Operation Mountain Recovery

by Justine Davis

  Quinn nodded. “Speaker, if you don’t mind?”

  Brady nodded. “Save time.” He pulled out his phone and made the call.

  “Crenshaw? About time.”

  “Sorry,” he said. “I’ve been...in the mountains.” Not exactly a lie.

  “I figured when I had somebody go by your place and you weren’t there.” So he’d been right not to go home. Brady saw Quinn raise a brow as if to say “Good call.” Becker went on. “Seriously, though, sorry to bother you on vacation. Although why you’d take one in the dead of winter is beyond me.”

  “Just crazy, I guess.” Definitely not a lie. “So what’s the status?”

  “Suspect is still missing. Couple of sighting reports, but nothing that panned out.”

  He glanced at Ashley, at her worried expression. “How’s the victim?” he asked.

  “Physically, she’s on the mend. But she’s worried sick about her daughter. Fought us on going with the higher charge.”

  “Does she have any idea where—” he had to stop himself from saying Ashley “—she might have gone?”

  “A couple, but they all turned up negative. I just thought since you’re the only one on the department who’s had recent contact with her, and with your...experience with Liz, you might have picked up on something.”

  He’d forgotten Becker had known Liz. Had warned him about her, in fact. He hastened to head that off before his pitiful romantic past got broadcast to the room. “Not that I can think of right now. I’m going to head into town in a bit—maybe that’ll jog something loose.”

  “Anything,” Becker said, sounding very harassed. “The mayor can be a pain in the—”

  “I’ll bet.” He said it quickly; it might be true, but Ashley didn’t need to hear it. Not now, with everything else she had to deal with.

  He looked at Quinn as he ended the call. “A go?”

  “Your call,” Quinn said.

  Brady nodded. “I’ll go change. Better in uniform, I think. That’ll be expected.”

  Quinn nodded, then looked at Ashley. “Can you draw him a layout of the house, where to look?”

  She nodded quickly. “Of course.”

  Brady had turned to go when Quinn spoke again. “I know how this feels, Brady.”

  He looked back. Saw the understanding in the other man’s face. And he guessed Foxworth did know, in a very personal way, what it felt like to go against all your training, all your beliefs.

  “The only thing I can tell you,” Quinn said quietly, “is that injustice feels worse.”

  “Good enough,” he said. And went to suit up.

  Chapter 25

  “He’s a very special man,” Ashley said to Hayley as the other woman watched her husband from where they were sitting at the kitchen counter. She caught herself before reaching for yet another of the delicious cookies Hayley had baked.

  “He is. And,” Hayley added, with a rather pointed look at Ashley, “so is Brady Crenshaw.”

  “I know.” The words came out barely above a whisper. “I don’t know why he decided to help me. I don’t know why any of you did.”

  “Because of those things we believe in and stand for,” Hayley said. “We may not get the results we’d like to see for you, but what we will get is you being treated fairly.”

  She said it with such solid confidence Ashley shook her head in wonder. It had all seemed insurmountable to her such a short time ago, but now...she dared to hope. And then, although she hadn’t wanted to, she asked aloud, “I wonder who Liz is. Or was.”

  Hayley gave her a steady look. “Do you really want to know?”

  Ashley blinked. “You mean...you do?”

  “Told you Ty was the best.”

  “You...investigated Brady?”

  “I wouldn’t say it went that far, but Quinn always likes to know who he’s dealing with.”

  “Oh.”

  “And Brady is exactly the kind of man Foxworth looks for. The best kind.”

  She knew if she didn’t push, Hayley would leave it there. But she couldn’t seem to help herself. “And... Liz?”

  “The woman he was engaged to, three years ago.”

  “Oh.” She wasn’t surprised—there would have to be someone he was serious about. And what woman in her right mind wouldn’t be serious about a man like Brady?

  In her right mind...

  She nearly laughed out loud. Because being of right mind had nothing to do with being attracted—okay, beyond attracted—to Brady Crenshaw. She was living proof of that.

  “It ended a couple of months before the wedding date. Any more than that is his to tell you, or not,” Hayley said. “Assuming you’re interested.”

  Ashley sighed. “If there’s anything I’m sure of in all this, it’s that I have no business even thinking about him that way.”

  Hayley gave her a rather amused smile. “I think it may be time to tell you about Cutter’s other talent.”

  Ashley leaned down over the dog and kissed the top of his head. Cutter swiped his tongue over the tip of her nose, making her laugh. “I think his existing talents are quite enough.”

  “Yes,” Hayley said with a wide smile. “But there is another one. With an equal track record.”

  “Oh?”

  “He’s a matchmaker. And a very successful one.”

  Ashley blinked. “What?”

  “Counting Quinn and me, he’s brought together, or brought back together, ten couples.”

  “He...what? He brought you and Quinn together? I thought Quinn...kidnapped you.”

  “He did. But the only reason I was there to be kidnapped was Cutter. He fell in love with Quinn at first sight and led me right into it.” Hayley grinned. “I, on the other hand, took more convincing.”

  “I’ll bet,” Ashley said, thinking this was the craziest thing she’d heard yet.

  “So far he’s brought together or reunited four of our clients with their perfect match. And two of our Foxworth guys, plus our friend Detective Dunbar. And my brother. Oh, and Gavin de Marco.”

  Ashley knew she was gaping at the woman now. “Cutter brought them all together...how?”

  “He has his ways.” Hayley smiled sweetly. “Has he nudged you into sitting next to Brady? Maybe herded Brady toward you?”

  “I...” She looked back down at the dog, who looked up at her with those dark, amber-flecked eyes, eyes that suddenly seemed ancient and wise. “Yes.”

  “I thought so.”

  “Wait, are you saying he’s trying to matchmake us?”

  “And he has a one hundred percent success rate.”

  Ashley felt a little leaping sensation inside. Wishful thinking. She quashed it. “Believe me,” she said, “Brady deserves a lot better. Cutter should look elsewhere.”

  “Did I mention he never gives up?”

  Ashley shook her head as she shifted her gaze back to Hayley. “You know what a mess I am,” she said miserably. “Why would he wish me on a good man like Brady?”

  “I know what a mess your life is right now,” Hayley corrected. “And that’s as far as I’ll go until we have some answers.”

  And all Ashley could think was what a sad state of affairs her life was when that was a hope worth clinging to.

  * * *

  He would never make it as a burglar, Brady thought, because even with the key and permission of one of the residents, he didn’t like this. He was more of an up-front, out-in-the-open kind of guy.

  Of course, the fact that that resident was a fugitive and the other was the mayor of this place might have something to do with it. Which thought brought him back to what he’d seen when they had, at Quinn’s suggestion, stopped near city hall for Quinn to make a second call to see if the mayor had returned. They’d taken his marked SUV to further the story of this being official if necessar
y. He hadn’t ridden with a partner since his days as a trainee, but he couldn’t think of a better choice than Foxworth. The guy was the kind of man who would always have your back.

  And in the moment when he’d been told she had just left again, Brady had looked up and seen the woman, exiting the front entrance. She had turned left at the bottom of the steps and proceeded down the street with obvious purpose. And she had looked, to Brady, not worried but angry.

  But he’d said nothing. Nor had Quinn, even when he’d pulled the binoculars out of the unit’s equipment box and focused them on the woman striding down the sidewalk. What had begun as a hunch became a certainty when she turned at the two-story building halfway down the block and vanished inside.

  His jaw had tightened as he lowered the binoculars. “The shrink’s office,” he had muttered to Quinn. Who had been not in the least surprised.

  “At least we know she’s not at home,” he’d said mildly as Brady started the unit and they headed for the house. But Brady had guessed the man was pondering the likelihoods just as he was.

  Ashley had told him the key would also work on the back door, and given that area was much more hidden from general view than the front, he and Quinn had agreed on that approach. The seven-foot wooden fence that surrounded the backyard wasn’t much of a challenge, and within seconds of clearing it, he was at the back door and blocked by the shape of the house from the neighbor’s line of sight. He slid the key into the dead-bolt lock and turned it. It was a little stiff, as if this door didn’t get used much, but with a little bit more oomph, it went.

  He stepped inside quickly and shut the door behind him. He looked where Ashley had told him and saw the alarm panel. He felt a brief qualm as it flashed red at him; if this was where Ashley’s mind hit a new glitch, he was going to have some hefty explaining to do. But he quickly keyed in the pass code she’d given him—It’s the date she was first elected—and the lights turned green. Well, that figured. If there was a date that woman would be unlikely to forget, it was that of her rise to local power.

  There would be a record of the entry, but he hoped this would be over by the time anyone thought to look. Unless she’d put a watch on it, of course, and the alarm company had instructions to call her at any unscheduled entry. He could only hope she hadn’t thought of that and get himself out of here in a hurry.

  Ashley’s drawing of the layout was as accurate as the code had been. He tried not to dwell on what that might mean and focused on the task at hand. A minute later he was upstairs and at the door to her bedroom. He paused in the act of reaching for the knob. Looked back over his shoulder at the two other doors in this hallway. Saw that they were a rustic, iron style that matched the rest of the hardware in the house. But this knob was round, shiny, brass, and looked brand-new. His brow furrowed, then cleared as he understood it had probably been changed so Ashley could not lock the door. Her mother would want to be able to check on her. With a shake of his head at having to live that way, he opened the door.

  For a moment he just stood there. The rest of the house looked like something out of an interior decorating magazine: fancy furniture and accessories, all color coordinated, carefully placed and likely expensive things on display, and the kitchen had looked like the set of a cooking show. All of it was way too elegant for his casual taste and seemed to him out of place here in the mountains.

  But here, in Ashley’s room, it all changed. He was willing to bet there was more color and personality in this single bedroom than in the entire rest of this house. Not so much in the walls or furniture, which matched the rest of the house, but in the art on the walls, photographs of wildlife that frequented these mountains, from a dramatic wolf in the shadows of the trees to a less dramatic banana slug, and including a shot of a river otter that could be a twin to the one that occasionally hung out in his own backyard. And what he thought of as a touch of humanity in the shoes kicked off on the floor, the jacket—the green one he’d seen her wearing the day of the crash but that she had not put on that night, because her distressed mind had told her she soon wouldn’t be feeling cold, or anything else—tossed over the back of the chair by the window, the book left at an odd angle on the nightstand next to the bed. The bed he had been trying not to look at.

  It was tossed, the covers looking as if they’d been kicked aside after a restless night. As if she had tried to sleep, given up...and decided to kill herself instead. He had wondered if he would feel some kind of sexual jolt at the sight of her bed, if he would start imagining her in it, imagine joining her in it, as he’d done more than once at Alex’s place. But all he could think of was how desperate she had been that night, and it made him ache inside in an entirely different way.

  Get moving, Crenshaw.

  He crossed over to a closed door and pulled it open. It was a small walk-in closet, tidy, the only sign of haste a couple of hangers that were at an angle. He closed the door and quickly crossed the room to the second door that opened into the room. The bathroom was tidy as well, towels hung neatly, and on a hook on the back of the door the sweatshirt he’d seen her in that day he’d come by and been shocked by her appearance. It was hard to believe she was the same woman, so far removed from that was she now.

  There was only a comb lodged in a hairbrush on the counter. Everything else—lotions, hair clips, makeup, a couple of things he didn’t recognize—was on a tray to one side. He only noted this in passing, because he was focused on the mirror above the sink, the one that was hinged and clearly the door to the medicine cabinet he was looking for. He reached out, already mentally searching for the standard orange plastic prescription bottle she’d described. The door to the cabinet swung open easily. He looked at the bottom shelf.

  It was empty.

  Chapter 26

  “But...it’s always there.”

  Ashley stared down at the phone in her hand, from which Brady’s voice had issued over the link Hayley had activated with the red button, the link that connected them and Quinn and Brady live.

  “The shelf is empty. Only thing in the cabinet is a toothbrush and paste, and little bottle of...some hair stuff.”

  “You’re sure you’re in the right room?”

  “I’m looking at your banana slug. And your jacket’s on the back of the chair by the window.” He recognized her jacket? Trained observer, that’s all. She heard him move over the live connection. “What were you reading?”

  “The first of the...” Her voice trailed off as she remembered she had retreated into a childhood treasure, the first of the tales of a boy with a miserable life who found out he wasn’t who they’d told him he was at all. “A kid’s book,” she ended lamely.

  “It’s okay, Ash. I grew up on them.”

  Her throat tightened fiercely at the gentle understanding in his voice. And at the nickname he’d whispered in the moment before he’d kissed her that first time. The name she hadn’t gone by since her father had used it, despite her mother insisting on the formality of her full name.

  Cutter nudged her hand, and Hayley smiled at her. She swallowed and pulled herself together. “You’re in the right room, then. But the pills should be there.”

  “I’ll check around.”

  She heard the sound of movement, of doors closing, and the sliding of drawers. For a moment it flitted through her mind to worry about whether he’d find anything embarrassing, but it seemed a ridiculous thing to worry about right now. Not that there would be anything, not with the dark, swirling mess her life was right now. And if he found them somewhere else, in some odd place, then it only meant this was a pointless exercise, because it would prove her memory really was malfunctioning.

  “Nothing,” he finally said. “Checked the bathroom and all the drawers in the bedroom.” Well, there you go, Brady Crenshaw digging through your underwear. Somehow that wasn’t nearly as unsettling as she thought it should be.

  “What if it was drop
ped and rolled?” Hayley asked.

  “Good point. I’ll check the floor.”

  But he came back again a long moment later. “Nothing.”

  “This makes no sense,” Ashley said.

  “Unless they were removed.”

  That was Quinn, and Ashley frowned at the suggestion. And then was even more puzzled when Brady said, “Just what I was thinking.”

  “But why—”

  “Where’s your mother’s room?”

  “The opposite end of the hall, but she wouldn’t take them. Unless...unless she wanted to keep count, track whether I was taking them.”

  “Which you weren’t. Maybe she suspected that. I’ll check.”

  There was more movement, the sound of a door opening. Then Brady’s voice, sounding a bit sour. “You sure a human lives here?”

  Ashley laughed in spite of her nerves. “She is a bit compulsive about neatness.”

  She heard another door, then what sounded like drawers opening, then a pause, then another drawer; she guessed he’d crossed back into the bedroom to check that nightstand. A moment later, the negative came—no sign of the pills in her mother’s room, either. Ashley was utterly confused now. “I don’t understand. There was at least half a bottle left, fifteen pills or more.”

  “Damn,” she heard Brady mutter. “We need to know what those pills really are.”

  “Better clear out of there,” came Quinn’s voice.

  “I’ll check the kitchen cabinets just in case, but yeah, I think—”

  “Wait!” Ashley yelped as a memory hit her.

  “What?” came Brady’s voice.

  “Look, I know this is gross, but it might be the only...go back to my room. I started to take the meds again a week ago, because my mother was pushing. I actually put a pill in my mouth, but changed my mind after she left and spat it out. I tossed it in the wastebasket by the bed. The housekeeper’s been there since, but there was nothing else in there, so she might have missed it.”

  There was a long, silent moment, some more sounds of movement and then a door, and then, “Got it!” Ashley let out a breath. “Good memory,” Brady added.