Elle James - Dakota Meltdown

“Nothing. Absolutely nothing.” He shook his head. “How could someone walk right in and steal a person away and no one see or hear anything? How?”

“I don’t know, Mr. Helmke.” Brenna stared straight ahead at nothing Nick could see. “But we’ll do our best to catch him.”

The old man kept talking as if Brenna hadn’t said a thing. “It’s so bad, my wife is afraid to sleep at night and afraid to take sleeping pills in case the kidnapper comes after one of us.” He reached out and grabbed Brenna’s hand. “I have a loaded pistol in my nightstand. Never in the sixty years I’ve lived in Riverton have I slept with a loaded pistol in my nightstand.”

The fear in the old man’s face made Nick’s gut tighten.

“Oh, Mr. Helmke.” Brenna brows dipped low. “Please be careful you or your wife don’t end up shooting each other.”

“Don’t worry. We’ll be careful.” He squeezed her hand. “I knew your daddy, God rest his soul, and I’ve heard good things about you. You’ll catch him, won’t you? We won’t sleep at night with that maniac on the loose. I don’t see how anyone in this town can rest knowing they aren’t safe in their own beds.”

Brenna’s shoulders straightened. “We’ll do our best. I promise.”

Damn right they would. Nick always got his man and this killer wouldn’t get away without paying for his crime.

THE WINDS HAD DIED DOWN by the time they stepped out of the Helmke home into the sunshine. After the brisk breeze out on the lake, the sunshine felt good on Brenna’s face, as if God were making a promise that spring wasn’t far behind. The snow she trudged through on her way to the Jeep was quickly becoming a dirty, slushy mess with water streaming into the streets. “The weatherman said we’d have three full days of this, maybe more.”

“This what?” Nick stood next to her vehicle staring back at Janine Drummond’s house.

“Sunshine and warm temperatures.” Brenna tipped her face to the sun and closed her eyes, absorbing the rays.

“You call this warm?”

Agent Tarver’s voice felt like the sun on her skin, teasing her with a promise of more to come. The thought brought her back to the cold, wet earth with a splash. “It’s above zero,” she said. “What do you want?” She unlocked the door to the Jeep and kicked off the crusty snow from her boots before climbing in.

Tarver repeated the process and got in on his side. “Seventy and sunny would be nice.”

She laughed. “Around here you learn to appreciate anything out of the minus temperatures. A person doesn’t know real misery until he’s stood out in minus forty-five with a windchill factor of minus sixty. That’s when you think seriously about braving the hurricanes of Florida rather than a blue norther.”

Nick shook his head. “Then why do people live here?”

Brenna stared at the silent white cottage where Janine Drummond had once lived and asked herself the same question. “It used to be a good place to raise a family.”

Brenna trailed behind Agent Tarver as he entered the Riverton police station’s conference room.

He hadn’t stopped to strip his jacket, performing this function on the go as he crossed to the whiteboard.

Notes had been added to indicate the location where the first victim’s body had been discovered.

The recurring image of the frozen woman floating at the bottom of two feet of ice wouldn’t be erased from Brenna’s mind any time soon.

“Any news on Olsen?” Nick asked.

“The police haven’t been able to put a finger on him yet.” Paul sat at the computer in the corner with his back to the room, pounding away at the keys. “He’s not where he’s supposed to be and no one’s seen him.”

When Brenna entered the room, she felt the heat of Nick’s gaze following her as she circled the table and stopped in front of the whiteboard covering the east wall.

Melissa perched on the edge of the conference table, a clipboard and pencil in her hands. “We got the list of Special Agent Jensen’s convictions from Bismarck.” She dipped her head toward Brenna. “Impressive. Paul’s running a scan to see if any of them are out on parole and if so, whether or not they’re in this area.”

“I should have a cross match in the next two or three minutes,” Paul said over his shoulder without looking up.

“I’m going to get some coffee.” Nick glanced at Brenna. “Want some?”

She shook her head.

When Nick left the room, Melissa’s gaze darted from Brenna to the empty doorway. “Did you see that, Paul?”

“With my back to the room? Uh, no.” His fingers didn’t slow on the keyboard.

“The great Agent Tarver actually asked someone if they wanted coffee.”

“Is that unusual?” Brenna asked.

“For anyone else, no. For Nick, hell yeah.”

“Our man Nick is known for his dedication to the job,” Paul explained.

“Dedication, hell.” Melissa snorted. “He is the job.”

Brenna didn’t like talking about the man while he wasn’t in the room to defend himself. She feigned interest in the documents scattered across the table and, without looking up, said, “I don’t know what you mean.”

Melissa stared down at the list in her hands, a smile playing around the corners of her mouth. “Ever since Nick’s divorce, he’s been a driven man.”

So, Nick Tarver had been married? Brenna wasn’t surprised. A man with such a wicked combination of black hair and deep green eyes couldn’t stay single long.

“For the past two years, he hasn’t stopped to consider others need food, sleep or even coffee.” Melissa tapped her pencil on the clipboard.

“Until today.” Paul looked around and stared at Brenna as if seeing her for the first time. His eyes narrowed. “Until you.”

“Think the ice is cracking on Nicky?” Melissa tilted her head to the side as her gaze wandered over Brenna.

Brenna squirmed beneath the intensity of their perusal. As if Nick Tarver had any interest in her! She was a criminal investigator, not her sister of the golden-blond-cheerleader perfection. What would he see in her?

Nothing.

“I don’t know. Might be too soon to tell.” With a shrug, Paul turned back to the monitor. “But my money’s on Special Agent Jensen.”

Melissa pushed away from the table and brushed past Brenna. “I’d keep my eye on him if I were you, sweetie. Nick can blow hot and cold in a matter of seconds.”

Melissa didn’t have to waste her breath. Brenna already knew Nick was trouble. The only difficulty would be within herself. The FBI agent would never fall for a woman like her. But any woman could fall for a guy like him.

Not Brenna. She knew better. Nick was strictly a hit-and-run kinda guy. Having survived a past hit-and-run relationship, Brenna was in no hurry to step out in front of a speeding car again.

“Got it.” Paul hit a button on the keyboard and jumped up to stand in front of a printer. “The list I’m printing is a cross reference between all of Brenna’s convictions and those parolees within a two-hundred-mile radius.”

With a long leg swinging back and forth beneath the conference table, Melissa asked, “Did you need to go out that far?”

“We’re in North Dakota, Melissa, not Virginia. People are used to driving long distances to get to little pockets of civilization out here.” The printer spit out four copies of the report. Paul kept one and laid the others on the table.

Nick entered the room, the aroma of coffee filling the air. He leaned close to Brenna and lifted a copy of Paul’s report.

The combination of the coffee and the fresh, outside scent of Nick made Brenna fidgety. She lifted her copy of the report and moved to the far corner of the room. Away from Nick. Then she forced herself to study the page in front of her.