Lawman (22 page)

“Yes. And she refused treatment. She wouldn't risk the baby, even to save her own life. But the cancer was advanced and quickly aggressive.” He felt again the grief of that knowledge, the coldness in the pit of his stomach. “I lost them both,” he added flatly, forcing himself not to yield to grief. “That was ten years ago. I decided that I'd never take that risk again. I'd live for my job. And I did. I volunteered for the Hostage Rescue Team. For six years, I was on the front lines of any desperate situation where lives were in danger. From there, I went to one of our SWAT units. When I started losing my edge physically, I opted for a transfer to one of the Texas field offices. I was sent to Austin, and then transferred down here, to lead a squad in the violent crime unit. But I've only been going through the motions of living,” he concluded. He looked down at Grace and there was an odd light in his dark eyes. “I want this baby, Grace. You don't know how much!”

Coltrain felt himself losing ground. He looked at Grace worriedly.

“I'll be all right,” she assured him. “I'm not giving up my baby. I've never had anyone of my very own, Copper,” she added in a soft, husky tone. Her hands lay protectively on the small rise. She smiled with wonder. “He'll be my whole world.”

Coltrain couldn't fight that look on her face. And he wasn't without sympathy for Garon, now that he understood the man a little better. It didn't take a mind reader to know that Garon was the child's father. But this was going to be more dangerous for Grace than she realized.

“I need to talk to your prospective husband,” Coltrain began.

“No, you don't,” Grace told him belligerently.

“There is such a thing as patient-doctor privilege. You don't have my permission. That's the end of it.”

Coltrain was worried. But she was right. He couldn't betray her secret. He understood why she didn't want Garon to know. That didn't make it less risky. But he couldn't force himself to go behind her back, not after all she'd been through. She obviously wanted this baby enough to fight any hint of interference. His lips compressed. “All right, I'll do the best I can.”

Garon, who'd just relived the most painful episode of his life, was only half listening to a conversation he didn't understand anyway.

He looked down at Grace with an expression she couldn't decipher.

“I'm sorry about the complication,” she said worriedly. “I didn't know…”

“It isn't a complication, Grace,” Garon said gently.

“It's a baby.”

“But you don't want to marry me,” she started again.

“No, I don't,” he said honestly. “But it's only for eight months,” he added. “After the baby comes, we'll make decisions.”

Which meant he wasn't ready for any happily ever after, and she couldn't blame him. She'd been careless, but he was going to pay the price.

At least he wanted the child and wasn't going to try to force her to get rid of it. She wasn't going to tell him anything at all that might upset him. He'd lost one child. She was going to make sure, somehow, that he didn't lose this one.

 

H
E DROVE TO HER HOUSE
, got out with her and went inside when she unlocked the door.

“Pack a bag,” he said. “You're staying at the house until we get married.”

“But I just got home…”

“Do I have to remind you of the risk?” he asked quietly.

For one frightening moment, she thought he meant the other risk. Then she realized, relieved, that he was talking about the killer.

“He probably still thinks I have amnesia,” she said.

“He's avoided arrest for twelve years and gotten away, if he's the killer, with eleven murders. He's not a stupid man. He must have lived here at the time.”

She'd never considered that possibility. She caught her breath and sat down heavily on the arm of her grandfather's old easy chair. “Do you think so?”

“Most serial killers choose their first victim within a comfortable radius of where they live,” he said.

She bit her lip, thinking back. “We had two renters down the road,” she recalled. “One was married, but his wife was visiting family back east. The other was elderly and in a wheelchair.”

“He didn't necessarily live next door,” he said. “He could have been involved in some program at school or church that brought him into contact with children.”

“He could have been anybody,” she said heavily. “All these years, I've wondered.”

“We'll catch him,” he said with firm confidence. “I promise you we will. But right now, I'm taking you home with me. There's no way in hell I'm leaving you here alone.”

She saw that he meant it. Well, at least he was concerned for her. He did want the baby, even if he didn't want Grace. She got up and went to pack her things.

Miss Turner was fascinated, not only with the news of the wedding, at which she would be a witness, but at the prospect of a baby. She didn't even seem shocked that they'd put the cart before the horse. She was already picking out yarn and patterns for baby clothes.

Grace laid out her one decent dress, the blue wool one, on her bed the day of the wedding. Garon came into the room after a perfunctory knock, carrying a big box. He gave the blue dress a hot glare and put the box down right on top of it.

“What is this?” Grace asked.

“Open it.”

She lifted the lid. Inside, there was an oyster-white suit and a small hat with a white veil. There was a silk bouquet as well. She looked at him, astonished.

“I'm not marrying you in that damned blue dress,” he announced.

She touched the silk gently. She knew what it cost, because she bought it for her secret project that he still didn't know about. “It's beautiful.”

“I got your measurements from Barbara,” he said, and didn't add that he'd had to apologize his way into her café after his last appearance there. But once she heard that he was marrying Grace, and that a baby was on the way, she backed down just enough to go shopping with him.

“Thanks,” she said in a shy, husky tone.

He shrugged. “Your friend Judy at the florists' is making you a bouquet. Barbara and Miss Turner will be witnesses.”

She looked up. “Rick?”

He had to clench his teeth. “He has to work tomorrow. He couldn't get off.” That wasn't exactly the truth. He refused to watch Grace ruin her life, were his exact words. The young detective was furious when he knew why Garon was marrying Grace. Garon could understand how he felt, but he couldn't jilt Grace when she was carrying his child.

“Oh,” was all she said. She knew how Rick felt about her. She was sorry she couldn't feel the same about him. It was probably better that he didn't show up in the probate judge's office.

“I'm going to drive to the courthouse. Miss Turner will bring you.”

“Okay.”

He hadn't asked if she wanted a church wedding, or offered her an elaborate affair with bridesmaids and groomsmen. Probably he'd had that sort of wedding with his first wife. She didn't protest. He was still grieving for the woman he'd lost. It was enough that he was giving their child a name. She'd never expected him to want her permanently. Nobody ever had.

 

T
HE PROBATE JUDGE
was a woman, Anna Banes, and she'd been married herself for two decades. She knew Grace, and her family, and the ordeal Grace had been through. She gave them a short but dignified and poignant service, with Barbara and Miss Turner standing to the side of them.

She didn't think Garon would buy her a wedding ring, but he had. It was a wide gold band with platinum edging and a grape leaf pattern. He didn't buy one for himself. That was hardly surprising. The judge declared them legally married, and Garon bent to brush a cool kiss against her cheek. It had been a long time, but he still remembered the joy of his first wedding. He was fond of Grace, and he wanted the child, but he couldn't separate himself from the past.

Garon treated them to lunch afterwards at Barbara's Café, and the owner herself brought out a magnificent wedding cake that she'd made for the occasion. Grace felt tears running down her cheeks at the thoughtfulness. She hugged the older woman warmly, because she was the closest thing to family that Grace had.

They were on the way home, with Miss Turner returning separately in Garon's Expedition, when Garon's pager beeped. He pulled it out, slowed to check the text message and grimaced.

“I have to go in to the office,” he said, stepping on the gas. “We've got a new lead in the case.”

“The killer?” she asked excitedly.

He nodded. “I'm sorry,” he added. “But I don't work a nine-to-five job.”

“Grandaddy was a deputy sheriff,” she replied. “He had to go out at all hours of the night if there was an emergency. Granny always raised the roof,” she added quietly. “I thought it was selfish of her. He saved lives.”

He glanced at her with a warm smile. “That's why we're all in the business.”

“I have lots to keep me busy,” she said easily. “Including my jobs.”

“You can quit them and stay home if you want to,” he said. “I make a good salary, and the ranch is additional income.”

She fiddled with the beautiful silk bouquet. She'd thrown the real one, and Barbara had caught it. “I like working,” she replied. “I'm not very domesticated.”

That was a surprise. She'd done nothing else, that he knew of, except look after her grandmother.

She felt his curiosity, but she didn't say anything else. He pulled up at the door of the house and went around to help her out.

Unexpectedly he swung her up into his arms and carried her up the steps. That was when she noticed the Expedition sitting beside the porch. Miss Turner had gotten home first. In fact, she was already opening the door with a big grin.

Garon laughed as he carried Grace inside and put her back on her feet. He bent to kiss her with gentle warmth. “The roses can wait. You rest,” he said.

She gave him a gamine grin. “You planning to stop by and tell my roses where I am, on your way to work?”

He tapped her straight little nose with a long forefinger. “I'll be back when I can.”

“Okay.”

He was gone in a flash, leaving a weary Grace to be shooed down the hall to change and rest by Miss Turner.

 

M
ARQUEZ WAS SITTING
in Garon's office when he walked in a few minutes later. He hesitated at the door.

The younger man gave him an impatient look. “Okay, I was way out of line, earlier,” he confessed tautly. “At least you're not leaving Grace in the lurch.”

Garon's eyebrows arched. “Do you know everything?”

“Pretty much. My mother and I don't keep secrets from each other.” He studied his knee. “I talked to a detective in Oklahoma. There was a red ribbon involved in their child murder four years ago. They held back the information, just in case.”

“It's got to be the same guy,” Garon said quietly.

“Yes. I imagine he's been busy in other places in the past few years as well. We have DNA from this latest murder, but no hits when we ran it through the computer,” he added. “I had hoped the perp might have a history and a rap sheet.”

Garon shook his head. “He's too good.”

“One of the older detectives on the Oklahoma case said they had an eyewitness who was sure he saw the killer abduct the child from her room.”

Garon frowned. “We talked to Sheldon, the witness in San Antonio. And when I went to Palo Verde, the chief there said they had an eyewitness named Rich who lived right next door to the victim who said he saw the killer abduct the child. He left town just after the murder.”

“That's three eyewitnesses at three crime scenes.”

Garon's eyes brightened. “Yes. I think he's been trying to insert himself into the case,” he said. Then he remembered something. “By God, remember Sheldon's hands were scarred and he wore gloves? Grace only saw her abductor's hands. She said they were very pale, and had scars! What if Sheldon's our man?”

“Let's go!” Marquez exclaimed.

Garon was right out the door after the younger man. For once, things were looking up!

G
ARON AND
M
ARQUEZ
rushed to Sheldon's house just inside the city limits of San Antonio. The killer just might be Sheldon, Garon thought. If they could get the man into custody, on any pretense, and question him properly, they might break the case. It would take some planning. He was intelligent. If he was the killer, he wasn't going to confess easily, not after eleven murders.

“We don't have probable cause to arrest him,” Garon muttered after he'd called the office on his cell phone and had one of his men check for any criminal history on Sheldon. There was none.

“We'll think up something,” Marquez said.

“With our luck, he'll have photos of the murder victims spread around, and we won't be able to touch him without a search warrant. We should have asked a judge for one before we drove up here.”

“Without probable cause, we couldn't get a judge to issue a search warrant,” Marquez said gruffly. “We'd have to list everything we hoped to find. Even then, if it wasn't on the warrant, we couldn't touch it.”

“I know,” Garon said, his eyes glittery with feeling. He was thinking about Grace and what had happened to her. He'd love nothing more that to catch her assailant and put him in the nearest prison.

“We could do a consent search,” Marquez suggested, not quite jokingly, with a wry smile.

Garon gave him a wry look.

“Oh, come on! You go to the back door and I go to the front door,” the younger man replied. “I yell ‘knock, knock,' and you yell, ‘come in.'”

“And we both end up in court,” Garon reminded him.

“No guts, no glory.”

They pulled into Sheldon's driveway. There was no car in the driveway and no lights on in the house.

Garon knocked loudly, announcing that he was an FBI agent. But there was no movement inside.

An elderly lady from next door saw the men on the porch and called to them, with a shovel in one hand and Dutch wooden shoes on her feet. “If you're looking for Mr. Sheldon, I'm afraid you won't find him,” she said with a smile. “He moved out several days ago. Put everything he had onto a truck and drove away.”

“Do you know where he was going?” Marquez asked.

“He said California,” she replied.

“What sort of truck?” Garon asked.

“Just an old white pickup truck,” she said. “He was such a nice man,” she added. “So helpful. He'd carry my groceries in for me. If I got sick, he'd pick up my medicine at the pharmacy. Such a sweet man. I'll miss him.”

Garon didn't dare tell the old woman what he suspected about her sweet neighbor. He did go with Marquez to get a search warrant for the house. A team of FBI criminologists scoured the small house for any trace evidence, just as they'd done at the house in Palo Verde where the so-called witness had lived. Neither venture gleaned any evidence. There wasn't so much as a stray hair left in either house.

Nor was there any way to trace the white pickup truck. They didn't have a tag number, and they couldn't find any information on a man named Sheldon. The day had started out full of promise. Now, like so many investigations, the trail went cold. The child's parents phoned Marquez and asked if he had any leads. He had to tell them he didn't. But he wasn't giving up, and neither was Garon. Somehow, they were going to nail the killer, whatever it took.

 

B
UT WEEKS WENT BY
, and then months. There were no more child murders. Searches were launched for Rich and Sheldon, but no trace of either man could be found. There was no driver's license, no fingerprints, nothing that would help them to locate either man. Garon recalled the man bragging about belonging to Mensa, but the organization had no information about a man named Sheldon.

“Have you found anything that might help you locate the computer expert?” Grace asked one night at the supper table. She and Garon were having second cups of coffee. Miss Turner had already cleared the table and gone to bed.

Garon shook his head. He glanced at her on the other side of the table. She was tired a lot these days, five months into her pregnancy, and her color wasn't good. She spent a lot of time in bed. Garon worried about it. He'd phoned Coltrain, who'd come out to see Grace. He pronounced it as normal for a woman in that stage of pregnancy. But he and Grace talked behind a closed door for a long time before he left. Garon asked what they'd found to discuss. She said she was worried about labor, and she'd been asking Coltrain about it.

She did look bad. She wasn't gaining a lot of weight. She took her prenatal vitamins, but they didn't seem to help a lot.

“I wish you'd stop worrying,” she muttered early one Monday morning as they ate an early breakfast.

“I'm doing fine.”

She wasn't. He did what he could to tempt her appetite, but all she seemed to eat were strawberry milkshakes and dry toast. She wasn't getting nearly enough protein. He hoped the prenatal vitamins were doing some good. He'd gone so far as to have gourmet meals flown in, so that she had exotic meals to eat. But she picked at her food.

“Grace, if you don't eat properly, you could hurt the baby,” he said in desperation.

She felt part of herself die every time he said things like that. He had an absolute passion for their forthcoming child. He read books on childbirth and child rearing. He watched programs on the health channels about delivery. He went with her to Lamaze natural childbirth classes, and walked around the yard with her, so that she got a little exercise. He was forever watching her, making sure she took care of herself. But all of it, everything, was for the baby. She had no illusions about his feelings for her. They had separate bedrooms, separate lives. He went to work and stayed there late at night. He said he was working on the child murder case. She wondered if he wasn't really working on Jaqui Jones.

Jaqui had phoned her, unbeknownst to Garon, to remind her that as soon as the baby came, Grace was only going to be a footnote in Garon's life. Jaqui insinuated that Garon was sneaking around to see her. He wouldn't risk upsetting Grace, of course, the woman purred. But a virile, masculine man like Garon wasn't going to be happy trying to sleep with a whale in maternity clothing.

Grace put the receiver down and stopped answering the phone. She didn't tell Garon about the phone calls. She knew he wouldn't care, unless Jaqui's harassment was endangering the baby, of course.

Garon saw the lack of animation in Grace's manner, and it made him feel guilty. Was she reliving the pain he'd caused her? Was that why she winced when she looked at him? He'd been careful not to make any sort of physical demands on her during her pregnancy. She didn't feel well most of the time. Even her efforts with her rosebushes were less than perfect. In the end, she'd asked Garon to have one of the cowboys see to fertilizing and spraying them. She did as little physical work as she could manage. Spring turned to summer, and summer to fall. Garon had cases that took him out of state, and once, out of the country. The task force met infrequently, because funding was being channeled to other areas, and the killer continued to elude discovery. One thing Grace did notice was that Garon had someone watching her all the time, just in case. He hadn't stopped worrying that the killer might come back to finish the job. She saw little of Garon otherwise.

He'd long since eased her into the guest room and kept her there, explaining that she needed her rest and he'd be coming in at all hours while working. It wasn't the truth, but he didn't think she really wanted the truth. He'd seen her face when he told her and Coltrain about Annalee and the child he'd lost along with her. He hadn't wanted to love anyone since then. Grace knew it, without being told. The light had gone out of her eyes forever during that quiet, somber explanation. It hadn't come back.

She was still working her two jobs. In the evenings, she locked herself into the sewing room she and Miss Turner had made of a third guest room. She was working on a project, she told Garon, something to do with Christmas. He didn't ask what or why. She was entitled to her secrets.

But her lack of spirit was worrying. He was concerned enough to go and talk to Barbara, who knew her possibly better than anyone else in Jacobsville.

“She won't talk to me,” Garon told the café's owner. “She changes the subject or leaves the room, or finds an urgent errand to run.” He looked at his hands clasped between his long legs as he sat at a table just before the café was supposed to open for lunch. “I know something's upsetting her. I can't find out what.”

Men, Barbara thought, were the stupidest people on earth. Grace was in love with her husband and certain that he wanted nothing more than the child she was carrying. He'd told her they'd only be married until the baby came. He'd probably forgotten saying that, but Grace hadn't. She was just marking time, feeling like an insignificant incubator in his house.

“It might not be a bad idea to get her out of the house,” she said finally. “Except to work for Judy or me, she never goes anywhere.”

His chiseled lips made a thin line. “She goes to church with you and Marquez,” he said.

Barbara had to restrain a smile. He sounded angry. He thought of Marquez as a rival. Certainly, Grace laughed and was natural with Rick. With Garon, she was subdued and hardly spoke. The difference must have been noticeable.

“You don't go,” she replied. “Grace takes her Sunday mornings seriously.”

He traced a flat, clean fingernail with a fingertip. “I don't talk to God anymore.”

“Is there a reason?”

He looked up. Didn't they say confession was good for the soul? Barbara didn't like him, or trust him. Maybe he kept too many secrets. “I was married,” he said, noting her surprise. “Very much in love and looking forward to a lifetime with my wife and our children. When she was about as far along as Grace is now, they diagnosed her with a fatal cancer. I lost them both.”

The tragedy of it was in his taut features, his hard eyes. Barbara softened toward him. She knew loss. Her husband had died ten years earlier in an airplane crash. She'd never thought of remarrying. She still grieved. It was obvious that the taciturn FBI man did, too. His heart was buried with the family he lost. Grace must know that. It would explain her lack of spirit.

“My husband died,” she told him quietly. “In an accident. I miscarried the only child we were able to conceive. I lived in the past and hated life. And then Rick came along, and all of a sudden, my life had meaning again.” She met his searching eyes. “I stopped thinking of myself and started looking around me to see who needed help.”

A corner of his mouth tugged up. “Is this a story with a moral?”

“You've lived in an open grave since you lost your wife and child,” she said simply. “Don't you think it's time you lived in the present? You have another wife, and a child on the way. It isn't fair to them to make them second best after ghosts.”

There was an odd flicker in his dark eyes. “That's harsh.”

“That's truth,” she countered. “Grace may not be a powerful, independent career woman like your friend Jaqui, but she has skills of her own.”

“She can cook and sew,” he said heavily. “Once upon a time, those were desired skills for women. It's a new world.”

“Obviously Jaqui is the sort of woman you admire,” Barbara said, her eyes growing cold. “Once the baby's born, you can get a quiet divorce and saddle up with your ideal woman. With any luck, Grace will realize that Rick is far more her style than you are. Excuse me. I have to get ready to open.”

She got up and left without another word.

Garon went back home, feeling empty. There was a distance between himself and Grace that was getting harder to close. He'd had to spend a lot of time away during the summer, working on cases. When he was home, he'd had to catch up on work both at the office and on the ranch. His father and brothers had come by the house once to see Garon's new bride, but they hadn't stayed long. Grace had been shy and withdrawn, and Garon's father had remarked that it seemed an odd match. Garon hadn't answered. It was an odd match. But he got used to the smell of fresh baking bread in the kitchen, and Grace's soft laughter when he made jokes about her rosebushes. He'd gotten used to the faint smell of roses that clung to her soft skin and the sound of her footsteps muffled by carpet. The only bad thing was his unending desire for her, which he'd been reining in with difficulty. He wanted her all the time, but she was so fragile in pregnancy. She had sick spells constantly and it was difficult for her to breathe properly. She could walk only a short distance without getting winded. So he teased her gently and held hands with her when they walked. And worried. He tried not to put any pressure on her at all, so that she wouldn't be stressed and risk losing the baby. He was looking forward to the birth of his child. Just the thought of it lifted his heart, made him live again. But Grace wasn't reacting as he'd expected. He knew she loved children. But she wasn't the woman she had been.

He could see for himself that Grace was sinking deeper into depression with every passing day. That wouldn't do. He had to shake her back to life.