“Actually, I don’t blame you. Under the circumstances, that was sharp thinking and a good reaction to ditch me. Though I did wonder where you disappeared to when I arrived at the party, and you weren’t here yet.” He laughed.
The tension in Hallie’s muscles eased. The guy could be charming. Not that she cared about that, but maybe he was starting to get that she wasn’t a total airhead. “I had intended to report the incident to the police tomorrow. Guess I won’t have to now.”
Nodding, Brody climbed out of the car, then bent and poked his head inside. “Rain check on our conversation.”
“You’re not the only one with questions to ask. I want to know what makes you so sure your golden boy’s not a killer. And it better be good.”
He smacked the top of her vehicle with his palm. “Deal. And it is.”
Her car door thunked shut, and the sportscaster strode into the dusk. She’d find those broad shoulders appealing if they didn’t bear that “I’m all it” swagger she’d detested in Teresa’s fatal tormenter. Hallie shook her head. She thought she’d come so far in erasing those images from her mind—getting on with her life—but they’d only been hiding. Lurking for an opportunity to pounce. She had to put the memories back in their cage. How would she cope if she started having those nightmares again? A shudder rippled up her spine.
She needed to make sure today’s monster was taken off the streets as quickly as possible. No way could she trust Brody to do the hard thing with his Wunderkind. She slipped her vehicle into an empty spot near the restaurant exit but behind the cover of an SUV. A few seconds later, Brody’s new car cruised past and turned onto the road. Hallie maneuvered out of the parking lot and crept up behind him, allowing a car between them. Shortly, all three of the vehicles glided onto the interstate going north. Hallie took a different lane than Brody and stayed behind the other car as a buffer.
Minutes ticked past. Was it stifling in here, or was she just nervous? She turned up the air conditioning and repositioned her sweaty hands around the wheel. Find out where Brody was meeting Damon and call 9-1-1, that’s all she had to do.
But what if the killer spotted her? He’d know for sure she wasn’t going to back off from her testimony. Did that matter? He’d be behind bars. Unless, of course, they let him out on bail. They wouldn’t do that, would they—not after he’d already run once?
Hallie slid her cell phone from her purse and placed it at the ready in the cup holder on her console. Doubts and fears made no difference. She had to do this.
For Alicia. For Teresa.
What did that woman think she was doing? Brody checked the driver’s side mirror again. It wasn’t so pitch dark he couldn’t make out the shape of her little car a couple of lanes to his left. When she’d followed him from the restaurant onto the interstate, he hadn’t thought much about it since their routes coincided for the moment, but she should have veered off on 35E toward St. Paul instead of tailing him on 35W toward Minneapolis.
One thing he’d observed from afar during their time together at WDJN, Hallie Berglund chose the high road toward whatever she perceived as truth and justice, regardless of personal risk. He’d admired her more than once for putting action to her convictions—and wanted to shake her more than twice for the chances she took. Like the time she didn’t tell a soul at the station before she posed as a waitress and sneaked into a backroom meeting between high-level management of a major corporation and top union representatives. Her story had exposed corruption on both sides of the table, and big heads had rolled. If she’d been caught pulling that stunt, she’d probably be wearing a cement straightjacket at the bottom of the Mississippi River.
A familiar chill flowed through Brody’s veins. Yes, a reporter sometimes needed to take chances to get a story, but they also needed to make sure their backside was covered if things went south—not go freelancing after a dangerous scoop without someone in the know.
Tonight, she no doubt figured on catching herself a murderer. He’d have to disappoint her. He was going to see Damon alone and without interruption. What happened after that was up to Damon. If Brody had done half the job he hoped with the kid, the young man would make the right choice.
The exit to France Avenue came up, and he took it. Hallie’s car lurked behind a Lexus sports coupe that would have had his ex shooting him eyeball daggers because they couldn’t afford one on a sportscaster’s salary. Like she couldn’t get a job? Brody shrugged off the residual resentment. Deborah was no doubt driving whatever she liked ever since she’d snagged the sort of sports idol she craved. The guy was rich and famous…and headed either for a breakdown or the hoosegow, from the inside information that had come to Brody’s ears.
He glanced at his rearview. Yep, Hallie was still back there. Now she’d put a Papa Morelli’s Pizza delivery car between them. If she could lose him on the mildly busy road in suburbia on the way to the restaurant, then turnabout was more than fair play. She didn’t stand a chance of staying with him in the downtown Minneapolis maze of stoplights and one-way streets. Brody grinned and pointed his vehicle into the heart of the city.
Forty-five minutes and one phone call later, he pulled the Impala over to the crumbling curb in front of a seedy stucco home in a rundown neighborhood. A single light glowed in a front window. Brody stepped out of his car. Garbage smells assaulted his nostrils. He looked upward and stars sparkled back at him, visible only because most of the streetlights were out. From a house across the street, rap music thumped through quality speakers. A car belched smoke and screeched away from in front, leaving two junkers at the curb and a low-slung sedan in the driveway. Drug house.
Brody headed up the walk toward the stucco dwelling. The doorway eased open several inches, and a narrow pillar of light spilled onto the tiny ragweed lawn.
“That you, bro?” Damon’s voice quavered toward him.
“In the flesh.”
The door opened wide, and Brody stepped into a musty-smelling foyer that barely contained the two of them. The towering basketball player wrapped him in a bear grip and dropped his head to Brody’s shoulder. Sobs shook Damon’s whipcord frame.
“I shouldn’t have done it…” Gulp. “But that woman, she—”
“What are you talking about?” Brody shoved Damon against the wall. “Don’t tell me—”
“You didn’t see Alicia. You don’t know anything!” Damon’s muscled shoulders drooped. If despair had a face, Brody was looking at it. “That other woman,” Damon continued. “The way she looked at me made me want to hurt her, but I just—”
“Brody Jordan.” The hoarse words brought both of their heads around. In an interior doorway stood a rail of a woman dressed in a stained T-shirt and dirty jeans that sagged around bony hips. Thin lips stretched away from yellowed teeth, and the acrid taint of cigarette smoke, mingled with a harsher kind, wafted from her body. But Brody’s stare riveted on the .45 pistol she clutched in white-knuckled hands. “I never thought I’d say this to you, but get out of my house. You’re not taking my boy to jail. They’ll never let him out.”
Brody gazed into Meghan Lange’s dilated pupils. Here stood the reason that Damon was born and raised an emotional yo-yo, but the woman loved him the best she could. There was no doubt about that. And right now, there was no more dangerous creature in the world than a terrified mother on drugs.
