Cornered in Conard County Page 7

  “Mommy says I can’t have a dog that bites.”

  Cadell looked at Dan. Dan half shrugged, then said, “I don’t think she meant a dog that wouldn’t bite a bad man. Does that worry you, Krys?”

  “Not if it’s only bad men.” Her face grew serious. “There are bad men. One killed my daddy. I wish he had a dog.”

  Three adults exchanged looks, but as soon as the cloud appeared, it blew away, and Krys asked, “Can I play with him, too?”

  “Of course you can,” Dan said. He looked at Dory and Cadell. Dory smiled and waved toward the back door. “You guys take him out. I need to finish up something.”

  * * *

  BUT INSTEAD OF returning to her computers, Dory wound up standing at the back window of her bedroom, watching the two men and the little girl play with Flash.

  God, Krys tugged at her heart. Another child’s life forever scarred by someone murderous. She could easily imagine some of what that little girl was living with.

  The window was open a few inches to let the summery breeze in, and she heard some of the conversation.

  “Flash won’t let you tell him what to do,” Cadell was explaining. “He only listens to me and Dory. So your dog would only listen to you and your parents, okay? That’s part of what makes a police dog different.”

  So Cadell was going to give that little girl a version of Flash. Dory wondered if the child was haunted by nightmares, or by fears she didn’t know how to express.

  None of her business, she told herself. Not a thing she could do about it. Returning to her office, she buried her head in her work. Work was her salvation. Creating artificial worlds made her happy.

  Little enough else did.

  * * *

  A HALF HOUR LATER, she heard Krys’s piping voice go out the front door and assumed she was once again alone. She wished she knew how to reach out better, especially to that little girl. Everything inside her seemed to freeze up, though, leaving her basically useless. God, it would be easy to hate herself.

  She heard Flash trotting toward her, and soon his head rested on her thigh. She reached out automatically to scratch his neck while she watched her latest animation unfold on her screen.

  Water was rushing into the ground floor of a building, sweeping furniture and other debris before it. As she watched, she was keeping an eye out for ways to improve it.

  “That’s cool,” said a voice behind her.

  She nearly jumped out of her skin. Whirling around, she saw Cadell standing in the doorway of her office. Her heart had nearly climbed into her throat, making it impossible for her to speak.

  “Very cool,” he repeated. “Did you make that?”

  She gave a stiff nod.

  “I’m impressed. Sorry I startled you—I thought you heard me heading this way. I wanted to thank you for letting Dan and Krys see Flash.”

  “No problem,” she mumbled, waiting for her heartbeat to slow. “Krys can come again, if she wants.”

  “That’s generous of you. I could tell you were uneasy about it. And the way you looked at Krys... At least she didn’t see anything, Dory. She was at home in bed when her father was killed.”

  “Does it matter?” she asked stiffly.

  “Sorry?”

  It was as if a wrench turned inside her, loosening a huge bolt. Before she knew what she was going to do, she started talking.

  “There was this little girl,” she said, looking down at her lap. Flash had settled at her feet. “She was just seven years old. She thought her big brother was the best person in the whole world. She worshipped him.”

  Glancing up, she saw Cadell nodding, his expression utterly grave.

  “Her big brother used to play games with her,” she continued. “Read her stories. Carry her around on his shoulders. He made her laugh a lot. Their parents were strict, but he made it seem not so bad. Sometimes he said he’d done something when the little girl had really done it so she didn’t get punished. And when the little girl couldn’t sleep at night because of the fighting, he sometimes came into her room in the dark and told her stories. Safe stories. Stories without people arguing.”

  “I’m listening,” Cadell said quietly.

  “Their parents didn’t fight a lot. It wasn’t often. But then they started fighting with her big brother, and the little girl was bothered. She knew her big brother was staying out too late, and that her parents thought he was doing things he shouldn’t, but she thought her big brother was a good guy.”

  She drew a shaky breath. “She loved her big brother. Until one night. The fighting was loud, bad, scary. They were fighting with her brother. She knew she wasn’t supposed to go downstairs, but she was worried about him. So she crept down the stairs and...” Her voice broke. She panted the last words, struggling for the breath to get them out. “She discovered her brother had turned into a monster.”

  * * *

  CADELL DIDN’T MOVE for long moments. His chest felt as if steel bands had wrapped around it and were tightening with every breath. For the first time in his life, he absolutely did not know what to do.

  Touching her, even to offer comfort, might send her into flight. This was the woman who wanted to be a hermit. Part of him was amazed that she’d told him her story in such an intimate way. Another part of him was alarmed that she was so vulnerable now—a wrong word or movement could lock her down forever.

  Something about Krys had drawn this out of Dory, because he was sure he’d done nothing to make it possible for her to drop her guard this way. To open up. Hesitantly, he finally said, “What about Krys?”

  At that she seemed to snap into focus and looked at him. Whatever emotions had been rising out of her depths suddenly backed off—swallowed, he thought, by her cultured distance. “Krys? So what if she didn’t see anything bad? She went to bed one night and woke up in the morning to learn that her dad was never coming home again. That’s hard to deal with.”

  “I’m sure.” He took a tentative step toward her, wishing the tension would leave her face. “So you think the dog will help her?”

  “Flash helps me.”

  Well, that sure as hell made him feel good. Finally he reached her and squatted right in front of her chair. The news he’d learned that morning was going to have to wait.

  “Can you get away?” he asked.

  “Get away?”

  “Out of here for a while. For a drive, a walk, whatever.”

  Perplexity awoke on her face, dispelling some of the tension. “You’re in uniform. Don’t you have to work?”

  “I need to stop by the ranger station for a few minutes. They want some K-9s, too, but it won’t take long to sort out. You might enjoy meeting Desi Jenks. She’s a pistol. Anyway, can you take some time?”

  He watched her hesitate, turning her head to the loop of flooding waters that was repeating on her monitor, almost like she wanted to dive into it. Then he watched a shudder pass through her, as if she were releasing tension. “Okay,” she said finally. “I guess I do need to get out for a little while. It’d do me some good. Give me a minute to let my team know I’ll be back later.”

  “What?” he said lightly. “You mean you don’t carry them with you on a cell phone?”

  At that her demeanor changed entirely, and she smiled faintly. “I’ve noticed there are a few dead zones around this town.”

  “We all have that problem. It’s getting better but not perfect.” He straightened and turned toward her door. “I’ll be out front, but I need to get to Desi over her lunch hour.” He glanced at his watch. “Which is very soon.”

  “Okay,” she said briskly, once again all business. She turned to her computer, and he watched words popping up on one of the screens not displaying the flood or grids of some kind. “How long should we be?”

  “Not long for Desi,
probably, but if you want to see a little of the area, give us a couple of hours.”

  “Okay.” She tapped away, chuckled quietly and then faced him again. “Let me get my shoes. Is Flash coming?”

  “I hope you don’t consider going anywhere without Flash.”

  “The supermarket might object,” she said lightly.

  “Then I’ll get him a vest. Get your shoes.”

  * * *

  DORY FELT ODD, and she acknowledged it as she went to get her jogging shoes. First that unexpected dump about what had happened to her as a child. She wasn’t sure what had brought that on, but she had a feeling it very much had to do with Krys. Identification. A need to make it clear to at least one person that losing a parent left wounds behind, no matter whether you saw any part of it.

  But she’d never told her story quite that way to anyone. She also hadn’t finished it. She wondered if she should. She gave Cadell marks for not reacting as if there was anything he could do. Her experience was in the past, beyond changing, beyond reaching. Long ago she’d grown tired of those who upon hearing about her past wanted to make it better with a hug or trite phrases. She understood everyone had meant well, but it had all been useless. Her soul had been twisted and hammered into a different shape by what she had seen, and nothing was ever going to wrench it back into shape.

  At last she left the house, locking it up behind her although she’d once asked Betty why she never locked her house.

  Betty had laughed. “Around here? Nobody does.”

  But not everyone had the kind of expensive computer equipment Dory used. Hers might look just slightly larger than usual towers, but she had several four-thousand-dollar graphics cards in there, not to mention all the add-ons. If she had to replace much of that stuff—never mind her work—she could easily spend twenty thousand dollars or more. So she locked the door and kept the curtains closed all the time to conceal what was inside. Betty might say theft was rare around here, but why hang the temptation out for all to see?

  She and Flash climbed into the car with Cadell. Dasher was in the backseat and woofed a greeting. Flash answered.

  Dory felt relieved when her sense of humor began to awaken. “They’re like best buddies.”

  “They’ll probably have a great conversation with their noses back there. By the time we get to the station, they’ll know all about what each has been doing since their last meeting.”

  Dory smiled, thinking it was very likely possible. “So we’re going to meet a ranger?”

  “Well, not a ranger, per se. She’s the local senior game warden, otherwise known as a redshirt.”

  “Why redshirt? Or is that obvious?”

  He laughed. “Obvious. They all wear red shirts. Mostly with jeans, boots and cowboy hats, although ball caps are creeping in. Very laid-back approach to uniforms.”

  She thought it would seem that way to him. His khakis were pressed and even had military creases in the shirt. “Well, with shirts that distinctive, they probably don’t have to worry about the rest.”

  “Nope. They’re pretty readily identified.”

  “I’ve never met a game warden before.”

  “You’ll like Desi. No nonsense and damn good at what she does. She broke up a ring of unlicensed outfitters last fall. Pretty risky business. But then, her job has its own set of risks. I’m not the one heading out into the woods during hunting season when everyone is armed.”

  That drew a laugh from her. It felt good to be out, she realized. Sunshine, warm air blowing through the window. She spent too much time in her cave. Seasons could go by almost unnoticed. She averted her head, looking out the window at the small houses they passed, then the open areas. The drive to the station wasn’t long, but long enough for her to start wondering if she was in love with her work or if she was hiding in it.

  The question made her uncomfortable, and she shoved it aside. George was out of prison. Soul-searching was going to have to wait until she was sure he wanted nothing to do with her.

  No reason he should. The words had become almost a mantra inside her head: No reason George should want to find her.

  Now all she needed to do was believe it.

  * * *

  GEORGE FOUND HIS sister in remarkably short order. Yeah, it took a few days, but she was a presence on the web because of her design work, no matter how hard she tried to hide behind her initials. Besides, he’d found out about her job years ago.

  As for the money he needed...well, that was easy enough to pick up. No rotten job necessary. He’d sweet-talked a woman in her fifties, giving her a sob story that made her invite him to stay with her. It wasn’t long before she’d given him all the money he needed, and he was quite sure she’d be too ashamed to tell the cops what had happened.

  So he was able to vanish from the halfway house. He told them he’d found a job in another town. None of their concern, since he was a free man and the halfway house was only supposed to be temporary.

  He hung around for another week, treating the woman like a queen, feeling sickened every time he made her titter like a girl. At her age. Really.

  After that he left for a “job interview” and never went back. Even if she decided to call the cops, she didn’t know his real name, she’d never taken a photo of him and he’d been very careful about what he touched...except her. Wiping up after himself had been nearly automatic.

  Then he discovered he hadn’t found Dory at all. Her old address had been abandoned a few weeks ago, and her neighbors hardly knew her. No one could say where she’d gone. From the looks on most of the faces of the people he talked to, he gathered they hardly cared about her disappearance and that they really didn’t have any idea where she was now.

  He cussed and spent some time at the local library using their computers. She had to have left a trail of some kind. She was still working. The only thing was, he’d learned from hard experience that her company didn’t release detailed information about the whereabouts of the people who worked for it. The most they gave on their lead designers was a geographic region. Over the phone it became apparent they didn’t answer questions about one of their team and they’d never met her. They thought she was a guy.

  That amused him a bit. So she was living a pretense. Gutless.

  Sighing, needing to put more miles between him and the woman he’d just conned—he couldn’t be positive she’d be too embarrassed to report him—he left the library and headed down the road.

  He’d find her. He knew enough about her from keeping tabs over the years to know her head would poke up eventually. Once she reappeared in one of the chat rooms she had used in the past, he’d be able to find her. Amazing how many details those social sites kept on people even after a decade or more.

  When he was in prison, he’d watched plenty of his fellow inmates go to those same rooms because they wanted company. Mostly they wanted some girl to get sweet on them.

  He’d avoided all of that. Leaving online traces could be a big mistake. Anyway, as long as he kept moving now and created different email addresses or log-ins at each new location, nobody would be able to track him.

  But Dory... Dory might be smart about some things, but she probably thought she was safe behind the wall of her company and her alias. No reason for her to imagine, either, that George could find her online. After all, he’d been in prison, and she probably had absolutely no idea just how much you could learn about computers and the internet in prison.

  He savored the fact that she probably thought she was perfectly safe where she was now.

  She was in for a shock.

  * * *

  DORY FORGOT HER fears for a little while as she met Desi Jenks, a lovely woman with a nimbus of dark curls and a very strong personality. She was clearly in charge, at least as involved her job, and both crisp and clear about what she hoped for in
a couple of dogs from Cadell.

  “Basically police dogs,” she told him. “We’ll probably be using them mostly for search and rescue, but I also need them to be able to find shells and bullets so we can triangulate a scene, sniff for drugs...” She paused and laughed. “You know all of this, don’t you, Cadell? What I want isn’t so very different from the dogs you train for the sheriff.”

  “Not really, no,” he answered with a smile. “You might make a few additional demands. We’ll have to see as we work through it. Will you have vests for them?”

  “Orange,” she answered properly. “Already on their way.”

  “At night, hook some glow sticks to them, okay?”

  She nodded. “I don’t want them mistaken for game, either. You can count on it.”

  “How many are you thinking?”

  “Two for now. Any more and I’ll bust my budget.”

  Cadell’s eyes crinkled at the corners. “We’ll see what we can do about that.”

  Then Desi turned to Dory, who was standing silently to the side. “So you’re a graphics designer? What kind, exactly?”

  “I make animations for films and ads.”

  Desi’s eyes widened. “You mean like that stuff I see in the movies?”

  “Some of it. The bigger animation studios do the work on the major films, but we get some thrown our way, and we work on independent productions.”

  “If I ever find time to get away from here, would you show me something?”

  Dory hesitated almost imperceptibly. “Sure.”

  “Not that I have much free time,” Desi said drily. “Kell and I are still trying to find time to get married and fit in a honeymoon.”

  “Elope,” Cadell suggested. “Call in sick and run away.”

  Desi laughed loudly. “Sure. As it is we hardly see each other.”

  Such normal concerns, Dory thought, watching the two of them laugh and chat easily. Maybe hiding in her work all the time was depriving her of something.

  But to be that relaxed with other people...it would require more trust than she seemed capable of giving. No, she was better off staying within the world she had created for herself. Just because Betty had turned out to be special didn’t mean anyone else would.