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She melted against him. “Much better, thanks. I really needed that sleep. Not moving more logs with my bear strength, walking through deep snow, or moving knocked-out bodies around makes a difference.”

He kissed her cheek. “I know what you mean, and I’m so glad you’re feeling better. Would you like some coffee and breakfast?”

“Yes, that would be great.”

“How’s your hand?”

“I’ve got more movement in my thumb and hand now. It’s getting better. No more need to wrap it.”

“That’s great. What would you like for breakfast? Eggs? Bacon? Waffles?”

“Eggs and bacon would be perfect.”

“Okay, I’ve got news.” He poured coffee for Monica. Then he started cooking the bacon and eggs.

She added milk and sugar to her coffee. “Do you want some too?”

“Yes, that would be great. A teaspoon of sugar and about as much milk as you have.”

“Okay. So what’s the news?”

He let out his breath in frustration. “It’s bad news. Your brake lines were definitely cut.”

“Ha! I knew it!”

“But it was cut so you could travel some distance before the brake fluid leaked out. Who knew where you were going? If you were driving around town, you could have gotten help. It makes me believe whoever did it knew you were heading out on the country road to find Denny and Helen and would have lost control of the car and been stranded. And that would mean Pierre.”

“Pierre Johnson, you’re right. I told him where I was, at the mini mart, getting gas, and then leaving to locate them.” She took a sip of her coffee. “He’s the one who knew Denny’s grandparents had the cabin where Denny might end up at.”

“That’s what I was afraid of,” Andy said.

“It doesn’t mean itwashim for sure. If he was afraid that I would learn about the kidnapping and want to rescue Helen,why send me in that direction? Why not tell me to go somewhere else entirely, far away from where Helen would be?”

“I agree that it doesn’t make much sense, except that if you had gone in another direction, you might have had more agents available. Whoever cut your brake lines must know how far you would get. It was cut to allow you to travel way out of town.”

“Right.”

“Besides, Pierre gave you a different address than where they stayed. We just got lucky in finding where they were.” He served up the eggs and bacon.

“On the other hand, that’s the only place Pierre knew about. He probably wouldn’t have known Denny would stay at another cabin near his grandparents’.” She sat down with Andy at the dinner table. “Wendell Marquart and his thugs knew where Denny and Helen were, so maybe Pierre was completely in the dark and just guessing where Denny might have taken Helen.”

“That could still be true. What bothers me is that you were targeted.” Andy bit into his bacon.

“Yeah, me too. When I’m done with breakfast, I’m going to look at my laptop. They packed it in with the stuff from my car in my bag.”

“Okay. And do some research?”

“Right. Before this, I hadn’t had time to research Denny and Helen. All I knew was that Denny had been her ex-boyfriend, and she was dating her new boyfriend, Pierre. I don’t know anything about her other than that.”

"We'll need to check the service station where you stopped to get gas. They'll have CTV cameras, and we can look them over. We can also see if whoever cut your brake lines bought anything in the store. Was there anywhere else you stopped before hitting the country road?"

“I just drove to White Bear and stopped for gas. I had only a quarter of a tank. With the bad storm upon us, I didn’t want to get stranded anywhere without gas.”

“Which almost happened anyway, only we were in a different vehicle.”

“Right.”

After they finished breakfast, Monica retrieved her laptop while Andy cleaned the kitchen. She sat down in Andy's recliner and started doing some searches.