Sunset Point: A Shelter Bay Novel (17 page)

“A little buckshot never hurt anyone.”

“And your shoulder?”

He shrugged. “So some gangbanger got a little careless with a knife one night. I guarantee he straightened up real fast when I showed him the error of his ways.”

“And how about that little piece of metal lodged in one of your back muscles? Inches away from your spine,” she pointed out. She’d rushed home from law school when that shooting had made the news. Needless to say, neither her father nor Jake had bothered to inform her.

He gave her a broad grin that never failed to diminish her irritation. “Hey, that’s my barometer; I can always tell hours before the weather bureau when it’s going to rain.”

Tess smiled despite her concern. “You’re impossible.”

“That’s what your mother always used to say,” he agreed cheerfully, but then his expression turned suddenly sober. “But you stayed.”

“We both stayed,” she agreed softly. “Together.”

“If it makes you feel better, I’m not going to be running down alleys, doing car chases through downtown, and jumping over fences to catch bad guys. Jake and I are going to work on cold cases. Then turn what we uncover over to the cops.”

“That’s definitely in your wheelhouse,” she allowed, much relieved by this business plan. “Although I’ll miss working with Jake, you guys will be great. And you’ve chosen something that’s definitely needed, given the cutback in police funding.”

“I’ve already gotten a lot of interest from various bureaus I contacted,” he divulged, revealing this hadn’t been a spur-of-the-moment decision. “I just wish like hell that we could’ve gotten your guy. But that doesn’t mean we’ve given up. Somewhere, in some police department in this country, there are paper files stored away that’ll eventually give us what we need to know.”

As he blew out a frustrated breath, Tess decided there was no point in suggesting it was time for both men to move on. Because it wasn’t who they were.

“So,” he said, switching gears with a deft ease that had probably caught more than one bad guy off guard. “How did you meet the author?”

“He was at the courthouse to observe the end of the Kagan trial.” Tess decided against mentioning the incident at the Shelter Bay seawall.

“Is he switching genres? True crime isn’t his thing.”

“All right, Detective Brown,” she said on a huff as his silent, unblinking stare dragged on. “I confess. We had lunch.”

Not for the first time, Tess understood exactly how her father had gotten all those crooks to confess over the years. “The Look,” as the other cops down at the precinct house had always referred to it, was decidedly intimidating. It had always worked on her. Especially on those rare times during her teenage years when she’d try, unsuccessfully, to sneak in after curfew.

“So, are you saying it’s solely professional? Or personal?”

“It’s complicated.”

“Did Breslin send you the bobblehead?”

“Yes.”

“Hmm.” And didn’t he manage to put a world of suggestion into that murmur? “He seems like a nice enough guy. Maybe even good enough for my daughter.”

His tone was remarkably gentle for a big man, reminding Tess of all the times during her childhood that she’d found comfort in those strong arms. He’d been her rock when her mother had left without warning. One rainy day Tess had returned home from school to find her mother gone.

Needless to say, Tess had blamed herself. If she’d only been a better daughter, if she’d only not gotten kidnapped, if she’d only not stopped for that van that day, her mother wouldn’t have changed. And she’d still be in the kitchen singing along to the radio while she made dinner.

Tess’s guilt was assuaged by her father’s assertion that she was the sweetest, most lovable little girl that God had ever put down on this sweet green Earth.

Her mother, he’d told her gently, needed to be free. Like the other women in her family. It wasn’t anyone’s fault. It was just the way it was. But he’d never consider their marriage a mistake because he’d gotten the world’s best daughter out of the deal.

And she’d gotten the world’s best father. Over the years, he’d dried her tears when she hadn’t been invited to the junior high spring dance, and put up with all the other girlish tears that had accompanied her high school years.

She’d walked down the aisle on her father’s arm the day of her wedding, and eighteen months later, he’d offered to beat “the jerk” to a pulp if it would make her feel better. Mike Brown was more than a father—he was the most supportive, most dependable man she’d ever known.

“And if whatever you have with Breslin does get personal, and he dares hurt my little girl, I’ll punch his lights out.”

Despite the seriousness of the situation—her threats, her concern about her father going back into the detective business, Donovan nearly being killed—Tess managed a laugh. “You do realize that beating people up is no way to gain clients,” she said.

“I didn’t beat up anyone as a cop. And despite those nicks you pointed out, I never once discharged my weapon. And I have no intention of doing either of those things as a P.I.,” he assured her.

Her father’s record, going back to his street cop days, had been stellar. But that didn’t mean that he couldn’t be a master of intimidation. “Remember the time you offered to beat up Harry Davis for me?”

“The rotten kid made you cry.”

“Standing me up for the homecoming game was not exactly a capital offense.”

“He made you cry,” her father repeated firmly. “He’s lucky I only threatened him.”

“You threatened Harry?” she asked incredulously, suddenly understanding why, for the remainder of the school year, the sixteen-year-old high school junior had taken off in the opposite direction whenever he’d seen her coming.

“I told that snot-nosed kid that the next time I caught him even looking at you, I’d show him the room in the basement of the station where we kept the rubber hoses,” Mike revealed proudly.

“PPB doesn’t have a room with rubber hoses.”

Mike winked. “You know that. And I know that. But Harry, the teenage louse, didn’t.”

She shook her head in frustrated amusement. “I’m still concerned,” she admitted. “About this idea you dragged Jake into.”

“He’s a grown man. Capable of making his own decisions.”

“True. But it was your idea.”

“I’m not the kind of guy who takes to being put out to pasture just because I’ve had a couple of little heart flutters.”

“An attack,” she corrected. “Flutters don’t put you in the CCU. Flutters didn’t cause you to have a triple bypass.”

“Letterman had a quintuple bypass. Bill Clinton had a quadruple. Hell, if anything, I’m an underachiever with just a triple.”

“You’ve no idea how tempted I am to call Dr. Ryan.”

“Call him anything you want, but don’t call him a doctor.”

“Dan Ryan is an excellent cardiologist,” she argued. “He happens to have saved your life.”

“If it had been my time to go, there’s not a damn thing that kid could have done about it,” Mike grumbled. “Okay,” he said as she gave him her sternest look. The one she’d actually perfected in front of her bathroom mirror in preparation for law school moot court. “He did save my life and for that I’m grateful. But the point is that he didn’t save it for me to sit around on my ass watching the Golf Channel.”

“You’ve never watched the Golf Channel in your life.”

“Which shows you how frigging bored I’ve been,” he countered. He was lying. But she understood his need to work. She wouldn’t be able to sit home and watch
The View
and game shows all day, either.

“Jake’s right,” she said.

“About what?”

“That I’m a chip off the old block.”

It was his turn to laugh. They were sharing a moment when Eleanor arrived. “I’m sorry to break in,” she said. “But the nurse says that Detective Quinn wants to see you.”

Because the uniformed guard was only letting one visitor in at a time, knowing that her father would want to debrief the detective, although she was dying to see him for herself, she let him go first. Not being a man of many words, he wasn’t in there long. And when he came out and told her it was her turn, his face didn’t give away a thing.

Tess’s heart sank as she entered the room. Donovan’s leg was in a cast nearly to his knee, his ribs were taped, he had a thick black patch over the white gauze bandages wrapped around his head covering one eye, and more gauze wrapped around his left hand. Knowing that it could have been so much worse, and determined not to burst into tears, she struggled to keep things light.

“If that patch is part of your pirate’s costume, you’re a bit early for Halloween,” she said.

“My timing’s been off on a lot of things lately. Like not being able to dodge that damn SUV fast enough. I scratched my cornea on a piece of glass, fractured my fibula, and my Ethiopian roast burned my hand when I tried to get out of the way. That warning on those to-go cups about it being extra hot isn’t a joke.”

“Neither is getting run over,” Tess said.

“If I’d been run over, there’d be tire tracks on my ass,” he said. Then flashed her a wicked grin. “Want to check and make sure the doc didn’t miss them?”

“I suspect you’d know,” she said dryly, understanding that cop humor was their own form of social glue, normalizing a stressful situation and denying vulnerability because police who cried on the job weren’t going to last long.

It was their way of whistling in the dark and not that different from her own profession, where she spent much of her days with murderers, rapists, child abusers, wife beaters, and other criminal defendants who’d never be given good citizen awards. There were days that if Tess didn’t laugh, she’d have to cry.

“There were witnesses,” she said. “The guy’s not going to get away.”

“Damn straight.” He shook his head, then, although he tried to hide it, cringed when it obviously caused him pain. “Jake said some Marine drove you here.”

“He’s a novelist now. And supposedly a friend of yours…Nate Breslin.”

“Yeah, Nate and I go back a long way. He ducked his head in for a minute while your dad’s new friend was upstairs getting you guys. Is he the one who sent you the bobblehead?”

“He is.”

“You should have him spend the night.”

She lifted a brow, pretending to not understand his meaning. “It’s bad enough having my friends and Dad worrying about my lack of a love life,” she said. “Now you’re fixing me up?”

“No.” His expression turned grave. “I’m trying to keep you safe. We’ve no idea if Vasilyev has decided to make a major move tonight. You could be the next target.”

“Even so, I hadn’t realized Breslin had been made an honorary member of the Portland Police Bureau,” she said dryly. “What did he do to qualify? Take part in another citizen drive-along?”

“He’s a Marine,” Donovan said.

“Former.”

“No such thing. And I’d rather have a jarhead I know and trust spend the night than some rookie cop who’s only ever shot his weapon on the police range.”

“There isn’t going to be any shooting. Besides, he’s a writer. He may not even have a gun.”

“He doesn’t. Apparently he got rid of them after he got out of the service. But Jake’s taking care of that problem.”

“Are you saying that while I was up having coffee with my father, you three males were talking about how to best ‘handle’ the delicate little female?”

“Handle isn’t exactly the word. More like protect.”

“You didn’t have any right to decide this.”

“We had every right.” Donovan’s voice, while laced with pain, was unmistakably firm. “Unless you want to spend the night with Mike—”

“No. It’s bad enough that he’s decided to open up that agency with Jake. No way do I want to put his life at risk.”

“Which means you realize this situation
does
present a risk,” he countered. He might have a concussion, but there wasn’t anything wrong with his thought processes. “We’re talking about your life, babe.”

The endearment, which he’d used so easily during their brief time together, had her eyes filling up as they swept over him. “I don’t want to waste my time and your energy arguing. How are you? Really?”

He grinned. “Just dandy. You don’t think a little brush with an SUV is going to keep a good man down, do you?” he asked with a bravado she had heard in her father’s voice far too many times over the years.

“Cops,” she muttered, her soft smile belying her words, “you’re all crazy.”

“You called that one right,” he answered cheerfully. “If you won’t let Breslin stay for me, do it for your dad. Because if the jarhead isn’t there, he will be. And do you really want him to stay up all night in vigilance mode?”

She folded her arms. “That’s emotional blackmail.”

“Is it working?”

“Dammit.” She shook her head. “You knew it would.” She went around to the side of the bed, bent, and brushed her lips against his bruised and swollen cheek. “Behave yourself and listen to the doctors and nurses.”

“I’ll be on my best behavior,” he promised. Although he grinned, she could see the exhaustion and pain fogging his eyes.

“Pinkie swear?”

Because his fingers were currently wrapped in gauze, he settled for crossing his right hand over the left of his bandaged chest. “Absolutely.”

As she left the room, Tess couldn’t help thinking that if it hadn’t been for her calling him out to the house this evening, he never would’ve been at that Starbucks, which wouldn’t have put him in harm’s way.

It wouldn’t have made a difference, she could hear him arguing. If Vasilyev was the one behind the hit-and-run, he would have found some other way to get to anyone standing in his way.

But knowing that intellectually didn’t have her feeling any less guilty.

“This is totally unnecessary,” Tess said for the umpteenth time as she and Nate entered her house. “What makes you think you could do anything if the guy who hit Donovan does show up?”

“I don’t think he will. Not with me here.”

She tossed her purse onto the entry table. An outward sign, he thought, at how unnerved she truly was. It was undoubtedly the only thing out of place in the entire house.