Identity Withheld

by Sandra Orchard

  * * *

  Between his brother’s case-related phone interruptions, they passed the day playing games, with Kara and him teaming up against Sam and Sherri. Jake’s gaze strayed from the paper on which Kara was frantically drawing clues to her Pictionary word to the laughter in her eyes, the curve of her lips, the lamplight glistening in her hair like streaks of honey.

  Was she really a brunette? Or was the color part of her cover as the brown contact lenses had been?

  Apparently catching the distracted direction of his gaze, she waved her arms in front of his face and hammered her pencil tip to the picture she’d drawn. Her eyes flared, her lips pressed together as if it took every ounce of her self-control not to speak a clue.

  Jake shot a quick glance at the clue Sam had drawn for Sherri and guessed, “Pirates of the Caribbean.”

  Kara rolled her eyes and added a sweeping mountain in front of the boat she’d drawn. At least he thought it was a boat.

  “That’s a boat, right?” he whispered. She nodded at him, looking like a tight-lipped bobblehead doll, and tapped the mountain with her pencil tip.

  “Noah’s ark,” Sherri guessed, slanting a peek at Kara’s paper.

  Jake moved to block his cousin’s view as the sand in the timer trickled to almost nothing.

  Kara broke into another flurry of drawing and Jake couldn’t help but laugh at how she shared his competitive streak. As a new mountain decimated the front of her boat and a stick figure swan-dived into the water, he yelled, “Titanic!”

  Kara sprang to her feet with a whoop, her arms shooting up exultantly, and high-fived him. “I can’t believe how long it took you to guess that!” She fell back onto the couch laughing.

  His heart thrilled at the sound, grateful for the chance to help her forget, if only for a few hours, the danger she was still in.

  She pressed her hand to her chest. “That was my favorite movie. I love how he makes Rose promise him she’ll survive. No matter what.”

  Jake’s muscles liquefied as his gaze drew hers. Holding it bound, he gripped the back of his chair, his heart demanding the same assurances of her.

  Her eyes darkened to midnight, the silence raucous.

  The insistent ring of Sam’s cell phone caused them both to jump. Jake held his breath as Sam answered. Kara’s gaze clung to his as if she were afraid to hope the news could be good.

  “His battery was probably dead.” Sam scowled at Jake, and he suspected Sam was talking about his cell phone. He’d pulled the battery for fear the sniper would get his number and somehow track them here through his phone’s GPS. “Yeah, he’s right here. Just a second.” Sam handed the phone to Jake. “Davis.”

  “Listen, Jake, I’m sorry to bother you, but we’ve got another arson on our hands.”

  “What?” Jake’s pulse skyrocketed. He stepped away from the table, lowered his voice. “Same M.O.?”

  “Long way from figuring that out. Just got the call, and with this wind, we could have a hard time knocking her down. I thought you might want to work the crowd. You know, look for familiar faces. Might get your mind off...”

  Kara’s anxious blue eyes followed him around the room. Not what he wanted to get off his mind by a long shot. Except for the anxious part. But no matter how remote the possibility that these arsons were connected to the fire at her house, he shouldn’t pass up the chance to ferret the guy out. These kinds of firebugs usually hung around to watch their handiwork.

  “Did you look at the photos from last night’s scene?”

  “Not yet.” He hadn’t wanted to risk firing up his phone to download the email. He glanced at his watch. Eight. Kara would be asleep by the time he got back, and he’d need to head out early in the morning if he wasn’t going to disappoint Tommy and miss the field trip. Her head tilted as she watched him. Something told him she wouldn’t mind being awakened early to say goodbye. “Okay,” he said to Davis. “Give me the address. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

  The instant he tossed the phone back to Sam, Kara was on her feet. “You’re leaving?”

  “There’s been another arson. I need to go, but I’ll be back before morning.” He steered her out of Sam and Sherri’s line of sight and cupped her face. “You’ll be safe here.”

  “I know.” Her breath whispered over her moistened lips.

  He slowly dipped his head, his gaze tangling with hers. Her sweet scent filled his senses and his heart suddenly felt too large for his chest. He brushed a soft kiss over her lips and savored their velvety softness.

  She leaned in on raised toes and returned the kiss with a fervor that took his breath away.

  He slid his hands to her back, his fingertips delighting in the baby-soft hair at the nape of her neck as he drew her closer.

  She rested her cheek against his chest, and her breathy sigh of contentment made his pulse throb.

  “This isn’t goodbye, okay?” he whispered, pressing a kiss to her temple, to her hair. He held her for a long moment, not wanting to go, yet filled with hope that tonight they might catch this arsonist, and maybe Kara wouldn’t have to leave.

  Kara’s palm pressed firmly against his chest. “You need to go.”

  He held her hand against his heart. “I’ll see you later. Before...” He cut off the thought, not wanting to think about the marshal who’d be here in the morning to make her disappear.

  An uncertain smile fluttered over her lips. “Yes.”

  Letting her go, he grabbed his coat off the hook and stalked out to his uncle’s old pickup truck. He climbed in and bent his head over the steering wheel. Lord, please show the police where to catch this guy. Let Kara be able to stay. I don’t know if these feelings she ignites in me will go anywhere, but I’d sure like the chance to find out.

  He fired up his truck and swerved out of the driveway before he could talk himself out of leaving. As he bumped along the gravel road that would eventually wind its way to the highway, he glanced at the clock and in his mind’s eye glimpsed his wife’s smiling face in the dashboard light. Guilt panged his chest. He touched the spot where, in his own truck, her picture sat and swallowed the lump in his throat. What was he doing? The day he buried April, holding their infant son in his arms, he’d buried any desire to ever love again. The last thing he wanted to do was let another woman down.

  Unbidden memories of Kara’s kiss played on his mind. The feel of her arms around him, the taste of her lips, the pliant way they’d moved beneath his. The way he’d responded.

  He shook his head. Of course he’d responded. He may not want to fall in love again, but he was still a man. A man who hadn’t kissed a woman in five years. Add to that the fact he’d scarcely slept in days and had almost lost her more times than he wanted to contemplate. Was it any wonder that kissing her had felt so natural? Perfect, even?

  He shoved aside the thought and focused instead on reviewing what he knew about their arsonist. By the time he got to the fire scene, the abandoned warehouse was fully engulfed in flames and, with the wind whipping up fiery sparks and dropping them dozens of yards from the source, it was all his station’s crew and Hadyn’s volunteer crew could do to keep it from spreading. Their one saving grace was that the weather had been so wet that the sparks did little more than smolder.

  Before getting out of his truck, Jake quickly reinserted his cell phone battery and scrolled through the photos the chief had emailed from last night’s fire. His adrenaline surged at the sight of the bulbous-nosed guy he remembered seeing outside Kara’s house. He emailed it to Sam, telling him to ask Kara if she knew the man in the picture, then zipped up his jacket and trolled the line of spectators.

  A couple of minutes later a text came back from Sam. No, sorry. She doesn’t recognize him.

  He bit back a curse and shoved his phone in his pocket. Okay, but that didn’t mean the guy wasn�
�t connected. Jake scrutinized the face of every person he passed, but without the benefit of streetlights, it was difficult to see anyone’s face clearly. He stalked back to his truck and pulled out his Maglite. Time to see who’d pop.

  He shone his light at the crowd and snapped a couple of photos with his cell phone. He glimpsed movement at the edge of the group and swerved the light toward it.

  A kid jerked out of the beam and took off.

  “Grab him,” Jake shouted.

  One guy cut the kid off and a second rammed him to the ground from behind. The burly guy curled his fingers into the kid’s jacket and whirled him from the face-plant to his back in one move and rammed a knee into his chest for good measure. He gasped. “You?”

  Jake shined the light into the kid’s face. “Who are you?”

  “Ryan Stokes. I’m sorry. I didn’t count on the wind. I didn’t think it would get so out of control.”

  “My no-good daughter’s no-good boyfriend,” the man holding the kid down growled. He shifted his knee from his chest and, grabbing the kid’s coat, hauled his shoulders a foot off the ground. “You telling us you set this fire, boy?”

  The kid’s eyes went wild. “I had to do something to stop you from hitting her. Didn’t I?” He rammed the butt of his hand square into the man’s nose.

  His bulbous nose.

  As one of the sheriff’s deputies caught the kid’s arms and secured them behind his back, Jake stared at the guy nursing his nose. “I’ve seen you at every fire.”

  “That’s why I set them,” the kid yelled. “Every payday, because it’s the only thing that keeps him out of the bar.”

  “Why you little—” The guy lunged for the kid’s throat, and a second deputy grabbed him.

  “It’s true. He’s obsessed with watching fires.” The kid struggled under his own captor’s hold. “If it weren’t for the fires, he’d get good and tanked, then go home and beat up his wife and daughter.”

  Jake shot the guy a loathing look, his gut roiling at the uncomfortably familiar story. His father-in-law had been a mean drunk.

  “C’mon, kid,” the deputy said, “we’ll sort this out back at the station.”

  “I’m not sorry.” The kid’s gaze bore into Jake. “What’s a building compared to my girlfriend’s life?”

  Jake lunged at him, his hand fisting around the flashlight he blasted in his face. “A woman almost died in that Hadyn fire!”

  The kid shrank. “I didn’t set that. I swear! I only set them on his paydays, because he’s so obsessed with fire that he’ll forget about drinking.”

  “Then how do you explain last night’s and tonight’s?” the deputy interjected.

  “He got fired Saturday and went straight to the bar. My girlfriend and I saw his truck there when we were coming home. I begged her not to go home, but she said she couldn’t leave her mom alone or he’d get even angrier.” As the deputy steered the kid toward a cruiser, the kid glanced back at Jake. “Don’t you see? I love her. My life would be nothing without her. I’d do anything to keep him away from her. Anything.”

  My life would be nothing without... Jake stared after the kid, the pieces fitting together in his mind like a puzzle that finally made sense. What if the reason the attacks against Kara hadn’t stopped with the adoption ring’s takedown was because the adoption ring had never come after her?

  It had to be the guy who bought the baby, because he didn’t want to be found and forced to return him.

  The chief clapped Jake on the back. “Great job. The sheriff just told me you fingered our man.”

  “Yeah, I’m sorry. I need to go.” He raced back to his truck and pulled out his cell phone. “Sam,” he said the instant his brother picked up. “It’s not the adoption ring that’s after Kara. That’s why the attacks didn’t stop after the takedown.”

  “What are you talking about? Who else would it be?”

  “The guy who adopted the baby. The guy who Kara saw in the park in Boston. Don’t you see? He and his wife finally have the child they’ve always wanted, and he’ll do anything to make sure no one tears him away from them. Not Kara. And not that dead guy they found floating in the river back in Boston.”

  “I think you might be on to something.”

  Jake fitted his phone on the dash mount and pulled onto the road to head back to the cabin.

  “Yeah,” Sam repeated contemplatively. “It would explain why he took out the P.I., too. We’d be looking at someone with military training, communications know-how and serious connections.”

  “Or the money to buy them.”

  “Hmm. I’ll call the marshal and let him know.”

  “Good.” Jake glanced at his rearview mirror and turned onto the highway leading to the foothills. “I’ll be back soon.” As he jabbed Disconnect, a headlights’ beam swept across his side mirror. He eased off the gas, an uneasy feeling churning in his gut. He’d noticed the car leave the scene right behind him. Hadn’t thought anything of it, since lots of the fire watchers had started to head back to their vehicles after the kid’s arrest. But what if Sam was right and the sniper had been watching for him? He’d lead him straight to Kara.

  Jake signaled to pull off at the next gas station.

  The car drove past.

  Jake chuckled. Okay, well, better paranoid than sorry. He waited another minute, then turned back onto the road.

  Half a mile farther on, a car suddenly appeared behind him again.

  He squinted at the rearview mirror, but with the headlights beaming at him, he couldn’t tell if the car was the same one. He glanced at the dashboard clock. It’d be close to midnight before he got to the cabin as it was. His chest pinched at the thought of not getting another chance to see Kara, but...

  He flicked on his blinkers and made a U-turn. He couldn’t take the risk.

  THIRTEEN

  At the sound of tires crunching gravel, Kara jolted up from her bed and instantly groaned at the ache in her back. Rusty, now alert at her feet, whined in commiseration. She pulled on a robe and hurried to the window, her heart too light at the thought of seeing Jake again to slow down. “You’re such a sweetie,” she whispered to Rusty as he trotted after her. “I’m going to miss you.”

  Her heart fell. Outside, a dark-haired stranger with a telltale bulge under his jacket stood chatting to Sam. The marshal. And Jake still hadn’t returned.

  She pressed her fingers to her lips, remembering the minty taste of his kiss, the possessive strength of his arms drawing her closer. Her heart fluttered at the memory of his whispered words—this isn’t goodbye.

  Her breathing quickened. Something must have happened to him.

  She hurriedly dressed and then rushed into the main room, where Sherri was setting a platter of bacon and eggs on the table. “Where’s Jake? Why didn’t he come back?”

  Sherri’s expression turned empathetic. “I’m afraid he’s not coming back.”

  “Not coming back?” she repeated dumbly, her heart thundering, her mind refusing to process what Sherri meant. “Did something happen to him?”

  “No, nothing like that. He just changed his mind, I guess. Sam didn’t really say. Maybe Tommy had been asking for him.”

  Kara’s racing heart slowed. He was okay. He was okay. So why did she feel as if she’d just lost her best friend?

  “I’m sorry.”

  Yeah, so was she. She numbly accepted the coffee mug that Sherri pressed into her hand. It had to be the kiss that had spooked him. He’d meant it to be something sweet, but when his lips touched hers, they’d ignited such a yearning for more she hadn’t wanted to stop. He’d probably got scared she’d read more into the kiss than he’d intended. And who wouldn’t worry?

  She was a hunted woman.

  Never mind that he still had his wife’s picture
pinned to his dash—a constant reminder of the irreplaceable love he’d lost.

  She took a gulp of coffee, welcoming the bitter taste.

  “You all right?” Sherri slid into the seat beside her and passed the platter of bacon and eggs.

  “Just nervous about moving on.” She declined the offered food. “I don’t think I’m up to a big breakfast.”

  Sam clomped in, shaking fresh snow from his hair. “Your marshal’s here, Kara, and you’re going to need to get going quickly. It’s started to snow. The roads could soon be slick.”

  Kara eyed the tall stranger who’d scrutinized her from the instant he stepped inside behind Sam. “Where are you taking me?”

  The man’s gaze flicked to Sherri and back to her. “The airport.”

  She nodded, supposing she wouldn’t get any more details until they were alone.

  “Kara—” Sam motioned to the man “—this is Deputy Marshal Lewis Monson.” Sam held her gaze. “You can trust him.”

  She ducked her head and swallowed. It had taken more than a day to give Jake her trust, and he’d saved her life. Twice.

  Sam grabbed the newly “aerated” coat his mom had given her and held it out for her to slide her arms into, a move that even with his help roused the ache in her back.

  Rusty leaned against her leg and nuzzled her hand.

  She dropped to a crouch and gave him a big hug. Her heart rammed into her ribs as she whispered in his ear, “Give Jake and Tommy a big sloppy kiss for me, okay?”

  When she stood back up, Sherri gave her a gentle hug, gingerly avoiding her bruises. “Take care, Kara. Keep in touch when you can.”

  Sam’s lips pressed into a sad frown at Sherri’s comment. When Sherri stepped back, Sam, too, pulled her into a hug. “Jake’s sorry he couldn’t come back to see you off,” he whispered. “He was afraid someone was tailing him last night and didn’t want the guy to track him to you.”