Shadow protector, p.15
Shadow Protector, page 15
Lloyd made a jerky motion. “Nothing else to tell. Money’s money. We took it and—well, I s’pose I got kinda curious at that. Asked him did he know the doc from somewhere.”
Logan nudged his hat forward. “And he replied…?”
“Didn’t at first. But when he started to go, I heard him say she was a detail he’d screwed up. Said he shoulda known better than to judge a book by its cover.”
SERA WAS MAKING notes and Beth was on the phone when a man came in holding a wad of cotton to his cheek.
“Got sprayed with a bunch of sparks and cinders while I was wiring the resort kitchen.” He grimaced. “Some of the cinders stuck.”
“That’s gotta sting.” Sera set the chart aside. “Come on, I’ll take a look.”
“Wait, Doctor.” Beth covered the mouthpiece. “Sue, our midwife’s got a breech baby trying to be born, a big one. She wants you to come because there’s a lot of blood, and it’s a long ambulance ride to Casper.”
Blanching, the man with the cinders waved her away. “Don’t worry about me. See to the baby.”
Reaching for her medical bag, Sera gave the contents a quick check. “Have I met you?” she asked him.
He managed a grin. “Not yet, but I saw you out at Frank’s Diner a few nights ago. Reckon I’ll see you once or twice more as the work gets sparkier.”
Beth wrote down an address and stabbed the paper at Toby. “You get the doc to Green Street lickety split, or my granddaughter’s picnic basket will be off-limits to you at the auction this weekend.”
What did she know about breech babies? Sera wondered. In the real world, what did she know about delivering babies at all?
Time for an emergency phone call.
She used her speed dial while they wound their way through the streets of town. “Be home, be home, be home,” she pleaded under her breath.
For a minute, she thought she was going to get her uncle’s voice mail, but he picked up at the last second.
“Hi, Uncle Jeffrey.” Not wanting to shake an already-nervous Toby’s faith, she twisted in her seat and lowered her voice. “No, I’m fine. I need a quick refresher on breech babies.” She glanced out the windshield. “I can’t remember if…”
A disbelieving double take stopped the question cold. “Toby, look out!” she shouted and barely had time to brace as a battered blue truck shot down the center of the sloped street.
The driver was speeding and weaving and, by the time he straightened the vehicle out, heading straight for them.
A DOMESTIC DISTURBANCE call that came in after five o’clock put Logan and his deputy Annabelle a mile from the station when the crash occurred. His two-way went off while he was muscling a hotheaded Bulley cousin into his truck.
“What was that sound?” he asked Fred on the other end.
“I hate to think. I’m on my way to Fourth and Spencer Hill.”
“Is Toby still with Sera?”
“He is, but they left so the doc could help deliver a baby. I was giving a juvenile shoplifter a stern warning, or I’d’ve been on their tail.”
Fear wrenched in Logan’s stomach. “I’ll be there in five.” He shoved the sulking cousin in Annabelle’s direction. “Take this one, too. Front seat, backseat. Any more trouble, JT, you’re in for a week.”
“She started it.” The man glared at his wife who twitched a tattooed shoulder at him.
With one last shove, Logan left Annabelle to deal.
It took him less than four minutes to reach Spencer Hill. What he saw sent ice water spurting through his veins.
The back end of Toby’s truck was impossibly wedged between two large trees. Across the street, resting on its crumpled roof, an ancient blue Ford rocked back and forth as its angry driver rattled the undercarriage.
Logan spared him a look—he didn’t appear to be injured—dismissed the stream of questions being hurled at him by several excited bystanders and located Toby at the curb.
“What happened?” He spotted Fred and motioned him toward the driver of the battered Ford. “Where’s Sera?”
“Guy’s brakes failed. No one was hurt, so Sera went on to Green Street. I didn’t know if I should go with her or not, but I figured not. It’s only a short drive, and I made her take Ella. I tried to call it in, but my truck’s a mess, my cell phone won’t work and I lost my two-way.”
Logan looked at Fred, who gave him a thumbs up. “What’s the address, and who drove her?”
“One-seven-one Green. My minister took her, so I know she’s okay.”
She might be okay, Logan thought, but he’d be a mess until sometime next week.
His cell phone rang as he turned back toward the gathering crowd. Mildly annoyed, he unhooked it. “Logan.”
“It’s a girl,” Jenny-Lynn sang. “Doc Sera and Sue were awesome. They got her turned, and she popped right out, pink and healthy.”
“Glad to hear it. Who’s with you?”
“Nadine and Jessie-Lynn. Proud papa’s on the front porch with his head between his knees.”
Logan relaxed. He told Jenny-Lynn he’d be there in half an hour and ended the call.
“What do you think?” Fred dogged Logan around the flipped Ford. “Could someone have rigged this to happen?”
“In a paranoid world, yes. In the real one…” He crouched for a better view. “Lot of vehicles breaking down lately.”
He stood. “Toby, has Walter rounded up that out-of-town biker yet?”
The young deputy joined them, shaking his broken phone. “Last I heard, no, and the guy hasn’t showed up at the work site lately, so Abe’s not happy.”
Fred poked his shoulder. “Don’t forget, Logan, the guy was shooting beer cans off one of Edgar Bulley’s fences last week.”
“I haven’t forgotten.”
“He’s also got a record.”
“And a confirmed ID.”
“I still don’t trust him. He’s up to something, and two’ll get you ten it isn’t good. Any ideas what it might be?”
“One or two.” But nothing he intended to share. His cell phone beeped as a pair of calls came in simultaneously.
Regarding the screen, he smiled. “Get to Green Street, Fred. Toby, with me.” Zinging nerves were replaced by a surge of adrenaline. “Your cousins are using their knives again.”
ENERGIZED AFTER THE birth of a healthy baby girl, Sera returned to the clinic. She dispatched her last patient at 8:45, sent a frazzled Beth on her way and, leaving Fred in the waiting room with a fast-food order, straightened up the second examining room. She refused to think about Logan any more. She’d been doing it for most of the day and hadn’t gotten anywhere.
So, naturally, when her cell phone rang, it was his name that appeared on-screen.
The best-laid plans, she reflected and pressed Talk. “I’m fine, Chief. Closing up shop and still pumped.”
“Congratulations. Any memory breaks?”
“I wish.” She locked the medicine cabinet, dimmed the lights and released her hair. “Whatever it was Hollis planted in my head, it hasn’t kicked in yet. Except I keep humming Bob Marley, and I’m visualizing a forearm now with a tan line on it instead of a scratched chrome watch. Go figure.”
“Would a late dinner help?”
Despite the lazy drawl, Sera sensed he was revved. “Are we talking payback here?”
“Not unless you’ll settle for take-out pizza on the ridge.”
Curiouser and curiouser. “Should I wear sneakers for this mysterious outing?”
“Might be an idea.”
She sighed. “You’re such a puzzle, Logan. You don’t like anchovies, do you?”
“Hate ’em. We’ll stop by the house so you can change. Ten minutes?”
“No problem.” Hoisting the strap of her medical bag over one bare shoulder, Sera turned the radio off, dug her iPod out and popped her earbuds in.
From the waiting room, Fred mimed that he was going to the washroom.
Sera nodded. Head bent, she scanned for U2. Then froze when the dead bolt on the alley door snapped back and the knob began to turn.
Chapter Seventeen
“I swear, Logan, I thought I was looking at a Victorian undertaker—tall, hollow-cheeked and quietly furious with me for invading his medical space.” Sera shivered off the unpleasant recollection. “By the way, your office and the mayor’s are going to hear about this, so fair warning there. Doctor Rufus Prichard is supremely pissed off and looking to kick my butt out of town, right before he mounts his high horse and rides snottily into the sunset.”
“Leaving us one physician and a jackass down.” After parking his truck near the top of Blue Ridge, Logan pulled out a backpack and a large flat box. “Pizza’s thermal wrapped—in case we get sidetracked.”
Sera slid her arms into a black cotton shirt to combat the night insects. She’d gone with designer hiking boots and jeans, a ball cap and a ponytail. Who said urban and country couldn’t meet in the middle?
“Are we planning to get sidetracked?” she asked as they undertook the remainder of the climb on foot.
He smiled a little. “It could happen.”
“That’s an intriguing answer. Will I enjoy this side venture?”
“You might—if I’m right and Flo and Fred are out of the frame by the time we get back.”
“Or Doc Prichard isn’t waiting in ambush on your back porch.”
“He’s not that energetic.”
“Maybe he needs a vitamin shot.” Planting her hands on her hips, she sized up the rock ledge in front of her. “Logan, why aren’t we using flashlights? Please tell me we’re not setting a trap for the Blindfold Killer.”
“We’re not, but he’s one of the reasons we aren’t using flashlights. I’m hoping that blood we found today means he’ll be laid up for a while.”
“Long enough for me to figure him out anyway.” She gave her temples a double tap with her index fingers. “There are more than a dozen disconnected details flitting around in my brain, like puzzle pieces I can’t capture long enough to fit together.”
“It’ll happen.” Setting his hands on her waist, he helped her scale a craggy rock wall. “Twenty feet, and we’re there.”
It was an optimistic assessment, but she made it—and only scraped one palm in the process. She noticed that Logan wore a shoulder holster with his two-way radio attached to the upper strap. So much for any romantic notions she might have been harboring. Both his manner and his equipment said he was on duty tonight.
From the top of the ridge, she made out the shadowy sprawl of a farm below.
Logan shed his pack in a patch of soft scrub and grinned at her. “You’re straying awfully close to the edge, Sera.”
“Am I?” But she didn’t back up until he hooked a finger through her belt loop. “That’s the Bulley house, isn’t it?”
“You have good eyes.”
She indicated a collection of lights about a mile to the right of the dilapidated structure. “That must be the campsite for the project workers.” She also spotted a rickety barn, a ramshackle collection of outbuildings, a large pond and several patches of black woods. When something fluttered in her peripheral vision, she found herself smiling. “You brought a blanket?”
“Can’t have a picnic without one.” He spread it on the scrub and tugged her down beside him. She sensed he was as surprised as she was when his fingers wrapped around her neck and his mouth came down on hers in a kiss that chased away any hint of cool in the night air.
Although she could have taken it a lot deeper, suspicion had her drawing back. “I know you, Logan. Much as I’d love to, I don’t think you brought me up here to have wild sex under a nearly full moon.”
“You don’t have a very romantic vision of me, do you?”
“Oh, I have many naked visions of you. But sometimes, like now, you’re not.”
“You think naked’s romantic?”
Catching his T, she gave him a hot kiss. “Look in a mirror, Chief. You’ll figure it out. Meantime,” she ran a finger around his radio, “I think I can answer my own question. I had a chat with Benny Bulley today. He was wasted. He’d also been bitten by a leghold trap.”
Logan chuckled. “What did he tell you?”
“He insists someone moved the traps. Not far, just out of the way. Of what, he wouldn’t say, but he mentioned trespassers and that his grandfather fired off several rounds of buckshot when he spotted a group of them sneaking through the woods toward the ravine. I believe he called the spot Dilly’s Drop.”
“Dilly was his grandmother. It’s not a pretty story. Go on.”
“Old Edgar claims the farm and a few of his relatives’ homes in town have been burgled more in the last week than they have in the past ten years. You’ll be pleased to know, he doesn’t hold any of that against you, but he’s starting to wish he hadn’t rented his empty pastureland to Abe. On the flip side, Benny says he and his brothers can deal with the trespassers from now on, so you shouldn’t worry your head about it.”
“Man’s a prince.”
Spotting a light below that hadn’t been there earlier, Sera followed Logan’s lead and got down on her stomach. “What?” she asked when he removed a pair of binoculars from his pack. “Is it a Bulley?”
“No. Someone’s leaving the workers’ campsite and heading for the ravine.” He shifted the glasses. “There’s a light in the old Morgan house.”
“Is that bad?”
“Probably kids smoking up.”
“Or making out.”
“You think that, you haven’t seen the old Morgan house.”
Reaching up, she altered the trajectory of his glasses. “The first light’s closing in on the ravine.”
“Apparently the guy behind it is unaware that the last of the Bulley boys was released this afternoon.”
Sera rested her weight on her forearms. “They have another still down there, don’t they?”
A smile touched Logan’s lips. “They have two. One in the ravine—which accounts for old Edgar’s buckshot—and a second in the outhouse. Danny and Lester pulled their knives this afternoon and went after a couple of guys from the work site who swear they were only trying to use the thing.”
“Don’t you just love a bad lie?” She borrowed his binoculars. “Question, Chief. Gross outhouse aspect aside, if the Bulleys are going to keep building stills regardless, why don’t you let them have one? Control’s in your camp then.”
“Because they don’t drink everything they brew. They sell more than half of it.”
“Well, yes, but… Ah, right. They sell to anyone with cash, including minors.” Her brow knit. “I can’t believe Edgar would condone that.”
“He doesn’t. Unfortunately, Edgar and his grandsons don’t subscribe to the same moral code.”
“So what’s the next move?”
Logan shrugged. “We wait. We eat pizza. We don’t get sidetracked.”
“Well, you’re no fun.”
Cupping her nape, he turned her head to kiss her long and deep. “Wanna say that again?”
She grinned. “You’re no—” the amusement faded “—ghoul,” she finished slowly and with a frown. “That’s so weird.”
“You’re telling me.”
“No, really.” She went through it in her head. “As the Blindfold Killer was running toward me, I’m sure he said something about a grave and a ghoul.”
Logan’s two-way radio squawked. “Something?” he asked.
“I’ve got a pair of Bulleys heading for the ravine,” Fred’s voice crackled back. “Should we move in?”
“No, let them go. They’ll threaten whoever wants to steal their hooch, but they won’t hurt him. Jail cell’ll still be fresh in their minds.”
“If you say so.” His disappointed deputy signed off.
Logan’s gaze held steady on Sera’s. “Anything else?”
“If I’m a ghoul for witnessing a murder, I’m a ghoul who loves pizza and a movie. Already got the pizza.” She tapped the thermal box, then indicated the light now retreating quickly back to the campsite. “I can’t wait for the feature presentation.”
LOGAN’S PATIENCE AND timing amazed her. Two pieces of pizza and a brief surveillance later, he had the Bulley boys plus their grandfather lined up, fined and grumbling in resigned frustration.
“You’d think they’d learn.” Fred followed Sera up the back porch stairs to the house. He waved a hand to activate the light sensor. “Flo and Babe play bingo twice a month,” he explained. “That’s why the place is dark.”
So either their daughter was upstairs sulking, or she’d gone out for the evening. Fifty-fifty either way, Sera figured.
In the kitchen, Fred exhaled. “Guess I’ll have a look-see for Autumn. Logan said he’d be home inside half an hour. Kinda wish he hadn’t kept Ella, but she’s good at sniffing out hidden whiskey barrels. Do you mind being housebound for a while, Doc?”
Sera plucked a twig from the tip of her ponytail. “All I want to do is take a bath, sing Bob Marley and think about ghouls and tan lines. Don’t ask,” she said at her companion’s perplexed expression. “Just be happy you’ve never been hypnotized.”
Fred trudged up to the third floor while she nabbed a bottle of cold water and started toward her room.
Except it wasn’t her room, it was the guest room. Logan’s guest room, in Logan’s house. It hadn’t taken her long to stake a claim. It had taken even less time to fall…
She halted with the bottle raised to her lips. “Whoa, okay, back up, Sera. You don’t know what you’re feeling right now. Think in maybes, not certainties.”
But that was the shrink in her talking, and the further she strayed from that particular branch of medicine, the cloudier she became about going back.
Did those clouds mean she loved Logan, or that she only thought she did because of circumstances and proximity?
Taking a drink, she continued walking. All in all, she’d be better off pondering ghouls and graves and speculating on why a killer had been uttering words like that as he’d run toward her.
