Sneaking Suspicions (The Tharon Trace Mysteries Book 1) (6 page)

Dana’s heart was swallowed up in compassion for the desperate father.  With a firm, but gentle voice, she said, “We’ll do everything we can to find her, Mr. Trace.”

Tom handed the flashlight back to Dana.  “Please, call me Tom.  If, heaven forbid, you have to bring us bad news, I don’t want to feel like it’s coming from a stranger.”

Dana said, “Fair enough.  You can call me Dana.”

“And my name is Simon.  Is there anything else, Tom?”

Tom looked across the stream to the deepening shadows. “I guess just getting my dog’s body.”

“I’m sorry.”  Simon said, “The last thing I want to do right now is cause you any more pain.  We need to determine if the bullets came from the same gun that killed the victim.”

Tom stuffed his hands in the pockets of his coveralls.  “I understand.  What will you do with his body?”

Dana spoke in a gentle voice.  “I’ll put a blanket on the back seat of my cruiser.  I promise I’ll treat him with the utmost respect.  I’ll take him to the veterinary clinic in Columbia City.  We’ll take care of disposing of his body.”

Simon turned to leave, but hesitated. “May I ask how did you come to know so much about footprints?”

Tom spoke absently, still staring at his dog. “I was raised in Canada by a survival expert.  Part of his job was tracking people lost in the Canadian wilderness.  He trained me.”

Simon nodded his head. “Dana will help you get your dog into her car.”  He turned to Dana. “I’m going down the road to check on Mr.—on Matt and Doc.  I’ll be at the morgue after that if you need me.”

“Yes sir.”  She didn’t feel comfortable dropping the professional wall between them.  She felt too vulnerable around him.

Dana and Tom crossed the footbridge, stepping carefully over the broken plank.

Tom knelt next to the dog’s body and gently stroked his still head, brushing the thin layer of snow from his fur.  A tear trickled down his face into his beard.  His thick brown chin length hair twisted in the wind where it stuck out from under his knit cap.  “He was a great dog.  He loved Tharon—followed her everywhere.  He sat by the road to wait for the school bus every day.”

Dana fought to keep her own emotions in check.  She didn’t count herself a weak woman.  She’d weathered and witnessed enough trauma, cruelty, and horror in her job and in her own life to know she wasn’t weak.  So why did a single tear over a dog by this distraught owner—or a comment strangled with emotion from a strong man like Simon—make her eyes mist and her throat feel like she swallowed a golf ball?

Tom picked up the eighty pound dog’s body with ease.

Dana led the way back to the creek.  She steadied the dog in Tom’s arms and guided him across the bridge.  At the car she hurried to cover the back seat with a blanket she took from the trunk.

Tom hesitated. “Are you sure you don’t want me to put Shep in the trunk?”

She nearly lost it when she heard the dog’s name.  Her late grandfather’s dog was named Shep.  Her eyes welled up with tears.  She cleared her throat, but her voice was still tight with emotion.  “Absolutely not.  Tharon’s dog will ride in the back seat.”

Tom gently laid Shep’s body on the blanket and stroked his fur one last time.  He shut the door and extended his hand to shake Dana’s.  He gripped her hand with both of his, and held it for a long moment.  Tears spilled freely down his cheeks and disappeared in his beard.  “Thank you for your kindness.”

She said softly, “Do you want me to give you a ride back to your house?”

Tom ignored his tears and looked back at the stream with dread.  “No, I’ll catch up with Matt and Doc.  I just hope...”

He couldn’t say it any more than she wanted to think of them finding their children washed up along the stream.  Dana didn’t trust her voice to speak and merely nodded her head.  She got in and started the cruiser.  As she turned the car around and pulled away she saw Tom wipe the tears from his face, turn, and then jog down the road.  She could no longer hold back her own tears, weeping openly now that she was alone.

Why did the dog’s death hit her so hard?  This was why she was alone.  This is why she wouldn’t let anyone or anything get too close to her.  When she felt compassion for someone she did it with her whole heart—and she turned into a puddle of mush in the process.

Maybe she wasn’t really in love with Simon.  Maybe it was just her crippling compassion for his sorrow.

It only took a moment of reflection on the longing in her heart to realize that wasn’t true.  She loved him deeply.  That’s why she could never drop her professional guard around him.  To hear him say he didn’t feel the same would crush her heart to pieces.  At least this way, she could be near him.  If that was all she ever had, it would be enough.  Wouldn’t it?

She wiped her eyes on her sleeve and was almost to the end of the road when she heard a sound from the back seat.  At first she thought she imagined it and strained to listen.  She heard it again.  A soft whimpering whine—the most glorious sound she’d ever heard.

She turned on the siren and floored the accelerator.  Until she knew the dog would survive, this was a secret she’d keep to herself.  It would be cruel to give the family hope and have them experience their dog’s death twice.  “Hang on Shep.  You live and I promise I’ll find Tharon and bring her home to you.”

CHAPTER 5

Tharon tried to memorize which directions they turned and how long they drove, but Marty made so many turns that she quickly lost track.  She figured they were taking back roads to Fort Wayne and her suspicions were confirmed when she saw a city bus ahead of them in traffic.  Fort Wayne was the only city they could have reached that had buses.

“Carl, check the scanner.” Burt scratched his jaw and sneered at her.  “I want to know if they’ve missed these kids yet.”

Carl touched the screen on the dash and the radio crackled to life.

The kidnappers are armed and dangerous.  The three children are believed to have witnessed a murder and are considered to be in extreme danger.  A white mini-van is being sought in connection with the abduction and murder.  They were abducted by three men who we repeat are armed and dangerous....

Burt wiped his hands on the sides of his thighs leaving a damp swipe on his faded jeans.  “That’s enough, Carl, shut it off.  Marty, get us off the main streets.  We gotta stash these brats and hide the van.  Go to the shop on Lake.  We’ll repaint the van and hide them in one of the vacant offices on the other end of the building.  That’ll give me some time to figure out what to do with them.”  His hands trembled as he held them flat in front of him.  He knotted his fingers into fists and pressed them against his knees.

Tharon felt that icy ache in her chest while she watched Helm, who hadn’t moved since he was placed on the floor of the van.  A bump with a purple bruise formed above his left eyebrow.  She glanced at Kaid whose worried expression matched her own.  Twisting sideways, she lowered her ear to Helm’s chest with her face turned toward his.  Her head blocked Burt from seeing Helm’s face.  She felt Helm’s chest rise and fall and searched his face.  He opened his eyes and winked at her and then closed them again so quickly, if she’d blinked she would have missed it.

Burt’s angry voice startled her. “Is that kid still alive?”

Tharon sat up and nodded her head.

Burt grunted, muttered something under his breath, and looked away.  She winked at Kaid who sighed and released a measure of the tension in his shoulders.

She craned her neck to look through the windshield but all she could see were the tops of leafless trees, occasional stop lights and a few street signs which stretched over the lanes.  She caught a few names that flashed past the edge of the windshield; white lettering on green signs: Elizabeth, Spy Run, Lake—but she knew she’d never be able to figure out where they were going, let alone how to get back home.

Her head was dizzy from the sharp, quick turns and her stomach rumbled.  She swallowed bile that threatened to choke her since its most likely exit was covered with duct tape.

Marty stretched a long thin finger to the visor above him and clicked a garage door opener. The metal garage door rolled up and Marty pulled the van into a dark building.  After the metal door rolled down behind them, Carl opened the back of the van and hauled the children out.  He draped Helm over his shoulder and urged Kaid and Tharon ahead of him.

Tharon blinked until her eyes adjusted to the dim light which filtered through gaps in the rough wood planks boarding up the two broken windows.  Cold air blew in through the gaps plunging the temperature in the large auto shop. 

The shop smelled of dirty grease, paint fumes, and cat litter in dire need of changing.  The odor triggered Tharon’s gag reflex and she tried to hold her breath to keep from smelling it, but still sneezed twice against the duct tape, making her ears feel like they would explode.

Carl picked up a large flashlight from the bench by the door at the other end of the shop.  He stopped by the closed door and juggled Helm as he held the flashlight under his multiple chins to maneuver the door open.  He gently nudged Tharon and Kaid through and let the door slam shut behind them.  “Just keep moving to the last door on the right before the lobby area.  See that little bit of light down there?  That’s the lobby.”

Kaid and Tharon kept their arms touching each other as they walked side-by-side down the long, dim hallway.  Something large scurried past Kaid and brushed his leg in the darkness.  He jumped, almost knocking Tharon over.  She and Kaid trembled as they huddled up next to Carl.

“Don’t worry.  That’s just Cat and her grown babies.  They keeps the mice and rats out of here.  Come on now, I needs to get you in a room before Burt or Marty comes lookin’ for me.  See I’m gonna hide you from Marty as long as I can.  I’s the only one with the key to this room.  It’s cleaner ’cause it used to be a doctor office.”

With a gentle nudge from Carl, Kaid and Tharon started forward again.  As her eyes adjusted to the darkness she made out the dim light from the lobby.

“Stop here.” Carl panned the flashlight beam along the empty hallway behind them.  Again he fumbled with the flashlight under his chin as he palmed a key from his pocket and let the children into a waiting room.

The skeletons of metal chairs, minus some seats and backs, were piled in the corner.  The strong stench of cat urine and ammonia assaulted Tharon’s nose and burned her eyes.  A pair of green eyes shown in the glint of the flashlight and a threatening hiss sounded from beneath the pile of chairs.

Soft mewing sounds protested when the mother cat stood up.  Carl swept the beam of light around the room until it rested on a cat hunched over her kittens. “Cat, how’d you get shut in here?  Did Marty lock you in here?  That son of a—” he looked sideways at Tharon, “gun.”

As Carl fumbled to unlock the inner door, the light from his flashlight reflected on a half open sliding window to the left of the door.  Carl wedged the door open with his foot and caught the flashlight as it fell from his chin.  “Go in the first room on the right.  It should be clean and not too cold cause there ain’t no windows.”

Tharon pressed close to Kaid’s side as they entered the room.

Carl prodded them forward to the center of the room.  The flashlight beam was too weak to reach the dark corners.  He gently laid Helm on the floor in the middle of the room.

Tharon looked around quickly while they still had light from the flashlight.  The rectangular room was completely empty as far as she could see.  The walls were white and bare except for splotches of mold on the lower half of the outside wall.  Crumbled drywall littered the floor from holes in the ceiling and walls.  She huddled up to Kaid with her right foot touching Helm and her toes pointed toward the door.

She tried to talk to Carl with her taped mouth but her words came out in a muffled pleading sound.  After Carl gently peeled the tape from her face, she asked, “What’s going to happen to us?”

The glow of the flashlight blinded her eyes but didn’t reach Carl’s face.  She didn’t need to see his face.  She heard the concern and sadness in his voice.  “See, I can’t just let you go.  Burt’s my brother.  I gotta try to protect him and you’ll tell on him.  But he’s smart.  If he can find a way for you to live and not tell, I gotta let him try.  If I let you go free, Burt and me’ll have to leave here and go on the run.”  He tipped the flashlight to look at Helm and light revealed sadness clouding his features.  “But I promise I’ll let you go before I’ll let Marty or Burt hurt you.”

The image of Burt shooting the man and dumping his body in the creek flashed in Tharon’s mind.  “What about Burt?  Will he hurt you if you help us?”

Carl took a step closer and patted the top of her head. “No, Little Miss.  Burt won’t never hurt me.  He’s my big brother.  Marty’s a bad man, though.  You watch out for Marty.”

Carl returned the tape to her mouth and turned to leave.  He took a couple of steps towards the door and looked back at Helm.  “I’m sorry about your friend.  It didn’t feel like I hit him that hard.  I hope he wakes up soon.  I’ll be back later when I finds out what Burt wants to do.”

The light faded out the door.  With a loud click the complete darkness fell like a thick cloak, intensified by the moist and musty air.

Fear gripped at Tharon’s heart but she refused to surrender to the terror threatening to engulf her.  She turned her wrists to overlap each other and slipped them out of the zip tab.  She peeled the tape off her mouth and smoothed her hands up Kaid’s arms to find his face and pulled the tape off his mouth too.

At first he flinched from her touch. “How’d you get free?” Kaid asked in a surprised voice.

“Shh!  Not so loud,” Tharon said.  “We don’t know if there are more people than them here.”  She squatted down next to Helm and felt for his face then pulled his tape off too.  “Helm, are you hurt?” she asked as she helped him stand.

“Nah, I saw him throwing the punch at me and I kind of moved with the hit so he hardly hurt me at all.  I figured they’d either leave me for dead, and I’d go get help, or if his hands were full carrying me that you two had a better chance of running away.”

Tharon shook her head in the darkness. “Right.  We’ll have to remember that, Kaid.  The next time he’s passed out on the ground we should run off and leave him.”

“Ha, ha,” whispered Helm.  “How did you get your hands free?”

Should she tell them the truth that she got beat up in the second grade and asked her dad to teach her self-defense?  They were probably going to all die that night—did she really want their last mental image to be of her serving as Everett’s personal punching bag?  “Magic,” she said.

Kaid snorted. “Right, no tell us, how did you do it?”

Ignoring his question she turned Helm’s back to her.  “Let me see if I can help you get loose.”  The total darkness unnerved her and her breathing became shallow.  She tried closing her eyes so she didn’t feel so disoriented but it didn’t work.  She held onto Helm and moved her hands down his arms to his wrists. “No, you overlapped your hands, the strap is too tight.”

Helm jumped with excitement. “I have my pocket knife in the front right pocket of my jeans.”  He turned his pocket closer to her.

Tharon’s hand traveled from Helm’s wrist to his belt, feeling her way to slip her hand into his pocket, which was much deeper than she expected.

Helm sucked in his breath sharply.

She stopped with her hand still deep in his pocket. “What’s wrong?  Are you hurt?”

He breathed through his mouth and his voice cracked and strained when he spoke. “No.  It’s just—never mind.”

Her fingers closed on the knife.  She pulled it out and felt for the smaller blade.  Turning Helm’s back to her, she felt her way back down to his hands.  “Hold still.  I sure hope I don’t cut you.”

“Yeah, I’ll second that,” Helm said, as he took a deep breath and held as still as a statue.

Tharon felt the cord slice like butter against the sharp blade.  “Are you okay?  Did I cut you?

“No.  I’m okay.  Thanks,” Helm said.

She felt as if she were smothering.  She had to hold it together till she cut Kaid loose.  Holding out her left hand she said, “Kaid, where are you?”

“I’m here.”  Kaid’s voice was close and to her left.

She felt into the darkness until she touched a jacket sleeve.  “Is that you?”

“Yeah, I hope that’s you, too.”

She softly punched his arm. “Funny.”  Then she felt down to his hands and cut him loose.

“Thanks.  I’m sure glad they didn’t take time to search us.” Kaid sighed with relief.

Helm kept a hand on Tharon’s shoulder to keep track of her in the dark.  “They were too busy arguing about whether to kill us or not.”

Tharon closed the blade. “Helm, here’s your knife.”  His touch on her shoulder calmed her but she still struggled with the panic welling inside her.

Helm moved his hand from her shoulder and slid it down to her palm.  In the darkness she pressed the closed knife into his hand.  He broke contact with her to pocket the knife.

Without his reassuring touch her senses heightened.  Something skittered up her pant leg.  She tried to stifle a scream and batted at her legs and arms. “Something’s crawling on me!”

Hands grabbed her shoulders in the darkness.  Helms voice sounded close to her ear.  “Shh.  It’s okay.”

Her breathing was rapid and shallow, blackness pressed in on her as she shook her arms and legs.

Helm unzipped his jacket and wrapped it around her as he put his arms about her and pulled her head to his chest.  His hands rubbed her back, shoulders and smoothed over her head.  “Is it gone now?”

She sucked in quick breaths of air, unable to speak, and nodded her head against his chest.

Helm spoke softly, his lips close to her ear, “Just try to breathe with me.  Breathe in, breathe out.  Close your eyes and imagine you’re in a bright room but the darkness is only from having your eyes closed.”

His soft voice soothed her.  She closed her eyes and felt his chest rise and fall.  She heard his heartbeat and got lost in its rhythm.  At first her breathing was ragged but soon it became steady.  She wrapped her arms around him too.  Kaid’s hand rested on the small of her back and she felt anchored to them both.

She didn’t know how long they stayed like that but was grateful for the steady, calming strength she felt from them both.  “Thanks,” she whispered.  Standing on her tiptoes, she reached up to kiss Helm on the cheek but his head was turned and she kissed him on the mouth.  He kissed her back, just a little longer than the peck she’d intended and when she eased down again with her head against his chest, she heard his heart racing.