Where Angels Rest (18 page)

So with an entire day to himself planned out, he was surprised to see Margaret Calloway’s car pull into the church parking lot. He closed his eyes and lifted his face in prayer. He hoped the sheriff hadn’t openly accused Jack of anything. Jack was one of his flock, and Carl had betrayed him. Not legally, and not to the letter of ethics,
quite—since Jack had never formally confided in him—but nonetheless, Carl had felt the strings of guilt strumming ever since he’d gone to Sheriff Mann. Jack Calloway was a good man with a dark side, that’s all. People, by and large he thought, would be surprised to know how many of the loyal parishioners had a dark side. Not to mention that Jack pledged twenty thousand dollars a year to Ebenezer.

Carl shook off that unholy thought and closed his document; he hadn’t had any good ideas yet, anyway. Maybe a sermon on sins of the flesh was in order, or one about the dangers of vigilantism in place of God’s justice. His congregants would likely appreciate that these days, given the actions of Erin Sims.
Thy Father’s Will,
he thought and jotted the title down.

He was still scrolling through ideas in his head when he got to the lobby, but no one was there. Carl walked to the annex.
In God’s Hands, Not Ours
. He kind of liked the sound of that one—

He stopped, hearing the front door open behind him. He turned, saw the gun, and Carl Whitmore’s last thought before his head exploded was,
Oh, Jack, now I understand.

Erin slept until after six, awakening to sounds she couldn’t identify. Grunts, almost, or growls. She looked around for the dog, but didn’t see him.

In the hallway, the sounds became clearer outside the den. The sheriff. Working out?

The door stood slightly open and D.D. lumbered over, nudging it the rest of the way. Erin dropped a hand to the dog’s head and peered inside. The long form of the sheriff sprawled across a leather sofa, one arm thrown above his head, his legs twitching, a grimace twisting his face.

He was dreaming. And not about something pleasant. Erin watched, hesitant to intrude yet torn by the basic human desire to stop someone from suffering. She eased into the den and crouched beside the sofa, feeling the reminders of the accident with every tiny move. She laid a palm against the sheriff’s cheek. “Shhh. Sheriff,” she crooned, “you’re having a nightmare. It’s okay.”

He winced at the initial contact, then moaned. She stroked his forehead and murmured to him. A moment later, he shifted and was out again.

Erin held still, listening to his breathing, watching the sculpted contours of his chest move beneath a t-shirt. She wasn’t a woman who sought out affairs or one-night stands. The occasional man had interested her in the years since David, but there had been nothing meaningful. She was self-aware enough to know that was her own doing: Meaningful meant being willing to lean on someone, willing to trust. Erin wasn’t.

The thought cleared her head. She shouldn’t even be thinking about Nick Mann in that way; she shouldn’t be remembering how it had felt to be held by him. It would be dangerous to get used to that. Or to want it.

And it would be disastrous to be lured into counting on him to save Justin. An entire day had slipped by in Mann’s hands. Erin should have known better than to depend on someone other than herself. Some things, she’d learned one night in her bedroom when she was sixteen, had to be faced alone.

So, move on. No matter how nice it had felt to lean into the sheriff’s strong arms, last night’s moment of weakness was over. In the light of day, she was back to being smart again. Back to counting on herself.

She pushed to her feet and went to the kitchen, found
Vaega just getting ready to leave and bummed a ride to her motel. There, she bought an Almond Joy from a machine in the lobby, a bottle of Advil from the desk clerk, and asked about a package she had been expecting. The desk clerk gave it to her. It had been delivered at 6:38 the night before.

She took it all to her room, popped some of the Advil and got into the package.

Her pistol. She probably wouldn’t need it, but old habits died hard. And given the warm welcomes she’d received since coming here, she was glad she’d had it shipped.

She jammed in the cartridge and stuck it in her bag, then stood in the shower for fifteen minutes, letting the hot streams of water do their best to melt down the pain. She brushed her teeth, slowly, and dressed in jeans and tennis shoes. Wriggling into a tank top got her popping an extra Advil, then she put a blouse on top and added a sweater. God, it was cold in Ohio.

She spent some time on her computer, filed away all that she read, and headed into town in a cab. First stop: Engel’s.

An impressive breakfast crowd was scattered about the diner. Erin wondered if business was always this good or if diners had turned out for the morning’s gossip special. The stitches along her hairline were likely to be dessert.

“I didn’t know if you’d be here this morning,” she said to Leni.

“No choice. The breakfast/brunch crowd is my lifeline, especially on weekdays. Weekends, people go to Hilltop House.” Her brows drew together. “What happened to you?”

“I left the sheriff’s house last night a little while after you did. Jack Calloway ran my car off the road.”

Leni’s eyes widened. Erin felt the people in a close
radius pay attention. “No one could ever claim I was a fan of the Calloways,” Leni said, “but that’s hard to believe. Mind, I’m not saying it isn’t true. Just hard to believe.” She paused. “You want coffee?”

“No,” she said, “I can’t stay long.”
Just long enough to make sure people know about Calloway.
“I came by to see how Rebecca’s doing.”

“Who knows?” said a new voice. “She won’t talk to anyone.”

Erin did a double take, looking at the girl with a coffee pot who’d jumped in on the conversation. She was rounder than Rebecca, younger, and had none of the dramatic makeup. But she had to be the sister.

“This is Katie,” Leni said, “my second.”

“Hi,” Erin said. “Rebecca’s not talking?”

“And not working and not going to school.”

“Katie,” Leni scolded. She looked at Erin. “I didn’t know what to do. I mean, Ace is in jail—they’re holding him for assault—but she didn’t want to come to work today. I told her it was okay.”

Erin looked at Katie. “Your sister was hurt last night. It’s going to take some time to feel okay again.”

“Sure,” she said, but she sounded more angry than concerned. Something there, Erin thought, but it wasn’t her business. Katie eyed her stitches. “So, where is Calloway? I mean, if he ran you off the road.”

“He’s disappeared,” Erin said. “In fact, I’m on my way to the sheriff’s office, to see if they have any leads.”

Katie started to untie her apron. “Gosh, Mom, I forgot. I have to get to school early. My social studies group is meeting to work on our project.”

“Okay.” Leni passed Katie’s backpack over to her, trading it for the apron. “Have a good day, sweetie.”

The sheriff almost bowled Katie down as she left. Erin saw him barrel through the door and felt a little rush of anticipation, like a school girl with a crush, then noticed that he looked ready to kill someone.

Her.

“Come with me,” he said, ignoring Leni and everyone else.

Erin’s pulse kicked up. “Did you find him?”

“Come with me.”

N
ICK SEETHED
. He ushered Erin into his truck without explanation, took her to his office through the back door, and dropped the blinds. He reached for a cigarette on his ear but there wasn’t one. Checked his drawer—nothing.

Damn Valeria. She’d thrown them out again.

He leveled a glare on Erin. “Let me have it,” he said.

“Have what?”

“The gun.”

She blinked, and her hand moved across the zipper of her purse. “Why?”

“ ‘Why?’ ”
he repeated. He was incredulous. She’d brought her fucking gun to town. As if she didn’t have troubles enough. “Because the State of Ohio has restrictions on firearms and guess who’s responsible for enforcing them?”

“Oh. You mean, you’d like to see my carry permit? Well, Florida and Ohio have a reciprocity agreement, so there shouldn’t be any prob—”

“Damn it, Erin.”

“How did you know?”

“The motel clerk. He had to sign for it, saw the declaration and insurance for the package. He got to thinking about it and decided I should know.”

“There’s nothing illegal about it. If there’s paperwork to do on this end just let me know—”

“That’s not the point.”

“What is the point, then?”

The point is I don’t want to see you get hurt. The point is I couldn’t bear it if something else happens to you in my town… “
Sit down,” he said, and she stiffened. Nick could see her deciding whether or not to defy him.

“I don’t have time to do this.”

He caught her arm. “You don’t have time
not
to do this.” He could feel the tension rippling beneath his hand. “We need to come to an agreement.”

“I agree to shut up and not tarnish your precious town, and you agree to let me. Is that it?”

“No.”

She opened her mouth but shut it when the single syllable registered.
No.
Not the answer she’d expected. She frowned, her gaze searching his face as if looking for the catch. Always waiting for him to disappoint her, expecting the worst. It’s what she’d gotten from everyone else.

“Are you ready to listen?” he asked.

“Let go of me first.”

“I don’t think so. You’ll bolt.” Not to mention that he liked having her in his hands. Like hanging on to fire.

“What’s the agreement?”

“I’ll tell the AG in Florida that we’re onto something. Support the stay.”

Her breath caught—an instant of hope and joy—then the skepticism came on. “What’s my part?”

“You have to lay low. You have to trust me to take care of things.”
You have to let me keep you safe.

She blinked, as if trusting him were the most ludicrous notion in the world. Nick’s heart sprang a leak. After she’d curled up on his sofa last night, he’d spent the next hour reading and re-reading the file that had come before he’d gone looking for Rebecca. What he learned had ripped at his heart. “Erin, I promise to find out the truth about Jack Calloway. But you have to let me handle the media, let me handle the search for Jack, let me handle the FBI.”

“FBI?” Her bones got a shot of steel. “You called the FBI?”

He swallowed; not exactly. They’d called him.

“They won’t listen,” Erin said. “They’ll tell you I’m a loon.”

“Crackpot.”

“What?”

“They told me you were a crackpot, not a loon. Two entirely different things.”

She stared. She couldn’t seem to decide if he was teasing or not, if she should keep fighting or not. Nick wondered if she
could
stop fighting. Like the fight might be the only reason she got up in the mornings.

“But you don’t think I am?” she asked. “A crackpot or loon?”

And there, Nick thought, was the crux of the issue.
JD—don’t waste your time. A loose screw.

And from the FBI:
History of mental illness. Unreliable accounts. Heavy medications.

No one had given her the time of day for ten years.

Nick had always been a sucker for a good mystery. Now, he found himself even more a sucker for this brittle, dogged woman who had battled the system alone for more
than a decade. A woman who, despite her self-reliance, had leaned into his arms almost as if she needed him, and then brushed her fingers over his forehead when Bertrand Yost haunted his dreams.

By morning, Nick had come up with a few better ideas for how they might spend the nights together.

Of course, Erin wasn’t thinking of such things. She was engaged in some inner battle that tempered her spine and made her eyes hard as glass, a battle that made her momentary fragility last night a distant memory. Nick reached out and ran his knuckles across her cheek, wanting to recapture that fleeting moment of trust. He cupped her chin and offered her the one thing no one else ever had. “I’ll listen to you, Erin. I’ll believe you.”

The muscles in her throat convulsed. As if she could hardly swallow the idea. “You mean it? You’ll talk to the Florida AG?”

“I already called. He’ll get my message first thing when he walks in.”

Hope filled her eyes and something in Nick’s chest went
thmp.
He kind of liked being her hero. It held a lot more possibilities than being her nemesis.

“Deal?” he asked.

She stood, then threw her arms around him. “Deal.”

Maggie headed out to the workshop, early. Seven-thirty-one a.m., forty degrees Fahrenheit, Calvin would say. Except Calvin wasn’t here. He was still being held on charges of vandalism.

A car pulled up. Maggie looked out the window and watched the driver get out and look around. The Engel girl. Not that slut Rebecca, but the younger one. The straight-A student, the hard worker. A little chunky, a little
on the shy side. Sweet sixteen and never been kissed? The same could not be said of her sister.

What was she doing here?

The girl stared at the house from the parking lot, then walked toward the barn, peeked in a window, and came back up the path. She did the same at the carriage house, looking nervous, fiddling with a small piece of paper in her hand as she walked. Looking for someone? That’s what it seemed like, but Maggie couldn’t imagine why.

She stepped outside. “Good morning.” Rebecca’s little sister turned at the sound. “What are you doing out here in the cold?”

The girl froze in her tracks.

“Darling?” Maggie asked, pulling her coat around her shoulders. “Was there something you wanted?”

The girl shook her head and darted across the path and ran to the parking lot. Got in an old Honda Civic and peeled out, leaving behind the smell of burnt oil in the exhaust. Maggie watched her go, then crossed the driveway and picked up the piece of paper the girl had dropped. She unfolded the scrap and began to read.

Rage filled her chest and she crumpled up the note.