One Good Man

“I know.” Ben and Judith had been the ones who stayed with her at the hospital after the attack, when her parents had been whisked away for their own safety and couldn’t come.

Casey hated being the cause of any more worry for them. Back then she’d been in too much pain, she’d been too lost and confused to argue when they said they’d stay on with her at the house, even though both had earned their early retirement. But now she was as healthy as she would ever be. She was a responsible adult. And she owed them much more than a generous salary.

“I’ll be fine.” It might be a lie, but she said it with all the serenity she could muster to put their worries to rest.

Ben nodded. He clearly didn’t believe her as much as he wanted to, but he accepted her decision. He zipped his coat shut and turned to Mitch, who waited at the doorway to the library while Casey and the McDonalds traded goodbyes. “I put that new door on like you requested, and switched the entry codes so that the key alone can’t get you in here.”

“I appreciate it,” said Mitch.

“Let me show you what I worked out with the front gate.”

“I’ll walk you out and make sure everything’s locked up tight behind you.” Mitch might prefer giving orders, but as they exited down the hall, he listened to Ben’s instructions and chatted with the older man as though they were equal partners on the case.

She was grateful for the way he used his authority and mutual respect to lessen Ben’s and Judith’s concerns. Not for the first time, she wondered why she didn’t rate the same kind of attention from him. Did he resent Jimmy’s orders so much? Was she the symbol of a task he considered beneath his rank? Or was the antagonism between the two of them something more personal?

Judith’s hand on her shoulder stopped her musings. “You’re sure you don’t want me to come by tomorrow and fix you something to eat?”

“I could swim Friday instead of Monday if you want some company.” Frankie’s eager offer caught her from the other side.

Casey laughed and shook aside both propositions. “Have a happy Thanksgiving, both of you.”

She hugged each one in turn. “You prepared enough food to feed a whole clan. I think I can manage. Now go home and enjoy your family.”

“You’ll let us know if there’s anything we can do?” asked Judith.

“Of course I will.” Casey guided them toward the door.

Frankie gave another vote of confidence for her favorite detective. “Mitch is cool, you know. He’ll take care of you.”

“I’m sure he will.” Casey’s response lacked the girl’s enthusiasm. She didn’t doubt that Mitch would do his job. She only wished doing his job didn’t bear such a high emotional price for her.

Judith and Frankie left in another flurry of hugs and good wishes, leaving Casey to face the ominous silence of the house alone.

She’d been alone before. Since her attack, she’d become quite good at being alone. Weekends, holidays. With her parents gone on a well-deserved trip abroad and Jimmy occupied with the prized social functions required by his political career, she’d had little choice but to learn how to handle so much time to herself.

It was all a matter of outlook. She normally focused on the security and quiet of being on her own, the self-sufficiency it required of her.

And if she could just stay busy enough, she’d never see what might be missing from her life of solitude.

Broad-shouldered bodyguard aside, she expected this four-day holiday to be no different from all the others she’d learned to endure on her own. Now if she could just get Mitch to forgo the torturous questions he wanted to ask…

Cursing the distracting pattern of her thoughts, Casey sat at her desk, pulled out her stationery box and immersed herself in her work.

A stack of invitations lay at the bottom of her in-basket. They were mostly from old family friends, wishing her well or inviting her to join them for the holidays. She appreciated the effort and would thank them, but she would decline each one.

The only thing lonelier than spending a family holiday by herself was spending it as an outsider in someone else’s home.

Besides, by staying here she endangered no one else. Jimmy had taught her the wisdom of that. After failing so miserably at Emmett Raines’s trial, she took comfort in knowing she could do that one small thing to protect others.

She’d failed to identify him once. But no one else would pay the price for her mistake again.

Casey pulled the next envelope from her correspondence file and slit it open. She’d saved this one for last because of the impersonal printing on the envelope. She recognized the look of a bulk mailing after years of assisting her mother with charity functions, and suspected it was an invitation to some sort of seasonal fund-raiser. She’d decline attending it, as well, but she could do so with a simple check instead of writing out a “kind of you to think of me but sorry” letter.

She pulled out the gold-embossed notecard, which read The First Cattlemen’s Bank Of Kansas City, and opened it to see how much money they wanted. A folded-up piece of plain white paper fell out. “A personal note?”

It wasn’t her bank, so she wondered who would take the time to write. Curious, Casey set the card aside and unfolded the paper.

She read the single line printed there.

“The house that Jack built will come tumbling down.”

CASEY THREW THE NOTE onto the desk, snatching her fingers away as though a rattlesnake had come to life in her hands. She shoved the blotter, sending an avalanche of books, papers and the telephone across the floor on the opposite side.

Gasping for a breath that refused to come, Casey scrambled out of her chair and hobbled around the desk, ripping at the Velcroed anchor patches on her brace. She pushed the cumbersome support unit off her leg and collapsed to her knees. Righting the phone, she picked up the receiver and speed-dialed Jimmy’s number.

“Commissioner Reed’s office.”

“Iris?” Thank God it was someone she knew.

“Cassandra? Is that you? How are you?”

Casey sat back against the desk and tucked her left leg into her chest, curling her arms around it and pressing the phone to her ear. She ignored the polite greeting from Jimmy’s assistant. “Is Jimmy still there? I need to speak with him right away.”

“He’s at a dinner meeting right now. I shouldn’t interrupt him unless there’s an emergency.”

“It is. I just got a message from…” Casey stopped and swallowed, forcing the panic out of her voice. “It says, ‘The house that Jack built…”’

“Casey? I’m back.” Mitch’s call from the kitchen pierced the fog of incoherent fear that prevented Casey from thinking clearly.

“‘The house that Jack built…”’ Her words trailed off altogether as she listened to them out loud herself. She sounded so juvenile, so silly for a twenty-eight-year-old woman.

“That’s a nursery rhyme, isn’t it?” prompted Iris when the silence continued.

She heard the back door close and Mitch’s footsteps in the hallway.

Or so she thought.

A deeper wave of alarm swept through her, clouding her mind with memories. Mixing up the present with the past.

“Yes,” she answered automatically, dismissing Iris and bringing her focus back to the house. Back to the library.

Back to the footsteps closing in on her.

Casey hung up and scanned the room for something with which to defend herself. But there was nothing close at hand, and she wasn’t in a position to move quickly. So she simply leaned back and braced herself.

She’d be smarter this time.

She’d have to be smarter.