Kitabı oku: «Shadow Lake»
Praise for
B.J. DANIELS
“B.J. Daniels doesn’t fail her readers in this
thrill ride of a tale, in which romance blossoms
between childhood friends.”
—Romantic Times BOOKreviews on Keeping Christmas
“Daniels has more than an intriguing suspense
story; she has put together an explosive
tale of love, trust and the twisted ties
among an embattled family.”
—Romantic Times BOOKreviews on
Crime Scene at Cardwell Ranch
“B.J. Daniels weaves together past and
present secrets to create intense suspense
and a wonderful, twisting plot.”
—Romantic Times BOOKreviews on
High-Caliber Cowboy
“B.J. Daniels treats readers to her signature
bad guys, an intense, heart-stopping story and an
electric romance between two special characters.”
—Romantic Times BOOKreviews on The Masked Man
“A suspenseful tale, blended artfully with
a romance that will warm your heart. Fans of
romantic suspense won’t be able to put down
this page-turner. Definitely a keeper!”
—Romantic Times BOOKreviews on
Premeditated Marriage
B.J. DANIELS
A former award-winning journalist, B.J. had thirty-six short stories published before her first romantic suspense, Odd Man Out, came out in 1995. Her book Premeditated Marriage won Romantic Times BOOKreviews Best Intrigue award for 2002 and she received a Career Achievement award for romantic suspense. B.J. lives in Montana with her husband, Parker, three springer spaniels—Zoey, Scout and Spot—and a temperamental tomcat named Jeff. She is a member of Kiss of Death, the Bozeman Writer’s Group and Romance Writers of America. When she isn’t writing, she snowboards in the winter and camps, water-skis and plays tennis in the summer. To contact her, write to: P.O. Box 183, Bozeman, MT 59771 or look for her online at www.bjdaniels.com.
Shadow Lake
B.J. Daniels
MILLS & BOON
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CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER ONE
LIKE THE OTHER GREAT tragedy in her life, Anna Collins never saw this one coming.
Just minutes before midnight, a deer bounded out of the rain and darkness onto the isolated two-lane highway directly into her path.
She’d been driving too fast, terrified and already out of control in her panicked state. So when she saw the deer, all she’d been able to do was react instinctively.
She slammed on the brakes and cranked the wheel. Through the driving rain and slap of the wipers the doe’s huge eyes caught for an instant in the headlights, then it bolted, disappearing in the pines lining the road as the car skidded across the wet blacktop.
Anna turned the wheel hard, overcorrecting, sending up a shower of puddled rainwater. She caught the blur of pines and the steep face of a rocky cliff an instant before the large, heavy car left the pavement on the opposite side of the road, and plunged down the mountainside.
Mute with terror, she didn’t have time to scream even if she could have made a sound. Nor would that scream have been heard over the crash of the car as it plummeted downward. Branches snapped off, the sound like gunshots, as leaves and bark pelted the windshield, the car gaining momentum.
A limb slapped the windshield an instant after she saw something dark and deep beyond the glow of her headlights.
Water.
The lake came into view a heartbeat before the car went airborne. The tires crashed down hard, the undercarriage shrieking in a scream of metal on rock before the vehicle hit the rain-dimpled black surface of the water.
At some point the air bag had exploded in her face. Before that, her head had slammed hard against the side window. Now everything glittered before going black, then gray as the front of the car pitched forward, inky liquid lapping up over the hood.
Dazed, Anna lifted her head and touched her temple, her fingers coming away sticky with blood. She stared in confusion. Icy water lapped over her feet, quickly filling the floor-board as the car nosed forward at a steep angle, her seat belt cutting into her breasts.
She could hear static coming from the in-car emergency system just before it shorted out in a flash of orange as the car began to sink. Water gushed over the hood to lap against the windshield.
She tried to open the door but it wouldn’t budge against the water already up to the side mirror.
She could hear the motor gurgling and realized it was still running. Would the electric windows still work? Frantically she hit the button as she fumbled with tremulous fingers to unlatch her seat belt.
Her side window hummed down. Ice cold water rushed in. She gasped as the water cascaded over her, filling her lap. The car pitched farther forward, the seat belt tightening painfully as the weight of her body pressed into it.
Hurriedly, she hit the window button. The glass began to whir back up, but a few inches from the top, it stopped. She pushed harder on the button as water cascaded over the top of the window, but the water had shorted out the rest of the electrical system.
Frantic, she grappled again to unlatch the seat belt as the breath-stealing cold water rose higher. The belt wouldn’t unlatch. She tried again and again but it was useless. The seat belt was jammed. The weight of her body seemingly binding it.
The freezing water splashed over her chest to her neck as the car steadily sank. She was going to drown. She gasped, now panicked and choking on the foul-smelling water that flooded her mouth and nose.
She fought to keep her head above water, but it was impossible. The car was sinking too quickly. The interior was almost completely full now, the water only inches from the headliner.
She closed her eyes and sucked in one last breath as the car completed its slow somersault to land on its top with a jarring thud on the bottom of the lake.
For a second, nothing moved. Anna hung upside down, suspended in the icy water by the seat belt, all sense of direction lost. She opened her eyes, still holding the last breath she’d taken. Her gaze followed the eerie dim path the headlights cut through the murky water.
Lungs bursting, mind starting to drift like her hair now floating around her face, she tried the seat belt release one more time even though she knew it was futile.
Her body cried out for oxygen. She had to take a breath. She couldn’t hold out any longer.
A tap at the side window.
Startled, she turned her head as if in slow motion and let out a cry, her last breath rushing from her lips at what she saw pressed against the glass.
CHAPTER TWO
GENE BRUBAKER BOLTED upright in bed. His chest heaved as he gasped for breath and frantically searched the room for whatever had awakened him.
The room was black except for the sliver of moonlight that knifed across the end of his bed through a crack in the drapes. He drew back from the light as fearful of it as the darkness.
He was sweating, his heart pounding too hard, his mouth dry. Another nightmare. The same nightmare. He was left with a cloying sense of dread that clung to his skin.
Lying back, he closed his eyes, opened them again, fearful of sleep. The clock on the bedside table read 11:57 p.m.
Throwing back the covers, he swung his legs over the side of the bed, but had to take a moment before he could stand. He cursed the body that was letting him down. He didn’t feel his age, could hardly remember it, but he recalled looking in the mirror one day and being shocked to see a deeply wrinkled gray-haired man squinting back at him.
Stiffly, he finally rose. The floor felt cold on his bare feet as he padded over to the window. He still felt shaken, his legs weaker than usual, as he drew back the drapes. The rain had stopped. He could see the lake through the trees. The water shimmered in the moonlight, the surface burnished silver.
He lifted the window with some effort and took a deep breath of the cold spring night air, letting it fill his lungs. As if anything could chase away the nightmare. He let the breath out slowly as he looked past the trees along the shore of the lake to the expanse of open water beyond.
The night air chilled his clammy skin. He slammed the window and had started to pull the drapes closed again when he noticed a light up the block.
Although nearing midnight, it appeared someone was still up at the church.
He stared at the light, surprised by the sudden ache of need that overcame him. He’d avoided church since Gladys’s funeral and truthfully only attended before that to please his wife.
He glanced back at the huge bed, the crumpled sheets on only the one side. The ache of emptiness wasn’t new. Nor was the loneliness—or the guilt. He reached for his pants.
Gene Brubaker wasn’t a man who believed in omens. In fact, he wasn’t sure what if anything he believed in anymore. That’s why he didn’t stop to consider what he was doing as he left the house and walked the block down the street to the Holy Rosary Catholic Church.
He walked past the church every day, aware that for the past few months he’d moved to the other side of the street.
Now when he neared the church, the street deserted, his jacket pulled around him as he huddled against the cold, he wondered what he was doing. Possibly just taking a walk to clear his head. The rain had left the night air damp and filled with the smell of the wet street, and he was struck with the thought that it was too cold for late April even for a town in the Northern Cascades of Washington.
Fortunately, there was no one around this time of the night. Or this time of the year in the town of Shadow Lake. Still too early for tourists with Memorial Day weeks away.
The town’s only stoplight flashed yellow down the street as he climbed the broad stone steps to the front entrance of the church, half-hoping to find the door locked. Not that there was much chance of that. Shadow Lake was so small and isolated from the real world that there was no need for anybody to lock their doors. Especially churches.
The door was heavier than he remembered it. But then again he was getting weaker each day. He had to push hard to get it to swing open and when it did, he hesitated. This was crazy. Wasn’t this the last place he should be?
A dim light burned inside. What was it he thought he’d find here? he wondered now. Salvation? Or redemption?
He had started to turn to leave when he heard the rustle of clothing and saw an elderly priest rise awkwardly from one of the pews up front and turn toward him.
Father Tom Bertonelli met his gaze. With the flick of the priest’s arthritic fingers, his old friend motioned him inside.
Brubaker let the church door close behind him, the smell of the rain and night quickly replaced by the familiar scents of his thirty-eight-year marriage. It evoked both longing and sadness. A lump formed in his throat and he felt close to tears again. Christ, he needed to get some sleep. These nightmares were killing him. His life was killing him.
He wanted to laugh at the irony of that as he glanced toward the confessionals, the church feeling too large, too vacuous. The priest gave a faint nod. Like a sleepwalker, Gene moved toward the polished wood of the confessional, his footsteps echoing across the marble floor.
He was glad when the confessional door closed behind him and he was sitting on the worn seat in the dark, the seclusion giving him a sense of safety if not peace.
Tom Bertonelli had been his friend for years. They’d fished together, shared meals up at the house, talked politics. But that had been before Gladys died, before Gene Brubaker had lost all faith.
Leaning back in the shadowy darkness, he closed his eyes as he heard the door to the adjacent confessional open, then close softly as the priest arranged his robes.
Brubaker didn’t open his eyes.
“What troubles you?” Tom asked in a voice dry as parchment.
The lump rose in his throat again. He swallowed. “Father, I have sinned.”
JUST BEFORE MIDNIGHT, ROB Nash parked under the wide branches of a large old pine tree along the quiet street next to a pile of dirty snow. Cutting his headlights and engine, he settled in to wait.
Rain dimpled the mud puddles along the unpaved back street. All the houses were dark except for one. The other houses were mostly summer cabins, boarded up for the winter. The seasonal residents wouldn’t be returning until Memorial Day weekend and it was only April.
A drenched cat crept across the muddy street and disappeared into a honeysuckle hedge. Somewhere in the distance, a dog barked.
It was Tuesday, a notoriously slow night of the week in Shadow Lake, Washington, in the Northern Cascades. Not that there was much trouble in the town this time of year, given that few people wintered-in. The number of residents dropped drastically during the cold months.
It was another story in the summer, though. Tourists flocked to the lake to boat and fish and shop for antiques and curios, causing traffic problems and all the disturbances that came with the increase in population.
Nash hated summers. The town got too hectic, too crowded. That was one reason he wasn’t looking forward to another busy season and wondered if it wasn’t time for him to retire. He had a new bride to think about.
He’d put in thirty-five years and yet he was still young. Relatively. Fifty-five wasn’t that old anymore. He could spend more time fishing. Spend more time with Lucinda, something he wished he had done more of lately.
Headlights flashed at the other end of the street as a car turned and headed toward him. Nash slid down a little in his seat and picked up his binoculars to watch through the half circle in the steering wheel and the low-slung branches of the thick pine he’d pulled under.
He felt like a fool. Worse, he felt disloyal. He’d made a point of letting everyone believe he would be in Pilot’s Cove for a couple of days. He hated this kind of deception and had always believed he was a better man than that. Right now he wished both were true.
The approaching car’s headlights went out just before the vehicle pulled into the driveway of the only house with lights on down the street, a single-level white brick rancher with a two-car attached garage. Nash felt a jolt as he recognized the car—and the driver.
The front door opened and a young, slim woman rushed out of the house. She’d obviously been expecting her visitor because she wore her red raincoat, the one Nash had bought her for her birthday.
Nash saw her face and the driver’s for only an instant as she opened the car door, the dome light coming on. Lucinda Nash slid into the passenger seat. The door closed and the dome light shut off.
Son of a bitch. Nash sat up with a jerk, throwing open the patrol-car door as he drew his weapon. And just moments before, he’d felt bad for being suspicious and deceitful. Apparently he’d had every reason. Hadn’t he known something was going on with his wife?
His mind racing, he tried to come up with a reason other than the obvious one for why she would have gone out this time of the night—let alone with that particular man.
Nash had witnessed his share of affairs over the years. It’s what a man got for spending a good part of his life on dark streets when good people were in bed asleep. He was no stranger to the uglier side of humankind. He’d seen things he hadn’t wanted to see, the kind of things that left him with a nasty taste in his mouth and a shitty impression of humanity in general.
Now he tried to catch his breath, to still the trembling in his limbs. His radio squawked. He ignored it. He stumbled out into the muddy street, the rain pounding out a staccato beat on the car’s roof as he slammed his door behind him. Fuck retirement. He was going to kill the bastard. Kill them both.
The car in front of his house backed out slowly. Nash stopped and gripped the weapon in both hands, willing the driver of the car to turn down the street toward him.
But the driver turned back the way he’d come, keeping to the dark pines along the edge of town.
Nash raised the gun as the car took off, the taillights disappearing in the rain and darkness before he could get off a shot.
He took a couple of steps after the retreating car before staggering back under the weight of his discovery. His palm came down on the warm wet hood of the patrol car as he caught himself to keep from falling.
For a moment he thought he was having a heart attack. He fought to breathe, his chest heaving. His stomach convulsed. Launching himself toward the dried weeds under the tree, he retched until he was almost too empty to stand.
Behind him, his radio continued to squawk. He caught only snatches of what was being said. The operator from one of those fancy in-car emergency systems had called about an accident on the way into town.
Leaning against the car, Police Chief Rob Nash wiped his eyes, then slowly holstered his weapon before stumbling back to drop into the front seat of his patrol car. He had started to reach for the radio when he heard his second in command take the call.
CHAPTER THREE
ANNA COLLINS TRIED to open her eyes, the weight of her lids like concrete shutters. Light filtered in at the edge of her vision, growing brighter.
“She’s awake, Doctor,” a female voice said nearby.
The room swam in a sea of green and white. She focused on a nurse standing at the end of the bed. A hospital room?
Head pounding, she blinked in confusion, time and sense of place lost, leaving only one thought: She’d been here before. Or had she? She closed her eyes again, preferring the darkness.
“How are you feeling?” said a deep, older male voice next to her.
She forced her eyes all the way open. An elderly man stood beside her bed. His thick gray hair was rumpled as if he’d just gotten out of bed. His face was deeply wrinkled, skin weathered as if from the sun and wind. He wore canvas hunting pants and a flannel shirt beneath the white lab coat that flapped open as he moved closer. He smelled of cinnamon.
She watched him move something around in his mouth. He made a smacking sound, then pushed what appeared to be a round candy into his cheek as he eyed her with pale blue eyes faded by age.
Although he had a stethoscope around his neck, he looked nothing like any doctor she’d ever seen.
“Hello,” he said, giving her a smile, the candy making his cheek protrude on the one side. “I’m Dr. Gene Brubaker.”
She was in a hospital. Anna wet her dry lips as she glanced around the room, her thoughts jumbled, her head aching. The drapes were drawn on the window, but she could see through a slim opening. It was dark out.
She glanced at her wrist. No watch. Instead, she found that her arm was hooked up to an IV. “What…time…”
“Almost three—a.m.,” he said.
She nodded, time meaning absolutely nothing right now.
The doctor handed her a glass of water from the nightstand beside her bed and waited while she drank greedily.
“Easy,” he warned as she choked on the water. “You’re in a hospital, miss. You’ve had a car accident.”
She blinked. A car accident? Her heart began to race. “My son. Tell me my son is all right.”
He frowned, his thick gray eyebrows beetling together. “Your son?”
“Tyler. Where is Tyler?” She tried to sit up, but he rested a heavy hand on her shoulder as he took the empty cup from her.
“Easy now. Let’s just take it a step at a time. Can you tell me your name?”
“Anna…” For a moment, she couldn’t think of her last name. She swallowed, her throat raw, the headache blinding. “Collins. Please, I have to see my son.” Her voice broke. “Tell me he’s all right. Tell me he made it.”
“Try to remain calm,” he said, frowning down at her with grandfatherly concern. “Your son was in the car with you? How old is your son?”
“Tyler’s four. You have to help him!” Her voice rose and she began to sob as she clutched at one edge of his white lab coat. “Just tell me he’s alive. Please.”
She was hysterical now, sobbing and gripping at his coat, crying, “Save my son. Please save my son.”
“Sheila,” the doctor said, and the nurse she’d seen before moved into her line of vision. Anna felt something prick her skin. Darkness moved along the edge of her vision again, that silent black emptiness calling her back.
She’d been in the dark too long. She clutched tighter at the doctor’s white lab coat. “My son. Please.” Her voice rasped as the heavy weight of the drug worked to pull her under.
Dr. Brubaker nodded. “Don’t you worry now. We’ll take care of it.”
Her fingers loosened on his coat, her arm dropping back to the bed. Her eyes fluttered. She felt the dead weight of her body as she was dragged down, back into that dark nothingness.
OFFICER D.C. WALKER SHOOK the rain off like a duck as he entered the small, quiet hospital. He caught his reflection in the window as he passed the empty nurses’ station. He looked like hell. But he felt worse as he pushed open the door to the doctors’ lounge.
Doc Brubaker glanced up from the chair where he was sprawled. It gave Walker little comfort that Doc looked worse than he did.
“Any luck finding the boy?” Doc asked anxiously.
Walker shook his head as he shrugged out of his rain jacket and tossed it onto one of the orange plastic chairs. He helped himself to a stale doughnut.
Without asking, Doc reached for the coffeepot and poured him a cup, then refilled his own.
“Thanks,” Walker said as he took the coffee and plopped down in an empty chair. The coffee looked like black sludge, but as long as it contained caffeine and was hot, he wasn’t about to complain. He couldn’t remember a longer night and it still wasn’t over.
“I called out Search and Rescue,” he said, between bites of the doughnut. “They’ve combed the shoreline and the woods, but so far nothing. It’s so damned steep where the car went off. Water’s deep there and with the spring runoff, real murky. The dive team’s gearing up to go down.”
Doc shook his head. “I hate to think of a four-year-old out there, as cold as it is. I suppose he could still be in the car.”
“If he was strapped in a car seat in back, she might not have been able to get him out.”
Dr. Brubaker rubbed a hand over his face. “The only way the boy might have survived is if there’s a trapped air bubble. Stranger things have happened.”
Walker studied him for a long moment wondering if the doc really put much store in that. “Mac’s gonna get his biggest tow truck up there at soon as it gets light. He’s not sure he has enough cable to pull the car out though. Might have to borrow a newer towing rig from one of the large towns. Your patient say anything else?”
Doc shook his head. He definitely looked older since his wife had died. Walker thought about the rumors he’d heard that Doc was dying. He didn’t put much stock in them though. Rumors were always circulating in Shadow Lake. And just because Doc was getting his affairs in order, so what?
Like the rumor going around about Police Chief Nash’s pretty young wife, Lucinda. But who the hell married a woman half his age and thought she’d be faithful? Walker had learned the hard way about infidelity during his one and only marriage. Not that he was bitter. Much.
Shadow Lake was a hotbed for affairs, especially during the long cold winter months when the population dropped. There was a standing joke that the residents who wintered-in here switched wives and girlfriends and then held a roundup in the spring to divvy up the kids. He used to think that was funny.
“Were you able to reach her husband?” Doc asked. He sounded tired and he certainly hadn’t been looking well lately. But Walker figured that was to be expected given how many years he and Gladys had been together. He imagined it must have been hell for Doc to watch his wife waste away like that and in so much pain.
“No answer at the husband’s house,” Walker said. “I left a message, but for all we know the husband was in the car too. Hell, he might have been the one driving.”
“I hadn’t thought of that,” Doc said. “All I could think about was the little boy.”
It was too bad Doc had never had any kids of his own, Walker thought.
Fortunately Anna Collins had been in a vehicle with an in-car emergency system that had notified the police department the minute her air bag deployed and tried to raise the car’s occupant on the built-in cell phone.
When no one responded, the operator had given the police dispatcher the location of the car via the in-car global-positioning system and the Shadow Lake dispatcher had radioed the police department where Walker had taken the call.
Walker pulled his pencil from behind his ear, touched the tip of it to his tongue and opened his small notebook. “You said she just stumbled up to the hospital?”
Dr. Brubaker nodded. “Half drowned, good-size knot on her left temple. Sheila was on duty and heard the alarm go off, looked up and saw her collapse just inside the front door. She said the woman regained consciousness, mumbled something about her car crashing into the lake before she passed out again.
“That’s when Sheila beeped me,” Doc said in an exhausted voice. “I called you right away and was told you’d gone out to the crash site.”
Walker had been taken aback when he’d seen where the woman’s car had left the road. “No way could she climb back up to the highway, so I guess it makes sense that she would come out on the beach. That would have put her out with the hospital being the closest building.”
“That’s probably what had saved her life,” Doc said. “Given the temperature of the air and the water, if she’d been out there any longer she wouldn’t have made it. She was already hypothermic when she reached us.”
“Did she mention her son when Sheila found her?”
“No.” The doctor poured himself more coffee. “She was confused and scared.”
Walker nodded. “I called her in-car emergency provider. The car is a blue Coupe de Ville Cadillac registered to her and a—” he consulted his notes “—Marc Collins, presumably her husband. The address is Seattle. No answer at the primary residence, but I had a black-and-white go over to see if anyone was home. She said her son’s name was Tyler, right?”
Brubaker nodded. “She became so hysterical I had Sheila give her a sedative to calm her down. Anything I’d have said would have only upset her more. She just assumed that her son was here at the hospital.”
“You can’t miss the spot where her car went off the road,” Walker said. “Right there by the cliffs. No sign of the vehicle. But lots of small trees down. Couldn’t have gone off at a worse place if she’d planned it.”
Doc looked up. “You don’t think she—”
“Purposely drove off there?” Walker shrugged. He’d long ago given up trying to guess what a woman might do. “There weren’t any skid marks that I could see. But it was raining, so I couldn’t tell if she tried to brake.”
Doc shook his head and closed his eyes as he leaned back in the chair. “I’m sure it was just an accident.”
Walker was never sure of anything. “She didn’t say what she was doing driving up here at that hour of the night?”
“No. She should sleep for a while. I’m hoping her son is found and I will have good news for her by the time she wakes up.”
“I wouldn’t count on that,” Walker said, studying the doctor again. Since his wife’s death, Doc Brubaker had been trying to find a doctor for the town. Few doctors wanted to live in such an isolated town, let alone make so little money and work such long hours. Along with being on call for the town, the local doctor saw to the small nursing home facility attached to the hospital.
Doc hired young interns for the summer months to give him a break, but none of them had shown any interest in staying once the first snowflake fell.
Walker knew Brubaker had talked about retiring even before his wife had died. He figured it wouldn’t be long and Shadow Lake would be without a doctor. “You all right?”
Doc opened his eyes, seeming surprised by the question, then uncertain as he glanced toward the darkness beyond the windows. “It couldn’t have been a suicide attempt. Not if the boy was in the car with her.”
Obviously the doc didn’t read the papers. Not having any children of his own, Doc Brubaker had no concept of what parents could do to their children.
Walker stood and noticed he’d left a puddle of rainwater on the floor in front of the chair where he’d been sitting.
“Don’t worry about it,” Doc said, following his gaze. “I’ll get someone to clean it up. Find the boy. I don’t want to tell that young woman that her son is out there in that lake.”
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