Читать книгу Stalked - Beverly Long - Страница 12

Chapter Five

Hope leaned back against the headrest of the old car and sighed. It had been an emotionally draining day, and while she normally slept for a few hours before Sasha picked her up, she’d been unable to drift off tonight. Because of him.

Mack McCann. A necessary precaution, her mother had cajoled. Trusted friend, claimed Uncle Bing.

Brilliant strategy, she suspected, from her father’s perspective.

Didn’t really much matter what anybody else thought. She pretty much had him pegged as a thorn in her side.

She’d heard him come upstairs after Mavis had gotten home. Had heard the pipes of the old house groan when he’d showered. Could admit that she’d spent a few warm moments imagining how his naked body might look and had told herself it was normal to fantasize a bit, given that she hadn’t had sex in almost two years.

And he was seriously handsome with his dark hair and hazel eyes. And physically fit. She knew he’d graduated from the naval academy with honors, spoke several languages fluently and was an expert marksman. Her mother had listed off those attributes this afternoon.

She hadn’t been thinking one bit about those things when she’d spent several valuable minutes of her life wondering if he’d packed pajamas in his leather bag. Finally, she’d punched her pillow for the tenth time, closed her eyes tight and thought about the surprise and the delight on the stranger’s face earlier that day when the woman realized that Hope intended for her to take all the packages that Hope had managed to accumulate while grazing on Fifth Avenue.

It had been an excellent way to end the day.

“Tired?” Sasha asked, her tone kind.

“No,” Hope lied. If anyone had a right to be tired, it was Sasha. She always picked Hope up after she’d finished her three-to-eleven shift at the nursing home. “How was work?”

“Charlie Fenton ran away again tonight. Without his clothes on.”

That wasn’t a pretty picture. Hope recalled that Mr. Fenton was almost ninety. “Where did you find him this time?”

“Where we always find him. Buying donuts down the street. He was bringing them back for Delores. They’re dating.”

“That’s sweet. How old is Delores?”

“A spry eighty-three. They’re talking about getting married.”

“You’ve got to be kidding,” Hope said, laughing.

“You would think. Can you imagine?” Sasha gave her a quick sideways look. “Sorry,” she added.

Sasha was one of the few who knew the real reason that Hope’s brief marriage had crumbled. She’d been there to pick up the pieces. That was how the two women had met. “No problem,” Hope said easily. She’d never be able to laugh about her own situation, but she wasn’t so jaded that she couldn’t feel good about these two old people sneaking around, as much as one could sneak when using a walker, acting like teenagers again.

“Think we’ll be busy tonight?” Sasha asked, attempting to change the conversation.

It was a rhetorical question. No one could ever predict what kind of night it would be. The hotline had been quiet for a few nights so maybe it would heat up. They’d had a brand-new client and her two children two nights ago. She’d had two black eyes, a chipped tooth and a broken finger. Her young children had hung on to her the entire night, their little hands tightly clenching her cheap cotton T-shirt. Fortunately, they hadn’t had a mark on them, but they’d evidently watched what their father had done to their mom.

Finally, Hope had gotten the four-year-old girl and five-year-old boy to follow her into the old kitchen. She’d convinced them to help her make some cupcakes so that Sasha and Jackie could work with the mom and get her started on rebuilding her life, one that didn’t include regularly getting the hell beat out of her.

Sasha pulled her car into the parking lot of the nondescript one-story building. From the outside, it looked quiet enough. Always did. There were no neon signs blinking in these windows. Just a small sign on the door, one you had to be close to in order to read.

Gloria’s Path. Named for the founder, Gloria Portland, who’d scraped together grants and private donations to open the ten-bed shelter eight years earlier. Now Gloria worked mostly days, leaving the night work to trusted volunteers and just a few paid staff.

Hope opened her door and got out. As she did, something fluttered to the ground. She bent and picked it up. She leaned into the car, using the interior light to see what it was.

It was a strip of vertical photos of Sasha and a man. “What’s this?” she asked, holding the strip up so that Sasha, who was already out of the car, could see.

The woman waved a hand. “Oh, nothing. I went to my cousin’s wedding last week and they had a photo booth there with a bunch of props.”

When she didn’t mention the man, Hope didn’t pry. She knew that Sasha had been married and divorced twice. Maybe she was dipping her toes in the dating water again.

Hope gently tossed the strip back onto the passenger seat. “The purple glasses were a nice touch.”

“It was that or a felt Santa hat.”

The two women walked down the dark sidewalk and Sasha used her key to unlock the back door. The interior was softly lit, in deference to the late hour. But Hope knew that there would be activity. There always was. Previously abused women didn’t sleep well. They were worried about their futures, their children’s futures. And sometimes it was in the middle of the night that they most needed a supportive shoulder to lean upon.

Hope headed for the small kitchen to grab a cup of coffee. There was a woman sitting at the table. She had a half-empty cup sitting in front of her and she was playing with her smartphone.

Serena was a repeat client, first arriving almost six months ago, shortly after Hope had started her volunteer work. Serena had spent a few days at Gloria’s Path, only to return home after her husband had pleaded with her and pledged that he’d do better. When she’d shown up almost two weeks ago, her face bruised and cut, she’d said that she was finally ready to leave her husband, because better still regularly included a sharp uppercut to the jaw.

She had no children and no other family in the immediate area. By the sounds of it, all she had was a very angry spouse who couldn’t accept that his wife of three years had finally had enough.

“I was hoping you’d have a minute to talk,” Serena said, suggesting that she’d been waiting for Hope’s arrival. “I think I finally have a plan.”

Hope smiled. Her night had begun.

* * *

MACK SAT IN his quiet car, debating what to do next. The second after he’d watched Hope get into the car, he’d been racing back to the house to get his own vehicle.

Fortunately, his keys had been in his jacket pocket and he’d been on the road fast. He’d caught up with the old Ford three minutes later, two miles outside the city limits of Weatherbie, the affluent commuter community of less than ten thousand in Western Essex County.

Because traffic was almost nonexistent, he’d had to drop back twice to ensure that they didn’t realize they were being followed. He’d assumed they were going to roll through town and had almost lost them when they’d turned off the main street. He’d circled back and wasted time looking for them.

He’d found the car three blocks off the main drag, parked next to a square, one-story, frame building with a brick front on the corner of Marsh and Wooten. There was one other car in the small lot. There were narrow sidewalks and a couple of streetlights that provided inadequate illumination of what appeared to be a quiet area. He’d driven around the block once to get the lay of the land, then parked a block away, pulling into an empty spot on the street. He had a good visual of the front door.

During the daytime, there was likely some foot traffic due to the apartment buildings on both sides and a hair salon and an oil change shop across the street. However, in the middle of the night, there was nobody around.

At least not visible. Mack always expected somebody to be hiding in the shadows. It was what had kept him alive to the ripe old age of thirty-eight.

It was the second time in less than twelve hours that he’d chased after Hope. It was starting to be a rather tiresome activity. At least it hadn’t been all the way back to New York City. She’d stayed local this time.

But why?

And what the hell was she doing inside the building?

Buying drugs? Possible. But she didn’t look like a user. She had beautiful skin, shiny hair, pretty white teeth.

Prostitution? That made his skin crawl. And he felt a surge of jealousy in his gut that he didn’t even attempt to analyze.

Gambling? Maybe. She had a lot of money and she didn’t seem terribly upset about parting with it.

Dog fighting? He thumped the heel of his hand against his forehead. He was getting ridiculous.

He was just about to get out of his car, knock on the damn door and demand an explanation when an old El Camino with dual exhaust roared down the street. It slowed in front of the building just long enough for the passenger to toss something out of the window. Mack saw the flash.

Holy hell. It was a Molotov cocktail and thrown hard enough that when it hit the front window, it broke through. He could see flames dance upward.

The building was on fire and Hope was inside.

Mack dialed 911 as he raced toward the building. When the operator answered, he reported the fire and indicated the cross streets. Then he described the car that had fled the scene before he hung up on the operator, who was instructing him to stay on the line.

The front door was locked. He had to kick it twice before it gave and he was able to push his way through. The small lobby area was already filling with smoke. He could see flames climbing the curtains, spreading onto the small couch, licking their way across the carpet. Heard a woman screaming.

He didn’t think it was Hope. That didn’t make him feel any better.

He tried the interior door. Locked. His other option was going over the waist-high counter that separated the lobby from a small reception area. He braced his hands on the counter and easily vaulted the barrier. On the desk was a fire extinguisher, on its side, as if it had been tossed there. The pin had been pulled. Mack picked it up and pressed the handle, but nothing happened.

It was either empty or defective. Didn’t matter. It wasn’t helping.

There was another door. This one not locked. It opened into a long, dimly lit hallway with doors off to both sides. Women and children, all in their pajamas, were stumbling out of those doors, shell-shocked.

Whoever had been screaming had stopped. The woman who had picked up Hope stood at the end of the hallway, her back against a partially open exit door, urging everyone to hurry.

There was no sign of Hope. Where the hell was she?

Then he saw her. She came out of a room, one arm around a woman who had to be nine months pregnant, the other holding a sleeping toddler. Her face was pale against her chin-length auburn wig, but she was calm.

She looked down the hallway as if she were counting heads and she saw him. Her face registered surprise and something else. Maybe relief?

“Check the rooms,” she yelled, not missing a beat.

The hallway was filling with smoke. He used the flashlight on his key chain. It was small but powerful and he could see enough. The rooms were empty. By the time he got to the back door, he realized that Hope had changed places with the other woman. She was bracing the door open and she no longer held the child. He could hear the sounds of approaching emergency vehicles.

Her eyes met his. “I did a quick head count,” she said. “I think everyone is out.”

“Rooms are empty,” he confirmed.

“Thank God.” She glanced nervously over her shoulder. The other woman had moved the group to the end of the small parking lot, where they would be out of the firefighters’ way.

“I have to get out of here,” she said, insistent. “I can’t be here when fire and police arrive. Will you help me?”

He had a thousand questions. “What...?”

The look in her pretty eyes stopped him. Fear. Real fear. He didn’t know what the hell was up but he wanted her out of there. He wanted her safe.

He grabbed her hand, pulled her around the corner of the building and they raced for his car down the street.

They got inside and she immediately huddled down, as if trying to stay out of sight. He pulled out just as the fire truck rounded the curve.

He drove for three minutes before he couldn’t stand it any longer. “What the hell is going on, Hope?”

She straightened up. “Did they see us?” she asked.

He shook his head. “I don’t think so. But people inside the building saw you.”

“Sasha knows that I got out. I told her I was leaving. She understands. She won’t say anything about me being there.”

“What about everyone else?”

“I guess I have to hope that the police talk to Sasha. She’ll do her best to keep me out of it.”

They had reached the main highway. He looked in his rearview mirror. Nobody was following them. “What the hell is that place and what were you doing there? And why are you wearing a wig and dressed like that?”

She didn’t answer.

He slowed the car down and flipped on his turn signal, as if he might be turning around.

“Oh, fine,” she said, her tone exasperated. “It’s a women’s shelter. For victims of domestic abuse. I volunteer there. They know me as Paula.”

Because he’d had the benefit of seeing the past few minutes, he wasn’t as surprised as he might have been. He’d been able to process the scene. But still, her words were pretty damn shocking.

It would have been helpful if Archibald Minnow had mentioned this when he’d given Bing and him the tour of the Minnow estate. “Nobody said anything to me about this,” he said.

“Nobody knows,” she said. “Well, that’s not exactly true. Mavis knows. But she’d never say anything.” She paused for a minute. “I assume you somehow managed to follow me.”

“Yes.” He figured she’d blast him for that. But she simply shook her head in disgust.

“I can’t even manage to sneak out of a house.”

“Don’t beat yourself up. I’m a little more observant than your average houseguest. Who’s the woman that picked you up?”

“Sasha. She has a paid position with Gloria’s Path. That’s the name of the shelter,” she added.

“She must know the truth about who you are,” he stated.

“She does.”

He waited for some additional explanation, but it didn’t appear that any was forthcoming. Okay. He’d circle back to that later. “The two of you were doing a good job getting people out of there.”

“We got lucky. Sasha was in the reception area when the firebomb or whatever it was came through the window. She tried to use the fire extinguisher but it didn’t work. She yelled and I got the person I was with out the door and went back in for more.”

That made him feel sick. “You shouldn’t have gone back in,” he said. “Once you’re out of a burning building, you stay out.”

She shook her head. “There’s no way I would do that,” she said simply.

It wasn’t said in a boastful way. Just a statement of fact. And he realized that there was much more to Hope Minnow than he had anticipated.

“It was a Molotov cocktail and some guy riding shotgun in an old yellow El Camino threw it through the window. I told the police that when I made the 911 call. That vehicle ring a bell?”

She shook her head. “No. But I imagine the police will want to know if it rings a bell with any of the clients. It’s likely someone trying to make trouble for one of them. We work really hard to keep the location of the shelter a secret. It’s by referral only and there’s no signage on the street. But it is possible that some estranged spouse or significant other got lucky and figured it out.”

He turned to look at her. “Maybe somebody was trying to make trouble for you? You’re the one receiving the threats.”

She shook her head. “I know you don’t believe me, but those threats are bogus. Besides, nobody knows that I volunteer there. It’s a secret that I’ve been very careful to keep.”

“Something isn’t a secret if more than one person knows. You just said that Mavis and Sasha both know.”

She shrugged. “I trust Mavis and, well, the same for Sasha. She had a chance to sell me out before when it would have been really bad for me. She didn’t take the opportunity then. She won’t take it now.”

He was starting to get a very bad feeling. “How did you meet Sasha?”

She was quiet for a long time. Finally, she spoke very softly. “She’s worked at Gloria’s Path for several years. Lucky for me, she was the counselor on duty the night I showed up beaten and broken.”