Deadline (Love Inspired Suspense)

by Maggie K. Black

  Seriously? His jaw dropped. Did she have any idea just how much that would further undermine his already shaky position with the paper?

  The door opened and Officer Burne came outside. He nodded to Jack.

  Meg managed a smile. “Goodbye, Jack. If I don’t see you again before you leave the island, I’ll email your paper about whether or not I have any record of those three women ever contacting me. Thanks again for everything.” She turned and headed for her car so quickly he couldn’t shake the feeling she was actually running away from him.

  “Don’t mention it. See you around.” He shoved his hands into his pockets and tried not to watch her go.

  SIX

  Meg gripped the steering wheel with both hands. Her eyes darted back up to the mirror. The police officer was still there, as he had been for the last twenty minutes, following her just two car lengths back. Keep breathing, Meg. Just keep breathing.

  Her car crested a hill on the narrow road, and the familiar cluster of streamers came into view. The old, dented tree was virtually covered in multicolored ribbons, faded from years of being battered and tossed by the weather. The large, unmistakable memorial telegraphed to everyone who passed—something bad happened here, someone died and we’re never going to forget.

  Tears threatened to spill from her eyes. She blinked hard. Then she spoke aloud in the empty car. “It is well, it is well with my soul.”

  Fourteen years since the accident and yet with every winter school-safety assembly, or fresh pot of coffee at the first snowfall of the season, the story of how her big, strong brother nearly died remained alive in the community’s mind.

  Some years back, someone would say, two reckless teenaged boys went snowmobiling down this very hill. They weren’t sticking to the paths like they were supposed to. Guess they were in a hurry to get somewhere. Then a transport truck came along and hit them both so hard they never saw it coming. One boy spent months in a coma. The other boy... The speaker’s head would shake. He wasn’t so lucky.

  Chris Quay had been eighteen—three years older than her brother, Benji—and in so many ways the apparent opposite of his slender, nervous cousin, Wesley, who was getting married this weekend. The only similarity she saw was that Chris had the same curly chestnut hair and green eyes as Wesley, though in Chris they had been paired with a reckless, adventurous, daredevil spirit Meg had been foolish enough to find attractive. She could still remember the smirk on his face as he and her brother had sped off together. Still remembered watching the color drain from her mother’s face as she’d taken the phone call from the police. Media reports, of which there were many, said Chris had died on impact. Some reporters wanted the truck driver charged. Others wanted Benji charged. In the end, no one was charged.

  Her brother spent almost two years in and out of hospital, learning how to make his arms and legs work again. Not that it showed now. If anything, having a brush with death had made him even bolder, braver, sending him flying down black-diamond ski hills and jumping out of airplanes with parachutes on his back—seemingly oblivious of how every adventurous leap made his sister pace the floor in worry, begging God to keep her brother safe.

  Benji even seemed to enjoy being a community-wide object lesson. He spoke to students about the importance of sports safety. His sports-equipment store was flourishing. Many people would think of going nowhere else for helmets, harnesses and life jackets. While islanders didn’t forget, they were willing to forgive—most of them anyway.

  And Meg had learned never to let herself fall in love with a thrill seeker. She already loved one man—her precious brother—who seemed determined to keep throwing himself full throttle into every adrenaline rush he could find, while she did the worrying and panicking for the both of them.

  And now the flurry of butterflies beating against her insides whenever Jack was around proved she still hadn’t learned her lesson. Watching him charge past her toward the hooded shape in her car had made that even clearer. Here was a man who didn’t even have the protection of a badge or a gun and yet spent his life relentlessly pursuing the most dangerous of criminals with nothing more than a microphone.

  Yes, she admired him for that. Yes, she respected him. But that didn’t mean she could take the risk of letting herself fall for him.

  * * *

  The bungalow was long and low, with aluminum siding, a sweeping front porch and a neglected For Sale sign that had sat on the front lawn since their parents retired to Florida five years ago. The house had been left to the children, and Benji had said once it sold he would use his share of the proceeds to sail solo around the world...so, of course, Meg let every Realtor on the island know she had no intention of selling until he settled down.

  She’d left the front door unlocked without thinking twice. Most people did on the island. But now Burne insisted on doing a complete walk-though of every room, to make sure no one had broken in while she was gone. Only when he was certain there were no killers under the beds or lurking in the closets did the officer help unload her bags into the large front room she used as an office. Finally he left her alone, saying he’d sit out front in his car until her brother came home. She didn’t know whether to be grateful for his concern or nervous that a police officer thought she needed to be babysat.

  The house’s main floor and basement were almost mirror images of each other, with two bedrooms, a large bathroom and a living room in each. Since their parents moved out, the siblings treated the house as two separate apartments, sharing only the large, sunlit kitchen on the main floor. Tasteful, well-kept order reigned on Meg’s floor, where the beautiful beige and blue living room doubled as a meeting space for clients. But every inch of the basement apartment was pure Benji—cluttered, friendly and loud.

  She washed the lake water out of her hair and got dressed again in a well-worn pair of jeans, simple T-shirt and soft blue sweatshirt. Then she called Rachel.

  Not only was Rachel’s wedding the most expensive she’d ever arranged, but it was also the most rushed. Rachel was barely twenty, a dance student in college, and didn’t seem much older than the troubled young woman Meg had taught in Sunday school years ago. Her stoic grandmother lived in a retirement home overlooking the stunning glass-and-wood waterfront pavilion her late husband had built. She was what was considered old, respectable money—the closest thing the island had to royalty. And since the island loved nothing more than to gossip about its most important citizens, that meant that everyone knew the story of the family tragedy.

  When Rachel’s mother had run away from home at eighteen, with the petty mainland drug dealer who was Rachel’s father, she was cut off entirely, in the hopes that financial hardship would bring her to her senses. It didn’t work. When Rachel was twelve, she was found by the police huddled in the backseat of a car. Her mother died of a drug overdose that night in hospital. Her father was long gone.

  Rachel’s grandmother had clearly decided not to make the same mistake twice. She’d taken her estranged granddaughter in to live with her and given the reputedly brilliant but high-strung child every advantage that had been denied to her mother. But when Rachel had called from the university to say she and her boyfriend, Wesley, were heading to London, to follow her dreams as a dancer, her grandmother had insisted the young couple get married first, respectfully, in the island community that was home.

  “I thought you were going to meet us when the ferry docked.” The young bride’s voice was breathless over the phone line now, her words seeming to battle each other to get out. “You know I barely know anyone on this island and Wesley hasn’t stepped foot here since he was a kid.”

  Well, if you’d taken the time to actually come up here instead of just barking orders over the phone—

  She tried to say sorry, but Rachel’s words were speeding up so quickly now she couldn’t even find a chance to interject.

  “Fortunately the
best man was able to find the address for the hotel, and Wesley wanted to see the yacht we rented for the honeymoon, so we decided to all split up and meet back at the hotel later anyway. But that doesn’t change the fact that you stood me up and then randomly showed up on the street looking like you’d just gone swimming in mud. What’s going on? Are you okay? Should I be worried?”

  Meg forced herself to take three deep breaths. No, all she’d promised to do was meet Rachel on the mainland for a wedding-dress fitting. The vintage-style knee-length dress had been custom-made and looked like something out of a musical. The fact that the wedding party had also ferried in from the city that day was just the way things had happened to work out. The island only had one afternoon ferry. “Everything’s fine. I just had a problem on the ferry. But it’s sorted now and it doesn’t need to concern you—”

  “I just drove past the pavilion and it’s smaller than I realized it was going to be. Are you certain the second floor is going to be okay for the reception? You do know my grandfather dedicated it to my grandmother.”

  “Yes, and there’s more than enough room. The site is perfect. The restaurant is exquisite, and the view of the water is spectacular. You’ll see for yourself at the rehearsal dinner tomorrow, but I can walk you through before then. We’re meeting up just after lunch tomorrow. There should be plenty of time.”

  “You’re sure the floral centerpiece is going to work in that room? I want it to be huge.”

  Oh, it would be. The stone fountain would take three deliverymen to set it up inside the pavilion before the decorators covered it in wildflowers. “Trust me. You’re going to have a beautiful wedding.”

  “I think we should meet tomorrow morning and go over everything one last time,” Rachel said, “the decorations, the menu, the rehearsal, everything—just to make sure we’re all on the same page.”

  The day before the wedding? What could she possibly think they could change at that point?

  “We need this to be special for Wesley, after all,” Rachel added. “He had a really tragic childhood. Did you know his only cousin died up here when he was little?”

  Guilt pierced Meg’s heart. So Rachel didn’t know Meg’s brother was the one who had been in that accident too? Yes, the narcissistic young bride had lived on the island a few years as a teenager before heading off to college in Toronto at just seventeen. But maybe someone that self-centered and inwardly focused just didn’t register the lives and issues of others. It would certainly explain why she’d never once mentioned the connection to Meg. But then presumably Wesley didn’t remember Benji’s family name either.

  Considering they’d practically invited the entire island to the wedding, someone was bound to mention it. A thought tickled at the back of Meg’s mind. Who would want a few hundred strangers coming to their wedding anyway? Let alone someone like Rachel. Was the whole thing an exercise in making her grandmother happy? Giving the old woman a big, fancy event, with all of her friends, so she’d keep signing the checks and funding Rachel’s dreams? How sad. No wonder Rachel was a bit manic about the parts of her wedding she could control.

  “Sure. Tomorrow morning would be fine.” She could hold off running errands for a couple of hours. It would give her a chance to say something to Wesley and Rachel in private about his cousin’s accident too, before a few dozen gray-haired strangers ambushed him with questions. “You’ll bring Wesley?”

  She heard the front door slam, and then the sound of too many feet entering her kitchen. Something barked. Meg groaned silently.

  “Sure,” Rachel said. “I’ll bring the whole wedding party.”

  Meg set down the phone and headed for the kitchen. Benji was standing at the counter with two open pizza boxes. Harry the dog—who for some reason had still not gone home—was running laps around the kitchen. But it was the sight of the very tall, very good-looking reporter sitting in front of a laptop at her kitchen table that made her heart skip a sudden beat.

  Jack had one of her business flyers open on the keyboard, but when he saw her come in, he snapped the laptop closed and stood. His eyes searched her face. What was he looking for? A sign as to how she felt about him being there?

  Well, the answer would be...conflicted. And way happier to see him there than she was comfortable with.

  “Hi, Jack. Welcome to my home.”

  “Thank you.” He held his palms up toward her, as if half expecting to be shot. “I’m here as a friend, not a reporter.”

  A smile tugged at the corner of her cheeks. Well, that was one piece of good news at least. Although it still didn’t explain what he was doing in her kitchen. “How did you know where I live?”

  Jack pointed a finger at Benji.

  “We ran into each other at the police station,” her brother said. “I went there looking for you, but you’d already gone.” He pulled a slice of pizza out of the box and folded it in half. “He needs somewhere to stay, sis. Every half-decent place on the island is booked up already.”

  “I managed to find a room at a motel on the other side of the island,” Jack added. “But when I tried telling your brother that, he practically marshaled me into his truck.”

  Benji gave his sister a meaningful look and rolled his eyes. Yeah, they knew the place. The owner was an off-islander who’d bought the place two years ago and run it into the ground. Chances were he’d have expected Jack to slip him an extra fifty bucks just to get clean sheets.

  “You wouldn’t want to stay there anyway,” Meg said. “They have bedbugs.” She sighed and gripped the back of a kitchen chair with both hands. “But I’m not sure where else to direct you.” While Manitoulin’s entire population was only a few thousand, it was spread among several tiny towns, some well over an hour’s drive away from each other.

  “Would you be okay if he bunked downstairs?” Benji asked. “I told him that I rented out my spare room all the time to fellow sports nuts, and that you never minded, as long as I cleared it with you first.”

  Ah. There it was. Her brother collected new friends like rocks on the beach. To be fair, he tended to have excellent taste in people too, and had introduced her to quite a few tourists who’d ended up becoming wedding clients. But normally they were fellow scruffy thrill seekers. Never anyone who made her heart race at the thought of bumping into them over morning coffee.

  “Figured it was the least I could do, considering he saved my sister’s life,” Benji added. “Plus, this guy is way too cool. Did you know he’s into bungee-jumping? He’s going to come by the store tomorrow to check out the new harnesses.”

  She turned back to Jack, and tried not to imagine him diving off a cliff headfirst with a rubber band strapped to his ankles. “Welcome. I’m sure Benji will love having someone else living in his man cave this weekend.” Not to mention that there was something about the idea of having him sleeping downstairs that made the house feel more secure. She walked over to the pizza. One was extra pepperoni and one was vegetarian. She chose pepperoni.

  “Now, why do we still have a dog?” She picked a piece of pepperoni off her pizza and passed it to Harry. He sat for it. The husky looked to be less than four months old and judging by his features was almost certainly purebred. While it was a pretty popular breed in the North, purebreds didn’t come cheap. “I thought you were going to take Harry home.”

  “I did!” Benji said. “But McCarthy wouldn’t open the door. I tried to leave him with a neighbor, but he said the old grump doesn’t even want him.” He slapped his leg twice. Harry bounded over. Benji scratched the dog behind his ears. “Neighbor says the dog was dumped at McCarthy’s by some niece from Sudbury who hadn’t realized big dogs and small apartments don’t mix. Seems like McCarthy wouldn’t stop complaining that Harry had too much energy and barked way too much, so he just left him outside hoping he would run away. Only went to the police because someone called and told him they saw
Harry in my truck.”

  Why didn’t that surprise her? McCarthy had lost his wife in a car accident when Meg was little. After Chris and Benji’s accident, McCarthy had spearheaded the campaign to get Benji thrown in jail. Grief had a way of making some people hold on to the hurt, until it spilled out onto others. Then when Benji had crashed through his fence three winters ago, the old man’s hatred for her brother had grown into a full-on vendetta.

  “All right,” she said, “but the last thing you want is for him to sue you again. How about I take him over? Last I checked, he was still opening the door to me. Then if he doesn’t answer, I’ll bring Harry back here for the night.” And if he did answer the door, she’d try making the old man a generous offer for the dog. Considering that Harry didn’t even have a collar on, chances were the neighbor was right. “I’ll take my car, and considering how he feels about you, it’s probably best you stay home.”

  Her brother’s arms crossed over her chest. “I don’t want you going alone, and I sent Burne home.”

  “I’ll go,” Jack said. “Just give me a second to get changed into something I didn’t go swimming in.”

  Meg opened her mouth to object, but there were two men staring her down now. “All right. But just because it’s late and his farm is pretty remote. I’m going to have to start going places by myself again eventually.”

  Benji led Jack downstairs. The door to the lower level closed behind them. She leaned her arms against the counter. Taking Jack with her would be much safer—physically speaking. But why did it feel she was putting her heart in jeopardy?

  * * *

  The headlights of her small blue hatchback cut through the darkness. Thick clouds filled the sky above them, blocking out the stars. The weather report was calling for intermittent thundershowers all weekend, the kind of unpredictable weather that could switch in an instant from blazing sun to a raging rain. There was even the chance of a megastorm for Saturday afternoon. Hopefully the happy couple would get a chance to squeeze in a few pictures on the beach before it hit.