In Safe Hands (Search and Rescue Book 4)

by Katie Ruggle

  “I think more than one person qualifies for that position,” Rory said dryly. “The town is made up of about seventy percent grumpy hermits.”

  Lou laughed. “True. Once we knew who the victim was, though, we couldn’t figure out a possible motive, much less narrow down the suspect pool. No one knew Willard well enough to hate him, at least that we’ve been able to find out. I mean, his Esko development protests were really minor, as far as irritations go.”

  “So there haven’t been any suspects at all?” The Gray case was much more interesting than the tiny bit of information that Chris had given her had suggested.

  “A few.” Lou shot an amused glance at Rory. “Ian was arrested for a minute.”

  “It felt like much longer than a ‘minute’ at the time,” Rory grumbled.

  “Ian?” It shocked Daisy to think that her neighbor had been a suspect.

  “His pendant,” Lou said, “which is not to be called a necklace—at least not in front of Ian or he’ll get pissy—was found in the reservoir, attached to the weight holding down the body. The cops theorized that he’d lost it while disposing of the evidence, but Rory managed to prove that he’d still had possession of his pendant long after the body was dumped.”

  Scowling, Rory added, “Someone stole the pendant while he was showering at the clubhouse, then planted the evidence.”

  “Whoa.” This was better than any mystery novel.

  Ellie gave her a wide-eyed look. “I know, right? Isn’t this just crazy?” Daisy nodded before turning back to Lou, who’d flipped to the next sheet of paper on the oversized pad and seemed to be scribbling some sort of timeline.

  As she wrote, she kept talking. “The main suspect right now is Anderson King, a local drug dealer.”

  Rory explained, “When the Liverton Riders—the local motorcycle club—started falling apart, Anderson was right there trying to fill the criminal void. He came to talk to me at my shop one day about buying—” She stopped abruptly, swallowing the rest of what she’d been about to say and looking so discomfited that Daisy’s curiosity shot through the roof. “Uh, buying guns. He killed the guy who headed up search and rescue, and now Anderson is after Ellie and her dad.”

  “I was just getting to that part,” Lou jumped in. “Willard’s one friend, Baxter Price—”

  “My dad,” Ellie interrupted.

  “The one who’s missing?” Daisy instantly regretted asking when the woman’s face dropped.

  “Yes. He checked himself out of a mental-health facility north of Denver almost a month ago. I haven’t heard from him since then, though we’ve been looking everywhere. He’s schizophrenic.”

  It was Daisy’s turn to reach for Ellie’s hand. “I’m sorry.”

  Ellie gave her a watery smile before turning back to Lou.

  “He’s okay, El,” Lou said firmly, as if she could will her words into being. “He’s tough and wily.”

  “I know.” Ellie gave a quick nod and then gestured for Lou to continue.

  “When Baxter doesn’t hear from his friend, Willard, for a while, he comes to Simpson to investigate.” Lou frowned. “Ellie, this part gets a little confusing. Would you mind taking over?”

  Ellie’s laugh was a little shaky. “Sure, although I don’t know if I can make it any less confusing. My dad called me out of the blue one night and told me that someone was after him, so he was headed to my grandpa’s old cabin to hide. I didn’t take him seriously about the someone’s-after-him part, but I didn’t want him wandering around the mountains alone, so I went searching. It ended up that two men were trying to kill him—Anderson King and his…uh, his brother.” She ducked her head for a moment, her expression tight with what looked like sadness and guilt. Before Daisy could ask Ellie what was wrong, she continued. “They are—were—local meth dealers who were informed by someone else that Dad had witnessed a sale. I overheard Dad saying the informant had lied to the dealers, sending them after him because Dad knew this person had killed Willard.”

  “Chris really has been holding out on me,” Daisy breathed, trying to take in the story. All this had been happening while she was shut up in the house, unaware of the drama. Frustration surged through her, surprising her with its strength. She wished so badly to be normal, to be able to grocery shop and visit someone else’s house and follow the local gossip and date…

  Shutting the mental door on the unexpected flood of self-pity, she refocused on Ellie. “What happened?”

  “Anderson’s brother was killed”—Ellie swallowed, her gaze dropping to her lap again—“and Anderson…got away. He tracked me down in the woods outside of George’s cabin. That’s how I got this.” She tugged at the top of her thermal shirt, revealing a bruise in various shades of green, yellow, and purple. Daisy winced in sympathy. “They’re still hunting for him, but the sheriff’s pretty sure he headed to Mexico and won’t be seen again.”

  Just that quick mention of the sheriff made Daisy shiver, and she quickly refocused her attention on Ellie.

  “With my dad, it’s hard to know what’s real and what’s not. Plus, I think he was trying to protect me by not telling me who Willard’s murderer was. We thought Joseph—the search and rescue guy who was killed—might be involved.” She shot Daisy an apologetic look. “Or maybe even Chris.”

  “What?!” Daisy straightened abruptly. “Chris? Why? He’s the most ethical, kindhearted, nonmurderous—”

  “I know! I know!” Ellie waved her hands as if trying to calm Daisy. “Now, at least. Once I spent time with Chris, I knew he couldn’t have been involved. It was just, after he left me alone at the cabin right before Anderson arrived…”

  The conversation with Chris replayed in her head. “Oh, when you were shot! Chris told me about it. He feels so awful that you were hurt on his watch.”

  “That’s what he said,” Ellie agreed. “He explained about the lack of radio and cell reception, and he apologized to me and George.”

  Although Daisy still felt prickly at any suggestion Chris could be a bad guy, she turned her attention to a different question niggling at her brain. “So did your dad say anything, or give any hints as to who it might be?”

  Ellie bit the side of her thumbnail. “Not really. The last time I talked to him, before he left Armstrong, all he said was something about ‘the fires.’ We were interrupted before he could explain what he meant, and he checked himself out that afternoon.”

  “The fires?” Lou and Rory chorused.

  “You didn’t mention that before,” Lou said, scribbling “Fires” on the paper and underlining it several times. “What’d he say about them?”

  “Sorry,” Ellie said, looking back and forth between Lou and Rory. “I figured it was just in his mind, especially after the explosion at the cabin. He didn’t say much, just mentioned ‘the fires.’”

  “The cabin exploded?” Daisy repeated, her eyes widening, but the others weren’t listening to her.

  “Rory,” Lou said, “could you ask Ian if there were any unusual fires last fall or winter, around the time that Willard was killed?”

  “Sure. There’ve been some intentionally set fires since I started volunteering with the department,” Rory said. “Just small structures, like tool sheds. Plus, there were those wildland fires last fall.”

  “Oh!” Ellie sat up straight. “I saw those burned areas when we were hiking to the cabin. George said those were probably arson, too.”

  “Derek told me that he and Artie found accelerants and other suspicious fire-starting stuff in a forest service cabin,” Lou added as she wrote nearly illegible notes under the “Fires” heading. “Did Rob and the fire chief think they were used to start those wildland fires?”

  “I don’t know, but Ian will.” She pulled out her cell phone. “As long as he’s not on a call, he’ll answer.”

  No one spoke as they waited, but Rory eventually s
hook her head as she ended the call. “Voice mail,” she explained. “I’ll try him a little later.”

  “Lou,” Daisy said a little tentatively. As the newcomer to the group, she didn’t want to bring up a suggestion that had already been discussed or, even worse, was so illogical that it didn’t need to be discussed. “Wasn’t your cabin intentionally set on fire?”

  “Yes.” Lou’s jaw tightened at the memory. “But that was my nutso stalker. He was in Connecticut when Willard was killed.”

  “Oh.” Something didn’t seem right, though. “Isn’t it strange that your stalker burned down your house at the same time there was an arsonist loose in Simpson?”

  The other three women went quiet, staring at Daisy.

  “I did wonder why Clay went from thinking he loved me to full-on homicidal,” Lou said, finally breaking the silence. “He—or whoever it was—actually kicked me back into a burning building. That doesn’t really say ‘come back East with me and be my wife.’”

  “But Rory said all the other fires have been small buildings,” Ellie said.

  Lou winced. “My cabin wasn’t very big.”

  “‘Shack-like’ was the word someone used to describe it,” Rory said.

  “Hey! Watch the cabin smack-talk, bunker dweller.” Despite her words, Lou was laughing. “Wait…did that ‘someone’ happen to be Callum?”

  Rory’s phone rang, saving her from having to answer Lou.

  “Hi.” Just in the short time Daisy had known her, she’d noticed how much Rory’s voice softened when she was talking to Ian. “You’re at Letty’s? She okay? Well, as okay as she gets?” Daisy watched Rory’s face with interest. Her expression was open and happy—very unlike the Rory Daisy was familiar with. “Good. Who took over my dog-tending duties?” She laughed. “Poor guy. Is my favorite paramedic there this time?”

  Her laughter faded into a teasing smile. “Yeah, I know. That’s why I said it. Listen, we have a question for you.” She broke off as if Ian had interrupted her. “Yep, I’m still at Daisy’s. No, no sausage biscuits this time. The meatballs and wontons were just as good, though.” Her grin widened, and Daisy found herself smiling as well. Rory’s happiness was contagious. “Can’t. We ate them all. Can I ask my question now? Thanks. How long have the arsons been going on?” At Ian’s response, her expression grew serious. “That often? And all small structures, right? Any chance Lou’s cabin could’ve been considered a small structure?”

  There was a long pause as Rory listened intently, her frown deepening. “Do you know anything about those accelerants Derek found in the forest service cabin? Okay. Let me know what the chief says. See you tomorrow morning.” Rory tipped her head away from the others, as if trying to hide her returning smile. “No, I don’t think I’ll be hungry for breakfast after eating all of these delicious snacks of Daisy’s.” Her laugh was soft. “Fine. See you then. Be safe.”

  By the time she’d ended the call, her poker face was back in place. “Ian said these fires have been happening about every month or two for over a year. He’ll look up when the first report was when he gets back to the station. Once Chief Early arrives tomorrow morning, Ian will talk to him about whether Lou’s house could’ve been the work of the arsonist, rather than her stalker, and Ian will check on what they found out about the accelerants. In return for the information, Ian requested that I bring home a doggie bag of snacks for him.”

  Lou winced. “So good to know it could’ve been two homicidal crazy people gunning for me.”

  “At least one’s dead now,” Rory said, making Daisy cover her eyes and groan. “What?”

  Luckily, Lou just laughed. “Thanks, Rory. That does help.”

  After another hour of brainstorming possible links between the arsons and Willard Gray’s murder, they called it a night.

  “Should we meet again in a couple of days?” Lou asked as the group headed for the front doors. “We made so much progress—and you three don’t shut down my wild theories like Callum does.”

  As the others agreed enthusiastically to a second meeting and exchanged phone numbers, Daisy was positively giddy with excitement. Once everyone had exited and silence returned to her world, Daisy slid down to sit with her back against the door and pulled out her phone. Her thumb automatically found the tiny dent in the back where it had connected with the granite counter a few months back. Smiling, she scrolled through her contact list. So what if there might have been a dead-body removal across the street or that the sheriff had a strange obsession with making her think she was delusional? He was just one man, and her group of friends had expanded to the point that everyone couldn’t fit on the screen anymore. The sight of the lengthened list of names made her…not content, but closer to it than she’d been since her mom’s murder.

  * * *

  The crawl space access panel was right where Gabe Little had said it would be. Finally, something was going right.

  Rob silently belly-crawled farther under the porch, his penlight gripped between his teeth. With his right hand, he reached down and worked a Phillips-head screwdriver out of the side pocket of his BDUs. The screws holding the access panel in place were corroded and rusty, and Rob gave a soundless huff of aggravation as he worked the first one loose.

  It had been a long time since he’d done an unauthorized entry. If Daisy Little had been compliant, he wouldn’t have to be lying in who-knows-what under a porch at two in the morning, fighting with decades-old hardware. Instead, he could be home with his sleeping son. Rob couldn’t have her making Chris suspicious, though. The department was already down a deputy. They couldn’t afford to lose another.

  By the time he’d worked out the final screw, Rob was sweating and more than a little annoyed. He held his temper and carefully lifted the access panel away from the foundation. His tiny flashlight wasn’t much help in cutting the thick darkness of the crawl space, but now wasn’t the time to get hesitant. Unpleasant as it was, this had to be done.

  Rob slid headfirst through the opening.

  * * *

  Daisy woke with a start.

  Her heart was pounding, but she hadn’t had a nightmare—that she could remember, at least. Lying perfectly still, staring through the darkness, Daisy listened. It was quiet. So quiet, in fact, that it was almost eerie. Her heart rate took off at a gallop again, and she slid out of bed. Glancing at the glowing clock numbers, she sighed. She hadn’t even been asleep for an hour. Tomorrow was going to be painful.

  Her bare feet were silent as she padded toward the window, listening for a repeat of whatever sound had woken her. There was nothing, though. Even the wind had taken a short, rare hiatus. It was strange not hearing the howling gusts battering at the house. Daisy had become so accustomed to that sound that the absence of it made her feel like the world was holding its breath.

  With one knee on the window seat, she leaned forward and looked outside. Fog spread over the neighborhood, hiding all but the most basic shapes of the houses across the street. With a shiver, she moved away from the window. Trying to guess what might be out there, hiding in the mist, would only make her nerves worse.

  She stood in the middle of her bedroom. If she tried to go back to bed, she’d just lie awake and jump at every faint sound. There’d be no way she could concentrate on a book, either, so reading was out. A run it was, then.

  After turning on her bedside lamp, she moved over to her dresser and picked out a sports bra and some shorts. As she started pulling the oversized sleep shirt over her head, a muffled thump from downstairs made her freeze.

  The fabric was still bunched around her face, blinding her, and she yanked it back into place. If she was going to be investigating mysterious noises, she wasn’t about to do it almost naked.

  I imagined it, she tried to reassure her frantic brain. No one is downstairs. The windows are sealed shut, and the door has a bazillion locks on it. There’s no way someone c
ould be downstairs. If someone’s here, then that means this house isn’t safe, and that means… The floor tilted, and she swayed as her room began to gray around the edges.

  “Stop!” she whispered fiercely. It wouldn’t help anything if she talked herself into a panic attack. She started to move toward her bedside table, where her phone sat, but then she paused. Who would she call? Chris, to tell him she might have heard a noise? The sheriff? Daisy actually snorted out loud, imagining Rob Coughlin’s reaction.

  Before she called in reinforcements, she needed to make sure there really had been a noise, and that the noise had been caused by something dangerous. Tentatively, Daisy moved toward the hall, stopping in the doorway to try to peer through the darkness. All she saw were shadows.

  Her heart tripped faster as she made her way to the stairs, carefully lowering her weight on each step so as not to make a noise. At the bottom, the doorway into the exercise room loomed. This was her sanctuary, her safe place. Tonight, though, it didn’t feel safe.

  Forcing herself to move, she pushed open the exercise room door and stopped abruptly. The windowless space wasn’t shadowed and dim like the hall and the stairs—it was pure blackness.

  Cursing herself for not grabbing the flashlight out of her nightstand, she reached along the wall and switched on the lights. The overheads blinded her for a few seconds, turning the exercise equipment into strange, overexposed shapes. Daisy blinked rapidly, twisting so she could see all corners, and the room came into focus. Her gaze darted around, searching for anything out of place—or anyone, full stop. Everything looked as it always did, but something made the room seem wrong. The equipment was too still, too quiet, and the light too bright, casting harsh shadows. She’d always loved this room, and its unexpected eeriness felt like the betrayal of a close friend.

  Giving in to the growing urge to escape, she returned to the hall. As she checked each area, she continued turning on lights—the study, living room, dining room, and kitchen. With each flick of a switch, she held her breath until the new room came into focus and proved to be intruder-free. Every window was secured, and the front door locks were fully engaged. Despite all that, Daisy couldn’t relax. The house, this home in which she’d spent so many years, was suddenly a hostile stranger.