Shattered Silence

by Marta Perry

  When she returned to the table, she told Lyn what had happened, who didn’t hesitate to share her opinion on men who tried to get their ex-wives to bail them out when they’d gotten themselves in trouble.

  Everything Lyn said was only too true, but Rachel couldn’t just walk away and do nothing. She deliberately didn’t tell Lyn that she was going to meet Paul. If Lyn knew, she would insist on being there, and the last thing Rachel wanted was to pull Lyn further into Paul’s misdeeds.

  Nine o’clock found her turning into the driveway, her headlights revealing nothing out of the ordinary. Rachel pulled into the detached garage and came out, closing the door but not turning on the light that illuminated the walk to the front porch.

  For a moment she lingered by the garage, listening for any sound. Then, realizing that her figure was silhouetted against the white garage door, she moved a few feet toward the house, preferring the shade of the rhododendron bush that was overgrowing its allotted space.

  The neighborhood was quiet, almost too quiet. The house to her right was empty and dark, while on the other side a flickering light announced that the elderly couple who lived there, the Bartons, were watching television. A month ago they might have been sitting on their patio, but people didn’t go outside in the evenings now that the weather was cooler.

  Even as she thought it, their door opened, sending a rectangle of light onto the sidewalk. Mr. Barton, no doubt putting his cocker spaniel out. Buster never intruded into her lawn, thanks to the picket fence, but she knew he’d trot around restlessly for a time, probably thinking his humans were foolish to prefer the indoors on a night like this. He was a sweet animal, but she wished he weren’t out just at this moment.

  She pressed back into the bush, wondering if he’d set up a racket if he scented her. If so...well, she’d deal with that if it happened.

  She strained her ears for any sound. The dark seemed to press in on her, and the neighborhood was quieter than she’d have thought possible. Every slight rustle of the shrubbery seemed to announce her presence.

  Or someone else’s. The discovery that someone had been in her house still lingered like a nightmare she couldn’t quite wake up from.

  She began to regret not turning the light on. Would Paul show up, or was this yet another time when he failed to deliver on his promises? The glow of the Bartons’ porch light, coming from her left, lit up a section of her yard, and she turned away from the garage to scan it.

  Something, maybe the scrape of a shoe on the pavement, alerted her. She started to turn toward the garage, a greeting forming on her lips, when there was a rush of movement. An arm encircled her, a hand clamped down hard on her mouth and she was pulled hard against a man’s body.

  For an instant shock paralyzed her. Paul—but it wasn’t Paul. This was someone bigger, taller. She struggled to free her mouth enough to scream, trying to remember the elements of the self-defense class she’d once taken.

  The arms dragged her backward, toward the darkness that ran along the side of the garage. No! She couldn’t let that happen. Kick, bite, scratch—do whatever you have to. With a spurt of panic, Rachel fought back, struggling to get a hand free to claw at his face. But he held her too tightly. She couldn’t get loose... Sagging down, she made herself a dead weight, hoping to distract him. If he thought she’d passed out, he might relax his grip for an instant.

  But the deadly pressure of the hand blocking her mouth and nose was too strong, and the darkness began to swirl around her. Frantic, afraid she really would pass out, she kicked backward again, connecting with what felt like the hard bone of his shin. His hand slipped momentarily.

  Momentarily, but it was enough. Rachel managed a choked scream before it was cut off, and a volley of barking burst out from the next yard. Loud, frantic—it sounded as if Buster was attacking the fence. The Bartons must hear, they’d come out—she fought with a fresh burst of energy.

  The door opened in the next house, Buster’s barking increased frantically, and she was thrown violently to the ground, the breath knocked out of her.

  When she could breathe again, Buster, tail wagging furiously, was licking her face. She drew in another breath, pushing herself to her hands and knees.

  “Ms. Hartline, are you all right? What happened?” Mr. Barton hurried toward her, panting at the exertion. “Are you hurt?”

  She sat back on her heels, hugging the spaniel. “I’m okay. Thanks to Buster.”

  “I heard him and I just knew something was wrong.” Mrs. Barton had joined them by then. Short, white-haired and rounded, she and her husband looked like a matched set. “Goodness, Blaine, don’t just stand there, help her up.”

  “Yes, yes.” Galvanized, he put his arms around her shoulders, puffing.

  Afraid he’d strain himself into a heart attack, Rachel managed to get her feet under her and push herself up despite her shaking legs. Her breath still came in gasps, and her heart raced. “Thank you so much. Did...did you see what happened?”

  “Not enough to recognize.” Barton shook his head, absently patting her back. “Just a shadow. What was it, a burglar?”

  “This neighborhood gets more dangerous every year,” his wife declared. “Let’s get you inside your house where we can find out if he hurt you. Then we can call the police.”

  Her first instinct was to say no, but that would make them suspicious of her. Besides, did she really want to refuse?

  Then she thought of Paul and wavered. By the time they were in her house, she’d made up her mind.

  “Looks like he didn’t get inside, anyway. You must have scared him off before he could.” Mr. Barton looked around, and she could only be thankful that he hadn’t seen it after the previous search.

  Rachel pushed back tumbled hair. Succumbing to Mrs. Barton’s urging, she sank into the corner of the sofa and let the woman check her for injuries. Aside from a scratch on her face and what would probably turn into a couple of colorful bruises, she was all right. Just shaken. All the self-defense classes in the world couldn’t prepare her for the real thing.

  “I should have left the lights on. I went to dinner with my friend, and I hadn’t planned to be this late. I suppose he must have thought the house was empty.”

  That obviously didn’t explain the fact that she’d just pulled into the driveway moments before. Any intruder would surely take alarm at that.

  A chill went through her. This hadn’t been a search, not this time. This time they’d gone after her directly. But who?

  “I’ll call the police.” Mrs. Barton, taking charge, headed for the phone.

  “No, wait.” She thought furiously. It hadn’t been Paul, so who had it been? And what had happened to Paul? “I’ll do it, but I want to check first to see if anything is missing. If...if he...they never got into the house, I can wait until morning to report it.”

  Mrs. Barton exchanged glances with her husband. “Wouldn’t it be better to do it now?”

  “I’m just so shaken.” She let her voice tremble, and it wasn’t hard. “I don’t want to get into a long ordeal of talking to the police at this hour. I’d rather deal with it when I’ve rested.”

  “But surely...” Mrs. Barton wasn’t easily deterred.

  “Now, Alice, if she wants to wait, that’s her business.” But she could sense Mr. Barton’s doubt at her hesitation.

  An unspoken understanding seemed to pass between the elderly pair. Then Mrs. Barton nodded.

  “All right, dear. Just as you say.” She patted Rachel’s shoulder. “Do you want anything—a nice cup of tea, maybe?”

  “Or a stiff drink,” Mr. Barton added, blue eyes twinkling a little. His wife gave him a pretend slap.

  “No, I’m fine. I just came from dinner. I want to curl up and relax.”

  “All right, but if you get nervous tonight, you just call and we’ll come right over.”

  “I�
�ll be fine.” Rachel tried to infuse her voice with an assurance she didn’t feel. “Thank you so much for coming to the rescue. And thank you, Buster.” She bent to ruffle the spaniel’s silky black ears. “You’re a real hero.”

  “First time I’ve ever been proud of him for raising a racket,” Mr. Barton said gruffly. “You take care now.”

  It took a few more assurances that she’d be fine, but her helpful neighbors finally left. Rachel closed the door, locked it and leaned against it, exhausted.

  All she had were questions, no answers. The first one was obvious. What had happened to Paul? He could have come, she supposed, and been frightened off if he’d seen someone lurking outside. If so, he’d been more observant than she had.

  Rachel fished out the cell phone and called his number. It went straight to voicemail. “What happened to you? Someone attacked me when I was waiting for you. Tell me what you’re involved in.” Afraid she was starting to sound panicky, she disconnected.

  Panicky. That was a good description. Her home no longer felt like a haven. Her safe, normal world had turned upside down, and she’d begun to think there was no one she could trust who was capable of dealing with a situation like this.

  Clint Mordan slipped into her thoughts, and she pushed the idea away with a shudder. He was capable, all right, but as Lyn had pointed out, he wasn’t on her side. He might even have been the one who attacked her, hoping to frighten her into depending on him.

  She rubbed her temples, collapsing limply into the nearest chair. She needed time—time for Paul to settle his affairs, time for Paul to clear her of any involvement. And she needed safety. Security.

  There was only one place in her life that had ever offered her security. Few people knew of her connection to the quiet Amish farm a lifetime away from here. Paul knew, of course, but he never talked about it. He’d actually found it a little embarrassing that his wife’s history was so unconventional. Besides, his interests had always been in the here and now or in the future pot of gold, not in her childhood summers.

  The familiar picture formed in her mind—the serenity of the farm, fields golden now in the fall sunshine. The quiet, steady routine of Amish life, grounded in the habits of centuries. Her pounding heart slowed. The figures of grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, each one dear to her but anonymous to anyone else—dressed alike, looking alike to strangers.

  She could hide there. The idea formed in her mind, growing stronger by the moment. What she needed was a place to be quiet, to regroup, to figure out how to cope with the mess Paul had involved her in. She shivered, thinking of Attwood’s threat to prosecute her for complicity. She couldn’t prove she hadn’t been involved with Paul’s actions. The very fact that she hadn’t immediately reported him weighed against her.

  She couldn’t have done that, even in a moment of anger. How could she jump to turn in a man she’d once loved, a man she’d promised to honor and love for the rest of their lives? She couldn’t just turn that off and forget it. Her grandparents had taught her well, and even if she hadn’t listened to them, seeing the mess her mother had made of her life would have done it. She might never be able to live with Paul again, but she didn’t have it in her to betray him without hearing his side of it, at least.

  That was at the heart of her reluctance. Paul should have a chance to defend himself. Despite all the lies he’d told, she’d never been able to see him stealing from his closest friends. He’d have rationalized that the money in their joint account was his as much as hers, but he couldn’t have thought that about the company.

  Unless, of course, he really did hold an actual partnership in the company, but if that were true, then what he’d done couldn’t be described as theft. If it were true.

  Would it make sense to go to the police? But once she’d reported the assault, where would it end? The police would obviously want to know why she was a target, and that would lead inevitably to Attwood, to Paul’s copying the file and to the fact that she’d known. She could end up charged with complicity, and even if it never went to trial, just the charge could be enough to ruin her future as a teacher here.

  Rachel rubbed her forehead tiredly. She was starting to think in circles. Get back to what your instincts tell you. Get to a safe place, contact Paul and find out what he was doing. She was already so involved that she’d never be free of this until she knew.

  She’d go to her grandparents’ farm. That would give her a breathing spell, but she had to be careful. Clint had found her laughably soon after her last attempt at evasion. It would take some doing to get to Echo Falls without leaving a trail for him to follow.

  But once she was there, she could sink, unnoticed, into the placid routine of Amish life. She could stay there, undetected, until she’d clarified things with Paul and decided what she could do to salvage her life.

  Determination flowed in, strengthening her. No one would know where she was, especially Clint.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  BY SEVEN THE next morning Clint was pulling up at Rachel’s house, intent on confronting her about the burner phone. He’d have been there the previous night if Logan hadn’t advised caution, afraid she’d call the cops if they pushed her too hard. He’d had to agree, but still, it rankled, maybe all the more so because he’d begun to sympathize with her. He should know better than to fall for the wide-eyed innocent act.

  After pulling into the driveway he headed for the front door, determined to get the truth out of her.

  Leaning on the doorbell, he listened to it chime inside the house. No response. He knocked, taking a step sideways so that he could look through the living room window. Neat, orderly, with nothing to indicate that the house was occupied or that anything was wrong.

  Clint gave it another try, knocking hard enough that the door shivered. Nothing. He eyed the lock. No dead bolt, just an ordinary lock in the knob, the easiest thing in the world to open.

  Tempting, very tempting, but he wouldn’t. Rachel might have left early for school this morning for all sorts of reasons. If so, he’d catch up with her there, preferably before class started, so he didn’t have to have another encounter with the head teacher. The woman was entirely too reminiscent of his third-grade teacher back home—a woman with eyes in the back of her head and an uncanny ability to sniff out trouble before it started.

  Texting Logan to let him know, Clint joined the work-bound flow of drivers attempting to get from one side of Philadelphia to the other. Later than he had hoped, he reached the school just ahead of a school bus.

  He had to be buzzed in, of course, and by the time he reached the office, the secretary was obviously prepared for him. Unsmiling, she ushered him straight into the head teacher’s office.

  Lyn Baker’s expression was not only unsmiling, it was openly antagonistic.

  “This is a school, Mr. Mordan. We really can’t have persons unrelated to school business haunting our building. You’ll have to leave.”

  He tried to produce a disarming look, holding up his hands in surrender. “Believe me, I know, and I wouldn’t have come if I’d had a choice. But Ms. Hartline had already left her house when I arrived this morning, and it’s important that I speak to her.”

  “Important to you. Not, perhaps, to her.” The icy tone gave no hint of thawing.

  “It’s in Ms. Hartline’s best interests that she speak to me. The sooner we get this situation cleared up, the better for her.”

  The woman wasn’t noticeably buying it. Instead, she stretched out a hand toward the phone, and he suspected it would give her great pleasure to call the police. “If she wanted to speak to you, I’m sure she’d be in touch.”

  “Suppose you ask her now if she’d give me a few minutes.” All this stalling was beginning to make him more suspicious than he’d already been.

  For a moment she hesitated. Her hand touched the phone. “That’s impossible.”

 
“Why?” He snapped the word, beginning to see the truth. “She’s not here, is she?”

  “No, she’s not here. And it’s about time you weren’t here either, unless you’d prefer I call the police.”

  He grabbed onto his rising temper. “Look, it’s obvious you’re her friend. If you know where she is...”

  “I don’t. Ms. Hartline asked for a personal day. I granted it. That’s all.”

  “You must have some idea...”

  She lifted the receiver to her ear.

  “All right, I’m leaving.” It was no part of his plan to end up under arrest. “But when you speak to her, tell her I’m looking for her.”

  If that sounded threatening, at this point he didn’t much care.

  Clint left the building fuming. He’d trusted her—that was what rankled most. He must be getting soft now that he was in the private security business. His cop’s instincts said she’d gone on the run...probably meeting her ex-husband even now. And where? He had no clue.

  Mixed messages. Rachel was full of them. There’d been moments when he’d thought her honestly baffled by what was happening, making his protective instincts go into high gear—those green eyes troubled, her lips trembling a little as she tried to make sense of the situation. Had that all been an act?

  After jumping in the car, he headed back to her house. On this visit, he wasn’t going to let any consideration keep him from checking inside.

  Traffic had lessened by this time, and he made it back to the quiet neighborhood fairly quickly. Quiet was just what he needed. Most people were out at work at this hour, and there was no one left to see when he made a neat, quick entry.

  Clint stepped inside, closed the door gently and stood motionless. If she’d been here all along, refusing to answer his knocks, she’d make a move when she heard the door open.

  But the small house was still, the room frozen in a kind of unnatural order. No sign here that she’d left in a hurry, but that meant nothing. The disorder, if there was any, would be in the bedroom.