by Dana Mentink
Junie was in the playroom banging blocks around. Keeley kissed and hugged her until the little girl squirmed to be free. Keeley left her to play and told Aunt Viv everything that had transpired.
Viv clutched her close, tears running down her cheeks. “Oh, Keeley. Oh, honey.” She released Keeley and wrapped a startled Mick in a hug.
“Thank you for protecting her,” she sobbed.
Mick looked strained. “Ah, it was a joint effort, ma’am. Keeley had a hand in it, too.” He patted her back awkwardly and immediately escaped into the playroom when she released him.
Viv collapsed onto the sofa. “I got a text from Derek. He wants to talk. I think that’s progress, don’t you?”
She did. “He’s got a lot to work through, and there’s no better listener than you, Aunt Viv.”
She sighed. “I’ll get Junie’s bag.”
While she was gone, Keeley found Mick and Junie collaborating over a block tower on the floor. Mick was on his stomach, long frame sprawling.
Angry that her tower had collapsed once again, Junie threw her block to the floor, cheeks red. “No, no,” she shouted.
“Like this,” Mick said. He put four blocks together to form a sturdy base for the tower. “Now try.”
Junie did, ferociously determined to control her finger muscles. With the more stable platform, she managed to stack four blocks atop the structure.
Mick nodded. “There you go. Now you can knock it down.”
Junie did, this time squealing with delight as the blocks tumbled everywhere. She went to chase them and Mick laughed. He found Keeley staring at him.
“She just needed a different way to do it.”
Keeley felt her throat swell. “I was crushed when we found out Junie had Down syndrome. I fixated on the things she wouldn’t be able to do. I thought it was some sort of punishment, but I’ve figured out it’s just the way God meant her to be.”
“She’s pretty great just the way she is.”
“Yes.” She paused. “You’ll be a great dad someday, Mick.”
He flushed and looked away. “Not sure about that. Figured I wasn’t meant to have kids, not after my son.”
“And I figured I wasn’t going to be a mother, until Junie.”
He watched Junie, a wistful look washing over his face. “Funny how God puts you places you’d never choose to go.”
“Yes, funny,” she said, gathering June into her arms. The girl wriggled, stretching out her arms to Mick.
“Up.”
His eyes widened. “Oh, up like on my shoulders? I think she remembers from before.”
“It’s okay if you don’t want to,” Keeley said.
He looked from Keeley to the little hands outstretched to him. Then he took June up and swung her onto his shoulders.
“Yeah, yeah,” Junie called, her face wreathed in a smile.
Mick grinned, bending to whisper to Keeley, “You don’t think she’ll make me sing again, do you?”
Keeley laughed. “Just remember, you’re the grown-up. You can tell her no.”
He raised a skeptical eyebrow, which set Keeley laughing again.
Mick trotted her outside with plenty of extra bouncing. Junie was thrilled.
Keeley watched them, her heart both happy and broken.
How sweet a moment.
And how unutterably sad that it would be their last together.
The drive back to her house was quiet.
Junie ran ahead when they got there, Keeley opened the door and let her inside. She lingered on the porch.
“Are you going back home after the police are done with you?” she forced herself to say.
“I guess so.” He studied her, his gaze drifting from her hair to her eyes to her lips. “There are some ends to tie up, and I’m going to stop and see Tucker before I go, if he regains consciousness. I have a feeling that he thought I knew about Reggie’s blackmail, maybe that I was even in on it somehow. That’s why he didn’t come to me for help.” He sighed.
The sunlight silhouetted his strong frame, the long arms that she ached to feel around her. But what right had she to ask him to stay? She was a woman with a child to raise, and he had come for one purpose only.
“Keeley—” He broke off.
“Yes?”
He shook his head. “Never mind. Everything’s happened so fast I’m running off at the mouth. I just wanted to say that you’re an amazing woman and an incredible mother.” He reached down and caressed her arms, pressing his cheek to her temple, his lips grazing her brow. “I came here to save you, but I think it might have wound up the other way around.”
She reveled in his warmth, the gentleness in his huge hands. I don’t want you to leave. Please stay here with me.
Her heart squeezed out the words, but she could not speak them. He could not just stay out of duty; he should remain out of love, and that had to come from him. After a long, bittersweet moment, he moved away.
“Say goodbye to June for me, will you?”
She nodded, unable to trust herself.
He walked to his truck and drove away.
With limbs made of iron, she dragged herself into the house and closed the door, leaning her forehead against the wood. Each breath was an agony.
“Good riddance” came a voice from behind her.
TWENTY
Mick drove.
Though the pace was his usual steady and slow, the miles brought no comfort.
The wheels churned up an ache inside him, an excruciating sense that he’d turned his back on a profound need. But the case was closed, Tucker would be exonerated of LeeAnn’s murder, and for all Reggie’s protestations, he’d more than likely murdered LeeAnn. The brothers would be charged with Ginny’s death. So why the need pounding away at his insides?
Might it be his own? The sweetness of time spent with Keeley and June stuck to him like a fragrance. But his gut traveled back in time to LeeAnn’s murder, his misjudgment not of Tucker, but of Reggie.
Memories mixed together.
Reggie’s twisted smile.
The bottomless blue of Keeley’s eyes.
Watching Uttley gun down Tucker, the desperation in Tucker’s outstretched hand.
Building that block tower and seeing the gleam of triumph in a child and the happiness he’d felt at being a part of her small success.
Old hurts, new joys, tragic losses and the feel of Keeley in his arms.
Every cell in his body wanted to turn the truck around.
He gripped the wheel. “Lord, I know You’ve forgiven me, but what if she can’t? What if I take a risk and she walks away?”
What if?
What if the key to his happiness was right there, in that old house with the woman who duct-taped her bread machine and knew songs about wheels on buses?
Keeley.
“What should I do, God? What?” A rush of feeling he couldn’t put a name to prickled along his skin, invading his mind and plowing through the dark places of the past.
U-turn.
He was driving back to Keeley’s house, faster than the speed limit, borne along by something higher than himself.
*
Keeley turned slowly around.
John stood with his hands in his pockets.
She sucked in a breath, scanning the room for June. “What are you doing here?”
“You know what I’m doing here. I was with Aunt Viv when you called her. She was picking up Cornelius. She told me you were on your way to Meeker’s. I called her to follow up and she said you saw a video that showed the killer’s car in the parking lot.” He shook his head. “It’s funny. To be found out by a bird.”
Found out? “John, why did you let yourself into my house, and where’s June?”
“I know where you keep the spare key. It’s how I turned on the water.”
Her heart thudded. “You flooded my house? Why would you do that?”
“Same reason I threw the Molotov through the window.” He huffed. �
�You’re so dumb sometimes. I wanted you and June to come stay with me, to get away from Mick. He’s not good for you. Just like Tucker.”
His voice seemed to come from a long way off, as if he was reciting a speech he’d written.
“John,” she said steadily, “where is June?”
“I put her in the basement, just temporarily, while we talked.”
She rushed for the basement door, but he kicked out and took her legs from under her, sending her to the floor. He pressed his knee to her back.
“We have to talk. I need you to understand that we’re a family. You can’t keep letting people get between us. First Tucker and now Mick. It’s not right.” His kneecap pressed into her spine.
“John, please.”
“You should have seen through Tucker. I told you he was a crook. I tailed him forever, saw him go up on the rooftop every month like clockwork. Whatever he was doing up there was illegal, for sure. Drugs, I think. That’s why I told you about the bird. Got the tip on the phone that there was a wounded parrot. I knew,” he said, voice gone suddenly soft, reaching out a hand to stroke her hair. “I knew you would go and see him there, LeeAnn, and then you’d realize he was a crook.”
Keeley was numb, disbelief freezing her senses. “You sent LeeAnn because Tucker would be there?’
“I sent you, honey,” he said, crooning, “so you could learn the truth.”
“I’m not LeeAnn,” she cried out. “I’m Keeley.”
His tone hardened. “And still, even after you saw Tucker doing something bad up there, you charged down the fire escape, and what was the first thing you said? The very first words out of your mouth?”
She didn’t answer, stunned.
He put his face to her ear and whispered, “You said, ‘Please, John. We have to get help for Tucker.’” His fist bunched in her hair, fingers ice-cold. “For Tucker, you said. Even after you knew he was a criminal. I proved it to you.” With each word he tugged at her hair.
Tears pricked her eyes. It was time, past time, for the truth to come out. “And you got mad, when…when I said that.”
“I lost my temper and shoved you. You hit your head on the fender. I knew it was bad, real bad.” He spoke right into her ear. She felt spittle on her cheek. “Oh, LeeAnn. I never meant it to happen, I was just so angry that you wouldn’t see the truth about him.”
“So you put her…” She swallowed. She’d humor him until she could get to June. “You put me in Tucker’s trunk.” To suffer and die all alone. Rage lit up her blood, but she would not indulge it. Not until her little girl was safe.
“Tucker is the bad guy in all this.” He sniffed. “But you’re here now and we can be a family. Doesn’t matter how it happened. You, me and Junie. I have two plane tickets at the office. We’ll go get them and fly away. To Mexico. No one will find us there. Doesn’t that sound nice?”
Two. He wasn’t intending to take June, daughter of a man he despised. She struggled for breath. Lord, help me, she prayed. “Let me up, John. You’re hurting me.”
“Of course, sweetheart.” He eased off at once and reached out a hand to help her to her feet. “Pack your things. Just the essentials. Quick now.”
“I need to let Junie out of the basement.”
“In a minute.”
“She’s scared of the dark.”
“We’re all scared of something,” he said, eyes wide and glittering.
“There’s no proof against you.”
“Sure there is. You got Meeker’s bird cam. I’m sure it captured my car there in the lot that day.”
“The bird camera didn’t show your car,” she blurted. “It showed Reggie Donaldson’s. There’s still no proof to convict you of a crime. We don’t need to run away.”
“Reggie was the guy Tucker was meeting?” He considered a moment, chuckling. “Imagine that. But it’s all out now, and I’ve decided on a plan, so stop talking. Pack.”
On shaking legs, she went to the bedroom, and he followed right behind her. She took out a bag and dumped in some clothes. All the while she wondered how she could escape, or at least leave a message so someone would know the truth about John Bender.
It made sense now. His constant presence in their lives, his utter devastation after LeeAnn’s death, was driven by love, twisted into madness.
“That’s enough. Let’s go.”
“I have to use the bathroom. Junie does, too.”
“June will be fine. Can’t you wait?”
She shook her head.
He smiled indulgently, like a devoted lover. He walked her to the bathroom and eyed the tiny window. “If you try to leave me,” he said quietly, “I’ll make sure you never see June again.” Then he offered a bright smile. “We’re going to be a family, remember?”
She shut herself in the bathroom, struggling to quell the panic. He’d hurt Junie to make her comply. She couldn’t escape. Quietly opening a drawer, she found a nearly used-up lipstick. In a corner of the mirror that wouldn’t be visible from the door, she scrawled a message.
“John killed her.”
“Time’s up,” John said. “Come out, come out, wherever you are.”
*
Mick arrived at Keeley’s house to find both Aunt Viv’s car and Keeley’s Jeep in the driveway. Aunt Viv waved at him from the porch step. He hoped she was not going to give him another hug until he noticed she wore a puzzled frown.
“Hello, Mick. Do you know where Keeley is?”
“Just left her an hour ago right here.”
“Huh. Well, I can hear her cell phone ringing inside and she’s not answering. Her car’s here. Maybe she and Junie went for a walk.”
Mick peered through the window. Mr. Moo Moo lay on the floor upside down, with his tail hanging over his eyes.
Mick went by Viv and pounded on the door. No answer. He tried the handle. Locked.
“I looked for the spare key, but it’s not in the hiding place.”
Dread trickled drop by icy drop through his spine. He went to Keeley’s car, which had been left unlocked, and hit the garage door opener. He and Viv went into the house. There wasn’t much out of place that he could see, except that some of her dresser drawers were open.
Viv emerged from the closet. “Her suitcase is gone.”
The words hit him like blows. Had she decided to leave town? Not with the police still to be reckoned with, certainly not without Mr. Moo Moo. So what was the last thing she would have done before leaving with a small child? Insisted on that final potty break, he was sure, after hearing her discuss pertinent toilet training details with Viv. He still had no idea what training pants were, but he didn’t need to know just then.
He went into the bathroom. Everything normal, no sign of distress.
Until his eyes fell on the tiny lipstick letters.
“Aunt Viv,” he roared as he pounded out of the bathroom. “Get in the truck.”
*
John carried a sobbing June to his car, parked a block away from the house.
“It’s okay, Junie,” she said. “Please let me hold her. She’s scared.”
“No,” he said sharply. “You’re driving and she’s got to learn to respect her father.” He thumped June on the back. “I would have been a stellar father. Did you know I was voted best marriage material in college? Respected profession, my own house, a healthy savings account. All that and you still picked that loser over me.”
Keeley bit back a retort. “I’m sorry,” she forced herself to say. “That’s in the past. But we don’t have to leave. We can stay here. Live in your house. We don’t need to go to Mexico.”
“Time for a fresh start. If Rivendale does happen to survive, I don’t want him in our lives.”
She got into the driver’s seat, hoping he would put June next to her.
Instead he put her beside him in the back.
“She needs her car seat,” Keeley tried desperately.
“Only a short drive. You’ll be okay, won’t you, June?”
>
June’s face was wet with tears, and she shoved her fingers into her mouth.
“We forgot Mr. Moo Moo, her toy. Can I please get it?”
“Drive to my office. Now.”
Maybe someone would see them at the office. She could get help. A spark of hope lit inside her until she checked her watch. It was five. Closing time. No clients would be milling around. Sweat dampened her forehead. There had to be some way to get June to safety.
They pulled up at the office and got out.
“Okay,” he said. “This will only take a minute or two. I’ve got to get some cash out of the safe and grab the tickets and we’re on our way.” His smile was bright. He opened the trunk, and before Keeley knew what he was doing, he’d shoved June inside and slammed the lid.
“No,” she screamed. “Let her out.”
“Shh.” He put a finger to his lips. “This won’t take long, but if you raise a fuss—” He shrugged and put the keys in his pocket. “Come on.”
Keeley fought for breath. Junie would be terrified in the trunk. “I won’t go into the office until you let her out.”
He frowned, eyes glittering. “That’s not how you talk to your husband.” He grabbed her by the arm. She thrashed and tried to break his hold, but his grip was like iron.
“The longer this takes, the stuffier it’s going to get in that trunk.” He unlocked the door and pushed her inside, bolting the door again behind him. Her nerves screamed. Had he made it up about Mexico? Was he intending to do things to her, to kill her? Then what would happen to Junie?
Was there enough air in that trunk?
*
Viv called Uttley, who was en route within moments.
“I’m already in town,” Uttley snapped over the speakerphone. “I’ll radio Dispatch. Stay in the parking lot,” he commanded.
It didn’t even register with Mick. Tires squealed as he peeled into the lot. He was charging up the door when he stopped so suddenly he almost fell.
“Did you hear that?”
Viv panted up behind him. “Yes, a thump, from John’s car.”
The trunk was locked, the doors, too, but he could see a release lever underneath the dashboard. He tore to his truck, popped the hood and ripped out the spark plug.
