Just For A Heartbeat (Piper Anderson Legacy Mystery Book 2)

by Danielle Stewart

  “I should have called Shep,” she said, biting nervously at her lip. “I just knew he’d be an ass about it, and I was hoping Ruby was somewhere with you. I should have called though, we should call now.”

  “No,” Patrick said, trying to get his bearings. “I texted Ruby this morning, and she was home. When did you talk to her last?”

  “Around ten I texted her and said I wanted to come by. I was hearing all these rumors of what happened with that killer guy, and I was worried about her. Why did you let her get involved in all of that? Why didn’t you take my advice? Does this have something to do with that?”

  “It can’t,” Patrick said, shaking his head as he pushed open the back door and looked for any sign of Ruby or what might have happened. “The guy is in jail; he’ll never see the light of day again. There’s no way this is connected. It has to have something to do with what happened to her before. Someone took her then, and they’ve taken her again.”

  “Patrick,” Stephanie said, pacing around and blinking away tears. “It’s not related to that. It can’t be.”

  “What?” Patrick asked, a heat rising in his face. The look in Stephanie’s eyes, a pained apologetic guilty stare set him on fire. “How can you know it’s not related?”

  “It just can’t be,” she repeated, wringing her hands nervously, looking like someone had wound her up like a toy and set her down. “There’s just no way.”

  Patrick closed in on Stephanie, his shoulders high, his chest bursting with anger. “What do you know about it? You know something.”

  “I don’t,” she argued, the lie showing plainly on her face. “Not for sure anyway. It’s just speculation.”

  “Then speculate out loud and make it quick. If you care about Ruby the way you say you do then now is the time to show it.” His finger was pointing angrily at Stephanie who flinched nervously.

  “I was at the party that night with almost everyone from school. People were talking a bunch of crap about Ruby and her parents. There was a rumor they were in Bangor, trying to convince the historical society to intervene again. This time they were arguing that Shep was purposefully targeting them and their property to make their living conditions toxic. They’d gotten parking tickets and fines about their landscaping and noise. It was all so petty, but neither side could seem to control themselves. It was all anyone talked about.”

  “And you just what? Joined in?”

  “No,” Stephanie argued adamantly. “I never said anything bad about Ruby or her family. Though I don’t understand why they didn’t just move on. What could be so important here on this stupid island to fight so long for?”

  “Who hurt Ruby?” Patrick asked, pressing before Stephanie could lose the thread of what she was supposed to divulge.

  “I don’t know for sure,” Stephanie cried again. “I don’t want to incriminate someone without any proof.”

  “Tell me now,” Patrick demanded. “Because the only thing worse than incriminating someone innocent is letting your friend be hurt while you do nothing.”

  “Wilson,” she breathed out. “He took off from the party all pissed off when he heard that her parents were back in Bangor. No one really noticed, but I did. I had this crush on him, and that night he was finally paying attention to me. Then I watched him slip away. When his dad and the other police officers they called in to investigate came around asking, Wilson said he was at the party all night. Various people backed him up. But I knew he had left. Even right after he took off I was worried that he was going to cause problems for Ruby, so I called his cell phone and sent a message to his pager saying to leave her alone.”

  “What about the boat and the place he took her? How would he have managed all that?” Patrick felt skeptical that some kid, angry about a local drama would have the means to pull off any kind of kidnapping.

  “Wilson was a thief. He got off on it. Anything from a lighter at the corner store to boats. If he wanted something he took it. He could have gotten his hands on a boat that night if he set his mind to it.” Stephanie was fidgeting nervously again as she bent down to pick up a roll of film that had been knocked off the table. “But there is no way he’d do this. He was a kid back then, just doing something stupid. That was a long time ago. He’s a veteran, he’s been deployed twice, he’s a good man.”

  “A man who seems to take insulting his father personally. He was ready for a fist fight at a crime scene yesterday. Took a good punch from me. That could be motive to take Ruby again.”

  “He wouldn’t,” Stephanie said, pleading for Patrick to believe her. “I know him. I know him very well. He doesn’t like Ruby, but he wouldn’t hurt her.”

  “You know him very well? You two are involved?” Patrick accused.

  “It’s not like that.”

  “There was a chance he could have been involved with Ruby’s abduction years ago, and not only did you not say anything you allowed yourself to be close with him? You allowed Ruby to be called a liar and crazy?”

  “You don’t understand how things were,” Stephanie argued. “Her parents were making so much trouble for everyone. It was boiling over. She made it worse for herself all the time. I tried to help her. I tried to get her to be normal. And when she couldn’t I kept coming, I kept helping her here.”

  “Where would he take her?” Patrick asked, his voice gritty and full of nails.

  “He wouldn’t,” Stephanie echoed again. “We should call Shep and report her missing. He can call in other officers. They’ll find her. Maybe she just got upset because of yesterday. She could have thrown this stuff around and ran off.”

  “If you pick up that phone and call Shep you are as guilty as any of them. Tell me where he would take her.” Patrick knew the island on a very superficial level. He spent time on the main strip, his own cabin, and down by the pier. But for kids who grew up here there were ample locations that were still secluded enough to get away with something. “Tell me.”

  “There’s a small dock out past the lighthouse. You can’t get there by car. You have to park by the old toll shack then walk through heavy brush for almost a mile. The dunes are steep, and it’s hard to make your way to the water. When he used to sell pills he’d hide them down there. The water is deep enough for a good-sized boat to dock.”

  “Draw me a map,” he said, digging some paper and pen out of the desk. “If he has her, if he’s tormenting her again, I’ll murder him. I swear I will choke the life right out of him the way he stole her life away.”

  “I’m coming with you,” Stephanie said, already out the door. “You can’t find it yourself, and I’m not leaving her alone in this. Not this time. If she’s in trouble, I’m going to be there.”

  “You won’t be able to help him, if that’s what you’re thinking. You won’t be able to stop me.”

  She got into his passenger seat and looked at him with an intensity she had yet to show. “If it’s him, if he did this to her, you won’t be able to stop me.”

  Chapter 26

  A key turned in the lock of the trunk and sunlight flooded in through the crack as it popped free. It took five or six hard blinks for her eyes to adjust to the sudden sunlight. A shadowy figure was standing above her, staring down, unmoving.

  She screamed through the cloth gagging her mouth, but it didn’t seem to affect the figure standing above her. He stood, still and stoic, appraising her fruitless struggles. She kicked as far as the restraints would allow and thrashed as much as she was able. The resolve to fight was like a bomb within her, the fuse growing shorter with every passing heartbeat.

  “Stop,” the voice said suddenly, and out of some misplaced obedience, she did. “No one can hear you.” He pulled her out of the trunk in one forceful motion. When her feet steadied below her she looked at him. The familiar face fooled her for a moment. Wilson had found her? Was here to help? “Walk,” he said, bending down and slicing the restraints around her ankles with a knife. He kept the blade clutched tightly in his hand as he shoved her forw
ard. “I’ll knock you out and drag you if I have to.”

  Ruby was shuffling backward as he waved the knife in her direction. She didn’t recognize where she was exactly but she knew they were alone, no other noise within earshot. “Wilson,” she said, the word still muffled through the cloth in her mouth.

  “Shut up,” he said, hooking his arm around hers and dragging her into the brush. “Don’t you ever shut up? I tried. I tried to get you to leave this island. It was supposed to scare the shit out of you. But it wasn’t enough. Your parents took the hint, but you never did.”

  Her body went rigid against his forceful grip and she dug her feet into the dirt, trying to hold her ground. Surely Wilson didn’t mean her any real harm. He hadn’t the night he took her, and today would be no different. Anger was driving him, but he would level off and realize this was a mistake.

  “I covered your head that night,” Wilson said, grabbing her by the neck and forcing her forward. “I thought about doing it the same way today, but it doesn’t matter this time. My plan back then was to take you, scare you, then let you go. I knew no one would believe you but maybe it would be enough to make you leave here. Today, I don’t care if you see my face because no one is going to ever hear your side of this.” The grip around her neck was enough to hinder her breathing and wash away any glimmer of hope that this was going to end well.

  Blue eyes had never looked as dark as Wilson’s did in that moment. They stormed with hate and determination. “You killed yourself,” he explained. “The murder scene yesterday cracked your already damaged mind, and you couldn’t take it anymore. You came out to the bluffs and jumped. Anyone around here who knew you at all will agree it’s a likely story. Sitting in your house all day, just rotting away like some corpse.” She pulled away from him with all the force her body could muster and yanked at the cloth in her mouth. Silence was not a concession she was willing to make. She’d been stifled and small for so long, and the reason for that was now standing in front of her.

  “Do you think I wanted to be at home, afraid to step outside my own front door? You did that to me.” He had his hand wrapped up in her hair and pulled her forward.

  “Walk,” Wilson demanded, shoving her into the brush as it grew higher around them. Twigs and branches slapped and grabbed her as the knife’s point hovered over her back. “You are the one who wouldn’t shut up. You wouldn’t stop slandering my father. He is a good man. He deserves respect.”

  “You’re right, Wilson,” she said, tripping but keeping herself upright. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything against your father.”

  “It’s too late,” Wilson boomed. “You’re going to have the FBI look into him. They’re going to see how many times he had to take care of things for me. His job will be gone, his badge, everything he’s worked for.”

  “They’re not,” Ruby said, shaking her head furiously. “That was just some big talk in a heated moment. The FBI doesn’t care about this island, or what your father has done for you. You don’t have to do this. We can go back to the car.”

  “You know what I learned when I was deployed?” Wilson asked, his voice quieter now. “There are certain things, moments in time, that you cannot come back from. You walk a path, you pull a trigger, you make a call, and they are irreversible. I made a choice today, and there is no going back.”

  “That’s not true,” she pleaded as the brush and line of trees cleared a hundred yards ahead of them. She could hear the sea, thrashing and devouring the rocks below. “We walk back, together, right now. No one needs to know this happened. I won’t tell anyone.”

  “If you were capable of staying quiet, you’d have done it before now.”

  Ruby was two or three steps ahead of him, trying to glance to her left and right for some kind of escape. The bushes and vines were too thick in either direction for her to run with enough speed to get free. Especially with her hands still bound together. But she would not walk to the edge of this cliff and jump just because he told her to. Fight. There would be a fight.

  Chapter 27

  “They aren’t here,” Patrick yelled, slamming his fist into the steering wheel so hard the horn blew and stuck. He punched it again and the horn seemed to groan and then stop suddenly. “Where else?”

  “If he was going to scare her this would be where he would take her,” Stephanie insisted. “He could have a boat here. Maybe he took her out to sea and is trying to freak her out.”

  “Stop thinking about where they would go if he were trying to taunt her. If he had plans to kill her, what would he do?”

  “I don’t know. He thinks she’s nuts. He talks about how one day she’s just going to off herself, and I’m going to find her when I drop off the groceries. But he’s never talked about hurting her.”

  “Suicide,” Patrick whispered.

  “She wouldn’t.”

  “I know,” Patrick corrected. “But wouldn’t most people believe she would? This is the least inhabited part of the island. He knows it well. Where would he take her if he wanted it to look like suicide?”

  “The bluffs,” Stephanie said, covering her mouth and whimpering. “It’s a high cliff and at low tide the rocks at the bottom look like knives. You can survive the jump at high tide; kids used to do it on a dare. But at low tide it’s just not possible.”

  “Is the tide out?” Patrick asked, frantically putting the car in reverse.

  “Yes,” she whispered, dropping her head down. “You still can’t get there by car but if you double back to the dirt road, you can get at least halfway. There is a small clearing where he’d have parked. I still can’t believe that he would . . .” she trailed off, clutching the frame of the door as Patrick cut the wheel and kicked up dirt.

  “What the hell do I have in this car to beat this guy to death with?” Patrick rambled, thinking about the tire iron in the trunk. His hockey skates in the back seat.

  “We should call for help,” Stephanie said frantically.

  “Yeah, Shep your kid is about to kill someone. I bet he’ll rush right over. Do you really think he didn’t know it was Wilson who took her the first time? Do you think he doesn’t know his son is deranged?”

  “He has post-traumatic stress disorder,” Stephanie said, but her words were hollow.

  “If he kills her, would that be reason enough for you? Would you forgive him because he’s a little screwed up right now? Justification?”

  “No,” she said, shaking her head so frantically that her hair whipped back and forth. “No I’m just rambling. I’m scared. I’m sorry.”

  “Where?” he asked, getting to the end of the road.

  “Left,” she said. “It’s only about a half mile down then we should see his car if he’s here.”

  Patrick pushed the accelerator to the floor and sped down the narrow dirt path that could hardly be considered a road. Branches were slapping against the windshield, thudding, but he didn’t slow down.

  “There,” she said, sobbing. “That’s his car. Oh my gosh, they must be at the bluffs.”

  “Which way?” Patrick demanded as he threw the car into park at the same time he jumped out.

  “Down that way!” she yelled, trying to keep up with him.

  He hadn’t grabbed the hockey skates or the tire iron. Patrick didn’t need them. His hands had filled with fury the way a car filled with fuel. It would be well within his power to tear the limbs right off Wilson if he had in any way hurt Ruby.

  Chapter 28

  The sound echoed through the trees and stole Wilson’s attention. A long loud horn followed by another more subdued. It destroyed the illusion that they were alone and, like wood on a fire, it fueled Ruby’s resolve. When his head snapped toward the noise she darted off into the woods in the opposite direction, letting a heavy branch she’d pulled out of her way fly behind her. Not looking back she had to assume the branch had struck him by the thumping and grunting noise she heard.

  Running through the woods with no regard for where
each step landed or which direction she was headed, was like no sensations she’d ever experienced before. No twisted ankle from a loose rock could hurt enough to slow her down. No lunge over a fallen trunk was enough to change her path. It was forward. It was fast. And it was her only chance.

  But he was on her. Maybe a few arm lengths behind, judging by the sound of his labored breathing. If he caught her she could sense his anger would explode and she would be a casualty of the detonation.

  She screamed, the noise erupting from her stomach and exploding from her. It was animalistic and primal, a cry for survival. When her feet finally lost the gamble they’d been taking, striking a rock and sending her flying into a somersault, she felt the last bit of hope extinguish inside her. There was no way to outrun him. No way to fight him. There was no way to negotiate with him.

  The position she landed in, a curled up heap of pain and bruises, was where she stayed as he came down on her. She positioned her hands up over her head like she was about to face a bear attack, but playing dead wouldn’t save her life with Wilson.

  He flipped her over, flattened her body, and straddled her. Ruby’s bound hands were yanked back over her head and smashed to the ground, held in place. The position drove his face close to hers, forcing their bodies together. His breath was as labored as her own, his hair as wild, stuck with leaves. Dirt smeared both their cheeks.

  “Please, Wilson,” she coaxed, shocked at how little fear was laced in her voice. She was hardly even begging. “There were times in my life I thought I wanted to die,” she explained, still breathing hard. “I want to live now. I have things to live for.”