Lullaby for the Nameless (Nolan, Hart & Tain Thrillers)

by Ruttan, Sandra

  There were faint prints on the beech tile, obviously smudged by her movements when she entered. A glance at her socks confirmed her suspicions.

  All the tired muscles were at attention then, and she felt the tension coursing through her veins as she reached for her gun. Whoever it was had entered like a pro. She hadn’t noticed anything when she’d unlocked the door.

  The thudding of her heart echoed in her ears as she moved forward, to the hallway.

  Thu-thump thu-thump thu-thump. The speed increased as she tilted her head, first enough to see into the bedroom, then so that she could see the opening to the bathroom. The stairs were on the opposite side of the wall she was against, and she felt fear give way to doubt.

  It was a short walk along a path through a wooded area to the small house where Tain was staying. Woods that could conceal. She thought about the loft of her own cabin. Weren’t there two windows on the back side that overlooked the path?

  And the time it would take to get in the car and start it would leave her vulnerable. She’d be a sitting duck.

  The fact that nobody had tried to shoot her already was the counterargument, but if someone was lying in wait they were probably hoping to flee undetected, that like Mrs. Wilson’s remains, Ashlyn’s body would have enough time to grow cold before someone even discovered it. Shooting her in the car or in the woods would be a last resort, but if they realized she suspected their presence they’d probably take the chance.

  She wondered if she’d be thinking about someone trying to kill her if she didn’t know about the bullet in her dashboard, and thought of the gash on her arm.

  She thought of the sound of Nolan’s Rodeo pulling up only moments before. It took only a split second for her to make up her mind and she eased herself back from the wall, moving carefully toward the door while keeping her eyes on the corner ahead of her.

  When she felt the door behind her Ashlyn reached back with her left hand, grabbed the knob and twisted it. She moved forward as she pulled the door open and kept her eyes on the hallway, ears straining to hear any sound of movement from within the cabin, gun ready in her right hand.

  She bent down and grabbed the shoes, twisted her left foot around the door and pushed it open a little wider, and backed out onto the step.

  Damn. Her cell phone had been in her coat pocket.

  A glance at his cabin revealed the trickle of smoke rising from the chimney, the faint shadow against the curtains of the living room. When she’d found out where he was staying, she’d been glad of the extra distance, but now she silently cursed the fact that she’d been given a cabin across from him, instead of beside him.

  Ashlyn slipped her shoes on and started backing down the steps as she scanned the windows of the cabin. There was no sign of movement, no evidence of disruption, no indication someone had even been inside.

  She saw nothing out of the ordinary, but that wasn’t reassuring.

  The gravel crunched softly under her feet as she backed away from her cabin, her eyes turning from side to side, scanning the trees between the little cabins. She was in the open, exposed.

  When she reached the driveway she paused. The door to her place was in the front, but the door to Nolan’s was around the side. If she went to the door she’d break visual contact with her cabin, and that meant that if someone was inside they’d have a chance to leave without being seen.

  Ashlyn winced as her foot hit an exposed tree root and risked a glance at the ground so that she could try to avoid tripping again. Step by step she inched closer to the building until she could reach up and rap on the living room window with her fist.

  After she counted to five, she reached up to knock again, but the curtain pulled back from the edge and she felt her breath catch as she saw Nolan’s face. As soon as he saw her he glanced at her cabin.

  As though he knew.

  He held up his hand. The curtain shut out the light from inside again, and she took a deep breath and exhaled.

  As she drew a second deep breath, she could hear movement from the side of his cabin, the door closing, footsteps, the crunch of gravel as he followed the driveway.

  “You okay?” Nolan asked. He had his gun in his hand, but his arm wasn’t raised.

  She nodded. “Someone’s been in my place.”

  Nolan paused. “You’re sure?”

  “Shoeprints on my landing.”

  “Did you call the station?”

  “My cell phone is inside.”

  He started walking toward her cabin and she followed.

  “No sign of forced entry,” he said as he walked up the steps and surveyed the door.

  “I never noticed anything until I’d already gone in.”

  He pushed the door open, and she pointed to the spot on the floor where she’d seen the prints as she kept her eyes on the hallway in front of them. Nolan bent down and looked at the floor. When he stood and entered, he kept to the far side so he wouldn’t smudge the prints any more than she already had.

  Near the landing was a mirror with a ledge and a few small hooks for hanging keys. Nolan eased it off the wall.

  From the corner at the far end of the hall, where Ashlyn had entered the kitchen earlier, it was possible to see almost all of the main living area. It didn’t take more than a look the length of two heartbeats before Nolan nodded to her.

  She was following and had eased the door closed behind them.

  Nolan inched his way along the wall that bordered the stairs, unknowingly retracing her steps from earlier. He reached out with the mirror in one hand and tilted it toward the stairs.

  A nod was the only confirmation she got that the stairs were clear.

  Checking the rest of the bedroom and bathroom felt like a formality. The bed lacked a spread that reached to the floor, so with the use of the mirror Nolan could see underneath easily, and the closet was on the far side of the room, with the door open. Ashlyn hadn’t fully unpacked, so it took no more than a quick glance to see that all the space contained was a handful of clothes and a couple of unpacked suitcases stacked on the floor.

  The shower curtain was drawn back fully and the design of the bathroom meant there was no place for anyone to hide.

  Nolan nodded toward the stairs. He tilted his head back to scan the area above them as he climbed one step at a time toward the second level. She followed, easing herself up the stairs slowly, gun ready, ears straining for the tiniest sound. But the only thing that threatened to break the silence was their movements.

  When Nolan reached the turn in the stairs he held out the mirror. Ashlyn finished climbing the first section of the staircase with her gaze fixed at the railing on the upper level.

  If anyone was up there, that’s where they’d appear.

  Nolan turned the corner and she followed. He was about halfway up the stairs when he lay down against them instead of climbing the rest of the way to the second floor.

  Ashlyn followed his head. From that position they could see out over the top of the landing, through the doorway to the room. It was a long, narrow attic loft. The space to the left and right of the top of the stairs was storage, filled with shelves built into the walls.

  There was only a few feet of floor space on either side of the stairway to hide.

  Nolan held up three fingers, put one down, and then only one finger remained. When he lowered it they both jumped up the stairs and he swung to the left while she swung to the right.

  The landing was clear.

  They positioned themselves beside the door. Nolan reached out with the mirror again, first tilting it to the far side of the room, then turning it slowly back toward himself. He looked at her as he set the mirror down on the floor behind his feet and nodded.

  He entered the room first and she followed, scanning from the wall on her left all the way to the wall on her right. This room had no closet, which meant the only place left was under the bed. Nolan approached it and she bent down as he pulled up the bed skirt.

  “Clear,”
she said.

  For a split second her eyes closed as she drew a deep breath.

  When she opened her eyes, she saw Nolan holster his gun. He led the way down the stairs in silence, but as soon as they reached the landing at the bottom of the stairs, he turned to her.

  “I think you should call Sullivan.”

  She holstered her gun. “I was wrong. I overreacted. Is that what you want to hear?”

  He walked through the living area, scrutinizing it more closely than he had when they’d been clearing rooms. She watched him scan the end tables and the bookshelves and the small dining table between the oversized chair and the kitchen.

  “You’re a good cop, Ashlyn.”

  He brushed past her, into her bedroom. She was on the verge of asking what the hell he was doing when he turned to her.

  “What’s this?”

  He gestured at the small nightstand beside the bed.

  Ashlyn at the beach with her arms wrapped around a smiling two-year-old who looked just like her, give or take twenty-plus years.

  “My niece,” she said. “The photo sits on my nightstand, but it’s been knocked over. I didn’t leave it like that.”

  “Do you have a plastic bag it can fit in?”

  She left the room and went to the kitchen to find one and when she returned passed it to him.

  “We’ll see if we can get a print off it.” Nolan bagged it, then looked at her. “Did you see anything else that looked like it had been moved?”

  Ashlyn finished scanning the room and shook her head.

  “Pack a bag,” Nolan said.

  “But—”

  He reached out and touched her arm, the same way Tain had only days before. “I’m not taking no for an answer. If you won’t call Sullivan you can’t stay here.”

  Nolan walked out of the room without another word. Although there were still doubts in her mind about him, one thing she was certain of was that he wouldn’t give in on this. Silently cursing the fact that she hadn’t tried to reach Tain instead, she turned toward the closet and grabbed a small bag.

  From the corner of his eye, Craig could see Ashlyn’s head in her hands, her elbow propped against the arm of the couch. He could guess at the debate raging in her mind, part of her convinced she’d overreacted, still looking for some logical explanation for the prints and the picture.

  Another part scared and a different part altogether furious that she’d been put in a position where she’d had to reach out for help.

  No matter how much training an officer had, cops, especially female cops, felt the pressure to act like they could handle things on their own. How could a woman who chased down drug dealers or armed robbers on the streets, who stood over dead bodies in Dumpsters, be afraid of a bump in the night, the creak of the stairs, the sound of a strong wind thudding against the wall? No, a cop should be tough. Fearless.

  Invincible.

  It was a fallacy Craig knew only too well, but he carried his own fears deep inside, nothing on the job scaring him like the rage he knew burned within. Too many years spent pulling himself through the darkness. What scared him was the thought of losing sight of what he’d gained while the bitterness over what he’d been denied overtook him.

  What he feared more than anything was losing control.

  “You can have the downstairs bedroom. It has its own bathroom, and I sleep upstairs,” he said. “Pasta? Salad? Anything you don’t like?”

  She shook her head. “Can I take a shower?” she asked. Not really asking permission, since he’d already suggested it when they’d arrived.

  He nodded and within seconds she’d taken her bag into the downstairs bedroom. As he walked back to the kitchen he heard the click of the door.

  The evening’s events turned over in his mind as he went through the motions of cooking strips of chicken, boiling the pasta, grating cheese and mixing a sauce. He took the time to bake buns as he chopped fresh vegetables and finished the salad.

  Once he’d finished with the food, he took out plates and cups, trying to keep his hands busy. From behind the closed bedroom door the faint sound of running water had stopped, but Ashlyn hadn’t emerged yet, and he didn’t want her to think he was keeping an eye on her.

  He glanced at the clock, determined to wait fifteen minutes before he knocked to tell her dinner was ready.

  Ashlyn’s car had been gone most of the day. He’d finally driven through town, past the station, and down some of the back roads, but he hadn’t seen her car anywhere.

  Now that he thought about it, he hadn’t seen Tain’s truck either.

  There was no doubt that someone had broken into her place. At least, none in his mind. Whoever it was, they were good. Very good. Two small slips that most other people wouldn’t even have noticed, or could have been easily persuaded to dismiss. The mind could rationalize a single item out of place without much prodding. After all, how many times did a person ask themselves if they’d remembered to turn off the oven, or turn down the heat, or unplug a space heater when they left the house?

  Even a strong mind was susceptible to the power of suggestion. He’d seen the conflict in Ashlyn’s eyes as she’d walked into his cottage, felt it in her prolonged silence as she’d sat on the couch. She could have persuaded herself she must have picked up the picture in the morning and set it down in a hurry, and she could even persuade herself she’d been thinking about other things, so distracted that she’d reentered the house that morning and left the footprints herself.

  He trusted her instincts. Ashlyn had backed out of her house, gun in hand, and come to him for help. She’d had plenty of time along the way to talk herself out of it. If she hadn’t been certain, she would have stopped herself before knocking on his window.

  Craig glanced at the clock again. Ten minutes had passed. He sat down and waited.

  No matter how hard she tried to find an alternate explanation, Ashlyn kept coming back to the same conclusion. The problem was, she had no idea who would have been in her house. Was it the same person who’d put a bullet in her dashboard only days before?

  Maybe she’d been wrong. Maybe the bullet had been meant for her.

  Why hadn’t anyone told her about the 911 call? She thought about Getz and Keith outside her room when she’d left the hospital.

  There to ensure her safety, while nobody told her they thought she was in danger.

  Whoever had been in the house hadn’t done anything, other than take away her peace of mind. Robbed of her sense of security, she’d been forced to turn to Nolan for help.

  Nolan. Ashlyn hung the towel on the bar in the bathroom and stepped into the bedroom. Here she was, in his cabin, trembling like a tattered leaf on a chilly autumn day, ready to fall with the first strong breeze. She felt a mix of self-reproach and grateful appreciation at Nolan’s insistence that she stay with him. The more she admitted to herself that she was glad he’d refused to take no for an answer, the more she loathed her own fears and weaknesses.

  She pulled on her pajama pants, zipped up a sweater over the tank top she was wearing, tucked her chinlength hair back behind her ears and opened the bedroom door.

  As she walked into the living area, she pledged to stop beating herself up. A quick glance showed that Nolan had the table set and was heading back into the kitchen to get the food.

  That was when she realized whatever she smelled, it smelled good. Her tummy rumbled as he turned toward her, bowl in hand. “Coffee, tea, milk, juice?”

  “Tea would be great, thanks.”

  Nolan walked over to the table and set the bowl down. “It’ll take a minute. I need to boil some water.

  The phone on the small table at the closest end of the couch rang.

  “Can you grab that?” Nolan asked as he reached up into a cupboard.

  She answered. Her greeting was followed by a split-second hesitation before the caller asked, “Is this Craig Nolan’s residence?”

  The voice was familiar. “Yes.” What was he doing calling he
re? “I didn’t expect it to be you.”

  “And I didn’t expect you to be answering Craig’s phone.” Steve Daly paused. “Have you fully recovered?”

  For a few seconds she felt dizzy from the blur of things running through her mind. Her heart had only returned to its normal rhythm partway through her shower, but her hand had shaken just a touch when she’d answered the phone.

  Then she realized he didn’t know about the breakin. He was asking about the car accident.

  “Back to normal.”

  “The other day, it didn’t sound like you and Craig had exactly hit it off.”

  She looked up into Craig’s face as he stopped by the table. He was watching her, as though it had only now occurred to him that she was still talking to whoever was on the phone.

  He’d probably assumed it was someone they worked with, someone from the task force.

  “I’ll get Nolan for you,” she said. She passed the phone to her partner and watched him walk up the stairs.

  “What the hell is going on, Craig?”

  “Dad…”

  “Is Ash okay?”

  “How do you know her?” Craig asked. He heard his father sigh.

  “I mentored her.”

  “So the other day…” Craig thought back to the conversation Ashlyn had been having at the hospital when he went to pick her up. “That was you on the phone?”

  “She called after the accident. Craig, what’s going on?”

  “Someone broke into her place.”

  “But she’s okay?”

  “She wasn’t home.”

  “That’s not exactly an answer.”

  “She’s rattled, but who wouldn’t be?”

  “You don’t have to get defensive with me, Craig. I know Ashlyn’s a good cop, and I trust her. She’s got nothing to prove to me.”

  “This wasn’t random. There was no sign of forced entry, and if it had been anyone else, I’m not even sure they would have noticed someone had broken in.”