Justice At Morgan Mesa. Jenna Night

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СКАЧАТЬ shook her head, then winced. He keyed his collar mic and called for EMS to respond. She didn’t seem to be significantly injured, but it was possible that adrenaline was masking it. Better safe than sorry. He also asked for the alarm company to be contacted so the alarm could be remotely turned off and to log a request for them to send him whatever video footage they had.

      “The man who chased me didn’t identify himself, and he had his face covered,” the woman said.

      Levi holstered his gun, then pulled out a chair and gestured for her to sit down. He flipped on a light switch. “What’s your name?” He had to raise his voice to be heard over the alarm.

      “Vanessa—” She said her last name but it was drowned out by the blare of the alarm.

      “I’m Lieutenant Levi Hawk,” he responded loudly.

      Suddenly the alarm stopped.

      In the quiet few seconds that followed, the pinched, fearful expression on her face began to ease a little.

      She took a fortifying breath and then told him a harrowing story about being chased to the house from the edge of the mesa. As she spoke, the dazed look in her eyes gave way to a more focused expression.

      After she finished her story, two of his patrolmen arrived. He had them search the house.

      “Why were you over by the edge of the mesa?” he asked. Any details she gave him might help him hunt down the bad guy.

      Vanessa arched a pale blond eyebrow. “The Heatons allow the public to enjoy the view from their property along the mesa. They have for years.”

      She was defensive. That was interesting. Levi decided to prod a little more. “Why did you decide to enjoy the view this evening?”

      She frowned at him for a moment, sighed and then glanced away. “I grew up around here. Moved away. I’m back for a short while and I wanted to visit a few of my old haunts.”

      “Where do you live now? What do you do?”

      “Vegas. I’m a defense attorney.”

      Vanessa. A memory clicked into place in the back of Levi’s mind. “What did you say your last name is?”

      “Ford. My name is Vanessa Ford.”

      “Are you related to Josh Ford?”

      She nodded, the expression in her eyes turning sorrowful. “Yes. He was my dad.”

      Levi glanced away and drew in a breath as memories tumbled through his mind. He’d just been twelve years old when Josh Ford’s lifeless body was found on a lonely stretch of road up here on the mesa. It was the first major news story of his young life that he could remember paying attention to. His parents had talked about it at the time. Everybody had. Unease had settled over the town as the weeks and months and ultimately years had passed without the murderer being found.

      Vanessa had been eight years old. He remembered seeing her picture. He especially remembered seeing the lost expression in her blue eyes. For weeks, he’d been worried that something terrible would happen to his own parents, until finally that anxiety had faded.

      Vanessa had already had more than enough heartache for one lifetime. She didn’t deserve to have some violent maniac chasing her.

      So who was after her and why?

      “Has anybody from your work threatened you?” Levi asked.

      “No.”

      “Are you sure? You’re a defense attorney. Hasn’t anyone you’ve defended ever gone to prison? Maybe held a grudge against you that they intended to settle when they got out? Or what about an angry victim, or their family, who felt like you helped a bad guy go free?”

      She blew out a sigh. “Of course I’ve been threatened a few times, blamed by one side or the other whether my client has been convicted or gone free. As a cop, I imagine you’ve been threatened, too. Most of the time it’s just somebody blowing off steam.”

      “Sometimes those aren’t empty threats. Think about it and see if you can think of some names for me to check out.”

      She nodded and tucked a few loose strands of hair behind her ear. It was still the same pale blond color it had been when she was a girl. Still very curly.

      “Did the guy with the hammer say anything to you?” Levi asked.

      “He told me to get out of town or get buried here.”

      “Get buried here, on this property? Is that what he meant?” Had she stumbled across someone illicitly using the house, doing something on the property that they wanted to remain undiscovered? There’d been talk recently of turning the house into a museum. Could someone want to sabotage that for some reason? Make people afraid to come up here?

      “I don’t know what exactly he meant by his stupid threat,” she said irritably.

      “Could you have crossed paths with him recently? Maybe you’d had a disagreement?”

      “I’ve spent the last couple of days up here on the mesa, stopping in stores and cafés and different places, asking people if they knew or ever heard rumors about what happened to my dad. Nobody knew anything. It was all such a long time ago.” She shook her head and winced again. “What happened tonight probably doesn’t have anything to do with that. Maybe he’s just some dealer cooking meth in the woods around here.”

      “Why are you conducting an investigation into your dad’s murder now?” Levi asked, feeling his heart speed up a little at the thought that the case might finally be solved. “Do you have some new information?”

      “No new information. This is just something I’ve thought about doing for a long time. And now I finally have the chance to do it.”

      Levi’s cop instinct told him she wasn’t telling him the whole truth, but this wasn’t the time to press. He heard the ambulance pull up into the driveway and convinced her to let a medic take a look at her.

      By the time she’d been cleared, his officers had completed their search of the house and hadn’t found anyone hiding in there. He had one of them stay behind to take down basic contact information from Vanessa and make sure she got home safely. Then he grabbed a couple of flashlights from his SUV and had the other officer go with him to look for signs of the chase she’d described and to search for whatever evidence they could find.

      He didn’t know what he expected to find, especially in the dark, but he knew he wouldn’t feel comfortable leaving until he’d done everything he could. Levi had experienced a rocky return to the United States after his years spent fighting overseas. When he’d finally made his way back to Torchlight, he’d become a police officer to give something back to his hometown and do something to help heal his soul. Protecting Vanessa and capturing the sick assailant who’d attacked her would help him fulfill both of those goals.

      Maybe this weird attack was related to Josh Ford’s murder all those years ago. Maybe not.

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