Twilight (2 page)

Rick couldn’t let her go, not like this. “Dana?”

Her determined footsteps faltered, but she didn’t look back.

“I will do anything to help you find Ken’s killer, but I will not let you destroy Yo, Amigo. There’s too much at stake.”

“You can’t stop me,” she said again.

“I’ll report what happened here tonight, if I have to,” he said, catching her attention. Her eyes blazed when she turned to face him. He went on with his warning, hoping to scare some sense into her. “I will let the police know that you’re on a vigilante’s mission. They’ll stop you.”

She choked back what sounded like a sob, but her voice was steady when she said, “Do what you have to do, Mr. Sanchez. And I will do what I have to do.”

Before he could think of anything to say to that, she slipped out into the night and vanished even more quietly than she had arrived.

More shaken than he’d ever been by an encounter with a rival gang, Rick sighed at her leaving. She was a handful, all right, everything Ken had ever described her as being.

And he had a terrible feeling that tonight had just been the first skirmish in what was likely to turn into all-out war.

* * *

Dana climbed into her car a half block from Yo, Amigo and leaned back against the seat. Her whole body was shaking, not from the very real danger that existed all around her in this neighborhood, but from that face-to-face confrontation with Rick Sanchez.

How could she have been so stupid, so careless? Obviously she’d lost not only her mind, but her touch. She’d been so anxious to begin her search for answers, so determined not to stay away from the boys one second longer than necessary, that she’d gotten off the plane and plunged ahead on her first night back in Chicago. She’d done it without thinking things through, without so much as a day’s surveillance of how the stupid program operated or who was likely to be in the building. She’d just assumed it would be empty at night. Assumptions had been the downfall of more than one private eye. She knew that, and she’d acted impetuously anyway.

Now Sanchez knew she was after him or, if not him directly, then one of those precious criminals he defended so arduously.

“Blast it all,” she muttered, hugging herself to ward off the chill that came from getting caught on her very first attempt to gather information.

She drew in a deep breath and made a promise to herself that tonight’s foolishness would be the very last mistake she’d make. She couldn’t afford another one, not with a man like Rick Sanchez. Ken wouldn’t have admired him so if he’d been anything less than brilliant and committed. That meant he would be every bit as passionate in his defense of his boys and his program as she would be in her search for the killer.

His offer to help echoed in her head. Of course he wanted to help. He wanted to steer her as far from Yo, Amigo as he possibly could. She couldn’t afford to be taken in by the compassion or the sorrow he’d expressed. He had his own agenda and it was not the same as hers. Far from it, in fact.

For a moment she allowed herself to wish it were otherwise. The next days and weeks promised to be lonely, albeit frantically busy. It would have been nice to have someone with whom to share theories, as she once would have with Ken.

But Rick Sanchez was not that man. She thought of the powerful, barely leashed strength he’d radiated, the taunting arrogance as he’d held her down before he’d learned who she was. The memory made her shiver, this time with unwanted awareness of just how dangerous a man he was.

She shook off the sensation that she was flirting with disaster. She couldn’t afford to be scared off now. Tomorrow, when she’d had some rest, had a chance to compose herself, she would plot out her strategy. And no one—not even the formidable Rick Sanchez—would stand in her way.

2

T
he greatest act of courage Dana had ever performed wasn’t breaking into Yo, Amigo. It wasn’t fighting off an assailant that had turned out to be the man she held responsible for her husband’s death. It was walking back into the house she and Ken had shared for most of their marriage.

With her heart thudding dully, she hesitated on the tiny cement stoop, unable to push the key into the lock. Her fingers, so nimble earlier, felt stiff and awkward now. Her key ring seemed to have tripled in weight, as if every key had been coated with lead.

“Come on, Dana, it’s just a house,” she told herself sternly. “A few walls, a roof, some putrid gold carpeting you never liked anyway. How can you be scared to face that?”

Because with Ken there, it had been home. It was as simple as that, proof positive that it wasn’t the appearance of a place that turned it into a home, but love. She had felt it every time she had walked through the front door.

Now she faced only emptiness. For one brief second she regretted leaving the boys in Florida. They would have filled the place with noise and laughter. Their presence would have kept loneliness at bay, at least until the darkest hours of the night.

How pitiful was that? she thought ruefully. How pitiful was it to even consider using her kids to buffer the pain? Besides, she had come home for one reason and one reason only: to find Ken’s murderer. That was the best thing she could do for all of them, the only thing that would give them any peace. She couldn’t afford any distractions if she intended to solve things quickly so that they could move on with their lives.

That reminder was enough to stiffen her resolve. Revenge is a powerful motivator. Even though her hand shook, she managed this time to get the key into the lock, even to walk through the front door.

Perhaps it was better that it was the middle of a moonless night, pitch-dark so that she couldn’t see the collection of family photographs sitting on top of the upright piano that Ken had played with more enthusiasm than skill, couldn’t see the eclectic stack of books beside his favorite chair, or the notes he had been making for his last sermon, still scattered across his desk.

But even though the room was cast in shadows, she could imagine it all, could visualize it as clearly as if every light blazed. It was as if he had just stepped away for a moment or an hour, not forever.

She dropped her luggage inside the door, tossed aside her jacket. Guided by pure instinct, she made her way to his chair, the overstuffed one where she had often sat cradled in his lap, content just to be held as the strains of Brahms or Beethoven surrounded them at the end of a long day.

She reached out, traced the butter-soft leather, and smiled at the memory of how appalled he’d been by the indulgence when there were so many more practical things they could have used. It had gone against his frugal nature to waste money on luxuries. But even as he’d protested, he had settled into the chair, sinking into the deep cushions, caressing the leather as sensuously as he might have traced the curve of her hip or the weight of her breast. He had fallen in love with it, just as she’d known he would.

It was a wonderful memory, one to cherish, she thought as she plucked an afghan from the back of the nearby sofa and settled into the chair. The coldness of the leather was a shock, snapping her back to reality like a slap. Even this, it seemed, would never be the same. The warmth was gone.

Still, she craved the sense of connection that sitting in Ken’s favorite chair gave her. It was personal, something he’d used daily, yet it lacked the intimacy of their bed. She wasn’t sure when she’d be able to sleep there alone, if ever. From the night she had learned of his death until she had left for Florida, she had slept in this chair. It had brought her a small measure of comfort.

Now, once again, she wrapped the afghan around her and curled up, cradled by leather now, instead of Ken’s strong arms. Even so, the restlessness that had plagued her in Florida eased. For better or worse, her journey to find the truth behind Ken’s murder had begun.

Finally, as dawn turned the sky gray, then mauve, and at last a pale, winter-weary blue, she slept, more soundly than she had in weeks. It was as if her body were preparing for whatever lay ahead.

Her dreams, though, were disturbing. They were not of the man she’d loved so fiercely, but of a shadowy gunman, his face tantalizingly obscured.

Dana awakened at midday to find her best friend staring down at her, hands on generous hips, a worried frown puckering her brow.

“How’d you get in?” she muttered groggily.

Kate Jefferson waved a key ring under her nose. “I found these in the front door. Even if I hadn’t, I have the one you gave me so I could bring in the mail, remember? When did you get home? You were due in at eight. The plane was on time. I checked. I called until all hours, but you never answered. I finally decided you’d changed your mind or missed the plane.”

“I got here in the middle of the night,” Dana said without elaborating. She struggled awake. Her back ached. Her neck was stiff and she was freezing. She’d forgotten to turn the heat up when she’d come in the night before. It couldn’t be much more than fifty-five in the room, the temperature her father had decreed would at least keep the pipes from freezing.

“Where are the boys?” Kate asked. “Didn’t they come with you?”

“No. I enrolled them in school in Florida for the rest of the year. They’re with my parents.”

Kate stared at her in shock. “You’ve enrolled them in school? Have you decided to move to Florida, after all?”

Dana sighed. “No, not for sure. I haven’t decided anything definitely. I can’t think that clearly. I just wanted them to get some sense of normalcy back into their lives.” She stood up and headed toward the kitchen. “Any more questions will have to wait until I have coffee.”

“It’s already made,” Kate said, proving once again that she had an admirable, take-charge attitude. Dana had often told her it should have been put to use running some company, instead of being wasted on her often unappreciative friends or two typically rebellious teenage daughters.

“An hour ago, in fact,” Kate added pointedly. “I’ve been banging pots and pans ever since, hoping to stir some sort of a reaction from you. I thought maybe you were planning to sleep into the next century.”

“Would if I could,” Dana told her as she filled a mug with the gourmet blend she hadn’t been able to give up, despite Ken’s conviction that instant served the same purpose. Leaning against the kitchen counter, she carefully avoided looking outside toward the small church where Ken had preached and beyond to the cemetery where he was buried. She drank deeply, one long swallow, then another. Finally she met Kate’s worried gaze. “Stop frowning. Aren’t you glad to see me?”

“Of course I am. You just gave me a fright when I found the keys in the door and you didn’t answer after I knocked or rang that awful, screeching bell.”

Dana figured it was a testament to Kate’s anxiety that she’d touched the bell at all. The sound was more appropriate for some creaky Addams Family domicile than a parsonage. Kate shuddered every time she was forced to ring it. Dana had always thought it was a hoot, which probably showed just how perverse her sense of humor was.

“If the boys are in school in Florida, why are you here? I thought you’d be down there a few more weeks at least,” Kate said. “I thought the plan was for you to get some rest before you came home to tackle everything that needs to be done here.”

Dana shrugged. “Plans change.”

Kate’s brow puckered again. “Meaning?”

“There are things that can’t wait.”

“What things?”

“The house, for one thing. Sooner or later, I’m going to have to get out of it. It belongs to the church.”

“Lawrence Tremayne told you it was yours for as long as you needed it,” Kate reminded her. “Local pastors are taking services for now. If they hire a new pastor, they’ll make temporary arrangements for him, if they have to.” She gave Dana a penetrating look. “So, what’s really going on?”

“You know, you’d make a great private eye,” Dana observed. “You poke and prod with the best of us.”

“I thought you’d retired.”

“I did.”

Kate’s frown deepened as she apparently guessed what was going on in Dana’s head. “Dana, you can’t investigate Ken’s murder,” she protested. “Leave it to the police.”

“Who said anything about me investigating?”

“I know you. You’re impatient. You’re frustrated with the lack of answers. Anybody would be. But it’s harder for you, because you think you could do the job better. Plus, you’ve been evading every question I’ve asked. How am I doing so far?”

Dana thought about denying it, but couldn’t find the energy. “On the money.”

“Bad idea,” Kate shot back. “You’re too close to this one. I know you were one of the best private eyes in the business. That’s how we met, remember? You found the proof I needed to take that low-down ex of mine back into court and show that he had hidden assets in half the states in the country, even though he claimed he couldn’t come up with child support. I know you have contacts up the wazoo, but this is personal. You can’t be objective. You won’t be cool and rational, the way you need to be. You won’t be able to analyze the risks. You can’t very well sashay around gang turf asking questions. You’ll stand out like a sore thumb.”

Dana wasn’t about to be dissuaded. “I’ll just have to work even harder to keep my emotions out of it....” The way she had done it last night, busting into the Yo, Amigo headquarters without a plan, she thought dryly. If Kate ever heard about that, she’d be muttering “I told you so” for the rest of Dana’s days.

“What about the boys?” Kate demanded.

“What about them? They’re perfectly safe with my parents,” she said. “They like the new school well enough. Best of all, there are no sad memories for them in Florida. They’re adjusting, better than I am, as a matter of fact.”

“That’s all lovely, but they need you. I don’t care how well adjusted they seem.”

Dana sighed. “I know, Kate. And they’ll have me, they’ll have my full-time attention just as soon as things are taken care of here.”

Kate clearly wasn’t satisfied. She leveled another of those penetrating looks straight into Dana’s eyes. “This could wait. They should be with their mother so they won’t start to worry that they’ve lost her, too.”

That last one cut. It stirred guilt that she’d worked hard to bury. “You’ve made your point,” Dana said tightly. “Now drop it.”

Kate was a wonderful friend—compassionate, thoughtful, levelheaded. She was also tenacious. Dana figured she was wasting her breath trying to shut her up. Kate’s next words proved it.

“I will not drop it. You can’t put yourself in danger, Dana. It’s not fair to your sons. What if something were to happen to you? Their sense of security is already shaken by losing their dad. As for your parents, they’re great people, but they’re older. How long will it be before three rambunctious boys get to be too much for them?”

It wasn’t as if she hadn’t considered everything Kate was saying. She had, over and over again. In the end, all those things had been outweighed by her conviction that finding Ken’s killer was the first step in healing for all of them. She would be no good to her children if she weren’t at peace with herself.

“It’s not fair to Ken that he’s dead and that no one knows who did it,” Dana retorted stubbornly. “Look, you can fight me on this, but it won’t do any good. I’ve been over every single argument, time and again. Believe me, my mother and father repeated most of them morning, noon and night, up until the minute I got on the plane. The bottom line is that I have no choice.”

“We always have choices.” Kate stepped closer and wrapped her arms around her. “Sweetie, I know how much all of this hurts, but getting yourself killed isn’t the answer.”

Dana returned the fierce hug, then stepped away. “I’m a professional. I know how to minimize risks.”

“Oh, really?” Kate retorted skeptically. “Is that why I got a call at the crack of dawn from Rick Sanchez, telling me to keep an eye on you, suggesting that you were behaving irrationally?”

Obviously she’d been saving that little tidbit for its shock value. It worked, too. Astonishment left Dana speechless for thirty seconds. Then her temper kicked in. She snatched up the wall phone, glanced at the list of numbers posted next to it and punched in the one for Yo, Amigo headquarters. Kate reached over and cut off the call. Dana whirled on her, furious.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

“Keeping you from making a fool of yourself. He called me because I asked him to let me know if you showed up there.”

Dana’s mouth gaped, unsure which stunned her more, Kate’s foresight or her betrayal. “Why?”

“Because I know you. It was only a matter of time before you decided to charge in there, demanding answers. Of course, even I didn’t expect you to sneak in in the middle of the night like a common thief. It’s nice to know you haven’t lost your touch with a set of lock picks,” she said with more wry humor than genuine admiration.

“Thanks,” Dana responded anyway, recalling the surge of adrenaline rushing through her as she’d felt that lock give way to her touch. She hadn’t realized just how much she’d missed living on the edge until that moment.

“I’d feel better, though, if you hadn’t gotten caught.” Kate scowled. “What is wrong with you? Didn’t that prove you’re too rusty or muddleheaded to be doing this?”

“Rusty, maybe,” Dana conceded. “Right now, though, I’d prefer to know just how cozy you and Rick Sanchez have gotten in my absence. I didn’t even know you knew him.”

“I didn’t. He came around looking for you one day when I was here to bring in the mail and water the plants.”

“What the hell was he doing here?”

“I imagine he came to offer his condolences.”

“Yeah, right.”

“I liked him,” Kate said. “I also thought he was being sincere. He thought a lot of Ken. I could tell. He walked out to the cemetery and stayed for the longest time. When he came back, he had tears in his eyes.”

“Big deal!” she said, adding an expletive for emphasis.