Bringing Maddie Home(29)
Author: Janice Kay Johnson

Colin frowned at Nell. “You still haven’t seen Duane, have you? He took it as hard as your parents did when you disappeared. Harder, maybe, because he insisted on taking charge of the investigation and then felt like a failure when we didn’t find you.”

She shook her head. “I’ve been a little busy, you know. And I haven’t been in town very long.” She thought back. “Nine days?”

“That’s true,” Colin agreed, but the creases remained in his forehead. “Duane told me he bowed out of the dinner because Felix had showed up and he didn’t want to get in the way. Listen, why don’t I have him to the house for dinner?” He raised his eyebrows at her brother. “Maybe you can join us?”

“Sure.” Felix sounded pleased. “I saw Uncle Duane at Thanksgiving, but not since I’ve been home this time. I have to head back to Salem on Sunday, though.”

“Tomorrow night, then.” Colin’s eyes glinted with amusement. “Here comes your peach tart.”

“Both kinds,” her brother murmured, then winked at Nell’s astonishment.

* * *

COLIN STOPPED BY the detective’s division to pick up Jane Vahalik before the meeting with Bystrom. Once again, he was accompanying her only to provide the authority of someone in a senior position. Backup, he thought, with a small grin.

She was waiting for him with news. A sergeant on the Bend police force who had served for ten years on the Drug Enforcement Team had immediately known the man in the picture, the one engaged in an intense conversation with Angel Butte’s own police chief.

“James Lewis, although that may be an alias. He’s a pilot who the DEA had been watching for years. They know damn well he was ferrying drug shipments. Before they were able to make an arrest, he dropped off everyone’s radar about five years ago. The assumption seems to be that he’s dead. Bend had gotten a tip about him, but by the time they caught up with him and his plane, it was clean and he had insisted he was only flying some skiers in from Southern California. A rich couple backed up his story. Nobody believed him, or them, but what could they do?”

“So our police chief just happens to have been conversing with a likely drug trafficker at a private airfield.”

“Right about the time he started pocketing some nice payments.”

Duane had joined them and heard the update. “Would you prefer I step in for Jane this afternoon?” he asked.

Colin shook his head. “She’s doing a good job. And me, I’ve already got a bright red bull’s-eye painted on my chest. Best if some people with seniority around here keep their heads down when the bullets start flying.”

Duane chuckled. “You know me. I like nothing better than hunkering down.”

“I wanted to talk to you.” Colin stepped to one side, his lieutenant joining him. “You still haven’t seen Maddie.”

“Things have been happening….” He grunted and rubbed a hand over his thinning hair. “Hell, I can’t lie to you. I think I’ve been making excuses to myself. I’m not kidding myself about what kind of reception she’s probably getting at home, and that makes me feel guilty. I knew she wasn’t very happy back in the day. My sister…” He hesitated. “She’s got problems. Reasons for ’em, but I’m not sure that excuses her for being as hard on Maddie as she was. All I’ve been able to think all these years is that maybe I could have made more of a difference if I’d tried harder.”

“You never said any of this.”

“Helen is my sister,” he said simply. “With Maddie gone, there was no point.”

“I’m sorry,” Colin offered. “I didn’t realize. I expected you to be first in line to greet her.”

“Honestly—I think I’ve been holding on to the memory of her as a little girl,” he said gruffly. “I really loved her. I don’t know the adult she is now. I guess I don’t want to find out she’s changed too much.”

Colin had no trouble understanding that. He was having enough inner conflict himself over the girl she had been and the woman she was now. Explaining that, though, would give too much away. Something told him Uncle Duane wouldn’t like finding out Colin was sleeping with his little Maddie.

“She would like to see you, though,” he said. “Any chance you could come to dinner tomorrow night? Felix will be there, too.”

Duane’s face worked, as though he were struggling to hide too many emotions. “Yeah,” he said finally, clearing his throat. “Yeah, that sounds good. Have her let me know if she wants me to pick her up. Felix, too.”

“I’ll do that.” Colin didn’t know why he was hiding the fact that Nell was living at his place, even from Duane. It was better if no one at all knew, he told himself. Saved him from admitting how much time they were spending together. “Six o’clock?”

“Sounds good.” Duane glanced at his watch. “You’d better be on your way.”

Five minutes later, Jane and Colin walked into the conference room to find only their accountant present. Ten minutes later, a Bend attorney Colin had encountered in courtrooms before arrived to say that his client was angered at this intrusive investigation and had chosen not to cooperate. He saw this as a political attempt to get rid of him. He would be speaking to Mayor Chandler and possibly filing a civil suit against the city, in particular naming Captain McAllister.

When he left, the three of them looked at each other. Colin nodded after a minute, resigned.

“I’ll call the mayor.” He looked at the accountant. “Anything you can tell us?”

“The questionable payments are from two sources, both corporate holding companies that consist of nothing but some named officers—all attorneys—and a post office box. Going deeper is beyond my means. I’ve got to tell you, though, entities like this raise obvious red flags.”

“So, since explaining is problematic, he’s decided to see if he can get by with not explaining.” Colin nodded again to them both. “Thank you for coming. I’ll let you know what we need to do for follow-up.”

The two left him alone to make the call.

He stood at the window looking out at the river as he dialed. He was put through to Noah Chandler right away. Colin explained what he knew.

The silence felt reflective, and he waited patiently.

“I think this investigation needs to get bigger,” Chandler finally said. “If he’d cooperated, I would have been willing to keep this confidential until we had answers. As it is, I’ll let him know that any hope of keeping his job is conditional on that cooperation. If he won’t give it, I’ll ask for his resignation. Give me a day before you take any further steps.”

“All right.”

“What do you want to do next?”

Like most cops, Colin didn’t love bringing in the feds, but the time had come.

“We need to bring the DEA in on this.” He told the mayor what the accountant had reported. “They have the resources to dig deeper into the source of that money than we can.” He hesitated. “I think it’s important that, for both our sakes, we avoid the appearance of this being some kind of coup.”

There was a moment of silence.

“I’ve heard a lot of gossip about drug shipments moving through this area,” Chandler said bluntly. “What I haven’t heard about is the number of arrests you’d expect. Not a lot of shipments seized, either.”

Colin had given up being anything but blunt. “Detective Vahalik is currently coordinating with the members of the Drug Enforcement Team in an attempt to find out whether these payments coincide in any way with failed raids.”

“Good. What worries me is that he couldn’t act alone. If he warned about raids, who gave him the information in the first place? You know we’re heading toward an internal investigation. Who else has been paid off?”

Colin swore under his breath. “Every officer in this department is going to feel unfairly targeted. Morale is already poor. This may be the killing blow.”

“You’re suggesting we let it go?”

“No.” He squeezed the back of his neck. “No, of course not. It has to be done.”

“All right. Let’s hold off for a day or two, see where we get with Bystrom. Then I think we can’t afford to wait.”

They talked for a minute more about the whys and hows. A minute later, Colin ended the call and growled a few words he didn’t usually allow himself.

Before he knew it, the finances of colleagues and friends within the police department would be under intense scrutiny. These were men and women he had trusted and would need to trust again in the future. But he knew as well as Chandler did that, if the police chief had been on the take, there had to be others.

Goddamn it. He would have liked to warn Brian Cooper, his counterpart in Patrol Services, a straight arrow if he’d ever known one. And Duane. Blindsiding a longtime friend like Duane didn’t sit well with him. But he also knew he wouldn’t say a word to either.

This wasn’t how he’d anticipated accomplishing his longtime goal of cleaning up the Angel Butte Police Department. He wouldn’t be a popular man by the time he was finished. He would be traveling a dangerous road, and essentially doing it on his own. His only backup would be a man he hardly knew, the political outsider who had become mayor.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

COLIN’S MOOD WAS grim the next day. He wouldn’t tell Nell much, only that the police chief had “lawyered up”—his words—and that he was having to expand the investigation. When she asked how, he said, “Better you don’t know.”

The conversation was taking place in his kitchen. Felix had taken her grocery shopping and she had cooked dinner for Colin again. Her reward was the relief on his face when he came in the door and saw her, and then smelled Hungarian goulash cooking.

“Is this all happening because of me?” she asked, turning from the stove.

“No.” He kissed her lightly. The lines on his face were deeper than she’d seen before. “Can I do anything?” he offered, checking out her dinner preparations.

“I already have a salad made. Dinner will only be a few minutes. Relax.”

He disappeared to his bedroom and came back having shed his suit coat, tie, badge and weapon. He was rolling up his sleeves when he walked back into the kitchen.

“What do you mean, ‘no’?” Nell asked. “If Beck was killed because of me…”

“He might have been, and he might not. I may turn out to be wrong, but I really don’t think whatever Bystrom got himself involved in has anything to do with you, unless you’re the one who took the picture of him talking to someone he shouldn’t have been associating with.”

“And maybe picked up the deposit slip.”

“Yeah.” His smile eased the strain on his face. “Nancy Drew.”

After dinner, while they were clearing the table, he asked if she’d stay at the house with him.

“Because you’re worried about me being alone?”

“A little bit.” He tugged her to him, then rested his forehead against hers. “Mostly because I want you in my bed.”

Happiness blossomed in her. How long he’d want her in his bed—well, that was something she’d worry about later, when she had to.

Suddenly she laughed.

Lifting his head, Colin quirked an eyebrow at her.

“Felix says Mom is a master of denial. It just occurred to me that I’ve got her beat in that department. Refusing to think about anything that’s uncomfortable? That’s for amateurs. Me, I can really put things out of my mind.”

His rich, husky laugh sent shivers of reaction through her. Colin noticed—and somehow the dishwasher didn’t get loaded that evening.

* * *

THE NEXT MORNING, Colin dropped Nell at Emily’s house. It was Saturday, and they’d arranged to spend the day together. He wanted to issue all sorts of protective orders again, but resisted.

“You should be safe enough with her,” he said finally, unsatisfied but resigned to the fact that this was the best they could do.

He’d have been embarrassed if Nell had known how relieved he was to find her in one piece and even cheerful when he picked her up at five. He liked her friend, who was such a contrast to Hailey that he’d been surprised by her. Emily was class, Hailey irreverence. Somehow Maddie had attracted both as friends.

“You sure you don’t mind cooking again?” he asked during the drive. “And for company?”

“Which happens to be my family. And no. I bought what I need yesterday. I might as well at least make myself useful.”

He frowned at her. “I don’t want to take advantage of you.”

Nell laughed. “Admit it. You love having a break from cooking.”

He gave her a crooked smile. “You’re right. I do.” He liked even better not having to say good-night to her at the foot of the stairs to the apartment. That first night after she arrived in Angel Butte, he’d taken comfort in seeing the light on in the window up there. Now he didn’t want to be standing alone, looking out and seeing that light again. Tomorrow morning, he was going to suggest she move the rest of her stuff to his bedroom.

He might still be confused, but he sure as hell wanted her with him no matter what. The idea of going back to his solitary existence held no appeal whatsoever.

Nell kicked off her boots and padded around in stocking feet while she put dinner together. Tonight it was purple socks with big, splashy red flowers. A green stem twined around the toes on each foot. Every day he looked forward to seeing her socks. She admitted they were something of a fetish.

Tonight was to be sweet-and-sour chicken on brown rice, he learned. As Colin worked on the salad, he couldn’t help noticing that she was getting quieter and quieter.