by Peggy Bird
Suddenly she felt cool air on her throat. She opened her eyes as he gently kissed her temple, her cheek, the base of her ear as if reluctant to let her go even as he was pushing her away from him. “If you don’t go in now, I can’t promise I’ll ever leave, and you need sleep.”
She smiled and a small, soft laugh bubbled up. “Right. Sleep.”
“And a rain check?” He ran his thumb over her lower lip.
“Yes, definitely a rain check.”
He came around to the passenger side of the car and opened the door, leaning in for one more quick, soft kiss, filling Danny’s senses again with the smell of his fresh, outdoorsy scent. She accepted the hand he offered and stepped out onto the sidewalk. Then she stopped. She didn’t know what she was waiting for but her feet wouldn’t move.
“Sweet dreams, baby,” Jake said as he wrapped his arms around her and kissed her forehead. “I’ll call you next week for that rain check.”
Apparently that was what she’d wanted because suddenly she was able to walk up to her front door. When she got there, she turned to see him still standing by the passenger side of the car. He grinned. She returned the gesture.
After that kiss, sweet dreams are guaranteed, she thought as she unlocked her front door. But “baby”? She’d never let anyone call her that. Why hadn’t she objected?
Maybe because when Jake Abrams called her “baby” it sounded seductively suggestive and she wanted to find out what it was he was promising.
• • •
Jake arrived at his townhouse without knowing how he got there which was unusual for him. He was always aware of his surroundings, cautious about who was close to him and what they might be up to. Normally that made him a very safe driver. Not tonight.
He’d been surprised that first morning by how attractive he’d found Danny Hartmann. She wasn’t the kind of woman he usually noticed, no tiny brunette with long hair and big eyes who looked to him for comfort and protection. Well, the big eyes she had covered in spades. You could get lost in those brown eyes. But her honey blonde hair was only a couple inches longer than his own shaggy locks, and Danny Hartmann looked to no one for protection, he was quite sure, with or without her Glock.
Although now that he thought about it, he’d never seen her with a weapon. He assumed she had one. As far as he knew, all Portland police officers did. Where did she carry it? He’d never seen her with a purse, only that leather case. Those form-fitting trousers she seemed to favor would show the outline if she wore it there. And he’d never seen her wear a shoulder holster. Although thinking about a shoulder holster nestled against those breasts he’d had pressed against him made him almost wish he were an inanimate leather strap.
She had a fine, fine body and looked like she worked out to keep it that way. Then he remembered what he’d discovered when he’d Googled her. She played basketball. He’d have to find out when she played so he could watch. Please, God, let the team uniform be short shorts and a tight tank top, not that baggy shit everyone seems to wear on a basketball court these days. And while you’re at it, God, turn up the heat in the gym so she sweats. I want to see the sheen of sweat on her neck and chest, like it would be if she were under me in bed, her body arched against mine …
Holy hell, he didn’t need to add yet another lascivious image of her to the ones he already carried around in his head. He forced himself to go back to wondering why she didn’t carry a weapon all the time. It seemed a safer topic to think about. Plus, if he thought much more about her sweaty body he’d have to work on getting rid of one hell of a hard-on before he could walk in the house.
But it didn’t help to change the PowerPoint he was playing in his head. Instead of thinking about what kind of weapon she carried, he started thinking about how she smelled. He didn’t know how he got there from thinking about a Glock. He just did.
She smelled citrusy. Maybe lemon. Or lime. Clean and crisp. He wondered if it was some kind of shampoo. If he could smell her hair again, he’d know for sure. He wanted to feel it between his fingers, and brush those cute little bangs back from her forehead again, the way he had when he’d kissed her there. Or tangle his fingers in the back where her hair overlapped her collar. She didn’t seem like one of those women who would hate having her hair mussed up. She wouldn’t mind if a man — though it would take the right man, he was sure — messed with it.
It didn’t look like she fussed with her hair or with makeup either. That first morning she’d had lipstick on. Today, nothing. But then, she’d been working for seventy-two hours straight. Not that she needed makeup. Even without sleep the woman was fucking beautiful. In addition to the body, the eyes, and a mouth he’d like to kiss forever, there was a glow to her, a confidence, which gave her a beauty mere looks couldn’t begin to match. It was the way she held herself, the self-assured way she walked, talked, asserted herself. She knew who she was and what she was about and that was sexy as hell.
He’d wanted to ask her to dinner or drinks or something since that first morning but he’d hesitated to make a move, not sure if she’d be receptive. But that catch in her breath when he was buckling her seat belt was a tell. Even after working for three days straight, her body had responded when he’d accidently brushed the back of his hand across her breast. Her nipples had come to hard points he could see poking through her blouse. Not that he’d been immune. He hoped like hell she hadn’t seen the erection that had appeared with the suddenness and intensity of the sixteen-year-old horny kid he used to be not the thirty-six year old he was now.
And then there was the kiss.
Oh, yeah. She was as interested as he was. He hadn’t imagined the spark that first morning when she’d mouthed off to him under the bridge.
Then reality set in. Suppose she was like some of the others. Suppose she couldn’t deal with what had happened to him. Was he willing to put himself out there again? It had been almost a year. Suppose she turned away, disgusted?
He sat in front of his townhouse for a long time thinking about the reactions of other women to him, the rejections and embarrassment. Danny wouldn’t be like that, would she? Surely she was smarter, more sensitive. With a sigh, he got out of his vehicle and locked it up. Only way to find out was to try. But he sure as hell wasn’t going to reveal it all the first time they were together. He wanted this to work. He’d take it slow.
But could he take it slow? Would she let him?
Next weekend. He’d ask her to have dinner with him and find out next weekend.
Chapter Five
Thank God she’d gotten some sleep. Monday morning proved to be everything Danny hated about that particular day — sorting out what happened over the two-day absence while also attempting to get a handle on the upcoming week’s commitments and finding there weren’t enough hours in the day to get it all done.
In addition to what would surely be a long court appearance mid-week, she was facing a shitload of witness interviews she’d promised Sam she would take care of for another case they were working. All of which meant that she had to ignore the niggling feeling she had that the killer of the homeless men was biding his time waiting to move in for another kill. Not that she could have done anything with the feeling anyway — they still had no idea what triggered him. Or who he was.
They hadn’t gotten beyond what they already knew the victims had in common — gender, homelessness, military service, the Veterans’ Medical Services Clinic, and probably the same weapon. With the cardboard ID’d as possibly coming from the clinic, it meant they should take a closer look there. But for what?
She had to get to the clinic, maybe the camps again, talk to more people. And she would, right after she found twelve more hours in every day and developed the ability to live without eating or sleeping so she could finish the “to do” list Sam had handed her and get the reports done for their other cases.
Then she got a phone call that rearranged her priorities.
“Hartmann,” she said, probably more abruptly
than usual.
“Wow, I thought a few hours of sleep would make you feel better. Apparently it didn’t work,” Jake Abrams said.
She laughed. “Yeah, it worked. Then I got here and saw what was facing me for the week. What can I do for you, Doctor Abrams?”
“What happened to ‘Jake’?” he asked.
“Jake, please. It’s been a long morning and it’s only nine-thirty.”
“Well, I’m afraid I may be about to complicate it further. Something’s up with Kaylea. She went missing from the camp where you talked to her. I tracked her down to a different camp but she won’t tell me what happened. Obviously it was serious enough to make her move again. She did say she was willing to talk to you.”
“I’ll go see her as soon as I … ”
“This camp is not one I want you going to alone. If I could get her out of there I would. I sure as hell don’t want you there.”
“I appreciate the Neanderthal attitude. Sort of. Well, honestly, not really. It’s my job and I’ll be fine. Where’s the camp?”
“I’ll pick you up at any time you tell me and I’ll take you there. I don’t have surgery today and my morning opened up when I talked to Kaylea. My schedule is your schedule.”
Danny sighed. She could tell from the tone in his voice she wasn’t going to win. And her instincts told her this was important, she needed to talk to Kaylea. “All right. You drive. I’ll bring the weapon and the handcuffs. Fair enough?”
“Your sarcasm is duly noted, Detective. What time?”
“Half hour, Doctor. Out front.”
• • •
This camp was nowhere near a cramped, concrete bridge abutment. It was in Forest Park, the five thousand acre, city-owned, wilderness park which spread across the hills north and west of downtown Portland. After a hike from a parking lot at the edge of the forest, most of it through dense woods and thick underbrush that gave few visual clues as to where they were going — or how to get back — they came to the camp.
Not that she’d ever admit it to Jake but when she saw what greeted them as they walked into the encampment, Danny was glad she wasn’t alone. The city’s promotional materials said there were a number of species of predators in the park, including bobcats and coyotes. Had Danny been writing the copy, she would have added to that list some of the men she saw. One of the inhabitants of the camp actually leered at her and carefully ran his thumb over the blade of a rather wicked looking knife while he licked his lips and rocked his hips back and forth.
However, as soon as she squared her shoulders and looked the fucker straight in the eye, he dropped his eyes and took a step back. It probably helped that she’d been smart enough to leave her jacket in Jake’s SUV and therefore her shoulder holster with the Glock in it was prominently displayed. Still, it was nice to have Jake walking behind her.
Besides, she would never have found the place without him.
The tents and shelters were in a heavily wooded area away from the developed running, biking, and hiking trails. Jake had said on the drive there that he’d found Kaylea when one of his patients had brought him to the camp but he’d been sworn to secrecy about it. The city didn’t look kindly on people living in the park. In fact, the Parks Department had tried to shut down one camp about six months before but had only succeeded in moving a core group of people from one place to another, this time deeper into the woods.
The men who camped here had no intention of leaving and knew they had thousands of acres to play with. Everyone in Portland had heard the story of the man who’d lived in the woods with his daughter for years, walking across the St. John’s Bridge to shop for groceries, unnoticed by anyone. That wasn’t an isolated incident, either. There were stories of others successfully avoiding notice, living long-term in the park. The men in the camp followed in those footsteps.
In contrast to the places Danny had visited under the bridges, this one had a more permanent feel to it. People seemed to have staked out plots of ground for their living spaces. Everyone appeared to be sleeping under cover, unlike the other places where there were always a few who slept out in the open in a sleeping bag with, maybe, a grocery cart full of belongings beside them.
Here there were some rudimentary shelters with cabin-type bases constructed of rocks, logs, and branches, culled, Danny imagined, from the park’s seemingly endless supply of downed Douglas fir trees. Atop the bases thus constructed were tents of all kinds, the bases giving enough height in some cases for the inhabitants to stand almost upright inside the shelter. Plastic sheeting or heavy tarps protected the campers from the wet; multiple blankets kept out the cold.
And there were amenities of sorts. Fire pits had been dug. There were battered pots and pans around a large cooking grate set atop a rock base. There was a creek nearby where several inhabitants were filling containers with water. Jake had already told Danny he’d gotten them to relocate their privies downstream from the camp and boil their water before they drank it. From the way he described it, there was more organization to this group, although it was not one he particularly trusted, especially with strangers. He said they’d been known to beat up hikers who stumbled into the camp to frighten them into keeping their location secret.
All the men — Danny didn’t see any women in this group — seemed to be standing guard outside their shelters, watching silently as Jake and Danny walked through the camp. The expressions on the faces of those she passed were hard, unreadable, their eyes shuttered. These guys were tougher than the ones she’d met before. And, unlike in the other camps, there was no response to Jake, even from the few he spoke to by name.
When they reached the far end of the camp she spotted a familiar looking shelter. Stopping before they got to the entrance Jake called, “Kaylea? It’s Jake Abrams. I brought Danny, Detective Hartmann. Can she come in?”
From inside the shelter came, “Yes, but only her. No one else.”
Grateful she’d worn a pair of jeans and heavy shoes to work that day in anticipation of getting the chance to canvass the downtown transient camps, Danny ducked into the shelter.
It was obvious Kaylea had tried to make the space comfortable. Danny saw the edge of a tarp sticking out from under the thick pile of blankets on the ground, which explained why the temperature underneath her wasn’t too damp or chilly. What she assumed to be a makeshift sleeping bag was rolled up on one side of the space. A small box was upended in the center with a clay flowerpot and flashlight in the middle, the light beaming up to the ceiling of the shelter. There were several books scattered around the space — library books, from the labels on them.
“Hey, Kaylea. Jake says you wanted to talk to me. What’s up?” Danny began.
It took Kaylea a few moments to begin, as though she was deciding whether or not to confide in Danny. Finally, however, she said, “You’re looking for the person who killed Jim, aren’t you?”
“You know we are. Can you help us with that? Someone else has been shot and we need to find this fucker before anyone else gets hurt.”
Kaylea seemed to respond to the intensity in Danny’s voice. “The person who killed Jim came back to the old camp. He threatened me. He thinks Jim told me something I shouldn’t know.”
“Shit. Tell me what happened,” Danny said softly. She sat quietly as Kaylea told her the story. There wasn’t much for Danny to work with in what she said but there was a lot of fear in Kaylea’s voice as she spoke. Kaylea never saw a face, couldn’t say who’d threatened her. But it had frightened her enough to make her run. When she was finished, Danny said, “Are you sure you don’t want to come into town and let us find you a room someplace?”
The panic in Kaylea’s eyes gave her the answer before her words did. “God, no. It’s too easy to find people in those places. It’s better here. No one messes with these guys.”
“But will they mess with you? That’s what worries me.”
“Bob, one of Jim’s friends, is here. He said he’d look out for me.” She brushed what
looked like a tear from her eye. “And since they all saw that you and Doctor Abrams know I’m here, that’ll help, too.”
“I’d rather take you someplace safer … ” Danny saw the set of Kaylea’s mouth and eyes and changed course. “Okay, if this is where you want to be, I won’t push you. But I’m gonna talk to Doctor Abrams and make sure one of us checks on you regularly. And we’ll get you a prepaid cell phone. Today. I’ll put our numbers in it so you can call for help if you need it. Make sure you keep it turned off to save the battery for when you need it.” She got to her knees. “If you want out of here, call either Doctor Abrams or me. One of us, or my partner Sam Richardson, will come get you immediately if you want out. No questions asked. Understood?”
Kaylea raised eyes filled with tears to meet Danny’s fierce gaze. “Why are you doing this, Detective? Don’t you have more important people to help?”
“It’s Danny, Kaylea. And right now, no one is more important than you are.” Starting out the door, she wondered how she’d find Jake when she went back to the main part of the camp. She sure as hell didn’t want to hang around here alone too long. But she needn’t have worried. He was at the entrance in seconds after she crawled out.
“Anything I can do?” he asked.
“Yeah, we need to get a prepaid cell phone for her and put both our numbers in it. She wants to stay but she should have some way to let us know if she changes her mind. I told her one of us would swing by regularly and check on her, too.”
“You’re not coming here alone,” Jake said. “I’ll check on her. Or we can come together.”
“Can we discuss this someplace else?” she asked.
They hiked out, found a convenience store where they could buy a cell phone, and took it back to Kaylea. On their second exit from the camp, Danny suggested lunch at her favorite food cart in Northwest Portland so she could tell Jake what she’d learned.
Over a bowl of what he agreed were the best soba noodles in the city, she recounted what Kaylea had told her.
