Twin Targets. Marta Perry
Читать онлайн книгу.
That didn’t sound very gracious, but it was the best she could do right now. She didn’t trust the man. How could she? He’d let her sister down. He’d brought danger to her home.
The chair scraped against the floor. He sat down across from her, planting his elbow on the table, making the pine surface instantly smaller. Obviously he wasn’t just going to go away. That would be too simple.
“I’m sorry.”
She looked up, startled, to meet his gaze. “Sorry?”
“For your sister’s death. For your trouble.” He made a small, seemingly involuntary gesture with his hands, and his brown eyes darkened with what looked like genuine sorrow.
Her throat tightened. She wouldn’t cry in front of him. She wouldn’t. But it took all her strength to hold the tears back. “Thank you.” Her voice was husky.
He let the silence stretch between them for a moment. Then…“You knew Ruby was in Montana.”
For a moment his persistence angered her. But what was the point in keeping it secret? She couldn’t protect Ruby now.
“I knew. She wasn’t supposed to tell me, but she did.”
“How? Did she call you? Write to you?” He leaned toward her, face intent.
She shook her head. “She let me know near the end of the trial. The FBI agents brought her to the library where I was working to say goodbye.”
“They’d have stayed with her the whole time.” His tone showed he doubted her.
“Ruby was an old hand at fooling people.” She almost smiled at the thought. “She fiddled with one of the reference books on my desk while we talked. I didn’t think anything of it. I’m sure the agents didn’t, either. But afterward I found the slip of paper she’d stuck in it. Montana, it said. That’s all.”
“She was in touch again.”
She looked at him, startled. “No. I told you. I never heard anything more from her.”
Level brows lifted above stony brown eyes. “You expect me to believe that you quit your job and moved across the country on the basis of that one word.” Flat with doubt, his voice challenged her.
Anger flared. “I don’t know what to expect of you, Deputy Marshal McGraw, but that happens to be the truth.”
He leaned back in the chair, putting a few more inches between them. Stared at her, his eyes dark and intense. Waited.
She waited, too. If he thought he was going to trick her into explaining an act she didn’t quite understand herself, he’d wait a long time.
Finally he lifted an eyebrow again. “So. That’s it? You just moved out here on a whim. You figured fate would bring you back in touch with your sister if you were in the same state?”
Pain twisted inside her. That was exactly what she’d thought. But it hadn’t.
“If I thought that, then I was wrong, wasn’t I? I didn’t get to see her, and now she’s dead.”
You were supposed to protect her. She didn’t say the words, but he was probably smart enough to know she was thinking them.
“Let’s go over it again,” he said. “Tell me exactly what happened when….”
The back door opened before he could finish. One of the uniformed men met McGraw’s eyes, jerked his head toward the backyard.
McGraw rose. “I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
She made no move, watching as he left the room. Then reaction set in, and her hands trembled. She clasped them, pressing her palms together.
She couldn’t let the man get to her like this. She was not at fault in what had happened, and she wouldn’t let him make her feel like a criminal.
Shoving her chair back, she got to her feet, grasping the table for a moment as if she were an old woman. Then she moved toward the living room door. Surely they were finished by now. Maybe she could straighten up in there.
She pushed the door open, stepped through and stopped. Stared. And caught her breath on a sob.
“Get anything more from her?” Arthur Phillips, Micah’s immediate superior, blew out a breath on the frosty air, sending up a misty cloud.
“Not much.” Micah shoved his hands in his pockets. “According to her, Ruby tipped her that she was being sent to Montana right under the noses of the agents who were guarding her. Says she moved out here but never heard from Ruby again.”
“You believe she actually came here just on the chance she’d run into her sister?”
Micah considered. He’d been skeptical, too, but…“We might want to push some more on that, but it sounded genuine.”
“Could be, I guess. They were identical twins, so I suppose the bond runs pretty deep.” Phillips’s cold blue eyes surveyed him. “Or she could be involved herself in the mess Ruby was in. That would account for the shooters coming after her.”
Micah nodded slowly. “It still doesn’t make much sense. Why did they need to kill both twins? And I told you what I heard the shooter say.”
“‘What if this isn’t the right one, either?’” Phillips repeated the words that had been echoing in Micah’s head for the past hour or so. “What did he mean? Why was Ruby not the right one? And if she wasn’t…”
“Like I said, it doesn’t make sense.”
Phillips’s scowl said he didn’t like things that didn’t make sense. “Whatever it means, the Summers woman needs both investigation and protection. You think you can talk her into moving somewhere safe?”
“I can try. She doesn’t seem to trust us too much.”
“Try hard. Convince her we’re the good guys. I want to be sure she’s safe and someplace where we can get our hands on her until we figure out what’s going on.”
Phillips’s tone dismissed him. Nodding, Micah turned back to the house.
He’d said Jade didn’t trust them, but as far as he could see, that mistrust was aimed straight at him personally. And he suspected Jade had a fierce stubborn streak behind her prim, soft exterior.
He pushed into the kitchen. She wasn’t there, but a sound came from the living room beyond. He went through the room in a few quick strides.
Jade knelt over the remains of a curio shelf the shooters had knocked off the wall. Her shoulders shook and tears rained down her face.
“Are you all right?” As he neared, he saw that the shelf had contained a collection of crystal bells, shattered now beyond any hope of repair. “Careful. Don’t cut yourself.”
“I won’t.” She stood, keeping her face averted, probably not wanting him to see her cry.
“I’m sorry. I’m afraid they’re a total loss. Were they a special memento?” The bells must mean something, to bring her to tears.
“No.” Her voice turned cool as she swung to face him. “It’s nothing. I’d just like to clean up in here, if you people are finished.”
She made it sound as if they’d done the damage. Jade Summers must have steel in her backbone, to react as calmly as she had to the events of the morning.
She had been shaken but dry-eyed at the news of her sister’s death. Now she wept over a few broken bells. He didn’t have a clue to what went on inside her. His chief was letting him play a lone hand with the woman, and he had to do it right.
“Cleaning up will have to wait. I have a few more questions.”
Her lips tightened. “I’ve already told you everything I know. Whoever led those