The Hunting Season

by Janice Kay Johnson - His Best Friend's Baby

  “They’re readily available. The recycling place used to sell them, although I don’t know if they still do. I have a burn barrel myself,” he said tersely. “In rural areas, a lot of people do.”

  Clutching the seat belt with both hands, she gazed ahead through the windshield as a troubling memory stirred without quite taking form. What was it she remembered about a fire in a barrel? Was this from college? Or one of her foster homes? She suddenly recalled one of her foster fathers burning trash in an ugly, rusting barrel back behind their house. It always stank, and the smoke was an awful color, but they’d lived on acreage, so there was no one near enough to be bothered.

  But that wasn’t the memory that niggled at her. It refused to surface, however, either because of her headache or because it was something she’d heard about secondhand.

  Finally defeated, she shook her head.

  “You know something,” Daniel said.

  “No, just…” She lifted one shoulder. “I feel like I heard something, but I can’t remember what.”

  “Hmm.” He put on the turn signal, his ranch road ahead on the right. “It’ll come to you.”

  He sounded tense, and she understood why. He probably wanted to turn her upside down and shake her until the memory fluttered loose. This was important. Somebody else might die any time.

  She shuddered. Who was she kidding? She could have died today. If she’d really fallen asleep, she might have been overcome by smoke and never awakened at all. She’d read somewhere that most fatalities in home fires succumbed to smoke long before the flames reached them.

  Her dismal mood retreated somewhat when Daniel’s converted barn home came in sight. The work and imagination that had gone into it was part of what captivated her.

  Between one blink and the next, she had a vision so real, fear gripped her. Flames roared out of the loft, climbing toward the roof, intent only on devouring the structure. The reclaimed wood floors and walls had to be dry. There was no hope—

  She blinked again, and there was no fire. Of course there wasn’t.

  Even so, that fear metamorphosed into panic. She cried, “Stop! You shouldn’t have brought me here. I should go somewhere else.”

  “What?” Daniel didn’t brake.

  “He could be following us, or guess this is where I’d have gone.” Her voice rose with urgency. “He’ll burn down your house, too. You know he will.”

  “Over my dead body,” he said grimly.

  “Daniel, please!” She was horribly afraid those were tears stinging her eyes.

  Instead of parking in front, he backed into a structure with weathered board siding that she only now realized was a detached garage with a concrete floor and a door that ran on rails overhead. He still held the remote in one hand.

  Daniel turned off the engine and, instead of getting out, looked at her. “Nobody followed us. I kept an eye out. And why would this guy assume I’d have brought you home?”

  “Because we’re—” Wait. Nobody else would have any way of knowing they had slept together. People at CPS probably thought their relationship was still antagonistic. It wasn’t as if they’d dined out or gone dancing. “He must have been watching the house,” she said more slowly. “He knows you’ve spent every night there.”

  Gaze unwavering, he said, “I’d have done the same even if we weren’t involved.”

  He’d guessed what she had almost said. “When you got to the fire tonight, you…you came straight to me. You held me.”

  He didn’t say anything for a minute. She couldn’t imagine that he comforted every distraught woman the same way in the course of his job.

  “It’s unlikely he was close enough to see us. The place was swarming with cops and firefighters.”

  “What if he is a cop?” she asked. “We’ve been assuming he’d gotten into the CPS database, but the police were involved in the investigations of all the murder victims. If he’s in law enforcement, he wouldn’t need our records.”

  Suddenly, she couldn’t read Daniel’s face.

  THE SAME WORRY had struck him, but Daniel had so far pushed back at it. Now, he had to ask himself whether he just hadn’t wanted to admit a possibility that was so close to home.

  The silence stretched. He had to break it.

  “The thought has occurred to me,” he admitted. “There are a few problems with it, though. Some of those investigations weren’t Sadler PD, they were sheriff’s department. We talk but don’t share full access to records.” Lindsay opened her mouth, but he held up his hand. “Second, no one officer has been involved with even two of those cases. Neither we nor the county have an officer who specializes in child abuse investigations.”

  “Maybe he didn’t investigate any of those cases. He just heard about them, and it rankled. If he’d been abused as a child, and authorities had failed him—”

  He cut to the chase. “Then why the obsession with you? Why did he believe you’d ‘understand’? Do you have cops as friends? Anyone you’ve worked with enough, he might think he knows you?”

  Lindsay shook her head. Twice.

  Daniel narrowed his eyes. “Do you have any friends who were abused as children? Maybe you exchanged stories?”

  “No,” she whispered. “I mean, there are a few foster parents locally who have that kind of background, but I only know that secondhand. I don’t deal directly with foster parents, except those who take only emergency placements.”

  He opened his mouth, then shut it. No, he couldn’t ask if she had any friends at all. That would be cruel, and he had a suspicion that the answer would be no. She undoubtedly had women she considered friends, the kind she might meet for a movie, say, but that wasn’t the same as close friends who knew you through and through, flaws and all, who’d be there for you in any crisis and knew you’d rush to their aid, too. Lindsay, he thought, had learned to be solitary a long time ago and still maintained the emotional distance that had saved her as a child from the crash when hope and trust were betrayed.

  Alarmed by the sudden certainty that he wanted to be the person she could trust, he only nodded and got out of the pickup. Clutching two bulging shopping bags, Lindsay followed suit and met him at the back bumper.

  “I hope the stuff fits,” he said, feeling awkward. Melinda had offered to pick up a few necessities for a woman who now owned absolutely nothing that hadn’t been in her handbag or laptop case. He hoped she’d taken into account the fact that Lindsay’s figure was curvier than hers.

  He kept a sharp eye on their surroundings as they crossed the short distance to a side door that let directly into his kitchen. No movement caught his eye, except for the horses that grazed nearby, unconcerned.

  The usual sense of peace enveloped him inside the house once he closed and locked the door behind them. High windows filled the kitchen with light. The well-used wood for cabinets, walls and floors gave him a sense of continuity, the knowledge that the past was all around.

  Looking at Lindsay’s dirty, strained face, he said gently, “The house has sprinklers. Using all reclaimed wood the way I did, it seemed prudent.”

  She stared at him as if she didn’t quite understand what he was saying.

  “I’m going to put you up in the loft. If you’d prefer, I can sleep down here.” He put a hand on her back and steered her toward the stairs.

  In the end, he found scissors for her to cut tags off the new clothes and left her alone to take a shower while he started dinner.

  As he sliced chicken breasts, he brooded about the deadly intent behind today’s assault on her. That was what it was. The fire was attempted murder, not meant only as a warning or to scare Lindsay. He grudgingly supposed it was possible the killer assumed that since it was daytime she would be awake and would flee the house sooner. But once the fire gathered strength and she hadn’t appeared, he could have called her or made a noise to draw her attenti
on. Instead, whoever the SOB was, he’d stood back and waited with a spider’s patience for her to come to him—if she made it out of the house at all.

  Filled with angry tension, Daniel realized he’d sliced the chicken into slivers instead of the thicker pieces he’d intended, but maybe this was a task made for his mood. He grabbed a bell pepper and started in on it.

  Whack. Whack. Whack.

  By the time Lindsay showed up, he had himself under better control. The stir-fry came perilously close to being a puree, but she didn’t seem to notice. He had to keep reminding her to eat.

  “I should have called my insurance agent today,” she said out of the blue.

  “Tomorrow is soon enough.”

  Her gaze finally met his. “I don’t suppose I can look for a new place to live, or go shopping, or…”

  He shook his head. He didn’t want her appearing anywhere the wrong person might see her. Now that she wasn’t even surrounded by her own stuff, her own space, she’d feel imprisoned even more, but he couldn’t think of another solution.

  Except that cruise. Too bad he’d discovered how much he’d hate not knowing where she was every minute of the day, not being able to talk to her when he needed to. Not being able to see her would leave a huge hole that he feared had nothing to do with the threat to her.

  Didn’t it figure, that was the moment where she burst out, “You were right. I shouldn’t have stayed in town. I’m a burden, not a help! I don’t even know what I thought I could do. If I’d put the pieces together, I could have called you from Alaska or the Caribbean or wherever I’d gone.” She pressed her lips together, then said, more quietly, “It’s not too late for me to go. After dinner, I’ll—”

  “No,” he heard himself say. “I need to be able to ask you questions. Bounce ideas off you.” Was he being selfish? Daniel didn’t know. “Have you where I can see you.”

  She stared at him in shock, and he thought she’d heard more than he’d said. Seeing beneath the surface—she was good at that.

  Chapter Twelve

  “Do you have to sleep downstairs?” Lindsay hovered on the second step leading to the loft. She knew she sounded anxious. Well, so what. She didn’t think she could sleep in Daniel’s big bed with no idea where he was or what he was doing. What if somebody slipped by him? The staircase was so solid, she wouldn’t hear even a single step squeak a warning.

  “That’s up to you.” He regarded her from those dark eyes. “I’d rather sleep with you.”

  “Please,” she said shakily. Right this minute, she needed him as she’d never needed anyone.

  He turned out lights and followed her. She was already under the covers when he set down his phone on the bedside table followed by something that landed with a clunk. His big, black pistol. Maybe that should disturb her, but instead it reassured her. He disappeared into the bathroom, emerging with his chest bare above a low-slung pair of flannel pajama pants. She couldn’t look away, but he gave her a crooked smile as he lifted the covers and joined her in bed.

  “Don’t tempt me,” he said in a low, growly voice.

  “I wasn’t injured.”

  “Walking upstairs was enough to set you off coughing.” He reached out a long arm and turned off the bedside lamp, then drew her into his arms, carefully arranging her half sprawled on him, her head on his shoulder.

  The tenderness in his touch made her eyes sting. Lindsay shifted her hand until she could feel the slow beat of his heart beneath her palm.

  She dropped off to sleep with astonishing speed.

  WHEN SHE AWAKENED with a jolt, she discovered she was alone in bed. Sitting up, clutching the sheet to her chest, she battled panic. Where was Daniel? He would have told her if he had to leave, wouldn’t he?

  Then it registered that sunshine flooded the loft through the skylight. Oh. It was morning. In fact, when she spotted the clock, the display said 8:55.

  Lindsay hustled to take a brief shower and get dressed in a pair of crisp new jeans that fit surprisingly well and a pale russet, V-necked T-shirt. Melinda had even provided a hairbrush and elastics. Feet in new flip-flops, Lindsay took a last look at herself in the mirror, amazed at how good she felt. Apparently ten uninterrupted hours of sleep worked miracles. Despite everything, she was smiling as she went downstairs.

  Daniel stood by the kitchen table, looking down at a newspaper. His jaw was clenched so hard, she expected to hear molars cracking.

  “What’s wrong?”

  He glanced up, clearly angry. “Somebody has a big mouth. A reporter found out about the trash can fires.”

  “Oh, no.” That was the one detail police had determined to withhold. “But…who?”

  “God knows.”

  She frowned, sitting down and turning the front page so she could read the article, too. Last night, there’d been more witnesses than usual, but the smaller fire had not only been in back, it had been set in the barrel. To anyone who didn’t know better, it would look as if flying embers from the house had blackened the metal.

  Daniel controlled himself well enough to pour her a cup of coffee and ask if scrambled eggs and toast were okay.

  She’d done most of the cooking when he’d stayed at her house, so she only nodded.

  His back to her as he cracked eggs, he said, “I told the fire chief about the previous fires. I asked him to keep it to himself. I can’t believe he’d turn around and spout off to a reporter immediately.”

  She’d spoken to the man, too, and he’d been really kind. “It had to be somebody else. I mean, how many crime scene investigators and cops have seen them? If one of them told a friend, or a couple of them were overheard talking about it…”

  “I’ll see their asses fired if I find out who gave out this information,” he snapped.

  She kept quiet for a minute as he dumped the beaten eggs into a hot pan. Finally, she asked, “Does it really matter?”

  He huffed out a breath. “I don’t know. Maybe we’ll get lucky now and someone will step forward and say, ‘I knew this guy who liked to start fires in wastebaskets at school, and even sometimes as a joke when he was at friends’ houses. I wonder…’”

  “That’s possible.”

  He grabbed thick slabs of toast as they popped up from the toaster and slapped on butter. “You’re more optimistic than I am.”

  Lindsay blinked at that. “I don’t think anyone has ever called me an optimist.”

  The smile that creased Daniel’s cheeks was a big improvement on his previous grim expression. “There’s always a first time.”

  She examined how she felt, expecting devastation because of everything she’d lost yesterday. But Daniel gave her a sense of hope. Maybe deep inside she had been nurturing a sense of optimism. Who knew she could?

  DANIEL SIPPED COFFEE and watched as Lindsay checked messages on her phone. There were obviously a bunch, and he was intrigued by her ever shifting expressions. Wrinkled nose, surprise, annoyance, quirky smile.

  When she reached the end, she said, “How bad news does fly. Twenty-six messages, seven of them from eager reporters.”

  Curious, he asked, “The others from friends?”

  “Mostly. Well, and people I work with. Celeste and Sadie both left messages asking if there was anything they could do.”

  Celeste, if he wasn’t mistaken, was the front desk receptionist.

  “Melinda, wondering if the clothes fit right. She said to let her know what else I need. Glenn saying how shocked he was when he saw my house burning on the five o’clock news. He and several other coworkers want me to let them know how I am.”

  Daniel nodded. That was expected.

  Her crinkled forehead and hesitation sharpened his attention.

  “Ray Hammond left a message, too. He said he has a spare room if I need someplace to stay.”

  Daniel snorted. “Spare room, hell. Tha
t’s not what he has in mind.”

  “He can’t possibly imagine I’d leap into bed with him out of gratitude,” she said indignantly. “Although it does seem strange. We’re polite, and that’s about it. So why would he think…?”

  “That you’d be desperate enough to take him up on his offer?” He mulled the question over. “You’re right. That is strange.”

  “Sadie offered me a place to stay, too. She and her husband have a big ranch, pretty isolated. It might not be a bad idea.”

  He shook his head. “Not happening. Sheriff Chaney offered, too, but someone got out there and murdered the Haycrofts without a soul on the ranch seeing a stranger coming or going.”

  “But you can’t stay with me constantly,” she argued.

  “No.” Frustration roughened his voice. “Today, I think I’ll take you with me until I can get a new roster of bodyguards arranged. Worse comes to worst, you can sit in the break room at the station, eat vending machine snacks and read a good book.”

  She looked as thrilled as she had the last time he’d outlined the same proposal. “Am I safe there if the killer is a cop?” she asked dubiously.

  “I don’t think he’ll turn out to be in law enforcement. No matter what, the station is a busy place in the daytime.”

  He couldn’t blame her for her dubious expression. And she didn’t know yet how bare-bones the break room was, or that the only available chairs were designed for a quick sit while you ate your lunch, not a six-or eight-hour stint.

  He reminded himself there weren’t a lot of choices here.

  When he grilled her about how she felt, she claimed to be fine and insisted that she hadn’t coughed yet this morning.

  He told her she should bring a sweatshirt or sweater since the police station was air-conditioned. Lindsay disappeared upstairs. When she returned, she’d put on socks and bright white athletic shoes and carried an Oregon State University Beavers sweatshirt. Daniel seemed to recall that Melinda had graduated from OSU.

  During the short drive into town, he and Lindsay discussed calls she needed to make and what she should and shouldn’t tell her friends. Where she was staying topped the “shouldn’t” list.