Official Escort
Autore
Jean Barrett
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Chapter One
Rural Wisconsin
Madeline didn’t have a good feeling about this arrangement. Maybe the setting was responsible for that, at least partly. It wasn’t very encouraging, she decided, gazing out the passenger window of the car as it bumped up the long, rutted farm lane.
It was a bleak situation, the fields brown, the trees leafless. Even the spiky evergreens that studded the hills on all sides were a dull shade of green. Snow would have softened the scene, made it more palatable. But even though it was late December and only a few days before Christmas, the ground was bare, though the gray sky was certainly cold enough to warrant snow.
The burly man beside her at the wheel, hair grizzled, face lined, must have sensed her anxiety. “We’re doing the right thing,” he reassured her gently.
He had been particularly kind to her since yesterday. Understandable, considering he had come within millimeters of losing her to an assassin’s bullet.
Madeline nodded. “This man…you’re sure he’s safe?”
“I wouldn’t be taking you to him if I wasn’t.”
But Madeline continued to be uneasy. There was no one and nowhere she really trusted anymore, though this setting certainly seemed isolated enough to provide her with the protection that was so essential now. Funny that it should seem so remote when it was less than fifty miles from Milwaukee.
That feeling of loneliness was emphasized when they crawled around a bend and came in sight of the old farmhouse. The place had a look of neglect about it. It would have benefited from a fresh coat of paint. The outbuildings were in even sorrier condition, the roofs sagging, the walls weathered to a dismal gray. There was no sign of life.
“Animals,” Madeline said. “Where are the animals? Farms are supposed to have cows and chickens and horses, at least a dog or a cat.”
“This isn’t a working farm,” her companion replied. “The owners only use it in the summer on weekends and as a vacation retreat. But, of course, this winter it’s being rented to—” He broke off to negotiate a particularly rough stretch of the driveway.
Madeline silently finished the explanation for him. The man you’re being taken to. She was beginning to feel like a waif. Dumped for the holidays with whomever would take her. Not very cheerful holidays, either, she thought. She had just observed not only that the farm lacked animals, but that it was missing any evidence of the approaching Christmas. There was no welcoming wreath on the front door, no decorated tree mounted in the bay window. It was probably foolish of her to have expected them. Or, considering her perilous circumstances, to even yearn for them.
The car rolled to a stop at the edge of the front yard. The man at her side checked the lane behind them, making sure it was deserted. All the way out from Milwaukee, Madeline had watched him repeatedly glance in the rearview mirror to be certain they weren’t followed. Neil Stanek was that sort of cop—conscientious, thorough. And considerate.
He demonstrated that now by turning to her with a concerned “You all right?”
He feels guilty, Madeline thought. Blames himself for what happened, even though it wasn’t his fault.
“I’m fine,” she assured him. She wasn’t, of course, and they both knew that. But it helped to pretend otherwise.
“You’ll be okay, then, if I leave you here in the car for a few minutes?” he asked, releasing his seat belt and opening the door on his side. “Just long enough for me to explain all the particulars to him.”
Madeline was suddenly worried. “He is expecting me, isn’t he?”
“Oh, sure, sure, no problem there. And, like I said, he’s got all the right skills and instincts for this. You just sit tight. I’ll leave the motor running so you’ll have the heater. Keep the doors locked, and lay on that horn if you see or hear anything you don’t like. Not that you will. No one now but us knows where you are, and we’re going to keep it that way.”
Madeline had no choice but to accept his word. Setting the lock, he slid out of the car and slammed the door. She watched his stocky figure trudge up the ragged path to the porch. The front door opened as he neared the house. A man stepped out and stood there in the dimness of the porch, waiting for Neil. She couldn’t tell much about that figure at this distance, only that he was tall and lean. But there was another impression Madeline had. Maybe it was the way he stood there by the door, hands buried in his pockets in an attitude of detachment. As though he didn’t mind the desolation of this place. As if it suited him because he, too, was using its seclusion to hide himself. Or was it merely her imagination, which lately had been working overtime?
MITCH WAS IN NO MOOD for visitors. These days he preferred his own company, rotten though it was. After all, that’s why he had buried himself out here. He’d needed to get away from people—friends with their sympathy that had driven him crazy, his loving, well-meaning family offering a comfort he didn’t want. Even strangers, who were apt to be curious, troubled him. That’s why he’d resented the sound of a car arriving in the driveway, and why he had gone so unwillingly to the door.
Mitch had been relieved when his caller turned out to be Neil. He didn’t mind Neil, didn’t regard him as an intruder. The cop never asked questions to which, these days, Mitch had no answers. Never expected more of him than he was capable of being.
But Neil wasn’t alone this time. Mitch could see someone else waiting in the car. That’s why he hung back on the porch. All he could tell was that the figure was a woman, nothing else. Must be Neil’s daughter, he figured.
“That Faye with you?” Mitch asked when the cop joined him on the porch, adding a reluctant, “She doesn’t have to sit out there. Ask her to come in.”
“It’s not Faye,” Neil said, shaking Mitch’s hand.
Who else? Mitch wondered. Maybe that neighbor of Neil’s, the widow who was trying to be more than just friends with him. What was her name? Claire Something-or-other. But Neil wasn’t prepared to name his companion.
“How about we go inside,” he suggested, “before one of us turns blue out here?”
Mitch led the way into the big farm kitchen with its sparse country furnishings. “Coffee?”
Neil shook his head and opened his coat. But he didn’t remove it, and Mitch noticed that he stood near the window where he could keep an eye on the car in the driveway. Mitch was beginning to have an uncomfortable feeling about this unexpected visit.
“Something up?”
Neil replied by removing a business card from his pocket and slapping it down on the sturdy table, his action like a challenge. Mitch had only to glance at the prominent logo of a golden hawk to recognize it. And why shouldn’t he know it, since it was one of his own business cards?
The Hawke Detective Agency. That’s what it read. Neil’s silent message to him was very plain. This time his friend did expect something from him. Mitch was immediately resistant.
“Whatever it is,” he said firmly, “you can forget about it. I’m out of the business. Anyway, I don’t have a license to practice here in Wisconsin.”
“You don’t need a license for this. It’s a simple matter of protection. Your specialty, remember?”
Mitch laughed. It was a brittle laugh without a trace of humor. “Yeah? Like I protected Julie, huh?”
“You weren’t responsible for what happened to Julie. When are you going to stop beating yourself up over that?”
“I wasn’t there for her, Neil. I wasn’t there.”
“And that wasn’t your fault, either. All right, I know you’re hurting, but it’s been five months. Hell, Mitch, when a man starts feeling sorry for himself, it’s time to stop grieving.”
“What would you know about it?”
The angry words were out of Mitch’s mouth before he could stop them. Damn it, how could he have said something like that to Neil, of all people? Because, of course, Neil did know all about losing someone who mattered.
“Sorry,” Mitch mumbled.
“Forget it. Look, I wouldn’t ask, but there is no one else. No one I trust, anyway. I need you.”
He would have been justified in saying that Mitch owed him, but Neil would never do that. It wasn’t his way. Mitch would probably regret this, already did regret it, in fact, but how could he send Neil away without at least listening to him?
“Okay, who are we talking about? The woman out there in the car? Who is she?”
“A murder witness. A vital one. If we can keep her alive long enough for the accused to come to trial, we stand every chance of convicting the bastard for cold-bloodedly icing an undercover cop.”
“Why come to me, when you’ve got the whole Milwaukee police force to guard her?”
“That’s the problem.” Neil turned his head to check on the occupant of the car before continuing. “We did have her in a safe house, only it turns out it wasn’t so safe. She came close to swallowing a bullet last night. Guy got away. Probably a mob assassin. The bastard has some powerful connections. Anyway, they knew just where to find her.”
“Are you saying there’s an informer in the police ranks?”
“Looks like it. Now I’m afraid to trust her with any of our people.”
“So you’re in charge of her. Why you, Neil? This isn’t exactly your area.”
“Because I’m the one she came to when she finally decided to turn herself in.”
“Turned herself— Wait a minute, just how long ago did this cop killing take place?”
“Couple of months. She’s been on the run since then, too scared to do anything but hide.”
It occurred to Mitch that there was something decidedly wrong about this situation, a whole lot that didn’t make sense. It also occurred to him that the uncomfortable feeling he’d been experiencing over his friend’s visit was probably not just his imagination.
“Talk to me, Neil. Tell me exactly what this is all about. Like, for instance, why she happened to want you.”
Neil’s heavy shoulders lifted in a shrug. “I guess I’m the one she trusted. I guess because she thought I treated her fairly when I questioned her during another investigation last summer.”
Mitch stared at him, his suspicion growing stronger by the moment. “You weren’t with the Milwaukee department last summer. You were still on the San Francisco force.”
“That’s right.”
It was more than just discomfort Mitch was feeling now. It was something raw and wrenching deep inside him. “You didn’t phone me before you came out here,” he said, his voice accusing. “Why is that, Neil? Because you knew I’d hang up on you after you told me what you wanted?”
Neil, looking decidedly awkward now, gazed at him silently.
“Who is she, Neil?” Mitch demanded. “Who is it you’ve got out there in that car?”
And that was when Neil dropped his bombshell, the one Mitch had been expecting.
“Madeline Raeburn,” he said quietly.
Hearing the name was worse than anticipating it—a pain that tore at Mitch’s gut. He fought for self-control, strove to keep his voice level. “Take your witness and get out of here. Now, before I forget you’re supposed to be my friend.”
“I’m not going anywhere. I’m staying right here, and you’re going to listen to me.”
“And what am I going to hear, Neil? You telling me that I’ve got Madeline Raeburn all wrong? That she’s a decent, caring woman who is in no way to blame for Julie ending up in San Francisco Bay?”
“I don’t know what she is or isn’t. All I know is that she’s scared. She’d gotten as far away from San Francisco as her money could take her and was lying low somewhere in Indiana when she saw me on a newscast involving that Milwaukee Brewers case and learned I was in Milwaukee. That’s when she found the guts to come to me and agree to testify against Griff Matisse.”
Matisse. Another name that had Mitch’s insides tightening in rage. “Matisse is your cop killer?”
Neil nodded. “Back in San Francisco.”
“Then, what is Milwaukee doing protecting her? Why isn’t one of those close friends of yours from the Frisco force taking charge of her? You always said they’re the best.”
“The DA’s office in San Francisco is going to send an escort for her. They’re just waiting until they can get a secure safe house set up for her out there—one that Matisse can’t penetrate this time. You know how delayed everything gets around the holiday. Meanwhile, they think she’s better off in this area.”
“Even with a dirty cop on your force passing information to Matisse’s connections here?” This just didn’t make sense to Mitch. “You sure?”
“That’s the decision.”
Mitch shook his head, still puzzled. “It’s a bad decision. And I’ll tell you one that’s even worse—you wanting to stash her out here with me.”
“Just for a few days,” Neil pleaded. “Just until after Christmas. By then, we’ll either have plugged our leak here, or the safe house will be ready for her in California. Look, I’d keep her myself, but my house is no secret.”
“And mine isn’t vulnerable like that, huh? Besides, I should want to do it, now that I know Madeline Raeburn has found both a conscience and courage. Except,” he added cynically, “I’ve got to wonder whether that’s why she came to you or whether she finally realized she isn’t safe anywhere and needed police protection to save her own neck.”
“Maybe she sees it as risking her neck.”
“Yeah? Then, if she’s so good, why did she wait until now to talk? Why didn’t she open up to you when Julie was murdered?”
Neil gazed at him, his face solemn. “When did you become so bitter, Mitch?”
Mitch squirmed under the sorrowful expression in his friend’s eyes. He knew that Neil was right. He had become bitter since Julie’s death. It was something he needed to lose, but he also knew that could never happen with Madeline Raeburn in his house.
“I’d like to help you out, Neil, but I can’t do it. The answer is no.”
His friend didn’t say anything. He just went on gazing at him, while Mitch stood there, trying to look casual about his emphatic refusal. And then Neil delivered his final shot, the one he must have been saving for this exact moment.
“That’s too bad, Mitch,” he said quietly. “Because if Matisse was responsible for Julie’s death last summer, and we don’t keep Madeline Raeburn alive to testify against him, then he ends up not paying for any of it. You want to see him just walk away again?”
It was an argument for which Mitch had no defense, and his friend knew that. He stared at Neil in an explosive frustration that finally released itself when he snatched up the business card from the table, crushing it angrily in his fist.
Neil, understanding the surrender that anger signified, nodded slowly. “You coming out to the car with me, or do you want to wait here while I bring her in?”
Mitch answered by striding across the room and snagging his leather jacket from a hook on the wall. “She know who I am?” he asked, shrugging into the coat.
“You mean that you’re Julie’s ‘Mickey’? You don’t think she would have agreed to come out here if she did, do you? And let’s keep it that way, please. I don’t want to risk her going on the run again. She’s already nervous enough after last night.”
Mitch nodded as he zipped up the jacket. He remembered how Neil, after questioning Madeline Raeburn last summer, had told him that Julie apparently had never referred to him at the Phoenix by anything other than her playful nickname for him. Their private joke. Mitch also remembered how Neil, with just short of physical force, had managed to keep him from going to Matisse and Madeline Raeburn. Mad with grief, he’d wanted to tear both of them apart. He realized as he joined Neil by the door that that memory was still painful.
“And, Mitch?”
“Yeah?”
“Anything happens—not that it will—you won’t let me down, will you? You’ll stick by her?”
Mitch promised, and they went out on the porch. The cop swore. “Damn it, I told her to stay in the car.”
Madeline stood a few yards away from the car, her back to them as she gazed off into the wooded hills.
“Nice beginning,” Mitch muttered. “A woman with her own mind.”
“You just treat her right,” Neil instructed him as they started toward the car. “She’s been through a lot.”
“Hell, Neil,” Mitch said dryly, “before it’s over we’re gonna be best friends. Probably share the same toothbrush.”
Madeline must have heard their approach. She swung to face them, looking immediately wary when she realized Neil was not alone. Mitch tried to feel no emotion as they stood there near the car, taking each other’s measure. But holding his feelings in check wasn’t possible, not with what felt like a fist slowly squeezing his insides as he looked at her.
Her admirers hadn’t exaggerated. She was everything he had heard she was: a tall, leggy beauty with wide, amber eyes and a mane of dark red hair that was probably the result of Scottish ancestry. But he had expected no less. Griff Matisse wouldn’t have owned her if she hadn’t been stunning.
What did surprise Mitch was her youth. She couldn’t have been older than her early twenties. Still, there was a self-possession about her, which he supposed he had to respect considering she must be terrified under all that seemingly quiet composure.
If she was conscious of her looks and how they might be affecting a man she was meeting for the first time—and in Mitch’s experience women like her always were—she gave no indication. But, hell, she didn’t have to be conscious of her looks. Mitch was fully aware of them for her. And he didn’t like his reaction. Not one bit. Her mere existence was problem enough.
“Madeline,” Neil introduced him, “this is Mitchell Hawke.”
“Looks like I’ve been elected to take care of you,” Mitch said. It was the best he had to offer her.
There was a bad moment while she went on silently regarding him. Did his name mean something to her, after all? Or had another recognition occurred, the physical one that was certainly possible?
Mitch relaxed, and Neil with him, when she finally nodded gravely and extended a gloved hand. Mitch accepted the slim hand. Her clasp was brief but firm; her voice was low and husky—the kind that did things to a man’s imagination.
“Thank you for letting me be your guest,” she said simply. And then her thickly lashed gaze flicked toward Neil. “It is all arranged, isn’t it?” she asked, a note of concern in her voice.
“Everything’s settled,” Neil assured her. He opened the back door of the car and took out a single suitcase.
Madeline went to the front and removed a bulging canvas satchel. It looked heavy. Mitch tried to take it from her, but she clung to it possessively.
“I’ll carry it,” she informed him, holding it close.
Mitch, leading the way to the house, wondered what she was guarding in that satchel. It was one more complication in a situation that was already difficult. He knew this was not going to be an easy few days. How could it be, when, once Neil was gone, he would be alone with Madeline Raeburn and all that alluring red hair?
CLARK GABLE.
That’s who Madeline had been trying to think of all afternoon. The actor from the golden age of movies. The name finally came to her all at once as she sat across the dinner table from Mitchell Hawke. He had the same prominent ears as Clark Gable.
Funny, she thought, how ears that were a bit too large for their wearer, and stuck out slightly, as well, could qualify as sexy. They certainly had for Clark Gable, and they did for this man. Maybe it was the way they were set on his head.
Or maybe it was that dark head itself with its other bold features—a pair of probing blue eyes, a strong nose and a wide, sensual mouth above a square jaw. All of this was carried on a solid body clad in a bulky, wheat-colored sweater and snug jeans.
Madeline had been making a concerted effort ever since her arrival not to notice just how well Mitch Hawke filled those jeans. This had become especially difficult during their preparations for dinner.
The kitchen was not small, but they had been forever bumping into each other. Brief as those contacts were, they had been charged with a kind of intimacy in which Madeline had been far too conscious of the heat radiating from his six-foot frame.
Neil Stanek trusted this man to protect her—Madeline kept reminding herself of that. Still, she couldn’t seem to shake the conviction that Mitch Hawke was dangerous. Dangerous on some level she was unable to define but that had her fearing it was a mistake for her to be here with him in this house.
“Something wrong?”
He had looked up abruptly from his plate and caught her staring at him. Maybe his ears were a sensitive subject. Madeline felt herself flushing, the penalty of a fair, slightly freckled complexion.
“No. The meat loaf is very good.”
She busied herself slicing it, but she was aware of him eyeing her across the table. Madeline was used to men looking at her. It was essentially what she had been paid for at the Phoenix. But there was a difference in the way Mitch Hawke looked at her. It wasn’t admiration. It was something else, something that worried her. Something that was very wrong.
This, too, had been on her mind all afternoon. She had even asked him about it when she’d noticed all the somber looks he’d cast in her direction while helping her settle in to her room. But he had denied it in that brusque manner she found so troubling.
She could feel his gaze still lingering on her as she ate the meat loaf. That was why she asked him about his relationship with Neil Stanek, not because she needed to understand it but simply in an effort to ease the tension between them.
“You were friends with Neil back in San Francisco, weren’t you?”
“That’s right,” he said, adding more dressing to his salad.
“I think he mentioned you were both in law enforcement there.”
“Something like that.”
“But you aren’t here? In law enforcement like Neil, I mean.”
“No.”
He didn’t elaborate, and she didn’t press him for an explanation. She sensed that he wouldn’t appreciate any probing in that direction.
Madeline helped herself to applesauce, trying to decide whether Mitch was just a private man by nature or whether he was hiding something. And if he did have secrets, ought she to be worried about that? After all, it was a little odd that a man of his robust age—somewhere in his early thirties, she guessed—should be living a solitary existence in this remote place.
On the other hand, Neil trusted him and she trusted Neil. Which brought her back to the subject that she judged was a safe one.
“It’s a long way from San Francisco to Milwaukee,” she said. “What brought Neil here?”
He didn’t answer her for a moment, and then he apparently decided there was no reason why she shouldn’t know. “Neil lost his wife last spring after a long battle with cancer. It was pretty hard on him.”
The loss of a loved one. Madeline certainly had no trouble relating to that kind of anguish. “I’m sorry,” she murmured. “I didn’t know.”
“He can deal with it now, thanks to his daughter and her family. They live in Milwaukee. That’s why Neil eventually moved here, to be close to them.”
“And you helped him through that bad time, too, when you were both in San Francisco, didn’t you. He said as much on the drive out here, although I didn’t understand then what he was referring to.”
Mitch didn’t deny it.
And you ended up here yourself, Madeline thought, not daring to ask him why he also was so far from San Francisco, but wondering just the same. Had Neil somehow brought Mitch to Wisconsin, just as Neil’s existence here had brought her? No, that wasn’t right. It was guilt that had finally summoned her to a Milwaukee police station. The need to make a bad thing right. Because no matter how she had struggled to silence it, and wherever she had tried to hide from it in those long weeks on the road, the voice of her conscience had given her no peace.
Madeline was suddenly aware that Mitch was no longer eating. When she looked up from her own plate, it was to find those blue eyes fastened on her again. Intense, unreadable. But there was something now in that steady gaze that she did understand. Something that was both hot and potent, robbing her of her breath. Smoldering desire.
It had all the impact of a searing physical contact, and in a kind of panic she tore her gaze away from his and cast it about the kitchen in an effort to distract herself.
“What are you looking for?” he asked.
“There aren’t any,” she suddenly said.
“Any what?”
“Christmas decorations. Not a single one.”
It was one thing not to have a wreath on the door or a tree in the window, but a house deserved some acknowledgment of the holiday season. Except, this house hadn’t so much as a homely poinsettia in it, she thought sadly. Why? Because even a plant, in its need for water, demanded commitment? Was that why he kept no animals for company, either?
“No, there aren’t,” he said simply and without emotion. As if he were curtly telling her that he preferred his self-imposed exile to be without any attachment whatsoever, thank you.
Madeline was sorry about that. She had always tried to make Christmas special for Adam and her, filling their apartment with every ornament imaginable. Maybe it had been her way of expressing the importance of everything they’d been for each other.
And this year? This year, it seemed, she would be spending Christmas in a sterile farmhouse with a mystifying, disconnected stranger—one who was barely civil to her while managing at the same time to disturb her senses on every level.
Just what, Madeline wondered, had she let herself in for?
DAMN NEIL for saddling him with her.
Mitch, stirring restlessly in his bed, wasn’t able to sleep. He was too aware of the woman in the room just across the hall. Madeline Raeburn, with her tantalizing red hair and full mouth. He could still see her across the table from him, unconsciously playing with that distinctive enameled pendant resting above a pair of full breasts.
Dinner had been difficult, a really strained affair. She had been understandably curious about him. There had been all those questions, which, out of necessity, he had either avoided or answered vaguely. And all the while he had longed to blast her with the truth. Yeah, there aren’t any damn Christmas decorations. That’s because I’m not here to celebrate. I’m here because I’m supposed to be healing. That’s why Neil dragged me to this place. Because he thought I needed to get far away from San Francisco. Because I was so haunted by losing Julie that I was an emotional wreck, no longer able to function. A real hoot, huh?
That’s what he would have told Madeline Raeburn, and it would have satisfied him to watch the shocked expression on that bewitching face of hers. Then he would have followed it up by attacking her with a barrage of his own questions.
Why did you urge a vulnerable girl like Julie to get involved in a place like the Phoenix and with people like Griff Matisse and his kind?
What really happened that night, and why did you stand by and let it happen? And why did you keep your mouth shut afterward?
Why are you willing to talk now? Did your lover betray you, find someone else? That why?
Angry questions he hadn’t dared to ask. And the worst of it, the absolute worst, was his realization that he could hang on to his torment and his memories, but he could no longer hang on to the woman they stood for. Julie’s image was beginning to blur, beginning to slip away from him. And that worried him. It didn’t seem right, somehow—felt like a betrayal of his grief for her.
Bad enough, but to have Madeline Raeburn in this house, to find himself actually aroused by her siren sexiness made him livid. Hell, he could feel himself thickening every time she came close to him. And, fair or not, he blamed her for that, too.
Barriers. That’s what he had needed. He had to keep throwing up barriers against his desire for her. He had to tell himself over and over that she was here for protection, nothing else. Had to keep reminding himself of the kind of woman she was and that she’d been that bastard Griff Matisse’s girl.
Even with these resolutions, sleep eluded him. It was long after midnight before Mitch finally drifted off. His restless night cost him in the morning. He slept late, and when he finally woke, it was to a clear sky with the sun already well above the hills.
He was aware of the silence in the house as he showered and dressed. He wondered if his guest was still in bed, but when he left his room to check on her, her door was open and her bed neatly made. There was no sign of her inside.
Mitch wasn’t worried. He’d made certain last night that all the windows and outside doors were secure. He had also elicited a promise from her that she wouldn’t try to go anywhere without him. He imagined she was in the kitchen, sitting over a mug of coffee.
“Hey, are you down there?” he shouted from the head of the stairs, feeling a little foolish.
He didn’t feel foolish when there was no answer. Mitch began to experience the first stirrings of alarm. Ducking back into his room, he removed his Colt automatic from the locked drawer of the table beside his bed.
With his loaded pistol in hand, he raced down to the first floor and searched the rooms. They were all empty, and there was no evidence in the kitchen that she’d made any breakfast for herself.
Mitch felt a sick dread deep in his gut. It was followed immediately by guilt. Damn it, he had been careless in his preoccupation with his own roiling emotions, had failed to be alert. Neil had been counting on him, and if anything had happened to her—
The back door off the kitchen was still locked, but when he checked the front door, his worst fear was confirmed. It was unlocked. There was no longer any question. Madeline Raeburn was gone.
