by Pamela Fryer
“I really appreciate everything you’re doing for me. I know it isn’t easy for you,” she said, feeling bad for being curt with him.
He glanced away and didn’t seem to be listening. It made Lily feel even more like an inconvenience.
“I’ll try to intrude on your life as little as possible.”
Miles took a step in the direction of the cabin. Edward and Annie were sitting on the porch steps.
“Eddie?”
The older man was bent forward, holding Annie’s hands like an anchor to keep from falling over. Miles broke into a run and Lily hurried after him.
Edward was shaking. Sweat beaded on skin that had turned gray.
“Eddie, what’s wrong?”
He let out a shuddering breath. It appeared to Lily he was having a heart attack.
Miles reached for Annie. “Come here, sweetheart.”
“No!” Eddie barked through clenched teeth. “Leave her alone.”
Miles stood back and brushed against her, and Lily brought her hand up to his shoulder, steadying him. He slipped his arm around her too, and though Lily knew he wouldn’t have done it if he wasn’t distracted, she let herself take comfort nonetheless. His hand at the small of her back felt strong and reassuring.
“Give me your keys. I’ll go for a doctor.”
“No need. I’m all right.” Some of Edward’s color was coming back and his breathing returned to normal. “I just… I’m all right now.”
Annie leaned against his shoulder and put her arm around his neck. She smiled at them as though nothing were wrong.
“Did you have an episode?” Miles asked him.
Edward looked at him. “Yes. An episode. We were talking about baseball and I got dizzy. Isn’t that right, Annie?”
She nodded. “Can we throw the ball some more?”
“How about we go inside and eat breakfast instead?” Eddie asked her. He managed a smile. “I brought milk but it’ll go bad before I can drink it all.”
Miles moved away, leaving a void of cold air rushing across Lily’s body. He took Eddie by the hand and helped him to his feet. He clapped him on the back, revealing a friendship that went much deeper than two old coworkers crossing paths. “Come on, old man. No more episodes, all right?”
Was this another strange incident with Annie? Lily chewed a fingernail. Had the child done something to harm him?
“What do you mean, episode?” she whispered as Eddie went inside in front of them. “Is he asthmatic?”
Miles scowled and shook his head. She took it as a clear message not to ask questions.
Annie hopped into a kitchen chair while Eddie went into the narrow kitchen. “What do you want, kiddo? Strawberry-O’s or wheat crisps?” He took two cereal boxes out of a paper bag and set them on the counter dividing the kitchen from the small cabin’s great room.
“Mmm…strawberry.”
“Let me,” Miles said.
“Nonsense,” Eddie argued. “I’m fine. Just a little nauseated. The radiation does it to me. Don’t worry, it passed.”
Lily sat across from Annie. She stayed silent as she battled with an odd mixture of relief and sadness. She looked at the older man with new eyes and new sympathy for Miles. Radiation meant cancer. Miles could lose another person close to him.
“I’m going to take a shower,” Miles said. “Then I’m going to head into town to the station. I want to see if any of your belongings survived the fire. We’ll head out for Seattle as soon as I get back. Be ready to go.”
That either meant with me or in cuffs. Lily bit her tongue before asking him if he’d like a fingerprint to take with him.
“What about you, little lady. What would you like?” Edward beamed at her. He didn’t appear to hold her under the suspicion Miles did, but then again, she hadn’t burned his gas station to the ground. And whatever had been wrong with him a few minutes ago, he seemed to have recovered quickly.
“Strawberry-O’s will be fine, thank you.” She wouldn’t ask Edward to open a second box of cereal just for her. She could tolerate an artificially flavored cereal once. Beggars couldn’t be choosers, and Colton Reilly had reduced her to a helpless, vulnerable tramp.
Her stomach still churned from the turbulent dreams of the night before and tears were dangerously close. Combined with Miles’ standoffish disinterest, her mood was fragile.
Miles emerged from the shower in record time. His hair was tousled and damp, softening his chiseled appearance. He stepped into the great room in a soft blue shirt with the buttons undone. The pale color made his eyes look like sapphires. His chest was hairless, and remnants of a tan on a washboard stomach ended just above the waistline of faded Levi’s.
Eddie tossed him a ring of keys. Miles reached high to grab them and his shirt opened further, displaying a sexy weave of muscle over bone.
Lily looked away quickly. A Strawberry-O lodged in her throat.
“You know where the key is?” he asked Edward with a glance to the far corner of the room.
“Of course,” the older man replied solemnly. Lily understood they were talking about the rifle case.
Miles left without another word.
“Hey there, kiddo, how about some more cereal?” He sat beside Annie.
“Thank you.”
The old man looked at Lily. In his eyes she found kindness. “He’s a little rough around the edges, but he’s had a hard time.”
She nodded.
“So have you, I gather.”
She bit out a laugh. “You don’t know the half of it.”
But she was still alive, and Lily counted herself lucky. Miles’ wife and child were gone, and Edward was staring the grim reaper in the face. She knew enough to count her blessings.
“You worked with Miles on the police force?”
“I was his sergeant for three years before I retired. He was a hot-headed rookie when he first came aboard.”
She smiled. “I can picture that.” She imagined him in official dress with a shining silver badge. His eyes must have been downright magical against the dark blue uniform.
“It’s a damn shame at thirty-four he thinks his life is over.” Edward sighed and rose from the table. “I’ll make you some sandwiches for the road. What’s your fancy, little one? Peanut butter or jelly. No, wait—I’ve got it. How about both?”
Annie giggled and Lily managed a smile while her thoughts lingered on the bereft man who had left here.
When Miles smiled he looked younger. She guessed if he smiled more often it might become easier. She wished he would, not just because she would love to see how utterly handsome it would make him, but because she wished he felt more like smiling.
“He lost his wife and daughter?”
Edward nodded. “They were killed by a drunk driver. Miles had personally arrested the man once before, but the guy was a politician with a lot of influence. Hardly made a dent in his drinking career.”
“How terrible for him.”
“Miles and Sara were close. She’d had trouble conceiving. Michelle was their miracle child. She meant the world to them.”
Lily looked away as a lump formed in her throat. Why did the most tragic events happen to the happiest families? She could tell that beneath his hard exterior Miles was an honorable man with a noble character who would do anything for the people he loved.
Would she ever find that kind of love?
She found herself under Annie’s curious gaze.
“Are they in Heaven too?”
“Yes honey, they are. But it makes Mr. Miles really sad so we shouldn’t ask him about them.”
“They miss him too.”
She glanced at Edward. He didn’t seem to find her statement strange.
“Of course they do,” he said, busily making sandwiches. “But Heaven is a good place where all souls are safe.”
“Are we gonna go there some day?”
“Not for a very long time,” Lily assured her.
“He said there is no such
thing as Heaven, but my mommy said he was wrong.”
“Who did, Annie?” Edward asked her.
“The man.” She spooned another mouthful of strawberry cereal. “This tastes good. How come I can’t see the strawberries?”
Lily chuckled. “Because they’re very small.”
“What man?” Edward pressed.
“Mr. Reilly. He’s my daddy but he doesn’t let us call him that.”
Edward’s gaze pierced her. “Us?”
“I have nineteen brothers and sisters.”
Annie’s spoon slipped into the bowl and milk spattered. She seemed more concerned with wiping it off her hand than the gaping stare Lily returned.
“I know he’s wrong, though,” Annie continued innocently. “Heaven is real. I know people who live there.”
Chapter Six
On his way down the mountain, Miles passed the gas station. Yellow barrier tape roped off the pumps but the building appeared unaffected.
“Another couple of years and those pumps would have been antiques,” he said aloud. Not that he would have been around for it. Historical building or not, the garage was a depressing pit.
The whole town was a heartbreaking reminder of his family. But leaving Parkmont would mean leaving Sara and Michelle. They were buried here in the Harris family plot.
His in-laws would be glad the station was destroyed. Montgomery Harris had petitioned the city to have the place torn down. He’d cited it as an eyesore tarnishing Parkmont’s character and depreciating land values. The city had refused. The station had been built in nineteen twenty-two and with its gas pumps from nineteen sixty-two, it was officially a historic landmark.
Miles put his foot back on the gas and brought Eddie’s Cherokee up to speed. Not for the first time since leaving the cabin did he question his involvement with Lily Brent. He should just cart her to Seattle and dump her on Billings. Getting involved would only get him hurt. Or killed.
Guilt niggled at the back of his mind. Caring about them was almost a betrayal to his family’s memory. He tried to convince himself his odd and sudden attraction to Lily was just old-fashioned lust. She was an exceptionally beautiful woman, and he was still a man. After three years of solitude, his body was aching for release.
He could live without it, he told himself. And Lily didn’t strike him as the kind of loose woman who would sympathize with his sexual frustration and toss him a pity fuck.
But the part of him that was still a cop had to know if her story checked out. The little girl deserved as much.
Miles angled the Cherokee into the small police station’s visitor lot and shut off the engine. Despite his gut instinct telling him Lily was innocent of any serious wrongdoing, he still felt an uncomfortable tremor of suspicion where she was concerned, and he half-expected to find Annie’s face on a missing child poster in the station’s vestibule as he walked through the doors.
“Well, isn’t that a fine how do you please?” Sergeant Noah Thompson bellowed from the doorway of his office. Behind him Joe Howell, the fire chief, sat in an old-fashioned drafter’s chair. “We spend half the night looking for you, expecting to find little pieces of you stuck to the trees, and you walk in here as happy as ever.”
“Happy isn’t part of the equation,” Miles said with a grin. He walked over and shook the man’s hand. “How you doing, Noah?”
“That’s the question I want you to answer. Chief Howell put out a two alarm at your station last night.”
“Shame about the pumps, isn’t it? I thought they might be worth some money some day.”
“Why’d you leave the scene?” Noah ignored Miles’ jovial front. “You of all people should know better.”
Miles ground his teeth as he tried to keep a casual expression. “My truck was behind the garage so I thought it safest to stay away from the fire. The woman and I exchanged insurance information and I took her to the rental car agency through the valley.”
“You didn’t call anyone.”
“My cell didn’t have reception.”
Noah crossed his arms. “We found casings from a 9mm near the highway.”
“Mine. I chased off a cougar the other night.”
The police chief frowned. Miles knew ballistics would prove him wrong soon enough. Thank goodness things worked slowly in a small town.
“I told her I would collect her stuff and see if the car was salvageable.”
At this Noah snorted. “The car is toast.” His scowl deepened. “If you were anyone else, you know what I’d say.”
“But I’m not anyone else. I’m the man who always lets you claim you hauled in the bigger fish.”
Noah barked out a laugh. “Yeah, right.” He turned and called to one of his deputies. “Get the woman’s purse and suitcase.”
Miles breathed a sigh of relief. Had they not been friends and Miles an ex-cop, her belongings would have been locked up in evidence until she showed up and explained what had happened—probably with a lawyer standing next to her.
“I know if she’d been drinking you’d have slapped the cuffs on her yourself,” Noah raised his eyebrows, confirming his suspicion the chief’s leniency with him was part pity.
Miles bit back his comments.
“But this close to the holidays I want a clean plate. If you’re not pressing charges, that’s good enough for me.”
He shrugged. “Nothing to press charges for.”
The deputy emerged with a charred purse that had once been a light cream color and a small suitcase in even worse condition. He dropped the purse on the sergeant’s desk. It smelled like melted plastic and burnt leather.
Miles opened Lily’s wallet. Her driver’s license proved she had not lied about her name. It eased his suspicions a centimeter. He slipped an insurance card out of her wallet and held it up for Thomson to see. “She’s fully insured, and so am I.” He mustered a grin. “Looks like Montgomery Harris gets his wish. I’m not rebuilding. A Master Craft Deep Sea sounds a lot more appealing right about now.”
“Gonna take the money and run, are you?” Sergeant Thompson laughed along with him. “Can’t say as I blame you.”
Miles found the video tape. Though the inside of Lily’s purse was undamaged, the video might have been melted by the heat. He hoped it would still work. “Mind if I use an interrogation room?” He held up the small cassette. It would need a special adapter to be played in a standard VCR.
Noah was still skeptical. The older man’s eyebrows crawled up his face like twin caterpillars. “Mind if I watch it with you?”
“No problem.” A prickling of unease danced across his skin. But if the video somehow incriminated Lily, so be it.
They went to an interrogation room where a television and video player sat on an AV cart. Noah fitted the eight millimeter tape into an adapter cassette and slid it into the player. After a few minutes of static, the screen filled with the somewhat shaky, hand-held image of a hospital emergency room.
A woman with dirty blond hair lay on a hospital bed surrounded by frantic medical personnel. The hair was matted flat against her head with blood on one side. Two nurses were cutting off her blood-spattered shirt. She was pale and in obvious pain.
“Okay, go ahead ma’am,” a voice said off camera.
The blond woman looked at the camera and winced. She pulled an oxygen mask away from her mouth and Miles heard her seize a sharp breath before starting. “Lily, Lily, I’m so sorry.” Her voice was strained as she struggled to speak. “I’ve made a mess of my life, and Annie’s too.”
A doctor with graying hair entered the scene. The nurses eased her onto her side so the man could work on her back. The woman on the bed craned toward the camera and the videographer came around the side of the bed, only to be jostled by a nurse who shot a dirty look at the camera.
The woman cried out in pain.
“It’s okay, Cassandra. I just want to see what I’m up against. Nurse, get me a sponge.” There was a flash of gore as the doctor pulled back a fl
ap of skin to look inside the wound. Miles’ stomach lurched.
Cassandra’s face contorted and she screamed in pain. A nurse bent over her, blocking the view. The camera operator shifted to the right in time to catch two tears rolling over pale cheeks.
“I’ve left IGS. It was no place to raise a child. It’s horrible there, Annie hated it. Colton treated her like a lab rat. Please, take her someplace safe.” She gasped in pain. “My lawyer, Doug Ross at Ross and White…he has my will and the key to my safety-deposit box.”
“We need to get you into X-ray, Cassandra. Your ankle is broken and I suspect a few ribs as well.”
“Really?” Cassandra snapped. “You went to medical school for that? It’s bent backward, for God’s sake. Ouch! Jesus, be careful!”
“We’ll get you something for the pain right away. Lean over for me, please. You’ve got a nasty compound back here.”
“I’ve been waiting here almost forty minutes. You can wait two.” She craned toward the camera. “Lily, I know I have no right to ask anything of you, but I’m not asking for me, I’m asking for Annie. Please, she needs you. You’re her…” The woman’s voice faded over a gurgle.
“I’ve dislodged a clot. We’ve got a bleeder here, hemostat.”
As though she felt her life slipping away, Lily’s sister reached desperately toward the camera.
“You’re all she’s got. I named you as her godmother when she was born. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about her…but now I need you to put aside…forgive me.”
Some of her words were drowned out by the escalating chaos in the room.
“Page the OR,” the doctor shouted. “Get the surgeon down here, now! Open those fluids up.”
“I know I can trust you. You’ll know what to do. You’ve always been the mature one. Please don’t let me down.” Her voice faded and she sagged onto the bed. “Please, Lily. Please. Take her somewhere…safe.”
“Heart rate one sixty-two. BP’s falling.”
A machine beeped out a warning. A nurse moved the oxygen mask back into place. Cassandra’s eyes rolled back in her head and her lids fluttered closed.