Authors: Janet Dailey
Bannon Brothers (27 page)
CHAPTER 15
R
eturning from his usual morning run, Bannon turned his key in the lock and pushed open the door.
eturning from his usual morning run, Bannon turned his key in the lock and pushed open the door.
Erin turned around, startled, as he stepped over the threshold, fear in her eyes. It had only been a day since the attack.
He wanted to kick himself. “Sorry,” he said. “I should have knocked or coughed or something.”
She shook her head. “I would have jumped, no matter what.”
“With good reason. Let's decide on a signal or something. So you always know it's me.”
“A secret knock? Not shave-and-a-haircut.” She looked worried. “Just say your name.”
“Right. That opens every door.” Bannon put a hand to his bristly chin. “Speaking of shaves, I need one. Mind if Iâ”
“Don't be silly. This is your place.”
“But I want you to be comfortable here.” Bannon shut the door behind him and locked it.
It dawned on him that he'd better have another set of keys made. The last thing he wanted was for her to think she wasn't free to come and go, but she wasn't likely to ask him straight out for the keys to his place, considering that she barely knew him. The idea of her having the keys didn't bother Bannon at all. In fact, it made him happy.
“Hey, you need a set of keys. Okay with you if I run out to the hardware store?”
Erin nodded but she didn't smile. He was sure there was something she wanted to say. Finally she said it. “How long am I going to be staying here?”
That was a big question. All he could do was hold up his hands in a gesture of mock surrender. “That's not up to me. As long as you want to.”
She swallowed hard. “Okay. I guess neither of us knows the answer. What now?”
“Breakfast,” he suggested. “Tea and toast again?”
“Right. But I bet you want something more substantial.”
“You read my mind. I can pick something up when I get the keys made. Charlie, want some sausage?”
The dog looked up at him expectantly, too well-behaved to jump up or beg.
“Do you have food for him?” Erin asked.
“I can get a small bag at the market next to the hardware store. One-stop shopping, Wainsville style.”
“It seems like a nice town.”
He made a face. “You didn't exactly get the scenic tour. I was going too fast for that.”
“And looking in the rearview mirror every other second.”
“Yeah, wellâI didn't see anybody.”
“Me neither. I was covering the side mirror.”
He studied her for a moment. “Seriously? Good for you.”
“I thought”âshe hesitatedâ“I thought if he was following us, I might recognize him. But I really didn't see his face when he tried to break in. Just his outline.”
“I wish I had been there,” Bannon said with blunt honesty. He and Charlie would have made hamburger out of the guy.
She managed a tiny smile. “That's nice to know. But I'll be okay on my own for now.” He hadn't left her at all the previous day.
“Yeah?” She met his searching gaze steadily enough. “All right. Then I'll head out.”
“You do that.” Her voice didn't waver. She went to the large sketchpad she'd brought and picked it up.
Bannon looked at her curiously. “Got work to do?”
“Always. Beats worrying.”
“You're right about that.”
Erin moved to the couch and sat down with the sketchpad, smiling at Charlie when the dog padded over to her and lay down halfway, his big head up and alert.
Talk about security. She was as safe as she could be with Charlie there when he wasn't. Bannon smiled inwardly. The dog was living in a fool's paradise, though. His cat still hadn't put in an appearance.
“Erin, did I tell you that I have a cat?”
She looked up at him quizzically. “Maybe.”
“He's a big striped monster, just so you know, and he doesn't like dogs. Even this dog. So if Babaloo does a ninja cat death-defying leap out of nowhereâ”
She stroked Charlie's head, getting a look of dopey adoration from canine brown eyes. Bannon knew exactly how the dog felt.
“Charlie, we have been warned,” she said.
He grinned at both of them. “I think he can take my cat in a fair fight. Too bad the Mighty Bab doesn't fight fair.”
“Got it. I'll referee.”
“Erin . . .” He wanted to say something more. But she interrupted his thoughts.
“Go run your errands. We can eat together when you come back.”
“You sure? I can fix you something in a flash.”
“Quit hovering. I can wait.”
“Okay. Back in fifteen.” Bannon scooped up his car keys and headed out, making sure the door locked behind him.
Â
He came in to see her with the sketchpad open over her lap and a pencil in her hand. With that same light touch he'd noticed when she'd used him for a model, she was making changes on a drawing of a horse. Erin sighed. “I'm not happy with this.”
“Looks good from here,” he said, shucking his jacket and slinging it over the boxes from the TV station. He set a sack of dog food on the floor beside them. “Can I see?”
She put the pencil to one side and lifted up the pad of paper, facing it toward him. “Montgomery's stallion. Just a preliminary sketch.”
“Wow. Keep going,” he said.
She flipped the pad shut. “I was thinking of getting out to the stables today. It's a peaceful place. Not too many people. But not lonely.”
“Could do you good.” No law said she had to stay here. Just his overprotectiveness. Bannon set down the bag with his egg-and-sausage combo. He didn't want her to leave just yet. “But I promised you breakfast.”
“Better feed your cat first. He finally showed up.”
He looked around. “Where is he?”
Erin pointed at the bottom of the armchair facing the couch and Bannon noticed two glowing eyes in the shadows underneath it.
“He looks too mad to eat,” he chuckled.
But Babaloo wriggled out and followed him as he headed into the kitchen. The cat jumped up on the counter to eat a few morsels of kibble.
“You were right. He was hungry.”
“Told you.”
“Here he comes,” Bannon warned her as the cat sprang down to the floor and slunk along the baseboards. “Tell Charlie to watch out.”
Bannon came back with a plate and cup holding Erin's minimal meal.
“He disappeared,” Erin reported. She sipped and nibbled at her toast and tea as Bannon unwrapped his breakfast and devoured it in three bites. He crumpled up the paper into a ball. “Slam dunk. Into the kitchen can. Watch this.”
“From here?”
“Sure.” He missed his target. “Okay. I tried.”
She laughed a little and handed him her plate and cup when he got up to retrieve the paper ball from the kitchen floor. “Thanks for breakfast.”
“No biggie. And I got you those keys,” he called to her when he set her dishes into the sink.
Bannon went to his jacket and pulled out two keys on a split ring, jingling them. “Here you go.”
“Great.” Something about them triggered an emotional reaction in her. “I'm not sure I have my own keys.” She shook her head as if she didn't want to think about that. “Are you going to drive me h-home so I can pick up my car?” Her voice almost cracked on the word “home.” He understood why. It would be a while before the little house felt safe to her again. It might never.
“I could.” They had left the hatchback where it was without thinking twice. He hesitated. “But are you sure you want to? We could rent a car for you here in Wainsville.”
“That's not a bad idea,” she said slowly.
Bannon didn't want her to change her mind. If someone was stalking her, driving a different car was the way to go, especially since they hadn't been followed here. There was no way of telling if the attempted break-in had been a random event or what.
Her own car was pretty good bait. But it would be a tough trap to spring. He thought for a few seconds before he spoke again. “Look, Erin, I'd like to really go over your house inside and out, see if I can pick up any clues. I was even thinking I could hide minicams in a couple of spotsâit won't cost you anything. I had a couple here last time I lookedâ”
“Why?”
Slow down, idiot
, he told himself. He didn't want her to think he was a paranoid gear freak, just because Linc and Deke were in the habit of giving him equipment they weren't using. “Uh, not set up. Just sitting in a box with other stuff from my brothersâyou know. Gadgets are an occupational hazard for cops and military and special ops peopleâanyway, I end up with the extras.”
, he told himself. He didn't want her to think he was a paranoid gear freak, just because Linc and Deke were in the habit of giving him equipment they weren't using. “Uh, not set up. Just sitting in a box with other stuff from my brothersâyou know. Gadgets are an occupational hazard for cops and military and special ops peopleâanyway, I end up with the extras.”
“Oh.” She really didn't seem thrilled with the idea. He took another tack.
“It's not permanent. If I have the right cams, I'd hook 'em up to your computer and we could pick up the feed here.”
“And what will that accomplish?”
Bannon's expression sobered. “If the creep comes back, I'll have a visual of his face, maybe more.”
She shuddered. “I don't want to see it.”
“I understand. But I might be able to match him to a visual database. They can filter for a lot of things to get a positive ID. Tattoos, broken down by name, words, and gang affiliation. Broken teeth. Scarsâ”
Erin's troubled sigh stopped him in the middle of that explanation. She rose from the couch and paced the room, not looking at him for a minute. Not really looking at anything.
“Besides that,” he added, “I want to fix the broken window.”
“You mean replace the pane? That's not easy.”
“True enough. I guess I'll just board it up. If that's all right with you.”
“It'll have to do.”
She bumped into the big boxes and glanced down at her stubbed toe. “Ouch.”
“Sorry. I'll get those out of your way,” he offered quickly. “Someone at the TV station sent the viewer responsesâ”
“Oh. Right. I forgot about that interview you did,” she said absently. “How's the investigation going?”
Had she forgotten about their tour of the Montgomery mansion too? He couldn't blame her if she had. Maybe she just needed to distract herself, but her question wasn't something he wanted to answer.
“Okay, I guess, for such an old case,” he said noncommittally. “But I came across a couple of interesting leads. Ask me again in a week.” His sense of responsibility for putting her in danger gnawed at him. How to tell herâhe couldn't. Not yet.
She looked at the boxes again. “That's a lot of stuff. I hope someone knows something about that little girl.”
He tensed all over, thinking about the faked birth certificate he'd tracked down and the possible link between Erin's parentsâif they were her parentsâand the abduction of Ann Montgomery. There was no way in hell he was going to get into that today.
Erin was still in shock from what had happened to her. That he'd looked at her scrapbook when he'd gone to her house to check on Charlie, even though she'd showed it to him beforeânot good. Taking it one step further and photocopying the handmade card and what she thought was her birth certificate was totally out of line.
He fully intended to explain everything. Just not now.
“Erin, you have other things to worry about.”
“Yes.”
She didn't seem to want him to explain any more than he wanted to. Her agitation came across in her body language. Erin suddenly looked like she was ready to run away. “I hope you don't mind, Bannon, but I have to get out of here.”
Whoa. He hadn't expected to hear that, but it wasn't as if he could stop her. “Uh, where to?”
“A nice, quiet barn. Montgomery's will do it. Hanging around with horses is all I want to do right now. They don't talk.”
“I can drive you thereâwait a minute. No, I can't.”
She started collecting her art stuff, looking around, he guessed, for something to carry it in. She went into the kitchen and came back with a plastic shopping bag, twisting it nervously through her hand. “You don't have to,” she said. “Renting a car is fine with me.”
“That's probably the best plan. I don't want to run into Montgomery at the barn. He doesn't like me.”
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