Heartbreaker (Buchanan-Renard 1)

“What seems to be the problem?” Tommy asked.

“My boy,” Lloyd muttered. “He’s gone missing. That’s what the problem is.”

“He’s hiding,” Nick told him. “He started that fire, and now he’s hiding.”

Lloyd shook his head. “I ain’t gonna get into all that fire business ’cause you and I see it different from each other. My boy knows he’s got me for his alibi. He wouldn’t think he had to hide. He was in bed, sleeping sound, when I got home from Nugent. I was dead tired,” he added. “Up most of the night, and I was just getting myself in bed when the low-life sheriff from Nugent knocked on my door. He said he was gonna take Lonnie and book him on arson. We argued a bit, but then I decided to let the lawyers handle it, and I let him on in. Lonnie weren’t in his bed though, and his window was wide open.”

Nick glanced at Noah, who promptly shook his head to let him know he hadn’t done anything with Lonnie.

Nick said then, “Maybe Wesson decided to pick him up.”

“That ain’t what happened.” The sheriff was whining now. “He’s still with the others cooped up with Brenner in a two-by-four room, questioning him. They wouldn’t let me listen in, didn’t want me to know nothing that was going on. I finally gave up and was heading out the door when I heard they were accusing him of murder. One of the sheriff ’s deputies told me they had the goods on him.” He took his hat off and rubbed his brow. “It’s all going in the toilet.”

“Do you really care what happens to Lonnie?” Noah asked bluntly.

The question flustered the sheriff. Seeing the turmoil in Lloyd’s face, Tommy took over. He dragged a chair to the end of the table and sat down next to Lloyd.

“Your son’s given you a lot of heartache over the years, hasn’t he, Lloyd?”

The sheriff ’s voice dropped to a whisper. “He ain’t never been right in the head. Never. He’s got a real mean temper.”

Tommy coaxed Lloyd to talk, urging him to let go of all the anger and disappointment he’d kept inside for so long, and within minutes, the sheriff was spilling his guts, telling him all the problems he’d had to clean up for his son. The list was appallingly lengthy.

“He’s done some terrible things. I know he has, but he’s my son, and I had to protect him. I’m so sick of it. I know I’m supposed to care about the boy, but I can’t, not anymore. I’ve still got to find him because if I don’t and he comes home, he’ll be . . . upset with me, and I don’t want that to happen. He can forget himself and get violent.” He wiped at his eyes as he confessed, “I’m ashamed to admit it, but I’m afraid of my own boy. He’s going to kill me one of these days. He’s come damn close a couple of times already.”

“Maybe it’s time Lonnie learned the consequences of his actions,” Noah suggested.

“He’ll come after me. I know he will.”

“You need time to think about your options,” Tommy said. “Why don’t you get in your car and leave Holy Oaks for a week or two, just until things calm down and Lonnie’s behind bars.”

The sheriff leapt at the idea. “What will folks say? I don’t want them thinking I’m running away.”

“They won’t think that,” Tommy said. “You’re entitled to take some time off, aren’t you?”

“Sure, I am,” he agreed. “And maybe . . . just maybe, I won’t never come back. I’ll leave it all here, won’t pack a thing, so my boy won’t think I’m gone for good. Then he won’t come looking for me.”

“They’ll catch him and put him behind bars,” Noah said. “You be sure to let Father Tom know where you are.”

The sheriff was suddenly in a hurry to get out of town. He was walking out the door when he stopped and turned to Laurant.

“He’s been skimming money from the very beginning,” he said. “

Who?” Laurant asked. “Brenner?”

Lloyd nodded. “He’d tell his backers at Griffen it was gonna cost a hundred grand to buy a store, then offer half that amount to the owner and pocket the difference. He’s got himself an account, but I don’t know where it is. You might want to look into that before the town meeting.”

“Yes, I will,” she said.

The sheriff turned to leave again, but Nick stopped him.

“How deep are you in all of this, Lloyd?”

Lloyd turned away. “I helped him some. I’ll testify against him. Maybe if I help make this right, I won’t have to serve time.” He gave Nick a hopeful glance, and then spoke to Tommy. “I’ll let you know where I am. I’ll come back when you call me.” He shuffled back like a broken-down old man and placed his gun and badge on the table, then walked out the door.

They watched him leave.

“You sure you want to let him go?” Noah asked Nick.

“Yeah, he won’t go far,” Nick answered.

Nick tried to get Wesson on his cell phone, but he didn’t answer. Then he tried Feinberg and got his voice mail. His frustration mounted. He kept glancing at his watch. Morganstern should have landed in Houston by now. Why the hell hadn’t he returned his call?

Tommy had gone back into the pantry in search of potato chips, and Nick followed him. Laurant heard him tell her brother that he shouldn’t let his guard down until Nick was convinced Brenner was the unsub.

The two stood in the pantry and talked. It appeared that Tommy was doing most of the talking. Laurant was so busy watching the two of them, she didn’t notice that Noah was watching her.

“Stop worrying,” he said.

She turned her attention to her food. “I’m not worrying.”

“Sure you are. You think Nick’s going to tell Tommy that he slept with you.”

She didn’t even think about trying to deny it. She looked into those devilish blue eyes and asked, “Are you always this blunt?”

“Yeah, I am.”

“How did you know?”

“The way both of you are avoiding looking at each other. I’ve known Nick a long time,” he added. “But I’ve never seen him this uptight. I figure you’re the reason.”

She picked up a chicken wing and then put it down. “Nick might tell Tommy.”

“You think so?”

“Yes, I do, and Tommy’s going to be upset, being a priest and all.”

“Maybe,” he shrugged. “But you’re a big girl now, and it really isn’t any of his business.”

“He won’t see it that way.”

“So how long have you been in love with Nick?”

“How do you know I am?”

He laughed. “I know women.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning I know you’re not the kind of woman who would go to bed with a man unless you loved him. Nick knows that too. You must be scaring the hell out of him now.”

“I do scare him. He doesn’t want any of the things I want, but he doesn’t want to hurt me. Last night was a mistake,” she whispered. “And now it’s over,” she added. She tried to sound as though she’d already moved on, but she knew she’d failed when Noah patted her hand.

“Did it feel like a mistake last night?”

She shook her head. “No, but like you just said, I’m a big girl. I can get on with my life. I’m not so easily shattered.”

“No, of course you aren’t.”

“You’re humoring me, aren’t you?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Let’s talk about something else,” she suggested. “Could I ask you something?”

“Sure. What do you want to know.”

“How come Wesson dislikes Nick so much?”

“It goes way back,” he said.

“But what started the antagonism?” she asked with another quick glance at Nick.

“I guess you could say it was a cat that started the rivalry, although now that I think about it, Nick’s attitude also played a part. He was new to the section, and he thought he knew it all. Morganstern had only just gotten the okay to run the Apostles, and Nick was his second recruit.”

“Who was the first recruit?” she asked.   “I was,” he answered with an arrogant grin. “Pete was handpicking his agents, getting them from outside and putting them through his own special training program. Wesson was dying to be a part of it. Actually, I think from the very beginning he wanted to run the program, but that wasn’t going to happen.”

“Did Wesson become one of Morganstern’s recruits?”

“No. Morganstern didn’t take him in, and that really chafed.”

“So that’s what started it?”

“No, it was a cat,” he patiently repeated. “There was this particular case. A three-year-old girl was missing, and the FBI was called in. Wesson was on the rotation schedule, and there was no way he was going to let one of Morganstern’s hotshots come in and take over. Wesson wanted to solve the case and solve it quick.”

“Did he?”

“No, but Nick did. Here’s what happened. The little girl was with her mother in a department store. The building was real old, with wooden floors that squeaked and groaned when you walked on them, and high plastered ceilings, and big old vents along the baseboards. It was drafty and cold inside. The building was located near the warehouse district and the city market right next to the river. It was a nice little shopping area, all the buildings had been buffed and restored, but there was a problem with rats, and so the owner of this particular family-owned department store kept a cat there.”

“Go on,” she urged, wanting Noah to finish before Nick and Tommy returned.

“It was around noon on the Saturday before Christmas, and the store was crowded with last-minute shoppers. It was real chaotic and loud, with Christmas music blaring, but one salesclerk happened to notice a man in his midthirties wandering around the store. She thought he might be a shoplifter. He was wearing beat-up old clothes and a long gray raincoat. She said it was dirty and torn. She couldn’t give a great description other than to say he was thin and had a scraggily beard. She told us she was going to call security, but then she saw him heading for the front door, and she thought he was leaving. She was being pulled in twenty different directions by impatient customers.

“A customer in line remembered seeing the man squat down next to the little girl and talk to her. She said the mother had elbowed her way to the counter and was digging through her purse, looking for her charge card, and she didn’t notice her daughter was talking to the stranger. Then the customer said the man got up and walked away.”

“Did he take the little girl?”

Noah didn’t answer the question. “Another customer said she almost tripped over the child when she darted out in front of her. The little girl was chasing the cat,” he added. “About five or ten minutes later, the mother was frantically searching for her daughter. Everyone was helping, of course, and then the clerk remembered the man in the raincoat, and the customer remembered she’d seen him talking to the child. The security officer called the police while the owner called the FBI. To his credit, Wesson got there fast,” he added. “Morganstern got the call from Wesson’s superior and wanted Nick and me to get a little experience, and so he sent us in, but neither one of us could get there until late that night. I came in from Chicago, and Nick caught a plane out of Dallas. He got in about fifteen minutes before I did, rented a car, got a map, and picked me up.”

“Wesson wasn’t happy to see you, was he?”

“That’s putting it mildly. It didn’t matter to us though. He didn’t have any authority over us. We reported to Morganstern and no one else. Wesson was extremely reluctant to share what he had with us, and that really pissed . . . I mean, angered Nick. When he gets mad, his temper’s worse than mine,” Noah said with admiration in his voice.

“What did he do?”

“He let Wesson know what he thought of him. Nick could have been more diplomatic, but, anyway, he backed Wesson into a corner, and Wesson told him he had a suspect, and that the situation was under control, which, of course, wasn’t the case. Wesson also went on record as saying that Morganstern’s team was a waste of time and money, and that Nick and I should go home and find real jobs.”

“In other words, butt out.”

“Yes,” Noah said. “Of course, we didn’t care what Wesson thought or wanted. We had a job to do, and we were going to do it with or without his approval. While Nick was looking around, I got one of the other field agents aside and read his notes.”

“Was the little girl all right? Just tell me, please. Did you find her in time?”

“Yeah, we did, thanks to Nick,” he said. “It was one of those too few happy endings.”

“How did he find her?”

“I’m getting to that,” Noah said. “Everyone left the store. It was around two in the morning, and it was freezing inside that building. Wesson had set up a command post at the police station a couple of blocks away, and every available man was out on the streets searching for the man in the raincoat. Nick and I were standing on the curb outside the store, trying to figure out what we were supposed to do. The security officer was locking the doors to go home when Nick told him he wanted to go back inside. He convinced the old man to turn the alarm off and give us the keys.

“Both of us went through the building from top to bottom again. We found nothing, so we left. I was driving,” he said. “I wasn’t sure where I was headed. I was just trying to clear my mind the way Morganstern taught us, and I remember I had just driven past a hospital when I asked Nick what the hell we were going to do, being squeezed out by Wesson the way we were.”

Noah paused to smile and then added, “Nick didn’t say anything. He popped a piece of gum in his mouth, and I figured he was doing the same thing I was trying to do. You know, trying to clear his mind. And all of a sudden, he turned to me and said, ‘So, where’s the cat?’

“We started doing what Morganstern would probably call a little free-associating then. Kids love animals, most do anyway, and a customer had reported she’d seen the little girl chasing after the cat. We both figured out what might have happened then. I was driving like a bat out of hell, trying to get back to the department store as fast as I could, but then I saw the hospital emergency entrance, and I pulled in. Nick and I went running into the emergency room, flashed our badges, and grabbed a doctor who was just going on break. Nick told him he was going with us and to bring his stethoscope with him.”

“The little girl was still in the store, wasn’t she?”

“Sure she was,” he said. “She went in one of those big old vents after the cat,” he explained. “Crawling around on the floor by the walls, no one would have noticed her, as busy and crowded as the store was. The vent didn’t hold her, and she went down two and a half floors and got trapped on a ledge above the basement. The fall should have killed her,” he added. “She had hit her head and was unconscious when we finally got to her. The cat stayed with her. We could hear the faint meowing through the stethoscope.”

“But she was all right.”

He smiled again. “Yeah, she was okay.”

“You and Nick must have been jubilant.”

“Yeah, we were, but we were also frustrated with ourselves at the same time. Both of us had missed the obvious. We let the guy in the raincoat get in our way,” he said. “We should have noticed the vent the girl crawled into was a little bit off-kilter from the others, but we missed it. And we shouldn’t have taken so long to notice the cat was missing.”

“You found her within hours of your arrival,” she pointed out.

“But if we had been more observant, we could have cut the time in half. We were damn lucky she was still alive. She could have been bleeding down there, and if that had been the case, we would have been too late.”

Laurant knew that nothing she could say would change his opinion of his performance.

“Normally, Wesson would have been just as happy and relieved as everyone else,” he said.

“He wasn’t?” she asked, surprised.

“He isn’t a monster, or at least he wasn’t back then,” he quali

fied. “But jealousy was eating him up. Sure he was happy the little girl was all right . . .”

“But?”

“Nick deliberately left him out. He should have told Wesson what he suspected and let him run with the ball.” Noah paused for a moment. “Yeah, that’s what he should have done, but I’m glad he didn’t. Tit for tat, as childish as that was. And in his defense, and mine because I backed him, we were young and stupid back then, and neither one of us gave a damn about career politics. We still don’t. Nick had to be sure the kid was there, and so did I. Anyway, Wesson found out about the girl after the fact, from Morganstern. Nick and I were already on our way to the airport. Nick had wanted to prove a point, but he had humiliated Wesson, and ever since then, the mere mention of his name or mine gets the same kind of reaction as pouring salt on an open wound. Neither one of us have had to work with him since, until this case.”

Laurant propped her elbow on the table, resting her chin in the palm of her hand. She stared at Noah, but didn’t really see him. She was thinking about the story he had just told her.

Until this moment, there had been a tiny little hope in the back of her mind that Nick would quit his job. And, oh God, how selfish and wrong she had been to want such a thing.

“Life doesn’t have any guarantees, does it?” she said.

“No, you’ve got to grab what you can while you can. Nick’s good at what he does, but he’s burning out. I can see it in his eyes. The stress is going to kill him if he doesn’t get some balance in his life. He needs someone like you to come home to at night.”

“He doesn’t want that.”

“He may not want it, but he needs it.”

“What about you?”

“We aren’t talking about me,” he said. “You and Nick are something else, you know that? Being on the outside, observing, it’s really easy to see what’s going on. Want me to enlighten you? I’ll warn you in advance. You won’t like what I have to say.”

“Go ahead,” she said. “Enlighten me. I can take it.”

“Okay,” he agreed. “Here’s the way I see it. You and Nick are both trying to alter reality. You’re both running away from life. Don’t argue with me until I’m finished,” he told her when he saw she was about to interrupt. “Nick’s trying to close himself up, to distance himself from everyone, even his family, and that’s a big mistake in his line of work. He needs to feel, because that’s the only way he’s going to stay sharp and focused. I can see he’s getting to the point where he doesn’t want to take a chance on feeling anything at all because that would make him too damned vulnerable. If he keeps going this way, he’s going to become hard and cynical. And he sure as hell won’t be any good at his job. Now as for you . . .”