Nadine descended the stairs in a wild leap. She managed to land with barely more than a stumble, and she continued her crazy run. She made it around the back of the house, then to the edge of the forest. There she realized her mistake. She’d forgotten to grab her shoes. And a glance toward the increasingly jagged terrain stopped her short. Her hesitation was just enough time to allow Anderson to catch up. His hands landed on her body, and, instead of fighting him as he forcibly scooped her from the ground, she let herself sink into him, then tipped her face up to meet his eyes.
“Hi,” she greeted breathlessly.
“Hi?” he said back. “That’s what you’re going with?”
“You wanted something more?”
“I let you beat me up. Don’t I deserve a reward?”
“You let me?”
“That’s my story if anyone asks.”
“Chauvinist.”
“Name-calling isn’t going to help you.”
“No? Well, how about this?”
She brought a hand to his cheek, tilted his head down and pressed her lips to his in a brief but passion-filled kiss. When she pulled back, his gaze somehow managed to be a third amused, a third unimpressed and a third desirous. Nadine couldn’t fight a laugh at the contradictory expressions.
He kissed her nose. “You do realize that you’re a serious pain in the—”
His words cut off abruptly as the sound of tires sloshing soggily over the dirt road carried through the air.
In spite of her verbal assurance that she wouldn’t panic again, a heavy, heart-squeezing, air-stealing feeling immediately took hold of Nadine’s chest. She was glad that Anderson retained control. He didn’t put her down right away. Instead, he tucked her even closer to his body, then carried her from their spot behind the house to a particularly thick patch of trees just on the inside edge of the forest.
“If I ask you to wait here for a second, are you going to kick me and take away my gun?” he asked in a low voice.
Nadine shook her head. “No.” Then she winced. “And I think I dropped your gun back by the house.”
Anderson dropped a curse. “On this side or on the other side.”
“This one.”
“All right. Sit tight.”
He finally set her down, planted a light kiss on her lips and then took off at a slow, silent run. Nadine waited with as much patience as she could muster, watching with her heart in her throat as Anderson reached a spot near the rear of the wood building, then paused and bent down. As he stood again, the telltale flash of silver in his hand let Nadine know he’d located the weapon. Some of the pressure in her lungs released. But when Anderson turned her way and started jogging toward her, it all came back, worse than before.
“What are you doing?” she asked as soon he was close enough to hear.
“Giving you this.” He held out the gun.
“You might need that.”
“You might need it more.”
“You said it was police issue.”
“It is.”
“Anderson.”
“I’ll be right back.” He kissed her again, then pressed the cool metal into her hands and loped off.
This time, Nadine didn’t watch him. She wasn’t sure she trusted herself to not bolt after him. So she pressed her back to one of the surrounding trees and counted to thirty in her head to make sure he was gone before she dared to open her eyes again. But when she did, the rain-filled air and empty space in front of her seemed nothing but ominous.
* * *
It took a significant chunk of Anderson’s willpower to keep from just running back to Nadine. He would’ve preferred to grab her tightly and pull her farther into the woods. Out of reaching distance from whatever trouble lay on the other side of the cabin.
But you don’t know what the trouble is, he reminded himself as he slunk along the log siding of the house. And that’s why you have to do it this way.
He just hoped that Nadine wasn’t going to give in to her stubborn need to stick by him at every turn. Not that he minded in most circumstances. In fact, he liked it. Loved it. Wanted it. When there was an undefined threat in play, though, he had a strong preference for keeping her at a safe distance.
So stay put, he ordered silently.
He reached the edge of the house then and paused. He could hear—just barely over the ever-thickening downpour—the indistinct rumble of voices. He knew he had to get closer.
Wiping the rain from his eyes so he could see better, he leaned forward and sought a way to get nearer to the front of the cabin without exposing himself. An option presented itself immediately. A woodshed sat just a few feet away. The squat worn-down structure was just the right size for a hiding place, and at just the right vantage point to give him a perfect view of whatever was happening in front of the cabin. The only problem would be getting there.
Not just getting there, he amended. Getting there unseen, unheard and undetected. He eyed the shed for another second, then mentally added another “un.” Unrealistic.
As he tried to come up with a solution, the voices grew louder, and he was sure that the men attached to them were approaching the front porch now. He could even catch the odd word.
“...think it’s a...”
“Dunno. That car is...”
“...false alarm...”
Anderson strained to listen. The sound of the storm beat away any chance at understanding. Cursing the weather, he closed his eyes and instead tried to picture where the men might be standing. If they were on the porch, their line of sight would be blocked by the hanging screen at the end. He could probably hazard a run toward the woodshed without too much concern. If they stood below the porch’s steps, though, even a few steps out would expose him completely. He still had to find a way to do it. Not knowing who’d followed them—and not knowing how they’d done it—wasn’t an option he wanted to take.
After another moment of considering it, Anderson dropped low. Right to the ground. Mud immediately soaked through his clothes, but he made himself ignore the discomfort as he shimmied closer. Though he still had his mental sights set on the woodshed, he quickly realized that he might not need to head that way, after all. The two men were on the porch, and his wriggling had brought him to a position just below that. He couldn’t see them, but he could suddenly hear every word perfectly.
“We’ve knocked twice. Still no answer,” said the first man, his voice a thick rumble.
“You really think that means no one’s home?” replied the second, his tone skeptical.
“I dunno,” said Rumbly Voice. “I’m kinda starting to think this whole thing is a wild-goose chase.”
“The fire was real,” pointed out The Skeptic.
“Yeah, I know. But I don’t believe for a second that the Stuart woman set it.”
“Even though she ran when we went by her apartment?”
The last question was enough to clue Anderson in to the identity of the two men. They were the police officers who’d given them chase at Nadine’s apartment. Their presence at the cabin sent Anderson’s head into a bad space—there was no way they’d been followed directly, so how had they tracked them down? Gritting his teeth, he shook off the unease and tried to pick up a clue from the men’s continued argument.
“Who knows if she even saw us?” Rumbly Voice was saying right then.
Anderson wanted to heave a sigh of relief, but he refrained—especially when The Skeptic voiced yet another doubt.
“What other reason would she have for running?” the man asked.
“Just about anything, I’d say. Late for an appointment. Late for a reservation. Eager to get somewhere with her man friend.”
“Man friend?”
“Boyfriend. Male companion. Whatever.”
“Did we find anything else about him, by the way?”
“Blake Smith,” said Rumbly Voice. “Visiting from Freemont City. No priors. Not even a speeding ticket.”
“One more knock?” suggested The Skeptic.
There was a pause in the conversation, and the sound of a fist hitting the door firmly echoed noisily over the rain. Silence hung in the air for a few seconds longer before Rumbly Voice broke it once more.
“Face it,” he said. “No one’s here.”
“The car?” replied The Skeptic.
“Yeah, we knew how to find it, though, right? Convenience of a rental company paranoid enough to install a GPS tracking system. But there’s no sign of the girl or her friend, and the car’s rented to the same name that’s attached to the current lease, so it makes perfect sense for the vehicle to be here.”
“So you’re willing to just dismiss the whole thing?”
“Not to dismiss it. Just to take a step back and consider whether or not the tips might be a hoax.”
“For what purpose?” The Skeptic wondered aloud.
Rumbly Voice’s reply dropped to an even lower timbre. “The woman was in an accident that killed a cop. Maybe someone didn’t like it. Maybe someone thought we wouldn’t like it, either.”
In spite of the permeating moisture, Anderson felt his throat grow dry. He was unreasonably glad that Nadine wasn’t anywhere near enough to hear what the policeman had just said.
“Not to speak ill of the dead,” Rumbly Voice added, “but I never much cared for Officer Delta myself. Always kinda rubbed me the wrong way. But that doesn’t mean he didn’t have friends.”
“Friends who’re willing to break the law on his behalf?” The Skeptic asked.
“He didn’t give you that vibe?”
“Yeah.” The admission was grudging. “Maybe.”
“Just think about it. Someone sees a guy in a mask at the care center. We didn’t have a reason to be focusing on Ms. Stuart at the time. But it happened on her floor. So let’s just say that was someone wanting to scare her. They failed because she’d been discharged.”
Anderson relaxed as the man rehashed the details and shared his opinions with his partner. His conclusions were similar to the ones he would’ve made himself if he’d been investigating. It was reassuring, too, to know that—unlike Chuck Delta, who’d been working for Garibaldi when he was killed—these two officers were clean.
And The Skeptic seemed to be wavering, too. “Maybe you’re right. I know it’s not a forgone conclusion that a schoolteacher isn’t capable of committing a crime, but from what I’ve seen, it does sound like a leap in this case.”
“Exactly,” agreed the other man. “And she’ll turn up eventually. If she truly set the fire for financial gain, then she’ll come after the money. If she had nothing to do with it, she’ll just carry on as usual. Either way, I think we should tell the boss that the tips might be phony.”
Seeming satisfied—at least temporarily—the two officers traipsed back down the stairs, their voices fading into the storm as they got farther away. Anderson continued to press himself to the ground until he heard their engine fire up. When he was sure they’d driven down the driveway and were out of viewing distance, he pushed to his feet and made his way back to Nadine.
The second she spotted him, her face filled with relief. “They’re gone? I heard the car, but why did they take off so quickly?” Then her eyes traveled the length of his body, and she frowned. “And why are you covered in mud?”
He glanced down. Sure enough, his torso and legs were caked with it. “I guess I decided to take getting my hands dirty to the next level.”
“That might be an understatement.”
“Come on.” He extended his hand. “I’ll explain what I heard while I get cleaned up. Then we can talk about how we’re going to get back into town without getting noticed.”
“We?” she said. “As in, you’re taking me with you to Garibaldi’s underground storage room?”
“Sure as hell can’t leave you here now,” he grumbled as she threaded her fingers through his.
He led her to the front of the cabin, summarizing the conclusion made by the other cops and telling her that he concurred. He didn’t know if whoever had tipped off the police about the rental car was also going to use it to follow them, but he wasn’t willing to take the chance either way. They needed to leave the cabin with reasonable quickness.
Inside, he hurriedly stripped down, trading in his own muddy clothes for a pair of jeans and a button-up shirt that Brayden had left behind. It wasn’t until he was almost fully dressed that he realized how quiet Nadine had gone.
“Hey,” he said, moving closer so he could cup her cheek with his hand. “That part was supposed to be the good news. The local cops don’t think you’re responsible for the fire, and they’re not in on whatever Garibaldi’s got going on.”
“No,” she replied. “I know.”
He dropped his hands back to his buttons, doing them up but keeping his eyes on Nadine. “So why the face?”
“Just thinking.”
He could tell that she was holding something back, but decided not to push it. “It kind of looks like it hurts.”
Her mouth tipped up. “Was that a dig? Are you doubting my intelligence?”
“Never. I’m more concerned about your pretty little face.”
“Is that right?”
“Seriously. You’ve got a wrinkle in your forehead that’s about an inch deep.”
“Ha-ha.”
He smiled. “Tell me what you were thinking about.”
“You said we need a way out of here without the car?” she asked.
“That’s right. Don’t want to risk getting tracked again.”
“Well, I’ve got an idea. But I’m not sure how reasonable it is.”
“I guess we won’t know until we try.”
“Okay, then. Grab your boots and follow me.”
And after allowing himself a single, indulgent moment of admiring her as she turned and strode toward the door, Anderson grabbed his coat and hurried to catch up.
Chapter 18
Nadine’s body was humming with an urgent need to act. To be on the move. To take control of whatever was coming next.
She didn’t know which thing, specifically, had triggered the intense need. Maybe it was the brief, intense anxiety she’d experienced when Anderson had disappeared from sight. Or maybe it was the realization that until Garibaldi was stopped, he would be the one in control of her life. Though she supposed it could also be a combination of the two things. An awareness that so long as the situation remained unresolved, the control also extended to keeping them apart.
And the thought of that was something she couldn’t stand.
She walked even faster, striding from the cabin’s porch to the muddy ground, then crossing down to the clearing that held the other, smaller cabins. She knew Anderson was beside her. She could feel him keeping pace. Everything else seemed secondary.
When she came to a stop just in front of her destination—a dilapidated shed behind one of the smaller cabins—Anderson lifted his jacket up over their heads and stepped close enough that it shielded both of them from the thumping rain.
“This is it?” he asked, his voice barely carrying over the storm.
“I hope so,” she replied, reaching for the handle on the shed’s door.
Her hand found its mark, but a jab of something sharp in her palm made her pull it back with a cry. A glance down showed her the source of the sudden pain. A long splinter stuck out from the soft padding of her palm. Anderson’s hand dropped down from its position above them to gently pluck away the offending piece of wood. Before he got the jacket back in place, the rain sneaked in sideways, and Nadine watched as it washed away a little bead of blood as quickly as it formed.
“You okay?” Anderson asked.
&nbs
p; “Fine,” she replied, dragging her attention back to the door.
“You know that I don’t just mean the splinter, right?”
Nadine lifted her eyes to meet his, and she could see unguarded worry in his gaze.
“That was a pretty intense little walk,” he added.
“It’s pouring.”
“I don’t think you even realized it was raining.”
“You know that you’re not supposed to be reading my mind, right?”
“Wouldn’t if I could. I only want to know what’s going on in your head if you want me to know. But I’m a willing listener.”
She started to deny that anything was going on under the surface, but when she opened her mouth, the truth came out instead. “I was just considering how easy it is to wreck someone’s life from the inside out.”
“Garibaldi.”
“Yes. If he’d succeeded in killing me—”
“I won’t let that happen.”
“But if he did—”
“Nadine.”
“Just listen for a second, okay?”
“Fine.”
“If he’d killed me back at the care center, I’d have been out of the way. Whatever he thinks I know about the stuff on the USB stick would’ve been gone. Erased with me. But then you came into the picture. And you would’ve still been alive, and maybe you’d know what I know, so he’d have to kill you, too. And where does that end?”
Anderson looked like he was trying to force himself to keep from clenching his teeth together, and his words were strained with the apparent effort. “Where are you going with this?”
She took a shaky breath. “Garibaldi could kill everyone who knows something—even everyone who he thinks knows something. Except every ‘accidental’ death would make it harder for him to keep hiding. But he’s not stupid. So he’s choosing a more subtle route—planting evidence, creating doubt—and that takes the focus off him completely. I mean, he did it with my brother. Framed him for the Main Street bomb.”
“But Tyler was never convicted of the crime,” Anderson pointed out.
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