Cold Case Affair (6 page)

J
ett skidded to a stop behind the headframe building and flung open his door, dropping down behind his vehicle as another shot slammed into the ground. Resting his rifle barrel on the bed of the truck, Jett edged up, squinting into the scope.

He saw the glint of a weapon, then a sharp movement in leaves up on the hill, as if the sniper had suddenly seen him looking and ducked.

Reining in his adrenaline, Jett forced his breath out, slow and measured, and he squeezed off a shot. The bushes on the hill rustled sharply. Then a cloud of dust boiled up into the air as the shooter fled into the mountains on an all-terrain vehicle.

Jett burst through the shed door, slamming it back off its hinge.

Muirinn scampered backwards with a whimper, blind terror in her eyes as she cowered into a tight ball in the corner. Blood and tears streaked her sheet-white face.

A terrible fear gripped Jett as he dropped to his knees, rifle to the ground as reached for her.
“Muirinn!
How badly are you hurt?”

She sagged visibly as she registered his voice. “Oh, God, Jett—”

He took her quickly into his arms, her entire body trembling like a frail aspen branch. He held her tight and she sobbed, releasing everything, giving herself fully over to him, to his care. To his embrace. And it tore into his soul. He wrapped his arms more tightly around her, a fierce, raw rage bubbling inside him.

He fought to tamp it down. Uncontrolled aggression bred rash decisions.

He needed cool.

Focus.

Jett blinked back his hot emotion and stroked her hair back from her face. “What in hell happened here?” he said, examining the cut on her temple.

She couldn’t talk. Not yet. Sobs still wracked her body, choking her words.

“Shhh, it’s okay,” he whispered. “It’s just a surface wound. But they do bleed a lot.” He removed his hunting knife from the sheath on his belt and used the tip to tear back the blood-soaked sleeve from her shoulder.

“Got some wood fragments in there. I have a first aid kit in the truck, but we need to get out into the light.” He helped her to her feet and led her from the shed. Coughing, eyes burning from toxic black smoke, they steered clear of Gus’s smoldering vehicle.

Once they were well away from the mine property, Jett pulled over onto the side of the road and tended to Muirinn as she sat in the passenger seat, feet hanging out the door.

Putting his paramedic training to work, he cleansed the wound on her brow then applied a butterfly suture just under her hairline.

“A stitch or three and you’ll be as good as new,” he reassured her gently. But he had to force his voice to stay level, because inside his belly trembled with raw protective rage, and it took every ounce of control to bottle it in. He was angry with her, too, for coming out here alone.

“What happened here, Muirinn?” he asked softly as he pulled the shard from her shoulder, feeling her wince as he did. “What were you doing at the mine?” He taped the wound tightly shut, noting the ripped knees on her dust-caked pants, the deathly pallor of her complexion. His chest tightened.

“I wanted to see where Gus was found.” Her voice sounded small, scared.

“I swear that idiot was trying to kill me. I thought it was over. I…I thought I was going to die, Jett. You…” her voice hitched. “You gave me—my baby—a second chance. I can’t tell you how grateful I am.” Tears tracked down through the dirt on her face.

He stilled his hand against her cheek.

A second chance.
Was it possible for them? Could they ever try again?

He felt his body—every molecule in his system—aching to kiss her, hold her, comfort her. And Jett started to shake against his restraint, the powerful aftereffects of the massive cortisol dump to his system finally seizing control. With it his anger mushroomed.

“You shouldn’t have come out here alone, Muirinn,” he said brusquely.

Her mouth flattened at his admonition.

He grabbed his phone. “I’m calling the cops.”

“No! Wait!” She clamped her hand on his arm, looking mortified.

“What for?”

She closed her eyes for a moment, sucking in air deeply, bolstering herself. “Gus’s death wasn’t an accident, Jett.”

“What are you saying? Did you get into his laptop? Did you find something?”

She nodded. “Gus had new evidence on the Tolkin homicide, something that could lead to the bomber. I think he was murdered because of it, and whoever killed him might believe that
I
have seen it, and now they might be trying to silence
me.
”

“Why in hell didn’t you come to me with this first, Muirinn, before charging off half cocked to the mine?”

She sighed heavily, limbs still trembling, and guilt pinged through Jett. He knew why.

Muirinn was avoiding him because he hadn’t been able to come clean on his divorce. She was staying away out of respect for him.

He softened his voice. “Tell me what was in those files, Muirinn.”

“Ike Potter, a retired cop who worked for the SHPD at the time of the Tolkin homicide apparently gave Gus some old crime scene photographs—”

“I knew Ike. He had cancer, passed away just two months—”

“Yes,” she interjected. “And just before he died, he handed Gus information from the old Tolkin investigation. Evidence that had been buried by the SHPD, never making it into the hands of the FBI team.”

“What?”

“Hear me out.” Her eyes looked glassy. She was going into
shock—pale, clammy skin, breathing too fast and light. Jett was worried about her baby.

“Muirinn, listen, we need to get you checked out. You can finishing telling me all this on the way to—”

“No! Listen to me first, Jett, please!” She grasped his hands. “You need to know this
before
we figure out who we can talk to.” She swallowed hard, glancing nervously toward the mountains into which the shooter had fled. “Among the missing crime scene photos were shots of two different sets of boot prints. One set of prints was made inside and outside the Sodwana headframe on the morning of the bombing. It appears the bomber had an accomplice, Jett, someone who waited at the headframe while the bomber climbed down the shaft—”

“That shaft is
miles
away from the bomb site, Muirinn. I don’t even know if the bomb site
is
accessible from Sodwana.”

“I don’t know, either, and maybe that’s what Gus was trying to find out. But the FBI was never given those photographs, Jett. And apparently the tracks themselves were obliterated by someone on the SHPD force before the postblast team could get in. The FBI never explored that angle because there was no evidence to corroborate it.”

Jett shook his head. “Muirinn, this doesn’t make sense. Why would Ike have sat on this information all these years? And why suddenly hand it over to Gus?”

“Because he was dying, Jett, and he wanted to come clean. Because he was a cop, and he’d been eaten up by guilt these past twenty years. Maybe Ike sat on the evidence because he was a rookie at the time of the blast, and he was afraid of ratting out a superior officer—someone who could still be around now.” She gripped his hands tighter in her urgency to get her message across.

“Gus probably felt secure in thinking that no one knew
what Ike had given him, Jett. But someone
must
have found out, someone who is still trying to keep the past buried. And will kill to do so.”

Jett leaned back in shock. “So you think Gus was
murdered?
”

She hesitated, suddenly growing more pale, exhausted, drained. She glanced in the direction of the mine. “I
know
he was,” she whispered. “After looking down that hole I know in my heart that my grandfather would never have gone down there on his own. Something bad happened to him.”

“Muirinn,” he said gently. “Your grandfather was known for his eccentricity, his obsession with Tolkin. And remember that both the ME and Gus’s doctor were in agreement about the cause of his death. The police didn’t voice any suspicions about foul play, either.”

“The
police?
Listen to yourself, Jett! It was someone on that same police force who helped sabotage an FBI investigation into a mass murder, and who let a killer walk free. This is a conspiracy.”

Jett rubbed his brow. He couldn’t deny that someone had been taking serious potshots at Muirinn, and at him. And he’d seen someone in camo gear flee north into the wilderness.

The seriousness of her allegation bored more deeply into him. Along with it came an ominous chill.

Muirinn gasped suddenly, clutching at her stomach. Jett’s heart lurched and he reached for her. But she shook her head, smiling wanly. “It’s just kicking again,” she whispered, awe filling her incredible eyes. She grasped his hand quickly. “Here, feel.” She placed his palm on her belly.

Tears burned into Jett’s eyes as he felt her child moving. He looked up into Muirinn’s face, a sense of wonder rippling through his body. She met his gaze, and together they felt her
baby move again, rolling over in her womb, and a powerful, sensual bond shuddered between them.

Jett’s breathing quickened.

This was the exact privilege she’d denied him when she was pregnant with Troy. Now she was denying some other man this same sense of wonder.

Anger surged afresh through Jett, his grip on control cracking at the thought of just how close she and this little baby had come to getting killed—at the pain the father who’d sired this child would feel upon receiving news of his baby’s death, regardless of whether or not he was still seeing Muirinn.

“Get in the truck,” he said crisply, trying to hide his own emotions. “I’m taking you straight to Dr. Callaghan. She knows what she’s doing. She’s delivered tons of babies, and she’s Troy’s doctor.”

“I’m fine, really.”

“It’s not you I’m worried about, Muirinn. It’s your baby.” Jett’s words came out far harsher than he intended, but he couldn’t stop himself. “You had no right going out there if you knew your life would be threatened.”

He went around to the driver’s side, got in, slammed the door and rammed his truck into gear. “Buckle up.” He fired the ignition.

“I didn’t
know
I was in danger, Jett. Not until I was shot at. I was still piecing together—”

“Oh, so you just brought that .22 with you for fun?” He hit the gas, fishtailing back onto the dirt road, taking his frustrations out on the truck. “What were you expecting—a bit of hunting along the way? I know you, Muirinn. You think you can go playing Nancy Drew without considering—”

“You know
nothing
about me, Jett!” she snapped. “You’re talking about someone you last saw a decade ago.”

The truth sobered him, made his eyes cool, his heart hard. His jaw tight. “You might be doing this baby gig on your own, Muirinn,” he said very quietly, hands gripping the wheel tightly. “But somewhere out there is still a father who might just give a damn that his kid actually lives! You were always so damn selfish, O’Donnell.”

“What is this really about, Jett?” she said quietly. “What are you really trying to say to me?”

That you gave our son away without thinking of me, and that you still haven’t told me the truth.

“All you ever think about is yourself, Muirinn.”

She stared at him in silence, blood beginning to trickle out from under the butterfly suture on her brow. Jett drove faster, knuckles white on the wheel.

“There is no man, Jett,” she said softly.

His head swiveled. “What?”

“There is no father. I did this in a doctor’s office. With sperm from a donor bank. Artificial insemination, Jett. Just me. Solo.”

He stared at her in shock.

“Watch out!”

He swerved, just missing a tree on a bend, and slammed on the brakes, the vehicle sliding to a stop on the grit-covered road. He turned off the engine.

Dust settled quietly around the truck. He could hear the soft rush of wind in conifers outside, feel the cooler air against his face.

“God, I’m sorry.” He dragged his hands over his hair. “I was just so worried about you, about your baby, Muirinn.”

She looked out the window, avoiding his eyes.

He swore softly at his idiocy. “Why?” he said quietly. “Why’d you do it?”

“I want a child.” She turned to face him, fresh tears and old mascara tracking down the dirt on her pale cheeks. Her hair was a matted mess of dried blood and silt. But she’d never looked more beautiful to him.
Or more available.

“I want a family, Jett. I want to be a mother. What’s so wrong with that? And I couldn’t find the right man—a man who’d want to do this with me. So I’m doing it alone.”

She really was totally free.

And she wanted all those things that he’d wanted from her all those years ago. All that wasted time suddenly yawned out in front of him. Jett didn’t trust himself to speak.

Instead, he turned on the ignition.

As he drove, he tried to process everything she’d said, and a humming started in his muscles, his whole body soon vibrating like a tuning fork.

A second chance.

Was it really possible?

What would it take to get there? It would take Muirinn telling him about the boy she’d given up for adoption, that’s what—that was Jett’s line in the sand. He
needed
to hear this in order to find a way to tell her about Troy.

And before Jett could tell Troy that Kim was not his mom, Jett needed to be damn sure that Muirinn was committed, that she was going to stay right here in Safe Harbor, and be here for their son.

He gripped the wheel more tightly, the possibilities suddenly so frighteningly fragile inside him. But the excitement wasn’t without remorse, because Muirinn could have a family eleven years ago.

With him.

Whatever move he made now, Jett told himself, his son had to come first. He owed that to his boy. Because just as easily as Muirinn had thrown it all away the first time, she had the power to do it again.