by Dale Mayer
He nodded. “I’ll make sure it’s safe.” He glanced at Liam. “Watch your back.”
She watched the two men exchange glances as she tried to figure out what the hell was going on.
Then Liam said, “You watch yours.”
And North walked out.
She looked at Liam for a long moment. “Surely no one would attack us here? This is like a hospital, with three shifts of nurses and doctors. Witnesses all around. Plus we are healthy, can defend ourselves.”
He shot her a hard look. “What we don’t know is why this is happening. We’ll plan on a peaceful night with both of us getting rest, but we’ll also ensure nobody comes in to keep your father sedated. What I’d like to know and I couldn’t find in the medical files, and nobody else could either, is what brought on his sudden aggressiveness.”
“Oh, I never thought of that,” she said in confusion. “Surely something was written in the records?”
“There is a note that he turned aggressive, but it doesn’t say why.” He flicked through his phone. “It also says you were here earlier that night, but after you left was when he got angry.”
She shook her head, bewildered. “I don’t remember anything about that.”
“If it happened after you left, you wouldn’t, would you?” he asked reasonably.
A nurse knocked and came in. “Your father needs to go to bed now, Lilianna.”
Lilianna smiled and nodded. “He’s already in his pajamas. Does he get dressed in the daytime at all?”
The nurse shrugged. “I don’t know. I deal with him at night on my shifts.”
The nurse helped her father to his feet, took him to the bathroom. They could hear her voice as she murmured, telling him to brush his teeth. From what Lilianna could see, her father followed instructions perfectly.
Liam stood at the bathroom door. She wondered what he was doing, but he held a finger to his lips. His head tilted into the bathroom. Finally the nurse brought her father back out, his teeth brushed, his face washed, and she helped him in bed and pulled the covers over his shoulders.
The nurse glanced at the night table, then back at them. “I understand he isn’t supposed to get his medication tonight, correct?”
Liam nodded. “That’s correct.”
She stared down nervously. “I don’t know what his withdrawal symptoms will be like.”
“If there’s any problem we’ll call you,” Lilianna said. She sat beside her father on the chair next to his bed and gently stroked his hand. He lay in a prone position, his eyes already closed. “How does he eat these days?” She noted the skin sagging on his cheeks.
“He’s not eating very much, but it’s enough,” the nurse said with a smile. “I was really hoping he’d pull out of this.”
“Me too,” Lilianna said. “It’s so hard to see him like this.”
“I know.” The nurse patted Lilianna’s shoulder. “If you need me, let me know and I’ll come.”
Lilianna smiled. “Thanks.”
The nurse went out and closed the door with a harsh click.
Lilianna glanced at Liam. “Now it’s just us.”
He nodded. “Will you lie down on the couch and sleep?”
She shook her head. “At least not now,” she said honestly. “My mind is too wired.”
“Right. Hopefully, as we get answers, you can relax.”
Her phone buzzed. She pulled it out and sighed. “It’s Brianna. What does she want?” She swiped her phone screen to unlock it and brought up her sister’s text. “She’s asking where I am.”
“Tell her that you’re out with me,” he said.
“Why?” she asked, looking up at him.
“Because, if she thinks you’re not home, she might break in.”
“But won’t she see North’s truck?”
Liam checked his watch. “North should be pulling up in another five minutes or so. Can she see the lights of the truck as he drives in?”
“I guess if she was to walk up the rise. But part of the reason why the houses are where they are is for privacy.”
He said, “I’ll call North. I’ll have him kill the lights and get the stuff out that’s needed. I’ll have him hide the truck behind the cabin.”
“Are you serious?”
He nodded. “Don’t answer her for a moment.” He placed the call. North’s voice filled his ear.
She could just about hear him.
“North, where are you?”
“Just about at the turnoff.”
“Kill the lights,” Liam said urgently. “Brianna just texted Lilianna, asking where she is.”
*
“Done,” North said calmly. “Am I to expect a visitor, do you think?”
“I suspect so,” Liam said. “Even more important is that you get whatever paperwork is there out beforehand.”
“I’m driving slowly up and around the back now. I don’t see any sign of anyone yet.”
“I’m hanging on the phone while you get there. Watch your back and stay out of sight.”
“I hear you.”
Liam listened as North drove the truck around to the cabin.
“I’m here now. The dogs are happy to see me.”
Liam could hear the truck door opening.
“Place looks the same. I’m walking inside. I guess I can’t take a chance turning on lights either, can I?”
Liam faced Lilianna. “Do you ever leave lights on when you leave?”
She nodded. “I leave the outside porch light on and the kitchen light on.”
He told North.
Liam could hear North as he walked to those lights and the gentle clicks as he turned them on. “That gives me at least something to pack up by. Give me five. I’m putting the phone on the table, then going upstairs to get our gear.”
There was a clink as the phone was set on the table. Liam listened to his footsteps as he raced up the stairs.
He hadn’t unpacked and neither had North. But they had the time line posted up on the wall. Liam figured it would take three minutes to get that down, another couple minutes to grab the bags.
Just as he was counting out those minutes, North’s voice came through the phone. “Upstairs is clear. I’m taking this out to the truck.” A minute later he came back in. “I’m clearing out the laptop and the paperwork we had in the living room and the kitchen. Taking that out to the truck now.” Again he came back in the cabin. “Now I’m going to Lilianna’s room.”
Liam waited; Lilianna paced. She could hear everything North was saying as he worked his way through collecting the rest of the things from the house.
“What about the dogs?” Liam asked her.
Surprised, she asked, “Can he take them?”
North came back a few minutes later slightly out of breath. “Okay, I’ve got the gun, the money, the passport and paperwork, her electronics. Did either of you consider the dogs?”
“We definitely want to keep them safe,” Liam said. “Maybe pack her a bag if you don’t mind. I saw a couple in her room. I believe she does a lot of traveling.” He turned to look at Lilianna.
Lilianna nodded. “Two suitcases are in the closet.”
“On it.” Suddenly North was back. “I’ve packed up what she needs.”
“Load the dogs in the bed of the truck. And maybe take the truck down to the copse of trees behind the cabin. See if you can hide it there.”
“Okay, back in the truck. Dogs are in the bed,” North reported.
They listened as he turned on the truck engine and slowly drove toward the trees.
She said, “A road is along the back there, where we bring in feeding grain. There is a small shoulder area, for turning around. If he went down there, he should be able to park okay.”
Giving instructions, they waited while North took the truck around the back.
He parked and hopped out. “Okay, I’m here with the dogs. The truck is safe. I’ve got the bulk of the material from Lilianna’s place. I’m looking up, and
I can see the cabin just on the side of the hill.”
“Does everything look okay?” Lilianna asked.
“Yeah, so far so good,” North said in a dry tone. “I’m about to spend the night out in the bush, watching.”
“I don’t think you’ll have to wait long.” Liam turned to Lilianna. “Go ahead and tell your sister you’re in town for the evening. With both of us.”
She studied him. “I sure hope you’re wrong.”
“So do I,” he said.
She pulled out her phone and sent her sister a text.
Almost immediately she got an answer back. About time you answered me.
Lilianna shook her head. “Even over a text she can sound peevish.”
“North, did you hear that? She’s just been told we’re gone from the cabin and will be for a while.”
“Gotcha,” North said. “I’ll find a lookout spot with the dogs and see what we see.”
Liam turned to look at Lilianna. “Would your sister hurt the dogs?”
She shook her head. “No, of course not. But the dogs also wouldn’t stop her from going inside if she wanted to search my place for something.”
“And, if the dogs weren’t there, would she expect you to have them with you?”
She frowned and bit her lip as she thought about it. Then she shook her head. “No, I don’t think so. I do take the dogs sometimes, but usually only when I’m around the property.”
“So the fact that the dogs are gone would be a giveaway that something’s up?”
She shrugged. “No, I don’t think so. I have friends in town. I often go to their place. The dogs need socializing too, so I take them over to play with their dogs sometimes.”
“Okay, North. All hands on deck. I don’t know if you can get close enough to hear or close enough to take a video, but watch your back. I don’t trust anybody on that property right now.”
North laughed. “Don’t you worry. You know as well as I do, there are not many people I trust anywhere in the world. Over and out.” And North hung up.
Chapter 6
The night passed slowly. Nobody came to visit her dad. Her father never woke. She woke up herself several times to find she’d passed out on the couch from exhaustion. At one point Liam sat with his back against a wall, his eyes closed. But he appeared to be completely happy where he was. At another point, he told her, “Go back to sleep.”
He hadn’t even opened his eyes. She decided she wouldn’t argue. She lay back down on the couch, closed her eyes and fell asleep again. But it seemed like she only slept for a few minutes, then she was awake all over again.
When she checked her watch the next time, it was ten to six. There was no sign of Liam. She sat up, groggy, grabbed her phone to see if anything was happening, but there wasn’t even another text from her sister. As there was no sign of Liam, she wasn’t sure what was going on. She got up, used the bathroom, washed her face, came out to check on her father and found he was asleep still, but it was a worrisome sleep as he hadn’t changed position at all. She checked his neck with two fingers and found a strong, steady pulse.
As she went to sit on the couch, the door opened, and Liam walked in carrying two coffee cups. Her face lit up as she saw the coffee. “Where have you been?”
He smiled as he sat beside her and handed her a cup. “The cafeteria opened at six, so I figured I would see if I could be the first on the fresh pot.”
She laughed. “Thanks, I need this.”
“You do. More than you know. I have bad news for you.”
She slowly placed the cup on the coffee table and turned to face him. “What?”
Liam settled on the couch.
“What do you mean, bad news?” she repeated.
His lips quirked at her hard tone. “Your cabin had a visitor last night.”
She stared at him. “My sister?”
He shook his head. “No. A man.”
“What man?” she asked, her voice harsh.
“I’m not sure, but I’ll hazard a guess it was Carlos.”
She shook her head. “Why? What could they possibly want from my place?”
“We don’t know if there was a we involved,” he said. “What we do know, of course, is that a single man went in.”
“Did North see him?”
“He watched as a single male approached the cabin. He kept the dogs in the hollow, out of the way. He didn’t want the dogs to bark and to give away where he was.”
“The dogs are pretty laid back around Carlos. He spent enough time at my place,” she said. “So it’s no wonder they wouldn’t have caused a ruckus. They wouldn’t have if it had been Brianna either.”
Liam nodded. “That’s what we figured.”
“Did North figure out what he was after?”
He shook his head. “North stayed in the copse of trees. But the lights went on all around, including the upstairs.”
“So he was searching for something.”
Liam nodded. “Any idea what?”
“No, not really,” she said. “I had a little bit of money and my documentation, which I intended to put into a safe-deposit box and never got around to it.”
“If you travel a lot, maybe you need the passport?” he guessed.
“Most of my travels have been domestic,” she said. “But that could change at any time. I guess it was just the convenience of knowing I didn’t have to make an extra trip for it.”
“Most of us keep our passports at home,” he said, “unless you don’t travel at all. Then maybe it makes sense. What other documentation did you ask him to pick up?”
“Birth certificates, pictures of my brother, documentation for my father, title of the land, things like that. Most of it could be gotten from copies the lawyer is holding, but, since I’m not talking to the lawyer anymore …”
Liam chuckled. “You were pretty quick to fire him.”
“Yep, as soon as I heard he was trying to pull a fast one,” she said darkly. She glanced at his phone. “Any communication with doctors or lawyers yet?”
“The lawyer should be contacting you directly,” Liam said, his tone easy and comforting. “Still waiting for the business day to start for the doctors.”
She frowned, turned the coffee cup around in her hand as if pondering something.
“What’s bothering you?” he asked.
She snorted. “What’s not bothering me? There’s just so much wrong.”
Just then they heard a series of enduring sniffles and light snorts coming from the bed. Lilianna hopped to her feet and rushed to her father. Liam joined her at the end of the bed.
There was a little more color in her father’s face, a little more life to his movements. Her father rolled to his back and opened his eyes. He gave a sigh as if not happy with what he saw.
“Father?”
Jim turned to look at her. He smiled. “Brianna.”
She stepped forward and, with a misty smile, said, “No, Dad, it’s Lilianna.”
He frowned, searched her gaze, then lay back down on the bed, reaching up to rub his face. “I never could tell you apart.” He looked over at Lilianna, his eyebrows raised.
She shrugged. “You used to be pretty good at it, Dad. You always said there was such a fundamental difference between us that it was pretty easy to tell us apart.”
He frowned at her. “That was before,” he said briskly. “I don’t think it was recent.”
She didn’t argue with him, just patted his hand. “How was your night?”
He looked around, but a confused look was in his eyes. “Fine.” He half sat up on the bed. “Why are you here?”
“You don’t remember us coming last night?” she asked softly.
Her father frowned. He looked from her to Liam, and his frown deepened. “Who are you?”
“A friend of Gunner’s,” Liam said gently but fast enough that he cut off Lilianna’s answer.
Jim’s face eased back. He nodded. “Good man.”
Lil
ianna was overjoyed her father was talking. He was closer to what he’d been months ago.
There was still some confusion, but he was throwing it off rather well. He sat up, tossed back the bedcover and said, “You shouldn’t be here this early. I’m not even dressed.”
“For the last few weeks, maybe longer, Dad, they haven’t bothered dressing you at all.”
He sat and stared at her. “Who is they?”
She sent a worried glance to Liam, and he put an arm around her shoulders.
“You’re still in the same assisted-care home,” Lilianna said quietly. It broke her heart to see the fear and confusion in the man’s eyes as he glanced around.
“How long have I been like this?” he asked. He reached out a hand, but it was trembling.
Liam stepped forward. “Quite a while. You had an argument with a nurse several months back. After that they gave you medication to calm you down and make you easier to get along with.”
He closed his eyes and sat there for a long moment.
Liam asked, his voice low, “Do you want to walk to the bathroom yourself or do you want a hand?”
Lilianna’s father’s eyes opened up. There was still confusion and a lack of trust. But they settled on Liam. “How do you know Gunner?”
“I work for Levi. Logan works with me.”
Her father’s shoulders sagged. He reached up a hand; Liam gently pulled him to his feet and supported him as he walked over to the bathroom. He went into the bathroom and shut the door.
Liam turned to look at Lilianna, seeing the dismay on her face. “You should be happy. He appears to be throwing off the drugs faster than we expected.”
She stared at Liam. “If he’s like this now, would he have been like this the last four months?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know for sure, but I’d say yes.”
She clapped a hand over her mouth. “The difference is night and day. He’s a very willful man. That’s why it was so damn hard to see him go down the way he did. Yet I understood. We lost Keith too,” she said tearfully. “But it was so hard to watch Dad give up like that.”
