Love Inspired Suspense January 2014

by Shirlee McCoy

  He was relieved when Laney showed up, changed into her workout gear for the rest of the day’s training, cheeks still flushed petal pink from her exertions. “Ready to hit it hard?”

  The smile she flashed at them both disappeared rapidly. Looking behind him, Max saw Officer Chen striding through the arena.

  *

  Chen wore street clothes, and for that, Laney was grateful. At least he didn’t attract as many curious glances from the bystanders. Her father’s face pinched in anxiety. She realized he did not want her to reveal his debt to Ancho, but she knew if it came down to her father’s safety, she would swallow the risk and tell him everything.

  “Did you find the car?” she said eagerly.

  Chen held up a calming hand. “First off, the property is indeed owned and operated by Trevor Ancho. I confirmed that with him before I did my investigation. According to him, it’s left unattended most of the time as he’s moved on to other interests. I should add that he was cooperative and genial.”

  Genial. Right. “And?” She did not see in his face what she hoped for.

  “And I was on my way out there an hour after I hung up with you. It’s a good thing you told me about Chester. I brought a roast-beef sandwich,” Chen said with the ghost of a smile.

  Max stood motionless, eyes riveted on Chen. “Is it enough proof to corroborate Laney’s story? Can you arrest him?”

  Chen hesitated. “No.”

  “Why not?” Laney snapped. “What else can you possibly need?”

  “The car.” Chen gave her a hard look. “There was no Aston Martin or any other car in that room behind the shed. It was completely empty.”

  Laney heard a buzzing in her head. “How could it be empty? We saw a car, three of us, not more than a few hours ago. Max took a picture. Ancho must have moved it.”

  “Your picture shows the front end of a sports car, no plates showing, in a darkened area that could be anywhere. I spoke to the couple who live up the mountain, Chester’s owners. They didn’t notice anyone moving vehicles to and from the property.”

  “I can’t believe this,” Laney said. Her father squeezed her shoulder with a calming hand, but it did nothing to soothe her. “What can we do now? He wins at every heat.”

  The officer’s lips thinned into a hard line. “Let me lay this out straight for you. Trevor Ancho is clean, as far as I can tell. He’s got an alibi for the time you say you were abducted and he doesn’t own an Aston Martin. What’s more, he’s an excellent citizen who has helped out with plenty of civic causes and donations. He let me onto the property when he didn’t have to, and he’s been nothing but cooperative. Helped build the play structure in town that my kids enjoy. In other words…”

  “In other words,” Max broke in. “You think we’re making this all up to slander the guy. Why would we?”

  Chen shifted. “Maybe because Mr. Thompson here owes him money.”

  Laney heard her father gasp. “How did you know that?” she managed to say.

  “He told me he loaned your father a sum of money to help with your training costs, and Mr. Thompson has had difficulty paying it back. Ancho says he is perfectly willing to wait for repayment, so if these…” he gestured with his hands “…these accusations are in some way an attempt to escape the debt, you don’t have to worry.”

  “They’re not,” Laney almost shouted, drawing attention from three male skaters warming up on the ice. She lowered her voice. “They’re not accusations. Ancho loaned money to my father, and now he’s pressuring him to pay it back. He’s physically threatened both of us. Can’t you see that?”

  Her father’s face had gone ashen, his mouth partly open as he panted for breath. “It’s true, Officer. I borrowed money, and Ancho has been threatening me to repay. He’s a loan shark.”

  “At the present time, I see no evidence of that. No car, no witnesses who say that he’s threatened anyone, not one shred of evidence that he’s in the business of loaning out money. You’re the only one who seems to be in debt to him, as far as I can ascertain.”

  “He’s not who he pretends to be,” her father said, jaw clenched. “I should have said something earlier. It’s my fault.”

  “No, Dad. You tried to help.” She gripped his hand, which felt hot in her fingers. “So you’re saying there is nothing we can do here?”

  “I’m saying you need to take care of your own business and stop harassing Mr. Ancho before you wind up at the wrong end of a slander suit.” Chen gave them all a final look and walked away.

  “This is a nightmare,” Laney whispered. They went to the benches and sat. Max unzipped his duffel and handed Laney a bottle of water.

  “Drink,” he commanded. “You need to hydrate.”

  She chugged the water until it was half gone, handing some to her father, who was sweating in spite of the cool temperature. Ancho was genial and cooperative. Laney Thompson was a crazy person trying to slander him. What was happening? Her world was spinning out of control. She didn’t notice Tanya approach, skating up to the edge of the ice, ready for her own turn at a practice race.

  “Hey, Laney. Good race,” she said. “I…” Her words trailed off, mouth opened into an O of surprise.

  “What’s wrong?” Max said.

  She was staring into his open duffel bag, at the sharpening kit that Nolan had found. “How did you get my sharpening kit?”

  “It’s yours?” Max said.

  “Yeah, that’s my red tag around the handle. Keeps me from picking up the wrong one. It’s been missing for a while. Where did you find it?”

  Max looked at Laney, who could only manage a small nod.

  He cleared his throat. “A friend of ours found it in the junkyard, inside a white car, a car that might be the one that hit us.”

  Tanya’s face went pale, then flushed an unhealthy red. For a moment, Laney thought her legs might give out underneath her and send her down hard on the ice.

  She was wrong. Tanya remained standing, terror in her face.

  It was Laney’s father who grasped his shirtfront, gasping, and slid off the bench onto the concrete arena floor.

  SEVENTEEN

  Except for the colors of the hard-backed chairs and the bland watercolor prints on the wall, it could have been the same hospital where Max had spent so many months trying to stave off the inexorable march of his brother’s disease. His hands went to his pockets, the craving for paper and scissors strong. He forced his palms onto his lap.

  “Can I get you anything at all?” he asked.

  Laney did not stop pacing long enough to answer. “No, thank you.”

  Her tone, void of expression, chilled him. Though he wanted to stay silent, to shroud himself in a hush that would protect against the memories that rankled inside, he could not stand to see her that way.

  He got up and joined her as they walked the length of the corridor, considering what to say. He would not offer any of the meaningless platitudes that he’d heard so many times. Your father is going to be okay. He’s strong. We just have to keep a positive attitude.

  None of those had been true for Robby. And they might not be for Laney’s father. So what could he offer? How could he comfort?

  “I’ll be right back,” he said.

  She didn’t answer as he headed away, returning shortly and taking her hand to guide her to the chair next to him. “I want to show you something.”

  She sat, eyes dull and terrified, but watching him nonetheless.

  He took out the miniscissors he’d bought at the gift shop, though he’d had to purchase an entire travel sewing kit to get one. The cashier had been nice enough to give him the paper. The pain that he did not want to feel surged again in his heart, but he forced his fingers to work anyway. Carefully he folded the paper and started the series of precise cuts, each one bringing back a flash of his brother.

  “What did you make today, Max?”

  “A dog.”

  “That’s good. Make me a dinosaur next, okay?” said the
little boy, struggling to move against the net of tubes and monitors that kept him prisoner on the hospital bed.

  “What is it going to be?” Laney asked.

  He blinked hard. “You’ll see.”

  Robby would often ask the same.

  “What’s it gonna be, Max?”

  “You’ll see.”

  His fingers, it seemed, did not want to revisit those memories with each snip, yet he forced them to do the work, the silver blades dancing in and out of the fragile white paper. He cut and notched, the grief running silent and strong inside until he’d finished and handed her the tiny square.

  She opened it.

  A dinosaur. Her smile unfurled slowly like a sunrise. She peeked over the top of the paper at him, reaching out a finger to trap the single tear that he had not realized was there on his cheek.

  “My brother…” he croaked, and cleared his throat. “My brother liked dinosaurs.” He could not speak anymore.

  “Your precious brother.” She clung to his hand, eyes shimmering with emotion, and prayed for them both. He let the words trickle through his mind. Healing. Peace. Love so deep it transcended the earthly limits of life. Soothing and slowing, that tide of grief ebbed just enough to make it bearable.

  He squeezed her fingers. How was it possible that here in the hospital, where he was supposed to be comforting Laney, he found himself so profoundly eased in his own spirit? It was too much.

  He felt like running down the corridor and slamming out of those hospital doors. Instead, he stayed still, listening to her every word, her every breath, feeling his own heart break and mend itself together in an endless cycle carried on each syllable.

  When she was done, she kissed his cheek and looked again at the dinosaur, smiling as she fingered the slender neck and pointed tail.

  There was a sound of hurrying feet and he saw a stockier, darker version of Laney bearing down on them. Jen Thompson had arrived.

  Shamefully, he felt relieved to pocket his scissors and move discreetly away to allow them some private time. Jen and Laney embraced, crying, sharing bits and spurts of conversation in between the onslaught of emotion. He wished that his brother had lived, that they could have walked through life together like Laney and her sister. After Robby died, he’d decided not to walk, but to race through life alone. The choice had cost him more than he’d understood until just that moment.

  After a while, Laney wiped her face and they greeted Max.

  Jen gave him a hug. “Good to see you again, Max. Thanks for being here for my sister.”

  He realized, painful though it was, there was no place on earth he would choose to be except for right there. He offered to get them coffee or food, which they were in the process of declining when a doctor in green scrubs came out to deliver his report.

  Laney clutched Jen’s hand and then reached for his, her fingers rigid in his own.

  “Your father has had a heart attack,” the doctor said. He explained that there had been damage to the muscle, causing something called cardiogenic shock resulting in an insufficient blood flow throughout his body. “We’re treating him with blood thinners now and we’ll see if that stabilizes him.”

  “What if it doesn’t?” Laney whispered. “What then?”

  His tone was soothing. “We have confidence that it will. The next twenty-four hours will be a wait-and-see phase. You are welcome to stay with him for a while, but it’s best that he be allowed to rest undisturbed.”

  The doctor excused himself. Laney and Jen were escorted to Dan’s room by a nurse, Max following at a distance. He waited at the door while they went in, catching only a glimpse of Dan, pale and wearing an oxygen mask, eyes closed.

  The girls settled in next to him, one on either side, crooning softly to their father. Max’s own heart ached at the sight of their worried faces. Laney looked up and tiptoed over to him.

  “I’m going to stay here for a while.”

  “I know,” he said. “You have my number. Call me when you want me to pick you up or if there’s anything I can do for either one of you.”

  She nodded, suddenly embracing him in a tight hug that sent his heart racing.

  “Laney, I wish I could do something.”

  “You have, more than you know.” She paused, heaved out a sigh and detached herself. “We can talk about training later.”

  He nodded, stepping away. Training. Of course. Since he’d entered the hushed confines of the hospital, he’d forgotten that he was her trainer. Whatever had happened back in the hallway, whatever feelings had taken over, were safely secured in the dark place deep inside. “Take care, Laney.”

  She had already turned back to her father.

  Max drove slowly back to the arena, fingers drumming on the steering wheel. Without an athlete to put through the workout regimen, he was at a loss. Find something to do, something you can fix. The only thing that would seem to be of any help was to seek out Tanya and get to the bottom of the sharpening-kit mystery. The men’s team was training hard on the ice when he returned, but there were no women to be seen.

  Back at the weight room he found Jackie and Stan poring over binders full of racing information.

  “How’s Dan?” Stan asked, his forehead creased with concern.

  “He’s being treated for a heart attack. They aren’t sure about the extent of the problem yet.”

  Jackie nodded. “So terrible that it happened now, when she was so close.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “Was? Laney hasn’t dropped out of competition.”

  It was Jackie’s turn to look surprised. “I assumed, with how close she is to her father, that she couldn’t keep competing knowing he was in the hospital.”

  “Her father is the exact reason she won’t quit.”

  Stan closed his binder. “Did she say that, Max? Or are you making an assumption?”

  “I’m not the one assuming, you are.” Max felt a kindling of anger. “She won’t quit, so don’t ace her out of a spot just yet.”

  He strode out, trying to decipher his own feelings. Was he offended that they didn’t think she had the commitment to keep going? Or worried that deep down they were right? And at the bottom, the very core of his emotion, was the numbing fear that if she was done with racing, she was done with him, too. Tension bridling inside made him change into workout clothes for a run on the track. It would be good to clear his mind, and he’d have to pass right by the weight room, where he figured the women must be training.

  Tanya was riding on the stationary bike when he spotted her, thin freckled face frowning in concentration.

  Immediately she ducked her head and pretended not to see him.

  That’s not going to work, Tanya. I need some answers.

  *

  For an hour, Jen and Laney watched their father sleep, wiping his brow with a damp cloth and quietly asking each other unanswerable questions before they got down to the particulars.

  “Did you finish your finals?” Laney said, keeping her voice low.

  “Yes.” Jen broke into a smile. “Aced them.”

  Laney gave her a soft high five. “When do you need to be back?”

  “Not for a week. Dad timed his heart attack just right,” Jen said, mouth twisting in grief. She cleared her throat. “I’m going to stay here until you qualify for the team. Then we’ll play it by ear.”

  Laney sighed. “Jen, I’m not sure that’s going to happen. There are some things I need to tell you.” She launched into the whole story, interrupted twice by nurses coming to check vital signs on their father. When she was done, Jen’s eyes were wide.

  “I had no idea Dad was in such trouble. And you, too. What are we going to do?”

  Laney got up and prowled the room. “I think I should quit.” The words seemed to tear at her mouth as they left her lips. “Then the pressure is off. Dad can pay back the money when he can. Trevor’s got nothing to hold over him—there’s no risk of the committee booting me off because I’ll take myself out of it.”
r />   Her sister’s brown eyes glimmered and the room fell into silence broken only by the beep of monitors and the squeak of rubber-soled shoes on the corridor outside. “Laney, if you quit, Dad will never forgive himself.”

  “What choice is there?”

  “Only one,” she said, quietly, sitting stiff backed in the chair. “You’re going to race. Dad sacrificed everything to give us a chance at a normal life. He could be retired and spending his free time fishing at the cabin, but he kept up the business and borrowed that money so we could chase our dreams. If you quit, then he’s failed.”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “Yes, you are. Deep down, you don’t want to quit, do you?”

  She toyed with the window blinds.

  “Do you?” her sister said again.

  “No,” Laney admitted. “I don’t. I can win. I want to win.”

  “Of course. We had a terrible childhood, but living like that taught us not to quit. Dad always said it made us brighter, like fire does to gold and hardships do for our faith. Are you going to prove him right or wrong?”

  “It’s not just about me,” Laney groaned. “You are affected by my decision, too.”

  Jen got up and took Laney by the shoulders. “You’re right, so make sure that you don’t let us down by quitting.”

  The phone buzzed in Laney’s pocket and she excused herself to answer it in the corridor.

  “It’s Hugh Peterson. I need to talk to you, right away.”

  “I can’t,” Laney said, explaining about her father.

  Hugh blew out a breath. “I’m sorry about your dad, but I’ve got some information that will explain why Ancho’s been hounding you. We can nail him and get him off your father’s back for good. That should be the best medicine of all, shouldn’t it?”

  Laney’s heart ticked up a notch. “Tell me over the phone.”

  “Can’t right now. In an hour. My condo.” He rattled off an address.

  “Hugh, what is this about? I’m not going…” She realized she was talking to dead air.

  She looked up to find Jen standing in the doorway. “Is that about the situation with Dad?”