Alyssa again, p.15
Alyssa Again, page 15
She fought the current, but unbalanced by her cast, she was pushed closer and closer to the whirlpool of rocks and water spewing from the waterfalls. Her arms were tiring, but she defied her fatigue, and finally felt the river bottom beneath her feet.
Standing on shaky legs, she stumbled through the churning water and stepped on the rough shore. But she couldn’t rest. Heart thudding, she used a hand to shade her eyes, and scoured the river, looking for Jack.
Then through the sparkling mist of water from the falls, she saw him, a frantic silhouette diving and surfacing. She gave a cry of relief. Never had a sight seemed more magnificent.
“Jack!” she yelled, jumping up and down to attract his attention. “Jack!”
He stopped, stared, then swam toward her in bold, powerful strokes. And when he reached shore, she launched herself at him, wet body against wet body, flung her arms around his neck, nearly clobbering him with her cast, and hung on to him as if she were hanging on to life itself.
“I thought you were gone,” she croaked. “I thought you drowned.”
His arms wrapped around her waist. His head snuggled against hers. His breathing was harsh and ragged against her skin.
“I thought you were gone,” she whispered harshly, still feeling the raw, primal fear stampeding through her.
Then, as she hung on to Jack, she did what she hated most. She cried. A torrent of tears poured from her freely, unstoppable.
“I thought you were drowning,” she bawled, holding him tighter, not really understanding why this near loss was ripping her apart.
“Shh.”
Great sobs racked her chest. Shivers rattled through her. And the pain of almost losing Jack cracked whatever reserve of restraint was left in her.
She kissed him. Kissed his neck, his ear, his cheek. Her fingers tangled roughly in his wet hair. She found his mouth, found warmth, found heaven.
Her own breathing loud in her ears, she relished the taste of him, the roughness of his day-old beard against her cheeks, her wrists. A soft moaning sound of need escaped her throat.
“I thought I’d lost you,” she mumbled against the hunger of his mouth. And knew she’d gone and done the most reckless thing in her life—she’d fallen in love with a man who was all wrong for her.
AGAINST THE BACKGROUND of the river and waterfall, old as eternity, beating against the rocks, wearing down, Jack was swept into a riptide of emotion.
In Brooke’s arms, he was drowning in tides of passion and couldn’t seem to rescue himself. Didn’t want to be rescued. Not even when the waves of emotions were stealing his breath, making his heart pound, mushing his brain from lack of oxygen. Kissing Brooke like this was wrong. He couldn’t afford the emotional toll. Yet he couldn’t stop.
He’d almost lost her.
When her empty kayak had smacked against him after his own less than graceful capsize, he’d frozen, then his stomach had knotted with nauseating tightness. Horrible, vivid images of her drowning, of her being battered against the rocks, of her lifeless body washing up on the beach had paralyzed him. Then he’d grown frantic searching for her, diving again and again into the cold, black water. He’d been crazy with the thought that he’d lost her to the river, to his own carelessness.
When he saw her on the shore, he’d nearly buckled with relief. His only thought was to reach her, hold her, and yell at her for taking ten years off his life.
The last thing he should be doing was kissing her. But, God help him, he couldn’t keep his hands off her. They stroked, they learned, they memorized every delectable curve of her warm and wet body, reassuring him with every sizzling stroke that she was alive.
Afraid of water as she was, she’d fought for survival and instead of falling apart once she got back on shore, she’d worried. About him.
“I’m sorry.” Her voice was gentle against his skin, reverberating against his neck as intimately as the pulse of his own blood. “So sorry. I should have listened to you. I wasn’t ready. I shouldn’t have…I was…I was trying…”
“It doesn’t matter.” He kissed her again, deeply, possessively. He felt her soften against him, felt his heavy, male satisfaction at her response, and knew he shouldn’t have answered the primal call of base instincts. If he allowed this to continue, his own survival would be at risk.
“It matters. It matters a lot.”
Heart still thundering in his chest, he skimmed his hands against her face and held her still. “No, it doesn’t. What matters is that you’re okay.”
She nodded. Her grip on his shoulder loosened. She turned her glittering gaze to the shore along the highway. “Cullen…he followed us.”
“He did.” And the why would have to be addressed, but not here, not now. Need was still swimming strong between them, but his savage pulse was slowing and logic was returning. He had to get her home, keep her safe.
“He’s the one then.” She pushed away. Her eyes were fiery with warrior passion. Not for him, he realized with a sinking sensation, but for the fight. She’d picked her quarry and was ready to do battle. “He has to be. Why else would he have followed us?”
“You’re jumping to conclusions.”
Driven by her certainty, she shook her head. “We have to set a trap, corner him, force him to act.”
“We need to analyze this. We can’t go making accusations.”
She nodded, distracted. “We’ll wait until he’s out with clients and search his house.”
“Breaking and entering is against the law.”
“So is attempted murder.”
“We have no proof.”
“He followed us.”
Swearing, he raked a hand through his wet hair. “Brooke—”
She looked at him with her eyes wide, her feelings raw, open, and he was on that edge again, ready to lose himself in her sheer vitality all over again. “You could have died, Jack. You could have drowned.”
I did. In your kiss.
And I didn’t mind one bit.
“I’m an experienced kayaker. I was never in danger.” He wanted to kiss her again, to feel her melt against him. But growing up in his father’s criminal shadow, in his mother’s tearful house, in this busybody town, he’d learned to do one thing well—hide his emotions.
For all of their sakes, he would have to suppress the depth of his feelings for Brooke now. Because she might be right and their list of suspects might just have been narrowed down to one.
A bully who always picked on the weak.
And his weakness right now was his fierce feelings for Brooke. He’d also become too predictable. He always used the same kayak. A kayak he’d bought for himself and stored at the Comfort Pines boathouse for convenience. Cullen would have known that, could have loosened the patch during his sleepless night.
Whoever had tampered with his boat had done a master job—just like the rope.
In first grade he’d told Cullen that to get to Alyssa he would have to go through him. Was Cullen sending the message that he was prepared to do so?
Chapter Eleven
Ordinarily Brooke wouldn’t have gone back in the water, would have refused to go near the source of her close call with death. But after Jack had rescued both kayaks, recovered one set of paddles, then hidden his broken boat to be retrieved later, he’d set her on top of the remaining kayak and paddled them both home. With Jack’s strong arms around her, holding her balanced, a feeling of self-confidence quickened in her in a way she could not explain. She was actually a little sad when they arrived back at the resort.
When they reached the cottage, Lauren was waiting for them on the freshly repaired step.
“What took you so long?” Lauren asked, her forehead creased in an odd mixture of anger and delight. That was what Brooke liked about children—they hadn’t learned yet the strict adult codes of proper conduct and their emotions shone through their little faces like lights.
Daisy whimpered and tugged at her leash, determined to soak someone with her eager tongue.
“We had a little adventure we didn’t expect. Come on inside. Have your parents left yet?”
“Hey, how did you know they were going somewhere?”
Brooke tweaked Lauren’s nose. “Magic.”
Lauren rose and whipped her arm from behind her back, presenting Brooke with a squashed muffin in a napkin.
“For me?” Brooke said, smiling.
Lauren nodded. “I saved it.”
Brooke took the offering. “Blueberry. My favorite. How did you know?”
Lauren grinned widely. “Magic.”
Jack unlocked the door and checked the house as if he expected someone to be hiding in a closet ready to pounce. Brooke settled Lauren at the kitchen table with a glass of juice and an arts and crafts book, Daisy with a rawhide bone from a stash she’d found in a cupboard, and headed toward Alyssa’s room to change. Jack appeared next to her, but kept his distance. His muscles were tight and drawn, and she couldn’t keep the small smile of satisfaction from reaching her lips.
“Don’t leave the house without telling me,” he said.
His expression was stark, unreadable. But Brooke had the private satisfaction of knowing his secret, the validation that her instincts weren’t completely awry. With his steely control, Jack was denying the hot magma that flowed through his veins and had coursed unchecked at the falls.
In his kiss, his feelings had surfaced from great depths and poured through every touch, every possessive claim of hand and tongue, every powerful beat of his big heart. His own emotions frightened him. And that fear, that vulnerability had made her ache with tenderness for him, made her want to prove to him he had nothing to fear by loving her, by showing his feelings.
But she understood he needed to slip back into his cool detachment, to protect himself from what he didn’t quite yet understand. She would give him time. He could not have kissed her that way if he didn’t care for her. He could change. He could learn to show the enormous well of sensations residing in his heart. She knew he could. But she also realized that the change had to come from him to be permanent. Dealing with her mother had taught her that much. And Alyssa still stood between them, would stand between them until the mystery of her accident was resolved.
For now it was enough to know that she’d touched him as deeply as he’d touched her.
“I wasn’t planning on going anywhere.”
He nodded once. “I’ve got calls to make.”
“I’ll be here.” She smiled.
He frowned, spun on his heels and disappeared into his room.
IN ALYSSA’S MAKESHIFT HOME office, trying his best to forget the gut-warming glow of Brooke’s smile, Jack searched for paper.
How could Alyssa live like this? There were piles everywhere—on the desk, on the chair, on the floor, on the file cabinet, under the bed, in the closet—and none of them seemed to be constructed out of logic. Negatives were mixed with prints, receipts with order forms, books with random pieces of paper. He’d even found something that looked strangely like a high school essay. Even given her two-week absence, her wall calendar was three months behind. How did she find anything?
He’d spent hours trying to help her get organized after her father’s stroke, setting up color-coded files to ease her tasks, rearranging her desk and supplies in bins and organizers for maximum efficiency. His effort seemed to have been for nothing.
After he and Brooke had found Alyssa’s threatening note, he’d searched through her file cabinet for clues, could not make heads nor tails of her system and eventually gave up trying to find anything useful there.
He finally located a pad of paper amid a stack of empty file folders under the daybed. After clearing a space on the desk, he started two lists: one with the facts of the case so far, the other of things to do.
Interviewing friends who’d become suspects had gotten him nowhere. Inspecting the crime scene, every inch of Alyssa’s climb, time and again had yielded no new clues. The rope had been his. He’d been there, seen the accident happen. He knew the time, the place, the weapon of choice. The usual analysis of forensic evidence wasn’t going to get him anywhere. He already knew any prints would belong to one of them. He knew there had been an intent to commit murder behind the assault, had proof of it in Alyssa’s words and in the bloody note.
What he didn’t have was concrete motive.
Which led him back to his suspects. None of whom had attempted to flee. None of whom had made a mistake—so far.
What had Alyssa done? What had she seen? What had she heard?
There were no clues beyond the note, and a wish list. And a rope. His rope.
The sound of giggling came through the closed door. Jack turned to it, taking in the joyful noise. He rose, opened the door. To keep an eye on them, he told himself as he sat back down. Keeping them safe was, after all, his job.
He glanced at his lists once more and picked up the phone. His first call was to Rafe Bates at the Comfort Marina.
“What do you mean the patch popped? I fixed that sucker myself. It should have held through Armageddon.”
“That was my thought, too. I want you to have a look at it and give me your take on it.”
“When can you get here?”
“After lunch.”
“I’ll be waiting.”
Jack heard Rafe swear as he hung up. Rafe was proud of his work, treated the boats that came to his shop with more care and sensitivity than their owners. If someone could figure out what had caused the patch to pop, Rafe was the man.
Jack overheard Lauren and Brooke talking. He couldn’t make out the words, but sensed the warmth of the conversation. He glanced in their direction and found them sitting, Brooke cross-legged, Lauren on her heels, on the living room floor busily cutting up pictures from catalogs. Daisy was sprawled on her side between them, sleeping contentedly. As he listened to them, tension dissolved from between his shoulders.
His next call was to George Stern of George’s Garage, the only service station in town, to talk about Alyssa’s cut brake line.
“Was a clean cut, it was. It’s the only reason I brought it up to her. You know how careless Alyssa can be. Never seen anyone get into as many close calls as she does. That Jeep of hers looks like it’s been through hell and back and it’s only a couple of years old.” He clucked. “I always say that some people shouldn’t be allowed to have a license.”
“Back to the brake line, George. Why didn’t you tell me about it if you suspected foul play?”
“Not foul play. Not really. I mean, I woulda told you if I thought it was truly foul play. She’s a good kid, she is, and I don’t want no harm coming to her.”
“George—”
“She said she was drivin’ on some rough terrain. And between you and me and the fly on the wall, she could make even a paved road seem like an outback trail. Now, don’t you sigh at me, young man. I’m just callin’ it as I see it. She made me promise I wouldn’t tell you. Said you’d give her a lecture and she didn’t need another one when she already got one from me. So I fixed it.”
“Did you keep the tampered line?”
“Yep. Got it right here.”
“I’ll be by this afternoon to look at it.”
As he hung up, Jack realized he’d maneuvered his chair to give him a view of Brooke and Lauren in the living room. At that moment, Brooke looked up, caught him in the act of staring at her. She shot him a bright, breezy smile. His heart thudded hard once in his chest. He swiveled away and forced his attention back to his lists.
After a few tries, Jack located Lieutenant Ed O’Hara of the Fish and Game Department.
“How’s Eddie?” Jack asked, referring to Ed’s son who’d gone and lost himself up on Devil’s Back last fall. Jack had tracked the boy to a deep and narrow crevasse. Thinking he could jump over the opening with a full pack on, Eddie had landed short and ended up with a compound fracture of the leg. When Jack found him, Eddie was suffering from blood loss and hypothermia. His condition had been touch-and-go for a few days after he was rescued.
“The leg’s almost back to normal.” There was a pause. “You’re gonna ask for a favor.”
“Just checking on the tests you were going to run on the rope and carabiners from the accident at Devil’s Grin.”
“Still at the lab.”
“When do you expect a report?”
“End of July, maybe later. Depends how busy they get with priority cases.”
Jack turned the answer over in his mind. An accident like Alyssa’s wasn’t considered a number one priority. Waiting for the lab results was going to take too long. “What kind of tool might have caused the rope to fray with a good yank?”
Ed cleared his throat. “The fraying was ragged, Jack. All preliminary indications are that the break was due to natural causes.”
“You’re right, Ed.” Jack drummed the eraser of his pencil against the pad of paper listing the logic of his thoughts, of the facts. “I’m going to ask a favor.”
“Has new evidence cropped up that you haven’t told me about?” Ed asked tentatively.
Asking would complicate his task, make more work for him. Paperwork was a bitch no matter what the profession. But more than speed and a lightened workload, Ed valued truth. Jack was counting on Ed’s high moral principles.
“Alyssa Snowden received a note threatening to break her bones a few days before the accident. I’m sending it down to Concord for testing, but I’m not holding my breath for prints.”
Through the silence, Jack heard the muted sounds of Ed’s office. Though he wanted to rush Ed’s answer, experience had shown him the best way to get a yes out of Ed was to let him come to it in his own time.
“All right,” Ed said on a long exhale. “I’ll see what I can do.”
“Thanks, Ed. I really appreciate it.”
“Can’t make any promises, but one of the techs owes me a favor.”
After he hung up, Jack checked Ed off his list and reached for the Manchester phone book to look up Gary Dunning, the computer nerd Alyssa had wanted to consult about Trish.
