“Do you know who this is, or how he got in the front seat of your car?” Dustin demands. His rough attitude is so different than Lucas’ gentle one, it’s amazing they have the same job description. His anger snaps me out of my pity party.
“Why yes, I’m fine, not injured or in shock or anything. Thank you for asking, dear brother,” I snark back.
He has the good grace to look ashamed for a split second. “I’m glad you’re okay. It was the first thing I asked the paramedics when I got here.” The moment of brotherly love over, he shifts back to his immediate concern. “Who is this man and why is he in your car?”
“It’s Addlynn’s boyfriend Nolan.”
“The baby daddy you….”
“Yes, that Nolan. I’ve already told Lucas all about how Nolan called me to come get him and how he was stabbed already when I got here. I really don’t want to go over it again.”
Dustin looks at Lucas for confirmation. Lucas lifts the notebook as proof. “Stay here,” he says to me. “I’ll get him up to speed.”
I watch from the safety of the car. The coroner arrives and eventually they remove Nolan’s body. Techs process my car and the bench where Nolan had been sitting when attacked. I can’t imagine they will find much with all the rain, but they do their job anyways. It would be interesting to watch if I wasn’t so upset.
After a long time, Lucas returns to the seat next to me. “I’ve called Grandma Dot to come get you. Your car will be towed to the station to be more thoroughly processed. Did you know you don’t have windshield wipers?”
I giggle nervously. “I tore them off and threw them.”
He doesn’t know what to make of that, so he lets it go. “There’s some curious blood stains, one on the victim’s back and others on the driver’s side.”
“Those are from me. I touched the blood between us. See?” I show him the stains on my hands, the huge stain on my belly. His head gives an involuntary shake of surprise. “I didn’t notice all that blood before. You sure you’re not hurt?”
“Not physically.”
“Either Dustin or I will get a complete and thorough statement tomorrow, once you’ve had a chance to recover. For now, go with Grandma.”
“Why do you always tell me what to do? If you didn’t have my phone, I would have called Grandma already. I can take care of myself.”
“Like showing up to a murder that happened moments before? Like having a man die on top of you? Why do you always have to argue with us? Just stay out of things and stay safe.” His voice is uncharacteristically harsh.
“Nolan called me. I was home being a good girl. I couldn’t very well ignore his message.”
“You could have called me or Dustin and we would have gone to him.”
“I lost my phone,” I say, embarrassed. “It fell under the seat.”
“You obviously found it.”
“I didn’t know he was going to be murdered,” I protest.
“He said they were after him, he was in danger. Does that sound like a safe situation to go running off into?” His voice is high and loud.
“Why are you yelling at me?” My voice climbs higher too.
“Because whoever got to Nolan could have gotten you.” The raw emotion in his voice surprises us both. The car rings with the echo of it.
I don’t know what to say. He’s right. But if I could do it all over, I would still have come. I would have called him as well, but I would have come. I don’t know how to make him understand, so I stay quiet.
“There’s Grandma Dot’s flatbed. Go home, Gabby,” he sighs. “One of us will come for your statement tomorrow.”
He leans across me and opens the door. He doesn’t push me out of the car, but just barely.
I slam the door hard behind me. Too hard.
Grandma’s headlights glare in my eyes and I lift a hand to block the light as I run to her. I jump puddles on my way, although I’m already soaked. The metallic blanket billows out behind me like a cape.
The worst superhero on the planet.
Chapter 16
Gabby
I climb into the cab of Grandma’s flatbed and shove my cape under my feet. It’s over warm in the cab, but I shiver.
“My heavens, Gabriella, I’m so sorry,” Grandma gushes.
“There’s nothing you have to be sorry for.” I buckle my seat belt and pull it as tight as possible. The pressure of the belt against my chest a tiny comfort. “I’m sorry you had to come out in this weather to get me.”
“Don’t you apologize. I gave him your number. It’s my fault you’re here.” There’s a catch in her throat. Grandma’s always been my rock. To see her upset hurts.
“Neither of us could know this would happen.” I say. Grandma sniffles in response. “Please don’t be upset,” I plead. “Let’s just go home.”
“I talked to the young man. He was so young and innocent. He said he needed to talk to you about Addlynn. He didn’t tell me he was in trouble or give me any hint this would happen.” Grandma runs both hands through her hair, making it stick up at funny angles.
“He told me in his message and I still came,” I point out. “If I hadn’t been here, he’d been alone and cold and stabbed. He’d have bled to death on that bench and no one would know who he was or why he was here. At least I was with him at the end.”
“He was alive when you got here?”
I tell her the story, but leave out the part about my terror and panic. She doesn’t need more to be upset about. “The last thing he asked was if Addlynn was okay. He really loved her.”
“The poor young man. Who would do this?”
“There’s something nasty going on.” I search the dark fields as if answers will appear as we drive. “But where is this place? You haven’t heard any rumors, or anything about a farm with a lot of girls living there? A strange, religious place? You always get all the gossip.”
“Just because people tell me things, doesn’t make me a gossip,” she tries to lighten the mood. “Nothing comes to mind. Mrs. Mott is coming tomorrow. I can ask her if she knows anything. Now if you want a gossip, she’s your girl.”
“Grandma,” I pretend to chastise. “She’s your friend.”
“Why do you think I’m friends with her?” This sounds more like the Grandma I’m used to. Quick with a joke, not scared. I know it’s for my benefit, but I appreciate it.
“We’re going to a Halloween party together tomorrow. We’ll do some snooping.”
I can’t help but laugh at the image of the two old ladies questioning everyone they meet about murders. “It’s not your job,” I say.
“It’s not yours, either, but here we are.”
“It kind of is my job. You said yourself there’s a reason I see things.”
“I should have kept my mouth shut.” Grandma parks the flatbed behind the house and opens her door. The overhead light comes on and she gasps.
“Gabriella, you’re covered in blood!”
I look at my belly and understand why she’s so shocked. A dark red stain covers me from my chest almost to my knees. The sight of Nolan’s life literally spilled all over me, sobers me in an instant.
“It’s not mine,” I whisper. I need to get out of the truck, but I can’t move, can’t pull my eyes from the blood.
“Let’s get you washed up.” Grandma closes her door and the light goes out. She comes to my side of the truck. “Close your eyes,” she says.
I close my eyes, but I can still see the blood in my mind. She opens the door, the light filters through my eyelids. I squeeze them shut tighter. Her firm hands guide me out of the truck. She unzips my jacket in the parking area, slides it off my shoulders. A crunch of nearby leaves tells me she threw it in the bushes.
“Your hoodie’s not too bad, but your pants are covered too.”
With my eyes still clenched, I kick off my shoes, slide the pants off and toss them towards the jacket. Goosebumps dance up my bare legs, rocks pinch below my stocking feet.
&n
bsp; “That should do it,” Grandma says and grabs my shoes.
I open my eyes and run up the steps to the porch in my underwear and socks. I don’t look down at myself, I just run to the bathroom. The night light provides enough light to start the shower. I strip off the rest of my clothes in the gloom and leave them on a pile by the door. The hot water feels wonderful and I scrub hard with extra soap.
As I knew she would, Grandma silently takes my ruined clothes away, switches on the light and leaves me something to put on. She often seems able to read me, to know what I need without asking. I say a prayer of thanks for her and rinse the horrors of the night down the drain.
Chapter 17
Dustin
Alexis’ arm slides across my waist and she pulls me closer to her.
“Your alarm’s going off,” she whispers near my ear.
“I was hoping it was just a nightmare.” I slap the snooze on the alarm and roll over to hold her. She adjusts and slides her back to my chest. I pull her tiny frame tight against me, mold myself around her curves. “Maybe I should just stay here with you,” I tease.
She wriggles suggestively against me. “As late as you got in last night, only seems fair if you go in late today.”
Mention of last night dashes any amorous thoughts I fooled myself into thinking I could follow. She feels the tension in my body and asks what’s wrong.
“Gabby went to meet someone last night, and when she got there he had been stabbed in the gut. He literally died right on top of her.”
Alexis rolls over to face me. “You’re kidding. On top of her? Is she okay?”
“She wasn’t hurt. He’d been stabbed before she got there.”
“That’s not what I meant, but I’m glad she didn’t get hurt, too. Who was he?”
“A man named Nolan. Barely more than a kid. According to Gabby, he’s the dad of the baby we found the other day.”
Alexis pushes herself up and leans against the headboard. “How did that come about?”
I roll on my back and stare at the ceiling. “According to the voice mail he left her, he was in trouble, someone was after him. He asked her to come pick him up. When she got there he was already stabbed.”
“How did whoever was after him know where he was?”
“No idea.”
The alarm buzzes again and I turn it off.
“Will they come after her now?” Alexis asks.
The question that’s plagued us. “That’s what we’re afraid of.” Frustrated, I roll out of bed and pull on pants. “I told her to stay away from Addlynn in the first place. I told her to stay out of it and let us handle it. If she’d just do what I tell her, she wouldn’t get into these messes.”
“Maybe you should stop telling her and ask her instead.” The hard set of Alexis’s mouth surprises me. She’s usually the first one to jump on the bash Gabby bandwagon.
“So you’re on her side now?” A surge of anger forces the words out of my mouth before I can stop them.
Narrowed eyes join the hard set of her mouth. “There’s not sides to this, Dustin. But we both know she is stubborn. The harder you tell her not to do something, the harder she’ll push back and do what she wants.”
Her words make sense, and my anger fades away as suddenly as it rose up. “She’s my little sister,” I say simply.
“If you really want her to stay safe, you need to handle her differently. What you’re doing isn’t working.”
“You don’t know Gabby the way I do. If I say black, she says white, if I say up, she says down. She never listens.”
Alexis reaches for my hand and kisses the back of it. “Then stop giving her things to disagree on. Stop giving her orders.”
“I don’t think I can do that.”
“You’re a smart man, Dustin, you can figure it out.” She pulls me towards her.
“You think I’m smart?” I tease, leaning over her.
“You married me, so you must be smart.” She pulls me down on the bed with her.
“I have a few minutes to spare.” I nibble her earlobe. She makes a sound of agreement.
From the next room, Walker cries.
I pretend to collapse on top of her, defeated. “The real alarm just went off,” I say.
“I’ll get him,” she says.
“Let me. It’s going to be a long couple days. I’d like a few minutes with him.”
Walker is on his hands and knees in his crib. “Hey buddy, look at you,” I say. “Before you know it, you’ll be crawling all over the place.”
He stops crying when he sees me and smiles his drooly grin, melting my heart. I gather him up and hold him against my bare chest. He’s warm from sleep and has a heavy diaper, but he’s the most precious weight in the world.
I change him and take him into our room. Alexis is back under the covers and I hand Walker to her. She wraps her body around him and kisses his cheeks. The sight of my wife and child happy together nearly hurts.
“Did you see his costume?” she asks.
I raise my eyebrows in question.
“It’s Halloween, remember. I know it’s corny, but he’s going as a corn cob.” She laughs at the lame joke and Walker laughs with her.
“With jokes like that, maybe I wasn’t smart to marry you.” She tosses a pillow at me.
“Don’t you have a murderer to go catch or something?”
“And miss the comedy show?”
She tosses another pillow, but I duck into the bathroom.
“Oh, hey, don’t forget we’re supposed to go to Grandma Dot’s tonight,” she calls out.
“Grandma’s?”
“It’s Walker’s first Halloween. We were taking him over to see her.” I’ve heard this tone many times. It means she’s explained this to me already.
“I didn’t forget,” I call back, filling the sink with water to shave.
“Liar.” She laughs again. “We’re going at 5:30, meet us there if you’re not home yet.”
“5:30, got it. I’ve gotta shower, babe.” Alexis and Walker are curled together under the covers. I yearn to crawl under the covers with them. To hold them both close to me, to keep them safe from the awful reality of the world beyond this bed.
I shut the bathroom door on the image, and turn my mind to the day ahead.
My day goes downhill after the wonderful morning with my family. Lucas and I re-read the reports from last night. We still need an official statement from Gabby, but even without it, I know we have almost nothing to go on. The faceless “they” could be people from the cult Gabby saw, but there’s no guarantee the cult is even real. Psychic visions from a woman in a coma aren’t exactly hard evidence, even if Lacey Aniston reports it as such on the news.
“Nolan does have a matching scar on his palm,” Lucas says when I voice my doubts.
“Matching scars doesn’t mean there’s a secret cult out there.” I wish I could be more like Lucas, just believe what Gabby says is true. I’m not wired that way. “We need facts. Anything to corroborate what Gabby saw.”
“He asked about Addlynn, so that must be her name. He said he was Nolan on the message, so that matches too.” Lucas points out, ever the optimist.
“Okay, I’ll give you that.” I lean back in my chair and stare at the ceiling. “Where do we go from here?”
Lucas sits back in his own seat. We’ve spent a lot of time like this, both of us lost in thought, confused on our next step. Sometimes the cracks in the drywall above give us the answers.
Today they don’t.
I sit forward and flip through the pages on my desk. “Where’d the coroner’s report go?”
Lucas hands it to me without looking away from the ceiling. “You’ve already read it ten times. He was stabbed three times in the abdomen. He died from resulting blood loss. No other injuries, no trace evidence.”
“And nothing in the car either,” I add although Lucas already knows that tidbit.
“Except blood, all Nolan’s.” He continues to stare at t
he ceiling, his hands folded together at his hips. Someone who doesn’t know him like I do would think he was relaxing. The agitated swivels of his chair and the tension in his shoulders gives him away.
“We need her official statement,” I mention. We’ve both been avoiding that step today. For my part, I’m pretty sure I can’t keep my temper if I see her right now. No matter what Alexis said this morning, Gabby will never understand why she drives me so crazy. I barely understand it myself. I’m not sure why Lucas is avoiding her. He usually comes running when she snaps her fingers.
“Flip you for it,” he says to the ceiling.
“She likes you better.”
He sits forward, resigned. “Fine, I’ll do it. She’s going to want her phone.”
There’s really no reason to keep it. The message has been copied both as a digital voice copy and transcribed to paper. I toss him the phone and he catches it in a smooth motion as he stands, an easy feat for a former baseball catcher. A tiny part of me resents his easy grace. Basketball was my game. I console myself that I’m better at throwing things into the trash.
“She still at Grandma Dot’s?” he asks on the way out.
“As far as I know.”
With Lucas dispatched, I’m at a loss what I should work on next. I’ve already checked with the hospital and Addlynn’s condition hasn’t changed. The baby is still in the nursery and doing fine. We’ve already interviewed the man working at the Mac Mart last night. His story matched up with what we already knew. Nolan showed up and asked about Gabby. He didn’t say how he knew to ask for her, but Gabby’s name is on every gossip’s tongue right now. The man knew Grandma Dot, so he gave him her number. Nothing to look into there, everyone knows Grandma Dot. The man said he didn’t feel well and business was slow so he closed early. He didn’t know Nolan was waiting on the bench when he left. With the bad lighting in the parking lot I can believe it.
I don’t want to stare at the ceiling, I want to do something constructive. I make my way through the station and pretend I don’t notice a few of the men who look away as I approach. The last few weeks haven’t been easy for the brother of Gabby McAllister.
Message in the Fire Page 10