burning of an unused bridge was something he’d take over a home or business burning down any day. Yet he couldn’t stop the stab of loss in his chest. His father had loved that bridge. He’d taken Caleb and his siblings there at least once a month to fish when it was the season. It had become a routine that Caleb had hoped at a young age they’d keep as he got older. Although that plan had changed due to circumstances no one had seen coming, Caleb still thought fondly about their time there.
Now it was just another part of his father that had been chipped away by a senseless act.
Caleb abandoned the toolbox and showered off. He returned his missed calls—Declan and his mother, the only people who ever seemed to call him nowadays—and decided to live dangerously and crack open a beer with his lunch. He was about to go out to the porch to enjoy it when another car crept up and stopped just behind his truck. This time he was ready for possible company. His short shorts had officially been retired. Now he was in his favorite pair of blue jeans and sporting a beige Stetson cowboy hat he’d bought himself for Christmas.
The driver’s side door swung open just as he placed his full beer down on the porch railing. For the smallest of moments Caleb didn’t recognize the woman barreling toward him. Then, as her petite frame got closer, he fully remembered seeing that very same scowl only hours beforehand.
Nina Drake most certainly looked like she had a bone to pick.
“Well, how do you—” he started, hoping to keep whatever fuse she had unlit by making a better second impression than he had the first. However, Nina wasn’t having it. Her cheeks were flushed red and her chest was rising and falling much faster than was normal. She crossed her arms and interrupted him with fire in her eyes.
“And here I thought you were a nice guy,” she said, voice high. “There I was feeling bad for our little misunderstanding earlier, but now? Now I should report you to the authorities!”
Caleb raised his hands in defense, of what he wasn’t sure. His eyebrow slid up in question.
“Excuse me?”
Nina was close enough now that he could see the freckles across her cheeks and the bridge of her nose—barely there in the shadows of the trees but undeniable in the full force of the sun. Her nostrils were flared, her fists were balled. Caleb almost took a step back, worried she was readying for an attack.
“Not only were you watching me at the water, you took my picture,” she said, voice dipping into nothing but ice. “And I came here to make sure you delete that picture or I will go straight to the sheriff and your mother.”
Caleb lowered his hands. Any amusement he’d felt was long gone.
“I told you, I wasn’t spying on you. I’ve been going to that spot on my runs since I was fifteen. I was just as surprised to see someone there as you were. And I sure as hell didn’t take any pictures.”
A small look of relief passed across Nina’s expression. It was quickly replaced by one he’d seen in the eyes of countless people during his career in law enforcement.
Fear.
“Nina, what happened?” Caleb pressed. “What pictures are you talking about?”
She hesitated for a moment. Then met his eyes with concern crowding every bit of dark brown she had in them.
“Someone took a picture of me at the stream today. And they sent it to the Retreat’s email.”
Caleb’s reaction was immediate. He felt every muscle in him go taut.
“What?” he asked through his teeth.
“I can show you on the computer back at the office if you want. That email isn’t attached to my phone and I... I didn’t want to forward it. I didn’t want to look at it anymore.”
Her eyes broke contact. She looked down at her hands. It was such a vulnerable action that Caleb had a hard time not venting his disbelief that someone would do such a thing and anger at the person who had right then and there. But then the lawman side of his brain started to kick in.
“Let me get my keys,” he said instead. Nina nodded. She was still standing there when he came back out. This time she was staring off toward the fields behind the house. The very same piece of scenery he had been getting ready to enjoy. Tall grass waved lazily in the breeze as if waving hello. Unaware that something was wrong.
“I’ll follow you back to your office,” he said, breaking the spell she’d fallen under. Her expression was impassive now, yet her question was nothing but troubling.
“Caleb, if you didn’t take that picture, who did?”
Caleb completely forgot about Overlook Pass burning as soon as he saw the email that had been sent to Nina. Not only did the caption make his blood boil, the location from which the picture had been taken had him itching for answers.
“That was right next to where I was when I first saw you.” He pointed to the left corner of the picture. Caleb pictured the woods he had grown up knowing like the back of his hand. “Whoever took this was crouched down.”
Nina leaned over the back of the office chair to take another look. A few strands of hair escaped her braid. The unmistakable smell of lavender invaded his senses. It caught him off guard.
“It was obviously taken before you showed up,” she said, voice calculating and focused. “And not long after I’d first gone in. I had just wanted to cool down. I probably was only in the water for two to three minutes before I heard you. Are you sure you didn’t see or hear anything on your way to the stream?”
“No. Though I wasn’t actively trying to catalog my surroundings,” he admitted. An idea Caleb didn’t like pushed into his thoughts. He had to voice it. “I left the stream the way I came and you went out through there.” He pointed toward the tree line closer to the stream that led back out to the trail’s path. “There’s a good chance our photographer was still there when we left.”
Stress pulsed out from Nina like an electrical surge of energy. Suddenly Caleb was hyperaware of more than just her scent. The warmth of her skin radiated out to him, as if she was the flame of a candle. Licking out and taking the air around it. She tilted her chin down a fraction to run her eyes over the picture again. It brought her cheek even closer to his. In the fluorescent light her freckles took on a harsher contrast with her tanned skin. He suspected then that she had, at least in part, inherited her complexion and dark hair from a Hispanic parent. Her tan was too even, too rich, to be just from living in the sun. It made the shine of her lip gloss even more pronounced in contrast.
Caleb wondered how shiny felt before reality doused out the sudden curiosity.
“Whoever they were, they followed me.”
Nina’s voice had hollowed. Those shiny lips were downturned, sunken. Caleb returned his focus to the computer monitor.
She was right. Someone had either followed her to the trail or had already been on it before following her to the stream.
“There’s
