Hold Your Breath (Search and Rescue) (15 page)

“How do we want to do this?” she asked. “Should I give the MC their own section?” She touched the tip of the marker to the board but then hesitated, looking at Callum over her shoulder. “What’s their name—the MC, I mean?”

“Liverton Riders,” he said.

As she scribbled it on the board, she made a face. “The groups around here really need a course in creative naming,” she muttered. She underlined the club’s name and then added the new information. Underneath that, she scribbled Ian Walsh’s name and stepped back to read over what she’d written.

“Lawrence mentioned that the evidence was found on the weight,” she said thoughtfully. “Did you or Wilt notice it when you pulled it out of the water?”

Stepping up next to her, Callum frowned. “No, which is strange. Not that we’re infallible, especially in that murky reservoir where visibility is shit, but we’re pretty thorough. Wilt’s a perfectionist, so he’s going to hate that we didn’t catch it.”

“
Wilt
’s a perfectionist?” she murmured, grinning when he shot her a look before returning his attention to the board.

“I’d like to know exactly what that piece of evidence is,” he said.

Lou nodded. “Do you think we could talk to Ian now? He might have an idea what it is. Plus, I’d kind of like to give him a heads-up about this—do you think that’s wrong? Would I be aiding and abetting?”

When Callum just grunted, staring at the whiteboard, she turned to face him.

“Was that a ‘yes’ grunt or a ‘no’ grunt?”

“That was a ‘let’s keep our mouths closed for the time being’ grunt.”

Her
grunt was unhappy.

“If the MC did kill HDG,” Callum said with more patience than condescension, “do you want to be the one who screws up the investigation?”

“No,” she agreed reluctantly. “I just don’t want to screw over Ian. He doesn’t seem like a killer.”

“No, but one of his MC brothers might be.”

She shot him a glare.

“What?”

“I hate it when you out-logic me.”

He grinned. “You’re tired. Why don’t you go to bed? The whiteboard will still be here in the morning.”

Her stomach dropped with nerves. “Um…so where am I sleeping? I mean, the couch is just fine. It’s a lot more comfortable than my couch, so I could easily sleep here if that’s where you want to put me. Or anywhere is okay, actually—”

“Lou.” He cut off her babbling. “Upstairs.”

Relieved that he’d just made the decision without any awkward conversation—not including her nervous monologue—she headed for the spiral stairs. The loft covered half of the lower level, looking over his living room. Except for a walk-in closet on one side and a bathroom on the other, the bedroom took up the entire space.

“My bed is even bigger than yours,” Callum murmured close to her ear, making her jump. She hadn’t realized he’d followed her up the stairs.

“Um… I can see that.” Flustered, she hurried into the bathroom, more because she wanted to hide than because she actually needed to use the facilities. After completing her nightly bathroom routine, though, she felt calmer, ready to face Callum and his very large bed.

He wasn’t upstairs, which made it easier. She crawled under the covers, turning from one side to the other, unable to settle. It had been easier the night before, when pure exhaustion had won over awkwardness. Forcing herself to lie still on her left side, she closed her eyes.

Her brain was whirring so loudly that she missed Callum’s reentry. When the bed sank on one side, her eyes snapped open, and she flew to a seated position, staring at Callum, who was sitting on the edge of the bed in just a pair of shorts. Her gaze landed on his pecs, and she was incapable of yanking her eyes away.
God, he’s gorgeous
, she thought, stomach tightening. Even seeing him as often as she had recently, sometimes his physical perfection just knocked the breath out of her.

“Sorry,” she said, settling back with a false air of calmness when she finally forced herself to look at his face. “I didn’t hear you come in, so you just startled me a little.”

He smirked, so she was pretty sure he saw through her facade of nonchalance. Raising his arms over his head, Callum stretched. Lou’s eyes bulged when she saw the play of muscles in his back. The man seriously deserved his own calendar. As he twisted around to slide under the covers, she snapped her eyes closed and then turned on her side again, facing away from him. Spending time—especially seminaked time—with Callum was a bad, bad idea. Before, she could only imagine what his muscles looked like shifting under his skin. She hadn’t even known until recently that he
had
dimples. Now, these details had implanted themselves into her daydreams, turning a simple crush into something so much more.

“’Night, Lou.”

“’Night.”

It took a long time for her to fall asleep, her body thrumming from Callum’s proximity and her mind churning with thoughts of waterlogged bodies and faceless stalkers. But his steady breathing filled the room, allowing her muscles to finally relax.

Callum was there, so she was safe.

* * *

All the time.
He paced a path between the trees, snow crunching beneath his boots. She was with the asshole all the fucking time! His fingers tightened around the diver’s knife, pressing an imprint of the handle into his palm. He needed to get her alone, and then he could show her exactly how he felt about faithless whores.

The wind picked up a notch, and he tipped his head back, wanting to shout at it to shut up. The need for silence was grinding on his nerves. He shouldn’t be the one skulking in the trees, freezing. He should be in her cabin, in her bed, and the guy she was screwing shouldn’t exist at all.

He smiled bitterly. He could take care of that.

In a lull between gusts, a silence fell. His head turned as he eyed the surrounding trees. It was too quiet now. There was a rustle of dead vegetation, and he eased closer to a pine tree, his gaze searching for the source of the sound. Nothing moved, nothing even breathed, but he knew someone was there. Someone was always there.

With a final frustrated glance at her cabin, he melted into the shadows.

She was standing on tiptoe, reaching for the package locker key in her post office box, when she smelled him.

“Hey, Jim,” she said without turning to look. Her fingertips brushed the plastic end of the key and managed to slide it farther out of her reach. Lou bit back a bad word. Sometimes it sucked being short. “How’re things?”

“Bad.”

“Oh?” Bouncing off her toes in a little hop, she finally snagged the key, although she scraped her knuckles on the box door on her way down. “Ouch.”

“They’re always watching me.”

“Who?” She turned to face Smelly Jim, shaking her hand to ease the sting.

“Government agents.” He took a step closer, and Lou breathed through her mouth. “They’re watching you, too.”

“I know someone is,” she muttered, thinking dark thoughts.

Jim seemed pleased she was taking him seriously. “I’ve seen him.”

“Really?” It was probably just part of Jim’s delusion, but maybe he had actually seen someone following her. “Anyone you know?”

Jim shook his head, and Lou felt a pang of disappointment. It would’ve been so easy if Jim could’ve just told her the name of her stalker. If Jim didn’t know the guy, then he wasn’t a local. Smelly Jim knew
everyone
in town. In fact, Lou would not be surprised if Jim had dossiers on everyone he’d ever met stored in his trailer.

“What did he look like?”

With a sound of disgust, Jim spat out, “Typical fed.”

“Uh… I don’t know what that means. Was he tall or short?”

“Average.”

“Okay.” Although she reminded herself not to get too excited about eyewitness testimony from Smelly Jim, she couldn’t completely quash the bubble of hope that rose in her chest. “Dark hair or light?”

He shrugged. “Couldn’t tell. He was wearing a hat.”

“Oh.” She tried to think of other descriptors. “Was he a white guy?”

He nodded, and Lou felt that surge of hope again.

“Glasses?”

“Dark ones, yeah.”

“Beard?”

“Nah.”

“Mustache? Any kind of facial hair?”

Smelly Jim thought about that for a second. “Nope.”

“What did his face look like? Handsome, ugly, scar, big nose, anything?”

Making a face, Jim said, “Kind of a pretty boy. Soft-looking.”

“What was he wearing?”

A change came over Smelly Jim’s expression, and he stared at her suspiciously. “Why are you asking me all these questions?”

Thrown off guard, she hesitated, then said tentatively, “So I can figure out who’s watching me.”

The hardness in his face didn’t ease. “Are you working for
them
?”

“No!” She scrambled to get back to their normal odd, but fairly easygoing, footing. “They’re following me, too, remember?”

Obviously, he didn’t, since he stomped out of the post office, sending mistrustful glares over his shoulder. Lou sighed and then pulled out her phone, intending to call Callum and fill him in on her conversation with Smelly Jim. However, when she saw the time on her phone’s screen, she yelped. She had only five minutes to grab her package and get to work, or she’d be late. Repocketing her cell phone, she bolted for the package locker.

Of course the lock was sticky, but she finally managed to wrestle it open and grab the box containing a couple of months’ worth of toilet paper she’d ordered. She sprinted for her truck while muttering a prayer under her breath that all four tires would be intact. When she saw that everything was fully inflated, she let out a huff of relief and climbed into the driver’s seat.

She flew into The Coffee Spot with thirty seconds to spare, but Ivy still gave her a sour look.

“Sorry!” Lou apologized, despite the fact that she wasn’t really late. If she was going to bring up the whole not-being-alone thing with her boss, she wanted to start the conversation off on a good note. However, judging by Ivy’s expression, it wasn’t going to go well. “I ran into Smelly Jim at the post office, and we started talking…”

“Talking? With Smelly Jim? That’s why you’re late?”

Lou debated giving Ivy the entire rundown of Jim’s possible sighting of her stalker, but she looked at her boss’s closed expression and went with just a silent nod instead.

Ivy let out a gusty sigh as she reached beneath the counter, pulling her purse out of the cubby. “I have to pick Briana up at the sitter’s, since there’s no preschool today. There’s a lunch order for the guys at the hardware store. I left the ticket in the back, and you’ll need to put that together before Deedee picks everything up in a half hour. See you tomorrow.”

The last sentence was thrown over her shoulder as Ivy rushed out the door, leaving Lou with an open mouth and still no company at closing time. She closed her mouth and sighed.

“Callum is going to be pissed,” she said in a singsong under her breath.

As she headed to the back, she called Callum and put the phone on speaker so she could make sandwiches for the guys at the hardware store and talk at the same time. Normally she didn’t miss her Bluetooth, but this was a rare exception. It was one of many things she’d abandoned in a back-to-basics purge when she’d moved to Colorado.

“Sparks,” he answered, his voice pulling her out of her nostalgic moment.

“Callum,” she responded as she spread chipotle mayo. “Do you want the good news—well, odd and sort of interesting news—or the bad news first?”

“Bad.”

She made a face. She’d rather have told him the odd and interesting news, while hoping that he’d forget all about the bad news by the end of the conversation. “You sure?”

“Lou…”

“Fine.” She sighed. “Ivy had to bolt out of here as soon as I arrived for my shift, so I still haven’t talked to her about adding another person to be here at closing.”

“Okay.” Surprisingly, he didn’t sound too upset. “I’ll come by after work.”

“You don’t have to do that,” she said. “You have to be getting sick of this place.”
And of me
, she added silently.

“I’m not sick of that place.”

She hoped that also meant he wasn’t sick of her either. Shaking her head to rid herself of her uncharacteristic insecurity, Lou said briskly, “Good. See you later, then. Want to hear about the odd and interesting part now, or do you need to go?”

“Let’s hear it.”

As she layered lettuce and sliced tomatoes on the sandwiches, Lou gave him the truncated version of her talk with Smelly Jim. “So,” she concluded, “I don’t know if this is all a figment of his imagination, or if he really was describing my stalker.”

“Hmm.” There was a pause, which Lou used to start filling the take-out boxes with the completed sandwiches, chips, and cookies. “If he did see your stalker, then that rules out anyone local.”

“I was thinking that, too,” she said excitedly. “His description was pretty sketchy, but I thought I’d call Rob—” The jangle of bells cut her off mid-sentence. “I think Deedee just came in for her sandwiches. Can I call you later?”

“If you have time. Otherwise, I’ll see you after five.”

“Five?” She blinked in surprise. “But that means you’ll have to be here over two hours…hello?” She looked at the phone and saw the call had been ended. “Grrr. That man and his lack of good-byes.” Raising her voice, she called, “I’ll be right out!”

After stacking the filled take-away boxes into plastic bags, she carried them to the counter. Instead of Deedee, she saw the sheriff waiting for her.

“Rob!” she said in surprise, putting the bags on the counter. “I’m glad you stopped by. You’ll save me a phone call. Coffee?”

“Sure. A large, please.” When she turned to grab a cup, he asked, “What phone call is that?”

“To your office,” she explained as she poured the coffee. “Room for cream?” When Rob shook his head, she topped it off and placed it on the counter so she could put a lid on the cup. “I had a chat with Smelly Jim earlier.”

Rob didn’t say anything, but he cocked his head. She took that as a signal for her to continue.

“As I’m sure you know, it’s hard to know what’s fact and what’s…um…imagination with Jim.” Lou propped her elbows on the counter. “He was talking about people watching him, and then he mentioned seeing a guy following me, too. I figured it wouldn’t hurt to get some details, although Jim was pretty vague. He said it was a white guy, average height, no facial hair, kind of a pretty boy—soft-looking, he said—and that he wasn’t from around here. When I started asking what the guy had been wearing, Jim kind of shut down and then left.”

Halfway through her recitation, the sheriff had pulled out a small notebook and a pen and started scribbling. When she mentioned the part about the man not being local, Rob’s head came up, and he looked at her. “Not from around here? That’s interesting.”

“I thought so, too.” Not able to stand still, she started wiping down the counter. “And Smelly Jim seems to know everyone in the area.”

“Thanks, Lou.” He tucked away his notebook and pen in his shirt pocket. “I’ll add this to the report and pass it along to Chris. He’s starting to view your case as a personal challenge.”

“Well, I’ll be glad when it’s over.” Even though that was mostly true, she felt a pang at the thought of losing Callum as her personal bodyguard and bed-warmer. She cleared her throat, dragging her thoughts away from the memory of a rumpled and sleepy Callum waking her that morning. “Anyway, I kind of hijacked our conversation. Did you just come in for coffee, or did you need to talk to me about something?”

“Right.” His hard-eyed cop look was back. “I—”

The bells jangled as Deedee pushed open the door and stepped inside the shop. The sheriff went silent.

“Hi, Deedee,” Lou greeted her, hurrying to grab the bags of sandwiches she’d prepared. “How are you?”

“Eh, so-so.” Deedee looked as if she’d been left in a dehydrator a few years too long. Her tanned skin was heavily wrinkled and loose over her wiry frame. Lou had no idea how old the woman was—she could’ve been anywhere from sixty to ninety. “I think our warm spell is over for a while. Snow tonight. Hey, Sheriff.”

“Deedee,” Rob said politely.

“Ugh.” Making a face, Lou rang up the total and accepted Deedee’s money. “I wouldn’t mind skipping over the next three months of winter and heading right into spring. I’ve had enough of snow for a while.”

“Yeah,” Deedee agreed, taking her change and hoisting the bags of sandwiches off the counter. “Wish the snow would skip over us and land on the ski resorts where they’re happy to have it.”

“Amen, sister.” Lou waved as the woman stepped out the door. She turned back to Rob.

“I discovered,” he said when she gave him an expectant look, “that one of my deputies shared some confidential information with you.”

It took a second for the connection to click into place. “What information was that?” she asked slowly. He hadn’t mentioned Lawrence by name, and, as unappealing as the deputy was, she’d rather not throw him under the bus if she could avoid it.

He gave her a pointed look, as if he could read her thoughts. “The evidence found in the reservoir that links the murder to a certain local organization?”

She nodded silently.

“Are you planning on sharing this information with anyone?”

“No,” she said, since she’d already shared it with Callum, and they’d agreed to wait before potentially sharing it with Ian—so technically, she wasn’t planning on sharing the information with anyone…at least yet.

“It would be best if you kept this knowledge to yourself,” he said, leaning a little closer. “I would hate if you were on the radar of that particular club. With them, it’s best if they don’t know you exist.”

“Right,” she said as she repressed a shiver. She definitely did not want the MC after her.

Rob watched her as he took another sip of his coffee. “Have you been doing some investigating on your own?”

Lou shrugged, not sure how much she should share. Was poking her nose where it didn’t belong a crime? Jessica Fletcher hadn’t seemed to run into any legal trouble when she’d done it in every single episode of
Murder, She Wrote
. But then, maybe it was a bad idea to be taking cues from an ancient television show. “Nothing serious. I just feel somewhat…invested, I guess, after finding him. It seems so sad that no one knows who he is.”

“Be careful. Like I said, it’s better to remain anonymous sometimes. There are some groups that make their own laws.” He tapped a finger against the counter, eyeing her thoughtfully. “I wonder if this has something to do with your case. Maybe someone is trying to warn you away from asking questions.”

She jolted at the idea that her stalker might also be a murderer, but then common sense intervened. “I don’t think they’re related. My tire was slashed for the first time before the body was discovered.”

“Still,” Rob said, looking unconvinced, “leave the investigating to those of us with the tools to do it. You’re a nice woman. I’d hate for you to get caught up with some not-so-nice people because you’re trying to do the right thing. Okay?”

Although she nodded, she wasn’t convinced. Visiting the VA clinic and scribbling on a whiteboard seemed pretty harmless. But she figured it was the sheriff’s job to protect people like her.

“Thanks, Rob,” she said.

“No problem.” He pushed the door open and glanced back at her one last time. “Think about what I said?”

“Of course.” She’d think about it. She probably wouldn’t follow his advice, but she’d definitely think about it.

* * *

It had started snowing by the time Callum arrived at The Coffee Spot, heavy flakes clinging to his hat even after he knocked it against his leg before stepping inside the shop. The recent warm-up had been too pleasant and too early to last, since snow usually continued to fall well into May.

“How’s the driving?” she asked, pouring decaf into his mug.

He sat sideways on the end counter stool and propped his back against the wall. “Somewhere between not-that-bad and shitty.”

Making a face, Lou peered through the front windows into the almost-night. “It’s just going to get worse as it freezes. You should head home now instead of waiting for me. No reason for both of us to play slip-n-slide on the highway later.”