Dangerous Reunion Read online

  Where had she gone?

  And why hadn’t she needed the money the house would have brought?

  * * *

  Dinner was over, the meeting breaking up, and Yashi hadn’t said more than a handful of words. She knew she’d been included not for her input but because someone had to keep an eye on her, and she’d waited warily for Sam’s decision on where she would spend the night. She’d like to go home—alone—and try to pretend that her life hadn’t fallen apart. She wanted cozy, familiar things around her, wanted to listen to Bobcat’s purrs and the usual sounds of traffic on the highway, wanted to smell the citrusy scent of fabric softener on her sheets. She wanted to pad through the dark to the bathroom or the fridge without a misstep, to not worry about unusual noises. She was even daring to hope that would be the case when Sam stood up, but then he paused.

  “About tonight...”

  Everybody looked at her, then at Ben, also on his feet. He nodded, resignation etched across his face, and the others joined Sam in getting ready to leave. Daniel checked his cell—anxious about any going-into-labor calls he might get?—and JJ stretched, then stepped easily, naturally, into Quint’s arms. The way he smiled down at her...

  Sam was going home to his adoring wife and baby. Daniel was going home to his adoring wife and soon-to-be baby, and Quint was going home with his adoring partner.

  While Yashi got to go with Ben, who hadn’t unbent one tiny bit all through dinner. Who radiated stiffness and annoyance and preoccupation with unpleasant things, all surely caused by her.

  Yay, me!

  The others left quickly, probably so they didn’t have to feel guilty that they were unfettered by babysitters. She got her purse, and they went out through the kitchen to the back lot. The looks the staff gave them didn’t show any particular interest, and there were no Little Bear women to delay them along the way. Yashi was vaguely relieved as she stepped into the muggy evening.

  “We’ll pick up whatever you need,” Ben said, sounding as stiff as he looked, once they were inside his truck.

  She opened her mouth to protest, then closed it again. Of course, it was natural he would want to go to his house. His living room alone was bigger than her whole house. There were two bedrooms. A full-size bathroom. It was even more familiar to him than her house was to her. It was logical.

  And it was right across the street from Will’s house. Where most of her experiences with her family took place. Where they had been kidnapped. Where their kidnapper had left his first and also his latest message for her. Where she felt creeped out by every tree, shrub, shadow and sound.

  His sigh sounded long, heavy and defeated as he drove out of the parking lot. “Do you have an extra toothbrush?”

  She needed a moment to realize that he was giving in. “Yes. And the chairs make out into beds. Twin size, but comfortable enough. The kids sleep on them when they stay over. Or you can have the bed. Bobcat and I will sleep downstairs.” Her rambling stopped with a sudden breath, leaving quiet for his mumble.

  “Oh crap, Bobcat.”

  She stifled the urge to defend her cat. “What about Oliver? Do you need to take care of him?”

  “Oliver keeps his own schedule. I leave his food and water on the back porch, and he’s got a bed there.” He gave her a sidelong glance. “I had to screen it in to keep the possums and raccoons away, then I had to put in a cat door that only opens in response to the chip on his collar.”

  Yashi turned her head to hide her little smile. Ben would be comfortable with a big dog, something that tipped the scale around 120 pounds. Cats no bigger than his foot weren’t manly pets, and Bobcat had done nothing to improve his image of felines.

  Some of the stress that had knotted her shoulders all through dinner eased in the silence that followed. Her office came in sight ahead, the large windows dimly illuminated by the lights left on inside. Another ninety seconds, and they would be home—

  “What do you know about Gerry Dillard?”

  The knots returned with a vengeance. Her glance his way was cautious, but he was deliberately not looking at her. His tone was so even that she knew it was deliberate, too, and his own tension seemed to shimmer around him in the dusk. Did he expect an outburst from her because she didn’t believe in Dillard’s guilt any more than in Wing’s innocence?

  “I know he was in jail himself, in Tulsa, when he confessed. His wife said he was lying or crazy, but she always said that about him. He confessed to a pastor, who took the information, per Gerry’s request, to Wind’s lawyers. Gerry didn’t trust the Cedar Creek police or ‘that girl DA’ not to bury the information where it could never be found again.”

  “He was never a suspect in the case,” Ben picked up as he drove around the end of her building. “Never seen on that night, never interviewed, name never came up. His entire criminal history consisted of grabbing whatever he wanted and running. He never broke a window, threw a brick or kicked in a door. Even his domestic disputes involved a lot of yelling but no touching. And I talked to him at least a dozen times after the murder and before the confession. He wasn’t suffering from a guilty conscience. Nothing was pushing him to right his wrongs.”

  A pole light lit the yard near the table and chairs and shone on Yashi’s house, sending quiet pleasure through her. She would have gone to Ben’s house and been grateful for the company, but she was so much more grateful to be home. Even if the conversation did leave a lot to be desired.

  “What was Dillard’s cause of death?” she asked as they walked to the porch.

  “Alcoholic cirrhosis. He drank himself to death.”

  “He never held a job longer than it took to quit, did he? But his wife worked?”

  “She worked for a cleaning company. Did office buildings.”

  “Not much money in that.” Yashi unlocked the door and spotted Bobcat on the stair landing. He stretched, his scrawny butt in the air, until Ben came in behind her, then he leaped onto a shelf and arched his back. With an impressive hiss, he jumped to the railing above and landed on her bed with a whoosh.

  It wasn’t dark yet, but she turned all the lights on, then closed the blinds on the first-floor windows. Her predator could sit out there all night—and hopefully get devoured by a pack of blood-sucking mosquitoes—but damned if she would let him look in the windows and watch her. She brought out her computer again and got bottles of water and the two pieces of pie Emily had given her at lunch, grabbing a napkin and fork for each one.

  “Let’s assume that his death wasn’t a sudden shock, that the disease process took some time to kill him,” Ben said. “He knew he was dying, leaving his wife pretty much nothing. He wanted to scrape together whatever he could for her. All he had to sell was a story, and all he had to do was hook up with someone’s lawyer who would buy it.”

  Yashi wished she believed it would be harder than that—that most decent lawyers would balk at being offered an alibi tailored to their client’s specific needs. In fact, she knew a lot would. And, in fact, she knew a lot wouldn’t, including the type who represented shady businessmen like Wind in their shadier dealings.

  “So Gerry confesses to a chaplain at the jail,” she remarked as she opened her browser. “The chaplain puts him in touch with the lawyers, so the legal team can say he came to us, we didn’t go looking for him. Do you know his wife’s name?”

  “I’m running her now.”

  She started her own search on the husband, then opened the cardboard container and beamed. She loved chocolate pie, and Mrs. Little Bear’s meringues were legendary, tall golden peaks that reached easily six inches above the custard. She ate the meringue curls first, pulling them off one at a time, closing her eyes and sucking the sticky sweet from her finger. What happened to my pies? her mom asked on every day deserving of her special desserts, and then she always zeroed in on Yashi. One day I’ll make an entire pie of nothing but curls just for you.<
br />
  They’d had a lot of one days planned. Sadly, most of them had never come.

  She’d had a lot of one days planned with Ben, too. Her mom couldn’t have helped what happened to her, but Yashi was mostly—solely?—responsible for what had happened to them. Had she really done it to convict an innocent man?

  Lord, she hoped not.

  The search engine showed nothing in the first fifty results on Gerry Dillard that Yashi didn’t already know, other than identifying his wife as Debbie. His confession had received heavy coverage in the Tulsa media, much lighter in Oklahoma City and only a couple of outlets outside the state. His obituary was painfully short: date of birth, parents’ and wife’s names, and date of death. He hadn’t distinguished himself in school or at work, hadn’t had any children or been involved in any churches or civic groups. It seemed a very sad life.

  “My pie had better not be pockmarked,” Ben said absently as he studied the screen of his laptop.

  “Technically, Emily gave both pieces to me.”

  “And charged me for them.”

  “Do you ever actually pay?”

  He glanced up, his gaze meeting hers. Most of the tension was gone from his eyes, and the hostility. There was still a lot of thoughtfulness and preoccupation, and still some of that unsettledness. If he was willing to consider that Dillard’s confession had been bought and paid for, then he would also have to consider that Wind might be even guiltier than ever, letting a dying man take the blame for his crime. That was a lot to wrap his mind around.

  “I’ve tried. She’s refused. So I mow the yard, cut the firewood, paint when things need it and do a bit of plumbing. I draw the line at electrical work.”

  Yashi felt a flash of anguish mixed with pleasure. She’d helped out Will and Lolly with painting, planting and weeding, and they’d done the same for her, just like a real family. If she never saw them again—

  She squeezed her fork tightly enough to cause pain. She wouldn’t think about that. She couldn’t focus on the worst-case scenario and still put all her being into hoping for the best.

  “Look up Brightstar Cottages in Arkansas,” Ben said as he reached for his pie. “That’s where Debbie Dillard’s living now.”

  Brightstar was on a lake in the Ozarks of northwestern Arkansas, a fifty-and-older community for people whose annual retirement income obviously exceeded Yashi’s full-time salary. The setting was beautiful, the two golf courses were lush and manicured, the four pools were a rich ocean blue, and the cottages ranged in size from thousand-square-foot condos to ten-thousand-square-foot mansions. It was all very posh.

  “Wow.” Envy prickled at her edges, and she let herself wonder what life inside those guarded gates must be like, but only for a moment. She was grateful every day for what she had. She didn’t covet much, and a fancy rich house surrounded by fancy rich neighbors didn’t make the list.

  “The cheapest buy-in is $400,000.”

  He shifted his computer so she could see, and she left hers to go look over his shoulder. A satellite photo filled the screen, centered on a house that would have looked right at home anywhere in the Deep South. The structure was white, with a wide veranda and wicker furniture inviting a view of the blooming crape myrtles and twining vines. The houses on either side were similar, the lawns meticulously groomed, the sidewalks edged—all in all, a picture-perfect scene.

  As Ben zoomed out to show more of the street, Yashi bent to rest her elbows on the back of his chair. The position placed her mere inches from his hair. If she turned her head an inch, it would put her practically in kissing range, a temptation that sent tiny thrills racing through her. She was close enough already that the fragrance of his shampoo tickled her nose, and the heat radiating from his skin warmed hers.

  Oh my. It had been a long and lonely time. Give her a second and she could count it right down to the years, months and days.

  But he hardly seemed to notice she was there.

  “Seeing that makes my teeth itch.”

  Startled by the comment, she looked at him, the smooth lines of his face revealing nothing, then at the screen. “Definitely a planned community.”

  “And a tightly controlled one. The flowers in the beds are all the same, just different colors or arrangements. No variation in the type of grass or the height of it, all watered and fertilized exactly the same. The trees, the flower pots, the blinds, the mailboxes... I’m having a really hard time putting Debbie Dillard in that picture.”

  So was she, and she’d never met the woman.

  Resisting the urge to smooth down the strands of his hair that curled behind his ear, she straightened, took one more breath of his scent and returned to her seat. With regret that not even a crumb was left of her pie, she watched him take a bite of sky-high meringue and gave him a chance to swallow it before quietly asking, “So what do we do now?”

  * * *

  For a folded-out chair, the sleeper wasn’t uncomfortable, but Ben was having a hard time settling in. Maybe it was because he knew the bed upstairs had to be a much better place to stretch out. Maybe because when he straightened his legs, his feet and ankles dangled in the air. Because he wasn’t used to the noises here. Because he could see Bobcat’s dim shadow on one of the high shelves, watching him, crouched and ready to pounce.

  Partly, it was because of the doubts stirring in his brain—that Lloyd was innocent, that Yashi was totally at fault.

  Mostly, it was because of her. Because she was in that bed upstairs and having as hard a time finding sleep as he was.

  “It’s not too late to go to your house.” Her voice floated down from above, weary, soft, light as air in the night.

  “I doubt I’d sleep any better there.” Doubt. That damn word again.

  A moment passed. “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be. I could have told Sam to put you in a cell.”

  “I would have gone if it wasn’t for that whole no-privacy-for-the-bathroom thing.”

  “And yet your bathroom is smaller than a closet.”

  “It works for me.”

  He turned onto his back, gazing up at the ceiling. The night-light plugged into the wall cast Bobcat’s shadow large and menacing across the beadboard. “What about the others?”

  “What others?”

  He should say good-night and shut up, but he didn’t. “Others who spend the night here.” No old boyfriends to worry about, Sam had said. Presumably, he’d meant no boyfriends with a grudge. But there had been men in her life before Ben, and there had surely been men since. Hadn’t there?

  “Besides the kids, you’re the only other person who’s spent the night.”

  Huh. “How long have you lived here?”

  “A couple years. I’ve dated. Just not anyone I wanted to see first thing in the morning.”

  Did that mean no sex, or just no sleeping over when it was done?

  Another moment passed, disturbed only by the noise of the central air as it clicked on. He watched Bobcat and felt the animal watching him back as he said, “I’ve found that few women appreciate my charm first thing in the morning.”

  That earned him a choked laugh from the loft. She’d always teased that he certainly lived up to the last part of his name in the morning. It was like watching a grizzly dragged unwillingly from hibernation.

  The sigh that followed was so quiet that it barely made it down the stairs. “When I said I was sorry, I didn’t mean about you having to stay here—though I’m sorry about that, too. I meant...about everything.” She hesitated, and when he didn’t say anything, she went on. “You were so patient and rational and sensible. You knew how I was about the job—”

  “Driven,” he supplied. It sounded better than narrowly focused, confident just to the edge of arrogance, morally superior and ambitious.

  “I’ve been called worse.” Her voice came from nearer by, as
if she’d turned so her head was at the foot of the bed. “Remember what I used to tell you about your cases?”

  Ben punched the pillow into shape before turning onto his side to face the stairs. You always bring me everything I need. We’ll never lose, you and I, because we’re that good. That was after he’d noticed how easy she was to look at, to spend time with, and before they’d done a lot more than just spend time with each other. When they’d finally got around to the sex, he’d taken her home with him on a Friday evening, and they hadn’t resurfaced until Monday morning.

  Somewhere he had a list of all the things so memorable about it. He had another list of the pros and cons of dating a prosecutor, another of the good and bad of marrying a prosecutor. He’d torn the last one up after his day on the witness stand, but something had kept him from throwing away the pieces.

  “I trusted your cases, Ben. I trusted that one. And I trusted my own instincts. I believed Wind was guilty, and I believe it even more tonight. I didn’t understand your...sorry for the word, but your waffling about it. You’d convinced me that the man was a killer, and I wanted to get justice, whatever it’s worth, for his victim.”

  And when Ben had expressed his doubts in his testimony, he’d become part of the opposition. He tried to never recall that day in any detail, but here in the dark, nothing for her to read but his silences, it was easy enough to summon the highlights. The lowlights.

  He’d been through the routine of simply stating the facts on the witness stand dozens of times, but then the defense had changed the gist of their questions. They’d made no effort to disprove him, to suggest biases or tampering or lazy investigating. Instead, they’d drawn out his concerns and expanded on them.