by J. S. Marlo
Shuttering sobs and hiccups wracked his small body.
“Did Bill send you inside?” If her grandfather raised his voice and traumatized Avery’s boy, she would give him an earful. “Sometimes Bill is very loud. I’m sure he didn’t mean to scare you. What would you say if I took you for your bath and we put lots of bubbles in the water? Wouldn’t that be fun?”
More tears pooled in his eyes. As he opened his mouth, Rowan caught herself holding her breath.
“B-Be-Bill…f-fell.”
***
“I followed your steps in the snow.” Avery paced the living room, and to Hannah’s bewilderment, his gaze stayed locked on hers. “What the bloody hell were you thinking snooping around the detachment?”
When Avery had cupped her face to shield her from Reed’s view, his glove only partially covered her eyes. Hannah had read his sergeant’s angry rant, but the way her head leaned against his shoulder had prevented her from seeing Avery’s responses.
If she asked him what he’d said, Avery would know something was amiss. The strength with which he’d dragged her into his house spoke of his anger. To tell him she couldn’t hear would only incense him further. He would call her irresponsible for venturing outside in the dark with limited senses.
“I wanted to know who the woman was.” On the outside chance someone might be outside, listening to their discussion, Hannah forced herself to modulate her voice, keeping it low and even. “And stop yelling at me. I was only trying to help.”
“What woman?” He stilled near the television stand and his gaze softened. “And for the record, I wasn’t yelling.”
Snowflake had cuddled on her lap. Hannah sought comfort in the warm, furry body. “The woman whose steps you missed.”
His face warped into a quizzical look, he joined her on the couch. “I’m listening, Hannah.”
Under his intense stare, she recounted the entire encounter without missing any details, as irrelevant as they appeared to her. Not once did Avery interrupt. After she finished, he placed his hand on her forearm, but remained quiet.
The prolonged silence unnerved her. “Do you believe me?”
“Sorry, I was thinking.” He gently squeezed her arm, and a warm sensation streamed through her body. “Yes, I believe you, but I only saw Reed. He arrived as I caught up with you. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable back there, but I needed to protect you. Kissing you was the only diversion I could think of at the moment.”
In the heat of the encounter, she’d relished the kiss, and his sergeant had mistaken her for a hooker. How pitiful. “No need to apologize, Avery, you only did your duty.” The words left a sour taste in her mouth. She was glad she couldn’t hear them.
“Yes…duty.” A strange shadow crossed his eyes as he retrieved his hand. “The only persons with a key to the backdoor are Cooper, Reed, and I.”
“Maybe she picked the lock.” Despite her regrets over the meaningless kiss, her opinion of the man raised another notch. “Avery…I didn’t mean to become a stain on your personal record. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t worry about the sergeant.” His blithe response was accompanied by an enigmatic smile, showing off an upper chipped tooth. The roguish imperfection fired foolish sparks inside her belly. “We have bigger concerns than a few stains on my record. Once Reed goes home, I’ll take you into my office.”
“Me? Why?” Snowflake’s ears pricked up as if the furry female agreed that it didn’t sound like a good idea.
“I need you to recreate every move that woman made inside the building. Maybe it’ll jog your memory of where you might have seen her before your accident. I also want to test the lock on the backdoor.”
“O-kay.” Unfortunately, his optimism wasn’t contagious. Since they had to wait for his sergeant’s departure, they had time to discuss his meeting with Fred. “Was Fred able to say what happened to Greta?”
“Some years ago, Greta was slashed with a knife. I’m guessing it was the attack from which your grandfather saved her. She didn’t elaborate on the assault, did she?”
Hannah shook her head. There was so much she wished she’d asked Greta. “Did Fred say what killed her?”
After Avery gave her an account of the preliminary autopsy report, Greta’s last words came back to haunt Hannah. I’ve fought for sixty years. That’s long enough. Once dawn comes, I will finally rest.
Chapter Thirty-One
Cooper lived in the end unit of a townhouse near the arena. His RCMP cruiser was parked in the driveway alongside a midsize sedan covered with snow. Curious of its color, Avery brushed off a corner of the trunk. Red.
The amount of snow that had accumulated on top suggested the vehicle hadn’t been driven in weeks. The odds that it belonged to anyone other than Cooper were slim to none.
Avery had parked at the arena and walked into the neighborhood. Until he ascertained Cooper’s role, he didn’t want anyone witnessing his night visit. The back door was locked. Avery could have picked it, but startling a man who carried a gun for a living was never a good idea. He rang the doorbell, again and again, until someone yanked the door open.
“Stone? Go sober up somewhere else.”
As Cooper slammed the door, Avery propped his boot forward, stopping it from closing. Taking advantage of his colleague’s befuddlement, he invited himself in and shut the door behind him. “We need to talk. Have a seat at the table and keep your hands where I can see them.”
The man stood in the middle of his kitchen wearing nothing but a pair of white briefs. He concealed no weapon, but Avery wasn’t inclined to take any chances.
“Get out, Stone, before I kick your sorry ass.”
Avery’s patience flew into the cold night at the same speed he gripped Cooper’s arm and twisted it behind his back. “I said sit.”
“Go to hell.”
More obscenities floated in the kitchen as Cooper struggled to free his arm. Avery caught the other one and cuffed the man to the refrigerator door.
“Come to think of it, you can stand. I don’t care.” Avery straddled a chair and waited for Cooper to stop comparing his mother to Snowflake. “If my mother were alive, she’d shove a bar of soap down your throat until bubbles seep out your…navel.”
A beam of hatred zoomed across the room. “What do you want?”
When Avery had searched the drawer Hannah had seen open, he’d found pieces of tape still attached to the desk. “I was doing some house cleaning in the office. It’s such a mess in there. Aside from chewing gum, would you like to guess what was taped under your drawer?”
The discovery of the secret package deflated Cooper’s arrogant demeanor and turned his face an ashen shade of white. “You’re going to pay for this.”
“I’m short on money this month, how about we settle for an explanation?” With his best poker face in place, Avery slouched in the chair and put his feet on the table. “You can take your time, I’m in no rush.”
The glaring contest ticked into the night and ended with Cooper slumping to the floor, one arm up. “If you need to know, I was cleaning Abbott’s desk after he took off with those hookers. I stumbled onto the paternity test by accident.”
“What do you think I am, Cooper? Stupid?” Avery stifled his surprise at the content of the package behind feigned indignation. “Nobody leaves a paternity test lying around on a desk. That would be stupid.”
The bloody idiot squirmed on the floor. “It wasn’t exactly on his desk…more like under his second drawer. What was I supposed to do? Leave it there for the world to find? Terri didn’t need another proof of her husband’s betrayal. I did it to protect her feelings.”
“How thoughtful of you.” Terri was Abbott’s wife, so they had to be talking about Abbott’s indiscretions. Trying to ask the right questions while navigating blind was a challenge. “Didn’t Abbott realize it was missing?”
“I already told you, Stone. I took the package after Abbott went AWOL. Are we done?” A bucket load of frustration had s
pilled in his voice. “Can I go back to bed?”
It was possible Cooper was blackmailing the mother of the child involved in the paternity test and that she broke into the detachment to retrieve the evidence. That’s daring. Avery had examined the backdoor. It was designed to stay locked from the outside. It had taken him ten minutes to pick the complex mechanism. According to Hannah, the woman hadn’t spent more than a few seconds coming in. She had to have a key.
“If you meant to protect Abbott’s wife, why didn’t you destroy it instead of keeping it? Or are you playing some sort of sick game with it?”
“The test was negative, Stone, and I wanted to rub Parker’s nose in it. The woman doesn’t know who fathered her bastard. She had no right to turn me down like a vermin.” Spit flew with every word pushed out of his mouth. “Don’t look so shocked. She’s a hooker not worth losing your pants over.”
Rage boiled inside Avery’s veins. His entire body tensed, ready to jump at Cooper’s throat. “Who else knows about the paternity test? How many people did you tell?”
“I didn’t tell anyone, but I sure would have loved to see the look on Parker’s face. Too bad she blew up before I paid her another visit.”
“You’re pathetic.” Fighting the urge to punch Cooper’s smirk inside his skull, Avery unlocked the cuffs—and left.
***
The flames licked the envelope she’d tossed in the fireplace, curling the corners black and poking a fiery hole in its middle.
Wrapped in her favorite nightgown, Terri watched her husband’s treachery disintegrate in front of her eyes with dispassionate jubilation. To think she’d believed Lee when he told her he’d destroyed the test. If she hadn’t hinted to it last night, she would never have known he’d kept it to blackmail Parker. For a RCMP constable, he didn’t hold his liquor. By the third drink, he’d been drunk, and by the eighth, he’d forgotten his own name. She’d wanted to know about Stone’s investigation. Not only had Lee enlightened her on Stone’s progress, but his misguided attempt at revenge on her behalf had proven most endearing. It was too bad he’d passed out on her couch and that she had to call Matt to get rid of him. She might have enjoyed a romp in the sack.
With only three officers on duty, timing her access to the building should have been unproblematic. Gregory should have been at the curling ring, playing a late night game against Vic’s team, not coming in as she sneaked out, but the thrill of almost being caught had spawned wild fantasies—too wild not to pursue.
***
The blue-eyed child ran toward her, his laughter echoing in the crisp autumn morning. Love and pride swept through Hannah. She opened her arms, beckoning him into their folds. He reached out with his hands…and vanished into thin air.
A void ripped Hannah’s heart apart, awaking her from the dream. “Rory.” His name caressed her lips, a sweet plea to her battered brain to remember the boy, not only the warm feelings he evoked.
Sleeping in Avery’s bed and pajamas—on his insistence—hadn’t brought any restful sleep, only catnaps haunted with memories of the past. The pillow smelled of him, a reminder of the phony kiss they’d shared.
This nonsense has to stop. She didn’t know the man beneath the uniform. Sane women didn’t develop feelings for strangers.
Frustrated by the lack of answers, she tossed and turned. Avery had been at her cabin the day of the explosion, babysitting Rory and hacking her computer. That didn’t seem like the normal behavior of a RCMP officer. Maybe they were closer than he’d let on…more than mere acquaintances. “Avery Stone…”
She reached for the fur ball curled up under the blanket near her knees. When Hannah pressed her hand down to pet the affectionate terrier, the blanket flattened without resistance.
“Snowflake?” The small dog had been there moments ago. Puzzled by her disappearance, Hannah sat up, her gaze traveling around the sparse bedroom. “Snowflake? Come—”
At the sight of the silhouette standing near the door, a current of fear zapped through Hannah’s body. She glanced around for a weapon. As she reached for the alarm clock, the ceiling light came on, blinding her. Through flapping eyelids, she recognized Avery and relaxed. “You frightened me.”
Snowflake was in his arms. When he approached the bed, she jumped off and burrowed under the blanket. As the fur ball snuggled against her left leg, he sat at the edge of the mattress.
“I heard you call my name. I didn’t mean to scare you.” He still wore his uniform, but his holster was missing and he’d undone the first few buttons of his shirt. A few dark hairs escaped through the gap.
A mental picture of his bared chest formed in her mind, followed by wayward thoughts. Her resolve to stop dreaming about him melted like snow on a warm and sunny spring day. This is hopeless.
“How long have you been back?” Not being able to hear was a definite drawback.
“About fifteen minutes. Hannah…” The intensity with which he studied her sparked a brushfire down her belly. “I had a chat with Cooper, and I need a woman’s perspective over his revelations.”
A woman’s perspective, not my personal perspective. It was a generic inquiry, nothing worth mushing her insides into a jellied mess. “Why do I have the feeling it wasn’t drugs in that package?”
“It was a paternity test taken by Brent Abbott. Cooper took it from Abbott’s desk after he disappeared to protect his widow and to blackmail the child’s mother.” A blank expression concealed Avery’s personal opinion on the matter. “The result was negative.”
“Cooper taped a paternity result under his desk and a woman stole it from him?” The constable is another jerk who deserves to be tied to a bed with a noose around his neck. “Does Cooper know who the female intruder could be?”
“He thinks I’m the one who found the test. He said no one else knew about it.”
“The woman didn’t ransack the office, Avery.” The scene replayed in Hannah’s mind. “She’d known exactly where to look. My first suspect would be the mother of the child at the center of the paternity test, but Cooper wouldn’t have been stupid enough to tell her where he kept the evidence, not if he blackmailed her with it.”
“The child’s mother is not the woman you saw in the office.”
The clear articulation and the lack of contractions added finality to Avery’s statement. His certainty puzzled her.
“May I ask why you’re not considering her a suspect? It’s…” A possible explanation flashed in front of her eyes. “You know her.”
“Yes, I do, and I can assure you she wasn’t in my office. You have to trust me on this one.” A silent plea softened the chiseled angles of his face. “So? Any other suspect you could think of?”
“What about Abbott’s widow? A negative result doesn’t prove her husband had an affair. He may have taken the test to dispel unfounded rumors, but I suppose she may have felt ashamed or humiliated.”
He ran his hand into his hair, as he seemed to ponder her suggestion. “I talked to his widow, Hannah. If she felt any shame or humiliation, it was coated with thick layers of anger, hate, and contempt. Maybe I’m wrong, but a negative test seems mild in comparison with Abbott’s debauched behavior the week surrounding his death. Besides, if Cooper is to be believed, he meant to protect Abbott’s widow from the truth, not embarrass her with it.”
Mentally exhausted by the constant effort it cost her to read his lips and fill the missing gaps with sense, she briefly closed her eyes. “I’m afraid my brain has shut down for the night.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
I took Snowflake for a walk and fed her. She’ll be fine until I get back from work. Make yourself at home and borrow what you need. Avery
The note was on the kitchen table beside a package of multigrain bagels. Not only had Hannah slept through his departure, but he’d also taken Snowflake in and out of her bed without rousing her. At this rate, he’d suspect her loss of hearing in no time. Swell.
She nibbled on a bagel while rummaging through the
cabinets. Hiding in Avery’s house was a calculated risk, and she wanted to lower the odds of being discovered or recognized. She found two spray bottles under the sink. An opaque red bottle with cleaning solution in it and an empty transparent one. Shoving the last bite into her mouth, she took both.
Hydrogen peroxide degrades quickly when exposed to light. How she recalled the chemical reaction but not her name, Hannah couldn’t explain, but she had the distinct impression she’d used the home solution in the past. She transferred the cleaning solution into the empty one, then rinsed the opaque spray bottle. Three times.
Clean bottle in hand, she entered the bathroom and retrieved the hydrogen peroxide she’d seen in the medicine cabinet while searching for a roll of bathroom tissue. The bottle was full. She poured its contents into the spray bottle before setting it aside.
Hannah’s reflection stared back at her from the bathroom mirror. A single application wouldn’t be enough to transform her into a bleached blonde. At best, it would turn her dark hair into an orangey shade of brown. Changing her appearance required a more drastic approach.
With a determination born from desperation, she took a pair of scissors from the top drawer of the vanity. She couldn’t risk someone entering Stone’s house and stumbling on her by accident.
Her life was worth more than her hair.
***
Greg was pleased with the reports on his desk. The old lady had been identified and her death was deemed a suicide.
The many pelts found in the cave combined with a lack of traps in its vicinity suggested she stole the prey of other trappers. If her death doesn’t put an end to the fur thefts in the forest, it should decrease the number of complaints.
“Hello, Gregory. Are you busy?”
At the sultry sound of her voice, he lifted his head and smiled. Terri was as gorgeous in a pair of jeans and leather jacket as she was in a bathrobe.
“Nothing that can’t wait.” He gestured for her to come into his office. “Have a seat, Terri.”