Conard County Witness

by Rachel Lee

  Jess thanked him, then turned onto the road. The wind had apparently swept it mostly free of snow, and now only a few patches remained here and there, surrounded by darker shapes as they melted under the strong sun.

  “God, it’s good to be out,” Lacy said. “And it’s such a beautiful day.”

  Jess surprised her by reaching over and clasping her hand. “More beautiful because of you.”

  Oh, wow. Astonished, she looked at him, but his gaze was fixed on the road. Before long, they reached the edge of town and the houses grew closer together. Lacy liked the sense of enduring age about the place. Older homes, none of the boxy structures that were springing up like weeds in so many areas around Dallas.

  Jess spoke. “The librarian is Emmaline Dalton, but everyone calls her Miss Emma. I’m not sure why but it evidently began a very long time ago. Regardless, she’s the sheriff’s wife, and a lovely woman. And her assistant is Nora Madison, who’s married to—you’ll never guess—our chief of police.”

  Lacy had to laugh quietly. “That’s a secure library.”

  He gave a rusty laugh of his own. “You’ll like them both, I believe. Miss Emma’s roots in this county stretch back to the very beginning of the town. Her father was a judge. And Nora...well, she grew up here, too. Her father’s a lunatic fringe type, a preacher with his own fanatical following. How Nora escaped that, I’ll never know.”

  “You’re obviously too new here or you’d have all the dirt.”

  His smile widened as he pulled into the small library parking lot. “Apparently so. I get the surface of the old gossip.”

  “What about the new stuff?”

  “Every juicy detail.”

  “You’ll have to fill me in.”

  “Someday. Lacy.”

  She swiveled her head to look at him as he set the brake and pulled the keys out of the ignition. “What?”

  “Stay in the car. Just for a minute. I want to do a quick look-see.”

  God, that sent ice rolling down her spine. At the moment, they were fairly well surrounded by buildings, near the heart of the small town. Nobody seemed to be about, hardly surprising on a weekday. What did he fear?

  With fists clenched, she obediently waited while he climbed slowly out and began to turn a slow circle. Her nerves stretched, but she understood that he had a better background for identifying problems than she did. What looked unimportant to her might trip some alert in him.

  They had to wrap this up, and soon. Somehow they needed to escape this shadow of fear. Guilt pinched her because she had to acknowledge this all might be because of her, regardless of what he thought.

  Then he came around to help her out, but there was no longer anything relaxed about him. His eyes moved ceaselessly as they walked around to the front and up the steps into the warmth of the old Carnegie library. The country was dotted with them. Not very big, but better than no library at all.

  A middle-aged woman with graying reddish hair sat at the circular desk in the middle. She looked up with a warm smile. “Jess! How good to see you.” Then her gaze trailed to Lacy. “And your friend?”

  “Lacy Devane. We’ve known each other for years.”

  Emma slipped off her stool and leaned across the counter to offer her hand. “Emma Dalton. I hope you’re enjoying our little town.”

  “I hope to see more of it,” Lacy said truthfully. “I met your husband the other day. A very nice man.”

  Emma’s smile broadened. “I won’t disagree with that. So what’s it to be today, Jess? The computer room or the books?”

  “Computers again.”

  “We need to bring you into the twenty-first century.”

  “You can work on me after you get Gage there.”

  Emma laughed and picked up a ring of keys. She turned to Lacy as they walked toward the back. “I keep the computer room locked up. You’d be surprised what some of our middle-schoolers get up to if I’m not watching.”

  Lacy laughed.

  “It’s open to the public, of course, but someone has to know who’s in there and that we need to check from time to time. After school, a lot of them like to play video games, which is fine, but two years ago I had a delegation of parents demanding we make sure the games are age-appropriate.” Emma rolled her eyes. “Like they don’t go over to a friend’s house and do it anyway?”

  Lacy definitely liked Emma Dalton.

  Soon they were alone in the computer room, which boasted a surprising number of monitors and seats. How they were wired up Lacy had no idea, but it was probably far more advanced than her little laptop at home, more like the way she had worked at the firm.

  She didn’t miss the way Jess chose a machine that put his back to a wall. Instinct or concern? She almost asked, but figured this was going to be an unhappy enough event for him.

  “My move,” he muttered as he tapped at keys and brought up a search screen.

  “What was bothering you outside?” she asked as she sat nearby. “Did you see something?”

  He hesitated, his fingers freezing over the keyboard. “In my last action...” He paused again, then shook his head as if freeing something. “We were diverted from our original mission and sent into a small town. The place was surrounded by cliffs. Not exactly the kind of place you want to waltz into.”

  He fell silent, so she waited.

  “I don’t like being surrounded by high points.”

  “I see.” Her stomach began to skitter nervously.

  “Anyway, long story short, fire began to rain down on us from those cliffs. We were pinned down, civilians were getting killed as well, and there was one little girl...” He stopped abruptly, once again shaking his head. “Doesn’t matter. We got pretty chewed up, and then got chewed up even more when air support arrived. Hellfire raining from heaven.”

  She couldn’t imagine it. Her mouth turned dry. “Friendly fire? Did you need it?”

  “I guess we must have. Never should have walked into the place to begin with, but my opinion didn’t matter. Just a medic. But you’d have thought any fool could sense what a setup it might be.”

  He had gone perfectly still, staring into some place only he could see. Lacy waited, then began to wonder if she should say or do something. Another flashback? She had no idea how to deal with it.

  But then he stirred again, releasing a long breath. “Anyway, I still get edgy when I’m surrounded by high vantage points. Sorry.”

  “No reason,” she said swiftly. “You’re talking to a woman who gets edgy going to the grocery.”

  He turned his head and blue eyes met green. She felt a flash, almost like an electric jolt, then a smile eased his expression. “We’ll get out of this.”

  “So what are you looking for exactly?”

  “Guys I know who survived that last mission. Like I said, if someone wanted me dead, they had plenty of opportunity before that. No, somehow it’s linked to that last mission I was on. The CO was a jackass, but he’s not the only one. Changed our orders, but I have no idea whether he was following orders when he did it. I just know that walking us into that narrow slit in the mountains seemed stupid before we took the first step. I have no idea what he hoped to accomplish, but I’m sure he had a reason. At the very least, the guy was a freaking glory hound.”

  “He risked you needlessly?”

  “Sometimes it sure felt like it. But ours was not to reason why, as the poem goes.”

  Her fists were knotting again, and nameless, ugly emotions were awakening in her. “So, did he walk into that village with you?”

  “He remained in the rear.”

  She hated to hear him say that as if it were normal. The guy should have been there with his men. But what did she know about all that? “What did he do there?”

  “Command and control.”

>   “You mean, like calling in the air strike?”

  “Yeah. Among other things.”

  She supposed she could take an entire class in how the military worked before she truly understood, but the image appearing in her mind now was ugly to the extreme. So the guy sent them into a death trap and hung out behind, watching it all unfold? If that was standard procedure, she had a problem with it.

  With difficulty, she asked no more questions, figuring that for now ignorance was preferable. Besides, she could see from the hardening of his face that Jess was approaching places he’d rather not go, but felt he had to. At this point, she wished the sheriff would walk in and say, “Yeah, the cartel is after Lacy.” It might be easier than facing what Jess was about to face.

  Hesitantly, she placed her hand on his arm. “Are you sure about this?”

  “Unfortunately. Lacy...” He hesitated, then clasped her hand tightly. “The sheriff was right when he asked if I had any enemies. And the question flashed me back to that last action. Something is trying to hook up in my head. My memory of it all isn’t the best. I think I told you, I don’t remember much after I was wounded. I don’t remember a whole lot about the weeks immediately after. But there’s something there, and it isn’t a Mexican cartel. They wouldn’t pull crap like what happened last night. But I know some types who would.”

  “And you’re looking for them?”

  “Not exactly, but we’ll see.”

  She hesitated. “Jess? Are you sure you should try to retrieve those memories?” Worry filled her, worry about him and what those memories might mean to him. He had enough horror in his past. How much more did he need to carry with him?

  His mouth tightened. “It’s my move, remember?”

  “Who knows what that creep meant?”

  “I think he wants me to remember. One thing I know for sure, Lacy, is that unless I remember something, I’m never going to figure out who he is. I don’t have to tell you what it’s like to be stalked forever.”

  His words slammed her because they were so true. She knew the feeling intimately and wouldn’t wish it on anyone. “But why would he want you to figure it out?”

  He shook his head grimly. “Torture, I suppose. He’s furious about something and he wants me to know my part in it.”

  She felt unnerved by all of this. Unnerved to be sitting by a man who intended to discover something he’d done that might be bad enough to make someone want to torture him this way. To threaten him. Unnerved by what he might learn, unnerved by what it might do to him, unnerved by how it might make her feel about him.

  Sara had been so proud that Jess was a medic, that he’d taken such risks to save lives. But what if it hadn’t been like that at all? What if he’d been forced to do something terrible?

  She wasn’t naive enough to think that anyone could go to war and not do some awful things. But even in war, some things went beyond the pale. What if an event like that lurked in his buried memories? She didn’t want him to remember it, and she didn’t want to know it. Sometimes, no matter how much you cared for someone, a thing so horrific could happen that you would never feel the same again about that person.

  She ought to know. Men she had respected for years could make her shudder now.

  She felt as if she was walking on shifting sands again, the way she had felt almost since the moment she had suspected that her work was somehow illegal. All the norms had blown up quickly, leaving her panicked and feeling that quicksand held her in its grip. The more she had learned, the more she could feel it sucking her in, threatening to drown her.

  For a while, working with the government’s forensic accountants, she had felt a little more stable, as if planks had been laid over that sand, giving her a path to walk. But then, after the trial, those planks had been yanked away. She was once again on her own in a world that would never be the same. Never. The way she had felt after Sara died. Losses, first the loss of her best friend, then the loss of her innocence and faith in other people.

  Now this. She wondered if she was about to lose the tattered remains of her innocence, if she was about to discover that even Jess was not the man he seemed.

  No way could she prevent this, though. It was his move, and he was determined to make it, no matter what it revealed. He probably had a better idea of the nightmares he might dredge up than she.

  Braced for the worst, hoping for the best, she sat beside him and waited, avoiding looking at the screen. This time, she was prepared to accept only what she was told.

  * * *

  The hunter, feeling not much like a tiger at the moment, drove past the McGregor homestead and noted the cop out front. Not that it was totally unexpected, but since that damn bomb had been a dud, he thought they’d probably dismiss it as a game. Apparently not.

  Oh, well, he could get past a single armed sentry, probably one who was bored to death and wishing he were anywhere else, typical of sentries. One man would be a mere speed bump.

  In the distance, he saw McGregor and his friend heading to town. He hoped he was about to take the woman to the bus station. When they got in among the houses, he steadily closed the distance until they pulled into the library parking lot.

  He drove slowly past, wondering if that meant McGregor was making his move, trying to find out what was going on, or if the woman was simply bored and wanted a book to read.

  But after last night, he was fairly certain McGregor was looking into the past, although he couldn’t quite figure why he’d need the library. The computers? Was it possible the man didn’t have one of his own?

  Hell, nobody was that cut off anymore, not even the military. Weird. He parked down the street, waiting and bored. His patience was being tested to the max and he didn’t appreciate it.

  The cops would pull off their watchdog in a day or two, if he was willing to wait that long. Assigning men to that kind of duty was expensive, not something such a small department could support for long. Regardless, he had no doubt he could get himself into that house today if he decided to. He could slip past the sentry, pick a lock and be hiding somewhere before McGregor came home.

  As for the woman...well, she’d be an easy target. He’d only have to decide whether to take McGregor out first and then enjoy her, or the other way around. He kind of liked the idea of McGregor being forced to watch. The guy objected to it even when it was women he didn’t know. How much better it would be to see it happen to one he cared about.

  It only seemed fair, after what his mere existence had put the hunter through.

  Finally, the wait grew too long. Someone would notice him. He decided to head for the truck stop, since he hadn’t been there in a couple of days, and order up some lunch. Even if he didn’t get to see the two depart the library, he’d be able to find out soon enough if the woman was still there.

  Then, he started thinking about just what McGregor would find online. Wondering if he would put the pieces together. That train of thought amused him, and he was smiling as he entered the truck stop to order lunch.

  Chapter 13

  “You must be bored,” Jess said. “I don’t want you out of my sight, but you can use another computer. Sitting here just watching me has to be a yawner.”

  Far from it, Lacy thought. Staring at Jess was an enjoyable pastime, but it probably was making him feel awkward. So she summoned a smile, moved to the next computer on the table and woke up another machine. It immediately presented her with a menu of games and ebooks, as well as a web search engine. Beside the list of games was a warning: headset must be used.

  Yeah, she could just imagine what this room would sound like with a bunch of games playing at top volume.

  She had no idea what she wanted to do, however. Starting a book would be a waste of time since she wasn’t likely to finish it, and she hadn’t used her social media accounts in nearly two
years. That left surfing the web with no real goal in mind.

  She soon discovered some curiosity about how her case had been reported in the papers. At the time, she had viewed none of the news reports, either on TV or in the print media, because she was on the inside. There was nothing the news could tell her, and her keepers didn’t seem to especially want her to know, anyway. It was better, they told her, if her testimony wasn’t affected by what others might say.

  After a while, she was glad she hadn’t read about the case while it was ongoing. In fact, she hardly recognized it from the coverage, but wondered at times if she was reading about an entirely different case. She wasn’t all that surprised to discover she had been cast in the role of villain in some pieces, but the innuendo that she’d done all of this because one of the partners had spurned her advances shocked her. Wasn’t the news supposed to be factual?

  She read enough to feel sickened, and wasn’t all cheered by the articles that claimed she was some kind of hero and that she’d helped bring down a large drug operation. Straight from the US Attorney’s mouth. Still... No wonder finding work in Dallas had been impossible. Not only had she ratted out her employer, but she sounded like a femme fatale everyone should avoid.

  “Dang,” she muttered. Hardly surprising the guys protecting her had kept such a tight news blackout. Had she read any of this before the trial, she doubted she’d have been as cool and collected during her testimony, but rather angry and spoiling for a fight. She might have inadvertently borne out everyone’s suspicions about her motives. A personal vendetta?

  Angrily, she punched a few keys and looked for animal pictures. Anything to get her away from that cesspool.

  “What?” Jess asked.

  “Apparently, I squealed on my bosses because one of them spurned me.”

  “I saw that. If it’s any comfort, I didn’t believe a word of it at the time, and not everyone took that tack.”