by B. J Daniels
Lila scoffed at how foolish she’d been to think that could have ever happened. Life was full of disappointments. She’d planned to fill this house with children, male children who would someday take over the place.
Chester had been even more disappointed and disappointing. But she couldn’t blame him. He’d known he wasn’t her first choice any more than she’d been his.
She turned on the light in her bedroom, surprised how dark it had gotten. Time seemed to slip away from her, minutes lost in thought, hours gone as if stolen.
She heard the front door open. Maybe the girls had forgotten something and had come back. She reminded herself that they weren’t girls anymore. “McKenna?”
No answer.
“Eve?” She knew Faith wouldn’t have come back, as angry as she’d been.
Loren? He would have knocked. Or said something by now.
Lila turned and listened, her bedroom door open, the faint wash of light spilling across the floor from the small light she always left on in the hallway for when her daughters returned.
The front door closed with a soft click.
Lila froze, her heart lodging in her throat. She couldn’t have screamed even if she’d tried. Even if it would have done any good. The closest house was Eve’s and it was a half mile up the road. No one would hear her.
She heard the creak of a floorboard, then another before the groan of a heavy tread on the stairs. She willed her body to move. Across the carpet to the bed. Her hand trembled as she quietly opened the bedside-table drawer where Chester kept the .22 pistol.
“One shot wouldn’t stop much of anything,” Chester had said. “So you’ll have to keep firing. Aim for the body. The main thing to remember is that if someone were to break in, if you don’t stop him, he’ll end up using your gun on you. That’s why most men would never tell their wives to go for the gun.” He had hesitated. “But you’re not most wives.”
No, she thought, she’d definitely proved that.
She flipped off the safety and raised the gun, her focus on the open bedroom doorway. She knew there would be that split second when the doorway filled and she would have to make the decision whether to fire.
It could be a neighbor. Or one of the girls. Or Chester. Someone who either hadn’t heard her call to them. Or didn’t care to answer.
Or it could be a drifter like the one who’d come through back in the 1970s, killed Margaret O’Dell in her bed and stolen her car to make a run for Canada.
A shadow fell over the doorway an instant before the bulk of a man filled the space.
Her finger tightened on the trigger as Errol Wilson stepped in.
He smiled when he saw the gun. “That’s what I love about you, Lila. You have such a sense for the dramatic.”
She itched to pull the trigger and wondered why she hadn’t the first time he’d come into her house with his threats.
But she knew the answer to that.
“Get out.”
Errol leaned suggestively against the doorjamb and grinned at her.
“I said get out.”
He arched a brow at her. “Don’t make a mistake you’ll regret the rest of your life, Lila. I’ve waited long enough.”
“I told Chester.”
“Chester?” He laughed as he stepped toward her. “Even if I believed you, I know Chester isn’t the person you’ve been hiding the truth from all these years.”
“My girls are women now. They’ll understand.”
Errol must have heard the fear in her voice. He chuckled. He was now within feet of her. Her heart pounded so hard she barely heard him, but the gun never wavered in her hand.
“We both know who you’re protecting, Lila, and just how far you will go to keep your secret,” he said. He was close enough now that she could see the lust in his eyes.
“If you don’t leave now, I’ll pull the trigger.”
“Yeah, right,” Errol said, grinning. “Explain my dead body to your family and friends.”
She caught her breath as he snatched the gun from her and snapped the safety on before tossing it onto the bed.
“Come on, Lila, you know this day has been coming for a long time. I would hate to have to force you, but I will.”
Lila Bailey clamped her mouth closed to keep from screaming as she felt Errol Wilson’s wet lips on her neck. She caught sight of the gun lying on the bed.
He shoved her down on the bed, grinning as he began to unbutton his shirt. She’d run him off last time when Eve had seen him leaving. Just as she’d run him off before. But she knew nothing would stop him tonight.
He opened his shirt. She stared at his bare chest as he started to lower himself onto her, his belt buckle cutting into her stomach. Reaching up to the corner of the bed, she found the gun. It would be so easy to kill him.
She thought of her daughters, especially Eve, as her fingers tightened around the barrel of the gun. Errol was kissing her neck, so sure she would have to give into him now that Chester was gone, now that Eve was home again. He never saw it coming as she swung the gun as hard as she could at his balding head.
The base of the grip connected with the back of his skull, the sound like dropping a cantaloupe on concrete. He’d known she wouldn’t shoot him. But she saw that he hadn’t expected this. He drew back to look at her in both surprise and pain.
She shoved him off. He tumbled off the bed, landing hard in a sitting position staring up at her, breathing hard.
“I told you to get out,” Lila said.
He blinked at her, having a hard time focusing while he reached to gingerly touch the back of his head. He winced, his fingers coming away covered in blood.
“You bitch,” he said, without much rancor, too stunned to work up a good mad yet.
“You’re getting blood on my floor, Errol Wilson,” Lila said as she snapped off the safety and pointed the gun at his head. “If you think I won’t kill you right now you are sadly mistaken. Imagine what your wife will say when the sheriff has to tell her that I killed you to keep you from raping me.”
“You’re going to regret this,” he said, but made no move to come at her again as he got to his feet. He wobbled a little as he attempted to button up his shirt. She followed him to the door, the gun on him.
“It won’t be my first regret,” she said as she watched him drive away.
CARTER HAD BEEN so lost in thought he hadn’t realized just how late it was. He’d gone through the items in the evidence bags. A piece of leather, an old notebook, whatever had been written on it faded beyond recognition over the years, a candy wrapper, a package of chewing gum, an assortment of photos of the victim and what he’d been wearing.
The jeans were in good shape. The shirt was so faded it would have been hard to know the exact color. What caught Carter’s attention were the man’s boots. They were a common brand. The only thing that distinguished them was the color: blue. Dress boots. Same with the man’s belt.
Carter inspected the bag containing the marijuana seeds that had been found in the plane, agreeing with Max’s drug-smuggling conclusion. Maybe Max was also right that the woman and baby were just cover. Carter couldn’t see Nina Mae Cross in that plane, let alone her and a baby. Whose baby? And what about the victim? How did he fit in?
Carter rubbed his eyes and put the photographs back into the evidence bag before locking everything up and heading home.
The box that had been there on his steps was gone. Nor was there any new surprise package waiting for him as he stopped in front of his house. No sign of Deena. But then he never knew what he might find inside. It wouldn’t be the first time she’d gotten in.
He didn’t know whether to be relieved or worried. His instincts told him that Deena wouldn’t let this go. If anything, she was plotting something big, planning an attack that he wouldn’t see coming.
Weary and exhausted, he just wanted to go to bed. He hadn’t had dinner, but he didn’t care. He wasn’t hungry, just tired.
He glanced towar
d the house again, not in the mood for surprises tonight and unsure whether even the new locks could keep Deena out.
As he started to get out of the SUV, his radio squawked.
“Break-in at Dr. Holloway’s,” the dispatcher said.
Dr. Holloway’s? “I’m on it.”
Another squawk. “Deputy Samuelson is on his way as well,” the dispatcher said.
EVE HEARD a siren blare in the distance, the sound growing as if the vehicle was headed for the doctor’s office building.
She didn’t take the time to find out what Bridger Duvall had been doing there. She stumbled out the back door and ran.
It wasn’t until she reached her pickup that she dared look back. She couldn’t see anyone following her. She didn’t stop to make sure. She opened her pickup door, tossed the file onto the seat and slid behind the wheel. Unfortunately, when she’d swung her bag of tools at Bridger Duvall, she’d lost her grip. The last she’d seen the bag it had landed somewhere back in archives.
As she pulled out, she saw a woman at the pay phone down the street and recognized her. Deena Turner Jackson. Eve frowned. Was it possible Deena didn’t own a cell phone?
Deena exited the booth without looking her way, climbed into an SUV and drove south, probably headed for the country club. There was usually a live band and Eve had heard that Deena was partying it up, trying to make Carter jealous.
Disgusted with that particular love affair, Eve waited to make sure she and Deena Turner Jackson didn’t cross paths again before she, too, headed south, toward Old Town.
Her mind was racing. What had Bridger Duvall been doing in the doctor’s office and how did he get in? Was it possible he’d broken in through the front door?
She felt almost virtuous about the fact that she hadn’t been the only one breaking into Doc’s tonight. Also she’d gotten away from Duvall. Both thoughts shocked her. She’d struck the man, knocked him down the stairs, possibly even hurt him. How far was she willing to go to learn the truth? Obviously further than the law allowed.
CARTER HEADED down the street toward the doctor’s office building, but at Central he passed a pickup truck he recognized.
Eve Bailey.
She didn’t seem to notice him as she drove out of Whitehorse, headed no doubt home.
A break-in at Doc’s and Eve Bailey just happens by this late? But why would Eve break into the doctor’s office? She wouldn’t. Or would she?
He drove to Doc’s. Deputy Samuelson was already there. “What’s up?”
“Looks like someone broke in not just through the back door but the front,” Samuelson said.
“Any idea what they were after?”
“There’s a box of files on the floor in the archives room. I’d assume that was what they were looking for.”
Carter followed him downstairs to where a large box sat in the middle of one of the aisles, a stool nearby and a crowbar, hammer and screwdriver in a shopping bag next to it.
“Not exactly a professional job,” he commented after seeing the broken locks.
He knelt down to take a look at the date on the box on the floor. February 1975.
The year and month Eve was born and which the plane had crashed in the Breaks.
“Anything else disturbed?” he asked.
Samuelson shook his head. “Looks like whatever was in the box is what the burglar came in for.”
Carter nodded. “Give Doc a call, then secure the building as best you can.”
Outside, he climbed into his patrol SUV and headed south. It was time to have another heart-to-heart with Eve Bailey.
EVE TOOK A BACK road home. As she drove, she watched her rearview mirror. No car came racing after her. But she still had the feeling she was being followed. Didn’t most criminals think that?
She was so busy watching her rearview mirror that she was shocked to look up and see a set of headlights coming at her. She swerved back to her side of the road as a pickup blew past going in the direction of town. Eve only got a glimpse of it, but she would have sworn it was Errol Wilson behind the wheel of his old blue rattletrap.
So he hadn’t gone to Great Falls with her mother. But that didn’t mean he wasn’t headed that way now.
She shoved him out of her mind, still shaking from what she’d done tonight. What had she been thinking?
She reminded herself that she’d found what she’d been looking for. She was adopted, just as she’d suspected. The file proved it. And that, while maybe not making her actions right, allowed her to feel somewhat justified.
Everyone had lied to her. Not that it made any sense. There was no stigma connected to adoption. Why not just tell Eve the truth when she was young? Or when she’d asked?
Because there were other people involved in the deception. The thought made her heart race. Doc, for sure, since he’d signed her birth certificate. But were there others? There would have to be. Like her grandmother and other people in Whitehorse and Old Town who would have noticed Lila Bailey wasn’t pregnant, but then had a baby.
Unless her mother had pretended to be pregnant.
Eve rubbed her temple as she drove, her head aching.
Whatever the circumstance of her birth, it had obviously been a well-kept secret. And that worried Eve more than she wanted to admit as she noticed a set of headlights behind her.
The night was pitch-black, the road narrow and dark. Eve watched the headlights behind her, surprised to find anyone else on the road tonight, given the hour.
She told herself that it couldn’t be anyone after her. Not this long after the break-in. But still she felt a little spooked. Just nerves. Given what she’d learned lately, who could blame her?
She’d driven this same five miles hundreds of times, but tonight seemed different. Tonight she knew the truth. She was adopted. There was no other explanation. And once she showed her mother the medical file, Lila Bailey couldn’t deny it any longer. Eve finally had proof, she thought, glancing over at the file on the seat next to her, then at the headlights behind her.
Eve pressed down on the gas, driving faster, anxious to reach the ranch.
The vehicle behind her stayed back some distance. She could see the headlights in the cloud of dust her tires were kicking up. What had made her think it had been chasing her? Guilt, no doubt.
She tried to relax, but she knew she wouldn’t be able to until she’d talked to her mother. And Dr. Holloway.
If she’d known where her mother might be staying in Great Falls, Eve would have gone there. As it was, she’d have to wait until her mother returned from the funeral. If there was even a funeral.
Her mother couldn’t stay away forever.
Ahead, the road made a sharp turn to the left, then back to the right. Just a little farther and the back road would connect with the smoother and wider main gravel road into Old Town.
Eve came around the corner as the moon peeked out of the clouds, illuminating the landscape. She caught the glint of something up on the hill ahead of her just an instant before she heard a loud crack, then another. The front tire on the pickup blew.
Eve fought to keep control of the truck, but it was impossible. The rear end came around, the tires burying down into the loose earth at the edge of the road. The pickup keeled hard to the right and rolled, skidding on its top before coming to a stop in the ditch below the road.
Dazed, Eve hung upside down, the seat belt cutting into her. The airbag had deployed, but was now hanging slack in her face.
At first she couldn’t move, could barely breathe. Was she all right? She wasn’t sure.
She reached for the seat-belt release as the cab suddenly filled with light from the car that had been behind her. She heard the vehicle’s engine as it roared toward her.
Where had the shots come from? She couldn’t be sure. She’d thought it was someone on the hillside in front of her but it could have been from the vehicle behind her.
Frantically, she hit the seat-belt button, tumbling onto the headliner as the
belt suddenly released. She fumbled for the door handle, still disoriented and shaken, confused over what had happened. Had those even really been gunshots?
The door wouldn’t open. She swung around and tried the other one, aware that the vehicle had stopped. She heard a door open and close. The slim bright beam of a flashlight flickered across the landscape, headed in her direction.
Was he coming to finish the job?
She grabbed the other door handle but, like the first, it was jammed. Part of the windshield lay on the ground. Panicked, she kicked the rest of it out, her pulse deafening in her ears, and scrambled out ready to run for her life.
“Eve!”
She stumbled and fell. The beam of the flashlight splashed over her.
“Oh, my God, Eve,” Carter said as he dropped to his knees beside her. From up the road came the sound of an engine revving as it raced away, disappearing into the darkness. “You’re bleeding. Don’t move.”
Chapter Thirteen
As Carter brought the patrol car to a skidding halt outside the emergency entrance to the hospital, Eve sat up a little. Her head ached and so did her arm from holding a cloth on the cut over her left eye to stop the bleeding.
Dr. Holloway’s big black car was parked in the nearly empty lot. Next to it was Errol Wilson’s beat-up blue pickup.
Carter rushed around to her side of the car as she got out and shoved open the emergency entrance door to help her inside.
She saw Errol sitting on one of the exam tables, the curtains surrounding it standing open. Doc had Errol holding a thick piece of gauze on the back of his head. The two had been talking. Not talking, Eve amended. Arguing.
Both Doc and Errol glanced over at the sound of the buzzer announcing an E.R. arrival.
“Take her into the empty examining room down there,” Doc said, as he finished putting a bandage on the back of Errol’s head.