Harlequin Intrigue March 2021--Box Set 1 of 2 Page 3

  “I’m working on a story on the Dane Trask case. I wanted to ask you a few questions.”

  “I can’t help you.” Hud turned away, but Holliday kept pace with him as he strode toward headquarters.

  “What about the attack on Dallas Wayne Braxton this morning?” Holliday said. “Braxton says Trask attacked him without provocation, but I heard his gun was found on the trail and his right arm was broken. That suggests to me that Braxton drew the gun and Trask broke the arm to keep him from firing. What do you think about that?”

  He thought someone had probably spoken to the reporter who shouldn’t have. One of the park rangers, maybe? “No comment,” he said.

  “What about Audra Trask?” Holliday asked.

  Hud stopped. “What about her?”

  “She’s Dane Trask’s closest relative. She must know something she’s not telling. Do you think she’s covering for her father? Have you questioned her?”

  “Ms. Trask doesn’t know anything,” Hud said. “You need to leave her alone.”

  “It’s my job to talk to people,” Holliday said.

  “There’s a fine line between talking and harassing,” Hud said. “If you cross it, you’ll have me to answer to.”

  “That’s a mighty strong answer,” Holliday said. “Do you and Ms. Trask have some kind of personal relationship?”

  Hud cursed his inability to keep his mouth shut. “I’d say the same about any witness in this case,” he said.

  “So you admit that Audra Trask is a witness.” Holliday pulled out a notebook. “Can I quote you on that?”

  They had reached the door of the office. Rather than dig the hole he was in any deeper, Hud yanked open the door, ducked inside and shut it in Holliday’s face.

  “Your turn to run the gauntlet, I see.” Officer Carmen Redhorse gave Hud a sympathetic smile. A slender woman of Ute descent, Redhorse had been with the Ranger Brigade since its inception two years ago and had grown up in the area. She’d been generous in sharing her knowledge with newcomers like Hud.

  “Don’t we have someone who’s supposed to deal with the press?” Hud asked.

  “I already gave him an official statement.” Sheriff’s deputy Faith Martin, the Ranger Brigade’s official media liaison, looked up from her desk across the room. “I can ask him to leave, but you know I can’t keep him off public property.”

  “I don’t remember seeing him around before,” Hud said. “Who’s he with?”

  “He’s a freelancer,” Martin said. “He’s the one who broke the story this morning about the attack on Dallas Wayne Braxton.”

  “Beck told us you think Braxton went after Trask and Trask fought back,” Redhorse said.

  Hud nodded. “I’m sure part of Trask’s army training was in disarming the enemy. Braxton is a blowhard who thought he had the upper hand because he had a Ruger in his hand. Trask probably broke his arm with one blow, then socked him in the face to send a message. Then he got out of there. If he’d wanted to kill the man, he could have. But he didn’t.”

  “What did his daughter have to say?” Redhorse asked.

  Hud shook his head. “She’s worried about her father, but she doesn’t know anything.”

  “Not anything she’ll tell us, anyway,” Redhorse said.

  “I really think she doesn’t know. Which doesn’t do any of us any good.”

  “Trask seems to have it in for his former employer,” Martin said. “All these cryptic clues he’s left us—the environmental reports from the Mary Lee mine and the press release he tried to get his former girlfriend to give to the press—have to do with that mine. But how are a bunch of reports that may or may not be right be worth throwing away your whole life for?”

  “You could say that TDC has it in for Trask, too,” Redhorse said. “They’ve accused him of embezzlement and are offering that big reward for his capture.”

  “Whatever is going on, I wish they could have settled it with mediation or something sensible,” Hud said. “How much time and money are we wasting, chasing after this guy?”

  “There has to be more going on,” Redhorse said. “Everything about Dane Trask’s past says he’s a smart, sensible guy.”

  “He’s not acting smart or sensible now,” Martin said.

  Was Trask behaving so out of character on purpose? Hud wondered. If his own daughter had no explanation for his actions, how did the cops have a hope of figuring him out?

  CHAPTER THREE

  Tuesday, Audra made a point of greeting April Patrick and her mother at drop-off that morning. “Hello, April.” She squatted and looked the little girl in the eyes. “We missed you yesterday. I’m glad you’re back.”

  April flushed and stared at her shoes. Audra turned to Mrs. Patrick. “I’ve spoken with April’s teacher, and we’ll be keeping a close eye on the situation.”

  “Thank you.” Mrs. Patrick addressed her daughter. “Remember what we talked about,” she said. “You’re my wonderful girl.”

  Audra turned away, blinking back tears. Her father used to say that to her when he dropped her off at school in the mornings.

  “Hello, Mrs. Patrick. April.” Jana stepped between Audra and the girl. “How about I walk you to class?” She took April’s hand and left, but Jana glanced back once, as if to say “See, I’ve got this.”

  April remained on Audra’s mind the rest of the morning. At noon she walked down to the lunchroom, arriving just as Jana’s class of four-year-olds filed in. April was easy to spot, lagging behind the others, head down. She sat at the end of the table farthest from Jana, an empty seat on either side of her. Audra’s heart twisted at the sight of the child. She took the seat next to her. “Hello, everyone,” she said.

  “Hello, Ms. Trask,” the children chorused. Jana merely frowned from the other end of the table.

  “Hello, April,” Audra said to the child next to her.

  “Hello.” April spoke so softly, Audra had to lean forward to hear.

  “I thought you might like to come and eat lunch with me today,” Audra said.

  April stared at her, eyes wide. “Am I in trouble?”

  “No, of course not.” Audra looked at the other students. Everyone at this table, and those nearby, was watching. “I’m starting something new,” Audra said, loud enough for everyone to hear. “I’m going to have lunch with a different student every week, in order to get to know you all better. We’ll have a special table, over there.” She pointed to a table in the far corner of the room. The only thing special about it was there was no one else seated at it. She stood and began gathering April’s lunch things. “Come on, April, we’ll have fun.”

  The little girl followed, head down, clearly less than delighted. Audra signaled to Mrs. Garibaldi, the lunchroom manager, and after a brief, whispered discussion, Mrs. Garibaldi hurried away, and Audra led April to the table. A few moments later, Mrs. Garibaldi returned with a tray that held two glasses of fizzy water with slices of oranges and lemons, a rose in a bud vase, and two little containers of vanilla ice cream. Ordinarily, the students had ice cream for dessert on Fridays, so Audra hoped this was enough of a special treat to ease April’s fears that she was in trouble.

  Audra unpacked her own sandwich and fruit. “Let’s talk while we eat, okay?” she suggested.

  April nodded and picked up her sandwich—peanut butter and strawberry jelly. A classic. “You remind me of me when I was a little girl,” Audra said.

  April stared and nibbled at the edge of her sandwich.

  “I was very quiet,” Audra said. “There’s nothing wrong with being quiet, but sometimes the other children didn’t understand. Sometimes they picked on me.”

  April put down the sandwich but remained silent. “Do other children ever pick on you?” Audra asked.

  A shrug.

  “When someone picks on you, they’re being a bully,” A
udra said. “Have you heard that word before?”

  April nodded.

  “Bullying is wrong,” Audra said. “I don’t want any bullying in my school, so if anyone bullies you, I want you to promise to tell me. You can ask to be excused and come to my office anytime.” That might be asking too much of the little girl, but Audra hoped just knowing she was ready to listen if April found the courage to talk to her might help.

  “Okay,” April said. She picked up her sandwich and studied it. “Sometimes the other girls call me a baby.”

  “You’re the same age they are, so you obviously aren’t a baby,” Audra said.

  “They mean I act like a baby, because I cry a lot.”

  “It’s hard not to cry when you’re upset about something,” Audra said. She resisted the urge to tell the girl to try harder not to cry. Adults had told Audra that over and over when she was a child, and it only made things worse. “Crying just makes you human, it doesn’t made you a baby.”

  April looked as if she didn’t quite believe this. “None of them cry as much as I do.”

  “Some people talk more than other people,” Audra said. “Some people have a harder time sitting still in class. Some people are really good at running, while others can sing or tell stories or read better than everyone else. Some people like peanut butter and other people like tuna fish. Everyone is different. The world would be really boring if we were all alike.”

  “I guess.”

  Audra stifled a sigh. She didn’t really blame the girl for not being persuaded. When you were a child, the adults around you had plenty of advice, but the only thing that really helped was to teach everyone to be kinder and more understanding. Audra could work on that. There were probably lots of anti-bullying programs out there. She’d find one and implement it at her school.

  She checked her watch. Lunch was almost over. “Eat your ice cream before it melts,” she told April.

  “But I haven’t finished my lunch,” the girl said.

  “That’s okay. Today, if you want, you can eat the ice cream first.”

  To her delight, April smiled, a toothy grin that transformed her from pale and sullen to pink-cheeked and happy. Maybe, sometimes, ice cream worked better than talking.

  * * *

  AUDRA WASN’T SURPRISED when Jana came to her office after classes that day. “If you’re going to take a child out of my class, you need to talk to me about it first,” she said without preamble after Audra greeted her.

  “I didn’t take her out of class. I took her to another table at lunch.”

  “So you could get her away from me and talk.” Jana dropped into the visitor’s chair. “I asked her what you talked about, and she said you talked about bullying. Didn’t you believe what I told you before?”

  “This isn’t about you,” Audra said, trying to keep the frustration out of her voice. “I wanted April to know that if she has any problems, I’m another adult she can talk to.”

  “I’m her teacher. If she has a problem, she should come to me.”

  “Of course. But she needs to know there are other sympathetic adults in her life. I thought I would have lunch with Mia another day and hear her side of things.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with Mia,” Jana said. “She’s just a strong-minded child who doesn’t suffer fools gladly.”

  “Are you calling April a fool?”

  “I didn’t mean that and you know it,” Jana said. “But people are too quick to label someone a bully. There’s too much political correctness. Instead of babying children and catering to every whim, we ought to teach them how to deal with adversity.”

  “April and Mia are four years old!”

  “They’re privileged and spoiled. A few challenges in life would only do them good.”

  “That is for their parents to decide, not us.”

  Jana looked away. When she faced forward again, her expression was more composed. “Speaking of challenges, why was that cop here yesterday?”

  “That doesn’t really concern you,” Audra said.

  “It doesn’t look good for the school to have cops hanging around. You ought to know that.”

  “I’ll take care of the school. You take care of your class.” Audra met the older woman’s cold gaze with an icy stare of her own. Jana was older and more experienced and thought she knew better, but Audra sensed if she yielded to her, Jana would end up taking over. In that way, she was just another kind of bully. “You can go now,” she added.

  Jana went, and Audra waited a moment, collecting herself before she followed the older woman out the door. You’d have been proud of me just now, Dad, she thought as she walked to her car. Please come home so I can be proud of you.

  * * *

  ONE OF THE things that had struck Hud the most when he first became a law enforcement officer was how many people weren’t glad to see him when he walked in the door. Most of them never said anything, but he had learned to recognize the averted eyes and shrinking back that signaled they’d be happier if he left. He had naively imagined that people would be grateful to him for keeping them safe and riding to their rescue. His first few weeks as a rookie had taught him otherwise.

  But it stung a little more when the person averting her eyes or shrinking away was a woman he was attracted to. A woman like Audra Trask.

  He was returning from transporting a prisoner to the county jail that evening when he spotted Audra’s car ahead of his. When she signaled a turn onto a side street, he followed, and parked behind her when she pulled to the curb in front of a neat, stucco-sided duplex. She waited beside her car as he approached her. “Is there a reason you were following me?” she asked.

  At five feet ten inches, he wasn’t a tall man, but he felt oversize and clumsy next to her. She was so petite, but there was nothing childlike in the hard look she gave him. “I saw your car and I wanted to make sure you were all right,” he said.

  “Why wouldn’t I be all right?” she asked.

  “Other women who were close to your father have been threatened.” Cara Mead had been. So had Eve Shea.

  “No one’s threatened me,” she said. “Why would they?”

  “One of the many, many unanswered questions in this case,” he said.

  She folded her arms in front of her. “You don’t need to follow me,” she said. “I’m fine.”

  “I wasn’t following you.” He took a step closer. “I just saw you and thought it might be nice to have a conversation that wasn’t about your father.”

  “That’s a line I haven’t heard before. It’s original, I’ll give you that.”

  “It wasn’t a line,” he said.

  “Wasn’t it?” Her eyes held a challenge. He shifted his gaze from her dark brown eyes to her lips—full and tinted a dark pink. He felt a rush of heat that had nothing to do with the weather and thought of stepping back. Instead, he moved closer.

  She didn’t back up. Instead, she uncrossed her arms. In her right hand, she held her house keys. “You might as well come in.”

  He waited while she unlocked the door, then followed her into the western half of the duplex. The rooms were small and simply furnished, with white-painted walls and lots of green plants. The place was neater than it had been the first time he’d interviewed her, but then she had just returned from two weeks in France. She dropped her purse and briefcase on a table at the end of a red-upholstered sofa. “Would you like a glass of water?” she asked. “Or I could make tea.”

  “Water is fine.” The kitchen was also small, but glass-fronted cabinets and a large window over the sink made it appear larger. She took a pitcher of water from the stainless refrigerator and filled two glasses, then handed him one. He waited for her to speak, but she didn’t. He let the silence stretch until it was uncomfortable. “How was your day?” he asked.

  “It could have been better,” she said. “
I’m dealing with a child who’s being bullied, and that’s upsetting.”

  “Is that a big problem in preschool?” He would have thought bullying was something older children faced, not toddlers.

  “Sometimes. This child is the sort of shy, awkward girl that some kids target.”

  “A lot of bullies are hurting and lash out,” he said.

  “I see you’ve read the literature,” she said. “Was that part of your law enforcement training?”

  “Not exactly. What are you going to do about it?”

  “I’m going to talk to both of the girls and try to help them. They’re very young, so stopping this kind of behavior now can save a lot of trouble in the future.”

  “So you believe bullies can change.”

  “Some can. Some never do. You see it every day, in politics and business, on television. People who seize on the weakness of others, who are cruel in order to make themselves feel better.” She set her half-empty glass on the kitchen counter behind her. “What makes a person decide to become a cop? I would think it would be a dangerous, often unpleasant job.”

  Was she equating cops with bullies? Or just trying to change the subject? “I’d hate sitting in an office,” he said. “I liked solving problems and helping others. People don’t always believe that, but most cops do.” He drained his glass, then set it aside. “What makes a person want to teach preschool? It may not be dangerous, but I’m pretty sure it’s unpleasant at times.”

  “Oh, very unpleasant,” she agreed. “We still have children in diapers. And stomach flu season is always fun.”

  She laughed at the horror that must have shown on his face. “Don’t tell me you’d rather face down bullets than a dirty diaper.”

  “Can I have another choice?”

  “You’re going to make a great dad someday.”

  “I hear it’s different when it’s your own kid.”

  “And I’ve heard that’s a lie.”

  “Then I guess I’ll learn to live with the disappointment.”