High in Trial

by Donna Ball

  Cisco’s growl grew louder, and I heard fumbling at the door. Was that the click of the latch?

  I whispered, “Cisco, here!”

  He didn’t need a second invitation. Cisco bounded onto the bed and I caught his collar, dragging him with me as I tumbled over the side of the bed and onto the floor, putting the bed between myself and the door just as it began to slide open. In the same motion, I grabbed the lamp from the bedside table, jerking the plug out of the wall. It was clumsy and unwieldy, but it had a heavy metal base and it was the best I could do.

  I crouched down behind the bed with one arm around Cisco and the other hand gripping the lamp, trying not to breathe, straining to hear over the pounding of my heart the sound of the footsteps that moved stealthily toward me. Frantically I tried to remember where I’d put my phone before I went to bed. In the drawer? On the night table on the other side of the bed? In my purse? Was there any chance of reaching it before—

  With absolutely no warning at all, Cisco suddenly bounded away from me, scrambling around the side of the bed toward the shadowy figure that approached. I cried out and lunged after him, swinging the lamp blindly. The intruder caught my arm in a grip of steel and the lamp crashed against the wall.

  “For God’s sake, Raine!”

  I fell back, gasping, and Cisco flung himself in happy welcome upon the newcomer. Miles turned on the light. I blinked and squinted and for a moment didn’t trust myself to speak. When I did, my voice sounded angry and hoarse.

  “What are you doing here?” I demanded.

  He frowned a little. “I paid for the room, remember?”

  I remembered, a little irrelevantly, that, in fact, he had insisted on upgrading to a mini suite when he arrived, and this room wasn’t even on my credit card. That seemed important somehow, but I was too upset at the moment to follow it through.

  “You’re also paying for a lamp,” I told him shortly, picking up the dented lamp and setting it a little unsteadily on the table by the door. “What are you doing sneaking in here at this time of night anyway? Why didn’t you use the front door?”

  He gave Cisco’s ears a final rub, and my faithful guard dog wandered over to check his food dish. “Because the security bar is on the front door,” he explained patiently, and of course it was. “I didn’t want to wake you.”

  “Well, you did,” I replied grumpily and stalked to the bathroom.

  I returned wearing the same jeans and tee shirt I’d worn to dinner, face washed, hair pulled back, and a little calmer. At least my heart had stopped thundering and the raw taste of terror in my mouth had been improved by the taste of toothpaste. Miles had started the coffee pot at the minibar, and the warm smell of coffee filled the room. That softened my attitude toward him somewhat, but I wasn’t ready to let him know. I sat down on the bed and pulled on my socks and running shoes.

  “I’m sorry I scared you,” he said.

  There was no point in denying I’d been scared, even though I was embarrassed about it now. “What happened to your breakfast meeting?” I replied ungraciously without looking up.

  “Rescheduled.” He added mildly, “I figured it out.”

  I stood up and pulled my sweatshirt over my head. “What?”

  Miles poured the coffee into two paper cups and handed me one. His eyes were easy and untroubled. “It’s just something people say, Raine,” he said. “I also love sunsets, sailing, and peach ice cream. It’s just something you say.”

  I turned away, frowning, embarrassed, uncomfortable. I took a sip of coffee and it burned my tongue. “I have to walk Cisco,” I muttered.

  I plopped my baseball cap on my head, checked my pockets for pick-up bags, and reached for Cisco’s leash. The minute he heard the clink of the swivel hook, Cisco bounced over to me and sat, his tail dusting the carpet with a happy swishing motion. I snapped on the leash and Miles opened the door for us.

  A walk in the courtyard would have been sufficient this time of morning, but I wasn’t thinking clearly. We went down the corridor and out into the parking lot, Miles accompanying us silently, sipping his coffee. A cool mist lay over everything, and the distant horizon was barely gray. The artificial yellow of the streetlights washed out the colors of the cars and Cisco’s golden coat, covering everything in a flat, one-dimensional stain. In the distance the empty field spread out like a pool of spilled ink.

  Cisco lifted his leg on a spindly bush at the edge of the field and then began an interested exploration of the scents left by all the creatures who’d passed by during the night. I lingered in the pool of light at the edge of the parking lot, not trusting my footing in the dark field. Since we were the only ones around this time of morning, I gave Cisco the full twenty feet of the leash to explore at leisure.

  Miles said, “A couple of things you should know. First of all, I’m never getting married again.”

  I stifled a groan. “It’s too early for this conversation, Miles.”

  “Better too early than too late. You said you didn’t know me. Here’s your chance.”

  I sighed, watching the plume of Cisco’s tail fade into the gloom and low fog of early morning a few feet away. I tightened my thumb on the brake of the leash just to remind him I was there. “Okay,” I said, resigned. “I’m glad you’re never getting married again. You’re terrible at it.”

  I could feel the weight of his gaze. “So nice to have that confirmed by an expert.”

  I sipped my coffee.

  “I don’t want any more children.”

  I said again, “Okay.”

  “And I never would’ve let you get close to my daughter if I didn’t expect you to be in our lives for awhile. A long while. You really should’ve figured that one out for yourself.”

  I didn’t know what to say. I really should have figured that out. I focused on the shape of Cisco’s body at the end of the leash as though he were a life preserver and I were adrift in a dark sea. My throat felt a little tight, and I took another sip of coffee.

  He bent a penetrating gaze on me. “I’m not going to be the rebound guy, Raine. You need to know that.”

  I swallowed hard. “You’re not the rebound guy.” It sounded a little muffled. “I wouldn’t do that.”

  “Good. I didn’t think so.”

  “Good.”

  “That means,” he went on, “that I’m not going to let you get away with picking petty fights, and I’m not going to give up on you just because you keep trying to see if I will. Still, I wish you’d stop doing it. It’s a waste of time.”

  One corner of my lips turned down dryly. “No more petty fights,” I agreed. “We’ve got too many real things to fight about.”

  “True enough. One more thing you should know.”

  I glanced at him.

  “My house is almost finished. Mel and I will be moving to Hansonville full time when she gets out of school. You’ll be seeing a lot more of us.”

  Miles and I had met when he bought the mountain adjacent to my property and started scraping away the wilderness to make room for a ridiculous resort community complete with condos, golf courses, and an airstrip. Needless to say, our relationship had started out on a contentious note and I made no secret of the fact that we would always be on opposite sides of that particular issue. I knew he intended to build a house for himself on the property, but I’d never given much thought to the fact that one day he might actually move into it.

  An odd mixture of delight and trepidation rippled through me. Part of me was thrilled, mostly because I did enjoy Melanie. Another part of me knew perfectly well there was a huge difference between the playful, mostly long-distance relationship Miles and I had sustained these past few months and the kind of relationship that would develop when we saw each other every day. When he became part of my world.

  He went on. “So that’s about it. If there’s anything else you need to know, I have a fairly comprehensive Wikipedia page.”

  “I know,” I admitted. “I looked you up.”

&
nbsp; He chuckled and dropped a hand lightly upon the back of my neck, gently caressing. “So what is it you think I don’t know about you that I need to know?”

  I was uncomfortable, not at his closeness, which I enjoyed, but at his easy openness, which I could not reciprocate. The dawn was beginning to fade away the worst of the shadows, and Cisco tugged a little at the leash, so I followed him into the field. I said, “I don’t like to talk about myself.”

  “So I’ve noticed.”

  “I think it’s a Southern thing. Girls are taught to be modest.”

  He made a dry sound in the back of his throat and I glanced at him suspiciously. “Your modesty was the first thing I admired about you,” he assured me with a perfectly straight face, and I scowled at him.

  “Anyway, I really can’t think of anything you need to know.” I focused on Cisco and on picking my way across the stubbly ground. “I suck at this relationship thing. So do you. I’m a mess. You’re a mess. We’re a perfect team. I don’t know what else to say.”

  “Let me help you out.” He took a sip of his coffee. “You take a lot of chances—with everything except your heart.”

  I smothered a sniff of laughter. “That’s pretty cliché.” I really didn’t like the way this conversation was going.

  “My thoughts exactly.” He went on. “You’ve never been really close to anyone outside the county you were born in, so I’d say you have a few trust issues. You seem to have a habit of marrying the same man over and over again. No offense to the sheriff, who I actually like, but you need to stop that.”

  I started to smile, but his next words wiped the smile away.

  “You tend to get carried away by your passion for a cause, and last year that passion put you on the wrong side of an FBI investigation. It also put you in the arms of a known terrorist.”

  I stopped dead and stared at him in the dimness. He was watching me carefully. I said stiffly, “Andy and I had been friends since we were kids.”

  He said quietly, “Honey, I know about Andy Fontana. I know what happened and I know how it ended. I’m not judging you. I just want you to know I understand.”

  I didn’t talk about Andy, not to Miles, not to anyone. I tried not to even think about him, even though sometimes I still woke in the night with my cheeks wet with tears. There was no reason Miles should not know about Andy, of course. The FBI shootout had made all the papers and been local headline news for weeks afterwards, and it wouldn’t take too much investigation to discover that Andy and I had grown up together and had shared an off-campus apartment in college. And still I felt invaded. Perhaps not as invaded as I’d felt last night when the creep called my room, but…

  I said suddenly, “He knew my name.”

  Miles looked understandably confused. “What?”

  I looked at him sharply in the dimness. “The room is in your name. How would anyone know how to reach me?”

  “Do you mean besides on your cell phone? They’d just ask the front desk to ring your room. You’re a registered guest. Your room number’s on the computer. We weren’t trying to keep it a secret that we were staying together, were we?”

  “Weird,” I murmured. I felt a chill run down my spine that was completely unrelated to the early morning damp. “But how would he know my name?”

  “Who? Why do I get the feeling I’m no longer necessary to this conversation?”

  “Sorry,” I said. “It’s probably nothing, just some random creep playing games.”

  “Okay, now you’ve got my attention.” He looked at me intently in the grayish light, and there was no amusement in his tone now whatsoever. “What’s going on?”

  I started to explain about the phone call in the night, but the leash suddenly tightened in my hand, causing me to stagger and spill my coffee. “Cisco!”

  Cisco glanced up around at me, then returned to sniffing and pawing at something in the grass. He could’ve uncovered almost anything, from a rotting animal carcass to a nest of fire ants, so I went quickly to investigate, calling as I did, “Leave it!”

  Reluctantly, Cisco abandoned his treasure and sat, waiting for me to reach him. I’d like to say he was that prompt with all his commands, but “leave it” was one of those things we’d been working on since he was a puppy. It is essential in search-and-rescue work and has saved more than one dog’s life. I was relieved to see that in this case Cisco’s find didn’t pose any immediate threat but was nothing but a piece of metal half-buried in a shallow mound of loose dirt and dried grass. I couldn’t imagine why Cisco was even interested in it.

  I picked it up and found that it was, in fact, an old lead pipe, damp with dew and mud. I looked at it curiously and let it drop again. Cisco took this as tacit permission to resume his pawing and sniffing, and I let him.

  Miles said, “You were about to tell me about some random creep?”

  “It’s almost six o’clock,” I said, glancing at my watch. “The dining room will be open by the time we get there. I’ll tell you over breakfast.” I tugged lightly on the leash and said, “Cisco, let’s go.”

  But Cisco had other ideas. He suddenly looked up from nosing about the ground, swiveled his head toward the tree line on the opposite side of the field, and gave a single sharp bark. He took off at a lope before I could get my thumb on the brake of the leash, and I shouted, “Hey!”

  I spilled more coffee as I spun around and managed to bring Cisco to a halt, and then I saw what had gotten him so excited. A dog was galloping across the field toward us, and nothing good could come of that. I quickly passed my coffee cup to Miles and held on to Cisco’s leash with both hands. As he had proven yesterday, a dog running loose was one of those things that simply wasn’t within his power to resist.

  No one else from the hotel had yet joined us in the dog-walking field, so I knew the animal had to be a stray. The way it was running at us with such determination made me uneasy, so I dug in my heels and pulled Cisco closer, trying to swing him away from the aggressor and back toward the parking lot. The last thing I needed was a dog fight. But Cisco panted with excitement, straining at the leash in his eagerness to greet the newcomer. The dog barked a greeting and was close enough now that I could see it was a border collie. And not just any border collie.

  “Hey!” I exclaimed. “I think that’s Flame!”

  I was right. It was Flame, splashed with mud, covered in burrs, and trailing her leash. Her owner was nowhere in sight.

  ~*~

  ELEVEN

  Six hours, thirty minutes before the shooting

  Miss Meg’s Diner opened at six a.m. for breakfast, and on weekday mornings that was when everybody showed up: construction workers who had to be at the job site by seven, out-of-town workers who had a long commute, doctors and lawyers and insurance agents who opened their offices at eight but liked to see and be seen and didn’t want to miss out on anything that was going on. On Saturday mornings, Miss Meg’s diner was the place where the men of the town gathered between six and nine a.m. to solve the problems of the world, the country, the county, and their own home town. More than one mayor had been elected here before he was even nominated and county commissioners quietly relieved of office before the scandal broke. There was a lot of loud talk about what the President should do, what was really wrong with this country, how to fix the economy once and for all, and who they really needed up on Capitol Hill. Meantime, deals were quietly made under the table and contracts illegally awarded and nobody said much about it because, after all, they were all friends here.

  Hands went up and friendly greetings were called out when Buck came in just before seven, and he returned them in his usual easy fashion. He liked to hang out at the diner with the morning crowd when he got a chance; it was the best way to keep up with what was really going on around town. The trouble was that he rarely got a chance anymore, and today was no different. This was business.

  Don Kramer Jr., Attorney At Law, was due in Saturday court at eight but had a vague memory of the Berman
case and agreed to meet Buck for breakfast. Don Jr., as most people called him, bore such a striking resemblance to his father—right down to the horn-rimmed glasses, center-parted hair, and red bowtie—that it was almost impossible not to do a double take when they entered a room together. Even when they were separate, it was easy to mistake one for the other, and Buck often had to look carefully before he began discussing with one law partner a case that actually belonged to the other.

  Don Jr. was sitting alone at a table for two, his briefcase on the floor beside him, the remnants of a breakfast that had consisted of half a grapefruit, whole-wheat toast, and oatmeal before him. “I glanced back over the case file while I was waiting,” he said without preamble when Buck was seated, “to refresh my memory. What was it in particular that you wanted to know?”

  Buck glanced around, hoping to catch the eye of a waitress with a coffee pot. “Well, for starters,” Buck said, “Berman claimed he was innocent right up until the trial. What made him do an about-face and take a deal that ended up costing him more time than he would’ve done if he’d copped to all three of the charges he was arrested on, plus trafficking and hit and run?”

  “He didn’t have much choice, I’m afraid. Frankly, after we lost our strongest evidence I’m surprised the prosecutor even offered a deal. He could’ve been looking at the death penalty.”

  “What evidence?”

  A harried waitress finally discovered Buck’s empty coffee mug and filled it with an absent smile before edging her way through the crowd of tables to attend another customer.

  “The forensics report on his truck, the one he claimed was involved in a collision with another vehicle at the time of the shooting.”

  “I was wondering about that. What happened to it?”

  “It disappeared.”

  Buck’s brow knotted briefly as he sipped his coffee. “Did you subpoena the arresting officer in Georgia? He could have testified to the banged-up front fender, at least. It was in his initial report.”