by Dan Padavona
Micah twisted the doorknob and poked his head into the hallway. Dead quiet.
Two neighboring doors stood closed. Glancing over his shoulder, he waited until he was sure nobody watched him. There had to be security cameras. Someone would spot him. The guard, a staffer.
Standing outside the first door, he paused. If he opened the door and found Georgia consoling an abuse victim, she would never forgive him for barging inside and shattering her trust. Counseling sessions were private matters.
Micah turned away a second before a woman spoke inside the room. A wicked voice berated Georgia and threatened her.
Micah’s heart pounded. Who was inside the room with Georgia? From what he’d gathered, the unknown woman held a knife to Georgia. She kept threatening to slice Georgia’s throat if she didn’t comply.
Maybe he should get help from the security guard. No time for that. He needed to act before something terrible happened.
Twisting the knob, he found it locked. The doorknob rattled, but the door refused to budge when he shoved his shoulder against it.
Inside the room, the intruder stopped talking. She knew someone was in the hallway, trying to break inside.
A meaty hand clamped down on Micah’s shoulder. Micah swung around to the security guard, whose combined grin and scowl told Micah he’d waited a long time for this moment. The guard wanted nothing more than to catch Micah wandering into the women’s quarters and call the police.
“Georgia’s in trouble,” he whispered.
The guard stared bullets into Micah as if he hadn’t heard a single word. “You’re trespassing. I knew the first day you entered the shelter that you were nothing but trouble.”
The security guard wore a gun on his hip. He seemed eager to use it.
Quiet continued to roll beneath the door as Micah raised his arms and showed his hands. The guard pulled a phone from his pocket.
“You’ve got it all wrong.”
“Shut up.”
“There’s someone inside the room with—”
The guard said, “Yeah, Eleanor. And you’re snooping on the conversation. What are you, some kind of pervert? I’m calling the police, and you’re going to jail for trespassing.”
“Good, call them. Because the woman behind the door isn’t Eleanor.”
“More lies. Let’s go, Micah.”
He grabbed Micah’s arm and dragged him toward the lobby. As the guard dialed 911, Micah spun out of the man’s grip and shoved him away. The guard shouted for someone to stop Micah as he barged through the doors and raced toward the parking lot.
Micah stopped dead in his tracks.
“Freeze!” the sheriff said, training his service weapon on Micah.
52
Five minutes ago, the security guard had abandoned his post inside the lobby and pushed through the doors leading to the women’s private quarters inside Ascend. Thomas rubbed his chin. The guard hadn’t returned.
A false sense of tranquility fell over the shelter for battered women. No silhouettes beyond the windowpanes, nobody moving inside. He considered searching for the guard when his phone rang. It was Chelsey.
“Everyone okay back in Wolf Lake?” he asked.
“Scout and Naomi Mourning are safe. Darren and Raven are here with me, and Serena is on the way.”
“My deputies told me LeVar helped them catch Osmond Bourn.”
“He did a little more than help, Thomas.”
“I know, and I won’t forget how much LeVar contributed to the investigation.”
Chelsey paused. “Thomas, I can’t reach Brynn Ortega. I’ve been calling her all evening, and she isn’t answering her phone.”
Thomas’s mouth went dry. “I’ll send a patrol car by her house.”
“I have a bad feeling about this.”
So did Thomas. Suddenly, he knew who’d lost her life inside Kaylee Holmes’s house.
“I need to check on Georgia Sims. I’ll call you back in a few minutes.”
He ended the call with Chelsey mid-sentence and stepped into the parking lot. As he approached the entryway, a door burst open inside the shelter, and a skinny man with a claw mark across his cheek staggered through. A security guard staggered after the man and shouted for help.
Thomas pulled his gun from his holster and aimed it at the fleeing man. Had the suspect attacked someone inside the shelter?
“Freeze! Show me your hands!”
The skinny man swung his head back and forth. “You don’t understand. There’s a woman inside the shelter. She’s going to kill Georgia.”
Thomas narrowed his eyes. “Georgia Sims?”
The security guard raced forward, out of breath and red-faced. He appeared perplexed when Thomas lowered his weapon.
“Thank goodness you’re here, Sheriff. This man broke into the women’s residence area. I caught him snooping around. Don’t know if he intended to rape someone.”
Ignoring the guard, Thomas glared at the suspect. “Where is Georgia Sims now?”
“Inside a counseling room,” the skinny man said. “Second door on the right. The door is locked.”
The security guard asked, “Aren’t you going to arrest him? Don’t listen to Micah. He’s a pervert and a liar. Probably gets his rocks off by hanging around abused women.”
Thomas swung his gaze to the guard. “Is there another way into the room? An alternate entrance, perhaps.”
“No adjoining rooms. I have a master key back at my desk. But each room has a window.”
“I’m calling for backup. Don’t let anyone out of that room.”
The security guard’s jaw hung open as Thomas rushed around the building with Micah in tow.
Thomas warned Micah to stay back, but the man refused. Desperation fluttered inside Micah’s eyes. He cared for Georgia Sims and would risk his life to save hers.
Light through the windows drew white rectangles across the grass, already slick with dew.
“That’s the office,” Micah said, pointing at a window along the side of Ascend.
Thomas pulled up and stood outside the window with his back against the wall. He held the gun in his hands, the weapon raised to his chest. A woman’s shadow disturbed the light and reflected off the ground beside Thomas’s feet. A scream came from behind the pane.
Thomas spun out of hiding. In a split-second, his mind registered the blood pooling on the carpet, the slash mark across Georgia Sim’s neck, the deranged grin of the woman holding a switch blade to Georgia’s neck.
“Drop the weapon!”
Kendra Harmon hissed and sliced into Georgia’s throat. Thomas fired the gun. The first shot flew wide and blew a hole through the window and plaster. The second ripped into Kendra’s shoulder, missing Georgia’s head by inches, and swung the murderer around as the knife flew from Kendra’s hand.
Instead of slumping to the floor, Georgia swung with her elbow and struck Kendra’s temple. The killer’s neck snapped sideways before her legs gave out.
As Kendra toppled to the floor, the security guard unlocked the room and lumbered inside. He trained his gun on the writhing murderer, his arms shaking, eyes unblinking.
Thomas knocked away the shards from the shattered windowpane and climbed into the counseling room. A small palm tree sat on a stand in the corner. A table and two chairs divided the room. Georgia Sims balanced on one knee with her hands grabbing at her throat. Blood trickled between her fingers.
“You’re okay now, Georgia. It’s over.”
Thomas pulled her hands away. A deep gash ran across the side of Georgia’s neck. Thankfully, the psycho hadn’t severed the carotid artery. The counselor would require stitches and weeks of recovery, but she’d live.
Until then, Thomas didn’t realize Micah had followed him through the window. The man pulled his shirt over his head, wound it tight, and pressed it against Georgia’s neck.
The counselor mouthed, “Thank you.”
Her legs wavered before Micah and the security guard kept her fro
m toppling.
Thomas read Kendra her rights and cuffed the murderer’s arms behind her back. The woman’s strength surprised him when she resisted. The gunshot had torn Kendra’s shirt and revealed a bleeding wound on the woman’s shoulder where the bullet had passed through. Like Georgia Sims, Kendra Harmon would survive the night.
Sirens grew in volume outside the window. Help was on the way.
53
The hospital smelled of antiseptic cleaning solution and despair.
Thomas would forever associate hospitals with lost loved ones, though his father, Mason Shepherd, stubborn until those last agonizing days, passed on his own terms. When lung cancer claimed him, Mason was reclining in his favorite chair in the study, with a Wordsworth collection open and face down on his lap.
The sheriff stood beside the wall while an orderly wheeled an elderly woman up the polished hallway. He read the numbers affixed to the doors and located 412, Georgia Sims’s room. He half-hoped the woman would be asleep. Before he rapped his knuckles against the door, she glanced at the entryway, wincing when she turned her head.
“Sit still,” Thomas said, dragging a chair away from the wall. “I’ll come to you.”
A monitor beeped beside Georgia Sims’s bed. Two bandages fixed gauze against the side of her neck, and an angry red line ran across her Adam’s apple and circled the soft flesh of her throat. The woman parted her lips as if she needed to say something. Then she closed her eyes and touched her forehead.
Thomas slid his chair closer to the bed. “If you prefer to rest, this can wait until later.”
“No, I’m ready to talk.” She gestured around the room. “I’m not getting out of here tonight, and there’s no chance I’ll sleep.”
“How are you feeling?”
“They stitched me up and stopped the bleeding. But the deepest wounds run beneath the skin.”
Thomas swallowed. Throughout his youth and most of his adult life, he hadn’t gotten along with his parents. It took over thirty years before he realized their overprotective natures were born of fears that something terrible would happen to their son, if he continued down his reckless path in law enforcement. During school, one boy had taunted Thomas over his Asperger’s syndrome. Though Thomas earned a handful of high school friends and fell into an unlikely relationship with a beautiful, popular girl named Chelsey Byrd, he’d wandered like a ghost through the halls of Wolf Lake High. Teenagers didn’t understand how to approach people who weren’t like them.
“I know something about wounds beneath the surface.”
Georgia gave him an assessing gaze and nodded once. “Then you understand how many people I hurt.”
The sheriff clicked his pen and lay the pad in his lap.
“I don’t believe that’s true.”
“You didn’t know me then, Sheriff. I’m responsible for the company I kept and the way I treated others.”
“Seems to me you treat others very well. Ascend is fortunate to employ a Resident Advocate with your skill and empathy.”
Georgia shook her head. “I still can’t believe Kendra killed all those people.” The woman’s hands clenched the sheet covering her lower body. “Is that what I did? I created a monster and unleashed it on the world.”
“Don’t blame yourself for others’ actions. You weren’t the one who terrorized Kendra, and nobody put a gun to Kendra’s head and forced her to murder four people.”
“Four.” Georgia clicked her tongue. “So Kendra didn’t lie about Brynn Ortega.”
“We haven’t identified the body yet.”
“It’s Brynn.” Georgia’s face dropped into her hands. She sniffled. “Brynn had nothing to do with this. If it wasn’t for me, she never would have gotten caught up in this mess.”
He waited for her to stop crying, unsure whether to lay a consoling hand on her arm or keep his distance. It had taken him almost thirty years to learn how to show emotion, and he still didn’t understand when it was appropriate. Thomas asked questions about Wade Tenny, Harding Little, and Tina Garraway. Georgia gave the same answer for Wade and Harding—she hadn’t spoken to either since high school graduation.
“But Tina turned her life around,” Georgia said, her gaze wandering to a cross on the opposite wall. “Three years ago, I ran into Tina in Kane Grove. I’d seen her on television, but never thought of reaching out. Tina’s life wasn’t easy, Sheriff. She wasn’t born cruel. Her mother made her that way. Tina harbored regret over how she’d acted when she was young. She never mentioned Kendra by name, but that’s who she’d meant.”
Twenty minutes later, Georgia gave Thomas a full statement regarding the night’s events.
He was halfway down the hall, eager to get back to his cruiser and put the hospital and its bright lights and cloying scents behind him, when he almost ran into Micah. The man walked with his head down and his hands buried inside his pockets.
“Sheriff,” he said, his head popping up in surprise.
“You came to see Georgia?”
“If they’ll allow me.”
Thomas removed his hat and scratched his head. “They’re only allowing family tonight.”
“That’s okay. I’ll sit in the waiting room until I can see her. She would do the same for me.”
Micah’s hands worried at the claw mark down his cheek. The ring around his eye had blackened since Thomas encountered Micah at Ascend, and now the bruise took on a purplish hue.
“Tell me who did that to you,” Thomas said. “I’ll make sure it never happens again.”
“I can’t press charges, Sheriff.” Micah looked over his shoulder when a door opened and closed. A doctor reading a chart passed them without a glance. “But I need to get my daughter out of the house. It’s not safe for her anymore. Not until Ursa gets help.”
“Will you take your daughter to a shelter?”
“Rochester is too far away from my work. And a shelter for abused men is no place for a child.”
“Then what will you do?”
Micah scuffed at the floor with the toe of his sneaker. “I’m searching for a new place. I want a house, not an apartment. Something with a yard so Louisa can have a playhouse and a dog.” He shrugged. “But the market is ridiculous. Houses sell the same day they’re listed, often at fifty percent higher than the original price. Every time I make a bid, someone swoops in and takes the house.”
Thomas glanced back at Georgia’s room. Chelsey talked her way past the nurse and checked on her client.
“What if I told you I’d found a house for sale in Wolf Lake? Right outside the village center.”
Micah cocked an eyebrow.
“I’d ask you what’s wrong with it.”
“Nothing, except the seller chose a poor real estate agent. It’s a beautiful home in a safe neighborhood. The elementary school is two blocks away, and the lake is a ten-minute drive.”
“Sounds perfect, almost too good to be true.”
“The owner is motivated to sell, Micah. If you want, I’ll take your phone number and relay it to the seller.”
The skinny man’s eyes brightened with hope. “I wouldn’t have to commute anymore. Heck, I could ride a bike to work.”
“That’s the spirit.”
Micah shook Thomas’s hand. “Thank you, Sheriff. This is just what my daughter and I need.”
54
LeVar sprinted off the pier, leaped, and tucked his legs into a cannonball, before splashing into the cool waters of Wolf Lake. The ensuing tsunami rolled over Chelsey and Raven, soaking both. Raven waited until LeVar bubbled to the surface and smacked her brother on the shoulder.
Before LeVar reacted, Chelsey and Raven converged on the teen, each intent on dunking him under the water. After Chelsey grabbed his arms, Raven pressed LeVar down. He burst out of the water, laughing and slinging his dreadlocks back.
“Ugh,” Raven said when the splatter covered her face. “Time to cut your hair, Rasta hippie.”
“Never.”
Bobbin
g in the lake, Chelsey shoved LeVar. “She has a point. A clean-cut appearance would make you a stronger candidate for the deputy position. You are interested, aren’t you?”
“I’m interested. But I’m back at school full-time this fall. I can’t commit to forty-hours-per-week.”
“It’s a great opportunity,” Raven said.
“It is, and I’m damn appreciative. But I gotta get my education first. Then I’ll have all day to catch bad guys.”
On the pier, Darren folded his arms and observed his friends like a proud parent. He’d given everyone a sneak preview of the Lucifer Falls pavilion, which wouldn’t open until autumn. The pavilion stood along the new trail, easy walking distance to the falls. The lake bordered the grounds, and the new pier would be popular with future guests.
LeVar raised a hand. Darren waved back. Along the shore, Thomas, Naomi, and Serena fed branches into a bonfire. With the sun dropping below the hill, they’d need the fire to drive back the bugs. Mosquitoes grew enormous along Wolf Lake, and the little winged vampires had voracious appetites.
Raven attempted to dunk LeVar again. He shook his sister off. Then his eyes landed on Scout. Seated in her wheelchair, the girl glanced away, pretending she hadn’t been watching. A few years ago, Scout would have been in the lake with them, black hair dripping with water. His heart clenched. He waved to Scout, but she’d wheeled herself to the bonfire beside her mother.
LeVar swam to the pier and pressed himself out of the lake. He shook the water out of his hair and padded barefoot across the planks. His flesh rippled into goosebumps when the first chill of dusk touched him.
Thomas tossed him a towel. LeVar caught it with one hand, dried his hair, then wrapped it around his body like a blanket. He slipped his sandals on and shuffled to the others.
“How’s the water?” Darren asked, returning from the pier.
“Fine, until you climb out. Then the water droplets morph into ice cubes. Funny how that happens.”
Raven appeared behind her brother. “Like I always say. ‘Can’t take a city boy into the country.’”
