He watched as Nina finished tidying up the litter strewn around the room from their hasty rudimentary first aid and then stepped towards her.
‘Nina, I can do that – go and sit down. We’ve both had a shock, and you’ve been working flat-out since this morning.’
She opened her mouth to speak, and he silenced her by holding up his hand. ‘Go – before I change my mind,’ he said.
She nodded mutely, handed him the dressings she’d collected, and left the room.
He pulled the chair closer to the bed and eased into it. Paranoia began to peck at his nerves, and he rubbed his palms down his jeans, then sat back and pinched the bridge of his nose.
If John had been compromised, then were his father and Tim safe? Were they wondering what had happened to him?
Then there were Sean and Dani – two more strangers who had blown in with the storm. Where did they fit in? Were they really the innocent travellers they said they were, or was there something more sinister in their sudden appearance?
He looked up as a vicious gust of wind shook the exposed panes of glass and made a mental note to check the rest of the building for leaks.
A light snoring began to emanate from the wounded man beside him, and Ross eased away from the bed and finished tidying away the first aid kit.
As he worked, he forced his doubts from his mind, resolving to keep up appearances for Nina’s sake and for their other unexpected guests.
Until he could be sure of what was going on in Mistake Creek tonight, he had to remain calm.
He straightened, set his shoulders, and silently cursed the day he’d met Special Agent John Asher, wondering how the hell he was going to get through the night.
***
A loud crack of thunder shook the building as Nina walked back into the front room of the truck stop.
Phil, Sean, and Dani were talking in low voices when she entered, and they looked up as she pushed through the counter door to join them.
‘How is he?’ asked Phil.
Nina collapsed into a chair next to him and rubbed her eyes. ‘Still unconscious, although Ross seems to think it’s more from exhaustion and that wound on his arm, not a head injury.’ She pursed her lips. ‘We couldn’t find any wounds under his hair, so that’s something.’
The others murmured in agreement.
Nina leaned back and closed her eyes, listening to the rain thrashing against the roof and walls.
That afternoon, she’d thought her biggest problem was going to be whether the building held together during the storm. Now, she had three guests and a wounded man to worry about.
And no idea how he’d been hurt.
‘Here.’
She opened her eyes to find Ross standing above her, holding out a mug, the strong coffee aroma firing her senses.
‘Get that down you – you didn’t get a chance to finish the last one.’
‘Thanks.’
She watched as he ran a hand over his face, his eyes weary. His brown hair curled lazily over the neckline of his checked shirt, his jeans worn on the seat and back pockets. She noticed a hole forming in the thin material covering one butt cheek as he turned away and bit her lip as she felt her face colour.
Regret welled up inside her as she wondered whether they could have salvaged their friendship if she’d stayed in Mistake Creek instead of running away all those years ago. She’d been too embarrassed to stay after what had happened. She wondered if they’d get an opportunity to talk properly before the truck stop was sold and she had to return to the city. If anything, she wanted a chance to rekindle their friendship, and the hours spent together preparing for the storm had gone some way to rebuild the bridge between them.
Ross leaned down, pulled out one of the stools from under the counter next to her, and sank onto it with a sigh.
The rain pelted across the exposed areas of the canted tin roof, reminding Nina of small stones striking the surface.
She raised her head at the sound of the rain rushing through the gutters, clattering down the pipes towards the water tanks.
‘Your father’s going to be pleased about this,’ she said.
‘As long as the crops don’t get damaged,’ he replied. ‘But, yes, hopefully this will make the difference this year.’
Phil wandered over to the phone fixed to the wall and lifted the receiver to his ear. ‘Still nothing.’
‘Well, our guest is sleeping, so I think he’ll survive,’ said Ross.
Nina sighed. ‘We’ll have to keep an eye on him.’ She raised her eyes to the ceiling as a gust of wind pushed against the structure. ‘I don’t think anyone’s going to be coming to get him tonight. The emergency services will have their hands full as it is.’
Ross spun on his heel to face Sean and Dani. ‘You didn’t see him when you were coming back from the creek?’
‘No,’ said Dani, shaking her head. ‘We didn’t see anyone.’
She checked over her shoulder, and Sean nodded.
‘She’s right – it’s what got us thinking we were the only ones stupid enough to be out in this weather. That’s why we turned back.’
Nina blew across the surface of her coffee. ‘Given the state of him, I’m wondering if he walked cross-country,’ she said, and took a sip.
‘But where would he have come from?’ Ross frowned. ‘You didn’t see anyone else at Hudson’s, did you?’
‘No, it was pretty quiet up there,’ said Sean. ‘We were the only ones – and Hudson didn’t seem too pleased to see us.’
‘Do you think he’s going to be alright?’ asked Dani. ‘He seemed in a bad way.’
‘Whatever caused the wound didn’t go too deep,’ said Nina. ‘If we can make sure he rests and we keep it clean, I think he’ll be okay until the emergency services can come and get him.’ She took another sip of the coffee, relishing its warmth, and frowned. ‘Ross, what did you do with his shirt?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘When we cut it off him. Where did you put it?’
‘I think I just threw it on the floor with the dirty towels. Why?’
‘Back in a minute.’
Nina hurried through the building to her bedroom.
Ross had left the door open in case the man had called out, but for the moment, the stranger was silent, his eyes closed and a slight frown creasing his brow.
Nina watched as his hands twitched in his sleep, as if he was trying to grasp something out of his reach, and she wondered what memories filled his dreams.
Or nightmares.
She walked over to where the man’s jacket lay strewn across the back of a chair, discarded when she and Ross had begun to clean the wound. Picking up the jacket, she put her hand in the pockets, her fingers seeking out a driving licence, mobile phone – anything that would give them a clue to his identity or what he was doing in Mistake Creek.
She bent down to the pile of blood-stained towels Ross had dropped on the floor and carefully rummaged through them using her fingertips until she found the fragments of his shirt they’d cut away. She gathered them up with the remnants of the jacket they’d torn from the stranger’s body, checked the man was still sleeping, and made her way back to the front of the building.
‘Here,’ she said as she put the shirt on the counter. ‘In all the panic, we forgot to check his pockets.’
Phil leaned across and pulled the main part of the shirt to one side and opened up the breast pockets. Nina watched as his fingers worked their way inside one, then the other, before she leaned over and took the smaller fragments. She traced her fingers around the cuff and seams, but nothing fell out. No labels, no pieces of paper, nothing.
‘Well, that was a waste of time,’ she said, disgusted, and threw the strips of fabric back.
‘I wouldn’t say that,’ said Phil, and held up a small plastic bag.
Nina’s eyes opened wide when she realised what was inside.
White powder.
5
The room fell silent
as everyone stared at the bag Phil held up between his fingers, before they all began talking at once.
Nina stared at the bag, letting the voices wash over her.
Drugs. In her father’s truck stop. Found on a man who had, in all likelihood, been stabbed. And was now lying unconscious on her bed.
She turned and looked at the useless phone on the wall, then reached across to her handbag and pulled out her mobile phone.
No signal.
Frustrated, she propped it on top of the landline telephone fixed to the wall and focused her attention back to the room as Sean’s voice cut through the rest.
‘I knew we shouldn’t have stopped. Goddammit, I shouldn’t have listened to you,’ he said, rounding on the woman with him. ‘We should’ve kept going.’
‘Hey!’ said Nina, holding up her hand. ‘All of you, quiet, please.’
A silence descended on the room.
She watched their faces. Even Ross seemed surprised at the strength in her voice.
‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘Shouting over each other isn’t going to help. And you stand a good chance of waking up our patient.’
She sighed and plucked the bag from Phil’s grip. ‘Are you even sure this is what you think it is?’ She waved it at the four people staring at her. ‘Well, are you?’
‘What else could it be?’ said Ross.
She glared at him. ‘I don’t know. I just think we’re all jumping to conclusions here.’
‘What do you suggest we do?’ asked Dani.
‘Maybe you should try it?’ said Sean, turning to Ross, who frowned.
‘Why me? How the hell should I know what drugs are like?’
‘Don’t tell me you never tried drugs at college?’ said Nina.
He glared at her, before his face softened. ‘Maybe, just once,’ he said, looking sheepish. He held up his hand to silence the sudden chiming of voices. ‘Give it to me,’ he mumbled. ‘I’ll take a sniff.’
He snatched the bag back from Nina, and then unsealed the top of it, his dark eyes burning into hers.
She held her breath while he raised it to his nose and carefully sniffed at its contents.
‘Nothing.’
A collective sigh escaped from the small group.
He re-sealed the bag and passed it to Nina.
She frowned and pointed at his hand. ‘You’ve got some on your finger.’
Ross stared at his hand and then raised his finger to his mouth.
‘No!’ Phil rushed at him, knocking his hand down. ‘Don’t.’
Ross looked at him, a puzzled expression on his face.
Phil glanced to the others, then back at Ross. ‘It’s not like the movies. You’re not going to be able to tell what it is just by tasting it,’ he explained. ‘And you don’t even know if it is drugs. It could be rat poison or something.’
Ross stared at the powder on his finger and then rubbed it onto his jeans before pointing at the bag in Nina’s hand. ‘Go and put that in the safe in the office,’ he said. ‘Best place for it until we either work out who the hell that man is back there or the police show up.’
‘Right.’
***
Nina pulled open the cupboard door, knelt, and pushed old files and piles of paperwork out of her way. She added sorting through the documents to her list of things to do, if things ever returned to normal after the storm passed, and stacked everything onto the floor beside her.
The combination safe had been set into the floor of the cupboard, and she’d only opened it once since arriving. She flicked the dial left and right and wrenched the door back.
In her haste, she knocked a photo and a ring box to the floor, and she grabbed them Slipping the bag of white powder into the safe, she turned the photograph over in her hand, her fingers easing the creases from the corners.
‘What the hell would you make of this, Greg?’ she murmured. She placed the photograph towards the back of the safe and slipped the ring box open. Three months after he’d died, she’d taken the engagement ring and wedding band off her left hand and had sealed them away in the box.
The car crash had been awful, yet the marriage had already been over for a year, and she struggled to be a grieving widow. They’d simply married too young, Nina looking for an excuse to try and forget her old life in Mistake Creek and the heartbreak she’d left behind. She’d put all her energy into her work in the years since, until the issues with her father’s health had coincided with the loss of her job four weeks ago, and she’d had to return.
Resentment washed over her, closely followed by guilt.
She snapped the box shut and tucked it next to the photograph, then slammed the door shut.
‘Nina?’
She looked up to see Ross leaning against the doorframe.
‘Everything okay?’
‘Sure,’ she sniffled, then stood. Ross had never met her husband, and she wasn’t going to start explaining everything to him now, not with four strangers in the building. ‘How’s everyone out there?’
‘Nervous. The wind’s getting up. I wouldn’t mind seeing how those tarpaulins are holding up.’
Nina shook her head. ‘Bad idea. There’ll be all sorts of rubbish flying around out there.’
He shrugged. ‘True. I’m just not very good at sitting around, doing nothing.’
‘You never were.’
‘Listen, Nina, I know how hard the past couple of days have been for you, coming back here, but I wanted to tell you. I think you’re doing the right thing for your dad.’
She managed a smile. ‘I haven’t thanked you yet for keeping an eye on him until I could get him over to my place.’ She ran her fingers through her ponytail. ‘Thank goodness my neighbour there is looking after him.’
‘It’s the least I could do – especially after all these years.’ He shoved his hands in the back pockets on his jeans. ‘I just can’t believe how fast his health has gone downhill. I mean, six weeks ago, he was fine.’
‘The doctor I spoke to said that sometimes it happens that way – or he’s been in denial about it and has managed to disguise his symptoms until recently.’
Ross visibly shivered. ‘I’d hate to think what would’ve happened if I hadn’t found him that day.’ He pushed away from the doorframe. ‘What do you think of our guests?’ he asked, moving towards the scarred pine wood desk and running his hand across the dusty surface.
‘I think they’re one coffee away from a domestic argument,’ said Nina, standing up and stretching.
‘They’re an odd couple, aren’t they?’
‘It takes all sorts.’
Nina pulled out the chair from under the desk and sank into it while Ross leaned against the desk, his hands gripping the edge. He appeared to be lost in thought.
‘How are you holding up?’ she asked. ‘Are you worrying about your father and Tim?’
He shot a glance at her. ‘No, they’ll be fine.’
‘Then what is it? You’re all tensed up.’
He shrugged. ‘I guess I’m wondering who the injured man is. I just hope he wakes up soon so we can ask him.’
‘You never did like mysteries.’
He chuckled, relaxing a little. ‘True. I like routine and order.’ He smiled at her. ‘Although you’d probably say that was boring.’
‘Oh, I don’t know – I think I could handle boring for a while after tonight’s excitement.’ She covered her mouth with her hand and stifled a yawn.
‘Nina? Why did you leave Mistake Creek without saying goodbye?’
The question caught her off guard; yet it had been hanging between them, unsaid, ever since she’d come back.
She sighed and leaned forward, her elbows on her knees. She stared at the whorls in the faded pattern of the worn carpet.
Whatever she said next, she didn’t want to hurt Ross, but he was right. She owed him an explanation. She took a deep breath.
‘I panicked,’ she said. ‘After what happened… I was so embarrassed…’
/> ‘So you left? Without talking to me first?’
Nina leaned back in her seat and forced herself to look at him.
Anguish etched his face as he jutted his chin at the sealed door of the safe. ‘So what was he – an excuse to forget me?’
Nina reeled at the bitterness in his voice. She stood and paced towards the door. ‘I should get back to our guests.’
‘Wait – Nina, wait. I’m sorry.’ Ross cleared the room in two strides and blocked the doorway with his arm. ‘I’m sorry – I shouldn’t have said that.’
Nina pursed her lips. ‘No. You’re right, Ross. You shouldn’t.’
‘I…’
A loud crash from the front of the truck stop was followed by a scream from Dani and shouting from the two men.
‘Now what?’ said Nina, her heart racing.
A split second later, the lights went out.
6
‘What happened?’
Nina slid to a halt at the front counter, a flashlight in her hand, its wavering beam taking in the smashed window and glass covering the floor.
Rain breached the jagged opening, and a length of wood protruded through the broken panes of glass, swinging on a length of chain.
Beyond the broken glass, a shower of sparks fell from the sky onto the forecourt outside, a loud hiss carrying over the noise of the rain.
‘The power line to the building’s down,’ said Sean. ‘I think the wires have caught on something.’
‘It’s the signage,’ said Ross. ‘Looks like the wind dragged it from the roof.’
Nina hurried towards the counter and grabbed a broom, the wind whipping her hair around her face.
‘Out of the way,’ she called. ‘Let’s get this glass cleared up so we can plug the window with something.’
‘Here,’ said Phil, taking the broom from her. ‘I’ll do that.’
‘Can we nail something up on the inside?’ asked Sean. ‘Do you have any spare boards?’
‘Outside the back door,’ said Ross.
The two men disappeared from view, and Nina began to sweep the broken glass to one side. As she finished, the men returned, carrying panels of plywood between them.
Two FBI thrillers: Before Nightfall and Mistake Creek Page 24