“Val!” she yelled above the whoosh of the wind. A paper fast-food bag blew into the street, tumbling end over end. “Valentine!”
The dog stopped, turned, one ear cocked.
“Come here, girl!” she yelled again.
Val took off for her at a gallop. Laurie crouched down and the dog launched herself into Laurie’s arms, nearly knocking her over. She laughed and felt tears dripping down her face. Or were those raindrops?
“I’ve missed you, too, girl,” she said as she hugged the dog. “How could Kenny let you jump the fence like that?”
The answer came to her as clearly as the black patch on her beloved dog’s head. He wouldn’t. Kenny loved Val too much to leave the dog unattended in the yard if he knew she wasn’t safe.
“What am I gonna do with you?” she asked the dog even though she already knew the answer.
She hurried across the street, Valentine in her arms, barely making it to the porch before the sky opened up, delivering sheets of rain.
“Don’t think for one minute I’m here because of you,” she said after Kenny opened the door and before he could get a word in. “I almost hit Valentine when she dashed in front of my car, and I wanted to let you know she can jump the fence.”
She set Valentine down and the dog barked as though seconding her story.
“Valentine jumped the fence?” The cocky look that had been on Kenny’s face when he greeted her disappeared, replaced by shock. He wasn’t drunk. He wasn’t with another woman. He was a man concerned about his dog.
Valentine took off, and Kenny followed her, catching up to the dog in the family room. Laurie trailed him, anxious to assure herself he’d handle the problem and make sure Valentine never ran into the path of an oncoming car again.
Kenny knelt down, running his hands over the dog’s fur and examining her for injuries.
“Val’s fine,” Laurie said. “But you have to watch her more carefully to make sure she doesn’t get away from you again.”
He turned, his eyes meeting hers, his expression intense. She mentally replayed what she’d just told him. He stood up, his eyes fastened on hers as he advanced. She told herself to retreat but her feet didn’t move.
“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you, Laurie,” he said. “I let you go once, but this time I’m gonna hold on.”
He was within a foot of her when the lights went out, plunging the house into darkness. She felt familiar arms reach for her and tried to steel herself against his touch. She reminded herself he’d started a drunken fight with Mike Donahue over Chrissy Coleman a mere week ago.
But she smelled his clean, male scent instead of alcohol, and she didn’t want to think about the origin of the grudge he still held against Michael.
Then he was kissing her exactly the way she liked to be kissed, and she was kissing him back, telling herself he was no longer hung up on Chrissy Coleman because she desperately wanted it to be true.
The darkness enveloping them made everything seem surreal. Like a dream. As she lost herself in sensation, though, she felt as if she’d finally awakened from her seven-year nightmare.
MICHAEL’S second visit to Quincy Coleman’s house in less than twenty-four hours started the same way as the first, with no one answering the front door.
He took an identical path to the back of the house, acknowledging the differences. The ground was wet from last night’s storm, the hour early enough that most of the neighbors were at Sunday services instead of in their yards and his eyes felt gritty from lack of sleep.
His determination to confront Coleman hadn’t wavered, but his mission was more clear. He’d spent the previous evening alone in Aunt Felicia’s house, lighting candles when the power went out, trying to read when the electricity came back on. But his mind had been on his problem rather than the latest edition of Baseball Digest.
If he’d figured out anything during his nearly sleepless night, it was that Coleman didn’t understand the situation. Michael needed only a few minutes to explain that Coleman’s sabotage of his aunt’s loan had backfired.
If Coleman let the loan go through, Michael would leave town.
As simple as that.
Hell, he’d even promise never to come back if that made any difference.
He wondered if it would make any difference to Sara.
Thrusting her out of his mind, where he couldn’t afford to let her be, he continued to the back of the house. The soles of his shoes made squishing noises in the wet grass.
He climbed the three wet wooden steps that led to the back porch, and stopped, surprised to see the back door ajar. A puddle of water had collected inside the house. The rain had stopped at around ten the night before, with the power being restored an hour or so later. Could Coleman’s door have been open since then?
Michael pushed the door, the hinges squeaking as it slowly opened wide. A mourning dove cooed nearby, but inside the house the silence seemed deathly.
“Mr. Coleman?” Michael raised his voice. “Mr. Coleman, are you home?”
No answer.
His narrow view of the kitchen included a corner of the table and a portion of the counter. A bottle was overturned, amber liquid spilling from it.
Was that whiskey?
He inhaled and caught the scent of alcohol, looked down and spotted broken glass on the floor.
He stepped across the threshold, into the house. He briefly considered that Coleman could rightfully shoot him dead for trespassing, but he didn’t turn back.
Something wasn’t right here.
The smell of alcohol got stronger as he walked deeper into the kitchen. A shattered glass and broken plate were on the floor, along with what looked like the remnants of a hamburger and potato chips. Chairs had been upended and a thin streak of blood stained one wall.
“Mr. Coleman?” Michael called again.
Again, no answer.
Michael circled the counter, expecting to see the older man lying motionless on the floor, but nothing was there except another broken bottle and one more smashed plate.
“Mr. Coleman!” Michael moved swiftly through the house, steeling himself to find an injured—or worse—Quincy Coleman around every corner.
However, the downstairs was deserted. Michael headed upstairs, taking the steps two at a time, calling the other man’s name as he went. He barreled down the hall, checking each bedroom. Every one was empty, the beds neatly made with no indication they’d been slept in the night before.
When he was sure the house was empty, he picked up the phone on a bedside table in what looked to be the master bedroom. The line was dead, not entirely unexpected. Last night’s storm had also knocked out the phone service at his aunt’s house.
He dug in his jeans pocket for his cell phone, clicked it on and waited for a signal. No Service flashed on the screen in red letters. Cursing the fickle nature of his phone’s reception, he hurried down the stairs, out the rear door and into the backyard, his cell phone in hand.
Still no service.
He jogged to the front of the house as a late-model Chevrolet was pulling to the curb. He recognized Jill Coleman instantly when she got out of the car, even though her brown hair was now streaked with gray and she’d lost so much weight her dress hung on her thin figure.
She stopped dead and stood rigidly in the driveway, her face whitening as though she was looking at a ghost. At another time, Michael would tread gently, but with his cell phone still showing no service, he had no time for caution.
“Mrs. Coleman, do you have a cell phone on you?” he asked.
She gaped at him, as though appalled he dared speak to her.
“A cell phone,” he repeated. “Do you have one? We need to call the police.”
“The police!” That yanked her out of her stupor. She dug in the black handbag that matched her high-heeled shoes and produced a phone.
Relieved to see her phone had two bars of service, he pressed in the numbers 911.
“Why are yo
u calling the police?” she asked.
The voice of the dispatcher came over the line, and he held up his index finger, silently asking Mrs. Coleman to wait. “I’d like to report a possible crime. I’m at the Quincy Coleman residence at 89 Oak Street. It looks like there’s been a struggle.”
“A struggle?” Mrs. Coleman choked out while the dispatcher asked if anybody was hurt.
“I’m not sure,” he answered. “The house is empty, but there’s blood on the wall.”
“Blood,” Mrs. Coleman repeated, then went into motion, running awkwardly in the wet grass, her heels sinking into the mud.
“Please stay on the line—” the dispatcher began, but Michael had already clicked off the cell phone.
“Mrs. Coleman!” he yelled, giving chase.
He’d handled this all wrong. He should have calmly explained what he’d seen in the kitchen before dialing the police. A few more minutes wouldn’t have mattered. There was no pressing need for an ambulance when the potential victim was missing.
Ahead of him, Mrs. Coleman was climbing the porch steps and bursting through the back door.
“Quincy!” she called.
Michael followed, catching up to her as she was surveying the chaotic scene in the kitchen. Her face was even whiter than it had been when she’d spotted him. She rushed from the kitchen to the living room, yelling her husband’s name.
“He’s not here, Mrs. Coleman,” Michael said in a gentle voice.
She whirled on him, her manner turning from concerned to suspicious. “How do you know that?”
“I already searched the house,” he said. “Upstairs and downstairs.”
“What right did you have to be in the house?” She advanced on him, her eyes wild, reminding him of the way her husband had looked at him the day before. “What were you doing here?”
He forced himself not to flinch in the face of her rage. “I needed to talk to Mr. Coleman.”
“Like you talked to him yesterday? When he told you to get off his property and never come back?”
He swallowed. Even though the Colemans were separated, he should have anticipated that she’d heard about his run-in with her estranged husband.
“Why did you come back when he told you to stay away?” she demanded. “Where is he?”
A police siren sounded in the distance. Michael’s stomach clenched as it dawned on him that Mrs. Coleman’s tough questions weren’t the only ones he’d face.
“I thought he might be more reasonable this morning than he was yesterday,” he said evenly.
“What right did you have to be in our house?” she demanded again.
The volume of the police siren grew louder until it abruptly switched off. He heard the sound of car doors slamming.
“The back door was open, and I could see the kitchen was a mess,” he explained. “I was afraid Mr. Coleman might be hurt so I came inside.”
Mrs. Coleman’s eyes narrowed as she processed the information. Footsteps pounded on the porch.
“Police!” a gruff, masculine voice yelled.
Mrs. Coleman rushed to the door, beckoning inside a middle-aged cop Michael recognized even with his hair thinning and his waist spreading. His stomach sank. Joe Wojokowski, nicknamed Wojo for short, had been the arresting officer who’d set into motion Michael’s stay in juvenile detention.
“What’s going on here?” Wojo asked sharply.
“I came by after church to see why Quincy wasn’t there and saw him running from the backyard.” Mrs. Coleman pointed her index finger at Michael, her expression accusatory. “He’d been in the house.”
“The phones in the house are dead.” Michael explained as calmly as he could. “I was trying to find a spot where I could get reception on my cell phone to call the police.”
“What did you do to my husband?” Mrs. Coleman suddenly shouted.
“I didn’t do anything to him.” Michael addressed his next comments to Wojo. “I came by to talk to Coleman. The back door was open. I could see something wasn’t right so I came into the house, but he wasn’t here.”
“Don’t believe him! My husband warned him not to trespass.” Mrs. Coleman sounded almost hysterical. “I want him arrested!”
“I had nothing to do with whatever happened here,” Michael insisted, but his words had no effect.
“Arrest him!” Mrs. Coleman told Wojo. “Arrest him and make him tell you what he did to Quincy!”
Wojo walked purposefully toward Michael, producing a pair of handcuffs the way he had years ago when he’d arrested Michael inside the general store. “Put your hands out,” he ordered.
“This is nuts!” Michael cried. “All I did was try to help.”
“This can go easy or this can go hard,” Wojo said. “It’s your call, Donahue.”
Surrendering to the inevitable, Michael placed his hands behind his back. The cold metal circled his wrists and the lock clicked in place while Wojo read him his rights.
“Do I at least get one phone call?” Michael asked.
Wojo gave him a little shove in the back, directing him toward the back door. “Not until we get to the station.”
So much, Michael thought, for not involving Sara in his problems.
THE WHITE-HAIRED MAN ambled to where Sara waited at the front desk of the police station, his short-sleeved dress shirt partially untucked, his tie loosened, dark bags weighing down his eyes.
She briefly met his gaze, then looked away. Normally she’d greet any random stranger but she was too annoyed at being kept waiting to risk getting pulled into an idle conversation with whoever happened to walk into the police station.
“Are you the young lady who wants to see me?” The white-haired man spoke to her, his autocratic manner belying his grandfatherly appearance.
She did a double take, belatedly recognizing that he carried himself with an air of authority. “That depends on whether you’re the police chief.”
“I am. Name’s Alton Jackson.” He bowed his head but didn’t offer his hand. “I usually have Sundays off. That’s why I’m not in uniform.”
“I’m Sara Brenneman, Michael Donahue’s lawyer.” She boldly stated her credentials, even though Michael hadn’t formally hired her and she knew nothing about the alleged crime other than the sketchy details the desk sergeant had provided. “I want him released from custody immediately. As I understand it, there’s no victim. If there’s no victim, there’s no crime. So you had no right to arrest him.”
“Whoa. Who said Donahue was under arrest?”
“He did when he called me. He said he was read his rights and taken to the station in handcuffs.”
“A misunderstanding. You’re right. We’re not positive there was a crime. For all we know, Quincy might have trashed his own kitchen.” The skepticism in his unhurried voice told Sara he clearly didn’t believe that. “Quincy’s car is in his garage but he’s a hiker. It’s possible he had an accident in the woods. We’re getting ready to comb the areas he could have reached on foot.”
“Then why are you holding Michael?”
“Donahue’s free to go as long as he doesn’t leave town,” he said, another clue that he viewed the circumstances of Coleman’s disappearance as suspicious. “Officer Wojokowski and I might have a few more questions for him.”
“More questions?” She picked up on the adjective. “You questioned him without a lawyer present?”
“He was at the scene of what might be a crime. Of course we questioned him,” Chief Jackson said. “For the record, he didn’t object.”
Sara objected, but it was too late to mount a protest. She waited for Chief Jackson to release Michael, wishing he’d listened when she advised him not to talk to the police. Michael eventually walked down the hall toward her, his steps heavy. He sported a day’s growth of beard and droopy eyelids.
If she hadn’t known better, she’d say he looked like a guilty man.
“Thanks for getting me released,” he said when they were outside the statio
n. He shielded his eyes against the sun’s glare.
“It was a bogus arrest,” she said through tight lips. “There’s no proof against you and only circumstantial evidence of a crime.”
“Then why are you ticked off?”
She didn’t respond until they were both inside her car and driving away from the station. “I told you not to let them question you without a lawyer present.”
The police station was located a few miles from the town’s center, not far from the low point of the river where the raft tours ended. Thickly leafed trees lined the twisting road, the sun peeking through in spots to create a dappled effect, but Sara wasn’t in the mood to appreciate the scenery.
“They questioned me before I called you,” he said. “I don’t have anything to hide so I didn’t see the harm in it.”
Sara could have told him the truth wasn’t always an effective defense. She didn’t ask where he wanted to be dropped, instead driving directly to her row house and pulling into the first vacant space along the main street. She set the parking brake. “We have things to talk about.”
Her law office still smelled of paint even though she’d cracked open the windows to air it out. She led him over her splashy area rugs and past the colorful geometric abstracts she’d chosen for the walls to the indoor staircase. She didn’t stop until they were upstairs in her den.
She indicated that he should sit, but she was too keyed up to settle into her sofa. He sat with his legs spread, his forearms resting on his knees.
“I need to know what happened when you got to the Coleman residence and what you told Chief Jackson,” Sara began. “Don’t leave out anything.”
He relayed the story in a monotone voice, starting with his questionable decision to confront Coleman for a second time and the state in which he’d found the kitchen.
“Coleman was drunk yesterday,” she said. “Chief Jackson said he was considering the possibility Coleman did the damage himself, then wandered off. What do you think?”
“I don’t think he believes that,” Michael said. “Not after the questions he asked me.”
That had been Sara’s impression, too. She got Michael to continue with his story, cringing when he related his encounter with Jill Coleman. “That’s not good. She can make it seem like she trapped you into calling the police.”
The Hero’s Sin Page 12
