Miranda pulled a long chopping knife from behind her back.
This wasn’t any old rusty blade or small paring knife. It was professional kitchen quality big—the kind that cuts paper and metal, tissue and bone. Fear escalated, clogging Summer’s throat and jamming the breath in her lungs.
“What did you do with them? They are mine, mine, mine!” Miranda screeched.
Summer shuddered, fisting her hands tighter.
Miranda took a lunging step toward her, the knife poised to slash. Summer skipped sideways and out of her way, but ended up blocked by an antique table.
She put her hands out, lowered her voice, and began talking calmly. “I had all your paintings taken down. You should put your own name on them.” She took shallow breaths, hoping to settle her trembling hands and tumbling heart.
Miranda’s face flushed beet red and she sobbed. “Where are they? What did you do with them?”
Summer pointed to the display in the living room, hoping for an avenue of escape. She glanced through the doorway and thrust the knife in Summer’s direction again. “In there. In that chair. Don’t move.”
Summer sat.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Tom parked at the police department and listened to Bret’s end of the conversation. “If you see her, can you call me? Yeah, thanks.” Bret disconnected. “She hasn’t been there. Day bartender at the Crown Room says she’s usually there during lunch for a drink. She didn’t come today.”
Tom gripped the steering wheel. They couldn’t find Miranda. Not at her home in the canyon, which was locked up tight with paper over the windows. Not at the Home and Hardware where she also worked as a custodian. And now, not at the Crown Room. That summed up the list the neighbors gave them.
Bret tapped his phone against his hand. “We’ll find her.”
Tom rubbed the back of his neck. “Miranda confronted Summer in Clem’s parking lot, right?”
“Yes, but you know what she’s like when she’s off her medication. She had a similar incident with a hospital nurse last week.”
Tom stared out the windshield at the flowers along the border of the sidewalk. “She and Summer apparently had issues in high school.”
“You’re thinking a high school feud caused all this?” Bret shook his head. “High school is a pit for a lot of people, but Miranda’s a mental case. She has been since before I started at the police department. She’s done a lot of things in those years, but they’ve all been fairly harmless. The scope of this is outside her jumbled cognitive abilities.”
“All of this is outside what we’ve come to expect. She’s worked at the nursing home for all this time with no problem. Why now?”
Bret sighed. “Not to state the obvious, but if I had a year or two, I could explain mental illness to you.”
Tom shifted in his seat, preoccupied with the sixth sense pushing at him. Miranda outside his apartment came back to mind. The woman had some stalking issues with Summer, and she painted. The two facts kept churning the trepidation in his gut.
Tom checked his phone, hoping for a call back from Summer. Nothing. “I’m going to Summer’s. See if I can coax her into a late lunch and find out more about her relationship with Miranda in high school.”
Bret reached for his door handle. “Meg has tasked me to help your dad this afternoon with final wedding details. Call me if you need anything else.”
“Okay,” Tom said.
Bret got out, but Tom saw Mrs. Heigl scurrying up the street.
She never scurried. She strolled. She meandered. She stopped and talked to everyone. Tom turned off the engine and got out. Both men moved in her direction, meeting her in front of Sissy’s Hair Salon.
She stopped, slapped a hand over her chest, trying to catch her breath.
Tom took her by the elbow and led her to a bench in front of the building. “Are you all right?”
“Well, Miranda Watson was at my house earlier, and the more I thought─” She coughed and sat. “The more I thought about it, the more disturbed I became. She was very upset that I didn’t have Walter’s painting anymore.”
Tom looked over the teacher’s head at Bret, his suspicions solidifying.
“After what you told me about Summer’s painting, I thought you’d want to know. She was mumbling, something about the colors, not making much sense.” Mrs. Heigl fanned her face.
Tom knelt in front of the teacher. “Do you know where she went?”
She shook her head. “She left half an hour ago in that awful blue Ford of hers.”
Stuck again, but at least they knew where she was a few minutes ago. Tom rose. “This helped, Mrs. Heigl. Bret, can you take her home?”
Bret nodded. “Going to Summer’s?”
“Yes. Thank you, Mrs. Heigl.” He started for his truck.
Bret helped the teacher to her feet. “Let’s get you home, ma’am.”
“That’s so nice of you, Bret. How is Meg?” Mrs. Heigl followed Bret to his truck.
Tom got back in his vehicle and started down Main Street for Summer’s house. Near the burger place, he turned on Willow Street, then on Hudson Drive and right in front of Summer’s house was Miranda’s rusted blue Ford Fairmont.
He pulled up behind the car to confirm the license plate, alarm drenching his system. Every instinct tingled like a million soldier ants crawling across his skin. He called Bret.
“Miranda’s at Summer’s.”
Bret whistled under his teeth. “Damn. I’m almost at Mrs. Heigl’s. I can be there in eight minutes.”
“She’s usually harmless, but I don’t want to wait. Hurry.” He hung up, desperately wanting to vault out of the truck and up to the house. But the anomaly of Miranda’s behavior made him follow protocol and request backup from the duty officer.
££££££
Miranda wasn’t much of a tactician. Summer’s chair was near the doorway, and once Miranda went into the living room, Summer planned to bolt out of her seat and cross the dining room to the kitchen to escape.
She turned in the chair to accomplish just that, hoping her jelly knees would carry her that far. Miranda stood immobile in the doorway, pale and shaking.
“They’re all here,” she whispered, anguished.
She shouldn’t ask, shouldn’t care. “Why copy me?”
“You copied me first!” She took a step into the room.
“I didn’t, Miranda. I didn’t know you drew or painted,” she said in a hushed tone.
“My paintings were displayed until you came back!” Her knife hand shook along with her voice. Summer sank back in her chair, fearful of the disconnected fervor in Miranda’s eyes.
“They’re good paintings.” And they were.
“You think so?” The baby voice made Summer shudder.
She quietly took a deep breath and scooted to the front of her chair. “I do.”
Miranda paced part of the way into the room, going from painting to painting. Her face clouded, then twisted with hatred. “You lie!”
Summer collapsed back, huddling like the chair would save her.
The knife slashed down through the canvas of the third painting. “No! No! No!” Miranda’s screaming sob echoed through the house.
Summer gave a small scream, and then clamped a hand over her mouth. There was something sick and fascinating about watching the woman shred her work in a frenzy of anger and hatred. She’d had the same feeling in San Francisco when she’d been painting crap. To see the emotion in action turned her stomach.
Survival instinct kicked in.
She bolted from the chair. Miranda’s focus was on the second painting—Mrs. Heigl’s—and she didn’t look Summer’s way. Summer ran straight to the front door, desperate to get out of the house.
She turned the lock, all the while sure Miranda would be moving behind ready to plunge that wicked knife into her back. The lock gave. She twisted the knob, and with a sob, flung the door open.
Two steps onto the porch, she plowed into Tom who pulled her to the side of
the doorway and behind him. Bret was on the other side, gun drawn.
She latched on to him, worked to slow her breathing which was escaping in short, choppy hiccups.
“You all right?” Tom’s free hand cradled her head.
She nodded, then stuttered. “Miranda. She’s got a big knife, and she’s slashing her paintings in the living room.”
“Go across the street to Mrs. Patch.”
She didn’t want to let go of him. She wanted to stay wrapped in his arms. Yet, Miranda was still a threat, if only to herself. So she stepped back and let him go.
“Be careful. She’s not right, in the head, I mean.”
Tom nodded, stroking her cheek, his eyes full of emotion.
The sound of angry weeping escalated. More ripping and tearing sent shivers down Summer’s spine.
“Request an ambulance, Bret.” Tom gave Summer a hard kiss. “Go across the street, Summer. I mean it. No matter what. Promise me.”
He was the cop. She was the painter. It was a promise easily given. “I promise, but be careful.”
Bret finished on the radio. “You ready?”
“Let’s do this thing,” Tom said, and went first through the door. It was everything and nothing like the movies. The move was tight, controlled, practiced, but dramatic enough to make Summer’s heart pound.
“Miranda, I need you to put down the knife.” Tom’s voice rang with authority.
The tearing stopped, but the weeping turned to wails of utter wrecking pain.
Summer closed her eyes, trying to get control of her shaky emotions, but the vision of that big knife taking its first cut of destruction across a perfectly good painting made her snap them open again.
She started down the sidewalk. A police unit with flashing lights pulled up in front. A young man she didn’t know got out of the driver’s side and ran up the walk.
He stopped on the steps and looked at her. “You all right?”
“Yeah. Miranda Watson, with a knife,” she whispered. “She’s slashing her paintings. I think she’s had some kind of mental breakdown.”
The officer nodded. “Go wait on the back side of my car.” He pulled his gun and went through the doorway.
She walked around the police car, but didn’t stop. Tom had told her to go to Mrs. Patch’s, and she did.
Tears gathered in her eyes, then tightened her chest when she wouldn’t let them free.Don’t let them get hurt. Don’t let them get hurt. Don’t let them get hurt.
The ambulance arrived.
Mrs. Patch came out on her porch. Summer sat at the curb near her mailbox. The elderly woman came down the sidewalk and stood behind her. The neighborhood was unusually quiet, amplifying the sounds from her house.
The wailing stopped, and Summer heard grunting and groaning.
Something crashed.
Summer cringed, desperate to dash back across the street and look. Mrs. Patch settled a hand on her shoulder. “What happened, dear?”
She couldn’t answer. She could only stare at the door and pray.
“I’ve got her. All clear.”
Tom’s deep baritone made her sag. Thank God. Two more “clears” followed.
Summer’s stomach was rebelling, and she wasn’t sure she wouldn’t lean to the street and puke up her breakfast. Two truths slammed into her, one after another.
Tom got paid to confront whack jobs like Miranda all the time.
Oh, God help me. I’m crazy in love with the man.
She folded herself around her knees, trying to contain the surging mass of scared sitting in the middle of her chest.
“There, there, dear. Everything seems okay.” Mrs. Patch patted her shoulder.
She tightened control, one breath away from collapsing in a crying heap at the woman’s feet. Tom came to the door and signaled for the ambulance attendants. He paused to search for Summer. She tried for a half-smile to reassure him. She didn’t have any idea whether she succeeded, but he went back in the house.
He looked cop calm, and she was falling apart. She bit her lip, breaths coming in ragged gulps, her insides a raw blistering mass.
Leaving Tom was going to hurt a thousand times worse than leaving her grandfather.
She burned with the need to stay.
She desperately needed to go.
Before she fractured the best of what she was to make this work.
And so did he.
££££££
Summer knelt in the garden, her knees black with dirt. Her hands matched her knees, only there were paint-splotched streaks across her knuckles. She reached out for another weed and pulled, careful to leave the adjacent flower alone. Hopefully all she was pulling were the weeds. She didn’t really know. Not that it would matter. Her grandmother’s garden had survived years of neglect. It certainly would survive an uneducated gardener in its midst.
Besides, this was pure avoidance. It wouldn’t last long.
At some point, she’d get her nerve back and go in the house.
Fifteen minutes after the confrontation, Mrs. Patch had gone back inside.
Twenty minutes after, the ambulance pulled away, carrying Miranda off to God knows where. After that, the police left, including Tom. Although the ten minutes he’d taken to hold Summer close had soothed a few ragged edges. She sat on the porch. She sat on the bench near the birdbath. She drank from the hose. She watched cars pass and the afternoon fade. She’d gone back across the street and used Mrs. Patch’s bathroom. When she came back, she was determined to march up the steps and into the house.
Instead, she knelt in the garden and started pulling weed after weed after weed. She’d accumulated a substantial pile of debris and still had not found her guts. She might as well be thirteen and back in that alley, fighting to protect herself from the bully Miranda had been.
An engine sounded, and with disengaged interest, she turned to see who was arriving from where. An unfamiliar sedan parked at the curb.
Meg Applegate stepped from the car. Her khaki slacks and white shirt were pristine in comparison to Summer’s ratty attire, and Summer resented it. She was sticky and sweaty from the heat and wanted a shower. She wanted her bed, wanted to fall into total oblivion.
Meg walked across the lawn to her side. Summer kept pulling weeds, not acknowledging her presence. If she talked, she might break.
“Tom’s been trying to call.” Meg squatted next to her.
She cleared her throat, attempting a simple answer. “Cell phone is upstairs.”
Meg nodded and looked around the garden. “You okay?”
Summer chewed on her lip and yanked another weed. “Nope.”
“Tom said he’d be here in about thirty minutes. May I wait with you?”
“Fine.”
Much to Summer’s consternation, Meg sat in the dirt in her pretty khaki pants.
“There’s a bench over there,” she couldn’t help but say.
“Nope.” Meg crossed her legs. “Tom told me to stay close.”
She opened her mouth to argue, after all, she’d been alone all afternoon. Meg didn’t talk, though, and having her here was precious relief. Summer dug her hands into the dirt, clawing and sifting the clumpy earth, desperate to hold on to something that was constant and predictable.
Meg pulled her into a one-armed hug and reached through the soil to grip her hand. “I’m sorry it took so long for Tom to catch up with me,” she whispered.
Summer shrugged. A ball the size of endless tears sat in the back of her throat fighting to be released. “I’m all right.”
Thank God, Meg didn’t believe her.
££££££
Tom swore when the traffic light turned red. There were only two between the police station and Summer’s house, and he gotten stopped by both. He’d told Meg thirty minutes when he’d called her, desperate because Summer hadn’t answered her phone since he’d left. His timing was off by two hours. Two hours since Meg had texted she was at the house, and Summer was not doing well.
/> And he wasn’t there to hold her, soothe her, reassure her.
Nice way to convince the woman that they could make their lives together work.
For the first time in his life, he resented being a cop. He resented the responsibility. He resented Miranda Watson, and cramming his ire was taking every degree of professional and personal self-control he had. Reports had to be finished and filed. Miranda had to be charged and put before the judge so she could be remanded to a psychiatric hospital. A warrant was executed and her house searched. As the lead detective, he had to be there for all of it.
He wasn’t looking forward to sharing any of the information he now had with Summer, but he needed to. News had a way of streaking through the gossip channels in a small town. He wanted her hearing the truth from him.
His phone beeped. The light was still red, so he reached over to read the text message. “She won’t go in the house.”
His heart squeezed, aching for her. Finally, the light changed. He stepped on the gas and managed the rest of the drive to her house without any stops. He pulled into the driveway and parked.
Summer and Meg were sitting on the bench in the yard. Both were dirty. A wheelbarrow full of weeds sat near the garden with a rake leaning against the edge. He didn’t even pretend to understand what had possessed her to decide to garden.
He got out of his truck and walked across the lawn. She saw him coming, but didn’t move out of her seat. So many emotions crowded her eyes that he didn’t hesitate. He went down on his knees in front of her and cupped her face in his hands. “I’m here. I’m so sorry that took so long, baby. I’m here.”
A tear slid down her cheek. “Is she in jail?”
“Yes, and being transferred to a psychiatric hospital in Dallas.”
She sniffed.
He kissed her lips.
He thought it was a good sign when she kissed him back. He pulled her to her feet and wrapped her in his arms, where he’d longed to have her all afternoon. She burrowed her face against his chest.
“Thanks, Meg. Sorry that took so long.” He looked over at his sister, and she had tears in her eyes, too.
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