The Stranger Next Door

by Lorhainne Eckhart

  “She didn’t leave a note?” Tolly said, pulling his arms over his chest again, his expression puzzled.

  Ash only inclined his head, then let his gaze settle on Billy Jo, cold and unfeeling. A chill rose inside her. The way he looked at her, she remembered Mark’s warning.

  “If there were a note, you wouldn’t be standing here. She didn’t leave anything except her key to the house, which is sitting on the hall table by the front door as if she took it off her keychain. I’m not a fool. I go into enough situations that I know when someone is sending a message.”

  Mark glanced once back to her, and she wondered for a moment if anyone had any idea what she knew. But she couldn’t believe Sunday had left the babies.

  “I know you have surveillance,” Mark said. “You’re telling me you haven’t watched it, haven’t listened to the recordings you keep?”

  Ash was almost vibrating with rage. “It was turned off, and not by me.”

  Mark said nothing, only looked over to Tolly, and she wondered if he was glad the old chief was there. Billy Jo was.

  Damn, Sunday was a smart girl.

  “You think someone was in here and turned it off?” Mark said.

  Ash was watching the baby finish the bottle. “Oh, I guarantee you it was that sweet wife of mine. She knew too much but pretended she didn’t. I want you to find her and bring her back.” He was looking right at Mark, giving an order, a demand.

  “You know it doesn’t work that way, Ash,” the old chief said. “Mark can only investigate if there’s a missing person. If she left of her own accord, and that’s what it’s sounding like here, you know how the law works.”

  “You think I give a shit about the law? That’s not why I called you here. You find her, you bring her back. That’s how this works.” Ash looked right at Tolly, then over to Mark, who was now shaking his head.

  “You know, I hear your anger,” Mark said, “but when a teenager who doesn’t want to be married anymore runs off, it’s not a police matter.”

  Tolly slapped his chest to cut him off, stepping closer. “What Mark means to say is that it can’t officially be a police matter. But he’ll look, and so will I.”

  “You’ll find her is what you’ll do.” Ash leaned in again, his voice low, his warning clear.

  “And then what?” Tolly said. “Come on, Ash. This is me. She’s sixteen and she doesn’t want to be here. You can’t make her, because I won’t drag her back against her will.”

  Billy Jo was very aware of how the old chief had stepped up as if he were running the entire show now, taking charge. She wanted him to take the spotlight off Mark.

  “You just find her,” Ash said. “You tell me where she is, and I’ll deal with her. What happens to her isn’t your concern.”

  Tolly slapped Mark’s chest again and moved him back, likely because even she knew that Mark wasn’t having any of this. “Now, Ash, you just calm down. The kids are fine. She likely ran off to have some fun and will be back. Mark can run some searches for her and put her name out. But I don’t want to hear anymore about your dealing with her. Mark, you want to have a look around?”

  The way the chief spoke, it was as if Mark worked for him again. Billy Jo didn’t miss the way Ash was watching her. He was sharp, smart, and could ruin everything and anything for Mark.

  “Yeah, I was called in because your wife is missing. I want to see everything,” Mark said.

  “Let me give you a piece of advice there, Chief Mark,” Ash said. “It’s in your best interests to find her. And you’d better hope I don’t find out you had anything to do with her slipping away, helping her leave. Her car is gone, and her GPS was disabled, so there’s no doubt in my mind that she had help. Her coming to you, showing up at your house, toying with you the way she did, she was testing the waters, because that’s what she does. You think I didn’t know exactly where she was?”

  Mark went to step around the chief, who was still standing there as if putting himself between the two men. “Well, it wasn’t me. No matter what my personal feeling are, I’m very aware your marriage is legal. She lied about her parents being murdered. Yet I can’t shake the feeling that you two have some cat and mouse game going on, and I’m right in the middle, being jerked around. And I don’t like that.”

  Ash only nodded. His eyes were dark and held a kind of ruthlessness. She realized this call was likely to figure out what Mark knew. She wanted to reach out and pull him back because she realized he wouldn’t back down, even when Ash was beginning to gain a hold over him.

  “You know what, Mark?” the chief said. “You’ve done all you can here. You and Billy Jo should head on out. Not much to see in the house. Ash and I have a few things to figure out.”

  “Hey, Chief, if it’s all the same to you, no,” Mark said. “I’m the chief of this island, and the last thing I’m going to allow is any vigilantism or anyone dragging back a girl who doesn’t want to be here. And that’s exactly what this is starting to sound like.”

  Billy Jo slid her hand over Mark’s arm, and he dragged his gaze back to her. She could see his frustration. “Mark, Tolly is right. We should go.”

  “Ash, as I said, I’ll look into it,” Tolly said. “You know me. You know what I can do.”

  Mark didn’t pull away from her, but she really could feel him digging in. Then the chief turned around and put his hand up to Mark, gesturing for him to go, and somehow he had Mark turned and moving toward the door.

  “I’ll touch base with you later, Ash,” the chief called out.

  Billy Jo pulled open the door and stepped out first, and she could feel the simmering anger in Mark. Tolly only gestured for them both to keep moving as he closed the door, then walked over to his pickup.

  “You stay out of this, Mark,” he said. “I’m not kidding. You don’t know Ash Byrd. You have an island to police.”

  “Excuse me, did you forget the part about my being the chief here, not you? You don’t have any say here.” Mark was really digging in.

  Tolly shook his head. “That’s right, so you have people here who depend on you not to be a hotshot, reacting in a way that could hurt so many on this island. This isn’t a missing person, and you already know that. She left, and he’ll soon realize it’s for the best. He’s got his kids. In this, you need to have your hands clean, Mark,” the chief said, then looked around anywhere but at Billy Jo.

  “Then why the hell was I called to come out here tonight?” Mark said. “Damn, I do not like feeling as if I’m being played with.”

  The chief looked right at him before letting his gaze finally linger on Billy Jo. “He wanted to be sure you weren’t involved.”

  “And he knows that how?”

  The chief had a way about him. Billy Jo realized now that she’d never really known him. “You can’t hide anything, Mark. You have the worst poker face. He knows that. Go home. You’ve got a full day tomorrow, considering you need to staff that office.”

  Billy Jo dragged her gaze from Mark to the chief, who had pulled open the door to his pickup.

  “What are you talking about?” Mark sounded pissed, and could she blame him? Not really.

  The chief glanced over to Billy Jo again in a way that made her wonder how much he knew about her visit with Gail. “The council apparently saw the error of their ways and that they had overstepped. Roberta and Dwayne’s contracts have been canceled. The council will mind their Ps and Qs. But you need to get people hired tomorrow for Gail’s old job and the deputy position,” the chief said, then nodded, slid in behind the wheel of Gail’s pickup, and started it.

  Mark looked back to her, and she could see the question there. “What the hell just happened? Or do I want to know?”

  She ran her hand over his arm, glancing back to the glass front door, where Ash was watching them. Mark must have understood, as he walked around to his side and climbed in, and so did she. He started the Jeep, and she pulled her seatbelt on.

  “You know, Mark, right now, can we
please just go home? Whatever this was, I think maybe someone is watching out for you.”

  He put the Jeep in gear and followed Tolly Shephard down the long driveway. “You know, I wasn’t born yesterday, Billy Jo, so how about telling me what the hell is really going on? Because before you went in, I had this feeling that you knew something about what the hell this mess was.” He glanced her way with a look that could end everything good between them, then looked back to the road.

  “You’re talking about Sunday,” she said.

  “You need me to spell it out? I will. You know something about Sunday disappearing, where she is, and this thing with the council.” He glanced over to her again, and her breath caught. She shut her eyes in the dark for a second.

  “I won’t ask again,” he said.

  She looked over to him. “Please don’t be mad.”

  “If you don’t tell me what the fuck is going on, Billy Jo, my being mad will be the least of your worries.”

  Right, his damn code.

  “I don’t know everything, but I do know she was leaving one way or the other, and someone was helping her. I don’t know who. As for the envelope in your desk, the contents are the kind of dirt the council would never want public. As I said, someone is watching your back. I just wish I had been the one to do it.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Billy Jo was sitting outside on the deck with Lucky, fussing over him, as Mark watched the cat hop down from the sofa and over to the bowl on the floor. He grabbed a beer from the well-stocked fridge and spotted the bottle of red, which she preferred chilled, so he pulled it out and reached for a glass on the shelf. He filled it halfway and then added some more before putting the wine back in the fridge, taking in the vegetables he’d never buy. He twisted off the cap of his beer and took a swallow.

  “You stay in here,” he said to Harley, who was munching on his kibble, then reached for the wine and walked outside, pulling the door closed behind him. He spotted Lucky’s tail out in the long grass, and Billy Jo was sitting on the edge of the deck, her feet on the ground. She looked up to him in the dark as he approached. “Here you go, chilled.”

  She took the wine, and he just stood there, looking down on her, keeping the distance.

  “I’m waiting.” He gestured toward her. “You lied to me.”

  She took a swallow of wine, then said, “No. I just didn’t tell you. But I don’t know everything, and I’m glad I don’t know everything. She left her kids. I didn’t expect that.” She stared out into the distance as she reached over and touched his leg. “Mark, this is hard enough. Don’t put this distance between us. Sit down, because I don’t want to keep looking up. I didn’t lie, because I wouldn’t lie, which is why I’m telling you now that Gail paid me a visit to warn me about Sunday, that she wasn’t telling the truth. But we had fought about it already, and I was so angry at you because you swallowed her story even when I knew there was something wrong, because I was that girl who had been assaulted and had no one there for me. If my dad hadn’t saved me, I wouldn’t have had a future. She basically lied because she could, and I hate her for that. She may be a kid, but the way it rolled off her tongue…”

  He stepped off the deck and rested his foot on the edge, just looking at her, seeing the emotions and knowing they were stepping right into all of her no-go topics.

  “Do you know how young I was when I was assaulted the first time?” she said. “It was someone I knew, someone who was supposed to look out for me.” She looked up at him, and he sat down beside her, looking down at her, and just waited. “You know some of it, but you don’t know everything. I was nine years old.” She made a face. “It wasn’t just one foster family, either. Maybe I do see the worst before the best in people now, but there’s something familiar to me in someone who has those kinds of antisocial behaviors, which I’ve seen only a few times. I knew there was something off about Sunday. When Gail came by my office, she told me that Sunday wanted to leave, and she gave me the name of someone to call, someone who helped women who needed to disappear.” She looked over to him, and he realized she was serious.

  “You’re not talking about…”

  “Mark, you’re not a fool. You know there are women trapped in situations where justice won’t work for them. They can’t get away from the monsters they’re married to, and those men will never leave them alone. A woman can end up hurt or dead, or if her husband has enough on his side, he can convince a judge to take her kids from her. You know it happens.”

  “So is that who you called?”

  She took another swallow of wine, then scratched her head. “Sunday called me, and she met me down by the ocean. You know, she was rather proud of the way she had you believing her story about her parents. I’m not saying the other stuff isn’t true, but to her, this was a game. Oh, she wanted to leave, though, and the fact was that her parents basically handed her over to Ash as a thirteen-year-old girl because they couldn’t handle her.” She wouldn’t look his way, and he could see how tense she was.

  “You know this how?”

  “Tolly and Gail know more about the people here and the things that go on than I realized. And I think Gail was scared for us, because she handled it. She met the woman at my place while I was over here so I wouldn’t know anymore. Then there’s that golden package in your bottom drawer, which has ammunition on the council about their latest escapades. I don’t know exactly what, but again, Gail knew the details. There’s some funding they continue to leverage for personal use with no government oversight. I’m only guessing here, but I think Gail and maybe Tolly made sure the council took a step back.”

  He just stared and didn’t know what to say, letting out a heavy sigh. Then he lifted his beer and took a swallow. She leaned in and just sat there as he looked over to her. “As chief of this island, I’m not looking the other way, Billy Jo.”

  Not on Ash Byrd, and not on the council, he thought. Then there were Gail and Tolly. He didn’t know how to deal with the two of them. They didn’t run this island anymore, even though he was getting the feeling strings were being pulled behind his back.

  He pulled a hand over his brow and glanced down to her, seeing the way she was looking up at him. She nudged him and leaned closer.

  “Why would she leave her kids?” he said. Maybe out of all of it, that was the one thing that bothered him. “You think she had a choice?” He slid his arm around Billy Jo. He was still angry—no, furious.

  “I don’t know, Mark. I think Gail didn’t want me to know anymore than I did, maybe because I told her I can’t lie to you. I know it’s a no-go for you. But the Sunday I met down at the ocean, who showed me who she really is, I don’t think she gave a second thought to those babies. Maybe that’s a good thing.” She was leaning against him, and he looked down to her again. He wondered if policing this island would always come with this impossible undercurrent.

  “So you don’t think she’ll turn up,” he said.

  Billy Jo sat up and slid around to face him, and he let his hand slide down her arm. “Nope, I think she’s long gone. You can’t help everyone, Mark, and this may sound horrible, but I, for one, am glad she’s gone, because if she were still here, I would always worry she’d accuse you of the kind of sexual impropriety that would destroy you. What was already threatened could blow up on you. I’m sorry if that sounds cruel, but it’s how I feel. And since I’m being totally honest here, I’m glad that Gail and Tolly have taken the lead on this and are keeping you out of the crosshairs, because there’s one thing I learned long ago. A free and just society is just an illusion, and I’m not going to sit back on the sidelines and do nothing.”

  He really looked at her.

  “You’re furious with me, aren’t you?” she said. When he said nothing, she swatted his thigh.

  “Ow! Hey,” he said, then laughed and lifted his beer.

  “I just spilled everything,” she said. “Sometimes you can be so damn infuriating. Say something. Are you angry with me still? Wha
t—”

  He leaned down and kissed her, sliding his hand around the back of her head, tasting the wine on her lips. Then he pulled back. “Let’s go in, unless you’re planning on running out.” He stood up and held his hand out to her, and she settled her hand in his.

  “Nope, not going anywhere,” she said.

  He pulled her up and kissed her again just as the dog came running back and barked at the closed door, and he heard a meow from inside in reply. Billy Jo laughed, holding her wine out, and he held her against him.

  A three-legged cat, a mangy mutt, and a cabin in the woods. He couldn’t wait to see what tomorrow would bring.

  Chapter Seventeen

  “You know, having a tattoo removed is worse than having one put on,” the technician said. “The number of people who carry on and complain and whine because of how much it hurts… That’s why we now numb it with anaesthesia, but there’s still burning and blistering from the laser. The good news is that because of all the colored ink of this very pretty woman’s face, I think you’ll be sitting here for six or maybe seven more visits.”

  Mark was in a chair that reminded him of a dentist’s office, taking in a guy with a nose ring and glasses. He had to remind himself who he was doing this for.

  “Let me guess,” the guy continued. “She was your wife, the one you thought you’d love forever, and you broke up?”

  He wondered how often he did this and how long it took him to break clients down until they told him their stories. “One too many beers and I thought it was a good idea at the time. I’m sure you’ve heard it before.”

  Above him, on a mounted TV, the news was on.

  “Can you turn that up?” he said to the guy as he lined up the laser.

  The guy looked over to the TV, reached for a remote beside him, and turned it up just as the glass front door opened, and there was Billy Jo walking in. The guy glanced her way.

  “My current girlfriend, if that answers your question,” Mark said.