by Helena Shaw
“I was only five minutes,” he told her, and when she looked at the clock, she saw he was right. Still, it had felt like an eternity.
Once he was inside, Dawn realized he’d changed out of his suit and was again wearing something a little more casual: dark, beat-up jeans, a plaid shirt, and the same green jacket from the night before.
“I know I’m just being paranoid,” she said. “It was probably just a raccoon looking for something to eat.”
“I said call for anything,” the agent said with a hint of a smile. It only barely touched the corners of his full lips, but it was enough to reassure her some. “I’ll take a look outside. You stay put, okay?”
“Okay,” she said as she watched him go. She knew he was only a few feet away on the other side of the door, but once he was out there, she was overcome with the need to lock him out.
What were you thinking? her mind scolded her. He’s an FBI agent, you idiot. What if he finds out who Dawn Garrett really is?
“No,” she whispered to herself. “No, he’s different.”
She didn’t quite know how he was different, but there some something about him that was. He made her feel strangely safe, and she couldn’t deny she enjoyed his company, even under the circumstances.
“It’s all clear,” Agent Nash said as he stepped back into her house. “You’re right, it might have just been a raccoon, but it’s better that you played it safe.”
“Thanks,” she said with a sigh. “I’m sorry if I pulled you out of bed, or something.”
“Nah,” he shook his head. “Just doing some late night reading. You going to be okay?”
“I think so,” Dawn said. “But I still feel bad about calling you out here for nothing. Want a cup of coffee? I have decaf.”
“Sure,” the agent said as he pulled off his jacket and hung it over the arm of the couch. Dawn realized then that his shirt was just a little tight across his chest, and she could see the muscles hidden underneath it. She wanted to stare, but she knew how that would look and she forced her eyes away.
“Hey,” he said as she moved into the kitchen. “Mind if we Irish up those drinks?”
“Huh?” she asked, but then she saw the bottle of whiskey sitting on her counter. “Oh, yeah, I can get behind that.”
The coffee was instant and bland, but the Johnnie Walker was enough to make it palatable. With two mismatched mugs in hand, Dawn walked over to the couch where the agent now sat, his eyes trailing over her home in a way that Dawn wasn’t sure she liked.
“Just move in?” he asked as she handed him his coffee.
“I guess.” She shrugged as she looked at her sparsely furnished home. She moved around so much she’d never bothered to decorate, but she decided against telling him that.
“Sorry,” he said as he sipped his drink, the wisps steam raising over his face. “I just imagined you having pictures of friends and family, maybe even a cat, or something.”
“You were picturing my place?” Dawn said with a laugh as she took a big gulp of the hot coffee. If not for the whiskey, she would have spit it right back in the cup.
“No,” Agent Nash protested, but his smile was growing bigger.
“Well, what about you?” Dawn asked, working to take his focus off her life. “The other two agents, Hart and...?”
“Connors,” Nash filled in for her.
“Yeah, Hart and Connors. They’re partners, right?” she continued.
“That’s right,” he nodded, but there was a suspicion growing in his eyes. He didn’t stop her from continuing her own line of questioning, but she knew she’d need to tread carefully.
“What about you?” Dawn asked, pushing the focus of their conversation more toward him. “Where’s your partner? I thought all FBI agent worked with a partner.”
“Well, it’s not all like the movies,” Nash said as he shifted his weight and then took a big drink of his own terrible coffee. His face twisted with disgust as he drank it, but he never complained.
“That’s it?” Dawn asked. “Did you ever have a partner? Or are you like a lone wolf, or something?”
He shrugged. “Something like that. To be honest, my last partner died a few months ago. We were working a case in New Orleans and someone got the drop on us. She didn’t make it.”
“Oh,” Dawn sighed, suddenly regretting pushing so hard. “I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have asked.”
“You didn’t have any reason to think that was the case,” Nash said. “Like I said, it’s not like the movies. Sometimes there isn’t a happy ending. I’ve been working on my own ever since, and I like it that way.”
“What about the other two?” Dawn asked. “Hart and Connors?”
“They’re okay,” Agent Nash said as he gulped back the rest of his decaf. “But they’re out of their element, city boys with no understanding of what’s really lurking just beyond the trees. Fish and Wildlife has been in touch, but they’re stretched thin as it is out here.”
“And are they saying it’s a bear?” Dawn asked. “I mean, out here it could be anything, right?”
She expected the agent’s answer to be certain it was an animal of some kind. All the other officers had said the same thing. But he only shrugged and said, “I don’t know. Four—no, five young women all about the same age and similar body type going missing in a twenty-five mile radius over a month? Bears don’t have a victim profile.”
Dawn nodded as she stared at her empty cup. There was a question burning inside her that she was so scared of even admitting she wanted to ask that she almost ignored it. If that question could just fade away and never return, that would’ve been fine, but she knew she couldn’t go forward without knowing.
“Do you think…” Dawn began, her voice so quiet that even she could barely hear it. “Do you think Courtney is still alive?”
“Oh, Dawn,” Nash said with an apologetic look in his eyes. “I want to say yes, but... no. It’s been over twenty-four hours since anyone’s seen her. The chances of her still being alive...”
“I know,” Dawn said as tears begun to sting the corners of her eyes. “I shouldn’t have let her go.”
“It’s not your fault,” the agent said, but Dawn was barely holding it together. “Listen, I promise you, I will find what did this and I will put it down, you hear me? It’s not going to get away with this.”
“Okay,” Dawn whispered, but she couldn’t bring herself to believe him.
“If you want,” the agent continued, “I can spend the night here. No funny business. I’d be happy to sleep on the couch. If whatever was out there comes back, maybe I can take it down.”
“Are you sure?” Dawn asked. “I mean, you don’t mind sleeping on my couch?”
“I’ve slept on a lot worse,” he told her with a weak laugh. “That motel, for starters.”
Dawn wasn’t quite sure about having an FBI agent staying on her couch for the night, but she was a lot more scared of being alone. Even if her mind was trying to convince her that it had only been a raccoon on her porch, her instincts were fighting to prove otherwise. Having the agent there was a good idea, despite her trepidations.
She nodded. “Okay. I’ll get you some blankets. And, um, thanks.”
“It’s no trouble,” the agent said as he kicked off his shoes. “That Mountain Lodge is garbage, anyway. I can see why Hart and Connors stayed at the one a few miles away.”
“Well, it’s appreciated,” Dawn said as she moved toward a barely-used linen closet. Most of her blankets and towels had come with the furnished rental house, and the large, gray flannel blanket she found was no exception. With a hard tug, she pulled it out and lightly shook it to air it out some for her unexpected houseguest.
“Bathroom is over there.” She pointed with a free hand while she gave Nash the blanket. “And help yourself to anything in the fridge.”
“Thanks,” he said. “You should get to bed. After the day you’ve had, you’ll be running on adrenaline, and your body needs to rest.�
��
“Okay,” Dawn agreed. She was too tired to argue, not that she wanted to, anyway. Even the idea of her bed was enough to make her eyes heavy, and she began to shamble toward her bedroom.
“Night,” Nash called after her from the open living room.
“Night,” she mumbled back, though she wasn’t sure if he heard her.
Even as exhaustion claimed her, Dawn thought that sleeping would be a struggle. With everything that had happened, she thought her brain would never still enough for slumber, but it was just the opposite. Somehow, she felt safer than she had in months, years even, and as she let her eyelids close, she realized that security was brought on by none other than the man who was sleeping on her couch.
Chapter Seven
Dawn’s eyes fluttered open at the sound of footsteps outside her bedroom door. Immediately, her breath caught in her chest and she froze. In the stillness, she listened to the soft sounds coming from the other side of her door.
She’d been here before. Once, not too long after she’d left New York, she was squatting with some kids who were about her age at the time. She’d been sloppy then, using Richard’s credit card to buy food whenever she got hungry, not dyeing her hair. She was still Jennifer Waters then, and totally clueless.
It was in Columbus that the cops had shown up at the old, dilapidated house she was spending her nights in. One of the other kids had let them in under threat of eviction from the derelict place. Dawn, or Jenny then, was sharing a bedroom with another girl about her age, and in the middle of the night, she woke to hear the conversation concerning her.
“We’re looking for a Miss Jennifer Waters,” she heard someone say then, and just like now, her breath stopped in her chest.
“Yeah, she’s upstairs, one of the bedrooms,” a kid said, his voice hushed and scared.
“Which one?” a voice replied, but this time there wasn’t a solid answer. She could only pray that the person who had given her up was stalling for time, or that maybe they were just forgetful. Either way, she’d known she had to act fast.
The house was three stories tall. The attic had been turned into an apartment by the previous owners, and when she’d first arrived at the home, she’d been offered a spot up there with some of the other older kids who were squatting there, but something told her not to take it. The outside stairs that led to the apartment had long fallen apart and were a deathtrap for anyone who tried to navigate them. That alone told her not to stay up there.
Instead, Jenny had selected to stay on the second floor in a room with a broken window and a girl who never spoke. Whether the poor girl was mute or just painfully shy, she’d never found out. Everyone just called her Hush, but she didn’t seem to mind the nickname. It suited her.
There was no time for her to think herself lucky for staying in that second floor room. Footsteps were getting closer and closer, and she had to act quickly.
Jenny had moved purely on instinct then. There was no time to pack up anything, no time to say goodbye. The drafty window that never closed properly was now her salvation. Easily, she pushed it open and stared down at the ground that might have been ten feet below her.
She was about to jump, leaving all her things behind, when her roommate’s fingers caught the old hoodie she wore to sleep in. Jenny turned then, and in the poor girl’s eyes she saw her pleading with her not to go, but she had no choice.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered so quietly that even she wasn’t sure she heard herself, and then she jumped.
The ground was hard and wet from the early morning frost on the grass, but she didn’t mind. Even then, when she was first on her own, she always remembered what her father had taught her about not being seen or heard. The cops were still inside, and she tiptoed past their parked cruiser before she broke out in a sprint, leaving Columbus behind forever.
That had been almost two years ago, but she’d been so careful since then. No credit cards, always dyeing her hair, never using her real name, but now there was someone in her house, and she had to move quickly before whoever it was discovered her in her bed.
It was then that Dawn started to shake the grogginess out of her mind and she started to remember the previous night’s events. She was so close to climbing out another window to escape, but as her consciousness came around, she almost laughed at her own foolishness.
It’s Nash, she thought to herself. You let him sleep on the couch.
Thinking back to it, Dawn was starting to realize what a bad idea that had been. The man was FBI, as unconventional as he seemed, and she’d not only invited him into her home, but let him stay the night. He could have done any manner of snooping around while she slept, and now she had that to worry about on top of everything else.
Before she climbed out of bed, Dawn’s mind raced over the things in her home that might hint at her being anyone but Dawn Garrett, but she couldn’t find anything. After she’d left Columbus, she had truly left Jennifer Waters behind. Some cash she’d earned panhandling in Dayton had bought her a fake ID with the name Cynthia Cox, and from there, she began to make her way southeast.
Jennifer was as good as dead, and the only proof of her existence was in New York City, and maybe some scraps in Ohio. Nash would find nothing in her house. She had made sure of that.
Still, she couldn’t help but be nervous. He might not be like most cops, but he was still a cop.
Dawn knew she couldn’t hide in her bedroom all day, and she forced herself out of bed. She debated putting on a pair of jeans and a t-shirt to meet Agent Nash, but she decided to leave on the old flannel pajama pants, and the faded shirt she wore would be fine. She didn’t want to look like she was trying to dress up or do anything special, even if she wouldn’t quite admit that part to herself.
“Morning,” she said as she stepped out of her bedroom, but what she saw in her kitchen startled her.
In front of the stove leaned Agent Kevin Nash, wearing only his jeans from the night before as he sipped a cup of coffee. Dawn knew she shouldn’t stare, but she couldn’t help herself. He was more muscular than she’d imagined, and for a flash, all she wanted was to run her fingers over his smooth, strong chest and let him hold her.
“Morning,” he said, breaking her out of the spell. “Hope you don’t mind that I made coffee.”
“Nope,” she said as casually as she could muster. Behind him, she saw the can of grocery store coffee, but then she noticed the open bottle of whiskey.
Did I leave that open last night? she thought to herself, unsure if she had or not. It was either that, or a federal agent was spicing up his coffee before ten in the morning.
Still, she tried to ignore it as she moved to pour herself some of the strong brew. It was better than the decaf she’d offered the night before, and while she was tempted to grab the whiskey for herself, she decided against it.
“So,” she began, trying to think what to say. She was too distracted by the shirtless man in her kitchen. It was not only his muscular body, but the crisscrossing pattern of faded scars he wore that caught her attention. “How did you sleep last night?”
“Not bad,” Nash said as he finished off his coffee. “Your couch is a lot nicer than the motel bed, that’s for sure. Didn’t hear anything else in the night, either. It was probably just a raccoon.”
“Probably,” Dawn nodded, but she still wasn’t so sure. The footfalls on her porch had been heavy and loud, not the soft steps of a small animal.
She was about to ask him more, to try to talk to him about anything but what was going on in town, or maybe even a little more about himself, about the scars even, when she heard the wail of distant sirens.
“Shit,” Nash grumbled as they both leaned toward the window just in time to see two police cruisers race by.
“Do you think...?” Dawn began, unsure she wanted to even finish the thought. The last time the cops raced through town was when they found the body of the missing hiker. Dawn couldn’t even begin to let herself think what it could
be this time.
“It’s not her,” Agent Nash said to reassure her. “I would have gotten a call.”
“And if it is?” Dawn said as she nervously chewed her lip.
“You’ll be the first one to know,” Nash promised her. “But I think that’s my cue to get going.”
“Probably,” she said, unsure whether she was relieved to see him go or not.
Still, she wanted to know more about him. As much as the idea of a cop in her house made her nervous, Dawn was glad he’d spent the night. He made her feel safe, protected, even. She hadn’t felt that way since her father had passed away.
“Thanks for the coffee,” Nash said as he pulled on his shirt. “And call me if anything comes up, even if it’s another raccoon.”
“I will,” Dawn said, though she wasn’t sure if she could keep that promise. She was already getting too attached, and that was against her self-imposed rules of staying safe.
With the agent gone to follow where the cop cars had driven off to, Dawn decided to keep busy by doing some much-needed tidying around her home. Letting her mind wander would be disastrous, especially now that the seed had been planted that the sirens had been for Courtney.
Even though her furniture was sparse and her decor was sparser, there were coffee cups now littered around her house, and she hadn’t cleaned in weeks. Even the garbage was starting to pile over the edge of the waste bin beside her slightly rusted fridge.
With everything else clear and her scrubbing finally complete, Dawn gathered up the trash bag and put it by the door for when she left. There hadn’t been a word from Agent Nash, and she was finally starting to let herself breathe again. If it had been Courtney, he would have told her. He’d promised her that, and she had to believe him. Not that she knew she could trust him, but to get through the day, she had no choice.
It was getting colder in Goosemont as the winter winds started to pick up. It was still only early November, but Dawn pulled on a thicker coat to combat the mountain cold before she grabbed the bag of trash and headed out the door.