Peppermint Creek Inn (47 page)

“Tom! Dammit! Answer me. You son of a bitch!” Sara screamed as she dove in and started swimming out.

“That’s not a way for a lady to talk,” a disembodied amused voice answered from somewhere close.

“Tom?” Sara gasped as she tried to stare through the thick white mist.

She heard him answer with a cough and quickly swam toward the sound.

And then she heaved a terrific sigh of relief when she spotted him, his face stark white in contrast to the dark waves as he swam toward her.

“You okay?” he sputtered as he grabbed a weak hold of her cold waist.

Tears of joy sprinkled down her cheeks and she didn’t miss the blood oozing from a bullet wound in his shoulder.

“You’re alive. That’s all that matters,” she cried.

“What the hell happened?” His teeth were chattering. He looked frail.

“I don’t know. Scout’s dead. Pauline’s dead. I don’t know who shot them.”

A frantic voice cut through the fog.

It was Jo.

“Your sister,” Tom mumbled. His teeth were chattering louder now. Or maybe it was hers?

She nodded and her heart thundered to the beat of the storm lashing down on them as they both swam through the giant frothy waves. When their feet touched the sandy bottom, she felt his warm embrace and his hot searing mouth covering hers.

How she’d waited for this. To feel Tom’s warmth surround her body once again. To suddenly feel whole.

The pain in her hip intensified.

Sara stumbled.

Concern flashed in Tom’s eyes.

She began to feel sick to her stomach.

“Sara? What’s wrong?” She saw his lips move but he sounded so far away.

“She’s hit.” Jo’s frantic voice echoed in her ears.

“She must have found my message?”

“What message?” Tom’s voice was beginning to sound as if he was talking in slow motion. A prickle of fear sputtered along Sara’s spine. Blackness hovered at the edges of her vision.

Oh, shit! She was going to pass out.

“She put one of those old tin pots she collects out here into the fridge,” Jo replied just as slowly. “She knows my stomach so well.”

“We’ve got to get her to a hospital, Jo.” She heard Tom’s desperate wail.

“I called the hospital on the cell phone. They’re sending a chopper. It should be here in a few minutes.”

“Is someone sick?” Sara heard herself asking.

“Yeah, you, sweetness,” Tom replied softly. She felt herself being lifted into strong, warm, safe arms.

“It’s all my fault. All my fault,” Tom whispered into her ear as he held her close. “I should have walked that first night I saw you. The first night I fell in love with you.”

“Ahh, love at first sight. You don’t strike me as the type,” Sara murmured.

The prickle of fear vanished as she cuddled closer to Tom. She felt so loved. So safe. So warm.

Closing her eyes, she allowed the safety net of unconsciousness to capture her.

The unmistakable odor of medicine slammed into Sara’s nostrils urging her to open her eyes. She felt dopey. Out of it.

Pale moss green drapes greeted her and she heard hushed whispers from somewhere far off.

Her gaze fell upon Tom who sat slumped in a small uncomfortable-looking metal chair. A couple of day’s growth shadowed his sexy face. The steady rise and fall of his chest proved he was asleep. He had one arm in a sling. The other arm stretched over her bed, his warm fingers intertwined with her own.

Sara smiled.

Matthew. His name was Matthew, not Tom. It tumbled over and over in her head. He looked like a Matthew more that he looked like a Tom.

Sweet. Honorable.

Tough. Dangerous. Sexy.

A warm sereneness washed all around her and she closed her eyes drifting off to a dream where rain dropped in silvery torrents and a magnificent emerald-eyed stranger made exquisite love to her on tangled sleeping bags in an old boathouse nestled on a sandy beach with a lone candle flickering in the window.

Sara didn’t know how long she slept, but the next time she awoke she felt a bit more aware and quite thrilled to find Tom—Matthew—she’d have to get used to his name—to find Matthew sitting in the same chair and his fingers still intertwined with hers.

This time he was awake, but staring off into space like some sort of zombie. She found herself frowning at the dark circles under his eyes, the haggard, haunted look about his face.

As if sensing she was watching him, he blinked then leaned forward in his chair, his fingers tightening around hers.

“You awake?” he whispered anxiously.

“Mmm. You okay?” Sara asked softly. Her gaze raked over the sling.

“Me?” He shook his head in amazement.

Sara nodded. “Yes. You. You don’t look so good. Are you okay?”

He lifted her hand in answer and gently kissed each finger. The light touch of his lips made Sara tingle with excitement.

“And you’re a finger man, too. Nice. Very nice.”

He smiled, but concern clouded his eyes. “Your hip hurt real bad?”

“A wee bit.”

He reached for the nurse’s button. “I’ll call a nurse. She can give you something for the pain.”

“No, It’s okay. I’m fine. Really.” She watched him relax. “So, did we get the bad guys?”

“Yeah, we got them.”

“We make a good team, huh?”

His fingers tightened desperately and she almost cried out at the way he was squishing her fingers. It was a direct contrast to the delicate way he brushed his bristly cheek against her knuckles.

“Yes, we do.” His voice had softened to barely a whisper.

“So? What happened? I remember Jo being there and then nothing.”

“She saved your life.”

Sara tried to smile but she was beginning to drift off again. She had to keep him talking. Keep herself awake. She didn’t know why but there was something in Matthew’s sad eyes that frightened her. He appeared somewhat distant and yet he so obviously cared for her. What was wrong?

“Tell me everything.”

“You sure?”

Sara nodded.

“It’s a long story.”

“I’ve got time.” She stifled a yawn.

“Okay. Well…after getting your ingenious message in the refrigerator, Jo shot over to Jackfish. I saw her from the kayak. Through hand motions, I signaled she cover Pauline and I’d take care of Scout. Turned out she couldn’t get a clear shot at Pauline from where she was. Before she could let me know, all hell had broken loose. My mistake.”

Matthew shook his head slowly, the tiny lines around his gentle mouth deepened into a grimace. “I should have known, but I wanted Scout. He was too close to you. I was—afraid.”

He chuckled or at least she thought it was a chuckle until she spotted the sprig of tears brightening his emerald eyes.

“Oh, God, Sara.” His voice broke making Sara even more frightened at the torment and apparent guilt he harbored. “I’m so sorry all this happened. I figured you’d be okay. But you weren’t.”

“I’m okay,” Sara soothed. “You’re okay. Everything’s okay. It’s over now.”

Her eyelids felt so damn heavy.

“You’re tired. You should sleep.”

“No,” she managed to mumble. “Stay. I want to hear your voice. Keep talking to me. What else happened?”

She heard him take a deep breath. “Pauline’s dead. She wasn’t my wife. She’d drugged me, forged my signature on the marriage certificate. The undercover name I used isn’t legit and the marriage was never consummated.”

The idea Matthew was a free man seemed almost too good to be true. She dared to hope that they would someday be together.

“Scout’s not dead. He’s gonna live. He’ll be a vegetable. Won’t stand trial for his criminal dealings.”

“At least he can’t hurt anyone by selling guns.”

“I guess.” He hesitated a moment then said, “Garry’s back. He found the evidence in a locker in that abandoned police academy he was talking about. The same academy Whitey, Robin and Garry attended. Apparently they’d been friends up until a point where Garry took a bullet for Whitey Jeffries.”

“What?”

“Garry and Jeffries were partners at one point in their career. One night a man high on drugs jumped them when they were on foot patrol. Whitey Jeffries used Garry as a shield. Garry took the bullet.”

“Oh, God. I didn’t know it was Whitey. I thought it was the druggie.”

“Garry never told anyone except his brother…and that was years after the fact.”

“But why keep something like that quiet? I just don’t understand why Garry would cover up something like that.”

“Because Garry didn’t want to go through the blue wall of silence that cops live by. If he’d turned in Whitey, there would have been an investigation. According to Robin, there was no physical proof what Whitey had done. It was his word against Garry’s. If Garry had talked then his life and his family’s life could have been in danger. Some cops don’t like the idea of other cops ratting each other out, no matter what. Garry could have been killed. Or worse, a member of his family could have been killed. He decided that keeping quiet was the only way he could protect his family.”

“How could Garry live with that knowledge? How could he stand to watch Whitey rise through the ranks to chief of police knowing he was such a coward?”

“According to Robin, it ate at Garry for years until he finally told Robin. Robin wasn’t one to sit idly by and let this go. That’s why he finally went after Whitey on his own. Went undercover as a bad cop for a while, but then he got cancer. Had to stop his crusade against Whitey and then he recruited me.”

Matthew continued. “Justin Jeffries didn’t kill Jack. I remembered a vicious fight between Blake and Jeffries when Jeffries spotted the necklace with the bullet around Blake’s neck. It was the same caliber as the one that…they removed from your husband. The missing bullet that someone had dug out of the wall.”

“But Justin was wearing the necklace. You said he…”

“He says he saw the bullet necklace around Blake’s neck asked him about it and Blake laughed and bragged at how he got away with murder. That was the argument I’d heard while I was semi-conscious in the basement of the cabin. After their argument Blake had left for awhile and Jeffries had kept an eye on me but when Blake returned and wanted to kill me, Jeffries killed Blake instead and—”

“And tried to pin the murder on handy you.”

“A frame-up. Like father, like son,” he admitted.

“But why would Sam kill my husband? You said something about Jack’s journal?”

“Here’s the theory the provincial police came up with after interviewing the folks in town. Shortly before Jack died, the local surveyor confirmed an amethyst mine find on your property. The local land surveyor and Blake are brothers. Brothers talk. Blake started to get ideas. Knew Jack and his partner Jeffries were good buddies. Justin says shortly before Jack was killed, Blake started pumping Justin for information. Asking all kinds of questions about Jack and your property. Started making friends with your husband. Started coming around a lot with Justin.”

“My God, they were around quite a bit toward the end.”

“But why kill Jack for the mine? They couldn’t do anything with the minerals. The government would get the claim anyway. They have all mineral rights here in Canada.”

“Blake and his brother, the land surveyor, made all the records of the claim disappear.”

Sara sighed her confusion. “I don’t understand. How would anyone know about the mine if they got rid of all the records?” Her mind was groggy but she wasn’t so out of it that she couldn’t see there were a lot of unanswered questions.

“That’s the beauty of this whole scheme. They’ve been illegally mining out on your north quarter for more than a year. Cran Simcoe just told one of the investigating officers that a drinking buddy who was hired to work at the mine and was getting paid big bucks to keep his mouth shut, spilled his guts about the mine only a few nights ago when he was drunk. Cran was scared to go to Jeffries. So he drove down to Thunder Bay and told the police down there. That’s how everything started rolling. They flew a police helicopter over your property and discovered the mine and the rest is history.”

It was too much to take in all at once. Tom hadn’t been kidding when he’d said this was a long story.

“I know. I remembered that I’d seen Jeffries take the necklace from Sam’s body that night right after he’d shot him in the back. I’m so, so sorry I said what I did about Justin being your husband’s killer. At the time I was desperate and trying to find a way to get Justin upset. Whitey gets quite irritated when one of his kids is upset. It worked though. Whitey got rid of Justin. I just wished I didn’t have to put you through that hell.”

She should be upset with him for tearing her heart out that way. But she wasn’t. He knew Whitey’s weaknesses and had worked quickly to try and get them out of danger the only way he could under the circumstances.

Sara giggled, his laugh contagious.

“I bought some, too! I hid them in the barn.” He immediately sobered. “But we didn’t use condoms every time.”

“Then why vandalize my place?”

“Maybe Blake wanted you off the property. You’d sell to him and he could control what happened on the land. Keep out trespassers and pocket the proceeds from all the illegal sales.”

“But he doesn’t smoke,” she said when she remembered the smell of cigarette shortly after she’d entered the cabin the night Jack had been shot.

“Oh, yes, he does. Closet smoker like Jeffries. Not a good image for a cop to be a smoker these days.”

My God, this was a horrible tangle of information.

“How did they know you were at Jackfish in the first place?”

“Jeffries and Blake overheard Mrs. McCloud and some other woman who works at the store having a conversation about a scruffy-looking character on a brand new Harley who came into the store asking for directions to Peppermint Creek Inn. And how later that day I came back to ask if there was a cheap place to hold up until you returned. She suggested a couple of hotels but I figured since my bike had stolen license plates, I’d better keep a low profile. I casually hinted I was low on cash and if there was anywhere I could camp and she mentioned the ghost town. So that’s where I headed.”