“Dave made the right call. He’s a hero,” she said, more voicing her thoughts than answering the deputy’s questions. “He stopped the guy from hurting anyone else.” She surprised herself, defending Dave’s actions even before anyone criticized.
The deputy frowned. “Officially speaking, our office cannot condone or encourage vigilantism.”
Vigilantism? The word conjured images in her brain of old Westerns with cowboys hunting down bad guys and taking revenge on all degree of criminals and cretins. She pictured Dave on his knee beside the older teller, his hand clutching hers as he comforted her and joked about her bucket list. The word vigilante didn’t mesh with the gentle man she’d witnessed in those moments.
“And then what happened?” the deputy asked.
She retold the robber’s escape, Dave’s pursuit, how she’d checked on the guard and found him dead, before following Dave outside.
“Did you see the suspect after you left the building?”
She shook her head. “He was gone by then. Dave said he’d driven off in a hurry in a—”
“I can’t use hearsay, ma’am. Only what you saw or heard, firsthand.”
She flipped up her palm. “Then that’s all I have. Dave and I went back inside and checked on Mrs. Charmand and the other patients’ conditions until—”
“Patients?” the deputy said, interrupting her again.
She blinked, thinking about what she’d said. “Oh, well, I guess that’s how I think of them. I’m a nurse, and my focus was treating injuries. Sort of triage. Checking everyone’s physical and mental condition. There was another customer there who also has medical training—as a veterinarian—who was helping out, as well. He was keeping an eye on the man with the injured hand while I surveyed the rest of the group.”
The deputy nodded and glanced down at his clipboard. He handed her a business card. “If you remember anything else that could be helpful, please contact us.”
Out of habit, she reached behind her for her purse. Stopped. Her shoulder gave a small twinge as she remembered the violent tug when the robber had ripped the bag from her. The thief had her wallet, her keys, her phone and a dozen other things she’d miss. Her favorite hairbrush. That perfect shade of plum lipstick she’d just bought. The Dior sunglasses, a splurge she’d bought on her last vacation with Helen. The butterfly key chain her mother had bought her when they’d gone to Dollywood when she was nine years old. Every lily needs a butterfly, and you are the prettiest flower of all. Her sentimental fondness for and collection of butterfly-themed items began that day. A hollow ache filled her heart for the lost memento.
Sighing, she stood and exited the small office. Now what? She had no car keys to get home. The thief had... Another realization slammed her like a gut punch. The bank robber had everything she’d just taken from Helen’s lockbox. The jewelry pieces that had been their mother’s, Helen’s passport and birth certificate and God knows what else that had been in those little boxes and envelopes she’d scooped into her purse to examine later. Irreplaceable things that Helen had treasured.
Anger, grief and residual fear flashed through her in an overwhelming flood. Her knees buckled as she walked into the lobby of the bank, and she sank—crumpled, really—into a chair near the front door. Tears filled her eyes, and she pressed a hand over her mouth to muffle the scream she wanted to let loose. Instead, she cried, shoulders shaking and her chest aching as she struggled for a breath between sobs. Other than the day she’d learned about Helen’s murder, she’d been strong, she’d held it together. But the loss of the things from Helen’s lockbox felt like losing her sister all over again.
“Lilly?”
She jerked her head up. Dave stood beside her, his eyes narrowed with concern. She dashed her hand under her eyes, swiping at the tears. “What do you want?”
He lowered himself awkwardly onto an adjacent chair, favoring his right leg, which he extended stiffly in front of him. He leaned toward her and pitched his voice low. “Are you all right?”
She dismissed him with a snort. “Peachy.”
“Can I do anything?” he asked, his voice a soft rumble. Compassionate. Soothing. The way it had been when he’d spoken with the older teller. To continue to rebuff him with sarcasm in light of his kindness would only make her look bitchy, so she modulated her expression and simply shook her head.
“Okay,” he said after a brief pause in which he studied her with an unnerving scrutiny. He pushed back to his feet with a soft grunt of pain as he put weight on his bad leg. “Goodbye, Lilly. I’ll be by the house later this week to get my things.”
The house...
“Dave, wait.” She dabbed at her runny nose and drew a cleansing breath. “Could you...drive me home? The robber took my purse...with my keys. You could get your things now, and I could get the spare keys for my car and come back up to retrieve it.” She hated asking anything of the man who’d failed her sister in so many ways, but her proposal was the most logical solution to two issues.
Dave scratched the back of his head as he considered her request for all of three seconds. “Um, sure.” He spread his hands. “Of course. You ready?”
She stood and smoothed the seat of her slacks. “Yes. More than ready.”
Lilly followed him out to his truck, and he held the passenger door for her while she climbed in the cab.
“Sorry about the mess,” he said after he slid behind the steering wheel. He tossed a few fast food wrappers and empty drink cans behind the seat. “I’d have cleaned up if I’d known you would be—”
“Don’t bother,” she said giving him a flat look. “My opinion of you and how you treated my sister is not going to change in the next twenty minutes while you get your things from her house.”
Dave firmed his mouth, and his eyebrows dipped in a low line over his dark brown eyes. Bedroom eyes, she could remember Helen calling them when she’d first started dating Dave and she’d gushed to Lilly about her handsome new boyfriend.
Okay, he was handsome. She’d give him that. But the mess in his car underlined the impression she’d formed in subsequent conversations about Dave. A man who was just too casual in his relationships, in his housekeeping, in most aspects of his life. No plan for the future. No commitments and few responsibilities.
She spotted a distinctive cone-shaped plastic sleeve on the floor and bent to pick it up. The grocery store sticker on the plastic wrap verified what the contents had been. Fresh floral arrangement, $8.99.
“Wooing a new girlfriend?” she asked, knowing her tone was brittle and not caring.
He started the engine and sent her a cool look. “No. Visiting the grave of the woman I miss every day.”
His reply shocked her. Shamed her. She hadn’t been to Helen’s grave since the funeral. She planned to go before she left town, but...it was too painful, and she hadn’t yet mustered the nerve to go.
“Oh.” She let the wrapper fall back to the floor. “Sorry. I...shouldn’t have assumed—”
“Like I said earlier,” he said, facing the road as he drove, “I was going to give her an engagement ring on New Year’s Eve.”
Lilly’s heart contracted. “She’d have said yes. She loved you, despite—”
He cut a sharp gaze toward her, his dark eyes full of pain, but said nothing.
Lilly cursed under her breath. “Dave, I guess it’s obvious I’m no fan of yours. You strung her along for five years, forgot important anniversaries—”
“I know.”
“—dismissed her unhappiness when she tried to talk about it, flirted with other women in front of her—”
“Now that’s not true!”
“—stood her up on her birthday—” Lilly’s volume grew as her anger heated.
“That wasn’t my fault!” he argued, matching her volume. “There was an emergency at the Double M, and I couldn’t get away. I
explained that to her, and we went out the next night!”
“And you were always making excuses for your shortcomings. Never taking responsibility for your screwups with her!”
He smacked the steering wheel and shouted, “I know I did! I hate myself for it!”
She fell silent, studying him. He flexed his hand then squeezed the steering wheel. His jaw clenched, and his nostrils flared as he breathed deeply.
After a moment, he cut a dark glare toward her, his tone calmer, quieter. “I regret it every hour of every day. She deserved better. I let her down. I know that.”
Lilly turned toward the side window, blinking away the tears that stung her eyes. Why had she lit into him like that? Berating him wouldn’t change the past, wouldn’t bring Helen back. Helen had loved him, despite his shortcomings, and she’d be appalled to know Lilly was calling him to task for the things she’d confided in sisterly phone conversations. Venting, Helen had called it. Maybe all women needed to let off steam now and then about their mates’ foibles. If she’d vented to Helen about Alan’s faults and transgressions, would she have been in a better position to have saved her own marriage? She’d never know. Alan was gone, remarried, and she was...
Lilly closed her eyes. Never mind what she was. Where she was. What she’d do next. She just had to keep putting one foot in front of the other. One day at a time. She might be alone in the world, but she would not wallow in self-pity. She would be strong, like her mother had been after Dad left.
But in the short term, she simply wanted to complete her business with Dave Giblan and see him on his way so that she never again had to see the man who was a painful reminder of Helen’s too-short life. After that, she’d pour a large glass of wine and put this horrible day behind her.
* * *
After their brief shouting match, Lilly grew sullenly silent. Dave wasn’t proud of himself for responding to her anger and accusations with the heat he’d used. After all, everything she’d said was true, was something he’d castigated himself for in the last few months. Most everything. But the fact that he had a legitimate excuse for missing her birthday dinner was cold comfort in hindsight. Had he not been so prone to disappointing her, the birthday dinner would have been more easily forgiven. Instead it had been just another letdown on a long list that she’d reported to her sister.
“How long will you be off work?” she asked, breaking into his thoughts.
He rubbed his leg almost without thought and sighed. How long, indeed? “I should be released by the doctor to return to limited work in another month or two.”
“Good.”
“Yeah, except...”
She turned and met his glance. “What?”
“The McCalls told me when I broke my leg that I’d have a job waiting when I was ready to come back, but...they’ve hired a couple replacement hands already. One is a woman. A former rodeo champion.”
“Really? A woman?” she asked, clearly intrigued.
“You ever meet Zoe Taylor at the diner in town?”
She nodded. “Good food. Nice lady. I remember her.”
“It’s her daughter they hired. Back right after Christmas. Then earlier this spring they brought on another guy. I can’t see them taking me back and letting one of them go, so...”
“Maybe they’ll keep them and take you back,” she offered.
“Not unless they’ve recovered more from their financial setbacks than I’ve heard. Things were real tight last year.” He shook his head and squeezed the steering wheel. “I’m guessing I’ll have to look elsewhere for work.”
She hummed her acknowledgment then aimed a finger out the side window. “This is your turn.”
He faced her and lifted a corner of his mouth in a sad smile. “Yeah, I know.”
She twisted her mouth in a chagrined frown. “Oh, right. Sorry.”
An-n-nd...the awkward silence was back.
When they reached Helen’s house, Dave parked in the side drive and cut the engine. Even before he could unfasten his seat belt and hobble around the front end of his truck, Lilly was out and hurrying up the front steps. She walked to the end of the porch, where she lifted a flowerpot with a dead plant—some kind of Christmas plant that still had tinsel and tiny red balls on it—and extracted the spare key hidden there. Dave stared at the brown needles and wilted boughs of the tiny tree while Lilly unlocked the door. Helen would be crushed to know her plants had died. She’d had the golden touch with so many domestic things. Cooking, gardening, sewing. He’d teased her about it, calling her “Mary Homemaker.” Now he wished he could tell Helen how much he regretted teasing her. That, in truth, he admired her talents.
The familiar squeak of the screen door hinges snapped him from his deliberations. Lilly pushed open the front door, and he followed her inside.
“The box of stuff I’ve been collecting for you is in the back. Wait here while I get it.” Lilly waved a hand toward the sofa in the living room as she headed down the hall.
Dave didn’t want to sit. If Lilly was selling the house, this could be the last time he was here. He had a load of memories, both good and bad, invested in this house, and he wanted a last look around. Closure, he thought people called it.
He wandered into the kitchen, the heart of Helen’s home, and he pictured her at her stove cooking up one of her many drool-worthy dishes. She’d loved cooking, baking, creating new foods that were state-fair blue-ribbon quality. He scanned the counters, imagining the cookie jar and cake stand full of her latest indulgent dessert. He’d definitely eaten well while he’d dated Helen.
He spied a glass hummingbird figurine on the windowsill over her sink and went to pick it up. He’d given her the hummingbird for her birthday the first year they’d been dating. She’d fawned over it in a gift shop when they’d gone hiking at Rocky Mountain National Park, and he’d doubled back to the shop without her knowing to buy it. One of the few romantic gestures he’d ever done for her. His lungs tightened with grief when he thought of the bright smile she’d given him when she opened the gift. Why hadn’t he tried harder to make her that happy all the time?
He would keep the hummingbird, he decided, as evidence that he hadn’t been a complete heel and a reminder of one of their better days. As he reached for the figurine, he noticed odd stains in the sink. The spots looked like...blood. Frowning, he followed the trail of drips from the sink toward the hall. Another line of blood spots went from the sink toward the back door. And there, on the door frame, was a smear of red. What the...?
A prickling uneasiness skittered up his spine. He moved to the back door to get a closer look at the smudge and, through the decorative glass door, he noticed a familiar-looking car parked behind the house. A sedan that seemed to be held together by rust and prayers.
With his next breath, he connected the dots and remembered where he’d seen the battered sedan...
And horror constricted his lungs.
He spun to run to the bedroom, to get Lilly out of the house before—
A chilling scream ricocheted down the hall, and Dave knew.
Once again, he was too late.
Chapter 3
Steeling himself, Dave slid one of Helen’s best knives from the butcher’s block. He sent up a silent prayer as he moved as quickly and quietly as he could down the hall toward the master bedroom. He pressed his back to the wall. Stopped outside the bedroom and leaned sideways to peer around the door frame.
“I know you’re out there, man,” a voice said from inside the room, along with Lilly’s muted whimpers of fear. “Get in here, before I blast a hole in this one’s pretty head.”
Dave hesitated. Did he dare? Was following the robber’s demands his best move, or was there some better course of action he couldn’t see?
He touched his pocket in search of his cell phone, and his heart sank as he remembered he’d left it his truck, charging. He
mouthed a vile word. His thoughts were scattered, adrenaline hiking his pulse and blood thundering in his ears. He only had a knife. The cretin had a gun, one he’d been quick to use at the bank.
“Do it, man! I swear to you, I’ll shoot her!”
Dave believed him.
Sticking the knife in his jeans at the small of his back and covering it with his shirt, he raised his hands and crept into the bedroom. His eyes went first to Lilly, wanting to assure himself she was unharmed. She stood trembling, at the business end of the robber’s gun, and her terrified eyes pleaded with Dave for help. He gave her a small nod, trying to reassure her he’d do whatever he could.
He shifted his attention to the robber, sizing him up with a rapid up-and-down glance, then a closer scrutiny of the punk’s face. The robber from the bank had shed the black hoodie, his countenance now fully visible. He was younger than Dave had estimated when he talked to the cops after the robbery. Midtwenties maybe. Large ears. Extremely short brown hair. Rounded nose. Acne scars. A wan complexion. His expression was pinched, his face sweating despite the cool temperature in the house. His breathing was shallow, fast.
“Well, well,” the gunman said, curling his lip. “If it ain’t Mr. Hero from the bank.”
Remembering the blood he’d seen in the kitchen, Dave dropped his gaze briefly to the dark stain on the man’s side, just under his arm. Pain, then. That’d explain the guy’s pale appearance and rapid breathing. Dave had a brief moment of self-satisfaction, knowing one of his shots at the bank had hit the robber.
When the thief’s glare narrowed on him, any smugness vanished. The robber had the upper hand now, and Dave could only pray he wouldn’t be vengeful. And what were the odds of that mercy?
Rancher's Hostage Rescue Page 3