by Jenna Night
* * *
“I can’t stop shaking.” Valerie Castillo sat perched on the edge of an old folding chair in the office of Kitchen Table.
“Let me help you with that.” Worried that her aunt’s shaking hands would result in her accidently burning herself, Ramona reached for the freshly filled coffee cup in Valerie’s hand, poured a little of it into an empty mug sitting on a desk and then handed the cup back to her.
Ramona had been at the bounty hunter office, still thinking about the video Sergeant Bergman had shown them an hour earlier, when her dad called. Aunt Valerie had shown up at the diner in a panic, he told her, saying Darrin Linder had threatened to kill her. While still on the phone, Ramona had turned to Harry and told him what was happening.
“Have them call the cops,” he said. Then he grabbed both his coat and hers from the coatrack and headed toward the door. “Let’s go.”
They arrived fifteen minutes later, and Valerie was still having trouble focusing her thoughts. Toni had suggested the cup of coffee. Now that Valerie was taking her second and third sips, she seemed to be calming a little.
“You’re sure you’re all right?” Toni stood by, anxiously twisting one of the diner’s blue-and-white striped dish towels in her hands. “Darrin didn’t hurt you?”
Valerie nodded. “I’m okay. He didn’t touch me.” She reached for the coffee, used both hands to try to hold it steady and took a noisy slurp. Eric stepped into the office and turned to his sister-in-law. “Sergeant Bergman will be here in a few minutes. I told him Jasmine should be home from work by now and he said he’d have a patrol car dispatched to park outside her condo and keep an eye on things.”
“I haven’t even told Jasmine about this yet.” Valerie’s voice was still a little shaky. “She’s trying so hard, maintaining her job while doing her outpatient rehab work. I don’t want her to have a setback.”
“So, what exactly happened?” Ramona asked, rolling over an office chair and sitting in it so she was face-to-face with her aunt. Normally Valerie looked so confident, so put-together. It was unusual to see her looking this uncertain and vulnerable. It was also a reminder that everyone was vulnerable to cracking under sufficient pressure. It wasn’t just Jasmine who had to struggle to hold herself together sometimes.
“I came home from work,” Valerie said, clutching the now-empty coffee cup tightly. “I unlocked the front door, walked inside and set my purse and keys on the table in the entryway like I always do. It wasn’t dark yet, but it was getting dusky. So, I walked into the front room and flicked on the lights. And then I saw him.”
“Darrin?” Toni asked. “Right there in your front room?”
“Not exactly. When I looked across the front room, I could see him sitting at my dining room table. He had a gun pointed at me.”
“What did he say?” Harry asked.
“It was so strange,” Valerie said, shaking her head as if baffled by the memory. “He was smiling. Like he was happy to see me. He gestured for me to come closer. He had the gun pointed at me and I was afraid he was going to shoot me, so I did what he asked. Then he had me sit down at the table with him. He said, ‘I love Jasmine and we’re going to be married.’ And then he told me if I didn’t convince Jasmine to meet with him within twenty-four hours, he’d kill me.”
She choked back a sob, took a couple of breaths to calm herself and then continued. “It was weird... His tone was so reasonable and polite the whole time. He said that he and Jasmine had had some troubles, but all of that was behind them now.” Valerie turned to Ramona. “He said that you tried to break them up, but that you’d be out of the way very soon.”
Ramona’s hands began to tremble. She looked to Harry, who was standing nearby, but he didn’t offer a comforting touch or give her the look that gave her a feeling of connection with him. Her heart sank, even though she knew she needed to concentrate on her aunt and not on herself. His withdrawal felt like one more measure of sadness added to an already horrible day.
Toni covered her mouth with her hand and then turned to look at Ramona with tear-filled eyes. Eric walked over and put his arm around his wife’s shoulder.
“Sorry,” Valerie said, looking down. “Maybe I shouldn’t have mentioned that part.”
“Don’t be sorry,” Ramona said. “You didn’t do anything wrong. It’s better to hear everything, so we know what we’re dealing with. Please, keep going with your story.”
“There’s not much more to tell. He took the house phone I keep in the kitchen and broke it. He made me get my phone out of my purse and he broke that, too. Then he made me get in the hall closet and he pushed some furniture up against the door. At first, I was too afraid to do anything. And then, after some time passed, I knew he must have left. So, I started trying to get the door open. I pushed against it, and bit by bit the furniture moved out of the way. Eventually I got the door open and I got out.” Tears began to roll down her cheeks. “I was so scared. I just grabbed my car keys and came straight over here.”
Toni walked over and wrapped her arms around her sister. “I’m so glad you did.”
A few minutes later Sergeant Bergman walked into the small office.
Ramona stood up and offered the sergeant her chair so he could interview Valerie. The diner’s office was feeling too crowded; her heart was beating too quickly, and a thrashing feeling began to rise up in her chest. She was on the edge of panic. She could feel it taking over her body like a fever. The terror and the dread and the anxiety of the last week was all too much.
She hurried out to the kitchen. Feeling Harry walking behind her, she spoke over her shoulder, “I need some fresh air.” She reached to open the back door.
“Hold on a minute.” Harry moved in front of her, opened the door about an inch and turned around so he was standing in front of it. “There’s your fresh air,” he said. “If you were planning to step outside for a few minutes, I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
She could feel cooler evening air drifting into the warm kitchen, and it did help. The panicky feeling began to subside. She looked up at Harry, and despite everything going on between them, or maybe everything no longer going on between them, he was still steady and solid and looking out for her.
“How do you do it?” she asked, her voice sounding tight and croaky with anxiety. “How do you hold it together?”
“I don’t know that I always do,” Harry said with a slight, self-conscious smile. “I think it’s more that I’ve had enough life experience to realize how little I can control. And how much I need to lean on the Lord. That doesn’t mean I don’t try my hardest to take care of things. But I have the strength to keep trying because I know there’s a higher plan even if I don’t understand it. And I know all things work together for good in the end.”
“I appreciate that sentiment,” Ramona said. “I truly do. But I’d really like for things to work together for good right now.”
And absurd as it might seem given the circumstances, she wanted things to work out between her and Harry. She already missed the small flirtations. Missed the lingering looks and the glancing touches that lasted a little longer than they really needed to.
From what he’d shared over the past several days, Ramona believed he had gotten closer to venturing back into the romantic world with her than he had with any other woman since his wife passed away. But apparently, he’d firmly decided that he didn’t want to go any further. Maybe he didn’t want to take the risk of loving someone and losing them like he had Willa. Or perhaps it was something about Ramona, personally, that didn’t work for him.
What made it much more painful was that he was being such a gentleman about it. It would be easier to think about going their separate ways if he were a jerk. But he was still kind, still compassionate. Still protective. He would make a wonderful friend. But she couldn’t go down that road with him. Telling herself she could be happy as nothi
ng more than friends with Harry would be a lie. The truth was that she was in danger of falling in love with the man.
The whole truth was that she probably already had.
Painful as it would be to walk away from him after Darrin was captured—assuming she was still alive by then—she had to make a clean break. Otherwise, she could waste years hoping to change the man when it wasn’t in her power to do that.
“Have you had enough fresh air?” Harry asked.
Ramona nodded and he closed the door and locked it.
From inside the office, Ramona heard Bergman say to Valerie, “I want you to know that capturing Darrin Linder is the number one priority for both the police department and the sheriff’s department. We know Linder is dangerous and unpredictable. We’ve already contacted an FBI behavioral expert.”
Ramona’s parents stepped out of the office, looking pale and worried.
Ramona wanted to hope for the best, but right now that was really difficult. There had to be something she could do, some way she could help. She felt like she was caught in a trap, and that even if she were able to escape it, someone she loved was bound to get hurt. Maybe even killed.
THIRTEEN
“I’m glad you’re doing okay,” Ramona said to Jasmine, feeling a little bit dishonest even though she was telling the truth. She was happy—and relieved—that Jasmine was all right. But checking on her cousin’s well-being wasn’t really the reason for making the trip to the condo to see her.
Darrin’s threats to Valerie last night had the whole family shaken up. Before everyone went their separate ways from the diner, there’d been discussion of how much to tell Jasmine. In the end, they decided that Jasmine deserved to know the whole truth. Ramona volunteered to call Jasmine and tell her what happened because Valerie was afraid she couldn’t talk to her daughter without crying. She was afraid that hearing her cry would make Jasmine feel worse than she already did.
So Ramona explained it all and immediately reassured Jasmine that her mom was fine and staying with Ramona’s parents at their house. Eric and Toni were going to stay home with her for a few days at Sergeant Bergman’s recommendation—he thought all of them staying out of view was a good idea. He was positioning a patrol car outside of their house in case Darrin tried to make good on his threat on Valerie.
They wanted Jasmine to stay there, as well, but she tearfully refused. She’d said she was afraid she would draw danger to them.
When Jasmine finally broke up with Darrin, his behavior toward her quickly shifted. Toward the end of their relationship, he’d been abusive toward her, physically and verbally, but once she ended things, he’d eased up on the threats to her, redirecting them toward her family instead. Jasmine had been frightened and repelled, but because he’d kept his distance, she’d felt relatively safe at home and at work.
Until now. If Darrin was coming completely unhinged, it seemed likely he would give up all pretense of charming Jasmine into taking him back and instead just come after her. If he did, she didn’t want her family to get hurt when that happened.
Jasmine had cried hard while Ramona was on the phone with her last night, and according to Valerie, she’d cried nearly the whole time she was on the phone with her mom. Ramona had wanted to stop by the condo and see her on the way back to the ranch with Harry last night, but he convinced her that it would be wiser if everyone went straight to where they were going for the night and stayed there.
Back at North Star Ranch, Adam had cooked yet another nice dinner. But stress and worry meant Ramona hadn’t been able to eat more than a couple of bites. So, she’d moved the food around on her plate while she thought about what she could do to help capture Darrin.
A plan had started to take shape in her mind. It wasn’t exactly something she wanted to do. In fact, she was afraid to do it. But it seemed like a good idea.
She knew she had a better chance of convincing Jasmine to work with her if she talked to her about it in person.
They moved to the kitchen. “I made a pot of coffee,” Jasmine said, looking puffy-eyed. She glanced at Harry, who had arrived alongside Ramona. “I didn’t get much sleep last night. I’m not going in to work today.”
“I have an idea on how to bring all of this to an end,” Ramona said, taking mugs out of the cabinet. At her direction, Harry took the cream out the fridge and then got the sugar dish out of the cabinet.
“What’s your idea?” Jasmine asked.
“We’re going to make Darrin think that he’s finally getting a meeting with you. You’ll call him to arrange it. But of course, you won’t go. It’ll be somebody else.”
“Who?” Jasmine asked suspiciously. “You?”
In fact, that had been Ramona’s original idea when she’d called Bergman last night to suggest her plan. She was terrified at the prospect; the last thing in the world she wanted to do was face Darrin Linder again. But her offer made sense. She looked a lot like Jasmine and could imitate her voice as well. She was the reasonable choice.
When Ramona had first mentioned the idea to Harry, he visibly blanched. And while he’d kept his usual calm, measured demeanor as he tried to talk her out of it, she’d been able to see the near-panic in his eyes.
In the end, though, it had been Bergman who’d been remarkably open-minded when she’d told him about her proposed plan. He had, however, insisted a police officer would be the bait. He wanted to meet with Jasmine first, make sure she was onboard with the plan and willing to help. And, he told Ramona bluntly, he wanted to make sure Jasmine wasn’t still in love with Darrin. That she wouldn’t be tempted to warn him away at the last minute.
“Sergeant Bergman wants to use an officer made up to look like you,” Ramona said to Jasmine. “She might want to borrow one of your outfits to wear. Or maybe your jacket. Something Darrin would recognize.” She glanced at the clock on the kitchen wall. “The sergeant should be coming here any minute now.”
“What about me just doing it myself?” Jasmine said, her voice husky with regret. “I’m the one who started it all. I’m the one who should take the risk.”
Ramona took in a deep breath and steeled her nerves. She’d been expecting this. She knew her cousin had a good heart and that she wouldn’t want to put anyone else in danger. On the other hand, while Ramona didn’t want to insult her, she honestly didn’t think Jasmine was up to the task. She was too emotionally fragile. But how did she tell her without making her think Ramona didn’t trust her?
Go with the truth. “Given everything you’ve been going through lately, I don’t think that’s a good idea. You don’t want to take on too much and risk backsliding from the progress you’ve made.”
Ramona held her breath and waited for Jasmine’s reaction. Jasmine had held herself together remarkably well since turning her life around, and this morning she stayed true to form. Her eyes filled with tears that she impatiently wiped away and her shoulders sagged, but she nodded her understanding. “A cop would know way better than me how to handle the situation, anyway,” she finally said.
“Good job,” Harry whispered, so lightly by Ramona’s ear that it was barely more than an exhalation. She felt her heart twist in her chest. Despite her best efforts, she still felt like she and Harry were a team. More than a team. It was going to feel like she was losing a part of herself when the hunt for Darrin finished and they parted ways. His whisper of encouragement made that worse. And having him standing close enough that she smelled his aftershave didn’t help any.
Ramona’s phone chimed and she looked at the screen. “It’s Bergman. He says he’s approaching the front door.”
Jasmine tapped the screen of her phone a couple of times, opening up the security system’s app, and then showed Ramona and Harry the live video of the sergeant approaching the condo. The three of them grabbed their coffees, with Ramona pouring one more for Bergman, and they walked out to the front room.
&nbs
p; “Your real estate informant, Caleb Petrov, has been reported missing by his wife,” Bergman said as soon as he walked in the door. Ramona handed him a mug of coffee and he nodded in appreciation. “It’s too soon to open a formal missing person’s investigation. He’s an adult and hasn’t been missing for twenty-four hours yet. But his wife called the station an hour ago because she’s very concerned. Caleb left for work this morning but he never showed up. He isn’t answering his wife’s calls. She knows Caleb was trying to help us find Linder. She’s worried that Darrin somehow found out.”
Ramona thought about kind, gentle Caleb being in danger and she felt her stomach drop. Beside her, Harry drew himself up, took a deep breath and squared his shoulders. She could tell by the expression on his face that he was ready to step in and do whatever he could to help.
Bergman turned to Jasmine. “I assume Ramona has told you about the plan to draw out Darrin Linder. Are you willing to help us?”
“I want to help,” she answered with a firm nod.
“I need to know the truth. Do you still have feelings for Darrin?” Bergman asked. “Are you in communication with him? Are you going to try to warn him away from us?”
“You already know about the texts he’s sent me. All from different numbers. I’ve reported to you every time he’s made contact with me since all of this began because I want him locked up. And no, I have absolutely no intention of helping him.”
“All right then,” Bergman said. “Let’s get this rolling. His threat to your mom had a timeline attached to it and I believe he’ll follow through. I’ve already got some officers on standby, ready to go. Use the number from his most recent text. Call him instead of texting so he knows it’s really you. Tell him you want to meet with him. Get him to set a location and a time. Put the phone on speaker.”
She dialed the first number and it went to voice mail.
“Leave a message,” Bergman whispered.
