Search And Rescue: In Safe Hands Part 11

"Ms. Little." He sounded alert, so hopefully the dispatcher hadn't woken him. "More trouble in the neighborhood?"

"Nothing major," she said. "I didn't mean to bother you with this, but the dispatcher insisted you'd want to talk to me."

"It's fine. What's going on?"

"Someone was sneaking around outside the for-sale house. It looked like a teenager. He went around the back and then looked in a side window. I just called Dispatch in case he was thinking about doing some vandalism or wanted to break in or something."

"Is he still there?"

"I don't think so." Her eyes were glued on the empty house, and everything was still. "He slipped away while I was talking to the dispatcher."

"I'll stop by in the morning," the sheriff said, making Daisy wince.

"You really don't have to do that, Sheriff." She tried to sound grateful and discouraging at the same time. "I just thought a squad pa.s.sing through the neighborhood would drive the kid away. He's gone now, and you don't need to waste your time-"

"Seeing to your peace of mind isn't a waste of time, Ms. Little," Coughlin interrupted. "I'll be by around six thirty tomorrow morning, if you'll be awake by then?"

"I'll be up," she said faintly.

"Good. Sleep well, Ms. Little." He ended the call.

Daisy brought her phone to her lap and stared at it absently. Why had he mentioned her peace of mind? She'd told him flat-out that she didn't think the teenager would be a danger, except maybe to one of the house's windows. The way he said it made her feel like he was coming over to pat her hand and a.s.sure the weak-minded girl that the bogeymen wasn't real.

With a mental shake, she stood and took her phone to the nightstand. While she plugged in the charger again, she told herself she was being too sensitive. The sheriff didn't have the best bedside manner, at least not with her, but he was trying to help. She should be pleased that he was taking her concerns seriously-more seriously than she thought they warranted, in fact.

As she settled back onto the window seat, she gave a humorless laugh. Being awake in time for the sheriff's visit wouldn't be a problem, since she was fairly sure she wouldn't be sleeping any more that night. There was something about conversations with Coughlin that kept her awake.

It was worse than she'd expected.

"None?" she asked.

"No fresh boot prints anywhere around the perimeter of the house," Sheriff Coughlin confirmed.

"It was windy last night. Maybe the drifting snow filled in the prints?" Even before she finished speaking, the sheriff was shaking his head.

"With the warm temperatures we've been having, the snow is either frozen or wet and heavy. If someone had walked through that yard last night, there would've been prints."

Daisy hid her wince at his words, even though they hit as hard as an elbow to the gut, and struggled to keep her voice firm. "There was someone walking around the outside of that house last night, Sheriff. I don't know why there aren't any boot prints, but I definitely saw someone."

He was giving her that look again, but it was worse, because she saw a thread of pity mixed in with the condescension. "Have you given more thought to starting therapy again?"

The question surprised her. "Not really. What does that have to do...?" As comprehension dawned, a surge of rage shoved out her bewilderment. "I didn't imagine that I saw someone last night. There really was a person there, looking in the side window."

All her protest did was increase the pity in his expression. "It must get lonely here by yourself."

"I'm not making things up to get attention!" Her voice had gotten shrill, so she took a deep breath. "I even said there was no need for you to get involved. I only suggested one of the on-duty deputies drive past to scare away the kid."

"Ms. Little." His tone made it clear that impatience had drowned out any feelings of sympathy. "Physical evidence doesn't lie. No one was in that yard last night."

"I know what I saw."

The sheriff took a step closer. Daisy hated how she had to crane her neck back to look at him. It made her feel so small and vulnerable. "Do you really?" he asked. "Eyewitness accounts are notoriously unreliable. Even people without your issues misinterpret what they see all the time. The brain is a tricky thing."

Daisy set her jaw as she stared back at the sheriff, fighting the urge to step back, to retreat from the man looming over her. There had been someone there, footprints or no footprints. She couldn't start doubting what she'd witnessed the night before. If she did, then that meant she'd gone from mildly, can't-leave-the-house crazy, to the kind of crazy that involved hallucinations, medications, and inst.i.tutionalization. There had to be some other explanation, because she wasn't going to accept that. Not when her life was getting so much better.

She could tell by looking at his expression that she wasn't going to convince Coughlin of anything. "Thank you for checking on it, Sheriff. I promise not to bother you again."

Although he kept his face impa.s.sive, his eyes narrowed slightly. "If you...see anything else, Ms. Little, please call me."

That wasn't going to happen, especially when he put that meaningful pause in front of "see" that just screamed "delusional." Trying to mask her true feelings, she plastered on a smile and turned her body toward the door in a not-so-subtle hint for him to leave. "Of course."

Apparently, she needed some lessons in deception, since the sheriff frowned, unconvinced. Daisy met his eyes with as much calmness as she could muster, dropping the fake smile because she could feel it s.h.i.+fting into manic territory. She'd lost enough credibility with the sheriff as it was.

The silence stretched until Daisy wanted to run away and hide in a closet, but she managed to continue holding his gaze. The memory of Chris telling her about the sheriff using his "going to confession" stare-down on suspects helped her to stay quiet.

Finally, Coughlin turned toward the door. Daisy barely managed to keep her sigh of relief silent.

"Ms. Little," he said with a short nod, which she returned.

"Sheriff."

Only when he was through the doorway with the door locked behind him did Daisy's knees start to shake.

Chapter 8.

Daisy pa.s.sed the time from the sheriff's departure until noon alternating between pacing, one-sided conversations with Max, and chewing her thumbnails down to nothingness. Since Chris would be on duty, working the six-to-six s.h.i.+ft that night, she knew he'd try to sleep as late as possible. It probably would've been safer to call him midafternoon, but Daisy was afraid she wouldn't have thumbs left if she had to fret for another three hours.

"What's up, Dais?" he asked, sounding awake and fairly cheerful, thankfully.

"I'm not crazy, right? I mean, I am about the whole not-going-outside thing, but I'm not loony tunes, seeing-things-that-aren't-there, get-thee-to-a-nuthouse type of crazy, am I?" After the words rushed out of her like verbal vomit, Daisy rested her head against the training room wall. Even if she had planned the most insane way of starting the conversation with Chris, she couldn't have sounded more cracked.

"What's this about?"

Her stomach clenched. "Did you just avoid answering the question?"

"You're not crazy. Now what's going on?"

The whole story spilled from her. Hearing it out loud made it seem even more insane, and she cringed several times during the retelling. It didn't help that Chris was silent for a long time after she stopped talking.

"Chris?" Although she'd been determined to let him be the one to speak first, she couldn't stand not knowing what he was thinking. Daisy could stand up to the sheriff's suspect-cracking stare, but Chris's ambiguous silence broke her easily.

"I'll be over in ten minutes."

That wasn't any clearer than his silence had been. "Okay."

"Dais?"

"Yeah?"

"You're not crazy."

After he ended the call, she hovered by the door. Only seven minutes had pa.s.sed when she heard his distinctive knock. Once he was inside and the doors relocked, she moved to the coffeemaker. It was as good an excuse as any to avoid looking directly at him.

"Want some?" she asked, already reaching for his daisy cup.

"Sure. Before you make it, though, show me exactly where you saw this kid last night."

Leaving the cup on the counter, she led the way upstairs and into her bedroom. It was strange having Chris there, and her skin p.r.i.c.kled with an odd combination of heat and goose b.u.mps. She firmly ignored both reactions.

Kneeling on the window seat, she felt him behind her, close enough for his body heat to warm her back through her s.h.i.+rt.

"I saw someone move from those trees"-she pointed-"to the far side of the house. He kind of peeked around the corner, like he was checking to see if anyone was watching, and then he must've gone around the back of the house. The next time I saw him, he was on that side"-her pointing finger s.h.i.+fted-"looking in the window."

"Did he touch the gla.s.s, could you tell?"

As she nodded, her hair brushed against his chest, catching on the b.u.t.tons of his flannel s.h.i.+rt. "He cupped his hands on either side of his face, like he was trying to see inside better."

"Okay." He gathered her hair and tucked it over her shoulder, away from the snagging b.u.t.tons. She turned her face toward him in surprise. "I'm going to go check things out over there."

Daisy nodded again, her voice stuck in her throat. Chris was leaning forward slightly, his head tipped down, his eyes on hers, and he had an unreadable look on his face. It wasn't the bad sort of unreadable, like the sheriff tended to wear. Chris looked...hungry and sad and the same sort of wistful as she'd felt the day before as she watched the three happy couples. Then he stepped away, and the look disappeared, making Daisy wonder if she'd imagined it.

After all, she'd apparently been imagining all sorts of things lately.

As Chris walked around the for-sale house, peering intently at the snow-covered ground, Daisy tried unsuccessfully not to obsess over what he was seeing. After catching herself wandering into the living room to stare at him through the window for the hundredth time, she decided that, if she was going to watch Chris anyway, she might as well have a good view. Taking the stairs two at a time, she hurried to her bedroom window.

While she'd been switching locations, Chris had stopped focusing on the ground and had turned his attention to the window the prowler had been looking through the night before. The distance made it hard to see details, but Chris had some sort of black case, about the size of a shaving kit, open on the ground next to him.

Leaning farther and farther forward, she tried to make out what he was doing. Chris was holding something dark and was moving his hand in back and forth motions over the window. It almost looked like he was painting, although, from Daisy's vantage point, it didn't appear that the brush was leaving anything behind on the gla.s.s.

After he finished his brushwork, he pulled a sheet of clear film off its white backing and pressed it to the gla.s.s. Peeling it off the window, he returned it to the backing, using the side of the house as a work surface. He repeated this one more time before packing up his kit and walking to his squad where it was parked in front of her house.

Daisy rushed downstairs to meet him at the door, although she was careful this time not to open the inner door too early in her excitement. Impatiently, she waited for the thud-click of the exterior door lock before untwisting the locks and freeing the chains.

"Well?" she asked as she pulled open the door.

He raised an eyebrow. "Are you going to let me in? Maybe make me that coffee you promised?"

Stepping back, she waved him inside. This time, she waited until the door was relocked and he'd stepped out of his boots before demanding, "What did you find?"

"The yard's a mess," he said, looking at the coffeemaker and back at her.

"What does that mean?" When he continued eyeing the brewer like it was a water fountain in the desert, she sighed and popped a hazelnut cup into the machine. "You know, you're welcome to help yourself."

"It tastes better when you make it."

"That makes no sense."

"Do you want to hear what I found over there or not?"

"Yes, please." She put the daisy mug in place to catch the coffee and turned back toward Chris, making the "get on with it" gesture that she'd stolen from him.

"There are boot prints everywhere. Some I could tell were old, since they'd gone through some melting and refreezing cycles. The new ones were mostly similar to mine, so I'm a.s.suming those are Rob's from this morning."

"Mostly?" Her pulse accelerated. Despite Chris's insistence that she wasn't crazy, the incident with the sheriff had allowed doubts to creep into her head.

"Hard to tell, but I thought I saw a few partials-very partial-of a different style of boot. The other prints almost completely covered them, though."

"Covered them?" Daisy frowned, confused. "Like the sheriff walked on them? Why would he do that?"

Chris shrugged, his brows drawn together. "Not sure. I haven't talked to him about this yet."

Her stomach dipped. "Is this going to cause a problem for you? I mean, I basically shooed him away and called you to tattle. Will he be p.i.s.sed?"

Scowling, Chris said, "I'm p.i.s.sed. If he trampled evidence because he was determined you were imagining things, he deserves to be called out on it."

"How do you know I wasn't?" Although she tried to keep her voice casual, Daisy couldn't quite manage it. "Imagining things?"

"First of all, I know you. If you said you saw someone, then there was someone there." His matter-of-fact tone calmed her. "Secondly, I lifted a couple of handprints from the window."

It took a second for the information to sink in. "That's what you were doing to the window! Really? There were prints?"

He grinned as he nodded. "Both sides, as if someone had cupped his hands against the gla.s.s to look inside. And I lifted a beautiful, crystal-clear print of his right pinkie finger. He must have rolled his right hand as he took it off the gla.s.s."

Relief flooded through her, the feeling so intense that she couldn't breathe for a second. When her lungs started working again, she blew out a long exhale. "I'm not crazy."

"You are not crazy. The handprints won't be much use unless we have a suspect in custody so we can do a comparison, but I'll send the fingerprint to the Colorado Bureau of Criminal Apprehension and have them...oof."

Daisy looked up at his stunned face, her arms wrapped tightly around his middle. "Sorry. I know you hate it when I touch you, but I'm just so relieved that I couldn't help myself. I'm letting you go and backing away now." She retreated to the other side of the kitchen, unable to stop grinning, even when Chris's surprised expression turned into a scowl.

"What do you mean?"

"What do you mean, what do I mean?" It wasn't that funny, but she started giggling as she offered the filled coffee mug to Chris. He accepted it absently but didn't take a drink, all his attention still focused on her.

"I don't hate it when you touch me. What makes you think that?"