Page 4
FOUR
Gray’s car smelled like leather and Gray. She didn’t think he wore cologne. But it might have been some kind of aftershave or lotion or soap or something. Whatever it was, it was a scent she associated only with him. And she liked it too much for her own good.
She dropped her head back as he climbed into the driver’s seat and buckled his seat belt.
“Tired?” The concern in his voice settled over her like a fleece blanket.
“Not really. I’m frustrated. Annoyed. Confused.”
“But not afraid?” There was genuine curiosity in the question, so she answered it in the spirit it had been asked.
“I was afraid this morning until I realized I was back in Gossamer County. And I’ll probably be afraid later when I’m by myself and have time to process everything. The idea of someone sneaking around Mrs. Frost’s place? And slicing my fuel line? That’s creepy.” An involuntary shudder rippled through her.
“Creepy’s one word for it.” Gray’s low rumble had her turning in her seat to look at him more fully.
“What word would you use?”
His hands flexed on the steering wheel. “Criminal.”
“Ah. Yes. It’s criminally creepy.”
He smirked a little, but that’s all her lame joke got her. She wanted to keep him talking. “Not to poke the bear or anything, but you never did explain how you happened to drive by right when I needed you.”
If she hadn’t been watching him, she wouldn’t have noticed the guilty expression on his face. “Gray? Were you following me?”
“No.” The word came out quick and sharp.
“But?”
He tapped the wheel a few times. “I was on patrol this morning. And I saw your 4Runner at the office and that the van was gone.”
“So you decided to drive toward the county line?”
“I continued patrolling.”
“At the county line?”
“I drive that road at least once a week.”
“You’re impossible.”
“I’m just doing my job, ma’am.”
She stared out the window and hoped he didn’t see the smile she was fighting. He’d come looking for her. Why? She wanted to ask, but she didn’t. “Under the circumstances, I’m glad you found me. I was contemplating how long it would take me to walk to town, and I’m not dressed for a long trek.” She held out a booted foot. “These boots were most definitely not made for walking.”
He did laugh then. Not a long laugh, but it was real and more relaxed than she’d heard from him today. She gave herself a mental gold star.
“I’ve never understood why women wear shoes that hurt their feet and make it impossible for them to move quickly.”
“Sometimes it’s vanity. We like the way we look while wearing them or the way they make our legs look. But mostly I think some women just like cute shoes. Abby and Eliza both love shoes, and they’re only six.” Abby and Eliza were her cousins’ daughters, which made them her cousins once removed, but they called her Aunt Meredith, and she thought that was perfect. She loved both of their fathers like brothers.
Her mind flew to a different topic, and she blurted it out before she thought about it. “Did you hear that Cal’s adoption of Eliza is final and her name change is official? She’s now Eliza Shaw, and she’s ecstatic about it.”
Gray’s smile was a flash of white in her peripheral vision. “I heard. Cal told me she’s been going around introducing herself as Eliza Shaw and writing her name on everything.”
“Did he tell you about the gift?” Cal had given Eliza a monogrammed necklace with her new initials on it.
“I was with him when he picked it out.” There was a bit of smugness in Gray’s voice.
“Y’all did a good job. Landry told me Eliza wears it every day.”
“Cal was so excited to buy it. He couldn’t love that child more if she was his flesh and blood, but making everything legal and official has settled something in him.”
“I agree. He said Aunt Carol already asked when they’re going to give her a new grandbaby.”
“Oh, he told me.” Gray laughed, and the conversation settled into an easy flow until he pulled into the parking lot of her office. “Where are you headed from here?”
The question was asked innocently enough, but Meredith caught the protective edge in it. Normally, she would have bristled, but today, she appreciated knowing someone was looking out for her.
“I’m headed to my desk. It’s tax time.”
“Have fun with that.”
“Oh, I won’t, but I promised myself tacos tonight as a reward for my good behavior and hard work.”
“Tacos are a reward?”
She opened the door, climbed out, but then leaned back across the seat. “Tacos can be anything you want them to be. They can be a reward. They can be a treat. They can be therapy. They can be breakfast, lunch, or dinner. But most importantly, tacos can’t be limited to Tuesdays.” She grinned at him and closed the door.
And had the intense satisfaction of seeing him laugh as he drove toward the police station.
Followed by the ever-present dissatisfaction that plagued her when she was away from Gray.
“He’s not interested.” She reminded herself of that painful truth, walked inside, made a sandwich from the supplies she kept in the office kitchen, and then lost herself in the tedium of tax preparation.
It took Gray forty-five minutes to get to his desk. When he finally sat down, he dropped his head back onto his chair and closed his eyes.
He was so tired.
He’d only taken four breaths when his intercom buzzed and Glenda, his secretary/daytime dispatcher, spoke. “Chief Ward, Cal Shaw is here to see you.”
Gray leaned forward and pressed the button that allowed him to speak to her. “Send him back.”
A minute later, Cal entered his office. Maisy, Cal’s faithful golden retriever, was right on his heels. She came around the desk and pressed her muzzle into Gray’s stomach. “Hey, girl. Hello, beautiful.” He crooned a bunch of nonsense that for some reason made perfect sense when spoken to a dog.
Maisy wasn’t officially a trained therapy dog, but she had an uncanny ability to sense tension. She would always comfort Cal first, but she was wildly generous with her affection and had a knack for arrowing in on the most stressed-out person in the room.
“Well”—Cal sat in the chair across from Gray’s desk and nodded toward Maisy—“I guess that answers my first question. You’re having a crummy day.”
“You talked to Mo?”
“Mo and Uncle Doug.”
“Meredith?”
“Came here first. Going to see her next.”
Gray ran his hands over Maisy’s head. She rested it on his knee and didn’t seem inclined to move. Not that he minded. “I don’t know any more than I did an hour ago. Someone intentionally punctured her fuel line. I can’t prove it, but I’m not trying to prove it in court. Given the way it was leaking, there’s no way it happened before she left town. That means someone did it while she was at Mrs. Frost’s home.”
Cal leaned forward and snagged a mini Reese’s cup from the bowl on Gray’s desk. “Mrs. Frost is a terrorist on the road, but she’s harmless otherwise.”
“Agreed. And Meredith said the tooth pain was real. Mrs. Frost wasn’t faking it. And Mo sent me a text. He drove up to Mrs. Frost’s place. He wound up spending an hour doing stuff around her house but looked around while he did it, talked to her as he did. She didn’t know anything, and he didn’t find any smoking guns.”
They sat in silence for a few moments. “None of this makes sense, Gray. Why target Meredith?”
“No clue.”
More silence.
“I heard she promised not to leave the county alone.”
Gray grunted acknowledgment. Cal was fishing, but Gray wasn’t in the mood to bite.
“You asked. She promised.” Cal reached for another Reese’s. “Funny.”
“She’s an intelligent woman, and what happened scared her. She doesn’t know what’s going on either. I gave her an excuse to protect herself. That’s it.”
“Right.” Cal slapped his hands on his legs. “Good talk.” He stood, leaned over the desk, and dropped his voice to a low whisper. “I don’t care how much you’ve deluded yourself about your relationship with Meredith. But I appreciate that you’re doing everything you can to keep her safe. Thank you.”
In a normal voice, he called Maisy to him. She gave Gray one last snuggle and then followed Cal to the door, where he paused. “We’ll be out by the firepit tonight.”
“It’s freezing.”
“True. But it’s a good place to have a conversation that no one can overhear. We’ll build the fire up big. It will be toasty.”
“It would be toastier inside.” Gray didn’t mind sitting by a firepit in the fall or spring. Or even in the summer after dark when the mountain air could still be a bit chilly. But in the dead of winter? North Carolina winters weren’t nearly as cold as Chicago winters, but it still got nippy at night.
“Wear gloves.”
“I’ll think about it.”
“You do that.”
Cal and Maisy left. But Cal’s question lingered. Why Meredith? Why today? And who was behind it?
The town was still reeling from the events of the fall when a prominent member of the community, Steven Pierce, had been arrested for drug dealing and attempted murder.
The Pierce family owned and operated The Haven, an exclusive resort for the uber-wealthy, connected, famous, and reclusive. Bronwyn Pierce had grown up with Cal, Meredith, and Mo and was now the CEO of The Haven. Steven was her cousin, and he’d tried to have Cassie Quinn, the new chef at The Haven’s fine dining restaurant, killed.
Ironically enough, the drama between the Pierces and Quinns had cooled noticeably in the aftermath. The majority of the Pierce family had been horrified by Steven’s actions. The Pierce/Quinn conflict was long-standing, but it had never been violent.
That had been the only good thing to come from the arrest. It had brought unwanted press to the usually quiet and safe town of Gossamer Falls. The media, always quick to scent blood in the water, had used the events to highlight the ongoing drug issues in the mountains of Western North Carolina specifically and the Appalachian region in general.
While Gray had no problem acknowledging the real problems in their area, the thing that made him see red was that his hands had been tied. While the attacks on Cassie had been in Gossamer Falls, the root of the problem was across the county line in Neeson. And outside his jurisdiction.
But he’d found a possible way around that.
Criminals could be savvy and slick, but they could also be incredibly stupid. And some of the drug traffickers in Neeson had crept across the county line. Gray doubted they knew they’d slipped into his jurisdiction.
He wasn’t about to enlighten them. Not until he had proof and the kind of evidence that would bring in the state investigators who would turn Neeson upside down and inside out.
He hadn’t lied to Meredith this morning. He had gone toward the Neeson County line because he suspected that she’d gone in that direction. What he hadn’t told her was that while he was near the county line, he sometimes parked, got out of his Explorer, and did a little hiking.
If Meredith knew what he’d been up to, she’d lose it.
The first time it had been an in-the-moment idea, but since then, he’d made more jaunts into the forest. Always alone. And he was willing to admit that it hadn’t been a smart decision. He wasn’t a skilled outdoorsman. After the events of today, he was done going solo. But it was what he’d seen on his hikes that had convinced him that some of the drug traffickers had spread a bit too far south. The jurisdictional lines were blurry in the area, but he’d confirmed that at least one house he suspected of being a meth lab was solidly in the town limits of Gossamer Falls.
Gray had friends in Raleigh and in the State Bureau of Investigations. There were people, the kind of people who could do something about it, who didn’t like what was happening in Neeson. The mess with Steven Pierce had given them the ammunition they’d needed to stop gathering information and move toward making arrests. But they weren’t there yet.
The investigation that had been launched was so secret that none of his officers knew anything about it. That was about to change.
He picked up the phone and called his contact at SBI. It was time to spread the net wider.