BEVERLY BARTON - The Chosen

God, he hoped her faith in Judd wasn’t misplaced.

“We need to talk,” Nic Baxter said, as she came toward Griff, a scowl on her face. A really pretty face.

The woman was relentless. She had followed them to the airport. What part of Barbara Jean’s I’m-going-with-Mr. Powell statement didn’t she understand?

Give her some slack , he told himself. Baxter’s just doing her job. Curtis Jackson would be doing the same thing. He’d keep trying to persuade Barbara Jean to accept FBI protection instead of flying off in the night with the owner of a private security firm. It wouldn’t have mattered to Curtis any more than it mattered to Nic that Griff could provide twenty-four-hour-a-day protection for Barbara Jean, as well as give her a job to keep her occupied and her mind off the fact that she was a key witness.

“Give it up, Baxter,” Griff said as Nic approached him. “Ms. Hughes has made her decision.”

With a hint of pink in her cheeks—a sign of her barely controlled anger—Nic huffed loudly. A very unladylike sound.

“I understand that you want to nail this guy every bit as much as I do, but you have to know that your interference creates problems,” Nic said. “I can’t name a specific, but what if your involvement—your agency’s involvement—some how has already jeopardized this case? Why can’t you just back off and let us do our job?”

“My agency has done nothing to jeopardize your case,” Griff said. “I’ve made sure of that. Besides, there have been a few instances when we’ve actually helped you, given you information you didn’t have.”

Nic rolled her big brown eyes. “If anything happens to Barbara Jean—”

“Nothing will happen to her.”

“You can’t be sure of—”

“Neither could you. But I think she’d much prefer living and working on my estate to being hidden away in a safe house somewhere.”

“That was the clincher—the job offer. Money talks, doesn’t it, Mr. Powell?”

“Is that why you dislike me so much—because I’m rich?”

Nic grunted. “I dislike the fact that you use your money to get what you want.”

“No, that’s not it. You dislike me, not my money and power.”

“Off the record, just between the two of us?” She eyed him hostilely.

“Off the record, tell me exactly what you think.”

“I think you are an annoying, know-it-all, arrogant bastard.” Griff chuckled. “And, off the record, Nicole Baxter, you’re a self-righteous, irritating bitch.”

She simply stared at him for a full minute, then smiled. Her smile took him by surprise. There was something damned appealing about her when she smiled.

“When Barbara Jean is ready to work with a sketch artist—” Nic said.

“I’ll call you.”

“Before or after you hire your own sketch artist?”

“After,” he admitted. “Of course, if you were willing to share with me the way I share with you, it wouldn’t be necessary.”

“You know it’s against the rules.”

“And you never break the rules?”

“No. Never.”

Griff leaned down so that they were eye to eye and whispered, “Never say never, honey.”

Ruddy had rented a late model Chevrolet, something inconspicuous so that hopefully no one would remember either him or his car. And he’d dressed in a pair of jeans, a plaid shirt, and a quilted jacket he’d bought at Wal-Mart. He hoped he looked like an average Joe.

He needed to learn the reason why there had been no recent updates in the local or national news about the vicious attack on Gale Ann Cain; so he had decided the best thing he could do was find out for himself by coming to Williamstown. Incognito.

Where better to pick up local gossip than the town’s Waffle House? When he’d parked outside, he’d seen a police car and hesitated coming inside. But after reminding himself that he had nothing to fear from the local lawmen, he entered the greasy spoon as if he were just a regular guy passing through town. As luck would have it, he managed to find a booth directly behind the two patrolmen who were eating a late dinner.

A tall, skinny waitress with chopped-off blond hair, streaked with purple and pink, refilled the two cops’ coffee cups, then stopped at his table.

“Want coffee?” She eyed his overturned cup.

He quickly righted the cup, smiled at her, and said, “Yes, please.”

After filling the cup to the rim, she said, “Do you know what you want?”

“Uh …” He glanced around and saw the menu was on the table. “What would you recommend?” He smiled at the girl whose name tag read Tammy .

“Depends. Do you want breakfast, a sandwich, or a regular dinner?”

“Breakfast. Maybe bacon and eggs.”

“Sure thing. Toast, too? Wheat or white?”

“White.”

“Scrambled eggs?”

He nodded.

When she left to place his order, he added creamer and sugar to the dark coffee as he listened to the roaring hum of human voices mingling with the clatter of dishes and meal preparation. No doubt the food here would be horrible, nowhere close to his usual standards, but if he could pick up even a tidbit of local gossip about the recent murder, it would be well worth him having to go slumming.

The two policemen were discussing basketball, something Ruddy knew absolutely nothing about. He had always hated sports. Physical Education had been his least favorite subject in Hobart Military School.

The waitress returned to the booth where the policemen sat, two dinner plates in her hands. She placed the hot meals in front of the cops, but instead of leaving, she lingered, apparently flirting with the one she called Mike.

“So, has it been a quiet night?” she asked.

“Yeah, pretty quiet,” Mike replied.

“Folks aren’t getting out much since that Cain woman was attacked,” the other cop said.

Smiling to himself, Ruddy picked up the coffee mug.

“Wasn’t that just awful?” Tammy said. “You know, a Licensed Practical Nurse from over at Williamstown General was in here yesterday, and she said she heard the guy chopped off Gale Ann Cain’s feet. Is that true?”

“I wouldn’t know,” Mike said. “That’s stuff we aren’t supposed to discuss with civilians.”

“I understand. I just think it’s odd that since Chief Mahoney made a statement a couple of days ago, there hasn’t been another word about it on the local TV or in the paper. If that nurse hadn’t told us any different, we wouldn’t know the Cain woman was still alive.”

Ruddy’s hand shook so badly that coffee sloshed out of the cup and onto his fingers. He set the cup down and wiped his hand off with a paper napkin, all the while hoping no one had noticed.

“Not anymore, she isn’t,” Mike said.

“She died?” The waitress gasped.

“Hush up, Mike. You shouldn’t be telling Tammy anything about the case.”

“It’s not a secret,” Mike said. “The chief will be making an announcement sometime tonight.”

Ruddy’s heart stopped for a split second. Gale Ann Cain had lived? How was that possible? She should have bled to death rather quickly. Unless the person who had found her had gotten to her damn fast and somehow managed to keep her alive.

But what difference did any of that make now? The woman was dead.

Ruddy picked up his cup and took a sip of the bitter coffee. “I hope she was able to give the police a description of the guy before she died,” Tammy said.

Mike lowered his voice to a soft whisper. “Keep this strictly to yourself, Tammy.” The waitress nodded, her eyes bright with anticipation. “The Cain woman wasn’t able to ID her attacker, but they say her sister saw him and might be able to give the FBI a description.”