Dangerous Tidings

FOUR

Donna tensed as Brent started for the stairs at a sprint. “Wait here,” he said.

“Not likely.”

He flashed her a roguish smile that made her want to smile back and then eased open the door. The stairwell was dark. She listened, her hand finding his back, reading the tension coiled in his shoulders.

“Is this the only way in and out?” she whispered, catching the fragrance of his aftershave.

“Two basement windows,” he answered. “They open onto the backyard. A small bathroom window, too.” Below them, the sweep of a flashlight beam cut unsteadily through the darkness.

He paused, fingers on the light switch. “Here we go,” he whispered. Snapping on the light, he hurtled down the stairs.

Donna figured they had the advantage. Their eyes were already adjusted to the light. She heard a crash as they emerged into the paneled space, boxes arranged into neat stacks that reached the low ceiling. In the dim light she made out a small table covered with balls of yarn. Three bags of dog kibble were piled nearby. The room was dim. A door slammed.

“Come out of there,” Brent shouted.

It took her a moment to realize the intruder had rushed into the tiny bathroom. Brent was at the bathroom door in a moment. Finding it locked, he kicked at it. The cheap wood began to give way almost immediately.

Donna looked around for something to use as a weapon. Broom? Tennis racket? She found nothing until she noticed a small hatchet next to a neatly stacked pile of wood. She snatched it up, the cold metal seeming to leach into her nerves, freezing her fingertips. The door splintered with a shriek of the metal hinges under Brent’s feet. From inside the bathroom came the sound of glass exploding.

Without a breath of warning, the noises catapulted her back to the memory of her own accident, flying off the seat of Nate’s motorcycle, a vehicle her father had forbidden her to ride with a man whom he had tried his utmost to warn her about. He’d been right, she’d realized when she’d woken up temporarily paralyzed with Nate nowhere to be found. Bruce Gallagher had been dead-on correct, and she’d raged at him for it.

Swallowing the guilt, she regripped the hatchet to rally her senses just as the door failed. Brent shoved it open.

They stumbled through in time to see a pair of legs disappearing through the small window above the toilet. Brent grabbed at the feet, a moment too late. One shoe made contact, smashing him in the cheek, sending him stumbling.

Donna was already racing back up the steps by the time Brent recovered and followed. They sprinted through the house and out into the backyard. Donna almost tumbled into the pool. Brent snatched at her T-shirt as she teetered on the edge, pulling her tight against his chest for a moment.

She felt his heart hammering, or was it her own? “Thanks,” she whispered, pulling away.

Skirting the water, they made it to the short stuccoed retaining wall that enclosed the yard, fringed with delicate flowers and shrubbery.

On the other side of the wall was a smooth paved path that led down to the beach in one direction and back to the main road in the other. The moon showed silver white on the pavement.

No movement. No sound except the waves.

Brent jogged toward the beach until she lost sight of him. She made her way cautiously in the other direction, ears straining for any sign, any sound. Nothing. She scanned the thick shrubbery that lined the road, part of the charm and ambiance of Coronado Island.

Was the intruder hiding somewhere? Watching? Was it the same man who had held a knife to her throat at the office? Shivers erupted through her body and she wished she had stayed put. She realized she was gripping the hatchet so tight her fingers were cramping. A few more paces and something crackled in the branches. Shivers surged up her spine.

“Come out,” she ordered, forcing the words. Every muscle in her body tensed. What if he did emerge? Would she really have the fortitude to use a hatchet to defend herself?

Her lungs wouldn’t work properly; blood pounded in her temples. She caught a glimpse, the quickest flash of a feline face regarding her, before the cat retreated back into the bushes.

“Nice work, Donna,” she muttered to herself. “Way to scare off a cat.”

Running feet made her breath catch. Brent jogged up to her.

“Anything?” she said.

“No. Whoever it was, I give them points for speed. And I thought my eight-minute time on the mile-and-a-half run was good.” He shook his head. “Not good enough.” He eyed her hands. “Hatchet?”

“There wasn’t a stun gun handy.”

He smiled, but now it was strained, pinched around the edges with worry.

“Let’s go look in the basement and see if we can figure out what the guy was after,” she said.

He raised an eyebrow. “Maybe you really are a detective.”

“Don’t make fun of me,” she snapped. “I never said I was anything but a vet.”

“I wasn’t making fun.”

“Yes, you were.”

He held up his palms and let out a low breath. “Sometimes I try too hard to be witty and it just comes out like I’m a smart aleck. I’m sorry. Character flaw.”

There was an earnestness in his tone that quenched her fire. “It’s okay. Sometimes I take offense when I shouldn’t. My character flaw.”

“Truce, then.”

She allowed him to take her hand and help her back over the stucco wall. His fingers were strong and warm. It had been a long time since she’d held a man’s hand, and the touch reassured her. But she didn’t need reassurance, not from a man, not now. With the memory of Nate threatening to surface, she pulled away and tried to focus her thoughts.

What was she hoping to find in the basement? Her father would know. Grief welled afresh in her heart. You don’t have to be a detective, she chided herself. You just have to be observant and you’ve had plenty of training for that. With canine clients, she’d learned to watch every detail, every nuance of their behavior, to ferret out answers. She’d do the same in this situation.

Her foot clunked against something hard as she walked through the darkened yard. She stopped to check.

“Brent?”

He was almost to the door. “Yeah?”

Her mind knew what she was seeing, but somehow she could not make sense of it. “I think you’d better come take a look at this.”

* * *

Brent stared at the small suitcase. He knew every crack and scrape on the old leather. It was his father’s. Before he died of liver cancer when they were in grade school, they’d seen him pack and unpack that case hundreds of times. Neat, precise, deliberate, right down to the socks nestled inside his extra pair of shoes. Brent packed the same way.

“Daddy has to go where the bridges are,” his mother would say of her construction foreman husband.

Pauline used to cry. Every time. Brent couldn’t see the sense in the tears. His mother said God would bring Roger Mitchell back safely, and Brent had trusted in that. Turned out that God took their father a different way, through the tumors that ate up his liver. The disease had taken his mother, too, when Pauline and his sister were nearly through high school. Not cancer, but the lonely silence of an empty house that abraded her will to live. God wasn’t enough to fill that void. He wasn’t enough to fill Brent’s, either.

He realized Donna was speaking.

“We shouldn’t touch it. I’ve called the police.”

No more waiting. Pauline was in trouble, he could feel it. He bent down and shone his cell phone light onto the case. Using the edge of his shirt to touch the clasps, he opened it.

“Brent...” Donna started.

He ignored her.

The case opened and they looked inside. Pauline’s pajamas, fuzzy purple, her slippers, hairbrush, jeans, a T-shirt.

“What is going on here?” he heard Donna murmur.

All he could do was stare into the suitcase. His sister’s things. What possible explanation could there be?

“Brent,” she said again. “You don’t think the person we were chasing was your sister, do you?”

He stood, trying to remember the size of the feet he’d almost grabbed as they disappeared out the window. “It couldn’t have been.”

“Aren’t these her things?”

“Yes, but it wasn’t her,” he repeated.

“How do you know?”

“Because,” he fired off, “she wouldn’t have run from me.”

Donna stared at him with what looked like a mixture of pity and disbelief. He tried for a softer voice, an apologetic smile.

“Pauline and I are close. If she was in trouble, she would come to me.”

“Maybe she didn’t know it was you in the basement.”

“Maybe.” He looked doubtfully at the suitcase. Pauline was running? From him? So scared she’d jumped out a basement window? Why hadn’t she called him? Texted? His hands went clammy as he stowed the cell phone. “It must not have been her.”

“But who else would take these things? They’re of no value to anyone but your sister.”

He didn’t have an answer. Nothing seemed to rise above the feeling of dread that settled into his gut. A police car rolled up with lights but no sirens. Donna went to greet it. Brent stayed with the suitcase. For some reason, he did not want it left alone in the darkened yard. A thought lifted his spirit. If it was really Pauline he’d been chasing, it confirmed she was alive and that was good enough at the moment. A glimmer of hope from God, his mother would say. The feeling didn’t last long. There was no hope from God, he’d learned, only loss and bitter despair.

“What are the chances?” a low voice said.

Brent looked up to see the man who hated him more than any other human being on the planet staring at him through the mist. Officer Dan Ridley. Brent’s heart sank. He forced an even tone.

“My sister’s in trouble.”

Ridley rested his hands on his gun belt. He looked tired, his mouth pulled down into a grimace. “Lots of women around you get in trouble.”

Brent saw Donna’s questioning look.

Ridley glanced at her. “She doesn’t know?”

“Where’s Officer Huffington?” Brent spat.

“She had to fly to Los Angeles to testify in court. This is my beat now.” Ridley smiled. “So you’ve got a problem, huh? Imagine how sorry I am to hear it.”

“Can we cut the sarcasm?” Brent’s pulse slammed against his throat.

Ridley introduced himself to Donna. “I guess you and this guy must be new friends, or else you would know.”

There was the slightest unpleasant inflection on the word friends.

“Know what?” Donna said.

Ridley answered before Brent could step in. “He talked a young woman into going on a flight she didn’t want to take and the plane went down. Everyone died, except for the miracle man here.” Ridley stared at Brent. “The sole survivor. Imagine that.”

He didn’t have to imagine. He woke in the middle of the night sweating, grateful to be snapped from the nightmare only to find he was never free of it and never would be.

“It’s good to be a strong swimmer,” Ridley said. “You took off for shore in a heartbeat, I imagine. Didn’t even stop to help your dying fiancée, did you?”

Donna recoiled in disgust. “This isn’t the time or place.”

“I’m sure Mitchell here would agree with you. It’s never the time or the place to admit that you cost someone their life.”

“That’s enough,” Donna snapped.

Brent couldn’t stand her defending him. It took everything in him to keep his fists at his sides. “This isn’t about her dying—it’s about her leaving. Carrie dumped you, Dan, and chose me. That hurts you more than her death, doesn’t it? What kind of a guy does that make you?”

Ridley jerked forward.

Donna stepped between them. “Can we focus on what’s happened right here?” She gestured to the suitcase. “Whatever past you two have going on, there’s a woman in danger right now. Is there another officer who can help us now, since you’re not able to be professional?”

Ridley’s nostrils flared.

Brent gritted his teeth and waited.

Ridley shot Donna a hostile look before he stepped back. He called to another officer, who approached, camera in hand, taking pictures of the suitcase. “Sergeant Cook is here to document, but I’m the lead. I’m going to walk the house with Cook and we’ll photograph,” Ridley said. “Then you can tell me everything from the beginning.”

Inwardly, Brent groaned as the two officers headed for the house. He didn’t want to consider how Donna had perceived Ridley’s attack. He should explain it, tell her his side, but he could not open that dark place, not now, with a woman he barely knew.

Donna did not press. They waited in silence until Cook called them back into the house and they returned to the basement to go through the story again.

“And you don’t know if the person you tried to stop is your sister?” Ridley asked.

Brent’s face warmed. “All I saw were the feet.”

“There’s no sign of forced entry, which indicates somebody had a key. The big question is, if it was your sister, why would she run from you?” Ridley’s eyes glinted and the curve of his lip told Brent the guy was enjoying every moment.

“I want another cop to investigate.”

“It’s a small town and there aren’t any others available, so you’re stuck with me until Huffington returns. Ironic, isn’t it?”

Brent raged. “I’ll talk to the chief.”

“Go ahead, but you’ll still be working with me. We’ll start the ball rolling and come back tomorrow to see if we missed anything.” His satisfied smile lasted a moment longer before it dimmed. “Look, I wouldn’t cross the street for you, Mitchell, but I’m good at my job and I’ll do my best for your sister, if she really is in trouble.” He headed for the basement stairs. “Goodness knows Pauline doesn’t deserve to suffer like Carrie did.”

The officers trailed up the basement steps and departed, leaving Brent staring at a closed door, even more confused than he’d been twelve hours before. One thing was certain, Pauline was in trouble. Big-time.

* * *

In Pauline’s basement, Donna trailed her fingers through the pile of yarn, uncertain whether to stay or go. She itched to talk over the developments with Marco and her sisters, but Brent’s unnatural stillness kept her there. Ridley’s hateful accusations circled in her mind and left her angry. Whatever had happened in their past, Pauline’s safety should be the focus and Brent was right to ask for a new investigator to take charge. Unless...

The suspicion wormed its way to the surface. What if Brent was not as innocent as he seemed? The handsome face, the little-boy vulnerability—she’d been fooled before.

To cover her confusion, she made a pretense of examining the knitting supplies. The yarns were in hues of greens and blues, next to what appeared to be the beginnings of a crooked scarf. Donna’s mother, JeanBeth, was a skilled knitter and it was easy to see that Pauline was not. Brent remained locked in silence. The minutes ticked away. She’d just decided to go when he spoke.

“She makes me a scarf every year for Christmas. Sews me vests, too.”

She remained silent, willing him to continue. For some reason that she could not name, she wanted to know what was going on inside Brent Mitchell.

“I don’t wear scarves, living in Southern California, but I put them on to please her. I’ve got five hanging in my closet. Five scarves. Some of them have holes in them and she says those are ‘in the French style.’” He smiled. “I tell her I like them better that way because it allows for ventilation. The vests are even worse. It’s ironic because rescue swimmers sew their own gear, so I can handle a needle and thread better than she does. I never tell her that.”

“You’re a good brother.”

His eyes found hers. “I wish that was true. Since the plane crash...” He cleared his throat. “You’re probably wondering about all that since Ridley dropped the bomb.”

“You were the only survivor?”

“Yes.” He looked away, eyes studying the ceiling. “For the last six years since it happened, I’ve immersed myself in work. I’ve been so busy that I didn’t make enough time for my sister.”

Donna sighed. “I’ve used that trick myself, hiding at work.”

He sank down on a wooden trunk. “Yeah? Seems like you have everything squared away with your family. Close with the sisters, Marco.”

“Let’s just say I had plenty of excuses not to hear the truth that my father and Marco were trying to deliver.” She sighed. “I’m working on getting rid of that guilt.”

“I didn’t think it was possible, letting go of guilt.”

She considered his troubled face. “It’s not easy, that’s for sure.”

He looked as though he wanted to ask a question. Instead, he stood up. “Getting late.”

“Yes.”

“I’ll walk you to your car.”

“No need.”

“I know. Gonna do it, anyway.”

He put a hand on her shoulder to guide her to the steps and it made her pulse quicken. “Her work,” Donna blurted out. “That’s the next place to look.”

He fastened those rich brown eyes on hers, making something tingle inside. “I’m sure the police will check out the group home. It’s a place called Open Vistas. See if they can glean anything. That’s where I’m headed tomorrow, too. Ridley will be thrilled to see me again.”

She was sorry when his hand fell away.

They walked out into the front yard. The house looked peaceful in the moonlight, a picture of tranquility and comfort, the whole street bathed in Christmas cheer. Until Pauline was found, there would be no celebration in his life.

“I’m on your father’s list, aren’t I?” he said as he opened her car door for her and she climbed in.

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Yes, you do. My sister went to your dad because she was afraid of someone. When she stopped coming around, your father started doing some informal checking and, being the thorough investigator type, he jotted me down there on the suspect list.”

She winced.

He thrummed his fingers on the roof of the car. “Why wouldn’t I be a suspect? I’m the beneficiary of her life insurance policy, I think. A natural conclusion. I could have been plotting to murder her or something.” He laughed, bitter and low. “Ridley would love to consider me a suspect in my own sister’s disappearance.”

His hands were on his hips now, jaw drawn tight.

“I don’t know what my father was investigating,” she said honestly. “I wish I did.”

“For what it’s worth, I love my sister. She’s the only person on this earth who knows what a jerk I can be and loves me, anyway. I did not hurt her. I never would.”

The far-off sound of the waves filled in the silence.

His eyes searched her face. “Do you believe me?”

Did she? She’d believed Nate so completely, surrendering her common sense, going along to parties, excusing his drinking and his job hopping, believing every lie he’d told her. But God had saved her and He and her father had never stopped loving her or trusting in her, even when she so richly had deserved it. Did she believe Brent? A man she hardly knew? A man Ridley blamed for a young woman’s death?

Mist beaded on his hair and she saw in the creases under his eyes, the tightening in his lips, that Brent Mitchell was a man in anguish. “Yes,” she found herself saying. “I do believe you.”

His mouth opened as if he meant to speak. Instead, he sighed, long and slow, a whoosh of air that mingled with the murmur of the waves against the sand. “Thank you for that,” he said.

The moonlight glimmered between them, painting dark streaks across his face.

“I’d better go,” she said. As she drove off, she sneaked a look in the rearview. He stayed there, hands shoved into his pockets, watching her depart.

She drove slowly along the darkened street. Everywhere, the shadows were thick, impenetrable. A million tiny movements, probably nothing more than the wind on the leaves, made her stomach tighten. Was someone watching her progress? The same man who had held a knife to her throat?

She double-checked that she’d locked the car doors.

“Your fear is running away with you. There’s no threat out there in the night,” she told herself, out loud for emphasis.

Still, she made sure she’d pulled the car in the garage and waited until the door closed before she unlocked the car and scurried into the house.

FIVE

Nightmares trickled through Donna’s sleep, forcing her awake before the sun rose. Groggy and lethargic, she put herself through her Pilates exercises until her stiff muscles finally cooperated. Since the accident that had broken her back and temporarily paralyzed her, pain was a constant companion and no doubt a lifelong one, but Donna was determined to beat it back to a manageable level. She had a quick temper, but she’d begun to funnel her anger into her exercise. “Defeat the pain every day,” her father had said.

Her eyes flicked to the closet where her wheelchair was stowed, a reminder of how she’d once given up completely in the face of her paralysis. She’d surrendered her will and her future to hopelessness, shoving away everyone who loved her and the God she imagined did not. Dark times that she would not revisit. A knock at the door startled her. Remembering the skin-crawling sensation of being watched from the night before, she crept to the door on tiptoe.

One glance through the peephole and she knew she was in trouble. Two very determined sisters stood on her doorstep at six fifteen on a Thursday morning, and Angela was holding a white bag. Gallagher-sister determination plus doughnuts was a powerful combination.

Meekly, she opened the door. “Isn’t it a little early?”

Candace thrust a cup of coffee into her hand. “Only for someone who has been out late at night.”

She flinched. “How did you find out?”

“Coronado is a small town. Marcy Owens lives across the street from Pauline’s place. She saw you there and texted me. So why exactly were you prowling around strange houses where there may or may not have been a crime committed?”

“Alone,” Angela added, sitting on the sofa and fishing out an old-fashioned glazed doughnut that she offered to Donna. “Don’t forget that she was all alone.”

Donna sighed and took the sweet. “Okay. It wasn’t smart.”

“Dad would have said you were shooting high and right,” Angela said.

The old marine term struck at her. A reminder of the military life they shared with their father but she did not. “Don’t speak for Dad. He’s not here, remember?” She was shocked at her own outburst.

Angela’s mouth tightened. “We both remember, just as well as you.”

“I’m sorry,” Donna said, sinking onto the old cane-backed rocker across from Angela. “I don’t know where that came from.”

Angela leaned forward. “You’re grieving. It’s okay. We are, too.”

But she wanted to say, You didn’t break Dad’s heart, did you? Angela, the proud navy chaplain; Candace, married to a marine whom Bruce had adored and mother to Tracy, who’d lit up Bruce’s life like no one else. Sarah, the spunky, determined surgical nurse. And then there was Donna, who’d gone off the deep end two years ago and nearly thrown her life away for a manipulating jerk. Past history. Not important, she told herself, but her guilt whispered otherwise.

She put the doughnut on the coffee table, appetite gone. “I’m not acting out of grief. Dad was murdered and I want to find out who is responsible.”

She’d meant the words to shock and they had. Candace gathered her mass of curly hair and shoved it behind her ears. “If that’s the case,” she said slowly, “then the police will do their jobs. It’s not a good idea for you to get mixed up in their business.”

“There’s a problem with the police. Dad’s case is linked to Pauline’s and the cop who’s in charge now that Officer Huffington’s been called away hates Brent Mitchell. I’m not sure he’s going to give the case his best.”

Angela lifted an eyebrow. “Brent? The guy who was in the office when you were attacked?”