by Rachel Lee
“I saw a picture of Eric Lang,” Caroline went on. She groaned again. “I suppose you know all there is to know about him.” But she waved that off. “Of course, you do. You’re a marshal. You’re Sheriff Buck Slater’s son.”
Jack stayed quiet, but he knew Eric all right. Eric had been the research assistant for Caroline and her boss/friend Gemma Hanson at the college where the three of them had been working on a new computer program for profiling serial killers. The irony was that Eric himself had been a serial killer, and neither Gemma nor Caroline had picked up on it. Eric had hidden it from the women. From everyone. Then, Eric had nearly killed both Caroline and Gemma when he’d taken them hostage. That was what had sent Jack’s father to an abandoned hotel, where he’d been killed.
Gemma had managed to escape that night. Caroline hadn’t. Eric had taken her and disappeared into the darkness with her. No one, not even Caroline, was certain what had happened after that, but she’d shown up in Longview Ridge a year later. Because of her amnesia, though, she hadn’t been able to tell them what’d happened to her.
“Eric is dead,” Jack reminded her. “He was shot and killed three months ago, shortly after you came back to Longview Ridge.”
Of course, he’d already told her that, and she had almost certainly read about it in those internet articles, but Jack wanted to spell it out for her that she didn’t have to be afraid of Eric. He couldn’t come after her again.
“Was I stupid?” she blurted out. Man, the anger had returned with a vengeance, not just in her tone but in her expression. “Was that why I couldn’t see a serial killer was working right next to me?”
Jack hated to see her beating herself up like this. “You definitely weren’t stupid. I met Eric, too, and I didn’t make him for a killer. A lot of people didn’t.”
That didn’t seem to appease her one bit. Her forehead still stayed bunched up, making the scar there even more obvious. A scar that she’d gotten during her captivity. Possibly from Eric, when he’d clubbed her on the head that night she was taken hostage. Of course, until Caroline got back her memory, she wouldn’t be able to confirm if that was what had actually happened.
“And what about us?” Caroline threw out there.
Lucille’s gaze fired to Caroline, then him. Jack didn’t know what to make of the question, either. In the past three months, Caroline hadn’t asked about them as a couple, but that was because Jack had never stayed around for an actual conversation. He visited twice a week, to check if Caroline’s memory had returned. And once Lucille and Caroline assured him that it hadn’t, he always left.
Just as Lucille did now.
The nurse must have thought they needed some privacy, because she mumbled something about needing to get something from her bedroom and walked out. Jack hadn’t even been sure that Lucille knew Caroline and he had once been lovers.
Had been in love, he mentally corrected.
Jack hadn’t talked about that with Lucille or anyone else, for that matter. Still, maybe Lucille had picked up on something or had been doing her own reading about Caroline. That would only be natural, he supposed, since Lucille and Caroline lived under the same roof, and Lucille was partly responsible for Caroline’s safety.
“There was something about us in the articles you read?” Jack countered.
Best not to blurt out any details that Caroline didn’t know or hadn’t remembered. That was what the doctors had told him to do anyway. Keep the interaction between them to a minimum so there’d be no risk of planting memories in her head. That way, when she did recall something, it would be because it was a genuine memory. It was another reason he’d need to let her doctors know about this conversation.
When Caroline didn’t answer, he looked at her. He saw maybe a flicker of recognition, or something, before she turned away. As she’d done earlier, she waved that off.
Jack would have pressed her for more info, pushing just a little, but his phone dinged, and he saw the file his partner, Teagan, had sent. Lucille must have heard the sound, too, because she hurried back into the kitchen.
“Any problem?” Lucille asked.
“Video from the security cameras.” He motioned for her to come closer so she could take a look. When Caroline moved in, too, Jack had to consider which would upset her more: if she saw a would-be killer or if he kept her from seeing one.
He decided to let her watch.
It put them in close contact, with Lucille on one side of him and Caroline on the other. Caroline still didn’t touch him, even though her arm was less than an inch from his.
Jack sped up the feed, going through minutes of what the cameras had recorded. Minutes of nothing.
And then there was something.
He slowed down the speed and then paused it when the man came into view. The guy was just as Lucille had described him—dark hair and jeans, and he was indeed by the pond. Too bad the guy was turned away from the camera so that only the side of his face was visible.
The man didn’t have a drawn weapon, but Jack didn’t like the way he was just standing there. If this was someone who’d just wandered onto the property, he should have been firing glances all around. Or leaving.
Jack touched the screen, moving it frame by frame until he finally got a shot he wanted. The guy turned to face the camera. Jack paused it again, enlarging it so he could run it through facial recognition software.
Caroline gasped. “Oh, God. Jack, I know him.”
Shaking her head, she stepped back and pressed her fingers to her mouth. But only for a moment. Caroline’s eyes widened when she saw that she’d gotten his complete attention. He could also see that she quickly tried to shut back down to that flat expression she’d worn for the past three months. But it was too late for that.
For that mask.
Because Jack had seen the recognition in her eyes. Better yet, he’d heard it in her voice.
Jack.
“You remembered something?” Lucille quickly asked, maybe not picking up on the sudden slash of tension between her patient and Jack. “Do you really know who that man is?”
Caroline didn’t even look at the nurse. She kept her gaze fastened on Jack. Recognition, definitely. And some defiance. She hiked up her chin, and her mouth went into a flat line.
“Yes, I know that man,” Caroline said, her stare drilling into Jack. “And I know you.”
Copyright © 2020 by Delores Fos
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ISBN-13: 9781488067570
Conard County: Hard Proof
Copyright © 2020 by Susan Civil-Brown
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