Wanted Woman Page 7

  “Don’t say anything about Bruno to Angus,” Lydia whispered. “Or about my gun. I hate to worry the old dear.”

  Angus appeared from behind a cloth curtain. “You need anything from the store, Lydia?” he inquired in that wonderful English accent Charity adored.

  “No, thank you, Angus.”

  “I’ll only be a short while,” he said and, nodding to Charity, left by the back door.

  “He thinks I should sell the store, you know. Angus,” she added as if Charity wasn’t following. “He says I should travel while I can still enjoy it and that he would gladly take me around the world if I like. Did you know he’s quite wealthy in his own right. But how can I leave Wade especially now when he needs me?”

  “He might be going to prison,” Charity pointed out before she could catch herself.

  “Yes,” Lydia said. “I guess then there would be nothing but the store keeping me here.”

  “I should get going,” Charity said, rising to her feet.

  “Here, take a couple of cookies for later and maybe a few for Mitch?”

  Charity could never turn down cookies. As she left, munching one of the cookies on her way to the newspaper office, she had an uneasy feeling about Lydia’s fears over Bruno.

  Chapter Seven

  After leaving Desiree at Betty’s, Jesse cruised around town, too restless to go back to the office. Timber Falls was dead. It had been weeks since there’d been a bigfoot sighting and it was still the rainy season so there were only locals left in town and most of those had holed up to wait out spring.

  Jesse always thought it was the isolation and the cabin fever—locked inside for months while it rained day in and day out—that caused the craziness in Timber Falls. It was one of the reasons he’d gone to Mexico.

  But it was his family that had brought him home. He could put up with the rain, he told himself. In a few months tourists would descend on the town to escape the heat in the valleys and residents would take a large collective sigh as if saying, “Made it through another one.”

  He made a wider circle around the small town. He didn’t kid himself. He was looking for Maggie and her fancy motorcycle.

  Common sense told him she wouldn’t be hanging around Timber Falls. Not with thousands of dollars in one of her saddlebags and an APB out on her. But what was she doing even passing through this time of year? If she was headed out of the country, she was taking the long route. Timber Falls wasn’t even off secondary roads.

  But a biker could disappear in the woods around here if she wanted to though. Or needed to.

  What bothered him was the feeling that she hadn’t left. That coming to Timber Falls hadn’t been just a flip of the coin or a wrong turn.

  IT DIDN’T TAKE Charity long to get the lowdown on Bruno once she had his real name and even that was pretty simple once she had the license plate number off his old car.

  His name was Jerome Lovelace. That explained why he preferred Bruno.

  For a moment she thought about asking Jesse to run a check on Lovelace, but she knew he would tell Mitch and she didn’t want to worry Mitch. He hated it when she got involved in anything even remotely dangerous. Also she had her own sources.

  She called her friend who worked at one of the Oregon law enforcement agencies and waited while Nancy tapped the computer keys and chewed nervously at her gum.

  “Whoo-whee,” Nancy whispered. “This boy’s got a rap sheet as long as my arm.”

  “What kind of offenses? Any burglary or robbery?”

  “Looks mostly like driving while intoxicated, drunk and disorderly, aggravated assault, domestic abuse, driving without a valid license, driving without insurance. He did some time for criminal mischief and for fraud. Most are just misdemeanors. The guy’s a loser.”

  “I gathered that just looking at him.” Definitely Betty’s type.

  “Oh, here’s one. He got picked up for fencing stolen goods but got off,” Nancy said. “Doesn’t say what kind of goods.”

  “How about last known address?”

  “A post office box in Seattle. You want it?”

  “No.” Seattle? So what had brought him to Timber Falls? Fencing stolen goods. Like antiques, she wondered. “Thanks. I owe you.”

  “So true.”

  Charity hung up and considered what she’d learned. Maybe Bruno wanted to advance his criminal career. Maybe he was contemplating burglary. But Charity didn’t buy it.

  She grabbed her purse and, leaving the newspaper office, started down the street toward the Busy Bee antique shop. As she neared the shop, she slowed. Wasn’t that Bruno ahead of her?

  She ducked into one of the store entrances as he started to look over his shoulder. She didn’t think he’d seen her. She waited a minute, then peered around the corner of the building and down Main Street.

  Bruno had just reached the Busy Bee. She scooted up the street, keeping to the edge of the buildings.

  He slowed, looking into the large plate-glass windows at the front of the antique shop, then swung into the entryway as if also not wanting to be seen.

  Charity’s heart was in her throat. Was it possible Lydia was right? That Bruno really did plan to rob the place?

  Bruno had disappeared from view. She ran up the street after him. Had he gone into the antique shop or was he just hidden in the recessed entrance?

  Was it possible he’d spotted her, thought she was following him and was waiting for her?

  She was almost to the setback entry of the shop. She glanced toward the window, pretending to study her reflection critically in the glass.

  Bruno was inside the shop. He was admiring a purple vase, one Charity remembered as being marked four hundred dollars—certainly more than Bruno could afford, she would bet.

  But it wasn’t Lydia waiting on him. It was Angus. He was frowning, obviously suspicious of the man and maybe a little wary that Bruno might drop the expensive vase and have no way to pay for it.

  As Charity walked on past the shop, she saw Angus snatch the vase from him and put it back. Angus looked up and saw her. With a small nod, he watched her pass. Bruno turned, too, frowning. A moment later Charity heard the shop doorbell tinkle behind her, heard the heavy footsteps and knew it was Bruno.

  She pushed into the Spit Curl, pulled the door closed after her. She hadn’t realized she was holding her breath until she saw Bruno’s shadow fall across the front window, then retreat on down the street.

  “You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” Mary Jane Clark said from the beauty-shop chair. Mary Jane was getting a blond dye job to her dark roots.

  As she watched Bruno saunter on up the street toward Betty’s, Charity ignored Mary Jane just as she had throughout high school when Mary Jane had shown an interest in Mitch.

  Bruno peered back just once and smiled as if he knew Charity was watching him. Clearly, he was enjoying her fear.

  AFTER NOT FINDING a brightly colored motorcycle or the woman who’d been riding it, Jesse returned to his office, wondering if Detective Rupert Blackmore would be waiting for him. Or at least have called.

  “She already made bail,” Sissy said as Jesse walked into the office.

  He didn’t have to ask who she was. Daisy Dennison. He’d known she would be out before the fingerprint ink dried.

  Sissy handed him another stack of messages. He flipped through them. None from Blackmore. He’d been so sure the cop would have all inquiries red-flagged. Maybe Blackmore really did just want to talk to Maggie about the murder. Maybe she wasn’t a suspect.

  But there were lots of messages from whiners about everything from a nasty smell coming from the neighbor’s garbage cans to cars parked incorrectly along Main Street.

  “Damn, don’t these people have anything else to do?” he said as he headed for his office.

  Sissy gave him her some-deputy-you-are look.

  He sat down behind the desk and began making calls, pretending he was Mitch, pretending diplomacy was his middle name. Before he realized it,
the afternoon had turned into evening. Sissy stuck her head in the door to say she was leaving and it was time to ante up for the next morning’s doughnuts.

  It wasn’t until he’d gotten to the bottom of the pile of messages that he found Detective Rupert Blackmore’s name and number where he’d scribbled it down earlier. He vaguely remembered doing it—just before he’d seen Desiree speed by.

  If the cop was tagging inquiries, then he already knew that Maggie had been in Timber Falls. If the detective was really concerned, he would have called.

  So a phone call from Jesse wouldn’t make any difference at this point since she was long gone anyway.

  But with one phone call, Jesse would know why the detective wanted to talk to Maggie. It would satisfy his curiosity. He started to pick up the phone. Hesitated. What was he afraid he was going to find out? It wasn’t fear holding him back and he knew it. He knew he was crazy for not calling. Not to mention irresponsible. But his gut instincts were telling him to wait. And he’d always gone with his instincts. Right or wrong.

  His stomach rumbled. He glanced at his watch. The detective wouldn’t be in his office this late. Maybe in the morning. His stomach rumbled again. And Jesse had just enough time to get to Betty’s before she closed. Idly, he wondered what Maggie Randolph was having for dinner tonight.

  “WILL YOU BE all right alone for a little while?” Charity asked from the doorway.

  “Call Florie again and you’re dead,” Mitch said from his recliner.

  She smiled at him. “I was desperate.”

  “Uh-huh. You were paying me back for the times I insisted Florie stay with you.” He motioned her closer, reached out and pulled her down to him. She was never more beautiful than when she was hot on a story. Unfortunately, he knew the look all too well. “Want to tell me about it?”

  “Not yet.” She smiled that secret little smile of hers, the one that gave him ulcers.

  The only reason she wouldn’t tell him would be if she thought he would try to stop her because it was dangerous. Damn. He wished he could stop her. But he’d been here before and knew stopping Charity was like trying to rein in a speeding bullet. He reminded himself that this was his future, worrying about Charity. “Be careful.”

  She kissed him. “You know me.”

  He groaned but didn’t let go of her, trailing kisses along her silken throat. At least this story had gotten her mind off the wedding. She’d been driving him crazy with discussions about orchids versus roses versus daisies let alone all the choices for the reception.

  If that wasn’t bad enough, Florie had to start warning Charity about bad luck wedding superstitions. Charity pretended she wasn’t superstitious. Uh-huh. But then later she’d asked him if he’d seen a blind man, a monk or a pregnant woman on his way to the Dennison’s the night he was shot.

  All it seemed were bad luck before a proposal of marriage. But if he’d seen nanny goats, pigeons or wolves, then this would be a good omen that would bring good fortune to the marriage.

  “I saw an entire flock of pigeons,” he said, which made Charity laugh, but also look secretly relieved.

  “Promise me that you’ll call me at the paper if you need anything,” she said now, her voice breaking a little as he nibbled at her ear.

  “Promise.”

  She kissed him, a slow, sensuous kiss that made him desperately want to take her in his arms and make love to her. But even if he could with the cast and bandages, Charity was holding out for their wedding night.

  He let go of her, not about to disappoint her now. She would get the wedding she wanted. A white one. And everyone knew “married in white, she’d chosen right.”

  The moment she was gone though, he called Jesse.

  “I’d venture to guess she’s chasing something to do with the Dennisons,” Mitch told him. Charity had been chasing one story or another about them ever since she started the Cascade Courier right out of college. When news was slow there was always the town’s only big mystery: the disappearance of Angela Dennison twenty-seven years before. It had become the stuff local legends are made of and Charity couldn’t pass up a good mystery.

  “Charity went to see Lydia Abernathy this afternoon,” Mitch told his brother. Florie had slipped and told him. “And now she’s headed for the newspaper office.” With Lydia being Wade Dennison’s sister he figured whatever reason she’d wanted to see Charity couldn’t be good.

  “Kinda late to be going to the newspaper. Damn, that woman is obstinate, isn’t she,” Jesse said, unable to hide the admiration in his voice. “Glad I’m not marrying her.”

  “Sure you are. Are you still in town?”

  “I’m at Betty’s.” She was making him a sandwich to go. It had been the kind of day that made him anxious to get home and as far away from being a deputy as he could. Except he wouldn’t sleep once he got home anyway. “You want me to check on Charity? No problem.”

  “Thanks. I’d suggest taking Charity a piece of pie. Banana cream, if Betty still has some. That way Charity won’t take your head off.”

  Jesse grinned to himself as he hung up. It was great seeing his brother in love—and admitting it. If Mitch could fall so hard, wasn’t there a chance for Jesse to find true love?

  Betty bagged up the sandwich, a slice of banana cream and a slice of cherry for him.

  As he drove down Main to the newspaper office, Charity was just getting out of her VW. He pulled in beside her and got out. “Here, let me get that for you,” he said as she started to unlock the office. He smiled and, holding the bag from Betty’s in one hand, took the keys from her.

  “Mitch called you,” she accused, not sounding pleased about it.

  Jesse tried to look innocent, gave up and said, “I have pie. Banana cream.”

  She tried to hide a smile as he opened the door for her and turned on the light. “You can tell Mitch—” She stopped in midsentence, her eyes widening as she surveyed her office.

  The newspaper was small, the office consisting of only three desks, a light table, copy machine, darkroom and a small press.

  Everything looked fine to him. “What’s wrong?”

  Charity said nothing, just walked slowly into the room and headed straight for one of the large filing cabinets against the wall. The top drawer was open and when he looked past her, he saw a newspaper clipping lying on the floor between Charity and the darkroom.

  He moved to her, touched her arm and motioned for her to be quiet as he headed toward the darkroom. Using his shirttail, he turned the knob. The door swung in. He flicked on the light.

  The metal grate that covered a large air vent in the ceiling hung down exposing a gaping hole to the roof.

  Dragging up a chair, Jesse peered into the ventilation system, careful not to touch anything. The opening was accessible from the roof and large enough for a small person to crawl through. He climbed down and checked the back door. It wasn’t just unlocked. It wasn’t even latched. He glanced down the alley. Empty.

  “You always lock the back door?” he asked Charity.

  She nodded. She hadn’t moved, seemed to be frozen in her spot, eyes still wide. He figured she was reliving the last time someone had broken into the newspaper. That time she’d been in the darkroom and the burglar had grabbed her, bound her with duct tape and stuffed her in the storage closet. Obviously that incident had made a lasting impression on her.

  “The door was definitely locked,” she said in a whisper.

  “Well, it looks like your intruder came through the air vent on the roof down into the darkroom and then made a hasty retreat out the back door. Could have been a kid—”

  “No,” she interrupted, shaking her head and seeming to pull herself together. “A kid wouldn’t break in to steal a file of newspaper clippings. One of my files is missing.”

  He frowned. “How can you tell that?”

  She didn’t answer, just moved to the clipping on the floor and using the pencil she’d picked up, she flipped the article over.


  The headline read: Whatever Happened To Baby Angela?

  Charity motioned toward the computer on the desk. Even from here he could see that the burglar had typed in the search keyword KIDNAPPING to access the file number.

  “Someone is interested in the Angela Dennison case,” she said.

  “The file is missing?”

  She nodded.

  He swore under his breath. His bad feeling from earlier had settled deep in his gut.

  “Interested enough to break in rather than wait until the office was open,” Charity was saying. “Obviously, he doesn’t want us to know who he is or why he’s interested.”

  “Any idea who it could be?” he asked, hoping there was some weirdo in town who’d shown an interest in the case who was nuts enough to break in to read the file in private. No such luck.

  She shook her head.

  “Well, I think we scared whoever it was away, but there is no way you’re staying here alone tonight to work.”

  Charity surprised him by not arguing. “It can wait until tomorrow.”

  Clearly she saw the potential for another story after this break-in. “You want to dust this clipping?” she asked.

  He nodded and saw her glance at the sack from Betty’s. “Just take the banana cream. The cherry pie and sandwich is mine.”

  She grinned at him as she drew out the carton with the slice of cream pie inside and took a whiff, closing her eyes for a moment, a smile on her lips.

  “My brother is one lucky man.”

  She opened her eyes. “You know it.”

  Jesse walked her out to her car. “Straight home?”

  “You’re going to call Mitch the moment I pull away, aren’t you?”

  He smiled. “You know it.” He watched her drive away, then took the investigation kit out of the back of the patrol car. He’d seen Mitch do this a few times and figured at this point there was no reason to call in the state crime lab boys. Not yet anyway.