Marilyn Pappano - One Stormy Night

Now there was a conversation she would love to eavesdrop on.

She was still standing there, minutes after he’d ended his call, when another police car rolled around the corner. It stopped behind her car, and Mitch walked over to talk for a moment to the man behind the wheel. Then he got into his own car, backed out and drove away, and the new guy took his space, right next to her rental.

The guy was probably older than he looked—he looked about eighteen—and wore mirrored sunglasses above a scraggly mustache. He’d been with Taylor in the diner that morning, which meant he wasn’t to be trusted. What was the world coming to, some TV show character had once asked, when you couldn’t even trust the police to be honest?

Amen to that.

She double locked the door, closed that little gap in the drapes, then returned to the kitchen. Except for a few frozen dinners, most of her food purchases had been of the junk-food variety. She and Jen had been blessed with a good metabolism that allowed them to eat that way without worrying about their weight. There at the end, Jen had been spitefully pleased that Taylor tended to get fat if he didn’t exercise religiously and stay away from sweets.

What about Mitch? Those muscles hadn’t appeared out of thin air, but did he work out because he needed to or simply liked to?

“What does it matter?” Jessica asked aloud, loading her voice with every ounce of frustration. “He’s one of the bad guys, remember? Just this morning you were criticizing Jen for falling for a pretty face, yet you’re on the verge of doing the same thing.”

Letting out a low, annoyed growl, she turned, hands on her hips, to survey the living room. It was time to start searching. She knew Taylor’s men had already searched the apartment and had, presumably, found nothing. That meant one of three things: Jen had hidden it extraordinarily well, in plain sight or someplace else.

She had her work cut out for her.

Wishing she could open the drapes and let in the sun without the kid cop being able to see, she turned on every light in the room—and discovered the reason the lamps at either end of the sofa hadn’t worked the night before: they were unplugged from the wall. Jen had always unplugged things like hair dryers and can openers before leaving the house, believing they were fire hazards. With a faint smile, Jessica stuck the plugs back into the outlets and the lights immediately came on.

After plugging in the television, she tuned it to a music channel, then started her search. It was a good thing the apartment was so small. Because she intended to do a very thorough job.

“Is he in?” Mitch asked as he passed Megan. Without interrupting her broadcast, she nodded in the direction of Taylor’s office.

He wound between desks, passed the interrogation room and paused long enough for a sharp rap at the door before opening it and inviting himself inside.

Taylor leaned back in his chair, hands folded over his stomach. “Well?”

After moving a stack of files from the lone chair that fronted the desk, Mitch sat down and made his report—every stop Jennifer had made, why and for how long. The only parts he left out were the ice cream and his helping carry in her groceries. There wasn’t any reason not to tell him about either. Mitch just didn’t want to.

That done, he said, “As long as she knows she’s being watched, she won’t do anything interesting, so I’m going out on patrol.”

“That’s fine for now. I’ve got Jimmy Ray over there. Sitting in the car watching the apartment just might be what he does best.”

What Jimmy Ray did best, Mitch thought, was threaten people. He looked so young, so harmless, that no one suspected he was mean as the devil until it was too late. Not that he would ever do anything without Taylor’s order. Tough as he was, he knew Taylor was tougher.

“But I want you to watch her at night and on weekends.”

Mitch stared. He’d like to believe Taylor wasn’t serious, but he’d lost whatever illusions he’d had about his old friend weeks ago. “I’m not being paid—”

“You will be.” Taylor’s voice was as level as his expression. “You keep an eye on Jennifer on your time off and you’ll find a nice raise in your next paycheck.”

Mitch settled back, crossing one ankle over the other knee. “Using department resources and department money to investigate your wife… And I suppose if I find anything that could be useful, say, in a divorce, that would probably earn me a nice departmental bonus, wouldn’t it?”

“I’m not worried about a divorce,” Taylor said dismissively. “You have a problem with making some extra cash?”

Mitch considered it, then lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “Depends on how much cash we’re talking.”

“It’ll be enough. Trust me. Just keep an eye on her. She’s a beautiful woman. It won’t be hard. Okay?”

Again Mitch waited a beat before agreeing. “Okay.”

He was at the door before Taylor softly added, “Bubba? Just an eye. You lay a hand on her…I’d hate to consider the consequences, what with you and me going back so far.”

Mitch opened the door, then glanced back. “I don’t fool around with married women.” He looked pointedly in Megan’s direction. “There’s something about those vows…”

Taylor didn’t even look uncomfortable, much less guilty.

As Mitch returned to his car, he wondered what had happened to Taylor over the years. His parents were still together after some forty years; they spent summers in Alaska and winters in South Florida and they’d always seemed happy. His father had been a lawyer, his mother a stay-at-home mom, and in their retirement they did regular volunteer work with children’s charities in both states.

Through high school and college he and Mitch had had far more in common than not. They’d shared an apartment, taken the same classes, even had the same plans of going into law enforcement. Taylor had returned home to Belmar, though, while Mitch had gone to Atlanta for big-city police work within a few hours’ drive of his brothers.

Somewhere along the way, though, Taylor had changed. He’d become more controlling, more self-centered, less honest. He’d always been a little on the wild side and more than a little full of himself, but within limits. Back then he’d given a damn about something besides himself and power and money. Mitch felt as if he hardly knew him anymore.

Felt as if he hardly knew himself.

One thing about working law enforcement in a town where most of the police department was corrupt—there wasn’t much other crime to investigate. Since coming to Belmar, Mitch’s days were mostly spent writing traffic citations, with the occasional teenage vandalism, burglary or drug bust. People on the chief’s good side got special attention when they were the victim of a crime and a blind eye when they went speeding through town. That had been the toughest problem Mitch had faced since coming to town—keeping straight who was on the chief’s good side.

Until Jennifer had returned.

“Don’t lay a hand on her,” he scoffed. As if he needed to be told. He’d kicked Taylor’s ass twenty-four years ago and could easily do so again in a fair fight. Not that Taylor fought fair. He used his badge, his authority and his department to intimidate and frighten. He was rarely seen without one or more of his officers. He believed in making a show of force and in letting others do his dirty work.

That was the man Mitch had called friend for twenty-four years.

He drove to the north edge of town, where an abandoned gas station stood across the street from a big, relatively new truck stop. What the station owner hadn’t hauled away, thieves had, and vandals had broken the rest. The only thing that still worked on the premises was the pay phone, only because it was around the corner, on the side of the building where weeds grew tall. He backed his car into the weeds, beaten down because it was one of his few routines. With the highway coming into town and the speed limit dropping from fifty-five to thirty in the space of a few hundred yards, it was a good spot to work radar.