Murder At Granite Falls

“Hold on.”

She gripped her phone even tighter as several interminable seconds ticked by. The breeze had picked up, sending branches scraping against the building. The shadows beyond the reach of the security lights seemed to be shifting, coalescing.

Was that someone lurking by the boathouse? At the bumper of her SUV? Or was it just her imagination? Billy had threatened to make trouble—was it him?

From some distant place in the darkness she heard the faint sound of a distant engine roaring to life…then fade, heading toward the highway.

“Ma’am, I have an officer who should be there within twenty minutes. Are you alone?”

“Yes.” More than I’ve ever been in my life.

“Stay inside. Keep your doors and windows locked.”

He certainly had a knack for stating the obvious. “Believe me, I will,” she said wryly. “But I…I think I heard a car start up. Maybe he left it hidden somewhere up the lane and now he’s gone.”

“Do you still want the officer to stop out?”

“No…” She bit her lip. “On second thought, please. If this guy is still in the area and sees a patrol car arrive, it might scare him off.”

“Yes, ma’am. The officer will get there as soon as he can.”

Carrie leaned her head against the window frame and peered through the edge of the blinds. The parking lot was empty. Only the sounds of the river and the breeze-tossed branches filled the silence.

But this incident brought back memories of other nights last fall, when she’d tried to still her racing heart. When a threatening phone call or email had kept her on edge. When Billy had promised to make her pay.

And there’d been another one of his cryptic emails just last night. A subtle threat. A promise that when he came back to Montana, he was planning on a little visit.

The figure out in the darkness had seemed a little…taller than him, though that could have been a trick of the lighting, or a perception enhanced by her own fear.

But what if he was back in Montana and had already found her?

Counting the slow drag of the minutes on her watch, Carrie shivered in the chilly night air, unable to tear herself away from the window. What if the stranger came back? What if he managed to quietly pick the lock on her door?

Harley padded across the room to wind around her ankles like a warm, sinuous powder puff, then stalked away and curled up on the back of the sofa where he promptly went to sleep.

“Some watch cat you are,” she muttered.

The most interest he’d shown since their arrival Sunday had been over the appearance of Logan’s golden lab. The cat had patrolled the windowsills for ten minutes after the sighting, the low grumble in his throat promising no quarter if he ever got the chance to attack.

The dog didn’t appear very energetic. It had apparently slept away the afternoon in the boathouse, and had only emerged to jump into Logan’s truck when he got ready to leave yesterday evening. With all the people around, it hadn’t uttered a single bark.

But still, a dog might offer a sense of security, and her brother’s fiancée, Kris, did run an animal shelter…though it would be a long drive to check out the possibilities for a good, noisy companion.

“I wonder if Logan would like to make a temporary trade?” She studied her sleeping cat, who opened one eye, offered a bored yawn and went back to sleep. “Maybe not.”

At the crunch of tires on gravel she stiffened, a hand at her throat…then relaxed when a patrol car marked with K-9 Patrol on the side pulled to a stop.

Relief flooded through her when a deputy stepped out with a clipboard in hand. He wasn’t the rumpled, overweight teddy bear of an officer she’d met in town, though. This one was thin, austere-looking and older, his uniform crisply pressed, his military-cut, salt-and-pepper hair silvered by security light overhead.

She stepped out of her apartment onto the balcony. “I’m so glad you’re here,” she called out as she descended the stairs and crossed the parking area to meet him.

“Deputy Rick Peterson.” He accepted her handshake. “I hear you’ve had a little trouble?”

“There was someone out here, trying to break into my Tahoe. I keep it locked, so he couldn’t get in. I know it’s probably not a big deal, but I’m here alone.” The police dog in the backseat of the patrol started barking. “Maybe your buddy has picked up his scent, or something.”

“Had any trouble out here before?”

“I just moved in Sunday afternoon and thought I had a prowler last night, as well. This is the first I’ve actually seen him.”

“You surely haven’t had enough time to make any enemies here.” He looked at her over his half-rim glasses. “Or have you?”

She shook her head. “No. But one might’ve followed me from the past.”

He pursed his lips as she told him about Billy, then he flicked on his flashlight and circled her vehicle. She followed on his heels and peered inside, too.

“Are you missing anything?”

Her boxes of books were still on the backseat, along with her old camera bag and an even older ink-jet printer. “Everything is still there—not that anyone could want it.” She tried the door handles. “And the car is still locked. I suppose I’ve called you on a wild-goose chase.”

“Not a problem. If a stranger was out here lurking around, I can understand why you’d be concerned.” He scanned the wide parking area and beyond that, the dark, nearly impenetrable pine forest that rimmed the clearing on three sides. “Maybe you’d be better off finding a place in town. Closer to civilization.”

“I tried, but no dice. I’ll have to find a different place by September, though.”

“Our county sheriff’s department is understaffed and we have a lot of ground to cover. If you do encounter trouble out here, we might not be able to respond as fast as we’d like.”

She nodded, biting her lower lip. “I understand. I still hope my past isn’t going to be an issue. But I’ll let the Bradleys know about it.”

His eyebrows drew together. “Still, a lady living alone like you might want to take a gun safety course and keep a weapon around. There’s other varmints out here besides the two-legged kind.”

“I grew up on a ranch. I’ve had my own shotgun since I was twelve.”

“Is it here?”

“It’s in the back of my SUV.”

He snorted. “Won’t do you much good in there.”

“I didn’t want to bring it in until I had time to install a padlock on my closet. There are families with kids all over this property during the day. If one came upstairs and found it while I wasn’t home…” She shuddered.

He went to the back door of the SUV. “Ma’am, I recommend that you take it upstairs for the rest of the night. Just firing off a warning shot might do a world of good if that prowler comes back. It could take us a long time to get here.”

She could only imagine the deputy’s amusement if he saw her battered 1960s Remington shotgun, a gift from her grandfather.

Years ago, back when she was a teenager, she’d left one of the ranch dogs in her pickup cab while she’d struggled to catch and treat a calf with scours, and the dog had chewed the butt of the wooden stock to splinters. The weapon was old but accurate, and sentiment had kept her from trading it off.

She patted her pockets. “I…don’t have my keys on me.”

He tipped his head toward the front door. “Looks like you have a keypad, though.”