by Donna Ball
Jeb Wilson held a press conference in which he praised the hard work and ingenuity of the Hanover County Sheriff’s Department, operating under the inspired leadership of Buck Lawson. It was carried on the national news, and Buck’s picture was in every newspaper in the state. A reporter out of Asheville did a feature on the hostage crisis and called it “The Heroes of Camp Bluebird.” A big-time news magazine picked it up and Cisco’s picture was on the cover. For a while we were pretty famous.
Buck gave Jolene and Nike commendations for actions above and beyond the call of duty, and presented them with medals at a Chamber of Commerce dinner a few weeks later. Practically the whole town was there. Jolene was offered a job with the FBI, and I think she considered it. But in the end she decided to, in her words, “stick around here for a while and see how it goes. After all, it can’t get much worse.” All things considered, I suppose she was right about that.
Jolene still has a lot to learn about life in a small town, and believe me, she’s not the type to take instruction gracefully. But I understand why she decided to stay, and I’m kind of glad. We’ll never be best friends, but there might be something to that thing about bonding through trauma after all. I only know that seeing her around town these days doesn’t plunge me back into the nightmare any more, like I thought it would. Instead it makes me kind of proud. We survived. And we did it together.
Reggie Connor and Lyle Reston were transferred to federal custody and out of the Hanover County jail. From the description I gave them of Gene Hicks, the FBI was able to identify him as Henry Caleb Jarvis, a forty three year old munitions expert with fifteen years military experience and six other aliases. He was not from Florida, had never been married, had no children. He very likely had never owned a dog. Every one of those details he had given me had been designed to play me, while at the same time presenting a profile of everything the so-called Patriots were fighting against: corruption, injustice, self-serving politicians. By reviewing thousands of hours of surveillance video, the FBI had so far identified him at the sites of ten different bombings, or thwarted bombings, in the past five years. As for their chances of catching him? Modern crime-fighting techniques are pretty good at snagging perpetrators who go through airports and transit stations, who pass by security cameras in retail stores and fast food joints, or who drive their cars through toll booths. But someone who walks the wooded back trails of America’s national forests and parklands? Not so much. I sometimes wake up in the middle of the night with my heart pounding, thinking about that. Remembering the way he had petted my dog. Remembering the way he had saluted me with that apple from across the street, knowing that he had planted a bomb not ten feet from where I stood.
“I was so wrong about him,” I told Buck that night of the commendations dinner. “I was wrong about everything. Cisco even liked him.”
Buck smiled faintly. He looked handsome in his dress uniform, but there were lines about his mouth and his eyes that I was afraid would never go away. He said, “Cisco likes everybody. Not a good measuring stick.”
I nodded reluctantly. “It’s just...I don’t know how I can ever trust my own judgment again. How could I have been so wrong?”
Buck glanced down at his glass. The Chamber had sprung for champagne—not a very good champagne that would end up giving me a headache in the morning—but I happened to know Buck was drinking sparkling cider. He was running for office, after all. He said, “If it makes you feel any better, I’m not going to win any prizes for my judgment either. I accused Jolene of being a spy, while the whole time I was signing the pay check of a murderer who was plotting treason against the United States government. Talk about feeling like an ass.”
I said, “Well, Jolene was an easy mistake to make.”
The subject under discussion was busy getting her picture taken with her hero dog for the local paper. We glanced their way, and Buck smiled. It seemed like the first genuine smile I’d seen from him in months. And then he sobered. He said, “Truth of the matter is, that’s not even the biggest mistake I’ve made lately.” He glanced again at his glass. “Raine, there’s something I’ve been meaning to talk to you about. I wonder if—”
But it was at that moment that Miles came up and slipped his arm around my waist. “You about ready to go, sugar?” he asked. He greeted Buck with, “Nice speech, Sheriff.”
Buck nodded in acknowledgment. I thought the atmosphere between them was a bit cooler than it had been in the past, but that might be just me. At any rate, I was glad to go home. I had not wanted to hear whatever Buck had been about to say.
I didn’t see much of Buck after that, partly because he had his hands full with the election and everything else that had happened, partly because of something else. I remember how the FBI brought the children out first, and I stayed back to help with the dogs. When I came out, the blocked road had been cleared and the camp lawn was swirling in blue lights, crackling with radio static, crowded with uniforms. Buck had been among those uniforms, and as I came down the steps, he started to push his way toward me, and I remember the expression on his face when Miles swept me up and I clung to him, laughing and crying and holding on to him. Remembering the look in Buck’s eyes at that moment wakes me up in the middle of the night, too, because I’ve recently come to understand some things that are, in many ways, even scarier than those six hours we were held at gunpoint.
I still have nightmares, but oddly enough, not about the soldiers. In my nightmare, I run out of the public safety building and around the walkway and into the parking lot and Jolene gets Nike out of the car, just the way it happened in real life, and I scream to Miles, “Go! Get out of here! Drive! Go!” But in my nightmare he just leans against the car, smiling at me kind of sadly, and he doesn’t move at all, and I keeping screaming at him because doesn’t he realize that everything I love is in that car? Then, in my nightmare, Cisco starts to bark and I realize that the bomb isn’t in the courthouse after all; it’s in the car. And that’s where I wake up.
The experts call that kind of thing a form of post-traumatic stress disorder. Maybe one day I’ll talk to Jolene about it. One day.
On a bright Sunday afternoon in August, I drove Miles and Melanie to the Asheville airport, where they would fly to Atlanta and catch a connecting flight to Rio De Janeiro, Brazil. Miles did not, of course, need me to drive him to the airport, but Melanie used it as an excuse to spend more time with Pepper, whom Miles had somehow finagled into the VIP lounge. Pepper would be staying with me while they were gone, and from the length of the care list Melanie gave me, you’d think I had never even seen a dog before, much less taken care of one.
Melanie spent the hour before boarding in protracted good-byes while Miles and I sipped fancy club soda and pretended to watch the game on television. At one point Miles said, “I’m not that comfortable about leaving you,” which surprised a laugh out of me.
“Don’t worry,” I assured him. “I promise not to be taken hostage by any crazed gunmen while you’re gone.”
“Talk is cheap,” he retorted. Then he brought my fingers to his lips for a kiss and said, seriously, “Don’t get taken hostage by crazed gunmen while I’m gone.”
When their flight was called, Melanie handed me Pepper’s leash and knelt to hug her puppy. “It’s going to be fine, Pepper. I’ll be back before you know it. And you’ll have Cisco to look after you.”
“And me,” I reminded her. I hugged her with my free arm and she hugged me back. There was a little lump in my throat. I was going to miss her. “Have a good time. Call me.”
“Every day,” she promised.
“Well,” I suggested, “maybe every other day.”
She grinned and waved at me with her boarding pass as she left for the gate.
Miles waited until the room was empty to kiss me good-bye. Then he leaned his forehead against mine and looked somberly into my eyes. “Take care of yourself. I mean it.”
I said, “For heaven’s sake, Miles, you’re as bad as M
elanie. It’s only two weeks.”
He smiled and kissed me again. “Love you, babe.” So easy for him to say.
He swung the strap of his leather carry-on over his shoulder and blew me another kiss as he left the room. I waited until he was gone to whisper, “I love you too, Miles.”
And it cost me my heart.
The Raine Stockton Dog Mystery Series
Books in Order
SMOKY MOUNTAIN TRACKS
A child has been kidnapped and abandoned in the mountain wilderness. Her only hope is Raine Stockton and her young, untried tracking dog Cisco...
RAPID FIRE
Raine and Cisco are brought in by the FBI to track a terrorist …a terrorist who just happens to be Raine’s old boyfriend.
GUN SHY
Raine rescues a traumatized service dog, and soon begins to suspect he is the only witness to a murder.
BONE YARD
Cisco digs up human remains in Raine’s back yard, and mayhem ensues. Could this be evidence of a serial killer, a long-unsolved mass murder, or something even more sinister… and closer to home?
SILENT NIGHT
It’s Christmastime in Hansonville, N.C., and Raine and Cisco are on the trail of a missing teenager. But when a newborn is abandoned in the manger of the town's living nativity and Raine walks in on what appears to be the scene of a murder, the holidays take a very dark turn for everyone concerned.
THE DEAD SEASON
Raine and Cisco take a job leading a wilderness hike for troubled teenagers, and soon find themselves trapped on a mountainside in a blizzard… with a killer.
ALL THAT GLITTERS: A Holiday Short Story e book
Raine looks back on how she and Cisco met and solved their first crime in this Christmas Cozy short story. Sold separately as an e-book or bundled with the print edition of HIGH IN TRIAL.
HIGH IN TRIAL
A carefree weekend turns deadly when Raine and Cisco travel to the South Carolina low country for an agility competition
DOUBLE DOG DARE
A luxury Caribbean vacation sounds like just the ticket for over-worked, over-stressed Raine Stockton and her happy go lucky canine companion Cisco. But even in paradise trouble finds them, and when someone she loves is threatened Raine must use every resource at her command to track down a killer before it’s too late.
HOME OF THE BRAVE
There’s a new dog in town, and Raine and Cisco find themselves unexpectedly upstaged by a flashy K-9 addition to the sheriff’s department. But when things go terribly wrong at a mountain camp for kids and dogs over the Fourth of July weekend, Raine and Cisco need all the help they can get to save themselves, and those they love.
Spine-chilling suspense by Donna Ball
SHATTERED
A missing child, a desperate call for help in the middle of the night… is this a cruel hoax, or the work of a maniacal serial killer who is poised to strike again?
NIGHT FLIGHT
She’s an innocent woman who knows too much. Now she’s fleeing through the night without a weapon and without a phone, and her only hope for survival is a cop who’s willing to risk his badge—and his life—to save her.
SANCTUARY
They came to the peaceful, untouched mountain wilderness of Eastern Tennessee seeking an escape from the madness of modern life. But when they built their luxury homes in the heart of virgin forest they did not realize that something was there before them… something ancient and horrible; something that will make them believe that monsters are real.
EXPOSURE
Everyone has secrets, but when talk show host Jessamine Cray’s stalker begins to use her past to terrorize her, no one is safe … not her family, her friends, her coworkers, and especially not Jess herself.
RENEGADE by Donna Boyd
Enter a world of dark mystery and intense passion, where human destiny is controlled by a species of powerful, exotic creatures. Once they ruled the Tundra, now they rule Wall Street. Once they fought with teeth and claws, now they fight with wealth and power. And only one man can stop them… if he dares.
Also by Donna Ball
The Ladybug Farm series by Donna Ball
For every woman who ever had a dream… or a friend
A Year on Ladybug Farm
At Home on Ladybug Farm
Love Letters from Ladybug Farm
Christmas on Ladybug Farm
Recipes from Ladybug Farm
Vintage Ladybug Farm
A Wedding on Ladybug Farm
The Hummingbird House
The Kincaids by Donna Ball and Shannon Harper
Raging Rivers
Katherine Carlyle and Byrd Kincaid, fugitives and reluctant heroes, begin a journey west and launch a dynasty that will forge a nation.
Prairie Thunder
Legendary trailblazer Boothe Carlyle leads a wagon train west, where young Kitty Kincaid will rediscover her heritage and finally earn the proud warrior name she was given at her Shawnee mother’s breast.
Westward Winds
Peril and promise await the children of Katherine and Byrd Kincaid in the high mountains and brutal plains of the American frontier they have worked so hard to tame.
Mountain Fury
The California Gold Rush brings turbulence and hope to the lives of the children of Byrd and Katherine Kincaid, and will forever alter the destiny of the wild land they love.
Romance Revisited by Donna Ball
MATCHMAKER, MATCHMAKER
He was a cowboy looking for a wife. She was a lady specializing in brides. They were made for each other... They just didn't know it yet.
A MAN AROUND THE HOUSE
He was the answer to a busy working woman's dreams. But was he too good to be true?
FOR KEEPS
He's an animal trainer who lives by one rule: never get attached. She's a social worker who knows all too well the price of getting involved. It may take an entire menagerie to bring them together, but eventually they both must learn that sometimes it's for keeps.
STEALING SAVANNAH
He was a reformed jewel thief now turned security expert and her job depended on his expertise. But could he be trusted not to steal the most valuable jewel of all-- her heart?
UNDER COVER
She's working on the biggest case of her life, and her cover has already been blown-- by the very man she's investigating. Now they must work together to solve an even bigger mystery-- their future together.
THE STORMRIDERS
They were thunder and lightning when they were married, and their divorce has been no less turbulent. But trapped together during a deadly blizzard with the lives of an entire community depending on them, they discover what's really important, and that some storms are worth riding out.
INTERLUDE
Sometimes a chance encounter is over in a moment, and sometimes it can last a lifetime.
CAST ADRIFT
She was a marine biologist on short deadline to find a very important dolphin, with no time to waste on romance. He was a sailor who knew there could only be one captain on his ship-- himself. But two weeks at sea together could change everything...
ABOUT THE AUTHOR….
Donna Ball is the author of over a hundred novels under several different pseudonyms in a variety of genres that include romance, mystery, suspense, paranormal, western adventure, historical and women’s fiction. Recent popular series include the Ladybug Farm series by Berkley Books and the Raine Stockton Dog Mystery series. Donna is an avid dog lover and her dogs have won numerous titles for agility, obedience and canine musical freestyle. She lives in a restored Victorian Barn in the heart of the Blue Ridge mountains with a variety of four-footed companions. You can contact her at http://www.donnaball.net.
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