Serve and Protect (Heroes of Evers, Texas #3)

by Lori Ryan

  Shit. Who was he kidding? His heart was committed. Had been for a while with her. And if she didn’t feel the same way about him, it was going to suck trying to walk away unscathed.

  24

  Cora drove through town after running to the grocery store. She had decided she would head over to her mom’s after she went and grabbed the ingredients for apple pie. If she was going to be wearing tent dresses, she might as well go for broke and have a slice of pie. Or twenty.

  Her route took her back past Ashley’s house and she was surprised to see Garret walking up to the front door. When he rang the bell, she pulled over to the side of the road and shut off her car, a strange feeling prickling at the base of her neck.

  She’d been so sure Ashley had been lying to her about where she was because she was with Garret. If her sister wasn’t with Garret and she wasn’t at the library, where was she? And why had she lied to Cora about it?

  “Garret?” she called out as she walked up the front walk. “She’s not home. I thought for sure she was with you.”

  His gaze swung to Ashley’s car in the driveway, before he looked back to Cora. “I haven’t seen her all day.”

  Cora felt her stomach sink and she pulled her phone out again to text Ashley. “When I texted her earlier, she told me she was at the library working, but I knew that wasn’t true. It was dark and closed up when I passed it a few moments before that.” She spoke almost absently now as she sent an urgent text to Ashley asking her to call her. “I thought she was lying because she’d slept at your house or something and didn’t want to tell me.”

  Garret didn’t like the feeling that was creeping over him, like a cold wet towel had been thrown over his shoulders. “Is it normal for her to lie to you like that?” He asked the question but he knew the answer before she shook her head. The sisters were close. Ashley wouldn’t lie without a reason.

  Cora had dialed the phone now and she was listening but shaking her head. “Straight to voicemail.”

  Damn. If her cellphone was off, they would only be able to see what cell tower it pinged before shutting down. Who knows how far she might have travelled since it shut down or died. Doug had put in a call to start the process, but getting info from her cell phone might not matter now.

  “When was the last time you talked to her or saw her?”

  Cora continued to look at her phone while she answered, as if hoping to hear from her sister any moment. “Last night.”

  He thought about the text he’d gotten from Ashley that morning and the feeling of unease intensified. He could understand it if Ashley was avoiding him. They hadn’t been together very long and maybe things had moved too quickly for her. But why would she lie to Cora?

  His mind flashed to the Jane Doe they had sitting in the hospital waiting for her family to find her, but he shook off the thought. Ashley was fine. She was just—just what? Damn, he had no idea. But he wouldn’t panic yet.

  “Why don’t you call your parents and your siblings and see if they’ve heard from her. Maybe text a few friends. I don’t think it’s time to panic yet,” he said. But when Cora turned back to her phone to do just that, he took out his own phone and scrolled through the contacts. He didn’t know the identity of the Jane Doe and he hadn’t laid eyes on her himself yet, but her description suddenly sounded too much like Ashley.

  He repeated his pep talk in his head, telling him that the young woman with dark hair and a small build wasn’t Ashley. It wasn’t. But he texted a friend on staff at the hospital anyway and asked for a photo of the woman in the ICU. He told his friend it was urgent, even as he told himself he was being foolish.

  It’s not her. It’s not her. It’s not her.

  Over and over, he forced the thought as Cora shook her head again.

  “No one has heard from her.”

  “Do you have a key?” he asked Cora and she nodded, walking up the few steps to the door.

  “I came inside earlier to see if she was here and leave her a note. I thought maybe she was sick,” she said over her shoulder as they walked in the front door. “I checked the whole house. She isn’t here.”

  He checked himself but didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. His phone chimed and he said a prayer as he lifted it to look at the image his friend had sent.

  Christ, he’d never been so relieved in his life. The woman in the photo had a tube running down her throat and a face as white as the sheets she lay on, but he could tell it wasn’t Ashley. Thank God, it wasn’t Ashley.

  “What’s that? Is that her?” Cora asked him.

  “No. Just something for a case. It’s not important now. Is there anyone else you can think to call?”

  “I texted the people she spends any amount of time with, and all of my family. We all assumed she’d be at the house in a couple of hours for dinner, but haven’t heard from her.”

  Garret stepped out on the front porch, scanning the neighborhood, while Cora stood behind him, shifting from one foot to the other. He turned to look back at her and nodded to his left.

  “You go check with the neighbors down that way, I’ll check to the right.”

  “Okay,” she said.

  “Hey, Cora, don’t worry. She’s probably fine.” He smiled at her and she offered a small smile back, but he had a feeling she didn’t believe it any more than he did. His gut was screaming at him. Something was wrong. He just didn’t know what.

  25

  Michelle looked down at the phone on the floor. She’d been answering texts, pretending to be Ashley, right up until it died hours earlier. She paced the length of the cabin floor, before swinging back again. Bill should have been here to help her with this. She shouldn’t have had to do this on her own. And now, things were an absolute clusterfuck. She’d screwed it up. She should have made it look like an accident, but there was no way to do that now. She was in way over her head and she knew it.

  “Damn it!”

  “Maybe if we talk about it, I can help you work it out,” Ashley said quietly, hoping it was the right move. They’d walked for over an hour and had been in this crappy, broken-down cabin for most of the night. Ashley hadn’t dared sleep. While they had trudged through the woods, she had tried to get Michelle to talk, to answer questions, but the woman had resisted and shoved Ashley forward. Ashley’s feet were killing her and she had twisted her ankle at one point. The swelling wasn’t too bad yet, and the pain took her focus off the pain in her head, but she wasn’t exactly confident she could run, if given the chance.

  Michelle had seemed to get more and more agitated throughout the night, talking to herself and even hitting the side of her head a few times with her open hand. As the night turned into day and the morning had passed, Ashley had watched Michelle and debated every possible course of action she could think of. There weren’t many.

  Ashley was taking a gamble, trying to get her to talk again. Who knew if she’d end up provoking the woman, or if she’d somehow find a way to get through to her?

  For the better part of the last few hours, Ashley had inched her way toward the wall to the back of the cabin, where a few pieces of shattered glass lay beneath one of the few windows in the place. Now that she’d slipped the largest piece she could find into her right hand, she felt slightly more comfortable drawing Michelle’s focus back to her.

  “I’m a good listener, Michelle. If you’ll just let me listen, I’m sure we can figure this out together.” Ashley wished momentarily that she’d researched Hostage Negotiation 101 or something for one of her books. That would have come in handy right now. She wondered what Garret would do. What would he tell her to do? Probably stay calm. That was becoming more and more difficult as things progressed.

  Michelle turned toward her, and seemed to realize Ashley was talking to her. “What did you say?”

  Ashley took a long breath. “I said I’m a good listener. Maybe we can work this out together if you let me know what’s going on.”

  “What’s going on? What’s going on is I�
��m alone! This wasn’t supposed to happen like this. Bill was supposed to be the one. He was supposed to be it. The man who would marry me and take care of me. Of me!” She whacked herself pretty firmly on the chest when she said this, and Ashley struggled not to flinch. Or laugh. Because if she did laugh, she had a feeling it would be the hysterical laughter of a woman on the edge who might have just pushed another woman on the edge right over the damned cliff.

  “You’re not alone. I’m here.”

  “That’s the problem. You. You’re the problem.”

  Great. Ashley apparently sucked at the whole negotiate-with-the-hostage-taker thing. This was a fine time to figure that out.

  “You want to know what the problem is?” Now Michelle’s focus was fully on Ashley and she was waving that gun around again, her finger most definitely on the trigger. Ashley stifled the urge to tell her she was supposed to keep her finger along the trigger guard when not taking aim. That probably wouldn’t help matters.

  She remained silent as Michelle continued. “Your false accusations have put the man I love in jail and now I need to take care of you to see that he gets out. It’s not like I haven’t done it before. I have, you know. I can do this. It’s just that it changes you, you know? And, the last time, I didn’t plan it. I didn’t have to think about it ahead of time.”

  Ashley didn’t want to know what she was talking about, because she had a sinking feeling Michelle was talking about Alice. That this woman had been the one to kill Alice, not Bill Franks. Which made sense. Alice never would have let Bill Franks into her apartment willingly, yet there hadn’t been a sign of a struggle or forced entry. Alice had been making tea when her attacker had stabbed her in the back.

  Ashley hated to think that Alice had trusted this woman, had let her into her home only to be killed by her. But she knew Alice. If Alice knew a child was in trouble, she’d do whatever it took to help them. If Michelle had shown up claiming she wanted to talk, Alice might have let her guard down. She might even have let Michelle enter her home when anyone working in social services knew that wasn’t wise.

  “You killed Alice?” she asked quietly. The look that came over Michelle’s face confused Ashley. It was one of regret, despite the fact that apparently she seemed to be trying to work up the courage to do the same thing to Ashley.

  “She didn’t leave me any choice,” Michelle said, with the conviction of one who had justice and right behind her words. “She kept trying to convince me to leave Bill. Said he liked to do dirty things to little girls and my Evie was in danger if we stayed with him. She wouldn’t stop.”

  Michelle turned away now, pacing again, and she seemed to be in conversation more with herself than with Ashley. Ashley gripped the glass in her hand and moved her arm to sit beside her leg on the floor. The shard would still be out of Michelle’s sight but she felt more ready to act when there was an opening.

  “I told her, he never touched Evie. He wanted me. If he liked little girls he wouldn’t be able to get it up for me the way he did. He wouldn’t like the things I did to him.” She turned to Ashley again, as if pleading for her to support her side of the argument. “She just kept babbling about some non-something. Non-exclusion, non-exclusive. Something about him liking grown women and young girls both. She said she could get me proof and she’s all chatty and making me tea, and trying to be my friend. But she wasn’t my friend. She was trying to get in between me and Bill. And I just couldn’t let her do that.” She threw up her hands, gun and all, and Ashley again watched in horror as she waved that hand around with her finger firmly on the trigger.

  Before Ashley could respond, Michelle narrowed her eyes at her. The conversation was decidedly one-way at this point, and Ashley wanted to try to slow things down, but she couldn’t get a word in. Michelle took another step toward Ashley and she gripped the glass shard more tightly, getting ready. She felt its bite on her skin, but that didn’t matter. She’d cut herself in the process of using it against Michelle, for sure, but that couldn’t be helped.

  “You’re not my friend, either.” Michelle took another step, then another, as she raged. She was almost upon Ashley now, but she wasn’t close enough for Ashley to use the glass. If she fired that gun before she got closer, this could all very well be over without Ashley having a chance at defending herself.

  “You’re not my friend! You want me to talk to you, to open up, but you’re the one making these accusations against Bill. You’re the reason they took him away from me. It’s you!”

  Ashley’s heart was pounding and it felt like it had crawled right up her throat. She held her breath, waiting. Praying Michelle wouldn’t just stand at a distance and empty that gun into her.

  Michelle suddenly slowed. “I took the file from Alice’s house. She had all these notes and your name was in there so I went to see you. I thought maybe I could scare you off.”

  The rat, Ashley realized, but she kept her mouth shut.

  “I watched, trying to figure out what would make Bill want you. I dyed my hair black and got a pair of reading glasses. But you know what? He didn’t like it. He hated it. He didn’t want you. He wanted me.” She was screeching now. “He wanted me!”

  And then Michelle rushed forward, one hand out as if to grab at Ashley, but Ashley held her ground. Waiting. Waiting. At the last possible minute, she clutched the glass shard. It cut deep into her hand, the warmth of blood spilling down her wrist. She brought her arm down hard, not really having much aim as she tried to ignore the pain slicing through her hand. She didn’t process the stunned look on Michelle’s face as she threw herself forward.

  The women went down and Ashley heard the gun fly, skittering across the floor. She pulled the glass back and thrust again, trying not to watch as it sank into Michelle’s neck. There was blood everywhere and Ashley didn’t know how much of it was Michelle’s and how much was hers.

  She left the glass embedded in Michelle’s still form, and bolted for the front of the cabin, bursting through the door and running into the woods. She didn’t know if Michelle was dead or alive, and she didn’t know if she would be able to pursue Ashley or not. She thought briefly that she should have picked up the gun, but being new at this whole fleeing the scene of her attack, she imagined she’d done more than one or two things wrong.

  As she tried to wade and climb through the tangled underbrush of the woods, she realized mistake number two. She should have taken the time to orient herself and find the path they’d taken to the cabin. She stopped and sucked in some deep breaths, bending at the waist to stop the dizziness in her head. Her ankle throbbed and her hand was bleeding heavily. Enough to make her stomach flip as she looked at it. Ashley took off the cardigan she’d worn to work the previous day. It would be too bulky to wrap around her hand. She removed the matching silk shell and folded it lengthwise a few times, then wrapped it tightly around her hand, tucking the edge in as best she could with only her teeth and one hand. She put the cardigan back on and looked around.

  The cabin was no longer in sight. She listened for several minutes, but didn’t hear the sounds of Michelle following her. But there weren’t any other sounds either. No sounds of people talking or a road or water. She was distinctly aware that she hadn’t eaten since lunch the day before and hadn’t had anything to drink since around the same time. She’d had a little water in the afternoon at the library, but not as much as she should have. She wondered how long it would be before she felt the effects of that. Add in the blood loss, the twisted ankle, and the lack of sleep, and she didn’t want to think about her body’s condition at the moment.

  She closed her eyes and pictured the cabin. When they had come out of the trail last night, they’d been on the left side of the cabin. The south side. She was fairly sure of that much, at least. When she came out after stabbing Michelle, she’d run straight out the front of the cabin and into the woods. Once she’d hit the woods, she tried to go straight, but she wasn’t sure she really had. Climbing around trees and brush made the
trajectory a little iffy, at best.

  But even if she had gone straight, that was the wrong direction. She looked around. Looked up and tried to figure out which way was south. She realized she didn’t have a clue. They’d travelled mostly uphill last night, but now the terrain seemed to be fairly flat. She turned in a slow circle, trying to gauge if there was a slant to the ground at all.

  Yes. There was definitely a slight downhill slant in one direction. Which meant that should be south. Toward the road. Toward where they’d left the car. Not that she had keys to it, but maybe she could figure out how to hotwire it. She hadn’t been a model kid as a teen, but unfortunately, she’d never learned how to hotwire a car. Maybe she could wing it. Sure. Just like she could wing the survival skills needed to find south. She rolled her eyes at herself, raised her hand up to her shoulder to try to slow the bleeding, and set off in the direction she’d chosen. At the very least, she would commit to one direction and keep moving.

  26

  “I’m sorry I can’t be more help. I didn’t see who the woman was,” the neighbor diagonally across the street from Ashley’s house told Garret. “I just saw Ashley walk up to her next to a blue car, and then one of my kids called to me and I went into the den. That’s at the back of the house. When I came back to the kitchen, I think they were gone.”

  She scrunched up her face as though thinking and pointed toward one of the windows on the front of her house. “That window is right over my kitchen sink. I was getting dinner ready. I don’t remember seeing them there when I drained the pasta, but I’m not really sure if I looked at the window then or not. I was really just focused on getting dinner ready.”

  “Do you know what kind of car it was?”

  The woman shook her head decisively at that. “I’m not good with things like make and model. I wouldn’t know a Honda from a Ford. But it was a sedan. Smallish. That’s about all I can tell you.”

  “Would you mind showing me where the car was parked?” Garret asked.