Deadly Ties

by Vicki Hinze

  “Boy, I wish I knew. She was conscious, but I couldn’t get her to talk to me. She was in a lot of pain, Mark.”

  “Did she say anything at all?”

  “Yeah. Over and over she said, ‘God, don’t let him hurt Lisa. Don’t let her remember.’ ”

  Mark waited for an orderly to roll a gurney down the hallway and get out of earshot. “Remember what?”

  “I have no idea. I asked several times, but Annie didn’t answer. It was like she was in her own little world.”

  “So all we know is her attacker was a man and she doesn’t want Lisa to remember something.”

  “Yeah, that’s it.”

  Mark stared at the blank television screen in the corner. “Her fearing he’d hurt Lisa sounds a lot like Dutch.”

  “I thought the same thing, but she never said his name, so it’s supposition.”

  “Tell me you’re looking for him, Jeff.”

  “I am. He’s not home or at the store. I left word with his employees that Annie had been injured. They’re trying to find him too.”

  “He was supposedly going out of town and his employees didn’t know it?” Odd behavior for a control freak, and Dutch was definitely a control freak.

  “The clerk said he disappears without a word all the time, so they never know when he might drop by. He says it keeps them on their toes. So when I mentioned Georgia, they didn’t think a thing about it.”

  That kind of logic fit the twisted way the man’s mind worked. Dutch owned a string of convenience stores all the way from Georgia down through Florida and across the south to the border between Texas and Mexico, and he did periodically check on each of them.

  “He must be in a dead zone or have the battery out of his phone,” Jeff said. “I’m having no luck tracking his cell. We have no clue where he is right now.”

  Convenient. Mark frowned at a man walking down the hall in a hospital gown, tugging at the back flap. “What about witnesses?” Highway 98 was a major thoroughfare. Someone had to have seen something.

  “My guys are checking, knocking on doors, but so far no one saw a thing.”

  “Maybe we’ll get lucky.” Mark said it, but he didn’t store any faith in it. These days, people just didn’t want to get involved.

  “I’m still trying to figure out why she was on Highway 98 on foot. Her car was in the garage at her home, and it started right up. So why was she walking?”

  That mystery Mark could solve. “Dutch uses markers so she can’t leave the house without his knowledge. He puts them everywhere—on doors, drawers, windows, even on cabinets in the kitchen. If the tires on her car roll an inch on the garage floor, he knows it.”

  “What about phones? We didn’t see a single one in the house. Just empty jacks.”

  “When he leaves, he takes them with him so she can’t call anyone, and he empties her wallet so she can’t call a cab.”

  “Good grief.”

  “She keeps a private money stash, though. She’s always got cab fare.” Mark had made sure of that.

  “I can’t believe she puts up with that and stays with him.” Jeff caught himself. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have said that.”

  “No need to apologize for saying what I’ve been thinking for years.” Mark checked the clock—nearly ten thirty—and then the heavy doors. The harsh light glinted off the metal push plate. “Annie has her reasons.”

  “It’s her life,” Jeff said. “We have to respect her decisions.”

  “Yeah, whether or not we like them.” Ben and Kelly walked into the ICU waiting room. Nora and Clyde came in behind them. Over their shoulders, Mark saw Harvey stop at the nurses’ station. “Listen.” Mark tipped the phone closer to his mouth and dropped his voice. “Keep me posted, and I’ll do the same with you. Remember that my old team is in town. They’ll help in any way they can.” He reeled off Joe’s and Tim’s cell phone numbers.

  “You’re a step behind them. Joe’s already been in touch. They’ve been recruited to work in ways that won’t cost me my badge. With the budget cutbacks, we just don’t have the manpower we need to cast a wide net on finding witnesses.”

  “You’re keeping my security team active at Three Gables, correct?” It wouldn’t surprise Mark to discover Dutch lurking in the woods on the reservation land adjacent to the property, looking for a way to wreck Lisa’s party. He would want to punish Lisa for Annie’s defying him and going over anyway. Hurting Lisa would most hurt Annie.

  Twisted. Sick. Mark had been skeptical of this Georgia trip from the start and so was Jeff, which was why, when Peggy said Annie was coming to the party, Mark and Jeff agreed that since Jeff had the authority to make arrests, he would keep an eye on Annie until she got to Three Gables, and then Mark would take over.

  “If Annie’s condition changes, let me know,” Jeff said. “Should I put a guard on her, or will you be there?”

  “I’ll be here.” After Jane, Mark would never again be anywhere other than exactly where he was supposed to be. He put a bite in his tone. “I’m telling you right now that Dutch Hauk isn’t getting within a mile of her.”

  He’d protect Annie as intensely as Lisa would protect her. He’d been loved as a friend—Jane, the guys did that. But the possibility of being loved as a man. He craved it, and he’d do anything that didn’t dishonor God to get it. He had no pride. Not when it came to earning Lisa’s love. She filled his empty heart. Only Annie really understood that.

  “You might want to get the judge to sign a restraining order to that effect now, because whether or not you have one, Jeff, if he shows up here, I will keep him away from her.”

  “Just don’t kill him, okay?” There was no humor in Jeff’s tone.

  “If it can be avoided, I’ll avoid it. But protecting her is my first priority.”

  Jeff sighed. “I’ll get the paperwork started.”

  Mark hung up. The group of Crossroads Crisis Center friends all started talking at once, rapid-firing questions.

  He answered as best he could. Midsentence, he saw the heavy door leading into the ICU burst open. Lisa ran out, tears streaming down her face, and rushed straight into Mark’s arms.

  Closing them around her, he held her tight, cradling her head in his hand. “It’s okay, honey. Shh, it’s okay.” He led her away from the others so they could speak privately.

  “It’s not okay.” She rocked back, her chin quivering, voice quaking. “Harvey says … I have … to be strong. She … she probably won’t … live through … the night.” A deep sob burst out.

  A lump lodged in Mark’s throat. “Lisa, don’t. No. Don’t think it, and don’t believe it.” He swayed gently with her. “Only God knows, honey. You know that. She’s in His hands.”

  Her eyes red-rimmed, her face damp, Lisa glared up at Mark. “Well, I hope He’s paying closer attention now than He was when she got beaten to a pulp.”

  Mark could have responded to that, but Lisa was hurt and angry and scared. So scared she wasn’t thinking straight, and God made for an easy target. He opened his mouth to say—something. He had no idea what she was ready to hear.

  “Don’t.” She lifted a hand. “Just don’t.” Agony dragged at her mouth, flooded her eyes. “She’s struggled her whole life. She’s lived with that monster, put up with all his abuse, and God’s watched.” Lisa thumped her chest. “He’s allowed me to be banished, stuck without her and my dad.” She sniffed. “I can’t figure out what God’s doing or why He’s letting these awful things happen to us, Mark. Every time I think things can’t get worse for us, they do.”

  She swiped at her face with a soggy tissue. “Mom and I have been crawling on our knees in a dark tunnel our whole lives. Believing but seeing good things happen to everyone else while we’re stuck, forgotten in the dark. Finally—finally—we see the end of the tunnel, and we’re so ready to step into the light, and then this happens.”

  Her frown deepened, turned stony. “So no platitudes. No preaching to me about God’s goodness. He is good and I kn
ow it. I see it all around me—I always have. But that goodness is always for everyone else. Not for me, and certainly not for my mother.”

  Mark understood. He’d lived stuck in the dark tunnel too. Unforgiven by his family about his mom, having to keep secrets during his time as a Shadow Watcher, which wrecked any chance of a relationship with anyone—when you keep things from women, they know it and imagine all kinds of personal infractions when the secrets you hold are professional but you can’t explain.

  “Everything you said is true. I’ve been there too. But we do believe, Lisa. And, okay, we haven’t had the family relationships we wanted, but we’ve had other relationships, and they’ve been good ones.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “Let’s don’t throw the good out with the bad. You’ve had Nora and the folks at the Center. I’ve had my team and for a while Jane. We haven’t been forgotten. That’s all I’m saying.”

  “It just hit me.” She snatched a fresh tissue from a box on a table. “You know what we are, Mark? We’re fumes-of-faith Christians. We go through the motions, trying to hang on. But when you get down to it, we’ve got nothing more than fumes. We get the dirty work, and other Christians get favor and blessings and peace.” She dabbed at her eyes. “Is it so wrong to want favor and peace for us too?”

  He rubbed a little circle on her forearm. “No, it’s not wrong. But we don’t see the big picture. Don’t glare at me like that. It’s true. And I guess that’s where faith really comes in. We can’t see it, so we have to choose to have it or—”

  “I’ve had faith. I want peace. I see it in Kelly and Ben and Peggy, and I want it so badly, at times I can barely breathe. But I’m not feeling it, Mark. Just more of the same—fumes and do for others. I love serving, but I’m so weary of that being all there is I can’t think straight anymore.”

  “Stop it. Now.” He was grateful the others had moved outside the waiting room door to give them even more privacy. Still, he lowered his voice to keep the conversation between them. “You don’t need to think, Lisa. You need to remember.”

  “Remember what?”

  He softened his expression. “For everything we’ve gone through, Annie’s gone through more. Daily, Lisa. And she still believes there’s a reason and purpose for every season. I believe that too. Okay, so maybe we don’t know what it is. Maybe we are Christians going through the motions and hoping for more, living on fumes of faith. But maybe that’s exactly what we’re supposed to be doing right now.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know why. But the Lord does.” Mark squeezed her shoulders. “Listen, if Annie can endure all she does and keep believing, then I can too. One day, all those fumes are going to come together, and then I’ll have what others have. God’s got a plan, and I’m going to trust Him to execute it. Will it be easy? Not for either of us. But we can handle the tough stuff. We’ve trained for it our whole lives.”

  Lisa didn’t shrug his hands off her shoulders, didn’t dispute him or fire back a hot retort. She stilled.

  A long moment later, she swiped at her eyes with the soaked tissue, and her expression mellowed. “Okay. I’ll try. I really will.” She stepped closer, wrapped her arms around his waist, and sank against him.

  “We both will.” He rubbed circles on her back, planted a kiss at her crown, and prayed hard that God would spare Annie and help Lisa through this—whatever in the end this turned out to be.

  Fumes of faith. Like the mustard seed.

  She shuddered, her whole body quaking, then pulled back and looked up at him. “I’ve got to get back in there. Will you be here—?”

  “I’m here for as long as you need me.”

  She swiped her hair back from her face and licked her lips. “I’ve accepted a lot in my life, and I’ve tried to ask only for what I had to have, never for what I’ve wanted. But I want something, and I’m asking you for it.”

  “What do you want?”

  “Find him, Mark.” She lifted her chin. “Find him and make him pay for doing this to my mom. This time, I need justice.”

  Dutch. She didn’t have to say it. No good would come from mentioning Dutch might not be guilty. There would be a time for reason, but this wasn’t it. Not with Lisa facing the news that her mother could die tonight. “Jeff and my team are searching for him.”

  “No, you find him. You’re better than anyone at this.”

  She still had faith in him? Humbling, especially considering he’d just failed to protect her mother. “Joe and the rest of the guys and Jeff and his crew are on it. They’re exceptional. My place is here with you. Dutch will be found. You have my word on it.”

  “Thank you.” She sniffed, pressed a kiss to his cheek, then moved toward the door where everyone stood grouped in the hall. “Thanks for being here, guys.”

  “We’re with you, Lisa,” Kelly said.

  “Whatever we can do.” Ben patted her shoulder.

  “Don’t you give up on Annie, dearie. She’s a fighter.” Nora elbowed Clyde. “Isn’t that right?”

  Clyde flinched and rubbed his ribs. “That’s right.”

  “Absolutely right,” Harvey agreed, keeping his distance from Nora.

  Mel snorted. “She survives the creep, she can survive this. Believe it.”

  “I’ll hold those thoughts.” Lisa’s expression turned tender.

  Mark felt more than saw her love for them all and how much their support meant to her. And they were right: Annie was a fighter. But even the best fighters lose sometimes and can’t defeat death. Through Christ, yes, but not the physical act of dying.

  God would give them the strength to handle whatever came, but Mark hoped it wasn’t borderline unbearable. We’re not perfect, God, but we try to serve. Please, please let this be once when Lisa is served. She’s in spiritual crisis and needs Your mercy and grace. Help her out of that dark tunnel.

  Lisa went back inside the ICU, and the big wooden doors swung closed.

  Mark swallowed hard. God would do whatever He deemed best. And Mark feared that would require he and Lisa to combat Dutch’s worst.

  Mark dialed Joe. “What do you think?”

  “I think I picked a lousy time to try to quit smoking.”

  Keeping one eye on the ICU door, Mark darted a glance at the others. “If Dutch did this …”

  “Of course he did it.” Peggy Crane said what was on all their minds, her chunky jewelry clanging. “He’s the only one who would ever hurt a gentle soul like Annie. What we have to figure out isn’t if but how—and then nail him for it.”

  “That’s right.” Kelly nodded. “The only places Annie goes without him are church, the grocery store, and to have her hair and nails done. Who there would do this to her?”

  “What about brunch at the club with Miranda Kent and the church ladies?” Clyde Parker asked.

  “Where have you been, man?” Nora slid Clyde a sidelong glance. “Dutch Hauk put a stop to those outings years ago.”

  Peggy sniffed. “Making the victim totally dependent on the abuser is common, Clyde. Annie has no typical friends anymore.”

  “Maybe Dutch didn’t do it. This could have been a random attack.” Ben shrugged. “Sorry, Kelly, but it’s true. Your attack was deliberate, and I still believe random attacks are the exception not the rule, but it is possible.”

  “Random doesn’t work for me,” Kelly shot back. “If I were in that hospital bed, it’d be because Karl Masson put me there, not because of some random act.”

  Kelly slid Ben a look Mark totally understood, considering her experience with Masson, NINA, and Gregory Chessman’s goons. Only Masson was still on the loose. Having gone through that and fearing Masson’s return every minute of every day, how could Kelly relate to a vicious personal attack like this being random?

  “Okay, yes, I think Dutch did it,” Ben said. “But until we can prove it, we have to keep an open mind. Otherwise, the person guilty of attacking Annie could go free.”

  “Logical and reas
onable, but I’m with them.” Harvey motioned to Kelly, Peggy, and Nora. “Dutch has been building up to something like this for a long time.” Harvey leaned against the door frame. “It’s way past time he paid the piper. Annie’s been his prisoner for twelve years. So has Lisa. Does anyone here deny it?”

  No one did.

  Mark felt like the rest of them, but his gut warned him there was more going on and Annie’s incident wasn’t as simple and straightforward as it seemed. “Ben’s right. Odds are Dutch did this, but we need hard evidence to prove it or he’ll walk. He’s as slippery as a snake.”

  “As slimy too.” Nora hitched her purse up on her folded arm. “Bless his heart.” Scots but southern woman to the core; they made bluntness an art form. “All the more reason we need irrefutable proof.”

  “Well,” Clyde said, slow and easy, rubbing his arthritic shoulder. “As Christians, we should give the man the benefit of the doubt.”

  Nora smiled sweetly. “The law calls for benefit of doubt, dearie. I’m opting for using the gift God gave me—common sense. Dutch did it, I’m thinking, and that’s the view I’ll be holding until I know I’m wrong. If I’m right and Annie survives, he’ll be back to finish what he started.” Nora pursed her lips. “It’s safest for Annie—and I would remind you she’s not able to protect herself right now and she’s a Christian too.”

  Nora had a point, Mark conceded. “Fair, I suppose, and erring on the side of caution.”

  “Absolutely.” Nora nodded.

  He glanced from person to person, surveying them all. Everyone agreed. Because they were struggling to be fair, he addressed his hunch. “What else is going on here?”

  “I don’t know.” Ben answered first. “But something.” He swung his gaze to Kelly.

  “No idea, but I feel it too.”

  Nora faced Mark. “Karl Masson is still out there, and you can bet he ain’t forgetting a thing.”