Killing Secrets

by Docter, K. L

  Somewhere, in a distant part of her brain, Rachel heard her daughter yell her name. That can’t be right. Amanda doesn’t talk.

  Time passed in a blur. Something smacked hard into Rachel’s shoulder, knocking her and Greg off balance. His grip loosened and she gasped for life-saving air. Her left hand squeezed around her crutch in an effort to stay upright.

  Blinking furiously against dizziness, she saw a strange man wrestle Greg away from her. Greg punched the guy and turned back to Rachel.

  Amanda ran in front of him, screaming. “No! Daddy!”

  Dear God, where did she come from? Rachel stared in horror as Greg bore down on her daughter.

  “You little bitch, I’m going to kill you like I did your mongrel dog,” he ground out in rage, lunging toward Amanda.

  “Don’t you touch her!” Rachel rushed into the fray and smashed her metal crutch upward between Greg’s legs crushing his testicles.

  He howled and dropped to the ground, writhing.

  The female agent took a belligerent stance over Greg, her gun pointed at his chest. “You’re under arrest, Bishop,” she yelled.

  Half a dozen more agents converged on Greg. They yanked him onto his stomach—still contorting on the pavement, an agonized keen ripping from his throat - and handcuffed him.

  Rachel swung around to find her little girl glaring at her “daddy”, her fists opening and closing with agitation. “You. Hurt. My. Mama,” she said between huge, gulping sobs. “You pwomised.” Her lips twisted with the powerful emotion she didn’t hold in anymore. She looked completely unraveled and so beautiful in her rage.

  Rachel dropped her crutch and fell to her knees. She cried out at the sharp jab of pain in her ankle. She ignored it, fell back on the hot pavement, and gathered Amanda into her lap. She rocked back and forth for several minutes, the terror of watching her little girl launch herself into danger slow to release her.

  She pushed Amanda back and searched her face. “Are you okay?” she croaked, her throat raw from Greg’s abuse. She caressed her little girl’s damp cheek, looked into big, brown eyes so like her own, and grinned. “You talked! Oh, baby, you talked!” Rachel had thought her daughter’s voice had been a figment of her imagination in the truck accident.

  Amanda nodded, burst into tears, and threw her arms around her mother’s neck. She squeezed so hard it was difficult to breathe, but Rachel didn’t care. She just let her little girl crawl into her embrace and cry like a dam had burst inside her. Big noisy, cleansing sobs.

  “You’re okay, baby.” Rachel hugged her, murmured into her fine hair. “Mama’s here. Mama’s here.” She looked up to the sky and thanked her lucky stars that her daughter wasn’t injured, and stared straight up into familiar green eyes.

  “Jack,” she whispered brokenly. “Did I get enough? Is it finished?”

  “It’s all there on the recording.” He smiled at her with admiration. “You were amazing. Sommerfield is ecstatic. Bishop’s going to prison for the rest of his life.” He hunkered down to examine her burning neck, winced at what she was sure were new bruises. “You two okay?”

  She nodded. A hot tear trickled down her face, his sympathy overwhelmed her. The only thing that would make her more okay was being held in his brother’s arms. “Where’s Patrick?” she asked.

  He looked away…and didn’t answer her question.

  One moment she was sitting on the hot pavement with Amanda on her lap. The next, Jack reached down, plucked Amanda out of her arms and handed her off to the agent with the cookies. “Ms. Diana’s going to take you over to the bench so we can check you over,” he reassured Amanda. “I’m right behind you with mama, okay?” Before the little girl could do more than nod, he reached down and scooped Rachel into his arms.

  Jack sat Rachel on the bench in the shade next to her daughter. “Okay, munchkin, let’s take a look at you,” he said to the little girl, still avoiding Rachel’s eyes. He busied himself with his examination as “Ms. Diana” walked away to join her counterparts.

  Rachel searched the nearby grounds, the path in the direction Patrick would have come. There were dozens of people, some clearly FBI and law officers, the others gawkers stopping to soak up all of the unusual excitement. “Jack?” She waited until he looked directly at her. “Where’s Patrick?”

  She didn’t think he was going to answer her. But then, Jack sighed and sat back on the bench. “Gone.”

  “Gone where?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Rachel wasn’t prepared to play twenty questions with the man. “Tell me what you don’t want to tell me, Jack, and get it over with.”

  “Ah, hell, Rachel,” he said, wringing the back of his neck in obvious frustration. “He just left. We were sitting in the van listening to everything that was happening here. When one of the agents radioed that Bishop had attacked you and was in custody, that you were secure, we all jumped out of the van and raced for the entrance.”

  He frowned. “Sommerfield and I did anyway. I didn’t know Patrick wasn’t behind me until after we got past the gate. When I looked back, he was gone.”

  A hole opened in her heart. He’d walked away. “He heard about the baby.”

  “We heard.”

  She’d been afraid to tell Patrick, afraid his protective instincts would demand she marry him to provide the baby with a father. She didn’t want him that way, but how could she have been so wrong? She was such an idiot, holding onto the hope he’d come to love her the way she loved him. He didn’t want her. Why would he want their baby?

  “You didn’t tell him you had someone waiting for you in Dallas, did you?”

  Numb, she stared. “What?”

  “The baby’s father.”

  Realization dawned slowly. “You think, oh, my God, he thinks it’s not his?”

  “Is it?”

  “Of course, it is!” She was getting angry now, but at least it washed away some of the pain inside her. Patrick’s actions made a lot more sense if he thought the baby wasn’t his. Would it make any difference if he did know?

  “I must tell him,” Rachel said.

  Jack’s eyebrow rose. “You love him that much?”

  This wasn’t a time for prevarication. “Yes. I love him that much.”

  He grinned crookedly. “Good. You should tell him.”

  Hope sprang to life in Rachel’s heart. “Where do I find him?”

  There was no time for him to answer because two paramedics, dragging a stretcher covered with medical bags, showed up. “Ma’am,” one of the medics said, “we’re here to take you and the little girl to the hospital.”

  Jack stood. “Go with them, Rachel.”

  “But I, we—”

  “You have a little girl and a baby counting on you to take care of them,” he said. “I’ll find Patrick.”

  “Do you know where to look?”

  “I have an idea.” He smiled at Amanda. “You take care of your mama, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  Rachel gasped at the whispered word. It was still such a shock to hear her daughter speak.

  “You keep doing that, munchkin. Talking, I mean.” Jack leaned down to chuck her under the chin. “Your mama needs to hear it. All the time.”

  Amanda nodded.

  “Good girl.” With that, he was gone.

  Rachel prayed he found his brother soon. She wouldn’t allow herself to think about the possibility Patrick really didn’t care enough to come back to her.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  What was he doing here? Patrick stared out his dusty truck windshield at the Thorne family cabin hidden thirty miles deep in the mountains northwest of Denver. He debated whether to turn off the engine or turn around and drive back to the city.

  “I’m pregnant, Greg. Tell me again that I can’t have children, you pathetic liar.”

  Patrick crushed the sound of Rachel’s luscious voice in his head. “Yeah, right,” he muttered, his frustration palpable. “Like there’s anything in Denver fo
r you to go back to.”

  His construction sites were shut down. He couldn’t go to Southgate to salvage his teetering business thanks to a saboteur and serial killer still on the loose. With Bishop’s arrest, his babysitting duties were no longer necessary. His brother would already have secured Rachel and Amanda at the hospital under police protection, just in case. Jack certainly didn’t need Patrick’s help. He couldn’t return to his home office because he was avoiding his parents. If he had to dissect everything he’d done wrong since he jumped the cranberry fence between their properties to rescue Rachel, he’d go out of his mind.

  “I’m pregnant.”

  The words had haunted him these past two hours as he drove to the cabin. Had she’d known when she made love to him? Of course, she did. It was yet another of Rachel’s secrets. But why would she tell him she couldn’t get pregnant? Because you weren’t going to make love to her without protection.

  For a moment, after hearing her tell Bishop she was pregnant, he’d reveled in the idea the child might be his. But then, he realized it wasn’t possible. It had only been a week since the night he’d given in to temptation and made love to Rachel over and over like an insatiable teenager.

  Patrick smacked his fist on the steering wheel, the sting in his hand reminding him it didn’t matter why she’d done it. She was pregnant and Patrick had no choice but to watch her run back to Dallas. The loss was eating him from the inside out. Rachel. Amanda. A baby.

  Which was the real reason he’d bolted like his pants were on fire because he loved Rachel enough to want her whether the baby was his or not.

  Patrick was glad he hadn’t revealed his feelings to Rachel. You’re here to remind yourself why you vowed not get involved with yet another broken woman, why her leaving is best for everyone. Clearly, you learned nothing the day Karly died.

  The memory of that day pounded through his head as he turned off the engine and climbed out of the truck. He took a fortifying breath of the pine-scented mountain air. Then, he walked across the open meadow behind the old homestead to the family cemetery where seven generations of Thorne’s—eight generations counting his unborn son—were laid to rest.

  Karly’s suicide prevented him from burying them in the Catholic graveyard in Denver, where the more recent Thornes had a family plot. But she had loved coming here. It seemed right that she would rest where she had been happiest during their brief, six month marriage. His innocent son deserved to be laid to rest with the Thornes, too. The decision to bring them both here had been so easy.

  Coming back was the hard part. After spending most of his free time here every summer, even as an adult hiking these mountains, he’d returned only once after burying his family. The first anniversary of their death had almost torn him in two. All he could think about was never seeing his son born, teaching him to build things, never going camping or fishing together.

  Jack had found Patrick lying on their grave, drunk and incoherent, crying over the injustice of what Karly had done. His brother spent the next few days scraping his sorry ass back together. He hadn’t been back to the cabin since.

  Until today.

  He’d grown up thinking he’d be like his parents someday with a Victorian full of happy kids, some his, some fostered, all raised in a household with two loving parents. The loss of his wife and son cured him of that dream. When he’d left the mountainside with Jack last year, he’d made his decision. No more women, especially broken women with trouble in their wake. His rescuing days were over.

  It was almost poetic he was returning to bury his heart here, so close to the second anniversary of Karly’s death. You’re right back where you started.

  He shoved at the rusted iron cemetery gate, not yet prepared to think about Rachel and Amanda leaving him, the ache in his heart too fresh. The gate squealed open when he threw his hip into it, and he made a mental note to oil the hinges before he went back to Denver.

  When he stood over his wife and son’s grave, he stopped. He looked at the bouquet drooping over the side of the urn attached to their headstone. These must be the flowers Skip left when he visited on Karly’s birthday, their color and freshness now faded. The second bouquet his mother sent with Skip lay on the ground ripped into pieces and ground into a patch of Kinnikinnick. He smiled sadly at the thought of deer munching the forest ground cover and discovering the hothouse flowers only to turn to the more savory summer blossoms popping up around the headstone.

  A profusion of mule’s ear, skunk flower, and Colorado Blue Columbine covered the grave. Karly would have loved these much better than the hothouse blooms anyway. They were only married a month the first time he’d brought her here. One of her favorite pastimes on the weekends that followed, whenever he could break away from business, was to sketch the wildflowers.

  She’d carried a diary with her, always writing something in it if she wasn’t sketching. It was something she’d learned to do, she’d told him, after she’d had a breakdown when she was twenty. She’d told him her own sad story then, about her college boyfriend. He’d been killed by a mountain lion during a camping trip with her brother, Skip. She’d fought depression her entire life, growing up with an alcoholic mother and abusive father. But she hadn’t found a way to deal with it until that one life changing event had pushed her over the edge.

  Her poor brother, Skip returned from the Army just days after her death. He’d been as devastated as Patrick that he hadn’t arrived in time to save her. Patrick was often surprised at how well balanced Karly’s brother seemed after growing up in the same environment. It was odd how one child could persevere and blossom, while another disintegrated under similar circumstances. Maybe it was because Skip was eight years older and didn’t suffer the same kind of abuse from his father that Karly had.

  Patrick had believed she had her depression under control. Or maybe he’d just been too busy building Thorne Enterprises to notice the signs. He hadn’t known she was upset about the baby until they argued that fateful day. Would she have taken her life if he hadn’t been blindsided and lost his temper? Would she still be here if he’d gone after her, if he’d fought harder for her and their child?

  Karly often withdrew from him when she was upset. He’d learned early in their marriage to give her the space she needed. She always came to him when she was ready, and they’d discuss whatever was bothering her, resolve the problem. Not that day.

  He waited for the pain of regret and guilt to burn through him. It came, but it was tempered by the knowledge he would never know what she was thinking when she walked out on him. She was gone.

  Her secrets aren’t gone.

  The thought gave him pause. Karly had never shared her diaries, saying they were her “safety zone”, the one place she could share her worst nightmares, and then return to the real world without them. The day he’d buried her at the edge of the meadow, he’d boxed her belongings and jammed it all in the darkest corner of the cabin eaves. As far as he knew, they were still there.

  Last year, he wouldn’t have considered prying into Karly’s diaries. It was too painful. But now? Maybe the diaries would shed some light on her actions that last day, and give him some peace. “Forgive me, Karly,” Patrick murmured, “but I have to know.”

  Determined to lay his questions to rest, he left the cemetery and walked back to the two story cabin. As he came around the front, Jack pulled up in his Jeep.

  “What are you doing here, Jack?” Patrick said as his brother climbed out of the vehicle.

  Tossing his sunglasses on the driver’s seat, he closed the door. “Came to find you. Bring you home.”

  “You found me.” He turned his back and located the front door key in one of the rustic flower pots on the porch. “But I’m not going home.” He hefted the key in his palm.

  Jack squared his shoulders, a sign he was on a mission and Patrick was about to get his ass kicked if he didn’t cooperate. “Then we talk here.”

  Whatever his brother was there to do, Patrick was
n’t interested. Without a word, he opened the cabin door and entered the stuffy main room of the original homestead. Skip must not have stayed overnight when he was here last week, as Patrick suggested, because the place didn’t smell like it had been aired yet this season. Tossing the key on the barn door kitchen table, he walked around the downstairs opening the windows.

  Once fresh air billowed all of the curtains, he stopped in the middle of the kitchen and glared at his brother. Jack watched him from the open doorway. Patrick tensed as he asked the one question he knew he shouldn’t. “Are Rachel and Amanda okay?”

  “No.”

  “Bishop was secure,” he said tightly. “They were safe when I left. What happened?”

  “You left.”

  “What are you talking about? Are they okay or not?” He realized he was shouting.

  Jack closed the door and walked to the kitchen area in one corner of the room. He turned a chair and straddled it like the back rungs would serve as a buffer between them. “Do you love Rachel?

  “What?”

  “It’s a simple question. Do you love her?”

  Patrick dropped into a chair on the other side of the table. The question threatened to make him lose what little control he’d regained on the way up here. Of course, he loved Rachel. That didn’t mean he could have her. Or that he could watch her walk into another man’s arms.

  “I thought so.” Jack looked like he wanted to punch Patrick in the nose. “The baby’s yours.”

  Patrick stared. He hadn’t realized how much he wanted it to be true…was afraid it was true.

  Standing abruptly, he walked to the sink. He ran the water until it cleared, filled a tea kettle, and set it over a flame on the gas stove. Then, he pulled out two mugs and a jar of instant coffee. When there was nothing else for him to do, he stared out the kitchen window at the forest line beyond the meadow. Where Karly was buried. Where his baby boy was buried.

  “Talk to me, Patrick.” Jack’s voice was quiet. “What are you afraid of?”

  “Failing them. Losing them. Take your pick.” The words were out before he could stop them. He turned. “I messed up so badly with Karly. It would kill me to lose Rachel and Amanda.” And the baby…even if it wasn’t his.