What She Saw

“It’s not the usual way of looking at things,” he admitted. “And I could be wrong about you being in any danger. God willing, I am. I just don’t want to risk it.”

That was reasonable, she supposed. She tried to shake off the feeling that the deepening shadows around her might hold a threat. God, she wasn’t used to thinking this way. Life had dealt her its blows right out in the open.

And now here she was, putting in place the first building blocks of a future, and some guy came virtually out of nowhere to tell her that she might wind up like Ray? All because she had glimpsed something in the truck-stop parking lot?

Deal! Her brain almost barked the order at her, and she stiffened. If she could say nothing else about herself, if there was one thing she knew about herself for certain, it was that she dealt with life’s curveballs. All of them.

She sat up straighter, drew a breath and thought, All right. This is how it is. Now what was she to do about it?

There was one thing she knew instantly, of course. “Well, you’ve successfully made me afraid to go home alone.”

“I’m sorry. Like I said, I’m not sure you’re at risk. But equally, I can’t be sure you’re not. You saw something that nobody was supposed to see. You saw the driver of the other truck, right?”

“Yes. He came in for coffee, too.”

“And you saw the transfer of cargo.”

“I think I did. It’s not easy to see that parking lot clearly from inside the restaurant at night.”

“But you mentioned it. Others may have mentioned it after they heard what you told the police. Regardless, if I was that other driver, I’d be feeling a bit edgy. You could identify him. Maybe you could describe his truck. He might lie low and wait, but then again, killing Ray seems awfully stupid to me. If you want a quiet operation, you don’t draw attention to it by murder.”

She looked straight at him. “Do you think Ray was killed because of me?” The thought made her heart quail.

“Actually, no. I suspect Ray had irritated them in some other way. Maybe by talking about coming into some money. Something made them think he was a liability. But again, that’s my guess. I’m not even going to be sure of that until I see the accident reports.”

“How will you do that?”

“I’m going to talk to the cops in a few days.”

He couldn’t have said anything more likely to make her believe he was exactly what he said he was. “Why would they talk to you?”

“Because I’m here on behalf of my company. And they’re going to do a background check on me and find out I used to be a cop just like them. They’ll talk.”

She nodded, believing it. Cops were a tight bunch.

“As for your apartment…if you don’t mind me knowing where you live, I’ll go home with you and check it out. Then I’ll leave and you can rest comfortably.”

She sat quietly, common sense battling with more primitive needs. She liked this man. She liked his attention, but what did she really know about him? She’d seen couple of IDs, but she had no way of knowing if they were real.

For all she knew, this was flimflam, and she didn’t have any means of checking it out. So…did she want him to know where she lived? Heck, the way he had glommed on to her might put him squarely on the side of the wrongdoers. If there were any wrongdoers. She couldn’t even know that for certain.

All she knew was that he seemed determined to frighten her and then set himself up as her savior. When she thought of it that way, her internal alerts started to go off.

“No, thanks,” she said, standing. “Don’t follow me.”

There were other ways of dealing with all of this, but none of them involved inviting Buck Devlin any further into her life. As for going home alone, she did that every night, and she’d never been afraid until this man had suggested it.

All of a sudden she didn’t like him.

Turning on her heel, she walked to the car, leaving him sitting on the bench behind her. Something smelled fishy, and when things smelled fishy it was best to stay away.

Chapter 3

Buck watched Haley walk away, feeling something between frustration and genuine concern. He couldn’t blame her for her response. It did sound like something out of as movie, and something for which he was willing to bet life in this town hadn’t prepared her.

On the other hand, his life experience had taught him to be suspicious by nature. If things didn’t fit, if things weren’t orderly, then something was going on. Sometimes it wasn’t a big deal. All too frequently it had been. And noticing those out-of-kilter things had often been his biggest guide to solving a crime.

He’d come on this trip expecting to find out absolutely nothing at all. He’d figured it would be a while before he learned something about what was happening with those shipments, if he heard anything at all. Instead it had practically landed in his lap because of an observant waitress. Follow that with a dead driver who’d been seen doing something squirrelly with another truck, and his internal klaxon had become deafening.

But how did he explain that to someone else? Especially someone like Haley, who had no idea that long-haul trucks shouldn’t be trading loads in a truck stop in Nowhere, Wyoming, or that a driver might be killed because of it. Who wouldn’t even begin to understand the dimensions of shipments disappearing and reappearing.

It was an alien world to her.

Then, of course, he must seem like the next best thing to a drifter to her. Rootless, wandering, a total unknown who had just approached her with the wildest story imaginable. She was just being smart, by her lights.

Maybe she was right. Maybe nothing threatened her at all. Maybe he looked like a bigger threat than having half seen something through the window of the diner.

He’d certainly come on pretty strong and from somewhere out in the stratosphere, given the world she knew.

He sighed and rose, heading back to the motel. So, okay. He couldn’t ignore his instincts. He couldn’t be sure that Haley was at risk, but he couldn’t be sure that she wasn’t. That didn’t leave him any really good options, except to do his best to keep an eye on her from a distance without worrying her.

In the meantime, he had to wait a few days before he went to the local cops to get the result of their accident investigation. He wanted autopsy results. He wanted toxicology results. Those took time.

For now he just had to remain on alert for anything that seemed odd.

Like a very expensive funeral, paid for by an anonymous donor, for a guy who’d been bragging that he was about to come into some money.

As he was walking along quiet, darkening streets, he thought about that funeral. A large donation struck him as a bit obvious for someone who wanted a quiet operation.

But maybe it had bought some silence. Maybe the Listons were up to their necks in this.

If they were, he had to find out.

He realized as he strode the quiet, tree-lined streets that he’d resumed more than the mantle of his old job; he’d resumed its habits. As if he’d never let go of them, his vigilance heightened, his eyes scouring every shadow and cranny, his ears listening for anything unusual.

Tension ran along his nerve endings, more out of habit than real necessity at this point. No one other than his bosses had any idea why he was hanging out here, and to the casual observer it must appear he had his eye on Haley.

Well, hell, he did. Not that that was going anywhere, but he was an ordinary man and like any other guy he couldn’t avoid being attracted to a woman like her. He’d seen enough other truckers noticing her in the same way.

He wondered if he should have just kept his mouth shut, left Haley out of his suspicions, made himself a bit obnoxious by seeming to be interested in her without telling her why. It would have been an easy enough role to play.

But he didn’t want to scare her by acting like a stalker, although maybe that’s what he had done anyway.

Losing his touch, he thought. Or maybe it was one he’d never really had. Dealing with soldiers was a whole different ball game, requiring a very different approach. His touch with women hadn’t won him any high marks, either.

As he neared the motel, though, he knew the game was about to change, for good or ill. There was a squad car parked near his unit, lights off, motor off, and occupied by a large deputy.

He took care to make some noise, make his approach overt. He’d never taken kindly himself to someone coming upon him without warning.