by Barb Han
He stood up and grabbed the broom leaning against the back door. The perp could have used it to break the window. He reminded himself to tell Prudence not to leave anything outside that could be used as a weapon. Folks forgot about things like brooms, ladders, and gardening tools. All of which could be used to smash a window without the perp getting so much as a nick.
After sweeping up as many of the big chunks as he could, he located a paper bag to use as a dustpan. He folded it over and swept up as much of the debris as he could. One thing that stood out about growing up a Firebrand was that each one knew how to be self-sufficient.
Had Adam developed a habit of depending on himself? To the extent he’d stopped letting others in?
Libby had told him she couldn’t envision living her life on the ranch, waiting around for him to come home every day, no matter how much she loved him. And she’d used the word, loved. His heart had been wrecked and his judgment clearly had gone down with it when she showed up at his door, her cheeks stained with tears.
She’d told him how much she missed him and wished things could be different.
Still nursing a bruised ego, he’d taken her by the hand and led her inside. They didn’t make it two steps in the door before her raincoat tumbled onto the floor and she stood there wearing nothing but a silk bra and panties.
Those details were etched into his mind, but the timing… The days ran together that time of year on a cattle ranch. He could rack his brain all day and still come up empty.
He walked over to the kitchen sink and wet a half dozen paper towels, a trick his mother had taught him to get all the shards. Growing up the oldest in a house of nine boys meant plenty of broken glass, be it someone dropping their drink or a ball through a window.
His childhood had been a good one despite all the fights that came with too much testosterone under one roof. Don’t even get him started on the conflict that came with nine cousins, also boys, living on the same property.
Adam had claimed the fishing cabin for himself the day he’d turned eighteen, and there’d been no objections to him moving in on the last day of high school. His mother’s only requirement was that he graduated. Sitting in a classroom for another four years sounded about as appealing as peeling wallpaper off walls with his thumbs, so he’d forgone the athletic scholarship waiting for him in favor of going straight into the family business. He’d taken two years’ worth of online classes, enough to get an associate’s degree in business.
“I’ll take these samples in. It’ll be anywhere from two to five days before I get the results from the lab,” Lawler said.
This was going to be the longest few days of Adam’s life.
“There any way to speed up the process?” Adam figured it was worth a shot to ask.
“I’m afraid not. I’ll be calling in a favor to make a play, but I can’t guarantee anything. I have no idea how backed up the lab is,” Lawler explained.
“I’d appreciate a call the minute results come in,” Adam said mostly for his own benefit. Lawler would call.
He nodded his reassurance.
“My deputy is filling out the report on the break-in here,” he said. “I have a few phone calls to make and a full inbox to attend to back at my office. I haven’t been there at all since yesterday morning.”
“Thank you for everything you’re doing on the investigation,” Adam said. Part of him wanted to ask to see Libby, to confirm with his own eyes she was gone. “How are Libby’s parents taking the news?”
“They’re shocked, of course,” he admitted. “Said they hadn’t seen her much since she moved to Austin. Needless to say, they weren’t able to help much in the investigation. They couldn’t say for sure who she’d been hanging around, who her friends were. She stopped posting on her social media page months ago.”
“Could she have gotten herself in some type of trouble?” he asked.
“Time will tell,” Lawler supplied. “When the two of you were together, did you get the impression she was mixed up with anything that might get her in a bad position?”
“No,” he admitted. “But then, I didn’t see her walking out on me when I asked her to be my wife either.”
He’d misjudged the situation, thinking she was as happy as he’d been. Funny thing about it, though. Now that he’d spent time with Prudence, he didn’t hold his relationship with Libby in as high a regard. Prudence was changing the kind of attraction he should feel with the person he wanted to spend his life with. Not that he was saying Prudence was the one. That ship had sailed when his chest had been split in two.
But if he was going to go head down that road again, it would be for someone like her.
The revelation caught him off guard. He chalked it up to his overwrought emotions over the Marshall dying coupled with the news he might be a father. A father, he repeated, trying it on for size.
He couldn’t say it fit, but he would want a sweet girl like Angel if it was forced on him. An annoying little voice in the back of his head pointed out that he’d been natural with her so far. Was there an invisible bond between father and daughter?
Adam decided he wouldn’t get too far ahead of himself. The paternity news could come out different. The chances Libby had gotten pregnant after having sex one time while using contraception had to be damn small. Except wasn’t that how it always seemed to work out? When folks weren’t trying or when it was the worst possible timing?
Rather than put too much emphasis on the thought, he tossed the paper bag remnant that was still in his hand. As he opened the trash, he saw something that caused his heart to thump wildly against his ribcage. A handwritten note with familiar writing.
Lawler extended his hand before leaving.
“Hold on a second, Sheriff. There’s something in here you should take a look at,” he said.
“Is it safe in here?” Prudence stood at the entrance to the kitchen with the baby in her arms.
Adam couldn’t but think her question was loaded with the discovery. With his thumb and forefinger, he plucked the grocery list out of the trash. He shook the glass off before holding it up in the air.
“Is this yours?” he asked her.
Lawler’s eyes widened as he got a close-up of the writing. He cleared his throat and took a step back, turning his full attention toward Prudence.
“What?” she asked, walking over to examine the specimen for herself. Her lips pursed together and a wrinkle creased her forehead. “That looks like my grocery list. Why?”
“I still have the sample in my SUV. Hold on,” he said.
A mix of anger and disbelief rocked Adam to the core. He didn’t want to accept what was plain as the nose on his face.
“What’s going on, Adam?” Prudence crossed the room to get a closer look.
How could she not see it?
“I don’t understand,” she said. “What’s happening here?”
“This doesn’t look familiar to you at all?” He couldn’t believe she would stand there and lie to him or pretend she didn’t know. She couldn’t use the excuse of not being able to remember with this one.
“Yes. I already said so. It’s my grocery list,” she said. “I just don’t know what the big deal…”
Recognition seemed to dawn as Lawler re-entered through the back door. He held out the piece of paper from yesterday. The handwriting on the grocery list might be neater, but the letters were obviously written by the same person.
“What the hell, Prudence? Why is this your handwriting?”
11
“I-I-I…this can’t be.” Prudence shook her head, trying to find some way to clear out the fog and remember.
The look of betrayal in Adam’s eyes nearly gutted her.
“I promise I didn’t know that I wrote the note,” she defended. Asking him to believe her when evidence said otherwise would take a leap of faith on his part. She could only hope he’d gotten to know her enough in the past twenty-four hours to realize she wouldn’t try to pull the wool over his eyes.
> But she did have a severe memory lapse. For three days, in fact.
“I need to find my cell,” she said into the otherwise quiet room. She handed over the baby and dashed over to her laptop. “I should be able to find my cell using an app.”
She broke the silence with the click-clack-clack of her fingers on the keyboard. How could she have written that note and not remembered?
The screen came to life and her work calendar immediately popped up.
“Oh no,” she said. “I never leave this open.”
“The perp might have checked to see where you would be next since you weren’t home,” Lawler offered.
“I thought I was off for a while but according to my schedule, I took a job starting tomorrow. I have to call my clients. There’s no way I can work right now. Not with everything going on,” she said.
“I’ll send someone over to explain the situation,” Lawler said.
Adam’s silence was deafening.
“I need to call them personally.” She realized that would be impossible without her phone. The walls suddenly felt like they were closing in around her and she couldn’t breathe. Anxiety pressed against her chest like a boulder. She couldn’t allow it to win.
Breathe, she reminded.
Slowly, she took in a deep breath and then exhaled for the same length of time. She could do this. She could get through this. This seemed like a good time to remind herself how far she’d come. She’d been through so much worse and survived.
“Don’t you have a password to protect your laptop?” Adam finally asked, his voice a study in calm.
“Do you leave your keys in your truck when you run into the feed store?” she countered.
“Good point,” he admitted.
“I live alone. Didn’t think I’d need one,” she said by way of explanation. “I need to send the Ramseys an e-mail. I’ll let them know that I’m okay but a deputy will be stopping by. I don’t want them to have something like this dropped on them out of the blue.”
Lawler nodded as Adam walked into the adjacent living room. What? Now he couldn’t be in the same room with her?
As damning as the handwriting situation was, she had no doubt about her innocence. Didn’t mean she could explain any of this, but she knew in her heart she could never hurt another person.
Did he doubt her?
Fingers dancing across the keyboard, she took in another deep breath. At least the computer located her cell.
“Here, we go,” she said. “I found it.”
She blew up the map and pinpointed the location. “That’s my address. But there’s no way it’s here.” Wouldn’t she have seen it by now? Plus, her car wasn’t parked out front and her purse was nowhere to be found.” She glanced at the sheriff and then Adam. “Quick. Someone call me.” She rattled off her number as the sheriff obliged.
Walking from room to room, she listened for her ringtones.
Nothing.
“Well, we know it has to be around here somewhere.” Panic squeezed her chest. How could this be? How could her phone be right under their noses? “This won’t help finding my car.”
“I can help with that,” Lawler said. “What’s the make and model and license plate?”
She rattled them off and he immediately spelled them out on his radio along with a few acronyms she didn’t understand.
“We’ll see if anything turns up,” Lawler said.
He had resources around the county. If her vehicle was ditched somewhere, maybe they could find it and that could give them another hint as to where she’d been.
Something had to have happened in the three lost days that would connect the dots. There had to be an explanation. Would she ever regain those memories and be able to explain? Having information locked inside her brain, inaccessible, was one of the most frustrating things she’d ever experienced.
“Maybe it’s outside somewhere,” Adam finally piped in. “The perp might have ditched it on his way out when we surprised him.”
“You two check the perimeter. I’ll nose around in here if it’s okay with you, Prudence,” Lawler said.
“Be my guest.” She couldn’t imagine he’d find anything inside her place. She’d already gone room to room, and nothing looked out of place. Another shiver raced down her back at the thought of someone being inside her home.
She followed Adam outside but headed in the opposite direction as him.
“Hey.” He seemed to notice she wasn’t behind him based on his hushed, irritated tone.
She rounded the corner to where he was standing, looking at her like she’d just stole the keys to his truck.
“You’ve been with me for the past eighteen hours, Adam,” she said, not bothering to hide her frustration.
His expression was unreadable as he studied her.
“Have you made up your mind about my character yet?” She couldn’t help but let off some steam with her comment. A growing part of her was proud of the bravado. The old Prudence would never have confronted anyone or demanded to know what they thought of her. The new one wanted to know where she stood.
“I’m doing my best here,” he said by way of defense.
“Yeah? So am I. And, by the way, your best isn’t good enough for me.” There. She’d said it. She deserved to be around someone who believed in her.
Rather than stand there while moisture formed in her eyes, giving away just how emotional saying that to him was, she tucked her chin to her chest and circled back.
There were no footsteps behind her like her foolish heart wanted there to be.
His loss, she decided. She might not know why she’d scribbled his name on a piece of paper or tucked it inside the baby’s blanket. Hell, she still didn’t know why she had the child in the first place. But she knew herself, which was far more important at the moment. She would never harm another person. It just wasn’t in her DNA. She could barely be rude to someone who cut her off in traffic.
And no matter how forthright she seemed to be becoming with her emotions, she didn’t have a mean bone in her body. No one could tell her different. She wouldn’t conspire against anyone or take a child away from her mother.
Prudence dropped onto her hands and knees to search inside the shrubbery. She poked around in bushes. Although, she should probably be searching the back of the house where the perp had come from when he left her house.
The creep must have been watching from somewhere in front of the house. She glanced up at the windows that looked onto the street. Again, the thought of someone setting up inside her house ready and waiting caused painful stabs in her chest.
A few rogue tears spilled out of her eyes, dropping onto the hard dirt.
Hurt filled her chest at the thought of Adam distrusting her so much, especially after feeling like he’d been her lifeline. Running her hand along the parched earth, she felt around.
When she found nothing, she sat back on her heels.
“Hey,” Adam’s voice startled her.
She gasped before bringing her hands up to take off her glasses and then wipe her eyes. No way was she going to let anyone see that she’d been crying. Technically, only a handful of drops fell but they were a few too many.
“Did you find anything?” she asked, not bothering to turn to look at him. She needed a minute to remember her frustration because making eye contact with him when she felt so vulnerable would be a mistake.
“No. I couldn’t concentrate with you up here looking around on your own, so I thought I’d join you if that’s okay with you.” There was an emotion present in his voice that she recognized as guilt. He’d stopped short of apologizing, not that it would matter. If he didn’t believe in her there was no use in being around each other.
“You can look anywhere you want. No one is going to stop you.” The words came out a little sharper than she intended.
She had no plans to take them back, though.
Adam didn’t know what to think. His heart wanted to believe she had nothing to do
with the case beyond showing up on his family’s land with the baby. A Good Samaritan who’d stepped in to help a child in need.
How naïve would he be to go down that road again? One that led with feelings instead of logic. He’d been burned once and still felt the sting almost a year later. The baby, if she belonged to him, was a stark reminder of how quickly a relationship could go south and how much collateral damage could be done.
But, man, his heart wanted to go hook, line, and sinker into believing in Prudence.
He was so angry at hearing about Libby’s senseless murder and the fact this child would be forced to grow up without her mother that he couldn’t think straight. The whole situation was unfair to an innocent child.
Even if Angel wasn’t his, he had half a mind to file a petition to adopt her. Libby couldn’t possibly have believed in the father or she would have sent the child to him.
Those last words stuck in his thoughts. Maybe she had been.
Either way, he didn’t like Prudence being out here exposed with no protection. The sheriff’s SUV parked in front of the home might not detour the sonsofbitches who’d orchestrated a break-in. Don’t even get him started on what they must’ve planned to do with her once she came home.
These creeps must have known she had the baby. It was the only explanation that made sense. Were they coming for Angel? What would they have done to Prudence? The same thing they’d done to Libby?
Didn’t that thought send a shot of adrenaline racing through him?
More anger ping-ponged through him, seeking an outlet. Normally, a long day at the ranch worked out any and all frustrations. If a day of setting posts and repairing fences didn’t knock the wind out of him, a good workout would.
Considering he had to help take care of Angel, those options weren’t exactly on the table. Figuring out a non-physical way to deal with his emotions was about as fun as licking a bowl of toothpaste.
After searching for half an hour, Prudence stood up and announced, “I’m going around back now.”
Since Adam had searched his side of the front yard with a fine-toothed comb, he joined her. Maybe he should just retrace the perp’s footsteps. Adam imagined bolting out of the back door. The perp had to have seen Adam or been alerted by some person or persons parked out front.
