Love Inspired Suspense July 2015 #1 (29 page)

Cole cringed at the memory of the “yeah” he'd choked out in response to Dad's “good to see you.” He'd managed to avoid getting into anything deeper by saying, “I have photos Eddie needs to look at, and he's refusing to open the door.”

To Cole's surprise, Dad had unlocked the door, snapped off the TV and ordered Eddie to look at the photos. Even more surprising had been his “Your brother was doing his job turning in your phone, and you should be helping him find this jerk any way you can.”

With that Dad had left. But five minutes later, he'd come back and handed Cole a mug of coffee and asked if Eddie had recognized anyone.

Cole had accepted the coffee, feeling like a traitor to Mom. But at least he'd stopped short of engaging in small talk by rushing out the second Eddie had exhausted the stack of photos.

Sherri continued flipping through photos, pausing only momentarily on each until she reached the middle of the stack. “I ticked off this guy one time a couple of months back.” She turned the picture of a lanky firefighter Cole's way. “He was first on the scene, and I criticized him in front of his captain for unnecessarily moving a patient with possible spine injuries.”

Cole took the picture and looked at the name on the back.
Ned Blum
. “Okay, we'll check on his connection with Bev and see what we can dig up on him.”

“Shouldn't we show the picture to your brother again?”

“He's at school by now. Besides, he said the drug guy had a goatee and beer belly.”

“It could've been a disguise.”

“Yeah, but unfortunately Eddie probably wasn't in great mental condition to recognize that. I'll try to get a voice recording for him to listen to.”

Sherri let out a sigh. “That would be easy enough to disguise, too.”

His heart pinched at the resignation in her voice, the dark circles under her eyes. “I could be off base with my theory that the guy manipulating Eddie was behind the attacks on you. His raid on your ambulance might not be connected to the other incidents.”

“Then his appearance at the drug house the next night seems like a pretty big coincidence, don't you think?”

Yeah, never mind finding Eddie's phone in the woods at the site of the dog attack. He'd hesitated to mention that, afraid it would be the tipping point between her trusting him and not. He rammed his truck into Reverse and backed out of her driveway. “Let's ask your cousin Jake what he can tell us about Ned. He should know if he's the kind of guy who'd carry a grudge.”

When they reached the fire station, Jake was outside polishing the fire engine, and Sherri jumped out of the truck before Cole could stop her.

Hopefully anyone noticing her arrival would think she was just paying her cousin a visit, not asking about suspects. Thankfully the rest of the crew appeared to be working inside the bay. Cole reached Sherri's side as Jake said, “No, Ned's pretty laid-back.” He glanced at Cole and nodded. “We ribbed him about it, but he seemed more interested in scoring a date than getting even.”

The hair on the back of Cole's neck prickled at that news. “Did he ask you out?” If Sherri had rebuffed him after dressing him down, that could've provoked him.

Sherri looked stunned. “No. He's never talked to me.”

Jake chuckled. “I'm not surprised. You don't exactly put out welcoming vibes where guys are concerned, if you know what I mean.”

Sherri rolled her eyes as if she'd heard it all before, but that only worried Cole more. She could've rejected some screw-loose guy without even realizing it, and unrequited love was high on the list of triggers for stalkers.

Jake flicked a spray of water in Cole's face, pulling his attention away from the guys he'd been eyeballing in the bay. “Ned isn't behind the attacks, at least not the recent ones.”

Cole narrowed his eyes at Jake. “How do you know?”

“He flew to Virginia last week. His father died. He's not due back for three more days. Have you considered unsatisfied customers? Sherri's bedside manner isn't the sweetest.”

Sherri jabbed his arm.

Jake balked. “See what I mean!”

“Yeah.” Cole laughed. “We're reviewing that
massive
list of names today.”

Sherri planted her hands on her hips with an unamused huff. “While you two do the male bonding thing at my expense, I'm going next door to grab a coffee.”

“Good idea. I'll grab the list and we can go over it there.”

As Cole reached inside his truck and pulled out his laptop bag, Jake lowered his voice and leaned in close. “I asked my dad to keep an eye on Luke's father. Check out who might be doing him any favors. But from the intel he's been able to gather, he says it doesn't look like Atkins is behind the attacks.”

Cole nodded his thanks. Jake's father was the retired sheriff, and what he'd been able to learn unofficially in twenty-four hours was probably more than Cole could've learned in a week, with nothing but a hunch and a grieving father's misplaced blame to justify a warrant for phone and banking records. And without any concept of Bev Lucey's motivation, Cole wasn't likely to convince a judge to sign a warrant for her phone records simply because she happened to be on dispatch at the time of every incident involving Sherri.

Cole hurried across the parking lot to the coffee shop and spotted Sherri through the front window sitting at a booth. A good-looking guy stood beside her table, smiling down at her and nodding in response to something she said. By the time Cole stepped inside, the guy had slipped into the seat across from her and had her laughing. The sweet sound made Cole smile, and he couldn't help wishing he'd been the one to draw it out.

Her gaze lifted and connected with his. “Here he is now.”

The guy shifted in his seat. “Morning, deputy.” He touched the brim of his baseball cap.

“Morning.” Cole wasn't wearing his uniform, which meant Sherri must've filled this guy in on why Cole was meeting her here. That surprised him, considering she'd been reluctant to even accept that she'd been a target. Was it to avoid a misunderstanding that they might be a couple? Was she attracted to this guy?

He stood, scooping up a takeout tray of coffees, and touched Sherri's arm that rested on the table. “Good talking to you. You take care.”

Oh, yeah. This guy was into her. Cole's stomach knotted. He nodded to him as he left and then commandeered the seat he'd vacated. “Who was that guy?”

“Joe Martello. He's stopping by the ambulance base to visit the guys.”

“Why?”

“They're old friends.” She pushed a second mug of coffee across the table toward him. “Why are you all worked up? Did Jake say something more about Ned after I left?”

“No, I'm worked up because—” Cole glanced at the nearby patrons and lowered his voice “—you told me you didn't have any wannabe boyfriends. Care to change that status report?”

She laughed, but it didn't sound nearly as sweet as her one for Joe. “Trust me. He is not a wannabe boyfriend.”

“He's never asked you out?”

She glanced out the window at his departing back—a jock's back in designer clothes—and a smile played on her lips. “I suppose he did, once.”

The amusement in her voice riled him beyond reason. “And you're telling me that fact didn't cross your mind when we were tabulating potential suspects?”

She blinked. “No, it didn't.”

He reined in his rising voice. “I'm sorry. It's just...” Cole clamped his mouth shut. Was it jealousy that made him cringe at the fleeting touch Joe had given her before leaving?

Sherri shook her head, amusement dancing in her eyes as if she knew it. “It was over two years ago and only weeks after he got out of rehab. I'm sure he never really expected me to say yes. I politely declined and that was the end of it.”

Cole squinted at her. “What do you mean he never expected you to say yes? Guys don't ask women out if they know they're going to get shot down.”

She bobbed her head as if not quite ready to agree. “I hadn't exactly been his favorite person, but maybe rehab had made him see that I should've been.”

“What's that supposed to mean?”

Sherri sipped her coffee, her gaze shuttered.

“Sherri?”

Blowing out a heavy sigh, she set down her coffee. “He was my first partner. His wife left him and he started drinking heavily, maybe even taking drugs. It started to affect his work. The day his wife remarried, he showed up drunk to work. I reported him to our boss. He was fired soon after.”

Cole gaped at her. “And you didn't tell me this, why?” He couldn't keep the irritation out of his voice, but he managed to haul it down a dozen decibels before continuing. “I can't think of a better motive than that for wanting to terrorize you.”

Sherri paled. “But...” She glanced out the window then at her trembling hands. She jerked them beneath the table. “But that was three years ago. He's better now. He's sober. Has a great job, if his new SUV and designer clothes are anything to go by. And he looks fitter than I've ever seen him. I don't run into him often, but when I have he's always been friendly. I doubt he'd ever say so, but my reporting him was probably the best thing that ever happened to him.”

Cole downed a gulp of the black coffee to give himself a chance to rein in the are-you-really-that-naive lecture burning his lips. “As true as that might be, no guy appreciates being fired, however good the end result. And absolutely no guy enjoys putting himself out there to be shot down. You burned him twice. He's worth looking into.”

Sherri visibly squirmed. “If he was that mad don't you think he would've taken revenge years ago?”

Cole clenched his jaw, thinking about how many years he'd stewed over what Dad had done to Mom. It'd only made the anger intensify, not lessen, especially as each year passed by with scarcely an attempt on Dad's part to make amends. “Not necessarily. We'll go through the list of patients' names like we planned and see if any names pop, but then I'm going to dig into your former partner's activities. Find out if he's friendly with our dispatcher.”

“Please don't confront him directly. If he thinks I've accused him, he'll go ballistic.”

“Oh?” he said wryly. “I thought he was charmed by you?”

She snorted and resumed sipping her coffee.

“Sounds to me like you already know he's capable of pulling these stunts.”

“No, he's changed. It's just he said all kinds of nasty things to me after I reported him and he lost his job. And it was hard on my colleagues, because they were old friends and I'd broken some brotherhood code by snitching on him, even though deep down I'm sure they knew I'd done the right thing.”

Yet another reason why she'd been so quick to suspect her colleagues. So why not her former partner? “In all our brainstorming of people with motivation to torment you, Joe honestly never occurred to you?”

“No. This stuff only started happening in the last couple of months. We weren't looking much further back than that. And I can't remember the last time I've seen Joe.”

“But now...? You've got to agree he's our prime suspect. He knows the protocol, would know better than anyone ways to make you look bad or to frighten you while still making it look like it's all a coincidence.”

“Sure, I guess. But if it's not him, I don't want him hearing that he was under suspicion, or he'll hate me all over again.”

Cole bristled at the admission that the man had hated her. Certain he was their man, Cole sped through the review of her ambulance logs in the couple of months prior to the start of the incidents. Beside Reinhart, who he'd already eliminated, along with his son, since the latter hadn't been in the area in the past two months, Sherri put forward only three other possibilities. “Okay, I'll run background checks on these and check on connections to our dispatcher and then get back to you.”

“Can't I help?”

“At this point I need to do face-to-face interviews. It's probably better if you're not seen.”

She looked almost relieved. She had another week of medical leave before her stitches would be healed enough for her to return to work. And hopefully he'd have enough to make an arrest before then. “C'mon, I'll drive you back to your parents'.”

“Just so you know, I told my mom and dad that I was moving back to my apartment tonight.”

“Why?” Cole wrestled down his uneasiness with the idea, knowing she wouldn't want to hear it, and worse than that, pretty sure hearing it would only make her more determined.

“I need to.” Her tone confirmed it wasn't open for discussion.

“Let me know if you go out.” It was an order, not a question. “I can arrange extra patrols. And it'd be a good idea not to go out alone if it can be helped.”

“I run every morning on the river trail. Well, it'll be a walk until the stitches heal a little more.”

“Call me and I'll accompany you.”

“But all the incidents happened when I was on the job.”

“And maybe the guy will stick to that pattern. Maybe he won't,” Cole said sternly. “It's not a chance I'm willing to take. Are you?”

She looked up, a stubborn glint in her eyes. She was too headstrong for her own good.

“If you don't promise to call me—” he sipped his coffee, then slowly set the cup down “—I'll camp outside your apartment, if that's what it takes to keep you safe.”

Her jaw dropped open, bobbed shut. Then she emitted a nervous-sounding laugh, clearly not sure what to read into the ultimatum.

Not wanting to examine his motives too closely himself, he raised his eyebrow to let her know he was waiting for her promise.

“Okay, yes, I promise to call you before I go out anywhere.” She let out a little huff. “Happy?”