Connecting Strangers (Discovering Emily)

by Rachel Carrington

  “I can’t do that, Sheriff. I’ve come to drop the charges.”

  Everyone in the room stares at one another. I’m not quite certain I’m hearing correctly. And I’m wondering if Mark has some kind of alternate plan to make my life miserable.

  “What are you talking about, boy? Where’s your daddy?” Abernathy exits the cell but doesn’t lock it behind him.

  “This doesn’t involve him. I want to drop the charges against Emily. She didn’t try to kill me. It was an accident. I know you’ve got some paperwork to do, but see that she gets released as soon as possible.” He doesn’t look at me so I can’t read his expression to know what he’s up to.

  Has he had an attack of conscience? Or is this a ploy to get me out because he’s got something much worse than prison in mind for me? Either way, I’m not sure I want to leave the cell. This just seems too neat to me.

  Obviously Adam feels the same for he gets in Mark’s face again. “If it was an accident before, why did you file charges against her?”

  “I was pissed off.” Though his shoulders slump slightly, I’m not buying his demeanor for a second. “That’s the way I get sometimes.”

  “Mark, you need to think about this.” Sheriff Abernathy takes him by the arm and tries to lead him away, but Mark isn’t going.

  “No, Sheriff. I’ve made up my mind. I want Emily released so she can go home, wherever that is now.” When his voice trails off, Adam and I trade glances. Something is definitely amiss.

  “Have you talked to Ike about this?” This comes through gritted teeth.

  “I believe we all heard what the man’s saying, Sheriff.” Adam walks around to stand in front of Abernathy. “It doesn’t sound like further clarification is needed.”

  The sheriff’s eyes narrow to tiny slits. “I’ll have to contact the prosecuting attorney to get permission to release Emily.”

  Adam jerks his head toward the phone. “We’ll be right here.”

  Is this really happening? I look at Mark, but he’s not looking back. This has to be a trick. He doesn’t have a contrite bone in his body. Not to mention, Ike would never allow this, and Mark doesn’t make a move without running it by his father first. Even if he did have an attack of conscience, nothing happens in this town that Ike Metzger doesn’t know about or approve. So it’s only a matter of time before he comes barreling in to change his son’s mind.

  “Emily, I believe it’s safe for you to leave the cell.” Mr. McAllister sounds jubilant. He places his hand on the small of my back and ushers me out.

  “Now hold on just a second. She’s still considered a prisoner until I…” Abernathy breaks off, the phone in his hand. “Yes, I need to speak with Brad Dunston, please.” He points his finger toward the cell, but I ignore it, venturing farther out into the station, closer to Adam.

  We’re looking at one another now, and I think he’s feeling the same amount of disbelief I am. If this isn’t real, I don’t want to know. I’m so close to being free from Mark. Really free. I reach out for Adam’s hand, almost ready to believe. Then the light fixture above me explodes, sending shards of glass raining down on my shoulders.

  Adam lunges at me, taking me down to the tiled floor so hard my shoulder cracks. He covers my body with his, muffling the pops of metal striking metal. But I can still hear the commotion.

  Cries of pain.

  Abernathy shouting into the radio for backup.

  And the explosions of glass as windows fall prey to bullets.

  “We need to get cover,” Adam shouts in my ear. He crouches over me, gripping my hand with his. “Keep low. We’re going to head toward that desk in the corner.”

  I’m paralyzed. Barely breathing. But Adam forces me to move with shouts and curses. I scoot across the floor while bullets ping off the bars of what used to be my cell.

  Then I’m behind the metal desk Adam’s overturned. My back presses against its coolness, and I take in gulps of air. The shots keep coming, and we’re trapped. I don’t hear Abernathy anymore. I don’t hear anything but the gunfire. I reach for Adam, but he’s moving away from me.

  Panicked, I claw at his arm. “What are you doing?” His gun is out, and I stare at it like I’ve never seen one before. “Adam, no! You can’t go out there.”

  He removes my hand. “Stay put.” His tone is terse, commanding. He’s going. Because it’s his job. Only not here. I want to remind him of that. He doesn’t work here so he shouldn’t have to risk his life.

  By the time my thoughts make sense, Adam has already made it to another desk. Then another. His gaze sweeps the blown out windows then across the floor. I follow his line of sight and see blood.

  Before I can move, I hear sirens. More shouting. Return fire. Then nothing. Several long minutes pass in total silence before Adam finally calls my name. He’s up on his feet and walking toward me, more glass breaking beneath his shoes.

  I stand, though my legs are shaky. “Is it over?”

  He pulls me into a tight embrace. “It’s over.”

  “We’ve got two men down.” Willie Sampson’s hysterical on the radio clipped to his shirt. When Adam and I emerge from the corner, he’s standing in the middle of the station, his eyes wide and tears streaming down his face. “Sheriff’s down.”

  Gary is on the radio, too, calling for an ambulance. Adam goes to Abernathy, but even I can tell it’s too late. He’s taken a bullet to the head.

  Harry McAllister is holding his shoulder when he approaches me, blood dripping through his fingers. “I believe I’ve been shot.” He gives me a quizzical look as though he’s not quite sure if he’s correct.

  “You need to sit down.” I quickly usher him to a chair. “Paramedics are on their way.”

  “Yes, yes. I suppose they are.” He blinks up at me. “Are you all right, my dear? You have blood on your blouse.”

  I look down. “It’s not mine.” It must have come from a spray when a bullet struck its target. The thought makes me ill, but I breathe through my nose to combat the nausea. “You stay here, Mr. McAllister. I need to see if I can help.”

  People are standing outside the station. Some crying. Others just staring in open-mouthed horror. Nothing like this has ever happened in Broomtown.

  More sirens pelt the air. Ambulances and fire trucks roll into place, and the volunteer emergency squad comes streaming out of the vehicles. I step away from the door, my foot encountering an obstacle that threatens my balance. I look down and see Mark’s bloody lips forming my name.

  Chapter Sixteen

  When I kneel beside him, I know nothing can be done to help him. His shirt is a mass of blood, and he’s gasping for air. I call out for help anyway and take his hand. Tears fill my eyes.

  “Why?” I whisper because it’s all the voice I have.

  “Had to warn you.” He gasps each word. “Not safe.”

  “Warn me about what? What’s not safe?”

  “Be…” The word trails off, and his hand goes slack in mine.

  “Mark?” I lean down to listen for breath sounds and hear nothing. “Dammit.”

  “Are you okay?” Adam squats down beside me.

  “I’m fine. It’s everyone else here that isn’t. How did this happen? First in Juniper Springs and now here? This doesn’t make sense.”

  “I know.” He cups my elbow and helps me to my feet. “We need to clear the scene. The state police are on the way. They’ll want our statements. But first, let’s get cleaned up and get some air.”

  Air. Something Mark or Sheriff Abernathy would never need again. I can barely breathe myself as I walk beside Adam. More people have gathered outside than live in Broomtown. So we shuffle our way through the crowd to Adam’s truck where I press my spine against the cool metal and close my eyes.

  “You can’t shut them out, Emily.” Adam’s voice is as soft as spun cotton, and he rubs his hands up and down my arms as though trying to restore feeling. “What you just saw in there, experienced, it’ll stay with you.” He doesn’t sugar
coat his words. “Some nights it’ll be hard as hell to sleep, but you’ll move on. It’s what we do.”

  I lean my forehead into his chest. “Mark said something to me before he died.” The finality of the sentence makes me shiver. Mark is dead. I should feel something more, shouldn’t I? There’d been tears on my cheeks when he lay dying, but I’m not sure they were for him.

  “Emily.” Adam breaks into my thoughts. “What did Mark say?”

  “Something about warning me, that it wasn’t safe.”

  “What did he mean?”

  “I don’t know. He didn’t get a chance to explain.” I move closer to Adam as I start to shiver. Reality is setting in.

  “Emily? Emily!” Francine races toward me, arms outstretched. “Oh my God, I thought…” She breaks off and smothers me in a hug that quickly ends with a shove backwards so she can inspect me from head to toe. “Are you okay, girl?” She doesn’t give me a chance to answer before barreling on. “When I heard those gunshots, I almost passed out. I just couldn’t figure out how this could be happening again. That lowball son-of-a-bitch. How can he claim to love you then shoot at you like he’s hunting for his dinner?”

  “Francine.”

  “When I find him, I’m going to kick his ass into the middle of next week and then start all over. No, I’ll—”

  “Francine.” Adam manages to interrupt her. “Mark was one of the victims inside. He didn’t make it.”

  Her mouth falls open, and her gaze whips from the carnage behind us to my face. “Oh. Oh, honey.” Another hug presses my face against her breasts. “Adam, would you give me a minute alone with her?”

  The scuffle of boots tells me the request has been granted. Once Francine and I are alone, I grip her hands so tightly my knuckles turn white. “He’s dead, Francine.”

  “And you feel like a load has been lifted off your shoulders which, of course, you think is wrong.” She chafes my fingers between her own. “Honey, I told you about going through this myself, and that relief inside you is natural. Mark did nothing but make your life miserable. Now he can’t, and you’re hating yourself because you don’t feel any sorrow.”

  “You would think I’d at least feel sorry for him.”

  “Why? He didn’t do anything to deserve your sympathy, and whatever made him such a miserable person doesn’t matter anymore. He’s gone, honey, and like it or not, that’s probably the best thing that could have ever happened to you.”

  “But he tried to warn me.” The memory of his halting voice trying to force the words out through all the blood coating his lips is one I won’t forget. His face. The way his body lay so still after breathing his last. Those images are burned in my mind.

  Her brows lower into a scowl. “Warn you about what?”

  “I don’t know. That’s what Adam and I were talking about when you found me. Mark said something about it not being safe.”

  “Well, he wasn’t kidding about that. We need to get you out of this town and back to Juniper Springs where you belong.” She wraps an arm around my shoulders. “Then you can start building a real life.”

  I listen to her with one ear while playing Mark’s words over in my mind again and again. He’d known he was dying, and I can’t imagine he would have lied to me then. But why would he have wanted to drop the charges? Mark never backed down. None of this made any sense.

  “There she is!” Ike Metzger’s thunderous voice gains my attention. He snags the arm of a uniformed officer I don’t recognize. “Arrest that woman.”

  My head spins crazily while I stare at the striped tie resting against Ike’s pot belly which is rising and falling with each of his rapid breaths. “Ike, I’m so sorry.”

  His bleary-eyed gaze rests on my face for half a second before he gives his attention back to the cop. “She tried to kill my boy, and while all this was going on, she escaped.”

  The more he talks the more I realize he doesn’t know Mark was inside the station. And I don’t want to be the one to tell him. But shouldn’t I? Would it be better coming from me than a stranger?

  “Ma’am, do you have any idea what he’s talking about?” The deputy from the Kentucky State Police is looking at me, but it’s a distracted gaze. His job is to deal with the chaos, and it’s clear he has no interest in Ike’s ravings.

  “She had nothing to do with Mark’s death,” Francine snaps out each word. “Your son happened to be trying to do one nice thing when he went in there to drop the charges, and Emily had no way of knowing some crazy ass buffoon was going to open fire like that.”

  “Francine, wait.” I grasp her arm, hoping to staunch the flow of words, but it’s too late. Ike has turned around, and he’s staring at the station with such horror my heart begins to ache. Though I don’t like the man, I’ve never wished pain on anyone, and what Ike Metzger is facing is nothing short of pure agony.

  “What are you saying?” He whips back around to me. “What is she saying? Mark’s in there?”

  I couldn’t bring myself to reach out to him, to touch him. Instead, I offer what comfort I can. “Ike, I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t!” He points a nubby finger in my face. “Don’t you dare say another word to me. This is your fault. If you’d never left him, this wouldn’t have happened.” Ike begins backing away. “This is your fault, Emily Jacobs, and I won’t forget it.”

  The temperature has dropped twenty degrees by the time we finish giving the state police our statements, and the brisk wind chills me to the bone. With Adam’s arm around me, I shiver my way to his truck sitting in the now dark, empty parking lot.

  He switches the heater on full blast once we’re inside and revs the engine to get the warmth spiraling through the interior. “You okay?” He gives my knee a squeeze.

  “Better now, but still a little shaky. I’ll be glad when I can get out of here.”

  “Which is right now.”

  “I have to go back to the house first.”

  He stares at me like I’ve just done a back-flip off the Golden Gate Bridge. “The house you shared with Mark?”

  “I left a lot of my things there. My ID, credit cards, pictures. Things I need.”

  A scowl darkens his face, and he drums his fingers against the steering wheel. “You don’t think his daddy will be there, do you?”

  “Probably not. This has hit him pretty hard.”

  “Still didn’t stop him from blaming you.” He makes a u-turn, taps his brakes three times, and lets out a long breath. “Gary and Francine are behind us,” he offers when I look over my shoulder.

  “What about Harry McAllister? He was shot.”

  “He’s at the hospital. They’re keeping him overnight, but he’s going to be fine.”

  Relieved, I put my head back against the rest. “I don’t even know if Sheriff Abernathy had any family or if anyone will mourn him.”

  Adam rests his hand on my leg. “Don’t take that grief upon yourself, Emily. What happened back there was a tragedy. People will be digging themselves out from under this for months, but if you start wondering if someone is even going to be missed, you’ll lose sight of what’s important. That you survived. I know it sounds cold, but you can’t stop living.” His voice thickens. “When I saw you go down like that in the station…” The words trail off.

  “You thought I’d been hit.” Finishing his sentence, I unbuckle my seatbelt to slide closer to him.

  “I’ve been a cop for ten plus years, and I don’t ever remember being that scared.”

  I thread my fingers through his. “Let’s just get out of here. I can come back later for the rest of my things.”

  Without questioning my change of mind, he turns the truck again and taps his brakes again. “Once you do, you’ll never have to see this town again.”

  “That’s only true if I wait to come back for Mark’s funeral.”

  The truck swerves off the road. “Mark’s funeral? You’re going to his funeral?”

  His tone has me edging away from him. “I’m n
ot sure. I’ve thought about it.”

  “When you came to Juniper Springs, you were running from him, and now you think you should pay your respects?”

  “Mark did the right thing in the end.” Defensive, I scooted back to the passenger seat and locked the seatbelt in place.

  “And because of that you owe him? Is that what you think?”

  “I think now isn’t the time for this discussion and that it’s none…” I stop and look out the window.

  A long silence falls before Adam finishes my sentence. “Of my business. Right. I’m not involved in this at all. I believe you made that clear before you were transferred to Broomtown. Guess I should have listened.”

  “Do we really have to talk about this now? We both just went through hell and barely survived. Weren’t you the one telling me to focus on that survival?”

  “I didn’t say wear it like widow’s rags. Don’t feel guilty for being alive, Emily.”

  “Maybe this isn’t about guilt, Adam. Maybe I want to close a chapter of my life, and I think the best way to do that is to say goodbye to Mark one last time.”

  “You didn’t do that when you were holding his hand right before he died?” He winces once the question is out and smacks the dash with the palm of his hand. “Dammit. I shouldn’t have said that.”

  “No. You shouldn’t.” I cross my arms and focus on the window. “But it’s not because you didn’t mean it.”

  “It’s been a long day, Emily.”

  “Is that your idea of an apology?” Anger courses through me, and it’s not just because of Adam’s words. I’m angry that Mark’s death gives me a sense of hope for the future, that I do want to attend his funeral out of guilt, and that Adam nailed it. Deep inside, I want to feel more, something besides relief.

  “Would an apology even help? You seem hell bent on being pissed off.”

  The darkness of his tone opens my mouth again. “Just drop me off at Francine’s house when we get into town. I think I’ve had all the comfort from you I can stand.”

  “You want comfort? Then explain to me why you feel this sudden urge to see your ex off into the great beyond.”