Mistletoe And Murder

Standing, he slipped on his jacket, picked up his paper cup and walked a couple of feet over to the nearby trash receptacle to toss it in.

When he turned toward the door, Mallory was in front of him with her waves cascading over the fur collar on her jacket, making him want to reach out and touch the beckoning softness. But he couldn’t. He didn’t want to get involved with her that way. She might make him forget that happiness never stuck around for too long.

“I had one more comment,” she said softly, her green eyes begging him to hear her out. He couldn’t move. “I need to tell you some things about Tripp’s background so you can get proactive about finding him.”

He glanced around them—no one seemed to be paying attention. He’d give her one more minute of conversation. “Who said I’m going after anyone?”

“You’re not?”

“At this point, I’m letting the police do their own work.” That was true. He’d lost his heart for detective work over the agonizing months he’d spent searching for Ruth’s murderer and making sure he went to prison. He’d been forced to keep away from his brothers, their families and his mother, partly to make the killer think he didn’t care about them so he would leave them alone, and partly because Shamus didn’t want his own anger to touch his family. The same hour the man who’d murdered his wife had been sentenced, he’d quit the force and become numb. He wouldn’t go after anyone else unless he absolutely had to.

Mallory stared up at him. “You have to search for the bomber. You can’t let him just try over and over again to hurt you.”

“Excuse me,” a patron said, wanting to throw away her trash. Shamus took Mallory’s elbow and moved her back to their table, which still held her coffee and paper bag.

“Remember how you said you owed me for saving your life? I have a couple of ways you can pay me back.”

She gave him a short, expectant nod, her eyebrows raised in question.

“Leave all the investigating to the police. Do not get involved in any part of it and make yourself a target. And that includes speculating on Tripp with other people. And don’t invite me to join the other probation officers at lunches and after work anymore. I don’t want any friends, Mallory.”

Her dejected look made him feel as though he’d crushed a rose under his heel. His heart thumped painfully. He had to be this way. He had to. Trying to be friends with him would only darken the light Mallory had in her eyes every day. He couldn’t take that. He couldn’t allow her to become him.

He could hardly stand what he had just done.

“You are such a hard man to like,” Mallory told him. “But I’m not giving up on you. You saved my life.”

His cell phone played a familiar tune, but Mallory was still standing there, keeping his attention. How could she be so warm and sweet and caring, and still be the most obstinate woman he’d ever run across?

The tune kept playing. He had to answer it. “Excuse me a second,” he said, whipping it out and pressing On.

“Hi, Mom. How are you?”

As Mallory watched, the tension drained from Shamus’s shoulders and face, and he looked like he used to when he and his wife and she had all sung in the annual Christmas cantata at the homes for the elderly. Relaxed. Happy.

Her mouth dropped open. What Shamus wanted her to do to repay him—stay out of his life—wasn’t really going to help him. But she’d just gotten an idea of what might.

She just wasn’t certain it would work.

Shamus started scowling as he continued to listen to his mother, and Mallory stayed put, eavesdropping unashamedly.

“No, Mom, don’t open the door to him. No one is supposed to be doing an article on me. I’ll be right there. What does he look like?”

He muttered “Uh-huh” a couple of times, and then his eyes, filled with alarm, shot up and locked on her. He moved the phone backward and mouthed, “Tripp.”

Tripp was at Mrs. Burke’s house? Why?

Bringing the phone back to his ear, Shamus gestured for Mallory to follow him. Leaving her coffee behind, she did, darting around a small group of people chatting in the aisle and listening to what he was telling his mother. It was easy enough with his commanding voice.

“Does he have a knapsack or any kind of parcel in his hands? No? Okay. Put as many walls between you and the front door as possible. Do not go outside. I’m only a few blocks away.”

On the sidewalk, Shamus broke into a run toward his nondescript sedan. Mallory followed just as quickly and slid into the passenger seat, her heart pounding. Why, oh why, would Tripp bother Shamus’s mother? Surely not to hurt her. Not another bomb. Shamus had lost his wife—he couldn’t lose another family member.

She didn’t think he could take it.

FOUR

Mallory spent the next few minutes getting Shamus’s handcuffs out of his glove compartment, calling 911 and remembering to brace herself whenever Shamus rounded corners, tires squealing. His eyes were set on deadly to mess with, and she wouldn’t want to be in Tripp’s position right now for anything in the world.

“If this is Tripp, he’s violating his probation for not reporting in after being involved in a major crime. I should call the boss.”

“No time. We’re here.”

She braced, and Shamus made a turn onto a driveway that led up a hill to a lovely, three-story home. An older, foreign-model car that obviously didn’t belong with the house was parked to one side at the bottom of the drive, and Mallory scanned the yard for Tripp.

“He’s in the bushes by the front door,” she said. As soon as Shamus screeched to a stop near the right side of the house, Mallory swung out of the passenger seat onto her feet.

“Mr. Tripp!” she called over the top of the car to her probationer. “Don’t move!”

Rounding the car and heading toward him, she noted that Tripp wore the same thin, close-fitting jacket he’d had on the last time they’d seen him, with no backpack, and no other obvious signs of a bomb.

Thank you for that, Lord.

Tripp bolted down the snow-covered lawn toward his car. She ran after him. Shamus easily passed her to tackle the other man. Snow packed beneath their body weight as the two of them rolled, but Shamus’s size and strength stopped Tripp from putting up a fight. Good thing, too, judging from the fury on Shamus’s face.

Shamus maneuvered himself upward, leaving one knee in Tripp’s back, and yanked on Tripp’s shoulders. “Did you plant a bomb here? Did you?”

Worried, Mallory’s gaze flew to the front of the house, checking every foot, then back to Tripp.

“You’d better tell him,” she warned. “If a bomb goes off, I can’t be responsible for what he does to you.”

Tripp shook his head furiously, fear pulsating from him. “I swear I didn’t plant a bomb,” he said, looking more miserable than he had the day of the bombing, if that were possible. “I wouldn’t have hidden in the bushes if I had. I have to stay alive to get my daughter back.”

Mallory believed him. She also understood the desperation he felt. She would have done anything to rescue her sister, if she’d just had the chance. But that didn’t mean she was going to put up with him ignoring the conditions of his probation.

Watching Shamus let Tripp fall back into the snow as he cuffed him, she moved around to kneel in front of them.

“Congratulations, Mr. Tripp. It takes a lot to irritate me, but you’ve officially done it.”

“I’m impressed,” Shamus told him. “I’ve been trying to irritate her for almost a month, and it still hasn’t worked.”

“You’re losing focus,” Mallory said, lifting her head to look up at him.

He winked, just to keep her off balance, and then patted their captive down for weapons. Nothing. Shamus gave their surroundings another glance. No backpacks that he could see. He jerked Tripp up by the back of his collar. “So why are you here?”

“I was ordered to come! My daughter’s kidnapper—he told me to pretend I was a reporter, to try to get information about you. That was all I was supposed to do.”

“How do you get in contact with him?” Shamus asked.