by Debra Webb
But her struggles were futile. Her arms grew too heavy to fling. Her legs too leaden to propel.
That was when she noticed the strange smell… and how the world suddenly went dark.
CHAPTER 40
9:00 P.M.
Kale said his good-nights to his folks and headed home. Polly was home and a celebratory dinner had been in order.
The only thing that could have possibly made the evening better would have been if Sarah had come.
He'd called her repeatedly and gotten her voice mail. She'd obviously needed some alone time.
As hard as he tried he couldn't keep her off his mind.
His body tightened each time he thought of sex with her.
The kind of connection they shared took a certain level of trust. There was definitely something happening between them.
For a decade he had focused completely on his family's needs, the needs of the business. He had ignored his personal life. Had resented it… to some degree. But he'd understood his responsibilities and he had never allowed anyone or anything to get in his way. He'd dated, but never anyone looking for a husband.
He'd watched most of his Youngstown High School graduating class go off to make their marks in the world. And he had stayed behind. Being the good son, the good brother. Not until Sarah Newton arrived had he stopped to think just how much he'd given up.
She'd made him see what he'd denied all those years.
He could never go back. His life needed to be his own once more. His brother had one more year of college and then he would be finished. Jamison could take over the business for a few years. Kale was going to take his turn at life. He hadn't made the announcement to the family yet. But he would.
He owed this new clarity to Sarah.
And he wanted her to be a part of his reclaimed future.
Maybe that was too much to expect… but he could dream.
For the first time in ten years, he could dream.
He parked in front of his house and considered that he'd been neglecting Angie. Maybe he'd take her for a run tonight. With all that had happened, food and water and a quick trip to the yard was all the attention she'd gotten lately.
He climbed the steps fumbling for the keys to his door. Leaving the light on would have been a good thing. But that had been the least of his worries recently.
At the door he shoved the key into the lock and would have turned it had he not noticed something out of place a few feet away.
Leaning against the wall was a rectangular white box with a silver ribbon wrapped around it. He picked it up, confusion nagging at his brow. Had to be a mistake.
No card.
He pulled the ribbon loose and opened the box.
A single, long-stemmed red rose lay amid the white tissue paper.
A small white card was tucked next to the rose. He picked it up.
Deepest regrets…
He dropped the box. Stared at the card.
The card fluttered from his trembling fingers. He'd just left his parents' house and Polly was fine. He called to check just in case. Then he called Sarah's cell again. No answer. He called the inn. No answer in her room.
Fear knotted deep in his gut.
He ran back to his Jeep and drove as fast as he dared to the inn.
He banged on the door. No answer.
Taking the stairs two at a time, he rushed back to his Jeep. Raced down that winding road. Slammed on the brakes at the stop sign and sat there for a minute. Where the hell would she go?
The Popes.
He headed for Calderwood Lane.
If something had happened to her… it was his fault. He shouldn't have let her out of his sight. He'd known she wouldn't just turn off the need to find the truth until tomorrow.
His heart was in his throat by the time he reached Chapel Trail. A mile past the chapel turnoff he found her car. He climbed out, checked the vehicle. Empty. The hood was cold. It had been parked for some time. It was too dark to figure out which way she had gone from here.
But the Pope home was just on the other side of the woods and his money was on that direction.
This was something he knew better than to try and do alone.
He pulled out his cell and put in a call to the chief.
"Chief, we have a situation."
By the time Kale finished explaining, the chief was already in his truck headed that way.
Kale didn't have to wait long.
The chief stopped his truck on the road in front of Sarah's car and got out. He left the engine running and the lights on. "Still no sign of her?"
Kale shook his head. "I've called her cell phone five or six times. Still no answer. I called the inn again. She's not here. I even called Stanley's gas station to see if she'd called in for assistance. Nothing."
If she'd needed help, she would have called Kale.
Chief Willard stared at her car then turned and gazed toward the chapel. "She could be anywhere."
"I want to talk to the Popes," Kale insisted. "She's convinced Mrs. Pope is involved in all this somehow. If we don't get anywhere with them, we'll have to start a search."
"Guess so."
Kale wanted to shake the man. He seemed distracted.
This wasn't the time.
"Come on." The chief started toward his truck. "I'll drive."
Kale worked hard to keep his emotions in check. He just kept seeing those images from the two murder scenes. If something like that happened to her…
God, he couldn't even think about it.
"Now listen to me, Kale." The chief put his truck in park in front of the Pope residence and turned off the headlights. "You let me do the talking, you hear?"
"I understand." He'd say anything at this point to get the man in action.
Kale followed the chief to the front door. He pushed the doorbell and they waited.
Another push and movement inside the house told them that someone was coming.
Jerald Pope opened the door, looked from the chief to Kale and back.
"Evening, Jerald," the chief said. "I'm sorry to bother you so late but we're trying to locate Ms. Newton."
Confusion furrowed the other man's brow. "Was she planning to come here?"
The chief shook his head. "We found her car over by the chapel. Looks like she broke down. We thought she might have walked over here for help."
Jerald shook his head. "I'm sorry, gentlemen, but we haven't had any visitors this evening."
"Well, if you hear or see anything," the chief said, "you let us know."
"Certainly."
Before he could close the door, Kale braced his hand against it. "One more thing, Mr. Pope."
Beside him, Kale felt the chief tense.
Pope looked at Kale expectantly.
"Is your wife home?"
Pope nodded. "Did you need to speak with her? Jerri Lynn's here as well."
"Have they been home all evening?"
Pope's confusion shifted to annoyance now. "They have, indeed. Is there more going on here than I know about?"
"No. No," the chief assured. "We're just checking out every possibility. Good night, Jerald."
Jerald Pope bade them a good night and closed his door.
He was lying. Kale was no body language expert, but he knew the man was lying. Sarah's certainty about the Popes was all the certainty Kale needed.
The chief drove Kale to his Jeep. "We'll go back to the office and get a search party started."
He sounded tired. But no matter how tired he was, he couldn't waste time.
"You know Ms. Newton is wrong about the Popes."
"Maybe not, Chief." Kale told him about Lynda Pope's trip to Bangor the same day the flowers delivered to his parents' home had been ordered.
Willard heaved a big breath. "Kale, I'm about to tell you something that only two other people in this whole world know."
Kale wanted to get the search party started, but the chief's tone sounded so ominous he was afraid not to
listen.
"Twenty years ago I made a mistake."
Kale silently urged him to hurry.
"I'd been married about fifteen years and things were…" He shrugged. "In a rut, so to speak."
Kale had no idea what this had to do with anything. "Chief—"
"Bear with me, son. This has relevance you'll understand in a minute."
Kale summoned a little more patience.
"I had myself an affair."
Had he heard right? The chief had an affair? "Who?" Kale hadn't meant to ask the question, but there it was.
"It doesn't really matter who."
Kale nodded, not daring to ask again.
"The morning I discovered those two bodies," the chief went on, "I didn't get any anonymous call. I came out here to meet my lover."
The chief had lied?
"What happened?" Kale's pulse beat faster.
"She was waiting in her car down by the road. We rushed up to the chapel for privacy. We liked going there. Early in the morning like that we didn't have to worry about being bothered."
"And you found the bodies."
The chief nodded, his face grim. "For a few minutes we were both in shock. Two poor girls lying there with blood everywhere… gaping holes in their chests. We were just sick. Stumbling around. She was crying. Hell, she was hysterical. I was torn all to pieces. But I was a cop. I had a job to do."
"What did you do?"
"I sent her home and I covered our tracks. But first, I called your father and asked him to say he'd had coffee with me that morning. I needed an alibi… just in case. Peter questioned me." The chief shook his head. "I couldn't tell him the truth and involve him, too. I finally confessed I'd been seeing someone and…" He sighed. "Peter hasn't spoken to me since."
At least now Kale knew the answer to that ancient question. But that didn't matter now. What mattered was finding Sarah. "Chief—"
"I couldn't let anyone find out," the chief said, cutting him off. "I still loved my wife. I had two kids. I couldn't risk my job." He blew out another of those burdened breaths. "So I tampered with evidence. There were footprints. But in order to conceal her presence—we'd made one hell of a mess stumbling around—I had to make a mess of the snow around the bodies and the tracks leading up to the chapel."
Damn. "You made a mistake."
"I did. But there's one thing that was certain, Kale." He looked Kale straight in the eyes. "They were men's foot-prints. At least a size ten and a half or eleven. The person who'd been there before us was no woman. It was definitely a man."
Kale didn't know what to say to that. Polly had said the voice was male. The chief insisted the murderer twenty years ago was a male. "But you said there was no connection between what happened twenty years ago and now."
The chief heaved another of those labored breaths. "Do you really believe what we saw that morning was the work of a woman?"
Kale just didn't know. All he knew was that they had to find Sarah.
Before it was too late.
CHAPTER 41
Find me!
Sarah's eyes tried to open.
Something got in the way.
She reached up to wipe her eyes… something slick covered them.
Adrenaline rushed through her.
The arm holding her, the hand over her mouth and nose… the strange smell.
She tried to sit up… couldn't do it.
Her heart thumped hard.
Fraud.
She ordered her mind to be quiet!
I've decided to trade a gossip for a fraud.
Polly Conner had sobbed through the statement. Someone else was going to take her place.
A fraud.
Sarah Newton… you're a fraud.
The fight-or-flight instinct detonated inside her.
Be still, she ordered.
Assess the situation.
Pictures of mutilated bodies filed one after the other through her head like an out-of-control slide projector.
Her hands and feet were bound… separately. There was… tape over her mouth and eyes.
She felt groggy… there had been a cloth or pad in his hand. It must have been loaded with some sort of inhalant.
How long had she been unconscious?
Focus. Get up. Get loose. Get the hell out of here. She braced her right elbow on the hard ground. Pushed with all her might.
Her sluggish body eased upward.
She maneuvered into a sitting position. Pulled her knees up to brace herself.
Her fingers touched the tape on her eyes. She found the edge and pulled.
A scream blasted into her mouth with the sting to her eyelids.
She blinked. Dark.
The tape on her mouth was next. She peeled it off. Grimaced.
Looking around again, she still couldn't see. She drew in a deep breath but her olfactory senses weren't in proper working order yet.
Wherever she was, she was cold as hell. Her body shivered.
She twisted her hands. Tape around her wrists. What about her ankles? Okay, think!
Listen carefully for sound while working on the tape around your ankles.
Her fingers went to work on the tape around her ankles. It took forever… Finally her feet were free.
She scrambled up to a standing position. Tried to run. Fell flat on her face.
The coppery taste of blood filled her mouth. Shit.
Busted lip.
She scooted up onto her knees, took it slow standing up. Waited a minute to find her equilibrium. One step at a time she felt her way around her prison. Rock walls. Rock floor. Cold. Damp. She inhaled deeply. Musty or… water. It smelled like stagnant water. Cave. She was in a cave.
Her brain urged her feet to run, but she resisted. She had to run the right way or risk getting completely lost.
She stumbled.
Hit the ground, knees first.
Her knees throbbed.
Calming herself, she felt around to see what she'd fallen over. Soft. Lumpy.
A bag.
She fumbled for an opening.
Her hands dove inside.
The familiar contents sent another adrenaline surge rushing through her veins.
Her bag.
She felt for the flashlight… found her cell phone.
Her pulse reacted, catapulted with hope.
Okay, okay, you need the light to get the fuck out of here.
She found the light, clasped it as well as the phone in her hands. She pushed to her feet. Using her thumb, she turned on the flashlight.
Her eyes squinted against the light.
When her vision had adjusted, she looked around.
Something shiny on the ground.
She walked closer.
Her breath stalled in her lungs.
Knife. Bloody.
An alarm roared in her head.
Don't panic. Don't touch the knife. Evidence.
But what if…
Fuck it.
Run.
Using the flashlight she stumbled around until she could hear the surf. She followed the sound, it got louder and louder.
Suddenly she was outside… on the rocky shore. Water pooled around her ankles.
The moon peeked from behind the clouds.
She didn't recognize the area… didn't see any of the islands.
Don't stand here like an idiot!
She started running. Didn't matter which way.
Up the cliffs… there were trees up there… probably a road somewhere.
She climbed, letting the moonlight guide her… fell repeatedly. Didn't stop until she reached the tree line.
Use the phone.
Her cell phone and flashlight were still clutched in her bound hands. She dropped the light, worked the phone into position where she could flip it open. The screen didn't light up…
"Son of a bitch!"
The battery was dead.
She dropped it, picked up her flashlight, and headed into the woods.
She would find help.
On cue her body shuddered.
If she didn't freeze to death first.
CHAPTER 42
Public Safety Office, Friday, March 6, 5:50 A.M.
It was almost daybreak.
Kale paced the lobby. They'd called off the search two hours ago to wait for daylight.
He'd raised hell when the chief first mentioned taking a break to wait for the sun to come up. But, like him, the deputies participating in the search were half frozen.
It was the right thing to do… but he couldn't bear the thought of Sarah being out there in the cold… or worse…
Being tortured.
The chief was already reorganizing the groups, laying out the new search grid.
Kale needed him to work faster. He needed the sun to fucking come up.
Agent August strolled past him, hands shoved deep into his trouser pockets. He glanced at Kale. "She's a survivor, you know."
Kale gritted his teeth. He didn't want to hear anything this prick had to say.
"Two years ago she had a little meltdown." August studied Kale's face as he spoke, analyzing, concluding. "A total mental break, they say. She spent seven days in a padded room. But she came back. She'll come back from this."
Kale hadn't intended to, but he blinked. The burn of emotion wouldn't be assuaged any other way. He didn't know if anything this asshole said was true… but he knew that Sarah had to be the strongest woman he'd ever met. Who wouldn't have a meltdown considering the kind of work she did and how invested she got? Or if you considered her childhood.
August smirked and shook his head. "You shouldn't get so hung up on her. She'll go when the investigation is wrapped up and you'll be left here wondering what the hell happened."
Kale took a swing at him. The bastard dodged in the nick of time. "Conner!"
Hands held him back. August just laughed. Kale wanted to kill him.
The front entrance doors burst open. "I need some help over here!"
All eyes swung to the door.
Jimmy Tate, Sarah leaning against him, stumbled into the lobby.
