Come Gentle the Dawn (21 page)

The six-foot-high fence was no problem with Linc’s help. Brie jumped to the dusty ground and watched as Linc took the fence like a black panther. He gently picked up the dog and placed him in the shadows, making sure he was in a comfortable position.

Brie’s mouth was dry, like the ground they treaded lightly upon. Her heart was hammering without pause. Each sound, no matter how far away, made her freeze. They reached the garage, and began to take samples from each of the five trucks. Linc, collecting from the underground tanks, was out in the open, visible to anyone. Would they be discovered?

Her hands trembled and she spilled some of the oil from the last truck over her gloved hand. She placed the cork in the plastic test tube and quickly made her way out of the garage, quietly closing the door behind her. A hand closed around her mouth, and Brie struggled, a scream strangling in her throat.

“Quiet!” Linc hissed into her ear, dragging her against the building.

Her breast rose and fell sharply. Linc slowly loosened his hand, and Brie gulped in several breaths of air. Then she froze. She heard it too. Men’s voices, two of them. She twisted to look up at Linc’s hard, sweaty face. What should they do? The sounds of the chain-link fence padlock being opened and the gate swinging wide grated on her exposed nerves. Linc pulled her behind him, signaling her to stay silent.

Brie had never felt so helpless. Or in so much real danger. Haz-mat incidents were nothing compared to this. She saw Linc slowly unsnap his holster, draw out the lethal-looking magnum and hold it ready. They were crouched at the far corner of the building with the fence and stream directly behind them. Brie saw two policemen enter the area, their flashlights moving through the darkness. They had mistimed the cruiser.
She shrank against Linc as the officers walked up to the office door, tested it, then went back to their cruiser after locking the gate.

Linc turned, looking at Brie. Despite the blackness on her face, he could see the strain in her wide eyes. Without a word, he slipped his arm around her shoulders, drawing her close, needing her warmth. He helped her stand, realizing she was shaky. So was he. He always trembled after the danger was past. Keeping his hand on her elbow, he guided Brie to the fence and helped her over. As they were walking down to the bank, they heard Captain groan and flail around. Brie halted, watching the dog to make sure he would be all right. Linc waited patiently. He knew how much she cared for animals, and as Captain groggily got to his feet, shaking himself unsteadily, Brie looked at Linc, gratefulness evident in her eyes. He smiled and placed his hand on the small of her back. He led her toward the stream and to the van parked in a grove of cottonwoods.

*

“What’s next?” Brie asked tiredly as Linc swung the van into the driveway of his apartment building.

He glanced at her. “A shower and bed for you. I’ll take these over to the Canton police and have them analyzed by their lab.”

Bed and sleep. Both sounded wonderful. Brie realized she felt more than exhausted. She didn’t want to believe that Earl Hansen would do something as horrible as mixing PCB in people’s fuel oil. “It has to be Bach Industries, Linc, not Carter Fuel.”

“I hope you’re right,” he murmured. “Come on, I’m going to grab a shower, change, then leave.”

*

Linc quietly unlocked the door and slipped inside. The sun had been up since six-thirty, and he’d greeted it with bloodshot eyes at the police station. It was almost eight o’clock before he’d returned home to Brie. While he dealt with the details of this investigation in the past hours, he had thought of her—and their fragile relationship built upon lies and deceit. Linc had already seen the tears in Brie’s luminous eyes, her belief in mankind eroded.

Linc stood in the bedroom doorway, drinking in Brie’s sleeping form like a man dying of thirst. Only he was aching to take her into his arms where she belonged. He walked to the bed and gently sat on the mattress. When he pushed back several strands of hair from her brow, she stirred, and a tender smile pulled at his mouth. You respond so beautifully to just the slightest touch, he told her silently. Linc leaned over to place a warm kiss on her parted lips.

Brie awoke in his arms, and with his name on her lips, she pulled him down upon her. She welcomed his kisses down the length of her neck and over her collarbone. Nestling his face against the soft firmness of her breast, inhaling her feminine scent, he groaned.

“This is the way it should be,” he said.

With a sigh, Brie murmured, “Always.”

Linc rose up on one arm, keeping a hand resting on her hip, drowning in her slumberous green eyes. “Are you awake enough to talk?”

Brie nodded, feeling the sweet ache of wanting Linc. “Yes. What time is it?”

“A little after eight,” he murmured, running his fingers through her hair.

“Did you find out anything?”

“Plenty. One tanker you took a small sample from has a level of more than fifty thousand parts per million of PCBs. That’s extremely high levels, not to mention illegal.”

Brie struggled to sit up, the covers falling away to reveal her white silk nightgown. Disappointment clouded her features. “Now what?”

“Well, we illegally obtained those samples, so we can’t use them as evidence. So now we have to get a search warrant. Of course, Carter will fight that.”

Brie pushed her hand through her hair, trying to wake up. “Linc, what if we go talk with Earl? My gut says he’s just not a criminal. Maybe if we can get a confession from him or something…” Her voice trailed off.

“It’s worth a try,” Linc admitted slowly. “If we could get Hansen to turn in evidence to us, he might be able to plea bargain his way out of this mess. I don’t know. I’m not the attorney general.”

Hope sprang to her eyes. “You mean, if he testifies that Carter is doing this, Earl might not have to go to jail?”

Linc nodded. “Whoa. As I said, I’m not an attorney. I can’t promise him or you anything, Brie.”

She slipped out of bed and put on her floor-length robe, her eyes alight with excitement. “Let me get dressed, then let’s drive down to see him.”

Exhaustion was lapping at Linc. The bed felt so good to him right now. All he wanted to do was crash for a few hours. “Okay, little cat. Get dressed, and we’ll go have a chat with your friend.” He scowled. “But you
realize that Earl could have been the one who tried to have you killed?”

Brie halted at the bedroom door, the possibility sinking in. “Y-yes, I realize that, Linc.” Her fingers curled around the doorknob. “I just don’t want to believe he would do such a thing.”

Linc lay down, arms crossed on his chest after Brie had disappeared into the bathroom. She had every faith in the world in that untarnished heart of hers. How he hoped for her sake that Earl was innocent. But wasn’t that one of the many facets of Brie he loved? Her view of people, that they weren’t all bad or had ulterior motives.

But would she be able to feel that way about him after the case was solved? After she knew who he really was, and how he’d lied to her? Throwing an arm over his eyes, he sighed loudly. In the past week, he’d fallen in love with her. Once he’d made up his mind she was the victim and not the killer, all the held-back feelings in his heart rampaged through him.

Linc knew their love hadn’t stood the test of time in order to become stable enough to ride out problems. His lies were more than a problem, though, and he knew it.
God, let her be understanding with me. Please. I need her, want her.

Dragging his arm off his eyes, he stared numbly at the white ceiling. He didn’t know he was going to fall in love with Brie. And neither did she. Love was the wild card, and when she knew the truth, there was every possibility of it being destroyed. No! He’d just found her. If Carter Fuel and Oil turned out to be a red herring and the investigation had to continue, when could he tell her? And how? Linc decided that there was no good
time to inform Brie he was an agent. When he did, all could be lost. No, it was best to keep his cover until the case was solved. Maybe, by that time, their love for one another would have grown enough to take the traumatic shock in stride instead of getting destroyed. He certainly hoped so.

*

“Mrs. Hansen?” Brie called, knocking at the screen door of the small, single-level dwelling. She cast a glance at Linc, who stood there stoically. She knocked again. It was ten-thirty on Saturday.

Flora Hansen walked to the door, her thin body covered in a cotton shift that had been washed and worn many times over, the colors faded from the material. Her hazel eyes held a look of confusion as she stood looking through the screen at them. “Yes?”

“Hi, I’m Brie Williams, Mrs. Hansen. And this is Linc Tanner. We’re with the Hazardous Material Bureau of the fire marshall’s office. Is Earl home?”

Flora frowned. Although she was probably in her early fifties, she looked nearly ten years older. Her hair was almost white, in need of a combing and some care.

“Well, yes, Earl just got home. May I see some identification, please?”

“Of course,” Brie murmured, pulling out her badge and holding it up to the screen. Brie had decided that they should come to see Earl in civilian clothes so they wouldn’t scare him any more than necessary. She wore a silky, short-sleeved orange blouse and a white cotton skirt with sandals.

“Flora?” It was Earl’s voice floating through the house.

Flora turned. “There’s some people here to see you.”

Brie watched Earl’s face turn ashen as he approached the door.

“Brie? What are you doing here?” he asked in amazement.

Linc stepped forward, his hand moving to the handle of the screen door. “Mr. Hansen, we need to talk with you privately for a few minutes. Would you like to come out here on the porch?”

Flora knew when she was being politely asked to leave and did so, but only after settling her paper-thin fingers on her husband’s pudgy arm. Earl’s eyes rounded, but he did as Linc suggested. Linc motioned to the porch swing, taking an old chair that was in need of sanding and a new coat of paint.

“Sure. What’s the problem, Brie?” Earl asked, sitting down, clasping his hands between his legs.

Brie swallowed, her heart aching for Earl. The man was so frightened, his darting brown gaze moved back and forth between her and Linc. She deliberately kept her voice soft and opened her hands in a gesture of peace.

“Earl, we need your help.”

Earl flinched visibly, color draining from his florid features. “About what?”

“About the PCB we found in truck number three, Earl.”

He reared back, as if struck. He turned to Linc and waited and watched. He licked his lips then mopped his brow with a handkerchief. “PCB?” he whispered, his voice cracking.

Brie was dying inside. “You know about them, Earl, and so do we. Please don’t try to play games with us. I don’t want to see you go to jail.”

Linc’s voice broke the brittle tension surrounding them. “If you turn over state’s evidence, it might mean that you’ll be granted immunity, Mr. Hansen. Tell us what we want to know and maybe you can stay out of prison.”

For a moment, Brie thought Earl was going to faint. The man bowed his head then looked toward the screen door to make sure his wife wasn’t standing there. He twisted the handkerchief between his short, thick fingers, as if waging war within himself. “My wife has cancer, Brie.”

“Oh, no. Oh, Earl, I’m sorry. I didn’t know.” Automatically, she placed her hand on his shoulder.

Linc quickly added up the weight of Hansen’s admission. “How would you like to be in prison and your wife alone here? By herself.” It was a cruel question, but it had the effect on Earl that Linc had hoped for.

Hansen snapped up his head, his eyes filled with tears. “Okay, okay…yes, there is PCB in the grade-two fuel oil. But it was Carter who did it!” He got up, hand pressed against his glistening brow, terror in his eyes. “Carter said if I didn’t go along with it, he’d fire me. And where would I be? My wife needs continuous chemotherapy. I don’t have enough medical insurance. He said if I didn’t keep a second set of books, he’d let me go. Do you understand? I can’t let my wife get worse because I don’t have the money to pay the doctor bills. Carter promised me that if I went along with this, he’d see that I had enough to help Flora.” He turned away, burying his head in his hands, sobbing.

Brie was up in an instant, tears glittering in her eyes, her hand coming to rest on Earl’s rounded shoulder. “Oh, Earl,” she whispered, “why didn’t you come to us? Do you know what PCBs are? What they’ll do to people?”

Linc got up and led Hansen back to the porch swing. Brie sat down with him. Linc took the chair, and he waited for Hansen to compose himself. The man raised his head, his reddened eyes filled with anguish.

“I don’t know what they are,” he admitted miserably. “Carter said it was nothing to worry about. He said he was just doing some friends a favor by taking the oil off their hands instead of having to transport it to a chemical dump where it would cost a lot of money to dispose of.”

Brie clenched her hands in her lap. “Earl, PCBs, if inhaled for a long enough time, can cause cancer. By law, any oil with PCBs in it has to be disposed of and the EPA notified. It’s illegal to do what Carter’s been doing.”

Hansen stared at her. “My God, no…” Then his face turned an angry plum color, his voice wobbling. “Carter’s been putting PCBs in the fuel oil people have been burning for the last three winters.”

A gasp escaped Brie, and she met Linc’s stormy gaze. “That bastard!” Hansen cried hoarsely, getting to his feet. “Carter lied to me!”

If Linc hadn’t caught and held him, Hansen would have gone after Carter. Brie watched the two men struggle briefly on the porch, Linc’s superior strength and height quickly subduing Earl. Linc forced him to sit down.

“Tell us what you know, Hansen.”

Brie sat there for the next half hour, listening to the horror story. Carter had made a contract with a New Jersey firm to haul the PCB-laden fuel oil to Litton where it would be mixed with clean fuel oil. He had been selling the contaminated mixture for three years.