Return of the Lawman

Return of the Lawman

Lisa Childs

www.millsandboon.co.uk

LISA CHILDS

Bestselling, award-winning author Lisa Childs writes paranormal and contemporary romance for Harlequin and Silhouette Books. She lives on thirty acres in west Michigan with her husband, two daughters, a talkative Siamese and a long-haired Chihuahua who thinks she’s a rottweiler. Lisa loves hearing from readers, who can contact her through her Web site, www.lisachilds.com, or snail mail address, P.O. Box 139, Marne, MI 49435.

WARNING:

A first novel requires a long dedication.

To Mom, whose greatest gift was the love of reading.

To Ashley and Chloe, for accepting that gift from me.

To Paul, who gives unfailing support and praise even though he reads only the paper.

To my “BAD GIRLS”—

Kimberly Duffy, Susan Guadagno and Trish White,

the best writers and critique partners I know.

And for Carol, Kathy, Diana and June—

my “fan” club.

I love you all!

Contents

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Prologue

THROUGH THE SPRINKLING of white flakes on his windshield, Dylan Matthews noted the police cruiser parked in his driveway. The flashing lights cast a red-and-blue glow on the naked tree trunks lining the gravel drive.

His hand trembled as he jerked the shifter into Park and reached for the door handle. He’d heard the call on his radio. Disembodied voices tumbled out of the box on his dash. An ambulance was dispatched, but the sheriff told them it was too late. Jimmy was dead.

With a snap of his wrist he shut off the siren that wailed his arrival in his police cruiser. Dylan Matthews was a rookie deputy in the Winter Falls sheriff’s office. He had to perform his official duties as a deputy. He’d already failed in his duty as a brother.

With a deep breath, he forced himself to find the detachment that had helped him through all the ordeals in his twenty-two years. He closed his eyes and tumbled ten years back to the searing pain of being trapped in a wrecked car. He could hear the echo of his own cries, and then his father’s command. “Shut it off, boy. Don’t let the pain control you. Don’t let yourself feel it.”

With another deep breath he forced down the panic and despair, locked it in a deep part of his soul with all the rest. He’d deal with it someday.

Dylan stepped out of the car onto the leaves littering the drive and crunched the calling cards of autumn beneath his boots. Snow flakes glittered on the russet leaves, another sign of Dylan’s favorite season in northern Michigan.

He’d heard the crunch of leaves, but he barely noticed the screech of brakes as a Jeep jerked to a stop behind his car. Forcing himself out of his stupor, he turned to identify the new arrival.

Lindsey Warner. Over the last few months he’d forced himself to be detached about the teenage daughter of the editor of the Winter Falls Gazette. She was relentless in her pursuit of him, but either out of chivalry or self-preservation, he pre tended not to notice.

But he noticed too much about her. Her glossy black curls. Her curvaceous body. Her sassy mouth. She was too young. But Jimmy had told him to take what she offered. Jimmy…

“I just heard it on my dad’s scanner. It can’t be true!” The words burst from her mouth as she catapulted out of her vehicle.

He couldn’t deal with Lindsey Warner right now and turned away from her.

He had to go inside the house. His duty as a police officer was to secure the crime scene. And he had to know if the call was correct. He had to see that his brother was dead before he could accept the horror of it. Again he fought down the despair.

His heart pounded against his ribs as he walked blindly past the sheriff’s patrol car. He only made it a few more steps before she was at his side. She slipped her hand into his. Cold. Her fingers were cold, and her eyes were huge shadows in her face. She looked as horrified as he would feel if he allowed himself to feel anything.

“Deputy Matthews, Dylan, are you all right?”

Before he could answer, Sheriff Buck Adams joined them. “I’m so sorry, Dylan. Don’t go inside. Let the girl take you some place else. Anywhere else. I’ll handle this for you.”

But Dylan couldn’t let someone else handle Jimmy. For so many years, even before their dad’s death, he and Jimmy had faced the world alone. Could he face it without Jimmy?

He’d meant to drop her hand, but he still clutched her cold fingers in his. Only a few more feet lay between him and the back door. Somehow, on precariously shaking legs, he made it to the screen door of the kitchen. Through the old and snagged mesh, he saw Jimmy lying on the wooden floor in front of the half-open refrigerator. A bright red stain spread from beneath his body across the scratched maple boards.

Jimmy stared back at him. The wide blue eyes held no pain, only surprise. Was he surprised Dylan had let him down? He shouldn’t have been. Dylan had never been able to save anyone he loved. As a lawman, he had been deputized to protect and serve. But he had not protected his brother from murder.

He dropped Lindsey Warner’s hand. “Dylan, I’m so sorry,” she said softly, or maybe it just sounded soft over the roaring in his ears. In the glare of the porch light, tears streaked from her dark eyes to her trembling chin.

He should have been the one to weep. But there was not even the threat of tears. In fact, his eyes were so dry they burned as if he’d spent a windy day on nearby Lake Michigan. “I’m sorry, too,” he whispered. “You shouldn’t have seen this.” He gestured at the screen door.

“Dylan, you worry too much about everyone else. You calm down the old ladies who imagine stalkers are peeking in their windows. You try to slow down the reckless speeders for their safety.”

“It’s my job.”

“But who takes care of you?” She reached for him again.

He took a quick step back. “Sheriff,” he called out. “Please see she gets home safely. She shouldn’t have been here.”

Then he walked away from Lindsey Warner, from the crime scene, his home…. When he passed the sheriff’s car, he glanced at the man in the backseat. Jimmy’s best friend. Jimmy’s killer.

His police instincts screamed at him. This wasn’t right. But the sheriff had caught Steve Mars with the murder weapon in his hand. A knife from the block on the counter. For those two men it was over. For Dylan, the night mare had just begun.

Chapter One

Ten years later…

WITH WHITE KNUCKLES wrapped around the leather-covered steering wheel, Dylan drove past the cemetery. Ancient oaks shed colored leaves onto perfectly groomed graves, but Dylan didn’t slow to watch them fall.

He continued toward the heart of town, beyond the new hotels and motels and small strip malls to where the frame walls of the buildings were weathered and the brick was worn. He pulled into a parking lot behind an old Victorian house, which had been converted to a diner before Dylan was born.

For ten years he’d carried a picture of home in his head. And despite the night mares, it was home. This small northern Michigan town had grown. Dylan had not expected that. He’d thought everything would remain the same, perhaps as a shrine to Jimmy.

Before he stepped from his black Expedition into the lot of the local diner, he slipped the shiny badge onto the pocket of his tan uniform. Winter Falls deputy. He didn’t need to glance in the rearview mirror to witness the irony in his smile. His name and badge number were engraved below the title. Sheriff Buck had kept it for him.

For the last decade he’d hidden on the streets of Detroit. Rare had been the opportunity when he’d been able to carry the Detroit PD, Narcotics Division, badge. He’d been so deep under cover he’d thought he’d never come out. A few times he nearly hadn’t.

The last scrape had forced Dylan to face some hard facts. His commanding officer had given him an ultimatum—either get some psychiatric help for his death wish or take some time off. Dylan had turned in that badge and decided it was time to come home.

Although he’d hoped to slip into the diner unseen, he’d forgotten the sharp eyes of the proprietress. “Dylan Matthews!” She launched herself into his arms.

Interested faces turned toward him. Only a few, like the mayor and his old fishing buddy, were familiar. The town had grown, but Marge’s Diner was still the afternoon hub. “Marge, it’s nice to see you.” Awkwardly he reached down to pat her shoulder. Although she was petite, her grip was tight.

“It’s been too long,” she gasped when she finally released him. “You’re home, then?”

He thought of the new businesses, the new faces, the old night mares…. “Yeah.” He tapped the badge. “I’m home.”

A tinkling bell signaled another arrival. The sheriff slapped a hand on his shoulder. “Marge, get the boy something to eat. He looks half starved. Too skinny. I told him to meet me here. I promised him he’d get a good meal from you, not a lecture.”

“I wasn’t lecturing.” She sniffed and dabbed at tears with the edge of her apron.

Sheriff Buck Adams wedged his girth into the vinyl booth that had been “his” as long as Dylan could remember. When Dylan had been a boy, he’d sat on a phone book to share a milk shake with his idol.

Now Marge set a mug of coffee before him. “I’ll get you a special, Dylan. You need some fuel. You look worn out. I can’t believe the surprise. Both you and that little Lindsey Warner home from the big city. I thought we’d never see either of you again.”

The sip of hot coffee he’d taken scorched his throat as he choked. “Lindsey?” Ten years had passed, but he could still picture her wild mane of midnight curls and her snapping ebony eyes. And her sassy mouth.

“She wasn’t in Detroit, of course. She was in Chicago, working on some big news pa per when she got her heart broke. Should have stayed home and helped her daddy with the paper here, but I guess the Winter Falls Gazette wasn’t good enough. She’s back now, though, subdued I bet.”

Subdued? Lindsey Warner? He hoped not.

The sheriff waved Marge away. “Don’t get her started. She’ll be sending out wedding announcements if you show any interest. Of course, you never did, but Lindsey wasn’t so shy. That girl knew where your speed trap—”

“I thought we didn’t call it that,” Dylan teased the older man.

The sheriff waved his beefy hand again. “Whatever we called it, she knew where it was. How many tickets you give that girl?”

“I don’t remember.” Five warnings. Five citations. She’d been reduced to a restricted license because of him.

“Yeah, she was too young. What, sixteen?”

Sweet sixteen. And how he wished he’d kissed her.

“And you were what? Twenty-one?”

“Twenty-two when I left,” Dylan reminded him. But in his soul, so much older than those years.

“That was a heck of a mess, Dylan. I knew you didn’t have anything to do with that boy’s suicide. I should’ve searched him when he got back from sentencing. But after killing Jimmy, the guilt got Steve Mars to hang himself in jail, not you. There’s just a bunch of busy-bodies in this town with nothing better to talk about.” Sheriff Buck’s face reddened, and a vein jumped at his temple. “I should’ve—”

“You stuck by me, Sheriff. You always have,” Dylan assured him, and closed his eyes. Behind his lids flashed a memory from when he was twelve, and the sheriff had rescued him from the car accident that had left him motherless. “You always were…”

“I’m glad you’re home, boy. I need you around here. It’s not so quiet anymore. More to worry about now than some lovesick teenage girl speeding around town.”

Dylan nodded, but disappointment rose in his throat. After all those years of sense less violence in Detroit, he’d wanted to return home where but for that one night, he’d had nothing more dangerous to worry about than a sassy teenager.

“Lindsey Warner subdued?” he muttered.

The sheriff chortled. “Don’t show any interest,” he hissed as Marge slapped some steaming plates of beefy noodle casserole on the table.

“I haven’t had a casserole in years, Marge. Thanks.” Dylan reached for the fork. He hoped he could eat. Too many memories had his guts tied in knots.

She patted his head the way she had when he was eight years old. He had to smile. Nobody had patted his head in ten years. It was good to be home.

IT WAS HELL TO BE HOME, Lindsey thought as she leaned back in her father’s chair. Throughout the office a satisfying bang echoed as she swung the heels of her boots onto the surface of his old desk. She would have rather kicked something, though.

“Hey, brat,” her father teased as he poked his graying head around the door. “Taking over already? Or hiding out?”

She glared at him, her most lethal glare. He laughed. Then he lifted a bag and waved it in the air in mockery of a flag of surrender. The sweet memory of Marge’s Diner drifted across the room to her. The smell of cinnamon rolls and strong coffee cut across the stale air of old cigars and newsprint that always prevailed in her father’s office.

She’d missed the stale odor. She’d missed the cinnamon rolls and coffee, too. “If that’s what I think it is, I’ll let you stay on for a while before I put you in a retirement home, old man.” But she’d missed her father most.

She swung her boots from his desk and jumped up, but he waved her back down and took the chair across from her. “Get used to it, honey. It will be yours one day.”

“I don’t deserve it, Dad,” she said softly as she took the grease-stained bag from his hands and spread the decadent bounty across his already cluttered desk.

“It’s better than not wanting it.” He expelled a weary-sounding sigh. Lindsey’s gaze clung to his gently wrinkling face. She’d been gone too long. Although he’d come to Chicago for visits, the time had been too brief and passed quickly. He’d aged, and Lindsey hadn’t been able to witness every new line in his face, every new gray hair on his head.

“I never said I didn’t want it,” she reminded him.

“You just wanted more.”

She winced over the hurt pride in his voice. “It’s not that it wasn’t enough. It’s not mine. I wanted something for me. And I wanted out of this town!” With barely con trolled anger she ripped off a sticky piece of roll.

“You ever going to forgive them?” he asked in the understanding tone that had always been her undoing.

She was too old for tears. “It’s over. There are bigger hurts in this world.”

He slid his rough hand over hers, and she turned hers over to link their fingers. “I hate that you had to find that out from a loser like your ex-fiancé.”

“That’s history now, Dad.” She kicked her purse that leaned against her dad’s desk. “He wouldn’t take his ring back in person, so I’m going to mail it.”

Her dad chuckled. “Pawn it. After the way he treated you…”

She squeezed his hand and forced a smile. “Yeah, well, that’s why I had to leave, to get used and abused in the big city.” The smile threatened to slip. “I can appreciate Winter Falls now.”

“Can you?” her father taunted knowingly.

She laughed. “All right. Not yet. But I will if I decide to stay. I haven’t decided yet, Dad.”

“It’s not the same town, brat. There’s so much growth. New shops, new commerce. Snowmobilers in the winter. Boaters in the spring and summer, and hunters in the fall. A wealthy developer wants to build a huge mall on an old farm just east of town. Winter Falls is in the process of a major growth spurt.”

His excitement spilled over in his voice, and Lindsey tried to summon some of her own. But she was more excited over the richness of the sticky cinnamon roll and the bite of the bitter, hot coffee.

Her father laughed. “But you need more action. You were reporting the police beat too long.”

“I wasn’t covering it alone, just assisting.” She winced over the bitterness in her voice, and her pride stung all over again with her stupidity. Why had she accepted her ex-fiancé’s lies?

“I read the paper, honey. I recognize my daughter’s voice whether I hear it over the phone or read it in newsprint.”

She took another gulp of coffee and enjoyed the numbness following the burn. She’d been numb for a while now. It was better that way. “Any action here?”

“Heated debates over the mall proposal. An old trustee and the mayor are fighting it. The developer is rich and powerful. It’s interesting. It’s not life and death, but it’s interesting.”

She sighed. “You’re right. It is interesting. I don’t need life and death anymore. Well, not death, anyhow.”

Her father opened his mouth, but if he scram bled for words, none came out. He stuffed a piece of roll between his lips. They ate in silence for several moments before he spoke again.

Finally he asked, “Are you going to see her, Lindsey?”

She didn’t need to ask of whom he spoke. “Would it matter? Would she even know?” She popped another piece of roll into her mouth, but it was like chewing sawdust now.

“I’ll be honest with you, honey. She probably wouldn’t know you. But I think it might matter to you.” He reached for her hand again, but she pulled back and wrapped it around her cup of coffee.

None of the warmth permeated her icy cold fingers. “I’ll be honest with you, Dad. I don’t think it would.”

He nodded, and disappointment flashed in his eyes. “On another note, there’s more news….”

Lindsey leaned forward, recognizing the tone of her father’s voice. This was something that would matter to her. “Yeah?”

“He’s back.”

“Who?”

“I wasn’t going to tell you because I didn’t want you smashing out the tail light on your Jeep or any other foolishness….”

Lindsey’s face heated, and she managed a giggle. She thought she’d lost the youthful ability to giggle. “Dylan Matthews?” Then she remembered how he had left ten years ago, and whatever pleasure she’d flirted with faded away. “I’m not the only one who has to forgive this town.”

“According to Marge, he’s sworn to protect it. He must have forgiven it.”

She snorted. “I always wondered why you never hired Marge. She’d make a great reporter. She always scoops you.” Her father’s face reddened. Marge had an inside track with Will Warner despite his marriage.

And she remembered another reason why she’d left. Her father was part of this town with its gossip and secrets.

AFTERNOON HAD SLIPPED into evening. Dylan had spent it familiarizing himself with a town he’d once known so well. He’d spent it doing anything but returning to the scene of so many of his night mares.

The leaves crunched under his feet as he walked around the Expedition and headed toward the abandoned house. In the fading light he barely noted the peeling paint and dirty windows. If he were ever fanciful, he might think it looked lonely. But that wasn’t new. It had been lonely for a long time, ever since his mother had died.

Sheriff Buck had offered him a bed in his home, but part of Dylan’s reason for returning to Winter Falls had been to deal with the house.

In northern Michigan fall had a nasty habit of slipping swiftly into winter. Dylan had originally planned a brief trip to Winter Falls to prepare the house for cold weather. The pipes needed to be drained and the water shut off.

And he could have easily asked the sheriff to handle it for him as he had in all the years past. But he hadn’t asked because he’d realized how badly he wanted to leave Detroit for home. This was home. Even with all its night mares.

He pulled open the screen door and slipped his key into the lock of the back door. It hadn’t been locked or closed that night ten years ago. On rusty hinges the door creaked open.

Immediately he glanced at the spot in front of the refrigerator. The door of the old appliance was propped open, much as it had gaped that night. The maple boards had been stripped and revarnished, but still the stain shone through the gleaming surface.

Although his knees shook, Dylan forced himself across the floor. He dropped the house keys onto the counter, rubbed a hand over his face and wiped away beads of sweat.

The sheriff was right. He should have sold the house. Maybe it was that simple. He shouldn’t have left town, just the house.

He reached into his pocket for a handkerchief and pulled out a letter. He’d received it before he’d left Detroit. He uncrumpled the paper and perused the shaky handwriting of an old man.

The Winter Falls postmark hadn’t surprised Dylan. Sheriff Buck often wrote to him, and as he’d been working out his notice in Detroit, he had figured the sheriff had had details of Dylan’s reemployment as a Winter Falls deputy.

Instead he’d found the letter had been written by the lawyer of the man who’d killed his brother and then later himself.

Although he hardly glanced at the words, Dylan recited them from memory.

Dylan,

As I hear you’re returning home, I need to make an appointment with you to handle some unfinished business from ten years ago. I have something from Steve Mars that is addressed to you. I should have given it to you years ago, but when you left town, I thought you wanted to leave those painful memories behind. Now that you are returning, I feel it is my duty to deliver this item to you even though I am retired from my law practice. Please notify me when you return to town.

Sincerely,

Chet Oliver

Dylan crumpled the letter again and stuffed it back in the pocket of his leather jacket. Of the darkened room he asked, “Do I really want anything from Steve Mars?” His gaze fell on the stain on the hardwood floor. Other shadows blended into it, but he knew precisely where the stain began and ended.

Before he could give it any more thought, his cell phone rang. He pulled it from his pocket and flipped it open. “Dylan Matthews.”

“Deputy,” the sheriff reminded him, but there was no teasing note in his voice. His booming voice shook.

“What’s wrong, Sheriff?”

“Get over to Sunset Lane, Oliver’s place. something happened. I’m going to call it in, but I want you here first. Better yet, you call it in when you get here.”

Dylan reached into his pocket and touched the letter. He remembered where Chet Oliver lived. He’d gone to the lawyer’s house after Steve Mars’s jail-cell suicide. He’d wanted to know if the lawyer had really believed Steve had killed Jimmy. Why hadn’t the old man given him whatever Steve Mars had left for him then? Why keep it ten years?

Dylan slipped his phone into his pocket with the letter and picked up his keys. Would he finally get some answers tonight or only more questions?

WHILE HER FATHER WORKED on his editorial, Lindsey loomed over his shoulder, reading as he wrote. “You’re brilliant, Dad. The things you notice…well, let’s just say you’re a much better reporter than many I’ve known.”

Her father squeezed the hand she’d braced on his shoulder. “Brat.”

Behind her on the scarred credenza, her father’s police scanner sputtered out a call. Despite the static and the poor reception of the ancient model, she recognized the voice. Dylan Matthews. Deputy Dylan Matthews calling for the coroner.

“Chet?” her father gasped when the address sputtered out of the box.