Undercover in Conard County Page 8

  He shook his head. “In some ways I’m very trusting. You can’t get through combat without trusting the guy beside you. You don’t even have to know him, but you trust him with your life.”

  Again an uneasy flip of her stomach. This was getting to her and she didn’t want it to. She hardly knew him and this wasn’t a therapy session, but she felt as if he were picking at scabs inside her.

  “Anyway,” he said, “you’re right, it doesn’t matter. Not my business, casual question, forget it.”

  But no question was casual when it rattled her all the way to her bones. Without a word, she went to her bedroom and closed the door.

  What the hell was going on with her? Usually she was calmer than this, job oriented, letting little else disturb her.

  So why was she suddenly shaking? Why did the betrayal and rape suddenly feel like yesterday? All this time she’d successfully buried it, but now it was rising up like some monster from the depths. Shaking from head to foot like an aspen leaf in the wind, she crawled onto her bed and curled into a tight ball, as if she could hold it all in.

  But now that it had surfaced, it wouldn’t go away. Memories flickered through her mind, limned brightly with terror and anger and disbelief. It had happened. But while it was happening, she’d been filled with disbelief. Only afterward did the horror hit her, the fear, the anger.

  Joe, laughing at her protests, pulling at her clothes. Batting his hands away, trying to squirm away, only to find herself pinned by his much greater strength and weight. Begging. Oh, God, she had begged him to stop. She hated that craven begging, but it was all that was left to her when she couldn’t get away.

  Joe telling her she was enjoying it when every cell in her body was drenched with fear, desolation, violation. Feeling helpless. So helpless.

  Then, when he’d left her on the bed, rising and dressing, saying he’d see her the next day... She had been frozen in a block of ice until that very moment.

  Then the fury hit. Galvanized her. She jumped from the bed and the jackass had stood there smiling, enjoying her nakedness, apparently expecting a goodbye kiss. What he had gotten was a savage goodbye knee in the groin.

  Then she had grabbed her clothes from the floor and fled naked into the night. Never, not once, had she told anyone about it. Shame smothered her voice.

  After all, she must have done something to invite it, right?

  Except years later she knew she hadn’t asked for it. She’d been trying to stop it from the instant it started.

  Now she understood. So why did the sense of shame remain? The distrust she could understand, but the shame?

  She turned her head, biting the corner of her pillow, seeking some control. She didn’t want to start crying. She hadn’t cried about it since back then. She’d moved past it, built a good life, and Joe was consigned to hell in her mind.

  Except...except maybe it wasn’t as much in the past as she told herself.

  The night remained quiet. The phone didn’t ring. But it was a long time before she found sleep.

  Chapter 5

  Kel had never done this kind of job before. He got the basics, but he wasn’t experienced in having to create a whole persona for a job.

  Which was probably why he seemed to have made some serious mistake with Desi. Over the next few days, she barely talked to him, simply walked out every morning before dawn, and some nights didn’t return until well after dark.

  He considered moving back to the motel, since he was obviously making her uncomfortable, but he couldn’t do that now, and it was all his own damn fault. Deciding to accept her invitation to use the bunkhouse had been a mistake. Of course, it would have been a mistake to stay at the motel once he was identified as an old friend of hers. Everybody must know about the bunkhouse and would probably wonder even more if he’d stayed at the motel.

  This situation was far worse. This was where she lived, yet she was doing everything possible to avoid him.

  When she came in at night, she nodded, grabbed some coffee and food and took it back to her room. From the sounds he guessed she had a radio or TV in there. So he sat out front, wondering what he could do to patch this up a bit.

  And every day he went into town, wandering around, engaging in conversations. Just making himself visible. Soon two other investigators would arrive to play the role of his clients, but until then, he had to hope that word would get back to the illegal outfitting ring.

  Maybe the word would move faster once he had some “clients.”

  He really needed to be thinking about what he was doing rather than fussing over a woman he hardly knew. But fact was, Desi had touched him at a deep level. He gave a damn, for some reason known only to the gods. He sure couldn’t figure it out. Yeah, she was attractive, but the world was full of attractive women of every shape and size. So why was she occupying such a large portion of his thoughts?

  Because, he realized suddenly, he felt guilty. Felt absolutely sure that he was responsible for whatever was troubling her. Seemed crazy, considering they were virtual strangers, but he had to have done something, and he felt guilty about it.

  Maybe when he saw her tonight he’d tell her he’d stick to the bunkhouse room so she could have her apartment back. Small enough thing and wouldn’t raise the eyebrows that moving back to the motel would.

  Yeah, that was what he needed to do. Keep clear unless he needed her for something work related. Hell, that was the only reason he’d introduced himself to her to begin with.

  Okay then. Feeling a little more settled, he went to the diner and fell into a surprisingly fruitful conversation. Excitement pinged him.

  And he felt an urgent need to share the tidbit with Desi.

  So much for avoiding her.

  * * *

  Desi finished some paperwork in her office. A guy had shot two deer instead of one, and she and Jos had had to work out bullet trajectories to be sure it had been accidental as he claimed.

  Six hours later, they were sure it hadn’t been accidental. From the blood on the ground, from the discovery of a second bullet casing, to the fact that this magic bullet had passed cleanly through two deer... Nope. Even if it had passed through the first, it should have lodged in the second.

  So now the carcasses waited in the freezer for necropsy and she had to record everything she and Jos had found in painstaking detail. If the forensic pathologist found something to uphold the man’s claims, it would be over. If not...well, it would be far from over.

  In the meantime, she’d relieved the man of his gun and had it in the evidence locker. If he was cleared, he’d get it back along with the meat of one deer, since he had a license. She didn’t think he was going to get either one.

  She also couldn’t figure out why he’d reported it to Game and Fish. Had he regretted it once he’d done it? Did he fear someone would report it if he brought home two deer? Was he just trying to get ahead of the problem? Or had someone seen what he did?

  She’d probably never know. He hadn’t been very talkative. Once he declared it was an accident, his cooperation had stopped. Inexplicably. He had to have known he couldn’t legally keep both deer, accident or not. So why shoot the second, unless he thought no one would ever know? Then his call to her office?

  She rubbed her chin, thinking, and it occurred to her that he might not have been hunting alone. Maybe he was covering for someone else. Well, the bullets they’d managed to find with the metal detector would determine if both had been fired by his gun, or if another weapon had been involved.

  Sighing, she turned off the computer, turned off the lights and went upstairs. Light gleamed from the window beside the door, so she guessed Kel was there.

  Feeling uncomfortable, she kept climbing. Even she knew she had been rude to him, and without giving him a reason for her behavior. By now he must think she was
weird.

  Sadly, she didn’t think he’d be wrong.

  Her feet growing heavier with reluctance, she opened the door. Kel wasn’t sitting on the couch, but instead standing, as if he were waiting for her. On the counter there were takeout containers.

  “I’ve got news,” he said. “If you’re interested.”

  Her heart quickened as she closed the door behind her. “Good news?”

  “I think so. I was at the diner today when a man asked me about my outfitting business. Said he had a friend who was interested.”

  She waited, then said, “It’s possible.”

  “Yeah, but he didn’t stop there. He said he knew some other outfitters, but his friend wanted someone cheaper.”

  “And you said?”

  “That I could work something out, but first I had two clients coming in a couple of weeks I had to take care of first.”

  She nodded. “Then?”

  “He said he’d get back with me. I asked for his friend’s phone number, but he didn’t give it up. Someone’s nosing around, and after he left a nearby patron at the diner remarked the guy wasn’t from around here.”

  “That is interesting,” she admitted.

  “Brought you dinner again,” he said waving at the counter. “Something a little different. Anyway, it’s not much, but it may indicate we’re getting the action we wanted.”

  She nodded and tossed her insulated vest over the back of the couch. “Thanks for dinner. So you might have someone nibbling around your hook?”

  “I hope so. So much investigation, thought and planning went into this over the last nine months that I’d hate for it to go bust. We’ve gotta catch these guys.”

  “Yeah, we do.” With effort, she summoned a smile. He was trying to be nice, trying to include her, and she didn’t have to be abrupt with him. He was keeping his distance and wasn’t pushing himself on her in any way. Evidently her signals were clear.

  The realization didn’t really make her happy with herself. Kel was a nice man, as near as she could tell, and he really didn’t deserve the cold shoulder she was giving him. They were colleagues, so maybe she ought to just get over herself.

  She grabbed herself a coffee and one of the takeout containers and sat on the couch, using the coffee table. The counter and the coffee table were her only choices for eating. No room for even a small table.

  He had brought BLTs tonight, Maude’s triple-layer sandwich that except for the lack of turkey would have made a great club sandwich. “I love these,” she said. “Thanks.”

  “You already thanked me.”

  She glanced up, wondering why he’d felt the need to say that. “Something wrong?” she asked.

  “You,” he answered bluntly. “I don’t know what I did to make you upset with me. Maybe it’s none of my business. Or maybe you just do this to everyone. Maybe I’m crazy, but you seemed friendlier at first. Anyway, your business. I can live with the ice. What did you do today?”

  Her appetite vanished instantly. She put her sandwich wedge back into the container and didn’t know whether to look at the wall or at him. She was still feeling raw, still trying to bury her memories of Joe, and talking about it would only open it all up again. And all because he’d had to sketch a cover story about what he was doing here.

  Was that really lying? she asked herself. It had been necessary; he had a role to play, bad guys to catch. Maybe she’d overreacted. But why? Because she found him attractive, attractive enough that she’d warned him not to snow her?

  He must be really wondering by now how well screwed together she was, and an honest check of herself suggested he had every right to wonder. Odd behavior with no explanation.

  He was probably even wondering if they’d be able to work together, the way she was treating him. He’d said he’d learned to trust the guy beside him, even if he was a stranger. The situation right now couldn’t be much different for him. He had trusted her, had told her what was going on. Then she became distant.

  Sheesh. But how to get past this? How much to reveal?

  “I told you. A guy lied to me once,” she heard herself say through stiff lips. “Sweet lies. I believed him until he raped me.”

  He swore quietly, as if it bothered him as much as the first hearing. The room, small as it was, suddenly felt very large and very empty, as if she were standing on some cold mountaintop all by herself, removed from everything and everyone. She closed her eyes, feeling an icy emotional wind blow through her, surrounding the gaping hole Joe had left in her.

  “I haven’t lied to you...” His voice trailed off. “The cover story I gave that deputy when she was here. Is that it?”

  Without opening her eyes, she managed a jerky, stiff nod.

  “Oh, man.” He paused. “Desi, that was different. It was my cover story. Have I lied to you?”

  “How would I know?” The words came out muffled, her lips remained stiff.

  He swore again, this time not so quietly. “I guess you can’t know. But this is a working relationship. You don’t have anything to fear from me. We’re going to catch a gang of poachers. That’s all. You don’t have to trust me beyond that.”

  Somehow that hurt, too, but she didn’t know why. A professional relationship was exactly what she wanted, wasn’t it? God, how had she turned into such a mess? She’d buried the past, moved forward, become competent at her work, had a few friends both in and out of the department. In short, she’d had a life she was content with until this man had shown up.

  He was offering to keep things just where they’d been when he arrived. That shouldn’t hurt at all. It should reassure her.

  So why this crazed, mixed-up reaction? She was usually fairly good at separating herself from irrelevant matters. Focusing on the relevant. His cover story had been necessary and she knew it, so why couldn’t she distinguish it from the real lies that had once wounded her?

  Eventually she opened her eyes. He wasn’t eating either. He held coffee in his hands and had his head tipped back looking up at the ceiling. Probably wondering what he could do about any of this.

  He really didn’t deserve this reaction from her. Not one bit. She’d been thrilled to know he was working on the poaching, had known that he was undercover, and had invited him to stay here as part of a frankly-stated cover story.

  “I’m sorry,” she said in a smothered voice. “I can’t explain... My reaction was out of line...”

  “Stop,” he said, a clear command even though his voice remained low. “No apologies. I get it.” He lifted his head and stared straight at her. “What I want to know is can we get around this enough to work together?”

  She reached deep inside, searching for the woman she had been before this temporary breakdown. “Yes.”

  “Then we’ll be fine. As for the rest...I understand post-traumatic stress. I told you what broke up my marriage. You’re not responsible for the triggers. I’m just sorry you have to live with it.”

  “I haven’t done this before. At least in a very, very long time.”

  “Maybe not. And maybe you haven’t had some guy practically living with you before, a man you barely know. Whatever. My cover story apparently took the lid off the pressure cooker, and for that I’m truly sorry.”

  “If I’m not responsible for the triggers, then how could you be?”

  At that, one corner of his mouth lifted. “Fair enough. I promise you I will never lie to you about anything except this damn cover, okay? If you think I’m lying tell me. I’m not a liar by nature. And when it comes to women, I usually give more truth than they really want.”

  For some reason that surprised a weak laugh from her.

  He spread one arm. “I’m no Casanova. What you see is what you get. One great big rolling stone who never wanted to settle down after the first marriage went south b
ecause of my own PTSD. Safer to avoid entanglements when you can’t trust yourself.”

  She hadn’t thought of it that way before. But in part, wasn’t that what she’d been doing since Joe? Not being able to trust men, that was what she’d always thought. But how about being able to trust herself? This wasn’t looking good for her.

  “Just go with the flow, Desi,” he said after a while. “If I trigger you again, do me a favor and let me know right away, okay? Now I know how much lies bother you, but there may be other things.”

  She nodded slowly, facing the possibility. She might have chosen her career in part because she could avoid the kinds of relationships that might be a problem. Focus on the job, on catching miscreants, on dealing with men safely from behind a badge. Funny she’d never thought of that before.

  But whyever she had chosen this career, she loved it. Of that she had no doubt. Every morning when she put on that red shirt, she felt as if she were involved in a nearly sacred mission: protecting the wildlife and the ecology. Then her thoughts turned back to Kel.

  “What triggers you?” she asked.

  “Very crowded places. Narrow streets. Short sight lines. I’ve gotten over the loud noises problem, and for a while there I couldn’t drive without feeling every other vehicle on the road was a potential bomb. That’s gone, too. The triggers have lessened with time, which I guess makes me luckier than many. But you know...” He fell silent.

  Eventually she prompted him. “Know what?”

  “You have no idea just how nervous I can get in the mountains. Which means I picked a very strange career.”

  She began to feel some strong sympathy for him. “That’s not getting easier?”

  “Yeah, actually it is. Like I told you, I spent all summer hiking around up there. A little desensitization while I worked. It helped, but didn’t entirely wash away the nerves.”

  He was trying to make her feel comfortable with her own craziness, she realized. Exceptional, considering how much he had to reveal about himself. He probably wasn’t any more comfortable with talking about these things than she was.