Love Inspired Suspense April 2015 #2

by Dana Mentink

  Keeley got out of the car. She was slender, her hair chin length, cut in a careless bob showing under the knit cap. The same blue eyes as her sister. She looked older and more tired than he’d seen her the last time at LeeAnn’s funeral, the lines more pronounced around her mouth. At least, he thought they were more pronounced. Blink as he would, her face blurred in his vision. He heard her speak as if from far away.

  “Who are you?” she said.

  I’m the man who let Tucker Rivendale kill your sister, his mind said.

  She hugged herself, waiting for him to respond.

  Mick struggled to speak. Get back in the car and drive before he comes back. Don’t let him hurt you like he did LeeAnn. But his mouth remained stubbornly closed. “I think I know you. Tell me who you are,” she demanded again.

  “Mick,” he said aloud, or maybe it was only in his mind as his sight bled off into darkness and his knees buckled under him.

  TWO

  Spider.

  He swam back into consciousness, staring up at a ceiling upon which sat a fat black spider, motionless on the cracked plaster. Then he was assaulted by memories of Tucker and his own body impacting the front of a Jeep. A vulnerable woman’s face, eyes round with shock, materialized in his memory. Keeley. He jerked upright, head spinning, sliding a little on the sheet draped over the couch.

  Keeley stood, motion arrested midstride, in the middle of the room, a roll of gauze in one hand and a phone in the other.

  “The police are on their way,” she said. “Ambulance, too.”

  He planted both feet on the floor, willing it to stop moving. “Don’t need an ambulance. Are you okay?”

  She nodded. “I was the one driving, remember? You’re the guy who got run over.”

  He felt his lips curling into a painful grin against the scratches on his face. “Yeah. Why did you do that anyway? Women usually need to get to know me better before they want to run me over.”

  She shrugged, unsmiling. “Adrenaline.” She set the gauze on the fruit crate that served as a coffee table. “Your arm is bleeding. Sorry to ask, but could you try not to drip on the couch? It’s thirdhand, but it’s the nicest piece of furniture I own.”

  He dutifully wrapped his wound as best he could. She did not offer to help, and that was just fine with Mick. His stomach knotted now that he was here in the same room with her, the woman who had circled the edges of his mind for almost two years. The place smelled of toasted bread. Warm, cozy, worn furniture and a bookshelf crammed with photography magazines and old VHS tapes. On the tiny kitchen table was a stack of multihued paper and three pairs of scissors in varying sizes.

  “I remember who you are,” she said softly. “I looked through your wallet. You’re Mick Hudson. Tucker Rivendale’s parole officer.”

  He swallowed. “I was, yes. I don’t do that job anymore.” He felt the pain of a deeper injury throbbing. And what should he say now? “I’m sorry” seemed a little thin. “I made a terrible mistake” came off even weaker.

  “You met with my sister often.”

  Each word cut a fresh wound. “Yes. When she and Tucker began dating again, I got to know her on some of my visits. She…she was a great lady.” Great lady. Was that all he could offer?

  “Yes.” She stared at him and the moment stretched long and taut, like the anchor line holding tight to a storm-tossed boat.

  A slight smile quirked her lips. “I thought you would be uglier when I first met you at LeeAnn’s that one time.”

  He blinked. “What?”

  “LeeAnn only spoke of Mick the parole officer. I pictured you as a gorilla type, with a broken nose and slicked-back hair. And younger. I thought you’d be younger than you turned out to be.”

  He shifted. He’d only seen Keeley a handful of times when he supervised Tucker, and usually it was only for a brief moment. “I suppose the ugly part is relative, but I’m forty.” Forty going on ancient. He searched her face, unable to read below the calm that he imagined was a front. She was thirty-four, he knew, like he also knew where she and her sister had been born. And that they had a mother living in a retirement home in Colorado and a father deceased, thanks to the ravages of lung cancer when the girls were young. A head full of information that lingered along with the memories.

  “I…” He cleared his throat. “Did you see which direction Tucker went?” Lame, but at least it filled up the silence.

  “No. I stopped paying attention when I lugged you into the Jeep and brought you here.”

  He started to say something, some rough thank-you or another, but she cut him off. A good thing. Saved him from saying something stupid.

  “You probably have a concussion. Should see to that, and maybe you need stitches.” She pointed. “Your bandage is oozing.”

  He swathed himself in more gauze, mindful of the couch.

  The sounds of sirens drifted through the night. A fist pounded on the door and Keeley jumped, fear crowding her fine cerulean eyes.

  Too soon for cops. He put a finger to his lips and went to the window, moving the curtain slightly. Guy on the porch wasn’t Tucker. A tall, lean man dressed in running gear, sweat-damp hair curling around his ears.

  “Keeley? It’s John.” More pounding. “Open the door.”

  Keeley sighed and, against Mick’s better judgment, she unlocked the bolt and let John in, leaving the door ajar.

  John enveloped her in a strong embrace, Keeley’s chin barely reaching his shoulder. “Are you all right? I just got back from my run and turned on the police radio channel. You called in. An attacker?” His eyes shifted suddenly as he caught sight of Mick. He pushed her away and tensed, fists ready. “Who are you?”

  Mick sighed, holding up his palms. “Mick Hudson. I was trying to assist Keeley when she was attacked. Rivendale got away, but he’s probably not far.”

  “Rivendale?” John’s eyes narrowed, face gone pale. “I never thought he’d come back. He’s a nervy psycho, isn’t he?”

  In Mick’s experience most psychos had plenty of nerve, and they looked exactly like normal people.

  “And you are?”

  “John Bender.”

  The sirens were deafening now as the police pulled up to the house.

  John moved toward the door.

  “Stay still,” Mick said. “Cops are tense when they respond code three. Don’t give them more reason to be nervous.”

  John shot him a look filled with venom. “I don’t think you can count yourself as a law enforcement expert anymore, can you, Mr. Hudson? Didn’t you leave that arena after you let Rivendale loose to murder Keeley’s sister? I know all about it.”

  Mick’s first reaction was to get in the guy’s face, but the wave of guilt that followed kept him silent.

  “That was the worst moment of my life.” John continued to stare at him. “I loved LeeAnn. If things had turned out different, she would have been my wife.”

  Mick was surprised. Being Tucker Rivendale’s parole officer, he’d known that Tucker loved LeeAnn and she returned the feeling. As far as he knew, they’d been exclusive since LeeAnn returned to Silver Creek. Never had he even heard John Bender’s name mentioned. He shot a look at Keeley, but she didn’t meet his eye.

  He’d missed something. Again.

  You didn’t know a lot of things, Mick. If you had, LeeAnn wouldn’t be dead.

  *

  In the following hour, three cops handled the investigation, interviewing them. Keeley sat calmly on the still-clean sofa, John holding her hand.

  Something about the gangly man annoyed Mick, but then, holing up on his family’s raptor sanctuary since he quit his job hadn’t given him a lot of practice getting along with people. John Bender, as Mick soon figured out, was an avian veterinarian. LeeAnn had worked as his part-time receptionist. Mick remembered LeeAnn mentioned something about studying to become a vet someday.

  Mick sat quietly, listening to every detail until the chief, a short, stocky man by the name of Uttley, finished up.<
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  “Roadblocks are set up and we’ve got people coming from the area response team to help with a door-to-door search.”

  “He can easily stay in the woods,” Mick said.

  The chief raised an eyebrow and patted his front pocket until he found a butterscotch candy, which he stuck in his cheek. “How you figure?”

  “He was a big camper back in the day. Almost an Eagle Scout before he started getting into trouble. Loved the survivalist stuff.”

  The chief sucked, mouth working as he took in Mick’s information. “Think he’ll stick around?”

  Mick nodded and looked at Keeley. “He said something to you, didn’t he? What was it?”

  She started. “I can’t remember. It all happened so fast.”

  “Are you sure?” he pressed.

  “Yes.”

  “I heard him speak to you.”

  John looped an arm around her shoulders. “She said no, didn’t she?”

  Keeley looked at the floor. “I’m really tired and I have to get up early.”

  “I’m going to have a patrol car drive by throughout the night, just as a precaution.” The chief excused himself. “Staying in town, Mr. Hudson?”

  Mick could see by the chief’s sharp eyes that he was nobody’s fool. It made him feel better. A little. “Not sure. Maybe I’ll drive back home tonight.”

  Home? Was that what he had at the sanctuary? A home? It had begun to feel more and more like a hiding place. When he was ten he’d taken a dare and left school at lunchtime, climbing to the top of a fire lookout in the woods. His grandpa Phil had found him that day and took him right back to school, where he’d been made to write an apology to the teacher and sit with the first graders at lunchtime for a week. He’d towered over those kids, trying without success to scrunch down so he wouldn’t be as obvious as Gulliver in the land of the Lilliputians.

  “You can’t hide from shame, Micky boy,” his grandpa had said.

  No, you can’t, Grandpa.

  When there was nothing left to say, Mick accepted a ride from Uttley back to his truck, parked a half mile from where he’d finally caught up with Keeley and Tucker.

  Uttley was quiet for most of the trip, but Mick knew his wheels were turning.

  “Got a call from Reggie Donaldson alerting us that Rivendale was likely on his way. Not time enough for us to do much.”

  Mick watched the moon glittering in brilliant streaks through the spires of the fir trees.

  “So I get that this is personal.” He cleared his throat. “I’ve been here awhile, so I was on the team that found LeeAnn. I wasn’t the chief then. We were dispatched after Keeley got the text from her sister. I replay it in my mind all the time. I think if we’d found her sooner, if we got there quicker, we could have taken him into custody. More bad luck that your pal Reggie spotted him and tried to make the arrest. Tucker took him down, the car rolled into the pond, and he was long gone before we made it on scene.” He huffed out a breath. “I had a bad feeling when we pulled that car out of the water, but I hoped it wasn’t true. Kept right on hoping until we popped the trunk.”

  Reggie had told Mick later that the sight of LeeAnn in that trunk would never leave his memory to his dying day. “It was as if she was staring at me, asking how we let it happen.”

  How had Mick let it happen? How had he been so completely fooled about Tucker’s character?

  Uttley shook his head. “Poor kid. LeeAnn was only guilty of loving the wrong guy. Never understood how girls could be so led by their hearts and not their heads.”

  Mick kept quiet.

  Uttley tapped the steering wheel. “I’ve had situations that went bad, too. It stays with you. I understand. I know what it’s like to believe in a parolee, to want them to succeed so much it blinds you to the facts.”

  There was something naked and raw in his tone that spoke of personal experience, but Mick knew cops, and they didn’t share with people who didn’t wear badges. Mick waited for the bottom line.

  “But you’re not a cop, and you make things worse by being here, so I’m glad you’re going home.”

  Mick knew Uttley was right. Go home. Stay out of it. It will only make things harder for the family I’ve already ruined.

  Still, he wondered as he thanked Uttley and gunned the engine on his truck.

  What had Tucker said to Keeley back there in the darkness?

  And why had she chosen not to tell the police about it?

  *

  I want what’s mine. Had Tucker really said it? Did he really know? She’d not heard correctly. That was all. Her mind played a vile trick on her.

  Keeley could not dislodge the words from inside.

  Jaw tight, she finally convinced John to leave.

  “I’m fine. The house is locked up. The police are increasing their patrols. I’ll be at the vet clinic tomorrow evening to help with the birds for a couple of hours.”

  “Keeley, it’s okay to admit you’re scared. Why don’t you take some time off? Let me cook for you, or we can go for a walk.”

  She shook her head. “Thank you, but I need to work.” Did she ever. The tiny house was hers after LeeAnn’s death, but debt circled around her like a flock of ravenous crows. It was another ten days until the check would arrive, that mysterious check that showed up in time to save her, or so it seemed, every month.

  “John, you don’t, I mean, you don’t, um, send me anything in the mail, do you?” She watched him closely for any flicker of emotion that would give him away.

  “The mail? No. Why?”

  “No reason.” Part of her breathed a sigh of relief. John could be lying—maybe he really was her mysterious benefactor—but she was happy that he did not appear to be guilty of that generosity. LeeAnn had left a hole in John’s heart, even though she’d never done the smallest thing to encourage his affections, and he tried to assuage the ache by caring for Keeley. It won’t work, she wanted to tell him. Nothing will take that pain away. It was uncomfortable to watch him try. And she certainly had no intention of being anything other than a friend to John, a fact that she’d made crystal clear, or so she hoped.

  She succeeded in escorting him out the door.

  “Please call me if there’s anything at all that you need,” he said.

  “I will. Thank you.”

  She bolted the door behind him. For a moment, she leaned against the wood and let the quiet wash over, whispering a prayer of thanks that she had survived her face-to-face encounter with Tucker Rivendale. It was not so much for her physical safety she was grateful, but for the fact that her soul was still intact. So much rage coursed through her when she thought of him. For so long she’d worried that her desire for vengeance might just lead her to losing herself if she ever confronted him.

  But she’d faced him; she’d stood inches from Tucker Rivendale, the man who killed her sister, and she was still standing.

  And still filled with a black and roiling anger that she knew would never dissipate. Where had the old Keeley gone? The fun-loving, curious athlete who found paths to hike where there were none? Who traveled the country to photograph birds, those unfettered kings of the sky? She remembered her sister’s laughter, the way she would throw back her chin and let loose her joy in big belly chuckles at Keeley’s antics. “I miss you, LeeAnn. I was a better person when you were here with me,” she said to the empty room.

  *

  The next morning, when memories of the previous day ignited her anxiety, she applied the antidote and went for the duffel bag that had become her constant companion. Cameras, tripod, batteries, change of clothes, toiletries, a nearly empty wallet and a book. This time it was What’s New Boo Boo Bear? At the secondhand store in town, she’d scored it for a dime.

  Money couldn’t buy happiness, but a well-spent ten cents could still get you some fun.

  When everything was carefully stowed, she considered the time, nearly ten o’clock. She wasn’t expected at Aunt Viv’s until the afternoon.

  “There a
re plenty of things I can do here,” she said aloud to beat back the heavy silence. Shelves could be dusted. Another endless round of magazine queries could and should be sent out. At the very least, she should go to the hardware store and install an extra lock on the front and back doors.

  But the flat emptiness in Tucker’s eyes stirred a deep longing inside her that could only be counteracted by a certain bright cobalt gaze. Locking the door behind her, Keeley headed for the Jeep.

  She drove out of Silver Creek, the small town of no more than five hundred people, past John’s vet clinic. His lights were on. No surprise. He was probably the hardest-working man she’d ever met. Each stoplight and every mile covered lifted her spirits a little. Everything was okay, she told her unsettled nerves.

  Tucker wouldn’t dare return with the police out looking for him. Likely he would actually be caught this time, and she would have the pleasure of watching him sent to prison permanently like he should have been before.

  Again her mind tried to fill in the details of LeeAnn’s final day. LeeAnn had gone to check on a wounded bird on the top of an abandoned warehouse and somewhere along the way she’d met up with Tucker. A couple of hours after her departure, she was dead in the trunk of Tucker’s car, submerged in a pond. Not dead from drowning, but from a massive blow to the back of the head.

  And Tucker? The man LeeAnn had believed in despite his criminal past? The man she’d taken up with again after he’d proved himself a louse? He’d been running when he’d crashed his car into a pond, and nearly arrested by an off duty Reggie Donaldson.

  And where had Mick been in all this? Vacationing on his family’s property in the mountains. Oblivious to the fact that he’d vouched for a would-be killer and had Tucker’s tracking bracelet removed, a device that might have saved LeeAnn’s life that day. She wanted to hate Mick Hudson, but something about the way he’d stared at her inexplicably twisted her feelings. The big brute of a man was intimately familiar with grief. It was carved into the lines of his face.

  The road out of town smoothed out, straight and empty. Big Pines was larger and more populated, with easy access to doctors, therapists and a very special preschool. A glimmer of movement caught her eye in the rearview mirror. Her heart dropped for a moment as she imagined Tucker’s motorcycle behind her.