Blade Dance by Danica St. Como Page A

blonde, blue-eyed girl, dressed in frilly pink, absolutely broke Wallis’s heart. In the middle of the day, and no one saw anything. How is that possible ? Wallis shook her head.
    The other two victims had been taken at night—one after her four-to-midnight nursing shift ended, the other on her way home from a club after she and her friends closed the place. All within a radius of thirty miles. Ever cautious, the authorities didn’t mention that the cases might be connected, that the auburn, the red, the strawberry blonde hair color might be coincidence. The posing of the bodies might have been accidental. The other abuse to the victims—well, the investigators would keep that news quiet.
    Wallis’s gut told her, and her men agreed, the cases were so connected. Just as her gut told her the latest missing woman was already dead. Austin had learned from the grandmother that the victim’s husband was currently deployed in Afghanistan. What a nightmare waits for the poor guy at home, while he’s on foreign soil, in a foreign country, risking his life and limb to protect our freedom—so shit like this doesn’t happen. His wife and child should be safe . She couldn’t imagine what would happen to her if one of her men went missing. Or was killed, even in the line of duty. Her heart bounced under her rib cage like a tennis ball at the thought. Independent as she was, the three of them belonged together, were so much a part of each other’s lives. The thought of losing either man had chills racing up and down her spine.
    A Chevy Traverse in gunmetal gray rolled up as Wallis took another swing at her mailbox with one of her crutches. The mailbox was bolted to an arrangement of pipes that swiveled, so it could swing 360 degrees. The idea, as she’d learned as a child, was to prevent the box from being torn out of the ground by giant-bladed snow plows during the winter. The otherwise efficient arrangement was aggravating the pure livin’ hell out of her.
    The passenger window slid down, and the driver leaned across the front seat toward her. “Ma’am, I’ll hold the mailbox if you want to beat it to death.”
    “That would be lovely, thanks. I can’t pick up the mail and still balance on these goddamned crutches. The stupid box keeps swinging away from me. The results…” she pointed to the ground, “…are obvious.”
    With no traffic in sight, the man parked in the middle of the farm road, walked around the front of the small SUV to the mailbox. A plastic grocery store bag hung from his fingers. He retrieved catalogues, sale flyers, letters, and a small, flat box imprinted with a smiley grin from where they lay scattered on the ground. He took the rest of the mail from inside the box, neatly arranged the items in the bag then held the handles open so she could slide her arm through.
    Well, isn’t he the gentleman ? “Thanks. I’d be here all fucking day trying to pick it all up, after I killed the fucking mailbox.”
    “I was going to stop, anyway.” He reached into his shirt pocket, took out a precisely folded sheet of paper, and shook it open. “I’m looking for Primrose Lane, just past the main Gardner farmhouse. Since there’s a shortage of street signs in this part of the country, I wonder if you could point me in the right direction.”
    “Are you Theodore Carroll?”
    He cocked his head, looked surprised. “Theo, please. Theodore sounds so formal.”
    She nodded, directed a thumb over her shoulder. “Gardner House, behind me. I’m Wallis Gardner, your neighbor. Make a right turn into that gravel drive, which is Primrose Lane. The cottage is behind those trees. The realtor asked me to keep an eye out for anyone who looked lost and confused.”
    Wallis maneuvered the crutches, balanced on her good leg and held out her hand.
    He looked at her hand for a moment, acted unsure about making physical contact, but finally shook it. “That’s, hmm , awfully friendly.”
    “You’re in farm country. Not