Castillo Linda - Outsider

“It’s just for another day or two,” I say. “You’re certain?”

He nods. “Where there is despair, let me bring hope.”

I look away, take a moment to tuck all of the gnarly emotions coming at me back into their proper place.

“Now, I’ve got to get to work.” He starts toward the mudroom.

I hold up my hand. “Hang on.” Quickly, I go to the cabinet, pull out the biggest mug I can find, and fill it with coffee. “Take it with you,” I say as I hand it to him. “It’s cold out there.”

Taking the cup, he starts for the back door.

I find the bottle of Gentleman Jack hidden haphazardly behind a bag of cornmeal in the pantry. I’m in the process of pouring it down the sink when Gina emerges from the living room. Her hair is a wild tangle of black curls, her face pale, eyes warning of a foul mood.

“I see you’ve decided to do away with the last of my sanity,” she mutters as she shuffles to the percolator on the stove and pours.

“Yup.” I chuck the empty bottle into the trash. “I hear you had a rough night last night.”

“I’ve had better.” She tosses me a sour look, narrows her eyes. “Word travels fast.”

“Stay away from Adam.”

She rolls her eyes, brings the mug to her lips, and slurps. “For God’s sake, Kate, nothing happened. We just—”

“He spent the night with you. That’s enough.”

She throws her head back and laughs. “We didn’t … We fell asleep. Although he did kiss me good night. It was sweet. Just a peck on the cheek. I didn’t realize men still did sweet.”

Her insouciance chafes all of those old Amish sensibilities still scattered about inside me. Her indifference and lack of respect for him and his ways stir my temper. I think about Adam, a young widower for going on two years now, raising a family, and running a farm alone, all of it in a society where the institution of marriage is cherished, encouraged, and expected.

I cross to her and get in her face. “He’s not some loser you picked up at a bar.”

“Do not go there, my friend,” she snaps. “I’m hungover and I already told you nothing happened. So drop it.”

It’s good advice. Advice a wiser woman might heed. But I know Gina too well to let this go without my driving home my point. “Something did happen, Gina. He spent the night with you. That’s a big deal. Something that will likely cause him a great deal of guilt and get the tongues wagging.”

She laughs. “For God’s sake, Kate, this isn’t frickin’ high school—”

“He’s Amish. He’s part of a culture you do not understand. He’s part of a community that will think less of him if he makes a mistake. He’ll become the focus of gossip that can be cruel and it will matter to him.” I jam my finger in her face. “It’ll matter to his kids.”

She smacks my hand away. “Fine. For God’s sake, get off my back.”

“Gina, he’s a good man. If something had happened between the two of you, it would have … meant something to him. You can’t play with people’s feelings that way. Not here. Not him. Not like that.”

She stares at me, blinking, nostrils flaring. For the first time since she walked into the kitchen, I feel as if she’s listening, that she heard me, and that I’m getting through to her.

“I got it,” she says quietly.

I go to the table, sink into a chair, stuff my temper back into its hole. “A neighbor saw a vehicle parked on the road in front of the house at two o’clock this morning.”

Coffee in hand, she joins me at the table, energized now, her eyes sharp on mine. “Did you get a plate? Make? Model?”

“It was too dark and too far away for him to see. He thought it was odd that the driver had turned off the headlights.”

“That is odd.”

“Maybe.” I shrug. “But in rural areas, sometimes people drive out to the back roads to drink or whatever. Teenagers park to make out. I’ve seen it a hundred times since I’ve been chief.”

“I guess hormones don’t give a damn if there’s two feet of snow on the ground,” she grumbles.

“That said, this road is a ways off the beaten path. I can’t see someone braving all the snow and risking getting stuck, especially that time of night.”

“Had a plow been by?” she asks.

“I don’t know. Maybe once. Even so, there are drifts. You can barely get through with a four-wheel drive and chains.”

She thinks about that a moment, but I see the filament of worry take up residence in her expression. “Bertrand owns a four-wheel-drive Subaru Outback.”

“I know.” At her how-do-you-know-that look, I add, “Tomasetti checked.”

“Even so, no one knows where I am.”

“Like I said, it’s not that much of a stretch for someone to have remembered that you and I were tight once and put two and two together. Cops have resources out the wazoo when it comes to finding someone.”

“If they know where I am, why didn’t they just knock on the door, whip out their bogus warrant, and arrest me?”

Why, indeed? It’s a valid question. One that’s been scraping at the back of my brain since I heard about the mysterious vehicle parked in front of the farm. In light of the storm and the road conditions, it’s unlikely two detectives would travel all the way from Columbus to execute an arrest warrant and then drive away without making said arrest. Chances are, they’ll wait until the roads are open, they’ll contact County or me, and then make the trip.

But if that’s the case, who was parked on the road in front of Adam’s house with the headlights out at two o’clock in the morning?

“Unless they sent someone,” Gina whispers.

“What do you mean?” I ask the question, but I already know where she’s going, and it adds a distinctly sinister element to an already menacing situation.

She stares at me, her lips parted, the wheels of thought in her eyes working. “They know some very bad people, Kate. Dangerous people who owe them favors. Dregs of the earth who have no compunction about killing a cop.”

I rub my hand across the place on the back of my neck where the hairs stand on end, find the skin damp with sweat despite the gooseflesh on my arms. It’s bad enough to believe that a police department, an institution I believe in with my whole heart—a department I’d once been part of—runs rampant with corruption. It’s inconceivable to believe that sworn police officers could be capable of executing one of their own.

I stare at her, aware that my pulse is up. A question I don’t want to speak aloud beats at the back of my brain. “You think they would hire some thug to hunt you down and kill you?” I ask.

“I think they’re capable of doing exactly that.” She buttresses the words with a hefty dose of bluster. “Remember, I’m the cop who can put them in prison for the rest of their lives. I’d say they’re pretty motivated to do whatever it takes to get me out of the picture. They know all the right people, and they don’t even have to get their hands dirty.”

I look out the window, watch the falling snow, wondering if the bad weather has given us a false sense of security. That we’re tucked away and safe when we’re anything but.

“We need to keep our eyes open,” I tell her.

“That is the understatement of the year,” she mutters.

Neither of us laughs.

“I’ll see about having one of my officers park in front of the farm. Or at least drive by when they can. Keep an eye on things.”

“Then again, we could be wrong about all this,” Gina adds with a forced nonchalance. “Come on. There’s two feet of snow on the ground. Everyone and their uncle is snowbound. No one knows I’m here. Maybe all this closed-quarters crap has made us paranoid.”