The Legend of Smuggler's Cave (9 page)

His grandfather hadn’t wanted him to stay in Tennessee after college, he remembered. He’d wanted him to go see the world, or at least, that’s what he’d said at the time.

Now Dalton wondered if he’d been determined to keep him away from Tennessee until he figured out what to do about Tallie Cumberland.

The office door opened and Janet looked in. “You have a visitor.”

Briar had made good time, he thought. But it wasn’t Briar who walked through the door. Instead, a willowy blonde entered, dressed impeccably in a flattering navy skirt and jacket, four-inch heels and a crocodile purse that had probably cost a fortune.

“Lydia.” He rose as she strode toward his desk, her hair swinging in shimmery golden waves.

“You didn’t return my calls.” She walked around to perch on his desk, looking up at him with a mixture of irritation and affection.

She’d called twice that morning while he was catching up on the work he’d missed the day before. He’d sent her calls straight to voice mail, meaning to get back to her after lunch. He’d forgotten all about it. “I’m sorry. I took the day off yesterday and I’ve had to race to catch up.”

“Well, I hope you have, because I managed reservations at Chez Berubi in town. Seven-thirty sharp.”

He looked at her in dismay. “Seven-thirty tonight?”

Her smile collapsed. “Yes, tonight. We planned this last week.”

He looked at her in consternation. She was right, of course. He’d put her off for a week because his caseload had been busy; this week was supposed to have been free of any court appearances.

But that was before Briar and Logan had crashed into his life.

“Lydia, I can’t make it tonight. Something’s come up—”

Her eyebrows lifted. “I beg your pardon?”

A quick knock on the door interrupted, and Janet stuck her head through the opening again. “Two visitors this time.”

Before he could speak, Briar walked in with Logan on her left hip and a fuzzy turtle-shaped backpack slung over her shoulder. She stopped short at the sight of Lydia perched on his desk. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to interrupt.”

Lydia took one look at Briar and Logan and turned her chilly blue gaze toward Dalton. “Something came up?”

He looked at Briar, who was watching him through narrowed eyes. She shifted Logan’s weight to tuck him more securely against her side. “I can find someone else to watch him,” she said, already turning toward the door.

“No,” he said quickly, moving around the desk, past Lydia, to stop her.

She paused, looking down at his hand on her arm. “It’s okay. You’ve gone above and beyond already. I can probably catch Nix before he leaves.”

“It’s not necessary.” He smiled at Logan, who was watching him shyly from his mother’s shoulder. “Logan and I had plans for tonight, didn’t we?”

“You and Logan weren’t the only ones,” Lydia muttered.

He turned to look at her. “Lydia, I’m sorry. I forgot about our plans. I didn’t realize they were set in stone, and you didn’t follow up—”

“I left messages that you never returned.” Lydia’s voice was as sharp as jagged glass.

He felt like a heel, mostly because it seemed he’d just driven the final nail in yet another relationship—and he wasn’t particularly upset by it. “I’m sorry.”

“What, not even a request for a rain check?”

He hesitated, acutely aware of Briar’s watchful gaze. “Lydia, I’m sorry. I just don’t think I’m going to have the time to be a proper escort—”

She actually flinched at his choice of words. “Escort? That certainly clarifies things, doesn’t it?” Grabbing her purse, she rose and walked to the door, pausing for a moment to look down at Briar and Logan. “Hope you don’t have any expectations where he’s concerned,” she said. “He’s not exactly reliable.”

She gave the door a sharp jerk, slamming it closed behind her.

Dalton dropped heavily in his chair. “Sorry about that.”

“You should go after her. I really can find someone else to watch Logan tonight—”

“The problem is,” he said wearily, “I don’t want to go after her.”

“Oh.”

He rubbed his gritty eyes. “You may have picked the wrong person to keep you and Logan safe. Clearly, my life is falling apart these days.”

She sat in the chair across from his desk, waiting silently for him to look at her. When he did, she shot him a brief smile. “First, I didn’t pick you for anything. You picked us. And second, I don’t know anyone in this world whose life doesn’t fall apart now and then. Now’s just your turn. So quit kickin’ yourself about it.” She set Logan down on the floor and gave him the turtle backpack. “Logan, why don’t you go over there in the corner and get your trucks out to play with?”

Logan looked up at her warily but took the pack in his arms and toddled off to the corner to start unpacking his toys.

“I left his car seat with your secretary. If you’ll go sit down with him and play trucks for a little bit, I’ll slip out and he probably won’t even notice I’m gone,” she said, nodding toward her son. “I need to head out soon.”

She looked uncertain, as if she doubted he could keep her son from fretting when she left. He took it as a challenge, levering himself down to a cross-legged position on the floor beside Logan. “Can I play?”

Logan looked up at him soberly for a moment, then picked up a little blue police car and handed it to him. “Mama police.”

Dalton glanced at Briar, who had edged toward the door. “That’s right. Mama’s a police officer.” When he looked up again, she was gone.

Logan didn’t notice her departure for several minutes, and by the time he did, Dalton had given up all pretense that he’d be able to get any work done for the rest of the day. “Why don’t we pack up and head home, Logan?”

“Okeydokey,” Logan said with a lopsided grin that made Dalton’s heart do strange flip-floppy things in his chest. He helped Dalton pack his toys and reached up one small hand to be held. “Go now?”

Dalton let Logan wrap his hand around his index finger. “Sure thing.”

The parking lot was still full of cars, as the county-courthouse workday was still at least an hour away from coming to an end. As Logan’s short legs struggled to keep up with Dalton’s longer strides, Dalton coaxed the boy onto his hip, looping the car seat and backpack over his free hand.

Logan held himself at arm’s length at first, but after a few steps, he melted into Dalton’s grasp, pressing his forehead into the curve of Dalton’s neck. The flip-floppy sensation in Dalton’s chest rushed back with a vengeance, and by the time he reached his car, he was grinning like an idiot.

Briar had explained how the car seat worked earlier that morning before he left for the office, and fortunately, he was pretty good at following directions. The seat fit snugly on the bench seat of the pickup truck, and Logan didn’t whine too much about being strapped in once Dalton handed over the backpack full of toys.

The drive from Barrowville went quickly since they were ahead of rush hour. As they neared Edgewood, Dalton made a spur-of-the-moment decision to stop at the convenience store about a block from the subdivision to pick up milk and cereal for Logan’s breakfast the next morning.

Logan actually reached for him this time when he went to unbuckle him from the car seat. Dalton gave him a quick hug and lowered him to the ground. “You like cereal, Logan, my man?”

“Cheerios!”

Of course. Dalton held out his hand, and Logan curled his fingers around his index finger again. They entered the convenience store and went straight back to the coolers for a half gallon of milk.

“How are you doing with your reading, Logan? Think you can help me find the Cheerios?”

Logan applied himself to the task, grinning brightly when he located the box in the dry-goods aisle. “Cheerios,” he announced.

Logan picked up a box and added it to the basket with the milk. They headed to the front to pay.

The clerk was a weary-faced girl in her twenties with lanky blond hair and makeup slightly smeared by a day’s work. But she grinned brightly at Logan. “Ain’t you a cutie?”

Dalton paid for the milk and cereal, smiled at the clerk and nudged Logan out the door, trying not to think too hard about how much he was enjoying playing Daddy for a little while.

“You and I are going to have a fun time tonight, Logan, my man.”

Logan grinned up at him, making Dalton smile in return.

But his smile faded quickly when a dark-clad figure rose from a crouch beside his truck. He wore a camouflage hat low on his head and his face was masked with smears of sooty camouflage face paint. His hulking appearance out of nowhere was such a shock to Dalton that he froze for a moment, half certain he’d conjured the man from his anxiety-fueled imagination.

Then the sinking sun sparked off the large-bladed hunting knife the man brandished in his right hand, and Dalton knew all the wishing in the world wouldn’t drive this vision away.

The man in black spoke with a low mountain twang, full of bridled violence, that sent a shudder down Dalton’s spine. “If you want to live, give me the kid and get the hell out of here.”

Chapter Nine

Dalton had prosecuted his share of violent-crime cases over the ten years he’d worked for the Ridge County prosecutor’s office. He’d comforted witnesses and helped them prepare for testimony. And the one thing they’d told him that had always seemed strange was how tunnel-visioned they became when confronted with violence.

“All you see is the gun in your face,” one woman had told him after she and her husband had been robbed at gunpoint. “You don’t even let yourself look at the person holding it. You just keep looking at the gun. It’s like you think as long as you look at the gun, it won’t do anything to you.”

He understood now. All he could do was stare at the enormous glittering blade of the hunting knife waving in front of his face, to the point that he almost lost his grip on Logan’s tiny hand.

Logan had started crying, his little body wrapping around Dalton’s leg as if he were trying to hide there. The sound of his soft cries was like a spur in Dalton’s side, prodding him to action.

His rifle was in the truck, locked up. He didn’t even have a pocketknife on him, but it would have been no match for the enormous blade in the other man’s hand anyway.

But he had a half gallon of milk dangling in a bag clutched in his right hand. Five pounds’ worth of bludgeon.

He feinted to the left, drawing the knife and the man behind it in that direction. His other hand he swung in an arc, slamming the jug of milk against the man’s hand.

The black-clad man didn’t lose hold of the knife, but the blow knocked him sideways into the car parked next to Dalton’s truck. Dalton hoped it would be enough. Grabbing up Logan, he started running back toward the convenience store.

Sharp stabbing pain raced through his side, and he almost lost his grip on Logan. He felt a tearing sensation, heard the rip of fabric, but he didn’t stop running, even as footsteps pounded after him.

There was another customer coming out of the convenience store as he reached the door, a young man in his mid-twenties with shaggy hair and a patchy beard. His eyes widening, he reached out and grabbed Dalton by the arm, his grip amazingly strong. For a moment Dalton tried to shake him off, until he realized the man was dragging him into the store. As Dalton stumbled forward, the younger man threw the deadbolt on the door, locking them both in.

Dalton regained his balance and turned to look at the storefront windows. Standing in the full-glass doorway, knife raised, the dark-clad man with the face paint glared back at him through the glass, his pale eyes blazing with fury. He pounded the butt of his knife against the door, making the glass rattle.

“Call the police,” Dalton gasped, turning his body to shield Logan from the man outside.

“They’re on the way,” the woman behind the counter told him. He looked up to find that she was holding a shotgun gripped tightly in her hands, her gaze on the door.

“Hey, mister, you’re bleeding.” The young man who’d pulled him into the store put his hand on Dalton’s arm, setting his nerves jangling again. A faint ringing started in his ears and he grabbed for the cashier’s desk as the world started to spin around him.

The man tried to pull Logan from his arms, but Dalton held on tightly, pressing the crying baby against his chest as he slid to the floor.

* * *

T
HE
CALL
HAD
come over the radio around five-fifteen. 10-52—armed robbery—with a 10-39, injured person. Briar and her patrol partner, Thurman Gowdy, were the closest unit and responded within minutes. A fire-and-rescue unit had responded, as well, flashing cherry lights strobing the convenience store parking lot as Gowdy pulled the patrol unit into an open parking space.

They made their watchful way into the convenience store, where the action seemed to be focused. Several people stood in a semicircle around two paramedics crouched in front of the cashier’s desk. One of the two men, speaking in a low, soothing voice, said, “It’s okay now. You can let him go. We’ll take good care of him.”

“No,” a pain-filled voice gritted out. “He stays with me.”

Briar’s heart jumped in her chest. That was Dalton Hale’s voice.

“Police,” she announced, moving past Gowdy and pushing her way through the gathered crowd. Dalton Hale sat slumped on the floor in front of the cashier’s counter, his arms curled around her son’s body. Logan had been crying, but at the moment he was silent, just blinking with confusion at the people standing in a ring around him.

Dalton looked up at the sound of her voice, his green eyes melting with relief. “He’s okay,” he said.

Logan spotted her and started wriggling to get loose. Dalton let him go, his arms dropping to his side.

Briar scooped her son into her arms, staring at Dalton. He was bleeding from his right side, she could see now. Not a lot, but enough that blood had begun to pool on the floor beside him.

The paramedics moved in quickly, coaxing him onto his back.

“I didn’t let him take Logan,” Dalton said, his gaze still locked with hers.

Briar looked at Thurman Gowdy. He stared back, then thumbed the shoulder radio and called for backup.

She carried Logan over to the checkout stand and set him on the glass-top counter, quickly looking him over for any signs of injury. He was still making soft hiccupping sounds, and his nose was running from his earlier tears, but she didn’t find any sign of injury. “How you doing, buddy?” she asked, pressing a fervent kiss to the top of his head.

“Dallen?” Logan craned his head for a look at Dalton, who was being poked and prodded by the EMTs trying to assess his condition.

“Dalton’s going to be fine.”
Please be fine,
she added silently.

Gowdy caught up with her a few minutes later. A thin balding man in his late fifties, Gowdy had been a fixture in Bitterwood P.D.’s patrol unit since he joined the force almost forty years earlier. He’d turned down dozens of promotions over the years, preferring to ride patrol, and now he was the go-to officer when there was a rookie cop in need of a senior partner. “I’m not detective material,” he’d told Briar on their first day together on the job. “But if you listen to me, you’ll learn a hell of a lot about police work in a short amount of time.”

Right now he gave her a quick update on what had happened. “Bearded white male, mid-twenties, wearing a dark shirt, dark pants, camo cap and camo face paint. Carrying a hunting knife. Witnesses say he confronted the vic there on the floor. The vic swung his groceries at the guy, grabbed up the little fella here and ran for the store. Someone inside let him in and locked the door before the perp with the knife could get in.” Thurman put his hand on her shoulder. “This is your baby, ain’t it?”

Briar stroked Logan’s mussed hair off his damp forehead. “Yes. The vic is Dalton Hale.”

Thurman’s eyebrows lifted. “The prosecutor?”

She nodded, struggling not to cry. The paramedics were taking a scary length of time tending to Dalton, and while she didn’t want to get in the way, she needed to talk to him, find out exactly what had happened.

Her cell phone rang, jarring her so sharply that she nearly jumped. She checked the display. Walker Nix. “Hello?”

“I just got a call about a knife attack in Edgewood. Someone said Dalton Hale was the victim—did he have Logan?”

“He did, but Logan’s fine. I’m on scene.”

“What about Hale?”

“He’s hurt. I don’t know how bad, but it doesn’t seem immediately life threatening.”

“We’re on the way. Hang tight.” Nix hung up.

Briar put her hand to her head, willing the pounding pulse in her ears to settle down to something approaching normal. “Thurman, I can’t leave Logan—”

“No hurry now.” His tone was kindly. Soothing. “You worry about your little fella. Backup’s on the way.”

One of the paramedics moved away from Dalton and approached her. She knew him from her time as a dispatcher—Clark Emerson. Nice guy. Doting father of three. He bent to look her in the eyes. “You two okay over here?”

“I think so. I didn’t see any signs of injuries.” She looked over at Dalton. “How’s he?”

“It looks worse than it is. The wound is mostly superficial, though it cut through some muscle, so he’s probably hurting a little. He needs stitches, but he doesn’t want an ambulance. He wants to talk to you.”

Briar glanced at her son. His sleepy-eyed gaze was on Dalton, who had pushed into a sitting position and was watching them as the other paramedic checked his vitals. “Come on, kiddo. Let’s go talk to Mr. Hale.” She scooped Logan up and carried him over to Dalton.

“How’s he doing?” Dalton asked, lifting a hand toward Logan.

She crouched next to him, lowering Logan to his feet beside Dalton. Logan looked with interest at the blood-pressure cuff on Dalton’s arm, peering more closely as the cuff began to expand.

“He’s fine,” she answered. “How about you?”

“I’m okay. Feeling a little embarrassed about nearly fainting from a little nick in the side.”

The paramedic shushed them, forcing them to wait until he was finished with the blood-pressure check. “One-thirty over eighty,” he murmured as he wrote it down.

“Is that good or bad?” Dalton asked.

“Not bad,” the paramedic said with a smile.

Briar put her hand on Dalton’s knee. “What happened?”

He looked down at her hand, then back at her. “I stopped for milk and cereal. Thought the little tiger here should have a decent breakfast in the morning. He picked Cheerios.”

“His favorite.” She managed a weak smile.

“We paid and went back out to the truck. Suddenly, the guy was just there. Dressed in dark clothes and he had this camouflage paint stuff on his face. And he had a knife.”

“Do you know what kind of knife?”

“An enormous one.” He shot her an apologetic look. “I’m useless as a witness, aren’t I?”

“Maybe.” Her smile was a little stronger this time. “But you faced down a man with a knife and kept my boy safe. So you’re not going to hear any complaints from me.”

“I’m sorry, Briar.” He reached out and touched her hand where it lay on his knee. “I shouldn’t have stopped for milk. I just didn’t expect someone to strike in broad daylight, in public like this.”

She hadn’t, either. And the fact that the knife-wielding man had taken such a risky chance scared the hell out of her.

* * *

“W
HY
AREN
’
T
YOU
in an ambulance right now?”

Dalton dropped his hand from his aching head and turned at the sound of Doyle Massey’s voice. Doyle had apparently come in on the heels of the detectives, who had pulled Briar aside for an update.

Dalton sighed. “I’m okay. I can drive myself to get stitched up.”

“We’ll need your shirt in case we can match the rip mark to a weapon.”

“I know how evidence works,” Dalton answered defensively.

Briar walked up, Logan on her hip, in time to hear his last words. “Then you know there’s a chain of evidence that has to be maintained.”

Doyle looked away from Dalton and frowned down at Briar. “Blackwood, you’re on paid administrative leave until further notice.”

Her brow furrowed as her eyes widened. “Sir?”

“What happened here isn’t her fault,” Dalton protested, reaching out to grab Doyle’s arm. “This is my mistake. I’ll make sure it doesn’t happen again. Please don’t punish Briar for it.”

Doyle’s scowl disappeared and his gaze softened. “It’s not punishment.” He turned his gaze to Briar, his voice gentling. “You have a son to protect. You don’t need to be leaving him with other people while you try to work. It’ll be too much of a distraction.”

Briar’s chin came up, pride blazing in her cool gray eyes. “I don’t want special treatment.”

“I’m not giving you special treatment. Your son needs protection. So I’m assigning you to protect your son. This is your new job until we can figure out what’s going on.”

“Don’t argue with him, Briar,” Dalton murmured. “He’s always right. Haven’t you figured that out yet?”

Doyle snapped his head around to look at Dalton. “Not always. Sometimes people still manage to disappoint me no matter how low my expectations.” He moved away to confer with Nix and Delilah Brand, the other Bitterwood detective who’d responded to the call.

“Don’t you just love these family meetings?” Dalton murmured.

“You both seem to like gettin’ a rise out of each other.” Briar pressed her nose against Logan’s hair and breathed deeply, as if breathing in the sweet, clean scent of him. “Dalton, I don’t think I’ve said this properly—”

He jerked his head up, meeting her gaze with alarm. “Don’t.” He didn’t want her to say thank you. He was damned lucky to have gotten away from the man with the knife. If the slightest thing had happened differently—he couldn’t bear to think about what might have happened.

“You knocked the guy into a car with a half gallon of milk.” Despite the haunted look in her eyes, her lips curved a bit at the sheer absurdity of his method of self-defense. “You got Logan to safety. While a guy was sticking an enormous knife in your side. If that’s not heroic, I don’t know what is.”

“Technically, he swiped the knife. He didn’t stick it,” he corrected. “I’m not a hero, Briar. Anyone else would have done the same thing.”

“You’d be surprised how few people would have done the same thing.” She bent her head toward her son’s soft curls again. “I hear he told you he’d let you go if you gave him Logan.”

“I would never do that.”

“I know. That’s why I entrusted him to you in the first place.” She looked up at him with shining eyes. The almost violent urge to wrap her and Logan up in his arms and never let them go caught him utterly flat-footed.

Nix’s arrival kept him from doing something stupid. The detective looked at Briar with obvious affection, reaching out to palm the back of Logan’s head. “The chief says if you want a ride back to the station, he’s got room in his car.” He looked at Dalton. “And if you’d like a ride to the hospital, he’s offering that, as well. He’ll stay with you and drop you back home when you’re done.”

Dalton looked past Nix and found Doyle leaning against the window near the door. His gaze met Dalton’s and he gave a slight nod.