Ominous

by Lisa Jackson

  She turned to her father, unafraid of the stern set of his jaw. “I’ve also learned that people of character judge you based on your actions, not your looks or social reputation.”

  He drew in a sharp breath. “It must be nice to be so free and breezy. Did you get that from California?”

  “No, Dad. I got it from extensive therapy. You and Mom might want to try it sometime.” She went to the door and paused. “I’m going to the police. Sorry to inconvenience you, but it’s the right thing to do.”

  With one last look at the sour, uncompromising man he had become, she went off to retrieve her daughter.

  *

  Main Street was lined with folks dressed in red, white, and blue, some waving flags as the high school marching band strutted past playing “Yankee Doodle Dandy.” In some spots, the crowd was three deep, and people were jammed up around rolling carts with vendors selling hot dogs, lemonade, ice cream, and popcorn. They had taken a spot at the heart of Main Street, where a wooden walkway lined the shopfronts—a throwback to the old western frontier towns. The swarms of people and activity seemed to thrill Penny, though Ruth couldn’t help but suspiciously eye every man who crossed their path or bumped into them.

  Is it you?

  Are you the one?

  It would be too easy to slip into paranoia, so she forced herself to remain objective. Nothing was going to happen to Penny or her in the light of day in front of the entire town. Safety in numbers.

  But she sensed that he was here, watching, calculating.

  Is it you? she wondered as Rafe Dillinger, decked out in full cowboy gear and a black Stetson, rode down the street waving at the crowd. His sunglasses covered his eyes, but she got the distinct impression he was staring at her, hating her.

  Bone-achingly tired, Ruth took a deep breath and pulled Penny’s clasped hand to her breast.

  After the cowboys and cowgirls came a few trick riders from the rodeo, and the crowd gasped and applauded as Scott Massey seemed to slide off his horse headfirst, then turned his body and flipped back into the saddle. The trick-rider had a huge smile for the crowd, but his gaze seemed to catch Ruth, holding her in his sights as if he knew her.

  He fit her memory of her attacker too. As she watched, he leaned down to a woman who was standing at the front of the crowd and clasped her hand. She tilted her head upward, and he managed to slide sideways and kiss her on the lips while still in the saddle, which elicited claps and hoots from the crowd.

  Someone yelled, “That how you always kiss your wife, Massey?”

  “Always,” he called back, grinning.

  “Mom, your hand is all sweaty,” Penny said, extracting her own hand and wiping it on her shorts. “Do we have to hold hands?”

  Forever and ever, Ruth thought. “Just stay close,” she said as an ice cream vendor wheeled a cart close behind them. They had to press into the family in front of them to make room.

  “Mom, can I please get a Popsicle? It’s so hot, and they have cherry.”

  The red-hot sun dead overhead was unrelenting, and the close crowd made the street seem airless and oppressed. “That sounds great.” She paid for two Popsicles and handed one to Penny. Hoping that the cool treat might chase some of the numbing exhaustion from her mind, Ruth worked on the Popsicle as she watched a handful of classic cars roll past. The sweet frozen treat eased the dryness in her throat, but it was gone too quickly.

  “Mom … a little help, please?”

  Ruth looked down and saw that Penny’s Popsicle had dripped all over her hands. “Let me get a napkin.” But the ice cream cart was long gone. Ruth glanced back toward the nearest store, Menlo’s Market, just a few yards away. “Come with me.”

  “Noooo … I’m all sticky.”

  “I don’t want to argue with you.”

  “Mom.” Penny glared at her.

  “Then stay right there.”

  Quickly, she ducked into the nearly empty store. She felt an immediate surge of relief at the cool air as she headed straight to the checkout counter to explain her problem. The older woman with a crooked front tooth, Pearl, handed her two paper towels, and she scurried back out.

  Ruth burst out the door onto the wooden walkway and started toward her daughter …

  But Penny was not talking with the little toddlers who had been watching the parade in front of them or holding her sticky hands up in the air. She was not straggling behind the rest of the crowd or waiting by the door of the store. Ruth looked right and left, but her daughter was nowhere in sight.

  She was gone.

  Chapter 19

  “Penny?” Ruth called, trying to still her racing heart, to quiet the deafening roar of fear. Why had she left her alone? What had she been thinking? Oh God! Oh God! All the stories of children who had been snatched away from their parents and never returned swirled in Ruth’s mind as she searched for her girl up and down the boardwalk in front of the market. Ruth had only been gone a minute, maybe two.

  Oh no, oh no, oh no. Where was her girl?

  “Have you seen my daughter?” Ruth asked the couple in front of her.

  The woman turned around, baby on one hip, and shook her head. “The little girl with the red hair?”

  “Yes!”

  The mom shrugged. “She was just here.”

  “She went off with some man,” said the husband, a well-muscled young man with a shiny, shaved head. “I think he was her uncle or something. He was giving her a hard time about dripping the Popsicle all over herself.”

  Ruth’s heart stilled, but then a rush of relief. Her grandfather! “Was he tall with graying hair? Reverend McFerron?”

  “I don’t know who that is, but he wasn’t gray. Younger than that.” He pointed down toward the Stallion Barbershop. “They went that way, across the street so’s she could wash up in the drinking fountain beside the horse trough.”

  The fountain—of course.

  Ruth turned in that direction, but she couldn’t see anything beyond the side street because of the food carts parked there and the people lined up around them. Her throat was dry, and perspiration dripped down her back as she hurried into the fray, bumping into people and cutting through lines. At one point she tripped on the edge of a stroller, banging her toe. She caught herself and hobbled on as a stern woman with a star-spangled T-shirt scolded her to take it easy.

  There was no time to explain that her daughter was missing.

  At last, she made it through the crowded side street and wove through the crowd on the wooden walkway. She had a rough idea where the fountain and trough were located, but she couldn’t make them out in the throng of people, some lined up to watch the parade, others moving down the street in a stream behind them.

  “Penny?” She pushed her way toward the fountain, telling people she was looking for her daughter. They moved aside, responding to her distress, but when she spotted the fountain, Penny wasn’t there.

  Fear welled in her throat as she turned away and appealed to the crowd. “I’m looking for my daughter, Penny. She’s eight, with bright red hair. Have you seen her?”

  “I’m sure she’s around here somewhere,” an elderly man said, trying to reassure her.

  No, she’s not! Ruth wanted to snap at him, but she held her tongue and fished her cell phone from her pocket. Time to call the sheriff.

  She was unlocking her phone when she thought she heard a thin voice calling “Mom!” Scanning the crowd, she spotted her: a tiny square of red T-shirt, pale face, and a hand waving her over.

  Penny was next to a broad-shouldered man in jeans and a long-sleeved shirt. He was turned the other way, his head covered by a dark baseball cap. And he was pulling her away by the hand.

  No. No, no, no!

  Ruth lunged ahead, pushing through the crowd to get to her daughter. “Penny! I’m here!” Up ahead Penny turned back to her. The man shot a quick look back and then moved on.

  A crazy pulse beating in her throat, Ruth scrambled past Betty Ann’s Bakery and finally mo
ved around a trio of large, lumbering women to reach her daughter.

  “Penny!” She fell to her knees in front of the little girl, whose dark eyes shone wide as saucers. “Oh my Lord. Oh … oh. You gave me such a scare.”

  Ruth hugged her daughter close, loving the feel of her tiny body in her arms. Then she pulled her to the empty vestibule of an office entrance and checked her over, gently stroking her arms and head. “What happened? I told you to wait for me.”

  “I know, but he showed me where the fountain was.”

  “Did the man hurt you?” Ruth asked.

  “No. He was kind of mean, though. He gave me the stink eye, like Grandma says, and he told me I needed to wash up, that I was a piggy. He had a bag of flags he was selling, and he kept trying to get me to buy one, but I didn’t have any money.” Penny’s brown eyes looked worriedly at Ruth. “I told him I was waiting for you, Mom, but he took me to the fountain … it was just across the street, so I … I …” Her bottom lip began to wobble as her face puckered in a sob.

  “Okay, honey. You’re okay.” Ruth pressed her girl against her, running her palm over the coppery sheen of hair as she thanked God Penny was safe. “But you know not to do that again.”

  “I just wanted to go to the fountain.” Penny sniffed.

  “It’s okay, pumpkin. You’re fine now.” From now on, Penny would not be out of her sight. Later Ruth would have a talk to warn her daughter about trusting anyone in this town. But for now, she wanted Penny to know she was safe.

  “Do you want to watch the rest of the parade, or go home?” she offered, trying to restore some normalcy.

  “Can we stay? I want to see how Jessica decorated her bike.”

  “Okay. But I’m not letting you out of my sight, little bean.”

  “Okay,” Penny repeated, clasping her hand tight.

  *

  After the parade, Penny had some friends over to splash through the hose in the backyard. Watching them through the kitchen window, Ruth mixed red and blue sprinkles into vanilla cake batter to make cupcakes for Penny’s Sunday school class. The plan was to have the girls frost the cupcakes, a task that would keep them busy once they tired of playing in the hose and sprinkler. As she poured the batter into paper-cup-lined muffin tins, she sorted through everything she knew about her attacker that might help identify the man Penny had encountered at the parade.

  The flag man.

  Something about him seemed a little off. Unlike her attacker, who had seemed more squared away, brazen, and strong-willed. A stubborn cowboy type.

  She scraped the last of the batter from the bowl with a spatula, thinking that Kat had been right. Ruth was out of her league in terms of really investigating these people. Maybe she could help with the profiling, and she was going to make sure Kat took a good look at the list of suspects she’d compiled, but operating in the vacuum of her life, Ruth didn’t have access to the background information and details Kat had at her fingertips.

  A knock sounded from the front of the house, and she put the mixing bowl down and licked her finger as she went to see who it was. Ethan stood on her doorstep, hands resting loosely on his belt just above the hips, looking as relaxed and handsome as any cowboy she’d ever seen.

  “Hey, there.” She opened the door, inviting him in. “You got my text.”

  “I did.” He stepped into the screened porch. “How’s Penny doing?”

  “She’s a little scared, mostly because I was so freaked out, though I tried not to show it.”

  “I got that. But to know that someone’s watching your house, and maybe following your kid around too? That’s scary stuff.”

  “And that’s just part of it.”

  “I sensed there was more.” He looked into the house. “You got a minute to talk?”

  “Come on into the kitchen. I was just about to put cupcakes into the oven.”

  He sat at the table, and as she popped the trays into the oven and washed the bowl, she told him about the intruder from last night and the “flag man” from today. She filled in the many details that she couldn’t include in a text message. His questions showed that he took the threat seriously, though he was baffled at what the motive might be. “It begs the question, why you? Do you have any idea who might be targeting you?” he asked.

  Ruth took a breath. “The truth?”

  “Always.”

  “I think this is related to something that happened fifteen years ago. The thing is, when I left Prairie Creek, I wasn’t just going off to college. I was escaping this town.” She turned away from the chatter of the girls in the backyard to gauge his reaction. He nodded, his steady gaze telling her to go on.

  “When I was sixteen, still in high school, I was attacked.” As she stared out the window at the girls, she told Ethan the secret she’d held all these years. The whole story, from the innocent escapades of three teenaged girls to the rape, the secrecy, and the shell of a person she’d become until she finally got counseling. “I did seek help when I got to Santa Barbara and found the rape crisis center. There were people there who wanted to help me, people who taught me that I wasn’t to blame and that I could heal and move on with my life.”

  Ethan absorbed that with a slow nod of his head. “That explains your dedication to your practice here and the hotline.”

  Ruth exhaled, realizing belatedly that she’d been holding her breath. “I can’t let the same thing happen if and when another girl gets raped here. It’s up to me to set up some sort of treatment program that will outlast me.”

  “And now that you’re back, and someone is threatening you, you think it might be the attacker from fifteen years ago, still targeting you?”

  Ruth lifted her palms. “When I first returned, I was looking for my attacker everywhere, even subconsciously checking men I encountered to see if they had the same features. And then, when Addie went missing and the deputies found Courtney Pearson’s body in the same week, I started to wonder if it could all be related. Could it be the same man, coming upon girls who can’t defend themselves out in the wilderness, sweeping them away to be his captive? If that’s true, he might have done the same to me if Kat and Shiloh hadn’t returned to save me.”

  He shook his head. “That’s a big if. But if it’s true, we need to tell Kat.”

  “Kat’s made the same connections on her own. She’s been pressuring me to go on the record with what happened fifteen years ago. I’m ready, but my parents are freaking out. I guess the fur still goes flying when folks find out that the family of a minister is human.”

  “There’s definitely a double standard there. So, you’ve talked to Kat?”

  “I ran into her this morning. Truth is, I’ve been avoiding her. But today I told her I’m ready.”

  “Good.”

  Ruth’s hands were sweating, and her heart began a slow, hard beat. Was she ready to go on record? She needed to be. “I’ll get together with her tomorrow or Monday, maybe while you’ve got the girls for their lesson.” Looking at the week ahead, Ruth wondered if her mother would continue to watch Penny after their disagreement. Bev could be very forgiving, but she hated losing face in the community. Maybe it was time to talk with Jessica’s mom about watching the girls for part of the week. Fiona would be a great backup.

  “You should tell Kat about the flag man too,” Ethan said, explaining that he’d run into his sister at Menlo’s Market, where she’d been taking a report about a theft. Someone had stolen a box of flags that Don Menlo had put on an endcap for the holiday. “It’s petty thievery, but that’s not to diminish your instincts that this guy is a threat. I believe in the power of fear. If you’re afraid of someone, usually there’s a good reason.”

  “My instincts have run amok. I see my attacker everywhere now.”

  “You can’t blame yourself for that,” Ethan said. “You’ve returned to the scene of the trauma, and now you’ve got a daughter to protect. The stakes are high here.” He rose from the table and stretched. “You know, it wouldn’t h
urt to have a little muscle nearby.” He summoned her closer and flexed one arm. “See that?”

  The close proximity stirred something deep inside. She wouldn’t mind having an intimate look at the rest of his body. “Nice guns,” she said with a smile.

  “At your disposal anytime.” When they both laughed, he added, “Seriously. Let me be your bodyguard. I’ve got to run over to my father’s place for a cookout, but after that, I’m free for fireworks or whatever.”

  She placed a hand on his upper arm, testing the steely ridges there. “That sounds like a plan.”

  A moment passed where Ruth’s hand still lay on his arm. Ethan gazed down at her, and the sudden, silent intensity shot a thrill through her. He took her in his arms and swept her close. Ruth closed her eyes as his hands moved down her back, leaving a trail of sweet sensation, pinpoints of light and desire as he cupped her bottom and held her against him. He wanted her; she could feel that in the hard ridge of his lean body, and she wanted him too.

  He leaned down to kiss her, and she welcomed the touch of his lips on hers, the spark of desire there, the sweet opening that hinted of more. Desire, like warm, lazy honey, oozed through her veins, making her knees weak. But as her legs softened, he held her to him and kept her from falling.

  Keep me from falling.

  She wanted to stay this way forever, safe within his strong arms. She wanted to make love all day and all night. But there were little girls to corral, and the oven timer was beeping, drawing her away. Damn, but it was hard to pull back.

  When they finally pulled apart, there were promises simmering in his eyes.

  Later could not come soon enough.

  *

  Time was marked only by the sun, now a fat, roiling dandelion in the window overhead. From her calculations, Addie believed today was the Fourth of July, and she hoped the festivities would be reason enough to keep him in town and away from her, his rough, thick hands off her body, his salty man smell out of range. Besides, she needed time to get her work done—a tedious task, with pathetic progress, but right now it was the only hope she could cling to. Each day, after she was sure he had left the shed, she squatted next to the tin bucket and worked a section of the chain link over the rim of the bucket. If she did this every day, as often as she could, she believed that one day the chain loop would wear down enough that she could break free and make her escape. The scraping had barely made a dent so far, but the bucket was the hardest edge she could find in this old, moldering shack.