In The Arms of a Stranger

by Kristen Robinette

  She’d certainly had an appetite last night.

  Memories flooded his mind and he suppressed a revealing smile. “Get a chef’s salad and slice of chocolate cake from the deli for Miss Langston,” he finally answered. “Oh—and add a mocha latte and a can of dog food to the list.”

  Ben raised an eyebrow, but any clever comment he might have made was interrupted by the sound of cranking engines as the road crews engaged their equipment.

  The rappelling equipment tightened effectively over his hips as Luke stepped backward off the cliff and began his descent. Despite the rise in temperature, it was still cold. Moisture from the melting snow penetrated his hair and clothing and hung in the air itself, ironically packing just as much bone-numbing cold as the Arctic air that had brought the storm front. He stopped the feed of rope to survey the area below him. He could see the outline of the vehicle beneath his dangling feet and felt icy fingers of dread up and down his spine.

  Determined to get the grizzly job over with, he released the line and lowered himself to the ledge. The ledge faced eastward and its exposed rock had obviously soaked up the warmth from the rising sun, erasing all but a few stubborn patches of the ice and snow. The first thing Luke noticed was that the scene was precisely as Dana described it.

  A broken bottle of Jack Daniel’s whiskey lay on its side, its contents long since spilled. Luke peered over the edge of the cliff, easily spotting the vehicle tenuously suspended on the mountain face below. The sun had melted most of the snow from its faded blue exterior. Again, just as Dana had described.

  Precisely.

  He stepped back when a gust of wind hit the mountainside, unexpectedly rising from the valley below. Luke un-clipped the support belt and stepped free of the rappelling equipment, walking carefully toward the whiskey bottle. Instinct gnawed at his gut, telling him not to disturb the scene as he knelt and examined it.

  “Are you okay, Chief?” Pete called from above.

  Luke squinted, spotting Pete’s silhouette. “Yeah. I’m going down to the vehicle.”

  He stepped back into the rappelling equipment and fastened the safety hooks, then double-checked every aspect of the equipment before lowering himself over the edge. Luke took advantage of his aerial view as he slowly rappelled downward, his gaze scanning every inch of the car. The back windshield was blocked with what appeared to be blankets and clothing, just as Dana had described. The front windshield was shattered and Luke noticed the telltale spider’s web pattern that told him the driver’s head had impacted. He could see that the back door was slightly ajar, probably the side Dana had entered to retrieve the baby.

  An invisible fist of fear hit him in the gut. Dana could have easily been pulled down the mountain with the car, dragged across the jagged rocks to her death. Nausea tightened his throat. But without her heroic effort, Daniel would have frozen alongside his dead mother.

  Both thoughts were unbearable.

  Luke released the feed line and lowered his body until he was almost parallel with the car. What he saw made his blood run cold. Fresh bullet holes riddled the vehicle’s back fender well. His gaze shifted slowly to the back right tire.

  A jagged hole was ripped in the side.

  “Everything okay?” Pete’s voice echoed from above.

  It took him a moment to find his voice. “Yeah.” The answer was a lie, but the truth eluded him at that moment.

  He used his gloved hand to scrape away a thin layer of ice that lingered on the shaded side of the car’s side window, and peered inside. The lifeless form of a woman lay askew in the front seat, her head tilted skyward, her blond hair tangled around her.

  A violent cut ran diagonally across her face, leaving blood and torn flesh where her features had once been. Luke’s gaze shifted to the jagged stub of plastic that had once held the rearview mirror, then to the impact mark on the windshield and prayed that she’d died on impact rather than from her injuries.

  Sweat beaded on his forehead despite the cold. He’d known what he would find, had done his best to prepare, but death was a part of the job you never became accustomed to.

  Especially when it was murder.

  The car had come to rest with its nose wedged against a scrubby grove of pine saplings that grew stubbornly from the cracks in the rock face. Luke knew that even their combined strength wasn’t enough to prevent the car from sliding if he wasn’t careful.

  Luke chose the back door first, since it was already ajar. He tugged on the handle as carefully as possible, sighing with relief when the door began to open. Its hinges creaked and the noise grated against every nerve in his body until it finally swung completely open. Luke lowered himself to the steep mountain face and, using the heels of his boots, dug a foothold. He balanced by leaning his body weight into the rappelling harness as he examined the contents of the car.

  Two empty whiskey bottles lay in the floorboard of the back seat. Luke frowned. Two, plus the one that had fallen from the car and onto the upper cliff. That made three bottles of hard liquor consumed by one woman? His gaze shifted reluctantly to the woman. She was obviously petite. The idea of her consuming that much liquor didn’t hold. And why the floorboard of the back seat where it was inaccessible?

  Because the scene had been carefully staged. The accident was no accident.

  “Pete!” Luke yelled, watching the young man’s silhouette reappear on the cliff above him.

  “Yeah, Chief?”

  “Call the GBI for a blood alcohol kit.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Luke knew in his gut that the test would prove negative. The woman had been forced off the cliff rather than driving off of it in a drunken stupor. But who would want to see her dead? The professional in him reasoned that Dana was the only other person known to be involved, and that fact alone made her a suspect. His gut clenched and he dismissed the suspicion. The woman he held in his arms last night was not capable of murder and would certainly never have put the baby at risk.

  The mental and physical strain of the past few days settled on his shoulders, and Luke suddenly felt weary. He took a deep breath, forcing himself to concentrate on the job. Like it or not, he would have to abandon his efforts here for now. The accident scene was now a crime scene and couldn’t yet be disturbed. He mentally cursed the fact that the road had been scraped clean, eliminating tire tracks and footprints that might have been helpful in the investigation. When the tedious forensic process of evidence collecting and photographing was complete, he would need additional equipment and manpower to retrieve the car. And the woman’s body.

  Luke continued to examine the contents of the vehicle from his awkward vantage point, careful not to disturb anything. He frowned. Dana said she’d looked for a purse but hadn’t found one. That fact bothered him. It was a rare woman who didn’t carry a purse, and most kept it on the seat next to them. He raised his body using the rappelling harness and peered into the front seat. It was entirely possible that the handbag was pinned beneath the woman or had slid beneath the seat. It was also possible that whoever had arranged for her death had also arranged for the purse’s disappearance.

  That question, and a myriad of others, would have to wait. But there was one that he could have the answer to now. Luke maneuvered himself so that he could see the car’s tag. It was a Georgia plate, and Luke recognized the prefix as one for metro Atlanta. He called the series of alpha and numeric numbers up to Pete.

  He lingered a little longer. Damn but there was something he wasn’t getting, some kernel of information imbedded in his brain that wouldn’t cooperate. He finally gave in to defeat and the cold wind that swept across the mountain face.

  “I’m coming up!” he yelled.

  Pete waited with an anxious expression when Luke finally topped the edge of the cliff. The young officer helped him the rest of the way up and Luke was grateful. The muscles in his arms and shoulders had been challenged to the breaking point and his legs trembled with an overabundance of caffeine and a lack of food. />
  “Did everything check out?” Pete asked.

  Luke hesitated, tempted to keep the details to himself, especially with Pete Guthrie’s recent track record.

  “No,” he finally answered. “I’m afraid the car was forced from the road. There are bullet holes in the back fender well and tire.”

  Pete visibly paled, but there was a gleam of fascination in his eyes. “You’re kidding.”

  “No, I’m not.” Luke glared at him, hoping the young man interpreted the warning.

  This wasn’t television. It was reality. And the young woman in the car was more than a dead body and a forensic case. She was someone’s daughter and certainly someone’s mother. Luke hated gossip only slightly more than those who gossiped. He recalled the fact that Pete had discussed his whereabouts with his father and stepmother. His stepmother had a keen instinct for seeking out people who liked to swap gossip.

  Maybe, when all of this was over and done with, he’d have a talk with the young officer about discretion and respect. For now he had to deal with the business at hand.

  “There’s not much more we can do here now but wait. Nothing—absolutely nothing—is to be touched or altered. Understand?” Pete nodded. “I need to ask Dana—Miss Langston—some additional questions. I’m leaving you in charge of guarding the crime scene until we get backup.”

  “Sure thing.” The gleam of curiosity returned. “You don’t mean Dana Langston, the television reporter, do you?”

  Luke looked up, surprised that Pete didn’t know the details of the case. Had Ben Allen not apprised the entire force of the situation, including the manhunt for Gonzalez? Keeping things low-key was commendable, especially where Dana’s public reputation was concerned, but leaving his men in the dark was another.

  He felt his blood pressure climb a notch. Maybe Pete was the only officer who didn’t know the details of the case. For now he could only assume that Ben Allen had good reason for not telling the young officer everything.

  He’d better have a damned good reason. “Yes, the same Dana Langston.”

  Pete suddenly looked as eager as a dog with a bone. “Is she okay?”

  Luke stepped out of the harness and began coiling the rope. “She had a few minor injuries. She’ll be fine after she gets some rest and decent food.”

  “I meant…” He hesitated. “I meant it couldn’t have been easy to be cooped up like that in such a fragile state of mind and all.”

  Fragile state of mind? Luke shook his head, dumb-founded. Pete either knew about Dana’s close call with Gonzalez or he didn’t. What the hell was he talking about?

  Luke’s patience was wearing thin and he made no effort to hide it in his expression. “What do you mean, ‘fragile state of mind’?”

  “I didn’t mean any disrespect, really.” Pete broke eye contact and began kicking at the ice-encrusted gravel beneath his feet. “I was at my cousin’s place between here and Atlanta when I saw the news report…” He hesitated, obviously unnerved. “He has cable and they get all the Atlanta stations—”

  “For God’s sake, Pete, get to it.”

  “I saw her nervous breakdown or whatever they call it,” he blurted out.

  “Nervous breakdown?”

  “You didn’t know about it?” The gleam of excitement returned. Scandal obviously trumped fear of disapproval. “One minute she was reporting a story and the next she was having a meltdown. Right there on the air.”

  Luke felt his gut tighten in sympathy for Dana and in dread of what he was about to learn. “What was she reporting?” he asked.

  “Reporting?”

  “You said that she was reporting a story when she…” He ground his teeth and summoned what was left of his patience. “What was the story she was reporting?”

  “Oh.” He frowned. “It was about a child. A little girl whose mother had abused and killed her.” He shook his head. “Sad story. The little girl was from Dunwoody. The same as that other kid that was killed.”

  Michael Gonzalez. Luke felt sick to his stomach. It was as if everything he knew, or thought he knew, had been sucked into a void of darkness, leaving him without reason. So Dana had had an on-air breakdown. Funny, she had failed to mention that detail.

  How could someone be so careless with this precious life? Dana’s words echoed in his head. The mother had been drinking…

  Luke shut his eyes, recalling the anger in Dana’s voice.

  There were several bottles of alcohol in the car…. Only one of them was full. It fell out and broke at my feet.

  She couldn’t be involved. Luke clenched his jaw. He’d heard the gunshots with his own ears, seen the terror in Dana’s eyes. A sliver of professional doubt made its way beneath his skin and whispered “what if.” What if she’d fired those shots herself, ditched the weapon and staged the rest?

  But for whose benefit? There was no way she could have known he’d hear the shots, become involved. Was there?

  None of it meant anything, except that Dana had been in the right place at the wrong time. Or the right time. She’d saved the baby’s life for Christ’s sake. So why hadn’t she told him about the breakdown?

  “Chief?”

  He looked up at Pete, realizing that the officer had asked him a question. “What is it?” he barked.

  “I just asked you about the baby.”

  “The baby?” So Allen had told Pete about the baby but not Dana’s identity. “What about him?” The wound on the back of his head began to throb, and Luke felt as if the last of his energy had drained from his body.

  “Do you want me to contact DHR and have someone pick him up?”

  Time stood still. His head and his heart ached as he tried to focus on the facts at hand. He was a professional, dammit, capable of making a rational decision, one that didn’t involve his own feelings.

  A professional was probably all he would ever be. Not a husband or a father. Just a cop.

  Truth was, he’d give half his life and his job to keep from making the decision before him. He and Dana had made love, shared secrets. But the fact that she hadn’t told him about the breakdown made him wonder if he really knew her at all.

  Why would someone be traipsing around these mountain roads in the middle of a blizzard? Ben Allen’s words echoed in his mind.

  What else hadn’t she told him?

  Luke released the safety hooks on the rappelling harness and allowed it to drop to the ground. He stepped free of the equipment and kicked it out of his way. Dammit. Could he risk it? He’d come to love the baby as well as Dana…. The realization stopped him cold.

  He loved her.

  My God, what a fool. He loved her.

  Or had he simply bought into the dream?

  Luke recalled the lifeless body of the baby’s mother, the jagged cut that had marred her features and the broken angle at which her corpse had frozen in the car.

  He met Pete’s eyes. “Yeah. Tell DHR to send someone right away.”

  Chapter 14

  Dana forked the last bite of salad into her mouth, closing her eyes as she chewed. This salad wasn’t your wimpy, low-cal type. It was loaded with creamy dressing, crisp veggies, cheese, and every type of deli meat imaginable, including salami and pepperoni. Sinful. From this day forward, she vowed to skip all low-fat dressings. Why ruin perfection? She eyed the slice of thick chocolate cake that waited near her elbow and mentally added low-calorie to the list of has-beens.

  Lieutenant Allen had informed her that Luke personally ordered the meal for her. She’d known it was true when the officer also produced an oversize can of beef-flavored dog food for Sam. Her canine companion was currently in the process of chasing the empty bowl across the hardwood floor, a dramatic effort to let them know that he wanted seconds. He finally gave up and sauntered to Dana’s side for a shoulder rub. She slipped him a piece of Canadian bacon instead, and he discreetly left with the treat as if it were a state secret.

  The baby—Daniel, to her now—cried out and Dana’s head snappe
d up. Ben Allen sat across the table from her, stiffly holding the baby while trying to interest him a bottle.

  Ben had been a welcome sight, a reminder that there was a world outside the cabin. And that not all of its inhabitants were bad. She liked the young lieutenant right away. He had shy brown eyes that he kept downcast, a feature that contrasted with his blond hair and fair skin. He was very professional despite his friendly demeanor. Dana got the impression that he idolized Luke.

  Right now his eyes registered controlled panic, the same expression she’d seen in Luke’s once. A long time ago, it seemed. “I never could seem to get this right with my sister’s kids, either. Maybe I got the wrong kind of baby formula,” Ben suggested as the baby squirmed and turned his head. “Chief said to get the powdered stuff, that he was used to that kind. I followed the directions…”

  A wave of warmth ran through her at the connection she shared with Luke. She grinned. It was entirely possible that she was on a sugar and caffeine high from the mocha latte, but she couldn’t seem to get the goofy smile off of her face.

  Dana had been sad when Luke first left the cabin to join the road crews, certain that, in the ultimate irony, their rescue would be the end of the happiness she’d only just found. But a sense of uncharacteristic optimism had taken over along the way. Somewhere between Luke’s suggestion that she foster Daniel and the fact that Luke was about to walk out of her life, she’d decided to take new risks. Starting with saying “yes” to the baby and “no” to saying goodbye to Luke. Maybe, just maybe, it could work.

  “Be sure and thank your sister for me.” Dana nodded to the ancient car seat that sat on the table. Daniel let out a squeal of frustration, and Dana held out her arms. “Let me give it a shot,” she offered.

  The lieutenant frowned. “Weren’t you just about to eat your cake?”

  Dana smiled, filled with maternal longing that made the cake cease to exist. “No problem. Besides…” She glanced out the ranger’s station window to where a half dozen men were noisily turning the tractor equipment around, preparing to leave. What was once a solid coating of ice had given way to a rustic but passable dirt road. “It looks like they’ve finished.”