They were now at the back of the cabin, and Stan led her to an area where some wildflowers were growing in a patch of yellow and red. Were they primrose and yellow pincushions? Kelly had seen some pictures of local flora online, but she wasn’t sure.
What she did feel sure of suddenly was that, whatever they were, these flowers marked a grave.
“You buried Andi there?” As hard as she tried, Kelly couldn’t keep the venom from her tone.
“Well, sure. Isn’t it pretty?”
“It’s disgusting. How could you do that to your wife? The mother of your son?”
“She deserved it,” he said offhandedly, then raised the gun as if preparing to shoot Kelly.
She didn’t want to die, especially not if this demon of a man would get away with killing both Andi and her.
How should she play this?
“Okay, Stan,” she said. “I understand, at least kind of. But now—well, you promised Eli you wouldn’t kill his aunt if he turned over that tablet to Paul. Shouldn’t you check to see what’s going on there?”
“I tried while you were in the john. Not that it really would have mattered. But Paul didn’t answer his phone. I’m not sure what kind of mess I’m going to have to clean up when I get down the hill again, but I need to get back soon and find out. So—” He looked as if he was taking aim.
“Stan, wait. What if I take Eli, and we both move far away from you? I promise we won’t say anything about our suspicions anymore, and that’s all they are—suspicions. I couldn’t prove anything about you then, and I can’t now either.” It was a lie, of course, assuming she could figure out where this cabin was again once she’d left it.
But Stan could also be lying, as usual. Maybe Andi wasn’t buried there after all.
“Wouldn’t you like to not have your son around making allegations against you, showing up with bruises when you hit him to keep him quiet? I can fix that. You can just say that his missing aunt showed up someplace back east, and Eli’s visiting her.”
He seemed to contemplate that, at least for a minute—a minute in which Kelly again surreptitiously studied their surroundings. There were tons of trees that could serve as cover, yes, but if she ran could she get far enough to hide?
Probably not.
So instead, she made herself walk closer to the flower patch, which also meant getting closer to Stan. She knelt to try to appear unthreatening.
“I don’t think—” Stan began, which was when Kelly rose quickly, hurtling herself at him, aiming her shoulder toward him first, then turned away slightly in case he was able to shoot.
“You bitch!” he exclaimed as she succeeded in knocking him over, his gun hand wavering.
Kelly’s mind spun through all the self-defense techniques she had learned. What was going to work for her now?
Stan lay on the ground, waving his gun in her direction. Before he got off a shot, she kicked his arm, but he didn’t drop it.
She kicked again, aiming for his groin, but he had anticipated that and turned over.
She moved away slightly, attempting to figure out her next move. But this time he managed to trip her, and she wound up beside him on the ground, screaming as he grabbed at her throat and aimed the gun at her.
“Drop it, Grodon!” yelled a very familiar, very welcome male voice.
He’d done it somehow. Her hero, Alan, had learned where she was and come to save her.
Only—she was somehow thrust by Stan in front of him as he stood, his arm around her throat, the gun pressed into her side.
“Well, well. Mr. Correy, isn’t it?” Stan said. “Now you’d better be the one to drop it, or I’ll shoot my sister-in-law right here. You two have something going, don’t you? Well, you can watch her die right in front of your eyes.”
* * *
Alan froze. He had stepped out from behind a tree and was aiming his own firearm at Stan Grodon, but there was no way he could get a shot in him without harming Kelly.
He’d take a bullet himself if it would save her—but it wouldn’t. The guy had an inflated ego that probably told him that his political status put him above the law he was supposed to follow and protect.
“Now, Mr. Grodon, we need to figure out a good solution here.” Alan forced himself to sound calm despite the situation—and the fear and pleading on Kelly’s face. “I got here first, but there are policemen on their way from Blue Haven, actual officers of the law, not just private security like me. If they see our situation, they’ll arrest all of us.”
“Let them,” Stan spat. “You two are nobodies, interlopers who’ve come to my town. They’ll arrest you, sure, but they’ll let me go.”
Alan could see the fury now in Kelly’s eyes, but she had the sense to stay quiet and not tell the bastard the truth: that his days of killing, and his days in government, too, were over.
But at the moment, they were truly in a standoff. How could he save Kelly? That was the most important thing.
“Look, Mr. Grodon,” Alan finally said, attempting to sound respectful. “We have a stalemate here, and someone is probably going to get hurt. Here’s my suggestion. Let’s all back off from one another, lay our weapons down, and you can just drive yourself back to town. I’ll make sure Kelly gets back there, too. She and I will turn ourselves in at the police station, and I suggest you do the same till we get all of this straightened out.”
It made little sense even to Alan, but if he could at least convince Grodon to back down...or if nothing else, keep him talking. If he was talking, he wouldn’t be shooting.
“No way!” Stan shouted. “You’ll tell your lies and waste my time and—” His gun hand was moving back and forth, and he still had Kelly right in front of him. There was no way for Alan to get a clean shot in.
And if this guy was a good shot, Alan was likely to get hit, maybe die.
But suddenly, Kelly stomped on Stan’s foot at the same time she grabbed his gun hand, moving downward as she dropped to the ground.
“You bitch!” Stan screamed as he attempted to regain control of his gun—but lovely, smart, brave Kelly had hold of his arm and didn’t let go.
It gave Alan the opportunity he had been waiting for. He sped over, his own gun aimed at the now vulnerable Stan, and stomped on the councilman’s hand till he dropped his gun.
It was over.
Chapter 23
Once a furious Stan was in the custody of the local police, Kelly threw herself into Alan’s welcoming arms, right there outside the tree-shrouded cabin—and near what was apparently her sister’s grave.
But before she could thank him, she had to ask about her nephew. “How’s Eli?” She stepped back and stared beseechingly into Alan’s compassionate brown eyes. “Did Stan force Paul to do something to him? Stan promised Eli he wouldn’t hurt me as long as Andi’s tablet was turned over to Paul, but I made it clear to Eli that he wasn’t to do that. Especially because, even if he did turn it over, I didn’t trust Paul—or Stan—not to hurt him anyway.”
She watched Alan’s expression morph immediately into a grin that made her melt with relief, even before his words came. “Your nephew is a hero, Kelly. I’ll tell you all about it later. But he’s just fine...and he’s the reason I’m here.”
Kelly knew her quick bark of laughter must sound hysterical. “He’s the reason I’m here, too—in Blue Haven. I came to save him, but it sounds like he was the one to save me.”
* * *
Alan wanted to get Kelly out of here, back down the hill and away from this place where her emotions must be strung out to the maximum.
He’d heard enough to hear Stan admit to having killed his wife Andi here, with an absurd claim of self-defense. He’d admitted burying her, too, ironically decorating her grave with attractive flowers.
He had apparently intended to do the same with Kelly.
Alan didn’t want her here while that area was searched—and Andi’s remains possibly dug up. But after a yelling Stan had been taken into custody, still scr
eaming threats at the two of them, the local police had called in their crime scene investigation team, and Alan had needed to be present for that.
His job here for the ID Division was to ensure that there was adequate evidence to convict Stan Grodon for at least some of his felonies. Now Kelly/Shereen had firsthand knowledge, and she would be able to testify about what had happened here today, to her.
But kidnapping and assault were petty offenses compared with first-degree homicide, and even though Alan himself had heard some of Stan’s confession, he wanted to see what evidence was uncovered related to Stan’s murder of his wife.
Sure, Stan would raise his self-defense claim at trial. But given what was contained on Andi’s tablet, that was likely to go nowhere.
Alan could probably have sent Kelly down the hill with some of the cops. They’d already obtained her promise to stop in at the station later so they could officially question her and get her statement.
But he didn’t want to let her out of his sight.
Eventually an appropriate group from the investigation team arrived with their lighting and equipment to dig up the area, and to film and document every move.
“You don’t want to be here for this,” Alan said to Kelly. “Let’s go into the cabin, at least.”
“But you need to be here to see what they unearth. And I—as much as I don’t want to view the...the remains that I think are there, I need closure, so I’ll stay here, too.”
It took a while since the team members had to act slowly and carefully, documenting and filming every move. It was probably the way they always conducted things. But Alan figured it was especially important to do things right when they were attempting to find evidence to ultimately convict a town leader of murder.
But it took only ten minutes or so, while he stood near the cabin holding Kelly tightly to him as they both watched the activity. Suddenly, one of the team members dressed in sanitary clothes, boots and gloves called out, “Here!” He and the others gathered around the spot he had been working at.
Kelly trembled in Alan’s arms. “What did they find?” she whispered.
“We’ll find out soon.”
The examiners brushed dirt away as they spoke in voices that were too low for Alan to hear. But a short time later, the same guy who’d made the first discovery stood up and approached them.
His face was solemn and sympathetic as he held something out to Kelly—a necklace, with an ornate silver locket dangling from it. “Ms. Alsop,” he said, for everyone had been told the basics of who she was and why Kelly—formerly Shereen Alsop—was here, “does this look familiar?”
Kelly gasped, and tears ran down her cheeks. “It looks like a necklace that belongs to my missing sister, Andi. I know I can’t touch it, but can you open it?”
The man did so cautiously with his gloved hands, clearly careful not to cover over any fingerprints that might be there, although the uneven surface might be difficult to lift prints from anyway.
Kelly swallowed hard as she looked at the photos inside the locket. One was a baby picture. The other was clearly a younger Eli Grodon. “Yes, it’s my sister’s. Those pictures are my nephew. Then—” She bit her lips as she looked past the clearly sympathetic man. “Are there...are there remains of someone there?”
“Yes, Ms. Alsop. I’m sorry to say that there are.”
* * *
They left for town shortly after that. In a way, Alan wished he didn’t have to drive, since he would have liked to keep holding Kelly—he would probably always think of her as Kelly, even though she could now go by her actual name again—as she cried softly. At the moment, she sat in the passenger’s seat beside him, her gaze lowered to her lap.
He didn’t talk to her, not now. Trying to be cheerful might only make her feel worse, and continuing to vocalize his sympathy for what she was going through didn’t sound much better.
But partway down the mountain Kelly said, “You have hands-free phone service in this car, don’t you?”
“Yes,” Alan said.
He saw her sit up straighter as she looked toward him as the daylight now waned. “Then let’s call Judge Treena. I’ve wanted to talk to her before this and apologize and explain, but I didn’t do it—even though I’m sure she knew just where I was and why. Right?”
“I think so,” Alan agreed. He didn’t want to get into what he’d done to further the judge’s knowledge—nor to keep her at bay, at least at first.
“It’s time, then.”
“Good idea.” And it was—now that things were over, and Kelly had, in fact, helped to come up with the evidence that would hopefully convict the man who had been her torturer and her sister’s murderer, the reason she had needed help from the ID Division in the first place.
Alan quickly performed the technological steps necessary to call Judge Treena on his car’s phone system.
“Hello, Alan.” The judge’s droll voice soon reverberated through the vehicle. She had obviously seen his number on her caller ID. “Have you finally gotten our subject to go back to the life we created for her?”
Alan opened his mouth to respond, but Kelly beat him to it. “That’s not necessary any longer, Your Honor. I’m calling to finally apologize for running off the way I did, but also so we can tell you that we are hopefully well on our way to reaching the right conclusion of this entire situation.”
For the rest of the ride, and even for a while after Alan had parked in the police department’s lot, they discussed with Judge Treena what had happened.
“I still need to give my statement,” Kelly finally said, looking at Alan in the glow from the light above them in the parking lot. He nodded. “Alan was kind enough to drive me to the police station, so I’d better go inside. But Judge, I can’t thank you enough for all you did for me, providing me with the new identity and sending Alan here to find the evidence needed to bring my brother-in-law down.”
“I’ll bet you feel pretty proud of yourself that you got to help in that assignment, don’t you?”
Was that amusement in Judge Treena’s tone? Alan felt sure of it and smiled toward the steering wheel, instead of Kelly.
“Yes, Your Honor,” Kelly said. “But I’d be really happy no matter who or what resulted in the evidence against Stan.”
“We’ll talk more later,” the judge said. “For now, you’re off the hook. But if you had just run away without this kind of conclusion, it would be a different story.”
“I understand.”
They ended the connection then, and Alan went inside with Kelly.
The moment she entered, she was struck full-on by a hurtling body—her nephew’s. Eli was here.
“Aunt Shereen, you’re all right!” He backed off just a little, smiled at her, then grabbed her close again. He looked at Alan then and said, “The police said I should come here instead of to my school. I hope that’s okay.”
“It’s fine,” Alan said.
“I’m so glad you’re okay, Eli,” Kelly said softly against his hair. “I want to hear all about what happened to you and how you were able to keep Paul Tirths from hurting you. Mr. Correy said you were able to lock him under the steps. And...well, we have a lot to talk about.” She aimed her gaze toward Alan. It was sad, and he knew she was thinking about her sister, Eli’s mom.
Eli stepped back. “I think... I think my dad is going to prison,” he said unevenly. “He did some bad stuff but—”
“But, yes, he is your dad,” Kelly said. “I understand how that must hurt you. One thing you can be sure of, though, is that now that you and I are together, nothing will tear us apart again. I’m going to be there for you from now on, no matter what happens to either of us.”
That statement made Alan smile, even as it made him want to walk away now to give them privacy.
He had realized, when he was up on the mountain believing that Kelly/Shereen was about to be murdered, that his attraction to her was a whole lot more than what he had thought it was.
H
e had fallen in love with her.
Now she would be with her nephew forever. That was fine. But where would that be? What would she do now?
Alan had to return to the DC area to get his next assignment from the ID Division.
Would he ever see Kelly again?
And would she care if he didn’t?
* * *
A week had passed since that horrible day when Kelly had thought Stan would murder her and torture his son with the knowledge and guilt—or worse.
She was still working at the Haven, acting as if nothing had happened—although the entire town knew about it. So did the world, it seemed. The local newspaper and TV station hadn’t been the only media to get a hold of the story.
Kelly still wore her skimpy uniform—but she was glad that Stan wouldn’t be around to pinch her or leer at her. She was even more glad that it appeared that justice for Andi would finally be accomplished.
But she still hadn’t decided what would come next for her and Eli.
“Hey, Kelly. Or Shereen.” It was one of the six customers who’d just sat down at this busy noon hour at one of her tables, a business guy in a suit. “Tell us about who you are. And what’s going on with Councilman Grodon?” The man looked up at her expectantly, as did his similarly clad cohorts seated with him.
“Sorry,” she said with a weak smile. “I appreciate your interest, but I have to work right now.”
Which was an excellent excuse.
Nearly all the café’s patrons asked for her to be their server and plied her with questions, whether or not she helped at their tables.
Still, at the moment, this job was one of the only things connecting her to reality. The Haven, and Eli.
And Alan? Oh, he had been there for her for the first couple of days after Stan’s arrest, but then he’d said that Judge Treena had called him back to DC.
For his next assignment?
They’d stayed in touch by phone calls and texting, but Alan had said nothing, done nothing, to allow her to think they had any kind of a future together.
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