Stranded

by Debby Giusti

  She didn’t want Frank to find her either.

  * * *

  A stiff breeze blew as Frank pulled out of Evelyn’s driveway. He’d left Duke behind, but Colleen sat next to him, her arms crossed and her shoulders straight.

  Frank had been attracted to Colleen and ready to go the distance for her. Then she mentioned the memory card, which was another bit of evidence she had kept from him.

  He didn’t understand her or her actions.

  She wanted Trey stopped, yet she refused to share crucial information with him. Didn’t she trust him to be an effective investigator?

  After his injury, he hadn’t been enough of a man for Audrey. Evidently he wasn’t enough of an investigator for Colleen.

  He remembered the way she had felt in his arms. Truth be told, he hadn’t wanted to let her go. Instead, he wanted to protect her and do whatever he could to stop her tears and bring joy to her life.

  He hadn’t felt that way with Audrey. Their relationship had been surface, which Audrey had made blatantly clear when she’d walked away. Too late he realized the truth. Frank had being drawn to Audrey by her outward looks, not by an inner beauty.

  Colleen was beautiful inside and out, but it wasn’t her looks that attracted him to her. It was her focus, her strength and her need to right the wrong that drugs had caused her sister. Frank knew that drive. It’s why he had joined the military and eventually transferred to the CID. He wanted to right wrongs and help those in need.

  If only he could explain his feelings to Colleen, but she was centered on finding the memory card and bringing Trey to justice. No reason to mix personal relationships with an investigation. He knew better, even if Colleen had pulled him off course.

  He drove down the hill faster than he should have and braked to a stop beside the barn.

  “Where’s my car?” Colleen demanded, the first comment she’d made since climbing into his truck at his sister’s house.

  “Stay here.”

  “I will not.” She threw open the door and jumped down. “What did you do with my Honda?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Did the local cops impound the car?”

  “I’ll find out.”

  Frank pulled his cell from his pocket and called the Freemont PD. He asked to speak with Officer Stoddard.

  “I told you about the car buried in debris in the barn,” Frank said when Stoddard came on the line.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Did your crime scene team check it out?”

  “Ah, I’m not sure. Give me a minute.”

  Frank waited, his frustration rising.

  “Sir.” Stoddard returned. “Our crime scene team scheduled the Honda for late afternoon.”

  “That would work except the car is gone.”

  “Gone?”

  “Exactly. Someone’s taken the car, and I want it found.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Frank disconnected. “The cops don’t know what happened,” he told Colleen.

  “Someone does.”

  A horse and buggy clip-clopped along the road. Frank flagged down the bearded farmer. He wore a light blue shirt and a straw hat that nearly covered his eyes. A teenage boy, clean-shaven and similarly dressed, sat next to him.

  “Mr. Fisher?”

  “Whoa, there. Whoa.” He pulled his horse to a stop.

  Frank pointed to the barn. “There was a car in that barn. Do you know where it’s been taken?”

  The Amish man shook his head.

  Frank turned to the teen. “What about you, Isaac? Did you do anything to the car?”

  The bearded man bristled. “Why do you ask this of my son?”

  Holding up his hand, Frank said, “Sir, let him answer the question.”

  “A bulldozer was in the area.” The teen pointed across the street to the construction worker clearing debris around the farmhouse. “Ask that man.”

  Frank nodded his thanks and waited until the buggy had passed before he hurried across the street.

  Spotting his approach, the driver shoved the gear in Neutral and allowed the bulldozer to idle in place.

  “Paul, isn’t it?” The guy who had worked around the barn yesterday.

  He nodded. “That’s right. Paul Yates.”

  “What happened to the car that was in the barn?” Frank pointed back to where Colleen stood staring at the ground.

  “Someone loaded it on a flatbed.” Paul rubbed his chin. “Junkyard Jack? Junkyard Jason? Seems it started with the letter J.”

  “Junkyard Joe’s.”

  The guy nodded. “That’s it.”

  “Who authorized the pickup?” Probably a long shot to think the Atlanta construction worker would know, but no harm asking.

  “No clue about authorization, but the guy in charge of the whole cleanup was talking to the driver of the flatbed. Someone said he was the mayor.”

  “Allen Quincy. Did you see anyone else?”

  “Just the two guys from the junkyard.”

  Frank nodded his thanks and hustled back to Colleen, who was picking through the hay and debris.

  “I’m checking the ground in case the memory card ended up outside the car,” she explained as he neared. “When the twister hit, my only thought was staying alive.”

  “Find anything?”

  “Lots of stuff. No memory card. Any luck on your end?”

  “Seems the mayor may have gotten carried away with his cleanup campaign and had your car hauled off to the local junkyard.”

  “That’s our next stop?”

  He nodded. “But first, let’s give this area a thorough search so we don’t have to backtrack.”

  Frank worked back and forth, in a grid-like pattern, just as he had been trained to do with crime scene investigations. Colleen walked beside him, and both of them seemed satisfied when they left in Frank’s pickup forty-five minutes later.

  “Junkyard Joe’s sits on the other side of town,” Frank said. “I’ll give you a tour of Freemont on the way.”

  He turned off Amish Road and headed due east, first through a residential area that had escaped damage and then along a country lane.

  “Such a beautiful area.” She took in the rolling hills and sprawling farms that stretched on each side of the roadway.

  A newer home with an expansive back deck was visible in the distance, situated on a road that ran parallel of the one they traveled.

  “Dawson Timmons, a former CID agent, lives there.” Frank pointed to the house and surrounding farmland. “He got out of the army, married a local girl, bought land and started farming. They’re nice folks who go to Evelyn’s church.”

  “But you don’t?”

  Frank glanced at her. “Don’t go to church?”

  She nodded.

  “I haven’t yet. Maybe one of these days.”

  Silent for a long moment, Colleen finally spoke. “I didn’t think much about religion until my sister died. Since then I’ve tried to do better, but I haven’t joined a church.”

  “You were busy tracking down Trey.”

  “Looking back, I realize trying to take him down by myself was probably a mistake.”

  “It’s fairly obvious you don’t trust law enforcement.”

  There, he’d stated the major obstacle that stood between them. She didn’t trust anyone with a badge, yet she couldn’t achieve her goal without law enforcement’s help.

  “Not all of us are on the take, Colleen.”

  “As I recall, you have trust issues, too.” Her voice was tight, her focus still on the road.

  “Because I question information that can’t be substantiated?”

  “Because you don’t believe me.”

  He pulled in a r
agged breath. He wanted to believe Colleen. When he looked into her eyes, he saw a good woman who was trying to do what was right, but he had this fear of not making the right decision or seeing things the way they really were.

  Was that holding him back?

  “It’s not personal.”

  She harrumphed. “You’ve talked yourself into thinking you’re doing what’s right, yet you can’t see the truth.”

  “The truth about—”

  “The truth about me. I’m trying to gather enough evidence to put Trey Howard in jail for life. You and I are actually on the same side of the law. The problem is you’re always questioning your own ability and your compromised strength and your weakened condition.”

  Did he appear weak to her?

  “You think your injury and infection affected your investigative skills,” she continued, hardly pausing long enough to take a breath. “You’re still the man you were before, Frank. You’re still a CID agent able to track down evidence and bring the guilty to justice. You just lack confidence. You’re looking back at what happened in Afghanistan and during your long hospitalization. It must have been difficult, but you’ve healed. You’re ready to get back to work, to embrace life fully.”

  She sighed. “You’re the same man, only maybe a bit more cautious and more aware of your own mortality. That’s not a bad thing. Sometimes when we think we can do it all ourselves, we forget about God. But we can’t do anything without Him. Allow Him into your brokenness, and you’ll be able to heal.”

  He hesitated for a long moment. Then pulling in a deep breath, he asked, “What about you, Colleen? Have you healed?”

  She shook her head. “I still can’t get over losing Briana. Much as I want to believe the tough love was for her own good, I keep wondering if it led to her death. If only I’d opened my heart and brought her back into my life, I could have taken care of her. I could have loved her. I could have helped her battle her addiction.”

  “She needed rehab.”

  Colleen shook her head. “She’d been to rehab. It hadn’t stopped her from finding drugs.”

  “Chances are she wouldn’t have done anything different the second time. Drug addiction is like quicksand. She couldn’t free herself even if she wanted to, and you couldn’t have pulled her out. It’s not easy to realize drugs have such control over someone we love, but it’s the truth. She loved drugs more than she loved herself.”

  “More than she loved me,” Colleen whispered.

  Frank didn’t know anything else he could say that would ease Colleen’s guilt or assuage her grief. If Trey had been guilty of drug trafficking, he needed to be stopped so that no other woman was sucked into the downward spiral of addiction. The addict wasn’t the only one affected. The entire family was, as well.

  Colleen was proof of that.

  She deserved more than heartbreak over a sister’s dependence on cocaine. Colleen deserved to be loved and accepted. If only she would lower the wall she had raised around her heart.

  Frank didn’t know how to change her opinion of law enforcement, but he wanted her future to be bright. He was beginning to think being part of her future might be good for him, as well.

  FOURTEEN

  A musty smell wafted past Colleen and mixed with the haze of dust and the cloying scent of rusted metal when they drove into the junkyard. Stepping out of the pickup, she tried to hold her breath but quickly ran out of air.

  “Are you okay?” Frank asked.

  “I’m fine.” Which she wasn’t. Her head ached, and she was tired of arguing about trust and the lack thereof.

  A man left the ramshackle shack that served as an office and headed to a Ford 4x4 parked nearby. The truck looked new.

  “Joe?” Frank waved to the guy as he opened the door and started to climb behind the wheel.

  Evidently the owner. Joe looked as scruffy as his junkyard, although his truck was pristine. Untrimmed beard, long hair pulled into a ponytail topped with a baseball hat. His name was embroidered on the front chest pocket of his work shirt.

  “You need something?” he called back to them.

  “A blue Honda injured in the tornado. You or a couple of your workers picked it up this morning.” Frank held up his CID badge.

  “They unloaded in the west end.” Joe pointed them in the right direction. “Head along the path around the mound of old parts. You’ll see the Honda.”

  Frank reached for Colleen’s hand. She hadn’t expected his grip to be so strong.

  “Let’s go.”

  She hurried after him.

  Passing the pile of car parts and twisted metal, she groaned when the expansive west end, as Joe had called it, came into view. The junkyard extended for acres. “This might take some time.”

  Two paths wove through a graveyard of discarded cars. Doors hung open. The hoods on many of the vehicles were raised, allowing engines to rust from the elements. Trunks were cocked at odd angles. Birds perched on the bottom rims pecked at bugs that lived in the shaded interior.

  Colleen glanced at the ground, expecting to see vermin underfoot.

  Frank squeezed her hand.

  “I’m imagining rats and other creatures,” she admitted.

  “We’ll make noise to scare away anything on four legs.”

  “What about the two-legged vermin?”

  “I’ll watch for them, as well.”

  Trey would do anything to save himself and his profitable drug operation. Colleen stood in his way.

  He’d tried to kill her before. He’d try again.

  She glanced at Frank’s hand that still held hers.

  He didn’t believe her, yet Frank was helping her find the memory card. Probably because he needed the evidence that would end Trey’s hateful abuse of the women he trafficked and the men and women—many young kids who didn’t make good decisions—who used the drugs he brought illegally into the United States.

  He had to be stopped.

  Frank would help her bring Trey to justice. He’d also work to keep her safe, but once he had the digital memory card, he’d no longer need Colleen.

  She dropped his hand and started down one of two paths winding through the rows of cars.

  Colleen had to rely on her own ability, her own strength. She’d made a mistake letting her guard down around Frank. A mistake she already regretted. At least she hadn’t made an even bigger mistake by giving him her heart.

  * * *

  Frank didn’t know why he had taken Colleen’s hand, especially after the tension that had sparked between them earlier.

  He blamed it on his protective nature when he was around her. An inner voice kept warning him to be alert to danger.

  Joe was a typical redneck who ran a fairly profitable business despite his scrubby beard and ponytail. The junkyard was a fixture in Freemont, and even Evelyn gave her stamp of approval when Frank had called her and mentioned Joe’s name.

  Still, something niggled within Frank, a nervous anxiety that had him looking over his shoulder and wanting to keep Colleen close by his side.

  She, on the other hand, had charged off in one direction to cover more area, while he followed on the neighboring path.

  He cupped his hands around his mouth. “See anything?”

  She shook her head. “A lot of junk but no blue Honda.”

  Frank spotted an old woody station wagon, a Studebaker and other makes and models that had to be classics by now. Some of them could be refurbished into a decent ride, for the right price.

  That was the point. No one would spend hard-earned cash for a rusty car that had been exposed to the elements. Joe made money by selling parts, which left the cars picked over like roadkill.

  His eyes scanned rows of automobiles, trucks, even a couple of buses and an RV that had all seen b
etter days. Some had been plucked clean. Others sat seemingly untouched in the afternoon sun.

  The two paths came together up ahead. In the distance, Frank noted movement on a small hill that formed a natural end to Joe’s acreage.

  He squinted, trying to determine what he’d seen. A gust of wind stirred trees on the gentle slope. Surely that’s what had diverted his attention.

  He glanced over his shoulder, ensuring they weren’t being followed.

  Turning back to the hill, he focused on a narrow dirt path, barely wide enough for a compact car.

  “Something wrong?” Colleen asked.

  “Just checking the area.”

  “I see a blue car just beyond the fork where the two paths meet.”

  Frank followed her gaze. “Looks like your Honda.”

  He hurried to meet up with her.

  The Honda sat behind a wall of vehicles.

  “How do we crawl through all that wreckage?” she asked.

  “We’ll go around some of the cars and over others.” He glanced at her feet, glad to see she was wearing shoes with rubber soles.

  “Let me check it out. You stay on the path.”

  She shook her head, just as he’d known she would. “We go together.”

  “You could twist an ankle or get cut on a piece of metal.”

  She nodded. “That’s a risk I’ll take. Plus, I could offer the same warning to you.”

  “Shall I lead then?”

  “Be my guest.”

  Frank climbed onto the hood of a four-door sedan and offered Colleen his hand. She put her foot on the front bumper, and he helped her up to where he stood. The hood buckled. “Watch your step.”

  He leaped to the next car and reached for her as she followed. “Two more cars to go.”

  They crawled across the front seat of a third car and inched their way around a fourth to reach the Honda.

  Frank jerked open the driver’s door. Colleen looked under the front seat. “The memory card was in my purse.”

  “Did anything else fall out?”

  She nodded. “Everything, including my wallet and lipstick.” She patted the floorboard and shook her head when she came up empty-handed. “Maybe it’s in the backseat.”