Pippa
An army couldn’t have stopped me when I heard Sully’s voice yell for a medic.
Fletch tried to hold me back, but I was determined and plowed past everyone I encountered. I barely glanced at Woody in cuffs in my rush to get inside. The first thing I noticed was the blood when I rushed over to the desk.
Then it had been Ira, facedown on the ground.
This morning, sitting up in bed with dawn’s watery light making its way in through the window, I’m still seeing Sully’s prone figure, blood pooling under his body.
A warm hand slides up my spine, anchoring me to reality.
“Another one?”
Sully’s sleepy rasp brings me such intense, physical relief, a single dry sob escapes my lips.
It’s been a week since it happened and I’ve had the same nightmare almost every night. The only thing that seems unpredictable is the victim. I’ve seen Sloane behind the desk, even myself with a baby in my arms, but this is the third time I found Sully lying in a pool of blood.
“Yeah.”
“Come lie down for a bit.”
Tempting, but when I glance over at the alarm clock on the nightstand, I notice it’s five thirty already. I have an oil change and tire rotation coming in at seven and I don’t like feeling rushed.
“I should hop in the shower. First customer at seven this morning.”
By a stroke of luck I received my work permit, or EAD, this past Monday. Thanks to Jonas pulling strings, otherwise I could’ve been waiting another month or two, if not longer. Permit or not, I would’ve worked anyway, doing whatever it takes to keep the business running. I really don’t think after these past months anyone in local law enforcement would have the heart to bother me, but it feels better not to have to tempt the fates.
“That early?” Sully observes.
I lean back and brush a kiss on his mouth before getting to my feet.
“It’s the only time the guy had available,” I explain as I pad to the bathroom. “I wasn’t about to argue, business is business.”
I have to admit, it’s picked up a bit since the FBI arrested Woody Moses last week, but it’s still slow going and I have to grab what I can get. Especially now Ira is going to be out of commission for however long he needs.
That was such a relief, finding out he would live, and once he is recovered, I plan on giving him a piece of my mind for barreling into a dangerous situation. He apparently hadn’t hesitated after I mentioned on the phone I suspected Woody might be involved with the murders. He closed the garage, hopped in his truck, and went barging into the game warden’s station.
Of course, I’m sure he’ll point out I’d been ready to do the exact same thing, but I’m not the one who ended up with a hole in my shoulder from a bullet and a skull fracture from where my head hit the corner of the desk going down. Turns out we were both willing to do whatever it took for Sloane.
I’d have a word or two for Sloane as well, but Sully already crawled up one side of her and down the other after finding out she’d decided to confront Woody on her own.
As I suspected, her curiosity got the better of her and she never stopped digging around. Sloane had been talking to Marcie’s assistant at the office, finding out from her that Marcie received fairly regular visits from the game warden. According to the assistant, she swore high and low they were only friends, but the assistant suspected there’d been more going on.
That made Sloane suspicious, because even if they’d just been friends, Woody Moses had not acted as someone worried when she went missing or torn up when she turned up dead.
Of course, what she should’ve done is contact law enforcement or at the very least let her uncle know, but the girl is so eager to prove herself, and so damn fearless, she wanted to make sure she was on the right track first. Trust me, she feels guilty about Ira. Sully made sure of that. She’s spent most afternoons this past week by his bedside after working mornings at the garage with me.
It’s been a long week, but I’m happy to be working again. Although, I’m not sure how long I’ll be able to, my stomach is getting in the way and I’m easily tired. I’ll have to hang in for a bit at least, or I’m going to have to close the garage. Ira won’t be back for a month at the very least, although he swears he’ll be good to go in a week.
I get ready in record time and when I walk into the kitchen, Sully is already there, pouring me a cup of decaf coffee. Such a good guy, he’s taken to drinking decaf right along with me, claiming it doesn’t make a difference to him, but I’m pretty sure the moment I’m gone he’ll race to the main house for a good hit of caffeine.
“Thank you.”
“I’m thinking maybe you should talk to someone about those nightmares,” Sully says as he pops some bread in the toaster.
“I’m fine,” I dismiss him.
“Obviously not if they have you yell or shoot up in the middle of the night on a daily basis,” he pushes.
“They’ll pass.”
He drops the butter he just pulled from the fridge on the counter and swings around to face me, grabbing my shoulders.
“Fillippa, in the past ten months you’ve been through one ordeal after another. You look to have bounced back effortlessly, which is worrisome to me because I know it isn’t that easy. There’s a reason why you have nightmares nightly.”
I shake my head and am about to voice a protest when he gives my shoulders a squeeze.
“You think you have it under control, you think it’ll all simply pass with time, but I know a little about being traumatized by events, and I’ve learned the hard way that is an illusion. It’ll hit you like a ton of bricks when you aren’t prepared for it. You absorb stress but you don’t process it. It’s not healthy for you, or for the baby.”
Low blow. Accurate, but it feels below the belt.
The hard part is, I know he’s right. I bulldoze through life, shoving anything and everything I can’t control in a box, where it will hopefully remain, collecting dust. I’m afraid if even one corner of the lid is lifted, there is no way to hold back the nuclear meltdown I envision following.
“It’s the only way I know how,” I whisper. “Without disintegrating.”
His gentle smile and soft stroke over my cheek are almost my undoing.
“That was before you had someone to keep you standing. Not gonna let you fall apart, Honey. Trust me.”
Trust me.
I almost argue I do trust him, but how true is it really? Sure, I trust him when he says he loves me. I don’t doubt for a minute he’ll protect me from physical harm. I even believe he has my best interests at heart. But what he’s asking me to do is make myself as vulnerable as I possibly can—strip myself down to the very fibers of my soul—and trust him not to let me fall or hurt me when I’m unable to protect myself.
He’s asking me to trust him more than I trust myself.
“I love you.”
Another low blow, as I look into those clear blue eyes and see the truth of his feelings reflected. How can I resist his confidence?
I do a face plant against his chest as his arms encircle me. Even with my eyes closed I can see the victorious smirk on his face.
“Fine,” I mumble ungraciously into his shirt.
Sully
“Wolff, what are you doing here?”
I watch the agent walk toward me through the mud.
We have a pressurized water system in the fields closest to the ranch house, but some of these back fields still have to make do with an old tub we fill daily. The ground always gets sloppy around the water tubs.
I’m surprised he came all the way up here; I assume to look for me.
“It’s Lucas,” he starts, shaking the clumps of mud off his dress shoes. “And I wanted to give you an update before I head back to the office in Kalispell.”
“You guys are done already?”
A week hardly seems long enough to wrap up the investigation into now five murders and one attempted murder.
“No, Powell and his team will probably be here for a few more days, but I’ve been called back on another case.”
The tub is almost full so I walk over to the water tank on the back of the truck and close the valve before rolling up the hose. Wolff follows me.
“Must be frustrating, not to be able to see it through to the end,” I observe.
He winces at my words. “Par for the course,” he mutters. “Seems to be my curse. I’m not as ambitious as most. Just not cut out to climb over others to get ahead. I’m more of a team player.”
I can see that. Despite a few run-ins, the guy has been fair and not averse to collaborating.
“Well, I appreciate you stopping by. So, what do you have in terms of an update? I gather one would not be forthcoming from Powell?” I add as an afterthought.
It makes Wolff chuckle.
“Don’t hold your breath. As for an update; Moses was transported to Kalispell yesterday. He basically confessed. To be honest, I think in his mind he’d either get away with it or die trying. I think the fact he was caught shocked him.”
“Isn’t that often the case when someone is law enforcement? They think they can commit the perfect crime?” I comment.
“True. Anyway, you know the story about how his sister died. He had a beef with Congresswoman Yokum and her son for years, looking to get some kind of admission of wrongdoing on their part, but that never happened. It’s too late to go back and figure out what exactly happened but in Moses’s view, his sister’s death was never the accident it was labeled as. In his mind the congresswoman’s political influence buried the case. Then two years ago he heard about the incident where Jackson tossed garbage at Yokum. That was at a campaign event where she was once again flying her pro-baiting banner high, and it tripped him. He reinvented himself as some kind of avenging angel meting justice on illegal baiting.”
“Doesn’t exactly sound like the actions of a rational man,” I point out.
“Not in the least. If anything should tell you that, it’s what happened to Marcie. Those two had an on-again-off-again relationship for a couple of years. I don’t think she had a clue how deep Moses was into her cause though.”
I duck into the cab of the truck, grab a couple of bottles of water from the cooler wedged between the seats, and toss one at Wolff.
“But she freaked out when Pippa mentioned the Yokum name, she must’ve known about his hatred for the family. My guess is she confronted him?”
“She did, or at least she questioned him, he panicked and lashed out. He hit her, then realized he had to keep her quiet, so he taped her up, stuck her in her own trailer, and he pulled it up the mountain.” He pauses to take a deep drink from his bottle before finishing with, “Bastard planted that rifle with the slug with Marcie’s fingerprint, trying to make it look like maybe she had tried to set Pippa up. Then kept her captive for a week and a half before he could finally bring himself to kill her, making it look like a suicide.”
“Why come after Pippa though?” I want to know. “It’s not like she knew anything.”
“Maybe he suspected Marcie would’ve let something slip to Pippa. Maybe Marcie told him she talked to Pippa, hoping it might keep him from killing her. Who knows?” Wolff shrugs. “Could’ve been anything. I’m pretty sure the guy wasn’t exactly thinking straight.”
Good point. He was clearly off his rocker. Trying to find logic in the thinking of a serial killer is not something that’s easy for the average person to do, that kind of warped insight is best left to professionals.
“I’m sure Pippa will be relieved to hear it’s not something she did. Or did you talk to her already?”
“No, thought I’d leave that to you. I didn’t want to chance causing her any more anxiety than we already have.”
Yeah, Lucas Wolff is a decent guy, who sometimes has a shitty job to do, which reminds me of something Thomas said to him the other day.
“Fair enough. You ever think of leaving the Bureau?”
Wolff takes another drink, his eyes on the view of the herd against the backdrop of the mountains.
“More frequently these past few years. It’s tough though, I always thought this would be my career until I retire.”
“A little young to be talking retirement, aren’t you?”
“Recently turned thirty,” he admits with a sheepish grin.
“Well, maybe you should consider how those next twenty-five or so years are going to look if you’re already unhappy.”
He slaps some imaginary dirt off his pant leg, his eyes down.
“Point taken,” he mumbles, before holding out his hand for me to take. “I should head out, but I’ll keep what you said in mind. Best of luck to you and your wife.”
I watch as he saunters with his lanky, easy gait to the SUV parked behind the water truck.
Maybe Lucas Wolff would be a good candidate for that revitalization of our team Jonas was hinting at.
He’d be the kind of man we’d want.