The Summerland (12 page)

Bill swore, not even bothering to disguise the disgust in his tone. Looking at Arden consideringly, he held up a hand. “Peace? For just a minute, okay?”

Arden nodded, and just like that the fire went out of her eyes. Leaning forward, she cradled her forehead in her hands, massaging her temples. Wisps of hair had escaped her ponytail, framing her stunned eyes and pale cheeks in a golden, gauzy veil.

Tearing his gaze away, Bill stalked to the door, yanking it open with considerable force. His voice was low but deadly and it broadcast across the now silent room. “Have Deputy Goltree report to the conference room, now. Not in five minutes, not when he calls in. I don’t care where he’s at or what he’s doing. Now.” Closing the door with barely restrained violence, he turned back into the room.

Drebin had already pulled one of the ancient wooden chairs from in front of the desk, placed it in front of Arden and begun talking to her in a voice that sounded like it was coming from the bottom of a well. It was the most soothing thing Bill had ever heard and seemed to be working it’s magic on Arden as well. She’d begun to straighten up a little, begun to look more like the woman she was, ready to storm Hell armed with a bucket of water and an attitude.

Taking a seat in the creaky chair he called his own, Bill scooted across the frayed carpet, pulling in next to Drebin. As soon as the agent looked up, the two men exchanged a weighed glance. They were already so in-synch that no words were needed. They both knew what they had to do. The only thing that mattered was getting this case solved and solved damned quickly. Captain Arden Jones would just have to suffer her way through it.

Knowing he was getting ready to kill what had started out as a surprisingly powerful mutual attraction, Bill plunged forward, knowing Drebin was there to back him up. “Listen, Arden, Captain Jones. You’re a member of the press. You know how this works…” he had just began his spiel when the intercom sounded. “Shit.” Raising his voice loudly enough to be heard outside the office he said, “Not now Gail.”

Gail was not to be deterred. She’d been waiting for a showdown between that weasel Stumpy Goltree and the Sheriff, and she was not going to miss out on it. Poking her head into the office she formally announced, “Sheriff, Deputy Goltree is in the conference room.” Popping back into the main office, she stood by the door with her arms crossed, a gleeful smile on her face.

Bill, however, was not quite as pleased with the timing. Looking askance at both Arden and Drebin, he stood up. “Frank, can you handle this? You know procedure and how we do these things as well as I do. I have to deal with this. I have to deal with it now.”

* * * *

Twenty-five minutes later Stumpy Goltree walked out of the conference room, minus his badge and gun. He looked ready to cry. On a man who stood a good three inches over six feet tall and weighed in at over 250 pounds, it was quite a disconcerting sight. While every deputy in the room shuffled paperwork and furtively watched, Stumpy scuttled to the back door of the squad room and quietly exited the door. Bill Ashton stood in the doorway of the conference room, arms crossed, watching his deputy’s departure with no expression whatsoever. He turned to address the deathly quiet squad room.

“
Deputy Goltree has been placed on administrative leave pending an investigation into leaks on this murder case and on the abandoned vehicle. This action is in no way limited to Deputy Goltree. If I find out that one drop of information leaves this building, you’ll be joining him. Now get back to business. We’ve got five dead women, twenty TV stations and a shitload of work to deal with.

* * * *

When Bill opened the door to his office he was pleasantly surprised to see both Arden and Drebin still inside. Arden looked remarkably calm, considering the fact that Drebin had certainly told her that divulging information was both impossible and foolhardy.

Drebin shot him a warning look, then pushed the Sheriff’s creaky chair his way with the toe of an immaculate loafer. “I think you need to hear what Captain Jones has to say Sheriff. It complicates things just a touch.”

Ashton cautiously took the offered chair, spinning slightly to face her. “Alright. Spill.”

The Arden Jones that spoke was a military officer to the core. The woman he’d spent a stimulating evening with the night before was gone, and Bill privately mourned the loss of what might have been.

* * * *

Stumpy Goltree was pissed beyond belief. How dare that asshole take away his gun and badge! And for some goddamn skirt. Who gave a good goddamn if the press knew about her sister or the money she’d been toting around? He sure as hell didn’t. He had to get a look at this broad. One of the young deputies had a monumental crush on her and had given him a blow-by-blow description. That’s what he’d sold to that anchorwoman out of Fresno. So what? So she was supposed to be some kick-ass military babe. He’d believe it when he saw it. He had his own opinions about women in the military, and not one of them was good.

He sat in his monster four-by-four, pulling slowly and thoughtfully at the bottle of Jim Beam sitting next to him on the front seat. He was beginning to feel the warm glow of a good buzz and had just begun to work himself into a healthy dose of rage when the Sheriff escorted her out the back door.

The deputy hadn’t been kidding. She was a hottie. He watched her through narrowed eyes, ready to blame all of his rotten luck on her and that golden boy of a Sheriff. Ever since Bill Ashton had come home things had gone downhill. Even though he’d only been a deputy for a year before Ashton had been elected Sheriff, he remembered the gravy days, remembered how the people in town had looked at the department’s cruisers with awe and just a little fear. Now those days were gone and it was all Ashton’s fault.

And now that chick was here, screwing up his life even more. He took a good, long look at her as she stepped to the passenger door of the cruiser. Even at this distance he could tell she was upset, and the way she carried herself as she stalked to the truck made him think taking her on would be a mistake. Not that she could kick his ass or anything. He searched his cloudy brain for a way to describe her and finally came up with it. She looked capable. And dignified. That was it.

Right now she was throwing infuriated looks at the Sheriff like hand grenades. The Sheriff looked more than a little pissed off himself. Stumpy smiled, his breath puffing out in whiskey-tinged breaths as he chuckled. He didn’t know how he could make Arden Jones work to his advantage yet, but he was sure something would come to him. Humming along to the Clint Black tune playing on the radio, he put his truck in gear and headed for his trailer.

Chapter Thirteen

Arden knew it was wrong to be so angry with him, knew it was irrational, knew it was the way that cops did things. That knowledge didn’t seem to make much of a dent in her current mood. He should have been able to tell her the things she needed to know about Samantha without that invisible “copness” he wore like a shield coming between them. He should have been able to trust her. But why? She asked the question over and over again as she paced the luxurious but confining length of her room. The room that had now become her prison in all but name.

She knew the answer to her own question. It was them. She’d heard the click they made almost the first moment they’d met. They fit together and they both knew it. She knew if they had met under different circumstances, circumstances that hadn’t conspired against them from the beginning, things would have been vastly different.

So much for her lofty ideals about directing the course of her next relationship.

Then she laughed at her own stupidity and arrogance. Next relationship? She knew nothing about the man. What if he was married? She’d never asked, and it wasn’t any of her business. Just because he’d taken her to dinner and there was some weird chemistry between them didn’t mean that either of them weren’t otherwise committed. Just because she’d failed at marriage didn’t mean that other people couldn’t actually succeed. He could have five kids for all she knew.

Throwing herself in the comfortable armchair by the window, she forced herself to be analytical and think about what had happened in the last thirty-six hours, exclusive of Sheriff Bill Ashton. Walk down the road step by step and analyze what Samantha had set into motion.

She took what she already knew about Samantha, the car and the money and added it to the chilling coincidence that the latest victim in a string of serial murders had apparently been killed only days before her sister’s disappearance. Combining all of these facts with her own certainty that Samantha would never have left any amount of cash willingly equaled a very unsettling picture that pointed to only one conclusion, at least in her mind. Samantha had become the killer’s latest victim.

* * * *

Arden’s migraine had transferred to Bill through some sort of evil osmosis. Unfortunately, he had a job to do headache or no. That job had just become a hell of a lot harder. Someone was threatening Arden. He knew how he felt about that, and it pissed him off, totally and completely. And more than it should have. He’d seen Drebin’s understanding gaze when he’d almost come unglued. Just the thought of someone hurting her turned his vision to a red, violent haze.

When had this happened? And how could it have happened so damned fast? It didn’t make any sense. He’d known this woman less than three days, if you counted a telephone conversation over 800 miles of bobbing, sagging telecommunications line. And it wasn’t just one-sided. He’d felt it when she’d thrown herself into his arms, felt her begin to calm at his slightest touch, seen it in her eyes the evening before as they completed their evening run, shared dinner and a bottle of wine. There was something there, and he hadn’t the foggiest idea of how to deal with it. Or not deal with it. Even five years of marriage to a beautiful, exciting woman hadn’t prepared him for the intense attraction he was feeling right now, the fierce instinct to protect.

He was in the middle of an investigation involving a serial killer and witchcraft, for God’s sake. The last thing he should be thinking about was the way her hair just barely grazed the curve of her firm jaw when it was loose. Or how goddamn right she had looked standing there next to the bleachers last night. Or how he’d been more comfortable with her in just one night than he was with most women after weeks or even years of association.

And now it was gone. He’d seen the shutters fall over her eyes as she relayed the threatening call. He knew she was embarrassed that he and Drebin had seen her fall apart. But she’d plunged on, relaying the telephone call like she’d report on a story. He had a sneaking suspicion that military public affairs officers were not called upon to regale readers with such unsettling, specific facts. They seemed to cover airshows and such rather than murders and threats against one’s life. But Arden was different. She’d retreated back into her military persona with a swiftness that would have been startling if he hadn’t seen her do the same when discussing her sister.

Pulling his head out of his hands he glanced over at Drebin, who was studiously avoiding looking at him. “So, Agent. Where do we go from here? To me that was a goddamned death threat. Fold that in with her sister’s disappearance and five dead women and we’ve got one big stinky pile of shit.”

Drebin frowned. “We’ve got nothing solid. It’s all circumstantial. So her sister wouldn’t have normally left that kind of money. What if she thought this Carlos guy was hot on her trail and ditched it all to disappear? Have you thought of that? You’re too anxious to tie this all together with a neat little bow. I really don’t think it’s related, at least not yet, not until I see something concrete.”

“
Y’know what Drebin? I do want to tie this all neatly together. Shit like this doesn’t happen here. Period. In Mariposa we live our happy lives, bust speeding tourists and drug-dealing locals. Maybe we break up a fight at the county fair or run the Hell’s Angels out of town if they get too rowdy. That’s it. That’s an exciting night in this town.

“
So, yeah, I want this to be over, and I don’t see it happening anytime soon. Regardless of any of my feelings, we’ve got an Air Force officer sitting in her hotel room, waiting for some drug or mob boss to send his favorite strong-arm man to break a few bones for information she hasn’t got on where her sister might be. Beside putting her in protective custody, I really don’t see a solution to this problem.”

Drebin nodded. “On that we’re in complete agreement. She needs to go home and move into the dorms on base. I already called on that while you were taking her back to her hotel. They’ll do it in a heartbeat. Their security folks are salivating at the chance to bust a real criminal. That base is contracted out for the most part and those boys don’t do anything but eat donuts and wave people through the gate.”

“
Oh, and that’s supposed to make me feel secure about sending her back there? We can take better care of her here. I could put Stumpy on her and feel more comfortable, OK?” Bill flared, frustration coloring his words.

“
Hmmmm.” Drebin hummed thoughtfully. “Why don’t you consider doing that? Goltree is surely looking for a way to get back into your good graces. Give him this assignment, with one of your other deputies watching him. You’re going to launch an investigation anyway, right? This will take care of two birds with one stone. It’ll keep her safe since she’ll have two officers on her, and you can see who Goltree’s been talking to. Simple, really.” Drebin smiled, pleased with his own craftiness.