Page 1 of Dangerous Secrets
CHAPTER ONE
Walker took the turn off the highway,passing the sign welcoming him to the town of Sisters, California.The irony wasn’t lost on him.There’d be no welcome mat laid out bythe town leaders.In fact, if they’d known he was coming back,they’d’ve likely blocked the highway.But they didn’t so theyhadn’t, and here he was ready to stir things up.He’d done hisdamnedest to stay away from the people who lived in this valley,but unfinished business and the need for home had drawn him back.Now they’d have to deal with him.
For the past six years he’dcrisscrossed the country, checking in with his grandfather andbrother every month or so, working one odd job after another, andnever staying put more than seven or eight months before an itchhad him moving on.Circumstances had changed and now he was donewith all that.Coming home meant ripping the scabs off old wounds.Maybe it was what was needed for them to heal properly.
A whine came from the passenger seat.Without taking his eyes off the road, he reached out to pet thelittle dog buckled into his harness.“You gotta pee, I know.Almostthere.You’ll be out of the truck in ten minutes.”
He hadn’t meant to keep the straywho’d shown up at his door two years ago, but he couldn’t let thescraggly mutt starve so he’d fed him.He’d been in Alberta then,and since it got miserably cold in the mountains, and the dog hadlooked so damned pathetic, he’d let him in at night.Then when itwas time to move on, he could hardly leave the dog behind.So herehe was, coming home with a not quite brown, not quite gray,bug-eyed, butt-ugly dog.
The town sign readWelcome to Sistersinloopy script.It stood next to a trio of tall pines and ahouse-size boulder that forced a curve in the road.Passing thefamiliar landmarks smoothed out some of the rough edges he’d beenfeeling.
He’d gotten used to living amongstrangers, never staying in any one place long enough to reallyconnect.This town, in the shadow of Payback Mountain, heldmemories that meant something.He pressed his foot harder on thegas pedal, the sense of urgency that’d been dogging him for dayssuddenly sharper.
He’d left the lousy roadside motelsouth of Seattle at four that morning, sped through Oregon, and hitthe California border around noon.Now at a little past sundown hiseyes felt gritty, and a burning in his gut told him the burger he’dgrabbed at a truck stop a few hours back had been a badidea.
He’d been planning on returning homewhen he’d gotten the call from his brother that’d hit him like asucker punch to the face.Their grandfather was dying.Walker hadtied up loose ends as quickly as he could, stuffed the few thingshe cared about into his truck, figured out a dog restraint so if hecrashed, Bud wouldn’t get pitched through the windscreen, andstarted driving.
He sighed heavily as he thought of hisgrandfather.The man had been a giant in his life.James McGrathhad stepped in to raise Walker and Sawyer when their parents hadbeen killed in a stupid freak accident.A tree had fallen during aheavy rainstorm, its trunk landing squarely across the frontwindshield, killing his parents but sparing the two boys in theback.It couldn’t’ve been easy taking on two half-grown,grief-stricken kids, but that’s what James had done.
Now the time Walker had missed withPop was another weight to add to the load of guilt hecarried.
Laney sure as hell wouldn’t bewelcoming him back home.His mind pulled up the memory of herstanding outside the prison gate when he’d finally walked out afree man.After being given the balance of his commissary account,and waiting through the excruciatingly slow process to be released,he’d walked out of prison with no plan except to get as far away ashe could from the seven by ten cell he’d been caged in.
The prison van was supposed to takehim and the other releasees to the Greyhound station, with a stopin a parking lot for those lucky enough to have people who caredenough to pick them up.
Then his name had been called.He’dtold his brother and grandfather he didn’t want them to come.Noone should be there for him, but he’d stepped out of the prison’svan and there she’d been.Delaney Bryant with her sky-blue eyesthat’d always sucked him in.Seeing her had nearly brought him tohis knees.And true to form, he’d done what worked when forced todeal with the shitload of emotions it seemed his fate to carryaround.He pushed his feelings for her down and walled them offuntil they no longer threatened to destroy him.
She’d been standing next to Pop’s oldpickup, her fingers fiddling with the keys, her blue eyes shiftingfrom side to side.She’d worn white shorts and a flowered top.Herlong arms and legs bared in the summer heat of the Central Valley.He’d thought she looked as fresh as a spring meadow and he’d beenfucking furious.
Laney had no business being anywherenear that hellhole.
She’d put her nerves aside and hadrushed to him, her smile wide and her eyes shining.She’d wrappedhim in her arms, pulling him into a hug he’d felt down to hisbones.He’d have to have been dead not to hold her close, to buryhis face in her hair, to breathe in the essence that washer.
But he wore prison like a stain and ifshe was with him, that stain would spread to her.It didn’t matterthat all charges against him had been dismissed and his record hadbeen wiped clean.He hadn’t wanted her to see the prison, to be inany way associated with it.
Even doing something decent likepicking him up would make people think differently about her.He’dforced himself to push her back, to set her away from him, and toldhimself she’d get over the hurt clouding those babyblues.
Anxious to get away before he ruinedher, he’d turned around to find the van had already driven away,and once again, choice was taken from him.He’d let her drive himhome to Sisters, not responding to her repeated attempts to drawhim into conversation.He’d spent that night talking with hisgrandfather and brother, then, like an asshole, had left at firstlight without a word to her.
Pop had signed over the pink slip ofhis pickup, the same one Walker still drove, and he’d taken off toparts unknown.
He’d hit the highway and couldn’t putthe miles behind him fast enough.In prison he’d been a cagedanimal.He’d never felt safe and had to watch his back every damnminute.When he’d walked out, all he’d been able to think was thathe needed to be free, someplace with no walls and an endless skywhere he could breathe.
He told himself that him being gonewas better for Laney.Safer.He’d taken off, first south throughthe deserts of Arizona and New Mexico, then east over plains andmountains.He’d avoided the interstates, traveling the bluehighways, the ones winding across the map pages throughout-of-the-way towns and limitless back country.
Often as not he’d slept under thestars.It hadn’t been until he hit the Atlantic that he’d stopped.If he could have driven over the ocean, he’d have done thattoo.
Instead, he’d spent five months as awaterman on a crabbing skiff on the Chesapeake Bay.That had beenthe beginning of what, when he was being introspective, he termedhis years of solitude.
In those years he’d found he liked thenorth best.He’d worked at an airport in Maine where he’d learnedto fly small planes, at a logging camp in Oregon where he’d beentaught to fell tall trees without killing himself, and eventuallylanded in Alaska operating a fishing boat in the gulf.
Wildness appealed to him.He figuredif he hadn’t decided his wandering was over and gotten the callfrom Sawyer, he might’ve pulled up stakes again and ended upcrossing the Bering Strait and the Russians would have picked himup.
But now he was back, and there wasgoing to be a reckoning.Those responsible for his wrongfulconviction would pay for their crimes.
Tall pines whizzed past inthe purple twilight.He eased up a bit on the speed when he spotteda couple deer grazing on the side of the road.He also spotted thewhite SUV with El Dorado County Sheriff emblazoned on the sidepassing him going the other way.He tightened his grip on thesteering wheel when the rearview mirror showed the SUV pulling aU-turn.Shit.Itpassed a slow-moving van and edged in behind Walker’s pickup.Helet loose with a string of profanity.There was no surprise when ared light joined the headlights shining in his rearviewmirror.
Blinker on, he pulled carefully to theside of the road, turned off the engine, cranked down the window,and then rested his hands on the steering wheel so they wereclearly visible.No use getting himself shot dead before he evengot to town.Cars sped by, stirring the cool air.He watched in theside mirror as the officer exited the patrol vehicle andapproached, silhouetted against the cruiser’sheadlights.
