Dangerous Reunion

by Marilyn Pappano

  She reached across to pat his thigh. “That was so sweet of you.”

  She half expected a sly comment from him: It was for his protection. I’ve seen you sleep deprived before. But nothing like that came. He just gave her a look that focused on her face. She’d thought no one would notice the lines on her forehead, the strain etched everywhere, or the circles under her eyes. Yeah, right. She’d earned every bit of that strain.

  At the police station, the gusting wind hurried them across the parking lot. Inside, Ben directed her to the conference room down the hall on the right.

  Sam greeted them and indicated a chair at the far end of the room, one scooted up to a battered desk that left her as isolated from the group as the room allowed. He offered coffee and doughnuts, and she took one of each. Ben offered his laptop in case she got bored, and she took that, too.

  Soon after the meeting started, she realized once again that the world didn’t revolve around her. The detectives and the uniformed officers who came and went were discussing all their cases, not just hers. Everyone was sharing information and offering feedback, and though at any other time, she would have found it interesting, this morning she tuned out their voices and returned to the satellite images she’d been looking at the night before.

  She admired technology, bowed at the great computer wizard’s feet, but there was something creepy about being able to sit anywhere in the world and call up a photograph of practically any other place in the world. To see the house where Lloyd Wind currently lived in detail, all the way down to the faded colors of the wooden chairs on the front porch. To have never gone within miles of the place and yet know how long and narrow the driveway was, or that another structure had once stood near the house but was gone now except for the foundation. Or that a faint trail started on the house side of the structure, picked up on the other side and disappeared into the trees to the rear.

  To imagine that somewhere else, someone else could be doing the same with her house. It raised goose bumps on her arms.

  Behind her, the officers were laughing, snatches of words registering in her brain: tenth time this month...her pet pig...in his bed... They must be talking about the Greens, she thought with a wistful sigh. They were the only couple she knew of with a penchant for escalating arguments and a pet pig. Not a cute, cuddly thing, either, but a porker that outweighed the two of them together.

  Sighing, she refocused. If she’d kidnapped two people, where would she keep them? Not at her house, not where someone could hear their thumping and struggling to escape.

  Gazing at the pastures and woods on the screen, she amended her answer: unless the house was in the country and the nearest neighbors were bovine or equine and couldn’t care less about the noise. Ben and Daniel had gone to Wind’s house, and they hadn’t picked up any odd vibes, but they hadn’t gone inside. They hadn’t looked around. They’d seen what was right there in front of the house, and nothing else.

  The homestead seemed good-sized to her—about a quarter section, or 150 acres—with some woods and mostly pasture, but the house itself was small, one story and not much bigger than her own. There was probably a living room, a kitchen/dining room and a bedroom, and that bump-out on the north side was probably the addition of a bathroom decades ago.

  Since the pasture hadn’t been reclaimed by the wild, she assumed it was in use, if not by the family, then leased to someone else. There was no sign of a barn, sheds or the equipment she associated with livestock in her slight experience. But the Winds had once run cattle themselves. Maybe that foundation marked where a barn had stood. Maybe a tornado had blown it away. Maybe she was grasping at straws. Maybe—

  She was following the fence line the best she could through the trees when an indistinct shadow appeared on the screen. When she zoomed in, the pixels blurred, then slowly reformed into a building of some sort, as ancient as the house and far less cared for. Honeysuckle vined over and into it, in bloom when the image was taken, and left little of the actual structure to see: gray boards, empty rectangles where windows or doors had once been, more holes than roof.

  Her nerves tingled, her muscles tightening, as she stared at the screen. Where would she keep the people she’d kidnapped if she had an old barn on the back forty that no one had remembered in years?

  She glanced over her shoulder at Ben and the others. She could show him, and he would tell her to stay put while they got a court order to search the property. That would mean Sam calling the sheriff, bringing him up to speed on the case and persuading him to apply for a search warrant. The sheriff would have to go before a judge, and maybe the judge would grant it right away, maybe not. In a small city like Cedar Creek, it depended on the luck of the draw. And in the meantime...

  Filling her lungs, she closed the laptop, stood and walked to Ben, bending to murmur, “I’m going to find the bathroom, then a Coke.”

  He nodded, giving her hand a pat, right there in front of Sam and everybody.

  Aw, why did he have to do something so sweet when she was sneaking out to do something really dumb?

  Chapter 11

  Ben watched Yashi leave, then continued to gaze out the door, something niggling at him. It wasn’t until he caught up with the conversation that it registered: she’d turned left into the hallway. She’d been in the police station enough times to know that the bathroom was to the right.

  Maybe she intended to get the pop first.

  And take it into the bathroom with her?

  She could be stretching her legs. Gone to say hello to any of the employees she’d once known. But the knot forming in his gut wasn’t buying those options.

  He looked at the laptop, out the door again, then shoved his chair back. When he opened the lid, it took an instant for the website she’d been browsing to pop up, and it took an another instant and zooming out on the image for him to identify it. “Son of a—!”

  Interrupted midsentence, Sam looked up. “Do we have a problem, Detective?”

  “All this time, cooperating a hundred percent, and she picks today to go off the rails?” Dimly aware of Daniel rising, Ben spun on his heel and strode from the room, leaving his partner to explain. As soon as he turned into the hall, his pace increased to a jog.

  The lobby was empty, and there was no sign of Yashi in the squad room. Should he check the ladies’ room? If she was truly there, would he feel like a fool for overreacting?

  He’d taken only a few steps behind the counter when Morwenna came out of the dispatchers’ shack, a disgruntled look on her face. “I can’t believe this,” she said, her usual melodramatic flair ramped up. “I know I left my keys right there on my purse. They have a bright green clip on them, and they were hanging from that ring. I always hang them there. Ben, you know that.”

  She pointed to the leather bag sitting on a table outside the dispatch door. It was as big as a duffel, dark brown with braid and fringe and a large metal ring that he definitely knew usually held her keys.

  “Have you seen Yashi?”

  “Uh, yeah. A couple minutes ago. She stuck her head in the door, said hello and went...” Morwenna waved one hand to indicate anywhere. “Hey, you don’t think—She wouldn’t take—Why would she take my—”

  Ben didn’t hear the last words. He was already halfway to the entrance, his heart thudding, anger rushing like gale-force winds in his ears. He hit the heavy door hard enough to swing it to its outward limit, leaped down the steps and sprinted along the sidewalk to the parking lot most department employees used.

  His gaze scanned the lot as he ran, bypassing his own truck, narrowing his gaze against the wind. Morwenna’s bright red Mustang stood out the way it should, and standing next to it was Yashi. Relief hit him hard, taking his breath and making his knees go limp, but outrage at the chance she was taking stiffened them right back up again.

  He stalked across the lot, feeling the instant her gaze skimmed o
ver him. She went still, prey caught by her predator, and her face drained of color, then flushed guilt red. She held out one hand to stop him, Morwenna’s keys dangling by the green hook, but he didn’t slow. He walked right up to her, violating any personal space she might ever have, and yanked her against him.

  Pressing his cheek against her hair, he blew out a breath and let his eyes close. He didn’t know what she was thinking—didn’t know if she was thinking beyond helping Will and Lolly—but he was seeing all the ways her plan could have gone south.

  Truthfully, he was seeing only one thing: her under Lloyd Wind’s control. Tied up, beaten, starved and mistreated. Dead, right alongside Will and Lolly.

  Because Wind wasn’t inviting her over for a chat. His fixation on her wasn’t sexual. He wanted revenge. To cause her pain. He had no intention of going back to prison, so he had no choice but to kill her and the others when he was done.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, sounding strangled from the tightness of his hold.

  He moved her arm’s length away. “I’d ask if you’re stupid, but I know you aren’t, so are you freaking insane?”

  “I’m not sure. Maybe.” She hugged herself. “I was looking at the satellite image of Lloyd Wind’s property. I started last night when you were on the phone, but then you came to bed, and we...uh, well, anyway. Did you know there’s a barn or something at the back edge of the property? It looks about a hundred years old, like only the honeysuckle is holding it up.”

  Ben stared at her, something vague tickling his memories. The Little Bear/Wind friendship had been between the mothers and the grandmothers, not the kids. But when they went visiting anywhere and there was a kid in the family, the video games stayed home and they played. Their mothers wouldn’t have had it any other way. Ben and Emily had spent a lot of afternoons trailing after Lloyd, shooting BB guns, throwing rocks, climbing trees.

  There had been some structure—a house, he thought. The first Wind to own that property hadn’t wanted neighbors, and he’d claimed the entire section then, so he’d built his house right in the middle of it. Later generations had preferred proximity to the road. They’d also tired of being land rich and cash poor, and they’d sold off most of the original spread.

  He leveled his gaze on Yashi. “And you thought that would be a good place to hide any kidnap victims he might have hanging around, so you were going to ignore all of us cops in the room and go see for yourself. And to do that, you were going to steal Morwenna’s car.” He pulled the keys from her unresisting grip.

  While he spoke, Yashi’s face got progressively pinker, and she flinched when he said steal. “I—I... Yes. You’d have to get the sheriff, get a warrant, make sure no evidence gets thrown out. All I have to worry about is being charged with trespassing, and I know a really cheap lawyer who could get me out of that. If Will and Lolly aren’t there, and I don’t get caught, even that’s not a problem.”

  Ben massaged the ache pounding in his temple. The man had told her I want you to suffer in a menacing enough tone to give four experienced cops the creeps, and she was talking about trespassing. “Whatever else you are, you’ve never been cheap,” he muttered.

  Her small smile came and went. “Ben, if Wind finds out the sheriff’s asking for a warrant, he could kill Lolly and Will and disappear. He could dump them someplace and leave them to die. And you know he could find out. He’s got almost as many ties to this town as you do.”

  He did know. Too many people couldn’t keep a juicy bit of news to themselves even if it did mean risking their jobs. Blood ties ran thick here.

  The sound of boots on pavement alerted them both to Daniel’s approach, jogging the shortest route to reach them. “Sam’s trying to get the sheriff on the phone. This new guy, though...” He shrugged.

  That was the go-to reaction of everyone in the police department about the current sheriff. He’d come from out of town with only a few years’ law enforcement experience and somehow got himself appointed to complete the remaining term when the previous sheriff died. What he had going for him: good looks and money. What he didn’t have besides experience: common sense, logic, management skills or the ability to play well with others.

  Ben abruptly reached a decision. He held out the keys. “Give these to Morwenna, would you? In about fifteen minutes, tell Sam we’re headed out to search an old barn on Wind’s property.”

  Daniel dropped the keys into his pocket. “I’ll call him when we get there.”

  Yashi blinked a couple times before touching Daniel’s arm. “I appreciate that, but you don’t need the problems this could cause.”

  “Do we ever need the problems we get?” Daniel smiled ruefully. “Let’s go before Sam comes looking for us himself.”

  “After telling us we can’t do it, he’d probably go with us.” Ben clasped Yashi’s hand tightly on the walk to his truck. When she started to climb into the back seat, he stopped her, held her close again and murmured something she’d told him hundreds of times.

  “Stay safe.”

  * * *

  Was she insane?

  Quite possibly, Yashi admitted as she crawled through the second barbed-wire fence. Straightening, she looked over her shoulder and saw nothing but trees. Somewhere back there was an old trail on the property just east of Wind’s, and parked right in the middle of it was Ben’s truck. Ben knew the owner of the land, a relative of an employee at the café, and the elderly man had granted them permission to go anywhere they wanted out there. He’d directed them to the trail, once used to check and repair the fence, now mostly relegated to his great-grandkids’ four-wheelers, and he’d sworn to keep quiet, even making an old-fashioned X over his heart with a stubby finger.

  Though her pistol was holstered on her waistband, her cell was in her right pocket and Ben’s folding knife in the left, she was scared. She was shaky and fighting for every breath, waiting for the surge of adrenaline that was supposed to stop her whimpering. “Courage is resistance to fear,” she quoted Mark Twain in a whisper, “not the absence of it.” Who’d ever guessed she was courageous?

  Still, every step that took her farther from Ben required faith and stubbornness in measures beyond what she’d thought she possessed.

  It was miserably hot, the wind still sweeping down those plains, battering tiny bits of dirt and spores into her eyes. The only good thing was that it dried her sweat as soon as it formed. Otherwise, between heat and sheer terror, she would be a walking drop of water.

  Their plan was simple: she would find the old Wind house and search it. If Will and Lolly were there—please, God—she would call Ben, and he and Daniel would ride to the rescue. With regards to being outside their jurisdiction and having no warrant, they would plead exigent circumstances, that they’d been in the area when they received information that two hostages were being held inside the house, requiring entry without delay. Wind’s lawyers would surely argue it was subterfuge, the detectives using a civilian not bound by their restraints to trespass onto the property on a fishing expedition.

  As an ADA who would have had to counter those arguments, Yashi would have hated this plan. As Will’s cousin, she embraced it. And hated it. And prayed for Will and Lolly’s sake, as well their kids’, that it would work.

  The second fence had been the boundary of Wind’s land. As soon as she set one foot through the strands of wire, she’d been trespassing. She made her way carefully through a patch of weeds that waved their silky tassels above her head, trying not to think about all the biting things she could run into out here. So of course, she fixated on chiggers, ticks, snakes. Skunks and possums, raccoons, roadrunners, coyotes, feral dogs and cats, mosquitoes, wasps, bees...

  Stop it! You’re doing this for Will and Lolly, remember? You’d walk through hell for them, and this is far from hell.

  Clearing the grass, she leaned against the trunk of a scrubby oak, fitting herself into its minim
al shade, and tried to get her bearings. Ben had done his best to drop her off due east of the house, but walking in a straight line out here was impossible. She stared back at the fence and the rusty posts she’d crawled between, adjusted her direction to the right and pushed on.

  After slipping while climbing over a downed tree, she sat on the trunk and examined the scrape on her shin. It was bloody but fine. The tree had been the victim of a lightning strike; its stump was sprouting new life across a narrow clearing. Life kept trying. No matter what the universe threw at it, those tiny, living cells kept coming back, growing, getting stronger.

  Like Yashi and Ben.

  Smiling, she drew a deep breath and walked away from the tree. When she reached the clearing, she glanced down at her scraped leg again but noticed something else instead: a depression in the growth. Most of the grass stood straight, but a distinct portion of it was flattened, with a similar section a few feet away. Tire tracks. Someone had driven out here.

  Her gut clenched. It could have been the neighbor’s great-grandkids on their ATVs, having found a way through the fences. But the wheelbase seemed too broad for a four-wheeler, and surely it required more weight than teenage boys and quad bikes could supply to leave those tracks.

  She walked a few steps along the trail before breaking into a run. All she could hear was the pounding of her heart; all she could feel was the short, harsh gasps of her breathing. Sweat ran down, tickling her scalp, dribbling between her breasts, stinging the raw skin on her leg. After fifty feet, she wanted to stop but couldn’t. After 150, she needed to stop but didn’t until she just couldn’t go on. Hurting, burning, throbbing, she stumbled, barely catching herself from pitching forward to her knees. She dragged in a desperate breath, raised her arm to soak up the sweat on her face, and her world jerked to a halt.

  There was the house, truly more vegetation than building materials now. It leaned precariously to one side, but the red cedars that had sprung up over the years kept it from falling any farther. Honeysuckle added its own support, the vines covering much of the building.