Cold Pursuit - Carla Neggers [125]
She thought of Elijah. She’d heard his truck out on the road in front of her cabin at dawn as he’d headed back from what she’d known had been a long night with his sister and two brothers. Jo was already up stretching for her run. The night before, Grit Taylor had decided to join her, saying he could keep up with a girl Secret Service agent, no sweat. He’d told her to be ready at sunup. Since he was the type to dump her out of bed, Jo had been ready. He’d teased her some more as they’d set off. He had kept up with her, too. When they returned to the cabins, Elijah was out skipping stones into the lake.
“The difference between Cameron and me is this,” Grit had said quietly, unusually serious. “I lived and wished I hadn’t. Elijah never thought he’d live, but he’s glad he did. Because of you.”
Then he’d gone inside, leaving Jo to her cold cabin.
Preston Neal went on, as if he could read her mind, “I understand there’s a certain Special Forces solider…”
“We grew up together.”
“Sergeant Cameron is a hero in my book. So is his friend Ryan Taylor. And so are you, Jo. Please. You all be careful.”
“We will, and thank you, Mr.—” She stopped herself, aware of the people around her. “I appreciate the call.”
After she hung up, Jo avoided the questioning looks of her tablemates and finished her scone as she experienced a jolt of reality. What had she been thinking? Life could never be normal for her again in her hometown. She’d left at eighteen, and she now had a job to do. Even if everyone suspected that she’d been given a role in the investigation, she had no illusions. She didn’t belong in Black Falls.
Then her sister kicked her under the table. “Smile, Jo. Lighten up. You’ll catch the bad guys. The good guys didn’t do so bad this round.”
“If we’d managed to take either one of them alive…”
Scott shook his head. “You know better than to second-guess yourself that way, Jo. Rigby had 120 rounds on him. You and Elijah had no other choice. As for Kendall—” Scott shrugged. “She was playing with a rough crowd.”
Beth leaned forward over the small table. “Jo, if you and Elijah hadn’t acted, Nora wouldn’t have survived.”
Jo understood. Her sister had been the first of the medical personnel on the scene after the explosion and had witnessed what it had done to Melanie Kendall. Investigators had concluded that a simple pipe bomb constructed of smokeless gunpowder, black powder, two thin strands of copper wire and a cell phone had been placed under Melanie’s front seat. Someone had called the cell phone, and the electricity from the call was just enough to ignite the lethal charge.
Nora had gone back to the Georgetown home that her mother had shared with her second husband. Thomas was cooperating with police. Detectives were going through Nora and Devin’s research into her father’s fiancée and had already discovered that one of her potential interior decorating clients had turned up murdered. They had travel records to investigate. DNA results would be coming back on both her and her partner in killing. They’d test everything they’d collected in Drew’s cabin for a match.
Jo grabbed her scone and rose, realizing she’d just reminded everyone of what they’d been trying to forget, at least for a few hours. “I should go.”
But Scott pointed at her. “Sit down. Finish your scone.” He smiled. “Some tough Secret Service agent you are, eating scones.” He reached over and slung his arm across the back of Beth’s chair; she settled against him. His smile faded, his eyes still on Jo. “Come on. Sit. We all need to talk. Why should you be any different?”
Hannah and Dominique joined them from the kitchen, and Jo returned to her seat. Beth dived into her second scone without any hint of guilt. Hannah took a tiny nibble of her scone and offered up her theory. “These killers went to a lot of trouble to try to make it look like two kids got in over their heads with each other and died on the mountain.”
“That’s more or less what they did with Drew,” Beth said quietly.
“Do you know what that tells me?” Hannah looked out the window,