Alex Kava Bundle - Alex Kava [102]
“I’ll leave my lighter, just case I don’t get back. But be careful, Timmy. You don’t want to start a fire.” He tossed the shiny metal lighter next to Timmy on the bed. Then he left.
The panic stirred again in Timmy’s stomach. Maybe it was all the junk food he had eaten. He hated being trapped, but at least if the man didn’t come back he couldn’t hurt him. He had the entire day to plan his escape. He picked up the lighter and ran his fingers over the smooth finish. Timmy noticed the logo stamped on the side of it. He recognized the dark brown crest. He had seen it many times on the jackets and uniforms his grandfather and Uncle Nick wore. It was the symbol for the sheriff’s department.
CHAPTER 60
The smell of coffee nauseated Maggie, though it seemed to be the only thing to combat the effects of the Scotch. She picked at the scrambled eggs and toast while she watched the door of the diner. Nick said it would take only ten to fifteen minutes. That was an hour ago. The small diner was beginning to fill with its breakfast rush, farmers in feed caps next to business men and women in suits.
Maggie had hated leaving Christine this morning, though she knew she wasn’t much of a comfort. She had never been good at offering words of reassurance or doing the hand-holding routine. After all, her only experience had been as a twelve-year-old, a small, gangly child struggling with and dragging a drunken mother up a flight of stairs to their run-down apartment. No words or courtesies had been necessary when dealing with someone who was half-conscious. Even as an FBI agent, etiquette skills were unnecessary. Most of the people she dealt with were corpses or psychos. Questioning the victims’ families didn’t require anything more than polite condolences, or so she had convinced herself long ago.
Last night she’d simply felt paralyzed. She hardly knew Christine. One dinner surely didn’t enforce any obligation of friendship. Yet, Timmy’s small, freckled face remained etched in her mind. In her eight years of tracking killers, no one she had known personally had ever been a victim. However, every corpse stayed with her, their ghosts a permanent part of her mental scrapbook. She couldn’t imagine—didn’t want to imagine—adding Timmy to that portfolio of tortured images.
Finally, Nick came into the diner. He spotted her immediately and waved, making his way to the booth but stopping several times to talk to customers. He was dressed in his usual uniform of jeans and cowboy boots, only this time under his unzipped jacket he wore a red Nebraska Cornhuskers sweatshirt. The swelling was gone from around his jaw, leaving a bruise. He looked exhausted. He hadn’t bothered to comb his hair or shave after showering. He looked even more handsome than she remembered.
He slid into the booth opposite her and grabbed a menu from behind the napkin dispenser. “Judge Murphy is stalling on the search warrant for the rectory,” he said quietly as he looked at the menu. “He didn’t have a problem with the pickup, but he thinks—”
“Hi, Nick. What can I get for you?”
“Oh, hi, Angie.”
Maggie watched the exchange between Nick and the pretty blond waitress and knew immediately the woman wasn’t used to just taking his diner orders.
“How have you been?” she asked, trying to make it sound like casual conversation, though Maggie noticed she hadn’t taken her eyes off Nick.
“Things have been pretty crazy. Could I just get some coffee and toast?” He avoided her eyes. His discomfort speeded up his speech.
“Wheat toast, right? And lots of cream with the coffee?”
“Yeah, thanks.” He looked anxious for her to leave.
She smiled and left the table without even noticing Maggie, though before Nick’s arrival she had been interested enough to fill Maggie’s coffee cup three times.
“An old friend?” Maggie asked, knowing she had no right to, but enjoying his fidgeting.
“Who, Angie? Yeah, I guess you could say that.” He dug Christine’s cellular phone from his jacket pocket, set it on the table, then twisted out of the jacket. “I hate these things,” he said, referring to the