Perilous Homecoming

by Sarah Varland

  They both went silent. Kelsey shook her head. “I need to eat something, I’m sorry. I can’t focus when I’m hungry and I haven’t had anything since breakfast.”

  Sawyer’s stomach chose that moment to growl. “Me, neither.” They’d both forgotten about lunch amidst the scuba diving aftermath, and then bringing the truck to Shiloh.

  “Want to head to town?”

  “Let’s just get something from downstairs and eat it up here.”

  “I don’t want to face your parents again.”

  Sawyer couldn’t argue with that.

  “All right, you stay up here. I’ll be right back. Are sandwiches okay?”

  “Sounds great.” Kelsey smiled at him and Sawyer headed for the stairs.

  “And Sawyer?”

  He stopped.

  “Even though I meant what I said, and we have to focus on the case right now...about earlier?”

  He waited.

  “I’m not sorry.”

  FIFTEEN

  Kelsey hadn’t counted on how empty the attic would feel when Sawyer had left. Empty and kind of creepy. But she was a big girl, not someone who was used to running every time she had a hint of nervousness try to overtake her, so she stayed where she was and reached for another box. Sawyer hadn’t said how many contained books like the one they’d already looked through, but it wouldn’t hurt to check.

  She’d just opened the box lid when the steady hum of the power went silent and the room went dark.

  It was too much like the museum, eerily like it. Except she was in the Hamiltons’ house right now. No one would dare try to get past their security, right?

  But how easy would it have been to follow them there?

  No. The power was a coincidence. It had to be. She hoped it was.

  Chills crept down slowly, over her shoulders, down her arms. She started to turn around.

  And arms grabbed her from behind, pinning her arms to her sides.

  “No! Sawyer, help!” Kelsey managed to yell the words at full volume before whoever had her slid something over her head.

  A pillowcase?

  Her attacker forced her onto the ground, pushed her shoulders so hard into the floor that Kelsey couldn’t move her arms at all. She kept kicking and finally connected with something.

  Her attacker cried out.

  That voice. She’d heard it before. Kelsey couldn’t place it now, but it brought to mind crime scenes, high-speed chases.

  Her police days. Those were years ago. Was it someone from a past case? No, this had to be connected to the museum, it wasn’t just about some felon getting revenge on her. Someone from the department? They had wondered if one of the officers might be covering for the criminal, but until now she hadn’t allowed herself to entertain the thought that it might be an officer responsible for everything.

  Whoever it was, he forced a pillow over her face. Suffocation? Why didn’t he just shoot her and get it over with?

  Oh... Kelsey was suddenly grateful they were at Sawyer’s parents’ house. The Hamiltons were too powerful to risk shooting one of them through the floor. Whichever one was left alive would stop at nothing to find the killer. Whoever had her, he’d thought this through, chosen his method of killing her thoughtfully. Smart. And sick.

  He pushed the pillow down harder until Kelsey struggled to draw in a breath. Cotton fabric was all she was breathing, no matter how much she struggled for oxygen.

  God, I’m not ready to die. There are things I’d do differently.

  It was the same feeling she’d had scuba diving. This desperate need for air.

  Come on, Sawyer.

  Sawyer. If I had another chance, I wouldn’t push him away. I’d kiss him again.

  But he wasn’t coming. Not fast enough. Kelsey’s mind felt sluggish.

  I might even have gone back to being a police officer, doing my best to help get people like this behind bars. I feel most alive when I’m doing this, and ironically, it’s going to be how I die.

  Kelsey continued to struggle, tried to kick her attacker again, but he’d positioned himself so that was impossible. There was no fighting her way out of his, he was too strong. And he wasn’t going to stop until she was dead.

  Or until he thought she was...

  Kelsey went limp.

  And heard footsteps on the stairs. Maybe Sawyer would come in time and her attacker wouldn’t have the chance to confirm that she was dead.

  Yes. As she’d hoped, he’d heard the footsteps, too, and as he got up, the pressure on her released. Did she chase him? Though she had a gun, she didn’t want to use it in the house either, not knowing where Sawyer and his parents were. No, they’d catch this guy, find enough evidence to put him away. She didn’t need to take it into her own hands right now.

  She had to stay still. Kelsey listened as he escaped, kept racking her brain for the voice she’d heard. She knew that voice was someone she knew, someone in Treasure Point, hiding in plain sight among innocent townspeople as they searched everywhere for a killer...

  The door creaked open. “I’m back.”

  Sawyer. Kelsey moved the pillow off her head, slid the pillowcase off her face.

  He met her eyes, dropped the food and ran to her.

  “What happened? I never thought... I shouldn’t have left you!”

  “I’m okay,” Kelsey said, realizing as she sat up that it was basically true. She rubbed her left shoulder—most of the pressure had been there and she’d likely have a bruise tomorrow, but it was the best that things could have turned out. “He tried to suffocate me, and I pretended to go limp so that he’d think I was dead. I don’t know if it would have worked, but he heard your footsteps so he had to hurry out or have two of us to deal with.”

  “He keeps getting closer.” Sawyer’s jaw was tighter than she’d ever seen it.

  “But so do we,” Kelsey countered.

  “We need to call the police.”

  “Not the regular number.”

  “Why?”

  Kelsey shook her head. “I kicked my attacker and he cried out. I can’t place it yet, but I know I’ve heard that voice before, maybe at the police department?”

  Sawyer sobered. “I know y’all were starting to suspect that someone was leaking information. But this is different.”

  Kelsey nodded. “Very different. And I’m not sure yet, so I don’t want to say anything to anyone. I just want people I trust looking into this.”

  “I’ve got Clay’s number in my phone.” Sawyer called and told him what had happened. “They’re on their way.”

  The officers didn’t take long to arrive. Kelsey told her story, and after Sawyer and Kelsey led them up to the attic to search for evidence, Sawyer grabbed Kelsey’s hand and pulled her toward the stairs. “We’re going to go get food.”

  “What?” Was he serious?

  “You’ve got to eat, Kelsey. You’re not on the force and there’s no reason you need to be up here right now.”

  She wanted to fight him, but as hungry as she’d been before the attack, she was feeling weaker now. Instead, she nodded. “Okay.” And she let him lead her down the stairs.

  “I know they’ll fill you in anyway, Kels. I’m not trying to keep you out of the loop.”

  “I know. You’re right.”

  Kelsey sat down on a stool in the kitchen and watched Sawyer fix them lunch again, since the other was spilled all over the attic floor. Sandwiches and chips, perfect.

  “Thank you,” she said, as he handed her the plate.

  “No problem. Sandwiches are easy.”

  “I mean, for everything. It’s not lost on me that I couldn’t have done this without you.”

  He smiled. “Sure you could have.”

  “But I would
n’t want to try. We’re a good team.”

  They finished eating and went back upstairs.

  Clay shook his head when they came in. “The only thing we found was where he got in. There’s an access panel back here that leads to the garage. It wouldn’t be hard to get in there if someone knew where it was.”

  “Only the security company does.”

  “We’ll follow up that lead,” Clay said. “You two lay low.” He looked at Kelsey specifically.

  She shook her head. “We have some leads to follow, too.”

  “Want to share?”

  “Not yet. Later, if they turn up anything.”

  Kelsey grabbed the books they’d been looking at and started for the stairs. “Are you coming?” she asked Sawyer.

  He followed her. Kelsey was glad. Brave as she’d been in many situations in her lifetime, the place they needed to go next was not only creepy but very isolated, somewhere she didn’t want to set foot in alone.

  * * *

  They killed time at her apartment until dinner, when Kelsey had fixed them spaghetti.

  “You’re sure about this plan?” Sawyer asked her as he finished up his second helping.

  “It’s all I can think to do. We need a link between those names and someone, anyone. We need a lead.” She hit the table with a balled-up fist. “I’m sick of him coming after me, sick of almost dying. I don’t want to live like this.”

  “I understand. I want this to be over, too. But this feels...”

  “Like there are a hundred ways it could go wrong?”

  “Exactly.”

  “If you have a better plan...”

  But he didn’t, and she knew it. They’d stopped by the library on the way home from his parents’ house to see if it was possible they had records dating that far back, but hadn’t been able to find anything promising. Treasure Point hadn’t fully embraced its history until recently, so many records just hadn’t been viewed as important enough to archive, though Sawyer suspected they existed in an attic building or storage building somewhere.

  With that option taken from them, going to the cemetery made sense. It did. But it wasn’t somewhere that people wandered around regularly, not like some of the hauntingly beautiful graveyards in Savannah that were tourist attractions. This one was just as historical, but not quite as well kept as those. It was closed to new graves—anyone who’d died since 1949 had been buried in a new cemetery closer to Brunswick. Sawyer would rather not go tonight, but it made sense. Every minute they lost was another minute Kelsey was in danger. If they could finish this fast, that was what he wanted.

  “It’s almost eight. No matter when we leave now it’s going to be dark. Sure you don’t want to wait until morning?” Sawyer asked.

  “No. I don’t want to waste any time.”

  Sawyer nodded. Exactly how he’d felt. “Let’s leave around eleven, then. If it’s going to be dark anyway, we may as well wait till the middle of the night and reduce the chances of anyone following us. You should try to get some sleep before then,” Sawyer suggested. He noticed the way she flinched, and wanted to smack himself on the forehead when he realized that resting her head on a pillow probably sounded terrifying to her right now.

  “I don’t think so,” she said.

  “On the couch, come on. I’ll sit here.” Sawyer settled himself in a chair right beside the couch. “And you can nap right here. If I hear anything, I’ll wake you up.”

  “No, but thanks.”

  “Listen, Kelsey, I know you’re going to have nightmares. But I also know that you won’t even try to sleep later tonight. You have to take care of yourself. Please?”

  Sawyer watched her face soften a little as some of the fight left it.

  “I’ll try.”

  Not ten minutes later Sawyer was watching her sleep. He was thankful she was able to get a little rest. After what had happened earlier, she needed it.

  Speaking of earlier, Sawyer didn’t like to think about that. Had he been foolish to leave her alone in the attic while he’d gotten lunch ready? He wouldn’t have thought so, still didn’t really think so, if he were honest. That attack felt like a freak coincidence. But like Kelsey had said, she was probably spared from being shot by the fact that she’d been in his parents’ attic, with him and his mother also in the house. Here was another time in the same case that it seemed being a Hamilton was coming in handy.

  He disliked the way the name had kept him from friendships like the one he could have had with Kelsey. On the other hand, it had helped them in this case.

  He resented the family obligation to continue in the business field, but...was it possible that the family’s name and connections could help him create his own job in marine biology? He hadn’t heard back about any of his applications, which he suspected was his fault for not putting enough passion into them, because none of the jobs was exactly what he’d wanted. But he had business skills when he took things slow, didn’t try to show off like he had that last time. Couldn’t he combine those with his marine biology knowledge and come up with a combination that would give him something meaningful to do every day?

  He thought about it for a little while, until Kelsey started to stir. Sawyer glanced at his watch. Almost eleven. It had been that long?

  “Wake up, Kelsey.” He put a hand on her arm, bracing himself in case he got kicked after the traumatizing day she’d had, but she opened her eyes immediately and without panicking.

  “Is it time?”

  “Yep.”

  “Let’s go.”

  Sawyer opened the door first, checked for anything out of the ordinary. It was quiet outside. Kelsey came up behind him and they walked to his truck.

  The Treasure Point Cemetery was near the ruins of the old lighthouse, but farther from the coast and deeper in the woods. There was no road to the cemetery, not that a car could go down. There was only a path wide enough for people to walk. Some of the original settlements in Treasure Point had been close to this spot, but not long after the town had been settled and the cemetery had been built the town moved up the coast a little. Now this area had been mostly abandoned.

  Sawyer parked the truck, turned off the lights. Before he could even unbuckle, Kelsey was out of the truck.

  Sawyer hurried after her. “Wait for me, would you?” he whispered as he jogged up behind her on the path.

  “Sorry. I just want to figure this out and get back.”

  “You just can’t wait to get yourself in more danger, can you?”

  “You think we’re walking into something?”

  “No.” Sawyer had no reason to think that. “But I think anytime we’re out in the open, especially in the woods where it would be easy for someone to sneak up on us, there’s a risk there that’s hard to contain.”

  “Well, unfortunately we can’t solve this case from the apartment I’m staying in, so I’m just going to have to take my chances.”

  She did have a good point.

  “At least slow down. And stay with me.” Sawyer reached for her hand and she let him take it. Nice as it felt to have her hand in his, tonight he was being practical. There was a little moonlight, but they were walking deeper and deeper into a pine forest right now and the light was being choked out by the tall trees. He didn’t want them to be separated in the dark.

  A loud noise in the bushes startled him and he jerked Kelsey backward a little. The noise continued. Kelsey reached in her pocket for a flashlight, shone it on the source of the noise.

  “Armadillo.” She clicked the light off. “Not the most quiet creatures.”

  They continued walking down the path, careful to walk slowly and shuffle their feet a little so they didn’t trip over any roots. Sawyer was just hoping that there were no snakes on the path, because if there were, they’d never see them.

/>   So far so good on that front, but there were spider webs that kept tangling around them. Some of the orb weavers around here were larger than half-dollars. Sawyer wasn’t bothered by spiders, but he didn’t particularly want one of those crawling up him to his face, either.

  Finally the moonlight grew brighter as they approached a large clearing. The grass was tall, almost to their waists, and Sawyer stopped walking.

  “What?”

  “Snakes.” Sawyer turned his own flashlight on, searched the ground for a stick he could use to sweep the ground in front of them for unwelcome reptiles.

  “Good thinking,” Kelsey whispered. Sawyer turned his light off.

  They moved through the field slowly. The cemetery was at the back edge of it, surrounded by a wrought iron fence. Sawyer had only been here twice. Once on a field trip to learn about Treasure Point’s history in elementary school, and once in the middle of the night on an obligatory high school dare, which his parents had been furious about once word had gotten to them. He’d gotten a long talking-to about respecting history, the dead and cemeteries in general, and told that he’d lose his new car—a present for his sixteenth birthday—if he did anything like that again.

  Sawyer hadn’t been back since.

  The fence was coming into view now. They moved closer to it. “So, we get in, try to find those four names to see who they are connected to by marriage, then get out. Right?”

  “Right,” Kelsey agreed in a hushed voice. “This place gives me the creeps.”

  “I only came here twice when I was younger.”

  “I came more than that,” Kelsey admitted. “It was history. It kind of fascinated me.”

  “You really do love history, don’t you?” He squeezed her hand without thinking.

  “I do.” She squeezed back. Smiled. Then looked away.

  Together, they moved toward the fence. This was part of what made Sawyer dislike this place—the wrought iron fence was four feet high and there was only one gate. If someone attacked them while they were inside, it wouldn’t be easy for them to escape. Thankfully no one should know they were here. He’d taken extra care to make sure they weren’t followed—there hadn’t even been cars close to where they were on the roads tonight. Sawyer wasn’t taking chances with Kelsey’s safety.