High-Stakes Investigation
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Dana Mentink
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52
ONE
Forget meeting tonight. Must speak to you and Dallas now. URGENT.
Mia risked another peek at the cell phone screen as she guided her battered Toyota up the steep mountain grade to Cora’s country house just after six in the evening. She’d thought Cora’s proposed after-hours meeting at the medical clinic where they both worked was odd in the first place. Now the message to cancel. Stranger still. But Cora had been acting oddly, excusing herself to take phone calls, peeping into file folders squirreled away in her desk for weeks. On this particular day, Cora had left at lunch time. Strange.
Her gaze darted to the rearview mirror. Dallas Black drove his truck behind her. Something about the tall, tousle-headed rebel made her stomach flip, no matter how sternly she chided herself.
Look what the last dark-eyed charmer did to you, Mia.
Stuffing that uncomfortable thought back down into the secret place where she kept all her worries, Mia focused on navigating the winding, wet road, finally pulling onto Cora’s graveled drive. Dallas got out, long and lean in jeans and a T-shirt, a couple of months overdue for a haircut. Somehow, the hair spidering across his face suited him, refusing to play nicely.
She knew he’d finished patching Cora’s roof only the day before, while on break from teaching Search and Rescue classes. He’d been there every weekend for the past month or two working when the rain let up. While Dallas banged on the roof, Mia and her young daughter, Gracie, helped Cora organize closets. Cora insisted the little group take a long dinner break together every evening during which even Juno, Dallas’s German Shepherd, got his share of fragrant stew. What Dallas got out of the deal, besides some pocket change and women chatter, she had no clue. Surely, he didn’t need the money that badly. Maybe he’s just a nice guy, Mia. Maybe, her suspicious heart echoed mockingly. Yeah, and maybe you were happy to see him every weekend just to admire his roofing skills. Never mind. They were almost done organizing closets, and then she could put Dallas safely out of her thoughts.
The residence was at the back of a large property, a good acre of shrubland screened it from the road. It was cool, the May rain puddling the already saturated ground. It was to be a bad storm season in Colorado, talk of floods coming. It made her long for Florida’s mild climate, but she’d never return there. Ever.
Juno hopped out, nose twitching.
“Stay out of the mud, dog,” Dallas advised.
Mia joined him.
“Ideas regarding what Cora needs to talk about?” he asked.
“No.” Mia shook her head. “She’s been secretive lately, spending extra hours at the clinic. I almost got the feeling she might be lying to me about something.”
They looked at Juno who had busied himself snuffling through the underbrush until he froze. Mia thought at first that he’d caught the scent of a bird or groundhog. Then she got it, too. The acrid tang of smoke as she took a few steps toward the house.
Dallas sprinted up the drive with Mia right behind him. They cleared the thickly clustered cottonwood trees in time to hear the whoosh of breaking glass when the lower story window exploded. Mia nearly skidded into him as the shards rained down on the muddy ground.
Her mind struggled to process what was happening. He gripped her arms, and she saw the tiny reflected flames burning in his chocolate irises. “Call for help. Keep Juno out.”
Mia’s hands shook so badly she could barely manage to hold on to both the phone and Juno’s collar. The dog was barking furiously, yanking against her restraining arm in an effort to get to his owner. Nearly eighty pounds of muscle, Juno was determined, and he definitely did not see her as the boss.
Frantically, she dialed the emergency number. Tears started in her eyes as she realized she was not getting a signal. The tall Colorado mountain peaks in the distance interfered. She would have to move and see if she could find another spot that would work. Dragging Juno with one hand, she made her way back toward the car. They’d only gotten about ten feet when Juno broke loose from her grasp and ran straight for the burning house.
“Juno, stop!” she yelled. The smoke was now roiling through the downstairs, and she’d lost sight of Dallas. There was no choice but to keep trying to find a place to make the call. Three times she tried before she got a signal.
“Please help,” she rasped. “Cora Graham’s house on Stick Pine Road is on fire.”
The dispatcher gave her a fifteen minute ETA.
Her heart sank. They could both be dead in fifteen minutes. She stowed the phone in her pocket and ran to the front porch where she remembered there was a hose Cora used to water her patches of brilliant snapdragons. The wood of the old house crackled violently, letting loose with a spark every now and then that burned little holes through the fabric of her jacket. One started to smolder, and she slapped a hand to snuff it out. Flames flashed out the first-floor windows. Juno barked furiously, dashing in helpless fits and starts, unsure how to get to his master.
She cranked the hose and squirted the water at the open front door. Where are you, Dallas? Inside, the flames had spread through the sitting room, enveloping the oak furniture in crackling orange and yellow. She climbed up the porch steps, dousing the wood with water and forcing her way into the entry, past the spurts of flame.
She sprayed the water vigorously, but there was simply not enough flow to combat the hungry fire. She retreated to the front porch, skin stinging from the poisonous air.
Dallas appeared at the upstairs window. He shouted something to Mia, but she could not understand. The fire was nearly upon her, heat scalded her face and hands, smoke filling her lungs. She backed farther away, praying the fire engine would arrive soon to douse the flames.
There was no welcoming wail of sirens.
She scanned the upper story and once again caught sight of Dallas. He was batting at the flaming curtains with a blanket. She saw a way she could help. Climbing a few feet up an ivy-covered trellis allowed her to stretch the hose far enough that she could train the water on the burning fabric. Dallas jerked in surprise and then disappeared back inside, returning a moment later with Cora in his arms and stepping onto the roof. Mia’s heart lodged in her throat as she watched Dallas walking on the precariously pitched shingles with his precious burden.
His feet skidded, and he fell on his back, somehow stopping his slide before he fell over the edge. Mia jumped off the trellis and cast the hose aside. “Here, lower her down to me.”
It was an awkward process, but Dallas managed to ease Cora low enough that Mia could grab her around the waist. Staggering under the weight, she tottered backwards until Dallas jumped down and they both carried Cora away from the burning house. Juno raced behind them to a flat spot of grass where they laid the old woman. Dallas ordered the dog to stay.
Mia brushed sooty hair away from Cora’s forehead. Her sparkling blue eyes were closed, her mouth, slack. She put her cheek to Cora’s mouth, praying for a reassuring puff of air. Panic swirled through her veins as she felt nothing at all. Starting CPR, she pressed her hands to Cora’s chest.
“Come on, Cora,” she said. “You’re not going to leave me now.”
Dallas dropped to his knees and performed the rescue breaths at the end of her compression cycles. After a full minute, Dallas checked her pulse.
He shook his head.
Tears trickled down Mia’s cheeks as she began the next cycle. “You haven’t finished learning Italian,” she said to Cora. “You’re only on lesson three, and that’s not going to be enough if you want to go to Rome.” Another set of compressions and rescue breaths.
This time she didn’t allow herself to look at Dallas. Cora was going to live. Shoulders aching she pressed with renewed vigor. “And your nephew is happily married in Seattle. He’s not going to want to come and take care of this sprawling old place, isn’t that what you always said, Cora?”
Sirens pierced the air and a fire truck appeared through the smoke, rumbling up the grade, followed by an ambulance. Mia did not slow her efforts.
“You wake up right now, do you hear me? I mean it. I told you over and over not to keep those silly scented candles in your bedroom. They did not keep away the mosquitos, no matter what you say. You wake up so I can chew you out properly.” Tears dripped from her face and cleared spots of black from Cora’s forehead.
The medics ran over, but stopped short when Juno barked at them until Dallas quieted him. They pushed forward, eyeing the big dog suspiciously, and edged Mia out of the way.
“I have to stay with her,” she pleaded.
Dallas drew her back, his voice oddly soft. “They’ve got it, Mia. Let them work.”
“But...”
He gently, but firmly, took her arm and moved her several yards distant from the paramedics.
She breathed in and out, forcing herself to stop crying. “I’m okay, I’m okay,” she repeated, waving him away when he came close.
Dallas stood there, long muscled arms black with soot, the edges of his hair singed at the tips, looking at her until she couldn’t stand it anymore. “What is it? What are you thinking?”
Dallas didn’t answer.
“Please tell me.” She moved closer, the dark pools of his eyes not giving away anything.
Dallas considered. “I wasn’t sure what type of service dog Juno would be. Before I trained him in Search and Rescue, a buddy of mine had a go at making him a drug-sniffing dog, but Juno doesn’t obey anyone but me, so he flunked out. Mastered only the first lesson.”
“What are you saying?”
He pulled a plastic pill bottle from his pocket. “These were on the bedside table. Do you know what she takes them for?”
Mia took the bottle and held it up to the light from the engines. “It’s her blood pressure medication. I pick up her prescriptions myself.”
Dallas frowned.
Mia felt the seeds of dread take hold deep down. She put her hands on Dallas’s unyielding chest. “Dallas, please tell me what you’re thinking.”
“The first lesson, the only one that Juno mastered...”
She found she was holding her breath as he finished.
“Was alerting on drugs...like cocaine.”
Dallas mentally berated himself for mentioning Juno’s behavior at that moment. Mia was already trembling as the shock of what had happened settled in.
Should’ve waited. How many times had he said that to himself?
This time he did not allow her to pull away when he folded her in a smoky embrace. She was so small, so slight in his arms, and he resisted the urge to run his hands along her shoulders. He thought of all the things he should say, the comforts he could whisper in her ear, but everything fled, driven away by the feel of her. She stiffened suddenly, and he wondered if she’d been hurt in the fire.
“There,” Mia gasped, pointing behind the house.
He turned in time to see a woman with a wild tangle of red hair framed by the trees that backed the property. She stood frozen for a moment, eyes wide and face soot-stained and then she bolted into the woods.
“Stop,” Dallas called, and he and Juno took off into the trees, Mia stumbling along behind.
“Who was that?” she asked, panting.
He didn’t know.
“I thought I saw her outside the clinic one time, talking to Cora, but I’m not sure,” Mia said.
A cursory search yielded nothing, though the falling rain and smoke didn’t help. After a short time, they left off looking to follow the ambulance to the hospital.
In the waiting room, Mia sat on a hard-backed chair, and Dallas paced as much as the narrow hallway would allow until the doctor delivered his news. “I’m sorry. She didn’t make it.”
Dallas watched the spirit leak out of Mia as she put her head in her hands. Something cut at him, something deeper than the grief at Cora’s death. He swallowed hard and stepped aside with the doctor. “Do you have a cause of death?”
The physician, whose name tag read Dr. Carp, hesitated. “She was dead upon arrival, but we called the police immediately after you told us about the pills. They took possession of them. Autopsy will be later this week.” That much Dallas already knew as he and Mia had told their story to a young uniformed cop named Brownley.
The doctor left and Dallas sat next to Mia. He didn’t speak. There was nothing to say anyway. Best to wait until she could articulate the thoughts that rolled across her face like wind sweeping through grass. Finally, he took her hand, hoping she would not yank it away. She didn’t.
“Cora wanted to tell us something, something important,” Mia said, her voice wobbling as she clutched his fingers. “Can you guess anything at all about what it was?”
Dallas shook his head. “No.”
“I’m sure Juno was wrong about the pills,” she said, a tiny pleading note to her voice. “Those were for her blood pressure. I delivered them to her myself. They couldn’t have hurt her. Could they?”
He covered her hand with his palm. “Whatever this is, however it went down, was not your fault.”
“That woman... Who was she?” Her brown eyes were haunted. “Dallas...” she whispered. “I’m scared.”
He pulled her to her feet then and embraced her because he did not know the words to say. He never did, probably never would. “I’m taking you home.”
A short, balding man with a thick, silvered mustache came close. “In a minute. I’m Detective Stiving, Ms. Verde, and I need to ask you some questions.”
Dallas felt his gut tighten. Stiving. Perfect.
He and Stiving had been oil and water since Dallas had butted in on a missing-person’s case and found a teen lost near Rockglen Creek whom Stiving had insisted was a runaway.
“Kid’s a loose cannon,” Stiving had insisted. “Drinks and parties like his father.”
Runaway or lost, Dallas and Juno found the kid named Farley who’d fallen into a ravine, and the press was there to catch it. Since then, Dallas had gotten a bogus speeding ticket and been stopped twice by Stiving for no particular reason. Not good, but in a small town like Spanish Canyon, Stiving was it.
“Doc says you’re making allegations about drugs,” Stiving said, holding up the bottle of pills nestled in an evidence bag. “Looking to get some more publicity for yourself?”
“Juno alerted on that pill bottle.”
“Juno is a drug-sniffing flunk-out, from what I’ve heard. I thought his forte was tracking down idiots who get lost in the woods.”
Mia wiped her sleeve across her cheeks. “What kind of talk is that for a law enforcement officer?” she said indignantly. “Cora is...was a long-time resident of this town. I should think you’d want to be thorough investigating her death.”
His blue eyes narrowed, face blotching with color. “Yes, Ms. Verde, I will. I started by running a check on you. It made for interesting reading. Since you’ve had such a long and storied history with law enforcement, I guess you’d know that I’ll be contacting you for follow up information as soon as I get this to the lab.”
Mia went white and then red.
Dallas clenched his jaw. Don’t mouth off to the cops, Dallas. “We saw a woman with red hair running away from the house.”
Stiving blinked. “Really? Did you recognize her?”
Mia shook her head. “She might have come to the clinic to talk to Cora, but I’m not sure. I only saw her for a moment.”
“And you?”
Dallas shrugged.
“Right. Well, we’ll investigate that while we’re checking into things.” The detective’s phone rang, and he walked away to answer it and then left abruptly.
Mia put a hand on Dallas’s wrist, her fingers ice cold. “I have to go. Tina needs to get home, and I want to read Gracie a story before bed.” She looked at her soiled clothes. “It will take some explaining about why I look like this.” Her lip trembled. “I’ll need to tell Gracie about Cora.”
He wondered how a woman with filthy hair, torn clothes and a grief-stained face could look so beautiful, like Whistler’s painting of the woman in white he’d seen in his mother’s art books decades ago. Would she be so trusting if she knew the truth about what brought him to town? Dallas had been many things in his life, a gang member, a wanderer and a drinker. He’d never been a liar, not until now, with her. It tightened something deep in his gut. He had to remind himself he had good reasons for the subterfuge.
He’d been hired by Antonia, Mia’s sister, to keep watch over her due to the prevalence of Mia’s ex-husband Hector Sandoval’s many enemies. Cora, a friend of Antonia’s new husband, was in on the whole thing. An accomplice, he thought ruefully, who’d arranged for Dallas to hang out on her property just as often as the stubborn and ferociously independent Mia did.
He returned to the truck where Juno was sound asleep and waited until Mia got into her car. Following her home, he ran things over in his mind. Cora was obviously disturbed when she messaged both Dallas and Mia. How coincidental was it that her house burned down and she lost her life on the very same night Mia spotted some mystery woman fleeing the scene? Very coincidental, and Dallas Black did not believe in coincidence any more than he believed that Elvis still strolled planet Earth.
He walked Mia to her front door and waited while she stepped into the tiny front room.
Four-year-old Gracie came flying down the hall, short bob of hair bouncing around her, eyes alight with pleasure at the sight of him. They’d encountered each other many times at Cora’s house while he was on the roof and she was digging holes around the property. When rain interrupted the roofing, they built card houses together, impressed with their creations until Juno knocked them over with a jerk of his tail.
“Did you come to play?” She took in his appearance and laughed. “You need a shower, Mr. Dallas.”
He laughed, too, and Mia tried to draw Gracie away.
“Can he come in for a snack?” the child asked. “I’ve got Goldfish.”
Dallas got down on one knee. “You eat goldfish? Don’t the fins get stuck in your teeth?”
She giggled. “They’re cracker fish. Juno will like them.”
“Juno can’t have Goldfish tonight, but we’ll come another time.”
She frowned. “Okay, but what if I don’t have Goldfish then? Mommy eats them sometimes when I’m asleep and she’s off her diet.”
Mia’s face flushed, and Dallas hid a grin.
“Tell you what, Goldfish girl. Next time I come with Juno, I’ll bring some Goldfish along. How’s that?”
She nodded, finally trotting off into the kitchen.
“You don’t have to make good on that promise,” Mia whispered as she let Dallas out. “As a matter of fact, I’d rather you didn’t promise her things at all. I know you’d never mean to disappoint, but Gracie’s been let down in a big way by her father.”
“No sweat,” he said. Something flickered in her face, something thoughtful. “You’re not planning to go to the clinic, right?”
Mia jerked. “How did you know I was thinking about that?”
“Call it a knack. Don’t go there by yourself, just in case whatever she was looking into has something to do with the fire.”
She stayed silent.
“If you do have to go, I’ll go with you.”
She offered a courteous smile. “Thanks, Dallas. I appreciate it.”
But you’ll never allow it. He understood. He recognized the shadows that danced in her eyes for what they were. Fear. A desperate, ponderous weight of fear that she did not want to expose to anyone. Who would? He’d known that, tasted that when he was being beaten within an inch of his life during his gang days. That fear was hideous and bred on itself, multiplying exponentially the longer it was kept in the dark, like a poisonous fungus. He wished he could tell her. There is only one antidote, One who could defeat that fear. Instead, he remained silent until he heard the sound of the lock turning.
Juno and Dallas made one more stop on the way home, purchasing a bone for Juno and a handful of hot peppers for himself. With some help from the store clerk, he also secured five bags of Goldfish crackers, which he stowed in the back of his truck. Who knew Goldfish came in so many flavors? Dallas smiled to himself. Gracie knew, and that was enough.
