by Rachel Lee
“Help yourself.”
Dalton questioned Allison first about events, the right way to go when the other witness was a stranger. One of the deputies wrote down everything, while the other stood like a guard, watching. Mostly keeping an eye on him.
Gage nodded when Allison finished outlining events then faced Jerrod again. “So you picked up the shell? Why didn’t you leave it?”
“Because I don’t know this guy’s motives. I found something I need to show you, and I didn’t want him to risk changing his mind and coming back for this. Then again...” Shoving his gloved hand into his pocket, Jerrod pulled it out and offered it.
One of the deputies snapped open a plastic bag and he dropped it in. Gage held it up, looking at it. “A normal hunting load, depending on what fired it.” He passed it back to the deputy. “Show me where you found this.”
“Sheriff,” one of the young deputies hastened to say, “I’ll do the climbing.”
“Like hell,” Gage answered. “You take Allison back down and get her warmed up. She looks blue.”
Jerrod paused a moment, dropping a kiss on Allison’s forehead. Her sherry-brown eyes tried to smile at him, but failed. “It’ll be okay.”
She nodded, then went with the deputy.
“Damn kids,” Gage muttered as he walked upslope beside Jerrod, hitching with each step.
“What?” Jerrod asked.
“I may limp, but I’m not decrepit yet. I got a boy nearly as old as he is. Hell, I got more years limping than he’s been alive.”
Jerrod couldn’t help but laugh quietly. “What happened?”
“Car bomb.” That statement clearly closed off that line of inquiry. “Okay. You were sweeping around the area?”
“I was trying to. Looking for dead animals. Allison was concerned about whether there were any more.”
Dalton nodded. “But you were doing more than that, weren’t you?”
Jerrod hesitated.
“Come clean with me, man, and we’ll get along a whole lot better.”
Jerrod respected that, too. He was beginning to like Dalton. “Okay. I was a covert operative. That’s all I can say about that.”
“Which explains the ready reserve. So what do you think is going on?”
“Someone’s been watching her. Or maybe me. At this point I can’t tell anymore. Let’s just say I was sure it was her. I was concerned about her safety after her rear window was bashed in. Hell, I was concerned before that. She keeps telling me it’s impossible to trace this poison back to its source, but what if the guy who used it doesn’t know that?”
Dalton nodded and paused for a moment. His face tightened a bit, then he blew a long breath and resumed the trek upward. “Yeah, the perp might not know that. So you were worried.”
“Right. But that was it. Concerned. I came out here today to do two things—keep an eye on her and look for this watcher, whoever he is. At first I think she thought I was a little nuts about this, but then she had a thought, one I’d already had.”
“Which was?”
“What if this guy is still using the poison out here? What if he was in a position to be caught red-handed? That might really put her at risk.”
Gage halted and looked straight at him. “Why didn’t you come to me with this?”
“A feeling? Because that’s all I really had. A feeling that something isn’t right, that someone is watching her out here and in town. I could have ignored the feeling in town, but not out here. But what would you have said to me?”
“That I had a feeling like that once, and to my everlasting sorrow I ignored it. But you couldn’t have known that.” Gage looked up. “How much farther?”
“Not much. Maybe fifteen yards.”
“Good, because while I won’t admit it to my deputies, climbing is a freaking pain in the back and leg for me. My wife keeps telling me I’m too stubborn for my own good.”
“Stubbornness is all that keeps us going sometimes.”
“No kidding.”
At last they reached the point where the ground was disturbed, as if someone had taken off fast.
Gage spoke. “You didn’t walk on that?”
“Hell, no.” Jerrod pointed. “The shell was over here. I figure it ejected three or four feet.”
“That’s pretty powerful.” Gage turned around and looked back down the hill. “I can see Dave from here. This was no accidental shot.”
“No.”
Gage looked around, rubbing his chin, then scratching at his burn-scarred cheek. “Okay. What strikes you about this, Mr. Covert Ops? Let’s see if we agree.”
“It looks as though someone inexperienced made a mistake and hightailed it as fast as he could.”
“Looks?” Gage apparently latched on to his choice of words. A smart man.
“Looks,” Jerrod repeated. “And it’s just too damn convenient.”
“What about the shell? You said you were afraid he’d come back for it.”
“We don’t know for sure what the guy is up to. But when I saw this, my mind began to run in another direction. I found something else earlier and I wanted to compare the casings.”
“Casings?” Gage emphasized the plural. It was a moment before he spoke again. “It’s scary, but I believe we’re thinking alike. Run it by me.”
“You looked downslope and you could see your deputy. Allison was wearing her orange vest and cap. There was no way on earth she could be mistaken for a deer or whatever else is in season. Ergo, he shot at her on purpose, but wanted to make it look like a mistake. So he messed the area up and left behind a casing. Very amateurish on the surface.”
Gage nodded slowly. “But you know better.”
“Let’s just say I’ve set up a scene or two in my time just like this. It usually works.”
“Yeah, it would. He wasn’t counting on me, though.”
“Meaning?”
“I believe you.”
“I found something that may seal it. You up to a little more hiking?”
“Just tell me it’s downhill.” Gage paused. “And I don’t think he’s after Allison. We need to have a talk, you and me.”
Chapter 9
Gage straightened after looking at what Jerrod had found earlier. He keyed his radio. “Velma, I’m going to need the team out here pronto.”
After he got an affirmative, he looked at Jerrod. “You know, by showing me all this, you’ve made yourself look more suspicious.”
Jerrod shrugged. “I don’t care.”
“Why? Because your military buddies will pull you out of jail?”
“Only if they need me, and that’s not likely. No, I want to be sure Allison is safe. I want to get this guy. That’s all.”
After a moment Dalton nodded. “Get Allison home. God knows why, but I trust you.”
Jerrod smiled faintly. “Because you know I’ve put myself in the middle. Anything happens to her, I’m on the firing line.”
“I may stop by later. Where will I find you?”
“At Allison’s. I’m not going to leave her alone, not until we’re sure she isn’t the target.”
“How likely is that?”
“Slim,” Jerrod answered. “But as long as there’s a remote chance...”
Dalton nodded. “Don’t be surprised if a deputy or city cop knocks at random times until I check you out. You’ll know you’re clear when I send your ID back. Or when I stop by.”
It went against Jerrod’s grain to just turn this over, especially since he was getting a sense of the kind of opponent they were up against. He didn’t see that he had much choice at the moment, though. The cops were going to clear all the evidence that they could find, and he’d only get in the way. Or maybe mess things up if he went haring off on hi
s own. He got it, but didn’t like it.
He’d be back out here, though. He had a score to settle, and he figured this guy was far from done.
Down by the river, he found Allison sitting in her SUV with the heat blasting. She didn’t look happy, and he could only imagine the hell she had been going through, stuck here without knowing what was happening.
She rolled down her window as he approached, and the heat hit him in the face, just now making him aware how cold he had gotten.
“We can go home now.”
“But what...”
He interrupted. “I’ll tell you all about it. First let’s get back and get some food. I need to warm up, too.”
She nodded and rolled her window up again. The deputy who had been watching over her stepped out of the way and waved as they turned around and headed back.
* * *
She did need a meal, Allison thought. The power bars weren’t doing it for her. In fact, they both could probably use one of Maude’s steak sandwiches, a heap of fries and all the cholesterol they could pack in after this morning.
It bothered her that Gage had seemed so suspicious of Jerrod, and she wondered, inevitably, if she should be suspicious, too. What did she really know about him after all? But now it was Jerrod who was taking her home, not a deputy, and anyway, over the past couple of weeks, she had come to trust him herself. Was she afraid to trust her own instincts?
Maybe she should be, but when it came to Jerrod, her mind was made up. He drove behind her all the way back to town, like a watchdog, she thought. After this morning, she guessed she needed one. When she turned onto the side street and pulled in at Maude’s, he pulled in right beside her. He was at her door before she could get out.
“You want to eat here?” he asked.
“I want to get home. Takeout, unless you object.”
“If you know what you want, I’ll get it.”
“Thanks.”
The cold and adrenaline had left her feeling tired, a very different kind of tired from yesterday. This would pass as soon as she had calories coursing through her blood and didn’t have to shiver anymore.
Jerrod emerged from Maude’s with a large paper bag. He acknowledged her with a nod, then slid into his truck. Moments later he was following her down the streets to her home. He pulled into his own driveway as usual, but arrived at her side, carrying the bag in one hand, as she fumbled with the key to her front door. Her hands wouldn’t stop shaking.
“Damn it,” she swore, not caring how petulant she sounded. “Enough already.”
He took the key from her hand. “It’s okay,” he said as he unlocked the door and pushed it open for her. “It’s been a rough day.”
“No joke,” she muttered. From wherever she had been earlier, she was now teetering on the brink of utter frustration and very real anger. She unzipped her snowmobile suit, cussed at the vest when it tried to tangle her up, and plopped on a living room chair to pull her boots off and the legs of the suit. She tossed her outerwear, left the suit in a heap and headed for the kitchen.
She wanted coffee now.
She had managed to remain rational and reasonable through being shot at, through questioning, through waiting, through the whole trip home, but now she was within the safety of her own walls, and the cauldron of emotions refused to be contained any longer.
Her hands still shook, whether from delayed shock or the fury that bubbled through her veins, she didn’t know. She didn’t care, either. She almost snapped at Jerrod when she rattled the coffeepot so hard against the water tap that he stepped in and took it from her.
“Sit,” he said quietly. “Start eating. I’ll deal with this.”
“I can do it my damn self!”
“I know you can. But right now you don’t have to. Eat.”
She almost snarled, but did as she was told. The objective voice in the back of her brain tried to tell her to cool it, but she didn’t want to cool it. Some idiot had shot at her and could have killed her. The image of that gash in the tree so close to her head kept popping up in her mind’s eye like a crazy jack-in-the-box.
Oh, it was coming home now. No doubt. She sat at the table, looking at her trembling hands, feeling her stomach sink repeatedly. What had happened out there? Better yet, why had it happened? Even some crazed poisoner who was still using the toxin must realize how easy it would be to evade her in the woods. For God’s sake, all she was doing was taking samples. It wasn’t exactly going to work like following breadcrumbs home.
Jerrod put out two plates and utensils. He pulled boxes from the bag and began to open them. Steak sandwiches, a mountain of fries, a big salad.
“Hansel and Gretel would never have gotten home, you know.”
“What?” Jerrod paused. She was almost hysterical enough to laugh at his frown of perplexity.
“Breadcrumbs,” she said. “I was thinking of a trail of breadcrumbs. It’s not like the poisoner is leaving one.”
“Which, I take it, led you to Hansel and Gretel.”
“Bingo. They’d never have made it home because the birds would have erased their trail.”
“Ah. Probably.” He put a half sandwich on her plate and pushed the salad her way. She scooped some onto her plate, relieved to see that her hands had grown steadier. “I wish I could be cool like you. I bet you don’t get all crazy when you get shot at.”
“Only because it’s happened so often. You’re doing just fine.”
Only because it’s happened so often. What a statement. If she weren’t already such a mess, she might have felt more than mild astonishment that anyone could say that. “No, I’m not doing fine.”
He left it alone, pouring coffee for both of them, then sitting across from her to eat. She knew she needed food, but her appetite seemed to have vanished along with her whole sense of personal safety. Shattered. Poof. Someone had tried to kill her.
The anger surged again, strengthening her, and she bit into her sandwich. She had to keep her energy up and start dealing with all of this. “Somebody shot at me,” she said, stating the obvious maybe because she needed to hear it out loud. “Tried to kill me. Why, for God’s sake?”
“I don’t think he wanted to kill you.”
Her head snapped up. “You’re joking. He shot at me.”
“If you had stood where he stood... Well, if you’d used guns much in your life, you’d realize that a reasonably good marksman couldn’t have missed you. It wouldn’t even take a pro target shooter. No, he was aiming for that tree.”
“You can’t guarantee that.”
“I think I can.”
She stared at him in disbelief, as the cauldron began to bubble inside her again. “I’m supposed to believe that?”
“At the distance from where he shot, if he’d wanted you, he would have had you. You were a much bigger target. Even if you had moved, he’d still have gotten you. Frankly, it’s damn near impossible to dodge a bullet aimed at center mass. He aimed high. Your eye level. He missed on purpose.”
“You can’t possibly know that.” She watched his face tighten and darken.
“Yes. I can.”
She chewed on that mentally and gave up on her sandwich. It was sticking in her throat. She reached for coffee to wash it down. “Maybe,” she said quietly, “you’d better explain so this innocent, naive civilian can understand.” She hated the petulant tone of her voice.
“Even hunters don’t go for headshots,” he said. “It’s too easy to miss your target. You go for the shoulder. Bigger target. If you want to shoot a person, you go for the biggest part, too. The part that you can’t miss. That was a scare shot. And believe it or not, your sheriff agrees with me.”
Her insides twisted, trying to readjust. “So this guy risked killing me to scare me off?”
“He’
s better than that. He wants you scared off, but he had absolutely no intention of killing you or even wounding you.”
“Then why? Why, Jerrod? There are other ways to scare me.”
“Bashing in your car’s window didn’t work.”
“Oh, man.” She grabbed her fork and speared some salad. Maybe that would go down. “I don’t like the world you live in.”
His face darkened even more. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to bring it to your doorstep.”
That got through to her, past her anger, her fear, her frustration. Past the whole damn episode. “I didn’t mean that the way it sounded.”
“Yes, you did. And it’s all right.”
“No, it’s not. It’s just that... I don’t think you brought this to my door, anyway. Don’t blame yourself for that.”
“I may have to.”
She looked at him, feeling as if the world were slipping from beneath her feet. Everything in her seemed to sag. “Please explain. I need to understand as much as I can.”
“Eat first,” he said firmly. “We both need some energy. Then we’ll talk as much as you want.”
* * *
He was adamant, too. Not until she had eaten enough to satisfy him would he stop prompting her to take more. He finished his own meal as if he was ravenous. Then he carried coffee for them into the living room. She sat on the wooden rocking chair with its cheery pillows, refusing to get close to him, even as close as the far end of the couch.
Her world had been rocked this morning and she needed to deal with it. Even in the midst of all this, her growing cravings for him kept trying to take over. Diversion, she told herself. All that heated honey that kept wanting to run through her entire body, the need to throw herself into his arms, was merely a way to avoid thinking about what had happened this morning.
That would be exactly the wrong thing to do. She knew it, so she battled the urge to hide in sex with him, which might only wind up to be as shattering as what had happened this morning, and forced herself to attend to the ugly realities.
“Talk,” she demanded.
He nodded, cradling his mug in both hands on his lap. “This morning, just before the shot, I found something to one side of a game trail. A gun had been fired into the ground.”