Janet smiled the brittle smile that made Anne think the fine veneer of her face was about to shatter to pieces and reveal the reptilian alien beneath the facade.
“Of course,” she said. “My son and I were just on our way home. Have a lovely evening. Good to see you, Anne.”
A chill ran down Anne’s back.
“Oh my God,” Franny said, finally regaining the ability to speak as Janet Crane walked away. “I think you were just saved from having your soul liquefied and sucked out of you.”
“That was your fault,” Anne said, angry and upset as she turned to Vince. “Do you have any idea what just happened? I just lost that little boy’s trust. Do you have any idea what that means to me?”
He had the grace to look contrite. “I’m sorry.”
“You should be. She’s going to get Tommy taken out of my class,” she said, swiping angrily at a tear that dared to fall. “I’m someone he should be able to trust and she’s going to take him away, and who will he have then?”
“Anne-”
“I’m going home,” she announced, and started walking toward the public lot where she had parked. She felt like Janet Crane had reached right into her chest and torn her heart loose. And it was her own fault. She should have gone with her gut.
“Anne,” Vince said, taking hold of her arm. “Wait.”
“No,” she said, jerking away from him, not slowing down. “I’m upset, and I’m going home before I make a complete spectacle of myself in the street.”
“I’ll fix it,” he said.
“You’ll fix it?” she turned and stared at him, incredulous. “How will you fix it? How will you get that little boy to trust me?”
“He’ll trust you again,” he promised. “He wants to trust you. He needs to trust you. He sure as hell can’t trust his mother. He’ll turn back to you. And he won’t be going anywhere. I’ll take care of Janet Crane.”
Anne arched a brow. “Take care of? That sounds like something a gangster would say.”
“Well, I am from Chicago, but I promise I only work on the right side of the street.”
“Don’t try to be amusing,” she snapped. “I’m in no mood to be amused.”
“Sorry.”
“And what makes you think you can stop Janet Crane from doing something if she’s made up her mind?” she demanded, jamming her hands on her hips.
“I don’t think I can. I will,” he said. “Janet Crane has a lot, which means she has a lot to lose. Her status, for instance. Her standing in the community. I have the ability to make those things go away simply by having a conversation with a reporter.”
Anne’s eyebrows went up. He meant it. Seriously.
“I owe you,” he said. “Besides, people can’t mess with people I like. And she can’t screw with me because she’s got no currency with me. She’s got nothing to threaten me with. I’ve got the big stick, and I’ll use it.”
Anne thought about that for a moment. She had never had anyone rush to defend her before, let alone promise annihilation of the enemy. And she had no doubt that he would do exactly what he said. His expression was just this side of fierce. He radiated power. She felt a little like she had poked a stick at a lion.
“Let me see you home,” he said, dialing down his intensity a notch.
“I’m capable of driving myself home,” Anne said.
“I’m well aware you’re capable,” he said, brows lowered over his dark eyes. “I would feel better seeing you home. You’re upset. You’re not going to be paying attention. There’s still a killer on the loose. Now that I’ve fucked up-pardon my French-your relationship with your student, making sure you’re safe seems like the least I can do. Is that all right with you?”
Without examining her reasons too closely, Anne handed him her car keys.
46
Anne led the way up the sidewalk to the home she had grown up in, a sturdy Craftsman-style house of dark painted wood and stone. Soft amber lights flanked the front door. Rosebushes lined the front walk. The roses glowed white in the moonlight.
Vince followed her up the steps, admiring her behind in a pair of blue jeans. “You live here alone?”
“With my father. He allegedly needs a keeper.”
“Right. You said his health is poor. What does he have?”
“His heart is bad,” she said. “Literally and figuratively.”
“How old is he?”
“Seventy-nine,” she said, unlocking the front door and letting them in. She glanced up at him, catching the surprise on his face. “My father was an English professor with a wandering eye. My mother was his much-younger student.”
Vince kept his mouth shut. He had to be happy her father was seventy-nine and not forty-nine. Anne started to go down a dark hall, and he caught her gently by the arm.
“Whoa, sweetheart. Don’t go charging down dark hallways,” he cautioned. “Do you keep all your doors and windows locked?”
“As of this week I do,” she said.
Vince flicked on the hall light. “You can’t be too careful. We still don’t know who this killer is, but he’s not the guy sitting in jail. He could be someone you know.”
“I can’t imagine that.”
“And that’s what this kind of predator counts on. He hides in plain sight and gets a rush out of knowing no one suspects him.”
“That’s unnerving,” she said, that emotion plain in her pretty brown eyes as she looked up at him.
“Better that you know it than not. You don’t exactly fit the victimology, but you’re the right age, and God knows you’re pretty,” he said, tracing a blunt-tipped forefinger down her pert little nose. “You don’t have a connection to the Thomas Center, but I don’t have a crystal ball, either. He could know you some other way and decide you meet his profile well enough.”
“You’re scaring me,” she whispered.
“I just want you to be careful, honey. If you’re in a situation that doesn’t feel right to you, there’s a reason you feel that way. Get yourself out of it and call me. Day or night. Or call the sheriff’s office and ask for Mendez. Okay?”
She nodded solemnly as she looked up at him. His gaze lingered just a little too long on the full soft bow of her lower lip. The memory of the taste of her was still in his mouth. Electricity hummed in the scant distance between them. It made her skittish.
“I’ll give you the nickel tour,” she said, her voice a little breathless as she turned and started down the hall.
The first door they came to was a cozy library/office with a big old mahogany desk and heavy leather chairs. A masculine room. Her father’s study, the built-in shelves crammed to the ceiling with books. Vince checked the window to make certain it was locked.
Amber light shone under the last door on the hall. Her father’s bedroom.
Anne knocked and cracked the door open. “I’m home.”
Her father was sitting up in his bed in maroon pajamas, reading. An oxygen tank sat beside the bed, clear tubing conducting the air into his nostrils. He didn’t even look over at his daughter, but merely grunted his acknowledgment.
“Did you take your meds?”
He made a sound in his throat that might have meant anything.
“If you didn’t, I have an FBI agent here with me, and he’ll make you take them.”
Even that got no response from the old man. Anne shut the door and rolled her eyes. “The love is overwhelming, isn’t it?”
She said it with such dry sarcasm, Vince thought she must have long ago stopped caring whether her father felt anything for her.
“Does he have a problem with speech?” Vince asked as they started back down the hall.
“No,” she said. “He’s an ass.”
“Oh.”
And yet, she had given up finishing her education and going into her chosen field to come home and take care of him. When her mother died. It wasn’t difficult to piece the story together from what she had said at dinner the night before and what he had just seen for himself. She must have come home because her mother had asked her to. The fact that she had, despite her feelings for the old man, spoke volumes to the kind of woman Anne Navarre was.