Line of Duty

by Christy Barritt

  The line of trees traveled beside the property. They were going to need to use them as a barrier, Abby realized.

  Jaxon took her hand and began pulling her through the woods.

  More bullets rang out. Thankfully this guy wasn’t a great shot. Abby could be grateful for that, at least.

  Finally, they reached the edge of the woods. She saw Jaxon’s truck in the driveway, probably eight feet away.

  “We’re going to have to make a run for it,” Jaxon said in her ear. “We’ll both get in on my side, and we need to get out of here. There’s no time for mistakes.”

  Abby didn’t have the energy to argue, nor did she have any other ideas. She only knew if they stayed here, they’d be dead.

  On the count of three, Jaxon pulled her toward his truck. He opened the door, and she dove inside. Jaxon lunged in behind her.

  As he jammed the truck into reverse, a bullet shattered the windshield. Pebbles of glass rained down on them, and a cold wind swept inside.

  Jaxon pressed the accelerator, and gravel flew up behind them as they took off down the road.

  They were both safe. For now. But Abby didn’t know how long that would last.

  Chapter Twenty

  Jaxon hadn’t felt a rush of adrenaline like that since Iraq.

  Images from his time there pummeled his thoughts, but he pushed them away. He couldn’t afford to lose control right now. He felt certain that the man who had been shooting at them didn’t have a vehicle, but they needed to remain on guard. Things could have turned out a lot differently back there.

  He glanced at Abby beside him. She was a quivering mess as she wrapped her arms over her chest and stared out the passenger window of the truck.

  He wished he had something to offer her—a blanket, a hat even. But he had nothing.

  The frigid wind blew across them unobstructed, and fragments of glass continued to fall in broken bits from the windshield.

  But they were alive. That was the important thing.

  “Did you get hurt?” He glanced over at her, trying to ascertain her physical state of well-being. He didn’t see any blood. That was good. But she had been limping earlier.

  “No, I think I’m okay. Just shaken.”

  His jaw tightened. “You shouldn’t have left.”

  “You shouldn’t have come after me.” She met his gaze, her voice confident and unwavering.

  But he didn’t buy it. She’d left because she was terrified. “Why did you leave?”

  “I don’t want to put you in the middle of this. I didn’t want to see the disappointment on your face as you considered that I might be guilty.”

  “You at least needed to give me time to figure out how I feel. I don’t even know what it is yet.”

  She shook her head, obviously unconvinced still. “You didn’t ask to be part of any of this.”

  “And if you’re telling the truth then neither did you.”

  Abby pressed her lips together but said nothing. They traveled for several moments in silence until she finally asked, “Where are we going?”

  “I need to take you to the station.”

  “Are you turning me in? Because I already told Luke everything that I told you.”

  Jaxon felt his jaw flex. In his worry, he’d nearly forgotten about that news article he’d found. But he wanted to bring that up when he could look Abby in the eye.

  “We need to report what happened, for starters,” Jaxon said. “But there’s more.”

  “There’s more?” Abby stared at him, almost as if she was trying to read his body language.

  They reached the downtown area, and Jaxon found a parking space near the sheriff’s office. He put his truck in Park but made no effort to get out. Instead, he let the heat pump out from the vents, trying in vain to fight against the frigid air floating in through the busted windshield.

  He kept his irritation in check. But he couldn’t handle any more secrets.

  “I really wanted to believe that you told me everything,” His voice came out lower, more intense than he’d wanted.

  But he might as well put it all out there. Holding back would do him no good. He didn’t like being tricked, but he needed to hear her side of this.

  Abby shook her head, and beads of glass fell into her lap. “I did tell you everything. What are you talking about?”

  “I decided to do a little research while you were upstairs resting. I saw an article containing the emails that you and Patrick exchanged, the ones that show you were involved with his wife’s death.”

  Abby’s face visibly paled. “There are no such emails.”

  “They came out in a magazine article today.”

  “I’m telling you, those emails don’t exist. If someone published them, then the emails were fabricated. I would never do something like that.”

  “Then what about the plane ticket you bought that put you in Minnesota on the very day Theresa went missing?”

  Abby sucked in a deep breath before shaking her head. She rubbed the skin between her eyes.

  He’d touched a nerve.

  Was this the moment Abby would admit her involvement?

  “I did buy that ticket.” She raised her head, but her voice sounded almost defeated. “I was going to go out there and confront Patrick, try to put an end to all of this once and for all. At that point, I still didn’t even know that he was married.”

  She drew in a deep breath and released it.

  Jaxon waited.

  “But I got cold feet,” she continued. “I changed my mind, and my best friend, Renee, convinced me that I should just let this go instead of continuing to feed into him by responding whenever he acted out.”

  Jaxon watched her expression carefully, looking for any sign of deceit. He saw nothing. “So you never got on that plane?”

  “That’s correct. You can call Renee, and she’ll verify what I said. I ended up spending that weekend at her place.”

  Her body language indicated she was telling the truth. But . . . Jaxon needed to trust but verify. “If you don’t mind, I think I will follow up on that.”

  “Please do.”

  He turned off his truck and reached for his door handle. “Now we need to get into the station. We need to report what happened, and there’s something that Luke wants to tell you.”

  Anxiety continued to rise in Abby as she stepped into the sheriff’s office. What now? She had no idea what the sheriff might have to tell her, but she knew without a doubt that it couldn’t be good.

  In fact, every time she thought this situation couldn’t get worse, it did.

  At least it was warm in the building. The ride here had been so, so cold that her bones ached. Every time she moved, more shards of glass fell from her hair and shirt. Plus, her foot was killing her and her head still throbbed uncontrollably.

  None of that compared to the overpowering fear she felt when she thought about how close she’d come to dying—again.

  Sheriff Wilder ushered her and Jaxon into his office and closed the door. He looked tired and still wore his jacket. It appeared he’d just gotten back to the office.

  He didn’t bother to sit. “We found a body in the woods near your cabin.”

  Abby’s head began to spin. “What?”

  Certainly she hadn’t heard him correctly. She’d known her cabin was a crime scene. But somehow, she’d convinced herself that maybe it wasn’t as bad as she feared. Maybe everything had been staged to look like a murder had happened.

  She’d been a fool to even think for a minute that was true.

  The sheriff nodded, his neck tight and his gaze suspicious. He pulled a paper from his desk and showed it to her. “Have you ever seen this woman?”

  Abby took the photo and studied the image. The woman was probably in her late thirties with dark hair and a pleasant smile. Abby waited for a moment of recognition to hit her, but it didn’t.

  Abby handed the paper back to him. “I’m sorry, but I’ve never seen her before. Is this th
e woman who died?”

  The sheriff nodded. “Yes, it is. Her name was Kathy Turner. Her death was . . . brutal, to say the least.”

  “Her blood matched that in my cabin?” The tones in her voice waivered with stress-born vibrato.

  “We’ll be testing it, but for now we are assuming that’s the case.”

  Abby closed her eyes, and let her head fall back against the wall. She’d known this man was dangerous. But she thought that she was his only target. Hearing that the Executioner had gone so far as to brutally murder someone else took this all to a new level.

  “Tell Luke what you told me about that plane ticket,” Jaxon told her.

  Abby looked up at the sheriff and repeated the story to him. Part of her felt like she was wasting her breath. But Abby couldn’t stop telling the truth. She had to stand up for herself. Not give into the hopelessness that wanted to consume her.

  “I’m going to want your friend’s name and number,” he said.

  “Of course.” Abby rattled the information off to him, and the sheriff jotted it on a paper on his desk.

  Sheriff Wilder leaned against his desk, all his attention on her. “I don’t know what’s going on here, and I don’t like it. But I want to find some answers.”

  “I would love some answers also,” Abby said, feeling the first tingle of hope. If their efforts weren’t fixated on her, maybe they’d be able to discover the truth.

  “Do you have any idea who this man is who sent these threats?”

  “No, I have no idea. I assume he’s in some way affiliated with Patrick or Theresa. But, for all I know, this could be a random crazy who heard about this online and decided to take action.”

  The sheriff nodded slowly and tapped his pen on his desk. “Let’s see if we can brainstorm some possible suspects. We have a basic description of the man this woman has been seen with in the bar before she disappeared. However, he was sitting in a dark corner, wearing a hat, and an oversized jacket. It doesn’t give us much to go on, except that we know he is a white male probably in his late forties with dark hair with a touch of gray.”

  “That sounds right,” Abby said.

  The sheriff reached into his desk and pulled out a bottle of water. “You look like you could use some of this.”

  Abby took it from him and twisted the top off. Her hands trembled as she brought the bottle to her lips and forced herself to take a sip. “What else do you need to know? I want to catch this guy more than anyone.”

  “Let’s talk about some possible suspects. Maybe someone who came here from Minnesota, determined to track you down. I know that, according to what you’ve told me, you weren’t able to meet Patrick’s or Theresa’s families.”

  “Not initially,” Abby said.

  The two men turned toward her.

  “What do you mean?” Jaxon asked, disbelief in his voice.

  “I mean that, before all this came out, I had never met them. But once the news hit the media, Theresa’s uncle paid me a visit.”

  “Does Theresa’s uncle fit the description of the man who’s been following you?” Jaxon asked.

  Abby shrugged. “I’ve thought about it dozens of times myself, and I really don’t know. Her uncle’s name was Marshall, and he was definitely an outdoorsman. But I didn’t talk to him enough to really get that much more information on him.”

  “Why did he come to see you?” the sheriff asked.

  The moment flashed into her mind. “He thought that I was responsible for his niece’s death, and he came out to Georgia—that’s where I’m really from—to give me a piece of his mind.”

  The sheriff crossed his fingers together, his intense gaze still on her. “So I’m assuming he was angry.”

  “You’re assuming correctly.” Abby rubbed the side of her water bottle, as blips of that conversation flooded back to her.

  “Honestly, he showed up at my house early in the morning. I had no idea who he was when I opened the door. I could only tell that he was upset.”

  “What happened next?” Sheriff Wilder asked.

  “He asked me how I could possibly live with myself. He was so angry. I didn’t know what to do or what to say, and I could feel myself getting worked up. I could feel the tears coming on. He wasn’t listening. He hadn’t come to hear my side of things. He only came to make me feel bad. Eventually, I shut the door, pulled the shades, and turned off my phone. He stayed outside my house for another hour or so.”

  “Did you ever tell the police?” the sheriff asked.

  “No, at that point, I didn’t feel like they would do anything. The police chief . . . his wife ran against my stepmom for city council and lost. He hasn’t liked me since then. But I promise, if I had known for one moment that Patrick was married . . . I would’ve never ever dated him. But he pulled the wool over my eyes. I saw no indications that he was anyone other than the person he presented himself to be. At least, at first. As soon as I began to doubt the story, I called things off.”

  The sheriff had to believe her. Abby may have withheld information earlier, but she hadn’t made any of this up. Her words were true.

  Someone knocked at the door, and Abby looked up to see the receptionist standing there. “Bill Murdoch is here to see you.”

  The sheriff nodded before turning to Abby. “He’s the man who found the body while he was out hunting.”

  Her throat tightened as she imagined it playing out.

  “Don’t try to run again.” The sheriff stood, locking gazes with her. “Not only is it not safe, but I need you here for more questions. Do you understand?”

  “I do.”

  Rising, Jaxon touched her elbow and led her out into the lobby. As he did, she glanced over at the man waiting there.

  Fifties. Tall. Average build. Beard.

  She sucked in a breath as fear raked through her.

  No, that man wasn’t the Executioner.

  He was the one who’d found the dead body in the woods.

  So why did seeing him cause Abby’s body to revolt? To want to hurl again?

  How had this Bill Murdoch found the woman?

  Was it because he’d been the one to kill her?

  Abby’s head swirled at the thought.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Jaxon’s thoughts raced as they headed back to his cabin. None of this seemed real. Instead, it seemed like a nightmare that he’d stepped into. If he felt this way, he could only imagine Abby’s emotions.

  Just as before, a cool wind hit their faces from the shattered windshield. The frigid air shocked Jaxon’s senses. Icy precipitation occasionally mingled with the air as it rushed over their skin and through their hair.

  If he could see through the darkness, he’d see remnants of the fire that had scorched this area not even a year ago. The area was starting to recover, but the foliage would take time to repair itself. That was because repair and healing took time, not only for the forest but for people too.

  “Where are we going?” Abby’s voice broke Jaxon from his thoughts. She nearly had to shout to be heard over the air rushing inside his truck.

  “Back to my cabin.”

  She sucked in a quick breath. “But is that even safe?”

  “Is anywhere really safe?”

  The question seemed to shake her up, and Abby pulled her arms more tightly over her chest. “I suppose not.”

  “At my place, at least I know how to defend myself. I’m familiar with all the creaks and all the various ways to get in. Plus, that’s where my gun is.”

  “I totally understand if you no longer want me to stay there.”

  “Where else would you go?”

  Abby shook her head, an almost hollow look in her eyes. “Truthfully? I have no idea. I thought I was a planner. I’ve always been the type to have a savings account and a backup emergency fund. I buy every insurance that’s out there. But there are some things that you just can’t prepare for. This was one of them.”

  Jaxon could appreciate her honesty. If wha
t Abby was telling him was the truth, then she really was in a tough, tough spot—to say the least.

  Darkness surrounded them, along with fog and dark skeletal trees. The cold air rushing in from the windshield did nothing to help the situation. He would have to take his truck in to have it fixed, but he had other bigger issues at hand now.

  When they got back to his cabin, Jaxon stepped out of his truck and glanced around. His muscles tightened in anticipation of possible trouble.

  He saw and heard nothing out of the ordinary. But that didn’t mean that the man wasn’t out there, waiting for them right now.

  He hurried around to Abby’s side of the truck and opened her door. Still on guard, he took her arm and led her into the cabin. “Stay here while I check the rest of the place.”

  She didn’t argue.

  He checked out his cabin, and it was clear.

  With all the doors locked and doublechecked, and his gun tucked into his waistband, Jaxon returned to Abby. She stood near the wall where he’d left her, still looking entirely too pale for his comfort. She’d been through a lot today—for the past month, according to all she’d shared.

  There was something Jaxon needed to say to her—something he should have said sooner.

  He paused in front of her, his heart seeming to catch in his throat. “Look, thank you for what you did back there at the lake. You saved my life.”

  Abby shrugged as if it wasn’t a big deal. “Maybe we’re even now. However, you wouldn’t be in danger right now if it wasn’t for me.”

  He saw all her emotions—the guilt, the sorrow, the apology.

  Lowering his voice, he said, “I think it’s safe to say that you don’t have any control over that.”

  Even though Jaxon wanted to question whether or not Abby was complicit in any of this, the fact that she’d put her own life on the line to save his spoke volumes. How could he doubt her after that? But there was still so much he didn’t know.

  Jaxon was anxious to hear what Abby’s friend Renee told Luke. Once Abby had a solid alibi for Theresa’s murder, he could finally rest assured that Abby was innocent in all this.