Starlight Dunes (12 page)

F
or three days straight since his last PT session, Brent could get around without his cane. He’d managed to walk down to Main Street and back without hunching over in pain or falling down. Thanks to a physical therapist who was as tough as any army drill sergeant he’d ever had there was light at the end of the tunnel.

He couldn’t run yet, or even jog, but it was a step in the right direction.

His appointments with the department shrink were progressing. After they’d addressed the confidentiality issue, he’d found a level of trust. A couple of sessions had gotten him to open up about the daily pressures of his job, something he’d suppressed for years. And since his time in law enforcement might be coming to an end, he thought it best to unload his anger about it to the psychiatrist.

He had to wonder
if he’d miss his job. If he was honest with himself, he’d struggled the past year to maintain any kind of momentum at all. Why had he been able to recognize Ethan’s burned-out state of mind two years earlier but not his own now?

When the door
bell rang, he went to answer it and was shocked to find River Amandez standing on his stoop. She held up a bag he recognized as coming from the Hilltop Diner.

“Peace offering
,” she explained as she made her way past him while Springsteen belted out
Born in the USA
. “Lunch break. Nothing like bonding over a meal, and artery-clogging burgers and greasy French fries are the best.”

“We’re going to bond?”

“Yep. At least we’ll give it a shot. So where do we do this?”

“Kitchen.”

“Got any ketchup?” she asked, following as he led the way. “French fries demand a condiment. Mustard works, too.”

He sent her a dubious look. “No one
should disgrace fries by smearing mustard on them.”

“I do.
I forget how sheltered your culinary life is.” She dropped the bag on the counter and turned. “Hey, where’s your cane? You’re walking minus the cane. I can tell it still bothers you some but that’s amazing. Look at you, you’re caneless.”

His mouth curved up
. “I’m making progress. I hate that damn cane. Who wouldn’t? And it’s been almost a month. The physical therapist says I’m healing right on schedule for an injury like mine.”

“
Not being able to get around would drive me nuts. Got a Coke?”

The music changed to
the Stones’
Time Is On My Side
. A confident Mick assured the listener that his baby would eventually come running back.

“Uh, yeah. I thought you were furious with me.”

“I was.
But your father tells me you’re in charge of keeping an eye on my dig. It’s better if we make peace.”

“I agree.
”

“Good. Then let’s eat these before they get cold.”
River dug into the sack, divvied up the food while Brent got down glasses and filled them with ice.

They sat down at the
kitchen table like they were old friends on a picnic.

“I didn’t know how you liked your burger
so I had it cooked medium well with lettuce and tomato. You can always drag them off to the side if they disgust you. I had ’em cut the onions though. Hate those things but I realize not everyone feels that way. So I got mustard on mine, mayo on yours. But we can switch if you prefer. I’m not opposed to mayo just not on my burger.”

“
No, I’ll eat it. In fact, it’s perfect.”

River
’s lips curled up and with it admitted, “I cheated. I told the waitress who took my order, I believe her name was Mona, the burger was for you and the cook fixed it the way they knew you usually ordered yours.”

He grinned
as he picked up the salt, shook a generous supply onto the fries. “Max Bingham, that’s the name of the cook. His food’s become a staple since I came back here.”

River held the bo
ttle of ketchup in the air, waited for Brent to nod in approval before squirting a mound of the red stuff onto the paper container for sharing and dipping. “So you don’t cook?”

“I nuke stuff.”

“I’m an expert at nuking stuff myself.”

“I bet you eat out a lot going from dig to dig like you do.
It gets old for me. But every time I try to prepare a meal it’s a disaster of some sort. I’m pretty sure I didn’t get the cooking gene.”

“
I can cook. I just don’t usually have access to a stove.”

“Do you miss having a base? Doesn’t it get old always being on a dig?”

“At times. But the dig is usually my home. While I’m here in Pelican Pointe I’ll make myself comfortable for the duration whether it’s in the RV or staying out at that cute little B & B.”

“How could you possibly make an RV home?”

“It’s not that easy… especially lately…when you’re forced to share it with a couple in love. Yuck.”

“That would be…awkward.”

“Exactly.” The song changed to U2’s
Native Son
which prompted her to ask, “How long have you been the top cop around here anyway?”

“Not that long. I intended to make the army a career.
It never occurred to me I’d end up in civilian law enforcement. But when I decided to hang it up after three tours in Iraq, I joined the sheriff’s department.”

“How did you get to be sheriff in such a short amount of time? You aren’t that old.”

Brent grinned. “Gee, thanks. I started out as a lowly deputy. Turns out, the department was rife with cronyism and corruption when I joined up. I decided to do something about it. I ran for sheriff on a platform I’d clean things up, start from scratch, get rid of all the dead weight. During the election, I must’ve gone to more than a hundred barbeques, kissed hundreds of babies and had photo ops at each stop. By the end, it felt like I’d pressed palms with a million hands. At the time my opponent said I was simply cashing in on my time in Iraq and didn’t know anything about being the sheriff. Turns out, he did me a favor with that line.”

“Because you won.”

Brent nodded. “Got sixty-two percent of the vote. But I made a lot of enemies along the way. That thirty-eight percent was rather vocal about my lack of experience at the helm. And when I shook up the department, that made a lot of enemies within. There were a lot of hard feelings at first but they eventually learned to see things my way. At least I thought they had. I hate to even consider that one of them took it to the next level and tried to end me. ”

“Politics is an ugly business.”

“It is. And that’s one of the reasons I’m on disability even after I can clearly get around enough to sit behind a desk to do my job.”

“Someone there wants you out for good? That
doesn’t seem fair. And I hope you don’t mind me saying this, but a little scary as well.”

“
I don’t know that for certain. But it’s looking that way. Now, I’m reduced to doing your security detail.”

“Your father roped you into this, didn’t he?”

“Oh yeah. But he truly wants to make sure our people are represented when you start digging for bones. You shouldn’t take it personally.”

“
I don’t, not really. We don’t even know there are remains at this site yet. There’s a village there, yes, where people lived and worked and had families. But human remains could be forty miles up the coast.” She did her best to sound convincing.

It didn’t fool Brent.
“You don’t believe that for a minute.”

She smiled. “No. I don’t. It was
a large, thriving village, a busy one at that. Not just a campsite either but their permanent environment. Remains are there. We may have to dig down deep and then go back in under the cliff to get to them. But the remains are there somewhere.”

Brent stayed silent for a few minutes
, studying her face, her confidence. “You have some special gift that tells you that. You do, don’t you?”

Without answering, s
he blinked in amazement before it dawned on her. Scott’s words echoed in her head.
If Brent does, he’s never used them before, not outwardly anyway.
“You have it, too. You just don’t bother using it very much. Why is that?”

“I guess you could say I took the path of least resistance as a kid. I was Native.
First strike. My father was a bit of an oddity. Second strike. He embraced his psychic ability and ran with it. But at the time the whole thing embarrassed me. I didn’t want people to know and my father was out there every day making sure they did.” His shoulder came up in an easy shrug. “What can I say? I was young. It became a habit, something to hide, to back away from.”

“But you do have psychic abilities.”
She sensed the struggle in him.

“I prefer to call it my gut feeling. It isn’t as strong in me as it is in Ethan
anyway, never has been.”

“
It wouldn’t be because you have to exercise it the same way you do your brain. How do you know how strong it is, if you never utilize it?”

“
I know. Okay? I’ve seen Ethan find a little three-year-old girl in Wilder Ranch State Park when I didn’t know where to look. I’ve seen him use it to get women. Believe me, The Force runs strong in Ethan, not me.”

She smiled at that.
“Just because you don’t use it to get women into bed doesn’t mean it isn’t there.”

About that
same time, they both heard a succession of loud pops coming from outside in the distance.

“
Was that gunfire?” Brent asked, dropping his burger back down into the wrapper. He got up from the table to snatch up his cell phone on the counter. Instinct had him punching in nine-one-one. More pops alerted him to more shots and a potential serious situation. “That
was
rifle fire.”

“
The dig!” River shouted as she got to her feet. “It isn’t the first time we’ve been shot at during an excavation,” River explained as she tried to dart past Brent to the front door.

B
ut Brent grabbed her arm to stop her progress. “Wait a damn minute! You aren’t running out there until I get some backup here and check this out for myself.”

When dispatch picked up,
Brent identified himself. In clipped words, he apprised the person on the other end of the phone of his location and that he might have a possible ten-thirty-two in progress. He reached for the weapon he kept under the seat cushion. The entire time he watched River squirm beside him, itching to dash out the door to check on her crew. 

“
You don’t understand. My team’s out there. I left them to come here. I have to go see if they’re okay.” River took out her iPhone and thumbed in a text message to Julian.

But Brent had a job to do, too
, and held firm. “I know that. And we will. But not until I know what’s going on.” While he kept her arm gripped, they moved together out the front door and down the porch steps. Rifle fire continued to echo from a distance. They made their way across the street about the same time a smattering of curious people began to stream outside from the little touristy shops along the beachfront.

“Get back inside
, all of you and stay there until I tell you different,” Brent demanded in the direction of the onlookers. He shoved River toward the closed door of the watering hole known as McCready’s. He was surprised when the lock turned.

When the bar owner,
Flynn McCready appeared, Brent told River, “Go in there and wait for me until I tell you that it’s okay to come out. Got it?”

“
But what about my crew? They might be in the line of fire while I sit here doing nothing.”

“I’ll see to it they’re evacuated.”

With that, Brent finally let go of her and was surprised when River added, “Be careful.”

Flynn filled his own doorway.
A big man, originally from Dublin, who’d once spent plenty of time in the ring as a boxer, stepped aside to make room for River as she scooted into the dimly lit pub.

Flynn pointed toward the lighthouse. “Gunman’s on the cliffs
, Brent. I’d say it’s a high-powered rifle probably one with a scope.”

It was then
Brent saw the shotgun Flynn held. “You take care of River and let me handle this.” He might be on disability but he’d be damned if he’d let Richardson handle this situation when it was in his own backyard.

At the first sign of
sirens closing in fast, he added, “There, it seems my backup is already on the way. Now get back inside both of you. And Flynn, do me a favor, try to keep the gawkers to a minimum. Coax them into the bar if you can and keep them there. I don’t care if you have to give out free, watered-down drinks to do it.”

“Count on it.
I haven’t heard any shots in five minutes or so,” Flynn reported. But just as the bar owner spoke the words, another round of gunfire went off.

“It’s coming from the cliffs al
l right.” Brent took out his cell phone, dialed dispatch a second time. “I need SWAT. I need choppers in the air with a marksman onboard. Get me Nightsun to illuminate the area. I want it so bright I can pick out a fly. I have at least one confirmed shooter, maybe more, with a vantage point. He’s in a high-risk area, too. I have civilians on-site at the lighthouse and on the beach below in danger of getting hit. That’s why you need to come in from the south. If our sniper should get a kill shot, I’m giving the go-ahead to take him out.”