Official Escort

Chapter Three

Mitch knew he couldn’t go on risking their necks like this, that he had to pull over somewhere long enough to tell her the rest. He didn’t trust himself to do that while they were rolling. He just wasn’t steady enough.

There. A strip mall. The snowstorm had nearly emptied the parking lot. They should be safe for a few minutes.

Slowing, Mitch swung into the lot and tucked the pickup between a large van and a panel truck. It was a spot where their presence wouldn’t be obvious but where he could still keep an eye on the street. He left the engine running and turned to her. She was frightened, of course, and looked it. He was sorry about that, but there had been no time to waste on explanations. They had needed to leave the scene as quickly as possible.

Hell, Mitch was badly shaken himself. Still so jolted by the whole thing that he had yet to take it in, to realize his terrible loss. Nerving himself, he waited for her questions.

“What do you mean, dead?” she whispered, voice husky with emotion, amber eyes wide with shock and disbelief.

There was no way to soften it, no time for niceties. He had to make her understand. “Dead,” he said, managing not to choke on the words, “as in lying on his kitchen floor with a bullet in him.”

Madeline stared at him, numb and silent. He was aware of the snow hissing against the windows, of the wipers slashing across the glass. Then he was conscious of something else. There was a disturbing expression in her eyes as she searched his face, and Mitch knew she was remembering he’d insisted on going into the house alone. She had no way of knowing it was because he hadn’t wanted her to hear him tell Neil that he could no longer protect the woman he held responsible for Julie’s death.

Her expression was followed by something even more unsettling. He saw her gaze drift in the direction of the place where he kept his pistol in the belt holster under his coat. The pistol that was no longer there. Then that same gaze flew back to his face in horror.

“Don’t be a fool,” he said gruffly. “I didn’t kill him.”

She shook her head, not in denial but as if to throw off the initial shock. “I—I’m sorry. It was just that for a second I thought—” She paused to clear her mind. “Then, why did we run like that?”

“It was necessary. Look,” he explained, “I knew something was wrong when I got to the back door. I could see someone lying facedown on the floor of the kitchen. That’s why I went into the house with my gun drawn. It was Neil on the floor. I was kneeling beside him, checking for life signs, when something heavy came down on the back of my skull. By the time I came to, the pistol was no longer in my hand, and Neil had a bullet hole in his head that hadn’t been there before.”

“What are you saying?” Madeline whispered. “Are you telling me—”

“Yeah, the bastard must have used my gun to kill him, because I don’t think Neil was dead when I knelt beside him. I think he was just unconscious, knocked over the head like I was. I don’t suppose you heard the shot?”

“Nothing. I had the radio on. What about the gun? What happened to it? Do you think the killer took it with him?”

“What I think is that it’s still in that house, hidden someplace where I wouldn’t easily find it but where the police are certain to after a thorough search.”

“Did you look for it?”

“Yeah, and without luck. I would have looked a lot further if she hadn’t waltzed into the kitchen with a casserole in her hands.”

“Who?”

“Claire, his next-door neighbor. She was forever doing favors for Neil, trying to win his attention.”

“And when she found you like that with his body—”

“That’s right, she figured I killed Neil. I could see that much in her face. And she wouldn’t listen. Too scared to stop for any explanation. The next thing I knew, the casserole was all over the floor and she was out of there. By the time I got outside, she was back at her own house barricaded inside—and you can be sure she was calling the cops.”

“But if you had stayed there and waited for them to come, then explained—” She broke off in sudden understanding. “But, of course, you couldn’t, could you. The gun that killed Neil would be registered in your name.”

“Not to mention my fingerprints on it. The murderer would have made sure of that. All the evidence is there, pointing straight to me. I had no choice but to run.”

“And we can’t trust the police, anyway, can we? Any one of them could be the man or woman in Griff’s pay.”

And if I’m arrested, sweetheart, that leaves you at the mercy of the enemy. I have to stay free, because right now I’m all you’ve got.

Mitch hated this. Hated suddenly having to behave like a guilty fugitive. All he had wanted was to be rid of this woman, give her back to Neil—but that could never happen now. Neil was gone, leaving Mitch with the maddening memory of the promise he had made. That he would protect Madeline, make sure she stayed healthy until it was reliably safe for him to do otherwise. It was a promise he continued to owe his friend. No choice, then. Madeline Raeburn was still his responsibility.

She was still gazing at him, looking more troubled by the moment. “Who could have killed Neil? This—this bad cop?”

“Don’t know. But it must have been someone he knew, someone he even invited into the house. He was too good an officer to let a stranger take him by surprise.”

“But why kill him?”

Mitch didn’t answer her.

“Oh, yes,” she said in a small, shaken voice, “I see. It was because of me, wasn’t it. Because Neil refused to tell him where I was, and once he’d revealed himself to Neil, exposed his identity like that, he had no choice but to—”

“We don’t know that for sure.”

“But it’s the most likely explanation.”

Mitch could see that probability deeply distressed her, maybe just because it emphasized her own danger. He wasn’t ready to credit her with any less self-interested motive than that.

“And all the time,” she murmured, “what he was after was sitting out there in the driveway.”

“Yeah, and if he hadn’t slipped out the back and across the yard without looking around the corner of the house—which is how he must have made his exit—then…”

“I’d be dead.”

In the silence that followed, those incredible eyes of hers, thick-lashed, beautifully shaped, remained fastened on him. Then she asked him slowly, softly, “What are we going to do?”

Before he could tell her, they both tensed in alarm at the sound of a siren far down the block. The siren could have been in response to any emergency, and even though the wail receded in the distance, it was a grim reminder to Mitch that they couldn’t go on sitting here in this exposed lot.

“We need to go someplace where we can think this thing through and not be caught while we’re doing it.”

“Where?” she demanded, as he backed the pickup out of the parking space and headed for the street.

He had an idea. He’d once accompanied Neil and his grandson to the spot. “There is a place,” he said. “It’s not far from here. Providing I can find it.”

The weather didn’t help. Even if he’d been comfortably familiar with the area, the swirling snow hindered his vision while the streets grew more treacherous with every mile.

Madeline was quiet while he concentrated on the route. She waited until they were stopped at a traffic light. And then in that low voice that never failed to stir his senses, even when he knew it shouldn’t, she said something completely unexpected.

“I’m sorry. Deeply sorry.”

She didn’t elaborate. She didn’t have to. Mitch knew that she was offering her sympathy for the loss of his best friend. He wasn’t sure how genuine her expression was until he turned his head and saw that those alluring amber eyes were misty with sorrow.

All right, so it surprised him that in this moment, when she had to be frantic about her plight, she could grieve for Neil. It still didn’t make her an angel, even if she had the face of one.

“Yeah,” he muttered hoarsely. It was all he could manage by way of acknowledgment. Any further effort would have cost him his self-control. He was already torn up inside—and he meant to keep it there.

Faye, he thought as the light changed and the traffic moved forward again. It was going to kill her to hear about her father. And there were Neil’s friends on the force back in Frisco. The news would be hard on them.

But Mitch knew he had to stop worrying about Neil’s daughter and his friends. Had to put his own grief on hold. All he had time for now was to get them out of this mess.

A PLOW HAD BEEN THROUGH HERE recently, Mitch noticed, so the snow wasn’t as bad as he’d feared. He was able to negotiate the winding lane without difficulty. The lot was understandably empty when they reached it. He parked the pickup facing the lagoon.

On any other occasion Mitch would have admired the setting. The dark waters of the lagoon, which for some reason was still unfrozen, were rimmed with evergreens. Their somber green boughs drooped with snow, making a scene that an artist might have effectively borrowed for a Christmas card.

But all he could appreciate was the seclusion of the place. Nothing stirred in the vicinity of the lagoon or on the equipment of the children’s playground behind them. The park was as deserted as he’d anticipated, offering them a reasonably safe haven. For now, anyway.

Madeline had been silent for most of the drive. But her mind must have been very busy, because the instant he shut off the engine and turned to her, she gave voice to her decision.

“There’s only one thing for me to do. I’m going to turn myself over to the Milwaukee police.”

“And what do you think that’s going to accomplish, except to make you a target?”

“I’ll take my chances on their protecting me, even if one or more of them is in Griff’s pay.”

She was offering to free him of any responsibility for her, giving him the chance to focus all of his energy on clearing himself. So tempting. Only, he couldn’t accept her offer, not when it meant he would be failing Neil. Because whatever else Mitch had either lost or intentionally abandoned after Julie’s death, he was still a man of his word. That much he’d been unable to shed.

“Yeah, why not? It’s your life if you want to risk it. Except a lot of people are counting on you to stay healthy long enough to put Griff Matisse away where he belongs. Neil was one of those people.”

His tactic worked. She was immediately apologetic. “Yes, you’re right. I wasn’t thinking. Then, what do we do? Go back to your farm?”

Mitch knew that neither of them was happy about that prospect. In any case, returning to the farm was out of the question. Although Neil wouldn’t have shared the existence of the place with any of his colleagues—not when he had chosen it as a sanctuary for Madeline—his daughter knew about the farm. So, perhaps, did his neighbor. And under the circumstances, neither would hesitate to reveal their knowledge.

“No good,” he said. “It’s the first place the cops will look.”

“Then, where or who do we turn to?”

Under other circumstances, that would have been an easy question for Mitch to answer. A single phone call would have provided them with immediate assistance from his family. But Mitch’s family wasn’t available. Every member of the Hawke clan was out of the country on a holiday cruise. He was supposed to have joined them, but he couldn’t bring himself to celebrate anything this year.

“There is no one. Neil was the only contact we could trust, and now that he’s gone, Milwaukee is no longer safe for you.”

She was quiet as she gazed out at the lagoon. Then she said, “There’s something I’ve learned since leaving San Francisco. I’m not really safe anywhere as long as Griff Matisse is free and so powerful that he has connections everywhere. So I might as well return now to San Francisco. At least there the DA’s office wants so badly to put him behind bars that they’ll go to extra lengths to protect me until the trial. Maybe their safe house is ready for me by now.”

Mitch wasn’t happy about that safe house. Neil had explained it as the reason for the delay in San Francisco’s sending an escort to return Madeline to California. But Mitch had sensed all along that something wasn’t right about this explanation. For the moment, though, he was prepared to put that argument aside.

He could see Madeline was determined, that it would be a wasted effort to challenge her decision. He had a better method for handling this situation.

“All right,” he said, “what do you want me to do?”

If she was surprised by his easy compliance, she didn’t say so. “Drive me to the airport and put me on a flight. That’s all I ask.”

“Sounds simple enough. Then, once you’re in the air, I can start clearing myself of Neil’s death.”

“Exactly.”

Mitch made no objection. There would be time enough once they were under way to make her understand that her plan wasn’t going to work. That he had no intention of simply dumping her in Matisse’s backyard and forgetting about her. Oh, she would be flying to San Francisco, all right, providing this weather hadn’t already canceled all flights, but it would be under his terms.

He started the engine. “One thing, though,” he said. “You can’t just land in San Francisco without security of some sort waiting there to meet you. We have to let the DA’s office know you’re coming.”

She thought about that and then nodded. She was being calm about the whole thing, but he knew she had to be scared. What she intended involved considerable risk.

“Look,” he suggested, “I noticed a public phone back there near the picnic shelter.” They would have to use a public phone because, in his hurry to deliver Madeline to Neil, he’d left his cell phone at the farm. “Let me make the call for you. I know the assistant DA, Gloria Rodriguez. She’s a woman I trust, and right now you need someone like that in your corner. Besides, you’ll need to know if that safe house is ready and, if it isn’t, what alternative she has to guarantee that you’re fully protected.”

She considered his offer and apparently saw the advantages of it. “All right.”

Mitch drove them back through the park to the rustic picnic shelter at the side of the lane. When he pulled over and started to slide out of the pickup, she opened her door with the intention of accompanying him.

“What are you doing?”

“I said you could make the call for me. I didn’t say I wouldn’t be listening in on it.”

Damn it, he had counted on her staying in the truck. There were things he hadn’t wanted her to hear until the arrangements were settled, after which it would be too late for her to object. But she wasn’t giving him any choice. Okay, so she’d learn the program now, and whatever her reaction, he would deal with it.

There had been a lull in the snowfall, but now the stuff was coming down again at a furious rate. The phone was located in a glass-walled stall that was open at the front, offering little protection from the weather. Coat collars turned up, shoulders hunched, they were squeezed side by side against the instrument.

But it wasn’t the wet snow in his hair and down his neck that made Mitch miserable as they waited for the assistant DA to come on the line. In that tight place he was aware of Madeline’s closeness, her warmth breath steaming on the air and mingling with his, the provocative scent of her hair near his face, the creamy smoothness of her cheek almost touching his. These were the sensations that made him uncomfortable. Never mind that this was the wrong place, the wrong time, the wrong woman. He was still aroused.

And relieved when Gloria Rodriguez’s sane, familiar voice finally reached his ear. “Mitchell Hawke, is that you? What on earth—”

He interrupted her by asking if she was alone in her office and if the line she was speaking on was secure. Once assured of that, he described the situation for the assistant DA as succinctly as possible, holding the phone so that Madeline could hear the conversation.

There was a pause after Mitch explained Madeline’s wish to return immediately to San Francisco. Madeline’s questioning gaze met his, and he knew she could sense it, too—the unmistakable anxiety in the silence on the other end. It was more than Gloria’s shock over learning that Neil was dead. Something was wrong.

“Mitch,” the woman finally said, her tone decidedly reluctant, “this isn’t wise.”

“It’s necessary. Hell, Gloria, she isn’t safe here in Wisconsin.”

“The thing is…”

“What?”

“We may not be able to guarantee her safety in San Francisco, either.”

And that’s when she told them. How her office wasn’t sure where the leak had originated. How it might be either in Milwaukee or in San Francisco. Because it was only after all the particulars, along with Madeline’s deposition, had been sent to San Francisco by Neil that the attempt had been made on her life in the Milwaukee safe house. Which meant that the information on her could have been relayed from California to one of Matisse’s connections in Milwaukee. They didn’t know. They were trying to discover the source, but they just didn’t know.

So that, Mitch thought grimly, had been the reason for the delay in returning Madeline to San Francisco. Preparing a safe house for her had either been an excuse or not the important issue, which was to try to plug that leak. He’d been right in not trusting Neil’s explanation.

And why hadn’t Neil trusted him with the truth? Because he hadn’t known it himself? Or had he not wanted Mitch to know just how complicated the situation was?

“Gloria, Neil’s killer is somewhere on the loose in this town. He’s not going to rest until he finds Madeline Raeburn. And if this guy is hiding behind a badge, she doesn’t stand a chance, not with the whole Milwaukee police department behind him. So you tell me, just who do we trust at this point?”

“I see what you mean. Under the circumstances, it would be better if she’s here in San Francisco where my office can directly control the situation. Also, the DA has changed his mind and isn’t comfortable about sanctioning Matisse’s arrest until the witness is back in California.”

California maybe, Mitch thought, but not San Francisco. Not with Griff Matisse sitting right there waiting for her. Mitch had his own ideas on the subject of a safe house, but he didn’t think this was a smart time to share them with either the DA’s office or Madeline. His plan could wait.

“Mitch,” Gloria went on, “can you hole up with Ms. Raeburn somewhere long enough for me to send a reliable officer to escort her back? I want her fully protected on that flight.”

“She will be,” he said, his gaze on Madeline’s face. “I’m escorting her myself.”

Her eyes registered astonishment and then anger. She tried to snatch the phone out of his hand, but he’d anticipated her reaction and held it out of her reach.

Hearing their scuffle, Gloria sounded alarmed. “What’s going on there? Is something wrong?”

Mitch managed to get his mouth against the phone. “Ms. Raeburn is just expressing her happiness over my being her personal bodyguard on the flight, that’s all.”

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