The Weekday Brides 04 - Single by Saturday (36 page)

“That has to be hard on you.”

His brother shrugged. “Not really. Having Karen in my life has given me a place to vent. I’m going to miss that when she’s gone.”

“She’s not gone.”

Mike glanced over his shoulder. “You saying you’re ready to move out of Hilton? Because I don’t think Karen living in LA and you living in Hilton is going to work out for very long. Not to mention you can’t protect her from that far away.”

“I’ve been itching to get out of Utah for a while,” Zach explained as he stood and walked to his brother’s side. “If Karen wants to open a sanctuary for runaway kids, she’s going to have to be close to a big city. Kids don’t run away
to
Hilton.”

Mike turned toward him now. “You’re really serious about her.”

“Yeah. Yeah I am.”

Mike swiveled back to the window. “I’m going to be in Canada for weeks on end. I’ll encourage Karen to stay at the house…hell I’d give it to her if I thought she’d take it.”

“She didn’t want the car.” Thinking of the McLaren made Zach smile.

“Make her keep the car, would you? Such a sweet ride.”

Zach smiled and nodded.

“The house is secure…less media can get in while we’re going through the divorce. You can both stay there for as long as you like.”

Zach placed a hand on his brother’s shoulder. “I have your back. No matter when and if you tell Mom and Dad…I’m there for you.”

Mike nodded and offered a sad smile. “Thanks. I needed to hear that.”

The door to the suite opened behind them and Gwen, Neil, and Nolan walked in. From the expression on Nolan’s face, Zach knew something was wrong.

“What happened?”

“Becky called.” Nolan’s hand shook as he lifted his phone in the air.

From the door to the bedroom, Karen stood with a towel to her hair. Her fresh clean scent drifted Zach’s way and called to him.

“Is she OK?”

Nolan shook his head. “She was crying so hard I couldn’t understand her.”

“Where is she?”

Gwen placed an arm around Nolan’s shoulders. “She didn’t say. Something about a truck stop, hiding.”

Neil had his cell phone to his ear. “Where are you?”

“Is he talking to Rick?” Karen asked.

Gwen nodded. “I think we should notify the police. They must realize the danger Becky is in by now.”

Karen nodded at Zach’s side. “I think so, too.”

Neil moved away from them as he told Rick what they’d learned. “She’s hiding in a storage closet of some sort. I have no idea which truck stop. No, she won’t. Call…right.” When Neil hung up, he addressed them.

“Rick and Judy are en route to Jeremy.”

“She could be at any truck stop.”

“Becky didn’t give you any hints?” Karen asked Nolan.

“Just that they’d been driving for a couple of hours.”

Zach looked at Neil. “We need a state map.”

Judy and Rick circled the lot of the second truck stop twice before pulling the car into a parking spot.

They walked side by side into the convenience store that accompanied the gas station and restaurant portion of the truck stop. “I’ll check out the bathroom first.”

Rick scanned the patrons as they walked by and said little. The man had a strange way about him, Judy decided. He had this perpetual smile when he was talking to her, and a look of killer intensity when he was concentrating.

He walked her to the door of the ladies’ room and turned his back to the wall to wait for her.
He must be a bodyguard of some sort.
The man had the expression
don’t fuck with me
, glaring at anyone who looked. And who would? Only the completely stupid would mess with the man.

Judy checked each empty stall and waited until every woman had left the room before moving on.

“Not in there.”

“Neil said a supply closet.”

“Let’s take a look around for her parents. If we see them, then we know she has to be here somewhere.”

“Or they may have left her,” Rick said.

They started in the restaurant, telling the waitress they were looking for friends. The search came up empty and they moved to the back of the truck stop. There were services for drivers ranging from an on-staff chiropractor to shoe shining. Not that Judy could think of truck drivers wearing shoes that needed shining. But that’s how these stops rolled. There were places for a girl the size of Becky to disappear everywhere.

Across from the bathroom, Judy scanned the store. Like her own personal shadow, Rick stood beside her. From the corner of her eye, she noticed someone who looked a lot like Mr. Applegate ducking behind a bookcase. Instead of being obvious, she moved in front of Rick, hiding her face and pretending to pick lint off his jacket.

His stellar smile took her breath for a moment as he looked down at her.

“Over my right shoulder, behind the bookcase…” she whispered.

He leaned down to hear her.

Rick lifted a hand to her hair and played with it while looking where she suggested.

“Tall, skinny…wearing a plaid long-sleeved shirt.”

“Dark brown hair?”

“Yeah.”

She lifted her purse from her shoulder and removed a compact. “Is he watching us?”

“He’s glancing this way, but seems to be reading a book.”

Judy lifted the mirror until she was able to locate the man in question. When he lifted his head from the book in his hand, she froze. “That’s Becky’s dad.”

She snapped her compact shut, looked into Rick’s green eyes. “She’s here somewhere.”

“He keeps looking over here.”

“He probably recognized me.”

Rick jolted suddenly, moved Judy to the side. “Call the police.” Then he was gone, running into the store.

She turned in time to see Mr. Applegate run through a back door and Rick follow.

She dialed 911 and ran toward Rick.

“Nine one one, please state your emergency.”

“I need the police. I’m at the Millroad truck stop and there’s a man here holding a girl against her will.” Judy wasn’t sure what else to say to the woman on the phone. “Hurry.”

“Is this man armed?”

“I don’t know.” Judy burst through the back door to see Rick tackling Mr. Applegate to the ground. As she thought, Rick only had to sit on the man to get him to comply. “Hurry.”

Judy lowered the phone from her ear. “Becky?” she called at the top of her lungs. “Becky?” The people in the store looked at her as if she were crazy, but Judy kept poking her head into back doors and calling Becky’s name.

“Hey, you can’t go back there.” An employee tried to stop Judy from walking into the storage room but she walked through the employee-only door anyway.

“Becky, it’s Judy…you can come out now.”

“Hey, miss. You can’t be back here.”

Judy looked at the fiftysomething man and frowned. “Becky?”

The room was small and didn’t have a scared teenage girl hiding within the boxes, so Judy kept moving.

By now there were people gathering around watching her while others watched through the windows at what Judy assumed was Rick making sure Mr. Applegate didn’t get away.

Judy retraced her steps toward the rooms in the back where the truck drivers managed their haircuts and midstate back cracking. “Becky?”

She was about to turn back into the restaurant when she heard a door open behind her. Huddled in a sweatshirt, Becky poked her head out.

The swelling around Becky’s right eye and the way she held her arm stopped Judy from breathing. “Oh, Becky.”

Judy reached the girl before she fell. “Call an ambulance. Someone call an ambulance.”

She crumbled to the ground with Becky and held her. “It’s OK. You’re safe now.”

Karen, Zach, Michael, and Nolan sat in the hospital waiting room, while Rick and Judy were still held up with the police giving statements. Samantha and Blake had already flown back to California, and Gwen and Neil had returned to the hotel once they knew everyone was accounted for. Well, everyone but Becky’s mother. She’d yet to be found and it didn’t seem that even Becky’s father knew where she could be hiding.

Outside, the media swarmed, all searching for the story buried in the gossip.

Although the charges against her, Zach, and Nolan had yet to be dropped, it was only a matter of time.

Karen was going on forty-eight hours with virtually no sleep when they arrived at the hospital.

“What’s taking so long?” Nolan paced the small, private room like a caged animal.

“I don’t know.”

They all thought the worst. They knew Judy had found Becky, and that the girl had been bruised and hysterical. It took the hospital some time before they’d even talked to them.

Judy and Rick arrived thirty minutes later, looking tired and wrung out. Karen hugged Judy and thanked her for her help. “Have we heard anything?” Judy asked.

“No. Nothing. How was she when you saw her?”

Judy glanced at Nolan.

“She was beat up pretty bad. I think her arm was broken.”

Nolan’s hand curled up into a fist.

Zach took hold of Karen’s hand.

Judy watched Karen and Zach with a frown. “Uhm? I know I probably shouldn’t ask…but aren’t you married to Mike?”

Michael laughed and swung an arm over Judy’s shoulder. “C’mon, sis. Let’s go for a walk and I’ll explain.”

Karen couldn’t help but notice how Rick’s eyes followed Judy when she left the room.

Rick was a good guy…maybe a little hard for someone like Judy, and probably too much of a player.

Zach stood, shook Rick’s hand. “Thanks for your help.”

Rick shook Zach’s hand. “I’m Rick Evans.”

“Zach Gardner.”

“Oh, that’s right you haven’t met. I’m sorry.”

“It’s been a busy day, sweetheart. You’re allowed.”

“Rick works with Neil…or does Neil work with you now?” Karen asked teasingly.

Rick shrugged. “I help him out when I can.”

Nolan shot to his feet when two men in lab coats walked into the room. “We’re looking for Nolan Parker.”

“That’s me.”

Karen moved beside him, Zach moved to his other side.

“Is Becky OK?”

The doctors exchanged glances. Karen felt her heart drop deep in her chest.

“Becky is going to be fine. She has a fractured arm, a few lacerations that required stitches.”

Nolan swallowed. “Then I can see her?”

The doctors glanced at each other again. “About the baby.”

Karen looked over Nolan’s head and into Zach’s gaze. She knew what the doctor was going to say before the words came from his lips.

“She started bleeding in the ambulance. There’s nothing we could do this early in a pregnancy to keep her from having a miscarriage.”

Nolan’s eyes searched those of the doctors. “We lost our baby?”

The doctor who did all the talking nodded. “Yes. I’m sorry.”

Zach gripped Nolan’s arm while tears ran down Karen’s cheeks. Even Rick had to look away.

“How is Becky?”

“Understandably upset. She’s asking for you.”

Nolan pushed away from Karen and Zach and walked out of the room without a backward glance.

Zach pulled Karen into his arms when the tears started to fall.

“I’ll go find Judy and Michael,” she heard Rick say before he left the room.

Tears soaked Zach’s shirt as she gripped his arms. “Why?”

“I don’t know, baby. I don’t know.”

Chapter Twenty-Nine