Bannon Brothers (9 page)

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Authors: Janet Dailey

BOOK: Bannon Brothers
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She shook her head. “I visit sometimes, rent a room at an inn so I can paint. I used to spend summer vacations with my mom and dad there, though.”
“Oh, okay.” Something in her tone told him that her parents were no longer living. But he'd wait for Erin to confirm that.
“My dad liked to fish, so he went off with his rod and reel while my mom and I wandered around the seashore trails with binoculars. Kind of geeky, huh?”
Bannon shook his head. “Binoculars? No. Gotta have them on a stakeout.”
“Oh, right. Then I don't feel so geeky. Anyway, off we went. Most of Chincoteague is marsh—there are lots of wading birds. And wild horses, of course. In the distance.”
“Sounds nice. So you go out there alone now?”
She looked at him sharply, brushing a stray lock of brown hair away from her face. “How did you know that?”
“Ah—just a guess,” he replied, knowing he'd said something tactless. Erin seemed suddenly distant and he wished to God he could take the question back.
“It's a good one.” She pressed her lips together before she said anything more. “My parents died three years ago, within months of each other.”
“I'm sorry.”
She shrugged, but he could see that she was holding back a fair amount of emotion. “I came along late in life for them. They were so much older—well, I wasn't that close to either of them. I miss them sometimes. But in answer to your question, it was a while before I went back to Chincoteague and yes, I was alone when I did. Just easier that way.”
Bannon nodded, noting the waitress returning with their entrees. The plates set in front of them gave off the tantalizing aroma of excellent food, and he was grateful for the distraction.
Erin picked up her knife and fork, and he followed her lead. She tucked into her chicken and ate several bites before taking a breather. “This is really good,” she said, leaning back. “Keep eating. I'll tell you the rest of my life story. Might as well get it over with, right?”
Bannon's mouth was full and he didn't know what to say to that odd question. So he nodded. If she wanted to talk, he was happy to listen.
“I grew up on the other side of the Blue Ridge,” she began, naming a town he'd never heard of, “and I was homeschooled. My mom was a teacher, but she didn't work outside of raising me. She had emotional problems, I guess you'd say. I had an older brother who died before I came along.”
Bannon was paying attention.
Came along.
She'd said it twice. Not born. He wondered if she'd been adopted. Erin's casual tone wasn't telling him a lot. He finished his steak and fries, and set down his cutlery.
“Anyway,” she continued, “it was always just us three, me and Mom and Dad, way outside of town on our own forty acres. No grandparents or anything. No cousins.”
“What did your dad do?” Bannon asked.
Erin's expression softened. “He was an inventor, actually. We lived off the income from a few patents he held. I used to like to hang around in his workshop because it was so neat—you know, a place for everything and everything in its place. It seemed safe.”
He could fill in the blanks. Troubled mother, remote dad. And one sensitive little girl who didn't get much from either of her parents.
“You know something?” he asked lightly. “You never did tell me your last name.”
She seemed taken aback. “I didn't? Well, it's no big secret. It's Randall. Ordinary as can be.”
“You're anything but ordinary, Erin,” he said in a low voice. He looked up at the waitress, who'd returned with dessert menus even before the table was cleared. Several other customers had come in, and a couple of large groups. They must need the table. He decided to skip the sweet stuff and ordered coffee, but Erin ordered Raspberry Glory, whatever that was.
“Thanks for the compliment.” She negated it with a wave of her hand. “Even though I hate compliments. Now tell me about yourself.”
Bannon kept it short. “I have two brothers. Hell-raisers.”
“And you're the angel.”
“Um, no.” He grinned at her. “I'm the oldest. I showed Deke and Linc how to raise hell, put it that way.”
Erin laughed and the sound warmed him all over. “Your parents?”
“My dad was a cop, like me. An outdoorsman. He liked to take us up to the family cabin and teach us woodsy lore and whatnot. He passed away a few years ago. Mom is still going strong. She hovers over us all.”
“Mrs. Meriweather mentioned that. And she said you'd been on departmental leave for a while. After that shooting.”
“Yeah,” Bannon said wryly. “I knew you knew everything about me as soon as you said those two reunited online.” He liked her even more for stopping where she had and not asking a whole bunch more questions. That quietness of hers was something like kindness.
He pulled the coffee cup that the waitress set down toward him with the saucer and waited for Erin to be served.
She was smiling at his reply. “Only a little. So what do your brothers do?”
“Law enforcement. But not police work.”
Her dessert arrived and she seemed willing to let it go at that. “And you guys are close.”
“Yeah. Very.”
“You're lucky.” The wistfulness in her voice struck him. Overall he got an impression of loneliness, even isolation, in her upbringing. But not why. Hell. There was time enough for that conversation, and if it didn't happen today, he was fine with that.
Bannon watched her spoon up the homemade berry sherbet with the same thoughtful care with which she seemed to do just about everything. The sight was erotic and oddly pure at the same time. He stuck with black coffee, stirring it to give himself something to do besides gawk at her, even though there wasn't any sugar or cream in it.
 
They took both their cars to drive out to the Montgomery mansion. He followed her, taking note of the license plate under her hatchback just in case he might need it in the future. Getting her last name had taken long enough, he thought.
He couldn't shake the feeling that Erin was a very private person. He'd do well not to ask her too many questions at this point.
She raised the arm that she'd crooked in the open window on her side, pointing ahead. Bannon snapped out of his abstracted mood and looked. There was the Montgomery mansion, looking even more grand than it had on the historical society's website. Two full stories and a half story atop those. Columns. A double-height veranda. Nice details like carved swags of classical garlands under the eaves. Outside the tall, spiked iron fence that surrounded the house were towering old oaks, with a few smaller and much plainer structures well behind those. Probably had been the washhouse and sheds once upon a time. A neatly made, small shack undoubtedly covered a well.
They parked under a porte cochere to one side that was wide enough to shelter a couple of four-horse carriages side by side. Erin rubbed her arms when she got out. “It's chilly here.”
Bannon looked around. They were in the shade of the huge house, that was one reason why. It had been built on a rising swell of land that caught the spring breeze from the valley below.
She bent into her car and retrieved a sweater from the backseat, throwing it over her shoulders. Then she picked up a canvas bag with paint splatters on it and started hunting through the contents. “Mrs. Meriweather wrote down the keypad combination for me. Give me a sec to find the piece of paper. It's okay to go on up the stairs. I'll be right there.”
Bannon nodded. “Okay.”
The view from the lower veranda was spectacular, a sweeping vista of the valley. The house was well out in the country, away from the sprawl around Wainsville.
“I'll play tour guide,” she told him, coming up the stairs with her long dress lifted a bit by one hand, pretty as a picture. He felt like he ought to bow and take her arm. Gallant? Him? The truth was, she had that effect on him, filling him with an old-fashioned desire to court her.
“You're on,” he grinned.
“The house was built in 1810. It's never passed out of the Montgomery family.”
“Quite a place. Ever been inside?”
“Nope.” Erin looked at the piece of paper in her hand and went to the door, entering numbers into a keypad lock with one finger.
A small light on it flashed and she turned the doorknob. The huge carved door swung inward almost soundlessly. Well-oiled and well-maintained, Bannon thought. Just like the scion of the family himself.
“Walk on in. Pretend you're a Montgomery.”
“I'll have to think about that.” But he went in ahead of her and she followed him inside.
The furnishings were as grand as the exterior. They looked like antiques, good ones, even to his untrained eye. Meaning there had to be security, above and beyond the keypad lock. Instinctively, his gaze swept the light fixtures and moldings, looking for discreetly placed devices and finding nothing. A prickling on the back of his neck told him they were there, though.
Every surface gleamed, free of dust. The Montgomerys might have left the house just yesterday and not twenty-some years ago.
“It's so perfect,” she said. The house seemed to swallow Erin's soft words. It wasn't empty, but it echoed.
“The society keeps it up, don't they?”
She nodded. “I think a couple of volunteers come out every week. And Mrs. Meriweather said something about a caretaker.”
Bannon raised an eyebrow. “No sign of him.”
“I don't remember whether he lives somewhere on the property or not. When I was painting the place last year, I didn't see anybody around.”
“Hmm. This stuff looks valuable.” Hands in his pockets, Bannon surveyed the large rooms that opened off the foyer. Parlor, music room, library—each was an example of the gracious old South, but it wasn't a house he could ever imagine living in.
“It is.” Her answer was perfunctory. In silence, they moved from room to room. Bannon walked near her. He couldn't help noticing that Erin seemed to hesitate before entering each room.
“Dining room, second parlor, study,” he said under his breath before she opened doors that had probably been closed to save on heat.
“How do you know that?” she asked.
“Ah—” He had pretty much memorized the police diagrams of the house. “Just guessing. Am I right?”
Erin opened each door and peeped inside. “Yes.”
Her gaze moved over everything, as if she was memorizing it herself.
He studied an oil painting of a pair of Thoroughbreds from the Montgomery stable. “Not as good as yours.”
She came over. “Different style. Not what I do, really.”
“Right.”
He followed her as they came to a small room that opened off a corridor. “I looked through the windows of this one from outside,” she said softly. “It's not like the others. A woman decorated this just the way she wanted it, don't you think?”
“Maybe so.”
She played tour guide again, pointing things out. “That delicate pattern on the wallpaper and the sewing table with the piecrust edging—very nice.”
He picked up on the funny note of longing in her voice and then looked where she was pointing, realizing just how good her eye for detail was. If she had a house, she would probably have things like this.
“I wonder—” Erin stopped and looked at a small oval painting of a little girl. It was half in shadow, but she didn't seem inclined to turn on the light. “I didn't see this from outside. Is it her? Ann Montgomery?”
Bannon moved forward. “Yes. I think so. There was a photo something like it in the files.”
She studied the painting, then backed away. “It's strange to see her. It's like she's still here. Waiting.”
Bannon wanted to say that he knew exactly how she felt. But he didn't.
“Should we go upstairs? Mrs. Meriweather said the bedrooms are just the way they were when the family still lived here. Not on the official tour, of course. Stairs are a liability.”
He looked at her curiously. The same wistfulness he'd seen in her at the restaurant shone in her eyes. “Are you sure you want to?”
“If you're investigating, you should.”
“I could do that on my own. Go upstairs, I mean.”
Erin gave the slightest shake of her head. “I'll go with you.”
“But—”
She held up a hand before he could form a question. “Don't ask why. I just want to.”
In silence, they went back the way they'd come and stopped at an inner staircase that led to the second floor, not the grand one of the front hall. She went ahead of Bannon, unclipping the velvet rope that kept visitors on the first floor of the mansion and handing the brass end back to him. He clipped the rope again where it fastened when he'd gone up a couple of steps. Just in case someone came in, like the caretaker. Or someone else. He still couldn't shake the feeling of being watched, though he had yet to spot a surveillance device. A little noise, a few seconds of warning—he wanted both.

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