Stonehill Series Collection, page 107
“No.” He closed his eyes.
“The police want to question you in the morning. The doctor wouldn’t let them in tonight.”
“I can’t think of anything to tell them anyway.”
“It’s okay,” she whispered. “They’ll find who’s responsible. And they’ll take care of them.”
He hugged her closer. Her warning had come through loud and clear. Let the police handle this.
He’d try, but he wasn’t going to make any promises.
Chapter 21
Desperation tugged at Jenna’s heart at the sight of the café boarded up. She had no idea how long she’d be closed, but she knew it was going to take a toll on her bottom line. Business had just been starting to pick up. She was eternally grateful that Charlie had called in his crew to cover the windows, but she still had to call the insurance company. Once her agent had come and assessed the damage—which she hoped would be done quickly—she had to clean up the mess and replace the windows.
Her train of thought was derailed when Daniel unbuckled his seat belt. “Are you sure you’re okay to climb the stairs?”
“My legs work just fine, babe.”
“Well, if you fall, I can’t catch you.”
He smiled. “But it’d be fun trying, huh?”
She forced a chuckle for his benefit. He’d been trying to cheer her up since they’d woken with his doctor standing over them, ready to examine his patient. Daniel had a mild concussion and a cracked rib, but overall he was fine. The police questioned him, and he again said he didn’t know anything—the last thing he remembered was being in the kitchen. He didn’t remember fighting or getting hit or seeing the assailant.
Jenna hoped he wasn’t lying. As much as she hated what had happened, she’d hate it worse if Daniel decided to exact revenge. The anger in his eyes was there for everyone to see, though he tried to hide it. She had just opened her car door when Marcus pulled up next to her. A knot formed in her stomach. She hadn’t called him. Mostly because it was well after midnight before she’d had time and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do.
He threw his sunglasses on the dashboard as he jumped from his car. “What the hell happened?”
She had told him the last time she’d seen him that she was tired of him treating her like the teenager he’d left behind when he moved overseas, but in that moment she became that kid again. Seeing him there, the one constant in her life, made her want to break down. She’d been strong for Daniel, determined not to make him worry more than necessary, but seeing her big brother rushing toward her instantly made her want to crumble.
He embraced her and she buried her face in his chest. “What happened?”
“The café was robbed and vandalized last night,” Daniel said.
“Where were you?”
“Don’t,” Jenna warned, pulling back, her happiness at seeing him fading quickly. “He was hurt, Marcus. I had to call an ambulance. We’re just getting home from the hospital.”
His defensive stance relaxed a bit. “Sorry, I just…” He kissed Jenna’s forehead. “Are you guys okay?”
“We’re okay. I need to get Daniel upstairs to bed.” She pulled from him and followed Daniel as he started up the stairs. She turned when Marcus went along. The determination on his face let her know his involvement in this wasn’t an option. “Be nice,” she whispered, “or go home.”
He lifted his hands, indicating his surrender, but he scoffed when Jenna opened her door and ushered Daniel inside. She ignored him. “Do you want a shower?”
“Not yet.”
“Get out of those clothes. They’re filthy. I’m going to take Marcus downstairs and see the damage.”
“I’ll go—”
“The doctor said bedrest today.” She put her hands on her hips and cocked her brows at him. “If you think for one second I’m going to disobey his orders, you are seriously mistaken.”
“Jen, I’ve been hurt worse.”
“Get undressed and in that bed. Now.”
He stared her down before a grin twitched at the corners of his mouth. “Yes, ma’am.”
“If I hear you moving around up here, I’m not going to be happy.” She didn’t care if her warning sounded more maternal than romantic. She’d spent half the night scared to death that his injury was more severe than it turned out to be. She’d spent hours imaging the worst. She needed to focus on the café now and worrying about him would only distract her. “Please. For my sake,” she said more softly. “Follow the doctor’s orders.”
His amusement faded. “To the letter.”
“Thank you.” She headed for the door, stopping when Marcus didn’t follow her.
“I’m glad you’re okay,” he said to Daniel, which was likely as civilized as she could have expected from her overprotective brother.
They were halfway down the stairs before Marcus asked, “Still mad at me?”
“Yes, but I have bigger problems today.”
“You wanna tell me what happened now?”
The mop bucket still lay overturned in the alley. “I was rolling napkins and then all hell broke loose. The windows started breaking and glass was flying everywhere. When it was done, I sat stunned for a few seconds and then realized Daniel was in the kitchen. He had to have heard all that and there was no way he wouldn’t have come running. I found him right here. Face down. I thought he was dead.” She swallowed. “Everything after that is kind of a blur. They took him away in an ambulance and I called his uncle to go to the hospital. The police wouldn’t let me leave until they finished questioning me.” She put her hand to her head as she remembered the events playing out like a nightmare. “I had the deposit ready to go. The bag was sitting on the counter by the door when I went into the diner. I always set it there so I don’t forget it. It was gone.”
“Scott?”
She shook her head, blinking away the images of police snapping photos and looking for clues in the alley. “No. They questioned him. He had an alibi.” She reached for the mop bucket but Marcus waved her hand away.
“I got it.”
Once inside, she frowned at the mess. The police had dusted for fingerprints on the door and counter. The powder remained where the officer had sprinkled it. Marcus pushed the bucket into the closet and followed her as she went into the dining room.
“Holy shit,” he breathed.
The room looked worse with daylight streaming through the few remaining windows.
“You were in here?”
She pointed to the corner table where her chore sat unfinished. “There.”
He pulled her into a one-armed side hug and put his cheek to the top of her head. “You’re so lucky you weren’t hit with one of those bricks.”
She simply nodded. She had a few scrapes from the glass that rained down on her, but nothing worth worrying anyone about.
“They don’t know who did this?”
“Not yet. They think it was probably random. Daniel warned me about this a thousand times.”
“What?”
“My routine. How easy it was to do something like this. He said I was too predictable. Made myself a target.”
“He said that to you?”
She turned, frowning at the anger on his face. “Before this happened. He’s been saying it for weeks. He tried to tell me how vulnerable I was making myself. I listened, but I didn’t really get it.” A flat laugh floated from her. “I get it now.”
“Nothing about what you were doing brought this on, Jen. If this was about robbery, someone would have snagged the moneybag and run. This was personal.”
She glanced at him, clearly hearing the clip to his tone. He was blaming Daniel. She wasn’t going to argue with him. Not now. “I need to call my insurance agent. Hopefully he can get out here today so I can clean this up.”
“I’ll make some calls about getting the windows replaced.”
“Actually, Daniel’s uncle is doing that today. He’s going to come by later with a few quotes.” She sighed at the put-out look on his face. “He owns a construction company, Marcus. His guys rolled out of bed in the middle of the night and boarded up the windows. They’re good people.”
He exhaled and nodded. “I’m not used to other people helping us out. That’s all.”
She softened. “Us?”
“Annie…well, you know Annie.”
She laughed softly. Yeah, she knew Annie. Never afraid to speak her mind and set people straight.
“She had a thing or two to say about what happened at dinner.”
“Like what?”
“She says I’m pouting because Daniel’s taking my place as your go-to guy. Maybe I am a little. This place brought us back together. When I got back to the States, you were already off to school in California. And then you married Peter and you know how I felt about him. I was always your hero when you were a kid, Jen. It was nice to have you need me like that again. I guess seeing that you had someone else here to help out stung me a little bit. But you were right, you’re not thirteen anymore and you can think for yourself. I’m sorry I threw that jackass in your face.”
She nodded. “Forgiven.”
“Just…” He sighed. “God, Jen. Be careful with Daniel. He seems like a lit fuse just waiting to go off.”
“He’s had a really rough life, Marcus. His father was abusive, his mother died when he was young. He joined the army to get out and he found his place only to lose it because he pissed off the wrong person. He’s struggling, but he’s finding his way.”
“He’s got a lot of anger in him.”
“I know, but he’s working on it and I trust him completely. He will never turn that anger on me. Give him a chance. Please. He means a lot to me, and I don’t want to feel stuck between you.”
He nodded. “I will. I’ll give him a chance.”
She smiled, probably her first real smile since she’d had a falling-out with him. “Thank you.”
He nodded. “I tell you, though, I feel sorry for the poor soul who destroyed your café if Daniel finds him before the police do.”
“Yeah.” She watched sparkles dancing across the floor as light reflected off all the chunks of glass. “Me too.”
Daniel’s head felt much better as he drifted from the nap he hadn’t meant to take. Jenna might have insisted on bedrest, but he had planned to lie back just long enough to appease her before going to assess the damage to the café. He’d passed the hell out. Apparently she’d been right; he wasn’t quite as tough as he thought.
The sun was lower in the sky, indicating he’d slept the afternoon away. A quick glance around her apartment confirmed he was alone. Rolling to sit, he moaned at the immediate throbbing in his head. Jenna had left the samples of extra-strength aspirin the doctor had handed her sitting on the nightstand with a glass of water. He swallowed two down, chased the pills, pulled his jeans on, not bothering to button them, and then went up to his apartment. After a quick shower, he put on clean clothes and headed down to the café, where he suspected Jenna was.
He followed the voices trailing from the dining room. He stopped in his tracks as he stepped through the swinging door. The last time he’d seen a room looking like this was when his team went in to help clean up a blast zone.
Charlie’s voice came back to him. “Jenna was there… Damn it, Danny, that girl could have been hurt…”
He met her gaze. She’d stopped talking. She and the man next to her were staring at him. He swallowed.
“I just need a few more pictures,” the man finally said. “Then I’ll get out of here and you can clean up.”
“Thanks.” She crossed the room and touched Daniel’s cheek. “How are you feeling?”
“Better.”
“Hungry?”
He smiled. “You’re always trying to feed me.”
“It’s what I do.”
He hugged her to him, looking at the glass confetti that covered the floor. “How’s your day?”
She moaned and shook her head. “This has been awful.”
“I’m sorry I slept through it.”
“You couldn’t have done anything anyway.”
“I could have been here. Come on.” He pulled her into the kitchen and went to the fridge. “Turkey sandwich?”
“I was going to fix you something.”
“I know you were. I want to take care of you.”
“Marcus actually just left when the insurance guy showed up. He had postponed a meeting at his office, but needed to get to it. We worked things out.”
“I’m glad.” He turned with his arms full of sandwich meat and toppings to find she’d already set out two plates and was pulling bread out of a bag. “I was fixing you something to eat.”
She grinned. “I like when we work together.” She nudged him gently. “Last night had been going pretty darn well until the whole robbery-slash-assault-slash-vandalism thing.”
He couldn’t help but smile. “Yes, it was. I seem to remember thinking that before I blacked out.” He nudged her the same as she’d done to him when he noticed her wistful smile had fallen. “I’m okay, you know?”
She squeezed her eyes shut and let her breath out. “You have no idea how scared I was finding you like that. My heart dropped to the pit of my stomach. We talk about the future and three-year plans, but in that moment…” She turned and rested her hip on the counter. “I’d be devastated if anything happened to you.”
“I feel the same.”
She glanced over her shoulder when someone knocked on the back door. He put aside the package of turkey as she opened the door. “Hey, Charlie.”
He nodded but didn’t return Daniel’s smile. “How you feelin’?”
“Better. What’s up?”
“I wanted to be the one to tell you.”
“What?”
He glanced at Jenna. “When I got to the worksite this morning, I noticed some bricks missing from the stack that had just been delivered.”
Daniel stiffened.
“Just a handful. Nothing that probably would have even caught my attention if it weren’t for what happened here last night.”
“I’m not following,” Jenna said.
“Joel Taylor heard me talking the other day about how I was ordering supplies for the café to help you out, Danny. He’s been real outta sorts lately. His wife left him and I sent him home yesterday for drinking on the job. He smarted off about how if he was my nephew, he’d get a truck and tools to play handyman. He’s still real mad at you for confronting him.”
Daniel clenched his fists.
“Now I’m not saying he did this, but I called the police officer who gave me a card. They came and looked at the bricks and confirmed they matched what was thrown through the windows. They’re tracking Joel down now.”
“Motherfucker,” he said through clenched teeth. He needed to hit something. Or someone, actually—that wife-beating son of a bitch. He’d crack his fucking skull open.
“Are you saying that man Daniel lost his job over did this?”
“I don’t know, but…”
“I know,” Daniel barked. “He wanted to get back at me. This is just the type of passive-aggressive bullshit he’d do, too.”
“Passive-aggressive?” Jenna asked. “You were attacked.”
“From behind. He hit me over the head, Jen. I don’t have any mark on me other than a few scrapes on my hand from fighting back. It wasn’t a fair fight. That bastard doesn’t know how to fight fair.”
He started for the door, but Jenna grabbed his arm and Charlie planted his feet, lifting his hands to stop him.
“I don’t know that it was him, but the police are handling it. And you’re going to let them, Danny. You’ve come too far to screw things up now.”
“Daniel, please,” Jenna softly pleaded. “Don’t do something stupid.”
He clenched his fists and his jaw and every other muscle in his body followed. He was wound up and ready to even the score. “He destroyed your restaurant because of me.”
“We don’t know anything yet.”
Closing his eyes, he exhaled and looked away. He knew. He’d brought this down on her. She’d paid for his mistake. She’d suffered because of what he’d done.
“I came to tell you so you wouldn’t go off when the police get here and question you, Danny. You keep your cool and you answer their questions and you bite back any dumbass notion you have to make threats. You’ve been lucky so far, but if you lose your temper with the cops you’ll be in jail. You hear me?”
A new layer of desperation touched Jenna’s voice. “Daniel. Listen to him.” A car door slammed in the alley and she pulled at his arm. “Stay calm.”
He swallowed, tried to bury his anger, and nodded. He’d stay calm. He’d keep his cool. But that didn’t mean he was any less inclined to hunt Joel Taylor down and put that pissant in his place.
Chapter 22
Jenna ran the shop vac Charlie had lent her over the last booth in the dining room. She was as confident as she could have been that no shards of glass remained ready to cut an unwitting customer. Charlie had saved the day more than once. First sending guys over to cover her windows, then giving Daniel a heads-up about his suspicions as to who had attacked him and vandalized the diner. Then he’d shown up with this super-powered vacuum to make cleaning easier. She was so glad that he and Daniel were repairing their relationship, and not just because it was helping her. If Charlie hadn’t come here and warned Daniel that the police would be along to question him and why, Daniel probably would have lost his temper.
Instead, he’d answered their inquiry without incident. He’d been noticeably distant since, though. He wiped a rag over the counter for what she thought could have been the hundredth time. His body was there, but his mind was a thousand miles away. She wanted to ask him, but didn’t think she really wanted to know. Guilt hadn’t stopped playing across his face since the police left.
Though the police had yet to find Joel Taylor and confirm his innocence or guilt, Daniel had already convicted the man. As Marcus had pointed out earlier, heaven help the man who did this if Daniel found him before the police.
