Official Escort. Jean Barrett
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in Indiana when she saw me on a newscast involving that Milwaukee Brewers case and learned I was in Milwaukee. That’s when she found the guts to come to me and agree to testify against Griff Matisse.”
Matisse. Another name that had Mitch’s insides tightening in rage. “Matisse is your cop killer?”
Neil nodded. “Back in San Francisco.”
“Then, what is Milwaukee doing protecting her? Why isn’t one of those close friends of yours from the Frisco force taking charge of her? You always said they’re the best.”
“The DA’s office in San Francisco is going to send an escort for her. They’re just waiting until they can get a secure safe house set up for her out there—one that Matisse can’t penetrate this time. You know how delayed everything gets around the holiday. Meanwhile, they think she’s better off in this area.”
“Even with a dirty cop on your force passing information to Matisse’s connections here?” This just didn’t make sense to Mitch. “You sure?”
“That’s the decision.”
Mitch shook his head, still puzzled. “It’s a bad decision. And I’ll tell you one that’s even worse—you wanting to stash her out here with me.”
“Just for a few days,” Neil pleaded. “Just until after Christmas. By then, we’ll either have plugged our leak here, or the safe house will be ready for her in California. Look, I’d keep her myself, but my house is no secret.”
“And mine isn’t vulnerable like that, huh? Besides, I should want to do it, now that I know Madeline Raeburn has found both a conscience and courage. Except,” he added cynically, “I’ve got to wonder whether that’s why she came to you or whether she finally realized she isn’t safe anywhere and needed police protection to save her own neck.”
“Maybe she sees it as risking her neck.”
“Yeah? Then, if she’s so good, why did she wait until now to talk? Why didn’t she open up to you when Julie was murdered?”
Neil gazed at him, his face solemn. “When did you become so bitter, Mitch?”
Mitch squirmed under the sorrowful expression in his friend’s eyes. He knew that Neil was right. He had become bitter since Julie’s death. It was something he needed to lose, but he also knew that could never happen with Madeline Raeburn in his house.
“I’d like to help you out, Neil, but I can’t do it. The answer is no.”
His friend didn’t say anything. He just went on gazing at him, while Mitch stood there, trying to look casual about his emphatic refusal. And then Neil delivered his final shot, the one he must have been saving for this exact moment.
“That’s too bad, Mitch,” he said quietly. “Because if Matisse was responsible for Julie’s death last summer, and we don’t keep Madeline Raeburn alive to testify against him, then he ends up not paying for any of it. You want to see him just walk away again?”
It was an argument for which Mitch had no defense, and his friend knew that. He stared at Neil in an explosive frustration that finally released itself when he snatched up the business card from the table, crushing it angrily in his fist.
Neil, understanding the surrender that anger signified, nodded slowly. “You coming out to the car with me, or do you want to wait here while I bring her in?”
Mitch answered by striding across the room and snagging his leather jacket from a hook on the wall. “She know who I am?” he asked, shrugging into the coat.
“You mean that you’re Julie’s ‘Mickey’? You don’t think she would have agreed to come out here if she did, do you? And let’s keep it that way, please. I don’t want to risk her going on the run again. She’s already nervous enough after last night.”
Mitch nodded as he zipped up the jacket. He remembered how Neil, after questioning Madeline Raeburn last summer, had told him that Julie apparently had never referred to him at the Phoenix by anything other than her playful nickname for him. Their private joke. Mitch also remembered how Neil, with just short of physical force, had managed to keep him from going to Matisse and Madeline Raeburn. Mad with grief, he’d wanted to tear both of them apart. He realized as he joined Neil by the door that that memory was still painful.
“And, Mitch?”
“Yeah?”
“Anything happens—not that it will—you won’t let me down, will you? You’ll stick by her?”
Mitch promised, and they went out on the porch. The cop swore. “Damn it, I told her to stay in the car.”
Madeline stood a few yards away from the car, her back to them as she gazed off into the wooded hills.
“Nice beginning,” Mitch muttered. “A woman with her own mind.”
“You just treat her right,” Neil instructed him as they started toward the car. “She’s been through a lot.”
“Hell, Neil,” Mitch said dryly, “before it’s over we’re gonna be best friends. Probably share the same toothbrush.”
Madeline must have heard their approach. She swung to face them, looking immediately wary when she realized Neil was not alone. Mitch tried to feel no emotion as they stood there near the car, taking each other’s measure. But holding his feelings in check wasn’t possible, not with what felt like a fist slowly squeezing his insides as he looked at her.
Her admirers hadn’t exaggerated. She was everything he had heard she was: a tall, leggy beauty with wide, amber eyes and a mane of dark red hair that was probably the result of Scottish ancestry. But he had expected no less. Griff Matisse wouldn’t have owned her if she hadn’t been stunning.
What did surprise Mitch was her youth. She couldn’t have been older than her early twenties. Still, there was a self-possession about her, which he supposed he had to respect considering she must be terrified under all that seemingly quiet composure.
If she was conscious of her looks and how they might be affecting a man she was meeting for the first time—and in Mitch’s experience women like her always were—she gave no indication. But, hell, she didn’t have to be conscious of her looks. Mitch was fully aware of them for her. And he didn’t like his reaction. Not one bit. Her mere existence was problem enough.
“Madeline,” Neil introduced him, “this is Mitchell Hawke.”
“Looks like I’ve been elected to take care of you,” Mitch said. It was the best he had to offer her.
There was a bad moment while she went on silently regarding him. Did his name mean something to her, after all? Or had another recognition occurred, the physical one that was certainly possible?
Mitch relaxed, and Neil with him, when she finally nodded gravely and extended a gloved hand. Mitch accepted the slim hand. Her clasp was brief but firm; her voice was low and husky—the kind that did things to a man’s imagination.
“Thank you for letting me be your guest,” she said simply. And then her thickly lashed gaze flicked toward Neil. “It is all arranged, isn’t it?” she asked, a note of concern in her voice.
“Everything’s settled,” Neil assured her. He opened the back door of the car and took out a single suitcase.
Madeline went to the front and removed a bulging canvas satchel. It looked heavy. Mitch tried to take it from her, but she clung to it possessively.
“I’ll carry it,” she informed him, holding it close.
Mitch, leading the way to the house, wondered what she was guarding in that satchel. It was one more complication in a situation that was already difficult. He knew this was not going to be an easy few days. How could it be, when, once Neil was gone, he would be alone with Madeline Raeburn and all that alluring red hair?
CLARK GABLE.
That’s