by Nicole Baart
“What can I say? I bring out the best in people.”
Angela snorted. “That’s nice and all, but we didn’t come here so you could make friends with an elderly lady.”
Lucas held up the slip of paper, and Angela snatched it out of his hand. “It’s Jess Langbroek’s phone number and address,” he explained. “And I got it cheap.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“All we have to do is return this phone clip.” He dug the accessory out of his pocket and passed it, too, to Angela.
“You’re joking.”
“Some friend of Jess’s left it at her house this afternoon. He’s supposed to be staying at the Gaslight Inn.” Lucas gave Angela a sidelong look. “We drove by it on our way into town. It won’t kill us to drop it at the front desk on our way out.”
Angela didn’t say anything.
The air in the car was alive, volatile. Angela was sparking with energy as she squinted at the paper in her hands. It was too dark to read anything, but Lucas understood her desire to stare, to cement the reality of what they had uncovered. She was doing the same thing he was: trying to imagine where it would lead them.
When he pulled into the parking lot of the Gaslight Inn, Angela wrenched open her door before he could stop her.
“I’ll do it,” she called over her shoulder. “Back in a sec.”
But she didn’t even know his name. Lucas turned off the car with a sigh and followed her into the lobby of the shabby hotel.
The room was small, but it was lit up like Christmas, strung with tiny lights that blinked on and off in a rhythm Lucas was sure could cause seizures. There was a ratty couch, a table with outdated magazines, and the shadowy entrance to a small pub across from a middle-aged man behind the check-in counter. He was looking at Angela as if she was a present to be unwrapped. Lucas was glad he’d come along.
“What’s his name?” Angela asked, turning to Lucas. The cell phone clip was already on the counter between her and the man, who was openly gawking.
“Dylan something or other.”
The desk clerk blinked a few times and tore his attention away from Angela. “There’s only a couple people staying here. I think the guy you’re looking for is in the bar.”
“Can you just give him the clip?”
“He’s right in there.” The man gestured, and turned his gaze back to Angela. “Do it yourself.”
Lucas pushed a hard breath through his nose and reached over Angela’s shoulder to snag the clip. “Fine,” he snapped, waiting for Angela to back him up and annihilate the desk clerk with a single wicked look. But she wasn’t paying any attention to their exchange.
Instead, her eyes were fixed on an unfamiliar man as he walked out of the bar behind them. Lucas couldn’t see his face—the man was looking over his shoulder—but he was wearing jeans and a light Columbia windbreaker that seemed too insubstantial for the deepening cold. His hair was dark, yet sand-streaked at the crown, as if he spent a lot of time in the sun. Squinting at his back, Lucas tried to place the swagger, wondering if he knew the guy. Angela obviously did, or thought she did, because she took a few steps toward him.
He watched Angela muster a stunning smile then call, “Hey!” just as the man reached for the door handle. The stranger turned and looked straight at her. Even at a distance, Lucas could tell that this was no case of mistaken identity—the set of his features in the second he caught sight of Angela was enough to betray that he was exactly who she thought he was. In the blink of an eye, his look flickered from bland disinterest to shock to what Lucas interpreted as fear. Reaching for Angela, Lucas almost put a protective hand on her elbow, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it.
“I thought it was you,” Angela said, her smile faded but intact as she considered his curious response. “I’m Angela,” she added, touching her fingertips just beneath her collarbone. “You probably don’t remember me. It’s been years . . .”
Something in the man’s eyes caught fire. “Eight years, to be exact.”
Lucas noted with alarm that the man across from him was breathing hard and his chest had started to heave with the gasping effort. “You okay?” Lucas asked, taking a step forward to put himself between Angela and the stranger. “You don’t look so hot.”
But the man ignored him. “What happened?” he said between clenched teeth. His attention was directed over Lucas’s shoulder, and he fixed Angela with a gaze so filled with loathing, it seemed to drain the air of warmth. “What happened?” he repeated, low and lethal. And then, he suddenly shouted it: “What happened?”
The room went absolutely still. Lucas could feel blood rushing in his ears, and he felt rather than saw Angela take a step backward. He already had his hand on his phone, prepared to dial 911 or at least threaten to, but before he could do anything at all, Angela whispered from somewhere behind him, “I don’t know. I swear to you, I have no idea.”
Time seemed to stutter and stop. Then, all at once, the man from behind the check-in counter yelled a string of angry, indecipherable words, Angela let out a slow, sad moan, and something that could only be described as agony settled over the stranger’s features.
Without warning, he whipped around and put his fist through the wall beside the door.
26
LUCAS
“You’re lucky the entrance is framed in drywall and not brick,” Lucas said as he wrapped the stranger’s hand in a cool, damp towel from the bar. “Your knuckles will turn nice and purple, but you don’t need stitches and your metacarpals seem fine.” He sounded detached and analytical, even in his own ears, but this was familiar territory. In the midst of the chaos and drama, he was doing something that made him feel distinctly grounded: he was ministering to an injury. Fixing something. Or, at least, doing what he could.
The man tried to pull away, but Lucas had his fingers spread over the fine bones of the back of his hand, and he pressed the bruised cluster of scaphoids at the base of his swollen palm with his thumbs. The stranger sucked in a quick breath and met Lucas’s gaze for a second. “I’ll make it,” he said.
“Oh, I’m sure you will. Why don’t you go get yourself cleaned up a bit, and then we can have a little chat in that corner booth.” Lucas indicated the nearly empty restaurant with a nod, leaving no room for discussion or disagreement.
In the moments after Angela reintroduced herself to the young man and everything disintegrated, Lucas found himself picking up the pieces of a situation that he couldn’t begin to understand. The desk clerk had rushed over, Angela had plastered an uncharacteristically ineffectual smile on her face, and the inscrutable stranger had extricated his hand from the ruined wall. The bartender threatened to call the police and then Angela’s bravado failed and she burst into tears. It was absolute mayhem for a few minutes until Lucas took the reins.
He had talked the bartender out of calling the cops by explaining it was a personal situation and offering to pay for the damage himself, and within seconds, it was obvious to everyone involved that Lucas was the man in charge of this unexpected rendezvous. Even Lucas, who had felt somewhat benign and useless up until now, considered his role pivotal—as far as he was concerned, no one was leaving until he was satisfied that everything had been laid bare.
While the stranger made his way to the bathroom, Lucas led Angela to a booth in the corner of the motel bar.
“His name is Dylan,” Angela said as Lucas slid in opposite her. “He might not be the man that we’re looking for, but I think he’s tied up in this somehow.” Although she wasn’t crying anymore, she was dabbing at the corners of her eyes with her ring fingers. She patted delicately, but in spite of her careful ministrations, she looked frayed at the edges. Absolutely terrified.
“Dylan Reid? The same guy who was at the Langbroeks’ today looking for Jess? Who is he, Angela?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “I have no idea who he is.”
“What do you mean you have no idea who he is? Obviously you know who
he is.”
“It’s not like that.” Angela picked at a loose corner of laminate tabletop. “I met him. Once. I’m just good with faces, I guess.”
“What do you mean, you met him? Where? When? What makes you think he has anything to do with the ring and our missing woman?”
“I met him eight years ago.” A wry smile shadowed her mouth for a split second before it was eclipsed by a frown. “It’s too big of a coincidence, don’t you think? Do the math, Lucas. What happened eight years ago?”
Lucas didn’t have to do the math. He already knew. “You disappeared.”
Angela lifted a shoulder. “And he took me.”
“What do you mean, he took you? Are you trying to tell me you were kidnapped?”
She actually laughed. “You can be so dense. Of course he didn’t kidnap me. Dylan gave me a ride to the truck stop. I knew him for fifteen miles. I wanted him to take me farther, but he wasn’t interested.” She sounded miffed, even after all these years.
“I thought you hitchhiked.”
“I did. Once I got to the interstate.”
“Why didn’t you tell us about him?”
“I didn’t think he was important. Trying to explain about the stranger at the farm just complicated the story.”
“What complicated the story?” Dylan had appeared at the edge of their table, and he hovered over them, leaning into their conversation yet poised to flee. His head was tilted toward them, but everything about his demeanor suggested that he longed to run. Even his hands were twitching at his sides.
“Sit down,” Lucas said, trying to sound kind. He wasn’t feeling particularly benevolent, but it was apparent that their journey had led them here. To a seedy bar with a nervous stranger. Or, not quite a stranger.
Since the table was a booth, Dylan didn’t seem to know where to sit. Angela was centered in the middle of her bench and Lucas wasn’t immune to how awkward it would be to encourage Dylan to slide in beside him. After a moment of hesitation, Lucas motioned to one of the hardback chairs at a neighboring table. Dylan took the hint, pulled the chair over, and slouched at the head of the table.
“What happened?” Dylan said, repeating the refrain that had spun him into such a frenzy earlier. He seemed deflated somehow, defeated, and he studied the white towel still wrapped around his injured hand as he asked the question with quiet fervor. “I just want to know what happened.”
“Wait a second.” Lucas looked from Angela to Dylan and decided that neither of the people in front of him were well suited to handle whatever lay before them. “I need to know a few things before we dig into this. First off, introductions. We’ve established that you know Ms. Angela Sparks.”
“Webb,” Angela interrupted.
“Ms. Angela Webb.” Lucas inclined his head. “And I’m Lucas Hudson. Who exactly are you . . . ?”
“Dylan Reid.”
“Okay, Mr. Reid. It’s obvious that the two of you are acquainted, so how do you know Ms. Webb?”
As Lucas watched, Dylan looked up at Angela from beneath a fringe of hair that was too long to be stylish. All at once Lucas knew that his unkempt appearance was not something he cultivated to emanate an aura of casual indifference. Instead, the ragged edges that made Dylan appear roguish and handsome were actually evidence of a man who lived on the knife edge of sanity. There was something off about him, something wild and almost feral. Lucas sat a little straighter in his seat and surreptitiously pulled his cell phone from the holder at his hip.
“We met at my dad’s house,” Angela supplied when Dylan declined to answer. “I came home one day and he was there.”
“You know Jim Sparks?” Lucas asked, leaning forward to catch Dylan’s eye. He didn’t mean to use the present tense, but Dylan didn’t react. Were Dylan and Jim still in contact? Did he know that Jim had hung himself?
“He was my corporal,” Dylan said. “Years ago. I’m not . . .” he trailed off, cupping his hand at the base of his head as if he was nursing a migraine. He sighed. “I was discharged from active duty. I haven’t thought about it in a very long time.”
Lucas ignored that piece of personal information, though he tucked it away for later. He didn’t know much about the military, but he was rather certain that even discharges that were not labeled dishonorable often bore a stigma. There had to be a reason to be let go. He said, “But you served with Jim?”
Dylan nodded.
“I’m sorry to be the one to tell you this, but I’m afraid Corporal Sparks is dead.”
“I heard it on the news.”
Lucas tried to hide his surprise. Although even the national stations had included a little piece about the mysterious suicide-homicide in obscure Blackhawk, Iowa, it wasn’t attention-worthy. There was always another bizarre case waiting in the wings to take the momentary spotlight. And yet, anyone with access to CNN, and who actually cared to listen, knew that Jim Sparks had hung himself in his barn. It wasn’t shocking that Dylan had heard. Still, Lucas couldn’t help feeling on edge.
The bump and jolt of their awkward conversation ground to a halt. A dozen questions spun like spokes on a wheel in Lucas’s mind, but he simply didn’t know where to start. It was too bizarre, too convoluted, and he was hardly an interrogator. What made him think that he could make sense of any of it?
All the same, the ring was out of his pocket and clutched in his fist before he knew what he was doing. Maybe Dylan didn’t have anything at all to do with their impossible quest, but the man’s strange, emotional reaction to seeing Angela had sparked a flame between all of them that slowly smoked and flickered. There was something going on, and the only thing Lucas could think to do was provoke whatever sleeping beast crouched so dangerously between them.
“I’m assuming you know also about the body buried beneath the barn,” Lucas said. “A young woman. She hasn’t been identified yet.”
Dylan passed his hands over his face but didn’t react.
“We don’t know who she is, but we believe that she left a clue behind.”
When Lucas held the ring up, he knew he had struck pay dirt. Although it didn’t seem that Dylan’s face could get any paler, he blanched, and all the fight seemed to drain out of him as if someone had pulled a plug in his resolve. He cursed. Again and again, his mouth formed words that flowed out of him in a bitter lament of regret. By the time he put his forehead on the table in surrender, Lucas was so confused he didn’t know if he should call the cops immediately or put a consoling hand on Dylan’s back.
“You recognize the ring? Is it hers?” Angela’s voice was raw with hope.
Dylan didn’t nod, but he whispered, his words barely audible: “What did he do?”
“What do you mean?” Lucas pressed. “What did who do? Jim?”
“He didn’t do anything,” Angela hissed. “You did. And now you’re trying to use his death to cover up whatever heinous crime you committed in our barn! Who was she?” Angela was half standing, towering over Dylan as if she would beat the answers out of him. “Tell me, you sick bastard!”
Lucas reached across the table and caught Angela by the shoulders, thrusting her back down in her seat. He had no idea what was going on, but the bartender was starting to look at them as if he doubted the wisdom of his earlier diplomacy. “Get ahold of yourself,” he said, and his voice carried so much authority that Angela crossed her arms over her chest and contented herself with boring holes into the top of Dylan’s head with her glare.
“Oh, God,” Dylan breathed, the name an incantation, a blessing, a curse. “I shouldn’t have left her. I should have taken her with me. I should have—”
“Dylan.” Lucas gripped his arm firmly to stun him out of his reverie. “Please. Start at the beginning.”
When Dylan got back to Jim’s farm the morning after the storm, the bench of his beat-up truck was littered with offerings for Meg. There was a box filled with rainbow-sprinkled doughnuts, crullers, and something that looked like a chocolate daisy. A cardboard cup holder h
eld four different kinds of coffee—from straight black to a French vanilla cappuccino that had frothed from a giant machine—because when he was standing in front of the beverage counter, Dylan realized that he didn’t know what Meg liked to drink. He couldn’t stand the thought of returning to the farm without exactly the thing she would have longed for, so he bought everything the gas station had to offer.
In addition to his culinary purchases, Dylan had also bought a tube of toothpaste and two toothbrushes, deodorant that smelled like roses, a couple packs of gum, a comb, and a six-pack of water bottles. He didn’t remember until after he had paid that both he and Meg had overnight bags under the Tonneau cover in the bed of his truck. Surely Meg had her own toothbrush and deodorant, just like he did. But he shrugged off his own foolishness and enjoyed the feeling of buying something for her, of the somehow chivalrous gesture of picking out the toothbrush that would clean her sweet mouth.
The farm was quiet as Dylan pulled into the muddy drive, and the morning sun was slanting through the trees as if to highlight the damp beauty of the waking world. Because the gate was still closed, he parked in the same spot he had the night before, grateful that most of the water had already seeped into the fertile ground.
Glancing at the clock before he turned off the engine, Dylan felt a little stab of worry at how long he had been gone. The belts had squealed a bit when Dylan started the truck that morning, and at the gas station, he had pulled around to the mechanic shop and taken a peek beneath the hood. The alternator belt was wet, but there was nothing that he could do about that except let it dry out naturally. However, while he was at it, Dylan figured he’d better check the oil and make sure the spark plugs were dry. Everything seemed to be in decent working order, but the quick trip to town he had promised Meg had turned into nearly two hours. He was anxious to get back. To see her.
Dylan left everything in the truck and hopped the fence into Jim’s yard. It was strange to retrace his steps to the barn in the light of day. Surreal to remember the desperation of the night before, the way Meg stumbled beside him, the unexpected refuge they had found. Dylan glanced over his shoulder at the decrepit house and wondered if Jim was even around. Should he stop and say hello? Or grab Meg and go? Jim’s alcoholism was common knowledge on the squad, and Dylan had witnessed Jim turn violent on more than one occasion. Maybe it was best to just leave.
