Chapter Four

Claire confirmed when they got home that Dennis Wyman was one of the men in Rucker’s surveillance photos. He seemed to have been around the longest, and was most often seen around the ferry docks. She found one picture with a front-on view of his face and set it aside. That would go up on the wall of her office as soon as she went back in. She checked the database using her laptop and found that Wyman was clean. No wants or warrants out for him in Washington, and he was apparently clear in the rest of the country.

“Good at keeping your nose clean,” she muttered.

Jodie had only been home long enough to change into work clothes before she headed out, so Claire was alone in the house. She closed the computer and went to the back door, staring up at the clouds before scanning the small square of grass beyond the porch. She kept hearing her own voice in her head. Claire Lance. She hadn’t called herself that in four years, since she married Jodie and took her name.

Before that, Lance had been her identity. It was how she thought of herself, how most people referred to her. But it was also a lodestone around her neck. The whole world knew Claire Lance, it seemed. For a while she’d been infamous. There was even a damned song written about her.

In 2008, she was a cop in Chicago, a newly-minted detective on her first undercover assignment. She screwed up, and the group she’d infiltrated learned who she was. They locked her in a room and spent the next few days loading her up with whatever drugs they had on hand. Eventually they let her go, dumped her back in her apartment strung out and craving a fix. What she’d found instead was her girlfriend, Elaine, murdered. She barely had time to process the sight before the police, responding to an anonymous call about screams, broke down the door.

In an instant, Claire’s entire life had been shattered. She no longer existed in the world; she was just a ghost watching through a pane of glass at other people who were somehow carrying on with their lives. She escaped custody, she killed the people who set her up, and then she ran. She had no plan or end goal, she just started running.

There were huge chunks of that time she couldn’t remember. She had no memory of traveling south to Texas. She remembered days driving through the Rocky Mountains, nights spent in national parks, but specific days were just a blur. Somehow, she ate. Somehow, she earned enough money to put gas in her Mustang. Either that or she stole the gas. It wasn’t outside the realm of possibility to think she’d just filled up and drove off.

But there were also days that she remembered with unbelievable clarity. A bar in Texas, the woman who helped startle her back into some semblance of life. She’d seen someone in danger and her instincts took over. She did what she did best: she protected.

She remembered a ranch in Montana, right next to the Canadian border. The first warmhearted sheriff to show her kindness who had found love with a widow, who sparked hope in Claire’s chest that maybe she could also find love again.

Mostly she remembered a garage in Washington state, an enraged mechanic storming away from a motorcycle, having just used two fingers to flip off the rider. She remembered the first thing her future wife had ever said to her.

“You can go fuck yourself.”

Claire chuckled at the memory. Back then, Jodie had been called Calico. Claire didn’t know when or why they stopped using the nickname. It was a good one, worth revisiting.

Jodie was why she settled down, why she had a house and a backyard. It was only right to take her name, because Jodie was the one who truly brought her back to life. But maybe she’d also used the opportunity to hide. Lance was the past, someone she had to be in order to survive. Now she was just Claire, Claire Curran, a police officer on a tiny island in the Pacific Northwest where the worst thing she had to worry about was car thieves and trespassing.

Saying the name to Wyman felt like putting on a mask. It also felt like taking a step back. She had become “modern-day folk hero Claire Lance” as a way to survive. It worked. She survived. This was her reward, what she’d stayed alive to achieve.

She changed out of her uniform and put on her cozy clothes. By the time Jodie got home from work, she was halfway through turning their pantry into a week’s worth of meals.

“Honey?” Jodie said cautiously. “I know the forecast is grim, but are you expecting to be buried for the rest of the month?”

“I just needed to clear my head. I didn’t even remember the weather. I guess it’s good we’ll have all this stuff.”

Jodie wrapped her arms around Claire and hugged her from behind. “Want to talk about it?”

“You just got home. You’ve had an insanely long day.”

“Just as long as yours.” She took Claire’s hand, tugging her away from the stove. “Come here. Sit with me on the couch. We can both relax.”

Claire turned off the heat and allowed herself to be pulled. Jodie stretched out and motioned for Claire to lay in front of her so they could spoon. Once they were in position, Jodie brushed the hair away from Claire’s face and lifted up to kiss her neck.

“There. Now we can both just relax here, and if either of us has anything we want to talk about, the floor is open.” She rubbed Claire’s shoulder. “I got nothing. You?”

Claire chuckled and reached up to cover Jodie’s hand with hers. “It’s not your job to be my therapist, you know.”

“No. But I like being someone you can count on, trust, and go to for advice. I spend my day working on cars. The people I work with are more comfortable talking to an engine than each other. I crave conversation. Whatever you got, babe, hit me with it. Please, I’m dying here.”

Claire sighed and stroked Jodie’s fingers. “I called myself Claire Lance today.”

“Really? When?”

“With Wyman. That asshole at Rucker’s memorial. He’s up to something. He’s in one of those pictures, and he proposed that I could just look the other way and let him do... whatever the hell it is he’s doing. He was trying to intimidate me. He implied I was just some local yokel. It pissed me off, so I told him who I used to be. Just to rattle him.”

“I know you went to a lot of trouble to move past that part of your life. No wonder you went on a cooking spree. How did it feel to say the name?”

“Wrong. I’m not that woman anymore. I haven’t been her for a long, long time.”

Jodie said, “Counterpoint, you are that woman, because you’ll always be yourself. But you’re a more mature, thoughtful version of her. Some people might say that makes you even more dangerous.”

Claire made an uncertain noise. “Somehow I don’t think so.” She rolled onto her back so she could look up at Jodie. “All the things I did when I was on the road... I threw myself into those fights because I had nothing to lose. You didn’t know me back then. Not at the start. I could get hit, and it wouldn’t even hurt. I would wake up with dried blood on my clothes and no idea when I’d been hurt. A decade ago, I stood on a road next to my car, which had broken down in the middle of nowhere. I just started walking because it didn’t matter if I dropped dead before I hit a town.

“But now? I have you. I have a life, and a home, and a career. I have to ask myself if it’s worth risking all of that.”

Jodie said, “I’ve seen the scars. I was there when a lot of them were made. I understand being scared to go back to being that person again. But babe, if there’s something happening here, something you have the ability to fight, you can’t just ignore it. You spent all those years waiting for the chance to be yourself. If you stand aside and do nothing, you’ll have failed. You are Claire Curran, but you’ll always be Claire Lance. The woman who stands up when no one else will. This moment is what you were fighting for.”

“I love you, Calico,” Claire said.

“Whoa, Calico. There’s a blast from the past.”

“I’m bringing it back. Your eyes still blow me away.”

Jodie smiled and kissed her lips. “I love you, too, my Claire.”

Claire drew Jodie’s head to her chest and stroked her hair. She could fight, she could stop bad men from doing bad things and hurting other people. She was still Claire Lance. But there was one huge difference this time. When she was on the road, she was only passing through. She was a stranger, a vagabond, a mysterious new arrival with no ties and nothing to anchor her anywhere.

This time she had a home to protect. And she was damn sure not going to let smirking Dennis Wyman sully it without a fight.

***

Claire was surprised to find Randall and Minnie in the office when she arrived. It was almost eleven o’clock on the night of Rucker’s memorial, and she’d expected one of the new dispatchers to cover the phones. She and Randall were both on-call if anything needed their attention. Her stomach sank as she realized that order had been hers to make, and she’d dropped the ball.

“Hey, you two, sorry about leaving you stranded up here. You can both head out and I’ll take the night shift.”

Randall said, “Are you sure? I told Jen I might be here all night.”

“Go home. Let her take care of you for a change.”

“That actually sounds like a pretty good idea. Thanks, Cl--” He caught himself. “Thanks, boss. I should get used to saying that, I think.”

Claire wrinkled her nose. “Whatever you’re comfortable with, Randall.” He pushed in his chair and left, but Minnie remained at the counter. “You too, Minnie.”

“To be honest, if you send me home, I’m just going to be sitting in a comfortable chair and thinking about how sad I am. At least here I’ll be useful if the phone rings. Plus I get to keep you company. So I’m happy with staying, if you don’t mind.”

“You’re welcome as long as you want, Minnie.”

Claire turned on the light in the briefing room and opened the folder she’d brought with her. She’d chosen the best photos of the men from Rucker’s file and lined them up in a row along the top of the whiteboard. She added the only name she had for any of them: Dennis Wyman. The first picture was dated five months earlier, so she estimated they had to have been around for six months to give Ruck time to get suspicious enough to start documenting their behavior.

And that was basically everything she had. It was pitifully little to go on, barely more than a gut feeling. But Dennis Wyman was definitely up to something. He wanted her to look the other way and, when she refused, he made a clear and unmistakable threat. They’d confirmed the bullet that went through Rucker’s car window had come from a Glock 9mm, so all she had to do was prove he owned or had access to one to bring him in for questioning.

The phone rang, and she heard the murmur of Minnie’s voice as she answered. She went out into the main room to hear the end of the call.

“--Absolutely, yes, ma’am. Okay. We’ll have someone right over.” She turned in her chair. “Mrs. Vance called to say she’s worried about Rose Odell out on Viewpoint Circle. The temperature is going to get down around ten degrees tonight and she doesn’t think Rose has a heater in her place. Randall is probably still on the road. I could call and have him swing by for a welfare check.”

Claire was already moving to the door. “No, let him go home. I’ll check on old Rosie.”

“You sure?”

“It’s what Ruck would do, right?” Claire took her heavy jacket off the hook and shrugged into it. “I’ll keep my ears open. Call me if there’s anything else that needs to be done while I’m out.”

“Will do, boss.”

She was definitely not going to get used to that any time soon. But she knew if Rucker had been there, he would have laughed at her sentimentality. She was the boss, and she wasn’t going to be any good to anyone if she pretended otherwise. She also hated the idea of going out into the night to take calls like this, but it was part of the job. In the old days she could have spent all night and every day obsessing over Wyman until she knew the whole story. But now she had a whole island to take care of.

She wouldn’t let them down.

***

No one knew Rose Odell’s exact age, but it was generally assumed she was well over a century old. Even the oldest residents remembered her being on the island for as long as they could remember. She kept mostly to herself, retired from the flower shop that still bore her name, and it turned out her quaint little home did not have a heater.

She answered the doorbell wearing two sweaters with a quilt wrapped around her shoulders. There was a space heater standing next to her armchair in the living room, but the house was still cold enough to see their breath as Claire convinced her to spend the night somewhere more comfortable. She watched for signs of hypothermia and thankfully didn’t see anything worrisome, but she still wasn’t going to leave the woman here for the rest of the night.

“Your friend Mrs. Vance was worried about you,” Claire said. “She just wants to be sure you have a warm place to sleep tonight. There’s a church that’s converted some of its study rooms into bedrooms. I called on my way over and the pastor said they have plenty of space for you. If you let me take you, I’ll bring you home in the morning and I’ll even stop to buy you breakfast.”

That finally convinced her to leave. “But Coffee Table Books breakfast. I don’t care how long the line is.”

“Okay, I promise,” Claire said.

She made sure the house was locked tight and led Rose to the car. She kept the quilt around her, and sat in the passenger seat like she was doing Claire a favor. Claire had no problem going along with that if it meant Rose slept in a warm bed tonight.

“Thank you for coming with me,” Claire said. “I wouldn’t have been able to sleep tonight worrying about you out here.”

“Been doing just fine on nights a lot colder than this,” Rose muttered. “Your generation is too coddled. Wouldn’t last a day. Growing up in the South, we never had heat or air-conditioning. Summers could get up to a hundred-twenty. I bet you wouldn’t know what to do in a house that’s a hundred-twenty.”

Claire smiled at the thought of Rose as a child. “No, ma’am, you’d win that bet. I get grumpy when the temperature goes over eighty, if I’m honest.”

Rose sniffed derisively and looked out the window.

“Have you lived on the island long?”

“My whole life,” Rose said, as if Claire had accused her of something.

“You just said you grew up in the South...”

“What are you, some kind of detective?”

Claire smirked and kept her eyes on the road.

Rose sighed. “Well, close enough, anyway. My whole second life. Longer than anyone else.”

“I believe it.”

“Once I got here, I stayed put. Didn’t see no reason to wander. I’ve only gone as far as Seattle as an adult, and as far as I’m concerned, that’s as much as I need to see.” She sat silently for the rest of the block. At the stop sign, she said, “You’re new, though.”

“Compared to you, definitely. I’ve been here about six years. Before this, I lived in Chicago.”

Rose snorted as if that confirmed some bias she had. “I don’t see the point of big cities. We have everything we need here, and the people know one another. Chicago, you had... what, two hundred drug stores and coffee shops. Here we have one place for each. That’s all we need!”

“I think you make a very solid point there.”

“So why’d you leave?”

Claire said, “Fresh start.” She hoped they could leave it at that. She didn’t want to get into the fact she’d been living in Chicago on probation, after spending five years as a fugitive for a crime she didn’t commit. The fewer people who knew that story the better. Although if she had to campaign for sheriff, the people had a right to know who they were voting for.

She pulled up to the church, where the pastor was waiting at the top of the front steps. He waved and came down to the sidewalk.

“Here you go,” she said. “And I won’t forget tomorrow. Breakfast. My treat.”

“At Coffee Table Books.”

Claire said, “Is there anywhere else? Sleep well, Mrs. Odell.”

Rose opened the door, twisted to get out of the car, then stopped.

“Rose? Are you all right?”

She twisted back into the car and shut the door. She stared forward. “My wife would be calling me a grumpy old bat right now, and she’d be right. I hate losing arguments to a dead woman.” She reached out and fumbled blindly for Claire’s hand. Claire met her halfway. The hand felt light as paper, and freezing. “Thank you, Sheriff Curran, for going to all this trouble. It is very much appreciated.”

Claire smiled. “You’re very welcome, Rosie. Next time it gets this cold, though, you can call us yourself and someone will be happy to drive you somewhere safe. That’s the best part about living in a small town, right? We know each other. We take care of each other.”

Rose sighed in defeat and nodded. She got out of the car and the pastor came around to help her. He waved to Claire through the windshield and she smiled, returned the wave, and waited until he got Rose inside before she pulled away from the curb. She unhooked the radio mic.

“Minnie, you still there?”

“Nice and cozy, Sheriff. How’s Rosie?”

“Set up at the church. I’m going to take a detour through a few neighborhoods to see if I can find anyone else who might need shelter.”

“I’ll holler if anyone else calls in.”

“Appreciate you, Min.”

The neighborhood was dark, with every third or fourth house illuminated by security light over the garage or side door. She didn’t notice any obvious signs of distress but passed through another neighborhood so she’d be on the road if another call came in. She didn’t know what exactly she was looking for. Smoke coming from furnace vents meant that a heater was running, but a lack of smoke didn’t necessarily mean the house was unheated. She drove slowly, examined the houses on either side of the street, paying attention to the windows. A lot of the houses had chimneys, and a few were pouring lazy columns of smoke into the night.

She had just decided to take the car back to the station and call it a night when a car pulled up behind her.

Traffic was rarely a problem on the island, even during the height of tourist season, and never this close to midnight. She looked into the rearview but only saw a glare of headlights. They weren’t on bright, so she wasn’t blinded, but the proximity was sending a clear message.

“You want to go around me, buddy, be my guest.”

She pulled to the side of the road. So did her shadow. Her adrenaline spiked and she tightened her grip on the steering wheel. She could get out to confront them, but they would just speed away. License plate would be most likely obscured. She could put the car in reverse and smash into them, but she didn’t want to risk damaging either car. There was still a chance there was an innocent explanation.

Their headlights gave them a perfect view of what she was doing. They could see her head and shoulders and probably knew exactly what was going through her mind. Still, they waited.

She rolled down her window and turned off the engine. An immediate wave of cold air washed in through the opening, but she ignored it. The spotlight above her side mirror was controlled by a hand-lever which she gripped and slowly twisted with small enough movements that they weren’t given away by her shoulder. It was difficult to find the right angle, but she eventually got it lined up so the lens aimed behind the car and at the driver of her shadow.

She closed her eyes and flicked the light on. She started with one solid beam, shut it off long enough that the driver might have opened his eyes, then flashed it four more times.

The lens was still glowing as she opened the door and climbed out of the car. She walked back to the other vehicle, which remained parked a few feet from the back of her cruiser, and pulled open the driver’s side door.

A man she recognized from the photos was behind the wheel, rubbing his eyes with both hands. He twisted and squinted up at her.

“What the hell, bitch?”

“Out of the car,” she said.

“Fuck you.”

Claire grabbed his arm and hauled him out of the car. “See, I wouldn’t have been able to do that if you were wearing a seatbelt.” She leaned him against the side of the car. “Add that to following too closely, and I’m sure I can find something about your headlights while I have you sitting in a cell. You have any identification on you?”

“Go to hell.”

“The mouth on you,” Claire said.

A quick pat-down revealed his pockets were empty, which proved he might not be a total idiot. She took the cuffs from her belt and fastened them on his wrists.

“Okay, until you feel like introducing yourself, I’ll just have to call you Grumpy. Let’s go.” She walked him to the squad car and put him in the backseat. “Sit tight, Grumpy.”

She walked back to his car, shut off the engine, and used her flashlight to do a quick search. There were fast food bags spilling out various boxes, old fries, and messy napkins onto the floormats. The closest McDonalds was in Anacortes, which meant he was willing to spend two hours on a ferry to get familiar junk rather than eating on the island. No cell phone, but there was a handgun under the passenger seat.

Paperwork in the glove compartment confirmed the car was a rental, but Wyman’s name was the only one listed. At least she had a solid connection between the two men.

She took the keys and the gun, locked the car, and walked back to hers. She got behind the wheel and glanced over her shoulder at Grumpy.

“Last chance, buddy. Want to have a friendly discussion or are we going to spend a night in jail?”

His neck was twisted to look out the window like a petulant child.

“Okay.” Claire faced forward. “It’ll be nice to have a houseguest.”

She pulled away from the curb and headed back to the station. She anticipated a quiet ride, and she was perfectly fine with that. Her passenger, on the other hand, seemed to be uncomfortable with silence.

“You think you got one over on me?”

She drove without answering.

“I could have killed you back then. A couple of times. You were a deer in the headlights. Literally!” He laughed at his own joke, then rocked from side to side. It wasn’t comfortable to sit with both hands cuffed behind your back. “All I’d have to have done is get out of the car, pop-pop. Done. ‘Cause cops, you guys aren’t supposed to shoot first, right? You’d be yelling at me to drop my weapon, but I’d have dropped you before you finished saying it.”

Claire said, “Mm-hmm.”

“You scared?”

“Of you?” Claire chuckled. “Not particularly. You could have done that, but the fact you didn’t meant that you’re not calling the shots. There’s someone else you’re worried about making angry. So instead you sat there with a gun under your seat and a target in your sights and you didn’t do anything because you didn’t have permission.”

“You’ll get yours soon enough,” he grumbled.

“It does make me wonder if there’s a reason you weren’t able to do anything. There was no phone in the car, so you didn’t call and ask anyone. It makes me think this is a standing order. Maybe because someone went too far already this week and took a shot at another cop.” Claire looked at him in the rearview. “Was it you, Grumpy? Did you shoot at my boss?”

He said nothing and rolled his shoulders.

“That’s fine. We’ll have plenty of time to chat in the next few days.”

They were silent for the rest of the ride. She took him in through the back door and went directly to the holding cells. They were technically in a separate building from the rest of the station, and she quickly discovered the heating hadn’t been turned on for this space. Their breath plumed in front of their mouths, but she was willing to suffer it until he was processed. Once his gun was safely stowed away, and after she’d taken his picture and entered him into the system, she led him into the center cell.

“Still want to stay quiet, Grumpy?” She held up the sheet of fingerprints she’d just made. “As soon as I enter these into the system, I’ll find out your name. I’ll give you one more last chance to play nice and just tell me who you are. It could go a long way toward making us friends.”

Odds were good she wouldn’t get results back for at least three days, but she took a gamble he might not know that. Even a career criminal could be fooled by the instant results cops got on TV shows. Grumpy turned and walked to the bed. He sat down, swung his legs up, and stretched out on top of the blankets.

“All right. Yell if you need anything.”

On her way to the main building, she switched on the heat because she wasn’t a total monster. But she lowered the thermostat to sixty-five, because he annoyed her.

They had a few people they occasionally used around the office as volunteers and she went through the names in her head. Minnie looked up as she entered.

“Do we still use Harvey Moses?”

Minnie nodded. “He’s always eager for a little extra paycheck.”

“Call and see if he’s willing to pull an all-nighter. We have a guy who needs babysitting.”

“Dangerous?” Minnie already had the phone in her hand, dialing with the other.

Claire paused at the door to her office and decided not to share her suspicions about his involvement with Rucker’s death.

“Potentially, but nothing too dramatic. I think just having Harvey Moses around will be enough of a deterrent to keep him from trying anything.”

Minnie nodded and finished dialing.

Claire went into her office and took off her coat, draping it over the back of her chair. Harvey Moses Ketier was a Samish carpenter who helped out when they needed extra bodies. She didn’t doubt she could take Grumpy in a fight, but Harvey Moses was big and imposing enough that Grumpy likely wouldn’t even try challenging him.

Minnie appeared in the doorway as Claire was entering the fingerprints into the database. “Harv will be here in about twenty-five minutes. Turns out he was waiting for the call since he figured we’d be shorthanded for a while.”

Claire smiled. “He’s a good man.”

“We’re on an island full of ‘em,” Minnie said.

“Too true. Thank you, Min.”

She waved over her shoulder and went back to her desk. She took out her phone and sent a text to Jodie filling her in about the events of the evening. She wouldn’t read it until morning, but at least it would be waiting when she woke up. She looked at the time and rubbed her face with both hands before she got up and went to sit with Grumpy until Harvey Moses arrived.

It was going to be a long night.