Night Thunder (21 page)

“It’s not just about me, Ty. There’s someone else involved. Someone I owe big-time. And I can’t betray him . . . even to you.”

Her words stirred something dark and fierce inside him. Jealousy. Who was this jerk she was so loyal to? A lover, a husband? A ball of barbed wire tightened in his chest. Somehow he managed to keep his expression neutral. It cost him, though.

“I said I’d try to help. If he’s important to you, I’ll do my best to protect him too. But you have to look out for yourself.”

“You don’t understand.” She pushed away from him and stalked to the window, her stomach churning. Then she spun around to face him.

“This man has played a big part in my life. If not for him, I don’t even think I’d have much of a life. I’d have fallen apart a long time ago.”

“Are you in love with him?” He forced the words out. They seemed to cut his tongue.

She looked at him like he was crazy, then threw back her head and laughed. “No. Oh, no. Ricky is like . . . a brother to me, a best friend. A guardian angel,” she added with a strangled laugh.

“He’s been there for me since my parents died, since I was placed in my third foster home. But I could never be
in love
with him.”

The relief Ty felt was like a full-grown grizzly leaping off his chest. He walked over to Josy, took her hand in his, and led her to the sofa. Sitting down beside her, he began to very gently rub his thumb across her long, slender fingers.

“Okay, then. Tell me about him.”

She hesitated a moment, then nodded. Ty wasn’t going to let up until she told him. And part of her knew that with Dolph on her trail, she needed all the assistance she could get.

But she had to make him see why Ricky deserved his help too. Why she couldn’t do anything that would hurt Ricky in any way.

And as she talked, and told him about how Ricky had been the one person to help her overcome her muteness when no one else could, even the therapists hired by the state, how Ricky had made her laugh, and looked out for her, how he’d kept her company in the Hammonds’ basement the night Karl had banished her to the darkness, she saw the expression on his face tighten, and a flash of understanding in his eyes. He held her hand all through her story, and his fingers closed around hers as she told him about the Callahan brothers.

“They were the neighborhood bullies. Dean was the oldest, he thought he was really hot stuff. James was a year younger and he was the meanest of the three. He . . .” She swallowed hard. “He killed a stray cat one day when he was bored. Set it on fire.”

Ty said nothing, just held her hand more tightly, and she was very grateful he was there with her, not interrupting, but letting her explain about Ricky at her own pace.

“The youngest brother was Frank. Little Frankie. He was the runt of the litter and laughed like a hyena at everything his brothers did and said. Frankie would have gone along with murder if Dean or James suggested it.”

She closed her eyes a moment, seeing their faces again, reluctantly reliving that hot summer day.

“They used to ride by the Hammond house on their bicycles and stick their tongues out at me when I was in the front yard. I tried to stay out of their way, but one day I was walking home from a friend’s house—her parents had invited me over for dinner and Mrs. Hammond had allowed me to go—when I saw them playing catch in the street. It was early September, still warm, but starting to get dark earlier. I didn’t want to walk past them, so I ducked down another street, to try to circle around.”

She grimaced. “That was my first mistake. Dean saw me cutting through that street, and he knew I was avoiding them, that I was scared.” She paused a moment and took a deep breath.

“The next thing I knew they had headed me off one street over. I was trapped—I couldn’t go forward, and when I tried to run away, back the way I’d come, they ran after me. Frankie was whooping, like it was a big game and they were winning, but James told him to shut up. That’s when I really started getting scared.”

She glanced at Ty. His mouth was grim. His eyes burned with anger, but she knew it wasn’t directed at her. He let go of her hand and his arm slid around her.

“What happened?”

“They grabbed me. Dean held his hand over my mouth. I could hardly breathe, much less scream. They dragged me to the garbage dump. It was four blocks over and there was this rusted fence, this horrible smell. They shoved me inside, dragged me far away from the street so no one could see. It was getting dark. I was terrified. Then they told me to take off my panties,” she said, her voice so low Ty had to strain to hear her.

“I refused, and I . . . I tried to scream, but we were too far away for anyone to hear.” Her voice wavered ever so slightly, but she quickly brought it under control. “Dean and James picked me up and threw me into a Dumpster. It stank and there was this garbage all over, up to my hips. Every time I tried to climb out, they pushed me back in.”

She looked up at him, her eyes stark with memory. Ty’s gut churned. He had the insane wish to be able to go back in time, to step in and spare her from an ordeal no one should ever have to suffer.

But now, all he could do was listen, and try to bear the pain he saw in her eyes, heard in her voice.

“They told me if I took off all my clothes, they’d let me out. I was screaming, but there was no one to hear. Or so I thought.”

She shifted her shoulders. “Ricky had seen them dragging me into the dump. He was several blocks away, but he saw what was happening and he came charging in there like . . . like a one-man SWAT team,” she finished on a shaky laugh. “He tore into Dean, and hit him so hard he broke his nose. Before James and Frankie could go after him, he grabbed up a tire iron and told them to scram before he beat their brains in. Ricky was a year older than Dean, but he wasn’t nearly as big. He was thin and wiry, but he could fight. He . . . he had this way about him . . . this confidence . . .”

She stopped suddenly, casting another quick glance at him. Ty had that same kind of almost arrogant physical confidence too.

It must be a cop thing,
she decided.

“He faced down James and Frankie. Dean was bleeding and crying on the ground. When he ordered them to take Dean and get out of there, and never go near me again, they did it. They all ran off and Ricky pulled me out.”

Ty nodded. But before he could say anything, Josy hurried on, eager to bolster her case. “After that, Ricky told me that he was going to teach me some things I needed to know. Like how in every situation there’s a time to run and a time to fight. He said he’d teach me the difference—and what to do when I had to fight. ‘Use what you can,’ he always told me. ‘Look around, see what’s there. Use what you can.’ ”

Her eyes shone in the firelight as she rested her shoulders back against the sofa. “After that night, the Callahan boys stayed away from me. They never even spoke to me again—or stuck out their tongues. But if it hadn’t been for Ricky . . .”

Her voice trailed off.

“Yeah. I get it,” Ty said. “Good thing he was there. Those punks deserved even worse.” At the contained fury in his tone, Josy inched closer to him and rested her head on his shoulder.

He frowned and held her, trying to rein in his surge of protectiveness. “Okay, I understand. You’re loyal to Ricky. Now what’s his connection to the guy who came after you last night? What’s this really about?”

Lifting her head from his shoulder, she took a long breath. Then she told him.

She told him all about Ricky’s suspension from the police force, about the internal investigation, the rumors and accusations—and about his phone call telling her he’d left a package with her doorman. She recounted everything that had followed, including how she’d found Archie dying on the floor in his own blood—and how the man with the dark blond hair had entered the house in Brooklyn, carrying a gun.

And she told him how her apartment had been ransacked and how Ricky, in that last urgent call, had ordered her to run.

Ty’s expression had grown steadily grimmer.

“I wanted to stay and call the police—God knows, I wanted to try to help them find whoever had killed Archie,” she said in an agonized tone. “But Ricky told me I couldn’t trust the police. And I was afraid that if I turned the package over to them and told them everything, it would be even worse for him. I just couldn’t do that to him. He needed me, so . . . I had to help him.”

“That bastard.” Anger tautened Ty’s face.

“No, Ty, don’t say that. Don’t you see—”

“I see that he involved you in one hell of a dangerous situation. He put you in danger, Josy. I don’t care what he did for you before, you’re a civilian and his friend. He never should have let you get mixed up in whatever mess he made for himself.”

“You’re wrong. Ricky’s being framed, I know it. And he needed my help—I’d do it all again,” she exclaimed, pulling back from him.

Ty launched himself off the sofa. He paced around the cozy firelit room, his boots thumping on the hardwood floor. “What was in the package?” he demanded, suddenly wheeling back to face her.

“What will you do if I tell you?”

“Damn it, Josy, this isn’t a game.” He raked a hand through his hair. “Your old friend Ricky is mixed up in some very dirty business. Now, I don’t know if he’s clean or dirty himself and right now I don’t care. But if I’m going to keep you safe, I need to know who—and what— I’m up against.”

“I won’t tell you about the package—not until you promise me something.”

His eyes narrowed. Josy threw back her shoulders in the too-big black robe and met his gaze squarely. If she didn’t know that Ty Barclay was on her side, she would have been very frightened indeed. But she happened to know that beneath that tough, uncompromising, intimidating cop exterior, Ty Barclay had a heart and a soul. And a tender side few would ever guess.

He would listen to her. She just had to make her case.

“What kind of promise?” he bit out.

“Promise that you’ll let me deliver the package to Ricky. You won’t try to stop me.”

For a moment he looked like he was going to explode. “No.”

“Then take me home. I have . . . things to do.”

She stood up from the sofa, but he reached her in a quick stride and seized her shoulders.

“This isn’t kid stuff anymore, Josy. It’s bad news. You’re smart enough to know that. I’ll try to help Ricky through this if I can—I’ll even help him cut a deal, though I’d like to kick his ass from here to Tennessee. But I need to know what I’m dealing with.”

“What we’re dealing with,” she corrected him.

His breath hissed out in exasperation. “Tell me about the package. When and where are you giving it to him?”

“First promise me you’ll let me deliver it.”

Standoff. Ty took her measure, fighting for patience even though he was worried as hell about what she’d gotten into—what her dear old friend Ricky had
gotten
her into. She was as frustrating and stubborn as any woman he’d ever met and that included Meg, and even his sister. Faith would like Josy Warner, no doubt about it.

From the upward tilt of her chin, and the determined glint in her eyes, he knew this was one round he was going to lose.

“All right. I won’t stop you from delivering it.” Even as he said the words, he knew he was going to regret them.

She smiled at him. This slender blonde who’d been am-bushed by a pro, threatened and cut with a knife, and then dragged around Shadow Point half the night was beaming at him with the sweetest expression of triumph and relief he’d ever seen.

I’ve got it bad,
he thought, his stomach roiling. How had this happened? How had he gone from being mildly interested in the new woman in town to
this
? It was unbelievable and pathetic . . . and damned crazy. He wanted to kiss her suddenly, but he knew he couldn’t. He had to interrogate her first.

“Okay, I promised, so let’s have it,” he said with a scowl. “What’s in the package?”

She sank down on the sofa again and he joined her there, waiting as she looked up into his eyes.

“A diamond,” she said. “The biggest diamond you ever saw.”

“How big?”

She curled her fingers and thumb into a big C. “This big. It’s a major
rock
.”

Shit
. Ty kept his tone level. “And you put it where?”

“In the ground. Once I saw what it was, and realized it had to be real or why would everyone want it so badly, I decided burying it was the safest thing to do in case anyone came looking for it. Don’t worry, as I drove out into the wild I made exact notations where I hid it.”

“And where did you put these notations?”

“I memorized them after I got home and tore them up into itty-bitty pieces and flushed them down the toilet.” She slanted a glance up at him. “How’m I doing so far, copper?”

“You’re scoring an A in Criminal Theft 101. Any idea where this diamond came from?”

“Dolph said it belonged to his boss. He accused Ricky of stealing it. Which—if that’s true, I know Ricky must have had a good reason,” she added quickly. “Obviously Dolph’s boss is a criminal himself. He probably stole it to begin with so—”

“Hold it. I want you to start from the beginning. I want you to tell me everything about Dolph, everything you remember about the way he looked, the car he drove, what he said.”

So she spent the next half hour reliving the events of the evening, searching her memory for descriptions and details and telling Ty everything she could recall. When he finally nodded, ending the questioning, she sank back exhausted on the sofa.

Ty placed his hand over hers. “You did good, Josy. One more thing. Was that Ricky who called you the other night when I was in your apartment? Was that him setting up the meet?”

She nodded.

“So when is it?”

“Tomorrow. I mean, today. Five o’clock.”

“Where?”

“The rest stop one-half mile north of the ranger’s station on Laramie Peak. In the Medicine Bow National Forest. I suppose you’re going to insist on coming with me.” She hated the hopefulness in her own voice, but she couldn’t hide it. She didn’t want to be dealing with this alone anymore.