Escape to Morning (5 page)

Dannette sighed, shoved her hands into her pockets, and glanced at the chaos. “Yeah. Missy's an SAR dog, and we spent all day in the woods.”

When she looked back, she was startled to see his gaze on her, searching her face. His tiny frown spoke more concern than she could deal with at the moment. “Did you find the dead body?”

She quirked an eyebrow. “Uh … well, yeah. How did you know about that?”

“I've got a scanner in my truck.”

Oh, a cop. No wonder he radiated this you're-okay-nowma'am aura. Funny, with him standing a foot away from her, she sorta felt that way. Okay, now. All he needed was a badge and maybe a beat-up Stetson to complete his old-West-hero guise. “Well, I gave my statement to the deputies. I'm sure you can get the lowdown from Sheriff Fadden.”

One side of his mouth drew up in a smirk. “Yeah, I'll bet.” He squinted again at the lights behind her. “Hey, have you eaten?”

Eaten? She had begun to move away from him and now froze. He gave her a full-powered white smile, and suddenly she knew fatigue had already taken possession of her brain. She let herself wrap around the idea of making a friend, decompressing from the carnage of the day with a person who might nod and listen with his eyes, his smile.

She was reading way, way too much into this near hit-andrun.
Down, girl
.

“No,” she heard herself answer, her mouth obviously out on its own tonight. And then it smiled, giving her the look of a teenage girl besotted with the quarterback. Oh, brother. She should turn and run and not look back.

“They make a great bowl of chili down at Nancy's Nook. How about you let me apologize for nearly running over … Misty?” he said, shoving his hands into his jeans pockets.

“Missy,” she corrected. But his attempt to get her dog's name right had Dannette nearly to yes.

“Missy.” He whistled. Missy, the traitor and all-knowing judge of good character, bounded over. He held out his hand, let her sniff it. A few moments later she was on her back, in complete, embarrassing surrender, wiggling as he rubbed her stomach. “She's a sweet thing.”

So much for holding out in an attempt to be coy. Besides, he was a cop. And Nancy did serve great chili.

Will had redefined his definition of
pretty
over the years, and while this lady didn't have the exotic look of the women he'd met overseas, she had a simple, honest prettiness. Tall, with hazel eyes ringed with wariness, and short rain-wetted, breeze-dried hair, she sat and leaned on her hand and twirled her fork into her napkin, exuding a certain authenticity that made her intriguing. The fact that she hadn't tried to wipe the dirt from her high cheekbones before she joined him in the café said that she felt comfortable with who she was—what you see is what you get.

Too bad he couldn't say the same thing.

“Do you know what you want?” he asked.

She said nothing and shook her head, looking exhausted.

Maybe this wasn't such a hot idea. But he was out for answers or at least the clues locked somewhere in that tousled blonde head. And he would wheedle them out before the night was over.

He'd been right to follow his instincts and head up to the SAR site. After the dispatch on the radio, he'd weighed his options for all of 3.02 seconds, then floored it to the incident site to confirm that it was Simon/aka Hafiz they were zipping into a body bag.

Thirty minutes later, he'd pulled into the parking lot and nearly mowed over the lady's dog—something that had scared him more than he wanted to admit. Or it might have been the way the lady dropped down in the dirt and hung on to the animal, her heart in her contorted face. He'd felt a little unnerved and slightly raw when he walked out onto the field, considering the possibilities. He didn't want to be the guy who destroyed something so well loved.

Already done that, thank you.

It felt like sheer divine providence that he would meet the person who had found Simon. He'd prefer to do an end run around Fadden—he hadn't exactly earned any warm fuzzy responses from the local law since he started nosing around town.

He had followed her into town, to Nancy's Nook, which was thankfully still open. He'd watched as she watered and fed her dog; then he helped dry off the animal and tuck Missy into the berth in her truck. She seemed single-minded in her care of the animal …something that struck a soft place in his chest. Or perhaps it was the affinity he had for responsible people. The army had taught him that.

Nancy had taken the main floor of an old bungalow and refurbished it into a bakery and café. Her limited menu was scrawled on a chalkboard on the wall opposite the door. In a display case sat a lonely brownie that might find a home in his stomach later tonight.

They were the only patrons in the restaurant—Nancy had informed them that she was closing shop within the hour. Will had wrangled the last remaining bowl of chili for the woman and a Reuben sandwich for himself out of her. And a basket of onion rings.

Will heard the floor creak in the kitchen behind the two-way swinging door, and a slight chill whistled in from under the log front door. He walked over to the far end of the room where, in a stone fireplace, a meager blaze sputtered, gasping for life. He moved the ash-covered logs around with a poker, added another log. He replaced the poker and grabbed a napkin from another table and wiped his hands.

The woman said nothing, still cocooned in fatigue—or thought?—as she twirled her fork.

“So, I never did get your name,” Will said, returning to the table and squelching the urge to take the fork out of her hand. Tension laced the gesture, and he felt the errant and weird urge to help her unwind. He'd been on the dark end of body recovery a few times and knew that only time erased those images, if at all.

She leaned back, put the fork on the table, readjusted the table setting. “Dannette. Lundeen.”

“Dannette. That's pretty. Do you go by Dani, because you know, you seem like a Dani. Are you new in town?”

She opened her mouth a bit, as if trying to form a response. Then, “No, I … ah … well, I'm kind of visiting.”

Oh? He raised one eyebrow. Good. That made it easier to pass himself off as a nice guy from down the street. “My name is Will Masterson.”

“Nice to meet you, Will,” Dani said, then grinned. “Sorta.”

“At least you're honest,” he said. “Where are you from?” He leaned back, stretching his legs. A faux lantern affixed to the wall shed a pool of orange light over the wooden table.

“Iowa. And you? No, let me guess.” She wore the slightest etching of a smile. “Home on the range?”

He chuckled. “Bull's-eye. Actually I'm from South Dakota.”

“Land of the free,” Dani said.

“And home of the brave,” he finished. She giggled, and it sounded sweet. “Actually, I haven't lived there for a while. But I still call it home. Cotter, South Dakota. Population 7,000 if you count the cattle.”

A bigger smile, and it found places inside he'd thought cold and dead. Whoa, boy. This dinner date was about information, not extracurricular activities. Not only did Dani not look the type, but he hadn't been the type either for quite a while now, if he remembered correctly. Even if he'd had opportunity to find a few warm and willing friends in Moose Bend, he had given over that side of his life to Jesus to forgive and start anew. But he wasn't exactly sure how to go about being friends with a woman without an … agenda. Maybe it felt like this. Friendly banter. Dinner out. Sharing easy secrets.

Perhaps it was even supposed to feel … soothing. Like a balm on raw and wounded places.

Although he'd died to Wild Will, he still had to make sure the old Will didn't sneak up and lasso the one that wanted to be God's man. “So Dani Lundeen from Iowa, what brings you to Moose Bend, Minnesota?”

“I run an SAR K-9 training program in Iowa. I came up about a month ago to prepare one of the locals for her final SAR K-9 certification exam. She's the one who found Mrs. Hanson.” A blush touched her cheeks.

He smiled, aware that it made her look … innocent. He liked innocent. “You look like you need a vacation.”

She crossed her arms over her chest. “Actually, I'm waiting for my friend Sarah. She's meeting me for an early season canoe trip into the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (BWCAW).”

“Two women alone in the woods? Aren't you afraid of bears?” He meant it as a joke, and wow, she even giggled. He hadn't expected to enjoy it quite so much.

“We're pretty capable, thanks. Besides, our friend Andee is going with us.”

He frowned.

She laughed. “Andee is a girl. She works SAR in Alaska and is a helicopter pilot as well as a mountain climber. Sarah's a paramedic in New York City. We haven't seen each other since last October, and we have this tradition.” She picked up the fork again. “The three of us take a vacation before Andee heads into the bush for the summer. It's our version of girls' night out.”

“Sounds dangerous.” He hadn't meant to say it quite as softly as it came out, and it sounded … worried. Oh no. He smiled, hoping she didn't notice.

“Naw. We're all SAR trained and spend lots of time on our own. We cave and kayak and hike—”

“What happened to shopping? I thought that was a girl's favorite pastime.”

She actually glared at him. Well, sorta. He could hardly call it a glare when she smirked at the end. “We shop. For dehydrated food, proper footwear, the latest in Gore-Tex rainwear and climbing equipment.”

He laughed, wondering why that felt so easy. Someone like Lew's ever-present ghost should slap him upside the head. What happened to coaxing information from her about the dead person she'd found—who was probably his partner? He winced at his own callousness and felt profoundly grateful when Nancy came out with a bowl of chili, a sandwich, and a basket of seasoned onion rings.

“Anything else?” Nancy, a backwoods type of gal herself, with no hint of makeup on her fifty-something face, had her blonde hair tied back in a long braid and wore moccasins under her prairie skirt.

“How about the brownie there in the case?” Will nodded toward the goodie. Maybe he'd split it with Dani.

He pulled the sandwich closer, noticed that Dani had scooted up to the table, and had her hands folded. “Are you … um, going to pray?”

She smiled, and it looked honest and vulnerable. “Yes, do you mind?”

Did he mind? He almost felt like singing, although he couldn't put a finger on why. “Nope,” he managed.

Dani offered a short, sweet prayer and had dug into her chili long before he recovered. He knew two things. His instincts about her had been correct; she wouldn't go for any sort of late-night shenanigans. And he was the biggest jerk on the planet for wanting to charm her only for her information, especially when she seemed to be moving past that grisly moment.

He ate in silence, subdued by his scumball stench.

“You okay, cowboy?” Dani peered at him over her cup of chai.

“Yeah,” he said, and then, despite his regrets, he added, “I was just thinking about that poor chum out there in the woods. The guy you found.”

Yes, he
was
a class-A jerk, because his segue worked.

She put down her cup, and a shadow crossed her face. “Yeah. It was pretty awful. I've seen dead bodies before, but this one … well, when they took the bag off his head, he'd been beaten pretty badly. They tentatively identified him by a tattoo on his hand—they think he was from a cult somewhere north of here.”

Will felt ill. He put down his sandwich. Swallowed hard. Yep. Simon had a tattoo—had gotten it when he joined Hayata as a sign of allegiance.

“You okay? Maybe I shouldn't be talking about this over dinner.” She gave a burst of self-deprecating laughter. “Listen to me. I shouldn't be talking about it at all. But I guess since you're a cop, I'm okay, right?”

A cop? He managed not to let his mouth gape open, but he didn't need to broadcast his surprise.

Nancy did it for him. She put the brownie on the table, looked at the two of them, and snorted. “Cop? Hardly. Will is our local news-hound. He writes the police beat for the
Moose Bend Journal
.”

Dani looked like she'd been slapped. “A reporter?” she said on a whisper-thin voice. She gave him a look that made him want to crawl under the table.

Then she got up and simply walked out. The door banged shut behind her.

Will narrowed his eyes, flinching as if he'd been shot. A fitting sort of epitaph to his desire to find a friend in Dannette—Dani—Lundeen from Iowa.

Chapter 4

COULD SHE BE any more stupid, gullible, and act any more desperate? Dannette screeched her pickup to a halt in front of the Lighthouse Motel. She leaned her head against the steering wheel, hearing again the waitress's words.
A news-hound
.

Figures.

She had an uncanny ability to attract people who wanted to dig around in her life and find the dark holes.