Hazardous Homecoming

by Dana Mentink

  “Then we might as well hang on for a little while longer.”

  “What if she...?” Ruby’s words died away as a blue compact car appeared on the road.

  Ruby’s pulse sped up. She peered close to try and identify the driver. The car pulled up behind them and onto the shoulder. The woman they knew as Jane Brown got out.

  She wore a faded pair of jeans, a baseball cap and sunglasses. Her hair was again caught up in a thick braid. She got out, fiddling with her keys.

  Cooper joined her, staying a pace ahead of Ruby, his body between them.

  No more protection, Cooper, her heart cried out. I’m not worthy of it.

  “I’m leaving town,” Jane said, twirling the keys around her index finger. “I wanted to tell you something first.”

  “Is your name really Jane Brown?” Cooper asked.

  “No, but that’s not important. I saw the article, the online article about Alice Walker and I knew I had to see you.”

  Ruby wanted to grab Jane or whoever she was and shake the information out of her, but she was afraid the woman would bolt. Biting her lip, she forced herself to remain silent.

  “I never meant to hurt anyone,” Jane said. “I didn’t know the truth. Honestly. No one will believe that, which is why I’m leaving town, but I never would have participated in anything that would take a child away from her mother.”

  Cooper nodded encouragingly. “Of course. Whatever you did, I’m sure you had good reasons.”

  “I thought I was helping.” She sighed and shook her head. “I convinced myself of that anyway. Frankly, I needed the money. It seemed harmless as the years passed, but when I saw the picture in that article, I realized...” Her eyes narrowed. “Did you hear that?”

  “What did you realize, Jane? Where is Alice Walker?” Ruby nearly shouted.

  Jane turned, face frozen in horror as another car approached, driving fast.

  Way too fast.

  Ruby expected the car to slow as it neared. Instead, the driver accelerated, tires bumping madly on the deteriorated roadbed. Ruby took a step toward Jane, but the woman let out a shriek and bolted for her car.

  Still the other vehicle careened on toward them, sunlight glinting off the windshield. Ruby broke free of her paralysis and started for the pickup. Mistake, she realized, as she reached the passenger door. No time for them to escape that way.

  “Here,” Cooper yelled, grabbing Ruby by the arm and giving her a mighty yank that sent her tumbling into the long grass, separating them. The car, a beat-up Oldsmobile, closed the gap between them, tires flinging bits of rock in every direction. She could not see well over her cushion of grass so she rolled into as small a ball as she could manage, shielding her head with her arms.

  “Wait,” she heard Cooper yell. Fragments of rock hit her shoulders and back as the car roared past so close she could feel the ground vibrate underneath her.

  After it passed, she scrambled to her knees in time to see the car careen into the back of Jane’s vehicle with a horrendous metallic groan.

  “Cooper,” Ruby screamed. In the midst of the collision she had not seen what happened to him.

  The impact shoved Jane’s small car several yards before it veered off the road. In spite of the crash and the rear-end damage, Jane managed to get the engine started. The blue car shot away, loose fender scraping the ground and releasing a shower of sparks. Seconds later, the Oldsmobile corrected back onto the road and took off in pursuit.

  Ruby got to her feet and called again for Cooper. He must have gone after Jane. Had he been hit by the murderous driver?

  Her breath froze as she flashed back to the rock slide when she’d first realized how much Cooper meant to her. “Cooper!” she yelled again.

  “Here,” he called back, rising up from behind a clump of grasses.

  Her breath rushed out, heart resuming its erratic pumping as she ran to him and threw her arms around his neck. She wanted to speak, but her rebelling lungs would not allow it.

  He squeezed her gently, as if he were afraid to bruise her.

  “Are you all right?” she finally managed, murmuring against his chest.

  “Just grass stained.”

  Stained, dirtied, disappointed, she did not care as long as he was whole and unhurt. With difficulty, she detached herself and straightened her jacket. She did not trust herself to stand too close, or lift a hand to his blond hair to remove the smattering of plant debris. He was alive. Her legs were wobbly with relief. Best to stick to the facts of the situation. “Did you see the driver?”

  “No. Hat and sunglasses, just like Jane. Small, could have been a woman or a man. I didn’t get a license plate number either, did you?”

  She shook her head. It had not occurred to her in the past few calamitous minutes.

  He brushed off his pants and guided her back to the car with a firm hand on her back. “I don’t want us here if he thinks about coming back.” He called the sheriff’s office as they walked.

  He gave one final look into the distance.

  “What are you thinking?” she asked.

  “I was hoping that whoever that was doesn’t catch up to Jane.”

  Her own reflection was mirrored in the shimmer of his eyes. “We could have been killed. Someone was pretty desperate to keep us from talking to her.” Ruby rubbed her hands on her pants.

  “I’m worried, Ruby. The rock slide, the stranger outside Josephine’s cabin, now this. It’s getting serious, way too serious for a plant guy and a bird lady.”

  She nodded, resisting the urge to smile. “I’ll talk it all through with my dad. Maybe he can figure out what to do. He can use his contacts to find her somehow, trace her cell phone number after he’s gotten Mick out of custody.”

  “Your dad might not be enough to protect you.”

  She stiffened. “He’s the only one, Cooper.” I wish it wasn’t true, but you can’t be in my life anymore. I won’t let you.

  They mulled it over further as the truck ate up the miles, Cooper checking regularly in the rearview to be sure the Oldsmobile hadn’t made a return appearance.

  “Jane participated in something having to do with Alice Walker, something she thought was harmless until she saw the picture in the article.”

  Ruby pulled it up again on her phone as Cooper drove. “It’s a tiny black-and-white photo of Alice, probably taken in preschool maybe. What could it have revealed to Jane?” Her head was throbbing as they pulled into the police station and dutifully waited to report the incident to the desk sergeant. The process took a good hour from start to finish.

  Heather Bradford was just getting out of her car along with her father as they exited and made their way to the truck.

  “I’m not turning my back on him,” she snapped. “I love him and he’s innocent.”

  “He’s not. I wanted to believe it, too, baby,” Hank said. “I like the kid and goodness knows I’ve gone to bat for him, but he was covering up evidence, information that would have convicted Mick Hudson, I might add, the real criminal in all this.”

  “That’s not true,” Ruby said, slamming the pickup door. “Mick’s wallet was at the crime scene, it doesn’t mean he was.”

  Hank shook his head. “Ruby, you’re an innocent in all this, but you can’t protect your family now. They’re going to have to face what they did.”

  “They didn’t do anything,” she cried.

  “Which is why you’d be happy to pin everything on Peter,” Heather interjected. “I heard you talking to Cooper earlier, Ruby. I was in the back room, getting the runaround from a cop. I heard you say...”

  “Don’t, Heather,” Cooper said.

  She dismissed him with a raised palm. “I heard you say if one brother had to be destroyed you wanted it to be Peter.”

  Hank’s mo
uth widened into an O of surprise. Shame roiled through her, thick and smothering. How could she be the person who had said such a terrible thing? She did not want Peter to be convicted, but the desperate need to save her brother seemed to smother all rational thought. Again she thought how the words must have wounded Cooper. Heather still stared at her.

  “You can’t deny that you want Peter to take the fall.”

  Ruby tried to think of a response. Cooper stepped closer to Heather. “You need to stop this.”

  “Cooper, your brother has a bad reputation and no father to protect him.”

  “And he’s started drinking again,” Hank added.

  “Stop.” Cooper’s voice was trembling with anger. “Cutting Ruby and Peter down isn’t going to help anyone. It’s wrong and purposeless.”

  Hank’s tone gentled. “Look, Cooper. I was an ally of your brother’s. I like to think I’ve been more than fair, giving him a job, a place to stay when he needed it. For what it’s worth, I really did think he was going to hang on to his sobriety, but it’s my daughter we’re talking about. I can’t allow her to throw away her life for Peter.”

  Heather frowned. “Dad, it’s my life, and you don’t get to decide that for me.”

  “That’s the father’s job, to try and protect. I’ve tried to do that but you’ve been mule stubborn since you were four years old.”

  She offered a tight grin. “And I don’t think it’s going to get any better. Now I’m going to go harass the police personnel until somebody gives me information, lets me see Peter or tosses me in jail, whichever comes first.”

  Hank lifted a shoulder in resignation. “I’ll call the café and see if we can bring in some extra people for the evening shift.”

  Cooper let out an enormous sigh and touched Ruby’s arm. “I’m going back to the cabin. Do you need a lift home?”

  “No, thank you,” she said.

  “Ruby...”

  “Please,” she said, holding up a hand. “Go on home, Cooper. I can’t take any more. I really can’t.”

  “I want you to know I don’t blame you.”

  She turned away from the tenderness in his eyes, which she did not deserve. “You should.”

  NINETEEN

  The following afternoon was a glorious one. Though the late-day sun shone in golden splendor, Ruby found she could not feel it, as she perched on a log just outside her office shed, bathed in the dazzling light.

  The pencil was in her hands. She meant to make some notes on the baby kestrels who seemed to thrive in spite of the loss of their mother. Ruby had thought she was thriving, too, living out a quiet, but purposeful life in a gorgeous location, with her brother and father at her side, the tragic past a distant memory. The lonely moments were infrequent, the times when she longed for connection with someone who understood her and loved her, faults and all, like her father had loved her mother. Now longing seemed to beat a constant tempo in her heart, eased only in the moments when Cooper was nearby.

  It had taken the disastrous discoveries in the past few days to show her the darkest parts of herself, that she would wish blame on his brother if it meant saving hers. Shame and self-loathing burgeoned inside her, but Cooper did not pull away. How incredible, how precious. But the wedge that divided them was too great and he could not see. He had not pulled away, but she had.

  Now it was up to her to keep them apart. Protect your family at all costs, and let Cooper take care of his. The thought left a trail of bitterness in its wake.

  Pickford’s police car rolled up the long front drive with another car following. Ruby shot to her feet, dropping the pencil, and dashed to the house, arriving in time to see her father open the door. He still held a phone in his hand and a list in the other—lawyers, she knew, who might be able to help Mick should the unthinkable happen and he was actually arrested.

  No, she said to herself as she joined her father. He’s innocent.

  “Hello, Sheriff,” her father said wearily. “I don’t suppose this is a social call.”

  “I’m afraid not.”

  Molly stepped out of the house, clutching a yellow legal pad.

  Pickford stiffened. “Just here being a good friend, Molly?”

  Her lip curled. “Yes, Wallace. Seems like you’re bent on blaming Mick for something he didn’t do, so I came to help Perry find a lawyer.”

  “Of course you did.”

  Molly huffed. “I’ve known Mick since he was a child. He didn’t kill anyone and you know it.”

  “I only know what the evidence tells me.” The sheriff handed Perry a piece of paper. “Search warrant, for your house and property.”

  Ruby’s stomach constricted. “Surely you can’t think that’s necessary. We don’t have anything to hide.”

  “It’s a legally executed search warrant, which gives us the right to turn this place upside down, if we need to.” Pickford hooked his thumbs in his belt. “Sooner you step aside, the sooner we’re out of your hair.”

  “Wallace, no,” Molly said. “Please don’t do this.”

  Pickford’s face softened, just for a moment. “I’m doing my job, Molly. I owe it to that little girl. Justice is long overdue for her.”

  Perry stepped outside on the porch and gestured for Ruby and Molly to join him. “He has the legal right. We can’t stand in his way.”

  “Besides,” Ruby called to Pickford’s back as he entered the house, “you’re not going to find anything incriminating because there’s nothing to find.”

  Pickford did not respond. Another officer followed him into the house.

  Her father watched him go by, standing there with the phone in his hand. He looked so lost, so unlike her familiar, forceful parent, that she blinked back tears. “Come and use the office shed. You can keep on with lawyer hunting until this silliness is done.” She checked her watch. “In a few hours he’ll have to let Mick go or charge him, and he’s not going to do that.”

  Molly chewed her lip. “I don’t know. He’s a terribly jealous man and ever since I...” She shook her head. “Well, I broke his trust years ago, as you both know, and it’s never been fixed.”

  “He can’t forgive you?” Ruby asked quietly.

  “He says he has, but I’m not sure he knows how to forgive completely. He’s not been able to trust that I won’t cheat on him again. I think he even follows me sometimes to check up on me.”

  A thought sizzled through Ruby’s brain as they walked to the shed. “The day we found the cave. You two had a fight. Cooper and I saw it from the road.”

  Her face flushed. “Our dirty laundry sort of exploded, huh? Sorry you had to hear that. Later that day I went hiking around the lake. I had the oddest feeling of being followed.”

  “You were. I think the sheriff came home and changed his clothes, he took his boat out around the lake, probably to check on you. That’s how he got to the rock slide so quickly.”

  Molly groaned. “This is my fault. I really do love Wallace and I know I hurt him deeply. He will never trust that Perry and I are just friends, and with Hank in town accompanying Heather, well, that’s a festering wound to be sure.” She sighed. “It’s sad to live a life so closed off from everyone who could love you.”

  “Yes,” Ruby agreed softly, grief ripping through her insides, “it truly is.” She left the two poring over information about lawyers and stepped back outside, sinking down on the rough-hewn bench where she could keep an eye on the front door. The moment the sheriff and his men left, she would start preparing a coming home dinner for Mick, some soup and crusty bread, a nice salad. It would not erase his humiliation, but it was the only thing she could think of.

  Closing her eyes, she tried to find some peace in the sunlight that played across her face. She tried to feel again the joy she’d experienced, the brief moments when she had allo
wed herself to open up to something greater than the misery she kept locked inside, the tiny span of time when she felt the presence of God. It had been such a soothing balm to put down the blame, the lifetime of guilt. But once Peter had changed the game and her brother was under suspicion, her soul snapped shut tight, impenetrable to God...and to Cooper.

  A twig cracked. She opened her eyes to find Cooper standing before her. “You left your cell phone in my truck. Thought you might need it.”

  “Thank you,” she managed. “Is there any news on your end?”

  He shrugged. “No. Frankly, I’ve been avoiding talking to my mother until Peter is formally charged or released. Just delays the pain for a while.”

  She nodded.

  His gaze shifted to the house. “Cops have a search warrant?”

  “Yes. Thanks to Peter.” She detested the bitterness in her own voice.

  “Mick’s got to shed some light on things. Can he explain how his wallet got in that cave?”

  “He lost it during that tussle with Lester over the eagle feathers. Obviously, Lester was carrying it. Maybe he intended to return it to Mick, but he was killed on his way. The coroner said Lester was probably murdered somewhere else and dumped in the cave before he could hand it over.”

  He sighed. “Ruby, is there any way we can set our families aside for a minute?” He moved closer. “You’re hurting, I can see it in your eyes. We both are. I’d like to pray.”

  Tears pricked her eyelids. “Why? It won’t change anything.”

  “Maybe not the situation, but it can change the people who are praying.”

  Something in his earnest tone awakened a need inside her. “I don’t think I can do that.”

  “I’ve been there, too, thought I could take care of things by myself, for my brother, and my mother, wanted to shut out God when it hurt too much.” He sighed. “Doesn’t work out too well in the long run.”

  “I’m not your responsibility, Cooper.”

  His eyes grew soft. He stroked a finger down her cheek. “I don’t think of you that way.”