Flirting with Disaster

If he used a little creativity, he could imagine that she was a girl from rural Washington State who’d been raised by parents from Cincinnati, who’d kept her off the grid until she was in her twenties. That might explain the slight accent that had nothing to do with the West Coast and the fact that there were no property, tax or motor-vehicle records for anyone named Isabelle West before 2002.

That slim possibility aside, he had no idea who she could be. A criminal, certainly. Or maybe just a woman escaping a bad past. If she’d been a victim of domestic violence, judges had the leeway in almost every state to issue an off-the-record name change. Or maybe she was just a girl who’d gotten herself into a bad situation and had been forced to make a run for it.

“Shit,” he muttered, finally turning back to make his way through the woods. He had a problem. He knew he did. A compulsion to help people whether they wanted it or not. Especially those who didn’t want it.

A problem, maybe, but it wasn’t an unreasonable one. Often the people in the worst trouble were the least likely to ask for help. He knew that firsthand. And Isabelle showed all the symptoms of someone like that. She was prickly and proud and smart and self-contained. She hadn’t even wanted him to check her place for an intruder. How would she ever reach out about something weightier?

He took a deep breath and tried to lose himself in the walk. The moon was almost full, and it glowed from every snowy surface, so he had no trouble making his way. But the beauty surrounding him wasn’t as peaceful as it had been when he’d walked Isabelle home.

He’d gone back tonight hoping to discover more of who she was. He hadn’t paid close enough attention the night before. At least he knew who was in the picture with her now. Her girlfriends. And it must mean something that she hadn’t had one other framed photograph in the house. No family. No kids. No history.

Maybe he should just let it go. Mary joked all the time about his determination to fix things that were none of his business. He knew it was about his parents and their tendency to stick their heads in the sand and hope for the best. He loved them, and he’d never say it, but his brother would’ve had a hell of a better shot at survival if they’d stepped up and interfered.

His cell phone rang, destroying the silence of the forest and startling him from his thoughts. He was surprised to get a call out here. Service was spotty even when he wasn’t in the trees.

“Duncan,” he answered.

“We got another letter,” Mary said without preamble. “Where are you?”

“About one minute out from the Chandler house. Where are you?”

“Just pulling up,” she said as lights swept over the trees far ahead of him. “Security guards finally decided to go through the Saturday mail delivery at the courthouse.”

Tom cursed. “Didn’t we ask them to bring any mail to us?”

“I guess the weekend shift didn’t get the news.”

“Hold on,” he said, picking up his pace along the packed trail of snow. “I’ll be right there.”

The lights from the judge’s cabin blazed through the trees. Another car pulled up as he got there. Hannity got out. “A threat to the judge’s family,” he said immediately, falling into place next to Tom as he jogged up the stairs.

“Mary already moved Veronica here,” Tom said pointedly, “so that’ll make this easier to address. What else?”

“He mentioned a bomb.”

“Shit. We’re gonna need another team—”

“Already on it.”

“Anderson?”

“Yes. He says he can have a K-9 unit here in three hours.”

“Have a plan drawn up before he gets here,” Tom ordered. “We’ll sweep the area around the house for footprints and evacuate the judge’s home if we find anything. If not, let’s focus on the courthouse.”

Mary was waiting for him with a copy of the letter. He grabbed it and started through the four pages of single-spaced ranting. Things were about to get a whole lot busier around here.

CHAPTER FIVE (#ulink_1871c64a-ed61-5b0d-a7cb-e13eda1104a7)

ISABELLE SLIPPED ON her sunglasses, but she still squinted against the bright morning light as she walked through town. Well...afternoon light, maybe. Sunlight was brutal at this altitude and even more brutal when it was shining off the snow piled along the narrow sidewalks of Jackson like a punishment handed down by the cruel god of hangovers.

Halfway through their night out, she and Lauren had decided to throw caution to the wind and get unapologetically drunk. That had meant no ride home for Isabelle and a very cold midnight walk from the bar to Lauren’s house, but it had been worth it. Lauren didn’t have to work today, and Isabelle had needed to shake off the last of the fear Tom Duncan had delivered to her doorstep.

She’d shaken off the fear but had acquired a headache, though she’d managed to sleep off most of the alcohol.

Still, the crisp air helped eliminate the last of her lethargy, and she walked a little taller and unbuttoned her coat to feel more of the sun. She wasn’t worried that she was wearing the same clothes she’d worn the night before. If anyone noticed and thought she was taking an extended walk of shame, she’d be happy for the gossip. Her “creepy hermit artist” reputation wasn’t getting her any dates. Maybe “creepy party-girl artist” would help.

She smiled at the next person she passed and put a little more swing in her step. Maybe she should wear her heeled boots every time she ran errands. It certainly made walking to the post office feel less like a chore and more like the possibility of adventure.

And funny enough, when she turned the corner, adventure was waiting right there for her. Unfortunately, it wasn’t the sexy kind. It was the kind that came with a heavy police presence and a scrum of reporters. She’d accidentally stumbled onto the property of the tiny federal courthouse of Jackson, Wyoming.

For a moment, she just stood there, hand tightening on her little clutch purse and heart ratcheting up her fight-or-flight response.

Funny that she hadn’t thought about this at all. She hadn’t considered what Tom’s job really meant and how much it had in common with her past. She’d been too worried that he was actually here to scout her out.

Her father’s case had never gone to trial; he’d skipped town long before that. But he had been indicted, and there had been hearings and other cases to process, and it had all looked like this, only instead of two satellite trucks, there’d been ten. All the Chicago outlets and a few national ones, as well.

This was an entirely different scene, she tried to tell herself. Nothing like what had happened to her father. Here there were only fifty or so spectators and another twenty press people, and the federal courthouse in Jackson didn’t look much different from the post office. It was a one-story, ugly ’60s structure that evoked none of the gravitas or Greek dignity of the courthouses of Chicago.

So yes, it was a very different scene, but she was still standing there panting as if she were the one in danger. As if that pack of reporters was about to chase her life down and devour it in front of her. Again.

She took a deep breath. Then another.

This had nothing to do with her. It didn’t have anything to do with people she knew. Except Tom.

The threats against the judge really were a big deal. She’d read a few things online, but she hadn’t understood the scope of it. These news trucks had come all the way from Cheyenne, six hours away. They might even be sending coverage to a national feed.

She could no longer feel the fingers gripping her bag, but she’d calmed down a little, so she moved her clutch to the other hand and took a moment to look for Tom. He was likely inside the courthouse, running the show there, but she had a strange urge to see him in his element. She had a feeling that that much authority would look sexy as hell on him, especially when she’d been raised to find that kind of thing manly.

But her interest fled when a car pulled up to the courthouse walkway, and the reporters suddenly surged forward. She didn’t recognize the man who emerged, but everyone else seemed to. Small town or not, these reporters behaved the same way Chicago reporters did, shouting at their crew, yelling out questions, rushing forward like hungry animals.

Isabelle took two steps back and spun to make her getaway, practically running to the next cross street so she could detour around the courthouse to get to her postal box. She never wanted to see that kind of thing again. She never wanted any part of a trial or a scandal or people who shouted hateful things.

Once she was out of sight of the crowd, Isabelle slowed down, but she had to force it. She wanted to run. If she’d had her car, she’d probably have sprinted straight for it and left rubber on the road as she sped out of town. But she didn’t have her car. She was meeting Lauren in thirty minutes so they could have lunch before Lauren drove her home.

She put one foot in front of the other and skirted the rear of the courthouse and then worked back around to the post office.

After giving a wan smile to the clerk, who was ready with a wave, Isabelle got her mail and took it to the recycling box to ditch the junk mail. It was all junk mail. Even the one piece that caught her eye and made her hands start to tremble.

Her name and address were typed, and it looked like any other piece of marketing, except that there was a stamp in place of printed postage. And there was no return address.

She turned the envelope over. It shook in her hand. The return address was printed on the back, but with no name or company logo.

Though she meant to throw it away, her shaking hand reached for the flap of the envelope and slowly worked it open. She pushed up her shades as she pulled out the single piece of paper and unfolded it.

At first, she couldn’t quite see the words. She couldn’t focus. Then she started reading and still couldn’t decipher them. It took her three attempts to read through the half page of text before she realized that it wasn’t from her father. It was only a marketing letter from a Realtor who was fishing for seasonal rentals.

The soft sound that came from her own throat frightened her. Isabelle carefully tore the letter into long strips and dropped each of them into the trash can next to the recycling box. The letter had done nothing to her, but she wanted it gone, not recycled into something else.