As if on cue, the shortwave radio Thompson kept attached to his belt began to crackle, calling for his immediate attention.
He held up his hand to stop any further discussion. “I’ve got to take this,” the chief said, addressing the small group.
So saying, Thompson removed the radio from his belt and walked away so he could speak to the person who was calling in private.
Maggie frowned, looking at the chief’s back as the man walked away from them. “He’s not telling us something.”
“I’m sure Thompson’s not telling us a lot of things,” Jonah commented. He looked at the situation from the point of view of the job he’d been tasked with. “The man’s got a lot on his mind right now, including roughly four dozen missing town residents—” He glanced down at Maggie. “One less of course, now that you’re here.”
“No.” Maggie shook her head. “I meant he’s not telling us everything about Elliot Corgan,” she insisted. “Did you notice the look that came over his face when he said the man’s name? I thought his jaw was clenched so hard it was going to snap.”
“Well, he probably was one of the police officers on the case at the time,” Jonah guessed. “The chief had to have had firsthand knowledge of all those killings and how they affected the victims’ families. This note from beyond the grave from the guy’s brother just brings it all back for him,” Jonah speculated. “Combine that with what he’s doing now and none of it can be easy for him.”
Maggie hardly heard him. Instead, she suddenly recalled something. “Donovan said something about six victims.”
Jonah looked at her, wondering where she was going with this. “So?”
“What if there were more than just six victims?” Maggie asked him. “All this was kept hushed up, right. Well, what if Elliott hadn’t been forthcoming about the number of women he killed? What if this so-called ‘truth’ that Adam referred to in his note refers to more bodies?”
“How would finding them set Elliott free?” Jonah asked.
“I haven’t figured that part out yet,” she admitted.
“The chief told us to stay away from this,” Jonah reminded Maggie. He looked at her face. He imagined that she had the same look when she went off to seek this so-called “truth” that Adam had urged her to unearth. “But you’re not going to listen to him, are you?”
She turned toward Jonah. “I can’t shake the feeling that I got that note for a reason. That this ‘truth’ I’m supposed to find has something to do with finding out if there’s more to Elliott’s killing spree than the chief knew about. If there are more bodies out there, their families deserve to know about it. They deserve closure instead of thinking the women just ran off.”
“I agree,” he told her. “But, again, how would that set Elliot free?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. It could be that Adam wasn’t firing with all four cylinders,” she guessed. “Maybe in Adam’s mind, finding more bodies will somehow absolve Elliot of those murders. Maybe he didn’t kill those women.”
Jonah was studying her as Maggie talked about this. “You sound like this has really gotten to you,” he observed.
She flushed a little, but she wasn’t about to apologize or make excuses. “I guess it has.”
Jonah hazarded a guess. “Is it because this is your ex-husband’s family?”
She laughed dismissively. “If anything, that would be enough of a reason to make me keep my distance from trying to find an answer to this riddle. No, I’d have to say that this intrigues me,” she confessed. “I hate unsolved mysteries and here’s one right in my own backyard.”
He nodded slowly, taking this all in. “So you’re planning on looking into this even though the chief told you not to.”
She didn’t see it as being defiant. She looked at it from another point of view.
“You said yourself the chief’s got his hands full. He can’t be everywhere, which means he definitely can’t take the time to look into this now and like I said, I feel like I owe it to the victims’ families to find some answers.”
He’d seen that stubborn expression on her face before, although only from a distance. This was the first time that he’d been so close to it. The woman was gorgeous when she had her mind made up.
“So you’re going to go ahead with this investigation no matter what I say,” Jonah concluded.
Maggie raised her eyes to his and asked, “What do you think?”
“Honestly?” he asked. Maggie nodded. “I think you’re going to need a keeper.”
She took offense at his words. “Look, you rescued me, and I know I owe you a great deal, Jonah. Maybe even my life, but that doesn’t give you the right to order me around.”
He cocked his head, confused at her interpretation. “I didn’t say that.”
Was he trying to backtrack? “You said I need a keeper,” she reminded him.
“Yes, I did,” he agreed. “The last time I looked, what a keeper does is keep track of whatever or whoever he’s ‘keeping.’ In my book, that means that if you decide to play detective—”
“When,” Maggie corrected.
Jonah continued as if she hadn’t interrupted him, “You can’t go running off on your own. You’ll need backup.”
Maggie had to admit—albeit silently—that she liked the idea that Jonah would be there with her to help if she needed it—which she willingly admitted that she very well might. The man was the very definition of capability—not to mention exceedingly easy on the eyes. If Jonah could find her in the aftermath of a hurricane and with floodwaters threatening to rise again, she had a feeling he would be invaluable in her search to discover if there were any more victims and why their bodies had never been recovered.
A lot of questions and no direct path to an answer, Maggie thought.
“Are you suggesting we form a partnership?” she asked Jonah.
Jonah didn’t answer her immediately. Maggie was an ex-model and beauty contest winner who now taught etiquette and deportment lessons in her apartment, while he was part of Cowboy Heroes, a search and rescue team that did a great deal of their rescuing on the back of a horse. He was also a trained EMT.
They were as diverse and different in their approach to life as night and day, and the only thing they really had in common was that his brother was marrying her sister. But for whatever reason, Maggie was leaving herself open to accepting his help. There was no way he was going to tell her no. Somehow, he just had to get Maggie to hold off until he could be there for her. He did have people to rescue.
“In a manner of speaking,” he finally said. And then he decided to be direct with her. “Listen, those other victims—if they do exist—aren’t going anywhere and Adam Corgan sure as hell isn’t, either. Why don’t you give me a couple of days, maybe help me to coordinate rescue efforts for the town, and after that, I’m all yours?”
All hers.
The man had no idea how tempting that sounded, Maggie thought.
Before her imagination could take off, she roused herself and asked, “You want me to help you?”
“Not just me,” he corrected. “You’ll be helping the town.”
Maggie smiled. He’d said just the right thing to get her attention. She had always wanted to give back to the community, to be seen as something more than just a pretty face. Mannequins had pretty faces, and no one thought highly of them—or at all, she thought. This, at least, was something meaningful and productive. Jonah was right. Adam and his riddle could certainly wait a few more days.
“Sure,” she told Jonah. “Count me in. I’d be more than happy to help with the rescue efforts,” she said with a warm grin, “seeing as how I have firsthand experience with what it feels like to be rescued.”
“Then, if you’re feeling up to it,” he qualified, “let’s get started.”
“Absolutely,” she responded, foll
owing him out the door. “Let’s.”
Chapter 5
Jonah slanted a look toward Maggie. She was holding up a lot better than he had thought she would, considering the fact that this morning he’d found her stuck up in a tree. Anyone else would have easily milked that experience and placed themselves out of commission for at least a couple of days, if not more.
But she hadn’t. Maggie had insisted on coming out with him to help with the search and rescue efforts.
There was no doubt about it. Maggie Reeves was one tough lady. Somehow, although she wasn’t trained for it, she’d managed to keep up with him all day. She spent most of that time helping him find survivors, digging them out whenever that was necessary. Overall, what the survivors they found needed most was to be comforted and that, he quickly realized, seemed to be Maggie’s specialty. She was kind and comforting, able to quiet children when they cried, and on occasion, she could even make them laugh.
All in all, she was a great asset.
It was getting dark when he finally came up to her and said they were calling it a day for now.
“Are you sure?” she asked, even though she felt more drained and exhausted than she ever had before in her life. “There’re more people out there,” she protested. Not to mention that there was still a little bit of daylight left.
“Yes,” he agreed, “and there are also more people than just the two of us to help find them.” Jonah smiled at her and without thinking, he wrapped one arm about her shoulders, gently guiding her away from the pile of sticks and plaster that just a short while ago represented someone’s house. “You did good today. Better than good,” he amended. “But I definitely think that it’s time you went home. C’mon,” Jonah gently urged, “I’ll take you.” When he saw Maggie open her mouth, he knew what was coming. Jonah was quick to put a stop to any protest. “Don’t argue. I’m the leader.”
Maggie laughed softly, shaking her head in surprise. “I thought this was a partnership.”
“It is,” he assured her. “But I’m still the leader. That means you have to listen to me. Let’s go,” he prodded politely, leaving no room for argument.
Because he had stabled Cody earlier in the day, Jonah was driving his pickup truck now. After getting in, he fastened his seat belt and waited for Maggie to get in on the passenger side. He knew where she lived, but he waited for her to give him her address.
Over the years, for one reason or another, he had inadvertently found out a great many things about Maggie. He had taken an interest in her life. However, he knew how that would sound to someone else—or to Maggie herself if she knew. The last thing he wanted was for her to think he was stalking her, even though in this instance the only reason he knew where she lived was because Donovan had mentioned it to him when his brother and Bellamy had been putting their wedding together.
“Okay, direct me,” he told her, waiting. “Where do I go?”
The second Maggie sank down in her seat, she felt instantly exhausted. Rousing herself, she mumbled the address to Jonah. She lived in an apartment located within a collection of buildings that had been whimsically named Whisperwood Towers.
“Whisperwood Towers, here we come,” Jonah announced, turning the key in his ignition. His pickup truck rumbled to life.
As he drove to the Towers, he spared a glance in Maggie’s direction. Her head was definitely beginning to droop.
“Why don’t you get some shut-eye?” he suggested. “You’ve earned it. I’ll wake you up when we get there.”
“I’m fine,” she told Jonah even as her eyelids were shutting on her.
A few minutes later, Jonah smiled to himself as he listened to her even breathing. “Yup, I can see that,” he murmured quietly, amused.
But Jonah’s amusement vanished as he approached the site of Whisperwood Towers—or where the apartment buildings were supposed to be.
The structures were no longer standing tall and erect. The Towers had received the brunt of the hurricane’s assault as Brooke passed through the town. In more than three-quarters of the buildings, there was rubble where the walls had once been.
“Damn,” Jonah swore under his breath. Adjusting the rearview mirror, he carefully tried to pick his way back out. Without meaning to, he rolled over something large in the road.
The sudden thrusting movement had Maggie waking up with a start.
The first thing she noticed was that the pickup was moving backward. She looked at Jonah. “Why are you heading away from the apartment buildings?” she asked. And then, only because there was a full moon out, she saw the reason why he had suddenly reversed his direction. Her eyes widened in shock. “Omigod, is that...?”
Jonah really wished he could tell Maggie that she was looking at something else, but he wasn’t about to insult her with a lie. Maggie could see for herself the remnants of Whisperwood Towers—the place that she had been calling home even before her divorce had been finalized.
“I’m afraid so,” Jonah said, answering her unfinished question.
Stunned, Maggie felt her throat closing. Everything she had ever called her own was in that demolished apartment. She could only stare at what was left of the towers and say the words that so many others had either thought or said out loud in the last couple of days. “I have no place to stay.”
Jonah never hesitated. “Yes, you do,” Jonah informed her, his tone leaving no room for Maggie to mount an argument. “You’re staying with me.”
Still staring at the Towers remains, which were now growing smaller and smaller as Jonah drove them away from the scene, Maggie needed more than a second to absorb his words.
When she did, Maggie shook her head. “That’s very generous of you, but I can’t take you up on your offer,” she protested.
He hadn’t expected this to be easy. He had a feeling that it was her damn pride that was making her say that. “Why not?”
Maggie’s mind jumped to the first logical excuse that came to her. “Well, because there’s only one bedroom in your place,” she pointed out.
He wasn’t about to let her refuse. “I know you’re a gorgeous ex-beauty queen, but I promise I’ll find a way to restrain myself,” Jonah told her. And then, more seriously, he said, “We’re two adults, Maggie, who are in the same dire situation everyone else around here seems to find themselves in. I’ll take the couch and you can have the bed. There’s a lock on the bedroom door. You can use it if it’ll make you feel any better,” he added.
“I trust you,” she told him, ashamed that she had instantly thought of Jonah behaving just like James would have in the same circumstances.
Jonah wasn’t anything like James. To begin with, James would never have been out there, trying to find survivors and rescuing them. James had never done a selfless thing in his life.
“Good,” Jonah replied, doing his best to keep a straight face as he told her, “and I trust you.”
“Me?” Maggie questioned incredulously.
“Sure. Why, you never heard of a woman having her way with a man?” he asked her, struggling to maintain his straight face.
Gripping the steering wheel, Jonah stared straight ahead. The full moon and his headlights provided the only illumination for the pitch-black road in front of them. Lucky for him he could find his way to his family’s ranch even if he were blindfolded.
Jonah had sounded so serious when he asked the question, Maggie had to laugh. After everything she had gone through today, she’d thought that she would never be able to laugh again.
It really felt good to laugh. She silently blessed Jonah for that.
“I promise I won’t have my way with you,” Maggie told him when she finally stopped laughing.
Humor curved his lips. “Just so you know, I won’t hold you to that,” he told her with a wink. And then he grew serious again. “I’m really sorry about your place, Maggie.”
A sigh escaped her lips before she could suppress it. “Yeah, me, too.”
“I’ve got an idea. Why don’t we swing by come morning and take a look at the damage?” Jonah suggested. “Maybe it’s not as bad as it looks right now in the dark.”
She knew that Jonah was just saying that for her benefit. He was only trying to make her feel better.
“Maybe,” Maggie murmured only out of a sense of obligation. She pressed her lips together. “I guess that was pretty egotistical of me, thinking that my place could have been spared after so many other places in town weren’t.”
“Not egotistical,” Jonah said, correcting her. He had another word for it. “Human. Everybody undoubtedly hoped that their home had been spared because a few of the other homes and places of business had been.” He really felt for her and tried to comfort her the way she had offered comfort to the rescued survivors today. “There’s no rhyme or reason to what a hurricane does, why one building is either totally wrecked or pulled off its foundation and the one right next to it is totally bypassed and spared. It just happens,” he concluded with resignation. “You can’t drive yourself crazy wondering why. There’s no real answer to that question.”
She didn’t know about that. “If I’d been home instead of out there, trying to unravel Adam’s damn puzzle—”
She didn’t have to finish. He knew what she was thinking. And he didn’t want her dwelling on it.
He pointed out why. “You might have been like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz and gotten transported to another place.”
Maggie could feel the tension beginning to leave her shoulders. She laughed. “That is really sugarcoating it,” she told him.
“Hey,” Jonah said, pretending to balk at her assessment of what he had said. “It’s been a long day. Humor me.”
She knew Jonah wasn’t actually asking her to humor him, he was attempting to humor her. Or to at least soften the blow of what had just happened to her place and not allow her mind to dwell on a far more serious, unsettling scenario.
Colton 911: Cowboy's Rescue Page 5