Farewell to Goodbye

by Penny Childs

  “No, Bill, I don’t.” She turned her back on him again.

  “You definitely won’t be able to help if you exhaust yourself any more than you already have.”

  She knew what he was referring to and knew he was right. If there was any hope of her being able to use her ability to help find Trevor she had to recharge and the only way to do that was to sleep.

  Bill watched her debate with herself, concerned she would ignore his advice and further burn herself out.

  “You mean you can’t do that thing you do?” Renee asked.

  Bill looked over to her with raised brows, surprised by her question.

  Mel shook her head. “I’m fried right now. It happens sometimes, when I push too hard.” She looked at Bill long and hard. “He’s right. The only way I’ll recover is if I sleep.” She sighed and tilted her head back, giving the ceiling a good look. “And I don’t know if I can manage to sleep right now.”

  “You knew about her?” Bill asked Renee.

  “Yeah, well it was the only explanation for some of the things that have happened. Plus, there are a lot of rumors so it had me thinking.”

  He knew about the rumors, he just didn’t think anyone took them seriously. “Mel, it’s almost midnight. Just try to sleep for a little while.” He looked at Craig and Renee. “That goes for both of you as well. We need to be in our right minds if we’re going to catch her.”

  “All right, Bill,” Mel said. “But I’m staying here. I’ll take my couch.”

  Frowning, Bill didn’t say anything. He had been hoping to convince her to go home and sleep in her own bed but he knew better than to argue with her about it. She would push back twice as hard as he pushed, and as she so loved to point out, she didn’t take orders from him anymore.

  Craig and Renee both left, each vowing to be back by six in the morning.

  “What are you going to do, Bill?” Mel asked, surprised to find herself yawning.

  “I hear you have cots. You know me, I can sleep anywhere.” Plus, he didn’t want to leave her with just the young deputy up front. He didn’t think the woman would attack now, but he couldn’t be sure.

  “You should have gone with Renee to the hotel,” she told him, heading for the door, “but suit yourself.”

  “Mel…”

  Stopping, she turned. “Yes, Bill?”

  “If anything starts happening and you think you can make the connection, you’ll come get me instead of trying on your own, right?”

  “I will,” she assured him, then continued out the door. Stopping in the front office, she looked over to Vince, who was scribbling something down on a piece of paper. “Vince,” she called out.

  The young deputy looked up. “Yeah boss?”

  “I’m going to try and get some sleep in my office. You wake me up if anything happens. You understand?”

  “Sure thing.”

  Making her way back to her office, she left the desk light on and sank down onto the couch. Slipping her boots off, she curled up on her side and stared at the front of her desk, thinking she would never get to sleep. Too much was swirling around in her head. Was Trevor okay? Was he even alive? How were they going to find him? What was happening to him? Was he sleeping right now or awake and wondering if they would find him? With these thoughts, she drifted off into a fitful sleep.

  Her dreams took her back to times when her life had seemed simpler and much more full of hope. To a day when Bill had first introduced her to a handsome young Trevor Giles. They had shook hands and immediately knew each other. The smile that had come to his lips and eyes had captured her heart from that first meeting. She dreamed of that first kiss, standing outside the door to her apartment building in the rain. Oh, how her heart had raced!

  These dreams finally lulled her into a deep, comforting slumber.

  Twenty-one

  He woke from warm dreams of Mel to something cold and wet touching his nose, then snorting in his face. Stunned, he jerked back and his eyes flew open. Dog. There was a dog standing at the side of the bed. Then he heard the laughter.

  “See, I told you he’d get over it.”

  Trevor looked from the big Chocolate Lab to her, his eyes darkening.

  “It’s time for you to hit the bathroom,” she said.

  He thought he smelled food and coffee and blinked as he looked toward the shade covered window. He could see light seeping in around the edges. He watched as she pulled the gun out of the waistband of her jeans and the key out of her pocket. By now he knew the routine and followed it. Having lay in bed all night, his leg was stiff and this time when he tried to stand on it he could not help but cry out in pain, a fact that seemed to make the woman happy.

  The dog, seemingly leery of the gun, kept his distance from the two of them but watched with a nervously wagging tail as Trevor leaned heavily on the wall to make his way down the hall to the bathroom and then back to his bed.

  Winded from the short, stressful trip, he sat on the edge of the bed looking up at her contemptuously.

  “Keep moving,” she growled, waving the gun at him.

  “Gimme a minute.” Trying to lift his leg up onto the bed was almost as bad as trying to put weight on it.

  “Quit being a baby, Agent Giles, and get it over with.”

  She knew how badly it hurt him and she enjoyed it, this much he knew. “Screw you,” he muttered, not moving.

  “You don’t think I’ll shoot you again?” she asked, leveling the gun at him.

  “I think you’re going to kill me anyway. What’s the difference whether you do it now or later?” But he knew what the difference was. Given enough time, he might be found. Alive. It wasn’t a matter of him being afraid to die, it was a matter of him not wanting to. Not now. Not when he and Mel had found each other again. He stared down the muzzle of the gun and with a grunt of pain, lifted his legs onto the bed and leaned back on the headboard.

  As she watched, he locked himself back to the headboard and tossed the key on the nightstand.

  “Finally,” she said mockingly. “I’m going to bring you some breakfast and you’re going to eat it,” she told him. “Then, you’re going to make a phone call.”

  He stared at her, his pain momentarily forgotten.

  “I just want to let your little girlfriend know you’re alive and definitely not well.”

  He shook his head. If what she wanted to do was use him to further torture Mel he wasn’t going to do it. “Leave her alone,” he told her, glaring.

  “You’re really not in any position to give orders, Agent Giles.” She sighed. Stuffing the gun back in the front of her pants, she turned and left the room.

  When she came back she had a tray with a plate of scrambled eggs and a piece of toast on it. She also had a large glass of orange juice perched upon it. When she saw him eyeing it suspiciously she laughed. “No drugs this time. I want you awake for a while today.”

  Not reassured by that little tidbit, he picked up the tray and began to eat.

  Satisfied that he would do what she told him, she left the room again.

  He heard the television come to life and heard her talking what sounded like baby talk. He presumed she was talking to the dog, but the fact was, she was nutty as a fruitcake and could very well be talking to some imaginary friend of hers.

  The eggs were rubbery and cold and the toast was dry but he managed to get most of it down. Not knowing if he could believe her about the orange juice not being spiked, he supposed it didn’t matter and drank it down anyway.

  After a half hour or so, she came back into the room, removed the tray, then returned with something in her hand.

  Trevor recognized it as a cell phone.

  She set it on the nightstand and pulled out the gun again. “Time to make your phone call, Agent Giles.”

  “I don’t think so,” he told her.

  “Look, either you dial it, or I will, but the call will be made. And if you won’t talk to her, I’ll just shoot you while I have her on the line
. You want her to hear me do that?”

  He stared at the gun, then into her eyes, knowing she meant it. He picked up the phone. “I don’t know her phone number off the top of my head.” This was the truth. He’d not had to call her and it was programmed into his own cell phone, which he didn’t have.

  “But you know your boss’s phone number. He’ll give her the phone, don’t you think?”

  Trevor’s brows rose. “Bill is a little far away…”

  “Your boss is here. I saw it on the news. Make the damn call.”

  Reaching over, he picked up the phone. He wanted to hear her voice, but he didn’t want her to suffer for it. He turned the phone over in his hands a few times, thinking.

  “You’re trying my patience,” she warned.

  Dialing, he asked, “What exactly is it you would like me to say?” The phone began to ring on the other end.

  “You’ll think of something. I will warn you not to mention the old woman, what this place looks like or the dog though. Mention of any of those things could get you an extra bullet hole.”

  He heard Bill’s voice on the other end of the line.

  Bill pulled his phone from the clip on his belt and looked at it curiously. He did not recognize the number and neither did his phone. But now was not the time to screen calls. He answered. “William Foley.”

  “Bill.”

  He only said the one word, but Bill recognized his voice immediately. “Trevor, is that you?” he asked, just to make sure. He saw Mel’s head jerk around. She had been talking to Craig about something.

  “It’s me, Bill.” Trevor looked at the woman holding the gun on him. “Look, Bill, I have to talk to Mel.”

  “You have to?” Bill asked, catching the wording.

  “Yeah.”

  Mel was at Bill’s side, her eyes imploring, wanting him to tell her that he was talking to Trevor and that he was okay.

  “Trevor, are you okay? From the looks of the truck you were driving, you took a hit.”

  The woman waved the gun at him.

  “I have to talk to Mel, Bill. Right now.”

  He did not want to give Mel the phone. He knew why the woman wanted Trevor to talk to her. He thought about telling Trevor that Mel was not there, but was afraid of being caught in a lie. Bill pulled the phone away from his ear and looked at Mel. “He says he has to talk to you. My guess is that she wants him to talk to you for some reason.” Before handing her the phone, he said, “Just be careful. I don’t know what game she’s playing right now.”

  Taking the phone from him and putting it to her ear, she closed her eyes. “Trevor,” she whispered, a tear sliding down her cheek.

  “I’m okay, Mel. I’m okay.”

  “You were shot.”

  “Just winged, love. It’s okay.” The sound of her voice centered him and reminded him why he so badly wanted to live. He wanted to see her again. He wanted to touch her again.

  “What is it she wants? I’ll do whatever she wants.”

  “I don’t want you doing what she wants,” he told her, watching a small smile come to the woman’s face.

  “What is it?” Mel wanted to know.

  He couldn’t tell her this woman wanted to make her suffer by killing him. Instead, he just said, “I don’t know.” He knew she had let him call Mel for a reason though, and he was beginning to worry he was going to find out why very shortly.

  Mel thought he did know. “Trevor, I can’t…” she didn’t finish, not knowing if the woman was listening in or not.

  The misery he heard in her voice broke his heart. He knew what she had been about to say.“I know, baby. It’s okay.”

  “Maybe soon though.”

  Waving the gun at him again, the woman told him, “Put the phone on the table. Don’t hang up. I want to talk to her.”

  Trevor didn’t want to let her do that. He didn’t want to give up his connection to Mel, either. It might be the last time he would ever speak to her.

  “Don’t test me right now, Agent Giles.”

  “I have to give her the phone, Mel. Will you do something for me?”

  On the verge of full blown tears, Mel told him she would.

  “Just remember that no matter what happens, I love you.”

  “Trevor, please…” She heard the phone being set down and looked at Bill with large eyes.

  “Well, now, Mel. I can call you Mel, can’t I?” the woman asked.

  “What do you want?”

  On a sigh, the woman said, “I asked you a question. It might not be in Agent Giles’s best interest for you to be rude to me.”

  “Call me whatever you like, I don’t care,” Mel told her. “What do you want from me?”

  “I want you to know what it’s like to be on the other side of things. To be the one who lives while someone you love dies.”

  “Don’t kill him,” Mel begged.

  “But I have to. Aside from the fact that he’s really a major pain in the ass, he’s part of the game.” Leveling the gun at Trevor, she smiled when she saw his eyes widen. Then she pulled the trigger.

  Hearing the bark of the gun over the phone, Mel jumped. “No!” she screamed. “No!”

  “Mel?” Bill asked. “What’s happened?”

  “She…she shot…”

  “I didn’t kill him,” the woman said, laughing. “But I did shoot him. Again.”

  Trevor lay back on the bed, his eyes squeezed shut in agony, his breathing ragged, his right shoulder on fire.

  “He won’t die from it. At least not right away. Though with two bullet holes in him now, I have to wonder how long he’ll make it.”

  Mel could not find her voice to speak.

  “Tomorrow we’ll find out if three bullet holes will be the magic number.” With that, the woman disconnected the call. “Sorry I lied to you about not shooting you if you did what I told you,” she said sarcastically.

  Unable to get his cuffed hand to his shoulder to put pressure on his newest wound, Trevor forced himself to sit up and be still.

  “Ah, I just got some muscle, no big deal. You probably won’t even bleed to death from it.”

  The shot had been loud. He wondered if anyone had heard it. Evidently the dog had, it was barking its fool head off from another part of the house. Feeling lightheaded, his vision started to blur and as his eyes rolled back in his head. He passed out.

  Twenty-two

  Extracting his phone from her grip, Bill looked at it and saw the call had been disconnected. He shoved the phone in his pocket and taking Mel’s wrists, pulled her hands away from her face. “What happened, Mel?”

  Craig and Renee stood watching. Brody had run into the conference room when he had heard her shouting and waited as well.

  “She shot him, Bill. She shot him. Oh, God, she shot him.” She tried to pull away from him but he would not let her go.

  “What did she say to you, Mel? Please.”

  She just stared at him blankly for a moment, completely consumed with fear.

  “Mel, you need to think. I need you to tell me what she said. I need you to tell me if you heard any background noises, anything that might help us locate her. C’mon, you know how this works better than anyone.”

  All she could hear was the gunshot still ringing in her head.

  “He needs you to do this, Mel,” Bill pressed. He had to get her to talk to him now, while everything was still fresh in her mind. Still holding her wrists, he shook them to get her attention.

  Bill telling her that Trevor needed her seemed to help. She blinked back tears and took in long, shaky breaths. “She told me she didn’t kill him, but she had shot him again.” So it had been her that had shot him in the truck. “She said if… if…”

  “Mel.” Bill dropped her wrists and hooked a finger under her chin to lift it so she was looking at him instead of the floor. The eye contact seemed to help.

  “She said with two bullet holes in him she didn’t know how long he would make it. Then she said tomorrow she w
ould see if three holes would finish him off.”

  “Jesus,” Renee whispered, closing her eyes.

  “What else did you hear?” Bill asked.

  She shook her head. There had been something, right there at the end, after the shot had been fired. Right before Bill’s phone had beeped to indicate the call had been disconnected. She frowned. “I think I heard a dog barking in the distance.”

  “Distance as in outside?”

  “No, somewhere else in the house,” she said thoughtfully. She looked over at Brody. “I want to know every person in town that has a dog registered. I also want the names of anyone you know who has a dog but didn’t bother to get it tagged.”

  Swallowing hard and nodding, Brody took off from the conference room at a trot.

  “That’s good, Mel. It may help narrow things down a little bit.” Not bothering with a chair, Bill sat down on the table surface much the way Trevor did. He looked at the wall Trevor had built and noticed that no one had added him to it.

  “I couldn’t bear the thought,” Mel told him absently.

  Cocking his head at her, Bill had the beginning of a smile on his lips. “I didn’t say anything,” he told her.

  Confused, she frowned at him, then her eyes widened.

  “Are you back?” he asked her.

  Concentrating, she shook her head. “Not all the way.” She thought she was getting a little bit, but not much from him. Definitely not enough yet. “It’s spotty, but coming.” And it might not be in time.

  When Mel’s phone rang at her side, everyone became still. Mel thought her heart had even skipped a beat. Pulling it from her belt, she looked at the screen. “It’s Lyle,” she said. She had sent him out to interview Wendy Chapman’s boyfriend again on a hunch. “What’s up, Lyle?” she asked, hoping maybe someone had heard a gunshot and he was calling to ask how to proceed.

  “I got back with that kid last night. Wendy Chapman’s boyfriend.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, I didn’t notice till this morning when I was double checking some things; the name the guy Haskins gave you and the one that the boy heard are two different names.”