“I don’t know. After the incident at the school I think my being there will just make it worse.”
“What incident?”
Karl shuffled his feet. “Nothing.”
“Sounds like something. Spill.”
“Someone on the football team said something. There was a fight.”
“What?” She hadn’t heard of any fight. “Drew?”
“No. Almost, but no. That little Tina is good for him. Gustavo threw the punch.”
Jo hadn’t seen Gustavo since the team’s trip to the hospital to visit her. “What on earth for?”
“Apparently there’s some shitty gossip going around town. I’ve pissed off all the dog lovers in town, and some think I strung up Cherie’s dog.”
To have her concerns vocalized by the man she herself had begun to blame was either brilliant on his end to drag her off his scent or stupid for putting himself on her radar.
“Jesus, Jo . . . not you, too.”
“No,” she denied too quickly. “Of course not.”
“Right. I need to go before I say something crappy and undo all the fence mending I’m trying to build.”
Jo stood a little too quickly, felt the pull in her side. “Karl, please. It’s been a stressful couple of months.”
“Yeah. You have no idea.” With his parting words, he turned and left.
Jo rested her head in her hands and silently cussed the universe.
Gill stood over the mangled mess of Jo’s car. It scared him every damn time he looked at the seat she’d been in.
“Agent Clausen.”
“Mac?”
“Right.” They shook hands. Gill had been in contact with the mechanic in charge of investigating Jo’s accident.
“You have something for me?”
“I do. I started with the brake recall. The ABS actuator damaged O-rings, which decreases the brake fluid pressure . . . causes a delay in the ability to brake in time.”
“I know how brakes work,” Gill told the man.
“Right. Anyway. You said Sheriff Ward reported a lack of brakes altogether. That hasn’t been reported on this recall. In fact, other than this accident, there hasn’t been anything other than a fender bender.”
“So were the O-rings damaged?”
Mac shook his head. “No.”
“So what caused the brake failure?”
Mac waved Gill over to a computer and pulled up a magnified image. “What am I looking at?”
“Brake line. Front right tire.”
As with any image magnified a zillion times better than what the naked eye could see, it looked frayed. Gill knew better than to think the entire tube was faulty.
“This is normal.” Mac pulled up another image. “This one is off the line in the back right tire. Smooth, perfect. The left lines were shot from the wreck.” He flipped back to the first image.
Gill looked closer. “What’s this?”
“That,” Mac paused, “is a hole.”
“From what?”
“Ten thousand dollar question. Looks too smooth to be organic.”
“Organic?”
“From a rock on the road, an animal biting it.”
“Big enough to cause the brakes to completely fail?”
“With enough time the leak would bleed the line and malfunction. But I didn’t like what I saw, so I looked again.” Mac pulled up another image. This tube was a dark gray, larger.
“Power steering line.”
“You’re good,” Mac praised him. “Either River Bend has vampire mice puncturing holes into lines or we have someone trying to kill your sheriff.”
Gill left the auto shop with the phone to his ear.
He called Luke first. “Don’t let Jo drive anywhere.”
“Why, what’s going on?”
“Her accident wasn’t an accident.”
“What? Does she know this?”
“Not yet,” Gill said, jumping into his car and heading straight to his office. “I’ll be back in town tonight. Confiscate her Jeep, take the battery out of the squad car. Just don’t let her drive.”
“I’m on it.”
“And don’t tell her anything.”
“But . . .”
“Trust me. Someone close to her did this, and the only people in town I trust right now are you, Wyatt, and your ladies.”
“Jo’s smart, she’s going to figure out something’s up.”
“I’ll tell her. Just wait for me to get there.”
Gill blew past his colleagues when he entered the office after being gone for two weeks.
“Shauna?” He poked his head into her office, motioned her to follow him.
“Hey, stranger.” She scrambled to catch up with him. “What’s up?”
Gill blew past his superior’s secretary. “Reyes in there?”
“He’s on the phone.”
That didn’t stop him. He knocked once and let himself in.
Reyes looked up from his phone call. “Right . . . okay. Listen, something just blew in. I’ll get back to you.” He hung up. “Clausen . . . Burton.”
“I have a new case.” For the next thirty minutes Gill explained the situation. From Jo’s nonaccident to the questionable death of her father ten years prior. One too many coincidences pointed to foul play and murder. The holes in the lines of the squad car were attempted murder of a sworn officer. And no one wearing the uniform was okay with that.
“You’re too close to be objective,” Reyes said once he agreed there was a case.
“I’m the only one close enough to investigate this. A new player in this town will scare off our suspect.”
“And you think this deputy is our guy?”
“He stands to gain if something happens to Jo.”
“Feels too neat,” Shauna said.
“I have to agree with Burton.”
“Still think you’re too close, Gill.”
“Send someone else if you need to, but I’m going in. I’ll tell Jo I’m taking a vacation. Shauna can come visit. Be a second set of eyes.”
“Our heroin case?” Reyes asked.
“I’m a day away from the warrants being signed,” Shauna told him.
“We need hard evidence.”
“I’m not new. I’ll get your evidence.”
Reyes stood. “I want a daily report.”
Gill offered a tight smile. “Done.”
“Go. Get out of here.”
Gill didn’t need to be told twice.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Jo sat across from Gill, her kitchen table separating them, and listened.
Before he was finished, she felt sick to her stomach. A serious desire to empty what dinner she had managed to eat sat close to the surface.
“Maybe the mechanic is wrong.”
Gill held her hand. “He’s not wrong. I saw the lines with my own eyes. The holes were large enough to warrant leaks, not big enough to dump all the fluid in one sitting. It was deliberate, Jo.”
“Why?”
“We’re going to find out.”
Someone had tried to kill her. The sling holding her left arm and her inability to run a block, much less the five daily miles she’d run before, were evidence that whoever that someone was, they’d nearly succeeded.
“When I was in the academy, the other cadets would talk about wearing a badge, how it was a target just asking for someone to aim a weapon at them. I never felt like that. I figured my father’s death was isolated. Something that involved him . . . not this badge.”
“There’s no way of knowing if they’re connected,” Gill told her.
“No way of knowing they’re not either. Seems a little too convenient to have my father ‘accidentally’ shoot himself and for me to bite it going off a cliff.” Jo pictured the cemetery where her parents lay and for a brief moment saw another flag-draped casket.
“You didn’t bite it.” His eyes were large orbs of worry.
“How are we going to find this person? Th
ey’ve been hidden for ten years.”
“They’re not hiding now.”
Jo shook off the chill. “I’ve felt like someone has been watching me for close to a year.”
“Probably have. Which tells me that whoever this is, they’re local, or local enough.”
“They climbed under my car. They would have to know about the recall, my schedule.” A long list of names filled Jo’s head.
“So write those names down. No matter who they are.”
“I know it isn’t Luke or Mel . . .”
“But Luke is a mechanic, and maybe he said something to his father about the recall.”
“Mr. Miller is like my second dad,” she protested.
“Mr. Miller runs an auto shop. He might have said something in passing to Joe Blow from outside of town.”
She hadn’t thought of that.
“Every name.”
The list in her head doubled. “How am I going to trust my car?”
“Playing post-traumatic stress might be the best way to handle that right now. River Bend is small enough to walk. It’s almost summer.”
“That can’t last forever.”
Gill squeezed her hand. “Honey, I’m not waiting forever to nail this bastard to the wall.”
She brought their clasped hands up to her lips and kissed his fingertips.
Gill liked working with as few players as possible. He and Shauna were a pretty good tag team for that very reason. Shauna would network as the social one, and he would sit in parking lots and snap pictures.
Bringing in Jo’s friends was unavoidable. Especially when Gill himself had called Luke to make sure Jo wasn’t driving before he could make it back to town.
Outside her small circle of friends, no one was eliminated from the suspect list. When he’d suggested Glynis, Jo laughed him out of the room. But her name stayed on the list. She knew about the recall, had access to the car, was removing files.
When he’d pointed these things out, Jo still laughed.
In Gill’s head, the number one suspect was Jo’s deputy, Karl Emery. The man didn’t pretend to be completely charmed, but he wasn’t a total asshole either. He sat on the fence, and he watched both Gill and Jo a little too hard.
Gill had the list of activities Jo was on point to attend. Events that everyone in town would be aware of.
The state championship competition for her runners. That would take place in Eugene. They agreed to make it sound like she was driving her Jeep to the event, and at the last minute they would take the van with the kids.
The senior graduation was less than a week after state, and then the class reunion back at the school gym.
Jo would have a personal bodyguard at every event.
Gill knew he’d driven his point on her personal safety home when he witnessed her putting on her vest before her uniform.
Life couldn’t get much better.
Thanks to all things Tina, Drew passed his chemistry class. Something he knew he’d never use again in his life.
Thanks to Tina, he’d found the meaning of his sexual life. Not just once, either. She was into it, and he was constantly on the lookout for places they could duck away and learn something new. They used condoms and she told him she was on the pill. He’d thought about saying the L word but wasn’t completely sure he was. Besides, she was going away to college, and he was going away somewhere too. Even though they were temporary, neither of them brought that up.
Then there was state. He’d made it, along with Tim. Together they hoped to bring home a respectable place. Coach Ward had told them both that they’d already earned a spot at River Bend’s hall of sports fame, but they both wanted to bring home number one.
Either way, Drew’s senior year had been worth the long runs, and late night study sessions. He missed parties between his dad and Coach Ward. He could hardly wait until he could come home from wherever he ended up and buy Coach Ward a drink.
He’d come to terms with the fact that he and his dad were never going to be the tight ends on any team. Drew realized that part of the reason he wanted to join the marines was because his father was so against it. He was also smart enough not to jump at this final shot at rebellion. He might be better off getting a tattoo instead.
Drew would make a decision after state, after graduation.
He skipped through the door, shouting to the house. “I passed!”
His mom yelled from the kitchen, “I’m in here.”
Drew smelled cookies. “This day is getting better and better.”
Wearing jeans and a T-shirt, his mom looked like just about every other mom in River Bend. She didn’t wear a lot of makeup, had shoulder length hair that he thought maybe she was dyeing these days. He made a point after she’d been to the hairdresser to say she looked nice, but that was usually followed by a request for twenty bucks for a movie or something.
And there were cookies.
He took one from the top of the pile. It was warm.
“What about washing your hands?”
Drew snorted. “Germs help build your immunity to crap. I learned that in chemistry . . . which I passed.”
His mom smiled. “One more final and that’s it?”
“English.”
“You better hope Mrs. Walters doesn’t hold a grudge.”
“Way to dash my hopes, Mom.”
“Yeah, well . . . pranks like that happen after the person you’re pulling them on is no longer in charge of your academic life.”
He immediately thought of the stash of toilet paper he and the seniors had in store for Coach Ward’s house.
“Any more decisions about what you’re going to do after next week?”
She was asking about the service.
He shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m not sure college is right for me.”
“You told Oregon State you were interested.”
“I am . . . but only because of track. I realize I’d be throwing away a free education if I said no, but what if I hate it?”
“What if you love it?”
He leaned against the counter, shoved a second cookie in his face. “Would it be so bad . . . me joining the marines?”
He hated the stress he put on his mom’s face but needed her to know that he was serious about the option.
“I’d be scared every day.”
“Every day if I were shipped off.”
She attempted to smile and failed.
“Dad is a cop, don’t you worry about him?”
“It’s not the same here. Maybe if we lived in New York or something.”
“What if I wanted to be like Dad?”
She sighed. “I’d be proud of you either way, Drew. I know your father would be proud of you, too. It’s your life and your decision to make.”
He knew her words were hard for her to say. Drew leaned in, kissed her cheek, and went in for his third after-school snack before turning to walk away.
“Nice decoy,” she told him. “Now take out the trash.”
Oh, yeah . . . every day after school . . . you’d think after eighteen years he’d remember.
Well, he probably didn’t do it when he was two.
He bundled up the plastic bag full of kitchen garbage and headed out the back door.
The cans on the side of the house were full and starting to smell in the warm weather.
He shooed away a dozen bees before opening the blue barrel.
Something on top of the white plastic bags attracted the buzzing insects. The stench had Drew choking back his cookies.
He peered closer and gagged.
“I think it’s a rabbit.” From the little bit of fur Jo noticed on the thing.
“Been dead a day or two,” Gill said.
“You took the trash out yesterday, right?” Karl asked Drew, who still looked green.
“Yeah. That wasn’t in there.”
Caroline stood to the side, a finger under her nose.
Jo was at the station when Caroline call
ed Karl about the dead animal in the trash can. Not just a dead rabbit that may have come to some unfortunate demise and then been tossed into a garbage can, but one that was staged with missing parts.
“Who is doing this, Dad?”
Karl glared beyond the cans. “I don’t know, but I sure as hell am going to find out.”
His conviction made Jo pause.
“If this is someone’s sick idea of a joke, I’m going to ki—”
Jo cut Drew off with a hand to his shoulder. “You’d have to find them first, and you have school to concentrate on.”
Scared came out as angry in Drew’s gaze. Jo attempted to smile. “C’mon.” She encouraged him to walk around to the backyard so she could speak with him alone. “How was your run this morning?”
He ducked his head and walked with her.
“I don’t want to talk about my workout.”
“Okay.”
“This is sick. First the dog, then . . .” He waved his hand toward the garbage cans. “Whatever the hell that was. I feel like every time I turn around I find something dead. When will it end?”
When I’m dead in a trash can. Jo winced with her thought. “Figuring out who is doing this is my number one priority, Drew. I will put a stop to it.”
“I watch CSI. Psychos do this kind of shit. And they don’t stop with animals.”
Smart kid. “You sure you don’t want to be a cop instead of a marine?”
He made a face that looked like he bit into an apple and found half a worm. “No thanks.”
Jo offered a small smile and placed an arm around his shoulders. “Do you trust me?”
“Yeah.”
“Good. I’ll find this guy. You just pass your finals and run fast on Saturday.”
“Jo?” Gill called.
They both looked up.
Gill paused, looked at Caroline and Karl, then back.
“What?”
Gill shook his head and waved her over.
“You okay?” she asked Drew.
“Yeah.”
She patted him on the back before joining the others to investigate.
Chapter Thirty
Much as Jo didn’t like the thought of being there, Gill convinced her to take a trip to the cabin. The last five miles were slow, bumpy, and nerve-racking.
Making It Right (A Most Likely To Novel Book 3) Page 27