Chapter Six

Koda watched Maggie Sullivan walk out the door, not thinking about the way her green eyes had looked just now, or the way her hair corkscrewed about her face. Or the way those jeans cupped her slender backside.

Mostly, he just wanted to throttle her.

“Well, that was rude.” Candi swatted his arm.

“Rude, how? She’s staying right across the street. She doesn’t need an escort to walk across the damn street.” Unable to help it, he looked out the window at her retreating form. Actually, she probably did need an escort.

“There’s a murderer on the loose, or have you forgotten? Besides, isn’t it in your job description to protect us female folk?” She batted her lashes, coaxing a reluctant smile from his lips. She was always teasing, always trying to get him to loosen up.

“Maybe I should try protecting you from yourself,” he said.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means, you don’t need to be involved in this.”

“In what?”

“You know what.”

“I like her. I like talking to her. Is that so bad?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because she’s here to prove that someone in this town murdered Aimee Styles, that’s why.”

“I think someone in this town did murder Aimee Styles, and you do, too,” Candi said, whispering for the barista’s benefit. “Maybe y’all could use a little help.”

He bristled. “Help? From her?”

“She’s not an idiot, Koda. Would it kill you to help her out? Maybe she’ll see a different angle or something. Something you missed.”

“Please.”

Candi tilted her chin. He knew her well enough to see she was done talking about it. “Well, I like her. And it’s been a long time since I’ve had a girlfriend around here. I get so tired of men trying to decide what’s best for me. And that includes you, mister.”

“Candi—”

“Don’t want to hear it. I’ll be there tomorrow night, and so will Maggie. Get used to it.”

Grabbing her keys from the table, she threw her purse over her shoulder and walked out the door, leaving him standing there wondering what just happened.

Koda Wolfe didn’t mind working nights. Actually, he kind of liked it. He was an introvert by nature and the darkness and chill that fell over the small town as dusk crept in suited his personality just fine.

He sat in his SUV now, his sheepskin-lined jacket pulled high around his neck, and listened to the occasional voices coming through the radio. It was a slow night. He’d stopped patrolling half an hour ago, ending up outside the bar with the motor running, watching and waiting with a resigned look on his face. Sooner or later some drunken idiot would stumble out into the fog and end up peeing on something, fighting someone, or both.

The radio crackled, and he reached over to turn it up.

“Four Victor Ten?” said the dispatcher. Abigail.

“Go ahead,” he said, cuing the mic on his shoulder.

“A motorist hit some sort of an animal just south of exit 21. Another motorist called it in. Unknown if you’ll need to dispatch.”

Koda sighed. He hated shooting half-dead animals on the side of the road. More than likely the driver would be upset. And more than likely it’d be messy.

“Copy. Anyone hurt?”

“Negative. Just shaken up.”

“What kind of animal?”

“Said it was a big dog.”

“Copy. En route.”

“Copy that.”

Koda pulled out of the lot and drove slowly through the fog. It had rolled in after the rain and settled so thickly over the streets that in some areas he couldn’t see ten feet in front of his vehicle. He passed the bar to his right and hoped that no one got too stupid tonight. He was the only deputy on duty this far north, and with this fog, it’d take a while to get any backup.

By the time he pulled onto the freeway and turned around in the grassy median, it was shortly after midnight. He crept along with the light bar flashing an eerie blue and red into the mist.

Just ahead, he could make out the beginnings of someone’s hazards. After putting the SUV into park, he got out and walked through the freezing night air toward the little car ahead. The little yellow car ahead.

Shit.

Maggie stood beside the passenger door, hugging herself. She only wore a light sweater, and he could see her shaking from where he stood. There were obvious tear tracks down her pale face, and her hair hung in damp clumps against her neck.

“It was just there,” she said, her voice laced with panic. “It jumped in front of my car.”

He stepped close, taking her in, from the top of her head to her scuffed tennis shoes, completely wrong for winter mountain living. A small cut glistened on her forehead and was already surrounded by nasty purple swelling. Tears streaked her cheeks and she wiped them with the back of her hand. She was a beautiful mess.

He took his jacket off and draped it across her shoulders.

“Hold still,” he said, cupping her face. The cut was deep, but probably wouldn’t need stitches, which was good, because by the time he got her down the mountain, it’d probably be too late anyway. He looked down into her eyes, and she stared back. They were wide, but weren’t wandering. She seemed focused. Other than the shivering, she stood straight and still, not swaying at all.

“How do you feel?” he asked.

“It was right here. It was—”

“I’m not concerned about that right now. I’m concerned about you. How do you feel?”

“I…” She sniffed. “My head hurts.”

“I know it does. We’re gonna take care of that. Do you feel dizzy at all? Nauseous?”

She shook her head.

“Good. That’s good.” He hadn’t realized how tense he’d been until she answered, and he took a deep breath. Even in this day and age, it could be dangerous living this far up. He’d seen people die from car accidents before they could get help fast enough.

Maggie continued staring at him with those scared eyes, and he had a sudden urge to pick her up and carry her to his truck. Away from whatever had run in front of her car and could very easily have killed her. Out of this godforsaken cold-ass night and into somewhere warm and safe. She looked like someone who’d just seen a ghost.

Taking her by the elbow, he led her onto the gravel by the side of the road. It crunched underneath his boots, as if objecting to the weight.

“Now,” he said. “Tell me what happened.”

“It was right here.” She pointed to the front of her car. “I turned around and it was gone.”

“What was gone?”

“A big dog. The biggest dog I’ve ever seen. It was at least waist high.” She motioned toward her own hips, which were partially obscured by his jacket. “And it was black. I didn’t see it until I was right on it. It came up over the hood and then rolled off to the side of the road. I saw it. I got out of the car and came around, and it looked dead. It was bloody. And wasn’t moving.”

He looked at the hood of the car, which bore no marks, no dents whatsoever, and then narrowed his eyes at her. She might have hit her head harder than he’d thought.

“A car passed and I turned around, and it was…gone. Gone.”

He walked over and kneeled in front of the fender. She followed so closely that he could feel her heat, smell her scent.

He ran his hand along the chrome, leaving a clear trail in the grime. No dent. No hair. No blood.

He looked up, and her face contorted. “I hit something. You believe me, don’t you?”

“I believe you hit something. But it obviously wasn’t hard enough to kill it. Or even injure it that badly if it was able to get up and run away.”

“But it was injured. I saw it.”

“Maybe you clipped a bear or something. It might have been able to withstand a nudge with a car.” Even as he said it, he didn’t believe it. Hitting a bear, even a small one, would have left some kind of mark on the car.

“It wasn’t a nudge, Deputy.”

Blood trickled from the cut on her head as if to emphasize her point, and he sighed. “No, I guess it wasn’t.”

“Then what the hell happened?”

“I don’t know. I wasn’t driving.”

She looked over her shoulder into the woods. “Whatever I hit is hurt somewhere out there. It’s got to be.”

He knew where this was going. Christ.

“We can’t just leave it out there to die.”

“Sure we can,” he said, standing up. “I’m going to drive you back to the Inn. You can come back tomorrow and pick up your car. There’s a good shoulder here. It’ll be fine.”

“Deputy.” She grabbed his arm. The feel of her hand through his uniform sleeve was almost hot, in stark contrast to the bitter cold they were standing in. “Please.”

He turned, prepared to tell her to get her ass in the truck. Prepared to make her, if necessary. It was cold, and he was tired of standing out here on the side of the road. But the look on her face made him stop.

“Please. I can’t leave it out there, hurt. Will you just check? And then I’ll go. I promise.”

They considered each other for a long moment. Koda could think of a hundred reasons why he shouldn’t venture into those woods, and just one why he should. And she was standing there now, freezing, bleeding, and looking stubbornly tenacious. For some reason that touched some deep, primal part of himself. He admired that tenacity. As incredibly maddening as it was.

“All right,” he said. “Crap. All right. I’ll go take a look. But you’re going to sit in the truck where it’s safe, got it?”

“Got it.”

A smiled bloomed across her face, transforming it into something reserved for magazine pages and movie screens. His chest tightened. If she’d asked him to run to the equator and back, he’d do it, or gladly die trying.

He opened the door and she climbed in, her feet slipping on the icy running board. He reached out to steady her and grabbed her hip. His face warmed. He’d meant to take her elbow.

She shrugged his coat off. “You’ll probably want this back.”

He took it, aware that she’d only been wearing it for a few minutes and it still smelled incredible. “Stay right here, understand?”

“Yes.”

He leaned across and retrieved his rifle from the backseat, brushing her arm in the process. She caught his eye, and it was as if she pulled away from him.

“I’ll be right back.”

She flinched, and again he wondered how hard she’d hit her head.

“You sure you’re okay?”

“I’m fine.”

He let his gaze drop to her lips, where she kept wetting them with her tongue. She was scared. That much was obvious. What he couldn’t understand was why it was having such a powerful effect on him. Again, he had the urge to take her away from here. From whatever was causing that panicked look in her eyes. But she wanted him to take a look. And for some reason, he couldn’t seem to tell her no. So he would. And then he could get her back to the Inn, where she’d at least be warm again.

Nodding, he closed the door and turned toward the tree line, which was only a few yards away. The spaces between the frosty pines were dark and gaping. Sinister. He swallowed. He’d grown up here, born and raised. When you were a Tututni Indian, you were expected to be comfortable with the forest. At one with it, in the daylight as well as night. And mostly, he was.

But honestly, the woods around here were spooky as shit.

He looked over his shoulder and saw Maggie peering out the window, her face a pale moon behind the foggy glass. She wiggled her fingers at him, and he waved back, suddenly feeling ridiculous. He was a Deep Water County sheriff’s deputy. He’d seen murderers, rapists, rabid wild animals, car accidents, train wrecks, and one helicopter crash. He could certainly handle going in there to find one injured dog.

Clenching his jaw, he clicked on his flashlight. Holding it in one hand and his rifle in the other, he walked down the slight embankment, careful not to slip and fall on his ass. He could almost feel the weight of Maggie’s stare on his back. It wasn’t like he was trying to impress this girl. That was stupid. However, he would like to keep from shooting himself in the balls in front of her. That’d be nice.

He stepped inside the woods following the strong blue beam of the flashlight. It didn’t cut through the fog, so much as illuminate it. The forest floor was damp and spongy underneath Koda’s boots, and moisture dripped from the trees around him. Somewhere in the distance, an owl hooted, and chills rose up the back of his neck.

“Here, puppy, puppy…”

The woods smelled wet. The scent of pine mingled with that of moist bark and moss. Koda looked around, sweeping the beam of the flashlight back and forth. The owl hooted again.

“Here, puppy.”

Off to his right, a twig snapped.

“Dog?”

Silence. Even the owl didn’t answer this time, and the goose bumps that had risen on Koda’s neck, now crept onto his scalp. He took a step forward, his boots sinking into the soggy forest floor. “Where are you, boy?”

Some Tututni. Spooked by a poor animal with a broken leg. But even as he thought it, he knew it wasn’t the dog that had him spooked.

“Pup?” Koda’s finger hugged the rifle trigger. “Come on.”

Snap. Another twig broke, this time closer.

An icy drop of condensation landed on the back of his neck. Koda stared into the darkness where the sound had come from, forcing himself to hold still.

Something was there with him. He was sure of it now.

The legend. It was the one thought that crouched at the edge of his mind, always there, always stalking his subconscious. Some crazy urban legend about Wolfe Creek that had somehow managed to survive all these years. He knew better, of course. But sometimes despite that, it got the best of him.

“Come out, come out, wherever you are,” he said, sweeping the flashlight to the left. Then to the right, the barrel of his rifle, a rigid iron finger pointing at the unknown.

And then, from somewhere deep in the belly of the mountain night, was a low rumble. He froze. It was a warning. Instinctually he knew that, just like he knew if he took another step, he might not be fast enough to shoot whatever it was in the cover of those trees and shrubs. A cougar maybe? A bear? It sure as hell wasn’t any fucking dog.

Koda swallowed and lowered his head.

“Okay,” he said. “Okay. I’m going to back up now.”

Cradling the rifle in his arm, he took a cautious step backward.

Silence.

“That wasn’t so bad, was it?”

The owl called again, but farther away this time. He took another step backward, aware of the sweat trickling between his shoulder blades. It was starting to itch, and a hot pressure mounted at his temples.

“There we go.” Another step. Then another. After a minute, the sweet sound of a car passing on the freeway signaled he was finally out the way he’d come.

He stood at the tree line, staring into the darkness, and lowered the flashlight to his side.

“Son of a bitch,” he muttered.