Hold Your Breath (Search and Rescue) (21 page)

“No!” For this conversation, she couldn’t stay still. Crossing to the breakfast bar, she started arranging the apples and bananas sitting on a plate. “I just…” Balancing a banana on top of two apples, she sighed. “Moving here was really hard.”

He grunted.

“It was the first time I decided what
I
wanted to do. Once I got here, I had to learn everything from scratch.” She turned another banana into a teeter-totter by balancing it over a single apple and then rocking it back and forth. “I hadn’t even mowed my own lawn back in Connecticut, and here I had to learn how to take care of my solar batteries and how to fix my generator when it wouldn’t start and…just everything. I didn’t even know how to start a fire when I first moved into my cabin. I thought it was a matter of throwing a lit match at a stack of logs.”

When she risked glancing at him, Callum was still expressionless, but he was looking at her with an intense focus that made her shiver. She took that as a good sign and continued.

“It was really hard and scary, but I did it. Now, you make everything easy.” Frowning, she spun the teeter-totter banana in a circle before it wobbled and fell off the apple. “And that’s even scarier, because I just want to dump everything in your lap and lie on a fainting couch while you fan me with palm fronds and feed me grapes.”

His slight choking sound brought her head around, but his expression hadn’t changed. Turning back to the plate, she made a happy face out of two apples for eyes and a banana for a mouth.

“I don’t want to go back to that helpless, weak person I was before.” She flipped the banana over so it created a frown. “And I’m really tempted when I’m with you.”

Although she didn’t hear him cross the room to stop behind her, he was close enough to reach out and reflip the banana to a smile. “I worry about you all the time,” he said gruffly, and she whirled around to face him.

“I don’t want you to worry. I want to do such a good job taking care of myself that you don’t have to worry.”

“You’re not the problem.” He shifted closer, never taking his gaze from hers. “It’s snowstorms and killers and fires and that fucking stalker. When you’re not with me, I’m constantly thinking about you.”

As she stared at him, nerves and something else—something
amazing
—bubbling inside of her, she said quietly, “I think about you all the time, too.”

“I do want to protect you. I do want to do things for you, to make your life easier.” He brushed his thumb over her bottom lip. “Whatever I do, you could never be helpless. And you definitely could never be weak.”

“But—”

He silenced her with a short, hard kiss. “Does discussing the HDG case with me take away from what you’re doing?”

“No.”

“Did having me help you last night and stay with you this morning in the aftermath of the fire make you weaker?”

She considered the question. “Not really. But I think I wanted you there too much.”

With a shake of his head, he told her, “It’s okay to have help. When we go on dive-team calls, we are never alone. We’re stronger together, safer together. Getting a second opinion on what truck you should buy won’t change what you’ve accomplished by moving out here and surviving.”

When she was quiet for several moments, he added, “Okay?”

“I think so.” He’d given her a lot to consider, and her brain chose that moment to go from full speed to a crawl. “Can I chew on what you said and let you know in the morning?”

Hooking an arm around her neck, he pulled her into a hug. “Of course.” He kissed the top of her head. While she was debating whether to give in to the hug or pull away, her body decided on its own, sinking against his heat and strength. Giving her a final squeeze, he gently pulled away. When his hands left her shoulders, she swayed with exhaustion.

“Bed,” he ordered, narrowing his eyes at her.

“Only if you come too.”

Callum considered her. “Deal.”

She didn’t obey him because she was weak or helpless, her fuzzy brain decided, but because she was dead tired and longing for his cloud-soft bed. Turning to the stairs, she headed to the bedroom without even tossing back a flippant comment, and she couldn’t help a pleased smile when he followed right on her heels.

The next morning, Lou called Ian as soon as she figured it was late enough to be considered a reasonable hour. For some reason, pissing off a member of the local, potentially murderous MC seemed like a bad idea. Despite her patience, he didn’t answer. When the call went to voice mail, she left a message asking him to call her back.

Although it was Saturday, Callum had headed to his office at Station One early that morning. He’d mentioned needing to catch up on paperwork. Even though he didn’t say that he was behind because he spent so much time dealing with her problems over the last few days, Lou felt a guilty pang, knowing she was the reason he was working on a weekend.

He’d delayed leaving, standing next to the mudroom door as he’d eyed her with an unreadable expression. He’d been jangling his keys in a nervous, very-un-Callum-like motion.

“What?” she’d asked.

His eyebrows had pinched together. “Maybe I shouldn’t go.”

“Why not?”

“I’d rather not leave you here alone while that Brent asshole is roaming around.”

Walking over to where he stood, she’d given him a light push. “Go. I’ll be fine. I have my phone, and I’ll call you if anything happens. I’ll even set your alarm.” He’d had a security system installed in his house the day before. How he’d managed to do that on such short notice after a snowstorm was a mystery. That promise had done the trick, though, and he’d reluctantly headed to Station One.

To occupy her jittery brain while she waited for Ian to return her call, Lou started on the list of contacts for the support groups. She began with the diabetes list, but she was connected to voice mail for the first several phone numbers. On the fifth call, someone answered, but he flatly refused to share information about group members. The next live voice she’d reached was the husband of the group coordinator. He knew the time and place of the next meeting, but couldn’t tell Lou anything other than that. After that, call after call went to voice mail.

Ending the latest fruitless call, she sighed. This investigative work was frustrating. She figured it made sense that not many people answered, though, since it was Saturday morning. Punching in the next number, this one for a group that met in the nearby town of Otto, she hit “send” and waited for the recorded message.

“Hello?”

The live female voice startled Lou, and she sat up straight. “Oh, hi! Sorry, I wasn’t sure if I’d get anyone on a Saturday. I had a question about the Otto Diabetes Support Group?”

“Sure!” The voice warmed. “I’m Mary Dorring, the coordinator. Were you interested in joining us? We get together at seven on Tuesday evenings, in the Otto Library’s meeting room.”

“Hi, Mary. I’m Lou. I’m actually calling about my uncle.” She figured she’d stick with the uncle story she’d concocted at the VA clinic. It was a little lame, but she couldn’t think of any other way to find out someone’s identity when she didn’t know his name.

“Oh, is he the one wanting to join?”

“He’s already a participant—or was. He disappeared on us a few months ago, so we—my family and I—are trying to locate him. I was hoping he’s still been attending the meetings.”

“Okay,” Mary said slowly. “What’s his name?”

“Grant Dutton, but he has a few issues with paranoia, so he might be using another name.”

There was a pause. “I’m not sure how I can help you, then. I haven’t met anyone named Grant Dutton.”

“Well, he’s white, sixty-five years old, about five-ten, a hundred and fifty pounds, gray hair, and he had two toes on his right foot amputated last year.”

“Oh!” The brightness in Mary’s voice put Lou on high alert. “Do you have another uncle named…oh, now what was it? Something unusual. Not Dexter, but something similar…Baxter! That was it!”

Lou blinked at the unexpected detour and scribbled
Baxter—brother?
next to Mary’s phone number. “Um…yes! Uncle Baxter. Why do you ask?”

“He called just a few days ago, looking for his brother. The description matched what you gave me. He asked for a different name, though…maybe one of your missing uncle’s pseudonyms?”

“Very likely,” Lou improvised, her brain scrambling for an explanation. “They’re really close. If anyone would know what name Uncle Grant was using, it’d be Uncle Baxter. Do you remember what the name was?”

“Oh dear. Let me think. It was Willard something. You don’t hear that name very often these days, so I remembered that part. Willard…oh, what was it?”

In the pause that followed, Lou wrote “Willard” on the list under her previous note. Biting her tongue in an effort not to scream at Mary to remember, which would not be helpful, she underlined Willard’s name several times, tearing the paper with the last violent stroke of her pen.

“I’m sorry,” Mary said. “I don’t remember the last name. You can check with your Uncle Baxter, though, can’t you?”

“Um, sure.” Racking her brain for a reason why she
couldn’t
ask her uncle, she came up empty and gave a silent sigh. “Thank you for your help.”

“Of course. Good luck locating your uncle.”

“Thank you,” Lou repeated. “Bye.”

As soon as she ended the call, her finger was poised over Callum’s name on the screen of her cell. She hesitated, though, not wanting to interrupt him yet again while he was working. The new information was chewing a hole in her brain, however, and she was dying to share it with him. Just as she decided to compromise and send him a text, the phone rang in her hand, making her jump.

It was Ian calling, and she hurried to accept the call. “Ian!”

“Yes.” He sounded wary, and rightfully so. She didn’t call him regularly—or ever—so her message, combined with her overenthusiastic greeting, must have struck him as very odd.

“I was hoping to talk with you,” she said, pacing from Callum’s living room to his kitchen and back again, too wound up to stand still. “Can we meet?”

“Okay.” His answer was slow in coming and even more cautious than his initial response.

“Good.” After a short pause, she asked, “Today?”

“I’m in Liverton for the weekend,” he said.

“I could meet you there,” she said. Liverton was only a half hour or so from Callum’s house. There was a silence that stretched long enough to make Lou wonder if the call had dropped. “Hello?”

“Don’t think that would be a good idea,” Ian finally said.

“It doesn’t have to be at your…um, club.” Lou wasn’t sure what the correct terminology was for the lair of an MC. “We could meet at a coffee shop or something.”

“Coffee shop?” He sounded like he was choking a little. “In Liverton?”

Lou ran through her limited memories of Liverton. It wasn’t really on the way to anywhere, so she’d been through it only once the previous fall, and that was because she’d been lost. It was small, she recalled. Very, very small. And a large percentage of the residents owned several pickup trucks, most of which had been parked in the scrubby yards of the couple dozen houses and trailer homes. For some reason, the Livertonites liked to keep their driveways clear.

“Is there
anywhere
to meet in Liverton? A diner or a gas station or something? This shouldn’t take too long.”

Instead of answering, he asked his own question. “What’s this about?”

“I’d rather tell you in person.”

After another long pause, she heard him exhale. “Fine. I’ll meet you at the Liverton Bar at eleven.”

“The bar will be open that early?” she asked doubtfully.

“It’s Liverton,” he said, as if that explained it.

“Okay. Thanks.”

With a grunt, he ended the call. Lou looked at her phone thoughtfully. When she’d seen him at Station One or even at the scene of her cabin fire, he’d been a lot more…easygoing. Relaxed. Definitely more friendly. With a shrug, she dismissed his abruptness and tapped on Callum’s number. Although she hated to interrupt his work yet again, he had possession of a truck she needed to borrow.

* * *

It seemed that Callum and his pickup were a package deal.

“I could’ve gone by myself so you had more time to finish your work,” she said as they sped along the highway toward Liverton. “At this rate, you’ll never catch up on everything.”

He just shrugged off her concern. “You weren’t going to Liverton alone.”

“Why not?” Lou cocked her head curiously. “It’s just to see Ian.”

Giving her a steady look before returning his gaze to the road, he said, “Ian’s not just Ian, firefighter. He’s a member of a motorcycle club—one that looks to be the sheriff’s main suspect in a murder.”

“Oh!” The mention of the murder brought her mind back to her earlier discovery. “Guess what? I might have found out HDG’s name! Well, his first name, at least. Maybe.”

“What?”

“I called some of the support group numbers, and one in Otto was answered by the coordinator, Mary. Mary didn’t recognize our HDG, but she said someone named Baxter had called a few days ago looking for his brother, who matched HDG’s description, down to the missing toes. Baxter said his brother’s name was Willard something.”

“Willard…something? His brother didn’t know his last name?”

Lou shook her head. “He did tell her Willard’s last name, but Mary couldn’t remember what it was. She just remembered the Willard part because it was unusual.”

“So you think Willard is our HDG?”

“It seems possible, doesn’t it?” She twisted in her seat to face him. “If it was just a gray-haired guy, I’d think it was probably a coincidence, but two missing men, both with diabetes and eight toes? I think that lowers the odds of it being two different guys considerably.”

“I agree.” He shot her a sideways grin. “Nice work, Nancy Drew.”

“So what’s our next step?” she asked, smothering a proud smile at his praise. It warmed her more than was probably good for her future mental health.

He thought for a few seconds before he spoke. “I think we should pass this along to the sheriff’s department. They have the resources for this information to really be helpful.”

“I agree. I’ll give Rob a call.” They passed the small “Welcome to Liverton, Altitude 9,745 feet” sign. “Right after we’ve talked to Ian.”

Callum turned left onto Second Street and immediately turned left again to park in the small gravel lot next to the bar. It was big enough for only five or so vehicles, and Callum took the last available spot. Glancing at the clock on the dash reading 10:53, Lou shook her head. Not only was the bar open before eleven, but it was packed, at least by Liverton standards.

She hopped out of the truck and joined Callum by the door. “You know,” she said, glancing over her shoulder at the line of pickups, “this is why my truck has—had—such good self-esteem.”

He didn’t say anything but just looked at her with an expression of wry amusement mixed with a touch of bafflement.

“Anywhere else, my truck would’ve been considered a POS. But in Field County, she was a shining star of beauty…at least compared to most of the vehicles around here.” Lou jerked her head to one pickup in particular, the color of primer except for the orange topper and army-green hood. A huge dent hollowed out the right side of the bed.

With a quiet huff of amusement, Callum ushered her inside.

The place was pretty much what Lou expected—a row of bar stools and a few Formica tables. The stools were all occupied, and everyone turned to look at them as they entered, making Lou feel like an actress in an old Western. If music had been playing, she was pretty sure it would’ve screeched to a halt.

Since none of the gawkers were Ian, Lou followed Callum to a table tucked in a corner. He pulled out a metal-framed chair with a vinyl seat bearing the requisite rip in it. Once she sat, he took the chair next to hers. She noted that he’d arranged them both with their backs to the wall, facing the door. Callum plucked the plastic-covered menu from its spot propped between the salt and pepper shakers.

The bartender, with her bleached hair and overtanned, lined skin, fit right in with the decor. She appeared to be doubling as the waitress, since she left her spot behind the bar and headed to their table. “What can I get you?” she asked in a raspy smoker’s voice.

“Chicken wings?” Callum sent Lou a questioning look, tilting the menu in her direction.

“Yes, please.” Leaning closer so she could see the options, she added, “And onion rings. Oh, and cheese sticks. Mmm…an order of mini-pizzas, too. The sausage ones.”

The waitress nodded. “Anything to drink?”

“Just water,” Lou said, and Callum held up two fingers.

As the server took their order to the kitchen, Callum gave her a look.

“What?” she asked defensively. “I’m hungry.”

“That’s about a year’s worth of grease,” he said. “You’ll probably regret this in a few hours.”

“Probably,” she agreed with a shrug. “But it’ll taste pretty good going down.”

After the waitress dropped off their waters and then returned to her post at the bar, Lou watched Callum thoughtfully as he unwrapped his straw.

It was his turn to ask, “What?”

“I just realized that I’ve never seen you drink,” she explained, stripping her own straw. “Alcohol, I mean. You ordered a beer once, when we talked to Belly, but you didn’t drink any of it.”

“That’s because I don’t.” He flattened his straw wrapper and folded it in half with careful precision. “Not unless I’m on vacation and far away from Field County.”

“Why’s that?”

“Can’t go on a call if I’ve been drinking,” he explained, snagging her straw wrapper and pressing it smooth. “The dive team isn’t that big. I think of how I’d feel if someone died because I decided to have a few beers. To me, it’s an easy sacrifice.”

“I never thought about that,” she said.

“Why haven’t I ever seen you have a drink, then?”

With a laugh, she admitted, “Because living out here in the winter is scary. I need to have all my faculties intact to give me the best chance of survival.”

He opened his mouth to respond, but Ian Walsh walked through the door, catching both of their attention. The transition from his fire department bunker gear to lots of leather did not detract from his calendar worthiness. Sure, it’d be a whole different calendar, but she’d still hang it on her wall—or would have, if her walls hadn’t all burned.