Framed For Christmas. Jaycee Bullard
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for the vehicle?”
“The custodian at the church. But there’s no way he’s involved in this. He’s been around for as long as I can remember. And he’s at least seventy-five, with a bad back, so clearly, he doesn’t fit the profile.”
“Doesn’t fit the profile?” Gideon repeated her words with more than a trace of cynicism. “When you’ve worked with the DEA for as many years as I did, you learn that just about everyone fits the profile.”
Gideon turned up the heat under the frying pan as he prepared to sear the fillets. A shortage of supplies had forced him to keep the menu simple—fresh fish, a green salad, a dozen or so cut-up oranges and a crisped loaf of day-old bread. He was glad he’d made it to the grocery store yesterday before the storm. He just hoped there would be enough food to satisfy a group of hungry teens.
As he added a couple of pats of butter to the pan, he took a moment to consider the likelihood that Dani Jones was not the innocent chaperone she seemed to be and was instead the ringleader of a major drug-smuggling operation.
The jury was still out on that one. In his experience, beautiful women tended to attract trouble, and Dani Jones was definitely beautiful. On their walk back from the barn, he’d noticed how the snowflakes stuck to her long dark lashes and how her cheeks glowed from the cold. He did admire her spunk and loyalty when she rallied to the defense of the kids. A woman like that had courage. And she had seemed genuinely surprised that the Bibles had been used as decoys to hide cocaine. But sincerity could be used to mask duplicity, and very few people were who they pretended to be.
He’d learned that lesson the hard way, first as a child growing up on the reservation, and later at the DEA, when Jonas—his partner, a man he had trusted with his life—set him up to take the fall for the death of an innocent witness. Gideon still found it hard to wrap his head around the facts of the betrayal. A seemingly airtight case against a ruthless drug lord that hinged on the testimony of a brave young woman. It should have been a slam dunk. But, instead, he had let his guard down and allowed Jonas to take the lead on the investigation, unaware of his partner’s sinister agenda. Could the same type of subterfuge be true of Dani? What sort of deceit was she hiding behind that guileless face?
Complicating matters was the unlikely coincidence of the tan SUV with the dented bumper idling near the spot where the church van had skidded off the road. Did that prove that Dani was telling the truth, at least in her suspicions about being knocked off the road? Without more conclusive data, it was impossible to say.
As the group took their seats around the table, he set two heaping platters of fish in the center and then slid into an open chair between two of the kids. But before he could give the call to dig in, the petite blond-haired girl on his left—Lucy, if he remembered correctly from Dani’s introductions—reached over and took his hand. He glanced at her to see what she wanted, but her eyes were shut. So were Dani’s as she began to pray.
“Lord Jesus, thank You for the warmth of this cabin and for the companionship of good friends. Thank You for keeping us safe and for helping us find shelter from the storm. And thank You for the food You have provided to nourish our bodies and for our host, who rescued us from the ditch and cooked this meal before us on the table. We are grateful for his hospitality and kindness.”
Beside him, Gideon’s neighbor gave his fingers a quick squeeze before releasing his hand.
He let out a long breath. It was hard enough having his personal space invaded by a small army of excitable teens. But now he was being forced to hold hands and say grace. Talk about being pushed out of his comfort zone.
For over two years, he had been preparing and eating meals at the cabin, and this was the first time he had even thought about thanking God for his food. After what had happened to his family, he wasn’t exactly on friendly terms with the Man Upstairs, so it wasn’t all that surprising.
Still, the kids and their chaperone seemed to take comfort in spending time in fellowship and prayer. Maybe he could take advantage of their relaxed mood to do a little digging into the circumstances of their visit to Dagger Lake.
“Miss Jones tells me that your youth group is based out of Mason City. Go, Hawkeyes, right?”
“We’re from Blooming Prairie, actually,” Josh corrected. “And most of us prefer the Cardinals.”
Gideon raised an amused brow. “Good to know. And were all of you part of the original group who visited the reservation this past summer?”
“Yup.” Josh seemed comfortable assuming the role of spokesman. “Only, Mr. Anderson was our chaperone the first time we came.”
“Mr. Anderson, huh? What’s he like?”
At the far end of the table, Joe grinned. “He’s okay. He’s the choir director at our church, and he’s really big into Gregorian chants. We actually prefer Miss Jones.”
Gideon nodded. It wasn’t hard to see why. Before sitting down to dinner, Dani had pulled her hair back in a braid, and her clear gray eyes seemed to sparkle every time she turned to face the kids. With her calm demeanor and sympathetic smile, she clearly was one of those people who related well to teenagers. He would definitely have been one of the boys crushing on her when he was their age. Unfortunately, that was then and this was now. At the moment, she was his number one suspect in a drug-smuggling case. “What kinds of things did you do at the reservation?”
“A little bit of everything,” Josh answered again. The kid acted like he was thirteen going on thirty. “Babysitting. Playing basketball with the younger kids. A few of us lent a hand helping restore one of the murals that was damaged in the flood.”
Gideon settled back in his chair and listened to the kids talk about the jobs they had done on their first visit to Dagger Lake. Many of the homes on the reservation had been ravaged by the high waters of the early-spring floods, and it was difficult not to admire the group’s willingness to travel such a distance to help out. The kids were direct in answering his questions, but their leader was acting skittish. In the last five minutes, Dani Jones had spilled a glass of water, knocked over a saltshaker and twice dropped her napkin onto the floor. He was starting to think there was something about him that made her nervous.
He must have been staring again, because she gave him an inscrutable look when she met his eye.
“This is a lovely cabin, Gideon.” Gid-ee-yun. She drew out the syllables of his first name, making it sound foreign and exotic. “How long did you say you’ve been living here?”
“Two years,” he replied. He was amused to see she was doing a little interrogating of her own. “But I’ve owned the land for quite some time. I used to keep a trailer on the property for fishing in the winter.”
“Cool,” Joe exclaimed. “I still can’t believe you can catch perch through a hole in the ice.”
“It’s pretty easy, actually. I use a hand auger to cut a seven-inch circle, and then all I need to do is drop in my line and see what I can pull up. The ice is already pretty thick this year. Some of the guys in town haul out their shacks in early December, but I usually wait until January.”
He noticed that Dani was frowning as she peered across the room. Apparently, she didn’t find his description of ice fishing all that scintillating.
“Is everything all right?” he asked.
Dani nodded. Something was bothering her, but if she didn’t want to tell him, he wasn’t going to pry it out of her. And before the group got too comfortable, he needed to review the plan for the evening and next day.
“Why don’t we take a moment to discuss the sleeping arrangements for tonight? Gentlemen, how about we let the ladies have the bedroom, and we’ll set up on the living room floor?” When no one protested, he continued. “Tomorrow morning, I’ll do my best to get you to the reservation. Unless you’d prefer to stay here indefinitely to hang out with Lou and me.” He forced a wry grin to show that he was joking. “I’d like to get an early start, so all of you need to be prepared