Roan (21 page)

“Nobody can see you,” Jake said in earnest reassurance. “It's not a video camera or some fancy eye tied into a satellite surveillance system. Want me to show you how it works?”

Tory couldn't have asked for a better offer.

The control center had been set up in the den as a central area with an available telephone line. She might have missed the simple white plastic box holding its computerized module if Jake hadn't pointed it out. Set up on the end table beside the sofa, it received a radio signal transmitted by the cuff on a designated frequency, then sent data relating to all activities to the monitoring station in Baton Rouge via phone line. According to Jake, personnel at this station could tell if the monitor and its wearer were out of range, if the transmitter had been tampered with, if the bat
tery was low, or if the phone line was out because it had been cut or from bad weather. Range for the unit was 150 feet. If she and her cuff moved farther than that from the house, the control center would dial up the monitoring center and another computer there dialed the phone number of the house. Voice recognition software could identify whether the person answering the phone was the wearer. If it wasn't, or if the wearer didn't reach the phone in a given length of time, the monitoring center immediately notified the sheriff's office.

“And that's when your dad comes running,” Tory said, and compressed her lips.

“Exactly.” The boy nodded in approval at her quick grasp of the mechanics.

“What I don't understand is how the computer is supposed to recognize my voice when it's never heard it,” she said after a moment.

“Yes, well, you're a special case, according to dad, since you don't have a criminal record. The control center is set up to okay a specific command in his voice instead of yours. He's the only one who can call off the alert.”

Roan had left nothing to chance. She could almost admire him for that, even as it made her more determined to find a way to circumvent him.

Glancing at Jake, she mustered a sigh. “I know your Dad means well, but he has no idea what wearing this thing is like. I mean, it gives me the willies, flashing when I move, sending every little thing I do somewhere so strangers can keep up with me. I don't suppose there's some way to take it off now and then, say when I'm in the shower?”

“No way!” Jake exclaimed. “You have to use the right tool or they can tell you're messing with it. Besides, water doesn't hurt the thing a bit.”

Now they told her, Tory thought in irritation for her un
comfortable baths lately that she taken with one foot resting on the tub rim. At the same time, she frowned over the problem. The tool Jake was talking about was undoubtedly the little wrench device Roan had taken from his pocket to attach the cuff. Finally, she suggested, “I suppose your dad is looking after that, too?”

“Not exactly.”

It was in the house, then, or else there was a spare. Jake knew so much about the monitor that she had little doubt he also knew the location of the tool.

She turned her best and most cajoling smile on the boy. “Where it is? Give me just a tiny hint, please, pretty please, Jake? I'll find it myself. You can look the other way. No one will ever know. I promise I'll only slip the cuff off for relief, no more than a few minutes at a time.”

“Dad would have a spitting fit!”

She didn't doubt that for a second. “He won't find out, I promise. It would be our secret.”

Roan's son looked away. He chewed on his bottom lip. Then he squared his shoulders and faced her again. With a shadow of condemnation in his eyes, he said, “I don't keep secrets from my dad. That's not the way it works around here.”

That was that. Forced to choose loyalties, the boy had sided with his father. She should have known that he would. He had been well brought up. Truth, justice and honesty forever, amen. It was, no doubt, the Benedict way.

“Never mind,” she said with her best attempt at a careless shrug. “It doesn't really matter. Forget I asked.” She paused. “So. What shall we do this rainy afternoon?”

“Nothing. That is, I can't right now,” Jake mumbled with hot color flooding his face as he looked away from her. “Got to go check on a dog that's been off his feed the last couple of days.”

It was an excuse, Tory thought. He didn't want to be around her, didn't like her quite as much anymore. That it would happen some time was inevitable, especially when she left Dog Trot, still, regret for it weighted her chest. It had been nice to have Jake's uncomplicated approval. She was going to miss it.

The rain began not long after he left for the barn. Tory wandered from window to window, watching the swaying trees and warm downpour that splattered from the eaves, until she saw Allen sitting in his patrol unit on the drive, watching her. She waved as he lifted a hand in recognition, then retreated into the upstairs hall. Her bedroom held no interest, nor did reading or television. Idly, she climbed the steps to the attic again and wandered among the ancient keepsakes.

Rain pattered on the slate tiles overhead. The humid air through the eave soffits brought out the smells of dust and decay, mothballs and ancient sweat. It wasn't hard to imagine ghosts of the Benedict ancestors hovering in the corners, whispering among themselves as they tried to determine who she was and what right she had to pry into their former belongings.

She glanced through boxes of old Christmas decorations and newer ones for Christmases she never expected to see. She smiled over ancient baby clothes and kids' toys going back at least three generations, and flipped through stacks of 78 rpm records and eight-track tapes. The dust she stirred up caused her to sneeze, then sneeze again. With that reaction, and bothered by a feeling that she was poking around again where she didn't belong, she turned to go.

Near the stairs, she caught sight of a collection of boxes that were unmarked and shoved helter-skelter into a nook formed by supporting rafters. They were in such contrast
to the rest of the carefully stacked and organized attic storage that curiosity made her stop.

Inside the boxes were the discarded mementos of a married life. They had been thrown in without wrapping or noticeable concern for their value, sentimental or otherwise. There were the dried remains of what might have been a cascade wedding bouquet, a pair of champagne flutes tied with stained white ribbons and engraved Bride and Groom; a twisted garter, napkins stamped with names and a date, and a wedding photograph in a tarnished silver frame. The smiling bride was a fragile-looking blonde and the groom was Roan.

She was definitely prying, delving into Roan's life just as she had the day she'd found the racing photo, but she couldn't resist. She reached for the silver-framed wedding portrait and tilted it toward the overhead light. As it caught the full glare, she rocked back on her heels with a small winded sound.

It was silly, of course. The items so carelessly discarded were obviously from his wedding, perhaps put away after his wife left them behind. She'd known somewhere in her mind that there'd been a ceremony, guests, and all the other details that went into the celebration of a marriage. Yet holding proof in her hands made it all so much more real somehow. She had to force herself to relax her grip on the frame before she bent it out of shape.

The photo was a formal portrait like a thousand others, taken in a church with ribbon-decked candelabra flanking the couple and a stained glass window in the background. Still, as Tory stared at it, the sense of something not quite right prickled at the edge of her consciousness.

The girl was pretty in a winsome fashion, with the slender shape and undefined features of a teenager. She appeared almost doll-like in her floor-length white gown over
laid with lace, with her bouquet held tightly at her waist and a nervous smile on her lips. Roan was tall and stalwart, staring at the camera with a near defiant air. His tux was white and, though doubtless rented, fit him to perfection. Frozen in time and place, the couple seemed so young, yet at the same time strangely mature.

The pair must have shared dreams for the future and hopes of eternal union to go with the promises they'd made, yet they had been disappointed. The marriage was over, the promises ended, the hopes and dreams gone forever.

Sighing, Tory replaced the frame in its box, then closed the cardboard flap. It was as she left the attic, heading back down to her room, that the niggling puzzlement over the wedding picture was solved.

The problem was the expression on the face of the groom. If his wedding day had been a joyful occasion, he hadn't let it show.

A
s time for the early dinner hour kept at Dog Trot neared that evening, Tory sauntered into the kitchen and took a seat at the butcher-block table. Roan looked up from where he stood over the stove frying chicken. Tory held his gaze, her own straight and inquiring. He tilted his head, as though considering. Then he calmly asked Jake to set another place. She felt as if she had won a major skirmish in an undeclared war.

While they ate, Tory took careful, if furtive, note of the enemy, mentally comparing Roan to the attic photograph. His expression gave little away as he talked with Jake about the sick hound and a truck-car accident in the center of town. She came to the interesting conclusion that Roan had a solemn personality, or at least he didn't smile too often.

She had thought that he was somber around her because of her invidious position as a suspect, but perhaps it was simply that he didn't find much pleasure in life. It was a side effect, possibly, of constant exposure to the seamier side of human nature through his job. But it might also be that he was simply unhappy or unfulfilled in some way important to him. She could understand that all too well.

She offered to help with the dishes, but was firmly re
fused. Either Roan didn't want her underfoot, or he was wary of letting her get too close. Whatever the reason, it made her feel useless and in the way, especially as he and his son moved back and forth in a choreographed routine, as if they'd cleared away together a thousand times. They didn't need her help, didn't need her; that was plain to see.

Still, she hovered near the door, uncertain whether to go or stay and unwilling to say good-night and retreat once more to her empty room while it was still daylight. As she stood there, Beau heaved himself up from in front of the window and padded over to her to nudge his big head under her hand. She accepted the hint, smoothing her hand over the short, silky hair on his head and scratching behind his ears as she considered the idea that Roan thought her incompetent. She might lack something in the housekeeping department, but she was more than proficient in the kitchen. There was a lot she could show him about his battering and frying techniques for chicken, for instance. Telling him wouldn't work nearly as well as showing him, she suspected. She just might do that, too. If she stayed around that long.

The bloodhound, watching her with soulful eyes and a mournful mien, reached out with his nose to sniff her wrist, then gave the palm of her hand a slurping lick. She wiped the wet patch on the side of her shorts, but smiled at the big dog anyway. At least somebody at Dog Trot approved of her and was willing to offer a little companionship.

“Come on, Beau,” she said. “Let's take a walk.”

“Don't go too far,” Roan said from where he was drying the frying pan.

She hadn't realized he was watching. His words, she thought, were a reminder, or possibly a warning, as if he sensed somehow that she might be planning something.
The look she gave him was cool as she opened the outside door. She didn't bother to answer.

 

Roan stepped onto the back porch and walked to the railing, leaning to brace his hands on it as he scanned the garden and wooden areas between the house and the lake for Tory. She hadn't gone far, even if it had been a while since she left the kitchen. He'd known that, of course, since the monitor's control box remained silent. That didn't keep him from being relieved to catch sight of her and Beau among the trees.

She was leaning against the trunk of a pin oak with her fingertips thrust into the pockets of her cutoff jeans. Something about the slope of her shoulders and tilt of her head made her look pensive, remote and, yes, even lonely. Then she sensed his presence or possibly recognized that the closing door meant someone had stepped outside. Calling to Beau, she pushed away from the tree and started toward the house.

He wasn't going to have to drag her bodily back into the house at least. He wouldn't have put it past her to force that on him for the principle of the thing.

She wasn't happy with the monitor and he didn't blame her. At the same time, she'd been mighty quiet about it so far. He'd like to think it was because she held no grudge, but that seemed unlikely. It made him uneasy, rather like holding a firecracker with a burned-down fuse. He couldn't decide whether it was going to go off in his hand or turn out a harmless dud.

The rain had stopped an hour or so after he got home. The storm clouds were trailing off to the northeast, leaving behind a few streamers that caught the pink and purple of the last evening light. The orchestra of insects was just tuning up for its nightly performance. He breathed deep,
inhaling the rainwashed freshness of the air and rolling his shoulders in an attempt to relieve the tension in his neck.

What the hell was he going to do with his prisoner?

Donna was disrupting his routine, stealing his sleep and complicating his life. He'd checked in with Allen a dozen times today by radio. That was in addition to talking to Jake. He'd also fielded messages having to do with her all day long. A few callers had expressed civic concern, but a couple of elderly women had almost hyperventilated with curiosity over the sleeping arrangements at Dog Trot. That was in addition to a former teacher of Jake's troubled over his being exposed to the “criminal element.” Aunt Vivian had rung him up to ask if he needed a casserole brought over, and the mayor had reminded him about the police escort from the nearest airport when his gambling consortium guests arrived. For all the work he'd got done, Roan thought, he might as well have stayed home where he could look after his prisoner and his son himself.

He was going to have to make a decision about Donna soon, since he was fast running out of time and excuses. Somehow, he just couldn't do it, couldn't bring himself to hand her over to the legal process. Not yet.

As she came up the steps with Beau, the bloodhound almost tripped her as he pressed against her knee as a strong hint that he expected to be petted for serving as her escort during her walk. Roan, watching them, said, “I didn't know you and Beau were so thick these days.”

She gave him a tight smile. “We came to a mutual agreement. I feed him ice cream and he doesn't bite my leg off.”

“Makes sense. You hit on his fatal weakness.”

“Not by trying,” she said sharply.

She apparently thought he was accusing her of sabotage. “No, if you want to know the truth, I think he's partial to women as well as ice cream.”

“Is he?” She moved past him to settle in the porch swing then set it in easy motion with the toes of one foot, avoiding Beau who followed her and plopped down so close that the swing passed back and forth over him.

“He was orphaned at four weeks old,” Roan went on as he turned to face her. “Carolyn, Jake's mother, bottle-fed him every four hours until he was weaned.”

She gazed at him a second before she said, “He must be getting on in age then. I hadn't realized.”

“Yeah.” He had nothing to add to that comment, mainly because he was sorry he'd brought up the subject. He crossed his booted feet at the ankle as he leaned on the railing.

“I somehow got the idea that your wife didn't much care for the dogs.”

His reluctance to talk about past history was more than just a matter of privacy or even the normal male inclination to avoid personal problems. It was bone deep, something he'd learned at his father's knee: family business was discussed only with family. Still, he didn't want to cut Donna off just now. He was proud she was talking to him at all, since he'd expected her to hold a grudge over the monitor much longer. Though he was also aware that his concern about such a thing was a bad sign.

“Carolyn liked puppies and babies fine just as long as they were helpless and happy,” he said as he crossed his arms over his chest. “It was when they began to have minds of their own that she had problems. But Dog Trot and Turn-Coupe were what she really couldn't stand. And me, of course.”

The only sound on the porch was the steady creak of the chains on the swing. Just when Roan was beginning to think Donna had lost interest in his personal life, she spoke again.

“I saw a wedding photograph of the two of you when I was in the attic. Wouldn't it be more natural to have it out where Jake could look at it instead of putting it away as if his mother were never here?”

This was why you didn't discuss family affairs, he thought. People always figured they knew better than you what was best. He asked, “Find anything else interesting while you were snooping?”

“I wasn't snooping, just…exploring.”

“You and Jake.”

“He wasn't there. Anyway, I didn't think you'd mind.”

“You were wrong.” It touched him briefly that she would exonerate his son, even as he wondered what kind of idea she had of him that she figured Jake needed protection from his father.

She halted the swing and extended her ankle toward him. “Take this off and you won't have to think about what I'm up to while you're gone. I'll have something to do besides poke around in your business.”

“Such as hightail it out of here.”

“I'm not that stupid.”

“I wouldn't have to worry if I locked you in your room, either.”

“You wouldn't!”

He wasn't at all sure of that. This woman had an uncanny ability to touch him on the raw, so he said and did things that were less than rational. He fixed his gaze on the toes of his boots while he breathed through his nose. Finally, he sighed and uncrossed his arms, bracing his hands on either side of him on the railing. “Maybe not,” he said finally. “At least, not tonight.”

“But you might,” she said, her voice flat. “Especially if I tried to make this place a little more like a home instead of a museum.”

“Dog Trot is fine as it is,” he answered a shade defensively. “We don't need gewgaws catching dust and cluttering up the place.”

“Most people don't consider family keepsakes clutter.”

“Anyway, Jake broke a couple of collectible figures and a vase or two playing ball in the house. That was after my Mom died. My dad and I figured anything of value was safer put away in the attic.”

“He's not a child anymore,” she said.

“Your concern for his welfare is touching, or would be if I believed it. Unfortunately, I don't. So what are you getting at? What is it you want now?”

“Nothing,” she protested. She started the swing again. “I was just thinking, for obvious reasons, about memory. Photos are one of the best aids we have for recalling the past. They also help kids to feel connected, so they understand the things that happened. If a picture or two of his mother were sitting around, she might not be such a mystery.”

“There aren't that many,” he said shortly.

“One, then. Jake's mother was pretty in her wedding photo, but so young and…fragile-looking.”

That was an astute observation. “Exactly. She wanted to be married, but it was like a fairy tale to her. After the big deal of the wedding, she hated everything about it, especially being pregnant and having a baby. She liked playing with Jake well enough when he was smiling, but handed him to someone, me, my mother, my father, every time he cried. So how is it supposed to help Jake to be reminded that she tried to commit suicide after he was born, then deserted him while he was still in his so-called terrible twos?”

Her eyes were dark as she stared at him. “Jake said she was depressed, but I didn't realize she tried to kill herself.”

“With my handgun,” he said with repressed savagery.

“I…I'm sorry.”

“Sorry that it happened, or sorry that you brought it up? Never mind. Since you know so much, you might as well hear the rest. It happened here in the house, in the room where you're sleeping. We were living with my parents—it's a big house and Carolyn didn't much want the responsibility of a place of our own. I was off duty so my holster was hanging over a chair in our bedroom. Dad and I were working with the dogs down behind the barn, training a new leader. I heard the shot and started running. When I found her, she was lying on the floor in the white nightgown she'd worn for our wedding night. She'd tried to shoot herself in the head, but botched it, and I…” He stopped, not quite sure how to go on, or why he'd been so determined to give her the grisly details.

“You had to apply first aid,” she finished for him in sharp understanding. “That's why you were so upset when I was shot.”

“When I shot you,” he corrected. A shudder rippled over him, leaving goose bumps in its wake. He stared beyond her at the evening shadows lengthening under the trees, though what he saw were bright-red splotches on white. Blood, so much blood.

The swing jerked and swayed as she left it. Moving to his side, she put her hand on his arm. “It wasn't your fault, any of it.”

He met her gaze with its sympathy and instinctive women's wisdom. In rough rejection of it, he asked, “How do you know?”

“You were right about the way I came at you out of the van that night. I was just so determined to get away, to get to you, that I didn't think how it might look. Afterward, it was such a shock to have my escape turn into a nightmare
that I wasn't responsible, said things I didn't mean. It's the same with Carolyn. Jake mentioned that she'd had a difficult time of it before you married. You couldn't help that, or her problem in dealing with it.”

“I used to think I could,” he said, then gave a humorless laugh. “I thought I could slay all her dragons.”

There was more comfort in the feel of her palm on his skin than he would have believed possible. The low timbre of her voice seemed to ease some sore spot deep inside him. Strange, but he had a real need to make her understand how the thing with Carolyn had all come about, maybe because Donna was a stranger without preconceived notions, maybe because the two women were connected in his mind.