Mountain Sheriff

by B. J Daniels

Suddenly she broke through the thick cover, bursting out of the trees in a flurry of fern fronds, pine needles and dried leaves, arms and legs flailing. She crashed down in the middle of the road, somehow managing to stay on her feet as she stumbled to a stop. Then she heard the sound of the pickup truck’s engine coming closer.

  In that instant, something large and dark streaked across the road just inches in front of the pickup’s chrome grill. She didn’t even realize that she’d jerked the camera up, could barely hear the sound of its motor drive over the thunder of her heart and the screech of the pickup’s brakes. Between her and the pickup’s grill was something big, dark and furry.

  The pickup skidded on the wet muddy road, the grill coming closer and closer and closer to where Charity stood. Snap, snap, snap.

  At the very last moment, she dove into the dense growth below the road, hugging the camera protectively to her chest as she tumbled a half-dozen yards down the mountainside, disappearing in the dense greenery. When she finally stopped, she lay very still.

  Above her, she heard the pickup come to a stop a few yards past where she’d bailed out. Heard the truck door open with a groan. Heard the slap of footsteps through the mud puddles. The sound of heavy breathing. A limb snapped directly above her at the edge of the road, and she knew the driver was standing up there looking down at the spot where she lay hidden in the ferns. At least she hoped she was hidden.

  MITCH LEAPED from his patrol car, weapon drawn, as he rushed to Charity’s VW. The car was indeed empty, and the keys were still in the ignition.

  Whatever had happened here, Charity hadn’t had time to even grab her purse. It was on the seat next to— His heart stuck in his throat as he saw the red rose speared to the passenger seat.

  “Oh, God,” he breathed. “Charity?” His voice cracked. “Charity!”

  A blue jay answered from the dripping trees overhead. Rain fell through the lush green canopy and pattered on the forest floor. Over it, he heard what sounded like a car door slam, then the roar of an engine below him on the mountain. Damn. “Charity!”

  He hurriedly climbed into the VW, started the engine and pulled the car out of the way, then he rushed back to his patrol car and took off down the road after the sound of the retreating engine.

  Not far past the hairpin curve, he spotted her. A small soaked figure in a dirt-covered ladybug-printed raincoat walking up the road toward him. She was hunched forward, clutching her chest.

  He threw on his brakes and was out of the patrol car, running toward her before he even realized it.

  She looked like a drowned rat, her long auburn hair plastered to her face, her hood thrown back.

  As he approached her, he saw that her hair was full of wet leaves and twigs, her ladybug plastic raincoat in tatters and her face scratched and bleeding.

  His heart jerked in his chest at the sight of her, and all he wanted to do was take her in his arms.

  “Are you all right?” He barely got the words out before he saw what she had clutched to her chest. Her camera. He’d been wrong back at her car. She’d managed to grab at least one thing before she left the car.

  She nodded at him, lifting the camera, her lips turning up in a grin. “I got a photo of the black pickup.”

  He stopped short of her, just short of gathering her in his arms and crushing her to him. “You what?”

  “I got a photo of the truck that was following me. I had to cut down the mountain through the brush to get the shot, but I did it,” she said triumphantly.

  He fought the urge to turn her over his knee and spank her. “Have you completely lost your mind?” he demanded.

  She brushed a lock of wet hair from her eyes. “What did you expect me to do?”

  “With you, Charity, I never know what to expect.” He shook his head. She could have been killed. Coming down that mountainside on foot was dangerous enough, but actually getting a photo of the pickup she thought had been following her?

  “When you yelled for me, you scared him off,” she said. “And just in time.” She shivered and looked away. “Thanks.”

  He took several deep breaths and counted to ten, still so angry he wanted to throttle her. She was all right. Safe. Wasn’t that what mattered?

  The only sound for long moments was the sound of the rain.

  “You could have been killed,” he said finally, still angry with her, still scared. “This was a stupid stunt.”

  “I got the photo.” She stepped past him, head high, her wet leaf-strewn hair flipped to one side and her eyes bright with more than defiance. She was scared, too. She’d actually scared herself. Too bad she never learned from these kinds of experiences.

  He watched her start up the road and swore under his breath, wishing she didn’t do foolish things like this, wishing things were different between them, wishing she wasn’t the only one who held out hope for the two of them, wishing he didn’t want this woman so damned badly.

  What was it his mother used to say? If wishes were horses, everyone would ride.

  “Look,” he said, going after her. Why did she always have to be so…Charity? But even as he thought it, he couldn’t imagine her any other way. The thought surprised him, given how he felt about marriage and the mere mention of mixing their genes.

  “Charity, I’m sorry I didn’t—”

  “—believe me?” she snapped.

  “When I was looking for Nina’s car, I was also keeping an eye out for your black pickup. If you’d just given me a chance—”

  “You still don’t believe the truck was following me, do you,” she said, stopping in her tracks. “He left me another present. A rose. It was stuck to the passenger seat of my car when I left Betty’s.”

  “I know. I saw it.” Someone had put it in her car parked in front of the newspaper office while they were having a late lunch. The person had been that bold, and it scared the hell out of him. He wanted to be there the next time and catch the guy.

  “You don’t think it’s the man in the black truck, do you.” She shook her head as if disgusted with him. “Well, as soon as I develop this roll, you’ll see.”

  He hoped so. “You have a photo of the driver?” He saw the flicker of uncertainty.

  “You’ll just see,” she said, and continued up the road.

  He pulled off his hat, raked his fingers through his damp hair, the rain feeling good on his face. “Get in. I’ll give you a ride,” he called after her.

  She glared at him over her shoulder. It would be just like her to walk all the way back up the road in the rain to her car just to show him she didn’t need him.

  “Charity, come on. Let me give you a ride.”

  To his surprise, she stopped and came back to climb into the passenger side of the patrol car, although with obvious reluctance.

  He got behind the wheel, found a wide spot to turn around and drove back up the road to her car, all the while trying to think of something to say. He was still angry with her. And she with him. Silence seemed safest.

  The moment he slowed, she threw open the door and was out, headed for her car.

  “Let me know when you get the photos developed,” he said to her retreating back.

  She didn’t answer.

  He waited until she turned the VW around, then followed her back down the road to the newspaper office. The blinds were up, the lights on inside the small building, and he could see her assistant, high-school student Blaine Bridges, inside working.

  Charity parked out front and stomped into the newspaper office with her camera bag. She didn’t give Mitch so much as a sideways glance.

  He waited until she was safely inside before he drove down to his office. While he wasn’t about to tell Charity, a photo of the pickup wasn’t going to prove that the driver had been following her—or leaving her any presents. Neither would a shot of the driver. Even if the driver had left her the heart-shaped stone and the rose, there was no law against it.

  The photograph she’d just risked her damned life for wa
s worth nothing. All it would prove was that there was a black pickup in town with tinted windows and someone driving it.

  But it might give Mitch a face, a license number, maybe, and possibly a name. And maybe a reason—if the truck really had been following her.

  He left the patrol car and started through the rain toward Town Hall, where the Sheriff’s Department shared the right half of the building.

  A thought struck him. What had made Charity so sure the pickup was following her in the first place? Did she have some reason she hadn’t told him about? Was she involved in something he was unaware of? What was the chance of that? Ha. About the same as the chance of rain.

  What worried him was the possibility that it had something to do with Nina’s disappearance and the questions Charity had been asking about her. But then, there was that damned baby spoon he’d found in Nina’s bungalow. If Nina had been planning to blow the whistle on someone in town, then using Charity and the newspaper would be the best way to do it.

  “Well?” Sissy demanded as Mitch walked into the Sheriff’s Department office shaking off raindrops. She had that What’s-Charity-done-now? look on her face.

  “Do you know anyone who drives a black pickup with tinted windows?” he asked.

  Sissy narrowed her eyes. “Not anyone in Timber Falls.”

  He nodded and walked into his office.

  “Wade Dennison called. Wants an update,” Sissy hollered after him. “Said you were to call the moment you walked in the—”

  The last word was cut off as Mitch closed his office door. Damn Charity. He didn’t want to admit just how much she’d scared him. He hung up his coat and sat down, still shaken.

  He scrubbed his hands over his face, elbows on his desk. Maybe he didn’t take Charity seriously enough. Except for her determination to get him to the altar. He took that damned seriously.

  His intercom buzzed and he groaned. Surely Charity hadn’t had enough time to develop the film already. “Yes?”

  “Wade Dennison on line one. I told him you were heading for your desk as he called. You owe me.”

  There were too many women in his life, Mitch thought as he picked up line one. “Hello, Wade.”

  “What have you found out?”

  Just enough to give myself a headache. “I’ve been looking for Nina, asking everyone who knew her where she might be, searching for her car. So far—” he hated to admit this “—I haven’t turned up much.”

  “She didn’t just vanish!” Wade snapped, then let out an irritated sigh.

  “These kinds of investigations take time,” Mitch said.

  “Every hour that goes by is time lost.”

  “I know that, but in big cities, law enforcement doesn’t even start a search until the person has been missing for at least forty-eight hours.”

  “This is not a big city,” Wade said.

  “No, it isn’t, and that’s why I’ve been looking for her and will continue looking for her. Wade, my other line’s going. I gotta answer. I’ll get back to you.”

  Mitch disconnected, shaking his head. Wade had sounded even more upset than he had earlier. What the hell had Wade’s relationship been with the woman who called herself Nina Monroe?

  Tracy Shank at Dennison Ducks thought Nina had something on Wade. Blackmail?

  But people being blackmailed rarely got upset when the blackmailer suddenly disappeared.

  Was it possible Wade and Nina had been romantically involved and that was why he was so upset?

  That just didn’t feel right to Mitch, either.

  Maybe Wade had found out about the woman’s lies.

  But then Wade wouldn’t have come to Mitch pretending he didn’t know anything about her, would he?

  And there was that damned spoon, Mitch thought, remembering it in his jacket pocket.

  If Nina Monroe was Angela Dennison, then that would certainly explain a lot of things—like Wade’s odd behavior. But Mitch couldn’t see Wade keeping something like that a secret. Quite the opposite. Unless there was some reason Wade wouldn’t want anyone to know that Angela had been found.

  Mitch’s head was killing him. He reached into his drawer, took out the bottle of aspirin, spilled two into his hand and downed them with the cold coffee in his mug on the desk. He shuddered at the bitter taste.

  His door opened. “I’m leaving,” Sissy announced as if she thought he might argue with her. “It’s after five.”

  He glanced at the clock, surprised how quickly the day had gone. He’d hoped to find Nina before the day was out. He still had until midnight, but it would be dark soon, which would only make searching for her car more difficult.

  “Have a nice evening,” he said to Sissy.

  She stayed in the doorway. “Are you all right?”

  “Why?”

  “You don’t even have anything smart to say to me before I leave?” Sissy sounded disappointed.

  “I used it all up on Charity.”

  Sissy laughed. “Good night, boss.”

  CHARITY COULDN’T WAIT to see what she’d gotten on film. She’d headed straight for the darkroom with her camera bag.

  “Want anything from Betty’s?” Blaine had asked. “I was just going to get some dinner.”

  “No thanks. I had a late lunch.” Not even food could distract her right now. Once she had the roll of film developed…well, that was another story. “Take your time. I won’t need you for a while.” Right now she just had to see what she’d shot, and she didn’t want any distractions.

  “I’ll return all those books to the shelves when I come back.” A huge stack of books was sitting on the floor near the door to the storage room. Blaine had insisted on putting the books in alphabetical order by author. The boy just couldn’t help himself.

  As Blaine left, he locked the door behind him, and Charity stepped into the darkroom, shed her ripped-up raincoat and pulled her camera from the bag.

  She was chilled to the bone, clothes drenched, teeth chattering. Her fingers shook as she tried to remove the film—and finally gave up. She kept an old sweatshirt and a pair of jeans at the office for “grunge” work. She stripped and changed into the dry clothing, including her favorite old red sneakers, then removed the film and began the developing process.

  Most newspapers had gone to digital cameras, but she liked the old-fashioned darkroom process. There was something much more satisfying about it. But right now she would have loved to just zap the photos into a computer and see what she had.

  The strip of negatives came out of the processor and she hung it up to dry. There looked to be a great shot of the front of the pickup and quite possibly the driver, although he was in shadow.

  The same went for the dark furry animal that had run in front of the truck. It was only a blur off to one side, but it appeared to be nothing more than a bear. No Bigfoot.

  However, there was good light on the front of the pickup. In fact, she could make out the last four figures of the license plate—4 AKS. She couldn’t wait to take a closer look when the negatives finally dried and she could blow up the shot.

  From what she’d seen quickly scanning the strip of negatives, she had all the shots she needed for this week’s paper. Shots of Frank, the Granny’s bread deliveryman, standing by the road where he’d reportedly seen Bigfoot looked as if it would work for page one.

  She was thinking about how she’d lay out the page when she heard a thump outside the darkroom door. She turned, frowning.

  “Did you forget something?” she called out, knowing it had to be Blaine. The doors were locked and he was the only one with a key.

  No answer. He must have already left again.

  It had almost sounded as if he’d collided with one of the desks, she thought. What was he doing?

  Another soft thump, this one closer to the darkroom. She froze as the knob on the darkroom door began to turn. The light was still on outside and Blaine knew better than to open the door while she was developing film.

  The door
opened. But even before she glimpsed the face distorted by a nylon stocking, she knew it wasn’t Blaine.

  MITCH GLANCED at the clock, surprised by how much time had passed. Even more surprised Charity hadn’t called. She would have had the film developed by now. Maybe she hadn’t gotten a clear shot of the pickup, after all. He couldn’t imagine any other reason she wouldn’t have contacted him otherwise.

  He got up from his desk, stretched and realized he was hungry. That meant Charity must be starving. Maybe he could make amends by taking her to Betty’s. The special tonight was stuffed pork chops, mashed potatoes with gravy, applesauce and double chocolate cake.

  He got his coat and headed out the door, locking it behind him. The rain had let up. Temporarily. Fog hovered over the town like a bad omen.

  As he walked down the block, he was unable to shake his uneasiness. Charity worked too many late nights at the newspaper. It was the nature of the business, but still, he didn’t like her being there alone so often. Why couldn’t that woman have gotten a normal job?

  But as hard as he tried, he couldn’t imagine Charity doing anything else. As a reporter she got to butt into people’s business—and get paid for it. Journalism was obviously her true calling.

  The blinds were drawn and the newspaper office was dark except for two faint lights he could make out through a crack in the blinds at the back of the building. A small glow to the left and the red light outside the darkroom across from it.

  He couldn’t see either Charity or Blaine. Was Charity still in the darkroom developing the film? Or had she gone to Betty’s for dinner? The thought surprised—and worried—him. Charity had been so excited about what she was sure would be on the film. She wouldn’t have left. That meant she had to be blowing up the photos in the darkroom now. Playing detective. Now that sounded like Charity.

  He tried the front door. Locked. He knocked, waited, knocked harder. No answer. The newspaper was housed in a small narrow one-story brick building on a corner. Next door was a T-shirt shop that was closed. Behind it was an empty lot, overgrown with encroaching vegetation, a dirt alley separating the two.