Was everyone watching her?
No, they weren’t and even if they were, they’d see only a nondescript woman known as Molly Hartman sitting in a run-of-the-mill car in the cramped coffee shop parking lot. An unmemorable name for a woman easily forgotten. Hopefully.
She pulled her hat down low on her brow as she shut off the engine. The man in the feed truck next to her gave her a nod, which made her shrink in the driver’s seat. Friendly, she told herself. That was all. A small-town phenomenon absent in bustling San Francisco, precisely the reason she’d rented an apartment there. The best way to be anonymous was in a crowd.
And the woman seated inside the shop who glanced out the window in her direction was likely lost in her own thoughts rather than paying much attention to Molly’s arrival. She popped a tiny mint, her mouth dry as ashes. There were a thousand residents in Whisper Valley, the most northern of California towns. Not like they never had visitors, especially since they boasted a new luxurious inn and even a classic car showroom.
So why did she feel like an exotic zoo animal, drawing everyone’s attention?
You know why.
She wondered for the millionth time if that moment ten years ago, when she was barely seventeen, would define the rest of her life. Her fingers clenched into fists. New start. New chapter. But her boldness quavered and a chill swept her body. She wasn’t fully ready to embrace her unexpected freedom completely, even after the arrest of Porter Stone, the man who’d murdered her father. Stone was finally in custody, after she’d spent a torturous decade looking over her shoulder.
He escaped before. He can do it again.
She shook off the thought, but the prickly feeling on the back of her neck remained. Possibly it always would, the damage from an invisible wound that would never fully heal.
She’d lined out a series of baby steps, wobbly lurches toward the life she intended to reclaim. The meeting at the coffee shop was the first one, though it did make her nervous to return to Whisper Valley, so close to where she and her sister had grown up. But a chance to visit Uncle Orson could not be overlooked. If she snagged some work too, that’d be a bonus.
She’d chat with Beth Wolfe and nail down the job designing her marketing materials. In truth there was no need for a face-to-face; she’d stressed that again and again to the boss of Security Hounds Investigations. The website she’d pored over had a plethora of photos of the beautiful bloodhounds they used in their casework. There was absolutely no reason for her to have coffee with Beth instead of meeting via Zoom. Molly could cull tons of gorgeous images for the ads from the online shots. If they ever decided to include photos of the human staff, that’d be simple to arrange as well. At the moment there were no people pictured on the Security Hounds website. Smart, she figured, for an agency that probably rubbed elbows with criminals. She had no headshot on her own website either, for different reasons.
“I never work with anyone I don’t eyeball in person,” Beth Wolfe had cheerfully insisted.
At least the woman had acquiesced to meet at a coffee shop instead of her ranch. Molly had met another Wolfe long ago. Probably no relation and she doubted he was still around after a decade, but she didn’t want to take a chance of encountering anyone from her past.
She smoothed her ponytail, got out, and pushed through the coffee shop door. The crowded space was everything she’d hoped for. Bustling. Noisy. She scurried inside and slid into a booth in a far corner just as her phone buzzed.
See Uncle O yet?
She pictured her younger sister Antonia’s elfin features, a more delicate version of her own. Zero patience, that girl. With a smile she replied. Later. After my meeting. Can’t wait. It was still surreal that within the space of two hours she would be able to hug Uncle Orson again without the necessity of a clandestine meeting. After ten long years...
Her sister replied. Stepping back into our old lives feels weird.
Her fingers flew as she answered. I know, right? See you soon, Tony.
Not soon enough.
“Coffee?”
Molly jumped at the waitress’s arrival, dropping her phone with a clatter and hurrying to snatch it up again. The waitress quirked an eyebrow.
“Maybe you’ve had enough caffeine already.” The smile took the sting out of the comment.
She shrugged. “I’m meeting someone here. Beth Wolfe.”
“Ah, okay. I’ll bring two coffees then. Beth likes hers black. You?”
“Black is fine.” Molly pulled the glasses out of her bag and put them on, wishing she’d done it sooner. They were clear glass, no prescription, but the sleek frames were a comforting shield between her and the world. Still disguised, Molly? No need for that anymore, is there? Why did she cling to these crutches—a fake name, accessories? Justice had been a long time coming, but Stone was no longer a free man. She removed the glasses and shoved them into her purse.
The waitress returned with two mugs filled with hot brew. She’d taken a sip when someone slid into the booth next to her, placing a sleek navy folder on the tabletop.
A man with dark hair and irises the color of walnut, a man who looked painfully, heart-lurchingly familiar.
“Morning,” he said.
She jerked and knocked over her coffee.
“I got it.” He immediately grabbed napkins from the empty booth next to them and slapped them down to contain the flow. “I’ve been spending time with my nephew. You develop sharp babysitting reflexes, let me tell you.”
“I—I was expecting Beth Wolfe.”
He looked up from the soggy napkins, chagrined. “Oh, man. My apologies. I’m Garrett Wolfe, Beth’s son. She sent me in her place.”
Beth’s son? Her head spun. Unbelievable as it was, Garrett Wolfe sat before her, in the flesh. His genial smile, the easy way he carried his six-foot frame, the confident jut of his chin. The past flashed to the present and she pictured him as she’d seen him a decade before, an impossibly handsome twenty-one-year-old in a blazer and slacks, a badge clipped to his belt. Detective Garrett Wolfe. She felt like screaming at her own stupidity. Of course, he was Beth’s family. She’d been too eager for the job and her homecoming with her sister and uncle to think it through. He looked the same except for some lines around his mouth and the crow’s feet that deepened as he regarded her. Words piled up on her tongue, refusing to exit.
“Mom sends her apologies. She asked me to cover the meeting because she’s prepping for back surgery and the doctor wanted to see her at the last minute.” He walked to the coffee station, appropriated a pot and a clean mug as if he owned the place, and refilled hers.
Settling in again, he took the mug that had been poured for his mother, added a slug of cream and two sugars before he took a sip. “Perfect,” he said before offering her the cream.
“No, thank you.” Her pulse was in high gear. Garrett Wolfe, the detective who had been assigned to her father’s murder case, obviously didn’t recognize her. Not surprising since she’d been a teen back then. How should she go about handling the conversation? Or bolting for the door? Bolting definitely held more appeal.
Her brain buzzed helplessly as Garrett chatted on. “You know it’s funny. I thought I knew you at first when I rolled in, but I can’t dig up the name Molly Hartman from the old memory banks.”
That’s because he hadn’t known her as Molly Hartman. It was flooding back in icy waves. Garrett had been acquainted with Porter Stone before he turned killer, never completely believed he’d been guilty even though the arrest warrant was issued. She remembered a long-ago conversation—she, Uncle Orson, her sister, all drinking bad coffee, huddled together in the police station chairs Garrett had settled them into.
“They won’t find Porter guilty,” her sister had hissed in her ear. “He has too many friends in this town, cops included.”
Her words had proven true, but not in the way they’d imagined. Porter Stone, genial tow truck driver and part-time pizza delivery guy from a longtime local family, had escaped Garrett Wolfe’s custody at the arraignment and remained at large for ten years until his recent arrest. A stew of emotions bubbled inside her.
Garrett had stopped talking and was gazing at her with mild puzzlement.
“So you’re a private eye?” she blurted.
He blinked at her abruptness. “Sure am. I haven’t yet purchased a trench coat and fedora, but I’ve been working for Security Hounds since I left police work.”
Left. Confirmation that he was no longer a cop. How nice for him that he could simply walk away and into another career. Did that make their meeting better or worse? She didn’t know.
Her phone pulsed with a text but she left it in her pocket. Why had she assumed he’d moved away? Did it matter? It sure felt like it did.
He was still regarding her in that way that made her stomach flip. “You sure we haven’t met? I’d like to say I never forget a face, but honestly, I’d lose track of my head if it wasn’t attached at the neck, says my sister Stephanie.”
She doubted that. His smoky eyes, halfway between brown and amber, sparkled with intelligence and something else. Suspicion? She sat up straighter. What did she have to feel uncomfortable about? He was the one who hadn’t believed Stone was guilty and forced her to live under a secret identity for the past decade. Her phone vibrated again. She ignored it, a flood of anger rising.
“All of a sudden I’m not feeling very well.” Truth. Her gut was heaving and her entire body was freezing cold. “I’ll arrange with Beth to reschedule.” She got up from the booth, ignoring his surprise.
He scooted out and stood. “Did I say something to upset you?”
“No, like I said, not feeling well. Tell your mother I’ll be in touch.”
She dropped a few dollars on the table and practically ran out, heedless of the phone twitching in her pocket. In a flash she was behind the wheel of her car, cranking the ignition. She had no doubt she would regret her hasty departure but she was compelled by a desperate need to escape.
He’d followed her to the diner door, one hand holding it open as he stood there in confusion.
The phone buzzed yet again before she’d put the car in Reverse. She yanked out her cell and checked the screen. Her sister. Two words.
He’s escaped.
And then a shadow loomed from the back seat, hot breath bathed her neck, a blade pricked her throat.
“Drive,” a voice said.
Even before she found him in the rearview mirror, she knew.
Garrett wasn’t a cop anymore, but his instincts were clawing like the bloodhounds at the shrubs he was perpetually replacing. He returned and collected the folder Molly had left, added a few more bucks to the pile to make it worthwhile for the waitress and hustled to the parking lot.
He got a glimpse of brunette hair through the windshield of Molly’s car as she headed to the parking lot exit. Her shoulders were hunched as if she was attempting to make herself smaller. Mentally he replayed the conversation, trying to land on something he’d said that might have offended her. Nothing stood out to him, but it wouldn’t, would it?
She’d left. Her prerogative. A woman could change her mind and Molly clearly had after meeting him. Was that what was bothering him? His ego taking a blow because she obviously didn’t like him? He’d armored himself with charm his whole life and he felt rattled by her rejection as he got into his vehicle. That had to be it. His problem, not hers.
Pinkerton greeted him with a throaty woof through the open window of the car in its shady parking place. “Hiya, Pinky.” He slid in and started his vehicle. The bloodhound’s red coat shimmered in the morning sunlight as he scooted as close as his cable-and-tether system would allow, his wide nose quivering, digesting all the clinging scents from Garrett’s foray into the coffee shop.
“In answer to your question, it didn’t go well, and I don’t know why,” he said to his dog. Her car had reached the edge of the lot, ready to turn onto the main street. Without thinking, he goosed the gas and took up position a cautious distance behind her. Pinkerton licked the back of his seat. The dog had a strange tendency to slurp pretty much anything.
“I don’t know why I’m going this way either. Might as well take the scenic route back to the ranch, right?”
Pinkerton flapped his fleshy lips. Agreement—had to be, or the dog knew Garrett was fixed on his senseless mission. Pinkerton was spectacularly good at trailing and he loved training lessons as much as he did licking cushions, but nothing topped riding in the car for Pinky, so he wouldn’t mind the detour.
And why are you following her exactly? Instinct. The kind he used to have as a cop. The kind that was screeching in his ear that something was wrong. Then again, he might still be rationalizing. Not a cop, Garrett, and for good reason.
His phone beckoned him. It would only take a moment to call the ranch, talk to his mother, his twin sister, Stephanie, but what would he say? He’d upset their potential marketing hire and he was following her because he had an odd feeling? Ridiculous, they’d tell him, and they’d be right.
Just take one more look. See if you can figure out why she seems so familiar at least. Maybe then he wouldn’t be awake all night thinking about it.
He pushed his speed, sidling up next to her at the light. If she flashed him a look of pure irritation, that would be enough to send him packing, tail between his legs. He bent his head to peer through his passenger window at her. She turned to him, lips tight and face pale. Her mouth opened as if she might say something, then she jerked her attention back toward the front window, staring straight ahead with a clenched jaw.
Odd reaction. Wasn’t it?
He craned to see into her back seat.
Was that...? A shadow? A blur? Nothing at all?
Though the light was still red, she took off.
She was rolling away, out of reach, out of his life. Should he let her go?
Once upon a time he’d been sure of himself and who he was, confident that he was doing what God made him to do. But ever since his last murder case as a detective, it was as though he’d been transported back to those dark days of insecurity.
“I think she’s in trouble,” he said aloud. He looked at Pinkerton in the rearview, the saggy eyes steady and reassuring.
If he was wrong, he could turn around, pretend it never happened, keep it to himself. No one would ever be the wiser.
But if he was right...
In the distance she turned onto Silver Creek, a road that would parallel the river for a while, a wild stretch that funneled into a narrow wooden bridge not suitable for cars. One way in and one way out unless you were on foot. It was a popular path for hikers and horse riders.
Why would Molly go that way if she wasn’t feeling well? His mom had told him the woman lived in San Francisco, so she might be visiting someone in town, or staying at one of Whisper Valley’s two hotels, rather than making the eight-hour drive in one day. But there were no houses in this direction, no cabins.
Her car would be out of visual range soon. When he stopped at another light, he pulled the binoculars from the glove box and risked another quick look.
Was that a shadow in the back seat?
Movement or his eyes tricking him?
The seconds ticked by, matching the thudding of his heart.
Any working instincts left, Garrett?
Or your imagination running wild?
She turned off the main road.
He made his decision, tossed the binoculars and drove after her.