Operation Reunion

by Justine Davis

  Kayla’s eyes snapped open. It didn’t seem like Hayley to rub it in.

  “Exactly,” Quinn agreed, looking at the detective. “He’s the one who walked away—she didn’t leave him—so why would he turn around and try to kill her?”

  “Maybe he’s angry over why he had to walk away,” Dunbar said. Kayla thought she heard doubt in his voice, as if he’d wondered that himself. Then again, maybe it was wishful thinking.

  “When Dane gets angry, which isn’t often, he goes out and rides his bike twenty miles,” Kayla said. “If he’s really mad, he does half of it uphill. That’s how he deals with anger. Not blowing things up or...”

  Her voice trailed off. The very idea of Dane trying to kill anyone, let alone her, was beyond absurd, too absurd to deserve being put into words.

  The detective’s cell phone rang. Kayla supposed the no phone rule in emergency rooms didn’t apply to police. He walked a few feet away and answered quietly.

  Moments later he was back. His gaze was fastened on Quinn.

  “You’re that Foxworth? The one who helped take down that cop-killer over in Seattle?”

  “We played a small part, yes,” Quinn said.

  “Word I got was it was more than a small part. He shot you.”

  Kayla’s eyes widened, and she saw Hayley’s gaze snap to Quinn.

  “Not well,” Quinn answered dryly. “He left me standing.”

  “So that scar’s from some ‘stupid accident’?” Hayley said, her voice tight.

  A glance at the woman’s face confirmed this information was news to Hayley, too. Hayley’s expression told Kayla there would be a discussion about this later. She didn’t envy Quinn; the woman did not look pleased.

  “It was stupid. But the bullet ended up being the final nail in his incarceration coffin,” Quinn added.

  The detective smiled then. Which made his next words as he turned back to her even more ominous.

  “Burdette’s in custody.”

  Chapter 19

  “He wouldn’t. He didn’t,” Kayla said fiercely, staring at Quinn and Hayley as if she could will them to believe.

  “You must feel like you’ve spent half your life saying that,” Hayley said, reaching out to take Kayla’s hand.

  “But with Chad it’s just faith. With Dane it’s rock-solid fact. He simply would never do such a thing. To anyone.”

  Quinn studied her silently. Detective Dunbar had left them, with an admonition to Kayla that he’d want to speak to her again later. It wasn’t quite “Don’t leave town,” but it was close enough.

  And now, she thought, he was off to grill Dane. Already assuming he was guilty, just as the police then had assumed Chad was guilty. History repeating itself. She stifled a moan, barely.

  “We’ll get it straightened out,” Quinn promised.

  “You believe me? That he wouldn’t do this?” Kayla pleaded.

  “He doesn’t seem the type,” Quinn said. “Not a sneak attack like this.”

  Kayla felt a little less pressure in her chest. “He’s not. At all.”

  “Who is?”

  “What?”

  “Who would be the type? If it’s not Dane, it’s somebody else. Who?”

  Kayla blinked. “I have no idea.” Her earlier thought ran through her mind, that she’d been so focused on proving Chad hadn’t killed their parents that she hadn’t thought enough about who had. Now she was looking at that same kind of question again, with the intended victim clearly she herself.

  Belatedly, something about his question occurred to her.

  “Wait, you think this is someone I know?”

  “It’s someone who obviously knows you. Or at least enough about you and your home to place that bomb in the most likely place. So it’s a possibility.”

  That made it all even worse.

  Kayla shook her head, wishing she could think more clearly. This time, at least, the room didn’t spin.

  “So now you think this isn’t connected to my parents’ murders?”

  “I think it’s far too early to take any options off the table,” Quinn said.

  “I wish the police had thought that way ten years ago,” Kayla said, not caring about the bitter note that had come into her voice.

  “I think,” Quinn said, “you might find Detective Dunbar a different type.”

  “Type?”

  “He’s ex-LAPD. I get the feeling he takes things a bit personally. It may be why he left. That kind of cop takes a real beating in places with frequent serious crimes.”

  “Personally?” Hayley asked.

  Quinn nodded. “The kind who takes the work home with him. Good for victims, not so good on the cop.”

  “He didn’t seem to be on my side,” Kayla said.

  Quinn smiled. “Don’t mistake me. He’s still a good, thorough cop, I think. What he did here was pretty standard. He has to ask those questions, look for holes in your story. It’s his job.”

  “What kind of holes?”

  Quinn shrugged. “They have to consider all the possibilities. Insurance on the house, for instance.”

  With her fuzzy head, it took her a moment to get there. “You mean...I might have done this myself to get the insurance money?”

  “It’s been done. And you were safely out of the room.”

  “She needed stitches and oxygen. Your interpretation of the word ‘safely’ and mine obviously don’t match,” Hayley said, and there was such a “We’re going to talk about this later” tone in her voice that Kayla nearly smiled despite her turmoil. Quinn had some explaining to do about that getting shot business, obviously.

  “I love...loved my house. I would never—”

  She broke off. It all seemed like too much; she wanted nothing more than to lie down and sleep for a week. Tears brimmed and she dashed them away angrily. She would not be one of those weepy women who fell apart. She’d done that once, gone completely to pieces, and while Chad’s fate was apparently being sealed she’d done little to head it off. She’d only made it through at all because of Dane’s unwavering support.

  And now he was in trouble.

  With an effort she sat up.

  “I want out of here.”

  “Whoa,” Hayley said. “Take it easy.”

  “I’ve been x-rayed and hooked up to machines for hours. I’m fine, and I want out of here.” She yanked the oxygen tube over her head and pulled the clip-like monitor off her finger.

  “You’re fine now,” Quinn said. “Smoke inhalation can be tricky. Sometimes you seem fine at first, but a day later your lungs—”

  “I’ll deal with that a day later then,” she said.

  Quinn grimaced slightly, then said, “I’ll find the doctor.”

  After he’d gone, Kayla looked at Hayley. “I have to help Dane. He didn’t do this.”

  “I know.”

  For a moment Kayla just looked at her. Was she merely placating her? Trying to keep her calm?

  “He wouldn’t do this. He felt he had to make a choice and he did, but he would never try to hurt you.”

  Just hearing those words from someone else was a salve to Kayla’s battered emotions. Tears escaped this time, and before she could wipe them away Hayley was handing her a tissue.

  “We’ll help him,” Hayley assured her. “Whether this is connected to Chad or not.”

  After a study of the improving trend of her oxygen saturation levels since she’d been here and securing a promise she would return for a follow-up comparison chest X-ray, and after Hayley had assured her Kayla wouldn’t be left alone for the next couple of days, the doctor agreed to release her.

  “The coughing resumes, or she starts sounding more hoarse, I want her back here.”

  “If I have to carry her,” Quinn said, and Kayla wasn’t quite sure if that was a promise or a threat.

  “I want to see Dane. Even if he doesn’t want to see me.”

  “He’s still being questioned, I’m sure,” Quinn said. “For now let’s get you cleaned
up and some clothes that don’t smell of smoke.”

  “Clothes,” Kayla said, almost numbly. “I probably don’t have any, do I?”

  “We’ll deal with all that,” Hayley said as they got into Quinn’s SUV.

  Kayla paused before sliding into the backseat. “My car.”

  It wasn’t a question, but Quinn answered as if it had been. “The garage looked fine from what I could see. The fire fighters did a good job keeping it from spreading. The fire itself was confined mostly to the bedroom. The rest of the house seemed okay, except for smoke damage. Definitely reparable.”

  She didn’t answer, although she appreciated the information. It was too much to think about just now.

  “If you ever wanted a bigger bedroom, now’s your chance,” Quinn said.

  “Is that your version of looking on the bright side?” Hayley asked.

  “My version of the bright side is that she’s not dead,” Quinn said.

  A moment passed before Hayley said, “Point taken,” with a smile.

  They were, Kayla realized, talking to each other so she wouldn’t feel pressured to join in. And not for the first time tonight—well, it was nearly morning now—she was thankful for this remarkable couple who had come into her life.

  Or been dragged into it, she thought, remembering the determined dog who had brought all this about.

  Hayley turned in her seat to look at Kayla. “I’m a bit taller than you, but we’re close enough in size I think we can find you something to wear. Then you need to get some sleep.”

  “But—”

  “I’ll check on Dane’s status,” Quinn said, correctly interpreting her protest.

  It occurred to her finally to wonder where they were going. Had the smoke affected her brain, her thought process? The doctor had said it could but that she didn’t think she’d breathed enough to do damage, and surely if that were the case she wouldn’t have released her. She must just be tired. She had, after all, been up all night.

  “Where are we going?” she asked.

  “You’re coming home with us,” Hayley said.

  That sounded surprisingly comforting. The only pang it gave her was the realization that if things were as they should be, it would be Dane taking care of her and they’d be headed to his apartment.

  What turned out, oddly, to be most comforting about it all was the greeting she got when they arrived at the house tucked into the trees. She heard the bark first, looked up and in the growing light of dawn saw Cutter racing toward them. The moment she opened the car door, the dog was there, bypassing his own people, as if he could see they were fine but he wasn’t so sure about her. He nudged her with his inquisitive nose and licked at her hands and then her face when she bent to greet him.

  “Hello, Cutter,” she said formally. “I guess I have you to thank for sending the cavalry.”

  The dog whined, his tail wagging madly. As if satisfied now she was truly all right, he danced over to greet Hayley, who had exited the car also. The dog then looked into the vehicle at Quinn.

  “I’ll go do another round with Detective Dunbar,” he said, and Kayla had the oddest feeling he was explaining to the dog as much as anyone.

  Somehow, it wouldn’t surprise her.

  Chapter 20

  Dane paced the small, windowless interview room. Two and a half strides one way, three the other. Definitely small.

  He’d been here for hours now, and every minute of it had been spent worrying about Kayla more than himself. He’d managed to find out she was alive, but they would not tell him her condition. She might yet die, as far as he knew. It was killing him not to be able to go to her, and he tried to focus on something else.

  A firebomb.

  It seemed too bizarre, too impossible to be real. Who the hell would toss an incendiary device into Kayla’s house? Why? She’d never done anything to hurt anyone—only tried to help people who were dealing with a grief she knew all too much about.

  His logical mind warned him against making assumptions based on too little information, but he couldn’t help thinking this somehow had to be connected to her parents’ murders. And maybe that was logical; what were the odds that an average citizen would twice in their lives be a direct casualty of violent crime?

  But after ten years?

  His mind tried to spiral toward grim images of a smoking, burning ruin of what had been Kayla’s—and his—home once more, and he yanked it back.

  The door opened. The same detective who had questioned him before stepped in. Dunbar. In another life, he might have liked the guy, Dane thought. He kind of reminded him of his father—not now, he wasn’t old enough, but back when his father had been the same age, mid-thirties, maybe forty.

  “Did you see Kayla?” he asked as the man shut the door behind him; he’d heard him tell one of the officers he was heading to the hospital when he’d left a couple of hours ago.

  The man didn’t answer. He crossed the room and tossed a folder on the small table in the center of the room.

  “Sit down.”

  “Did you see her? Is she all right? Tell me, damn it, and I’ll sit all you want.”

  Dunbar studied him for a moment. “You’re not in the strongest bargaining position here.”

  “I want one simple answer to one simple question. You want answers to many. Sounds like you’d be getting the best of the deal.”

  Dane thought he saw the man’s mouth twitch at one corner. “Can’t say I don’t admire your logic,” he said. Then, coldly, “You should be thankful she’s alive. Murder by arson is a death penalty special circumstance.”

  “Yeah, I heard,” Dane said. The officer now standing outside the door had almost gleefully pointed that out.

  “That’ll land you in Walla Walla waiting for the needle or the noose.” He’d said it as if it were the chorus of a song, Dane had thought. Not that it mattered. He wouldn’t care, not if Kayla was dead.

  But she wasn’t. He clung to that.

  “Sit down,” Dunbar said, “and I promise you before I leave, you’ll have your answer.”

  “Is this your carrot on a stick approach? Forget it. I want to know how Kayla is. Now.”

  “You don’t trust me?”

  Dane had to think about that one. “I was raised to trust the police,” he finally said. “To believe you’re the good guys. And I do. If it was anything else, if it was anyone but Kayla, I’d be in that chair telling you whatever you want to know.”

  “But you broke up with her.”

  “You don’t turn off a decade of loving somebody overnight.”

  Something flickered in the detective’s eyes, something dark and shadowy. As if a vision from a nightmare of his own had just shot through his mind.

  “No,” he agreed softly, “you don’t.”

  “Please,” Dane said, just as softly, “just tell me if she’s all right.”

  Dunbar studied him for a long, silent moment. And at last, as if he’d reached some sort of inner conclusion, he spoke.

  “She’s all right. Minor smoke inhalation, a couple of stitches was the worst of it.”

  A wave of relief swamped Dane. He sat, not in response to the answer and the agreement so much as because he wasn’t sure he could keep standing.

  Kayla was all right.

  “She reacted pretty quickly, considering,” Dunbar was saying. “She got down on the floor and I’m guessing got to the door before the smoke did much damage. And her neighbor got her outside right away.”

  “Bless Mr. Reyes,” Dane said, still feeling a bit wobbly.

  Dunbar pulled out the chair across the table and sat down himself. “Lucky for her he was still up and awake, and he ran over.”

  “He’s a night owl. Thank God.”

  “He said you were a...good kid, I think is how he put it. Said you helped him fix his garage door once.”

  Dane blinked. “Yeah. Couple of years ago. He had the old style, with the big springs, and one of them broke.”

  “And the
lady on the other side said you saved her cat.”

  Dane was completely puzzled now. What the hell was all this about? “I... No. The cat could have gotten down from the roof by himself, and would have, but I was afraid Mrs. Kramer would have a heart attack over it first.”

  “If you didn’t do this, who do you think did?”

  The abrupt change back to the grim business of the night threw him. As, he thought, it was probably intended to.

  “I’ve been trying to figure that out,” he said. “It just makes no sense to me that it’s not...connected to what happened ten years ago. Nobody could want to hurt Kayla. She spends her life trying to help people who are going through what she went through.”

  “But she deals mostly with crime victims. Which puts her on the radar of criminals.”

  Dane frowned; he’d not thought of it quite like that. “You mean you think this is related to her work?”

  “I’m leaving all options on the table at this point.”

  Dane had the sudden thought that if this man had been the one investigating Kayla’s parents’ murders, perhaps things might have turned out differently.

  “I can’t help you with that. What happens in those sessions is confidential, and Kayla never talks about it.”

  “Never?”

  “I mean, she’ll tell me someone new joined and why they’re there, but what they say in those sessions is sacred to her. She’d never reveal it, so I don’t know anything. Not even names.”

  “Sounds like an AA meeting.”

  “It is like one in that people have to trust her to open up. She’d never betray that trust.”

  “Then who else would want her dead?”

  Dane winced at the bald statement. Maybe it was the shock, but he was still having trouble wrapping his mind around the idea that anyone would want to kill Kayla.

  “My first thought was Chad,” he admitted. “That maybe he was back.”

  “And you think he’d try to kill her? His own sister?”

  “If he killed their parents, why would that be a stretch?”

  “According to Ms. Tucker, that’s a very big if.”

  “I know. She’s never believed he did it.”