Autumn's Shadow
Table of Contents
- Chapter One
- Chapter Two
- Chapter Three
- Chapter Four
- Chapter Five
- Chapter Six
- Chapter Seven
- Chapter Eight
- Chapter Nine
- Chapter Ten
- Chapter Eleven
- Chapter Twelve
- Chapter Thirteen
- Chapter Fourteen
- Epilogue
- Dear Reader,
- Author Bio
- Excerpt from Summer's End
- End Notes
Autumn's Shadow
by Lyn Cote
Revised and Updated Edition
Copyright Ebook Edition 2011 by Lyn Cote
All rights reserved
Originally published as a Trade Paperback
by Tyndale House Publishers
Copyright 2002 by Lyn Cote
Kindle Edition
Copyright 2011 Lyn Cote
Second in
Northern Intrigue
series
Winter's Secret
Autumn's Shadow
Summer's End
For more information,
http://www.BooksbyLynCote.com/
To Eileene Sauer, thanks for your gentle spirit and sweet smile.
The Family Closet (named by Gail Gaymer Martin) was inspired by Treasures on Second, the thrift shop that supports Aid to Women, the Women's Crisis Center in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and also by the St. Matthias Thrift Shop in Minocqua, Wisconsin.
Thanks to Terry Jackson, fire chief of Marion, Iowa, for his expertise.
"Am I my brother's keeper?" Genesis 4:9b, KVJ
Table of Contents
Chapter Three
Excerpt from Next Book, Summer's End
Just as Keely Turner was turning onto Highway 27 to go to the clinic to check on her injured cheerleader, her cell phone rang."Keely Turner."
"Ms. Turner—" the young male voice on the line shook—"could you come? Carrie Walachek, you know, my girlfriend—"
"Who is this?" The fear in his voice put her on alert.
"Ma'am, I volunteer in the school store—"
She recognized the voice and interrupted, "What's wrong?"
"Shane gave me your cell phone number and told me to call you. I'm really scared for Carrie. This lady down the way from Carrie's trailer said I could use her phone. Carrie went inside...." The teen was obviously fighting to control his emotions, but the fear in his tone was contagious. "There's been a lot of shouting and—"
The line clicked.
Her pulse suddenly thudding in her head, Keely looked at the phone and then hung up. She stopped on the side of the road and snapped on her map light. Reaching into her glove compartment, she took out the student directory and located Carrie's name and address. She entered it into her GPS and confirmed the location.
Resolutely, she turned her SUV back onto the road. The student had sounded panicked. She'd go, assess the problem, and then call social services. She sped all the way to the edge of town where a few trailers huddled together.
When she pulled up at Carrie's address, she saw Shane Blackfeather with the teen who'd called her, pounding on the trailer door, shouting Carrie's name.
Mounting dread chilled her. Keely got out and approached the bottom of the metal steps up to the trailer. She could hear things being broken inside—ominous. She asked, "What are you two doing?"
Shane's friend knotted his hands into fists. "This is all my fault." He turned back to Shane. "Let's break down the door—"
"Shane!" Keely snapped, trying to keep the two teens from making matters worse. "What's happening?"
Shane, tall and dark, ran down to her. "We're afraid Carrie's dad is beating her. We can't get him to open up—"
She held up her hand. Muffled shouts and groans came from inside the trailer, then a thud like something heavy—a body?—hitting the inside wall. This went beyond what she could handle. Her adrenaline spurting, she pulled the cell phone from her purse and speed dialed the sheriff's department. Quickly she barked her name and location and the trouble.
The trailer door burst open.
Keely dropped her phone.
"You!" the large man shouted. "Who invited you, Turner?"
"Mr. Walachek—," she began.
"Get out of here!" Alcohol slurred his voice. "Off my property!"
Carrie appeared just behind her father. She tried to squeeze around him. But the big man pinned her under one arm.
"Mr. Walachek," Keely spoke calmly, playing for time. Would the sheriff's department send help in time? "The boys called me. What seems to be the problem? Can I be of any help?"
"I told you! This ain't your business, lady! Just 'cause you're a Turner don't give you the right to meddle! Get off my property—"
Carrie tried to twist out of her father's grip. The man slammed his fist into her face.
Screaming inside, Keely stooped and grabbed up her phone.
The teens made a rush for the girl. The father dragged his daughter inside, but he couldn't get the door shut in time. The boys rushed into the trailer—yelling.
"Get her out of there!" Keely screamed.
A police siren drowned out her voice.
Shane and his friend burst out with Carrie between them. They hustled down the steps, half carrying the girl.
"Get her into my car!" Keely shouted.
"Don't move!" Walachek bellowed at the top of the steps. "Don't move, any of you!" He held a rifle and pointed it deliberately at Keely's head.
The three teens froze halfway down the steps.
Staring into the rifle barrel, Keely couldn't draw breath.
"Mr. Walachek?" a calm voice came from behind Keely."What seems to be the problem here?"
The unfamiliar voice shocked Keely out of her paralysis. She gasped for air. Glancing over , she saw it was the new deputy, Burke Sloan. He'd been pointed out to her in town.
"Get off my property!" the man bellowed again, the sound vibrating inside Keely, making her shake.
"Mr. Walachek, you know I can't do that," Sloan said in a calm tone. "Not when you're pointing a weapon at Ms. Turner. I can't leave until you put that rifle away—"
"I didn't ask her to come. She's on my property. I got a right to shoot trespassers!"
"I don't want to argue with you, but if you think you can shoot Ms. Turner as a trespasser, you'll find out it won't hold up in any court."
"Yeah, but if she's dead, she won't care. And it would serve her father right!" The man cursed.
"Mr. Walachek," the deputy said in the same tone he might have used to request a weather report, "you still haven't told me what the problem is."
"This kid got my girl pregnant! And he's going to marry her or—"
"This be your first grandchild?" Sloan interrupted.
The man stared at him. "What?"
"I said, will this be your first grandchild?"
"Yeah! What about it?"
"I just thought you might want to be around when the baby's born." The deputy's tone continued matter of factly.
"What's that mean?" Walachek glared and tightened his grip on his deer rifle.
"That means this is no time to be pointing guns at people."
"Get that Turner off my property then! Her lousy father has been running this county since before I was born!"
Keely tried to block out the nasty words and the hateful tone. Her father's highhanded actions were making matters difficult for her once again.
"I don't see how that has anything to do with this situation. Now, Mr. Walachek, lower your rifle."
The intoxicated man glared at Keely.
"Mr. Walachek, my Beretta's safety is off and it's racked. I can hit you before you can aim and fire once. This is no time to be firing guns. Your daughter is in the line of fire and she's expecting a child. Now you wouldn't want anything to hurt your little girl, would you?"
Keely held her breath. Walachek stared into her eyes, seeing her fear, feeding on it—she thought. But she couldn't hide it.
"Mr. Walachek, lower your gun." The deputy's easygoing tone had hardened to forged steel.
The drunken man's glare turned murderous.
A suppressed scream vibrated in Keely's throat.
Walachek lowered his rifle. He swore at them and backed inside.
Frozen in place, Keely heard footsteps. Sloan grabbed her, shoved her behind him, and hustled her sideways the few feet to his Jeep. He pressed her down behind his vehicle. "Don't move," he ordered in an undertone.
"Walachek!" he called. "I'm taking your daughter to the clinic in Steadfast."
From inside another stream of cursing exploded. Then the sound of breaking glass. Still crouching, Keely bent her head against the back of Sloan's neck, seeking his protection. She gripped the shoulders of his jacket with both hands. Would Walachek decide to shoot from inside?
As though they were in a war movie, the three teens who had been crouching near the bottom step ran, doubled over, toward the deputy's Jeep. They crowded around Sloan like a campfire on a chilly night.
Sloan glanced toward Carrie. "Is there anyone else in there with—"
"No," Carrie moaned. The girl began sobbing.
Keely reached for her, pulling her close.
With a few pointed words, Burke told the two boys to get in the vehicles—one would drive Keely's SUV and the other would drive Shane's truck and they were to head for the Erickson Clinic.
Still crouched beside Sloan, Shane objected. "Are you going to let him just point a gun at Ms. Turner without—"
"I'm just one officer. My first duty—once Walachek put his weapon down—is to get all of you out of harm's way."He handed Keely's keys to Shane and then tugged her hand, pulling her and Carrie along with him.
Opening the back door of his Jeep, he lifted Carrie into the backseat; then he urged Keely to keep her head down while she slid into the front seat. He hurried around to let himself in behind the wheel. "You two," he called to the boys, "get going!"
As the teens ran to the other vehicles, Sloan started his Jeep. Instead of turning around in front of the trailer as Keely expected, he gunned it in reverse down the road. At the end of the line of trailers, he executed a U-turn and headed toward 27.
Keely hooked her seat belt with trembling hands. Pulling herself together, she turned to look through the grill that separated the front and back seats. Carrie's long black hair fell over her face, and the girl's narrow shoulders shook with her weeping. "Carrie, how badly hurt are you?"
"I'm so embarrassed...."
Carrie's anguished words and forlorn sobs cut right to Keely's heart. She knew just how Carrie felt. How many times had her father's ill temper and contempt for others humiliated Keely? But no one would believe that.
If you had money, you didn't have problems, right?
In the low light, Keely studied the new deputy in town from the corner of her eye. She retained the impression that he was tall but he wasn't lanky. He was compactly built. The headlights of an oncoming car highlighted the bit of tawny hair, showing around his hat. She wondered if his eyes were brown or blue and then shook herself. "You're the new deputy," she said.
He nodded, keeping his eye on the road. "And you're the new high school principal, Ms. Turner. I was coming to the school board meeting tonight but got sent elsewhere."
She nodded. Their conversation was calming her in some odd way. It seemed a lifetime ago that she'd been in the squat, red-brick building tonight, discussing a prank on school grounds today. During this afternoon's try-outs, one cheerleader had stepped into one of many holes dug and deceptively covered with sod. And now this horrible scene.