“How was your physical therapy this morning?”
Heather looked up from her favorite mug filled with what she called “not just drinkable coffee, but coffee that actually tastes good.” Her shoulders relaxed as she leaned into the back of the kitchen chair. “Good. The knee is still a little stiff, but I’m doing the exercises just like the therapist said.”
“How long until you can sit in the front seat of the car?” Jeremy couldn’t help the grin tugging at the corner of his mouth, so he covered it by turning back to the sink, washing his own coffee mug. He could practically hear her scowl as the legs of her chair scraped along the tile.
“Soon. Very soon.” Balanced on one leg, she set her mug on the counter, and he scooped it into the hot sudsy water.
Her crutches clattered together, and he snuck a glance over his shoulder to make sure she didn’t need an extra hand as she headed toward the front door. With even strides she lumbered across the living room until she turned, looking at him expectantly.
“You about ready?”
The water swished down the drain with a loud slurp. Wiping his hands on the legs of his jeans and then grabbing his keys off the table, he jogged toward her. “All set.”
Her movements down the steps were still awkward, but she had picked up some speed in the course of just a couple days. And today she didn’t even need help getting into the back of the car. She’d figured out how to slide in without jarring her leg. All he did was hold her crutches and then slide them onto the floorboard when she was situated.
The gentle rumble of the engine reigned as the car headed southeast along Highway 26 toward the scene of the helicopter crash. At length Jeremy broke the silence.
“Did you get a chance to look through the things from Kit’s office again yesterday afternoon?” When he’d left her at her house, she had been nearly sleepwalking from exhaustion. And when he’d returned more than two hours later, she’d been passed out in the living room chair, snoring softly, mouth hanging open.
“No, I… Well, I fell asleep in the chair. I think the painkillers I’m taking for my leg are making me sleepy.”
“Mmm.” By sheer will, he kept his mouth closed. They both knew the truth. Investigating any crime was tiring on the best day. Throw in recovering from injuries from the crash, a major surgery and the emotional tumult of losing her sister, and Heather had to be drained.
He made a mental note to be sure he got her back to her house for regular naps and full nights of sleep. If this one was anything like other drug cases he’d worked, it would likely get sticky before it got better. And they both needed to be alert and ready for whatever was coming their way.
Suddenly Heather chuckled, and it sounded like it was right beside his ear. “Okay. I confess. I was just so tired. I couldn’t keep my eyes open.” Her cheeks turned a very attractive shade of pink. Apparently she could make fun of herself. “I don’t think it was the medication.”
He shot her a smile in return. She needed more rest. Recovery from injuries like hers wasn’t going to be a breeze. He needed to make sure she got just what she required. And maybe a cup of his mom’s chicken noodle soup. “It’s okay. We’ll go back through the box again another day.”
“But I don’t think there’s anything in there that’ll be of use to us,” she said. “It’s just all so ordinary.”
“Okay. So what do we know? About the case. And about your sister.”
She exhaled loudly and stared at the ceiling for several long seconds. “We know that Kit thought that something or someone having to do with drugs was behind the crash.” In his mirror, she licked her lips, eyes squinting out the far window.
“What’s on your mind?”
“I’m just wondering who cut those wires in the…”
“The cyclic.”
“Yes.” Worrying the corner of her lower lip, she stared through the windshield into the sparse forest spread out before them like a blanket of green and brown. “It happened just like you said—the fraying giving way and leaving us with no control while we were midair. The pilot said it wasn’t working. He jerked it around, but nothing stopped us from going down.”
They both mulled over the information at hand for several seconds before Heather veered down a different path. “Why didn’t you tell me you had been with the FAA?”
“I did. I told you yesterday.”
“Yes, but you haven’t said two words about it since. Why did you leave? Why join the sheriff’s office?”
Jeremy spotted a dirt road just ahead off to the left of the highway. Slowing down, he pulled the car off the pavement as they bounced over the ruts and roots. Large pine trees shaded them from the unusually bright sun.
Heather looked like she still expected an answer to her question, but he had no desire to rehash his history. If he told her about his time with the FAA, inevitably he’d have to tell her why he left and moved nearly three thousand miles across the country to work as a sheriff’s deputy. And then he’d have to explain about Reena.
About faulty gauge upgrades on a Cessna 172 Skyhawk that he should have checked.
About watching his fiancée and three friends die in a crash he could have prevented.
He’d much rather just work on the case at hand and put the past to rest, letting Heather begin her own healing. Moving forward here was better than looking back on mistakes that still haunted his dreams.
A tree appeared in the middle of his barely-there road, which had only been used by the ambulance and service personnel, and he swerved sharply. Heather thudded against the back of his seat, groaning. “Sorry. Are you hurt?”
“No. I’m fine.” Her hands dug into his back, even through the upholstered seat, as she pushed herself back into a comfortable spot. “Is that it?” she suddenly asked, her neck craning out the side window.
The scar in the trees appeared to their left, broken limbs and dead pine needles marking the ill-fated path of the helicopter. Several pine trees looked as though they’d taken quite a beating from the rotor but had remained whole. As Jeremy pulled the car closer to the clearing where the chopper had finally come to a stop, he spotted a young pine that had been snapped in half near the tail of the aircraft.
“This is it,” he finally responded to Heather.
“It sure didn’t look like this the last time I saw it.”
He pulled to a stop about a hundred feet from the clearing and slipped out from behind the steering wheel, closing his door before opening hers. He slipped on a bed of needles and stubbed his toe on a hidden rock, as he took the last step toward her. “I don’t think the chair is going to cut it here. I won’t be able to get you over these fallen branches, and the pine needles mean there’d be no traction for the wheels.”
“That’s fine. I’ll be okay.” She reached for her crutches, but he cleared his throat.
“Why don’t we just stick together? You can lean on me, because those crutches aren’t going to be much use to you either. It’s too slippery out here.” He glanced toward the gray skies out of habit, wondering when the next storm would rip through the area.
She hesitated for a moment.
“What’s wrong?”
Heather twisted her neck and squinted up into Jeremy’s face. Did he seriously think she was going to let him carry her around the crash site?
Probably.
His eyes turned stubborn, like she knew her own were.
“Well, you can either let me help you, or you can stay in the car.” His hands rested loosely on his hips, the relaxed pose contradicting the note in his voice that said he wasn’t going to give way on this.
She sighed in resignation and reached her hand back toward him. He ducked under it, wrapping his arm around her waist and tucking her against his side. In an instant she stood balanced precariously on her good leg, leaning heavily into him. His breath tickled the back of her neck through her hair, and her stomach took a nosedive into her tennis shoes. He smelled fresh and clean, adding nothing to the forest air except the warmth of his body.
She wanted to sink back into that warmth. Wanted to forget why they were there, why they’d had to pair up. She just wanted to enjoy the way the butterflies in her stomach jumped to life when he held her close.
Glancing up into his face, she wondered from the tight pull of his lips and glint in his dark eyes if he felt the same things she did.
But she had to keep her mind on why they were stuck together.
Justice had to be served, and she hoped she’d get to be there when the man, who cut those wires, got what he deserved.
It wasn’t until Jeremy winked at her that she realized she’d been staring into his eyes for who knew how long.
“Come on,” he said, tugging his arm tighter around her waist.
She didn’t have much of a choice, so she hobbled along beside him, her hand resting on the muscles of his shoulder that bunched every time she took a step.
“Would it be easier if I carried you?”
“No.”
He chuckled. “I didn’t think so.” As they stepped into the clearing, he asked, “Do you remember anything from that day? I mean, except what Kit said?”
“Not really.” Why wouldn’t her brain let her remember anything useful? When she closed her eyes and tried to focus on the crash, all she could see was the pain in Kit’s face. And Kit breathing those last words. Follow the drugs.
“It was so loud. Not just the helicopter, but the sound of the trees crunching and metal being ripped away.” She pulled herself up on his arm as she hopped over a fallen branch, her eyes sweeping the ground where her foot landed for anything out of the ordinary.
Jeremy led them on a slow walk around the perimeter of the clearing, kicking at small piles of leaves. “The sheriff’s department didn’t find anything except those cut wires that pointed to foul play when they picked up the pieces of wreckage. But it’s rained a couple times since the crash.”
“So anything left from the crash will have been washed away. Except what’s been protected by the trees.”
He squeezed her waist. “You’re pretty good at this, you know?”
“That’s the second time you’ve complimented me on my investigating skills. Keep it up, and I’ll start to think you’re not working with me under duress.”
Silent humor jostled her hand on his shoulder, as something metallic glinted in the bit of sun revealed by a passing cloud. “What’s that?” She pointed, urging him on.
When they reached the glimmer of silver, Heather leaned on a tree, as he dropped to a knee, pushing mud and pinecones out of the way to reveal a soda can. Holding it up for her inspection, he asked, “Did you have anything to drink on the ride up to Mount St. Helens?”
“Kit and I shared a bottle of water. But that’s it.”
“What about the pilot?”
“I don’t think he had anything.”
He crushed the can with one hand and pocketed it before resuming their stroll beneath the trees. Twenty minutes later and just over halfway around the clearing, Heather saw something else, but it, too, was just a piece of litter.
And it wasn’t until they stopped the second time that she realized her hands were shaking. Her thigh burning from exerting it more than she’d done since the crash, she leaned heavily onto the tree. Her head began spinning, and she pressed the heels of her palms into her eyes to battle the black spots suddenly dancing there.
When Jeremy reached out for her, she put her hand into his, and stumbled against his chest.
“Whoa.” He ducked his head to look into her eyes, using his right thumb to dab a bead of sweat from her temple. “Are you all right?”
“Yes. Of course. I’m fine.” She blinked three times and swallowed something that tasted suspiciously like defeat.
He shook his head. “I’m pushing you too hard. You’ve barely been out of bed four days, and I’m dragging you around all of northwest Oregon.”
“No! I’m fine.” She swiped at the line of sweat suddenly forming on her upper lip with the back of her hand. “We can keep going.”
“You’re a bad liar,” he mumbled, as he turned to fit her back into his side. “I’m taking you back to the car.”
She sucked in a quick breath, and exhaled. “I’m fine.” Chastising herself for the weakness in her voice, she tried again, this time looking right into his eyes. “I’m okay. I just need a little rest.”
He sighed. “I think I have some water in the car.” He nodded toward the least mossy boulder beneath a tree. “You take a seat, and I’ll go get it.”
She nodded, lowering herself onto the bleached rock, her braced leg stretched in front of her at an odd angle, hands propped next to her thighs to keep from leaning too far in any direction. Jeremy jogged straight to the car and disappeared into the passenger side, emerging several seconds later with a refillable water bottle.
The sweat that had appeared on her face was slowly disappearing, and her head began clearing.
“How’re you feeling?” he said, when he returned to her.
“Like an idiot.”
“Don’t. We just have to remember that you’re not quite back up to speed yet.” He held the blue bottle toward her.
She studied his face as she reached for the bottle, looking for signs he might change his mind about working with her on the case. Suddenly a muscle in his jaw jumped, and he yanked the water back, grabbing her wrist with the opposite hand and turning her palm faceup. “What is that?”
Heather jerked her hand back, analyzing the white film covering most of her palm. “I don’t know what it is,” she said, gingerly touching it with the finger of her other hand. The residue clung to her finger, leaving a small circle of flesh surrounded by powder on her open palm.
Jeremy tucked the water bottle under his arm and reached for her hand again, turning it in the muted sunlight. His lips pursed as he leaned toward it, inhaling deeply.
A fine mist rose from her hand, and he jumped back before it could touch his nose.
She surveyed her other hand, which was completely free of the white powder. A large stain covered only the right side of the boulder, barely visible against the washed-out color of the rock. She leaned away from it to see if she’d sat in it. The residue stopped a fraction of an inch from where her thigh had been.
With a sure grip on her arm, Jeremy pulled her to her feet and into his side, wrapping an arm around her waist to stabilize her.
“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” he finally asked. Her heart thudded painfully, the beating echoing in her ears.
“Cocaine?”