Running for Her Life

She couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think. She’d been in Wyattville all this time and nothing had happened. Why now?

“Tara?” Frank prompted.

“I’ll be there as soon as I can.” Tara hung up and whirled around, almost bumping into the new chief.

“What’s wrong?” he demanded.

“I own a restaurant in town. There’s been some damage.”

“From the storm?”

“No. At least that’s what Frank Johnson said. He owns the drugstore next door.” She tried to speak slowly, calmly, but it was impossible. Fourteen months ago, in a rage, Michael had shredded dresses and slashed artwork. Had he found a new way to torment her by vandalizing her business?

She didn’t want to have to run again.

“Tara?”

She stared at him.

“You looked as if you were a million miles away.”

Thirteen hundred miles. But was it far enough? “I have to go.” She glanced around the dark kitchen. Where had she dropped her purse? It didn’t matter. She grabbed her keys off the counter and took a step toward the door.

“You might want to get dressed first,” he suggested.

Of course. What she needed to do was stop freaking out. If Michael had found her, she’d need her wits about her. And she needed to get rid of Jake Vernelli. “I can drop you off in town,” she said.

He shrugged. “I think I’ve gathered enough to know that my first day on the job just started early.”

“But what about your truck?”

“Trust me on this. It’s not going anywhere.”

She wasn’t going to be able to shake him. But she couldn’t worry about that now. She lit another candle, kept her keys gripped in her hand while she found another glass and then used it to light the way up the stairs where she pulled on underwear, jeans and a long-sleeved white shirt. When she came back to the living room, he was standing by her back door. She slipped her feet into the still-wet sandals that she’d shed earlier. When she reached for the door, he put his hand on her arm. Heat shot upward, settling somewhere around her collarbone.

“Are you okay to drive?” he asked.

“Yes.”

He didn’t argue. Instead, he blew out both candles. Then they ran through the rain, dodging puddles. He opened the garage door before she had a chance to. “Pull out and I’ll close it behind us,” he said.

* * *

SHE DROVE FAST and they arrived in the small town just minutes later. A police cruiser, its lights flashing, sat crossways in the middle of the street, keeping cars from getting past. The streetlights were on, and lights shined through windows up and down the street, telling Jake that the power outage hadn’t included Wyattville.

Tara jerked the wheel to the right, pulled into a parking spot and bolted from her car. A man pushing sixty, standing in front of the drugstore, saw her and waved. She took four steps before Jake caught up with her.

“Stay behind me,” he said, stepping in front of her.

Jake could see the momentary indecision and thought he might just have to tackle her. Given the curves he’d glimpsed under her thin blue robe, the very same ones that were hugged tight by her white shirt and jeans, it wouldn’t be much of a sacrifice. Knowing his luck, though, she’d bring her damn knee up again and hit pay dirt and he’d start his job walking funny for days.

“Fine,” she said through clenched teeth.

He moved quickly, Tara on his heels. Fortunately most of the businesses had awnings, so they could stay out of the rain as they ran toward the man standing on the sidewalk.

“Mr. Johnson?” Jake asked.

“Yes. Who are you?”

“I’m Jake Vernelli.”

The older man smiled. “The new guy. I’m on the city council and let me tell you, we’re damn glad you were available. I don’t want you to get the wrong idea here. Generally, Wyattville is a pretty quiet place.”

Tara stepped out from behind him. “What happened, Frank?”

“Officer Hooper drove by around nine and everything was fine, but when he cruised through at ten, he saw that the front door of Nel’s looked odd. I was at the store late and saw him outside. I called you right away.”

Jake could tell by the slump of Tara’s shoulders that everything definitely wasn’t okay. He adjusted his angle slightly. Nel’s Café had a big door that was wood on the bottom and frosted glass on the top. Two inches above where the wood stopped and the glass began was a round hole. Bigger than a golf ball, maybe the right size for a baseball. Around it, the glass had splintered in a semicircle, with cracks shooting upward. It looked similar to how a first grader might draw the sun on a pretty summer day.

Jake walked closer, leaned down and attempted to peer through the hole. It was dark inside. There were two large windows on either side of the door. Unfortunately, the blinds were down, completely eliminating any assistance the streetlights might have given.

“Crazy night for somebody to be out causing trouble,” Frank said. “Probably just some kids without anything better to do.”

“Oh, sure,” she said. And Jake wouldn’t have thought much about it if she hadn’t followed up the comment with a quick but deliberate look over her right shoulder, then her left. It was her eyes that pulled at Jake’s gut. She had the look of someone waiting for the other shoe to drop.

A young officer dressed in a khaki uniform approached. His brown buzzed hair looked official, but the flushed face and sweat stains under his arms didn’t inspire confidence. Green. That was how Chase had described Andy Hooper. He covered the evening shift and would share call with Jake for the night shift.

Frank Johnson stepped forward. “Andy, this here is your new boss, Jake Vernelli.”

Andy stuck out his hand. “Pleasure to meet you. Mayor Montgomery said good things about you, sir.”

Chase must have left out the part about shooting his partner. Jake returned the shake. “Good to meet you,” he said. “What happened here tonight?”

The young officer flipped open his notebook. “Front door is damaged. Back door appears untouched. There are no witnesses. It does not appear that entry was gained. I was waiting for Tara to get here with a key so I could check out the inside.”

The kid had needed to consult his notes for that? It was going to be a long six weeks.

With her keys in hand, Tara started toward the door. Jake knew it was unlikely there was any danger. An intruder would have needed to manage getting his or her arm through the hole, enough to flip the lock from inside. That would have been difficult to do with without causing more glass to break. However, he’d seen a lot of odd things in his career.

Jake held out his hands for her keys. “Not until Officer Hooper and I check it out,” he said. He pulled his gun from the waistband of his jeans and he saw the immediate question in Frank Johnson’s eyes: Is that really necessary?

Hell, he had no idea. But it hadn’t been that long ago that he’d been almost too slow to pull his gun, and he didn’t intend to make that mistake again. When Officer Hooper hurried to get his own weapon, Jake fought the instinct to duck and run.

Jake unlocked the door and kicked it open with his foot, wide enough that they could enter. With the door open, there was enough light that he could quickly scan the dim interior. There were tables on one side, booths on the other. An aisle down the middle led to a long counter with six stools. Behind the counter were the pop machine, milk machine and stacks of glasses. “I’m going to check the kitchen,” he whispered. “Stay here.”

He walked toward the swinging door at the rear of the restaurant. However, instead of opening it, he veered behind the counter and walked toward the service window that was cut into the rear wall. It was chest high, three feet long by eighteen inches high, perfect for getting the hot food from the stove to the table in an express manner. He peered through the opening.

Toward the back, a light burning over a three-compartment sink made it possible to see the grill, stove and steam table on one side, refrigerator and worktable on the other. Across from the sink, behind a half wall, was the dishwasher. Beyond it, a rear entrance that looked undisturbed.

“It’s clear. Tell Tara that she can come in.”

By the time he got to the front of the restaurant, she was standing next to the cash register. The drawer was open and the slots were empty. “You keep any money in here?” he asked.

Tara shook her head. “After we close up in the afternoon, I make a deposit at the bank. I hold back enough to start the drawer out in the morning but I keep it in the kitchen.”

“Freezer, right?”

She smiled and it reached her eyes—her very pretty moss-green eyes. They went nicely with her hair—a rich, more strawberry than blond mix that touched her shoulders.

“Too obvious,” she said. “I use a mixing bowl.”

“Go check it and make sure it’s all there,” he said.

He flipped on a light and looked around. The place wasn’t fancy but it looked spotless, and the combination of colors—blues, greens and browns—made it welcoming. He picked up a menu, scanned it and almost laughed at how reasonable the prices were. Okay, there was one good thing about small towns.

It took him about fifteen seconds to find the baseball lodged underneath one of the wooden booths. “Andy, you got an evidence bag in your car?” he asked.

“Yes, sir.”

“Chief Vernelli is fine. Go get it.”

The kid was back so fast with a bag, gloves and a camera that Jake was pretty sure he’d run. Had he ever been that eager to please? God knew he’d loved being a cop. Had never contemplated that he’d walk away from it.

He snapped a few photos before putting on the gloves and carefully picking up the ball. He’d just put it in the bag when Tara returned. “We’ll dust it for prints but if it was kids, they likely won’t have a record,” Jake said.

“This is the kind of stuff kids do, right?”

She sounded almost hopeful. The last teenager he’d arrested had stolen a car. The one before that had stabbed his mother. “Anybody in particular who might be pissed off at you? Fired any high school help lately?”

She shook her head. “No. I did have a dishwasher leave, but I didn’t fire him—he quit. And he wasn’t a kid. Probably in his early thirties.”

“Why did he quit?”

“I don’t know. I would have appreciated some notice but he just left a message on my voice mail that he wouldn’t be back. I hope he found a better job. He took this after he lost his position when his company outsourced their manufacturing to China.”

Dishwasher. He hadn’t contemplated that as a career choice when he’d been up at two in the morning, wondering just what the hell he was going to do if he couldn’t be a cop anymore. He could go from scraping garbage off the street to scraping food off plates. “Name?”

“Donny Miso.”

Easy enough to remember. Jake walked to the front door and snapped a couple more photos. He handed the camera back to Andy. “I’ll finish up here,” he told the young officer. “I think you can probably move the squad out of the street now,” he added.

Jake watched Officer Hooper lope down the sidewalk. When he was almost at his car, Jake turned toward Tara. “Something tells me that he doesn’t get to use the lights and siren very often.”

She smiled. “He means well.” She squatted and grabbed a piece of glass and promptly sliced open the tip of her index finger. Blood welled up from the cut. He moved to her side and grabbed her wrist to get a closer look.

“Go wash that out,” he said. “I’ll take care of this.”

“That’s not necessary,” she protested weakly. She was looking at the blood on her finger. Her face had lost its natural color, making the freckles on her nose stand out.

She started walking back to the kitchen. He followed.

“What are you doing?” she asked, looking over her shoulder.

“Making sure you don’t fall over,” he said, deciding truth was the best option. He’d noticed her reaction to the bloody wipe earlier and had better understood why she’d freaked when he’d pulled back his hood and she’d suddenly been up close and personal with the blood streaking down his face. Everybody had their Achilles’ heel.

She squared her shoulders. “I am not going to fall down.”

Soft curves and a rod of steel up her backbone. Hell of a combination. “Okay.” He turned back toward the dining room. He picked up the larger pieces of glass, all the while listening for unusual sounds in the kitchen. He was almost done when there was a shadow in the doorway. He looked up and saw Frank.

“I got a piece of plywood to nail over the window,” he said.

“Perfect.” Jake walked outside and it took only a couple minutes for the two men to nail the covering in place.

Frank shook his hand when they were finished. “Welcome, Jake. By the way, my daughter Lori Mae is your daytime dispatcher and department secretary. If you want to know anything, she can tell you. And if I can be of assistance, let me know. In fact, if you’ve got the time tomorrow, we could meet for a cup of coffee here at Nel’s, say ten?”

“I’ll see you then,” Jake said. When he stepped inside the restaurant, Tara was standing near the door.

“You’ve been busy,” she said, motioning to the floor and the window.

“Frank helped. Seems like a nice guy.”

She nodded. “When I opened the restaurant fourteen months ago, he was my first customer, and he’s eaten lunch here every day since then.”

“Did you grow up in Wyattville?”

She shook her head. “I moved here from Florida.”

He’d spent five of the worst weeks of his life in Miami, working undercover, sniffing out drug dealers. “Where at in Florida?”

It might have been his imagination but he thought she pulled back a little. “We moved around a lot,” she said. “You know, I’m really tired. I should finish up here so that I can get home at a reasonable hour.”

She didn’t need to hit him over the head with a baseball bat. And it wasn’t as if he really wanted her life story. No matter how cute she was, he was a short-timer, and in six weeks he’d have paid his debt back to his friend. Then he was driving back to Minneapolis and forgetting about this wide spot in the road.

“I still need to get in contact with Toby Wilson about Veronica. My truck,” he added quickly.

She didn’t bat an eye that he’d named his truck. Just grabbed the pen that was next to the cash register, tore a napkin out of the two-sided dispenser on the counter and scribbled a number down. “There’s a phone in the kitchen.”

For a second time, he yanked the directions to Chase Montgomery’s house out of his pocket. “By my calculations, Chase’s house should be just a couple blocks from here. I’ll call from there.”

“I heard he was out of town, visiting his parents. Something about his mother being ill.”

“That’s right. He’ll be back in a couple weeks. I’m going to stay at his house while I’m covering for Chief Wilks.” He walked toward the door. “By the way,” he added, “watch out for the deer when you’re driving home.”

Once again her eyes flicked toward the street. He got the strangest feeling that whatever or whoever it was that Tara Thompson was watching out for, it didn’t have four legs.

Chapter Three

It was still dark when Tara woke up. The light was blinking on her alarm clock, telling her that sometime during the night the electricity had come back on. She reached for the switch on the lamp and glanced at her watch. Ten minutes before five. In one smooth movement, she stretched and rolled out of bed. She pulled on a running bra, shorts and a shirt, and sat on the edge of the mattress while she laced up her shoes. After a quick stop in the bathroom, she bounced down the steps, grabbed a bottle of water on her way past the refrigerator and was out the door. The sun had not yet crested the horizon but night had faded, leaving the quiet countryside bathed in a soft blue-gray.

She jogged for the first quarter of a mile, then picked up the pace. With each step, she felt stronger, sturdier, more confident. She hadn’t been a runner when she’d lived in D.C. She’d rarely exercised, choosing to spend what little free time she had with Michael. But shortly after settling in Wyattville, she’d started jogging and lifting weights. She hadn’t been worried about her jeans zipping. She’d simply been focused on getting strong.

If Michael ever got lucky enough to find her, she needed to be both physically and mentally ready. The head stuff was harder. But she was making progress. It had been months since she’d had one of the nightmares that had plagued her when she’d first come to Wyattville. She knew she’d turned the corner when she’d dreamed that he’d found her and she—dressed like Catwoman, but hey, it was a dream—had kicked his butt.

She tried to get in three miles several times a week, generally before work. If she kept her pace steady, she could get to Wyattville, turn around and be home in time to jump in the shower and still make it to work with ten minutes to spare.

Normally when she ran, her mind emptied out. There was no room to worry about leaky water pipes or a temperamental fryer that had a touchy on-off switch. She was consumed with the cadence of her steps, the harshness of her breath, the pure thrill of pushing herself to the limit. Absolute freedom from thought. It was all good.

But not today. She was tired and edgy and felt stupid because she’d lost sleep over a broken window. It wasn’t as if she’d been robbed at gunpoint. She was getting soft. There’d been a time when crime was part of her everyday life. She’d talked about it, wondered about it and even joked about it. Most every reporter at the paper had.

Not that many would have admitted to the last. After all, everyone knew it wasn’t a joke. But in a city where even murder seemed routine, laughter was the coping mechanism of choice.

That was life B.W. Before Wyattville. Now she talked about the weather, wondered about the price of lettuce and laughed at dumb jokes that her customers told her. It still hardly seemed possible. Nel’s Main Street Café had gone on the market the week before Tara had come through Wyattville on her way to nowhere. She took one look at the cozy little diner and paid cash for it two days later. It had eaten up every bit of her savings. But somehow she’d known it was the right thing to do.

And every day for the past fourteen months, she’d been thankful. She’d had a reason to get up, to get dressed, to work hard. A reason to forget.

Although some memories were harder to shake than others. She extended her arms straight from her shoulders, automatically noting the slight difference in the length. Her arms were covered, like always. No matter how sweaty she got running or how steamy the kitchen became, she didn’t dare let people see the damage. There’d be too many questions, too much speculation. She didn’t need the constant reminder, either. Didn’t need to look at the two scars on her right arm that ran seven inches long and a sixteenth of an inch wide, crossing over each other at the bend in her elbow, to remember the pain, the absolute terror. The orthopedic surgeons had told her the pink, slightly puckered skin would continue to fade until it turned completely white some day.

She supposed that was true. Her arm looked better than it had fourteen months ago, although it was still hideous. And as crazy as it sounded, she was almost grateful for it. The injury had made her realize that ultimately Michael would kill her. It was the push she’d needed to leave her fiancé behind, to leave her life behind.

Otherwise, she’d have been one of the crime stories they reported in the early edition. Maybe one of the ones they laughed about, or shook their heads about.

She’d made a life here in Wyattville. It was a different life than the one she’d left behind, but still, a good life. And most important, she’d felt safe here.

And she still did. She wasn’t going to let a busted window change that.

The summer air was already thick with humidity, and sweat trickled down her front and back. There was barely a breeze on her bare legs. She sipped on her water bottle and pushed herself harder.

She was less than a mile from town when she saw a car crest the hill. Without breaking stride, she edged farther to the side of the road, onto the hard-packed gravel that bordered the blacktop. She’d just lifted her hand in a neighborly wave when the car swerved, gunning straight for her.

* * *

JAKE DESPERATELY NEEDED COFFEE. On his best days, he didn’t generally participate in any real conversation until he’d had his first cup followed by two or three quick refills. And he wasn’t at his best today. He hadn’t slept well. Wanted to believe it was because he’d been in a strange bed in a strange house with six weeks of duty facing him. But he suspected it had less to do with that and more to do with a strawberry-blonde with freckles on her nose and pretty green eyes.

Chase had left a brief note, wishing him well, along with keys to a cruiser that matched the car Andy Hooper had been driving the previous night. There were also a couple sets of uniforms. After waking up, he’d showered, pulled on a pair of khaki pants, a shirt that fit well enough, and buckled the standard-issue duty belt that Chase had left hanging over the door.

Now, fifteen minutes after his feet had hit the floor, he was in the car, headed toward Nel’s Café. The night before, he’d seen the sign on the door, indicating that business hours started at six and ended at three. He parked, got out, and could see that someone had turned the blinds enough that he could see inside.

The dining area was still dark. Through the service window, he could see light in the kitchen and somebody moving around. Female. But definitely shorter and heavier than Tara.

Not that he was looking for her.

He debated returning to his car to wait, but liking the stillness of the early morning, he merely leaned his back against the building. He’d barely taken three deep breaths when an old man walked around the corner.

“Morning,” the man said. He stuck out a weathered, arthritic hand. “Nicholi Bochero.”

Jake returned the shake. “Jake Vernelli.”

“Figured as much. I live upstairs, above the restaurant. Got the lowdown on you last night from my grandson, Andy Hooper. The boy should be along shortly. He meets me for breakfast most mornings.”

The door to the restaurant opened. The woman from the kitchen, wearing a white apron over her navy shirt and slacks, motioned them in. Her coarse gray hair was cut military-short and her face was lined with years of experience.

“Uh…morning, Janet. How…uh…are you?” Nicholi asked. The old man suddenly sounded out of breath.

“I’m all right, I guess,” the woman answered. She turned away, but not before Jake saw a flush start at her neckline and spread its way north, filling in cracks and crevices. And like most cops who’d been cops for any length of time, he was pretty good at knowing when the energy in the air changed. In the past few seconds, it had skyrocketed upward.

Janet had Nicholi’s coffee poured before the old man carefully lowered himself down on the second-to-last stool at the counter. He nodded his thanks and followed her movements with his eyes. Meanwhile Janet was looking everywhere but at him.

Oh, boy. Hormones—albeit some old ones—were shaking off some dust motes here. Jake slid in next to Nicholi, and when Janet held up the coffeepot in his direction, he nodded and practically sighed in appreciation when he took his first sip.

“New police chief?” Janet asked.

“Interim,” Jake corrected immediately.

The door opened and Officer Hooper walked in. His face was freshly shaved and with his ruddy complexion, he looked about sixteen. “Morning, sir…uh…Chief,” he said to Jake.

The kid made him feel ancient. “Morning, Andy.”

The young officer walked past Jake, patted his grandfather gently on the back and took the last seat at the counter. “Where’s Tara?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” Janet said. “When I arrived and she wasn’t already here, I called her house. There was no answer, so I thought she must be on her way. However, if that’s true, she should have been here at least fifteen minutes ago.”