Madigan's Wife

The nights he’d come home after a hard day to forget all that had happened outside their house. Those times when he went undercover for weeks at a time, but sneaked into the house and the bedroom and the bed in the middle of the night on occasion. Just to hold her, he said. Because he couldn’t bear to be without her.

Some nights she still woke from a dream feeling the dip of the mattress as if Ray were climbing into the bed to lie beside her. For an instant, a heart-stopping, impossibly bright instant, she thought he’d come to her; that the years had rolled away and he had come to whisper in her ear, take her in his arms, and love her.

Some mornings she’d actually lie in bed and close her eyes and pretend she could hear Ray singing in the shower. Lyle Lovett songs, always. Off-key, but just a little. He hadn’t sung in the shower every morning, but usually, after a long, wonderful night when they’d gotten little sleep, she’d come awake to hear him singing. She knew his favorite Lyle Lovett songs by heart. “She’s No Lady.” “If I Had a Boat.” “Here I Am.” As she ran, an unwanted smile briefly crossed her face.

This was getting dangerous. She had to erase these thoughts and remember the bad days; like the first time Luther had come to the door to tell her Ray had been shot.

Even running and working up a sweat, she went cold at the memory. Luther had assured her, that night, that Ray would be all right, that the wound wasn’t serious. She hadn’t believed him, not for a second. She’d thrown a coat on over her nightgown, stepped into a pair of tennis shoes, and as Luther drove her to the hospital she wondered how she’d ever survive without Ray.

She couldn’t, and she knew it. Ray was too much a part of who she was, and without him she was nothing. Nothing. Riding in Luther’s silent car she’d tried to imagine her life without Ray in it. Long before they reached the hospital she’d felt hollow and achy, like someone had reached inside and ripped out her heart. When she’d sniffled and wiped away a few relentless tears, Luther had tried to assure her that Ray was all right. She hadn’t believed him, not until she walked into the hospital room and saw Ray sitting up, his shoulder bandaged, a couple of buddies laughing at some joke she’d missed.

He’d been pale, she remembered, and his hands trembled a little; something no one else seemed to notice. When he’d seen her he’d smiled. Smiled! Suddenly her untied shoes and her nightgown peeking out from the knee-length coat seemed ridiculous, her tears seemed silly. But even though Ray was fine, the emptiness didn’t quite go away. She had a new and very real fear to deal with, now: losing Ray to a job he loved.

She rounded the corner, her mind a million miles away. The squealing of tires brought her to the present.

A car jerked to a stop at the curb as a man rolled from the open passenger door, over the grass, onto the sidewalk. She jogged in that direction to see if she could be of any help.

The man who’d fallen tried to get up but couldn’t. Even from here she could see that he shook, and she heard what could be crying. He was apparently badly hurt. Someone else, a rather large man in a baseball cap and a wrinkled tan trench coat, stepped from the driver’s side of the car. His attention was on the man on the sidewalk as he ran around the idling car.

Grace was still a good distance away, in the shadows of the trees that lined and shaded the sidewalk. The man on the sidewalk lifted his head as the driver approached and reached down to help him up. Some friend he was, Grace thought as she drew closer. The poor man who’d fallen from the car was jerked to his feet, and the driver wrapped an arm around his neck in a way that had to hurt, and then reached up to lay his hand on the side of the injured man’s head. He quickly executed a powerful wrench, twisting the head unnaturally.

She heard the crack, and the bone-crushing sound brought her to a halt. The man who’d fallen from the car…no, she realized with a chill, he hadn’t fallen, he’d jumped…went limp and silent. The big man had broken his neck.

Grace stood on the sidewalk, no more than eighty feet away and frozen to the spot. She couldn’t believe what she’d just seen, and her mind searched rapidly for an alternate explanation she couldn’t find.

The big man in the tan coat lifted his head and saw her. For a split second their eyes held; she held her breath as she met the murderous gaze of a cold-blooded killer. He dropped his victim, and the dead man crumpled to the sidewalk.

Grace turned and ran. She didn’t jog, not this time, she ran as fast as she could away from the murder she’d witnessed. Her feet barely touched the ground; her heart pounded fast and hard. It wasn’t long before she heard footsteps behind her, heavy footsteps that gained on her too quickly.

The killer wore hard-soled shoes. His steps clipped heavy and loud against the sidewalk. She hoped the shoes would be a disadvantage, but that hope died quickly. He continued to draw closer.

Her right hand settled over the canister at her waist. Bless Ray for insisting that if she was going to jog alone she carry this spray. For dogs, he’d said, but she knew Ray too well, she knew how he thought. He saw danger everywhere, and this time he was right.

If she waited much longer it would be too late. If the man in the trench coat caught her from behind he could very well snap her neck just as he had that poor man who lay on the sidewalk. If she turned too soon, he’d have time to prepare. She waited—a few more steps, let him come a little closer—and then she plucked the pepper spray from her waistband and turned to face her pursuer.

The move surprised the killer, she could tell by the way he suddenly slowed his step, and by the startled widening of his eyes. No time to think about those pale eyes, she thought as she raised the canister and sprayed directly into his face.

The murderer came to a halt with a howl, covering his face with two beefy, strong hands. While he had his hands over his eyes, Grace kicked him between the legs, as hard as she could. He screamed again, louder, and hunched down to shield the newly attacked area with both hands. Taking a deep breath, she lifted her knee and snapped her foot out to kick him once more, in the face this time. The big man went down hard.

She turned and ran, picking up speed with every step. Her heart pounded furiously as she listened for movement behind her. If he got up after taking those two kicks, the best she had to offer, she was lost. She was dead.

Chapter 2

Ray rolled over in bed and glanced at the alarm clock. Who the hell was ringing his doorbell at this time of the morning? It was barely light outside. He mumbled a curse as he swung slowly out of bed, grabbed his Colt from the bedside table and made his way to the door, flicking off the safety with his thumb as he yawned. Whoever was out there didn’t let up on the buzzer.

He cursed again as he threw open the door, but stopped as soon as he saw Grace standing there, trembling, sweating and much too pale. He took her arm and pulled her into the room, and she fell into him.

Still half-asleep, he intuitively cradled Grace protectively. She lay almost limp against his chest, a surprising and somewhat disturbing place for her to be. For a second, maybe two, he closed his eyes and just held her. Didn’t he dream about this? The way she felt lying against him, soft and shapely, strong and still yielding. The way she smelled, so sweet and warm.

He had to force himself fully awake, he had to remind himself that something was terribly wrong. Grace breathed much too laboriously, as if every time she inhaled it hurt. Her entire body shook, from head to toe. Much of her dark hair had fallen out of its ponytail; sweat dampened tendrils fell across her face and shoulders.

Forcing himself to clear his mind and face reality, he kicked the door shut. “Okay,” he said calmly, “tell me what happened.”

She took a deep breath and tried to talk, but couldn’t. Not just yet. Her lips trembled; she still wasn’t breathing right.

“Take your time,” he said, struggling to remain calm, tightening his arm around her. There was nothing else he could do; he practically had to hold her up. If he let go she’d probably fall to the floor. He held her tight with one arm, placing his hand against her spine. His other hand, the one with the Colt in it, hung at his side. He clicked the safety into the on position.

He could feel and hear Grace’s breathing return to near normal. She took one deep breath and then another, inhaling slowly, exhaling warmly against his chest. The trembling subsided, but her heart continued to beat against his chest; too hard and fast.

Grace was fragile, feminine and delicate, but she’d never been helpless. It wasn’t like her to fall apart. She was falling apart now, right here, with her head buried against his chest as if she were trying to hide from the world. Still, he found the time to note, again, that she smelled like heaven, that she was soft and sweet and alive. And here.

Suddenly he wished he’d taken the time to step into a pair of jeans, maybe a shirt as he made his way to the door. All he’d grabbed as he left his bed to the jarring ring of the doorbell was his pistol. Standing here practically naked, wearing nothing more than a pair of boxer shorts while he held a woman he’d tried his best for the past six years to forget, was almost more than he could stand. For a moment his mind flitted to impossible notions; about kissing her to calm her nerves, about holding her close long after whatever had scared her into his arms was gone.

And then he noticed the canister of pepper spray in her hand.

“Gracie,” he whispered hoarsely. “What happened?”

She lifted her head, stared warily at him, and stepped back; as if she’d just realized where she rested. “I saw a man murdered,” she said, her voice so soft he could barely make out the words. “The killer, he just…snapped this poor man’s neck like it was nothing.” She swallowed hard and lifted her hands to look at them, as if she couldn’t understand how anyone could have so much strength, or could use their hands in such a way. “He chased me, when he realized that I’d seen what happened. I thought he was going to catch me, so I used the pepper spray, and then I kicked him. Twice.”

“Good girl,” he whispered.

“And then I ran.”

Here, she didn’t say. She didn’t run home, didn’t run to the nearest phone to call the police. She ran here.

“First things first,” he said, gently taking her arm and leading her to the couch. She apparently didn’t need to hang on to him anymore, but he wasn’t sure she was ready to stand on her own, either. Not just yet. As she sat, tense and shaky still, on the edge of the couch, he grabbed the phone and dialed Luther’s home number.

“Did he follow you?”

She shook her head frantically. “No. I didn’t look back for a long time, but when I did…he wasn’t there. Not the man or the car.”

He nodded. “That’s good. Now, where was the murder?” Luther still hadn’t picked up the phone.

“The corner of Magnolia and Lincoln on the park side,” she said. “He just snapped the guy’s neck and let him fall to the sidewalk.” Once again, she numbly stared down at her own hands.

Luther finally answered with a low growl.

“Meet me at the corner of Magnolia and Lincoln,” Ray said curtly.

Luther mumbled into the phone. “When?”

“Now.”

He hung up while Luther complained, profanely, into the phone.

“Luther’s been in the homicide unit for almost two years now,” he said, watching as Grace relaxed until she looked nearly catatonic. He almost preferred the fear. Right now she looked like she could feel nothing, like what she’d seen had numbed her.

But then she turned clear, intelligent eyes to him. Her brown eyes were so dark, so warm, there were moments he wanted to fall into them. He’d always loved her eyes; he’d never told her so.

Sometimes the years melted away. When he said something funny at lunch and she laughed, when they argued about her working for Dr. Doolittle, when she smiled in a certain way or looked at him…the way she looked at him right now. It was, for a moment, as if she’d never left him, as if nothing had changed.

She took a deep breath. “Thank you.”

He shrugged his shoulders as he turned his back on her. Who was he kidding? Everything had changed. “For what? Look, I gotta get dressed. It won’t take Luther more than fifteen minutes to get downtown, and he’ll be pissed if we aren’t waiting for him.”

“Sure,” she said, and then she sank into the soft cushions of the couch.

“Right here,” Grace said, pointing down to a perfectly innocent-looking section of the sidewalk. “A man jumped out of a moving car…at least I guess he jumped. I didn’t see that part. When I first saw him I thought maybe he’d fallen out of the car.”

She noted the skeptical glance Luther cut in Ray’s direction. No longer frightened out of her wits, she was offended by his obvious disbelief.

“What kind of car was it?” Luther asked, holding the tip of a pencil to his small notebook.

“Dark,” she said, “and kind of big.”

Luther glanced up at her and wrote down nothing. “Dark and big. A van or a SUV?”

She shook her head. “No, it was a car.”

Okay, it was a poor description, she admitted silently, but she’d never been good with cars. Darn it, she’d been surprised and terrified. Noting the make and model of the car idling at the curb hadn’t been her major concern at the time.

The weary homicide detective apparently decided it would be a waste of time to write “big dark car” in his notebook, so he snapped it shut and looked around with sharp, narrowed eyes. Light traffic whirred past on the street, and a few early morning walkers claimed the sidewalk. All was apparently perfectly normal here. In bright sunshine, it seemed impossible that a murder had recently taken place in this very spot.

Luther reached into the pocket of his dark suit jacket and pulled out a piece of hard candy, slipped off the cellophane wrapper and popped the sweet into his mouth. “I’m trying to quit smoking,” he explained as he placed the wrapper back into his pocket. “It’s hell. Pure hell, I tell you.”

He looked like hell, to be honest. Tired and haggard and worn out, he showed the years Ray did not. They were the same age, within three months, but today Luther appeared to be several years older. He’d always been the more serious of the two, the cop who took everything to heart, who wanted to right every wrong. Maybe he’d finally figured out that he wasn’t going to change the world after all. Life’s disappointment showed on his face.

Ray hung back while she answered Luther’s questions, but he stayed close enough for her to feel he was with her, that he supported her. Silly notion. She hadn’t leaned on Ray, hadn’t depended on him, for years. The lessons weren’t always easy, and some days they were damned hard, but she had learned to depend only on herself.

“Tell me what the man looked like, the one who was driving the car,” Luther asked as he sucked on his candy.

She did have a better description of the killer than of the car. When she’d turned to attack him with the pepper spray she’d gotten a pretty good look. “He was a big guy, maybe six-two or-three, with kind of a Neanderthal face. Lots of forehead, square jaw.” This Luther deemed noteworthy. “He looked strong,” she added. “Like maybe he works out.”

“Hair?” Luther asked, raising his eyes from the notebook.

“Under a baseball cap, and since I didn’t see much I’d guess it’s pretty short. Brown,” she added. “Not as dark as yours, not as light as Ray’s.”

She described what he’d been wearing, his broad face, his pale eyes—those eyes she remembered well, though at the moment she couldn’t be sure if they were blue or green. Luther wrote everything down, but she could see he was supremely unimpressed.

Inside, she was still unsettled by the experience. Her heart beat too fast, her palms were sweaty and her mouth was dry. The memory of what she’d seen remained solidly in her mind, too vivid. Too real. If it wasn’t for Ray she’d be a basket case right now, she knew it.

So much for her newfound independence.

The three of them walked down the sidewalk to the place where she’d sprayed and kicked the murderer. Again, there was no sign of violence; no blood, no dropped clue. Nothing. Everything appeared to be normal, as if nothing unusual had ever happened here.

Luther closed his notebook again and shoved it into the pocket of his dark suit jacket. He dressed more traditionally these days, thanks to his job in homicide she supposed. Black suit, white shirt, gray tie. His hair was shorter, too, cut in a quite conservative style. She didn’t remember Luther being so conventional. He’d always been as wild as Ray, just in a different way.

“Maybe the man isn’t dead,” he offered tiredly and with a brief spark of optimism. And more than a spark of condescension. “Maybe you saw two men fighting and you panicked and thought…”

“No,” Grace interrupted, annoyed that she had to try so hard to convince Luther of what she’d seen. Dammit, she’d heard the crack, she’d seen the murdered man crumple like a rag doll. “He’s dead.”

Luther grumbled and turned to walk back toward the curb, where his car and Ray’s were parked; one nondescript gray sedan parked before another, vehicles that were forgettable, invisible, anonymous. Cars that would remain unnoticed on the street. Neither of them wanted to be noticed when they worked.

“There’s not much to go on, but I’ll keep an eye out for missing persons and see what comes up,” Luther said casually. “Would you recognize the victim if you saw a picture?”

“I don’t know,” she said honestly. “It happened fast, and I wasn’t very close. He had dark curly hair, that’s all I can be sure of.”

The homicide detective sighed: a long suffering, weary, “why do I bother?” sigh.

How could she convince him of what she’d seen? Grace tried not to give in to frustration. Luther would know the truth soon enough, when the body showed up. Then he’d listen to her. She took some comfort from the fact that Ray stood supportively beside her. He believed her.

Deep down she knew she shouldn’t find comfort in the fact that Ray remained with her, reassuring and strong and constant. They weren’t married anymore, and she didn’t lean on him the way she used to. She didn’t lean on anyone. Ray Madigan was no longer a part of her life.

And yet, after this morning’s harrowing experience she did feel much better when she turned her eyes and thoughts to Ray. The world stopped spinning, and it was almost like the old days, when he was a part of her and she couldn’t imagine life without him.

Luther shook his head and bit down on the last morsel of his hard candy with a loud crunch. “So, how do you like being back in Huntsville?”

“Fine,” she said, puzzled that he wasn’t more concerned about the murder.

“Are you going to stick around this time?” he asked as he threw open his car door.

She heard censure in the question, undisguised, open hostility. Of course he was hostile; he was Ray’s friend, had been his partner for years. Ray had forgiven her for leaving, but apparently Luther never had.

“For a while, I guess,” she said uneasily. “You’ll call me when the body’s found?”

Luther gave her a quick, joyless grin as he slipped into the driver’s seat. “If anything turns up, I’ll give you a call.”

If?

Her heart fell as she watched Luther drive away. “He doesn’t believe me,” she said softly. “I know,” Ray answered. He didn’t sound at all concerned.

She looked at Ray, really looked at him. He was dressed in soft, cool blues, yet the morning sun made him appear golden and warm. The light shone favorably on slightly waving pale brown hair and tanned skin. His stance was casual, easygoing, but for the hint of tension in his hands and the set of his neck.

He squinted slightly against the bright sunlight, deepening the new wrinkles around his eyes, and her heart leapt. All her work, her dogged determination to put Ray behind her, had been for nothing. A waste of time. Because right now she was overcome with the certainty that she could hide in the shelter of his arms and he would protect her from anything, from everything. She had the urge to go to him right now, to press her face against that chest and breathe deep, to hold on…just for a while longer. Heaven help her, what she felt for him was so much more than a need to hide.

He’d touched her. She’d touched him. Old desires she’d thought long gone flitted to the surface to tease and taunt her. He looked so deliciously inviting she was tempted to fall into his arms again and stay there. She didn’t, of course. Reluctantly wanting Ray was one thing. Relying on him to fill the void in her life would simply be asking for trouble she didn’t need.

Ray never gave away much with his facial expressions, and this moment was no different. There was no emotion on his handsome face, no annoyance or concern or affection. He was cool and calm, almost indifferent. In spite of it all, she was glad he stood beside her. Where would she have run if not to Ray?

“You believe me, don’t you?” she asked as he headed for the curb.

Before he reached the car he spun around to face her. “Of course I do.” He said the words as if not believing was unthinkable.

She nodded her head as she joined him. He opened the passenger-side door and she dropped into the seat. “Thank you,” she said as he closed the door. She had to learn to put her mixed feelings for Ray aside and accept their present circumstances. He was a friend, the best friend she’d ever had. Anything else was impossible.

She trusted Ray with her life, but she did not trust him with her heart. Not anymore.

He shut the door without responding to her thanks, and for a moment Grace gazed out over the park. It was too early, still, for mothers to be out with their children, as they would be later, so the place was almost deserted. Still she felt a chill, as if someone were watching.

She wrote the warning chill off to nerves as Ray cranked the engine and pulled away from the park.

Cops. He could smell them a mile away, and those two, with the woman, they were definitely cops.

Standing behind a wide-trunked tree and watching the second of the two gray cars pull away from the curb, Freddie laid a hand over his cheek where the woman had kicked him. For a little thing she packed quite a punch. Quite a surprising punch. His jaw still hurt like hell, but fortunately nothing was broken.

He lowered his hands and thrust them impatiently into the pockets of his trench coat, silently cursing the woman. She’d surprised him, caught him off guard. And she didn’t fight fair. If he wasn’t in public he’d cradle his battered privates, as well.

He should kill the woman simply for hurting him, but he never, never killed anyone in a fit of anger. This was business, and he was a professional. Besides, killing the witness now would only give credence to her claims. He couldn’t have that.

At the present time he wasn’t particularly worried. There was no evidence that a crime had been committed. That one cop, the one who had arrived alone, obviously didn’t believe her. Freddie gave in to a crooked smile. The body that currently rested in the trunk of his car wouldn’t be found for weeks, maybe even months. The death would be made to look like an accident, as the client had requested, so odds were no one would even make a connection to the woman’s wild story and the tragic accident that took the life of one of Huntsville’s most respected businessmen.

He walked away from the tree and towards his parked car, limping just a little in deference to his throbbing, aching privates. Just to be safe, he’d dump the old Thunderbird coupe. Dammit, he hated to do that. It had been a good car. But, he thought without rancor, it was just a car. It could be replaced.

This afternoon he’d be paid the second half of his hefty fee. He should get out of town immediately, but he didn’t like to leave loose ends. Maybe he’d keep an eye on the woman for a while. Just to be safe.