Give Him the Slip (16 page)

Kathy heaved a sigh. "I don't know how you do that. You read
me like a book. I didn't want to tell you."

"Obviously."

"It's about Gus."

Warily, Maddie repeated, "Gus?"

"Well, not Gus, exactly. About his boy. About Jerry."

Maddie licked her lips, suddenly tense. "The police arrested
him on drug charges."

"That's true."

"They told me he'd been denied bail." "That's true,
too."

Okay. "So, then, what's the problem?"

"I guess Jerry hired a new lawyer. Some hotshot out of Fort
Worth. I don't know how he did it—you know what a grumpy old cuss Judge
Harrison is—but anyway, this new lawyer got Jerry released. He's out on bond,
honey. I don't think he'll cause you any trouble, but you might want to be
careful."

The news rolled around her stomach, then settled like a bad
burger. She cleared her throat. "He knows I don't have the mushrooms,
though, right? He has to know that I turned them in."

"Oh, for certain. Sara-Beth ran her article about you with
the picture of that nice-looking fed from Tyler, then she did a follow-up with
Jerry's lawyer. Here, let me get it for you." Following a quick trip
behind the service counter, Kathy handed Maddie the paper.

The attorney was quoted as saying, "Mr. Grevas is innocent of
all charges and shall be vindicated. As for Maddie Kincaid, he offers his
sincere sympathy that a Brazos Bend citizen was caught up in such a terrible
crime, but he had absolutely nothing to do with it."

"What's Jerry Grevas doing now?" she asked Kathy.

"I'm not sure. He's not supposed to leave town until his
trial date, though, so you're liable to run into him."

"Does anyone think he had anything to do with his father's
death?"

The question obviously shocked Kathy, which gave Maddie a measure
of comfort. "Gus!" Kathy exclaimed. "Jerry? You mean, as in
murder?"

"No... yes... I don't know. It all just seems so
strange."

The little balls on the ends of Kathy's earrings swung and
clattered against each other as she reached across the table and patted
Maddie's hand. "Don't go there. Gus might have died of a broken heart if
he found out his boy was growing shrooms, but Jerry didn't out-and-out kill the
man. I've known that boy all his life and he's not a killer. Stupid, yes. A
doper, sure, but you know I don't hold that against anyone. But a killer? I
just can't see it. You're being a bit paranoid, there, honey."

"Okay." Maddie recognized that Kathy knew Brazos Bend
better than just about anyone in town. "Yes, I'm sure you're right. I'm
sure it will be fine. My adventure is over and I'd better get home. I imagine I
have a few customers who'll be wanting to talk to me."

"A few? Try every last one of them. Since they know we're
friends, they've been calling me to complain, to demand to know when you're
coming home, to ask ridiculous questions like how to program the TV remote.
Martha Hartford even wanted me to come clean her dog's ears. Do you do that,
hon?"

"Yeah."

"Wow." Kathy shook her head. "No wonder you're in
such demand. Anyway, Pauline and Polly Perkins have done a good enough job
filling in for you, and Sandy runs the office fine, but your customers are
ready to have you back. They want you, Maddie. They need you. That should make
you feel good."

"It does." It did. Kathy might not understand it—her
father certainly didn't—but Maddie loved helping her seniors. She'd missed
them.

"I'd better be going," she said, inching toward the edge
of the booth. "I'm sure I have bills waiting for me at home. I'd like to
get caught up on my paperwork before I jump back into service tomorrow."

Reaching for Oscar's bowl, she spied the sack she'd brought in
with her for Kathy. "Oh, I almost forgot." She handed the sack to her
friend. "These are some things from Gus's place. I thought you might like
them."

"They're not roach clips, are they?" Kathy asked opening
the bag. "I gave up that stuff back in ninety-seven, you know."

"Not drug paraphernalia," Maddie said with a laugh.
"There's an eight-track of Jefferson Airplane, an old
Time
magazine
with an article about Elvis, and some jewelry."

Kathy's eyes lit up. "Jewelry, too?"

"A few costume pieces that had your name written all over
them."

"Big and gaudy, in other words." Kathy reached inside
and pulled a strand of alabaster beads from the bag. Her mouth dropped open at
the sight of them.

"My God."

Maddie grinned. "The clasp is broken, but I knew you'd like
them. Keep whatever you want from the bag, then give the rest away, okay? Now,
I'm out of here."

Kathy was still seated at the booth, her gaze fixed on the gifts,
when Maddie exited the Dairy Princess. She glanced around the parking lot,
checking for any sign of Jerry Grevas, then told herself she was being foolish.
The man had no motive to pester her. None at all.

She made the drive home in less than ten minutes. Maddie lived in
a modest cottage-style rental in an older, centralized neighborhood in Brazos
Bend. Noting that her yard had turned a bit brown during her absence, she
winced. She hadn't thought to arrange to have the grass watered while she was
gone.

"I need to hire a yard guy, Oscar," she said to the fish
as she pulled into her driveway and switched off the engine. As much as she
enjoyed doing her yard work herself, she wouldn't have time for it during the
upcoming weeks as she played catch-up at Home for Now.

With her mind on her business when her cell phone rang, Maddie
answered without checking the number. "Hello," she said, expecting
the Brazos Bend grapevine to have passed word of her return to her customers.

"Baby, don't hang up."

Liam. Her stomach sank. Just what she needed. "How did you
get my number?"

"It doesn't matter. Listen, honey. I need you to—"

When call waiting on her phone beeped through, she switched to it
automatically. "Yes?"

"Where the hell have you been?"

Branch? Hadn't they had this conversation already? "Excuse
me?"

"I've been calling you for days. Don't you ever check your
messages?"

Not Branch. Sounds like Branch. Maddie's heart lifted. "Who
is this?"

"You don't...? Hell. It's Luke. I'm Luke."

"Callahan?"

"How many Lukes do you know?"

Luke Callahan. Maddie's brows arched in surprise, then she smiled.
"Hi. I didn't expect to hear from you."

A moment of silence dragged by before he said, "Well, yeah, I
just thought I'd check to see that everything went okay, but you never answered
your goddamned phone, and Sara-Beth said you never made it back to town."

He checked up on me? He called Sara-Beth? "You were
worried?"

Her toes curled inside her sneakers.

Another silence. "I always follow up on my jobs."

From offshore fishing trips? Warmth stole into her heart.

"So, where are you?"

"I'm in my driveway at home. I just got here. Rather than
spend a couple days in Dallas like I'd planned, I met my father in New York for
a week."

"Oh."

The phone clicked with another call, and figuring it was Liam,
Maddie ignored it. She slipped the keys from the ignition and opened the car
door, then slipped her purse strap over her shoulder and reached for Oscar's
bowl. "How's your trip going? Have you caught lots of poor fish?"

"Uh... yeah. Look, Maddie, there's something you need to
know. Grevas is—"

"Out on bond. I heard. Believe me, I plan to stay far away
from him."

"Sara-Beth's article ran."

"I know. But Jerry's an accountant, not an oil-field
roughneck. He's a nice guy, Luke. I think he just got mixed up in something he
shouldn't. I'm not really worried about him."

Liam Murphy, now, was another matter entirely. Part of her wanted
to mention her ex's sudden reappearance to Luke, but something held her back.

Maddie climbed out of her van and shut the door with her hip. The
fragrance of Mister Lincoln roses drifted in the air and welcomed her home.

Luke muttered a curse, then said, "It never hurts to be
cautious, Red."

"I won't argue that." In fact, she gave the front of her
house a thorough look for any sign of intrusion, but all appeared as it should.
Her neighbors had hidden her newspapers behind the hedge, and a sack full of
mail was tucked behind the geranium planter. Then, because she wasn't in any
hurry to get Luke off the line, Maddie said, "Tell me about your trip.
What kind of fish did you catch?"

He started telling her about the frisky sand shark they'd pulled
aboard his brother's boat as she set Oscar on the porch, fitted her house key
into the lock, and opened the door.

Maddie gasped at the sight that met her eyes. She dropped the
phone as she exclaimed, "Oh, my God!"

Her home had been ransacked—cushions ripped from the sofa and
chairs. The contents of her bookshelves lay strewn across the floor. The
drawers from her end tables had been dumped.

"Maddie? Maddie!"

She heard Luke's voice through the phone as if from far away. Her
heart pounded. Her breath came in shallow pants. Fear had a stranglehold on her
throat.

She wanted to search the rest of her home, but she knew the smart
thing to do was to get out of the house immediately and call the police. She
bent to pick up her phone, and spying one of the brass bookends that belonged
on the bookshelves, she grabbed that, too, to use as a weapon, just in case.

"Maddie? Dammit, Maddie, answer me!"

She brought the phone up to her ear, but before she could speak, a
strong arm grabbed her around the neck from behind. A gruff, raspy voice
murmured in her ear. "Hang up, bitch. You're talking to me now."

Luke double-checked Maddie's address on the sheet of paper lying
on the seat beside him, then pressed his gas pedal a little harder. He'd known
better than to let her go back by herself, but he'd ignored his instincts.
Ignored the knowledge he'd learned in almost a decade with the DEA. "Damn
me for a fool."

Guilt and fear and fury had him driving like a madman. What if he
didn't get there in time?

He'd known in his gut that the woman was in trouble. The feeling
had plagued him on the boat, annoying his brothers to the point that they
threatened to abandon him on a sand shoal if he didn't break down and call her.
So he'd called. And got no answer. For three straight days.

They'd put him ashore at Biloxi. He'd scrambled for
transportation, finally buying a brand-new Ford F-350 right off the lot, and
headed west. He spent nearly the entire time on the phone. The news of Grevas's
release cost Luke a speeding ticket in Louisiana. Listening as Maddie was
attacked in her own home damn near gave him a heart attack on the outskirts of
Brazos Bend.

He'd called 911, but he expected to beat them there. From his
experience with the police in Brazos Bend—and he'd had plenty of it—they seldom
were in a hurry to do anything.

It helped that Luke knew the town like the back of his hand, and
he roared onto her street less than ten minutes after she'd dropped the phone.

Ten minutes was plenty of time to hurt someone. Plenty of time to
rape. To torture.

Plenty of time to kill.

"No." He homed in on her minivan parked in a driveway
halfway down the block, and while he wanted to rush in with guns blazing,
training made him stop his truck a few houses away and take a stealthy
approach.

As he closed in on her house, he drew his gun. He sidled up to a
window and peered inside. Kitchen. Torn to everlovin' hell. No blood. No body.
Good.

No sign of life.
Dear Lord, please.

He listened for sirens, to no avail. Check the back next? Or the
front? His gut sent him sneaking toward the front door.

"Oh. Oh, shoot." Maddie's voice drifted through the open
window. "Oh shoot oh shoot oh shoot oh shoot."

"Red?" Luke could breathe again. He strode toward the
door. "Maddie? Where are you—?"

He saw her. She lay on the floor, black and blue and bloody.
Luke's stomach dropped and a dozen more epithets tumbled from his mouth.
"Is he still here?"

"No." She struggled to sit up. "Luke. You're here.
How did you get here?"

Ignoring her question, he kneeled on the floor beside her, reached
to support her. "Where are you hurt? Where's the blood coming from?"

"Jerry Grevas's nose, for the most part."

Luke blew out a sigh of relief. His blood, not hers. "Is he
still here?"

"No. He ran out through the back." She attempted to
rise, but he shushed her and told her to be still, to wait for the paramedics.
"He was a wild man, Luke. Crazy-acting. I'd never seen him like
that." She paused a moment, grimaced, and said, "He wanted a box.
Kept asking what I did with the box."