Sidney forced a nervous smile. “Uh huh,” she said gently. “That would be Harlan Brendan.”
Billy stared at her with a look of surprise. “Harlan?”
“Yeah, uh, he came to town yesterday on assignment,” Sidney said with some embarrassment. “He discovered Sam’s taxi in the garage behind the tavern, became suspicious, and followed Sam. If he hadn’t, Trisha and I would be dead right now.”
“Well,” Billy said while raising his brow. “I suppose I should be thankful to see him, but it appears he still has it out for me.”
Sidney shifted uncomfortably. “He’s rather stubborn.”
“That wasn’t the word I was searching for,” Billy muttered then managed a smile. “I’ll let you know what’s happening with Trisha when I return.”
“Thanks, Billy,” she said timidly.
Sidney stood and paced some more once he had left. She wondered what had happened between Harlan and Billy. She couldn’t imagine Harlan simply disliking someone, yet he wouldn’t discuss his problems with Billy or her father. Sidney realized she didn’t know Harlan all that well. He was a man of mystery.
§
It was a little while later when the doors to the emergency room opened, and Harlan wandered out. He saw Sidney and hurried toward her. His right forearm was wrapped in white bandages, but he seemed fine otherwise.
“I spoke with Trisha’s doctor,” he announced while pausing before her. “She should be fine.”
Sidney felt a tremendous weight lift from her then exhaled and closed her eyes. “Oh, thank God,” she gasped softly.
“Her mother’s with her now. The doctor said she was almost in a coma,” Harlan said gently. “It’s a good thing we got her here when we did. They don’t think there’s any damage done that they can tell, but she’ll be here a couple of days for recovery and observation. The drugs are still in her system, so there’s still a potential hazard.”
Sidney nodded understanding, although she remained concerned. “But she’s out of danger, right?”
“Immediate danger, yes,” he replied. “They wouldn’t let me in, but I could see her from the hall. She was still out of it.”
The nurse allowed Sidney to visit with Trisha, but only for a few minutes. Mary remained by her side. Trisha had IV lines in her arms and an oxygen cannula in her nose. She woke periodically, appeared to acknowledge them, and then slipped back to sleep. The nurses chased Sidney from the room after a few minutes. Billy joined her in the hallway near Trisha’s room. He wrapped her wrist as promised then walked with her to the waiting area.
“I’ll see that she’s given the best care,” he said and offered a warm, reassuring smile.
“I really appreciate it, Billy,” Sidney said gently. “How’s your grandmother?”
“She’s upset about what happened with Sam, but Mrs. Cooper is looking after her until I get home.”
They entered the waiting room and saw Sidney’s father talking to Harlan.
Billy stopped and frowned. “I’ll call you later, okay?”
Sidney nodded, accepting their hatred for each other for the time being, and then headed to join her father and Harlan. Her father gathered her in his arms and held her against him. He pulled away after a long moment then looked at her.
“Harlan says Trisha should be okay in a couple of days,” Herb said gently while putting on a brave front. “I’m just so glad none of you were hurt worse.”
“What about Sam?” Sidney asked.
Herb shook his head and gently rubbed her shoulders. “They’re sure he died instantly.”
“Justice be swift,” Sidney remarked lowly.
Her father smirked and pulled her to his side. “I should get you home. Your mother is worried sick,” he said softly then turned to face Harlan. “Care to join us for dinner, Harlan?”
Harlan looked at him with some surprise then smiled. “I’d love to.”
§
They had a friendly conversation over dinner that evening. Harlan and Sidney’s father laughed together for the first time in eight years. Sidney listened to them and wondered what caused them to fight in the first place. Was that incident forgotten or just set aside considering Harlan’s heroics? After dinner, Sidney helped her mother clear the table while her father and Harlan went onto the porch to talk. Sidney wondered what they were discussing, but her father appeared to want to speak to him alone. Sidney handed her mother the dirty dishes to rinse before placing them in the dishwasher. Her curiosity had gotten the better of her.
“Mom, what happened between Harlan and Dad eight years ago?” she asked her mother bluntly.
Sidney’s mother looked at her with some concern then looked back at the dishwasher. She placed the glasses on the top rack and appeared unwilling to discuss it.
“That’s something you should discuss with your father,” she replied.
Sidney laughed lowly. “Yeah, sure.” She handed her mother a plate. “He won’t tell me and neither will Harlan. I think if it’s a question of Harlan’s character, I have a right to know. We’ve been together for twenty-four hours. I don’t like the way you and Dad keep secrets from me.”
“They’re together now,” her mother said simply without looking at her. “Why don’t you go ask them yourself?”
It was obvious her mother knew the answer but wasn’t about to tell.
“I think I’ll do just that,” Sidney announced then handed her mother the last plate and walked through the living room.
She could hear low, harsh voices as she walked onto the porch. Harlan leaned his shoulder against the post with his arms folded across his chest while staring at her father with a harsh look. Her father remained sitting in a nearby chair with an equally scathing look.
“Did I interrupt something?” she asked nervously.
Her father forced a tiny smile. “No, of course not. We were just discussing old times.”
Harlan’s expression didn’t lighten.
“The good ones, I hope,” Sidney remarked lowly and looked at Harlan with some concern.
“I’d like to finish this right now,” Harlan snapped lowly while glaring at Herb then straightened.
Sidney was surprised by his curt tone. When Harlan turned his attention to her, she became concerned.
“Tell your father what happened that day by the well at the stone house,” Harlan snapped with anger.
Sidney stared at him a moment with some surprise then looked at her father. “Harlan took some pictures of the stone house, but the lighting was bad.” She then looked back to Harlan and gave him a puzzled stare.
Harlan shook his head. “No, tell him about the scrapes on your arm and the cut on your cheek.”
Sidney was confused for a few seconds. Her mouth suddenly fell open, and she shot a glare at her father. “I told you what happened. I fell off the well!”
Her father’s expression became stern. “I know what you told me.”
Sidney’s head tilted, and her eyes widened. “Do you mean to tell me you’d believe the gossip of a bunch of old biddies over the word of your own daughter?” She shook her head with anger. “I was fifteen! I can’t believe you’d actually think that Harlan and I were screwing around!”
“It wasn’t just Mrs. Cooper and Mrs. Randall,” her father snapped back. “Persha Palmer told me she overheard you and Trisha talking about some steamy scene by the well.”
Harlan rolled his eyes and turned his back to them while groaning.
Sidney angrily folded her arms across her chest. “I had a crush on an older man. Get a life, Dad. It’s because of you I don’t even date!”
Harlan spun around and glared demandingly at Herb. “Now you’re hearing it from your own daughter,” he snapped irritably. “Doesn’t that tell you something?”
Herb sprang to his feet and pointed a finger at Harlan. “You stay out of this!”
“Bloody hell I will! Not this time,” Harlan snapped with anger in his eyes. “Your daughter was the only friend I had in this
Godforsaken town. Yet you turned a simple friendship into some dirty molestation. Then, as a last resort to keep me away from Sidney, you cast accusations about Emily’s murder, as if I had some fiendish part in it. I don’t have to take it from you, Herb. The only person you’re hurting is Sidney.” Harlan then turned his attention to her. “You know where I’ll be if you need me.”
Sidney watched him leave the porch and walk across the front lawn. She bolted past her father and ran to catch Harlan. She caught his arm and forced him to face her. She pleaded with her eyes.
“You promised you’d help me, Harlan. You can’t just leave me,” Sidney said urgently.
“I’m not leaving you, I’m just going back to my room,” he remarked with hostility. “Thank your mother for dinner. At least she’s decent toward me.”
Sidney stared at him for a long moment. “Wait right here,” she announced. “Promise you won’t leave until I return.”
Harlan groaned softly. “I promise,” he said with a roll of his eyes.
Sidney ran to the house and entered without a word to her father. She hurried upstairs, threw some clothing into her overnight bag, and then ran back outside. Her mother hurried after her while frantically drying her hands on a dishtowel. Sidney stopped to face her father, who’d been standing near the door, apparently waiting for her.
“Like it or not, Dad,” Sidney announced boldly. “I’m staying with Harlan at the motel. I’ve never lied to you before. I’m a grown woman, and I can do whatever I want. Learn to accept it. When you decide to apologize to Harlan for your accusations, I’ll come home.”
Sidney ran off the porch and approached Harlan. He looked at her bag then raised a brow.
“Going somewhere?” Harlan asked.
“He needs to accept my word and respect my wishes,” she remarked simply. “If it makes you uncomfortable, I can get my own room.”
Harlan snorted a humored laugh. “I think I’ll survive a couple of nights.”
Sidney could hear her mother and father arguing as they walked to his car.
Chapter Thirty-three
Sidney lay across the bed on her stomach and flipped through Harlan’s notepad while he sat on the other side of the bed and read the complimentary newspaper provided by the motel. Sidney read Harlan’s notes from their interviews and frowned.
“I don’t understand why Sam would kidnap Trisha,” Sidney remarked simply. “I don’t see how he could possibly be connected to Emily’s murder.”
“I don’t think we’ll ever really know his motivation. He took that secret to the grave with him,” Harlan remarked then glanced at her above the paper. “Perhaps he had another reason for wanting Trisha out of the way.”
“What other reason?” Sidney announced boldly and looked at Harlan. “Mr. Taylor confirmed there was a couple in the back of the cab, and obviously there was someone driving.”
“Obviously.”
“So who was Sam’s accomplice?”
“Rumor had it Sam had been into drugs for years. Maybe that’s the connection,” Harlan said. “Maybe Trisha can supply that information once she’s feeling better.”
“Trisha wasn’t buying drugs from Sam; I can assure you that,” Sidney snapped lowly.
“That might be something you wouldn’t know. You hadn’t even seen Trisha in five years,” he remarked. “How do you know what she was doing?”
“Trust me,” Sidney said firmly. “She’s not into that.” She then looked at Harlan with wide eyes.
“What if Sam had been secretly in love with Emily? They could have been lovers also,” she said and raised a brow. “Don’t you agree?”
“Sam was a little on the old side for Emily, but that’s not to say he couldn’t have been in love with her,” he remarked. “This mysterious typed letter that conveniently vanished must have some relevance on this whole case. Someone sent her a love letter. It wasn’t Alex, and it wasn’t me. It could have been Sam.”
“Or Malcolm,” Sidney chimed in.
Harlan frowned and stared across the room. “Or Persha,” he said dully.
Sidney looked at him and gasped. “That’s right. I can’t rule her out as a potential lover.”
“It’s obvious she had strong feelings for Emily.” He drew a deep breath and tossed the paper aside. “I’d like the opportunity to talk to Mrs. Randall and Mrs. Cooper about Sam,” Harlan said simply and eyed Sidney.
She cringed slightly. “I don’t know if that’s such a good idea. Billy’s usually close behind his grandmother. I’d like to keep some distance between the two of you.”
“I honestly don’t know what you see in him,” Harlan remarked lowly without looking at her.
“I’d like to know what happened between you two that caused such harsh feelings,” Sidney said and rolled onto her right side to study him.
Harlan frowned and shifted uncomfortably on the bed. “I caught him with a girl in a parked car outside Sam’s Tavern. Knowing how indiscreet kids can be, I first passed it off,” he informed her. “When I heard the girl scream, I knew she was in trouble. The girl was trying to get away from him, but he wasn’t letting her go. So I helped him out of the car. We had some words, he swung at me, and I escorted him to the ground. Apparently, the girl never pressed charges, but I’ll never let him forget what I know.”
Sidney stared at him with surprise. “I can’t believe he’d do something like that.”
“Well there’s my word, and there’s his word,” Harlan said simply. “You’ll have to decide whom you want to believe.”
Sidney stared at Harlan a long moment. “I think I’d believe just about anything you told me,” she replied simply then smiled. “I suppose it’s that blind faith. I wouldn’t say I know you much better than I know Billy, but I know Billy had gotten into some trouble when he was younger.” She laughed softly. “Of course, you may also have, but I wouldn’t know much about that.”
“I got into some trouble on occasion, though nothing to warrant an arrest. My mother was strict while I was growing up,” he said simply.
“What about your father?”
Harlan drew a deep breath and shifted uncomfortably. “My father died in Russia. He was in the theater when he met my mother. He defected, they were married, and I was conceived. The government caught him, and he was returned to Russia.”
“Trisha and I discovered Brendan wasn’t your real last name,” Sidney admitted. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I got enough static about being English in this narrow-minded town,” he announced with a chuckle then eyed her. “Had they known I was part Russian, they would have hung me as a spy or something.”
Sidney managed a humored laugh. “Come on, Harlan. The people of this town aren’t that narrow-minded.”
“Try being an outsider,” he remarked bluntly. “I was always ‘that foreign photographer fella’. Your father treated me decent until he thought I was molesting his daughter. You were the only one who was genuinely nice to me.”
“You could have been an alien from another planet, and it wouldn’t have mattered. You were cute and had a nice butt,” she announced then looked back at the notebook. “That’s enough for a teenage girl.”
Harlan continued to smile. “The reason didn’t matter. I was just glad to be accepted. It wasn’t easy making friends around here,” he replied. “When I moved to California, Lyle and I worked for the same newspaper. He invited me to a poker game at his house. I lost one hundred dollars to him. We’ve been friends ever since.” He chuckled and grinned. “Of course, I’ve won all the poker games since then.”
“Trisha really liked Lyle,” Sidney said gently then allowed her thoughts to stray to her friend in the hospital.
“He has that effect on women,” Harlan remarked, catching Sidney’s attention. “He can be very charming.”
Sidney gently cleared her throat. “I suppose we could see Mrs. Cooper tomorrow. We may be able to catch her alone while Mrs. Randall does her volunteer work at the library. We
can avoid Billy, for your sake.”
“You never did answer my question,” Harlan remarked simply and cast a look at her.
Sidney tilted her head and looked at him with some confusion. “What question?”
“Your interest in the good doctor,” he remarked bluntly.
“He’s been helpful,” she replied then casually shrugged. “But there isn’t anything beyond that.”
Harlan raised a skeptical brow. “Judging by what I saw at the bridge, I’d say there was something more.”
Sidney laughed and looked away with some embarrassment. “Oh, that,” she replied and looked back at him with a tiny smile. “Some men are a little more affectionate than others.”
Harlan continued to stare at her with little expression. “Some men only have one thing on their mind too.”
“It’s not like we were really even out on a date,” she stated with some concern to what Harlan might think. “Well, sort of like a date.”
“So he’s interested in you, and you’re leading him on?” Harlan asked while raising a curious brow.
Sidney sat up and stared at Harlan with some surprise. “It’s not that way at all,” she remarked defensively. “I never said I was interested in dating him.”
“You don’t have to,” Harlan replied simply. “Men get their own ideas. I heard him say he’d call you later.”
“That was about Trisha,” Sidney said lowly.
“Are you so sure?”
“Just stop it, Harlan,” she snapped. “I don’t need a lecture from you on how to talk to men.”
“It would seem to me, Billy hasn’t changed much over the past eight years,” Harlan retorted. “You lead him on, and it might be you in that car trying to escape.”
“He’s a doctor. Do you really think he’s going to put his profession on the line for something like that?”
“His profession doesn’t matter. Professionals have committed crimes,” Harlan informed her. “A doctorate doesn’t make a man a saint.”
The Deadliest Institution Collection Page 85
