“That’s beyond wrong.”
“You only think so because of that Frost boy. Half-breed that he is.”
Had she seriously just referred to Callen as a half-breed? Who talked like that anymore?
“I’m saying that because it’s right. Everybody deserves a vote,” Teni said, trying to simmer her heated response to Marybeth’s cruel words.
“Elders and their descendants used to decide. It should be that way again.”
“That’s not going to happen.” It never should have happened in the first place.
“We won’t just sit by and watch you destroy our traditions, our home.” Marybeth wagged her bony finger.
“What are you implying?”
“I’m not implying anything. I’m giving you some friendly courtesy advice.”
“Really? And what’s that?”
“You’d better watch that pretty back of yours.”
“Are you actually threatening a police officer?”
“Of course not, dear.” Marybeth smiled, her teeth stained and crooked. “It’s a courtesy. Not a threat. I’m looking out for you.”
Why did she find that so incredibly hard to believe?
Marybeth turned and hustled back inside Milly’s.
Well, that had been a fun addition to the day.
Trying to shake off the odd chill of foreboding racing down her spine, Teni stepped into the orange-and-red leaf-covered wonderland leading back to her home, the crack of sticks and the crunch of leaves sounding beneath her. The leaves rustled in the breeze coming off the bay, and she inhaled the sweet, salty air deep in her lungs.
The sensation of being watched suddenly raked over her. She turned, surveying the expansive woods. “Hello?” she called out, knowing the woods could be filled with any number of people at any time. Or had Jared Connor lingered behind? She was in no mood for a second argument. Could he really not see she’d invited the ferry in for the locals’ benefit?
The woods stilled, the only sound the whistling wind streaking through the leaves overhead.
Okay, she was being foolish. She refused to give in to fear—even if her emotions were taking her for a ride on the loopty-loop today.
She continued. Another dozen steps or so into the woods a stick snapped about sixty yards to her right.
Pausing, she surveyed the woods again. “Hello? Anyone there?”
Again, no answer, and an uneasy fear trickled through her.
Fear was foreign in these woods since she’d become an adult, so why was she suddenly so uneasy?
The sense of being watched wouldn’t abate, no matter how she quickened her pace. Fear clung to her like tree sap sticking to her fingers.
Finally breaking past the wood’s edge, she turned, staring into their depths.
Movement swiftly shifted in the leaf-shadowed distance.
She narrowed her eyes but couldn’t make out if it was an animal or a person, the full foliage masking whatever or whomever it was. But someone or something had been there.
Another shiver shot up her spine.
She hurried inside her house and locked the door for the first time in forever.
What on earth was happening with her today? Had she seriously let Marybeth and Jared Connor get under her skin? Or was she just in an overly vulnerable state due to the broken engagement?
She stared out her kitchen window overlooking the woods—still feeling someone’s presence—someone watching. Had Jared followed her home? Was he stalking her now?
seven
“DO YOU THINK THE SILHOUETTE you saw could have been him?” Callen asked as Teni shivered beside him after catching him up on the conversation she’d had with Jared.
She rubbed her arms, swallowing, her coloring paler than he liked. He wrapped the throw more tightly around her. “I don’t know. Maybe,” she said.
“Do you think he was in your house? That he was the creaking you heard?”
“I don’t know. I just heard some sounds and then saw someone outside. I can’t be sure who. Then I went to look and . . .” She swayed.
“I got ya.”
She swallowed. “I’m still trying to wrap my brain around it, and it’s so frustratingly fuzzy.”
He didn’t want to push her, but this was important. Very important. “And you didn’t see his face or anything that might identify him?”
“No. Just a silhouette as lightning streaked the sky. I flipped the porch light on and chased after him. Seconds later I felt an explosion, and the next thing I remember is . . . you.” She looked up at him.
She’d flipped a switch and the house had exploded. Had the house been filling up with gas and the light switch ignited the explosion, or had the gas simply reached the pilot light? Most likely the latter—a light switch typically didn’t spark to light a flame.
“Did you smell gas in the house? It would smell like rotten eggs.”
“No.” She shook her head, then clearly regretted the motion as her hand braced her forehead. “Why? What are you thinking?” she asked, shivering in his hold, her clothes underneath the blanket damp at best, soaked at worst.
“That we’ll figure out what happened.” He’d make certain of it, but he needed to be careful, not question her too much. Not yet. “We need to get you dry.”
She nodded.
“Are you okay here while I go grab you some warm clothes?”
Again, she nodded.
He gathered towels, a brush, dry clothes, and anything else he could think of, then helped her up to his bathroom, where he’d placed all the items on the countertop.
He studied her a moment. “Are you going to be okay on your own?” he asked, half afraid she might topple over. She was strong, but she’d been knocked hard.
She bit her bottom lip and placed a stabilizing hand on the countertop. “I’ll be good.”
“I’ll be right outside the door if you need me.”
She nodded, the movement slight, her head clearly tender.
A handful of minutes later, she emerged wearing one of his T-shirts and pair of sweats, rather swimming in them. Her hair was pulled up in a side thingy with the hair band that had been on her wrist. She handed him the folded towels and blanket. Leave it to Teni to focus on the details amid a crisis. No doubt that focus made her such a great investigator.
“What do we do now?” she asked.
“We hunker down.” He clutched her arm and guided her through the hall and back down the stairs to the sofa, where he again gently helped her sit. “Until the fire is out and the scene secure, I can’t begin my preliminary investigation.”
She shifted on the couch. “You’re the fire expert, so what are you thinking happened?”
He rubbed his hands together. “With an outward blast and a wide-reaching debris field like that, it was a gas explosion.”
She scrunched her face, her button nose upturning the way it did whenever she was putting the pieces of a puzzle together. “Gas explosion?”
He nodded. “I just need the scene secure, like I said, to determine the cause.”
“The cause?”
“Was something faulty, was there a malfunction . . . ?”
Her beautiful eyes narrowed. “You don’t think the silhouette . . . the noise, that someone, possibly Jared, intentionally did this?”
She read him so well, even when that was the last thing he wanted.
“It’s possible, especially given you saw someone right before the explosion.”
Her lashes fluttered. “If you think foul play might be involved . . . and I was supposed to be in the house . . .” She tensed, her shoulders growing rigid. “Do you think Jared might have been trying . . . to kill me?” Her chest rose and lowered in quick repeat, her breathing growing shallower, her hands fluttering about as she spoke. “If he tried to kill me, what about Julia? What if her death wasn’t an accident?” She swallowed. “Did he kill my cousin too?”
Callen scooted closer against her, and taking her waving hands into his, hold
ing them tight, he gazed into her eyes. “We’ll figure this out—together.”
She pulled her hands back, moving them as she spoke. “I know Jared was frustrated about the ferry, but could he be frustrated enough to kill?”
“I don’t know. We don’t even know for certain that it was foul play.” But his gut sure said it was, especially if she’d seen someone in the woods. Plus, the odds of Julia’s “accident” happening and Teni’s house having a gas explosion the same day . . .
“I can see it in your eyes. You believe it was foul play.”
He raked a hand through his drying hair. “It’s a gut instinct, but those can be wrong.”
“I don’t know. They’re often spot on.”
She was right. That’d been his experience.
She stood, flinging off the blanket. “Julia!”
He frowned. “What?”
“The explosion. What if it reached the icehouse? What if . . . ?” She grabbed her rubber boots—with yellow, umbrella-carrying ducks on them—sitting by the door. Sliding them on, she pulled her raincoat off the hook where he’d hung it next to his.
“What are you doing?” he asked. She shouldn’t be going anywhere. She needed to sit, to rest. To be safe.
“Going to make sure Julia . . . her body is okay . . . that the explosion . . .”
Hadn’t reached Julia.
Knowing Teni would never rest until she was certain nothing had further harmed her cousin’s body, he slid on his coat and boots, grabbed the lantern off the table, and followed Teni back out into the storm.
eight
THEY TRAIPSED BACK UP the slippery muddy slopes leading from Callen’s home to hers, or what was left of it. Her rain boots did their job in keeping her feet dry but didn’t effectively grip the shifting ground beneath her, so Callen stabilized her by keeping a hold on her arm. She tried to ignore how good his touch felt, but it was undeniably amazing. She’d been so battered by the day’s events she’d let down her guard and fallen back into his arms. It was the wrong message to send. The wrong person to rely on, but he was here and . . .
And she couldn’t think much beyond that now, other than the fact that she had to keep the guard around her heart better fixed in place, even if it was breaking.
Rain splattered her nose, but the tree canopy overhead provided some measure of protection from the deluge.
As they reached the wood’s edge, she saw her home—or what had been her home—was now a skeleton of charred remains with the fire nearly out.
Devastation raked through her as she stared down at a remnant of a charred and splintered cedar shingle by her boots.
How would she ever rebuild?
“Hey.” Callen wrapped his steadying arm around her shoulder, his strength holding her up. “It’s going to be okay.”
She wished she could believe him, but after the year she’d had—the last two years, actually—it was hard to believe. She seemed doomed to tragedy, and she was sick of it.
Enough!
She wanted to yell at heaven, but she restrained herself, knowing the depth of Callen’s faith in God’s providence and sovereignty. He believed nothing could touch her without first going through her Father. If that was true, why did she want to be in a relationship with God at all?
Callen glanced over at her, worry blanketing his face. “You okay? I can have Paul take you back to my house if this is too hard.”
She stared at the pitiful remnant of her house and the dwindling flickers of the last of the fire, doused by hoses and pouring rain.
My home.
Her chest squeezed.
She could rebuild, but she’d be starting with barely a foundation. So many memories gone in an instant—memories of her and her parents, and Julia . . .
She rested her palm on the thick, gnarled trunk of a black walnut tree for stability and flinched as something sharp pierced her hand. Yanking her hand off the tree, she tried to shake the pain away.
Callen frowned. “What happened?”
“Something sharp . . .” She held her hand flat, open to his inspection.
He lifted the lantern. “A shard of a shingle,” he said. “We better have Paul stitch that up.”
She nodded, walking with him back to the paramedic’s SUV.
Though the fire was nearly out, the acrid odor of smoke still hung thick in the air, threatening to choke her lungs.
Callen sat with her while Paul started working on her hand, but after announcing the fire was fully out and ordering the firemen to erect tall poles with bright lights to illuminate her home, the fire chief, Sam, waved him over.
Callen rested his hand on her shoulder. “Let me talk with Sam, and then we’ll walk out to the icehouse.”
She nodded, knowing full well she couldn’t sit and wait.
Callen joined Sam and the two began walking the perimeter of her home. She waited until Paul finally left her side, and she slipped away, hurrying around the decimated shed that had sat twenty yards from the house and down along the winding path that led to the icehouse. She should wait for Callen, especially if today’s tragedies had been intentional—but surely Jared wouldn’t . . .
She continued through the woods. It wasn’t that far, and she could take care of herself. Callen had more important matters to tend to—like figuring out what had caused the explosion.
Callen strode at Sam’s side, taking in the devastation now fully illuminated with the pole lights, the threads of rain heavy in their glare.
“I want to start with tracing the main gas line leading into the house,” Callen said.
Sam’s bushy brows furrowed. “What are you thinking?”
“Teni said she heard something that didn’t seem like typical storm noise and then saw someone’s silhouette outside her house right before the explosion. That’s why she went outside—to investigate.”
“Are you saying someone might have entered her basement and compromised the line?” Sam’s broad shoulders stiffened. “You think this might have been intentional?”
Callen swallowed. That’s exactly what he thought, but he’d refrain from bringing Jared Connor’s name into it until they had more information. “We both know it was a gas explosion by the way it exploded outward. I believe it originated in the basement and the shockwaves rippled up to the main part of the house, blowing debris outward”—he looked back to the forest he’d raced through, praying all along Teni had somehow survived the blast—“at least a hundred yards.”
Sam nodded, and the two headed for the gaping cellar stairwell, the concrete steps surviving the blast, the doors long gone.
Tracing the line from the propane tank, Callen found what he was looking for, what he had feared. He pointed to the cut line with his gloved hand and looked up at Sam.
Sam centered the orb of his flashlight on the amateur incision. “I’d say we just found our source.”
Someone had tried to kill Teni.
Callen and Sam’s voices echoed through the wooded hollow as Teni passed pieces of her home. Charred shingles, splinters of wood, and tin roof littered the winding path to the family’s icehouse.
Please don’t let any further damage have happened to Julia’s body. She’s been through enough.
A crack sounded off to her right.
She stilled and surveyed the forest, the rain a mere drizzle under the thick leaf canopy.
“Hello?”
Nothing.
Shake it off, Teni. You’re just being paranoid. Jared is not stalking you, and if he is, you’re a cop now, not a scared little kid.
The path dipped and rose as she continued to the icehouse.
She stepped carefully across the narrow creek to the other side, and a splash echoed along the creek to her right.
She swallowed. “Callen, is that you?” If he looked to Paul’s vehicle and found she wasn’t there, he’d be right behind her, but no answer came.
Should she turn back or keep going?
She was closer to the icehouse than the h
ouse she’d just lost. Better to just go forward.
Her eyes scanned the darkness as she moved, the floodlights creating a halo of fog through the trees. She stilled, listening.
Silence, but something told her she was not alone. She increased her pace, only ten yards to go, but heavy footsteps sounded behind her. Not Callen’s. Was it Jared? Was he back to harm her?
Breaking into a run, she hollered for Callen.
Make it to the icehouse. You can barricade yourself in.
The icehouse was close, its structure low and nearly blending with the forest floor like a rock sitting upon the bumpy earth.
The footfalls increased. Was that someone breathing? Was he that close?
Gooseflesh rippled along her clammy skin.
A part of her argued to stop and turn, to face her follower, but she was unarmed.
Reaching the icehouse, she fumbled with the lock, only to find it had been busted open. She flung open the doors and slammed them shut behind her, grabbing a shovel from its place on the wall and slipping the wooden handle through the door handholds.
She took a step back, wishing she’d brought her weapon with her, but she’d given it to Callen to hold since the sweatpants he’d given her didn’t seem a secure place to holster it.
The icehouse door rattled, the musky scent of a man’s cologne lifting on the wind, seeping through the slight crack in the door.
She hollered again for Callen and stepped forward to see if she could identify Jared’s face through the small slit between the doors. A knife blade stabbed through the slit, missing her eye by less than an inch.
She stumbled back, looking for something to defend herself with and praying Callen had heard her hollers.
The doors rattled again on the frame, the knife slicing in again, then wriggling to pull back out for another stab, but one didn’t come.
Silence ensued.
Had he left, or was he simply trying to fool her?
Footsteps echoed nearby and approached again. Was he coming back?
The door yanked hard, and her heart squeezed, her chest compressed.
“Teni!” Callen shouted, and her tight chest muscles relaxed.
Thank you, Lord.
The Cost of Betrayal Page 17