A Plea for Help Book 2

Parker stared at the last entry in her journal, a small smile tugging at her lips as she gently traced the left-hand image with her fingers.

She smirked back at herself from the paper. Hall had her and Sierra tucked against him, laughing down at Sierra after one of her quips while her sister grinned at him.

Barry stood beside Sierra with his arm around her middle, laughing at their silliness.

Meanwhile, Eric, standing on Parker’s other side with his arm around her middle, tugged at his tie, a grin ghosting his lips as he rolled his eyes at whatever Sierra had said.

This comfortable moment looked far different from the formal portrait that now graced Parker’s desk, and every time she glanced at it, she saw the image in her journal instead.

Her attention wandered to the next page, depicting the two pugs lying tucked together in a dappled spot of sun and shade.

She missed them, but they were happily spending time on the ranch with Emily, and they just loved their “Grammy.” Probably because she spoiled them as “grandmothers” were supposed to do.

When Emily Skyped with Parker at night, Ginny and Arkle were invariably beside her on the couch.

The moment the pugs heard her voice, Sierra, Eric, or Hall, Arkle began “talking” as if he had a hundred things to tell them. It was so cute.

Sierra would laugh until she cried, especially since Arkle and Ginny responded to Emily as if they were conversing with her.

Emily would say something like, “Arkle has been a good boy today. He fetched Grammy’s slippers, didn’t he?”

And Arkle would “awwahwauaw” as if telling them exactly how he fetched those slippers, while Ginny grouched because she wasn’t the center of attention.

How had more than two and a half years passed since they faced their new home with the uncertainty of a future outside their control while fighting the confusion of having been ripped from their lives and needing to start over?

The tether they found in each other and this wonderful community of people that took them in like family still humbled her, and she was so grateful for it.

She closed the journal, locked it in her drawer, and switched on her computer.

She heard Sierra pottering around in the kitchen, and judging from the aroma wafting through the building, her sister was making their second cup of coffee.

Sierra was not a morning person, but Parker loved that peaceful feeling just before the sun crested the horizon. The serenity and purity of a day yet to start always settled her.

The memory made her smile, when she and Hall watched the sunrise from the comfort of their porch, cuddled together on the bench Barry built, hiding from the chill under a quilted blanket Raina gave them as a belated wedding gift.

The same peace she experienced then filled her entire being as she bowed her head in silent thanks for another day.

The memory of those first oranges and yellows that touched the sky, then tinted the skyline with red and gold, led her back there.

“It gets me every time,” Hall had whispered in her ear, and she couldn’t agree more. “Have I told my wife that I love her this morning?” he asked, kissing her forehead.

“Once or twice, but it gets me every time,” she had teased as his laughter vibrated through his chest beneath her hand.

“I am so glad you stumbled back into my life that day with the Boy Brunswick case,” he said, sighing contentedly.

“Even though you thought I was a mentally unstable vagrant?” she couldn’t resist baiting him.

“Well, could you blame me? ‘Hi, I am back in your life, and oh, by the way, I’ve always been psychic,’ it was a bit of a shock, and those clothes…,” he scoffed, hugging her tighter as she laughed against his shoulder.

She loved the heat of his body and how he held her as if she were the most precious thing in the world.

“Well, my gift didn’t tell me I was switched at birth, had no history of mental illness, and a huge family that keeps growing.”

She glanced at him, and he was shaking his head, his lips pulled into that sexy half-grin that weakened her knees and turned her heart to putty.

Her screensaver, an image of the ranch with the sun coloring the sky over the paddock with the horses running like dark shadows across the field, made her smirk and brought her mind back to the present.

She shifted her weight forward on her chair. Time to work. Her email icon flickered, and she clicked on it.

Parker answered her phone without looking at the caller ID.

She was reading the last sentence of a briefing about their previous case for the Consortium, the secret government agency that they worked for and that she thought of as the “family business.”

“Parker Robertson speaking.”

“Hi—” the static coming over the line made her frown, “it… Mellina,” more static.

“Can’t hear you, bad connection,” Parker said as the line kept breaking up.

“I (crackle) dead body (crackle) ridge—”

“Can’t hear—” Parker started saying as the line went dead, and she frowned at it as if it would give her answers.

“Who was that?” Sierra asked, bearing coffee and cookies.

“Mellina. All I heard was something about a dead body and a ridge.” Her phone beeped, and she glanced at the screen. “She wants us to go to the Reservation but toward the logging camp, and she sent us directions.”

“Are we going?” Sierra offered her the cup.

“She would not call us if she didn’t need help. Can we get those to go, please? I’ll bring the car around and get Hall up to speed.”

Sierra nodded and turned on her heel.

Parker pocketed her phone, unlocked the right-hand drawer to get their guns and badges, snagged her keys, and grabbed a jacket as she made her way out the door.

She glanced down at her low-heeled shoes and made a detour toward the lockers.

Tension settled in her gut as Parker directed the SUV onto the logging path.

“Hall says you haven’t logged your final report on the Givens case for Renee. You know we must do the paperwork for our ‘below the radar’ missions,” Parker reminded.

“Yes, Mother,” Sierra mocked. “I know we need to do our paperwork even though we secretly save the world. There was a discrepancy, and I had to check it.”

She hated paperwork and usually avoided it for as long as possible, while Hall was a stickler for getting things done, leaving her as the go-between.

Eric didn’t like paperwork either, but he grudgingly did his on time, although he kept his answers frustratingly brief.

Barry usually talked someone else into doing his. Ironically, it was usually Sierra.

Parker turned off beside the six-foot-tall fence and kept driving until she reached a gate where two identical white SUVs were parked beside Sheriff Blackbear’s tan Jeep.

The coroner’s van flanked their left-hand side, partially obscuring a black SUV.

“Why are there state troopers here?” Sierra frowned at the uniformed men who approached them with stern expressions, their eyes hidden behind mirrored glasses.

“Good question. And the FBI too, it seems.” Parker slid the window down with a fake smile, hiding her wariness.

“This is an active crime scene, ma’am. You cannot be here.”

The clipped tones of the tall, thirtyish man with his sand-colored hair and military manners spoke volumes as he took them both in, checking the rear for other passengers.

“Sheriff Blackbear called us to consult on this case.”

Parker took her phone from the charger, allowing him to read the text containing directions to the lumberyard and a key code for the security gates on the other side of the bridge.

“Who are you?” He looked unhappy with the situation.

“I am Parker Robertson, and this is my daughter, Sierra. We are Private Investigators who occasionally assist the sheriff with investigations.”

He handed back her phone with a dark scowl.

“This is Barker. Ask Sheriff Blackbear if I should let Parker Robertson and Sierra Robertson past the gate on her instructions,” he called over his radio.

His gaze warily strayed toward the road as if he expected an attack, and his manner slightly unsettled her.

“The sheriff is not with us now, and she doesn’t have her handheld, but she left instructions to expect PI Robertson. Let them up,” deputy Wyatt answered.

He had replaced Chantal Mann, who died tragically during the Baker investigation.

Barker’s frown darkened. He glanced at them, hesitated, touched his walkie one more time as if he wanted to ask something, but lowered his hand.

“I can call her if you want.” She did not want to turn back after driving nearly an hour to get there, although her “gift” urged her to do just that as she took back her phone.

Why was she so uneasy?

“There’s no reception out there. You may go up, but follow the yellow markers on the trees; we do not want anyone getting lost.” He motioned toward the gate.

She considered using her work phone, but this gentleman might wonder how a PI came by a government-issued piece of equipment, and it won’t help if Mellina doesn’t have any signal.

The less he knew, the better for him…and them.

“Thank you,” Parker got out of the car as Sierra aimed to fetch their gear. “Leave our stuff,” she instructed, and her sister obeyed wordlessly.

“Let’s find out what Mellina needs us to do first,” she quietly cautioned when they were out of earshot of the man, watching them like a hawk.

Sierra glanced from her to him and nodded, needing no further explanation.

Parker locked the car as they left him behind and made her way past the gate with Sierra in tow.

She carefully picked her way over the uneven terrain among the saplings of the artificial forest that formed part of the Blackbear Conservancy, glad of her choice to put on her comfortable but sturdy hiking boots.

“Is this the area Mellina spoke about at the council meeting when Eldridge vetoed their proposal to allow the logging company to cut down that stretch of thickly forested area?

“The one near the outskirts of town that always causes problems in the dry season?” Sierra asked.

“Yes. The logging company replanted most of these trees less than ten years ago.”

With the last chill of winter still lingering in the air, while the first signs of spring did not yet show, not much vegetation interrupted the leaf-strewn, rocky ground beneath their feet.

It was hard to know what to expect with what little information they had. Parker rubbed her right temple. The slight headache settling there wasn’t a good sign.

Whatever they headed toward spelled trouble.

“What do you think this is about?” Sierra asked as their brains seemingly followed the same path, having clearly noticed the little telltale rubbing motion, and Parker almost smiled.

After more than two years of working together, her sibling read her too well.

“Something bad happened here.” Parker winced, her discomfort increasing dramatically the further they traversed over the rough terrain.

A sharp pain stabbed through the right side of her brain, preceding a vision of darkness, fear, misery, and the sensation of running, but it was all too brief to make any real sense of it.

For her to experience such intense agony when her gift activated was unusual. Thus, the discomfort must have belonged to whomever she had briefly sensed.

“Are you all right?” Worry laced Sierra’s words, and although she was close enough to touch Parker, she didn’t, and Parker appreciated her understanding.

“Do you need some water?” Sierra asked instead.

Nodding, Parker accepted the bottle, taking a few careful sips as she centered herself, concentrating on the fresh air and the aromas of pine and resin as the heat of a spring morning caressed her skin.

“Thank you. I am fine.”

“This will be a bad one, won’t it?” Sierra reclaimed the bottle from Parker’s slightly trembling fingers without calling her out on the lie.

“We can’t speak here,” Parker whispered just as someone appeared ahead of them between the trees, and although Sierra unobtrusively reached for the weapon tucked away in the back of her belt, she did not yet draw it.