Authors: Janet Dailey

Bannon Brothers (31 page)

BOOK: Bannon Brothers

6.93Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub

ads

“You're welcome,” she told him. “Do you want to go back? I can probably drive the car over to this wing of the stables.”

“No. Not yet.”

He breathed deeply and stayed where he was.

“Take it easy. Slow and steady. One day at a time.”

“Now where did I hear that before?” he asked wryly, answering his own question before she could. “Oh, right. The neurologist. My memory is shot. Things that are supposed to connect just don't.”

He stopped himself from saying more. His utter failure to remember his passwords last night wasn't something he was going to share. Or that bits and pieces of strange dreams were getting in the way of rational thought. He was relying on a way of thinking he'd never trusted: intuition.

She smiled in a kind way that made him nervous. “It comes back. Don't try to think too much or do too much.”

“Believe me, I can't.”

“And try not to get angry with yourself.”

He looked at her narrowly. “How did you know I was?”

“You want a straight answer?”

“I think I do.”

Vernette folded her arms across her chest. “Brain events affect personality and perception. Moods can change like that.” She released one hand to snap her fingers. “Angry, happy, confused, sadâand they keep changing. Accepting help means admitting you need it. Men fight it.”

Montgomery managed to laugh. “Is that bad?”

“Not necessarily.”

Her brusque words made sense to him. “Okay. Thanks for the lecture. I needed that.”

“Just so long as you remember it,” she said dryly. “But this place does you good.”

“Hmm.” Getting away from Caroline had something to do with that.

Vernette looked all around her surroundings and up into the rafters, then back at him. “I can see why. This is the first time I've been in an actual stable. Although I used to read a lot of horse books when I was a kid. That was as close as I got.”

“I practically grew up in this one. My father taught me everything I know about horses.”

“Lucky you.”

He nodded, not wanting to go on and on like a foolish old man. But what he'd said was true. As a boy, he'd driven out in the morning from the family mansion with his father in the Packard. But not even that glorious car could compete with the horses they'd kept then.

Memories flooded his mind, made stronger by the setting. The way his father had lifted him up on a hay bale that scratched his bare calves between his short pants and his socks, making him wait so he could chat with everyone in the stableâor so it had seemed to him at the time. He'd been chucked under the chin and greeted by his nickname. Hughie. How he'd hated the sissy sound of itâand he'd hated getting his hair ruffled almost as much. Montgomery Senior never scolded him when he'd jumped down, eager to be off and hoping to talk a groom into saddling up one of the better-behaved ponies for him to ride.

And at the end of the day, sometimes even far into the night hours, his father would bring him along for one last walk around the barn, seeing that all was well and the horses settled. It was a ritual he'd almost forgotten about in the last years, though he had done the same thing on his own once his father had died.

Not that he'd ever brought his little daughter along. Ann was always in bed by seven. Occasionally she tagged after him during the day, hand in hand with her mother or her nanny. Keeping a respectful distance.

He'd always been too busy. And then, on that horrible night, she had been stolen from her bed. He hadn't been at home. His eyes filmed with tears that he forced back. He had never come to terms with her loss.

“Mr. Montgomeryâ”

“What?” His reverie came to an end. He looked at Vernette and heaved a sigh.

“Are you all right?”

He shook his head. “Maybe I should go home.”

“Okay. If you're readyâ” She broke off, startled by the appearance of the man who'd been grooming Take All. Freddy was looking over the stable door at them, his gnarled hands on the top, absently running over the bite marks of countless horses. “Hello. Where did you come from?” Vernette asked.

The groom jerked his head in the direction they'd come from. “From His Majesty's stall, of course. Sorry to startle you.”

“It's all right. What is it, Freddy?” Montgomery asked.

“AhâI just wanted to say, sir, that it's good to see you back.”

“It's good to be back.” But there was an underlying melancholy in his voice. The groom stayed where he was.

“Yes?” Montgomery asked.

“I was wondering, sir, about that Miss Randall.”

“What about her?”

The groom looked from the nurse to his employer, seeming nervous. “She was here doing drawings of Take Allâvery good, they were. But when you took sick, Miss Loudon went on the warpath, so to speak, and had a few words with her.”

Montgomery straightened and his eyes narrowed.

“Not very nice words, sir. Not nice at all,” Freddy added. “I know you wanted Miss Randall to do a portrait of Take All, but Miss Loudon told her to go and not come back. She didn't think anyone heard, but I did.”

“Thank you, Freddy,” Montgomery said in a voice that held no trace of vagueness. “I'll look into that.”

“I thought you would want to know.” The groom tipped a cap he wasn't actually wearing at the older man and left them alone again.

Montgomery was silent for several moments, rubbing his forehead. When he looked at Vernette, his eyes were steely. “Did Caroline mention any of this to you?”

“No.”

“What did she say?”

“Ahâmostly she talked about her concern for you. She wanted to know everything about your care.” Vernette hesitated. “She did warn me that it would be tough to keep you quiet.”

“Just so you know, she's not in charge, Vernette.”

The nurse nodded.

“And neither is Dr. Xavier,” he added. “I am fully capable of managing my life without those two. Although I like you.”

Vernette gave him a wary look.

“Not in that way,” he said bluntly. “But I think we understand each other. You seem very capable. Before we go, there is one thing I'd like you to do.”

“Okay.”

He smiled grimly. “Get me Erin Randall's phone number. I want to call her from here.”

“But whereâ”

He forestalled her question with a raised hand. “Someone in the office will have it. They schedule her sessions. We don't let just anyone wander around, you know.”

“If you say so.” Vernette went to the stable door and looked down the aisle, then back at him. “Stay here,” she said.

Montgomery braced himself on the tightly packed straw with an extended hand. He listened as she buttonholed a passing stablehand and told him to come back with Erin's number.

“Did you bring a cell phone?” the nurse asked when she came back in.

“No. Do you have one?”

She felt in her pockets and found hers. “Here it is. Just dial the numbers, then press the little green button that looks like a telephone receiver.” She went to the door again and looked down the aisle. “This sure is a big place. I thought that was him coming back with the phone numberâit isn't.”

He wasn't listening to the second part of what she said. Her well-meaning instructions had angered him. “Believe it or not, I know how to use a cell phone,” he said impatiently. “I'm not that old.”

“I just wanted to be sure. . . . Mr. Montgomery, are you all right?”

Suddenly her voice faded, as if she were speaking from some distance away.

“I want to see . . .” He felt confused again, almost not hearing the end of his own sentence, though he had muttered a name.

“Come again? I didn't catch that.”

He collected himself. “I want to see Erin Randall.”

“Oh, okay. You said Ann.”

“My mistake.” He met Vernette's steady gaze. Did she know that sad story? Private-duty nurses got to watch a lot of TV. She didn't say anything else. He wasn't going to explain.

Last night had proved to him that his memory was not to be trusted. His hospital dreams of Ann and her mother might still haunt him now and then, but they were only dreams. Surely the way the lovely faces of all three had merged in his besieged mind was a side effect of blood on the brain.

He hoped the bleeding had stopped. Somehow he knew it hadn't. He noticed that the stablehand had returned. Summoning up all his strength, he took the slip of paper with Erin's number on it from the nurse. He waved her away, out into the stable's center aisle so he could make his call in something like privacy.

CHAPTER 17

E
rin snapped her cell phone shut and put it on the coffee table. Excellent. Maybe the bad luck was ending.

She'd been hoping to get that call. Feeling better, she hugged herself. Charlie scrambled up from the floor, looking worried and coming over to her.

“It's okay, boy. I really did get the job.” She sank her hands into his thick ruff and gave him a neck rub. The dog panted a little, enjoying the impromptu massage.

The cell phone vibrated on the coffee table before it rang again. She grabbed it and flipped it open without looking at the number on the little screen, assuming it was Bannon.

“Hey, guess what,” she said softly. More than anything she wanted him to know she was okay. “The book cover is a go. The art director just called andâ”

“Miss Randall?”

She started at the sound of the deep male voice. Not Bannon's. But familiar.

“Who is this?”

“Hugh Montgomery. On someone else's cell phone. I assume my number would have come up on yours.”

“Yes, it would haveâ” Her eyes widened and she couldn't think of anything remotely intelligent to say for a few seconds. “Oh my gosh. How are you? I heard thatâthat you've been ill.”

“I had a stroke,” he said in a flat tone that didn't invite questions on the subject. “But I seem to be making a remarkable recovery.”

“That's great,” she said sincerely. “I'm really happy to hear it.”

“Thank you.” He paused as if he was collecting his thoughts.

Erin didn't jump in or talk for the sake of talking, but waited for him to speak. She was so surprised to hear from him that she couldn't have done anything else.

“I understand that Caroline Loudon chased you out of the stables.”

“Ahâ” She hesitated. “I wouldn't put it quite like that. But she did ask me to leave.”

“She had no right to do that.”

“Oh.”

“I hope she didn't discourage you or scare you.”

The truthful answer would be yes on both counts, but she replied as politely as she could. “Not really.”

“Then you can proceed with the painting per the commission contract. I would like to view your preliminary sketches if you don't mind,” he said, adding quickly, “Just for my own enjoyment, of course. You're the artist. I'm not looking for creative control.”

Erin nodded. He was reaching out in a way she never would have expected.

“Sure,” she said. “Uh, when? Are you home now or in theâ” She had no idea if he was in the hospital or a rehab facility. He certainly sounded coherent. Almost commanding. She wasn't going to ask him for particulars. She didn't know much about strokes in general, and she knew absolutely nothing about the details of his.

“I'm at homeâright now, I'm at the stables,” he corrected himself. “Which is why I just heard about Caroline. I got the short version of your encounter.”

“Let's leave it at that.” Erin really didn't want to cross swordsâor maybe it would be high heelsâwith Caroline again.

“I understand.” There was a faint trace of amusement in his voice. “You won't have to deal with her in the future.”

She didn't know what to say to that. Erin, thinking, reached out to stroke Charlie and look into his understanding eyes.

The man on the other end of the call gave a discreet low cough and Erin realized she hadn't responded to the last thing he'd said.

“Thank you, Mr. Montgomery.” That covered all the bases.

“As far as meeting, you can pick the time. Since you're going to be at the stables again, that's probably easiest.”

“Yes. How about, oh, two o'clock next Tuesday?” She picked the time and day because they rhymed, sort of. No other reason.

He seemed to be consulting a calendar. “That's fine,” he said. “I'll see you then. Nice to talk to you, Erin.”

“Yesâsame here. Thank you so much, by the way. For everything.”

She snapped the cell phone shut and put it in the center of the coffee table. If it rang again, she would let the call go to voicemail.

She pushed herself up and off the couch, going into the bedroom to look for her running shoes. Charlie could use the exercise and so could she. Erin needed to think, and she didn't do that too well cooped up inside four walls.

She put the shoes on and laced them tightly, then brushed her hair back into a ponytail. A sweatshirt got tied around her waist in case the weather changed.

Charlie responded to her whistle with alacrity. She didn't bother to clip on his leash, knowing that he would move by her side with military precision. Erin opened the condo door and they went out together. The dog did an about-face and sat when she paused to lock it.

She patted his head. “Good dog. Great move. I'd call that an about-snout, actually. Okay with you, Charlie?”

He wagged his tail and they began their run right there in the hall, dashing down it and outside.

She didn't see a short, stockily built man with a baseball cap pulled down over his eyes squatting between her rental car and Bannon's.

Jim Canver saw her, though. He stayed squatting even though it killed his aging knees, waiting until her bouncing ponytail was a block away before he completed the task of planting a GPS beacon in the wheel well of Bannon's car.

There was nothing to spying anymore, he thought, getting up with difficulty. These GPS babies were slap-and-stick easy. Of course, the thing might get scraped off on a rough road. But Hoebel had told him to get a cheap one. The chief was feeling the economic pinch like everyone else in Wainsville. He'd complained about having to take some kind of a salary cut himself and forcing some of his non-uniformed staff to sign up for unpaid furloughs.

Tough luck for those guys. But more work for guys like him. Jim walked casually to his own car five spaces away and drove off.

Linc's house was near the Maryland border but he could see details of things hundreds of miles away. Bannon leaned over Linc's shoulder, looking at the inside of Erin's house on a really good high-resolution monitor. “I'm impressed.”

The vidcam Bannon had planted on Erin's shelf was moving in place, following commands his brother entered into his computer, which were sent to hers and beamed out wirelessly from there to a tiny chip in the camera.

“It works great.”

“Told you it wasn't junk,” Link said.

“Sorry if I insulted you, bro. The thing looked pretty beat-up when I took it out of the box.”

Link entered another command that made the vidcam swing from side to side. “So that's her place.”

“Not at the moment. She's staying with me since the break-in. I boarded up the window.”

Link shrugged one broad shoulder. “Maybe you should have left it the way it was. The creep could come back the same way.”

“That's an idea. He could rip his guts out on the broken glass and hang there until we arrived.”

“Nice way of putting it. And now she's with you? How's that working out?” He glanced up at his older brother. They resembled each other, though the scar that ran down Linc's cheek was one major difference. But the dark hair and strong build were a lot alike.

“Okay. I wish she wasn't so sexy. I keep trying not to notice.”

“Succeeding?”

“Not often. Linc, it's not just that she's sexy. She's all-around amazing. A talented artist. Really interesting to talk to. Smart. Gentle. I could be in love.”

“Requited or unrequited?”

Bannon thought. “She likes me. I think.”

“A lot? A little?”

“Hey, the prowler scared her out of her wits. Right now, I'm playing it cool.”

“You look like hell. Getting any sleep?”

“Not a whole hell of a lot, no. I'm bunking down on the sofa. She's got the bedroom.”

Linc grinned. “What a hero. You get to toss and turn and fight with a cat who wants to sleep on your head while Erin gets to stretch out in a king-sized bed.”

“She's worth it,” Bannon said stubbornly.

“Huh. You're right. Could definitely be love.” Linc rocked back in his chair. “She knows you're doing this, right? She approved the video feed in advance?”

“Yeah. Not in writing.”

Linc rocked back up. “Don't you feel funny knowing her passwords?”

“She'd left everything on. I didn't need them.”

“Even so.”

Bannon found a chair and sat on it backward. “Basically she trusts me. That feels pretty good. All I'm looking at is the feed, and that's because she asked me to. Scout's honor.”

“I'm holding you to that,” Linc said. “A gentleman never looks into a lady's underwear drawer, reads her e-mails, or dates her friends. Unwritten law.”

“Glad you remembered, considering I taught you all that when you were sixteen.” Bannon returned his attention to the monitor.

“Ah, those were the days,” Linc mused. “I didn't even have a cell phone. Or a computer.”

“Who did?”

Linc got up and went over to the coffee machine. “I got the looks and I got the smarts. Just lucky, I guess.”

“Yeah. I got the aggravation of having two younger brothers. How's Deke, by the way?”

“Fine, last I heard. He'll be in the DC area in another month, maybe two. We can go out together, just like the old days. The Bannon boys know how to raise hell.” He lifted his cup of coffee in a toast to them all. “Citizens, lock up your daughters.” Linc took a sip of coffee and added thoughtfully. “Of course, you and Erin could be a serious item by then. Sounds like it's the real deal.”

“I want it to be. She's the girl of my dreams. Sounds corny, doesn't it?”

“Sounds like you.”

Bannon didn't answer. He saw a shadow fall in the farthest corner of her living room. Then it vanished.

“Hey, I think I saw something. There.” He pointed.

Both men were instantly alert. Linc took his seat and cut out that section of the feed with a keyboard command, enlarging it inside its own box. “Check this out. I coded that function myself.”

Bannon looked intently at the enlargement. “Can you move left a little and do the same thing?”

“Sure.”

There was the shadow again. Linc stared intently at the screen. “I see it.”

He moved the box around, capturing different parts of the living room. The shadow proved elusive. Then, all of a sudden a contorted face filled the monitor, so close to the vidcam it blurred. The feed went black.

Linc shoved away from the computer and scrambled to his feet. “Let's go.”

“In your car?”

“I picked you up in it. Coded government plates. We can go as fast as we want.”

They scrambled for their jackets and grabbed a couple of guns in holsters almost as an afterthought.

The intruder was long gone by the time they arrived. He'd taken the trouble of picking the lock and had left the door open. They stood at the edge of the main room, examining the floor for prints, tracked mud, or other identifiers, seeing none.

“Doesn't look like he dropped anything.”

Bannon snorted. “Too bad. Been known to happen. A driver's license would be nice.”

“Then we wouldn't get to investigate.”

“Linc, if I got a chance to use him for target practice, I would. He knows he was watched.” He pointed his gun across the room before holstering it.

The vidcam was dangling from the shelf, its power cord yanked out.

“We can dust that for prints,” Linc said.

Bannon nodded, going over to it without touching it. He'd put it on a high shelf. The man had been tall enough to reach it with ease.

“Where's the other one?”

Bannon looked around and spotted the second vidcam exactly where he'd left it. A quick look at the back of it showed that the light was out. For some reason it had malfunctioned.

He found a clean rag among Erin's painting supplies and used it to move the vidcam and lift the power cord.

“First rule of troubleshooting: check the freaking plug,” his brother muttered.

“What I'm doing. Oh hell, will you look at that.” The insulation on the wire had been nibbled. “Mice. Great.”

BOOK: Bannon Brothers

6.93Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub

Read Book Download Book

ads