A Daughter's Story

by Tara Taylor Quinn

  Emma had to believe that.

  “Let’s just say she won’t be making any phone calls anytime soon,” Rob said, turning her blood cold. “Maybe never unless you come with me.”

  “She’s not going anywhere with you,” Chris said, putting himself in front of Emma. “You’re not going to get away with this.”

  “Step aside, old man. You had your chance to do what was best for Emma, but you were more interested in getting in her pants. You don’t care for her at all.”

  “Put the gun down.” Chris moved toward him.

  “Stop or I’ll shoot.” With both hands on the gun now, Rob kept a steady aim on Chris’s chest.

  “Don’t, Rob! Stop this craziness! Tell me what you want from me.”

  “It’s a little late for that now, Em. I’ve been trying for weeks to tell you what I want, but you’ve ignored all my calls. To be fair, I gave you lots of chances. All of this could have been avoided if you’d only called me back.”

  This was all her fault? And Chris’s for not listening to Rob’s warning?

  Thoughts flew through her mind. “I’m sorry,” she said slowly, finding a calm that surprised her. “I should have called. I just needed time to figure things out.”

  “So what’s Talbot here? Your therapist?”

  “You can’t really be angry with me for one indiscretion, Rob. Not after all the women you’ve slept with since we’ve been together. I was looking for a way to understand why you did what you did. Believe it or not, I was looking for a way to forgive you.”

  Rob stole a glance in her direction, his expression questioning.

  Chris was moving slowly to the right, inching up on Rob. Emma kept talking.

  “I couldn’t forgive you this last time. Even after a few days passed, and the initial shock wore off, I wasn’t okay. Before…was horrible. But now…with us engaged…you hurt me, Rob. Really bad.”

  His gaze was trained on Chris, the gun still held steady, but his jaw had loosened a bit.

  “I had to do something.” Emma kept the words coming. “You guessed it that Saturday after I met Chris,” she continued. “You guessed that I’d spent the night with someone. You said you were relieved, remember?”

  “Sleeping with him is one thing, but seeing him? Like you’re a couple? Having him in your home, like he could move in, be a part of your life, that’s unacceptable.”

  And this man with the red, twisted face was not Rob.

  She couldn’t look at Chris. Couldn’t draw attention to him. But she wanted to.

  “You brought Tiffany into our bed, Rob. Remember? That was a first. And that was why it was so hard for me to get over it this time. Besides, as you now know, I’m afraid I’m pregnant.”

  Were Miller’s off-duty officers outside? Rob had been in the house since before she and Chris got home—and he’d entered with a key—so there was no obvious sign anything was amiss.

  How did she alert them?

  She’d yet to see one of them. She didn’t know if they were watching her 24/7 or in shifts. She hadn’t thought to ask.

  Hadn’t really wanted to know.

  Hadn’t wanted to believe she’d need them.

  And what about the random drive-bys from the duty officers? Would anyone notice she and Chris were in trouble?

  “Tell me what I have to do to get my Mom back,” she said, not daring to plead for Chris’s safety, as well. But she prayed for it.

  “You’re going to come with me,” Rob said. “I knew if I couldn’t get you to talk to me, all I had to do was get to Rose. You’d do anything for that woman.” Rob’s voice dripped disgust. “You act like her life is more valuable than yours. It’s your fault that people shit on you, Emma. You let them. But I’m not like you. I don’t let people shit on me. Not even you.”

  “What have I done to you?” Instinctively Emma moved forward, toward Rob, toward his gun, with some idea that she’d get his attention away from Chris, if nothing else.

  Rob didn’t move the gun, but he looked at her. And Chris slid toward him from the side.

  “You think after all the time I’ve put in, I’m going to let you throw me out like yesterday’s trash and bring someone else in here to reap the benefits?” Rob spat, spinning sideways to keep his gun aimed at Chris’s chest.

  The words were practically a repetition of what Rob had told Chris that day he’d threatened him by the dock.

  “What benefits?” she asked, frowning with genuine confusion, praying that Chris would be safe.

  “I don’t even have a savings account, apart from my teacher’s pension, and I can’t cash in on that for another twenty years,” she told Rob, drawing closer to him, trying to get him to look at her. “You know that.”

  “Don’t play stupid with me, Emma. I’ve been telling you for years that you needed to reopen your sister’s case. You know what this is about.”

  “About Claire? How do you benefit if we find Claire?”

  Was Ramsey Miller right? Did Rob have ties to Claire’s abductor? “If you know where my sister is, Rob, if you have any idea what happened to her, you’d better tell me now.” She spoke through gritted teeth, feeling capable of grabbing the gun from the sanctimonious bastard and aiming it right at his face.

  “I don’t know where she is, but you can bet your life that someone does,” Rob said. “Someone in the Comfort Cove Police Department. And now, you’re going to come with me. We’ll go get your mother, and the two of you are going to agree to keep quiet about all of this. You are going to marry me. Your mother is going to welcome me as her son-in-law. We are going to go on as planned, with one little difference. As soon as we’re married, you and your mother are going to file a lawsuit against the city of Comfort Cove.”

  Emma took another step forward, making sure she didn’t lose eye contact with Rob. “What for?”

  “Negligence. You’ve got a seven-figure lawsuit sitting in your lap and you’re going to cash it in.”

  A vague memory came back to her. When she and Rob were first dating, he’d told her about the class he’d taken in college that had dealt with liabilities. The class had been designed to keep students from falling prey to lawsuits. Rob had mentioned suing the city as a possibility in her sister’s case, but after they’d talked she’d been certain they both knew there was no grounds.

  “We don’t have any proof of wrongdoing,” she reminded him.

  “Wrong again, Em. And from now on we’re doing things my way. So first, because you’ve created a mess here, babe, you’re going to take this gun and shoot our witness. You’ll dispose of his body and this whole thing will be our little secret. And it will also be my insurance that for the rest of your life you’re going to do exactly as I say or I will turn you in to the police for murder. You will never, ever ignore one of my phone calls again.”

  Chris lunged, but Rob got to her first, grabbing her by the neck. Rob had the advantage. Emma had planted herself right at his feet.

  “Let her go, you bastard.” There was venom in Chris’s voice as he stood back, scowling at the gun Rob held pointed at his chest.

  “Not on your life.” Rob chuckled, tightening his hold around Emma’s throat with the crook of his arm. “I’m just starting to enjoy myself.” Keeping the gun trained on Chris, he brought the weapon close to Emma’s hand and hissed, “You’re going to take this now, love. I’ll help you keep the gun steady, but you are going to pull the trigger.” He tightened his arm again and she choked, gasping for bre
ath, and trying not to move at the same time for fear she’d make the gun go off.

  Rob used the hand on the arm around Emma’s throat, to pull her hand up and place it on the gun.

  “Have you ever shot a gun before, Em?”

  He knew she hadn’t. He knew she was petrified of them. But she couldn’t answer him, anyway. He wasn’t leaving her enough air to speak.

  She didn’t have a lot of time before she lost consciousness. And she would not let it end this way. Not her life. Or Chris’s. Or her mother’s, either.

  Her fingers were on the barrel of the gun. With his index finger, Rob forced her middle finger to the trigger. She was starting to see stars. Getting light-headed. She was going to faint.

  But before she went down, she went limp beneath Rob’s arm, becoming deadweight. She should have known he’d be prepared for the eventuality, that with his strength he could sustain her weight. But it didn’t matter.

  She wasn’t afraid. Didn’t feel any emotion at all as she felt her finger start to push against the trigger. She couldn’t look at Chris, but his presence, the life she was saving, the joy she’d known with him, gave her strength.

  She only had a second, that was all it took to jerk sideways, using every bit of strength she had to reposition the gun in the last second so that it was pointing at Rob.

  Before she could succeed, she heard the explosion as the gun went off.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  “NOOOOO!” SEEING THE INTENT in Emma’s eyes a fraction of a second before her arm moved, Chris lunged, bumping her hand just as the gun went off.

  He fell, taking Emma and Rob and the gun with him.

  She was not going to live with Evert’s murder burdening her soul. And she wasn’t going to die, either.

  Rob reached for the gun, but Chris got to it first, just as Emma’s front door burst open. “Police! Freeze!”

  Two uniformed cops stood in the archway into the living room with guns pointing at them. They’d obviously heard the shot, alerting them that all was not well inside the townhome.

  Rob still had an arm around Emma’s throat. She lay still, but her eyes were wide open. She was blinking. Chris didn’t see any blood.

  “Drop the gun.” The voice of the officer was menacing.

  Not on his life. Keeping the barrel pointed at Rob Evert’s head, Chris said, “Just as soon as you get him away from her,” he said. “I’m Chris Talbot.”

  While one officer held a gun on Chris, the other moved in on Rob, prying him and Emma apart.

  She coughed and bent over, and the officer helped her to a sitting position on the floor, his other hand holding Rob captive.

  “We need to see some ID,” the second officer said to Rob. While holding him up against the wall, he dug inside Rob’s back pocket for a wallet. And then, not so gently, cuffed the man.

  As soon as he heard the click, Chris surrendered Rob’s gun and reached for Emma.

  She might not need reassurance, but he did. He’d thought they were both going to die.

  * * *

  EMMA RODE WITH Detective Miller to her mother’s place just after eight on Tuesday night. She’d refused the medical examination Ramsey had suggested she submit to and insisted that she needed to be with him at her mother’s home, no matter what they found. Rob had been in custody for fifteen minutes, and, although she didn’t know everything he’d told the detectives, she knew he was insisting that he hadn’t done anything but visit with Rose.

  Please, dear God, let this be one time he’s telling the truth.

  Rob had also claimed to have been in her home to pick up some discs he’d left in her office. He said he needed them for work.

  When Miller had looked, the discs had been there, but Emma knew for certain that he’d brought them that evening. She’d made sure nothing of Rob’s was left in the house after she’d kicked him out.

  Rob maintained that Chris Talbot had been the one to threaten their lives that night. That he’d been pulling Emma away from Talbot when the gun went off.

  There was a bullet hole in the wall near the window of her front room.

  She had no idea where Chris was. He’d been ushered out of the living room by a couple of uniformed officers and she hadn’t seen him since.

  “You sure you won’t let us run you by the hospital?” Detective Miller asked, sitting beside her in the backseat, while a female officer drove the unmarked car they were in.

  The key to her mother’s house clutched tightly in her hand, Emma shook her head. The emergency room couldn’t help her where she hurt.

  She had to make certain that her mother was safe. She couldn’t think beyond that.

  * * *

  “THE LIGHT’S NOT on in the corner of the living room,” Emma said as they pulled up in front of what used to be a newish house in an up-and-coming neighborhood, but was now an older home in a below-average neighborhood.

  “What does that mean?”

  “She always turns that light on when she’s leaving. She leaves others on, too, randomly, so there isn’t a pattern, but she always leaves that light on in the corner so she can see the whole room when she walks in. My mother has an aversion to shadows.”

  “Is it ever on when she’s home?”

  “Yes.”

  Miller turned to look at her. “You see anything else amiss?”

  “No. It looks perfectly normal. But if Rob took her, there probably wouldn’t be much sign of struggle. It’s not like he’d have to break in. My mother had no reason to fear Rob.”

  She should have told her mother what was going on.

  Detective Miller opened his door. “Let’s go in.”

  “If she’s there, if everything is okay, will you let me tell her what’s going on? Please? Mom doesn’t do well with police officers. They weren’t a huge help when Claire went missing. For months they treated her like she was a suspect.”

  “Stay in the car, would you, Brown?” The detective spoke to the officer in the front seat.

  “Of course, sir. You want me to keep the car running?”

  “Yeah.”

  * * *

  THE MINUTE HE was told he was free to leave the police station, Chris sped back to his side of town. He made it to the Son Catcher without getting a ticket, and was on board with an open beer before he’d turned on any lights. He’d take the boat out, anchor her and make himself inaccessible for the rest of the night.

  Evert was in custody.

  Emma was safe.

  For now, until she saw her doctor, he was free.

  Tempted to throw his cell phone overboard, Chris held himself back.

  He ran his business through his phone. The satisfaction he’d gain from trashing it wouldn’t be worth the cost of a new one.

  * * *

  “LET’S GO AROUND back.” Emma—moving rapidly across the grass in her mother’s front yard—wasn’t giving the detective a chance to refute her.

  “Mom!” she called as she unlocked the double-locked dead bolt into the kitchen. “I always call out to her so she’ll know it’s me,” she explained to Miller.

  “Emma? Who are you talking to? I thought you said you were having dinner with friends tonight.” Rose’s voice initially came from upstairs, but trailed downward. “I was going to call you later. You’ll never guess who stopped by…”

  Her mother, still wearing the tweed green dress and matching jacket that she’d probably worn to work that day, stopp
ed in the doorway to the kitchen.

  “Emma? What’s going on? Who’s this?”

  Steeling the alarm from her voice, her expression, swallowing back tears of relief, Emma said, “Mom…”

  “Is this the friend you were having dinner with, Em? As busy as you’ve been these past few weeks, I’d hoped you met someone, but then when Rob stopped by…”

  Her mother was fine. Just fine.

  And open to Emma bringing home a new boyfriend.

  “I’m D—”

  “Mom, he’s not a friend,” Emma interrupted, giving Miller a pointed look. “Can we sit down a minute?”

  Rose paled. Her shoulders closed in on her. “What is it? You’ve got bad news. I know it. I can tell by the way your mouth is trembling. You’re upset about something.”

  Her mother was filling the teakettle. Next she’d get out the cups. And saucers. She’s put tea bags in each. She’d pull out a little plate and put some sweetened crackers on it.

  “Tell me about Rob coming to see you,” Emma said.

  “First tell me who he is.” Rose stared her down.

  “He’s a detective, Mom. Rob tried to hurt me tonight. He said that he’d taken you hostage and that if I didn’t go with him he couldn’t guarantee your safety.”

  Rose sank into the chair at the head of the small table. “And you believed him?”

  “He had a key to my house, Mom. You have the only copy.”

  Shaking her head, looking dazed and frightened and reminiscent of the little girl she’d regressed into those first days after Claire went missing, Rose turned and pulled out the hidden drawer underneath the ledge of the butcher-block island. “My copy is right… He took it.”

  “Tell us about Rob Evert’s visit, ma’am.” Detective Miller pulled the saucers down from the cupboard, set the cups on them and placed them on the table before pulling out a chair and sitting opposite her mother. “If you don’t mind, that is.”

  The teakettle whistled and Emma turned off the burner while Rose told them both about Rob’s impromptu visit, repeating what must have been close to verbatim every word of the five-minute conversation that had taken place before he asked Rose if she wouldn’t mind looking in her computer room for the discs he needed, in case he’d left them there.