Her Only Salvation (14 page)

Chapter Sixteen

Terri stood in front of the open window watching the sun slowly dip below the tree line. The shadows grew longer, stretching their limbs as if awakening from a long sleep. The picture before her was one of serenity, but inside Terri was anything but serene.

This morning she had awakened feeling like a truck had run over her. She knew the reason for it, as it happened about the same time every month since she was twelve, but that didn’t mean she had to like it. Depression weighed on her like a ton of bricks and she had to drag herself out of bed.

Finding Luke bent over a mug of hot coffee, his nose buried in the Sunday morning paper, was becoming a routine. Terri plopped down beside him. “I’m calling off,” she told him bluntly, then stole his cup for herself. He let her take it, and poured himself another cup.

“Rough night?” he asked, seating himself beside her again.

“You could say that,” she skirted, sipping gingerly at the hot liquid.

“I don’t know,” he said slowly, a teasing tone in his voice. “You’ve given me no notice, so that leaves the bar shorthanded…”

Terri knocked his elbow with her own. “Come on,” she begged. “I’ll clean your house, do your laundry, scrub your floors with my toothbrush. Just give me today. I’ve never asked you for anything, not in all the time I’ve worked for you.”

Luke blew out a heavy breath, studying her with one eyebrow arched.

“Please,” she begged, batting her eyelashes playfully.

“Not even a week, and already she’s taking advantage of the boss,” Luke huffed. “I should fire you on principle alone,” he said, but his words lacked conviction.

“You’re heart’s too big to fire me,” Terri said confidently. “If you did, you and I both know you’d lie awake in bed every night wondering where I was, how I was doing, if I was cold or hungry… You don’t have it in you, Luke Reed.”

Grabbing her around the waist, Luke hauled her up against him and kissed her. “You’re too clever for your own good,” he stated, then released her. “You can have the day,” he said, “but I expect this house to be sparkling when I get back.”

“Slave driver!” Terri called after him. Once he was out of sight, her smile slipped and Terri felt the full onslaught of depression wash back over her like a tidal wave, threatening to drown her. She managed to keep a happy face whenever Luke came into the room, but it was difficult to maintain. She knew he sensed the change in her, but, thankfully, he didn’t press. By the time he left for work that evening, Terri was relieved. She truly enjoyed his company, but she preferred to dwell in her pit of sorrow alone.

Now, Terri was faced with complete and total silence. For the most part, she was fine with it. She had been living in isolation for more than a year now, so she should be used to it, but now that she’d tasted the warmth of basic human companionship again, she didn’t want it to go away. She liked sharing her space with someone else.

Pushing away from the window, Terri sought out paper and a pen so she could make a list of everything that she intended to get done around the house. She had meant what she said; she would clean the house for Luke. It was the least she could do to thank him for taking her into his home, but she also wanted to do it because she needed to keep busy.

In a kitchen junk drawer, she found what she needed: a small tablet of lined paper and a red pen. In her best cursive, she wrote out
To-Do List
. She made a numbered column down the left side and started filling each line in, starting with the basics.

1.             
   Load dishwasher
   
2.             
   Sweep and mop floors
   
3.             
   Wipe tables
   
4.             
   Make beds
   
5.             
   Clean bathrooms
   
6.             
   Take out the trash
   

Feeling that she’d covered just about everything, she got to work.

***

Detective Young was sound asleep when his phone began vibrating, yanking him rudely from a very nice dream. He had been running all day, trying to piece together what little information he had on the case. Unfortunately, he didn’t get far.

After his visit at Terri Cunningham’s house turned up a soon-to-be ex-husband who put out enough bad vibes to give him radiation poisoning, he intended on stopping in at her place of employment and cornering her there instead. He’d just pulled into the club’s packed parking lot when his cell went off. New information on another case he was working on had just come in and he had to bail on his current mission, placing it on the back burner for the day. He’d been running for almost sixteen hours straight, so he didn’t appreciate being woken up in the middle of the night.

Eyes still closed, he fumbled around the night stand until he found it. Blindly pushing buttons, he eventually managed to answer the call, saying in a voice thick with sleep, “Yeah?”

“Howard.” At the sound of his chief’s voice, Howard pushed himself to sitting and tossed his feet over the side of the bed. As he rubbed the sleep from his eyes, his boss hit him with the news. “I just got a call from the hospital. Brent Lefebvre is awake.”

Howard was already moving, jabbing his legs into a pair of pants he scooped off the floor. They were a little wrinkled, but they would do. “Is he talking?” He worked the buttons on his shirt while heading into the bathroom for his toothbrush.

“Oh yeah. You’re going to want to get down there.”

“I’m on it.” Howard punche
d
EN
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and stuffed the phone in his pocket. He splashed cold water on his face to perk himself up, and scrubbed his teeth with such force his dentist would cringe. He ran a comb through his hair, but he didn’t have time to tame the stubborn colic that sprang up after each pass. He tossed the brush on the counter and called it good.

“Honey?” He turned to find his wife standing in the door watching him, her arms folded over her chest, her eyes filled with concern. “Is everything okay?”

Kissing her on the forehead, Howard pushed past her, searching out his shoes. “Everything is fine,” he said distractedly.
Had he left them under the bed or somewhere downstairs?
“But I have to get down to the hospital.”

Tugging her robe on, she sat down on the edge of the bed. Her body language was stiff, and her eyes tracked him around the room. “Is this about one of your cases?”

“Yeah.”
Where was his wallet? And his keys?
He patted his pockets and scanned the room, finally locating them on the highboy.

“I wish you could tell me what is going on,” she said, a small crease forming between her pale brows.

Howard stopped midstride to look at her. “I wish I could, too, Faye,” he said sincerely. “But until the case is closed…”

“Yeah, I know,” she said with a dismissive wave of her hand. “You can’t talk about it.”

Howard stared at her for a long time, wondering what the right thing to do here was. He could tell his wife was upset, hated being left in the dark, but that was the nature of his job. A part of him wanted to tell her everything, it wasn’t like she would blab it to the world, but it wasn’t a risk he was willing to take. His detective side was pulling him toward the door, but he fought it long enough to reassure her.

“Are we alright here?” he asked, clasping her shoulders.

She reached up and patted one of his hands. “We’re fine. I knew what I was getting into when I married you. It’s just hard sometimes, you know?”

He nodded solemnly. He knew all too well, but there was nothing to be done about it. “I have to go,” he said, kissing her briefly before he spun and was out the door.

***

Randy cruised down the darkened country road at a steady pace, searching intently for the illusive path that would lead him to his wayward wife. His trip had been delayed a bit, but if there was one thing he had learned while on the force, it was that you never went into any situation unprepared. So, he had stopped off at a little mom and pop hardware store for a pair of heavy duty metal cutters, thanks to the information that his tracker had passed along to him.

Now, he was killing time turning around and around, traveling the same two mile stretch of highway until he recognized every stick and stone along the way. He was preparing to do a U-turn again, when he caught headlights in his rearview mirror. Pulling onto the shoulder to get out of the way, he allowed the car to pass.

“What the…” Randy sat forward, squinting out the window as the car’s headlights caught on a rough clearing that he knew he’d passed by several times before. It was so subtle; no one would ever know it was there unless they knew to look for it. There were no markers or anything, just a patch of bare ground canopied by trees and surrounded by wild bushes that helped mask its appearance.

He knew instantly it was what he was looking for.

Making sure no cars were coming, Randy turned the truck down the beaten path, taking it extra slow to dampen the sound of his arrival as much as to spare him from a bruised ass. If anyone ever managed to stumble upon this sorry excuse for a road, they’d be so afraid of breaking an axle or popping a tire, they’d turn around again.

There was only one reason Randy could think of that a man would go to these lengths to keep himself hidden, and that meant he had some skeletons of his own in his closet. “What are you hiding from?” he muttered, then cursed when his tire slammed into a particularly deep pothole.

He didn’t know how long he’d been driving at the two-miles-per-hour pace he’d set, which still seemed to be too fast for this road, when the glow of artificial lights broke through the trees. Excitement roared inside him as he pulled the truck to a stop at the side of the road, not bothering to hide it. Why should he? He was here to retrieve his wife, after all.

As he walked up the expansive lawn, his bag of supplies slung over his shoulder, his feet light on the grass, Randy sized up the house. It wasn’t anything spectacular on the outside, but from what he knew from the Intel he’d received, it had enough going on inside to make up for it. Lights were on in every room in the house. Every curtain on the first floor was drawn, preventing him from seeing in as he rounded the house to the back where he was told the cellar doors would be, marking his entrance into the house.

Thanks to the lights inside and the glow of the moon overhead, his path was easy to follow. A very sturdy set of doors leading into the ground appeared as he rounded the back of the house and Randy whistled low when he set his eyes on the heavy duty chains wrapped tightly around the handles. This guy wasn’t playing around. Whatever he was protecting against, he was sure that his security didn’t stop at a set of chains, but he would have to cross that road if and when he came to it.

Dropping the heavy bag on the ground in front of his feet, Randy unzipped it and fished around for the cutters. Tool in hand, he placed his foot on one door and bent to line up the blade with the metal. When he had explained to the man at the store what he needed the cutters for, he expected him to lead him to some glorified pinchers. Instead, he had been pointed to a motorized hand tool with a rotating diamond edge blade. As he clicked it on, he worried briefly about the noise it created, but it made such quick work of the lock that he was done in no time.

Tossing the tool back in the bag, Randy ducked between the doors and began his descent into the pitch black basement below. In a few short minutes, he would be holding his wife in his arms again.

Chapter Seventeen

Evenings were peak operating hours for any hospital, and as Howard stepped through the emergency room doors of St. Anne, he got a taste of the chaos firsthand. Visitors and concerned family members crisscrossed paths with nurses who were busy tending to patients, answering phones, and carrying out various activities that he had no interest in.

Focused, Howard walked a straight path down the center of the wide hallway, forcing people to walk around him to avoid being mowed over. He wasn’t going to slow or stop for anything until he reached his destination.

Howard hit the elevators and punched the button for the third floor where the ICU was located at the end of the south wing. Elevator music hummed in his ears and the popping of the cables set his nerves even more on edge as he pictured one of them snapping and sending the car plummeting into the basement with him in it. He had never trusted elevators.

The second the doors slid open, Howard stepped off, eager to be free of the metal enclosure. Cutting a left, he bypassed the nurses’ station and took a right where the hall branched off in opposite directions. Brent’s room was the fifth on the left.

He found Brent propped up in his bed, an IV in his arm and looking like he could use a shower and a haircut. He was still attached to several monitors. His mother, Teresa, was hovering over him on one side of the bed, shoving spoonfuls of green Jell-O in his face and following it up with a straw attached to an unmarked beverage. One of the boys he’d interviewed early on in the investigation, Marcus if his memory served, sat in a chair opposite looking bored and completely unaffected.

“Mom,” Brent complained, pushing her hand away. “Only one of my arms is broken. I don’t need you to feed me.”

“But you just woke up,” she insisted. “You’re still weak. Why won’t you let me help you?”

Brent groaned. “It’s embarrassing,” he whined, glancing at his friend. “It’s bad enough Marcus has to see it, but what if one of the other guys shows up and sees you feeding me like a baby?”

Teresa’s expression showed the sting of rejection plainly and Howard chose that moment to step fully inside and make his presence known. “Glad to see you awake, son.” Brent and Marcus looked up, startled, at the same moment Teresa spun around.

“Detective,” she said, greeting him with a wide smile. Any indication that she had been upset had completely vanished. “How long have you been standing there? Come in.”

“Not too long,” Howard replied as he approached the foot of Brent’s bed. “How are you feeling?”

Brent lay back on his pillows and closed his eyes momentarily. “Got a pretty good headache, but other than that, I feel okay.”

“That’s good to hear,” Howard said with a friendly smile. He didn’t want to waste any more time. Producing the tablet of paper he always kept on hand for these types of situations, he clicked his pen and looked meaningfully back at Brent, ready to get down to business. “I need you to try and answer a few questions for me. Sound good?” At Brent’s slight nod, he continued. “Do you remember what happened to you?”

“I don’t remember a damn thing, but I’m told some freak ran me down with his truck.” The fierce look on Brent’s face told Howard that one day, no matter what he chose to do with himself in life, he would make waves.

“That’s understandable,” Howard said, feeling a shot of disappointment at the expected but unwelcome news. “Can you tell me anything? Anything at all?”

“Well, it’s kinda hard to take notes when you’re unconscious.”

Teresa spoke up, her tone apologetic. “The doctor said that people with a brain injury don’t remember anything that happened immediately before.”

Howard clicked his pen and returned it to his breast pocket. His disappointment was clear in the tone of voice he used. “Well, I guess we’re back to square one, then.” Tipping his head at Teresa, he glanced briefly at Brent and then at Marcus, who wore an interesting expression that he couldn’t quite read, before wishing them a good night.

He caught Doctor Pinsky just coming down the hall, and stepped in front of him, bringing him to a stop just outside the room.

“Doctor,” he said, leaving the pleasantries at home this time. “I was just in with the Lefebvre kid. His mother said it might be a while for his memory to return?”

Expression dour, Pinsky strode past him. After returning a folder to the nurse’s station, he turned back to him. “I know how badly you want to get answers, Detective, but I’m afraid you won’t find them here. Like I told Ms. Lefebvre, with the kind of injuries Brent has received, he likely won’t ever recover his memories from that night. Maybe a few from earlier on in the evening, but not from the accident itself.”

Howard pursed his lips, not liking what he was hearing.

“Personally,” continued Dr. Pinsky, “I have never seen a patient regain memory after experiencing something like that. I’m afraid you’ll just have to get your information elsewhere.”

Howard glared at him. “Well, I already looked. There is no information ‘elsewhere.’”

“Then I guess you’ll have to move on,” Pinsky said with a shrug, then walked away, leaving Howard standing there alone.

He couldn’t believe that no one, not one person he had interviewed, knew a thing about what happened that night. Determined more than ever to have answers, Howard stomped his determination into the tiled floor as he approached the elevators. Halfway down the hall, he heard the quick footfalls of someone approaching him from behind.

“Detective. Uh, Mr. Young?”

Howard turned to find Marcus jogging toward him. The boy stopped a few inches short of him, his eyes darting nervously.

“Is there something you need?” Howard asked.

“I, um, I might, you know…have some information that you could use or something.” He ran his teeth over his lip, his large brown eyes glancing up at him briefly before moving away again.

Howard waited a beat before saying, rather impatiently, “Well. Whatever you have to say, spit it out.”

“If I tell you what I know…Look,” he said strongly, “I can’t be tied to this, alright? If I tell you, you can’t tell anyone it was me.”

Howard didn’t like making deals before he knew what he was dealing with, but he had absolutely nothing left to lose and this case was going nowhere fast. If this kid has information, he was willing to agree to anything to get it.

“Whatever, I didn’t hear it from you. Now spill.”

“Uh, that truck you’re looking for,” he spoke slowly. “I might have gotten the license plate.”

Howard’s eyes widened with interest. “Why did you sit on this information when you knew your friend was fighting for his life?  Why didn’t you say something sooner?”

Marcus winced. “I know I should have.”

“Then why didn’t you?” Howard snapped.

“Because I was scared!” Marcus looked around frantically; making sure no one was watching or listening. “I was scared,” he said more subdued this time. “I’m not even twenty yet, and, well, you know what happens in places like that.” His eyes were pleading with him to understand and, yeah, he knew exactly what the kid was getting at. Drugs, alcohol…He was terrified of Mommy and Daddy finding out that he wasn’t the nice, responsible student they had shipped off, and if the school found out…There was no telling how much trouble he would be in.

Howard decided to cut him some slack. “I get it. And don’t worry about it. I’ll make sure you aren’t mentioned in the paperwork. Now tell me what happened, and this time, don’t leave anything out.”

Marcus nodded, relieved but still tense. “Well, Brent had just left and I realized he was holding for me, so I ran out to catch him before he drove off. You know, stuff costs a lot of money these days.”

Drugs, Howard thought, his suspicions confirmed.

“I was just about to call out to him when he tripped and like that,” he snapped his fingers, “the truck was there. I’ll never forget the sound when it hit him.” He stared off, his thoughts drifting back to the moment it all happened, then he shook his head to clear it away. “RNMOVR. I’ll never forget it. Sick, right?”

Run-em-over, Howard translated in his head.  Jesus. He knew that plate.

“So,” Marcus said, his entire demeanor changing. “Is there, like, a reward or something?”

“Yep,” Howard said with a wide grin, and clapped him on the shoulder. “You get to go to bed tonight with a clear conscience.”

Marcus looked deflated, then sullen.

Howard took off, too hopped up to care. What Marcus had revealed blew the whole case wide open. He got on his phone, dialing the police chief as he burst into the stairwell, too impatient to wait for the elevator.

“John,” he barked into the phone when the chief picked up. “It’s Howard. I got something for you.”

In a crackly voice John grumbled, “Jesus, Howard. Do you know what time it is?”

“Forget the time,” he snapped, jumping down the last few stairs to the second floor landing. “You need to get down to the station and put a squad together. I have some information that just blew the doors off the Lefebvre case.”

“What? Calm down, Howard, you’re talking a mile a minute.” Down the line, Howard could hear the soft rustle of fabric as the chief got out of bed and pulled on his clothes. “What kind of information are we talking about here?”

“It’s a long story. Look,” Howard said, barreling through the first floor door and down the hall to the emergency exit. “I’m heading into the station right now. Just meet me there and I’ll fill you in on everything.” Hanging up, Howard jogged through the parking lot to his car, anxious to get the ball rolling before they missed their window to catch this guy.

Howard was just opening his car door when his phone jangled in his hand. “What is it,” he barked, folding himself in behind the wheel.

“Is this Young? Howard Young,” the shaky male voice asked.

“Speaking.” Something about this person’s voice made Howard stop and pay attention.

“This is Jerold Montrose. I am a lawyer representing Terri Cunningham—”

Howard slammed the car into reverse. “If this is about my questioning her, you can save it. I was well within the legal parameters—”

“That’s not the reason for this call,” Jerald interrupted. “I am calling because I have reason to believe her life might be in danger.”

Harold froze, and he slid the car back into park. “Okay, Mr. Montrose, you have my attention.”

***

Luke was sitting in his office, busying himself with paperwork, when his phone started ringing. He answered it on the first ring. “Detective Young. What can I do for you this evening?”

“Is Terri working tonight,” he asked impatiently.

Luke frowned. “No. She’s off tonight. What’s this all about?” he asked, sitting at attention.

“I stopped by her house the other day.”

“She’s not staying there right now,” Luke informed, getting a queasy feeling.

“I already figured that. I talked to her husband.”

Now Luke was on full alert. “Her husband? He was in the house?”

“Well, I met him outside, but it certainly seems that way. Why? Is he not supposed to be there?”

“They’re getting divorced. What do you think?”

“Well, according to Mr. Cunningham, they’re in the process of reconciling.”

Luke no longer cared about guarding his tongue. He was too worried about where this line of conversation was headed. “No. That’s the last thing Terri wants.”

“And how would you know what she wants, Mr. Reed?”

“Because I do,” was all Luke was willing to say.

“I called her residence, but there was no answer,” Detective Young informed him. “Do you know where she is?” The tone of his voice told Luke he knew well where she might be, but he was looking for confirmation.

“She’s staying with me.” Standing, Luke paced back and forth across the tiny expanse behind his desk. “What are you not telling me?”

“I don’t have time to get into it right now,” he said. “I’m pulling into the station as we speak, but I think it would be wise of you to get ahold of her, make sure everything is okay.”

“Is she in danger?” Luke asked, feeling the stirrings of panic begin to bubble up like acid in his stomach.

“I don’t know,” the detective said honestly. “Just call her, make sure everything is alright on her end, then do me a favor and call me back to let me know.”

“What is going on,” Luke growled into the phone. He was losing patience, his worry for Terri’s well-being taking his mind captive.

“All I can tell you is I’m following up on a lead. So do everyone a favor and do as I asked.” The line went dead and Luke’s hand dropped.

He was a bundle of nerves, the sensation of his world imploding pressing down around him. He couldn’t believe that after all these years someone could affect him this much, but Luke couldn’t deny the overwhelming sensation that he needed to be certain Terri was okay.

Hanging up the phone, he retrieved his cell phone, wallet, and keys from the desk drawer.  On his way out the door, he started dialing his house. “Cathie,” he shouted across the bar. “I’m leaving early. You’re in charge of closing if I don’t get back before then.” Her expression was that of worry, but she just nodded and continued filling drinks.