Love Inspired Suspense June 2014 Bundle 1 of 2: Undercover Marriage\Collateral Damage\Forgotten Past (32 page)

“I do remember that,” Sarah said. She also remembered what jealousy felt like, even though she knew Nick was simply being kind to the new girl.

“In fact,” Carmen said, “remember our little party that didn't turn out so well?”

“The drugs,” Nora grumbled. “I wouldn't have been surprised if the D.A. had attempted to add that into the mix in court this past year, as well.”

“Oh, hush,” Lynley said. “You know we'd have never let him do that.”

“Poor Petra kept looking for Nick at the party that night,” Carmen said. “I wasn't about to break her heart and tell her I'd seen him with Shelby. I mean, I was surprised enough, myself, to see him with the wrong twin. One never saw Nick without Sarah.”

Sarah cleared her throat and glanced at Carmen. “Well, about that. Um...well, you see, Shelby was sick that night, and I decided to wash off all that goop.”

Carmen gasped. “That was you with Nick I saw kissing up in the loft?”

The room fell silent and all the women stared at Sarah. Emma continued playing with Nina, but Sarah knew that hyper-vigilant expression on her daughter's face.

“You know what else?” Carmen piped up. “If you want to talk about love tangles, guess who was looking for Petra that same night.”

Sarah was afraid to ask. She glanced at the others.

“Nick's cousin,” Carmen said.

Kirstie gasped. “Billy? Carmen, why didn't you say anything?”

“Hello? Worse problems to deal with? Drugged soda? But I do recall the look of heartbreak on Billy's face when he was standing not too far from the table and Petra asked about Nick.”

Nora suddenly stood up. “Okay, that does it. I'll never eat at Parker's again. Do you realize he might well have been the one to drug the soda? Remember the crowd he ran with then? Will Parker was always clamping down on his son. That Billy was a wild one. Who knows what he could put in our food any time he wants and no one would guess.”

“Oh, sit down and look at more of these pictures.” Kirstie tugged on Nora's sleeve, and Nora reluctantly gave in. The chatter grew once again.

Carmen touched Sarah's hand and held up one of the scrapbooks. Sarah caught her breath. It was a page with her photo, Aunt Peg's, Emma's and Mom's, all at the same age.

“You were the one with Nick the night Billy, or whoever, placed the drug in the sodas?”

Sarah nodded.

“Your parents adopted their granddaughter,” she whispered.

“Yes.”

Carmen leaned forward and beckoned Sarah to do the same. “She's yours,” she said with such a beautiful thread of joy in her voice that it brought tears to Sarah's eyes. “Yours and Nick's?”

Sarah cast a warning glance toward Emma. “She doesn't know.”

“Oh, honey, why didn't I see it sooner? We all should have. Good can come out of just about anything, can't it?”

“I'm still working on that. Emma's a really good thing, I know.”

Carmen stretched out and rested her stockinged feet on the coffee table. She'd changed into her pajamas, and her lovely legs were partially exposed by the slit up the side of her pajama bottoms. She still carried the grace of her earlier years. She glanced toward Emma, snuggled beside Nina in the cozy sunroom. “She's a beautiful girl.”

Sarah leaned her head into the sofa back, feeling the comfort of Carmen's encouraging words. It was true that she felt safer here, with family and old friends, than she would have felt driving back across the state. Also, she'd forgotten how much like Mom Carmen was.

“Thank you,” she said softly.

“I'm just glad you're here,” Carmen said. She nodded toward Emma. “That child sure came as quite a surprise for all of us when we heard about her, nine months after your family moved away. None of us could believe your mama would keep such a secret from us.”

“It was a difficult situation.” Sarah made sure the chatter of the others covered her voice.

“And they handled it with the typical Russell grace. I'm glad to see you and Nick together again after so many years,” Carmen said. “You two were always good with each other.”

“He was a good friend. He and Edward want us to stay for the summer.”

Carmen glanced toward Emma. “So they know.”

“I told them today.”

“Aha! Let me guess—Nick wants to marry you.”

“He can't want to marry me, Carmen. He doesn't even know me anymore, and when we were kids, he never showed that kind of interest in me.”

“Of course not. He was bound for med school, and everyone knows marriages are difficult enough without that kind of hardship binding them down.”

“It didn't stop him from marrying someone else. Besides, I'm a grown woman, not a helpless teenager. He just wants to get to know his daughter.”

Carmen leaned next to Sarah's ear. “You telling her tonight?”

Sarah gazed down at her daughter and shook her head. “She's already endured so much.”

Carmen patted Sarah's arm. “It might be difficult, but she'll come around.”

“It was different for Edward and Nick. You wouldn't believe how happy they are about her.”

“I'll be saying little prayers from now until you tell her.”

“Thank you. Would you do me another favor?” Sarah asked. “Would you tell me about Nick? I've only heard snatches of information about him over the years when our parents spoke or met on retreats.”

“Well, rest assured he realized his mistake with the marriage.” Carmen aimed a pretty sneer toward the ceiling. “It might interest you to know that Dr. Nicolas Tyler was married for a total of five miserable years to ‘Queen' Chloe, and I do mean miserable. Why he didn't look you up if he wanted to get married, I'll never know.”

“It's because he didn't feel that way about me. Best friends, yes. Nothing more.” The truth sank in more deeply.

“Then he was an idiot. Getting trapped by that gold digger who always wanted the most expensive car, the latest fashions, best jewelry, and of course she thought we Jolly Mill hicks were dirt under her feet. Not that I'm bitter.”

Sarah forced a chuckle. “Of course not.”

“I always did think you two were just right for each other, both of you being brainiacs and never interested in the outward markings of social vanity.”

“Outward markings?” Sarah giggled. “You don't think my Goth getup was outward enough?”

“Oh, pshaw.” Carmen shot her a dimpled grin. “That was rebellion, pure and simple. I have to say, I always admired you for your independence, even if you did embarrass your poor folks half to death the first day you pranced into church that way. And poor Shelby—she nearly fainted dead away in the pew. When Nora saw you, she snorted so hard the whole congregation was giggling by the time your dad stepped to the pulpit.”

Sarah was just beginning to relax when Carmen's telephone screeched. Sarah jerked. Nina swung around from her playtime with Emma and barked, jumping up and down.

Carmen answered, listened, frowned. “Alec, honey, slow down.” She got up and walked into the dining room where her friends sat watching her. Sarah followed.

“No, but Sarah's here.” She held out the phone for Sarah. “Not sure what he's talking about, but I think you need to hear him.”

Sarah took the phone. “Alec? What's up?”

“I just remembered something about Petra that I should've remembered a long time ago. Her last name changed after she moved here with her mother and stepfather.”

“She had a different name?”

“Friedman.”

Sarah gasped as she recognized that name. She'd heard it often after the Spring River retreat changed venue and poor Mr. Friedman took his own life.

“So you do recall the name,” Alec said.

“Yes. Aren't you with her now? I thought you were going to see her tonight.”

“I called her and she was working late on some new pastry experiment.”

Sarah froze. “Something with cinnamon?”

“Hey, yeah, that's right. How'd you know? So I started thinking about my argument with Gerard. Mom wasn't the only one abused when I was growing up. I remembered the rumors about Petra, and so I had to check our old school yearbooks. Sure enough, I compared her former name to the name of the guy in Verona who committed suicide.”

“Alec, where are you?”

“Home.”

“I think the guys might need some help. Can you come back here? I've got to call Nick.”

“But what—”

She disconnected, located Nick's cell number and punched it in, hoping he'd switched to vibrate. She didn't realize she'd been holding her breath until he answered.

“Yeah.”

“Nick. It's Petra.”

“What?”

“She was adopted by her stepfather, remember? Your hunch was correct. Her last name was Friedman before her stepfather adopted her. Alec checked our high school yearbook. I'd forgotten, but after we saw the bruises on her, we did some investigating and discovered the man was her stepfather. I was outraged when he had the audacity to adopt her and call himself her father.”

There was a soft exhale.

“Edward tried to help her, remember? Couldn't that be why he received that call to get him out of the building?”

“It could. You're right. Sarah, stay indoors, but keep talking. It's going down any time.”

“She must have been the source of the spicy scents Emma picked up today. She was working on a new pastry.” She glanced toward Emma, who was suddenly paying too much attention, so she excused herself from the others and carried the phone into the guest bedroom.

“Petra helps with the catering for Parker's,” she continued.

“Which makes sense, doesn't it?” Nick said. “She could have been at the conference center that day.”

“Couldn't she have left an open chafing dish flame near those holes Chaz found punched into the gas pipe? What if Cindy saw her doing something to the gas line?”

“Keep talking. I'm with you.” His voice was almost too soft to hear.

Sarah sank onto the bed. “Petra would have blamed Dad for her father's death. Who wouldn't be malleable at that age? She was looking for you at Nora's party. She had a crush on you and must've seen you and me together.”

“It doesn't make sense that she'd want revenge over so innocent a thing all these years later.”

“Except I'm Mark Russell's daughter. If she was at Parker's this morning when Emma came in, she could've heard Emma asking about the conference center. You know how Emma chatters with any stranger she meets. She'd have introduced herself and Petra couldn't have avoided the connection.”

“You think she's still bent on revenge?” Nick asked.

“In her frame of mind, it wouldn't take much. How twisted could she have become after her father committed suicide—abandoning her in the most painful way—and then her stepfather beat her for who knows how long? We don't even know if she got help for that. If she's focused all her hatred toward Dad all these years, what's going to stop her from trying to wipe out his whole family? Even if she doesn't realize Emma's our daughter, Nick, she could have taken that underground passage to the cellar.”

“Sounds as if we've found our psychopath.”

“I teach kindergarteners, Nick. I don't know much about psychopathic killers.” Sarah needed to go to Emma. It was time for the talk.

FOURTEEN

B
lackness surrounded Nick with such persistence he nearly switched on his penlight against Gerard's orders, but he heard the creeping sound of footfalls approximately fifty yards away. Though the trees were thick in this patch of woods, he couldn't take the chance of the wrong person catching them.

“Something up?” Gerard asked in a soft whisper.

“Petra may be our killer.”

“Alec tell you that?”

“Sarah.”

More silence until Gerard tapped his earpiece and spoke into it. “Could we be looking for Petra?” he asked his wife, who was manning the phones and telescope.

Nick waited until something larger than a dog but smaller than a horse crept through the thickets of underbrush, coming their way.

“You think she was at the diner just thirty minutes ago?” he asked Megan, then gestured for Nick to slow down. “I think we're homing in on her. We'll have a little chat and get back to you, honey.” He tapped his Bluetooth.

“What did Megan say?” Nick whispered.

“I'm guessing Petra has motive but her pining boss might be the reason Emma was born. And he has motive, as well.”

“You're saying Billy could've killed my mother. His own aunt.”

“I wouldn't put that past him, but I'm talking about the drugs. Your cousin was into the drug scene. Who better to have access to enough ecstasy to hype a bunch of kids at a party? And who would have gotten a better kick out seeing them mess up their lives?”

“So who's it going to be? Petra or Billy? Who would be happier to discover that you gave birth out of wedlock to Emma because of the effects of the drugs?”

Gerard tapped Nick on the shoulder. “Sounds as if one of them's coming this way. Let's wait for a few minutes.”

* * *

Sarah stepped out of the guest room to find that everyone but Emma had clustered in the hallway.

“So it's Petra?” Nora asked.

“I'm not sure, but I've alerted Nick.” Sarah glanced toward the living room. “Where's Emma?”

“She's in her room,” Carmen said. “Nina's with her, of course, but, honey, something's up. She looked a little shocked, and she was right outside this door while you spoke with Nick. What did she hear?”

Sarah covered her mouth with her hand. No. She couldn't have heard. Could she?

“What did you and Alec talk about?” Carmen asked.

“I was talking to Nick, and I might have mentioned the fact that Emma's our daughter.”
Breathe...have to breathe.
“I should have spoken with her sooner, but I wanted to wait until we found the killer. She's been through so much.”

“Tell us, honey,” Kirstie said.

“Petra was working with spices, like what Emma smelled, at the diner. She's also the daughter of the man who ran that Spring River retreat center. The one who killed himself when business dropped?”

“So she knew your dad was the one who moved the venue for the conferences.” Carmen took Sarah in her arms. The others joined her until Sarah felt nearly suffocated by a human blanket.

“You want us to have a talk with her?” Nora asked. “You know how hurtful teenagers can be, and she'll hate herself later.”

“She deserves to hear the truth from me.”

“Want us to come with you, at least?” Kirstie asked. “Believe me, I've seen Lynley at her worst, and I'd have appreciated some protection at the time.”

“Mom!” Lynley slapped her mother on the shoulder.

“See what I mean?”

“Come on, Sarah,” Carmen said. “She likes us, I can tell. We can do a lot to lighten the mood.”

“It's what we've done for one another for a lot of years,” Nora said.

At one point tonight, Sarah had considered asking Nick to help her tell Emma the truth, but he was out in the night looking for a killer. This was her job.

“Just pray for me?” she asked.

“Oh, honey, you know we will.” Carmen gave Sarah a final hug before she walked down the hallway to the closed door of Emma's guestroom.

“Emma, we need to talk,” she said through the door.

All she heard was hard, heavy sniffling, heaving sobs.

Sarah opened the door and walked in. Nina whined and walked over to her, touched her wet nose to Sarah's hand, then walked back to Emma, who knelt beside her bed the way she used to as a child when she said her nighttime prayers.

Sarah knelt beside her and placed an arm around her shoulders. She expected Emma to stiffen or push her away, but she didn't move.

“I think now you know why I never wanted to leave home,” she said. “I couldn't let you go. I love you the way a mother loves her child, and no matter what all the legal papers said, those papers didn't fit what was in my heart.”

Emma cried harder.

Sarah sensed Carmen, Nora, Kirstie and Lynley hovering at the open doorway, and she felt the comfort of their presence.

Slowly, she told Emma about what happened the night of Nora's party, and how grateful she and Nick were that something good had come out of something intended for evil. She described the joy that Edward felt today, knowing Emma was his granddaughter, and how much Edward and Nick already loved her as their own. By the time she finished, Emma was no longer sobbing, but she also wasn't sitting up and hugging Sarah and telling her everything was okay.

“I need to be alone for a while,” she said. “Can Nina stay with me?”

Leaving was the last thing Sarah wanted to do. “Of course. You want me to close the door?”

Emma nodded without looking up.

Feeling suddenly old and stiff, Sarah rose from her knees and turned to walk out of the room as tears once again made their familiar trails down her face.

* * *

“Hope my old handcuffs aren't too tight,” Gerard said over the pathetic bursts of outrage from Petra Journigan, who continued to fight and scratch and kick as Nick helped Gerard herd her out of the forest and into Alec's waiting car.

“First of all, you can't arrest me for spiking soda sixteen years ago.” She tried again to jerk from Gerard's grasp. It didn't work. “Statute of limitations.”

“Murder, however,” Gerard said, “will have you in prison for life, and there's a deputy sheriff on his way here right now to pick you up.”

She glared up at Gerard, then Nick, and spat on the ground. “That hypocritical pig, the almighty
Reverend
Mark Russell, was the reason my father died. The self-righteous faker killed my father's business. Daddy lived for that business!”

“And so you killed Reverend and Mrs. Russell and Mrs. Tyler—as well as my nurse, Cindy, and Chaz Cooper—to get back at one man?” Gerard asked.

She hunched forward. “You can't prove anything.”

“So you're saying my old garden spade won't have your fingerprints on it from hitting Emma Russell in the head with it this morning? Her memory's coming back, you know.”

The once-innocent-looking, scrubbed-clean face was fouled with bitterness. “You won't find my prints there.”

“But we've already tracked your underground passage beneath Capps Creek,” Nick said.

Petra stiffened.

“You didn't think we'd find that?” Nick resisted the urge to grab the woman and shake her—if he gave in, he might not stop. This person killed his mom. In fact, he shouldn't even be here.

“I didn't mean to... I wasn't after... Mark Russell was the only one who was supposed to get hurt, and I didn't use that passage this morning. Wasn't anywhere near it.”

“Mark Russell never hurt anyone,” Nick snapped. “He only wanted to protect people by moving the meetings away from tainted water. You took lives. You killed my mother, my friends—”

Gerard laid a hand on his arm and squeezed. Nick gritted his teeth and took a step backward.

“I don't know anything about Cindy or Chaz,” Petra said.

“Nothing?” Gerard asked.

Petra's face crumpled. Tears dribbled from her eyes. She shook her head. “I never meant... Carol at the diner can tell you I was sleeping upstairs when that poor kid bought it. And I never drugged my classmates when we were in school, either.”

Gerard shut Petra into the backseat of the car and looked at Nick. “You believe her?” he asked softly.

“I'm not in any condition to think about this rationally, but there's a back way out of the apartments upstairs. Carol couldn't have known if Petra was there.”

“But don't you think it's strange she would admit to some of the killings, but not all?”

Nick held his friend's gaze. “You think we have more than one killer in Jolly Mill?”

“I don't think this night's over.”

Nick glanced through the back window of the car at Petra, hunched forward, trying to wipe her drippy nose on her sleeve with her hands cuffed behind her back. He felt sick to his stomach.

“I'll call Carmen's house and let them know about Petra, at least.” Gerard glanced into the back of the car and sighed. “But I'm afraid she's not the only culprit.”

* * *

Carmen disconnected her phone and turned to the others. “They caught the mad bomber!” she shrieked.

Sarah looked up from the pictures, stomach roiling.

Carmen stepped across the room and hugged her. “It was Petra. Oh, sweetheart, I'm so sorry. It seems she was the one who caused the explosion that killed your parents, but Gerard says we still need to stay inside and keep the alarms on.”

“You mean they're not sure?”

“He doesn't think she did it all.” Carmen turned and gestured toward the others. “Girls, why don't y'all wrap up some packages of Nora's latest dream cookies? We're going to owe our boys big-time for tonight's work.”

“I wonder if Gerard would consider taking on a private job for Jolly Mill,” Nora said. “With a growing population, our finances will increase, and we might as well make the most of it all. We could afford a policeman or two. It feels good to have protection close at hand.”

Sarah rushed to tell Emma the news, but when she reached the room, the door stood open. Emma wasn't there. Nina stepped into the hallway, whining.

“Emma?” Sarah called at the bathroom door. There was no answer. She pushed the door open and it was empty. Nina whined again.

The latch on the front door clicked, and Sarah looked up just in time to see her daughter quickstepping down the sidewalk to the dark street.

“Oh, no you don't, young lady. Emma!”

But Emma had disappeared into the darkness at a run. She must have heard the first part of Carmen's announcement, deemed it safe to go outside and taken her chance before Sarah could warn her.

Nina pawed at the front door, and a growl rumbled in her throat.

Sarah looked over her shoulder. “Girls, Emma's out there, and I'm going after her.” As soon as the door opened, Nina shoved her way through it and raced out into the darkness.

“Emma!” Sarah called into the night air. “Honey, come back inside. It's not safe out there yet!”

Sarah followed Nina, pressing Nick's cell number. She stumbled over a limb and wished she'd grabbed a flashlight.

Nick answered, and the sound of his voice brought her comfort, but not enough. “Nick, Emma just left the house before I could stop her. Nina's anxious about something. Where are you?”

“We're combing the woods between the creek bank and Carmen's. Sarah, get back inside. We'll take care of this.”

“Not on your life. She's my—”

A scream startled her. She gripped her cell phone. “Emma! Nick, that came from the clearing between the diner and—”

“Got it. Just south of Gerard and me. We're on our way. Get back inside!”

Despite his words, Sarah disconnected and plunged into the darkness. She stumbled over a rock and grabbed a tree for support.

A vicious spate of barking echoed through the trees, and Emma screamed again. Brush and vines scraped Sarah's skin as she ran toward the sound. She broke through the thick trees into an opening where a dim light filtered through the woods onto two figures wrestling in the grass. One of those figures was Emma. In seconds, a furious dog joined the fight.

Sarah ran forward with a cry and shoved the attacker from atop her daughter as Nina snarled and grabbed his arm from the other side.

He grasped Sarah's throat. “Get this beast off me before I shoot her!”

The light revealed the hate-filled scowl of Billy Parker.

Stunned by surprise, Sarah hesitated. “Billy?”

Nina bit at his leg and he shouted an epithet. Sarah jerked away from him, scraped her shoe down the inside of his shin and kicked up with her knee so hard he doubled over.

He backhanded her across the face, knocking her down. Nina attacked him again. Sarah scrambled to Emma's side but could see nothing in the darkness.

“Honey? Emma? Wake up, please!”

Emma didn't move. Nina grunted, then cried out in pain.

In anguish and horror, Sarah kicked up at Billy with all her might and felt her shoe impact bone. With a snarl he pulled out a semiautomatic and aimed it at Emma's head. Sarah lunged for the gun, but a bright light illuminated them and a shout reached her from the edge of the woods.

“Sarah!” It was Nick. “Get down, Sarah!”

She dropped to the soft earth beside Emma, covering her daughter with her own body as a shot rang through her ears. She jerked, but felt no pain. She looked up to find Billy bleeding from his chest. His weapon dropped from his hand onto the muddy ground, and he fell beside it like a bag of sand.

Sarah gagged at the sight and the coppery smell as she pulled Emma into her arms. “Honey? Emma? Oh, baby, please talk to me.”

Nina whimpered and crawled over to them as footsteps thudded across the clearing.

“Sarah?” Nick called. “Are you two okay?”

Emma gasped and moaned. Sarah touched her daughter's cheek as terror and love shot through her like hot lead.