Sweet Fortune

Barely.
    Jessie nearly collapsed as she peeled herself away from her car. The vehicle that had almost run her down was already squealing around the corner, vanishing from sight.
    “Damn drunk drivers,” an old woman on the sidewalk yelled in sympathy. “They oughta get 'em all off the road once and for all. Take away their cars, I say.”
    Jessie just looked at her.
    She was still staring blankly at the groceries scattered across the street when Hatch's Mercedes pulled into the empty parking space behind her car a few minutes later.
    Seeing the scattered groceries, he was out of the car in a flash, racing toward her.
    “Jessie?”
    She almost fell into his arms. Nothing had ever felt so strong and reassuringly secure as Hatch did in that moment.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

    Y ou're sure you're okay?” Hatch asked for what must have been the fiftieth time.
    “I'm okay. Honest. Just a little shaken up.” Jessie sat at the kitchen counter gripping the cup of hot tea he had just made for her. “Calm down, Hatch. It was just one of those things. I should have been more careful getting out of the car.”
    “Damn right, you should have been more careful.”
    Jessie cocked a brow at him. “Do I detect a lessening in the degree of sympathy you feel? Is this where you start lecturing?”
    “Now that the shock is over, I'm entitled to start lecturing.” Hatch leaned back against the sink, his arms folded, eyes hooded. “Christ. Next time you get out of a car, look behind you. Got that?”
    “Believe me, I'm not likely to forget it.”
    “I just wish that old lady on the sidewalk had gotten a license plate.”
    “There wasn't time, Hatch. I'm telling you, it was all over in a matter of seconds. Everything happened so fast.”
    “And you didn't get a look at the driver?”
    Jessie shook her head. “I told you, tinted windows. Not that I would have had time to take notes anyway. I was too busy trying to meld myself to the metal of my car. There's nothing to report to the police except that a brown car nearly hit me. Unfortunately, that sort of thing happens to innocent people all the time. All a person can do is be careful.”
    “Remember that.” Hatch fell silent. His gaze turned brooding.
    “Hatch?”
    “Yeah?”
    “What are you thinking?”
    “About a few things.”
    “That certainly clarifies the issue,” Jessie muttered. “Let's have it. What's going on in that convoluted brain of yours?”
    “I was just thinking that the police haven't picked up the DEL guy who broke into your office and tried to get into my car. They're investigating Edwin Bright and they've got Landis and Hoffman, but what if there was another one running around?”
    Jessie's eyes widened. “You don't think he'd be after me, do you?”
    “Probably not,” Hatch said a little too quickly. “If he exists, and if he's got any sense, he's skipped town. And even if he was dumb enough to still be around, he'd be more likely to go after Susan Attwood. She's the one who's supplying most of the hard evidence against Bright.”
    “True. Do you think we ought to call Susan and Alex?”
    Hatch chewed on that. “The thing is, it really doesn't make any sense for that jerk to still be in the picture. Assuming there is a jerk, he was just hired muscle. If he was smart enough to escape the police net, he should be smart enough to be long gone. But it can't hurt to call Robin. I'll tell him to keep an eye on Susan and to lock his doors and stay out of dark alleys for the next few days.”
    “What are you going to do?”
    Hatch smiled grimly. “Keep an eye on you and make sure you lock the doors and stay out of dark alleys for a while.”

    Jessie was not particularly surprised to get the summons from her father the next morning on her answering machine. The message was gruff and betrayed no hint of any emotion except anger.
    “I want to talk to you ASAP. Not at the office. I'm going home early. Come by the house around five.”
    At five that afternoon Jessie dutifully went up the steps of the big white house in which she had been raised. The Queen Anne neighborhood was one of the nicest in Seattle, the homes large, expensive, and well-maintained. The house to which Vincent Benedict had brought two brides was an old one with a graceful garden. A professional took care of the flowers. Jessie's father had no interest in gardening.
    Vincent answered the doorbell with a glass of whiskey in his hand. He glowered at his daughter.
    “About time you got