Em crouched down behind a half wall. The acoustics of the abandoned space wheezed and creaked as Mindy kicked debris out of the way.
“I know this place like the back of my hand. My great-grandfather built and ran this plant. Once upon a time, the Hale family employed all of LaRoe. Even people from Garrett and Lyleville worked here. The Hales were respected. Revered.”
Em peeked over the side of the wall. Mindy dragged a rusty chair to the middle of the room, and the sound of metal scraping wood screeched like a wounded animal. Mindy sat down and inspected the revolver.
“I’m sure you can tell from the state of this place, the story of the Hale family isn’t a happy one. You see, my father and my brother weren’t cut from the same cloth as my grandpa. My father almost ran this plant into the ground. He was greedy. He wanted to suck every penny he could out of this plant. He started dumping polluted wastewater right out there into the creek to cut costs. After he died and my brother Bobby took over, I prayed Bobby would turn things around. He had Anita, and Kyle was just a baby. But he was no better than my father. Except, not only was he still dumping waste into the creek, but he was also funneling money from the plant to feed his little gambling habit. He shot himself in this very building. He locked himself in his office and just as the authorities were about to bust down his office door to take him in, he pulled the trigger.”
Em pressed her face against the side of the wall and held her hands over her mouth. The fine dust particles tickled her nose. With each breath, her throat convulsed as her body begged to cough.
Mindy fired the gun.
Em screamed, and her cries mingled with the sounds of shattering glass.
Had Mindy shot herself?
Em closed her eyes and pressed herself harder into the wall, begging the lifeless structure to swallow her whole.
The sound of dried leaves crunching underfoot filled the concrete chamber. Em looked up to see Mindy peering over the crumbling half wall.
Mindy let out a bark of laughter. “What? Did you think I shot myself? I’m not weak like my brother.” She pointed the gun at Em’s head. “Get up.”
Em rose to her feet and put her hands out defensively. “You don’t have to hurt me. We can end this right now. Please, let me go home.”
“Oh, I’d love for you to go home…to Australia. But that’s not the plan, is it?” Mindy asked, waving the gun. “When Kyle told me you and Michael MacCarron were poking around the hollow, I knew it was only a matter of time until you remembered what happened that night.” Mindy gritted her teeth. “And I am not losing Tom. And I am not going to live in a world where every waking moment all he wants to talk about is you.”
“Why would you lose Tom? Mindy, you’re not making any sense?”
Mindy raised the gun, and that saccharine smile slid across her lips. “Who do think gave you that scar?”
Em glanced at her left hand and the zigzag seam of raised skin running the length of her ring finger. “It was you? Why? How?”
“Kyle turned to me for help after he hit that Fowler girl. He couldn’t tell his mother. You know what she’s like. No, he called me. I met him at the hollow. I told him to drive home and tell his mother he’d hit a deer or a coyote.”
Em rubbed her eyes. The image of a tree with a makeshift ladder next to a mangled bicycle bathed in the first rays of dawn flashed through her mind.
Mindy took a step closer. She knocked Em’s hands from her face. “I was the one who dragged you over to The Steps to Hell. I’m the one who took that shard of glass and butchered your finger.”
Before Em could respond, beams of light shot past her through the broken glass, turning Mindy’s mousy-brown hair halo white. Mindy shielded her eyes and turned away.
Em ran for the exit. “I’m in here! I’m in here,” she screamed, dodging a pile of twisted metal as a bullet ricocheted off the cement wall.
She dropped to the ground and covered her head.
“Em? Em, where are you?”
It was Michael, but she couldn’t answer. Mindy had grabbed a handful of her hair and dragged her back to the center of the room. The revolver dangled from her hand sheathed in the hot pink cast.
Mindy tightened her grip. “Looks like I’m going to get to kill two birds with one stone tonight.”
30
Michael ran inside the crumbling room. “Em!” he called out. He froze when Mindy pointed the gun at him.
“You can stop right there, Michael,” Mindy said, giving a sharp pull to Em’s hair.
He raised his hands. “Mindy, it doesn’t have to be like this.”
Kyle entered the room.
Mindy’s eyes went wide. “What are you doing here, Kyle?”
“We can’t do this, Aunt Mindy. It’s got to end,” he said and walked slowly toward her.
“Stop!” Mindy yelled, her gaze dancing wildly. She released Em’s hair. “Michael and Em, I want you both right where I can see you.” She gestured toward a bank of broken windows.
Em got to her feet, gave Mindy a tentative glance, and met him at the wall.
He cupped her face. It was smudged with dust and gray powdery streaks. “I saw the car. Are you hurt?”
“Shut up!” Mindy screamed, pacing back and forth.
Em gave him a quick nod. “I’m okay.”
“Kyle,” Mindy groaned. “I told you I’d take care of this.”
“No, you told me you needed to talk to Em alone. When I texted you, you didn’t say anything about taking her at gunpoint.”
Mindy shook her head. “You’re the one who told me they’d been poking around the hollow for weeks. I saw them at the diner in Garrett asking all about Tina. They’d found the memorial on the side of the road. I told you to stop maintaining that little shrine to your guilt.”
“I’ve told Michael everything,” Kyle said, bloodshot eyes meeting his aunt’s gaze. “He knows I took Em here after she drank the spiked punch. He knows I killed Tina Fowler. He knows you cut Em’s hand.”
Mindy looked at the ceiling and let out a primal cry. “She doesn’t get to have everything! Have you heard her play? Tom can’t stop talking about her. He thinks she’s even better than she was before. And him.” She pointed to Michael. “Wasn’t he the reason you wanted to spike that girl’s drink to begin with? Isn’t he the reason this whole charade started? Both of them have stood between us and our happiness, Kyle.”
Kyle kicked a mound of crumbling cement. “We can’t do this. It has to end. This has haunted me my entire life.”
Mindy took Kyle’s hand. “This can all be okay. You have a chance to run for state office. You have a chance to bring some honor back to our family. All your mother ever wanted was for you to make something of yourself—to not end up like your father.” She turned to Em. “You should have never come back to Langley Park. You should have stayed holed up half a world away.”
The whine of a siren carried in through the room on an icy breeze.
Mindy turned toward the bank of broken windows. “What is that?”
“I called the police when Kyle and I found Em’s car,” Michael said. “It’s over, Mindy. Put the gun down.”
Mindy turned to Kyle. “You let him call the police? It’s not just your ass that’s on the line. Did you think about me? About Tom? About your mother?”
Kyle dragged his hands over his face. “I didn’t want any of this to happen. Hitting Tina was an accident. I was exhausted. I was worried Em was going to overdose. I wasn’t paying attention. But it happened, Aunt Mindy. I killed Tina Fowler. I should have gone right to the police.”
Mindy barked out a laugh. “My brother failed you and your mother. I’m not going to fail you now.” She lifted the gun and pointed it at Em. “You don’t get to have everything, Mary Michelle MacCaslin. You don’t deserve it. You never worked for it.”
The police cars advanced up the drive. Sirens blared and lights flashed in a tangle of red and blue.
Mindy aimed the gun and fired. Michael threw
his body in front of Em as a hot burn seared his shoulder.
“No!” Kyle yelled, wrestling the gun from Mindy’s hand.
“Did you get hit?” Michael asked.
Tears streamed down Em’s cheeks. “No, you did. You’re bleeding.”
Another shot echoed through the room. They looked up to see Kyle, holding his stomach, blood soaking through his shirt. A shocked Mindy stood slack-jawed, the revolver clutched tightly in her hands.
Car doors opened and closed in a cacophony of sharp pops. A voice cut through the air. “Garrett Police. Drop your weapon.”
Mindy dropped the gun as Kyle fell to the ground, clutching his stomach.
Michael rose to his feet and kicked the gun to the corner of the room. “We need a medic. A man’s been shot.”
“Two men,” Em called out. She took off her coat, balled it up and pressed it to his shoulder.
“Em,” Kyle said, in a hoarse whisper.
They turned to where Kyle lay in a pool of blood. He raised a blood-soaked hand toward Em. “I’m sorry. I never meant for you to get hurt.”
She clasped his slippery hand. “I know, Kyle. I know,” she said. “Hold on, Kyle. An ambulance is on the way.”
“Let the Fowlers know I’m sorry. Let them know it was an accident. She didn’t suffer. She was gone by the time I was able to check her pulse.”
“Kyle!” Mindy cried out.
His features relaxed and the corner of his mouth lifted into one last smile. “It’s over, Aunt Mindy. It’s finally over.”
* * *
Michael exhaled and listened to the array of beeps and low chatter that floated in from the hospital corridor. An ambulance had brought both himself and Em to the Garrett Community Hospital, and she wouldn’t leave his side. She lay asleep in the tiny hospital bed curled around him.
A nurse gave a quick tap on the door then entered and checked the monitors. “Everything looks good, Michael.” She lifted the dressing covering his right shoulder. The bullet had only grazed him, and there was no muscle damage. “The wound isn’t showing any signs of infection. As long as you apply the topical ointment and change the bandage, you should be as good as new in no time. We’re still going to keep you both overnight just as a precaution.”
“Can you tell me if Kyle Benson made it?” A lump formed in his throat. The image of Kyle’s bloody hand clasping Em’s was tattooed on the back of his eyelids.
The nurse shook her head. “No, he was deceased when he arrived at the hospital. I’m very sorry.”
Michael exhaled and tightened his grip on Em.
The nurse gave him a sympathetic smile. “There are a few people out in the waiting room who would love to see you. Would you like me to send them back?”
He nodded. The nurse went to the door and waved. Within seconds, Sam, Nick, and Zoe filed into the room.
“Hey cuz! How’s the shoulder?” Sam asked, laying a protective hand on his leg.
“It’s going to be fine. It was just a graze,” Michael answered.
“And Em? Is she going to be okay?” Zoe asked.
Michael brushed the waves of auburn hair from her sleeping face. “She’s a tough little thing. She’ll be okay.”
“We heard about Kyle Benson,” Nick said.
Michael nodded. “The nurse just told me. I wonder if anyone’s contacted his mother?”
Nick crossed his arms. “They must have. We saw her come into the hospital with a deputy.”
A heavy silence swallowed the room. Anita Benson, once Anita Hale, had tried to break free of the Hale name, only to have her son and sister-in-law fall victim to the Hale curse.
“How did Mindy Lancaster play into all this?” Nick asked.
“She was Kyle’s aunt.” Michael glanced at Em and lowered his voice. “The night of her injury, Em accidentally drank a spiked drink Kyle had meant for another girl. He freaked out and took her to the Hale Cement Plant so nobody would find out she was drugged. He panicked when she got worse and decided to take her back to the hollow. He hit a local girl named Tina Fowler on the way back. She died right there on the side of the road.”
Zoe gasped. “The Fowlers never knew what happened.”
“Now they’ll know,” Michael said with a weak smile. He took a breath and exhaled. “Instead of calling the police, Kyle called Mindy. She met him at the hollow. She told him she would get Em back to her tent and sent him home.”
Zoe raised a hand to her chest. “Mindy purposely injured Em’s hand?”
“She dragged Em over to The Steps to Hell, found a broken bottle, and…” He couldn’t go on.
“But, why?” Sam asked.
Michael shook his head. “Jealousy. Deep-seated resentment. Mindy’s husband, Tom, was Em’s first violin teacher. He was the driving force behind Em becoming a world-class musician. Mindy hated feeling second best. She was terribly jealous of Tom’s connection to Em.”
“It’s hard to believe she could do something so cruel,” Zoe said, taking a seat on the corner of the hospital bed. “You think you know someone; then you find out it’s all a lie.”
Sam took a step back and stared out the window.
A slight man in a white coat walked into the room reading a chart. He pushed a pair of glasses up the bridge of his nose. “I wanted to let you know that the blood work for Ms. MacCaslin came back. Everything looks perfect for both her and the baby.”
“Baby!” Zoe, Sam, and Nick all said in unison.
The doctor startled and looked around, seemingly oblivious to the three adults standing inches away from him.
Michael chuckled. “We’ve got some news.”
Em turned her head from side to side and opened her eyes. She scanned the room then met his gaze.
He pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “The gang’s all here.”
“Ah, good, Ms. MacCaslin. You’re awake,” the doctor said.
“I was just telling Mr. MacCarron your blood work is completely normal. The chart says you’re about six weeks along. Would you like to hear your baby’s heartbeat?”
Em looked past the doctor and gave a small wave to Zoe, Sam, and Nick. “Hi, guys. I’m pregnant.”
“Yeah, we got that,” Zoe said.
“How long have you known?” Sam asked, his wide-eyed gaze locked on Em’s stomach.
“What time is it?” Em asked.
“About half past ten,” Nick answered.
Michael looked down at Em. “About eight hours.”
“Sounds about right,” she answered. Her blue eyes sparkled as she gave him a shy smile.
“Holy mother of pearl!” Zoe exclaimed.
A nurse entered the room with a portable ultrasound.
“Is everyone staying for this?” the doctor asked.
“Hell to the yes, we’re staying,” Zoe said. She sat down on the edge of the bed and patted Em’s leg.
The doctor gestured for Em to raise her shirt. He squirted a jelly-like substance on her abdomen and pressed the ultrasound wand to her belly. A grainy black and white picture appeared on the monitor.
“Ah,” the doctor said. “There you are.”
Michael stared at the fuzzy screen. “That’s our baby?”
“Yes, it is. I see the heart and the yolk sac. That’s what’s going to give your baby nourishment until the placenta forms.” He pressed a button, and a rapid whooshing beat filled the room.
Em squeezed Michael’s hand.
“That’s the baby’s heartbeat?” Em’s voice was thick with emotion.
“It is. Ninety-eight beats per minute. Perfectly normal.”
“It’s going to be a whole new world for us,” Em said, her voice tinged with wonder.
Michael looked around the room. All eyes were glued to the monitor and the tiny, peanut-sized life pulsing in fuzzy waves of black and white.
Em tilted her head and met his gaze. In her deep blue eyes, he saw the laughing girl with auburn braids. She was beckoning him to run through the pouring rain and stand by
her side.
“I can promise you this, Mary Michelle,” he said, his voice barely a whisper. “No matter what happens, we’re always better together. But now, it’s going to be the three of us.”
Epilogue
Em’s pearl necklace bobbed between her naked breasts. “We’re never going to get this crib put together.”
She pressed her hands against Michael’s chest, her pelvis grinding into him in smooth, steady thrusts. He gripped her hips and guided her body as she rode his cock. The late morning sun sent streams of golden light through the room. It highlighted her auburn hair and cast a soft glow on the gentle rounding of her stomach.
Em was almost twenty weeks along, and Michael loved everything about her pregnant body. The added weight of her breasts. The curve of her hips. To him, there was nothing sexier than Em, pregnant with his child. And he certainly did not mind her ramped-up pregnancy sex drive.
“You’re the one who came into the nursery wearing nothing but a necklace,” he breathed.
Her lips drew into a wicked grin. “I don’t see you complaining.”
He answered her taunt by rolling his hips. She gasped and arched her back as he dug his fingertips into the flesh of her sweet ass. She was stunning. Head thrown back in ecstasy. Body writhing. Biting her bottom lip and purring with lusty moans.
She gazed down at him with sated eyes. His body tightened, and the base of his cock tensed and prepared for release. He met her gaze, let out a primal growl, and lost himself in the depth of her blue eyes and in her tight, wet heat gripping him like a vice.
He took a breath and ran his fingertips along the length of her belly. He slid them down to squeeze her thighs, pressed flush against his.
Em scanned the room. A half-painted room. A half-constructed crib. And the floor, awash with tiny pillows and creamy white bedding.
“I know what you’re thinking,” he said, sitting up, but not breaking their connection.
A worried look crossed her sex-flushed face. “We don’t have much time.”
The Sound of Home Page 25
