Gathering Shadows

by Nancy Mehl

  It took everything I had to choke back the fury that rose inside me for the real parents who were living their lives wondering what had happened to their children. Rae seemed to have no concern for them at all. It was also clear she had no problem spending the money her husband gained through the pain of innocent victims. It explained where the financing had come from to buy all her properties. She seemed to have no ability to understand right from wrong.

  “Look, I know it was wrong,” she said, as if she knew what I was thinking. “That’s why I finally stepped in. Stopped him. Couldn’t let it go on anymore.”

  I felt sick to my stomach at her twisted logic. “What about Ryan? Why didn’t he try to come home?”

  She shrugged. “Joe convinced him your parents didn’t want him. That they’d arranged for him to live with someone else. Believe it or not, children that age are very susceptible. I guess there were things going on in your family that made Joe’s lie easy to accept.”

  Between our family dynamics and Joe’s ability to manipulate, Ryan had been thrust into a perfect storm of insecurity and lies. He never stood a chance.

  “We called the authorities, Rae. They’re on their way to get Ryan right now. It’s only a matter of time before they connect the dots back to you.”

  She stared at me with raised eyebrows. “It doesn’t matter.”

  A wave of panic washed through me. The only way she could keep her secret was to dispose of me. Was that her intention?

  “I realize you’ll tell them the truth,” she said. “But I intend to be a long way away from here before you get the chance.”

  “You—you’re not going to kill me?”

  She scowled at me. “I’m not a murderer. I had to stop Joe because he was hurting people. Babies. But I brought you into the world, Emily. There’s no way I could harm you.”

  “Then why am I tied up?”

  “I’m going to put you and Lazarus into my storm shelter. No one will think to look for you there for a while. It will give me enough time to get away.”

  She turned around and opened a cabinet door. Removing a vial of something, she took out a box of syringes, selected one, and began to fill it with the liquid in the vial.

  “What’s that?” I couldn’t keep the fear out of my voice. Marian Belker, aka Mady Rae Buettner, was certifiably nuts. I didn’t trust her ability to administer drugs without making a serious mistake.

  “Relax. It’s just something that will put you to sleep for a while. It’s not the same thing I put into the fudge.”

  “You made my friend Zac extremely ill.”

  She grunted. “That fudge wasn’t for him. He had no business eating it.”

  “You could have killed me.”

  She shook her head. “It couldn’t have killed anyone. Just make you sick so you’d go home. I’ve been trying to get you out of Sanctuary for quite a while, but you wouldn’t take the hint. If you’d just left—”

  “I’m not leaving my brother.”

  “I know that,” she said slowly, “but I wonder if you’ve thought much about him. Elijah has a good family. Your interference will devastate him.”

  “My interference?” I asked, stunned by her level of denial. “Your interference destroyed a family, took my brother out of his real family, and caused everything that’s happened.”

  “That was Joe, not me.”

  I could tell Rae had closed an emotional door. Her reactions were becoming flat and unemotional. She approached me with the syringe in her hand.

  “Please don’t do this,” I pleaded. “What if something goes wrong?”

  “You should be fine. I’ve never used this on a person before, but I don’t think it will do any permanent damage. You’ll just go to sleep.”

  Without another word, she pushed up my sleeve and jabbed the needle into my arm. I cried out in pain.

  “What do you mean I should be fine?” I said. “You’re not sure?”

  Rae shrugged. “We always have to warn our patients that any kind of medicine could have side effects.” She gave me a strange smile, and terror coursed through my body. No matter what she’d said earlier, this woman wasn’t convinced the drug she was shooting into my body wouldn’t kill me.

  After emptying the contents of the syringe into my arm, she tossed it into the trash. Then she came over and removed the straps from my hands, but not before picking up her gun again.

  “Get on your feet,” she ordered. “I need to get you into the shelter while you’re conscious. I don’t want to carry you down the stairs.”

  I pushed myself into a sitting position. My shoulders hurt from being restrained, and my arm throbbed from the shot Rae had given me. When I tried to stand, I discovered my legs had gone numb. I almost fell, but I caught myself by grabbing the edge of the exam table.

  Rae shoved the gun into my side. “Get going,” she ordered. “Now.”

  “What about Lazarus?” The retriever was watching us carefully, almost as if he were trying to determine exactly what was going on. Too bad he hadn’t been trained to attack. It would certainly be helpful now.

  “He’s coming with us.”

  After making certain the feeling had returned to my legs, I bent over and picked up his leash.

  “Out the back door.”

  Lazarus and I obeyed Rae’s instructions. We walked down a hallway to another door that led outside. Rae pointed to a pair of metal doors on the ground near the back of the clinic. They belonged to an old storm shelter.

  “Since I have a basement in my house, I’ve never used this shelter. It will come in handy now though.”

  She stepped around me, still keeping the gun pointed at me. Suddenly, the first rush of drowsiness hit, and I fell to the ground. When I hit the dirt, I accidentally let go of the leash. Instead of staying by my side, Lazarus gave me a long look and then bolted away, running across the yard toward the road. I tried to call his name, but my voice was so weak, I couldn’t make a sound.

  As darkness started to overtake me, I could see Rae fling the metal doors of the shelter open. Then she grabbed me by my shoulders. I attempted to wrestle myself out of her grasp, but she was too strong. She pushed me down some old wooden stairs. I fell on moist earth, surrounded by the dank smell of mold and mildew. Next to me were a couple of suitcases. August’s. I thought I heard Rae say something about being sorry, and then everything went black.

  Chapter

  Twenty-Six

  “Can you hear me, Emily?”

  I tried to shake the fog out of my head, but it clung to me like tendrils from a spider’s web.

  “Dad?” I choked out. “Is that you?”

  “Yes. We’re here.”

  I realized I was lying on the ground. Turning my head, I could see the clinic and the doors of the shelter that had been flung open. “Where is she? Where is Rae?”

  My father stroked my head. “They caught her trying to get out of town. She’s in custody, honey.”

  “Oh, good. She’s—”

  “Marian Belker. Yes, we know.”

  “How . . . ?”

  “We’ll talk about it later. Right now, we need to make sure you’re okay.”

  “I’m fine. She gave me a shot. Made me sleepy.”

  I heard Dad say something, but I couldn’t quite make out the words. Someone spoke back to him. It sounded like Reuben, but I couldn’t be sure.

  “We called an ambulance. It’s on the way.”

  “Don’t be silly. I’m okay.” I tried to sit up, but the world swirled around me in a kaleidoscope of colors and shapes.

  “Just take it easy, Emily,” Dad said.

  As I stared up into his face, the dizziness seemed to be fading somewhat. “How . . . how did you find me?”

  “Lazarus, Zac, and Janet Dowell,” Dad said with a smile. “Zac was looking through his notes and the research you two did, and he remembered something.”

  My mouth was so dry I couldn’t seem to get my lips apart, so I just nodded at my father.
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  “The night you asked Rae questions about August, she mentioned feeling bad for you because of everything your family had been through. But no one had told her about Ryan. As Zac was wondering how she could have known, Janet knocked on Esther’s door. The other night when she took her dog, Murphy, outside, she saw someone looking through Esther’s window. The person ran away, but she was pretty sure it was Rae. At first, she didn’t think much of it, but after a while, it began to bother her. She came over to tell Esther about it, and Zac overheard their conversation. By then, he’d already realized something was wrong. He called Paul on his cell phone and told us to come back. Then he drove over to the vet clinic looking for you.”

  “How did he figure out where I was?”

  “It was Lazarus. Zac looked all over for you. He was about to give up when Lazarus came running up to him. He led Zac to a mound of dirt and started barking and pawing at it. Zac cleared away the dirt, discovered the shelter, and found you. He’d just pulled you out when we got here.”

  “Oh, the bricks,” I said. My tongue felt like it was too big for my mouth.

  “I don’t understand, honey.”

  “I just realized. The bricks under the window. They were piled high. For a short person. It was Rae.”

  Dad chuckled. “It doesn’t matter anymore, Emmie. Rae, or Marian—whatever you want to call her—won’t hurt anyone else.”

  I heard Zac call out. He ran up next to us. “Here it is,” he said, handing my dad a vial. I recognized it immediately.

  “That’s it,” I said. “That’s what she gave me.”

  “I don’t know what this is,” Dad said.

  At that very moment, the sound of a siren split the air. An ambulance pulled up the clinic’s driveway, and an EMT jumped out. Dad quickly explained the situation to him and handed him the vial.

  “It’s ketamine, a sedative used by doctors and veterinarians during surgery,” the EMT said. “It shouldn’t cause any permanent damage.”

  “Thank God,” Dad said a little breathlessly.

  “It wouldn’t hurt for us to check you over though, miss,” the attendant said. “Just to make sure.”

  I sat up, this time without the cobwebs and weird colors. “Thanks, but I’m feeling much better.”

  “Are you sure? We’re already here.” His worried expression made me smile.

  “I’m sure.”

  He came over anyway, knelt down, and checked my vitals. Then he snapped the lid shut on his medical kit.

  “Just rest today. You’ll start feeling better in a couple of hours.” The EMT looked at my dad. “Keep a close watch on her. If she’s still groggy by this evening, take her to the emergency room and have them take a look at her.”

  Dad nodded. “I’ll do that. Thanks for your help.”

  The EMT patted me on the shoulder, got up, and ran back to the ambulance. We watched as they pulled away.

  “I want you to take it easy, Emily. And you will go to the hospital if you’re not feeling better in the next few hours.”

  “Really. I’m fine. I’d just like to get up off the ground, if you don’t mind.”

  “You sit there just a little longer. I don’t want you passing out.”

  I grabbed his arm. “Dad. Elijah. He’s . . . he’s Ryan. Rae . . . I mean, Marian confirmed it.”

  My father smiled. “Once we realized who she was, I knew you’d found him. I’m so proud of you, sweetheart. It’s because you refused to give up.”

  Suddenly something came at me from my left side. As a wet tongue washed the side of my face, I grabbed Lazarus around the neck and hugged him.

  “Good boy,” I said, burying my head in his fur. “You’re such a good boy.”

  “You’re awake.” Reuben sat down on the ground next to me. “I was so worried. Afraid that crazy woman had hurt you.”

  “It was Rae,” I said. “She was behind all of it.” I looked up at my father. “Her husband blackmailed you, Dad. And she poisoned the fudge, Zac. The idea was to make me sick so I’d have to go home.”

  “What fudge?” Dad asked.

  “We’ll explain it later,” Zac said. “It’s not important now.”

  I pointed toward the shelter doors. “She killed August, although she said it was an accident. His suitcases are down there.”

  “We know,” Dad said. “We already found them. Now let’s get you home and cleaned up, honey,” Dad said. “Then we’ll talk some more. You’ve been through a lot.”

  Even though I felt like I wanted to tell them everything I’d discovered, my head was starting to pound. I looked down and realized I was covered with mud, and I smelled.

  “Good idea. Help me up.”

  Dad put his arms around me and pulled me to my feet. Reuben took one arm while Dad held on to the other. With their help, I made it to Reuben’s truck.

  “You drive her back,” Dad said to Reuben. “We’ll follow behind you.”

  Reuben put his arms around me and lifted me into the seat. Dad kissed me on the cheek and closed the truck’s door. Then Reuben went to the other side of the truck, ordered Lazarus into the cab, and climbed in after him. Lazarus immediately scooted up next to me and put one paw on my leg. I put my arms around him.

  “Thank you, Lazarus,” I whispered.

  He rewarded me with another kiss on the face. I suddenly became aware of how filthy I really was. “Oh, Reuben. I’m getting your seat all dirty.”

  “I don’t care about my truck, Wynter. I’m just so thankful you’re all right.”

  For the first time I realized how haggard and worried he looked. “I’m fine. Really.”

  Reuben put his face in his hands. When he removed them, there were tears in his eyes. “It’s my fault. I’m the one who sent you to Rae.”

  I reached past Lazarus and grabbed his hand. “Reuben King. That’s ridiculous. It’s not your fault at all. You had no idea Rae was dangerous.”

  “But I should have known. I should have realized . . .”

  I smiled at him. “That the town vet was a crazy woman who kills people? Don’t be silly. Marian was adept at lying. Not only to others but to herself.” I looked down at Lazarus. “We were all fooled—except for Lazarus. When she tried to put him in the storm shelter with me, he took off. He knew I needed help, and he went to find it.” My declaration was met with another wet kiss on the cheek.

  Reuben looked deeply into my eyes. “Maybe it’s time I was bold enough to follow his lead. I love you, Wynter. I know you might be thinking it’s too soon for me to say it, but almost losing you made it clear I can’t let you go back to St. Louis without knowing how I feel.”

  I smiled at him. “Wondering if I was going to come out of this alive made me rethink some things too. I love you too. Feeling this strongly about someone is new to me, so I might need some time to adjust.”

  Reuben held up his other hand. “No problem. All I heard is that you love me. I can live with that. For now.”

  I grinned. “Any man who doesn’t mind a woman smearing mud all over his truck is a man I can see a future with.”

  He nodded. “Again, the truck’s not important. And, speaking of trucks, when Rae was stopped on the road out of town, would you like to know what she was driving?”

  “A black truck with tinted windows?”

  He nodded. “August’s truck. I didn’t recognize it when she tried to run us off the road. He rarely drove it. Walked everywhere. He kept it here, parked in her garage. If it matters, I don’t think she was trying to kill us. She wanted you out of town before you discovered her secret. If you were injured or got sick, she figured you’d go back to St. Louis.”

  “But I didn’t know anything about her. If she’d kept quiet and hadn’t told August what she’d done, we would have finished our interviews and left.”

  “We owe a lot to August. I wish he was still around so we could thank him. He sacrificed himself for the truth.”

  “She said they got into an argument and he fell and hit his head.”r />
  Reuben glanced over at me. “Do you really believe that?”

  “I don’t know what to believe. I’m comfortable letting the police sort everything out.” I took a deep breath, hoping a shot of oxygen would help to clear my mind. “Reuben, what about Elijah . . . I mean, Ryan? I’ve got to see him.”

  “Did I hear you say that Rae admitted that Elijah is Ryan?”

  I nodded, tears filling my eyes. “I’ve found my brother, Reuben. After all these years . . .”

  I felt like a dam broke inside me, and I began to sob.

  “It’s not going to be easy, Wynter,” Reuben said gently. “Ryan’s spent most of his life with the Fishers.”

  “I know,” I sputtered. “And they had no idea who he really is. Rae’s husband told them Ryan was an abused child who needed to be kept away from his parents. They weren’t trying to hide him from us. They were trying to protect him. I’m sure Samuel and Naomi were doing the same thing.”

  “This is going to be really hard for Nathan and Anna.”

  “I know, but at least we found him. Now we can tell him the truth. That Mom and Dad weren’t trying to get rid of him, and that we looked everywhere for him. Even if he feels more connected to the Fishers, he’ll finally know we’ve always loved him.”

  Reuben smiled. “That’s a great way to look at it.”

  I leaned back against the seat. Lazarus put his head on my shoulder and I stroked him.

  “I should have caught Rae’s comment about my family,” I said. “I’ve just had so much on my mind, it went right past me.”

  “God bless Zac for remembering. We owe him and Janet a great deal. They started us in the right direction. Thank God we knew where you were.”

  “I would have regained consciousness eventually and climbed out.”

  “Maybe,” Reuben said with a frown, “but Rae covered the storm shelter with a mound of dirt. I had no idea there was a shelter there—nor did anyone else.” He looked over at me, his eyes full of tears. “It’s possible you couldn’t have opened those doors, Wynter. The dirt made them too heavy. If we hadn’t found you . . .”

  A chill went through me. Was it possible I could have actually died?