| |
Something was scratching at the back door. Penny lay on his back, his arthritic hip flaring up and giving him fits. He’d already taken several Advil, and they’d barely touched the ache. Lately, he didn’t sleep much anyhow, not like when he was younger. The dreams plagued him—losing his wife, and then his son a few years later to tragedy. Being the last left living was no advantage as far as he could see.
The scrape of something came again, and he sighed. It was going to bother him until he checked it out. He’d have blamed it on a tree branch, but there were no trees back there, just a few bushes he hadn’t trimmed back in years. He tossed the covers back and got up with a groan and a creak of old joints, reaching for his robe.
He glanced at the drawer to his nightstand, just cracked. He should take the gun. Then again, it was more likely they’d just take it and use it on him. Besides, death held no fear for him.
He padded down the hall into the kitchen. Through the back door window, the moon bled through the opaque panes, casting long shadows over whoever stood there.
“Who is it?” he asked, hesitating. Fear rose, and he reasoned maybe he wasn’t as prepared to meet his maker as he imagined.
There was a muffled response he couldn’t make out. Groaning in frustration, he reached out, unlatched the deadbolt, and opened the door.
Dylan Potter stumbled through the doorway. “Shut it,” he hissed, yanking out a stool at the island and pouring himself into the seat. He looked like hell, bloody streaks and dirt running over his face, a rent in the sleeve of one shoulder, the same arm hanging low and at an odd angle. Penny’s late wife had always chastised him to take pride in being polite.
“You look like crap,” he observed.
“Feel worse,” Dylan rasped. Without a word, Penny poured him a glass of tap water and set it in front of him. He picked it up with his good arm and downed it without pausing. “You know anything about putting a socket back in place? I dislocated it.”
Penny looked at him in consternation. “I was a medic in the Army. Plenty of dislocated arms and shoulders we had to deal with. I’ll put it back and then I expect an explanation. I want to know every detail about what happened to you. I’m betting its topnotch in the entertainment department.”
Dylan nodded, gritting his teeth as Penny helped work his coat and shirt off, gnarled old fingers probing the area and giving a grunt as he assessed the damage. “The trick, of course, is to get you to relax the muscles, making for less resistance when the joint moves back into place,” he explained.
Dylan frowned as he prattled on. “Would you just do—”
Before he could finish, Penny wrenched it up and in in one sharp movement. Dylan screamed gruffly, seeing spots. He wanted to knock the old man out with his good arm.
The pain subsided, and his heart slowed. “Hellfire, that hurt! Got any aspirin? I need a boatload of those if you got ’em.”
“Give me a minute. They're in the bathroom. Then I’ll make you a sandwich and you can start talking.”
While the aspirin took the edge off and he worked his way through two sandwiches and as many beers, he told Penny about breaking into the compound, nearly getting caught, and his lucky escape. He figured they were still trying to winch the Hummer out of the water. It would be a while before they realized whoever had broken in had given them the slip. His voice dwindled around an enormous yawn.
“Where’s your truck? I looked. My van is still here.”
Dylan gave a sheepish nod. “Still at the overlook up on the mountain.”
Penny gave a snort and shook his head. “Marine, you said, right? Figures. In the Army, we had a lot more sense.”
Dylan tried to smile and failed, his eyes crossing sideways from exhaustion, his leg feeling like it was going to throb right off his body onto the floor. “Say, don’t suppose we could hold this conversation later...” he mumbled, his words slurring.
“Yeah, come on. I suppose at least with your truck missing I can tell those boys that come looking that you headed on down the road out of town. It ought to throw them off a mite, at least for a while. Won’t last for long, though, before they do a more thorough search, or find your truck and put the pieces together.”
#
BY THE TIME DYLAN WOKE up, the sun was passing the horizon towards late evening. He’d slept for close to twelve hours. The aroma of pot roast and potatoes made his stomach rumble as he took a quick shower and put on clean clothes, careful not to move his injured arm too much and risk dislocating it all over again.
“That smells amazing,” he admitted, wandering into the kitchen and grabbing a cup down for coffee. “Need any help?”
Penny looked up, his expression thoughtful and a million miles away. He shook his head. “All good. Grab plates and a couple of beers for us.”
Penny set the Dutch oven on a folded towel in the middle of the island and added a ladle.
He watched as Dylan loaded his plate, taking a much smaller portion and picking up a fork, tapping the edge to get his attention. “I got to thinking about our Mr. Sackett and his deputies. I’m still convinced they’re all in cahoots with Cady and the boys. But there’s something maybe worth looking into—CeCe has an uncle in Wilder Pines. It’s a little town, but bigger than this one, due northeast of here near where the service road for the Porcupine Mountains State Park ends.”
Dylan looked up, a spoon halfway to his mouth. His brows rose. “How does that help us any?”
“It might. The police chief there—the guy's name is Merv Jorgansen—and from what I know about him, he’s an honest cop. Maybe he’d be the one to pay a visit to.”
Dylan reached for another slice of bread to sop up the last of the gravy, considering. “Gotta figure out how to get my truck back first. And I have to get out of here away from you. I’m just leading them right to your door. They don’t take kindly to interference, and I hate the thought of them taking it out on you. I’m a danger to you, Penny, and that’s a fact.”
Penny stared hard at him, his mouth twisting as he seemed to wrestle with his inner demons. “Maybe, but the fact is, don’t none of it matter none, Dylan. They can’t hurt me.”
Dylan glared at him. “Of course they can. There’s the house, and you, and—”
“I have stage four pancreatic cancer. My time left is numbered in months if I’m lucky.”
Dylan put his spoon down abruptly and sat up straight, swallowing. “I didn’t know...” he added awkwardly.
Penny waved off the sympathy. “It doesn’t matter. I was able to help right a horrible injustice for this town, and I took it. Turns out you can get a lot done when you have nothing left to lose. But enough about me. We need to see about the truck, but something tells me you aren’t quite done here in Glad Corners.”
“I want to talk to Deb, the owner of that café, about Tessa and CeCe and see if I can get a clue what they might have done with them, and maybe Danny, too.”
Penny gave a soft snort and collected the dishes and got up. Dylan realized Penny had barely touched what was in his bowl and frowned. Why hadn’t he noticed the signs earlier?
“Don’t hold your breath. She’s doing what any decent mother would, protecting her child. She isn’t going to say squat if she’s smart.”
“I have to try. I figure now is as good a time as any to pay her a visit. My guess is those boys are going to be absent for a while. They’ll be busy putting repairs to the compound from last night. And looking for me. I may have demolished a certain little guard shed.”
Penny chuckled. “Wish I could have seen that.”
Dylan gave him a sheepish smile. “It was almost as good as watching that Hummer sink.”
#
DEB LOOKED UP FROM clearing one of the tables when he came in, the bells tinkling over the door. She frowned in recognition, quickly hiding her expression and straightening. “Just a minute and I’ll clear something off for you to sit. We were slammed this morning.”
Dylan looked about at all the now empty tables. Several still held couples and families just finishing up. Nobody he suspected of being part of the American Freedom Fighters was camping out in a booth or seated at the counter. “That would be great. Do you have any specials?”
“Meatloaf and the fixings. It’s a Wednesday,” she said without expression.
Dylan took the proffered seat, and she flipped a cup up, pouring him coffee without asking. She added a handful of creamers and looked at him expectantly.
“I’d like to check a menu out and see if there’s anything else I might like.”
Eying him suspiciously, she grabbed one from a nearby table, looking nervously around. “Hey, I’ll come back when the menu is closed, all right?”
He reached out and touched her hand, and she froze, angry eyes flying down to meet his. He opened the menu and pointed to something random. “I’m hoping you might answer a few questions about a couple of girls you had working here a couple of weeks back. Tessa and CeCe Williams?”
Her hand jerked and the coffee pot hit the table with a bang before she recovered. “I don’t have anything for you. I don’t serve information here. Being discreet is how I stay in business.”
Dylan considered her, his voice hardening. “You have a daughter, I get it. I don’t blame you for protecting her. They have my brother, and I’m going to find him with or without your help, that I can promise you.”
She snapped her mouth tight and ground out, pulling away, “That would be without.”
Before he could respond, she was walking, exclaiming, “That’s good, then. One meatloaf special coming up.”
Less than five minutes later she plopped it down in front of him with a bang. He wondered if it was safe to eat it. He picked up a fork but didn’t use it. “I’ve got all day. The guys are, let’s just say, otherwise occupied this morning. But the longer I stay, the more suspicious they’ll become. What did you say your evening special was?”
“Get out of my restaurant. I’ll scream if you don’t.”
He shook his head gravely. “No, you won’t. You don’t want that attention, remember? Help me out. Give me something about Danny or the girls I can use.”
She glared daggers at him, her eyes darting around the room in panic. She gave a frustrated sigh. “Danny is probably dead. It’s what happens when you get nosy in this town, and then top things off by going after what belongs to Cady Burrows. I don’t know any details about what happened, but I know Tessa had plans to leave town. It was all hush-hush. She told me she was going home sick, a stomach bug. But I knew what she was really doing. And CeCe called in that same morning. I don’t know if they made it out. I never saw either of them after that.” Her voice rose, and she finished, “I’m sorry to hear you have to go. Here, let me get a to-go box for you and bag that up for later.”
The bill when she slapped it down was triple the cost of the meatloaf special. He paid it without hesitation and dropped a fifty-dollar tip on top.
#
DYLAN RETURNED IN PENNY Myers’ old van to find the old man swinging gently on the porch swing, a lap blanket over his knees, and a snifter of something amber and strong clenched in arthritic fingers. “Did you get what you needed?”
He shrugged. “I got something. Not sure what it means, but apparently Tessa may have tried to escape with her sister.”
“Hope they made it.”
“I aim to find out. Meanwhile, I need to pack up and see about getting my truck.”
Penny nodded. “Tomorrow morning is soon enough for that. They’ll be watching the roads during the day like a bunch of vultures. In the morning before daybreak would be better, they’ll be less vigilant and you’ll have a better chance of making a break for it.”
Dylan frowned. “I don’t enjoy staying here any longer than I have to.”
Penny smiled sagely. “But you will, just one more night.”
#
LONG PAST MIDNIGHT, the moon hiding behind the clouds and shadows long, Dylan woke up, his heart pounding in his throat. It was the nightmare that woke him, and the sound of soft footfalls pressing the carpet flat as they moved across the room. His eyes opened a fraction, letting in a meager amount of light, separating the gray of the shadows into something darker and moving. Dylan tensed, his fingers of his left-hand curling around the bone handle of the blade he kept beneath his pillow. He wished it were the gun in the closed drawer by his bed.
A sound from another part of the house, a soft muffled shout, made the shadow jerk and glance backward, the gun held low at his side. It was all the opening Dylan was going to get. He struck out with force, his heel extended, and nailed the other man in the groin, lifting him off his feet and shoving him backward in a moaning heap and sending the gun flying sideways. Dylan stumbled from the bed, swearing when his feet tangled in the sheets and he went down on top of his assailant. He adjusted the angle of the knife as he fell, and as the other man’s hands curled around the butt of his gun where it had landed and brought it around, the blade found its mark. Dylan watched the other man’s eyes go wide with startled realization before his fingers jerked and went lax. Dylan struggled to his feet and dove across his bed, pulling the drawer open and grabbing his gun, checking the chamber and throwing the safety.
He moved quietly, stepping over the dead man and pulling the door open a crack, listening. It was a sure bet this one hadn’t come alone. The acrid smell hit him immediately, and he crouched lower, taking advantage of the fresher air close to the ground. The hall was filled with gray smoke, the crackle of flames hitting his ears from the floor below. He chanced a look towards the staircase. The fire hadn’t spread that far yet, but he guessed he had only a couple minutes before the house was fully engulfed and they were both trapped. He slipped out, searching the shadows for movement as he moved down the hall to Penny’s bedroom, three doors down. It was ajar, and a feeling of dread filled his stomach.
The time for subtlety had fled, and he threw it open and stepped in, the gun leveled. A dark figure bending over the bed whirled, something shiny and wet gleaming in his hand. His other hand started to raise and Dylan didn’t hesitate, knocking off two shots and sending him backwards into the wall. He didn’t move. Dylan moved to the crumpled figure on the bed, bending down. Penny stared up at him, a gnarled hand clutching his chest as he gasped, his eyes straining towards Dylan. “Go get your brother. Make things right,” he hissed, his chest rattling as it filled.
“I’m going to get you out of here!” Dylan snapped, hands clenched tight, smoke making his eyes tear up.
Penny’s eyes pleaded with his as he watched the life in them fade.
“Penny...” Dylan hissed with a growl of emotion. A crash sounded in another part of the house as a beam fell.
It was time to go if he didn’t want to join him.
#
THE WOMAN WHO ANSWERED the door in a nightgown and bare feet tried to slam it on him just as quickly when she saw him on her doorstep. He anticipated the move, putting his good shoulder into the middle and shoving her backwards, closing the door behind and glaring down at her. “This isn’t a negotiation. I lost a good friend tonight and I need a ride to my truck, right now. Unless you want me to show up for breakfast tomorrow and announce our earlier conversation to the entire restaurant, you’ll help me out.”
She glared at him with intense dislike. “Let me throw on some clothes and grab my keys.”
#
THE TAT HAD BEEN A mistake. It made him memorable when he wanted to be forgotten. When you were tracking your disobedient “wife”, it was best if you were invisible. Everywhere he went, the intricate tattoo covering one eye got him noticed.
He stared hard at the nervous cashier in a gas station on the edge of Munising, flashing the picture of a very pregnant Tessa. “I’m sorry, but I’m sure I’ve never seen her before,” she said, sounding like she really wished she had, so he would stop looking at her like he wanted to cave the front of her face in.
With a growl of disgust, he shoved it back in his wallet and grabbed his change, turning for the door without another word. It wasn’t the first place he’d stopped in Munising nor his first trip either since he’d been forced to drive the several hours back and forth between Glad Corners and Munising more than once. He’d originally eliminated Veil Falls, reasoning she wouldn’t have been stupid enough to move to a place so close and small. Maybe he’d been too hasty in his assessment of her intelligence. The other alternative, that she had kept going and was now beyond his reach, was unbearable, so he refused to think about it. She belonged to him. Didn’t she know that? And she was carrying his son. Nobody escaped Cady Burrows.
He got back into the Wrangler, spinning angrily out of the fuel bay and slamming on the brakes when a little Honda Civic careened sideways out of the way and laid on the horn when he nearly pulled out in front of them. He glared at the rear window and the little yellow sign with the stick figure family waving merrily back at him.
He turned left and headed out of Munising, back the way he’d come. He needed to get back to Glad Corners before his brother mucked things up any worse. It boggled his mind how they’d come from the same set of parents. Maybe the genes had gotten weaker for the second-born twin, he thought arrogantly.
Meanwhile, he was stopping in Veil Falls and digging deeper. Someone had to have seen her. How many single, pregnant black women traveled all alone in the Upper Peninsula? Someone had to remember her.
On the way, he nearly drove off the road when he received a call from his brother. “What do you mean someone broke in?” he yelled, swerving around a slow-moving beamer and wishing he had a spare finger to flip the little old lady the bird. “In the pond? The silver Hummer? Why was anyone driving it in the first place? I’ll want to talk special to them when I get back,” he ground out. They weren’t going to like their severance package. “Who is this Dylan Potter? Whose brother? That reporter that was going after CeCe?” He smiled coldly. “He isn’t finding him, then, is he? I want him taken alive. I have a few questions for him before he joins his brother.”
He hung up and threw his phone in the passenger seat, glancing at the speedometer and forcing his foot to lighten. He didn’t need a ticket about now, not when everything was going to hell. It was all Tessa’s fault, pulling his attention away from where it should be. As he drove, he stewed, coming up with new and colorful ways to make her pay. Every one of them made him smile.
By the time he’d checked into The Veil Falls Inn for the night in Veil Falls and asked around at several area businesses, he’d stopped smiling. Nobody had seen her or heard about a pregnant stranger staying in town.
Outside the city limits, he stopped at an attractive sports bar overlooking the big lake. Hops and Barley had excellent food. He’d enjoyed it the first time through, and he believed in sticking with what worked. He was less admiring of the obviously gay couple, Glenn and Ryan Barley-Hops, who ran it. Listening to them argue and chat with the locals creeped him out.
Bits of the conversation trickled through as he enjoyed a killer burger and an order of beer battered fries to die for. He tried one of the local beers and was pleasantly surprised. Usually, he found them to be awful. A few stools down, a couple of farmers sat talking like old women, enjoying the daily special, a Beer Cheese Soup, and what looked like homemade bread to sop it up.
“Got into my trash the other day. What a mess. Took me an hour to clean it up. Dogs in the kennel were going nuts.”
“So why didn’t you get up and check it out? Probably just a bunch of raccoons.”
“You’re an idiot. You didn’t see the size of the prints. It was a bear, I tell you.”
“What if it was? They come in looking for food this time of year, storing up to hibernate.”
“Shows what you know about them. They should already be sleeping. Why isn’t this one? Something fishy about it if you ask me.”
His companion snickered. “Why? Nobody asked you. Prattling on like an old woman.”
His friend didn’t smile back. “You laugh now, but I heard there was an attack—some hiker in the Hat Creek Preserve.”
His friend sobered up at that. “Killed?” he questioned.
“No. Lucky to have a couple of German Shepherds with him. Chased it off. But it was a bear, he’s sure of it. Miles Porter, what runs the preserve, is looking for a rogue. Maybe he’s injured or something. Definitely dangerous.”
The other man shrugged, smiling again. “Only thing dangerous here is this cheese soup.” He glanced up at the bartender and cook, Glen Barley. “What did you say you put in this?” He waved his spoon.
Glen winked and shook his head. “If I told you, I’d have to shoot you.”
Cady tuned out the rest of the conversation, including the rumors of some killer bear loose in the woods. It wasn’t his problem. He grabbed out his wallet and waved it at the bartender, who wiped his hands and sauntered over to take the bill and his money. Cady tapped the picture on the bar. “I’m looking for a friend of mine. She may be lost somewhere up here, and I’m trying to help her family and make sure she’s not in any trouble. Have you seen her around by any chance?”
Glen stared at him, taking in the intricate tat and icy blue eyes. He shrugged, handing the picture back. “Sorry. Don’t know her.” Cady sensed he was telling the truth, and also that if he had seen her, he wouldn’t have shared the information anyhow. He scowled and snatched it back while the man made change. When he left, he didn’t leave a tip.
By the time he pulled into the little gas station in the middle of town, he’d been to the post office, a little pub downtown, a magic shop, and a grocery store. And he’d struck out every time.
He got out, popped the cap, and inserted his credit card—and swore when his card was declined. He tried it again, and a message popped up to see the attendant. Swearing, he snatched it out and stomped towards the little service building. It was small inside, with a single aisle and a cooler for drinks and snacks. A single shelf held antifreeze, dry gas, and a few other common odds and ends for vehicles.
“What’s the problem? Why won’t it take my card?” he demanded angrily. The young woman behind the counter looked like somebody’s adolescent kid. She couldn’t have been fourteen. “Where’s your father? I need someone who knows what they're doing!” he demanded angrily, waving it in the air.
Her dark brown eyes narrowed, and he reassessed his earlier opinion. Maybe she was fifteen. “Sorry about that, sir. It’s not your card, it’s the machine. They’re old and need updating. They get real squirrelly with the newer bank cards and their chip readers.”
“I’m not interested in all the excuses. I just want to buy my gas and get the hell out of this little crap hole of a town.”
She blinked in surprise. “I see,” she said flatly. “Can I see your card, then? I’ll do it manually. What pump are you on?” She craned her head and looked out the window. “The Jeep?” she asked politely.
He nodded tersely and waited. “Nice,” she murmured and keyed in the numbers. A few seconds later, she handed him a receipt. “All set, it’ll charge your card the correct amount when you stop fueling and return the nozzle to the pump.”
He turned away without a thank you when he remembered the picture. A couple of other customers had wandered in. A tall, gangly teen with a head start on some serious acne bounced from foot to foot behind him, impatient to be waited on.
Cady wanted to ask him if he had a hot date or something. Instead, he pulled out the picture and turned it around so she could see it. “Say, I’m looking for my best friend’s little sister. She came this way a week or so ago and she may be in trouble. I’m trying to find her and bring her home to her family. Have you seen her?”
She glanced down at the picture, reaching out to tip it to the light. She tapped it with a neatly trimmed fingernail. “Sure, I know her. Nice lady. She sure didn’t seem to be in any trouble, though. Not with Ms. Elle with her.”
Cady blinked, so surprised he almost couldn’t speak. “Where?” he choked out, shoving the picture in his pocket to still the sudden tremble of excitement in his hands.
She looked up at him in suspicion at his sudden eagerness. He was sure he looked like some kind of deviant predator to her.
“I don’t know. She didn’t say, and I didn’t ask.”
Cady ground his teeth, barely restraining himself from reaching across the desk and pulling her up by her shoulders and giving her a vicious shake. “What about the girl who was with her, this Ms. Elle? Who was she?”
“I don’t know that either. And I can’t give out personal information. It’s strictly against policy, you know. Unless you have a badge. Are you a cop?” she asked skeptically as if she had his number and he’d come up short in the trustworthy department. He was already making plans for how he was going to wait for her to get off and then beat the information out of her. A nasally voice spoke up behind him.
“Say, Sarah, do you mean Elle Adams, that crazy woman what bought the old campground in the Hat Creek Wilderness Preserve?”
She hissed in irritation and snapped, “Joey, you idjit. Can’t you ever keep that trap of yours closed?”
Cady speared the girl with a look that had her backing up in alarm. “I’d thank him if I were you. He probably just saved your life,” he whispered. Both were still standing, staring after him with mouths agape when the door closed behind him.