Running for Cover

by Shirlee McCoy

  “Thinking about what?”

  “The past and how easy it is to get caught up wishing we could change it. I’ve spent two years thinking that I could have prevented my sister’s death. If I’d asked the right questions, pushed for answers, maybe she’d still be alive.” He shrugged.

  “Do you really think you could have saved her?”

  “I’ve spent a lot of time since her death telling myself that I could have. But when I was listening to the sermon today, I started wondering if that was the truth. Maybe I could have changed things with the right question. Maybe I couldn’t have, but I can’t spend any more time wondering about it. Wishing for it.”

  “I’m sorry, Jackson.” The words weren’t enough. Morgan knew it, but there was nothing else to give, and she put her hand on his shoulder, wishing she could offer more.

  “Me, too, but it’s time to move on. Time to really put the past behind me. Maybe it’s time for you to do the same.”

  “I wish it were that easy.”

  “Why can’t it be?”

  “Because the past is following me, Jackson. Once this is over, once we’ve got the disk and the police have figured out why someone wants it so badly, then I can move on.”

  “But will you?”

  “Of course. It’s what I’ve been trying to do for years.”

  “Then why open a pottery gallery in Lakeview, Virginia, when your family is here? This is a beautiful place. I’m sure that for an artist it’s full of inspiration.”

  It was true. She couldn’t deny it. “Turn right here. Shannon’s house is the cream-colored Victorian on the corner.”

  “I guess you’re not going to answer the question.”

  “I would if I had an answer,” she responded, tensing as he pulled into the driveway of the beautiful old house.

  “Think she stuck around and waited?”

  “She’ll be here. Shannon was never one to back down from a challenge.” Morgan took a deep breath and got out of the car, knowing her college roommate was probably staring out a window, watching them approach.

  “Come on, then. I’m sure you’re as anxious to get this over with as she probably is,” Jackson said, taking her hand, tugging her along when she might have been tempted to take another minute, and try to prepare a little more.

  “It’s an awkward situation.”

  “Awkward?” Jackson raised a brow, his blue eyes as clear and bright as the summer sky.

  “Uncomfortable. Disturbing. Weird. But I figured I’d just go with awkward.”

  Jackson knocked on the door, and Morgan took another deep breath, wiped her palm on her skirt again.

  “It’s going to be okay.” Jackson squeezed her hand, holding it tight as he knocked again.

  The door swung open and Shannon appeared, dressed in dark, low-slung jeans and a fitted sweater. Blond hair perfectly highlighted. Green eyes perfectly made-up. Beautiful, but faded since the last time Morgan had seen her. Fine lines fanned out from the corner of her eyes, and her skin seemed a shade too pale.

  “Morgan, come on in,” she said, stepping aside so that Morgan and Jackson could walk into the large foyer.

  “I appreciate you letting me come by to see the box.”

  “I didn’t realize you were bringing someone.” Shannon cast a quick glance in Jackson’s direction.

  “This is Jackson Sharo. He’s…a friend.”

  “I see.”

  “See what?”

  “I guess you really did move on once you left Cody. I’d been worried…” Her voice trailed off and her cheeks flushed.

  “That I’d be brokenhearted when I found out you were having an affair with my husband.” There. It was out in the open where it needed to be.

  “I’m not going to deny it, and I’m not going to apologize. But I will say that I’m sorry to lose your friendship. You always meant the world to me.”

  Jackson snorted, and Morgan shot a hard look in his direction.

  “Sorry, but I don’t see how a person could betray someone who means the world to her.”

  “Let’s not make this any more difficult than it has to be,” Morgan said.

  “It’s okay. He’s right, but I’m not going to offer excuses. I didn’t want to hear them when my husband cheated on me, and I’m sure you don’t want to hear them now. You came for the package.” She lifted a small box from a round foyer table. “Here you are. There wasn’t much in it. Just a personal letter, the necklace I’m wearing and a computer disk.”

  Morgan tried to avoid looking at Shannon’s necklace as she accepted the box, but it was impossible to keep her eyes off it. Large to the point of gaudiness, the heart pendant appeared to be made of diamonds and rubies and looked exactly like one that Cody had given to Morgan six months before she’d walked out on him.

  What would Shannon say if she knew that the necklace she wore, the gift she so obviously treasured, was one of two that Cody had purchased?

  For a moment, Morgan was tempted to tell her. Tempted to make Shannon suffer just a little of what she had.

  She didn’t. Wouldn’t.

  “Have you looked at the disk? Tried to find out what’s on it?” Jackson asked, taking a step closer to Morgan, offering silent and unmistakable support.

  “No. In the letter, Cody told me not to. He said the information on it could be dangerous.”

  “Then why pass it on to you?”

  “Security. That’s what he told me.”

  “And you were never tempted to take a peek? See what kind of security he was talking about?” Jackson persisted, and Shannon shook her head.

  “Why would I be? Cody said the information was dangerous, and I figured the less I knew about it the better.”

  Morgan took the box from Shannon’s hand, doing her best not to notice the tears in her former friend’s eyes. She couldn’t comfort her. Couldn’t offer condolences. Not when the man Shannon mourned was the one she’d betrayed Morgan with. The one who’d betrayed Morgan over and over again.

  “I appreciate you letting us have this, Shannon.”

  “I’m happy to get it out of my hands. Cody said it was his security system. I guess it didn’t work nearly as well as he thought it would.”

  “I guess not. We’d better get out of here and let you get on with your day.”

  “Morgan…” Shannon’s voice trailed off and she shook her head. “Good luck.”

  “Thanks.” Morgan stepped outside, handing Jackson the box and forcing a smile as she offered Shannon a quick wave. “It was nice seeing you again.”

  The lie rolled off her tongue with relative ease, and she breathed a sigh of relief.

  It was over. She’d gotten what she’d come for. Learned what she hadn’t wanted to. And it hadn’t hurt nearly as much as she’d expected.

  “You, too. Take care,” Shannon said, shutting the door with a quiet thud.

  “I’m impressed,” Jackson said as he opened the car door and waited for Morgan to get in.

  “With what?”

  “The way you handled that. It was a tough situation, but you managed it with grace.”

  “Only because I was nearly mute with disgust. That pendant she was wearing, the one I kept expecting her to press close to her heart?”

  “What about it?”

  “Cody gave me one just like it a few years ago. It was a Christmas gift.”

  “Nice.”

  “Yeah. Fortunately, I’d already been through a lot with him, and the pendant didn’t do anything to convince me that he’d changed.”

  “I don’t think Shannon was nearly as pragmatic about it as you were. She seemed to think it was a symbol of his undying devotion.”

  “Maybe because she still believed she was Cody’s one true love.”

  “Cody was—”

  “Let’s not talk about him, okay?”

  “What would you rather discuss?” he asked, pulling out of Shannon’s driveway and heading back through downtown Spokane.

  “This.” She
lifted the box with the disk in it. “We need to call Jake and let him know we’ve got it.”

  “Right after we make a copy of it.”

  “Can we do that?”

  “Sure. We’ll just take it to your parents’ place, copy it onto one of their computer hard drives and be done with it.”

  “That’s not what I meant.”

  “No?” he asked, briefly meeting her eyes before turning his attention back to the road.

  “You know it’s not. Won’t we be tampering with evidence or withholding it or doing something illegal with it if we make a copy?”

  “Tampering would mean changing it, withholding would mean keeping it from the police. We’re not doing either. We’re simply waiting a few extra minutes to let the police know what we’ve got.”

  “Why?”

  “Partially because I’m curious. I want to know what’s on that disk, but mostly because I’ve got a lot of resources at my disposal. The P.I. agency I work for is top-notch, and we’ve got a computer expert who may be able to track down any leads we find on the disk more quickly than the local P.D. can.”

  “The police here are first rate. So are the ones in Lakeview,” she said, not really protesting Jackson’s plan.

  “And in New York,” he added. “There’s no question about that. But once they get this disk, we lose access and control. Personally, I’m not keen on doing either.”

  Neither was Morgan.

  “All right. I like your plan.” She typed her parents’ address into the GPS system, leaned her head against the seat. Tired. Anxious. They’d be at her parents’ house soon. They’d copy the disk, call the police. Would that be the end of the nightmare?

  Morgan hoped so.

  She prayed so.

  But she wasn’t sure.

  The pastor had said that moving on meant letting go. Jackson had said the same. But how did you let go of something that was part of you? How did you leave something behind when it was constantly there?

  It was impossible, of course.

  So maybe the point wasn’t to forget, but to acknowledge, to learn and then to move forward.

  She sighed, closing her eyes. She was too tired for deep thoughts and philosophizing.

  Her cell phone rang, and she glanced at the number. Saw that it was her sister. “Hello?”

  “Morgan?” Just her name. Nothing more, but there was something in the tone, a trembling, airless quality that had Morgan sitting up straight, her heart pounding rapidly.

  “I’m here. Are you okay?”

  “You have to do what they say. If you don’t they’re going to kill me. They have guns. I saw them. Don’t call the police. One of them is watching you. He’s on 1–90. Right behind you.”

  “Who?” But she knew who, and she reached blindly for Jackson’s arm, holding on to the solid warmth of his presence as she shifted in her seat, trying to spot one car in the dozens that were speeding along the highway.

  “I don’t know. You have something they want. They’ll call you later to tell you where to bring it. If you don’t—” The word was cut off, the line went dead.

  “Lauren? Laur!” Morgan shouted into the phone, knowing her sister couldn’t hear, her hand trembling so hard she couldn’t hit the button to end the call.

  “What is it?” Jackson’s question pulled her from the edge of panic.

  “They have Lauren.” Her voice sounded raspy and hard, her pulse pounding in her ears, filling her throat so that she couldn’t breathe.

  Jackson swerved to the side of the road, stopping in the breakdown lane and resting a hand against her cheek, staring into her eyes. “Take a deep breath, Morgan.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Your sister is in trouble. She needs you thinking clearly, not passed out from fear,” he said, his voice as hard and unyielding as his hand was warm and gentle.

  He was right. Panicking wouldn’t change anything. She needed to think clearly. Come up with a plan.

  She took a deep breath. Then another. “I’m okay now.”

  “No, you’re not. Neither am I, but we’ll have our breakdown after we find your sister,” he said grimly, his hand dropping away.

  “How are we going to do that?”

  “I don’t know, but the first step is calling the police.”

  “Lauren said if we do, she’s going to be killed. She also said there was someone following us. She even mentioned 1–90.”

  “Yeah?” Jackson glanced into the rearview mirror and pulled back onto the road. “Let’s see if we spot a stranded motorist up ahead.”

  “If we do?”

  “We’re going to stop and have a chat with him.”

  Morgan nodded, her throat too tight to speak, her eyes scanning the line of cars ahead of them and the one behind.

  Please, Lord, keep Lauren safe. Please, help us find her before it’s too late.

  Please.

  The prayer whispered from the deepest part of her soul, and Morgan let it fly. Hoping God heard. Knowing He did.

  But would He answer?

  That was the struggle. Not with having faith that God could step in and help, but with believing that He would.

  This time, though, she had to believe.

  If she didn’t, if she allowed herself to think that Lauren might die a brutal and horrifying death, she’d melt into a puddle of panic and become completely useless.

  “We’re going to find her,” Jackson said, laying his hand on Morgan’s knee, offering a connection she needed more desperately than she ever would have believed she could.

  And she covered his hand with hers, linking fingers rather than pushing him away. Clinging to what he offered, praying and hoping it would all be enough.

  NINETEEN

  Midnight.

  Morgan paced the bedroom at her aunt’s house, the cell phone clutched in her hand just as it had been for most of the day. There had been no second call. No reassuring sound of her sister’s voice. Morgan didn’t dare think about what that meant.

  The mumble of hushed conversation carried through the closed bedroom door. The family was out there. Mom, Dad, Benjamin, Aunt Helen. Jackson. She didn’t need to walk into the living room to know what they were doing. Nursing cups of hot coffee, pacing and praying. Benjamin and Jackson bent over Aunt Helen’s computer, searching through the files copied from the disk. Searching for a clue that would lead them to Lauren.

  Morgan had stood with them for hours, scanning file after file until her eyes crossed and her head spun. And then she’d walked away, into her room to rest. That’s what she’d told everyone.

  But she couldn’t rest.

  All she could do was pace and pray and pace some more.

  Not that it was doing any good.

  Nearly ten hours had passed since the first phone call. Despite the warning against it, Jackson had insisted on calling the police. Then, just as he’d said he would, he’d copied the disk and handed it over to them with the agreement that it would be kept secret until Lauren was found. To that end, no information was being released to the public. Police channels were silent regarding the case. As far as the world knew, Lauren hadn’t been abducted.

  If only that were the reality.

  Had the men who’d abducted Lauren found out that the police had been contacted? Had Lauren been killed because of what they’d done?

  The thought made Morgan sick with fear.

  A soft knock sounded on the door, pulling her from her worries.

  She thought about ignoring it, pretending that she was asleep so that she could avoid looking into the eyes of the person standing on the other side of the door. Her mother maybe. Or her father. Coming to see if she was all right. Aunt Helen, coming to suggest for the hundredth time that Morgan have something to eat. Or Benjamin, coming to tell her none of what had happened was her fault.

  But it was.

  For making stupid choices. For sticking with them when she should have walked away.

  The knock sounded again, the d
oorknob turned and the door creaked open.

  And Morgan knew it wasn’t her parents, her aunt or her brother.

  Only Jackson would ignore the closed door and the silence. Only he would be willing to walk in when she’d made it clear she wanted to be alone.

  And of all the people in the house, he was the only one she could imagine talking to, sharing her worries with.

  “Holding the phone won’t make it ring,” he said quietly.

  “I know.”

  “And avoiding your family won’t make you feel any less guilty.”

  “I know that, too.”

  “So, I guess you also know that there isn’t any reason to feel guilty. This isn’t your fault.”

  “My head knows it. My heart isn’t convinced.”

  “Come on.” He took her hand and led her to the French doors.

  “Where are we going?”

  “The perfect spot to think,” he responded, walking outside and sitting on the swing, tugging her down beside him.

  “The problem is that I don’t want to think.”

  “Then how about we talk?”

  “Did my family send you to check on me?”

  “I volunteered. Everyone is worried about you.”

  “Why? I’m not the one being held prisoner. I’m not the one in danger.”

  “Worrying about you doesn’t mean they aren’t also distraught about your sister.”

  “I know.”

  “So why are you here instead of in there with the people who love you?”

  It was a good question, a fair one.

  And Morgan wasn’t sure of the answer.

  “I just needed some time alone.”

  “I guess I can understand that.” He rubbed her back, the gesture familiar and easy, as if they’d known each other for years rather than days.

  It felt like they had.

  Felt as if Jackson had always been part of her life.

  “We’re going to find her, Morgan.”

  “I want to believe that, but they haven’t called. They should have by now.”

  “They’re criminals. They’re not playing by our rules, so they’ve got no timeline that we can figure out. They’ll call, but only when they’re good and ready.”

  “And in the meantime Lauren is counting on me to give them what they want. She’s probably wondering what’s taking so long.” Morgan stood and walked to the edge of the porch, staring out into the darkness beyond, listening to the sound of nature and her own chaotic thoughts.