“Because you have no idea what’s going on. Which means I could have no reason to be scared. And that means I don’t intend to waste time being scared.” She folded her arms. “At least until I have a reason to be.”
Which she planned on being…never.
She said, “After all, you don’t know if they were shooting at me or you. Or just trying to destroy the cabin. Could be that the hit and run was an attempt on your life.”
“Don’t tell my chief that, okay? He’ll put me on house arrest.”
Ellie shot her a look.
“That’s not my goal. I just need you to work with me.”
“She’s right that you do need protection.” He leaned against the opposite edge of the counter, arms folded across his chest. The man looked built for war. Ready to do serious business. It scared her, about as much as it reassured her, that he would do battle on her behalf.
Jess said, “Two near misses isn’t something you can brush off.”
“Being too busy to be scared isn’t brushing it off. I just don’t need to get dragged down by emotion that doesn’t serve anything. It would just make me ineffectual, which won’t help when I have work to do and a mystery to—”
“What’d I miss?” A blonde woman strode in, wearing a red coat over a black shirt and dark blue skinny jeans.
Ellie got a drink of water while she fought to tamp down her reactions to everything. Her sister, the handsome warrior across the counter, the new lady detective who clearly had more style than Ellie would ever have, her grandfather’s death, her grief, the will, the cabin and—
“Ellie.” Dean’s warm voice interrupted her reverie.
She glanced up and then realized water was flowing over her hand. Over the rim of the glass. She shut off the faucet and tipped some out before taking a sip like everything was fine.
These people were all trained to deal with stress. She’d spent almost a decade trying to get over hers while making strides to become an invaluable member of the faculty at her university.
Jess acted like there was something wrong with being that focused.
“Hi, Ellie.” The blonde stuck her hand out. “I’m Detective Wilcox. You can seriously call me Savannah, though. As Jess’s sister, that makes you family to the police department.”
Her grandfather had been the chief, so Ellie knew how that worked. Cops looked out for other cops and their family. People they cared about.
Ellie shook her hand, quickly realizing she hadn’t dried it off since she overfilled the glass. “Sorry.”
Great. Now the fabulous detective knew she was a distracted super nerd. Not something that normally bothered her, except that right now Dean was staring again.
She lifted her chin and shot him a look like, What? He only smiled.
“Any idea why someone might be trying to hurt you?”
Ellie turned to her. “No.”
Jess sighed.
Savannah said, “I’m going to need you to think a little more about your answer before answering.” She glanced at Jess like she needed an answer to a question. Or Jess should do something.
“You asked why. I don’t know why. I have no enemies here. I don’t live here, and I haven’t for years.”
“But it’s possible,” Jess said.
“Sure. In the sense that multiple things can be true, or plausible. Like the fact that either time you could have been the one being targeted. Right?”
Her sister couldn’t argue with that.
Savannah said, “I’m looking into that. But Jess is trained to take care of herself.”
“I’m not helpless. I’ve taken self-defense classes enough that I started teaching it two years ago. I was raised by a cop who took me to the range and showed me my way around all kinds of guns.”
“But you don’t own a weapon, right?”
“Why would I?”
Jess lifted her hands and turned to pace away from the kitchen. “Maybe because someone is targeting you.”
“Don’t yell at me. I’m not helpless, and I’m not a child that needs to be managed.” She turned to Savannah. “I had planned to leave town by now, so this wouldn’t have even been an issue, but I need to find what my grandfather left for me.”
The detective frowned. “I thought he left you this cabin?”
Dean shifted his stance. Whatever he wanted to ask or was thinking right now, she was determined not to care. So she didn’t look at him.
“He did, along with a secret that I’m supposed to uncover. Because he trusts me to do the right thing with ‘what was buried’ and this story. Finally.”
Which meant it was old. Something he’d done when he was younger? She knew he’d been a Marine in Vietnam, and she’d studied that decades-long conflict extensively. Though, not his unit’s specific role in what had happened.
After he’d come home from the war, her grandfather had been one of the earliest residents of Last Chance.
Dean unfolded his arms and braced his palms on the edge of the counter. Like that made him any less imposing. “Could it be that someone is trying to keep you from finding out whatever this is?”
She opened her mouth to speak but discovered she had no answer.
“That’s what I’m wondering,” Savannah said. “And Jess needs to be at work in an hour.”
“You haven’t even slept.”
Jess shrugged. “I’m covering for Donaldson.”
Savannah pinned Ellie with a stare. “That means you’re going to be alone.”
“She needs protection.”
Ellie whirled to Dean, swallowing the gasp. “Someone give me a gun, then.”
One side of his mouth curled up. “Nope.”
“My grandfather taught me how to use them. We’ve covered this.”
Dean said, “You’re busy, and you don’t have the time or the skills to watch your back.” Before she could argue, he turned to Savannah. “I’ll stay with her while Jess is at work.” Then he turned fully around to face her sister. “That okay with you, Jessica?”
Ellie couldn’t even speak. Dean was going to stay with her? And worse, now they were talking about her like she was the “subject” they needed to keep safe. While they argued, Ellie slipped down the hall and headed for the back door.
Some protection detail. They didn’t even—
Dean grasped her elbow and spun her back. “Not gonna happen. You stay where I tell you to.”
“Not gonna happen,” she parroted back.
He grinned at her. “At least this isn’t going to be boring. Now get to work looking for this secret.” He waved at the living area. “Because we’re headed back to town before dark.”
Ten
Even three hours later, he still hadn’t figured her out. The cops were gone and she was looking through her grandfather’s things. He’d boarded up the broken windows so it was secure. About fifteen minutes ago, she’d settled on the armchair with a book and had barely blinked since. She read the way his younger brother—the tech genius—would fall into a computer program. The kid would forget to eat, among other things.
“We should head out soon.” He waited for a response. “It’s gonna get dark.”
Ellie nodded without looking up. He was pretty sure she had no idea what he’d just said.
“Good book, I guess.”
Dean’s phone buzzed. He shifted the armband phone holder to look at the screen and then stepped outside, remaining on the porch where he could still see her. Front door open.
Stuart came into view a minute later and made his way to the porch, a backpack over one shoulder. He looked relaxed, not lethal, which was the difference between a SEAL and a CIA officer.
Stuart didn’t look like what he was, or the extent of what he was capable of. It was all about subterfuge. With Dean, you could see at first glance precisely what he was made of. And the extent he would go to in order to complete the mission.
In this case: to protect Ellie.
In the past few hours, he’d seen s
o many facets of her, he couldn’t sort through them all. But he knew one thing. She was in danger, and he was going to protect her. Her grandfather’s death had hit her with—of all things—the lot of his belongings which might be the answer to this mystery she’d told them about. The reason why she’d been given the cabin. It wasn’t until she faced their loss that her grief then hit her.
In all of it, Dean had seen her pain, vulnerability, determination, strength, need, weakness and fear. She’d fought hard to stay standing, but the truth here was that she needed him.
He wondered if that might be why he’d been given the land surrounding the cabin—literally a circle around it. As though for some reason, her grandfather had decided Ellie needed Dean’s protection.
Stuart stepped onto the porch. “Ted showed up. I left him to eat and then put the leftovers in the fridge for us.”
“He’ll eat all of it the way that kid puts down food.” Dean stuck his hand out. “Thanks for coming.”
Stuart grabbed it and turned the handshake into a hug. “Least I can do.”
“We need to talk about that.” He checked that Ellie was where he’d left her and motioned for Stuart to walk out of earshot. Not that she was eavesdropping. But she didn’t need to inadvertently hear something that wasn’t relevant, just to get scared all over again.
“What is it?”
Dean didn’t want to say it, but he had to. “I think I know what set you off last night.” He scratched at the afternoon stubble on his jaw. “I actually think you witnessed a murder.”
“The biker guy?” Stuart blinked. “I thought I killed him. I figured it was a buried memory, something I’d forgotten doing.”
Dean didn’t know what it would feel like to believe there were people he’d killed whose faces he could not remember. He could recall each one, and the second he saw them in his mind, realize they were dead. There was no coming back.
Stuart rubbed both hands through his hair, then scrubbed them down his face. “Whoa. I thought I did that.”
“Could you have? Really? I mean, until Detective Wilcox arrests someone else, it could be possible. But I just don’t think so. A cold-blooded killer, taking life with no reason? That’s not you.”
“Way to front-load the good news.” Stuart shoved his shoulder, but there was no malice in it. “Now you’re saying I didn’t do it? No. Dude, that kind of runaround is not cool.” He swung the backpack off his shoulder. “Here’s the surveillance stuff you asked for.”
“Thanks.” There was a reason he gave Stuart the good news first. And he wouldn’t apologize for giving Stuart the relevant information in a way that didn’t trigger another post-traumatic episode. He didn’t even like the word “episode” let alone want to cause one in his friend and patient.
Stuart had stood up and was about to head out again when someone spoke up from behind.
“Surveillance? Like, for watching people?”
Dean turned to answer Ellie’s question. “In this case, it’s for securing the cabin and making sure anyone who shows up gets their face on a camera, so that they can’t get in without us knowing it.”
“Oh.” She directed her smile at Stuart. “Thank you.”
“His idea.” But Dean’s friend stepped closer to her and held his hand out. “Stuart Leland. I don’t believe we met last night under the best of circumstances. Sorry if I scared you. And thank you for your help.”
“There’s nothing to be sorry for.”
Dean recognized the sympathy on her face and realized that was it, again. She’d been through something that, in the face of trauma-induced PTSD, meant she had a deep understanding of it. The fear, the guilt. The shame Stuart felt. She’d been there. In his shoes.
Dean needed to get the team on a full background check of this woman. If he was going to effectively protect her, that meant he had to know everything about her.
“Are you doing okay? I heard you had an eventful day today as well.”
Ellie blew out a breath and nodded. “I did. But I’m all right.”
Dean shot his friend a look. Seriously? Now he was flirting with her. Coming on like Mr. Charming. Ellie blushed under Stuart’s attention. Dean wanted to shove the guy back, and narrowly resisted the urge to mouth, Bro code, to his friend. Everyone knew you backed off when your buddy was clearly interested in a woman.
Everyone knew that.
Stuart glanced at him. Humor lit in his blue eyes. “Okay, then. I’m heading out now. Call if you need anything?”
“Yep.” Dean folded his arms across his chest and watched his friend disappear back into the trees.
“The path back to the parking area is that way.” Ellie pointed west.
Dean gently turned her like a giant sundial. “It’s actually that way.”
“Wow, I was way off.” She frowned and shook her head. “When do you want to leave?”
“Thirty minutes.” That was all the time he figured she needed to gather a few things. And it was conveniently how long he needed to set up the system and check that it was running. “Do you need a backpack for anything you want to take?”
“Oh. Yes, it would be wonderful to bring some things with me back to the house.”
He wondered how she would feel when she found out he intended to sleep on the couch when Jessica wasn’t there to keep watch.
She disappeared into the house. He tracked her down in the bedroom, sorting through drawers, and then he got to work setting up the cameras. Front door. Back door—the one she’d been about to leave out of before he cut her off. As if he was going to let her leave and risk putting herself in the line of fire? Yeah, right. He was more skilled than that.
By the time he was done, and he’d bolted the back door from the inside, Dean found her with a stack of books and a music box on the coffee table. She was bent over looking at that storage space under the drawer on the end table.
He went to look at the image that had been painted on the top of the music box. “Don’t forget the book on the kitchen counter.”
She started, slamming her head on the underside of the drawer. “Ouch.” She straightened and saw the lamp falling toward her. She shifted out of the way and let it fall rather than hit her.
He righted the lamp, then held out his hand. “Okay.” When she took his hand, he helped her to her feet.
She pushed her glasses up her nose and looked up at him. The woman barely came to his nose, and he wasn’t a big man. Her huge brown eyes peered up at him. Blinking.
“Good?”
“Um…yes. I’m good. Thanks.” She shook her head. “I’m not usually this out of it.”
“You’re doing fine. It’s been a lot the past couple of days.” He added, “Not many people can deal with finding out their life could be in danger the way you are.”
“Oh, well, I’m not really thinking about it, to be honest with you. I tend to unpack things slowly and mull them over. You know?”
He didn’t know. “Can’t do that in my line of work. You have to react and trust your instincts completely.”
“I don’t.” She seemed convinced of it.
“Haven’t we all built-in responses? Things our brains do without us even thinking about it. Like when you drive and take a turn without thinking about it, and you suddenly realize you’re headed to your old job. Or the last place you lived. Automatic things.”
“Hmm.”
Dean grinned, happy to have given her something to think about instead of what was actually happening. He planned to keep her safe while she was working it out. And while she was trying to figure out this “secret” that her grandfather had left for her.
He pointed at the music box. “All this needs to go?”
“Yes, please.”
Dean packed the backpack he’d emptied of surveillance equipment.
“It’s all up and running?” She was looking at the camera up in the eaves of the porch. Not super conspicuous, but you couldn’t see it until it could see you. So it worked for now. Until t
hey could get something better installed.
Which meant the team would then be back, and he’d get some solid backup helping him keep Ellie safe. If things escalated, anyway. It might not come down to that. In fact, he hoped it wouldn’t because that would mean Ellie was in serious danger.
He secured her front door and used a small cordless drill Stuart had brought in the backpack to affix a deadbolt to keep it shut. He handed Ellie the key. “This belongs to you.”
“Thank you.”
They started walking.
“And thank Stuart for me, as well. Please?” When Dean nodded, she continued, “Was he okay, after last night?”
“With what you did, using that app—that was fast thinking, and I’m grateful—he came out of it because of you. But it’s what happened before that I’m worried about.” He scanned around them, watching for indications someone was out there. A someone with the same rifle that had been used to shoot out the windows. “It seems Stuart might have witnessed a murder, if not, he possibly participated in a man’s death.”
“You think he could’ve hurt someone?”
“He’s had serious training. Not like me, but he’s deadly when he needs to be. Lately, that hasn’t been necessary, and yet it’s not something you forget. So I’d say it’s definitely possible. He might’ve been in the wrong place at the wrong time. Or he did something he’s going to have to answer for—whether he remembers it or not.”
“A wrong is a wrong, no matter if it was committed unknowingly,” she said. “But it seemed like post-traumatic stress to me.”
“That’s right. It is, and I’ve been helping him work through it.” Dean needed to tread cautiously. “Is that something you have experience with?”
She started to speak, but his phone rang.
“This is Dean.” He studied her while he listened.
“It’s Bill at dispatch. There’s been a traffic accident on Hill Road, half a mile west of mile marker seven.”
“Copy that.” He started to walk faster but saw Ellie wince when she tried to do the same. “I’m on my way.”
“Has something happened?”
“Car accident. Sounds like I’m closest.”
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