Page 14 of Break My Fall

Followed by the ever-present dissatisfaction that plagued her when she was away from Gray.

“He’s not interested.” She reminded herself of that painful truth, walked inside, made a sandwich from the supplies she kept in the office kitchen, and then lost herself in the tedium of tax preparation.

It took Gray forty-five minutes to get to his desk. When he finally sat down, he dropped his head back onto his chair and closed his eyes.

He was so tired.

He’d only taken four breaths when his intercom buzzed and Glenda, his secretary/daytime dispatcher, spoke. “Chief Ward, Cal Shaw is here to see you.”

Gray leaned forward and pressed the button that allowed him to speak to her. “Send him back.”

A minute later, Cal entered his office. Maisy, Cal’s faithful golden retriever, was right on his heels. She came around the desk and pressed her muzzle into Gray’s stomach. “Hey, girl. Hello, beautiful.” He crooned a bunch of nonsense that for some reason made perfect sense when spoken to a dog.

Maisy wasn’t officially a trained therapy dog, but she had anuncanny ability to sense tension. She would always comfort Cal first, but she was wildly generous with her affection and had a knack for arrowing in on the most stressed-out person in the room.

“Well”—Cal sat in the chair across from Gray’s desk and nodded toward Maisy—“I guess that answers my first question. You’re having a crummy day.”

“You talked to Mo?”

“Mo and Uncle Doug.”

“Meredith?”

“Came here first. Going to see her next.”

Gray ran his hands over Maisy’s head. She rested it on his knee and didn’t seem inclined to move. Not that he minded. “I don’t know any more than I did an hour ago. Someone intentionally punctured her fuel line. I can’t prove it, but I’m not trying to prove it in court. Given the way it was leaking, there’s no way it happened before she left town. That means someone did it while she was at Mrs. Frost’s home.”

Cal leaned forward and snagged a mini Reese’s cup from the bowl on Gray’s desk. “Mrs. Frost is a terrorist on the road, but she’s harmless otherwise.”

“Agreed. And Meredith said the tooth pain was real. Mrs. Frost wasn’t faking it. And Mo sent me a text. He drove up to Mrs. Frost’s place. He wound up spending an hour doing stuff around her house but looked around while he did it, talked to her as he did. She didn’t know anything, and he didn’t find any smoking guns.”

They sat in silence for a few moments. “None of this makes sense, Gray. Why target Meredith?”

“No clue.”

More silence.

“I heard she promised not to leave the county alone.”

Gray grunted acknowledgment. Cal was fishing, but Gray wasn’t in the mood to bite.

“You asked. She promised.” Cal reached for another Reese’s. “Funny.”

“She’s an intelligent woman, and what happened scared her. She doesn’t know what’s going on either. I gave her an excuse to protect herself. That’s it.”

“Right.” Cal slapped his hands on his legs. “Good talk.” He stood, leaned over the desk, and dropped his voice to a low whisper. “I don’t care how much you’ve deluded yourself about your relationship with Meredith. But I appreciate that you’re doing everything you can to keep her safe. Thank you.”

In a normal voice, he called Maisy to him. She gave Gray one last snuggle and then followed Cal to the door, where he paused. “We’ll be out by the firepit tonight.”

“It’s freezing.”

“True. But it’s a good place to have a conversation that no one can overhear. We’ll build the fire up big. It will be toasty.”

“It would be toastier inside.” Gray didn’t mind sitting by a firepit in the fall or spring. Or even in the summer after dark when the mountain air could still be a bit chilly. But in the dead of winter? North Carolina winters weren’t nearly as cold as Chicago winters, but it still got nippy at night.

“Wear gloves.”

“I’ll think about it.”

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