Rumors: The McCaffertys: The McCaffertys: ThorneThe McCaffertys: Matt

  He hesitated.

  “I’m talking about the case.”

  “I know.”

  Her heart galumphed. Somewhere nearby a horse whinnied softly. Kelly tore her gaze from his. Dear Lord, what was wrong with her? This never happened to her. Never. She worked with dozens of men, interviewed witnesses, suspects and victims on a regular basis, and she’d never even brushed the emotions that were battling within her now.

  “And you keep me posted on the investigation,” he said.

  In your dreams, she thought as she reached for the door. Yes, the family would be informed, but some of the evidence the department collected would be kept under wraps, privy only to law enforcement until the investigation was closed, used for the purpose of trapping the assailant.

  As if he read her mind, Matt grabbed the crook of her elbow and spun her around.

  “I mean it,” he said with a quiet, deadly determination. “I want to know what’s going on every step of the way in this investigation. And if there’s anything I can do to nail the son of a bitch who did this to Randi, I will.” His jaw was set, his eyes on fire, his skin tight over his cheekbones. “This guy can’t get away.”

  “I know.”

  “Otherwise I might be forced to take the law into my own hands.”

  “That would be a mistake.”

  “Just be sure it doesn’t have to happen. Get the creep.”

  “We will,” she promised.

  The fingers around her arm tightened. “I’m not kidding, Detective, I want this murdering bastard caught and punished. Big-time. And I’m tired of waiting around while my sister’s life is in danger. Either you arrest the son of a bitch, or I’ll find him, and when I do, I won’t wait around for the courts to decide what to do with him. I’ll handle it myself.”

  Chapter 6

  “I just don’t know why they don’t have a man in charge of the investigation,” Matt grumbled as he sat at the table cradling a cup of coffee two days later. It was only a few days until Thanksgiving. Juanita, Nicole and Jenny, the babysitter, had been bustling around, planning a big spread, inviting friends and relatives and decorating the house with those stupid accordion-pleated turkeys and pumpkins, gourds and squash. Randi’s condition had stabilized but not improved much, little J.R. was getting cuter by the minute, and Mike Kavanaugh had called again, trying to press Matt into selling the place he’d thrown himself into the last six years.

  On top of all that, he was losing sleep. Ever since Kelly Dillinger had been at the house the other night he’d been bothered with thoughts of her. Big-time. While working with the stock, his wayward mind would bring up the image of her face. At night he’d tossed and turned, dreamed of kissing her, woken up with an ache in his groin just as hard as it had been in high school. During the days, whenever he was at the hospital, he’d looked for her, hoped to run into her, found himself concocting excuses to call her.

  So far he hadn’t.

  It was stupid. She wasn’t even his type. He liked softer, quiet women with round curves, long blond hair and dulcet-toned voices. Whenever he’d considered settling down, which hadn’t been all that often until Thorne had decided to marry, Matt had thought he’d like a nice, home-grown woman who wanted nothing more than to be a rancher’s wife and a mother to his children. Never once had he considered that he might fall for a career woman, a gun-toting, no-nonsense, sharp-tongued cop, for crying out loud, one who lived too far from the ranch he’d bought with hard work, sweat and determination. He’d paid a hefty price for that scrap of land that signified his independence and he wasn’t going to give it up for any woman, especially a detective.

  Not that he was falling for anyone, he reminded himself, and took a gulp of coffee that burned the back of his mouth. He sputtered and coughed. Where the hell had that wayward thought sprung from?

  “A man is in charge of the investigation,” Thorne said. “Last I heard, Roberto Espinoza was leading the team.”

  Slade leaned low on his back and observed his brothers over the rim of his mug. “That’s not what this is all about. Unless I miss my guess, I’d say the lady detective bothers you for the same reasons Nicole being Randi’s doctor got under Thorne’s skin.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Matt growled, not liking the turn of the conversation.

  “Face it, brother, you’re attracted to her.”

  His gaze bore straight into his younger brother’s eyes. “No way. She’s a cop. I’m not interested in a woman detective. It’s just that she’s working on the investigation.”

  Slade slid a wide grin toward Thorne, silently inviting him in on the razzing. Ignoring Matt’s protests, he feigned deep thought and said solemnly, “I think I know what it is. You’ve got yourself a reverse authority-figure fascination going on here.”

  “What?” Matt had to keep himself from shooting to his feet. His hands clenched his cup tightly.

  “Oh, you know how they always say that women get off on men in uniforms…maybe that’s what’s going on with you—you like the idea of having some woman boss you around.”

  Matt snorted in disdain. “Don’t you have something constructive to do?” Matt asked, draining his cup and not wanting to examine Slade’s theory too closely.

  “Yeah.” The youngest McCafferty brother scraped his chair back. “I suppose I’d better put in another call to Kurt Striker. He said he’d be back in Grand Hope this afternoon. Maybe he learned something while he was in Seattle.” He carried his cup to the sink and tossed the dregs down the drain. “I’ll ask him to stop by this evening.”

  “Good.” Thorne pushed out his chair. “The sooner we get to the bottom of this, the better.”

  Amen, Matt thought.

  * * *

  “No medications were missing from the cart, cabinets or pharmacy,” Kelly said, tossing a file onto the corner of Roberto Espinoza’s desk. It landed next to a picture of Espinoza’s son’s baseball team from last spring.

  “I’d guess that someone brought the insulin in.” Espinoza was leaning back in his chair, staring through windows reinforced with wire and glazed with ice.

  “So the hospital staff is clean?”

  “Or smart.”

  “Or both,” she said, resting one hip on the corner of the desk and pointing to the file folder. “We’ll check anyone connected with the McCaffertys. See if there’s a diabetic in the crowd, and then find out if he’s missing any medication.”

  Kelly made a mental note to herself, then asked, “What about fingerprints?”

  “None that can’t be accounted for, but given the amount of latex gloves floating around St. James that’s not a big surprise.” His eyebrows drew into a heavy single line. “But the good news is that Randi McCafferty is out of immediate danger and has been moved from ICU to a private room.”

  “With a guard?”

  “You bet. I don’t want to risk another attack or the McCafferty boys slapping a lawsuit our way.” His eyes met Kelly’s. “They’re a passel of hotheads, y’know. All three of them were on their way to juvenile detention when they were in school. Their old man bailed ’em out, time and time again, and in my opinion it didn’t do any of ’em any good.”

  “That was a long time ago.”

  “Yeah, I suppose.” He cocked his head to one side and regarded her as if he had the right to. “They’ve got reputations. Broke more than their share of hearts around this town in their younger days.”

  “That’s not relevant to the case.”

  “No?”

  “Don’t tell me, you think I need some advice, right?” she asked, deciding to take the bull by the horns. Espinoza was leading up to it. “So what’re you trying to do? Warn me? About what?” Kelly braced herself for the lecture she saw brewing in his eyes. Every once in a while, Espinoza took on the role of older brother or uncle, probably because he’d worked with her father years before she’d joined the force.

  He tented his hands under his chin and his eyes narrowed a fraction as if he wa
sn’t sure he should share his thoughts.

  “You started this,” she said. “You may as well finish it. If you’ve got something to say to me, just spit it out.”

  “Okay.” He leaned back in his chair until it creaked, but he never took his eyes off Kelly. “My sister, Anita, had a thing for the middle McCafferty boy. It was a long time ago, probably fifteen years ago. She was in her senior year of high school when she hooked up with Matt.”

  Matt, Kelly thought wryly. Of course it had to be the middle son of John Randall. She fought a prick of disappointment, but managed to hide it as she stood.

  “McCafferty took her out a few times and it got pretty hot and heavy, at least from Anita’s point of view. He acted interested in her, and then, out of the blue, took up with the rodeo circuit again and within a month had moved on. It was kind of a whirlwind thing, but my sister was crushed.” Espinoza’s jaw tightened.

  “Let me guess. You’ve held a grudge ever since.”

  He clicked his pen. “Let’s just say I wouldn’t want it to happen again to anyone I know.”

  “Wait a minute. Are you talking about me? Are you warning me off Matt McCafferty?” Kelly demanded, her spine stiffening.

  “Just making an observation.”

  “Well, observe something else, okay? It’s none of your business who I see.”

  “Are you seeing him?”

  “No! I mean, only professionally—not that it’s any of your damned business.” She was overreacting and knew it, but couldn’t stop the sharp edge of her voice or the color she felt climbing up the back of her neck. “Let’s get back to the case, okay? What about the men Randi McCafferty was interested in?”

  He nodded. Apparently the older-brother-type lecture was over, at least for a while. “The three men we’ve linked to her—Paterno, Donahue and Clanton—have alibis, if that’s what you mean. All of ’em were miles away from Grand Hope at the time she was forced off the road. They were also elsewhere when the attack at St. James occurred. Now, I’m not saying they have watertight alibis, but there are people who say they saw them during the dates of the attacks. Seattle PD’s double-checking, though, to make sure.”

  “What about paternity?”

  “Still checking.” Espinoza’s scowl deepened and he dropped his feet to the floor. “As far as blood types go, all three men—Joe Paterno, Brodie Clanton and Sam Donahue—could be the kid’s father. It’ll take paternity tests to narrow the field down and then maybe none of these guys would end up being the father.”

  “What have they got to say for themselves?”

  “They’re not a very talkative group, but a detective in Seattle is interviewing them. We really don’t have a helluva lot to go on.” He leaned forward and reached for the file she’d brought in. “I’m thinking about sending someone to Seattle to interview the men, just so we have a better handle on it.”

  And because the McCaffertys are breathing down our necks, demanding answers. He didn’t have to say it.

  “Are you interested?”

  “Sure,” she said quickly, eager to do anything to keep the investigation moving forward. She plopped down in the one chair on the opposite side of his desk. “When?”

  “This week. Before Thanksgiving.” He picked up the file folder and tapped it on the desk as if he’d just made the decision final in his mind.

  “Count me in.”

  “Good. Now, we’ve still got a guard posted at the hospital. So far, there’s been nothing suspicious happening, thank God, so if Randi McCafferty would just cooperate and wake up, maybe we’d get some answers.”

  He opened the file folder. Leafing through the pages, he scanned the lab reports on the crime scene about the latest attack on Randi McCafferty, though Kelly suspected he knew the contents by heart.

  “What about Thorne McCafferty’s plane?” she asked as he flipped to the final typewritten page. “The McCafferty brothers seem convinced that foul play was involved.”

  “Again, the jury’s still out.” He slapped the manila folder onto his desk. “There was one helluva storm that day. The crash could have been the result of pilot error or equipment malfunction. Or maybe it was just coincidence that his plane went down. It doesn’t make a lot of sense to me that someone is trying to bump off the entire McCafferty family one at a time, and there hasn’t been another attempt on his life.” He clicked his pen again and shook his head, gray hairs catching in the fluorescent bulbs that hummed overhead. “Nope. I’ll bet my badge that McCafferty just had a run of bad luck on that one.”

  “But Randi’s another matter.”

  “Yep.” Espinoza stuffed his pen into a mug labeled Coach Espinoza. “Someone’s definitely trying to make sure that she doesn’t wake up. We just have to figure out who.”

  “And why.”

  “Yeah.” His thick eyebrows elevated a fraction. “A motive would be nice. Some people around town think the brothers are involved, that Thorne staged the plane crash just to throw us off guard and that Randi and her son are the primary targets.”

  “No way. They could have come up with better ways to kill her off if they really wanted to.” The thought soured her stomach and fired her blood. “They’re three big, strapping men whom she trusted, they could have been one another’s alibis, and as for the baby… I’ve seen the uncles with little J.R. They’d defend him with their lives.”

  Espinoza nodded. “Agreed. So who does that leave?”

  Who indeed, Kelly wondered off and on for the rest of the day. She helped investigate an accident scene, interviewed witnesses in a hit-and-run, and took statements from the owners of a mom-and-pop grocery that had been vandalized. In between calls, she tried to work out the knots in the Randi McCafferty case.

  It was after eight when she filed her last report and, hiking her jacket around her neck, climbed into her car. The windows fogged with the cold temperature, but the night was clear, stars visible above the lights of the town. She started for her row house, but changed her mind at a red light and turned toward the hospital where Randi McCafferty lay comatose.

  There was no longer any evidence of the press as Kelly made her way to the fourth floor to Randi’s private room. Seated on a folding chair, flipping through a magazine, the beefy policeman whose job it was to protect John Randall’s daughter looked up and recognized Kelly. “Don’t suppose you’re my relief,” he said with a toothy grin. He checked his watch. “If you are, you’re early.”

  “Not me, Rex, but I’ll take over if you want to take a break and refill that.” She pointed to an empty paper cup that sat at his feet.

  “You don’t have to ask twice. You’re on.” He swiped the empty cup from the floor and swaggered down the hall. As Rex disappeared around the corner, Kelly walked into the private room where the lights were dimmed and Randi McCafferty lay on her back, her breathing regular, her lips slightly parted, her eyes closed.

  “Wake up, Randi,” Kelly said softly. “You’ve got some brothers who are worried sick about you and a baby who needs you.” She touched the back of one of Randi’s hands. Her skin was cool and soft. “You know, I could use some help here, too. I’ve got questions only you can answer.” She bit her lip, wondering about this woman who seemed to be a mystery even to her brothers. No one in Grand Hope knew the ins and outs of Randi’s life—who were her friends, what project she was working on, who was her lover? Maybe the answers were in Seattle. Maybe if Kelly was sent there for just a few days she could find answers to the dozens of questions surrounding this case. “Come on, Randi. Wake up, would you?”

  “Y’know, she still can’t hear you. No more than she could the last time you tried to talk to her.”

  Kelly froze, fought her instinctive reaction to reach for her sidearm and silently cursed her luck as she recognized Matt McCafferty’s deep, condemning voice. So he’d caught her again. She dropped Randi’s hand and turned to find him framed in the doorway, his shoulders nearly touching each side of the doorjamb, his athletic body silhouetted by the ba
cklight of the hall.

  Kelly’s stupid heart skipped a beat. Her pulse jumped. She met cold censure in his chocolate-brown eyes. “Are you the guard?”

  “No. His relief for a few seconds.”

  “You didn’t hear me come in. I might have been the killer,” he said, his voice tight. “I could’ve got the jump on you.”

  “Or my presence could have scared you off,” she said. “I’m still in uniform.”

  His gaze raked down her body. “That you are.”

  “And I’ve got a weapon.”

  He didn’t comment.

  Rankled, she stepped closer to him and kept her voice low for the patient’s sake. “So, are you through dressing me down? Because I’m not in the mood for it.”

  “What are you in the mood for?” he asked, and for the fleetest of seconds she thought he was making a pass at her. But she was probably imagining things.

  “I just thought I’d see how your sister was doing and let Rex use the rest room and get a fresh cup of coffee. He’s the guard on duty. You have a problem with that?”

  Matt seemed to cool off a tad. He glanced quickly around the room, as if seeing for himself that it was secure. “I guess not.”

  “Good.”

  He strode to the bedside, bringing the scents of horses, hard work and the cold outdoors with him. “I heard you talking to her.”

  Now her embarrassment was complete.

  “But it doesn’t seem to work. We’ve all tried communicating with her. Over and over again, but she doesn’t move. Not so much as a blink.” He drew in a whistling breath, then sighed. “Sometimes I don’t think she’ll ever wake up.”

  His jaw was tight, his eyes trained on his half sister, frustration evident in the strain tugging at the corners of his mouth.

  “It’s just going to take more time.”

  “So I’ve heard. About a million times.” He rubbed the back of his neck, his fingers delving beneath the collar of his suede jacket. “I’m not sure I believe it.” Matt’s gaze moved from Randi’s bed to Kelly. “And don’t give me any lectures about having patience or faith, okay? It’s all been stretched thin. Real thin.”