Day of Reckoning. B.J. Daniels
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Through the rain and darkness, Roz ran, watching in horror as the bright yellow raincoat seemed to waver before it fell forward, dropping over the edge, and being instantly swallowed up in the spray of the falls.
Roz raced to the railing but couldn’t see anything past the trees. Panicked, she ran around the barrier and pushed her way through the tree limbs, praying she’d find the person clinging to the edge.
The roar of the waterfall was deafening. She could feel the spray, warmer than the rain falling around her as she worked her way out onto the moss-slick boulders. She’d had a horrible fear of heights for the past ten years.
But her fear for the jumper was stronger than for herself as she grasped the slim branch of a pine tree leaning out over the waterfall.
Holding on fiercely, she stepped to the edge, her heart dropping as she glimpsed something bright yellow churning in the dark waters below.
She let out a cry and tried to step back. The limb in her hand broke and suddenly she was trying to find purchase on the wet, slick moss at her feet.
With the roar of the waterfall in her ears, she didn’t hear him. Nor did she realize he’d come out onto the rocks above the dizzying dark water until he grabbed her from behind.
Chapter One
November 14
It was late when Charity Jenkins heard someone come in to the Timber Falls Courier newspaper office, and realized she’d forgotten to lock the front door.
Her hand dropped to the desk drawer and the Derringer she now kept there. She’d put it in the desk after almost being killed a few weeks before. Unfortunately, as the days had gone by, she’d become lax again about security. Probably because for almost thirty years, she’d been safe in Timber Falls.
“Dammit, Charity, if you’re going to work late, you’ve got to lock the door,” Sheriff Mitch Tanner barked as he came through the dark doorway.
She let out the breath she’d been holding and gently lowered the gun back into the drawer. “Forgot.” She smiled up at him as he moved in to the pool of light at her desk. Her heart did a little dippy-do-da dance, as it always did at the sight of him.
He was tall and dark with two perfect deep-set dimples, a Tanner trait. Gorgeous and impossible and the only man for her.
She watched him glance around the small newspaper office. As owner, publisher, editor and reporter, she often worked late. Her only help was a high school student who came in some evenings. This wasn’t one of those evenings.
So it was just the two of them. Which was nice since it had been a few days since she’d seen the good sheriff.
For years she’d been trying to get him to realize he couldn’t live without her. True, there’d been moments when he’d weakened and kissed her. But he’d always taken off like a shot, holding fast to his conviction that he wasn’t good marriage material and that the two of them together would be murder.
That is, until recently. A few weeks ago, after she’d almost been killed, Mitch had asked her out. On a real date. It had been nothing short of miraculous. Same with the date. And there’d been more kissing. He’d even given her a silver bracelet she’d once admired. The entire episode had bowled her over completely. Maybe there was hope after all.
Unfortunately, she could tell that he was still fighting the inevitable as if he thought there was some doubt that they’d be getting married. Obviously, he didn’t believe, like Charity did, that love conquered all.
“You’re working late,” he said, coming around to pull up a chair next to her desk. His gaze went to the open drawer and her gun. With a groan, he reached over to close the drawer. “Tell me it isn’t loaded.”
“What would be the point of an unloaded gun?” she asked, wondering why he’d stopped by.
“Try not to shoot yourself, okay?”
She grinned at him. Just the sight of him made her day. Maybe he was here to ask her to that dance at the community center this coming weekend. Or maybe he’d just come by for a kiss. Her lips tingled expectantly at the thought.
But that hope was quickly dashed when he pushed back his sheriff’s hat and put on his official business face.
He cleared his throat and said, “You’re going to hear about this anyway so I thought the best thing to do—”
“What is it?” she asked, sitting up a little straighter. He’d come to tell her something he didn’t want to tell her. This ought to be good. Almost as good as a kiss. Almost.
“You were right,” he said, the words clearly difficult for him.
She sat back. Oh yeah, this day just couldn’t get any better. “I’m sorry. I don’t think I heard you correctly?”
“You heard me. You were right. The shot that killed Bud Farnsworth didn’t come from Daisy Dennison’s gun. It came from Wade’s.”
Charity jerked back in her chair, the ramifications of his words nearly flooring her. “I knew it. I told you Wade Dennison was in on the kidnapping!”
Wade Dennison was the owner of Dennison Ducks, the local decoy factory outside of town and the largest employer in Timber Falls. Wade had shocked the town by bringing home a much younger wife thirty years ago.
They had a daughter right away, Desiree. Then two years later another one, Angela. Several weeks after Angela’s birth the baby disappeared from her crib never to be seen again. There’d been rumors that the baby wasn’t Wade’s.
No ransom demand was ever made. No body ever found. Daisy Dennison, who’d been the talk of the town, became a recluse after her youngest daughter’s disappearance. That is until Halloween, when she’d showed up with a gun at the Dennison Ducks factory and helped save Charity’s life when the decoy foreman had tried to kill them both.
Bud Farnsworth had abducted Charity to retrieve a letter that implicated him in Angela Dennison’s disappearance. A Dennison Ducks employee named Nina Monroe had mailed the letter to the Timber Falls Courier, Charity’s newspaper, right before she was killed. Nina had more than a few secrets, it turned out, and a flair for blackmail.
Bud destroyed the letter before anyone could read it—including Charity much to her regret—but there was no doubt now that he was somehow involved in kidnapping the baby.
The only question that had remained was: Did he act alone?
Charity was sure he didn’t. In fact, she was damned sure that Wade Dennison had hired Bud to get rid of the baby because he believed Angela wasn’t his. Just before Bud died, he’d tried to talk and he’d been looking right at Wade at the time.
Charity was convinced that Wade had shot Bud to shut him up, and now that she knew Wade had fired the fatal shot that killed Bud—and not his wife, Daisy—Charity was even more convinced of Wade’s guilt.
“Wade was behind the kidnapping,” Charity said.
“This is exactly why I wanted to tell you about this myself.”
She rolled her eyes. “You told me because you knew I was going to find out.” And here she’d been hoping he’d come by just to see her.
“Maybe I thought I could keep you from doing a story that might get you killed.”
“You romantic, you.”
“I’m serious, Charity. I’m worried about you and what you’re going to do next.”
“Mitch, I saw Bud try to say something to Wade right before he died,” Charity said, feeling a chill at the memory. “He was going to incriminate Wade. That’s why Wade shot him, so the truth would never come out.”
“We don’t know that for a fact and speculating only leads to trouble. Especially in print. I would have thought you’d have learned that by now.”