Chapter 9
“How do you feel now?” Hank asked when they were back in his truck. “Any better?”
“Yes. Yes, I guess I do feel better. Except for the part where I’m going to feel like bait. But the sheriff was right. If I just move on without settling this, there’s still two more months to worry about. At least. And if I went back to Miami for the court appearance, I’d be scared out of my wits.”
“I want you to go back for that appearance.”
“Why?” She turned in her seat to look at him.
“Because after what that bastard put you through, I think you deserve every penny you can get out of him.”
A little laugh escaped her. “I thought that at first, too. Now I just want to be rid of him.”
“That’s what he’s probably hoping.”
“How do you mean?”
“Well, suppose he just paid that guy to scare you, not kill you. What’s the likelihood you’d show up in court?”
Her jaw dropped a little. “You have a devious mind.”
“I’m just trying to think things through. Maybe he wants you dead. Maybe he wants you not to show up. Maybe he thinks that if you don’t show up it would mean you’ve given up on a big settlement and he can get it down to something like your attorney’s fees.”
“Man!” Her exclamation was appalled. “The worst part of it is, I can imagine Dean thinking just like that. Well, I’m going back for that appearance.”
“You made up your mind?”
“You bet.”
“Then we’d better keep our eye out for a killer.”
He turned over the ignition and started to back out of the parking space. “If you don’t want to go to that book signing, I’ll just run in and get Mandy to sign the book for me.”
That made her feel about two inches tall. This man had upended his life for her, had offered to protect her—and that was no lightweight offer from a man like him—he’d invited her into his home, into his life and now she was going to cut short something he’d obviously been looking forward to?
“No, I’d like to go.” She did feel better after talking to the sheriff, and she felt safe with Hank. Nobody would try to abduct her while she was with him. Plus, there’d be other people around. It would be nice to meet a few of them, especially since, at the back of her mind, she was having thoughts of staying here once the divorce was final.
Silly thoughts, she told herself. Born, most likely, of how safe Hank made her feel. And that was a lousy reason to decide to settle somewhere. Once the divorce was over, she’d have nothing to fear any longer. She could choose to live anywhere she wanted, including in Miami, right under Dean’s nose, if she could stand being that close to him.
The thought almost made her laugh.
Bea’s Bookstore was tiny and smelled richly of books. They seemed to fill almost every inch of space, leaving just enough room to maneuver through aisles. At the back, though, were a couple of easy chairs and a wooden reading table where an attractive woman in her forties sat with a stack of hardcover books in front of her.
“Mandy,” Hank said with real pleasure. “Do I get the first copy?”
The woman laughed. “Saved just for you.” Her gaze trailed to Kelly. “I don’t think we’ve met.”
“Kelly Scanlon,” Hank said. “My new tenant. She just moved here.”
Mandy reached out to shake her hand. “Welcome to town. I hope you love it here as much as most of us do.”
“I’m falling in love with it already.”
“No Ransom this morning?” Hank asked as he lifted a copy of the book.
“Someone had to stay home with the kids. And I don’t mean the goats.” Mandy’s eyes were sparkling. “We raise sheep and goats,” she explained to Kelly. “And all three of the human kids woke up under the weather this morning. Apparently, they caught a case of the ‘something that’s going around.’”
Kelly laughed. “There’s a lot of that everywhere.”
Hank picked up a second copy of the book. “I’m going to get one for Kelly, too. I know she’ll enjoy your work as much as I do.”
Ten minutes later, having met the store’s owner and a handful of others who had come for the signing, Kelly emerged again into the sunlight with Hank, and paused on the sidewalk to look up and down the street.
“I like how friendly people are here,” she announced.
“Most folks are,” he agreed. “See that sign for the City Diner? Everyone here refers to it by the owner’s name. Maude’s we call it. Want to stop in for coffee and a light lunch?”
“Sure. And thank you for the book.”
“You’re welcome.”
His smile, she thought, was charming. Always charming. It wasn’t the pretended social affability she had seen too much of. When Hank Jackson smiled, it seemed to emanate from his very soul.
Hugging her book, feeling as if she’d just been given a wonderful gift, perhaps the most wonderful she had ever received, she walked slowly with him down the street.
“You do seem to feel better,” he remarked as he limped at her side.
“I do. Talking to the sheriff was a good idea. He not only seems to know what he’s doing, but I get the feeling he cares.”
“That he does. There was a time when he was a stranger here, too. Never talked to anybody. Folks used to call him Hell’s Own Archangel.”
“Really?” That astonished her. “Not very kind.”
“I think it had to do with the anger and grimness people felt in him. He’d lost his wife and kids to a car bomb set by one of the drug dealers he was after. And, obviously, he was injured, too.”
“You two must have a lot to talk about.”
“Sometimes,” he agreed. “Sometimes.”
She heard the door close on the subject, so she dropped it.
Maude’s diner proved to be an interesting place. Leaning toward Hank in the booth after Maude took their orders and gave them coffee, Kelly murmured, “I don’t think I’ve ever had my coffee slammed down like that before.”
“Maude’s a piece of work,” he agreed with a twinkling eye. “It’s a good thing you knew what you wanted to eat or she’d have made up your mind for you.”
Kelly sat back, absorbing this very different environment. Of course, Dean never would have taken her to a place like this, so déclassé, but she could see with a quick scan that there was someone at almost every table, and many older men and women clustered in groups over coffee and deep in discussion. Apparently, Maude’s was the place to go.
Her choice of a piece of cobbler was slammed down in front of her with as much emphasis as the coffee and she found herself looking into Maude’s gimlet eye.
“This one,” Maude announced to Hank, “needs looking after. Hear?”
“I hear,” he answered.
“Good.” Then Maude sailed on, back toward the kitchen from which the clanging of pots and the rattle of dishes could be heard.
Kelly leaned toward Hank again. “Who runs this town?”
He chuckled. “Depends. The mayor thinks he does, the sheriff mostly does, along with Velma, but Maude runs anything they don’t…like what you’re going to eat when you walk through that front door.”
She laughed and felt the day grow even brighter. She liked it here, she liked everyone she’d met, even Maude, and she just wished the cloud hanging over her head would go away. Permanently.
Hank noted that Kelly’s mood seemed to sink as they went home. Well, of course. It brought back the entire reason she was here, and the only reason she was staying. She’d been able to forget for a little while, but now here it was in her face again.
“You’re taking the day off to rest, right?” she asked as they pulled into his driveway.
He thought about the windows for the mudroom, then took an internal inventory. He sighed. “Yup. No work today.”
She turned in the seat so that she faced him. “Does it frustrate you?”
“Sometimes. It wasn’t very long ago that when I said go, my body got up and went. It takes a little more planning now. And sometimes I just need to be smart and not do anything at all.”
“That would be frustrating,” she agreed.
“But before we settle in to read our books or whatever, I want to check the caulking.”
“I thought you said the rain wouldn’t hurt it.”
“It shouldn’t have, but I still want to check. Wait here. It’ll only take a minute.”
She followed his directions, understanding already that he was a man who didn’t want to be made to feel like an invalid, but it was getting so that when she saw him limp, she hurt for him. Some things, she thought, could change your life forever in just a few seconds or minutes. Like her abduction and near drowning. Like having a building collapse on you and losing two friends. Nothing would ever be the same again, no matter how you tried to put your life back together.
Like now. She couldn’t stop looking nervously around, wondering if her killer could be hiding somewhere right this minute, waiting for his chance.
Hank returned in five minutes. “Caulking is fine,” he smiled, and together they went into his house. As they stepped on the porch, another rumble of thunder reached them and he paused to look southward.
“Weird,” he said.
“What is?”
“We don’t get a lot of rain here. We’re in the rain shadow of the mountains, so we stay pretty dry. Two storms in two days?”
“Climate change,” she suggested.
“Climate chaos, more like.” He twisted the key in the door and waved her in ahead of him. “We’ve been getting more snow in the winters so, yeah. Why should I be surprised if we get more rain in the summers?”
Inside, he closed and locked the door, then faced her with a smile. “Okay, I’m taking that rest day you insisted on. So how do you want to spend it? We can read, play cards, watch movies or sit out back and get sunburned.”
The notion of sitting outside didn’t appeal to her, in part because she would feel exposed, and partly because the temperatures here were so much cooler than she was used to in Miami that she couldn’t imagine sunning herself.
“I’d be out there bundled up in your sweatshirt.”
“That’s what I forgot. I was going to take you by Freitag’s Mercantile so you could get a sweater or something. Not that they’re probably selling much in the way of cool-weather clothing right now.”
“I’ll give you your sweatshirt back,” she offered hastily. “It must bother you to see me wearing it.”
“That’s not what I meant. It doesn’t bother me at all or I wouldn’t have gotten it out. No, I just thought you’d like to have something that fits better.”
The truth was, she loved being swallowed by his sweatshirt. Overnight it had come to feel like a security blanket. “It’s fine. I love it. So let’s not go racing to the store right now.”
He gave her a mock frown. “You’re interfering with my every attempt not to be indolent.”
“I hardly think an afternoon off is indolence.”
The frown eased into a smile. “Coffee and cards? Or coffee and books? Or movies. Or whatever.”
Her mind chose a path on that whatever that almost made her blush. She’d been trying since he rolled out of bed in agony last night not to think about what had started between them, and she didn’t dare mention it, even if lying in his arms in that bed sounded like the best thing in the world to her. Of all the options, she would have chosen whatever. But she couldn’t even guess if he felt the same way.
“Definitely coffee,” she said after a moment. “And maybe some cards? I haven’t played in a long time, and I’m not ready yet to settle in to a book.”
They played Hearts, but the conversation didn’t revolve around cards.
“That’s awful—what happened to your sheriff,” she remarked.
“I know. Every time I’ve even wandered close to self-pity, I’ve thought about Gage. Wife and kids, and he was standing right there when it happened. Cripes.”
“But things are better for him now?”
“Much. He married our librarian, known to everyone as Miss Emma, and they’ve adopted a couple of children. He told me once that he was so scared of losing kids that for a long time he wouldn’t even consider it. And for a long time after they got their first, he hovered over the baby constantly, frightened that something might happen.”
She nodded. “And you? Do you feel the same way?”
He stared at his cards and finally looked at her. “For a while I did. I had resolved to become a hermit.”
“And after that an old curmudgeon?”
He flashed a grin. “That was the next option. Unfortunately, being a hermit doesn’t exactly suit me, and I still can’t bring myself to yell at the kids for playing on my lawn.”
“You’ve got a lot of work to do on that image.”
“Tell me about it. It might help me develop if a baseball came flying through a window, but the kids tend to play in the park two blocks over, so I’ve given up on that ever happening.”
“I could go ask one to do it.”
He shook his head. “Don’t bother. I’d just replace the window.”
At that she laughed wholeheartedly. “You’re funny, Hank Jackson.”
He put a hand over his heart. “I think I’m wounded.”
“Hardly. You’re a softie. You’d no more yell at a kid than you would have told me to get lost once you knew I was in trouble. Heck, even before you knew you didn’t throw me out of that house. And you could have. No, you just went to work to make it safe. And now look at you. Your hermitage has been invaded. By your own invitation.”
“Just don’t tell anyone. I’m working on it, okay?”
“Yeah, right.”
He chuckled again. Then their eyes locked across the table, and the laughter faded. After a moment he said, “Um, so are you going to pick up your life in Miami after the divorce is settled?”
A few weeks ago, she might have said yes. Maybe even a few days ago. “I lived in Florida all my life. It’s what I know. But…”
“But?”
“I’m not sure anymore. So far I like it here. And I probably shouldn’t admit it, but I like not being hot all the time. I didn’t expect that.”
Another couple of moments ticked by, their gazes still locked. “Why didn’t you expect it?” he asked.
“Because I’m so used to the weather down there. And I always hate it when it gets cold and nothing I do seems to keep me warm. Except…I like the coolness here.”
“It can get awful in the winters if you’re not used to it.”
“I expect so. But I could probably get used to it.”
“I’m sure you could.” He leaned back a bit, breaking the eye contact that had begun to make her oddly breathless. “More coffee?”
“Please.”
He emptied both their cups, getting rid of what had cooled down and replacing it with fresh, hot brew. “So you’re thinking about a major life change,” he remarked as he sat across from her again. “This place seems a bit out of the way and slow for someone from Miami.”
“That’s part of what I like about it. I guess my only problem would be finding a job. How many medical billing clerks can you need around here?”
“I don’t know. You might ask at the hospital if the urge to stay keeps growing on you. We have kind of a brain drain. Young folks get out of here as fast as they can. Off to bigger cities or colleges, and they seldom come back.”
“That’s sad.”
He shrugged one shoulder. “I did it myself. For a while the drain slowed down. The junior college still helps, and the semiconductor plant stemmed the tide to almost nothing, but then they started laying people off. So, you know, they might actually need a billing clerk at the hospital. Or I guess you could train for a different career at the college. If you decide to stay.”
If she decided to stay. She made a show of picking up her cards again, but she didn’t really see them. The urge to plant herself here permanently was growing, but she couldn’t be certain why. Maybe it was Hank. Maybe it was feeling, for the first time in ages, that someone actually gave a damn about her.
It seemed like a nice town, but there were lots of nice towns. If this urge she was feeling hinged on Hank…well, that could wind up being a stupid thing to do. Other than wanting to make love to her—and she wasn’t even completely certain about that—he’d given her no reason to think he wanted her to hang around.
He was just being a nice guy.
And why that should sadden her so much, she couldn’t begin to say.
Hank noticed her mood change, and ran their conversation back in his mind, trying to figure out if he’d said something. But no, it had been merely a casual conversation about staying here in Conard County. No big deal that he could see…unless that was it. Maybe the thought of restarting her life had saddened her all over again. That wouldn’t be surprising.
But then she surprised him with the turn of her thoughts. “You know what you said about how maybe Dean just wanted to scare me?”
“Yeah?”
“I don’t think so. He’d already agreed to the settlement. Which, according to my lawyer, was as good as having it cast in stone at that point. And my lawyer said something else. He said that if I tried to lower the amount, no judge would agree because he or she would be certain I’d been intimidated.”
“Ah. I didn’t think of that, but it makes sense.”
“Well, wouldn’t Dean’s lawyer have made that clear to him, too, that once he signed a settlement agreement it was as good as done?”
“You’re right.” He hated to say it, only now realizing how much he had been cherishing a hope that this whole thing would blow over without any more trouble for her. “I’m not a lawyer.”
One corner of her mouth tugged briefly upward, in a smile that couldn’t quite make it. “Sorry, I guess I can’t forget about it for very long. Now I’ve ruined the mood.”
What mood, he wondered. Something had cast her down, the minute they started talking about her future plans. It wasn’t as if they’d been having some kind of riotous party and she’d burst into tears inexplicably. “You didn’t ruin anything. We were just playing cards. I imagine that thinking about all the changes ahead of you isn’t easy.”
“It’s easier than thinking that creep might be on my tail.” She sighed and pushed her cards aside. “I just want it over. I’m tired of the whole mess. I am so ready to move on.”
Move on to where? But there was no answer to that yet. He doubted that she would want to stay here once she got to know the place. Oh, there was no better place than this for raising a family, making friends, settling down. But she was used to a different kind of life. Conard County would probably bore her to tears once she saw enough of it.
But amid his concern for her, he felt a niggle of concern for himself. He was getting involved here, however casually, with someone who would leave. He needed his head examined. Hadn’t losing Fran been lesson enough?
Unfortunately, that argument didn’t seem to be working as well anymore. Now that he was mostly past survivor guilt, it was beginning to sound a bit puerile—even to him. Bad things happened to everyone. Picking up your toys and going home never to play again was a childish response. Useless, too. Life had landed on his doorstep and, if nothing else, it was time to realize that he was still alive.
And if, given the same set of circumstances, he would still go into that building to save a woman’s life, then maybe he needed to get around to honestly forgiving himself. Not just saying it, but believing it. He hadn’t asked Fran or Allan to follow him. They had made that decision the same way he had made his own.
He suddenly froze as a dawning understanding hit him.
“Hank? What’s wrong?”
Part of him wanted to keep the new understanding private. Yet a bigger part of him needed to share it, to test it against the response of another human being.
“I just…realized something,” he said.
“Yes?” Her blue eyes were concerned, gentle. Such gentle eyes. He was glad that tenderness had survived her marriage.
“I just realized that I didn’t ask Fran and Allan to come into that building with me. I never even glanced their way. They made their own decision to go with me.”
“Yes.” She nodded, then waited, as if she knew there was more.
“Well, I never thought of it quite this way before, but it just struck me: By taking the blame for what happened to them, by feeling that it’s all my fault they’re gone, I dishonor them.”
“Dishonor them how?”
“By not recognizing they were capable of making their own decision to help save that woman. That they were doing what firefighters do, just as I was. And to think they went in only because of me does them no honor at all. They would have gone whether I had or not.”
She nodded slowly. “You’re right. Looking at it that way does honor them. And I agree. They weren’t kids just tagging along, were they? No, they were experienced firefighters, too.”
“Yes. They were. Great ones.” He drew a long breath and let go of some deep pain that never left him. “I guess that’s what they call an epiphany.”
“It sounds like it.” She reached for her cards and began swirling them on the table, pointlessly, except possibly to occupy her hands. “You told me to stop second-guessing myself. You even said that if you were in exactly the same circumstances, knowing what you knew then and not what you know now, that you would have gone into that building.”
“I did.”
Her smile was faint. “Your friends evidently reached the same conclusion. “Can you even be sure you were the first one to move?”
“No. Heat, smoke, face mask…I didn’t see them until we were inside. And then it was too late.”
“So maybe you all moved at once. I admit, I don’t get being a firefighter. But going into situations like that seems to be what firefighters do.”
He gave a short nod. What was there to say? Anyone who couldn’t do exactly that didn’t make it much past training.
“My guess would be that you all made exactly the same decision at exactly the same moment when you heard there was a woman inside.”
“Maybe.”
She pursed her lips, but he could still see a smile there. “No maybe about it. They were good firefighters. You said so yourself.”
And that was the crux of the matter right there. All three of them had had the same instinct and responded in the same way. They hadn’t exchanged a word or a look. They’d just gone in.
“What if you hadn’t gone in, but they had?” she asked. “Somehow I don’t think you’d feel any better about this.”
No, for a fact. He was sure of that. He closed his eyes a moment, his head suddenly filled with the captain’s crackling voice as it had come over the radio just seconds before the collapse. “Get out. Get out now. The structure is about to go.”
But there hadn’t been time. They’d turned around, facing the inevitable: that they wouldn’t be able to save the trapped woman if the building was falling. And that was all he remembered.
“Okay,” he said. “Enough of that. I don’t want to go back there.”
“I’m sure you don’t.”
“So let’s talk about you.”
“Me? What about me?”
“Well, it seems like a good time for building castles in the air. You’re about to shuck Dean and start fresh. There has to be something good in that.”
“I may feel more like it once it’s past.” But she seemed to shake herself a little, as if redirecting her thoughts. “I haven’t really done a lot of thinking about it.”
“Why not?”
“Well, first, the divorce was looming. I got myself this little apartment, managed to get hired as a waitress because no other doctor wanted to touch me while I was divorcing Dean, and I just wasn’t thinking about much except getting through it. I guess I assumed I’d just keep living in that apartment, find a permanent job and go on pretty much the way I was.”
“Except for old friends.”
A short, mirthless laugh escaped her. “Yeah, they sure vanished into the woodwork fast enough. I broke the unwritten code, I guess.”
“Which is?”
“Never divorce a wealthy older man.” But then she frowned. “And maybe that’s not entirely fair. I mean, I’m sure it made them uncomfortable in a lot of ways. Being around someone going through that kind of emotional upheaval isn’t fun.”
“But that’s when true friends stick.”
“You’d think.” She shook her head again. “Some of them got really angry at me. But the one who made me angriest of all was Jill. She said she wouldn’t judge me.”
“Hah! That sounds like she already had.”
“That’s what I thought. Didn’t ask for my side or anything. Just said she wouldn’t judge me. Gee, thanks.”
“So not even one stuck around?”
“No. But then, they were all people I got to know because of Dean. It’s not like any of them were my friends. And working in his office, I didn’t get a chance to meet anyone he didn’t know.”
“Yeah, that would complicate it. So you must have felt truly alone.”
“I did.”
He knew that feeling. It didn’t necessarily come from friends deserting you. It could even happen among friends who were trying to be supportive, simply because they couldn’t understand. In the end, he had been the one who’d abandoned his friends. He shifted uncomfortably.
And all of a sudden he needed to get up, move around, do something. He rose from the table. “I’m going to walk around outside.”
“Do you want company?”
He hesitated. There was still this amorphous threat hanging over her, the uncertainty about whether a killer might show up at any moment. Better to be together, he decided. If that guy showed up, bent on finishing the job, he’d most likely try when she was alone.
“Sure,” he said. He was getting uncomfortable inside his own skin, but her presence wasn’t going to change that one way or another. He needed movement, action, the way plants needed the sun. Life might force him to be sedentary sometimes, but he didn’t have to like it.
Building storm clouds and increasing wind added a wild element to the day that he savored. Rare enough that he got to enjoy weather like this around here. Together they walked past her rental house. He figured he’d take a turn around the block and see how he felt about going farther.
He always wanted to go farther these days. And it was always a trade-off about how much he wanted to pay for it later. His doc kept saying it would improve in time, but nobody was willing to say how much it would improve, or even when. Maybe it was just a matter of getting used to it.
The tang of ozone in the air tickled his nose. He glanced over at Kelly and saw that she had her eyes half-closed and her head tipped back a bit, as if she were soaking it all in. So she liked it, too.
For some reason, that made him reach for her hand, and his heart eased a little as he felt her welcome his touch by twining her fingers with his.
All the demons of caution shut up for a little while and he was glad. Had to be something seriously wrong with you if you couldn’t just enjoy holding a woman’s hand as you strolled down the street.
Nobody was out and about, except for an occasional car passing slowly on the street. While lots of folks around here enjoyed walking on nice days, with a storm rolling in, they’d choose their cars for that quick run to the store or library.
He decided to go farther, until they reached the park. It was unusually deserted for a Saturday, and given that the march of thunder was getting louder, he opted not to linger, although another time it might be fun to push Kelly on the swing.
If Kelly was still around. Dammit, that thought darkened his mood more than it should have. What was going on here?
But before he could ponder that cosmic question, a patrol car came by and pulled up beside them. Deputy Beauregard leaned out. “How’s it going, Hank?”
“Just great.”
“This must be Ms. Scanlon?”
“Hi,” Kelly said.
Beau gave her a salute, finger to the brim of the cowboy hat he wasn’t wearing inside the car. Even without the hat, the gesture worked. “Pleased to make your acquaintance, ma’am. Just keeping an eye out.”
“Thank you.” Kelly’s reply sounded heartfelt.
“Just doing my job, ma’am.”
Talk turned to the unusual weather for a few moments, then Beau drove on.
“They really are watching,” Kelly remarked.
“Yup. We’ve got us a good sheriff’s department here.” He squeezed her hand gently as they continued their walk.
That’s when he realized what had truly made him antsy. It wasn’t thinking about the past. It was that smoky desire he felt around her and tried so hard to ignore. It was an urge to fall into bed with her and finish what they had begun last night. That and that alone had made it impossible for him to sit still a moment longer. Damn, he wanted this woman.
And he had no idea if she felt the same way. Yes, she’d seemed to last night, but that was last night and he’d ruined it by tumbling out of bed because of his hip.
She’d probably be relieved if he never touched her again after that.
Which soured his mood beyond belief. Overreact much? he asked himself. But the question didn’t help, and the mood didn’t improve.
“Do you want me to stay with you tonight?” she asked.
Aw, hell. Yes and no. Yes because he was worried about her. Yes because he wanted her. No because he was afraid passion might overtake him again.
“I can stay at my place,” she said quickly. “I just need to know whether I should get more clothes.”
He gave up before he’d even waged the battle. “Let’s get you more clothes.”
“Thanks. I really appreciate it.”
“Well, considering that Ben made a total hash of it by doing that credit check…” Good excuse but not the complete truth. Not even Fran had made him feel this mixed up. But of course, with Fran, things had been simpler. No shadowy killers, no half-finished divorce, no warning signs that she was going to hit the road any day.
He waited while she unlocked the front door and together they stepped into her house. And both of them halted in the same instant.
She turned to him swiftly. “Someone was in here.”
He smelled it. “What the hell kind of killer wears cologne?”
It hung on the air, faint and threatening. And it was undeniable.
Kelly began to shake. She recognized the odor. She recognized it even more clearly than she would have recognized the face of the man who had attacked her. “It’s him,” she said, barely a whisper.
Hank swore. Without another word, he tried to pull her out of the house.
“No,” Kelly said. “No.” She pulled free and looked around. There was a hammer lying on the floor and she picked it up. “He’s not scaring me off again,” she said quietly.
So Hank grabbed a screwdriver from the window ledge. “We should call the cops,” he muttered.
“Not yet. If that SOB is in my house, I want my licks first.”
The statement appeared to startle Hank a bit, but she ignored it. Her mind was focused on one thing and one thing only: That man had knocked her on the head and tried to drown her. And if she got anywhere near him, she was going to make him regret it.
Step by quiet step, they worked their way through the house, front to back. At least there was no upstairs to worry about. Well, an attic, but that wasn’t foremost in her mind. If the guy was up there, he wasn’t going to come down now because she wasn’t alone.
And she was so grateful that Hank was with her. He was moving as quietly as possible, given his limp, but that irregular gait behind her reassured her. This time she was not alone in some parking garage or at canal-side. This time she had backup.
Still, this was the scariest thing she’d done in her life, creeping through a house looking for an intruder. Every doorway presented a threat, every closet held a dark secret. One by one they checked them all and found no one. The house appeared empty.
She looked at Hank. “The attic.”
“I’m no chicken, but I’m not poking my head up through an attic door, and neither are you. If he’s up there, he’s trapped for now. So now it’s time to get a cop out here.”
She leaned back against the wall and let him make the call, her eyes fixed on the attic door in the bedroom ceiling. Funny, she’d never noticed it before. Certainly she hadn’t worried about it.
But now it looked dangerous. Very dangerous. A killer could be behind it.
Five minutes later, Gage Dalton arrived in the company of another deputy. To Kelly’s surprise, they were both dressed in jeans and light jackets, not uniforms.
“Figured it was best not to advertise,” Gage said when he saw her look. “Just in case. So you smelled him?”
“I smelled his cologne,” she agreed. “I’ll never forget that smell. He wears too much of it.”
“However much he wears,” Gage answered, “we remember smells better than faces. This is Deputy Locke. So we need to check the attic?”
“Please.”
The sheriff looked at Locke. “You’re young.”
Locke half smiled. “That’s one way of phrasing it.”
“All right, you have a harder head. Go grab a chair.”
Laughing with quiet good humor, the deputy went in search of a chair. Gage looked up at the attic door. “Is that the only way in?”
“Yup,” Hank answered. “Not likely anyone could get in there without leaving some sign behind. Like a chair.”
“Yeah, but it never pays to overlook something like that.” He returned his attention to Kelly, who had her arms wrapped around herself, feeling cold to the bone. She’d left the hammer on the bed.
“You don’t have to stay,” he said. “You can go home with Hank, if you’ll feel better.”
“I have to know.”
Gage nodded, understanding.
Deputy Locke returned with a kitchen chair and climbed on it, pushing the board that sealed the attic up and in. Gage passed him a flashlight from his jacket pocket, and they waited while he scanned the space.
“Nothing’s been up here recently,” Locke said. “Dust rules. I like it better than rain for giving away a perp.”
He lowered the door back into place and climbed down.
“Thanks, Locke,” Gage said. “Look around outside, will you? But take a clipboard so you look like some kind of workman. There’s one in my car.”
“Sure thing.”
Questions were mounting in Kelly’s mind as the first shock passed. “Why are you pretending not to be cops?”
“In case he’s watching. We don’t want him to know we’re in on this. The easier he thinks it’ll be to get at you, the more likely he is to help us catch him.”
She nodded. That made sense to her, especially since she had realized she had only two choices: One was to run again and try to stay alive for the next two months, and the other was to stick it out here and hope to catch the guy so she didn’t have to keep looking over her shoulder. And having been on the run, it was not something she wanted to do again if she could avoid it.
“Look around inside,” Gage suggested. “See if he tampered with anything.”
Thankful for something to do, Kelly wandered through the house, trying to remember how she’d left everything. The task proved difficult, considering that the house was still half torn up and awaiting the arrival of the big trash bin to get rid of the flooring. But she hadn’t brought much with her to begin with, and a search of the two dresser drawers she was using didn’t indicate that anyone had gone into them. If they had, they hadn’t moved anything.
“Nothing,” she said finally in the kitchen.
Gage spoke. “He may have just been scoping the place. You were out, right?”
“Since yesterday,” Hank volunteered. Kelly nearly blushed at the implication, but Gage didn’t seem to take notice of it at all.
“He could have entered any time then. I know if I were him, I’d want to know the layout and where obstacles were.” He leaned back against the counter and folded his arms. “So, the question is what do we do now?” He looked at Kelly, as if awaiting her judgment.
“You’re asking me? I’m not a cop.”
“No, I’m asking you what outcome you want to see. Do you want to stay, now that you know he’s here? Do you want us to try to end it here? Or do you want to move on?” He paused. “Before you answer, keep in mind that my department isn’t omniscient or omnipotent. You’re in danger. I have no way to guarantee with complete certainty that you won’t get hurt, no matter what we do.”
She appreciated his honesty, even though she’d already pretty much figured that out. “You know,” she said, “I’ve had enough of Dean and his machinations. I’ve had enough of him ruining my life one way or another. All he had to do was let me go. He started this mess, but I’m going to finish it.”
She didn’t miss the way the two men smiled at her. She hoped they weren’t looking at her like a mouse who was pretending to be a lion, roaring with nothing to back it up.
“Okay then,” Gage said. “I’m going to get you a beeper. Wear it around your neck. If anything at all makes you uneasy, push the button. I’ll have everyone on alert and keep at least two people nearby at all times. If that beeper goes off, we’re coming. And I don’t want you to ever hesitate to use it. Promise?”
“I promise.”
Gage looked at Hank. “Is she going to be staying at your place again tonight?”
“Do you think it makes a difference?”
“Unfortunately, yes. She has to appear to be alone here, and unprotected.”
“Then you’d better give me one of those beepers, too, so I can tell if she’s in trouble. I can make it over here lickety split.”
“Fair enough. I’ll get you a receiver, too.”
Locke returned, useless clipboard in hand. “He came in by way of the mudroom window. I can see the scraping where he worked on the lock.”
“Well, damn,” Hank said. “I knew I should have gotten to those sooner. I’ll replace them today. The new windows can’t be jimmied easily.”
Kelly reached out and touched his arm. “No. Let him think he knows how to enter. Let him do it. I’m going to get him this time. He’s going to be sorry he ever came after me.”