Born To Die

He knew it now as he sat in his truck just outside the gates of Rolling Hills Senior Estates. He’d trusted that Maribelle Collins would do anything to keep her secret locked away, but now, as he watched Acacia drive out through the gates, he wondered what she knew, what damage she could wreak.

Too much.

He should have expected this. Anticipated this move. Was it too late?

Probably.

But the old bat still needed to be silenced.

It shouldn’t be too hard; from what he understood, she had a heart problem, took nitroglycerin tablets....

He didn’t have time to deal with her now.

He had to find out what her damned daughter had learned. If she had found out the truth, he had to stop her before she did anything that would ruin everything. With a final glance over his shoulder toward the still open gates of Rolling Hills, he silently vowed to return.

He felt his scar pulse as he grabbed his ski mask and pulled it over his head. Then he started his truck and eased out of his parking slot.

He caught sight of the taillights of Acacia’s Ford far ahead, but he wasn’t worried about losing her. The magnetic, splash-proof GPS device he’d installed in her rear wheel well wouldn’t be discovered until she rotated her tires, and maybe not even then.

Which would be too late.

Switching on the tiny monitor, he saw that she’d turned onto the highway, heading west. Toward Grizzly Falls. As expected.

Relaxing slightly, he began to follow at a safe distance. Checking his rearview mirror, he noticed another vehicle pull out of an alley and turn on its headlights. A niggle of apprehension slithered through his brain.

It’s nothing! Another car, another driver, no big deal.

And yet he watched as the headlights behind him, of some kind of sports car, he thought, were steady. Other cars came between them, but for every turn, the sports car behind slowly followed, never catching up, not even at the one stoplight.

Someone going the same direction as you. Nothing more.

But he thought of all the times he’d felt he was being watched, as if he were the prey rather than the hunter.

Even if the car follows onto the main road, heading west, it’s just chance. Happenstance. Another driver going toward Missoula or beyond.

Relax!

But his fingers held the steering wheel in a death grip as he turned onto the highway and watched the traffic behind him. Yep, the gray sedan followed, but that wasn’t the vehicle he was watching.... No, the car he was worried about, a black sports car, maybe a BMW . . . didn’t turn onto the highway.

Good.

Exhaling a sigh of relief, he was instantly at ease again and, with one final glance to his rearview, turned his attention back to where it belonged. Hitting the gas, he homed in on Acacia. According to his nifty little device, she was less than two miles ahead.

He planned not only to catch her but to pass her as well.

Trace heard a moan and then a harsh round of rattling coughs from Eli’s room.

Taking the stairs two at a time, he flipped on the lights at the second story and pushed open the door. Eli was on the bed, but his hair was sweaty, his face flushed, and his eyes looked sunken.

“Hey, buddy,” he said, trying to rouse his son. “Eli?” Eli opened a bleary eye. “How ya feelin’?”

“My throat hurts. Bad.” He blinked himself awake and started coughing deep and hard.

“I’m going to take your temp again,” Trace said.

Eli wasn’t very cooperative, but eventually Trace convinced him to slide the thermometer into his mouth. A few minutes later Trace discovered that his temperature had spiked, now showing 105 degrees, way too high for comfort.

Crushing a children’s Tylenol into water, he insisted his son drink the whole glass, then, walking into the hallway, pulled the door to Eli’s room nearly shut. Sliding a cell phone from his pocket, he dialed the number Kacey had left for him, peering through the crack into his son’s room as he counted off the rings.

Answer, he silently thought. He was used to tending to injured or sick animals, had dealt with trying to save calves that were twisted in the birth canal, had fought blackleg and pneumonia, and had even had a favorite mare die of colic. Dogs and cats had lived and died, and he accepted that illness and death were part of life.

But now he was scared.

By the third ring, he was worried that she wouldn’t answer, but then, just when he was certain he’d have to leave a message, she answered. “Hi. Trace?”

He got right down to business. “I got your call earlier. Look, Eli’s temperature is up. A hundred and five and he’s coughing, having trouble sleeping.”

“Bring him down to the clinic,” she said decisively. “I’m on the road and can be there in half an hour. Work for you?”

“It can.”

“Good. I’ll see you there.”

She hung up and Trace wasted no time. He strode into his son’s room and said quietly as he grabbed a jacket and sleeping bag to wrap around his boy, “Let’s go, bud. I’m taking you to see Dr. Lambert.”

Kacey had been lost in thought most of the drive back from Helena. It was dark now, long past the dinner hour, but she wasn’t hungry. The radio had been playing, but she couldn’t name one song that had been aired. She was too caught up in her own thoughts, replaying everything her mother had told her about Gerald Johnson and his family.

She dimmed her lights for an oncoming car. She hadn’t been paying much attention to the other vehicles, driving by rote, her mind swimming in the waters of a murky past. Who the hell were Gerald Johnson and his wife? How had Maribelle played a part in their lives and marriage? Who were their children, her blood relatives, half siblings?

It was almost as if Maribelle was still half in love with Johnson, as if she’d elevated their affair to something that was more romantic, more tragic, as if there was some nostalgic reverence to it.

Maybe Maribelle was losing it.

And what about the man she still thought of as her father? Stanley Collins, a hardworking carpenter. She wondered about the day he’d learned the truth, though, of course, she couldn’t remember it, couldn’t even think of one action that indicated his love for his only child had shifted in the least little bit.

When she reeled back the years of her life, she remembered no incident that would indicate he’d found out the truth. The same held true for her grandparents. If Stanley Collins had ever confided in them, they certainly hadn’t changed their attitude toward her in the slightest.

But she had the bad feeling that she’d just scratched at a hidden scab that was over a long-festering and maybe deadly wound.

She snapped off the radio as a rendition of “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing” was being warbled by some country star she’d never head of. She needed the ride to be quiet so she could think and sort out what exactly she was going to do. Had Jocelyn Wallis or Shelly Bonaventure or Elle Alexander suspected they had been fathered by the same man? Had their mothers all hooked up with the same local Romeo?

What were the chances?

Bone weary, she tried to clear her head and concentrate on getting home.

Tonight traffic was light, the roads nearly clear of snow, though a few crystals shimmered as the moonlight pierced the thin cloud cover. Watching the play of light, Kacey was thinking about the women who had recently died when she spied a still-open coffee kiosk less than ten miles from the outskirts of Grizzly Falls.

Pulling in, she rolled down her window and ordered a skinny decaffeinated latte from a woman who looked dead on her feet. The Christmas spirit was missing at the kiosk, despite the string of winking colored lights decorating the windows, stencils of snowflakes on the glass, and an advertisement for a Santa’s Cinnamon Blend Latte.

Waiting in her darkened car, she hoped the steaming milk would coat her stomach, and she accepted the hot cup gratefully, leaving a tip. Showing the barest of smiles, the barista shut the window, then turned off the neon open sign.

Kacey tasted the hot drink, hoping to warm herself up from the inside out. No amount of adjusting the temperature in her little SUV had been able to ease the chill that had settled in her soul when she’d learned the truth.

As she was starting to pull out of the gravel, she saw fast-approaching headlights and, holding out her cup from her body, hit the brakes. Her SUV ground to a stop at the edge of the road as a big dark truck sped past. Her coffee slopped a little bit onto her lid.

For a split second she remembered the pickup with the big grille, the one that had put the dent in her back fender, and the driver Grace Perchant had referred to as “evil.”

Kacey shook that off, still frozen in position. She brought her cup back and sucked up the overflow of coffee.

Grace wasn’t reliable.

She thought she could talk to ghosts or something.

And this was Montana, where pickups reigned.

For a split second she thought about giving chase, checking to see if the big rig had out-of-state plates with a three or an eight in the lettering. Then Trace called about Eli. All of her thoughts turned to the boy.

She made it into town in a little over twenty minutes and pulled into the empty parking lot of the clinic. This side of the building was shadowed and dark, only weak light from the streetlight at the front of the clinic offering any kind of illumination.

She left her finished coffee in the cup holder, locked her car and walked to the back door, where she let herself in with her key and reached for the light switch.

Click!

But nothing happened.

She hit it again, but the rooms remained dark, not even the few security lamps glowing. And it was colder than usual in the offices.

The damned circuit breaker!

She’d like to wring her lowlife, tightwad of a landlord’s neck! How many times had she complained, even ordering out an electrician once herself?

“Great,” she muttered.

She knew the layout of the offices, of course, and she had a flashlight in her desk drawer, so she worked her way through the back hallway and past the examination rooms, which somehow appeared dangerous and slightly sinister, the odd shapes of the equipment looming like robotic monsters and sending her already vivid imagination into overdrive.

It’s just the damned lights.

Fingers running along one wall, she eased past the exam rooms and around the corner. She stubbed her toe on the edge of the freestanding scales, then bit her tongue to keep from letting out a yowl.

She did, however, curse under her breath.

All the electronic equipment, the phones and fax machines and computers, usually gave off a bit of light from the buttons, which reminded the users that they were plugged in and waiting, but no little green or blue lights glowed. The rabbit warren of rooms was completely and utterly dark, save for those rooms with windows, where the faint light from the streetlamps slid through the slats of the windows and striped the floors and opposing walls with thin, watery illumination.

The place was creepier than she expected, but with only a little trouble, she found the door to her office and pushed it open. Her eyes had adjusted to the semidark, and she made her way to her desk and opened the second of a stack of drawers to her right, her fingers delving into the dark space where she kept extra supplies.

The tips of her fingers touched the ridged handle of the flashlight, and she only prayed that the batteries weren’t dead. With a click, she turned on the weak beam, which was just enough to help guide her to the mechanical closet, where the main switch had flipped.

Weird.

Usually the switch to the outlets in the front office would snap off, but the rest of the rooms were unaffected. Then again, this old wiring probably hadn’t been up to code since the Kennedy administration.

Throwing the main switch, along with the security lights, she heard the furnace rumble to life.

Bam! Bam! Bam!

A loud pounding echoed through the rooms.

She slammed the door to the closet shut, realizing Trace O’Halleran and Eli were already here. Sure enough, she heard Trace’s voice boom through the walls. “Dr. Lambert? Kacey?”

“Coming!” She was already hurrying along the hallway and through the front reception area, snapping on banks of fluorescents, which flickered before offering up any real illumination. “Sorry,” she said quickly. “I’m having trouble with the electricity here. The circuit breaker is always flipping. A real pain in the behind.” Then, as he walked inside, she said to the boy, “Hey, Eli. How are you feeling?”

He didn’t answer, and she could see as the lights began to fill the offices with illumination that he was feverish. He coughed loudly, and he winced. “Complains of a sore throat,” Trace said.

“Let’s take a look.” She twisted the dead bolt behind them and said, “Come on, Eli.” The boy was wearing pajamas, a jacket, and was wrapped in a sleeping bag. Once in the examination room, she took his temperature and other vitals, looked down his throat and ears, and listened to his lungs. All the while Trace stood leaning against the counter, his fingers gripping its edge.

She forced a smile. “I think we need to get you into the hospital,” she said, trying to sound encouraging.

“Hospital?” Trace repeated.

“Noooo!” Eli, taking a cue from his father, began to protest but ended up only with another coughing fit that made him cringe and his eyes water.

“I think yes.” She glanced toward Trace, silently suggesting he support her on this. “It’s just to make sure you’re going to get better as fast as possible.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Trace said.

Eli’s face crumpled as he had another coughing fit.

“Hurts, doesn’t it?” she said to the boy. “I know. You’ll feel better.”

“You’ll come with me?” Eli asked.

“Of course,” Kacey assured him. “I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

“I don’t have to stay there.”

“For a while,” she said, “but let’s figure that part out once we get there, okay?” To Trace, she added, “I’ll meet you at the ER at St. Bart’s, and we’ll get him admitted.”

“You got it.”

Two hours later Eli was in a hospital bed, hooked up to an IV, pronounced “stable,” and sleeping soundly. The nursing staff was taking care of his boy and had promised to call Trace in the morning and keep Kacey in the loop. From what Trace got out of it, his son still had bronchitis, along with strep throat and possible pneumonia. Kacey had insisted the boy stay overnight where he could be monitored, his fever tended, and Trace was a little relieved, though he wanted to camp out in his son’s room on the one uncomfortable chair.

“I’ll look in on him before I go to the clinic tomorrow,” Kacey promised as they walked out of the main lobby of the hospital and into the parking lot, where several cars were scattered around and the sky was thick with clouds. A cold breeze skated down the canyon where the river, far below, cut through the shimmering lights of the town.

“He won’t like being here.”

“Who does?” She glanced back at the building, lights glowing upward for three stories, a garland of fresh cedar bows draped over the portico. “But he should be out tomorrow, I’d think.”

He walked her to her car, and as she opened the door, Trace grabbed her by the crook of the arm, holding her back a second. “Thanks, Kacey,” he said.

“No problem.”

“I mean it.”

She looked up at him expectantly, turning her face so that as the first flakes of snow fell from the sky, they caught in her eyelashes and melted against her cheeks.

In the bluish lights from the security lamps, she appeared a little ghostlike, her skin pale, her eyes a shade darker than they were in daylight. For half a heartbeat, he was reminded of Leanna.

Or was it Jocelyn?

A chill settled in his guts. “You’re more than welcome, Trace,” she said and smiled. “I’m glad you called. Eli needed to be here.”

“You could have just advised me to bring him to the hospital. You went a step further.”

“Yeah, well, maybe I wanted to see him,” she said with a smile that touched his heart. In that second, he experienced an urge to kiss her. While the snowfall increased, fat flakes dancing around them, he wanted to wrap her in his arms and press his lips to hers and just see what happened.

She felt it, too. Her gaze held his, and his breath seemed to stop in his lungs.

Don’t do this—kissing this woman will only complicate things.

And yet there it was. Between them.

“I’ll give you a call after I see him in the morning.” Then, before he could react, she stood on her tiptoes, hugged him, and even brushed a kiss along his cheek, her lips running across the stubble of his beard.

As she attempted to slide her arm from his grasp and climb into the open door of her car, he said, “No. Wait.” His fingers tightened again, and she paused, looking over her shoulder expectantly.

“What?”

“I have something I want to show you.”

“Now?”

“Yes, but at my house.”

“You want me to drive over to your place?”

He saw the doubts in her eyes. She might have boldly hugged him and laid a kiss across his cheek, but he suspected her motive was to offer support and comfort. He was making her wonder with his request.

“I’ve got a new dog, and I’ve already left him too long,” Kacey demurred.

“Then I’ll come to yours. I just have to pick up something at home.” He saw that she might protest and added, “I don’t think it can wait.” When she hesitated, he added, “I’ll be there in about forty minutes. And it won’t take long. But, really, I think it’s something you should see.”

“Can’t you just tell me?”

He felt one side of his mouth lift. “No.”

“Do you know where I live?”

He shook his head. “I did a little research. I’ll tell you all about that, too. Trust me.”

Her eyes narrowed in suspicion, but she gave him a nod. “Okay.”

“Good.” As she closed her Ford’s door and started the engine, he heard the distinct notes of “Carol of the Bells” through the glass before she backed out of the parking spot.

Lifting a hand in good-bye, she drove off, and he jogged quickly to his truck. He didn’t question why, suddenly, he felt the need to confide in her. Maybe it was the way she looked into his eyes, or the manner in which she tended to his son, or just because he thought she should know the truth. He didn’t second-guess his motivations, just waited until she was out of sight, then slid behind the wheel of his pickup and turned on the ignition just as he heard the sound of a siren screaming through the night.

Red lights flashed as an ambulance pulled into the parking lot of the hospital and slid to a stop near the emergency room doors. An EMT hopped out of the back, and a stretcher with an elderly man hooked up to an IV and oxygen was quickly rolled through the sliding doors.

He thought once more of his boy up on the third floor and, with the knowledge that Eli was in safe, caring hands, drove with controlled urgency through the coming snow and home. Letting the truck idle, he hurried up the back steps and into the house, where he double-checked on Sarge. The dog, cone in place, was sleeping on his dog bed in the living room and glanced toward Trace, even thumping his tail. “Hang in there,” Trace told the shepherd, then scooped up the information he’d gathered on his desk, grabbed his laptop, and headed out the door again. The truck was warm, and he slammed it into reverse, not allowing himself to ask himself what in the hell he was doing.