Warning Signs (Love Inspired Suspense) (5 page)

He wasn’t going anywhere.

It seemed getting rid of Owen Matthews was going to be harder than she thought.

* * *

“I want everything you have on Nick Danforth in my hands.
Now.
” Owen spoke to Wes on his cell phone in the warm cab of his rusty borrowed pickup. Wes had set him up with the truck, and at the moment it was the most secure place to make this phone call, even with the scorcher of a day. He just couldn’t take the chance of being overheard.

The students were eating lunch in the cafeteria at the moment. Owen had a reprieve from playing professor. He was due back in forty-five minutes for a freshman class on writing a thesis statement. He remembered enough from school to know what it was—simply stating what you believe and what you intend to prove.

“Nick Danforth is our guy,” Owen said into the phone.
Now only to prove it.
“I just witnessed the interpreter pull the wool over his boss’s eyes. She had no idea he misinterpreted what was really being said. The only person who can tell if an interpreter is getting the message right is another interpreter, and he wasn’t getting it right—on purpose. He made me out to be some judgmental bad cop when I only wanted more information about a particular student as a potential lead.”

“Are you sure this wasn’t another one of their games, like the ones they played on me?” Wes’s voice held a high level if irritation.

Owen scanned the parking lot. The sign for the principal’s parking spot stood two spots down. An old vintage Vespa parked there. Its bright blue finish showed its age in rust. Apparently Miriam had another set of wheels. Owen found it difficult to picture her zipping around on it. He wiped a hand across his forehead. “You were smart, Wes, to ask me to come. Even if you didn’t tell me up front about Miriam’s deafness.”

“Like I said, after everything with your son, I knew you wouldn’t have come if I had.”

Owen sighed heavily and took another swipe. Sweat came away on his palm. He had to be perspiring because of his anger at Nick or the warm interior of the cab, or both. It couldn’t be from the guilt that kept his son a stranger to him, and definitely not from the fiery redhead who’d just stomped her foot at him as though he were nothing more than another bug to be squashed in her long line of grievances.

The smile he’d held in check in her office broke free now. The woman was full of surprises. She sure didn’t act like a disabled person. The twinkling mischief and laughter in her eyes demonstrated her quick wit and smarts. Nick couldn’t misinterpret that no matter what words he changed. He also couldn’t misinterpret the way she went to bat for Ben Thibodaux. She was a woman secure in herself and her position and apparently her deafness.

He wondered what her secret was—and if she would share it with him. Maybe...just maybe... He pushed the far-fetched idea aside. His son would never be so lucky.

“Leaving out the fact I would need your signing capabilities for this case was a necessary omission,” Wes’s voice broke into Owen’s aching wish for a normal life for Cole.

A bead of sweat trickled down the center of Owen’s back. It was too hot to sit in this truck. He pushed open the door and headed for the back parking lot where the tree line would give him the privacy he needed to continue this conversation. He spoke as he walked. “I’ll admit I was caught off guard for a minute yesterday, but as soon as they started talking I could see why you needed me. But Wes, I got to tell you I think Danforth is our guy. Not Miriam.”

A strange odor wafted to Owen’s nostrils as he reached the trees. He paused to survey the forest before him. Dense foliage of blazing reds and ambers was difficult to see through, but he did notice that no birds chirped in the autumn stillness.

Too still,
he thought, and the feeling of being watched pricked the hairs on the back of his neck. Owen stepped past the tree line to enter the woods. Old fallen leaves from years before crunched beneath his feet. Only a few trees had let their leaves go so far this season.

Owen sniffed and placed the odor. He didn’t need a mechanic’s license to know the sharp smell of gasoline. From where he stood, it was close by.

Wes rattled on about Nick’s run-in with the law ten years ago. Owen listened on in silence while he continued to survey the area. He reached out to a few broken branches, noticing more like them ahead.

Something large had come through there.

Owen knelt to the ground to lift leaves, scattered loosely about. Not old, packed-down, decomposing leaves, but freshly fallen leaves—and a whole bunch of them. In his estimation, it was too many for this early in the season. And they were only in this area.

He lifted a chunk away, exposing the old earth beneath. A few more swipes and he had what he was looking for.

Tire tracks.

“What kind of car does Miriam have again?” Owen cut Wes off.

“An old maroon Dodge. It belonged to her grandparents. She inherited it with the house.”

“Does she have any other family here?” The question slipped out before he could stop it, but Owen justified it as background information and good to have. He scanned up ahead, where the lay of the land dipped down. A ditch perhaps?

“Nah, not anymore. The Hunters only had the one daughter. Keira Hunter was a wild one, according to my parents. Ran her own parents ragged and then ran away to the mainland. Showed up a year later with a baby in her arms and no husband.” Wes made a
pffing
sound. “Women,” he finished with disgust in his voice.

Owen ignored his friend’s last retort and focused on the interesting info about Miriam’s mother. Where was Keira Hunter now? “So did Miriam grow up on the island?”

“Nope, just a few visits. Whenever Keira got evicted or something. You know how that goes. From what I know, the last visit Ms. Hunter had here was when she was ten years old. After that, she wasn’t seen or heard from again until the reading of Trudy’s will.”

Owen loomed closer to the drop-off. “How did Miriam get the job?” That was one question eating at Owen. “How does a deaf person qualify for a principal position? Especially one who doesn’t live on the island already?”

“You and everyone else want to know. The school board made the decision behind closed doors. My guess is it’s because of who her grandfather was. Hans, Len and Frank came here together after World War II.”

“Frank? I’ve met Len. Is Frank still around?”

“Yes. He’s the youngest of the trio—eighty-six, I believe.”

Owen reached the edge and halted, seeing exactly what he expected. “I found the car.”

“Uh-uh,” Wes said.

“Uh-huh,” Owen replied. “Maroon Dodge. Looks like it was driven through the backwoods of the school parking lot and pushed into a ditch.”

“Well, Ms. Hunter could have done that. This doesn’t prove anything.”

“I don’t see what she would gain. Besides, she was locked in a bathroom.”

“So she says. I’m coming over.” Wes disconnected and Owen pocketed his phone.

Gasoline fumes burned his eyes. He surmised that the tank must have been damaged in the car’s trip down the ditch and now leaked out everywhere.

Owen circled around the vehicle, then approached it from behind. The rear seats were empty and so was the front. He found the driver’s side door unlocked. He scanned inside for a clue as to who might have taken the car and dumped it there.

A few white candy wrappers littered the passenger floor. Saltwater taffy wrappers, from what he could tell. He imagined Miriam’s favorite flavor was spiced apple. A little sweet and a little spicy to match her personality. But if that was the case, then his flavor would have to fall under sour apple.

A
Simple Hospitality
magazine rested on the passenger seat. Brand-new with a label addressed to Miriam Hunter, 555 Cliff Top Road.

A gold piece of jewelry lay on the floor.

These items didn’t mean anything. All of them could belong to her. It would be impossible for him to know if something came from the car thief. He would need her to give him an inventory so he could tell if something was missing or added. He also wasn’t holding his breath that the perp had left a calling card.

A distant popping sound echoed through the woods, jolting through the car. Owen recognized the sound as a gunshot. He was being shot at? Backing out of the driver’s side door, he crouched low to use the car as a shield.

Then he remembered the leaking gas.

The shot was not meant to hit him. It was meant to hit the empty gas tank—empty except for flammable fumes. The farther away the shot was made, the more heat the bullet gained to ignite the tank full of fumes.

Owen rushed for the embankment, hitting the base in the same moment the car exploded behind him. Air whooshed from his lungs as he landed facedown. Heat burned his back while blackness loomed over him. He struggled to get in a breath of the smoky air. His body wouldn’t move no matter how much he willed it to. An image of Cole flashed on the backs of his eyelids.

I can’t die. I’ve never told my son I’m sorry. I’ve never told him I love him.

Owen forced his head up, using the image of his son to propel him forward. Only, the face staring back at him over the embankment and through the haze of smoke wasn’t Cole’s.

It was Miriam’s.

* * *

Heat closed in on Miriam in all directions. She pushed through the burning of her eyes and face to make out the person lying on the hill. Her eyes focused through the haze. She inhaled a sharp breath of smoke.

It was Owen Matthews.

Was he hurt? Escalated panic had her stepping sideways to try to reach for him. Owen lifted his hands and signed, “Get back! I don’t want you to get hurt. Go!”

Miriam backed up to the outside heat barrier, filling her lungs deep with air that wasn’t so thick and noxious. She pulled her cell phone from her pocket and sent a text to Nick.
Fire in backwoods of school. Call 911.

Miriam dared not leave Owen down there. Why he was there she couldn’t fathom, but neither could she fathom how a fire would start out here. When she’d seen the flicker of flames from her office window, she’d thought it was her imagination.

Mother always said her imagination was in overdrive, always seeing things that weren’t there. Miriam figured she should check it out before she alerted the authorities. Most likely it was the brilliance of the fall colors swaying in the breeze. But this was a real fire and, if she saw correctly through the flames, that was her car in the inferno.

Another prank gone horribly wrong? Or a message of danger directed at her? With Owen possibly hurt, it felt like the latter. And where was he, anyway? She watched with eagle eyes for him to appear over the edge.

She used the lapel of her suit coat to cover her mouth while breaking the barrier of heat again. She couldn’t stay back any longer. What if he passed out from the smoke? She had to get him out regardless of what he’d said...
or had he signed it?

Her face burned from the heat, but Owen was in the crux of the blaze. It didn’t matter how he’d spoken. Or that her throat burned from breathing in the scalding fumes as she disregarded his command and went back in. It didn’t matter that she could feel the hair on her head singeing against her scalp. Miriam had to get Owen out. That was the only thing that mattered.

The black smoke thickened; she couldn’t see a thing through her gritty eyes. Something grabbed her foot. Miriam bent to feel a hand reaching over the top of the ditch; smoke billowed out behind it.

Lord, help me. Provide me Your strength to help Owen.
She drew on the promises of God to help her pull Owen up and away from the flames and smoke.
Lend me Your righteous right hand.
She heaved with all her might until his foot came up from the edge and he fell to the ground.

She reached for his upper arms and tried to drag him, but he was so heavy. Words for him to move were on her lips, but in her panic, she couldn’t be sure if they were correct. He got to his knees, his shoulders drooping as he signed, “Get back—it could blow again.”

Definite signing.

Miriam pushed the revelation aside and signed, “Not without you.” She reached for his arms again. This time she was able to drag him a few feet across the forest floor. At first Owen stumbled in her arms, dragging his knees. “Move!” she yelled and hoped it came out correctly.

He pushed himself up to his feet. She led him to the clearing and toward a parked car. They reached a blue minivan, diving behind it just as the pressure of a huge explosion smacked her in the back, sending her flat to the ground with Owen.

He hacked and coughed; his body lay facedown, while his shoulder blades jerked with each wretch. Concern for his well-being swamped her as she felt each spasm beneath her hands. She fisted the cotton fabric of his shirt in her grip, realizing her arms were around him. Her gaze dropped to the arm he’d thrown across her, then followed lower to where half his body lay over her. He’d used his body to shield her from the blast.

Had he been as concerned for her safety as she was for his?

In his state of spasm, he could say nothing to her. But a few moments before, Owen had spoken to her. Technically, he hadn’t said one word. Instead, he’d raised his hands and signed to her as plain as day. His signs held no hesitancy in them. They were clear and purposeful.

And fluently accurate.

Miriam dragged her attention from where his leg covered hers and stopped at the hand on her shoulder. The hand that had spoken to her with expertise, then pushed her down to safety. His own fists balled the material of her suit in them, clinging on to her as she was to him. He hadn’t just pushed her down. He’d grabbed hold of her with every muscle beneath his skin and refused to let go.

His jerky movements from the coughing lessened. Miriam drifted her muddled focus to a pair of black eyes ensconced in a black-soot face. His adrenaline-enlarged pupils penetrated through her, scrutinized her. She could see the worry on his face. Worry for her safety? Or worry that he’d given his secret away?

Did he know his cover had been blown?