Daddy With A Badge. Paula Detmer Riggs

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      Sharpen the damn pencil again! she wanted to shout. Instead, she dropped her head and rubbed her forehead with her free hand. The spot above her right eyebrow was beginning to throb and her stomach was growing more iffy by the second.

      “I can pay you a third now and the rest over the next three months.” It would mean more belt-tightening, but—

      “Sorry, little lady, I don’t give credit. Got burned too many times by deadbeats, y’know?”

      “Yes, I suppose you have.” Danni felt truly queasy now. Humiliation had a taste, she’d learned. It was beyond bitter. She cleared her throat, but the bitterness remained. “Uh, let me see what I can do and I’ll call you Tuesday morning.”

      There was a momentary silence before Bruno said in a softer tone, “Tell you the truth, I don’t like takin’ plastic on account of the service charge, but I s’pose I could make an exception, seein’ as how you’re expecting a little ’un and all.”

      A sudden wash of tears blurred the outlines of her mauve-and-blue office. The kindness of strangers, she thought. “I’m afraid that won’t help, but thank you for the offer,” she said in a wobbly voice.

      Both of her platinum cards had been cancelled. In the bottom drawer of her filing cabinet was a thick file folder full of overdue statements and threatening letters. While she’d been basking in newlywed bliss—and her adoring husband’s constant attention—Jonathan Sommerset, may he rot in the hottest bowels of hell, had managed to steal every cent of her liquid assets, sell her beautiful home on a bluff and all the furnishings before destroying her credit rating.

      The damage he’d done to an innocent young girl desperate to feel a father’s love again was his greatest crime, however. For that alone, the lying weasel deserved to spend the rest of his worthless life in a particularly nasty prison.

      There was one bright spot however. Her own silver lining. A tired smile curved her lips as she pressed her hand to her swelling tummy. Jonathan had given her a baby.

      Her baby, and Lyssa’s, not his. Never his.

      As desperate as she was financially, she had still gotten the best of the bargain. Perhaps that was the best revenge, she thought with a small measure of satisfaction.

      “Miz Fabrizio, you still with me?”

      “Still here.” Barely. “Uh, tell you what, Bruno, let me see what I can do about raising the money, and I’ll call you on Tuesday.”

      “Yes ma’am. I’ll be waiting.” He cleared his throat. “Uh, Miz Fabrizio, say you wasn’t able to come up with the money, I’d be willing to take that old hatchback off your hands for…say, four hunnert.”

      She sucked in a breath. “Cash on the barrelhead?” she couldn’t resist asking as her headache suddenly increased exponentially.

      “Why yes, ma’am.” He chuckled. “You might do you some askin’ around before you accept, but I promise you, it’s a right fair offer. You’re not gonna get a better one.”

      Her throat was suddenly clogged with tears. Somehow she managed to thank Bruno before putting down the phone. And then, alone in the office that was the only thing Jonathan hadn’t been able to steal, she buried her face in her arms and cried.

      Finally, after frustrating months of mistaken identities and dead ends, they’d scared up a lead. It was thin, little more than wishful thinking but even that was more than they’d had in weeks of chasing down dead-end leads.

      Rafe had been running on the treadmill in the Treasury Building’s basement gym when Gresham had come charging in, waving a fax from the Portland, Oregon office. The local authorities had put out a “wanted for questioning” alert for a man using the name Jonathan Sommerset who matched Folsom’s description.

      The charge was credit card fraud, swindling and forgery. The suspect’s M.O. was strikingly similar. A “chance” meeting with a lonely widow on a luxury cruise to Acapulco, a whirlwind courtship ending in a romantic wedding in a chapel on the beach before sailing home.

      The honeymoon had scarcely been over before he’d managed to have his name added to the deed to his bride’s house and the title of a nearly new Lexus sedan. Naturally, he had insisted on adding her name to the deeds to his condo on Maui and the flat in San Francisco as well as his brokerage account and savings accounts, all of which existed only on official looking documents Folsom had created on his laptop computer. In turn, she’d given him total access to her bank and savings accounts, both of which were all too genuine.

      Then, as was his pattern, he had convinced her to invest in a revolutionary new method of converting sawdust to decking material impervious to weather and pests. The process was real, as were the reams of supporting documentation. Only the stock certificates were phony.

      Ten weeks after the wedding Sommerset arranged to take his wife and stepdaughter to England as a birthday surprise for the girl. Two days before departing, he’d pleaded a sudden business emergency, sending them on ahead. Excuse followed excuse until three weeks had passed. By the time the woman had gotten suspicious and flown home, Folsom had systematically emptied her bank accounts, sold her home and all the furnishings and maxed her credit cards before disappearing.

      That had been almost three months ago, long enough for the trail to have gotten colder than a hooker’s heart. Picking the victim’s brain for some forgotten detail, some chance recollection that might put them on the scent again was their only hope.

      They’d been on the red-eye that same night, landing at Portland just as the sun was rising this morning. The head of the Service’s local office had lent them a vehicle, a no-frills sedan that smelled like a Texas honky-tonk, and drawn a map to the Portland PD precinct that had caught the case.

      Even though it was raining steadily, Rafe had cracked the windows, front and back. The breeze that streamed through was flavored with pine and brought back memories of the crowded migrant camp by the river where he’d spent the first seventeen years of his life.

      He shifted until his shoulders were wedged against the door. Even then and with the seat pushed back all the way, he couldn’t stretch out his legs far enough to get comfortable.

      Damn, he hated this, he thought sourly. Memories were a bitch, especially the mean, gut-twisting kind that snuck under a man’s guard to deliver a sucker punch to the solar plexus. He’d known it was going to be rough being in Oregon again, but he’d figured to handle it fast and dirty, no more than forty-eight hours to find out all he needed to know, then he’d be outta here again. For good, this time.

      It wasn’t until he’d met with Detective Sergeant Case Randolph and heard the name of the victim that he’d known just how rough.

      Twenty years ago he’d been wildly, blindly in love with Daniela Mancini.

      In the case folder had been a photograph, taken of the happy couple right after their wedding. It was like a slice in his heart to see the photo of his adorable Princess looking stunningly happy in a flowing white Mexican wedding dress, her dark eyes glowing as she looked up into the face of Jacob Folsom.

      He’d spent a lot of years telling himself she’d probably gotten fat and sour-tempered. Just his luck the young girl who had been a beauty at sixteen СКАЧАТЬ