QR Code Killer (5 page)

She’d give anything to be able to sit with
her mama one last time. To smell the sweet floral perfume her
mother always wore. To feel her hand, comforting and warm, on her
back. To see her face beam a smile filled with love and joy.

Zeus had taken more than just her mother the
day he shot Elaine Weber. He’d taken one of Maddie’s few
friends.

Growing up a tomboy, Maddie wasn’t interested
in anything girlie. Instead of playing with Barbie’s or baby dolls,
she played with trucks and footballs. She had a BB gun instead of
ballet shoes and spent time in hunter’s safety classes instead of
music lessons.

Maddie threw a fit when her mother decorated
her bedroom in soft shades of yellow with ruffled curtains and
white furniture when she was a freshman in high school. Secretly
she was quite pleased. Although the persona she gave the world was
tough and tomboy, there was a part of Maddie that thoroughly
enjoyed being a girl.

Only Elaine had known Maddie had a soft
side.

It had been a challenge for Maddie all her
life to prove she was as good as the boys. At only five-feet tall,
petite with blue eyes and golden blond hair, she looked like a
perfect little doll. Because people took one look at her and
assumed she’d be a prissy female, she worked twice as hard to show
them she wasn’t.

Maddie had always found it hard to relate to
girls her age. They giggled too much, spent too much time worrying
about their clothes and hair, and discussed the most inane things.
Maddie hung out with the boys, who treated her like one of the
guys, although she never felt like she belonged anywhere. Elaine
loved her for who she was and for that Maddie was eternally
grateful.

Her mother was the one who encouraged her to
follow her dreams. To be whatever she wanted to be. Maddie knew she
wasn’t going to pursue a career typical for most females. She was
good at analytical thinking, problem solving, and reasoning. With a
strong sense of right and wrong, and an ability to read people, it
didn’t take long after Maddie started college to decide she wanted
to be involved in law enforcement.

Despite her diminutive size, she proved she
could handle the job. She was an expert marksman, had a reputation
for never quitting, and was loyal to a fault.

Even that wasn’t enough to save Devin.

Maddie sat up and rubbed her eyes. She still
missed him, still thought about him. Although she tried to avoid
relationships of any type, Devin Suez had gotten to her, working
his way into her guarded heart inch by inch until he became a huge
part of Maddie’s life. Devin was an All-American boy with a winning
smile and gentle heart. How could she not fall in love with him,
especially with all the time they spent working together?

Zeus not only took her mother from her, he
had taken the man Maddie hoped to marry. Releasing a sigh, Maddie
tried to quiet the voices raging in her head that told her, once
again, she blew the opportunity to end Zeus once and for all when
she didn’t shoot him point blank in the alley.

Being honorable had gotten her nowhere except
on extended leave until the knife wound in her shoulder healed. It
was going to be a long summer stuck back on the farm with Dad and
Zach hovering over her.

If Zach’s behavior the night before when he
picked her up at the tiny Walla Walla airport was any indication of
how things would go during the next few months, it was going to be
a long, hard road of recovery. After lecturing her about leaving
the hospital early and traveling alone, he then went on and on
about how she needed to be more mindful of her personal safety, how
she needed to let them take care of her, how she needed to let
herself need help.

After the first five minutes, she blocked him
out and sat ignoring him, watching the scenery fly past her window.
She hadn’t been back to town since they finished the first leg of
the new highway project. The road was wide and smooth, taking them
through beautiful farm country.

Once he helped her get her things in the
house, Zach tried to rally their dad to take up the lecture where
he left off. Ethan, to Maddie’s surprise, just gave her a gentle
hug and said, “I’m so glad you’re home, cupcake.”

Exhausted from the trip and admittedly run
down from the past three years of constantly working trying to
catch Zeus, Maddie slept late, at least late for the farm. Glancing
at the bedside clock, she smiled to see it read 9:30 a.m.

Carefully stretching so she didn’t damage the
stitches in her shoulder, Maddie got out of bed and went to the
bathroom where she took a bath and got ready for the day.

She was wrestling with a fresh bandage when a
pounding on the door startled her. She would have automatically
pulled her gun if she’d been wearing it.

“Maddie, I’ve got breakfast waiting for you
when you are ready,” Lena called through the closed door. “Do you
need help with your bandage?”

“I’ve just about got it,” Maddie said, her
breathing returning to normal. She hadn’t realized how jumpy she’d
become. “Just give me a second and I’ll be right down.”

“Okay, honey,” Lena said. “Sure you don’t
need help?”

Maddie opened the door and grinned at her
aunt, with the bandage dangling from her hand. “Maybe a
little.”

“Well, let’s get you fixed up then,
kiddo.”

Lena made short work of getting the bandage
into place, helped Maddie on with her shirt, then guided her arm
into the sling she was supposed to wear. Stepping back she gave her
a once over and shook her head.

“Your hair looks like a nest of something
wild tangled in it,” Lena said, picking up Maddie’s brush. Soon
Maddie’s gold hair, cut in short, wavy layers, was perfectly
styled. “That looks much better, kiddo.”

“Thanks, Aunt Lena,” Maddie said, kissing her
aunt’s cheek as they walked down the hall to the stairs. “What
would I do without you?”

“Not a whole lot until your arm heals up a
bit,” Lena said with a grin. “Now let’s get you some breakfast. You
look like a strong wind could blow you down.”

Maddie just glared at her aunt, which caused
her to laugh.

“I know, Miss Maddie, you are one tough
cookie and no wind is going to mess with you.”

Maddie relaxed and smiled. “Glad you
remembered.”

As the two women sat at the table and
chatted, Lena caught Maddie up on the farm happenings, including
the new wind turbines.

“Dad mentioned them when he came to see me in
the hospital,” Maddie said, enjoying a second cup of coffee. “I’ll
have to go out and see them.”

“Just be careful. You don’t want to
overdo.”

“I won’t, Aunt Lena. I’m made of pretty stern
stuff, you know.”

“Yes, don’t I know it, and if I didn’t, you
would remind me repeatedly until I did.”

Maddie and Lena continued to visit until
Maddie’s eye was drawn out the kitchen window to a man she hadn’t
seen on the farm before.

He wasn’t tall or short. She’d guess him
about five-nine or ten. He was lean and fit, and walked with an
easy, confident gait. When he turned toward the house, all she
could think of was the sadness that seemed to surround him. She
recognized it well because she felt such a crushing sense of
anguish herself.

“Who’s that man, Aunt Lena?”

“That’s Erik, our new summer help. Your
brother just hired him yesterday. He was with the crew that put in
the wind turbines. Such a nice young man,” Lena said, eying Maddie.
“As a matter of fact, I’d guess him to be right around your age.
Single. No attachments.”

“Oh,” Maddie said, standing up in her need to
escape her aunt’s wild match-making ideas. She could already see
the wheels spinning in Lena’s head. Her own wheels were spinning,
wondering if Zach had checked this guy’s background. He could work
for Zeus and be an immediate threat to her family. Sighing, she
realized she would never get them to acknowledge the danger they
were constantly in just by being related to her.

Sizing up the man, she knew he wasn’t Zeus
because he wasn’t tall enough to be the madman. That didn’t mean he
wasn’t suspect for some other reason, though. Guilty until proven
innocent was Maddie’s current motto.

“I think I’ll go take a look around the
farm,” Maddie said, putting on a pair of sunglasses. “It’s been a
while.”

Lena walked up beside her and patted her good
arm. “You haven’t been back since your mother’s funeral. We’ve
missed you, Maddie.”

“I’ve missed you, too.” Maddie had missed her
family. She just didn’t have time for trips home and, truth be
told, she hadn’t wanted to think how quiet the farmhouse would be
without her mother there. Although she loved her aunt, she just
couldn’t help waiting to hear her mother’s voice around the corner
and see her smiling from the stove.

Deciding to go outside to clear her head and
chase away the sad memories, Maddie stepped out onto the porch and
was greeted by a friendly dog. He lifted his head from his paws and
wagged his tail.

When she leaned over to pet him, his eyes
shone with affection.

“Where did you come from, boy? What’s your
name?”

“Boone,” a voice said from in front of her.
Maddie raised her gaze and saw Erik watching her from a few feet
away.

The dog got to his feet and ran over to Erik,
his tail wagging so hard Maddie wasn’t sure how he could walk
without pulling himself off balance.

Erik smiled at the dog and gave him a gentle
pat before returning his gaze to Maddie.

His features were shadowed by the bill of his
ball cap, but he took a step forward and held out his hand.

“You must be Miss Weber,” he said, shaking
the small hand she placed in his calloused one. “I’m Erik. It’s
nice to meet you.”

Maddie looked at him. From this angle, she
could see his eyes were light brown, almost golden, and laugh lines
creased the corners. He wasn’t handsome in the unbelievably
gorgeous sense Devin had been, but he was very nice looking with a
strong jaw and straight nose.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” Maddie said,
taking a step back and pulling down her sunglasses. “Please, call
me Maddie.” For some reason beyond her ability to comprehend, the
touch of Erik’s hand on hers made her stomach start fluttering. She
didn’t appreciate the sensation at all. Ignoring it, she studied
the farmer standing before her, his hand absently rubbing the dog’s
head. “Aunt Lena was telling me you helped install the wind
machines. I thought I’d go take a look at them and see if they are
as huge up close as they are from here.”

Erik offered her a genuine smile. “You might
be surprised.”

Maddie felt her lips curving upward in
response. “I might be.” Looking around, Maddie spied one of the
farm four-wheelers sitting by the barn and started walking that
direction.

“Are you sure you should bump around with
your arm,” Erik asked, watching her walk away.

Maddie stopped and looked at him as she
pushed her sunglasses back into place. Studying him for a moment,
she decided he was asking out of concern, not some ulterior
motive.

“I’ll be careful, but thanks for asking.”

Erik nodded his head and walked back toward
the machine shed, taking Boone with him. He was gone before Zach
returned with Maddie last night and Ethan said she was sleeping
late this morning, so he was surprised to see her come out on the
porch.

She was nothing like he had imagined.

Instead of being tall and stocky like her dad
and brother, Maddie was about the tiniest thing Erik had ever seen.
She looked like a perfect version of a Barbie doll from the blond
hair, blue eyes and glowing tan to her generously curved, albeit
petite figure. She was absolutely gorgeous and the fact that he
even noticed was causing him to question how smart it would be to
work on the ranch all summer.

He had managed to keep to himself for the
last two years and he was planning to continue on alone. After
losing Sheila and the baby, he didn’t think he could put himself
through that kind of torture again. As he glanced back over his
shoulder at Maddie slowly riding the four-wheeler up the hill
toward the wind turbines, he wondered if maybe he should reconsider
that plan.

When it came right down to it, Erik was tired
of moving around, tired of running, tired of grieving, tired of
being swept along with no direction or purpose. He still missed
Sheila every day, but the pain had lessened to a dull ache that
came and went instead of a twisting knot that relentlessly held him
in its grasp. Maybe it was time to think about going home to his
farm and moving on with his life.

He hadn’t thought of that once in the past
two years, and now that idea didn’t seem so foreign. Rolling it
around in his mind, he decided to give it some time and see if, at
the end of the summer, he was ready to resume his life in
Ontario.

May glided into June on a soft sigh. It was,
Maddie would admit, so nice to be somewhere the sun shone most of
the time, where the air was clear and fresh, and the sky a dazzling
shade of azure blue.

Used to the damp, rainy weather of Seattle,
she didn’t realize how much she had missed the beauty of early
summer in the Walla Walla Valley.

Sitting on the porch swing, she watched the
guys working at the shop on equipment. They would start the second
cutting of hay soon and were making sure everything was in proper
working order.

Gone from home for so long, Maddie hadn’t
realized so many vineyards had popped up in the area. From their
porch, she could look across the valley and see several orderly
rows of grapes where orchards and wheat fields used to be. It
didn’t take long to learn Walla Walla had a booming wine business,
which she had largely ignored.

Sitting in the porch swing, aimlessly moving
the seat back and forth with her foot, Maddie was restless. Used to
being on the go with a lack of sleep, she hardly knew what to do
with herself now that she was well rested. With her left arm still
in a sling, she was about ready to climb the walls. Lena was busy
cleaning or cooking or doing something domestic inside. Maddie
smiled. She supposed it wouldn’t hurt to learn a few domestic
skills. Her cooking abilities left a lot to be desired and cleaning
was never high on her to-do list.