Stalked in the Night Read online

  She knew he could get answers where she might not be able to. His name not only commanded a lot of respect, but also a bit of fear. Storekeepers would speak to him because the Albrights owned most of the stores. Yes, she would dance with him in this investigation, but she couldn’t let him in on a personal level.

  Last night had proven just how dangerous he was to her. There was a part of her that ached with desire for him, a place that wanted to go back to that simpler time when they were just two teenagers madly in love with each other.

  But going back in time wasn’t possible, and having any kind of a personal relationship with Jake wasn’t an option. She needed him right now to be her partner in helping to solve the mystery of the threats against her. But that was all she needed him for.

  “I’ll warn you, from what I hear this Kincaid fellow is a bit of an eccentric old coot.” Wayne gave them Kincaid’s address and then stood from the kitchen table. “All I ask is that you keep track of who you talk to and what they say. As soon as we get on top of this murder case, I’ll have everyone in the station working on who is terrorizing you, Eva.”

  “Thanks, Wayne.” Eva and Jake walked him to the front door. There was no question Eva was disappointed that Wayne couldn’t get his men to investigate her case right now. But she certainly couldn’t blame him for needing to investigate a murder that had just taken place the night before, and she knew how small Wayne’s department and resources were.

  “Want to take a ride?” Jake asked the minute Wayne had left.

  “Where are we going?” she asked.

  “How about we go talk to an eccentric old man about a knife?”

  She nodded. “I’m in, as long as I’m back here by three forty-five or so when Andy gets off the bus.”

  “Then let’s see how much investigating we can get done before then.”

  Minutes later they were in Jake’s truck. The scent inside the cab cast her back in time—the pleasant smells of leather polish, his fresh-scented cologne and the familiar aroma that was in all her memories as just being Jake’s.

  Before they’d left her house, she’d grabbed a notebook in order to keep track of whom they spoke to and what they were told. She wanted to provide a clear and complete record for Wayne to use when he followed up.

  “I can’t believe Walter was murdered,” she said once they were underway. “I can’t even remember the last time Dusty Gulch had a murder. And who on earth would want to hurt poor Walter?”

  “I wouldn’t have a clue. Hopefully Wayne will be able to solve it quickly,” Jake replied.

  “I can’t imagine who he’ll even find as a suspect. I’ve never heard of Walter exchanging cross words with anyone.” Just like she really didn’t have a clue who any real suspect was in her own case.

  It bothered her that the person who was terrorizing her could be somebody she saw often, somebody who smiled at her and was pleasant to her and yet hid this kind of evil hatred toward her.

  Jake rolled down his window partway even with the air conditioner blowing from the truck vents. Immediately the scents of dusty heat and pastures filled the truck’s interior.

  “Ah, I missed the smell of the pastures while I was away,” he said. “I also missed this scenery.”

  “But I’ve heard wine country is quite beautiful,” she replied.

  “Oh, it is, but it wasn’t the sights or smells of home.” He drew in a deep breath. “Now this looks and smells like home.”

  She wanted to ask him why he had flown to Italy the day after their breakup, but she knew the answer. His father would have orchestrated that to keep the two young lovers as far away from one another as possible. And Jake would have done anything to gain his father’s approval.

  “If you were so homesick, why did you stay away for so long?” she asked. Even in profile he was an extremely handsome man. She turned her gaze away from him and instead gazed out the front window.

  “My father depended on me to run the wine business. He trusted me, and I didn’t want to disappoint him. He thought I needed to be there and so I stayed, but I’m glad to be back here now.”

  “I have to admit, I’m glad you’re here now. Otherwise Wayne would still be giving me the runaround,” she replied.

  “Wayne’s not a bad guy—he’s just lazy and needs somebody to push him occasionally,” Jake replied.

  “He’ll have his hands full now with the murder.” Eva shook her head. She still couldn’t believe somebody had murdered Walter in his sleep.

  For a few minutes, they rode in a comfortable silence. Hopefully Riley Kincaid kept a record of what stores carried his knives and who might have bought them directly from him. And hopefully one of those names was the person who was tormenting her.

  “Tell me more about your husband.”

  She turned to look at him, surprised by his question. “What do you want to know about him?”

  “Was he good to you?”

  Eva’s heart squeezed tight as she thought of Andrew. “He was very good to me.”

  “I’m glad. I heard he died of pancreatic cancer. That must have been very tough on you.”

  “It was. It’s a brutal disease.” It had been torture to watch Andrew suffer. In the end she’d been grateful that he’d finally passed to escape the ravages of the cancer. She’d been holding his hand when he’d finally taken his last breath.

  “I’m so sorry you had to go through that,” Jake said.

  “I knew he was sick when I married him. Part of our arrangement was that I would be there for him to the end so he wouldn’t have to die all alone. His parents were dead and he had no siblings. He really had nobody in his life except me.”

  “You said it was part of your arrangement.” Jake shot her a curious look, and Eva cursed herself for saying as much as she had. “What do you mean by an arrangement?”

  “Nothing,” she replied quickly. “I just meant that when you marry somebody, you take a vow to be there in sickness and in health.”

  Thankfully that seemed to end his curiosity. He slowed the truck as they approached the turnoff on a narrow, two-lane country road. “This guy definitely lives out in the middle of nowhere.”

  “I wish somebody had been able to give us a phone number so we could call ahead to let him know we’re coming,” she replied. Wayne had told them that he had no phone contact for the man. He had a primitive web page up showcasing his knives but only an email address for contact.

  “Let’s just hope he got the email we sent,” Jake replied. Before they had left her house, she had emailed Riley to let him know they were coming. Unfortunately there was no way for them to know how often the man read his email.

  Once again they fell silent, although this silence felt charged with energy. She wasn’t sure what Jake was feeling at the moment, but there was definitely a slight edge of desperation that tightened her chest.

  She’d been living with her own personal nightmare for the past three weeks. From the moment she’d found her first dead cow and the first note in her mailbox, there had been a chill deep in her bones that grew colder with each new discovery. She was desperate for answers and hoped the knife maker would have them for her.

  Jake pulled the truck to a halt and peered down the road that led to their right. Calling it a road was a stretch—it was little more than a dirt path through trees that encroached on either side.

  “I think that is the driveway,” he said.

  “It looks more like a deer trail,” she replied.

  He turned into it and instantly hit a big pothole. “It’s a bumpy deer trail. Hold on to your seat.”

  He had to crawl down the road as he attempted to miss the worst of the bumps. He also had to swerve slightly to avoid hitting a rabbit and then several squirrels that scurried across the road in front of them.

  The air coming in through his window, rather than smelling
of sweet pastures, now smelled of something dark and mysterious. The morning sunlight disappeared, trapped by the canopy of thick tree branches overhead.

  “Nervous?” Jake asked, obviously picking up on her anxiety.

  “Nervous,” she admitted. “And eager. I’m really hoping in the next few minutes we’ll get the answer I need to make all this craziness stop. I need to know who is doing all this to me and why.”

  “That would definitely be a good thing,” he replied. They broke into a small clearing, and he stopped the truck in front of a weathered wooden gate spray-painted with the words No Trespassing.

  In the distance a small ramshackle cabin sat next to an outbuilding that was almost the same size. A large blackened chimney rose up from the outbuilding.

  Old tires, colorful wind whirligigs and a couple of old toilets sporting arrays of flowers growing from them littered the front yard. It was hard to believe the answer to the mystery might lie in the little cabin.

  They got out of the truck and approached the gate to the sound of birds singing in the trees and the rustle of animals in the nearby brush.

  Jake reached out to open the gate. A gunshot sounded, and the bark on the tree near where Eva stood splintered from the force of a bullet hitting it.

  “Get down,” Jake yelled at her. He tackled her to the ground and threw his body over the top of hers as the scent of imminent danger filled her head.

  * * *

  EVA’S HEART BANGED with fear and the shock of nearly being shot. What was happening? Why had the person in the cabin nearly hit her with a bullet? Jake’s body covered hers, his heart hammering almost as quickly as her own.

  “You okay?” he asked softly. His eyes were as dark as night and narrowed with a sharp focus.

  “I... I’m okay,” she replied.

  Jake rose up a bit, his gaze going toward the cabin. Eva clutched at his shoulders, afraid if he rose up any more he’d catch a bullet in his head. Why on earth had they just been shot at? What was going on now?

  “Riley Kincaid,” Jake yelled. “We’re here to ask you some questions about your knives.”

  “You can’t fool me,” a deep, raspy voice shouted back. “You look like some of those government tax people. You got the stink of tax agents, and you ain’t coming in here and messing in my business. Go away and stay off my property.”

  “We aren’t tax agents,” Jake yelled back. “We have nothing to do with the government. She is Eva Martin and I’m Jake Albright. We just need to ask you some questions about your knives.”

  “Albright?” There was a long pause. “Are you Justin’s boy?”

  Jake slowly rose to his feet and motioned for Eva to stand just behind him. Her legs were still shaky, and her heart still beat far too quickly. At least they were standing up and no bullets had followed the one that had scared her half to death.

  “Yes,” Jake replied. “Justin is my father.”

  Eva held her breath. The man with the gun might not be a fan of the Albrights. Maybe he hated them and would shoot at them again, and standing here they both made perfect targets.

  Riley Kincaid stepped out onto the porch. He was a tall, thin man clad in a pair of worn jeans and a dirty white T-shirt. Frizzy gray hair fell to his shoulders, and he held a rifle in his hand. “Well, why in the hell didn’t you say so in the first place? Come on in.”

  Jake threw his arm around her shoulders and then opened the gate. Together they advanced toward the weatherworn cabin. She released a sigh of relief as Riley leaned the gun against the porch rail.

  “So, you’re Jake Albright,” Riley said. “Your daddy speaks well of you.” He grinned, exposing a missing front tooth. “That man loves my knives.”

  “Unfortunately, he passed away several days ago,” Jake replied.

  “Well, that’s a damn shame.” Riley frowned and then grinned once again. “Even with all his buckets of money, he always tried to talk me down on the price of my knives. We’d haggle for an hour or so before he’d finally pay me what I wanted. Sometimes I’d knock off a couple of dollars just to make him feel better about it.”

  “We’d like to ask you some questions about people who have bought your knives,” Jake said.

  “Well, come on inside and we’ll talk.”

  The living room/kitchen was obviously Riley’s work area. Two pieces of plywood were set up like workbenches, each of them holding knife handles in various stages of completion. Wood shavings and dust covered the floor.

  “Have you seen any of my knives?” he asked.

  “Only one,” Eva replied.

  “Let me show you some of them,” he said and led them to the workbench. It was obvious the man was very proud of his hand-carved handles, as he should be. The handles held the images of birds and dogs and all kinds of wildlife.

  They were all absolutely exquisite, except one that instantly sent her heart racing and her hands trembling. The handle had the carving of a wolf on it. Even though it wasn’t exact, the knife looked very close to the one that had been stabbed through the heart left hanging on her porch railing.

  Although Eva was eager to get to the matter at hand, and despite the fear that the wolf knife brought back to her, she couldn’t help but admire the obvious talent Riley had in carving something beautiful into a simple piece of wood.

  “These are all so beautiful,” she said.

  “If you want, I can show you my setup in the outbuilding. That’s where I make the blades. They’re all good and balanced and very sharp,” Riley said.

  “Thanks, but what we really need is some answers from you,” Jake said.

  “Then let’s sit and talk,” Riley replied.

  There was only a worn recliner in the work area. He led them to a small kitchen table, where they all sat. “Can I get you something to drink? Or maybe a little snack?”

  “No, thank you,” Eva replied. She couldn’t imagine what the man would provide as a little snack. But she couldn’t help but notice the cockroaches that scurried across the kitchen counters. The fact that they were active even in the daytime let her know his roach problem was huge. She definitely had no appetite to eat anything he might prepare for them.

  “Thanks, but we’re good,” Jake said. “What we’d like to find out is if you keep records of who buys your knives.”

  “I’ve got records of who buys from me directly, but they’re sold in three different stores, and once a month or so I go in and they pay me for the knives I’ve sold, but I don’t get no names from them.”

  “Could we have a list of who you’ve sold to directly?” Jake asked. “We’re especially interested in the ones that have wolf handles.”

  Riley narrowed his pale blue eyes. “Are you sure you’re not working with the damned tax people?”

  “I promise you we aren’t,” Eva said and then proceeded to tell him about why they were interested. She explained to him about the dead cows and then the heart hung on her porch by one of Riley’s knives.

  “Now that just ticks me the hell off,” Riley said when she was finished. “My knives are meant to be collectibles, not to be used for such evil intent.” He rose from the table and disappeared into what Eva presumed was a small bedroom.

  Anxiety still fired through Eva. To her surprise Jake reached across the table and took one of her hands in his. He cast her a reassuring smile. She shouldn’t have been surprised by his gesture. He’d always been able to read her mind, to read her moods.

  As Riley returned carrying a spiral notebook, Jake released her hand and sat up straighter in the chair, obviously as eager as she was for any information Riley could give them.

  “How far back you want me to go? I’ve been selling these knives in the stores and from my website for the past five years or so.” He opened the notebook, which displayed surprisingly pretty and neat handwriting.

  “We’re really interes
ted in the ones with wolf handles,” Jake said.

  Riley frowned. “I didn’t keep records of what was on the knife handles, and the wolf knives are really popular.”

  “Then let’s start with a year ago and see if any of the names you have ring a bell,” Jake said.

  “You tell me, girlie, if you recognize one of these people,” Riley said to Eva. “I want to know who disrespected my knife by doing something so wicked to you.”

  Eva had never been called “girlie” in her life, and normally she’d be offended as hell by the term. But she knew Riley hadn’t used it to diminish her. Besides, she was here for answers, not to get all riled up about political correctness.

  “Do you know how many knives Justin Albright bought from you?” Eva asked. If Justin hadn’t been sick when her whole ordeal had started, she would have suspected he was behind the attacks on her.

  She would have thought that he believed Jake was getting homesick enough to return and he’d tried to drive her out of town before Jake returned home. But Justin Albright was dead and the threats were ongoing.

  “I believe he bought ten in total.”

  Eva turned and looked at Jake. “Do you know where those knives are?”

  “I don’t know right now, but I’ll find out before the day is over,” he replied.

  She knew Jake’s father wasn’t responsible, but maybe it was possible one of his knives had been stolen and used. She didn’t want to leave any stone unturned in trying to find out who was responsible for her fear.

  Riley began to read off the names of his customers. With each one he mentioned, Eva’s hope that she might find an answer here began to wane. The names were unfamiliar to her.

  “Griff Ainsley,” Riley said, and the name caused all the hairs at the nape of her neck to rise up.

  “Your high school barn partier,” Jake said.

  She nodded. Was it possible this was all the work of a bunch of teenagers? Could kids really be this evil? She just found it so unbelievable. Had the knife Griff bought been the same one that had stabbed through a cow’s heart?