Hold Your Breath (Search and Rescue) (8 page)

“Your house is nice,” she said, sitting down on the sofa and tilting her head back to admire the lofted ceiling. “I’ve never been in here before.”

“I don’t invite many people here,” he admitted. “Want something to drink?”

“No, thank you.” She felt a sudden awkwardness, as if the research session really was morphing into something closer to a…well, a date. Fumbling for the small notebook she’d tucked into her pajama pants’ pocket, she asked, “Um…did you want to see my notes?”

Sitting next to her on the couch—although not close enough to make her brain shut down—he held out his hand in a silent request. She passed him the notebook. While he flipped through the pages, she nibbled on the inside of her cheek, suddenly embarrassed by her amateur sleuthing. More than anything, she wanted him to be impressed by her, for him to think she was intelligent.

Shutting down those thoughts firmly, she reminded herself that turning herself inside out to gain people’s respect was a slippery downward slope. Twenty-six years with her parents had taught her that.

“What’s this?” he asked, jerking her out of her darkening thoughts.

Scooting closer so she could see her writing, she read out loud, “‘Tyler Coughlin arrow Braden Saltzman, militia, lesson.’ That’s not perfectly clear?” She laughed when he gave her a look. “I ran into Rob and his son at the grocery store this afternoon. Braden’s a kid at Tyler’s school who had a theory that our guy’s headlessness was a lesson for the other militia members. Apparently, Braden’s uncle is one of the top militia dogs, so Tyler considers him a local authority on the subject. He also mentioned the possibility of the victim’s head being mounted on the wall in the compound as a reminder not to speak out of turn. Although I’m paraphrasing here.”

“Hmm.” Callum turned back to her notes.

“I wish Tyler would’ve shared more high school rumors, but Rob shut him down pretty quickly. I know it’s a crazy theory, but there might be a hint of truth in gossip.”

Closing the notebook, Callum tapped it against his thigh, looking at the blank whiteboard thoughtfully. “I think we should focus first on what we know about the victim. If we start considering possible scenarios too early, we might try to make them fit, rather than looking at where the facts lead us.”

“Good idea.” Excited, Lou bounced to her feet and grabbed the whiteboard markers. “Can we start listing known facts?”

Callum grinned, softening the harsh lines of his face and making him so beautiful that it temporarily erased every thought in Lou’s brain. The iceman actually had dimples! “You’re just dying to dirty up that clean surface, aren’t you?”

It took Lou a moment to recover from the force of his full-wattage smile. Clearing her throat, she forced herself to grin back at him. “You know it. Now let’s get started before I just start drawing random rainbows and stick people.” Pulling out a green marker, she tapped it against her mouth, thinking, before yanking off the cap and drawing a straight line across the top of the board.

Even before she added any notes, he guessed her intention. “Timeline. Good idea.”

She couldn’t stop the pleased smile that crept over her face. Turning more fully toward the board to hide her happy expression, she made a vertical mark close to the right side of the timeline and scribbled “HDG Found in Reservoir” with the date the body was recovered.

“When did the coroner think he was dumped?” Callum asked, flipping through her notes again.

“October through January, I think.” She drew a bracket below the timeline in red, writing “October 1” on the left side of the bracket and “January 31” on the other. Along the bottom of the bracket, she wrote “HDG Dumped in Mission Reservoir” and added out loud, “Although Chris mentioned checking disappearances as early as August.” She smudged out “October” with her finger and wrote “August” instead.

Clearing his throat, Callum said, “There’s an eraser next to the markers.” When she just looked at him, he changed the subject. “It was a fairly warm fall. I can’t imagine the body would’ve stayed submerged so long if it were in the reservoir in August.”

She shrugged. “True, but better to make the box too big than too small, right?” When he agreed, she kept the first of August as the initial date on her bracket. “Is that all we have so far for the timeline?”

“What about the amputation of his toes?”

“Yes!” Using a purple marker, she created another bracket. Labeling it “HDG: Two Toes Amputated,” she put the initial date as April and the final date as December. “Think that’s a wide enough spread? Belly mentioned it was probably done a few months before he died.”

Callum said, “I think that’s good. We already know that he was most likely killed closer to October than August, so there’s plenty of cushion in there if Belly was off in her estimation.”

“Okay, so let’s list what we know about our HDG.” She grabbed the blue marker and wrote as she talked. “Male, Caucasian, gray hair, approximately sixty-five years old, five-ten, one hundred and fifty pounds, U.S. Army tattoo on his chest, old shrapnel scars on his back, two toes amputated from his right foot, diabetic. Anything else?”

“Bel thought he’d been in Vietnam, but that was an educated guess, based on his age and the age of the scarring.”

“I think we should include it.” Lou put it on the board, although she added a question mark behind it.

“There’s the obvious, too.” When Lou just looked at him, he elaborated, “The missing hands and head.”

“Right!” She scribbled that down as well. Gazing at the spotless two-thirds of the whiteboard, she asked longingly, “Can we write out just a few theories on that side?”

“Nope. Only the facts, ma’am.”

“Fine,” she sighed. “Throw some more facts at me, then.”

By the time they’d wrapped things up for the night, there was still a tempting amount of empty space on the whiteboard. With great self-restraint, Lou capped her marker and handed it to Callum, who put it with the others in perfect spectrum order.

“Hopefully, we’ll have more to add after our field trip tomorrow,” she said, before glancing at her watch. It was already after eleven. “Speaking of that, I’d better get home, or you’ll have to drag me out of bed tomorrow morning.”

“You could stay here,” Callum offered.

She whipped her head around before she could temper her response. “Um…
stay
?” she repeated.

His cheeks darkened as she stared at him. “I’d sleep on the couch. I mean, you could have my bed. If you didn’t want to drive home tonight.” He suddenly looked irritated. “Never mind. I’ll pick you up at your place tomorrow at eight.”

“I…well, thanks. My woodstove needs to be stoked, but I appreciate the offer.” Wincing inwardly at her stiffly formal tone, she tried to relax and speak normally. “Besides, you know I’d be waking you at two a.m. to discuss some new, wild theory my sleeping brain conjured up.”

Although he nodded, he still looked uncomfortable. She moved toward the door, pulling her coat out of the closet and jamming her feet into her boots. Once she had her coat zipped and was wearing her hat and gloves, she didn’t have any excuse not to look at him, so she met his eyes.

“Thanks. For letting me come over and use your whiteboard and everything.” Why he always reduced her to sounding like a stammering seventh-grader on her first date, she didn’t know. She
did
know that right now everything was awkward and uncomfortable, and she wanted to leave. “Okay. Um…bye.”

Callum held the door for her. “Bye. Drive safely.”

“Will do.” She saluted him and hurried down the steps, tripping on the last one. Although she stayed upright, she had to pinwheel her arms to catch her balance. Apparently, she was incapable of being anything but a walking disaster in Callum’s presence.

“Careful,” he warned, his voice sharp.

She waved, her attention on the ground in front of her feet as she walked the rest of the way to her truck without any more mishaps. She started the engine and rolled down the window. “See you tomorrow,” she said, waving as she backed out of his driveway.

He raised a hand, his figure silhouetted in the doorway. He looked so solitary standing there that she felt a twinge of guilt for not accepting his invitation to stay.

Her truck tires slipped sideways as she went around a turn. They caught the surface of the road when she straightened the wheel, but the slide had brought her back to the present. After that, she concentrated on driving, pushing Callum into a dark corner of her mind.

Later. She’d think about all that later.

* * *

How long had he been sitting there? How many minutes or even hours had passed since she’d disappeared into that house? He wasn’t sure, but it had been long enough to knot his hands into fists and sour his stomach.

When he’d watched her leave her cabin and hurry to her truck earlier, disappointment had swamped him, knowing that his favorite part of the day—watching her sleep—would be delayed. Curiosity had crept in as he ran to his own car before her taillights could disappear completely. She never went anywhere in the evenings. Where was she going?

He’d managed to catch up to her. That was one good thing about this forsaken place—tailing her was easy with so few vehicles on the roads. As she’d pulled up to a house, he’d cut his headlights and rolled to a stop in the shadows a half block away. Even from a distance, though, he’d recognized the same guy who’d helped her with her tire.

“Boy Scout,” he’d muttered, as the door swung shut behind the pair. “What’s she doing there?”

Whatever it was, it was taking a long time—at least, it felt like eons had passed since she’d stepped through the doorway into the warmly lit house. He knew she wouldn’t be doing anything…wrong. She wasn’t like that. She was faithful.

But…what were they doing in there?

Although it wasn’t as cold as the forest, he realized he was shaking. Keeping the lights off, he cranked the engine of his car to warm the interior. The front door of the house swung open, making him jump and bang his knee on the underside of the instrument panel. He scrambled to turn off the motor, worried that they’d hear it.

He almost couldn’t watch them. What if they kissed good-bye? Rage bubbled from where he’d held it to a simmer. If he touched her—if
she
touched
him
—then he wouldn’t be able to restrain himself. When she trotted toward her truck without either of them making contact, all the air in his lungs exited in a whoosh. There’d been no touching. Good. That was good.

As she started up the truck, he watched the man framed in the doorway. He could be a problem. Not a huge one, but it wasn’t good for her to be distracted right now. It might delay the plan, and he didn’t know how much longer he could be without her.

He followed her home, careful not to be obvious. It would be a bad time for her to get suspicious. Maybe that was the solution, though. Maybe she was too comfortable in her miserable little life. Maybe he needed to give her a little nudge, just hard enough to send her running into his arms.

Smiling, he waited for her to duck back into her cabin. It bothered him to miss watching her sleep, but this was better. If he was lucky, too, he could get a glimpse of her without that obtrusive pane of glass between them. Maybe, if he dared, he could even touch her, just the lightest brush of fingers against her skin.

It seemed to take forever for the cabin to go dark, but that could just be his impatience warping time. He forced himself to wait an endless amount of time past when the last light was extinguished before slipping out of his car.

He moved closer, keeping his footsteps as quiet as possible in the muffling snow. As he lifted his boot onto the bottom porch step, it creaked under his weight. He froze, listening for any movement, but the cabin stayed quiet and dark. Daring to try the next step, and then the next, he reached her front door.

His hand reached out and grasped the doorknob.

* * *

Lou woke suddenly from a heavy sleep, pulse racing.

Inhaling a deep breath, she forced herself to calm down and take inventory. A nightmare hadn’t woken her. Had it been a strange sound? She listened intently, but her heart was still pounding in her ears, deafening her to anything else. She glanced at the clock, which read two twenty a.m.

A creeping anxiety sent a chill up her spine. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t escape the feeling that someone was out there—watching her.

“Don’t be stupid,” she whispered, but her voice didn’t sound like her own. It was just the investigation getting her amped up—her head was filled with tire vandals and murderers. It was nothing.

It didn’t feel like nothing.

She
had
to check it out. No way was she getting back to sleep now.

Pushing back the covers, Lou slid out of bed, wincing at the creak of the wooden floor beneath her weight. She crossed the room and reached for the light switch, but hesitated and pulled her hand back without turning on the light. It would make her too vulnerable, not to be able to see outside. Besides, the moon was full enough that her bedroom was fairly bright.

Her house was isolated, and there wasn’t a clear view of her place from any of her neighbors or the road, so she didn’t have any window coverings. She’d figured the bears and coyotes could peek at her all they wanted. Now, though, the dark squares of glass made her feel exposed and queasy.

Carefully placing her feet to avoid the floorboards that creaked the loudest, she crept into the living room. All looked normal, everything still as it was when she went to bed, except the fire in the woodstove had burned down to glowing red coals, putting off just enough light to turn her furniture into ominous shapes.

Still, she couldn’t quite shake the feeling that something was
off
.

The kitchen was visible from the living area, but she crept around the breakfast bar to check the spaces she couldn’t see. The pantry door was cracked, making Lou frown.
Didn’t I shut that?
she wondered as she reached for the doorknob. Her fingers slipped on the cool metal, and she realized that her palms were sweating.