by Debby Giusti
“Time for all of us to call it a night,” Wilson said before she could state her objection. “The military police will guard the building. The crime-scene folks plan to go over the area as soon as the fire marshal gives them the okay. In spite of the investigation, General Cameron wants every available unit on post to participate in the half marathon tomorrow.” He paused and stared at Colby. “You signed up to represent the CID?”
Colby nodded. “Yes, sir. Becca did, as well.”
Wilson turned to her. “No need for you to run, if you don’t feel up to it.”
“I’m fine, sir.”
“Then I’ll see you both after the race.”
As Wilson headed to his car, Colby touched Becca’s arm. “There’s nothing more we can do tonight. I’ll drive you to the Lodge.”
She shook her head, frustrated at being coddled by not only Colby but also the chief. “Thanks, but I can drive myself. Besides I’ll need my car in the morning.”
The half marathon had been organized as a way to foster good relations between the town and military community, one of a series of events scheduled for the upcoming year that had the post commanding general’s full support.
Colby smiled. “The least I can do is follow you home.”
She shook her head. “Really, it’s not necessary.”
Either the tone of her voice or her narrowed gaze caused him to take a step back.
He raised his hands, palms out, and shrugged. “Of course, you’re fine. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”
Colby turned and headed to his car, leaving her standing in the parking lot. Hot tears burned her eyes, but she blinked them back and fisted her hands. For some reason, she hadn’t wanted him to leave.
THREE
Only a little farther!
Becca pushed harder, her focus on the finish line. One more hill to climb to complete the 13.1K run, her first competition since she had arrived at Fort Rickman.
The cheers of the people lining the streets melded into a single roar that accompanied her up the incline. At the crest of the hill, she sucked air into her lungs, appreciating her body’s response to the need for more oxygen.
The finish line lay fifty yards ahead.
Her time was good. Not good enough to win, but nothing to be ashamed of, either.
One last sprint. She kept her eyes on the goal. The Freemont running club official said something over the loudspeaker. Probably her number.
Her footfalls pounded the pavement.
Left, right, left, right...
Inhale, exhale. Inhale, exhale.
Everything faded into a blur.
Push. Harder. Faster.
She broke across the finish. Cheers erupted around her. Her body relaxed, and her pace slowed. She loped through a roped-off chute that would take her to one of the running club volunteers.
“Rebecca.”
Someone from the sidelines called her name. A deep voice she knew too well. Fear tightened her spine.
She whipped her head to the right, the direction from which the voice had sounded, and stared into the crowd, searching for a face she would never forget. The face of a man—no, a monster—who had destroyed everything and everyone she had ever loved.
She scanned the bystanders—wives with babes in arms, parents and grandparents waving at their favorite runners, shopkeepers and community leaders supporting the town’s first attempt to host the sporting event.
Surely her ears were playing tricks on her.
She would never forget the deep, almost soothing quality of his voice that persuaded even those most determined not to succumb to his diabolical charm.
Evil packed in a handsome face and muscular body.
Goose bumps pimpled her flesh. Despite the exertion, she shivered.
Someone shoved a plastic cup into her hand. “Water?” the guy asked.
She switched her gaze to the man and his outstretched hand. An older gentleman with kindly eyes.
Not Jacob.
“Great run,” the man offering water enthused.
Nodding her appreciation, she took the cup and headed farther along the narrowing chute, still studying the crowd, unable to abandon her search.
She had heard Jacob’s voice.
A high school volunteer checked the clipboard in his hand and marked off her number.
He pointed her toward the refreshment area. “Sports drinks are available at the table ahead. Burgers and dogs are on the grill when you feel like eating.”
She downed the water, tossed the glass in a nearby trash receptacle and slipped through the crowd of those who had already finished the run.
“Good run.” Another voice, one she also recognized.
She turned to see Colby approaching her, his angular face still flushed. His group had started ahead of hers.
“With so many runners, I didn’t think I’d see you this morning.” His smile was warm, but his eyes were serious as if he were searching her face for some sign of weakness. He’d worn the same intense expression last night when he’d found her on the knoll immediately after the explosion.
“No reason to pass up a good race,” she offered, hoping he wouldn’t push for details.
“You were pretty worn out last night. You should have slept in.”
She reached for another cup of water on a nearby table. “I could say the same for you.”
He nodded. “You’re right, but no reason to pass up a race.”
She smiled in spite of herself. “You heard Chief Wilson last night,” she offered as further reason for participating today. “He wanted everyone to support the event.”
Once again, she flicked her gaze to the crowd. “Did you hear anything new from the fire marshal?”
“Only that he’ll check the site this morning. The Atlanta construction company provided the name of the project manager. Ralph Arnold.”
“The truck belonged to him?”
Colby nodded. “The Freemont chief of police asked for a court order to search the trailer he rented in town. They expect it to be signed by noon. I’ll head that way later this morning”
“Give me the address. I’ll meet you there.”
“No reason to take two cars.” He glanced at his watch. “I’ll pick you up at the Lodge, say at eleven o’clock. We can stop by your old BOQ first and still arrive at Arnold’s place ahead of the local police.”
Glancing at her watch, she nodded. “That works for me.”
Becca needed to buy a few items she’d lost in the fire, including a pair of flats to wear with the civilian clothes worn by the CID, instead of a military uniform.
Maybe Colby was right. She was pushing too hard, but it was the only way she knew how to operate. Move forward. Don’t look back. Don’t think of what could have been. Don’t allow anyone to get too close.
Then she glanced at Colby, seeing again that questioning lift of his brow. She would have to be extra careful to guard her past when he was around. For some reason, he seemed to sense the disquiet she carried in her heart.
After saying a quick goodbye, she turned toward the crowd, hoping her abruptness signaled her desire to be alone.
Coming back may have been a mistake.
Supposedly Jacob was dead and buried.
But Colby Voss was very much alive, and although the two men were polar opposites, they both posed a danger.
Jacob did because of the memories that tangled her dreams and impacted her life. Colby Voss was a danger in a completely different way, but she needed to guard against his charisma and his show of concern for her, just the same.
As she made her way through the crowd, her focus shifted back to Jacob.
He was dead.
She hoped.
* * *
Colby pulled to a stop at the red light, thinking of the warning signs that had flashed through his mind since he’d met Becca. If only she would lower her guard around him just a bit. Case in point, last night when she’d refused his offer to follow her to the Lodge.
Stubborn pride is what he called it, although not to her face. In truth, it was possibly her dislike of appearing weak or fear of revealing too much about herself. Now that Wilson had tasked them to investigate the explosion’s tie-in with her past, Colby hoped to find a way to work with her and not against her.
Frustrated though he had been last night, he had hung back until she left the BOQ parking lot and had followed her to the Lodge. He’d made sure she arrived at the transient billets safe and sound and watched as she scurried inside. Lights came on in an upstairs room, and he’d seen her at the window before she closed the drapes.
Relieved to know she was safe, he’d driven home. Sleep had eluded him, and he’d spent a great portion of the night focused on Becca Miller and her determination to take care of herself.
Strong women were a challenge, to say the least.
He’d made that mistake once before and still carried the scars. Not physical, but painful nonetheless.
Foolish of him to have thought Ellen would change when they were both deployed in Afghanistan. Her independence and desire to go it alone had forced him to transfer to another forward operating base.
A mistake that haunted him still.
No matter how hard he worked to move on, the reality of what had happened was never far below the surface.
Meeting Becca had brought those memories to light again. Unresolved issues, his sister called them, but then she knew him too well. As much as he treasured their close sibling relationship, he didn’t appreciate her uncanny ability to recognize his struggle.
Surely Becca Miller couldn’t sense the undercurrent of his life. He prided himself on his outward control and on being a law enforcement officer who got the job done.
Turning into the lodge parking area this morning, he saw Becca standing in front of the building. She glanced impatiently at her watch.
He checked the dashboard clock. One minute past eleven. Did she think he was late?
Pulling to a stop, he reached across the passenger seat and opened the far door from the inside. Equal footing was what she wanted, which he would give her. Becca was a fellow army investigator. End of story.
So then why did he breathe in the flowery scent of her shampoo and take a second deep breath as if to ensure what he smelled was real and not his imagination?
He reached forward to help her click the seat belt in place. Their hands touched, sending a ripple of electricity up his arm. Nothing about Becca was his imagination. She was tall and slender, lean in a fit way but not too skinny, with a graceful neck and shoulder-length brown hair streaked with auburn.
She turned and greeted him, but his focus honed in on her green eyes, tired but bright.
“Did you get something to eat?” he asked.
“A couple power bars.”
“You want some coffee. Maybe a burger at the drive-through?”
“Only if you do.”
“I ate earlier at the race.” Not that he couldn’t eat again, but they were on a tight schedule, and he didn’t want the Freemont police to arrive at the project manager’s trailer ahead of them.
“Dental records should come in later today to officially ID Ralph Arnold’s body,” he told her as he pulled onto the main road and headed to her former BOQ.
“Have they contacted the next of kin?”
“A wife who lives in Marietta, just north of Atlanta. She talked to her husband yesterday evening. He was working late and had hoped to finish sometime before midnight and then drive home for the weekend.”
“Now he’s dead.” Becca tsked. “I feel for the wife. Did they have kids?”
“Two boys.”
“Growing up without a father will be tough.”
Colby had to agree. “The question we need to answer is what was he doing in the vacant apartment?”
The fire marshal and two MPs were searching Becca’s BOQ when they pulled into the quad parking lot.
“Find anything?” Colby asked after he and Becca had introduced themselves and flashed their identification.
“Nothing yet, but watch your step.” The marshal pointed to the burned rubble covering the floor. “No way of telling if Mr. Arnold caused the problem or tried to fix what was amiss when he arrived.”
“Wouldn’t he have called in a gas leak and notified the fire department?” Colby asked.
“More than likely,” the fire marshal said. “And if he’d used his cell when he was inside, a spark from his phone could have caused the explosion.”
The marshal was a slender guy with bushy eyebrows. He glanced at Becca over the top of his glasses.
“After you smelled gas, Special Agent Miller, you told the MP last night that you exited through the rear of the building.” He pursed his lips for a long moment. “Why didn’t you use the front door?”
“My first thought was to get out. The back door was closer.”
“Then you called CID Headquarters instead of 911?” the marshal pressed.
She nodded. “The number was programmed on my phone. I knew the person on duty could and would notify both the fire department and the military police immediately. Emergency operators ask questions that can delay the process.”
The marshal raised his bushy brows. “We have an excellent emergency response system at Fort Rickman.”
“That’s good to know. I’ll use it next time.”
As if satisfied with her response, the marshal walked through the gaping hole between the two apartments and headed into the adjoining kitchen. Becca and Colby followed him into the living area of the unoccupied unit.
The stench of smoke and burned plastic hung in the air. Becca coughed to clear her lungs. Bending down, she brushed some debris aside.
Colby edged closer. “What did you find?”
“Glass shards.”
“An overhead light fixture perhaps,” he mused.
“Maybe, but most lights are opaque or frosted.” She glanced at an opening in the nearby wall. “Guess what used to be here?”
Colby stepped back to view the entire room and realized where she was headed. “The front door.”
“That’s right. Flanked by panes of clear glass.”
Colby knew the significance of finding the glass within the house. “If the panes had blown with the explosion, the shards would be outside the footprint of the structure.”
“But they’re inside,” she said, her face drawn. “The shattered glass makes me think someone else was in the apartment. Someone who had broken one of the glass panes to gain entry into the apartment before the explosion.”
“Ralph Arnold had a key to the unit.” Colby glanced again at where the front door had been. “If Arnold noticed the broken window, he may have entered the unit to determine what had happened and inadvertently surprised the intruder.”
“And was killed for that reason,” Becca added. “Then the perpetrator turned on the gas. The explosion covered up any evidence he left behind.”
“Evidence and a dead body. But if that’s the case, then why was the perpetrator here in the first place?”
Becca didn’t want to share her suspicions with Colby. She wasn’t ready to discuss her past and the man she had run from years ago.
Had Jacob Yoder found her? If so, he’d entered the vacant apartment earlier in the day and had holed up until she came home from work and eventually headed to bed.
The project manager had surprised Jacob, but Arnold wasn’t the target of last night’s explosion.
Becca was.
FOUR
/> Becca was eager to find something—anything—to refute her theory about being the target of last night’s explosion. If only she could uncover incriminating evidence in the project manager’s trailer that would point to his involvement in an illegal operation. Drug smuggling, embezzlement, even human trafficking. Bottom line, she needed a motive for his death that would draw attention away from her.
She and Colby arrived at the trailer and were joined by two officers from the Freemont Police Department. Wearing vinyl gloves, they searched all the logical places where a perpetrator would hide anything he didn’t want the police to find.
When their search proved futile, Becca turned to more ingenious hiding spots, but even then she found nothing that seemed questionable.
If she couldn’t uncover evidence relevant to a crime, her initial assumption about Jacob Yoder being alive might prove true, which made her even more determined to keep looking.
After searching Arnold’s bedroom, she pounded her fist against the wall.
“Take it easy, Becca,” Colby cautioned from the hallway.
Undeterred by his comment, she tapped again. “Hear that hollow sound? It could be a secret hiding compartment.”
Brody ran his fingers over the walls and stood close enough for her to notice his aftershave. She took a step back, needing to keep her focus on the search instead of his strong hands and the heady scent that wafted around her.
Eventually, he shook his head. “The wall’s secure. No cubby holes. No secret hiding spots. Let’s keep looking.”
He was right, of course, yet she was frustrated by the fruitless search as well as her less than professional response to Colby’s nearness. She moved into the living area, forcing her thoughts back to the case. Nothing could be ruled out at his point, but even the idea of a drug deal gone south seemed remote.
The trailer had been in pristine condition when they first arrived. Neat and tidy with a number of scrapbooks containing pictures of Mr. Arnold receiving awards from his superiors. Religious books were stacked on the coffee table, as well as a scattering of pictures of his wife and kids, all of which indicated that he was a salt-of-the-earth type of guy. A well-worn Bible lay on the couch as if he’d read scripture before he had left for work.