Healing Her Spirit (Serenity Springs Book 2)

by Sullivan, Dawn

  “Holy shit,” Caiden muttered from where he stood. “I had no idea Ethan was sick. Lacey’s been going through all of this by herself? Doesn’t she have any family or friends to help her?”

  Glancing back at him, Clint said, “Ethan’s father refuses to have anything to do with him. Lacey’s mother is dead. She never knew her father. Her brother turned out to be a piece of shit.” Shaking his head in frustration, Clint growled, “The only person she has is me, but trust me, that’s enough.” Pointing a finger in Justice’s direction he ordered, “You get your shit together, Justice Caldwell. Be the man I used to know, instead of the sorry excuse of one standing in front of me now.”

  Without waiting for a response, Clint left the barn and got in his truck. He couldn’t stay there any longer without going after Justice again. That mean, bitter man was not the friend he used to know. The old Justice would have welcomed Lacey and Ethan with open arms. What had happened to him to make him the person he had become?

  Chapter 14

  Lacey hung up the phone with Dr. Adams’s office and slipped an arm around Ethan’s shoulders to cuddle him closer. “I’m okay, Mom,” he said for the third time. “I’m just kind of tired.”

  “I know, Sweetheart,” Lacey murmured as she held him close. “I just want to get some tests run just to make sure.”

  Ethan sighed, “I don’t like tests, Mom. Some of them hurt.”

  “I know, baby,” she whispered, “I’m so sorry.” She hated hurting him, but she needed to make sure the cancer wasn’t back. “I need to make another phone call real quick, alright Ethan?” When he nodded, but kept his eyes trained on the television, Lacey gave him one more quick hug before rising and walking into the kitchen.

  Dialing the number to Ethan’s old doctor’s office, she waited for the receptionist to answer. When someone finally did, Lacey asked, “Can I please speak to Dr. Forbes? This is Lacey Donovan.” Despite the doctor’s request, Lacey had only called him a handful of times after they first moved to Serenity Springs. There was never anything new to report so she did not feel the need to call constantly. She did regret not keeping in touch with Miriam. She missed their weekly chats.

  “I’m sorry, Ms. Donovan, but Dr. Forbes is out of the office right now. Can someone else help you?”

  “No, I need to talk to him,” Lacey replied. “Can you please have him call me when he returns?”

  “I’m not sure when that will be,” the nurse responded as another line started ringing in the background. “He took an extended leave of absence to spend time with his wife. I believe they were going out of the country on vacation.” The phone started ringing again and the receptionist said “I’m sorry, Ma’am, I need to get that. Was there anything else you needed?”

  “No, no that’s it,” Lacey murmured in confusion. Why would Michael and Miriam go on vacation for an extended period of time without telling her? Granted, she had not checked in with them for a couple of months, but Michael was still Ethan’s cancer specialist and he had been the one to insist she keep in contact. It just did not make sense.

  Thanking the nurse, Lacey ended the call and quickly dialed the Forbes’s home number. After several rings, their answering machine picked up, but when she tried to leave a message, it said the message box was full. Worried something was wrong, Lacey dialed Miriam’s cell, but it went straight to voice mail. Her brows furrowing, she tried Michael’s cell, but it also went straight to voice mail.

  Sitting down at the kitchen table, Lacey set her cell phone down and contemplated what to do next. None of it made sense. She was sure they would not have gone on that long of a vacation out of the country without contacting her first. Tapping a finger on the table, she finally came to a decision. Dialing the police station in her old city, she waited several moments before someone answered. “Can I speak with Detective Flannigan, please?” she asked. “Let him know it is Lacey Donovan.” Lacey did not have many friends back home, but she considered Chance Flannigan one of them. She had worked with the detective on a few things in the past and their business relationship had turned to friendship quickly. She both liked and respected Chance, and she knew she could trust him.

  “Flannigan here,” she heard through the line. The rough, familiar voice brought a smile to her face..

  Finally, Lacey thought, someone who could help her. “Hey, Chance,” she said as she squeezed the phone tighter, “it’s Lacey. I need a favor.”

  “Anything for you, beautiful,” he quipped, and she could hear the grin in his voice. Chance was a flirt, but that was it. He never took it any further. He was focused on his career and did not want a relationship to get in the way of his goals. Lacey also suspected he’d had his heart broken in the past, but she had never asked.

  “I’m trying to get a hold of some friends of mine, but I can’t seem to track them down,” she said. After explaining the situation to him, she asked, “Is there any way you can help me? I’m really worried about them.”

  “I wouldn’t do this for anyone else, Lacey,” Chance responded, “but I was just heading out to get some lunch and their address isn’t too far from here. I’ll go see what I can find out.”

  “Thank you so much, Chance,” Lacey said. “I really appreciate it. I can’t do anything from this far away.”

  “No problem, Lacey. I’ll call you back when I find out something.”

  Looking at the clock, Lacey saw that she still had a couple of hours before lunchtime, so she decided to rest with Ethan on the couch. As she rose from the table, there was a knock on her front door. Smiling brightly at the thought of seeing Clint again, Lacey checked on Ethan before going to answer the door. Opening it, the smile froze on her face. Frowning, she asked, “What are you doing here? I’ve been…” before she could get anymore out, she felt a sharp prick in her neck and she gasped. Staring at him in betrayal, she breathed, “It was you. You killed those women,” just before she fell to the floor.

  Chapter 15

  Clint knocked on the door for a third time, but again there was no answer. Where the hell was Lacey? She was supposed to be there waiting for him. Trying the doorknob, he was surprised when it turned easily and he opened the door. “Lacey,” he called out before stepping inside and shutting the door behind him. “Lacey, are you ready for lunch?” Still no answer.

  Stepping forward, Clint stiffened when his foot connected with Lacey’s cell phone and sent it skidding across the hardwood floor. Closing the distance between himself and the phone quickly, he bent to pick it up. Glancing into the living room, his heart sped up when he saw the overturned coffee table. Running through the house, he called for Lacey and Ethan, but there was no response. Clutching Lacey’s cell phone tightly in his hand, he pulled his own phone out and dialed Creed’s cell. The minute Creed picked up, Clint was talking. “I’m at Lacey’s house, Creed. You need to get over here now. Someone took both Lacey and Ethan. They’re gone!”

  “Slow down, Clint,” Creed told him. “How do you know they didn’t just go to lunch or something?”

  Looking around the house and spotting Lacey’s purse on the counter where she had placed it the night before, he whispered, “Trust me, Creed, someone has them.”

  “I’m on my way,” Creed promised. Clint could hear him yelling at someone in the background and then he came back on the line. “Jace and Cody are in the area. They will be there in five minutes. Katy and I will be there within ten.”

  Clint disconnected the call and went to wait impatiently on the front porch. He wasn’t a cop, but he knew enough to know that he should not mess with anything inside the house, because somewhere there could be some kind of evidence leading them to whoever had taken Lacey. A cop car pulled into the driveway in just under five minutes. No sooner had the deputies gotten out of their car and made their way to where Clint stood, then Creed and Katy pulled in the driveway. Clint waited for them all to make their way to him before opening the front door and gesturing inside. “The house was silent when I got here. I knocked
three times. Lacey was supposed to be waiting for me so we could decide what to do for lunch,” he explained. “I know she would not have gone anywhere without me because Ethan was sick last night and she wanted to keep him inside today. Not only that, but her purse is still on the kitchen counter.” Handing Lacey’s phone to Katy, he continued, “I accidentally kicked this when I let myself into her house. It was on the floor just inside the doorway. Also, the coffee table in the living room has been knocked over. That’s all I can find here. I’ve looked all over the house.”

  Clint heard a car door slam and glanced hopefully out the front door. Ryder, Justice, and Caiden were coming toward them. “What are they doing here?” he growled.

  “I called Ryder,” Katy told him. “He’s a deputy now, and we need him.” Looking at her other brothers, she shrugged, “I have no idea why the other two are here.”

  “We are here because Lacey is family,” Caiden said as he took the porch steps two at a time. “Fill us in.”

  Clint didn’t give a shit who was there or why, he just wanted Lacey and Ethan back. He had just finished explaining everything again when Lacey’s cell phone rang. Raising an eyebrow, Katy answered it on speaker phone, “Hello.”

  “Lacey?” a male voice questioned gruffly. “Is that you? We got a problem here, girl.”

  “No, this is not Lacey,” Katy replied tersely. “This is Deputy Katy Caldwell with the Serenity Springs Police Department.” There was a brief silence and then the voice on the other line started cussing a blue streak.

  “Who the hell is this?” Creed demanded loudly, interrupting the man. “I have an investigation going on here, and if you know anything about it, you better talk.”

  “Fuck,” the man growled. “This is Detective Chance Flannigan. I’m a friend of Lacey’s. She called me a couple of hours ago and asked me to look in on some friends of hers here in Nebraska because she couldn’t get a hold of them. A Dr. Michael Forbes and his wife, Miriam. I took an early lunch and stopped by their house. No one answered the door, but I had a gut feeling that something wasn’t right. Long story short, we found probable cause and were able to get in the house. Miriam Forbes was tied up on the floor in the basement and looked like she’d been there for a while. The poor woman was tortured and killed. We found no sign of Michael Forbes.”

  Looking up at them, Creed snarled, “I know where the son of a bitch is. He’s terrorizing my town, and now he has Lacey and her son. Do you have any idea how we can find this bastard?”

  “I don’t,” Chance responded, and they could hear yelling in the background. “Look, I have to go take care of this mess here. I’ll call you back if I come up with anything.” There was a pause and then, “Please keep me informed. Lacey is a friend of mine. I would be on my way there to help if I didn’t have this to deal with.”

  Ending the call, Creed looked around the room. “Jace, get the forensic kits out and go over this place with a fine-tooth comb,” he ordered roughly. “Katy and Ryder, he has to have somewhere he is staying while he is stalking our town. We didn’t know who we were looking for before, now we do. Get a picture of the guy. He’s a doctor. He will be on the Internet. Find him. Go to all the hotels, bed and breakfasts, any place you can think of within a fifty mile radius, and see if anyone has seen him. Justice and Caiden, start walking the streets in town with a picture. Find out if he’s been seen around here. I don’t give a fuck who knows what we are doing. Find him,” Creed ordered. “Cody, you are with me. We will check all of the abandoned areas we can think of. He had to have taken them somewhere.”

  “What about me?” Clint asked hoarsely. “I have to do something, Creed.”

  “I need you here,” Creed told him, clapping a hand on his shoulder. “I know you hate that, but someone needs to be here just in case she makes contact on the home phone.”

  “Jace is here for that,” Clint protested. He knew he was being unreasonable, but he could not help it. He needed to be doing something. Anything.

  “I can’t have you out there, Clint,” Creed said quietly. “Stay here.”

  Swallowing hard, Clint nodded in agreement and left them to wander into Ethan’s room. Sitting on the child’s bed, Clint lowered his head and began to pray. Ethan may not be his son by blood, but he had loved that little boy for months. In his heart, Ethan was his. Finally raising his head, Clint reached out and picked up Ethan’s light blue blanket that Lacey said he insisted on sleeping with. Holding it close to him, Clint froze when he heard a soft whimper. Clint waited impatiently as he strained to hear it again. There! Jumping up, Clint ran to Ethan’s closet and yanked open the door. Dropping to his knees, he pulled the little boy hiding all of the way in the back of the closet out and into his arms. Rocking him back and forth, Clint let the tears fall unchecked down his cheeks. “I’ve got you, little man,” he whispered as he held Ethan close. “You’re safe now. I’m here.”

  Ethan sobbed loudly as his little arms encircled Clint’s neck. “Mommy,” he cried, “Dr. Forbes took her and he’s going to hurt her.”

  Rubbing a hand soothingly up and down Ethan’s back, Clint told him, “We are going to find her, Ethan. I promise.”

  “Thank God,” Katy said from the doorway. Clint glanced in her direction and was not surprised to see her brothers crowded behind her. As they filled Ethan’s bedroom, Clint lifted the boy up and carried him over to the rocking chair by his bed. Sitting down, he cuddled Ethan close as he asked softly, “Do you have any idea where Dr. Forbes took your mommy, Ethan? Did you hear anything?”

  Ethan scrubbed at his tears with his little fists before answering haltingly, “I don’t know. I got scared when I saw Mommy fall down. I ran and hid behind the couch. He was yelling for me and was mad, but I stayed really quiet. When he picked Mommy up and carried her out the door, I watched him take her into the woods, but I was afraid he would come back. I hid in my closet like Mommy said I should if a bad person ever came to our house.”

  Clint’s gaze flew to Creed’s. The bastard had taken Lacey into the woods, which meant they had gone out the back door. Lacey’s property backed up against the tree line. Clint wasn’t very familiar with the neighborhood Lacey lived in, so he had no idea where the man could be headed.

  “Get out back,” Creed ordered immediately, as he scanned the wooded area from the window in Ethan’s room. “Find me something to go off of. Now!”

  Chapter 16

  Lacey moaned softly as she struggled to open her eyes. Her mind was sluggish and her whole body ached. It felt as if she was lying on pavement, and she briefly wondered if she had been in a car accident. A lock of her hair fell into her eyes when she turned her head, but when she tried to reach up and brush it back, she found she could not move. Something was tied around her wrists holding her in place. She tried again and again to move, but could not.

  Terrified, she finally managed to pry one eye open and stiffened in shock at the sight of the dirty cement wall in front of her. She fought to open both eyes, and finally managed it just as she heard a male voice say, “Don’t worry, my love, everything will be alright soon. I promise.”

  She knew that voice. It belonged to someone she had spoken to several times a week when she lived in Nebraska. Except, she had never heard him use the slightly crazy tone she was hearing right now. Lacey tried to raise her head, but lowered it back to the hard floor when pain sliced through the back of it. She had just barely glimpsed the small room she was in, along with some stairs, in the dim light from the one light bulb lit above her. “Don’t worry, Lacey,” he said as he reached out and ran a hand gently down her leg, “it is just a side effect of the drug I gave you. You will be fine soon. Then we can begin our time together; just you and me.”

  A shudder of revulsion ran through Lacey’s body at the feel of his hand on her. Block it out, she told herself. Block it out and keep him talking so someone could find her. Raising her head once again, Lacey fought through the pain enough to see she was in a very small cellar or basement. There
were shelves on all sides full of canned goods. The jars had layers of dirt on them and looked like they had been around for some time. The ropes holding her in place were tied to the legs of those heavy shelves. There was a set of stairs at her feet leading up to a wooden door and there was another door in the left corner. Her captor was sitting near her laying out something on a tarp. There was no sign of her son, and she prayed he had gotten away from the madman beside her. Tears filling her eyes, Lacey whispered, “Why, Michael? Why are you doing this?”

  “Because you are mine,” he said simply. “You left me, Lacey. You moved away and never called me. All for some guy you don’t even know.”

  “Justice is my brother, Michael,” Lacey protested. “I came here to find him, to get to know him.”

  “You should not have come at all!” Michael shouted. “I was taking care of you just fine. You don’t need Justice. You don’t need anyone but me!”

  “He’s family,” she argued. “I have been looking for him for years. I want him to be a part of our lives.”

  Lacey cried out in surprise as Michael smacked her hard across the face. Squinting through the pain, she was able to make out his form above her. She flinched at the pure evil in his gaze. Lacey had known Michael and his wife for years, but not once had she seen anything in the man that would have made her believe he was capable of the killings she was sure he was responsible for.

  Trying to reason with him, Lacey said, “Miriam wouldn’t want this, Michael. She loves you. I’m sure she is wondering where you are.” As soon as the words left her mouth, Lacey saw the gleam in Michael’s eyes and knew Miriam was not at home waiting for him.