Take Me Back (Paradise, Idaho Book 4)

by Rosalind James

  Oh, good. She wouldn’t have to get up. “Cletus. Quiet. Shut up.”

  He wasn’t listening. He was galloping around to her side of the bed, still barking.

  It was a racket to raise the dead. Cletus never barked in her face. She put her hands over her ears and said, “Stop. I mean it. STOP.”

  He barked again, and something in the sharpness of it finally made it through the fog in her brain, the result of too much turkey and too many uncomfortable thoughts. She shoved her feet into her slippers while Cletus dashed for the door and came back again, still barking his head off. After a quick moment’s thought, she went to the closet, took the shotgun and box of shells down from the shelf for the first time since she’d bought them, set the ammo on the bed, and forced herself to stay calm as she cracked the gun and loaded it.

  Overkill. Maybe.

  She grabbed her fleece robe from the hook on the back of the door, pulled it on, and tied the belt. Then she picked up the shotgun and, after another moment’s thought, pumped the handle to chamber the shell.

  If you need it, you’ll need it now. If you don’t, you unload.

  Out into the hallway, then, switching on lights as she went. Out the front door, with Cletus running ahead of her, then circling back.

  She flipped the porch light on, took a firm hold on the gun, opened the door, draped the gun over one forearm in the way she’d been taught, respecting its power, and followed her dog.

  That was when she smelled it. Smoke.

  The smoke alarm hadn’t gone off, though. Brushfire?

  Even as she had the thought, the shriek began overhead. She hurried after the dog, forgetting to shiver in the cold. Her heart was beating hard, her breath coming out in icy puffs.

  Around the side of the house, to a view of flickering orange. Yellow. Red.

  Fire.

  Fire in the bushes to the right side of the path. Fire on the other side, starting to lick up the side of the house. A wall of fire.

  No. A tunnel through fire. But it was a wide tunnel. It had barely started. She could get through it. Right now.

  She ran, the heat warming her on either side, smelling smoldering wood and resinous pine. On her right, a small tree caught and went up like a torch, sending up a shower of sparks that landed around her. And on her, too. She smelled something worse, felt her hair sizzling, was beating at it with one hand as she kept her feet going, her slippers sliding on the icy concrete, her breath coming hard.

  She was out. Through the fire, around the corner. She was out, and it wasn’t that bad. She could get the hose and put it out.

  She was headed around the garage for it when something hit her. A flash in her peripheral vision, and a sharp starburst of pain blooming in her forehead. She stumbled, and the shotgun went flying from her hand as first her knee and then her palm hit the ground. Then she was crawling. Getting away from the fire, and the pain.

  One second, she was moving. The next, something hard crashed into her upper back and her forehead hit the concrete. And that was all.

  The killer ran.

  Running hadn’t been in the plan. Neither had hitting Hallie. There wasn’t supposed to be violence. It was supposed to be scaring her, that was all.

  The stupid dog. All that careful planning, and the dog had messed it up.

  No time now. Get away.

  Skidding down the driveway, the too-large shoes cumbersome, still holding the gas can, because there hadn’t been time to put it into the backpack. Which was just as well. The can had been necessary. Regrettable, but necessary.

  Along the empty road to the car, wrenching off a glove and grabbing the keys from the right-hand pocket of the cargo pants. Diving into the car, taking precious seconds to shove the gas can into the backpack again, so it would leave no trace in the car. And then, finally, stabbing the key into the ignition and driving.

  Not too fast. No squeal of tires, nothing noticeable. Almost two o’clock on the Friday morning after Thanksgiving. Nobody awake, every oversized house, up its discreet driveway, dark and silent.

  Not taking the fastest route to town, because it was also the fastest route from the fire station. Instead, the longer route around the winding curves that spelled “exclusive real estate,” and finally coming out on the highway that led to Union City in one direction, into Paradise on the other. Meeting not a soul along the way.

  No relaxing. Not yet. Instead, driving all the way out to the mall on the opposite side of town, the streets still weirdly empty. And this was farther away, surely, than anybody would expect anyone to drive before dumping the gear. They couldn’t search every trash container in town.

  Pulling around behind a deserted ShopCo, the parking lot as empty as the streets on this quietest of nights, turning off the car and killing the lights, and struggling out of the layers of heavy clothes in the awkward confines of the driver’s seat. Getting rid of everything that would hold any residue of gasoline, of smoke. The hat. The parka. The sweatshirts, the pants, the shoes, the socks. Until it was a turtleneck and jeans and bare feet.

  Putting on the gloves, then, groping for the big black trash bag from the floor of the passenger seat, stuffing everything into it, first the gas can, and the shoes and clothes on top, and tying it shut. No prints on anything. Even if they found it all, somehow—no prints.

  Tugging the gloves off again, shoving feet into regular shoes. Moving fast, trying to be calm, while the sound of labored breathing belied the attempt. And then, with gloves on again, looking into the rearview mirror one last time and seeing only darkness, then hauling in a deep breath and leaving the safety of the car. Moving fast to the dumpster and hauling it open, leaning into it, digging through stinking piles of trash to make a hole, and finally stuffing the black bag down, as deep as possible, dragging other refuse over it to cover it.

  Finally—finally—back in the car, trying to calm a racing heart, to keep steady hands on the wheel. Back home, down deserted streets, with the wind starting to blow the first icy particles of snow across the windshield.

  Just in time. There would be no tire tracks through that snow, and nothing to show the car hadn’t been there all night, not it if was parked in exactly the same spot, which it was.

  Back into the house, leaving nothing behind. Stripping off every stitch of clothing along the way, tossing it all into the washing machine and turning it on. Just in case. And, finally, a soft creep through the house, a quick, thorough scrub in the shower of the second bathroom, until every trace had to have been removed.

  Back to the storage closet, dressing again, underwear and pajamas like every night, back to normal.

  A slow, stealthy slide down the hallway. A rustle from a bed, and the worst moment since the dog had come running out of the flames with Hallie behind him.

  “Wha—?” The voice sleepy, confused. “What happened?”

  “Shh. Indigestion. Go back to sleep.”

  “Oh.” It had been a sigh, and that was all. Two Ambien.

  And Hallie would be fine. Of course she would. A knock on the head, that was all. Which was probably better anyway. If you wanted to scare her out of town? It was much better.

  Anyway, it was done.

  REAL-DEAL INVESTIGATION

  Once again, Jim heard it from DeMarco first.

  When your phone rang in the middle of the night on Thanksgiving, you picked up.

  “Lawson,” he said.

  “Hallie’s place is burning,” DeMarco said.

  Jim was already on his feet. “Hallie—”

  “Ambulance just got here,” DeMarco said. “I came in right behind the first fire engine. She was on the driveway, just out of the flames, barely crawling, with that big dog of hers trying to pull her along. Damnedest thing I ever saw. Dragging her by the collar of her robe.”

  “Is she all right?” Jim was moving on autopilot now. He had his jeans on, was pulling a sweatshirt over his head and grabbing his socks.

  “Groggy. I can’t tell. Her forehead was messe
d up when they turned her over. Scraped from the dog dragging her, and from something else. Quite a bit of blood, and a lump like she’d been hit, or she’d fallen. Exactly like her dad, which is hinky. But she’s awake.”

  Your dad died in that house, the letter had said. You could too.

  “I’ll head to the hospital,” Jim decided. “I’ll meet them there.” He had to get off the phone and call his mom to come over. He couldn’t leave Mac alone, not with something—somebody—out there.

  “You do that,” DeMarco said.

  “I’m on duty in the morning, though. Shit.”

  “I’ll take care of that,” DeMarco said.

  “Thanks. That fire—where? Sounds like it was set?”

  “Side of the house, and I’d say, yeah, it was set. Burning from the outside, not the inside, no source that anyone could see. They’ll have it under control fast. Not a way you’d kill a person, because they’d be able to get out. Unless you were planning to smoke them out and then whack them on the head. But it didn’t look to me like they whacked hard enough for that to be the plan.”

  “A way you’d scare somebody.” Jim had his boots on now. “Scare them enough to leave, since nothing else they’ve done has worked. Damn it. I shouldn’t have let her aunt and uncle know we saw the GPS.”

  It had been too big a risk after all. He’d thought the person doing this was wussy. Lame. But they’d upped their game.

  “Whoever it was might not have meant to hit her,” DeMarco said. “They probably meant to set the fire and leave. I’m guessing the dog woke her up, and she ran out and interrupted the perp before they could get out. And another thing about that.”

  He hesitated, and Jim said, “What?”

  “There was a shotgun on the driveway,” DeMarco said. “Loaded.”

  “But she hasn’t been shot,” Jim managed to say.

  “No,” DeMarco said, and Jim took a couple deep breaths and thought, No. Not shot, and talked himself back under control.

  He hung up and called his mom, and fifteen minutes later, he was on his way to the hospital. And trying not to think about the last time he’d been there with a woman he loved.

  It was more than an hour before he got to see her, and only after she’d been transferred to a room.

  When he walked in to the sight of the narrow bed with its privacy curtains, the white face against the pillow, the blinking lights of an IV—it wasn’t his most wonderful moment. But at least he was walking in with DeMarco, and the two of them were going to take care of this.

  Hallie was going to get better, too. That would be the other difference.

  She was lying there with her eyes closed, her curls the only spot of color. Well, her curls, and the red abrasions on her cheekbones, her nose, her chin, and the palm that lay turned up on the white blanket. Her face was all scraped up, a bandage only a fraction paler than her skin covered most of her forehead, and a sharp, acrid stench lingered in the air.

  Burned hair. The sickening smell made Jim’s own hair rise on the back of his neck. He’d smelled that often enough. Burned hair. Burned flesh.

  He pulled a chair from the other side of the room up to the head of the bed and sat down on the side of her bed where her uninjured hand lay, leaving DeMarco to find his own chair and sit beside him, so Hallie wouldn’t have to turn her head.

  Her eyes opened at the movement. They were unfocused at first, which made Jim’s gut clench, but then they cleared. She’d been asleep, that was all. No wonder.

  “Hey,” she said, her voice a little hoarse. That would be the smoke. Her eyes slid past Jim to DeMarco, and even that movement, Jim saw, made her face tighten with pain.

  “Hey.” Jim smiled at her, which wasn’t easy. “Detective DeMarco’s here to question you. I’m here to hold your hand.” Which he did—the uninjured one. Gently. “How you doing?”

  “Not too bad.”

  “Yeah, right,” he said, and she managed to raise a smile herself that reached right into his chest and squeezed his heart.

  “You guys . . . can you tell me?” she said. “Cletus. Did somebody get him?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” DeMarco said. “I took him over to Jim’s place and dropped him off.”

  “Oh.” She closed her eyes again for a moment. “Thank you. I’ve been so worried about him running around loose, trying to find me.”

  “No way,” DeMarco said. “He’s a canine hero. Dragging you out of the fire like that? You bet we took care of him.”

  “I remember . . . moving on the driveway,” she said. “Trying to get out. Was that him? Mostly, I remember him barking. It’s why I went downstairs.”

  “With your shotgun?” Jim guessed. “Was that yours?”

  “Yeah. But I was so stupid.” She coughed. “Could you get me some water?”

  Jim picked up a plastic container from the swivel table and held the straw for her. Something else he’d done a hundred times. Something he’d have given anything not to have to do again.

  She drank thirstily, in gulps, and when she stopped, he set the container down.

  “My head . . . hurts,” she said. “I hit it. How did that happen?”

  “Somebody hit it,” DeMarco said, with a glance at Jim that told him, You’re the boyfriend. I’m the investigator. Shut up. “Did you see who it was?”

  “No,” she said. “Sorry.”

  “You’ve got a few stitches in there,” Jim told her. “And after they hit you, they shoved you in the back, or kicked you, maybe, so your forehead hit the pavement hard. You’ve got some good bruising in a different place from the cut, plus what they’re calling a moderate concussion.”

  “OK,” she said. “Thanks.” And Jim thought again how much braver she was than she realized.

  “They pushed me, and I fell and hit my head, like my dad,” she said after a minute. “Like the letter said, and like you thought. Somebody pushed him, too, I’ll bet anything now.”

  “Yeah,” DeMarco said. “Like Jim thought.”

  “But I was stupid,” she said.

  “How?” DeMarco asked.

  “Why did I run through the fire? I followed Cletus, but why? I should have gone through the house. Downstairs, and out the door from the family room. Why didn’t I do that? I’ve kept wondering.”

  “Because you reacted automatically,” Jim said. Forget not being the investigator. This was boyfriend territory. He couldn’t resist stroking a gentle hand over her hair, and she sighed and closed her eyes, so maybe it helped. “If you’re trained in emergency situations, the training takes over in a crisis. It’s automatic. If you’re not trained, you do what’s automatic for you. You followed the dog and ran out the front door. Never mind. You got out.”

  DeMarco asked a few more questions, most of which Hallie couldn’t answer. She was clearly flagging, so DeMarco put his notebook away and said, “We’ll be in touch when we know more, or if we need to ask you anything else. Where will you be?”

  “Uh—I don’t know,” she said. “I guess I can’t go home.”

  “Not until the fire department clears it,” DeMarco said. “They aren’t going to let you back in right away.”

  “Anyway,” Jim said, “you don’t want to go back there alone.”

  “I don’t,” she said with a sigh. “But I have to.”

  “No,” he said. “We’ll call Bob Jenkins and talk about it. I can’t believe you’d have to live there after something like this happened. But don’t think about it tonight.” He told DeMarco, “She’ll go to my mom’s.”

  “Oh—” Hallie said.

  “Because,” Jim said, “I don’t have a spare bedroom, and neither does Anthea, and anyway, my place would be out for obvious reasons, and Anthea’s out of town. But my mom does have a spare bedroom. You need to be someplace where you’re safe, and where somebody can look after you for a couple days.”

  DeMarco looked at him for a long moment, then said, “Talk to you outside a second?”

  “Yeah.” Jim squeezed Halli
e’s hand again and said, “Be right back.”

  “Will you stay for a while?” she asked. “I’m a little—” Her throat worked, and her eyes were shadowed with fatigue and pain.

  “A little scared,” he finished. “You bet. I’ll be here. It’s OK, baby. You’re safe.” To hell with DeMarco. He needed to say it, because she needed to hear it.

  She tried to smile, but a couple tears leaked out and trailed down her cheeks.

  This time, Jim thought, I’m here for you. “Hey, now,” he said. “Hey.” He grabbed a tissue, blotted the tears gently, and said, “I’ll be right back. And in the meantime, I’m right outside the door. Nobody’s getting in here. I promise.”

  He got up. He didn’t want to, but he had to talk to DeMarco. It was a hell of a choice.

  The second they were out the door and out of earshot, he asked the other man, “You check out the aunt and uncle yet?”

  “As soon as the fire investigator confirms what you and I already know,” DeMarco said. “That this was arson. But we’ll also be checking out your mom and Cole.”

  Jim wanted to protest, but he couldn’t.

  “And you’re off the case,” DeMarco said. “Already talked to the lieutenant about it. Or rather, you were never on the case. This is a real-deal investigation now, and having you be part of it would be the dictionary definition of ‘personal involvement.’ I hate to ask this, but—are you absolutely positive about taking her to your mom’s? I’m not necessarily talking about your mom,” he hurried to add, “although we’ll have to check her out. But your brother?”

  Jim had told him about the graffiti. No choice on that, either. He’d seen how much an investigation could be messed up by people withholding information out of a misguided attempt to protect somebody else.

  “I’m sure,” Jim said.

  DeMarco nodded, though he didn’t look entirely convinced. “It’s not exactly unheard-of for a fifteen-year-old to set a fire—or any of the rest of it. But kids who are that twisted haven’t hidden it their whole lives. They’ve hurt other kids, pets. Set fires, for that matter. Their parents know it, even if they don’t want to admit it. Their brother would know it for sure.”