by Dana Mentink
“What are you talking about?” Mick snapped. His profile was hard as granite, his whole body tense.
“Freeze! Police!” Chief Uttley charged in, gun aimed at Tucker.
Tucker leaped backward, whether scared or intending to flee, Keeley didn’t know.
Uttley fired two shots. The explosion was deafening. Mick covered Keeley and Ginny with his body, gripping them in a desperate embrace. She heard running feet as more officers entered.
Sounds echoed around her. Shouting, intense, energy charged. Radios buzzed and crackled. Mick’s breathing, as uncertain as her own.
“Don’t move,” he murmured.
He pressed close, and she was grateful for his strong chest, heart beating fast and steady.
When her ears stopped ringing, he eased off her. She stayed on her knees, clutching Ginny’s hand.
Mick stood between her and Uttley. The lines around his mouth were pronounced, relief and despair mixing in his expression.
Uttley knelt and stared at Ginny, gun still in his hand.
“Is she alive?”
Keeley nodded. “But hurt badly. I can hardly feel her pulse.”
“Paramedics are two minutes out.” He reached out a finger and gently brushed the dark hair from Ginny’s face. “You’re gonna be fine, Virginia. Just fine,” he said.
So Uttley had been covering for Ginny. They’d been right.
“How do you know her?” Keeley asked quietly.
His eyes burned as he stared at the fallen girl. “Ten years ago, I killed her mother.”
Horror trickled through Keeley.
He asked, without taking his eyes off Ginny, “May I hold her hand?”
Keeley moved aside so Uttley could get closer. Mick helped her to her feet, standing very close.
She looked at Mick and the bustling cops that filled the space.
“How…?” She swallowed. “What happened to Tucker?”
Mick moved her toward the door. “Let’s go outside.”
She resisted. “I want to know.”
“It’s better to wait outside.”
She let him lead her, but at the last moment, she turned to look. There over the shoulder of another medic and Officer Mason, Tucker lay on the ground, head turned toward them, one arm outstretched as if he yearned for someone to take it. Blood seeped through the front of his shirt.
He’d been shot. An unarmed man. Her sister’s killer. Keeley’s head spun and the ground rose up to meet her.
*
Mick carried Keeley outside and helped her sit on a fallen log. She put her face into his shirtfront and sobbed.
He let her cry, cradling her close, his own mind trying to process the finality of what had just occurred. It was done. Finally. Tucker Rivendale had been brought to justice. But Tucker had been unarmed, shot in cold blood.
Nonetheless, the man was a murderer. He should have felt elated, relieved, but instead he had the sensation that everything inside him had turned to stone. It was the same feeling he’d gotten looking down at the grave of the son he’d never even known about, a regret so heavy it sank his soul to the depths.
He realized that however things had turned out, no matter how much past history was piled up, he’d believed Tucker. The worst thing was, way down deep, in the very tiniest sliver of his drowned soul, he still did. Had Tucker really thought Mick would murder him rather than see him safely to prison?
I did not kill LeeAnn.
Said the man with yet another woman lying broken at his feet. Tucker would have babbled anything that might have bought him time or a chance at escape. Mick could not fathom why he still had doubts. He focused on Keeley, willing some of her pain into his body. He rubbed his hands over her back and shoulders, feeling the sobs that rattled through her. One woman, too much grief that she didn’t deserve.
Let me take it for her, God. Let this be on me.
It had been a very long time since he’d spoken to God. He was not sure God was even listening, not anymore. Mick was locked away in a jail of his own making, and he figured God had better things to do than chase after one washed-up paroled officer. He stroked her hair, rubbed her shoulders and pressed his cheek to the top of her head.
“I’m sorry,” he said, without knowing why. “I’m so sorry.”
Keeley sucked in a shuddering breath and pulling away to look at him. “Did you hear what Tucker said?”
“Yes.”
“What if he was telling the truth?” she whispered.
He swallowed. “He wasn’t.”
“Are you sure?”
She searched his face, tears glittering like a sunlit pond.
He could not say what she wanted to hear. He could only lose himself in the shimmering blue of her grief. He pressed a kiss on her cheek, soft and satin, and wiped the tears away. “Keeley, it’s over. Hang on to that. You’re safe, June is safe. It’s all over.”
He felt himself leaning toward her, wanting nothing more than to cover her mouth with an unending kiss. Heart pounding, he saw her face tip to his. Her lips just touched his, and the yearning inside him nearly overwhelmed his sense.
Officer Mason approached, his face grim. Mick broke away. What had he been about to do?
“Do you need medical care?” Mason said. “Either one of you?”
Mick checked with Keeley, who shook her head. “No. We’re okay.”
Mason didn’t respond, scrutinizing the tree line as if he was tracking a felon.
“Uttley said he’d killed Ginny’s mother,” Mick said quietly.
Mason chewed his lip, still gazing at the treetops. “When he was a new cop. He was in pursuit of a suspect and she was in the crosswalk. Tragic accident. She lived for a few days. Uttley promised to look out for her daughter, Virginia. She was ten at the time. Went to live with her aunt, but Uttley kept tabs on her, helped her out when he could over the years.”
Keeley sighed, a long sad sound.
“Ginny’s been in and out of trouble. Did some jail time for drugs. Showed up here a few months ago. Uttley was worried she was into something. Started hanging out at the garage. We’ve never gotten them on anything, but those brothers are into something bad, and Uttley was worried about Ginny. She asked him about Rivendale’s case, but she refused to say why.”
“That’s why he covered for her at the newspaper building. He was afraid she was consorting with Tucker, too.”
Mason shrugged. “That’s all I’m going to say. He’s a good man and a good cop and you’ll have to get the rest from him. There’s going to be an investigation now and things are going to come out. I’ve got to go.” He left to speak to the other officers emerging from the garage.
The medics rolled out a stretcher. Keeley looked away and swallowed hard. Mick gripped her shoulder. A second ambulance pulled up, and Ginny was loaded on board.
What followed was an excruciating round of questioning before they headed to the police station for yet another session. Mick’s mind whirled in many different directions.
Keeley was dead silent as they drove to the station. Finally, when they pulled into the lot, she spoke.
“Mick, after this, after we’re done with the police, would you take me to see June? Please? I need to be with her.”
“Yes.” He realized in that moment he would do absolutely anything she asked. Period. It scared him.
She nodded, relief relaxing her features. “I’ve missed her so much.”
“I know.” Again he felt the pang, that odd pinch that came when he considered the parent-child bond. He’d never had a chance to love his son, hadn’t even known he had produced one, so he wondered sometimes what that strange feeling could be. Regret? Envy? Or was it possible that God had wired him to love a child, even though he’d never gotten to meet him? He shook himself, unsure why his thoughts turned ever more frequently to God.
Now it was not Chief Uttley in charge of the investigation, but a new man in his sixties who introduced himself as Chief Allen as he called Mick into Utt
ley’s office. Mick gave Keeley’s hand a squeeze as he left.
“I’m just stepping in to help out,” Allen said, his head shaved bald and speckled with sunspots. His posture was perfect, uniform neat.
Mick knew. Uttley had been removed, pending an investigation into both the shooting and his covering up for Ginny.
Allen listened patiently, taking notes on a yellow notepad as Mick talked. When Mick was done, Allen smiled. “I’ve been doing this for a long time, Mr. Hudson, practically a lifetime, but before I took on this job I was a major in the corps.”
Mick found himself sitting straighter. “I thought so, sir.”
Allen laughed. “Now that we’ve established a rapport, I already had a talk with Sheriff Pickford, who seems to think you don’t completely trust the cops.”
“Uttley was covering up something that might have helped us catch Tucker earlier, sir.”
“And he’ll be disciplined for that, but he was doing it out of a higher sense of duty. What’s the first leadership trait, son?”
“Justice,” Mick said automatically.
“Yes, and you and I both know justice is a moving target sometimes.”
“Yes, sir.”
“So you and your friend—” he consulted his notepad “—Reginald Donaldson, rode into town to capture Tucker Rivendale, like a couple of modern-day cowboys.”
“Or marines, sir,” Mick said.
Allen laughed again. “Right. So I’m thinking you’ve been working your own investigation, which is what led you to your father’s property where you encountered Virginia and the brothers, Bruce and Charlie.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Did you know that Reginald was Bruce’s former parole officer?”
“I did not, sir, until Sheriff Pickford told me.”
“Reginald is on his way here, so we can ask him about that point.”
Mick sure wanted to hear Reggie’s answer.
“It may have nothing whatever to do with the current situation, of course.” Allen tapped a pencil on the desktop. “Then again, when we’ve got a murder investigation in progress, every point has to be considered.”
“Murder, sir?”
“That surprises you?”
“Uttley was apprehending a fugitive. It wasn’t murder.”
“Second leadership trait of a marine, son?”
“Judgment,” Mick fired off.
Allen searched his face. “You trusted this Rivendale, didn’t you?”
Mick swallowed hard. “Yes, sir.”
“And now you don’t think you can trust yourself, your judgment.”
Mick stayed quiet.
“You said Rivendale called you, asked for help for Ginny, denied killing LeeAnn Stevens.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And you think he was trying to lure you there to lay his hands on Keeley Stevens? You believe that?”
Did he? Deep down?
“Your hesitation speaks volumes,” Allen said softly. “Still struggling with the judgment issue, I see.”
“Sir, with all due respect, but isn’t the case closed? Rivendale—” He cleared his throat. “Uttley killed Rivendale to protect Ginny. Isn’t that the end of it? Justified shooting.”
Allen looked at him closely. “That would be very neat and tidy, except for two things.”
Mick stood, feeling somehow that he could face whatever was coming better standing at attention. “What’s that, sir?”
“Bruce and Charlie have apparently skipped town, leaving a bag of bloodstained clothes in their back room.”
Mick had to fight to keep from gaping. Bloodstained clothes?
Allen folded his hands, staring at Mick. “And Tucker Rivendale is still alive.”
The words rang in Mick’s head. Still alive. Two stretchers. Tucker was alive. Through a fog he saw Allen still staring at him.
“Virginia is our murder victim. She died on scene.”
SIXTEEN
Before she knocked on the door to Aunt Viv’s house, Keeley ran her fingers through her hair and blew her nose. Mick hung back behind her, hands in his pockets. She could not string one rational thought together after what had happened, but something inside her did not want to be separated from Mick. Her whole being yearned to be near him, and the thought set her nerves quivering.
Junie. She’s the only important thing right now.
After a last deep breath, she rapped on the door.
Viv opened it, face reddened by recent crying. She hugged Keeley. “I’m so grateful that you’re safe.”
Keeley enjoyed the comfort of Viv’s tight hug. “It’s terrible. All of it.”
Viv let her go. “Derek called and told me the whole story. He’s devastated about what happened to Ginny. He tried so hard all these years to care for her. I didn’t know a thing about it. I wish I could have helped in some way.”
Keeley heard Mick shift on the step behind her.
“Mick…” What could she say about Mick and her strange onslaught of feelings for him? “He drove me over,” she finished lamely.
Viv ushered them inside. “Junie’s in the backyard.”
In a moment, Keeley was out the back sliding door and into the yard, where she found Junie carefully filling her plastic bucket with fallen leaves. She looked up, her face splitting into a wide smile.
Keeley ran to her and gathered her into an embrace. “Junie” was all she could say through the tears. When June wriggled free, she put a chubby hand to Keeley’s face.
“Sad?”
Keeley struggled for breath. “No,” she lied. “Happy to see you. Happy tears.”
June fastidiously wiped Keeley’s face with her palms. “Better.”
“Yes. Better.”
Junie’s gaze traveled to Mick. She walked to him, craning her head back to see his face.
Mick immediately took a knee. The sweetness of that gesture broke Keeley’s heart all over again. This man, stricken as he was, robbed of the opportunity to be a parent, sank down to the ground at the feet of her little girl.
“Junie, this is Mr. Hudson.”
Junie regarded him soberly.
“You can call me Mick. Very nice to meet you, June.” He took her whole hand in three fingers and solemnly shook. Mick pointed to her bucket. “You are collecting leaves.”
She nodded.
“You haven’t finished yet.”
She nodded again. Then she lifted the bucket and he took it, the handle swallowed up by his fingers. Without another word, they set to work, Mick and Junie, collecting all the leaves they could find.
Keeley watched them, flooded with too many emotions to name. She thought about Ginny, who had lost her mother and her way. Uttley, who was now saddled with an even more ponderous weight of guilt. When Junie grinned at a particularly fine leaf specimen that Mick handed over, Keeley’s heart lurched when she saw a shadow of Tucker in the expression.
I did not kill LeeAnn.
Why did she want to believe him? He’d murdered her sister. He was a liar. But the police were now pursuing Charlie and Bruce. What if Tucker was telling the truth and he hadn’t hurt Ginny? He was now under police protection as the doctors struggled to save his life. And then what? He would go to prison. End of story. Out of their lives forever.
Mick, too? There would be no reason for him to stick around. Her heart squeezed.
Viv went to answer the doorbell and ushered John into the backyard. He embraced Keeley.
“I can’t believe they got him. Finally.” He heaved out a breath. “Are you okay?”
She returned the hug. “Yes.”
“Hey, June bug,” he called.
Junie raced over to John and hugged him around the knees before she handed him a leaf.
“Thank you. I will put it in my pocket for safekeeping. Will you come see the birds at my office soon? They’re lonely without you.”
Junie nodded before she returned to Mick who shot a wary glance at John before they returned to their leaf hunti
ng.
“So your life will return to normal,” he said. “No need for a bodyguard anymore.”
“I guess not.”
“You’ll bring Junie home?”
“For a few days, and then I’ve got to get back to work. By the end of the summer, I’m hoping to move her in with me permanently.”
“That’s great.” He smiled. “I was just thinking that your sister would be proud of you.”
Her eyes filled. “I hope so.”
“I know so.” His gaze drifted to Junie again. “And Tucker Rivendale will rot in prison. If he survives, that is.”
“Before Uttley shot him, he said he didn’t do it.”
“And you actually buy that?” John huffed. “I will never understand what he has that makes women believe his lies. He’s a loser, and even after he killed your sister, you still believe him.”
“I didn’t say I believed him.”
John slapped a hand on his thigh. “You don’t need to say it. It’s there in your face.”
Mick put down his bucket and drew closer.
Keeley lifted her chin. “I lost more than anyone, John.”
“You’re letting yourself be manipulated, LeeAnn.” His face flushed at the mistake. “I mean Keeley. Wise up, why don’t you?”
“Don’t speak to her in that tone.” Mick’s voice was low.
John looked from Mick to Keeley. He started to reply then stopped, heaving out a long breath. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”
Keeley didn’t answer.
John stared at Mick. “But what about you? Do you honestly believe Tucker is innocent?”
“I don’t know.”
“I guess that would make sense, since it would get you off the hook.”
Mick stiffened.
John’s face grew thoughtful. “Yeah, if you can convince yourself and Keeley that Tucker’s been framed, then you don’t have to shoulder the guilt for letting him off house arrest to murder LeeAnn.”
Mick blinked and came closer. “This is not the place for this conversation,” he said. “There’s a child within earshot.”
John glared. “You don’t have to tell me about Junie. I’m here for her like I always have been. Go home, Mr. Hudson. If you want to assuage your guilt with your wild theories, go ahead, but leave Keeley and Junie out of it.”
Mick jutted out his chin. “I’m staying until I’m sure everything is wrapped up.”