Delores Fossen - One Night Standoff

He wanted to deal with this woman who might have answers.

Clayton waited, watched until she finally put her soldering iron aside and pulled off the mask that’d covered her nose and mouth.

It was Lenora Whitaker, all right.

Keeping a firm grip on the sides of the ladder, she stepped down to the floor, propped her hands on her hips and looked up at the glass angel’s wing that she’d just repaired. She must have been pleased with the results, because she nodded, smiled. Turned.

The color drained from her face. The smile, too. Almost as if she’d seen a ghost.

“Clayton,” she said in a rough whisper.

Well, at least she remembered him. Clayton wished he could say the same about her. Yeah, he knew those features because of the surveillance footage he’d studied, but he didn’t recognize her.

Still, there was something familiar about her that went beyond recorded images. Maybe because she’d once been in his protective custody.

Something else he couldn’t remember.

She didn’t come closer, but pulled a rag from her coat pocket and wiped her hands. She also dodged his gaze. “How are you?”

“Better than the last time you saw me.”

That brought her gaze back to his. “You got your memory back?”

He lifted his shoulder. “Some of it.” Including all of his childhood, even the rotten parts. Most of adulthood, too. “Not about you, though.”

Clayton paused, studied her expression. Her forehead was bunched up, and while there was concern in her eyes, there was also discomfort.

Probably because he’d found her.

“According to Harlan’s account,” Clayton said, “you didn’t hang around long after I was shot.”

She nodded, swallowed hard. “But I called, to find out that you’d made it out of surgery.”

Yeah. Harlan had told him that, too. But what was missing were the details.

“How’d you find me?” She turned away from him and started to gather her supplies, which she stuffed into a metal toolbox.

“It wasn’t easy.” In fact, it’d been downright hard. Clayton tipped his head to the stained-glass panel. “Not many people do the kind of work you do, so I kept calling churches and other places that have this sort of thing.”

And he’d finally located her through a supplier who was billing a minister in the small town of Sadler’s Falls for repairs to an antique stained-glass window. Lenora’s area of expertise.

“I called the minister,” Clayton explained. “And I posed as someone interested in a getting a referral for some stained-glass repairs needed on a house I’m restoring. He told me about this woman he’d just hired, but I didn’t know it was you until I saw you just now.” He paused. “You’re using a fake name.”

“Yes. After what happened, I thought it was the safe thing to do.”

Probably. But Clayton still needed answers that he hadn’t been able to get from anyone else.

She glanced at the scar on his forehead. It had faded considerably since his surgery three months earlier, but it was a reminder of just how close he’d come to dying.

“I’ve been looking for updates about the shooting,” she said, “but the marshals still haven’t found the person that hired the gunman who put a bullet in you.”

“That’s true.” Not from lack of trying, though. The investigation had been a priority for his foster brothers. And now for Clayton. “But I thought you’d be able to help with that.”

Lenora quickly shook her head. “I can’t. I have no idea who’s behind this.”

“I’m not sure I believe that.”

The pulse in her throat jumped, but before she could repeat her denial, Clayton walked closer, his cowboy boots thudding on the scarred hardwood floors of the old church.

Lenora backed up, and she pulled the sides of the coat closer, hugging it against her body. “You’re accusing me of lying.”

“Yeah,” he readily admitted, and he held out his phone so she could see the video that he’d loaded. “The diner where I was shot doesn’t have a security camera, but there were plenty of them on the Marshals building across the street.”

And thanks to one of those cameras, he could show her the footage of them sitting down in the booth directly in front of the window.

“I understand we sat in that particular spot so I could watch for the black truck that I thought had been following you,” he explained.

She nodded but didn’t say anything. Lenora just watched. There was no audio, but it was clear that Lenora and he were talking in the diner. Clayton waited until the feed got to the first stopping point, then paused the video. He zoomed into his expression.

“I don’t need a body-language expert to tell me that I’m surprised there. Shocked, actually.” He dipped his head down slightly, forcing eye contact. “What did you say to me to put that look on my face?”

She didn’t glance away this time. He was watching her closely. It seemed as if she was having a serious debate with herself—a debate that didn’t turn out well for Clayton, because he saw the exact moment when she decided to lie.

“I can’t remember specifically what I said, but we were talking about the break-ins at the place where I used to live.”

He didn’t doubt that had come up in conversation—Clayton had read the reports of both break-ins—but since he’d already known about them before Lenora showed up at his office that morning, there probably wasn’t much she could have told him that would have shocked him.

So why was she lying?

This was one area where Harlan hadn’t been able to help. His brother had been in the office the morning of the visit, but he hadn’t been privy to what Lenora and he had discussed. Too bad. Because Clayton had the feeling that it was more than important, and he wasn’t letting her out of his sight until he had answers.

Clayton hit Play on the video, and they watched in silence. Well, verbal silence anyway. Lenora was glancing at him from the corner of her eye. He was doing the same, trying to remember anything and everything about her. She certainly didn’t feel like a stranger. And her scent...

That was familiar, too.

Maybe it was his imagination, but that scent seemed to trigger other things. Like the memory of her taste. But that couldn’t have happened. According to every report he’d read, the first time he met Lenora and her friend Jill was when they’d been placed in his protective custody. He wouldn’t have kissed a woman on the job.

Maybe afterward.

After Jill had been murdered. After her shooter had been arrested and put behind bars. Yeah, he could maybe see it happening then, if Lenora had landed in his arms so he could comfort her.

But had they done that?

And if so, why hadn’t Lenora admitted it?

He heard the slight shiver of her breath and looked down at the screen. Their recorded conversation was over, and both had noticed the approaching black truck. Though it was damn hard to watch, Clayton did. And he saw the impact of the bullet as it slammed into his head.

Lenora turned away, or rather started to do that, but Clayton caught her arm, keeping her in place. “Watch,” he insisted.

She did, but from the corner of her eye, and it seemed as if she was genuinely horrified by what she was seeing. Him, slumped against the table, and her, grabbing his gun to return fire.

Clayton hit Pause again the second she pulled the trigger.

It was a clear image of not just the truck but of Lenora. The way she was holding the gun. The expression on her face. The precision with which she returned fire.

“There are only two types of people who react that way in a life-or-death situation,” he said. “Law enforcement and criminals.”

She didn’t ask which he thought she was and didn’t deny his conclusion. Lenora mumbled something, shook her head and walked away from him.