by K Carothers
With a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach, Erin slowly stood up. She needed to go home and talk to Jenna about all this. Oh God. What have I done?
* * *
Luke and Scott were heading across the hospital lobby to the stairs when the elevator doors opened and the DA walked out, with Meredith Armstrong alongside him.
“George!” Luke yelled, charging over to them. “You can’t seriously be letting those boys off on probation after they shot each other?! And Torres should be held just as accountable as Wayne Raabe for what happened to Ben Watkins. He could’ve died too, for God’s sake!”
The DA nodded, adjusting his glasses. “I understand your frustration, Luke. But both the boys had clean records prior to this, and we’ve got bigger fish to fry here. Jesse Torres is going to help us with that, and I’d rather negotiate with him than Wayne Raabe, wouldn’t you?” He clapped Luke on the arm. “We’ll talk more about this at the Sheriff’s Office. I just got word from Joe Halliday that they have the mayor in custody. I’ll meet you over there.”
The DA left, but Meredith hung back. “I think you and your girlfriend need to get on the same page, Detective,” she said dryly.
“What are you talking about?” Luke asked, not bothering to hide his antipathy for the woman. “How do you even know Erin?”
“She’s the one who told Jesse Torres not to say anything about the flash drive until he got a deal. Didn’t she tell you about all that? No, I suppose she wouldn’t have. She didn’t want to give me her name either when she asked me to represent Torres. Nor would he tell me. But I’m too good at figuring these things out—not that it was difficult.” Meredith’s lips curved up into a mocking smile. “Tell her I said thanks.” And with that she sauntered away.
Luke stood there in shock as he watched her leave. There was no way Erin would do something like that…But then he remembered how she’d treated Jesse in the woods, how she’d protected him, defended him…
He shook his head, reminding himself it was Meredith Armstrong he’d just spoken to. The woman was probably creating trouble where there wasn’t any, just for the sheer pleasure of it. No, he wasn’t going to believe Erin would have done that to him until he heard the words come directly from her mouth. And if he did, he had no idea what he would do about it.
Next to him Scott said, “What did I tell you? Run. Run like hell.”
“You know Meredith. Chances are, it’s all one big lie,” Luke responded irritably. “Let’s get to the Sheriff’s Office.”
But as they walked to Scott’s vehicle Luke started piecing everything together in his mind. Erin had never met up with his parents for coffee after she’d left his room, telling him later that she’d wanted to look around the hospital a little…And he realized then that Meredith might not have been the one who’d lied to him after all.
Chapter
20
Joe Halliday was the first one to greet Luke at the Sheriff’s Office. “There’s the man of the hour,” the agent said. “Frank’s in the interrogation room with his lawyer, but he’s denying everything. And now he says he’ll only talk to you.”
“Have you brought up the flash drive?” Luke asked as they headed down the main hallway.
“No, we only found out about it after he refused to talk to anyone but you. So I guess you’ll get the honors, old man.”
Luke grimaced, coming to a stop in front of the closed door to the interrogation room. “I’m not finding the ‘old man’ thing too amusing anymore—probably because I feel way too old right now.”
Joe’s lips twisted sardonically. “This job can make you grow old fast, that’s for sure.” Then he raised two fingers to his temple in a mock salute before leaving. “Good luck in there.”
Luke paused a moment to put everything else—particularly a certain woman with green eyes—out of his mind. He needed all his wits about him right now. And with a deep breath he opened the door and walked into the room.
Frank was sitting at the interrogation table with his lawyer, and exclaimed in a huff, “These accusations are absurd, Luke. They have no evidence against me whatsoever!”
Luke took a seat across from them and didn’t comment on the evidence. Instead he looked Frank dead in the eye and softly asked, “Do you remember Emily Wheeler?”
The mayor blustered a bit over the unexpected question, adjusting his tie, and finally said, “That was an unfortunate situation. Truly unfortunate. It’s a shame she didn’t have more self-control.”
“The question isn’t pertinent, Detective Mathis,” the lawyer said.
Luke briefly glanced at the lawyer, and then turned his attention back to Frank. “Really? Emily Wheeler lived in New Dublin all her life—she probably voted for you, Frank. She came from a good family, married her high school sweetheart, and was a great mother to three beautiful kids. Until she got addicted to oxycodone. She could have overcome the addiction, though. She probably would have eventually. Except she started buying it off the street and didn’t know what she was really getting. She died of an overdose and left her husband without the love of his love and those kids without a mother. And you think that’s not pertinent?”
“Frank had nothing to do with her death,” the lawyer smoothly responded.
Luke ignored him this time and continued to stare at Frank in silence for a while. But the mayor kept his own gaze averted, schooling his features into a mask of indifference. It was clear that he had no intention of participating in the conversation any further.
“I’d imagine you weren’t too happy when Wayne Raabe stole your flash drive,” Luke finally said, adding a little more edge to his tone. “Now there’s something pertinent.”
The mayor did look at him then, and the mask was gone. Fear—cold and deep and very real—filled his eyes.
“What flash drive?” the lawyer asked.
Frank shifted his gaze back and forth between him and Luke, and desperation quickly supplanted fear. “Leave us alone,” he suddenly told the lawyer. “I want to talk to Luke alone.”
“I strongly advise against that, Frank. You—”
“Leave us. Now.”
The lawyer threw his hands up with a sigh, then gathered his things and headed to the door. “You’re making a huge mistake,” he said on the way out.
“I want you to turn the camera off,” Frank demanded after the lawyer was gone. “I’d like to talk off the record.”
“No, I’m not going to turn the camera off, Frank.”
“But you could delete part of it later. If I gave you a good reason to, a very good reason, would you do it?”
Luke was pretty sure the mayor had just gone off the deep end. “I might,” he slowly answered, as if considering the possibility. Everyone watching on the monitors in the room next door must be enjoying the hell out of this, he thought.
Frank nervously licked his lips, then leaned forward and whispered, “You saw the files, Luke. I have millions in offshore accounts. More money than you can possibly imagine. And I have a place all set up in the Cayman Islands. I was planning to move there when Connor started school up again this fall. As much as I loved Tina, I couldn’t deal with her problems anymore. But it’s paradise in the Caymans, Luke. And if you let me go I’ll share it all with you. I’ll give you whatever you want. Just tell them the flash drive belonged to Tina—that she was selling drugs to finance her gambling habit, and you don’t have enough evidence to keep me here. We can leave tonight. You won’t have to work another day in your life. I promise.”
Luke stared at Frank incredulously. Desperation really had sent him off the deep end. And now he could kiss any chance of getting bail goodbye after admitting all that. “No, thanks, Frank. I actually like my job.”
“Then I want to make a deal,” the mayor frantically said. “Ed Finks is behind the drugs. He’s been doing it for years. He brings them in from Mexico, and he
forced me to get involved. Really. He threatened me. I was afraid for my life. And he said if he got caught he would take me down with him. But I’ll testify against him. I’ll tell you everything if I can get a deal.”
Luke stood up, shaking his head. “Sorry, Frank. All the deals got used up today.”
The mayor jumped from his chair and pounded the table in fury. “You son of a bitch! You’ll amount to nothing in this piddly little town. You’re nobody. Nobody! Is that what you want? You could have it all! But you’re a fool, a goddamned goody two shoes, just like your dad!”
Luke briefly smiled. “I couldn’t ask for a better compliment.” And with that he headed for the door.
The mayor completely lost his tenuous grip on sanity then. “Ahhh!” he yelled. And in a blind rage he flew around the table toward Luke. But two deputies burst into the room before he could make it more than a few steps. One tackled him to the floor and the other quickly put him in handcuffs.
Joe Halliday came in as well. “We’ve got the flash drive,” he said with a grin. “And it looks like Christmas is coming early this year.”
Luke nodded somberly and walked out of the room. Christmas seemed like a long, long way off to him.
* * *
“My God, there really is a child buried in the woods!” Jenna exclaimed in horror as they sat on the living room couch and Erin told her about the grave she’d discovered.
“Anne Marie was my mother’s name, and they both have exactly the same birthday. It all fits, Jen. I think my grandparents—well, Helen and Walter—really did kidnap my mother when the real Anne Marie died. And another thing: I remember seeing two small headstones in the cemetery next to Helen’s grave. I never looked at them, but those must be the other two children that Bella was talking about.”
“We should go there and check it out,” Jenna said.
Erin adamantly shook her head. “I’m already convinced, and there’s no way I’m ever going back into that cemetery. I’ve had enough ghost experiences to last a lifetime already, and with my luck the next one would be Walter. I have absolutely no desire to find out what lessons he’s supposed to be learning.”
Jenna looked at her in concern. “Erin, did Walter or Helen ever physically abuse you in any way?”
“No. Helen would sometimes grab my arm pretty hard when we got into a fight, but she never laid a hand on me otherwise. And neither did Walter. In fact, it was a total shock to me when Bella said he pushed Helen down the stairs.”
“Three babies dying can’t be a coincidence, though,” Jenna said. “If it wasn’t abuse, do you think they died from SIDS?”
Erin shrugged uncertainly. “They could have. But babies are at a much higher risk of that between two and four months old. If the other children died within the first few weeks like Anne Marie, it’s more likely that they all had some sort of genetic disorder.”
“And I know how devastating that can be to a family, especially to a mother,” Jenna quietly said. Then after a pause she added, “Maybe that’s why Helen used to lock you up when you didn’t do what she wanted. It gave her a sense of control, which she hadn’t had with the other children. That doesn’t make it right, but at least it gives you an explanation. Losing three babies like that would be too much for almost anyone to bear, and it probably sent Helen over the edge.”
“I suppose it’s possible.” Erin remembered how devastated she’d felt over not being able to get pregnant. She couldn’t even imagine the heartbreak of losing a child, much less three. But she could imagine how it might drive a person to do crazy things—like kidnap someone else’s baby. “You know, I never thought in a million years that I would say this, but I actually feel sorry for Helen Harris.”
“It takes a new perspective to change an old perception,” Jenna said. “But no matter how ill your grandmother was, it doesn’t change the fact that she and Walter committed a serious crime. And you might have real grandparents out there somewhere who still agonize over what happened to their baby.” She looked thoughtful a moment. “They would have kidnapped your mother a little over fifty years ago. I’ve never heard any stories about a kidnapping around here, but we should see what comes up on the internet. And of course, you need to talk to Luke about it. He’ll know how to investigate this.”
Erin bit her lip worriedly at the mention of Luke’s name. “Jenna, some things happened today that I haven’t told you about…I think I might have really screwed things up with Luke this time.”
Jenna only chuckled, patting Erin’s leg reassuringly. “Whatever it is, I’m sure you’re making a mountain out of a molehill again. There’s an old Chinese proverb you need to keep in mind: ‘That the birds of worry and care fly over your head, this you cannot change, but that they build nests in your hair, this you can prevent.’”
“The problem is, I might have created a dragon that’s flying over my head right now,” Erin responded grimly. “And it will probably burn all my hair off.” Then she told Jenna about the encounter with Wayne and Jesse in the woods, and everything that had transpired afterward, finishing with how Luke had stormed out of the ER.
“Oh dear,” Jenna whispered for about the hundredth time.
Erin heard how bad it all sounded now that she’d said it out loud. “I’ll tell Luke what I did as soon as I see him. I just hope he’ll understand and forgive me for it.”
Jenna didn’t offer any of her usual words of encouragement—in fact, she didn’t comment at all—and that more than anything filled Erin with dread. “There’s nothing I’ll be able to say to make this better, is there?”
“Well, being honest will help,” Jenna finally said. “But Luke is so passionate about what he does, Erin. He lives by the rules. He always has. And he doesn’t have much sympathy for those who don’t. This will be a tough pill for him to swallow, that’s for sure…But he is still a man after all. So I suppose if worst comes to worst, you could throw conversation out the window and just seduce him.”
“Jenna!”
“Once again, blame it on the morphine,” her friend said. “But as the saying goes, ‘Desperate times call for desperate measures.’ It’s a phrase that was actually derived from the writings of Hippocrates, the ancient Greek physician, who stated, ‘Extreme remedies are very appropriate for extreme diseases.’”
Erin’s lips twisted wryly. “I know who he is, Jen. He also wrote the original version of the Hippocratic Oath, which I took the day I graduated from medical school. It’s basically an oath to practice medicine ethically. And I highly doubt the Father of Medicine would appreciate you using his words to…to promote sexual misadventures.” Despite herself, she let out a laugh as soon as she said it.
A rueful smile crossed Jenna’s face. “No, I suppose he wouldn’t appreciate that, would he? And now I really need to go to confession. Things are starting to add up.”
Erin grimaced. “For me too. I guess I’ll have to go with you.”
* * *
Luke already knew. Erin saw it in his eyes as soon as she opened the front door later that night.
“Did you help Jesse Torres get a plea bargain?” he immediately asked her.
Jenna walked into the foyer and stood next to Erin. “She was going to tell you everything tonight, Luke. Please, come in.”
He stepped inside, but continued to pierce Erin with his intense blue gaze. “You knew about the flash drive the whole time, didn’t you?”
Erin eased the door closed, then hesitantly turned to face him again. “Yes, but—”
“But nothing,” Luke interrupted furiously. “You had plenty of opportunities to tell me, but you decided to help a criminal instead, a kid who instigated a shooting, who was involved in seriously injuring a police officer, who could easily have murdered Tina Murdock, and who knew all about the drug ring—maybe was even part of it.” He shook his head in disbelief, pointing toward the back of the house. “Just
a few days ago we sat on the swing out there and vowed to always be honest with each other, and then you turn around and do this? Is that how little a vow means to you, Erin? I feel like maybe I don’t really know you at all.”
Erin was shocked speechless by his harsh words and couldn’t come up with a single thing to say in her own defense.
“I’ll leave the two of you to work this all out. It’s past my bedtime anyway,” Jenna told them. Then she gave Erin a quick hug, whispering under her breath, “I think now is the time for desperate measures.”
Erin paused to collect herself as Jenna retreated to her room. And when she looked up at Luke there was an intensity in her eyes that rivaled his. “You’re wrong, Luke. You know me better than anyone except Jenna. And I’ve never taken a vow lightly—not ever. But we can talk about this more upstairs.”
With that she raced up to her bedroom, giving him no choice but to follow, and went straight to her dresser. She pulled out the white silk nightgown she’d been wearing the night he’d shown up at her window, and turned around just as he reached the doorway.
Luke stopped short, glancing down at the nightgown in her hand. Then he shifted his stormy blue gaze back to her. And for a moment they both stood there, staring into each other’s eyes, neither sure about their next move.
Erin finally set the nightgown on the bed and nervously started unbuttoning her blouse. “I—I’d like to change into something more comfortable before we talk,” she said, and inwardly cringed at the awkwardness in her tone. She would probably sound a lot sexier trying to sell manure.
And Luke wasn’t buying it. “You’ve got to be kidding me. Do you really think this will all go away with sex?”
Erin watched the anger vanish from his expression, leaving only a hurt look behind. And she didn’t like that any better. Hastily buttoning her blouse back up, she walked over to him. “Do you know why Jesse instigated that gunfight, Luke? Because he’s gay. And Connor has been bullying him about it ever since he told him. Jesse is upset and confused about who he is and how everyone’s reacting to it, and Wayne Raabe has only made things worse. Jesse doesn’t need to go to jail. He needs help. And more than anything, he needs to know that people care about him.”