She's Gotta Be Mine (44 page)

“You need to go home and rest, Bobbie,” Angel said softly.

“I’ll only be a minute.”

Warren needed more than a minute. He felt frighteningly superfluous as Roberta looked up at the man. Why did her statement sound as if she intended to go home with Angel?

The room seemed to whirl around him, and he feared that with Roberta, the balance sheet lay heavily in the other man’s favor.

He made it out into the hall without stumbling. Seeming as loud as the clang of his cell door, the latch clicked as Roberta closed the door behind them. The hall outside the sheriff’s office was empty, though out in the main room, phones rang, computers buzzed, insults flew, and the department dealt with the aftermath of Cookie’s arrest.

“What do you need, Warren?”

Need? Three months ago Roberta wouldn’t even have had to ask.

“I’m sorry about all this, Roberta.” He winced at the inadequacy of the statement.

She crossed her arms, scuffed at the scarred floor with her shoe, then looked at him. “I know you are. I’m sorry, too. There are a lot of things I should have done differently.”

“You mean when we were married?”

She blinked. “No. I mean since you left.”

“I was wrong to do that, Roberta.” He snorted softly. “Oh, not because Cookie turned out to be...” He glanced at her. God, her eyes were so green. And clear. Not hidden and devious like Cookie’s. “Not because she was using me.”

Roberta said nothing. The low murmur of indistinguishable voices drifted through the glass in the sheriff’s door.

Warren dragged in a breath and plunged on. “I was searching for something. I thought seeing her again would get her out of my system, would allow me to put the past where it belonged.”

“You wanted her to tell you it wasn’t your fault. That she didn’t leave you because you were a bad guy. You wanted her to see what a success you’d made of your life, what a great guy you were. You never wanted closure, Warren.” She spoke with the wisdom of having looked death in the face. Or maybe she’d known that all along.

His eyes roved her face, familiar yet so foreign. “I wish you’d told me that.”

“I did, Warren. You just didn’t listen.”

She was right. “I’m sorry.”

She ran a finger down his cheek. “You’re tired. You need to get some rest.”

He wanted to ask her to come with him. Back home. To San Francisco. To their old life. But he was looking to her for the same thing he’d looked to Cookie. A solution to his problems. Someone to tell him he hadn’t fucked up as badly as he thought. He realized now that he had to find the elusive cure all on his own. “I made a mistake leaving you, Roberta. You’re a good woman. You gave me more than I ever deserved. And you deserved more from me than I ever gave.”

She stepped forward, wrapped her arms around him and held him close. Her warmth, her sweet fragrance, the feel of her in his arms undid him. He almost begged her to come back to him.

Then she stood firmly on her feet again, and the moment passed. “Thank you, Warren. I hope someday you find what you’re looking for. Are you going back to San Francisco?”

“No. I think I’ll stay here.”

“It’s going to be hard, after everything that’s happened. People might not want you to do their taxes.”

“I think maybe I’m tired of doing taxes. I’d like to look for something else.”

“What do you want to do?”

He sighed, tipped his head back and contemplated the florescent lights. Once, long ago, he’d wanted to build sport cars. And sometimes, working late into the night on his Healey, he’d dreamed about restoring cars for other people. “I’m not sure.”

“We both had the same problem, Warren, living a life we didn’t want. We just never knew what we really wanted.”

She put them together in the same boat. A gracious thing to do under the circumstances. “What about you, Roberta?”

She smiled. For the first time, he didn’t see a cloud behind it. “You know, I’ve discovered it doesn’t matter. Being a waitress isn’t so bad. But who knows?” She touched his arm. “I’ll be around if you need me.”

He didn’t ask about Nick Angel. He didn’t want to know.

* * * * *

“You okay?”

“Why the hell wouldn’t I be?” But Nick knew
Brax
was talking about Kent. Somehow, what Kent had done didn’t seem to matter anymore. His significance had faded. Even the rage that had gripped him had ratcheted down to mere disgust. “Bobbie’s alive. That’s all that’s important.”

“Bobbie’s alive, but a good man is dead,”
Brax
said, then sat silent in his ancient leather chair, his expression unreadable. He
recrossed
his booted feet on the desktop, and when he finally spoke, Kent and
Jimbo
were no longer the issue. “Think she’ll go back to her husband?”

Elbow on the filing cabinet, Nick shoved a hand through his hair. He didn’t have an answer to
Brax’s
question. Bobbie’s shadow played on the glass door. He wanted to yank it open, pick her up, and carry her home. His home.

“You can never tell with women,” he said.

“So, why didn’t you tell me about Cookie’s little story?”

“That
Jimbo
beat her?”

“Might have saved us a lot of trouble if you had.”

“I thought it was a bid for sympathy. I didn’t think she was going to use it as an excuse to kill her husband.”

“The story would have had a different ending if Warren Spivey had been another kind of man.”

“You mean if he’d had more spine?” He used Bobbie’s word.

“Less integrity, I was thinking.”

Nick gaped. “Integrity? He dumped his wife. He was having an affair.”

Brax
raised one brow and left it at that.

Nick went on the defensive. “I never said I had a whole
helluva
lot of integrity either.”

“And that’s why I took
Jimbo’s
side.” The words lay between them.

Being pissed as hell at
Brax
made it easier to gloss over the fact that he had done a pretty goddamn scummy thing to
Jimbo
. He’d had all the excuses, that Cookie came on to him, that he hadn’t known she was
Jimbo’s
wife, that he’d thrown her out as soon as he’d learned. But, just as with Bobbie that first day in his yard, when Cookie approached him in the bar, he’d seen that telltale band of white skin, and he’d decided not to ask why she’d removed the ring. He hadn’t cared whether it was divorce, widowhood, or poaching. He’d only wanted to get laid. Christ.

“You were always the one that was right,
Brax
. That’s why you’ve always pissed me off.”
Brax
would see it for the apology it was. They wouldn’t talk about Mary Alice. That was done, too. “Thanks for backing me up tonight.”

“Couldn’t let you get yourself killed.”
Brax
toyed with a pen from the desk. “You shouldn’t have gone in there alone.”

The only thing he’d been thinking was that Bobbie would surely die if he didn’t. ”What would you have done?”

Brax
didn’t need to answer. He’d have done exactly the same thing under equal circumstances. Instead he said, “You better treat her right, or you’ll have to deal with me.”

Nick would treat her better than anyone ever had. If he got the chance. She’d walked into his life such a short time ago, yet he felt he’d known her a lifetime. Facing death together speeded up the getting-to-know-you stage. He didn’t want to imagine his life without her, an inescapable truth he couldn’t put into words for
Brax
. He hid his emotion behind banter. “I don’t think she needs you to take care of her.”

“Nope. Probably not. She does a damn fine job of taking care of everyone, herself included.”

Nick glanced to the door. The shadows beyond it merged. Nick’s head started to pound. He forced his eyes back to
Brax
.

“Not just him,”
Brax
said with a nod of his head toward the door. “You, too. Heard the latest rumor?”

Nick shook his head, still trying to digest
Brax’s
comment.

“Seems she gave you an alibi for Tuesday night.”

“Tuesday night?”
Jimbo
had been killed on Monday. What the hell was Tuesday?

“Yeah. Tuesday. You know, that girl that disappeared up in Saskatoon County?”

“Hadn’t heard a thing about it.”

“Seems a few of our eloquent female citizens were looking at you as the culprit. Being the local serial killer and all.”

“Jesus.”

“But Bobbie got up there in front of God, Eugenia, Patsy, good old Marjorie Holmes, and the whole damn Hair Ball, and told them you were with her Tuesday night. All night.”

The air seemed to squeeze from his lungs.

“The story’s all over town,”
Brax
went on as if he couldn’t see the stunned effect his speech was having. “On the way back from
Jimbo’s
autopsy up in Red Cliff this afternoon”—he glanced down at his watch—“make that yesterday afternoon. I made a stop by the Saskatoon County Sheriff. Seems the little girl ran away from home. They found her in San Francisco.”

“So, that’s where you were when they took Bobbie.” Nick shuddered to think if
Brax
hadn’t come right back.

“Yeah.”
Brax’s
eyes glittered. “So, you’re off the hook in more ways than one. But mostly because of Bobbie.”

Bobbie, who’d told Eugenia she’d spent the night with the serial killer.

“Why would Bobbie do that?” He could only hope it was because...

Brax
just looked at him. “Maybe you have your head up your ass where Bobbie Jones is concerned.”
Brax
stood, shook his pant legs down. “She’s not going back to him, you know.”

Nick didn’t say a thing.

“Are you in love with her?”

Before Nick could formulate a good answer, a knock rattled the glass. Bobbie stuck her head inside. “Can we go home now?”

Her husband stood in the hall behind her.

“I’ll need you in again tomorrow,”
Brax
answered, then glanced at the calendar on his desk. “Or today. How about I drop Spivey off? And you’ll have to go with Nick since we’ll need your car for a while longer. I’m sure he’ll be more than happy to take you home.” He flicked a glance at Nick. “Since you live across the street.

Nick found he was holding his breath waiting for her answer.

“That sounds fine.” Then she looked at him and smiled.

Hell, yes, he was in love with her.

But who would she choose?

* * * * *

The engine rumbled through her for long moments after Nick shut off the car. Her body still hadn’t recovered from watching Kent English hold a gun on Nick. Bobbie wasn’t sure it ever would. She also didn’t know how long she could keep on faking that she was okay.

Something had to give way soon.

She closed her eyes, let the warm night air and the darkness gather round her in the close confines of the car. The faint scent of Nick’s remaining musky cologne teased her nostrils. She didn’t want to move. “I’m sorry about your friend,” she said.

“I’m over it.”

Sure he was. “He really didn’t deserve you.”

“But maybe I deserved him.”

She rolled her head on the seat to look at him. He was nothing more than a dark shape. Nick deserved a lot more than backstabbing, but she didn’t think he’d accept that fact no matter what she said. “Thank you for coming for me.”

“It was my
fau
—”

“Don’t say it”—she cut through his blame—“it was them. All them.”

She heard him swallow. “How are you feeling?” He spoke in a hushed tone befitting the near dawn hour.