“Maybe.” Definitely. Jake didn’t give advice, but Sam was asking. “Most women don’t take well to being ordered around.”
“Is that what I do?”
To make the point, Jake spoke to his dog. “Pirate?”
The dog jumped to his feet.
“Pirate, sit!” Pirate sat, his tail wagging in the dust. Jake gave him a training treat, then held up another one and looked at Sam. “Sam—”
“No—”
“Sit!”
“Oh, crud.” A slow groan crawled out of his throat. “Am I that bad?”
“Ask Lucy.”
“I know what she’d say, but I’m just so stressed out,” Sam said again. “You know what comes after diapers? Braces. Dance lessons. Prom dresses.”
“College tuition.”
Sam groaned a second time. “Stop cheering me up.”
“A wedding—”
“Oh, man. No.”
“To a guy with a barbed wire tattoo around his neck.”
“No!
“And a prison record.”
Throwing back his head, Sam howled at the sky. “Nooooo!”
Jake gloated at getting the last word, but someday he hoped to have Sam’s problems. A wife. Kids. Dedication to a cause and a career through the camp that still needed an official name.
When Sam surrendered with a grin, Jake punched his arm. “Get out of here.”
“You’ll watch out for Lucy, right?”
“Always.” Jake took out his phone. “In fact, I’ll call Mia now. We can all watch a movie.”
“Oh, man.” Sam rolled his eyes. “You’re outnumbered two to one. Lucy’s going to want to see Frozen again.”
“I’ll live.” He might even enjoy it, except for that earworm of a song about letting go.
When Sam drove off, Jake started to call Mia, but his father pulled into the driveway with Chinese food and a load of groceries. Jake helped carry in the bags, they all ate dinner, and then he asked Lucy about inviting Mia to the house for a movie.
“No, thanks,” she said. “I’m too tired.”
The poor girl’s eyes were still puffy from crying, so Jake decided not to push. When his parents retired to the den later than expected, he didn’t call Mia after all. She’d already been to the house around lunchtime, and he didn’t want to pressure her. Instead he took Pirate and went out to his office to rough out daily schedules for the camp on a dry erase board. Hiking on Tuesday. Working on cars on Thursday. Pinball at night. Relaxed and enjoying the process, he jotted his notes in different colors of ink.
It was almost ten when he finished, the perfect time for a quick good-night to Mia, so he called her. One ring. Two rings. The call went to voice mail. Even if she was asleep, she would have awoken at the ring. He sent a quick text instead. Typically she answered a text in five minutes or less. That was just her habit.
Are you up?
Eight minutes later, she still hadn’t replied. Call him paranoid, but his gut told him something was wrong. No way could Jake stand around and do nothing. He snatched his keys off the desk, loaded Pirate in his truck, and sped toward Mia’s house.
Chapter
21
Halfway down Main Street, Jake spotted a sheriff’s patrol car parked in front of Mia’s office, its light bar cutting into the night like the aurora borealis. He sped up, whipped into the parking lot, and saw her car in the farthest corner, its usual spot to leave room for patients.
Had she been here all day? All evening? He jammed on the brakes, threw his truck into park, and flung the door open for Pirate. The dog leapt out, and together they jogged up the steps. Jake quickly took in the open front door, a broken window, and light spilling onto the deck. Red spray paint dripped a macabre happy face down the yellow siding.
He strode through the door without touching anything. “Mia!”
“We’re back here,” she called, her voice steadier than his.
Safe . . . Mia was safe. Some of the tension eased out of his muscles, but not all of it. Tonight’s vandalism would also impact Camp Connie. No matter who was responsible—locals or visitors—the crime would stir up even more hostility.
The deputy—Jake recognized Brian Ross’s voice—spoke in a tired drawl. “Come on back, Jake. Just don’t touch anything.”
“I know the drill.”
He passed through the waiting area, taking in the tipped-over chairs and more red paint on the walls. The glass window to the reception area was intact, but a ficus tree lay on its side in a cracked ceramic pot, black dirt fanning across the carpet.
A familiar detachment settled into Jake’s bones, but when he saw Mia at the ravaged supply closet, riffling through the samples of medicine scattered on the floor, the detachment morphed into fury at anyone who would harm her. He suppressed it like the pro he’d been, but Pirate still nosed his leg.
“It’s okay, partner.” Jake rubbed the dog’s head. “I’m angry, that’s all.”
Jake strode down the hall, and Mia pushed to her feet. Judging by her scowl, she was even angrier than he was. Her wet hair dragged on the shoulders of a T-shirt with a teddy bear on it, the sleeping kind that went to the knees of her gray sweat pants. Fluffy pink slippers covered her feet. The little-girl look surprised him, but only for a moment. This was the vulnerable side of herself that Mia kept hidden—the fragile part of her that sometimes needed to cry and be comforted. The part she pushed aside while being strong for others.
Defiant and fierce, she put her hands on her hips. “I’d like to punch whoever did this.”
“Me too,” Jake said. “Whoever it was had a good time. I’m just glad you weren’t here when it went down.”
“I wish I had been. I would have—”
“You would have given them what they wanted and stayed safe.” No way did he want Mia doing battle with anyone. That was his job. “Or better yet, you would have walked out the back door and called 911.”
Frowning, she nudged the little boxes with her slipper. “You’re right. But I hate what happened here.”
“So do I.” With his mouth tight, he turned to Brian. “What do we know?”
“Not much. I spotted the broken window about thirty minutes ago and called Mia. No witnesses. It looks like a smash-and-grab, maybe drug seekers.”
Jake scanned the samples on the floor. The names were alphabet soup to him, but drugs of any kind might appeal to an addict. “What about a tie to the break-in at the pharmacy?”
“Very possible,” Brian replied. “But that happened on a Friday night, and this is Wednesday. The kids who broke into Blackstone’s were here for the weekend. Even so, I’ll check everything out.”
“There’s another difference.” Mia nudged the mess on the floor. “The pharmacy stocks controlled substances. I don’t keep samples of anything in that classification. An experienced drug seeker would know that.”
“But a kid might not.” Brian made a note on his pad.
“That’s true,” Jake agreed. “Is anything else missing? Computer tablets? Petty cash?”
“We were about to check the safe when you arrived.” Mia made a beeline for her office, shot past her desk, and crouched in front of a square wood credenza in the corner. Jake guessed it housed a safe.
She opened the wooden door first. “I’m embarrassed to admit this, but the lock’s broken.” She opened it without working the combination, peeked inside, and groaned. “It’s gone. All of it. The petty cash and this week’s receipts. We had about six hundred dollars in here.”
Jake and Brian traded a look before Brian spoke up. “It looks to me like kids broke in, vandalized the place for fun, and stole the cash.”
Jake hooked his thumbs on his belt and rocked back on his heels. “Maybe. Or maybe not. We need solid information before the whole town starts speculating. I don’t want Hatcher making up stories.”
“Neither do I.” Brian tapped the shaft of his pencil on his notepad. “This town hasn’t been the same since you two started fi
ghting.”
Jake shook his head. “I feel bad about that. I want peace, but Hatcher doesn’t.”
“That’s between you two,” Brian replied. “For now, I suggest you stay out of his way and let me do my job, all right?”
Jake nodded, but he didn’t appreciate being chastised like an inexperienced rookie.
The deputy turned back to Mia. “You haven’t been in town very long.”
“That’s right.”
“Have you made any enemies? Maybe a patient who wasn’t happy?”
She thought for a minute. “I saw a young woman a couple days ago. She claimed to have splashed drain cleaner in her eye and wanted Percocet. A couple things made me suspicious.”
“Such as?” Brian asked.
“Her age. Her driver’s license said she was twenty-one, but she looked much younger. The ID could have been fake. On top of that, there were small blisters around her right eye, but I didn’t see any tearing or redness in the eye itself. When I referred her to an ophthalmologist in the Springs, she begged me for a prescription just to get her through the day. I think she closed her eyes and splashed herself on purpose to get painkillers.”
“A drug seeker,” Jake remarked. “But why would she bother with the graffiti?”
“I don’t know.” Mia glanced down the hall to the mess in the lobby. “Maybe someone helped her break in, and that person wanted to make trouble, or was high, or . . . I don’t know.”
Brian wrote another note on his pad. “I’ll need her name, anything you have.”
“Just a minute.” Mia took her tablet off her desk and pulled up the patient’s file. “You know about the HIPAA laws, right? Since she’s a suspect, I can give you her demographics and injury details but nothing else.”
She held out the tablet for Brian to see, deliberately excluding Jake in order to comply with HIPAA, and maybe to keep him from becoming too involved. He didn’t like it, but he appreciated her ethics.
“Anything else?” Jake asked when Mia set down the tablet. “Any run-ins with Hatcher or the Stop the Camp group?”
A guilty look crossed her face. She was hiding something. Jake was sure of it.
“What is it?”
“It was nothing, really.” She flicked her gaze between the two men. “Mr. Hatcher was in the office about a month ago. He made a scene in the waiting room.”
“How bad?” Jake asked her.
“Nothing I couldn’t handle.”
“You should have told me.” No way would he allow Hatcher or anyone else to bully Mia. “He has no business disrupting your office.”
“Like I said, I handled it.” She stood a little taller. Even wearing fluffy slippers and with her hair crooked, Mia could be commanding.
Jake admired that trait until she aimed that feisty glare at him. He answered with a firm look of his own. “I know you can handle difficult people. You’re a pro. Even so, I don’t want Hatcher or anyone else hassling you.”
Brian broke in, his tone impatient now. “Hold on, Jake. Don’t go blowing things out of proportion. Hatcher has opinions. So do you. We don’t know what happened tonight. I’ll do some checking—starting with the kids who broke into Blackstone’s. I’ll let you both know what I find.”
Mia smiled her appreciation. “Thanks, Brian.”
“I’ll be in touch.” The deputy faced Jake. “I know I don’t have to say this, but—”
“So don’t say it.” Jake knew what was coming.
“Don’t get involved,” Brian finished. “You have skills and experience, I know that, but you’re too close to the situation. Stay out of it.”
Brian said good-night and left. As soon as the front door closed, Jake turned to Mia. In a blink she was in his arms, holding him tight with her head pressed against his chest.
“What a night,” she mumbled. “I was almost asleep when Brian called—Oh!” She leaned back but didn’t break the embrace. “How did you hear about the break-in?”
“I didn’t.” He told her about calling to say good-night. “When you didn’t answer the text, I decided to check on you.”
“That was sweet of you.” She nestled back in his arms. “I forgot my phone in the rush. I’m glad you’re here.”
“So am I.”
They stood quietly, each breathing deep until a mutual calm wrapped around them. Jake thought back to his original plan for the night and told her about Sam and Lucy, emphasizing that Lucy seemed okay when he left.
Mia sighed. “Before she married Sam, I would have run to her rescue. But she’s married now. They’ll have to work it out.”
“And they will.”
Mia, always practical, eased out of his arms. “This place is a mess, but if I clean up, I can see patients tomorrow.”
“I’ll help.”
They walked together to the waiting room, where the graffiti looked like dripping blood. Jake took out his phone and snapped pictures to document the damage for the insurance company, and then they swept up the glass and dirt from the potted plant, straightened the chairs, and hung sheets to hide the slashes of red paint and ugly words. He finished by duct-taping cardboard over the broken window.
“It’ll do for now,” Mia said. “I hate to cancel the hike on Saturday, but if I can’t find a contractor, I’ll have to paint on the weekend.”
“But the team building is coming up, right?”
“In three weeks.”
“Let’s do this,” he offered. “We’ll paint together at night and still take that hike on Saturday.”
Mia flashed a smile. “I’d like that a lot.”
So would Jake, though he hoped she felt the same way when she saw the challenge he had in mind.
Chapter
22
Hot and sweaty, with a blister forming in spite of two pairs of socks, Mia stood at the bottom of the thundering water spilling from a mossy cliff high above them. Jake slipped an arm round her waist, and they stood side by side, gazing up at the lower portion of the double-decker waterfall. The river tumbled at least fifty feet down a rock face full of ledges, cracks, and crevices. If there was a path to the top, Mia didn’t see it.
“What do you think?” Jake shouted over the roar of the water. “Was it worth the hike?”
“Every step of it,” she shouted back.
Her calves ached from the three-mile trek, all of it uphill. She had kept up with Jake’s long strides, and though her shoulders ached from carrying a knapsack stuffed with food, water, extra socks, a first aid kit, and the Leatherman tool, she was proud of herself for making the hike. She and Jake had climbed over boulders, waded in the shallow rush of the river, and done it all without saying very much. He was wearing his hearing aids, but they amplified the river noise as well as her voice.
Teamwork. They’d fallen into a pattern as natural as breathing in unison. Mia rested her head on his shoulder. “Not all surprises are bad, are they?”
He tightened his grip on her waist, kissed her tenderly, then kissed her again more deeply. When they broke apart, she thought of the surprise for him in her knapsack. “How about lunch? I brought brownies from the Emporium.”
“We’ll dig in when we reach the top.”
“Uh . . .” Mia glanced up at the rock wall. “Did you say ‘the top’?”
He dropped his backpack on the ground. “It’s not as steep as it looks, but I brought ropes and a harness. You’ll need the equipment for the last few feet.”
She opened her mouth to say something, but nothing came out except stammering.
“Teamwork, remember?” Jake looked far too pleased with himself.
Mia propped her hands on her hips, feigning courage she didn’t feel. “Just when I thought not all surprises were bad! Jake, are you serious?” She pointed at what looked like the side of a moss-covered medieval fortress. “That’s beyond me.”
“Not me. I’ve climbed it at least twenty times.”
She stared at the wall, then at Jake. This was why they were here—so she could
gain confidence. Somehow it hadn’t occurred to her until now that her confidence and ability wasn’t the issue in Jake’s eyes. He was teaching her about trust. She couldn’t climb that mountain without him. And to do it with him, she needed to rely on his judgment, skill, and possibly his physical strength.
He must have seen her gawking at the cliff, but he didn’t say a word. No encouragement. No cajoling. No reassurances. She appreciated that he didn’t baby her. The decision to go up or to go back was hers.
Her pulse thrummed in tune with the river, tumbling and rumbling until she mustered her courage. “Let’s go for it.”
A grin stretched across Jake’s face, and he pointed at the damp, shady rocks. “Do you see how the boulders fan away from the water? We’re going to make an arc around them and take the wall at an angle. You can’t see it from here, but there’s a three-foot ledge that will take us almost to the top.”
“Almost to the top?”
“That’s right.” Crouching, he opened his backpack and took out a yellow Kevlar rope with a harness attached. Shielding his eyes with his hand, he looked up into her face. “Did you bring gloves?”
“No. I didn’t think—”
“Here you go, partner.” He handed her a brand-new pair of women’s gloves made of thin leather. “These will help you grip the rock.”
“If I’d known I needed them—”
“You would have brought them. Team building, remember? We fill in the gaps for each other.”
“If you get hurt, I’ll sew you up. But I hope that doesn’t happen.”
“Me too.” There was no fear in his voice, only delight at the challenge ahead of them.
He pulled on his own gloves, then indicated her knapsack. “Let’s see what you brought. I’ll carry what you really need, and we’ll leave the rest here.”
Crouching next to him, Mia sorted through her things. She wanted to take it all, even the extra socks and bug repellent. Decide, Mia. What’s most important? But it was all important to her. On the other hand, her basic needs were simple. “I don’t really need any of it, except the water. And the lunch. We can eat it at the top.”
The Two of Us Page 22