Eyewitness

Chapter Nine

Kieran held his breath. If Michael went ballistic or shut down even further, it would stretch Kieran’s nonexistent parenting skills to the snapping point. Had Devon chosen this moment, hoping the news would launch Michael back into the world of the living?

Or had she done it to launch him back into the world of the living?

Michael’s small hand clutched his red crayon, and then he glanced up quickly. “I know.”

Kieran almost slid off the bed as relief poured through his body. Devon had made the right move. If she hadn’t told him, Michael would be wondering why they were keeping it a secret.

Devon blew out a noisy breath-must’ve been holding hers, too-and plopped down next to Kieran on the hospital bed. Her hands trembled as she pleated Michael’s covers with agitated fingers.

“Is that okay with you, buddy?” Kieran chucked Michael under the chin with his knuckle, wondering if buddy was an okay term. Too corny? Too 1950s? Hell, what did he know?

Michael smiled and nodded. Seemed an understated response to potentially life-changing news, but then the kid, his son, had pretty much been acting like a robot since the moment Kieran had met him. But he’d take the smile.

Devon smoothed a lock of dark hair from Michael’s brow, her fingers still shaky. “Okay, then. Let’s get you all checked out and you and your father can get to know each other better.”

The doctor chose that moment to come in for one last check of Michael’s vitals. Raising his brows, his gaze bounced among the three of them. “Everything okay?”

Kieran tweaked Michael’s nose to break the tension, and Michael rewarded him with another smile. “Everything’s great, Doc. Do your thing so we can get this young man out of here.”

As the doctor whipped out his little flashlight and tongue depressor, Kieran pulled Devon into the corridor. “Your instincts were right on with that one. He probably would’ve been even more confused had we continued to keep it a secret.”

“I agree. I’m glad he didn’t freak out and withdraw even further into his shell, but I went with my instincts on that one.”

“How’d you know he wouldn’t?”

She shrugged. “He smiled at you when we came into the room-at you, not me. His smiles are few and far between these days.”

“I’m glad you trusted your parental instincts. I’m going to have to work on those.”

“It comes…with time. I’m just sorry that everything’s so messed up right now. The way Michael has been questioning me lately about his father, I expected more of a reaction. I’m sorry. It’s not the homecoming I had dreamed about.”

“At least you’d dreamed about one.”

They collected Michael and secured him in his car seat. Kieran had to start somewhere, so he insisted on fiddling with the car seat’s straps and buckles himself. Michael helped him by handing him one of the latches.

“You’re pretty handy, huh? That’s why you’re going to go to the hardware store with me.” He turned to Devon. “Driver?”

“Luckily there’s an outdoor shopping center with a hardware store and a few places for me because I’m going to leave that nuts-and-bolts shopping to you guys.” Her gaze wandered to the rearview mirror. “Is that okay with you, Michael?”

Kieran didn’t dare turn around. He didn’t want to put any pressure on his son, but apparently the idea met with his approval because Devon nodded as she started the car.

As she swung into the large parking lot of the shopping center, Kieran leaned over and said in a low voice, “Does he sit in the basket?”

“Ask him. Sometimes he likes to for fun and sometimes he’d rather walk.”

Kieran plumbed the depths of his addled mind for other scenarios he could encounter on this shopping trip. He didn’t trust his judgment to make the right choice when the time came.

He swiped at a trickle of sweat along his hairline. Being a father contained more landmines than an enemy outpost.

Devon nabbed a parking space somewhere between the giant hardware store at the far end of the lot and an equally giant linens store. “Okay, you guys are on your own.”

Her simple words sent more fear to his belly than he’d ever encountered as a soldier. But in Michael’s state, he proved to be a docile companion, preferring to walk, although he clung to the basket, and agreeing with every one of Kieran’s suggestions.

In a short time, Kieran had cruised through the store and picked up the items he’d need to outfit Mrs. Reese’s home with enough sensor lighting to pick up a stray beetle. It had better be enough to scare off a killer.

Devon texted him while he was waiting in the check-out line to meet her at the coffee place at the northwest corner of the parking lot. Kieran paid for the purchases and handed Michael two bags to carry. At least Michael seemed physically strong and fit. The mind? They could work on that. They could both work on that.

As he and Michael sauntered to Devon’s table, she wore a worried look and had a cell phone pressed to her ear. Kieran’s pace quickened along with his pulse.

When Devon noticed their approach, she put up her index finger.

“It sure looks that way, Detective Marquette.”

Kieran yanked out a chair for Michael and another for himself. It was the SFPD homicide detective.

Devon shook her head. “I doubt it. Too coincidental, don’t you think?”

She paused and rolled her eyes at Kieran. He wished she’d put that thing on speaker, but she probably didn’t want to scare Michael.

Devon slammed her frothy coffee drink on the table and gripped the phone with two hands. “Things? What things?”

She then rattled off the address of her mother’s house and ended the call. “That was Detective Marquette.” She toyed with the straw on her frozen coffee drink, and then dug into her purse. She opened her palm to reveal several coins. “Michael, do you want to toss some coins into the fountain and make a wish? We’ll be right here.”

He held out his hand and she dumped the change into it.

Kieran watched Michael walk to the fountain, and then turned to Devon. “Everything okay?”

“Detective Marquette is already on his way down.”

“That’s a good thing.”

“Yeah.” She drew her bottom lip between her teeth and studied Michael perched on the edge of the fountain chucking coins into the water. “He said he had some things to discuss with me about Mrs. Del Vecchio.”

“That’s the purpose of the visit, right? That and connecting some dots with these attacks on you.”

She shoved the drink away from her. “It’s the way he said it. Things. Like Mrs. Del Vecchio had something in her past.”

“She might. Maybe that’s why the killer targeted her.” He spread his hands. “So what’s the problem?”

“The problem is that I allowed Michael unsupervised visits with her without knowing her past. I could’ve put him in danger.”

Kieran wiped the back of his hand across his mouth. Guess the insecurities about parenthood never ended. If Devon still questioned herself, what chance did he have at getting this right? “She was an old woman. Why would you think there was a problem?”

She flattened her hands on the wrought-iron table and curled her fingers into the gaps. “I don’t know-that instinct thing. I should’ve noticed something. Mrs. Del Vecchio was a little odd, but colorful and harmless…or so I thought.”

He covered one of her hands with his. “You don’t even know what Marquette is going to say. Stop beating yourself up.”

She parted her lips, and he could almost taste the coffee and sweet cream on her mouth. “Kieran…”

The words were lost as Michael approached the table with his hands shoved into his pockets.

“So, did you make some good wishes?”

Michael kicked the toe of his sneaker against the leg of his chair and nodded.

“I hope they all come true.” She pointed to the bulging bag that Michael had lugged from the hardware store. “Looks like you’re ready for a top secret operation.”

“Top secret.” Michael climbed into a chair and licked his lips while staring at the see-through plastic cup.

Devon popped the lid off her coffee drink and shoved it over to Michael. “You can have the whipped cream but no coffee.”

Michael started poking at the mound of cream with the straw and Devon folded her hands around her cell phone and raised her eyes to Kieran’s face. “So, do you think this top secret operation is going to be successful?”

“I guess we’ll find out.” Kieran smacked the table. “What do you say, Michael? Are you ready to get operation safe house up and running?”

Two hours later, Kieran stepped back from the house, hands on his hips, and surveyed his handiwork. Who knew putting up lights to catch a killer would bring him one step closer to his son? If Michael was afraid for his mother, afraid for himself, this activity had given him back a little control.

Kieran knew all about feeling helpless and what that could do to your insides.

Devon joined him on the porch. “All done?”

“Yep. I don’t think so much as a blade of grass will sway out here without setting off those lights.”

“Great. Mom’s neighbors are going to love me.” She jumped off the bottom step and crouched next to Michael, who was busy studying a line of ants trundling up the driveway. “It’s after two o’clock. You must be hungry. I made some sandwiches.”

Michael abandoned the ants and scurried into the house, holding up his hand for a quick high five from Kieran on the way inside.

Kieran stared after him. “Seems to be getting his appetite back.”

“Seems to be getting a lot back since we told him about you.” She put her hand on his arm to stop him from following Michael. “While you guys were working out here, I got a call from Detective Marquette. He’s stopping by Coral Cove P.D. first and will be here around four o’clock.”

“That’s good. Don’t worry about it.”

“I’m worried about Michael. Seeing Detective Marquette will remind him about Granny Del’s death. He’ll associate him with that time.”

“He still takes naps, right?”

She nodded. “Most of the time.”

“After all the excitement of the past few days, he should be ready to crash after he eats. Maybe he’ll sleep through the detective’s visit.”

“The car puts him to sleep. Maybe we can go for a quick drive before Detective Marquette gets here.”

He held open the screen door for her. “Let’s eat first. I’m starving.”

She patted his stomach. “You seem to be getting your appetite back, too.”

Her fingers skimmed the waistband of his shorts, and he bit the inside of his cheek. He had appetites, all right, and they included more than a sandwich and an apple.

Devon poured Michael a glass of milk and then stood with the refrigerator door open. “Kieran, would you like lemonade? Iced tea?”

“Water.” He pushed back from the table. “I’ll get it. Sit down and eat.”

While they were eating, Devon dropped the crust of her sandwich and brushed her fingers together. “I forgot to ask you about the diary. Did you drop it at the house when…when we were there?”

“I must have. I probably dropped it in the library. And I forgot to tell you in all the-” he shot a quick glance at Michael busily dunking cookies in his milk “-excitement that I made out a name on the back cover just before all the…excitement.”

“Really?” Devon planted her elbows on the table and sunk her chin in her hands, her eyes shining with anticipation.

“I hate to burst your bubble, but the diary wasn’t some old heirloom. The name I saw on the back cover was Marissa St. Regis and a date.”

“Oh, not very interesting.” She plucked a paper napkin out of the holder on the table and tossed it to Michael. “Wipe your fingers.”

“And the date was recent, maybe ten years ago.”

“Ten years ago? That’s about the time she ran off with Mia’s boyfriend. That could be some fascinating reading.” She tilted her head toward Michael. “Maybe we should take a drive over there and get it.”

Kieran clenched his teeth. He didn’t want Devon anywhere near the scene of the shooting. “We’ll drive over there, but you stay in the car with Michael and I’ll run in and get it.”

“Sounds like a plan. We’re going to take a drive to Columbella House, Michael. Do you want to see the house again?”

“Haunted house.” Michael covered the lower half of his face with the napkin and peered over the top.

“It’s not haunted. Besides, we’re not going inside.”

Kieran winked at Michael to give a reassurance he didn’t feel. Yeah, ghosts aren’t haunting that house, but real, live killers are.

As Devon drove down Coral Cove Drive, Kieran eased out a breath and rolled his shoulders when he saw a couple gardening outside a house down the street from Columbella. They looked up from their shears and waved.

Devon waved back. “Those are the Vincents. They’re friends of your parents.”

On the ride over, Michael had drifted off and now his head was tilted and resting against his car seat.

“I guess it worked.” Kieran jerked his thumb toward the backseat. “I’ll run inside and try to find the diary.”

“Okay, hurry. I don’t want to get stuck in a long conversation with the Vincents. We need to get back for Detective Marquette.”

Kieran slipped out of the car, careful not to slam the door and wake Michael. He crept up the side of the house, lifted the plywood and gained access to the kitchen. Daylight played through the windows, showing him the way with a crisscross pattern of sunlight on the floor.

He edged into the library, darker now with one more plywood window where the bullet had shattered the glass. He knelt on the floor by the desk where he had pulled Devon to safety.

Squinting at the scene with his good eye, his breath hitched. Someone had been here. The sheet over the desk drooped to the floor at an angle. Someone had tucked the leather chair beneath the desk.

Had the cops been back? They’d sent someone to board up the window. Maybe the person who had done that job stepped into the library for some reason.

Crouching forward, he swept his hands across the dusty wood floor, swirls of sunbeams dancing in the shaft of light from the window. Where had he dropped the diary?

He sat back on his heels and surveyed the area. He’d lunged at Devon when he saw the movement at the window. Maybe the book flew out of his hand.

Judging the trajectory, he checked a wider range of the floor, lifting dust covers from the furniture and crawling under tables. Nothing. No red diary.

He rose to his feet, brushed his hands together and sneezed. It had been a whim anyway, but why would someone take a diary?

He exited the house the same way he had entered and jogged back to the car. His heart stuttered when he saw a man leaning toward the driver’s side window. He felt for his weapon until the man stepped back and Kieran recognized him as the gardening neighbor-Mr. Vincent. He was supposed to know him.

He inhaled a lungful of salty sea air and slowed his steps to the car.

“Hey, Kieran. It’s great to have you home. Your parents must be ecstatic.”

They will be…as soon as I tell them.

Kieran extended his hand. “Mr. Vincent. Good to see you again.”

Vincent smacked the roof of the car. “I’ll let you folks get going, and I’m RSVPing for the welcome home party right now.”

Wouldn’t be much of a party without the honoree.

“We’ll keep you posted.” Kieran dropped onto the passenger seat and exhaled. “I wish I could remember all of these people at first look.”

“You’ll get there.” Devon glanced at his empty hands. “Where’s the diary?”

“Gone.”

“You can’t find it?”

“I mean it’s gone. I looked. It’s not there.”

Devon tilted her head and the sun glimmered along strands of her golden hair. “That’s weird. It must’ve slipped behind something, or maybe one of the cops took it.”

“I searched the library thoroughly, and why would one of the cops take it?”

“I don’t know.” She shifted into Drive and made a

U-turn on the street. “The same reason we wanted to have a look.”

“He’ll probably be as disappointed as you to find out it’s from ten years ago instead of a hundred.” Kieran buzzed down the window and gulped in the air, trying to clear the dust and the residue of the old house from his lungs.

“Well, it doesn’t belong to any of us, but I wonder if Mia would be interested. Ten years ago was about the time her sister disappeared. She might want to be privy to her twin’s thought processes at the time.”

“Disappeared? I thought you said she ran off with Mia’s boyfriend?”

“She did, and they disappeared together. Marissa St. Regis hasn’t been back since.”

“I gather Mia St. Regis hasn’t been back, either.”

“No, but she might want to know about the diary. I still have her email address from a few get-togethers the locals arranged. I’ll send her a message.”

“But we don’t have the diary.”

“Mia might be able to find it if she ever goes through the house.”

He cocked an eyebrow at her. “Are you saying I did a lousy job of searching? I know my vision isn’t the best…”

She slugged his arm at the first joke he’d ever made about his eye. “That’s not what I meant. Besides, it doesn’t much matter now. Michael is sound asleep and he’ll sleep through Detective Marquette’s visit.”

After Kieran had carried Michael to his bed, they didn’t have to wait too long for that visit.

Devon invited the detective into the house and introduced him to Kieran.

After shaking his hand with a strong, sure grip, Detective Marquette shrugged out of his suit jacket. “Hope you don’t mind, Ms. Reese. It’s a lot warmer down here than in the city.”

“No surprise there. I’ll hang it up for you.”

Noting the man’s erect posture and crisp movements, Kieran asked, “What branch of the military?”

Marquette’s brown face split into a smile. “Marines.”

“Green Berets.”

“I know. I heard about you, Roarke. Heard about your mission.”

“Helluva long mission.”

Devon returned to the room, bearing a tray of glasses filled with iced tea. The ice tinkled as she set the tray on the coffee table. Had she just interrupted something between Kieran and Marquette? “Iced tea, Detective?”

“Thanks, I can use it. The local chief is not very hospitable.”

Devon grabbed a glass and settled into an armchair, curling her legs beneath her. “Chief Evans is leaving for another department and not too thrilled that I’ve apparently brought a killer to Coral Cove with me.”

Marquette took a sip from his glass and pulled out a well-worn notepad. “Let’s talk about that. Someone broke into your car, stole your purse, slashed your tires, threw a Molotov cocktail into a bathroom and then took a couple of potshots at you? Did I miss anything?”

“That about sums it up. I’m a nurse, not an international spy. The only thing out of the ordinary in my life recently has been discovering Mrs. Del Vecchio’s body.”

That and my dead fiancé showing up on the beach.

Detective Marquette tapped his notepad with a stubby pencil. “What about your brother, Dylan?”

Kieran hunched forward, elbows on his knees. “What about him?”

Devon narrowed her eyes. “He fell off the face of the earth and then resurfaced recently to tell me he’s resigning from the San Jose P.D. and going for the top job here.”

“You don’t know why he fell off the face of the earth?”

“No, but apparently you do. Spill it.”

Marquette lifted an end-tackle-sized shoulder. “Your brother, Ms. Reese, had been working undercover in the gang unit. He almost single-handedly brought down the Fifteenth Street Lords, and then they retaliated by killing a journalist your brother had been working with.”

Devon covered her mouth with both hands. Guilt galloped up one side of her body and down the other. She should’ve known Dylan would have never abandoned her and Michael. “I had no idea.”

“I’m sure he didn’t want you to know, but it’s something to think about. Maybe a few of those gangbangers are looking for another way to strike back at him.”

She picked up her sweating glass with a shaky hand and took a gulp. “Who knew my life was so complicated? Do you really think someone could be after me because of Dylan’s work?”

“I’m just throwing it out there. Things aren’t always as straightforward as they might seem, which brings us back to Mrs. Del Vecchio.”

“I didn’t see anything that day, Detective Marquette. You guys didn’t put out the word that you had a witness or anything, did you?”

“We wouldn’t do that, Ms. Reese. One news story specifically stated that we had no witnesses. If Mrs. Del

Vecchio’s killer is after you, he believes for some reason he has something to fear from you.”

She snorted. “That’s a good one. He’s the one with the Molotov cocktails and guns.”

She flicked a gaze toward Kieran. And I’m the one with the badass pirate keeping watch.

“You mentioned something about Mrs. Del Vecchio on the phone. Is that what you meant by things not being as simple as they appeared?”

“Yeah, are you ready for this?”

Devon swung her legs out from under her and planted her feet on the floor. “Yep.”

“Mrs. Del Vecchio’s husband, Johnny, was a criminal and a bank robber. They called him Johnny Del. He died in prison and rumor has it he left a bundle of cash in hiding with his widow.”