Cade Creek 12 - Heart of a Mountain (12 page)

Jonah recognized that voice. He tilted his head back to look. Some of his tension faded when he saw Sheriff Riley standing on the sidewalk in front of the parked cars. “Did you catch the shooter?”

“No.” The sheriff’s jaw clenched. “We found where he was sitting on the rooftop, but there’s no other sign of him, whoever
him
is.” The sheriff did not sound happy. Jonah couldn’t blame him. He wasn’t particularly happy about the situation either.

Jonah climbed to his feet and then reached back for Aldrin, pulling the man up into his arms. He made sure he kept Aldrin tucked in close to him as he made a quick survey of their surroundings and then turned to face the sheriff.

“This needs to stop, damn it.” He was tired of people trying to hurt Aldrin.

“It will.” The sheriff looked out over the parking lot. “One way or another.”

“I need to get Aldrin somewhere safe and then I want to see where the shooter was located.” Jonah wasn’t sure he would be able to find anything that the sheriff couldn’t spot, but he couldn’t just sit there and do nothing, not with Aldrin in so much danger.

“I can take Aldrin to the diner with me if you want,” Buck said with a shrug as if he didn’t care about the answer one way or the other. “I need to get back there anyway. My lunch break is just about over.”

Jonah was hesitant. As much as he wanted to go with the sheriff and track down the shooter, letting Aldrin out of his arms might be impossible. As long as he was holding Aldrin, he knew the man was safe.

Aldrin turned in his arms, peering up at him. “I’ll be okay, Jonah. I’ll go with Buck over to the diner. You do whatever it is you need to do with the sheriff and meet me there when you’re done.”

“I don’t know, Aldrin, maybe I should just—”

Aldrin’s hands pressed flat against Jonah’s chest. “Jonah, I’ll be fine. Before last week, I spent five days a week hanging out at the diner and I was perfectly safe. Buck and Trudy will both be there and neither of them will let anything happen to me.”

Jonah didn’t like it, but he wasn’t sure he had another choice, not if he wanted to track down whoever was after Aldrin, and stop him…or her.

He grabbed Aldrin by his arms, making sure he had the man’s attention. “You won’t go anywhere else?”

Aldrin held up his hand. “Swear.”

Jonah chuckled despite the tension cramping his muscles. He leaned in and rested the side of his face against Aldrin’s head. “I need you to be safe, Aldrin,” he whispered. “I can’t lose you now.”

“You won’t lose me,” Aldrin whispered right back. “You promised me a house with a view, remember, Mountain Man?”

Jonah nuzzled his nose into Aldrin’s sweet smelling hair. The mere thought of anything happening to Aldrin made him want to rage against the world. He would happily spend the rest of his days in the hell holes he survived in the service if it meant Aldrin would be safe.

Jonah tilted his head down when Aldrin leaned up on his toes. “I love you, Mountain Man,” Aldrin whispered before planting a kiss on Jonah’s jaw line. “Stay safe.” Aldrin’s eyes seemed suspiciously bright when he leaned back and sent Jonah a smile. “I’ll see you at the diner.”

Jonah knew he stood there with his mouth hanging open as he watched Aldrin and Buck climb into Buck’s car and drive off. He knew Aldrin was just going a couple of blocks over to the diner so why did he feel like his heart was being ripped out of his chest?

“It never gets any easier.”

Jonah glanced at the sheriff in confusion. “What never gets any easier?”

“Letting them go off when there’s danger.” The sheriff’s shoulders seemed to slump for a moment before he drew in a deep breath. “Seamus and Yancy seem to excel at getting themselves into trouble.”

“Do not,” quibbled a rather large black-haired man as he walked up to stand beside the sheriff. “It’s all Seamus, every bit of it.”

Sheriff Riley gave the six and a half foot tall man a once over with his eyes. “Clearly.”

Deputy Yancy Butler grinned at the sheriff before turning his attention to Jonah. “I hear you’ve got some problems.”

Jonah gestured to the perfectly round bullet hole in the car next to him. “I’m not sure insurance will cover that.”

Yancy’s eyebrows rose. “Damn, that was close.”

“Yeah, it was…” Jonah glanced from the bullet hole in the side of the car to where Aldrin had been standing and then to the rooftop where he had seen something flashing right before someone had shot at them. “Does anyone have a laser pointer?”

“A laser pointer?” the sheriff asked. “What do you need a laser pointer for?”

“Trajectory,” Yancy said as he grew serious. “Although, why you would need it confuses me. From what I understand, you and Aldrin were the only ones being shot at. Am I wrong?”

“No, you’re not wrong,” Jonah replied. “But now, I’m not so sure exactly which one of us the shooter was trying to kill.”

The sheriff’s eyebrows shot up. “You think someone was trying to shoot you?”

“I can’t rightly say without more information, but—” Jonah looked down the road Aldrin and Buck had just left on. This was going to take more time than he was comfortable with. He didn’t want to leave the man alone that long. “Sheriff—”

Sheriff Riley held up his hand. “Say no more. I’ll send a deputy over to the diner to sit on Aldrin.”

Jonah blew out a relieved breath. “Thank you.”

“Hey, Jonah, your truck is ringing,” another deputy said as he walked up.

“My truck is—” He headed for his truck, unsure of who would be calling him, but curious enough not to let it go unanswered. When he reached his truck, he unlocked the door and yanked it open before grabbing for the black phone.

“Hello?” Jonah knitted his brow. He needed to get out there and help the sheriff look for the shooter, not answer the damn phone.

“Mr. Cade, this is Yuval Zev.”

It was just his accountant. Considering their quarterly meeting was coming up soon, Jonah wasn’t that surprised to hear from the man. He probably wanted Jonah to bring receipts from home or something. He called about stuff like that in the past.

“What can I do for you, Yuval?” Jonah asked.

“I need to talk to you about this wire transfer,” the accountant said. “With this much money being moved to your off-shore account, I’m going to need to see you in person. I know you’ve had me transfer money in the past, but this is too large of a sum for me to transfer without your signature.”

“What in the hell are you talking about?” Jonah barked. “What fucking transfer?”

Aldrin sat with his hands tucked in his lap, glancing out the windshield and side window. He scanned every rooftop and car that passed them by as Buck drove toward the diner. Leaving Jonah made Aldrin’s stomach cramp. He didn’t like the idea of Jonah running after an armed man, but he knew that Jonah’s concentration would be split if he stuck around.

“Scary day,” Buck said as they drove. “Luckily, you weren’t hit by that bullet.”

Relived that none of them had been hit was an understatement. If anything had happened to his mountain man, Aldrin wasn’t sure what he would have done. He had fallen hard for the recluse, had worked his butt off to get Jonah out of his shell, and Aldrin couldn’t imagine a life without the man. Just that fast Jonah had become an integral part of Aldrin’s life.

But they weren’t out of the woods yet. The sheriff, his deputies, and Jonah had to find the shooter and arrest him, and then maybe Aldrin and Jonah could start having a happy life together.

Aldrin frowned when Buck cut left instead of right. “Where are you going? The diner is the other way.”

A deep scowl formed over Buck’s face. The man wasn’t that handsome to begin with. He was brawny, but not too appealing. Aldrin liked the cook because he had a loud personality, but they weren’t best buds or anything. It would be stretching it if Aldrin even said that they were friends. He just knew the guy, had worked with him for several months, and they joked around sometimes. That was the extent of their interactions.

“Just couldn’t stick to the plan,” Buck mumbled, his fingers gripping the steering wheel until his fingers turned pale. His muscles worked in his jaw as he glared at the road ahead of them. “All he had to do was stay with you for a few days until you recovered, but no, he had to go and take you up that damn mountain.”

A very bad feeling settled into Aldrin’s gut. He’d never seen Buck appear so serious, so menacing before. The cook’s jaw was clenched tight, his brows furrowed, and his lips were thinned. “Buck, what are you talking about?”

“Jonah Cade,” Buck said, spittle flying from his mouth. “Why didn’t he stay with you when someone broke into your place and attacked you? Why did he have to take you up into the mountain?”

Those were pretty personal questions. Aldrin and Buck weren’t close enough that Aldrin wanted to share his personal life with the guy. “Where are you taking me, Buck?”

“He just had to go and complicate things,” the man muttered. “I got a deadline and he had to go and change plans on me.”

Aldrin was seven kinds of confused. What deadline? What plan? And was Buck talking about Jonah messing things up? Aldrin’s heart galloped behind his ribs as he tried to think of a way out of the car that didn’t entail him jumping from the moving vehicle. He would if he had to. He definitely would.

“You’re not making any sense, Buck.”

Aldrin cried out and grabbed the material of his seat belt when Buck slammed on the brakes. Thank goodness no one had been behind them. Aldrin jerked his head around to stare at the cook, terrified when he saw just how hostile Buck appeared. He didn’t know what had gotten into the man, but Aldrin wanted out of the car.

“Jonah was supposed to stay with you,” Buck sneered. “That way, it would’ve been easy to pick him off.”

“P-pick him off?” Was the guy talking about murder? Aldrin swallowed roughly. He kept staring at Buck’s darkened face as he fumbled to find the door handle. There was no way he was staying another second in the man’s car.

“You’re insane.” A flash of memory popped into Aldrin’s head. Dark hair, stained teeth, and breath that smelled like stale cigarettes. Buck smoked. His teeth weren’t pearly-white, and he had a head full of dark hair.

“You,” Aldrin whispered. It was as if the memory had cropped up and slapped him in the face. Aldrin suddenly knew who had attacked him. “It was you who came to my house that day.”

“Needed Jonah to come down off of that fucking mountain,” Buck snapped. “Needed him to be your protector for a few days.”

“But why?” Aldrin’s voice was shrill when he asked the question. He couldn’t believe Buck would do something so heinous and malevolent. The guy had been nice to Aldrin from the first day Aldrin had started at the diner. What had changed? Why did Buck want to kill Jonah?

“It was you on that roof today!” Aldrin found the door handle and yanked. He managed to get the door open, but forgot to release his seat belt. Before he could free himself, Buck whipped his arm out and backhanded Aldrin so hard that Aldrin saw stars. Buck reached over him and yanked the door closed.

“You ain’t going anywhere,” he said as he started to drive again. “One way or the other, I’ll kill Jonah. Using you as bait will just make it that much easier.”

Aldrin couldn’t answer the man. He could barely string two thoughts together. Buck had hit him hard, and Aldrin was unfocused. His head lolled as Buck drove to the outskirts of town. They pulled down a long, dirt driveway, passing plenty of trees that hid them from view. When Buck parked, Aldrin saw a small white and tan cottage in front of them. There was a black BMW parked in front of the house, but Aldrin had no idea who it belonged to.

Buck got out and then rounded the car, yanking Aldrin’s door open. Once he unsnapped the seat belt, he yanked Aldrin out by his hair and shoved him toward the front entrance. “Try and run and I’ll put a bullet in your skull.”

Aldrin hadn’t seen Buck with a gun, but he was too terrified to argue, too terrified to call Buck on his empty threat. What if it wasn’t an empty threat? What if the man had a gun tucked in the back of his waistband? What if whoever owned the BMW had a rifle trained on Aldrin’s head at this very moment?

There were too many variables for Aldrin to take a chance, so he walked straight ahead, approaching the door.

“Go ahead, let yourself in,” Buck said, shoving at Aldrin’s back.

Aldrin did as he was told and entered the dark interior of the house. The inside was dimmed by the gazillion trees shading the house. No lights were on, and as he glanced around, he noticed the thick layer of dust coating everything. There were a few sets of footprints disrupting the dust, but other than that, the house didn’t look as if it had been used in years.

Buck gripped Aldrin’s upper arm and hauled him into a shadowy kitchen. To his shock, Aldrin saw a man duct taped to a chair, a laptop open on a table in front of him. His arms and ankles were bound, and there was a silver piece of the tape covering the man’s mouth.

“What on earth?” Aldrin backpedaled, trying desperately to yank his arm free as terror shook him fiercely. “Who is that?”

“A man who thought he could fuck me out of millions. Now, he has to pay the price.” Buck slammed Aldrin down into a rickety chair. Aldrin feared the chair would collapse from under him. It squeaked and groaned, but held. “Put your arms on the arms of the chair.”