Sidetracked-Kobo

by Brandilyn Collins

  In truth, over a year after Clara’s death, my nerves were still easily frazzled.

  “Pregnancy can do that,” Andy’s mother had informed me. “Once you’re over the three-month mark, you’ll feel better.”

  As if pregnancy should be the only reason. I was trying to forge a relationship with my mother-in-law. But so much of me she would never understand.

  I entered the kitchen, smelling Andy’s eggs and bacon. Made me queasy. I laid the paper before him on the kitchen table, my throat tight.

  He read the headline and gave me a grim nod. “And she’s not through yet. Next will be the California courts.”

  Tina would eventually be extradited to undergo two trials there—one for the murder of my mother and one for my father. She might even face the death penalty. I would attend those trials, staying with my wonderful Aunt Nicky and Uncle Ted. They’d already promised to watch our child while I was in court.

  Andy studied my face. “You okay?” He reached for my hand. “It’s over, Laura. She got what she deserved. I know you still have the trials for your parents, and your own situation. But at least this part is done. Allow yourself to rest in that.”

  “You’re right.” I tried to smile. How I wanted to rest and enjoy the life God had given me. A loving husband, a baby on the way. Everything I’d dreamed of. But guilt can be overpowering, an eclipse of the most brilliant sun. I knew God had forgiven me for the decisions that led to Clara’s death. Now He would have to help me forgive myself.

  As for some in Redbud, they had made it clear I would forever be blamed. The town was no longer a haven for me. Andy and I had chosen to settle in Lexington.

  I squeezed my husband’s fingers, then moved away to make a cup of tea. Coffee sat hard on my stomach these days.

  My husband took a bite of his breakfast. “You’re meeting with Wanning today at two, right? I’ll be there.”

  “You don’t have to come.”

  “I want to. Gotta keep that lawyer on his toes.”

  The process to overturn my own conviction was dragging through the California legal system. It would happen—a necessity before Tina could be tried for my mother’s murder—but the hearings and filings seemed endless. For the innocent, justice turns slowly.

  I threw the wet teabag in the compacter, struck for the millionth time at the irony I’d created. Even when my conviction was finally overturned, I would still have a felony on my record—one for which I alone was to blame. False Personation. I’d pleaded guilty, and with the help of crack attorney Wanning had been given only probation. Better that than one to five years in the penitentiary.

  At the table I took a drink of hot tea and shivered.

  “Want to read this?” Andy pushed the newspaper toward me.

  My eyes grazed the copy. By now I knew every minute detail of the case. My testimony—and the tape recording—had been key for the guilty verdict. I’d spent days on the stand. Tina’s defense attorney had taken every opportunity to remind the jury I was a convicted killer and could not be believed. Cutting accusations, but a lame argument in the face of Tina’s own words. Even though she hadn’t explicitly admitted to the three murders on tape, her meaning had been more than clear.

  Other evidence had also helped convict Tina. Her plane ticket to Kentucky. Her firing from the San Mateo police due to her “erratic” behavior. The phone texts to me. A blonde wig in Tina’s hotel room, recognized by Billy King as the hair of “Susan.”

  Poor Billy had been terrified on the stand. He must have gone through a half dozen glasses of water. Shame-faced, he told of “Susan’s” befriending him. Her whispered words of Clara Crenshaw’s secret love for him. How Clara wanted to meet Billy on Brewer Street after her wedding shower. “Susan’s” urgent call to Billy that fateful night after he got off work: “Come on foot—now.”

  Tina’s plan to frame him for the crime had been so devious. So precise.

  As for the details of my parents’ murders, the California prosecutor would have to piece together a scenario of each and convince the juries. Once again, Tina would never admit her guilt.

  Andy gestured with his chin toward the paper. “Does it say when the sentencing will be?”

  “In a few weeks.”

  Tina would likely receive life behind bars.

  I took another sip of tea. “After the meeting with Wanning today I’m going to visit Pete. Maybe stay until Colleen and Nicole get home.”

  The house where my old “family” lived still belonged to me. I’d promised Pete, Colleen, and Nicole they could live there as long as they wanted. They just had to maintain the place.

  “You sure you’re up to that?”

  “I want to see them.” Especially Pete, who had been my stoutest supporter. To this day he still called me Del-Belle.

  “I know. It’s just … Redbud.”

  I rubbed at a spot on the table. Andy had chosen me over his beloved hometown and the wishes of his parents. The thought made me want to cry.

  My husband finished his breakfast and rose. “Thanks. I need to get to the office.” He hugged me hard before he left.

  I cleaned the dishes and wiped down the granite counters of my beautiful kitchen. Rewarmed my cup of tea in the microwave. From an end cabinet I pulled my Bible and sat back down at the table. Before my daily reading I prayed aloud the memorized verses from Psalm 25 I had learned to cling to in the past year.

  “‘Show me your ways, Lord, teach me your paths. Guide me in your truth and teach me, for you are God my Savior, and my hope is in you all day long. Remember, Lord, your great mercy and love, for they are from of old. Do not remember the sins of my youth and my rebellious ways. According to your love remember me.’ Amen.”

  I opened my Bible and began to read.

  In the end comes the beginning.

  A Note From Brandilyn

  Many thanks for allowing me to take you on another Seatbelt Suspense® ride. If you enjoyed Sidetracked, please consider writing a review for me on Kobo or Goodreads. I’d be very grateful.

  I love keeping in touch with my readers. Here are a few ways to do that:

  From my website you can read my blog, email me, plus sign up for my Sneak Pique newsletter. I don’t send out a lot of emails but will let you know when a new book of mine releases, or when my books go on sale. (I do not share your information with anyone.) On my website you can also read the first chapters of all my books—and check out what’s coming next.

  My readers and I have fun on Facebook. Hope you’ll join us! On Twitter I’m @Brandilyn.

  My Thanks To:

  Attorney Rebecca Lee Matthias, for patiently answering my barrage of questions relating to California laws of inheritance. I could not have written the details of Laura’s legal battle over her mother’s estate without your help.

  -- and --

  Don Bechtold, for regaling me with stories from your thirty-four-year career as a locomotive engineer. Your experiences made my character Pete a very interesting fellow.

  Turn the page to read the opening of

  another Seatbelt Suspense® novel,

  Over The Edge.

  Over The Edge

  Torn from the front lines of medical debate and the author's own experience with Lyme Disease, Over the Edge is riveting fiction, full of twists and turns—and powerful truths about today's medical field.

  Janessa McNeil’s husband, Dr. Brock McNeil, a researcher and professor at Stanford University's Department of Medicine, specializes in tick-borne diseases—especially Lyme. For years he has insisted that Chronic Lyme Disease doesn't exist. Even as patients across the country are getting sicker, the committee Brock chairs is about to announce its latest findings—which will further seal the door shut for Lyme treatment.

  One embittered man sets out to prove Dr. McNeil wrong by giving him a close-up view of the very disease he denies. The man infects Janessa with Lyme, then states his demand: convince her husband to rever
se his stand on Lyme—or their young daughter will be next.

  But Janessa's marriage is already rocky. She's so sick she can hardly move or think. And her husband denies she has Lyme at all.

  Welcome to the Lyme wars, Janessa.

  Over The Edge

  Prologue & Chapter One

  Prologue

  A vision denied is a battle lost.

  With a flick of his hand the blackened sky blipped into eerie green. Crouched on the house’s back deck, he adjusted his night goggles. The high bushes surrounding the yard illumed, the wizened limbs of a giant oak straggling upward in surreal glow.

  He ran his hand over a pocket on his black cargo pants. The vial created a telltale bump against his thigh. His latex-gloved fingers closed around it.

  Rising, he crossed the deck in five long strides. He surveyed the lock on the sliding glass door. Not enough light. He raised the goggles, darkness reigning once more. From a left pocket he extracted a tiny flashlight. Aimed its beam at the lock.

  A common thief he was not. His mission had required intricate study of skills he’d never dreamed he need possess. The pick of a lock. A stealthy skulk. A means to render unconscious.

  He pulled the necessary tools from the same pocket. Holding the flashlight in his mouth, he worked the tools into the lock, manipulating as practiced. The mechanism gave way with a tiny click.

  He slid the door open.

  No alarm sounded. He knew it wouldn’t. In this upper crust town, home to Stanford University, alarms were for vacations. Children at home were too apt to set them off.

  He replaced the flashlight and tools in his pocket. Slipped inside the house and eased the door shut. Down came his goggles. The large kitchen gleamed into view. His astute nose picked up the lingering scent of pizza, cut with a trace of ammonia. A cleaning agent, perhaps.

  The digital clock on the microwave read 2:36 a.m.

  From where he stood he could see through open doorways to a den, a hall, and a dining room.

  At the threshold to the hall he stopped and reached into the lower right pocket beneath his knee. The three-ounce glass bottle he withdrew had a covered plastic pump spray. The chemical inside was not compatible with metals. He removed the cap and slid it back into his pants.

  Holding the bottle with trigger finger on the pump, he advanced into the hall. A left turn, and he stood in the entryway. Straight ahead, a living room. On his left, a staircase. Carpeted.

  He lifted a sneakered foot onto the bottom step.

  The bedrooms would be upstairs, two occupied. One by nine-year-old Lauren. The second, a master suite, by mother Janessa, called Jannie. She would be alone. Her husband, the highly respected Dr. Brock McNeil, was supposedly imparting his impeccable knowledge at a medical symposium on Lyme disease.

  His jaw flexed.

  After three steps he reached a landing. He turned left and resumed his inaudible climb.

  His heartbeat quickened. Too many emotions funneled into this moment—grief-drenched years, anxiety, the playing out of two lives, and now adrenaline. He willed his pulse into submission. Once he went into action everything would happen quickly. He needed his wits about him.

  Within seconds his foot landed on the last stair. To his immediate left stood an open door. He craned his neck to see around the threshold. Empty bedroom. With a quick glance he took in three more open doorways—two bedrooms and one bath, halfway down the hall. The closed door directly in front of him would be a closet. He looked down the length of the hall, saw one open door at the end. That was it. The master bedroom, running the entire depth of the house.

  He advanced to the next room on his left. Peered inside. The green-haloed room held a canopied bed and several dressers, a large stuffed lion in one corner. In the bed lay a small form on her back, one arm thrown over the blankets. Lauren. Beside her head was a stuffed animal. He could hear the girl’s steady breathing.

  His mouth flattened to a thin, hard line. He turned and glared at his targeted bedroom, left fingers curling into his palm.

  His legs took him in swift silence to the threshold of Janessa McNeil’s door.

  With caution he leaned in, glimpsing a large bed to his right. She occupied the closest half, lying on her side facing him. How very thoughtful.

  Scarcely drawing oxygen, he stepped into the room.

  Her eyes opened.

  How—?

  His limbs froze. He’d made no sound. Had she sensed his presence, the malevolence in his pores?

  Janessa’s head lifted from the pillow.

  In one fluid motion he strode to the bed, thrust the bottle six inches from her face, and panic-pumped the spray. The chloroform mixture misted over her.

  A strangled cry escaped the woman, only to be cut short as her head dropped like a stone.

  He stumbled backward, holding his breath, pulse fluttering. When he finally inhaled, a faint sweet smell from the chloroform wafted into his nostrils. Leaning down, he dug the plastic cap from his lower pocket and shoved it onto the spray container. Dropped the thing back into his pants.

  For a moment he stood, fingers grasped behind his neck, regaining his equilibrium.

  Everything was fine, just fine. No way could she have seen him well enough in the dark.

  Remember why you’re here.

  Visions of the past surfaced, and with them—the anger. The boiling, rancid rage that fueled his days and fired his nights. So what if this sleeping woman was known as quiet and caring? So what if she had a likable, if not beautiful, face? Green eyes that held both caution and hope, smooth skin and an upturned mouth. She looked as if she could be anyone’s friend. But at this moment she was nothing to him. Neither was her daughter. Merely a means to a crucial end.

  He snatched the vial from his upper pocket.

  Raising it before his face, he squinted through the hard plastic. Saw nothing. The infected parasites within were no bigger than the head of a pin. He turned the vial sideways and shook it. Three tiny dark objects slid from the bottom into view.

  His lips curled.

  This Ixodes pacificus, or blacklegged tick, carried spirochetes—spiral-shaped bacteria—that caused Lyme disease in California. And not just a few spirochetes. These ticks were loaded with them, along with numerous coinfections. Thanks to painstaking work the spirochetes had flourished and multiplied in the brains of mice. As the infected baby mice had grown, the sickest were sacrificed, their brains fed to the next generation of ticks.

  The spirochetes loved human brain tissue. Janessa McNeil may soon attest to that.

  He moved toward the bed. No need to hurry now, nor be anxious. His target would not rouse.

  Last summer in their larval stage, the captured ticks had enjoyed their first feeding on an infected mouse. Now as disease-carrying nymphs, they were ready for their second meal. He’d chosen three to hedge his bet that at least one would bite and infect Janessa McNeil.

  He leaned over the sleeping woman and opened the vial.

  The hungry ticks would bury their mouth parts into Janessa’s warm flesh and feed for three to five days. After one to two days they would begin to transmit the spirochetes. Even fully engorged, nymph ticks were so minuscule they could easily go unnoticed on the body. But just to be sure, he held the vial above the woman’s temple. Her dark brown hair would provide cover.

  Pointing the container downward, he tapped the ticks over the edge.

  He slipped the vial back into his right pocket, pulling the flashlight from his left. Then raised his night goggles and turned on the flashlight. He aimed its narrow beam at his victim’s temple and leaned in closer, squinting.

  Ah. There they were, crawling near her hairline.

  With a fingernail he nudged them farther back until they disappeared among the strands of hair.

  He straightened and took a moment to revel in his victory. He’d done it. He had really done it. Nothing more to do but hope the disease took hold of Janessa—
and soon.

  Smiling, he put away his flashlight and lowered the goggles. With a whisper of sound he turned and left the room. Down the stairs he crept, and through the kitchen. He stepped out onto the back deck, closed the sliding door and relocked it with the tools from his pocket.

  As he slunk from the backyard, a wild and primal joy surged through him. He smirked at the memory of the green-hued sleeping figure, every fiber of his being anticipating, relishing the fulfillment of his vision.

  A battle won.

  Justice.

  THURSDAY

  Chapter 1

  The nightmare felt so real.

  I’d been sick for three weeks. Aching limbs, sore joints, a weakness in my legs. An odd pain shot around in my chest. The back of my neck hurt, radiating clear up to my skull. A nuchal headache, Brock would call it, referring to the back neck muscle. A term I’d never heard until I married a doctor.

  Most likely I had some strange lingering flu. A virus had been going around this spring season, although no one seemed to have symptoms like mine.

  Then a few days ago the bad dreams started. Horrible scenes of a bug-eyed man standing over my bed. “Does flu ever make you have nightmares?” I asked Brock yesterday as he prepared to leave for work. We stood in the kitchen. He was flipping through papers in his briefcase, searching for something.

  He looked up distractedly, his thick brows knitting. The lines between his dark brown eyes deepened. “Never heard that one before.”

  At 6’2” Brock stood a head taller than I. He’d spent years concerned with the health of others—and the stress showed on his face. At fifty-three to my thirty-six, he looked older than his age but still so handsome. So alive and vibrant and strong. As he expected me to be.