Dana Mentink - Treacherous Trails

Ella brought in a plate of scrambled eggs and toast cut into small squares and settled a special utensil in her sister’s grip that allowed her better control. The wheelchair was a manual one, with Copper County Hospital stenciled on the back.

Ella flipped her hair away from her face. “The hospital was discarding them. They said I could take it.”

He hated that he’d made her have to explain herself. She wasn’t a marine under his command, he reminded himself. She didn’t owe him anything, including explanations.

Guilt licked at his heart that he’d fallen so far out of Ella’s life. But he’d heard rumors of the trouble she’d gotten into before he’d returned stateside. Rumors he’d never bothered to ask her about. Maybe he hadn’t wanted to know, preferring the distant memories of lazy summer days spent at the creek.

“I forgot the orange juice,” Ella said, scurrying back to the kitchen.

While Betsy ate, he wandered to the window that allowed a partial view of the carport and the sprawling backyard, shadowed by massive pine trees that needed trimming.

He peered closer out the frosted window, his stomach tightening.

“Ella?” he called.

She joined him after she gave her sister the juice and stopped in the bedroom to pull on clean clothes and wash up. He jutted his chin toward the carport.

Her face went pale. “That’s...that’s my van.”

The muscles in his stomach clenched even more, the same way they had just before the quiet streets in Afghanistan exploded with enemy fire.

She stared at the van and he could read the tension. She was slight, petite, barely came up to his collarbone. For some reason, in that moment, she looked even smaller. He laid his hand slowly on her shoulder, delicate under his wide palm.

“Ella,” he said quietly. “Tell me everything that happened last night.”

* * *

Ella swallowed as she stared out the window at the carport. The trees swayed and trembled in the winter wind. A set of birds exploded from the foliage, startled.

“After you left the stables, did you stop anywhere on the way home?”

She rounded on him. “Owen, I know I messed up in the past but I promise you I did not drink anything except the tea in my thermos. It must have been drugged.”

“I wasn’t implying anything.”

“Just go home, Owen. Thanks for the ride, but I’ll figure out what to do on my own.”

He shifted, taking the weight off his wounded leg, calloused hands on hips. “You need help.”

It was suddenly too much. “I needed help four years ago when you deployed right after my brother did. Or maybe when my dad died—maybe that would have been a good time for some help, but you weren’t there, and neither was Ray.” Her voice wobbled.

He winced as if she’d hurt him. Good. He deserved it for thinking she would go out drinking and leave her sister alone and helpless. Even though you did exactly that when Ray and Owen deployed.

“Go home, Owen.”

Part of her wanted him to march right on out to his truck and gun it out of the driveway, but another part, a tiny part that she’d hidden away since she was seven years old, wished desperately that he would stay.

“Okay,” he said. “If that’s what you want.”

Owen strolled through the house and out the front door, hesitating just past the threshold. She thought with a moment of warmth that he’d changed his mind. Instead she saw a police car pull up at the end of her driveway. Her mouth went dry.

Officer John Larraby nodded to Ella as he got out of his cruiser and walked up the drive. “Got time for a few questions, I hope,” Larraby said. She nodded and Owen moved in closer.

Ella told him everything in a hurried rush of words while Larraby dutifully jotted notes.

“Miss Cahill, Candy Silverton is looking for her nephew, Luke Baker. Were you with him last night?”

Ella blinked. “I spoke to him at the stables in the afternoon when I was shoeing the horses.”

“I was told you had a heated argument with Mr. Baker.”

“No, I did not,” she snapped. “Someone is lying about me and I want to know who.”

Larraby cocked his head ever so slightly and dread cascaded along her spine. “What did you talk to him about?”

Should she say it? Repeat what he’d said in confidence? Tell the truth, her gut told her. “He had some...reservations about Bruce Reed, about his intentions toward Candy Silverton. I think you should ask him more about it.”

“As I’ve said, we can’t find him, but we did find something else in the woods outside Silverton’s stables.”

Again, the tremor of dread. “What?” she forced herself to ask.

“Blood,” he said. “And lots of it.”

* * *

Owen watched the color drain out of Ella’s face until her freckles stood out in stark relief against her milk white skin. Shock, he recognized. He’d seen it in the faces of his marine brothers when they’d taken a round, the befuddled look of a body trying to process that it had just been shot. He grabbed her hand and she let him, fingers small though calloused and tough from her work as a farrier. “Ella,” he said quietly. “You’re not talking anymore until there’s a lawyer present.”

“A lawyer?” she repeated dully. “Owen, I didn’t do anything to Luke. He’s my friend.”

“A friend you borrowed money from?” Larraby asked.

Her face went from cream to plum. “I...yes. I did.” She looked at the floor. “He offered to loan me five hundred dollars to have Betsy’s wheelchair fixed. I was going to pay him back by the end of the month.”

Oddly, Owen felt a twist of jealousy. She hadn’t come to him for a loan? She’d gone to some other guy when it was his duty to Ray to help her in any way he could? Duty. Maybe she didn’t want to be anybody’s duty, wanted to stand on her own two feet just as badly as he did. Still, he wanted to snap at her to keep away from the spoiled, soft-handed Luke Baker.

“Mr. Reed said Baker complained that he wanted the money repaid and you weren’t cooperating,” Larraby said.

“Bruce Reed is lying,” she spat, irises sparking.

Larraby wrinkled his nose and raised an eyebrow. “Have you been drinking, Miss Cahill?”

“No,” she said through gritted teeth.

“Are you sure about that?”

“Yes,” she hissed. “I already explained that.”

He pursed his lips. “Okay. Would you mind letting me take a look at your vehicle?”

“Got a warrant?” Owen said. “Otherwise she doesn’t have to show you squat.”

Larraby’s look was poisonous. He and Owen’s youngest brother, Keegan, were biological half siblings, though their father would not acknowledge Keegan. Owen’s parents adopted Keegan at age sixteen. Bad blood boiled between Larraby and Keegan, and spilled over into the rest of the Thorn family. Probably always would.

“Of course you can see my van,” Ella said, stepping inside to snatch her keys off the table. “Here’s my spare set.”

“Ella,” Owen said, pulling her close and talking low, his lips brushing the shell of her ear. Everything in him was screaming a danger message, loud as the whine of an incoming rocket. “Don’t.” But she was already pushing away, following Larraby to the back of the house to the carport.

Larraby strolled around the vehicle slowly, examining every inch of the white metal exterior. He gestured to the driver’s-side door handle. “May I?”

“Yes,” she said.

“No,” Owen replied at the same moment.

Larraby gave Owen the whisper of a smile. You lose, it said.

Above all things, Owen detested losing, always had.

And Larraby knew it.

Larraby unlocked the door with the key and swung it open, bending to peer inside. After a moment he straightened.