Cold Pursuit

by Carla Neggers

  Melanie felt a prick of fear, but this time it wasn’t mixed with excitement. She and Kyle couldn’t fail. They had to deal with Nora. She wasn’t just a potential problem anymore. She was a real problem.

  We’ll do what we have to do.

  Thomas would miss Nora at first, but with her and the dangers she posed out of the way, Melanie could focus on her future husband and help him through his grief.

  All would be well.

  She closed her eyes, picturing her New Year’s Eve wedding.

  She smiled, relaxing again. She’d wear white. Why not? It would be her first—her only—wedding.

  Thirteen

  When she arrived back at the lake, Jo got out her cell phone and walked up the path behind her waterfront cabin for a better signal. The only light was a single beam through the trees from Elijah’s place—not enough to help her, but it was a clear night. The stars and half-moon were out, creating shadows and silhouettes on the dark, wooded hillside.

  She tried Mark Francona, but he didn’t pick up. She didn’t leave a message and dialed Harry Watson, a friend in Washington who worked with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. As she waited for the call to go through, she noticed eight or ten wild turkeys pecking in the low brush at the edge of the woods and tried not to scare them. They warbled and fluttered, slowly making their way toward three cabins tucked in the trees higher up the hill.

  Harry answered on the second ring. “I heard you were in New Zealand,” he said.

  “That’s the backup plan. What do you know about Ambassador Bruni?”

  “Why?”

  He wouldn’t tell her anything if she wasn’t straight with him. “His wife’s ex-husband asked me to check on his stepdaughter.”

  “The one in Vermont? Harper. You’re not…”

  “I’m in Black Falls. I grew up here. Nora Asher works at a café co-owned by my younger sister.”

  “I have frequent-flyer miles you can use for New Zealand. Call me if you need them.”

  He disconnected, and Jo slipped her cell phone into her jacket pocket. If Harry knew anything, he’d have told her. She shuddered against a breeze off the lake. She wanted to take a few moments to let her mind sift through the events of the day, but not out here—it was too damn cold. She’d go make her salad and head over to Elijah’s.

  She heard a noise behind the more secluded cabins farther up the hill and went still on the narrow footpath. The turkeys flapped their wings and scurried deeper into the woods, away from the cabins, their shuffling making it more difficult for her to identify any other sounds.

  Devin? Nora?

  Jo crept toward a particularly dilapidated cabin on the far edge of the clearing behind the main cabins along the lake.

  A branch snapped in the darkness.

  Someone—something—was up there with her.

  She waited for a few minutes in the darkness, listening, peering up into the trees for any sign of movement. But animal or human, whatever was out there didn’t make a sound.

  Or was gone, she thought, giving up.

  Without a flashlight, she didn’t investigate further and walked back down to her cabin. When she opened the rickety door, she knew instantly someone had been in there. None of the cabins had decent locks and hers apparently hadn’t caught when she’d left earlier in the day.

  She switched on the dull overhead and scanned the room. Everything appeared to be intact. The lilies Charlie had sent her were still in the middle of the table. Her exercise clothes from her morning run were still on the bed. Her old coffee cup was still in the sink.

  But she smelled…something. Not cologne or soap. She couldn’t place it.

  Then she recognized what it was. Stirred-up dust. Whoever had been there had gone into places she hadn’t yet.

  Bats?

  She pulled open the utility closet by the kitchen area.

  No bombs.

  What was she thinking? She’d probably just interrupted some kids looking for a place to party who panicked and ran when they realized the cabin was already occupied.

  Telling herself she was being thorough not paranoid, Jo grabbed a flashlight and went back outside. She squatted by the front steps and angled the beam of light under the cabin, but she didn’t see signs of a hidden incendiary device or anything else that didn’t belong there.

  She stood up, breathing hard.

  Elijah.

  Had whoever been through her cabin gone through his place as well?

  Had she heard him in the woods?

  It had been a long, strange day, and she supposed she could have heard a stray turkey after all and no one had searched her cabin. But she didn’t think so.

  Another breeze gusted up from the lake and, once again, Jo wished she had a Vermont-worthy winter coat—or even a hat and gloves. She drew her hands up into her sleeves and ignored the biting cold as best she could as she headed up the road, the gravel crunching under her fast steps.

  She didn’t slow her pace until she reached the top of Elijah’s steep driveway. A solitary light shone in the sliding glass doors on the deck. In the months since she’d inherited her lakefront property, she hadn’t been this close to her neighbor’s house. It looked as sturdy and solid as the man who’d built it.

  Smoke curled from the chimney. Jo could smell it in the air. Elijah had been home all of a half hour, and he already had a fire going.

  She heard a noise under the deck and pointed her flashlight beam in that direction, illuminating Elijah as he walked out with an armload of cordwood. “What’s up, Jo?”

  She lowered her light to his feet. “Did you search my cabin?”

  “Why would I do that?”

  “That’s not what I asked.”

  He moved forward with his wood. “No, Jo, I did not search your cabin.”

  She felt the cold now and tried not to shiver. “Someone did. It’s not obvious. The place wasn’t tossed.”

  “But you’re a Secret Service agent, and you can tell.”

  She didn’t think he was being sarcastic, but it was just a guess. Sometimes it was hard to tell with him. “Yes,” she said seriously. “What about your place?”

  He nodded toward the deck stairs. “Let’s go up and have a look.”

  “You’d have noticed, wouldn’t you?”

  “Not necessarily. I wasn’t thinking about break-ins when I got back here.”

  “What were you thinking about?”

  His eyes settled on her. “You don’t want to know.”

  “Did you hear anything in the woods?”

  “Turkeys, but I only just got out here.” He nodded toward the stairs up to the deck. “Let’s go inside.”

  “I haven’t fixed the salad—”

  “Forget the salad.”

  He carried his armload of wood up the stairs and led her through a slider into a warm, cozy room than ran the length of the deck. The furnishings were in warm woods and earthy colors, and although he’d only been in town a few weeks and hadn’t yet finished the house, it looked lived-in, as if he were at home now and meant to stay. On the back wall was a stone chimney with a Vermont Castings woodstove. Wooden spiral stairs wound up to an open-rail balcony with two doors, presumably to bedrooms.

  Elijah dropped the wood into a rustic box he’d obviously constructed himself. As much as he might belong there, Jo had sensed that his presence in Black Falls wasn’t permanent. He’d seemed as rootless as she was, if in a different way. Now, she wasn’t so sure.

  The sliders and large windows overlooked the lake, dark now with nightfall.

  Jo noticed how quiet it was with the doors and windows shut—no wind, no lapping of the lake below, no night sounds. Just the popping and hissing of the fire. “Do you like being back here?” she asked abruptly.

  “Sure. I don’t like the way I got back.” He turned from the wood box. “Anything suggest an intruder to you?”

  She shook her head. “No. Not to me.”

  He advanced a few steps toward
her. “You’re an experienced Secret Service special agent who rumor has it can shoot the eyes out of a crow, and here I am worrying about you being alone in your cabin.”

  “You’re feeling protective of me, are you?” She couldn’t resist a smile. “That has to be a first.”

  “Not really.”

  He was right in front of her now. There was nothing casual about him, but nothing confrontational, either. The stiffness and tight control of earlier at the café had abated. But Jo had no illusions as his so-blue eyes settled on her with a frankness she found erotic, a little unnerving and totally irresistible. This was a dangerous man at a critical turning point in his life, and having her there, with him on the lake, wasn’t necessarily good for either one of them. She had a career to save, but Elijah had lost his father and very nearly lost his own life in combat. And he’d seen friends die.

  Jo motioned toward the pleasant room. “It’s a nice place,” she said, then attempted a smile. “Homey.”

  He touched her hair and smiled back at her. “Like you care about homey. You’re restless, Jo. Always have been.”

  “I keep coming back to Black Falls.”

  “So you do.”

  But she saw that his mind wasn’t on his words. He let his hand fall to her waist, and she thought she heard him say her name as his mouth found hers. His arms encircled her, and he drew her toward him. She responded eagerly, welcoming the kiss, deepening it herself as she slipped her arms around him. He hadn’t worn a coat down to his woodpile. His soft sweater warmed her hands.

  Even after fifteen years, he felt familiar, comfortable—as rugged and sexy and desirable as she remembered of their days together on the lake so long ago.

  How out of their minds were they?

  But the question evaporated from her mind as he lowered his hands to her hips, boldly easing them under her jacket and shirt and finding her bare skin. She heard her own sharp intake of air as desire spread through her. He lifted her off her feet and into him, and she could feel that he was hard already. He pressed himself against her in just the right spot. Her head spun, and with a start, she realized he wasn’t a teenager anymore. He was a man in his thirties, hard-edged and battle-scarred, literally and figuratively, in ways he hadn’t been at nineteen.

  Finally, he raised his mouth from hers and set her down onto the hardwood floor. He dropped his hands from her. She stood back, breathless, wanting more. But she adjusted her shirt and her jacket and cleared her throat. She was hot now and she could see he was, too. As calm and controlled as he was outwardly, she noticed the flare of his nostrils, the dark cast to his eyes. His gaze skimmed over her as if she were naked. “Hell, Jo, you’re wearing me out. Takes a lot out of me to hold myself back with you. Kissing you is the easy part.” He traced one finger over her lips. “It always has been.”

  “We’re in uncharted waters here, Elijah.”

  “Not so uncharted.”

  When they were growing up, it seemed as if they had nothing in common at all. Now, after they’d both been on their own, had left their families and small town, she could see that she and Elijah had more in common than they could possibly have realized as teenagers.

  Which didn’t mean kissing him was smart.

  “Would you like me to have a look around and tell you what I think?”

  “Of what, my choice in sheets and towels?”

  “As to whether or not someone searched your house,” she said.

  “Ah. No, that’s okay. Want me to check out your cabin?”

  “No.” She ignored his amused, knowing smile and continued, “Let me take a rain check on dinner. The brownie I ate at the café has my head spinning.”

  “I don’t think it’s the brownie.”

  “Elijah…”

  His eyes held hers a moment, but he didn’t speak.

  She did. “Your father came to see me when he was in Washington in early April.”

  He lifted a log from a small stack on the brick hearth and opened the top of the stove and lowered the wood onto the fire. “I didn’t know he’d gone to Washington.”

  “He said he didn’t tell anyone. He just went and let A.J. and Rose and everyone else in Black Falls think he was on a fishing trip. He wanted to see the cherry blossoms. I know that much.” She stood closer to the fire, felt its heat. “He told me he’d had a premonition that something bad was going to happen to you.”

  “Anxiety about the dangers I faced isn’t the same as a premonition. He knew I was in Afghanistan.” Elijah adjusted the dampers on the woodstove. “It’s just a coincidence that I was wounded in April.”

  “Maybe so. Drew was dealing with some guilt about us.” Jo didn’t go into detail. “We had a pleasant afternoon together. The cherry blossoms were particularly beautiful this year, and it was a gorgeous day. It’s a good memory, Elijah.”

  He glanced back at her. “I’m glad for that, Jo.”

  “I wish you’d been the one walking among the cherry blossoms with your father. I’m sorry it wasn’t.”

  “Don’t be sorry.” He turned from the fire. “I want you to have a good memory of my father.”

  “I never hated him,” she said quietly.

  “I know. I didn’t, either.”

  “He loved you, Elijah. He knew you butted heads with him as much as you did because you were both so much alike. And he didn’t drive us apart. If we’d been meant to be together, we’d have found a way. We were kids. We weren’t ready for what we thought we wanted.”

  He kissed her on the forehead. “I still broke your heart, sweet pea.”

  He didn’t wait for her response—not that she could have mustered one—and crossed the dark wood floor to the slider. He opened it and walked out onto the deck. “A half-moon tonight,” he said.

  Jo joined him in the cold night air. “It’ll still be dark up on the mountain.”

  “Maybe one night up there will give Nora her taste of winter camping and get her over the initial shock of her stepfather’s death, and she’ll head back in the morning.” He glanced sideways at her. “Her father asked you to look in on her. That’s it, right?”

  “That’s it.”

  “You didn’t know Ambassador Bruni well?”

  She shook her head.

  “And he and Thomas Asher didn’t hate each other?”

  “I gather they tried to stay friends or at least get along for Nora’s sake. Thomas was concerned about her even before her stepfather was killed, because she’d dropped out of Dartmouth.”

  “If she was afraid, would she go to him?”

  Jo leaned against the railing. “Why would you ask that?”

  “Because it’s a common-sense, routine question.”

  “No.” She paused. “Something’s bothering you.”

  “Coincidences,” he said. “Lots of coincidences.”

  “You just said—”

  “That was about my father thinking he knew I’d be shot. He was in Washington two weeks before he died—two weeks before Thomas Asher and his daughter happen to show up in Black Falls for a visit. Then Nora drops out of college, moves to Black Falls and takes up with a local boy. Now money’s gone missing, and her ambassador stepfather’s dead in a suspicious hit-and-run.” Elijah’s eyes were black in the night air as he faced Jo. “And you turn up.”

  “Want to throw the wild turkeys into the mix, too?”

  He gave her a sudden, quick smile. “Maybe.” But he gestured toward the deck stairs. “You should leave or I might kiss you again just to get that scowl off your face. You look like you want to arrest someone.”

  “Elijah—”

  He cut her off. “I need time, Jo,” he said quietly. “The thought of you and my father among the cherry blossoms…” He didn’t finish.

  She nodded. “I’ll see you in the morning, unless the bogeyman comes in the middle of the night and you need a federal agent.”

  “Right, Jo.” The sardonic smile was back. “I’ll scream for help.”

  “Becaus
e you wouldn’t have any illegal firearms left over from your military career, now, would you?”

  “Who says my military career is over?”

  “No one around here. You’re the subject of lively rumors.”

  “To be expected, I suppose. Make yourself that salad, Jo. I’ll open up a can of green beans to go with my chicken. Dinner another time.”

  She got out of there, appreciating the cold air after being around Elijah. Her cabin was freezing. It was barely winterized—the propane heater couldn’t keep up. She sat on the ratty couch and wrapped herself in a fleece throw that a colleague had bought as a thank-you gift, or for self-preservation, in October.

  Had someone been through the place?

  It wasn’t the sort of call she planned to make to her boss. Gee, Mark, I got suspicious after the turkeys went nuts in the woods….

  Truly, she thought, selling the cabins and the land to the Camerons made sense.

  But that wasn’t what Drew Cameron necessarily had wanted.

  “You’ll do the right thing…I know you will, Jo.”

  He’d apologized, with a quiet emotion she’d never seen in him, for driving her and Elijah apart and told her he’d been seeing them out on the lake with the children they would never have.

  “Because of me.”

  She’d tried to tell him that it wasn’t because of him. Elijah had made his choices, too.

  So had she.

  The image of her and Elijah and kids on the lake wasn’t one Jo wanted on a cold November night.

  She threw off the fleece, jumped up, grabbed her flashlight again and charged back outside, following the footpath and checking the rest of the cabins one by one for an intruder or any sign of one. But she only ran into spiders and heard an owl nearby.