For one brief moment, fear crept under Natalie’s skin. Part of her wanted to be safe in her own home without the additional security. The other half wanted barbed wire on all the windows. For now, she’d found a good compromise.
* * *
Later that evening,Gabe picked up his coffee cup and frowned. Empty again. He really needed to do something about the amount of caffeine he was drinking, but that could wait for another day. He had a hero who was on the brink of death and a medical examiner who couldn’t find him. If Zac died before he made it to the next scene, the story would be over.
Gabe rubbed his hand along his jaw as he walked across to his whiteboard. Zac Connelly might be James Bond on steroids, but even he couldn’t defy death. Something had to happen to give him another hour or two of breathing time, something no one was expecting.
“How will we do this, Sherlock?”
Without lifting his head, Sherlock looked up at Gabe and sighed. He was a dog of few words, except when it came to meal times.
“Zac’s been shot. He’s cold, hungry, and in the middle of a National Park. What would he do to stay alive?”
Sherlock yawned.
“He can’t sleep. The mafia is closer than the medical examiner. How can we change that?”
Sherlock’s paws covered his eyes.
The story couldn’t be that bad. Gabe’s eyes narrowed as he studied the next couple of scenes. Somewhere along the line, the medical examiner had missed an important clue. Gabe needed to make sure she not only found it but linked it to Zac’s disappearance.
After twenty minutes of tossing around different ideas, he was still no closer to getting out of the hole he’d painted his hero into.
Finding inspiration from within the cottage’s four walls wasn’t happening. In desperation, he grabbed his cap from a hook beside the front door. “Let’s go for a walk, Sherlock. It might clear the cobwebs from my brain.”
Sherlock leaped to his feet, almost nose-planting into the wooden floor in his haste to get outside.
With one word from Gabe, he sat on the edge of the veranda instead of racing into the wilderness.
After punching in the code for the security alarm, Gabe headed toward Sherlock. “Good boy. Let’s see if we can buy our hero some time.” And hopefully, by the end of the night, Zac Connelly wouldn’t be dead.
* * *
Natalie saton a log at the edge of the lake. It was such a still evening she could have sworn the whole world was holding its breath. She was waiting for sunset, when the sun would dip below the towering ranges and paint shadows across the rocks and trees.
She lifted her camera and snapped a picture of swallows racing across the water. Her grandma had given her the camera before she’d flown to Paris. It had been a going away gift, a reminder to take plenty of photos so that her grandparents could enjoy her time in Europe.
For the first two years she’d sent lots of photos to Sapphire Bay. Then gradually, she’d stopped using the camera and started using her cell phone. Quick emails replaced the long letters she’d written, and the phone calls home became less frequent.
What had her grandma and granddad thought? They must have been heartbreakingly disappointed. As their only grandchild, Natalie knew she held a special place in their hearts. But that hadn’t stopped her from focusing on her own life and ignoring them.
A noise farther down the shore made her turn around. She smiled when she saw Gabe. Then grinned when she realized he hadn’t seen her.
He walked closer to the edge of the lake, picked up a stone and skimmed it across the water.
Sherlock leaped after it, bounding through the water like an Olympic swimmer. His shaggy black coat stuck to his body like asphalt as he raced back to shore, waiting for the next round of play time.
Natalie focused her camera on Gabe as he launched another rock into the air. The smile on his face made her breath catch. She’d never seen him so happy or carefree. He was living in the moment, enjoying the time with Sherlock before the night sky sent them home.
She moved to the right and took another photo.
Sherlock’s head swiveled toward her. Before she could lower her camera, he ran across the stones, thumping through the lake and sending water everywhere.
She froze. Sherlock used to be a police dog. If he thought she was a stranger, she could lose an arm or a leg or even her camera.
Gabe’s shrill whistle made Sherlock spin around and head toward the shore.
With trembling hands, Natalie placed the camera in its bag and walked toward Gabe. By the time she reached them, Sherlock’s tail was wagging. He barked at her as if he’d just found his long-lost friend.
