Operation Mountain Recovery

by Justine Davis

  “Where do you live?” he asked her.

  “In Hemlock,” she said. “With my mother, temporarily. Nan Alexander.”

  Brady blinked, then groaned inwardly. This was a headache he didn’t need.

  “What happened?” he asked, rather bluntly.

  “The back end just slid on the curve. I didn’t see any ice, but there was a layer of fresh snow. Not much, though.”

  That matched what he’d seen. And it was a front-wheel-drive car, so if it was going to lose traction, it made sense that it would be the rear.

  “I don’t understand,” Ashley said, still stroking the Foxworth dog—Cutter, Quinn had said. “I checked the road reports between home and Snowridge. They said snow tires would be enough.”

  “They would be, if you had them,” Brady said, trying to keep his tone neutral. She might be very attractive, but he’d been at this long enough to find lack of common sense unappealing.

  “But...the car does have them. They were put on yesterday.”

  Brady frowned. Remembered the tire he’d seen and was nearly certain. In the same moment, he sensed Quinn go still. Glanced at the other man, who gave a slight shake of his head. So he hadn’t seen snow tires, either.

  “I think your other help is approaching,” Hayley said, looking down the road.

  Instinctively Brady glanced at his watch. “Only twenty-three minutes. That’s light speed around here.” He shifted his gaze back to Ashley. “They’ll take good care of you.”

  He reached into the front seat for his binoculars, then walked back over to the edge again. He focused them on the car just as Quinn came up beside him. He could see the tires clearly, and there was not only no sign of studs marking them as snow tires or the distinctively more aggressive tread pattern of an unstudded snow tire—in fact they were getting a little short on actual tread.

  Silently, he handed the binoculars to Quinn. He took a look, lowered them and with a glance at Brady shook his head.

  “‘Put on yesterday’ is pretty specific,” he said.

  “Yes.” Brady used the binoculars again, this time tracing the marks in the snow the car had left on its way down.

  “Ideas?” Quinn asked.

  “Wondering if somebody in Hemlock ripped her off. Which would tick me off something fierce. She could have died. But...that makes no sense. Nobody would.”

  “No town’s perfect,” Quinn said, his tone neutral.

  Brady held the other man’s gaze and answered what he hadn’t said. “Not saying it is. And although we service Hemlock, I don’t live there. But...” He hesitated, then decided after what he’d done today the man could be trusted with the truth. “I realized who she is.”

  Quinn raised an eyebrow. “Realized? Meaning you know of her, but not her?”

  “Exactly.” He let out a compressed breath. “She’s the mayor’s daughter.”

  Quinn went oddly still for a moment before he asked, very quietly, “Connection, you think?”

  Brady liked the way he asked it, as if without even really knowing him he would accept the answer as valid. Truth be told, he simply liked this guy. “All I know for sure is her mother’s a...politician. And,” he added sourly, “she’s fairly tight with my boss.”

  Quinn held his gaze steadily. “And is your boss a cop first or a politician?”

  Yes, he liked the guy. “That you know to ask that means I don’t really have to answer, right?”

  “My sympathies, Deputy Crenshaw. But it could be worse. At least you don’t have to go into town and tell the mayor her daughter’s dead.”

  “There is that,” Brady agreed.

  “Maybe she’ll hang a medal on you.”

  “No, thanks,” he said. “On general principle, I’m much happier when she doesn’t even recognize me.”

  Quinn laughed, and it was full of such understanding that Brady found himself wondering who, exactly, this guy was and what he did.

  * * *

  The lead paramedic finished bandaging Ashley’s right hand just as Quinn Foxworth’s laugh drew her gaze, and for a moment Ashley just looked at the two men. Something about the sight of them, the sound of that laugh and the deputy’s smile, did something odd to her.

  “He’s got a great laugh, my Quinn does,” Hayley said softly.

  “He does,” she agreed.

  “And your rescuer has a great smile.”

  “He does,” she repeated, but although the words were the same, they felt different; there was a little catch in her throat as she said them. Two men cut from the same cloth, there was no question.

  “Two of a kind,” Hayley said, agreeing with what Ashley hadn’t even spoken aloud. “And that’s not something I say lightly.”

  “Deputy Crenshaw,” the woman in the county EMS uniform said, “is a peach. The best kind of cop, and a good man besides. If I wasn’t madly in love with my husband, he’d be at the top of my list.”

  Ashley smothered a sigh. It wasn’t that she couldn’t look at Deputy Crenshaw and see and sense all of that was true, it was the way the woman spoke of her husband that made her ache a little inside. Just as Hayley simply saying that about “her” Quinn’s laugh had.

  Once, her life was on track to reach that treasured goal, a connection with a man she adored. But now she was in chaos, and Alan had abandoned her for someone closer to his ideal. Which was certainly not a woman who woke up screaming practically every night.

  And so here she was, at twenty-eight, broken, broke and living with her mother.

  “There you go,” said the medic. “I think you’ll be fine, but remember what I said about any headaches, dizziness, change in vision or numbness.” Ashley nodded. “We’ll transport you to the clinic—”

  “No!” It came out a bit high-pitched, and she sucked in a breath. “I mean, I don’t need to go there, do I?”

  “Afraid it’s policy. Normally Brady could just take you home, but once we’ve treated you... I mean, you can refuse, but it turns into a big deal, paperwork-wise, if you do. Not that I blame you. If I were you, I’d rather ride with Brady, too,” the woman added with a wide smile. “By the way, he has a weakness for brownies, if you decide you want to personally thank him for saving your life.”

  Ashley tried to match the smile but knew she failed. As if her mother would turn her loose in her kitchen. Once upon a time, she’d been a very good baker, but a kitchen fire that had almost gotten out of control had gotten her banned.

  The Foxworth dog, Cutter, leaned into her again, as if he’d sensed the despair that threatened. She’d never thought of herself as a stupid or weak person, but in the last six months, her self-perception had been shaken to the core. And she couldn’t blame her mother for not wanting to take any chances, not when she continued to do such brainless things.

  She reached out to once more stroke the soft, dark fur. And once more, an odd sense of calm crept over her. Looking into the animal’s amber-flecked dark eyes, she had the oddest feeling that somehow, some way, everything would turn out all right.

  Which was far too much to ask of a dog.

  As the medics packed away their gear, her rescuer—“her hero” sounded too much like bad dialogue—came back and crouched in front of her. He reached out to pet the dog, instinctively, it seemed. There was a dog, he should be petted. The thought made her smile inwardly. A peach indeed.

  Hayley stood up and walked over to slip an arm around her husband as he came back from wherever he and the deputy had gone. But Ashley was focused on the man before her. Which was far from a hardship.

  “You said there were snow tires on the car,” he said quietly. She nodded. “Did you look at them?”

  Her brow furrowed. “No. I mean, I knew they’d been installed, so I didn’t bother.”

  “But...you heard the sound of them?”

  “I...didn’t really. I was
playing music and didn’t notice.”

  “Ashley,” he began, and she was too busy realizing how much she liked the sound of her name when he said it for it to register immediately that he was uncomfortable with what he was about to say.

  “What?”

  When he answered his voice was exquisitely gentle. “There are no snow tires.”

  She blinked. “What?”

  He gestured at the binoculars he’d set down at his side. “Quinn and I both looked. Not only are they not snow tires, but even as regular tires, they aren’t in the best shape.”

  She stared at him. For all their gentleness, his words hit her like a bludgeon.

  She’d been having a rough time, she knew that. Ever since the nightmares had started months ago, she’d been off balance. Then they had gotten so bad she was afraid to sleep and spent most nights sitting up in a chair. She had chalked up her lapses in memory to exhaustion, but they had steadily worsened until her mother had insisted she move in with her so she could look out for her. The dreams hadn’t improved, but at least she’d felt safer.

  Until now.

  Now she was face-to-face with reality.

  It was true. It was really true.

  She was going insane.

  Just like her father.

  Chapter 4

  Brady didn’t think he had ever seen a more devastated pair of eyes. The vividness of the green faded just as the color she’d regained in her face did. In mere moments she seemed a pale shadow of herself. She moved, reaching out, and he reacted instinctively, only stopping himself from grabbing her when he realized she was reaching for the dog.

  She hugged the animal rather fiercely. Cutter let out a small, low sound that was half whine, half growl. But he didn’t move, and there was no aggressiveness in his demeanor, so Brady just kept an eye on him.

  Eventually the dog stood, and Ashley’s arms slipped back to her side. She was trembling slightly, shaking her head as if in denial. Or exhaustion, he thought as he looked again at her eyes. They were bright, but not in color as they had been. It was the gleam of tears, which made his stomach knot. He was no good with crying women. Hadn’t Liz proved that to him?

  But the change in this woman, after she’d faced death with such calm and nerve, was really getting to him.

  Then Cutter turned and sat at Ashley’s feet. The dog looked up at Quinn and Hayley, standing a couple of feet back. No, not just looked. He was staring. Fixedly. Pointedly?

  “Yeah,” Quinn muttered. “I figured.”

  “You already knew?” Hayley asked, which made no sense to Brady.

  But right now he wasn’t thinking about the couple or their dog. He was trying to figure out what he was going to do about the fact that he never, ever got involved in the cases he came across, he always stayed a step back, but... Ashley Jordan was breaking his heart.

  He would bet his badge that she’d been completely convinced the car she was driving had snow tires, so much so that she hadn’t even looked. And if she hadn’t lived here long, if she wasn’t a mountain resident, he supposed she should get some credit for even knowing about snow tires. But that didn’t explain much.

  “Who put the tires on for you?”

  “I don’t know.” Her voice sounded as dull as she had suddenly become. He drew back slightly.

  “Ashley,” he prompted gently, “I need some answers here.”

  She appeared to make an effort, but the gutsy, steady woman he’d pulled out of that car was nowhere in sight now. “It’s my mother’s car. She had them installed yesterday. She told me this morning before she left for her office.”

  She said it as if reading dry, emotionless words off a page. As the meaning registered, he groaned inwardly. Great. Now he was going to have to deal with Mayor Alexander directly and personally to get to the bottom of this. So much for his until-now successful effort at flying under the woman’s radar.

  “Why did you keep going after the car started to slip back there on the bridge?” She blinked, giving him a puzzled look. “I was behind you on the road,” he explained. “Since the falls.”

  And he hadn’t seen anything to bother him about the way she was driving for a couple of miles, but there had been a small patch of black ice on the bridge over the creek, and the way the rear end had slipped just slightly had gotten his attention.

  “I noticed it, so I slowed down a little more, but when it didn’t happen again, I thought it was just because of the bridge.”

  So she knew that was a common problem, that black ice developed on bridges. What had at first seemed like a straightforward conclusion of driver ignorance was getting more than a little cloudy. He should have known the minute he realized who she was that this wasn’t going to be that simple.

  The dog made a low sound, a sort of half whine, half rumble. It pulled Brady out of his inner whining, and he stood up.

  She had to tilt her head back to look up at him. “Still no dizziness, even with your head like that?” he asked.

  “No, none. What...happens now?”

  “They’ll get you to the clinic, and you can call your mother to come get you, since it doesn’t look like you’ll need to stay.” He didn’t think he mistook her wince at the mention of her mother. “She going to be upset about the car?”

  “Yes,” Ashley said with a sigh. “But then she’ll be impossibly kind and understanding.”

  Not words he would have applied to the status-conscious Mayor Alexander, but he was glad to hear that apparently her daughter got different treatment. That, at least, was as it should be.

  He looked over his shoulder to where the medic’s van was parked. “Whenever you’re ready, she can go,” he called out.

  “What about you?” she asked, startling him.

  Not sure what she was asking, he said, “I need some photos before the tow truck hauls the car up. You’ll probably need a copy of the report for insurance, so barring anything else coming up, I’ll get that done ASAP.”

  “I meant your injury.”

  He blinked. “What?”

  “The scrape on your cheek.”

  He flexed facial muscles, felt the slight sting on the left. He hadn’t even realized until she said it, but now a vague memory of dodging a jutting boulder on the way up came back to him. He’d been so busy holding on to her—and carefully not noticing how she felt in his arms—that he’d quickly forgotten.

  “It’s nothing. I’ll deal with it later.”

  She visibly drew in a long breath. “Then I suppose...all that’s left is to thank you. Again.”

  He smiled at her. “You’re welcome. You take care. And take it easy for a few days. You’ll probably be really sore after tomorrow.”

  He watched the medic van—with Ashley thankfully sitting in it, not needing the gurney—carefully negotiate the snow at the edge of the roadway and maneuver back onto the road, heading back toward Hemlock. The Foxworth dog was not happy at her departure and made it known with a series of protesting whines.

  “They’ll take good care of her, boy,” Brady said instinctively. Then, when Quinn and Hayley came up beside him, he asked, “Does he always get attached to people that quickly?”

  The couple exchanged another one of those looks he’d seen—and envied a little—from really close couples before. Then Quinn shifted his gaze to Brady. “You’ve got to wait for the tow truck, right?”

  “Yeah,” Brady said, puzzled.

  Quinn gave him a wry smile. “Then we have time to explain.”

  “Explain?”

  “About Cutter. And the Foxworth Foundation.”

  Brady drew back slightly. “The Foxworth Foundation? You’re those Foxworths?”

  “Guilty,” Quinn said, sounding cheerful.

  “Wait... Quinn Foxworth.” It should have hit him before. Must have been the adrenaline surge of the rescue. �
�You’re the guy who took down that cop killer, the case that just blew up all over again last month.”

  “That would be him,” Hayley said, and there was no denying the pride in the woman’s voice.

  “I looked you guys up when all that hit. The Foxworth Foundation, I mean. Or tried to. You’re pretty low profile.”

  “We work mainly by word of mouth and...a fairly new case finder,” Quinn said.

  “So you really do...that? Help people with problems no one else can or will?”

  “People with a problem we believe in, yes,” Quinn said. “Which brings us to Ashley Jordan.”

  Brady blinked. “Why?”

  “First,” Hayley said, “we have to explain—and you have to believe us—about Cutter.”

  The tale they told him then was, obviously, unbelievable. A dog who sensed people in trouble, he could buy that, it didn’t seem much farther out there than trained dogs who could sense illness, or impending seizures, or simply pets who knew when their owners were worried or upset and tried to comfort. But what they were telling him went way beyond that. This was a dog sensing not physical things, but things he had no way of knowing or understanding. And that the animal had various ways of letting them know, and his sitting staring at them—and his vocal unhappiness when Ashley had been carted away—were definitely two of them.

  “We know how it sounds,” Hayley said.

  “And nobody was a harder sell than me,” Quinn added. “But his record stands. Sixteen months of cases now, and he’s never steered us wrong.”

  Brady had the feeling there was more, something they weren’t saying, but they probably realized he’d reached the limits of logical acceptance here. Actually, he had gone a little past those limits. But it was clear they completely believed what they were saying. And what he’d learned about Foxworth from his own sources added up to a stellar reputation. The only people who had anything bad to say about them were usually crooks, or even killers, who bitched from the wrong side of the bars of a cell.