Framed For Christmas. Jaycee Bullard

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СКАЧАТЬ was getting more absurd by the moment. “Absolutely not. I can personally vouch for each and every one of these kids.” Her voice quavered with anger as she met and held his gaze. “I’ve known all of them for years, and I can’t imagine any of them being involved in something like this. They are all honor students who spend their free time volunteering and doing service projects with our church.” An idea occurred to her. “Is it possible that the stuff you found is talcum powder?”

      Gideon gave a bitter laugh. “Let me assure you, Miss Jones, that I can tell the difference between talcum powder and cocaine.”

      “Fine,” she huffed. “Let’s say for the sake of argument that there really are drugs in the back of the van—”

      “Were.” He interrupted. “They aren’t there anymore. I’ve secured them in a safe place until I can turn them over to the sheriff.” He shot her another hard stare. “I get the feeling you doubt my credentials. Maybe you see me as some sort of crazy backwoodsman who doesn’t know the difference between oregano and pot.”

      She felt the blood drain from her face. “You found pot in the van, as well?”

      “I was just using that as an example to make my point,” he said, his voice thick with frustration. “Listen. I should have said this right at the outset. I used to work for the DEA, which means that I’ve had plenty of experience dealing with illegal drugs. This isn’t just a hunch. It is fact. I used a testing kit to confirm that the powder is definitely cocaine. So you can see that I’m not making an idle accusation. I know what I’m talking about, and when I tell you someone in your group is guilty of smuggling drugs, you can be assured I don’t make the accusation lightly. Which brings us back to the question—who hid the stash in your van?”

      “I have no idea.” Her head was spinning as she tried to wrap her brain around what Gideon had just said. Had he just called her a criminal? Maybe not directly, but certainly by inference. And what was a DEA agent doing living in the middle of nowhere? Scratch that. A retired DEA agent. Dani looked again at the man sitting across from her. She wanted to tell herself he was a fraud or, to use his own words, a crazy backwoodsman, but something in her gut told her that, despite his disreputable appearance and intimidating size, Gideon Marshall was telling the truth.

      “Let’s try it another way. Start with a list of people who had access to your vehicle, and we’ll work forward from there.”

      This would be the moment to tell Gideon about the two men in the tan SUV. And yet, she hesitated. Who knew how he’d react to the news that she had failed to report the incident at the gas station? He already thought that she was irresponsible for driving through the blizzard. Why add fuel to the fire?

      “My name would be the only one on that list. I packed the trunk myself last night after the kids dropped their gear off at church. Once everything was loaded, I pulled the van into the garage where it stayed until this morning.”

      “Where did the boxes with the Bibles come from?” Gideon leaned forward, his chin in his hands and his elbows on his knees.

      Was it her imagination, or was this “little talk” turning into a full-scale interrogation? If she and Gideon were actors in a TV crime drama, this would be the moment when she’d refuse to answer any more questions until she talked to her lawyer.

      “I don’t know.” She shrugged. “They were stacked by the pile of gear, and the boxes were marked BIBLES FOR THE RESERVATION.”

      “No signature?”

      She shook her head.

      “Didn’t that make you suspicious?”

      She bit her lip. At the very least, it should have made her curious, but she had been in such a hurry to finish packing that she hadn’t given it a second thought. “This was my first time chaperoning, so I just assumed that bringing along Bibles was part of the routine. We are a church group, after all.”

      Gideon shifted forward. “I noticed the name of your congregation stenciled on the side door of the van. Who’s in charge of maintenance for the vehicle?”

      “The custodian at the church. But there’s no way he’s involved in this. He’s been around for as long as I can remember. And he’s at least seventy-five, with a bad back, so clearly, he doesn’t fit the profile.”

      “Doesn’t fit the profile?” Gideon repeated her words with more than a trace of cynicism. “When you’ve worked with the DEA for as many years as I did, you learn that just about everyone fits the profile.”

      Gideon turned up the heat under the frying pan as he prepared to sear the fillets. A shortage of supplies had forced him to keep the menu simple—fresh fish, a green salad, a dozen or so cut-up oranges and a crisped loaf of day-old bread. He was glad he’d made it to the grocery store yesterday before the storm. He just hoped there would be enough food to satisfy a group of hungry teens.

      As he added a couple of pats of butter to the pan, he took a moment to consider the likelihood that Dani Jones was not the innocent chaperone she seemed to be and was instead the ringleader of a major drug-smuggling operation.

      The jury was still out on that one. In his experience, beautiful women tended to attract trouble, and Dani Jones was definitely beautiful. On their walk back from the barn, he’d noticed how the snowflakes stuck to her long dark lashes and how her cheeks glowed from the cold. He did admire her spunk and loyalty when she rallied to the defense of the kids. A woman like that had courage. And she had seemed genuinely surprised that the Bibles had been used as decoys to hide cocaine. But sincerity could be used to mask duplicity, and very few people were who they pretended to be.

      He’d learned that lesson the hard way, first as a child growing up on the reservation, and later at the DEA, when Jonas—his partner, a man he had trusted with his life—set him up to take the fall for the death of an innocent witness. Gideon still found it hard to wrap his head around the facts of the betrayal. A seemingly airtight case against a ruthless drug lord that hinged on the testimony of a brave young woman. It should have been a slam dunk. But, instead, he had let his guard down and allowed Jonas to take the lead on the investigation, unaware of his partner’s sinister agenda. Could the same type of subterfuge be true of Dani? What sort of deceit was she hiding behind that guileless face?

      Complicating matters was the unlikely coincidence of the tan SUV with the dented bumper idling near the spot where the church van had skidded off the road. Did that prove that Dani was telling the truth, at least in her suspicions about being knocked off the road? Without more conclusive data, it was impossible to say.

      As the group took their seats around the table, he set two heaping platters of fish in the center and then slid into an open chair between two of the kids. But before he could give the call to dig in, the petite blond-haired girl on his left—Lucy, if he remembered correctly from Dani’s introductions—reached over and took his hand. He glanced at her to see what she wanted, but her eyes were shut. So were Dani’s as she began to pray.

      “Lord Jesus, thank You for the warmth of this cabin and for the companionship of good friends. Thank You for keeping us safe and for helping us find shelter from the storm. And thank You for the food You have provided to nourish our bodies and for our host, who rescued us from the ditch and cooked this meal before us on the table. We are grateful for his hospitality and kindness.”

      Beside him, Gideon’s neighbor gave his fingers a quick squeeze before releasing his hand.

      He let out a long breath. СКАЧАТЬ