Hearts in the Crosshairs

by Susan Page Davis

  “Look, I could head for the camp now.” Jillian watched his face anxiously.

  “No. I told you. Besides—look how far it is.”

  She looked across the lake. It was much larger than the one where they’d camped.

  “Hey, I can see the other shore. That means the sun will rise soon.”

  Dave looked at his watch again. “Four-twenty. The backup should be there.”

  Jillian stood and squinted at the dark water. The small waves looked much friendlier than those they’d battled a few hours ago. She peered again toward the far tip of the lake. “How far is it by land?”

  “Four or five miles, maybe. Rough miles.”

  She looked down at Penny’s inert form. “Do you think she’ll make it?”

  Dave didn’t answer.

  Jillian turned back to the lake. “Hey.”

  “What?” Dave looked up.

  “I see something.”

  “Get down.”

  “No, it’s way down there.” She pointed down the lake. “I think it’s a boat.”

  Dave stumbled to his feet and stood beside her. “Where?”

  “There. See it? I wish we had the binoculars.”

  “You and me both.” He stared for a long moment, and she held her breath, watching him.

  Dave let out a chuckle. “It’s a warden’s boat. They’re probably towing a canoe so they can paddle upstream to us.”

  Jillian wanted to yell and dance and wave her soggy sweatshirt, but the thought of the assassin that had stalked them kept her still.

  “We’re on the wrong side of the inlet.” Dave pointed to a large rock that jutted into the water. “You stay here out of sight. I’ll get up there and flag them down.”

  Jillian sat down, noting that Penny’s bluish lips trembled. If only they had a blanket. The officers coming would bring something dry.

  A sudden noise in the woods startled her. She whipped her head around. Only a few yards away, a man crept stealthily between the trees. He carried a rifle with a scope on it. She shrank against the rock that sheltered her and Penny. The man wasn’t looking her way. He was focused on Dave.

  She swallowed back the scream that nearly choked her. If she yelled to save Dave, the man would kill her. After all, that was what he had come for.

  Dave had reached the rock by the water and climbed up it. He pulled off his wet jacket and swung it over his head. “Hey!”

  Jillian saw the gunman halt and look down the lake. He had advanced beyond where she and Penny hid—he wouldn’t see them unless he turned around. Jillian reached for her pocket with trembling hands and fumbled with the zipper.

  Her cold fingers didn’t want to cooperate. Grasping the pistol with both hands, she raised it and leaned against the rock. At almost the same time, the man with the rifle put the stock to his shoulder and sighted in on Dave.

  Jillian pulled the trigger.

  Too late, she saw the second man step out of the woods, swinging his rifle to his shoulder, taking aim at her.

  TWENTY-ONE

  Two reports echoed over the water almost at once as Jillian dove for the dirt. She lay low, sheltering Penny’s head. Distant yells told her the men in the boat were close to shore. Footsteps scrabbled over the rocks. Her heart thudded and she pulled the pistol up before her, expecting a killer to round the rock.

  “Jillian!”

  Her breath whooshed out of her. She let the gun fall and jumped into Dave’s arms.

  “It’s okay.” He held her close.

  “There were two of them.”

  “I know. When you fired, I turned around in time to take down the second gunman. You’re safe now.”

  The boat nudged in to shore, and two uniformed men leaped over the side, but Dave stayed with her, holding her head against his chest and stroking her hair. Jillian collapsed against him with a sob. “Penny?”

  “It’s okay,” Dave said. “We’re all going to make it.” He bent his head and kissed her cheek, where the chip of granite had grazed her in January. “You saved my life.”

  She eased away from his embrace. One officer had reached Penny and knelt beside her. The other rushed toward the fallen man who had tried to kill her. Dave tightened his hold around her waist and moved her down the shore, toward the boat. At the edge of the water, he pulled her into his arms again. Jillian clung to him, wanting never to be separated from him again, and they waited in silence.

  When they moored at the warden camp’s dock, an ambulance, two more state troopers and a game warden were waiting.

  Dave helped Jillian out of the boat, and the four troopers who had come across the lake for them lifted Penny out and onto the EMTs’ stretcher.

  “Go inside and find some dry clothes,” Dave told Jillian. “As soon as they’ve loaded Penny and the wounded man in the ambulance, I’ll make a fire in that woodstove.”

  Jillian wore a jacket one of the troopers had loaned her in the boat. In the cabin, she found nothing to put on, other than blankets and one ragged hunter-orange vest.

  She huddled in a wool blanket and managed to start the fire herself. By the time Dave entered, the fire was roaring. She handed him another blanket, and he draped it over his shoulders.

  “How’s Penny?” she asked.

  Dave shrugged. “Hard to say. She was conscious when they put the IV in. They took the wounded man, too. Half a dozen men have headed up the lake. They’ll bring in the other gunman.”

  “They’ll have to take a canoe up to our camp to get Jerry, won’t they?”

  “I think there’s enough space to land a helicopter near the tents. They’ve got one coming from the Bangor National Guard station.”

  She nodded. Engine noises outside the cabin were followed by doors slamming and loud voices.

  “Could be some media coming,” Dave said.

  “Way up here?”

  “You’re a hot story.”

  She swallowed hard and looked down at her clothing. “Wonderful.”

  “Hey, before we’re inundated…” He looked into her eyes, and her stomach fluttered.

  “Yeah?”

  “I need to tell you something. I’ve been thinking—”

  The door burst open.

  “Jill! Are you all right?”

  Jillian spun to face the whirlwind of Naomi and her mother. Naomi threw her arms around Jillian’s neck and buried her face in her shoulder, sobbing. Jillian patted her back gently and looked at her mother.

  “Thank God,” Vera said. “My dear, you look splendid.”

  Jillian laughed and tugged at Naomi’s clinging arms. “Come on, Naomi. I’m okay.”

  Naomi pulled away, wiping her blotchy face with the backs of her hands. “I’m so sorry, Jill. I have to tell you. This is all my fault.”

  Dave frowned at Naomi and set a straight chair out from the table.

  “Sit, Miss Plante.”

  Naomi looked back toward the other room, where Jillian and her mother stood by the stove in a hug.

  “Start at the beginning. Why is this your fault?”

  Andrew Browne straddled one of the other chairs and laid a notebook on the table. Dave was glad he’d arrived in the first wave of reinforcements. He didn’t think his fingers had thawed enough yet to hold a pen.

  “I knew where you were going this weekend, and I mentioned it to a friend. I had no idea it would lead to this. Do you think—”

  “Who?” Dave bent toward her and stared.

  Naomi gulped. “Jack Kendall. I didn’t tell anyone else.”

  “Did you know who he was?”

  “What do you mean? He’s Jack.”

  Dave studied her for a moment. “Did he ask you to make him a copy of the governor’s schedule, and to browse her computer?”

  Naomi stared at him for a moment, her face stricken, then lowered her face into her hands. “He said…he wanted to meet Jillian.”

  “You could have introduced them.”

  “He couldn’t come to Blaine House when I asked him t
o, so he wanted to know where she’d be next week, in case we could arrange it. I didn’t see any harm in it.” Tears streaked Naomi’s face.

  Dave sat down opposite her. “Tell me every time you talked to him, what he asked you to do for him, and what information you gave him. But first, tell me how you knew where we’d be on this trip.”

  An hour later, Carl Millbridge burst into the cabin wearing a harried expression. He spotted Jillian and strode toward her. By now she had on jeans and a Red Sox sweatshirt. Dave had requested dry clothing by radio, and one of the troopers responding to the call for backup had delivered.

  “Governor, are you all right?” Millbridge asked.

  “I’m fine, Detective. You didn’t need to come all the way up here.”

  Millbridge straightened his shoulders. “I’m taking charge of the investigation.”

  “What about Detective Hutchins?”

  “I’m told he needs medical attention.”

  “I’m fine,” Dave growled from the kitchen doorway.

  “I understand you have a prisoner.”

  Dave looked chagrined. “Yeah. She’s in the kitchen.”

  Jillian stared at him. Millbridge entered the kitchen, and she heard him say, “Is this the prisoner?”

  “That’s right,” Andrew replied.

  Jillian crossed to Dave, looking into his troubled brown eyes. “You have to arrest her?”

  Dave nodded. “The man you shot was Jack Kendall.”

  Jillian felt light-headed. Her mother stepped up beside her and slid her arm around her waist.

  “Come sit down, dear.”

  She walked woodenly to the sofa, and her mother sat beside her. Dave pulled a chair over and sat facing her.

  “Naomi didn’t mean me any harm,” Jillian insisted.

  “You’re right. She told Kendall where you’d be out of innocence, or maybe out of pride, to prove she knew your business.”

  “But Naomi didn’t know.”

  Dave sighed. “It seems she did.”

  “How could she have? I didn’t even know until we were partway here.”

  “She did some snooping in Ryan’s pockets the night before we left.”

  Jillian’s jaw dropped. “She picked his pockets?”

  “He hung his jacket in the security office at the Blaine House. While he made his rounds, she snooped and got lucky. Ryan had your fishing license and the fire permits with the locations on them in his jacket.”

  Vera patted her shoulder. “I’m so sorry, dear.”

  A pain started deep in Jillian’s stomach. “Who was the other man? Tanger? They wouldn’t release him without telling us.”

  Dave shook his head. “No. But we’ll find out.” He leaned toward her and took her hands in his. “Jack Kendall is still alive.”

  She caught her breath. “I’m glad. I mean—”

  He nodded. “I’m glad, too. You didn’t kill him. It may take some time to put it all together, but we hope Kendall will survive and tell us exactly what was on his mind.”

  “But Naomi didn’t know he was coming up here?”

  “She says she didn’t, and I believe her. They went out Saturday night, but he told her he was busy on Sunday. That’s when he came up here.”

  “With a friend.”

  “It seems that way.”

  “But the parking garage? The inauguration day shooting? And Wesley Stevenson. How does it all fit together?”

  “There’s still a lot we don’t know.”

  “Can you take us home, David?” Vera said gently. “My daughter needs to rest.”

  “Sure, Mrs. Clark.”

  “No.” Jillian reached out to him. “Take me to the hospital where they took Penny. I need to see her.”

  Dave eyed her keenly, then turned to Vera. “That all right with you, ma’am?”

  Vera nodded curtly. “We’ll get a doctor to look Jillian over while we’re at it.”

  “Mom, I’m okay.”

  Dave smiled for the first time in what seemed like a long, long time. “Mrs. Clark, I like the way you think.”

  They dropped Vera off at her home at ten that evening.

  “Are you sure you won’t stay here tonight, honey?” she asked Jillian before she got out of the vehicle.

  “No, thanks, Mom. I need to go to my office tomorrow and hold a press conference so everyone knows I’m okay.”

  “What will you say?”

  Jillian sighed. “Lettie will write up something for me.”

  Dave saw Vera into the house, then got back in the driver’s seat. He put the key in the ignition and then change his mind, taking it out and turning to her. “Jillian, this may not be a good time, but there are things I need to say. Things that have been on my mind for some time now. And after everything we’ve just been through, I don’t think I can keep them to myself anymore.”

  She looked at him expectantly. “You can say anything to me, Dave. I mean that.”

  He took a deep breath, intending to explain how he fell for her, and how torturous it was for him not to be able to see her after Penny reported him, but what came out of his mouth was, “I love you.”

  She caught her breath. “Oh, Dave. I…”

  “You don’t have to say anything, Jillian. I know this might be strange for you to hear. But I was afraid I’d lose you last night, and I realized that I don’t want a world without you.”

  Tears welled in her eyes, and she felt a prickly lump in her throat. “Dave, I love you, too.”

  Dave could hardly believe his ears. He leaned over and caressed her cheek. “I’ll do whatever it takes to be with you, Jillian.” His lips met hers, and he kissed the lovely governor of Maine as he’d wanted to for so long.

  EPILOGUE

  Colonel Gideon Smith sat across from Jillian in her statehouse office and opened a folder he carried. “We’re putting this thing together, little by little. Jack Kendall is conscious, and our officers interviewed him this morning.”

  “And?”

  “He claims he acted without his father’s knowledge. His father said as much before, but we wanted to hear it from Kendall.”

  “But he had two of his father’s old cronies helping him.”

  “Yes.” Smith looked down at the papers in the folder. “Wesley Stevenson and the man who accompanied Kendall to the lake on Sunday—Daryl Leigh. Both worked for Roderick Tanger in the past.”

  “So why were they helping Tanger’s son try to kill me?”

  Smith looked at her with sympathy. “Jack Kendall’s mother told us, and he admitted himself this morning, that he blamed you for putting his father in prison. Jack was only fourteen at the time. In his mind, you’re the one who kept his father from being part of his life.”

  Jillian stared at him. “That’s ridiculous. His parents were divorced before the trial.”

  “Yes, they were. But the boy wanted to live with his father. After Tanger was convicted of several felonies, full custody went to the mother. And don’t forget, Tanger swore revenge on you in the courtroom for allegedly bungling his defense.”

  “I know,” Jillian said drily. “I was there.”

  “The boy heard about it. He was at an impressionable age, and he got a stepfather he didn’t care for. His mother made him take his stepfather’s name. Kendall had a lot of anger and resentment, and he focused it on you.”

  Jillian released a breath. “But these two thugs. How did he connect with them?”

  Smith frowned. “When the young man learned you’d been elected governor of Maine, he came here from Massachusetts and looked up some of the men who had worked for his father. Kendall paid them—we’re still digging to find out where he got the money. First he hired Stevenson to shoot you. Then Kendall sniffed out Leigh. He decided to wait for precisely the right opportunity this time. And he formed a liaison with a close friend of yours—Naomi Plante.”

  Jillian held up a hand in protest. “But Colonel, Naomi met him through a young man she dated a couple of times—the cousin
of Beth, one of our kitchen staff at Blaine House.”

  “Yes. We believe that young man, Sean Broule, had nothing to do with this. He says Kendall showed up at the club where he took Miss Plante one night and insisted on an introduction. Broule knew him only slightly, and we now know that was another machination of Kendall’s. During his time in Augusta, trying to find a way to access you, Jack Kendall learned Broule’s cousin worked at the mansion and struck up an acquaintance. At first he hoped to gain influence with Beth, but then he found that Sean was dating your personal assistant. So he followed Broule and Miss Plante that evening. I understand from Miss Plante that it took him several weeks to convince her to go out with him.”

  “Yes.” Jillian felt tears fill her eyes as she recalled her conversations with Naomi.

  “He was a good ten years younger than her,” Smith said. “I expect she found it exciting that a handsome twenty-four-year-old found her attractive.”

  “He didn’t really care about her, did he?”

  “I’m afraid not. He used her to determine the perfect opportunity to attack you and finish the job.”

  “The camping trip,” Jillian said.

  “Yes. When you invited Miss Plante on the trip, she’d already promised a date with him. She says she was the one who had the idea of finding out your destination, to impress him, but I wonder if Kendall didn’t subtly suggest it. It was careless of Mills to leave the information where it could be accessed.”

  “I hope Ryan won’t be disciplined.”

  Smith sighed. “His father passed away yesterday, and he’s taking the rest of the week off. I’ll address that issue when he comes back on duty.”

  “And what about Daryl Leigh, the man who accompanied Kendall to the lake?” she asked.

  “Kendall said he planned originally for Leigh to follow you to the campsite and shoot you there. But when he discovered how remote the site was, he told Leigh he would go with him.”

  Jillian forced herself to remember the nightmare of Sunday night. “I don’t know which of them killed Jerry Knott, or who shot Penny, but in the end, it was Jack Kendall who took the first shot at the lake. I’ll testify against him. He may be able to blame Leigh for the other shootings, but he had Dave Hutchins in his sights.”