Passion to Protect (13 page)

Jake shook his head. “I’m not asking for forever. I’m just asking you to get solid evidence before you say anything to her about it. Can you do that?”

“I suppose I can. But you should know, I’ve already put a call in to the agent who’s taken over the investigation into that crooked firm McCleary worked for. Haven’t heard back yet, but I imagine we’ll have federal company down here any day now.”

“What if the money turned up sooner?” Jake asked. “If someone found it where it couldn’t possibly be connected to Deke Mason?”

Harry gave him a hard look. “You wouldn’t be considering anything foolish, would you, Jake? Not to mention illegal.”

“Of course not,” Jake lied, already mentally sifting through strategies to find and move the missing money.

“And there’s not something you’re holding back? Something you might know?”

“Deke never said a word to me about Mac McCleary or any missing money.”

“Then stay out of this, you hear me? Deke wouldn’t have wanted to see you get in trouble, and that goes double for me.”

Instead of answering, Jake glanced toward the stairwell. “Like I said before, this isn’t about me.”

Catching his meaning, Harry sighed. “You know, we might not be doing her any favors, keeping this back. Once she hears I’m digging into Deke’s finances, it won’t be pretty.”

“You have enough on your plate,” Jake told him. “Just let me worry about Liane for now.”

Chapter 13

“I
hate this,” Liane told Em four days later, as they left the crowded parking lot of the elementary school. It was the first time she’d left Cody and Kenzie out of her sight since the break-in, a thought that prompted a flutter of panic in her stomach.

Em, who was driving a shiny white Range Rover with the Wolf River Lodge & Spa logo emblazoned on each side, smiled reassuringly. “Look, you were the one who told me you wanted them to get back to a normal routine as soon as possible. And what could be more normal than the first day of school?”

“I know that. And I know that getting back to work in a few days is going to be a positive for me, too. But I can’t help worrying.”

“You’ve made the principal, their teachers and the school counselor aware of the situation. They’ve promised you that neither of the kids will be left unsupervised, that you’ll have to come to the office and personally sign them out. And if any strange man shows up around campus, they’ll call the sheriff’s office immediately. And Sheriff Wallace himself came by yesterday to tell you that other convict was caught at a roadblock in a stolen car. He’s locked up tight now, and your ex must have burned to a crisp, which would be poetic justice, if you ask me.”

“What if he didn’t? What if he’s biding his time and—”

“You’re obsessing again.” Em slapped on the no-nonsense voice she normally reserved for the occasional drunken rowdy at the lodge’s bar. “You asked me to tell you if you were, so I’m calling you on it.”

Liane glared at Em—who was sounding more like her counselor than her best friend—for a moment before blowing out a breath. “You’re right. I’m obsessing. I’ve done everything possible already, so this garbage isn’t helping. It’s high time to move the kids back home and figure out our future. Otherwise, I’m letting Mac win.”

Em imitated the bright dinging of a slot machine paying out. “You just won the grand prize! Breakfast out at Toni’s. I seem to remember you’re a sucker for the apple-walnut waffles with whipped cream.”

“Thanks, but I couldn’t. My stomach’s all in knots.”

“Your stomach is rebelling because it’s forgotten what food feels like. Haven’t you noticed how loose your clothes are getting? You’re making me look like a damned parade float standing next to you, and you know how I hate that.”

Liane surprised herself by laughing. “Good to hear there’s a little healthy self-interest buried in there somewhere. You’ve been so sweet and generous and patient lately, I was beginning to wonder if the pod people had replaced you.”

Liane ended up agreeing to breakfast, mostly to repay her friend for being the best boss she could imagine, and before long Em’s shameless flirting with the waiter had her blushing.

“Toni’s going to ban you for life if she catches you hitting on her son like that,” Liane whispered when the nineteen-year-old left their table, a big, loopy grin on his face.

Em waved off her misbehavior. “She knows I’m just playing.”

“But does
he
think so?”

Em shrugged happily. “Oh, honey. Boys at that age never think. It’s one of my most favorite things about them.”

“One of these days someone’s going to call your bluff, Em.”

“Oh, I dearly hope so. And I hope it’s a luscious firefighter this time.”

Liane dropped her gaze to her coffee, reminded that one of the notches on Em’s bedpost belonged to Jake Whittaker—and she was far more bothered by the fact than she liked to admit.

“Don’t worry,” Em said soothingly, as if she’d read Liane’s discomfort. “If you’re worried about me swooping in on Jake again, forget it. He’s not my type, believe me.”

Liane speared her with a look. “Since he lost his leg, you mean?”

Em set down her coffee cup and made a dismissive gesture. “You know darned well we broke up before he was hurt, so I won’t dignify that with an answer. I
meant
since he made it clear that he’s the type who plays for keeps.”

“Jake?”

Em nodded. “We’d never even done the deed before I had his number.”

Liane was overwhelmed by the sense of relief cascading through her. “You mean, you two never...?”

Em shook her head. “No way, not when it was so obvious that man was burned out on the game and looking for a wife. And, heaven help me,
babies
.”

She made the sign of the cross, warding off the very notion. Great as she was with Liane’s children, Em had insisted from the time they were in high school that she was cut out to be an eccentric aunt and not a mother.

Meanwhile, a lump formed in Liane’s throat. She’d always known he wanted his own family, so why shouldn’t he have started looking elsewhere after she’d turned him down? Still, the thought was so painful that pure contrariness had her saying, “For someone supposedly on the make for a wife and kids, he sure seems to spend a lot of time holed up in his cabin.”

“Last summer had to be hard on him,” Em allowed. “But I’ve been thinking there might be another reason he’s been sticking close to home just lately.” She raised her delicate brows and gave Liane a meaningful look.

Still thinking of Jake’s gentle strength, of the kiss that had blazed up between them, Liane understood that Em was right, that the tragedy of her father’s death had rekindled feelings on both their parts. But as true as their connection felt, she knew that the fair thing, the right thing, to do would be to distance herself from him instead of allowing both herself and her kids to grow any more dependent.

Because the Jake she’d come to know again, the man she couldn’t help but care for, deserved a family, the kind that came with kids of his own. And even if she ever emotionally or financially recovered from this latest blow, that was something she could never give him—not since the emergency hysterectomy the surgeons had performed to save her life after the shooting.

Holding up her palms, she argued, “Jake’s my father’s tenant. That’s all. There’s nothing more between us. Hasn’t been for years.”

Em scooted her chair back, its feet screeching against the tile.

“What’s wrong?” Liane demanded, irrationally irritated by the way her friend had attracted the attention of half the cafe.

“I’m just moving out of range in case you’re struck by lightning,” Em said. “Because I’m pretty sure you’ve never told a bigger lie in all your life.

* * *

When her cell phone rang, Liane was packing up the suite she and the kids had been using, and wondering how long it would be before finances would force her to leave her father’s place, too. Grateful for the distraction, she didn’t even bother looking at the Caller ID window when she picked up.

“Hello?”

“Ms. Mason, this is Hal Shoemaker.”

“Oh, hi, Hal,” she said, recognizing the name of the local feed and tack store owner. Her father had done business with him for decades. “Before I forget, I wanted to say how good it was to see you and your wife at the funeral.”

“It’s a terrible thing. We all still can’t believe it. I keep expecting your dad to call or walk in to look at the new saddles. My heart goes out to you and your family.”

“Thank you,” she said. “Is there something I can do for you?”

“Well, yes. I hate to bother you with this now—”

“I can’t put off reality forever,” she said, hoping that her already strained bank account wouldn’t be hit too hard. “How much did my father owe you?”

“No, Liane. It’s not that. Your father had a credit balance. I found an envelope with cash left on my desk one day. He’d not only taken care of his bill, he’d paid in advance for the next five months. I wasn’t sure he’d mentioned it to you, and I thought you ought to know, since your dad mostly did business on a handshake. He was a good customer and a good man.”

“You’re saying he paid five months ahead in
cash?
When?”

“Last month. He paid off what he owed, plus another five months.”

“How much?” she asked, her voice shaking. “How much did he give you?”

When Hal Shoemaker named the figure, what should have been good news crashed in on her like a wrecking ball. Because her father couldn’t have come up with that much money. Not through any means she knew of.

After thanking Hal, she hung up, her mind desperately wheeling through the possibilities. Could her father have cashed in an insurance policy or taken out a loan against the property? Had she missed something, some resource she didn’t know of?

But as desperately as she tried to come up with other explanations, she had a sinking feeling that she finally knew what Harry Wallace and his deputies were looking for in their third search of the property in as many days.

And she would be damned if she allowed him to turn her father, a murder victim, a man loved and respected by everyone, into some kind of criminal scapegoat for her ex-husband’s crime.

* * *

After forcing open a kitchen window and slipping inside, the first thing Mac did was wolf down a pair of honey-glazed donuts from a box the homeowners had left on the counter. He washed down the lump of doughy sweetness with the still-warm dregs of a pot of coffee, and bitter as it was, he was so grateful that he could have wept for joy.

He’d just picked up the last donut in the box in his filthy, shaking hand when a bolt of panic stopped him. What the hell was he thinking, snatching food and drink from the counter, where they were sure to be missed, with no more thought than some half-starved animal? For the past week he’d played it smart, lying low in a shuttered old vacation cabin he’d found off a logging road miles from the fire. Though mice had destroyed what was left of an old sofa, and the roof was leaky, he’d found a cache of canned goods—much of it years past its expiration date—to supplement what he’d found in the hiker’s backpack, along with the privacy he’d needed to heal from his scrapes, bruises and the racking cough he’d picked up from the smoke.

But far worse than the physical discomfort were the worries that gnawed at him. Had Liane, in her terror, led both his kids to their deaths? And if she’d died, too, had she taken with her his last hope for finding out what had happened to his money?

With no TV or newspapers, and not even a working radio in the hikers’ ancient car, it had been his desperation to find out that had finally forced him to risk traveling again, using back roads to thread his way toward the one place where he could find answers. But the closer he’d gotten, the more he’d realized how naked and exposed he was without a weapon, so when he’d seen a pickup truck pull out of a driveway with an older couple inside, he’d decided to take a chance that, like most of the yahoos in this area, they had some sort of gun in the house to ward off troublesome wildlife.

As he walked through the family room, the sight of several mounted bucks’ heads had him grinning in anticipation, and soon he was on his way, taking with him a pistol he had liberated from the back of a gun cabinet the homeowner had thoughtfully left unlocked.

As he walked to where he’d hidden his car behind a woodshed, he realized he had taken a huge risk, a foolish risk, choosing a house so close to the Mason ranch. Once his theft was discovered—and the homeowners could return at any moment—he had no doubt that law enforcement would swarm the area and maybe even bring in dogs to try to catch his scent.

So leave now. Get out while you still can....

But the thought of abandoning the money—money he’d accumulated through a canny combination of cunning, nerve and patience—stopped him in his tracks. He damned well
deserved
better from life than skulking like a stray dog and surviving on other people’s leavings. It infuriated him to think of who he’d once been and all the hellish years he’d put in to achieve his success, years he’d spent convincing everyone from get-rich-quick schemers to large corporations’ pension boards to invest.

Long before any of the others whom he worked with, he’d realized that his boss’s whole elaborate strategy was nothing but a giant Ponzi scheme. At first he had thought of going to the authorities, until he’d realized that in doing so he would lose everything he’d worked for, from the Mercedes to the new house to the reputation that made people look up to him—including the beautiful young innocent he’d wanted from the first time he’d spoken to her.

Unable to bear the thought, he’d kept on working, skimming a little off the top to take care of his family. And why not? It wasn’t as if any of those greedy and gullible investors were ever going to see their money again anyway, especially not after his boss had funneled off more than a hundred times what Mac had pilfered and disappeared once the FBI and SEC investigations had finally zeroed in on him.

In the end, however, it was the stolen car that made the decision for him when it stubbornly refused to start. Despite a desperate search of the property, Mac found no vehicle to steal to get him out of there.

So this was it, he realized. He had no choice but to walk to the Mason ranch. To take one last shot at reclaiming what had been taken from him.

And one last shot at paying back the woman who had never for a single moment appreciated that everything he’d done, he’d done to make the perfect life his family deserved.

* * *

As Jake stepped onto his front porch, Misty slipped out growling, the hackles on her back raised.

“Back inside,” Jake ordered the dog, who gave one last rumble before tucking her tail between her legs and slinking back through the door. To Harry Wallace, he said, “Sorry. She’s been a little on edge since Deke...”

“Can’t say as I blame her.” Harry’s forehead creased with concern.

Noticing the dark circles shadowing the sheriff’s eyes, Jake asked, “Are you doing all right, Harry? You didn’t strain yourself digging for that money, did you?”

“That’s why I hire young deputies,” Harry countered with a smile that looked more like a grimace. “Don’t you worry, I’ll be all right. It’s just been a lot of long hours lately, that and worrying over what the feds will find that I missed.”

“Not to mention you lost a good friend last week. Your best friend.”

Rather than replying, Harry abruptly changed the subject. “So how’s the arm?”