Assignment: Marriage. Jackie Merritt
important?”
“If you’re fishing to find out if there’s a woman in my life, Doc, it’s been a long, dry spell.”
“Never been tempted to remarry?”
“Never,” Tuck replied emphatically.
Laura paused, then smiled. “You’re beginning to look fit, but how are you feeling physically?”
“The wounds are healing.” He’d taken two bullets, one in the chest, one in the right thigh.
“Can we talk about that night?”
Tuck snuffed out his cigarette in the ashtray. “You’re the doctor. What do you want to know?”
“How you felt during the incident.”
Tuck laughed shortly. “I didn’t have time to feel anything.”
“All right, after it was over then. You were lucid enough to phone in and report what had happened. What were you feeling?”
“Sick.”
“In pain?”
“Not at first. All I could see were those two bodies on the floor.”
“Did you feel justified in shooting those men?”
“Justified? No, that never entered my mind.”
“What did? Think about it, Tuck. What did enter your mind?”
He swallowed the rising gorge in his throat, and when he spoke, his voice cracked. “I…don’t remember.”
Nicole Currie couldn’t sit still. The two men in her living room wore dark suits and expressions almost as dark. Nicole stopped pacing and threw up her hands. “How can you ask me to do such a thing? I have a life, a job, this house, friends. I can’t just disappear!”
John Harper and Scott Paulsen, both police officers, exchanged glances. John, who was the older by a good fifteen years, stood. “You can’t stay here, Nicole.” He’d spent enough time in Nicole’s company during the past four days to call her by her first name. “The prosecuting attorney needs time to prepare a solid case against Lowicki and Spencer. You’re our only witness.”
“I wouldn’t be your witness if I’d thought it through before reporting what I saw,” Nicole said sharply. It had seemed so cut-and-dried at the time. Two men leaving a building and getting into a car, a simple act. But the next morning she’d read in the paper about the double murder in that building, in apartment 17A. She’d gotten a good look at the men, particularly the one with the jagged scar that crimped his left cheek. The murders, the newspaper article recited, quoting Detective John Harper, had taken place at approximately 1:00 a.m. Any person with information regarding this crime should contact Detective Harper at Metro headquarters.
It was all by accident, of course. Normally, Nicole wasn’t even in that part of town, and certainly not at the ungodly hour of 1:00 a.m. But she’d attended a bridal shower for a co-worker. Nicole was the purchasing agent for the Monte Carlo Hotel and Casino, a massive operation that kept her and three assistants on their toes. On her way home from the shower, which had turned out to be a gala affair and had lasted much longer than anticipated, her car had acted up. With the motor coughing and sputtering, she had managed to pull it to the curb.
Then she’d sat there and looked at the dark street and felt fear developing. Hers was the only car on the block. To her right was vacant land, black as ink and all but invisible. The nearest streetlight was some distance away, the nearest lighted building even farther. She’d forced herself out of the car and down the sidewalk toward the building. It was an apartment house, she realized, a rather nice one, which made her feel better.
She was in the shadow of an immense bank of oleander bushes when two men came walking out the front door. It was herself she was thinking of when she sank deeper into the shadows. It simply wasn’t smart for a woman alone to show herself to two strange men at one in the morning.
They didn’t see her, she was positive. They walked to the car at the curb, a black or dark blue Lincoln with Nevada plates, got in and drove away. The only thing that gave her pause was the way the Lincoln had slowed as it passed her red Toyota.
It was the one factor that made her think that just possibly the police weren’t being too conscientious about her protection.
But disappear? They were suggesting some sort of witness protection plan, leaving Las Vegas, using an assumed name, telling no one—no one—what she was doing. What about her job? Couldn’t she at least tell her employers?
“We can’t risk telling anyone, Nicole,” John Harper said solemnly. “Not at this point. Call your employer with a story of a family emergency. Tell them you have to leave immediately and will be in touch. We’d like you to pack and be ready to leave by tonight. Scott will stay here in the house with you until then.”
Nicole tossed her head back, as though to twitch long hair away from her face. Her nearly black hair had been long until a week ago when she’d gone to her favorite hairdresser for a cut and new style.
“I could be fired,” she said despondently. “It’s taken me years to work up to my present position.”
“A job’s not as valuable as your life,” Scott said quietly.
“Nicole,” John said, “the minute it’s safe to do so, I’ll talk to your employers myself.”
“But you said it could take months. The Monte Carlo cannot function without a purchasing agent for months.” Nicole was sick about this and couldn’t pretend otherwise.
The older man sighed. “I know it can’t.”
Nicole felt a shiver go up her spine. There were other aspects of the situation that scared her witless. “I’ll be completely alone in a strange place. You two might not understand this, but the idea of living where I won’t know a soul is terrifying. I was born and raised in Las Vegas. I’ve never lived anywhere else.”
“You won’t be alone,” John said softly.
Nicole’s left eyebrow shot up. “I won’t? Who would be going with me?”
“We’re working that out, but he’ll be a police officer.”
“He? Why not a woman?”
“It might be a woman. Nothing’s set yet. Don’t worry. Whoever picks you up tonight will be well qualified to protect you.”
Rubbing her arms as though chilled, Nicole went to look out the window. “This is a nightmare.”
John was instantly at her side and pulling her back. “Please. Don’t go near the windows.”
Nicole gave up. Her legs were weak, her stomach churning. The thought of leaving everything familiar was horrible. It wasn’t fair that only doing what she’d felt was any citizen’s duty should result in this. But if she took a stand and refused, what then? The men she’d seen had, according to the police, already killed two people. Would killing one more bother them? Especially if that person’s testimony could convict them of murder?
“I’ll be ready tonight,” she said numbly. “Can you tell me where I’ll be going?”
John shook his head with a sympathetic smile. “Sorry. I don’t know that myself.”
“Well, Tuck,” Captain Joe Crawford said when Tuck walked into his office. “How’re you doing? Sit down. Make yourself comfortable.”
“Thanks.” Tuck took a seat.
“Feeling all right?”
“Not bad. I got a call to come in and see you.” When Tuck had started out with the department, Joe Crawford had been his sergeant. They had eleven years of common ground and a good, solid relationship. “What’s going on, Joe?”