Читать книгу Danger in a Small Town - Ginny Aiken - Страница 10

Later that evening Ethan delivered the urns as they’d agreed. He didn’t stay long, saying he had to meet his cousin to go over the files on the three drug overdoses. Tess couldn’t help the sense of loss every time she thought of the dead woman. It was good to know Loganton would have someone with Ethan’s training and experience working on their drug-crime problem.

She murmured a silent prayer for anyone trapped by drugs, for someone to show them a better way, God’s way.

After she had Uncle Gordon settled in for the night, she headed to her room with her Bible. She changed into her favorite blue T-shirt and polka-dot pajama pants, washed her face, brushed her teeth, took down her ponytail then turned off the overhead light. She clicked on the bedside lamp and curled up on top of her silky green-on-green comforter to pray.

But the image of the dead woman’s dog—now her responsibility—intruded in her conversation with her Lord. She didn’t want a nasty confrontation with Uncle Gordon, not over an abandoned dog. “Father, I know I’m treading on thin ice here. Uncle Gordon’s not crazy about dogs, and I’ve just taken one on—even though he’s still at the groomer’s tonight. I was too chicken to bring him home the same day Uncle Gordon left the hospital. Help me, please?”

She opened her worn and marked-up Bible then went straight to the book of Psalms. That’s where she usually wound up when she needed comfort. Verse eleven in Psalm 5 leaped out at her, highlighted in yellow marker. “But let all who take refuge in you be glad; let them ever sing for joy. Spread your protection over them…”

She’d turned to these words time and time again while things at Magnusson’s Department Store were in turmoil. Someone with knowledge of their security codes had been stealing from cash registers, most frequently from her department. As the manager, Tess had immediately come under scrutiny since she had the code for the register. No matter how vehemently she insisted on her innocence, until the culprit—a computer whiz from the IT department—was caught, her every move had been scrutinized.

She’d clung to that verse and the knowledge of the Apostle Paul’s experiences, how he’d endured beatings and jailings and never stopped praising and trusting God. But it had been hard at times. These days she still found it difficult to trust people.

Even after the woman was arrested and Tess cleared, many of her fellow workers continued to avoid her. Work became intolerable. When her cousin Molly called about Uncle Gordon’s situation, Tess jumped at the opportunity. She needed a fresh start.

She’d never expected to stumble on a dying woman while out for a jog.

After an hour or so she closed the Bible, turned the light off and again prayed for wisdom and the right words when she brought the dog home from the groomer’s tomorrow. She fell asleep to the sound of a spring rain.

Ethan and his partner, Steve, had crouched across from the alley for hours. It wasn’t the best neighborhood to work; it had hit on bad times years ago. Now it offered a haven to anyone with evil intent. Drug dealers had sunk the roots of their sick empires deep into the cracks of the crumbling pavement and had spread shoots like tentacles to choke off all life they found. Ethan and Steve were there to round up another purveyor of death.

The agency had been after Ernesto Moreno for a decade; the guy was slick. Ethan and Steve had been assigned to the Chicago end of the case three years before. All that work, all that danger, would finally come to fruition tonight. They were about to get their payoff. They had Moreno’s jail cell ready.

Twenty minutes ago they’d heard their backup behind the rotting fence down one side of the alley.

Ethan was growing tired of waiting. He wanted Moreno now.

Then, at around two-thirty, three shadowy figures arrived near the trash bin that blocked the alley’s far exit. The wait was coming to an end.

“Ready?” Steve asked.

“I’ve been ready for Moreno from day one.”

The meticulous investigation had painted Moreno as a deadly Pied Piper. He’d led too many into the trap of coke, heroin and meth. That kind of poison was deadly, the meth particularly cheap and available to those with fewer means. This scum spent his time hanging out around schools. Oh, yeah, Ethan was ready.

He and Steve crept silently, hugging the fence, its jagged splinters snagging their clothes, their weapons drawn, all their senses on alert.

Inch by inch the partners edged close enough to hear the suspects’ argument.

“You owe me!” the lanky one on the far left said in a raw whisper.

“I do not,” spat the short, thin shadow farthest back.

“You got all you gonna get.”

“That’s not what you said. You don’t come through, I’ll tell—”

PZZZZT! And then another PZZZZT!

A wail ripped through the silent night.

“We’re in!” Steve cried.

Time blurred for the next few seconds. More shots rang out, these without benefit of a silencer. As Ethan rushed deeper into the alley, he tripped over something—someone who moaned.

Not Steve, Lord, please.

“Man down!” On his knees, Ethan reached for the victim’s neck to check for a pulse. Close enough to feel the shallow puffs of breath, Ethan got a better look at the pain-stricken face. His stomach heaved. The victim was only a boy, a teen.

Ethan sucked in a harsh breath. This was his worst nightmare, everything he worked so hard to prevent. As dark as the night was, he still could see the bloom of blood on the boy’s chest.

Another moan soughed out. The teen opened his eyes. “P-please…”

Sudden brilliance from a floodlight almost blinded him, but as he blinked, a man hurtled past him out of the alley. Ethan looked up and met black eyes filled with hatred. And then Moreno was gone.

“Nooooo!” Ethan sat up, panting, face drenched in tears. Over the past few weeks, the tormenting dreams had come farther apart, lasted less time, milder in their intensity. Tonight, however, he might as well have been back in Chicago, Robby Stoddard dying on his lap, his partner down with a bullet too close to his spine and Moreno getting away.

“When, Father? When will I be free of these dreams?”

A vicious bolt of lightning shocked Tess awake. Gusting wind blew a fine mist through the screened window and dampened Tess’s face. The temperature had dropped at least fifteen degrees, turning her warm cocoon into a cold, soggy mess. Her heart pounded at the suddenness of the storm.

The crash of another thunderbolt got her on her feet and moving across the room to close the window. She bolted the window shut, then watched the wind thrash the branches of the oak tree outside. She willed her heart to slow down and her breathing to return to normal. To try and restore a sense of normalcy, she stripped the wet linens from her bed. She’d have to sleep on the couch downstairs until her mattress dried.

Five minutes later, in a dry nightshirt, Tess was still on edge. She’d never liked thunderstorms. She went to the dresser, straightened her hairbrush, mirror, bottle of perfume and makeup case.

Thunder crashed again and lightning streaked the dark sky outside her window. She loved the sense of safety in her cozy yellow-and-green room and didn’t want to leave, but she couldn’t climb into the wet bed again. Fed up with her jumpiness, she went to the bathroom for a drink before heading downstairs. But once she turned off the tap and took her first sip, she heard more running water. She put the cup down on the countertop, and went out to the hallway.

Tess paused to listen, hearing nothing but the continued battering of the rain. She waited, attentive to every creak the old home gave out. She must have imagined the sound.

A fierce gust of wind slammed against the house. Heavy raindrops beat against the slate roof and the leaded windows. Tess shivered, thankful for the shelter the sturdy house provided.

Then she heard the rushing water again, and this time there was no mistaking it. Water was running inside the house. She’d have to find where it was coming in before they suffered water damage.

In an excess of caution, she listened outside the private bathroom in Uncle Gordon’s room and then started down the stairs. It sounded like a running faucet, but Tess had done the supper dishes herself. She knew she’d turned off that tap. After years of paying for her own utilities in Charlotte, she wasn’t about to let water run overnight.

By the time she reached the foyer, she realized it wasn’t a faucet dripping after all. What she heard was a full-fledged pour, and it came from the basement. Another buffet of wind hammered the house, the heavy rain thudding against the wood siding, crashing against the windows. The old quote, “It was a dark and stormy night” popped into her thoughts, and Tess laughed nervously.

It was silly to let a storm shake her up like this. “Get a grip,” she said, her words echoing in the large kitchen.

Tess opened the basement door, flicked the switch in the stairwell and carefully made her way down the steep basement stairs. She didn’t need to get hurt, too.

At the bottom of the stairs, she took a good look around. Stacks of boxes lined the walls, chairs were piled haphazardly on two tables in a corner, a collection of buckets covered Uncle Gordon’s old and unused workbench and additional plastic storage containers, suitcases, and even a lawnmower took up every visible inch of space.

“Wow!” As Tess stared at the mess, another blast of wind set off the sound of running water again. And while she didn’t find a flood, she did find an open window, one through which the rain poured in.

“Why would Uncle Gordon have left it open?” She didn’t think it could have blown ajar during the storm, but the how didn’t matter right then. She had to get it closed before the basement flooded. She climbed over a stack of boxes, then shoved three suitcases to one side. She never would have expected to find Uncle Gordon’s basement so cluttered. He was more the neat-freak, organized and squeaky-clean type.

And to leave a window open…?

Then she realized that wasn’t the case after all. No one had left the window open. The frame was locked, as it should have been. The glass pane, however, was broken, its jagged remains like a row of shark teeth along the wooden edge.

And, if she was right, the broken window flanked the torn-up rosebed outside. She looked for something to use to block out the rain. “That dog of Mr. Anthony’s must really be something,” she muttered. “First, he mangles half a dozen rosebushes, two azaleas and a border of petunias. Now, he’s busted in a window…”

Armed with the blue plastic lid to a storage container near the broken window, she reached up and jammed it into place. Her guesstimate was good; it covered the opening, but she would still need tape to get it to stay.

Tess remembered the roll Uncle Gordon kept in the laundry room off the kitchen. She ran up, grabbed the shiny gray duct tape off the shelf and hurried back down. In the dimly lit cavern, she picked her way to the window again over and around the many hurdles. As she pulled out the lid to readjust it, she thought she saw a shadow move out in the yard.

Her heart sped up.

Her breathing grew shallow.

Her hands shook, and she had to fight the urge to run upstairs and dive into her bed.

As she stood frozen, scared, Tess told herself it must have been a play of the streetlight on the branches of the oak tree outside. But no matter how many times she repeated the thought, she didn’t convince herself. Her impression had been one of a head, strong shoulders and legs. True, it had only lasted an instant, but she knew what she’d seen.

Would anyone believe her? Believe she’d seen someone walking out in the yard in the middle of a monsoon?

Probably not. Especially since now, a few minutes later, she was busy thinking up possible alternate scenarios. Like the unlikely oak branches.

She would only tell someone if she thought she’d be believed. The last few months at Magnusson’s had left a deep scar. Tess didn’t need anyone doubting her again.

Drenched, Tess made sure the plastic lid was crammed into the space as tightly as possible. Then she spread strip after strip of tape across it, and by the time she’d used almost the whole roll, the flood had been reduced to an occasional drop coursing down the wall.

“It’ll have to do,” she murmured, as she stepped back to admire her handiwork. It wouldn’t win any beauty awards, but it worked—for the time being. She turned toward the stairs and started to make her way around the clutter again.

She put her hand on the top box to her right, slipped her fingers into the now-open plastic container whose top covered the window, and hauled herself over the rain-sodden mess. “I’ll have to call around and get a handyman to come in and replace the glass. At least Uncle Gordon won’t be mucking around down here where he might slip and fall—Aaaaack!”

She lost her footing and landed on her right foot. Pain sliced up her leg. “Oh…oh…”

Gritting her teeth, Tess reached down and gingerly pulled a shard of glass from the sole of her foot. The ooze of blood told her she was in trouble. And without her phone, she’d have to crawl her way up the basement stairs, careful not to touch the wound to the dirty floor. She needed to call for help.

Inch by inch she made her bloody way across the basement. She climbed the stairs rear end first, step by step by step. Once she pushed her behind up over the last step, she breathed a sigh of relief. Now what?

Now she had to apply pressure to the wound. The bleeding was heavy. Then…?

Did she call an ambulance and scare Uncle Gordon with the siren and all the commotion? Or did she call Miss Tabitha on her private line, drag the poor dear out of bed in the middle of the night and scare the stuffing out of her?

She’d been gone from town for so long, she wasn’t sure any of her former friends were still around or would remember her if they were. She’d find no help there.

The phone rang, sending a shot of relief right through her. Potential help. Then it hit her. Who would be calling in the middle of the night?

The phone rang again. Tess hopped across the room on her good foot, her bad foot dripping on the white-painted wood floor. “Hello?”

She could hear the caller’s breathing on the other end, but she got no response. “I’ve had enough of your calls. This is a lousy time for another prank—”

“It’s no prank,” a harsh voice rasped. “It’s a warning. I want it back.”

Tess froze. Her heart pounded. The caller was clearly disguising his voice.

Lord, help! She dredged up all her courage. “What? What do you want?”

“You know.” Then he hung up.

Tess stood in the brightly lit kitchen, the phone clutched to her chest. Chills ran through her. Her stomach knotted, and everything felt surreal.

She remembered the shadow and the broken window. Tess leaned sideways, and with a glance, checked the kitchen door. She breathed a relieved sigh when she saw the dead bolt in the locked position. When she straightened again, pain stabbed up her leg, and she gasped at the sight of the pool of blood from her cut foot. She needed medical attention, and soon. Should she go ahead and call 911? Was the person still outside? Had he been the one on the phone?

If she called an ambulance and the trespasser was still there, would the ambulance make him look for a place to hide until they came and took her away? Uncle Gordon would be left alone.

If instead she called Miss Tabitha for help, would the intruder overpower them both? And then…? Then what?

“Stop it!” She wasn’t thinking clearly. The shadow had to have been the branches from the tree. And the caller? He must have made a mistake, dialed the wrong number, and in the dead of night, thought she was his intended target.

That was it. Nothing else made sense.

Another stab of pain shot up her leg, worse than before. She needed help. But who could she call?

Then it struck her. She knew one competent, capable person who she hoped wouldn’t mind helping. Ethan would know what to do.

Relieved, but now keenly aware of the foot pain, she speed-dialed Miss Tabitha’s boarding-house number and hoped whoever she woke up would forgive her.

“Hello?” Ethan asked, his voice rough, as though he hadn’t used it in hours.

Thank you, Father. “Ethan? I’m sorry to wake you up, but I’m so glad you picked up the phone. It’s Tess Graver. I need your help. One of our basement windows broke, probably during the storm, and when I went to cover it to block out the rain, I stepped on broken glass and hurt my foot. It’s bleeding pretty badly, and I need to get to the E.R. Could you please help?”

“I’ll get going as soon as we hang up.”

His deep voice reassured her, and Tess pushed the memory of the shadow and the phone call out of her thoughts. “I…I think a neighbor’s dog might have broken the window. Uncle Gordon says Rupert Anthony, three doors down and across the street, got himself this monster of a dog. It looks like the animal broke loose, trashed our rosebed, and crashed into the window, too.” She hoped.

“Some dog, that Rupert Anthony’s pet.”

His skepticism echoed her unease. For a moment, panic threatened, and Tess couldn’t stand the thought of hanging up, of losing the connection, even if it existed only over the phone. Then she took a settling breath, closed her eyes and prayed another silent plea.

A tree branch and a wrong number, Tess. Remember?

“Fine,” she said, marginally calmer. “Just hurry, please. I called because I don’t want an ambulance to wake up Uncle Gordon, and I’m making a bloody mess in the kitchen.”

“I’ll be right there.”

After a quick goodbye Tess hung up then hopped to the sink, biting down against the pain. She leaned to the right and unlocked the dead bolt. As the panic rose, she prayed. Lord, it was the oak tree, right?

Then, determined not to give in to the fear, Tess took a clean towel from the drawer to the left of the sink. She folded and dropped it on the floor, right by her foot. With teeth gritted, she pressed down, gasping from the pain, but aware she needed pressure to stanch the flow of blood.

Less than five minutes later, Ethan let himself in. When he saw the bloody trails across the floor, he sucked in a sharp breath. “You didn’t tell me it was this bad.”

“I did! I told you there was a lot of blood and I needed to get to the E.R.”

“I didn’t expect—” he waved toward her foot “—that.”

A wave of dizziness struck her. Her good leg threatened to buckle, and Tess began to shiver. She waved toward the drawer. “You’ll find more clean towels there. Help me out. We need to get going.”

He crossed to the cupboard and returned, towel in hand. “That duct tape you’re holding will help. Give me a minute, and I’ll have you ready for our ride to the E.R.”

Moments later, foot bundled up and no longer bleeding at an alarming rate, Ethan took her elbow and helped her stand. But then he stopped. “Wait!” he said. “How about your uncle? We can’t leave him here alone. Let me get a friend to stay with him. Joe lives at Miss Tabitha’s, too.”

As they went out into the—thankfully—slowing rain, Ethan called and gave his friend directions. Then he eased Tess into his SUV. She again noticed his strength, but this time it came tempered with gentleness and care.

Tess sank into the leather seat. “Thanks for coming,” she said when he sat behind the wheel.

He gave her a wry smile. “It’s better than pacing the halls all night. I…have trouble sleeping sometimes.”

“I’m sorry.” A muscle tightened in his cheek. “Don’t worry,” she added. “I won’t pry.”

This time his look conveyed more than gratitude. Tess thought she saw admiration there, too. Warmth filled her, and for the first time since the bolt of lightning woke her up, she began to relax.

“We’ll give Joe another minute or two,” Ethan said.

“Then it won’t take us long to make it to the E.R.”

The friend arrived. He and Ethan spoke briefly. As the man rounded the corner of the house, Tess glanced at Ethan. “Are you sure Uncle Gordon will be safe?”

“As sure as I can be. I’ve known Joe…oh, about six months now. He hasn’t given me a reason to doubt him.”

For the space of a second Tess thought how wonderful it would have been if someone at Magnusson’s had spoken up for her like that. Her knotted shoulders eased a bit.

But then, when Ethan turned the key in the ignition, a car pulled away, its lights off.

In a flash her fear returned. Tess gasped. “He’s real!”

Ethan shot her a look. “Who’s real?”

“My shadow.” She told him what she’d seen, what she’d hoped she’d only imagined, and then described the phone call in detail.

“If there was someone outside the window, do you really think he’d sit around this long?”

“I suppose you’re right. But we have a broken window, and I did get another call.”

“Didn’t you think you should call Maggie? At least tell me what really happened?” Tess winced at Ethan’s clipped words.

But before she could defend herself, he went on. “I’m glad I called Joe. Your uncle could have been in danger. At least Joe can call for help if your intruder returns.”

As he spoke, Ethan drove, his hands sure on the steering wheel, his expression unreadable.

“Look,” Tess said, after giving the night’s events some thought. “I don’t have anything that belongs to anyone, and that tree was making some pretty crazy shadows up in my room. Maybe I did imagine the shadow. I was pretty scared.”

The muscle in Ethan’s jaw worked. “A busted window, a threatening call and a car without lights. That doesn’t sound like the bogeyman to me. I suspect someone was there.”

He pulled up to the entrance to the E.R., set the brakes, ran around the SUV and helped her out of the car. “Thanks,” she said, her voice tight. “I’ll be fine. You don’t have to wait—”