by Dana Mentink
The cops barreled in: Bucks and Shane Weston, his friend and roommate in the condo they shared with other K-9 officers.
Shane had left his German shepherd, Bella, outside with Hawk until he could assess the situation. The more bodies nosing around the crime scene, the harder to read the evidence. James brought them up to speed. When, at long last, the county ambulance arrived, James stood back to let the paramedics work. They stabilized Madison’s spine and checked her vitals as they loaded her onto a stretcher. Her small frame was swallowed up by the contraption. When they wheeled her to the ambulance, he walked alongside.
She opened her eyes, flicking a frightened glance at him, like the baby owl that had fallen out of the nest years ago on his family ranch. Lost, confused, a fallen creature meant to fly. His gut clenched.
“We’re getting you to the hospital. You’re going to be okay.” He could not resist cupping her hand in his.
Her lips moved as if she wanted to say something. He drew close, noting the glimmer of tears on her lashes. “I’m sorry this happened,” he whispered. “We’ll find whoever did this. I promise.”
He had the mad desire to wipe away the single tear that trickled along her cheek, losing itself in her tangle of hair. Instead he gave her hand a gentle squeeze just before they lifted her into the back. Her long fingers were fragile and cold. Then the doors closed and the ambulance rolled away.
Red-hot anger poured through him. Who had done this? In his town?
The thought surprised him. Desert Valley was a place he’d been temporarily assigned, a town he had no intention of staying in, and he’d met this woman only a few hours before.
“You were running down a black sedan?” Shane asked, interrupting his thoughts.
“Yeah,” James tried to snap back into objective cop mode. “The guy who did this, I’m thinking.”
Shane nodded, scrubbing a hand through his close-cropped black hair. “Whitney’s on it.”
James felt a flicker of relief. Officer Whitney Godwin was sharp and determined. He had new admiration for the young mother since she recently cracked a drug ring.
“Did you get a look at him?” Shane asked. Bella was alert, sharp eyes watching the ambulance as it headed with Madison to Canyon County Medical Center twenty miles west of town. A severe head injury would be beyond what the local clinic could handle. James put it out of his mind.
“No, didn’t see the guy’s face.”
Shane thrust his chin toward the bridal-shop owner, who was also being checked by the medics. “Frances give you a description?”
“No help there at all. Said she didn’t see or hear anything and didn’t even know the assailant was in the shop,” James said.
Shane’s eyebrow quirked. “Huh.”
“Yeah. Gonna get Hawk on it now.”
“I’ll roll to the hospital after we get pictures here.”
“Right behind you as soon as I’m done.”
Shane shook his head, eyes shifting in thought. “Bucks told me you had an encounter with her earlier. Lady’s been in Desert Valley all of one morning and this happens. This is turning into one dangerous place,” Shane muttered. He frowned, and James wondered if he would have any desire to stay in town after his temporary assignment ended, should the opportunity present itself. He pictured the petite dog trainer Gina Perry, Shane’s girlfriend. Maybe Shane had truly abandoned his big-city yearnings for the desert, thanks to Gina.
As he went to get Hawk, James couldn’t help but agree with Shane about the dangers cropping up in town with growing frequency. Marian Foxcroft was in a coma under guard due to a recent attack. Had she crossed paths with the same guy who tried to rob the salon?
But robbery wasn’t the motive in the Foxcroft attack. He thought of the hunted look on Frances’s face. Maybe it wasn’t here, either. Why would someone hit a bridal salon an hour before it was scheduled to open? It wasn’t likely that the till would be full. Something didn’t feel right. He hooked Hawk up to the short lead, picturing Madison swaddled up by the thick blankets. She’d looked very small and vulnerable, not the self-assured woman who’d challenged him with that spark of confidence. He blinked. “What is the matter with you?” he muttered to himself. “She’s tough as nails.”
Still, even though she was the last person he wanted mucking about his town, the sight of her fallen and bleeding softened his ire. He led Hawk toward the salon. First Hawk examined the doorknob which James was grateful he hadn’t touched. Then, nose glued to the floor, Hawk made his way into the interior of the salon. The guy had undoubtedly left his trail of sloughed-off skin cells, which were as individualized as a fingerprint to the eager bloodhound. The trouble was, so had everyone else who’d entered the shop. With each human losing some fifty million skin cells per day, the salon was awash in identities for the dog to sort out. With no clear scent article, it was an impossible task.
Hawk sniffed the spot where Madison had lain and the bust, which was being carefully photographed by Ken Bucks. When Hawk whirled and dashed from the building, James followed at a sprint. Trailing Hawk was like holding on to the bumper of a Sherman tank. They nearly knocked over Officer Dennis Marlton in the process.
“Sorry,” he called as he ran.
Marlton sighed and shook his head.
Hawk beelined to the back parking lot, then followed a trail out to the street where the car chase had begun. The scent must have gotten lost in the smell of exhaust from the parade of emergency vehicles. Hawk sat down with a huff that ruffled his saggy face. James sighed and patted the dog. “That’s what I thought, Hawk. Guy we were chasing clobbered Madison Coles, and we let him get away.”
Hawk let out a disgruntled howl that the chase had been cut short.
James felt the same way as they got into the car. He wondered how badly Madison had been injured, and he itched to get to the hospital. He contemplated finding a dog sitter for Hawk. It was approaching midday, and the May temperatures could get uncomfortable. It was best not to work Hawk during the afternoon if possible. His car had air for the dog, but it was a third-hand Crown Victoria, not specially designed for a K-9 like the cars in better-funded departments, which had cooling systems and alarms that went off when the interior temperatures got too high. Plus, the one-hundred-ten-pound bloodhound, trained only to track and trail, tended to get into mischief in medical settings. On their last visit to the local clinic, he’d yanked the leash from James’s hand, dashed into the break room and scampered off with a nurse’s sandwich. The patients who had witnessed Hawk’s escape had been thoroughly amused. The nurse had not. Maybe more retraining would help if he ever had the time to take Hawk.
If he wasn’t in such a hurry to get to the hospital to check on Madison Coles, he would have left Hawk with his family, who were staying in the Desert Pines campground for a month. They said they’d made the trip to visit him. He hoped there wasn’t a darker reason, like that they’d lost their tiny house, the only possession they’d managed to hold on to since the ranch had been sold.
Hawk whined from the backseat.
“Okay, you can come, but keep your nose to yourself, you hear me?”
Hawk answered with a shake of his massive ears.
James found himself pushing the accelerator a little harder than he ought to as they headed for the hospital. Something was definitely wrong—that was no news flash—but he could not escape the feeling things were about to go from bad to worse.
Three
Madison woke, awash in pain, feeling as if someone had applied a hammer to her skull. It hurt to breathe, to blink, to turn her head. Where was she and why was it an agony to move? She forced her eyes open, taking in the pearl-gray walls, the blur of white sheets, an antiseptic smell in her nostrils.
I’m in a hospital. She tried to sit up.
A hand pushed her back down. “Stay still. You�
��re at the Canyon County Medical Center. You have a mild concussion, and you’re fortunate it wasn’t worse than that, from what I hear.”
Forcing her eyes open, she became aware that the hand belonged to her sister, Kate. Pale blue eyes, white-blond hair, wearing a denim skirt and a Cactus Café T-shirt.
“What happened?” Madison croaked.
“You would know better than anyone, but the report is that you were struck in the head at the bridal salon.” Kate finally smiled, quick and nervous. “If you wanted a good smack upside the head, you could have come to me.” She squeezed Madison’s fingers, and the pressure did more than any drug to ease Madison’s discomfort.
She tried to smile back, but the pain shooting through her temples prevented it. In spite of the agony, she was thrilled to have Kate there, her precious baby sister. “How did you find out?”
“I was halfway through my very first shift with my tray full of burgers and fries when the sirens started up. The whole town heard it. The restaurant emptied out so I ran over. An officer named Harrison was with you. I met his brother Sterling last week when I was here pounding the pavement, looking for work. Sterling was sweet, tried to help me find out where to apply for a job.”
Officer Harrison. She recalled a fuzzy image of him leaning over her, holding her hand, saying something low and comforting.
“I can’t tell you what I felt like when I saw who they were loading onto the stretcher,” Kate said, voice trembling.
“Sorry,” Madison mumbled.
Kate’s brows furrowed, and she let go of Madison’s hands. Their connection ended. “You’re digging into some story again, aren’t you?”
“I was just going to ask a few questions when I heard a...”
Kate pulled on her ponytail, a nervous gesture from childhood. “I don’t want to know. Why can’t you get a normal job and quit poking around in other people’s business?”
Like Uncle Ray had done in theirs. His actions had ensured their father would go to prison, but Kate steadfastly refused to believe his guilt. Not her daddy, her hero, accused of killing a mother Kate did not even remember. Kate believed her life had been torn apart by Ray’s mission to unmask their father as a killer. Madison felt as if her life had just begun then, as if she was awakening from a long, numbing slumber. Kate had despised Madison for believing Uncle Ray.
“I was just going to ask if the shop owner needed help,” Madison said, but she could see her sister did not believe her. “Where’s the doctor? I want to get out of here.”
Officer Ken Bucks knocked softly on the door. “Ms. Coles? I’m glad to see you’re awake.” He nodded to Kate and stared at Madison before letting out a sigh. “I feel like I should have kept a better eye on you, and maybe this wouldn’t have happened. I should know by now that Desert Valley isn’t the sleepy town it pretends to be. I apologize, ma’am.”
“It’s not your fault,” Madison said before introducing her sister. Bucks shook Kate’s hand.
“We’re all curious to know what happened in the salon,” Bucks said. “Are you ready to give a statement?”
Madison peered around him. “I, uh, I thought Officer Harrison would take it, since he was the one who found me.”
“He’ll be along soon, but he asked me to get the details down now, before they’re forgotten.”
“Well, I can’t really help you identify the man who did this. I just didn’t see him that well.”
“Can you give me anything? Height? Hair color?”
“Only that he was white, big and bald.”
“Excuse me,” said the doctor from the doorway. “I’ve got to do an exam on Ms. Coles now that she’s awake.” She moved past Bucks and reached for the curtain to pull it around them. “Would you two mind stepping into the hallway?”
Kate and Bucks retreated. While the doctor checked her chart, Madison tried to reconstruct exactly what had happened. She’d been attacked, and she could have been killed. She itched to know what the bridal salon owner had told the police. The doctor’s probing awakened new twinges of discomfort, but something else bothered Madison, too.
Why exactly was she disappointed that it wasn’t James Harrison there to take her statement?
* * *
After getting an initial report from Bucks, James waited in the hallway while the doctor examined Madison. He introduced himself to a young woman who didn’t look much like Madison, but turned out to be her sister, Kate.
“I’ve got to get back to work. My first day.”
“Here in Desert Valley, your sister said.”
“Yeah. I’m living with Madison in Tuckerville. Not too bad a commute.” She sighed and rubbed her eyes. “My dad would hate this little town.”
“Did you get word to him about Madison’s attack?”
She laughed, a hard bitter sound. “Somehow I don’t think the warden will issue him a leave pass.”
Their father was incarcerated? James burned to ask her about it, but she had already turned away and stridden down the hallway. He’d find out. Later.
The doctor finished his exam and left the room. James was about to enter when he heard sniffling. Madison. The crying awakened the protective instinct that had gotten James into plenty of trouble in his lifetime. What was it about a woman crying that got right inside him? He remembered his teen crush on sixteen-year-old Paige who’d cried on his chest about some injustice or another. It had awakened such a strong feeling of protectiveness inside James. All these years later and a woman’s tears still got to him. Ridiculous...and dangerous.
Madison’s tears were perfectly appropriate. She’d done nothing, threatened nobody, yet someone had assaulted her. With the doctor gone, her sister absent, she was likely feeling lonely. And why exactly should he care? She’d been nosing around, trying to rake up some dirt for a story, no doubt. “Aww, just get in there and do your job,” he muttered to himself before he knocked on the door.
“Yes?” she said in a small voice.
“It’s Officer Harrison. May I come in?”
There was a pause and another sniffle. “Sure,” she said after a moment.
She was wiping her face with a tissue, rust-colored hair trailing over the pillow like a spread of fall leaves, freckles showing on her pale cheeks.
“Hi,” he said, suddenly awkward at the sight of her.
She flicked a glance around. “Where’s Hawk?”
“He’s with another officer right now in the lobby. He’s not the best behaved in a medical setting. He eats things he shouldn’t.”
She smiled, but it did not reach her eyes. “If I had any food, he could certainly have mine. I’m not a big meat loaf fan. Don’t suppose they serve sushi around here.”
His nostrils flared. “Sushi? Raw fish stuff?”
“Not all of it is raw, but yes. You’re not a fan.”
“Er, no. I prefer eating things that have been up close and personal with the grill.”
She chuckled, wincing at the pain.
“How are you feeling?”
“Like someone used my head for a soccer ball.”
He had to laugh at that one. “Been there a time or two. Got thrown from a horse more times than I can count, and played in a pickup basketball game last week where I got my bell rung pretty good.” He paused. “Can you remember anything about the guy who hit you?”
“Officer Bucks came in a while ago asking the same thing. I told him I can’t identify the guy because I only saw him from the corner of my eye before he tried to smash my skull in. Big, white, bald.” Her mouth quivered, just for a moment.
James noted that her eyes were the color of coffee with just a hint of cream, or maybe the tint of clover honey fresh from the comb. The image took him back to his ranch, to his father pulling the frame from the beehive, glistening with honey. The wonder of
it had overwhelmed him back then. He blinked. “I’m sorry this happened to you.”
Her tone went sharp. “Are you? Aren’t you thinking I’m a nosy reporter and I got what I had coming to me?”
“No, ma’am, I wasn’t.”
She stared at him.
He shifted. “Well, I’ll admit to thinking the ‘nosy reporter’ part, but nobody deserves to be attacked, reporter or not.”
She shrugged and pulled at the blankets. “Believe it or not, I wasn’t bothering anyone.”
“Why were you in the store in the first place?”
“I’m working on a story about local businesses, how they’ve been hurt by the crime spree. The owner didn’t want to talk to me, but later I heard some guy harassing her when I went around the side.”
“Harassing how?”
“He said something about not telling her again, that someone was going to get hurt.”
His stomach muscles tightened. “Frances said she didn’t talk to him at all, didn’t even see him.”
Madison’s mouth fell open. “Why would she lie?”
“I don’t know that she’s lying,” he blurted out.
“Well, I’m not,” Madison said hotly, sitting up against the pillows. “I realize I’m the newcomer here, but I have no reason to make things up.”
He shrugged. “I’m sure you don’t, except to concoct a juicy story for your paper.” Aloud. He’d actually said that aloud.
She stiffened, hands gripping the sheets. “I happen to have integrity.”
“I haven’t met many reporters with integrity,” he muttered, another thing he shouldn’t have let slip out of his mouth. So much for tact, Harrison.
She blushed. “That was over the line.”
He looked away for a minute, let out a breath and remembered what kind of God-fearing man he wanted to be. Slow count to three. “You’re right. I apologize. I...I have had some bad experiences with reporters, but I shouldn’t take it out on you, especially after what you’ve been through.”