“Where does your brother live?”
She swiped the tears from her still red cheeks. “Head out of Fairview toward the Missouri line.”
Laurel Heights was south of town. He turned the car and headed down the steep drive toward the highway that would take them back toward Fairview.
“How did you know where to find me?”
He glanced at her as he pulled onto the road. “I had a feeling I’d find you there again.”
“A weird, kind of knowing-without-knowing-why feeling?”
The woman just kept startling him with her seemingly odd observations. He nodded. “Yeah, that kind of feeling.”
“She told me you were coming.”
His breath caught. “Who?”
“Kristie.”
Pain shot through him. There would be no more questions for a while.
****
Brett Duncan glanced up from the line he had been tying off when tires crunched the gravel of his driveway. Ever since the news broke that his sister’s driver’s license had been found on the body of a serial killer’s victim, the reporters had been pestering him non-stop for hours.
He’d been in the process of devising a homemade device that would pop the tires of any car that dared approach his house. Obviously, he’d begun his project too late. He lifted the double-barrel shotgun from the workbench next to him, slipped a shell into both chambers, and trudged toward the open door of the barn. A lone car drove slowly up the driveway. Not a news van. The occupants appeared to be a man and a woman. Neither of them looked like the sharks some people called reporters. In fact, the man sort of looked like a cop, and the woman…
His mind reeled. Could it be?
He slipped the gun into the crook of his arm and ventured a step or two out into the open, waiting for the couple to exit the vehicle. Once the driver’s door opened, he raised the gun and aimed at the man. “Get your hands up.”
Brett noticed the handgun holstered at the man’s side. Just as he had suspected. Another damned cop.
The woman remained in the vehicle. His eyes strayed toward her. Through the glass, he couldn’t be sure. Maybe his mind was playing games with him.
“Whatdaya want?”
“Brett Duncan?”
“Who wants to know?”
The cop took another step forward with his hands in the air. “My name is Jordan Clark. I’m with the Arkansas State Police. There’s someone in the car I think you’ve been searching for.”
A tingling started in his toes. “Tell her to get out of the car.”
“Put the shotgun down.”
“What if I don’t?”
The cop smiled. “I get back into the car, hopefully before you blow a hole in my radiator, I drive away, and you never know for sure if you know this woman or not.”
He lowered the nose of the gun toward the dirt. “This is as good as it’s gonna get until I know you’re for real.”
The cop nodded toward the windshield of the car, and that’s when Brett got his fist sight of Cherish in over five years.
“Cherish?”
The woman stopped a couple of feet from the car. “People don’t call me that any more.”
Her voice. Her stance. His sister was finally home.
He gulped down his fear and his joy at seeing her alive. Would the cop allow him to rush her and hug her? His gun thudded onto the ground. He’d only managed a few steps before his little sister was running to meet him. Halfway they met, and he wrapped her in his arms.
“Oh my God, I can’t believe you’re alive. They told me you were dead, but I didn’t believe them.”
She tensed and then shoved him away from her. “Of course, I’m alive.” Her eyes narrowed, and he remembered that expression from when she was a pre-teen girl. “They told me you knew I was alive. They said they paid you to be quiet.”
His eyes widened in horror. Who would tell her such a horrible lie? He’d beat up half the county, the part that wasn’t female, demanding that someone tell him where she was.
She must have seen the truth on his face because her anger softened. “They lied to me, didn’t they?”
He couldn’t manage a word past the large lump in his throat.
A derisive noise came out of her mouth. Not a pleasant noise. “That’s not surprising. I never knew when they were telling the truth and when they were lying.”
He stared over her shoulder at the cop. “Whose had her? Tell me, cop. Where did you find her? Who are they?” He wrapped her in his arms again, and if it were up to him, he’d never let her go. Protect her the rest of his life. Like he should have done the night she disappeared.
The cop must have gotten a hint of the anger boiling in Brett because he lifted both hands in front of him. “Calm down. I understand you want to do those men some damage, but truth is, they’re all dead.” He stopped. “Well, the ones directly responsible for holding her prisoner.”
Brett picked up the shotgun and headed toward his truck.
“If you’re going to look for Zach Halsey, you’re wasting your time. He didn’t do this to her.”
Cherish’s eyes darted everywhere. “Can we go inside? I don’t want anyone to see me.”
Brett stopped in his tracks, and then nodded. His joy evaporated. His sister was still in danger.
The three of them headed toward the house, Cherish taking the lead, followed by the cop. Brett glanced over his shoulder as he closed the door behind him. Once inside, he grabbed his sister again, and they held onto each other for the longest time. Her tears soaked his shirt, and if he wasn’t mistaken, he felt some wetness trickle down his cheeks as well.
“I missed you so much, Brett.”
“I’ve been looking for you everywhere. I can’t believe you’re really here.”
She pushed him back and placed a gentle hand on his face, just like she used to do when they were kids and he’d done something stupid to get in trouble again. “Someone told me you’ve been getting into a lot of fights, Brett. You gotta stop that. People in this county are mean. They’d just as soon kill you as look at you.”
His breath caught in his throat. What kind of people had she been living with?
“Where have you been?”
She closed her eyes and licked her lips. “In a house in Fairview.”
He couldn’t understand that. “How…how come no one ever saw you if you’ve been here all this time?” He pointed toward Fairview as if he could see the house from where he stood.
“They were good at hiding me. They never let me out of their sight.”
His insides churned. He couldn’t stand the thought of what his sister had gone through while she was missing. More than anything, he wanted to punish someone for what happened to her.
Finally, he turned his questions toward the cop. “Where’d you find her?”
He wanted to know their names. If they were local, he probably knew them. Probably had rubbed elbows with them. Lived in the same county with them all this time.
The cop smiled and glanced toward Brett’s sister. “Actually…she found me. But that’s a long story.”
“I have time.”
Cherish leaned her head on his shoulder, and he wrapped an arm around her waist. “I’ll tell you everything one day, but not right now. I…” She glanced at the cop. “We need your help.”
The use of the word we seemed to startle the cop. Was something going on between the man and his sister? If there was…
“Is there someone still after you, Cherish?”
She shook all over. “Please, don’t call me Cherish.”
He studied the top of her head as it rested in the curve of his shoulder. She hadn’t grown an inch since she went missing. He was still a full head taller than she was.
“Okay, but I don’t understand…”
She turned apologetic eyes up at him. “I’m not that girl anymore. Too much has happened to me.”
He still didn’t understand. He had too many questions and they were al
l about to explode in his head and erupt from his mouth at the same time. “First they told me they’d found you out on the Ashley Ridge trail. Then they told me that girl wasn’t you. I’ve been all wound up tight ever since then.”
She turned fierce eyes on the cop. “What’s he talking about?”
“They found a driver’s license in your name on a dead woman.”
Her eyebrows drew across the bridge of her nose, and at that moment, she reminded Brett so much of their grandfather.
“I don’t have a driver’s license.”
She studied that a moment.
“Must have been faked.”
The cop jumped in with more information. “A Hill County deputy named Jackson planted the fake ID on the dead woman.” He stopped and grinned, mostly to himself. “Jackson’s under arrest.”
“What’d he do that for?”
Cherish and the cop stared at each other. The two of them seemed to have some sort of unspoken communication going on, and once again, Brett wondered if there was a little something else between them. If the cop hurt his sister, he’d beat the man within an inch of his life. Now that she was back, he was never letting anyone hurt her again.
Brett couldn’t wait for them to decide to fill him in. His jaw tightened. “Halsey. Covering things up for Zach.”
“No, actually Fred Haskins ordered that done.”
“Fred Haskins? What’s he got to do with any of this?”
Then he got it. Like a flash. It should have been no surprise that Haskins was smack in the middle of whatever Cherish had gotten mixed up in.
He dropped onto the sofa and put his head in his hands. “Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God.” He gazed up at his sister. What had they put her through? How damaged was she?
She sat beside him and slid her arm across his shoulders. Was she really comforting him? That was so backwards. He cupped her chin in his hand. “Are you okay, little sister?”
She wiggled out of his grasp and turned her head away. “Not really. Might be a long, long time before I’m okay.”
Brett shot up from the sofa, nearly toppling her over as he dislodged her arm from his back. He grabbed the shotgun again and headed toward the door. The cop got between him and the outside.
“Where are you going with that?”
“I’m gonna go see old man Haskins.”
The cop placed his back against the door. “Won’t do you any good. He’s got armed guards around him. All you’ll manage to do is get yourself shot.”
Cherish was next to him in a heartbeat. “This ain’t the way to do it, Brett. I wanna confront him too, but not yet. When it’s time…I want to do it. After what I’ve been through, that should be my right. No, my privilege. But only when it’s time.”
She grabbed his arm, forcing him to lower the shotgun’s nose to the ground. “Please, listen to me. There are three women who lived with me. They’re missing, and I want to find them. I have to do something to stop them from killing those women, and I need to do it before anyone can take Fred Haskins down. Otherwise, I might never find them, and I don’t think I can live with myself if I don’t try.”
The cop stared at Cherish as if seeing her for the first. “She can’t do that by herself. That’s why I’m here.”
“Oh, so you’re pushing her to help you do your cop work?”
“No, she asked me for help.”
Brett snorted. “And that’s the only reason you’re hanging onto to her.”
The man’s face clouded with confusion. Maybe Brett had been wrong about the chemistry that the two of them seemed to have.
Cherish threw her question at the cop. “It does seem that you’re too willing to help me out. Why are you doing this for me?”
The cop’s face seemed to dissolve into pain. “I’m not really doing it for you. I’m doing it for me.”
Cherish shifted and moved behind Brett, a protective maneuver, no doubt. Her warm breath heated his back. He’d protect her until the day he died, even from the man who posed as her protector.
“Yeah, explain that, cop.”
The man kept his focus on Cherish. “You said Kristie told you I was coming.” He paused a single heartbeat. “I think Kristie might be my sister.”
Brett got it. Right in the heart. That he could understand.
Cherish spun him around. “We need your help, Brett.”
“What can I do?”
“You can go places and do things we can’t. I want you to help me find those women before Jake Richards does.”
“Jake Richards? He’s a part of this?” Every one of his muscles tightened, preparing for the fight. “Yeah, I might be able to help you with that. If he’s found them, I know right where he’d take them.”
Chapter Four
Jordan checked the magazine on his weapon to make sure Chelsea hadn’t pitched the ammo while he wasn’t watching. Satisfied that he was armed and loaded, he nodded toward Brett. “We’ll take my car. Lead the way.”
As he shifted away from the door to allow them to open it and pass through, Chelsea made a move to follow them. Jordan placed a hand on her shoulder. This time she didn’t push him off.
“I want you to stay here.”
She shook her head hard, and for a moment, he thought it would break off and roll across the floor.
“No, I have to go with you. They don’t know you, but they know me.”
He was sure she meant the women. She had a point, but he had a stronger one. “If Jake and his men see you, then they’ll know you’ve given them up. You need to stay out of sight. At least, until I know you’re safe from them.”
She knocked his hand off. “I’ll never be safe from them as long as they live, so what does it matter if they see me or not?”
Brett brushed a stray strand of hair out of her eyes. “Listen, Cher…” He stopped. “If I can’t call you by your name, what do you want me to call you?”
She hesitated as if she were about to change her mind about her edict. “Call me Chelsea.”
“Okay…Chelsea. I agree with…” He turned to Jordan. “What the hell did you say your name was?”
Brett was clearly having trouble keeping everything straight, and Jordan wondered if the man had sucked down a bottle or two of brew before Chelsea and he had arrived.
“Just call me Jordan. Or cop works too.”
Brett returned his attention to his sister. “I agree with Jordan. I’ve just gotten you back. I can’t stand the thought of losing you again. What if they take you? Don’t make me go through that again.” He swallowed down a wad of strong emotion. “Do you know how long I blamed Zach Halsey for your disappearance?”
She winced. “It was partly his fault. But don’t blame him by himself, Brett. It was partly my fault too. I shouldn’t have agreed to go out to Ashley Ridge with him that night. I knew better. I knew what he was like. I went anyway.”
Jordan shook his head. “Don’t do that to yourself. Don’t take responsibility for Zach’s behavior. No matter what your part was, don’t minimize his. I don’t know the whole story, but I promise you, he knew what he was doing, and I’ll bet he wasn’t going to play nice.”
Brett’s face turned a shade of pinkish red. “Of course, he wasn’t.” Clearly, the man hadn’t given up his grudge against Zach Halsey.
She wrapped her arms around her middle. “I can’t stay here by myself.”
The anguish on her face softened his resolve. Jordan sighed and rubbed his neck at the base of his hairline right where the tension had wound tighter than tight. He needed a pain reliever.
Brett smiled down at his sister. “Yes, you can. You remember our secret hiding spot out back, behind the barn? Stay out there until I get back. You know you’ll be safe there.”
Her face brightened. “I’d forgotten about that.” Pleasant memories seemed to flood her mind. The smile lingered for a while longer before it faded.
“We’ll walk you back there.” Brett shifted his gaze toward Jordan and then back to his s
ister. “We’ll come back as soon as we can, and we’ll make sure no one follows us. Before we leave, we’ll make sure no one is watching the house. You’re home now. Everything’s going to be all right again…eventually. I promise.”
Jordan kept his eyes on Chelsea’s brother, watching him talk his sister down from her anxiety. How could Brett make that kind of promise? The mess had entangled Chelsea with some dangerous men. This was a situation that was bigger than the three of them. Jordan would need help. He would have no other choice but to bring Shaw Bennett into it…eventually.
Chelsea’s hiding spot turned out to be a weird little hollowed out place in the side of a hill behind the barn. The entrance was mostly covered with weeds and a few straggling bushes. Brett checked the place for snakes before he held the limbs aside to allow Chelsea to enter. “Stay put, sister. Pretend Grandpa is looking for us with one of those long thin switches he used to whup us with. You remember.”
She nodded, a grave expression on her pale face.
He started to walk away, but she called him back. “Brett?”
He turned to face her. “Huh?”
“I love you.”
A huge smile spread across Brett’s rugged face. “I love you too, sis.”
With those words catching on the rising wind and floating away, Brett and Jordan headed back toward the house.
****
Jordan lifted his night vision binoculars to his eyes one more time. Still no movement around the shack. They were staking out the place where Jake Richards used to bring his conquests, but so far, it’d been a waste of time. It was possible Jake hadn’t found the women yet. Maybe, just maybe, they had gotten away. Jordan would give it awhile longer before he gave up.
Brett sat next to him in the car. Every once in a while, he’d twitch and shift, but until that moment, he hadn’t uttered a single word since they left Chelsea back at the Duncan farm. “Cherish was never the same after Momma left.”
Jordan didn’t move. He had to keep switching between thinking of her as Chelsea and hearing Brett refer to her as Cherish. It wouldn’t be easy for the man to think of his sister any other way except as what their momma had named her. If Jordan were in the man’s shoes, he’d have the same difficulty. Jordan wished he were in Brett’s shoes with Kristie back safe and sound, but he feared Kristie was one of the women buried beneath the house on Chelsea Lane.
Chelsea Lane (Haunted Hearts Series Book 5) Page 4