Love Inspired Suspense April 2015 #2

by Dana Mentink

  His mouth quirked. “Let me guess. PE was your favorite class?”

  “Yes.”

  “Mine, too.”

  Enough of the pleasantries. She peered closer. “What did you find?”

  He pointed to a sleeping bag. “Tucker’s been crashing here. Couple of empty food cans, eaten recently. This is what puzzles me.” With a discarded piece of wire he found on the floor, Mick pulled a piece of crumpled paper loose. It was a diagram of some sort. Keeley looked closer.

  “Is that the rooftop?”

  “Yes.” Mick frowned. “Why would Tucker be so interested in the rooftop of an abandoned newspaper office?”

  Keeley’s stomach tightened. “And a building not more than one mile from where the police recovered his car with my sister’s body in the trunk. What does it mean?”

  “I don’t know. Yet.”

  Something about the last word worried her. Mick would keep digging, which means he would stick in her life like a thorn. Just find out the truth and he’ll be gone. She poked a toe at a pile of empty snack-cake wrappers, muscles tensing. “Mick…”

  He stood. “Uh-huh?”

  She stared at the wrappers, sticky with icing. “My sister never could understand how Tucker had no sweet tooth whatsoever. She always told me it was unnatural.”

  They locked eyes.

  With the wire, he teased a receipt out of a discarded plastic grocery bag. “Purchased last night at a Pick and Pack a couple of miles from here.” He squinted at the time stamp. “Just after eleven.”

  Cold trickled down her spine. “I have a feeling Tucker has someone helping him.”

  “Gonna keep looking,” he said.

  He pushed open the door of the office. She was about to follow him inside when out of the corner of her eye she caught the blur of movement, followed by the crash of the stairwell door being flung open behind her.

  FIVE

  In a moment, Mick shot out of the office and tore after the figure, Keeley pounding along right behind. As he slammed into the stairwell, he stumbled over a pile of boxes that the fugitive had flung across the stairs to slow their progress.

  He heaved them out of the way, but it cost him precious time. Whoever it was took the stairs, as fleet as a deer. He pounded down, flinging the bottom-floor exit door open, blinking in the sunlight.

  A deputy looked up from his radio, hand reflexively moving toward his gun. Mick stopped and raised his palms. “Mick Hudson. Behind me is Keeley Stevens. We found someone hiding inside the building. Did you see anyone exit just now?”

  “No,” Chief Uttley said, coming around the corner. “I heard the door crash open and I went to investigate while Officer Mason radioed the info.”

  Mick raised an eyebrow. “You didn’t see anyone come out?” From Mason’s vantage point, he could not imagine how he’d missed a fleeing figure who would have had to cross thirty feet of open space before disappearing around the neighboring building and into the forest beyond.

  “I said no,” Uttley repeated. “Am I correct, Mason?”

  Mason remained silent after a short nod.

  The hostility was clear to Mick. “We found some evidence that Tucker’s been holed up inside with someone else.”

  Uttley shrugged. “Nice dry place, warm. Good spot for homeless people to hang out. That’s probably it.”

  “I don’t…”

  Uttley’s volume edged up a notch. “Mr. Hudson, you’ve forgotten our earlier agreement. You were going to get out of Silver Creek and leave the law enforcement to the people qualified to do that job.” He tapped his chest. “The ones with badges.”

  Heat rose to Mick’s cheeks. The part that had gotten him in trouble his whole life flared up again—the stubborn, prideful side of his soul that would not be talked down to. It had been the hardest challenge to becoming a marine, taking orders, letting someone break you down bit by bit. But in this case, Uttley was right. He was not the marine, not a parole officer, just a civilian. “I didn’t intend to butt in.”

  “Yet you did, so I’ll ask you politely now to butt out. Next time, it won’t be a request.” He turned to his deputy. “I’ll go check it out and photograph everything. Keep everyone here until we get initial statements.”

  Mason nodded, and Mick and Keeley walked toward Reggie and John, who stood in stony silence next to Chief Uttley’s police car.

  Keeley gave Mick a sidelong glance. “Uttley’s not a fan of yours.”

  “He’s got plenty of company, then.” Mick stopped a few yards away and turned to her, noting that she seemed only a touch winded by their flight down the stairs. “Keeley, why did you come here, to the newspaper building? Now?”

  “I got a text from a man named Fred at Bird’s Away Magazine. The email said he needed the picture, ASAP.” She frowned. “Do you think Tucker sent it?”

  “Let me see the text.” He copied the number from her phone. The setting sun caught the soft curve of her cheeks, the frown that drew her delicate brows together. He did not see a shadow of hatred in her eyes, behind the pain and fear and he wondered why. “Keeley, until the cops catch him…”

  She shook her head, face suddenly hard. “Don’t say it.”

  “June isn’t safe.”

  He knew those three words were the worst she could hear. June isn’t safe. How could it be that any human being could threaten an innocent child? He couldn’t understand it, even though his own family had been torn apart when a child was abducted right under their noses. Children did not deserve to have their lives messed up by adults. His mind flew back in time. He thought about his son’s tiny grave, recalled the feel of a cold headstone under his fingertips, his memory mingled with the scent of carnations, which he could not abide to this day. “I’m sorry,” he said lamely. “To have to say it.”

  Keeley blinked, folded her arms tight across her chest. He readied himself for the angry rant he knew was coming. Instead she began to shudder, eyes closed as if the world was spinning around her. Silent sobs shook her body. He caught her forearms, pulling her to his chest to keep her from falling.

  “Deep breaths,” he murmured, tightening his embrace, grazing his mouth against her soft hair.

  “I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” she whispered.

  He heard her teeth chattering, and he tightened his embrace, pressing his cheek to the top of her head as if he could infuse what strength he had into her. “Delayed shock,” he said. “It’s okay. You’re entitled.”

  John arrived, stopping so abruptly he skidded on the loose debris. “What is it? Were you hurt after all?” He pushed close to her and Mick let go, taking off his jacket and handing it to John, who snatched it and draped it over Keeley’s shoulders. “We’ll get you to the ER.”

  She breathed hard for a few moments, forcing her features into a state of control. Strong woman, in spite of her slight stature. Reminded him of his sister, Ruby.

  “I don’t need the hospital.”

  “Yes, you do. Please be sensible,” John said firmly, brushing the hair from her face. Mick agreed with John for once, but he wasn’t about to share that sentiment.

  “No,” she said sharply. “I know what’s best for me.”

  John flinched. “I’m sorry.” He looked away, squinting at the sky. “I was overbearing. I just… My mind wants to rewind, to do things over again the right way. If I’d been more forceful about my feelings…”

  The regret in John’s voice repelled Mick. He took a step away. Shame wasn’t something a man trotted out for all the world to see.

  Keeley sighed. “LeeAnn knew how you felt.”

  John shook his head, hand still on her back. “I meant my feelings about him.”

  Mick caught the bile that dripped from the last word. “About Tucker?”

  John didn’t answer, but Mick saw the look on Keeley’s face as she studied him.

  “Dr. Bender,” Mason called. “Would you mind answering a few questions now?”

  John squeezed Keeley around
the shoulders, pressed a kiss to her temple and trudged off.

  Mick stared after him, and Reggie, who had sauntered closer, did, too.

  “Guy’s a coiled spring,” Reggie said. “Must have had it bad for LeeAnn.”

  Mick watched Keeley, whose eyes changed from blue to pewter in the shifting rays of sun. “I wonder.”

  Reggie ran a thumb under his eye patch. “What?”

  “John was so concerned about Keeley that he stopped me as I was on my way up, and then he risked getting himself shot by interrupting you.”

  “Yeah, so?”

  “So if he was deeply concerned,” Mick continued, “why did he wait so long to call the cops?”

  Reggie considered. “Dunno. Doesn’t trust them, maybe?”

  I’m not sure I do, either, Mick thought.

  Chief Uttley joined them. “Photographed everything, took the roof diagram, but in my opinion Tucker’s been staying here alone. There’s some other trash, but it’s old.”

  “But…” Keeley said.

  Uttley cut her off and looked at Reggie. “Mr. Donaldson, I’m looking forward to hearing your part in this messy little encounter. There will be a nice bit of paperwork to go through, especially since you discharged your weapon twice. We’ll secure the scene and drive back to the station. I trust that won’t ruin your plans?”

  “Nah,” Reggie said with an airy wave. “I’ve got to call my travel agent and book a cruise, but it can wait.” He winked at Keeley and headed for his car. “Catch you later, Mick.” His tone hardened, probably imperceptibly to anyone, but not to Mick. “We’ve got some things to talk over.”

  Understatement. Mick still burned inside at Reggie’s negligence. He was so bent on revenge that he was willing to endanger Keeley. Mick was going to have to keep tabs on that escalating problem.

  Further, Mick was going to have to figure out why Uttley was protecting whoever was holed up in the building with Tucker. But the bigger issue at the moment was, who had sent the text that delivered Keeley to the rooftop? Was it Tucker, or did he have someone else helping him?

  *

  Keeley’s knees were still shaking, but she insisted on driving herself to the police station. She wanted to be away from Reggie and John and, most important, from Mick, to sort out her feelings. How was a person supposed to put their emotions in order after being cornered by their sister’s killer and told her child was the real target?

  She gripped the wheel and used the hands-free phone to dial Aunt Viv.

  “The police have already been here,” Aunt Viv reassured her. “They’re not anyone I know, I think they’re on loan from another department, but the chief is coming later.” She shushed Cornelius, who loved to chatter away when she was on the phone. “I think Cornelius knows I’m taking him for a wing and nail trim soon. It’s not his favorite thing.”

  She knew her aunt had a tendency to rattle on when she was overwrought. “Aunt Viv, are you and June okay?”

  “Yes,” she said. “Our lives are perfectly normal except for the police car parked outside. They said we’re completely safe. They came inside to check all the locks and such, too. So embarrassing. I hadn’t gotten around to dusting in the family room for ages, and my violin sheet music was all over the study.”

  Keeley smiled through her worry. “I don’t know what’s going to happen.” Her voice wobbled.

  “Honey,” her aunt said quietly. “It’s going to be okay. Junie is safe and so are you. That’s all that matters. God’s watching out for you.”

  It was a sentiment she wanted desperately to believe, but the knowledge of what happened to LeeAnn kindled new fear inside her. No one was completely safe. Ever. She could accept that for her own life, but not for June, and she would do anything in her power to protect her daughter. “I’ll come when I’m done with the police.”

  “Umm, now don’t get upset, but they told me you shouldn’t visit for a few days, just until they make sure about things, in case Tucker’s following you.”

  Keeley’s eyes filled. She’d had a feeling it was coming but the words cut like glass. “I can’t… I’m not allowed to see her?”

  “Just for a few days,” Viv crooned. “Derek knows what he’s doing.”

  Derek Uttley? “I didn’t know you were on a first name basis.”

  Viv sighed. “Honey, I’m retired. That doesn’t mean I don’t have a social life.”

  Keeley knew her aunt had met Uttley when her car was stolen a few short weeks after she moved to Silver Creek following LeeAnn’s murder. She wanted to ask some questions, but despair clogged up her mind.

  “We can Skype as many times as you want. I’ve told my other clients that I have to take some time off for the next week, and I arranged for the kids to go to another day care, just to be on the safe side.”

  So Aunt Viv’s business was now affected, too. Tucker had the power to hurt everyone she loved. Keeley swallowed the burn that crept from her stomach into her throat. “Okay,” she whispered. “Just until we solve the problem.”

  Viv talked on for a while longer, but Keeley could not hear over the rushing in her own ears. She felt the same sick desire take hold again as it had the moment she’d heard about LeeAnn, the need to clutch the steering wheel, stomp the gas and drive as far and fast as she could.

  You’re not a mother, Keeley.

  You don’t know what to do.

  Panic, hot and acidic, bubbled inside as she fought the urge to run away.

  God will not call you to do something He hasn’t equipped you for. Her sister had scrawled it on the bathroom mirror with lipstick after June was born, and they had both read it over and over. But He’d done just that, hadn’t He? Keeley was not ever planning to have kids of her own, and now here she was, mother to her sister’s baby, and a child with special needs at that.

  Her fingers grew slick with cold sweat as she gripped the wheel, struggling with her own internal darkness.

  “Keeley? Are you still there?”

  She forced in a breath and shoved away the panic. “Yes, I’m here.”

  “Okay. You sort of faded away for a moment.”

  Faded away into a place she must not allow herself to go. June needed her. God would give her the strength. She might not be the best standin for a mother, but she was only one June had. She wiped a shaking hand across her forehead. “Can I say good night to her?”

  “Sure. She’s pretty tired, though. All ready for bed.”

  “Wearing her pink jammies?” Keeley said through tears.

  “Pink with the kitty on the front, her favorite. I have to quickly launder them during the day or she pitches a fit at bedtime.” Aunt Viv put June on the line.

  “Hey, Junie Jo,” Keeley said, fighting for a serene tone.

  June breathed noisily into the phone. “Hi, Mama.”

  “I—I can’t come get you tonight. I’m sorry. But I’ll see you real soon.”

  There was a soft sucking sound, and she imagined June slurping on her two fingers, as she’d done since shortly after her birth.

  “Did you brush your teeth?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Good girl. Say your prayers with Aunt Viv, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “Good night, Junie.” She swallowed hard. “I love you.”

  “Love you, Mama.”

  Love you, Mama. Why did four simple syllables make every excruciating parenting moment fade away? All the arduous bouts of physical therapy, the endless doctor appointments and dizzying fears about money evaporated in the face of that pure sweetness.

  Junie’s speech had been a long time coming, thanks to her small oral cavity and high arched palate, as the doctors explained. For a long time, Junie’s speech sounded like no more than babbling to Keeley, in spite of the endless games of peekaboo and the elaborate “mmm” after bites of dinner to encourage her to make the proper sounds. Then, out of the blue, came “Mama.” The first time she’d heard it on that day when June had just sent a dozen oranges cascadi
ng off the grocery store shelf, Keeley had fallen to her knees, clasping a startled June in a bear hug. Then she’d turned her face away to prevent June from seeing her anguished tears. The word, the precious syllables, should have been a gift to her sister, June’s real mother.

  She was a fraud, pretending to be a mother. Doubt, grief, fear, desperation, love.

  Mama.

  The loss rang through her again, like the clash of cymbals. She knew she would never stop missing her sister, and each gain of June’s would remind her of what she’d lost. Every new word should be LeeAnn’s to treasure; each ink mark on the doorjamb to measure another inch grown belonged to LeeAnn.

  What would LeeAnn have done in the present circumstance? Fought Tucker with every breath, every last ounce of her courage; anything to save her daughter.

  Junie, I will not let Tucker take you. The resolve hardened like marble in her heart. She wasn’t a detective, or a parole officer, or a cop, but she had the only credential that mattered more. God had made her a mother, and that trumped everything else.

  I will find him, baby, and he will never put his evil hands on you.

  Doubt surged afresh. What could she do that the police couldn’t? She had to be crazy.

  “Just crazy enough,” she whispered under her breath. “Love you, too, Junie Jo.”

  SIX

  Mick was surprised when Keeley knocked on the window of his pickup truck in the police station parking lot. Reggie had finished up a half hour before and gone back to the cabin. Mick was also done being grilled by Uttley. He’d learned little except that the Fred at Bird’s Away Magazine had not sent the text and that Uttley liked Mick even less than he had earlier.

  Mick leaned over and opened the door for Keeley. She climbed in.

  “You’re waiting around to follow me home, aren’t you?” she demanded.

  Another question that didn’t need an answer, but he nodded to be polite.

  “This is crazy. I just explained to John that you’re following me everywhere, and I do not need his protection or yours.”

  Not that the scrawny doctor-boy could help out much, Mick thought. “I told him that I’d be keeping you under watch until Tucker’s caught.”