Hope’s brow remained furrowed. “It’s like he can’t accept that she left him. He went all over town looking for her and waited at the bus station that evening too.” Hope pulled out her phone. “In fact, I got a call shortly after the bus left and I’m sure it’s him. I didn’t recognize the number, so I recorded it.” She punched a button, starting the playback.
“Hope?” The man’s voice was accompanied by wind noise.
“Yes? Who is this?”
“Are you … on the bus?” The words were measured out, with a tone of underlying accusation.
A long silence followed, indicating Hope’s heightened awareness. Or fear.
He spoke again, in a voice that carried the edge of a knife. “Yeah, I wondered about that. You think you’re so smart, but you can’t fool me.” The recording ended.
“That’s when I hung up and blocked his number.” Hope looked up from the phone. “It’s gotta be him. There’s no one else it could be.”
Lance exhaled. “Why didn’t you call the cops?”
Hope’s eyes dropped. “I don’t know. I guess it didn’t seem like something they could do anything about. The next day, when I heard about the crash and how the driver was killed, I felt sick all over again, but by that time the investigators were already involved with the whole thing and so I … I don’t know.” Her voice cracked and she started to cry. “I wanted to believe it was over … and I thought Penny wasn’t injured—”
Clemens interjected, “But there were reports about an unidentified female.”
Hope’s mascara pooled below her eyes. “I never heard that. I thought she was okay…” She turned to Lance as black streaks ran to her chin and dripped to the front of her blouse. “I thought she got back home to you. That’s all she wanted to do.”
Lance offered his handkerchief. “Well, let’s not dwell on that now. I’m more concerned about what Brock’s up to.” He shook his head. “And to think I let him spend time with her this morning.”
Hope looked to Sergeant Clemens, her face still etched with concern. “Is there anything you can do? Take him into custody or something?”
Clemens shook his head. “There’s no reason to detain him—at least not yet.” He swiveled toward Lance. “I’d sure like to speak with him, though.”
Lance shrugged. “He left when Penny had the stroke. I don’t know where he is now, but his SUV is gone from the parking lot.”
Clemens’ forehead creased. “What kind of SUV?”
“A Toyota Highlander. Dark gray. Why?”
Clemens scrubbed his chin. “I was talking with the crash investigators yesterday. They’re looking for a late model Highlander in connection with the bus crash.”
Lance looked aside, visualizing the SUV. “I didn’t notice any damage on his vehicle.”
“We don’t think they collided. Some of the passengers mentioned an aggressive driver with a dark vehicle on the road that night. Their reports along with tire impressions at the scene indicate the Highlander was in the left lane and stopped for a time at the crash site. It’s still undetermined whether it forced the bus off the road or just stopped after encountering the crash and then left the scene.”
Leaving the scene of a bus crash? Who would do such a thing? Brock was no prize, but this seemed over the top. A lead weight bore down on Lance’s shoulders. His knees weakened.
Clemens put his hand out toward the waiting room chairs. “Have a seat, doctor. I’m afraid there’s more you need to hear.”
More? Lance walked toward a chair, but turned without sitting. “More news about the crash or about Penny’s connection to the murdered girl?”
“About the murder.”
Lance didn’t like the somber tone of Clemens’ voice. Before he could reply, the elevator chimed, drawing everyone’s attention. The doors opened and Dr. Matheson stepped out. Lance moved forward as she surveyed the group surrounding him. His pulse quickened. “How’s Penny doing?”
“Your daughter’s a fortunate young woman.” She glanced again to the group, “She’s not out of the woods yet, but she apparently has more fight in her than I gave her credit for.”
Weight lifted from Lance’s shoulders. He nodded, thinking of his wife’s courageous battle against cancer. “Yeah. She got that from her mother.”
Were my eyes deceiving me or had Brock gone mad? I stood only a few feet away, so there was no mistaking the gun muzzle pointed directly at my gut. I blinked and forced myself to breathe. Would he actually shoot me? A glance into his piercing dark eyes told me he was deadly serious.
“What’s going on, Brock?” I winced against the sting of icy snowflakes blowing into my face. “Why can’t you just let me go?”
Brock snarled his answer. “You know.”
“Know what?” The black look on his face made my heart pound. “What are you talking about?”
“You’ve been trying to hide it, but we know better.”
Brock’s words made no sense. I extended both arms and shrugged my shoulders. “Who’s we?” Tremors shook from my fingers, so I quickly clasped my arms back around my torso. “And what do you think I’m hiding?”
“You fought like crazy that night. Screamed and clawed. You shouldn’t have even had the strength to fight. That means the G-Juice didn’t work, and if it didn’t work, your memory is fine.” He shook his head, and I heard a metallic click. He had cocked the gun, preparing to fire. “I wanted to believe you, but Tyler’s right. You’re just too big of a risk—especially with the NFL draft just around the corner. There’s too much at stake.”
“Brock, I don’t know what you’re talking about.” My voice faltered because, in a strange way, his statement had started to make a little bit of sense. He had insisted I was drunk at the party, but now I wondered if he had expected or planned that I would be drunk enough on whatever G-Juice was to forget New Year’s Eve.
A creaking sound from the bus caused Brock’s expression to change abruptly. He withdrew the gun, shifting it behind his back, and took a deep breath, his lips taut.
Turning, I saw the bus driver step down, his boots crunching on the packed snow. He held out the coat I had stored in the overhead bin. “Miss, I think you forgot something.”
“Oh yes.” The words tumbled out as I rushed to him. I took hold of the coat and quickly stepped up through the open door. “Thank you so much.”
At the top step, I turned. The driver looked from me to Brock and back again. “But I thought you were…”
“No, I’m staying on the bus. Sorry for the inconvenience.” My eyes lifted to the place where Brock still stood out in front of the bus, but with the cab lights on, I couldn’t see him. Only blowing snow that swirled against the dark windshield. Would he be rash enough to fire at me through it? I didn’t want to find out. I headed down the aisle, while the passengers eyed me with wary faces. Someone hushed a child. Another shook their head in disapproval as I maneuvered to my seat. Sitting, I slouched low and spread the coat over my lap. Ducking my head, I avoided their stares.
The driver reentered and stood at the head of the aisle. “Are you sure you know what you’re doing, miss? That fellow out there seems quite determined to win you back.”
“Positive. I paid for my ticket. I want to stay on this bus.” Please, let’s leave. Now.
He scratched his head, then headed back outside. My heart sank. If he let Brock back onto the bus, I’d be doomed. My only hope was if the driver would talk some sense into him. Convince him to give up and go home.
Then a new thought made my heart skip. Was Brock crazy enough to shoot the driver?
“Hey,” someone called out. “Are we gonna move or what?”
Another guy near the front replied. “I think he’s telling her husband to move his vehicle.”
If only Brock would leave me alone. The thought of him harming others made me burrow deeper under my coat. Perhaps I should have warned the driver about the gun. Things had gone so crazy; it seemed anything could happen. I chewed on my
thumbnail and discovered my hands were trembling.
Moments passed, while I wondered if Brock would return to drag me back out the door. Finally, throwing off the coat, I pulled myself up to stand with the pillow still awkwardly strapped to my stomach. Making my way back to the bathroom, I locked myself in—again.
From the relative safety of this make-shift cocoon, I stared into the mirror over the sink. No prying eyes here. Only my own, haggard as they were. I pulled off the wig and dropped it on the floor. My hair was a flattened mess, but how could that matter? The masquerade was over.
“Please go away. Please go away.” I whispered a plea to the deaf walls.
Waiting in the silence was interminable, but hearing gunshots would have been worse.
With the help of soap and water and several tissues, I began to clean Hope’s makeup from my face while trying to calm my jitters. “God. Oh, God. Please help me. Make him go away.”
Then abruptly, the bus engines engaged and we were moving again. I raised my head from the sink, and a flood of relief and gratitude made my knees weak. I leaned against the counter as tears surfaced.
“God, please, what has happened to me? I just want to feel safe again.” I dropped to my knees in the cramped space and cried until I’d drawn the last tissue from the dispenser. “I need your help, God. Please.”
The bus engines rumbled over the sounds of my weeping and, at last, my tears were spent. I blew my nose one last time, picked myself up and began peeling away the layers of Hope’s costume. I unstrapped the pillow and redressed as best I could from the cast-offs. I finger-combed my hair and splashed cool water on my face.
A final look in the mirror revealed puffy bare skin with reddened eyes and nose. This was me: raw and empty. A broken mess. What would Dad think of me now?
I pushed aside the old recurring worry. More than ever, I wanted—no, I needed—to get home.
Slowly, I slid open the bathroom door and peeked out. I expected all heads to turn, judgment written on their faces, but no one was watching. In fact, everyone but the driver appeared to be asleep.
I maneuvered past the rows of passengers, some with limbs hanging in the aisle or slumped with their heads bobbing on their chests. Then, as I approached my row, I saw the top of someone’s head in the seat next to mine.
Someone with curly white hair.
There, sitting in the window seat as I stepped up next to her, was Mrs. Wilton, with crochet hook and thread in hand. She looked over her wire-glasses with a smile. “Oh, there you are. I was beginning to wonder—you were in there so long.”
Lance perched on the edge of an armchair, while Sergeant Clemens scanned a sheaf of paperwork on his clipboard. Dr. Matheson had shown them to a small consultation room before returning to her patients. The space might have been originally designed as a janitorial closet. It had just enough room for two cushioned chairs and a side table with a lamp. A framed seaside print by Monet hung on the wall, apparently to lend the space some warmth or a calming effect, though Lance felt neither. Not while his daughter lay in the recovery room with a hole surgically bored through her skull.
“Here it is.” Clemens pulled one sheet out from the rest. “The autopsy on the Maxwell girl came back indicating the presence of alcohol and GHB in her system. Both were probably ingested during the New Year’s Eve party.” With scrunched brows and tilted head, he read through a pair of slender reading glasses. “Cause of death was ‘hypoxia, via respiratory depression.’ I’m told that means she OD’d on the stuff and stopped breathing.”
Lance shifted in his seat. “Yeah. It’s easy to overdose that stuff, especially if you’re mixing it with alcohol.” He shook his head. “I can’t even imagine Penny attending a party with drugs and alcohol.”
“I hear that sort of thing from parents all the time.” Clemens removed his glasses and looked directly at Lance. “I’m told that two people at this party described a fight between Penny and Miss Maxwell that evening.”
Could it be true? Lance remembered the older injuries he’d seen listed on Penny’s intake form. “I suppose that’s possible, but does it matter? You said the girl didn’t die as a result of a fight.”
“Correct. It doesn’t explain how her body ended up out in the woods either. What the fight does suggest is a possible motive for the overdose.”
“You’re saying the overdose wasn’t accidental?”
Clemens tapped the glasses on the paperwork in his hand. “That’s one of the things Maricopa County has been trying to figure out.”
“Did these witnesses say why Penny fought with her?”
Clemens tucked the autopsy sheet away. “Apparently both girls were drunk at the time. Jealousy has been suggested.”
Penny had never been the jealous type, but then, she’d never been a drinker either. Lance shook his head again. “Penny always got along with people. She had lots of friends growing up.”
Clemens folded the glasses and tucked them in his pocket. “Lots of things happen to kids away at college that would never happen at home.”
“You have any kids?”
“I have a daughter in Montrose, married with two kids of her own nearly half-grown. I’ll admit, it’s a different world now than the one she grew up in.”
It was hard to argue with that. Lance leaned forward in the chair, preparing to stand. “So, is there anything else I need to know?”
“Yeah. About the two witnesses to this fight. One is the murdered girl’s boyfriend. Personally, I think there’s reason to believe he might have a bigger role in this.”
“But Maricopa isn’t considering him?”
“Not as long as his story holds up. He says the party broke up early, and that’s when the girls had their tiff. He and his buddy broke up the fight and the buddy took both girls back to the campus dorms.”
“Then maybe his buddy is involved.”
“That’s also possible.”
“So, what’s being done about him?”
“They’ve been looking for him for a few days now. It turns out he left campus shortly after he was first questioned.”
Lance stood up and raked his hands through his hair. “This is frustrating. Don’t they have any leads on where he may have gone?”
“They didn’t, at least not until I went to Barrett and spoke with Hope. She informed me that he’s in this area, and you’ve just confirmed that he’s been here at the hospital.”
Lance spun to face him. “He’s here?”
“Yeah. He’s Penny’s boyfriend, Brock Harper.”
More pieces began to mentally slide into place. Lance straightened his spine and took a deep breath as new concerns overcame his initial surprise. “So it appears my issues with Brock are compounding. I should have guessed.”
Clemens tapped his papers together and clipped them. “I will need to talk with him if he shows up again.”
“Can we put hospital security on alert to watch for him?”
The officer stood. “Good idea. I’ll have a chat with them on my way out.”
“He might be gone for good, though, especially if he thinks you’re catching up with him.”
Clemens patted Lance on the shoulder. “Don’t worry. I don’t expect he’ll get too far.”
The impossibility of Mrs. Wilton’s appearance on the bus confounded me, yet, there she sat with her crocheting in hand and eyes crinkled with good cheer. “You know,” she said matter-of-factly, “It never ceases to amaze me how many people choose bathrooms as a place to call out to the Almighty.”
“Mrs. Wilton, how did you get here?” I dropped into the seat next to her and interrupted her handiwork by wrapping my hands around hers.
She returned my astonished gaze. “You did call upon the Lord for help, did you not? Don’t be surprised He has answered you, Penny. I’m here at His bidding.”
What was she saying? I pulled back, hesitant to ask. “Are you implying that you are some kind of an angel?”
She glanced up briefly in thought. “
Some kind? I suppose so, but only the most common variety.”
I shook my head. What could be common about the appearance of any kind of angel? “So, you don’t own that old inn in Dalton?”
“I never said I did.” She seemed surprised I would make that assumption.
I giggled, in spite of my astonishment. “That’s right. You didn’t.”
“Well, you’ve been through quite a scare and I suppose that, along with everything else, has led you to this moment.”
“Do you know what happened at the New Year’s Eve party? And about Brock? Did you know he has a gun? I think he and Tyler want me dead.”
“No, dear. I’m not privy to the details of all these things. But I know the One Who is.”
“You mean God.”
She nodded.
“Frankly, Mrs. Wilton, if He knew these things, why didn’t He help me back then.”
“Because He’s helping you now, dear.”
Her logic was too simplistic. I pulled back in frustration. “But if He’d helped me back then, I might not be here right now.”
She smiled. “Precisely. My guess is He knew this was the place you needed to be.”
“But that doesn’t make any sense.”
“It may not make sense right now, but it will.” Her gray eyes exuded unwavering confidence.
“But you don’t know what I’ve been through.”
“You could tell me about it.”
I took a breath and shook my head. “I don’t even remember parts of it.”
“Try. Start with the things you do remember.”
What could I tell this kindly old woman—or angel—who probably knew nothing about parties with drinking and dancing? I squirmed inwardly, feeling awkward, but if Mrs. Wilton sensed anything amiss, she didn’t show it. She set her crocheting aside and waited patiently with a tender expression.
The dream from which I’d just awakened was fresh in my mind, so I started there, telling about Abbi’s seductive dance and the other partiers who left early. I talked about feeling woozy as I stood up from the sofa. “…and after I lost my balance, I woke up here on the bus.”
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