Could’ve fooled Caleb.
“Yeah, bro?” Caleb poured two cups instead of one, carrying them to the table. “Black?”
“Black.” Noah accepted the cup and downed the dark liquid as if it were water. With a grunt of satisfaction, he set the cup down. “Listen, could this…the attacks on Hope…man, I need to wake up.” He gave a hearty yawn. “The attacks. I’m saying, maybe they aren’t about her.”
“Then who are they about?”
“You, genius—the ex-Ranger. Any chance you ticked a person or two off during your career? I think so.”
Ice washed through Caleb veins, a stone settling in his heart. His career had ended on an unsuccessful attempt at his life.
His goofy little brother wasn’t so green after all.
The question was, why toy with Hope instead of him? Why not come right out and blow them both up?
And why now, after two years of retirement?
Could be an ex-con fresh out of jail. Someone who’d been waiting all this time for payback. Who wanted to torture him.
But how many of them petite, with curly blonde hair?
Now that was a good question.
Coffee untouched, he passed the cup to his brother and shoved from the table . “I’m going to call my old captain.”
* * * *
“I have a what?” Hope couldn’t have heard Lewis Harkins correctly. On the heels of discovering her father had indeed left ample means for her to establish and maintain Eden Retreat, her mind was still spinning. Maybe she was delusional. Hearing things. Asleep and dreaming?
Disproving those theories, the gray-haired lawyer slowly repeated the words that’d sent her mind reeling. “You have a half-sister, Hope.”
There was no arguing the sincere, apologetic tone he used. Awkward silence ensued, rank with confused astonishment.
“Her name please?” Hope’s voice came out funny, cracked and thin.
“Corrine.”
“Corrine?” Never once in her entire life had she heard that name. Hope wanted to rail at the man. To insist he was wrong. That it wasn’t possible. “I don’t understand. My father and mother were high school sweethearts since their sophomore year. They married right after graduation. How could I have a half-sister?”
Mr. Harkins opened his mouth to respond when the phone Caleb had given her blasted some country song through the room.
“How?” she repeated, ignoring the call.
“I’m afraid early in their marriage, your father was unfaithful. Apparently, he wasn’t always the man he is today. He used to indulge a lot, which led to poor choices.”
“No, no that can’t be right.” Her father? Her perfect father? The news was almost harder to swallow than the prospect of suddenly having a sibling. “Who told you this information?”
With painful reconciliation, she thought of the reporter who’d alluded to her father’s sordid secrets.
“Your father himself, my dear. It’s all written in the will.”
On and on the cell phone jangled like an annoyingly loud radio, relentlessly determined to interrupt. “How old is she?”
“Twenty-six.”
The disbelief cut deeper. “What’s her birthday? Do you know?”
“November fourteenth.”
Beyond words, she laid her head in her palms. “Dear heavens.” She and this Corrine were practically twins, all except one major detail. Different mothers.
Little tremors set her hands shaking as she thought of the woman in the picture with hair so similar to her own. Flustered and annoyed, Hope snatched her purse from the floor and wrenched the phone from the front pocket. “What?” she demanded, momentarily forgetting it wasn’t her phone.
“Hope, you okay?”
“Oh, Caleb...”
“What’s the matter?” Alarm edged his voice. “What happened? Where are you? Never mind, I’m on my way—”
“No, no. Everything is fine.” Wasn’t that a twist on the truth? “I mean, nothing bad happened.” Again, not quite accurate. “I’m not in danger, anyway.”
“You’re sure?”
Mr. Harkins signaled he was going to give her some privacy and she thanked him with a silent wave as he disappeared through the door.
Still, her news wasn’t information Hope desired to share over the phone. How she hated to think this sister she’d never met might be the one trying to kill her. “I’ll have plenty to tell you when I get home. I just received some crazy information, that’s all.”
“You’re about to receive more. I believe I’ve come up with a new suspect. The attacks most likely have nothing personal to do with you.”
“They don’t?” Oh, please let it be so. She didn’t want to believe her own flesh and blood might’ve placed a snake in her bed. Could be that cold a person.
“I’m not making any promises but I did some research. Some remembering, you might say. There was this couple I collared a few years back. The woman was a blonde with crazy curls half down her back. Her name was Tina Shuster. She was pregnant, using heavy…definitely had a few screws loose. Prior to her hearing, her baby was born and taken into state custody. She’ll never get that kid back. At sentencing, she went ballistic, screaming at me. Threatening me. Specifically, ‘I’ll frame you the way you framed me,’ and ‘I’ll take from you like you took from me. Just wait and see.’ She was released about a month ago.”
Hope’s hopes flattened as she again thought of her sister, wondering about her color hair. Blonde like Daddy’s? “Caleb…” How she hated to point it out. “The first accident, it occurred before we ever met. Before I ever came to the ranch..”
“Not exactly. You were on your way to the ranch, just down the road, in fact. It’s far fetched, I realize, but this woman…she had crazy in her eyes. My guess, she associated you and I by the reports in the paper regarding your father’s death. According to Brian, if something happens to you, the ranch will be sold off and I’ll receive an attractive severance package. The will is a matter of public file, so if she did her homework, there was her motive when framing me.”
Put that way, it made sense. “It was weird, finding the life preserver in your truck,” Hope agreed, all too happy lay aside her fear it’d been her sister. “I really thought I wore it across the lake that morning.”
“Precisely.” With a heavy sigh, Caleb added, “We’re going to nail this, Hope. We are. Just be really careful, okay?”
“I will,” she promised then asked him about Samson. Disappointed by the lack of news on that front, Hope informed him she’d be leaving Austin within twenty minutes unless she called to inform him otherwise and they said their goodbyes.
Cradling the phone against her chest, she settled back in her chair, mind whirling out of control. If someone had told her a month ago her father had done something as horrible as cheat on her mother—or that Hope would be duking it out with a rattlesnake and entertaining the idea of opening a Christian retreat—she would’ve laughed them out of Texas. She’d the insane urge to crack up now.
For her father to have kept such a secret—to have committed such betrayal—was horrid. Unspeakable.
She ping-ponged between shock, disbelief and amazement, but couldn’t quite hold on to the anger she wanted to feel.
Her father couldn’t very well answer for himself now, anyway. “Mr. Harkins, I’m ready if you’d like to continue.”
The lawyer stepped back in the room carrying a glass of water. “I thought your throat might be dry.”
“Thank you.”
He placed the glass in her hands and Hope sipped at the cool refreshing liquid as he resumed his seat behind the big mahogany desk. “Let’s wrap this up, shall we?”
Picking up a pen, he shuffled papers.
There was one more thing Hope had to know. “My mom. Did she know? Did he tell her?”
“No. You’re father kept it a secret all these years, terrified of losing you both. He expressed to me that you were the reason for changing his path in life
and finding God. He wanted me to be sure and tell you that.”
“Me?” Oh, the irony…
“Corrine’s mother did receive monthly child support, all the way through her college years. Also a trust fund of her own, equal to yours. But she never knew your father.”
Numb now, Hope accepted the papers he handed her and went through the motions. Sign here, initial there. It was all so black and white and clear cut. No debating anything.
She had a sister.
To think how many times she’d wished for a sibling growing up. Once, when she was five or six, her mother had expressed to Hope they wanted more children but such a blessing was up to God.
Hope had thought God was pretty rude not to share.
After asking a few more questions, Hope finished delivering her Jane Hancock where necessary and left Mr. Harkins’ office with a slip of paper containing her sister’s full name and address.
Spur, Texas. Not at all far from Lubbock, where Hope had attended Lubbock Christian University for years before moving to Dallas with Neil. To think, she and Corrine could’ve been friends. Hung out together. Her father’s secret was almost unforgivable…almost.
And yet, as she clicked her seat belt in place and drove away, Hope decided she wasn’t going to torture herself with what wasn’t. She and Corrine could still be close. Had a lifetime to get to know one another.
Her father had had his failures. She had to admit, there was a strange comfort in knowing he’d been human after all. If he, a highly respected minister, could hide something so dark… Well, it seemed everyone really did have their faults. Even Christians.
Of all the changes she’d experienced throughout the past several weeks, none more sharply drove home her place with God. That she didn’t have to be perfect. Unblemished. Her love was all He required.
Such knowledge was a heady feeling. Lifted weights she hadn’t even realized she carried.
Suddenly, she was in the mood to listen to that Christian CD Caleb had once played for her. Flicking on the CD player, she pressed play and headed out of Austin. Caleb’s big truck rumbled through the city streets then onto the highways, meandering off exits until she reached quieter country roads. Closer and closer to home she grew, thinking all the while of what she’d say to her sister when they finally met. What she’d ask, what she’d share with her. Her heart brimmed with the high hope they’d have a close relationship. Become the best of friends.
Oh, Hope prayed it could be so.
She wondered if she should call first, cushion the blow, or simply show up on Corinne’s doorstep. Did her sister had any knowledge of their father? Had they ever met? What if she called someone else Dad? What if approaching her now would only turn her world upside down?
It was all so much to digest.
Endless green growth zipped by her on either side of the windy road leading to Serenity Cove and Hope hummed along to the last song on the CD before turning on the radio. The DJ announced the tune to follow, one she found too trashy for her taste, so she reached the dial to locate a new channel.
Skipping over country music and fuzz, she eventually landed on a Christian station. She never listened to Christian radio anymore but why not again?
As she lifted her gaze back to the road, eeriness crawled along her spine and suddenly she was aware of another’s presence in the rear seat. The cruel, feminine voice that hissed in her ear. “Pull over, now! Try anything and you’re dead.” The woman’s ironic laugh poured ice through her veins as a huge needle angled at Hope’s neck. “What am I saying? You’re dead no matter what.”
Chilling terror struck hard and swift. A scream hitched in Hope’s throat and she swallowed it back, allowing her gaze to collide with the face in the rearview mirror.
Almost her own, though not quite. Harsher and heavy with unnecessary cosmetics.
“Oh Corrine.” Her sister really was the one trying to kill her.
“Oh Corrine,” she mocked, jabbing the needle in threat. “Shut up and pull over, now!”
Chapter Nineteen
With no other alternative, Hope allowed the truck to drift to the shoulder and shoved it in park. “Why are you doing this?”
The engine rumbled idly as a yellow convertible zoomed into view in the side mirror. Neil. They’d been conspiring against her from day one.
“You don’t die easy, you know that? I’m really going to enjoy watching you plunge into the lake.” Corrine caught her hair, wrenching her as she shoved aside the curls to expose her neck. “I guess there’s more than one way to drown little Miss Hope Pearson.”
The way Corrine spat her name reeked of contempt and jealously. She aimed the needle.
“Now, time for you to go to sleep and have a terrible car accident. You’re such a bad driver, after all.”
Beside them, Neil’s vehicle braked to a halt and he gave a cool wave her direction. So good-looking. So suave.
The sight rose heart-pumping nausea.
Unable to bear the sight of him, Hope fixated on the woman in the mirror. “So I take it the ring belonged to you? My own sister was the other woman.”
If she could just keep Corrine talking, maybe someone would come along. Maybe she’d think of a way to distract her.
“Little idiot, you were nothing but a tool from day one.”
“A tool for what? What’s in this for you, Corrine? Daddy’s will is rock solid. You won’t inherit anything extra.”
“Daddy,” she sneered with pure hatred. “Owes me.”
“You won’t get away with this. You can’t.” Slowly, so not to spook Corrine into attacking, Hope twisted to look her sister in the face. Blue eyes, she realized, cold and uncaring and so different from her own. “Killing me isn’t going to gain you anything.”
“Always so gullible. Do you really believe I’ve gone through all this trouble for nothing?” She smiled maliciously and Hope couldn’t help but think of Caleb’s grimaces and how warm they felt compared to such evil. God, let me see him again. Let me have the chance to love him. “Remember your purse that went missing a few months back?”
Hope’s pulse tripped. The lunatic holding her gaze could easily pass for her. “Neil took it? You stole my license!”
“And copied your keys. Easiest setup I’ve ever executed. Some color contacts and no one raised a question with you present to agree Neil, my fiancé,” she mocked, “should hold a very large life insurance policy on Hope Pearson. Now all we need is for you to die, please.”
Corrine lunged the syringe at her neck.
Not about to be such an easy victim, Hope snagged her sister by the wrist, struggling to hold her back as she twisted in her seat, scrambling away. “Caleb will know! You’ll never get away with this.”
“Dead wrong.”
Please oh please, oh God… “Wait!” Hope hurled away the hand that attacked, searching for the right words to stop the madwoman. “Let’s talk about this. At least tell me what you did with Samson!”
The entreaty bought Hope a temporary distraction. “You’re asking about the stupid dog?”
“Did you kill him?”
“What do you think I am, a monster?” She scoffed. “I let him off at some farm down the road.”
“You aren’t a monster, Corrine,” Hope pleaded, hoping she could appeal to something deeper. “So don’t do this, please. Don’t kill your own sister.”
“Oh, shut up!” Corrine came at her similar to the striking rattlesnake from the night before. Poisonous and deadly. Angry and evil. Lunging, missing, lunging…
Blow by avoided blow, Hope backed against the passenger door. “Just tell me why!” she cried. “What’d I ever do to you? Please!”
Her plea struck the right chord. “Why? You tell me why! Why did you grow up with a charmed life and not me? Why did you get our father? Get everything?” Corrine raged as Hope fumbled with the door handle at her back. “My mother was a lousy drunk! My life was misery!”
“I’m sorry. I am—”
�
��Sorry! I’m glad I killed Daddy dearest. And I’ll be glad to kill you!”
Corrine had murdered Cyrus Pearson? Though the words plunged like a blade and Hope pained to question the revelation further, it was do or die. She shoved the truck door open, falling to the rocky ground in her escape. Fire shot up her backside but she’d no time to waste on pain as she scrambled to her feet and hurled the door shut in Corrine’s face.
The side of the road on which she stood dropped nearly straight off into the lake—no doubt Corrine intended to see Hope over the edge.
To the opposite direction, endless woods.
Without much time for making choices, Hope bolted around the front of the truck praying for speed. Big mistake. Neil’s tires shrieked in the daylight, mingling with her scream as she sprinted directly into his line of fire.
In the blur of an instance, he swerved to hit her and the front corner bumper glanced off her thigh, smacking her to the ground. Neil screeched to a halt, throwing the vehicle in reverse.
Blood oozed from her scraped palms, pain cutting into her leg. Adrenaline flooded her veins, numbing as Hope half-crawled, half-ran from the road, barely gaining her feet and balance as Neil whizzed by and the truck door slammed, emitting Corrine into the equation.
* * * *
“Hope’s late.”
At exactly four thirty-seven, two hours and fifteen minutes past the time she’d informed she was leaving Austin, Caleb radioed Noah, who’d awoke from his nap eager to utilize the afternoon sunlight to search the windows in Hope’s basement for evidence. Tina Shuster was breaking in somehow and hiding somewhere.
“She’s not answering her phone either,” Caleb added.
The airway buzzed back. “I think it’s a little early to file a missing person report, man. Maybe she’s stuck in traffic.”
Nevertheless, Caleb reached across the various photos and case reports littering his desk for the phone. He was fully prepared to admit being a worrywart. But better a worrywart than the alternative.
If something happened to Hope he’d never forgive himself and the conversation he’d had with Tina’s parole officer bothered Caleb. According to the insistent man, Tina had found God in prison and turned over a new leaf. Was walking the straight and narrow.
Accident Waiting to Happen Page 19