Hold Your Breath (Search and Rescue) (7 page)

“Really? What makes me special? I just met her, so it’s not like she really knows me well.”

Callum stopped at the driver’s door of her truck as she pulled it open. “You’re one of us now.”

Cocking her head to the side, she just stared at him, confused.

“Fire, paramedics, cops. Search and rescue. You’re not just the barista making Belly’s coffee anymore—you’re her colleague.”

“Oh.” A warm sensation slipped over her at the thought of being part of a group, of a family consisting of not only the dive team, but of all Field County’s first responders. It was a nice feeling…comforting.

“Just make sure you keep the information confidential,” he warned. “What we see on the scene or hear from others, like Bel, stays among us, got it?”

She climbed into the truck. “Got it.”

When he unexpectedly leaned closer, her breath caught with a sudden mix of panic and startling hot anticipation. Mostly panic. Maybe. Seemingly unaware of her response, Callum reached an arm out and flicked the gaudy pendant hanging from her rearview mirror.

“This is illegal, you know. It obstructs your view and could create a blind spot.”

She blinked, crushing any possible disappointment into rubble. “Oh.”

With a frown, he glanced around the cab. “Don’t you ever clean your truck?”

“Of course.” The touch of disapproval in his tone made her clench her molars as she gave him a wide grin showing lots of teeth. “Once a year, whether it needs it or not.”

The appalled look on his face made her laugh for real.

“Good night, Cal.”

Stepping back, he checked to make sure she was clear of the door before closing it. He lifted a hand and watched as she backed out of her parking spot. When she turned onto Main Street and headed for the highway and home, she glanced in her rearview mirror.

Callum was still standing where she’d left him, illuminated by the sodium lights of the Simpson Bar parking lot, looking gorgeous and strong and achingly alone.

The next day, an unseasonably warm spell brought hordes of people out of hibernation and directly to The Coffee Spot. It was late afternoon before the shop emptied, and Lou finally had the chance to pull out her laptop and log onto the Internet.

But before she had time to do anything else, the sleigh bells from hell jangled, announcing the entrance of yet another customer. Biting back the curses that wanted to escape, she closed her laptop and plastered on a smile.

“What can I get…oh, Cal!” Her fake smile morphed into a real one. “Thank God. I’ve been dying to talk with you. My brain wouldn’t turn off last night. I just kept thinking about everything Belly told us, so now I have a gazillion questions.”

Although he wasn’t smiling, his expression was slightly more pleasant than his usual dark scowl. He held out his travel mug, and Lou filled it while still talking.

“We now know a lot more. I mean, HDG had—”

“H-what?” he interrupted.

Flushing a little, she explained, “HDG, as in Headless Dead Guy. Sorry, I know that’s insensitive, but I had to call him something, so I’ve been referring to him as HDG in my head, and it just slipped out.”

Callum looked more amused than offended. “The job—the dive team, not the coffee job—tends to make all of us more callous. Just watch how you talk around civilians.”

“That’s what the initials are for. So I don’t actually say the words ‘headless’ or ‘dead.’” She grinned. “Anyway, now we know he’d been in the Army, had diabetes, and was missing two toes. So I’m wondering if we should check out the nearest veterans’ hospital? Or maybe a VFW or something?”

He sipped his coffee, considering.

“I like your idea about the VA hospital, but how are you planning on getting any information? With HIPA, they won’t give out patient information to random people.”

Making a face, she admitted, “You’re right. I hadn’t thought it out that far.” She rested her chin on her cupped hand, her elbow propped on the counter, and thought. “So we probably won’t get any information from the staff, but what about the other patients?”

He nodded slowly. “The VA hospital in Denver is probably too large for that to work, but the closest VA outpatient clinic is in Connor Springs, just about twenty miles from here. Want to take a field trip?”

“Yes!” Bouncing up onto her toes, she restrained the urge to flip the sign in the window to “Closed,” lock the coffee shop door, and head to Connor Springs that very moment. Reality intruded, and she sighed, lowering back down to her heels. “I’m off tomorrow—would you be able to get away from work?” As the team leader, Callum was the only paid staff member on the dive team. From what Lou saw, he earned every penny of his paycheck, often working twelve-hour days dealing with local board members and still taking calls at night.

“Yes. Board meeting’s tomorrow evening, so my morning will be free. I’ll pick you up at eight.”

Wiggling around in a tight circle, she did a little dance of excitement. “Field trip!”

When she finished her final rotation, Lou realized that Callum was watching her, frozen with his travel mug halfway to his mouth. With a shake of his head, he pushed off of his stool and headed out the door.

“Don’t you want me to top off your coffee for you?” she called after him, but the only answer she received was the wordless clang of the bells against the door.

* * *

She stared at the green leaf lettuce as if it had done something to offend her.

“Six dollars,” she muttered under her breath, eyeing the wilting tips of the leaves balefully. “Not worth it.”

With a sigh, she poked around in the stack of lettuce bunches before giving up on greens. As she walked to the measly display of apples, she knew she had no one to blame for her lack of fresh produce except herself. If she had sucked it up and gone to Denver that morning, she wouldn’t be poking through expensive and unappealing vegetables and fruit at the local grocery store.

She hated driving to Denver with a passion, though. Too many people, too much traffic, too…everything. Plus, if the weather took a turn for the worse, she could get stuck there overnight, which meant her woodstove would go out, and her pipes could freeze. Lou found she could get away with ordering almost everything she needed online, but fresh food remained a challenge. When she’d lived in Connecticut, she’d never considered fresh vegetables a luxury. The difference between her former life and current existence boggled her mind sometimes. She couldn’t believe it’d only been seven months since she’d escaped to the mountains.

Roaming the aisles with little enthusiasm, she was examining an on-sale jar of bread-and-butter pickles when her nose twitched. There was a nasty smell floating her way—body odor and pot, mostly, mixed with patchouli. She turned her head and immediately identified the source. Smelly Jim. Of course. The bearded man was an occasional coffee shop visitor, requiring a cappuccino and, once he left, half a spray bottle of cinnamon air freshener and the windows open for as long as possible before the customers started complaining about the cold.

“Hey, Jim.” Lou took a casual step back, as if to get a wide-angle look at the pickle selection.

His head whipped around, and he glared at her suspiciously for a long moment before his expression finally cleared. “Lou. Hey.”

“How’re things?” she asked.

He paused again, although not quite as long this time. “Bad.”

“Oh. Sorry about that.”

“Yeah.” Without saying anything else, he stalked to the end of the aisle and disappeared in the frozen-foods section. Unfortunately, his smell lingered.

Dropping the jar of pickles into her handbasket, she darted for the cashier and, hopefully, fresher air. But as she whipped around the hot-chocolate display at the end of the aisle, she almost ran headlong into someone.

“Rob!” She backpedaled a couple of steps and lowered her voice. “Sorry about that. Smelly Jim was just in that aisle, so a quick exit was necessary—for my lung health, I mean.”

A quick smile touched his mouth. “Understandable. You should smell the inside of his trailer home.”

“No. Thanks, but I’ll pass.” She glanced at the teenager leaning against the handle of Rob’s shopping cart. The kid was a shorter, skinnier carbon copy of the sheriff. “Hi.”

The boy flipped his bangs out of his eyes and gave her a grunt.

“Tyler.” The sheriff’s voice was quiet, but his son must have heard the warning, because he straightened from his slouch and even met her eyes.

“Hey.” It still sounded sulky, but at least it was an actual word.

“I’m Lou.” She grinned at him, amused by his angst. The poor sheriff had his hands full with this one. “Nice to meet you.”

“You just move here?”

With a shrug, she said, “Sort of. Depends how you define ‘just.’ It’s been about seven months, but some of the old-timers think people who moved here twenty years ago are newcomers.”

Rob gave a snort that Lou took as agreement.

“I’m on the rescue dive team,” she told Tyler. “That’s how I met your dad.”

“Oh!” Recognition made his face light. “You found that dead guy in the reservoir. The headless one.”

Rob gave his son a sharp look. “I didn’t tell you that.”

“School, Dad,” Tyler muttered. Lou had to hide a grin at how the kid patronized his intimidating father. “It’s, like, gossip central there. We probably hear stuff before you do.”

Lou’s ears perked up at that. “Anyone at school have a guess who it is?”

“Well, Braden Saltzman’s uncle is one of those militia guys, and Braden thinks it’s them. Because of the no-head thing. Like, he talked when he shouldn’t have, and so they cut his head off as a warning. Braden said that head is probably mounted on the wall in their compound—”

“I think that’s enough.” The sheriff didn’t raise his voice, but it still cut through Tyler’s macabre theory with the sharpness of a blade.

The kid dropped his head, glower firmly back in place.

“We’d better go. Good to see you, Lou.” He headed toward the dairy section, one hand pushing the cart and the other on his son’s shoulder.

“Bye,” Lou called after them, a little disappointed not to hear any more of the high school set’s theories. She could have used Tyler and his friends for a brainstorming session.

Swinging her almost-empty basket, she headed for the cashier, grabbing a couple of candy bars on the way. She had to make her trip to the store worth it, after all.

“Hey, Doris,” she greeted the cashier.

“Hi, Lou.” As she started scanning the items, Doris asked, “You hear about the dead guy in the reservoir?”

“Yeah.”

“Sad.” Doris tried three times to scan the pickle jar, and ended up just punching the code in by hand. “Everyone’s trying to figure out who the poor guy could be.”

“Any ideas?” Lou figured that the more people she asked, the greater the chance of finding someone who actually had valuable information.

“Could be anyone.” She punched the button to total the amount and watched as Lou ran her debit card through the scanner. “That wind around here just drives people nuts. When Helen Napping lost it and killed her husband that really nasty winter about twenty years or so ago, I think the wind made her do it. Why, all that blowing and blowing could make someone just”—she clicked her fingers together—“snap.”

Lou stared, resisting the urge to step back from the sweetly smiling woman. “Uh…okay.” She took her receipt and single bag of groceries. “Thanks, Doris.”

“No problem, sweetie. Have a nice day!”

Lou forced a smile and hurried away.

* * *

“I’ve been thinking about one of our theories today,” Lou announced as soon as Callum answered the phone with a terse greeting. “A kid reminded me of it, but I think it still might have some validity.”

“Sparks?”

“Who else calls you with random theories?”

“Why are
you
calling me with random theories?”

“Because you’re my research partner.”

“I’m going to pick you up in less than twelve hours,” he said. “This couldn’t wait until then?”

Lou tucked her blanket around her toes. “I suppose. It’s just that all the information we’ve discovered is circling around in my head. I figured it would help to write down everything. Then I started thinking that we really need a murder board.”

“A murder board?”

“Like in the crime shows. A big whiteboard that shows how all the clues are connected. You don’t happen to have a big whiteboard, do you?”

There was a pause. “Yes.”

“Seriously?”

“Why would I joke about having a whiteboard?”

“I just… Why?”

“Does it matter?”

“I guess not. We have our murder board then—or we will, once we get wild with the dry-erase markers.”

Another pause. “So, are you coming over then?”

“Now?”

“You’re the one who wanted to do this tonight.”

“Right.” She frowned at her blanket-wrapped legs. “I’m in my pajamas.”

“So change. Or don’t change, and just throw a coat over the top. My house is heated, you know.”

“Okay.” Eyeing the light layer of snow clinging to the outside ledge of her window, Lou suggested, “Or you could come to my house.”

“Whiteboard, remember? I’m not dragging that big-ass thing to your house.”

It was her turn to sigh before she began untangling herself from the blanket. “Right. Okay, give me a half hour.”

She ended the call, took a step toward the door, and then froze.

“Frick. I’m going to Callum’s house.” Her stomach started rolling with nerves and something she tried very hard to pretend wasn’t excitement. “Stop it,” she told herself. “It’s not a date.”

Despite repeating those words to herself, she couldn’t stop herself from hurrying to the bathroom to check the state of her hair.

* * *

Thanks to her uncontrollable need to primp, it was closer to forty-five minutes when she pulled up to Callum’s house on the edge of Simpson and parked in the driveway. His home was a tidy two-story with cedar siding that blended well with the scattering of pine trees backing his property. Since she didn’t see his truck, she assumed he’d parked in the garage. Either that, or he had bailed and was at the Simpson Bar, hiding out until she gave up and went home.

Although the snow was light—just flurries, really—the wind had a snap to it that made her hurry up the steps to his wraparound porch. Callum opened the door before she had a chance to knock.

“Oh, good,” she sighed as she slipped by him into the warmth, unzipping her coat. “It’s freezing out there.”

His gaze ran from her booted feet up to her stocking hat. He didn’t mention the yellow flannel pj’s with their pattern of white ducks, but his expression said plenty.

“I took your advice and kept on my pajamas,” she stated the obvious, before toeing off her boots and placing them on a mat next to the door. Lou didn’t tell him that she’d been tempted to change into nonpajamas, but she didn’t want him to think she’d made an effort, since an effort would mean that she thought of this visit as a date, which she most assuredly did not. Pulling off her gloves and jamming them into her coat pockets, she then wiggled out of her thick coat. Her hat joined the gloves in one of her coat pockets. When she didn’t see a hook or coatrack, she offered the coat to him with a quizzical tilt to her head.

“Let me take that,” he said with heavy sarcasm, but he accepted the coat and turned to hang it in a nearby closet. While he was arranging it to fall just so on the hanger, Lou took the opportunity to look around his house.

They were in the living room that, thanks to the open floor plan, was also the kitchen and dining room. Everything was perfectly neat, and she was once again relieved that they hadn’t met at her place after all, cold drive or no. Her messy house would have given Callum a stroke. Plus, the promised whiteboard was arranged in the middle of the living area, at just the right distance from the couch.

“It’s perfect,” she breathed, admiring the professional-looking board, complete with wheels and a box of markers in a full spectrum of colors. “I couldn’t have special-ordered a better murder board.”

“I aim to please.” His sarcasm was still firmly in place as he ushered her closer to the couch, with a hand on her back. It felt warm and uncomfortably good.