Open Season (32 page)

Now what?

On impulse, she got out the phone book and looked up
Sykes.
She didn’t know this particular Sykes’s first name or where he lived, so there was no point in the exercise, but she looked at the list of Sykeses and thought about calling each one. She could say something like, “Mr. Sykes, this is Daisy Minor. I hear you’re trying to kill me.”

Not a great idea. What if he had Caller ID? That would tell him where she was.

She didn’t normally watch much television, but there was nothing else to do. Midas had decided to have another snooze; when he woke, she would carry him out again, but how much time would that occupy? She picked up the remote, settled in the recliner, and turned on the television.

She didn’t like waiting and doing nothing. She didn’t like it at all.

At least her family was out of reach. Daisy knew she would have been a nervous wreck if Jack hadn’t gotten them out of town. Her mother was sure to call this evening to reassure herself Daisy was all right, and she’d be worried when there was no answer. On the other hand, Jack seemed to think of everything, so he had probably given her mother his cell phone number or another way she could check.

But what about Jack? She went cold. It was no secret they were involved, not after the way he had sat beside her in church. What if Mayor Nolan heard the gossip and told this Sykes to go after Jack as a way of flushing her out of hiding?

She made a dive for the telephone and called Jack’s cell phone. He answered after one ring. “Russo.”

“You have to be careful, too,” she said fiercely.

“What?”

“If the mayor finds out we’re involved, that makes you a target just the way my family was.”

“There’s a difference between your family and me.”

She loved them all, so she couldn’t see this difference. “Such as?”

“I’m armed.”

“Just be careful. Promise me.”

“I promise.” He paused. “Are you all right?”

“Bored. Hurry back with those books.”

Daisy fretted after she hung up, pacing around the room. She hated being stashed here out of the way, not knowing what was going on, not being able to help. It wasn’t in her nature to just sit and wait. Once she identified a chore or a problem, she couldn’t rest until it was handled.

Something had to happen soon, or she’d go crazy.

Jack frowned as he broke the connection. Daisy already sounded restless, which wasn’t good. He needed to know she was doing exactly as he’d told her; he needed to know she was safe so he could concentrate on finding Sykes.

The call he had received right before Daisy’s had him worried, though. One of his detectives had gone out to the Nolan place, but Mrs. Nolan hadn’t been there. They hadn’t located her yet. If Kendra Owens had gossiped about that phone call, it could already have gotten back to the mayor.

The little hairs on the back of his neck were standing up again.

N
adine hesitated in the doorway of Temple’s office, her indecision plain on her face. He looked up, irritated. He’d been on edge all day, waiting to hear from Sykes, wondering if he’d already accomplished the mission. The phone call from Mr. Phillips hadn’t been a joy, either. People who disappointed or ran afoul of Elton Phillips wound up dead. If Sykes didn’t succeed this time, Temple knew he’d have to do something to placate Phillips. Kill Sykes, maybe. The prospect of killing Sykes worried him, because Glenn Sykes wasn’t a fool and he wouldn’t be an easy man to kill.

Nadine still lingered in the doorway and Temple snapped, “For God’s sake, Nadine, what is it?”

She looked taken aback at his unusual irritability. Temple almost never let himself show temper; it wasn’t
good for the image. Today, though, he had other things besides his damn image to worry about.

Nadine wrung her hands. “I’ve never said anything before. I think people’s private lives are just that, private. But I think you should know what Mrs. Nolan did today.”

Jesus, not now. Temple covered his eyes, massaging the ache that ran under his eyebrows. “Jennifer has . . . problems,” he managed to say, the way he had so many times in the past when he wanted to elicit sympathy. It was his pat answer, one he didn’t have to think about.

“Yes, sir, I know.”

When she didn’t continue, Temple sighed, realizing he’d have to prompt her rather than say what he really wanted to say—that he didn’t give a good goddamn what the bitch did, he hoped she’d T-boned a power pole and killed herself.

“What has she done this time?” That was another pat response, showing his patience and weariness.

Now that he had asked, Nadine spat the words out as if she couldn’t hold them in any longer. “She called the library and told Kendra Owens you were trying to have Daisy Minor killed.”

“What?”
Temple shot up from his chair, color leeching out of his face. His knees wobbled in shock, and he had to grab the edge of his desk. My God. Oh, my God. He remembered the sudden uneasy feeling he’d had this morning, the one that had made him check to see what Jennifer was doing. The bitch had been listening in on her bedroom extension. Mr. Phillips would kill him. Literally.

“Kendra didn’t take her seriously, of course, but she was worried in case Mrs. Nolan did something, you
know, sort of foolish, so she called the police department and reported it.”

“The fucking
bitch!”
Temple said fiercely, and he didn’t know if he meant Jennifer or Kendra, or both.

Nadine stepped back, more than a little affronted by his language. “I thought you ought to know,” she said stiffly, and closed the connecting door with a bang.

With a shaking hand Temple picked up his private line and called Sykes’s number. After the sixth ring, he replaced the receiver. Sykes wasn’t at home, of course; he was waiting to follow Daisy home from work. After Jennifer’s stupid call, if Daisy had disappeared after lunch, the police department would have been on full alert, hunting for her, so the lack of action meant nothing had happened yet. He had to find Sykes and tell him to call off the whole thing. If anything happened to Daisy now, he, Temple, would be number one on the list of suspects.

Something had to be done about Jennifer. With her drinking history, though, it would be easy to set up an “accident.” Bash her in the head, run her car into the river, and be done with it.

But not right away. Anything done right now would be too suspicious. They couldn’t do anything to jeopardize the shipment of Russians.

First thing, though, he had to mend fences with Nadine. It wouldn’t do to have her bad-mouthing him to her little circle of friends. Gossip like that had a way of spreading like kudzu vines.

He opened the door, mustered the charm, and said, “I’m sorry, Nadine. I had no right using language like that. Jennifer and I had an argument this morning, and I’m still on edge. Then to find out she did something like that...” He let his shoulders slump.

Nadine’s expression softened a little. “That’s all right. I understand.”

He rubbed his forehead again. “Was Daisy upset when Kendra told her about the call?”

“Daisy isn’t working today. Her mother called in and said she had a toothache. I have my own suspicions, but that’s the story.” She waggled her eyebrows, looking arch.

Nadine should never try to look arch, Temple thought; she resembled a flirtatious frog. “What do you mean, ‘suspicions’?”

“About where she is. Well, I don’t know where she is, but I doubt she has a toothache.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because I had to call over to the police department right before lunch, and Eva Fay said Chief Russo hadn’t been in all day either.”

The throb behind Temple’s eyebrows worsened. “What does that have to do with Daisy?”

“You mean you haven’t heard? They’re seeing each other.” For Nadine her satisfaction at being the first to impart this news more than made up for his rudeness and bad language.

Temple felt as if he’d been hit between the eyes with a two-by-four. “What? Seeing each other?” He could barely say the words, the shock was so great. Disaster yawned at his feet.

“Barbara Clud said they bought—well, they bought intimate articles together. Chief Russo sat with her at church on Sunday, too.”

“Then it has to be serious.” His voice sounded hoarse, and he made a show of clearing his throat. “Got a tickle in my throat.”

Nadine fished a cough drop out of her desk and
gave it to him. “I’d say it’s serious, him going to church with her.”

Temple nodded and escaped back into his office, trying to grasp all the ramifications of what he’d just learned. Damn it! When Russo had run that tag number for him, he’d pretended not to know whose it was. Why would he do that? What had made him hide the fact that he knew Daisy? There was no reason to unless . . . unless he knew damn well Daisy hadn’t been parked in a fire lane at Dr. Bennett’s office, and the only way he could know that was if he’d been with her during the time in question.

The “intimate articles” bought at Clud’s Pharmacy had to be condoms, which meant they were sleeping together. Russo obviously wouldn’t have spent the night with Daisy at her mother’s house, but he had his own house to which he could take her. Temple had never thought Daisy Minor would spend the night with a man, but then he’d never thought she’d bleach her hair and go to the Buffalo Club, either. Daisy had evidently run wild.

So Russo knew he’d been lying about seeing the car. Russo wasn’t a fool; he’d figure out real quick that someone else had asked Temple to find out who the car belonged to. That wasn’t so bad, except for the lie. That was suspicious; Russo would wonder what was going on, and Temple didn’t want a man like Russo wondering about anything he did.

Right now he had to do damage control. He had to find Sykes and call him off, he had to do something about Jennifer, and he had to make certain the shipment of Russians was handled smoothly, because the least hint of trouble at this point would be more than Mr. Phillips would tolerate.

*   *   *

Jennifer drove aimlessly, afraid to go home because surely Temple would have heard by now what she’d done. You couldn’t keep things like that quiet in a small town. She couldn’t stop crying, though she didn’t know why she was crying at all, unless she was having a nervous breakdown and just didn’t realize it. She couldn’t do that, she thought; that would give Temple the chance to put her in a mental ward somewhere.

She had removed the little tape from the answering machine and dropped it in her purse. She would get someone to listen to it; she just didn’t know who. Part of her wanted to just drive to the police department, walk in making as much noise and fuss as she could, and get someone to play the tape right there in front of everyone. That way it couldn’t be disregarded, and no one would think she was drunk and imagining things. That would be the smart thing to do, but she couldn’t seem to get her act together enough to do it.

She felt as if she were shaking apart on the inside; she needed a drink, needed one worse than she had ever needed one before in her life, and for the first time in her life, she was afraid to take one. Once she did, she wouldn’t stop, and then she would be helpless. Her life depended on staying sober. She couldn’t seem to think straight now, but she wouldn’t be able to think at all if she drank.

Finally, almost automatically, she found herself on the road to Huntsville. It was the road she took to go shopping, to have her hair done. Whenever she left the house, it was to go to Huntsville. The road was nice and familiar. Twice she stopped and threw up, though she hadn’t eaten anything and it was mostly dry heaves. Withdrawal symptoms, she thought; her body was
rebelling against not having its accustomed alcohol. She had been dried out before, but always in a clinic, where she’d been given drugs to ease the way.

Maybe that’s what she should do. Maybe she should check herself into a clinic, if she could manage to get herself all the way to Huntsville. She had done what she could, tried to warn Daisy, if she checked into a clinic, when she got out in a month, everything would be all over and she wouldn’t have to deal with it.

Except she would have to deal with her conscience if anything happened to Daisy and she hadn’t done everything she could to stop it.

She drove with both hands locked on the steering wheel, but still she couldn’t seem to keep the car in the right lane. The dotted line seemed to wiggle back and forth, and she kept swerving, trying to stay on the right side of it. A big white car blew past, horn blaring, and she said, “I’m sorry; I’m sorry.” She was doing the best she could. That had never been good enough, though, not for Temple, not for Jason or Paige, not even for herself.

A horn kept blowing. She checked to make certain she wasn’t accidentally leaning on her own horn, but her hands were nowhere near it. The white car had gone past, she hadn’t hit it, so where was that horn coming from? Her vision swam and she wanted to lie down, but if she did, she might not be able to get up.

Where was that damn horn?

Then she saw a flash of blue, the strobe effect making her even dizzier, and the big white car was on her left, coming closer and closer, crowding her off the road. Desperately she stomped the brakes to keep from colliding with the white car, and the steering wheel jerked in her hands, tearing free of her grip. She screamed as her car began a sickening spin and her seat belt tightened
with an almost brutal jerk, holding her as she left the road; the front axle plowed into a shallow ditch, and something hit her in the face, hard.

Haze filled the car, and in panic she began fighting to get free of the seat belt. The car was on fire, and she was going to die.

Then the car door was wrenched open and a big, olive-skinned man leaned in. “It’s okay,” he said in a calm tone. “That isn’t smoke; it’s just the dust from the air bag.”

Jennifer stared at him, weeping, torn between despair and relief that it was all over. Now she wouldn’t have to decide anything. If Chief Russo was working in cahoots with Temple, there was nothing she could do about it.

“Are you hurt anywhere?” he asked, squatting in the open door and examining her for any obvious injuries. “Other than your bloody nose.”