Dream Eyes

Thirteen

“I’m guessing we aren’t going to assume that shot was fired by a hunter who just happened to mistake me for a deer,” Gwen said.

It wasn’t easy to talk because she was flat on her back, pinned to the floor by Judson, who was on top of her. He weighed a ton, and she was pretty sure it was all muscle.

“No,” he said. He rolled off of her. “We’re going for worst-case scenario here. Someone just tried to kill one or both of us. Get away from the door. He may try a couple of wild shots, hoping to get lucky.”

Under most circumstances, she didn’t take orders well, but Judson seemed to know what he was doing. And it wasn’t like she was an expert in this sort of thing, she thought.

She sat up and crawled quickly away from the partially open door, moving deeper into the lab. In the weak illumination cast by a strip of floor lighting, she watched Judson shift position in the shadows. A small shock snapped through her when she realized he had taken a gun from an ankle holster. Until that moment, it had not occurred to her that he might be armed.

Judson flattened himself on the floor and fired three fast shots. She could see from the angle of his weapon that he was firing into the thundering falls, not straight across the river into the trees. Warning shots.

The shooter in the woods did not return fire. A moment later the sound of a rapidly accelerating engine reverberated in the distance; the roar faded quickly as the vehicle sped away.

“He didn’t expect me to be armed,” Judson said.

Gwen exhaled the breath she did not realize she had been holding. “That makes two of us.”

“You hired a security consultant,” Judson said. “What made you think I didn’t come with a gun?”

“I don’t know,” she admitted. “I suppose I was under the impression that you and your brother relied on paranormal technology for your work.”

“Sam is the tech guy in the family. He likes his gadgets. But it’s usually a hell of a lot easier to defend yourself with a traditional gun than it is with psi-technology, especially if the guy who is shooting at you is a long ways away. I told you, para-weapons only operate at close range.”

“I see. Well, this incident certainly raises a few new questions. I can’t believe that someone just tried to kill me.”

“That might not have been the shooter’s objective.”

“Do you have another suggestion?”

“The shot was high.” Judson said. “The shooter may have been trying to scare you off, not kill you.”

“Okay, I’ll take some comfort in that possibility. What now?”

“You’re going out the back door. I’ll get the car and bring it around the lab building to pick you up.”

“Are you sure it’s safe to go out the front door?” she asked.

“He’s gone,” Judson said.

“You’re sure?”

“Very sure.”

“But you still want me to go out the back way?”

“Humor me, okay?”

“Okay,” she said. “But promise me you’ll be very careful when you go out the front.”

He looked mildly surprised by her concern. Then the edge of a smile appeared. He picked up the strongbox and went to the door.

“I’ll be careful,” he said.

SHE WAITED TENSELY at the rear door of the lab, listening hard until she heard the SUV’s big engine fire up. She relaxed only somewhat when she did not hear any more shots.

A moment later, Judson drove around the corner of the building, braked to a halt and leaned across the passenger compartment to throw open the door. She locked the lab door and hopped up into the front seat, the map clutched in one hand.

“Are we going to report this to Oxley?” she asked, buckling her seat belt.

“Sure.” Judson drove toward the road that bordered the river. “It will be interesting to see if he bothers to investigate. Even if he does go through the motions, I doubt that he’ll turn up any hard evidence. But the important thing is that word will get out around town that someone took a shot at you.”

“That’s a good thing?”

“It will put pressure on the shooter. He’ll think twice before he tries again because he knows that no cop, even a small-town one, will ignore a second hunting accident. That will buy me some time to find him.”

“How do you intend to do that?” She stopped when she realized he was turning the wrong way onto the road. “Where are you going? Wilby is the other direction.”

“The nearest bridge is this way. I want to get to the other side to see if I can locate the place where the shooter stood when he took the shot.”

Gwen glanced at him. “You think you’ll find some psi-residue at the scene that will point us toward a suspect?”

“Maybe. Sometimes I get lucky.”

A hundred yards up the road, Judson drove across a narrow bridge. The lane on the far side was little more than a dirt track through the woods.

He stopped the SUV in a position directly opposite the lodge and got out.

Gwen watched him walk a few feet into the words before she extricated herself from the front seat and followed him. The wind was sharpening. The next summer storm would be upon them by nightfall.

When she reached Judson’s side, she sensed the energy in the atmosphere around him.

“Well?” she asked.

“This is where the shooter stood when he pulled the trigger.” Judson studied the front of the lab. “He knew what he was doing. He aimed for the door frame, and that’s what he hit.”

“How do you know that?”

“He was . . . satisfied with the shot. But he was surprised when I returned fire. I was right. He didn’t know that I was armed.”

“Are you sure we’re talking about a male?”

“No. I’m using the masculine pronoun in a generic sense, the same way I did at Ballinger’s house.”

“So there could be a woman involved in this thing?”

“Oh, yeah,” Judson said very softly.

“Do you have any sense of the emotion that the shooter was feeling when he took the shot?”

“Angry. Scared. Desperate.” Judson turned back toward the SUV. “You’re wondering if it was Nicole Hudson who fired that shot, aren’t you?”

“You heard her last night. She blames me for Taylor’s death.”

“If she was the shooter, all I can tell you now is that she wasn’t trying to kill you. I need more information.”

Gwen smiled. “I know what you mean. It’s called context.”