Eileen Wilks – Midnight Choices (страница 3)

He needed to cool down. He’d been running about an hour—not long enough. He couldn’t go home. Not yet. She’d still be there.

So he’d walk awhile. He eased to a jog, then a walk as he crossed Elm.

Dammit, she wasn’t even his type. Too pale, too thin. Her hair was too damned short. He liked long hair on a woman.

But her image kept intruding on his run in fragments, vivid and raw like the jagged memories of an accident victim. He saw her hands, the thin fingers nervously rubbing together for warmth. The ring she’d worn where a wedding band would go—silver and simple, with a single pearl. The small mole on her neck, right where a man would taste her pulse. He saw the quick bloom of anger in her cheeks when Ben didn’t recognize her, and those silly silver shoelaces, a single note of whimsy in a polished package. He remembered the way she’d risen from the couch, drawn upward by the sound of Ben’s voice. Forgetting Duncan was even there.

He worked hard at not moving from remembered images to imagined ones. Like the way that delicate body must have looked locked in his brother’s arms.

It didn’t matter. It couldn’t. Whatever had hit him when he’d opened the door to her would fade.

A car slowed as it passed him, turned into the parking lot and pulled up at the gas pumps at the convenience store on the corner. Maybe he should fuel up, too. He could get a cup of coffee, drink it in the store where it was warm and let the sweat dry. Then run some more.

She’d had his brother’s child.

Or so she claimed. Maybe he shouldn’t take her words at face value. People did lie. And Ben was the owner of a successful construction firm—not a bad target for a paternity suit.

But he remembered the way she’d looked. The clothes, the makeup, the cropped hair—she’d had a shine to her, the kind of gloss that means money. Hard to believe a woman like that would need to trick money out of a man.

He wished he’d seen the photograph of the boy. The second he’d realized just how personal her business with his brother was, though, he’d taken off. But he’d seen her face when Ben had made it clear he didn’t have a clue who she was.

He’d seen Ben’s face a moment later, too.

Ben believed her. Duncan’s lips thinned. Damn Ben’s righteous hide! How could he have fathered a child he didn’t even know about? Ben, of all people. His big brother was no saint, but on some subjects he was about as yielding as the mountains they’d grown up in. A man took responsibility for his actions. A man used protection every time, and if he was ever fool enough to forget that, he’d better head straight to the courthouse for a marriage license, because he couldn’t call himself a man if he allowed his child to grow up without a father.

Yet Ben had had a son by a woman he hadn’t even recognized. A son who’d done some of his growing up without a father. Duncan felt cold and wild inside. He wanted to smash his fist into his brother’s face.

There was a cop car in front of the 7-11. Duncan hesitated. But the wind was picking up, pushing a cold front ahead of it. He shivered, grimaced and told himself not to be an idiot. It would be a helluva note if he caught some stupid bug because he was so determined to avoid Jeff that he ducked out of sight every time he saw a police car. Ben would make his life hell if he got sick.

It was with a certain grim amusement that he saw his suspicions had been right. Jeff pushed the door open just as Duncan reached it. He was holding a steaming plastic-foam cup. He grinned. “Hey, there, GI Joe. You aren’t out running at this hour, are you?”

“Hey, copper. No, I flew in. Left my wings in the bike rack.”

Jefferson Parker chuckled. Jeff was a head shorter than Duncan, a lot chattier, several shades darker in skin tone and every ounce as stubborn. They’d been friends in high school, where Jeff had been one of very few black faces in the crowd—and the student-body president two years in a row. Which said a lot about his ability to get along with others and his determination to excel. “Better leave ’em parked or I might have to run you in for impersonating an angel. Not that anyone would believe it, between that ugly face of yours and those goose bumps you’re sprouting instead of a halo. You going to let me buy you a cup of coffee?”

Duncan eyed him. Jeff’s dark eyes were friendly and incurious. What a crock. The man was nosier than a hound on a scent and just as hard to sidetrack. It had been a huge mistake to take Jeff up on his offer of using the police firing range to keep in practice.

Still, he supposed he might as well see how long it took Jeff to get to the point this time. He didn’t have anywhere else he needed to be. “Sure.”

Jeff introduced him to the young clerk, Lorna, claiming she made the best coffee in Highpoint—an exaggeration bordering on outright falsehood, Duncan thought as he sipped the industrial-strength brew. His old friend kept up a steady stream of chatter that included the shy young woman. He was good at that sort of thing, never at a loss for words. People relaxed with him.

Probably a good trait in a cop, Duncan thought, watching.

“Well, how about that,” Jeff said as they left the store, stopping to stare in mock surprise at the bike rack by the curb. “Someone must have run off with those wings of yours.” He shook his head. “Criminals are sure getting bold these days.”

Duncan smiled slightly. Here it comes. The Highpoint police are looking for a few good men…

“That Lorna….” Jeff nodded at the clerk on the other side of the brightly lit window. “She’s nineteen, lives with her mom. Got a little girl her mother watches while she’s at work. Can’t afford day care, you know? She has to work nights because her mother works days down at Jenkin’s Drug.”

Duncan’s eyebrows lifted. Where was Jeff going with this? “No support from the father?”

“Bastard skipped town a couple years back when Lorna turned up pregnant.”

“That’s rough. She’s in school?” Jeff had asked her how her classes were going.

“She goes to community college two nights a week, works here the other five. Got her GED last year.” Jeff pulled a package of gum out of his pocket and offered Duncan a stick. Duncan shook his head. “We don’t have a lot of crime here, compared to L.A. or Houston. But Highpoint isn’t Mayberry, either. We’ve had two convenience stores hit in the past three weeks.”

Duncan glanced into the 7-11. Lorna was stuffing bills into a narrow white envelope. She had a pimple on her chin and pretty brown eyes bare of makeup. When she bent to slide the envelope through the slot into the safe, her hair fell forward. It was long, brown and shiny clean. She brushed it impatiently behind her ear, revealing a tiny gold earring in the shape of a cross.

The girl—little more than a child herself—had a baby girl waiting at home for her. Duncan looked back at Jeff. “Looks like she follows the rules, doesn’t keep much cash in the register.”

“She doesn’t. But that’s no guarantee.” Jeff peeled the foil from a stick of gum. “I stop by every night and the black-and-whites keep an eye on her when they can. That’s no guarantee, either, but this perp picks his times. He hit the other stores when they were empty except for the clerk. First thing he does is shoot out the security camera. Hits the lens square on, single shot with a .22 handgun.”

Duncan frowned. A .22 pistol was a couple of notches above a water pistol for accuracy. Maybe. “Where’s the camera?”

“Far left corner.”

He glanced back into the store, automatically calculating the angle. “Does he come in with his weapon drawn?”

Jeff shook his head, popped the gum in his mouth. “Draws from inside his jacket as he pushes the door open.”

“Then he’s a helluva shot.” Duncan could have made the shot himself. Not many others could.

“Yeah. He’s good, but jumpy. Killed a dog.”

“A dog?”

“When he was headed out of the last place he hit. A stray came around the corner of the store, startled him. He shot it and ran.” Jeff stuffed the empty gum wrapper in the trash can next to the door. “So we’ve got bullets, but not much more. We know he’s male, around five-seven, average build. He wore jeans, a dark jacket, gloves and a ski mask both times. No skin showed. We don’t know if he’s white, brown, black or yellow with blue polka dots.”

“No one made the vehicle?”

“One of the clerks thinks it was a dark compact, not new. She didn’t get much of a look at it. He makes ’em lie on the floor once they empty the register.”

“Did he…” Duncan stopped, shook his head. Damned if Jeff hadn’t gotten sneakier with his pitch. He’d nearly reeled Duncan in this time, gotten him involved enough to ask questions. “You’ll catch him sooner or later. If this guy was really bright, he wouldn’t be hitting convenience stores. They don’t have much cash.”

“Sooner’s better than later. A jumpy, not-so-bright gunman makes mistakes. People get hurt then.” Jeff started for his car. “You going to let me give you a ride?”

“I need to finish my run.”

Jeff nodded, reached for the handle, then gave Duncan a steady look. “What you’ve been doing—that’s important. No doubt about that. A cop doesn’t get much chance to save the world the way you army types do. Sometimes all we can do is drop in on a nineteen-year-old mother who works nights when she isn’t trying to learn bookkeeping. Maybe that will keep this perp from hitting this store, maybe not. We don’t get a lot of sure things in our line of work.”