Chapter 66
He felt her. For a moment, Dom thought he was dreaming of the little witch again. He did that on a far too frequent basis lately. He was starting to think he needed a Madison-exorcism or something. He just grunted. He smelled lilac again…and…copper.
Blood? Hell. He was starting to remember.
“Wake up. We need to break and enter.”
She was touching him. He felt her touch. Of course, he did—she scorched him every time they were within range. The woman had him heart and soul. He suspected she knew it too. He was just going to behave himself. “Get out of my dreams again.”
“Not your dreams. I am your living nightmare, I think. Come on. We’re…here. I didn’t intend to end up here, but I knew the address, and I am tired, and when we crossed the Oklahoma line, it just made the most sense. Come on. Open the eyes or I am going to pinch you.”
She sounded far too close to just be in his dreams. Damn it, he was tired. Then he shifted his arm and remembered what the hell had happened.
Memory started rushing back immediately. Dom opened his eyes and looked at her. This was real. He and Madison were in her car. He had blood all over him and a soiled bandage was still clenched in his hand. “Where the hell are we?”
“Brigadoon? Narnia? Hogwarts? Atlantis? Take your pick.”
He looked around. There was a one-and-a-half story house, probably built in the early 1900s right there.
A front porch wrapped all around it. There was a tire swing hanging from the single large tree in the front yard.
An old barn loomed about three hundred feet away, and what looked like a storm cellar entrance near the opposite side.
All of that was visible in the single security light by the gravel drive.
It looked abandoned and sinister and the last place he would have thought she’d bring him. “Where the hell are we at?”
“Welcome to the Coleson Ranch. Well, I think it was more a mini farm when Hope and Heather lived here. This is where Hope grew up. I just…remembered the address and that she said Norm was keeping the utilities on while he repaired a few things. She was upset that they were talking about selling the place later this summer. She really loves it here. And when we crossed the Oklahoma line, I didn’t know where else to stop for the night.
She had told me, you just got on the highway and kept going, until you hit their town.
First left after the post office and you just keep going seven miles.
The road ends on their farm. So easy. I mean, we could have gone to St. Louis to Zoey’s family up there but…
it was so far away, and I didn’t want to impose. And I figured you’d want some input.”
Dom took another look around as he opened the door.
Hell, it would most likely be a safe place for the night.
A place he could grab a damned shower—if there was running water—and a chance to regroup.
Plan what happened next. And get in touch with the ones who needed to know what had happened.
“Get out. Let’s get inside. It feels like it’s going to storm soon. ”
“Weather on the radio said potential nasty storm on the way. That’s another reason I came…here. Hope told me a story about tornadoes here before—there is a storm shelter. She said they all fit in there, and Summer brought goats in once. I do not want to be driving in a tornado. I just do not.”
Dom knew she’d been terrified of storms ever since the tornado had destroyed the TSP a few years ago.
He’d held her in his arms as the building around them had been destroyed.
They hadn’t been trapped that day—he’d been able to shift the debris off them both—but he and Madison had been in the parking lot, bickering over something he couldn’t even remember.
He had grabbed her around the waist and tossed her over his shoulder and gotten her inside the building as fast as he could that day.
Only to have the building come down around them.
“Let’s just get inside. See if there is anything to eat. See if the water is running. Maybe I’ll get lucky and there will be something in there that I can wear. This shirt is ruined.”
“Not to mention it’s evidence and it will stand out if someone sees you.
” Madison opened her car door and stepped outside.
Dom did the same. There was a sign right there next to the driveway.
He shone his light at it. Welcome to Coleson Ranch.
“Hope said something about how Bonnie used to keep a key outside the door so the girls could get in if needed. I wonder if they do that now.”
“I doubt Halson leaves a key outside.” Dom had his theories about that man. He’d run Norman Halson through every database he had access to.
Norman Halson’s military service record was throwing up flags. It was too polished and neat. Especially when Dom looked at that man more closely. Everything was just too prettily wrapped up. There hadn’t even been one write-up in the man’s file at all. Nothing.
On paper, he looked perfect. Dom had never trusted perfect.
He moved with the same kind of stealth that Dom had seen with ex-special forces before.
He suspected Halson had done things that the military would never want to talk about.
He’d wondered just exactly how much that man knew about what was going on in Finley Creek.
The guy was dangerous. Dom would bet good money on that.
But Halson wasn’t anywhere around. This probably was one of the safest places for Madison tonight. And that mattered.
Dom waited until she was up on the porch. He rattled the door handle. It was locked, just as he suspected it would be. Solid. He was not going to break down the man’s door.
“We’re going to have to break in. Unless…you can pick a lock?” Madison had a curious soul. He’d seen her do things exactly like that before. She’d make an excellent cat burglar, his little shrew. She was already digging in that damned bag that went with her everywhere.
“I don’t think I’d need to do that. I can get into this window, probably in less than ten minutes, if you can hold my bag.”
Dom just did that, watching as she went to the old window by the end of the porch. And got to work.
It took her nine minutes, but she ended up popping the screen and the window beneath it right out. Just enough for her to raise the top pane of the window about eight extra inches. “It’s not a wide window, but I can get in, I think. Can you boost me without hurting yourself?”
He grunted. His arm wasn’t hurt that badly.
Not even two minutes later, his little cat burglar swung the door open and let him inside.
She had turned a light on in the interior hall that he hadn’t even seen from the front door.
It was enough to see the satisfied look in her eyes.
He’d seen her get into locked doors, and secret rooms, several times before.
Give this woman a screwdriver and a paperclip, she’d probably be able to take over the entire US Coast Guard or something.
“Hope told me how to open that window, you know. We were on a scene on Boethe at a house she said looked just like the one she grew up in. Same porch and same floor plan and windows. She showed me how the killer had probably gotten in the window. By demonstrating. We investigated that window for two hours, until we both could get inside it in under five minutes. It came in handy—the bad guy’s lawyer was saying that it wasn’t possible.
We demonstrated in court. It was so fun to prove that guy wrong. Sleezy kind. Sano.”
“I’ve come across him before. Guy constantly switches sides. You forensics nerds are the most dangerous women on the planet.”
“You know, I have heard that before. Jarrod told Haldyn that once. Back when they were arguing about something. So…passionate, those two.”
“No kidding. Like no one could see what was going to happen there.”
“Yes, no kidding.”
Well, Dom wasn’t an idiot. People had said the same thing to his face about this woman right here now.
“There a bathroom nearby?” He had to get away from her. Before he did something stupid. He hadn’t forgotten where they’d left off before he’d been called to Jake’s house in the first place.
Hours ago. It seemed like a lifetime.
“It’s at the back of the house. Hope grew up here with Bonnie and the rest of her sisters and nieces.
But after they moved to Hughes Heights, I think Norm and Marcia and their kids moved in.
Hope said they had been renting in town for years, but they moved in here to save money.
I feel bad, invading their space and everything.
But what else were we supposed to do? I saw a lot of TSP out tonight.
What if they were actually looking for us? ”
He would never forget the fear in her words then. Of course she would be terrified. It had been the damned TSP who had shot her in the back. No. She wouldn’t have trusted any of them.
“We’re safe here. And I think that is what will matter to Hope and her family.
” He suspected they’d decided to just absorb Madison into their ranks after what had happened to her and Hope because of that bastard Wilson.
Rather like Heather’s family had just absorbed Powell Barratt after the hell she and Heather had experienced as well. “We’ll pay to replace anything we use.”
“It just feels weird.” She rubbed her elbows, that same little thing she did when she was angsting over something. Dom knew this woman better than he knew himself. Now that the adrenaline rush was over from what had happened to him, that was when the trauma of what it had been would hit her.
All he’d been able to think about tonight was keeping her safe.
Madison McAlister would always be his first thought and his last.