by Liz Johnson
Pushing herself up from the couch, she shook her head.
He rubbed his hands together like he was trying to warm them up. “Listen. About earlier. I’m sorr—”
“Not hungry.” She interjected.
Was he seriously about to apologize for that kiss, the one that had nearly made her toes numb and clearly shut off her brain? She couldn’t handle hearing those words out loud at that moment, so she used one of her crutches to push past him, mumbling. “Just tired. I’ll see you in the morning.”
After locking the bedroom door behind her, she threw her crutches on the floor and fell onto her bed, being careful not to jostle her still tender knee.
Not even bothering to change into her pajamas, she rolled under the covers and closed her eyes, willing sleep to come. But all she saw was the perfectly peaceful look on Jeremy’s face the moment before he kissed her. Every line on his face had disappeared in the serenity and certainty of the moment, and when he’d held her, it had been bliss. The fear that she’d known since seeing those terrible words scrawled across her home had disappeared in an instant.
And then he tried to say he was sorry for it.
She bit back the angry grumble forming in her throat.
What kind of a jerk kissed like that and then promptly apologized for it?
A cabinet in the kitchen closed, then the refrigerator door. Apparently Jeremy’s offer to make food had been more for himself than for her.
She rolled so her back was to the door, but she could still hear him in the kitchen. Pushing hair out of her face, she wished it was as easy to brush Jeremy from her thoughts. Having reminders of him everywhere only agitated her, and she couldn’t afford any distractions.
If she didn’t see that Kit’s killer was rightfully punished, who would?
And if he was after her, all the better. They’d meet someday. Soon.
She just needed to ensure that it happened on her terms.
Thinking about Jeremy and his kiss and the way her pulse skittered whenever she saw him wasn’t going to help her have that meeting on her terms, so she pushed thoughts of him aside.
Pushed his thick, brown hair, handsome face and slightly crooked grin into the deepest recesses of her mind.
Too bad it didn’t work.
Twenty minutes later she was still trying to push thoughts of him away.
She needed something else to focus on. Opening one eye, she scanned the floor of her room. The white file box from Kit’s office sat just within arm’s reach. Straining, she wrapped a finger around the handle and tugged it toward her.
The box was heavier than she remembered as she pulled it onto her bed. Scooting to sit up, she reached for the switch on the small lamp on her nightstand. Though muted by a Belgian scarf over the lamp shade, the light still seemed to fill every corner of the room.
Her right knee throbbed, and she pushed a pillow beneath it before setting the lid to the box aside.
“Lord, if there’s a clue to solve this case in this box, please let me find it. Help me to pay back the person responsible for stealing Kit away from me.” Her stomach clenched, making a knot of her insides, and once again she felt as though she was praying to an empty room. Surely her uneasiness stemmed from the break-in, not from anything wrong with the prayer itself. Solving this case was the right thing to do and her only course of action.
She heaved a loud sigh as she pulled out Kit’s name-plate and business card holder. Flipping through, she analyzed the cards for any indication of a message, but the cards were almost entirely for flower shops, dance lessons and dressmakers.
Kit had been planning a wedding. No secret code there.
A few more items fell into the same category, and disappointment clouded Heather’s zeal. This was a waste of time.
Until she saw the picture, the one of her and Kit as kids. They were wearing matching yellow tank tops and shorts, playing on the tire swing in their grand parents’ backyard. Before going through the box yesterday, Heather hadn’t seen the picture in years, barely even remembered that day.
What she did remember was that they had hidden something in that tire and made their grandparents search the yard for it.
This picture hadn’t been in the frame the last time Heather visited Kit at her office. She was nearly certain that the frame had held Kit and Clay’s engagement picture. So why had she swapped it out? Was there a message for her in that tire?
Doubtful.
But she had to make sure.
Flipping open the tabs on the back of the frame that held the picture in place, she popped out two glossy photos and a carefully folded sheet of yellow legal paper. Just as she’d suspected, the second picture was the same one Clay’s mother had insisted on submitting to the newspaper’s society section.
But it was the paper that captured her interest. When she had unfolded it, she discovered that it actually contained three pages, each covered in scribbled notes in Kit’s handwriting.
Her eyes skimmed the pages as fast as she could read, but there were no details, only paraphrases and numbers that didn’t make sense at this time of night.
A loud snore suddenly came from the living room, reminding her that Jeremy was there. She’d been so angry with him earlier that part of her wanted to ignore him, keep this breakthrough to herself. But her aggravation from earlier didn’t matter anymore. She needed his help to decipher these notes.
Rolling until her feet hit the floor, she pushed herself past her crutches, determined to make it to the kitchen table without them. She flung open the bedroom door just as Jeremy released another snort.
“Get up!” she called, half walking, half hopping past his reclined form on the couch. He groaned, opening one eye and pulling his blanket farther under his chin.
“What’s going on?” He ran long fingers through tousled brown locks and blinked when she flipped on the kitchen light, sitting up to reveal a wrinkled white T-shirt. Leaning on his arms pulled the fabric around them taut, but she didn’t look at that.
Much.
“I found something in the box from Kit’s office. It’s notes.” She waved the papers back and forth, the sound of crinkling paper filling his stunned silence.
“What do they say?” Scrambling from his makeshift bed, he was by her side in an instant.
“I don’t know.” She huffed. “They don’t make much sense. I thought you might want to help me figure them out.”
He immediately pulled out a chair and sat next to her, but before diving into the yellow papers, he looked around, slightly confused. “Where are your crutches?”
She shrugged. “I didn’t have time for them.”
His mouth turned up on just one corner. “How’s your knee?”
“Just fine, thank you.” She knew she didn’t sound very thankful, but that was okay. She didn’t feel very thankful, either. His eyes turned mischievous, so she thrust a single page at him. “Just look at this. Let’s figure out what she was trying to tell us.”
They poured over the pen scratches for nearly fifteen minutes in complete silence, taking turns with each page. Flipping sheets over. Shaking their heads. Flipping them over again.
At best it seemed to be an incoherent concoction of dates and names and sometimes just single letters. No verbs. No action.
Nearly ready to pull her hair out, Heather jumped when Jeremy said, “Where did you find these?”
“Behind a picture in a frame.”
His lips pursed and eyes squinted into the distance. His fingers strummed the table in perfect rhythm. “So she hid these notes? What if she was worried that someone was going to find them?”
Heather nodded slowly, her chin bouncing in her hand, elbow resting on the table. “What if they’re written so cryptically just in case that person ever did find them? What if we just have to figure it out?”
He nodded, pointing to a date splashed across the top of what they assumed was the first page. “See, where it says P-55. Then at the bottom of the page, N-543. And on
the last page, W-78.”
Like a cloud lifting, it became clear. “That’s the phone number for PNW, isn’t it?”
He punched the number into his phone and nodded to confirm when a recorded voice came on the other line. “So if the individual letters added up to a company name, then it would stand to reason that the other letters are initials as well.” He put his finger under a capital F halfway down the second page. After the F, Kit had written involved and followed it with a question mark with an X through it. “Could this be a Frank, or a Fred?”
“I don’t know. But it sure looks like she had confirmed that F was involved.”
After another ten minutes, they’d been able to figure out only one other name and phone number combination.
“Well, Mr. Mick Gordon, is it?” Heather said more to herself than Jeremy. Reaching for her phone, she pressed in the numbers.
Jeremy’s gaze shot to the clock on the microwave. “You’re going to call him now?”
It was well after one in the morning, but Heather just shrugged as she turned the phone onto Speaker and set it on the table between them. “Maybe we’ll catch him off guard.”
The phone rang three times on the other end before a very groggy voice answered. “Yes?”
“Mick Gordon?”
The silence then was thick and pregnant with unsaid words.
“Who is this?” the man asked.
Heather leaned in toward the phone, speaking slowly and clearly. “My name is Heather Sloan, and I want to know why someone is trying to kill me.”
TEN
The sun peeked through Heather’s bedroom window the next morning, but she hadn’t been able to turn her mind off all night for replaying the brief conversation with Mick Gordon over and over.
“I want to know why someone is trying to kill me,” she had said.
He spluttered inelegantly, his voice cracking on the first syllable. “I don’t know what you mean.”
She looked across the table at Jeremy, suddenly uncertain about her rash decision to call the only contact they’d been able to decipher in Kit’s notes. He motioned for her to continue but made no sound to give away his presence.
“Yes, you do. You knew my sister, Kit, didn’t you?”
He was silent so long that Heather thought Mick might not respond, but finally, he said, “We met.”
Heather rolled her eyes at his evasive maneuver. “I think Kit was looking into a case that she was keeping very quiet. Did you help her out with that? Maybe give her some information?”
“No.”
Heather squeezed her fists until her knuckles turned white, glaring from Jeremy to the phone and back. Finally, Jeremy scribbled something on a blank corner of one of the yellow sheets of paper, and he spun the paper so Heather could read it.
Try a different direction. Ask him about PNW.
“Mr. Gordon—” she took a deep breath through her nose letting it out slowly, hoping her voice came out soothing and not how she really felt “—have you heard of a sightseeing company called PNW?”
“Course I have. They’ve been in the news lately.”
She strangled a pained sigh before it could escape. “Had you heard about them before the recent helicopter crash?”
“Maybe.”
Jeremy’s head perked up, and he nodded slowly, his hands making slow rowing motions in front of him. Heather nodded, taking her time to ask the right question, terrified of losing the tenuous connection she’d forged with the man on the other end of the phone.
“My sister knew someone at PNW, but she never told me who it was. Did you know the same person there?”
“I don’t know. She didn’t tell me who she knew there.”
“What did she tell you?”
The man swallowed audibly, and Heather rubbed her face with open hands, realizing for the first time that night that she was really tired. Struggling to keep a yawn at bay, she let her eyes dart to Jeremy, who watched her with unblinking eyes. While tempted to let her thoughts wander to what had kept her from falling asleep in the first place, Mick’s quiet voice brought her focus right where it should be.
“She said she thought there was more going on at PNW than sightseeing tours. Your sister said she was going to prosecute the people involved and me, too, if I didn’t cooperate.”
“So you cooperated? What did she have on you that would have sent you to jail?”
“I told her everything I knew about the drugs, but I didn’t mean…” His voice got so quiet that she couldn’t hear him.
“Mick? Are you still there?”
He was silent a long time before he sighed. “Yes.”
“What didn’t you mean?”
“I never wanted anything bad to happen to her. I liked your sister. She wasn’t mean or nothing. She just had to know what was going on. But it’s my fault.”
“What’s your fault?”
“They killed her because of what I said.”
“But what exactly did you say?” She tugged at the roots of her hair, the muscles in her back and arms taut with anticipation. “Tell me what you said and about how that got her killed.”
“If I tell you, they’ll try to kill you, too.” She tried to interject that they were already after her, but his words erupted in a deluge. “I can’t have another death on my conscience.”
“But they’re already trying to kill me,” Heather said as the illuminated screen on the phone flashed Call Ended. She heaved a sigh and threw her forehead onto her folded arms resting on the table.
Devoid of hope and dragged down by useless limbs, she wasn’t sure how she could possibly move again, but it was Jeremy who had wordlessly helped her to her feet and guided her to her bedroom door, telling her to get some sleep.
Sleep only came in snippets that night, but as the sun climbed the morning sky, it beckoned her to rise as well. Stumbling out of bed, she tugged her robe on over yesterday’s wrinkled clothes. Pushing through the twinges in her knee, she stepped over her crutches and used the door frame to steady herself before hobbling toward the kitchen.
Jeremy stood at the coffeemaker, his back to her, but holding out her polka-dotted mug. Steam curled above the rim, and she smiled as she pulled it to her lips. “Morning,” he said, finally looking up from his paper. His red-rimmed eyes weren’t quite open all the way, and he hadn’t managed to shave a day’s worth of dark stubble on his chin, but his damp hair and clean clothes at least announced that he was partially ready to face the day.
“The lab called this morning and confirmed that the powder at the crash site is cocaine.”
Her face scrunched up as she tried to kick-start her brain. “Okay. Good.”
Two toaster pastries popped up in the toaster, and he wrapped one in a napkin before handing it to her. He shoved half of the other into his mouth at once. “What do you think?” he said around the mouthful. “Shall we go find Mick Gordon today?”
“Yes!” She bobbed wild, blond curls.
“Go get ready. Then we’ll head over to the sheriff’s office and check county records until we find this guy.”
Heather yelped as scalding coffee burned her throat, but she gulped down the entire mug and barely rinsed it out in the sink before hobbling quickly to get ready.
As he drove toward the office, Jeremy realized just how much he liked having Heather sitting next to him. He knew he shouldn’t focus on it, but she’d been riding in his backseat to accommodate her leg for what felt like weeks. He hadn’t known what he was missing when she sat behind him.
Namely a sweet scent that filled the front of the car.
His head ached from lack of sleep, but how could anyone have expected him to get any rest after the way the phone call with Mick Gordon had ended? Heather probably hadn’t gotten much shut-eye, either. After that call, they were both eager to find the man who clearly knew more about the case than they did.
Heather yawned loudly, then shot him a guilty look. “Sorry. I didn’t sleep well last night.”
“Thanks.”
“How’s your knee feeling?”
“Better.”
He focused on her out of the corner of his eye as he pulled to a stop behind a truck. She didn’t seem un happy, but she wasn’t giving him anything to build a con versation on. What could have her so distracted this morning?
She certainly wasn’t thinking about their kiss. Was she?
He hadn’t been thinking about it.
Much.
Heather’s phone rang softly, playing a popular praise chorus that he was pretty sure he’d heard at church the Sunday before. “Hi, Mom.” The tension in the car exploded in an instant. The concern radiating off her was tangible. “What do you mean? What time was Clay supposed to call you?” She sucked in her breath, holding it for several seconds before letting it out. “Of course we will.” She glanced at him, her voice going softer. “A friend and I will take care of it, and I’ll call as soon as I know anything, okay?”
As soon as she hung up, he asked, “What’s going on?”
“There’s something wrong with Clay.”
Jeremy tried to ignore the burning in his stomach at just hearing the other man’s name. Maybe it was the way Heather said it, with an affectionate lilt in her tone, but he didn’t like it one bit.
Heather continued. “He was supposed to call my mom this morning. She’s been checking in with him, just to make sure he’s doing okay. But he didn’t call, and when she called him, he didn’t answer.”
“What do you want to do?” he asked as he pulled into the parking lot of the sheriff’s office. He didn’t bother turning off the car, because no matter how he reacted to Clay’s name, he couldn’t deny Heather anything.
She shifted in the seat, still hampered by the unwieldy brace, and looked right into his eyes. Sapphire-blue eyes, glassy with unshed tears, blinked slowly, mournfully. “What if they think Clay knows something, too? What if they’re trying to kill him?” She swallowed before plunging in again. “What if they’ve already—”
