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

by Ruttan, Sandra

  “So you felt he owed you, and you were mad that he was leaving you behind.”

  “Something like that.”

  “Why’d he lie to your sergeant?”

  “I was following up on this tip I got when I hit the deer. Nolan was…”—she paused, unsure of whether to mention her doubts about what Nolan was really doing—“…tracking me down. He found me after I hit the deer.”

  “And he had to come up with an explanation about why you were in separate vehicles when Sullivan had ordered you to go together.”

  Ashlyn rubbed her forehead. “When you put it that way, I sound worse.”

  “Yes, you do.”

  She squeezed her eyes shut as she groaned. “This is a mess.”

  “Look, Ashlyn, I can’t say much about the rest of your team.” He paused. “But I’m glad you’re partnered with Nolan.”

  “There’s some stuff I haven’t told you.”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  Her eyes opened. “You know him.”

  There was a tiny hesitation. “Yes.”

  “How well do you know him?”

  “I trust him, Ashlyn. I trust him to watch your back.”

  Ashlyn was silent. She opened her mouth, then thought about what Steve was saying. He was a fair person, and he believed in second chances. Trusting someone, and not just to do the job but to look after an officer you’d mentored, wasn’t a small thing.

  “Look, I know it’s probably been harder than you’ve let on. You’ve just got to trust yourself, Ashlyn. If you don’t trust yourself to do the job, how can you expect them to trust you on the street?”

  She looked up as the door opened. “My partner’s here,” she said. “I have to get back to the office.”

  “Okay. Take care of yourself.”

  “Thank you, Sergeant.”

  She would have sworn she could hear Steve smiling at her words as he said good-bye. Knowing she was trying to make it sound like she’d been on an important call.

  Making it sound like she had connections to people who outranked her partner.

  Nolan stopped right inside the door. “You aren’t dressed.”

  “I couldn’t find my clothes.”

  “I figured if we left them in sight, you’d be out of here at the crack of dawn. They’re under the bed.”

  Ashlyn felt her cheeks burn as she got up and bent over. Everything had been folded into a neat pile and set in a plastic bag, except her jacket and shirt. There was another bag with a T-shirt and a sweater inside, tags attached. She grabbed it and straightened.

  Nolan had turned to face the door. When she returned from the bathroom she said, “It’s okay. I’m decent.” As he turned she added, “Or at least as decent as I can be in this thing.”

  She held out her arms and winced. The sweater someone had purchased was about three sizes too big.

  “They had to, uh, cut your coat and shirt. I didn’t know your size.”

  Ashlyn thought back to the night before, the feeling of a line of fire being drawn across her arm. There was a bandage, so she guessed it had been cut, but nobody had said anything about stitches. About the need for surgery.

  Nolan turned and opened the door and she grabbed her wallet, watch and cell phone off the nightstand and walked to the door.

  For a second she wasn’t sure if she should let him hold it for her, then decided not to argue. Nolan stepped into the hallway after her, but when she continued down the hall she realized he wasn’t behind her. He’d turned the other way.

  She could make out the sound of words, but they were muffled by the footsteps and rumble of cart wheels as orderlies brought food to some of the rooms. Ashlyn tried to filter out the sounds as she turned and focused on Nolan’s back.

  Beyond him, she could see enough to recognize Constable Getz and one of the uniformed officers she had only a little bit of contact with when she was searching for files, Getz’s partner, Melissa Keith. Another recent transfer, Keith was a platinum blonde who looked to be about the same age as Ashlyn. Something about the way the woman stood, her expression as she responded to Nolan, and the look Getz gave her told Ashlyn that Keith was in charge.

  Not wholly surprising, as Getz had deferred to Nolan without question at the scene in the woods.

  She thought about what Steve had said, that if she didn’t trust herself the team would pick up on it, and they wouldn’t be able to trust her. Somewhere between being manhandled by Tain and being ditched by Nolan she’d let them get to her, and she’d lost sight of her strengths, and nobody she didn’t know already was going to express a confidence in her that she didn’t have herself.

  Worse than that, nobody would risk their life working with someone who lacked confidence but felt they had something to prove.

  Nolan was walking back toward her with a bag in his hand when he looked up and saw her watching him. She looked past him, to the backs of the officers retreating down the hall. “Has something happened?”

  “What makes you think that?”

  She straightened up to her full height. “Why were there two uniformed officers outside my hospital room?”

  Nolan paused. “I was just passing on a message from Sergeant Sullivan. Here.” He passed her the new bag. “Sullivan sent you a jacket.” Nolan walked down the hall at a brisk pace, forcing her to keep up with him. “I’m surprised he didn’t mention it when you were on the phone.”

  “I wasn’t talking to Sullivan,” Ashlyn said. She dropped her wallet and keys and phone into the bag and pulled out the jacket, cringing as she slipped her arms into it.

  She looked down. Big enough to conceal the sweater.

  Nolan slowed as he turned to look at her. “Is there another sergeant involved with this team that I don’t know about?”

  She felt her chin stick out as she stared straight ahead and kept walking. Nolan grabbed her arm and she stopped and turned and looked at his hand. He let go and held it up apologetically.

  “My phone call is none of your business.” Ashlyn turned on her heel and started walking again.

  “The hell it isn’t. If you know something about this case, I expect you to tell me.”

  “You aren’t my boss, Nolan. Just because you have control issues doesn’t mean I have to run when you snap your fingers. I’m not your servant.”

  “You’re my partner.”

  “A fact that’s finally convenient for you.” Ashlyn pushed the door open and walked outside. She realized she had no idea where she was going, so she turned to face him. “You’ve been shutting me out since day one. You want me to treat you like a partner, fine. You first.”

  Nolan stared at her for a moment, then nodded toward the parking lot. “This way.”

  They walked to his Rodeo in silence. It wasn’t until she recognized the turn for the station and he drove past it that she spoke.

  “Where are we going?”

  “Mrs. Wilson’s.”

  The exchange with Nolan and Sullivan in her hospital room was still blurred around the edges, but she remembered most of it. “I figured you’d go out there last night.”

  “I told Sullivan I’d like to wait so you could go with me, if possible.” He flipped the signal light on and slowed as he approached the intersection, then turned left. “That was before you regained consciousness.”

  They drifted back to silence. Nolan’s attitude, his willingness to play nice when he wanted something, his presence at the Johnson property, his lie to Sergeant Sullivan…All of it collided with Steve’s words on the phone.

  Nolan was finally taking her out on the street, but it occurred to her that the move came after she’d gone off on her own. You keep your friends close and your enemies closer.

  She realized she’d wanted to trust Nolan from the beginning. She wanted to trust someone, and Tain wasn’t easy to warm up to. He was a sexist jerk in public and a thousand miles removed in private. Steve had given her an excuse to make the leap with Nolan, but it had come after there were enough fa
ctors in play to muddy the waters.

  When they got to Mrs. Wilson’s property, Nolan reached in front of her and opened the glove compartment. “Your gun. I didn’t want to risk leaving it in the hospital. Sullivan told me to lock it up back at the station…” He let the words hang as she took the holster wordlessly.

  Should she feel better or worse about the fact that he’d ignored an order but wanted her to be armed before going to talk to a potential witness?

  She reached for the door handle, then stopped. Nolan was already out of the vehicle but hadn’t closed the door.

  “Ashlyn?”

  She lifted her head and looked at him. “Was Tain out here yesterday?”

  Nolan frowned. “No. At least, not that I saw.”

  Ashlyn pushed the door open and stepped out. Mrs. Wilson’s house looked much the same as it had the day before, a sense of quiet lingering over it as they approached the front door. There was a cooler breeze blowing and as Ashlyn turned to look back at the road, she realized one thing that was different.

  No truck.

  In the distance she heard a thud followed by another thud. They weren’t at regular intervals, and she couldn’t place the sound, but it wasn’t coming from inside the house.

  “It doesn’t sound like anyone’s home,” Nolan said.

  She put her finger on what she’d noticed the day before when she’d stood there. The total absence of a hum. Like there wasn’t a single appliance wasting electricity in the whole house.

  “What do you think?” Nolan asked her.

  “The house was this quiet when I was here yesterday, but I talked to Mrs. Wilson out back.” She started to walk toward the side of the building.

  “You were here?”

  She stopped and glanced over her shoulder. “Yes.”

  “You already talked to Mrs. Wilson? Then what were you doing coming back?”

  She turned to fully face him. “I had a few more questions.”

  Nolan closed the gap between them and stood right in front of her. “Why did you ask if Tain had been here? What did she tell you?”

  The flash of the truck going past her on the road, something about it familiar…

  “Look, Nolan, I don’t remember everything. Some of it’s jumbled. She didn’t really give me a lot to go on, and I…I remember thinking you were going to kick my ass if I had to admit I’d misled you about the tip so that I could get to the witness first, especially if I came back to the station empty-handed.” She felt the warmth in her cheeks and wasn’t sure if he believed her or not, but she didn’t lift her gaze from the ground. No matter what Steve said, Ashlyn wasn’t ready to confront Nolan about being at the Johnson property the day before.

  “You know where you’re going. Lead the way.”

  Ashlyn glanced at his face as she turned around, but he wasn’t looking at her, and she couldn’t read his expression. She walked around the side of the house to the back. There was no sign of Mrs. Wilson, but the screen door for the rear entrance was clapping against the side of the house, so Ashlyn walked up onto the porch to latch it properly. The door to the house wasn’t fully closed, so she pulled it shut first.

  Nolan was scanning the overgrown garden, fields and woods.

  “She’s got about a half mile in that direction alone, and you can see how far back the property line is. I’m not sure how far it goes in that direction.” Ashlyn pointed to the other side of the Wilson property, in the opposite direction of the Johnson home.

  “So she could be anywhere.” Nolan looked at her. “What does your gut tell you?”

  A trick question? A test? Ashlyn shook those thoughts off. “The greenhouse.”

  “Is that where you found her yesterday?”

  Ashlyn shook her head. “No. Truth is, she found me. I was looking around. One minute the yard was empty, next thing I knew she was standing there”—she nodded at the spot where Mrs. Wilson had appeared the day before—“watching me.”

  The left side of Nolan’s mouth curved up in a half smile. “Not exactly a comforting thought, is it?”

  “If you’re going to follow that with a lecture about why we take backup with us, you just remember you were headed out here alone too.”

  “Hey, I’ve seen Mrs. Wilson. I just meant she’s not exactly the cuddly grandma-baking-cookies type, is she?”

  Ashlyn flushed. “No, she isn’t.”

  They walked around the other side of the house. The greenhouse was at the end of the garden, and the open door banged against the side of the structure.

  “You know, Mrs. Wilson never struck me as careless,” Nolan said as he glanced at her. Ashlyn shook her head and found herself reaching around behind her for her gun at the same moment Nolan started reaching for his.

  They approached the doorway, him on the left side, her on the right. The view into the structure told her nobody was standing. It was still possible someone was crouched down beside one of the tables. Through the building she could see an open doorway on the other side.

  It was one of the worst possible structures to deal with. Go through it, and be an exposed target for anyone outside. Go around it and risk anyone inside getting out the other exit.

  Ashlyn scanned the property, thought again about the truck she’d seen the day before, possibly the same truck that had gone past her on the road later that night, then stepped inside the greenhouse. She moved forward in slow steps, cautiously surveying the floor to her left and then to her right. Mrs. Wilson was nothing if not meticulous. Although her garden outside was somewhat overgrown, all the plants inside the structure were in neat rows, carefully marked. There was no evidence of disarray. The tools hung on hooks mounted on the tables, and underneath the work areas there were plastic totes, all stacked in neat rows. Ashlyn was aware of Nolan moving behind her but not relying on him to cover any of the ground for her. If someone had been at the property looking for Mrs. Wilson, there was one thing Ashlyn was already certain of.

  They weren’t there now.

  A plant had been dropped on the floor about two-thirds of the way through the greenhouse, just to Ashlyn’s right. Dirt was scattered over the side of the table above, and spilled onto the ground below, the planter half empty and the small green sprout lying on its side, half buried by the soil. She nodded in its direction.

  As she approached the rear exit with Nolan right behind her, she exhaled. “It’s clear.”

  “Bit premature to say that, don’t you think?”

  Ashlyn turned to glance at him. “There was a truck parked outside the property yesterday.”

  “You think someone was here while you were questioning Mrs. Wilson?”

  She considered that. “No. She didn’t give me much, but it wasn’t like someone was telling her to get rid of me or trying to keep her quiet. It was more like being difficult just came naturally to her.”

  Nolan smirked as he turned to look out the door, and the grin slipped from his face. Ashlyn turned. She couldn’t see anything because the open door was blocking her view so she stepped outside.

  The way Mrs. Wilson’s short hair blew in the cold wind was what stood out. Mrs. Wilson must have set her hair in rollers every night, because when Ashlyn had seen her the day before the white locks had been in tight curls. Now, they were wisps of strawlike hair that fluttered against the grass around her body. She was facedown, one hand reaching above her head as though she’d tried to crawl away.

  Nolan took another look around before he crouched down. “Shot in the back.”

  One minute Mrs. Wilson had been working in her greenhouse, tending to her plants. The next she’d been fleeing out the back door, running for her life.

  Only to trip and fall and be shot in the back and left to die in the dirt.

  The murmur of words seemed distant, like it was coming from far away and it wasn’t until she looked up that she realized Nolan was talking on his cell phone. His gaze was fixed on her.

  She walked over and crouched down on the other side of Mrs.
Wilson’s body as he closed the phone.

  “A team’s on its way.”

  She nodded. They lapsed into silence, neither proceeding with an examination of the body or search of the area. If Nolan was tempted to have answers ready for the team when they arrived, he didn’t let on. Every second of the approaching hum of vehicles, engines turning off, doors opening and closing, gravel crunching beneath the feet of the officers approaching—it all imprinted itself on her brain as she squatted beside the body of a woman she’d spoken to the day before.

  Ashlyn looked up as Nolan stood. Sullivan was approaching them. He paused as he surveyed the body, then looked at Nolan. “Is this connected?”

  Nolan looked at Ashlyn, then turned back to the sergeant. “Hart was here yesterday. She’d already talked to Mrs. Wilson. She left”—he glanced at her again—“to follow up on something, and was on her way back with more questions.”

  Sullivan’s eyes narrowed. “And where were you?”

  A bit of color crept into Nolan’s cheeks. “Following up on another lead.”

  “You let a…” Sullivan looked at Ashlyn and stopped himself. He turned back to Nolan. “Get her back to the station and take her statement.”

  “But, sir, don’t you think we’d be more useful here?”

  “In case you didn’t notice when you first joined the RCMP, this isn’t a debate club.”

  “I’m sorry sir, it’s just…” Nolan paused, but didn’t look down at her, although she noticed his shoulders drop just a touch. “She doesn’t remember everything.”

  Sullivan’s eyes widened, and he spoke with a forcefulness Ashlyn hadn’t witnessed from him since her transfer. “Then let’s at least try not to contaminate her memory with anything we turn up here during the search.”

  She followed Nolan to the Rodeo without argument, and they drove back to the station. It wasn’t until they walked into the office that someone spoke.

  “Well, well. If you’d stuck to answering phones and filing papers, you wouldn’t have had the chance to try the local hospital cuisine.”