Thirty-One and a Half Regrets (Rose Gardner Mystery #4)

by Grover Swank, Denise

  “Oh God, Rose.” I heard the shock in his voice. “Are you okay?”

  I started to cry again. “No. We’ve been running from Crocker for the past day and a half in the hills of northern Fenton County. He’s closing in on us, but Mason fell down a hill and broke his leg.”

  “Did you call 9-1-1?”

  “No, I don’t know who’s working for Crocker in the sheriff’s office. Mason thinks the sheriff himself might be involved. At this point he only trusts the chief deputy.”

  “Where are you? How are you calling me?”

  “We found a house, but no one was home. Mason told me to break in. He thinks we’re a couple of miles from the Moore County border and that we’d intercept Highway HH if we kept moving.”

  “What’s the terrain like where you are?”

  “It’s all pine trees and hills.”

  “It’s a house? Look around for an address. Maybe there’s something inside that will give us a clue about where you are.”

  I scanned the kitchen counter and found several pieces of mail. My fumbling fingers sorted through the stack. “There’s an address! 524 Ever Pine Road, Sweet Knob, Arkansas.”

  “Good! Stay where you are, Rose. I’m coming.”

  “Should I call the state police?”

  “No, I’ll take care of it.”

  I breathed a sigh of relief, then something hit me. “You seemed surprised to hear that Crocker was after me. I called you yesterday and left a message. You didn’t get it?”

  He paused. “You did what?”

  “I called you and left a voice message begging you to call me back, but the phone died and we left it at the farmhouse, so I wasn’t sure if you got the call.”

  “I didn’t get it, Rose.” He sounded horrified. “I would have had the state police looking for you yesterday if I did.”

  I wanted to tell him it was okay, but it wasn’t. Someone was to blame. “It was Hilary, wasn’t it?” I asked, my anger rising. “She intercepted the call and deleted the voice mail.”

  “Rose you don’t know—”

  “You’re still defending her?” I shouted. “Even now? Even in this?” It was just one more betrayal. “My life is in danger, Joe, and she deleted my voice mail out of petty jealousy.”

  “No. She wouldn’t do that. She has too much to lose.” But while his tone was hard, I heard a waver of uncertainty. “I told her that if she ever interferes with another one of my calls, we’ll be done for good. She wouldn’t risk it.”

  “Do you even hear yourself right now? How many times have you told her that, yet look where you are right now?”

  He didn’t answer, which was answer enough.

  I steeled my back. “Give me the number for the state police.”

  “What?”

  “I want the state police to come save me. How can I rely on you? Hilary might ask you stay home to pick out a china pattern.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous, Rose!”

  All the fight fled from me, leaving only disappointment. “I’m not the one being ridiculous. Now give me the number.”

  To his credit, he rattled it off and I scratched the digits down on the envelope.

  “Thank you for your help. I need to hang up and call the state police.”

  “Rose—” But I hung up before he could say anything else.

  I held onto the telephone receiver, which was resting in the cradle, and leaned my forehead on it. Why was I so disappointed in him? I already knew Joe and Hilary were back together—our meeting at the nursery had been proof enough of that. Joe would always go back to Hilary. He was like a carrier pigeon and she was his home base. I couldn’t be with someone like that, someone who was captive to his past.

  I needed Mason.

  With a huge sigh, I straightened and picked up the receiver to call the state police. I punched in the number, but the phone call didn’t go through. I hung up and put the receiver to my ear, but this time there was no dial tone. I hung up and tried again. Still nothing.

  Panic raced up my spine and I dropped the phone, running out the still-open back door toward the spot where I’d left Mason. On the other side of the house, Deputy Gyer stepped away from the building, holding a large pocketknife in his hand. A severed utility line dangled behind him. He turned to me with a wicked smile.

  “Rose, long time no see,” he laughed. “You’re a hard woman to find.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Deputy Gyer was in on it too.

  Recovering from the shock, I turned and ran for the trees behind the house, but he quickly caught up and snaked an arm around my waist, hauling me up to his chest.

  “I think you’ve done enough running, little Rose.” He reached between us and pulled the handgun out of the waistband of my pants. “Crocker warned me you liked to hide guns on you. Looks like he was right.”

  He dragged me toward the house and I kicked and squirmed, trying to break free. After I landed a solid kick to his shin, he grunted and grabbed a fistful of my hair, jerking his hand back.

  I released a cry of pain and he growled in my ear. “You’ve caused me nothing but trouble since I showed up at your farm yesterday morning. Crocker wasn’t happy that we let you get away. While he told us to keep you alive, he didn’t say anything about what shape he wants you in. Don’t think I won’t beat the shit out of you to get you to cooperate.”

  He practically carried me into the house and I craned my neck, desperate to see whether Mason was still in the woods. There wasn’t any sign of him. Deputy Gyer dragged me into a bedroom and my fear escalated, especially when I saw that another man was already in the room. He looked like a teenager and he was sporting a busted lip.

  Gyer shot him a look of disgust, shaking his head. “What the hell happened to you?”

  He turned bright red. “He put up a fight.”

  “How? He’s got a busted leg and looked too weak to kick a kitten.” Deputy Gyer set me down and I tried to elbow him in the groin. He twisted my arms around my back with enough force to make me cry out. “Good thing I took care of this hellcat myself because Crocker would have both our asses if she got away.”

  The teen glared at me.

  Gyer shoved me toward an open walk-in closet. I struggled not to fall on top of Mason, who was sprawled face-first on the floor, his hands tied behind his back.

  “Mason!”

  “You just sit tight while we wait for Crocker to show up,” Detective Gyer said with a sneer. Then he slammed the door shut and we were plunged into darkness.

  “Mason.” I blindly reached for him, coming into contact with his arm.

  “I’m sorry, Rose.” He sounded devastated.

  “Don’t apologize. You didn’t do anything wrong.” I rubbed his back.

  “Did you get a chance to call anyone?”

  I closed my eyes and tried to keep from bursting into tears. “Yes. But I didn’t know the number for the state police, so I called Joe.”

  “Did you leave another message?”

  “No, he answered and I even found this house’s address on a stack of mail in the kitchen.”

  “So he’s sending help?”

  I stayed silent.

  “Rose, what happened?”

  “He told me he was coming and he’d call the state police.”

  “Then why do you sound so worried?”

  “Because he didn’t get my call yesterday and when I told him that Hilary must have deleted the voice mail, he got defensive of her. I got angry…”

  “And?”

  “And I told him not to bother coming, that I’d call the state police myself. I made him give me the number.”

  “But you didn’t get a chance to call.”

  I heaved a long breath. “No.”

  “It’s okay. Joe will probably call them anyway. Just to make sure they got the message.”

  I wasn’t so convinced, but I didn’t want to think about what was going to happen if he didn’t. “We need to move you, Mason. You’re lying fla
t on your face. Do you want to lie down or sit up?”

  “Can you help me sit up?”

  “Yeah.” I grabbed his arms and we maneuvered him into a sitting position, his back propped against the wall. I tried to undo the binding on his hands, but it was a zip tie.

  “I can’t get it undone.”

  “Do you still have your gun?” he asked.

  “No. Deputy Gyer, the guy who showed up to help Deputy Miller, took it. Crocker had warned him that I might have a hidden gun.”

  “Deputy Gyer? He’s one of them too?”

  “It looks like it.”

  “We never stood a chance.” He sounded disgusted. “Okay. Let’s figure out something we can use to defend ourselves. Check the hangers.”

  I stood and felt around, my eyes slowly adjusting to the darkness. We had to be in a spare bedroom; there were linens stacked on the shelves and just a few articles of clothing hanging from the rod. “There are about ten plastic hangers.”

  “No wire?”

  “No.”

  “Will the pole that’s holding them come out of its brackets?”

  I lifted the rod, banging the end into the wooden shelf above it. “Yeah.”

  “Be careful,” he whispered. “We don’t want them to realize we’re up to something.”

  “What am I going to do with this?”

  “Fight like hell.”

  He was right. I couldn’t sit calmly and wait for Crocker to show up and get his revenge. But I was scared to death. I laid the pole on the floor and after a bit more rustling around, found two shorter poles in brackets, one stacked over the other. “Now what?”

  “Keep searching the closet and see if you can find something to cut this zip tie.”

  I searched the entire closet, finding only more linens and clothing and two objects that felt like stuffed animals only with real fur and they stunk to high heaven. “There’s nothing.” My voice broke. I sat next to Mason, discouraged. “Mason, I’m scared.”

  “I know. I am too.”

  I laid my head on his shoulder, trying to keep from crying. “You know what I regret most?” I asked.

  “What?”

  “I regret not visiting the farm sooner. I love it there. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking, and if we get out of here alive, I think I’m going to move to the farm.”

  Mason rested his cheek on my head, his breathing slightly labored. “Not if, Rose. We will get out of this.”

  I wasn’t so certain. “I also regret not telling Violet off sooner. That was a long time coming.”

  “She deserved it, that’s for sure.”

  “And I regret not telling you about Joe’s father and the evidence he falsified.”

  “When we get out of this, it’ll be on the top of my list of things to deal with.” His tone was stern.

  I still didn’t want him to get tangled up in the whole mess, but this hardly seemed like the time to say so.

  “I have regrets too,” he said softly. “I regret being so harsh with you when we first met.”

  “Mason…”

  “And I regret that Joe met you first. I lived in Henryetta before you two started dating. In theory, I could have met you before you and Joe became involved.”

  “I’m not the same person I was then, Mason. I’m not sure you would have noticed me.”

  “Joe did.”

  “Because he thought I was a suspect. He only paid attention because it was part of his job. He insists that’s not true, but he’d lived next to me for a month before we so much as exchanged a word. The first time we spoke was when I knocked on his door after I found Momma’s body.”

  We were silent for a moment.

  “I can’t regret Joe,” I whispered. “He’s part of who I am today.”

  He kissed my forehead. “And I would never ask you to regret him. I didn’t mean it that way. I just wish that we could have had more time together.”

  “What would you have done if Joe and I didn’t break up?”

  “I would have moved on eventually, I suppose. The fact that I could see cracks in your relationship gave me hope, although I never wanted you to be hurt, Rose.”

  “I know.”

  “And I regret not being a better brother to Savannah. Maybe if I’d been there for her more she wouldn’t have made so many bad choices.”

  “Mason, I’m sure you were a great brother. Look what you did after she was murdered. You found the guy and beat him up.”

  “And you know I regret that too…”

  “Enough regrets,” I sighed. “We can’t change the past. We can only look toward the future.” I turned my head and gave him a soft kiss.

  “If something happens to you…” His voice broke. “My biggest regret of all will be that I never got the chance for a future with you.”

  I grabbed his face with both hands and kissed him, showing him how much I regretted that too.

  Suddenly, the closet door flew open and sunlight flooded the small room. I jerked backward, edging behind Mason as I tried to make out who was in the doorway.

  “Hello, my sweet Rose.”

  I nearly passed out from fright.

  It was Daniel Crocker.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  “Getting her warmed up for me, Mr. Assistant DA?” Crocker asked with a laugh. His smile fell as his gaze landed on me. “Aren’t you going to say hello, Rose? Be careful or I’ll think you aren’t happy to see me.”

  He looked different from when I’d last seen him up close. His dark brown hair was shorter and he had several days’ growth on his face that had more gray in it than I remembered. He had more lines on his forehead and around his mouth too, but the change in his eyes struck me the most. They had been hard before with a bit of madness, but now they looked flat-out crazy.

  I struggled to catch my breath, my body shaking with fright.

  “Crocker, listen to me,” Mason said, using his professional voice. “You haven’t even been to trial yet. I can work out some kind of deal for you.”

  He cocked his head with an amused grin. “What kind of deal?”

  Mason paused. “We can drop the racketeering charges and one count of attempted murder.”

  Crocker started laughing. “You’re kidding me. That’s all she’s worth to you?”

  Mason flinched.

  I wrapped my fingers around his arm and rose to my knees. “He’s not dropping anything. You deserved every one of those charges.”

  A demented grin lit up his face. “I plan to earn a few more before I go back.”

  “I’ll drop the murder charges,” Mason blurted out. “You’d be left with the drug charges, nothing more.”

  My grip on his arm tightened. “Mason, you can’t do that!”

  “And I’ll make sure you don’t face any charges for escaping.”

  Crocker turned his head to study Mason. “Hmm…”

  Could Mason get away with doing that? The entire state was watching this case. He’d ruin his career. For me.

  “It’s very tempting,” Crocker said, his index finger stroking his chin as he looked at me. “But I’d still be in prison for a very long time. Without the comfort of a woman. And we both know how much I love women.”

  I shuddered.

  “There’s nothing keeping you here,” Mason said, insistent. “You can escape and find all the women you want. Rose and I will even misdirect the state police. I give you my word.”

  “But there’s something you’re not taking into consideration,” Crocker said, all amusement falling away from his face. “There’s only one woman I’m interested in right now.” He held out his hand to me, beckoning.

  I shrank back and Mason scooted away from the wall, trying to shield me. “The state police are on their way, Crocker. If you leave now, you might still have a chance to escape. Otherwise, you’re sure to be captured.”

  Crocker shook his head. “You’ve been in here for nearly half an hour. The way the state police have canvassed this county, they would have b
een here by now if they were coming. You’re bluffing.”

  My heart sank. He was right. They should have been here by now. That meant Joe really hadn’t called them. Now we’d be killed and it was all because of my temper.

  “Come on, Rose,” Crocker growled. “I’m tired of waiting.”

  I reached down, my fingers brushing the shorter wooden pole. I had no delusions of escaping three men, but I wasn’t about to make things easy for them.

  Crocker stepped into the closet and Mason tried to block his path, distracting his attention. I swept up the pole as I stood, shoving it into Crocker’s stomach with all my strength.

  He stumbled, letting out a whoosh of air and a growl.

  I raised the pole to strike him across the back, but he grabbed it and jerked it from my hands, shoving me across the bed. I rolled off the edge and landed hard on the floor, releasing a grunt.

  Crocker walked back to the closet and kicked Mason in the chest.

  I rushed forward. “No! Stop!” I grabbed Crocker’s arm as he kicked Mason again. “Stop! I’ll do what you want. Just leave him alone. Please.”

  Mason’s eyes grew wild with fear. “Rose! No!”

  I was still clinging to Crocker’s arm when he turned to look at me. “You’re telling me you’ll cooperate? With everything?”

  Squaring my shoulders, I stared into Crocker’s wild eyes. “Yes.”

  “Rose!” Mason shouted. I didn’t look at him. I couldn’t.

  Crocker dragged me out of the closet and shut the door, bracing a chair under the doorknob. He turned to me with a grin.

  “I want you to let him go,” I said. “You have to promise not to hurt him.”

  Surprise flickered in his eyes as he jutted his head back in disgust. “I don’t have to do anything.”

  I started to unbutton my jacket and forced myself to calm down. I’d figure a way out of this. I’d managed to last time. “How good do you want it?”

  His eyes followed my hand to where my jacket hung open at my waist, exposing my bra and bare abdomen. “Fine. We won’t touch him when we’re done here.”

  “Rose! No!” Mason shouted through the closet door.