Shadows of the Past (Logan Point Book #1): A Novel

by Bradley, Patricia

  He turned as the ambulance pulled out onto the road, the siren piercing the air until the night swallowed the red whirling lights. Nick’s throat tightened. There’d be no one to meet Taylor at the hospital.

  Ben cleared his throat. “Something going on between you two?”

  “I, ah . . .” Nick sucked in a breath. “She’s a special lady.”

  “Yeah,” Ben said softly. “Go with her. I’ll catch you at the ER later.”

  Nick hesitated. He didn’t know if he could walk through those hospital doors and be told Taylor had died.

  But neither could he not go.

  28

  Scott didn’t know what to do. Would Ethan even help him after what happened at their last meeting? He grimaced, remembering the blow he’d landed on Ethan’s jaw because he wouldn’t give him an advance. Another reason he had to quit drinking.

  He breathed a sigh of relief when he crossed into Tennessee. He needed to figure out where he was going. Nick’s house. At least he could sleep there. Fifteen minutes later, he pulled into Nick’s drive and got out. His phone chirped. He let it ring. The front door was locked, and he went to the back. Locked as well. Scott kicked it. “Ow!”

  His phone chirped again just as a light flashed from the next-door neighbor’s yard.

  “Nick, that you?” The question came from the neighbor’s yard.

  Scott hopped in the truck and backed out of the drive. Nosey neighbor. A few minutes later he pulled onto the Bill Morris Parkway. He didn’t know where he was going or what he was going to do . . . maybe he did need to call Ethan. Scott ran his tongue over his dry lips. Maybe Digger was right. Ethan was still his lawyer, and attorneys had to help their clients. He remembered reading that somewhere. Scott punched in Ethan’s number.

  “Trask speaking.”

  “Uh, Ethan? It’s Scott Sinclair. I need a lawyer.”

  Scott’s words seemed to have struck his attorney mute.

  Finally, Ethan spoke. “I’m glad you called.”

  Sirens sounded through the phone. Scott’s gut twisted. “I need to see you.”

  “You’re breaking up. Give me a second to step outside.”

  Scott heard Ethan tell someone he needed to take a call, then the sounds of walking. “Don’t hang up,” Ethan said, his voice low.

  Scott had almost ended the call.

  “Where are you?” Ethan spoke normally now.

  “In Memphis.” Scott had no idea where, then the truck lights caught an exit sign. Hacks Cross Road. That information he’d keep to himself. “Where are you? I need to talk to you.”

  “Right now, I’m standing in the Bradford County Hospital parking lot. Dr. Martin’s been hurt. I’m with her mom while she waits until she can go back and see her daughter.”

  “Is she going to be okay?”

  “The doctors indicate she will be. Scott, do you know what happened to her?”

  “It wasn’t me.”

  “Look, I’m going home right now, and I want you to meet me there. We’ll talk and figure out a strategy. Okay? You know where I live.”

  “Yeah.” Scott rubbed his forehead.

  “Can you be there in half an hour?”

  “If I don’t show up, I’ll see you at your office sometime tomorrow.”

  “But, Scott—”

  Scott hung up. Seconds later the phone vibrated in his hand, and he lowered the window and tossed the phone. That ought to take care of anyone tracing him by the phone. He glanced down at the gas gauge. Less than a quarter of a tank. Had to get gas and something to eat.

  Scott wadded the hamburger wrapper in a ball and stuffed the last of the French fries in his mouth. He needed a plan. And going to Ethan’s house wasn’t it. Too easy for cops to be hiding there.

  No, he needed to ditch Charlie’s truck and catch a MATA bus. He could transfer a few times in case someone followed him, then catch one going downtown and get off a couple of blocks from Ethan’s office so he could stake it out. If cops showed up . . . he’d worry about that when the time came.

  It wasn’t that he didn’t want to talk to the authorities. He just had some questions that needed answering first. Questions only Ethan could answer. Or Digger . . .

  Antiseptic smells burned Taylor’s nose, but antiseptic beat gasoline every time. She tried to get comfortable in the ER bed and winced at the pain in her rib cage. A dry cough racked her throat, and she reached for the cup of water on the stand beside the bed.

  “Here, let me get that,” her mom said.

  Pain shot through her muscles, and she groaned. At least she didn’t have another concussion or a gunshot wound to contend with. The bullet shattered the driver’s side window but missed her. She’d let her guard down, told herself her stalker had lost interest, and it almost cost her life. That wouldn’t happen again.

  She touched the bandage above her right eyebrow where the mirror had sliced her head. She’d never had a cut closed with glue before.

  The door opened and she glanced toward it, hoping for a nurse with pain meds. Nope. Only Nick trying to balance three cups of coffee in his hands. Her heart hitched at the worry lines creasing his brow, then at the dark splotches on his shirt. Her blood.

  Someone had tried to kill her tonight. The reality hit hard. “Thanks,” she said, accepting the cup he held out. She sipped the coffee. Strong. Like the man who brought it.

  “It’s not Starbucks, but the nurse said it was fresh,” he said, handing her mother a coffee. “Which I have my doubts about. But it’s hot. I reminded her you needed something for your ribs.”

  Taylor grimaced over the steam. “Any stronger and it could walk.”

  Her attempt at humor brought a hollow laugh from her mom, who’d returned to her corner chair. She’d said very little since arriving with Ethan while Taylor was in X-ray.

  Mom took one sip of the coffee and dropped it in the wastebasket. “If you can drink that, you don’t need to be in the hospital,” she said and glanced toward the door. “What’s taking the doctor so long to look at your X-rays?”

  “I don’t know, but I wish he’d come on.” Taylor handed Nick the cup and rested her head against the pillow. “Where did you say Ethan went?” she asked.

  “Home. He was sorry he couldn’t stay, but he received a phone call about an important meeting tomorrow. And I called Chase to let him know you’re all right. I don’t know where Jonathan is. He’s not answering his phone.”

  “Where’s Abby?” Taylor asked.

  “Chase took her to spend the night with a friend.” Her mom stood and rubbed her arms. “Taylor, this can’t happen again. Promise me you’ll stop this profiling nonsense.”

  “What?” She stared at her mom.

  “Go back to teaching and stay there. I can’t take this, always worrying that I’ll lose you.” Her mother’s voice broke.

  “I’m sorry, Mom, but it’s who I am.” She spoke to her mother, but her gaze hung on Nick’s face. The grimness around his mouth echoed her mother’s words.

  “Taylor, do you know how hard it was to watch them load you in that ambulance?” Nick rasped the words out.

  Was he asking her to make a choice? The door opened and Taylor jumped.

  “You’re skittish as a street cat,” Ben said as he entered the cubicle. He nodded at Nick. “Glad you’re here.” He pulled a thin book from his pocket and opened it to a bookmarked page. “I knew that poem was familiar. I bought this collection of your short stories last year. You want to tell me why you haven’t mentioned this before?” He held the book up for Nick to read.

  Death unfolds . . . The words on the page cut Nick’s breath off as Taylor snatched the book from Ben’s hand.

  “I’m waiting.” Ben folded his arms across his chest.

  Taylor looked up, her face even more ashen. “You wrote the poem? Did you send it to me as well?”

  His insides cringed at the betrayal stamped on her face, in the slump of her shoulders. He had no one to blame. He’d dug this particular hole
himself, and it kept getting deeper one shovel at a time. “You know I didn’t. The poem is from a short story I wrote years ago. I wanted to tell you the day Scott almost burned my house down. But—”

  The glare she shot him cut off his words. “You knew where the poem came from the first day I met you. You could’ve told me then.”

  Nick opened his mouth and closed it. Oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive. If he’d told the truth and trusted God with the outcome, a lot of things might be different.

  “I know.” He filled his lungs, then exhaled hard. “I was so sure Scott had nothing to do with what happened to you that night. As far as I know, Scott never saw that story, before or after it was published. I convinced myself someone was framing him.”

  “Stop!” Taylor held her hands up. “So you put your brother right next door. That way, he could reach me anytime he wanted to.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  Ben cleared his throat. “You say Scott never saw the poem?”

  “I don’t think so,” Nick said with a shake of his head. “It was in one of the first stories I sold. Scott couldn’t have been more than thirteen, and he wasn’t exactly interested in my writing. When the story was published in this collection a couple of years ago, Scott was heavy into drugs and alcohol, and he’d disappeared.”

  “If you’re right,” Taylor said, “someone’s gone to a lot of trouble to frame your brother. Why?”

  Nick turned to answer Taylor’s question, his heart aching to make things right. “I don’t know. Not sure I even buy that theory since he stole Charlie’s truck. But he told me he was bringing it back.”

  “Yet he didn’t,” Ben said.

  Nick turned from the sheriff’s intense scrutiny. “He’s scared. And I didn’t alleviate his fear. More or less told him I held him responsible.”

  “You don’t believe him?” Taylor sounded skeptical.

  “I don’t know what I believe anymore.”

  A certainty that he couldn’t explain if he tried swept over Nick. Drunk or sober, ten years ago or now, Scott wouldn’t hurt anyone. It simply wasn’t in him.

  “No, I take that back.” He turned first to Ben, then to Taylor. “Regardless of how it looks, my brother didn’t do these things. I’ll help you find him so he can clear his name. But if you’re focusing only on him, you’re giving the real criminal a free pass and an open invitation to try again.”

  Ethan parted his drapes and peered into the darkness. Eleven-thirty. Scott wasn’t coming. He paced the floor in his den, fingering the small vial in his pocket. Enough GHB to take out a horse. Only a horse wasn’t getting it.

  Why did the kid have to decide to get sober now? It wasn’t that he worried that Scott might put two and two together. As an alcoholic, drugged-out kid, no one would pay any attention to his ramblings. But sober? He couldn’t take the chance. Scott could identify Digger. It was only a matter of time before he ran into him in Logan Point. And that would raise too many questions.

  He’d told Digger texting Scott to come to Taylor’s house that night was a mistake. But the fool had insisted they needed someone to take the blame.

  And now Scott had to be taken care of. Why did it always come down to this? He liked the kid, felt sorry for him.

  He stopped pacing in front of the mahogany desk in the corner to pick up the first page of the Sunday paper.

  Wilson.

  Another problem. What did the retired cop know? Or was he just blowing off to the reporter? He’d driven by his house on the way home from the hospital. Wilson hadn’t answered the doorbell, and there was no way to get inside the house the way it was barred up.

  Tomorrow. He would take care of Wilson tomorrow. Tonight, he had Scott to worry about. And Taylor. Always Taylor, ever since she’d started looking for James again.

  But for not much longer.

  29

  Taylor groaned as she turned over in bed and groped for the clock. If the red numbers were to be believed, it was only five-thirty. Outside her window, the first gray steaks of dawn lit the sky. Less than eight hours since she’d rolled the Rav4 and four since the hospital released her. A fact her body knew all too well, especially her ribs. If bruised ribs hurt this bad, she’d hate to break one.

  She closed her eyes and tried to capture another hour of sleep, but nightmarish images flitted through her head. Headlights. Flashes of gunfire. Her window exploding. Taylor flopped on her back and stared at the ceiling.

  Who wanted her dead?

  Trying to figure that out was like putting a five-hundred-piece puzzle together without all the pieces. She punched her pillow and tried to find a comfortable spot. But her mind wouldn’t shut off. She replayed each event as it happened, from the beginning. The first anonymous gift, the candy that arrived in March, a month later the roses and the photos, followed by the poem in her pocket, the attack, then the bracelet, and now the shooting.

  It’d been the black roses that first made her suspect Scott with his Goth attire, and if someone was framing him, what better way? But why?

  Her mind spun with the question.

  Where did Scott fit in the Coleman case? And that was the problem. He didn’t fit anywhere. He was too young and too messed up to plan such an elaborate scheme. One thing was for sure—it took an evil person to play on Ralph Jenkins’s hatred just to send Taylor a message.

  Thinking made her head hurt along with her ribs and muscles. But if she didn’t think about the case, she’d have to think about her feelings for Nick and that he’d written the poem used in the threat. Why hadn’t he told her?

  That was a no-brainer. He loved his brother, believed in him.

  With sleep impossible, she threw back the sheet and sat on the side of the bed, triggering a wave of dizziness and nausea as pain racked her body. The busy day loomed before her like a giant elephant. How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.

  She smiled at Kate’s adage. Her head dictated that the first bite she needed was something for her throbbing ribs. The ER doctor wanted to prescribe a pain tablet, but Taylor had nixed that. She planned to drive today and settled for Tylenol. While she was up, she might as well get dressed. Maybe after a shower, she could focus more than two seconds on the intricacies of the case.

  A little after nine, Taylor gripped the banister as she took the stairs one step at a time. She’d just spent fifteen minutes explaining to Livy what had happened the night before and another fifteen convincing her friend she was all right. But at least Livy volunteered to make the meeting with Wilson. As for examining her case further, there’d not been any time. Maybe she could bounce ideas off Livy.

  Taylor stopped halfway down and took a deep breath. Who would have thought rolling a car would make her so sore. She’d called the rental agency over an hour ago, and hopefully, they’d have a replacement car here before her mother discovered her plan to go out.

  “Where do you think you’re going?”

  Her mom’s voice stopped her at the bottom of the steps. Taylor turned as Mom stepped from her office, carrying several envelopes.

  “Livy and I have an appointment this morning.”

  “You most certainly do not, unless it’s with a doctor.”

  “Mom, I’m not a child. I have work to do.”

  “What if that maniac tries to kill you again?”

  “He won’t. It’s daylight.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Two attacks, both at night. The man’s a coward. He won’t attack me when there’s a possibility he might be seen.”

  “You didn’t hear anything I said last night, did you?”

  “Mom.” Pain shot through her ribs, and she tried not to show it. “I could get killed walking across the street on a sunny afternoon.”

  “I don’t want you to get killed at all.”

  Taylor didn’t want to worry her mom, but . . . She licked her lips and tried to make her words as final as she knew how. “I have to go.”

  “Then I’ll go
with you.”

  Should have seen that one coming. “Nothing’s going to happen to me today. Livy will be with me.”

  “In other words, I’ll be in the way.” Her mom eyed her for a few seconds. “Where did you get this stubbornness?”

  She was not being stubborn. Since last night, priorities had crystallized in her mind, and finding her father had risen to the top. Taylor softened her voice. “I’ll be back in three hours. Then I’ll take it easy the rest of the day. Promise.”

  “If you’re not, I’ll have Ben put out an APB.”

  “I think it’s BOLO now, Mom. Be on the lookout.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  The doorbell rang.

  “That’ll be my car,” Taylor said. She hugged her mom and winced as pain radiated through her chest. “Thanks for worrying about me, but I’ll be all right.”

  “Wait, these came for you Saturday. With the picnic and then everything that happened yesterday, I’ve only just now sorted through the mail.” She handed Taylor several envelopes.

  Taylor glanced at the top envelope and recognized Christine’s bold handwriting. She’d told her friend to forward anything that looked halfway important. The doorbell rang again, and she stuffed the mail in her purse. “I’ll see you in three hours.”

  Nick glanced at the clock on the Logan Point library wall. Nine-thirty. He’d gotten the librarian to let him in when she arrived an hour ago and had been researching articles on James Martin ever since. He squelched an impulse to check on Taylor. She would not appreciate it. He wasn’t sure if she accepted his explanation about the poem, which had come right on the heels of him agreeing with Allison about her job. Right now he was persona non grata, but at least today, Taylor was home, safe.

  Last night when he’d walked through those hospital doors and down the corridor to Taylor’s ER cubicle, morbid thoughts had flowed like the blood from the gash on Taylor’s head. What if she dies? The question kept running through his head. Then to see the dried blood on her face . . . it’d almost been more than he could stand. They had to talk. He couldn’t protect her if she wouldn’t listen to him, if she kept chasing criminals. One of them would get her, almost had last night.