by Jodi Thomas
Tannon thanked the man with a handshake and said again that he’d like to see Sheriff Alex McAllen.
“This way.” Gentry began walking toward the back of the building. “But you might want to call her Matheson now—she’s been married a few years to Hank.”
“Right.” Tannon knew about Hank and Alex. The whole town did. For a month, the women at his office talked about the way they got married. With half the town kin planning a big wedding, they ran off to tie the knot. Word was some of Hank’s aunts didn’t speak to him for a year.
Alex stepped to her open door when she saw Tannon and the deputy coming. She offered her hand. “Tannon,” she said with a smile. “Tannon Parker.”
“Alex.” He’d known her since she first ran for sheriff and walked in his office to ask if she could put up a sign. They spoke whenever they saw each other, and she’d worked a few wrecks over the years that his rigs had been involved in. Both had always been professional and friendly enough to be on a first-name basis. He hoped that paid off for him now.
He knew two facts about her that were important: She was honest and she didn’t gossip.
The deputy walked off and Alex invited him in. “How may I be of service?” she asked, knowing that he wasn’t a man who would just drop by to visit.
“I have a favor to ask. A big favor.”
“All right.” Her intelligent eyes studied him. “I’ll do what I can to help.”
Tannon shifted, knowing he was about to tell her something he’d never told anyone. “Fifteen years ago when I was in high school, I found Emily Tomlinson beat up in the parking lot by the stadium. She almost died from a random beating and never returned to school. I don’t think she knows it was me who found her and held her until the ambulance came.”
Alex leaned back in her chair. “I remember looking over that case once. They never found the boys who attacked her. Notes at the time suggested it might have been one of several groups of boys who attended the game and then got drunk in the parking lot. If I remember right, she could give very few details. First she was fighting for her life and later the doctors didn’t think it would be good for her to try to make her relive the attack. The sheriff back then was good, but had his hands full with a murder trial that had been moved to Lubbock, and the deputies left here were running shorthanded.”
Alex paused and took a deep breath. “You didn’t have anything to do with that did you, Tannon? You didn’t see anything that is not in the records?”
“I wasn’t there when it happened, if that’s what you’re thinking, but it was my fault.” Slowly Tannon began to tell her every detail. The end of the big game. The newspaper staff working late. A girl asking him questions and slowing him down when he went for his car. The run across blacktop to stadium parking.
“I remember hearing a few people standing around drinking after the game, but I didn’t see anyone, not even one car I could ID. All I was thinking about at the time was Emily waiting on the front steps of the school a half mile away.”
He was silent for a while before he told of hearing her wild, haunting cry. He’d parked on the last row and he’d found her between other parked cars and an old wire fence. He’d held her until the ambulance arrived, trying to keep her warm, trying to wipe away blood, trying to calm her, but she never heard him. She was beyond listening.
His words were choppy, but he got every detail out, including throwing his letter jacket in the trash on the walk home.
“Your statement wasn’t in the file.” It was more of a statement than a question.
“I didn’t see anything that would help catch the guys, and that night while the EMTs were working on her, they barely noticed me. One of them kept yelling that she had to hang on until they got to the hospital. They didn’t even ask me my name. I was sixteen. She was my best friend. I thought if I didn’t talk about it I wouldn’t think about it, but months passed before I could get the memory out of my head.”
He looked down at his hands thinking about how he should have come forward. Even not knowing anything, maybe he could have helped. But then he’d have to tell some stranger how he’d seen Emily like that all hurt and beaten. Somehow by not talking he thought he’d given her some small amount of privacy. He’d been wrong.
“I thought it might have been you in the ambulance that night when I read the report.” Alex stood and walked to the window.
“What?” He looked up, seeing only her outline against the sunshine.
“The report from one of the groundskeepers at the stadium said a kid found her and yelled for someone to call 911. The man also said he saw the kid holding someone, but he couldn’t tell in the dark if it was a man or woman from where he stood. The groundskeeper couldn’t give us any information about you because he said he didn’t want to get involved with fights in the parking lot. Apparently some drunk minors were doing damage to the locker rooms and the groundskeeper saw that as his territory. At least he took the time to call 911.”
“Why’d you think it was me?”
“I don’t know. I’m a little older than you and Emily, but I remembered your mom and Emily’s mom were always helping out with school dances and parties. I remembered seeing the two of you talking at the parties, and I guess I thought you were friends. In the 911 caller’s statement, he said the kid holding her was crying.”
“I don’t remember that,” Tannon finally answered. “But you’re right, we were friends, we are still.”
“I guessed so. I’ve seen the city council minutes. You’re certainly a friend of the county library.”
He waved his hand as if brushing her comment aside because it wasn’t important here.
She nodded her agreement. “So, Tannon, why are you here fifteen years after the attack, wanting to talk to me?”
“I’m not here to tell you anything. When it happened, I didn’t see Emily again until years later when her parents were killed in a car wreck. I don’t think she even noticed me at the funeral. Both my parents were in the hospital, so I only slipped away for a few minutes that day to make it to the gravesite.” He straightened as if making up his mind. “When the attack on Emily happened, I ran. I tried to block it from my mind as if I could forget it, but that never worked.”
When the sheriff simply waited, he finished, “I’m here to stop running. I’d like you to let me read the file. Every page. Every detail.”
“That’s highly irregular, Tannon. Why would you want to examine something you’ve been trying to put behind you for years?”
“Because Emily matters to me. She’s always mattered to me.”
The sheriff smiled. “You’re falling in love with her.”
“No.” Tannon felt like he was being tortured. “I’ve never been out of love with her, but if I’m going to be the kind of man she needs, I have to know what she went through. I was there holding her. I saw it all that night, but I blocked out what happened afterward. I know she was in the hospital for a long time, that’s all. I’m not sure it wouldn’t break us both for her to have to talk about it, but I need to know and this seems the only other way.”
Alex stood and walked to the file. “I’m probably breaking all kinds of laws, but I’ll leave the file on my desk for a few minutes if you promise you’ll never tell anyone, including Emily, that you saw it.”
“No.” Tannon stood as she pulled the file. “I want you to lock me in a cell for an hour with the file. There will be no running this time. Maybe she’s put this behind her and I need to do the same. If she hasn’t, I’ll need an hour to know the nightmare completely so I’ll know how to help her fight it.”
She looked at him as if trying to understand why he’d ask such a thing. “It haunts you, doesn’t it?”
“Not after today. When I walk out of that cell, what happened in the parking lot will be the past. I don’t think I can move on with the future until I put this to rest.”
“All right. We’ve got a back cell we use for juveniles when we’re waiting for them to be pick
ed up. I’ll lock you in for an hour.” She tucked the file under her arm and walked out of her office.
Tannon followed, knowing he was about to face his demons and praying he was strong enough to walk away leaving them behind.
He stepped into the cell and didn’t turn around when he heard the lock clank closed. After a few minutes, he heard the sheriff tell everyone to go to lunch, that she would man the office for the next hour. If anyone objected, Tannon didn’t hear.
In the silence, he sat down at a steel table and slowly opened Emily’s police file. One by one, he read each account. The EMTs who’d found her. The emergency room nurse. The night watchman at the school who claimed he’d been on break. Finally, Emily’s statement. She hadn’t seen them at first. She only remembered being hit in the head from behind. She thought there were three, maybe four. When her head cleared from the blow, it was too dark where they dragged her to see anything. She saw no faces. One boy was behind her, holding her mouth. Every time she made a sound, his grip tightened until she couldn’t breathe. When she stopped trying to scream, he let go of her mouth and pinned her arms behind her. Another boy started slapping her, daring her to make a sound. When she finally did, he hit her so hard she saw stars. She fell to her knees and she thought she heard a laugh before a foot slammed into the side of her face.
“That will keep her quiet,” a voice said.
Tannon forced himself to keep reading. She told how one was angry and kept calling her names as he hit her while two others pulled on her arms. She kept falling to her knees and they kept jerking her up by her long hair. They held her so she couldn’t get away from the blows until she could no longer stand. She finally stopped struggling and crumbled. When she didn’t move, one started trying to pull off her clothes. When she tried to roll into a ball, they kicked at her and held her arms in the dirt with their boots. Finally, she stopped fighting and they spread her out on the ground.
Tannon stopped. Stood. Walked to the toilet and threw up. He paced the small cell as if it were a cage. He didn’t know if he could read more. Slamming his fist against the concrete wall, he held the roar of anger inside him. He had to face the rest. He had to finish. He had to be as brave as she had been.
By the time the sheriff walked back down the hallway to his cell, he was standing at the bars waiting. The file was folded on the steel table, looking as if it hadn’t been touched.
“Are you ready, Tannon?”
“I’m ready,” he said almost calmly as she unlocked the door.
They walked out side by side into the bay of desks. The sheriff didn’t say a word until they were on the front steps. “Did you find what you were looking for?”
He nodded, not trusting words. He’d found what he’d needed to know, even though the pain of it would never leave. Yet somehow the truth was easier to deal with than not knowing.
They stood for a moment as if neither had any idea what to say. He was glad she didn’t try to make him believe that the case would ever be closed. After fifteen years, there was little chance.
“Tannon,” she finally said, “your hand is bleeding. You might want to head over to the hospital and have it checked.”
He looked down. He hadn’t even noticed that blood slowly dripped off his fingers. “I’ll do that,” he said, and turned to his truck.
He knew the sheriff knew what had happened when he’d been alone in the cell. He’d thank her later for not bothering him with questions. He’d fix his hand and—he almost swore this aloud—he’d fix the pain in his heart. He’d carried an open wound there for far too long.
Chapter 40
FRIDAY EVENING
EMILY WAS SURPRISED WHEN TANNON STORMED INTO THE library at a quarter to seven. Though tall, there was a grace about his movements. He was a man comfortable with his build and he might even be thought of as handsome if he ever smiled. She knew, without asking, that he could probably work on the huge trucks he owned as well as drive them. She wouldn’t have been surprised if he climbed in the saddle from time to time to help load cattle.
“Evening,” he said with a nod. “I thought I’d come early to cover any emergencies.” Tannon glanced at Pamela Sue, then turned back to Emily with raised eyebrows.
She almost giggled. Pamela Sue had wrapped and sprayed her hair in a dozen ringlets with tiny ribbons braided into each. The shiny ribbon was far too stiff to curl into the ringlets, so as her hair relaxed its curl in the humid air, a spiky bristle of ribbons seemed to form.
“Does she get reception from that mess?” Tannon whispered.
Emily motioned for him to follow her to her office before he got them both in trouble.
As soon as they were behind a closed door, Emily laughed even as she scolded. “Now, don’t pick on my volunteer; you already frighten her. She told me so.”
“Me frighten her?” Tannon moved almost nose to nose with Emily and did his best to whisper, but he wasn’t a man in the habit of lowering his voice. “That lady scares me to death. Last time you left me downstairs with her, she told me she knew how to make handcuffs out of yarn.” He pressed against Emily, feeling her laughter against his chest. “I wouldn’t be surprised to find human bones in her basement. Now and then I swear she clicks her needles together just to irritate me.”
“She does not.” Emily smiled up at him, happy to see him relaxed and happy for a change. There was something different in his eyes, almost as if he’d weathered a storm and was enjoying letting his heart slow to normal.
“She does too.” He grinned. “Even asked if I’d try on one of the torture sweaters for size. Until I met her, I never dreamed S&M would have knitting groups.”
Looping her arm over his shoulder, she closed the few inches between them and touched her lips to his. He took her advance without complaint. This was the first time she’d been so bold and she felt great knowing that Tannon would welcome her boldness.
“Be nice while I’m at the meeting,” she whispered, loving the warmth of his mouth barely touching hers. “Try your best not to run her off.”
His hand moved across her back, pulling her gently to him and she knew the knitter on the other side of the door was no longer in his thoughts. “Let me hold you, really hold you for a minute, Emily.” He pressed his lips against her hair and breathed deeply, taking her not only into his lungs but into his heart as well.
“Kiss me again like you just did. That was the best moment of my day.” He could have lowered his mouth to her, but he waited for her.
Standing on her toes, she kissed him again.
She’d meant to give him another light touch, but he wanted more. The kiss turned tender. He had a way of making her feel like kissing him was the most important thing he had to do in his life. He made her feel special, cherished. His strong arms wrapped around her cocooning her in warmth.
When she finally pushed him away, they were both smiling.
“I’ll see you at nine,” she promised. “And I’ll be hungry, so I hope you brought money.”
He put his hand up to block the door as he moved in for one last light kiss against her throat. “I’m hungry right now.”
His mouth had almost reached hers when Emily saw the bandage across his hand and stepped out of his reach. “Tannon, you’re hurt. What happened?”
“Nothing,” he whispered too fast for it to be true. “Just a scrape. Doc said no bones were broken and it wasn’t that many stitches.”
This time it was he who opened the door. “You’d better get up to the meeting. I didn’t mean to make you late.” His words were kind, but he’d lost the gentle smile.
“But—”
“Emily, it’s nothing. I just scraped my hand on a piece of concrete. Stop worrying about me.” His last words sounded more like an order than a request. A hardness had returned. The boss was back, she thought, and the gentle man she’d always loved had been shoved aside.
He was almost pushing her out into the main library. It was time to make a stand. She wanted her Tannon back,
not the cold man everyone thought him to be. “I will not stop. Someone needs to worry about you. When the meeting is over, I want to have a look at that hand and make sure it’s not bleeding.”
She saw anger fire in his eyes and added, “In fact, I plan to check it several times during the night to make sure—”
All the anger melted. “You’re sleeping over again?”
She gave a shrug. She knew she’d made it plain that she didn’t think it was what normal people did who were just friends, but somehow they were shifting. “I think I should, considering your condition,” she answered, not ready to admit the direction they both knew they were heading.
A slow grin spread over his face. “Absolutely.”
She ran up the stairs, suddenly in a hurry for the meeting to be over. Emily had no idea where she was going in this relationship, but she was having more fun than she ever dreamed. Funny how days run on forever the same, and then one day it isn’t the same old day and you’re not sure what moment the world changed, you just know it did. Tannon was slowly becoming more than a friend, and once she’d seen behind the armor, she’d found the boy she’d always cared about inside the man.
All the writers were assembled by the time she made it upstairs.
Peter stood in the center of the alcove, waiting to go first.
The strange alien girl, Lily Anne Loving, was dressed in what looked like her pajamas. Fuzzy slippers completed her outfit. She tapped her fingernails on pages on her lap as if she were listening to a concert.
Zack, wearing what looked like the same clothes he’d worn every meeting, was eating a cookie while he talked to George about all he’d found on the Internet. Apparently ghosts were never serial killers. They might have the first, right here in Harmony.
Emily smiled. All was right with the world, she thought as she took her seat.
Rick Matheson and his silent friend were missing, but Martha Q Patterson came rushing in as though she’d planned an entrance. Her face looked a little puffy, but everyone greeted her warmly and tried not to stare.
