I’m stateside instead of with my buddies in Afghanistan.” Darius offered the information, knowing it would distract Catherine, ease some of the tension from her face and shoulders.
“I’m sorry.”
“I’m alive. Some of my buddies weren’t so fortunate.”
“Then, I guess I’m even more sorry,” she responded, surprising him. Most people who heard the story missed the part where he mentioned the bigger loss he’d suffered. Not his leg. His comrades. He’d give the other leg and both his arms to have any of them back.
“It was rough.”
“What happ—?”
“How about we save the question-and-answer session for another day?” He cut her off. Sharing some information to take her mind off what had happened was one thing. Talking in depth about his loss, that was something else.
“I thought you were heading to the hospital,” Logan called from the porch, and Catherine stiffened, her tension flooding back.
“The Buick wouldn’t start.”
“Not surprising. You need to trade that rust bucket in for something reliable.”
“The car is fine, Logan.” She sounded weary, and Darius had the urge to slide an arm around her waist, let her lean on him. He doubted she ever leaned on anyone, though, and he kept his distance, watching as she brushed dirt from her faded jeans and avoided Logan’s eyes.
“I noticed you had some vandalism on the porch. When did it happen?”
“Sometime after I left to bring Eileen to the hospital. The siding was vandalized, too, but I was able to cover that before...” She didn’t finish, and Darius imagined her out on the porch, covering paint with paint while danger stalked her.
“You didn’t report it,” Logan said, and Catherine shrugged.
“I reported the broken windows three weeks ago. I reported the slashed tire before that. I reported crank calls and people driving by the house at all hours of the night. It didn’t do me any good. I figured calling the sheriff about this was going to be just as useless.”
“I’m sorry you felt that way, Catherine. We’ve been working hard to identify the perpetrators of those crimes. It just takes time,” Logan responded with more gentleness than Darius had ever seen in him. Did he feel guilty for his part in Catherine’s conviction and incarceration? No doubt, he’d been with the sheriff’s department when she’d been accused of murdering eleven patients at the convalescent center where she’d worked.
“I know that, and I’m not blaming your office, Logan. It’s just...I don’t have time. Eileen is really sick, and I can’t have her stressed out and upset every other week. I figured I’d just clean things up before she got home and pretend nothing had happened.”
“Pretending won’t make trouble go away.”
“I know.” She touched the bruise on her jaw. “Look, I know you have a bunch of questions, and I’ll answer them. But I really have to get to the hospital. I don’t want Eileen waiting and wondering if something has happened to me.”
“Something did happen to you,” Darius cut in, and she frowned.
“Nothing permanent. We’ll talk when I get back, Logan,”
“We’ll be here. I called in a K-9 unit, and I’m hoping they’ll catch the perp’s trail. Want me to have an officer give you a ride to the hospital?”
“I don’t think I want to be seen in a police car, but thank you,” she responded, a hint of irony in her words.
“We can have an unmarked car—”
“I’m going to give her a ride, and I’ll make sure she doesn’t run into any more trouble on the way to or from the hospital.” Darius cut into the conversation again, and Catherine wanted to tell him that she’d be the one to make sure that she didn’t run into more trouble. That she’d take care of herself and her grandmother the same way she had for most of her life, but saying anything would take time and effort she didn’t want to waste.
“I guess having a bodyguard as a neighbor is going to pay off for you, today, Catherine,” Logan commented as he snapped several pictures of the porch and the red paint.
“Bodyguard?” Catherine shouldn’t have been surprised. She’d guessed Darius to be police or FBI. A bodyguard seemed an extension of those things. Somehow, she was surprised, though. She couldn’t imagine him escorting high-profile clients to high-profile events.
Or maybe she could.
Dress him in tux, slick back his hair and he’d easily pass for someone with money and looks to spare.
“Security contractor,” he corrected, and then turned to Logan. “You’ve got my cell phone number, Randal. Give me a call if the K-9 unit sniffs anything out.”
“I don’t recall you being part of this case, Osborne.”
“Catherine is my neighbor, so I’m making myself part of it,” Darius responded easily as a police K-9 unit pulled into the driveway.
“How about I decide who is going to be part of the case and who isn’t after Eileen is home?” Catherine tried to put some force into the words, but they sounded weak and shaky.
“You’re right. We’re wasting time. Call me, Randal.” Darius tossed the words over his shoulder as he hurried Catherine to the dirt road that she’d run along less than an hour before. Terror had fueled her then. Now, she felt nothing but tired. She’d known that returning to Pine Bluff after she’d been released from prison wouldn’t be easy, but she hadn’t expected it to be so difficult. She’d thought she could hide away in the farmhouse, tend to Eileen and ignore the people who whispered and pointed, but the townspeople didn’t seem willing to let her alone. Some of them simply wanted the story of her time in prison. Others were still convinced she was a murderer.
Apparently, one of them wanted her gone.
She touched her neck, then let her hand drop away. She didn’t want Darius to know how shaken she was. She didn’t want anyone to know it. Keep things close to the cuff. That’s what her grandmother had taught her, and it’s what she’d always done. There’d been a time in her life when she’d thought things might be different, that she could let down her guard, trust someone else with her emotions, but her arrest had proven just how foolish that had been. That was something else she kept close to the cuff...how much it had hurt to see her fiancé on local and national news programs saying he wasn’t surprised that Catherine had been arrested, that her compassion for the dying must have caused her to snap.
She shoved the memories away. For Eileen’s sake, she tried to live in the present and let the past go. That was easier on some days than on others.
Several officers stood near the curve in the road, crime scene tape marking off the area they were searching. They didn’t meet her eyes as she passed, but she hadn’t expected them to. The Spokane County sheriff’s department had issued an apology for the four years she’d spent in prison for crimes she hadn’t committed. She’d been paid a lump sum for the trauma and time the criminal justice system had cost her, but that couldn’t buy
