Running Scared (Letters From Morgantown Book 1)

by Tracie Puckett

  “Dad never got an envelope,” I swore.

  He had no warning, no idea. It wasn’t until after his death that the letters showed up—and they weren’t for him; they were for me.

  For the first time, the killer hadn’t moved on to find his next target. He couldn’t, not with a witness left behind, and no one could understand why he hadn’t eliminated me while he had the chance. Why hadn’t he taken me out, too? Why play this game?

  We could only guess.

  Still, with no lead, no identity, and no idea what he planned to do next, the marshals began to fear the worst.

  He had to be stopped, and I was the only person who could identify him. With only a vague description and facial composite to work with, the marshals had a hard search ahead of them. But while they looked, they’d have to keep their only witness far from harm’s way. They were going to need me alive, and they couldn’t guarantee that without a bigger plan.

  I met US Marshal Gary Reese inside that small room an hour later, and without a chance to say goodbye to anyone I loved, I disappeared into the night.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  I stared at the envelope, hearing the echoes of the former letters, haunting my memory. Come out, come out, wherever you are.

  I looked to my window, plotting an escape. I could run out the front door. But where would I go? What would I do? I didn’t know how to find Theo. I couldn’t even call him! Why hadn’t he left me with his number? Why hadn’t he trusted me enough to give me access to a phone? In a real-life emergency, I couldn’t even contact him!

  I turned a quick circle around the room and looked for anything out of place, wondering if my father’s killer was nearby. Was he in my room? My bathroom? Closet? Under my bed? Was he watching me? Was he outside? What if I jumped out the window? What if I ran for the door? Was he waiting for me? Would he kill me?

  I listened for any unordinary sounds, but there was nothing. The house was silent. No one can help you now.

  I picked up the envelope, turning it over to find an open seal—no sticker, no broken heart, no indication that it came from the same person who’d sent the previous letters. I pulled a small piece of stationery out of the envelope, my fingers shaking as I turned it over to read:

  Syd, I hope this fits. Try it on and meet me out front. Chris.

  My heart raced with panic, in spite of the realization that it wasn’t a threat. I tried to breathe a sigh as I read the line of text again. I looked down to the garment bag on my bed. It was a gift from Chris.

  “Breathe, Sydney,” I coached myself. “Breathe.”

  I unzipped the bag to find a formal gown, a navy dress finished with lace and fine beading. I ran my hands over the strapless bodice, my nervous fingers appreciating the intricate design. I pulled the full-length gown from the bag and held it to my body.

  “You’re gonna try it on, aren’t you?” Chris asked, and I screamed at the sound of his voice.

  Jumping away from him, the dress slid to the floor, and my limbs felt weaker. I stumbled back onto the bed, crashing against the mattress.

  “Breathe,” I whispered to myself, hanging my head. I pulled myself up to sit, letting my legs hang over the side of the bed. “Dammit, breathe.”

  “Are you okay?” Chris asked, coming closer. He sat down on the bed next to me, his hand finding my back. “I’m starting to sound like a broken record, I know, but . . . I didn’t mean to scare you.”

  I closed my eyes.

  It wasn’t him. Everything scared me. And I felt awful for reacting the way I had, leaving him guilt-stricken for something that was completely out of his control.

  “Hey,” he said, leaning closer. “Look at me.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said, opening my eyes. I finally turned my head to him, and I jerked back again, studying his dark suit and tie. “Why—why are you dressed like that? What’s going on?”

  He smiled, standing again, and swept the dress up off the floor where I’d dropped it. Draping it across the mattress at my side, he nodded down to the gown.

  “Put it on,” he said, grinning. “I’ll wait in the common room.”

  He was gone again before I could ask another question.

  I looked down at the dress again, hoping that I could stop shaking long enough to put it on. My nerves were stretched. My brain was fried. At the rate my heart was pumping, I couldn’t even convince myself that this was a good idea. If a threat was posed at any point tonight, would I be able to escape a killer while wearing a dress?

  “He’s not here,” I reasoned with myself. “Chris is here. He’s not going to let anything happen to you.”

  Slipping out of my clothes and into the gown, I fastened the zipper and the bodice hugged my torso. The bottom of the dress brushed the floor as I twirled in a circle. I should’ve felt like a princess. I rushed to the bathroom to check the mirror. I didn’t look like a princess. My hair was a mess. I didn’t have makeup. The bruise was still dark on my cheek.

  I ran a comb through my hair and pulled it back into a high ponytail. Splashing some cold water over my face, I hoped that a clean, natural look would suffice for whatever he had in mind.

  I hated that I hadn’t splurged for even the basic cosmetics while I was in town.

  “Wow, look at you,” Chris said, fighting a smile when I turned into the foyer. “You’re gorgeous.”

  “What’s going on?” I asked, looking from my dress to his suit. “Did I miss a memo? Is it prom night at the B&B?”

  “Close. Winter formal,” he said, stepping forward to take my hand. “Now, I know it isn’t much like what you would’ve had back home, but there are drinks.” He nodded to two mugs of hot chocolate. “It’s dark, and there’s music. And there’s a guy who really hopes you’ll accept his invitation to dance.”

  I looked around the dark B&B, the only light coming from the small Christmas tree and the blaze glowing in the fireplace. There was a soft hum of music playing in the background.

  “So, Sydney, may I have this dance?” he asked, and I half-smiled, stepping closer to him. He pulled me in, and my head fell instantly to his shoulder.

  I wished that I felt instantly swept away by his touch, miles away from the panic I’d felt only minutes ago. But it was still there. It kept creeping up, reminding me that I was never without the fear.

  “I’ll try to spare your toes,” he said. “Dancing isn’t in my skill set.”

  “Please,” I said, managing a laugh. “I’m not wearing shoes.”

  I didn’t have to see his face to know he was smiling. He held me closer the longer we swayed to the low Christmas tunes in the background, and I only pulled away from him after five minutes.

  “So what’s going on? Why are you doing this?”

  “You were missing home,” he said. “And you missed your winter formal yesterday, and I thought—”

  “I never told you about that.”

  “I have an informant.”

  “Amy.”

  “She picked out the dress,” he said. “Do you like it?”

  “I do,” I said. “I love it.”

  I rested my head on him again, swaying to the music. We danced around the floor for a few minutes, enjoying the quiet hum of music. Chris seemed happily oblivious to everything else in the world, and I tried to be, though the memory of that red envelope on my bed had left me rattled. With Chris, I was safe. And I could’ve stayed that way for the rest of eternity—safe in his arms. I just needed the torment to stop long enough to find my center again.

  I closed my eyes, feeling each breath leave my body a little slower than the one before it. Little by little, the tension melted from my neck and shoulders. Chris held me closer, and I sank into him, my thoughts turning to nothing but the two of us. This was peace. This was calm.

  “It was a road trip,” Chris said, jarring me from the calm I’d found.

  “I’m sorry?”

  “I heard you and Danielle talking earlier,” he said. “About what happened on graduation
day.”

  “No, you heard Danielle talking,” I said, pulling myself back to look at him. He held my stare as strongly as he held my heart. “Chris, I didn’t ask; it’s none of my business.”

  “I don’t want her using that against me.”

  “I’d never let her.”

  He tried to manage a smile, but his lips fought it. The conversation, I could already tell, was too serious for him to mask with a smile, laugh, or silly comment.

  “Syd, there are already enough things that keep you from wanting this. I don’t want what happened back then ruining what could happen now.”

  “Chris, I think we both understand that there are secrets here. There are a lot of things I’ve left unsaid, too.”

  “I know.”

  “But I’m choosing to trust that when you learn those things that I’ve kept from you, that you’ll care enough about me that it won’t matter,” I said. “I know better than anyone how hard it is to talk about the hard stuff, and if there’s something you haven’t told me, I respect that you’ve had your reasons. I’m not holding anything against you, now or ever.”

  He pushed a stray hair from my face and ran his thumb across my cheek. “I’ll feel better if you know.”

  “Then talk,” I said. “I’m listening, but I promise, I’m okay either way.”

  He took a breath to muster the courage to get through whatever would come next.

  “I was looking for my sister.”

  “Natalie,” I said, and he nodded. Chris wasn’t surprised I knew her name.

  “We were born minutes apart, inseparable until we turned sixteen,” he said, his eyes flitting away. He wasn’t looking at me. It was almost as if he wasn’t focused on anything in the room at all. “She was my other half, and I never imagined I’d have to live a day without her. But then one night she took off; she ran away from home. And by the time we woke up and realized she was gone, she must’ve been hours away.”

  He swallowed hard, and his distant look grew even further away.

  “We searched for weeks,” he said. “The police investigated her disappearance. Our lives were turned upside down. Months went by without sight or word from her, and slowly, we all gave up hope we’d find her. She was still alive; I felt it. After our eighteenth birthday, I got a postcard from her, one that said she was alive and well out on the East Coast. She said not to bother looking for her, because she was on a mission of her own, and she wasn’t staying put.”

  “What kind of mission?” I asked.

  “She was searching for our father,” he said, licking his lip, and a familiar look of anxiety swept over him. Something pulled me back to my first night in Morgantown. I never knew my dad. She was looking for the father they never knew . . .

  “Postpartum depression claimed our mom weeks after we were born,” he said, his distant look now layered with tears. “I never blamed him for not wanting us, you know? To lose his wife the way he did. Her suicide left many victims in its wake. He didn’t know how to handle his pain, coupled with the sudden responsibility of raising two babies, so my gran stepped up and took us in.”

  I nodded, remembering Theo’s flawless description of her. She was undoubtedly the greatest thing that ever happened to any of us.

  Chris continued, in spite of the quake in his voice. “She promised to keep us for however long it took him to get his life together, and then he disappeared. For sixteen years, there were no calls, no letters, no visits to either of us . . . not even a thank you card to his own mother for all the years she’d dedicated to raising his children—not that she’d ever want his thanks.”

  “You were fortunate to have her,” I said quietly.

  “We were. She loved us unconditionally. And then our sixteenth birthday arrived, and so did the first birthday card from our father.” He shook his head. “Nat wasn’t so easily forgiving. She wanted more than a modest life in a small town, and she blamed him every day for not stepping into his role as a parent. She wanted more—a better life, a better explanation. Any kind of explanation as to why he never came back for us. And she finally had her opportunity to get that. There was a return address on the card, and she took off.”

  A single tear finally broke from his eye, and he quickly wiped it away.

  He was hurt, and I didn’t know how to comfort him. It was awful to learn that he’d not only lost both of his parents before he’d ever gotten a chance to know them, but he’d lost his sister, too. And of the three, each one of them had a choice. Not a single one of them chose him.

  “It shouldn’t have been hard to find her,” he said. “Theo kept saying he knew people. He had ‘contacts’ in law enforcement or something. We were certain we’d have her home within hours. But whatever contacts he had never came through with any luck. She vanished, dropped off the face of the Earth.”

  “But she eventually wrote you?”

  “From the Outer Banks,” he said. “Two years later, and she was still trying to find a man who’d sent a letter from—get this— an address that didn’t exist. Amy and I wanted to bring her home, but that meant finding her first. We couldn’t leave; we had school. So we planned for graduation. Over the summer, we would have two full months before either of us had to be on campus for our freshman year, so we waited. And when the time came, we walked our senior ceremony, accepted our diplomas, and took off.”

  “Danielle said you didn’t tell anybody you were leaving,” I said.

  “Gran knew,” he said. “Theo knew, and . . . ”

  “Your girlfriend?”

  “I called her from the road,” he said, a wave of regret sweeping his expression. “In retrospect, I see how horrible that was, but I couldn’t face telling her before we left. She’d cry and beg me to stay, and I would have to go. I didn’t want to leave things like that. I didn’t want to give myself the option of backing out. I needed to find my sister.

  “There were better ways to handle it,” he continued. “I chalk it up to a lesson learned, but I hate that it was at Brit’s expense, because it hurt her. To this day she doesn’t believe the truth, and I feel like a monster.”

  “But what about Natalie?” I asked. “Did you ever find her?”

  “No,” he shook his head. “We looked for about four weeks, but then we got a call to come home, and . . . it wasn’t optional. Our search ended with Theo’s call.”

  “Why wasn’t it optional?” I asked. “What happened?”

  “Gran was in an accident. Critical condition. We drove to the first airport, abandoned the car, and flew home that night. So in summation,” Chris said, unwilling to touch any more on the subject of his grandmother’s untimely death, “I made a mistake.”

  “But your intentions were good,” I said. “You wanted to find your sister, and that doesn’t make you a bad person. Anyone who doesn’t see that only cares about themselves.”

  Chris half-smiled and pulled me closer, holding me tighter.

  “So tell me something,” I said.

  “Something more?” he asked, and then he laughed. “Anything.”

  “Having all of this knowledge now, it would be helpful for me to know how much danger I’m in.”

  “What do you mean?” he asked.

  “What’s going to happen when word gets around that Theo Ward’s raggedy and banged-up niece is running all over town calling you her boyfriend?” I asked. “Is that going to mean more trouble for you? Is your ex going to hunt me down and beat me up?”

  “The bad news is that Andrew Medina has never heard a secret he’s wished to keep, so word will get around, whether it’s true or not,” he said. “But the good news is that you don’t have to worry about Brit. She avoids me at all costs, and I try to do the same with her. The more we can do to avoid awkward confrontation is best.”

  “And what about Danielle?” I asked. “Because you know she’s—”

  “I’m not worried about that one, either,” he said. “She’s the least of my concerns. And now it’s your turn to tell me some
thing.”

  “Okay?”

  “Why the sudden interest in what people think?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I guess I’m trying to figure the likelihood of getting jumped if either of them see us out on a date.”

  “Yeah?” he asked. “And what’s the likelihood of that happening? Is this something I should look forward to in the near future, or—”

  “Maybe Friday night? You said the Winter Festival is fun.”

  “It is.”

  “Would you go with me?”

  “If my memory serves me correctly, I believe I already asked you to go with me. And then you freaked out, got all cute and flustered, and started making excuses to change the subject. Remember that?”

  “I do,” I said, smiling. “But I promise I would say yes if you asked me again.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Promise.”

  “Okay, then. Sydney, if you’re still around next Friday,” he said, “would you like to go to the festival with me?”

  “Yes,” I said without pause. “I would love to.”

  ***

  The week passed a lot like my first week in Morgantown, with the exception of the few guests coming and going. Theo popped in and out for kitchen duties. Danielle came and went to tidy rooms. For the most part, though, it was Chris and me.

  I spent the better part of every day holed up in my room, working on my Secret Santa gift for Theo, which I finally finished on Wednesday. Every now and then, I’d wander outside and take a walk around the block, but the weather had grown so cold in the last week that it was almost impossible to stay out for too long.

  I went to bed every night, letting the quiet calm wash over me. And each night, before I fell asleep, I remembered the smile Chris wore when I first stepped into the foyer in the gown he’d given me.

  His smile swept me off my feet.

  He’d said a lot that night, telling me about his sister and his family. And we danced for an hour, enjoying the quiet more than the conversation. After our impromptu dance in the common room, Chris was a perfect gentleman. He walked me to my room, leaving me with a hug and a kiss on the cheek.