by Olson, Mal
Ten minutes later, they found her rusted twelve–year–old Ford abandoned in the huge Black Mountain Lodge parking lot. Someone had shot holes in the driver’s side door, forming a swastika.
“Damn.” Brandy jumped out. “Oh, baby, what have they done to you?” She turned to Blade. “I know it looks like a reject from Rent–a–Wreck. But this is the first vehicle I’ve ever owned.”
She ran her hand over the holes in the lackluster red finish. “These guys are starting to piss me off.”
Patrolman Greenwald joined them and carefully handed over a duffel bag with a familiar ID tag dangling from the handle. “Does this belong to you, Brandy?”
“My target shooting supplies.”
“We’ll check it for fingerprints and DNA.” When Greenwald tossed the bag into his cruiser, she could tell it was empty.
“Aw, man, I had two boxes of ammo, ear protectors, safety glasses, targets, adjustment tools…” Her own personal stuff. She groaned. “I’ll have to replace everything.”
“It wasn’t completely empty,” Greenwald said. “I found this belt coiled up inside with a sticky note attached to it.”
Brandy edged closer and pulled away the yellow square of paper with her fingernail to reveal the initials B.B engraved on the belt buckle.
Blade read the note aloud. “B.B., you and that bitch cop better keep your nose out of our business, or a couple of nosey deputies might turn into a couple of dead deputies.”
Greenwald whistled and shook his head.
“Pretty accommodating of them to threaten us in writing.” Blade lifted the belt by the edges and handed it back to Greenwald so he could bag it as evidence.
“Get this and the duffle over to forensics and have someone bring Brandy’s truck into the station,” Blade said.
“Oh my God.” Brandy’s jaw clenched. Her chest tightened. “It’ll be my fault if the Neo Nazis identify you because of the initials.” He wouldn’t have left his belt behind if it hadn’t been for her.
“Don’t go there, Brandy. You’ll only undermine your confidence. It’s not your fault.” He curved his hand around her waist and led her to the Tahoe. “Besides, we’ve got ourselves a threat. And that gives us some leverage. Come on, I’ll drop you off at your apartment. We’ll make sure no uninvited guests are hanging around. Then I want you to stay there until I pick you up in the morning.”
****
Ten minutes after Blade helped Brandy search her apartment, with no sign that it had been breached, he returned to the office. At Brandy’s desk, he hit the spacebar to wake up the computer. She’d been hiding something earlier.
“The Trial of Amanda Wilcox,” flashed onto the screen.
Wilcox? His insides clenched. He scrolled to the section entitled “Background.”
Milwaukee police officer Amanda Wilcox was married to an American soldier killed in Iraq. The couple had one child. Her second marriage was to fellow officer Skip Coogan.
Skip Coogan? Holy shit!
The marriage ended in divorce while Amanda Wilcox was in prison. After being convicted of murder in the first degree, Wilcox served one year of a life sentence before she died at the hand of a fellow inmate in the Taycheedah Correctional Institution in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin.
“Jesus,” he whispered. His rookie came from the school of hard knocks.
He felt a presence more than heard or saw it. He glanced up.
Quiet as a cougar, Brandy stood leaning against the door. What could he possibly say? “I’m sorry,” he finally uttered, knowing the words were insufficient. He truly did understand the depth of her burden. “I had no idea.”
“Did you get to the part that says my mother tried desperately to get the case reopened and prove her innocence?”
She shoved away from the door and plunked onto one of the orange plastic chairs by the receptionist’s desk. “I was eleven years old when the case went to court. Twelve when she went to prison. The court ordered me to stay with my paternal grandparents. They never let me visit her.”
Her forearms resting on her knees, she lifted her head and stared blankly into space. “Sometimes I can’t even remember what she looked like unless I bring up the pictures on the computer. But I remember the sound of her voice. I hear her begging a courtroom full of people to believe she was innocent. She tried so hard to get the case reopened and prove she was wrongly convicted. But she didn’t live long enough.”
Blade’s heart wedged in his throat. He slogged across the faux tile floor and hunkered down beside her. Feeling helpless, he took her chilled fingers and wrapped his hands around them. He’d never before had the urge to take a woman in his arms simply to console her, but at that moment he wished he could make all of Brandy’s pain go away.
Because he didn’t know how to put his feelings into words, he crouched silently and stroked her hand.
“She was framed, and I’m going to prove it.” Tearless, she jutted her chin.
“Of course you will.” As though he were comforting a lost child, he pulled her head to his chest and held her against his heart until she hiccupped back what should have been an onslaught of tears. But she didn’t cry.
He held her until he realized the effect her soft curves were having on him. Brandy was not a little girl any more. And now was not the time or place for him to be thinking about a different set of circumstances—a time and place where her naked curves would be pressed against his aroused body.
But he thought about it anyway.
Then his mind started to churn. As if he didn’t have enough ghosts of his own to chase.
Skip Coogan had been married to Brandy’s mother.
Why in the hell hadn’t she told him that? Was it her omission that stuck in his gut? Or the fact itself? Or the possibility of something far worse that he didn’t want to think about?
CHAPTER SIX
“You’re awfully quiet today, Deputy,” Blade said on the way to the office late the next afternoon.
Brandy’s shoulders tensed. “I don’t usually run off at the mouth like I did last night.” Brandy Wilcox never shared her thoughts with anyone. Period. At least, she hadn’t before, but her handsome FTO was too damn easy to talk to. Especially when his arms were wrapped round her.
“It’s not like you’ve been a chatterbox today either.” She tossed the ball back at him. Actually, though, she hadn’t minded his quietness. She enjoyed the quiet rapport. It was nice when two people could just “be” and didn’t feel the need to fill space with words. There were too many things she liked about her FTO, and that meant she needed be careful. A guy like him, who oozed enough testosterone to flood the entire valley, could be dangerous to her defenses.
“I can hear your mind going a hundred miles an hour.” He glanced at her.
“I’ve never been a big talker.”
“Thinking about the Reverend Abraham McKee and our interview this afternoon?”
“How’d you guess?”
“It’s my innate intuitiveness.”
She tucked away a grin. “McKee, the self–appointed reverend of the Church of God’s Chosen People. He’s an NNFF boy if ever there was one. Did you notice his body language when you mentioned that the department intended to prosecute the shooters to the full extent of the law? He got so nervous I thought he was going to pee his self–righteous pants.”
“Body language. Clichéthat it is, actions always speak louder than words. Good observation, Rookie.”
She smiled, hoping she wasn’t beaming like a school girl at a teacher’s words of praise.
“Like your body language,” he added.
Her smile deflated like a popped balloon.
“It says you’ve got… things bottled up inside you. Brandy, I’m here to listen if you ever feel like talking.”
“Thanks.” Not happening. But she wanted Blade on her side so she did need to talk about Coogan and his part in her mother’s conviction. Her FTO wouldn’t like what she had to say, but at some point, if there was a chanc
e to win him over, she had to tell him anyway. She just needed a little time to ease into it.
“Hey, do you mind stopping at my place?” he asked. “I want to check on Rambo.”
“Sure. No problem.” She’d love to see Rambo again.
Avoiding eye contact, she glanced lower and tripped over the view—tanned arms exposed by a short–sleeved uniform shirt, strong fingers curling around the steering wheel. How magical would those fingers feel playing against a woman’s skin? Against her skin?
Last night, Blade’s touch had been soothing. Under the right circumstances, she imagined his hands would be downright unsettling. Which reminded her for the umpteenth time how extremely ill–advised it was to be thinking that way about Beringer. Skin to skin. His hard body pressed to hers. She swiped at beads of sweat that suddenly dampened her forehead.
Instead, she should be engaged in gaining his support. In getting him to believe her theory and side with her against Skip Coogan. What were the chances of that happening? About as much as a snowball’s chance of surviving in the Idaho sun.
Whatever. With or without Beringer, she would expose Coogan. But if she didn’t win Blade over, she’d be forced to go behind his back. The thought pressed painfully against her breastbone. As a Little Chute Deputy, she owed her partner loyalty.
The Tahoe’s wheels bobbled over gravel. Several hundred yards down the neglected drive, a small ranch sprawled among the foothills of the Black Mountains.
“Wow, this place is yours?” Like a picture from an Idaho vacation brochure, a two–story log cabin sat at the end of the winding drive. The structure sported a deck that extended the length of the front, and windows studded the entire west side, reflecting the late afternoon sun.
“You move fast, Beringer. You just got here a couple of days ago. How’d you finagle this?”
“The lady over at the real estate office found it for me. It needs some fixing, but the price was right, and it’s got lots of space for Rambo.”
“This is heaven.”
“You might be right.”
He killed the engine, and Brandy jumped out. To the right of the drive, a couple of small outbuildings squatted on rolling hills that rambled until they met the base of the mountain in the distance. From the looks of the empty cement bags and shiny silver posts sunk in fresh concrete, Blade had been busy creating a fenced–in playground for his dog.
The ranch wasn’t huge or pretentious, but it was the most glorious thing Brandy had ever seen. Suddenly, her two–room apartment above Tour d’Alene Outfitters seemed minuscule. Bottom line, it was all she could afford. Even though she was bringing home more money than she’d ever earned, attorney fees ate up her cash as fast as it came in. Would she ever have anything close to this? The sum total of her net worth consisted of her Walmart–Goodwill wardrobe, a rummage sale brass bed, an early Salvation Army maple kitchen set, used bedroom furniture, and her rusty red Ford that now sported a swastika tattooed in its hide.
Blade eased out of the Tahoe and ambled toward the fence gate. He greeted Rambo, scratching him behind the ears, ruffling the fur on his head, and then reached down and picked up a rubber ball with a rope attached to it.
Rambo yelped and danced with excitement, and he was rewarded with a game of tug of war. After several minutes, Blade tossed the toy into the air. Rambo tore after it and returned, wagging his tail.
“Good boy.” Blade patted his head. “ Sitz.”
Once the dog sat, Blade turned his clear–water glaze on Brandy. “Want to go for a little hike with us? There’s a plethora of magnificent waterfalls along the trail.”
Brandy grinned, her muscles aching for the challenge of a climb. “Today’s word is germinal, like the germinal idea can be anything that gets your creative juices going.” Maybe a relaxing hike would be germinal in approaching the subject she’d been wanting to bring up but had avoided all day. Coogan.
At that thought, despite the arid heat, a nervous chill rippled down her back.
Rambo led out and headed for the path behind the house. Blade jogged to the SUV to grab his Stetson while Brandy followed the canine leader, who pranced ahead, setting the pace. After a half hour’s climb, with little need or breath for conversation, they reached a lookout point.
“Breathtaking.” Brandy took in a gulp of air and studied the view. Below, like a Lincoln Log house, Blade’s cabin sat nestled near a swath of the Little Chute River that cut through his property. Whitewater bubbled in the stream as it undulated through a fringe of evergreens. And beyond the forest, a field dotted with wildflowers met a craggy backdrop of snowcapped mountains. On the horizon, a ribbon of silver glinted where Cascade Falls danced down the side of Thunder Mountain.
A ninety–degree summer day had never been more beautiful. Heaven. Why would she want to go and spoil it by bringing up Skip Coogan?
****
Blade reveled in watching Brandy as she hunkered on a boulder and ran her slender fingers through the fur on Rambo’s neck. She looked across the valley, then turned to him. What little makeup she’d started the day with was long gone. Wind scattered her hair and blew it around her face.
Blade’s breath hitched. Plain and simple, this woman with the unusual purplish eyes spoke to his libido. Stirred up something inside him, something he preferred not to name.
When he moved closer to her, Rambo horned in, sidling between him and Brandy, nuzzling Brandy’s hand. Probably saving Blade from doing something stupid, like kissing her.
“Rambo, zitzen.”
“Dutch now?” Brandy asked, grinning, as the dog dropped his hind quarters and plunked down beside her. “So which is it? Does he speak German or Dutch? When we were introduced, I was sure it was English…”
“He was trained in Belgium, but he’s fluent in Dutch, as well as German and English. It doesn’t hurt that the majority of bad guys don’t know the foreign commands.”
“Parley vous François?” she asked Rambo.
The multi–lingual canine barked and focused across the valley.
Brandy laughed and stretched out her legs, turning to face the panoramic view of the Black Mountains.
“See that smoke at one o–clock to the falls?” Blade asked.
Shielding her eyes with one hand, she locked in on the plumes of gray. “It’s a campfire.”
“In a section of forest that is supposedly No Man’s Land. There’re no designated campsites at that elevation, nor any trails on the Idaho side of the mountain leading up there.”
“You’re right. But there’s an old logging trail that starts in Montana on the other side and goes to the top of Thunder Mountain.”
“How do you know that?”
“Homework.” She grinned.
Impressed with her extra efforts, he nodded. “It’d be a nice quiet place for an NNFF gathering. Sheriff Noble thinks we should check it out. Are you up for a backpacking expedition?”
“Of course.” She all but chomped at the bit.
“Roundtrip, it could be a two–day trek.” As in an overnighter. The thought toyed with his delinquent hormones.
“No problem.” But the glance she shot his way bounced back toward the mountain view as pink rose on her cheeks.
Blade’s rising heat manifested in an entirely different location. Get a grip, Lieutenant. Concentrate on something that doesn’t give you a hard–on. “The forest is so thick, our chopper is useless for surveillance or detecting an encampment.”
“So when are we scheduled for Operation Rocky Mountain High?” She’d tamed the blush and turned all professional.
“Later this week.”
“Wow, we might actually have an up–close and personal glimpse of the elusive NNFF headquarters.” Enthusiasm lit up her face and sparkled in her eyes.
Damn. After spending two days with her, Blade’s attraction was in no way dwindling. His thoughts hurdled the elusive personal relationship line and landed amidst a tangle of sheets and tousled blond hair.
Warning bells
pealed in his chest.
Try a different subject. Like, for instance, the reason behind Brandy’s problem with Skip Coogan, a subject that had hung elusively between them all day. But did he really want to know what she had against his mentor? Blade’s jaw muscles twitched. What if she were to accuse Coogan of something like molesting her? Jesus.
But in order to create a solid professional relationship and build a base of trust and friendship, he really had to find out what the problem was.
As though she could read his thoughts and wanted to avoid the conversation, she glanced at her watch and pushed off the boulder. “I think it’s time I started back.”
For now, he was more than content to avoid the subject.
“You’re welcome to stay and have a bite to eat.”
“I wouldn’t want to impose.”
“We’d enjoy the company,” he said and turned to Rambo. “Wouldn’t we boy?”
Rambo woofed.
“You’re probably a better cook than I am,” Blade added. “I could let you supervise.”
She laughed. “I’m not very good in the kitchen.”
He bit his tongue before he asked what room she was good in and jammed the leash into her hand. Rambo took off, forcing them to start down the trail.
Twenty minutes later, Blade stood at the island that divided his kitchen from the dining area, watching Brandy wander through the open–concept first floor of his new domain. Mouth agape, she studied the overhead log beams and the natural stone fireplace that spanned floor to ceiling.
“This is fantastic,” she said, swooning.
“The kitchen needs some updating. But you have to check out the spa upstairs. That’s what sold me. The previous owners were on the right track. They started improvements by enlarging the bathroom and installing a whirlpool tub big enough for a party. Stone tile on the walls and floor. And there’s a spigot near the ceiling that gives a waterfall effect.”
“Wow, someday I’d like to own a place like this.”
“I’m sure you will.” Blade had a clear–shot view of her standing in the center of the great room. She slowly turned around, taking it all in—his well–used leather sofa and loveseat, the natural hickory flooring, the view out the wall of windows overlooking the mountains. And the stacks of boxes he had yet to unpack.
