Rock Harbor Series - 04 - Abomination

by Colleen Coble

  “Life has beat us up some, Nick,” Eve said, her gaze on the horizon. “Like those rocks, we’re worn down and battered. Do you think we can withstand the waves?”

  “Our foundations are deep in bedrock. Our faith, our love for each other and for Keri—they’re as solid as they come.”

  “We divorced,” she reminded him. “I think the waves moved us along the sand a bit.”

  They stood spoon fashion, and he rested his chin on her head. “We started looking at the waves instead of into each other’s eyes.”

  She didn’t answer right away. A sigh eased out, and she relaxed against his chest a minute before turning around in his arms and looking up into his face. “I don’t want to leave here, Nick. I can’t go back to Bay City. Maybe we’d better talk about that before we go overboard with discussing how solid we are.”

  He cupped her cheek in his hand and brushed his thumb across her soft lips. Words wouldn’t do nearly as much as showing her how he felt. He bent his head and brushed his lips across hers. When the kiss deepened, he wasn’t sure who had initiated it.

  She wound her arms around his neck, and the passion between them spiked quickly to the power of the waves. He crushed her to him and forgot all the problems they faced. There was only the softness of her body pressing against him, and the heady feel of her lips on his. It had been so long since they’d loved.

  The wind swept around them as if to drive them more tightly together. Nick wanted only to prolong this moment. It had been so long in coming.

  “Daddy.”

  Only gradually did he become aware that Keri had been tugging at his pant leg. He and Eve broke apart. His brain felt fuzzy, and he couldn’t tear his gaze away from Eve’s blue eyes for a moment.

  Keri tugged again. “Up, Daddy. Keri up.”

  He scooped her into his arms, almost thankful for the defense. “You didn’t sleep very long.”

  “Phone,” she said.

  “You answered the phone?” Eve asked.

  Keri nodded.

  “Who was it?” Nick carried her back toward the house with Eve keeping step.

  “Duck.”

  Nick’s smile faltered. Eve’s eyes registered fear.

  “What did he say, Keri?” Nick asked, careful to keep his voice interested and nonthreatening.

  “Come visit,” she said. “Duck visit.”

  EVE’S LEGS TREMBLED AS SHE RAN INTO THE HOUSE. SHE couldn’t quite clear her head enough to understand what Gideon’s purpose had been in calling.

  The phone lay on the floor. She picked it up. “Hello?” There was only silence. She clicked it on and off and heard the dial tone. It was useless to check the caller ID, but she punched the button anyway. Unknown was all that came up. Nick had put a recording device on the phone. She went into the living room to check it. The red light was on, indicating something had been taped.

  She started to punch the button, then dropped her hand. Nick would be in here shortly, and she’d wait to hear it with him. His footsteps approached on the wooden floors. “In here, Nick,” she called.

  He joined her by the desk.

  “There’s a message,” she said.

  “Down,” Keri said.

  Nick set her on the floor, and she ran to her puzzle. “Did you listen to it yet?”

  Eve shook her head. “I wanted to wait on you.” She shuddered. He pushed the button to play the message.

  A voice like Daffy Duck’s blared out of the recorder. “You’re Keri, aren’t you? How are you, Keri?”

  “Fine,” Keri’s voice was clear and loud.

  “Where is your mommy?”

  “Out.”

  “You’re there all alone? Oh dear, I shall have to come visit and help you, Keri. You shouldn’t be alone. Something might happen to you.”

  “Puzzle?” Keri asked. “Duck play puzzle.”

  “I like puzzles. I think your mommy does too. But she’s not very good at them. I think she’ll never figure this puzzle out. Can I talk to your mommy, Keri? Go get her.”

  “’Tay.” There was a clatter as Keri evidently dropped the phone on the floor. “Mommy!” she called. The back door clattered.

  The machine continued to play. “You’re recording this, I’m sure, Eve. The other night didn’t go well. I’ve taken it as a sign. I won’t break into the house again.” The line clicked, and there was nothing more.

  “You think he’s telling the truth?” Eve asked. She was afraid to believe that he’d decided to leave her alone.

  “I wish we could believe it, but I wouldn’t count on it. He might not break in here, but he hasn’t given up his plans.” He dug out his cell phone and punched in a number. “Dad? We got a call here from Gideon. The machine taped it.” He listened a minute. “Okay, see you later.” He closed the phone and slipped it back into his pocket. “He wants me to digitize it and send a copy to forensics in Bay City.”

  “Should you call Deputy Montgomery?”

  “Yeah.” He dialed his cell phone and told Montgomery what had happened.

  Eve wondered if the nightmare could possibly be over, though it didn’t make sense Gideon would just give up. Not after all he’d done to find her. Her calmness surprised her, but facing him twice and living to tell about it had given her courage.

  Nick closed his phone. He went to the sofa and patted the spot next to him. “Come here, I want to talk to you.”

  “Talk?” She lifted an eyebrow. “Are you sure that’s all?”

  “I’d rather kiss you,” he said, grinning. “But we need to talk.”

  She tried to keep from smiling, but it came out anyway. She’d rather kiss him too. Joining him on the sofa, she settled into the arm he put around her. The scent of his cologne made her want to turn and throw herself against him. To kiss him until he couldn’t speak, to drag him upstairs to her bedroom.

  In fact, her feelings quite shocked her.

  She wet her lips and fought her instincts. “Okay.”

  “I can’t live here, Eve.”

  She’d known he would say that. “You could get transferred to the Marquette Post.”

  “That’s an hour and a half from here. Three hours’ driving time a day. How about if we look into getting a weekend cabin here?”

  “What weekends? You’re always working.”

  “What about your dance studio? You love it. Do you really think you could round up enough students up here to continue your work? You love dancing.”

  She hadn’t thought about that part of it. She loved her studio with the sunlit wood floors and the high ceilings. It looked out over the bay. “I feel so safe here.”

  “Why? There are none of the shops you like. Your friends, our church, our home, they’re all back in Bay City.”

  “I do feel safe here, Nick. But more than that, I feel like I can be me with no masks. Bree and Kade, they accepted me from day one, when I didn’t even know my name. These people are different. I want to be like them. My life in Bay City was all about putting on a happy face, never showing anyone the real me.”

  “What am I supposed to do here, Eve? Arrest poachers?” Though his words were soft, the passion behind them came through. His warm fingers touched her chin to turn her face toward him. “I love law enforcement. You’ve always known that. Are you trying to make me choose between you and my job?”

  “No, it’s not that, Nick.” She grabbed his wrist and moved his hand so his fingers rested against her lips. She kissed them. “This is about me and Keri, not you.”

  “I don’t think so. I feel manipulated. And you’re very good at that, honey. I often don’t recognize it, but this time I see it. If I could live this way, I’d do it in a heartbeat, because I love you. But I’d shrivel up and die here. If you don’t see that, you don’t know me very well.”

  Her eyes burned, and pressure built behind them. “I do know that. And I’m not saying forever. Just for now, I need this place.”

  “And what about what I need? What Keri needs? She needs me in
her life.”

  “You can be in her life.”

  “Eve, it’s an eight-hour drive one way to get here. When am I going to see her with my schedule? You’re not looking at it clearly.”

  “Maybe I’m not.” She turned her head so his fingers dropped away. “I can breathe here. If you stay awhile, you’ll love it too.”

  “It would be easy to give in, to just find a little Podunk deputy job. But we both know what would happen. I’d start to blame you eventually for the way I was stagnating. I don’t want that to happen.”

  “I know,” she whispered past the knot in her throat.

  “How about if we find a place in a little smaller town? Maybe Oakhurst or Bay Park.”

  If she loved him, she’d go with him. The truth whispered in her heart. Leaving Rock Harbor would be like losing a piece of herself, but maybe that was better than losing Nick. And he was right—Keri needed him.

  “I’ll think about it,” was all she could promise.

  25

  THE LIFE-SUPPORT MACHINES THAT SURROUNDED MIRANDA beeped in the background. Gideon barely noticed them or the stink of antiseptic that burned his nose. He sat in a hard-backed chair and held his wife’s hand.

  “Is she going to die?” Odette asked, her voice trembling. She turned to her father for reassurance.

  He’d hoped seeing Odette would rouse Miranda, so he’d gone after her. “She’s not going to die.”

  “How do you know? The doctor said we should stay here because it wouldn’t be long.” Odette took her mother’s other hand. “She’s been like this forever. I kind of forget what she was like, Dad. I remember her baking cookies and reading The Swan Princess to me. But I almost can’t hear her voice in my head anymore.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. You have to remember her, Odette. She will be devastated when she awakens if you’ve forgotten her.”

  “I was only eleven when it happened.” Odette looked down at her mother. “Six years is a long time.”

  “Not so long. She’s going to be fine.” He dipped a sponge into water and ran it along Miranda’s lips.

  A shadow fell over the bed. He looked up to see the doctor standing at the foot. Clipboard in hand, he wasn’t smiling.

  Gideon’s gut tightened. “Doctor.”

  “We need to talk,” the doctor said.

  “Not in front of her. Perhaps a room somewhere?”

  “There’s a conference room down the hall.”

  “Stay with your mother, Odette,” Gideon said.

  “No! I’m old enough to hear this, Dad. I want to come.”

  “Doctor?” Gideon asked.

  “Fine with me.”

  The doctor led them down the tiled hallway to a sparse office: brown utilitarian furniture, an end table that held only a couple of magazines. Gideon wouldn’t need the box of tissues on the coffee table.

  He perched on the edge of the hard sofa. Odette looked young and frightened when she sat beside him. Probably he should take her hand to appear as a loving father, but he cared only about Miranda.

  “Proceed, Doctor,” he said.

  “I’m sorry it has come to this, but the latest tests on your wife show no brain activity.”

  Odette gasped, and tears pooled in her eyes. “Daddy?” she asked in a small voice. “Does that mean . . .”

  “It means nothing. My wife is going to wake up, Doctor.” He turned an icy stare onto the physician, who squirmed but didn’t look away.

  “I’m sorry, but the machines are the only thing keeping her alive. It’s time for you and your daughter to make a decision about turning them off.”

  “My decision is no.” Gideon stood. “This conversation is over.”

  “Dad,” Odette said. Her hands twisted together in her lap. “We can’t keep living like this. The doctor says Mom is gone.”

  “You’d like that, wouldn’t you? Not to have to come see her any longer and do your duty. No one is going to kill my wife. She’s going to wake up.”

  The doctor rose. “I realize you may not be ready for this step, but it’s really the best one.”

  “For whom, Doctor? The nursing home? You need the room for someone else?”

  The doctor flushed. “Not at all. But when hope is gone, it helps no one to deny the truth.”

  “Hope is not gone. Not my hope anyway.” He jerked Odette to her feet and hustled her toward the door. “Go home if you want, but I’m going to go sit with your mother.”

  “Daddy!” Odette resisted his pushing. “You have to face it.”

  “Murderess,” he hissed. “You don’t love your mother.” He opened the door and shoved her out it. “Go home. I don’t want to see your face.” Leaving her sobbing in the hall, he strode back to Miranda’s room.

  Nothing had changed since he’d left. The machines still beeped. She lay sleeping peacefully. Healing. But she needed the final offering.

  “Hold on, my love,” he murmured, tucking the sheet around her. “Tomorrow you’ll be reborn.”

  BREE KNEW SHE NEEDED TO TELL NICK AND EVE ABOUT THE pictures she’d seen in the mine. She should have told them last night, but they were so tense and upset that she hadn’t wanted to add to their worry.

  Bree went downstairs. Today she’d start registering visitors for the weekend geocaching event. Participants had been showing up throughout the week. The aroma of bacon drew her through the living room to find everyone at the table eating breakfast. Eve looked a little bleary-eyed, but she was smiling. Bree caught Kade’s eye and nodded for him to start the conversation.

  His answering nod was almost imperceptible. He pulled out the chair beside him so Bree could sit down. “Eve, how much do you know about Will?” Kade asked.

  Eve’s smile faded. “What’s this all about?”

  “It affects Keri.”

  Every head in the room turned to look at Kade. “Keri? What are you talking about?” Eve asked.

  “We saw some pictures yesterday,” Bree said.

  “What pictures?”

  “One of Will and Patti standing arm and arm. And another of you holding Keri in the backyard,” Kade said.

  Bree watched Eve closely. There was no missing the way she blanched, the sudden inhalation. “What do you know about him?” Bree asked gently.

  “He—he was married once, but they’re divorced. He’s a great dancer.”

  Kade frowned. “Is he older than he looks?”

  “He’s twenty-eight.”

  “He looks about twenty-two,” Bree said.

  “Eve, I think Will might be Keri’s father. And I think he’s using you to get access to Keri. I’m worried he may try to take her.”

  “I’ll talk to Patti, see what I can find out.” Eve’s smile had disappeared. “Why would he want Keri now, after all this time? That makes no sense.”

  “The service was kind of strange,” Bree said. “One guy talked about using self-inflicted pain to meet God. Maybe having no kids was a source of pain for him. Though after listening to the service, I would think he would consider pain a good thing.”

  “Maybe he wants to make sure Keri is brought up ‘right,’” Kade said.

  “This might help our case,” Nick said. “What judge would award a child to parents who live in a mine shaft? That’s hardly safe.”

  Bree kept back her other fear. If the judge ruled against Patti, would Will try to take her anyway?

  NICK DIDN’T KNOW WHAT TO THINK OF THE PATTI-AND-WILL thing. He needed to find out though. The rest of them finished their breakfast in somber silence.

  “Deputy Montgomery needs to see me,” Nick said. “I’ll meet you at the ranger station in a little while, Kade.” He glanced at Eve. “Fraser will be outside again today, watching over you.”

  She nodded. She’d barely spoken to him this morning, and he wondered if she’d gotten as little sleep last night as he did.

  He drove to town and parked in front of the sheriff’s station. He welcomed the opportunity to think about something other than Eve’s
desire to stay here. It was enough to drive a man bonkers.

  Inside, he dropped into the chair across from Montgomery. “What’ve we got?”

  Montgomery shoved a file toward him. “See for yourself, eh?”

  Nick flipped open the manila folder and began to read. “She’s from Marquette. That’s a surprise. Since he moved her, I thought she might have been a troll.”

  “I expected someone from under the bridge too,” Montgomery agreed. “Maybe he hid her until now to help hide his identity. Maybe he’s from around here after all.”

  “Could be.” Nick continued to read. “Whoa, she’s been missing six years. That means Gideon has been operating longer than we imagined.”

  “I noticed that. What do you make of it, eh?”

  “Did he just get careless and we finally noticed him, or did he decide to be more deliberate and flaunt what he was doing?”

  “You’re the expert. What do these types do?”

  “It varies. The BTK killer in Kansas sent letters to the police, taunting them for their failure to find him. Ted Bundy operated in anonymity.” Nick closed the file. “We’ve checked out every geocaching group in Michigan. At least the ones we know about, though there are probably more. And some people work the caches alone, not in a group.”

  “You have anything on him dating before the Tallmadge woman?”

  “No. But if he’s been active six years, maybe we need to check the groups again. It would make sense that he was emboldened when he found a vehicle like geocaching that protected his anonymity.”

  “Why haven’t we been able to track him down through the computer pathways, eh?”

  “We’ve had a couple of problems doing that. One, he spoofs his address and bounces it through at least ten other computers, many of them overseas. Two, he changes the log every time he gets onto the geocaching site. He’s smart.”

  “How many geocachers are there in Michigan?”

  “Hard to say, since it’s all so informal. Some teams appoint just one person to retrieve the data for the caches. The real number might be much higher than the number of registered users at the Michigan site even. Many of the users don’t bother with state levels and only register with the national organizations. It’s all so fuzzy. I’ve heard estimates around thirty-six hundred or so registered users.”