by Lisa Harris
With that, he tucked the iPad beneath his arm and they parted ways, each exiting the building from different doors.
Kirk Vossler rubbed his hands in anticipation.
He decided to order a full course meal from the steak house down the street. Thankfully, his time in jail hadn’t been totally wasted. Setting up a few fake accounts was currently giving him some options he wouldn’t otherwise have. He pulled up Uber Eats on his phone and typed in his order.
Then he sank against his pillows to wait.
This was it. Years of planning would either succeed or fail in the next twenty-four hours.
When the driver knocked on his door, he called for him just to leave the bag. After he heard the man’s footsteps retreating, he tugged on a ski-cap, flipped the light off, then opened the door a spare inch to make sure the driver truly had walked away.
Seeing that the coast was clear, he opened the door only enough to pull the bag into the room before he slammed it shut and quickly thrust the bolt home.
He chuckled at himself. This life on the lam wasn’t so bad. He’d escaped much more easily than he’d thought he would. He’d get used to the tension soon enough.
But it was killing him to be only a couple miles from home. There were things there he needed. People he wanted to see.
And this hotel room was starting to feel an awful lot like a different sort of jail cell.
Maybe tomorrow he’d do a test to see if anyone around here would still recognize him.
Maybe a walk down to the corner store to buy toothpaste.
He could pull that off, couldn’t he?
His stomach did a flip at the mere thought.
Better safe than sorry. He’d stay in his room and give everything a few more days to calm down.
Chapter Sixteen
When Camryn came down the next morning, Holden was in the living room watching the news.
He glanced over and put the TV on mute. “Morning. You went to bed early last night.” His gaze skimmed over the new bohemian top she’d paired with warm leggings and a pink knit scarf. His jaw bulged and he looked away.
She folded her arms, feeling self-conscious. Once again, she’d spent the evening with Jay while Holden drove out to the stakeout. She hadn’t gotten any uncomfortable vibes from Jay the night before, but her string of sleepless nights had caught up to her, sending her to her room before Holden had returned from his watch.
“The homemade pizza you left in the fridge was delicious. Thanks.”
She pressed her lips together and gave him a nod.
On the screen, a brunette reporter wearing a red dress stood on a downtown city street, speaking into a mic. A large crowd streamed behind her.
Holden unmuted the TV.
“...peaceful gathering of the EPRE, which stands for Everett People for Racial Equality. As you can see behind me, there are people from every race and nationality in this crowd. And so far, John, the protest truly has been the peaceful demonstration it claimed it would be.”
“Thank you, Susan. Stay safe out there.”
The business-suited reporter at a studio desk was unfamiliar to Camryn. She usually tuned in to large national stations if she ever took time to watch the news. “Is this a local station?” she asked as she sank onto the lip of the recliner.
He nodded. “There’s a protest happening in Everett right now. I wanted to tune in to see how it was going. These things always put me on edge. All it takes is one bozo to turn the whole thing on its head. Thankfully, so far they appear to be maintaining civility.”
He reached for the remote and was pointing it at the TV when, on the small screen behind the reporter at the desk, a flash of something arched through the air, and then flames exploded on the side of a building.
“No.” Holden slumped against the couch, the remote forgotten.
The studio reporter swore on live television. “Cut back to Susan. Cut back to Susan!”
Immediately on the heels of the first incendiary, several more were thrown against other buildings. The crowd burgeoned into bedlam in the blink of an eye. On the street, the reporter and her cameraman were apparently running for their lives from the way the video jagged and came in and out of focus.
The red sleeve of the brunette’s dress was visible to the left of the screen. “John, things have...just...dissolved...into chaos here,” she puffed.
Billows of smoke filled the screen. People screamed. A siren squawked. The reporter stumbled and fell to the sidewalk.
“I’ve got you,” a voice said.
The camera jounced and spun and then went still, with its focus pointed down the length of the sidewalk as the cameraman apparently helped the reporter to her feet.
Camryn leaned forward. “Oh, my goodness!” She pointed toward the flaming restaurant in the back of the shot. “That’s D & J’s Diner! The restaurant where I work!” She moaned. “Or maybe I should say worked. Oh, poor Jean and David. They’ve owned that diner since the late eighties.”
Despite her sorrow for her employers, she couldn’t help a fleeting selfish thought. Now what was she going to do about her looming bills?
Holden leaned forward, tension filling every angle of his body. His attention was still severely focused on the news when his phone rang. He glanced at the screen, then answered. “Hey Jay, you watching the news?”
Camryn lost sight of the diner as the cameraman picked up the camera and resumed chasing the reporter away from the carnage. Now her jog had a distinct limp to it. She was running barefoot and her high-heeled shoes were clutched in one hand.
“Sure.” Holden frowned. “That would be fine.” His gaze slipped away from the news and landed on Camryn.
Her tension rose. The puzzlement in Holden’s gaze made her stomach clench. “What?” she mouthed.
He snapped his focus to the floor at his feet. “Sure, Jay. Anytime, you know that.” He was silent for a moment, then, “Yeah. I know. This situation in Everett is going to get uglier before it gets better.”
Camryn swallowed. She wasn’t sure what was going on, but there was a note in Holden’s tone that she didn’t like. She pressed a hand over the ache in her stomach.
Holden hung up and tossed his phone onto the couch. He rose and immediately set to pacing, thrusting his fingers back through his hair.
“What?”
“I’m not sure. Jay says he needs to talk to me right away. He’s coming here now.”
“Talk about what?”
He gripped the back of his neck, still pacing. “He didn’t say. Only that it was about Kate. I hope she hasn’t talked.” A muscle bulged in his jaw.
Camryn’s neck ached. “I’m sure it will be fine.” She wasn’t certain at all.
He propped his hands on his hips and looked at her, coming to a standstill. “Maybe. But there’s something I want to show you, in case you need it.” He motioned that she should follow him. He led her through to the back of the house, then paused by the back door, assessing the sky outside. “It’s cold today.”
“I’ll just run up and grab my jacket.”
“Okay. I’ll wait.” He lifted a leather jacket from a coat tree by the back door for himself.
It only took her a minute to get her coat. She slipped it on, then followed him across the stone patio. Her breath fogged the air before her and her curiosity couldn’t be vanquished. What could he want to show her out here?
She tucked her chin into the collar of her coat, subtly taking in the pleasing sight of his broad shoulders and trim hips as he strode before her. Her lips tilted. To maintain this view, she’d follow him through the frozen tundra if need be.
If only they weren’t walking toward the water. She pressed her lips together. Her fear was totally irrational, she knew. It wasn’t like the water was going to leap out of its boundary and drag her under.
He led the way down the hill in the direction of the clearing where they’d landed that first day. When he reached it, he stopped and drew her to him, pointing her
in the direction he was facing. “Here.”
Behind them, the ocean lapped at the shore, and she couldn’t stop a quick check to make sure they were still a good distance from the water.
He hesitated. “You’re trembling.”
She gave a self-deprecating chuckle. “I’m not so good around water, if you’ll recall.”
His thumbs worked gently into her shoulder muscles. “Bad experience at some point?”
She swallowed, reminding herself that the warm hands on her shoulders were only there out of duty. “Yes. When I was ten, the older brother of a friend held me under the water at the neighborhood pool because his sister had told him I bullied her and stole her lunch money.”
Holden leaned to look down at her face. “You stole a girl’s lunch money?” One brow lifted. “I can’t see you doing that.”
“I didn’t. But the girl took a disliking to me. Maybe out of jealousy because I’d recently been appointed the captain of our swim team. She lied to her brother about me.”
“I see.” He retreated behind her once more and now his fingers worked into the tense muscles along her neck. “Did you keep swimming?”
She shook her head. “By the time the lifeguard got to me, they had to perform lifesaving procedures, and I spent a couple days in the hospital. As an adult, I’ve tried a few times to conquer my fear. I know it’s silly.”
“It’s not silly.” Holden kept massaging. “I can’t imagine how scared and helpless you felt, being held under the water so long. That’s terrible.”
For some reason, his acknowledgement of her injustice helped her relax. “Thank you. But I’m sure you didn’t bring me down here to talk about my water phobia.”
“Right, let’s make this quick so you can get back to higher ground.” He pointed to a boulder in the hillside below the house, leaning over her shoulder. “See that rock right there with the white scrape on it?”
She nodded.
“There’s a hidden cellar down here. If anything happens to me, or if something happens at the house, you come down here to this clearing. The rock will be your marker.” He was already leading the way toward the rock. When he reached it, he took one step to the right and then bent to push a large salal bush to one side. Behind it was a door.
Holden glanced at her with a smirk. “This was my dad’s get-away-from-it-all place. Sometimes he’d spend the whole day down here. Careful here.” He held out a hand to her. “There’s quite a step down to the floor.”
His hand settled around hers, warm and firm, but he released her as soon as she’d found her footing. She tucked her lower lip between her teeth and folded her arms, noting that he was rubbing his palms against his jeans.
“Uh, so...like I said, if for any reason you don’t feel safe at the house, I want you to run here, okay? And you should know that the water never rises this high, not even in a storm.”
She appreciated him considering her feelings about that.
He gestured to a shelf along one wall of the dugout. “There’s a small kerosene heater to warm it up in here, but don’t run it unless you can place it here near the door, which you should leave open a crack. The fumes will build up otherwise. This”—he laid his hand on a sealed plastic tub—“has food in it. Don’t worry, I go through it fairly often to make sure it’s up to date. And this”—he pointed to another tub—“has first aid supplies. There are two five-gallon jugs of water in the corner there. And you can lock the doors from the inside. You simply slide this bolt. See?” He demonstrated.
Camryn looked at him. She couldn’t imagine ever feeling the need to run to this place for safety, but he was probably remembering the past. Maybe because he’d just offered her such reassurance, she wanted to return the favor. She laid a hand on his arm. “I’m sure everything is going to be fine. Even if Kate talked.”
He looked down at her. His Adam’s apple bobbed. “We still don’t know anything. I think that’s what worries me most.” He covered her hand where it rested on his arm, and his thumb trailed across her knuckles. “Anyone ever taught you cold survival?”
Her eyes widened. “How long do you anticipate I would be down here?”
He shrugged. Shook his head. “We need to be prepared for all scenarios.”
As though he’d just realized how close they were standing, he dropped his hand from hers and stepped back. He stretched an arm toward the door. “We need to get back to the house to meet Jay.”
He closed the door, then fluffed the branches of the bush, and they stepped back. If she didn’t know the door was there, she wouldn’t look twice at that area if she were passing.
As Holden led the way back toward the house, he peppered her with instructions.
If she were ever locked out in the cold, she should don as many layers as she could, but not raise a sweat.
Whatever she did, she should not get wet. Her chances of survival dropped to near zero in that case.
He didn’t have to worry on that count, she mused.
Drink plenty of water. But don’t eat snow. Apparently, it took a lot of energy for a body to work at melting ingested snow. “Around here, that’s probably not going to be an issue because we don’t get that much snow. But it can get really cold, especially this time of year.” He stopped at the back door and faced her. “So, you got all that?”
She couldn’t withhold a smile. “If I tell you I promise to watch some YouTube videos about cold-survival, will you be satisfied?”
“No! Do you know how many quacks are out there on YouTube spouting ‘truth’?” The air quotes he put around the word truth grew her smile.
She ticked off a list on her fingers. “Layers. Don’t sweat. Don’t get wet. Drink plenty. Don’t eat snow even though there isn’t likely to be any.”
He squeezed her arm. “You’re a quick study. We should get inside.” Despite his words, he didn’t move. He remained looking down at her, one hand still on her arm.
Camryn refused to analyze the way he studied her. She tore her gaze to the zipper pull in the middle of his chest. “If Kate did talk, please don’t fire her on account of me.”
He released her, stepped back, and held the door open. “I’m hoping that’s not the case, but she’s spread information she shouldn’t have before. She’s never been malicious, however, and I specifically told her it could endanger you. So I hope she held her tongue. But if I’m honest, I’ve been waiting for her to swing her last strike. I just don’t know who…” His gaze snapped to hers as she stepped past him into the house. “With your diner burning down, you wouldn’t be interested in moving to the island and working for my office, would you? Until we’re sure you are out of danger, you can keep working from my place.” He stripped off his leather jacket and hooked it on the coat-tree.
Camryn felt her eyes shoot wide. She envisioned the sight of the diner burning in the background on TV. Almost inevitably, she wouldn’t have a job to go back to. And even if they rebuilt, it would be months. “You’d really want to hire me? Or is this a pity job?” Despite the warmth of the house, her hands still felt chilled from the biting wind. She thrust them into the pockets of her coat.
With one hand at her back, he nudged her toward the front of the house. “This is not a pity offer. You’ve been doing a fantastic job with the files. You’ve made more progress in one day than Kate had in weeks.”
“Well… This is all a little fast. What’s the rental situation like out here?” And what would the job pay? But thankfully she caught herself before blurting that out.
“How about this. You work for me temporarily until we see what’s going to happen with your job in Everett. I know an older woman who has a room she wants to rent.”
When he named the price, her jaw dropped. It was one third of what she was paying for her studio apartment in the city now. “Seriously?”
“Seriously. And Mrs. Hutchinson will be absolutely thrilled to have you.”
“I’ll think about it. I’m going to head up to my room so that when J
ay gets here, you’ll have some privacy to speak with him. I’ll let you know my answer later this evening.” She took the stairs, but when she reached the top, she was so preoccupied with trying to decide what the best thing to do might be that she paused, staring at the door to her room in thought.
She thought of all the prayers she’d mentally accused God of not answering. Had He been orchestrating things for her all along? Frustration with her continual lack of faith washed over her. When would she learn to keep her trust in Him even when things didn’t seem to be going her way? Once more she offered up the prayer she’d been praying off and on ever since Holden had spoken to her about it. Lord, help my unbelief.
She stepped toward her door and was just pulling her hands from her pockets when she felt something hard in one pocket of her jacket. She tugged the object out and frowned at it.
It was a small flash drive.
A flash drive that she’d never seen before.
What was it doing in the pocket of her coat?
Damien got the text from Sheila at the hospital as he was arriving for work the next morning.
With all the craziness surrounding this investigation, he hadn’t gotten to see her in the past few days. He texted her back.
i miss you.
The screen immediately indicated she was typing. Her response came through a moment later.
i know you’ve been swamped. but i miss you too. swing by for coffee and **homemade chocolate chip cookies** whenever you can find a few minutes. ♥
He grinned.
a woman who’s willing to give up her favorite brownies in favor of chocolate chip cookies is one worth keeping around.
She sent back a laughing face, followed by another heart.
see you in a few.
A thumbs-up popped onto the screen.
He forced himself to put the phone in his pocket. She was at work and likely didn’t have time to be joking with him about snacks via text.
