Believing Again: Book 5 in the Second Chances series (Crimson Romance)

by Peggy Bird

  A stunned silence followed his words. Finally she whispered in a hoarse voice, “Oh, Jake, don’t do that. You have to know, I’m really not a relationship kind of woman and I don’t want you to get hurt by something like that.”

  He looked crestfallen. “Are you telling me you don’t have feelings for me?”

  “Of course I do. You know I do. But love? That’s way out of my league.”

  He drew her to him, held her for a long while. When she pulled back from the embrace she could see the hurt in his eyes and knew she’d put it there. So she did the only thing she could think of. Sinking to her knees in the shower she took his penis in her hand and began a slow and sensual massage, licking off the drops of salty semen that she’d aroused, getting lost in the smell of him, the taste and feel of him, pretending this was all it took to satisfy him, satisfy her.

  She looked up and saw him watching her with his intense storm-dark eyes and knew that this was only a temporary reprieve from the conversation she was afraid to have with him.

  • • •

  The only other woman he’d said “I love you” to had immediately said the three words back to him. He’d been sure Danny would reciprocate too. Had he read the signals so wrong? No, he didn’t believe he had. She showed him how she felt every time they were together, every time they kissed or held each other.

  He didn’t believe the “I’m-not-a-relationship-kind-of-woman” excuse. There was something else. There had to be something else. Did she love him but was afraid to say so? Did she really think they could skate along on the surface with a relationship that was only good sex and good company? He had to know but was afraid to ask. Because if he got an answer he didn’t like he knew there was no fallback, no Plan B. He couldn’t step back from “I love you” and pretend that hanging out, rolling around in bed, and cooking for each other was enough.

  Danny had blasted into his life with almost as much power as the damned IED. In fact, with more power because instead of making him feel like hell, she’d made him feel more alive than he’d felt since before he went to Iraq, maybe since any time in his life. He didn’t know whether that meant they could live happily-ever-after but he sure as hell wasn’t willing to give up at the first obstacle and write off the possibility.

  The only thing he could think to do was to go on with their day as if he’d said nothing. If she wanted to bring it up, which he doubted, they could talk about it. Until then, he’d keep it light and sexy. He’d give her what she seemed to want. For now. Until he figured out how to get past her barriers and into her heart.

  Twenty minutes later, both of them were dried and dressed. They hadn’t said much since the shower and he knew he had to be the one to start the conversation.

  “It’s such good weather, why don’t we do something outside? There won’t be many of these days before next spring. Unless you have work you need to get done.”

  She looked surprised — and relieved. “No, I cleared my desk for the weekend. And you’re right about enjoying the weather. What do you have in mind?”

  “You like to hike?”

  “Yeah. I love Forest Park, actually, but won’t hike there alone so it would be great if we went there. And maybe we could swing by and check on Kaylea. I know you’ve been good about checking on her but I’ve only talked to her on the phone a couple times and I’d like to see for myself she’s still okay.”

  “A two-fer. You’re on.”

  Chapter Eleven

  They left Jake’s vehicle at the Macleay trailhead parking lot and hiked for a couple hours, enjoying the feeling of being lost in nature in the middle of the city. Then, after a break at one of Northwest Portland’s ubiquitous coffee houses, they headed for the transient camp.

  Kaylea seemed nervous when they got there but said she was doing okay. Danny noticed a man watching them the whole time they were in the camp. She assumed he was Jim’s friend, the one who was looking out for Kaylea, but she didn’t have a chance to ask. She did notice that he immediately went to the woman’s side as she and Jake walked away.

  As they walked out from the camp, Jake said, “Anything strike you about that conversation?”

  “Yeah, she was nervous. And that guy was watching us really closely.”

  He stopped in the middle of the trail. “I think I should go back but I don’t want to leave you here alone.”

  “She won’t talk to you, you know that. I should be the one who goes back.”

  “No way. Not alone. That place is dangerous.”

  She stared him down. “I’ll go back to talk to her. You hang around the edges of the camp checking on the guys you know.”

  He glared back at her.

  “Don’t give me that look. This isn’t up for discussion, Jake.”

  “Tough S.O.B., are you?”

  “So I hear.” She turned before he could say any more and headed back up to the transient camp.

  But going back to see Kaylea didn’t get Danny any more information. In fact, it seemed to make the other woman more nervous. Something was wrong but Danny was out of ways, for the moment, to find out what it was. She wrote it off to the looming presence of the good Doctor Abrams who, in spite of what he’d promised, seemed to be within a few feet of her wherever she went. It ticked her off, but she wasn’t able to figure out what to do about that right now either.

  She waited until they were well clear of the camp before she said anything to him.

  “Jake, you can’t stand between me and what it takes for me to get my job done. I know what I’m doing. Hell, I’ve been told I’m good at it. You’re overreacting. Lighten up.” She was walking behind him when she spoke and couldn’t see his face.

  He stopped suddenly and she ran into his back. “I’m not overreacting. I know these guys, their reputation.” He faced her with a look of anguish and he took her hands, holding them so tightly it hurt. “You’re not safe there.”

  “This isn’t your call.” She shook free of his grip and put her hands on his arms. “I don’t take unnecessary risks. Let me be the judge of what I need to do. Please.”

  With a low moan, he pulled her to him and crushed her in an embrace that was more desperation than passion. “I don’t know what I’d do if you got hurt because of something I should have prevented.”

  “It’s not your job to prevent anything. You’re my … lover … boyfriend … whatever you are … not my professional partner. And I won’t get hurt. Now, can we close this subject and get on with our Sunday? I need more coffee and I haven’t even read the comics yet, much less any other section of the paper. And Sunday’s the only day I have to actually read the paper.”

  “Okay. I’ll let it go. For now.” He turned abruptly and continued down the trail, but she knew the discussion wasn’t over.

  They hiked in silence until Jake’s phone rang. From the puzzled expression on his face, the caller was unfamiliar.

  He repeated “Hello?” several times before the caller seemed to answer. After he paused to listen, he said, “Who is this?”

  Another pause.

  “I’m not going to answer that until you tell me who you are. Do you need help?”

  Pause. Again. This time longer.

  “Please, tell me who you are and where you are. I’ll come to you if you need help.”

  After several rounds of essentially the same conversation, he said, “Look, if you won’t tell me who you are there isn’t any point in continuing this conversation. If you really need help, the clinic is open … ”

  He jerked the phone away from his ear as a string of invectives came pouring out loud enough for Danny to hear, too. Shaking his head he ended the call.

  Danny said, “Doesn’t sound like your caller thinks much of you.”

  “No shit. They wanted to know where I was so they could come talk to me.”

  “I’m guessing you don’t know if it was a man or a woman.”

  “Right. Sounded like there was an attempt to distort the voice, maybe something like t
he old tissue-over-the-mouthpiece trick.”

  “More likely something over the mouth of the caller. Especially if they’re using a cell phone. Does the number come up on caller ID?”

  He checked. “Private caller.”

  “If you’ll let me take your cell phone in, we might be able to trace it.”

  “I’ll think about it — too many people get hold of me this way for me to let it go for too long.”

  “But if we can trace the call … ”

  Danny never finished her sentence. From the direction of the forest camp came the sound of multiple gunshots.

  With Danny in the lead they raced back to the camp, arriving to a scene of such chaos that it was hard to know what had happened. Danny called nine-one-one and ordered Jake to meet the responding officers at the trailhead. He reluctantly complied, after first making sure Kaylea’s protector knew to watch out for Danny, too.

  Danny was pissed that he’d lost precious seconds on something so irrelevant.

  Kaylea was in her shelter, safe but trembling, ashen faced, and unwilling to talk. Danny moved on to check out the rest of the camp. No one interfered with her, seeming to accept her authority. She regretted that Jake wasn’t there to see it.

  What she found was a trail of destruction through the whole camp. Shelters knocked over, belongings strewn all over the forest floor.

  And then there was the body at the edge of the camp. It looked like the man had tried to run into the woods to escape but had failed. Danny knew that the ambulance she’d asked for would be of no use.

  She also knew he was one of the men Jake had identified as his patient and she had to wonder if Jake’s phone call and this latest death weren’t connected. Perhaps the killer had known Jake was nearby and wanted him to see this.

  The shocked look on the faces of the two uniformed police officers and the EMTs who were led to the camp by Jake was exactly the same as the one she’d had on hers when she’d first seen the camp. The officers quickly roped off the crime scene with yellow tape. The EMTs, whose expertise wasn’t needed for the dead man, made the rounds with Jake to see if anyone else had been hurt.

  No one had been.

  Danny convinced Jake to leave with the EMTs, arguing that she and the officers would be there for quite some time and it was absurd to think an unarmed doctor added anything to the protection she had from two armed cops. He eventually agreed but asked her to call him as soon as she got home.

  The three cops spent the next several hours interviewing anyone who would talk to them, which, it turned out, was a hell of a lot larger number than Danny expected. But one man may have put his finger on why they were suddenly willing to cooperate. He said they’d all heard about the guy shooting homeless men and were even more eager than the cops were to get him caught. But they couldn’t help much. All anyone knew was that the shooter hadn’t come from the trail Danny and Jake had used but from deeper in the park.

  As he had done in the Burnside Bridge drive-by, the perp first shot randomly into the camp, causing the panic Danny had found when she first got there. Then, when everyone was running for cover, he targeted the victim, killed him, and left.

  The only person who wouldn’t talk to Danny was Kaylea. She refused to come out of her shelter. She didn’t respond when Danny asked to come in. She wouldn’t talk when Danny went in anyway.

  Her protector, whose full name Danny finally learned was Bob Aronson, said it was because she was terrified, which Danny had already figured out. But Aronson knew the reason. Somehow, some way, the killer had gotten the message to Kaylea once again, that if she talked to the police, told anyone what she knew, she would be the next victim.

  And Kaylea had been on the edge of the camp, where this latest murder had taken place, about the time Aronson had heard the gunshots.

  Jesus, Danny thought. Does she know who this bastard is but she’s too scared to tell me? She had to get Kaylea to talk to her, had to find out what she knew.

  As soon as she’d finished talking to Aronson, Danny went looking for Kaylea only to find she’d packed up her belongings in a couple garbage sacks, taken someone’s grocery cart, and left. For where, no one knew.

  • • •

  The next few days were more discouraging than any Danny could remember in a long time. Visits to the camps under the bridges and in Forest Park were unsuccessful. In fact, at every visit to each place Danny noticed fewer and fewer residents. She and Jake had to hunt in Forest Park for the new camp — no one wanted to stay at the old location. Thanks to a patient, they finally found the new place but no one could — or would — give them any more information.

  The only thing that seemed obvious was that, for whatever reason, the perp was after Jake’s current and former patients — which shone the spotlight even more on VMSC as holding the key to figuring out who was doing this. Jake was on the verge of stepping back from the clinic as a way to protect his patients until Danny pointed out that the killer seemed to know who they were anyway and depriving the clinic of one of its physicians wouldn’t help them find the perp any faster.

  Sam spent several hours with Jake asking him questions about every single staff person and volunteer in the clinic trying to find something, anything, to hang a theory on about why this was happening and who was doing it. The only additional information he got was a list of names of former employees and volunteers to talk to, trying to widen the circle in the hopes of finding something new.

  While Sam was doing that, Danny was canvassing under every bridge and in all the transient shelters, soup kitchens, and SRO facilities looking for Kaylea. But the woman had simply been absorbed into the shadow city of the homeless and transient.

  Or, Danny was afraid, had fallen victim to the killer who could have hidden her body in any one of an endless number of places in Forest Park.

  As a result of the intense investigation, Danny and Jake had little opportunity over the next couple weeks to see each other. They managed a quick breakfast or two and, once, dinner during the week but not much else. She saw him more in the course of her work than she did socially.

  She missed him. It was hard for her to face how much she missed him and how, in such a short time, he’d become so important to her.

  Although she’d told him she wasn’t good at relationships, that was only partly true. It would have been closer to the truth to say she didn’t have much experience with them. She’d never really had a serious one. Not once in all her adult years had she ever cared enough for anyone to think about long-term anything.

  It wasn’t that she was extraordinarily picky. It wasn’t that she didn’t enjoy being with a guy. She’d had a couple boyfriends who had hung around for a while, even a couple years. But there’d never been anyone she’d thought of in a serious, long-term way.

  And it wasn’t that she was soured on the idea of a long-term commitment because of some hang-up from her family. Her parents had a warm and loving marriage of almost thirty-five years; her brother and his wife had been married for half-dozen years and still acted like honeymooners, even with two toddlers around.

  It was more that she wasn’t sure she knew how to make it happen for herself. She loved her work and would never give it up. Ever. How did a career like hers play into a close and loving relationship? She’d seen her mother turn down an amazing offer from a prestigious university in another state so her father could stay in his position at the university where they were both professors because he was in line for the chairmanship of his department. Seen them work around competing publication deadlines with her mother always graciously giving way to her father. She didn’t think he asked her to do it. But she knew it always happened that way. Could she do the same thing her mother had done? Would every man expect that? Her brother seemed to. Her sister-in-law had back-burnered her career as an attorney to raise their children while her brother’s academic star continued to rise.

  It hadn’t helped that some of the men Danny had dated had been turned off by the deman
ds of her schedule, gotten pissed off when she had to cancel dinner or a movie night because she’d been called out. If they were like that over a date, how would it be when it happened on Christmas? Or a birthday?

  And kids? She’d never even thought about that. How the hell did you paint kids into this picture?

  No, having only casual connections with the guys she dated had been just fine. Until now. Until Jake Abrams came along and told her he was falling in love with her. What the hell was she supposed to do about that?

  Chapter Twelve

  The case got colder as the days went by. Many of the people who’d witnessed one or another of the shootings seemed to have melted away like the occasional snow that fell on the streets of Portland — here tonight and gone tomorrow afternoon. The only good thing about the case slowing down was that it meant Danny could finally make plans to have Shabbat dinner with Jake and his parents.

  Leaving work early for a change, she went to New Seasons Market where, with advice from the staff, she selected a good bottle of kosher wine and a bouquet of flowers.

  Jake picked her up at six and they arrived at the Abrams’s home close to six-thirty. It was already dark and, of course, raining.

  Strict Jewish tradition is to light the candles eighteen minutes before sunset on Friday evening — and there were multiple online resources to figure out exactly what that time was in every location in the world. During winter in the Northwest, it was a tough commandment to follow for working people who wanted to be observant. Sunset occurs quite early because of the region’s more northerly location. Jake’s parents, like many Jews, honored the custom of lighting the candles on Shabbat but were flexible about the timing.

  A handsome woman in her fifties with dark, wavy hair shot through with silver met the couple at the door of the Abrams’s West Hills home Not quite as tall as Danny, she was regal-looking, as though she thought she was six inches taller and towered over everyone in the room. She greeted her son with “Shabbat shalom” and a kiss. Then she hugged Danny and gave her a kiss on the cheek, too.