Known (4 page)

“You
can’t
.”

Frustration raced through her. The stubborn man was absolutely right. She glanced at the wall clock. It was barely the middle of the afternoon.
He expects me to wait until tomorrow for answers?

She picked up her coffee cup and leaned back into the couch cushions, faking an attitude of relaxation.

He exhaled. “I get your frustration. I feel it, too. But the smart thing to do is wait.”

She nodded, tamping down her irritation at her situation. Waiting wasn’t one of her strong points.

Chris got up. “I’ll grill some sandwiches. Food always helps.” He pulled a cast iron pan and a loaf of bread out of a cupboard. Oro lifted his head, his ears at full attention and his gaze on the food-maker.

“You’ll be working with Seth Rutledge at the examiner’s office?” Chris asked as he prepared the food on the small kitchen island. “And his anthropologist, Victoria Peres?”

Surprise washed over her. “You know them?”

“My brother knows them better. I’ve crossed paths with them a few times.”

“Small world. I finished up a forensic pathology fellowship in New York City and saw Oregon was hiring an assistant ME. I did a visit and interview a few months ago and got the job.” She paused, remembering her first stunning view of Mount Hood as her plane flew into Oregon. “I loved how clean the air smelled, and everything was green. I hoped Portland would be a good place for Violet and me to put down some new roots. Violet hasn’t been herself. Her grandmother died six months ago, and she’d always been Violet’s caretaker while I worked.”

“A lot of people move here for a fresh start.” He deftly cut thick slices of cheese and arranged them on the bread.

She watched, slightly surprised she’d told him about her mother-in-law’s death. But they possibly had a long time to wait and nothing to do but talk. She was good at small talk, and he seemed like the type who didn’t mind listening.

“Yes. And I wanted to get her away from where her grandmother died. I knew she wasn’t going to cheer when I told her, but I didn’t expect the outright anger.”

“She left behind friends. Maybe she feels as if she left her grandmother behind even though her soul is long gone.”

An air of sadness surrounded Chris, and she suspected he spoke from personal experience. It was on the tip of her tongue to ask who’d died, but she quelled her curiosity.

She didn’t know this man.
Don’t be so nosy.

“Is there someone we need to notify that you’re okay?” Chris asked. “If the roads are clear, we can call them tomorrow when we get out.”

“I haven’t been in town long enough to meet anyone other than a few people I’ll be working with,” said Gianna. “I didn’t tell anyone we were coming up here.”

He looked across the stove at her and raised a brow.

“I know,” she confessed. “Not smart when you’re heading out to the wilderness, but I didn’t think my friends in New York would care that I was renting a cabin for a week.”

“Violet’s father?”

“Eddie. He’s deceased.”

“I’m sorry.” Sympathy flashed in his eyes.

“It was a long time ago,” she said softly. She knew the hole in her heart from Eddie’s death had shrunk as small as it was going to get. She’d learned to live with the abrupt aches from the open wound. “This truly is a fresh start for us. It’s just the two of us. My parents died a long time ago, and when Eddie’s mother passed last spring, we felt very alone, but I saw it as a chance to do something new. Some people pack up their kids and move abroad. They go to Costa Rica and raise their kids while surfing. Others move to France and immerse themselves in a new culture and end up with bilingual kids. I’m too big of a chicken to do either one, but I thought I could handle a move to the opposite coast.” She paused. “I don’t think I made a mistake.”

“Of course not. It’s way too early to tell if it’s a mistake.”

His logical statement and serious face made her grin. Clearly Chris Jacobs didn’t sugarcoat his words. She took a closer look at their rescuer. He’d removed his cap, exposing light-brown hair that needed a cut. She noticed it covered the scars on his neck and figured that was the reason he left it long. His eyes were a penetrating light hazel and studied her like a hawk’s. They never gazed at anything for too long. Even when he sat perfectly still and his attention was on her, she knew he was aware of everything that moved in the room. She wondered if he ever loosened up or if he stayed in a perpetually alert state. She had a sense that one ear was constantly listening for noise outside. Twice he’d turned his head to the sound of ice breaking a branch a split second before the noise registered in her brain.

Does he ever relax?

“Maybe an animal made that other path outside my cabin,” she stated.

He shook his head and placed the sandwiches in the pan. “Definitely human.”

“We haven’t seen anyone since we got here. I feel bad for the people who own that cabin. I can imagine there’s fire danger during the summer, but I doubt they expected it in the middle of winter. Do you know the owners?”

“No.”

“Do you live here?”

He gave a half grin and his face finally relaxed a bit. “Heck no. I like solitude but not every single day of my life. I have a place south of Portland. Brian needs the socialization he gets from school. I don’t want him to be a hermit like me.”

She studied him. “You’re a hermit?”

He looked away. “No. I just like quiet. I homeschooled Brian for a long time and thought I was doing a good job until my sister Jamie set me straight. She’s an elementary-school principal. Brian didn’t have any friends his own age because we lived in a remote area.”

“Violet occasionally begs to be homeschooled. Usually when she is having some sort of argument with a friend. Even if I had the time, I’m not the type of person who can do that and stay sane.”

He gave a small smile. “It was good for us. But I did it only until he was eight.”

“You haven’t mentioned his mother.”

His smile vanished. “She died a long time ago in a car accident. Brian doesn’t remember her.”

Gianna understood. Too well. “Violet doesn’t remember her father either. Eddie’s diagnosis and death happened within six months of her birth. She’d cry and cry about having no memories of her dad. That’s when we’d take a few hours to go through every picture and video of him I have. It’s never been enough, but it helps.”

“I don’t have any pictures.”

She straightened. “None? How . . .” Seeing the closed look on his face, she let the question die.
It’s none of my business.
“I’m very sorry,” she said softly. She was truly sorry, and her heart hurt for the little boy who didn’t have a single picture of his mother.

“I’ve drawn some. They’re pretty accurate.”

“That’s lovely.”

The conversation came to a sudden halt. Gianna didn’t want to probe, and Chris clearly was done with the topic. Her brain raced for a safe subject. “Are you sure we can get out to the ranger station tomorrow?”

His shoulders straightened. “I think so. The plows should have been working out on the highways all day and hopefully they’ll get to our road, but I imagine the ice has created some complications, so it might take longer. I’m just glad I wasn’t back in the city. They were supposed to get hit with the ice storm, too. Nothing like a city full of hills and an unprepared population.”

“Unprepared? They don’t salt?” Gianna asked.

“Nope. And there are even fewer plows in the city than out here. Portland doesn’t get enough snow to justify the purchase of a huge fleet. It’s not like the East Coast. We just dig in and wait it out. You’ll see.”

“Dig in? For a tiny bit of ice?”

“Absolutely. Or for a half inch of snow. The kids love it. City schools cancel right and left.” He abruptly stopped speaking and stiffened his shoulders.

The far-off crack and echo of a gunshot reached Gianna’s ears.

And then another one.

Chris froze, listening as he held the metal spatula above the pan.

Gianna waited for a third shot that didn’t come.

“Hunters?” she asked.

“Could be.”

“Is it hunting season?”

“Doesn’t really matter if it’s not. People still shoot.”

Chris flipped the sandwich in the pan, barely registering that it wasn’t golden enough. Every ounce of his attention was directed toward the outdoors, waiting for more shots. Closer shots.

None came.

He felt Gianna’s gaze as she looked to him to determine whether she should be concerned.

He didn’t know the answer.

He flipped the other not-ready sandwich and met her gaze, forcing a small smile. “Maybe someone’s bored.”

He ran through a mental checklist. There were four guns in his cabin. A pistol in the drawer to his right and three more weapons in the gun safe next to the couch where Violet slept.

Gianna didn’t smile back. “Are we safe?”

“Yes.”

“Are you armed?”

He pointed at the gun safe with his spatula. “Yes.”

She stood and moved to a window, pushing aside the heavy curtain. Motionless, she stared out the window for a good thirty seconds. “It sounded pretty far off.”

“I agree.” Melted cheese oozed out of one sandwich and sizzled in the pan. “Hungry?”

“Starving.” Gianna sat on a rickety stool at the kitchen island.

“You’ve been sick,” he stated.

She frowned. “I wasn’t sick until the fire. I seemed to have had a bad reaction to something I ate or drank, or perhaps to the smoke. My brain is seriously muddled and I honestly can’t remember what happened last night.”

Chris waited.

“I had only one glass of wine last night. I think . . . I really can’t remember, but I feel like I’ve been drugged,” she admitted.

He agreed. From his extensive surgeries, he’d had experience with every kind of prescription pain-killer and could recognize when someone was highly medicated. “You don’t take anything?” he asked. He moved to her side of the tiny island, studying her eyes, trying to get a look at her pupils. Her irises were so dark that the pupils were hard to see. Violet had the same eyes. “Any sore spots on your skull?” He reached out and gently pressed in several areas. Gianna copied his movements, feeling her own skull.

“Nothing hurts. I wondered if I’d hit my head. That could cause the nausea and headache.”

“So something was in your dinner. Or wine.”

Silence dragged between them as they both glanced at the sleeping Violet.

“What kind of kids has she been hanging out with?”

“Not the kind who’d suggest she drug her mother,” Gianna snapped. “Especially in the middle of nowhere. What good would that do her? She can’t call anyone or text anyone.”

Chris held up his hands. “Then what happened?”

“I don’t know.” Gianna leaned her head back. “I asked myself that during our walk. My arms and legs weren’t behaving the way they should.”

“I noticed.”

“Maybe I inhaled something in the burning cabin that affected my motor skills and made me nauseated. But why didn’t Violet experience it? I’m trying to rationalize
something
to account for it. There’s got to be an explanation.”

“Maybe,” Chris echoed. Something had definitely affected Gianna. How it had gotten into her system was a mystery. Clearly she was the type of person who needed proof. He strongly suspected she’d been exposed to something that’d made her feel ill, but it appeared she’d need to see a blood test before she’d accept it as fact. He figured it was the scientist in her. She needed to weigh every possibility before drawing a conclusion.

It wasn’t a bad trait, but he found it a bit frustrating.

“Back in New York, Violet had started hanging out with the wrong kids,” Gianna said quietly. “I brought her up here so I could spend time with her without being interrupted every ten minutes by her instant messages or email. She’s been very angry with me since we moved. Granted, it’s been only a few months since we left New York, but I’d hoped she’d be over it by now.”

Chris nodded. Teen angst and issues were foreign to him. He’d been a teen at one time, but his perspective had been severely skewed. Being held in an underground bunker for two years after being kidnapped by a child abuser had given him a history few people could understand. He kept it to himself.

“She looks just like you,” he commented. The teen had Gianna’s long sleek brown hair and dark eyes, but stood a good three inches taller than her petite mother.

Pride flashed in Gianna’s eyes. “She does,” she said simply.

Chris abruptly missed his son. Brian had the dark coloring of his deceased mother, Elena, but looked exactly like Chris as a child. “Violet was terrified when I first got there,” he said. “She’d been awake most of the night, making certain you were still breathing, worried about keeping you from choking on your own vomit.”

Gianna’s tilted her head to one side. “Poor thing. She’s heard me tell too many stories.”

“Stories?” Chris asked.

She gave a grim look. “Stories that naturally come from working with dead people every day.”

“Ah,” said Chris. “I bet you see some fascinating things.”