Chapter Eleven
“I’d prefer if you’d go out and look for my wife, Lieutenant, rather than sitting here asking me questions.”
Lieutenant Hallinger was nearly sixty, and after thirty-seven years on the force he figured he’d seen it all and heard twice as much. He’d certainly experienced more than his share of frustrated and angry spouses. It seemed to him that the man in front of him was both.
“Mr. Logan, we have an APB out on your wife right now, and several officers are asking questions at the track.” Though he envied Burke his cigar, he didn’t mention it. “It would help clear things up, and give us a better chance of locating your wife, if you’d fill me in.”
“I’ve already told you Erin hasn’t come back to the hotel. No one’s seen her since this morning, and her wedding ring was found at the stables at Churchill Downs.”
“Some people are careless with jewelry, Mr. Logan.”
Some people. What the hell was this business about some people? They were talking about Erin, his Erin. Where the hell was she? He looked back at Hallinger again and spoke precisely. “Not Erin. And not with her wedding ring.”
“Um-hmm.” He made a notation in his book. “Mr. Logan, occasionally this sort of thing comes down to a simple misunderstanding.” He could have written a book, Hallinger thought. Yeah, he could’ve written a book on misunderstandings alone. “Did you and your wife quarrel this morning?”
“No.”
“It’s possible she rented a car and decided to do a little sight-seeing.”
“That’s ridiculous.” He glanced up as Travis handed him a cup of coffee.
Burke accepted it but set it aside. “If Erin had wanted to go for a drive, she would have taken the car we’ve already rented.
She would have told me she was leaving and she would have been back two hours ago. We had plans for this evening.”
He’d had plans himself, which had included a nice quiet evening with his own wife. And a footbath. Hallinger wriggled his aching toes inside his shoes. “Derby week can be chaotic. It might have slipped her mind.”
“Erin’s the most responsible person I know. If she’s not here, it’s because she can’t get here.” He thought again of the hateful and terrifying calls he’d already made to the hospitals. “Because someone’s keeping her from getting here.”
“Mr. Logan, kidnapping usually prompts a ransom call. You’re a wealthy man, yet you tell me you haven’t been contacted.”
“No, I haven’t been contacted.” But he still broke out in a sweat every time the phone rang.
“Look, Lieutenant, I’ve told you everything I know.
And I’m damn sick of going over the same ground when you should be out doing your job.
I’d go out and look myself, but I feel it’s more important for me to stay here and. .. ” Wait. Endlessly.
Hallinger glanced over his notes. He was a thin man with small, aching feet and a quiet voice. He was a man who took his appearance as seriously as he took his job. It was possible for him to admire Burke’s casually expensive shoes while noting his nerves and anxiety.
“Mr. Logan, you had some trouble at the Bluegrass Stakes. How did your wife feel about that?”
“She was upset, naturally.” Crushing out his cigar, he rose to pace.
“Upset enough to want to avoid the crowds tonight and tomorrow? Upset enough to want to escape from it, and you?”
There was a flat and dangerous look in Burke’s eyes when he turned. “Erin wouldn’t run from anything or anyone. The fact is I asked her to go back home until this thing was settled. She wouldn’t do it. She insisted on staying and seeing it through.”
“You’re a fortunate man.”
“I’m aware of that. Now why don’t you get the hell out of here and find my wife?”
Hallinger simply made a note in his book and turned to Travis. “Mr. Grant, you’re the last person we know of who spoke with Mrs. Logan this morning. What was her mood?”
“She was anxious about the race, about Burke. A little tired. She told me she intended to sleep a week when the Derby was over. The last thing on her mind was missing the race or leaving her husband. She’s only been married a few weeks, and she’s very much in love.”
“Um-hmm,” the lieutenant said again with maddening calm. “Her ring was found in the stables. You tell me she didn’t go in the stables, Mr. Logan, yet she was seen walking toward them early this morning.”
“To prove a point to herself, maybe, I can’t be sure.” His patience was stretching thinner by the second. If she’d waited for him to go with her… if she’d asked him to take her in, stand with her… He’d been the one who’d pulled away, far enough that she’d stopped asking him for anything.
“What sort of point, Mr. Logan?”
“What?”
Patience was an integral part of Hallinger’s job. “You said she might have gone inside the stables to prove a point.”
“She had an accident a few years ago and was afraid of horses. Over the past few weeks she’s been trying to win out over it. Damn it, what difference does it make why she went in? She was there, and now she’s missing.”
“I work better with details.”
When the phone rang, Burke jumped. His face was gray with strain when he lifted the receiver. “Yes?” With a muttered oath, he offered it to Hallinger. “It’s for you.”
“They’re going to find her, Burke.” Travis touched a hand to Burke’s shoulder as he passed. “You’ve got to hold on to that.”
“It’s wrong. It’s very wrong, I can feel it.” It was welling up inside him; beyond the first panic, beyond the lingering fear, was a dread, a certainty. “If they don’t find her soon, it’s going to be too late. I’ve got to get out of here. Will you stay in case a call comes in?”
“Sure.”
Hallinger watched Burke walk to the door and simply gestured for one of his men to follow.
She must have slept. Erin woke from the nightmare soaked with sweat and shivering with cold. She murmured for Burke and tried to reach out, but her arms wouldn’t move.
It wasn’t just a dream, she realized as she closed her eyes and took deep breaths to stem another wave of panic. How long? Oh, God, how long? Perhaps they were just going to leave her here to go mad or slowly starve to death.
She wouldn’t go mad, because she would think of Burke.
She would close her eyes and remember how it felt to lie beside him at night with the moonlight coming through the windows and his body warm against hers.
She would think about the way he would kiss her in that way he had—that slow, devastating way that made her bones melt and her mind go dim.
She could taste him. Even now she could taste him and feel the way his hand felt as he brushed it over her cheek and into her hair.
He had such wonderful hands, so strong and hard. They were always so steady, always so sure. Sometimes at night she’d reach for his hand and hold it against her cheek just to have it there. She didn’t think he ever knew.
If she concentrated hard enough, she could almost feel his hand against her cheek now. She could hold it there as long as she wanted.
When her eyes grew accustomed to the dark, she could see his head on the pillow beside hers.
His profile was such a handsome one, with its firm jaw and the sharp planes of his cheeks.
She liked it when it was shadowed just a bit with beard.
Had she ever told him that? He was such a pleasure to look at.
And if she was careful, she could cuddle close, not waking him.
The scent of his skin would lull her to sleep.
He always smelled as she’d thought a man should, without the sweetening of colognes.
So she could cuddle close, and sometimes he would shift closer, his arm stretching lazily over her waist. Those were the best times, when she could murmur that she loved him.
She’d told herself that if he heard it enough times in his sleep he would begin to believe it.
So Erin kept her eyes closed and thought only of Burke. After a time, she slept again.
It was nearly three, but Burke sat in the same chair. He’d gone out for only an hour, driving to the track with some wild hope that he would find Erin waiting for him. He’d prowled the stables and badgered the stable boys and grooms with the same questions the police had already asked.
But there was no Erin, nor any sign of her.
So he’d come back, to pace the parlor, haunt the bedroom and ignore the coffee that Travis poured for him. For the past hour he’d sat unmoving, staring at the phone.
He’d told Travis to go, to get some sleep, and had been ignored. It reminded him that there had only been one other person in his life who had stuck by him. If he lost her... He couldn’t think of that. He knew that luck could change, could turn cruel like a change in the wind. But not with Erin.
She hadn’t had her chance yet, not a real one, to see everything there was.
Maybe he’d been wrong to lock her in so quickly, to bind her to him.
But she still had so much life, so much energy.
Why was it he couldn’t get past that one sick thought that whatever was happening to her now was because of him?
When the phone rang, he grabbed the receiver with both hands. “Logan.” The voice in his ear was thick with liquor, but he understood. And his heart began to thud. “Where is she?”
“I don’t want no trouble. Spiking the horse was one thing, but I don’t want no trouble.”
“Fine. Tell me where she is.” He glanced up to see Travis beside him, waiting.
“I didn’t want no part of it. He’ll kill me if he finds out I’m talking to you.”
“Just tell me where she is and I’ll take care of it.”
“Kept her at the track, in the van. I don’t know what he’s going to do. Kill her, maybe.”
“What van? What van, damn it?”
“I ain’t having no part in murder.”
When the phone went dead, Burke simply dropped it and rose. “She’s at the track. They’re holding her in a van.”
“I’ll call the police and be right behind you.”