by Debra Webb
They were all staring at the police cruiser.
Except Dana. She stared at the gun. She lifted her gaze to the four standing around her, her gaze finally coming to rest on Mr. Bellomy.
He was the one to find her.
He couldn’t have killed Donna…could he?
Her gaze settled on the gun once more.
Dana scrambled for the weapon.
She had it in her hand and was on her feet while the others were still watching Chief Gerard’s approach.
Dana gripped the cold steel with both hands and leveled the barrel on Mr. Bellomy. “I want the truth.”
Chapter Nineteen
Dana had a gun.
The slide of steel from leather warned that the chief had drawn his weapon even before Spence turned to see.
“Drop your weapon, Miss Hall,” Gerard ordered.
“Just wait,” Spence demanded.
Before the chief could respond, Spence strode as quickly as he dared toward the group gathered around Dana.
“Dana,” he said softly, firmly as he cut between Ginger and Lorie. “Put the gun down. You don’t want to do this.”
“I want,” Dana stated in a monotone voice that spoke of extreme fatigue and desperation, “the truth.”
She was scared, confused and plain tired.
Gerard came closer. “You’d better listen to your friend, Dana.”
Spence wished like hell that the chief would lower his weapon. But deep down he understood why he hadn’t. “Dana,” Spence urged, “one wrong move…one twitch of your finger could set off a chain reaction that none of us wants. Please, lower the weapon.”
Her hands shook, but she didn’t do as he asked.
“Tell ’em, Waylon,” Bellomy said to Gerard. “Tell ’em all. What difference does it make now?”
Spence made a decision at that moment. He was going to show Dana Hall that someone trusted her…believed in her.
“Dana,” he said gently. “I’m going to take the gun because I know—” he put his hand to his chest “—that you would never hurt anyone.” Then he reached out. “I’m going to take the gun and then the chief is going to tell us the truth, so this nightmare will be over.”
Dana’s gaze collided with his. The hope, the desperation he saw there tore him apart inside.
Slowly, just a few inches at a time, he moved toward her. He wrapped his fingers around the muzzle of the weapon and pulled it free of her grasp. She dropped her hands to her sides and shuddered visibly.
When Spence had tucked the weapon into his waistband, he moved in closer, put his arm around her and let her lean against him.
“Now,” he said to Gerard who had lowered his weapon as well, “we want the truth.”
Gerard holstered his weapon. He glanced at Bellomy, who nodded for him to do as Spence asked.
“We believe,” Gerard began, “that Donna was a very ill little girl. Her father didn’t realize how much so until it was too late.”
Dana trembled. Spence held her tighter.
“I don’t understand,” she protested.
Her voice was thin, shaky. Spence wished there was more he could do…something to spare her the painful reality that was no doubt to come.
“My old hound dog went missing,” Bellomy took up where the chief left off. “It was days before I found him.” He shook his head. “And when I did, Donna was there. I’d been watching her go off into the woods alone. I followed her. She swore she wasn’t the one who killed him. She found him and buried him. But decided to come back and dig him up and make sure she hadn’t dreamed the whole thing. And—” he shook his head “—I wanted to believe her, so I did.” He moved his head sadly from side to side. “There were other things. Couple of our neighbors had pets go missing. We all figured it was just one of those things.”
“She was the one to do those awful things to your cat,” the chief said to Patty. “Her father found her writing about it in Dana’s diary. She insisted Dana had written it and that she was trying to mark it out so no one would know. She was afraid you’d be in trouble. Your daddy couldn’t be sure and, like Carlton, he wanted to believe her. Later he realized he’d been wrong.”
“And my dog,” Ginger spoke up. “Did she hurt him?”
Even after sixteen years, emotion glistened in the woman’s eyes.
Chief Gerard nodded. “Donna did a lot of terrible, terrible things.” Gerard settled his gaze back on Dana. “She killed Joanna and Sherry. She wrote about that in your diary, too. To make you look guilty. We didn’t find out until later. Your father thought he’d hidden the diary, but she evidently found it.”
Dana moistened her lips and took a breath. “How can you be sure she lied about the journal?”
She was still afraid her nightmares might hold some truth.
“And who killed Donna?” Patty got to her feet, swiped her damp cheeks. “None of this answers that question.”
Bellomy and Gerard exchanged a look.
“Understand,” Gerard said with a pointed look at each person present, “we were reeling from two murders. It hadn’t been a week since we’d found those girls dead in their beds. There hadn’t been time to put two and two together. We were all stunned when we finally put it all together.”
“Your father woke up that night,” Bellomy explained. “Maybe he heard the back door slam. Or maybe his instincts had been nagging him, even in his sleep. He got up to check on you girls and you were missing. When your daddy considered that two girls were dead and Donna had been torturing and killing animals for months, it somehow all broke through the fog of denial. He rushed out of the house to try and find the two of you.”
Dana couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Her sister had killed her two best friends. She’d harmed all those animals. God, how was that possible?
“I got the call just an hour or so later.”
This didn’t make sense. “If my father found us, why the search party? The whole thing was in the papers. People looked for hours.” Dana didn’t have to remember that part. She’d read all about it in the papers.
Gerard nodded. “Two hours to be exact.”
“When your mother woke up and found everyone missing,” Mr. Bellomy explained, “she rushed outside to see what was going on. Your father had walked back to the house. He was in shock. He kept saying the girls…something happened to the girls…they went into the woods. Your mother called the chief, then rushed over to get me. By the time we got back over to your house, your father was shut up in your room. I sent your mother out to watch for the chief and I begged your daddy to talk to me.”
Dana held her breath.
“He—” Bellomy’s shoulders sagged in defeat “—said he went to the stream looking for the two of you when he woke up and found you missing. He knew you liked going there. When he found the two of you, Donna was in the process of smothering you with a pillow. Your father said he didn’t even think; he just acted. He rushed over and pulled her off you. She fought him, kept trying to get to you. He pushed her away so he could see if you were still breathing. I guess he pushed harder than he meant to. She fell…hit her head.”
“Donna was dead,” Spence guessed.
Bellomy nodded. “He was beside himself. Thought you were both dead. Something inside him just shut off and he walked back to the house to get help. But he was so disoriented he couldn’t get the facts straight.” Bellomy blew out a heavy breath. “When I found him in your room, he had his shotgun ready to kill himself. I begged him to let me go to where you were and see if maybe he’d misjudged the situation. He finally relented. I left him with your mother, and I grabbed the closest deputy and headed into the woods. The chief sent the others who’d showed up to search in different directions all over those woods.”
“When he got to the stream,” Gerard said, “Donna was dead. According to the autopsy the injury killed her pretty much instantly. Just the right pressure in just the right place. Nothing your daddy could’ve done would have saved her.”<
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“But you were alive,” Bellomy said. “When I carried you back to the house, your daddy fell to his knees and cried like a baby.”
“But it ate at him,” Dana said. “The truth ate at him until he couldn’t live with it any longer.”
Somber silence was her only response.
“None of this is in the case file,” Spence said to Gerard.
The chief shook his head. “What was the point? It wasn’t murder. The murderer was dead. Donna’s death was an accident. There was nothing to be gained by dragging the Hall family through that kind of ordeal. It was better that no one ever knew.”
“Was it?” Dana stepped away from Spence.
“Some had to live with the questions and the doubts,” Lorie added.
“Some of us,” Dana trumped her statement, “were never able to live at all.”
Gerard stared at the ground. There was nothing he could say.
Sixteen years ago Brighton’s chief of police had made a decision to protect a family from being further devastated.
And all involved had suffered the consequences ever since.
Chapter Twenty
Dana stood on the street and reflected on what remained of her childhood home.
It was finally over.
The newspapers and media networks were in a frenzy over the breaking story.
But at least everyone knew the truth.
Dana hadn’t killed anyone. In her nightmares she had relived her sister trying to kill her over and over. Since her sister was the one who ended up dead, Dana’s mind had twisted the memories, making her believe she’d been the one doing the killing.
Patty, Lorie and Ginger had come to terms with the reality that their game playing was merely the final straw culminating in the complete break from reality of an already damaged mind. That was something the three of them would have to live with the rest of their lives.
Dana’s mother had never known the truth. She was stunned, but the truth explained a lot. She had spent fifteen years blaming herself for her husband’s suicide. Now she knew it hadn’t been about her or their marriage. It had been about his inability to live with the fact that if he’d acted sooner, stepped out of denial a little faster, Joanna, Sherry and Donna all might have lived. But it hadn’t been his fault. He’d loved his daughters. He’d made a very human mistake.
“You ready to head back to Chicago?”
Dana turned to Spence. She smiled. He had believed in her when no one else dared. She was immensely thankful her search for the truth had brought them together.
“Yes. I am so ready.”
He hesitated. “I was thinking that maybe since you’re not officially my client anymore…maybe we could go to dinner.” He shrugged. “Maybe catch a movie.”
Dana’s smile broadened to a grin. “The answer is yes. I would like that very much.”
He leaned down and placed a sweet, chaste kiss on her cheek. She tiptoed, captured his lips with her own before he could pull away. She was ready for far more. For a real kiss.
Finally, Dana Hall was ready for a real life.
Chapter Twenty-One
Chicago, Illinois
Victoria hugged her granddaughter closer to her side.
Jamie had fallen asleep before they were out of the parking lot. Dinner and a movie had been the perfect ending for this stressful week.
“Let’s take the long way home this time, Neal.”
“Yes, ma’am. The long way it is.” The driver flashed her a smile in the rearview mirror. As per her instructions, he didn’t take the usual roads.
Victoria didn’t have to turn back and look to know her security detail would be close behind. That was another stressor for her granddaughter. Even as young as she was, the child had noticed the additional personnel at the house and the fact that a driver took them everywhere, including to school lately.
But Victoria was taking no chances with her granddaughter’s safety.
Thankfully Lucas would be home next week. Two weeks after that, Jim and Tasha would be heading back as well. Victoria wouldn’t relax until she had her whole family around her. She had complete confidence in every member of her staff, but she needed her husband and her son close until this was finished.
Nothing had turned up on the search for intelligence related to the threat to Victoria and her grandchild. But she was not foolish enough to believe the threat held no merit. No matter that the school officials had insisted that the occasional freak incident happened causing the alarm system to react, Victoria was not convinced.
She smoothed a hand through Jamie’s silky blond hair. This child would never experience what her father had suffered. Victoria would see to that.
No matter the sacrifice or the cost.
Jamie Colby would be protected.
The streets of Chicago were quiet tonight.
Victoria turned her attention to the city she loved so much. Her life, with all its pain as well as its glory, had played out in this dynamic city.
The Colby Agency had made its home here and put down deep, deep roots. Desperate souls from across the nation came through the agency’s doors and all received the help and relief they sought.
Like Dana Hall. She now had her life back. She could begin anew with the truth on her side.
Spence had done a fine job. Victoria was certainly pleased to have him on staff. Merrilee Walters would arrive tomorrow. Victoria looked forward to the challenge of helping her fit in.
A traffic light changed, and the car slowed to a stop. Jamie snuggled deeper into her grandmother’s arms. Victoria smiled. The freedom of pure innocence. She prayed the future would hold the best life had to offer for the sweet child.
Some would say it was the hard times that made the good ones all the sweeter. Perhaps so. Victoria took the bad with the good and hoped for the best.
Always, always, however, she braced for the worst.
The squeal of tires drew her attention forward. As the traffic light turned green, a car traveling on the cross street skidded to a stop in their path.
“For the love of—”
Glass shattered, cutting short the driver’s words. His head jerked back, and something wet splattered across Victoria’s face.
The gaping hole in the back of his head didn’t fully register until she swiped her face and saw the red on her hand.
Blood.
More gunshots pierced the night. Her security detail was returning fire outside her car.
Victoria lunged into action. She settled Jamie on the floor, used her body as a shield above her and whispered assurances to the child. She reached beneath her jacket, her fingers seeking—
The sound of something metal scraping glass alerted Victoria that someone was at her door, jimmying the lock. She could still hear the exchange of gunfire outside. Her heart rocketed into her throat.
As the door wrenched open, Victoria’s hand came from under her jacket; she twisted her torso and leveled the barrel of the Ruger on the man’s ski-mask-clad face. “Drop that weapon or I will blow your head off.”
“Give me the kid and I’ll let you live,” he growled, the barrel of his Glock aimed at her forehead.
“Close the door and walk away,” Victoria countered, “and I’ll let you live.”
The pop of gunshots outside had slowed like a bag of microwave popcorn nearing ready, but it wasn’t done yet.
The man laughed. “Look, you old bitch, give me the kid now or you’re dead.”
“Wrong answer.” Victoria sent a bullet straight through his brain.
The man crumpled onto the seat. Victoria snatched the gun from his fingers. She wanted to check his ID, but she didn’t dare move. Whatever was going on outside wasn’t over. She had to stay down…had to protect Jamie.
Fully awake now, Jamie whimpered.
“It’s okay, baby.” Victoria rocked her as best she could in their awkward position. And she prayed…that God would see them safely through this.
“Victoria, are
you all right?”
Her head came up and relief flooded her at the sight of Ian’s face.
“You can come out now.” He offered a hand to assist her. “We’ve neutralized the situation out here.”
This time.
Victoria eased back up into the seat, pulling Jamie with her.
But what about next time?
If they didn’t learn the source of this threat soon…
All the enemy needed was one moment, one tiny slip in security.
Victoria had to make sure they didn’t get it.
ISBN: 978-1-4268-3605-3
SMALL-TOWN SECRETS
Copyright © 2009 by Debra Webb
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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*Colby Agency
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