Lullaby for the Nameless (Nolan, Hart & Tain Thrillers)

by Ruttan, Sandra

  Nolan walked out of the room without another word. Although there were still doubts in her mind about him, one thing she was certain of was that he wouldn’t give in on this. Silently cursing the fact that she hadn’t tried to reach Tain instead, she turned toward the closet and grabbed a small bag.

  From the corner of his eye, Craig could see Ashlyn’s head in her hands, her elbow propped against the arm of the couch. He could guess at the debate raging in her mind, part of her convinced she’d overreacted, still looking for some logical explanation for the prints and the picture.

  Another part scared and a different part altogether furious that she’d been put in a position where she’d had to reach out for help.

  No matter how much training an officer had, cops, especially female cops, felt the pressure to act like they could handle things on their own. How could a woman who chased down drug dealers or armed robbers on the streets, who stood over dead bodies in Dumpsters, be afraid of a bump in the night, the creak of the stairs, the sound of a strong wind thudding against the wall? No, a cop should be tough. Fearless.

  Invincible.

  It was a fallacy Craig knew only too well, but he carried his own fears deep inside, nothing on the job scaring him like the rage he knew burned within. Too many years spent pulling himself through the darkness. What scared him was the thought of losing sight of what he’d gained while the bitterness over what he’d been denied overtook him.

  What he feared more than anything was losing control.

  “You can have the downstairs bedroom. It has its own bathroom, and I sleep upstairs,” he said. “Pasta? Salad? Anything you don’t like?”

  She shook her head. “Can I take a shower?” she asked. Not really asking permission, since he’d already suggested it when they’d arrived.

  He nodded and within seconds she’d taken her bag into the downstairs bedroom. As he walked back to the kitchen he heard the click of the door.

  The evening’s events turned over in his mind as he went through the motions of cooking strips of chicken, boiling the pasta, grating cheese and mixing a sauce. He took the time to bake buns as he chopped fresh vegetables and finished the salad.

  Once he’d finished with the food, he took out plates and cups, trying to keep his hands busy. From behind the closed bedroom door the faint sound of running water had stopped, but Ashlyn hadn’t emerged yet, and he didn’t want her to think he was keeping an eye on her.

  He glanced at the clock, determined to wait fifteen minutes before he knocked to tell her dinner was ready.

  Ashlyn’s car had been gone most of the day. He’d finally driven through town, past the station, and down some of the back roads, but he hadn’t seen her car anywhere.

  Now that he thought about it, he hadn’t seen Tain’s truck either.

  There was no doubt that someone had broken into her place. At least, none in his mind. Whoever it was, they were good. Very good. Two small slips that most other people wouldn’t even have noticed, or could have been easily persuaded to dismiss. The mind could rationalize a single item out of place without much prodding. After all, how many times did a person ask themselves if they’d remembered to turn off the oven, or turn down the heat, or unplug a space heater when they left the house?

  Even a strong mind was susceptible to the power of suggestion. He’d seen the conflict in Ashlyn’s eyes as she’d walked into his cottage, felt it in her prolonged silence as she’d sat on the couch. She could have persuaded herself she must have picked up the picture in the morning and set it down in a hurry, and she could even persuade herself she’d been thinking about other things, so distracted that she’d reentered the house that morning and left the footprints herself.

  He trusted her instincts. Ashlyn had backed out of her house, gun in hand, and come to him for help. She’d had plenty of time along the way to talk herself out of it. If she hadn’t been certain, she would have stopped herself before knocking on his window.

  Craig glanced at the clock again. Ten minutes had passed. He sat down and waited.

  No matter how hard she tried to find an alternate explanation, Ashlyn kept coming back to the same conclusion. The problem was, she had no idea who would have been in her house. Was it the same person who’d put a bullet in her dashboard only days before?

  Maybe she’d been wrong. Maybe the bullet had been meant for her.

  Why hadn’t anyone told her about the 911 call? She thought about Getz and Keith outside her room when she’d left the hospital.

  There to ensure her safety, while nobody told her they thought she was in danger.

  Whoever had been in the house hadn’t done anything, other than take away her peace of mind. Robbed of her sense of security, she’d been forced to turn to Nolan for help.

  Nolan. Ashlyn hung the towel on the bar in the bathroom and stepped into the bedroom. Here she was, in his cabin, trembling like a tattered leaf on a chilly autumn day, ready to fall with the first strong breeze. She felt a mix of self-reproach and grateful appreciation at Nolan’s insistence that she stay with him. The more she admitted to herself that she was glad he’d refused to take no for an answer, the more she loathed her own fears and weaknesses.

  She pulled on her pajama pants, zipped up a sweater over the tank top she was wearing, tucked her chinlength hair back behind her ears and opened the bedroom door.

  As she walked into the living area, she pledged to stop beating herself up. A quick glance showed that Nolan had the table set and was heading back into the kitchen to get the food.

  That was when she realized whatever she smelled, it smelled good. Her tummy rumbled as he turned toward her, bowl in hand. “Coffee, tea, milk, juice?”

  “Tea would be great, thanks.”

  Nolan walked over to the table and set the bowl down. “It’ll take a minute. I need to boil some water.

  The phone on the small table at the closest end of the couch rang.

  “Can you grab that?” Nolan asked as he reached up into a cupboard.

  She answered. Her greeting was followed by a split-second hesitation before the caller asked, “Is this Craig Nolan’s residence?”

  The voice was familiar. “Yes.” What was he doing calling here? “I didn’t expect it to be you.”

  “And I didn’t expect you to be answering Craig’s phone.” Steve Daly paused. “Have you fully recovered?”

  For a few seconds she felt dizzy from the blur of things running through her mind. Her heart had only returned to its normal rhythm partway through her shower, but her hand had shaken just a touch when she’d answered the phone.

  Then she realized he didn’t know about the breakin. He was asking about the car accident.

  “Back to normal.”

  “The other day, it didn’t sound like you and Craig had exactly hit it off.”

  She looked up into Craig’s face as he stopped by the table. He was watching her, as though it had only now occurred to him that she was still talking to whoever was on the phone.

  He’d probably assumed it was someone they worked with, someone from the task force.

  “I’ll get Nolan for you,” she said. She passed the phone to her partner and watched him walk up the stairs.

  “What the hell is going on, Craig?”

  “Dad…”

  “Is Ash okay?”

  “How do you know her?” Craig asked. He heard his father sigh.

  “I mentored her.”

  “So the other day…” Craig thought back to the conversation Ashlyn had been having at the hospital when he went to pick her up. “That was you on the phone?”

  “She called after the accident. Craig, what’s going on?”

  “Someone broke into her place.”

  “But she’s okay?”

  “She wasn’t home.”

  “That’s not exactly an answer.”

  “She’s rattled, but who wouldn’t be?”

  “You don’t have to get defensive with me, Craig. I know Ashlyn’s a good cop, and I
trust her. She’s got nothing to prove to me.”

  “This wasn’t random. There was no sign of forced entry, and if it had been anyone else, I’m not even sure they would have noticed someone had broken in.”

  “But you’re sure?”

  “Yes.”

  “It couldn’t have been kids breaking in for kicks?”

  Craig sat down on the stairs. “Her cabin wasn’t the only one broken into.”

  “Well, that should help her feel a bit better.”

  “I haven’t told her yet.”

  There was silence for a moment before Steve asked, “Why not?”

  “For one thing, she can feel safe here right now.”

  “Did she come crying to you, asking to stay at your house?”

  “No, bu—”

  “So she’s an excuse. You can hide your own insecurity and blame it on chivalry.”

  Hundreds of miles away and his dad could still turn his face red. “If I tell her, it’ll take away her peace of mind.”

  “And she’ll just kick your ass and feel betrayed when she finds out later.”

  Craig rubbed his forehead. “Maybe.”

  Steve was silent for a moment before he asked, “What does Sullivan think?”

  There was no response that wouldn’t get him in more trouble, and he knew it.

  “He doesn’t know,” Steve said.

  “Before you put the lecture on autopilot, that was her call, not mine.”

  “About the breakin at her place. She doesn’t even know about the one at yours, so don’t throw that at her feet. That’s on you.”

  “I…” Craig realized his father wasn’t going to like what he was about to say, but stalling wouldn’t make it any better. “I haven’t exactly made this easy on Constable Hart.”

  “Let me guess. The team’s welcomed her with open arms.”

  Craig thought about how many times Ashlyn had been left in office, alone. The few times they’d been out together at a scene she’d been more than capable. There really was no excuse. “No.”

  “And with all the men undermining her she doesn’t want to look vulnerable.”

  “To be honest with you, I’m surprised she reached out to me.”

  “I told her she could trust you.”

  It made sense, but until that moment it hadn’t even occurred to him that his name had come up before, when Steve had spoken to Ashlyn on the phone.

  “There’s something else she doesn’t know.” Craig paused. “The accident? Someone took a shot at her.”

  “I thought she hit a deer.”

  “So does she.”

  Craig listened to the silence on the other end of the line and the silence in the house and wondered where Ashlyn was, and whether she could hear him.

  “Why wouldn’t you tell her?”

  “That was Sullivan’s call.”

  “Craig, didn’t you locate a murder victim the next day?”

  “Three, and one of them was the woman Constable Hart was on her way to see that night.”

  It wasn’t hard to picture Steve, his face long with the weight of the news, closing his eyes as he tried to digest what Craig had told him.

  “I don’t like this.”

  “Me either.” Craig stood and started walking back downstairs. “Look, I know what you said, and I don’t like asking—”

  “I’ll be in touch.”

  There was a click and the phone went dead. Craig returned to the main level and put it down on the small table where Ashlyn had found it.

  She was standing by the fireplace and turned to face him.

  “It sounds like we have a lot to talk about.”

  “How much did you hear?”

  “Everything.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  Eighteen months ago

  After Nolan got off the phone with his dad, Ashlyn suggested they eat first, then talk. He seemed surprised, but agreed. They were halfway through the meal when there was a knock at the door.

  That was when she told him she’d called Tain and asked him to come over.

  The tension between the two men couldn’t dissipate with the flip of a switch, and both had found themselves in the awkward position of putting their trust in her while she, in turn, had told them they needed to trust each other.

  “Between the three of us, I think we have all the pieces,” she said.

  The problem was, they knew who. They even knew where. What they didn’t know was why, and they had little in the way of evidence that would support a search warrant.

  Lack of evidence had been the problem from the beginning.

  “I say we call Sullivan,” Nolan said. “We do this by—”

  “Trying to do this by the book is what’s had us going in circles. For all we know, there are girls out there who are still alive. We need to find them,” Tain said.

  “We’ve got no reason to search the shipping company property,” Nolan countered.

  Ashlyn returned Tain’s gaze for a moment, and neither of them spoke. Nolan leaned back in his chair. “What aren’t you telling me?”

  “Eddie Campbell has a cabin. It was his mother’s. She died almost two years ago.”

  “But Eddie stayed in town, at the old staff house for the inn. I thought you said that’s where the girls had been kept.”

  Tain leaned forward. “Never for long, and we know they aren’t there now. After Ashlyn and I talked this morning, she checked the land registries. Eddie’s mother had a large property with some buildings on it. He took possession of the property at the beginning of 2005.”

  “Just before the first girl disappeared,” Ashlyn added.

  Nolan didn’t meet her gaze. He kept his focus on the table, his face unreadable. After a few minutes he looked up. “Is the property on the Reserve? Don’t we need to go through Campbell?”

  “We can’t. Campbell’s been leaking information to the Native leaders about the investigation,” Ashlyn said.

  “Campbell’s the leak? Tell me you aren’t confused by the common surname, Hart. Constable Campbell’s the wrong color.”

  “I know they aren’t related,” she said, fighting to keep the irritation out of her voice. “You were there when I was talking to Eddie at The Goldmine. I know Eddie’s Native.”

  “It was Ashlyn who worked it out, in part because of something she found in your desk,” Tain said. “Campbell’s financial records. We could tell he was in debt, so he’d be the most obvious member of the team to try to bribe.”

  Nolan stared at Ashlyn. Whatever questions he had about her searching his desk, he didn’t let them distract him from the issue at hand. “Yeah, that’s what I’d figured, but I couldn’t get any further. I was supposed to investigate the team, but I was also supposed to work the case. We’d never planned on what happened to Winters or the investigation snowballing the way it did.”

  “I followed up on Ashlyn’s hunch,” Tain said. “Campbell had a gambling problem. He’d been smart enough to keep it out of town, but he was in deep to some casinos on other Reserves. We think that when they found out he was the liaison officer from Nighthawk Crossing, they found a way he could pay it back.”

  “That’s why he didn’t want anyone talking to the Reserve police,” Ashlyn said.

  “Do you think they were part of it?”

  Tain held up a hand. “All we know is, Campbell owed them. There’s a serious problem with illegal trade on Reserves.”

  “And someone from inside the department tipped them off about the raid on Blind Creek Shipping a few months ago,” Nolan said. “Campbell had access.”

  “He wasn’t the only one, but he’s the one who’s got motive.”

  “And he wasn’t too happy when we came up with the tip about truckers. Considering how difficult you were,” Nolan nodded at Tain, “Campbell’s complaining didn’t seem unusual.” He was quiet for a moment before he looked at Ashlyn.

  “You think they’re at the cabin?”

  She nodded. Tain pulled a map out
of his pocket.

  “It’s actually not on Reserve land. Not entirely. This little piece here”—Tain pointed—“is, but it’s nothing but woods. Over here there’s a house, and then out here there are a couple cabins. I asked around, quietly. Mrs. Campbell used to rent the cabins to fishermen in the summer and hunters in the fall. Had quite a business from what I hear, but the land was under dispute. She believed it was all part of the Reserve. When she died, the courts did an assessment and most of her land fell within town limits, so there were a lot of back taxes owing. There was an appeal, but Eddie lost.”

  “The ruling was made about a month ago,” Ashlyn said.

  “So they started taking girls out there, thinking it’s Native land. When the courts decide it isn’t, they appeal, and when they lose we start finding bodies.”

  “One other thing,” Tain said. “The property had a walk-in refrigerator. Part of the services offered to the hunters, I guess. From the scale of this, I’d say there’s about a mile between the house and the cabins, and there’s another half a mile to the fridge, here.” He tapped the paper. “It’s partially underground, from what I was told. And a lot of people were pretty surprised Eddie didn’t take up the business, because there was a lot of demand.”

  “If we’d been able to follow up on the leads about the truck stops days ago…”

  “What’s done is done,” Ashlyn said. “We need to get out there, and if we call Sullivan, he’s going to tell us we don’t have enough for a warrant. We don’t have anyone saying they saw the girls there, and with the Blind Creek Inn burned to the ground along with the staff house across the street, that’s a dead end.”

  “That was probably the point,” Nolan said.

  Tain leaned forward, his hands folded in front of him, resting on the table. After a few seconds he looked up at Nolan. “Jenny came to me. She told me everything she knew. If it hadn’t been for the leak in our department…”

  For a moment they were silent. There could still be girls alive, but at the very least, they all knew that if Bobby and Eddie had been stopped months ago, Jenny wouldn’t have died.