Cutting Ties (Book 2) (Piper Anderson Series)

by Danielle Stewart

  “I’m Special Agent Miles Stanley. I need to get your statement about the scene at Saint Julian’s Church as well as what transpired here. Can you come down and talk with me please?” The man had salt and pepper hair and features that screamed I’m the boss. He clearly wasn’t often told no. He seemed like a man who got what he wanted, but Bobby was about to throw him a curve ball.

  “I’m going to the hospital with my girlfriend. I’ve given my statement to the Edenville detectives. If you need more than that, hop in.”

  “Officer Wright, you know this protocol. You need to be debriefed, and we need to get a full written statement of your account. You know the rules.”

  Bobby felt himself smile a little inside, though outwardly his jaw was set in a hard line of determination. This is what everyone around him was constantly saying, and now, though not on the grand scale, in this instant he finally understood it. “To hell with the rules. I’m going to the hospital with Piper. Now either get in or stand back.” Bobby released Piper’s hand and made a move for the ambulance door, fully prepared to close it on the man’s head if that’s what it took.

  “I’ll see you at the hospital,” Agent Stanley managed to yell as the ambulance doors slammed shut. He stepped backward, resigning himself to being trumped by love.

  Piper cracked open her eyes and reached for Bobby’s hand again. “Did I just hear the straight-laced goodie-two-shoes cop say to hell with the rules?” She looked over at the stocky, bald EMT currently taking her blood pressure and smiled. “You better turn down my pain medicine, I’m hallucinating.”

  In spite of this lighthearted moment, things were not miraculously fixed between them. They weren’t suddenly healed and compatible, now seeing the world the same way. The death of her father may have helped Piper as an individual, but she wasn’t sure what it would mean for her and Bobby as a couple. She knew being witty didn’t mean she was going to come out of this unscathed, but right now she needed a little cheerfulness.

  As they unloaded Piper at the hospital, Bobby found a quiet corner and pulled his phone from his pocket. Judging by the seventeen missed calls, he knew Michael, Betty, and Jules had no doubt been wondering what was going on. They’d be desperate for an update.

  “Michael, I’ve got some news,” Bobby said, not sure where to start. “I’m sorry we didn’t check in, but things got a little crazy here. Piper was taken by her father and Carlson was injured trying to stop him. He took her to Chris’s cabin, and we were able to get Piper back safely. Her father is dead.” The words clogged in his throat like he was swallowing sawdust. “I don’t have an update on Carlson yet, but Piper is all right.”

  “We’re fine here. I’m glad to hear Piper is doing okay. And when you find out about Agent Carlson let us know. I don’t know if you ended up seeing him or not, but Chris flew back to North Carolina in case you needed some help. We’re obviously going to stay here with little Chris until he gets back.” Michael said evenly. Bobby could imagine that Michael had Betty and Jules staring at him like hawks. He was probably trying to keep his composure in the face of the big new for their sake.

  Bobby let out an exasperated breath. “We saw Chris. He saved her life. He got to her just in time. It’s a long story. I’ll fill you in later. Piper is getting checked out, and I’m going to try to get an update on Carlson. I’ll talk to you guys soon.” Bobby hung up his phone and headed for the front desk.

  After a few minutes of showing his badge and explaining the situation, the two officers perched outside Agent Carlson’s intensive care room decided to let Bobby in. As he pushed open the door he was shocked to see the normally invincible agent lying helplessly against the white sheets of the hospital bed. The door pulled open behind him and in walked a doctor, a large chart in hand. He was a short, big nosed man with curly white hair, and seemed completely engrossed in the information he was reading.

  “Oh, sorry,” he said looking up from his chart. “I’m Dr. Siegel, the intensive care physician. I’ll let you visit. I can come back.”

  “No, please stay, it’s no problem. Is she going to be okay?” Bobby pulled up the chair next to Carlson’s bed and sat solemnly. He was expecting her to look more like she did the last time he’d seen her—hurt, but conscious. That was not the case. She was taking short, shallow breaths, and her skin was ashy and faded.

  “I’m sorry to say she isn’t. The gunshot wounds she sustained involved several of her major organs. We performed surgery to try to repair them, but unfortunately the damage was too extensive. We’re all actually amazed that she’s hung on this long. It’s good that you’re visiting with her. They told us she had no family. There have been a few other colleagues of hers that have come by, but they didn’t stay. It won’t be long now, it’s good that you’ll be with her.”

  “Isn’t there any more you can do?” Bobby asked, surprised by the doctor’s seemingly pessimistic attitude.

  “There would be, but she has a do-not-resuscitate order. She doesn’t want any extraordinary measures taken post-surgery to keep her alive. In her case, these measures might buy her a few more days, but she would be completely reliant on machines. She didn’t want to live, or die, like that. Like I said, with her stats the way they are, I’m amazed she made it through the afternoon. She must be hanging on for some reason.” The doctor hung the chart by the door, adjusted some buttons on the machine by Carlson’s bed, and then slipped quietly out of the room.

  Bobby leaned in and started a conversation with Carlson even though he knew she wouldn’t reply. “I guess it’s easy to figure out what you were holding on for. You said you wanted to live on a planet where he wasn’t free to hurt anyone else. Well, you did it. He’s dead, and you’re alive.” To Bobby, Carlson’s lying here dying only deepened his belief that trying to fight evil with evil never worked. He’d lived it as a child, and now here it was again. A life, many lives, ruined by the backward philosophies of ignoring a justice system that had been working quite well for decades. “I’ll never understand what you did, or how you managed to justify it. I don’t like how you played the game, but you won, and that counts for something. I want you to know that I don’t intend to tell anyone what you told us today. It isn’t because I agree with what you did or that I forgive you. I just can’t see who it helps. You did your job well for a long time, and then you screwed it up. You were going to try to make it right. You died trying to protect someone.” He paused, thinking of what he’d be doing right now if Piper hadn’t survived. It chilled him to the core to even consider it.

  “Those things count. You’re going to go out a hero, and maybe you haven’t completely earned that, but maybe you haven’t earned the alternative either.” Bobby hung his head and said a prayer, something he hadn’t done in far too long. “I’ve got my own blemished conscience, and I’m not really in a position to judge you.” Then he sat silently, listening to the ticking of the clock and the beeping of the machines until an hour passed and the periodic beeping turned to a steady, long beep. He knew what that indicated. As the door to her room swung open and nurses poured in, Bobby reached for Carlson’s hand. She’d made mistakes, but she didn’t deserve to die alone.

  As he left Carlson’s room and made his way back toward Piper’s, Bobby realized he’d need to break the news to her. If he had mixed feelings about Carlson’s death he could only imagine how Piper would feel. Just one more emotional conundrum to tackle together.

  Chapter Twenty

  Piper had hoped all of this would be easier. Maybe she and Bobby would instantly fall into each other’s arms now that the chaos was over. She would feel healed by the death of her father. Maybe she wouldn’t have lasting effects concerning the impact of Carlson’s betrayal. Perhaps her new life would start now and it would be perfect. But there was a reason she avoided optimism; it often fell short of reality. There was still so much to be worked out between her and Bobby, much of it made worse by what happened in the cabin. There were moments it was clear Bobby was tormented by what
he’d allowed to happen there. The anxiety of it being uncovered was written on his face every time they’d been forced to recount it for one agent or another. She worried that things may never settle down for them. Maybe he blamed her for putting him in that position and maybe she couldn’t overlook his hesitation that day. Silence kept creeping up between them, and the longer it lingered the more doubt grew in her mind.

  Her father was dead. She didn’t understand how that could feel like both a weight lifted from her and a piece torn from her all at the same time. She was suddenly the child of no one. There was a magnificent freeing feeling that would be quickly punctuated by a haunting loneliness. She didn’t yearn for her father, frankly she never had. But she was now related to no one. She knew no one who shared her DNA. That was a very isolating concept.

  And then there was Carlson, the complicated contradiction that kept challenging Piper’s mind. Was she angry at her still? Was there a part of her that understood why Carlson did what she did? Maybe even a different part of her that was happy Carlson had drawn her father in and brought this all to a close? The mixture of feelings swirling around Piper was too much for her to bear. She couldn’t sort them out or separate them long enough to decide how she felt.

  “You want me to deliver her eulogy?” Piper asked incredulously, looking back and forth between Agent Stanley and Bobby.

  “She has no family. None of us knew her that well. You were one of the last people to speak with her that day. She was shot trying to protect you. I think she’d like it if you said a few words at her funeral tomorrow.” Agent Stanley barely looked up from his paperwork, not wanting to make it look like he was giving Piper much choice.

  She’d gotten the all clear from her doctors and was minutes away from being released from the hospital. Betty, Jules, and Michael were driving back from Illinois in their rental car and due to return to Edenville shortly. They planned to join her and Bobby for celebratory moonshine at Betty’s. Then suddenly Agent Stanley decided to spring this on them along with some last minute paperwork.

  “So, I’ll expect you to have something ready for tomorrow then,” he said nonchalantly. “Now, please sign right here.”

  “What is it?” Bobby asked skeptically. The paperwork they had all filled out was endless, requiring them to recount what had happened again and again. But up until this point there weren’t many things they needed to sign.

  “There is no imminent danger to her, so she can now resume her old identity. She’s free,” he said, smiling for the first time since they’d met him. He slid the paper across the rollaway hospital table that had acted like a desk for them all over the last few days.

  “Don’t sign that paper,” Betty said bursting into the room and racing over to Piper for a hug. “This child is Piper Anderson, and she’s got no interest in being anyone else.”

  “Betty!” Piper shot up, opening her arms for a hug. “I thought we were going to meet at your house.”

  “We saw Bobby’s truck parked out front and figured these big city bureaucrats were in here slowing you down. Good thing I came when I did. You’re not thinking of giving up your name, are you? Going back to New York?”

  Piper wanted to say; I’m going to live the rest of my life as Piper. I’m not looking back, even for a second. But a part of her was hesitant. It wasn’t because she wanted to move back to New York. She didn’t want to go back to being who she was before, but she didn’t feel ready to be the person they all wanted her to be. Did signing this paper mean she was committing herself to being whole? She still felt broken, and signing something that said she was free of her past—free to choose where she lived and decide what she wanted—was terrifying. She’d never really had freedom. As restrictive as that was, it was all she knew. Now faced with limitless possibilities and choices, she was completely overwhelmed.

  “All this paper is saying is that you could if you wanted to. You are free to maintain the identity that was given to you when you relocated. Many people make that choice.” Stanley was back to being his dry, serious self again. The smile had vanished quickly.

  “Maybe you should have your lawyer look at it?” Michael laughed. He and Jules were leaning in the doorway of her hospital room.

  “If I could find a half decent one, maybe I would.” At the sight of all the people she loved, in one place, Piper felt calm returning. She reached for the pen and signed the paper, not because she’d come to terms with any of it, but because no one would understand if she didn’t sign it. Her explanation, her fear, wouldn’t sound logical to any of them.

  “Well, I think it’s high time we go get ourselves three sheets to the wind,” Betty hooted, and the group agreed in unison.

  “We all need a strong drink and a good night’s sleep,” Bobby said, trying to stretch out the aching in his back from sleeping in a hospital chair.

  “I doubt there’ll be much sleep for y’all. You know what they say, lips that touch liquor touch other lips quicker. Just no one go making me any grandbabies tonight. I need a good long rest before I can handle any more commotion.”

  “I think we both have a good long vacation coming to us, Ma. We’ve been away from our jobs for weeks without giving them so much as a phone call.” Jules didn’t want to dampen the mood of the moment, but she’d been stressing about it for some time.

  “It’s already been taken care of,” said Agent Stanley. He was so stiff, they’d almost forgotten he was in the room, the same way you might overlook a houseplant or an end table. “You’d be surprised what a call from the FBI can get you. Both your jobs are waiting for you if you want them. No reason you should be punished for events you couldn’t control.”

  The room was silent. Agent Stanley didn’t look like a man you’d hug, not without some consequence, and no one knew quite what to make of his generosity or how to respond. They all looked at Betty, knowing she’d be able to manage something.

  “That was mighty kind of you, Miles. I knew you couldn’t be as bad as you look,” Betty said, either not grasping the fact that it wasn’t customary to use an agent’s first name, or simply rejecting the idea as ridiculous.

  In his normal robotic way, Agent Stanley stood, nodded his head, and made his way to the door. “We’ll see you tomorrow, Agent Stanley. I’ll have something written up for Agent Carlson. Thank you again for all your help,” Piper called as he rounded the corner from the room. He was an uptight, all-business agent who clearly needed a good laugh, or a good lay. It was ironic now how Piper could see people and look at them with pity when their lives lacked more depth, considering not too long ago that was how she lived. Maybe it would be the way she’d return to living.

  “What in the hell are we still doing here?” Betty asked, gingerly pulling Piper to her feet. “I brought lasagna back in the cooler from Chris’s house. Let’s go pop that baby in the oven and drink until we can’t tell our feet from our hands.”

  They piled into their cars and headed for Betty’s house. Pulling up the long dirt driveway hadn’t lost its appeal at all for Piper. It was still like passing through the gates of a secret garden, a hidden sanctuary where she’d first learned to love.

  They climbed out of their cars, and after starting a fire, changing their clothes, and filling their glasses, they all settled onto the porch. The lasagna was cooking, and the drinks were flowing. The world was right again.

  “Okay this is everyone’s last chance,” Jules said, looking accusingly at all of them. “Any more deep, dark secrets to tell us about? Any more skeletons in those closets? I’m not sure I can take another adventure with you people.”

  They all looked over at Piper, half joking, but secretly wondering if anything else could come crashing down on them. “No,” she scowled, looking insulted. “This is it, I swear. My problems just died with my father. I’ve got no one else in the world but you guys, which means no other drama coming.”

  “You do have us, Piper, you know that, right?” Betty asked as she settled into her rocker. “This com
motion is all behind you now, and you can finally just be here. We hope that means you’ll be staying here in Edenville, staying a part of our family.”

  No one expected the hesitation, the long pause as Piper wrestled to find the words. “I thought I knew exactly how I would feel when I was free of all this, but it’s not as clear as I imagined.” She felt like she was physically striking these people, like she’d crossed the porch and slapped each of them in the face. But if that was how they were feeling, they weren’t showing it. They still had empathy in their eyes.

  “No one thinks this is going to be easy, Piper. You’ve got a slew of stuff to figure out, and there ain’t one of us here who can begin to imagine what you need. But what we can do is keep reminding you we’re here when you need us.” Betty wanted to hold Piper now, sit her right down on her lap and rock her like a baby until the hurt stopped. But she knew that wasn’t what Piper wanted.

  “I am so grateful I found all of you. I want to feel better. I wish I knew exactly what’s right for me right now, but I don’t. What I do know is that I wouldn’t be sitting here—I probably wouldn’t be alive—if I hadn’t met you all. I know I’m not perfect,” she sighed, as she looked over at Bobby, “and I’m not sure why you guys care about me, but I’m glad you do.”

  Betty pulled her quilt over her legs and did what she did best, comforted. “It’s not your job to be perfect, Piper. It’s our job to love you like you already are. That’s what family is all about. All this stuff that happened to you—we can’t make it go away. You’re going to have a long journey ahead of you, and all we can do is come along for the ride if you want us. You’ll make mistakes, we all will. But if our hearts are in the right place we’ll get through it.” Piper knew this wasn’t just a speech about friendship, it was one directed at Bobby and Piper. It was words of advice for their love from someone who’d had and lost her own soul mate. Someone who never took it for granted and didn’t want them to either.