Fair Warning

by Hannah Alexander

  She had a lilting voice that every so often, even under these heavy circumstances, caught itself in a brief chuckle.

  Ginger had that effect on people. And Graham was startled to realize Willow had begun to have an effect on him. He found her fascinating.

  Eventually the argument ended with Ginger as victor—Willow would accept the car only until she could receive a replacement credit card and rent an automobile—and the subject became serious once more. Willow ate only half her generous bowl of chili, then set the spoon down and stared into the contents.

  “I can’t continue to depend on others for help,” she said.

  “Is that pride talking?” Ginger asked archly.

  Willow blinked up at her, dark brows drawn together until furrows formed in her unlined forehead.

  “We’ve all got to depend on someone else at some time in our lives,” Ginger said. “I’ve done my share of leaning.”

  “But then you’ve spent ten years of your life helping others on the other side of the world,” Willow said.

  “If I hadn’t swallowed some pride and accepted help when I needed it, though, maybe I’d never have gotten to the point where I could help others. Did you ever think of that?”

  The furrows disappeared, and Graham realized how very pretty Willow was, with gamine features, a short, turned-up nose, a generous mouth, eyes that changed from blue to gray, depending on the light.

  “I seem to remember that you’re an ICU nurse,” he said quietly. “I’m sure once you get back on your feet you’ll want to make a go of that again.”

  She glanced up at him briefly, then returned her attention to her bowl. “You make it sound so easy.”

  Ginger opened her mouth to speak, and Graham gave her a pointed look. She raised her eyebrows at him, then closed her mouth.

  “After what Preston tells me you’ve been through,” Graham said, “I wouldn’t be so stupid to imply that, Willow.”

  She looked up at him again. “He thinks I’m imagining things. He hasn’t seriously considered the possibility that someone really did try to kill me.”

  “Yes, he has. I think he’s in denial, but the fire has made him start thinking about it more seriously. Your husband was killed during a drug raid, right?”

  Willow nudged the bowl away from her and picked up her water glass. “He was shot in the back—not from the direction of the raid, but from across the street, behind a thicket of brush and trees. They never found the shooter, and though several arrests were made that night, no one admitted knowledge of the crime.”

  “Oh.” Ginger breathed softly.

  “Two days after the funeral I received a call on the telephone. The caller never identified himself, but he said, ‘How do you like widowhood? I’m giving you fair warning, you’re going to pay.’ And then he hung up.”

  “Did you call the police?”

  “Of course, but the call came from a pay phone at the airport. It could have come from anyone, and I couldn’t prove what was said.”

  “You don’t think it was from some sicko who had read the paper about Travis and decided to torture the widow a little?” Graham asked.

  Willow narrowed her eyes at him. “You sound like Preston.”

  “Only covering all options.”

  “How about this option, then?” she said. “A month later, when I was four months pregnant, I was crossing the street on my way to my car after work when I heard an engine. I looked up just in time to see a car veering across the line, coming straight toward me. I jumped to get out of the way, and the bumper grazed me, knocking me to the ground. I miscarried. Two days later I received a call on my new cell phone. I recognized the same caller’s voice.”

  “What did he say?” Ginger asked.

  “He said, ‘I gave you fair warning.’” Willow’s voice caught with a mixture of despair and anger.

  “Preston said you were concerned about two attempts that had been made on your life,” Graham said.

  She nodded. “The other happened at the lake, where I used to go swimming a lot with some coworkers. One day last fall I was out doing laps from the dock to the buoy when I felt a tug on my feet. Someone tried to drag me under.”

  “What did you do?” Ginger exclaimed.

  “I screamed and kicked and managed to land some well-placed jabs, apparently. I was released and I got away.”

  “Did you ever see anyone surface?” Ginger asked.

  “Never. When I told my friends about it, they reported the incident to the State Water Patrol. No one was ever found. By that time I had begun to sound like the boy who cried wolf.”

  Graham stole a glance at Ginger. Sure enough, her eyes were filmed with unshed tears.

  “Preston mentioned your dreams,” Graham said to Willow. “You’re still having nightmares about the deaths?”

  She gave him a look of pure exasperation. “What has Preston been doing, downloading my whole life story?”

  “Just trying to keep his macho image from becoming too tarnished. He knew he wouldn’t be able to be there for you while he’s in the hospital, so he—”

  “He thought he should line up another watchdog,” she said.

  “You were telling us about the nightmares,” Graham prompted.

  “Actually, I wasn’t,” she said dryly. “You were telling me. Did Preston also tell you that I lost so much sleep it began to affect my work?”

  “He mentioned you had to quit your job.”

  “I was suffering from terrible insomnia and was always sleepy during my shift. One night I fell asleep and a patient of mine stopped breathing. Had it not been for one of the other nurses, my patient would have died.”

  “You worked nights?” Graham asked.

  Willow nodded. “So you see, going back to work isn’t an option for me until I stop having these nightmares.”

  “What about daytime shifts?” Graham asked. “Or perhaps shorter ones.”

  “I’d like to try again,” she said. “Not now, but maybe after all this is settled.”

  “When did the nightmares begin?” Ginger asked.

  Willow stared once more into the uneaten contents of her bowl, as if trying to find an answer in the shape of the ground meat, tomatoes and black beans. “I’ve had bad dreams for years. It’s a curse in our family, though the dreams come from my father’s side. This particular dream began soon after Travis was killed.”

  “Same dream?” Graham asked.

  She nodded and looked up at him. “Same one.”

  “You know,” Ginger said, “sometimes God uses dreams to tell us things we wouldn’t ordinarily pick up on during our waking hours. Do you recognize anyone in the nightmare? I mean, anyone on this side of the sleep curtain?”

  Willow shook her head, obviously troubled by the long-fought battle with her subconscious. “No recognition. Only the dead, white face of a man in a coffin. And then he sits up and points at me, as if he’s accusing me of doing something. As if I put him there.”

  Willow clasped her hands hard in her lap, unable to believe she had actually just blurted out so much to these two virtual strangers. Six months ago she had sworn she would never tell another soul about her experiences. She was tired of the awkward looks and the uncomfortable silences.

  No one was ever willing to believe that someone they actually knew could be a victim of attempted murder.

  She’d just been so desperate to explain her situation to someone who might understand this time. Now what would they think?

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I think I should leave before I open my mouth one more time and remove all doubt in your minds about my sanity.” She scooted to the end of the booth and stood.

  “Don’t you even talk like that,” Ginger said as she and her brother followed.

  While Graham paid, Ginger stood beside Willow and took her hand in a warm, firm grip. “Honey, this stuff you’re going through has intrigue written all over it. There are times in our lives when we doubt ourselves, doubt our own perceptions
. It happens to a lot of people. It sure happened to me.”

  “But you didn’t have a schizophrenic mother.”

  “Nope, just a wayward heart. Of course, I don’t know exactly what’s going on in your life right now, and you don’t, either. But whatever it turns out to be, you’ve got to realize you’re not alone.”

  “I thought you said you weren’t a missionary anymore.”

  Ginger pursed her full lips. “This isn’t missionary work. It’s a little thing you call friendship and it works both ways.”

  “Yes,” Willow said softly as she felt herself smiling. “It does.”

  She glanced out at the busy downtown street, which looked much as it might have looked fifty years ago, held back in time by the efforts of the shopkeepers who wanted to draw the crowds back to a simpler era.

  But the past century had not been simple. Willow’s past had been anything but simple, and she fervently wanted to escape its clutches. She just wasn’t sure if she could.

  Chapter Nine

  Though Willow remained reluctant to borrow Ginger’s car, Graham insisted, and the two of them saw her off at the parking lot in front of the city hall.

  “She gave me the impression tonight that there are times she doubts her own sanity,” Ginger said as she settled in beside him in his Dodge 4X4. “I’d sure like to convince her she’s just as sane as you or I.”

  “Don’t tell her that.”

  Ginger paused as she buckled her seat belt, and he could feel her glaring at him through the darkness. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It won’t help your credibility if you promise her something that might not turn out to be true,” he said.

  “Please don’t tell me you think she could actually be psychotic. Does she act like a psychotic person to you?”

  Graham started the engine and put it into gear. He was tired. It had been a very long day. He still had a meeting to attend at the clinic, and tomorrow promised to be even longer as he played catch-up with the patients he’d had to cancel today. He wasn’t in the mood to argue.

  “Well?” she asked.

  “Did I say I thought she was psychotic? All I’m saying is that you aren’t qualified to make any promises about her mental health, so don’t.”

  “Is that what I was doing?”

  “Yes. When I reassure a patient, I take pains not to promise them something I can’t deliver. Just let her know you’ll be there for her. In the long run that will be more comforting to her than insisting everything will be all rosy and perfect. That’ll only convince her you don’t want her any other way. Then she’ll worry that you’ll no longer be there for her if she does show signs of emotional turmoil. What she needs is reassurance, acceptance.”

  He turned onto Highway 76 and drove nearly two minutes in blessed silence. Amazing.

  “Pretty insightful for a macho surgeon,” Ginger said at last.

  He grinned. “Thank you.”

  “How long do you think they’ll keep her car impounded?”

  “Maybe a few days, unless they turn up any other evidence. Legally they can keep it as long as they want, but they’ve probably decided she’s innocent. They’ll comb the car for any possible evidence that could lead to the real culprit, then return it to her as soon as they can.”

  “What about you?” Ginger asked. “Are you convinced she’s innocent?”

  He stopped at the traffic signal just before the Highway 65 overpass. “I trust the police. They’ve decided she’s innocent. That’s good enough for me.”

  “I’m not talking about trusting them, I’m talking about trusting Willow. Do you believe the things she told us tonight?”

  For several moments Graham continued to drive in silence. Every fiber within him had told him to believe her. “Do you?” he asked at last.

  “Of course I do,” Ginger said. “I think it’s criminal that she’s had so much trouble convincing anyone about what happened.”

  “It wasn’t proven.”

  “But if it’s true—which it is, I know—then Willow could very well be in danger right now.”

  “The police are aware of that,” Graham assured his sister. “I spoke with Captain Powell while you were powdering your nose, and they’ll keep a cruiser close to the motel where she’s staying.”

  “That isn’t good enough,” Ginger said.

  “I know. I’d much rather take her to Hideaway with us, where she’d be farther from harm’s way.”

  “Want to know what I think?” Ginger asked, shifting in her seat to look at him through the dim glow of the console.

  “Sure.” He knew he would find out whether he wanted to or not.

  “I think your instinct tells you to believe her.”

  “I don’t believe in instinct. I believe in evidence and cold, hard facts.”

  “You sound like a die-hard cynic.”

  “It’s taken me several years to become this cynical, and I’m not about to lose my objectivity in the middle of this mess.”

  “What makes you think you’d suddenly lose your objectivity? You’re a logical, intelligent man with all kinds of objectivity, so why suddenly be afraid that you’ll lose it now?”

  Graham didn’t reply. She was circling around a particular point, getting ready to step in for the kill, and he knew better than to try to derail her now.

  Ginger waited until he had turned south on Fall Creek Road, then said softly, “Willow is a very appealing woman.”

  “That isn’t exactly a news flash.”

  “Even after so many years apart, I can tell when you’re settling into your protective gear.”

  “I like my protective gear. It’s only failed me once.”

  “With Dena,” Ginger said. “It’s time to forgive and get on with life. Dena isn’t a bad person—she just places her priorities in the wrong place.”

  “Yeah, money.”

  “That’s her problem, not yours.”

  “Sure it is.” Graham could hear the bitterness in his own voice. “Have you seen the divorce settlement?”

  Ginger reached out and touched his arm. “You know what? It’s been three years. You need to let it go.”

  “Talking to that woman is like jumping off the top of Table Rock Dam. She’s deadly.”

  “When’s the last time you called her and tried to settle your differences?”

  “Why do I have to settle anything? The court did that for us.”

  “And you’ve lived with bitterness ever since,” Ginger said. “It’s coloring the way you look at other women. It’s coloring the way you look at life. You’ve never been like this before, Graham. This isn’t you.”

  “I’ve learned a little caution. I think that’s a good thing.”

  He could feel his sister’s glare. Yes, he knew better. One did not carry a grudge. One settled differences in order to be in a right relationship with others, and especially with God.

  Maybe that was why he didn’t feel as if his prayers had been getting through lately. Dena had been particularly antagonistic the last time he’d called her about some papers he needed her to sign to release funds in a joint account they had overlooked in the divorce settlement.

  How could it be that the woman he’d trusted and loved, and with whom he’d shared his heart, had become such a monster—if not in reality, then in his own mind?

  “You’re right,” he told Ginger at last. “I could do with a little less bitterness.”

  “Understatement of the week,” Ginger said.

  They pulled into the clinic parking lot, where the fire chief and an investigator were already waiting. One more meeting, then home to bed.

  Willow didn’t immediately return to her motel room when she left the parking lot, but circled the area to get her bearings. She caught herself instinctively glancing in the rearview mirror every few moments to see if someone was following her, either police or someone more sinister.

  She saw neither.

  Finally she parked in the hospital parking lo
t, within plain view of a security guard, then went upstairs to ICU to see her brother.

  “Where’ve you been?” he asked. “Until Graham called me, I thought they’d booked you and stuffed you into the hoosegow.”

  “Well, thanks so much for your loving trust in me. After an interminable interview, they did the voice stress test and I passed and got to go home.”

  “Home where?” He shifted stiffly on the bed.

  “I got a room not far from here.”

  He groaned. “You’ve decided you’re going to stay there, after all? Could you please use your brain for once?”

  “I could do worse,” she said. “I could pull some strings and have you sent to St. John’s burn center in Springfield. Keep you out of Branson for a while. In fact, maybe I’ll talk to Graham about it tomorrow.”

  A tight smile aimed in her direction told her he knew she was teasing—albeit darkly—and that he wasn’t in the mood for it.

  She leaned over and gave him another kiss, then turned to leave.

  “Where are you going now?”

  “I’m going to do a little investigating.”

  “Oh, no, you don’t. Willow Traynor, you get back in here this—”

  She walked out into the hallway and closed the door behind her. She wouldn’t argue with Preston tonight. She needed to take some precautions for some innocent little ones who were unable to fend for themselves—though they were apparently being expected to.

  While talking to Graham about the lodging arrangements for the other renters at the complex, she had discovered that he had put Sandi Jameson and her daughters up in a brand-new condominium unit on the shore of Lake Taneycomo.

  With a Branson map in hand, she found the place easily. She recognized Sandi’s car, took note of the numbered spot and found the corresponding unit.

  Three minutes after parking, she was being welcomed inside by two lively little girls who appeared overjoyed to see her.

  “It’s the fire lady who saved us!” the youngest child, Brittany, cried out as she danced through the expansive living room, obviously suffering few effects of the fright they’d experienced in the early-morning hours.