Flashback

“Yeah. I’ll tell ’em what the Feds told us, but they’re gonna want to talk to you.”

“I’ll be there in ten minutes. Just keep them calm until then.”

“Keep ’em calm? You’re making a hell of an assumption.”

“Just hold on until I get there.”

IT DIDN’T TAKE long for Eden to realize Dean hadn’t exaggerated. A dozen men crowded into the confines of the conference room where Winton had taken Jake Underwood. Although Dean was trying to keep order, they were clearly past the point of being reasoned with.

“What’s going on here?” she shouted over the hubbub as she took her place beside him. It quieted them, if only momentarily.

“You protecting Underwood. That’s what’s going on.”

Eden didn’t see who’d said that, but the chorus of agreement indicated it didn’t matter. They were apparently of one accord.

“The agents from the MBI—”

“If somebody’s crazy, they may believe what they’re saying enough to fool a machine,” the same voice called out. “That ain’t to say the bastard didn’t take her.”

She hadn’t expected the results of the lie-detector test to be completely negated by Underwood’s wounds. She was beginning to appreciate what Dean had been dealing with.

“He says he saw her,” Lincoln Greene said from the front. “That he knows where she is. That doesn’t alarm you?”

Greene was the owner of the local hardware store. And not known as a hothead. There was no denying that he was hot right now.

“Major Underwood has flashbacks. We believe that—”

“Yeah, a flashback to when he took her. You asked him where the place is that he saw? You ask him that, Chief?”

“Actually, I talked to Major Underwood this afternoon.” This time she raised her voice to continue speaking over the resulting mutter. “I can assure you that neither this department nor the Federal agents assigned to this case believe he has anything to do with the kidnapping.”

“Then why’d you meet with him?” Greene demanded.

A chorus of “yeah’s” followed. She held up her hand, palm forward. “We both ended up at the same location while searching for Raine. I can promise you that Major Underwood is as concerned about that little girl as any of us. He was out looking for her. Just as all of you have been.”

The couple of seconds of silence that followed that reminder was enough to make her believe she’d talked some sense into them. At least, until Reilly Dawson piped up.

“You sure he wasn’t just revisiting the scene of the crime like they say murderers do? You look for blood around there, Chief?”

“Since we have no reason to believe Raine Nolan is dead,” Eden said evenly, “I wasn’t there to look for blood. I was out there to look for a child. A living child. So was Major Underwood.”

“That ain’t what the news is saying.” Dave Porter was a shade-tree mechanic, one good enough to service the department’s cars as well as most of the watercraft in the area. “They’re saying that, after all this time, chances are good she’s dead. They’re saying y’all are just looking for her body now.”

“Well, they’re wrong,” Eden said. “We’re still looking for Raine. And that’s exactly what you should be using all this energy for, instead of accusing somebody who’s been cleared by both the MBI and the FBI.”

Another moment of quiet, broken by Greene’s question. “Then how do you explain what he says he saw? That vision, or whatever it was?”

“I don’t explain it. I can’t. I just don’t believe he had anything to do with the kidnapping.”

“But you do believe he saw where she is?”

The delay before she answered was too long. Inherently honest, Eden was no longer sure what she believed. Only what Jake Underwood did.

“Is that why the two of you met up today? You out looking for the place he described and just ‘ran into him’ so to speak?”

Paul Springfield’s sarcasm was broad enough to generate laughter and a few catcalls.

“That don’t make you wonder?” Porter reiterated.

“What makes me wonder is why you all are wasting this time and furor on something that I’m telling you isn’t related. I’ve told you what we know to be fact. Now you all need to go on home, get a good night’s sleep, and get up in the morning and help the search parties. We’ll be making assignments for those at eight a.m., the same as we do every day. I’ll expect to see all of you back here then. If not, then I’ll know exactly what y’all are really interested in. And it isn’t in finding Raine Nolan.”

Nobody broke this silence. Not until Dean said, “Now go on. Get out of here. You’ve wasted enough of everybody’s time with this nonsense.”

Several of the men began to turn toward the door, the heat suddenly seeming to evaporate in the face of their combined demands. Greene didn’t move, holding Eden’s eyes.

“This isn’t over, you know. I don’t know why you’re protecting that bastard, but when it all comes out, you better realize that you won’t be able to do that anymore. Not when they find that little girl.”

“Go home,” Dean ordered, putting his hand on the man’s shoulder to turn him. “This is done. This and your threats.”

Greene didn’t resist, but he jerked out the deputy chief’s hold, pushing his way through the knot of men near the door. Only when the room had cleared did Eden release the breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding.

“He’s right about one thing,” Dean said.

“What’s that?”

“They aren’t finished with this. The longer she’s missing, the more eager they’re gonna be to take their frustrations out on somebody. Right now, the only available target seems to be Underwood.”

JAKE HAD NO IDEA what had awakened him. No memory of a sound or a dream or anything else that would pull him out of the restless sleep he’d finally, long after he’d gone to bed, fallen into. All he knew was that every instinct, developed through years of training and experience, told him he needed to be awake. And vigilant.

As his gaze swept slowly across the moon-touched landscape of his grandmother’s farm, he couldn’t find a shadow out of place. There wasn’t a whisper of sound, other than the ones that lulled him to sleep every night. Not a flicker of movement.

Still, something was wrong. Every hair on the back of his neck was raised, his well-honed sense of danger in full operational mode.

He turned his head, his eyes searching the narrow porch that ran across the front of the house. Nothing. And since he’d come out through the window of his bedroom, which was at the back, he knew there was no one there, either. Still…

Jake’s fingers automatically tightened around his grandfather’s rifle, his heart rate reacting to the sudden spurt of adrenaline. He watched as a shadow, minutely darker than its surroundings, drifted along the perimeter of the property.

Despite his leg, Jake moved soundlessly to the other side of the small toolshed he’d hidden behind, attempting to get an angle on whoever was out there.

A cloud obscured the moon, causing him to glance up. It was large enough that the intruder should be able to use it to reach the grove of pines that flanked the pasture. And once there…

Once there, he realized, whoever was out here would be concealed from view until they came out on the other side of the house. He could watch until that happened, or—

The slight smile that tugged at the corner of his lips had nothing to do with whatever was happening now and a whole hell of a lot to do with what had gone on during the last eighteen months. He was already moving before it faded.

NOT EXACTLY ON her way home, Eden conceded. And it had taken her a couple of hours, after the confrontation with the townspeople, to get away from the station.

However, she hadn’t been able to reach Jake Underwood on the number he had provided to the department, and she wouldn’t be able to sleep unless she warned him about what had happened tonight.