Danger on Her Doorstep

“My Taser. I left it in the cruiser and you were the only person out here. Don’t tell me you didn’t take it.”

Maggie took a step back as Gideon turned his fierce glare on the deputy. “Bernie, what would I want with your Taser? I carried my own for years.”

“Yeah, and you obviously didn’t want to give it up when you stepped down, did you?”

To Maggie’s relief, Gideon didn’t let the argument escalate. “I don’t have your Taser, Bernie,” he stated flatly. “I don’t know anything about it.”

The deputy stared down his former boss for several long seconds before he finally said, “I’m watching you, Bromley. Everybody in Holyoake knows you’re dirty. It’s just a matter of time until the DNE proves it.” He headed back to the passenger side of the cruiser and climbed inside, slamming the door as the car drove away.

Maggie watched the marked vehicle as it rumbled away. She glanced back at Gideon in time to see the stern cleft between his brows relax slightly.

“Sorry about that.” He looked around them. “I don’t know what might have happened to his Taser. That car was within my sight almost the entire time it was back here, except for when I went around the other side of the shed.”

“Maybe he just misplaced it,” Maggie offered as she led the former sheriff back toward the house.

“Maybe.” Gideon sounded unconvinced. “Maybe another officer might, but Bernie’s downright particular about things.”

Maggie didn’t like the sound of that. Between people sneaking around, stealing things and trying to break into the house, she didn’t feel very comfortable around the old place. She also felt bothered by Bernie’s comment about Gideon being proved guilty.

They headed back down to the basement and Gideon pounded the door frame back into place using long nails from the pouch of the tool belt he wore around his waist. Maggie waited for his pounding to stop before asking him the question that was on her mind.

“What’s the DNE?”

Gideon gave the door frame a couple of hard tugs and scowled at it. But the extra nails he’d pounded into place seemed to hold it, and he faced her with a sigh. “DNE stands for the Iowa Division of Narcotics Enforcement. They investigate illegal narcotics operations—in my case, they’re trying to sort out the extent of my brother’s meth operation, including trying to determine whether I was involved.”

“How long does that usually take?” Maggie asked. She could tell Gideon wasn’t happy about discussing the topic, but the question had been worrying her. Once his case was resolved, he wouldn’t be available to help her. Whether he ended up going to prison or just back to his job as sheriff, Maggie was concerned about whether he’d have time to work on her house at all.

“Simple cases can be resolved in a matter of weeks, sometimes ten days or less. But in the case of my brother’s operation, catching Bruce and his men was just the tip of the iceberg. The DNE hasn’t told me much, but I know their methods well enough to know that it’s going to take a long time to sort out everything in my brother’s case, maybe even several months.”

Gideon slammed the drop bar into place, then pulled out his hammer and pounded in a few more nails. His loud pounding told Maggie their conversation was over.

Once Gideon seemed satisfied that the cellar door was secure, he followed Maggie as she climbed the interior stairs. The rooms upstairs were dark, and dusty old furniture filled the first floor, their odd-shaped forms looming like monsters, capable of hiding killers in their shadows, compelling her to quicken her steps as she made her way through the rambling old house toward the front door.

Though it was getting dark outside and the front foyer was dim, Maggie wasn’t ready to leave. She had a feeling her questions had already probed deeper than what Gideon had wanted to discuss. But at the same time, she needed to know more about how her father had died. She simply wouldn’t be able to sleep otherwise. There was so much that still hadn’t been explained.

When she’d asked Bernie Gills about the accidental-death ruling, the deputy had shrugged off her concerns.

“He fell down the stairs. I’m sorry to say it, but he was getting older. Probably wasn’t so steady on his feet. And hauling all those tiles, well, a guy has to be careful when he’s working alone,” Gills had said.

Maggie wasn’t sure if she felt hurt because the loss of her father was still so fresh, or if she felt stung because of the deputy’s vague insinuation that her father had been careless enough to fall to his death. She didn’t like to think that her father was a careless, sloppy man, but then, how else could she explain the mysterious illness that had stricken the people living in one of her father’s rentals twenty years before? Everyone had said her father’s negligence was to blame. The shame she felt over it was the primary reason she’d left town immediately after graduation, and the reason she still felt uncomfortable showing her face in Holyoake. Facing Gideon Bromley, whose young niece had nearly died from the incident, was even harder.

But right now, Gideon was the only one who could answer her questions. “Do you agree with Bernie’s conclusion about how my father died?” she asked Gideon as they paused by the front door.

The stern-faced man scowled, making his expression even fiercer. “I don’t like to say negative things about my coworkers, but Bernie had a habit of cutting corners when he could. It doesn’t escape my notice that he wrapped up your father’s case quickly, right before Kim was appointed interim sheriff. He never appreciated having a supervisor question his report.”

“So you think…?” Maggie couldn’t bring herself to finish the sentence.

“I think it’s possible Bernie didn’t want to have to look for a murderer, so he ruled your father’s death an accident before he’d fully examined all the possibilities.”

It was as she’d feared. “You never finished telling me why you suspected it wasn’t an accident.”

The formidable man leaned toward her, his dark eyes black in the dying light. Maggie thought about turning a light on, but his shadowed gaze held her eyes, and her fear kept her rooted in place.

“Your father called me,” Gideon began again where he’d left off in his story earlier, “and said he’d found something in the basement that he wanted me to see. I asked him what it was, but he said I wouldn’t believe it until I saw it with my own eyes. I wish I could recall his exact words, but I know he said it was very suspicious, whatever it was. When I got here twenty minutes later, he was dead.”

“So that’s the reason you think he might have been murdered—because he found something suspicious inside the house?”

“Yes. That, and when I found him, his pockets were all turned inside out.”

Maggie took a startled step back, and the old floorboards groaned along with her. “Someone searched his body before you got there?”

“That’s what it looked like to me. I can’t imagine your father running around with his pockets inside out—that just wasn’t like him. I knew him well enough to know that. His wallet was lying beside him on the floor, but from what we could tell, nothing was missing. We took fingerprints. Most of them matched your father’s, but there were a few that still hadn’t found a match when I was last on the case.”

Much as Maggie tried to tell herself it didn’t make any difference, the idea that her father may have been murdered made his death that much more difficult to bear. She bit down on her lower lip to keep it from trembling.

Gideon obviously noticed her distress. “I’m sorry. Maybe I shouldn’t be telling you this.”

“No.” She sniffled and tried to work her face into a smile. “I’m glad you told me. I was thinking about moving into this house since we’re going to be working on it anyway, but I’m not going to do that as long as the cause of my father’s death is unresolved.” She stopped short as the expression on Gideon’s face tightened. “If you want to work on the house, that is. I didn’t mean to assume—”

“It’s fine. I’ll take the job, if you’re offering it. I owe your father, you know.”

Maggie wasn’t sure she understood what he meant. “You mean since he taught you about carpentry?”

“I suppose that.” Gideon’s mouth tightened into a grim line. “And because I failed to catch his killer.”

Not willing to think about that subject any longer, Maggie said, “It’s getting dark, and I really don’t want to stay here any later this evening. Can I meet you tomorrow morning to talk about plans for the house?”

Gideon nodded and reached for the doorknob, easily opening the door that had given Maggie so much trouble earlier. “Sure thing.” They arranged when to meet, and Gideon extended his hand toward her as he thanked her again. “I appreciate having some work to do. This project should give me plenty to get my mind off everything else that’s happened.”

Reluctantly, Maggie shook his hand, once again surprised by the warmth she felt at that simple contact, and by the glittering blackness of his eyes in the dusky room. “I appreciate your willingness to take on the job, in spite of its complexity.” She fumbled over her words as she looked up at him, feeling an odd connection with the man who knew her father so well. With the man who’d found her father’s dead body.

THREE

Gideon arrived at the house on Shady Oak Lane ten minutes early and settled his tool belt around his hips where his gun belt used to sit. The weight of the hammer and measuring tape weren’t equal to that of his gun and billy club, but it nonetheless felt good to wear the tools of a trade again, even if it wasn’t his chosen trade.

He grabbed his clipboard and circled the property, watchful for any signs of disturbance or clues that may have been missed before. It bothered him that Glen Arnold’s murderer was still at large, without even so much as an investigation under way to catch him. If Gideon had anything to say about it, the murderer would be caught. He might not be sheriff any longer, but he’d ensure the future safety of Glen Arnold’s daughter. He owed the man that much.

As he came around to the front side of the house, he saw Maggie drive up in her father’s truck, looking even smaller than usual behind the wheel of the full-size pickup. Poor girl. She looked skittish as she hopped out of the front seat, glancing around nervously as though her father’s murderer might leap out of the bushes at any moment. Even from across the yard, he could see the fear on her face, the same vulnerability that had crossed her expression so many times when they’d spoken the day before.

His jaw tightened along with his resolve. He would keep this woman safe. He’d failed her father. He’d failed all of Holyoake County by missing the clues to his brother’s drug-making activities for so long. He wouldn’t be able to live with himself if he failed Maggie Arnold, too.

“Good morning,” he called out so she wouldn’t be startled by his approach. “Just thought I’d secure the perimeter before we start.”

Her tense expression relaxed slightly. “I appreciate that. You wouldn’t think less of me if I told you this place gives me the creeps?” She fell into step beside him as they made their way up the overgrown front path to the porch steps.

Gideon held the screen door open for her as she worked her key in the front-door lock. “Don’t ever be ashamed of being afraid. Sometimes fear is what keeps us alive.”

Maggie froze and looked up at him. “My father used to say that.”