by Powers, Jade
Dots swam before Scott’s vision. He lost consciousness before he could put his action into motion.
PEOPLE WHO SET UP HOUSE in the deep woods generally don’t want to be found. Even those lucky folk who can afford fancy Tudor-style homes at the end of a long drive to the middle of nowhere. The gate was open, so Kendra walked to the front porch and rang the doorbell. An older woman whose hair color came from a bottle despite deep wrinkles opened the door with a mouth that looked perpetually turned down from habit.
“I don’t go to church, and I’m not buying what you’re selling,” The woman started to close the door.
“Wait! Please, call the police. I was held captive in the house for sale down the road, and I think the kidnapper will be going back tonight. He doesn’t know I’ve escaped.”
The furrow on her brow didn’t lend itself to helpfulness or charity, but the woman’s mouth softened a little. The woman said, “Stay here. I have a cordless phone. You can call from the porch.”
Kendra lowered herself to the top stair. She could appreciate the red wood of the porch, likely cedar. Everything about the house screamed money, but apparently money didn’t buy happiness because the lady who lived there was the most dour person Kendra had ever met. Handing Kendra the phone, the woman waited near the door.
9-1-1 worked. Kendra was surprised when an operator picked up. When the operator asked for an address, Kendra asked the woman, “Can you give her your address? I only know we’re outside of Orting.”
As the old woman spoke with dispatch, Kendra closed her eyes, her mind wandering. Life had gone sideways. She imagined Drew’s arrest. The police would want her to testify. Her life for the next year would be in turmoil. She dreaded the publicity of the trial. Real estate agent kidnapped. The headlines would be atrocious.
“We’ll wait for the officers here. Thank you.” The woman clicked a button on her phone. With a long-suffering sigh, she asked, “Name’s Circe. Would you like to come in for some coffee?”
“Kendra. That would be nice. Thank you.”
Lifting herself up by the rail, Kendra followed Circe into the house, removing her sneakers at the door. Her nylons were torn and ragged. The house was immaculate. Circe led Kendra to an ornately carved table under a chandelier in a sparkling, open-concept dining room. Kendra could sell this house in a week.
After pouring two cups of coffee, Circe handed Kendra a cup, inviting her to add cream and sugar. Circe asked, “How did you get grabbed?”
Circe poured sugar onto a spoon carefully and precisely as if her careful dedication to perfection erased the uncouth manner of the question.
“I’m a real estate agent. I was called to show a house down the road. My boss’s son was waiting for me,” Kendra said. She took a sip of coffee. It was a fancy blend and smelled like vanilla, although it still tasted like coffee.
“Sounds like a dumb plan to me. Why would you meet someone alone in the middle of nowhere?” Circe lacked the grace Kendra would have expected in a woman living in a house this rich. Her penciled brown eyebrows under nut-brown hair couldn’t hide the crisscross wrinkles that lined up along her cheeks and forehead like soldiers ready to war with life. Kendra had first thought Circe in her sixties, but now that they were under bright light, she reevaluated her estimation to seventies or eighties. Maybe the hair and eye-color did make a difference—under shallow light.
Kendra thought back to the past twenty-four hours. The way Circe put it, yeah, it sounded dumb, but she had spent her life fearless and independent. She said, “I never considered it a possibility. I’m tall and no one has ever messed with me before.”
“Well, someone has now. I suppose you don’t lock your doors at night either.”
“Everyone locks their doors at night,” Kendra said.
“Ha. You’re wrong there. Smaller towns, the ones not connected as suburbs to a metropolitan areas are full of unlocked doors and friendly neighbors. Hard to steal from someone when you know them or one of their friends, I guess. At any rate, I suppose you learned a lesson tonight.” Circe traced the blue rose on her placemat.
A flare of anger rose in Kendra. Why should she have learned a lesson? Should she live a life of paranoia because there were evil people in the world? Kendra set her mug down a little too hard. She said, “I’m not going to cower in fear just because some asshole thinks that he can play god with people’s lives. Guess what? He lost. He should fear me.”
“I’m sure he’s all a flutter,” Circe said dryly.
At that moment the doorbell rang. Kendra was never so glad for an interruption. She couldn’t exactly storm out of Circe’s house. She had nowhere to go, but Circe was the most annoying, uncouth, foul-speaking woman Kendra had ever met. Kendra thought she could be a bitch, but Circe took rudeness to a whole new height.
“That must be the police,” Kendra’s felt a small relief, as if Circe’s house was just one more trap to struggle away from.
“You think?” Circe asked. Her sarcastic reply was something Kendra could see in herself. She determined that she would change her personality and become a nicer, kinder person. She couldn’t imagine growing into an unkind, angry person, cruel to people just because.
Kendra didn’t answer. She followed Circe meekly to the door. Four officers stood on the porch, a light rain misting their hair. Circe didn’t invite them in. She said, “Here she is. You folks have a lovely day.”
Circe handed Kendra her sneakers and half pushed her out on the porch, Kendra’s feet immediately cold as she stepped onto the water logged porch in only her nylons. The door locked and shut behind her. Kendra felt a bit of surprise and then told the officers, “The house where I was held is just down the road. Drew had a gun and a knife, but he left the house for a while. He planned to come back this evening.”
The officers waited while Kendra pulled on her shoes. One of the men said, “Officer Lynton will take you in her car. You can show us the location, and then she will take you back to the station for debriefing.”
“Thank you.”
Officer Lynton was a no non-sense woman with a stocky build and bob cut. It was fascinating riding in the front of a police car. Kendra didn’t know that it was a thing cops did for people once in a while. Maybe out in the middle of nowhere when the victim didn’t have a ride. As they approached the turn-off, Kendra started shivering, shaking so bad she held her hands together to stop them. In a trembling voice, she said, “Down this road.”
“It’s okay. We’re not going there,” Officer Lynton gave the call back to the car following and continued to a turn-off where she pulled over and turned around.
Kendra took deep breaths, trying to calm herself. She was a survivor. She had spent the last hour in a woman’s kitchen drinking coffee with steady hands. She felt like she was going a little crazy.
Turning on the heat, Officer Lynton said, “What you’re going through is normal.”
How would anyone know that? Kendra figured that normal didn’t really play into what happened to her. How many people were tied up in an empty house? She murmured assent. The heat felt good on her arms.
A call came across the radio again like numeral-alphabet soup. Kendra said, “What does all that mean?”
“They’re calling for an ambulance.”
“Not for the officers?” Kendra asked.
“No.” Officer Lynton didn’t give much away. She bit her lip and drove toward town without the lights or siren. They passed the ambulance while still on the main road.
Kendra assumed that Drew had been stupid enough to get into a shoot-out with the police. She didn’t want an ambulance for him. She wanted a hearse. For the rest of her life, she would fear walking through doors because of that man. She would fear the dark.
The police station was a small building in the middle of town. The town was still small, but growing. Kendra spent an additional hour giving her statement. The real surprise came when another officer came in.
“Do you know a man by the name of
Scott Belfore?” he asked.
“We dated for a while. The man who kidnapped me arranged for a woman to loudly accuse Scott of cheating in the fancy restaurant where we were dining. I stopped seeing him. I only found out that Drew had set us up a few days ago.” Kendra sipped from the milky plastic cup of water. The water was warm and the taste tainted by the cup.
“Would Scott have been involved in your kidnapping?”
“No. Drew was alone. Why? Did Scott call you?” Kendra asked.
“We can talk about that later. Why would Scott be at the house?” The officer scribbled in his notebook while Kendra talked. It felt strange. She had never had to deal with the law before in any capacity.
“He worked as a security specialist for a biotech company. If he knew I was missing, I wouldn’t be surprised if he was able to track me down to that house. He’s smart with things like that.” Now Kendra was curious. Why all the questions about Scott?
She answered question after question until she could barely stand it. Finally she said, “Please, just tell me. What happened to Scott?”
“We can’t give out that information. If you know his family, you can call them and ask.”
Tired, sore, and hungry, Kendra was grateful when the questioning finally ended, and even more grateful when one of the officers offered to drive her home. She trudged up the walk, exhausted and numb.
Opening the door, Kendra was greeted by the stench of dog poo and urine. She’d almost stepped on it in the entryway. Poor Millie whined and danced.
“No. You poor thing.” Kendra felt sick at heart. What if she had died in that house? What would have happened to Millie if Drew had kept her two days longer? The dog would have been able to drink out of the toilet once she ran out of water in her dish, but without food, Millie would have starved.
Kendra cleaned up the messes, grateful that Millie only used the entryway for her toilet. After pouring Millie’s food, Kendra mopped the floor until the apartment smelled like pine.
She called Drake. That was how Kendra found out that Scott was in surgery. That was how she found out that Drew was dead. She couldn’t believe the cops questioned her all that time without once mentioning the fact. Wouldn’t they think she would be interested in knowing that little detail? Drake told her that there was nothing she could do that night, to get some sleep and he’d call her in the morning.
Kendra took a shower and changed into a sweater and jeans. She walked Millie around the block. It was one of the shortest walks they had ever taken. Kendra was tired. Millie probably would run all night if Kendra let her. Kendra spent a half hour in the back yard throwing the ball and letting Millie run her energy off. Her heart wasn’t in it, but dog ownership meant taking care of the dog’s needs despite human feelings.
Only then did Kendra go inside. As tired as she felt, sleep came hard. Kendra worried about Scott, worried that his association with her had killed him or severely wounded him. One of the bullets had grazed his spine. Drake’s unspoken concern that Scott might be paralyzed scared Kendra.
A thought hardened in her soul. No matter what happened, she was going to stick by Scott. Her mistrust had nearly ruined any chance at any relationship they might have. Now that he had risked his life to save her, she was going to take him with all of the good and bad that might come with it. For better or for worse. Well, they certainly hadn’t gotten married. This was like a nightmare of a trial run of the promises a wife might make.
Kendra rolled over in bed, scrubbing her eyes. Did she love Scott enough? Did she? Time would tell.
Chapter 13
SCOTT GROANED AND OPENED his eyes. A nurse stood beside the bed checking his vitals. He said, “What happened?”
“What do you remember?” she asked him.
“I was in the woods and someone was shooting at me. Kendra!” Scott lifted his head, trying to pull himself out of bed.
The nurse put a hand on his shoulder. “Don’t try to move. You’ve had surgery. Kendra is fine.”
“She came to visit?” Scott turned his head, looking for her.
“Yes. She’s in the waiting room. If you want to see her, she can come in. You don’t need to be crawling out of bed.”
“Please, I want to see her.” Scott felt like a little boy with his first crush, at odds and uncertain. He didn’t even know what happened to him, only that he was in the hospital.
Kendra’s smile was strained. Deep circles lined her eyes. It was apparent that she hadn’t been taking care of herself. Before he even realized what he was saying, Scott asked, “Are you okay?”
The fake smile opened into a real one. Kendra grabbed the chair at the end of the bed and scooted it up to sit next to him, “You’re the one in the hospital. Are you okay?”
“The nurse had to hold me down when I first opened my eyes. If you were in trouble, nothing would have kept me in this bed,” Scott’s dark eyes roamed Kendra’s face, affectionate and with a deeper protectiveness. Kendra believed him. If he thought Kendra was still in trouble, Scott probably would have checked himself out of the hospital, even if he did it from a wheelchair.
“I’m fine. Just worried about you. Your sister is here.” Kendra took Scott’s hand. She wasn’t sure if it was welcome and searched his face for some invitation, for forgiveness.
Scott gave her a slight nod, as if he could read her thoughts. He squeezed her hand and said, “Let’s start over.”
Kendra wanted to declare her love for Scott, but the first time should come when he was well, when they were in a place of balance. Her eyes said the words for her, “I’d like that.”
“Did you get my message?” Kendra asked.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know how to make you believe me. I understand why you didn’t.”
“I wasted months that we could have been together,” Kendra gripped Scott’s hand like a life line. She said, “No matter what happens, I’m here. And I’m staying.”
THE BODY OF A MISSING woman was found in the woods surrounding the house. Drew would never stand trial, but was himself buried and mostly forgotten. The police never charged Scott, citing his actions as self-defense.
Kendra did stay with Scott, through weeks of physical therapy. Scott regained full use of his legs with Kendra cheering him on. They formed a life together, walking their dogs on rainy afternoons through the park, huddled under an umbrella or eating popcorn and watching movies at home. They expressed their love for one another many times and in many ways.
Many years have passed, but every now and then on a cold and stormy night when a dog howls, Scott will take Kendra’s hand and ask her if she remembers that night on the mountain, the night he fell in love with her.
They kiss. And they are young again.
The End
Author’s Note
THIS CONCLUDES THE Mile High Club series. Although I had ideas for more books in the series, I want to tell a different romance, funny and light-hearted. Sometimes there are so many ideas swirling that it’s hard to figure out which story to choose. All My Passion was originally intended to be a longer book, but at eighty-some pages, it felt finished.
Thank you for reading.
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