Covet (Fallen Angels 1)

"What were you saying?" As if the near miss in traffic wasn't enough of a shocker.

"Why don't you call me back when you get home. I don't know how many stoplights there are between you and - "

"I'm paying attention now." She pulled out slowly. "I swear."

There was some male-oriented grumbling over the connection. Then: "Fine...here's the deal. The cops showed up here about a half hour ago, looking to talk to staff again, and you in particular. I guess they'd gone to your house and then tried to call you, and when they couldn't reach you, they headed over here. I don't know a lot, only that there's a footprint at both scenes that seems to suggest a link between the two attacks. The tread of a running shoe, I guess? I don't think I'm supposed to know this? by the way - it was just that two of the cops went outside for a smoke and they were passing some pics back and forth, and gee whiz, I picked up on the convo. Go. Fig."

Marie-Terese's first thought was that Vin didn't wear sneakers - or at least he'd had on flat-soled loafers both nights.

Odd, wasn't it: Her main concern was whether or not Vin was involved, not that Mark was sending people after her from jail. The thing was, though, she'd run from her ex once before - and she could do it again. But the idea that she was falling for another violent man wasn't the kind of thing she could get away from so easily.

"Trez, do you have any idea when the..." She glanced over at Robbie, who was drawing shapes on his window with his fingertip. "Do you know when it happened? Last night?"

"After you left."

So it couldn't have been Vin...

"Your man's in trouble, by the way."

"Excuse me?"

"Vin diPietro. His face is all over the news. Guess his girlfriend ended up in the hospital, and she's saying he was the one who put her there."

As the second round of drama hit, Marie-Terese took her foot off the gas and deliberately looked up as she came to an intersection. Green. Green means go, she told herself. Go means gas. She carefully eased her foot down and the Camry responded with all of the gusto of a ventilator patient.

"By any chance," Trez murmured, "were the two of you together late last night around ten?"

"Yes."

"Then take a deep breath. Because according to the news, that's when she said it all went down."

Marie-Terese exhaled - but only briefly. "Oh, my God...what's he going to do?"

"He's out on bail already."

"I can help him." Although as soon as the words left her mouth, she wondered whether that was true. The last thing she needed was her face on the news: There was no way of knowing whether she'd been "safe" from Mark thus far because he was leaving her alone...or because people he'd sent after her just hadn't found her yet.

"Yeah, maybe you should try to stay out of it, though," Trez said. "He's got cash and connections', and lies are always revealed in the end. In any event, can I tell the police you'll talk to them now?"

"Yes - but have them wait with you." The last thing she wanted was the cops in front of Robbie again, so the club was the place for her to meet them. "I'll call the babysitter right away."

"One last thing."

"Yes?"

"Even though you're out of the business now, a past like ours has a long reach, feel me? Please be careful of everyone around you, and when in doubt, call me. I don't want to alarm you, but I don't like these attacks happening to people who've been tied to you."

Neither did she. "I will."

"And if you need to leave Caldwell, I can help."

"Thanks, Trez." She hung up and looked at her son. "I'm going to have to go out for a little bit this afternoon."

"Okay. Can Quinesha come?"

"I'll try to get her." When they came to a stop at a light, Marie-Terese quickly punched in the babysitting service's number and hit send.

"Mom, who's 'him' who you wanna help?"

As the phone rang, she met her son's eyes. And didn't know what to say.

"Is he the reason you were smiling in church?"

She ended the call before it was picked up. "He's a friend of mine."

"Oh." Robbie picked at the crease in his khakis.

"He's just a friend."

Robbie's brows pulled together. "I get scared sometimes."

"About what."

"People."

Funny, so did she. "Not everyone is like your..." She didn't want to finish the sentence. "I don't want you to feel like everyone is bad and will hurt you. Most people are okay."

Robbie seemed to mull this over. After a moment, he looked up at her. "But how do you tell the difference, Mom?"

Marie-Terese's heart stopped. God, there were times as a parent that words escaped you and your chest went hollow. "I don't have a good answer for that."

As the light overhead turned green and they headed forward, Robbie focused on the road ahead and she left a message for the babysitters. After she hung up, she hoped that he was staring out with such fixation because he was watching for traffic lights with her. But she didn't think it was that simple.

They were halfway home when she thought, Saul. That man from the prayer group's name was Saul.

When Jim got back from the Commodore, he pulled in front of his garage and got out. As he went up the stairs, Dog parted the drapes in the bay window with his head, and going by the way his ears were pricked and his face was doing a shimmy, it was clear that stubby tail was going fast as an airplane prop.

"Yup, I'm back, big guy." Jim got his key ready as he came up to the door, but he paused before he put it into the shiny, spanking-new Schlage he'd installed after he'd moved in.

Looking over his shoulder, he focused on the dirt drive. A fresh set of tire tracks had marked up the partially frozen ground.

Someone had come and gone while he'd been out.

As Dog tap-danced with excitement on the other side of the door, Jim did a visual sweep around the landscape, and then looked down at the wooden stairs. Lot of muddy-ish footprints, all of which were dry and with a telltale Timberland tread - indicating they'd been made by him alone.

Which meant whoever it was had either wiped their feet off on the grass first or had hovered their asses up to his crib: He had a feeling they hadn't just pulled into his driveway, done a K-turn, and headed right back out.

Putting his palm to the small of his back, he unsheathed his knife and used his left hand to put the key to work.

Cracking the door amped up the tic-tic-tic'ing of Dog's paws on the bare floor...and also sent up a soft scraping noise.

Jim waited, sifting through the sounds of Dog's hello, searching for anything else. When there was nothing, he opened the door as sharply as he could without hurting Dog, and his eyes went around in a sweep.

No one was there, but as he stepped inside, he saw the cause of the tire tracks down below.

While Dog scampered around, Jim bent down and picked up a stiff manila envelope that was on the linoleum right under the mail slot. No name on the front. No return address. The thing weighed about as much as a book, and whatever was inside had a book feel to it, rectangular with clean edges.

"How'd you like to go out, big man?" he said to Dog while pointing to the great outdoors.

Dog trotted out with his telltale limp, and Jim waited at the door with the package in his hand as business was conducted on the fringe of bushes by the drive.

As he held on to Matthias the f**ker's version of fruitcake, he had to convince his stomach not to issue evac orders to those two roast beef sandwiches Vin had made him.

See, this was the problem: Your head could decide all kinds of things, but that didn't mean your body was all jolly-jolly with the plan of the hour.

After Dog came up the stairs and through the door, he headed right for his bowl of water.

With a lightning lunge, Jim ditched the delivery and got there first, picking up the bowl, dumping it out, and washing the thing with soap. As he refilled it, his heart was beating in a grim, steady rhythm.

The thing was, the package was just slightly larger than the mail slot. So they had been in here. And although it was unlikely that they had poisoned Dog's water, the animal had somehow become family in the last three days, and that meant any margin of risk was unacceptable.

As Dog had his drink, Jim went over to the bed, sat down and grabbed the envelope. The minute Dog was finished, he limped over and hopped up as if he wanted to know what was in the package.