Winter's Daughter Read Free Page B

and drawled, "You
are
familiar with the drill, aren’t you? Been here a few times, I’ll bet. So you know how it goes, right, my friend? You come along nicely, you get to spend a couple days indoors, maybe dry out a little, get a couple square meals, compliments of the city of Los Padres. How’s that sound?"
    "Great." Dillon straightened and stretched experimentally, and discovered the damage done to his anatomy by the shopping cart probably wasn’t permanent. "Just—great."
    Resigned to the hassle, the inevitable indignities he knew he’d have to suffer before this whole mess was straightened out, Dillon settled into the back of the patrol car. He wasn’t really thinking about his own situation at all. He was thinking about the woman, wondering who she was and what she was doing on the streets. Because for darn sure she wasn’t any ordinary bag lady. Those eyes of hers—the clearest, bluest eyes he’d ever seen.
Fire and ice.
Looking into them had made him feel as if he’d just swallowed a hefty slug of white lightning. Maybe she was somebody he ought to recognize, and maybe she wasn’t, but there was one thing he knew for sure: He’d know her if he ever saw her again. He’d know those eyes.
    As the patrol car pulled away from the curb, Dillon turned to look back down the street. He didn’t see any sign of the bag lady, but it didn’t matter; he knew he’d be seeing her again, and a lot sooner than she thought if he had any of his old skills left at all. He was going to be looking for that woman, whoever she was and whatever her game was. And he’d find her, too.
    With a laugh that was more pained than amused he realized he owed her one for what she’d done to him with that shopping cart.
    "Lord, I hate this," the younger cop grumbled as he picked up the radio’s hand unit, wrinkling his nose fastidiously.
    The veteran gave his partner a look that was part amused, part cynical, and maybe a little sad. "Get used to it, kid."
    Dillon knew exactly how he felt. He’d felt that way often enough himself.
    He had no rancor for the two cops, even though they’d put a temporary crimp in his program. He hoped Logan didn’t come down too hard on them, that’s all. Dillon was fairly certain the fertilizer was going to hit the fan when Los Padres’s finest discovered the wino they’d busted was their own newly elected city councilman.

Chapter 2
    It was a long way from downtown Los Padres to the northern outskirts of the city, the area known as The Estates. It was certainly a long walk, especially pushing an overburdened shopping cart, but Tannis was always more conscious of an even greater distance that couldn’t be measured in miles.
    The Estates was a gated community bordering on the Los Padres Golf Course, home of the Los Padres Open, which only last year had become an official stop on the PGA tour. The homes were large, all built in the same Spanish style with red tile roofs and courtyards. The houses eventually gave way to pricey town house and condo complexes that clung to brush–covered hills overlooking the golf course. The streets of the neighborhood were broad and clean and sun–drenched. The air smelled of flowers and new–cut grass and, day or night, it seemed almost to breathe with the muted hiss of sprinklers.
    As Tannis turned into Fountain Court, a short cul–de–sac backing onto the seventh fairway, she reached under her coat, opened her purse, and took out a small rectangular object. Taking aim at a sloping driveway occupied by a child’s overturned tricycle, she pressed a button with her thumb, then waited while the massive garage door creaked slowly open.
    Her aching muscles complained as she pushed the cart up the driveway and into the garage. Sweat itched and trickled under her arms, down her back, and in the hollow between her breasts. A shower was going to feel so good.
    As the door clunked softly shut behind her, Tannis pushed the cart toward the far corner of the garage,