Grave Danger (5 page)

L
IBBY FELT THE BLOOD DRAIN
from her face. She should have known it would come to this. “You’re just like all the other cops, aren’t you? You’ve already made up your mind.”

“What have you given me to work with other than two bogus calls? You want me to change my mind, Libby? Start by answering my questions. Start by telling me the whole truth.”

She’d be damned if she let him address her informally while she called him Chief Colby. “I’m sure you don’t need me to tell you about it, Mark. I’ll bet you’ve already formed an opinion.”

“Humor me. I want to hear your version.”

She wished she could call what she was feeling déjà vu, but she knew exactly when she’d lived this moment before. She began to pace the wide aisle between the two counters that ran the length of the one-hundred-twenty-year-old kitchen. “As I’m sure you know, Aaron Brady is a Seattle cop. He was also the brother of a client. He came out to visit a project I ran for his brother. I gave him a tour, and afterward he asked me out.

“He seemed nice enough, so I was a fool and said yes.” She stared out the window above the sink. Four years ago, when she first met Aaron, she had been twenty-nine years old and had just started her own company. The world was wide open, and Aaron Brady had been another new opportunity.

“We went out a few times. There was nothing wrong with him, per se. There was just…no spark. I wasn’t interested. The ending didn’t go well.” That was an understatement. “I worried how my client would react to my dumping his little brother, so when Aaron continued calling me, I put up with it and pretended I wanted to remain friends. But then he started to say things to let me know he was keeping tabs on me. He knew what time I got home at night, where I’d been, and what I’d been doing. He seriously creeped me out, so I told him to stop calling me.”

“But that didn’t stop him.”

“No.” She allowed a bitter smile. “That was only the beginning. Aaron started to show up wherever I went—in his police uniform. As a cop, you must know how unnerving that is. No one wants trouble with the police.”

“What else did he do?”

“He followed me to business meetings in his patrol car. He drove by the excavation several times a day and sometimes parked nearby for long periods. I couldn’t ask him to stop because he only bothered me in public places. And the site was his brother’s project.

“I began to avoid leaving my house, knowing he would follow wherever I went. If I wanted to see an art house movie, one only seven other people would make the trek on a rainy night to see, I didn’t go. Seven wasn’t a big enough crowd. And forget dating. He’d made that impossible. Finally, I confronted him in a crowded coffee shop. I told him if he didn’t stop following me, I would call his supervisor.”

“What did he say?”

“He said
I
needed to stop following
him
.” She returned to that moment in her mind, feeling again the sickening dread that infused her as the light glinted off Aaron’s badge, reminding her that among cops, his word would be more valuable than hers. “That night, I heard someone trying to break in my back door. I called 9-1-1.”

“And Aaron responded to the call.”

She nodded, leaned back against the counter, and met the police chief’s gaze. “Imagine you live alone, and someone tries to break into your house. You can hear the screen being ripped off the hinges. You call the police, and soon after, hear sirens. You open the front door to your savior, only to see the person you know damn well was at the back side of the house minutes before terrifying the hell out of you.”

“So you reported your suspicion to his supervisor,” Mark prompted, his voice flat, but there was something like sympathy in his eyes.

“And I found out he’d been documenting my ‘stalking’ of him. He accused me of faking the attempted break-in and calling the cops that night just so he would answer my call. He said I was a cop groupie who wouldn’t leave him alone.” Libby shuddered. She’d learned a cop groupie was a whack job who hung out at cop bars and gave officers blowjobs in the parking lot.

“What did his supervisor say?”

“He wanted solid evidence against Aaron. At that point, it was just my word against his. And my word wasn’t worth a damn thing.” By the time Aaron’s captain was done questioning her, she was hysterical, her credibility shattered. This was where her sense of déjà vu came from. She wouldn’t make that mistake here.

“How did the other officers in the precinct respond to your charges?”

One look at his face and she knew. “C’mon, Mark, you know that. I bet you even spoke with some of them today.”

His head dropped in a slight nod.

“His partner backed him up, claimed he couldn’t have been at my back door at the time of the attempted break-in. And his buddies vouched for him at other times, or said they’d witnessed me following him.” She took a step toward him. “What about you? Do you always side with the one with the badge, even if he’s a
Goddamn loon
?”

“My job isn’t to side with or against other cops. It’s to find the truth.” He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back against the counter. “Tell me how you finally got the Anti-Harassment Order.”

“After Internal Affairs investigated, with inconclusive results, Aaron became even worse. In addition to being followed, I started getting crank calls at all times of the day and night. Of course, I got a trace on my line. One call came from a pay phone located in front of a convenience store. I had read the police blotter in the newspaper and knew that a convenience store had been robbed that night. I checked with the manager. He confirmed that Aaron Brady had been one of the officers to respond to his call. Aaron did that two more times—called me from a phone that was near a call he’d answered while on duty.

“I documented everything. My neighbors helped. They were sick of being spied on by a cop. We got pictures of Aaron parked in his car in various places in my neighborhood. With a date and time stamp. I took pictures of him when he followed me, and friends got shots of him at my destination, all with date and time stamped on them. I had witnesses. Then I got lucky. The judge at the hearing was sympathetic. She said the evidence showed adequately that he’d engaged in a ‘course of conduct that alarmed, annoyed, and harassed me which served no lawful purpose and was likely to cause me substantial emotional distress.’” Knowing they described the threshold she needed to meet to get her life back, she’d memorized those words long before the final hearing. “In King County, the Anti-Harassment Order allows some leeway—meaning I didn’t have to show bruises, thank God.”

“Then Aaron left you alone?”

“Yeah, but there were other repercussions. Aaron’s brother said I was a psycho bitch who harassed his little brother, and when Aaron wouldn’t have anything to do with me, I tried to ruin his career. He pulled his project. This was nearly a year after the first time Aaron and I went out, and we were done with the fieldwork by then. The report was nearly complete. He turned all the lab and field notes over to a competitor—one I can’t stand, by the way—and had them write a lousy report that in no way resembled our findings. He refused to honor our contract and I spent two years in court trying to get him to pay the thirty thousand he owed me.”

“Did you get it?”

“No. Why do you think I drive such a crappy old truck?”

His eyes softened and his lips twitched, but his cop face returned before a second passed. “Have you seen Brady since?”

“No. It’s been three years.”

“Four months ago, you requested a new Anti-Harassment Order. Why?”

“Same reason I did twice before. It’s only a yearlong order, and the third one was due to expire in June. I wanted to make sure he stays away.”

“Why wasn’t the order reinstated?”

“The complaint was old; the new judge didn’t believe Aaron was still a threat to me.”

“How did you feel when it was denied?”

“Disappointed.”

“Disappointed enough to stage a few incidents, so the order would be reinstated?”

It took a moment for his words to register. Her face heated as acid filled her belly. “I see the blue brotherhood is alive and well.”

“This is called investigating, Libby. You may not like every path my investigation takes, but I’ve got to examine them all.” He stepped toward her.

She instinctively retreated, her back brushing up against the counter. “You should be investigating Aaron Brady, not me.”

“Funny. He said the same thing about you.”

Her throat seized. He’d talked to Aaron. He’d sided with the cop before he even arrived at the site with sirens blaring. She finally managed to speak. “Get out!” She pointed to the back door.

“We’re not done yet. There are differences between your story and Brady’s. I can think of one major detail you’ve left out.”

Her blood simmered as she stared at him. She knew exactly what he waited for. She had no choice but to say the words. “Aaron told you some of the photos—my evidence against him—had been doctored.”

“Did you doctor them yourself?”

“A friend who was trying to protect me edited some of the date and time stamps. I didn’t know anything about it.”

“You admit the photos were altered.”

“I didn’t find out about it until a few months ago—when I read Aaron’s statement demanding the renewal of the order be denied. I questioned my friend and she admitted it. But those photos weren’t the only evidence. There were several that hadn’t been altered. Plus I had the calls and witnesses.”

“He had witnesses, too. Witnesses ready to testify that you were stalking him.”

“His buddies who didn’t care about what was really going on.” She swallowed a frustrated groan. How could she ever have thought Mark Colby handsome? She’d known he wouldn’t be any different from the cops in Seattle, but his pretense of investigating had triggered a smidgen of hope. “Someone put a nail in my tire and hid in the bushes to scare me, and instead of getting help, I’m being treated like a criminal because a jerk cop harassed me four years ago.”

“I have to ask these questions, Libby.”

The doorbell rang and she realized it must be seven already. “Jason. Crap. I forgot about dinner.” She wasn’t ready for a business dinner. Could this day get any worse?

“Jason Caruthers?”

Of course he knew Jason. You couldn’t live in Coho without knowing about the four owners of Thorpe Log & Lumber. “Yes,” she said, heading toward the front door.

“Your client’s son.”

She stopped dead.
Oh shit
. The day had just gotten worse. She whipped around and faced him. “It’s not what you think.”

He took a slow step toward her. “You almost had me. I was starting to believe your story about being afraid, losing your client and a lot of money. Then who do you have dinner plans with on a Friday night? Jason Caruthers. First a client’s brother, now a client’s son. We’re done here.” He walked to the front of the house where Jason waited, which had to be deliberate, because he’d parked in the back.

Jason was clearly visible through the long windowpane inset in the antique door. Mark reached for the doorknob and then turned and faced her again. “Don’t think you’re going to screw over my department or my officers with your games. I will find out what’s going on.” He brushed past Jason as he left the house. “Caruthers,” he said in acknowledgement and kept walking.

“Colby,” Jason said and then looked at her questioningly.

She swallowed hard and battled mortification. “Come in,” she said.

Jason stepped into the living room. “Is this a bad time?”

“No. No. I just need a few minutes.” She glanced around the room, trying to figure out what to do, still reeling from the police chief’s reaction. Her brain wasn’t working properly.

“Do you need help, Libby? Legal help, I mean?”

“No. No. It’s nothing like that.” She had to get herself together, or Jason was going to think she was a bigger fruit loop than the police chief did. “I’ll be right back,” she said and then headed to the bathroom.

She splashed cold water on her face and stared into the mirror. Seconds became minutes. She didn’t know what to say to Jason, or how to deal with the mess she was in with the Coho police. All she knew was that at some point, she had to leave the bathroom and face Jason Caruthers. How could she possibly sit through dinner with him tonight?

Quite simply, she couldn’t.

She blotted her face on the towel and opened the bathroom door, and then squared her shoulders as she marched into the living room.

He stood by the fireplace, cool, composed, and handsome, staring at a wooden mask carved in a Coast Salish motif, which was mounted in a place of honor above the mantel. “If I remember correctly,” he said, “my mom bought this mask while we traveled in British Columbia. The carver gave us a tour of his workshop and showed me how he mixed the pigments in the old style. No modern paints or tools were used to make this mask.”

He wanted to talk about his mother, and she needed his assistance with the background research, but at the moment, she didn’t care. “Jason. Tonight isn’t good for me. Can we do this another time?”

He paused. “Sure,” he said finally. “I’ll call you tomorrow.” He turned, started for the door, and then stopped. “Libby, do you want to talk about what’s going on?”

“No, it’s nothing,” she lied.

“Call me if you change your mind.”

She closed the door behind him and flopped down on the couch. A surge of anger and frustration ran through her. She twisted a silk throw pillow and then stared in horror at the creases she’d created in the fabric. Nothing in this room belonged to her. The furnishings belonged to Jack and Jason, who’d given her the use of this house for the duration of the project.

She smoothed the wrinkled cloth in a pathetic attempt to undo the damage. She wanted to blame Aaron. He was the psycho. He was the one who’d victimized her. But deep down she knew that if she’d handled things differently almost four years ago, then Aaron wouldn’t be a problem for her now. Like the crumpled pillow, the police chief’s suspicion was all her fault.

She couldn’t count on the police for protection. From here on out, she could only depend on herself. She couldn’t make any more foolish mistakes. Only one thing would make her feel safe. Tomorrow she’d buy a gun.