Heat of the Moment (16 page)

“What is he scraping her fingernails for?” Owen asked.

I glanced at him then back toward the crowd, still disturbed by that woman. But she was gone.

“Billy said you were searching for a guy in a ski mask. What did he do?”

“None of your—” I began, but Deb answered. “Tried to smother her with a pillow.”

Reggie woofed, low and concerned. Owen smoothed his palm over the dog's head. But Reggie wasn't having it.

Scared.

He spun counterclockwise.

Angry.

He spun clockwise. Was the dog talking about himself or Owen?

“Since when do people get attacked in their own homes in Three Harbors?” Owen's face was serene, his voice completely reasonable. I wasn't buying it.

“You need to calm down,” I said.

His gaze flicked to me. “Who says I'm not calm?”

“Who says I was talking to you?” I lifted my chin to indicate Reggie. The dog was still spinning—right, left, right.

Ross was still scraping my fingernails. It didn't hurt, but I certainly hoped I never had to do this again. I remembered the pillow smashing my nose, my mouth.

For more reasons than one.

“Sitz,”
Owen ordered.

Reggie sat, but he cast Owen a concerned glance, which Owen ignored. He was too busy glaring at me.

“I'm fine,” I said. “Not a scratch on me.” Although my nose felt a little bruised.

“The scratches were all on him,” Deb said. “Hence the nail scrapings.”

Owen grabbed Jeremy's hand and yanked on his shirt. Unfortunately the shirt was buttoned at the cuff and stuck tight about an inch above his wrist.

“Hey!” Jeremy tried to pull away.

Owen yanked the shirt so hard the button flew through the air. Reggie started barking at it.

Owen stared at Jeremy's arm for a second, then he grabbed him by the throat and smacked him into the wall again.

*   *   *

Becca shouted something. Owen thought it might be his name, or maybe the doctor's. Everyone, especially Dale Carstairs, seemed to think Reitman was Three Harbors's answer to a prayer.

However, that wasn't why he put his hand around Jeremy's throat and squeezed—again. The reason for that were the scratches on the guy's arm.

Someone tried to grab Owen, probably Dale. He doubted Deb was that dumb. Reggie snarled, and the hands clutching at him disappeared.

“Let him go, Owen. Now.”

That
was Deb.

Owen released the guy for the second time that day, and for the second time Dr. Reitman slid to the ground like a rag doll.

“What is wrong with you?” Becca shoved past Owen and touched Jeremy's face.

“Look at his arm.”

She glanced up, frowned, then lifted the shirtsleeve that had fallen back down in the upheaval.

Three scratches marred the man's skin.

Owen waited for Becca to straighten, to back away, to show them to Deb, who would then cuff the guy as Becca threw herself into Owen's arms and thanked him for seeing the truth when no one else had.

Instead her head fell forward; she shook it then stood. “Those scratches are healed over.”

How had he missed that? His only excuse was that he'd been so furious at the thought of anyone hurting Becca that he'd gone a little overboard. A world without Becca in it was not one Owen could bear.

In dog handler school they'd learned why dogs were so good at explosives detection. Not only were their noses about a thousand times more sensitive than a human's, but the size of the portion of their brain used for analyzing those scents was between twenty and forty percent larger. Which might explain why a human would smell beef stew and a dog would smell onions, potatoes, carrots, beef, flour, salt, and so on. This was how MWDs could ferret out bombs. While one explosive might be made out of different materials than another, they all needed a reason to go boom—and
that
scent set off the dogs. Owen had seen IEDs buried in dirt, covered with garbage, wrapped in Lord knows what, but still Reggie had found them.

What this meant to Owen was that even though Reggie's indication of insurgent was suspect, there was something off about Dr. “Right Man.”

Certainly Carstairs's adoration of the man, so soon after he had told Owen—again—to leave Becca alone, had made Owen
want
the guy to be bad so much he'd been blinded to anything else.

He still thought it was pretty damn odd that they were searching for an intruder of the same size, wearing a ski mask, which had been found right next to a fellow who had scratches—albeit old ones—right where Becca had put some.

“Maybe he's a fast healer.” Owen wasn't willing to let it go.

“Freaky fast,” Deb said. “Like supernaturally woo-woo fast, even.”

Becca cast Deb a curious glance, as if the chief were serious.

“Where'd those scratches come from?” Owen asked.

“What difference does it make?” Becca's dad snapped.

Owen had forgotten for a minute that the man was there.

“Jeremy didn't try to kill Becca,” Carstairs continued. “Why would he?”

“Why would anyone?” Owen wondered.

“Exactly,” Carstairs agreed.

“No, really. Why? You think it was random?” Owen's gaze went from Carstairs, to Becca, to Deb.

“Random is a lot more rare than people think,” Deb said.

“Cat,” Jeremy blurted. Reggie starting wailing.

“Lass das sein,”
Owen ordered
.

Reggie stopped. The doctor stared at his arm so hard Owen wondered if he were trying to make the scratches disappear by wishing for it.

“What cat?” Becca asked.

Reggie let out a short yip, as if he just couldn't help it. Owen wondered how he even knew the word.

MWDs were taught to chase only what they were told to and nothing else. It wouldn't do to give a dog the command to search, then have him distracted by a rabbit or squirrel or any other furry creature and pursue it, allowing an insurgent to go merrily in another direction and AK-47 someone down the line.

“A cat scratched me here a few days ago.” Jeremy tapped his forearm.

Owen frowned. The guy had tapped the wrong arm.

 

Chapter 13

Owen looked like he wanted to knock Jeremy over the head with his club, and drag me off by my hair. Jeremy continued to act like he'd already been hit with a club. I wondered just how much oxygen Owen had deprived him of while strangling him—twice. I didn't think it was as much as I'd lost beneath the pillow, but what did I know?

Jeremy was being loopy, and as he never had before, I had to think it was a result of today's events. I was lucky he hadn't jumped in his car and raced back to Madison without investigating the crime scene. Though it wasn't my crime scene, or even my house.

I started to stand up, teetered, reached out, and Owen caught my elbow, hauled me upright. I braced my other hand on his thigh. He caught his breath. I yanked it back. I had touched a little higher than was proper. Not that I hadn't touched even higher before.

Deb's shoulder mike squawked gibberish. She waited until it stopped then spoke into it. “Say again?”

“No one in the woods, Chief.”

“No one?” Owen repeated. “On a walking trail, in the middle of the day, right after the Falling Leaves Festival?”

Deb cast him a glare, but she transmitted his question. “No one at all?”

“No one that fit the description. Six feet, one sixty.”

Owen let his gaze wander over Jeremy's slim, six-foot-one frame, then lifted his eyebrows. I ignored him. Jeremy would have no reason to strangle me.

But, as Owen had pointed out, who did? People might go gonzo over losing a pet or a valuable farm animal. Though strangling your veterinarian while wearing a ski mask was well past gonzo.

Except I hadn't lost a patient since I got here. Damn good luck, or superior diagnostics, maybe both, but I wasn't complaining. Nevertheless, it meant that no one had decided to feather-pillow me to death because I'd screwed up surgery on Fido.

“Meet Doc Becca at Owen McAllister's place, will you?” Deb continued. “She's bringing a forensic specialist out. But you make sure nothing gets effed up, okay?”

“Nothing effed up. Roger that, Chief.”

“I know what I'm doing,” Jeremy muttered.

“Who said I was talking about you?”

“Am I going to be able to sleep in my bed tonight?” I asked. Would I even be able to close my eyes and drift off after what had happened the last time I tried it?

“You should stay with your parents,” Deb said. “At least until we figure this out.”

Which was going to be a major PITA for work, but lying in my apartment staring at the ceiling, jumping at every shadow, wouldn't help either.

“I need clothes.” My feet were also bare. “Probably shoes.”

Deb let out a growl of annoyance. “Come on.”

She escorted me upstairs, stood in the living room tapping her foot while I changed into jeans and a long-sleeved shirt in the bathroom, then shoved my feet into my oldest, grungiest tennis shoes before preceding her downstairs. No one appeared to have moved since we'd left.

“We can go in my truck,” Owen began. Reggie woofed; the gaze he turned on Jeremy was very cat with the canary—or cat that could almost taste the canary.

Splode.

What did that mean?

“I'll follow in my car.”

Jeremy's eyes resembled those of a canary that had just caught a glimpse of the cat staring in at him from the other side of the cage. Couldn't blame him, though really, he should probably worry more about Owen. Reggie had a leash. Owen didn't.

“Becca, ride with me.” Jeremy started for the trees.

“Where are you going?” my father asked.

“I parked at the head of that walking trail through the woods.”

“Explains how he got back here without Billy or me or anyone but Reggie seeing him,” Owen said.

“Why would you do that?” I asked. “You couldn't know that the trail wound past my parking lot.”

The location of the veterinary clinic would be obvious to anyone who could read a sign, or speak English and ask a question, but knowing where the hiking trail led wasn't.

“I didn't.”

“You were supposed to call me when you arrived.”

“I tried. You didn't answer.”

I'd probably been busy gasping for breath, and I hadn't had time to check my phone since.

“Then I saw you at the head of the trail.” His forehead creased. “Or I thought I saw you. You never told me you had a twin.”

“She doesn't,” Owen said.

“There was a woman who looked exactly like you.” Jeremy's gaze flickered over my face. “Except she had dark eyes, black hair and it was shorter.”

“We need to discuss your definition of
exactly,
” Owen said.

Jeremy cast Owen an evil glare, which caused Reggie to growl.

“Hush,” Owen murmured. Reggie hushed, at least out loud. In my mind he continued to grumble.

Stink
.
Bad.
And the inevitable:
Splode.

“You talked to her?” I asked.

Jeremy shook his head. “I pulled over, called your name. She kept walking onto the trail, so I followed. She was pretty far ahead, then she stopped and stared north. Trail wound around. I lost sight of her, but when I got to the place she'd been, I stopped.” He waved at my Bronco. “I saw your car and the
VET
sign. The door was open, so I figured you'd gone in. I started to follow then—” He jerked his thumb at Reggie. “That grabbed me.”

Reggie lifted his lip and showed teeth.
Asshole.

I turned my inappropriate desire to laugh into a cough-type throat clearing. I was very good at it. “You really thought she was me?”

“You could have dyed your hair. You also said you had a sister.”

“She doesn't look anything like me.”

He shrugged. “They say everyone has a twin somewhere.”

They did say that. But how weird was it that my doppelg
ä
nger had shown up in my teeny-tiny hometown and walked down a forest path, then stared at the place where I lived right after a masked person had tried to kill me?

Superweird, but today what wasn't? It also made me wonder if the woman who'd sat on the car and stared at me had been doing so because she'd seen my twin too.

“Did
you
see a woman who looked like me?” I glanced at Owen.

“There was a pretty big crowd out front but I'd have noticed that. She probably continued down the trail.”

“And straight out of Three Harbors,” I said. “Damn. I would have liked to see how much she looks like me.”

“Probably not that much,” Owen said.

“I'm not blind,” Jeremy snapped.

Owen ignored him.

“I need to get home to your mother.” My dad started for the street.

“What's the rush?” I asked.

He continued to walk, throwing his answer over his shoulder. “Someone will have called her about this. She'll be worried.”

“Call and unworry her.”

“Forgot my phone.”

“I can call h—“

“Things to do, Becca.”

He disappeared around the building. An instant later I caught sight of him pulling a U-turn before he gunned it out of town.

“I'll drive you around on the street to Reitman's car.” Owen pulled out his keys. “It's on the way to my house.”

“I'm not getting in an enclosed space with that dog,” Jeremy said.

Woof!

Reggie stared at the trees. Was Pru watching? Or was Edward still chasing her?

Who was Edward? Another wolf? Pru hadn't sounded glad to see him.

“Becca's not walking through the woods with you,” Owen said.