Wounded (a mystery and a sweet romance)

Wounded: Chapter 17

“That’s a lot of barbed wire for a mushroom lab,” Malcolm observed.

Tara was crouching in the woods with him, leaning against the mossy side of a tree that did little to protect them from the continuous drizzle. Dawn had to be out there somewhere, but the sun was hiding behind the dark gray cloak obscuring the sky; it was only the fact that some of the trees and bushes had grown distinguishable from the shadows that she knew morning had come.

“Jason heard there was high-tech equipment to protect,” Tara said.

The two-story corrugated metal building behind the tall barbed-wire-and-chain-link fence could have been anything. Vertical metal bars secured the infrequent windows, and they were all dark—or covered from within—save for one small one on the second floor at the back of the building. Something flickered behind the glass up there, a television or computer monitor. A single black SUV was parked on the gravel that surrounded the building, though a big roll-up door suggested a garage that might hide many more vehicles. A camera was mounted above the main door, trained on the front gate and entry area.

“Should we try now?” Tara waved at the sample in Malcolm’s hand—he hadn’t let it go for more than thirty seconds since she had given it to him, and that had only been to let her hold it while he donned a flannel shirt he had scrounged from a clothing donation bin. It had almost as many holes as her sheriff’s jacket, but it would keep him from having to explain why he had come to sell mushroom samples without a shirt on. It also lent him the scruffy air she remembered from Jason, and she could imagine him as a hard-on-his-luck forager, hoping to hit pay dirt. She could only imagine what she must look like by now. She was regretting that she hadn’t taken that shower the night before, though the rain would have soaked the clean out of her regardless.

“You might want to leave the jacket behind,” Malcolm said. “I doubt they’ll mistake you for an officer, but they might think you a kleptomaniac mushroom picker who can’t be trusted.”

The jacket was the only thing keeping the rain from burrowing into her core, so Tara was reluctant to take it off. “You don’t think I could pass as a law enforcement officer? Is it because of my bedraggled utterly wet state or because I lack an air of stern authority?”

“I doubt the purple fingernails are regulation.”

Tara examined her nails—they were badly in need of a buffing and new application of polish—then removed the jacket and hung it from a broken branch. “I concede to your point, but for the record, it’s lavender luster, not purple.”

“My mistake.” Malcolm bowed in mock apology, then led the way along the tree line, toward the front of the building.

Missing the jacket already, Tara strode after him. They picked their way past damp rhododendrons and out onto the gravel driveway. That driveway curved away, disappearing into the trees. The nearest road was a quarter a mile away and not visible through the vegetation. Just as these folks liked it, Tara guessed. An elk munching grass on the other side of the building watched them, but didn’t bother fleeing.

Malcolm pushed a button on an intercom in the stone pillars that framed the driveway. The wrought iron gate was sturdier than the chain link fencing on either side and might be easier to climb. It also lacked a barbed wire frosting, though the prongs at the top were quite pointy. Impaling oneself on them wouldn’t feel any better than scraping over metal thorns. It probably didn’t matter. The gate was in plain view of the front door, which had a window to its side, not to mention the camera perched above.

“What?” a grouchy voice asked. Its owner sounded like he had just woken up.

“Got something to sell,” Malcolm said.