by Hope White
“Coordinates?”
Will rattled them off and kneeled beside Heather to examine the little girl. She was curled up in a ball, but he was able to slide her mitten off to take her pulse.
“It’s strong,” he said. “Maybe she hit her head.”
Fiona went in for a kiss on Heather’s cheek. “Fi, no.” Bree pulled her back.
“Heather, honey? Can you hear me?” Will said.
She whimpered. Will and Bree shared a look.
“Can you open your eyes?” Will said.
She shook her head no.
“Why not?”
“I’m scared,” she moaned.
“Are you hurt?” Will asked.
She shook her head again.
Bree nodded at Will, then at Fiona.
“Good idea,” Will said softly.
“Heather, honey, I need your help,” Bree said. “My dog, Fiona, is scared, too. You know why?”
Heather nodded she didn’t.
“Because she’s worried about you. Can you open your eyes and tell Fiona you’re okay?”
The little girl blinked a few times, and opened her eyes. Bree relaxed the leash and Fiona went in for a sniff. Heather giggled and reached out to pet Fiona.
“Thank you so much,” Bree said. “You ready to go home?”
“Can Fiona come with me?”
Bree smiled. “No, honey, she’s got to stay at my place and be ready to find more missing kids like you. But I’ll tell you what, she’ll walk you down to the trail where your mom and dad are waiting.”
“Heather, before you get up, are you sure you didn’t fall and hurt yourself?” Will asked.
Heather offered her hand, scratched from a thorny bush.
“How about I clean that out and wrap it?” Will said.
“Will it hurt?”
“Not too much.”
“Here.” Bree led Fiona to the other side of the little girl. “You can pet Fiona while Will fixes your cut, okay?”
“Okay.”
Bree commanded Fiona to lie beside the little girl, and Heather reached out to stroke Fi’s head. Bree pressed the button on her radio. “The victim doesn’t seem to have any serious injuries, over,” she said. “We’ll meet you where we split up, over.”
“Roger,” Grace said.
Fiona crawled closer to Heather and sniffed her cheek. Heather giggled. The golden knew exactly how to distract her from Will’s first-aid efforts.
In a few short minutes, he was finished. “Okay, let’s get you up,” Will said. He put his hands under her armpits and lifted her with ease. Bree suspected he’d done this many times with his girls. “How does that feel? Legs working okay?”
“Yes,” she said, not taking her eyes off Fiona, who also stood.
“Great, then let’s get you home,” Will said. “It’s kind of messy out here. Do you think you can walk?”
“Can Fiona carry me?” she said.
“She wishes she could,” Bree said. “Here,” she handed Heather the leash, and picked her up.
“You sure?” Will asked Bree.
“I’m good.” With the little girl in her arms, and both of them holding Fiona’s leash, they headed back to the trail.
* * *
It had been an emotional afternoon to say the least. She pulled into the driveway of her bungalow and put Fiona into the fenced yard. Harvey jogged up to her.
“Hey there,” she said.
“Got word you found her,” Harvey said, raising his hand.
She slapped him a high five. “Fiona found her, I just happened to be tagging along.”
“You’re too modest.”
“How’s Scott?” she said.
“Scott, he, uh...” Harvey glanced down.
Her blood pressure spiked. “What? He’s okay, right?”
“He’s okay, but they took him in for questioning.”
“Because of the gun?”
“And he’s been lying.”
“Lying about what?”
“They couldn’t find any record of a cop named Scott James.”
“I’m sure there’s an explanation.”
“Probably not a good one.”
“Where’d they take him?”
“Bree, leave it alone.”
“Wish I could.” She pulled open the driver’s door and got behind the wheel. “Where?” she said.
“Chief Washburn took him to the station.”
“Thanks.”
Harvey blocked her from shutting the door. “Be careful.”
“If you’re worried about Scott, don’t be. He’d never hurt me.” She pulled the door shut and backed out of the driveway. Fiona was fine outside, and if it started to rain she had the doggie door that gave her access to the kitchen.
As Bree raced into town, she checked the speedometer. She didn’t want to get delayed because of a speeding ticket. No, she needed to get to the police station and...and...
What? What was she doing, exactly? One thing for sure, she wasn’t thinking straight. She’d told Harvey that Scott would never hurt her. Was she delusional? She didn’t know Scott that well. How could she make such a bold statement?
His eyes.
There was something about the look in his eyes that touched her core, reminding her what it felt like to be scared and alone. She’d promised herself she’d never feel that way again, and she surely wouldn’t stand by and watch another person be brutalized and not try to help.
Or maybe she was losing her mind.
The emotional afternoon had taken its toll: worrying about a lost girl, praying for her safety, finding her, and at first thinking she was...dead.
And then Bree had carried her out of the brush, emotions tangling up even more at the feel of a little girl depending on Bree, needing her so badly. Would Bree ever have a child of her own? Hold a child of her own?
Wow, talk about an emotional volcano. Bree was all over the place. Maybe so, but she knew one thing: Scott was being interrogated and had no one in his corner.
That is, until she got there.
Ten minutes later she pulled onto Main Street and looked for a spot in the lot, but it was full. She parked across the street and glanced out her window. The chief was escorting Scott out of the building. Now where were they taking him? She flung open her car door.
“Scott!” she called.
She thought he spotted her, but looked quickly away as the chief led him to a squad car. She glanced both ways to safely cross the street.
“Hey!” she called out again and took a step.
The squeal of tires made her glance over her shoulder. A black car sped up and stopped abruptly in front of her. The passenger door opened and a man wearing dark sunglasses and a low-hung baseball cap said, “Get in.”
Was he nuts?
“No, thank you,” Bree said.
“I said—” he placed a gun on the driver’s seat in a not-so-subtle threat “—get in.”
SIX
“Something’s wrong,” Scott said to the chief, eyeing Bree as she spoke with the driver in the black sedan.
There was something about her expression that made Scott head in her direction.
“Where are you going?” Chief Washburn said.
“She’s in trouble.”
Scott took off, not considering what he’d do once he got to the car, or how embarrassed he’d be if his instincts, like his brain, were off-line.
He wanted to call out, let her know he was coming to help, but he couldn’t even speak, panic strangling his vocal cords.
“Scott!” Chief Washburn called.
Scott hoped the chief followed him. At least the guy had a firearm. Scott had nothi
ng but a sincere desire to protect Bree.
Dodging into the street, Scott was hyperfocused on the lovely but terrified blonde who stepped away from the car with a horrified look on her face.
“Bree!” Scott called.
A car horn screamed.
Brakes squealed.
Scott glanced to his left in time to see a compact car skidding toward him. The driver spun the wheel at the last second and the small car slid past Scott and slammed into a parked car. Scott turned back to the dark sedan just as the driver peeled away, burning rubber on the street.
Without hesitation, he went to Bree and placed gentle hands on her shoulders. “Are you okay?”
She nodded, but he could tell she was traumatized.
“What was that about?” Chief Washburn said, rushing up to Scott and Bree. He led them between parked cars to the sidewalk as he spoke into his radio. “We need an officer on Main Street. There’s been an accident.” He redirected his attention to Bree. “You okay?”
“The man in that black car threatened me.”
“Threatened you how?”
“He told me to get in, then he flashed a gun.”
“Did you recognize him?” the chief asked.
“No, sir.”
Scott automatically pulled Bree against his chest into a gentle hug. “It’s okay, he’s gone.”
“Did either of you get a plate number?” the chief asked.
Bree shook her head.
“I think the first three letters were AGE,” Scott offered.
The chief took a few steps away and spoke into his shoulder radio again, telling officers to be on the look-out for the black sedan. Scott stroked Bree’s soft hair in a calming gesture. “You’re okay.”
She leaned back and looked up into his eyes. “Thanks to you.”
“I wouldn’t go that far.”
“I would. If you hadn’t drawn attention to him I might have been in his car headed to who knows where.”
“But you didn’t get in his car. Smart girl.”
“We’ll keep an eye out for him,” the chief said.
Bree broke the hug, but Scott kept a protective arm around her shoulder.
“Scott saved my life, Chief.”
The chief nodded at Bree. “How about you come into the station and give an official statement about what happened?”
“Sure.”
“Head back inside while I check on the driver over there.”
“Tell her I’m sorry for running in front of her,” Scott said.
With a nod, the chief jogged across the street and spoke with the teenager who stared at her crushed front bumper, with her hands framing her face.
“Come on, let’s go,” Scott said.
Bree stepped away from Scott’s protective hold and he wondered if she thought it inappropriate, or if she was worried about town gossips. There were plenty of gawkers out here getting a look at the fender bender. He respected her need for space and didn’t push it.
As they crossed the street and headed into the P.D. parking lot, he felt her hand slide into his. He gave her fingers a squeeze, and only then did he notice they were trembling.
He glanced at her, but you’d never guess by her expression that she was rattled. With a firm clench of her jaw and pleasant expression, she walked across the lot toward the police department. No one would suspect she was probably on the verge of bursting into tears.
And if she did, he’d be right there to comfort her.
They stepped into the police station where a twenty-something secretary was focused on paperwork.
“Hi, Audrey,” Bree said.
Audrey the secretary glanced up. “Breanna, what are you doing here?”
“There was an accident. I need to give a statement. The chief’s outside....” Bree’s voice trailed off.
The magnitude of her situation was about to hit her square in the chest.
“Is there a place we can wait privately for the chief?” Scott said.
Audrey narrowed her eyes at him. She didn’t like the fact he was here with Bree, probably because Scott had just been questioned by the chief about his real identity.
“He saved my life, Audrey,” Bree said. “I really need to sit down.”
Audrey snapped her attention to Bree. “Of course, follow me.”
Scott and Bree followed Audrey down the hall into a conference room and sat on one side of the table, next to each other.
“Do you want me to call—”
“No,” Bree interrupted her. “No need to call anyone. I’ll be fine.”
With one last narrowing of her eyes at Scott, Audrey went back to her post out front.
“How did it go with the chief?” Bree said.
“We don’t have to talk about that now.” He took one of her hands in his own and stroked it gently. “You’re still shaken up.”
“Thanks, but it will distract me from what just happened,” she said.
“Ah, so you’re using my ill fortunes to distract you from your own? I didn’t think you were that kind of girl,” he teased.
“Ha ha.” She cracked a slight smile. “So, what did I miss when I was on the mission?”
“First tell me how the mission went.”
“Good. We found the little girl. She’s okay,” she said with a faraway look in her eye.
“Breanna?” he prompted.
“That look on her face of complete and utter fear....” She hesitated. “It stays with you for a while.”
“But you found her. Everything’s okay?”
“Well, everything was okay until Harvey told me you were brought in for questioning. Did they advise you of your rights? Do you need a lawyer? I have a friend who’s an attorney. I could call—”
“I wasn’t arrested. They thought fingerprinting me might be helpful, so they did. I hope...” He glanced at their hands.
“What?”
“I hope they don’t find out I’m a murder suspect or drug dealer or something.”
“Hey, don’t talk like that. You said you were a cop.”
He shrugged. “Even cops go bad.”
“Scott, look at me.”
He glanced up. She shot him that peaceful, tender smile that seemed to calm every frantic thought in his mind.
“You are not a criminal,” she said with conviction.
“Thanks for the vote of confidence, but I can’t be so sure. I mean, I had a .50 caliber gun in my room.” He shook his head, frustrated. “At least once they run the serial number it might answer some questions.”
“We’re also sending it to ballistics,” Chief Washburn said, coming into the room.
“Ballistics? Why?” Bree said.
“So they’ll be able to tell if it was used in any other crimes,” Scott explained.
“Oh.” Bree frowned.
“Let’s focus on what happened just now,” the chief said, pulling out a chair and joining them at the table. “The driver of the black sedan threatened you with a gun, Breanna?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Did he indicate what he wanted?”
“He ordered me to get in the car.”
“Did he give a reason?” The chief jotted something down.
“No, sir.”
“I need you to tell me exactly what he said.”
“He said ‘get in.’ When I didn’t...” She glanced at Scott and then down at the floor.
“What?” Scott said.
She sighed. “He said if I wanted to know what my boyfriend was into that I’d get in the car and he’d show me.”
“Show you what?” the chief asked.
“I have no idea.”
Scott stood and paced to the window overl
ooking the parking lot. “So I am into something illegal.”
“Wait, you’re going to believe the word of a man who tried to kidnap me at gunpoint?” Bree challenged.
“There’s no reason to think he’s lying,” Scott said.
“Actually, there is,” the chief said.
Scott turned around.
“I got the report that Scott James has no priors or known criminal activity.”
“See,” Bree said.
“Maybe I just haven’t been caught.”
* * *
Bree couldn’t stand the look in Scott’s eyes, one of desperation and shame. But he had nothing to be ashamed of, at least nothing they knew about yet.
She gave him a ride back to the resort and an officer followed close behind. Even though Bree felt confident Scott wasn’t the bad guy here, others in the community, especially law enforcement, weren’t so sure.
The chief must have notified Aiden about the developments, because he was waiting for them when she pulled into her parking spot.
“He doesn’t look happy,” Scott said.
She turned off the car and Aiden opened her door. “We need to talk.”
“Okay. I was going to walk Scott to his room.”
“That’s why Officer Carrington is here, right?” Aiden said.
“I was going to check the dressing on his shoulder wound.”
“What, are you his private nurse now?”
“Why are you being so rude? Scott saved my life.”
Aiden glared at Scott. “You wouldn’t have needed the save if he’d never come to Echo Mountain.”
“Get out of my way.” Bree brushed past him. “Come on, Scott.”
When he didn’t follow, she turned around. Scott slowly approached her. “I don’t want to be the reason that you and your brother fight,” he said. “I appreciate you wanting to help, but you’ve done more than enough for me.” With a grateful smile, he headed for the resort. The officer followed him.
It sounded as though he was dismissing her from her duties. But this didn’t feel like a duty. It felt right and natural to be helping him.
“He’ll be fine,” Aiden said.
She spun around. “Why do you hate him so much? You don’t even know him.”
“And you do?” he snapped.
After the emotional day she’d had, she didn’t need her big brother criticizing her. She marched toward her cottage.
