Kathleen Creighton - Lady Killer

“No kidding? ‘My brother, the lion’-that kind of thing?”

“A little more than that. Hey, it’s complicated, and to tell you the truth, I’m not sure my mama’s people-they’re Apache-were totally into that, anyway. I think she just told me that spirit messenger stuff when I was a little kid to make me get over being scared.”

“Of the bogeyman, you mean.”

“Something like that.” And that was as far as Tony was willing to go on the subject. “Anyway, let’s just say I can make a pretty good case for why she ought to let me do a piece on her cougar.”

“Sounds good to me,” Holt said as he polished off the last bite of his burger and reached for his coffee. “Let’s hope it’s good enough.”

Tony hadn’t expected to be welcomed by Brooke Fallon Grant, accused murderer, with open arms. On the other hand, he hadn’t exactly been prepared to find a shaggy tan-and-white dog the approximate size of a Shetland pony and a little blond kid armed with a rake-a rake?-blocking the driveway to her house.

He halted the rented sedan he’d borrowed from Holt in the middle of the tree-shaded lane and ran the window down. He stuck his head out, smiled winningly and called, “Hey, there. I’m looking for Brooke Grant. Would that be your mom?”

“Maybe.” The boy was holding the rake with both hands, crossways in front of him, not smiling back. “But she’s not here.”

Tony got out of the car and stood with one elbow leaning on the top of the open door. The kid took a step backward, then held his ground. The dog looked alert but wasn’t growling, which Tony took as a positive sign. “Well, now,” he said, still smiling, “I see there’s a pickup truck parked up there by the house, and you look pretty young to be the driver. Are you sure your mom’s not home?”

“Okay, she is, but she doesn’t want to see anybody.” The boy let go of the rake with one hand and reached into the pocket of his jeans. “If you don’t leave, I’m calling nine-one-one on my cell. I have it right here, see?” He produced the object and pointed it at Tony like a pistol.

Tony put his hands in the air. “Hey, okay, son. I’m not here to bother anybody. Look, is it okay if I give you my card?” Not waiting for an answer, which he was pretty sure he wouldn’t like, he took out the card he’d put in his shirt pocket for just such an eventuality. He showed it to the kid, then leaned over the open door and placed it on the hood of the car.

Looking as menacing as it’s possible for a skinny kid with silky blond hair to look, the boy sidled close enough to snatch up the card, then retreated to his comfort zone and gave it a good look. “It says here you’re a photojournalist.” He gave Tony a sideways look of suspicion and hostility. “That’s like a reporter, right? My mom for sure doesn’t want to talk to any reporters.” He began to thumb the cell phone.

Tony said, “No-wait,” and stepped around the door. The dog advanced a step, tail held low and not wagging. Tony hastily returned to his previous position behind the door. “Um, see…it’s like a reporter, yeah, but I’m not here about your mom, or your…uh, anything like that. Look, what I’m interested in, actually, is your lion.”

“Lady?” The boy looked surprised, then uncertain and, consequently, very young. And when he lifted his chin, the combination of vulnerability and defiance made something quiver in the general vicinity of Tony’s heart. “She didn’t do what they said she did. But they want to put her down, anyway.”

“Who does?”

“The sheriffs. Lonnie Doyle, mostly-he’s my dad’s partner. He says Lady’s a killer and she should be put down. But she didn’t hurt Dad, at least not on purpose. I know she didn’t.”

“Well, then,” Tony said gently, “sounds like all the more reason to get her story out there, doesn’t it? Look here-my Web site address is on that card. Why don’t you go ask your mom if you can look me up on the Internet? I’ll wait right here while you do it. How’s that?”

The boy chewed his lip for a moment; then up came the chin again. “Okay, but you better not come any closer. Hilda, watch him,” he said to the dog, then turned and headed back up the lane at a dead run.

The dog flopped down on her stomach with her paws in front of her in the attitude of the Sphinx and fixed him with her unblinking stare.

“Good dog,” said Tony hopefully and settled down to wait.

“Mom, I think you should talk to him.”

“Honey, he’s a photographer.”

“Uh-uh. A photojournalist.”

“That means he’s a reporter. Even worse.”

“Uh-uh, I don’t think so. He’s won awards. It says so right there. And anyway, it’s not you he wants to do a story about. It’s Lady.”

“Of course he’d say that. Honey, it’s probably just a ploy.”

“What’s a ploy?”

“An angle-a gimmick. A way to get to us. Daniel-”

“I don’t think so, Mom.” He hitched himself halfway onto a chair and faced her across the kitchen table, his face flushed and earnest. “I don’t know why, but I don’t think he’s lying. He’s…I don’t know how to explain it-”

“He looks nice, is that it?” Oh, sweetheart, if only it were that easy to tell.

Her son’s expression was impossible to describe. “No. He doesn’t. That’s what’s so weird. He looks really tough and mean, but-” He huffed in a breath, leaned his chin on one hand and pressed his lips together in concentration. Then he said, “It’s like…in the movies when there’s somebody that always plays the bad guy, and then suddenly he’s in a movie, and he’s the good guy for a change. And he still looks like the bad guy, but you just know he’s not. Like when Arnold Swarzenegger was really bad in The Terminator, but then he was really really good in Terminator 2. Like that.”

Brooke hesitated, running her thumb over the smooth surface of the small brown card in her hand. What if it was true? What if this man-Daniel’s “good guy” Terminator-could help save Lady’s life? And maybe mine, too?

Daniel slid off the chair with a long-suffering sigh. “Well, can we at least check him out on the Internet?”

Brooke gave an exhalation of her own and capitulated. “Sure,” she said, handing him the card. “Why not?”

“Your card neglected to mention that one of those awards was a Pulitzer.”

Tony jerked out of a heat-and-boredom-induced doze, closed his mouth and focused on the woman standing on the other side of the open car door. His first thought was, Wow. His second, more coherent, thought was, Okay, tall, slim and blond-I see where the kid gets it. His third thought, as he scrubbed a hand over his face and struggled to extricate himself from the driver’s seat, was Oh man, I hope I wasn’t snoring.

Being as how Brooke Fallon Grant was his buddy Cory’s sister and his buddy Cory was a pretty good-looking guy, he hadn’t been expecting a troll. But the woman standing before him with her fingertips poked into the back pockets of her jeans, regarding him with a not-at-all-sure-I-should-be-doing-this look on her face…well, the only word that suited her was lovely.

Tony had a photographer’s eye, of course, one that saw beyond the fatigue lines, no makeup, and hair that was limp and dull and in need of washing. What he saw was dark blue eyes like Cory’s, eyes that told you they’d seen more than they wanted to of the world’s sadness and suffering. And amazing bones, the kind that made him itch to reach for his camera. Which was too bad, because he was pretty sure the first time he aimed a lens in the lady’s direction, she’d sic that monster dog on him.

At the very least. He’d forgotten for a moment that he might be looking at the face of a cold-blooded killer.

Though strangely, all his instincts were screaming, No way!

“Tony Whitehall,” he said, holding out his hand and turning on every watt of charm he had in him. “Mrs. Grant, thanks for seeing me.”

“Thank my son, Daniel.” She offered him half a smile along with her hand, which was big-boned for a woman’s hand and strong. “He’s convinced you’re a good guy.”

But you’re not, are you? “Really?” he said. “Wow, coulda fooled me.” His eyes dropped-though not far-to the dog, now standing relaxed beside her mistress and panting lazily. “That’s quite a pair of watch-dogs you’ve got.”

She glanced down as her hand came to rest on the dog’s broad white head, and the camera shutter in Tony’s mind clicked madly. “They’re very protective of me. Both of them are.”

I see what Daniel means, Brooke thought.

There was just something about the man. Something that had nothing to do with his looks, certainly, because he couldn’t by any means be called handsome or even nice-looking. He had a hawkish nose and broad cheekbones and dark, mahogany-toned skin, but under it his face seemed to almost glow with a kind of inner warmth. The warmth was there, too, in his hazel eyes, which were odd-shocking, even-in such a dark face. And in his smile, which was wide and generous and revealed an intriguing dimple in one cheek. He was completely bald-she thought he probably shaved his head-which, coupled with his powerful shoulders and chest, ought to have made him look like a thug but somehow only enhanced an indefinable but undeniable presence. He wasn’t tall-probably only a little taller than she was-but he seemed larger-than-life, and, at the same time, rock-solid, down-to-earth, completely human.

What the man had, she realized, was charisma. Oodles of it. Not to mention charm, of course, with those eyes and that smile.

“That’s good,” he was saying. “Understandable.”

Oh, yeah-and a voice that sounds the way fur feels…