The Hunting Season

by Janice Kay Johnson - His Best Friend's Baby

  Blinking, she focused on the clock. 10:23. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d slept so late.

  After showering and dressing, she found a cop in her kitchen, just not the same one who’d slept on the sofa last night. Melinda McIntosh perched on a tall stool at the island, a laptop open in front of her.

  Melinda lifted her head. “Good morning. Coffee’s ready.”

  “Thank heavens.” Lindsay poured a cup for herself and refilled Melinda’s. “Don’t you ever have a day off?” This was Saturday.

  “I’d have been working no matter what. I can’t turn my mind off.”

  Heartfelt, Lindsay said, “I know what you mean.” They weren’t the only ones, either; she doubted Daniel had gone home to laze around. Had he taken a full day off since the first murder?

  Silly question.

  “Daniel mentioned this Glenn Wilson,” Melinda remarked.

  “It can’t be him. But I’ve been thinking. Do you know how many retired caseworkers, or ones who switched to another job, are still in the area?”

  Melinda set down her mug with a click. “No. Do you?”

  “I don’t, but I’ve run into several. I saw…” She frowned. “Oh, why can’t I remember his name?” She pondered. “Barry. Barry… Hill, that’s it. Anyway, we talked for a minute in the produce department at Safeway. That was probably two months ago, but I know he’s still here.”

  “I’ll request the names of caseworkers who have left in the last couple of years.”

  “Why just the last—oh.” Duh. “Because they have to have known me.”

  “Right. Think back, will you? Who did you get along with? Have friction with? Any strange interactions?”

  The questions kept coming. Had she ever dated a colleague? Had anyone besides Matt Grudin and Ray Hammond—Melinda had to glance at notes on her laptop for those names—ever seemed interested in her? Did she have a close friend among the current coworkers? In the past? Had anybody in particular ever expressed the wish that abusers suffer like their victims had?

  That one had Lindsay making a face. “I imagine almost everyone has in a bad moment. Plus, we indulge in a lot of black humor when nobody else can hear.”

  Melinda sighed. “We do, too. Cops, I mean. All first responders, and I guess you’re close to being one.”

  “I never thought of it that way, but yes.”

  Lindsay toasted a bagel for breakfast and then made them both sandwiches when lunchtime rolled around. In fact, while they talked, she started baking. Pumpkin bread first, then oatmeal raisin cookies.

  “I have to do something or I’ll go crazy,” she admitted.

  When would she get to run again? Do anything by herself? Maybe Daniel—or one of her babysitters—would take her to the gym where she could use a treadmill.

  He called midafternoon, speaking first to Melinda and then Lindsay. Lucky she hadn’t expected tender concern for her welfare.

  “I’ve been thinking it might be possible for us to be proactive,” he said when she came to the phone. “Do any cases you’ve handled stand out in your memory?”

  Horrible thought.

  “Lots of them.” Clutching her phone, she closed her eyes. “But you mean ones where the abuser appears to have gotten off lighter than was justified?”

  “Yeah.” Daniel’s deep voice had become gentle. “That’s what I’m thinking.”

  A couple came to mind, one in particular where she’d known, with bone-deep certainty, that the mother had smothered the baby she hadn’t wanted. Lindsay had never been able to prove it, though, and the autopsy didn’t provide the conclusive results needed to try the woman in court.

  “I wonder if he’d kill a woman,” she said.

  The silence told her what Daniel was thinking. A shiver crawled up her spine. She was a woman…and he wouldn’t be guarding her around the clock if he weren’t very much afraid that this killer intended to punish her, too.

  Chapter Ten

  The ringing phone jolted Daniel out of a typically maddening, surreal dream that ratcheted up his frustration. He sat up, for a fleeting instant unsure where he was, why the nightstand with his weapon and phone wasn’t where it should be.

  Then the phone rang again, and it all came back to him. Lindsay’s sofa. Four more days of investigative dead ends. Four more nights at her place, struggling to keep his hands off her.

  He fumbled for the phone. Damn, it was almost three in the morning. Good news never came in the middle of the night.

  “Yeah,” he answered huskily. “This is Deperro.”

  “Detective. Sorry to get you at this hour, but I had to tell you that you were right. As you know, the Mehnert woman blew me off when I talked to her the other day. Her baby died tragically. It was a travesty that Child Protective Services came after her. Even they had to admit they were wrong, so why would we think for a minute that some crazy vigilante would come after her, an innocent, heartbroken mother?”

  Daniel had recognized the voice right away. It belonged to Detective Lee Nakamoto of the Washington County Sheriff’s Department. Daniel had traced the woman Lindsay told her about to an address just outside Portland, Oregon, and contacted Nakamoto. The Mehnert woman had been Danica Lashbrook when Lindsay investigated her after the death of her two-month-old child. Turned out, she and her husband split barely a month later. The guy had probably shared Lindsay’s suspicions. She’d remarried less than a year later and had taken up residence in western Oregon.

  Nakamoto had agreed to go talk to her, tell her what had been happening in Sadler, suggest this would be a good time for her to make herself unavailable for a while. The woman had pretended shock. The detective had a feeling husband number two hadn’t known anything about the CPS investigation. They’d had no child yet in the new marriage.

  “She dead?” Daniel asked.

  “Oh, yeah. Husband travels for his job. Got a late flight from San Francisco instead of spending another night the way he’d planned. He found Danica dead in bed.”

  “Let me guess. Smothered.”

  “Pillow over her face,” Nakamoto agreed. “The ME may have more to say, but that’s what it was set up to look like.”

  Daniel swore and scrubbed a hand over his scalp. “Keep me informed, will you? I’ll try to determine if anyone on our list was out of town yesterday afternoon. Trouble is…”

  “It’s not that long a drive. Yeah.”

  “This is the sixth murder, and that’s assuming we know about all of them.”

  “Clearly, he’s willing to travel.”

  “How’d he get in the house?”

  “Broke the pane on the kitchen door. Reached in to turn the dead bolt.”

  Daniel didn’t need to comment on how ludicrous it was to put a dead bolt on a door with an easily shattered pane of glass. Why lock it at all?

  He turned his head sharply when he caught movement out of the corner of his eye. Watching him and undoubtedly listening to his side of the conversation, Lindsay stood in the kitchen doorway, wearing what was essentially a long T-shirt with a cartoon cat on front. She hugged herself, and he saw that her toes were curled. From cold or shock? How much had she heard?

  He and the other detective wound up the conversation and Daniel set his phone down on the table beside his holster and gun. He hadn’t bothered to pull the bed part out last night. The couch definitely wasn’t long enough for him, but the cushions were reasonably comfortable. Now, he patted the cushion beside him.

  “Hey. Come here.”

  Her hesitation was brief, although he suspected she was being made shy by the sight of his bare chest. Then she came, sitting down with one leg curled under her so that she faced him, carefully keeping her gaze on his face.

  “Someone’s dead,” she said.

  “Danica Lashbrook.”

  “But you warned her.”

&
nbsp; “Yes. The local cops did at my request.”

  Her expression somber, Lindsay seemed to be struck by a memory. “She was really calculating. She’d turn this weepy, big-eyed look on her husband, a ‘why are they treating me this way?’ look, then turn to me with a dignified expression but with her lower lip trembling. But in between, I’d see flashes of anger or coldness. She thought she could get away with killing her baby, and she did.”

  “But not for long.”

  “No.” Her gaze had turned inward. “I really detested her.”

  “Are you saying you understand our killer’s motivation?”

  “How can I not?” she responded with devastating honesty. “But I wanted to see her behind bars, not dead.”

  Daniel reached for her hand, exclaiming when he found it icy. “For God’s sake!” The air-conditioning must have been running all night. He captured her other hand, too, determined to share his warmth. If she noticed, she didn’t look down.

  “How will you ever catch him?” she asked.

  “If he doesn’t make a mistake—and everyone does sooner or later—one of us will make an intuitive leap, or we’ll just get lucky. There are cases that go cold, but in a county like this where we don’t get that much murder, they’re the minority.”

  Lindsay searched his face. Daniel didn’t have a clue what she was thinking.

  “I should go back to bed,” she said, but didn’t move.

  “Lindsay—” He didn’t know if it was smart or incredibly stupid, but his self-control had been crumbling by the day. He went with his impulse, gently tugging her forward.

  Initially, she stayed stiff, her unfathomable gaze never wavering, but then she scooted closer. Daniel did his best to suppress his urgency as he brushed her lips with his, came back to savor them, finally dampening the seam of her lips with his tongue.

  She made a funny little sound as she rose to her knees and wrapped her arms around his neck. With a groan, he lifted her onto his lap so that she straddled his hips.

  Against her mouth, he mumbled, “Do you have any idea how hard it’s been keeping my hands to myself?”

  Lindsay pulled back enough for him to see her tiny smile. “I suspected.” She rocked her hips, and he groaned again.

  “I want you.”

  “I need you tonight,” she whispered, and they came together in an inflammatory kiss that put an end to all qualms, all pretense.

  SHE’D NEVER FELT anything like this. It was like being hit by a tsunami, so powerful she couldn’t have broken free. His tongue thrust into her mouth, and she stroked it with her own. His hair was thick silk, her fingers tangled in it. One of his big hands gripped her hip to pace her involuntary rocking. The other moved restlessly, exploring her back, the nape of her neck, sliding around to cup one breast.

  He started to roll her beneath him but checked himself.

  “No. Bed,” he said roughly, and straightened with her in his arms.

  Lindsay locked her legs around his waist, grabbing hold of his powerful shoulders for more security. Yet as he strode down the hall, he carried her as if she weighed next to nothing. He knew which room was hers; every night, when she headed for bed, she’d been aware of his heated gaze following her.

  After being awakened earlier by the ring of his phone and the deep, low sound of his voice, she’d thrown aside the covers when she got up. Now, he let her slide down his body until her feet touched the floor. Within seconds, he’d pulled the long T-shirt she wore over her head.

  Voice thick, he said, “You’re beautiful.”

  If anyone here was beautiful, it was him. She explored the sleek brown skin stretched over amazing muscles with her splayed hands. His hands, in turn, lifted her breasts, gently squeezed them, his palms rubbing her taut nipples.

  Next thing she knew, she was on her back and he was suckling one of her breasts. She whimpered and arched, fingertips digging into his shoulders. Lindsay found she had no patience. She urged him on, her hips pushing up, seeking.

  When Daniel lifted his head, she was glad for the light from the bedside lamp so that she could see his face, transformed by passion. The skin seemed to stretch tighter than usual over the strong bones, and his eyes had the hot gleam that had so tempted her all those nights when she’d known what he was thinking.

  “Please” she heard herself beg.

  He groaned again and said, “Hell. Give me a minute.”

  A minute? He walked out of the bedroom, leaving her incredulous. Only when he returned, something in his hand, did she understand he’d gone to the living room for a condom. Condoms plural, she saw, as he dropped several on the bedside stand.

  He was magnificent in stretch boxer briefs, but he shed them in an instant and climbed into bed with her. She felt so desperate, she didn’t care that he didn’t give her any more chance to explore his body. She parted her legs and welcomed him.

  She whimpered at the first pressure, unable to look away from his piercing dark eyes. Her fingernails dug into his back. How could she feel so much so fast? His weight on her, the way he filled her, the rhythm that was somehow just right, meant release came with stunning speed, dragging him with her. He rolled to one side, gathered her close and mumbled, “Damn.”

  Was that good or bad? It sounded as if he was as stunned as she felt. Lindsay wasn’t sure she could move and didn’t want to. She hardly knew what was happening to her.

  Why him? She’d never been drawn to the kind of domineering man who assumed his orders would be obeyed instantly. Except that wasn’t totally fair; Daniel Deperro, she had come to realize, was a complex, intelligent man capable of compassion and kindness. And passion that had overwhelmed her.

  Giving a heavy sigh, he let her go and got out of bed. To return to the sofa, now that he’d had what he wanted? she wondered, stung. But he disappeared into the bathroom and returned less than a minute later. Of course he was coming back to bed. Lindsay didn’t understand her volatile emotions. This wasn’t like her.

  But then, she’d never known anyone who had been murdered, never mind six victims now. She’d never known a killer before, or annoyed one. She’d never been fired or suspended from a job for any reason. And she’d never had a cop move in with her because he was afraid for her, either.

  Live and learn.

  Daniel’s expression was harder to read now, as he gazed down at her for a minute before slipping beneath the covers as if this was where he belonged, reaching out a long arm to turn off the lamp and pulling her back to snuggle against him.

  “Sleep,” he said, his voice a soft rumble against her ear.

  To her astonishment, she did.

  HE MADE LOVE to her once more during the night and wanted to do it again when he awakened to early light. This time, though, she had curled away from him and slept so deeply, he didn’t allow himself to wake her up at—he looked past her to the digital clock. 5:43. Good God. Why was he awake?

  He’d been going to bed earlier since he’d come to stay at Lindsay’s, though, and getting up earlier, too. This morning, he had even more to think about than usual. He lay still for a long time, looking at the back of her head, the silky mass of her hair, the tight curl of her body, and felt an echo of last night’s shock.

  Would she be annoyed or hurt that he hadn’t managed to say the kind of thing a man probably should? “Damn” could be appreciative, or not. She hadn’t said a single word, but she might have been waiting for him. Or she could be as shaken as he was.

  He’d wanted her from first sight, but hadn’t been sure he even liked her. For God’s sake, he’d suspected her of murder! Lindsay wouldn’t have forgotten that.

  What was he doing here anyway? Last night’s murder suggested the killer’s focus remained on the abusive parents. Maybe he still believed Lindsay would swing around to his way of seeing things. In the days since the ominous phone call, Daniel hadn’t see
n even a hint that someone was watching her or the house. There’d been no more phone calls, no mail, no fire in a small trash can on her porch.

  What if he arranged for regular patrol drive-bys and went home himself? Or at least let Melinda and the two deputies that had been helping out off the hook?

  Maybe—but he knew he’d continue staying here at night. For a lot of reasons. And, yeah, he’d just gotten into her bed, and he wanted to get back in it.

  What kind of bastard did that make him?

  Disturbed, he eased out of bed now, picked up his briefs and slipped out of the room. A few minutes later, dressed and pouring his first cup of coffee, he opened his laptop and found several emails from Detective Nakamoto with attachments.

  Sipping the coffee, he became absorbed in studying photos and reading what little trace evidence the CSI had found. What Nakamoto hadn’t mentioned last night was the fire, this time in a wicker wastebasket. It had burned through but hadn’t spread because the flooring beneath it was a laminate that seemed to be impervious to flames. The caption for that photo was, Tell me this means something to you.

  Daniel wished it did. All he could do was respond, There’s a similar fire at every murder scene. Don’t know what it means yet.

  He forwarded the information to Boyd and Melinda, then texted them to suggest that the three of them get together today. He asked Boyd if he’d mind driving into town. Daniel wasn’t surprised to have Boyd respond within minutes; as a rancher, he was likely up with the sun no matter what. Given that he was now holding down two jobs, he especially had to take advantage of every daylight hour.

  Eleven work? he had texted.

  Daniel responded as quickly. Let’s plan on it.

  Frowning, he tried to remember who he’d lined up to stay with Lindsay today. It was getting tougher to find anyone as the days passed without any overt threat. So far, it had been all volunteer. The department was stretched too thin to make paid protection feasible. He’d requested it anyway and been turned down.

  He cocked his head at the sound of the shower running just as Melinda called.