DAY OF RECKONING.
by B.J. DANIELS.
Prologue.
The blur of red taillights on the highway ahead suddenly disappeared in the pouring rain and blackness.
Rozalyn Sawyer hit her brakes, shocked to realize she didn"t know where she was. The road didn"t look familiar. But it was hard to tell in this part of Oregon with an impenetrable jungle of green just off the pavement.
She"d been following the vehicle ahead of her for the past twenty miles. She"d picked it up outside of Oakridge, happy to see another car on this lonely stretch of highway tonight, especially at this time of year.
In her headlights she"d seen the solitary driver silhouetted behind the wheel of the pickup and felt an odd kinship. Between the rain, the darkness and the isolation, she"d been a little uneasy. But then she"d been feeling that way ever since she"d heard her father hadn"t returned from his recent camping trip.
She vaguely remembered seeing a detour sign in the middle of the highway just before the pickup had turned. She"d followed the truck in front of her as the driver turned on to the narrower road to the left, and didn"t remember any other roads off of this one.
But now she saw that the pavement ended. With a shock she realized where she was. Lost Creek Falls. She felt shaken, confused. How had she ended up on the dead-end road to the waterfall?
She"d been following the red taillights in front of her and not paying attention, that"s how. The driver must have taken a wrong turn back at the detour sign and she"d blindly followed him. She"d been distracted, worrying about her father. As far as she could tell, no one had seen or heard from him in more than two weeks-and that included Emily, his bride of six months.
"I told you. He took his truck and camper and his camera, just like he always does," Emily had said when Roz called her yesterday. "He said he"d be back when he came back and not to concern myself. He was very clear about that."
Yes, for a few days. Not for two weeks. Liam Sawyer was in great shape for his age. He would be sixty on Thanksgiving Day, but Roz worried he might be trying to act even younger after marrying a woman fifteen years his junior.
Since no one had heard from him, Roz was sick with worry that something had happened. And now this "detour" would only make her arrival in Timber Falls all that much later.
The other driver had turned around in the gravel parking lot and stopped, his headlights blinding her as she pulled past and started to turn around.
The moonless rainy darkness and the dense forest closed in around her car as she began her turn. Remote areas like this had always unnerved her, especially since from the time she was a child she"d known what was really out there.
Suddenly someone ran through her headlights. All she caught was a flash of yellow raincoat. She hit her brakes and stared ahead of her as the person wearing the bright yellow hooded raincoat climbed over the safety barrier at the top of the falls and disappeared in the trees that grew out over the water.
The driver of the pickup? Why would he venture out to the falls on a night like this, she wondered, watching to see if he reappeared.
Suddenly, she spotted the yellow raincoat through the trees at the edge of the falls. The figure seemed to be teetering on the precipice above the roaring water as if- "Oh, G.o.d, no." Roz threw open her door and ran coatless through the icy cold rain toward the waterfall, fear crushing her chest making it nearly impossible to breathe. Not again. Dear G.o.d, not again.
"Don"t!" she cried, still a dozen yards away.
The person didn"t look her way, didn"t even acknowledge hearing her. Through the rain and darkness, Roz ran, watching in horror as the bright yellow raincoat seemed to waver before it fell forward, dropping over the edge, and being instantly swallowed up in the spray of the falls.
Roz raced to the railing but couldn"t see anything past the trees. Panicked, she ran around the barrier and pushed her way through the tree limbs, praying she"d find the person clinging to the edge.
The roar of the waterfall was deafening. She could feel the spray, warmer than the rain falling around her as she worked her way out onto the moss-slick boulders. She"d had a horrible fear of heights for the past ten years.
But her fear for the jumper was stronger than for herself as she grasped the slim branch of a pine tree leaning out over the waterfall.
Holding on fiercely, she stepped to the edge, her heart dropping as she glimpsed something bright yellow churning in the dark waters below.
She let out a cry and tried to step back. The limb in her hand broke and suddenly she was trying to find purchase on the wet, slick moss at her feet.
With the roar of the waterfall in her ears, she didn"t hear him. Nor did she realize he"d come out onto the rocks above the dizzying dark water until he grabbed her from behind.
Chapter One.
November 14.
It was late when Charity Jenkins heard someone come in to the Timber Falls Courier Timber Falls Courier newspaper office, and realized she"d forgotten to lock the front door. newspaper office, and realized she"d forgotten to lock the front door.
Her hand dropped to the desk drawer and the Derringer she now kept there. She"d put it in the desk after almost being killed a few weeks before. Unfortunately, as the days had gone by, she"d become lax again about security. Probably because for almost thirty years, she"d been safe in Timber Falls.
"Dammit, Charity, if you"re going to work late, you"ve got to lock the door," Sheriff Mitch Tanner barked as he came through the dark doorway.
She let out the breath she"d been holding and gently lowered the gun back into the drawer. "Forgot." She smiled up at him as he moved in to the pool of light at her desk. Her heart did a little dippy-do-da dance, as it always did at the sight of him.
He was tall and dark with two perfect deep-set dimples, a Tanner trait. Gorgeous and impossible and the only man for her.
She watched him glance around the small newspaper office. As owner, publisher, editor and reporter, she often worked late. Her only help was a high school student who came in some evenings. This wasn"t one of those evenings.
So it was just the two of them. Which was nice since it had been a few days since she"d seen the good sheriff.
For years she"d been trying to get him to realize he couldn"t live without her. True, there"d been moments when he"d weakened and kissed her. But he"d always taken off like a shot, holding fast to his conviction that he wasn"t good marriage material and that the two of them together would be murder.
That is, until recently. A few weeks ago, after she"d almost been killed, Mitch had asked her out. On a real date. It had been nothing short of miraculous. Same with the date. And there"d been more kissing. He"d even given her a silver bracelet she"d once admired. The entire episode had bowled her over completely. Maybe there was hope after all.
Unfortunately, she could tell that he was still fighting the inevitable as if he thought there was some doubt that they"d be getting married. Obviously, he didn"t believe, like Charity did, that love conquered all.
"You"re working late," he said, coming around to pull up a chair next to her desk. His gaze went to the open drawer and her gun. With a groan, he reached over to close the drawer. "Tell me it isn"t loaded."
"What would be the point of an unloaded gun?" she asked, wondering why he"d stopped by.
"Try not to shoot yourself, okay?"
She grinned at him. Just the sight of him made her day. Maybe he was here to ask her to that dance at the community center this coming weekend. Or maybe he"d just come by for a kiss. Her lips tingled expectantly at the thought.
But that hope was quickly dashed when he pushed back his sheriff"s hat and put on his official business face.
He cleared his throat and said, "You"re going to hear about this anyway so I thought the best thing to do-"
"What is it?" she asked, sitting up a little straighter. He"d come to tell her something he didn"t want to tell her. This ought to be good. Almost as good as a kiss. Almost.
"You were right," he said, the words clearly difficult for him.
She sat back. Oh yeah, this day just couldn"t get any better. "I"m sorry. I don"t think I heard you correctly?"
"You heard me. You were right. The shot that killed Bud Farnsworth didn"t come from Daisy Dennison"s gun. It came from Wade"s."
Charity jerked back in her chair, the ramifications of his words nearly flooring her. "I knew it. I told you Wade Dennison was in on the kidnapping!"
Wade Dennison was the owner of Dennison Ducks, the local decoy factory outside of town and the largest employer in Timber Falls. Wade had shocked the town by bringing home a much younger wife thirty years ago.
They had a daughter right away, Desiree. Then two years later another one, Angela. Several weeks after Angela"s birth the baby disappeared from her crib never to be seen again. There"d been rumors that the baby wasn"t Wade"s.
No ransom demand was ever made. No body ever found. Daisy Dennison, who"d been the talk of the town, became a recluse after her youngest daughter"s disappearance. That is until Halloween, when she"d showed up with a gun at the Dennison Ducks factory and helped save Charity"s life when the decoy foreman had tried to kill them both.
Bud Farnsworth had abducted Charity to retrieve a letter that implicated him in Angela Dennison"s disappearance. A Dennison Ducks employee named Nina Monroe had mailed the letter to the Timber Falls Courier, Timber Falls Courier, Charity"s newspaper, right before she was killed. Nina had more than a few secrets, it turned out, and a flair for blackmail. Charity"s newspaper, right before she was killed. Nina had more than a few secrets, it turned out, and a flair for blackmail.
Bud destroyed the letter before anyone could read it-including Charity much to her regret-but there was no doubt now that he was somehow involved in kidnapping the baby.
The only question that had remained was: Did he act alone?
Charity was sure he didn"t. In fact, she was d.a.m.ned sure that Wade Dennison had hired Bud to get rid of the baby because he believed Angela wasn"t his. Just before Bud died, he"d tried to talk and he"d been looking right at Wade at the time.
Charity was convinced that Wade had shot Bud to shut him up, and now that she knew Wade had fired the fatal shot that killed Bud-and not his wife, Daisy-Charity was even more convinced of Wade"s guilt.
"Wade was was behind the kidnapping," Charity said. behind the kidnapping," Charity said.
"This is exactly why I wanted to tell you about this myself."
She rolled her eyes. "You told me because you knew I was going to find out." And here she"d been hoping he"d come by just to see her.
"Maybe I thought I could keep you from doing a story that might get you killed."
"You romantic, you."
"I"m serious, Charity. I"m worried about you and what you"re going to do next."
"Mitch, I saw Bud try to say something to Wade right before he died," Charity said, feeling a chill at the memory. "He was going to incriminate Wade. That"s why Wade shot him, so the truth would never come out."
"We don"t know that for a fact and speculating only leads to trouble. Especially in print. I would have thought you"d have learned that by now."
She smiled. This was an old argument between them. "I"m a newspaper woman. It"s my job to get to the truth, and sometimes I have to rattle a few cages to do that and you wouldn"t be worried unless you thought I was right about Wade Dennison being a dangerous man."
Mitch took off his hat and raked his fingers through his hair. "Is there any way I can talk you out of this?"
She c.o.c.ked her head at him. "What did you have in mind?" And to think not long ago she"d thought, if she could just write a Pulitzer Prize-winning story, Mitch would finally realize he couldn"t live without her and ask her to marry him.
Instead, she"d realized that Mitch would have been happier if she wasn"t a journalist at all. For some reason, he worried about her safety. Maybe because a lot of her stories got her into trouble.
He put his hat back on-and his official face.
She could play that game, too. "Have you talked to Wade?" she asked, knowing there was no way Wade was going to speak to her on the record or off.
"He admits he could have fired the fatal shot but says all he could think about was saving his wife, Daisy. That"s the official statement." Mitch reached in to his coat and brought out a folded sheet of paper. He handed it to her.
"I figured that would be his story," she said, unfolding the paper to see that it was an official statement from the sheriff"s office. She tossed it aside. "I"ll be careful what I print, but Mitch, what if I"m right?"
His dark eyes settled on her. "If you"re right, then Wade Dennison is a killer. You might want to keep that in mind."
"But how do we prove it?" she cried. "We can"t let him get away with murder."
"We aren"t going to prove it," he said getting to his feet. "I am. I have no intention of letting him get away with murder-if he"s guilty. But Charity, as hard as this is for you, you might be wrong this time." aren"t going to prove it," he said getting to his feet. "I am. I have no intention of letting him get away with murder-if he"s guilty. But Charity, as hard as this is for you, you might be wrong this time."
She smirked at that. "You know I"m right ninety-nine percent of the time."
He shook his head but seemed unable not to smile down at her. "You are are something." something."
A person could take that a number of ways.
"Try to accept the fact that we may never know what happened to Angela Dennison," he said after a moment.
She couldn"t stand the thought. "There has to be a way."
Mitch was shaking his head. "Charity, getting involved last time almost cost you your life."
True. But it had also made Mitch realize that he cared for her. She wisely didn"t point this out to him though.
He stood looking down at her as if there was more he wanted to say. She waited for him to ask her to the dance. Or maybe to a late dinner. It had been almost a week since he"d kissed her.
"Just be careful, okay?" he said quietly.
She smiled up at him. "You know me."
"Yeah, that"s what worries me." He turned to leave. "See you later." She hoped so as she watched him go, her lips feeling neglected.
She got up and locked the front door as he drove away. Then she turned back to her computer. She had a story to write.
The phone rang. She picked it up, already knowing who it would be.
"I got that ballistics report you wanted," said her source on the other end of the line. "Are you sitting down?"
She sat, even though she already knew the results.
"Wade Dennison"s gun killed Bud Farnsworth."
"You"re the best, Tommy." A thought had been percolating ever since Mitch left. If she was right and Wade Dennison had hired Bud Farnsworth to do his dirty work, then there would be a money trail. "Tommy, I have another little favor."
"Little?" he cried when he heard what she wanted. "Do you realize how many years in prison I could get for hacking in to bank records?"