What Cole and the sheriff wanted was simple. They wanted to draw out Rojas or any of his men he might have hired to come after Cole. At Wiley's insistence, Wiley would be in disguise, and then he'd stalk Cole and get captured by the sheriff when they knew Buzz would be around. From there, the sheriff would verify for Buzz that they had captured a Rojas henchman and Buzz would send it out on the national news services. It was all a plan to put heat on Rojas and end the mess.
But something about tonight bothered Cole. Laurel was right. Buzz showed up before the sheriff. Had the editor been the man in the window? Buzz was snoopy, but it didn't seem his style.
It couldn't have been Wiley in the windows. He was too much of a klutz not to have been heard beforehand. Cole found him at the side of the house. Wiley said he'd been dropped off by the sheriff. They'd quickly gone into action, pretending Wiley was a spy for Rojas. But if Wiley had just arrived—presumably with the sheriff—who had shown his face in the window of Laurel's cabin?
His gut told him there was someone dangerous out and about. Someone they hadn't counted on. He could smell it on the fog, taste it in the tinny fear flaking inside his mouth, feel it in the mounting dread fueling the rapid beat in his heart.
Cole wished like hell he was standing guard in Laurel's cabin tonight, but then Rojas wanted him, not her. Better to stay away from her, especially now. Just keep watch. Be her watchdog. The hair rose on the nape of his neck.
Cole's eyes scanned the fog-blanketed land around him, the murky bay, the opposite shore. Private piers jutted from out of the patchy fog. All was quiet.
Too quiet. From Laurel he'd learned to listen for the nighthawks cry overhead, the frogs bellowing from the lowland, the occasional owl. He heard none of that. It meant there was movement somewhere nearby. Out on the water?
Then he turned around and considered the old mansion, its attic window catching the moonlight. Was someone watching him from up there, from his and Mike's pirate ship? Was someone keeping watch over Laurel's cabin?
Cole started off through the tall grass, his leg paining him badly all of a sudden. He'd much rather be curled up with Laurel in his arms in a warm bed.
Pushing on through the cold, damp grass, he took courage from the object in his pocket. When had he begun to feel he was doing all of this for Laurel? Hadn't he come here to avenge Mike's death? Now, he wanted it over with, just to bring peace back to Laurel's life.
He cared too much for her. He knew that. Was it love? He shuddered. Love would mess up everything. To love her openly would put her in danger. Rojas meant to kill him. Rojas would feed on any distraction, any weakness.
Love brought complications to a man's life, and a man had to be ready to shoulder the responsibility. He knew that more than anyone. He knew it because Laurel demanded that love mean accepting responsibilities. But he felt responsible for everyone and everything. Where did he start?
And did any of these challenges matter when he needed to erase the quiet sadness in her eyes? He accepted that responsibility automatically because it spoke to his soul, where a part of him said he still loved her, even if he didn't see a way to a future for them.
Shoving on toward the old mansion, he realized he had no weapon on him except maybe the flashlight.
In the side pocket of his jeans, where normally he carried the knife, his hand clutched the locket. His best weapon was his conviction. Nothing could harm Laurel. He wouldn't allow it.
* * * *
DOUSING THE flashlight, he held his breath to listen. He hadn't really expected to encounter anyone in the old mansion, but now he stood in the dark halfway up the final stairsteps to the third-floor attic, wondering who was in the pirate ship.
Soft shufflings emanated from the pirate ship, then scraping noises. Someone was moving the old boxes or discarded kitchen chairs around. Cole clenched his teeth, but sour fear trickled down his throat. Had he found Rojas's henchman at last? The window spy? Was it the bastard himself—Rojas?
Cole was about to ease back down the stairs, when a loud crash made him shrink against the dank wall. Beads of sweat sprinkled his forehead.
Miles and miles of memories fast-forwarded through him. Of sunshine and flowers in her red hair, of swimming, riding fast boats and cars together, of the way she looked up into his eyes, so trustingly. He couldn't die this way, like a trapped rat in this old house. Laurel needed him. And he needed her, to hear her question him, to push him to greater things, to hear her ask about his son and to talk about her lost son and family....
Easing with one foot, he began edging down the riser behind him. He was too late.
Thundering, thumping lumps bounded through the murkiness, and in his hasty retreat, Cole stepped backward onto the bad leg. With a sharp needling pain it gave way, toppling him backward down the steps to the second landing.
A powerful force bowled into his hip and leg.
Cole cried out in death-defying anger.
He came up swinging madly in self-defense, but to his surprise, met with empty air. He grappled about for the flashlight, flicked it on just in time to catch sight of two fuzzy tails scurrying down the steps, heading for the front door.
“Roxy and Roger?” Cole snorted relief, then sank against the wall to catch his breath and swipe the sweat off his brow.
What a life I lead
. With his butt and back killing him almost as much as the bum leg, Cole wanted to....
...Go home and climb into bed with Laurel and forget this.
He chortled at that. Because something dawned on him. He had never made love to Laurel in a real bed. This unforgivable detail suddenly nagged at him. What would he do in a warm, soft bed, with Laurel under him and nobody knocking on the door? Would Laurel accuse him of thinking it boring? Nothing with Laurel had ever been boring. Not her smile, her wit, the way she made love.
Fool. He looked up toward the attic. The woman deserved a lot more than the trouble he always seemed to bring her. His son deserved a better legacy than this.
And so did Mike. What kind of father had Mike seen in Cole? The chill of truth gripped him. If a son couldn't even count on Cole, maybe Mike felt he couldn't either. And so he'd come here alone, ascending these stairs only weeks ago. A breeze rushed up the hallway. Mike's ghost? Leading him?
Rubbing his leg, agony gripped him. A longing for Laurel's healing ways overwhelmed him.
Thunder punched at the old mansion, rattling the walls and his bones.
He remembered Laurel's repeated offers to help him with the leg. He'd pushed her away, just as he accused her of pushing him away. Remorse coursed through him. Hauling himself up, he hobbled up the stairs, all the way to the attic ... the pirate ship.
He stepped around old boxes strewn everywhere. Roxy and Roger had been curious and obviously playing. They'd even tipped over the old table where he'd laid out the railroad map. He went over to set it upright. Leaning over to catch the table legs, a flash of lightning illuminated something loosely taped on the underside of the table. He trained the flashlight on it.
Cole recognized the object immediately. Picking it out of the tape, fingering its heft and copper and gold machinations, Cole grew excited. A sextant, the device was used by ship navigators to measure the sun or a star from the horizon. With its tiny scope, and half-circle arm with calibrations, it calculated distances to other ships, land or objects out on the water.
On a dive for Rojas this past spring, Cole had uncovered the sextant near some World War II shipwrecks in the Atlantic Ocean. As usual, Mike logged in the treasure, then ordered its careful cleaning before they would complete further documentation on its age and history.
Why was this object from Rojas's prized collection of treasures from the deep here in Wisconsin?
Cole had no answers, but he knew Mike had a purpose. Cole found the crayon box earlier on top the table, but had failed to look underneath. Mike would be shaking his head to know it'd taken two raccoons to uncover something Cole should have found on his first look-see.
“Come on, Mike. So now what do I do with this thing?"
His nerves hummed. He was close to finding something big. The object weighted his hand down, almost begging him to move, to get going and blow Rojas's operation sky high. But how? Why? Why had Mike risked his life for this and lost? He needed to talk with Laurel. She had fresh perspective, even better smarts with puzzles than he.
But he'd promised himself to not endanger her.
With flopsum bathing him, the night air clawed at him with icy fingers. He wanted Laurel's help. She was more than an addiction. They were a team. They found answers together. She'd shown him that. She always demanded he dig deeper. Be smarter.
Laurel had needled him about looking for an “X” mowed in the meadow by Mike before Cole would act. A sextant could measure the distance to a place. What place? From what vantage point? Maybe there was a place in the meadow he needed to revisit, a place Mike remembered meant something special.
Then he swallowed hard. Maybe, just maybe, Mike brought him here because of Laurel. Was something hidden—not in a place special to Mike or Cole—but to Laurel? Could it be the church? That would surely fool Rojas or his henchmen who came looking for the cache of evidence. They knew nothing of the church.
Excitement poured through him.
He hobbled down the three flights of stairs, this time taking the back hallway for a faster exit. Going past the kitchen, the pantry, the old library room ... memories flooded back. Laughter echoing. Mike giggling when Cole chased him with a fat ugly toad. Mike teasing him with, “Cole and Laurel, sittin’ in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G."
Cole walked faster. Away from Mike's voice. Toward Laurel's.
Pushing through the rotted screendoor, he plunged into the night's storm. The rain drenched him through to his soul. The ditty wouldn't quit. “Cole and Laurel, sittin’ in a tree..."
With the sextant gripped in one hand, and the flashlight in the other, he forged back through the wet grass and weeds, past his sodden tent, wishing away the stiffness still in his bum leg. Being careful not to put too much weight on it, he slid down the slick embankment, muddying himself.
He climbed into the sheriff's runabout he'd just tuned up, and started for Laurel's place. Pressing into higher gear, he ignored the wind heaving him at dangerous angles.
* * * *
FINDING LAUREL'S front door unlocked, Cole panicked. What's more, the lights were on in the kitchen but the place seemed deadly quiet.
“Laurel?"
He glanced back through the door, flicking on her flashlight to see into the yard. The light glinted off the bumper of her minivan. She had to be here. Maybe she'd only been so tired she'd gone to bed and forgotten the lights and door. “Laurel?"
Closing the door, he stood for a moment, listening, sniffing the air, knowing already that something was wrong. The quiet unnerved him even more than the unlocked door. There was a faint odor of cigarette smoke. Laurel didn't smoke.
He tiptoed around the mess in the livingroom, laid the heavy sextant down on the table near the bay window, then turned toward the short hallway that led to the bedrooms. He held the flashlight high over his head, ready to strike.
A creaking caught his attention. He halted.
Then footsteps hit the wood floor behind him. He whirled to see a figure launch from the curtains by the bay window and head for the backdoor to the breezeway.
Cole took up the chase, cussing at his limp, flashlight in hand, wishing he had time to find that hunting rifle of Gerald Hasting's that Laurel kept.
From behind him, Laurel called out, “Cole? I was just outside, I thought I heard—?"
The intruder raced through the breezeway, then into the animal shed.
“Stay put!” Cole called to her. He knew she'd be right on his heels to check out every animal in his wake.
He followed the ruckus of squawks and chittering of creatures disturbed in the shed. Heat lamps pitched every whichway.
The intruder, a lean figure, fled out the back door, through the deer pen, where Cole thought he'd nab him against the high fence. Instead, the man bolted through a new, low hole cut in the fence and headed for the looming forest cover.
Cole cussed, gritted his teeth against his damn leg and made himself ignore it. He had to catch the man Rojas had sent to kill him ... or was it Laurel, too, now?
Bile rose in his throat at the thought of losing her. Fury for putting Laurel's life in danger pitched him into the night.
Rain slapped across him in heavy sheets. Slippery leaves caused havoc underfoot, but when his flashlight caught the man's back up ahead, he ran with wild abandon. Nobody was going to get away with messing with Laurel. This was his fight. Only cowards involved women in their wars.
The storm ripped branches off the trees, crashing whitecapped waves at the dock now receding behind him. He could hear the boat banging against the tire bumpers.
Lightning cracked. He felt alive, charged with the same electricity splicing the air. His leg throbbed, but his mind told it to quit hurting. He had no time for such things.
Darting the flashlight about, he glimpsed the man on ahead.
He labored up the hillside's muddy trail, then slid through spongy moss down the other side of the hill. The night smelled dank, perfect for a killing.
The trees bent about in front of him, ominous, as if imploring him to turn around.
He stumbled on.
Suddenly, the lightning illuminated the small, white church up ahead. He stopped, played the flashlight about, but only saw the ragged edges of the iron fence around the graveyard.
The fugitive had to be in the church. Cole's heart drummed. Hatred welled up. The killer had desecrated the place where he and Laurel had exchanged vows. Cole imagined the man hiding now behind the tiny altar, with the Virgin Mary statue watching in fright.
He eased up the few steps to the church door, pausing to catch his breath. Ragged thoughts plastered him between the rain. Laurel had worn wild, brown-eyed susans behind her ears that day. He'd put them there, her hair tickling his fingers.