Love Inspired Suspense June 2014 Bundle 2 of 2: Forced Alliance\Out for Justice\No Place to Run (47 page)

Get it under control, Matt. Losing your head again is the last thing you need—especially since you need your focus for the case.

Matt took another swallow of tea to clear his thoughts and refocus. He stared at the old upright piano, decked out in Victorian style, with an old-timey swivel seat set before it. So, he'd been right. She
did
still play an instrument.

Lorie waved a hand at an ancient horsehair sofa that might have been part of the original furnishings of the old house, if it hadn't actually been on the Ark, and seated herself on a fragile-looking rocking chair. Matt sat and immediately had to reach a hand to steady himself on the sofa's arm. Old as it was, the horsehair was still slippery.

“Sorry. I should have warned you about Dobbin.”

Matt glanced a question at Lorie as he braced himself against sliding.

“It was my grandparents' wedding present from well-meaning relatives. Papaw named it for the song.”

“Song?”

“One of their wedding songs had a line about hitching old Dobbin to the shay. Papaw said since he was sure they'd have a golden wedding day, it would be appropriate. I understand Mamaw tried to dissuade him, but once it took root with all their siblings and cousins, well...”

Matt chuckled. “Your grandfather sounds like he had a great sense of humor.”

“He did.” Lorie sniffed once and blinked rapidly. She tucked her feet up onto an ancient hassock that must once have been red and leaned back in the rickety rocking chair. “Much as I miss him, I'm glad he wasn't around for the trial.”

Setting down the glass of tea, Matt leaned forward. “I've read the transcripts. I'm sorry it got so ugly.”

“Thanks. God and my family got me through it, but it wasn't easy.” Lorie ran a hand over her hair, ending the gesture by looking at her watch. “Oh, my, the time—I have to call Jen and get her to open without me, unless...?”

“I just have a few more questions. Call Jen. It shouldn't be long.”

Lorie fetched her cell phone and completed the call with just a few short words, not explaining anything. Genuine admiration warmed Matt's chest. Not many people could manage to keep Jen Burkhalter to a one-minute call.

“Now.” Lorie laid the phone on the coffee table. “You have more questions?”

Seeing her looking like this, so vulnerable and, aside from the dog, alone, Matt wished he didn't have to ask her anything about a case. Resigned, he pulled the notebook he still preferred to his smartphone out of his shirt pocket.

“Just a few. Particularly, one. Who wants you dead?”

SIX

M
att's question rocked Lorie.

“I've asked myself that repeatedly. According to everything the press could dig up, Carl had no family. His mother in Colombia was dead. The grandparents who raised him were murdered just outside Bogotá.”

“Birth father?”

Lorie shrugged. “Who knows?”

“No siblings, cousins?”

Lorie shook her head. “He appeared to be the last of his line. As for his job, the hole in leadership must have filled immediately, though his death definitely slowed the flow of drugs for a long time. When I was in San Diego, I figured the harassment was because of the notoriety of the case. But here? I can't imagine.”

“How did you first get involved with Grayson Carl?”

“Involved is the wrong word. We didn't move in the same circles at all. Before that night, I barely knew who he was. Afterward, most of what I learned came from the local news media. There was speculation, rumor, but never any real, hard evidence that he was the drug lord people suspected he might be. He had plenty of legitimate interests and was on a lot of charitable boards.”

Lorie huddled deeper in her chair as her mind replayed the fateful night her life had changed forever.

“The library board decided to have a charity auction. Since Carl was a well-known patron of the arts, they invited him to participate. That was their first mistake. Then they insisted all the senior librarians attend. Their second mistake. Why they thought big shots would want to hobnob with the ‘little' people beats me. Believe it or not, I thought my biggest problem was going to be what to wear.” Lorie could hear the bitter tone in her voice, but she was beyond caring.

“We librarians had a table at the back of the room, not quite by the kitchen doors, but close. All the VIPs were nearer the front, including Grayson Carl. What nobody knew was that Candace Montoya, one of the county library board members, was apparently having an affair with Carl.”

“Go on.”

Lorie's stomach twisted and her heart began to race at the memories. “Near the end of the auction, Candace went to the ladies' room. I decided to freshen up at the same moment. Bad timing.”

Lorie's head began to pound at what was coming next. She would have loved to banish the memory forever, but it always hovered just under the surface.

“Carl followed her into the bathroom lobby. From the raised voices I heard, it sounded like she'd uncovered his illegal activities and was threatening to expose him. All I wanted was to escape. I didn't mean to eavesdrop. When I finished drying my hands and entered the lobby, they were struggling over a gun. He made her drop it, and it slid straight to me.”

Lorie shuddered. “When he saw the gun at my feet, he lunged at me. I tried to keep it away from him but we struggled over it. I can't remember exactly what happened, but the gun went off. The force knocked me to the floor. I can still hear his curses as he lay dying.”

“Surely the local police assessed the situation.”

“Yes. But Candace said the gun was Carl's. It turned out to be unregistered, no telling where it came from. They tried to turn that against me at the trial. They also used the fact that Candace Montoya wasn't there to testify on my behalf.”

“She wasn't?”

“No. After I saved her life, she ran away. She never showed up at the trial at all. The P.I. my lawyer hired tried to find her, but it was as if she'd vanished in a puff of smoke. She didn't even
try
to help me. I have such a hard time trying to forgive her for that.”

“Anyone would.”

“But how can I call myself a Christian and not forgive her? She must have been terrified the cartel would come after her.” Another shiver racked her body. “I know I was.”

Matt reached out and took her hands in his. Her hands were so cold. Warmth radiated into her.

“The police shouldn't have blamed you.”

“Look at it from their point of view. The altercation took place in a bathroom, so there were no surveillance cameras to tell my side of the story. People embroidered freely, connecting me with Carl. Somehow, his people managed to plant evidence that he'd been sending me messages, to an email address I seldom used. I have no idea how they did that and managed to get the dates correct, but they did it.”

“Hackers are good at what they do.”

Lorie pulled her hands from Matt's warm ones and petted Colleen as if her life depended on it. “The trial was a circus. It's only God's grace I got off. Carl's people were outraged, and my life in San Diego County was basically over.” A wave of nostalgia for all she'd lost washed over her.

“I moved as soon as I could get a buyer for my house. That took months. Sent off an application to the county board here, and since I got the job, I've been gradually fixing up my grandparents' old house. Now this. I don't want to have to move again. If it comes to a showdown... This place has always been home. I don't know where else I could go.”

Of course, that decision could be taken out of her hands at any moment.

“We're gonna get this guy, whoever he is,” Matt promised.

Those wonderful blue eyes were so sincere. Lorie wished she could believe him, but, like the news media, the law had caused her nothing but trouble. She had no reason to believe this time was any different.

* * *

Back at the station, Matt carried the bullets he'd found to ballistics. Deputy DeShaun Bonney accepted the bag, grimacing at it.

“Hey, man. We got a backlog, you know?”

“I figured. But get to it as soon as you can, yeah? See if you can match it to any recent shootings, especially drug-cartel related. It's important.”

Bonney raised a brunet eyebrow. “Cartel, huh? Your little meth-lab investigation getting interesting?”

“I wish!” Matt let out a sigh. “Probably not. It's another case. Put a rush on it if you can.”

Heading to his desk to tackle the rest of his workload, Matt was disgruntled to realize he couldn't get Lorie the Librarian off his mind. Her story had been unsettling. From everything he could see concerning the confusing case, it was only answered prayer Lorie hadn't been convicted of premeditated murder.

Had the verdict made someone so angry that they'd flown here from California to inflict their own version of justice? Calls to the airports at Fort Smith, XNA, Little Rock and Tulsa had brought no satisfaction. All he'd gotten, besides the runaround, was a list of the airlines serving each airport. He typed up quick emails requesting passenger information for the past week to each airline, stating that he needed it for a case, and sent them off, feeling dissatisfied.

While still at his computer, Matt ran cross-checks on Lorie, doing searches on Google and Bing. On a whim, he visited her Facebook page. Not surprisingly, her privacy settings were high, and the only available information was her name.

While he was there, a streak of masochism had him key in his ex-fiancée Lorene's name. Her avatar showed her entire family: two sons, two daughters, and her husband—the man with whom she'd betrayed Matt, Owen Parkins. His former best friend. Her privacy settings were less stringent than Lorie Narramore's, and photos of their happy little family gnawed at Matt. Those should have been
his
kids,
his
photos. He glanced at her status.

“Thanks for praying.”

Odd. Lorene had always ridiculed Matt's Christian upbringing. Why would she—

Not important. Matt closed the browser. He needed to concentrate on his case file.

* * *

Never had Lorie more looked forward to closing time. After asking Jen to take the weekend librarian, Mitzi, the key for tomorrow, Lorie locked up the library and went out to the almost empty parking lot. This was the longest Friday she'd had since the trial days.

When she got within keyless-entry range of her blue Mustang, she pushed the remote to unlock it.

The blast knocked her backward to the asphalt, sending white-hot flames into the night sky and dimming the streetlight.

Someone screamed her name.

Jen rushed over and reached a hand to her. “Are you all right? What happened?” She looked from Lorie to the flaming shards. Jen pulled Lorie to her feet.

“My poor car.”

“Your poor car? What about
you?
Are you okay?”

“I—I think I scraped something when it exploded.” Lorie swayed as a wave of dizziness engulfed her.

Jen held on to Lorie's arm and kept her from falling. “I need to call 911.”

As Jen was reaching for her cell phone, they heard the first siren.

“Sounds like somebody beat me to it.”

A fire truck rounded the corner, followed by a county EMS van. In a blur of motion, the firemen hooked up the hose to the fireplug on the corner and opened a stream of water strong enough to knock down a sumo wrestler.

EMS pulled into the parking lot and two techs in full gear ran over to Lorie and Jen.

“Who's hurt?”

Jen was quick to point them to Lorie.

“I don't think anything's broken.” Lorie winced at the pain when one EMT took her arm gently. The two of them led Lorie to the van, with Jen trailing along behind.

The Mustang crackled and popped, the flames engulfing the chassis looking as though they never intended to stop burning. The firefighters kept the stream of water aimed at it. Lorie found it less excruciating to watch the car rather than the paramedics.

“No burns?” The man's voice was crisply professional, but still concerned.

“No, sir. Just scrapes and probably bruises.”

The paramedic gently swabbed her scrapes with something that stung. “What happened?”

“All I did was activate the automatic lock. Then
kaboom.
”

The paramedic exchanged glances with his teammate. She could read the question in their faces. Car bomb?

Who would want to bomb her car? More than that, who had the resources to make it happen? This went beyond threatening notes, or even shots fired at her house.

Only one answer made sense: the Orgulloso cartel. And if a drug cartel was out to get her, then no place was safe.

Not here.

Not California.

Not anywhere.

* * *

Matt was still studying the pictures from Lorie's case file when Tiffany in dispatch rang his desk.

“Hey, you're working the librarian case, aren't you?”

“Yup. What's up?”

“We just took a 911 call from there. Fire department and paramedics have already been dispatched.”

Visions of disaster sprang to mind. “What happened?”

“Car bomb, from the sound of it.”

“Casualties?”

“Nobody dead, as far as they can tell, but one of the librarians is hurt.”

“I'm on my way.”

Three minutes later, Matt pulled his F-150 up on Choctaw Street next to the library parking lot. The sky was still ablaze, but it looked as though the fire department had a handle on it. Matt scanned the area until he spotted Lorie and Jen talking with a couple of EMTs. Lorie had bandages on both arms from just above the elbows almost to her wrists.

Matt struggled to keep his equilibrium as he made his way to the paramedic van. Was this morning's shooter responsible for this? If so, the stakes had escalated. Anyone could have been killed when the car bomb exploded. Things like this didn't happen in Dainger County.

Things like this didn't
use
to happen in Dainger County.
Not until Lorie Narramore moved back from San Diego.

Lord, protect her. Keep her safe. And please let me solve this case soon.

Matt hurried toward the paramedic van. The sight of Lorie sitting there, so pale, raised a flood of protectiveness normally reserved for his family members.

Matt squelched the impulse to hug Lorie, but he held out his right hand, and she put hers into it.

“You're certainly popular around here.”

She gave him a game smile. “Yep. Life of the party. Came close to being the death of the party.”

How could she joke about it? “God was looking out for you.”

“For sure. If I hadn't gotten the battery replaced in my remote control...” Her voice trembled. “If I'd stuck the key in the lock...”

“You didn't.” Jen gave her a sideways hug, probably to avoid hurting Lorie's arms. She looked at Matt. “What can we do to see about getting Lorie some departmental protection?”

Lorie shook her head. “Don't worry about me. I just...I'm more concerned about my family than I am about me. And Colleen and the cats, too.”

Matt tapped her lightly on the shoulder. “What are your plans for tomorrow?”

“Calling my insurance company, for starters.”

“And?”

Lorie's forehead creased, as if she were trying to remember. “Well, I had planned to go to West Bluff and do a little shopping, but that's off the menu now.” She crossed her arms, winced and uncrossed them immediately. “Maybe see about getting a loaner car until I can get mine replaced. Although Mom and Dad would probably loan me their second car. I don't want them to, though. I wish I didn't even have to tell them about this.”

Matt knew from skimming through the files that both her parents had flown to California to be with their only daughter while she was on trial. No way would they want her to go through this situation alone.

“You don't need to be out on that lonely place by yourself.”

Fear flickered in Lorie's eyes. “I have to get back. Feed the dog and cats. Besides, it's home. Where else can I go?”

“How are you going to get home tonight?”

“I hadn't thought that far ahead.”

“I can drive you out there and we can get your critters.” Jen looked at her watch. “I think you should stay with J.T. and me tonight.”

“No. I won't put you in danger.”