by LENA DIAZ,
A knock sounded on the front door.
She straightened and turned around, not that it did any good. The door was solid, without any glass to reveal whoever was on the other side. And no peephole either. She jerked back toward the fireplace and the boxy TV sitting on a rickety table beside it. The digital clock on the old-fashioned DVD player on top of the TV showed that it was just past nine thirty. Not exactly late by most people’s standards. But it was an odd time to stop by a remote cabin halfway up the mountain. The rare landlord visits out here occurred during the day. And he always called ahead so he didn’t drive all the way out only to find her gone.
Had anyone ever just...stopped by?
No. Not once. Never.
The knock sounded again. Alarm skittered up her spine. Was a burglar trying to find out whether anyone was home before breaking in? Her gun. Where was her gun? In her purse, the one she’d had in jail. She’d bagged it with her clothes that had developed a definite jailhouse funk from sitting in the evidence lockup for so long and had left them on the back porch. She’d intended on going through the bag tomorrow. It hadn’t occurred to her to take the gun out of the purse first.
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
“Miss Nash?” a woman’s voice called out. “I’m Detective Sampson, with the Gatlinburg police. We met once before, remember? Would you please open the door?”
Sampson? That was the detective who hadn’t cared about her story when she’d tried to tell her about Bethany’s notes and pictures. Wait, the police. Had Mason or Dalton decided to press charges after all? She couldn’t go back to jail. She just couldn’t. She wouldn’t.
Instead of going to the front door to let Sampson inside, she dashed through the kitchen to the back door and flung it open.
She let out a squeak of surprise and cartwheeled her arms to regain her balance so she wouldn’t fall against the man in a business suit standing on her porch. Blocking her exit.
“Whoa, ma’am. Didn’t mean to frighten you.”
Her flight reflex deserted her, leaving her trembling and frozen in place, unable to do anything but stare like a rabbit watching the snake about to devour it.
So much for her being a badass.
“Ma’am,” he repeated, slowly reaching into his suit jacket pocket as if to keep from scaring another ten years off her life. “I’m Special Agent Jaylen Holland with the FBI. The person knocking on your front door is Gatlinburg Police Detective Erin Sampson. We’d appreciate it if we could have a few minutes of your time.” He held up his identification, which should have made her happy that he wasn’t a serial killer bent on murdering her. But instead, all she could seem to focus on were the three letters on the seal: FBI.
Oh, dear God, help her. What did they think she’d done?
“Miss Nash? May I come in?”
She swallowed hard and managed to make her shaking fingers pull the edges of her robe more tightly together. “Do I have a choice?” she whispered, barely able to force the words through her tight throat.
He smiled sympathetically. “My apologies for worrying you by coming out here unannounced. But, after what you went through at Gatlinburg PD, Detective Sampson and I were concerned that you’d try to avoid us if you knew we wanted to talk to you.”
Her face heated as the truth of his words hung in the air between them. After all, instead of opening her front door for a police officer, she’d run to the back door and would have kept on running if he hadn’t been there.
She frowned. “Wait. You know about my arrest?”
He nodded.
“What else do you know?”
“That you’re looking for answers.” He held up a briefcase that she hadn’t noticed before. “And I’m here to give them to you. Some of them at least.”
Her hand tightened on her robe. “You’re here about my friend’s murder?”
The knocking sounded again from the front of the house.
He arched a brow. “Perhaps we can continue our discussion inside. It’s pretty chilly out here.”
In spite of her fears, she couldn’t help smiling at his assumption that the cabin would be a lot warmer than her porch. She stepped back to let him inside.
Chapter Fourteen
Dalton bolted up out of bed and swiped his pistol off his nightstand. He swept it out in front of him as he peered into the dark recesses of his bedroom, all while listening to the cacophony of howls and barking outside his second-story window. Denali, who’d been sleeping in the closet, lumbered to his feet, softly growling as he began a circuit around the room to figure out what had Dalton so alarmed.
Dalton moved to the window and flipped the plantation shutters so he could look down into the front field. All of his dogs should have been enjoying a warm bed inside the barn. Instead, they were circling something, hackles raised, their deep-throated barks and growls filling the air.
Fang, the alpha of the pack, hop-skipped forward, barking ferociously. The terrified scream of a cornered animal had Dalton swearing and reaching for his discarded jeans and shirt from the chair by the bed. He quickly dressed and then shoved his pistol into his pocket in case he was going to have to put some poor wounded animal out of its misery.
He ran down the hallway, taking the stairs two at a time. After grabbing his trench coat from a hook by the front door, he ran outside and raced down the front steps.
“Fang, Sheba, back,” he yelled as he rushed toward the pack of yipping dogs. “Down. Guard.”
Thankfully the two leaders were well trained. They backed up several feet, yipping and growling but no longer taunting the terrified creature in front of them. The rest of the dogs followed their lead, and Dalton was finally able to get his first good look at what they’d caught.
Sitting on the cold, hard ground, her arms wrapped around her legs as she rocked back and forth, was his nemesis. He didn’t think he’d ever seen someone look so pitiful as she jerked her head back and stared at him, wide-eyed, her face a white sheet.
He slowly bent down so as not to scare her even more, not even sure that she recognized him. “Hayley? It’s Dalton. It’s okay. You’re safe now.”
She blinked, her eyes glazed and unfocused.
“What happened to you?” he asked. “Why are you here?” He swore again. “And why in the world don’t you have a coat on? It must be thirty degrees, if that.”
He shucked out of his trench coat and then draped it around her shoulders. She shivered so hard her teeth chattered together, but at least she didn’t fight him and he was able to fasten the top few buttons. Of course the reason she didn’t fight him was probably that her terrified mind hadn’t even registered who he was.
The sound of a low growl had him ordering the dogs back again. “Fang, retreat. Retreat. Go home.”
The dog whined in disappointment but backed up as ordered. He yelped his own command and the pack trotted after him toward the barn.
Dalton gave Hayley a quick perusal, worried that his dogs may have become overzealous in their guard duties and actually hurt her. That wasn’t their training, or he wouldn’t allow them to roam freely on the property. But for her to be this shaken, it seemed she must have been hurt. He didn’t see any scratches or blood to indicate that she’d been bitten. Had something else happened?
“Hayley, it’s Dalton. Are you hurt?”
Again she didn’t answer. Instead, she stared past him, toward the dogs.
He glanced over his shoulder at the driveway, then at the road a few hundred yards away. But he didn’t see her Blazer. “How did you get here?”
She blinked again, then seemed to finally focus. “D-Dalton?”
He looked past her toward the woods that bordered his property to the south, in the direction of her house. “Did someone break into your home? And you ran all the way here for help?”
Fresh tears glistened in her eyes, then spill
ed down her cheeks. “I w-w-was wrong. A-bout y-you. Came to a-pol-ogize. I’m s-s-sor-ry,” she whispered between clicks of her chattering teeth.
He stared at her in shock as her stuttered words clicked in his mind. “You ran through the woods in the middle of winter, in the middle of the night, to apologize to me?”
She blinked several more times, frowning. Then shook her head. “Didn’t...r-run. Car. Broke d-down.” She waved toward the road as if to show him. “O-over th-the hill.” She suddenly grabbed one of his hands, making him start from her icy cold touch. “I’m s-so sorry. Y-you have to for-g-give me.”
It dawned on him that Sampson and Holland must have made their planned visit. But he’d never expected it to have this severe an impact. Good grief, what had he done by agreeing to the plan?
Guilt and anger had his face flushing hot. “Come on. Let’s get you inside before you get frostbite.” He straightened and pulled her to standing in front of him. But she was shaking so hard she started to fall over. He caught her, then lifted her in his arms and cradled her against his chest to carry her into the house.
Once inside, he leaned down to sit her on the couch, but her arms tightened around his neck. He stood in indecision. She was shaking and he didn’t know if it was because she was so dang cold or because she was still scared. Whispering soothing words, he tried again to put her down. She shifted against him, mumbling something incoherent.
The shock of her cold lips against his neck made up his mind. He cradled her with one arm to work his trench coat off her with the other. Then he shifted her and let the coat fall to the floor. He grabbed the throw from the back of the couch, sat down with her still clutched against his chest and tucked the throw around both of them.
A short time later, her breathing changed and she softened against him. He sighed and settled more comfortably against the couch and waited. And tried not to think about how amazing it felt to actually, finally hold her.
About twenty minutes later, she let out a sound of alarm and suddenly stiffened.
“It’s okay, Hayley. You’re—oof!” A flailing arm caught him in the stomach. The edge of the blanket smacked him in the face as she tried to get off his lap. “Just hold it a second. Let me get the blanket before you—”
She shoved against him and fell to the floor with a solid thump.
“Before you fall,” he finished. He couldn’t help smiling at the curses coming from her. But it was too dark to see much. He flipped on the table lamp beside him, then froze.
The muzzle of a pistol was pointed directly at his chest, just a few feet away, cradled between her hands.
With lightning speed, he knocked her arm up and yanked the pistol away from her. She was so startled, all she did was stare at him, mouth open.
“If you feel threatened enough to pull a gun on someone,” he gritted out, “you’d better have your finger on the trigger and not give them a chance to take it from you. If I was truly a threat, you’d be dead right now.” He ejected the magazine, then swore as he ejected the chambered round as well. If her finger had been on the trigger, she’d probably have shot him whether she meant to or not because of how badly she was shaking.
As if only just realizing what she’d done, she pressed a hand to her throat. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t realize—”
“Stop apologizing. How about explaining to me why you’re here at...” he glanced at the digital clock on the equipment below the TV “...eleven thirty at night, skulking across my property without a coat. And don’t give me those lies you did earlier about your car breaking down as you were driving over. I don’t believe that story after you pulled a loaded gun from your pocket. Did you park around the curve in the road, hoping to sneak up on me for some nefarious reason like when you broke in? And you assumed the dogs were locked up?”
Her eyes widened. Then she vigorously shook her head as she shoved to her feet. “No, no, no. That’s not what I was doing.”
He kept his seat on the couch and crossed his arms. “I’m waiting.”
She blew out a deep breath, then sat beside him, facing him. “The gun... I’m sorry—”
“Just tell me what you’re doing. You realize my dogs could have hurt you, or worse? They’re trained to guard, to protect me and my property. You’re lucky I came down when I did. If they’d seen your gun, they would have attacked. That’s part of their training.”
The blood drained from her face, leaving her deathly pale. “I didn’t realize...” She swallowed. “My Blazer really did break down. I couldn’t sleep, so many things running through my mind. And the house was so cold, I decided to drive to your office building, or cabin, whatever. I was going to leave a package for you there. But since I’m here now, and I’ve already woken you up, I could give it to you now.”
“What are you talking about? And why is your house so cold? Is the heater broken?”
“Never mind about the heater. I’ve got something in my car for you. I don’t suppose I could convince you to drive me to it, could I?”
Chapter Fifteen
When Dalton pulled up beside her Blazer, he hopped down from the truck and jogged to the passenger side to help her, in spite of her insistence that she could manage it on her own. She was over a foot shorter than him and there was no way she could climb up into his elevated truck without help, let alone hop out without risking falling on her face.
She murmured her thanks, seeming embarrassed to accept his help. But at least she didn’t fight him, and didn’t accuse him of trying to kill her. That was nice, for a change.
While she rummaged in her SUV, he quickly checked it out in case whatever was wrong was a simple fix. It was. Hayley’s face was bright red when he pointed out that she’d run out of gas. He opened the massive storage box that ran the width of his truck bed just behind the back window and took out his emergency gas can to fill her tank.
A few minutes later she parked in her driveway and he pulled in behind her to wait until she was safely inside. But instead of going into the house, she crossed to the passenger side of his truck with the satchel she’d retrieved and opened the door.
Her face turned a lovely shade of pink as she smiled at him. “I need to talk to you about this satchel. It’s warmer in your truck than my cabin, so would you mind—”
“Of course.”
After helping her into the truck and getting back in, he turned in his seat to face her. “Why is your cabin cold? Do you need me to—”
She put her hand on his, sending a tingle of awareness straight to his groin. It was so unexpected that he forgot whatever he was about to say. Had he ever noticed before that she had blue eyes? Not dark, like his, but lighter, reflected in the light from the dashboard and her porch light.
She smiled again.
He cleared his throat. Twice. “You wanted to tell me something about that satchel?”
“I do.” She picked it up and ran her fingers almost lovingly over the leather, as if saying goodbye to an old friend. “In here are the photographs I had at the police station. And other pictures and journals and flash drives with my research, as well as Bethany’s. There are—”
“Hold it. Wait. Why are you telling me this?”
“Because it’s yours. I’m giving it to you. Everything I have on my investigation into Bethany’s death, including her own journals and what she left behind on her investigation into the drug dealing and gunrunning. I want you to have it.”
He stared at her, stunned. “You’re turning over everything you’ve been collecting for the past few months, plus everything your friend compiled?”
She nodded. “And that’s not all. If you check my website, the one I created to try to get a following to pressure the police to investigate you, you’ll find it’s been taken down. I won’t harass you anymore. You don’t have to worry about me causing you problems in the future. I’m really sorry about everything I did. Y
ou can’t imagine how sorry.”
Her words were more alarming than reassuring. It seemed as if he finally had part of what he wanted—for her to take down her poisonous website. He’d never expected her to give him her notes or the pictures. None of this made sense.
Was she tricking him? Had she figured out that he’d been less than honest and his goal was to get information from her?
“Why?” he asked, letting that one simple word hang in the air between them.
She stared through the windshield at her cabin. “Because I got a visit tonight, from an FBI agent and a detective from the Gatlinburg police department.” She swallowed hard, her hands fluttering in her lap. “They made me promise not to share any of the information that they revealed to me. But I don’t see the harm in sharing it with you, since it’s about you and you’re working with them.”
He sat quietly as she explained about Detective Sampson and Special Agent Holland’s visit earlier in the evening. She explained how they’d sworn her to secrecy and had shared the information on the case that they were working on with a secret task force, the one that Dalton was part of. She’d been shown reports, pictures, affidavits, so much information, and all of it proving that Dalton hadn’t killed Bethany Miller. Dalton had been undercover at the time, and they had dates and time stamps proving it, along with a list of all the other agents and police who’d been working that particular night with him to close a drug ring and get illegal guns off the street.
She wiped tears from her cheeks and let out a shuddering breath. “I didn’t know that you were telling me the truth all along. You really were working with Bethany, helping her on her investigation. You brought in other agencies to bring down the same criminals that she was trying to bring down, even before her death. Half of those criminals in the pictures have already been arrested and put behind bars because of you. All this time, my website, my efforts to get justice, were just making your job harder. They told me you were forced to back off on your role, that you couldn’t work undercover anymore because of me. Instead, you’re investigating in an administrative capacity now. Again, because of me.”
