The Wedding Assignment Page 15

Can it, Cotter, he ordered himself. For one thing, RaeAnne seemed farther from his reach than ever tonight, and more stubborn about refusing to yield an inch until she had definite confirmation of Rodney’s guilt. For another, Wiley needed his concentration if he was going to do a careful job of tailing Rodney Dietrich. He couldn’t do that if he was picturing Rae-Anne’s skin, the color of light cream and twice as smooth.

  “At least that dress is better than what you were wearing last time we took off together.” He made his words deliberately blunt.

  She frowned at him. “We are not taking off together,” she told him. “We’re collecting evidence, that’s all.”

  Wiley snorted and looked at the road. He stayed silent, watching as Rodney’s truck turned onto a bigger road and then took an exit for a small town Wiley had heard of but never been to.

  He kept well back until the two vehicles had almost reached the town square. His whole body, from the kink in his neck to the tight knot where his heel hit the floor of the cab, was feeling the strain of sitting this close to Rae-Anne Blackburn without touching her.

  Keep your hands around the wheel, he told himself. And your eyes on the road.

  At first he thought it was all going to go off without a hitch. They arrived at the center of the town, which was designed, like so many Texas hill towns, around the hub of a broad town square with a tall limestone courthouse rising out of the middle of it.

  Dietrich had chosen a parking space across from the courthouse entrance, and Wiley could immediately see why. “The automatic teller machine,” he murmured. “Just what I figured.” Surely the sight of her boyfriend depositing pile after pile of cash through this small-town teller machine would convince Rae-Anne that she’d been wrong about Rodney.

  “He told me he was going to San Antonio.” Her voice sounded pensive.

  “Kind of taking the long way around, isn’t he?”

  “Don’t rub it in, Wiley. Where are you going?”

  Wiley had spotted a narrow alleyway—more like a gap between two buildings, really—right next to the bank. If he could get into that from the back, he thought, he would have a clear sight of Rodney at the teller machine. He jockeyed the truck into a small parking lot behind the bank, explaining to Rae-Anne what he was after.

  “A picture of him at a teller machine won’t prove anything by itself,” she told him.

  “No. But a picture, plus my testimony, plus the transaction record for an account with Rodney’s name on it, should get any jury beyond the reasonable doubt stage. Wait here, all right, honey?” He said the words quickly, hoping she might listen to him for once.

  She didn’t, of course. She was out of the truck almost before he’d finished speaking.

  “There isn’t room in that alley for both of us,” he told her.

  “I don’t care. Please, Wiley.”

  Wiley had already started toward the end of the alley, but the intensity of Rae-Anne’s voice stopped him.

  She never begged for things. The pleading sound in her words now, and the struggle going on in her blue eyes, hit him hard.

  Suddenly he felt the way he had when he’d seen her crying that first day outside the limo. Rae-Anne never cried, either. She argued as fiercely as anybody he’d ever met, and she negotiated, and she fought when she had to. But she didn’t cry, and she didn’t beg.

  She’d done both in the past few days. And both times it had been on Rodney Dietrich’s account. Wiley ground his back teeth together and wished like hell that smooth-talking swindler had been worth even half of what Rae-Anne clearly felt for him.

  “I have to know the truth about this,” she was saying. “I’m tired of trusting other people’s versions of things. Please, Wiley. Let’s not waste time.”

  Her dark red hair was still pulled back in a loose braid, but a few strands had come free in the breeze. They swirled around her face, making her look even more uncertain and vulnerable. He could see that faint scattering of freckles across the bridge of her nose, over the gentle slope of her cheekbones. Those remnants of her girlhood only showed themselves when she was very pale for some reason.

  He’d kissed the delicate curve of her temple so many times, following the trail left by those almost-invisible freckles. He’d done it on Saturday night, when he’d held her in his arms and caressed the color into her too-white face. He wanted to do the same thing now, to soften the tight, unhappy line of her lips and see her turn into his own stubborn Rae-Anne again, with the flash of pure spirit in her blue eyes.

  He had no right to do any of those things, because he was one of those people whose versions of things Rae-Anne had learned not to trust. The pleading note in her voice made him uncomfortable because he knew all too well why it was there.

  And anyway, she was right that they were wasting precious time. “All right,” he muttered, and led the way toward the alley.

  Chapter 10

  They managed to slide along the alleyway side by side, their backs flattened against the wall of the building next to the bank. When they got close to the street, though, they ran into trouble.

  “I want to see what’s going on,” Rae-Anne insisted.

  “I know you do,” Wiley whispered, “but this whole thing is going to be a waste of time unless I can get a shot at him with the camera. Here—”

  They finally compromised by having Rae-Anne tuck herself against Wiley’s chest, half-sheltered by one of his arms, while he leaned toward the street with his camera in his hand. He didn’t want to lean as far as the opening of the alleyway until he was certain he had a clear sight line, but he needed to keep track of what Rodney was up to.

  So far it seemed to involve sealing up deposit envelopes and writing on the outside of them. Judging by what Wiley knew of the amounts of cash involved in this operation, this part of it could take a while.

  “What’s he doing?” Rae-Anne demanded.

  “Depositing money.”

  “Depositing it? Are you sure?”

  “See for yourself.”

  It seemed safe enough to let her push past him for a quick look. Rodney’s back was turned toward them, and aside from some faint noises coming from a bar on the other side of the town square, the place seemed deserted at this late hour.

  But safe was a relative term. Wiley groaned at the sensation of Rae-Anne’s hips pushing against him, and lifted his arms a little higher to try to get out of temptation’s way. If he started letting his desires run away with him again, he could be in serious trouble. He’d felt the stirring of arousal the moment Rae-Anne had moved close to him in the small, enclosed space of the alley, and it was taking all his willpower to keep from touching her now.

  She seemed intent on watching Rodney, though, unaware of Wiley’s reaction to their closeness. As she moved into her original position, sliding past Wiley’s body a second time, she gave a startled half laugh. “It’s a good thing I’m not any more pregnant than I am, or this would never work,” she said.

  Wiley ducked his head toward the street again and decided it was probably worth getting a shot of Dietrich slipping those piles of cash into the deposit envelopes. Even after he’d focused and taken the picture, though, he was still thinking about Rae-Anne’s comment.

  “You think Rodney’ll be a good father?” His chest felt as narrow and constricted as the damned alleyway as he formed the question, but he got the words out anyway.

  “He’s always wanted children.”

  “Just like you, right?”

  She lifted her chin. “That’s right.”

  “Why did you wait until now?”

  She hesitated, but Wiley waited her out. “The time and place never seemed right before,” she said finally.

  “So having a big house in the country is what makes it practical to have children, huh?”

  “Give me a break, Wiley.”

  “That’s not a real answer.”

  “Well, it’s not a real good time to be asking me these questions, is it?” He could feel her flash of temp
er in the way she turned to look at him. Her white dress swirled slightly as she moved, making her seem ethereal, just barely real.

  Why was he needling her about her desire to have children? Did it have something to do with the fact that ever since their conversation in the cellar this afternoon he’d been grappling with the image of himself as a child and with that troublesome memory of the night he’d watched out the upstairs window as his father and brother disappeared into the darkness?

  You’re conducting a surveillance job here, he reminded himself. Keep your mind on it.

  He snuck another look at the bank machine, and saw that Rodney was beginning to make his deposits. Wiley steadied the camera with both hands, focused carefully and got a couple of shots that not only showed clearly what Rodney was doing, but even included the town clock in the background as an extra added bonus. It was one of the reasons he’d chosen this hiding place. The evidence of a specific place and time would add some punch to the case against Rodney, he knew.

  Rae-Anne demanded to know what was happening, and he pressed himself flat against the brick wall to let her slide past him again. He’d heard a car drive by and park in the town square a few minutes ago, but everything was quiet now, or so he thought until Rae-Anne suddenly gasped and drew her head in.

  “What is it?” Wiley’s voice was as soft as he could make it.

  “Those men—”

  He could feel her whole body shaking and slid an arm around her shoulders before leaning cautiously to his left and sneaking a look at the town square. There were two men in casual suits, their collars open, their walk relaxed, sauntering along the sidewalk toward the bank.

  “You know who they are?” he whispered.

  She nodded tightly. “They backed me into an elevator at the hotel yesterday and told me to stop asking questions about Rodney’s business.”

  He bit off the expletive that came immediately to his mind. This wasn’t the time to demand why the hell RaeAnne hadn’t told him about this before. If these were the mob’s knee breakers come to check up on what Rodney was doing, he needed to get the encounter on film, and on tape, too, if he could.

  “What is that?” He heard Rae-Anne’s soft murmur at his ear as he pulled his trusty microcassette recorder out of the pocket of his shirt. He held it up for her to see, then plugged in the microphone and unwound the cord to its fullest length. If they had to retreat down the alley in a hurry, he wanted to be ready.

  The two sets of footsteps were almost at the bank. Wiley heard them pause and then heard the soft tapping of knuckles against glass.

  “Wiley, what if they hurt him? What if—”

  Wiley put his finger over his lips, and Rae-Anne stopped speaking. He could see anxiety brightening her eyes even in the dimness of the alley.

  He wasn’t sure what he was going to do if the two guys were here to rough up Rodney, or worse. He couldn’t stand the idea of Rae-Anne watching, but the past few days had taught him that it was a waste of time to try to make her do things for her own safety, her own good. If Rodney was in trouble, and Rae-Anne tried to intervene—

  He clamped down on his molars again and told himself this was the very last time he was ever going to combine work and pleasure, if pleasure was the right word for it. Trying to be on his guard against what the two strangers might do on the one hand, and how Rae-Anne might react, on the other, was like being caught in a tractor pull.

  He could hear the bank lobby door opening, but at first he wasn’t sure whether Rodney was coming out or the two men were going in. He set the little microphone down at the mouth of the alley just in case and carefully laid the cord along the edge of the building where it wouldn’t be noticeable.

  A moment later he was glad he’d done it, as he heard three voices getting closer and closer to the mouth of the alley.

  “How did you find me?” That was Rodney. He sounded perplexed, but not worried.

  One of the tall men chuckled. “We can always find you, Rod,” he said. “We like to keep track of the people we do business with.”

  “Traced the truck, huh? I thought you trusted me more than that, after all this time.”

  The second man cut in, “Never mind that.”

  They’d almost reached the alleyway. It was a natural place for them to head, Wiley realized. Away from the light of the bank lobby, they would be able to talk in the same shadows that had made him see the spot as a good hiding place.

  “Hell,” he said, almost soundlessly. “Let’s go, honey.”

  They’d gotten halfway down the alley when the three men stopped at the other end of it. Wiley took hold of RaeAnne’s wrist and held her still. If they kept moving, they risked catching someone’s eye.

  It was only slightly less risky to stay motionless. Wiley held on hard to Rae-Anne’s arm, trying to impress the danger of their situation on her.

  She was barely breathing, and he knew that she was listening, as he was, for the slightest word from the men at the end of the alley. Don’t let them look down, Wiley prayed silently. Don’t let them notice the microphone on the ground.

  “So why’d you come all the way out here?” Rodney was asking. “Armand made the drop all right. There’s nothing to worry about.”

  He felt Rae-Anne stiffen for some reason, but she didn’t make a sound. Wiley wouldn’t have noticed the movement if she hadn’t been pressed so close against his side.

  “Armand said you didn’t invite him in to count the cash like you usually do.”

  “I was in the middle of something. It wasn’t safe.”

  “We’d like to know what you were in the middle of.”

  Wiley was keeping his face averted. He was wearing dark clothing, and he knew the back of his head was a heck of a lot less noticeable than the flash of his eyes might have been. But he wished he could turn around long enough to see Rodney’s face and get some idea whether the man was operating out of bravado or whether he really was as calm as he sounded.

  “I was having a hard time with Rae-Anne. She just isn’t letting this thing drop.”

  “She’s got to go, Rodney. She’s just too big a risk.”

  “No!” The word was quick and definite. “If anything happens to Rae-Anne, the deal is off. You know that.”

  “Then find a way to shut her up.”

  “I’ve found one. I’m going to suggest that she and I go away for a while.”

  There was a pause. The man who spoke sounded almost amused as he said, “Long-range planning never was your strong suit, Rod. How does going away solve anything?”

  “It’ll give me a chance to talk up the family angle—you know, get her thinking about the baby instead of the business stuff.”

  The silence this time made Wiley think the two men were exchanging looks. “Sounds iffy,” one of them said finally.

  “It’s not!” Rodney was on edge, Wiley realized. He’d just been covering it up well, keeping up an act, the way he’d been doing with Rae-Anne all along. “Look, you don’t have to worry about Rae-Anne. I told you that already.”

  “What if your little getaway doesn’t work the right kind of magic?”

  “Then I’ll think of something else.”

  There was one good thing about the edge of panic in Rodney’s voice, Wiley thought. It meant Rae-Anne’s fiancé was genuinely concerned about her. It was the only positive thing Wiley could see in the whole situation.

  “We had to step in and bail you out the last time, remember?” one of them was saying.

  “You think I’m likely to forget?” Rodney sounded bitter about it.

  “Yeah, well, just don’t screw up over a broad this time, too, all right? We’re happy to see you hard at work putting that cash where it belongs, Rod, but we’d be even happier if you could put a lid on that girlfriend of yours.”

  “I’ll do it.” Rodney’s voice was lower now, more subdued. “Leave Rae-Anne to me. I’ll do it.”

  “Good. And while we’re talking, we’ve got another piece of news for you.�
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  “News?” Rodney sounded uneasy, and Wiley didn’t blame him.

  “We’ve got out-of-town visitors coming to check over the books. You know who I mean.”

  “When?”

  “They’re flying in first thing in the morning. We told them you’d be happy to arrange accommodations for them. A suite downtown oughtta do it.”

  “Sure. You know I will.”

  “We also told them you’ll be happy to go over your figures for the past quarter.”

  “Hey, you guys know me. I’m a businessman. When have I ever tried to back out of—”

  The first man’s voice cut him off. “That’s the news, Rod. Get a suite ready for them, and be there to meet them by nine. You got that?”

  “Yeah. I got it.”

  “No…”

  It was almost inaudible, barely a breath on the cool evening air as the word escaped Rae-Anne’s lips. By itself it probably wouldn’t have reached the men on the sidewalk. The soft protest seemed to come from deep inside, from the sheltered place where Rae-Anne had nursed her hopes that this time her happiness might last.

  Rodney Dietrich had destroyed those hopes. And Wiley could understand why Rae-Anne hadn’t been able to restrain that small, anguished sound as she understood how wrong she’d been to pin her hopes on the man who’d fathered her child.

  It was that empathy that undid him. He turned toward Rae-Anne, constricted in the narrow space of the alley, and one of his boot heels scuffed against the pavement under his feet as he moved.

  “Hold on. What was that?”

  Wiley winced at the words and gripped Rae-Anne’s arms as tightly as he could, willing her to stand absolutely still. If they were lucky—

  They weren’t. He could hear steps shuffling at the mouth of the alley and felt sinkingly certain that one or both of the strangers was peering into the darkness, looking for the source of the sound.

  “There’s somebody down there.” The man’s voice had gotten quieter. Wiley didn’t like the cool, brisk sound of it. If he was the one at the open end of the alley, he knew exactly what he’d be doing now. He’d be taking up a cautious stance with his back against the bank building and getting his gun out.