Unbreak My Heart

by Teresa Hill

  All of a sudden she felt so empty, so heart-wrenchingly empty inside. Beneath all the anger, all the pain, there was nothing, no one who cared, no one who mattered.

  There hadn't been for so long, and now Stephen was here. Stephen whom she wanted so badly to take the loneliness away.

  But he hadn't been honest with her. It had nearly taken her breath away. How much it hurt. How it felt to think so briefly that she had someone on her side and then have that yanked away.

  She remembered that feeling so well from when she was a little girl. Her sister gone. Her father. Her life turned upside down. It seemed smart to her, under those circumstances, to simply refuse to let herself depend on anyone after that. Therapists could call it anything they wanted. To her it seemed smart.

  And she'd forgotten that lesson with him.

  Allie got to her feet and said, "I really should go."

  "Wait. I picked up a few things for you." He handed her two business cards and a zoning pamphlet. "I'm afraid it's what I expected. The whole area's zoned for single-family housing. Anything else requires a variance from the zoning board."

  "I know. I stopped by town hall today," she said, handing the pamphlet back to him. "And the business cards?"

  "Two house inspectors. If you're seriously thinking of renovating that house, you need to have someone go over it carefully. Both those men have done business with me before. They're good."

  "You're going to let them talk me out of it for you?" she asked.

  "I just want you to go into this with your eyes wide open, Allie. They'll give you an honest assessment of the house."

  "You still think I'll give up, don't you? You think I'll change my mind."

  "I think a reasonable person would come around to my way of thinking on this."

  Allie just stood there gaping at him. Not sure whether to tell him that was one of the most arrogant things she'd ever heard or to thank him for reminding her why she didn't trust men or anyone else. He'd done it quickly after all. She should be grateful she hadn't fallen any further for him before she remembered why she shouldn't. And he'd reminded her of the shelter. The reason she was staying here. The reason she would go on.

  At one time Megan must have felt just as lonely as Allie did. There had to be other kids who did, as well, and Allie was going to help. She should be good at it, she realized. She was an expert in loneliness.

  "I need to go," she said again.

  "One more thing." He stopped her in the foyer, picked up a FedEx envelope lying on the table by the door. "That came this morning, and the driver thought your house was still empty. He came over here and asked, and I signed for it."

  She glanced at the address label. Greg Malone.

  "Trouble?" Stephen asked casually.

  She wasn't going to tell him, but then she wondered... What else did he know? What might she find out if she could catch him off balance in the least?

  "Police reports," she said. "On Megan's disappearance."

  He gave away nothing save for a slight tightening of his jaw. Damn.

  "What are you doing, Allie?"

  "Trying to find out what happened to her."

  "The police never knew what happened to her," he pointed out.

  "I'm looking for any information I can find."

  "From someone in Atlanta?"

  Allie nodded, liking being the one with information someone else wanted for a change. "I hired a private detective."

  "Why? And why someone from Atlanta?"

  She used his own technique on him, ignored his question, asking one of her own. "What do you know about the car accident that killed Megan?"

  "What's to know?" he said, questioning her again. "She was in Georgia somewhere, and her car skidded off the road in the middle of a bad thunderstorm. She drowned in a flooded creek that ran along the side of the road."

  "Did she?"

  "That's the second time you've asked me about the car accident. What's going on, Allie? Why are you asking questions about that accident now?"

  "Because someone else is."

  "Who?"

  "I don't know," she said, liking this even more. How many times had he told her he simply didn't know?

  "Tell me," Stephen insisted. "Tell me everything."

  She weighed the pros and cons of that, decided she wanted to know if he recognized the name Jason Getty, and told him a bit about the man's letter and his cryptic questions about the accident.

  "So you have someone using a made-up name, a fake address, asking the vaguest of questions and offering you nothing in the way of new information?" Stephen said.

  "At the moment," she bluffed. "But I just got here. Who's to say what I'm going to find out?"

  "Allie, listen to me. I never heard anything to indicate it was anything but an accident," he said.

  "Really?"

  Stephen swore and turned his head away. "I know I haven't given you reason to trust me. Not now. But I'm telling the truth about this, and I'm worried now. I think you need to be very careful."

  "Why? If there's nothing to this? If there's nothing to find out? What would I have to worry about?"

  "Think about the alternatives," he insisted. "If there's any truth to that letter, either someone's trying to tell you there are things you don't know about Megan's accident or that it wasn't an accident at all. If it wasn't an accident, if it was deliberate, there may well be someone else who'll be very unhappy about you looking into it after all this time."

  Allie shivered. Because it was true. Someone else was looking. And now she had something even more worrisome to think about. Someone looking and someone else trying to keep them both from finding out the truth.

  "Why would anyone ever want to hurt my sister?" she whispered.

  "I don't know," he said, the words carefully enunciated, one by one.

  "Neither do I," she said. "But I'm going to find out."

  * * *

  Furious, Stephen went straight for the phone. "Want to tell me about the accident, Dad?" he growled.

  "What accident?"

  "The one that killed Megan Bennett?"

  "What about it?" his father said.

  "You tell me. If I'm going to take care of this little situation for you, what do I need to know?"

  "She slid off the road and drowned," his father said. "What's to know?"

  Stephen didn't find that reassuring at all, and he no longer believed it, either.

  Chapter 7

  When Allie got home, she had the oddest sensation that she wasn't alone. She put the FedEx envelope and her keys on the table in the hall and stood there for a long time, not moving a muscle, just staring around her at the house that was making her crazy.

  Suddenly she could swear she heard footsteps moving quickly and quietly above her.

  "What?" she demanded of what appeared to be an empty house. "Am I supposed to run screaming from my own house? Is that what you want?"

  No one answered her. No one appeared. There were no voices. Just footsteps.

  Someone was moving around up there.

  Stephen's warning to be careful still echoed in Allie's mind, but this was different, as if someone was toying with her—the footsteps, the window left open, the little things that went bump in the night. It was like someone was playing a sick joke on her to drive her away.

  "Do you want me to leave!" she yelled up the steps. "I'm not leaving!"

  She still heard footsteps. She could call the police and get the hell out of the house until they came. But what if she was wrong? Half the town thought she was a ghost, thought her house was haunted and her father was a murderer. Now they'd think she was crazy, as well. She felt half-crazy since she came here. Little Allie Bennett, who didn't know why she left, didn't know what happened while she lived here, who needed to ask total strangers the most basic questions about her own life. It made her feel like a freak, and she hated it.

  Allie dug in the hall closet, remembering the baseball bat she'd seen there the other day. She fo
und it and rushed up the stairs before she could even think of how much she hated going up there. She glanced nervously at the bedroom doors, all closed. She heard nothing.

  She paused, looking up. On the third floor was a big, open attic room. From the top-floor windows, she would be able to see forever, to the tops of trees, down the river, across the fields, all the way to town. She and Megan used to play there. Being able to see so much seemed like a good idea at the moment.

  Allie went to the next set of stairs. Dust flew as she went, swirling around her and tickling her nose, the particles dancing on beams of light coming from the window at the end of the hall.

  Then she saw the footprints.

  Her heart lurched in her chest as she knelt down for a closer look. The stairs were thick with dust, the impression of footsteps clear. Someone had gone up those stairs. How recently? Mr. Webster said someone walked through the house once a month to make sure everything was in order. The footprints could have been made by that person.

  Or they could have been made moments ago.

  Allie put her foot on the step, shifted all her weight onto that spot, then stepped back and examined the impression her foot left in the dust. She couldn't tell anything for sure in the dim light, and all the noises had ceased.

  She walked back to the top of the main staircase, took two steps down, then sat there, leaning against the wall, the position giving her a clear view of the main hallway and most of the upstairs. The house was making her crazy. Being in this town was making her crazy. And it had taken her being convinced there was an intruder in the house to get her up these stairs.

  Her bedroom was fifteen feet away. For two nights now, she'd been a flight of stairs away. Yet she hadn't found the courage to take those final steps. She'd come here for answers, yet all she'd done was clean out the kitchen. How much more impersonal a spot could she have chosen to start?

  She leaned her head against the wall and took deep breaths, trying to make them even and smooth and slow, and she was still trembling. A part of her, the braver part, wanted to say that was just too damned bad. Poor little Allie was afraid again. Time to run away and hide, until the scary parts were over.

  God, she hated herself for the coward she'd always been.

  She sat there thinking until the doorbell rang, scaring her all over again.

  Opening the door, she found an overgrown boy. All arms and legs, he seemed to tower over her, although judging from his face, she suspected he was only sixteen or so. He was wearing oversize jeans, the kind that were so much in fashion, a baggy sweatshirt, hair that probably hadn't been combed in a week, and a wary smile. Oddly, there was something familiar about him, although there was no way she could have known him.

  "Hi," she said, because he hadn't said a word.

  "Hi. My name's Casey," he mumbled shyly, then nodded off to the right. "I live down the street. I heard you're doing some work on the house, and I was wondering if there was anything I could do. Work in the yard, maybe? Or haul boxes and stuff? I'm really strong."

  He was tall, but she wasn't sure about the strong part. He looked like he needed a hot meal more than odd jobs, and he probably should have been in school. But Allie didn't make an issue of that.

  "I could probably use some help," she said, because she couldn't bear to turn him away if he was hungry. "Casey, you said?"

  "Yes, ma'am."

  "How old are you?"

  "Seventeen," he insisted.

  She didn't think she believed that. On impulse, she said, "I was going to make some coffee, maybe have a sandwich. Why don't you come inside, and we could talk about the job."

  "Great."

  He stepped inside. Allie closed the door and headed for the kitchen. Oddly, her friend Casey didn't need her to point out the way. He walked straight down the hallway and into the room ahead of her. He must have been here before, she realized, wondering if he'd been a friend of her father's. She offered him a seat on a stool by the counter, poured him a tall glass of milk, which he accepted with a nod. She poured one for herself, ready to forego the coffee, and gathered bread, cheese, sliced turkey, and mustard.

  "Can I interest you in a sandwich?" she asked, turning back to the gangly boy.

  His glass of milk was empty, she noted. Without saying anything, she got the milk out again and refilled his glass. He wouldn't look at her as she did it, his face turning a ruddy pink. He didn't want her to know how hungry he was.

  "Mustard or mayo?" she asked, because she didn't want him to have to ask for the sandwich he so obviously craved.

  "Either one's fine," he said, sipping the second glass of milk carefully.

  Intrigued, Allie turned back to her sandwich fixings. Keeping her back to him, she said casually, "What did you say your last name was?"

  "Adams," he said hesitantly.

  "And your parents' names?"

  "My mom's name's Patricia," he said.

  "And your father?"

  He shrugged. "Don't have one."

  Which meant what? That he was dead? Disinterested? That he'd disappeared? "Where did you say you lived?"

  "Two streets back," he said. "Dogwood Lane."

  She vaguely remembered Dogwood Lane. "Have you lived here long?"

  "No, ma'am."

  "I thought you might have known my father."

  Casey gazed back at her, his shaggy hair falling over his forehead, his dark brown eyes intent on her. "You really used to live here?"

  She nodded. "A long time ago."

  "I heard that around town, but people say all kinds o'things. They even say this house is haunted."

  "You want to know if my house is haunted, Casey?"

  He shrugged. "Everybody does."

  Allie handed him a plate with two sandwiches. His eyes grew wide at the sight, and that painful knot in her stomach intensified. She'd seen too many kids hurt in too many ways and trying to hide it at the shelter in Connecticut. Casey eyed the food warily, as if it might come with some strings attached, the notion even more painful to her.

  "Go ahead," she told him. "If you're going to work for me, you have to keep up your strength."

  He took one of the sandwiches and woofed it down. Three bites. It was gone. The second, he chewed deliberately slowly. She would feed him again, Allie decided, before she sent him home for the day. If he had a home to go to. She sat down on a stool beside him and sipped her glass of milk, thinking that he was the reason she wanted to turn this house into a runaway shelter. Not just for herself or for Megan, but for all the kids like him.

  It felt good just to be able to provide him with a meal. This was the kind of feeling that could keep her going for a long time. She'd remember it when she got discouraged thinking about silly little things like zoning laws and disgruntled neighbors and a lack of funds. Or about men she shouldn't trust.

  What she wanted to do was important. She couldn't forget that. If she did get discouraged, she'd think of this lost, hungry boy, and she wouldn't give up. Not until she'd done what she set out to do.

  Allie felt so much better. Committed. Determined. Powerful, even. She'd never felt powerful in her entire life. But she could do this. She could help this boy and others like him.

  "So," he said, when he finished eating, "you lived here when you were little?"

  "Yes. The house belonged to my parents."

  "Why'd you leave?"

  "I don't know," she said softly. "Tell me something, Casey. It hasn't been that long ago since you were nine. What do you remember about being that age?"

  "I dunno."

  "Help me out. My memories are so vague. I wonder sometimes if that's normal. What do you remember?"

  He looked uneasy, but started to talk. "We lived in Mobile. I played basketball. Got into trouble at school for talkin' too much and not payin' attention. Stuff like that. Why? What do you remember?"

  "This house. My parents. My sister—"

  "You had a sister?"

  She nodded. "Her name was Megan."


  "Did you guys... get along? Or fight? Or what?"

  Allie thought about it. "I suppose we got along all right. She was seven years older than I was, so she probably thought I was an awful pest, tagging along behind her, wanting to do everything she did. Do you have any brothers or sisters?"

  He shook his head back and forth, looking wary again.

  Tomorrow she was going to find out where her friend Casey lived and why no one had bothered to feed him today. For now, she wanted to keep him here, to see what else she could find out about him, and having him help her around the house seemed like the best way to do that.

  "Okay," she said, "if you still want to work for me, let's talk terms."

  * * *

  Allie decided to work on some much-needed maintenance in the yard while she had Casey's help. They put in six grueling hours, hardly making a dent in the job. Casey was indeed strong and a good worker. Allie paid him five dollars an hour, fed him once again, and then reluctantly let him go. She wanted to give him more than thirty dollars, but he argued that was a fair wage, and he promised to come back the next morning. She watched him cut through a neighbor's yard and disappear, wished she had the shelter up and running, so she could offer him a place to stay and so much more. For now, she had to be content with some food and a bit of money.

  When she came inside, hot and achy, she spotted the FedEx letter on the table where she'd left it earlier. Opening it, she flipped through the police reports, then found a letter from Greg.

  He said the records hadn't provided much new information, except for the name of the highway patrolman who investigated Megan's accident. That would be Greg's starting point. He was going to find the trooper, ask if he remembered anything that didn't make it into the written report, if he knew of anything suspicious about the accident.

  Allie glanced through the reports, finding them frustratingly brief and vague. Curiously, she found no mention of Stephen's role in her sister's disappearance, no mention of him being under suspicion in connection with her disappearance. She wondered if that was courtesy of his family name alone. Allie didn't think Stephen actually hurt her sister. But the omission made her wonder what else had been left out of the official report.