Page 23 of Engaging the Deputy

He still had so many questions. Anyone with a grudge could have been at the bar that night, could have overheard the group’s plans for Halloween—including Jenny and Krystal. He wondered how Jenny and Dean had ended up together at Starling that night, sans their spouses. His guess was that Jenny’s husband’s sister, Krystal, wouldn’t have been all right with it.

But there was one way to find out. He’d ask Krystal.

* * *

As Olivia leftthe hospital, she couldn’t get the blonde off her mind. How could she not have realized Cody was in a relationship? A memory surfaced from that night at the bar. When she’d come up to the table, she recalled Dean elbowing Cody. She hadn’t caught what he’d said. At the time, she’d thought Dean was kidding Cody because of his surprised look when he’d seen her.

Had anyone mentioned a girlfriend? The guys had all been there without dates or wives. But now that she thought about it, she knew Cody would have had a girlfriend. Back in their high school days, before they’d become serious, he’d never been without a date. He’d been like a magnet, always drawing the opposite sex to him. He might even have been serious about one or two of them. Like the blonde she’d seen at the hospital?

As she drove, something in the rearview mirror caught her eye. A dark-colored SUV behind her. She recalled it had pulled out behind her as she’d left the hospital parking lot. She hadn’t thought anything of it, only noticing when she turned out of town—and it did as well.

She couldn’t see the driver’s face with the sun shining off the windshield, but she felt a prickle of concern as she sped up and the driver behind her did the same. Squinting in the mirror, she tried to read the dirty license plate on the SUV but couldn’t make out the numbers and letters. Maybe it was someone she knew following her home.

Or not. Her instincts told her not. She started to reach for her phone, only to stop herself. Was she really considering calling Jaden and telling him…what?

Slowing down, Olivia hoped the driver would pass her before they got very far out of town. Her mother’s house was still a couple of miles up the road. It sat on five acres, with no other houses nearby, with no one around since Sharon had said she had a hair appointment in Eureka today.

The driver behind her slowed as well, even though there were no cars coming in the other lane, no reasons not to pass. Except for one.

Her heart began to pound. She gripped the steering wheel, trying to decide what to do. She wasn’t about to try to outrun the driver. Why would anyone be following her?

Rob Perkins had been murdered and Cody attacked the other night at Starling. She’d been there. Was it possible the killer thought she’d seen something incriminating?

She flinched as she noticed in the mirror that the driver of the SUV came racing up behind her. Automatically, she hit the gas to keep him from crashing into the back of her. But when she looked up, she saw a deer standing next to the road.

Startled, the deer jumped forward onto the pavement. Olivia swerved away from it, but the driver behind her must not have seen it until it was too late. In her rearview mirror, she saw him also swerve and lose control as the deer bounded away and the SUV careened into the ditch. It came to a stop in the soft earth.

Olivia tried to catch her breath as she reached for her phone to call the deputy.

* * *

Jaden had hopedto find Krystal Lee at home. He left a note for her on her door to call him when she returned and was heading for his patrol SUV when he got the call from Olivia.

The moment he heard her voice, he knew something had happened. “Slow down,” he said, trying to assure her. “What happened?”

“Someone followed me after I left the hospital. I don’t know if they were just trying to scare me or planned to run me off the road.”

He listened as she described the dark-colored SUV and told him about the deer and the driver losing control and ending up in the ditch. “Where are you?”

“I’m at home. Mom’s in town getting her hair done.”

She was alone. He could hear the fear in her voice. “Stay there. I’m on my way.”

The drive out of town didn’t take long. He didn’t bother with his lights and siren since there was so little traffic. Had it been summer with all the seasonal tourists, it would have been a different story. Still, he drove fast, worried about Olivia. The woman he knew didn’t scare easily. But she’d been through a lot lately. He reminded himself that he still didn’t know what had happened out at Starling to Rob Perkins. Or to Cody Ryan, for that matter, let alone Dean Marsh.

What he did know was that his former fiancée seemed to be dead center in the middle of it. If she was right about someone trying to run her off the road, her being back in town was becoming more dangerous for her.

He hadn’t gone far when he saw the skid marks on the two-lane blacktop. Slowing, he saw the deep tracks in the earth at the edge of the road and even deeper tire tracks in the barrow pit. But the SUV had managed to drive out and was now gone.

Speeding up, he headed for the house Olivia had grown up in with her single mother. She’d told him stories about her life there before he’d met her at college. She’d said she was afraid of becoming her mother—if she didn’t get away from the small town and make something of herself.

He could relate. He’d also wanted to distance himself from his parents’ life when he was younger. His parents had chased every alternative lifestyle before ending up living off the grid in Alaska. Fortunately, by then, he’d been on his own.

So, as determined as Olivia had been about getting away from here, what was she doing back? he asked himself as he pulled into the drive and she came running out.

CHAPTER NINE

When Jaden drove up in his patrol SUV, Olivia felt such a surge of relief that she ran out of the house and into his arms. Just seeing him had brought back such a rush of emotions after her earlier scare. As he closed his arms around her, she leaned into him, breathing in his familiar scent, soaking up his warmth and strength. She’d always felt so safe in his embrace.

---