For the Sake of Their Baby

by Alice Sharpe

  “I thought it better safe than sorry,” he said, pulling off his work gloves and running a hand through his damp hair.

  She felt a huge lump lodge in her throat. “You mean if you have to go back to jail again.”

  “It’s a possibility,” he said softly. “We can’t ignore it.”

  “Is that why you installed the chain on the front door last night after I went to bed?”

  “Actually, I did it this morning. I should have done it long ago.”

  Shrugging, she looked in the direction of the ocean, and said, “I remember the first night I spent in this house. I’d just moved in and one of those spring storms came through where everything happens at once. Wind, rain, lightning, thunder—it was incredible. The house almost vibrated.”

  “It must have scared you to death.”

  “As a matter of fact, it put me right to sleep.”

  “Someone else would have wondered what they’d gotten themselves into.”

  “We’ve weathered our fair share of storms in this house, too,” she said. “They’ve never seemed to bother you much.”

  “Are you speaking metaphorically?” he asked, smiling.

  “No, I’m being literal.”

  “Then I’ll remind you I’ve never been through a storm in this old house when I was here alone. I always had you.”

  His words hung in the air between them. She couldn’t help but consider the metaphor aspect of their discussion now that he’d pointed it out. She said, “Listen, Alex, about yesterday afternoon—”

  “I’m sorry about the way I acted,” he said, beating her to the punch. “I’ve been a little…tense.”

  “We’re both tense,” she said, touching his shoulder. He put his free hand over hers and their eyes locked.

  “Just being together after months of not even seeing one another takes some getting used to, doesn’t it?” he said.

  What an opening for suggesting time apart! Before she could actually think of a way to go about using it, he added, “Dave said he was going to spend yesterday afternoon asking around the station to see if he could get a handle on what was going on between Chief Montgomery and Sheriff Kapp. He asked me to come by his house today. Will it interfere with your plans if I go over there around lunchtime?”

  She went from relieved to suspicious, just like that. Sure, she wanted him to disappear for a couple of hours, but why was he suddenly so anxious to escape her? About to protest, she finally came to her senses. He’d just handed her what she wanted and she was complaining? Was this what a guilty conscience did to you?

  “No problem,” she said.

  THE PHONE RANG a few minutes after Alex left. It was Kapp’s assistant explaining there’d been a change of plans. The woman sounded apologetic as she asked Liz to meet the sheriff at his office.

  How about that for fate? No way Alex could walk in on an interview held at Kapp’s office and she could explain going there when she told him she’d received a call after he left. She readily agreed, but as she drove, had to admit she was still unsure how to go about finding out if the sheriff was open to considering Alex’s innocence. She’d have to wing it, think on her feet, have catlike reflexes! Laughing at this image of herself, she pulled into a parking space.

  The building was singularly unattractive, a square box composed of beige stucco, crisscrossing ramps and iron railings. Liz walked through the front door and found her way to the sheriff’s office where she was met by a young deputy with flaming red hair and a sparse mustache. He looked baffled by Liz’s announcement that she’d come to see Sheriff Kapp.

  Glancing at his watch, the deputy said, “Uh, Mrs. Chase? I thought he was going to drop by your place. Wasn’t that the plan?”

  “His assistant called and changed the place of the meeting,” Liz explained.

  “I haven’t heard a word about a change and Belle Carter just went out to lunch with her fiancé,” the deputy said. “She won’t be back for at least an hour.”

  Liz looked at the big wall clock and sighed. Mix-ups like this one weren’t all that unusual in business situations and she understood that sooner or later it would be explained, but still, it was a nuisance.

  “I can page the sheriff if you like,” the deputy offered.

  “Good idea.”

  Liz stood by as the deputy tracked down the sheriff. By the flush that stole over the young man’s face as he mostly held the receiver to his ear and listened, she guessed the sheriff wasn’t happy. By the time the youthful deputy returned to the counter, he’d developed a nervous tic in his left eye. “Sheriff Kapp said he stopped by your place fifteen minutes ago. He sounded a little…tweaked.”

  Liz shrugged. The foul-up was on the sheriff’s end and she felt no responsibility.

  “He said he’s on the other side of town now. He’ll swing by your place later today.”

  “Okay,” she said with a resigned sigh. A subtle little interview with the sheriff didn’t seem to be in the cards. No doubt Alex would be home by the time the sheriff arrived and everything she’d tried to avoid would happen. Perhaps it was inevitable that Alex and Kapp face each other, and perhaps even preferable that it take place in the privacy of their home instead of in an office.

  She was exceedingly relieved to find no sign of either Alex’s truck or the sheriff’s car in the driveway. At least she’d have a few moments to get her thoughts in order. She contemplated making cookies so the house would smell homey. If it soothed the qualms of prospective buyers, might it not also work on testosterone-driven male adversaries?

  She was digging out the supplies for chocolate chip cookies when she finally realized she hadn’t seen any sign of Sinbad since coming through the door. She searched the house from one end to the other, assuming she’d find him stretched out under a bed or lurking in the back of a closet until she noticed the bathroom window ajar.

  Alex must have left the window open when he took his shower! She grabbed a piece of cheese to use as bait. Since Sinbad had spent the first year of his life outside, she reasoned that his being out there now wasn’t too big of a deal. Still, she’d feel better once she got him back inside.

  The first place she checked was the warm hood of her own vehicle. She found not so much as a single damp footprint. She walked around the outside of the house, calling his name and the ubiquitous “kitty, kitty,” but there was no answering meow and no sign of his dark mask. Eventually, she wandered out to the area where Alex had started the fence. It was possible the curious cat had watched the construction from the window and was now checking it out for himself.

  She searched the few holes that didn’t have poles sticking out at slanted angles awaiting backfill, each time expecting to find two blue eyes staring up at her, each time finding nothing. Her route led past the bluff and at last, over the faraway sound of the waves crashing against the rocks below, she heard a plaintive cry that stopped her in her tracks.

  “Sinbad?”

  A single strident cry scaled the cliff. Sinbad, the stinker, sounding more like an infant in distress than a cat. Clutching the stair railing with both hands, she called again, peering into the fog, preparing herself for his long dark shape to dash past her feet.

  But he didn’t come. Instead, another haunting cry echoed like faraway thunder. Liz studied the stairs, but the wooden structure disappeared into the fog ten feet down the cliff. She glanced back at the house, willing Alex to come through the back door.

  The desire to lean on Alex to solve even this most trivial of problems appalled her. When had she become such a class-A wimp? Until the other day, she’d taken care of herself for months and this was no time to turn into a simpering female. The beach stairs were safe— Alex himself had reinforced them two summers before—and she’d been up and down them a hundred times since then. She was wearing walking shoes and jeans, she still had Sinbad’s cheese to coax him out of whatever little shelter he’d found, and by the sound of the surf, high tide was imminent.

  Sinbad was playing
with her. He did things like this all the time. She took off down the stairs.

  There were eighty-five steps in all, she knew this as she’d counted them once. There were four landings and three turns, one at twenty-five steps, another at forty, and the last twenty steps shy of the bottom. In this way, the stairs zigzagged their way down the cliff to the last landing which hovered above the giant rocks at the base. When the tide was out, it was a simple matter of jumping from the last landing to the rocks to the gravel beach. When the tide was in, it was wise to head for high ground as the beach all but disappeared.

  The first twenty-five steps were relatively easy. Though Liz repeatedly called the cat’s name, he was suddenly quiet. She made the switchback and started down the next stage, still calling. The waves were now louder and the clinging fog made the stairs and the railing wet. Her fingers were cold and she wished she’d thought about gloves. She took it slow, always aware of her new shape and altered center of gravity, determined to find out why Sinbad wasn’t dashing up to meet her without risking her baby’s safety. “It’s okay,” she murmured, and patting her tummy added, “Mommy is being very, very careful.”

  Visibility got worse as she proceeded downwards. By the time she reached the second landing, she could barely see five feet ahead. She paused and leaned against the railing, calling Sinbad. At last he answered with another strangled cry. Fumbling in her pocket, she found the cheese, but the distress so evident in the cat’s garbling made it clear a snack wasn’t going to help. Was something wrong with him? Dropping the cheese, relying on the railing to guide and support her, she took another step and another, scanning the cliff side and the stairs below.

  Where was the cat?

  Another noise, this one even closer by, but almost drowned out by the crashing surf. She was down far enough that she could actually feel the occasional stinging drop of spray. Slowly, she kept descending until her feet hit the second to last landing. She peered downward and felt a leap of relief when she saw Sinbad’s dark face, four steps below. As she scolded him for playing games with her, she noticed the peculiar tilt of his body and a piece of what appeared to be twine encircling his neck.

  A halfhearted reprimand died on her lips. Something was wrong. His eyes looked wild, his fur was damp. He meowed in such a heartrending way that she scrambled to get to him quickly. He looked like a tangle of wet fur with two blazing eyes.

  The twine had gouged into his fur, wearing a path right down to his skin which looked raw, even from this distance, and provided evidence of how desperately the cat had struggled to free himself. She stepped over his prone shape and down so that she could work on the twine which appeared to be knotted over and over. The stairs creaked. Trying to sound soothing, she talked to him as her cold fingers struggled with the knots. He seemed to know she was there to help for he stayed very still.

  At last the final knot came undone and Liz threw the twine toward the beach below. She expected the cat to dash past her up the stairs, but he stayed right where he was and growled. She touched him and he spat.

  Alarmed by his odd behavior, sure now that he was injured, she lifted him, trying not to react to the low ominous growl that rumbled in his body. She suddenly realized his back right leg was hurt. Gently, she cradled him in the bulk of her sweater pulled away from her body to form a makeshift sling. She resettled her weight. The stairs seemed to sway, but she barely noticed.

  Staring at Sinbad with her heart in her throat, she touched his head and he nuzzled her. His nose was oddly dry and his body trembled. She whispered calming words as her fingers grazed his throat and she felt the vibrations of a deep, quiet purr.

  Frantic to get him to the vet, she put her weight on the stair he’d been occupying. At once, she heard a loud crack and the wood groaned. She tried stepping back, but it was too late. Her weight had proven to be a catalyst and the ruined stair dropped away into thin air, taking the steps closer to the beach with it. Liz grabbed with one hand for the landing. As it swung away, she found herself thrown forward. Sinbad screeched and clawed her belly through the loose weave of her sweater. Reaching with one hand, she found a railing to grasp, but that too began to creak and slip, slamming her against the face of the cliff. The rocks twenty feet below were invisible in the fog, but she knew they were there, and she knew how deadly they would be if she fell. Her fingernails scratched the dirt and rocks, searching for something to hold onto, some way to move to safety, knowing that there was precious little hope of doing either.

  Desperate, terrified, she whispered Alex’s name.

  ALEX STARED at Dave and said, “Is he sure about this?”

  Dave nodded. “Mike Sinclair had an appointment to talk to Montgomery. You know how Montgomery has those two doors leading into his office? Well, one was slightly ajar, so Mike assumed it was okay to enter. He says the chief was standing behind his desk, mad as a hornet. Sheriff Kapp was standing on the other side. Before either one of them noticed Mike, he heard Chief Montgomery accuse Kapp of trying to blackmail him.”

  “Mike heard the actual word ‘blackmail’?”

  “That’s what he says.”

  “Blackmail,” Alex mused with more than a little glee.

  “Mike said he won’t swear to anything.”

  “There’s nothing to swear to,” Alex said. “The chief’s accusation just gives me a place to start looking. If Kapp is into blackmail, maybe he tried it on Hiller.”

  “And maybe Hiller refused to pay up so Kapp killed him.”

  “Maybe.” Alex wanted to get back to Liz, to tell her about Kapp. He’d been gone just a little over two hours but it felt like two weeks.

  “Thanks for the information and the sandwich,” he told Dave.

  “No problem, buddy.” Dave extended a hand and added, “Tell me when I can talk to the guys at the station and tell them what you’ve told me.”

  “Not yet,” Alex said. “Wait.”

  “Whatever you say. It’s good to have you back.”

  “Yeah. Now all I have to do is figure out how to stay back.”

  ALEX WALKED in the front door. He almost called out Liz’s name, but the house was so quiet, he realized she must be napping.

  He glanced down the hall and saw that her door was open, which seemed odd. Or perhaps that open door signified an invitation. He shed his jacket and walked down the hall with light footsteps in case she was asleep, hoping she wasn’t, hoping she’d welcome him…

  He peeked through the doorway. The bed was neatly made.

  He called her name. He called Sinbad. He searched the house, finding her coat on its hook inside the front door, her purse on the chair where she usually left it, a package of walnuts and some chocolate chips sitting on the drainboard, an open window in the bathroom. It was the only window in the house that didn’t have a screen. He closed the window, curious now, and let himself out the back door.

  Thanks to the fog, it was difficult to see any distance, but a quick walk around the yard assured him she wasn’t there. He recalled her mentioning her uncle’s boxes so he searched the garage and then opened the door to the attic. No Liz, no Sinbad.

  This was getting spooky. Might Liz have ridden into town with a friend? Wouldn’t she have left him a note? Wouldn’t she have taken her coat and purse? Would she walk across the road to Harry Idle’s house? Why? And what about Sinbad, what about the open window?

  He found himself out in the back again, and this time the bluff drew him like a magnet. It was impossible to tell if she’d come this way and it was still too foggy to see the beach below. He called her name. He heard a faint answer and his heart flooded with relief and then, as she screamed, with panic.

  He raced down the stairs, his mind filled with horrible images. He pushed them aside as he negotiated the landings and switchbacks, expecting to see her appear in the fog at any given moment, the victim, perhaps, of a twisted ankle or a cramp. He kept yelling her name, but after that scream he hadn’t heard a sound except the waves hitting the rocks. Dread
and fear bit at his heels like two malevolent dogs.

  Not Liz. Not the baby. Not hurt. No.

  The second to last landing was just ahead. The moment his foot hit it, the whole thing swayed and he skidded to a stop, hopping back as the creak of wood competed with the sound of the surf and the whole thing looked ready to plunge into the sea. Rails and steps dangled like the broken limbs of damaged trees after a storm. Most importantly, Liz, plastered precariously against the cliff, one hand gripping a tuft of long weeds, one leg wrapped around a piece of swaying railing, was trapped.

  “Alex!” she cried.

  His head cleared as he surveyed the scene and weighed his options. He didn’t think she could last long enough in that position to wait for a rescue team. He knew what had to be done and he knew it had to be done quickly.

  “I’m going to get a rope. Can you hold on a little longer?”

  “I…I think so.”

  “Just hold on. I’ll be right back.”

  “Hurry.”

  “I’ll be right back.”

  Leaving her like that was about the hardest thing he’d ever done, but attempting to rescue her without a rope was stupid. Thankfully, he could picture a long, thick coil of three-quarter-inch nylon rope hanging in the garage right where he’d placed it over a year before. He took the steps two and three at a time, arriving at the top gasping for air but running.

  Where was Liz’s cell phone? Should he waste time searching for it and calling for help? He didn’t have time and he let the thought go as he raced into the garage.

  The rope was where it was supposed to be. He looped it over his shoulder, comforted by the heaviness of it. There had to be at least a hundred feet. He grabbed his leather gloves off the workbench at the last moment. Within minutes, he was back across the yard, pulling on the gloves.

  He’d fished for salmon off the coast many times, and he’d seen the beach stairs from that vantage point more than once. He knew the first landing was more or less above the third landing, slightly off to the left, perfect. Pausing at the top of the bluff to tie off an end of the rope to one of the cement pillars that formed the anchor for the stairs, he gathered up the rest and started down.