Bannon Brothers by Janet Dailey Page A

Her taillights dwindled to solitary dots of red down miles of empty road before finally disappearing. Bannon’s best guess: She wasn’t being followed.
    Which didn’t mean the handover hadn’t been watched or even photographed. Sitting in the dark, he scoped the perimeter of her house and yard, looking for movement in the shrubs, along the foundation, anywhere. Nothing. He had compulsively checked his rearview and sides on the way over and hadn’t spotted anyone on his tail.
    What the hell had she said to him besides that pointless thank-you? He scowled, trying to remember something besides her frightened eyes. Just a couple of words. Then they came to him. Lie low.
    He backed out of her driveway, still looking intently around, and didn’t turn on his headlights until he’d turned a corner. There was nothing to see but a fat raccoon on a night foray for garbage, its low-slung body almost concealing its small paws as it ran.
    Driving home, he kept an automatic eye on the mirrors while he considered the development of the photocopied letter she’d found. Doris had a well-honed sense of what was fake and what wasn’t, in his judgment. The most interesting thing about the letter to him was that someone had obviously tried to make it disappear from headquarters but hadn’t destroyed it outright—unless the copy had simply gone astray. He suspected it wasn’t the only letter from whoever had written it.
    Unfortunately, Doris had been too pressed for time tonight to provide her transcription of it, and he couldn’t blame her. The letter would have to wait.
    An hour later, he was back in his condo, not eager to return to his painstaking work. Driving at night with the windows down, on full alert for surveillance on him, had brought out his animal energy. The adrenaline he’d been missing coursed through him fullblast, a hot rush of sensation.
    He didn’t have time to blow it off with a run. If truth be told, Bannon didn’t want to. He had to get as much done as he could before things really hit the fan.
    By midnight, combing through the e-mails from the station, he’d narrowed the search area to the same part of Virginia as before. The responses varied in style and content: Some were carefully composed, some were ungrammatical. Most of the senders asked to remain anonymous. Remembering the veiled menace behind his confrontation with Montgomery and his ass of a lawyer, Bannon could guess why.
    He rubbed his weary eyes. There were almost too many to have to check out by himself. Asking for backup was not an option. He was on his own.
    So far, he was cool with it, but he wasn’t so sure about Doris. She was the one who had to lie low. And he had to make sure the trouble they were stirring up was his problem, and not hers.

CHAPTER 4
    A shrill but distant ringing pierced the fog of his sleep. Bannon struggled up to a half-reclining position, resting on one bent arm as he reached for the phone with the other.
    â€œHello?” he said gruffly.
    A male voice that was an echo of his own chuckled. “Rise and shine, Mr. Famous.”
    Bannon gave a growl that scared the cat next to him off the bed. “Up yours, Deke. It’s six-thirty. Do you know what time I went to bed?”
    His brother didn’t seem to care. “I saw you on the news.”
    â€œYou did? Are you back in Virginia?”
    â€œNope.”
    Even half-asleep, Bannon knew better than to expect too many details from Deke when he was on assignment.
    â€œA guy on my team caught the segment on the Web, asked if you were my brother,” Deke went on. “What could I say but yes? Ugly as you are.”
    â€œThanks.”
    â€œI watched it a few times, RJ. Sounds like you got yourself a new case.”
    â€œYeah. And I don’t think old man Montgomery wants me on it. The hell with him. There’s something there worth investigating. I think.” He scrubbed a hand over his