by Joanne Rock
Zach steered the SUV onto the highway heading south. There weren’t many cars on the road, partly because of the hour, but mostly because they were driving into a rural area.
“I searched for live pages first. When nothing came up, I used archives sites to see what else had been posted in the past.”
“I can’t believe anyone would post such a thing. She’s such a bright, beautiful girl with so much talent.” Tears stung her eyes. She needed to turn off the phone. “How could anyone be that cruel?”
“I don’t know, but I’m getting Sam involved. Her father needs to be informed that she’s being targeted, Heather. If you want to warn her, call her right now because I’m not delaying for even a day.” He turned down the heater with a press of a button, his eyes still on the road as they drove past miles of four-rail fences in horse country.
“She’s in school. She can’t take a call during school hours.”
His hands white-knuckled the steering wheel. “This is too important to wait.”
“I agree.” She chose her words carefully, realizing he was close to exploding. Talk about stress. He’d been put through the wringer in the past twelve hours on more than one level. “This is a vicious attack on her character. For all we know, the person who posted this could take it to the next level and attack her personally.”
“You’re right. I can’t afford to wait on this.”
Heather listened silently while Zach phoned Sam. When he’d finished the call, he asked her to use his phone to text Sam the link so the sheriff could begin work.
The tension she heard in his voice helped her to understand some of the frustration she’d seen in his eyes back at the hospital. This upset him deeply.
“Can I ask you a question?” She flexed her fingers over and over as movement returned slowly to her hands.
Maybe if she stayed in motion, her body wouldn’t be able to shut down the way it had the night before.
“I guess. Although the fact that you want to clear it with me first makes me uneasy.” Zach rolled his shoulders, as tense as her, but for reasons beyond arthritis. She could tell he took Megan’s case personally. Knew it must be because of his sister’s experience with a stalker.
“When you were on the phone with Sam, you asked him, ‘Do you think it could be the same guy?’” She studied Zach in the bright light of day. Shadows lived under his eyes, rough bristles dotted his jaw. “You don’t think that whoever is bullying Megan could be the same person who stalked Gabriella?”
“Sam doesn’t think so. He thinks the website sounds like kid stuff—the kind of crap a teen would come up with, not a man who has to be at least as old as me by now.”
“Did Gabriella tell the police about her stalker?”
“She reported the early incidents.” The frosty answer told her exactly how frustrated he’d been with the authorities. “But she was patronized. Given advice about how to dress conservatively. So when things got worse, she refused to go back to the police.”
“That’s awful.” She remembered the former police chief, though, and wasn’t all that surprised. He’d retired and moved to Florida before her father died.
“I think that’s half the reason Sam became a cop. That way, at least he knew everything that had happened. He’s always kept tabs on her.” Zach’s jaw flexed as he stared out the windshield. “One day, we’ll collar the guy who hurt her.”
“I’ll call Megan after school to check on her,” she said. “If she hasn’t heard from Sam by then, I’ll give her a warning that he wants to speak to her.” She hoped she’d reach the girl first.
He nodded. “I appreciate that.”
She licked her lips, needing to cover one more bit of business. “Also, I texted my brothers this morning to make sure they’re okay with me turning over Dad’s old laptop. They agreed we have nothing to hide, so you can take the equipment when you drop me off.”
“Thank you.” He hit the turn signal and she was surprised to realize they’d arrived at the Heartache exit. “I’ll run some analysis programs as quickly as I can.”
His responses had become clipped. Perfunctory.
She needed to ease the tension between them. Even if she wasn’t ready to share everything about her health concerns, they had shared an incredible night of amazing sex. To ignore that did them both an injustice.
“I’m sorry how last night turned out. I had such a fun time with you.”
“Fun.” He repeated the word carefully, the single syllable pulsing with quiet anger. “Is that what you’d call our time together?”
“The karaoke bar was definitely a good time,” she hedged, her eyes glued to the windshield as the town of Heartache came into view. The welcome sign remained a relic from the fifties, but by now it ranked as a kitschy small-town classic. “And afterward...”
Her eyes slid toward him as she remembered how that had turned out. Just thinking about the way he’d touched her caused her pulse to speed up. Her skin to heat.
“Afterward might have hurt you, Heather. Have you considered that?”
Gasping, she turned to him quickly. She couldn’t let him think that. Not even for an instant. “Actually, I asked the doctor about that very issue when you left. I don’t know why I turned into a tongue-tied teenager about sex, but it felt easier to quiz her on things like that without you in the room.” It was mostly true. She’d had questions about medications and side effects, too. If she had limited time in Heartache, she didn’t want to spend it being loopy and too tired to visit with her family and friends, but Dr. Ruiz thought she’d be fine.
“And?” Zach’s hazel eyes swung her way, a heated glance that torched her skin in spite of how tired she felt. How much her joints still ached.
“And we didn’t do anything wrong. Flare-ups can happen out of the blue. She said that exercise and movement are critical to maintaining good health.” Which had sounded like good news to Heather, but judging by Zach’s narrowed gaze, he wasn’t as enthused as she. “That’s a good thing, by the way. It means we don’t need to worry about sex causing problems as long as we don’t bring out a trapeze.”
Her attempt at humor fell flat. He simply grunted and continued to stare at the road.
Driving through downtown, Heather spotted Last Chance Vintage. Pumpkins surrounded the front door. Up above the street, the town had hung a sign advertising the harvest festival with a special theme this year—Lumberjack Days—to celebrate area woodsmen.
On the surface, small-community charm abounded. Underneath...many darker issues had cropped up lately.
Finally, Zach glanced her way again, making her realize he’d been thinking about what she’d said.
“How can you suggest we ‘not worry’ about this? It might be too late for that.” Zach turned off the main street and headed down the road toward the Finley families’ homes. “Sex already created some problems, don’t you think?”
At least they were done dancing around the subject. She’d been waiting for this to come up the whole way home.
“I thought it was pretty special,” she admitted.
He reached the cul-de-sac with her mother’s house and—behind that—her bungalow.
“Really?” He jammed the SUV in Park on the gravel driveway outside her house. “Is that why you were with me, Heather? Because it seems like the only reason you let yourself get close to me was because you knew we came with an expiration date. And once you’re done with Heartache, you’re going to be done with me, too.”
Zach didn’t waste any time waiting for an answer, levering his door open to go around and help her out of the vehicle.
His touch seemed mechanical, though. His help only for common courtesy’s sake. She hated that she’d hurt him.
“Zach, that’s not true.” She fished her keys from her purse and let herself in the house, then waved
him in so she could retrieve her father’s old laptop. “Last night—”
He covered her lips with his fingers. Gently. But firmly. He shook his head wearily.
“Let’s wait before we talk about this anymore, okay? I’m tired, and I know you are, too. Frankly, between learning about Megan’s problems and this news about you, I’m shredded. If it’s just the same to you, I’d like to take the computer and regroup.”
She nodded. Because what more could she say? She was shredded, too. She hadn’t wanted to end up in the hospital last night. Hadn’t wanted their night together to end on this note. So, no matter that her whole body hurt, she dug in a storage closet stuffed with her father’s old office items.
She found his heavy, old laptop, and with burning fingers, handed it to Zach. “Here, I hope this helps all of us.”
“Are you okay?” he asked, his eyes searching hers.
“I’ll be fine. Thank you for the ride.” She thought she might collapse if she didn’t lie down soon, but she was determined to see him out the door without falling apart.
Again.
Bad enough he’d seen her physically incapacitated. She wasn’t going to lose it emotionally, too.
“Feel better, Heather.” He laid a chaste kiss on her forehead.
The kind of kiss that felt like an end and not a beginning.
Calling up a half smile, she watched him walk out the door.
And knew she’d screwed things up irreparably with him.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
SLUMPED OVER HER notes on graphing amplitude, Megan fought sleep. Trigonometry was her last class of the day. She never learned anything from Mrs. Wyman, a teacher who paced back and forth as she lectured, never varying her lecture pitch or speed. Megan had long given up trying to stay awake during the hypnotic pacing spells, learning everything she knew about trig from YouTube videos.
When the PA system crackled she startled, her notebook falling off her desk as she knocked it with her elbow.
“Mrs. Wyman,” the office secretary said over the loudspeaker. “Could you send Megan Bryer to the office?”
Yes! Talk about a “get out of jail free” card.
Straightening, Megan gathered her things, hopeful she could stretch the office visit to the end of the period. She’d been distracted all day between thoughts of what happened with J.D. last night, Wade’s unexpected kiss and now the weird note from Bailey. Megan couldn’t wait to leave school grounds behind and see Wade at the Owl’s Roost.
“Better take your things, Megan,” Mrs. Wyman intoned, still pacing in that slow, plodding shuffle. “The homework assignment is online.”
“Yes, ma’am.” She couldn’t pack her patched denim book bag fast enough. She passed Bailey’s desk on the way out.
Megan hurried to the office, figuring her dad had brought her an umbrella or something like that. It had started raining an hour ago, and her dad wouldn’t want her out in the downpour. Then again, the office wouldn’t have called her for one of Dad’s visits. He dropped stuff off to her all the time—an extra sweater if it was cold or her lunch if she forgot it. One time, he’d brought her new sneakers when she’d said she wanted to try out for track and her old tennis shoes had a hole in them.
Yes, he was sweetly goofy. Embarrassingly so. But the school clerk didn’t mind. Ms. Bartinello seemed to have a crush on him, in fact, always chatting with him long after he was done with his drop-off errand.
Stepping into the office, Megan didn’t see any sign of her dad or an umbrella. Ms. Bartinello didn’t look up when she entered, either, her expression fixed on what she was reading. Who’d called her down here then?
“Excuse me, Ms. Bartinello.”
The school clerk peered up from her reading. “Oh. Hi, Megan.” The woman’s guarded smile put Megan on alert. “They want you in the guidance office.”
“Okay.” She padded down the carpeted hallway connecting the two sets of administrative offices. The assistant at the guidance front desk pressed her intercom when she saw Megan.
“Mrs. Trestle? Megan Bryer is here.” The clerk nodded, hanging up the phone. “Hi, Megan. You can go right in.”
Curious now, and a little worried, Megan hoped there was nothing wrong with a standardized test score or anything. What if she’d bombed one of the big tests?
When she arrived at her counselor’s office, she saw Mrs. Trestle wasn’t alone. A woman dressed in gray pants, a black T-shirt and a gray suit jacket sat across from Mrs. T. The stranger’s hair was in a tight twist. No makeup. Clipped to her gray pants, just peeking out from the jacket glinted...
A silver police badge.
Megan tried to swallow down the bile at the back of her throat. But all she managed to do was gape at the women through the office door, her mouth hanging open like a gulping fish. Had something happened to her dad?
Or was this about something else? Could she get in trouble for that smutty social media page? Her name was on it. It advertised illegal services.
“Hi, Megan.” Mrs. Trestle must have spotted her in the corridor. Normally bubbly and smiling, the counselor’s face was pinched and serious. “Come on in. I’d like you to meet Linda Marquette from the sherriff’s department.”
Oh. My. God.
No.
Megan’s feet couldn’t work any better than her mouth did. Nervousness made her whole body shake. For a second, she remembered how some people peed themselves when they were terrified. Would that happen to her? It felt like a distinct possibility.
If she didn’t pee herself, she’d start retching on the bile in her throat.
“Megan?” Linda Marquette stood and approached her. “Are you okay? I wanted to ask you a few things, but if you’d feel more comfortable with a parent present, we can ask your father to join us. He’s teaching today, but we did alert him that we planned to speak with you.”
“No.” That loosened her tongue. Got her feet working, too. Megan hurried into Mrs. Trestle’s office and closed the door. Why had the police spoken to her father? How much did he know? “Please, no. I’m happy to talk to you.”
But within thirty minutes, Megan’s worst nightmares had come true.
The police knew about the website, thanks to her interview with the mayor. The sheriff’s department would investigate, which, on one hand, sounded great. The huge, awful, unfair downside? Her father knew about the harassment and planned to meet with Megan and another police officer at their home once his work commitments were finished for the day. And while Megan’s name would be kept out of any official reports made available to the public, thanks to privacy laws, the truth was that the whole town would puzzle out her identity based on whatever facts the cops released.
It was a small town. That’s how things worked.
So not only did her dad know, the whole school would see that website even though it had been taken down. Heartache, Tennessee, would probably crash the internet trying to find that page the moment the news of it got out.
“Megan?” the policewoman stared at her, and Megan realized that Linda Marquette had stopped talking about the ways the sheriff’s department and the school could protect her.
Ha.
One big fat mirthless LOL to that.
She tried to slow her racing heart and pay attention, but all she wanted to do was go home, hide in her room and kill mutant zombies on her video game for a month straight. She would rid the world of mutant zombies forever right now if she had a controller in her hand.
“Megan?” The cop leaned closer, getting in her field of vision, her dark knot of twisted hair listing to one side as she did. “I know this is a lot to absorb, but we can’t take this lightly. This kind of abuse is not okay.”
“Right. But would you want your dad to see something like that about you?”
“When we spo
ke to your father, his first priority was helping you fix this. He wanted to be here, but he couldn’t cancel his class. Your dad sounds like a fighter, Megan. You need that. You need him rooting for you. Helping keep you safe.” The cop handed her a box of tissues without comment. “That’s what good parents do. They look out for their kids. Not the other way around.”
Tears streamed down Megan’s face and dripped off her chin to fall on her lap. Well, the tissue box, now. The wet spots grew bigger on the cheap yellow cardboard.
“I can’t face him.” She yanked two tissues out of the box and mopped her face. “You can meet with him after school, if that’s what you want. But I’m not talking about this with him, and I don’t want to be there when you do, either.”
She stood and the box tumbled off her lap. The chair scraped the floor, a loud screech in the quiet room.
“Megan, we’re not quite done yet. Okay? If you want to take a break and get a soda, that’s fine. Or if you want a friend to come sit with you—”
“No.” As if she had any. “I’ll be okay. But I would like a minute to—” Go scream into a balled-up sweatshirt in a bathroom somewhere? “—grab a drink.”
“Sure.” The cop pulled out her phone again. “Take five and then we’ll finish up as quickly as we can.”
Megan grabbed her books, wondering what would happen if she hopped in her car and kept on driving. Sighing, she settled for shoving open the door into the guidance office waiting area.
Where Bailey McCord sat with her pink plaid book bag on her lap.
Megan brushed past her into the hallway outside the office.
“Megan, wait,” Bailey’s voice called after her.
A voice she so did not want to hear.
Fury pumped fresh through her veins. The last bell of the day had rung, so the only kids remaining in school were the ones who had stayed for extracurricular activities or remedial help.
“You know what, Bailey?” She turned slowly and stared down her former friend, keeping a tight rein on her raging emotions. “Now is not a good time.”
