Well, now she will know what it’s like to be small and helpless and afraid. So very afraid.
Crimson blood stains the pure white snow. Life spills from warm to frozen. Don’t look. The pain is gone.
Lynne swerved into the icy parking lot and slid to a halt. Then, switching off the engine, she jumped out of her truck and stormed toward the clutch of people standing in front of her clinic.
When Shane, her on-duty intern, called at the crack of dawn, Lynne hadn’t been happy. She’d spent most of the night tossing and turning. Not because of what she’d discovered about Nash. He was a horse’s patootie she was happy to have out of her life. No, she’d tossed and turned because she was worried about Kir.
He might have matured into a successful businessman, but beneath his polished exterior she didn’t doubt he was still the impulsive, adrenaline-junkie kid she’d known years ago. And while Pike wasn’t a hotbed of crime, anyone involved in the drug trade could be violent. Not to mention the fact there was a potential serial killer lurking in the dark. The thought of Kir charging into danger twisted her stomach in knots of fear.
So having her phone interrupt her sleep just a couple hours after she’d managed to doze off hadn’t done anything for her mood. And then for Shane to tell her that the local television station was filming directly in front of her clinic . . .
Her bad mood had plummeted from annoyed to furious.
Crossing the slippery parking lot, Lynne took in the sight of the large white van with KTRV painted on the side, then to the cameraman who was surrounded by several people. She didn’t know if they worked for the station, or if they were just gawkers who’d happened to be passing by, and she didn’t care. Her attention locked on Parker Bowen.
The handsome reporter was wearing an expensive trench coat and cashmere scarf tied around his neck with a microphone in his hand as he spoke directly into the camera.
“The victims have been identified as sixty-year-old Sherry Higgins and thirty-six-year-old Randi Decker, both lifelong residents of Pike. According to law enforcement sources the two women were both sedated with Telazol before they were kidnapped, their throats slit, and their naked bodies dumped in isolated locations. Telazol is a tranquilizer most commonly used by veterinarians and not readily available to the public. The sheriff suspects that the drug was obtained from this clinic—”
Lynne’s fury was laced with horrified disbelief as she hurried to stand directly in front of Parker. “Stop right there.”
There was the sound of startled gasps from the onlookers. Dammit. She hadn’t meant to make a dramatic entrance, but she wasn’t going to let anyone link her clinic to a crazed killer.
Parker, however, was a trained professional and his expression never changed as he smoothly stepped to one side, so they were both in the camera shot, and offered her a smile. “And here is the owner of the clinic, Dr. Gale. Can I ask you a few questions?”
Lynne narrowed her eyes. “Get off my property.”
Parker’s smile never faded, but he waved a hand toward the cameraman. “Give us five.”
Lynne didn’t care whether the camera was turned off or not before she attacked. “How dare you imply that I supplied drugs to some maniac?”
Parker looked genuinely shocked. “Don’t be silly. I promise that no one in Pike would ever believe you were selling drugs. But there’s already talk about the sheriff investigating the clinic. Wouldn’t you rather go on the record and clarify why she was here?”
A nasty sensation crawled through Lynne. She hated the realization that her friends and neighbors would be speculating whether the drugs that had been in those poor women had come from her clinic. It felt like it tainted all she’d worked to achieve.
Damn Nash Cordon. And damn the sheriff for ensuring everyone in town knew she’d been there investigating.
“No. I would prefer you leave any mention of my clinic out of your report,” she snapped.
“I’m sorry, Lynne, but you know I can’t do that. It’s news.”
She clenched her hands at her side. She wanted to argue, but what could she say? She couldn’t deny that there was a possibility that the drugs had come from the clinic. Especially after discovering Nash had stolen them. And Parker was right. The murder of two women was the biggest news to hit Pike since the eighteen hundreds when there’d been a fire in the wool mill and ten people had died.
“The second body was Randi Decker?” she abruptly demanded.
“Yes. Did you know her?”
Lynne shook her head. “I think she went to Pike High School but she was older than me.”
“I haven’t been able to locate anyone who will admit that they were more than distant acquaintances with the woman. And her husband isn’t talking.”
“Do you blame him? His wife was just found murdered.” She sent him a chiding frown. “The last thing he would want to do is have his grief splattered across the television.”
“That’s my point,” Parker insisted. “You would think he would want the killer caught before he strikes again. The more information we can provide to our viewers, the more likely we can stop the madman.”
“So you’re performing a public service?”
“That’s precisely what I’m doing.” Parker glanced toward the onlookers craning their necks for a better view. No doubt they were hoping to see the two of them in a heated argument. “Or at least that’s what I’m trying to do. I’m discovering the good citizens of this town aren’t the easiest people to interview.”
“We value our privacy.”
He turned back to study her with a faint frown. “I’m not the bad guy here, Lynne.”
She arched a brow, but she didn’t respond. Maybe he wasn’t the bad guy, but he wasn’t standing in the freezing cold to make the world a better place. It was all about ratings.
“Randi was killed the same way as Sherry?”
“Her throat was slit. And the sheriff’s department is trying to keep it hush-hush, but I have it from an inside source that she had a red ribbon tied around her neck, like Sherry Higgins.”
“Was she . . . ?” Lynne’s words faltered.
He easily read her mind. “Sexually assaulted?”
“Yes.”
He turned so his back was to the crowd and made sure that the microphone was turned off before he spoke in low tones. “She was abused with an object. That’s all the information I could get.”
Lynne shuddered. “So awful.”
“It is,” Parker murmured, then he leaned forward to whisper in her ear. “How did your tranquilizers end up in their systems, Lynne?”
She leaned back, glaring at him in annoyance. Did he think he was going to catch her off guard? She dealt with patients who regularly tried to bite, gore, stomp, and pee on her. Besides, there was no way to be certain that the drugs had come from her clinic. Unless Parker knew something she didn’t? Before she could ask, however, there was the crunch of boots on the snow and a male voice cut through the tense air.
“Is there a problem here?”
Kir.
An unexplainable relief flooded through Lynne. It wasn’t that she needed a man to fight her battles. She’d been taking care of herself for years. Ever since her mother had walked away and her father had struggled to keep up with his thriving business while raising a young child. But she couldn’t deny that there was something nice in the sensation she wasn’t fighting this particular battle alone.
Parker wasn’t nearly so pleased. He frowned as Kir halted next to her. “You again?” His gaze traveled over Kir’s expensive leather jacket and then toward the SUV that cost more than most homes in Pike. His lips flattened. “I didn’t realize the two of you were so close.”
Without warning, Kir draped an arm around Lynne’s shoulders. “Is there a reason you should be informed?”
“I consider Lynne a friend.”
“Really?” Kir deliberately glanced toward the cameraman, who was stomping his feet to combat the cold.
Parker shrugged. “I’m just doing my job.”
Kir leaned forward, his expression hard. “Maybe you should do it somewhere else.”
Parker flashed a smug smile before turning to Lynne. “Call me if you change your mind about the interview.”
“I won’t,” Lynne said, but Parker was already walking away.
“I don’t like him.” Kir watched Parker motion for his cameraman to pack up his equipment and climb into the waiting van with narrowed eyes.
“You don’t even know him,” Lynne protested, pulling away from Kir’s arm. The desire to remained tucked against him was oddly tempting.
Too tempting.
Kir waited for the van to drive away before he glanced down at her. “He’s not from Pike?”
“No, he moved here a little over a year ago.”
“Where was he before that?”
“I have no idea.” Lynne shrugged. “He might have said something about his former career when he took over the anchor position, but I didn’t pay any attention. Honestly, I’m usually too busy to catch the evening news.”
Kir was silent for a minute, then, with a shake of his head, he seemed to put Parker Bowen from his mind. “Are you working today?”
“Only if I get called on an emergency. Why?”
“I have something I need to do,” he told her. “I could use some company.”
Chapter 10
Kir followed behind Lynne as she parked in front of her house. A minute later she was climbing into his SUV and pulling the seat belt into place.
The faintly floral scent that he was beginning to associate with Lynne laced the air, teasing at his senses with an enticing promise. He wanted to lean across the console and press his face against her skin and simply absorb her scent. He battled back the urge with a wry smile. He might be increasingly convinced there was something special happening between the two of them, but that didn’t mean Lynne felt the same.
He drove out of town, allowing a silence to settle between them. Lynne was still flushed with anger, as if she was fantasizing about the numerous ways she’d like to torture Parker Bowen for plastering her clinic across the morning news. Probably along with whoever was responsible for tipping off the newsman that the sheriff had been there to investigate the missing drugs.
It offered him the opportunity to concentrate on the narrow road that was packed with snow along with a crunchy layer of ice. The local road crews were too busy trying to clear the main streets to do more than pass through these country lanes once or twice a month.
Kir turned onto a private drive that was completely snow-packed before he came to a halt and switched off the engine.
With a blink, Lynne leaned forward to glance out the front windshield. “I don’t think I’ve ever been out here.”
Kir allowed his gaze to roam over the rolling hills that surrounded a small frozen lake. At this time of year there was nothing much to see beyond the barren trees that poked through the thick layer of snow.
“This was the Jansen homeplace,” he told her. “According to my grandfather some distant ancestor traveled here from Norway in the seventeen hundreds after he decided he wanted to be a farmer instead of following the family tradition of becoming a cobbler.”
“A cobbler?” She sent him a wry glance. “Really?”
“Swear to God.” He pointed toward the top of the nearest hill. “When I was young there was a huge three-story house on the ridge there.” He moved his arm until he was pointing toward the flat pasture that had once been filled with a large herd of dairy cows. “Over there were two barns and a paddock.”
“What happened to them?”
“My dad was an only child and he had no interest in being a dairy farmer.” Kir heaved a faint sigh of regret. He had a lot of happy childhood memories here. “It all just decayed and eventually collapsed after my grandparents died. A sad waste.”
She reached to lay her hand on his arm. “This isn’t the only farm that’s been abandoned,” she assured him. “The rural Midwest is evolving, and it isn’t always easy for us to adapt.”
He turned to study her sympathetic expression. “The Darwin theory?”
“The species that survives is the one that is able to adapt, or something like that,” she said. “I suppose this place belongs to you now?”
He glanced back at the snow-covered hills. It hurt deep inside to think that everyone who’d loved and devoted themselves to this place was gone. “I guess I do, but don’t ask me what I’m going to do with the property because I haven’t decided. My brain tells me to sell it. It’s a prime piece of property that’s being neglected. My heart tells me it’s my duty to hang on to it. This is my heritage.”
“You don’t have to make a decision now. This place isn’t going anywhere.”
“True.”
She gave his arm a gentle squeeze before returning her attention to their isolated surroundings. “Is there a reason you wanted to come out here today?”
“My father never wanted to be a dairy farmer, much to the disappointment of my grandfather, but he did love to spend his afternoons fishing at that lake. He called it his little slice of heaven.” Kir reached to grab the battered hat he’d placed on the dashboard and opened his door. “The funeral doesn’t seem real. It was just a box going into the ground,” he told Lynne. “This is where I want to say my good-bye.”
She nodded, opening her own door and climbing out of the SUV. Together they battled their way through the snow to reach the edge of the frozen lake.
Kir felt his chest tighten, unexpected tears filling his eyes as he bent down to gently lay the hat on a wooden post that was all that remained from the old dock. At the funeral he’d been too numb with shock to accept that his dad was gone. Really and truly gone. Now the grief hit him with a punishing ferocity.
He didn’t know how much time passed, but he sensed it was several minutes before Lynne broke the silence.
“Did you like to fish with your dad?”
He latched onto her soft voice, gratefully allowing it to pull him out of a dark pit where he’d descended. “I never had the patience,” he said. “Ten minutes after we got here, I would be climbing a tree or digging holes in the ground. Or more likely, falling over my own feet and ending up in the water. My dad claimed I was a magnet for disaster, and he wasn’t wrong.”
“You were always . . .” She allowed her words to trail away as she shoved her hands into the pockets of her coat.
“Restless,” he supplied. He could still feel the energy that hummed just beneath his skin. “The world always felt like it was spinning too slow for me. And after my father was injured . . .” He shook his head as he recalled his inexhaustible need for distraction. “I went from restless to reckless.”
“And now?”
He studied her upturned face, abruptly realizing that when this woman was near, the relentless agitation disappeared. As if she managed to soothe the beast inside him. “I finally learned to focus my energies on building a successful career.” He allowed his gaze to drift down to her full lips. “But I’m not sure that’s enough.”
Her cheeks were already reddened by the cold, but he suspected she was blushing.
“You’ll soon be back in Boston and settled in your life again,” she insisted.
“Do you think?”
Their gazes locked, an unspoken heat smoldering between them. Hot enough to make him impervious to the sharp cold. Then Lynne sharply turned away, studying the rolling hills.
“Did your mother ever come out here?”
Kir shook his head. “Not often. She would sometimes bring me here for a picnic, but she didn’t really like being in the country. She was born and raised in L.A.” He waved his hand toward the empty landscape. “This place was foreign terrain to her.”
“How did your parents meet?”
“My father went to college in California,” Kir said. He’d never been able to imagine his father anyplace but Pike. This area was imprinted in his DNA. But Rudolf
had obviously felt the same reckless need for adventure as Kir, at least once in his life. “It was one of the top schools for criminal justice in the country, and he wanted to experience the world beyond Wisconsin. My mom was there getting her degree in nursing.” A wistful smile touched his lips. “She said it was love at first sight, but I’m not sure she truly understood how hard it would be for her to leave her family and move to a small town in the middle of nowhere. Still, they seemed happy until my father was injured.”
“Do you stay in contact with her?”
Kir shrugged. “We talk on the phone and usually get together during the holidays for a day or two, but it’s awkward.”
“Because she left?”
Kir paused. He never discussed his mother. Their relationship was complicated. But Lynne was perhaps one of the few people who could understand his convoluted emotions. “Because she feels guilty for walking away and starting a new family. And I resented her for walking away and starting a new family,” he admitted. “Or at least I did when I was younger.”
As he’d hoped, there was no judgment in Lynne’s eyes, just curiosity. “Why did you stay in Pike?”
“I was just fourteen and I thought I could save my dad.” A familiar ache clenched Kir’s heart. There was nothing more depressing than watching someone you love slowly destroy themselves. “I was wrong. By the time I turned eighteen, I figured out that he was never going to put down the bottle, so I walked away. Just like my mother. Ironic, really.”
“You did what you had to do.”
The simple words captured exactly what Kir had known at the center of his soul. He either got out, or he became infected by his father’s sickness.
Kir sucked in a deep breath, savoring the crisp, clean air. It seemed to cleanse away the darkness of the past. “What about you?” he demanded. “Do you have any contact with your mother?”
Don't Look Page 10