CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Just before six the next morning, Earl stepped out onto the back porch of the First Baptist Church of Westen and closed the door behind him. Thanks to the new wool winter coat Ms. Lorna over at the Peaches ’N Cream had given him, the cold air wasn’t so bad today.
Pulling out his pack of smokes, he slipped one between his lips, lit the free end and inhaled a lungful of smoke, closing his eyes briefly to let the nicotine hit his system. He supposed Pastor Miller might not mind him smoking down in the church basement where his rollaway bed was, but ever since he was a small boy watching his father and the other men of his hometown church go outside to smoke after services, Earl had always considered it disrespectful to God to smoke in his house. And that man upstairs already had enough to be angry with him about. No use adding to the list of his sins.
So, here he stood outside on a cold, crisp winter morning smoking his first Camel of the day. Old man winter had been busy dumping more snow on the town last night. Looked like he was going to have to shovel the church porch, steps and sidewalk again today. That was all right with him. Keeping the porch safe for people to come inside the warm church was a good way to earn a place to sleep and a few good meals.
The night the blizzard roared through town, Pastor Miller had insisted he come home with him and share dinner with him and the misses. Earl had wanted to tell them no, but one whiff of her chicken soup and he couldn’t think of a reason to leave. Not even when they insisted he sleep in one of their real nice guest rooms.
After working at the church yesterday, the pastor invited him home once more. Only the house was full, as two families with four little ones between them had come to stay. Both families were without heat at their places. Earl enjoyed the meal of delicious roast beef, potatoes and carrots, along with Mrs. Miller’s melt-in-your-mouth cornbread. He’d used the new guests as an excuse, though, to head back to the church for the night. From the look in her eyes he knew the pastor’s wife wanted to protest, but instead sent him along with an extra big slice of homemade apple pie.
That woman sure could cook. He patted his stomach just thinking about it.
The clock in the church’s tower chimed six times signaling it was six a.m. The loud hourly chiming was something he’d had to get used to when he first came to town years ago. Now it was like his own personal time keeper. He glanced down the road in the direction of the Peaches ’N Cream. The light was on upstairs, which meant Pete, the cook, must be up for the day.
Guess he’d mosey on down that way. If he wandered in sober when Pete started his prep for the day’s cooking, he’d let Earl peel vegetables in exchange for a meal. Even though the pastor paid him for his work, getting to eat with Pete and sometimes Ms. Lorna’s nice daughter Rachel was worth pulling K-P duty in the back of the warm café.
He pulled one last drag off his cigarette, stubbed it out and left it where he’d be sure to clean up when he came back to clear the steps after breakfast. With a tug on the collar of his coat, he braced it against his neck to keep out any biting wind gusts and headed down the street.
One block down Main Street he heard a noise coming from the new apartment building, built to house some of the new comers to town after that big explosion last spring. He moved to stand beside a thick oak tree, knowing his coat and clothes would blend into its shadows in the near dark. Slowing his breathing just like he had in the war, he watched the parking lot.
The figure emerged from the stairwell on the side of the building, dressed head-to-toe in all white, a long black gun case strapped on one shoulder. With a click of a button the headlights of a big pick-up truck flashed. The figure turned to put the gun case inside. The light of the parking lot caught the face dusted with freckles and the long ginger-colored hair that escaped from beneath a white knit cap.
Hannah, the newest waitress over at the Peaches ’N Cream.
She climbed into the truck and started the engine. As she drove it out of the lot and turned right, Earl hugged the tree, doing his disappearing act. She drove past him, headed out towards the North end of town.
Now where was she headed this time of the morning, dressed like that and carrying a rifle?
* * * * *
Hannah parked her truck in the shelter of two old evergreens and some downed oaks and maples half a mile from the main road and equal distance from Wes’s place. She’d scoped out this spot when she first arrived in town and learned where he lived back in the fall. The roads had iced over after dusk yesterday and the new snow last night had made driving on them just as treacherous as right after the blizzard drove through. It also meant no one was on the roads to see her coming this way.
The clock on the dashboard said six-twenty. She checked her watch to be sure they were in sync. Perfect. If anyone had a clue what she was up to, it would take them some time to get here. Wes Strong was not going to survive until they did.
Sitting in the warm truck cab, she opened the sniper drag bag. Dad had bought her one when she hit the buck nearly five-hundred meters away just after her eighteenth birthday. Her chest ached with the memory. That had been the first time she’d gone hunting with Dad by herself. Isaac had joined the army right after graduating college and was in basic-training. They only saw him in between deployments after that, only sharing one more family hunting trip before Dad died and Isaac disappeared into the world of clandestine operations—following Wes Strong like a loyal pup.
Her family completely gone. She was all alone.
Anger surged through her.
It was all Strong’s fault. He had to pay.
When she finally located the bastard hiding out in this small Ohio town, her plan had been a simple one. Come to town, sneak into his house in the dead of night, kill him, slip out of town before anyone knew she’d been there. But he didn’t have a place in town. She’d needed to stay in the town and be inconspicuous as possible until she’d found his lair out in the woods. So, just like with hunting, she blended into her surroundings, taking a job at the café and studying her target.
That’s when her plans changed. The moment she’d seen the deputy with the sheriff’s soon-to-be sister-in-law, she’d known he was interested in her. They couldn’t keep their eyes off each other. After the wedding, she’d seen him whisk her up to his cabin and followed them there. Whatever was going on between them had him charging like a bull after a cow in heat down to Cincinnati with a storm blowing in.
Slashing her tires while they were in the chili joint had been a spur-of-the-moment inspiration. His reaction confirmed what Hannah had been thinking. The dark-haired woman meant something important to Strong.
Well, too damn bad. He’d taken her last living family from her. The last person on this earth that she cared about. Turn-about was fair play. She wanted to make him suffer. Make him feel the helplessness she did. The abject emptiness. The terrifying loneliness.
Pulling her scarf up to cover her mouth and nose from the biting cold, she cut the engine, grabbed the rifle bag and climbed out of the truck. No need to lock it. No one would come up this way in this weather today and she didn’t want to fumble with keys and locks on her return after she completed her mission.
Moving through the brush and deep snow, she went hunting her prey.
Come hell or highwater, before he died today, Wes Strong was losing someone.
* * * * *
The soft snoring in the other room stopped.
Bulldog glanced at the hotel standard digital clock on the bedside table. Six-twenty in the morning. The sun wasn’t up yet, but apparently the doc was.
He sat on the side of the bed and stretched, listening to her head into the suite’s bathroom. The woman was pretty amazing. Given she was on duty for forty-eight hours straight, found her sister’s condo trashed, learned the same sister had a stalker, then waited for the cops to arrive and finally finishing with them about two in the morning, a lesser soul would be dead to the world until at least noon.
Not the doc.
He’d heard her tell Chloe she was calling the other sister first thing this morning. First thing to the doc was seven sharp, shift change at the hospital. Probably shift change at the small town’s sheriff’s office, too.
The shower started running. He pulled on his jeans, and tugged a clean sweatshirt out of his bag and over his head. Best to have coffee brewing when she got out of the shower. Looked like it was going to be a long day.
Ten minutes later, Dylan came out of the bedroom, dressed in her jeans and sweater from the day before, toweling out her long dark blonde hair. Beautiful, sexy, smart and with a surgical talent like he’d never seen. If he weren’t gay he’d be in big trouble with this one.
“Cream and sugar, Doc?” he asked, pouring her a mug of the coffee.
“Yes to both,” she said, snagging some of the raspberry coffee cake he’d bought two days before and sliding onto one of the barstools.
He set the cream and sugar on the counter in front of her, along with the mug of coffee. “Doctor it up the way you want.”
She dumped a ton of both the creamer and sugar into her mug.
He arched a brow at her. “Gonna have a little coffee with your cream and sugar?”
She laughed. “I hated this stuff growing up, but found I needed some caffeine to get through med school, then this past year as an intern. Still don’t like the taste.”
“There’s other kinds of caffeine, you know. Tea. Soda. You could even do the five-hour thing.” He cut himself half of what was left of the coffee cake and took a bite.
She shook her head. “Can’t do the energy drinks. They tend to spike then crash my blood sugar. Grew up drinking sodas and tea. They’re okay. But I need a jolt that coffee gives me, especially if I’m on call and someone wakes me up out of a sound sleep.” She held up her hand when he started to comment. “Yeah, I know. When does an intern get to sleep, let alone a deep sleep. It happens, occasionally. Very, very, very occasionally.”
“Why I never went to med school,” he said, watching her take a long drink of the coffee then make a face, with her nose all scrunched up. He wanted to laugh, but he’d seen the woman wield a scalpel like a street thug with a switchblade. Wasn’t getting on her bad side anytime soon.
“Because of the coffee?” she asked.
“No, the long hours on call. Even when you finish your residency, you’re gonna be on-call to patients and hospitals. Whereas nurses and techs come in work their shifts and go home. Except in blizzards.”
“Except in blizzards and when they’re on super-secret guard duty,” she said, but softened her words with a wink.
He held up his hands, palms out in surrender. “The Chief just wanted to be sure you weren’t in any danger.”
She huffed out a frustrated sigh. “I know. It’s just I hate having to call Bobby today. She’ll go from one side of worrying to another.”
“And while I know that’s bad, I’m not sure why this is such a bad thing for you to do? From what you told me your oldest sister is one tough lady.”
“Normally, I’d think Bobby was capable of handling any news. But she’s thirty-eight years old and in the first trimester of her first ever pregnancy. She’s already high-risk. I don’t want to add undue stress to her. She’ll be relieved that Chloe is fine and with one of her co-workers, but the news that a stalker is after her…” She let the thought dangle and shrugged.
Bulldog nodded and focused on his food. What could he say? One sister might be in danger and telling the other sister could put her in a whole different kind of jeopardy.