Cabin 12

by Freya Barker

  I haven’t really allowed myself, since people I thought were my friends collectively turned on me back in Farmington. I have trouble trusting anymore. Another thing to thank my ex for.

  The man not only cheated on me for the almost seven years we were together, but he did it with my friends, and he did it at work. Philip Presley was a physician at San Juan Medical Center when I was hired there. From day one, he made it clear he was interested. A few of the girls warned me, but I was so smitten, I didn’t want to hear.

  For four years out of our seven together, I was blissfully oblivious. Once the first seed of doubt was planted, it became quickly and painfully clear I was being played. Still, coming from a family where I felt like a black sheep already, I wasn’t about to concede to what would be yet another failure in their eyes. So I tried to stick it out.

  And that is what ultimately tainted me with his behavior, because at first I defended him against the accusations. That’s what you do, right? You stand by your man? Yet at some point, the complaints of sexual misconduct became impossible to brush off.

  Six months I lasted after he disappeared under the heat of the investigation into the allegations. I was hounded by the police, convinced I knew his whereabouts. I was harassed and later shunned by coworkers and former friends. And never once did I let my family in on what was going on.

  Until I finally cracked under the pressure and had a nervous breakdown. Not the best time in my life, but I’ve come a ways since then—I’m rebuilding.

  A new start here in Durango. New place, new job, but I’m sorely lacking in the new friends department, which is why maybe next time Joanne asks me along for a drink or a coffee after work, or asks me to come meet her new baby, I should really say yes.

  “There, all done. Looks amazing, if I say so myself.”

  I look in the mirror to find she has twisted my hair into an intricate French braid that curves around my head and ends in a thick plait on my left shoulder.

  “That’s amazing. Much too fancy for work, I’m afraid it’ll get messed up.”

  “Anytime you want to look pretty for a night out, just hit me up. Happy to help.” I smile at the woman, touched by her kindness.

  “I’d like that.”

  “Good. You look gorgeous. Just steer clear of our resident dirtbag; he sees you like this, he won’t take no for an answer.”

  I don’t bother telling her he’s already made that perfectly clear.

  “You’re looking a little pale,” Ryan notices when I climb into the back of our rig, where he’s already restocking from our earlier call.

  A young guy, early twenties, so hammered at nine at night he’d passed out at a backyard party, and they were unable to wake him. Alcohol, and God knows what drugs were in his system—according to his equally inebriated buddies—who at least had the sense to call for help. When we loaded him in the back, I rubbed my knuckles firmly over his sternum to rouse him, when the damn kid upchucked all over me and the inside of our rig.

  Not the first time, and probably not the last either, but with a stomach still not quite back to normal, I almost returned the favor. Nothing a quick shower and change can’t fix, but I wasn’t looking forward to the prospect of scouring vomit off the walls and floors of the rig.

  “You’re a prince,” I tell him, looking around the clean rig, where the smell of bleach overwhelms the last lingering traces of puke stink.

  “Tell my wife that,” he counters, giving me a long hard look. “You sure you’re good to go?”

  “Positive.”

  “All right, then go grab me another adult blood pressure cuff, just had to toss the other one.”

  Just as I climb back in a few minutes later, handing Ryan the fresh cuff, a call comes in.

  “...Mercy 7-13, we have a 29B1, single vehicle, injuries unknown. College Drive, half a mile east of 9th.”

  Ryan looks at me, an eyebrow raised, and I nod. I’m ready.

  “10-4,” he responds, when we climb into the cab. I strap myself in, Ryan flicks on the lights, and we’re off on our next call.

  Traffic is light this late at night, especially once you get out of downtown. College Drive is not particularly well-lit, but we can see the flashing lights up ahead.

  Ryan pulls in behind the cruiser, parked on the opposite side of the road, on the shoulder. I can see headlights reflecting off the tree line about ten yards down from the side of the road. Only the rear of the vehicle is visible sticking up in the brush.

  “Take the flashlight,” Ryan suggests. “I’ll grab the kit and the backboard.”

  I grab the light wedged in a charger between our seats and get out, flicking it on.

  The first thing that strikes me is how quiet it is. Granted, it’s past eleven on a weeknight, but still; you’d expect to hear some sounds. There’s nothing, not even a rustle from the officer who is likely down by the wreck, and a chill runs down my back.

  I round the cruiser and carefully step into the low brush leading to the trees below. My light is aimed at the crashed vehicle; not a smart move as I discover a moment later, when my foot slips and I land flat on my ass, sliding a few feet before I dig in my heels and come to a stop.

  “Gomez!” Ryan yells from above. “You okay?”

  I turn around and am about to holler back when the beam from my flashlight catches the outline of a leg. The leg is attached to a body, and I realize the reason I wasn’t hearing anything is because the body belongs to the officer, and he doesn’t look good.

  “Officer down!” I yell up, fighting to keep the panic from my voice as I scramble the few feet uphill to get to the man’s side. “Call it in. Officer down!”

  “Fuck!” I hear him exclaim, but I don’t pay any mind to anything else. I have a job to do.

  I don’t even register the sirens approaching, I’m too busy fighting what I already know is a losing battle The man under my hands was likely gone the moment the bullet entered his skull. Still, I work on him the best I can, as the force of my compressions on his chest have me sliding backward down the slope every so often.

  I ignore Ryan repeating my name quietly, and I don’t notice the crowd of uniforms gathering around me. All I care about is the man with whom I shared a drink and a laugh just one week ago at The Irish, who informed me during that conversation that he only had four more months to go until retirement.

  “He’s gone, honey,” Ryan says, finally wrapping his arms around me from behind and pulling me off Bert. “There was absolutely nothing you could do.”

  Jasper

  I’m already in bed, watching the late news, when I hear the call go out on my scanner. Officer down.

  This time I don’t hesitate, I’m dressed and jogging out the door in seconds. I call Dylan hands-free when I get in my truck.

  “Yeah,” I hear his sleepy voice.

  “College Drive, another shooting. Meet me there.”

  “Fuck. I need to call someone for Max. Mom and Clint are away this week.”

  Shit. He mentioned it but I’d forgotten.

  “Never mind, look after your boy. I’m calling Luna.”

  “Jas, keep me in the loop? I won’t sleep.”

  “Sure thing.” I smile to myself in understanding. The hungriest agent on our team, and his hands are tied. I’m sure he’ll be up until he knows as much as we do, even if he can’t be there.

  “Luna, shooting at—” I start when she picks up the call.

  “I heard, already on my way. Was about to call you,” she snaps, before she adds, “Bella is at the scene.”

  My sense of urgency heightens ten-fold at that bit of news. I don’t bother asking how and why she knows this, but I also don’t question the validity of the information.

  “Thanks. See you there.”

  There are at least eight or nine emergency vehicles on scene, one of which is blocking the road. I have to flash my badge a few times when yet another officer tries to block my way. The atmosphere is tense, which isn’t a surprise, given that
it seems clear someone is targeting cops.

  I stop at the edge of the slope, where I find Luna standing a step behind Keith Blackfoot, watching a group of officers carry up an empty backboard. I immediately know this is a fatality.

  “Who?” I ask softly. Keith doesn’t even turn around, his eyes stay fixed on the prone body left below, a single officer standing guard.

  “Bert Cummings. Fifty-two, a wife, two kids, a new grandbaby, and four months from retirement,” he says, his voice raspy with emotion, and I watch with interest as Luna steps in and puts a hand on his back. He doesn’t even seem to notice.

  “Jesus.”

  “Yeah.”

  “No sign of the shooter?”

  I get a sharp shake of his head before he expands. “EMTs who found him didn’t see anyone. Damian’s kid sister and her partner,” he adds, indicating the two following the group of officers up. “I gather she knew Bert. Was still fruitlessly trying to revive him when I got here. Her partner had to pull her off.”

  I watch her partner support her as she takes the last steps to find level ground. Her face is gaunt and her eyes blank. She doesn’t even notice me until I step in her path and take her in my arms.

  “Not now, Jasper,” she whispers against my chest, a plea in her voice. “I need to write up a report and wait for the coroner to get here. I have to do my job. Don’t let me break down.”

  I’m not sure what I can do to prevent that, but I let her go all the same.

  “Go. Write your report, finish your job, but I’ll be waiting right here with you until the coroner shows.”

  CHAPTER 8

  JASPER

  “Car was reported stolen earlier today. Or by now, yesterday.”

  Luna walks up to where I’m standing, keeping an eye on the open rear of the ambulance where Bella is doing whatever she needs to do.

  “From where?” I want to know, turning my attention to Luna, who’s been sticking close to Blackfoot. I’m not sure if to gather information, or to offer silent support, but it is interesting to note that now she’s talking to me, his eyes keep drifting this way.

  “Off the West Hall parking lot at the college. The one right by the lookout.”

  I know the one she means. The road we’re on runs up the side of the mountain to the college, which overlooks Durango. The lookout she’s talking about is off Rim Drive, which curves around the outside of the college grounds.

  “Isn’t there a hiking trail you can access from there?”

  Luna nods. “Yup, there is. Runs all the way down to 6th Street. I’ve taken it a few times.”

  “The only way up or down the mountain is this road, right?” I’m thinking out loud, not really needing an answer. “And with a general call going out, I would assume he’d avoid going in the direction where more emergency vehicles were likely to come from. He’d avoid the road all together.”

  “He’s on foot,” Luna fills in, nodding in agreement.

  “Yup, and my guess is, he’ll want to get as far away from the scene, as fast as possible. How far from here to the trail?” I ask her.

  “Maybe a mile, a mile and a half? That is if he followed the road. Only half the distance, if that, cutting through the trees. He could have theoretically made it to the head of the trail and down the other side to 6th Street, before we even got to the scene,” Luna suggests.

  “It’d be a decent climb, he’d have to be in shape. We should run this by Keith.”

  “Run what by me?” Blackfoot walks up behind Luna.

  Luna does the honors and gives him the gist of it, and he’s on the radio before she’s even finished talking. He directs units to cover both ends of the trail, blocking access.

  “Be difficult to find anything in the dark. We’ll secure the exits and send guys out at first light,” he explains to us. “Doubt many of my guys will get any sleep anyway.”

  Two white vans pull up to the side of the road. One with the La Plata County Medical Examiner’s logo on the side, and the other holds the CBI forensics team, who immediately start unloading large floodlights to illuminate the scene below.

  “Sorry it took me a bit,” Doc Franco, a portly man, apologizes before getting down to business. “What do we have?”

  From the corner of my eye, I see Bella climb out of the rig and walk over to her, leaving Blackfoot to sort out how to get the aging coroner down the damn slope.

  “How’s it going?” I ask when I reach her.

  “Hanging in.”

  I’m surprised at her honesty, I’d expected her to brush me off again. “That’s all you can do, honey. Do your thing with the coroner and then I’m taking you home.”

  Her head whips around.

  “Don’t boss me around,” she snaps. “Ryan already called the supervisor, who is getting an additional unit rolling to cover us, but I’ll be driving back to Mercy with him. We go on calls as a team, and we return as a team.” She leans in close and hisses, “This is my job.”

  I grab her by the shoulders and drop my forehead to hers, ignoring the fire she’s shooting in my direction.

  “Compromise. You go with Ryan to take the rig back to Mercy, but I’ll be following behind, and you let me drive you home from there.”

  Her eyes slowly close, as she leans her weight into me.

  “But my car...”

  “We deal with your car tomorrow.”

  It takes a moment, but I finally feel her small nod before she pulls away, and walks over to Doc Franco.

  “ARE YOU HUNGRY? I COULD do with something.”

  I glance over at Bella, who’s been quiet since she got into the truck at the hospital.

  “Nothing’s open,” she says in a flat voice, staring straight ahead.

  “True. Not for another hour at least, but I could make us something.”

  “If you want.”

  “Okay, we’ll see what you have in your fridge. It’s gotta be better than what’s in mine.” She says nothing to that, and I give up trying to engage her. For now, anyway.

  I’m starting to worry about her lack of emotion, though. It’s like she’s completely shut down. Granted, she seems to have had a particularly tough week, but I still wonder if there’s not something to Damian’s concern for her. It looks and sounds like an overprotective big brother worrying about his younger sister, but perhaps it’s for good reason.

  I know a bit of the history behind Bella moving to Durango. I know she was involved with a guy from work, a doctor, who apparently was the subject of an investigation into several complaints of sexual misconduct at the hospital where they both worked. I also know the fucker took off, leaving her to face the fallout by herself. Things were bad enough, she ended up leaving her job. The douchebag had the balls to resurface last year, only to beg her to provide him with a fake alibi. If I didn’t know, for a fact, Damian made sure he would never bother his sister again, I might’ve done those honors myself.

  What I don’t know is: what happened in the months after she quit and before she came to Durango.

  “Give me your keys, Squirt.” I hold out my hand when we pull up in front of her house.

  This time she doesn’t even argue when I ask her, she just hands over the bag she’s been clutching in her lap. I dig out the keys, mildly surprised at what all she carries around in that plus-sized tote of hers. When I notice she’s not moving, I unclip her seat belt, and get out, rounding the truck to help her down from the cab.

  She doesn’t even object when I sling her bag over my shoulder and grab her hand as we walk up her steps.

  The instant I unlock the door, she slips past me and immediately turns right toward her bedroom. I rush after her to make sure it’s secure and walk in on her starting to undress by the side of the bed.

  “Give me a second to check,” I suggest, walking to the window to make sure it’s locked and closing the blinds.

  Clearly she doesn’t listen, because when I turn back, she’s stripped down to just her panties as she climbs onto the mattress. F
uck, I’m trying not to notice her heavy breasts with large dark aureoles, swaying with each movement as she gets settled in bed, but we can strike that as a fail. My eyes noticed, blood pressure noticed, and my fucking dick sure as shit noticed.

  Bella, on the other hand, doesn’t seem to notice a thing. She pulls the sheet over her ear as she curls on her side. I round the bed to her and press a kiss to the side of her head, my knuckles white with restraint. No matter how tempting it is to strip down myself and climb in with her, I’m not about to take advantage of a woman who currently is more like a zombie than a living, breathing human being.

  No matter how fucking breathtakingly gorgeous she is.

  Resigned, I snatch a throw from the bottom of the bed, and flick off the lights as I walk out, pulling the door shut. I check my phone for updates, before I pull off my boots and jeans, and finally get settled in for a couple of hours of sleep on her couch.

  Bella

  I’m numb.

  Frozen.

  I remember this feeling of desperately keeping the lid on the swirling emotions that lie just below the surface. The times when there is no longer anything there to distract me from the fact I’m sliding down a hole where darkness is waiting for me. Afraid if I let only a single emotion slip at this point, the chasm will rip open and swallow me whole.

  I wish for sleep to take me but am scared to let myself drift off. So I lie in bed—all concept of time forgotten—my eyes burning as I keep them open until the soft light of dawn filters in through the blinds.

  I don’t even move when I hear the sound of my bedroom door opening. I know it’s Jasper and steel myself not to let him see this side of me. The side that has branded me as the emotionally fragile one with my family. The side that feels too deep, and makes me wonder if I’m cut out to look after other people, when I can’t seem to look after myself. I fight every day to keep that side hidden, by working hard to prove I can handle the stress of my job, by battling insecurity with defiance and attitude. I try so hard not to live up to what I know the expectations are: an emotionally weak failure.