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“I don’t need the paramedics,” she objected.
“Let them at least look at you,” Beau said.
The cop, who’d ignored Beau until now, suddenly focused his attention on him. “Who are you?”
“A friend,” Aubrey answered quickly before Beau could smart off. He’d left the force with a lot of bitterness. The whole department, he’d claimed, had been riddled with incompetence and downright corruption. Aubrey’s brother had been only a small part of it but Beau’s superiors were unwilling to go after the big fish. Beau had quit in protest.
“And where were you when all this happened?” the cop asked.
“He wasn’t here,” Aubrey said.
“I can answer for myself,” Beau said evenly. He handed the cop a card that read First Strike Bounty Hunters. It featured a logo of a coiled snake and the motto, Code of the Cobra.
“Beau Maddox,” the cop read aloud. “I know who you are. You’re the one who brought in Gavin Schuyler.” He glanced down at his notepad, then at Aubrey, then back at Beau. “Schuyler?”
“Gavin’s my brother.”
“And if you know what’s good for you, you’ll drop the subject before she gets started,” Beau said, as if she were the one who’d done something wrong.
“Okay, that’s it.” She pointed toward the street. “Go.”
The cop shrugged as if to say, Women. “Better do what she says. She might bite you, too.” The two men shared a look that infuriated Aubrey further. Men were such jerks sometimes.
An unmarked car pulled into Aubrey’s driveway behind the squad car, and a detective with reddish-brown hair got out. He wore a long-sleeved shirt despite the oppressive heat, his tie neatly knotted.
Then she realized she knew him, which wasn’t all that surprising. She’d met lots of men and women from the force when she hung out with her brother and his friends, including Beau, once his very best friend. That seemed a lifetime ago.
The detective was Lyle Palmer. He’d been one of the regulars, along with Beau and Gavin, who hung out at Dudley’s Blue Note after hours. Dudley’s was a cop bar that hadn’t changed one square foot of Formica since the fifties. The cops liked the no-frills atmosphere and the cheap, strong drinks.
Aubrey had spent quite a few hours there, too, during grad school, always hoping Beau would finally notice her. Looking back on it, she found her previous crush on him pathetic. She’d brought Patti with her a couple of times, hoping to get her interested in a higher caliber man than she normally dated. Lyle had taken an instant shine to Patti, but she’d rebuffed his flirtation—rather rudely, Aubrey recalled. Later she’d said there was no way she was dating a cop, especially one that reminded her of Howdy Doody.
“Aubrey.” Lyle treated her to a warm smile. “When I heard your name, I volunteered—” His gaze flickered to Beau, then fixed on him. “Maddox? Might have known I’d find you in the thick of trouble.”
Aubrey recall that the two men hadn’t liked each other, but the specifics eluded her.
“When did you make detective?” Beau asked mildly, not rising to the bait.
Lyle puffed up a bit. “Around the first of the year.”
“Yeah? Whose ass did you have to lick to get the promotion?”
Lyle’s eyes narrowed. “I could make your life miserable, you know.”
Aubrey cleared her throat. “This isn’t helping.”
Lyle returned his attention to her, looking contrite. “Sorry. What the hell happened here?”
So she told her story again, adding little bits as she remembered them, and the patrolman added his two cents before taking off.
“Listen, Lyle, I’m really worried about my cousin Patti. You remember her, right?” She tensed, waiting for a negative reaction. But Lyle remained ultraprofessional.
“Yeah, I remember.”
“I was in a meeting when she called me on my cell phone sounding terribly upset. And when I got here, she and the baby were gone, and some guy was in my house.”
“But you say her car wasn’t here when you arrived home?” Lyle asked.
“That’s right.”
“Maybe she knew bad news was on the way and she cleared out ahead of it. She’s, um, been in a bit of trouble in the past.”
Aubrey glanced at Beau, who was still here just to drive her crazy, she was sure. She pleaded with her eyes for him to keep quiet. “Patti has kept her nose clean for over a year, ever since she found out she was pregnant.”
“Is it possible someone from her past has come back to bother her?” Lyle asked, jotting a few notes.
“I suppose. Oh, wait, maybe that’s it! There’s Charlie Soffit, Sara’s father. He’s a low-life biker. He kicked her out when Patti told him she was pregnant, but then he keeps coming around to harass her. But he’s never been violent. I think…well, Patti’s father is rich.”
“I know who Patti’s father is,” Lyle said, which wasn’t surprising. Wayne Clarendon was one of Payton’s most prominent citizens, a descendant of the town’s founder.
“I think Charlie wants a piece of that,” Aubrey continued, “and he thinks he can get it by using Sara.”
“Does he have any visitation rights?” Beau asked.
Lyle shot him a nasty look. “This isn’t your investigation, Maddox.”
Beau shrugged, unperturbed. “Someone has to ask the right questions.”
“Patti got him to sign away parental rights,” Aubrey answered, hoping to distract the two snarling dogs from each other. “But maybe he wishes he hadn’t done that.”
“Sounds like a suspect to me,” Beau said.
Aubrey pointed toward Beau’s Mustang. “Leave!”
Beau held up both hands in a gesture of surrender. “Okay, fine. Can’t blame a guy for showing a little concern for an old friend.”
“Make no mistake, that is not what I blame you for.”
It suddenly got very quiet, and Aubrey wished she’d kept her mouth shut. But the words were out now. The ones she hadn’t spoken were especially loud. I blame you for shooting my brother.
Beau’s gaze narrowed. “I saved Gavin’s life. But you’ll never understand that because you don’t want to. You’d rather hold on to that tunnel vision that lets you believe your precious brother could do no wrong.”
Beau turned and stomped off the porch and out to his car. He backed up the Mustang, then drove through her yard as the patrolman had, nearly crashing into the crime scene van as it pulled up.
“You’re not really friends with him anymore, are you?” Lyle asked.
She shook her head. “We’ve hardly talked since he left the force. I don’t even know what brought him here today, unless it was morbid curiosity.” She mentally shook herself. She had more important things to worry about than the lingering animosity between her and Beau Maddox. “So you’ll check out Charlie Soffit?”
“Yeah. It’s possible he’s involved.” Lyle flipped his notebook closed and stuck it in his back pocket. “It could be any number of things, including a random crime. Maybe we’ll find some usable prints in the house, or the stolen merchandise will turn up. I’ll need you to make a list of everything that’s missing.”
“I don’t care about that stuff. It’s Patti I’m worried about.”
“I’ll issue a Be-On-the-Lookout for her car. If you don’t hear from her in a day or two, we can start getting worried.”
Aubrey didn’t like that answer. In fact, she thought Lyle was a little cavalier about the whole thing. But he probably saw burglaries and assaults day in and day out. And people were always getting worried for nothing when their loved ones went missing, then turned up unharmed. She’d heard enough cop talk over the years to know that.
In this case, however, she was entitled to worry.
Beau could find Patti and Sara in a heartbeat. Aubrey might not approve of his methods as a bounty hunter, but it was hard to argue with his results. But his services didn’t come cheap, and since assistant chemistry professors didn’t make a ton of money, she didn’t know how she would pay him. Still, she filed the idea away for further scrutiny.
One of the evidence technicians came out onto the porch. “We’re finished downstairs, if you want to come inside where it’s cool,” he said to Aubrey.
She was grateful he’d been kind enough to think of her, but her gratitude ended abruptly when she saw the condition of her living room. Fine black fingerprint powder coated everything.
Lyle followed her inside. “I know a cleaning service that’s pretty good at straightening up after our guys trash a place. I’ll write it down for you.”
“Thanks.”
The phone rang. Aubrey didn’t feel like talking to anyone, but she couldn’t just let it ring. She went to the kitchen and picked up the wall phone, getting black powder on her hand. “Hello?”
“Aubrey. Oh, my God, are you okay?”
“Patti!”
Lyle looked up sharply.
“Where are you?” Aubrey demanded, relief warring with irritation. As usual, Patti had managed to create some drama. “What’s going on?”
“I’m okay. I got out before—”
“Well, I didn’t! Someone broke into the house and attacked me. You knew, and you just let me walk right into it!” The tears Aubrey had been holding at bay came on full force.
“Are you hurt?” Patti asked in a small voice.
“Not seriously.” Aubrey swallowed, getting the tears under control. “Why did you call me home if—”
“I don’t understand. He was after me, not you. Why would he hurt you?”
“Who? Damn it, Patti, who are we talking about?”
“You’ll just get mad if I tell you.”
“I’m already mad. He could have killed me. Is it Charlie?”
Patti hesitated. “I’ll tell you all about it later, okay? I just didn’t want you to worry about me. I might not come home for a couple of days. Oh, damn, my batteries are going.”
“Patti, don’t hang up. Tell me who! I won’t get mad, I promise,” Aubrey tried in a last-ditch effort to get Patti to talk. But the connection went dead.
Lyle was listening intently. “Did she say?”
“No.” Aubrey hung up. “But at least I know she’s safe for now, anyway. But this wasn’t just a random crime. Patti said someone was after her.”
“Sounds like you were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
Aubrey swallowed down her irritation with Lyle. She waited until the cops left, then unearthed her phone book so she could look up the number for First Strike Bounty Hunters, a gesture which turned out to be wholly unnecessary. Beau was at her front door.
She let him in. “How did you know I was trying to call you?”
His eyebrows rose as he entered her filthy living room. “You were calling me?”
“I want you to find Patti and Sara for me. You could probably do it in your sleep.”
He looked around her house, his attentive gaze missing nothing, but he didn’t reply right away to her request. “They sure did a number on your house. The cops, I mean.”
“They were just doing their job. Now, how about if you do your job? Will you take the case or not? I think Patti’s in trouble. She called, but she sounded really strange and she wouldn’t tell me—”
“She called?”
“Just a few minutes ago. She said she was safe, but—”
“Aubrey, I’m sure she’s fine. You know Patti. She’s a drama queen. Whatever’s going on with her, she’s blowing it out of proportion and creating a mystery so you’ll worry.”
“Maybe,” Aubrey said grudgingly. “But she’s changed a lot since Sara came along. She’s more responsible, more considerate. She even has a job at an insurance company. Couldn’t you try to find her? There’s an innocent baby involved.”
“If she hasn’t turned up by tomorrow, let me know.”
Aubrey narrowed her eyes. “Oh, I get it. There’s no huge bounty on Patti’s head, so it’s not worth your time.”
“It’s not that—”
“Of course it is. Big payoffs are all that motivate you anymore. And since I don’t have anything to offer you—” She broke off when she saw the appraising look in Beau’s eyes.
“Oh, I don’t know,” he said in a lazy drawl. “I think you might have something I want.”
Aubrey felt the air rush out of her lungs in a swoosh as her every hair follicle wiggled with awareness. He’d never shown the slightest interest in her before. But the way he was looking at her now, practically…what was that old cliché? Undressing her with his eyes?
She felt a little thrill at the idea that he might want her, but quickly squelched it. The very idea was hideous—trading sex for his professional services.
The corner of his mouth twitched up in what passed for a smile with Beau. “Not that. Get your mind out of the gutter.”
She shook herself. What was she thinking? “What, then?” The question came out a breathy whisper.
“I want you to put the past behind us. Admit that maybe you don’t understand what happened between me and Gavin, and give me the benefit of the doubt.”
“It’s hard to misinterpret a bullet in the leg.”
“It could have been through his heart. He was pointing a weapon at me first.”
“So you say. Forget it, Beau. I can’t forgive you for what you did to Gavin. Not now, not ever.”
