Love Inspired Suspense January 2014

by Shirlee McCoy

  She walked slowly over, and Max joined her. He hadn’t taken his eyes off her the entire morning.

  “We got attacked at your house,” Max said, by way of greeting.

  “No one told you to go in,” Peterson said. “Saw Ancho’s car come up the drive. I grabbed my papers and had time to get upstairs before he picked the lock and got in. I climbed out the window. You must have come along just after that.”

  “Unfortunately,” Laney said. “What did you find out?”

  “Someone we know and love happens to drive an Aston Martin.”

  “Who?”

  “Me,” Diane Morrison interjected, causing Laney to jump. None of them had noticed that she’d come up behind them. Beth stood next to her, hands folded across her chest.

  Peterson flinched. “Yes, you, Mrs. Morrison. And you were also in town two weeks ago, and during that stay you visited Trevor Ancho.”

  Diane stared at them, eyes sparking. “Of course I did. We’ve been friends for a long time.”

  Beth nodded. “True. They went to college together, didn’t you, Mom?”

  “Sure. And the answer to your next question is Salt Lake City. That’s where the Aston is. After I left here I drove it home and no, Trevor did not drive it anywhere because nobody operates that car except me.”

  Out of the corner of her eye, Laney noticed a security guard approaching with Jackie following close beside.

  “So it’s my turn now,” Diane said, noting the guard’s approach. “Before you get tossed out of here for sneaking into a closed practice. What gives you the right to pry into my life? Are you accusing me of something?”

  “Could be,” he said.

  She broke into a hard smile. “Excellent, because as my daughter and my three ex-husbands will tell you, there’s nothing I like more than a fight. If you are leveling an accusation, you’d better be absolutely sure about it because I have lawyers that will eat you for lunch, and I will watch every moment with complete enjoyment. Now, is there something else you wanted to know?”

  “Just one more thing,” Peterson said quietly. “This question is for Beth.”

  “Leave her out of it,” Diane snapped.

  “Sir,” the guard said, reaching the bottom of the steps. “You don’t have authorization to be in the arena right now.”

  Peterson leaned close. “What did Mommy give you for your sixteenth birthday?”

  Beth’s mouth opened then closed.

  “I’m going to have to escort you out, sir.” The guard took hold of Peterson’s arm. As he was led away, his gaze remained fixed on Beth.

  She stared back, mouth open, cheeks flushed.

  Diane took her wrist. “He’s a crackpot, kiddo. Put him out of your mind. Go suit up for ice work. Isn’t that what’s next, Jackie?”

  Jackie nodded and ushered Beth back toward the locker rooms.

  Diane glared at Max and Laney. “If Peterson’s private-eye shtick is some ploy of yours to distract Beth from her training, it’s not going to work.”

  Laney stiffened. “As Beth told me, there are ten spots on that team, and on race day they can belong to any one of us.”

  “To be perfectly honest, I don’t care who wins or loses except that Beth is going to be one of the winners and no accusations or muckraking is going to change that.” Diane lowered her voice. “I will bury anybody who gets in her way.”

  “Is that a threat, Diane?” A muscle in Max’s jaw throbbed. “Like maybe you cooked up a plan with Ancho to scare Laney into quitting?”

  “I don’t have to beat Laney outside the rink, Max, because Beth will take care of that on the ice.”

  “We’ll see,” he said.

  “Yes,” she murmured, a confident smile on her lips. “We will.”

  *

  Ice drills dragged for the first time in Max’s experience. Normally he relished each and every moment, and the practice was finished long before he’d like it to be. Now he couldn’t wait to get Laney through her practice so they could go somewhere safe and contact Peterson again. Finally she emerged from the changing room, hair wet from the shower.

  “Tired?”

  “Ready to drop,” she affirmed. “Let’s sit a minute.”

  After collapsing on a bench outside the arena, she called the hospital and was given an update. She put it on speakerphone so Max could hear. No change, and Jen had secured a hotel room five minutes from the hospital and rented a car. “I’m going to get a couple of hours of sleep before I shower and come back.”

  “It’s my turn to spend the night,” Laney started.

  “In my medical opinion, people who train hard all day need to have a minimum of six hours in their beds, not sprawled on a hospital chair.”

  “I concur,” Max put in.

  Laney sighed. “Okay, but I’m going to come visit before lights out if I can force my body to stay awake.”

  “How’d training go?”

  Laney shot a look at Max. “Interesting. We may have gotten some further helpful information from Peterson.” She promised to keep her sister apprised and clicked off.

  Max was staring at the mountains, which were painted in deep purple by the waning sun. “So Peterson figured out a connection between Diane and Ancho. Let’s say she’s lying and she convinced Ancho to loan money to Dan and put the muscle on him. She let Ancho borrow the Aston Martin for some reason. He goes nuts and sticks you in the trunk, then hides the car away so you can’t pin it on him. It still doesn’t prove she was involved in the accident four years ago.”

  “She wasn’t even in town during the trials, that I’m aware of, but maybe she hired Ancho to cover up for the driver.”

  Max knew she didn’t want to say it aloud so he did it for her. “Beth.”

  Laney shook her head. “No, it couldn’t be true. Beth would not leave me there.”

  “She was young. She panicked. Called her mom, who arranged for Ancho to make the white car disappear.”

  “Oh, no,” Laney said. “That’s what Peterson was getting at. Tanya told me that Diane had planned a big present to celebrate Beth’s birthday. You don’t suppose she bought her…”

  “A white car.”

  “Oh, Max,” Laney said, tears gathering in her eyes. “That’s what I remembered. The strange plates. They were the kind they put on new cars until you get the real ones.”

  He took her hand. “I’ll call Officer Chen,” Max said. He expected an argument from Laney, but he didn’t get one.

  “I can’t believe it’s true,” she whispered. “How could Beth leave us there?”

  “Because her mom told her to,” he said, squeezing her fingers.

  He listened a moment, then left a message on Chen’s voicemail about an urgent matter that needed a return call.

  “Come on. You need to eat something, and then I’ll take you to see your dad.”

  She stood and the tears let loose. He gathered her into his arms and rocked her back and forth, pressing a brief kiss to her mouth, wishing he could funnel all the tenderness that swirled inside him into her aching heart. “I’m sorry, Laney, but it’s time for the truth to come out.”

  She returned the kiss tentatively, then with a sense of need that took his breath away. Warm cascades of tenderness that he had never felt for any other woman flooded his body, mind and soul. Finally she pressed her face to his chest as if she could keep the world away for one more moment. Then she straightened, wiped her face and put on the expression he’d seen so many times.

  Go time.

  *

  Dan was partially awake, and alert enough to give Laney a smile, which seemed to infuse her with new vigor. As they returned to the truck, Officer Chen met them and insisted they go back inside the lobby to talk. Settled into green-covered chairs, screened from the quiet hallways by a massive potted tree, Max explained every detail, starting from their ill-advised visit to Peterson’s house and ending with their trackside confrontation with Diane.

  Chen listened in perfect stillness. “I
can check out the Aston registration and whether or not Diane Morrison purchased a white car in the past four years, but until you can put a person behind the wheel, it isn’t enough.”

  “What will be enough?” Max nearly shouted. “When Ancho kills Laney to keep her from placing Beth behind the wheel?”

  “Please don’t raise your voice. I can check out these leads, and we can start to ask questions, to reopen the case, but it would help if Laney could remember what happened that night.”

  Her eyes went wide. “I’ve tried so hard. It’s all starting to come back faster and faster. I’m going to remember it all. Soon.”

  “The sooner the better.”

  Max saw that there was something underneath the carefully neutral expression on Chen’s face. “You believe us, don’t you?”

  “I’m beginning to.”

  Finally. “Why?” Max said.

  “Because Hugh Peterson was killed an hour ago.”

  TWENTY-ONE

  Laney kept repeating the phrase over and over after Chen dismissed them with the promise to conduct a complete investigation.

  Because Hugh Peterson was killed an hour ago.

  How could that crabby, full-of-fire man be gone? His life had apparently ended when his car had slipped off the road and landed in a snow-clogged ravine ten miles from his house.

  Max held her close in the hallway outside her room. “It was no accident,” she breathed. “Ancho must have been watching, waiting for him to head back home.”

  “Or Diane called Ancho from the arena.”

  Laney’s insides went cold. “How could anyone end a life like that? Why? To cover for Beth? I don’t see why Ancho would do it.”

  “Because he’s connected with Diane somehow. Maybe he loves her or has a debt to repay.” Max rubbed her shoulders. “More than anything I think he just flat-out likes it. He enjoys the fact that he’s got the town hoodwinked about what kind of person he really is.”

  “What’s going to happen, Max?” she said, pulling away so she could look into his face.

  “Ancho and Diane are going to know pretty quick that the police are poking around. I’m sure they’ll both be questioned. They’d be fools to try anything else.”

  “What can I do? I feel responsible. Peterson got into this to find out the truth about our accident.”

  “That’s for the police to ferret out. We’re not putting ourselves in any more dangerous situations. All you need to do is focus on racing and your father’s recovery.”

  She wanted to insert herself back into his embrace, to feel his strong arms around her that kept the bad things away, but he had already reached for the doorknob. “Keep your door locked and don’t leave your room until I come and get you in the morning. I’ve talked to security and they are doubling their patrols at night until things are resolved. Outer doors are all locked. Let me come in and check your room just to ease my own mind.”

  The room was the same way she’d left it. Cubby mewled his displeasure at her tardiness, and she picked him up, talking sweetly into his ear until he squirmed to be put down. Max checked the bathroom and made sure the window was locked. He returned, staring at her with strange intensity.

  “Max, you don’t really think Ancho would come here, do you?”

  “I absolutely do.” He came close, putting his hands on her shoulders and looking as though he was going to kiss her again. She found herself yearning for him to do so, and her pulse fluttered for a moment until he stepped away. “Stay safe, Laney. You’ve got a race to run.”

  “No, I’ve got a race to win,” she corrected.

  He smiled, and she almost believed in that moment that that there could be a future in those blue eyes, the tired face, the wounded spirit that had carried such a burden for so many years.

  “You have the heart of a lion,” he said. “Maybe if I’d had…”

  “Had what?”

  He looked down. “I’ve been thinking I gave up too soon. Let myself get hardened inside and rooted in what I’ve lost.”

  She held her breath, not wanting to break the fragile thread of connection. “I know it was not easy for you to make me that little paper dinosaur. It brought back the grief you felt for your brother, and I know you did it for me.”

  He sighed. “I would do anything for you,” he said, looking at her with such intensity his eyes blazed. “And that means coaching you to the finish line.”

  Something in the words saddened her. Was it still about that finish line? “What will you do, Max? After I get there, I mean.”

  They both knew if she did earn a slot, most of her coaching and training would be taken over by the U.S. team staff.

  “One thing at a time, Laney, but you know wherever you’re training, I’ll be your biggest fan, even when I’m not there with you.”

  She nodded, unable to trust herself with words. Even when I’m not there with you.

  He wished her good-night and waited outside in the hallway until she slid the bolt home.

  The finish line. She felt as if she was closer than she’d ever been, but it would require an incredible effort to keep away thoughts of her father, Ancho and Diane. She prayed for a while, checked in with Jen and then listened to music on her iPod. At long last she put on her sweats and lay down. The morning would come soon enough. Somehow things never seemed as dire when the sun was shining. Still, she was glad for her night-light, which spread a tiny comforting glow in the darkness.

  She was startled awake later. Had it been an hour? A few minutes? She was not sure. Blinking, she sat up trying to identify what had happened. It was three o’clock in the morning, her little travel clock told her. Her phone showed no evidence of a text or email. Bad dream? Possibly, but she could not remember what it might have been about.

  Trying to force her brain to picture the driver of the white car had not helped at all. The memory remained stubbornly sequestered. It simply could not be Beth, not the girl she’d known for years, her teammate and compatriot. Sure, Beth was catty and man crazy, but she’d also offered to get Laney a new trainer and loan her some skates.

  Laney got up and checked the door. Still locked. Chiding herself for paranoia, she went to the tiny dorm-size refrigerator and helped herself to orange juice. As she raised the cup to her lips, a shadow reflected off the glass and she realized with a flash of horror that she was not alone.

  *

  When his phone buzzed, Max put down the Winston Churchill biography he’d spent the past four hours trying to read. Part of him hoped it was a sleepless Laney so he could reassure himself with the sound of her voice. The other part, the trainer’s part, wanted her to be getting a solid seven hours before the last day of serious training was to start.

  “Max, it’s Tanya.”

  He straightened. “Are you all right?”

  “Sure.”

  He waited, but she did not continue. “It’s pretty late.”

  “I know, but I heard what happened to Mr. Peterson and I can’t get it out of my mind. I think I should tell you about the skates.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “I don’t want to be overheard talking or I’ll be in trouble for breaking curfew. Can you meet me at the bridge?”

  He should advise her against going out after curfew, but he had a profound sense that he needed to hear what she had to say. Immediately.

  “On my way. Keep talking to me as we walk so I can make sure you’re safe.”

  Her hurried breaths indicated she was nervous, the squeak of what he assumed to be the door sounded softly as she let herself out. He made out her figure slipping through the night and in a few minutes she was there.

  “Go ahead, I’m listening.”

  She sucked in a deep breath and hunched into the jacket she’d thrown over her pajamas. “That day, right before we raced, I thought I saw…”

  Seconds ticked by. “Tell me, Tanya, it’s important.”

  “I thought I saw someone messing around in Laney’s gear, but it was dark and I might have been mi
staken.”

  “Who?”

  “What if I’m wrong, Max? I could ruin a reputation and get myself involved with untrue accusations. My own skating career might be over.”

  He forced a breath in and out, keeping his tone level by sheer will. “Please, Tanya. Hugh Peterson is dead and Laney might be next.”

  There was a long pause.

  “I saw Jackie Brewster with her hand in Laney’s bag.”

  Disbelief dumbed his senses as the name circled thickly in his mind. “Jackie? Why would she do that?”

  “I don’t know. That’s why I figured I must have been mistaken.” Tanya chewed her lip. “Why would Beth’s coach mess with Laney’s skates?”

  Because she was covering for her athlete, the girl she’d allowed to leave the scene of the accident. Beth had driven away and Jackie knew it.

  “She grabbed the skate after the race and hid it. Later she gave it to Ancho to get rid of, and I stopped him before he tossed it in the lake.”

  Tanya’s face shone white in the darkness. “She could have killed Laney by messing with her skates, or another racer if she spun out of control.”

  Max’s stomach dropped to the snow. Or she could be going after an unaware Laney right now.

  He grabbed his phone and dialed Laney’s number. If she read him the riot act for awakening her, it would be balm to his ears. The phone went to voicemail. Perhaps she was sound asleep and didn’t hear it. With her father in the hospital? He knew she’d be sleeping with the phone nearby. He took off at a hard sprint, heedless of Tanya, who gave a cry of surprise as he bolted past her.

  Laney. Her sweet smile filled his consciousness. She would let Jackie in, of course, because she refused to see the worst in people. It was something very precious and God breathed, but at that moment it might condemn her to death. He could see the curtained window of her room, second from the end of the hallway. No light showed through the heavy fabric.

  He pounded up the walkway, fumbling for his pass key. A hand reached out and stopped him.

  “Problem, sir?” the security guard asked.

  “I’ve got to get in,” Max panted. “There could be someone after Laney Thompson.”