by Rita Herron
She glanced up at him, then down to his lap, and realized what had happened. “Oh, sorry.”
He fought a grin. She looked sleepy and tousled, as if she’d read his desire and felt it, too. The mere thought sent his heart racing with the need to have her, but he shifted, squeezed her hand, then removed it and laid it on the seat between them. A symbol of the distance they needed to keep, a symbol that he wanted her but would wait until the right moment. The promise he’d made, that he would have her one day, echoed in his mind. That day was near. “I need a minute before we go inside.”
The faint smile of a woman who had let down her defenses appeared, lighting up her gorgeous eyes, stealing his breath. He wanted to make her smile like that every day.
“You look beautiful, Elsie.”
She blushed, and he forced his mind back on track. They had to question Renee Leberman, which meant Elsie had one more demon from her past to confront today.
She finger-combed her long wavy hair, then brushed lip gloss across her lips. He jerked his head to the side so he didn’t have to watch, then studied the yard. Out back, he noticed a swing set and trampoline, indicating that Renee Leberman had a child. For a brief second, he entertained the idea that she had adopted a child from Wildcat Manor, and realized that there were probably other locals who’d done so ten years ago.
Any one of them might be trying to run Elsie out of town. Opening up the past meant exposure, that other girls might return in search of the children they had lost. He needed a list of all the deliveries and adoptions.
But Mires had probably shredded them all. Maybe Renee had kept copies.
“I’m ready,” Elsie said, breaking into his thoughts.
He nodded, then climbed out and met Elsie at the front of the car. This time when he took her hand to pick their way up the snow-packed ground, she squeezed his hand in response. “Thank you for being here with me, Deke. I…don’t know how to repay you.”
They stepped onto the porch of the modest brick ranch. “You don’t have to repay me, Elsie. I’m glad I’m here for you.”
An odd tingle shot through him, then he broke eye contact and banged the duck-shaped door knocker.
An elderly woman opened the door slightly, the chain still in
“We’re looking for Renee Leberman,” Deke said.
The woman furrowed her thinning gray eyebrows. “Who are you?”
A petite girl about nine or ten years old poked her head under the woman’s arm. “Who is it, Grandma?”
“I don’t know, child. Go on and finish that crossword puzzle.”
“But I’m stumped.” The little girl wrinkled a freckled nose. “I can’t figure out six down or ten across.”
“I’ll be there to help you in a minute,” the woman said. “Now, go back in the kitchen.”
The child pouted, but did as she was told.
Deke saw the pained smile on Elsie’s face, and knew she must be thinking of her own daughter. She would have been about the same age as the little girl, just like several of the children in town.
“Tell me who you are and what you’re doing here,” the woman demanded.
Deke straightened his shoulders, trying to understand her anger. “My name is Deke Falcon, and this is Elsie Timmons. Is Renee your daughter?”
The woman nodded, although her mouth pinched into a frown. “I don’t talk to strangers,” she said in a shaky voice.
“I’m not exactly a stranger,” Elsie said. “I knew Miss Leberman years ago. She was a social worker who worked with me at an orphanage in Wildcat.”
The woman started to slam the door, but Deke caught it with his boot. “What’s wrong, ma’am? We just want to talk to Renee.”
“That’s what that fancy lawyer said when he came out here a few months ago, but two weeks later, they found my daughter dead.”
Elsie gasped, and Deke gripped his hands by his side to stifle his frustration. “I’m sorry about your loss. What happened to her?” he asked in a quiet voice.
Tears filled the woman’s eyes. “The local police said it was some freak accident, but…”
“But you don’t think so?”
“No. Renee got really upset when that man showed up. She told me we might have to move, and that she was going to find us a new place. She was out looking when she had the accident.”
“I’m so sorry,” Elsie said in a strained voice. “I know you’re devastated. And her little girl must be, too.”
“That’s the worst part,” the woman said. “Renee never married. And now Allison will have to grow up without a mother.”
Deke slid a hand behind Elsie’s back, sensing how the comment must have affected her. But Renee’s death meant a dead end for them, as well. Unless social services had information. It was worth a try.
“At least she has you,” Deke said. “I’m sure you’ll love her and give her a good home.”
Not like the violent, abue one where Elsie had grown up.
Deke cleared his throat. “What was the lawyer’s name who came to see her?”
“I don’t know.” Her hands turned white as she gripped the door edge. “But I think he killed Renee.”
ELSIE THOUGHT ABOUT the little girl and Renee Leberman while Deke drove them back toward Wildcat Manor. Although her grandmother seemed to care for Allison, Elsie hated that she had to go through life motherless.
Why had the lawyer come to see Renee? What had upset her? Could it possibly have been regarding the adoptions?
“Deke, do you think Burt Thompson might have been the one to visit Renee?”
Deke shrugged. “It’s possible. I’m going to talk to the police in Nashville tomorrow. See what their investigation turned up.”
“What if Renee had decided to come forward about the abuse at the orphanage?” Elsie suggested.
“That’s a possibility, and her death seems too coincidental not to be related. But why would she do so now?” He scrubbed a hand through his hair, spiking the long ends, and Elsie half smiled, wanting to brush it down. But that gesture seemed so intimate. Maybe too forward….
“I don’t know.” Elsie chewed her lip.
“We have to be prepared. She might have simply had an accident,” Deke said.
“Her mother certainly didn’t seem to think so.” Elsie gave in to temptation and finally brushed his hair with her fingers. Deke gave her an odd look, but heat flickered in his eyes.
“She did seem scared.” He hesitated, then laid his hand over hers, threading their fingers together.
Elsie’s imagination went wild as they neared the manor. “If Renee had planned to expose the truth, perhaps she talked to Hattie Mae. Maybe she even sent her a letter.”
Deke considered her theory. “Then Thompson found out, and killed Renee to keep her quiet.”
A horrid thought occurred to Elsie. “What if he killed Hattie Mae, too?”
Deke frowned. “That’s possible—”
Deke never finished the sentence. Suddenly a black SUV roared up on his tail. He glanced up, but the vehicle slammed into his rear end with such force that his Range Rover spun out of control. He tried to brake, to turn the steering wheel into the spin, but the SUV hit him again on the driver’s side, then sent him skidding toward the guard-rail. Tires screeched. Elsie screamed and grabbed the armrest as they flipped and spun into a roll down the mountain ridge. He threw his arm forward to protect her from hitting the dash. The air bags deployed, filling the front and slamming them both back into the seat. A sharp pain hit his chest, and he assumed Elsie had felt one, too. That or worse. She was so small, the air bag might have broken her ribs. The vehicle bounced and shook as it rolled over the uneven rocky terrain. Metal screeched as it finally landed at the bottom of the ravine. Glass shattered. They weren’t at the bottom. Through the glass, he saw the bottom—they had landed on a ridge above it. His SUV teetered on the edge and might go over any second.
Panic forced Deke into action. “Elsie, are you all right?”
A s
trangled sob echoed from behind the air bag, and he gently opened his door, not wanting to rock the SUV. The smell of gasoline filled the air. They had to get out before the gas tank exploded.
“Elsie, can you move?”
“I…I’m not sure.”
“Try to open your door. Easy though.” He yanked his pocketknife out, and cut through the air bag, then crawled through the doorway. He climbed out on the rocks, holding his breath as he circled the back of the vehicle to reach the passenger side.
The smell of gasoline grew stronger. Blood dribbled down his chin and his hand where glass had caught him. He fought panic. The Rover couldn’t blow or tip over, not until he got Elsie out.
Every second counted. “Don’t move!” he yelled to Elsie. “Be very still, but turn your head away. I have to chip away the glass so I can get you out.”
“Okay.” Her voice sounded weak. Tired. Scared to death.
But Elsie was a fighter. She had to hang on now.
He yanked a handkerchief from his pocket, wrapped it around his hand, then chiseled the fragmented glass from the edge of the window with his knife.
“Okay,” he shouted. “Try to reach my hand.”
She shoved and pushed at the air bag as he tore it away with the knife. Finally he saw her face, her beautiful face, and reminded himself she was still alive. She reached for his hand and the SUV wavered. She screamed, and he dragged her through the small opening. As soon as she hit the ground, the Rover went over the side. He clutched her to him as they watched it fall another few hundred feet. It hit the bottom with a loud crash, then exploded into flames.
“Oh, my God!”
He pressed her head to his chest and heaved a breath, his own heartbeat tripping in his chest. “Elsie, I don’t know what I would have done if I’d lost you.”
“It’s okay, I’m fine.”
He was shaking all over. He had almost been too late. Then he would have lost her forever.
No, he couldn’t think about that.
“Deke—”
“Shh, just let me hold you.”
She trembled against him, then reached up and kissed him. Every pent-up moment of passion and emotion he’d experienced since he’d seen her assaulted him again. He wanted to make love to her right then and there.
But he couldn’t. They were both bleeding and shaken, and she needed rest.
He pulled away slightly. “I have to call for help.”
Just as he removed his cell phone, a gunshot rang through the air. It hit the rock beside him, then another pinged to his left. He pushed Elsie’s head down, then pulled her behind the rocks for cover.
Seconds later, a deep voice shouted, “You won’t get away this time!”
Deke withdrew his gun and fired back, then grabbed Elsie’s hand and they raced across the path up to the road. When they reached it, they darted into the woods.
But the shooter was right behind them.
Chapter Fifteen
Elsie’s heart pounded as she and Deke ran through the woods to escape the shooter. Deke pulled her along, weaving them in and out of the thickets of trees as if he knew the forest well and instinctively sensed which direction to go.
“We’re not too far from the manor,” he said. “About a mile. Can you make it?”
“Yes. Do you think he’s still behind us?”
He yanked her sideways into the entrance of a small cave, then pressed a finger to her lips to silence her. In the distance, the slap of tree limbs shattering cut through the quiet. A howl that sounded as if it came from a madman followed.
Elsie shivered and mouthed the words, “Is that him?”
Deke nodded, although the flutter of the hawks’ wings above drew her eyes to the black sky. Behind her, somewhere from the cave, another noise startled her, and she glanced at Deke. He cocked his head to the side, then gestured for her to rise slowly. Some kind of wild animal must be inside the cave. Something that might be dangerous….
Was it one of the overgrown mountain lions or werecats that supposedly roamed the woods?
The air tightened in her lungs, but Deke rubbed his hand along her back as if to assure her he’d protect her. He gestured toward the right, and she followed him, noting that he barely made a sound as he glided effortlessly in the wild. The hawk guided Deke as if he was born from the forest himself.
Behind them, another sound disturbed the calm, and suddenly a loud roar echoed from deep in the woods. Seconds later, the shrill shout of a terrorized man followed.
Elsie thought she saw the shadow of a man near the cave they had just left. Then another shadow, some kind of creature that looked half man, half animal pounced toward the shooter.
She clutched Deke’s arm. He stared at the sight in silence, his expression stoic but accepting. The image of a big bobcat or mountain lion filled the shadows, then it lunged toward the man. She could almost smell the blood-lust of the beast, hear its teeth gnashing, as if it had caught the scent of its next meal and was ready to devour it.
She forced away the image as Deke glanced into her eyes.
“We’re safe now,” he said in a low voice. “Let’s go back to the house.”
“What was that?” Elsie asked, wondering if the rumors about the haunted forest were true.
“He’s protecting us,” Deke said. “That’s all you need to know.”
She swallowed hard, then nodded, her hands shaking as she gripped his hand and let him guide her the rest of the way. But as they walked up to the door, she looked back at the woods. As a child, she had been terrified of the ancient stories and wild animals. She’d never once ventured inside those woods, thinking that if she did, death would greet her.
Yet the house had held the demons.
And tonight the forest creatures she had been so terrified of had saved her life.
The trembling that had overtaken her since the accident and shooting started slowly abating. A fleeting memory of the night she and Torrie had escaped the orphanage drifted back, and she froze, another memory erupting through the darkness that had become her life. That night she had sensed someone or something, an animal, maybe part human, had been following her. She’d also sensed it had been watching over her, that it had guided her to safety.
Was it possible that the shadowed creature was the same one? Had he lived in the woods all these years, perhaps guarding the children instead of hurting them as Hodges had done?
SHERIFF BUSH PACED in front of the fireplace like a madman as he waited on Donna’s answer. “I want the truth, Donna. I know you and Eleanor were half-crazy with worry about your kids.” He shoved his hand over his head, the dull ache in his chest persisting. “Did you and Eleanor go to Mires’s office and kill him?”
His lovely Donna’s lips tightened, and she twined her hands together, a sure sign she was nervous.
“We went to his office,” she admitted.
His patience was like a thread unravelling from a worn piece of fabric. “And?”
“We wanted to talk to him about the adoptions,” she admitted. “Make sure he didn’t release any names or information.”
“And then what?”
“He promised us no one would ever know that our children were adopted,” she continued, her voice rising in hysteria. “That he would adjust the records so that if the birth mothers ever searched for their children, they wouldn’t find anything.”
“And so far, he’s kept that promise,” Bush reminded her. “Did he say he was going to release the information now?”
“Not exactly, but his eyes…you could look into his eyes and see he had second thoughts.”
“Ah, hell.” He lowered himself to the edge of the hearth and rubbed at his chest. “Please tell me you didn’t…”
“Eleanor had a .38,” Donna said in a voice that sounded strained, faraway as if she was remembering something that had happened to someone else.
His patience unwound another inch. Part of him didn’t want to hear. Wanted to walk out the door and not look
back. The part that belonged to the badge he wore forced him to press for the truth. “That’s the same caliber of gun that killed Mires. Who shot him, Donna?”
“I didn’t,” she said in a rush. “Honestly, Wally.”
“So Eleanor killed him. But you were an accessory.”
“No, Eleanor didn’t kill him, at least not while I was there.” She knelt in front of him, and clutched his hands. “I swear, Wally. Dr. Mires promised her our secrets were safe. And when we left, he was still alive.”
The air that had been trapped in Bush’s lungs whooshed out in relief. Donna wouldn’t lie to him, would she?
No…he trusted her. And she knew he would have taken care of her, no matter what.
He arched a brow. “After that, you both left?”
She nodded. “I did, and Eleanor said she was going to do some errands in town.”
Bush cursed. “But she could have gone back to his office and killed him after you left.”
Donna’s eyes widened in terror. “Oh, my stars, surely not. I know she was upset, scared to death actually, but there had to have been someone else. Eleanor couldn’t kill her own brother.”
“Who do you think did then?”
Donna ran a hand through her hair, mussing the ends, and he wanted to take her in his arms and soothe her worries.
“Maybe that Timmons girl,” she whispered. “Or…I don’t know. Burt Thompson. Or someone else who was afraid he’d reveal their secrets. Eleanor and I are not the only ones who adopted kids back then.”
Bush met her gaze. What the hell was he supposed to do now? He was the sheriff. He had to investigate this crime. But if he did, the secrets of the past would likely be exposed.
Then all of them would be in trouble….
DEKE CONTEMPLATED PHONING the sheriff but didn’t trust the man to help them. For all he knew, Bush might be involved with whoever had tried to kill them. After all, Bush hadn’t wanted them in town and had tried to run them off with verbal threats and warnings.
“I want to check on the falcon,” he said, hoping Elsie understood the unsettled feeling in his gut.