Unforeseen Danger (12 page)

It’s so hard, trying to talk
to
you
about
  you.
 
I know you want to get your memory back, and I want to help you, but—”

“It’s okay,” she interrupted.
 
“I understand a lot now.
 
I think you’re a wonderful man for standing by me like you have.
 
I know it may not mean anything to you right now, but I’m sorry I ever hurt you.”

“Thank you.”

Neither of them spoke for a while.
 
Nikki absently played with the salt shaker as Jake stared out the window, watching the curling brown leaves race through the yard in the gusting wind.
 
When Nikki took his hand, he didn’t pull away.
 
He pressed his face to her palm and then kissed the inside of her wrist.
 
Nikki closed her eyes.

Nikki cleared her throat.
 
“Do you think there’s a chance we can save our marriage?”

Her quiet question stunned him.
 

“I don’t know,” he admitted.
 
“Do you want that?”

She squeezed his fingers.
 
“I want that more than anything.”

Jake leaned back in the chair and exhaled softly.
 
“I need to know who he was, Nikki.
 
I don’t think I could stand being around my friends and acquaintances every day and wondering if it was one of them.
 
I need to know where you were going that morning when you roared off in my truck, and I need to know who was with you that day, if it wasn’t him.
 
Can you understand that?”

“I understand, because I need to know, too.”

Jake nodded.
 
“Come on.
 
Let’s see if there’s any news yet.”

He helped her with her coat and they headed to the Whitwell police station.

“None of this looks familiar?” he glanced at Nikki, who sat staring out the passenger window at the
gray
mountains on either side of them.
 
Rolling white mists of fog enshrouded the valley, giving the illusion that clouds had drifted from the rosy pink and yellow sky and settled like cotton on the ground.
 

“No,” she replied, “but it’s so beautiful!
 
Which mountains are these?”

“That’s the
Cumberland Plateau
.
 
I wish you could remember the fall,
Nik
.
 
The mountains burst with all shades of red, orange and yellow and the moon looks like a big orange ball.
 
It’s gorgeous.”

As Jake pulled into the Whitwell police department, he searched the parking lot for the sheriff’s white Chevy Blazer.
 
Luck was with them.
 
It was parked haphazardly by the double glass doors.

Matt
Garrettson
raised his coffee cup in greeting when they walked in.
 
Other than his thin, wiry frame, he was the perfect caricature of a laid-back, small town sheriff.
 
No doubt Matt liked to give that impression.
 
Many people were fooled by his slow, lazy drawl and underestimated the intelligence flashing in his dark eyes.
 

“Coffee?”
Matt called, and both of them shook their heads.
 
He ran a hand through rumpled hair, which was now more salt than pepper, and jammed a faded Atlanta Braves cap on his head.
 
He strolled over to them and clapped Jake on the back.

“Tell me son,
how’s your mother
doing?” he asked.
 
“Although I haven’t seen her in a few months, I’ve still thought about her.”

“She’s doing great, sir.”
 
Jake was instantly at ease around his late father’s best friend.
 
Matt would be straight with him.

“Tell her when she decides to get rid of Zeke I’m still single,” he said with a wink and Nikki laughed.

“Still don’t remember anything, young lady?”
 
He turned his attention to her.

She shook her head.
 
“Just bits and pieces of nothing that really matters, mostly from my childhood.”

“Well, that’s a start,” he said.
 
“Come on in, grab yourself a seat.”

Easier said than done.
 
The only available chairs were piled high with what looked like files and old copies of
Field and Stream
.
 
Jake helped Matt move them to a little metal table that looked as if it might collapse under their weight.

“Sorry for the mess.”
 
Matt frowned beneath his bushy moustache.
 
“What can I do for you?”

“We were wondering if you’ve found out anything about the passenger or about the truck yet, sir.”
 
Jake leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees.

“Let me get the file and we’ll see,” the sheriff replied.
 
He hit the intercom button on his phone and barked, “Joan, get me the file on the
Hawthorne
case.”

Silence.

“Aw, hell,” he muttered,
then
flashed them an embarrassed grin.
 
“My secretary ran off to Vegas with one of my deputies last week.
 
Keep forgetting she’s not out there.
 
I hollered at her all day yesterday.”

His cowboy boots made a soft scraping sound as he crossed back to the door.
 
“
Janney
!” he bellowed.
 
“Bring me the
Hawthorne
file.”

The younger officer appeared a few minutes later with the file in hand.
 
He looked displeased about surrendering it.

“Sir, Les and I were going over to discuss the findings with Mr. and Mrs. Hawthorne this evening.”

“Well, they want to know now.”
 
Matt leaned back in the chair and stared at his officer.
 
Janney
stood there with his hands on his hips until the sheriff said mildly, “That’ll be all,
Janney
.”
 

The man frowned and then strode out, shutting the door a little too hard.

“Young
Janney
is a little gung ho.”
 
Matt chuckled.
 
“Always wanting to throw somebody in the slammer.”

Nikki and Jake shared a look.
 

They must think someone tampered with the Dodge.

The sheriff was quiet for a moment as he pored over the reports.
 
Nikki tucked her hand inside Jake’s and he gave it a reassuring squeeze.

“ME says the passenger was a white female, 5'5-5'7, age approximately 20-40 years old, approximately 100-120 pounds.
 
Sound like anyone you know?” he asked Jake.

A woman.

Jake was so surprised that it took him a moment to process what Matt was asking.
 
He had been sure that Nikki was with her lover that day.
 
His mind went blank as he tried to fit this new information into the puzzle.

“I have no idea,” he said finally.
 
“Nikki has a lot of friends.
 
So many of them left messages on the machine, but I don’t remember which ones did or didn’t right now.”

“My people are going through piles of missing
persons
reports as we speak, because I figured it had to be a friend she was shopping with or something.”

“Nikki’s best friend knows practically all the same people Nikki does.
 
I’ll get her to check around.”

Jake couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong.
 
Nikki had been in no mood to go shopping that morning.

“If anyone turns up missing, we managed to collect some tissue and dental samples to do a
DNA
test on, but other than that…”
 
He shrugged.

“Now, about the truck—
”
 
He
handed them a stack of photos of the twisted wreckage of the Dodge.
 
“The fire was so hot that it destroyed much of the undercarriage.
 
There’s nothing conclusive, but I’d bet my
paycheck
that someone tampered with that brake line.
 
For sure, the emergency brake was inoperable,” he paused,
then
added, “Don’t let
Janney
try to intimidate you.
 
He’s got nothing that he could prove in court, but he thinks you might’ve tampered with Nikki’s brakes because she was seeing someone else.”
 

“It was
my
truck!” Jake exclaimed.
 
“Why would I have sabotaged my own truck?”

“Easy, boy.”
 
Matt winked.
 
“I know you.
 
I know better than that, plus I meet you in that truck about every morning on the way to work.
 
I have a wicked case of Dodge envy, so believe me, I noticed.
 
Always wanted one of those king cabs.”
 
He stretched back in his chair and stared at them.
 
“Let me explain something to you about a cut brake line.
 
If it had been completely severed when Nikki left that morning, there’s no way she could’ve driven the forty-nine miles to Palmer.
 
We know that she drove at least that far from home because she was on her way back
down
the mountain.
 
Now, say the line had been cut just a little.
 
It would’ve eventually burst, but it could be hours, days or weeks before it did.
 
If you were a patient enough guy, you could do your damage and not be anywhere around when the accident happened.”

He regarded them with kind, brown eyes.
 
“I need you two to be straight with me.
 
Was
Nikki seeing some other guy?
 
If she was, I need to know because I believe that someone might’ve tried to kill you, Jake.”

“Oh, God,” Nikki whispered, and covered her face with her hands.

Jake sighed.
 
“Yes, Nikki was seeing someone, but we don’t know who it was.
 
She admitted it to me before the accident, but she refused to say who.”

Matt twisted the end of his moustache.
 
“Kids, it looks like we’ve got ourselves one crackerjack of a situation here.
 
I assume that both of you want to find out who he is.
 
I don’t know if this is how you want to proceed, but if it were me, I’d go through all Nikki’s things and see if I can figure out who this guy is.
 
Maybe there’s letters, credit card receipts, stuff like that.
 
I’ll get a copy of your phone records.
 
We need to find this guy, because, if I’m right, he’s already killed once and no doubt he’ll try again.
 
Maybe we’ll get lucky and he’ll approach Nikki.”

Jake shuddered at the thought and took Nikki’s hand.
 
It was icy in his.

Outside in the parking lot, in the light of day, Jake found the idea of someone trying to kill him preposterous.
 
He was thinking that surely Matt’s intuition was wrong, but then he recalled Darcy’s words.

He was obsessed with her.

Now they knew that he was still out there.

Nikki grabbed his arm before they got into her car, and Jake turned to face her.
 
Her beautiful face looked tight and anxious as she said, “Oh, Jake!
 
What have I gotten you into?”

He hugged her close against his chest and she clung to him.
 
Jake had to close his eyes at the sweet sensation of her slender frame in his arms.
 
As he stroked her hair, he said, “Whatever it is, I promised you that we’d get through it together.
 
Everything’s going to be okay.”

Jake dawdled a little on the way home.
 
He drove around Whitwell, pointing out places to Nikki:
 
the church where they were married, her beauty salon and the old drive-in
theater
they went to before it closed down last winter.
 
She laughed and professed a desire to go to the church and a need to go to the beauty salon.

Jake pulled up the driveway and announced, “The welcoming committee has arrived.”

Catherine and Zeke waited in the driveway, along with Darcy.
 
Darcy bailed out of her car first.

“Where have you guys been?
 
Do you not know that it’s November?
 
We’ve been waiting on you for the last fifteen minutes!”
 
She shivered as a cool wind whipped her blonde hair in her face.

“Well, it’s your own fault.”
 
Jake glanced at each of them before he reached to unlock the door.
 
“You all know where we hide the spare key.”

Three pairs of eyes went to the little green frog nestled in the flowerbed and they laughed.
 
He held open the door and ushered them inside.
 
His mother carried a casserole dish, Zeke brought a big bouquet of wildflowers, and Darcy was lugging flowers and a photo album.
 
Jake was feeling guilty that he hadn’t gotten Nikki anything for her homecoming when he heard Catherine exclaim, “Oh, what lovely roses!”