Page 17 of Valor (Long Hot Summer: Christian Romantic Suspense #2)

CHAPTER FOUR

Heather sat in the passenger seat of the unmarked car as Ben met them at the gate. He unlocked the chain around the post, then walked it open. Her neck tingled in apprehension, but she told herself she was only nervous because she’d been shot at twice already. She had no desire for it to happen again.

Allen waved to Ben as he pulled through, and she watched him disappear in her rearview as Allen drove down the wooded path toward the main lodge. “How will we know which cabin to go to?” Heather glanced over her shoulder back at Ben and said a prayer for him. She didn’t want anyone getting hurt because of her.

“He told me over the phone which one to go to. I kept that information from everyone except Jackie. She’s my dispatch, and she has to be able to reach me.”

He was the sheriff, so she couldn’t expect him to disappear while she needed him. Even if she wanted to disappear herself.

Trees covered the landscape, drawing her attention away from Jackie to the fact that they were all alone out in the woods. When her dad had been there to protect her, she hadn’t been bothered by the trees that seemed to close in on her or the owls hooting. Now she felt alone. If Allen weren’t a public servant, he wouldn’t be helping her, and she would be alone.

He pulled to a stop in front of a small cabin. As she got out of the car, she heard night sounds. Crickets chirped nearby, though she couldn’t identify the other noises. During the day, those same sounds probably wouldn’t put her on edge.

Allen headed right for the door and pushed it open. He held it for her. “Bob said the key would be inside and we should lock the door as soon as we find it. Give me a second to check the house.”

Her feet stayed rooted to the ground. Last time she’d gone into a house that was supposed to be safe, she’d been shot at. Before that, when she’d tried to go home, her house had been full of invaders who’d taken her father. No matter how much she told herself there was nothing to fear inside that dark cabin, she couldn’t make herself go in.

Allen stepped in and flicked the light on. He was a good man and would make a trustworthy friend if that were ever an option. She’d never actively defied her father, especially with something he was passionate about. Maybe in this case, she could. Her father was missing out on knowing someone he would get along with.

That made her curious about what her father could’ve seen in Allen that she wasn’t seeing. She’d assumed the issue was Allen’s father and his drinking, which perhaps had led to carousing. There had to be more to that story that made Dad distrust him and his son by default.

Allen appeared in the doorway again. “I checked the whole place. It’s clear. You’re safe.”

Safe didn’t feel like the right word when fear had a death-grip on her throat. She slowly made her way toward the cabin and entered. When she’d come to the campsite all those years before, they’d thankfully never stayed in this cabin. If they’d gone to one she had, entering would’ve been harder. Mom’s death was still a raw wound she was unwilling to face.

The inside of the cabin was decorated as if they were still living sometime between 1950 and 1970. Dark red shag carpet covered the living room area, complimented by mustard yellow peeling linoleum in the kitchen and bathrooms. She sneezed as dust from the carpet that probably hadn’t been vacuumed since it had been installed clung to the insides of her nose.

“I suppose it’s too cold to leave a window cracked open?” Her voice already sounded nasally. She’d forgotten her allergy medications back at home.

“Depends on how many blankets are on the beds, I suppose. If someone wants to get in, we’ve already learned they don’t respect windows.” Allen opened a closet and glanced inside. “There are two spare blankets in here, but they might have as much dust on them as the carpets and furniture. I can take them outside and try to shake them out.”

Ben was a year younger than her father, so why wasn’t he keeping the place clean? “Odd, I don’t remember these cabins being so neglected as a kid.” She ran a finger over the top of an olive green radio that would go for a lot of money at a vintage shop. A distinct line at the top showed its true color.

Allen shrugged. “Dad never brought us out here when I was a kid.”

“When was that?” She grinned, giving him a hard time. He wasn’t old by any stretch of the imagination, but he was older than her. He had to be at least four years older because she didn’t remember him from school.

He snorted and shook his head. “I’m thirty-five. Dad worked hard when I was younger, but with one income, there wasn’t enough to do vacations. Even locally.” He turned away from her. “Looks like he installed baseboard heat. At least that’s available if we need it.” He seemed to be talking to keep away the silence.

Heather wandered into the smaller of the two rooms and pressed the button to turn on the light. The bulb made a quick flash and the room plunged back into darkness. She immediately gripped the doorframe and swallowed a scream.

“I don’t have any spare bulbs, and I didn’t see any when I checked everything out.” Allen turned on his flashlight and shone it on the floor. She was thankful because that light would’ve made her see flashes.

“You want this room? I can leave my flashlight in here. Just turn it upside down and you have a lamp.” He set it up on the bedside table and immediately the room had a more welcoming glow. It wasn’t bright by any means, but she could find her way around. “It’s LED, so unless the batteries die, you’re good.”

“Thanks. It seems like everything is working against me today.”

“Except me.” He shrugged and headed back for the door. “I’ll be in the other room, but don’t hesitate to knock if you need me. Staying here will give me a chance to email my friends to see if anyone is available to help with that flash drive. I don’t want to send it anywhere and risk losing it.”

She nodded, thankful he was on her side when it came to making sure that piece of evidence didn’t get lost in the shuffle. “I don’t think I’ll need anything. I’ll probably go to sleep, if I can.” Tall order. She couldn’t stop thinking about her dad or the fact that they’d taken him away with his hands tied. He was a prisoner.

Allen nodded and waved his goodnight.

As he reached for the door to close it, she touched his hand. A jolt went through her, and she drew back slightly. “Leave it open. I’m not going to change. I want to be ready for anything.” She also didn’t want two doors between her and the man who’d kept her safe all day. For some reason, that flimsy wood door seemed as thick as the one at the police station when it came to feeling separated from Allen.

“I understand. Call if you need me. I don’t think you’ll need to though.”

She desperately hoped he was right.

* * *

Allen headed to the room at the back of the house. It shared a wall with Heather’s room. If she had trouble sleeping, he’d know. The fear in her eyes as he’d provided light for her had almost done him in.

How long had it been since he’d felt the urge to hold a woman when she was frightened? Probably not since Alyssa, and that was almost five years before. She’d left him to go to Chicago and her big-city lawyer friends. She’d promised to reach out to him, that they would remain friends and maybe more, she’d never done so. When he’d called, his messages had gone unreturned.

He’d tried over and over for days. Then, finally, she’d returned his calls and told him she wasn’t interested in continuing their relationship. He was a small-town cop. She was going to be a big city attorney. There was no hope for them, and he should move on. He’d never allowed himself to try again after that. His career had become the love of his life because his career would never make him feel like he wasn’t worth the effort.

He heard Heather shuffling around in her room. She opened her bag. The zipper closure sounded loud enough to be in his own room. For as much as he told himself not to care, he couldn’t stop hanging onto every sound from a few feet away. Until she was still and comfortable for the night, he would keep listening. That was part of who he was.

The groaning of her mattress as she sat on the bed indicated she was at least ready to try to relax. He took off his boots and belt. Heather was right. He wouldn’t change or put himself in a position to be afraid to run at a moment's notice, but he had to be comfortable if he was going to keep watch all night.

He pulled out his phone and scrolled through his contacts, finally landing on one of his friends who was a cyber security expert for the FBI. They hadn’t talked in a long time, but Rod would totally understand, since they were both busy. He wrote up an email asking what measures he could take to look at the thumb drive. If Rod could meet them somewhere and look at it for them, even better.

After sending off the email, he checked a local news website to see if there was any new information about the two men who’d been killed. Unfortunately, there weren’t any new leads. The police would keep a lot of information to themselves, but occasionally the news media got wind of things they shouldn’t and publicized them.

He didn’t want to call any of his friends in Rapid City when he’d disrupt Heather. If she was sleeping, he wanted to let her. She’d looked exhausted over supper, and he could only imagine the stress she was under. He would feel the same if something had happened to his father. Alcoholic or not, he was still Allen’s father, and Allen loved him. He still prayed for his father’s recovery every night.

His phone vibrated in his hand as a text came through from Rod asking him what he thought might be on the flash drive. Allen considered how much he should say. The case was his, but once he invited the feds to help, he was inviting them to help in any capacity they wanted.

He typed up a quick explanation of what was going on, trying to be vague enough that Rod couldn’t check the news and figure out what he was talking about. Rod answered within a minute that he would recommend a professional look at it, which was what he’d suspected.

Rod sent one last text asking when and where he should bring a secure computer to have a look at the drive? Allen glanced down at his watch. It was already past midnight. He wouldn’t get much sleep, if any. While he might trust Ben to keep people out of his park, he wouldn’t bet Heather’s life on the security of one fence.

He typed out a reply, giving directions to Heather’s house, and said that they could only meet there in the afternoon. After a minute, Rob gave a thumbs up to let him know he’d be there.

Just as he’d settled in to listen to the sounds around the cabin to learn what was concerning, and what was not, his father called. Allen answered on the first ring, hoping the noise didn’t wake up Heather.

“Hello?” he muttered, keeping his voice low.

“Hey, I’m really sorry for interrupting you with your gal. I boarded up the window and I’ll catch a ride into town tomorrow to get a new one.”

Allen massaged the bridge of his nose. He couldn’t push his dad, not now, when there was no one else who could look after Jasper. “Thank you, and she’s not a girlfriend.”

His father chuckled. “Doesn’t matter. She was here, and I interrupted. Your dog is mighty put out that you left.”

While he didn’t want to continue talking, he felt a pull, like Dad needed him. He kept his voice low when he answered, “Is that so? Did you give him a carrot?”

Dad’s hoarse laughter filled his ears. “I did. Made him settle right down. I don’t think I’ve ever met a dog before that liked carrots.” The line went quiet for a minute. “Your cop friend told me I needed to straighten up. If I hadn’t stopped by, you might have caught that intruder.”

Allen flinched. His guys were only doing what they felt was the right thing, but every time Dad got pushback, he just turned to the bottle more. Now, he had to either tell Dad it was okay—which it wasn’t—or he had to alienate him all over again. “Dad, you know how I feel. Let’s not get into this right now. I’m not there to pester you. Please, just take care of my dog until I can return home.”

“I can do that,” his father answered. “And you know I can put that window in. You don’t have to pay someone.”

His father had been an excellent carpenter and handyman years ago. He could remember in his younger years when his father had his own business. So much of his life had been drowned away in the bottle. “Thanks. I’ll let you know how things are going.”

His dad never said goodbye, instead he’d always said, “Okay...” which was his signal that he was hanging up the phone. “Good night, Dad.”

His father waited for a second, as if he wasn’t sure how to proceed. “Okay, goodnight.” He hung up the phone.

“Is he alright?” Heather’s voice startled him.

“Yeah, he just wanted to apologize for interrupting my evening with a pretty girl.”

Heather snorted. “He couldn’t be more wrong about why I was there.”

While she was right, the words stung his pride. Why shouldn’t his father think Heather was there to see him? He wasn’t unattractive, was he? “He had no way of knowing that. He doesn’t listen to gossip, and he’s not one of those people who listen to radio scanners.” Allen tucked his phone under his leg. “I thought you were asleep?”

She hid a yawn behind her hand. “I couldn’t. Every time I close my eyes, I think about what I could’ve or should’ve done. I’m no hero, but I just hid. He would’ve done something to help me if the roles had been reversed.”

“Well, he is your father. Most of them are wired that way. They want to protect their children.” He hoped she didn’t delve into his own family. If she tested his words against the life he’d lived, she could call his bluff.

“I suppose you’re right. Were you able to get a picture of that threatening message?”

So, they were back to talking about her case. He was kind of enjoying getting to know her. “Yes, here it is.” He drew his phone out again and opened the images, then zoomed in on the part she wanted to see.

“Is there a way to look up what these coordinates mean? If we knew where it was, maybe that would give us a clue who might be after me.” She bit her lower lip, turning both of them bright red.

Allen refused to continue looking at her mouth and instead took back his phone. “I think I can put them into Google Earth, and we can find out where they are.”

“Oh? I’ve never used it that way. I haven’t touched that program in years.”

He suddenly felt uncomfortable sitting on the bed he’d be sleeping on with her standing in his doorway. “Let’s go out into the living room where we can be more comfortable.”

He stood and realized how much taller he was than her. She was petite, but not small. If there was a word to describe her, it would be athletic. She looked like the kind of woman who could keep up with him while hiking.

As he walked past her room, he noticed the flashlight was still on, standing on her bedside table. He doubted she was afraid of the dark, but in this cabin in the woods, any noise was startling. He couldn’t blame her for wanting a light.

She pulled out a chair and sat down heavily. He laid his phone in front of her and went to the cupboard to see if Ben stored any glasses in the cabins. While he looked, he turned the water on in the sink, allowing it to get as cold as possible.

Heather scrunched her nose as soon as he pulled out two glasses. One of them had a cobweb in it. “I’ll wash them if you want to keep an eye on what my phone is doing. It will take a minute to zoom all the way down to street level.”

She nodded, already engrossed in his phone. “Oh! I know that spot!”

He ran the first glass under the water and squirted a drop of soap in it. “You do? Is it close?”

“Yes. It’s near where I took the picture of those two men.”

Her silence made him turn around to look at her. Her eyes looked drawn and worried. “What is it?”

“Is it possible they were undercover cops? The police didn’t give their names, but that doesn’t mean that they didn’t have ID on them. If they were, they may not have been from Rapid City.”

He hadn’t considered that. His first assumption was that the killers had taken all ID and phones off of the men before they’d left them to be found. “It’s possible, but not likely. Why would two cops drop a thumb drive in your bag and make the colossal mistake of taking your picture? That’s a rookie mistake and rookies don’t go undercover.”

Her mouth screwed up in thought. He had to stop staring at her mouth.

“Hear me out. If they were undercover, they may have been working for whoever is after me. They may have dropped the drive in my bag, thinking they were headed to Rapid City, where it would be easier to hide. They could then contact me once they were there. I’d also given them my business card because they asked.”

And now he knew how they’d found her house so easily. “I’m assuming your home address was on that card, since you work from home?”

She paled slightly. He hated doing that to her.

“Yes, it does. We’d thought about putting a PO Box on there, but people come to our house to talk about where they want their shots done. It’s a small town. We’ve never considered that it might be dangerous.”

He held up a hand to stop her from feeling defensive. That wasn’t his intent. “I completely understand. You don’t have to defend yourself.” Which was precisely why his own address was private.

“So, your take is that they thought they would be safe because they were close to their destination? They would be able to get that information from you and if they were caught, they could claim they didn’t have the drive. Do I have that about right?” He still didn’t think they’d purposely put an innocent woman in danger.

“I’m saying it’s possible. Who else would these people be?”

“There’s always the chance this is a coincidence. There may not be a connection between the drive and those men or you. Or maybe they used to work for whoever that drive belongs to. Maybe they realized things were going on they didn’t agree with. They grew a conscience and wanted to make sure someone else knew what was happening?” That seemed more likely, though he would always defend officers and assume they were following the rules until proven otherwise.

She took a deep breath. “I checked my phone before I heard you talking on yours. They still haven’t released the names of those men. They say it’s because they have to notify the family, but they posted pictures of them earlier today, so that doesn’t add up. I think they knew exactly who they were. They showed images of them in their disguises to get leads and to turn up the heat on those who did it.”

“Where were the coordinates?” He wasn’t discounting her theory. There were points that made total sense. He just had no energy to speculate between two theories that they couldn’t prove from this cabin.

“The Badlands National Park. The very center of the loop. It’s really treacherous getting there. Most people aren’t even allowed because the formations are delicate. Every touch with human hands changes the stone. Rain weathers it.”

Someone hadn’t cared about the rocks. They were hiding where they knew no one would look for them. “I guess we need to go hiking.” And he’d need to find help. While he was a pretty good hiker, he wasn’t a rock climber. “You’ve gone in there?”

She grinned. “I know a few people who have let me hike in as a photographer... and avid outdoorswoman.”

His chest tightened and he regretted her father would probably always be his enemy. Ed Sundin wasn’t the kind of man who gave up on an argument just because he was proven wrong. But in this case, he wasn’t. He was exactly right. Allen couldn’t defend himself against anything Ed said, because it was the truth.

“Then I guess tomorrow we’ll have to get in touch with your contact in the park and see if we can find out what’s at that location.”

She nodded. “One thing I know for sure, I’m not taking that flash drive with me.”

Her comment reminded him about Rod. “Can we hike to the middle of the loop and meet someone at your house in the afternoon?”

Her eyes widened. “Why are we going back to my house?”

He reminded her about Oliver’s theory that they were safe when everyone was home and children were outside playing. He tended to agree. Small towns were full of people who knew every car, and strangers stood out. “We’re meeting a friend of mine with the FBI. He’ll help us uncover what’s on the drive.”

She swallowed and looked away. “Will he want to be involved?”

“Are you afraid of more help?” He wasn't sure why she wouldn't want as much assistance as possible to get her father back.

“No. I just don’t know who to trust right now. Everyone is a suspect when I don’t know who took my father or why. Right now, the only one I trust is you.”

Words had never hit him so hard. Not even when he’d been told he wasn’t wanted anymore.