages and he was expected back soon. Jackson left word both places.

“It's getting on toward evening. We need to stop by the Blue Parrot. Afterward we'll get some supper.”

“All right. I'll go get dressed. And I need to call Holly, make sure she's all right.”

Jackson had already showered and changed into fresh clothes. He emptied the other half of her Coke into a glass and drank it while he waited. A few minutes later, Sarah returned to the living room wearing a slinky little black cocktail dress that made the blood in his veins rush south.

“You look gorgeous,” he said. “Ought to make the boys at the Blue Parrot sit up and take notice.”

She smiled, looked pleased. He was always surprised at how little it seemed to take to please her.

“Thank you.”

“I'll have the valet bring the car around.” He called the front desk, grabbed his light-colored sport coat off the back of a chair but didn't put it on, and they left the suite.

The car was waiting when they reached the front door. He drove out into traffic, took the 405 Freeway to the Ventura Boulevard off-ramp, then cruised the busy street until they spotted the Blue Parrot, a few miles down the road.

The place didn't look fancy, just a white stucco, flat-roofed building with a motel facing the parking lot in the rear. A blue-collar joint of the sort that might appeal to Andrew Hollister's blue-collar clientele, guys like Kozak in the construction business.

“You ready for this?” Jackson asked as he turned off the engine.

Sarah released a slow breath. “As much as I'm ever going to be. Let's go.”

T
he Blue Parrot. A plastic palm tree stood at the end of a long bar lined with red vinyl bar stools. Neon beer signs on the wall, Formica tables and multicolored plastic chairs that looked as if they came straight out of the fifties. Jackson could see into a back room that had a shuffleboard and two pool tables. The place should have been smoke-filled, undoubtedly was until the city passed an ordinance against smoking indoors.

“Nice place,” he said sarcastically. “I don't imagine it's the sort your husband might have frequented.”

“Andrew liked the finer things in life, but he was forced to mingle with his customers on occasion. He might have come here at one time or another.”

Jackson's hand went to Sarah's waist, urging her toward the bar, and she slid up on one of the stools. She tugged on the skirt of her sexy black cocktail dress, pulling it down to cover as much as she could of her
shapely legs. As short as the dress was, the gesture was pretty much futile. Enjoying the view, Jackson bit back a smile.

“What'll you have?” The bartender, a blond guy slightly past his prime in a tight black T-shirt, leaned on the top of the bar. He had blue eyes and they ran over Sarah, taking in the soft swells of her cleavage exposed in the V of the dress. Jackson ignored an unexpected shot of jealousy.

“I'll have a glass of white wine,” Sarah said.

“I'll have a beer,” Jackson added. “Make it a Bud.”

It was a beer-and-whiskey kind of place, a little shoddy, but the sparse crowd didn't look rough, just slightly worn out. Jackson sat down on the bar stool next to Sarah and casually surveyed the room, noting the aging features of the women and the disinterested expressions of the men, none of whom fit the description of the ones they were looking for.

Halfway through his beer, he returned his attention to the bartender. Earlier, he'd noticed the guy's thick biceps but figured him for a weight lifter. Then he spotted the broken nose and roughened ears.

“You look like a fighter. You box some?”

He made a slight nod of his head. “Boxed a little after high school. For a while I was the Great White Hope around here. Didn't last long.” He looked Jackson over, taking in the muscles in his arms, the scar along his jaw and the one bisecting his eyebrow. “You, too?”

He nodded. “Made the Olympic team in '92. Did pretty good till some Russian kicked my ass.”

The bartender hooted a laugh. “There's a gym just down the street. We get a lot of muscle-jocks in here. A
few decent fighters. You want another beer? This one's on me.”

Jackson shook his head. “Rather have a little information.”

“Yeah?”

“I'm looking for a couple of guys—one's blond, skinny, has a tattoo on his hand that says Mother. The other one's Hispanic. Short and stout. Might be a fighter. Maybe he's one of those who come in here from the gym.”

“Sounds like Billy Hinman and Jose Delgado. They hang together a lot. Billy's okay, a little slow on the uptake. Delgado thinks he's a tough guy. Competes in the local boxing competitions. I guess he's been doing okay.”

Jackson pulled the napkin from beneath his beer, wrote down his cell number, slid it and a fifty-dollar bill across the bar. “You see either one of those guys in the next day or two, give me a call.”

The bartender picked up the fifty. “I see Delgado right now… He's just walking in the back door.” He tipped his head toward the rear entrance leading in from the parking lot. Jose Delgado strode in as if he owned the place.

“Stay here,” Jackson said to Sarah, sliding off the bar stool.

“Are you sure you should—”

“I won't be long.” He was sure, all right. The bastard owed him for the mess he'd made of the cottage. Jackson strode the length of the bar, across the empty dance floor toward the back door. He stopped dead in front of the fighter.

“You Delgado?”

“Who wants to know?”

“I do. I believe you owe me some money.”

“I don't even know you, man. Why would I owe you money?” With his dark complexion, black eyes and straight black hair slicked back from a square-jawed face, he was good-looking—or at least Jackson figured the women would think so.

“Maybe because you and your buddy broke into my property in Wyoming and tore the hell out of just about everything.”

Jose scoffed, but the truth was there in his eyes. “I don't know what you're talking about, man.”

“Maybe not. Tell you what…you give me the name of the guy who paid you to do it and we'll forget the whole thing.”

“Get lost, man.” He tried to walk past, but Jackson moved in front of him, used a shoulder to shove him against the wall.

“I want the name.”

Delgado grinned, a look of pure anticipation twisting the contours of his face. His hand fisted, shot out with the speed and power of a cannonball, a punch that could send a man to his knees. Jackson blocked the blow, drilled him with two sharp jabs and a punch that had Delgado's head slamming hard against the wall.

The amazement on his face turned to fury. He growled low in his throat and charged. Jackson turned at the last instant, hit him with a blow that came up from the floor, and Delgado went down like a sack of oats.

Seconds passed, not quite the count of ten, Jackson figured. Delgado staggered to his feet. He shook his head and wiped the blood off his lips with the back of his hand. “You're gonna pay for that, man.”

Jackson just smiled. The kid was strong as a bull, but he'd had no real training. And he let his temper get in the way of his boxing. He threw a fierce punch at Jackson straight from the shoulder. Jackson jerked sideways, missing the blow, jabbed him two more times, then went in for the kill. Two hard punches, one to the head, one to the midsection, another blow to the head and the kid went down.

Delgado wasn't unconscious but he was smart enough not to get up. Jackson rolled him onto his back and planted a knee in the middle of his chest. “The name.”

He spit out a mouthful of blood. “Screw you.”

Jackson drew back his fist. “You sure that's the way you want it?”

Delgado swore a dirty word. “Kozak,” he said through swollen lips.

“You went to Wyoming looking for a disk Andrew Hollister had.”

“Yeah.” Delgado tried to sit up but Jackson's knee forced him back down.

“The lady doesn't have it,” Jackson said. “She doesn't know anything about it.”

Jackson put pressure on his knee and Delgado groaned. “Mostly it was…a message,” the kid said. “Kozak wants her…to find it.”

Jackson came to his feet, letting Delgado go. “All right, now I'm the one sending a message. You tell Kozak if he doesn't want more trouble than he can handle, he'd better leave Sarah Hollister alone.”

 

No one called the police. It was over too quickly and the patrons were probably used to an occasional show of bad temper. The bartender just grinned, one boxer to
another, as Sarah and Jackson walked out of the Blue Parrot.

Sarah's legs were shaking. She felt Jackson's hand at her waist all the way to the parking lot. There was something about his natural sense of protectiveness she found comforting. She told herself she didn't approve of Jackson's brutal treatment of Jose Delgado, that she'd dealt with enough violence to last a lifetime.

But somehow this was different. Jackson was trying to protect her, not hurt her.

“You okay?” he asked as he waited for her to get settled in the passenger seat and snap her seat belt in place.

“I'm all right.”

“At least we know for sure it was Kozak.” He shut the car door, walked around to the driver's side and climbed in.

She studied his profile as he pulled the seat belt across his muscular chest. “I remember your fight with the Russian,” she said, referring to the comment he had made to the bartender. “He didn't beat you by much.”

He shrugged the powerful shoulders she had just seen in action. “I lost. That was all that mattered.”

“I think it mattered that you competed and gave it your best.”

His dark eyes ran over her, sending a sliver of heat into her stomach. “So you watched the Barcelona Games?”

“Everyone in Wind Canyon watched. They were proud of you. So was I.” Jackson seemed surprised. “I had a crush on you, Jackson. I was just afraid to let anyone know. I was afraid they would treat me the way they treated you.”

He scoffed. “You had ambitions that didn't include a poor boy like me.”

She glanced away, knowing it was true. “I wanted out. I admit it. I was tired of being a small-town girl. I wanted to see what life was like outside Wyoming. I wanted to travel, to visit places like Paris and Rome. Believe me, I paid for it.”

Jackson made no reply, just started the engine and drove out of the parking lot. “We've got dinner reservations at a place called The Dove. It's supposed to be very good.”

“I've never been there, and to tell you the truth, I'm glad. I have some pretty awful memories of dinners with Andrew.”

For the first time, he smiled. “Then let's make a good memory tonight.”

Sarah's heartbeat quickened. She already had too many memories of Jackson, memories of a hot, steamy night in bed with him, of outrageous sex, memories that urged her to let him make love to her again.

Not tonight, she told herself. Tonight she would say no and she would mean it.

In the meantime, she would enjoy a delicious meal in the company of a handsome man. She deserved that much, she told herself.

Tomorrow she would think of Marty Kozak and what she needed to do to make sure she and Holly were safe.

 

A warm, early-June sun beat down on the asphalt surrounding the Serv-U Storage facility off Sunset Boulevard west of the 405 Freeway. After Andrew's death, when his father's big Spanish-style house had been sold
and finally closed escrow, the Realtor had arranged an estate sale for the furniture that remained in the house, donated miscellaneous items, then put what was left into storage.

The items in the unit weren't something Marty Kozak was likely to know about and even Sarah had no idea exactly what was in there, since none of it held the least sentimental value to her. In fact, the only memories she had of living in the house on Sunset were bitter and painful.

Including the fact that the house was the scene of the murder.

Sarah shivered though the breeze fanning the palm trees around the perimeter was warm. She had worked hard to deal with the memories of what had happened that last night in the house—the terrible fight she'd had with Andrew she had never revealed to the police.

The awful, nauseating fear.

She closed her eyes, refusing to let the unwanted memories return.

“You all right?” Jackson asked.

“I'm fine.” And for the most part, she was. The images of that terrible night came mostly in nightmares, and after her move to Wyoming, they occurred less and less.

Jackson examined the padlock. “You've got the combination, right?”

She nodded. “The Realtor gave it to me before I left. I figured we'd need it once we got to California so I brought it along.”

Jackson examined the lock, worked the tumblers, removed the device, then slid up the heavy rolling door.

Sarah stared at the dusty stacks of boxes and
miscellaneous bits and pieces of furniture, most of which were broken or damaged, and felt a sweep of nausea. Perspiration broke out on her forehead.

Jackson caught her arm. “You look like you're going to faint. Maybe you'd better wait in the car.”

She shook her head. “I'll be all right in a minute. I just…I wasn't quite prepared.” She wasn't prepared to see a lamp Andrew had once thrown at her in a fit of temper, the expensive silk shade ripped and bent beyond repair. Or the chair he had been sitting in behind his desk that last night.

She took a deep breath and slowly released it, clamped down on the old fear she refused to let grab hold of her again.

“Not much to show for a lifetime,” she said, surveying the miscellaneous items in the storage room, a carton of books meant as a donation for the library, a stack of pillows from one of the beds, the cases now yellowed and stained.

“Your life is just beginning,” Jackson said.

Sarah took a deep breath, praying he was right. “After the estate sale, Andrew's clothes and personal effects were given to the Salvation Army.”

“If the disk was in any of that, it's history.”

“He kept his business life completely separate, so likely it wasn't.” She moved silently into the debris that had once been part of her life. “We need to go through these boxes, see what's inside.”

Jackson walked past her into the storage locker, his lean body brushing against her as he moved. She told herself she wasn't disappointed that last night he had brought her back to the hotel after supper and played the perfect gentleman. She wasn't the least disappointed
that he had kissed her on the forehead and told her to get some rest.

Sarah ignored a twinge of irritation at the memory. All evening, she had been constructing her defenses, preparing for the battle she would wage when they returned to the suite and Jackson began making love to her. Her biggest enemy was her own desire for him, but she was ready to say no and mean it.

Instead, Jackson had respected her wishes and ruined her plans.

She flicked him a glance. The man was just full of surprises.

She watched him open one dusty box after another, setting anything aside he thought she might need to go through.

“These look interesting,” he said about a series of boxes he found in the corner. “Looks like they may have come out of his home office.”

They had, she discovered as she started on the first of three, digging out an old fax machine Andrew had never used, paper trays, a phone with the receiver missing, a broken pencil sharpener, Scotch tape dispenser, stapler and other miscellaneous objects.