Deception Lake

by Paula Graves

  But Riley had been there, watching her back. Keeping her safe.

  Falling in love, after grieving for three long, lonely years.

  Jack’s sister Emily had been Riley’s first love. His first wife. Her murder had come damn close to destroying both Riley and Jack, though in different ways.

  Riley’s response had been to close himself off to all but a few close friends. And to Jack. But Riley’s growing obsession with solving Emily’s murder had eaten away at Jack’s soul. Solving the murder wasn’t going to bring Emily back. And Emily had been all that was left of Jack’s dysfunctional family.

  So he’d gone to Texas, moved his base of operations to a little town just west of Amarillo. He’d buried himself in boots and spurs and rodeo groupies who longed to ride a cowboy a whole lot longer than eight seconds.

  Then he’d met Mara Jennings, who was anything but a groupie. Fool that he was, he’d considered her a challenge he couldn’t resist, when he should have run as far and as fast from a woman like her as he could.

  The groupies knew the score. They weren’t interested in forever with a cowboy. They just wanted the excitement for a few days out of the year when the rodeo came to town.

  Mara Jennings had “forever” written in her pretty blue eyes and winsome smile, and he should have known he’d break her heart.

  Hell, maybe he had known it.

  He just hadn’t cared at that point in his life.

  “I’ve had some dealings with Quinn,” Hannah said thoughtfully as she handed her slightly sticky son to Riley. “I could just casually drop by the agency to say hi, and if you just happened to be with me and your friend just happened to be there—”

  “If you just happen to be matchmaking, Hannah, you can forget it. Mara Jennings is not the woman for me. She never was.”

  That had been the problem.

  “Well, maybe you could tell Quinn about the money you owe her, then,” Hannah said.

  “I think I’ll just fly under the radar, if you don’t mind. But good idea about talking to the waitress.” He slid from the booth and headed to the counter, where the waitress was wiping down the surface with a clean rag.

  She looked up with a weary smile as Jack stopped in front of her. “Can I get you something else?”

  “Actually I could use some directions. I have an old friend who works here in Purgatory at a place called The Gates—ever heard of it?”

  “Sure, everybody has. Your friend one of the investigators?”

  “Right.” He searched his brain for the name Riley had mentioned. “Sutton Calhoun.”

  “Oh, he’s such a nice guy. Real good-lookin’, too.” Darlene’s cheeks grew pink and she shot Jack a sheepish smile. “His wife’s a cop over in Bitterwood. They come in now and then.”

  “I thought I’d surprise him at the office, since he doesn’t know I’m in town. Can you point me in the right direction?”

  “Well, you’re on the right street, actually. Just take a right when you leave, go a couple of blocks in that direction and you’ll see a big white Victorian mansion right at the corner of Magnolia Street and Laurel Avenue. There’s a pair of large iron gates at the entrance. Can’t miss it.”

  Riley and Hannah met him at the door. “What are you planning to do?” Riley asked.

  “I don’t know,” Jack admitted. “Approaching her directly didn’t do me a lot of good.”

  “I hate to mention this,” Hannah said quietly, “but you’re starting to sound a little stalkerish.”

  Jack slanted a look at her. “I’m not obsessed with Mara.”

  “But you’re about to track her down at her office after she told you to get lost,” Riley pointed out as he picked up Cody and settled his son on his hip. “She doesn’t even seem to remember that you nicked seven grand from her. Maybe you should just let it go, too.”

  “And that doesn’t strike you as strange? That she’s forgotten losing seven grand? Mara wasn’t rich. Seven thousand dollars was a lot to her.”

  “Maybe she considers it a small price to pay for getting you out of her life.” Riley’s tone of voice was gentle, but the truth behind his words was harsh. Jack couldn’t quite keep from flinching.

  “Why don’t you come out fishing with us this afternoon instead?” Hannah suggested. Apparently she’d gotten over her matchmaking urge.

  “You know, I think I’ll just wander around town this afternoon. See the sights.”

  Riley glanced around the sleepy street in front of them, his eyebrows notching upward. “What sights?”

  “Go fish,” Jack said firmly, heading for his truck. “I’ll catch up with you later at the motel.” He didn’t wait for them to answer, sliding into the cab of the truck and starting the engine.

  The radio was tuned to a rock station out of Knoxville; Led Zeppelin’s “Kashmir” was about halfway through the guitar and drum riff. He turned it up and pulled out into the light traffic on Magnolia Street, heading right.

  He spared a glance in the rearview mirror. Riley and Hannah stood by their own truck, Cody still on Riley’s hip. Jack felt like a jerk for bailing on them, but the truth was, he didn’t want to be talked out of approaching Mara Jennings one more time.

  He owed her a hell of a lot more than the seven thousand dollars with interest he’d taken from her.

  But money was all he had to offer.

  * * *

  SHE USUALLY WORKED until five, but around three Quinn told her to take the rest of the day off. He could probably tell she was too wired to be any good to anyone at the agency, and she could always use the extra time at her cabin to work on the side project Quinn had given her.

  It was why she was working at The Gates in the first place.

  The mild afternoon warmth had abated with the arrival of storm clouds brewing in the west, and a crisp chill edged the breeze blowing at her back as she crossed the road to where she’d parked her little blue Mazda car. At least the car’s interior was still warm; she snuggled into the seat as she pulled away from the curb and headed east toward the mountains and the cabin she rented on Deception Lake.

  She’d thought the seclusion would be just what she needed. No nosy neighbors, no loud music coming from apartments next door. Deception Lake’s power grid seemed stable, and her connection to the internet was solid. It was really the prime situation for her side project, and until she’d run into Jack Drummond at the diner, she had felt relatively safe.

  Funny how one unexpected encounter from the past could knock your whole world off its axis.

  The cabin was on the eastern edge of the lake, butted up to Fowler Mountain, where bigger houses dotted the mountain face, vacation homes and rentals that probably brought in a pretty penny for the landowner. She was renting from Alexander Quinn himself, however, so he’d given her a break on the rent in return for her putting in some hours as an assistant at The Gates.

  That was her cover story, she knew. Quinn didn’t always like to share information even with people he had trusted enough to hire.

  She parked her car on the gravel drive outside the cabin and cut the engine, sitting in the ensuing silence and just listening. Later in the summer, there would be families out on the water or inhabiting the cabins farther along the lakeshore, their happy cries and laughter drifting over the water to encroach on the quiet. But not yet. March was too cool for swimming, and most of the best spring fishing could be found in other parts of the lake, so boats rarely made it this far down the water.

  Nobody knew she was here. She was as safe as she’d ever been.

  So why, when she stepped out of the car and started toward the low front porch of the cabin, did she feel as if she were being watched?

  Don’t be stupid, she scolded herself with an upward tilt of her chin. You’re Mara Caroline Jennings, and you don’t attract crazies the way your sister, Mallory, did.

  She reached the porch and put her hand out to open the door.

  But it was already opening.

  A man dressed in
dark forest camouflage stepped out on the porch and pushed a large pillowcase down over her head, wrapping her up in a tight grasp that squeezed the air right out of her lungs.

  As she gasped for breath, trying feebly to struggle against the iron grip, she realized with a rush of fear that she’d never get away from Mallory Jennings, no matter how far she ran.

  Chapter Two

  Jack kept several car lengths back as he followed Mara Jennings out of town onto a winding rural road leading eastward, toward the mountains. They were still mostly in the foothills here in Purgatory, and for a man who’d grown up with the Grand Teton Mountains practically in his backyard, the softly rounded peaks of the Smoky Mountains might have seemed a letdown if it weren’t for the fact that the whole area was hilly and lush green, even in March before the spring growth had had a chance to bud completely.

  Up in the higher elevations, evergreens like spruce, firs and pines maintained their verdant splendor all winter, lending the mountains a soft blue-green hue filtered by the ever-present haze of mist. Even down here in the lower elevations, the hardwoods were starting to sprout the first leaves of spring, and within a few short weeks, the place would be alive again after the long winter.

  But there wasn’t enough greenery to hide him from the woman in the Mazda car a hundred yards ahead of him, so he stayed as far from her as he could until she turned off the highway and seemed to drive straight into the woods.

  Slowing the truck as he neared the point where the Mazda car had disappeared, he saw there was a narrow two-lane road leading through the woods to points unknown. Probably the lake, he deduced, having caught a glimpse of sunlight sparkling off the water’s surface just before the woods grew denser, blocking the view.

  Even as he turned onto the two-lane road and followed it, he wondered if Hannah and Riley had been right to worry about him. What the hell did he think he was going to accomplish by following her from work? Was she going to be more receptive of his need for restitution if she thought he was nuts?

  He started looking for the first place he could turn the truck around and head back out of the woods, but as he drew close to what looked like a gravel driveway, he spotted the little blue Mazda car parked in front of a small cabin nestled in the center of a tiny clearing in the woods. The woods in front of the cabin thinned out until they reached the sandy shore of the lake about fifty yards from the cabin.

  He pulled the truck to a stop at the edge of the driveway and let the engine idle a moment as he considered his options. Then, out of the corner of his eye, he spotted movement on the cabin’s front porch.

  It took a second to process what he was seeing. A second more to let his sluggish brain catch up with the adrenaline rushing through his body like water pouring through a breach in a dam.

  Then his cowboy instincts kicked in and he was out of the truck and running toward the violent struggle playing out on the cabin porch.

  Jack wasn’t currently armed, his Colt M1911 stashed in the locker in the bed of his truck. But the man struggling with Mara didn’t appear to be armed, either.

  And Jack didn’t plan to give him time to go for a weapon if he was.

  The sound of his boots crunching across the gravel didn’t seem to have any effect on the wrestling match going on between Mara and her captor, but when Jack hit the first porch step, the man in camouflage froze for a moment.

  That was when Mara struck, first with an elbow straight to the man’s solar plexus, then followed up with a hard stomp on the man’s instep and a simultaneous fist to the groin.

  Slipping free of the man’s suddenly floundering grasp, Mara flung herself away, giving Jack a clear shot. He hit the larger man at a full run, slamming him back into the cabin wall.

  But a second later, the man in camo fought back, knocking Jack away with one brutal punch in the center of his chest. Jack fell backward, tumbling hard down the porch steps. His head hit the gravel with a jarring thud, and what air was left in his lungs after the man’s first punch exploded from his chest on impact against the hard-packed soil.

  For a second, Jack could see nothing but stars on a deep black field. But slowly, the sparkling darkness faded into waning daylight filtering through the thick canopy of trees surrounding the cabin.

  And in the center of his vision, the barrel of a big, lethal-looking Smith & Wesson M&P40.

  What small amount of air had managed to reintroduce itself to his lungs froze in place. He let his gaze move up the barrel to the small hand closed around the grip, then farther upward until he was staring into a pair of angry blue eyes.

  “Are you with him?” Mara asked, her voice shaking but her hand steady.

  “What?” he croaked, barely finding enough breath to answer.

  “Are you with him?” she repeated, keeping the pistol trained on him as she nodded toward the woods. Her hair was a mess from the pillowcase the man had tried to use as a hood, and her eyes looked bloodshot and wild. He had a feeling she’d put a bullet into him first and ask questions later if he so much as blinked his eyes the wrong way.

  “No. You didn’t see me trying to stop him?”

  Her lips pressed to a thin line. “Maybe you’re trying to trick me.”

  “I’m not trying to trick you.”

  She didn’t look appeased. “Get up.”

  He eased himself to a sitting position, wincing at the ache in his head. He felt something warm slithering down his scalp. “I think I’m bleeding.”

  She didn’t look interested in his self-diagnosis. “Why did you come here? Are you stalking me?”

  “No.” At her look of skepticism, he added, “Not intentionally.”

  “Why did you approach me at the diner?”

  He grimaced as she leaned toward him, bringing the barrel of the M&P40 even closer to his face. “Could you please put that thing away before you shoot me?”

  “Not a chance,” she answered in a flat tone. “Get up. All the way up.”

  He eased to his feet, aching tension knotting the muscles of his back and abdomen. “I’m definitely not with that guy. And I’m not a stalker, appearances to the contrary notwithstanding.”

  For a second the corner of her lips twitched. But he chalked it up to a nervous tic, because the last thing he saw in those sharp, watchful blue eyes was anything approaching humor.

  “You followed me here.” It wasn’t a question.

  “I did,” he admitted.

  “Why?”

  “To see where you were going.” As an explanation, his answer was pathetic. That it was also true was of little importance.

  “You’ve accomplished that,” she said in a flat tone. “Now leave.”

  There was a curious note to her husky voice, a hint of vulnerability peeking through the tiny crack in her mask of contemptuous calm.

  “Do you know who that guy was?”

  She didn’t answer, which he supposed was answer enough.

  “What are you involved in, Mara?”

  He waited for an angry glare. But it never came.

  “You need to leave. Now,” she said, her tone unyielding. But she lowered the pistol to her side.

  “Are you in trouble? Is there someone out there just waiting for me to leave to take another crack at you?”

  Her only answer was to turn toward the cabin door.

  Despite the throbbing pain in his head, he forced himself up the steps, reaching the door just before it snapped closed behind her. He stuck his boot into the narrowing breach, stopping the door from shutting.

  She glared at him through the narrow opening, but at least she left the pistol down by her side. “I said leave.”

  “I heard you.”

  “And yet you’re still here.”

  Guilt fluttered in the center of his chest as her expression grew hard and cold. Mara Jennings had never been hard or cold, even when she should have been. Her kind, forgiving nature had made her an easy mark for his pathetic neediness, and he’d come to depend on her being there, being will
ing to overlook his copious flaws, whenever he needed her.

  He supposed it was good she’d finally drawn a line he couldn’t cross. He just hated that he’d been the one to add that hardness and coldness to her sweet nature.

  “There’s still the matter of seven thousand dollars,” he said.

  Taking a step back, she let go of the door. Pressed by his boot, it swung open, and he took a step inside, his gaze taking in the small front room. What he saw nearly stole his breath again.

  The place had been completely wrecked.

  * * *

  THE TROUBLED LOOK on Jack Drummond’s face was the only warning she got. Following his dark gaze, she saw what she’d missed in her earlier agitation.

  Whatever else the intruder might have wanted, he’d made a shambles of her cabin. Ripped-up sofa cushions lay scattered about the room, fluffy clumps of foam and fiberfill stuffing littering the floor. Books had been pulled from the built-in shelves and discarded. A floor lamp lay on its side, the glass shade shattered.

  Every ounce of adrenaline seemed to drain from her body in a flood, leaving her boneless and despairing.

  “Who did this?” Jack’s deep voice rumbled up her spine.

  “Who do you think?”

  “But why?”

  She turned to meet his troubled gaze. “I have no idea.”

  Which was a lie, of course. She had a couple of pretty good ideas, actually. She just wasn’t sure which one was the right one.

  “Should we call the police?”

  Her nerves reawakened in a rattling jangle. “No.”

  “Your boss?”

  She thought about it briefly. Quinn would know what to do. But could she really trust him? She knew the man’s interest in her was anything but altruistic. He might be her boss, he might even have been her savior at a particularly dangerous time of her life, but he wasn’t her friend.

  She didn’t have any friends. Not anymore.

  “You need to go,” she said in lieu of an answer.

  “And what if that guy comes back?”

  “He won’t,” she said, even though she knew someone would come back eventually. The only thing of value in this cabin was her computer system, and it was locked behind about five levels of physical security. And even if someone had stolen the computers themselves, they’d have had one hell of a time trying to get past her digital security.