River Bodies (Northampton County #1)(76)

Becca stopped in front of the foyer closet and opened the door. She grabbed the small Ruger off the top shelf. Her father had kept it in the coat closet by the door with the Glock he’d carried on the job ever since she’d been a kid. The first thing he’d do after coming home from one of his shifts was to put his weapon on the shelf where she could reach it if she’d wanted.

The Glock he used to carry was no longer there. She imagined he’d had to turn it in when he’d retired. But not the Ruger. The Ruger had been waiting for her. Her father had prepared her for this day when he would no longer be around to protect her. She hadn’t understood then that this was his gift to her, a way of showing her how much he’d loved her. No country girl worth a spit doesn’t know how to fire a gun.

The Ruger felt familiar in her grip, although not as heavy as she remembered. She tucked it into the back waistband of her pants, double-checking it was secure, and threw the back door open.





CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

John leaned against the oak tree, the same tree Russell had leaned on at the edge of the woods overlooking Clint’s yard, the same spot where Russell and Clint had struck a deal.

John had been resting against the tree for the last two hours. It had been dark when he’d arrived, the sky the color of ash, not quite night but not yet morning. His hips and knees ached. He flexed and extended his fingers to get the blood circulating. His joints cracked. His body temperature fluctuated between hot and cold. He gripped the .30-06 rifle in his hand at his side. He’d been awake all night, unable to shut his mind down, turning his options over and then over again, searching for a way out. He’d paced the rooms in his house until his legs had grown tired, and the walls had threatened to confine him. It hadn’t been until he’d stepped outside into the night air that he’d started to relax, his muscles unknotting along his spine, his shoulders no longer up around his ears. The night had been cool. He’d lit another fire in the fire pit and spent several hours watching it burn. It hadn’t been until dawn approached that he’d picked up the rifle.

Now, while he propped himself up against the oak tree, waiting, he talked to himself. He shouldn’t have allowed Becca to see him by the river. It was his fault he was in this position. He’d been sloppy, and he was being forced to clean up the mess. He had no choice. She would talk to her detective friend, if she hadn’t already. Without her, the detective had no case.

Or so he believed.

John kept his gaze on Clint’s house and the dim yellow light coming from the second-floor window. Behind John the mountain loomed, and the first hint of the sun’s rays stroked the ground at his feet. He was here watching, waiting, relying on a gut feeling and his knowledge of her and her routine. He hoped for once his gut was wrong. For the first time in his life, he wanted to be dead wrong.

The back door to the house swung open. Becca’s dog raced outside.

John stepped behind the tree, hiding behind it, gripping the rifle with a clammy hand. For a moment, he thought she was just letting her dog out to go to the bathroom. But then she appeared in the doorway. John ducked farther behind the tree, peeked around the trunk. She stepped into the yard wearing tight black pants and a bright-pink shirt.

He recognized her running gear.

Quietly, he slipped away from the oak tree. He would have to be careful and take extra precautions as he moved through the woods so her dog wouldn’t smell him and give him away. His adrenaline pumped as he darted soundlessly through the brush, careful of snapping twigs and crunching leaves. When he was a safe distance away, he stepped behind a hemlock tree. Again he waited.

The birds stopped fluttering and chirping in the branches above. The air hummed with silence. John listened.

Not far in the distance, he heard movement, the sound low to the ground, the whipping and crackling of brush and low-lying branches, the sound of an animal moving fast through the woods.

His heart thrummed.

Next, there came the sound of pounding feet striking the ground, the long strides of someone who was running. The stomping was getting closer and closer and closer still.

And then. And then he heard her breathing.





CHAPTER FORTY

Becca was running through the woods, following the same path she’d taken before, the same path she’d always taken when she’d been a child playing in the woods behind her house. Romy raced ahead. Becca tried to keep up. She was breathing hard. Her sneakered feet thumped the ground, alerting anyone and everyone she was there.

“If you’re going to play in the woods, it’s not enough to wear bright-colored clothing so the hunters can see you,” her father had said. “You need to make a lot of noise to scare away the bears.”

“What about the wolves?” a nine-year-old Becca had asked.

“It’s the same for wolves,” he’d said. “They’re more scared of you than you are of them.”

She hadn’t been convinced he’d been right when she’d been a young girl, but she believed what he’d said was true, given her knowledge of animals today. She wished she would’ve told him this when she’d had the chance. This was the start of many things she wished she’d said to him. It hadn’t been easy to find the words to talk with him, but it had been one of the few good memories she’d had of him, these little lessons he’d taught her at a tender age. Of course, it hadn’t been until a full year later that she’d stepped into John’s barn and her relationship with her father had forever changed.