Killer Country Reunion
Then Zane turned and ran.
He reached the edge of the boardwalk and leapt off, the boom of a shotgun blast ringing in his ears as he hit the surface of the lake.
The frigid water was shocking as he plunged downward. He opened his eyes underwater, where everything looked dark blue and blurry. Then he kicked his feet and started upward, back toward the light.
He broke through the surface and saw the boardwalk a few feet away. He quickly looked for the two gunmen, expecting shotgun guy to open fire on him. They were nowhere in sight. Lord, please help the cops catch them.
He turned and saw the woman bobbing on the surface, treading water several yards away from the boardwalk. With the water this cold, he wasn’t surprised that she hadn’t been able to swim any farther. He swam over to her. His muscles were already knotting up from the cold water, so the going was slow.
“Hey, are you all right?” he called out when he reached her.
The only response he heard was the sound of her teeth chattering.
Dark blonde hair was plastered over her face. She reached up to move it aside, and he found himself looking into the dark brown eyes of Caroline Marsh.
A voice called out to them from the boardwalk, but Zane didn’t understand a word the man was saying. He just stared at his former fiancée while she stared back.
For the span of a couple of heartbeats it felt like no time had passed since he’d last seen her.
How long had it been?
Eight years. More than enough time for Zane to think of all the things he might say to her if they ever crossed paths again. All of them were some form of a heartfelt apology. Now here she was and he could barely put together a sentence. Could barely even breathe.
“Are you hurt?” he managed to ask again.
“I-I’m all right, Zane,” she stammered, her teeth still chattering.
She lifted her hands out of the water to tuck her hair behind her ears. “Th-thank you for rescuing me. But you don’t need to stay beside me. Go ahead and swim back to the boardwalk. I can take care of myself.”
Despite the horrifying events she’d just been through, she lifted her chin out of the water and managed a weak version of her signature spirited smile.
It would have hurt less if she’d shot him.
Tender memories and old regrets ripped through Zane’s heart. But he didn’t have time to dwell on them now. The grim reality was that two determined gunmen had just tried to kill her.
What had Caroline gotten herself into?
TWO
Zane stared at Caroline as if he expected some further, bigger reaction from her.
She wasn’t about to give it to him.
He could forget about her asking why he’d left town and dropped all contact when they were engaged to be married. Where he’d been. How long he’d been back in the town of Cobalt. The answers didn’t matter. After eight years of wondering, she simply didn’t care anymore.
Okay, that was a lie. But he didn’t have to know she still thought about him sometimes. Not as often as she used to when he first left. Just every now and then. And each time she’d come back to Cobalt for a visit, until she’d moved back a month ago.
She was disappointed to notice that even treading water in soaking wet street clothes, the man looked good. That was something else he didn’t need to know. He was more muscular than when she’d last seen him. But he had been barely twenty years old back then. His jaw and neck were thicker now. So was his chest. She couldn’t help noticing that, thanks to the long-sleeved gray cowboy shirt now clinging to it.
Even during his darkest days, when he was a young criminal going nowhere just like his dad, he’d dressed like a cowboy. His dad had been a hired hand on the horse ranch where the two of them had lived. Zane had always loved horses. He was good with them. She doubted that had changed—but then, what did she know? Back in the day, she’d thought he’d never leave her. She’d been wrong about that, so maybe she never knew him at all.
“I know you’re capable of taking care of yourself,” he finally said, after the apparent shock of seeing her wore off. “But I’d still like to help you.”
He looked at the office complex and surrounding boardwalk, then back at her. It struck her that assuming they were safe in the lake might be a mistake. She couldn’t see the shooters anymore, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t see her. The man with the shotgun could still fire at them. And what if the other man had a backup weapon, one that wasn’t waterlogged?
“A-all right.” Her legs were so cold she couldn’t feel them anymore. But things could have turned out far worse.
Zane swam closer to her. Despite her best efforts to fight it, a tiny flare of warmth sparked in her heart. This was the chivalrous Zane she’d fallen so deeply in love with.
But he was also the man who’d left town when he could have stayed to fight. For himself. For the future the two of them had planned together.
“Let’s go,” he said.
He swam toward the boardwalk. Caroline tried to follow, but her body wouldn’t cooperate. Her brain commanded her chilled arms and legs to move, but they refused to obey. Her body felt weighted down, pulling her toward the bottom of the lake.
Her chin and mouth dipped into the water and the searing panic she’d fought off while on the boardwalk overtook her again in an instant. She was going to drown. Those gunmen were going to win after all. Dylan would end up in the care of a mother who wanted him now only because he came with an inheritance.
Caroline sank farther into the lake before managing to kick her uncooperative legs enough to push her face out of the water a little bit. “N-no!” She forced all her strength into the word, but it came out as a whisper. Zane must have heard it, though. He turned around and swam back to her.
“D-Dylan,” she managed to chatter when he got closer. “My mom.” She’d just had a horrifying thought. What if the bad guys had gotten away and were headed to the house?
“We’ll take care of them.” Zane swam behind her, wrapped his left arm across the front of her shoulders and pulled her close so that her back was pressed against his muscled chest. “Right now we’ve got to take care of you,” he said, his breath warm against her ear. “I’ve got you.”
No, he did not. She wouldn’t be fooled again. He did not have a strong hold on her, he was not looking out for her and he was not a man she could depend on. She’d trusted him for all those things before and he’d let her down.
But there was no way she could get out of this freezing cold water on her own. Right now she had to rely on him. She had no choice.
A sob caught in her throat as she again imagined her mom and Dylan in danger. With her brother gone, the responsibility to take care of what was left of the family rested on her shoulders. What if she’d already failed?
As they moved through the water Caroline caught a glimpse of flashing blue-and-red lights in the office complex parking lot. A paramedic and an emergency medical technician stood alongside a cop on the edge of the boardwalk close to the water. Each of the medical responders was stepping into a bright orange cold-water rescue suit. Seconds later, she heard a couple of splashes. She and Zane were nearly to the boardwalk now, so the medical responders quickly reached them.
When the rescuers tried to tug the two of them apart, Zane held her tightly, as if he were reluctant to let her go. She tilted her face upward to look at him. He turned toward her until his slightly beard-roughened chin pressed against her temple. She felt herself drifting back toward the memory of an old familiar feeling.
And then a cold wavelet smacked her in the face and snapped her out of it.
Zane didn’t just break her heart. He broke the heart of everyone in her family who had also loved him.
The EMT trying to rescue Caroline pulled on her arm a little harder, said something to Zane and Zane finally let her go.
She was hoisted up onto the boardwalk, wrapped in blankets and taken to an accommodating insurance broker’s office just a few feet away. The EMT explained that, after witnessing what had happened to Caroline and Zane, the owner had sent her employees home for the day and offered emergency personnel use of her office.
Caroline sat in a chair near a heating vent while the paramedic took her vital signs. Zane walked in a few seconds later and dropped down into a chair across from her. He locked eyes with her, his mouth set in a worried frown.
“Caroline, can you tell me what happened?” Sergeant Matt Barrow of the Cobalt Police Department—who’d joined the force just before Caroline’s father was killed in the line of duty—stepped in front of her, blocking her view of Zane.
“Yes, but first—my mom and Dylan,” she said forcefully, finally loosening her jaw enough to speak clearly. She was still shivering, but not as violently. “You need to make sure my mom and nephew are safe.”
“I thought of them the second I recognized you out there in the lake. There’s an officer on the phone with your mom right now. She’s going to keep talking to her until she gets to the house and sees for herself that your mom and nephew are okay.”
Caroline released a deep sigh and finally allowed herself to feel a hint of relief.
Matt grabbed an office chair, rolled it close to her and then sat down on it. Now she could see Zane again. He was keeping an eye on her while the EMT took his vitals. Zane raised his eyebrows slightly, his expression matching her own curiosity. Why was he here? How long had he been back in town? He must have the same questions about her.
“Tell me everything that happened,” Matt said.
Caroline turned her attention back to him and she described everything she could recall about the attack. “Did you catch either of them?” she asked when she was finished.
He rubbed his hand over his bristly black hair. “Not yet.”
“What’s this?” the paramedic asked. Now that he’d gotten her warmed up and determined her vital signs were okay, he’d started to check for injuries. He’d pulled back the blanket from the area around her shoulder and seen the rip in her jacket and blouse and the surrounding patch of blood on the fabric.
“I think I got nicked by a bullet.”
The paramedic reached into his supply bag for scissors, cut the clothes around her shoulder and got busy cleaning the wound. She could feel him working, but lingering numbness from the cold water blunted the pain.
“Did either of the men say anything that would tell you the motive for the attack?” Matt asked.
She shook her head.
“Well, it didn’t involve robbery. We found your purse by the bench where you sat on the upper level. Your wallet and phone were still in it.”
“The attack might be connected to the murder of her brother,” Zane said.
Matt glanced at Zane, then turned back to Caroline.
“I realize that’s the obvious assumption,” Caroline said quietly. “But I don’t know for sure.” Although her brother had been murdered in Seattle, the Cobalt PD had taken an active interest in the case, partly because Owen was a Cobalt resident. But also many of the officers on the force still remembered his father, Sergeant Henry Marsh. They still treated Caroline like family down at the police department even though her father had been killed seven years ago. And they were anxious to do everything they could to help find Owen’s killer.
“I’m so sorry about Owen,” Zane said, his voice low and husky with emotion.
Caroline didn’t respond. She couldn’t. Not right now. She’d had enough emotional meltdowns for the time being.
Matt glanced at Zane again and then turned back to her with one eyebrow raised and his lips pursed together. “You two know each other?”
“We used to,” Caroline answered, her voice as clipped as she could make it, hoping that Matt would drop this line of questioning.
“Huh.” He nodded slightly, seeming to get the hint. “Can you think of anybody else who would want to come after you for any reason?” Matt asked. “You have any kind of feud going on? Do you owe anybody money? Anything like that?”
“No.”
The paramedic told her the bullet had torn off a layer of skin and underlying tissue, but that the bone beneath it seemed sound. He wanted her to go to the hospital to get X-rays just to be sure. When she told him she’d knocked her head against the boardwalk and felt strangely sleepy for a minute or two, he definitely wanted her to go and get a thorough check.
Zane stood. “I’ll make the trip to the hospital with you. If the ER doctor releases you, I’ll see you home.”
Oh no, he would not.
“Can you walk okay?” Matt asked. “If you feel up to it, I’d like to get you in a patrol car and away from here as soon as possible. Those men who tried to kill you could be long gone. But they could also be repositioning themselves nearby to take another shot as soon as they can. From what you’ve described, they sound like hired professionals. If they don’t kill you they don’t get paid. They’re not going to give up easily.”
While Matt was talking to Caroline, another uniformed officer walked in carrying a couple of blue nylon gym bags. He tossed one of the bags to Zane. “Temperature’s dropping fast. You shouldn’t be out walking around in wet clothes. I brought you a pair of jeans and a shirt from your locker at the station.” Then the officer walked over to Caroline and handed her the second bag. “Some of the women at the station donated clothes for you, too.”
What was going on here?
“Wait a minute,” Caroline said as Zane zipped open the bag and started pulling out clothes. “You have a locker at the police station?”
He nodded. “I do.”
“You can’t be a cop,” she said, confused.
“It’s not my full-time job. I’ve got other commitments. But I am a reserve officer. Mostly called out for search and rescue.”
Caroline held up her hand for him to stop talking. The conversation was moving way too fast and there were too many gaps in the information she was getting. She needed a second to make sense of it all. “Are you saying you’ve been back in town for a while?”
“About a year.”
“A year?” Caroline and her mom had moved back to town a month ago. And nobody had thought to mention that Zane Coleman was back in Cobalt?
Matt caught her attention and gestured at her to hurry up and open the gym bag.
Trying to collect her thoughts, she slowly pulled out a gray sweatshirt and gray sweatpants. Then she looked back at Zane. “Where have you been all these years?”
He drew in a breath and blew it out. “That’s a long story.”
“We don’t have time to listen to it right now,” Matt interjected. “Come on. You two need to hurry up and get dressed so we can get Caroline out of here.”
* * *
The most important thing at the moment was getting Caroline safely out of the office complex and to the hospital.
Zane kept his thoughts focused on that point as he finished changing into dry clothes in one of the insurance broker’s inner offices.
But concentrating was a challenge when his mind kept tripping over the fact that Caroline had moved back to town. He’d had no idea.
Six weeks ago he’d seen her sitting in a pew at Owen’s funeral while he had stood in the back of the church. His tears had flowed freely at the memory of the flannel-wearing, granola-chomping, nature-loving kid who had followed him around like he was an honorary big brother back when Zane and Caroline started dating.
Zane had wanted to offer his condolences like the other mourners after the graveside service, but showing up unexpectedly at that time and place felt wrong. He couldn’t have done that to Caroline and her mom. Mrs. Marsh, once an energetic and outdoorsy woman, had looked shockingly thin and frail. The amount of time from Owen’s murder to the funeral hadn’t been enough for her to lose that much weight. Something else had to have been going on.
He didn’t spend much time in the actual town of Cobalt these days. Instead he spent the majority of his time helping to rebuild the old horse ranch owned by his aunt and uncle. He probably wouldn’t have heard about her return to Cobalt even if he came to town more often. Zane made it a habit to politely walk away from gossip. He had spent too much time on the receiving end of thoughtless comments as a kid, hearing the biting remarks of adults who didn’t bother to lower their voice. He had no desire to do that to anybody else.
When he was a kid, his dad worked horses by day and he was good at it. But he was angry at the world after the death of Zane’s mother and when he came home at night, he used drugs to feel better. Then he began to sell them. After that, it was a short step to dabbling in other criminal enterprises. Everybody had an opinion about Lee Coleman, and as a kid, Zane got tired of hearing about it. Everyone automatically assumed the worst of him—and for a while he’d been bitter and angry enough to live down to their expectations.
God had clearly been looking out for Zane the day Sergeant Henry Marsh found him selling cans of beer to fellow high school kids at three times their original cost. Zane also happened to have a little bit of weed he’d stolen from his dad stuffed into his shirt pocket. Sergeant Henry had cuffed him and tossed him in the back of his patrol car, and Zane had immediately turned on the charm. He’d learned to flip it on like a light switch as a survival mechanism to get his unstable dad to calm down. It was a useful talent and nearly every adult fell for it. Sergeant Marsh never did.
Neither did his daughter.
Zane stepped back into the office lobby. Caroline had already changed clothes and she had her phone up to her ear. It sounded like she was talking to her mom. Lauren Marsh had always been friendly and kind to Zane. Had even baked a cake and made a big deal about his birthdays.
But that feeling of him being part of their family belonged to the past. And Zane had made himself a promise he would only live life moving forward. Indulging in regret or trying to figure out a way to change things that could never be changed was a waste of time. It didn’t help him or anyone else.
He would do everything he could to keep Caroline safe because he owed it to her. And it was something he could do to honor the memories of Sergeant Henry and Owen. But that was it. There was no going back and undoing the mistakes he’d made.
“Who knew you were coming out to your lawyer’s office today?” Matt asked Caroline as soon as she disconnected her call.
She thought for a moment. “I couldn’t tell you exactly. Probably a lot of people. It wasn’t a secret. I’ve been over here fairly often since...since Owen died.”
“Settling your brother’s estate?”
She nodded. “And getting everything set up for guardianship of my nephew.”
“Any fight over inheritance? Bad feelings? Anything like that?”
Caroline sighed. “Owen’s ex-wife, Michelle, is disappointed that she didn’t get anything from Owen’s estate. I’ve only talked to her twice, but she’s got the impression Owen’s business, Wilderness Photo Adventures, is raking in a lot of cash. I told her she’s mistaken. There really hasn’t been any money flowing in yet. Owen was just getting his company started.” Her chin began to tremble and she hurriedly wiped away the tears glistening at the corners of her eyes.
Zane felt his guts twist at the sight of her in so much pain and he took a steadying breath. He wanted to put an arm around her and comfort her, but that was not his place. It hadn’t been for a long time.
“I’m sorry, it’s kind of hard to think right now.” She exhaled a ragged sigh. “Maybe there’s something I should have noticed, but didn’t.”
Matt’s phone rang, and he answered it, turning aside.
Caroline faced Zane. “Thank you for helping me. I mean that sincerely. But I don’t want you going with me to the hospital. And I don’t want to talk to you anywhere else. I have enough drama going on in my life right now.”
She had every right to dismiss him. But she also needed to be protected. “I’d like to do what I can to help keep you and your family safe.”
She sighed and got her quivering chin under control. “You said you do search and rescue work. Go search for those men who tried to kill us.”
As soon as he got the call, he’d be on it. But there was no way he was going to rush in on his own and risk messing up an investigation. “When the police department needs me, they’ll call. And I’ll do everything I can to help. Right now I’m more concerned with looking out for you.”
“No, thank you.”
“We found that white van you mentioned,” said Matt, disconnecting his phone and turning to them. “Abandoned. It was reported stolen earlier this afternoon.” He turned to Zane. “Let’s get rolling. I’ll finish taking your statement while we’re at the hospital.”
Caroline cut Zane a sideways glance. She might not want him to come along, but the cop in charge did. And that was good enough for him.
They stepped up to the door and Matt’s phone chimed. He opened up a text, hesitated and then held out the phone so Caroline and Zane could see a picture. “They found this in the van.” It was a crumpled computer-printed photo of Caroline. “That tells me these guys didn’t know you personally. And they didn’t act on some bizarre random impulse. This was a contract hit.”
Which meant Matt’s earlier cautious assumption was right. The gunmen were professionals who had been hired to kill Caroline. They would try again.
THREE
It was well past dark when Caroline stepped out of Cobalt Community Hospital into the crisp, cool air.
The top of her left arm and shoulder were numb thanks to the injection a nurse had given her prior to receiving a half dozen stitches. The doctor confirmed no bones were broken and that, in spite of knocking her head on the boardwalk, her skull and everything inside of it checked out okay.
She could have been admitted overnight for observation, but she didn’t want to stay any longer than she had to. She was anxious to get back to the house. Even though she’d spoken to both her mom and Dylan on the phone, she still wanted to see for herself that they were okay.
Zane walked beside her, constantly sweeping his gaze across their surroundings. Matt walked ahead, his holster unbuckled and his hand resting on his service revolver.
“Any updates on the search for those creeps who tried to kill us?” She directed her question to Matt. It had been a couple of hours since she last talked to him or to Zane. She had given her statement to a detective, and a female officer she’d never met before had guarded the examining room while she was getting checked out by the doctor.
“Forensics is still going over the van,” Matt answered without turning around. “We’ve got officers canvassing the neighborhood where it was originally stolen as well as the area where it was ditched. And we’re interviewing witnesses, taking descriptions and having people look at mug shots. We’ll have you take a look at them after you’ve gotten some rest.”
Matt’s patrol car was at the end of a short walkway outside a secondary entrance at the back of the hospital. The plan was to keep her departure as low-key as possible. A second patrol car idled behind Matt’s, with two officers standing outside the vehicles, keeping an eye on the few cars driving by on the narrow street.
Cobalt was a small mountain town that had experienced a population explosion after being featured in several outdoor living online magazines and television shows over the last few years. The high-end Cobalt Resort had gone up on the edge of the lake, its owners hoping to capitalize on people’s love of pristine nature combined with luxury accommodations.
Staffing the resort had significantly added to the town’s population above and beyond the tourists, which led to far too many people for the authorities to keep in check. City services were struggling to keep up and the police department was stretched thin. They had enough problems on their hands without giving Caroline a personal escort and the assurance of round-the-clock armed babysitters for at least the next twenty-four hours.