by Quinn, Lucy
I took the last couple of steps fast and grabbed Derek on my way out the door. Footsteps were pounding on the stairs behind me, and I heard Mike’s voice call out for me to stop.
No way in Hades.
We were just out the front door, when I heard him yell, “Stop. Police. Stop right now.”
I froze on the porch, and Derek bumped into me, knocking me to the ground. We went down together—a tangle of legs—and my shoulder hit the wood hard. When I looked up, Stefan Van Andel was standing over me in his deputy uniform, his gun drawn, his hands shaking, moving the muzzle between Derek and me. His breath was shallow and his lips were pulled back over his teeth.
He was going to shoot one of us, right there on the porch, and I kept wishing I had never let go of that Febreeze.
Chapter 26
Stefan continued to point his weapon at me, so I raised my hands and rolled onto my back. He looked so much like his brother, and now I knew he sounded like him too.
“Stop moving,” he ordered. I complied, although Derek didn’t seem to take his instructions seriously. He was pushing my legs off his and scooting into an upright position.
“You, too,” Stefan said, pointing the gun at Derek instead. “Put your hands up.”
This time, the biker complied. I couldn’t move or speak, not with a loaded weapon aimed at us.
With a flash of white, I saw Scarlet poke her head down the stairs. She kept coming, until she was almost behind the deputy. She had this long, white sweater coat draped around her like silk. She looked ridiculous.
I’d never been happier to see anyone in my life.
“Now, what are you doing here?” Stefan said.
“I…I was going to rent a room,” Derek stuttered out. “I’m checking out of my rental and I heard this was a good place.”
“Then why did you run?” The deputy’s shoulders were still heaving with quick breaths, and he hadn’t lowered his gun.
Derek shrugged. “Instinct.”
Stefan seemed to consider us both and then looked back at Scarlet and dropped his eyes from hers. He lowered the weapon, too. Then he holstered it, and I finally let out the breath I’d been holding since Derek had started lying.
“Wait. I know you.” Mike’s brother pointed at me. “You’re that pastor-baker chick.”
I rubbed my tongue slowly back and forth on my bottom lip. Busted. “Yes. I am.”
“What are you doing here with him?”
“Uh.” I pushed my hands down my blue-jeaned thighs. “Is it okay if I get up? I think I’m sitting on a patch of ice.”
Stefan reached out a hand to offer assistance, but before I could take it, Derek was on his feet and helping me up. The deputy stepped back, shoving his hand in his pocket.
“She gave me a ride from the feed store.” Derek released me to my own two feet and started to wipe off his clothes.
“So that’s not your bike, right out there?” Stefan pointed off toward where my car was parked on the street.
“Are we done here, Deputy?” Scarlet said in her haughtiest, most convincing Southern Belle voice. She actually threw the edge of the white cape around her neck like a scarf, and I had to fight not to laugh at the spectacle.
“Sorry to have wasted your time, ma’am. I hope you’ll reconsider,” he answered in a tight tone. “Have a nice night.”
“Oh, Derek,” Scarlet whimpered, from a few steps inside the door. “If you’d like to rent a room for the night, I can call up Mrs. Nelson and have her come to the front desk.”
I gave him a wide-eyed look. We hadn’t planned for this. But if Derek didn’t follow through, wouldn’t they know we’d lied? He moved off to join Scarlet and I waited for Stefan Van Andel to pass me. Instead, he gestured toward the steps, like he planned to escort me all along.
Great.
I looked back at Derek, gave him half a shrug and patted my pocket, hoping he’d know I kept my phone there. I smiled up at Stefan, who was still all tense muscles and locked jaw. It had to be discomfiting to have been denied by Scarlet and then immediately subjected to our shenanigans, and while I didn’t think he knew I’d been listening up there, he had to know that both Malcolm and Mike had asked me not to be involved with this case.
I was nothing if not persistent.
Stefan walked me to my car and I glanced at his truck for a few seconds. I couldn’t tell if it was the same truck I’d seen at Malcolm’s earlier, although it made sense, given that they worked together.
Maybe I was making mountains out of coincidences, but it certainly seemed like there were an awful lot of strange, and suspicious connections, in this case.
“How did you get mixed up with a guy like that, anyway?” Stefan asked. His tone was sort of nonchalant, but there was an undeniable stiffness to it.
“Your boss thought I had something to do with his wife being murdered,” I answered matter-of-factly, clicking the button to unlock the Tank. “So, he kinda hunted me down.”
“Well, you should get un-mixed-up as fast as you can.” He was stepping away, gesturing at me like he was being helpful, but I couldn’t help noticing that his expression was just as tight as it had been moments ago. “He’s bad news. Has a criminal record, you know.”
“I did not, but I’m sure he appreciates you spreading that around.” With a sickly-sweet smile, I opened the door to my vehicle, trying to wave him off. Stefan returned to his truck, like he’d given up, but I continued to watch him.
I pulled out my phone, flipping the messages app open and texting my sister a quick reminder about the chat we’d agreed to have the following afternoon. I glanced over the steering wheel and noticed Stefan opening his phone as well. He did not start his truck.
Scrolling through the numbers in my call history, I finally found Derek’s. I texted him, and my phone rang a moment later.
Derek.
“Come back inside,” he whispered. “Scarlet wants to talk to you.”
“I can’t. The right honorable deputy is still watching me.”
“Just come back in. He can’t do anything to you.”
“Easy for you to say,” I said with a shiver. “You didn’t just get escorted to your car by a cop.”
“You haven’t done anything wrong, Vangie.”
“Except breaking-and-entering. Twice, thank you very much. Or should I say, no-thank-you-very-much.” I settled the phone into the cradle and put in my Bluetooth headpiece. I rarely used it, since service was so spotty around town, but I didn’t want to give Deputy Do-Right any reason to pull me over.
Derek was right in the middle of a sentence when I switched over. “…but she says you need to know this right now.”
“Then put her on the phone.”
There was a scuffling, and I started my vehicle, making sure to put on my seatbelt and signal my turn. I pulled out into traffic, waving a thanks at the still-texting law enforcement officer.
“I’m just going to circle the block,” I said to Derek or Scarlet, or whoever was listening. “Hey, hello? Anyone there?”
A pair of headlights came on behind me, and Stefan’s truck pulled out into the street. My pulse jumped a couple of beats. No biggie. The creepy deputy was following me, but there were only so many directions to go in this town, and most of them led everywhere else. Maybe it didn’t mean anything that he’d pulled into traffic behind me.
“Come back,” Scarlet finally said. “I want to talk to both of you. I’m not sure I’m going to be able to leave town tomorrow, and—” Another shuffling noise cut her off, and Derek was back on the line.
“Is he following you?” he asked, his tone dark. “I saw him pull out right after you passed the window.”
“I don’t know,” I said, looking in the rearview. The truck was still behind me, and I was almost all the way down to the turnoff in front of the school. Almost to Frances Barnett’s house. “How do I tell?”
“Make a turn. See if he turns, too.”
At the next street, I almost hit my turn
ing signal, but the school was one more block down, so I kept going. It was a more major street, and it would give me plenty of options in case I had to lead Stefan Van Andel all over town.
I pulled past the Barnetts’—the lights were on—and stopped at the intersection. I turned on my right blinker, and Stefan did the same. I hissed into the phone, “He’s following me, Derek.”
“Okay, hang on.” The sound of a closing door filled the audio feed, and a few seconds later I heard heavy footsteps as he ran down the steps of the B&B. “Pull over somewhere. I’ll be right there.”
“What do you mean, pull over?”
“Just pull over like you’re going to park in front of someone’s house, and wait for him to drive by you.” A motor started over the phone line, but the call didn’t go dead. “Get out of your seatbelt, like you’re planning on paying a house visit, turn off your vehicle, and wait until I pull up beside you.”
I did just that. Stefan’s truck pulled up alongside me, but he didn’t quite stop. He was obviously watching me, but I busied myself with picking up my purse and taking the keys out of the ignition, acting like I was preparing to make a visit. Stefan kept driving, and within a few more seconds, he reached the end of the street in front of the school and took a left turn.
Derek’s voice rang in my ear. “Okay, jump out of your car and get on my bike.”
“What?”
“We’re going to follow him.”
I removed the earpiece, stuffed the things I needed in my bag, and got out of the Tank. When Derek pulled up, his headlight off, I climbed on the back of the motorcycle.
“He went left,” I said into Derek’s ear, and held on for dear life. It didn’t escape my attention that it was very dangerous to ride a motorcycle without a helmet—especially if the headlight was off.
Derek sped a little, but slowed just before the corner. “Keep an eye out for his truck,” he said as he pulled to a stop. “In case he did what we just did.”
I had memorized the back of his truck this time. There was an I Heart My Wife sticker on the back, which couldn’t be too common on a truck of that make and model. If I saw it again, I would recognize it.
We headed down a little hill and around, following the street. Up ahead, just a bit, were some taillights. Derek pulled ahead a little faster, and we made up a tiny bit of the distance.
“That’s his truck up there,” I said, resting my chin on his shoulder. “I recognize the sticker.”
Derek followed him around another corner, keeping about a hundred feet back. His headlamp was still off, so there was a good chance we wouldn’t be seen, but it was obvious he didn’t want to take chances. Stefan turned another corner and we followed, but Derek seemed to be hanging back a little more with each corner.
When I looked around, I realized where we were, and I pulled on Derek’s sleeve. “We’re going to Nikki’s house.”
“That’s what I thought, too,” he said. “Let me stop at this next corner and see.”
He pulled off the road at the stop sign, where Stefan had turned left, and we both watched as the taillights pulled into Nikki’s driveway, behind the white car I recognized as Jenna Van Andel’s. I pointed to the right, around the corner.
“Can you come up from the other direction? You know, go right here, then left, and then up that other side?”
“Yeah.” He turned the front wheel to the right and eased the bike down the other street. “Why?”
“Because I think I know how we can figure out what’s going on up there.”
“You think something’s going on?”
“Jenna’s there. Nikki. Stefan. Maybe Mike, too.”
“All the more reason for us to stay away,” he said, shaking his head. But he followed my directions, and before I knew it, we were coming up Nikki’s street from the opposite direction.
There was a dead end, but we drove off the street, following a little pathway that led down into the gully. Derek followed that path all the way to the end and then shut off the bike.
I pointed to the backside of Nikki’s house, all lit up. Another house separated us from it, but it seemed to be dark. The house on the other side was turned just enough that it wouldn’t have a great view of us, and in the three backyards, the only light was from the little, round bulb that kept the American flag visible over Auggie’s memorial stone.
“I’m going up there,” I said, climbing off the back of the bike and handing him my purse. “You stay here.”
“No.” He grabbed me by the elbow. “I’m going with you.”
“You said it yourself last time,” I put a hand on top of his. “I’m smaller, which makes me better at sneaking than you are.”
His brows were knit together. He clearly didn’t like the idea, but I didn’t plan on giving him a choice. It was clear Stefan had asked Scarlet to lie for him, and if that was the case, then I wanted to see if he was going to talk about it with whoever was in that house—the place he had gone right after pressuring her.
I really didn’t like it when bad people got away with bad things. Call it the justice-seeker in me, whatever. But asking Scarlet to lie wasn’t something an innocent man did, and if he’d been the cause of all this, I wanted to catch him.
“I know you don’t like this.” I tried for a reassuring smile, but I didn’t shift my gaze off Nikki’s house. I could see some people gathered in the living room, and I wanted to get up there before they said anything interesting. “But I promise, I’ll come back as soon as I can. And they won’t see me.”
“This time,” he said, crossing his arms. “They won’t see you this time.”
“Right.” I checked to make sure my ringer was off and slipped the phone into my pocket, placing my purse in his lap. “I’ll text if I need you.”
“Be careful, Vangie.”
Keeping my eyes on the living room, I ran up the gully, careful to avoid the little swath of light around the grave. The dry grass crunched under my feet as I tried to miss the little patches of snow. Fewer footprints that way. I could finally make out Nikki, who stood near the door out to the porch, and then Stefan and Jenna, who’d gathered near her. Nikki looked in the direction of Austin’s room, on the opposite side of the house, and shook her head. She motioned behind her, practically right at me, and I stopped at the bottom of the front deck steps.
My brilliant plan had been to get as far up the side steps as I could without stepping into the light. There were two stairways leading to the deck. A wider one off the front that led all the way down to the sloped backyard, and a steeper, narrower one that hugged the side of the house. A hot tub sat under the deck, over near the steep staircase. That was the side I’d planned to use. It looked like it was almost completely buried in shadow.
The porch door opened, and my breath froze. I heard the echo of Nikki’s words, though she was still inside.
“We need to get somewhere he can’t hear us,” she was saying, and she stepped out onto the deck.
I scurried under the beams, keeping my steps as quiet as I could. I looked up and could see the soles of her shoes through the tiny slits in between the wood.
“It’s too cold out here,” Jenna said. I heard more footsteps but couldn’t make out which steps were hers and which were Nikki’s. Stefan’s were easier to ID. He had on thick-soled boots, and he practically clomped around.
“You’re going to have to talk to him, Nikki,” he said, his voice low.
“No.” She moved to the front of the deck, and I kept slipping farther and farther back, not stopping until I was at the hot tub. They didn’t appear to have heard anything.
I hunkered down behind the hot tub, just barely fitting between the big machine and the siding of the house. I whipped out my phone and texted Derek, telling him they were outside and urging him to make sure his phone was on silent. If it wasn’t, Stefan was probably clomping around enough that the noise wouldn’t be heard.
Derek texted back. Are you hidden? I can’t see you.
&nbs
p; Behind the hot tub. I’m fine, as long as they don’t come down here.
Just stay hidden.
Yeah. Great plan, Sherlock.
“It really is cold out here,” Jenna said, and I heard two light footsteps separate from the others.
They were coming down the front stairs.
“Come with me,” Nikki said. Her voice had moved out to the front of the deck.
My heart climbed up into my throat, like it wanted to choke me for being such a massive idiot. How was I ever going to explain this?
Dear Lord Jesus, please save me from my stupid decisions, I found myself praying, but I knew God wasn’t a genie, and I regretted the prayer as soon as it came out of my silent mouth. If I made stupid decisions, I was going to have to pay the consequences, just like anyone else. I didn’t have a get-out-of-trouble-free pass just because I was clergy. I’d learned that the hard way over the last year.
Nikki was halfway down the steps, and I balled up as small as I could behind the hot tub, trying to stay completely out of sight.
“I don’t want to go down there,” Jenna said. “Nik, this is just ridiculous.”
“I can’t risk him hearing us.” Nikki was all the way down on the ground now, but on the other side of the deck from me.
The clomping of Stefan’s boots as he followed Nikki down the stairs made my pulse thud hard in my ears. Finally, I heard Jenna’s footsteps, too.
I peeked around the side of the hot tub, enough to see two shadows descending the steps. By the time they reached the ground, they had blended in with the shadows around them.
It made me hopeful they couldn’t see me, but if I couldn’t see them, I was flying blind.
“You couldn’t have just sent him somewhere?” Stefan asked. “He’s got to know you know.”
“I don’t know what he knows,” Nikki snapped. It sounded like they were down at the foot of the steps, and I held my breath, preparing for them to come toward me, into the darkness under the porch. Instead, they seemed to move off into the yard.
“Well, we need to hurry,” Jenna said, “because I’m going to freeze out here without my coat.”