Paula Graves - The Legend of Smuggler's Cave

In the white-sheeted hospital bed, her aunt looked like a thin, sickly child instead of a strong, wiry woman in her late fifties. Her shiny silver-streaked black hair looked dull and brittle beneath the single light shining over her bed, and when Jenny turned her tired gaze to Briar, she looked as if she’d aged a decade overnight.

The cast on her right arm was bulky and the color of old paper, not quite white, not quite yellow. “Does it hurt?” Briar asked, resting her hand on the rough-textured surface of the cast.

“Not at the moment.”

There was a knock on the door behind her. Then it inched open and Walker Nix’s face appeared in the opening. “Is it okay to come in?”

Briar looked at her aunt. “I think Walker wants to ask you some questions about what happened.”

“Of course.” Jenny flashed the detective a wan smile as he entered and came to stand at the foot of her bed.

“How’re you feeling?” he asked Jenny, briefly squeezing Briar’s shoulder before dropping his hand to his pocket to pull out a notebook.

“I’m not feeling much of anything at the moment,” Jenny admitted, making Briar smile. “I guess you want to know what I remember.”

“As much as you can.”

Briar’s aunt lifted her left hand to her brow. “I’d just put Logan to bed when there was a knock on the door.” Jenny’s gaze slanted to meet Briar’s. “I know you say never to answer the door at night, but the person on the other side said he was Doyle Massey, and you know that light on the porch went out night before last.”

Briar gave herself a mental kick. “I meant to put a new bulb in before I left tonight.”

“You can imagine what I was thinking.” Jenny reached out to Briar, clasping her hand when she offered it. “It was your second week on the police force, and here was the chief of police knocking at the door in the middle of the night....”

It had been a ruse guaranteed to get Jenny to open the door, which meant the intruders were familiar enough with her life to know it would work, Briar realized with a shudder of dismay.

“Did you get a good look at the intruders?” Nix asked.

“They wore face paint and dark camouflage. One of them had a skull cap kind of hat—black, I think. It was dark and it all happened so fast. His hair was up under the cap, so I couldn’t tell you what color it was. I think his eyes were dark—they didn’t really give me much time to look at them, to be honest. Just pushed me inside, turned out the lights and started throwing me around.”

Anger built like a fire in the pit of Briar’s gut. “Did you fight them?”

Jenny shook her head, looking stricken. “First blow, they broke my arm. Felt like they’d torn it clear off. Then I guess I hit my head on the hearth, because the next thing I remember is waking up when you came into the bedroom to check on me. I don’t even know how I got there.”

The intruders had probably dragged her there so they wouldn’t have to step over her body while they ransacked the place, Briar thought. “The hospital has her clothes. They’ve bagged them up for evidence,” she told Nix.

He nodded, his dark eyes reflecting the fire she felt roiling in her gut. “Miss Jenny, is there anything else you can remember? Did the men say anything when they were pushing you around?”

Jenny reached up and dashed away tears that had welled in her eyes. “I’m not sure—it was all such a blur....”

Briar squeezed her aunt’s hand. “You never know what might make sense to someone else.”

Jenny gave her hand a little squeeze back. “The other man said something about books.”

Nix and Briar exchanged glances. “What books?” Nix asked.

“I don’t know.” Jenny shook her head, wincing as the motion apparently made her headache flare up. “He just said something like ‘The books could be anywhere.’”

“What kind of books do you have?” Nix asked Briar curiously.

“Nothing valuable,” she assured him. “Some of Logan’s picture books, all my books from community college, some novels. Johnny didn’t do a lot of reading for pleasure, so I don’t even know if I have any of his books left. But none of them would be worth breaking into a cabin and beating up a woman for. Believe me.”

Jenny’s eyelids were drooping, Briar noticed, though she was trying not to show her weariness. Turning to Nix, Briar gave a little nod of her head toward the door.

“Miss Jenny, thank you for the information. I’m going to head out now and let you get some rest.” Nix closed up his notebook and put it back in his pocket. “You just let me know if you remember anything else.”

“I don’t know how much help I’ve been,” Jenny said with a sigh.

“You’ve been a big help,” Briar assured her. “Now I want you to concentrate on feeling better. Okay?”

“Who’s going to keep Logan for you while I’m all trussed up in this thing?” Jenny feebly lifted the heavy cast on her broken arm.

Briar hadn’t had time to think that far ahead. “I’ll figure it out, Aunt Jenny. You know I always do.”

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have opened the door.”

As Nix headed for the door, Briar bent and kissed her aunt’s furrowed brow. “You didn’t do anything wrong. Don’t fret yourself about it, okay?”

She waited by her aunt’s bedside until the older woman had drifted back to sleep. Then she tiptoed out of the room.

Nix was waiting outside the door, leaning against the wall. “She’s lucky to be alive.”

“I know.” Briar pushed back the springy curls that had slipped the bonds of her ponytail holder to fall in her face. She’d already had a rougher night off duty than she’d had on patrol. “What are the odds this break-in isn’t related to the previous one?”

Nix fell into step with her as she started down the hallway toward the waiting room. “I don’t know. We thought the last break-in was related to Dana’s visit, remember?”

“The Cumberland curse,” she murmured. Shortly after Dana had made a visit to Briar’s cabin, someone had broken in and trashed the place. Briar had assumed the break-in might have been an act of malice, to punish her for letting Tallie Cumberland’s daughter into her home.

The people of her small community, Cherokee Cove, had come to blame the Cumberlands for almost everything that went wrong in their world. Dana Massey’s mother, Tallie Cumberland, had become the target of a ruthless wealthy family after she’d accused them of stealing her child.

Dalton Hale’s family, in fact.

It didn’t matter that Tallie had told the truth. Subtly but unmistakably, Sutherlands and Hales had let it be known that any friend of a Cumberland was an enemy. And their influence in Bitterwood was far and wide. Nobody defied them without consequences. Tallie had left Bitterwood before the age of twenty, driven from town along with her family.

When Dana Massey had come to Bitterwood a couple of months ago, looking so much like her mother, a new round of Cumberland-curse fever had commenced. At the time of the last break-in, Briar and Nix had assumed one of her Cherokee Cove neighbors had been leaving her a message about mixing with Cumberlands.

Now she wasn’t so sure.

“Is Dalton Hale still here?” she asked Nix.

“He was still in the waiting room when I left.”

Great, she thought. Just great.

What the hell did he want with her, anyway? Why had he been asking questions about Johnny’s murder? That mystery had been languishing in cold-case territory for months now.

Why was the Ridge County prosecutor’s office suddenly interested in the murder again?

* * *

DALTON HALE HAD never seen himself as an angry man. Passionate, yes. Forceful in the pursuit of justice. But not one who possessed the kind of bitter rage that destroyed the lives and families of those who passed through his world.