By the end of his hospital stay, he probably regretted making her promise not to leave. She stuck to him like Velcro, only prying herself from his side when a staff member kicked her out of the room. As he improved, his mood took a drastic dive, and Lou was pretty sure everyone at the hospital gave a deep sigh of relief when Callum was finally discharged two days later.
While she was driving them back to Simpson, they passed through one of the few sections with cell reception, and her phone rang. Callum plucked it out of the cup holder and glanced at the screen.
“Rob,” he said.
“Would you?”
He accepted the call and put it on speaker. “Hello.”
There was a short pause. “Callum?”
“Yes, but Lou’s here, too. You’re on speaker.”
“Good. I just wanted to update you on those emails we found on your mother’s computer.”
Lou winced, thinking of the seventeen calls from her mom’s phone she’d ignored when the search warrant was executed. “What’d you find?” she asked, dreading the answer. Callum took her hand in his, and she shot him a smile.
“He’d created quite a fantasy world for himself. He wrote about conversations the two of you had, going on dates with you, even how you were discussing living together when you returned to Connecticut.”
When she realized her mouth had fallen open, she closed it with a snap. “The fantasy me is kind of a fast mover.”
“He also mentioned another guy, who I’m assuming is you, Callum, but Lloyd didn’t see him as a lasting threat to your ‘relationship.’”
“Relationship?” She choked on the word.
“In his final email, he makes a reference to needing to ‘deal with an impediment to Louise’s happiness.’” Rob sounded as if he were reading directly from the email. “Your stepfather identified the voice of the caller who made the 9-1-1 call that night as Lloyd’s. Between that, these emails, your and Callum’s testimony, and his dive gear, this is a pretty clear ambush. There will be a hearing where you will both need to testify, but I can’t imagine anyone seeing this as anything but a solid case of self-defense.”
Because she’d been so focused on Callum’s recovery—as well as avoiding thinking about her mother’s betrayal and the way the life faded from Brent’s eyes—it hadn’t even occurred to Lou that she might be accused of murder. The idea slammed into her chest, and she couldn’t talk for several long moments. She tried to concentrate on just breathing.
Shooting her a concerned glance, Callum broke the silence. “Thanks, Rob.”
“Not a problem. I’ll keep you both informed about the details on the upcoming hearing. Oh, and Lou?”
Still rattled by the image of Brent’s face as he died—as she killed him—she only managed a grunt in reply.
“I hate to give you more bad news,” he started, making her cringe, “but I figured you’d want a heads-up. During the investigation into Lloyd, the Connecticut investigators found some suggestion of illegal activity involving your father’s business.”
“Stepfather,” she corrected automatically, still sounding as if she’d been punched in the belly. “What kind of illegal activity?”
“Misuse of funds and possible money laundering,” Rob answered, sounding tired. “It’s been turned over to the FBI.”
She couldn’t answer, couldn’t manage to speak, so she was relieved when Callum thanked Rob again.
By that time, Lou was able to wheeze out a good-bye that was semicoherent before Callum disconnected the call.
“You okay?” he asked mildly, tucking her phone back into the cup holder. His other hand slipped from hers so he could gently massage the back of her neck.
“Yeah. It just feels like everything is crashing down on me. I can’t believe that Richard…” Even as she said the words, she knew they weren’t true. Although he’d married her mother when Lou was twelve, she didn’t feel like she really knew him. He’d always been a remote figure, a workaholic.
“It’s been a hard month for you.” He was quiet while his hand worked the muscles connecting her shoulders to her neck. “You’ll need to talk to someone.”
As blissed-out by his mini-massage as she was, it took a moment for his meaning to register. “Talk to someone—like a professional someone?” She snorted. “I don’t think so.”
“Not optional.”
“Yes. As the one whose brain is supposed to get shrunk, I definitely get a say in this.”
“I’m not telling you as your boyfriend. I’m telling you as your team leader what the official policy is. Technically, you should have had to go after you discovered HDG.”
Although she grumbled under her breath, she didn’t push the argument further. It was a lot harder to debate official policy with her team leader than it was to blow off a well-meant suggestion from her boyfriend. Besides, she couldn’t keep shoving any thoughts of that night in the reservoir into a dark corner of her brain forever. Eventually, as terrifying as the thought was, she’d have to deal with it.
Since she’d conceded the point, he tipped his head back against the seat. In short order, he began to snore quietly. Even though she knew it was probably a short-term symptom of her current ecstatic condition that he was alive, she reveled in the sound. It was a clear sign that he was breathing. If he’d dozed quietly, she probably would’ve had to poke him every so often so he’d swear at her, proving his non-deadness.
Grinning, she pointed the truck up the north side of Lever Pass. Callum was alive, and they were going home. Rule Number One…accomplished.
* * *
Once they arrived at Callum’s house, he blearily stumbled to the loft. Shortly after he collapsed on the bed, the rhythmic snoring began again. Left to her own devices for the afternoon, Lou decided to spend some quality time with the whiteboard. It had been neglected since the incident under the ice. It also took her mind off memories of that night, and the question that kept repeating in her mind—why? Why had Brent tried to kill her? What had pushed him from being a slightly unstable ex-boyfriend to a completely off-the-rails stalker and murderer? The questions looped through her brain, making her nervous and potentially weepy, so she seized on the distraction of their murder board.
She couldn’t stop staring at HDG’s name. Willard Alan Gray. It still seemed foreign to her, as if her brain couldn’t wrap around the idea that the bloated, headless corpse had been a person, someone’s son and friend. Giving her head a shake to force herself to focus, she picked up an orange marker and found an empty space on the board.
After writing his name again, she listed everything she could remember Chris telling them about Willard. She jotted down lived alone and how long? to remind herself to ask Callum once he woke. Although he never gossiped, Cal seemed to know everything about everyone in Simpson.
Baxter Price, Army buddy was the next item she listed. Under that, she added emailed/called. It could be important that Willard had communicated with the outside world, even if it was through the Internet and phone. She was having a hard time imagining how a hermit could enrage someone badly enough to lose his life and his head over it.
“Willy,” she muttered, tapping the cap of the marker against her bottom lip. “Who’d you piss off?”
She wrote protested nearby home development and then took a step back to eye the words. Leaning back toward the board, she added unsuccessfully to the front of the phrase. His protests could’ve been annoying to someone or some company, but the development was built. His city planning complaints had been brushed off like a pesky but ineffectual fly.
Glancing at the area of the whiteboard dedicated to the motorcycle club, she frowned. As tenuous as the connection between Willard’s protests of the new development and his murder seemed, there didn’t appear to be any link between the reclusive loner and the MC.
She tapped her marker tip next to Baxter’s name, leaving several orange dots. Talking to Willard’s friend was next on the agenda. First though, she thought, capping her marker and tucking it away with the rest, was making dinner. And then maybe a nap with the not-dead guy sawing logs upstairs. The last thought made her smile. Since Lou wasn’t sure how long Callum was going to sleep, she decided to take a modified page out of his book and fire up the Crock-Pot. Finding ground beef in his freezer was easy, not only because it was so extremely neat, but also because each section of shelving was labeled with the food item it contained.
“That’s just not normal,” she muttered, resisting the urge to switch the bag of frozen broccoli with a package of chicken breasts, just to see what would happen. Due to Callum’s very recent hospital stay, she restrained herself.
Opening his fridge, she was surprised everything still looked fresh. She had to remind herself that, even though it felt like they’d been gone for weeks, it had only been a few days since that horrible night. The image of Brent’s wide-eyed look of disbelief as she’d killed him flashed through her mind, and she squeezed her eyes closed until the mental picture faded. Her eyes eased open again, and she blindly stared at the inside of his fridge. His extreme organization wasn’t enough to make her smile this time as she grabbed a green pepper and an onion from the vegetable drawer.
By the time she’d browned the meat and chopped veggies, she’d managed to shove the mental movies of that night back into that dark closet in her brain, slam the door, and lock it. Although she figured it probably wasn’t the most mentally healthy way to handle it, she was able to add the rest of the chili ingredients to the Crock-Pot with a modicum of calm.
Once she’d cleaned up the kitchen and left the chili to simmer, she climbed the stairs to the loft. When she saw Callum, fully dressed and sprawled on his belly crossways across the bed, she smiled, her heart giving a little lurch. Grabbing a fleece blanket that had been folded over the footboard, she shook it out and spread it over his snoring form. After shedding her jeans and hoodie, leaving her in a long-sleeved thermal shirt and underwear, she crawled beneath the blanket and pressed against him.
With a grunt, he turned onto his side and gathered her close. “Sparks,” he grumbled, still sounding more than half-asleep. “Where’ve you been?”
“Cooking.” Shifting her head so one of his shirt buttons wasn’t indenting itself onto her cheekbone, she snuggled closer.
“D’you clean the kitchen?”
Lou laughed softly. “Of course. It is spotless perfection. You’ll ask me for cleaning lessons once you see it.”
His grunt, even as sleepy as it was, sounded skeptical. She just laughed again and closed her eyes.
“Love you, Sparks,” he mumbled.
Her fingers clenched around handfuls of his shirt. “Love you, too.”
His only answer was a snore.
After tipping her head so she could kiss the top of his sternum, she turned her cheek to its original position on his chest. “Glad you’re alive, Cal.”
Her eyes started to slide closed when a knock from downstairs popped them open again. Mentally swearing, she checked to make sure the sound hadn’t disturbed Callum. Since he was still happily snoring, she slid out of bed, pulled on her jeans, and hurried down the stairs, hoping to get to the door before the person knocked again.
Heavy knuckles pounded just as she was reaching for the doorknob, and she quickly jerked open the door.
“Richard?” She gaped at the sight of her stepfather standing in the doorway. Her cell phone rang in the kitchen, but she ignored the sound, too startled by the unexpected visitor. He was the last—well, second to last—person she’d thought would ever be visiting Simpson.
“Louise.” When he moved forward, she automatically retreated, allowing him to step inside. As she studied him, he raked the interior of the cabin with his gaze. At his disdainful expression, Lou felt a flare of defensiveness for her cozy, tidy new home. Although he was wearing his usual suit, which made him seem even more out of place in the land of flannel and log cabins, he looked mussed and pale.
“What are you doing here?” she asked warily. The news Rob had shared about her stepfather’s legal troubles ran through her mind, making her wonder crazy things. What if he wants me to hide him here? Mentally, she started thinking of a firm yet gentle way of turning him down. Her unfortunate history showed she wasn’t very good at going against Richard’s wishes. She was stronger now, though. She’d faced down a killer. Telling her stepfather “no” would be a piece of cake. Despite her stiffened spine, though, her stomach churned with nerves.
“Do you have a will?” he asked abruptly.
She blinked at him and swallowed the sorry, but I won’t hide you from the FBI hovering on her lips. “Uh…that’s a bizarre question.”
Stepping forward, he loomed over her. “Answer me. Do. You. Have. A. Will.”
Her mouth opened, but nothing emerged. All she could do was stare at the stranger wearing her stepfather’s face. His hair was rumpled, his comb-over flopping to the wrong side. There was a few days of patchy scruff on his cheeks and jaw. The most alien part of the man in front of her, however, was his intense, furious expression. The Richard she knew was remote and emotionless, not this rage-filled person standing in front of her.
His hands landed on her shoulders, squeezing hard enough to make her yelp. “Tell me!”
“No!” She yanked out of his hold and retreated until she collided with the back of the whiteboard. “Why would I have a will? The little I owned was burned by your psycho protégé.”
That seemed to calm him a little, although his eyes still looked wild. “Good. Okay, good. Let’s go.”
“Go?” Was everyone in her life losing their minds? “I’m not going anywhere. It’s been…uh, great seeing you, but you need to go now. Without me. Because I’m staying here.”
His hand slid into his coat pocket, and he pulled out a black handgun. She stared at it blankly for a long second, her brain refusing to make sense of her boring stepfather holding a deadly weapon. Her vision narrowed on the gun until it was all she could see. Her breaths were coming in rapid puffs, but she couldn’t get enough oxygen.
“No,” he said evenly, sounding more like his usual self. Weirdly, the normalcy of his voice calmed her a little, and she was able to suck in enough air to stay conscious. “You’re not. Now let’s go.”
Despite her pounding heart and the sweat prickling her skin, she tried to think. If she went with Richard, he’d kill her. It didn’t take a genius to figure that out now. If she stayed, she could be putting Callum at risk. It took a great effort of will not to glance up at the railing of the loft bedroom and give away his presence.
“Why are you doing this?” she asked, hoping to stall while her thoughts stopped racing and she could think of an operable plan.
“My assets have been frozen,” he gritted. “I don’t want to hurt you, but I don’t have a choice. There are ruthless men—really ruthless—who need their money. This is the only solution.”
“It’s not a solution!” Despite her efforts at staying calm, the words came out too loudly. “I told you—I don’t have any money. I work as a barista, for Pete’s sake! Killing me won’t accomplish anything.” Her voice shook, but she was too terrified to be embarrassed by her tremors.
“There are accounts under your name.” Richard dragged a hand over his head, disheveling his hair even more. “I needed that bit of insurance, in case something like this happened, but things got complicated. You were supposed to marry Brent. That was the plan. He’d have control of the accounts, and you wouldn’t have to know anything about it. But then you went crazy, broke up with him, and moved to this godforsaken place!”
Although her thoughts still spun like a hamster on a wheel, an idea managed to click into place. “You sent him after me.”
“And you killed him.” His tone was only mildly disappointed, very similar to the one he’d used when she’d gotten a B on a calculus test in high school.
“He tried to kill me first,” she protested, hearing the ridiculousness of the complaint even as it left her mouth. “Twice!”
“Let’s go.” Not even acknowledging her defense, Richard gestured toward the door with his free hand, all while keeping the barrel of the gun trained on her.
“I’ll sign the accounts over to you!” She rushed out the words, not moving from the back of the whiteboard. Maybe it was selfish of her to put Cal in danger, but she wasn’t taking a single step out of the cabin. She thought of HDG and how easy it was for people to disappear in the mountains. There was no way she was becoming one of those undiscovered victims.
“They’ll just freeze those as well, and they’ll add charges of tax evasion and fraud.” It seemed as if the more scared Lou got, the calmer Richard was.
Because he has a plan, she thought. I need a plan. Think! Think! Think!
“Move, or I’ll shoot you here,” he stated flatly, completely obliterating any chance of rational thought in a wave of utter terror. “I’d rather not have to deal with a body, but I will if I have to.”
“And I will deal with your corpse if I have to.” The clipped words made both Lou and Richard whip their heads around to look up at the loft. The barrel of a shotgun was leveled over the railing, aimed directly at Richard. A mixture of relief and complete fear for Callum’s safety rushed through her, weakening her knees.
Richard set his jaw. “Action beats reaction. She’ll be dead before you can pull the trig—” A blast from the shotgun cut him off midword, and he stumbled back, the gun falling from his hand and spinning across the floor. Lou lunged for it, throwing her body over the pistol as if it were a live grenade. All she could think was that her stepfather couldn’t get hold of the gun again, or he’d shoot Callum.
There was another bang, and Lou wrapped her arms over her head, pressing her face against the floor.
“Sheriff! Down! Get down! Arms to your sides!” Although Rob’s words were louder and gruffer than usual, speaking faster than his normal thoughtful pace, Lou recognized him and raised her head. Her stepfather was facedown on the floor, and Rob had planted a knee in Richard’s spine as he handcuffed him.
“Sparks!” Callum’s shout had her scrambling to her feet so she could run to him. He’d beat her to it, though, and she made it only two shaky steps before he snatched her against his chest. The minute she was safely tucked against him, Lou burst into tears.
“I’m sick and tired of people trying to kill us!” she wailed against his shirtfront.
His arms tightened around her as he pressed his lips to the top of her head. “Me too, Sparks,” he muttered, his voice shaking. “Me too.”
“It would help if one of you would answer your damn phone once in a while,” Rob snapped as he hauled Richard to his feet. “An FBI agent called to let me know that they’d discovered Chilton had been funneling money into accounts in Lou’s name. He’d gone AWOL, so the agent figured he’d come here. I tried calling both of you, but evidently, no one answers a goddamned phone in this house.”
As she tried to absorb Rob’s explanation, Lou looked at her stepfather. He appeared more disheveled than before, and a trickle of blood slid down his neck, but he was standing and conscious. He didn’t look at all like he’d just been taken out by a shotgun blast. She frowned and poked Callum. “Didn’t you just shoot him?”
“When I overheard what your fuck-face stepfather was saying,” Callum said without loosening his grip on her, “I just grabbed a gun and some shot and ran.”
“Squirrel shot?” Rob asked.
“Yep.”
Looking down at Richard’s rumpled, wilted, only slightly bloodied form, Rob said, “Guess it was your lucky day.” He sounded a little disappointed.
The cabin gradually filled with more and more people—local deputies, FBI agents, and others Lou couldn’t identify. Honestly, though, she was beyond caring. Even stiff-spined Cal was drooping as he sat next to her on the couch. Their shoulders braced each other, and Lou knew Cal’s support was the only thing keeping her semi-upright. They’d told the story over and over, had been asked endless—and often repeated—questions, and now Lou was beyond tired.
“Rob!” she called across the room where the sheriff was talking to someone wearing an FBI jacket. He moved through the crowd until he was standing in front of them. “Please make everyone go away.”
Apparently, Rob was a magician as well as a sheriff, because he had the house cleared of everyone except her and Cal within ten minutes.
“The stairs look really steep,” she sighed, leaning harder against Callum.
“Yep.”
“And tall.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Almost insurmountable.”
When he didn’t respond to that one, she turned her head to see that he’d fallen asleep. Smiling tiredly, she kissed his relaxed jaw.
“Thank you for shooting my stepdad, Cal.”
* * *
Something was tickling her cheek. Lou gave a sleepy grumble and buried her face in her pillow—her very hard, moving pillow. A male chuckle made her eyes pop open as she jerked up her head. Somehow, she couldn’t remember how, they’d obviously managed to get up the not-quite-insurmountable stairs and into the bedroom.
Callum was smiling at her. Despite the rude awakening, she couldn’t help but grin back at him.
“I’m happy you’re not dead. Again.” She couldn’t seem to keep back the words.
“I’m just happy,” he responded, playing with a few strands of her hair. When he flicked the ends against her cheek, she realized that had been the tickling sensation that had woken her.
Smothering a yawn, she said, “You sound surprised by that.”
He shrugged, concentrating on brushing her hair along her nose. “Just not used to it. It’s nice. Being with you is very nice.” He dropped the strands and kissed the tip of her nose.
“Yeah?” she asked. Whenever he started kissing her, her brain shut down. Lou wondered if there was some kind of scientific explanation for it—maybe he caused an overdose of serotonin or something.
“Yeah.” His lips met hers and clung. As sweet and gentle as the chaste, closed-mouth kiss was, her heart rate increased until it felt like a hummingbird fluttered inside her chest. Callum could give her a heart attack just by holding her hand.
He deepened the kiss, drawing her out of her thoughts about how he made her feel and just making her feel. With a sigh, she relaxed into him. Her hand burrowed between them until she could press against his chest and feel his heart beat under her palm. Just like him, the rhythm was steady and calm, although it started to pick up when his tongue touched hers.
A jolt ran through her at the contact, and she shivered, tossing her leg over his hip in an effort to get closer. His warm hand settled on her knee, tracing over her thigh and back down to its original spot. He seemed content with kissing, and so was she, until her blood began to heat. The three points of contact—their mouths, her hand on his heart, and his fingers around her knee—warmed her entire body from the inside out.
Finally, after what could’ve been minutes or hours of kissing, she couldn’t hold still anymore. Lou squirmed, trying to push him to move faster, to touch more, but he wouldn’t be rushed. Every kiss, every touch on a spot that shouldn’t be an erogenous zone but seemed to light up anyway, was deliberate. When she finally gave in and stopped trying to hurry him, she allowed herself to appreciate every contact as the gift it was. They were alive. They were together. They were home.
Once she stopped pushing, he started advancing, although still at that slow, easy pace. Callum eased their clothes away, piece by piece, touching each newly revealed area of skin as if it were precious. The curve of her shoulder, the inside of her elbow, the cup of her hipbone—all got the same careful attention.
By the time he eased inside of her, her entire body was alight. She couldn’t stop staring at his face as he moved, looking uncharacteristically but deliciously rumpled with his three-day scruff. Cupping his face in her hands, she led him down to a kiss. It was one of his gentle kisses, but it quickly detonated, matching the intensity of their bodies’ movements as the pleasure built.
Lou came first, although she tried to delay her climax, wanting this intense and gentle lovemaking session to last forever. He pressed into her hard, his hands pushing hers into the mattress, and found his own pleasure.
They took a long time to recover. Lou didn’t want to move. Callum’s weight and heat were comforting, creating a cocoon of safety. Once they left their snug nest, everything would return—death and danger and bad dreams of Brent and Richard. Her family’s betrayal. The continuing search for Willard’s murderer.
Callum ran his fingers down her sides and then slipped his hands under her so he could hug her close.
“You hungry?” she asked. Since her mouth was so close, she couldn’t resist brushing a kiss under his ear. He shivered at the touch, and she smiled, liking that she could draw out that reaction. “Or still tired?”
“Tired,” he sighed, the word sounding a little slurred.
“Then sleep,” she said, stroking the back of his head as his body went limp and heavy. Lou smiled. Her cocoon was safe—for now, at least.