Sloane Monroe 06-Hush Now Baby

by Bradshaw, Cheryl

  Cade shrugged.

  “The only thing I saw was you attempt to physically assault my daughter.” He dangled a pair of cuffs in the air.

  “You’re arresting me?! Now wait a minute, Cade. Think this through. Don’t do this.”

  “Oh, I have thought about it.”

  “All right, all right. I’ll leave. Just … don’t arrest me. I’m kinda on … I just can’t be …”

  “Kinda on what?”

  She turned, stared into nothing. “Two years’ probation.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Cade asked. “Probation for what?”

  “Bar fight. It wasn’t my fault. I swear.”

  “I bet it never is,” I said.

  “Look—the whore came at me,” Wendy said. “I was just defending myself.”

  “And yet, you still received two years,” I added.

  “Don’t act like you know what went on. You don’t.”

  I could see where this was going, see Wendy making the same kind of commitment to Cade that she never lived up to in the past. Girl makes boy promise to leave, boy uses the last shred of faith he has in the girl, believes she might actually mean what she says this time, do what he asks. Okay, so maybe I’d let my mind run rampant. Fact was, I didn’t know Wendy. I didn’t need to—I knew her type. And I wasn’t going to watch her destroy him again.

  “I’ll give Wendy a personal escort back to wherever it is she’s staying,” I offered.

  “I’ll do it,” Cade said. “It should be me.”

  “Your cousin needs you. Go spend time with him.”

  Wendy was less than thrilled with the idea. “My car is here. Neither of you need to—”

  “I’m here to make sure you leave,” I said.

  “I meant after the funeral,” Wendy said. “Not before.”

  “Let me ask you this,” I said. “When’s the last time you talked to Serena, because no one seems to know the two of you stayed in contact. Serena never mentioned that fact to Cade. Not once.”

  She hesitated. “I asked her not to mention it. I didn’t want him to know where I was living. Thought it was better that way, for everyone.”

  “Wendy, it’s best if you don’t come to the funeral,” Cade said.

  “Cade, I came here because—”

  “You’re not to attend the funeral.”

  “Let’s go,” I said.

  “Like I said. My car’s here. I don’t need a ride.”

  “I don’t care. You’re getting one. I’ll bring you back to your car once you’re packed.”

  And then I’d watch her leave.

  CHAPTER 23

  The drive to Wendy’s hotel involved a fair amount of crickets for the first few minutes, a blissful blend of calm and reflective quiet. Fine by me. I had no desire to kick-start her shrill, nasally tone again. Too bad the silence didn’t last.

  “You’re his girlfriend, aren’t you?” Wendy asked.

  The woman was like a parrot with a one-track mind.

  “If by girlfriend you’re asking if I’m a girl and Cade’s friend, then yes. I am.”

  She half laughed, half looked like she wanted to bulldoze the snarky grin I’m sure I wore on my face. I didn’t blame her. If the roles were reversed, I’d probably feel the same.

  “You always such a smart ass?”

  I considered the accusation. Guilty as charged.

  “You can’t have him,” she blurted.

  “Cade’s not a piece of property. He can decide for himself what he wants.”

  “I take it you think what he wants is you?”

  There was that shrill, nasally tone again.

  She unzipped her red, pleather bag and pulled out a cigarette and a lighter. I pinched the cigarette in between my fingers, chucked it in the backseat. “You’re not lighting up in my car.”

  “I need one. Bad.”

  “I don’t care.”

  She brought her knees to her chest, leaned back, sulked like she was in grade school.

  “Did you really come here to rekindle your relationship?” I asked. “I mean, so far it’s not working out. Why not tell the truth?”

  “What truth?”

  “Why are you really here?”

  “I never stopped loving him, you know.”

  I got the impression her idea of love was far different than mine.

  “And you think he returns your feelings?”

  “When I first saw him again, I convinced myself it was possible. He’s bullheaded. Always has been. I knew he’d resist at first. I guess I thought if I hung around, gave him time, I could find a way to bring him back to me.”

  “You say it like you’re not sure you believe it anymore.”

  “I saw the way he looked at you. He used to look at me that way too.”

  I felt sticky, like my bra had fused to my skin. I fought the urge to open the window, lean out, fan myself. I knew Cade didn’t love her, not like he once had. Whether or not the two of us were friends or building something more, that one truth should have pacified me. Instead, I felt bothered, anxious to get her out of town.

  Wendy pushed her legs back down, winced.

  “What’s wrong with you?” I asked.

  “Nothing.”

  It wasn’t nothing—it was something. She was in pain, and I couldn’t imagine her short trek up Cade’s dirt road was the culprit. I peeled back the edge of her shirt with a finger, stared at the exposed discoloration beneath.

  She jerked to the side, yanked her shirt back down. “Don’t touch me!”

  My three-second glimpse allowed me to view a sizable bruise, about the size of my hand, beneath her right breast. Given the lack of clothing she wore, I didn’t know how I’d missed it. As bruises go, fresh bruises were red, older ones changed from green to a yellowish-brown as they reached the end of the healing process. Wendy’s bruise was purplish-blue in color, which meant it was somewhere between two and five days old.

  “Where did you get it?” I asked.

  “Nowhere.”

  “Lie about it if you want. You lie about everything else.”

  “Why do you care?”

  I didn’t.

  “I don’t want whoever you’re running from showing up here,” I said. “I don’t want Cade involved in the mess you call a life. We have a baby to find. He doesn’t have time to fight your battles for you.”

  “I haven’t asked for his help. Even if I needed it, I still wouldn’t.”

  The question was—why?

  I parked the car in front of a desolate, rundown hotel I’d always assumed had been abandoned. Maybe it was, or maybe she’d broken in and was staying for free. With its broken windows and weather-worn doors with chipped, orange paint, I wouldn’t have been shocked to learn the place had been condemned.

  “Get your stuff,” I said. “I’ll wait here.”

  I reclined the seat back a few notches, just enough to keep my eye on the unbalanced prize while maintaining a comfortable position. Wendy entered the hotel room, left the door ajar, turned on the light. Since there was only one way out, through the front, she had nowhere else to go but back out the same door again.

  The first few minutes passed without incident. Around the four-minute mark, I heard what sounded like objects being tossed around. She obviously had a temper, but this was ridiculous.

  Sit tight. Let her get all the angst out of her system. She won’t be your problem much longer.

  Except she was my problem now, a throbbing, tenacious pain in my ass, and in the last minute, that pain had gone from quiet to raging lunatic back to quiet again. I had a sickening feeling my assumptions about her hissy fit had been wrong.

  I pawed beneath my seat, retrieved my gun, crept over to Wendy’s door, and peeked through the slit. She wasn’t alone. Kneeling over her limp body was a man, his plumber’s crack on full display. His knees pressed into the springs of the cheap, thin mattress. The man’s melon-sized hands wrapped around Wendy’s neck, exerting pressure. Her eyes were
closed, unresponsive. From my vantage point, I couldn’t tell whether she was alive or dead. She wasn’t moving.

  There was no time to negotiate or argue. It was obvious he intended to take Wendy’s life. I fired a single shot. It connected, striking him in the forearm, like I’d intended. He released Wendy, howling as he clamped a hand down on his arm.

  The man examined me like, even though I’d caught him committing murder, of the two of us, I was the crazy one. Without removing my finger from the trigger, I used my other hand to dial 911. I spat the address to the person who answered. Once they confirmed, I hung up, shifted my attention back to the man.

  “Touch her again and the next bullet kills you,” I said.

  “Wendy’s druggie friend, come to save the day with her toy gun.”

  His knowledge of guns and non-drug addicts was obviously limited.

  “Hands up. Get up. Back against the wall. Now!”

  “Which is it,” he joked. “Get up, hands up, or back away?”

  “All three. Move it!”

  He stood, remaining at the side of the bed, shielding me from Wendy’s view. I needed to know if she was alive. And I needed to know now. I popped off another shot, this time narrowly missing his crotch. Message received. We had movement.

  “Keep going until you’re against the wall,” I said.

  “There’s two. How many bullets you have left in that gun?”

  “Enough to kill you.”

  I made my way over to Wendy, applied two fingers to the side of her neck. Her pulse was faint, her breathing shallow, but it was there. Unsure of whether or not she’d suffered a spinal injury after the beating she’d just taken, I couldn’t jeopardize causing additional injuries by moving her. In the meantime, I had one more call to make. I just didn’t want to make it.

  “Move and you die,” I said as I dialed the number.

  The greeting I received when the call was answered was just what I expected. “You gone yet, Monroe? Because if you aren’t—”

  “Shut up and listen,” I said. “Someone just tried to kill Cade’s ex-wife.”

  “Disrespect aside, explain to me why I’m supposed to care?”

  “Because Wendy’s here in Jackson Hole, which means the attempted murder happened in your town. Call Cade, let him know, and then get to the Wildflower Motel.”

  I shoved the phone inside my pocket. No more distractions.

  “You planning on letting me stand here until I bleed to death?” the man asked.

  One could only hope.

  “Makes no difference to me whether you live or die. You attempted to take Wendy’s life. You may have even succeeded. You don’t deserve my help.”

  “I have to say, this is unexpected. I didn’t think the whore had a friend in the world.”

  She probably didn’t.

  “Didn’t think anyone would miss her if she was gone either,” he continued.

  “Who are you to her anyway? Her dealer? Does she owe you money?”

  He roared with laughter. “That’s rich. The whore’s my wife. Cheated on me. Caught her in bed with the guy. Friend of mine. Well … ex-friend as of late.”

  Sirens echoed outside.

  Hang on, Wendy. Hang on.

  “You try and kill him too, your ex-friend?”

  The way he eyeballed me turned my stomach. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

  “Wendy cheated, and you thought you’d beat her, teach her a lesson. Until she ran. Bet you didn’t predict that.”

  “No one runs from me. No one.”

  I stepped aside as local officers blew through the door.

  “You can put the gun down, Monroe.”

  The chief walked in with two additional officers by his side. In a way, I was relieved to see him. In another, I prepped myself for what might come next. He brushed past me, ignored me like I wasn’t there. Medics followed, immediately going to work on Wendy.

  “Dean Sanders,” the chief said to the man against the wall. “I hear everyone’s lookin’ for you.”

  Dean shrugged. “You found me. You want a prize?”

  “Oh, I believe you in police custody is prize enough,” the chief said. “You’re a wanted man in Cheyenne.”

  Wendy sucked in a breath and gasped. Her eyes burst open. She seemed disoriented, unfamiliar with her current surroundings.

  “How is she?” the chief asked.

  A young female with her hair in a long, brown ponytail said, “Weak. We need to get her to the hospital.”

  “Keep me informed.”

  Dean was cuffed, taken outside, and shoved with a great deal of force into the back of a squad car. I stood, watched the glow from the ambulance’s flashing lights disappear down the road.

  Chief Rollins turned his attention to me. “We’ll need to get a statement. You waitin’ on McCoy?”

  I nodded.

  “I’d like to talk to him first. Is that all right?” I asked.

  “Are you actually askin’ me for permission?”

  “I am.”

  “I don’t know how you do it.”

  “Do what?” I asked.

  “Always end up in the wrong place at the right time.”

  “Dean would have killed her if I didn’t—”

  “Save it. Wendy’s boyfriend’s dead. A couple hunters found his body on a mountain a few days ago. He’d been shot a half a dozen times. You did the right thing here. I’m sure you didn’t want to call me. Good thing you did.”

  “Dean said he caught her cheating on him.”

  “That’s what he called it? From what I was told, she’d tried to divorce Dean several times before. When he wouldn’t grant the divorce, she tried to move on with her life the only way she knew how.”

  The situation reminded me of a quote I once read about judging a person without knowing what they were going through. I found myself seeing Wendy in a new, yet even more complicated light. While I was skeptical about her true desire to get her family back, I’d critiqued her harshly. Too harshly. She was desperate, seeking sanctuary, and all I’d done was do everything in my power to send her on her way.

  Cade arrived with Shelby, both hopping out of the truck as soon as it came to a stop.

  “She’s already gone,” I said. “The ambulance just left.”

  “What happened?”

  I filled him in on the details. “I think she found out her boyfriend was dead and she panicked, realized it was possible she was next. She came here because she didn’t have anywhere else to go.”

  “Why didn’t she just say that then?” Cade asked. “Instead of messin’ with us like she did? If I knew she was in trouble, bad feelin’s aside, I would have helped her.”

  “Those are questions you’ll have to ask Wendy yourself. She’s on her way to the hospital now. You should go.”

  “I … I don’t know.”

  “She doesn’t have anyone, Cade.”

  Shelby entwined her arm inside her father’s. “We could stop by, Dad. Just see how she’s doing. We don’t have to stay long.”

  Cade picked up on Shelby’s change of heart, realizing what he needed to do—if not for Wendy—for his daughter.

  “I’ll call Bonnie,” he said. “Tell her what happened, let her know we’ll stop by tomorrow. You’re welcome to come with us.”

  I shook my head.

  “You two go ahead. I’ll meet you back at the house later.”

  Shelby’s noodly arms wound around my body, embracing me. “Thank you, Sloane. Thank you for saving her. I love you.”

  She loves me.

  I could have taken it for what it was—a comment uttered during an intense moment—except she looked me in the eye when she said it. I could see the sincerity, the palpable emotion.

  “I … love you too,” I said.

  The words, so short, so simple, rolled off my tongue like I was having difficulty communicating in a foreign language. How long had it been since I’d uttered them?

  Far too long.

 
CHAPTER 24

  Somehow I knew when the day first started it was going to be a long one. After I told my side of things to a couple of overeager cops, I left, managing to get two or three breaths in before my phone buzzed. Renee. Telling me Hannah was gone. Gone how, exactly, I wasn’t sure yet. Renee was unhinged, incapable of complete, rational sentences.

  Once I was able to bring Renee’s heightened sensitivity down to a manageable level, the story was clear. Renee had never met with Hannah’s dad, Aaron, after dinner. The meeting, or the promise to meet, had been a diversion, a way to pacify Renee while Aaron removed Hannah from the hospital. Quietly. Under the radar.

  There was little to be done. Although Hannah was of legal age, she’d agreed to leave with her parents. She even signed the paperwork to check herself out. Renee had called Hannah and Aaron dozens of times. No one answered.

  My unrelenting instinct to rush to Hannah’s aid and save her from her oppressive father had me fighting with myself about whether to get involved. Sure, Aaron was a threat, a

  man to be taken seriously. But even if I did rescue Hannah, who was to say she wouldn’t go back to him again? She wasn’t my daughter. Wasn’t my responsibility. Wasn’t my case. If there was one lesson my grandmother taught me when she took me away, it was that I needed to find a way to start letting things go. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t save everyone from their own worst enemy—themselves.

  I promised Renee I’d remain close to my phone. I reminded her that Hannah was old enough to make her own decisions. We needed to trust her, give her wings, let her learn how to fly on her own.

  It was a quarter to ten. Cade and Shelby weren’t back from the hospital yet. I tried not to think about it, as if that was possible. I was in desperate need of a diversion.

  My grandfather’s journal was tucked away in a zippered compartment in my suitcase. Every night before bed I told myself I was going to open it, read a page, or two, or five, learn things about him I didn’t know before, learn things about myself. Of my short list of relatives, we were alike in the kind of way people referred to as “uncanny,” although I never liked that word much. It was on my short list of words I abhorred, along with terms like “chuckled” and “moist,” two words that made me cringe every time I heard them.