The Sheriff of Shelter Valley

by Tara Taylor Quinn

  “I have not!” Phyllis said, jiggling her arm a little when Calvin frowned at her excited response to Becca. The baby settled back down. “I’ve done nothing more than be a friend.”

  “She’s counseled every one of us, at one time or another,” Becca said again. “Which is why there are so many happy women in this town.”

  Shelter Valley did seem to have an awful lot of happy people.

  “That’s the town’s doing, not mine,” Phyllis said.

  The redhead did not look like a woman who’d recently given birth to twins. She was slim and almost as elegant as Becca in her business suit.

  “It’s her doing,” Becca said to Beth. “Take our friend Tory. Phyllis rescued her from an abusive past that probably would’ve killed her.”

  “Tory Evans,” Beth whispered.

  “Sanders now,” Becca said.

  Both women were watching her closely. “You know Tory?” Phyllis asked, protectiveness evident in her tone of voice, in her posture and even the look in her eyes.

  “No,” Beth quickly assured her. “I read an article about her in a magazine a while back. The article talked about the welcome Tory received here. It’s why I chose Shelter Valley as a place to start over….”

  “Not just Tory,” Becca said, her gaze full of compassion. “Living in Shelter Valley seems to give all of us a renewed sense of confidence at one time or another.”

  “Including me,” Phyllis said. “This place changed my life.”

  Beth glanced at the other woman, surprised. “You haven’t always lived here?” Judging by Phyllis’s closeness to everyone, her acceptance as a solid member of the community, her involvement, Beth had assumed the woman had grown up in Shelter Valley. That she and her friends had known each other all their lives.

  “Unfortunately, no,” Phyllis said. “I just moved here a little over three years ago.”

  “I was very pregnant with Bethany at the time,” Becca said. “My marriage was on the rocks, and Phyllis flew in and immediately set Will and me straight.”

  Phyllis had only been here three years? And was a completely accepted member of the Shelter Valley family?

  So there was hope.

  Maybe.

  “Then, how’d you get to know everyone so fast?” Beth couldn’t help asking. Not that she could do the same. The fewer people she was close to, the better. For now.

  “She and Cassie Tate do pet therapy together,” Becca said. “That’s part of it. They helped Cassie’s stepdaughter talk again after more than a year of trauma-induced silence….”

  Trauma-induced silence. Beth felt cold. And sick.

  And very, very threatened. Was Ry’s near-silence also trauma-induced? And was help for Beth standing right there in front of her? Did she have the courage to find out?

  “She helped me save my marriage,” Becca said, her voice softening as she smiled at her friend.

  “She’s making me sound like much more than I am, and I’ll never be able to live up to it. Just take everything Becca says about me with an ear to the flattery involved. She wants my babies,” Phyllis teased. “What I want to know is, do you have room for one more client?”

  “Of course I do,” Beth answered automatically. She’d put in longer hours. Make it work.

  And if she took on one more client after this, she’d have to hire help.

  Under the table, of course.

  Meanwhile, she had to collect Ryan, go home and dye their hair—get herself to the safety of her own space, her regular routine—before the red haze became more than a warning. Her mind was overwhelmed, taking in too much to process at one time.

  There were just far too many questions. And no answers.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  AT HIS KITCHEN TABLE on that second Monday in October, Greg studied the four-foot-square collection of clippings and reports, plus the couple of photos he’d had at home—copies of the official photos taken of his father’s accident. He scanned them and had them stored on his hard drive. And his staff was in the process of scanning all pictures entered in as evidence before the digital age. He and Burt had a meeting in the morning, and Greg knew Burt was going to recommend closing his father’s case—all the carjacking cases—insofar as an unsolved case could be closed. Burt was ready to dismiss the incidents as random, continuing to be on the lookout for any information that might lead to suspects but not actively pursuing clues.

  Greg refused to accept that verdict a second time. Not only had he assigned deputies to question people, but he and Burt had gone around interviewing everyone in the vicinity of the carjackings; they’d posted radio news announcements and put out requests on all of the Arizona television stations asking for anyone with information to call.

  Burt had personally dealt with every single one of the hundred or more calls they’d received.

  They’d turned up nothing. Burt had also, in deference to Greg’s ambition to see this case solved, questioned most of the key witnesses himself rather than assigning less experienced officers to handle the legwork for him.

  Again, he turned up nothing.

  But there had to be something. Something right there in front of him, if Greg could only see it. No matter how many nights he spent poring over the reports, the figures, the graphs, the measurements and the photos, he couldn’t piece it all together. Or even figure out which piece was missing.

  Rubbing the back of his neck, Greg straightened and grabbed a cola from the fridge, hoping the caffeine would be the jump-start he needed. His whole life seemed to consist of looking for missing puzzle pieces. Professionally and personally.

  Beth was hiding more pieces from him than she was giving him. Leaning against the counter, Greg drank the soda from the can, staring out the big window above his sink to the resortlike backyard he and Beth had spent those few short hours in.

  She’d almost made love to him that night. He’d almost died when she hadn’t.

  He had to stop thinking about that night.

  He couldn’t believe Burt hadn’t come up with anything substantial at all. He was the best. Which meant there was nothing to find.

  Then, why did Greg feel so certain there was?

  Can in hand, he moved back to the table, and stood there studying all the bits and pieces. If he viewed them from a different angle, would they reveal something new?

  They didn’t. Even sideways he saw the same words, the same pencil sketches, same figures, same images…

  From Greg’s vantage point, that dented front end looked like a rabbit. The largest rabbit Greg had ever seen in his life.

  He froze. Stared. Then, every movement deliberate, he slowly rounded the table, his gaze never leaving that rabbit-shaped dent. Only when he was facing the photograph did his eyes stray to the other pictures.

  They were all of the same car. His dad’s Thunderbird. Taken from different angles, different perspectives of the crime scene, the photos didn’t all show the front of the car. But in every one that did—of the few left since the lab disaster—that dent looked like a rabbit.

  One he recognized. “I’ll be damned.” There were rabbits and then there were rabbits. This one was missing its head; the front end hadn’t reached that high. It was missing its bottom and feet, too. They would’ve been below the level of the bumper. But that middle, with the “paw” raised at a jaunty angle, was unmistakable. If he hadn’t just been horseback riding with Beth, noticing shapes in the rock formations of the mountains that he usually overlooked, he might not have recognized the rabbit now.

  But Greg remembered that particular formation. It was an infamous landmark to him, as it marked the spot of one of the worst nights of his life. He’d once been invited to a party at Rabbit Rock—he’d been sixteen, feeling privileged to be let in on the whereabouts of the secret gathering place. About thirty miles from Shelter Valley, in the heart of the most undeveloped, unpopulated portion of Kachina County, there was a clearing that abutted the south side of the mountains. The clearing was surrounded by a
n unusually thick grouping of palo verde trees, enclosing it, hiding it from the rest of the world. Making it the perfect place for teenagers to engage in illicit activities.

  He’d been a fool then. A reckless teenage kid who’d thought he was invincible, and worse, strong enough to take on anything. He’d only seen the rock that one time, but he’d seen it in many different forms. When the hallucinations had been at their worst, he and that rabbit were the only two things in the world.

  Tossing his can in the trash, Greg paced his kitchen. Went to the phone. Picked it up. Put it back down. What was he thinking here? Every one of the cars that had been stolen ten years ago, as well as every one that had been taken this summer, had been rammed into the side of a mountain out in a clearing no one but a group of rowdy boys had known about. It sounded even more implausible when he spelled it out.

  He’d taken some long shots in his life, but he’d never reached quite this far. Greg rubbed his face. Rinsed it with cold water.

  He reached for the phone again. He had to call Burt. This couldn’t wait until morning.

  Unless he really was losing perspective. How insane was he going to sound when he laid this on his deputy? How much credibility was he going to lose?

  And how sure was he that he wasn’t dreaming up the whole thing? Making something happen because he was crazy with determination to avenge his father’s attack?

  Phone in hand, he walked back to the table. Looked at the photos. The rabbit was still there.

  He couldn’t let this go. Greg knew what he had to do. He dialed.

  “Hello?”

  “Beth?” he asked, trying to stay calm. He wasn’t too eager to have her thinking he was a mental case.

  “Greg? What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing,” he said quickly, hating the instant alarm he heard in her voice. She was so easily made nervous, and that bothered him. “I need to run something by an impartial party. Someone I can trust to be honest with me,” he added, to reassure her, but also to make sure that he didn’t talk himself out of asking for her help.

  “Of course,” she said, her voice completely different. Soft. Beckoning. “What’s up?”

  He glanced out at the pool. It would be light for at least another hour, maybe an hour and a half. “Have you eaten yet?”

  “No, Ryan and I just got home. Today was my day to clean the Willises’. You want me to throw something in the microwave for him and then call you back?”

  “How about if I come get you, we pick up something for dinner and take a drive?”

  “Why do I get the feeling this is more than just an impromptu invitation to a picnic?”

  Greg stared at the photos. “There’s something I want you to see,” he said slowly. And then he amended that. “Something I need you to see.”

  “What?”

  “That’s just it, I don’t want to say.” He knew he sounded way too mysterious. “I’m doing a sanity check,” he finally admitted. “I’ve come up with this crazy hypothesis, and before I go any further with it, I’d like to show you the evidence and see if you think I’m off base.”

  “Of course,” she said, her instant capitulation filling Greg with a sense of a righted world.

  One way or another, he was going to have some answers.

  “But if I’m going to have to look at something gross, I’d better not have dinner.”

  He chuckled. “I wouldn’t ask you to look at anything gross,” he said. “Usually when the evidence is graphic, wrongdoing is relatively easy to prove. Labs are wonderful things.”

  “Does this have to do with your father’s case?”

  Sobering, Greg carefully picked up the photos and slid them back into their envelope. “Yes.”

  “Give me ten minutes.”

  GREG CALLED the Valley Diner and placed a take-out order. Chicken nuggets and fries for Ryan. Grilled chicken sandwiches for him and Beth. He didn’t take time to change out of his uniform. He wanted to get to the rabbit before dark. At the last minute, he grabbed the spotlight from the trunk of his squad car, just in case.

  The drive wasn’t nearly as tense as it might’ve been if he’d been making it alone, dwelling on his obsession. With Ryan in his car seat between them, a sweet little guy in blue jeans and a tiny plain white sweatshirt, he and Beth had their dinner and spoke about superficial things. She mentioned someone she’d met in town that day—a woman he’d gone to school with. He talked about a tentative plan to turn his third bedroom into a weight room. She told him a couple of “toilet lady” jokes she’d made up while working that week.

  Ryan, a soggy French fry in each hand, looked up at Greg when he laughed out loud at the last one.

  “At least he likes the fries,” he said, running a hand across the top of the little boy’s head. The toddler hadn’t touched his chicken.

  “Sha sha,” Ryan said.

  “What, sweetie?” Voice eager, Beth leaned toward him, her shiny auburn hair falling forward over her shoulders. “What did you say?”

  Ryan held up both hands, showing her his fries. “Sha sha,” he said again.

  “French fries?” Beth asked. She was wearing jeans, too, and an off-white sweater that hugged those perfect breasts and tapered at her waist.

  Ryan nodded. “Sha sha.” He then attempted to put both fries in his mouth at once.

  “One at a time, Ry,” Beth said, pulling her son’s left hand away from his mouth. It struck Greg that they were painting a family picture right there. He’d had no idea so much pleasure could be taken from such a simple thing.

  It was still light when he pulled off the road, onto a dirt path, and then, putting the truck into four-wheel drive when the path came to an abrupt end, continued on. The adrenaline he’d managed to contain during the past hour came rushing to the forefront again when he noticed the tire tracks just off to his left. They weren’t fresh. But they weren’t twenty years old, either.

  Judging by the lack of regrowth, they were less than a year old.

  His excitement grew when he wound his way into the clearing and his gaze alighted immediately on the rabbit. It was almost exactly as he’d remembered. A little smaller, maybe. More weathered. There’d been more growth on the mountain back when he was a teenager.

  He stopped the truck, although he didn’t get out. Ryan’s legs were bouncing a little in his seat, but with a French fry in one hand and a plastic truck in the other, he was amazingly content.

  Beth’s son did not act like any other two-year-old he’d ever met.

  “This is what we came to see?” Beth asked, glancing around the clearing.

  Greg pointed. “That’s what we came to see.”

  She looked toward the rocky side of the mountain. Ryan looked, too, dropping his French fry as he leaned forward.

  “Sha sha,” he said. Greg automatically reached for another one and handed it to the boy. Ryan took it without hesitation.

  Greg didn’t think anything of the act until he glanced up from the toddler to see Beth staring at him. “What?”

  She shook her head. Greg was fairly certain he’d seen moisture in her eyes. “It’s just nice, seeing him interact with you….”

  So she was sensing it, too. This family feeling. Greg was glad that—at least on this—he wasn’t alone.

  “What is it about this rock that has you concerned?” she asked, turning to look out the window again.

  “Look at it for a minute,” Greg said, not all that eager to test his hypothesis. Now that he was there, he was more certain than ever that he was on to something. But if Beth didn’t see any connection between that rock and the photos, he might have to concede that he was so desperate to get someplace, he was inventing a reason to continue the search.

  Greg gave Ryan another French fry. “Do you see any shapes in that rock?” he asked.

  “Looks kind of like something waving, doesn’t it?” she said, her brows drawn together in concentration. “Like there’s an arm going from the round part up there, off to the side.”<
br />
  “An arm—or a paw?”

  “Yeah!” she said, grinning at him. “It’s definitely a paw.”

  Greg nodded.

  She glanced from him to the rock and back. “So, are we playing a game, or is this leading somewhere?”

  “Look again.” Greg nodded toward the mountain. “Can you see the rabbit attached to that paw?”

  “Sha sha,” Ryan said, his plastic truck falling to the floor as he reached for the bag that contained his dinner.

  Greg picked up the truck and the bag, letting Ryan poke his hand in for a fry. The child used one hand and then the other, coming out with double the bounty.

  “Smart guy,” Greg said approvingly.

  He sobered, though, as he looked once again at the mountain in front of them. The sun was going down. It would be dark soon.

  “Is that its head?” Beth asked. “That round thing? And his ears go up from there to the right? It’s a jackrabbit.”

  Bingo.

  Carjackings. Jackrabbit. It was a long stretch.

  Too long.

  And yet…maybe this was part of his answer. The missing piece.

  “We used to call this Rabbit Rock when I was kid,” he said gravely.

  “Way out here? How’d kids ever find this spot?”

  “I’m not sure,” Greg said. It wasn’t anything he’d ever thought about. “I just know that certain kids talked about the parties they’d have out here. Only the coolest kids were invited.”

  “Then, you were invited for sure.”

  “Not right away,” he said. “Not until my junior year in high school.”

  “Were the parties as good as you’d heard?”

  Greg couldn’t meet her eyes. Ryan was starting to droop, his head resting against the car seat as he chewed on a French fry.

  “I only came to one,” Greg said, staring at the rock. “It was one of the most horrible nights of my life.”

  Even in the growing dusk, he could see that her blue eyes had filled with compassion.