The Littlest Target, page 12
“Not on purpose!” It sounded like Trent’s jaw was clenched. “It’s not like I invited them all to come for Christmas dinner.”
“Well, after my brother told me to lie low, I took my friend Daisy to the safest place I know, because she’s in trouble and needed somewhere to go,” Max said.
There was an awkward pause on the other end of the line, as if his brother was debating what argument he wanted to have. Max plowed on.
“As you’ve probably gathered, the diner was compromised. Two cops showed up. One of which you now have in custody. They said someone called an anonymous tip line saying I had sugar maple money.”
Trent let out a low whistle. “You’re serious? They called it sugar maple money?”
“Yup,” Max said. Wow, seemed his brother was as into the stuff as the criminals were.
“But of course you didn’t,” Trent said.
“Oh, no, I had two hundred dollars of sugar maple money in my pocket,” Max said, probably getting a bit too much enjoyment out of the volume of Trent’s gasp. “Turned out Daisy found thousands of dollars of it in Gerry’s car, then scattered it all around the cabin in order to slow Smith and Jones down.”
Now he couldn’t tell if Trent was laughing or coughing.
“This is not a joke,” Trent said. “I know you like to be funny, but it’s imperative that you’re totally serious with me.”
“I’m being dead serious,” Max said. He stuck the phone in the crook of his shoulder and crossed his arms. “So you’d better tell me what’s really going on and fast. Because Daisy matters to me and I’m tired of not being fully honest with her. Not telling her that you were a cop stopped making sense a couple of hours ago. So I’m going to tell her that my brother and soon-to-be sister-in-law are cops and on their way here. And you’re going to tell me how I’m going to convince her to stick around and not run.”
There was a long pause.
“As lead detective on this particular investigation, I’m authorizing you to be briefed on some of the details,” Trent said. His voice snapped seamlessly from older brother to detective mode. “Sugar maple money is a very well done forgery that the RCMP has been tracking for about six months, although we believe it was first manufactured a little over a year ago. The new polymer currency that the Royal Canadian Mint rolled out back in the early 2010s was supposed to be impossible to forge. Someone somewhere created new software and technology to do just that.”
“Wow,” Max said. So Bradley might’ve been right that having sugar maple money in his possession was bordering on a felony.
“Yup.” Trent sighed. “Off the record, the kicker is we didn’t catch it until some botany student at the University of Ottawa emailed the mint and innocently asked when they’d replaced the little Norway maple leaves on the bills with sugar maple leaves. Then suddenly, overnight, everyone in the vice squad became an expert in exactly how many little pointy bits a maple leaf should have. Now the mint will tell you that the correct leaf isn’t technically a Norway maple leaf either, but hey, I’m not a botanist. All you’ve really got to know is the counterfeit money has a maple leaf with fewer points.”
“Sounds fun,” Max said.
“Oh, it was,” Trent said. “It wasn’t my case, because I was getting ready to go undercover on a drug case, but I was in the loop. They thought they had a suspect months ago, but it fell through. They recovered a lot of electronic devices and memory cards, but they were all locked, and then some of them disappeared from the evidence locker. There was reason to believe someone working the case had been bribed or blackmailed to make it disappear, but it hadn’t been proved. If we can convince Daisy to testify against her employer, that could be the break we need to crack this.”
“But what if her boss isn’t the forger?” Max asked. “Or if she doesn’t know anything?”
“Then things get a lot more complicated.” Trent let out a long breath and suddenly sounded less like a cop and more like an older brother. “We’ve been able to access the original 911 call that reported Daisy had kidnapped Fitz and proved the person used a doctored voice and a false identity, which is a very good sign. But we can’t cancel the warrant until we talk to Gerry Pearce, and so far nobody’s been able to locate him. Hopefully we’ll be able to clear this up soon.”
Max sank down at a kitchen chair. His head fell into his hands and his eyes locked on the old, familiar wood grain of the family dining table.
Lord, help me, please. Give me the strength to do the right thing.
“Tell me that you’re not going to accuse Daisy of kidnapping Fitz.”
“Max...”
“Promise me you’re not going to arrest her.”
“You know I can’t promise that.”
“Look, Trent, I know this is probably just another case to you! But not for me. I gave Daisy my word that I would protect her and Fitz. If my brother and his fiancée walk through this door, accuse her of kidnapping Fitz, rip that precious little baby from her arms and arrest her, she will never forgive me!”
He heard the stairs creak. He turned. Daisy was standing on the stairs behind her. Her face was white. Her hands were clenched in fists at her side.
“You’re right,” she said. Her voice shook. “I won’t.”
* * *
Her breath tightened in her chest. She walked down the stairs slowly, watching as the color drained from Max’s face.
“I’ve got to go,” he said into the phone, “I’ll see you and Chloe when you get here.” He set the phone down on the table and stood. “Where’s Fitz?”
“With your parents,” she said. “His teething fever is back and his chest doesn’t sound good, so your mother is giving him a bath to help cool his fever and clear his congestion. Your dad said you needed to talk to me.”
“I do.” His arms parted, creating a safe place for her to step into. But she didn’t step into his proffered hug. “And I’m very sorry, because I don’t know how much of that conversation you overheard and I can’t imagine how it must look. But I can explain.”
“I don’t want an explanation!” she said. “I don’t want to stand here and listen while you spin some big convincing story to help explain away the fact that you just did the one thing I asked you not to do!”
Her chest tightened. She was struggling to breathe again. Just like she used to when her stepfather stood there and told lies about her to the police. Just like she had when she watched Anna die.
Was this why he’d brought her to his farmhouse? To trap her? To set her up? She’d been foolish. Her mother had trusted her stepfather. Jane and Anna had trusted Gerry. Her own ridiculous heart had trusted Max, and he’d betrayed her.
She pushed past him and ran through the living room, barely seeing the shapes of the furniture and things around her. Then she yanked the door back and stepped out onto the porch.
“Daisy! Wait!” Max called behind her. “Where are you going?”
Nowhere. She was going nowhere. Her hands grabbed the porch railing. Rain whipped her face. There was nowhere left to run. Lord, I don’t know what to pray right now. I feel so far beyond hope. A sob slipped through her lips. Then she felt tears pushing hot and relentless through the corners of her eyes and rolling down her face, mingling with the rain, and this time, she let them fall.
Then she heard the creak of the wooden planks as Max walked out onto the porch. He stopped and she could hear him breathing, just a step or two behind her, and despite the pain and anger that filled her chest, something inside her wished she could just turn around and fall into his arms.
“My brother Trent is an undercover detective with RCMP Vice,” Max said. His voice was soft and gentle, and it was like something inside it was begging her to listen. “His fiancée is a detective with the OPP’s special victims unit. My eldest brother, Jacob, is also a cop, and my youngest brother, Nick, is in the military. I called Trent and Chloe for advice when you were at the motel paying for a cabin, because I was confused and didn’t know what to do. I told him I was calling him as a brother, not a cop. He’s the one who pulled in favors to get the diner open. He and Chloe were going to meet us there before Officers Bradley and Kelly showed up. I wanted to help you, Daisy. I didn’t want to just leave you there.”
“Well, you should have!” Fear, anger and regret crashed like competing waves inside her heart. “I asked you not to get involved. I told you to go. Instead you called your brother and his fiancée, so they could come arrest me!”
“So they could help you!” he said. “You told me that you would talk to the police if you knew with absolute certainty that they were good guys. You will never meet a cop more honorable than those in my family! If I hadn’t called Trent, he wouldn’t have known that Gerry had asked you to take Fitz and that whoever had reported Fitz kidnapped had done it apparently to flush you out. If I hadn’t pleaded your case to them, told them how incredible you are and how convinced I am of your innocence, your case wouldn’t be in the hands of a superb high-ranking detective who’s willing to hear your side of the story!”
She turned toward him. He was standing just inches from her now and a sadness pooled in his eyes that was even deeper than the one that was crushing her own chest. For a moment, she almost felt her will falter, but she couldn’t let herself fall into his arms again. Whether she’d meant to or not, she’d offered up her heart to him and he’d crushed it.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “Believe me, I am. I wish I could go back, find the exact, right, perfect moment, and tell you who my brother was sooner. But I did what I thought was right. I did everything I could to protect you.”
“I never asked you to protect me!”
“Fine.” He stepped back and raised both hands, palm up. “Do you want to keep running, Daisy? Really? Then go. I won’t stop you.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I think you do.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out his keys. “You are not my prisoner, Daisy. I’m not your stepfather or Gerry Pearce. I’m not going to tell you that your only two options are to either stay here with me or walk off into the woods. If you want to leave, take my vehicle and go. Leave it somewhere safe and public, where it will be found and returned to me. Disappear, if that’s what you really want. But I have one condition. Fitz stays here with me, until either Gerry or social services come to claim him. I will take care of him. I will do everything in my power to keep him safe. I won’t let anybody hurt him and I’m pretty sure you know that’s true. But I will not let you take him.”
The keys lay there, dangling in the space between them.
“Do you think I should run?” she asked.
“Do you?” he asked.
No, she didn’t think she should run, but she didn’t think she should stay either. Thinking didn’t factor into it at all. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d done anything but act on the instincts that had kept her alive so far. “I don’t know what to think.”
His voice dropped. “Then what do you feel?”
Safe. The single word seemed to ricochet in her chest. She’d been furious with him. She’d yelled at him and battled against him with all her might. But instead of snapping at her or losing his temper like her hair-trigger stepfather or Gerry, he’d stood there and taken it. He’d let her yell at him. He’d let her be angry. He’d apologized for hurting her, even while she knew he was probably dying to defend himself.
And now, something about seeing him standing there, taking her fury and offering her his protection in exchange made her feel safe in a way she never had before.
“I don’t want to run anymore.” She grabbed his hand in both of hers and closed his fingers around the keys. He wrapped his other hand overtop of hers and she looked down at their hands linked together, with the keys dangling in between. “I want this nightmare to be over.”
“Then trust me,” he said.
Tears flooded her eyes. She dropped his hands and wiped them away. She couldn’t believe he’d seen her cry. Nobody ever got to see her cry. “You must be so used to all this, rescuing people, watching them fall apart and getting involved in their crises. I overheard what you said to your dad about how rescuing women was now a Henry brothers tradition.”
He put the keys back into his pocket and then ran his hand over his jaw.
“That was a joke,” he said. “I didn’t have a clue what to say to my father, so I said something silly. Believe it or not, it actually helps a lot at crime scenes to be able to calm people down, get their minds off what’s going on and their fears of how bad things could be.
“But the last thing you want in a paramedic is someone who gets emotionally involved in anything. It’s like this, you know how I told you about the shooting-and-paintball range my dad built? One year, he put these rolling logs in the pond. The trick was to run across them quickly without falling in. If you went fast enough, you were fine. But if you hesitated or went slowly, you’d fall. That’s how I operate. Trent and Jacob get hunkered down into big, long cases. I deal with crisis after crisis quickly without stopping. I get people where they need to be and then I move on.”
Except now. Except her. Something about this whole situation was different for him, and she didn’t have the courage to ask him how or why. Because then she’d have to admit that it was different for her, too. She’d have to face the fact that the woman who never trusted anyone was standing there, a breath away from falling into the arms of the man who never let himself get emotionally invested and neither of them knew quite why.
“But why do you do that?” she said. “I know why I run. You know why I run. I was honest with you about my ugly and horrible past. But you haven’t let me in.”
“How can you say that? I told you all about my brothers. You’re standing on the porch of my parent’s house.”
“But you never once told me about your sister.”
“Because she’s dead!” Max’s voice rose until it cracked with emotion. “Because somebody killed my big sister, when I was three, and I don’t like talking about it. Because whenever I do, it’s like it hits me with this big wave of emotion that blocks out my ability to think about anything else.”
Daisy’s heart stopped. Max’s eyes flickered over her shoulder and he shook his head. She turned. A white police vehicle was coming up the drive.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “This is coming out all wrong and you deserve better than this. I wish I could go back to the start, do this entire thing over again and get it right. I just... I should’ve... I wish we had more time!”
So did she. His agonized eyes met hers. His hand brushed along the side of her face, tracing the lines of her features with his fingers before curling them deep into her hair.
“I’ve made a lot of mistakes,” Max said. “But I know this might be our last opportunity to talk before my brother walks in and takes you into custody, and I might never see you again. So let me tell you this, Daisy Hayward. I’ve never let myself get involved in anyone’s mess before I met you. I’ve never hugged someone deeply and held them in my arms. I’ve never brought anyone to meet the folks. I’ve never wanted to protect anyone or be their hero.”
He leaned forward until his forehead pressed against hers. His voice dropped to a whisper. “And maybe this doesn’t change anything, but I’ve never even kissed anyone before you. I’m twenty-six, and you’re my first kiss. That’s how rare and special a thing you are to me.”
The rain tapered off again. Tires crunched closer on the gravel. The car grew closer. Her hands slid up around his neck and she felt his thick, soft hair beneath her fingertips. He pulled her to him.
Their lips met.
He kissed her like they both knew it was time for goodbye and neither knew how to say it. She kissed him back like he was her anchor, her pillar and he was the only thing keeping her from falling. They held each other as the headlights grew brighter behind them and swamped the porch, flooding them in the light. But they didn’t break their embrace, until they heard a car door open behind them and a voice bark. “Hands up and get down on your knees! Both of you! This time you’re going to talk or you’re going to die. It’s up to you.”
She turned, feeling Max’s right hand grab hers and hold it tight.
It was Officer Bradley.
ELEVEN
Instinctively, Max stepped in front of Daisy. Bradley was advancing, a gun in his hand, one eye puffy and black, anger smeared across his bleeding lip. Max’s inner paramedic wondered if there’d been another car accident or if the corrupt officer had been in fight.
His eyes rose to the dark skies above and a prayer for everybody’s safety crossed his heart. How long now until Trent and Chloe would be there? Twenty minutes? Twenty-five? If he managed to stall Bradley until they got there, they could arrest him. But if he did that, he’d be putting Fitz, his parents and Daisy in danger.
Lord, help me focus. Help me triage. What’s important now?
He turned to brush his lips along Daisy’s cheek and whispered in her ear.
“You and Fitz will be safe with my folks. Dad’s an even better shot than I am. You get inside the house and stay there. I’m going to keep him busy until Trent gets here.”
He raised both hands and turned toward the corrupt cop hoping Daisy would do as he’d asked. But he could tell by the slight shake of her head and set of her jaw that she wasn’t about to run. No, she was going to stand fast on his parents’ porch behind him.
“Bradley, hi!” Max called. He stepped forward. “How’s Officer Kelly? I heard she was in the hospital.”
Worry flickered across Bradley’s face, so quickly that Max almost missed it. Yeah, even criminals had people they cared for, something he reminded himself every time he saved a drunk driver’s life.
