Page 42 of Crossroads of Betrayal
Joan sighed and grazed her fingertips over the back of her head. “I was sitting in front of a fire and reading. I heard a noise. Like a banging sound. I stepped outside and a shadow skittered away from the cabin toward the lake. I followed. When it seemed like my imagination was just running wild, I turned to go back inside, and something hit me on the back of the head. I was knocked out and found in the early morning by one of the guests.”
“Did you see the person at all? Notice which way they ran after they hit you?” Grace asked, frowning.
Joan shook her head then winced. “No, and I hate myself for it. Now another young woman is in danger and I’m useless. But I just keep thinking that someone is targeting the women in the camping group. First Tessa, then you,” she said flicking her wrist toward Grace. “If I was hit harder, I’d be dead, and now Shelly is missing. That can’t be a coincidence.” She stared hard at Zeke, eyes narrowed. “Trevor left yesterday. Darrin was with Brynn most of the night. That leaves you.”
His chest tightened as the implication of Joan’s words struck him.
“He was with me most of the night,” Grace cut in, an edge to her voice. “So if that’s the only thing keeping you thinking Darrin is innocent you need to extend the same thinking to Zeke.”
Mouth pressed in a hard line, Joan shrugged.
Zeke lifted his palms to diffuse the tension simmering in the room. “Forget about what you think of me or even Darrin. We wanted to ask you questions about the last case you worked on with Tessa before you came here.”
She reared back her head. “Why?”
“We found a few articles on Tessa’s Facebook page that talked a little about your last case. Not a lot of details were given, but the broad strokes of the investigation were clear. You both were working to take down a major crime syndicate in Knoxville. Your cover was blown. Tessa saved your life.”
Crossing to the chair in the corner, Joan sat. “She didn’t even consider what could happen if they caught her. She rushed into that house and got me out. Took down a huge part of the organization. She was a hero.” A light tremor shook her words.
Rounding the edge of the sofa, Zeke lowered onto the cushion beside Grace. “She was very brave, and it sounds like she helped put away a lot of very bad people. But chances are high she didn’t get them all. Are you aware of any members of the syndicate who are still out there and want to come after you and Tessa?”
Joan rubbed between her eyebrows and sighed. “I mean, yeah. There are a handful of smaller criminals who scurried away. In a case like that, there’s no way to wrap up everyone involved. Tessa and I worked damn hard to make sure to cut this group off at the head. All the big players were sent to prison.”
“But the major players wouldn’t be the only ones who’d be pissed. Especially once your cover was blown and they were betrayed on top of losing their livelihood. Sometimes it’s not the biggest problem that comes back to haunt you, just the most persistent.”
Zeke turned his head to stare at Grace and raised his brow. Was she talking about the petty criminals coming back to seek revenge or was he the pest who wouldn’t give up?
* * *
Anxiety scatteredover Grace’s skin like an army of ants as she watched drips of rain slide down the front window at Zeke’s cabin. She’d give her right arm to be out in the woods searching for Shelly, but that’d be even harder with the muddy trails and slick terrain combined with her stupid crutches. “This suck. I hate feeling helpless.”
Zeke shoved kindling under a stack of logs he’d positioned in the fireplace then struck a match and tossed it in the pit. “You’ve never been good at sitting around idle.”
She snorted and turned away from the dreary view outside. “There’s nothing wrong with wanting to stay busy.”
He stood and dusted his hands off on the sides of his pants. “Agreed. So let’s focus on what you can do now to help you feel like you have a semblance of control in this situation. Because let’s be honest, we both know that’s what this is about.”
Pressing her lips together, she rolled her eyes but didn’t argue. How could she when he was right? “Joan wasn’t a wealth of information, but at least when I called Cruz and told him what we discussed he agreed to dive deeper into the case her and Tessa had worked on. I’m not sure what else I can do at this point.”
“Hate to say it,” Zeke said, scratching the back of his neck. “But I think you’re right. Neither of us are equipped to take on a homicide investigation. We can follow whatever crumbs we find as we try to piece together what happened, but we aren’t trained to deal with this. All we have is logic and instinct. And unless you want to track down Trevor or talk to Darrin or Brynn about what they were up to last night, I’m not sure what else we can do.”
She scrunched up her nose. “I don’t want to waste a second thinking about how Darrin passes his time. It’d be interesting to know if they were questioned for their alibis like you were, though.”
“I’m sure they were, or Joan wouldn’t have mentioned it earlier. And if one of Pine Valley’s finest thought Darrin wasn’t where he said he was, or could have snuck up and attacked Joan, he’d be in a jail cell now.”
Leaving her crutches in their place against the wall, Grace hobbled across the room and plopped on the couch. She watched the dancing flames as her brain went into overdrive. She blew out a frustrated breath. “Even if I wanted to just throw up my hands and admit there’s nothing more we can do, my mind won’t just stop thinking over every little detail. I mean, how could someone who wasn’t familiar with the retreat trek through the woods, find our camping group, kill Tessa, then stealthily leave the crime scene without one freaking clue?”
Shrugging, he joined her on the opposite end of the sofa. “Maybe the killer has wilderness skills or spends a lot of time in the woods. We weren’t on alert, waiting for signs that someone could intrude on the group. Following us once we took off wouldn’t have been too difficult for someone with experience.”
She tilted her head from side to side as she worked over the theory. “Maybe. But in my experience, people who find themselves at the retreat have lived through enough trauma that they’re always on alert. Besides, Tessa and Joan are from Knoxville. Not exactly known as a place for outdoorsmen to gather. Especially criminals involved in a drug-related crime syndicate.”
He snorted and hooked an ankle over his knee. “Good point. Makes you wonder what two city cops were doing on a camp out in the forest. Tessa didn’t seem too prepared for the trip. No hiking boots, had no clue how to pitch a tent, and complained about the bugs.”
Grace shrugged. “People from all over the country come here. Most doing things they’ve never tried before in an attempt to either heal physically or at least escape their demons for a little while.”
Frowning, he studied her face.
She struggled not to squirm under his scrutiny. “What?”
