Bannon Brothers (23 page)

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Authors: Janet Dailey

BOOK: Bannon Brothers
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She wouldn't come to him tonight either. But then that was the last thing he would want.
Montgomery sat up, pushing the covers away and getting to his feet. A shot of hard liquor might do him good. He kept his favorite tipple hidden in a closet, just to make sure he'd always have enough. It was handmade bourbon, aged to perfection by the son of the fellow who'd sold the same stuff to his father—and every other local squire who was willing to ride half a day into the woods to buy it from him one unlabeled bottle at a time. The original maker was an expert distiller known to all the gentlemen in the county. Just not to the government.
Montgomery went to the closet and reached in for the bottle, carefully stashed behind a jumble of decorative objects that Caroline had bought and then not liked. He pushed them aside, feeling his fingers touch the cool plaster of the interior wall. Not there—the bottle had been taken. Or moved.
Then he remembered that he had moved it himself, to the large storage cabinet in his study that held miscellaneous family papers and years of correspondence, set aside for him to write a family history someday. It was safe enough there. He knew Caroline had already pawed through the letters some time ago. She was the kind of woman who could not resist snooping and he had obligingly left the accordion folders unsealed to give her something to do.
He flicked open the latch and reassured himself that the bottle was there, moving aside a fat folder or two and circling the neck with his fingers to bring it out into the light. Excellent. There was more than enough in it for his purposes. He could sip and read something until he felt sleepy.
Montgomery looked around. The coffee table held the usual magazines, stacked with don't-touch precision, all about horses and hounds, socialites and snobs.
On impulse, he grabbed an accordion file from the storage cabinet and tossed it onto the couch. Might as well see what was in it. The date on the label was decades old, from when people prided themselves on writing intelligent letters. A few bounced out when the thing landed. No one had rewound the string around the disk that kept it closed.
Finding a glass, he poured himself a double shot and moved toward the couch with the bottle in his hand, setting it down on the floor before he sank into the richly upholstered cushions. It didn't take too long for the strange edginess that kept him awake to mellow a little.
Idly, he sipped the bourbon and cast a glance into the accordion file, picking up the letters that had fallen out and stuffing them back into the slots inside. It had been organized—who had done that? A former secretary, he supposed. He'd had several. Feeling angry that he couldn't remember, he upended the damn thing and let the contents spill out, brushing his hand over the pile to separate the papers.
Whoever had put it all in order had been wasting her time. There was never any need to keep such stuff. He picked up a letter in a little-old-ladyish handwriting that thanked him and his lovely wife most sincerely for the annual tour of their historic home. That had been Mrs. Meriweather's idea and Luanne's responsibility. After the third year of strangers traipsing through the halls, he'd put his foot down. No more tours. He crumpled the letter into a ball and tossed it on the floor.
A detailed pencil rendering of an odd mechanism caught his eye. He picked it up, admiring the draftsmanship and noting the words
Patent Pending
below the—what was it? He read the neatly lettered title. A Device for the Walking of Horses, Attaching to a Standard Halter. Montgomery took a large swallow of bourbon and looked for the inventor's name. There it was. Randall Ernest.
That rang a bell—no, it didn't. Randall was Erin's last name, that was all. This Randall Ernest was some forgotten genius. Or crackpot. He supposed the half-remembered secretary had dealt with the man. There was no way he could assign a face to that unremarkable name.
Bored but still wide awake, he studied the rendering again. The device was ingenious, if useless. Carelessly, Montgomery finished the bourbon and set the glass on the paper. The drop of liquor that ran down its side brought his own faded scrawl to life.
Not interested.
He ought to burn these files, he thought. The ache in his head had started again. Or seal them and send them to that Bannon. Let the detective beat his brains out, while he was looking for clues and causing trouble.
 
A star-filled but otherwise dark sky arched over Erin as she took Charlie outside for a last, short walk. They stayed near the house. Only her bedroom window, curtains drawn, was lit from within.
The sense of peace she always got from being out in nature filled her heart. She breathed in the cool night air, keeping her hands warm in the pockets of an old, baggy jacket. Charlie sniffed the grass first, then the air, alert as usual. He returned to her side and sat down on his haunches, positioning his head directly under her hand.
Erin laughed softly as she looked down. “All right. I can take a hint.” She patted his big head and rumpled the thick fur at the back of his neck.
For a few minutes longer they stayed outside, enjoying the peaceful night. Erin took one last deep breath and turned to go in. Charlie stayed by her.
She made sure the back door was locked, and then the front, before she shed the jacket and hung it up on the hook that held the leash. The lamp in her bedroom spilled warm light into the studio area, reaching as far as her easel. Erin stopped to flip through the large sketchbook she'd taken to the Montgomery stables today.
So far she was pleased with her drawings of the magnificent stallion, although none were complete. But she'd captured something of Take All in bits and pieces. The proudly arched neck and well-groomed mane. Liquid dark eyes with a touch of mischievous spirit. The strong shape of his head. She'd used quick, swooping lines of dark pencil to outline the powerful contours of his back and hindquarters.
She wished she could show them to Bannon. If only he had been here with her, walking under the stars. They could have come in together, chilled, and done some cuddling. Maybe more. She wasn't sure if her restless longing for him was emotional or physical or both.
Erin closed the sketchbook and headed to her bedroom. She undressed and slipped into bed, wondering what Bannon was doing right now. Probably the same thing. It was a little too easy to imagine him unbuttoning his shirt and tossing it aside, revealing a chest and arms that had to be pure muscle.
Sometimes it was a wonderful thing to be so visually oriented. Erin almost giggled as she settled into her pillow. She let her imagination go a little further with her vision of Bannon . . . and then she sighed. He wasn't here, so right now it was frustrating.
Charlie padded into the room, ready to sack out on the rug by her bed. She rolled over and reached out to pat him one last time. The dog settled down in a sphinx position, front legs outstretched and head up, as if he was listening to something.
“It's okay, boy,” she said softly. “Settle down.”
Charlie turned his head to give her a soulful look and then resumed his watchful pose. He really was a great dog, she thought. It was a pleasure having him around, especially since it looked like Bannon was available for an occasional walk during the day. She didn't want to keep Charlie cooped up if she didn't have to.
“Go to sleep,” she said.
Obediently, the dog rested his head between his paws. Erin pulled up the covers under her chin and stared dreamily at the ceiling. In another few minutes, she'd drifted off.
The dog's ears pricked and turned. His head came up. But he stayed where he was.
 
Erin awoke with a start when she heard Charlie's deep growl. The big dog suddenly jumped at the window still shrouded by curtains, not barking, breaking the fragile old glass with the force of his leap. A man's voice cursed. Erin shrank back in terror when she glimpsed someone on the other side of the jagged shards entangled in the curtain. Someone tall. Broad-shouldered. Menacing. She couldn't see his face in the half light before dawn.
The dog's nose was bleeding but he stayed put, barking ferociously, back fur raised, looking and sounding twice as big as he was. The intruder vanished and Charlie turned to her.
Erin scrambled out of bed, switching on the light, trying to see the dog's wound. “Stay!” she whispered. In less than a second she plucked a half-inch sliver of glass from his sensitive nose, drawing a sharp breath when he flinched.
“Good dog. Good boy. I'm done.”
The dog stood patiently as she wiped the blood from his nose with a corner of the bedsheet. She scrubbed her cheeks, suddenly aware of two hot tears that were rolling down them. She told herself fiercely not to cry as she took hold of Charlie's head and turned it this way and that. Eyes, ears—both uninjured. Thank God. She saw no other cuts or bits of glass.
She looked around wildly, finding jeans and a top, struggling into them. The prowler could be trying another window. Or the door.
Charlie seemed to have no interest in the window and quickly moved away on patrol—there wasn't any other word for his deliberate progress through the house.
Her heart was hammering under her ribs. Where was her cell phone? Erin couldn't remember. Damn it—the bag she'd taken with her to the stables—it had to be in there. Unless it was in the car.
She edged into the studio area step by cautious step, hugging the wall, keeping her eyes on the windows. She saw nothing outside from her vantage point but the sky, quickly growing light. Even so. The man could still be there. Erin got down on hands and knees and headed for her toolbox. There was a claw hammer in there. Better than nothing.
She had the hammer in hand when she saw her bag. On the floor, where she'd dropped it. Erin let out her breath as Charlie came over.
“Sit,” she whispered. He obeyed. It occurred to her that he wasn't growling. His back wasn't up. Still, she wasn't going outside. She reached over from her position on the floor and dragged the bag to her with the hammer's claws. Then she scrabbled inside, looking for the little phone, praying that it was charged.
She flipped it open, keeping a hand on Charlie's powerful neck, more to reassure herself than him. The battery icon was low, but it had enough juice to make a call.
For a moment she hesitated. 911? The friend who'd rented her the house had warned her that it took forever to get help this far out in the sticks. The sheriff was a local joke and so were his deputies. She'd lost the number of a former boyfriend who lived about two miles away.
Erin called Bannon.
She hadn't finished telling him what had happened before he interrupted her. “Coming. Stay on. And stay down. Let Charlie tear out the sonovabitch's throat if he comes back.”
“You didn't tell me Charlie did things like that,” came her soft reply.
“Part of his training. Keep him with you.”
He pushed the button to put his cell phone on loudspeaker so as not to lose her, grabbing his jeans from last night, belt still in the loops. One, two, legs in, three, sweatshirt yanked over his head, four, boots he didn't bother to lace. Less than five seconds had passed when he picked up the phone. “I'm outta here.” He took a gun from a drawer. His own, not department hardware. A Glock.
“Okay,” she whispered.
Bannon scooped up his car keys, pretty sure the rotating light to slap on the dash was under the passenger seat. If not, the hell with it. His fellow law enforcement professionals could follow him to Erin's house if they wanted to. His car could do ninety to a hundred easy on clear roads, and Wainsville didn't have a rush hour. He flung open the door and found it blocked.
The building manager, a guy who had a bad habit of starting work at dawn, was standing there with two large cardboard boxes stacked at his feet. He goggled at Bannon, just as startled as he was. “Hello there. I didn't want to knock. These came in yesterday—hey!”
Bannon swore under his breath and pushed past the boxes, then got a glimpse of the TV station logo on the cardboard and sent the top box flying inside with one swipe of his hand, kicked the bottom box inside after it, and slammed the door, not waiting to hear the click of the automatic lock.

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