Hazardous Homecoming

by Dana Mentink

  Her breath caught as he moved closer. His embrace enveloped her tired soul, tingled through the world-weary places inside, yet it was frightening to let him feel that part of her, the naked vulnerability of a little child ensnared by evil on one spring morning. Too close, too intimate. Terrifying. “I’m not a project,” she said, jerked back. “Somebody you can fix with prayer,” she breathed.

  “I wasn’t implying that. I just wanted to show you that I care about you. That’s all.”

  “Don’t. Don’t, because I can’t care about you.” Her eyes burned, and blood pounded in her temples. Her hands balled into fists in her lap. “I’m too filled up with anger.”

  “Ruby, listen.”

  “No.” She leaped to her feet. “This can’t happen with us. You should go now, Cooper. Go back to your brother.”

  His shoulders slumped. “I didn’t come here to upset you. We have a connection. You mean so much to me.”

  That golden hue in his green eyes made her knees wobble. Summoning up her last bit of strength, she let the words go that would sever the last thread between them. “You don’t mean anything to me, Cooper. Not anymore.”

  He flinched, mouth tightening. Pain flickered across his face. “That’s your anger talking.”

  “No, it’s not.” She kept her lips pressed tight together to hold in her own grief. It was for the best. They could not be friends or anything else.

  He watched her, strong face tipped to one side as if considering. Then he heaved out a breath. “Okay. Then I guess that’s that.”

  A heart as hard as hers should not feel pain, yet as it cracked in two, the anguish stabbed afresh.

  Cooper turned to go as the sheriff came out of the house, talking excitedly to his deputy before he strode purposefully to the little office. Terror pricked Ruby’s skin as she hurried to get there. The expression of triumph in Pickford’s eyes seared into her.

  She was dimly aware that Cooper stood rooted to the spot, watching the situation unfold, but she could not spare a thought for him.

  Molly and her father must have heard the sheriff’s approach because they both came to the front porch.

  “What is it, Wallace?” Molly asked, her hand on Perry’s forearm. “You’ve got a terrible look on your face.”

  He held up a plastic bag. Ruby could not tell at first what was in it until she pushed herself closer.

  “The day Alice went missing she was wearing a pair of blue pants and a hand-knitted gray sweater that her mother made for her.” He shook the bag. “Look what we found in the back of Mick’s closet.”

  Ruby stared. Inside the bag was a child-size pair of blue pants and a sweater, clearly hand-knit. Alice’s clothes.

  “That can’t be,” Ruby whispered. Her father’s face blanched.

  “We’ll have to wait on the charges for Lester’s murder, but for now,” the sheriff said, voice loud in the hush of the forest, “your son is under arrest for the kidnapping of Alice Walker.”

  * * *

  Cooper’s stomach cinched down to the size of a hard fist. He stared at the bag of clothes. Mick Hudson, Ruby’s brother, was responsible for the misery they had all endured for the past twenty years? He could not wrap his mind around it.

  Ruby turned away, biting her lip, and it was all he could do not to sprint to her and seize her by the shoulders, to press her to him and drive away the awful fear etched upon her face.

  Instead he stood motionless, as Perry embraced her, murmuring comfort, low and soft. When he let her go, he pulled out his phone and he dialed.

  The sheriff walked back to his car, and Ruby stood alone.

  She turned grief-stricken eyes on him. “I guess your prayers for your brother have come true. My brother will take the fall now.”

  “It’s not what I wanted, Ruby. You have to know that.”

  Her eyes burned with fire, face a mask of agony. “You go back to your brother and the God who loves you.”

  “He loves you, too,” Cooper said, voice breaking.

  “That’s a lie.” Tears coursed in angry trails down her face. “God abandoned Alice and my family twenty years ago, and I will never turn to Him, or to you. Ever.”

  She stumbled away into the woods.

  “Ruby,” he called after her, following. “You shouldn’t be alone right now.”

  She whirled one last time. “Stay away. Don’t ever come near me again.”

  “Ruby,” he whispered as he watched her. What was happening? The world was fracturing slowly apart and he could not stop it. Should he be happy that his brother would finally be cleared of Alice’s abduction? But how could he be, when Mick’s neck was now in the noose?

  He drove slowly home, trying to think it through. It was so convenient that Alice’s clothes should be found now, after a cursory search. An ugly thought pricked at him. Would Pickford have any reason to plant evidence at the Hudson home? Or someone else? Surely many people might have had the opportunity; perhaps the house was often unlocked and empty while the family was out on their rounds. Molly had regular access, he was sure. Anyone from one of the birding tours could have deposited the clothes.

  He burned with indecision. Should he go try to visit his brother? Continue his search for a lawyer? Follow Ruby into the forest against her wishes? Uncertainty weighed down every limb. Her anguish rang in his ears.

  Lord, he prayed. Show her you didn’t abandon Alice and her family and you haven’t left her either. Reach through her grief somehow.

  He made it home. The cabin was painfully quiet. He tried to eat, tried to sleep, nothing would soothe his mind.

  Afternoon slipped into evening. He’d fixed the shelf that had come apart from the wall, split and stacked more wood than his brother would ever need and gone for an exhausting run, more from the hope that he might run into Ruby than any other reason.

  When he heard the phone ring at a little after three, he snatched it up.

  “Where’s my daughter?” Perry demanded.

  “I don’t know, Mr. Hudson.”

  “She was upset, distraught after Pickford left. She went to the jail to try and see Mick, but she left there an hour ago and she won’t answer her phone.”

  “Mr. Hudson, I don’t know where she is. I’ll go check the trail again, and down by the lake.”

  “No,” he barked. “You stay away from my daughter, you and your brother.” He clicked off.

  Perry would never accept his help looking for Ruby. Perry wanted him gone. Ruby had pushed him away. So be it. Cooper wasn’t about to let anything happen to the stubborn, hurting woman who refused to leave his mind even for a single moment. The idea smacked him like a rush of cold wind and suddenly he knew where he could find her.

  Grabbing a sweatshirt, he snatched up his keys and ran for the truck.

  TWENTY

  Ruby watched for the kestrels. Father bird came and fed his little ones and flew away in a flash of lush feathers and the beat of strong wings. She’d always marveled that wild creatures knew instinctively how to care for their young. Perhaps the male kestrel did not grieve when his mate was killed, not in the way that people did, but his devotion to his little ones did not wane, in spite of the hardships. He would soldier on, caring for them, no matter what.

  She thought about Cooper, living a life of constant stress and disappointment as he tried to help his brother. Of Josephine, who loved her daughter just as much now as the day she’d disappeared. They both continued to love, in their own ways, in spite of the all the cruelties life had dished out to them. Where did that capacity come from? All Ruby knew was that she did not have it. God had not wired her that way. She was filled with fear and the need for vengeance, not love.

  Her eyes went to the nest, the afternoon sun catching the flickers of movement inside. Tiny babies, tucked in, protected an
d safe.

  Like Alice should have been. Where are you, Alice? Who took you from the woods that day all those long years ago? It was not Mick, she knew that with unbendable certainty. Perhaps Peter really was guilty. And maybe he’d gotten Heather to plant the clothes in the house to frame Mick. Would Peter do that? Would Heather? She could no longer distinguish logic from wild speculation.

  Restless, she moved away along the path, reaching down to pick up some stones glittering in the shadows. Overhead the trees wove together in a great lacy canopy that blotted out much of the sunlight. Would Mick ever be able to stroll the Hudson Raptor Sanctuary again and see his beloved birds? Would life in prison be the legacy of whomever had planted those clothes in his room? In spite of the best lawyers her father could afford, her brother might not escape the noose around his neck.

  She hurled one of the stones into the woods. It smacked hard against a tree trunk. Then the dark emotions thickened inside, and she began to hurl the rocks, handfuls of them, as hard as she could. Frantically, she snatched them up from the ground, flinging the anger and rage and fear with every stone. Ruby kept it up until her arm was sore and she collapsed, panting, to the ground.

  “Why?” she screamed to God, tears nearly choking off the words. “Why didn’t you protect Alice? Why are you going to take away my brother now?” She pounded a fist onto the dirt of the path. “Wasn’t it enough to take Mom? And then a kid who couldn’t lift a finger to defend herself? Now Mick?” She grabbed up handfuls of dirt and flung them at the nearest tree. “You’re not good, or loving,” she screamed. “You’re vicious and I’ll never follow you, do you hear me? I hate you!”

  Now her body shuddered with sobs, blinded by rivers of tears. Up she scrambled.

  The hard earth tore her fingernails as she grabbed up every sharp rock, every piercing twig, rocketing them away with such force that she fell to one knee, sobbing.

  Then he was there. Cooper knelt beside her and put his arms around her. She pushed at him, smacked her palm into his shoulder, but he did not let go.

  “I’m staying with you, Ruby,” he murmured in her ear. “I’m here.”

  No, no, no, she wanted to scream. She kept shoving at his shoulders, but her efforts grew weak. “Get away from me.”

  “I’m not leaving.”

  His arms stayed taut around her, muscles bunched against her struggles. “I’m losing everything,” she cried. Grief swelled up her throat until the words came out in a croak. “I’m alone. I’m lost.”

  He squeezed her hard to his chest, caging her to him. She could hear the fast beat of his heart. “You’re not alone.”

  “You shouldn’t be here,” she wailed, sucking in gasping breaths. “You can’t help me. You can’t fix it.”

  He took her by the forearms and held her far enough away that she was forced to look in his face. “I’m not here to fix it. I’m here to go through it with you.”

  She trembled in his grasp. “Why?” she whispered.

  He smiled and looked into her eyes. “Because that’s what we’re made to do for each other.”

  She thought of the kestrel, tending his fledglings, risking his own survival for those weak little creatures.

  “I can’t turn to God,” she hiccupped, “if that’s what you’re hoping for. He doesn’t love me.”

  He held one of her hands, using his sleeve to wipe away the tears that still flowed down her cheeks. “He does,” Cooper said. “Even when you say you hate him.”

  She sniffed.

  “He’s big enough to take your anger. So let Him.”

  She collapsed to the ground and covered her face. “I’m so confused. I don’t want to be like this, alone. I feel like I’m lost in the dark.”

  Draping his sweatshirt over her, he sat next to her, one arm holding fast to her shoulders. “You’re not alone.” Wriggling, he pulled his phone out of his pocket and activated the flashlight app. “And you’re not in the dark, see?”

  She clutched the phone, ridiculously comforted by that small glow in the shadows that seemed to be closing in all around her, by Cooper’s gentle smile.

  I’m not here to fix it. I’m here to go through it with you.

  And there he was, standing firm against her railing, every stone she could throw, every insult she could hurl. Why?

  Because that’s what we’re made to do for each other.

  It was all too puzzling and overwhelming. With Cooper by her side, she let the tears flow and her thoughts whirl, grateful for the little sliver of comfort that was all she had to hang on to.

  Cooper made sure Ruby texted her father that she was okay. She told him she would be home shortly and she was not alone. No need to add that Cooper was with her. Her father did not deserve any more worry right now. It was after four by the time she managed to stand. Brushing her hands on her pants, she gave Cooper his phone back. “I’m going to the sheriff’s office.”

  “Then we better get started if we’re going to get there by closing time.”

  She caught his wrist. “I’m going by myself, Cooper. I...I really appreciate what you’ve done for me, but it doesn’t change anything.”

  He held up a hand. “I understand the situation. The only way through it is to find the truth.”

  She nodded. “About what happened to Alice.”

  He opened the truck door for her. “Because it’s not going to be finished for Peter or for Mick until we do and the only lead we have is...”

  “Jane Brown’s cell phone number. That’s right, and I have to make the sheriff see that. Jane knows something.” She felt a spark of hope.

  Cooper frowned. “And someone else does, too. The guy who tried to run us down when we met with her.”

  “Do you think it’s the same person who grabbed me at Josephine’s house?”

  “Might be, and maybe it’s the person responsible for that rock slide.” The light reflected off his fair hair and she saw the grave flicker of shadow in his eyes. “I’ve poked around on the internet to trace Jane Brown’s number, but I’m not much of a detective. I tried a reverse cell phone lookup, but that didn’t get me anywhere.”

  “The police could do it easily.”

  “Only they might not be too motivated to listen to us, since they’ve already got two people in custody at the moment and we both have a vested interest in protecting our kin.”

  Ruby tried to pull her hair into a neater ponytail and straighten her shirt. “Then I’ve got to convince them.”

  “We,” Cooper said.

  “No.” At the end of the day, she still could not allow Cooper to help her, especially in view of how she felt about his brother. Also, the comfort and ease he awakened in her heart scared her.

  He smiled. “Too bad. You’ve got company on this mission.”

  “But...”

  He waved an airy hand at her. “Besides, you never know when you’ll need a botanist. We’re very useful people to have around and not just for scoping out mushrooms.”

  Somehow, against all good sense, she found herself smiling, and one tiny atom of her fear drifted away.

  * * *

  They made it to the sheriff’s office before closing time. A man with a head of curly black hair swooped down on them. “Hey, you’re the sister and brother of the two accused men. Would you care to tell us your side of the story?”

  “No,” Cooper said.

  “Come on. Just a quick comment.”

  The man readied his iPhone to take a picture. Cooper blocked the camera with his forearm.

  “No comment,” Cooper growled, “and no pictures either.”

  “You can’t do that,” the reporter said. “This is a public building, and I can take pictures if I want.”

  “Get out of our faces.” Cooper stayed ready, standing in front of Ruby in case th
e guy tried for another shot.

  Pickford emerged from the back room. “Awww, I’m too tired for this stuff. Harold, get out or I’ll arrest your sorry self.”

  Harold glared. “You can’t...”

  “I don’t care at this point. I’ve got a badge and you don’t. Get out or I arrest you and put you in a holding cell until morning, after I confiscate your iPhone, of course. No guarantees it won’t accidentally get stepped on in the process.”

  Harold shot one last glare at Pickford and then he turned to Cooper. “Like it or not, you’re news. Might as well tell your side. Here’s my card.” He held one out between two fingers.

  Cooper folded his arms across his chest. “Keep it.”

  Harold shrugged. “Suit yourself, but I’m not the only reporter around sniffing out a story.” He pushed through the doors and left.

  “If you’re wanting to see your loved ones, the answer is no,” Pickford said, “like I’ve already explained to Heather and her father and Perry and Molly and anyone else who has asked. No one is seeing Mick and Peter until I’ve questioned them thoroughly.”

  Behind the counter, Cooper saw the bustle of busy cops coming and going from the back rooms. Interrogating his brother? Peter, give them the truth, all of it.

  Ruby put her hands on the counter, small against the ugly gray Formica. “We want you to trace Jane Brown’s cell phone number. She knows something about Alice.”

  Pickford quirked an eyebrow. “Brown? Oh, yes, the woman who you arranged to meet before some guy allegedly tried to run you down.”

  Cooper gritted his teeth at the sheriff’s obvious disbelief. “Can you run the number?”

  “Sure. When we get the time, in between handling Lester’s murder and your kinfolk.”

  “It needs to be done now,” Ruby cried. “There’s a lot at stake.”

  “I’m sure there is,” Pickford growled, “but at the moment, we’re busy processing two suspects and reopening a file that’s been cold for twenty years. Forgive me if I don’t drop everything and follow the directives of the suspects’ siblings.”

  Ruby gasped. “How can you turn your back on this?”