by Kris Bock
Finally he spoke. “It might have started like that. But there’s always been something about you that called to me, even in high school. A sweetness, an honesty. Your face shows everything you’re thinking.” A smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. “I bet you’re a terrible liar.”
I made a face. “So I’m told.”
He chuckled. “I like that. I’m tired of secrets and being careful of what I can say and how I can say it.”
“You mean the military?”
“Yes, and before that, my parents, and high school. I’m tired of trying to fit in, keeping things buried, pretending everything is okay when it’s not. I can’t do that anymore if I’m going to stay sober. I have to be honest with myself, so I need someone who will be honest with me.”
I brushed my fingers down his cheek. “Apparently I’m not capable of being dishonest, at least for long, so I guess that works. And I need someone who will encourage me to talk, to say what I really think. Otherwise I tend to freeze up and keep quiet.” I cradled his cheek in my hand, enjoying the faint rough stubble against my palm. “You do that for me.”
“Then maybe we can make this work.” He squeezed me tighter and a glint lit his eyes. “And besides, you’re really pretty. Plus, breasts. Can’t go wrong there.”
I chuckled and leaned in to nuzzle his neck. “And you smell really good. That drives me wild.”
“What more could we ask for? It sounds like the perfect basis for a relationship.”
Chapter 37
Everybody went to the big game hunt day. Mom and Ricky, Nancy, Daniel, and Kyle, Eslinda and Nascha, and a good portion of the town.
Well, maybe not everyone. I didn’t see Jay, his father, or Rodrigo. When I asked Eslinda if she’d heard anything, she said Jay and Rodrigo had officially been fired, and Jay’s father was taking vacation time. Nascha added that Jay and Rodrigo had been arrested but Jay at least had been released on bail.
I scanned the crowd again, glad that Jay was tall and would stand out. “Great, now I’ll be looking over my shoulder all the time.” I wanted to believe that Jay would back off, but his prior behavior made it equally likely he would try to get revenge.
“He can’t afford to harass you,” Nascha said. “Not with the police keeping an eye on him.”
“I hope he realizes that,” I muttered.
“Don’t worry. When I reported the drugs, I told the police that Jay had been bothering you. They promised to warn him to keep his distance. He knows he has to be a model citizen to have any chance of avoiding jail. Plus, they’ll be asking questions about cut brake lines and Bethany Moore. That should keep him busy. And it’s the same with Rodrigo. His best chance is to pretend he was following Jay’s orders and either didn’t know the plants were marijuana, or didn’t know about them at all.”
I relaxed a little, though my shoulders still felt tight. “So I only have to deal with Jay’s father.”
Eslinda put her hands on her hips. “Lewis Preppard will be busy trying to hold onto his job and keep his son out of jail. It won’t be easy to do both. If Lewis defends Jay too strongly, people are going to wonder if he was involved, too. The directors are already hinting that an early retirement might be appropriate.”
My shoulders dropped a little more. It wasn’t over, but at least I had friends—and the law—on my side. “I hope you’re both right. But I still can’t quite figure out how I got into all this. Each step seemed logical enough at the time, but when combined with what other people were doing and some random events, suddenly I’ve uncovered a murder and a drug ring.”
Eslinda frowned. “Is it a ring if there were only two of them?” She came across as a little flaky, but I’d seen how she orchestrated big events, keeping on top of a thousand details and handling glitches with a smile.
“I bet people underestimate you all the time.”
She giggled. “It makes it easier to get what you want. Anyway, this whole thing. Murder and drugs and getting involved. You do what you have to do. You can’t do more, you shouldn’t do less.”
She smiled, her round face cheerful and comforting “It reminds me of a song I like. ‘Did you stand up for what’s right? Can you sleep at night? To your own heart be true, or regret what you failed to do.’ I think of that when I’m tempted to be lazy or take the easy way out.” She put her hand on my arm. “You didn’t back away from trouble. You don’t have to regret the things you didn’t do—which is often harder than regretting the things you did.”
I’d have to think about that. For the moment, I gave in to impulse and hugged her. “Thanks.”
“You’ll be all right,” she said. “Now on to more important things. I want to meet that interesting lady with the bird.”
We wove our way through the growing crowd. The fair looked like the summer festival the week before, with lots of food stands smelling of hot grease and cooking meat. Kids lined up for the duck shooting carnival game. A big tent provided shade for vendors advertising guns, ammo, and tour packages, and nonprofit groups or government representatives giving out information on wildlife conservation and hunting regulations.
Tribal members from the Reservation answered questions about their displays of traditional weapons, animal pelts, and blankets woven from turkey feathers. A wall of hay bales had been set up along the trees, and volunteers were helping kids and a few adults attempt to use atlatls, ancient spear throwers.
All in all, the event had a nice family-friendly feel, more educational than “let’s go kill things.” Nancy had set up under a small shade tent, and she had a crowd of admirers taking pictures of her beautiful rescued falcon.
Kyle kept a low profile but always seemed to be where he was needed, fetching an icy water bottle or answering visitors’ questions while I took Nancy into the side entrance of the resort so she wouldn’t have to use the portable toilets.
He joined Mom, Ricky, and me for a lunch of buffalo burgers and withstood Mom’s probing with a quiet humor that didn’t escape her notice. When we finished eating and rose to join the fray again, Mom turned to me and nodded once. I took that as a sign of approval. Disapproval wouldn’t have stopped me from dating Kyle, but this made it easier.
Kyle and I stole a moment together while Nancy let Ricky try on the falconer’s glove and Mom watched. “You’re probably going to be exhausted tonight,” Kyle said, stroking his hand lightly down my arm.
I leaned closer instinctively, even though I wanted to avoid obvious public displays of affection while on the job. “Yes. But I’d still like to see you. Just don’t expect brilliant conversation.” I could think of a few things we could do that didn’t involve talking at all.
“How about a quiet dinner at my place, followed by some quiet cuddling?”
The energy sparked between us. “I have a feeling that might not stay so quiet. And that wasn’t a complaint.” I glanced at Mom, Ricky, and Nancy. Daniel had wandered off to talk to friends. As much as I cared for all of them, I wanted to be alone with Kyle that night—completely alone. They might suspect we were fooling around, but that didn’t mean I wanted to advertise it.
I took a deep breath. “I know it’s impossible to keep our relationship a secret, and I don’t want to. But it strikes me as a bit awkward, conducting the, um, physical parts of that relationship when we’re both living with other people.” Maybe that wasn’t the most coherent sentence ever, but at least I was sharing my concerns rather than fretting over them alone.
Kyle’s eyebrows rose. “Didn’t I tell you? Gran has an RV out behind the house. That’s where I live, mostly. When I first got back I needed more help and didn’t want to be alone a lot, so I used the guest bedroom in the house. I still sleep there sometimes if I’m having a bad night.”
Somehow we’d shifted closer, so our bodies were almost touching. His wonderful spicy scent filled my senses, and the rest of the world seemed to recede. His voice was low and caressing. “They’ll know you’re there, unless we sneak you in, which could be entertai
ning. But at least we won’t have to worry about, you know, being quiet.”
I was breathing fast, my heart lightly hammering. “I’m usually pretty quiet anyway.”
He dipped his head closer to murmur in my ear. “We’ll see about that.”
I gasped and he backed up with a grin. “Anyway,” he said, “Sunday morning Daniel makes waffles, so I hope you’ll stay the night. But if you don’t want to do that, you can come back in the morning.”
I glanced again at Mom. Things like this would be easier when I had my own place, but I couldn’t wait until then to think and act like an adult. For me, that meant being honest about what I wanted and what I was doing. It might be awkward at times, but we’d work it out.
My gaze paused on Ricky. I understood why he’d kept his connection with his father a secret, and it might have been the right decision at the time, when Mom had the power to interfere. But I’d encourage him to be honest about it in the future. I thought Mom would tolerate the communication and maybe even think better of Richard for wanting it. Anyway, Ricky was old enough to demand his right to visit his father. It was better for Ricky to learn to ask for what he needed openly and not get too used to keeping secrets.
I looked back at Kyle, who was watching me solemnly. I looked into those sober gray eyes and knew the humor and the heartache behind them. My heart gave a little tremble. “I’ll stay tonight.”
His lips curved as he bent down to kiss me. It was a brief kiss, but warm and full of promise.
I eased back as Mom strode over to us. “Go relieve your grandmother,” she told Kyle. “It’s hot and I’m going to take her into the restaurant where she can relax with some iced tea.”
“Good idea.” He winked at me and went to take the falcon from Nancy.
“Keep an eye on your brother,” Mom told me.
“Of course.”
It looked as if Kyle would be busy for a while, so when Ricky wandered over, wanting to try some of the carnival games, I grabbed my tote bag and went with him. After trying a couple, we paused in the sliver of shade at the corner of the big display tent and I scanned the crowd, still half on the lookout for Jay. “So which game do you….”
I trailed off as I spotted a figure standing alone near the path to the woods. The path that led to where Bethany Moore’s body had been found.
Ricky must have followed my gaze. “Hey, it’s that girl. Lia Bain.”
Even at this distance, I was pretty sure he was right. She was short and curvy, in a tank top, miniskirt, and sneakers. Black hair hung down past her shoulders. She seemed to be staring at the path into the woods.
She turned. I ducked back so the corner of the tent offered some cover, but she seemed to scan the crowd without really looking in our direction. Something in her posture looked tight, hunched. Then she turned back toward the path, straightened like a soldier preparing for battle, and disappeared into the woods.
Ricky hurried forward. I scrambled to catch up. “What are you doing?”
“We have to follow her! She was acting really weird. They say criminals return to the scene of the crime!”
I grabbed his arm and hauled him to a stop. “We are not going into those woods.”
He huffed out an impatient breath. “But this could be a clue! We could break the case.”
“It’s not safe.”
He looked toward the path. “She was alone. And it didn’t look like she was carrying a weapon.”
He was right about that. She might have had a pocketknife, but her clothes were too revealing to hide much else. “If there’s any chance she was involved in a murder, we are not going near her.”
“Don’t you want to solve this? Remember the car accident. We won’t be safe until we catch the murderer.”
Also true. “We don’t have to catch anyone. We’ll tell the police what we saw.”
He rolled his eyes. “What good will that do? If she’s removing evidence or something, she’ll be long gone before we can get the police here.”
I hesitated. He was making some good points, but it had to be a bad idea to go after someone who might be involved in a crime, even if she was a petite, eighteen-year-old girl in a miniskirt. Besides, I hadn’t been near the woods in over a week and didn’t want to start now. Even the thought of going back there made my stomach ache and sweat break out on my forehead. The memories and nightmares were bad enough without facing the reality.
“I’ll go alone if you’re afraid,” Ricky said.
Given his mutinous expression, he would go whether or not I agreed. And I wasn’t about to let him go in there alone. Whatever else happened, I needed to keep him away from danger. “No, I’ll go.”
Before he could argue, I held up a hand. “I need you to get Kyle. Tell him what’s going on. And then find one of the security guards or the police.” We might look foolish if it turned out Lia Bain was simply meeting a boyfriend, but I didn’t want to take chances. Kyle would be easy to find and would understand the situation immediately. He could come after me while Ricky kept busy finding other help and explaining.
“You’ll really go after her. You promise.” His narrowed gaze said he didn’t quite trust me.
I took a deep breath. “I promise. Now go get reinforcements.”
“Use that recording app I put on your phone.” He trotted away, but after a few steps looked back at me. I nodded and moved toward the woods. It looked as if I would have to face my nightmares, whether I wanted to or not.
Chapter 38
I turned down the path but stopped after a few feet. The trees seemed to close in, even though I knew I was steps away from open sky, green grass, and hundreds of people. I concentrated on breathing. The smells of the woods filled my nose, earth and grass and the sickly sweet scent of some wildflower, and under it all, the faint odor of decay.
Life and death. Perfectly natural there. Leaves fell, crumbled, and became dirt.
But the scent of smoke and cooking meat drifted from the fair and mixed with the earthy scents. I thought of all the death in the woods, animals, birds, insects, hunting and eating, or if something was lucky enough to survive to a natural death, lying on the forest floor while the insects took advantage of the free meal. My stomach churned.
Ricky wouldn’t be able to see me where I was. I could wait for Kyle. He would be there in a moment, and then we could figure out what to do together. It wasn’t cowardly to wait for help. It wasn’t depending on a man to not want to face danger alone.
So maybe I didn’t just want help. Maybe I wanted Kyle and the police to take over, to send me back to safety. Better to be a coward than to end up like Bethany Moore.
I took a couple of steps back and peered out at the crowds while still screened by the trees. The shrieks of children on the waterslide didn’t quite cover the pop-pop-pop from the carnival-style shooting gallery.
I didn’t see Kyle. What if Nancy had come back already, and Kyle had wandered off? What if he’d decided to take the falcon home, out of the heat? I pulled out my phone and sent a quick text. That way Kyle could be on the lookout for Ricky.
I turned back and stared down the path. Lia was probably only two or three minutes ahead of me. What was she doing? Was this really a clue to solving the murder? Whatever was happening, I was missing it.
I crept down the path. I had promised Ricky. And I wanted to know what Lia was doing. She was one unarmed girl, and I had at least six inches and a few pounds on her. Plus help on the way. I didn’t even need to get close to her, just close enough to figure out what she was doing.
I sucked in a deep breath and let it out, trying to ignore the smells around me, trying to forget that other smell from my last trip down this path. The woods seemed strange, large and looming and silent, despite the faint sounds from the fair behind me. The trees seemed to be waiting, as I was.
“They’re only trees,” I whispered. My voice offered some measure of comfort, of company. I straightened my shoulders. “These are the same woods you’ve known
your whole life. What are you going to do, avoid trees forever?”
I checked my phone. No answering text from Kyle. And no sound of people hurrying toward me, to the rescue. But they would be there any minute. Kyle and probably Ricky, if I knew my brother. If they found me here, ten feet in, they’d know how frightened I was. I would let Ricky down. Maybe Kyle, too—his sister had been murdered. Who could blame him for being upset if I was too cowardly to follow up on a clue that might expose the murderer? If he were here, he’d be running after Lia.
Or maybe sneaking. Sneaking was better. See what she was up to without being seen.
I took another deep breath and started forward, gripping the shoulder strap of my bag like a lifeline. I could sneak after Lia. She didn’t even have to know I was there. Eslinda’s words echoed in my mind. You do what you have to do. I couldn’t let one unpleasant experience keep me from doing what I needed to do.
The path seemed to stretch forever. Had Jay and I really walked this far? We must have, because I hadn’t come to the clearing yet. But somehow, with all my senses on high alert, the journey seemed much longer.
Finally the path got brighter up ahead, and I glimpsed the tall yellow grasses of the clearing. I glanced back down the path behind me. I didn’t see anyone coming, but a curve in the path would hide them. They had to be on their way.
I edged forward, listening for the sound of anyone ahead. If Lia really had gone to the “scene of the crime,” she’d be out of sight on the side path by now. And if she’d kept going along the main path, she could be far ahead, given my dawdling. But I still crept toward the clearing with my heart hammering. I tried to tell myself it was only that the clearing would feel more exposed, and not because I was getting closer to a lot of bad memories.
Finally I took the last step that brought me barely into the clearing. Something dark caught my eye. I turned my head and looked straight at Lia Bain.
