Farewell to Goodbye

by Penny Childs

  “Trevor left to go to my place to shave three hours ago. He should have been back a long time ago and I can’t reach him on his cell.”

  “Maybe he fell asleep,” Craig said, repeating Brody.

  “Not Trevor,” Renee said. “If he felt good enough to drive he wasn’t so tired he’d pass out on the couch or something.” She met Mel’s eyes.

  “We should go check,” Mel said, her heart racing. If she hadn’t fried herself looking for Wendy last night she’d try to connect to Trevor. “Damnit!” she whispered loudly.

  “Boss?”

  “Craig, I want you to take Renee in your car. I’ll take mine. It might be nothing. But…” she did not finish her sentence. Instead, she pulled keys from her pocket and headed for the front of the building. As she passed Brody, she said, “If we have anyone out near my place, have them cruise by and see if anything is out of the ordinary.”

  Nodding, Brody picked up the radio as Renee and Craig followed Mel out the front door.

  As she got in her car, she heard Brody calling for her over the radio. Picking up the mic as she started her car, she said, “Yeah, Brody.”

  “Lyle and Kenny were about three miles from your place. They’re going to do a drive by.” He paused. “Agent Giles took one of the SUVs from out back. I tried to raise him on the radio, but obviously he didn’t answer.”

  “Okay,” she said, pulling out of the lot. All the way to her driveway, she told herself she was just overreacting. Nothing was wrong. Brody and Craig were right. Tired, Trevor had sat down on the couch and fallen asleep. Except he wasn’t answering his phone. She knew him. No matter how tired he was, he heard his phone. It was a part of his life, like hers, to expect calls at any time and be prepared to answer them. His mind would be tuned to the sound of the phone.

  “Chief?” Lyle Dobbs called over the radio.

  “Yeah, go ahead, Lyle.”

  “We’re part way up your drive. One of our SUVs is parked in the middle of it with a tree down in front of it and...” He paused for a long time.

  “Lyle?” she asked, just nosing into her driveway.

  “Chief, there’s someone lying on the ground next to the passenger door.”

  “Who?” she asked, her voice almost panicked.

  “Can’t tell from here.”

  She could see the back end of Lyle and Kenny’s cruiser now. As she drew up behind them she slammed on her brakes, slammed the car into park and jumped out. She was nearly at a dead run the moment her feet hit the ground. Halfway past their cruiser, she felt a strong hand clamp down on her upper arm and pull her around. She stood facing Craig, looking up at him.

  “No, boss. You let Renee go up there first.”

  She shook her head. “If it’s him, I have to know,” she told him, her voice trembling with raw fear.

  He watched as Renee passed them. “She’ll let you know. If it’s him you don’t need to see.”

  Trying to jerk her arm free of his grip, she said, “Don’t you tell me what I need to see and don’t need to see, Craig.”

  He did not release her arm as he watched Renee walk up to the body sprawled on the ground.

  Desperately, Mel tried to remember what it was Trevor had been wearing that morning. Jeans and a tee shirt. A gray tee shirt. The body on the ground wore a black shirt. The truck was pointed toward the house, so he had never made it there. Never changed clothes. Unless he had a change at the station she didn’t know about…

  “Let her go, Craig. It’s not Trevor,” Renee called as she stood from her crouch.

  As soon as his grip loosened, Mel broke away from him and stalked to the SUV. Both the passenger side window and the driver’s side windows were shattered. Blood covered the bench-seat of the SUV, as well as a majority of the passenger side door. The driver’s side door had blood on it as well as the steering wheel. There was a bullet hole in the driver’s side of the seat that Mel stared at, her heart dropping. She saw his sidearm sticking out from under the passenger side seat on the floor and almost broke down. He would not have left his weapon behind by choice.

  “What the hell happened here?” Lyle asked from behind her.

  There was too much blood. “Craig, get the crime scene guys out here. Now. I want to know if any of this blood is Trevor’s.” He was standing in the open driver’s side door. When he did not reply, she looked at him through the open doors of the truck. “I said now, Craig.”

  “Boss, you know that some of it is his.” He was looking across the seats at the bullet hole. That would have been where Trevor had been sitting.

  “I don’t know anything right now except that we have a missing federal agent who may or may not be shot. Do what I told you.”

  Unoffended by her tone, Craig backed away from the vehicle and pulled his phone out.

  Pressing her knuckles to her lips, Mel found that she had to concentrate to breathe. She did not need to have a damn panic attack right now. “We need to find out who the hell that guy is,” she said, referring to the dead man. “And I need to know who that bitch is.”

  “I think I was getting close,” Renee said from behind her.

  Turning, Mel cocked her head. “Yeah?”

  Renee nodded. “I’m not for sure yet but I hear Becker was seeing a psychiatrist. It wasn’t common knowledge. Only his sister knew about it. I was going to talk to her tomorrow. She lives in Mississippi.”

  Renee had Mel’s full attention. “It seems that Becker’s sister did not like the doctor. She thought she was making him worse. Anyway, I can’t seem to find hide nor hair of the doctor. I can’t even find a picture of her. Becker’s sister never met her, so can’t describe her.”

  “And this caught your attention, why?”

  “Because the doctor disappeared about the time you were rescued and Becker was killed. I did some digging and buried in one police report a nurse says that a woman saying she was a doctor tried to gain access to your room in the middle of the night while you were in the hospital. She matches the description you gave closely enough that she could have been the same woman. She said she was a psychiatrist, too.” She smiled a little wryly. “Trevor taught me not to accept too many coincidences, and I found too many.”

  “You’ll go talk to the sister?”

  “If you still want me to, I will.”

  Mel nodded. “We need to know who the hell this woman is if we have any chance at all of finding her.”

  “The sister is going to take me to the office building that this doctor occupied at the time. I’m going to see if I can find anyone there that can tie the woman you described and the doctor Becker was seeing.”

  “You have a name.”

  “I do, but like I said, she dropped off the face of the planet.”

  Looking back at the bloody truck seat, Mel squeezed her eyes shut. Someone needed to call Bill. “Renee?”

  “Yeah?”

  “You wanna call Bill and let him know what’s happened?” She didn’t think she would be able to hold herself together long enough to get through a call with Bill right now.

  Eighteen

  He awoke to intense pain and heat in his thigh and a pounding headache. He heard a noise he could not identify at first, then he realized it was a television. Opening his eyes, he looked up at a ceiling he did not recognize and when he tried to move he realized two things. First, one hand was handcuffed to the head of the bed he lay on and second, the gunshot wound in his leg was not going to let him move much. Clenching his teeth together, he barely kept himself from screaming.

  Trying to figure out where he was and how he had gotten there, he remembered her forcing him to drink the bottle of water. He’d been drugged. Despite the pain in his leg, he forced himself to scoot up, until he was sitting, his back resting against the barred head of the bed. He looked down at his leg and grimaced. She had at least tied a pillow case around it, but he knew his movement had it bleeding again.

  Gingerly, he probed at the wound with his free hand. It was in his lo
wer thigh, seven or so inches above his knee. Obviously the bullet had not hit any major blood vessels, but he thought it had hit bone. “Won’t be doing any dancing,” he muttered.

  He heard her moving around then, coming his way. He thought to feign sleep, but knew he could never reposition himself without screaming before she made it to the room.

  She shoved the door to the bedroom the rest of the way open and scowled at him. “Well, I guess you’ll live.”

  He looked her over. He had hoped to know her when he saw her, but he did not. It was almost a disappointment.

  “The question is for how long. I haven’t made up my mind yet.”

  Glaring at her, Trevor asked, “What are you going to do?”

  “Torture your little girlfriend, for starts.” She sighed.

  Mel.

  “I was going to take her after the girl, but you’ve managed to piss me off so badly I changed my plans. I was going to let you live and kill her.” She shook her head. “But I honestly don’t think I could stand it if I let you live now. You are a major pain in the ass.”

  “Good,” Trevor growled.

  “Not so good for you. Or the sheriff. When she finds you dead, what do you think it will do to her?”

  It would finish the job of destroying her. Trevor knew this. He had touched her mind. He knew she was in love with him again. He also knew the only thing holding her back from completely connecting to him was her fear of him leaving her again. He could not allow this woman to kill him. He wasn’t going to leave Mel again. “Where are we?” He looked around the unfamiliar bedroom.

  “Right under their noses,” she said with a self-satisfied smile.

  “You live in town?”

  “No, you dummy. I couldn’t take the chance of her recognizing me by living here. We’re just…borrowing a house for a while.”

  “Borrowing?” he asked, confused. He did not like the glint he saw in her eyes.

  “Yeah. The old lady that lived here won’t be needing it anymore.”

  “What have you done?”

  “What I had to do. What you forced me into. I killed the old bitch is what I did.” She paused. “I didn’t kill Bosco though.”

  “Bosco?” he asked.

  “The dog,” she said in a tone that implied she was speaking to a dullard. “I like dogs. I had to chain him up outside though. He seems to be a little upset.”

  Gritting his teeth, Trevor said, “Gee, I wonder why.”

  She shrugged. “He’s a dog. He’ll get over it. That’s why I like them. Maybe I’ll take him with me when I go.”

  “If you leave right now you might make it out of town,” he suggested.

  Now she came forward to stand at the edge of the bed. Just out of reach. “If I leave town now what fun would that be?”

  “You could make it now,” he pressed, noticing the lump under the front of her shirt at her waistline and knowing it for what it was. The gun. If he could just get his hands on it.

  She saw the line of his sight and backed off a little, her lips a grim line. “What I’m going to do is keep you around for a few days, then kill you.”

  “For what?”

  “To give your girlfriend the hope you can be saved, then to crush that hope.”

  “What if someone comes to check on the old lady?”

  “I’ll just have to kill them and we’ll move. But I will finish this.”

  He stared at her. “What the hell is the matter with you?” he asked, honestly wanting to know.

  Pulling a bottle of water out of her back pocket, she sat it down on the nightstand next to the bed. “I’ll bring you something to eat. Wouldn’t want you starving to death.”

  After she walked out, leaving the door completely open this time, he looked at the bottle of water suspiciously. The seal had been broken. He strongly suspected it would be drugged, like the last one had been. After forcing him to drink the one in the SUV she had handcuffed him to the steering wheel as she went and got her car. He had been on the verge of passing out when she had forced him to move from the truck to the car. When he had howled in pain from putting weight on his wounded leg she had laughed like hell.

  Still staring at the bottle, he licked his dry lips and tried to swallow spit that was not there. He knew he had to drink it, he did not have a choice, drugged or not. He had lost blood. He needed water.

  He was still just looking at it when she came back in with a tray. On it was a sandwich. She sat the tray down on the nightstand next to the water with a smirk. She seemed to know about his inner debate. “If you need to use the restroom, now is the time. I’m feeling generous.”

  He hadn’t thought about it until she mentioned it, but he did have to go. He nodded his head.

  Reaching under her shirt, she pulled the gun out and pointed it at him. Then she reached into her front pocket and pulled a key out, which she laid on the table next to the food and water. “Uncuff yourself from the bed and then cuff your hands together in front of you.” She kept the gun leveled at his chest.

  Picking up the key, he used it to uncuff himself from the rail. Rubbing his wrist, he grimaced at the soreness.

  “Quit screwing around,” she growled.

  Cuffing his hands in front of himself he gave her a look. “I might need a little help getting up.”

  She shook her head and rolled her eyes. “If you can’t make it on your own then tough shit. I’m not stupid enough to get that close to you.”

  Moving his legs over the edge of the bed, he fought the urge to cry out in pain, but instead clamped his teeth together. Sweat beaded on his brow and he felt light headed for a moment. He was not entirely sure he could make it to wherever the bathroom was. “If I had a crutch or something,” he told her.

  She threw her head back and barked out laughter. “Why? So you can try to knock the gun out of my hand with it? I told you, you either make it on your own or piss your pants. The choice is yours.”

  When he got off the bed and put weight on his leg, he could not stop the groan of pain from escaping him.

  “You know, if you wouldn’t have killed Ted you’d have some help right now,” she pointed out. “Go to the hallway. It’s the first door on the right.”

  Once he hobbled to the door, he was able to use the wall for support, leaning his shoulder on it, which helped. He made it to the small bathroom and stopped just inside the door to look at her.

  “Don’t be modest,” she chided. “The door stays open.”

  Limping back to the toilet he saw her avert her gaze as he relieved himself. Once he was done he limped back to her, then past her and back to the room. On his way, he looked down the hall, toward the sound of the television and saw a wheelchair folded and leaning on the wall. He had wondered how the hell she had managed to get him into the house while he had been unconscious.

  “I’m sure I don’t have to tell you what to do,” she said as he maneuvered himself back on the bed.

  Without a word, he used the key to uncuff his right hand then reattach himself to the steel railing at the head of the bed. He held the key out to her, hoping that maybe she would reach for it. Maybe he could get a hold of her and get that gun away from her.

  Smiling, she shook her head and motioned to the table with the gun.

  He placed the key on the table and when he leaned back on the bed again, she reached forward and grabbed it, stuffing it back in her pants pocket.

  “Now, you behave yourself. I’m not ready to shoot you again just yet.” With that being said, she turned and walked out of the room.

  He stared at the empty door way for a long moment, wondering just what the hell she had meant by that.

  Slightly nauseated by his trip to the bathroom and in intense pain, he looked at the sandwich she had brought him. He was not hungry at all, but he picked it up anyway and took a bite. He knew that he had to eat to keep his strength up if he had any chance at all of escaping. He managed to force the entire sandwich down and looked longingly at the water bott
le. The bread had further dried out his mouth.

  “God Damnit,” he muttered, leaning over amidst the pain in his leg, to grab the bottle. He had to drink even more than he had to eat. Loosening the cap, he pulled it off and tossed it on the floor. “Bottoms up,” he said to the empty room, putting the bottle to his lips and draining it.

  Nineteen

  Her office door had been closed for over two hours and no one had seen her emerge nor heard a sound from inside.

  “Someone should check on her,” Brody told Craig and Renee.

  “She said she wanted to be alone,” Craig said, looking up from the report that Renee was showing him. “I, for one, am going to leave her alone right now.”

  They were all in the main office, standing around Craig’s desk. “We’ll give her a little longer,” Renee said, “but she can’t hide in there forever.”

  They all looked up as the front door opened. A tall man with silvering hair and a deep tan walked into the room, his dark suit immaculate, the look on his face grim.

  The two cops knew him for what he was immediately. Everything about him screamed fed.

  Renee stood up straighter, self-consciously smoothing the front of her dark slacks with her palms. “Sir, you’re here in record time.”

  “I meant it when I said I’d be here quickly,” Bill said. He looked around. “Where is Mel?” he asked any of the three of them.

  “Holed up in her office,” Renee told him, pointing down the hallway to their left.

  “She said she didn’t want to be disturbed,” Craig told him as he saw the man nod and head off in the direction Renee had pointed.

  “Good to know,” he said over his shoulder as he kept walking. He had absolutely no intention of letting Mel hide in her office. Stopping at the door labeled Sheriff, he rapped on it lightly with his knuckles.

  “I meant it when I said to leave me alone,” he heard her growl from within.

  Shaking his head, he pushed the door open. “Jesus, Mel,” he said. The lights were out and the shade was drawn. She was sitting on the end of the small couch with her legs drawn up under her. He could tell that she had been crying.