Shadow in the Pines

by PJ Nunn

  “March, why?”

  Dani tried to shrug it off. “Beth says she saw you here last year.”

  “Really? When?” he looked genuinely confused.

  “I think she said the Rose Parade last fall.”

  “Oh. I came down for about a week, checking out the department…you know, kinda looking around to see if I’d really want to move here.”

  Dani sighed. As she’d suspected, it made perfect sense. He wouldn’t have moved here without doing just that. Nobody would. But there was still the other issue.

  “How do you know Caroline Crane?” she asked.

  Noah’s eyes narrowed and he leaned back a little as if to scrutinize her motivation for asking. He didn’t look pleased, but answered anyway. “I believe she’d be the wife of your esteemed Dr. Crane.”

  Dani nodded, aware of a feeling of dread growing in the pit of her stomach.

  “I first met her in Austin several years ago,” he continued. “She was there attending some kind of society conference I was assigned to guard.”

  “Oh.” It never occurred to Dani that he might have known her somewhere else. Still, meeting someone once at a conference would hardly constitute a relationship or even a remembrance years later. “Did you know her well?”

  Lines of tension furrowed his brow and Dani knew he was exercising great control. “Not as well as she’d have liked, I’m afraid.”

  “I’m sorry, Noah. I had to ask,” she said.

  “You want to tell me why?” his eyes were guarded.

  Dani sighed, wishing she hadn’t brought it up. She felt like a fool already for jumping to conclusions that resulted in her throwing Noah out of the house. “I ran into her the other day and she made a point of telling me to give you her best. She intimated that you two knew each other well, and had for years.”

  “And you assumed…” he was careful to keep his expression neutral, but she saw the muscle working in his jaw.

  “I’m sorry,” she said again.

  He nodded and took a drink of his coffee, then got up from the table. “I never slept with her, in case you’re afraid to ask,” he told her as he walked away.

  “Where are you going?” she called after him, hating the feeling that she’d hurt him again.

  “Out to get some wood,” he said sharply.

  Dani scooted her chair around and watched him pulling on his gloves and coat.

  “Don’t worry, I’m fine,” he assured her without a smile just before he walked out the door.

  Dani sighed again, then got up to clear away the dishes. Picturing Caroline Crane and Noah together, she knew she’d been way too hasty. There was no way he’d have ever been interested in someone like that. She should have known better.

  Chapter Twenty Two

  When Noah returned, carrying piles of wood to stack beside the fireplace, his expression was more relaxed, though hardly as joyful and open as it had been last night. Still, it relieved Dani’s heart to know he was trying to understand. She warmed some coffee for him and met him with it as he stacked the last of the logs and removed his outerwear.

  “Your face is cold,” she smiled, brushing his cheek with her hand.

  “It’s cold outside,” he agreed stiffly.

  “Are you mad at me?” she asked sadly.

  His expression softened at that. “No,” he shook his head. “I’m not mad. I just wonder why she’d say something like that to you. She doesn’t even know you, does she?”

  “No,” Dani shrugged. “Let’s don’t talk about her anymore.”

  Noah smiled. “Deal.”

  He did insist on talking about the case, though. Dani felt a little twinge of alarm, learning that Atkinson had disappeared. “Do you think he’s the one doing this?” she asked.

  “It kind of looks that way,” he said, reluctant to give a yes or no answer. “It seems he was guilty of a lot of things. The thing I don’t understand is why sell you the house if he didn’t want you to have it and why would you be more of a threat to him than the guys he used to work with?”

  Dani pondered that. “Well,” she said, finally, “as for selling me the house, I bought it through a realtor who seemed incredibly glad to sell it and didn’t ask many questions. I’m sure he had no idea that I was a student or that I’d be working out there.”

  Noah nodded. “That makes sense. And your problems here didn’t really start until after you started asking questions around campus, did they?”

  Dani tried to remember. “I’m not sure anymore. It seemed to start right away, but I was a little spooked living out here all alone. I could have imagined some of it.”

  “I guess it’s possible that he got wind of your questions and that’s what started it. But then who alerted him? Atlanta’s pretty far away.”

  “Who do you think?” she asked, suspecting he had several theories and knowing she didn’t have any. She avoided thinking about it at all if she could.

  “I’d have to guess Crane, Abraham, or McKay,” he said.

  “Mike? No way,” Dani shook her head emphatically. “Why would you think that?”

  “Honestly, I didn’t until you got that envelope and he disappeared. That makes me think he was involved somehow and got in over his head. That’s why he gave you the shit and bailed.”

  “No,” she was still shaking her head. “I think he stumbled onto something and ran because he was afraid they’d kill him.”

  “Interesting choice of words,” he raised his eyebrows.

  “What?”

  “You said ‘they’,” he explained.

  She shrugged, “I guess it seems like anything this horrible would need more than one.”

  “And preferably one you don’t know, right?”

  “Well, of course,” she frowned at that. “Nobody wants to think someone they work with every day would lock her in a cellar full of snakes.”

  “Granted,” he nodded. “But I don’t want you thinking you can trust someone just because you know them.”

  The irony of the statement wasn’t lost on her but she suppressed a smile. “How about if I promise right now to trust no one but you?”

  The smile that played around his lips didn’t reach his eyes. “Dani, we can’t lose sight of the fact that somebody, whether you know them or not, wants you seriously dead. He’s gotten more and more bold, and is probably getting pretty desperate about now.”

  She inhaled a deep breath, then let it out slowly. “You know what?” she met his eyes squarely. “Whether I know him or not, I’m not ready to die. He better write that down.”

  Noah smiled. He’d already learned that, with her, looks could definitely be deceiving. Underneath the frosted blonde hair and girlish figure was a woman with a backbone of steel. Stubborn as the proverbial mule.

  After lunch, Dani coaxed Noah outside to build a snowman, then they indulged in a rough and tumble snowball fight that left them both breathless and covered with wet snow. Dani raced around the side of the house, dodging revenge after landing a particularly painful blow. As she ducked behind an evergreen tree, she spotted a bough of mistletoe hanging just out of her reach.

  “Noah!” she called, all thoughts of the snowball fight temporarily suspended. “Come here!”

  “Oh no you don’t,” he yelled back at her. “You’re not suckering me!”

  “Noah!” she laughed. “Allee, allee outs in free!” She paused, waiting to see what he’d do. “Noah, I’m serious. I found some mistletoe and I can’t reach it!” When he still didn’t answer, she peeked back out around the tree and was greeted with a snowball that knocked off her cap.

  “Hey!” she yowled, scrambling for her hat. “I’m unloaded!”

  “Unarmed,” he laughed, striding toward her. “You okay?” he smiled down at her as she rearranged her cap.

  “You owe me one,” she said.

  “The way I see it, you owe me one,” he countered.

  “All in good time, my dear,” she smiled. “There,” she turned and pointed
at the mistletoe. “See? I can’t reach it.”

  “And you think I can?” Noah looked up at it.

  “Can you knock it down?” she squinted against the glare of the sun off the snow and tried to gauge the distance.

  Noah looked around for a stick long enough, but didn’t find one. Dani handed him a firmly packed snowball. “Your aim’s pretty good,” she told him.

  He took it and tried. It was a direct hit, but the bough swung like a pendulum and stayed firmly attached to the tree. Another effort dislodged a few leaves, but the bough was still intact. After a third try missed completely, Noah turned to her.

  “You realize, of course, that you don’t need a twig of mistletoe to get me to kiss you,” he smiled.

  “I do,” she smiled back at him, “but I still want it.”

  Noah looked up at the mistletoe, then back at her. He dropped to a crouching position and said, “Climb on.”

  “Huh?”

  “Climb up on my shoulders and you reach it,” he instructed. When she didn’t move, he added, “How bad do you want it?”

  “Are you sure you can do this?” she asked, gingerly swinging one leg and then another over his shoulders.

  He laughed, grunting as he rose slowly to a standing position, gripping her thighs firmly in each hand. “Just don’t make any sudden moves or we’ll go down like the mighty oak.” Carefully, he shuffled his feet until they were under the prize. “Can you reach it?” he asked, unable to see it.

  “Step up about six more inches,” she said, reaching out with one hand and holding tightly to the collar of his jacket with the other.

  “Geez, your hands are cold!” he muttered, doing as she instructed.

  “Got it!” she triumphed as the whole bough came off in her hands.

  “Hand it to me,” he held his right hand up beside his shoulder.

  Gingerly, she lowered it into his waiting hand, then glanced around. “You know, I can see a lot better from…” she stopped suddenly, spotting movement between the trees on her far left. “Noah,” she whispered and felt his hand tense on her left thigh. “Turn left a little,” she said, still speaking softly.

  “What is it?” his voice dropped to an answering whisper.

  “There’s somebody over there,” she said, feeling her heart rate increase as she strained to keep her eye on the figure moving slowly through the trees. “Are you looking straight ahead?”

  “Are you sure it’s not a deer?” he asked quietly.

  “Not unless it’s walking upright.” It was too far away to recognize a face, but there was definitely a person in the woods.

  Noah lowered her gently to the ground.

  “Do you see them?” she asked, straining to locate the person from her new perspective. “They were straight through there,” she pointed. The trees were too dense, but she knew what she saw.

  “Go back to the porch and get my gun,” he told her, taking a few steps into the brush.

  “Noah,” she started.

  “Go!” he hissed. She did. When she returned with his Glock, he took it and told her, “Go in the house and lock the door. Stay there.”

  Dani desperately wanted to argue, but his expression told her it would be futile.

  “I’m not moving until you go. We’re wasting time,” he warned. She did as he asked.

  Back inside the house, Dani kept her coat on and paced just inside the front door. Ten minutes turned into twenty. She’d give him five more, then she was going out after him. It would be dark soon and she’d never rest wondering if he was lost or hurt out there in the freezing weather. She wouldn’t even consider a more fatal possibility. The only thing offering comfort at this point was the knowledge that a gunshot echoed through the woods and she’d certainly have heard it if there was one.

  A few moments later, she saw Noah emerge from the woods just a few feet east of where he went in. She met him on the porch.

  “What?”

  He shook his head, stomping the snow off his boots before he went inside. “I lost him.”

  Relieved to have him back in one piece, and unsettled to think there was someone lurking in the woods near the house, Dani changed out of her wet things and cooked dinner in relative silence. Although they shared another pleasant evening in front of the fire, the atmosphere was considerably more subdued than it had been the last few days.

  Dani awoke more rested, since they hit the bed early last night, but as soon as she pushed the comforter aside to get out of bed, she pulled it quickly back over her. It was colder than it had ever been since she’d lived in the house. Deciding maybe she could afford a few more minutes in bed, she snuggled up close to Noah, nudging him until he moved and draped an arm over her. Turning her face toward his chest, she wondered how he managed to stay so warm without even a shirt on.

  “Hey,” he mumbled through the comforter. “Why’s your nose so cold?”

  “It’s winter,” she quipped.

  “In the house?” he peeked at her out of one eye.

  “Maybe the heater’s broke,” she suggested, hoping it wasn’t true.

  Noah turned and looked over at the clock beside the bed. “Uh oh,” he said, throwing back the covers and swinging his legs over the side of the bed.

  “What?” she asked, pulling the comforter close to stop the draft left by his absence.

  He flipped the light switch beside the door. “Power’s out.”

  She moaned, watching as he dug through a drawer and pulled a sweatshirt on over his head, then ducked into the closet in search of house shoes. Dani stayed where she was, listening to the comforting sound of him moving around downstairs and cringing when she heard him muttering curses and slamming doors.

  “All the power’s out,” he announced when he reached the bedroom door again. I suggest you get up and dress warm. I’ll start a fire and see what I can find out.”

  She groaned again, watching him go, then reluctantly getting out of the bed. The long johns she’d worn yesterday were still downstairs in the clothes dryer, so she rustled through her drawers in search of another pair. When she didn’t find them immediately, she settled for layering one pair of sweats on top of another, shivering as she removed her pjs and slid into a cold tank top, then a t-shirt, then a sweat shirt on top of those. With two pairs of socks and her warm fuzzy slippers, she considered how ridiculous she’d look wearing a stocking cap in the house. Deciding that would be extreme, she darted downstairs, glad to see Noah stoking the fire.

  She chose a perch on the hearth once he had it going good and watched as he moved back into the dining room to pick up the phone. His expression caused a spark of fear to rise in her chest.

  “What?”

  “Phone’s dead too.” He crossed to the window and stood looking out. “There is ice on the lines,” he added, mostly to himself. “Maybe it’s the storm.”

  Dani didn’t have to ask what else it might be. She was remembering the lurker in the woods and Noah’s comment about how desperate her stalker must be getting. “But, Noah, if it was him here during the night, why didn’t he just come in and kill us or something.” She shuddered as she spoke, but she had to ask the question.

  Noah crossed the room quickly to be at her side. “I never said I thought it was him,” he took her hand. “It’s probably nothing.”

  She smiled a little, grateful for his reassurance, but not buying it. “What do we do now? We can’t even make coffee.”

  He chuckled. “I guess the first step would be to go to my house and see if the power’s off there. And if the phone’s out, I can use my cell.”

  Dani shot a doubtful glance through the window. As bright as the sun was glistening on the new fall of snow, she knew it was far colder out there than it was inside. The fire was just now beginning to ease the chill on her aching fingers and toes and she was sitting right beside it. Noah’s words over by the window were carried on wisps of smoke. She didn’t want to go outside.

  “Sit tight,” he squeezed her arm, then w
ent up the stairs, returning momentarily with his shoes on and hers in his hand. “Here. Put these on,” he said, dropping them on the hearth beside her.

  “I have to go?” she asked, looking up as he walked over to the coat rack.

  “No,” he shook his head. “But I’d feel better if you had those on.”

  His unspoken fears shot through her like a jolt of lightening and she did as he asked. When he was all buttoned up with a scarf wrapped tightly around his neck and one of her stocking caps covering his head, he pulled the Glock out of his pocket and checked it before gloving his hands.

  “Noah…”

  He winked. “It’s all right, baby. I’ll be right back.”

  She was surprised to see him head for the back door, and even more surprised when she followed him and watched through the window as he headed straight for the woods behind the house. At first, she thought he was after someone, but then she saw him cut over and skirt the trail that joined the two yards. He must be afraid someone was watching. The thought chilled her even more and she stood stoically at the window, waiting for his return.

  Chapter Twenty Three

  It seemed like years, but in reality, according to her watch, was only about ten minutes. When he returned, he came back the same way he went, dragging a big branch behind him and swinging it in wide arcs to obliterate his footprints. He was seriously concerned.

  The dark expression he wore when he re-entered the house confirmed her fears. “We’ve got a problem,” he said, stomping his feet just inside the door.

  Dani followed him back to the living room, not speaking. Knowing he’d tell her when he was ready and knowing she probably didn’t want to hear it anyway. He shed his shoes in the kitchen to avoid soiling the carpet, then crossed immediately to the windows to close the blinds.

  “Come on,” he nodded toward the couch. “Sit with me.”

  She followed him mutely, snuggling into the corner of the couch beside him, touched that he’d saved the place closest to the fire for her.

  “There’s no power or phone at my house, either,” he began slowly. “My lines have been cut.”