Heath had a feeling that, unless caught, the killer would leave when he was ready and not before.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
SATURDAY, 4:52 P.M.
BRIDGER-TETON NATIONAL FOREST
Weakness trembled through the judge’s limbs. It took all his strength to lay down his rifle. He gripped the armrest and eased onto the old sofa. He would have plopped down but feared his body would break. Somehow, he had to find the strength to finish this before it was too late. His left elbow still ached after the jump from the truck. She should be dead now. That should have been enough.
“Blast this cancer!”
He was hungry for the first time in a week after losing his appetite for far too long. Needed meat. Needed to hunt for sustenance, both mental and physical. He needed to feel on top of the food chain. That he was strong. That he’d show them. But the woods were crawling with searchers and he knew why.
That woman, Harper Reynolds. She’d set them on his trail.
She was messing up his plans. He didn’t have time for these two failed attempts on her life.
The searchers would never find the hikers’ bodies.
When he got his hands on the Reynolds woman, they would never find hers either.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
MONDAY, 7:59 P.M.
CIRCLE S RANCH
Harper stared out the spacious panoramic window in Lori Somerall’s home. She wanted to absorb the sheer expansive beauty of the evergreens sweeping up the mountains. Capture that in her mind, if not on a camera. The tip of a familiar peak rose off in the distance between other mountains—Grand Teton. The majestic mountain was the picture of strength and beauty and reminded Harper of that Bible verse on the wall plaque in the Airstream. When she’d been a kid growing up in Jackson Hole, the mountain had always made her think of God.
Unshakable. Unmovable.
“The name of the LORD is a strong tower . . .”
If only she could feel some of that strength right now. If only she could use this view to replace the image of Arty, surprise and shock on his face, the instant before he crumpled.
It was a repeat of what had happened to Sophie.
A pang radiated through Harper.
The deputy had been wearing a vest!
Heath had explained that the kind of body armor they’d worn couldn’t protect against rifle fire because of the high velocity. What had they been doing out there without ample protection?
His death is all my fault.
She knew the sheriff would feel the burden of that guilt as well, for believing Harper would be safe. And with this, she had to consider the strong possibility that Heath could be hurt next.
At least Heath was being proactive. After the second attempt on Harper’s life, he had agreed that moving to Circle S ranch was best. Yesterday Lori had insisted on a small Sunday service at her home, which proved to be more comforting than Harper had expected in the aftermath of Arty’s death.
An eagle swooped down as if to catch a small creature but returned to the air empty-clawed, pulling Harper’s thoughts back to her surroundings.
Lori had a big, empty house like Heath’s. Evelyn moved with them, but Pete stayed behind for now, waiting for the crime scene at the cabin to be released. Then Heath could start rebuilding the cabin. He’d said that Pete would oversee the rebuild.
“Harper?” Emily came up behind her.
She turned and hugged her sister, who’d been released from the hospital earlier that afternoon. Another EEG showed great improvement over the weekend. Plus, Emily had insisted she needed to return to Missouri, so the doctor had referred her to a neurologist at home for a follow-up. Despite the strain of the last few days, Emily looked much better.
“It’s so good to have you home.” Except this wasn’t their home. It wasn’t even Heath’s home. She squeezed her even tighter before finally releasing her.
The amazing rustic and spacious log cabin made her think of a villa in the Swiss Alps. The owner was a lovely blonde to complete the package.
Maybe Lori didn’t have her claws in Heath yet, but Harper wouldn’t be surprised if she tried. She shook off the ridiculous jealousy slithering through her.
Who cared about Lori and Heath? Emily was here with her. She was going to be okay.
Harper took a good long look at her sister, the mystery writer. Her bobbed brown hair framed a striking face defined by high cheekbones and big brown eyes. Harper’s attention drifted to the colorful display of roses and lilies on the table, a gift from Emily’s friend in the publishing world. A guy friend.
While the bouquet was appropriate under the circumstances, Harper wondered if there was something more going on. “How are you feeling?”
“Much better now that I’m out of the hospital.” Emily plopped down on the plush sofa and grabbed a pillow. Held it close. A tendril of fear emerged in her eyes, then it was gone. She reached for the Bible on the coffee table and flipped through until she found what she was looking for and focused on the page.
Though she’d been released, Emily had been advised she shouldn’t drive until the neurologist in Missouri gave her the go-ahead. Concern over seizure activity lingered.
She forced a smile to reassure Emily. “When do you start your next book?”
Emily lifted her gaze from the Bible. “As soon as possible.”
Harper waited on her to elaborate on the book, then remembered she no longer shared about her crime and mystery novels, at least while Harper was trying to recover. Instead, Emily studied her.
“I’m worried about you and this guy who is determined to hurt you,” Emily said. “I know I told you to stay, but I’m not so sure that’s a good idea now.”
Harper sighed. “That’s exactly the reason I can’t go home with you now. I want you to be safe. You already ended up in the hospital. He’s already hurt you once because of me. I won’t let that happen again.” But who would drive Emily?
Harper wrestled with indecision. What was best for her sister? Should Harper stay away or should she go home with Emily?
Her sister rubbed her eyes. “I want you to be safe. I wouldn’t think the guy would follow you to Missouri if you came home with me.”
Heath entered the room and hung back as if unsure if he was interrupting a private conversation.
Her expression shifting, Emily angled her head and tossed him a mischievous grin. “And if he did, maybe Heath McKade can come with you to guard you like he’s doing here.”
Emily was showing a bit of her old self again, which relieved Harper.
She couldn’t help but think Emily should have been a romance writer instead. “I don’t know about Missouri, but as long as I’m here, Heath is a fixture in my life for now.”
Heath said nothing in response to her comment, but he studied her. The intensity in his eyes scared her. What was he thinking?
“I want to do what’s best for you, and right now, I don’t think I should go home, but I’m worried about you—who will drive you around?”
Emily’s laugh was humorless. “I have no shortage of friends, and actually, I need to catch up with them after being gone for months.” She looked at Harper, her expression softening. “I wouldn’t trade the world for the last few months with you. I only wish things had ended differently.” She reached over and squeezed Harper’s hand. “Please take care of yourself. Don’t do anything stupid.”
Her sister’s words weighed on her. Emily was actually going. And Harper was actually staying. “I promise I won’t.”
But neither of them would be safe until this was over.
Emily rose from the sofa. “I’m tired, so I think I’ll go to bed early. I know this probably isn’t the best time to bring it up, but I’d still like to see the old house before I go. How about tomorrow? Then you can take me to the airport.”
Tomorrow? Emily really was ready to head home.
Admittedly, Harper was still shaken from what had happened. Did she even want to leave this safe haven in t
he mountains despite her brave words—especially to see the old house? Why was Emily insisting on that? Some part of her mystery-writer brain wanted closure? She glanced at Heath, hoping he’d agree to at least a simple drive-by.
“I think that would work,” Harper said.
Heath didn’t answer right away. “We’ll talk about it tomorrow.”
His life was wrapped up in watching over her now. She wished she knew how he truly felt about that. If he hated it and wished he’d been given another assignment altogether. Or if he liked being with Harper.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
When Emily disappeared down the hallway, Heath was glad Harper hadn’t joined her. They needed to talk. He’d kept his composure in front of Emily and hoped he could maintain it when he and Harper were alone.
She moved to once again stare out the window.
Avoiding him?
He didn’t blame her.
Strange that he had to work up the nerve to talk to her. He had a feeling he would risk making her run off to join Emily if he didn’t do this right. Maybe it wasn’t so much working up the nerve to approach but rather to speak the words that had been building inside. To speak his mind. He eased forward until he stood next to her. He took in the trees, the mountain peak rising above them. The spectacular wash of pink and purple.
“There’s nothing quite like a mountain sunset,” he said. Okay, well, that wasn’t exactly what he had planned to say.
“It’s truly stunning.”
His gaze drifted over, and he took in her profile. Red hair spilling over her shoulders and down her back. Soft features, a spattering of freckles—though he couldn’t see those now. “Stunning is right.”
“Don’t you need to go get Evelyn?” she asked.
Again, he got the sense she wanted to be alone. Maybe he should give her space.
“I’m staying with you, Harper. I’m not leaving you. Besides, Evelyn called and said her granddaughter would bring her out here to Circle S. She’ll be spending the night with her grandmother here.”
“That’s awfully generous of Lori.”
“Yes.” Lori was a generous woman. And she was interested, definitely interested in him. Heath would have to be blind and an idiot not to know that. It felt wrong and even misleading to be staying at her home. But with Harper in danger, Heath had accepted Lori’s offer.
Still, Lori was a kind-natured woman and he’d leave it at that. He focused on Harper, a woman for whom he cared deeply. That had never gone away, even though time and distance had kept them apart.
Except a relationship with her wouldn’t go anywhere because she was leaving when this was over. And even if she, by some miracle, decided to stay, Heath might care about her too much. According to his track record, people he cared about got hurt. He didn’t want that for Harper. He knew that, yet she was all he could think about. “Harper . . .”
His voice was too throaty. What was the matter with him? He had to keep it under control.
Harper lifted her face to look at him. The way the low evening light filtered through the window, her amber eyes were pure molten gold. Inside, she was so strong yet vulnerable at the same time. The girl he’d trusted and admired was now the woman he couldn’t stop thinking about.
“That night,” she said. “That night I was there when he was killed. I can’t say I saw the whole thing. If I had, his murderer would have paid for his crimes. It was dark. Momma and Emily had gone to shop for clothes for some party. I was mad at Emily and didn’t want to go. Someone drove up to the house. I thought it was them, but Daddy told me to stay inside. He told me to go to my room and stay there. Then he went outside. Of course, I wasn’t about to stay in my room, so I snuck into Mom and Dad’s room. It faced the front, and from there I listened through the window. I heard a heated exchange. Accusations, maybe. I’ve never remembered the words. From that angle, I could barely see Daddy’s back and nothing more. A shot rang out and Daddy fell. The way he lay. His lifeless eyes. I knew he was dead. And I ran back to my room and hid under the bed.” Harper rubbed her arms.
Heath wanted to take her in his arms. He wanted to say something, but then she might never tell him more. So he waited.
“I should have made my presence known and maybe the murderer would have run away instead of killing him. So not only did I not make a sound, I didn’t even look at his killer. I ran away. I curled in a ball and hid. I whimpered like a coward.”
“You might have been killed along with him otherwise.”
Pain skirted across her features. “Or I could have gotten a look at the killer. My father’s murder was never solved. No justice for him. I couldn’t describe the man who killed him. I could have been in a position to see everything if I had tried harder. Maybe I could have helped solve his crime. I lived with that growing up. Detectives asked me to describe the man and I couldn’t.”
“That’s a pretty heavy burden for a child to carry.” And it seemed like she had carried the burden all the way into adulthood. He wished her mother had not moved her away. He wished he could have been there to help her through—as if he truly could have if given that opportunity.
Her gaze flicked to him for a moment, then she looked out the window again. “Well, you have the whole story now. I didn’t look that night, so in photographing crime scenes, in a sense, I can never look away again. But years of photographing gruesome scene after scene, and always asking why this person? Why that person? Just like when Dad died. Why had I survived? It became too much to bear when I took that last set of evidence photographs. A child had witnessed her father’s murder. It was like my life had come full circle. So I had to take a break. For almost a year, I hadn’t been exposed to crime or violence until I saw him kill that woman. And now Arty too.”
Oh, Harper. Grief and sorrow, along with a good measure of guilt, twisted in his gut at Arty’s senseless death. But he put that all aside for now to focus on Harper. If only he knew what to say. He knew exactly what she was thinking. He saw her blaming herself for Arty’s death. She believed it should have been her. Given what she’d shared of her history—there was no doubt in his mind.
But he had no words for her.
He waited for her to say more, but she was done. Instead, she stared through the window as if mesmerized. Soon they would find themselves staring at their reflections as darkness fell.
They were thirty miles from the area where Harper had witnessed the murder. Where she’d been hiking to search for the missing couple. Still, Heath wasn’t sure standing next to the windows was a good idea.
He pressed a switch on the wall and shades began to lower. Definitely a fancier setup than he had. This was a more upscale kind of guest ranch. Lori had more people working for her too, but she’d kept her home to herself after her husband, Glen, had died.
“What are you doing?” Harper asked.
“Protecting you.”
“I need to see the sky and the trees.” She huffed and left him. He caught up with her as she headed down the stairs and out the door that led to a cozy deck outside. Maybe she wanted to be alone, but he didn’t care. Her safety was his priority. She crossed her arms and stared out into the same woods.
“Are you sure you really want to expose yourself like this? We know this guy can shoot from a distance. I wouldn’t go so far as to say he’s a military-trained sniper, but why tempt fate?”
“I thought you said we were safe here.”
“I hope we are. That said, there’s no reason to take unnecessary risks.”
She shrugged. “I don’t like being a prisoner in the house. Please give me a few minutes, okay? He couldn’t have followed us here. He can’t know where we are yet, even if he eventually finds out.”
Heath felt the same way. He wanted to be outdoors, riding horses. Fishing. Something. He’d love to take Harper riding as well. But he knew that wouldn’t take her mind off what was bothering her. Arty’s death weighed heavy on her, as it did on them all, but Harper especially took it to heart becau
se that bullet had been meant for her.
How could he help her? He dug deep into the past, into his heart. Though he tried not to think about those days, especially his role in things, he’d go there for Harper. Heath thought about how much she’d helped him when they were kids. Having someone to confide in had been such a relief. Sure, he’d had his brothers, but they shared in his grief and he tried to shield them as much as possible.
“Remember when my mom left us?”
“Yes . . .” Her voice sounded raspy. “You were a mess. So distraught. I didn’t know what to do for you. How to help you.”
“But you did.” He remembered that much too clearly. Her hair had been long even back then, and when she’d leaned over, it hung down like a curtain, shiny and red. He remembered that moment. She’d said, “You could ask her to come back, Heath.”
Her suggestion had been a simple request. A good idea. But it had turned to ash. Literally. Heath never blamed Harper for suggesting that he should ask his mom to come back. He couldn’t hold her responsible.
“When she called to check on us, I begged her to come back. Told her that I would keep her safe.” What had he been thinking? He had tried to fix all that had gone wrong in his life. He had thought if he could bring his mother back, then their lives would be better. He couldn’t have been more wrong. And now he’d allowed the sheriff to persuade him that he was the best person to protect Harper.
Was Taggart wrong?
Focus, man.
“So, sure, she came back. I don’t think she wanted to leave in the first place, and maybe it was more about scaring some sense into Dad. He’d started drinking too much and became verbally abusive, and then he hit her.”
“She came back to protect you, Heath. You and your brothers.”
“I don’t know. I’ll never know now. She hadn’t been home two days before the fire took the back of the house. I tried to run in to get her, but my father, the fireman, stopped me. He went in after her himself and came out empty-handed. I shouldn’t have trusted him with her life.”
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