The call ended.
Still holding the phone, Ruth closed her eyes and began to pray. And for much more than a job for Fran Tompkins’s husband.
Chapter 28
If it had been up to Alycia, Brooklyn would have driven her to the church parking lot before the sun was full up that Saturday morning. She made that clear when she came into Brooklyn’s bedroom before six o’clock.
“Is it time to go yet?”
Still lying in bed, Brooklyn covered her eyes with the crook of her arm. “You know it isn’t. We don’t have to be there until nine.”
“I can’t wait.” Alycia got onto her mom’s bed. “Can we go early? I don’t wanna miss them.”
Brooklyn swallowed her groan. “They won’t go without you. Derek wouldn’t let them.”
“I should ride with him in his truck to the church. You wouldn’t even have to go. You could stay in bed. Why couldn’t I do that?”
“Because I want to stand with the rest of the moms and wave good-bye to you.” She moved her arm from her eyes and gave Alycia a pointed look. “That’s why.”
Her daughter released one of her dramatic sighs, adding an eye roll for more effect.
Laughing, Brooklyn gave Alycia a little shove with her foot. “You nut. Come up here and give me a hug. Don’t you know how much I’m going to miss you?”
“I’m only gonna be gone one night.”
“I know. But that doesn’t make me miss you any less.”
“I’m not a baby, you know.” Alycia crawled under the sheet and gave Brooklyn a hug.
Brooklyn pressed her cheek against the top of her daughter’s head, breathing in. Alycia’s hair smelled faintly of herbal shampoo, but Brooklyn’s memories were filled with the sweet baby scents from years ago. “No,” she whispered, “you’re not a baby anymore.” She had to blink back the sentimental tears that welled in her eyes.
Alycia allowed the snuggling for only a short while. Her excitement was too much to contain for long. “Do you suppose Mr. Johnson’s up yet?” She drew back from Brooklyn’s embrace. “Should I check on him?”
Brooklyn laughed again. “No, you don’t need to check on him. He’s probably out doing his chores so he’ll be ready to leave on time.”
“You think so?” Alycia slid off the bed and went to the window. “Can’t see much from here, can you?”
It was Brooklyn’s turn to sigh. “I give up,” she muttered, tossing the sheet aside. Louder, she said, “Let’s fix breakfast. What do you want to eat?”
“Anything but pancakes and bacon. Mr. Johnson says that’s what we’ll eat in the morning. He says nothing tastes better than pancakes and bacon when you’re in the mountains. You suppose that’s true?”
“I wouldn’t know, honey, but Mr. Johnson wouldn’t lie to you. So at the very least he thinks nothing tastes better than that.” Brooklyn followed her daughter out of the bedroom and down the stairs, stifling a yawn.
What she wanted more than anything was a couple more hours of sleep, but she wasn’t going to get them. After she saw Alycia and Derek off for their overnight trip, she would head straight to work at the diner. She hoped it would keep her from feeling left behind—a silly notion that had been growing in her ever since she’d agreed Alycia could go with the church group.
In the kitchen, she set a frying pan on the stove to heat before dropping slices of bread into the toaster. Before long, two plates held scrambled eggs and toast spread with raspberry jam. Brooklyn carried the plates to the table, then watched as her daughter gobbled up the food. Brooklyn thought to say that bolting her breakfast wouldn’t make time pass any faster, but it would have been a waste of effort. Alycia was simply too excited to help it.
After swallowing the last bite, her daughter said, “Can I go see if Mr. Johnson needs help with the camping stuff? You know. Putting it in his truck. Should I take my backpack over now?”
Brooklyn set down her fork. “Did he ask you to come over, or did he tell you he would meet you at the church?”
“At the church.” Alycia sighed. “But maybe he didn’t think he’d need my help.”
“I have a better idea. You go shower and get dressed while I do the dishes.”
“We’re going camping, Mom. I’m just gonna get dirty.”
Brooklyn laughed. “That doesn’t mean I’m sending you off that way. Take your shower.”
Alycia grumbled something as she left the room, obedient but not happy about it.
Brooklyn rinsed and put the dishes in the dishwasher. Then she went upstairs to take her own shower and get dressed for the workday ahead of her.
She had finished blow-drying her hair when her phone rang. The caller ID told her it was Derek. She smiled as she answered it. “Hey, there. I didn’t expect to hear from you.”
“I know. Listen. I’ve got a bit of a problem about this morning.”
Her smile vanished.
“I got a call from the dispatcher. I’m headed out to meet Hank right now.”
“You have to work? But I thought you had this weekend—”
“They needed to call me in for a bit. I don’t expect it to take long, but I might not make the nine o’clock departure from the church. I’ll have to catch up with Alycia at the campground. But don’t worry. I promise not to disappoint her.”
Brooklyn sank onto the side of the bed. Who was he kidding? Alycia would be disappointed, no matter when he caught up with her.
“I’ve arranged for Alycia to ride up with Wendy Royal and her dad. They’ll be looking for her at the church. I’ll join her and everybody up at the campground just as soon as possible. Alycia probably won’t have time to miss me before I get there.”
“She’ll miss you, Derek.”
He was silent for a short while. “I don’t have a choice, Brooklyn. But I promise I’ll make it up to her.”
He could promise whatever he wanted. Alycia would be upset. And so was Brooklyn. Upset and disappointed and angry. It didn’t matter if he couldn’t help it. It didn’t matter that, rationally, she understood he had a job to do. All that mattered was that he’d promised Alycia an adventure with him and now it wouldn’t happen. At least not the way her daughter had planned on it happening.
She closed her eyes, realizing she was even angrier with herself than she was with him. Angry for letting Derek get close enough to hurt her daughter, to hurt them both.
“Brooklyn?”
“It’s all right, Derek,” she answered stiffly. “I’ll tell Alycia what you said.”
“Thanks for understanding.”
“I’d better go. Alycia . . . I need to tell Alycia.”
Derek dropped the phone onto the seat beside him. He’d thanked Brooklyn for understanding, but he wasn’t sure she did, judging by the cool tone of her voice at the end of their conversation. He wished he could have told her in person. Maybe then it wouldn’t have gone over as bad. Maybe then she would have believed him.
And he’d told her the truth. He didn’t have a choice. When a deputy was called, he answered. And if Hank needed him, that was even more reason to go. His friend wouldn’t ask for help if he didn’t think it necessary.
Derek forced his thoughts away from Brooklyn and Alycia as he pressed his foot on the accelerator. The sooner he got to the Tompkins home, the sooner the situation would be resolved and he could keep his promises to Brooklyn and Alycia.
Surrounded on three sides by large farms and by the highway on the fourth side, Mac and Fran Tompkins lived in a ramshackle one-bedroom house just inside the county line. The half-acre it sat on was cluttered with junk cars, rolls of chicken and barbed wire, rusting fifty-gallon cans, broken farm tools, and an unpainted barn that listed dangerously to one side. Weeds grew everywhere, baked to a pale brown by the hot summer sun.
One of the department’s black SUVs was parked on the side of the road. Hank stood beside it, shading his eyes as he watched Derek’s approach.
Derek stopped his pickup behind the SUV and got out. “What�
�s going on, Hank?”
Everybody knew that Mac Tompkins had a volatile temper, but somehow he’d managed never to cross a line that would get him arrested. Somehow he’d kept his wife from ever making a formal complaint. That Fran had finally involved her cousin in an official capacity wasn’t a good sign for what could be happening inside the house.
Hank repositioned the black cap on his head. “Mac lost his job a couple of days ago. Fran called me early this morning, said he’d been up all night and was busting the place up. She asked me for help.” He looked toward the house. “But when I got here, she wouldn’t open the door. She said nothing was wrong and I could go on about my business.”
Derek waited for his friend to continue.
“She’s scared. I could hear it in her voice. Scared in a different way from what I’ve ever heard before. I don’t know what’s going on in there. That’s why I sent for you.”
“Did you talk to Mac?
Hank shook his head. “No. Called to him, but he didn’t answer.”
“Has he been drinking?” Alcohol never improved a domestic dispute.
“Fran didn’t say. But he often does before he flies off the handle.”
“Any sounds from the house while you waited for me?” Derek’s fingertips touched the badge clipped to his belt, as if he needed to make sure he could be identified as an officer of the law even though he wore jeans, boots, and a black T-shirt instead of his uniform. He didn’t do the same for the gun in the paddle holster.
“None that I could hear.”
Derek tugged on the bill of his cap. “Okay, let’s go see if he’s got anything to say to us now.”
Brooklyn’s heart ached as she watched her daughter join Wendy beside Ian Royal’s dark-red Subaru. Uncertainty tightened Alycia’s expression as she dropped her backpack at her feet. The excitement and joy the girl had been bursting with earlier this morning had disappeared the moment she learned Derek wouldn’t meet her at the church as planned, that she would ride up to the campground with Wendy and her dad instead. Alycia was the only girl present without a dad or a stepdad or grandfather. Derek was none of those to her, but he had been the much-desired stand-in.
Brooklyn’s anger over the situation had long since cooled. After all, he was a sheriff’s deputy. He did have an obligation to his work and his community. She understood all of that with her head. It was her heart that struggled to accept it. When her daughter hurt, she hurt, and Alycia wanted Derek to be with her.
Internally she sighed, realizing that if Derek was to be that father figure Chad had asked him to be, she would have to work on accepting him and any more bumps that happened along the way. Hadn’t she herself had to disappoint her daughter in the past because of work or lack of finances or who knew what? Of course she had.
Something else to let go of, she thought.
Leveling her shoulders, Brooklyn put on a smile and tried to pretend all was well as she moved to stand before Alycia. “You’re going to have such a good time, honey. You do whatever Mr. Royal tells you. Okay?”
Alycia nodded, but her expression remained downcast.
“Derek . . . Mr. Johnson will get there just as fast as he can. You know he will.”
“I hope so.”
“He will. And in the meantime, you’ve got Wendy and your other friends to enjoy the day with.”
The youth pastor gave the all clear for departure, and men and girls began piling into cars, minivans, and pickup trucks.
Brooklyn gave Alycia one last quick hug and the biggest smile she could muster. “Don’t let it spoil your weekend just because you can’t ride up with Mr. Johnson. Chin up. You’ve been looking forward to today. Have a good time. It’ll still be fun.”
Brooklyn watched as her daughter got into the rear seat of the Subaru and fastened her seat belt. Ian Royal started the engine and pulled out of the parking lot, Brooklyn waving good-bye and hoping Alycia could still see her. Then the car rounded the corner and disappeared from view.
Happy conversations from other mothers and a smattering of grandparents surrounded Brooklyn as she walked to her car. But Brooklyn’s disappointment on her daughter’s behalf made her deaf to them. All she could do was hope the diner would be even busier than usual this Saturday so she wouldn’t have time to think about Alycia . . . or about Derek.
When Mac finally opened the door to Hank and Derek, he didn’t say a word. He stepped back into the dim interior and let them enter at will.
The living room had been thoroughly trashed. Derek suspected it hadn’t been much to look at in the best of circumstances—thrift-store furniture, a few odd knickknacks on a three-by-three bookcase, peeling wallpaper. But there were holes punched into the walls, and he guessed they were new. The glass in nearly every picture frame was cracked. A couple of throw pillows looked to have been slashed with a knife or chewed by a dog. Empty beer cans dotted the floor beside a dirty, overstuffed chair.
Derek remained near the door, his eyes watchful, while Hank tried talking to Mac. Fran, in the meantime, remained on the sofa, unmoving, her shoulders hunched, her eyes locked on the floor. With the curtains closed and no lamps turned on, Derek couldn’t see if she bore any fresh evidence of abuse. And unless she talked, unless she asked for help, there wasn’t a whole lot they could do.
Frustration burned in Derek’s gut. He wanted to make her get off that couch and march out the door and never come back. He wanted her to tell Hank that Mac had hit her. Or at the very least that she’d been in fear of being hit. Just a word or two of that nature would be enough for the law to take action.
“Woman,” Mac growled, his gaze shooting to his wife, “tell your cousin it’s time for him to go. We got no need of him or anybody else here.”
Fran didn’t look up, but her shoulders shook. Derek thought he heard a sob escape her. He took a couple of steps toward her.
“Get out,” Mac demanded.
“Mrs. Tompkins?” Derek said. “Fran? Do you want us to leave?”
Silence.
“Would you like to leave with us?”
She shook her head.
“Are you sure?”
Mac’s voice rose. “She’s not goin’ nowhere. You heard her.”
Derek turned around. “I didn’t hear her because she didn’t say anything.”
“Well, you can hear me, can’t you? I said get out.”
Hank gave his head a slow shake. “Okay. We’re leaving. Derek.” He jerked his head toward the front door. “We’ve done all we can.”
They hadn’t done all they could, but they’d done all that the law allowed. Derek followed Hank toward the door.
“Wait.” Fran whispered the word.
But Derek heard it. He stopped and turned to face her again.
“Keep goin’.” Mac growled the order.
Derek locked his eyes on Fran. Waiting. Hoping. After a long, tense moment, she finally looked up. There was just enough light in the room from the open door for him to see the tears in her eyes. “What? What do you want, Fran?”
“I want . . .” She drew in a breath. “I want to go with you.”
Derek barely had a moment to register the movement off to his side, barely time to see Fran’s eyes widened in fear. He turned and felt a jab of red-hot pain as a blade entered his body.
Chapter 29
The busyness of the diner did help Brooklyn keep from thinking about Alycia. At least from thinking about her too much. And when Zach told her she had a telephone call, she hadn’t even a moment’s trepidation.
“This is Brooklyn,” she said into the receiver.
“Brooklyn.” The male voice sounded familiar, but it wasn’t Derek as she’d half expected. “Ian Royal here.”
“Yes?”
“Brooklyn, Alycia is . . . She’s missing.”
Her heart went cold, and her knees turned to water. She fell against the wall in the small office. “Missing? What do you mean? For how long?” She looked at her wristwatch but couldn’t make sense
of the numbers swirling before her.
“I didn’t want to alarm you, but you sent her up here in my charge and I didn’t think it was right not to let you know.”
She nodded.
“Everyone is out looking for her.”
Everyone? “Was she with Derek?”
“No. He hasn’t arrived yet. There isn’t cell service up around the campground, so I couldn’t try to call him. Had to drive down the road to use a pay phone to call you.”
She pushed off the wall with her shoulder. “I’m on my way.” She grabbed a pen and leaned over the small desk, ready to write. “How do I find the campground?”
Impatience growing, Derek waited for the return of the emergency-room physician. He’d been examined and prodded and x-rayed and washed and stitched up. Now he wanted to be out of the hospital and on his way.
He heard a rap beyond the curtain, then Hank appeared in the opening.
“It’s about time,” Derek grumbled.
“I got here as soon as I could.”
“Tompkins?”
“In jail for assault on an officer. For starters.”
“And Fran?”
“She’s with my mom for now. I don’t think she’ll want to go back to that house again. I think she’s finally realized that he’ll only treat her worse if she gives him any more chances.” Hank pointed at Derek’s bandaged torso. “And you? What do they say about you?”
“I’m all right. Doctor says I’m lucky. The knife missed organs and major arteries on its way in and out. The blade got muscle and soft tissue, probably because of the way I turned just as Mac struck. I’ll mend. I think they’re about ready to discharge me.”
“You were bleeding like a stuck pig at the scene.”
“Looked worse than it was.”
Hank grunted his disbelief.
“Now I need to get out of here. I’ve got to get up to the campground with the church group. Alycia’s waiting for me. I’ve disappointed the kid enough.”
“I forgot all about that. You think you’re still going?”
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