Cold Pursuit (5 page)

“She's a time bomb.”

Melanie said nothing.

“Jo Harper is in Black Falls,” Kyle said.

“She's from there.”

“Perfect cover. Send the hometown girl back to Vermont in damage-control mode and let her nose around.” He got to his feet. “One hour.” He eyed Melanie without a hint of a smile. “Enjoy your oatmeal.”

The desire returned stronger than that first tingle. Melanie trembled, hot now. Her waiter set a bowl of steaming, steel-cut oatmeal and a smaller bowl of fat, perfect blueberries and raspberries in front of her.

She smiled, thanked him, even as she thought she would melt.

“Your friend's not staying?” he asked.

“No. Just leave the muffin, anyway.”

He set the plate on the table and retreated.

Melanie smelled the muffin's sweetness, felt the steam from it.

One hour.

Using her fingers, she lifted a plump blueberry to her lips. She wouldn't let anyone or anything spoil her life with Thomas. Not his daughter—and not Kyle Rigby.

He walked past the restaurant window without making eye contact with her.

“Don't get in my way,” Melanie whispered.

It was as if her partner in killing heard her through the window. He paused suddenly, took a half step back and smirked at her.

She pretended not to see him and ate the blueberry.

J
o unzipped her fleece jacket as she entered the breakfast-lunch café that her sister owned with two of her friends. They called it Three Sisters, in honor of their tight friendship. It was located across from the village green on the first floor of a graceful 1835 brick house owned by Sean Cameron, arguably the most charming of the Cameron siblings. Not, Jo thought, that it took that much to be more charming than A.J. or Elijah—or even Rose. And since Sean was a multimillionaire developer in southern California these days, Jo suspected he was as exacting in his own way as his siblings, just with smoother edges.

The café wasn't crowded. It was late for breakfast and early for lunch. Jo was meeting her sister there after their five-mile run that morning, Beth griping every inch of the way. They'd gone along the lake road past Elijah's house, then doubled back out to the main road. Jo had enjoyed the run. Her airsoft welts had calmed down and didn't ache as much, and she and Beth had encountered deer, wild turkeys, squirrels, chipmunks, crows, chickadees and one woodpecker.

She nodded to Scott Thorne, a state trooper Beth was dating, as he added cream to his coffee-to-go, but he pretended not to see her as he headed for a riverside table on the back wall. So she called to him. “Hey, Scott.”

He sighed. “Jo.”

Her sister rolled her eyes as she slipped on an apron in dark evergreen—the café's signature color—behind the glass case. She was a paramedic as well as co-owner of the café, two years younger and slightly taller than Jo, and the copper highlights in her dark hair were natural. “Don't pick on Scott,” she said cheerfully. “What's your pleasure, Agent Harper?”

Jo surveyed the tempting array of treats and pointed at a plate of buttermilk-currant scones. “I want one of those. I know I should go for the nuts-and-seeds bread, but we ran five miles this morning.”

“
You
ran five miles. I slogged.”

But when she reached into the case, Beth grabbed two scones—one for Jo, one for herself—and set them on small evergreen-colored plates. Jo got mugs and filled them at the coffee bar.

They joined Scott at his table overlooking the river. He was in uniform, and Jo recognized the prestigious silver ram's horns insignia that identified him as a member of the Vermont State Police search-and-rescue team. He gave Jo a quick glance, then got up and addressed Beth. “I have to run.”

Beth didn't look the least bit offended. “Dominique's making leek-and-goat-cheese tarts,” she said, referring to Dominique Belair, one of the three “sisters.” Beth grinned. “I can snag one for dinner—”

“That's okay,” Scott said with the barest flicker of a smile. “I'll see you later, though.”

Once he was back on the street, Jo sighed. “Looks as if I ran off your trooper boyfriend.”

“Scott,” Beth said. “His name is Scott. I guess he could have been nicer to you, huh?”

“Nah. He did what I'd have done in his position—be polite and scoot.”

“He'll like you once things settle down with you and that Internet flap. But he really is good-looking, isn't he?”

“Very. I think I saw dimples when he smiled at you.”

“Don't tell him he has dimples. He'll never warm up to you.”

Jo laughed, relishing her sister's company. How long had it been since they'd had lazy days to spend together? “Fresh scones, hot coffee and a nice view. Life in exile's not too bad.”

Beth snorted. “For you. It's killing me. Canoeing in the cold yesterday, a five-mile run in the cold this morning.” She gave an exaggerated stretch of her lower back. “A three-mile run would have been fine with me.
No
run would have been fine. I don't need to be in shape to leap tall buildings and run after bad guys. Then again, at the rate you're going, before long neither will you.”

Jo broke open her scone, which was filled with tiny dried currants. “Fair point.”

“I'm just saying.” Beth dipped her knife into a small pot of Vermont-made butter and slathered it on her scone. “You like this kid, Charlie, don't you?”

“Charlie counts on people liking him.”

“Maybe he was looking for attention with that prank of his. Big family, father's the vice president—you Secret Service types everywhere. It can't be all that easy to stand out.”

“Not my problem. He and his friends and bazillion cousins are okay. That's really all that matters.”

“Even if you lose your job?”

“Even if.”

“That's very Secret Service of you, video or no video.”

“I'll survive. There are other jobs for someone who can leap tall buildings and run after bad guys.” Jo smiled at her sister. “The Vermont State Police might take me.”

Beth almost spit out her coffee. “Scott would just die, wouldn't he?”

A muffled sob back toward the glass case drew their attention, and they both turned as Nora Asher burst from the café kitchen, whipping off a dark green apron and charging for the front door.

Jo started to get up, but Beth shook her head, subtly pointing as Devin Shay quietly came out from the kitchen, hesitated, then followed Nora outside.

“What was that all about?” Jo asked.

“Devin's in over his head with that girl.” Beth sat back, still and serious now. “He's in over his head with a lot of things these days. He's had a rough time since he found Drew Cameron. That was a tough one, Jo, I have to tell you. Drew was a father figure to Devin. He almost didn't graduate. He's been in and out of trouble ever since—nothing too bad, but it could turn bad fast.”

“Does he have any plans to go to college?”

“Talks about community college, but he can't plan what to have for supper much less what he's going to do six months from now.”

Jo looked out at the street, but she couldn't see the two teenagers. “How long have he and Nora been seeing each other?”

“A month, maybe. She's only been in town six or seven weeks. She's a hard worker, but she's using Devin—not consciously, I'm sure. She's just caught up in the romance of living in Vermont.”

“Mountains, moose, maple syrup, pretty cows.”

Beth barely cracked a smile. “She likes the idea of hooking up with a ‘native' Vermonter. Devin didn't climb off a Norman Rockwell painting. I didn't, either.”

“What's he see in Nora?”

“Everything he isn't.”

Jo drank more of her coffee and watched the sun dance on the clear, copper water in the shallow river. She remembered Drew fussing about why Sean had wanted to buy the gracious old house in the first place, never mind why he hung on to it. The three friends—Beth, Dominique and Hannah, Devin's older sister—had applied their talent, vision and energy into creating their cozy, very popular café. They'd sanded, painted, scrubbed, added cottage-style furniture and come up with a varied, appealing menu. Dominique was responsible for most of the food, Hannah for keeping the books and managing the staff, and Beth for maintenance and comfort food.

Finally Jo shifted back to her sister. “What else?”

Beth drummed her fingers on the table. She'd finished her scone and most of her coffee and seemed ready to jump up and get out of there. While Jo was off chipping away at a career in the Secret Service, Beth had stayed in Vermont, gone to college, worked—but Jo wasn't fooled. Her sister had the same restless energy as she, but Beth funneled hers into her life in Black Falls.

“Beth…”

“It's nothing. Never mind. Have you figured out what to do with your cabins yet?”

Jo went along with the change in subject. “Besides hope for a fire? No.”

“What about your neighbor?”

“Elijah? I haven't seen much of him.”

“He's at a loose end. You're at a loose end.” Beth shook her head. “A soldier and a federal agent with nothing to do. My definition of dangerous.”

Jo smiled. “We can't get into too much trouble out on our quiet Vermont lake.”

Her sister was serious again. “He should be dead, Jo. He tied a tourniquet on his leg and expected to fight until his last breath and save his men. Instead—he lived.”

“He says he's fully recovered.”

“He probably is. Physically, at least. He's lucky. You've had advance medical training as a Secret Service agent—you know how dangerous femoral artery injuries are. I can't imagine one in the middle of a firefight in the remote mountains of Afghanistan. It's a miracle he lived. An absolute miracle.”

“Was anyone else injured?”

“Rose tried to pry what she could out of him and his doctors. It's not much. He was part of a joint special operations team that came under attack. A Navy SEAL was killed. Another was grievously wounded. Elijah spent a month in the hospital. He did rehab and supposedly got some kind of staff assignment for a while. Now he's home.”

“Permanently?”

“Who knows? There are lots of rumors about Elijah, as you can imagine. Including that he's not satisfied with the official explanation of his father's death. Scott helped with the search.”

“Tough time.”

Beth nodded. “The worst. It's not Elijah's fault his father died, but in my opinion, he's looking to assuage his own guilt for not being here. Of course, that wasn't his fault, either.”

“Maybe he has legitimate unanswered questions.”

“And maybe his questions have no answers. Uh-oh. Speak of the devil.” Beth pushed back her chair and made a face. “He's all yours, Jo.”

Jo glanced back toward the street and saw that, in fact, Elijah had arrived at the café. She grinned at her sister. “Chicken.”

“You bet. He scares me when he comes in here and orders a scone. Can you imagine, Elijah Cameron sitting down with a scone and butter?”

“You're bad, Beth. Honestly.”

Her sister laughed. “Scott would agree with you. I'll have to tell him you two have common ground after all.” She got to her feet and gathered up her plate and mug. “My hamstrings are on fire. I need at least a day's rest before we go for another run.”

“It felt good, running up here instead of in the city—”

“And running with your out-of-shape sister instead of all your buff Secret Service friends.”

“You're not that out of shape, Beth.”

“Ha,” she said as she dumped her plate and mug in a dishpan on a side table and scooted out, passing Elijah on his way in. No Red Sox cap today—the sun caught the ends of his close-cropped tawny hair, reminding Jo, somehow, of him at nineteen. But she knew it would be a mistake to fall back on old habits.

Plus, he was obviously in some kind of cantankerous, rotten Cameron mood.

He didn't say a word to Beth, then ignored Jo, or maybe didn't notice her, and headed straight for the glass case, where Hannah Shay was unloading cookies from a big metal sheet onto an evergreen plate. She had on a frumpy skirt, and her fair hair was pulled back in a simple ponytail that emphasized the delicate bone structure of her face.

She gave Elijah a cool look. “What can I get you? The cookies are still warm. I have peanut butter, chocolate chip—”

“Is Devin here?”

More coolness. “No, Elijah, he's not.”

“Where is he?”

“I'm sorry.” Hannah tucked the empty tray under one arm. “I don't have time to talk. I have to study.”

She set the tray on the spotless counter, peeled off her apron and walked calmly out from behind the case. Whatever was going on between her and Elijah, Hannah, Jo thought, had herself under control. She always did. She was in her late twenties but seemed older, perhaps because of the hard life she'd led. She'd grown up in an isolated hollow just outside Black Falls, a different Vermont from the one Jo had known. After her mother died, Hannah took over as guardian to her two younger brothers, Devin and Toby, who were just ten and eleven at the time. Their father had abandoned the family over and over before finally running his car into a tree and killing himself not long after Toby was born. In addition to running the café with Beth and Dominique, Hannah was putting herself through law school. Most people in town had learned not to underestimate her.

“It's good to see you, Jo,” Hannah said graciously. “Dominique makes amazing scones, doesn't she?”

“She does. Nice to see you, too, Hannah.”

Hannah didn't make a gibe about Charlie Neal and the video, but that wasn't her style. Instead of going out the front entrance, she left through a side door that opened into the house's center hall and headed up the curving stairs to the apartment she shared with her brothers.

Elijah made a move toward the door. He had on his canvas jacket, jeans and scarred hiking boots, and he looked as if he wanted to punch a fist through the nearest wall. Not that he was angry at Hannah. Something else, Jo thought.