Читать книгу Fatal Threat - Valerie Hansen - Страница 16

Seconds crept by as if time had all but stopped. Sara made a token effort to wriggle free. Her back was bent against the edge of the seat and muscles were starting to cramp but, truth to tell, she was in no hurry to escape Adam’s up-close-and-personal protection.

His voice was raspy. “You okay?”

“I—I think so. Are you?”

“Apparently.”

She held very still as he levered himself onto his elbows and peered out at the street. “Are they gone?”

Nodding, Adam stood and held out his hand to her. Nothing pleased Sara more than the chance to grab it and hold on. His grip was firm and she could feel calluses from his hard work at both the fire station and his family-owned ranch. Yes, his touch was tender but there was also comforting substance and power to it.

Sara slid off the seat to stand beside him, keeping hold of his hand and helping Adam brush tiny glass crystals off his head and shoulders. “Did you see who it was?”

“Not clearly enough for an identification. How about you?” He ran a hand over his military haircut, then told Sara to bend forward so he could ruffle her hair, just in case there was glass in it, too.

She couldn’t help shivering. “I hardly remember a thing. All I saw was the barrel of a gun pointing at us and I panicked. What a night.” And judging by the sound of approaching sirens it wasn’t over yet. “I didn’t recognize anything about the cars. Did they have Missouri plates?”

“Don’t know.” Adam tried to let go of her hand. Sara resisted until he said, “I need to go talk to the sheriff. I’ll be right over there.”

“Then we both will be,” she countered. “You’re not getting rid of me that easily.”

To her relief he looped an arm around her waist and pulled her to his side. “Never crossed my mind...”

She was ready to set aside her misgivings about the way Adam felt regarding their relationship until he added, “Buddy,” instead of using her name.

Of course they were friends. That went without saying. And, if she were honest with herself, there was comfort in such camaraderie. Sara couldn’t help it if her emotions had soared higher and faster than his. Or that no other man in her life had ever come close to measuring up to her childhood friend. Adam was not only handsome. He was kind and intelligent and could practically read her mind.

Except he was overlooking her when it came to romance, wasn’t he? She sighed. There had been a time when she had thought his heart belonged to Vicki, yet he didn’t seem to be grieving as much as Vicki’s poor family. Then again, he’d been a marine and had seen combat so perhaps he was just good at hiding his feelings.

“I wish...” Sara muttered, surprised when Adam took notice.

“What?”

“I was talking to myself,” she alibied, keeping her head bowed so he couldn’t see her flaming cheeks.

He gave her a little squeeze. “Hang in there. As soon as the police let us go I’ll get coverage for the last few hours of my shift and we’ll go to my place.”

Her wry wit surfaced and she gave him a lopsided smile. “You mean like a stray pup. It followed me home—can I keep it?”

“Yeah. Something like that.” They joined a sheriff’s deputy at his patrol car while other police officers were cautiously climbing the stairs to Sara’s apartment, guns drawn.

Sara realized she had actually gone to school with this man, too, although she would never have predicted that such a troublesome kid would end up on the right side of the law. She nodded to him. “Hi, Tiger.”

He stammered and cleared his throat. “You can call me Elmer. I don’t use that nickname anymore.”

“I thought you hated Elmer.”

“I did. Still do. But my boss thought it sounded bad to go by Tiger, so I don’t.”

“Understandable.”

Elmer eyed Adam. “Rough night, huh?”

“You have no idea. So far, Sara has been shot at three times, once here and twice at the scene of the fire we just put out over on County Road Seventeen.”

“That’s why they sent me this time. I heard there was a fatality out there.”

Sara spoke up. “He died of smoke inhalation. Has the victim...has Rodrigo been sent to Springfield for an autopsy?”

“That’s what we usually do, so I imagine so,” Elmer replied. “Tell me about what happened here.”

“It was a drive-by,” Adam said. “We’d just discovered the vandalism in Sara’s apartment and were waiting by my truck for the police.”

“Did you recognize the vehicles involved?”

“No. One was an older car and one a fairly new, dark-colored SUV,” Adam said while Sara nodded agreement.

“Maybe it was just teenagers stirring up trouble.” As he spoke he was making a show of examining the truck with a flashlight. “Looks like the only damage was the busted window.”

Despite her normally level temperament, Sara was beginning to get upset. “Listen, Tiger, you may have done that kind of thing when you were a kid but these shooters were not young. At least one of them wasn’t. Part of his arm was sticking out the passenger-side window and I saw dark, splotchy colors on it, like maybe a tattoo, so don’t pass this off as simple teenage mischief. My apartment is soaked in red paint, my furniture was slashed, and somebody has been taking potshots at me tonight. This is no little, inconsequential prank. Okay?”

“Got it. Sorry.” Hands raised, he took a backward step toward his cruiser. “I’ll radio what you told me and all units will keep a lookout, but with such generic descriptions of the vehicles I don’t expect results. Come daylight we’ll see if we can find what’s left of the bullets that passed through your truck window. If you think of anything else, give dispatch a call.”

Adam raised a hand in parting. “Will do. If you need us we’ll be out at the ranch.”

Sara noticed the officer’s momentary pause before he entered his car. “I wish you hadn’t told him that. It’s going to be all over town by dawn, you know.”

“Everything always is,” Adam countered. “It’s only when folks try to hide what they’re doing that it becomes suspicious.”

“I suppose you’re right. At any rate, when they spot my car out at your ranch there will be no doubt.”

“I said I’d drive you.”

“I know. I just want my own wheels.” Looking toward the diagonal parking spots across the street she frowned. “Hold on. Does my car look strange to you?”

He took a moment. “Yes. I’d say it has at least two flat tires.”

“Terrific.” Her shoulders sagged under the added burden. “I thought all they were aiming at was us and your truck. How could a stray bullet have hit more than one wheel?”

“We don’t know that the shooting here has anything to do with your flats. Come on. As soon as we’ve reported the latest damage and I’m free to clean the glass off my truck seats, I’ll check at the fire station and make sure there’s enough coverage tonight.” He looked at his watch. “It’s only a couple of hours till my shift is over, anyway.”

“Then how much time do you have off?” Sara asked, hoping it would be more than one day.

“Normally, we do three on and four off,” Adam explained. “Under the circumstances I can probably take a little more time off than that.”

“No. I don’t want you to jeopardize your job. Besides, do you actually believe a few days will be long enough to solve these crimes?”

A shiver skittered up her spine when Adam looked straight into her eyes and said, “No. I’ll be surprised if we ever figure everything out.”

Sara was fighting tears when he added, “But I’ll look out for you as long as you’re in danger. I promise.”

* * *

Adam already had firefighting gear with him in case of an emergency callback so he was able to arrange the scheduling change by phone.

He glanced over at Sara, seated beside him in the cab of his pickup. “It’s all set. We can leave right away.”

Although she didn’t argue he could tell she was brooding. She proved it by saying, “I wish they’d let me back in my apartment to at least grab a change of clothes.”

“You can borrow what you need from Carter’s wife, Missy. I think she’s about your size.” Adam smiled, hoping to lift her mood. “I imagine the crime-scene folks will release your apartment in a day or so, but it will still be a mess.”

“I probably should talk to my landlady in case the police don’t call her right away. She’s going to be very upset. I know I am.”

“None of this is your fault, Sara.”

Her head snapped around. “You’re kidding, right? How can I not feel this is personal? Somebody is really mad at me and I haven’t done one thing to earn it.”

A few miles passed before Adam made a suggestion, hoping she wouldn’t go ballistic on him. “Actually, I can think of a couple of possible reasons for your troubles. One, there’s the matter of the thefts Vicki thought she had uncovered in Texas. Even if she was imagining a crime where there was none, she could have stirred the pot, so to speak.”

“If there was no crime to be proved, then nobody from down south would care,” Sara countered. “And there would be no good reason for Rodrigo to have come all the way up here unless he and Vicki had developed a serious romance.”

“You assume he came because of her?”

“He must have. They were overly familiar on our trip and he ended up dying in her apartment. How much more connection do you want?”

“It’s probably not going to be enough to satisfy the police about him but you do have a point.”

“I certainly do.” Adam felt her eyes on him and glanced her way just as she asked, “You said a couple of reasons. What’s the second one?”

“Um. That’s a bit harder to swallow. I was thinking of the Babcock family and their friends. Vicki’s kin may be angrier than they acted at her funeral.”

Sara was rolling her eyes as he returned his concentration to the road ahead. “If any of them are madder than my Aunt Helen, I’m in real trouble. If looks could have killed I’d already be on the wrong side of the grass.”

“Helen was grieving, Sara. I’m sure she didn’t mean whatever she said to you.”

“That’s the problem. There was no real confrontation. She just stared daggers at me.” She sighed. “Maybe if my folks had managed to make it back for the service it wouldn’t have been so bad, but Dad’s heart condition won’t permit travel.”

Sara folded her arms and hugged herself. Adam thought he saw a shiver. “Are you cold? I never considered not being able to roll up the window.”

“It’s not the weather that chills me,” she replied, “it’s the atmosphere in this town since I came back without my cousin. Nobody seems to remember that she was my best friend. We were closer than sisters when we were growing up together.”

Sober and sympathetic, Adam nodded. “I know. That’s another reason for everybody to wonder why you weren’t able to stop her the night she drowned.”

“You, too, Adam?” Sara’s words were shaky, her tone and inflection conveying disappointment.

He had overstepped, had hurt her when he’d merely been fishing for more information, for something, anything, that would put his and others’ minds at rest. He reached across the seat to pat her shoulder and she shied away.

“Look, I’m not blaming you, Sara. I know how confusing emergencies can be and how things can go wrong no matter how careful and diligent we are. But I also know you’re strong and will stand up for what you believe is right. Is that what happened? Did you let Vicki go because you wanted to nail the thieves as badly as she did? After all, stealing from a charity is the lowest kind of crime.”

“Despicable.” She shuddered. “But I wasn’t thinking of that. All I really recall is that arguing with Vicki was like banging my head against a brick wall. She was every bit as stubborn as you think I am. If I had been the one determined to save that evidence I doubt she could have talked me out of it, either.”

Adam refrained from agreeing and making things worse. He got it. He really did. But Sara seemed to be forgetting that her cousin had been his good friend, too, and he had also suffered a painful loss. Perhaps explaining that was how he could regain Sara’s trust.

He cleared his throat, his hands fisting on the steering wheel, his jaw firm. This was hard to even consider, let alone express, but he’d do his best.

“I—I loved her, too, Sara. Losing Vicki may not have hurt me in exactly the same way but I do understand how you feel.”

Watching out of the corner of his eye he saw her dabbing at her damp cheeks. Truth to tell, his own eyes were none too dry, although if she noticed he planned to blame the moisture on the aftereffects of fighting the fire.

“You loved her?”

“Of course I did. The three of us were great friends. That kind of special connection is rare.”

“Yes. Yes, it is.”

Adam noted that her head was lowered, her hair masking her cheeks, and her hands were folded in her lap. He wasn’t sure if she was crying or praying or both. It hardly mattered. He’d shared personal insight that he’d revealed to no one else because he wanted Sara to see things from his perspective. To understand that she didn’t have to grieve alone.

Remaining silent for the rest of the drive to his ranch, Adam let her mourn Vicki in her own way. He had shouted and railed at God when the news had reached Paradise and spread through the small town like wildfire. In the four days between that sad event and Sara’s return he’d had time to regain his self-control, at least enough to hide his more turbulent emotions.

Now, weeks later, Sara knew the truth. Losing a friend for whatever reason was a terrible blow to a person’s psyche as well as to his or her faith. His had been weak after his stint in the marine corps but recent events had tried it almost to the breaking point.

Adam thought of God and of the tasks he’d been given in his life. Hard ones. Painful ones. But, oh, so necessary. So right.

Yes, his faith had suffered and he continued to struggle against accepting the bad with the good. What he would have done, how he would have coped without a belief in a higher power, however, was unimaginable.