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“This is exactly why I wanted to tell you about this myself.”
She rolled her eyes. “You told me because you knew I was going to find out.” And here she’d been hoping he’d come by just to see her.
“Maybe I thought I could keep you from doing a story that might get you killed.”
“You romantic, you.”
“I’m serious, Charity. I’m worried about you and what you’re going to do next.”
“Mitch, I saw Bud try to say something to Wade right before he died,” Charity said, feeling a chill at the memory. “He was going to incriminate Wade. That’s why Wade shot him, so the truth would never come out.”
“We don’t know that for a fact and speculating only leads to trouble. Especially in print. I would have thought you’d have learned that by now.”
She smiled. This was an old argument between them. “I’m a newspaper woman. It’s my job to get to the truth, and sometimes I have to rattle a few cages to do that and you wouldn’t be worried unless you thought I was right about Wade Dennison being a dangerous man.”
Mitch took off his hat and raked his fingers through his hair. “Is there any way I can talk you out of this?”
She cocked her head at him. “What did you have in mind?” And to think not long ago she’d thought, if she could just write a Pulitzer Prize-winning story, Mitch would finally realize he couldn’t live without her and ask her to marry him.
Instead, she’d realized that Mitch would have been happier if she wasn’t a journalist at all. For some reason, he worried about her safety. Maybe because a lot of her stories got her into trouble.
He put his hat back on—and his official face.
She could play that game, too. “Have you talked to Wade?” she asked, knowing there was no way Wade was going to speak to her on the record or off.
“He admits he could have fired the fatal shot but says all he could think about was saving his wife, Daisy. That’s the official statement.” Mitch reached in to his coat and brought out a folded sheet of paper. He handed it to her.
“I figured that would be his story,” she said, unfolding the paper to see that it was an official statement from the sheriff’s office. She tossed it aside. “I’ll be careful what I print, but Mitch, what if I’m right?”
His dark eyes settled on her. “If you’re right, then Wade Dennison is a killer. You might want to keep that in mind.”
“But how do we prove it?” she cried. “We can’t let him get away with murder.”
“We aren’t going to prove it,” he said getting to his feet. “I am. I have no intention of letting him get away with murder—if he’s guilty. But Charity, as hard as this is for you, you might be wrong this time.”
She smirked at that. “You know I’m right ninety-nine percent of the time.”
He shook his head but seemed unable not to smile down at her. “You are something.”
A person could take that a number of ways.
“Try to accept the fact that we may never know what happened to Angela Dennison,” he said after a moment.
She couldn’t stand the thought. “There has to be a way.”
Mitch was shaking his head. “Charity, getting involved last time almost cost you your life.”
True. But it had also made Mitch realize that he cared for her. She wisely didn’t point this out to him though.
He stood looking down at her as if there was more he wanted to say. She waited for him to ask her to the dance. Or maybe to a late dinner. It had been almost a week since he’d kissed her.
“Just be careful, okay?” he said quietly.
She smiled up at him. “You know me.”
“Yeah, that’s what worries me.” He turned to leave. “See you later.” She hoped so as she watched him go, her lips feeling neglected.
She got up and locked the front door as he drove away. Then she turned back to her computer. She had a story to write.
The phone rang. She picked it up, already knowing who it would be.
“I got that ballistics report you wanted,” said her source on the other end of the line. “Are you sitting down?”
She sat, even though she already knew the results.
“Wade Dennison’s gun killed Bud Farnsworth.”
“You’re the best, Tommy.” A thought had been percolating ever since Mitch left. If she was right and Wade Dennison had hired Bud Farnsworth to do his dirty work, then there would be a money trail. “Tommy, I have another little favor.”
“Little?” he cried when he heard what she wanted. “Do you realize how many years in prison I could get for hacking in to bank records?”
“More years than hacking in to the state investigation’s office for a ballistics report?” she asked innocently.
He laughed. “What’s the name on the account?”
“Two accounts. Wade Dennison and Bud Farnsworth. And I’m interested in old records—say twenty-seven years ago? Let me give you the dates.”
Tommy let out a low whistle when she’d finished. “I hope you know what you’re doing.”
“Are you kidding?” She hung up and typed Wade Dennison Fired Fatal Bullet To Silence Kidnapper or Save Wife? Angela Dennison Kidnapping Still A Mystery and stopped, reminding herself that Wade had threatened her life not that long ago. True, he did it in front of the sheriff—and she hadn’t taken it all that seriously. But now…now she wasn’t so sure she didn’t have something to fear.
Not that it would stop her from doing the story. Or doing a little checking into both Dennison’s and Farnsworth’s bank accounts. After all, she was a journalist whether Mitch liked it or not and she came from a family of the best gossips in four counties. She hated not knowing what was really going on. There had to be a way to get to the truth.
The problem was Wade might be the only one left alive who knew the truth about Angela Dennison’s kidnapping. Maybe it was possible to make Wade angry enough to do something that would get him caught.
She began to type again, telling herself that Mitch wasn’t going to be happy about this. Nothing new about that. Too bad, though, that he hadn’t kissed her. She feared that by tomorrow morning when the paper came out, kissing her would be the furthest thing from his mind.
THE ROAR of the waterfall drowned out Roz’s scream as she tried to fight off the strong arms that grabbed her from behind.
Frantic, she struggled to regain her balance, to free herself of his hold. As she lost her footing on the wet moss-slick boulder, she felt the earth tilt and all she could see was the dizzying darkness of the water below as she slipped and started to fall toward the gorge.
The arms around her loosened as if he realized he was going to pitch over the waterfall with her if he didn’t let go with one arm and try to grab something to save himself.
She drove her elbow into his ribs and heard him let out an oath, but he held on and suddenly she was jerked backward. He took her down with him, both of them hitting hard as they fell under the wide base of a pine tree a few feet from the edge of the falls.
“Stay away from me,” she cried, scooting back from him as her hands searched for something to defend herself with. Her fingers closed around a chunk of wet wood. She held it up, brandishing the wood like a club, as she struggled to get her feet under her.
It was dark under the tree. Not even the light from her SUV’s headlamps could reach it. But she could see that he was large as he also rose to his feet. His face was in a shadow, his features a blur, but his eyes— The irises were so pale they seemed almost iridescent in the dim light.
He advanced on her, his hands out as if in surrender, but she knew he was just looking for another opening to lunge for her again.
“You come near me and I’ll hit you,” she yelled over the roar of the waterfall as she backed up as far as she could. “I’m warning you.”
“Fine,” he said and stopped. “Go ahead, jump. I don’t care. My mistake for trying to save you from yourself.”
She blinked at him through the mist and rain. “Save me from myself? I wasn’t going to jump.”
“Right. Whatever. Go ahead. Have at it. Believe me, I won’t try to stop you again.” He crossed his arms over his chest. She noticed for the first time that, like her, he wasn’t wearing a coat. His shirt and slacks were soaked. Just as hers were.
“You weren’t trying to push me off the waterfall?”
He glared at her. “Are you crazy? What am I saying? Of course you’re crazy or you wouldn’t be up here in the middle of a damned rainstorm trying to commit suicide. And this is the thanks I get for attempting to save your life.”
“Thanks? You almost killed us both,” she snapped. “And I told you, I wasn’t trying to kill myself.” She shuddered at the thought.
“Uh-huh. You just wanted to get a good look at the waterfall.” He started to turn away. “Well, have a good look. I won’t bother you anymore.”
“I saw someone jump.”
He stopped and turned slowly. “What?”
“I saw someone in a yellow raincoat jump.” She glanced off to the side toward the waterfall, sick with the memory. “That’s why I rushed over here.”
“You saw someone?”
Could his tone be any more mocking?
“I think it was a woman.” Had she caught a glimpse of long blond hair just before the figure disappeared over the top of the falls? “I saw her—” her voice broke “—lean forward and drop over the edge. When I got to the top of the falls, the yellow raincoat she was wearing was in the water below.”
“Uh-huh,” he said and looked around. “And this woman who jumped, where is her car?”
“Right over—”
“That’s my truck. But you ought to know that. You’ve been following me for the past twenty miles.”
She looked past her own car, the engine still running, the interior light on since she’d left her door open in her haste. The headlights sliced a narrow swath of pale gold through the pouring rain and darkness. There were no other vehicles. Just hers. And his. Nor had she seen any other cars on the highway tonight.
“How did this mysterious jumper get out here?” he asked.
She shook her head, confused. The waterfall was too far from anything for anyone to have walked. Especially this time of year in a rainstorm.
“You and I are the only ones out here,” he said.
She opened her mouth, then closed it. She’d seen someone in a bright yellow raincoat, seen the person jump, seen the coat in the water below the falls.
Even back here under the shelter of the large old pine, she could still feel that falling sensation, the roaring in her ears, the warm spray on her face, feel the watery grave far, far below as her feet slipped on the mossy rock.
“You had to have seen her,” Roz said trembling hard now but not from the cold.
“All I saw was you in my side mirror as I started to leave. I saw you throw on your brakes, bolt from your car and run to the edge of the waterfall.”
He’d been watching her? That’s why he hadn’t seen the person in the yellow raincoat. So he’d just been trying to save her? “If I was wrong about your intentions—”
He waved off her apology. “Forget it.”
“We have to call the sheriff.” Even as she said it, she knew no one could have survived that fall into the rocks and water below. It would just be a matter of recovering the body.
“You have a cell phone that works up here?” he asked. “I tried mine when I stopped. No service.”
She shook her head. Of course there wouldn’t be any service up here. “I’ll call the sheriff when I get closer to Timber Falls.”
“You sure you want to do that?”
She rubbed a hand over her wet face, still holding the chunk of wood in the other. She was exhausted, emotionally drained. She leveled her gaze at him. “I did see someone jump.” She didn’t know where the person had come from but she knew what she’d seen.
He shrugged. “Whatever you say.”
She hated his scornful tone. Had he really been trying to save her? Or kill her? If he’d just left her alone, she would have been perfectly fine. She was pretty sure that was true. He was making her doubt everything.
“I have family in Timber Falls,” she said, and hated herself for trying to reassure him that she was the sane one here. “I’m on my way there.”
“If your family lives in Timber Falls, I’d think you would know the road.”
“I wasn’t paying attention. I was following you. And I haven’t been up here in years.” She wouldn’t be here at all if she wasn’t worried about her father. When she’d left ten years before, she’d thought nothing could ever get her back to Timber Falls. And nothing had, not even when her father had remarried, moved back and reopened her childhood home. Until now. “I came up here tonight because—”
“Thanks, but I’d prefer not to know anymore about you,” he said.
“Are you always this disagreeable?” she snapped.
“Actually, I’m trying to be on my best behavior right now.”
“Really?”
“Really,” he said, wringing the water from his shirttail. “You should see me when I’m not.”
“No, thanks.”
“Did I mention that I’m late for a dinner engagement?”
“Then please don’t let me keep you,” she said.
He started backing away from her. “And please don’t thank me for saving your life. Really.”
“No problem. I hadn’t wanted to jump but now that I’ve met you I might change my mind.”
His laugh held little humor as he turned his back on her and stalked through the rain toward the parking lot and his pickup.
She headed for her car, still gripping the chunk of wood just in case he was a psycho killer and planned to double back. He didn’t. He went straight to his pickup, climbed in and a moment later the engine turned over and the headlights came on. He drove away without looking back as far as she could tell.
