Indivisible (17 page)

She tried to stand and gasped. Pain screamed up her ankle to the already bruised calf. She dropped her chin to her chest as the waves passed, then gingerly fingered the flesh puffing up around her ankle bones. Probably a twist or sprain.

Clenching her teeth, she eased down the rocky ravine slick with chipped bark and rust-colored pine needles. She gripped the staff. Dragging it, she crawled up the ravine, her fingers freezing as the rain turned to sleet. Late summer, early autumn, could look like winter at higher elevations—and felt like it already. It began to hail, relentless pellets stinging her. At least no psychopath would be out in this.

The thought should have comforted but didn’t. She had hiked alone as long as she could remember. Now someone was torturing animals and leaving them along trails to die. Did that person find them injured and take them at their weakest? She startled and jerked her head to the right. A squirrel scrambled up a fir trunk.

She continued crawling up the slope, rocks and sticks digging into her knees. Breathing hard, she reached the trail and, clutching the staff, got to her feet. She cried out when a bull elk bounded through the trees a short way up the mountain.

What was wrong with her? The chance of a killer being right there right now on a deserted trail in the storm was far less than the danger of injury and hypothermia. This cold front could drop into the twenties or below. She pulled gloves from her pack and tugged them over her stinging hands.

In another pocket of her pack, she activated her phone, but as she’d figured, it found no signal. She pulled the hood over her soaking hair and cinched it around her face. Wincing each time she put weight on her twisted ankle, she worked her way down the rocky trail.

Down was always more precarious. Wet and icy made it treacherous. Injured, it might be nearly impossible. But she had to try. Piper would worry, and Piper didn’t just worry. She called people, called Jonah.

Tia shivered. If she went fast enough—no, she had to be careful. She planted the stick and eased over a sharp rock, reached a level stretch and pulled herself along like a Venetian gondolier.

The hail covered the ground like snow. She tried to recall what phase of moon she’d have, but with the clouds, it didn’t make much difference. She prayed. Why was that always a last resort? She ran a prayer line, for heaven’s sake.

All things are possible with God. He shall provide all my needs. Ask and it will be given. Out of the depths I cry out, and the Lord hears my prayer
.

Lord, help me now
. She swiped the moisture from her face and kept on, praying most fervently that she’d be down before Jonah could mobilize. She did not want to see him. Not in this condition. Not in any condition.

Wiping his mouth, Jonah answered the phone.

“She’s not here.”

He and Jay and Sarge had just sat down to steak and mashed potatoes. He rose and moved to the window, feeling the chill of the storm. Hail had pattered against the roof, bouncing and piling upon the ground.

“Chief?” Piper demanded.

He drew back from his reflection. “I’ll send a team out.”

The line was silent a full beat. “Did you miss the part where I said it’s Tia? And she could be hurt?”

“I didn’t miss it.”

“And you’re not going to find her?”

“I’m handling it.”

“What if the psycho is out there?”

The only one crazy enough to be out was Tia. “Piper. I’ll take it from here.”

She gave a long sigh and hung up. He placed the call. “Hey, Moser. Can you take McCarthy and whoever’s on call from the sheriff’s office and check out the trails above Sprague Street? Got a call someone might be lost up there, maybe caught in the storm.”

“Who are we looking for?”

“Tia Manning.”

“Come again?”

“You heard me.”

Moser’s pause lasted a beat too long. “And you’re sending me?”

“You on duty?”

“Well …”

“Are you in charge?”

“Yeah, Jonah, I’m in charge.”

“Then take care of it.” He hit end.

Both pairs of eyes rose to him when he returned to the table.

“You can go,” Sarge said gruffly. “I don’t need baby-sitting.”

Jonah clenched his jaw. “Moser’s got it.”

Jay’s bicolored stare probed. Jonah rose and went to his room, where the predator in his closet watched no less pointedly.

Seventeen

A part of you has grown in me. And so you see, it’s you and me together forever and never apart, maybe in distance, but never in heart.

—AUTHOR UNKNOWN

P
iper’s stomach knotted with anxiety. Every time her mother had put on a certain dress, or her dad had worn a calculating expression, or they’d spent a long evening with Uncle Joe, she had known it meant a new scam. Even when they didn’t try to include her, she felt part of it.

She’d been so scared for them, scared her dad would get injured, her mom would be taken to jail, scared police would come to the door and take her away to live with strangers. Her hand would go to her mouth. First she chewed the cuticles, then the nails themselves. She had beaten it for a while, but now she tasted the blood from her pinkie where she’d nipped too deeply down into the skin.

Staring into the night, she shuddered. Please let Tia be held up by the storm and not in the clutches of a sick raccoon killer. Just because she hadn’t been taken from her store at gunpoint didn’t mean she wasn’t in the clutches of a psycho. Piper pressed her hands to her face. She had to
do
something. She’d be useless in a search. Then what? She closed her eyes and tried to imagine what Tia would do.

Pray.

Oh, boy. Not the person for
that
job.

Tia had told her praying unleashed power, but what happened if she did it wrong? It might be wrong to pray at all if she didn’t believe in God. She bit her nail. She didn’t so much
not
believe as not know
how
or what to believe.

What she needed was someone who knew their stuff, who went to church. Jonah Westfall went to church. He would know how to pray, but if she called him again, he’d arrest her. She needed a trained prayer to tell her how, or better yet to do it for her. That was it. She would call Tia’s church ladies.

She rushed for the kitchen, found the slim directory with a picture of the church on the front. She’d start with someone she knew … Mary Carson. Breathlessly she explained, “Remember I told you Tia left her shop? Well, she’s lost on the mountain in the storm.”

“Oh no.”

Thunder rumbled across the sky.

“I need someone to pray. Someone who can. Who knows how.”

“You want me to pray with you?”

“No. I mean, I think Tia would want it, but I don’t know how. I convinced the police chief to send a search team, and I wanted to do something too, but all I could think of was pray.”

“I tell you what. I don’t drive in bad weather, so let me call Carolyn. Are you home?”

“Yes.”

“Unless you hear back, we’ll be there directly.”

Piper hoped the tremor in her voice was the palsy. One hopeless worrier was enough. “Thank you.” She wasn’t sure what she was doing, only that Tia would want it.

Fifteen minutes later, the two women arrived. Mary said, “This is Carolyn Wells, my dear. We would be honored to pray with you for Tia’s safety and rescue.”

Shivering hard, Tia rounded a hairpin turn and saw lights, three strong beams far enough down the mountain that it would still be a long pull to reach them. She drew a haggard breath. She did not look forward to Jonah’s scolding, but she would accept their help. Fatigue had become a force.

She slowed her pace. It did no good to rush, now that a team had already come to find her—at least she hoped it was a rescue team and not the animal torture club. She shuddered. Her teeth had been chattering so hard she’d have to check them for chips, but a fresh chill shook her.

She had intended to call out when they drew close enough, but now she wasn’t sure. She gripped the staff, biting her lip against the pain in her palms, her knees, her elbows, and most of all her left leg. It felt like a dog had sunk its teeth into her ankle and took a new hold with every step.

She hadn’t realized until the cold soaked into her knees that she had sunk to the ground like a penitent. Pulling herself back up seemed tantamount to climbing Mount Everest. But Jonah would not find her on her knees. Digging deep, she climbed the staff and regained her feet as the light beams caught her.

“Tia Manning?” The voice calling was Adam Moser’s.

“Yes,” she called back. “I’m all right.”

She waited for Jonah to stalk up, glaring, but he wasn’t among them. She hoped that didn’t mean another team was out in the storm searching.

“Are you injured?”

“Not badly. My ankle slowed me down.”

A sheriff’s deputy wrapped a blanket around her shoulders. She almost collapsed under its insubstantial weight.

Another officer she didn’t know said, “Put your arm around my shoulder. We’ll get you down.” He was short and sturdy as a pony. With Adam Moser on the other side, she hardly had to work at all. Relief rushed in, so potent she shook with it. She’d been closer to collapse than she’d realized.

“I’ll run you to Emergency,” Adam said when they’d reached the trailhead.

“Can you please just take me home?”

“You should be checked out.”

“I’m fine really. There’s no one else searching, is there?”

“No ma’am.” He unlocked the patrol car.

She slid out of the rain and closed her eyes as Jonah’s officer walked around and climbed in with the phone to his ear. “Yeah, Chief, Moser here. We located Miss Manning. Minor injuries, exposure. She’s declined the hospital, so I’m running her by the fire station, let them look her over.”

She started to object, but Jonah would hear. Besides, the officer hadn’t asked; he’d decided.

Moser listened for a beat. “All right then.” He signed off.

Tia looked out the slush-soaked window, relieved and devastated. She hadn’t wanted to face Jonah, hadn’t wanted him to think this a stunt for his attention like the things she’d done as a girl, taking dares and challenging him. She had dreaded him finding her, scolding her, but this new dread seeped in like an infection. Jonah had known she might be in trouble and turned it over to someone else. He’d finally let go.

Jonah pocketed his phone. Tia was found, safe and stubborn. He’d made the right call. He relaxed his muscles, working the tension from his neck. Having seen Sarge to bed, he let Enola out once more before she settled in for the night. Her wary eyes and scabby side reminded him how short the time had been since she’d dragged herself into his yard.

He had to agree this might not be her first sojourn in the human world. Maybe she’d been bred intentionally like the wolf hybrids. Leaving the outside door open, he went back to the closet and looked at the little, lumpy pups. He didn’t want to swipe them, didn’t know why Liz had insisted he bring them over tonight. Being there when the eyes opened might matter, but that was at least a week off.

With a sigh, he lifted and sexed each one. Two females, one male. He turned the last in his hands and studied the face. They looked more like rodents than dogs. No way to tell, yet, if she’d been mated by a coyote or a domestic dog. How could he even think of turning two of them over to a woman who thought she could pattern them like ducklings? She wanted to mother them into pets, but it just—

Jay tapped the door. “The vet’s here.”

Right now?

She came into the room, her coat and hair slushy, her face determined. “You promised me puppies.”

He still cradled one in his hands. “I think it’s too soon, Liz.”

“You’ll have the same concerns six weeks from now, and I’ll have lost the chance for patterning.”

She cast her gaze around the room he had almost invited her into the other night. That misstep gave her leverage and she knew it, yet in the midst of her resolve, he still sensed her awkwardness, a naiveté that didn’t match the outward boldness.

She looked into his face. “We had a deal.”

“I know.” He nodded. “I was going to bring them to you.”

“Sure you were.” She half smiled and looked at her watch.

“Tonight got busy.”

“So I’m saving you the trip.”

He nestled the one he held against his chest. “Those two are female, I think.” He nodded toward the closet. If she was determined to have them, they’d better move quickly before Enola returned. “You have something to carry them in?”

She fetched a small carrier from the floor of the hall, checked them over and confirmed his guess, then loaded them in. “This is an opportunity for nurture to conquer nature.”

“Nature won’t give up easily.”

She glanced up sideways. “Neither will I.”

Jay murmured, “The coydog’s at the door.”

She lifted the carrier.

He returned the last pup to the closet. “I’ll let you out the back.” He led her down the new hall past Sarge’s room. As they reached the door, he shook his head. “Why do I feel like I let the fox into the henhouse?”

“The one she has left will get her full attention. And yours.” Their eyes met.

At a loss for words, he pushed open the door. Drizzle struck his face. “Be careful, Liz. Don’t take risks with them.”

“Everything valuable has risks. You either take them or you don’t.”

He watched her limp away, carrying the pups, then closed the door. Guilt clutched him as Enola walk-ran through the rooms, processing the foreign scents and the trail of her now departed pups. He wished he could explain.

Her pace slowed, became methodical, eyes darting, her tongue hanging to the side. Again and again her eyes flicked over him, but it was not an accusatory glance. She didn’t realize he’d surrendered her offspring. Finally, she returned to the closet, licking his scent off the one she had left.

Jonah watched for a time, then went to the living room and stared at the bottle. He remembered diving down inside its depths, the warmth, the caress, the satiation. The feeling in his brain like softest fur.

Jay came up beside him. “Want to split it?”

Jonah swallowed. “Yes.”

They stood, shoulder to shoulder, acknowledging the threat and giving no ground. Jonah sat down. Forearms resting on his thighs, he hung his head. “I wish she hadn’t come.”

“Your veterinarian?”

Jonah scowled.
His
veterinarian. “Enola. Why did she choose me?”

“Might be the half cow in your freezer.” When Jonah didn’t smile, Jay shrugged. “Maybe she couldn’t go any farther. She got too weak.”

“You said she came for a reason, to teach me, to show me things.”

“That was the Cherokee answer. This is the Dane.”

He preferred to think she’d simply collapsed. But that wasn’t what he’d seen. That little drag toward him made Jay’s explanation a lie. She had trusted him. His mouth felt parched. His hands shook.

Jay said, “This isn’t about the dog, is it?”

Jonah clenched his hands.

“Why didn’t you look for Tia?”

He looked at Jay. His friend had never met Tia, but he knew the score, knew they’d reached the bottom of the ninth, just not that earlier in the day he’d made the final out. He had blocked the fear while she was out there. Now that she’d been found safe, it hit. What if they hadn’t found her? What if she’d died? He rubbed a hand over his face. “Because it’s over.”

Jay let the words settle over them. Jonah hadn’t said it before now, even to himself. He had gone into her shop intending one thing and accomplished the opposite. “Cold turkey?”

Jonah nodded. He’d beaten one addiction. If he just got her out of his blood …

The rain dwindled and left shredded clouds across a faintly starry sky. Finally Jay stood. “I start a remodel tomorrow. I’ll be tied up the next three days, maybe more.”

Jonah nodded.

“Six years sober.”

Jonah nodded again.

“The Lakota Sioux Chief Yellow Hawk said, ‘I seek strength, not to be greater than my brother, but to fight my greatest enemy—myself.’ Strength, brother.” Jay squeezed his shoulder on the way out.

With each slow beat of his heart, Jonah desired the bottle. Did he even want to fight himself? What difference did it make? So he’d get drunk. Who was there to care? Who was there to harm? He could drown it, cover the pain with the smooth burn. His throat cleaved, dry and needing.

Jay had told him keeping the bottle was holding hands with the devil. Jonah wanted it to remind him he could get burned. He didn’t pretend it would be only one swallow. If he opened the bottle, brought it to his lips, they’d make love until nothing remained.