Page 47 of Cold Light of Day

Her brow creased. “Who are you, Grier, that you think you can step into police business?” Her voice remained steady but still conveyed her anger.

“I’m just a guy who lives in Shadow Gap and likes to fish and eat at the Lively Moose.” And needed to find a job if he was going to stay through the rest of the month.

“What did you do before you came to Shadow Gap?”

Before? None of that mattered at the moment. “You asked me to meet at your house tonight. What were you going to tell me?”

She reached for her vehicle door. “Let’s make a deal. You tell me who you are, really, and I’ll tell you what I know.”

His throat tightened. He didn’t need to know about the body, did he? Accepting her terms to learn more wasn’t worth the risk. But he’d already made too many mistakes to have her asking these kinds of questions. He’d be surprised if she hadn’t already tried to find out about his past, but she would come up empty.

Krueger had seen to that.

When Grier said nothing, she climbed into the Interceptor and started it, then lowered her window.

He understood that she was eager to get to the hospital to see her father.

“Ballistics isn’t back yet, but the doctor told me about the entry and exit of the bullet that nearly cost Ross his life. You called it. I’m guessing you were some kind of law enforcement before you came to Shadow Gap—state or federal, it doesn’t matter. Or military. Tell me, or else I have no choice except to think there’s a seriously messed up reason why you won’t.”

Oh, she knew how to throw her verbal punches, he thought as the air rushed out of his lungs. But he would neither confirm nor deny her assessment. He didn’t want to become a liability to her, especially if she was already in danger.

Maybe he could concede that, yes, he’d been military, but he doubted that would satisfy her. If he gave her one unredacted line from his past, she would ask for the whole page.

“I was nobody.” He walked away and got into his truck.

She steered out of the drive, and he followed her. He needed to find out about the Red Notice fugitive. Usually, those answers could quickly be at his fingertips.

But now, using those resources would get him killed.

TWENTY-ONE

At the small hospital in Shadow Gap, Autumn rushed down the hallway and ran headlong into a familiar nurse exiting the operating room.

Georgiana gave Autumn a compassionate look, then urged her toward the waiting room. “Why don’t you have a seat.”

“I don’t want to sit. I want to know what’s going on with my father.”

“He’s in surgery, Chief.”

That news stunned her. “You’re not sending him to Juneau?”

“Dr. Combs has got him. Remember, he worked in a level2 trauma center in Anchorage. Your father needed immediate attention. Once he’s stabilized, though, he could still be transferred. He’s in good hands, don’t worry.”

Autumn nodded and decided to sit, after all. Nothing was worse than hanging around worrying, especially when she wanted only to pray while she waited for news about her father. But she had to figure out who shot him and why. And then tried to shoot Grier.

Oh, Dad...

Anguish twisted her heart. Working in law enforcement in Shadow Gap wasn’t supposed to be like working in the bigcity—how many times had her father reiterated that fact? Now, here in Shadow Gap, he had been shot and was fighting for his life. He never suffered a potentially mortal wound when working in Topeka that she knew of. He often shared stories from his time there, and she was sure he would have told her about any serious incidents.

Regardless, this was her town, and she had to find the truth. Her father would want her to find answers rather than wait around for him to recover. She squeezed her eyes shut and tried to calm her palpitating heart.

The clock on the wall made the long wait much too brutal. She shifted in her seat. Got coffee. Paced the hall. Checked with Craig about their progress. And repeated it all over again.

A couple of hours later, she got up to pace. Again. Then sat in a different chair to look at a different stack of magazines.

Why is the surgery taking so long? What does it mean?

Rapid footsteps—a cadence she recognized—drew her attention. Nolan approached, his expression somber.

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