On Deadly Ground. Lauren Nichols
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the next morning at seven-fifteen to sunshine and the growl of construction equipment flowing through the screen in her bedroom window. She leaped out of bed and dressed. The machines were already leveling the ground, so that meant there’d been no damage to the equipment, thank the Lord. But she’d still wanted to greet Tim when he arrived, and explain what had happened last night.
She’d just shut off her coffeemaker when someone rapped at her patio door. Crossing the kitchen, she opened her hunter green vertical blinds to see Jake standing on her deck. Feeling a burst of nerves that seemed to double her heart rate, she slid open the glass pane and screen.
“Good morning,” she said. “I would have thought you’d be sleeping in today after being up half the night.”
He stepped into the kitchen. “Nope. My mom phoned a while ago and woke me up.” He paused. “As for getting more sack time—I could say the same about you. You probably got less sleep than I did.” This morning he wore jeans, a dark green T-shirt that hugged his broad shoulders and, for a change, not boots but running shoes. His dark hair was still damp from his shower, and the clean smell of citrus clung to his skin.
His voice softened. “I just came by to see if you were all right. I figured you’d be up because the guys were starting work at seven.”
That warm feeling in her chest blossomed but soon gave way to jitters. Maybe because this was the first time he’d been inside her home and he seemed to fill the room. Or maybe because she was so aware of him filling it. He towered over her, seven or eight inches taller than her five-feet-six. She slid the screen shut. “I’m good. As I said last night, I’m a lot tougher than I look.”
“But you still had trouble getting back to sleep,” he guessed.
“Sad but true.” He knew about her sleepless nights. They’d talked about them. “But I dug out my iPod, and listened to a new CD I’d downloaded. That helped.”
“Casey Kasem’s top forty?”
She smiled. “No, moody oboes and ocean waves. Top forty for insomniacs.” When his rugged features lined in sympathy, she felt another rash of nerves. She gestured toward her round oak table and chairs. “Have a seat. Can I get you a cup of coffee?”
“Yeah, thanks, if you’re having some. But I can’t stay long. I have to get back and dress for work. I’m giving a talk to the kids at the elementary school this morning.”
“About?”
“Respecting wildlife, the necessity for hunter safety courses … that kind of thing. What’s on your agenda today?”
“After I deliver coffee to Tim and his crew, I’m headed to town. I have a hundred things to do before I go to the nursing home.” During the off-season, she occasionally helped out in the activities room. It gave her something to do, and made her feel good at the same time. That would change soon with the campground opening.
“Since we’re both on the clock, do you care if we take our coffee outside? At the risk of looking like a stereotype, I wouldn’t mind walking over to see how the ground moving’s going.”
Good idea. She’d be more comfortable out there. “Sure. Just give me a second, then we can go.” She pulled brown stoneware mugs and a stainless steel thermos from her oak cabinets. “Actually, I should have seen Tim before this. My insomniac’s top forty worked so well that I overslept this morning, and didn’t have a chance to tell him about my late-night visi—”
Heavy footsteps on the deck stairs stopped her in mid-sentence, and a second later, a beefy man in a plaid flannel shirt and jeans appeared at the screen door. Beneath his salt-and-pepper crew cut, Tim Decker’s deep-set gray eyes couldn’t have been colder.
Rachel strode to the door—opened the screen. “Tim?”
“Sorry,” he said. “We’re shut down, and I don’t know for how long.”
Her pulse quickened as she realized that those engine sounds had ceased. “What happened?”
“Someone punched holes in my dozer’s oil and transmission filters. If we’d noticed, we could’ve replaced them. But we fired up the dozer, put it to work and ran every last drop of fluid out of it. Froze it up solid.”
Rachel felt sick. If she’d gotten up earlier, she could have told him what had happened last night, and he would have checked his equipment. This wouldn’t have happened.
Jake’s gaze hardened. “Unbelievable.”
“Yeah,” Decker said. “The freak tried to puncture the fuel tank on my truck, too, but couldn’t get through the thick wall.” His gaze shifted to Rachel again. “Okay if I use your land line? I gotta report this, and there’s no cell service this far from town.”
“Of course,” she replied nervously, then followed him to the kitchen’s wall phone. “But before you do that there’s something you should know. There was a—a disturbance here around two this morning. I called the station, and Fish drove down to check things out.”
Tim pivoted abruptly, the stunned look on his face quickly turning to anger. “Are you telling me you knew about this?”
Jake stepped between them. “Calm down. I was here in the middle of the night, too. None of us knew your dozer’d been sabotaged. That includes Fish. You need to let Rachel explain.”
The officer who answered Tim Decker’s call wasn’t a friendly redhead with a mouthful of silver. The rip cord-thin man who got out of the black-and-white cruiser had piercing eyes, a square jaw and a severe buzz cut. Chief Lon Perris wore a gray uniform shirt, black pants and tie, and an almost smothering air of authority. Thirty years after the fact, his lean cheeks still bore the scars from teenage acne.
Jake and Rachel left their coffee mugs on the deck stairs where they’d been sitting and walked out to meet him. Too agitated to sit and wait, Tim was rechecking his equipment.
Charity’s chief of police position had seen major turnovers in the past year. First John Wilcox had died, elevating Rachel’s friend Margo to acting chief, then when Margo and her husband Cole started their private investigations firm, Brett Johnson had accepted the post. Now Brett was in law school, and Lon Perris, a quickly hired, unknown commodity from the Philadelphia area wore the badge. It was like a game of musical chairs. Hum a few bars, stop short and Charity had a new lawman at the helm.
Perris shut the cruiser’s door, gave Rachel a rude once-over that made her go still, then shook hands with Jake and introduced himself. “Chief of Police Lon Perris. You Tim Decker?”
Jake slid Rachel a what’s-with-this-guy? look before he answered. “No, Jake Campbell. Tim’s over at the site.”
Perris glanced through the trees and tall grasses where Decker stood with his two-man crew, then addressed Jake—not Rachel—again. “Which one’s Decker?”
Rachel watched Jake’s eyes narrow, and visible lines of tension crease his brow. “Decker’s the big guy in the flannel shirt,” he said coolly. “And you should be talking to Rachel. This is her property, not mine.”
If Jake’s brusque tone surprised him, Perris didn’t let on.
Deciding that one of them should be polite, Rachel stepped forward and spoke amicably. “You probably don’t remember me, Chief. We met at the—”
“Yes, the chamber’s dinner. I know who you are, Mrs. Patterson, and we’ll be talking. But at the moment, Mr. Decker is my main priority.” He started away. “I trust you’ll stay available.”
He trusted that she’d stay available? In the back of her mind, a tiny voice whispered the latest message posted outside the church: Remember, he who angers you controls you. The words fell on deaf ears. “I’ll be here until nine-thirty if you have any questions,” she replied. “After that, I’m afraid we’ll have to make other arrangements.”
“That’ll be fine,” he said without turning