Mountain Secrets

by Elizabeth Goddard

  If the house burned to the ground, her valuable would survive.

  Jewel headed for the far corner, dreading what she was about to do. Acid churned in her stomach.

  She moved a trunk, feeling an ache through her back and across her legs and arms. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea. She might accidentally tear the stitches and open up that nasty gash.

  Plus, moving the trunk had made too much noise. She had to be quiet, or Katy and Meral would hear her movements.

  Creak.

  She froze. Her pulse jumped.

  The sound had come from the attic. The rafters settling beneath the simple plywood flooring? Or something—someone—else?

  At the falls she’d heard the snap of a twig right behind her. Shuddering, she slowly turned to look. See if someone was there, fearing what would happen if they were. She couldn’t see the steps down into the hallway for the boxes and furniture stacked in her way.

  Ever since Tracy’s attacker had stayed in the B and B, Jewel had known she needed more protection than the rifles stored in a gun closet or a 9-millimeter semiautomatic pistol tucked away in her nightstand. She had needed to train in self-defense in case a day ever came when she would have to protect herself without the use of a firearm.

  Granted, none of that had come in handy at the falls, except maybe to give her confidence to swim her way to freedom. Would she find herself using that training now? When she heard nothing more, she looked at the wall where the item was hidden behind a plank and reconsidered. Maybe she wasn’t in the right frame of mind to revisit the past.

  But there was only one reason Jewel could imagine someone would want her dead. She hadn’t wanted to think about it, but as the walls of the attic closed in around her, she had to face the truth.

  Another creak had her stiffening. Preparing for the worst.

  “Who’s there?”

  How could anyone have come up here with her? She would have heard them, right? “Meral, is that you?”

  Her knees shook. She was far weaker than she wanted to be. Too weak to deal with her secret right now. Jewel would come back another day. Maybe when Chief Winters returned from his look at the falls she would tell him everything.

  Except he would be disappointed in her, and she didn’t think she could bear that. She made her way through the maze of junk, heading for the steps out of the attic.

  The sense of a presence and the rush of wind were all the warning she received. Someone grabbed her from behind, wrapping an arm around her neck.

  There was no doubt as to his intention—to choke her to death.

  Her pulse skyrocketed. Heart pounded.

  But Chief Winters’s words penetrated the fear that gripped her mind and body.

  First, don’t panic. Take slow, deep breaths to relax. Then assess what is happening. But do it quickly. A quick reaction can save you.

  Breathe. She had to breathe. Hard to do. When. He’s. Choking. Me.

  Second, grab his arms. Drop your weight.

  She let herself drop, but his grip didn’t waver.

  Stomp on his foot.

  Jewel jabbed her heel into his foot. Then she tried to move. That was the whole point. Move and slam her fist into his groin. But he kept her pinned tightly.

  She couldn’t budge. Her stomp made no noticeable difference. Again. She tried again.

  Next she raised her arm, preparing to turn into her attacker and strike him with her elbow. She’d practiced this and had been successful in class demonstrations. But her attacker seemed to expect her every move and squeezed her tighter, holding her in a vice.

  Breathe.

  She couldn’t breathe.

  Darkness edged her vision. Bright pinpoints of light sparked across her eyes.

  She struggled and twisted. Had to try something else.

  If you can’t get away, try to head butt. Grab his ears, nose, anything to gain an escape.

  Jewel threw her head forward and then back against her attacker’s face. His grip loosened enough for Jewel to break free. She pushed forward and away. Took off running as she gasped for oxygen. No time to stop or even scream.

  Had to put distance between them. Escape. She had to get away.

  She ran for the only exit.

  But he slammed into her back. Toppled her. Jewel fell forward, her body slamming hard against the floor. Pain sliced through her, exacerbating her previous injuries. His body weight pressed heavily against her. His breath was hot across her neck.

  God, please, no!

  Lungs still burning, Jewel screamed, releasing what little air she’d grabbed.

  She couldn’t catch her breath, but there were two things she needed to know. “Who are...you? What do you want?”

  Voices resounded from below.

  Katy and Meral had heard the ruckus.

  Jewel tried to scream again to let them know where she was. “Help—”

  Boxes toppled, slamming down on her bruised body. Crashing into her head.

  Darkness engulfed her.

  FOUR

  It was late afternoon by the time Colin steered his Jeep up to the B and B. Terry headed back to the police station to finish paperwork, and Cade headed home to his son, little Scotty, and wife, Leah, who was pregnant with their second child. But David had ridden along with Colin and would pick up his truck and Katy, his grandmother. Colin stepped from his Jeep and studied the house. Picturesque and peaceful. A bald eagle soared above the property. Trees rustled in a cooler-than-usual August breeze.

  David climbed from the Jeep and walked around, waiting on Colin. “Quiet on the outside. I just hope there’s nothing wrong on the inside.”

  “That makes two of us.”

  Colin noted David’s truck and Jewel’s Durango parked to the side. He didn’t see Meral and Buck’s rental, which caused him concern. Meral had promised to stay with Jewel, but maybe her husband had the car and was running errands in town. Colin had met Meral earlier—as beautiful as her sister but several years younger—but he had yet to meet Buck Cambridge.

  He wanted to know more about the husband. Meet the man and get a sense of him. See his interactions with his wife and sister-in-law.

  Colin had watched Meral with Jewel and could easily see she loved her sister. In his mind, in his gut, Meral wasn’t a suspect, though she’d been conveniently missing, as had her husband, when Jewel had gone into the falls. Regardless, Colin refused to depend on his gut feeling. He’d get the facts.

  He and David headed to the porch.

  “What are you going to tell her?” David asked.

  Jewel would be disappointed they still knew next to nothing. He didn’t like to heap more pain on her injuries.

  “I’ll reassure her we’ll do our best to find whoever did this.” Colin opened the front door and stepped into the foyer.

  Cell in hand and eyes wide, Meral rushed forward. “Oh, I’m so glad you’re here! It’s Jewel...” Meral fumbled and dropped her phone, but didn’t bend to pick it up. Instead, she ran away.

  Colin glanced at David, his heart plunging to his knees, and took off after Meral. “What’s happened?” he called after her.

  She ran up the stairs and called back to him without pausing. “She’s hurt.”

  And then another flight of stairs.

  “But what happened? Does she need medical attention?”

  “Maybe. Boxes fell on her. I don’t know what happened. We just heard her scream and found her in the attic. I came downstairs to grab my phone and was calling 911 when you came in.”

  Colin shoved past Meral and climbed the short steps up to the attic, where he found Katy hovered over Jewel. With unshed tears in her eyes, Katy looked at Colin. “She’s alive.”

  Katy moved away and Colin took her place. He shoved the boxes away from Jewel to make more space. None of them were crushingl
y heavy, but they’d done damage nonetheless. Carefully, he examined her injuries, then realized his mistake.

  What am I doing?

  He moved out of David’s way.

  David was a paramedic firefighter, and Colin let him determine if Jewel could be safely moved. David examined her, then started to lift her to carry her from the attic.

  “Let me do it.” Colin carefully slipped his arms under her neck and knees. Holding Jewel close and tight, Colin stood, kicked junk out of his way and headed for the steps out of the attic.

  In the hallway, he glanced at Meral. “Where’s her room?”

  Meral led him down another set of stairs to the second floor and then into a warm, cozy room decorated with quilts and nautical decor. He gently laid her on a rumpled bed.

  “Jewel, wake up.” God, please let her wake up. Please let her be okay.

  “Did you call for help?” he asked. He remembered Meral dropped her cell phone when she’d seen him.

  “Well... I was about to. I thought... You’re here.”

  “She needs to see a doctor.”

  “We could take her in. Would be faster than waiting.” David began assessing her injuries, focusing on her head. He had the credentials and experience, after all. Much more than Colin.

  Yet Colin didn’t want to relinquish Jewel’s well-being into anyone else’s hands.

  “Right here, feels like she has a fresh knot on her head.” David moved aside. “She likely has a concussion.”

  Colin ran his hand over where David indicated, his fingers weaving into her soft hair, searching. “See if you can get Doc Harland out here. I don’t think Jewel wants to go back to the hospital.”

  Katy and David shared a look that he didn’t like. He wasn’t giving Jewel special treatment. Was he?

  “I’ll call Doc. See what he wants us to do.” David snagged his cell from his pocket and went into the hallway.

  While David turned his attention to the call, and Meral and Katy spoke in hushed tones, Colin focused on Jewel. Lord, please let her be okay. He didn’t think his heart could take any more loss. If he’d thought he’d toughened up enough over the past twenty years since coming to Alaska to flee his bad experience in Texas, he’d been wrong.

  Why had this happened on top of yesterday?

  “Ladies, please tell me what happened.”

  Katy pursed her lips. “Well, I don’t exactly know. We were in the kitchen.”

  “I’d come down to get Jewel some tea.” Meral frowned.

  “I thought we agreed she wasn’t to be left alone.” He eyed them both.

  “But how could I have known that meant I couldn’t get her tea? That I couldn’t leave her room? Or that she couldn’t leave her room? I just went to get tea. It shouldn’t have been so hard.” Meral pressed her face into her hands.

  “No need to blame yourself.” Guilt hit Colin for being too tough on her. “I’m just trying to protect Jewel and get to the bottom of all this.”

  “To be fair, dear—” Katy sent a regretful glance Meral’s way “—we’d gotten caught up in chatting. Maybe I kept you too long.”

  “Chief Winters, I’m so sorry this happened,” Meral said. “We heard noises coming from above us. I thought I heard someone cry out, so we came first to Jewel’s bedroom and that’s when we discovered she was gone.”

  “Then we heard the awful crash.” Katy sat on the edge of the bed. “We ran up to the third floor and found the attic door hanging down.”

  “And so we climbed the steps and found Jewel covered in boxes.” Meral fidgeted. Glanced out the bedroom door. Was she waiting on Buck? Wondering where he was? Colin certainly was. This was the second time the man seemed to be missing when Jewel was hurt.

  “She could have been crushed.” Katy rubbed Jewel’s leg as if coaxing her to wake up.

  “The boxes weren’t heavy enough to crush her.” But there she was in the bed, unconscious, regardless. Colin didn’t want to think about what could have happened. “I don’t know why she’d go to the attic, but she’s not in any condition to move around an obstacle course.”

  A moan escaped Jewel’s lips.

  He turned his attention back to her. Pressed his hand against her face. Felt her soft skin. “Jewel, can you hear me?”

  Her eyelashes fluttered.

  “Jewel, wake up. It’s me, Colin...er... Chief Winters.” His heart was getting the best of him. “Doc Harland is on his way.”

  He hoped.

  “He is,” David confirmed from behind.

  When her lids finally opened, he could see the pain in her eyes. “I know, hon. I know it hurts.”

  “Again?” Her question came out in a groan.

  “Looks like it, yes. But you’re going to be all right. You hear me?”

  “No, no, I’m not.”

  “Don’t say that. You’re just fine. You have a concussion probably, and a few new bruises, but nothing worse than that. Doc will fix you up right as rain.” Colin sounded as if he was grasping for hope.

  “Doc can’t fix what’s wrong with me.” Jewel frowned, clearly in pain. “Someone is trying to kill me.”

  When had Jewel decided she was the specific target?

  Colin eased onto the edge of the bed, sitting closer. It should feel wrong, him sitting here like this when Jewel had her sister and Katy Warren to comfort her. What was Colin doing? Hadn’t he decided he shouldn’t do this? But one close call too many had the protector in him coming out and rearing its big head. The comforter in him that he hadn’t realized resided inside was taking over.

  “I’ll find him. Don’t you worry. We went to the waterfall today. We’ll find out who did this.” He hadn’t wanted to bring that up yet since he didn’t have any real leads to share, but it was all he could think to do to reassure her. His words portrayed more confidence than he’d felt, though. “In the meantime, you need to rest and recover before you start exploring on your own.”

  Jewel opened her intense hazel-green eyes and turned them on Colin. His heart jolted in his chest. He couldn’t remember a time when his heart jumped into his throat this high, this forcefully. Jewel grabbed his hand on her face. “Don’t coddle me, Chief Winters. Forget about the waterfall. He was in my attic.”

  * * *

  Surprise mingled with disbelief in the police chief’s eyes. That hurt Jewel more than she wanted to admit.

  “You’ve been injured, Jewel.” He reclaimed his hand, leaving a cold spot where warmth had been. “You’ve had a knock on the head. Think about what you’re saying.”

  She wanted to tell him that his words upset her. But then she’d be admitting out loud that his opinion was important. Meral watched her, sympathy carved into her beautiful features. Did she think Jewel had imagined it, too?

  “But we were all here. How could someone have been in the house without us knowing about it?” Meral asked.

  “How could he have hidden in the attic all this time?” Katy joined the doubters. “We would have heard the noise.”

  “You did hear noise,” David said.

  “Yes, but only for a minute or so before we heard the crash.”

  “I thought I heard you scream.” Meral pressed her hand over her mouth, eyes wide. “You think...you believe...he was here?”

  Jewel grabbed her forehead and slowly sat up, ignoring Chief Winters’s protests, along with those of Katy and Meral.

  “I don’t think. I don’t believe. I know what I’m saying. I know what I saw. I know that I fought an attacker. I know what I experienced before I was knocked out. This time, he tried to strangle me. I got free for a second, only he tackled me before I could reach the door. But I think Meral and Katy scared him off when they responded to my scream and the noise. Maybe he thought he’d killed me. He could have done just that. I should be dead right now.”

  She turned her eyes
to her sister and Katy. “Thank you,” she whispered.

  Chief Winters lifted her chin, his touch light and gentle. He looked at her neck and his frowned deepened. Then his eyes shot back up to hers, the scolding in them well and alive. “You walked right into that attic without being suspicious or careful. You were told not to go anywhere alone.”

  She knew he was right, but she couldn’t help defending herself. “I’m not accustomed to sitting around and doing nothing. I don’t like others waiting on me. I have work to do. Besides, it’s the middle of the day and this is my home. I wasn’t expecting to find an intruder in the attic.”

  “You weren’t expecting someone to push you into the falls either.” He crossed his arms, leveling his gaze.

  She turned away, but avoided that stupid mirror. “At least my guests are still out and about. This didn’t happen with any of them here.”

  “And maybe that’s the exact reason he thought he could attack you in the middle of the day here in the B and B. That could be the reason he thought he wouldn’t get caught. But at least you got a look at him this time. Do you know who did this?”

  “He attacked from behind. The attic was dimly lit, and the small window doesn’t give much light. I fought him, but he was strong and finally I had to head butt him to get free. I didn’t have time to look back—I just ran, but he toppled me.”

  She eyed the nightstand drawer, wanting to pull out her Glock and hold it, keep it close, but she didn’t want to scare the others. Jewel shook her head and stared at the floor, remembering how it felt to fight for her life. Her breath caught. What good was self-defense if she couldn’t win that fight? She fully expected Chief Winters to give her some lecture on the correct moves, what she had and hadn’t done right.

  Instead, his voice was gentle. “You did well, Jewel, using what you’ve learned to escape. You can’t expect the real experience to be like what we practice in class, though we can try. So take comfort in the fact you’re likely alive at this moment because you were able to fight back.”

  She nodded. It gave her a measure of relief, though not much.