CHAPTER EIGHT
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Coen washed and dried the collection of bowls and pans Brettany had used to bake with earlier. It struck him as odd that she used earthenware mixing bowls and wooden spoons rather than modern aluminum cookware. It was as if she was from an earlier era when it came to baking.
He’d wanted something to do while trying to reach Sheriff Whitney, so he’d volunteered his services. It was much like he had done when his mother washed the dishes and he’d stood on a stool next to her, drying the heavy pots and cast iron skillets she used to cook with when he was younger.
The sheriff wasn’t answering his calls. He was either busy with other emergencies created by the storm or serving that arrest warrant on Eyles. The first four attempts, Coen received a prerecorded message that all available lines were in use. The single, local cell tower must have been experiencing a high call volume or the multiplexer was seeing a high error rate between it and the rest of the cell network.
Coen finally got through to the sheriff’s voicemail to leave a message.
“Sheriff, this is Coen Flynn. I’m over at Brettany Lambert’s house. There’s been an incident here at her residence that you need to be aware of.” Coen went into detail about the vehicle, the name on the registration, and the fact that Mr. Koett had left his car abandoned with the keys in the ignition. “I’d appreciate it if you had one of your deputies check on his wellbeing. Ms. Lambert has an emergency contact number she’s going to try, but I thought you should know. A tow truck will probably need to be called after the worst of the storm has passed. The vehicle isn’t drivable and is currently sitting in Ms. Lambert’s front yard. I’d also like an update on the service of Martin Eyles’ arrest warrant, when you have a chance. You have my number.”
Coen ended the call right when he finished stacking the last bowl in the drying rack on the counter. He turned off the faucet after rinsing the sink before facing the island. Brettany never did finish frosting those cupcakes. Had she been on the phone with Louise the entire time he’d been doing a search of the property?
“I thought you and I had an agreement about these cupcakes.” Coen could sense Brettany’s presence as he reached for the dish towel to dry his hands. “You were supposed to—”
“Martin was driving the car—not his uncle.”
Coen turned to find Brettany standing in the doorway of the kitchen, holding her phone to her chest as if it were her sole lifeline. Fear was written all over her features, and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do to ease her panic at having had a suspected killer on her doorstep.
“How do you know that for sure?” Coen asked cautiously, wanting a hard confirmation that Martin was indeed the driver of the vehicle that had crashed outside of her house. If so, that scenario didn’t make much sense. “Did you get ahold of Lester Koett?”
“Yes, and his wife,” Brettany whispered, though she finally found her voice when she took a step forward. The way she answered set him edge. “Mrs. Koett’s nephew is Martin Eyles. He asked to borrow their car tonight. It was him in their car.”
Coen hadn’t exactly been expecting that answer, but he took it in stride. He’d learned long ago that nothing ever went as planned. There was an old saying in preparing for a combat operation—plan once to plan again, because no operational plan no matter how detailed ever lasted past initial contact with the enemy. It was Murphy’s law that, if at all possible, an errant wrench would most likely find its way into the most critical gear to slow down or reverse any positive progression.
He asked her a few more questions, keeping her busy while he was able to shoot off a few texts. One was to Sheriff Whitney, with the thought that the man might be reading his messages instead of being in a place where he could answer his phone. The other two were to Brody and Calvert, in that order. There wasn’t a whole hell of a lot either one could do being over two thousand miles away, but this storm would eventually lift and provide SSI the opportunity to aid the local police in hunting down an alleged murderer. Regardless, he needed to make them aware now if things went sideways later.
“Coen, are you listening to me?” Brettany anxiously stepped forward until she was next to the island. She grabbed ahold of her oven mitts he’d set down there earlier, but not because she needed them. It was just something for her to hold onto. “We should leave. Maybe head to the police station or something. I’ve already texted Louise and told her to be careful. Martin is somewhere out there, and we should—”
“Brettany, we’re not going anywhere.” It hadn’t taken Coen long to reach that conclusion for a multitude of reasons, the main one being the weather conditions. Getting caught out there in the storm put them at a severe disadvantage. Technically, he could take her over to his rental house, but nothing would effectively change. His presence here was already known had Martin still been somewhere in the vicinity when Coen searched the area around the house for the driver. “Because of the weather, it’s safer for us to stay here. Martin Eyles is a nobody. He has no training. He’s nothing but the scum on the bottom of your shoe. He reacted poorly in a crime of passion because he’s weak, for which he will now dearly pay. I don’t know why he borrowed his uncle’s vehicle or what he thought to gain by cruising past your house, but he crashed into your tree. He’s more than welcome to try and approach your front door. I’ll take that opportunity to make him regret starting any of this crap in the first place. I’m a highly trained, close combat specialist. He has less than zero chance of making it past me, even if he were equipped with a cannon. It won’t end well for him if he does come back, I promise.”
Coen leaned over the counter and instinctively took her hand in his, wanting nothing more than to reassure her that everything would be okay. He realized his mistake a little too late. It was never a good idea to get too personal in a situation like this, but he didn’t let go. He chalked up his reasoning to the fact that this was a unique situation involving a killer and all.
“It doesn’t make sense.” Brettany turned her hands over, leaving her cell phone and the oven mitt on the counter so she could tighten her grip on his fingers with both hands. Her green eyes searched his for a guarantee he couldn’t quite give. “The police already know everything about Martin’s relationship with Heidi. Why would he come here and—”
“There’s no telling why these nut jobs do what they do when things get jumbled up in their heads.” Coen figured she had some idea of the torture Shailyn Doyle suffered at the hands of Shepherd Moss from the news, but there had been quite a bit of detailed information kept from the press. The sad thing of it was that someone like Martin didn’t even come close to a psychopath of Moss’ caliber. “Look, I’ll double check the locks on the doors and windows. We’ll get a fire going in the living room and have a little campout. I’m sure Sheriff Whitney will return my call as soon as he can, just as I’m confident that Eyles will be in custody before morning. It’s not like he can get far in this weather. He’s as trapped as we are, and probably even more so.”
“That’s what I’m worried about,” Brettany muttered, slipping her hands from his so she could wrap her arms around her waist. He didn’t like to see her frightened, but he had to remind himself that she didn’t live in his world. It was a place where threats from amateurs like Eyles rated less on a scale of one to ten than the neighbor’s dog did of attacking her. Hers consisted of eight-year-old students, construction paper, and glitter when she wasn’t busy making cupcakes. Her idyllic life is why he joined the service, and he was glad to see that his brothers’ sacrifices hadn’t been made in vain. “What if he’s near the house?”
“I just got finished checking the perimeter. He isn’t out there.” Coen was one hundred percent certain that Martin Eyles had taken to foot after bungling his drive-by and running the front end of his uncle’s car into a tree. His tracks had been evident, and there had been no evidence to the contrary. For all they knew, the idiot had crashed his uncle’s car into her property with some half-assed intention of luring Brettany out of the house. It might very well explain why he’d taken off down the street when Coen had made an appearance. He only wished he had seen Eyles through the snow and chased his ass down. “There are no tracks outside in your yard besides mine. Hell, those are probably already covered with the way the snow is piling up out there. Eyles is long gone somewhere trying to figure out how to explain what he did to his uncle’s car.”
Brettany stared at him a few moments longer, as if gauging his honesty. It wasn’t as if she didn’t have that choice, considering the pretense he’d kept up for the last week. It didn’t help that he had come clean about camping out behind her house for three weeks without her figuring out that he’d been out there. Technically, it was he who sounded like some creep sneaking around her home and trying to catch a glimpse of her inside her windows when she was half-dressed.
“Fine.” Brettany practically sighed the word in acceptance. He could still hear her skepticism, but he didn’t doubt that the roads had already been shut down to all but emergency vehicles. Either that, or they would be soon. “I’ll walk with you.”
Coen didn’t mind the company, but he made sure to keep the conversation light. He’d seen what happened to his other teammates when they’d let their guards down, and now there were two women who had likely become targets in this game of cat and mouse with Eyles. He recalled Calvert saying something to the effect that Sawyer and Camryn were more than just acquaintances now, but the man had to have been pulling his leg.
Together, they went from room to room. Brettany owned a quaint two-bedroom home littered with antiques. She’d gone for a conventional design scheme, which wasn’t surprising considering her personality and traditional ways. He did notice that the mischief he’d caught a glimpse of earlier was sprinkled around the house, be it in a painting or a personal photograph—like the one that was hanging with other family pictures on the wall descending the stairs.
“Skydiving? Really?” Coen couldn’t resist the question, having a hard time believing that she would even contemplate something so daring. They were standing eye level with the photo in the middle of the stairwell even though he was one step down. “Let me guess. You chickened out when it was time to get in the plane.”
“I’ll have you know that was only my first jump. I’ve already done my solo,” Brettany said with a genuine smile. He was glad to see that some of her worry about Martin Eyles had dissipated. Nothing was going to happen on his watch, and he’d make certain that Eyles was either in custody or dead before this part of the assignment came to an end. “The relationship that got me there didn’t end too well, but at least I had fun and found something I like to do.”
Coen didn’t know why he was surprised at the mention she’d been involved with someone when she’d tried out skydiving, and he had to remind himself that her personal life wasn’t any of his business. He took one more look at the picture. It was easy to make out the excitement in her green eyes, and it caused him to wonder if she wasn’t a daredevil underneath those schoolteacher clothes she wore.
Granted, she was currently wearing a white sweater that fitted to her upper body and a pair of jeans that hugged her just right. He certainly didn’t remember his third or fourth grade teacher looking like her. Maybe if he had, he would have paid more attention and gotten better grades.
The lights flickered right before they were descended into darkness. He automatically reached back until he was able to rest a hand on Brettany’s thigh in order to prevent her from taking another step. The last thing they needed was for one of them to tumble down the stairs and get hurt. He patiently listened for the generator to kick on alongside the house.
“Is now the time I tell you that some of the breakers blew in an electrical storm a few months ago? I don’t know if the generator is going to work.”
Coen would have closed his eyes in disbelief, but it wasn’t needed. The darkness continued until the low hum of the generator finally kicked in…most likely providing electricity only to the areas that hadn’t been affected by the blown circuits.
“Brettany, why wouldn’t you have gotten that fixed before winter set in?” Coen asked, admittedly shocked that someone like Brettany could let something slide of such significance. “You, of all people, know how severe your winter storms can be in the month of December.”
“I’m a schoolteacher, Coen. I’m not made of money.” Brettany softly set her hand over his shoulder, reminding him that they were still in the middle of the stairs. The heat from her hand soaked through the soft material of his shirt, giving him a rather intense reminder that her finances weren’t any of his business. Well, her safety was his concern. He needed to remember to keep to the right of that line. “The quote I received was a little out of my budget. Besides, I usually head to my parents’ house during real bad weather.”
“Why didn’t you go over there tonight?” Coen asked, thinking her decision to visit her mother and father would have prevented quite a few mistakes today. He thought about the five-mile distance, but disregarded the possibility of getting her there safely. “Wait. You don’t have an ATV stashed somewhere in the garage that I missed, do you?”
“Wow.” Brettany followed closely behind him as he took one step at a time until they reached the landing. “I didn’t realize you wanted to get rid of me so badly. Isn’t it part of your job to keep me safe?”
“There’s probably no safer place than your parents’ house.” Coen shifted so that her hand dropped away from his shoulder. It didn’t take him long to locate the flashlight he’d set on the entryway table. He pressed the button until the beam landed near her feet, highlighting the fact that she’d set her hands on her hips. Her irritation with him was better than seeing her in fear. “Look, I understand about budgets. Trust me.”
Coen couldn’t complain about his salary. He made a damned good living, and SSI provided him with a lot of additional benefits and some perks as well. No one needed to know he was basically supporting his younger brother while he got his feet back underneath him after having made some very seriously bad choices. It was easy to see even with a lone beam that she wanted to question him further, but that topic was off limits.
“Let’s get that fire started, shall we?” Coen directed the flashlight over to the fireplace, grateful she’d thought ahead and stacked the wood alongside the mantel in a cast iron log carrier. It was enough to get them through half the night, at least. “Would you hand me the—”
His cell phone rang, though it wasn’t unexpected.
“Flynn.”
“What the hell do you mean that Eyles crashed into Brettany’s yard?”
“You read my text correctly.” Coen would have handed off the flashlight to Brettany had she not taken over and started to stack the split firewood onto the heavy metal grate inside the hearth. She was certainly independent. “Either he somehow knows about the arrest warrant or that is one hell of a coincidence.”
“I’d say the former, but I’ve been wrong about a lot of things this evening.” Sheriff Whitney was obviously outside somewhere from the way the wind was blowing against his phone. He was most likely at the scene of an accident caused by a couple idiots who thought they could outwit Mother Nature. “I sent two deputies to make the arrest, but Eyles wasn’t at his residence. I’ll head your way when I’m done here, but these weather conditions aren’t conducive to an area sweep of the neighborhood. There is the fact that he can’t hole up too many places in this weather. He’d need somewhere warm and dry.”
“I understand.” There wasn’t anything that could done about the weather, but that didn’t mean Coen had to like that their hands were tied. “I’ll see to it that Ms. Lambert is safe pending a search for the suspect.”
“I appreciate that. I’ll have a deputy swing by Louise Wynn’s apartment on his way over to your side of town just to make sure she has someone capable of looking out for her nearby,” Sheriff Whitney said before issuing a warning that was not needed. The first thing the Marines had taught Coen in boot camp was to be ready for anything. “Eyles might not be in Moss’ league, but he still murdered a woman in cold blood. Watch your back, Flynn. He might just surprise you.”