Strangers in the Night

by Patricia H. Rushford

  “Dawn started to tell me where she’d hidden her. She said Emma was in…something.”

  Jake nodded. “We should search the B&B—we didn’t before. There’s a good chance Emma is here or at least close by. Think about where Dawn might hide her.”

  The search team, buoyed by the fact that Emma had likely been hidden close by, began to go through the town again, beginning with the bed and breakfast. But Emma wasn’t at the B&B.

  Within the hour, police had arrested both Dawn and Keith. Dawn confessed to killing Barbara and trying to kill Abbie. The money from the bank robberies had been buried in various places around the Victorian. The satchel Keith had put in his pickup was one of them. They had taken the money out of the suitcase and stored it in the pantry, where the police found it. Keith refused to tell them where he’d buried the rest of the money, saying he might be willing to make a deal with the DA. Abbie voiced her concerns about Cassie, and Jeff made arrangements to have her picked up from school by a social worker.

  By the following day they’d covered the area around Cold Creek two more times and expanded the search to include the woods and hunters’ blinds around Bear Lake.

  Abbie felt certain that Dawn had been the one to cut Emma’s hair and abduct her, but Dawn was now denying it, saying she’d only said that to get away. Abbie didn’t know what to believe. Dawn had changed her tune about the bank robberies as well. Now she insisted that Keith had taken her hostage and forced her to join him.

  Keith told the authorities that Dawn had been the one to instigate the robberies and that there had been a dozen of them overall.

  Abbie, of course, didn’t care about any of those things. She just wanted Emma back.

  Emma had been gone for three days, and searchers were talking about giving up. Abbie dragged herself to her bedroom after Jake insisted she get some sleep. How could she sleep when Emma was out there somewhere? She felt cetain Dawn had taken Emma and she felt just as certain that Dawn would have taken care of her.

  The tears came again, along with her constant prayer to keep Emma safe.

  Abbie was about to drift off when the thought came to her. She needed to talk to Dawn personally. Maybe she had read Dawn wrong all along, but she’d seen the woman interact with her daughter. She was a mother.

  Abbie quickly dressed, and after calling Jeff, received permission to visit Dawn.

  “She’s still at the hospital,” he told her, and said he would meet her there.

  Seeing Dawn, her face, hands, and chest covered in bandages, filled Abbie with empathy. She had disfigured the woman—perhaps for life.

  But she was going to kill you.

  “What do you want?” Dawn glared at Abbie when she came in.

  “I know you took Emma. I also know that you don’t want Emma to get hurt.”

  “You don’t know anything.”

  “I know you love your daughter. I know that you killed Barbara and tried to kill me to protect your family—to keep from losing her.”

  Dawn turned to face the wall.

  “Dawn, you’re a mother. Please. Tell me where Emma is. She’ll die if she doesn’t have food and water, and you’re the only one who knows where she is.”

  “You should have gone away. I tried to warn you.”

  “I know that now. But Dawn, if I hadn’t bought Cold Creek, someone else would have. Do you really think you could have kept everyone out?”

  “When we realized that Barbara knew who we were, Keith wanted to pick up and move. Just like that. I wanted to stay. We had friends here, and Cassie was doing so well in school. I had to do something.” Dawn turned back toward Abbie. “What’s going to happen to Cassie now?”

  “I suppose she’ll be placed in foster care and maybe adopted out.”

  Dawn sighed heavily and closed her eyes.

  “Please, Dawn. Think about how you would feel if someone took Cassie. You’d know how desperate I am.” Abbie swallowed hard. Did Dawn’s silence mean she was reaching her, or that Dawn had closed her out?

  “We’re not that different, you and I. After my husband died, my mother-in-law decided I wasn’t fit to take care of Emma. She went to the authorities and was granted custody.” Abbie went on to tell Dawn about the kidnapping and how she had run from the law for two years. “I decided it was time to stop running.” Abbie licked her lips. “You and Keith committed some serious crimes. I have a feeling that if you cooperate fully, things will go better for you.”

  “We’ll both be facing life in prison.”

  Abbie hoped so, but aloud she said, “Maybe not. There might be a possibility for parole.”

  “I’ll tell you where Emma is, but you have to promise me something.”

  “What? I can’t undo what’s been done.”

  “Take care of Cassie for me.”

  Abbie covered her mouth, tears clouding her eyes. “Of course.”

  “Promise. No lies. I don’t want Cassie to suffer because of what Keith and I did.”

  “I promise.” Abbie would have promised her the moon to get her to talk.

  “I was taking good care of Emma. I even read to her a couple of times.”

  “Where is she?”

  “There’s a root cellar about a hundred yards from the B&B where there used to be a house, but it burned down. Isabelle will know which one I mean.”

  “Thank you.” Abbie gripped the bedrail and glanced over to where Jeff was standing on the other side of the curtain. He nodded at her and hurried out of the room, calling for help on his radio as he went.

  “Cassie.” Dawn grabbed at Abbie’s sleeve. “Promise.”

  “I will do everything I can for Cassie.”

  “Bring her to see me.”

  “I will if I’m allowed.”

  Abbie ran after Jeff and rode with him in the patrol car. He had already phoned Isabelle to learn the exact location of the property Dawn had described. The trip lasted fifteen minutes at the most; to Abbie it seemed like hours. Jake had been told as well and was there when she and Jeff arrived. Jeff ordered her and Jake to stay put while he and an officer opened the panel covering the root cellar. The cellar was lit by a bare bulb hanging from the ceiling.

  Abbie broke away from Jake. Listening, waiting. Then she heard it. A faint cry she would have recognized anywhere. “Emma.” She tore down the steps, nearly falling into Jeff.

  “Mommy.” Jeff relinquished his hold on the child as she fell into her mother’s arms.

  Someone wrapped them in a blanket. “Mommy, don’t cry. I knew you would come.”

  Abbie, too choked up to speak, just held on.

  Later, Abbie learned than Dawn had left cereal, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and water for Emma. There had been a cot and blankets and a child’s potty chair. The experience had to have been traumatic for Emma, but she seemed to rally quickly once she was reunited with her mother. Still, the police took her to the hospital to make certain she was all right.

  A week later, life seemed to be leveling out for Abbie. Her little trouper was getting ready to share her room with her soon-to-be big sister, Cassie. Dawn and Keith had signed their parental rights over to Abbie and given her permanent custody of Cassie.

  She’d taken Cassie to visit her mom, who explained everything. Abbie teared up just thinking about it. Cassie, of course, had been devastated, and Abbie doubted she fully understood what was happening. A trial date had been set, but Dawn and Keith were looking at life sentences. Justice would be done.

  Though the police had learned more and shared their findings with Abbie, she still couldn’t reconcile what had driven Dawn to take such drastic steps to protect her family.

  She’d killed Barbara because her old friend recognized them and was going to turn Keith over to the police. She’d shot Barbara and pushed the car over the cliff then dumped her body in the lake and planted the newspaper article in Travis’s kitchen to cast suspicion on him.

  It was Keith who had stolen Floyd’s old pickup and run Brent off the roa
d. When Abbie saw it after the fact, she realized it had not been the one parked near her home. In the end, they concluded that the pickup parked there had nothing to do with the case.

  Dawn also ransacked Barbara’s apartment looking for any evidence the woman might have had there. She’d found Barbara’s journals and burned them. Dawn had grown desperate in her attempts to keep Cold Creek the same as it was when they’d moved there. In the end, she’d failed.

  In a way, Abbie understood that desperation. She’d broken the law in order to keep Emma. It didn’t seem possible, but she and Leah had worked out their differences.

  Murray had made the trip to Oceanside, and he and Leah stayed with the Grants for a week. Leah’s demeanor changed completely from when Abbie had lived with them. She not only enjoyed her visit with Lyle and Carlene, she made a visit to Cold Creek to see what this artists’ retreat was all about.

  “Maybe you’ll need someone to run the bed and breakfast,” Leah ventured on the eve of their departure.

  Abbie turned to meet her gaze and realized she was serious. “Do you mean it? You’d actually consider living in Cold Creek?”

  “Well, it looks like Daniel plans to stay, and you’ll be busy with your town.”

  Murray cleared his throat. “We’ve been talking about retiring, Abbie. If you think you might like us hanging around, we’d be pleased to consider it.”

  “We’d be right there to take care of Emma,” Leah said.

  Abbie flung her arms first around Leah, then Murray. “I can’t think of anything I’d like more.”

  “Now hold on just a minute.” Carlene jumped into the fray. “You can’t have Emma all the time. I want her at least once a week.”

  Murray and Lyle looked at each other and laughed.

  At eleven, Abbie sat alone in the living room. The grandparents had retired for the evening after having negotiated who would have Emma and when.

  She smiled as she replayed their banter in her mind. It was Leah who’d reminded them that they might want to let Abbie have her on occasion. Leah had surprised her with something else as well. She’d asked Murray to bring Abbie’s art supplies when he came. They were still in the living room where Murray and Daniel had set them earlier. Maybe Leah hadn’t disliked her so much after all.

  Hearing footfalls on the porch steps, she felt her heart pick up its pace. It slowed back down when she realized it was Skye and Daniel. They settled into the swing. Both Skye and Daniel had been smiling more lately, and Abbie suspected that she might be receiving a wedding invitation before the year was up. Skye was beginning to look healthy and happy for the first time in years. She still needed to gain weight, but that would come.

  Feeling left out, Abbie tipped her head back on the sofa cushion. She hadn’t seen much of Jake since they had found Emma. He’d stopped coming over for their morning walks. She’d invited him to come for dinner several times, but he always seemed to have work to catch up on. Abbie suspected he’d changed his mind about loving her. Maybe that was just as well. She had plenty to do without being in a relationship.

  She missed their talks and walks and more than that, his kisses. She missed looking into those blue eyes. Closing her eyes, she thought back to the first time she’d seen him. How romantic the night had been. What were the chances he would find her the way he had? Divine intervention, her mother had called it. Abbie had to agree.

  She could tell herself it didn’t matter, but it did. If she had any sense at all, she’d go to his house, knock on his door, and ask him if he’d forgotten about their walk. Maybe she would.

  She heard the door open and close. Probably Skye coming in. When her sister didn’t say anything, Abbie turned to look. There in the entry stood her blue-eyed handsome stranger.

  “Hi.” She shifted to get a better look.

  “Did you forget about our walk?”

  She laughed. “No, but I thought you had.”

  He stepped toward her at the same moment she stood. Holding out his arms he said, “Could I have this dance?”

  She bit her bottom lip to keep it from quivering and moved into his arms. “There’s no music.”

  “It’s in here.” He pressed her hand to his heart.

  She melted against him. “Where have you been?”

  “Blaming myself.”

  “For what?”

  “For nearly getting you killed. Putting Emma in danger. None of this would have happened if I hadn’t gone to Grand Forks to get you.”

  She leaned back. “Silly man. If you hadn’t come for me, I’d still be looking over my shoulder and living in fear. Mom and Dad were right. It was time to stop running. They were right about Cold Creek. And they were right about you.”

  Laying her head on his shoulder, she added, “I do blame you for one thing though.”

  He pressed his lips against her forehead. “What’s that?”

  “For making me fall in love with you.”

  She tipped her head back and raised up just enough to kiss him.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Internationally known author and speaker, Patricia H. Rushford has book sales totaling over a million copies. She has authored more than fifty books and written numerous articles.

  Her mystery novel, Silent Witness, was nominated for an Edgar Award by Mystery Writers of America and won the Silver Angel for Excellence in Media. Her romantic suspense novel, Sins of the Mother, won the Golden Quill Award for Inspirational Romance.

  Patricia is a registered nurse and holds a master’s degree in counseling. In addition, she conducts writing workshops for adults and children. She has served as the co-director of Writer’s Weekend at the Beach as well as the popular Oregon Christian Writer’s Summer Conference.

  Pat has appeared on numerous radio and television talk shows across the U.S. and Canada. She lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband, Ron.