Indelible (44 page)

Jonah studied the cape. The inside was sewn with large flat pockets, one holding cord like that used to suspend Brody Pitman, a used strip of duct tape in another. Common tools for abduction, although Michaela had not been bound. No bruising or residue to indicate it anyway.

With a frown between his brows, Jonah turned to the book. Along with the cape and horns,
Paradise Lost
might indicate an obsession with Lucifer, although most of the selected passages were of lamentation. He regretted what he did? Wanted to think he had a conscience?

Jonah frowned. He’d never actually read it, but he guessed the story didn’t work out great for the protagonist. Did his share of damage, though. Was that what this was, an attempt to cause as much ruin as he could before they got him? That would be sooner rather than later, if he made even one mistake. Actually, the car, the cape, and Natalie were a start. The book. Well, they’d see about that.

He went home and found Jay on the porch of his cabin, as still as Enola standing beside him. His fingers barely touched the coydog’s head, but they seemed to be in communion. Jay’s black hair was pulled into a short tail at the nape of his neck, his coffee complexion warming in the sunset streaks breaking through the cloud-cluttered sky. They were looking for Scout.

Sometime, day before yesterday, the yearling pup had gone. Jay claimed he’d seen it coming. More coyote than his half-dog mother, Scout felt the wild. Maybe when it really got cold, he might come back, but the drive to breed and run and hunt with his own kind had proved stronger than human bonds.

Jonah climbed the porch steps. He hadn’t asked Jay to keep watch on his family, but with his construction project stalled, Jay had spent a fair amount of time there. They went inside without speaking.

Sarge dozed by the fire, a shell of the man he’d been even the year before. Tia sat at the table studying. She would never have accepted this imprisonment if she wasn’t imposing it on herself to complete the course work for her license.

He bent and kissed her. “Good news. I hired Moser’s nephew.”

“Does Moser’s nephew have a name?”

“Yeah, but we’ll never use it. He’s a spitting image, so we’re calling him Fax.”

Her dark eyes were amused and relieved. “And the other two positions?”

“Working through résumés. Don’t worry. I’ll hold your dear dad to his promise.”

Tia darted her brows up with a tip of her head toward Jay.

“Oh.” Jonah grinned. “Sorry.”

She sighed. “You may as well tell him.”

Jay wore a perplexed expression when they filled him in. “Does that make you mayorette?”

She rolled her eyes. “It makes me annoyed we’re talking about it. Besides, I only have Sarge’s word. It’s not like mommy dearest or Owen Buckley filled me in.”

“Might come in handy.” Jonah chucked her chin. “Never know.”

She put a hand to her belly. “I swear this baby kicks every time you talk, Jonah.”

“She’s a daddy’s girl,” Jay said.

Tia looked from Jay to him. Since they’d learned the gender but decided not to tell, she obviously thought he’d cheated.

Tia pinned Jay with a stare and said, “How do you know it’s a girl?”

“The way you move.”

“You’re watching me move?”

Jay pulled apple cider from the refrigerator. “Little things register.”

“What things?”

“A softer step. A sway.” He shrugged. “It’s your face too.”

“My face?”

“If it was a boy, you’d have a warrior face.”

Jonah didn’t say she had a killer warrior face whenever she wanted to.

Tia cocked a brow. “And what will you say if it’s a boy?”

“Congratulations.”

Sarge stirred and opened his eyes. “Chief.”

“Hey, old man,” Jay said—their joke, giving him Jonah’s title.

Sarge pointed a finger. “That nurse Lauren isn’t through with you.”

“Oh, she’s very through.”

Tia tipped her head. “Are you ever going to say what happened?”

Jay’s stoic face was all the answer they’d get.

Tia turned to Sarge. “Piper came by with muffins.”

“By herself?” Jonah asked.

“Oh, she’s immune. Don’t you know lightning won’t strike twice?”

“The guy broke into her bakery. That’s twice in my book.”

“She carries pepper spray.”

“I know. I got her law-enforcement strength.”

“There, see?”

He set Milton among Tia’s strewn textbooks. “We think this belongs to our guy. Could you scrutinize the underlined passages and give me some insight? Looks like there are notes in the margins, but I can’t make sense of them.”

Tia took the book, her face curious.
“Paradise Lost.”

“It’s the only personal item we found in the car, besides clothes.”

“It’s old.” She studied the winged accuser on the cover. “Maybe a special edition. The cover usually has Adam and Eve, being forced out of Eden.”

“That looks like Lucifer, and he’s pretty grim.”

She looked up. “In that drawing, didn’t you say he made Trevor an angel?”

Jonah met her eyes. “If he sees Trevor as a warrior angel and himself as this, it could be a showdown, a clash of good and evil.”

She flipped open the cover. “Let me see what aspects of Satan he identifies with. I guess you need it right away?”

He spread his hands. “Before anyone else gets hurt.”

More destroyed than thus,
We should be quite abolished, and expire.
What fear we then? What doubt we to incense
His utmost ire?

H
e crept back and stopped, frozen. Confused, he searched, back and forth with his eyes then himself. Here. He’d left it here. He scanned the back of the Laundromat. The car was parked here. But it wasn’t.

His hands clenched as the realization sank in. No no—No! A scream rose up. He choked on it, eyes watering. They might be watching. If they found the car, they’d be watching, waiting for him.

He saw no one, but crept into a shadow deeper than the night. The car meant nothing. The clothes were nothing. One cape he’d given the boy; the other covered him now. The rest was worthless.

Except the book. Only the book. Always the book mattered. He tossed back his head, unable to stop the cry.

Hastily, he had scrambled out of his shelter this morning—almost discovered—leaving all in the car until he found a new place to hide. And now …

Gone. It was gone. Weeping in rage, he paced the cage around the commercial trash bin. The words were his, learned and memorized, but still he needed it, would not be without it. How could they take his only solace?

They would pay. He would make them pay. He would take what they treasured, what
the chosen
treasured. He had never struck in vengeance, but now, for this, there could be no recourse but retribution. For this loss, they would pay!

Twenty-Six

N
atalie gasped. No breath would come, as out of the smoke the face appeared. In the face—pain, rage, violence. The face she couldn’t remember. Ruined flesh, gaping mouth. Wider and wider it opened, sucking her into the mud, the slag gargling in its throat. She thrashed, trying, but unable to form him as the clay swallowed her.

“Nattie. Honey. Stop thrashing.”

Groaning, she dragged up to the surface, consciousness returning with a dull throb across her head. Night draped the bedroom in black, Trevor all but invisible. She winced when he turned on the lamp.

“Bad one?”

She sat up, rubbing her eyes. “At least Cody wasn’t in it.”

“You know he’s safe. Not so sure I’ve got you covered.”

“No, Trevor.”

“Hey.” He took her hands down. “It’s natural. I screwed up.”

“Please don’t say that.” She pulled the covers to her chin, chilled and sweaty from the dream. “It was a nightmare, not a condemnation.”

“Want to tell me about it?”

She blew out her breath. “His face.”

“You saw it?”

“I saw what it was in my dream. Right before the slag sucked me in like quicksand.”

“No wonder you thrashed.” He sat on the bed and rubbed her knee.

“I’m sorry I woke you.”

“I wasn’t asleep.”

The clock read 1:00 a.m. “Worried?”

“Frustrated.” The mattress creaked when he slid over beside her, tucking an arm around her shoulders. “I keep trying to get why he targeted me. What triggered his fixation?”

She rested her head in the hollow where shoulder met chest. He felt
warm and smelled musky. “You’re larger than life. I doubt too many normal Joes get stalked.”

“I’m just a guy.”

“Sorry, Trevor. You’re not just a guy. You make miracles. Do you really think that goes unnoticed?”

“Miracles.” He shook his head. “I stopped looking for miracles when Ellis died.”

“That doesn’t mean they stopped happening. I see them in beauty, in goodness, even in the pain and suffering that give souls depth and nobility.”

“In what happened to you?” He stabbed the heart of it.

“It’s a storm now, but I’m watching for the rainbow.”

Something tender creased his brow. “You make me want to believe.”

“Then believe.”

“Maybe I do.” He braced her face, pressing his forehead to hers. “Aaron told me to pray in the hospital. I half expected a crack to open up and swallow me.”

“Yet here you are.”

His eyes crinkled. “Not even a whiff of sulfur.”

“I could have told you that.”

He sobered. “I prayed for this.”

“Nuh-uh.”

He stroked her arm. “I wanted you back in my life, and …”

Her eyes teared.

“Now I’m making you cry.”

She laughed. “Stop it.”

“Can we do this, Nattie? Would you want to marry me, knowing everything you know?”

He rendered her speechless.

“That’s the other reason I’m awake. I keep wondering if it’s fair. Can you see us together? Kids and battles and wrinkles?”

She pulled her feet up under her. “Don’t you think it’s a little soon?”

“To imagine?” He cocked his brow. “I thought every woman—”

“I don’t race down mountains, Trevor. I don’t rappel in blizzards or chase mountain lions. I snowplow.”

His mouth pulled. “Can’t feel the slope?”

“I don’t like being out of control, and I
don’t
like falling.”

He said, “You know what it feels like.”

“Of course I do.”

He took her hand. “Because that guy broke your heart.”

Her jaw fell slack. “Aaron has a big mouth.”

“He was making sure it didn’t happen again.”

Aaron of all people should know there were no guarantees. “Well, it doesn’t matter, so forget it.”

“Are you kidding me? My life’s an autopsied corpse.”

“Nice image.”

“But true. What haven’t I told you?”

She sighed. “I was amazingly naive. No, not naive, infantile. He—”

“What’s his name?”

“Gage Valerian.”

“Be serious.”

“I am. Gage Remington Valerian. I should have known right there,” she said ruefully. “He’s some minor politician now.”

“A slick talker with a ready handshake and a dagger in his belt. What happened?”

“My brain happened.”

“Shallow chump. I hate politicians.”

“He had big aspirations. I was hardly able to handle people at all. Too weird, too freaky, too impaired. I was still trying to be like everyone else, but I couldn’t.”

He stroked her fingers with his thumb. “His loss, big time.”

At the time it felt like hers. “I believed he wanted a life with me. I imagined every minute of it. Then I didn’t have to imagine, because we made it real. Only it wasn’t real. Not for him.”

The muscles in his throat worked. “I won’t take advantage of you.”

“I know. But I still …”

“Need to be sure.”

She sighed.

“Don’t. It’s perfectly reasonable.” He rubbed his face. “Think you can sleep now?”

She yawned. “We both need to.”

Rising, he leaned over and kissed her. “I won’t be far.”

Watching him go, she wished she’d said what her heart knew.
You’re everything I want
.

Swilling the barely palatable coffee, Jonah looked up from his desk when Moser filled the doorway, his uniform impeccable. Sue pressed in beside him, rumpled and flushed.
Laurel and Hardy
. She’d kick him to Kansas if she could read that thought. Besides, she hadn’t retained that much after the baby.