Nicole tightened the belt on her robe and slipped out her front door. She padded on slippered feet toward the police unit. Scents of a still summer night met her nostrils—dust from the dug-up streets, new-mown grass, blooming flowers. Or was that floral scent wafting out the open window of the squad car? She drew close, and a streetlight revealed a pair of silhouettes in the car. One of those profiles was feminine. The man and woman were fully absorbed with one another, heads close. Were they whispering to one another or kissing? Nicole couldn’t quite tell, but one thing was obvious—Terry was entertaining a woman in his car while on duty.
Planting her hands on her hips, Nicole took a few steps closer. “Terry Bender, I’d only half believed the stories about you, but this beats anything. Romancing on the county dime.”
Terry’s head whipped in her direction, and he gaped at her. A feminine chortle of laughter followed, and his lady friend climbed out the passenger side.
Rich’s deputy scowled at Nicole. “You may be cute, but you’re the nosiest female I’ve ever met.”
“Actually, this works out fine,” said the woman.
Nicole looked toward the familiar voice, and her insides froze. She stared down the barrel of a replica of the small Smith & Wesson handgun sitting uselessly in the drawer of her bedside table.
Melody Elling grinned, her teeth an eerie strip of white under the glow from the corner streetlamp. “We were just debating whether my phone call would be the straw that finally made you go away, or if we needed to take more decisive action. Let’s go inside and get your bags. Then we’ll take your car. You’re about to disappear.”
SIXTEEN
Rich finally reached the Keller house forty-five minutes later than he’d intended. What a night! Simon Elling resided in a jail cell, fuming about his lazy lawyer who wouldn’t come down to see about bail until morning and the stupid pet judge who chose tonight to be out of town. Getting Simon to cooperate with the intake process had been like trying to nail gelatin to a tree. At least Rich had had the opportunity to replace his radio, if not his cell phone.
But then after he left the station to take over for Terry, Rich ran across a domestic disturbance. A woman and her two small children had been locked out of their house by an angry boyfriend. Rich had driven past the little group standing forlornly on the sidewalk in their pj’s and stopped to look into the problem. Before he left the neighborhood, the boyfriend was headed for a male friend’s house, and the mother and children were in possession of their home and beds once more. How long before the con-artist of a boyfriend wormed his way back inside? A day or two? People’s choices baffled him sometimes.
Rich brought his vehicle to a stop behind Terry’s unit and got out. Maybe he’d get some peace and quiet now on guard detail. Terry started his car and rolled ahead, but Rich dashed forward and flagged him down. What was the matter with the guy? It was protocol to give a report before taking off. Did the middle-aged Casanova have a hot midnight date waiting for him? Rich approached his deputy’s unit, and Terry rolled down his window a bare inch.
Rich leaned close with a hand on the roof of the car. “All quiet?”
“As a tomb,” Terry answered, staring at the road as if he would love to rabbit out of here.
A tangle of odors registered on Rich’s nostrils. Sweat of a type he’d learned to associate with nervousness, men’s cologne—Terry’s brand—and women’s perfume. Rich had smelled that exotic scent before.
Grunting as if sucker punched, Rich stood up straight. Now he knew who Terry had been seeing on the sly. What else had that pair been cooking up?
Tumblers clicked into place—Melody’s fancy clothes, Terry’s itch to oust Rich as chief, the way the equipment thieves knew where to strike and avoid the police. That is, until Rich pulled that Lone Ranger at the implement dealership. Terry was slow to show up at the scene that morning and arrived reeking of cologne. Had he doused himself with his scent to cover Melody’s…as well as the smell of gasoline? Terry was the best outfielder on the county law-enforcement team. Had Terry’s been the arm that chucked that Molotov at him? Had he and Melody been out here plotting against Nicole? Was she all right? Rich’s insides twisted.
His gaze locked with Terry’s. Awareness passed between them. “Get out of the car!”
Terry’s unit peeled out, burning rubber, and barely missed Rich’s toes. Rich got on the radio to the dispatcher. He had to repeat his order twice, but at last she understood that he was serious about the command to put out an APB on Terry’s vehicle.
Rich keyed off with the station and raced up to the Keller house. The door was unlocked, which didn’t bode well. A quick search of the premises revealed an unmade bed, no packed bags waiting for the morning’s departure and a Bible on the nightstand open to the book of Exodus. Outside, Nicole’s car was missing from the parking pad. Maybe she’d been unable to sleep and headed for the Cities. But that scenario didn’t ring true. Nicole was too conscientious not to let his department know if she was leaving. If she hadn’t gone of her own free will, then the departure was under duress. Deadly duress, if his suspicions had foundation.
By taking the bags, Melody and Terry had hoped to make it look as if Nicole took off of her own volition and thus avoid a search for her for many hours or even days. That plan was down the tubes, but would Rich find Nicole in time to thwart whatever fate they had in mind for her?
Battling waves of panic, he ran for his vehicle. The area law-enforcement officer would be looking for Terry’s squad car by now, but Rich knew where he could go to ask questions about his deputy’s female accomplice—or should he say mastermind. Terry aspired to be a leader—did well with responsibility when someone else got the ideas and gave the orders—but he was a born follower. Rich drove up to the mausoleum on the hill. Hammering on this particular door was getting old, but he kept it up until a light came on and the portal opened.
Hannah, clad in a frilly robe, blinked up at him. A sly smile crept over her face. “Have you finally figured it out?”
“Where’s Melody?”
“Melody?” The woman rocked back on her heels. “That’s not what I meant.” Disappointment etched her tone.
“I don’t have time to question you about the true facts of Samuel’s birth, but I’m nine-tenths sure you were his mother.”
Hannah beamed and clapped her hands. “There’s more. Have you got it yet?”
“Right now, I need to find Melody. I believe she has abducted Nicole Mattson.”
Hannah’s smile crumpled. “Oh, no! They wouldn’t!” Her face paled. “But how could they? You’ve already got Simon locked up. Who else would—”
“Later. If you don’t know Melody’s hideaway, I need to see Fern.”
Hannah shook her head. “Won’t do any good. She took her sleeping pills.”
“I want to see her now.” If he put any more heat into his glare, Hannah might have melted on the spot.
She cowered, and he couldn’t muster sympathy or remorse—not with Nicole’s life on the line. Rich strode after her scurrying figure up the stairs and into a suite with a large sitting area and a pair of side-by-side bedrooms. Hannah led him into the one on the left. She flipped on the lights, but the figure under the covers in the massive bed didn’t stir. Rich shook Fern’s shoulder and yelled in her ear, but the woman rolled over and burrowed deeper under the covers.
Hannah hovered nearby, wringing her hands. “I told you it was no use. You can’t wake her when she’s like this. She sometimes sleepwalks, but then she doesn’t know what she’s saying or doing.”
Rich jabbed a finger toward Hannah. “Be here, ready to talk, when I get back. And Nicole better be fine when I locate her.”
He stalked out of the house. Where could Melody have taken Nicole that would be private and out of the way? A snapshot of Nicole by his side as they left the courthouse with plat maps of Elling property appeared before his mind’s eye. Rich raced to the station and grabbed the maps from his office. Then he went to
the cell block and rousted his prisoner.
“Which one?” He waved the plat drawings at Simon.
The old reprobate flopped back onto his cot uttering specific directions on where Rich could go for eternal warmth.
Frustration feasting on his insides, Rich issued instructions to the dispatcher for all units to continue to watch for Terry’s vehicle while casing the Ellings’ remaining farm holdings. The process could take hours. Elling property was scattered in small chunks all over the county. Rich’s gut said they didn’t have that long to hunt.
He located the most remote farmstead on the maps and put the pedal to the metal. If he was wrong, he’d never know what might have been his if he could have kissed Nicole Mattson’s lips.
“Why didn’t you shoot Rich while you had the chance?” Melody paced back and forth across the wooden barn floor, waving her arms—and the gun that had pointed at Nicole the whole eternal drive out to this isolated farmstead. “People would think whoever grabbed Nicole plugged him. The culprit could be any hothead in town the way my dad has the community stirred up against the Kellers. Nobody would be looking for us.”
“Riiiight!” Terry curled his upper lip. “And forensics could match the slug to my police special.”
Melody stopped and glared at her accomplice. “All you needed to do was bring the body out here. We could have dumped him in the well with Ralph. All the cops would have found at the scene is blood and missing persons. Hah! You could have led the investigation.”
Bound to a post in one of the empty animal pens, Nicole watched with a pounding heart. Ralph Reinert was dead? No doubt the well on this abandoned farmstead was the intended destination for her body, too, with or without Rich as company.
“I’m not a murderer like you are.” Terry crossed his arms and sulked. “I didn’t sign on for people to get killed. Just a little extra money and Rich gone from my job.”
Nicole gazed around. The dusty, cavernous space was filled with small equipment waiting for sale on the black market.
“At least I can think on my feet and do whatever’s necessary.” Melody poked a finger at Terry. “Ralph got what he asked for when he tailed Dad out here and tried to stick his nose in our business. Dad was going to buy him off with a cut, but that bigmouthed busybody would have been the end of the whole operation. I saw what needed to be done and did it, just like always.”
Scratchy old-style baler twine wrapped Nicole’s wrists. She scrubbed it against the rough post and got only slivers for her trouble. Was there anything she could use on these bindings? Nothing presented itself, not even a nail sticking out of the post. At least the feuding couple wasn’t paying any attention to her. Yet.
“We’d better stop grousing,” Terry said, “and decide what we’re going to do now.”
Melody sniffed. “I’m headed for a tropical climate that doesn’t have an extradition treaty with the U.S. You can come along or stay for all I care. I’ve had it with this place and Minnesota winters.” She narrowed her eyes at a lineup of snowmobiles. “Too bad we couldn’t have gotten rid of this shipment. I could use a little more traveling money.”
“You’re just going to leave your dad in the lockup?”
“Ellings know how to take care of themselves. We’re experts at self-preservation.”
“Well, if we’re going to run, we don’t have to kill Nicole.”
Yes! You don’t have to kill me. Nicole might have hugged Terry if she wasn’t tied up. “You might not have to kill her.” Melody turned away from Terry and lifted her gun.
Nicole’s thoughts froze, and her knees turned to jelly. Was she about to join her grandpa, and her dad, and Glen? Would that be so terrible? Maybe not, but what about her grandmother? What about Rich? Longing speared through her. Why had she not seen until this moment how much she craved to see what might grow between them? Never mind that he was a cop. She could live with that…if she lived at all. Nicole strained at her bonds, but the cords bit her wrists without giving way.
Melody stalked toward her. “There’s another thing we Ellings are good at—retribution. Your grandparents killed my brother and destroyed our family financially. Dad made sure Jan Keller doesn’t have a business anymore.”
Nicole blinked as she absorbed the statement. Simon Elling bombed the store. The realization hardly surprised her.
Melody reached a spot only a few feet from Nicole. “Now I’m going to make sure her granddaughter never sees another sunrise.” Loathing flowed in waves from the gleaming gaze above the black maw of the gun. “If that old bat ever wakes up from the coma I put her in, everything she cared about will be gone.”
Nicole gasped. “You hit Grandma? Why were you in the attic? Were you trying to get the yearbook so no one would find out Hannah and my grandfather were high school sweethearts?”
“What are you babbling about?” Lines furrowed Melody’s forehead, and the gun lowered a fraction.
“Didn’t you take the yearbook because it contained a photo of Hannah and Grandpa Frank at the prom?”
“Why would I care about that?” Melody’s arm dipped a little more. “After the cops searched that house, Terry radioed me about some vintage baseball cards in the attic. I took the stupid book because the old biddy hit me with it when I sneaked in to swipe them.” She touched her cheek where a bruise lingered. “I figured the book might have DNA evidence on it.”
Terry let out a growl. “I told you to wait for an opportune time.”
Melody rounded on her partner, gun arm flopping to her side. Nicole’s legs quivered beneath a weight of relief—however temporary.
“What could be more opportune than when the home’s occupants and the police are downtown?” Melody snarled. “You didn’t tell me Jan Keller stayed behind.”
“I didn’t think I needed to—”
“Never mind! We’re wasting precious time.” Melody started to turn toward Nicole, the gun rising. “I want to get this over with and—”
“What if Samuel wasn’t your brother?” Nicole blurted.
“Now you’re spouting nonsense again.” But the woman’s gaze sparked interest.
Nicole launched into a description of everything she and Rich had discovered and the options they’d considered, including the possibility of a Frank/Hannah liaison. Disregarding her fear-parched throat, she talked about herself donating DNA and turning in the handkerchief with Fern’s DNA in order to help discover Samuel’s real parents. Terry drew close, muttering things like “interesting” and “Rich didn’t share that tidbit,” and asking cop-style questions. Nicole appreciated his input. Anything to buy time.
Rich, come find me. But would he figure out where these lowlife’s had taken her?
Melody studied Nicole as if she were a bug under glass. “Fascinating but ridiculous,” she interrupted Nicole’s soliloquy. “Samuel was the precious namesake, all because he got XY chromosomes, and I inherited double X.” Bitterness tainted her words.
“But what if it’s true?” Nicole protested. “What if Fern and Hannah fooled the family? Rich found out they went away together the entire time Fern was supposedly pregnant, and then came back with a baby boy. Hannah could have been the real mother. What if someone in your family discovered the deception? Do you think the child would have been so precious then? Could someone from your household have killed Samuel and staged the kidnapping?”
Melody stood frozen, gnawing on her lower lip. Then she nodded slowly. “Anyone of us would be quite capable of such a thing.” She made the pronouncement as if she was proud of her family’s capacity for evil. “But if one of us collected the ransom, what did they do with it? We’ve been living like paupers for years…until I came up with the scheme to redistribute some of the assets in the area. No, I’m afraid your bid for time is over.” The gun swung up.
“No!” Terry shouted and dived for Melody as Nicole drew her body as far as possible behind the meager shelter of the post.
The Smith & Wesson barked, and something tugged the loos
e sleeve of Nicole’s robe. Melody, with Terry on top of her, hit the floor and wrestled for control of the weapon. The gun skittered loose across the boards. Melody thrashed, screaming curses. The woman was strong. Nicole knew that firsthand from when Melody had popped that quilt over her head in Grandma Jan’s attic and shoved her to the floor.
Terry clawed for the snap on his police special and got it free, but Melody grabbed the gun from his holster. Another shot rang out, and Terry rolled away from Melody. A red stain spread across his chest.
Melody struggled to her feet, panting, lips flattened against white teeth in a skull’s grin. She lifted the larger weapon with two hands and aimed for Nicole. A shot sounded. Nicole waited for pain and darkness to claim her. But Melody cried out and crumpled to the floor.
Gasping air into constricted lungs, Nicole stared toward a shaft of light that had suddenly appeared in the doorway. Had the Lord come for her? No, that was Rich striding into the barn. Nicole’s knees gave way, and she sank as low as her bonds would let her, sobbing.
SEVENTEEN
Rich held Nicole close and trembled almost as badly as she did. The danger was over.
The night was bright with more than the moon and stars. Flashing lights on emergency and law-enforcement vehicles crowded the abandoned farmstead. Personnel ebbed and flowed around them, particularly in and out of the barn and near the covered well. No one asked anything of either of them, and Rich was grateful. Since the crime scene was outside the city limits, the county sheriff had jurisdiction and ran the show.
“You seem to have this habit of saving my life,” Nicole spoke into his shoulder the same words she’d uttered over and over again in the past half hour. “Thank you for finding me.”
Rich caressed her hair. “Losing you was not an option.”
She let out a shaky giggle and lifted her head. “I can’t believe I’m shivering like it’s cold out here or something.”
Jill Elizabeth Nelson Page 17
