Schaffer had to be wrong.
Carson braked at the intersection. When he would have pulled out, he hesitated. A red Mustang parked at the curb on the opposite side of the cross street detained his attention. Or, more accurately, the blond female leaning against the driver’s-side door did. His gaze forged a path from the daringly high heels, up long, sexy legs, to the hem of the short, tight black skirt before recognition slammed into his brain.
Annette Baxter.
Dark glasses shielded her eyes, but the irreverent smile on her lips was unmistakable.
Fury tightened in his gut. What the hell was she doing? He glanced in his rearview mirror. He was no more than three blocks from the Bureau office. Yet there she stood, in broad daylight without the first sign of the surveillance the feds had tailing her 24/7.
He turned left, rolling out onto the otherwise deserted cross street, unable to look away from her. As he drove slowly past, she removed those dark glasses and stared directly at him. Challenging him to question her presence. Letting him know she was watching.
So damned cocky. Oh yeah, let her look all she damned well wanted to. He was the last person she was going to see before taking one hell of a fall.
En route to pick up his uncle, Carson exiled his annoyance with Baxter and put in a call to his secretary to arrange payment of damages with the Kroger manager. Once at the Mountain Brook precinct, Carson signed for Max’s release then followed Sergeant Johnson to the holding cell.
Maxwell West was a seventy-year-old functioning schizophrenic. As long as he stayed on his medication he was a little on the odd side but fully capable of living a reasonably normal life. But those times when he either forgot or just plain refused to take his meds,thishappened.
Carson stared at his uncle, who was curled into the fetal position on the floor of the cell. How was it that Carson’s mother, a renowned child psychologist, could have had a brother so completely opposite?
“Let’s go, Max,” Carson said as the sergeant unlocked the door.
Max peeked above the forearms crossed over his face. His eyes were wild with the insanity plaguing his brain. Voices, images, memories—real and imagined—were no doubt whirling in his head like a late-summer tornado. Sweat had dampened his shirt at his armpits and beaded on his face. “They’re coming for me this time, Carson. I know it.”
Carson tried not to show his frustration. Someone was always coming for Max. Particularly the ambiguousthey.
The man was a recluse. Lived in a shack in the woods. The same shack where he’d raised Carson until he’d gone off to college. Max had no friends, no living relatives other than Carson. The old man didn’t attend social functions. He had nothing of value in his home. He existed. Nothing more. There was no one to fear.
But he’d taken care of Carson as best he could when there had been no one else.
Carson crouched down and offered his hand. “Come on. I’ll take you home. We’ll get your meds and you’ll be fine.”
Max sprang up on all fours and glared wildly at Carson. “I can’t go back there. I’m telling you”—he swiped at his damp face—“they’re gonna get me this time.”
Frustration spiked again but Carson tamped it back down. As difficult as moments like this were, not only did he owe the old man, but Max was his only family. Carson had to take care of him.
Who would take care of Carson if this ever happened to him? He’d heard the whispers behind his back fifteen years ago.
The boy could be like his uncle ... that man’s crazy, you know.
Fear trickled. Carson stanched the seeping, creeping flow of it and braced himself. He was not like his uncle. This would not happen to him. It hadn’t fifteen years ago, it wouldn’t now. “We can do this either the easy way or the hard way,” he offered quietly but firmly.
Max blinked, a new brand of fear welling in his eyes. “What does that mean, Carson?”
Guilt nagged at Carson. The man was like a scared kid. Carson couldn’t bring himself to be too hard on him, no matter how frustrating these incidents could be. “It means you have to come with me now or there’ll be trouble. You don’t want any trouble, right?”
Max considered the question a moment then shook his head adamantly. “Take me home.” He struggled to his feet. “I’ll just have to find a way to fortify my security.”
Whatever.
Max refused to wear his seat belt or to sit upright in the car. He hovered down where no one could see him for the twenty-five minutes required to reach his run-down shack deep in the woods that backed up to the prestigious Mountain Brook community.
His uncle had inherited several acres of woodland from the West family. The property abutted the estate where Carson had grown up. Carson’s mother ensured that the land was put in trust so that Max couldn’t do away with it in one of his frenzies. The old man had built his shack out of recycled materials picked up from wherever he happened to find them. His furnishings were castoffs gathered from curbs. He refused to live anyplace else. Max had made a trail through the woods to Carson’s childhood home. Carson remembered vividly how his uncle would sometimes show up in the middle of the night to pillage for food after his monthly allowance ranout. He had refused monetary assistance from his sister, wouldn’t take it from Carson now.
He led his uncle into the shack and ushered him down onto the ragged couch. “Don’t move.”
Max just stared at him, his mania subsiding slightly in the familiar surroundings.
Carson found the prescription bottles and counted the contents. “Dammit.” His uncle had been off his meds for six days. And Carson had been so busy screwing up that he’d failed to check on him.
