The Legend of Smuggler's Cave

by Paula Graves

  “Logan,” she said with a hint of a smile. “His name is Logan.”

  The little boy had settled down to a series of soft hitching sniffles. “Can I get something for him?” Dalton asked, trying to remember what he’d found comforting as a little boy. “A cookie or a toy or something?”

  “There’s ice cream in the freezer. Strawberry—it’s his favorite.”

  Dalton headed for the kitchen. He noticed, in passing, that she’d cleaned the place up sometime between the night before and now. Even the torn sofa cushions had been mended.

  As he reached for the refrigerator’s freezer compartment, Briar said, “No, not that one. The one in the corner.”

  He spotted a chest freezer nearby and pulled open the top. Inside, instead of the brand-name carton he was expecting, he found a large plastic tub labeled Strawberry Ice Cream in neat, clear handwriting. He pulled out the tub, uncovering what looked to be stacks and stacks of vacuum-packed cuts of some sort of meat. Looking closer, he saw that, like the ice cream, they were labeled in the same strong handwriting. Venison Shoulder, read one of the packages, with a date—December of the previous year—inscribed below. Another nearby contained pork—wild pig, to be exact—apparently put in the freezer only four weeks ago.

  He closed the freezer and set the container of ice cream on the small kitchen table. “Hey, Logan, how about some ice cream?”

  The little clinging monkey turned his tearstained face toward Dalton, his big gray eyes wide with a mixture of caution and curiosity.

  Dalton tried again. “Ice cream, Logan. You want some?”

  Logan looked up at his mother as if to seek her permission. She lowered him to the floor. “It’s okay,” she said. “You can have some.”

  Logan crossed the distance to the kitchen with small cautious steps, still watching Dalton with a healthy dose of distrust.

  But when Dalton plopped a hearty scoop of homemade strawberry ice cream into the bowl in front of his chair, he climbed up and grabbed the spoon, ready to dig in. By the time Dalton put away the ice-cream container and turned back to the kitchen, Logan was half-bathed in the sticky sweet stuff.

  His mother stood at one of the front windows, peering out through a narrow gap in the curtains.

  “Do you see anything?” Dalton asked, walking toward her.

  She let the curtains fall closed and turned to look at him. “It’s dark out.”

  Not quite the question he’d asked, but he let it go. “How’s your throat?”

  “Why are you here?”

  Yeah, he’d figured that question would occur to her sooner or later. “I don’t suppose you’d buy it if I said I was just driving by?”

  Her dark eyebrows twitched in reply.

  “I was staking out the place. In case the intruders returned.”

  The tiniest hint of a smile curved one corner of her mouth. “And what did you plan to do if they did?”

  “Call the cops.”

  She nodded toward the Remington 700 propped by the door. “Where’d you get the rifle?”

  “It’s mine.”

  “You hunt a lot, do you?”

  He took a stab at changing the subject. “Somebody around here does. Freezer’s full of game.”

  “I bag as much as I can during the hunting seasons. We’ll live off that meat for the rest of the year.” She waved her hand toward the rifle. “May I?”

  He nodded, and she picked up the weapon, first checking for ammunition. “I heard two rounds. Where did you aim?”

  “At the ground.”

  She looked up at him. “You have the rest of your ammo on you?”

  He didn’t know if there was any other ammunition for the rifle at all, he realized. He’d been lucky it had been loaded—he wasn’t sure what he’d have done if he’d pulled the trigger and nothing had happened.

  “Have you ever shot this rifle before?” She sounded as if she knew the answer.

  “No.”

  “Why do you have it, then?”

  “Emergencies,” he answered, the truth too humiliating to admit.

  From the look on her face, she saw through his answer anyway. She set the empty rifle against the wall. “If you’d like shooting lessons, I can help you out with that.”

  “For a fee?”

  Her gaze snapped up to meet his. “You saved us tonight. I reckon I could let you have a lesson for free.” Her voice tightened. “One, at least.”

  Great. He’d insulted her. “I didn’t mean—”

  “What do you think you’re going to find here?” She leaned her back against the front wall and crossed her arms, looking at him through narrowed eyes. “Or maybe you’re here because those men were working for you?”

  He stared at her a moment, wondering if she was joking. The look on her face suggested otherwise. “You think I would put you and your son at risk? For what possible reason?”

  “To play hero? To worm your way into my life so you could use me for whatever it is you’re up to.”

  “What do you think I’m up to?”

  She shrugged. “Hell if I know. Maybe you just want to punish your brother for existing.”

  He wouldn’t mind knocking the smug smile off Doyle’s face now and then, but he wouldn’t use someone else to do it. He’d knock it off himself.

  “I told you the truth last night at the hospital. I think your husband’s involvement with Wayne Cortland may have gone beyond sleeping with the man’s bookkeeper. I even think his murder wasn’t as random as the police believe.”

  She was silent for a long moment, as if letting that thought sink in. Finally, she pushed herself away from the wall, rubbing her eyes with both hands. “What do you want from me? What do you think I can give you?”

  It was a good question, and until just a few minutes ago, he’d have said all he wanted was a few minutes of her time, a chance to pick her brain for anything in her husband’s last few months of life that might offer a new lead in the Cortland case. But two attacks on the woman in a row went far beyond coincidence. Apparently he wasn’t the only person who thought Briar Blackwood could aid in the investigation, and unlike Dalton, the others didn’t care who got hurt in the process.

  “I think the more pressing question is, why did someone break into your house last night? And why did someone attack you again tonight?”

  The sound of a truck engine began to filter through from outside the cabin, and a moment later, headlights flashed through the window, bouncing off the walls. Briar turned to the window. “It’s Nix and Dana.”

  Dalton’s heart sank. Dana. Of course she’d be with Nix. They were practically inseparable these days. Walker Nix was one of the reasons she’d decided to stick around Bitterwood instead of heading back to Atlanta.

  “If you want to go without seeing your sister,” Briar said quietly, “you can always go out the back.”

  Was his dismay so obvious? “I’m not sneaking out like a criminal.”

  She shrugged and opened the door at the first sound of footsteps on the front porch. Dana Massey entered first, her eyes widening a notch at the sight of Dalton. Walker Nix followed on her heels, the look he shot at Dalton tinged less with surprise and more with suspicion.

  “What are you doing here?” Nix asked.

  “He came to my rescue,” Briar answered, locking the door behind them. “Don’t ask why. He doesn’t seem inclined to share his secrets.”

  She made him sound like a foot-stomping adolescent, Dalton thought. Hell, maybe that’s what he’d been acting like for the past few months. He’d be the first to admit he hadn’t taken well the earthshaking change in his life history.

  “I saw what transpired,” Dalton said. “I’ll tell you what I remember, though I’m afraid it was too dark for me to have seen anything I could tes
tify to in a court of law.”

  Nix looked him up and down once, then nodded toward the sofa. “Well, we’ll start with what you can tell us and worry about prosecution later. How about that?”

  As Dalton followed the detective to the sofa, he spared one last look at Briar Blackwood standing by the door, her arms crossed defensively over her breasts, her thundercloud gaze following him relentlessly across the room.

  * * *

  “WHAT DO YOU think he wants with you?” Dana’s voice was little more than a whisper as she walked with Briar into the kitchen.

  “He thinks Johnny was part of Cortland’s crew,” Briar answered just as quietly, moving past the now-sticky kitchen table to grab a clean dishcloth. She drenched the cloth with water from the tap and headed for the table to clean up the mess, starting with Logan’s hands and face.

  He was grinning now, a strawberry-stained show of little-boy joy that made her heart swell with love. If he was traumatized by what had nearly happened outside only a short while ago, the ice cream had sent it into remission for the time being.

  But she couldn’t forget as easily. The men who’d accosted her outside her Jeep had tried to pull Logan away from her. In fact, the more she went over events in her mind, the more convinced she was that this attack, at least, had been all about taking Logan.

  But why? She wasn’t in the middle of a custody battle. Johnny’s family saw Logan as much as they cared to, which wasn’t that often, and none of them had shown any sign of wanting to change the custody situation. She certainly had no money or possessions to offer as ransom, and anyone who could sneak through the woods quietly enough that she hadn’t heard them coming would surely know that much about her financial situation.

  Yet she couldn’t change the facts of what had happened outside tonight. She couldn’t forget the way one of the men had tugged so ferociously at Logan that she’d been terrified, for a heart-stopping moment before the shots rang out, that she would lose her grip on her son and he’d be spirited away, lost from her forever.

  “Do you think Johnny could have been working for Cortland?” Dana asked.

  Briar had been pondering that question ever since Dalton had raised it at the hospital. Was it possible? She knew Johnny’s truck route included Travisville, Virginia, where Cortland Lumber had been located before an explosion destroyed the place not long after Johnny’s murder. It was obviously how Johnny had met the woman Dalton Hale believed Johnny had been sleeping with.

  But could the man she’d married, the man she’d loved since she was fifteen years old, have gotten involved in the kind of violence and murder Wayne Cortland and his crew of drug dealers, gunrunners and anarchists had spread through the hills for the past couple of years?

  The last few years of their marriage had left Briar with few illusions about her childhood sweetheart. He was a better liar than she’d ever credited him to be, and, sadly, she suspected Dalton was probably right about the affair. There’d been other infidelities, as well.

  But crossing the line into extortion and murder? Could she really picture Johnny doing such a thing?

  She didn’t want to believe it. But something had driven a couple of ruthless intruders to her home for two nights in a row.

  “I don’t know,” she answered finally. “But I mean to find out.”

  * * *

  “SO, WHY ARE you here, anyway?”

  Dalton turned his gaze from the head-to-head huddle between Briar Blackwood and Walker Nix, meeting Dana Massey’s wary gaze. He shrugged. “Just passing by.”

  “Convenient timing,” she murmured.

  “Do you have something you want to say to me? Spit it out.”

  Dana’s lips pressed to a tight line. “I know you hate me right now.”

  “Hate is far too loaded a word,” he said quietly. “I don’t hate you. I don’t know you well enough to feel anything that strong for you.”

  “And you don’t want to.”

  He shrugged. “Biology isn’t destiny.”

  “Clearly.” She pinned him with a long, cool look and moved away.

  With a sigh, Dalton looked back at the two cops locked in low conversation on the sofa. From what little he’d overheard of their discussion, Nix seemed to be asking Briar most of the same questions he’d asked Dalton. He hoped Briar was able to fill in more blanks for the detective than he had.

  The noise of Briar’s Jeep passing close by had jarred him from a doze, but it had taken him several seconds more to drag himself to full consciousness. Several seconds more to see the hulking shadows slinking into the clearing from the woods nearby, and more seconds still to realize that he was watching an ambush unfold. He’d looked away for several seconds to retrieve the rifle and set himself up to fire a warning shot.

  In truth, he’d seen little of what had gone on between Briar and her assailants. The one thing he remembered, the one element of the attack that had stuck in his head after the rest had faded into chaos, was how desperately she’d held on to her little boy when one of the attackers had tried to wrest him away.

  Clearly, Logan meant everything to her.

  The boy was asleep on the sofa beside Briar, curled up under a crocheted throw. Dana had offered to take him to his bed, but Briar hadn’t wanted to let him out of her sight. Dalton wondered how she would handle it the next evening when she had to leave him with someone so she could work her patrol shift.

  He could solve that problem for her, he realized, the solution weaving itself into place in his sleep-deprived mind. Staying here at this cabin, in the middle of nowhere, only made her and her son more vulnerable to further attacks. Attempts, he corrected himself silently. Tonight hadn’t been an attack so much as an attempt to steal Logan away from her.

  The question was, why?

  Chapter Five

  The front door opened without a knock, and Doyle Massey walked in, his eyes widening as he spotted Dalton. Briar watched warily, prepared to jump in if crisis prevention was needed, but Doyle simply let his gaze slide past his half brother and crossed to where Nix and Briar sat. Dana moved from her standing position by the fireplace to join them.

  “What’s he doing here?” Doyle asked quietly.

  “He witnessed the attack,” Briar answered in a tone that didn’t invite further questions.

  Doyle tipped her chin up with his forefinger to get a good look at the bruises on her throat. “Are you and Logan okay?”

  “We’re fine.”

  He gave a little wave of his hand toward her injury. “Anybody look at that?”

  “I did. In the mirror,” she answered flatly. “Just bruises.”

  Doyle glanced at Nix, as if seeking a second opinion. Nix gave a shrug. Doyle looked back at Briar, his eyes hooded in thought. Then he looked at Dalton Hale across the room and gestured with his head for Dalton to join them. He moved aside to make room for Dalton to join the circle.

  Briar glanced up at the county prosecutor, curious to see his reaction to Doyle’s silent command. His gaze met hers briefly, then turned toward the chief, who had begun to speak.

  “It’s too dark for a search party to do us any good.” Doyle’s voice lost its earlier gentleness. This was his police-business voice. “Neither of you recognized the two men. No soft ground to allow for footprints. Briar said both men wore gloves, so looking for prints is pointless.”

  “Are you saying there’s nothing you can do to find those guys?” Dalton looked frustrated. “You don’t think for a second they’ll stop trying, do you?”

  “What do you think they want?” Doyle asked him.

  “I wasn’t here last night, so I can’t be sure about what motivated those particular intruders,” he answered, his tone measured. “But tonight what I saw was two men trying to take Mrs. Blackwood’s son out of her arms. They came here for the boy.�
�

  Briar couldn’t stop a soft groan from escaping her sore throat at Dalton’s confirmation of her worst fear. She’d known the truth the second the man outside her Jeep tried to pull Logan from her arms.

  They had come here tonight to take her son.

  “I wish I could say I had enough officers available to post a twenty-four-hour guard here,” Doyle told her.

  She looked up at him. “I know you can’t.”

  “You can move in with me,” Nix said.

  “No.” Dalton shook his head. “Don’t you live in a shack in the woods? You think it’ll be any safer than this place?”

  “It’s not a shack,” Nix said defensively, but Briar could see that Dalton’s words had hit a nerve.

  “Do you have a better idea?” Dana asked.

  “I do.” Dalton took a deep breath, then spoke in a rush, as if he was afraid he wouldn’t make it all the way through. “Mrs. Blackwood and her son should come stay with me.”

  * * *

  AFTER THE BRIEFEST of stunned pauses, a chorus of nos greeted Dalton’s offer. From Nix, from Doyle, even from Dana.

  But not, Dalton noted with surprise, from Briar.

  She just looked at him thoughtfully, her head slightly cocked, as if by changing her perspective she might be able to discern some hidden aspect of his character that had eluded her to this point.

  “Before yesterday at the hospital, I doubt you could have pointed out Briar in a crowd.” Nix’s tone was barely civil. “And now you want to take her and Logan home with you? What’s your game?”

  “Nix.” Briar put her hand on his arm, stepping between him and Dalton. She looked up at Dalton, that same speculative look in her eyes. “Could the rest of you leave us alone a minute?”

  “Briar, this isn’t a good idea,” Doyle said.

  “I’m not going to hurt her.” Dalton winced inwardly at the hint of injury in his voice. As if Doyle’s distrust actually meant anything to him. Which was ridiculous, of course. He owed these people nothing, and he sure as hell didn’t care what either of the Massey siblings thought of him.