by Helen Brenna
“I’d rather he stays with me.” He glanced down at Jason. “If that’s okay.”
“Can I?” Jason grinned.
“You’re sure?” Erica asked.
Garrett nodded. “It’ll be nice to spend some time with him.” He walked out with Erica. “Don’t worry about him. Okay?”
“I won’t.” She took off down the hill.
Garrett went back into his workshop and studied Jason. “So what do you want to do?”
“I dunno.”
“How ’bout we put together a toolbox for you?” Garrett found a small metal box still in good shape that he hadn’t used in years. “Here.” He handed it to Jason. “Now we need to fill it up.”
From his myriad spare tools, he selected a light hammer, screwdrivers, a wrench set and a small measuring tape. Then he put together a box of various nails, bolts and nuts. Odds and ends came next. A carpenter’s pencil, a small square with a level attached.
“There you go.”
Jason had been placing each item into the box, organizing and reorganizing as he went. “Do I get to keep this?” he asked, his eyes round.
“Absolutely. They’re all yours.”
“Thanks, Garrett. Can I make something?”
“How ’bout we make you a box or something to put your game cartridges in?”
“Really?”
“Really.”
Jason grinned again.
Garrett gave him the smallest pair of shop glasses he could find and let him turn on the table saw. After Garrett cut the sides and bottom for a small box, he gave the boy a practice board and showed him how to pound in nails. “Go to it.”
Jason took his hammer out of his toolbox along with a handful of nails and smacked away. “Like this?”
“Get them started before you hit them too hard,” Garrett said, and then demonstrated. “That way you won’t bend them.”
Having Jason with him out in the workshop shed an entirely different light on his work. Teaching the boy was much more fun than he’d expected. Memories flooded in of the time Garrett had spent with his father after he’d come out of prison a different man, calm and peaceful, and full of cancer. Garrett had been more than a little resentful that his mother had forced him to spend so much time helping his father, but now he was thankful for the few short years they’d had together.
“Okay. How’s that?” Jason had managed to pound in several nails straight as an arrow.
“Good job.” Garrett smiled and patted him on the back. “Before you know it, you’ll be making your own furniture.”
Jason, so young and vulnerable, smiled up at him.
Garrett couldn’t imagine ever putting a hand to that sweet face, let alone putting a bruise on that little body. Maybe he was not as much his father’s son as he’d believed all these years. He could never hit a child any more than he could hit a woman. He could be patient and tolerant, loving and forgiving. Maybe Garrett being a father wasn’t such a farfetched idea after all.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
“WHY DIDN’T YOU CONTACT us sooner?”
The room was full of cops. True to his word, Garrett had made a couple of calls and pulled in a few favors to get the main detectives on the Samson case here on Mirabelle. Erica now sat at the table in the conference room in the island’s police station where distrust hung in the air like a cold, heavy vapor, making her skin crawl.
“You knew we were looking for you, right?” said cop one, a guy named Dave. The guy looked mean, no sense of humor.
“I didn’t contact you because I don’t know anything.”
Cop two—Gary something or another—tapped his pen on the table. “Tell us what you do know.”
Erica glanced at Garrett. At first the detectives had insisted on interrogating Erica alone. It was only after Garrett had subtly implied that maybe Erica should get an attorney that they’d allowed his presence.
“Go ahead.” Garrett nodded. “Tell them what you can.”
Erica began with the day she’d gotten Marie’s call.
“Do you still have the message?”
“Yes.” She put her cell phone on the table and shoved it toward the detective.
“Why do you think she left?”
“Why do you think?” she threw back at them.
“Just answer the question.”
“Billy Samson is abusive.”
“What makes you believe that?” Gary asked.
“There were no suspicious doctor visits,” Dave said. “No domestic dispute calls from the house, the neighbors all say everything was fine.”
“He’s a cop. What do you expect?”
“Where do you think she went?”
Erica clamped down on her emotions. “I hope she found someplace safe, but I can’t guess where that would be. She and I hadn’t seen each other much for the last several years.”
“Why is that?”
“She always had reasons why she couldn’t get together, but Billy didn’t like her seeing me. He had her convinced I was a bad influence.”
“Why would he do that?”
“For God’s sake.” Now she was getting mad. “Do you know anything about abusive men?”
“If you really thought he was abusing her why didn’t you do anything?”
“I tried.” Erica looked away.
Was there anything she could have done differently? Should she have orchestrated some kind of intervention? But the truth was that anything short of kidnapping Marie wouldn’t have made any difference. Even then, too many women went back to abusive environments. Her own mother had done it over and over again.
She sat forward in her chair. “I got a question for you guys.”
They didn’t say anything, only looked at her.
“Did you know Marie went to see an attorney about a divorce the week before she disappeared?”
No reaction. She couldn’t tell if they’d already known or not.
“Where did you hear that?”
“An old friend of mine used to be a private investigator. He did some digging around for me.” She pulled the piece of paper out of her pocket with the name of the attorney and flicked it toward them.
“Where’s Jason?”
Erica glanced from one to the other, holding their gazes. “I don’t know.”
In truth, Jason was out fishing with Jim and Noah Bennett. The ex-police chief had gotten wind of the situation and had come to offer Garrett his assistance. It had been Garrett’s idea to keep him somewhere unexpected in case Billy found out about this meeting. The Bennett men had agreed to the plan without asking one question.
“The folks at Jason’s school in Chicago say a woman matching your description picked him up on the day Marie disappeared.”
“He was already gone when I got to the school.”
“So you up and left town for no reason.”
“I needed a vacation. Spur-of-the-moment thing.”
They didn’t believe her and she didn’t care. Both cops glanced at Garrett and Erica hoped like hell that he would keep his word and hold off saying anything until after the meeting. When Garrett’s expression didn’t change, both detectives crossed their arms and sat back in their chairs.
“Didn’t look spur-of-the-moment to us.”
“Almost every stitch of clothing was gone from your apartment. Even the post office was asked to hold your mail.”
She didn’t have any answers for that.
“It’s okay, Erica. If Marie lied to you to get you to help her, we understand. We do a lot for family.”
Erica turned to Garrett. “I never went back to my apartment. I swear. I didn’t go to the post office.” She didn’t care whether or not the other cops believed her, but Garrett was an altogether different story. “I didn’t plan any of this.”
For an instant, a glimmer of doubt darkened his pale eyes, and then he relaxed. “I know you didn’t. So do they.”
The detectives ignored him and focused on her. “The sooner you tell us the tr
uth, Erica, the sooner we can get to finding your sister.”
“I didn’t—”
Garrett put his hand on her shoulder. “What are you guys looking for?”
They glanced at each other and then back at Garrett. “Billy was going to fight for full custody. Apparently, Marie’s a heavy drinker. She’s the one who hit Jason—”
“He’s lying!” Erica shouted.
Garrett squeezed her shoulder. “Have you been able to corroborate anything he’s claimed?”
Neither detective said a word.
“Any of her friends say she drank too much?” Garrett asked the detectives. “Anyone ever see her lose her temper?”
Still nothing.
“Look, I know you guys are good cops,” he said. “I know you’re trying to get to the truth, but you’re barking up the wrong tree. And you know it. This isn’t about an angry mother trying to get custody of her kid.”
“Where’s the boy?”
“I told you I don’t know,” Erica said.
“Erica, we will charge you with kidnapping if you don’t cooperate,” the no-humor cop said.
She glanced at Garrett. He’d promised to protect Jason from Billy, but that was as far as he’d go. “Listen to the voice mail from Marie on my phone,” she said. “And then I’ll tell you everything.”
Reluctantly, they took up Erica’s cell and each, in turn, listened to the message Marie had left for Erica what seemed a lifetime ago.
“Jason’s here with me,” she said when they were finished. “I noticed bruises on his neck and shoulder shortly after I picked him up from the school.”
Garrett nodded. “I saw them, too.”
“You did?” She glanced over at him.
“Right after you got off the ferry. That’s the biggest reason I was suspicious when you first came here.”
Now it made more sense.
“Jason told me his dad had hurt him.” Erica leaned forward. “It wasn’t Marie. It was Billy. She was finally going to leave him because he’d started hurting Jason. Please let him stay on the island with me.”
The two cops said nothing.
“You don’t have enough evidence yet to charge Billy Samson with anything,” Garrett said. “Which means you don’t have enough evidence to put the boy in protective custody.”
“Please.” Erica leaned forward. “If Billy finds out that Jason heard them fighting the morning Marie disappeared, Jason might disappear, too.”
“How do we know the boy is safe?”
“They’re staying with me for protection,” Garrett said. “Since Billy showed up here the other night.”
“One last question,” one of the detectives said. “Who packed all your things?”
“I don’t—”
“There was no sign of forced entry into your apartment.”
How could Billy have gotten into her apartment? How?
Suddenly she knew.
“About a year after Marie got married,” Erica said, remembering. “I gave her a key to my apartment. I was worried about her. I told her any time day or night if she needed to get away to come stay with me. Billy must’ve found it.”
The detectives looked at each other. “Do not leave this island,” one of them said. “You disappear with Jason and we will come after you with everything we’ve got.”
“I won’t be leaving,” she whispered. “And thank you.” She stood and headed for the door.
“Erica?” One of the detectives stood and crossed the room.
She turned.
“We’re doing everything we can to find your sister.” He patted her shoulder.
The other cop stood. “Billy Samson is just one cop. Most of us try to be pretty decent guys.”
She nodded and glanced from one to the other. “I’m starting to understand that.”
Garrett took her hand and led her from the room, but when he glanced back at the two detectives there was something in his expression that set Erica on edge. The moment they stepped outside, she touched his arm. “You know something you’re not telling me.”
He looked away.
“Garrett, please. I need to know everything.”
“A couple months ago, they found traces of your sister’s blood on the workbench in the garage at the Samson house. Billy claimed she cut herself on something.” When he glanced up, she saw only resignation in his eyes. “But then last week, they were dredging a lake in some little town in Indiana for an unrelated drowning. They found Marie’s car. There were traces of blood. Hers.”
Reality sank in and the last ray of hope darkened inside her. “She’s dead, isn’t she?”
“I don’t know.”
“Garrett, don’t lie to me.”
“I don’t know.”
He held her so tightly she couldn’t have pulled away even if she’d wanted to try, but she’d seen the truth in his eyes. He thought Marie was dead.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
BILLY WOULD COME BACK to get Jason. Garrett had explained to Erica in no uncertain terms that although the man was now busy with the cops having turned their sights on him, Billy would be biding his time. When she least expected him, he’d be there.
Still, one day flowed quietly into the next. After the meeting with the Chicago detectives, her plan to leave Mirabelle at the end of the summer had necessarily fallen by the wayside. Before she fully realized it, a week had passed. The busy tourist season was winding down and Jason was talking about how excited he was about going back to school in the fall.
Erica came down the stairs in Garrett’s house one morning, showered, dressed and ready to start the day and found Garrett putting away the clean dishes from the dishwasher and Jason at the counter, eating breakfast. They looked so comfortable together that any stranger looking from the outside in might’ve thought they were father and son and this their normal routine.
The sight was almost painful. They could be a family, the three of them. “Guess who has the entire day off?” she said, trying to lighten her own mood.
Garrett glanced up at her, and her heart nearly stopped. “You and me.”
“And me,” Jason said, with a big grin.
It was good to see him laughing. He’d even announced to her several nights ago that he wanted to sleep by himself in the upstairs guest bedroom. Although it’d left her alone in Garrett’s big bed, she was happy Jason was feeling more settled. She laughed. “Every day is a kid’s day off!”
“Your point would be?” Garrett said, grinning.
“Oh, so now you’re siding with him?”
“You don’t need anyone to take care of you.”
Erica moved by him and whispered, “Maybe I don’t need it as much as I want it.”
He narrowed his eyes and stepped back. “Let’s go sailing.”
“Yeah! Yeah!” Jason cried.
“Sailing? I thought there were supposed to be heavy storms coming.”
“Storms are coming tomorrow. Today it’s going to hit seventy with a light breeze. Sounds like perfect sailing weather to me.”
In the end, Erica couldn’t disappoint Jason, so after preparing a cooler filled with sandwiches, drinks and other munchies, they set off for Setterberg’s rental shop. Garrett paid for an entire day on a small sailboat and came back outside with three life jackets. “Put these on.” He handed one to Jason, held the other one out for Erica, and cocked his head at her. “You look like you don’t want to do this.”
“To be honest…boats kind of scare me.”
“You’re kidding, right?”
“No.”
“City girls.” He shook his head. “Right, Jason?”
“Yeah, city girls.” Jason shook his head.
“Hey! That’s not fair.”
“You’re living on an island. Get used to it.” Garrett pushed her arms through the vest holes, tugged it on her, and zipped it up. “Besides, you’re going to like this.”
“Promise?”
“Yes. I promise.”
T
hey spent the morning sailing around Mirabelle. Erica was surprised by how large the island actually was and how much of it was undeveloped. A large part of the island was undeveloped state land, but there were two houses on the northwest end, an old log cabin with a red-trimmed porch and deck, and a pale yellow Victorian with white gingerbread. Other than the satellite receiver on the roof of the cabin, both looked deserted.
“Does anyone live there?” she asked, pointing to the structures barely visible amidst the thick trees.
“There was an old woman in the yellow house,” Garrett said, leaning back in the boat. “But I heard she moved to a nursing home some time ago. Everyone in town swears the guy who owns the log cabin is crazy, but I’ve never met him.”
Very soon, they lost sight of the houses and continued around the rest of the island. Garrett, who seemed to have mastered the art of sailing even though he’d been a city boy, taught Jason the concepts and safety rules. During the short time they’d been living at Garrett’s, Jason had flourished. The timid, scared boy she’d picked up at school that cold April afternoon so long ago was nearly gone. In his place was a confident and happy camper, and much of the credit had to go to Garrett.
On finding a sandy stretch of beach on state parkland, they landed the boat to picnic and explore. They were sitting on a big blanket finishing lunch, when the absolute perfection of the moment hit her. Sunshine. Waves lapping gently on the sandy shore. Jason happy and content. Garrett, looking sexy as hell and ever so much like a…father.
“Are you all right?” Garrett reached for her hand.
“Just thinking,” she said. “About how someday you’re going to make a wonderful father.”
He held her gaze. “You think?”
“I know.”
As she looked into his eyes, she knew something had to change. The more time Jason spent with Garrett, the harder it would be for him to leave Garrett’s home. Billy had made no move to come back to Mirabelle, so maybe it was time for her and Jason to start thinking about moving back into their own apartment. For Jason’s sake.
And hers. Better she left Garrett before he left her.
GARRETT DREW A SOFT CLOTH down the surface of the natural cherry in one long stroke, feeling the finish, making sure it was ready. Smooth. Even. Perfect. He stood back and critically examined the end result.
