On the List

by Patricia Rosemoor

  Yeah, the one thing they had in common…

  Renata came out of the station with arms and hands full. “I got the directions. The Ackerman place is about two miles out of town around the southern end of the lake.”

  “Good.” He indicated the load she was carrying. “What did you do? Buy out the store?”

  “I was hungry and wanted to make sure we had everything we needed. And that doesn’t make me obsessive-compulsive,” she informed him.

  Grinning that she’d beat him to saying it, he told her, “I like a woman with healthy appetites.”

  “I think you’ve mentioned that before,” she muttered, setting the drinks on the roof so she could open the passenger door.

  The tank was full, so Gabe took his receipt and pulled the car over to the side of the station where they immediately wolfed down the fast food—hot dogs, French fries and nachos with a potato-chip chaser.

  Mouth full, he joked, “You didn’t buy antacids for dessert, did you?”

  “Fried pies,” she said, waving the packages at him.

  Fast food or not, Gabe felt better after eating. A little more relaxed, less suffocated. Definitely ready to face whatever was ahead of them.

  The drive was barely five minutes and by the time they pulled up at the white-sided building sitting across from the lake, Gabe felt the tension building once more.

  “Well, this is it, then,” he murmured.

  Renata said, “Let’s hope so. We’re due for a break. And justice needs to be served.”

  Indeed it did, Gabe thought, following her to the house. Only he knew his definition of justice would be different from hers.

  The thing that would ultimately keep them apart…

  LEIGH ANN ACKERMAN looked to be in her late twenties. There was nothing soft about her, Renata thought, as they sat in the living room. No frills, either in her person or in the plain contemporary furnishings. Leigh Ann herself had short dark hair and no makeup, and wore loose denim overalls over a long-sleeved blue Henley. Even so, she couldn’t hide the fact that she was a naturally beautiful woman. And pregnant.

  Renata and Gabe sat, while Leigh Ann stood over them, arms crossed.

  “Are you here to make a settlement offer?” she asked.

  Renata had simply told the woman they represented S.A.F.E.—a general statement in hopes that she wouldn’t look too closely at Gabe’s presence.

  “I’m afraid not,” Renata said. “I’m here to ask you some questions about your husband, Russell Ackerman.”

  “My late husband.”

  “Yes, he is dead now.”

  Leigh Ann frowned. “What does that mean?”

  “He didn’t die here at Embry Lake as reported. The body in the fire was misidentified.”

  The widow groped for the chair behind her and sat. “Y-you’re lying.”

  “Am I? To what point?”

  “You want me to drop the suit against S.A.F.E. You can’t intimidate me.”

  “We’re not concerned about the suit,” Gabe said. “We’re trying to get to the truth of why your husband would pretend to be dead.”

  Leigh Ann gaped at him, then said, “If you think I know anything about this…”

  “So you didn’t know he was living in Chicago under an assumed name?” Renata asked.

  “Assumed… No, I don’t believe it! You’re saying he’s alive?”

  Renata swore the surprise in the woman’s voice was real. And, perhaps, the hope. Perhaps she really didn’t know anything about Russell Ackerman’s activities. He had been part of the Embry Lake Brigade, after all. Militia men weren’t the most open about their activities.

  Renata dug into her shoulder bag and pulled out the envelope she’d picked up at S.A.F.E. “I have a photograph here that I would like you to look at.” She flipped it around and asked, “Do you recognize this man?”

  “Th-that’s Russell.”

  “It’s also Chuck LaRoe,” Renata said, satisfied they had the right man. She put the photo away. “Russell Ackerman left Michigan and moved to Chicago, but he was murdered two weeks ago. If you keep abreast of the news, surely you heard about the City Sniper who was killing Chicago residents and—”

  “Murdered? Russell? He’s been killed again?”

  Leigh Ann choked back a sound of horror, but she couldn’t stop the tears from coming. She cried in true grief fashion, alternately gasping for air and wailing.

  Just as Renata’s mom had when her dad had been killed. And for months afterward.

  She met Gabe’s gaze. What now? It didn’t seem as though the widow knew anything.

  “We’re sorry for your loss,” Gabe said, his voice neutral, “but we need to ask you some questions.”

  The widow ignored the condolences and continued wailing so loud that Renata didn’t hear the door opening.

  “What the hell’s going on here?” A tall, thin man whose brown hair was streaked with gray stormed into the gathering and went directly to Leigh Ann’s side. “Hey, what did they do to you?”

  Leigh Ann shook her head and kept crying.

  “We brought her some bad news,” Gabe said. “Her husband’s dead.”

  “She’s known that for more’n six months.”

  “Actually, he died about two weeks ago,” Renata corrected him. “Russell Ackerman didn’t die in the fire, as was surmised. He was shot to death in Chicago two weeks ago.”

  The man didn’t say anything but Renata noted the subtle shift in his features, as if this all wasn’t exactly news to him. Then he focused on Leigh Ann.

  “Can I get you something? Tea, maybe?”

  Leigh Ann nodded and tried to get hold of herself.

  And the man turned to them. “You’ll have to leave now,” he said flatly. “Your upsetting her isn’t good for the baby.”

  Wondering who he was, Renata asked, “And you are…?”

  “Hank Oeland. The man who’s going to call the sheriff and report a couple of trespassers if you don’t get out now. No one around here likes you people.”

  “You don’t even know who we are.”

  “Feds,” the man spat. “You got the smell on you. Unless you got a warrant?”

  “We’ll leave,” Renata said, rising and signaling Gabe to do the same.

  She’d hated bringing Ackerman’s widow the bad news. And the last thing in the world she wanted was to continue an unproductive confrontation that would upset Leigh Ann further. Not to mention that it would get straight back to Mulvihill.

  As they left the house, she noticed a black truck parked on the other side of the street. Wondering where Oeland had parked his vehicle, she nudged Gabe. “Do you think that could be Oeland’s?” she asked.

  “It wasn’t there when we went inside. Still, there are plenty of black trucks in Michigan. The one that followed us didn’t have any kind of markings that we could see.”

  But they paused, staring, long enough that sounds of Leigh Ann Ackerman crying like her heart had been broken drifted out to them. Getting into Gabe’s car, Renata wondered what it felt like to love a man so deeply. Her only other experience was also one of the observer—her mom had never recovered from her dad’s death.

  Renata glanced at Gabe and felt warmth rush through her as she remembered the moment’s panic she’d experienced when she’d thought he was hurt in Chinatown. But that was because she’d brought him into the situation and felt responsible. And yes, she had some kind of mixed-up feelings for him, though she didn’t want to put a name to them.

  She’d never been in love herself, and she wasn’t about to let emotions distract her now.

  Chapter Eleven

  “So what next?” Gabe asked as they perused their dinner menus.

  After leaving Russell Ackerman’s widow, they’d driven to the compound, the scene of the massacre, but the place had been locked up tight. It had looked deserted to Gabe.

  Then they’d spent a couple of hours trying to pick up Russell Ackerman’s trail, but everyone who’d known the man
had seemed as surprised as the widow that he’d gotten out of the massacre alive. Of course they hadn’t questioned everyone in town. Yet.

  When his stomach had screamed for mercy, Gabe had staged a one-man revolt and insisted they hit one of the local eateries. So here they were in what had turned out to be a nice little restaurant across from the lake.

  A decent menu, low lights, a wood-burning fireplace…Gabe flicked his gaze to Renata and wondered what having dinner with her would be like under different circumstances.

  She set down her menu and said, “We could keep prodding people until there’s no one left to prod, but my best guess is it won’t do any good. So when we’re done eating, we might as well head for home.”

  Gabe didn’t blame her for being discouraged. She’d had such high hopes that the discovery of Chuck LaRoe’s true identity was going to lead them somewhere. That maybe the puzzle would start unraveling.

  “Did you buy Leigh Ann’s grief?” he asked as the waitress stopped to fill their coffee cups.

  Renata seemed surprised. “Didn’t you?”

  “It kind of pre-empted our asking too many questions about Russell Ackerman.”

  “The woman just learned she lost the same husband twice. How else was she supposed to respond?”

  The waitress gave a little “Hmph,” and then asked, “Decided yet?” Her penciled eyebrows raised all the way into her blond bangs.

  Gabe studied her expression as he said, “Excuse me…” He glanced at her name tag. “…Carol…”

  “Your food order,” she clarified.

  “I mean the first part. You made that little noise of disapproval.”

  Suddenly seeming uncomfortable, she said, “Oh, it was nothing. I shouldn’t be listening in to customers’ conversations. But it’s like, well, hard to avoid sometimes.”

  “Perhaps you were making an observation about Leigh Ann Ackerman?” he persisted.

  At first, Gabe didn’t think she would answer, but then he saw the indecision in her features. Undoubtedly she was wondering about their interest in the local woman.

  “She’s not in trouble or anything,” he assured her. “We simply delivered some bad news about her husband and she broke up pretty bad.”

  “Hmph.” The waitress appeared disbelieving. “If she loved Russell so much, Leigh Ann sure didn’t wait long to find herself another man and get herself pregnant by him.”

  “Russell Ackerman isn’t the father of the baby?” Renata asked.

  “She tries to say it is, but does that woman look seven or eight months’ pregnant to you?” the waitress asked Renata.

  “I don’t know,” Renata said. “I didn’t think about it.”

  Carol went on. “Some folks say Hank Oeland had a thing for her even while she was married to Russell. Maybe the feeling was mutual.”

  “Are you trying to tell us that she didn’t love her husband?” Gabe asked.

  “Well, no… I mean, I don’t really know. They were having lots of problems. You could hear the fights just walking along the lake. She hated his belonging to the Brigade. Weird thing is, Hank belongs, too.”

  “What does this Hank Oeland look like?” Gabe asked.

  “Tall, thin, brown hair with some gray in it.”

  The man who’d thrown them out of the house. Gabe exchanged a meaningful look with Renata.

  “So, are you ready to order or what?”

  Gabe turned back to the waitress and smiled at her. “And what would you recommend, Carol?”

  “The rib eye is great. Real tender.”

  The rib eye steak was also the most expensive thing on the menu. “Two rib eyes it is, then.”

  When Renata seemed about to protest, he stopped her with a frown. She frowned back but waited until the waitress left to put in their order.

  “What if I don’t want red meat?” she asked.

  “Then stick to the rabbit food that comes with it and I’ll eat the steak. Carol’s been very forthcoming. Let’s keep her in a good mood in case we need more information later.”

  “Your mind works in mysterious ways.”

  “I have my methods,” he said, taking a slug of coffee. “So what about the local gossip?”

  “The Hank Oeland thing? I don’t know how much truth to that there is. Leigh Ann really didn’t take the news about her husband well,” Renata mused.

  “Maybe she knew Ackerman didn’t die in the fire but didn’t know about the sniper, either. Maybe she thought he was still alive.”

  Renata shook her head. “I don’t think so. I think she just loved him too much. Which makes it odd that she would get involved with another man so quickly. Maybe she really isn’t involved with Oeland. Maybe it is just small town gossip.”

  Loved him too much…

  Gabe didn’t know there could be too much love in the world and he wondered why Renata thought so.

  “But what if it isn’t gossip?” he said. “She is pregnant. According to Carol, she’s not big enough to have been with child before the standoff.”

  “Maybe. But one of my cousins was due any day and still wearing regular clothes only a size bigger than normal. So size doesn’t necessarily tell the whole story.”

  “Let’s play ‘what if,’” Gabe said, looking around to make certain no one was close enough to hear. Even so, he lowered his voice. “Carol said Oeland was in love with Leigh Ann before the standoff. What if that’s true?” Wondering what he might go through for a woman he loved, Gabe suspected whatever was necessary. When he realized he was staring at Renata, he quickly added, “What if Oeland knew that Ackerman survived? What if he didn’t want Ackerman to reunite with his wife?”

  “You mean you think Oeland hired the sharpshooter?” Renata asked in a conspiratorial whisper.

  “What if Oeland is the sharpshooter? He is part of a local militia. Who knows what he’s trained to do?”

  Though Renata seemed to have lost her breath at that suggestion, she said, “But how would he have known where to find someone in hiding under an assumed name?”

  “They were both members of the Brigade. There could have been other plans afoot and the two men might have been communicating.”

  “All right,” she agreed. “All that is something to consider. Oeland a sharpshooter. If we plugged his name into a search engine, I wonder if we would find connections with any of the victims or people related or connected to them.”

  “Let’s find out as soon as we can get our hands on a computer,” he said, then noticed the waitress coming toward them, salads in hand. “Ah, food. Good.”

  With a waitress who admitted to habitual fascination with customer conversations nearby, they would just have to hold off on anything they didn’t want spread around town. They would have plenty of time to go over everything they knew about the case on the three-hour ride back to Chicago.

  “So what about you?” Gabe asked as they ate their salads. “What do you have against love?”

  Renata started and protested, “I don’t have anything against love.”

  “Ever been married or engaged?”

  “No, but—”

  “How about a serious relationship?”

  “Where is this coming from?” she asked.

  “I thought not.”

  “Gabe—”

  “Your comment about loving too much. It hit me that you were a little soured on love.”

  Renata put down her fork and pushed her salad away. “Okay, if you’re wondering if I had some tragic love affair…no. But what happened to my mom after my dad died…”

  “Are you anything like your mother?”

  “Not really.”

  “Then why would you be afraid to take a chance on love?”

  “Why would you be?” she countered, turning the tables on him. “Have you ever been married or engaged, and if not, why not?”

  “Maybe I’ve never stayed in one place long enough to find a special someone.”

  Even as he said it, he thought about how special Renat
a was. Beautiful and intelligent in addition to being the most honest and upright and focused woman he’d ever met.

  “What?” she murmured, her lips delectable and oh so tempting. “Are you telling me the romantic doesn’t believe in love at first sight?”

  “I believe in lust at first sight.”

  Gabe purposely intensified his stare and was rewarded with a blush darkening Renata’s cheeks.

  He was in lust with her, had been from the moment he’d laid eyes on her. But for some reason, lust didn’t cover it any more. Lust was what happened between the sheets. And what he was feeling permeated every moment he was with her. And some moments when he wasn’t, as well.

  Just thinking about getting more personal with Renata set off alarms. It would never work between them, not when he was using her to get at Mulvihill.

  Once she figured that out, they would be history.

  SO WHAT IN THE WORLD had gotten into Gabe with all that love talk? Renata wondered as they left the restaurant and walked into a fog that rose from the lake and spread its tentacles all around. Though she was trying to be cool about it, her discomfort still hadn’t completely dissipated.

  But when Gabe asked, “Where’s the car?” she was jolted out of her self-absorbed mood.

  “The car?”

  She peered through the haze at the vehicles in the lot. Not many left. None of them Gabe’s.

  His curse was low and vehement. “I can’t believe this. Someone stole my damn car!”

  Renata didn’t argue. What other explanation was there? “But who stole it and why?” she murmured.

  “Just because we’re not in the big city doesn’t mean there are no thieves around.”

  “So you think it’s coincidence?” Renata asked. “I don’t believe in them.”

  Gabe seemed to mull that over for a moment. “Oeland?” he finally said. “To what purpose?”

  “To slow us down, I suppose.”

  She only hoped that was all Hank Oeland—if he, indeed, was the thief—had in mind.

  The next hour was filled with making out a police report, calling Gabe’s insurance company and learning that, unless they walked, they wouldn’t be able to get out of town until midmorning. That’s when the only bus came through. They could then get to a city, where they could rent a car.