Page 20 of Valor (Long Hot Summer: Christian Romantic Suspense #2)

CHAPTER SEVEN

Allen’s senses were in overdrive. Why had he gotten so close to Heather? He’d noticed he couldn’t lean out of the doorway without being obvious, so he’d made it appear he was having a moment with Heather. No one would ever suspect he’d been using that time to memorize the make and license plate of the car, but it rattled him.

Heather rattled him.

He took a deep breath and heard her follow him inside. Thank goodness the cop had been stationed in his car. Allen had forgotten himself. Heather shouldn’t have been left alone outside. He commanded himself to get his head on straight. “Rod, what do you need as far as a workspace?”

“First, thanks for agreeing to meet me here and not at your office. If we met there, I’d have to file paperwork, and I’d have to be included on this case formally. I don’t think you want that.”

Heather cleared off a section of the table. “And if this destroys your computer, what then? Will this have to go on record?”

Rod cracked his fingers with an exaggerated backstretch, then opened his laptop. “We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it. You have the drive?” He held out his hand to Allen.

Allen dug into his coat pocket and pulled it out. He still felt guilty for not submitting it into evidence, but with his team as small as it was, they were more likely to get something off the drive this way than if his team tried to hack it.

Dropping the flash drive into Rod’s hand, Allen decided this was the right course of action. Heather needed to find out who this was and why they were after her. If there was nothing on the drive that would harm others, then they could try to offer a trade for her father. Though the kidnappers had yet to contact him with a ransom.

Rod’s fingers flew over the keyboard. With a security screen, he couldn’t see what was on the computer anyway. He glanced around to see where Heather had gone. Her location had become very important to him.

She had curled into a ball on the one cushion of the sofa that wasn’t completely destroyed, though there was a slit cut through the center. A drawing tablet lay over her lap, so she didn’t need a table. She’d gathered a metal container of pencils that looked like various colors of gray.

Curiosity made him move closer to see what she was doing. Her eyes were partially closed as she made slow, confident strokes over the paper. A face took shape. At first, it was crude, like a cartoon. The longer she worked, adding detail, the more the image looked real. It was probably the best facial image he’d seen as far as forensic drawings were concerned. She had a talent, and he prayed she would let him hire her in the future.

Was he grasping at straws to see her after this was over? If he was, was that bad? She was a good woman. She attended church, had a stable job, worked hard, and took care of her father. What wouldn’t be attractive about that? Yet, she might find out his deepest secret. Her father knew, which meant she could easily find out. Her hesitation about him might be why she’d tried to push him away outside.

He’d assumed she would know he was trying to get a look at the car, since she’d just mentioned it. He wasn’t crude. It had been the totally wrong time to make a pass at her after she’d just shared that she was worried. Her breath had caught, and she’d tensed. He’d felt it.

“I have something,” Rod said.

Heather immediately put down her pencil. He didn’t turn fast enough, and she caught him watching her. Her cheeks turned pink, and she tried to cover it by hiding behind her drawing.

“Don’t. It’s good. I think that will work well.”

She bit her lip and headed over to Rod, ignoring his statement. “What did you find?”

“It’s encrypted. I’m trying to break it now. The weird thing is, there’s only about twelve variables.”

Allen considered everything they knew about this particular case. If there were only twelve characters, this couldn’t be words. It had to be numbers. But why twelve and not nine? “Could it be numbers? Math of some sort?”

Rod shook his head, his fingers still flying. “It’s pretty crude. I don’t think they tried very hard. Give me a little time and I’ll crack it. I think it is numbers, but not math. How much time do I have to work on this?”

Allen glanced at his watch. Even though he had until the meeting that evening, he didn’t want to be in this house after dark. That was too dangerous. There was only so long they could hold someone off with a parked squad car and relying on wonderfully nosy neighbors.

“Thirty minutes. We want to be out of here before the sun sets. I don’t want to have to turn on lights. Right now, anyone who didn’t see us walk up to the house probably thinks we’re the police, looking for evidence.” He strode to the window to check where the sun was in the sky.

As the curtain fell back in front of the window, his phone buzzed. Tommy had sent a text letting him know he’d been called to an emergency across town. A break in. That seemed wildly convenient.

“We have to go. Sorry Rod, you’ll have to finish this back at the station. My lookout has to leave, and we’re unprotected.”

Heather sat up straight and quickly gathered everything around her. “He’s right. We shouldn’t stay.” She gave him a questioning look.

He nodded, knowing she was wondering about the same car from earlier. Rod continued typing away. “If you can give me just ten more minutes, I can have what you need.”

“We really shouldn’t. It’s not safe.” He drew his weapon and searched the front yard, keeping an eye out for anyone.

Heather shoved things into a bag and slung it over her shoulder. “I’m ready.”

“Rod, I’m sorry. I know you can’t be rushed, but this is dangerous. They abducted her father and shot at her. She can’t stay here.”

A car slowly drove by, and he wished he knew if it belonged there or not. It wasn’t the one from earlier, but that didn’t mean anything. The red car could’ve gone across town to create a diversion.

Rod finally closed the computer and headed for the door. “Where can I meet you?”

“I don’t mean to put you out. I have to think about Heather’s safety.”

Rod took a deep breath. “It’s fine. Just tell me where I can meet you. If you think your office is safe, then we’ll go there. I don’t want you to have to get my office involved if you don’t have to. You know they’ll take you off the case. If that happens, this will just be another crime to solve. We both know that.”

Allen glanced at Heather. She wasn’t the type to be frightened. She’d faced getting shot better than others he’d seen. Right now, she was rattled. Between being back in her house after it had been trashed and trying to imagine her attacker’s face, plus hearing what could’ve been her abducted father, today had been a lot for her to go through.

“Let’s meet at the cafe.” He grabbed a stocking cap from the coat closet hanging open near her front door and tossed it at her. “Put your hair up in this. If someone knows you well, they’ll see right through the disguise. Someone who doesn’t, won’t.”

He opened the door and looked at his watch. Life felt like a ticking time bomb. He had a few hours until the meeting, but he’d hoped to find out all he could from the thumb drive. There was only so long they could take before her father would be a recovery, not a rescue.

He held open the car door for Heather. Even with her blonde braid tucked up under the hat, she was lovely. He shouldn’t think that way, but couldn’t help it. He was beginning to respect her for many things, which made her attractive.

“I know this sounds silly. We were probably safe there, but I was concerned.” Heather bit her lip and sucked in a pained breath as she buckled her seatbelt.

“It’s not silly. I wanted to get out of there. I couldn’t have held anyone off if they came in shooting. Maybe Oliver would’ve come out shooting, but I’d rather not hang my hopes on him.”

She laughed. “You’re right. He’s eccentric and unpredictable, which is why we get along so well. Dad and Oliver go way back. He moved in about fifteen years ago, but they went to school together.”

Just like his father. In the last twenty years, people had become more likely to move away than to stay after graduation from high school. Some went to college, some went into the service, and some wanted to live in a bigger community. All that moving meant few of the people he knew as a child were still living in town. “I guess it’s good to have roots.”

“Hasn’t your dad lived here forever too?” She glanced at him, her warm eyes welcoming him to talk.

“Yeah. He was born in Rapid City, but his family was from here. My granddad was older and died when I was six. I don’t remember my grandmother.”

“What about on your mom’s side?”

The question seemed innocent enough, but Allen couldn’t help worrying that it was anything but. He had no ‘other side of the family’. As far as he was concerned, Dad adopted him. Though, with as little as Dad made over the years, that couldn’t be the case.

“I don’t know.”

Heather’s fingers flexed in her lap. “You don’t know your mother?”

He hadn’t planned to get this personal so soon, but oddly, he felt comfortable enough with her to tell the truth. “I never knew her. I grew up with my dad. He never mentioned her and after so many questions going unanswered, I quit asking.”

Maybe that’s why he’d turned to drinking. Maybe raising a son alone had been too hard for him? Allen didn’t know. All he knew was that he’d never had fresh baked cookies when he got home from school. There wasn’t anyone to tuck him in at night or help him with his homework.

He opened his mouth to make a joke and lighten the heaviness that suddenly gathered between them when a tire on the car blew, and he had to grip the wheel tightly to keep control. He swerved off the road and pulled to a stop.

While most of the town was older homes, this was the one area people tried to avoid. He’d taken this route to get to the cafe faster, but now he wished he’d gone another way. “I’ll be right back. I need to see what happened.”

He opened the door and found the rear tire completely flat. He hadn’t driven through construction, nor had the tire been low earlier. Had someone done something to it as soon as the officer had left, before he could look outside?

Rod pulled in behind him and got out. “What happened?”

“Flat tire. I need a minute to put on the spare.” He headed to the trunk as a bullet whizzed by his head.

“Allen, take cover!” Rod said as he drew his weapon.