Deadly Attraction

by Misty Evans

  “Because her attacker wore the same cologne.”

  “Exactly. Our sense of smell is the strongest at triggering memory recall. So even though our hypothetical patient’s brain repressed the memory of the sexual molestation, it’s buried in her psyche and the scent of the cologne brings it back up.”

  “And then what?”

  “The psychotherapy community believes it’s important for people to explore these repressed memories and bring them to the surface where they can be dealt with and then let go of.”

  Twinkie raised his head and ambled over. Igor followed. The two horses stood side by side, tails switching at flies while the Labs took their turn at getting a drink and running through the water.

  “Almost sounds like you don’t agree with that approach,” Mitch said.

  Emma stroked Igor’s flank. “I’ve seen conventional behavior therapy help many people. I’m not arguing against it. I only know there are others, people I’ve dealt with in my own practice, where rehashing such devastating memories has a negative effect. It can create a tidal wave of stress and anxiety. Confronting an attacker can create more issues. In the situation where there is no single attacker—such as in a war—the client is left feeling frustrated. Take Will for example. He has no one single person to confront in order to heal his wounds. People like him often take out their frustration on themselves or their partners and children. In Will’s case, he’s somehow convinced himself that his unit’s collective destruction was his fault. Back here at home, he’s converted that horrible experience into something he can understand—he believes he’s bad luck.”

  She kicked a pebble. “On the other hand, examining these past experiences does help a person understand self-sabotaging behavior. That can be very freeing.” Didn’t everyone want to understand themselves better? “I usually start there, helping my clients digest what happened to them in a way that helps them also understand how that experience created a negative habit or a self-sabotaging behavior. By forming new habits, they can find peace. Once they’re strong and secure in themselves, then they can confront those who may have harmed them. Or perhaps find purpose from their trauma, such as military veterans who go on to help other vets deal with PTSD.”

  Mitch closed the few feet of space between them and stroked her cheek with a finger. “You’ve found purpose from your trauma, haven’t you?”

  Her purpose was staring her right in the face. Not a cure, but a respite. “I’ve found a balm for my pain.”

  He leaned down and kissed her gently. “Me, too.”

  The feel of his lips still came as a pleasant shock. “Sometimes,” she said, looking into his beautiful, haunted eyes and feeling content, “that’s enough.”

  One of the dogs barked sharply off to Mitch’s left. Not the playful bark he’d heard before from both of them during the ride. This one was an alert.

  Whipping around, he saw Salt lumbering toward Pepper who was several yards away. The black Lab had his nose to the ground, digging and pawing at something.

  “Great,” Emma said, returning her hat to her head. “He’s probably found another rabbit hole. I better chase him off before he brings me some poor little baby bunny.”

  Mitch hadn’t seen or noted anything unusual on their trek so far. No one following them, no signs of anyone having been on the trail recently. Somewhere behind them, he could feel Will’s presence. “The dog brings you rabbits?”

  “He doesn’t kill them.” She started walking toward the dogs, Salt having now joined Pepper in his dig. “It’s like he thinks he’s saving them. He picks them up in his mouth and carries them carefully, bringing them to me. I’ve found more than one litter on my porch and had to raise them by hand.”

  Mitch fell into step beside her. “Dogs are intuitive. Maybe he knew the mom was dead, so he brought you the babies.”

  “Huh,” Emma said. “Maybe you’re right.”

  They came upon the dogs and Mitch grabbed Emma’s arm to stop her. “That’s no bunny hole.”

  Salt and Pepper had partially unearthed a fire pit, Pepper’s nose now stuck in a red and black plastic bag labeled as beef jerky.

  Emma looked around. “Someone camped here.”

  Mitch made out some tread marks near the pit, faint, but there. Probably from some type of hiking boot. “Yeah, and recently.”

  “How do you know?”

  He motioned behind them. “Look at how close this is to the stream bed. If someone had camped here a few months ago, they’d have been in the water. And this jerky bag.” He pulled the plastic bag off Pepper’s nose and examined the date stamped on the edge. “It’s not sun bleached and the expiration date is next year.”

  “Beef jerky expires?”

  He’d eaten his fair share of it while in the field. That and MREs—meals-ready-to-eat—were two things he never wanted to see or taste again. “Store bought beefy jerky can last two years under normal conditions, but, yes, it will eventually go bad.”

  “Two years? Eww. That’s gross.”

  Mitch moved the dogs back so he could inspect the rest of the tiny camp without them destroying any other evidence.

  “So you think this might be your arsonist?” Emma asked. “Because why would anyone camp here and not inside the park, unless it was in the last few days while a fire raged in there, correct?”

  Mitch looked at the dusty ground, noting where the sparse, dry grass had been folded down. “Someone sat here,” he pointed to the spot, then cast his eyes around the fire pit area. “And someone slept over there. See the imprint in that yellowed grass?”

  Emma followed the line of his finger and nodded. She pointed to the east. “There’s another large imprint there.”

  They walked over to that one, both staring down at it.

  “Two people or one who slept in two different places?” she asked.

  Good question. It was hard to tell exact body size by the matted down grass. “The imprints are too similar to tell.”

  “Mitch?”

  She’d done a one-eighty, now focused on a ring of river rock that someone had laid out in a three-by-three foot circular diameter at the base of a scraggly pine.

  The hair on the back of his neck lifted as he took a step closer to her. “What is it?”

  “An altar,” she whispered.

  Yep, the hair on his arms joined the hair standing at attention on his neck. “An altar?”

  As Emma moved forward to take a closer look, Mitch stayed by her side. What he saw inside the ring of rocks made him want to grab her and put her back on her horse.

  A half-burnt candle, a feather, some tiny, white bones. A pocket watch.

  In the dirt, someone had drawn four symbols. In the center of the symbols stood a green Tom Monahan statue that matched the one Emma had found in her nightstand.

  “Goddammit,” Mitch swore under his breath. “The guy who broke into your house. This is where he camped, either before or after the break-in.”

  “Season Two, Episode Four,” Emma said, her eyes glued to the collection of stuff. She pointed at the feather. “The Hawk Sees. Tom is visited by a hawk and has a vision of the cyborgs kidnapping his mother. He carries one of the hawk’s feathers with him for the rest of the season, but it’s stolen and burned by Calypso, one of the other kids in the original group, in an act of bullying. In a later season, when they’re both grown, he kills Calypso when he discovers Calypso has been working with a cyborg to destroy their camp.”

  Her finger moved to the bones. “Season Five, Episode One. On Tom’s fifteenth birthday, his group is starving. He goes into the woods and kills a squirrel. It’s the first time he’s had to kill anything. He wrestles with his conscience, but realizes in order to survive, he’ll have to do a lot more killing.

  “The pocket watch.” Again her finger shifted. “That came late, Season Ten, I think. One of the few men who’d been with Tom and Mary through everything always carried a pocket watch and became Tom’s surrogate father. In his last episode, he’
s mortally wounded by a cyborg and gives Tom his watch right before he dies.”

  Mitch withdrew his phone and snapped a picture. “And the drawings?”

  They looked familiar, but he couldn’t place why.

  “Tom was captured by the cyborg colony at the end of Season Seven,” Emma said. “The premiere of Season Eight opened with him being branded by one of the cyborg leaders and thrown into a slave camp. The brand was like a bar code reader, identifying him as a prisoner. Once he escaped the camp and made it back to his resistance fighters, he had his girlfriend turn the brand into a new tattoo. All the fighters then wanted one. It created a wave of fans in the real world getting them as well.”

  Mitch shook his head and fired off a couple more shots. “Keep the dogs away from here. I’ll get a couple of evidence bags.”

  At his horse, he dug into the saddlebags and brought out his last two bags. He’d hoped to find evidence of his arsonist, but now had found more evidence of the Tom Monahan stalker.

  Keeping an eye on the area around them, he sensed more than felt Will’s presence, closer now than before. No doubt the ex-Special Forces soldier had seen them staring at the ground and knew something was up.

  Mitch felt better knowing Will was keeping an eye on them, but with the find of the campsite, he felt fresh unease wash over him. He’d had alternative reasons for not leaving Emma behind, most specifically because he liked having her around, but it had been a dick move.

  Emma moved back to the horses, calling the dogs after her while Mitch collected the evidence. When he was done stuffing the bags into his saddlebag, she hoisted herself up onto Twinkie and started toward the park once more.

  “We should go back,” he called to her.

  She reigned Twinkie around to look at him. “Why?”

  “Your Monahan nut may still be out here.”

  “It was Linda,” she said. “I’d bet my ranch on it.”

  “Why?”

  “She was featured in one of the fan magazines when the show ended. There was a picture of her in her house with an altar to Tom in her bedroom.”

  “Let me guess,”—he tapped his saddlebag—“it held all of these items.”

  Emma nodded. “And more.”

  Mitch looked north toward the woods where the park’s boundaries lay. Linda Brown had been here. Helping Gordon or the other way around?

  “‘The Chosen One will be protected by the Resistance, carrying fire in their hands.’” Emma recited, as if confirming Mitch’s thoughts. “Fire will consume them, and He will rise from the ashes of their destruction.’”

  “Brown and my arsonist worked together and started the fire, but was it to get to you or to free Goodsman?”

  “Does it matter?”

  “My money is on freeing Goodsman, but she wanted it to look like the resistance was after you. Why else would she get this close to your place and not set one of your barns on fire or your house? She picked the park, hoping the fires would go south and burn up your home, as well as cause the prison to have to move Goodsman. The fires veered around the ranch, but she got her favorite actor freed.”

  “That would be my guess as well,” Emma said. “All we need is proof she was in that park at the time the fire started.”

  They might need more than that, but that would be a start. Mitch hopped up on Igor and touched the horse with his heels. Emma wheeled Twinkie back around and they headed for the park.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Emma sank her hands into the hot dishwater and found herself staring at the sheen of rainbows on the multitude of bubbles.

  Rainbows. She hadn’t seen one of those in a long time. Even in a sink full of dirty dishes from her evening meal with Mitch, the soft colors warmed her heart, made her feel happy.

  They’d finished their journey to the park, the entrance on the south side nothing more than a footpath through the woods. A rusty gate that had once been green blocked the path, but there hadn’t even been a sign announcing it was national park territory.

  The chain and padlock on the gate hadn’t kept someone from using the entrance—a bolt cutter had severed the heavy chain. Tire tracks from a motorcycle were hidden by brush that Mitch had pulled back. Probably where the arsonist had hidden the bike.

  While Emma had stayed on her horse, Mitch had stood for a long time at that gate, sizing up the ground, the gate itself, and what lay on the other side, inside the park. He’d taken pictures of the broken chain and the scuff marks in the dry ground that showed the gate had been swung open and closed again. He took a million photos of the motorcycle tracks hidden under the bush.

  Thankfully, that section of the park had not gone up in the fire, but it was still too dangerous for them to enter, Mitch had said. Emma figured he didn’t want her and the horses messing up any potential evidence. He’d swung himself over the fence nearby in order to check the other side of the trail. He’d come back convinced that his arsonist had used this exit after setting the initial fire. He also told her he was betting his badge on the fact that Linda Brown had played a part.

  On the way back to the ranch, they’d stopped at Emma’s homemade gun range, but she’d been so nervous about Mitch’s nearness, she’d given up practicing after 10 minutes.

  The harder she’d tried to relax, the more anxious she had become. He’d been lighthearted, happy with his evidence, and had joked with her, laughed at her meager attempts, and seemed completely at ease.

  Meanwhile, every look he gave her sent her heart fluttering. Every suggestive touch had caused her pulse to hopscotch over itself. Even with his instructions, she hadn’t been able to hit a damn thing. She couldn’t concentrate, couldn’t focus on her mark. All she could see and zoom in on was Mitch.

  As the apple pie in the oven warmed for their dessert, she admitted to herself that Mitch was a nice distraction. One that even now messed with her heart and emotions as he paced the living room floor and spoke in soft tones to his immediate supervisor, Cooper Harris.

  “It had to be Gordon,” Mitch said, “but he had help. There was one set of motorcycle tire imprints in the dirt at that old entrance, but there were two sets of footprints. One smaller than the other. Dr. Collins and I also found what she termed an altar to the Tom Monahan character from The Mary Monahan Chronicles. I’ll forward the photos I shot of both sites, and as soon as I can, I’ll get you the forensic evidence I nabbed. I’m betting Linda Brown was in on the arson as well as the accident to get Goodsman free.”

  There was a pause as Mitch listened. The smell of warm apples and spices filled the kitchen. Emma filled the coffee maker with decaf grounds and flipped the switch. As it brewed, she began washing the dishes.

  All through dinner, Mitch had been quiet, his mind seeming to be distracted by the evidence they’d found. More than once, she’d felt his eyes on her, though, as if he kept circling back around to the tension between them.

  They’d been at odds since he’d arrived, but everything had changed that morning in her office on the floor. It had been two years since she’d felt that kind of zing, that particular concoction of desire and need.

  Mitch found her interesting; her analysis of him piquing his curiosity. He found her attractive as well. She saw it in the way he looked at her. Looked into her, as if he could see what her heart was made of.

  She felt it in the way he touched her when he didn’t really need to touch her. Gentle holds when helping her on and off her horse that only hinted at the power and strength inside him that could make her come apart a dozen times tonight if she wanted.

  That interest had turned into something deeper. She stimulated his mind and set his libido on fire. He did the same to her.

  In the old TV shows she sometimes watched, there was often a scientist who played with two inert ingredients, mixing them together and creating a concoction that could blow things sky high. That was how she felt when she got close to Mitch, when he stared at her with those sad eyes that saw past her professional smile and detached facade
. If she let his volatile liquid mix with hers…boom. They might start their own version of a wildfire.

  One that would burn her heart to a crisp and leave her in a pile of ashes.

  Was it worth the risk? Her body hummed with a lust that wouldn’t be quenched until she acted on it, her heart already layering on protective shields. Another type of rift, the therapist inside her acknowledged. Allowing her damaged heart to stay hidden behind those barriers of protection while the rest of her went on the journey of seduction.

  If the female inside her was any good at reading the signs, her seduction wouldn’t be all that strenuous. Mitch had sent out plenty of signals all day that he wanted more than a kiss from her. All she had to do was invite him to her room tonight.

  Finishing the dishes, Emma dried her shaky hands. The dogs were fed, the horses taken care of. Night had come and the farmhouse was semi-dark, only lit by candles once again. The coffee finished brewing and the timer on the stove went off, alerting her that the pie was done. As soon as Mitch sent his photos off to his boss…

  All mine.

  Emma’s heart quivered. She felt lightheaded.

  What is wrong with me?

  It wasn’t like she was a teenaged girl seducing a boy for the first time. Nor was the subject of her quest immune to her. Mitch oozed pheromones and his body had no doubt been picking up on the flood of hers. Human nature was such that men and women understood the subtle cues of sex without great need for explanation. A look, a gesture, was all it took—especially since the stage was already set—to get her invitation across.

  “I didn’t mean to leave the cleanup all to you.”

  Emma jumped and whirled. “Oh, it was no problem. Really. I just… I’m glad you’re here to share a meal with.”