CHAPTER ELEVEN
VICKI HAD TO tell Harp the truth. She didn’t need a baby to get him to marry her. He loved her. Why else would he have shared such damaging information with her that day in the hospital?
At the sound of his patrol car pulling up outside, she felt her heart begin to race. What if he was angry with her and blamed her for losing the baby? What if he was glad the baby was gone because now he wouldn’t have to marry her?
Suddenly she wasn’t so sure that anyone would believe her if she told them what Harp had confessed that day. Suddenly she wasn’t so sure of anything.
She could hear his footfalls on the stairs. She’d been so sure this was the right thing to do. Now, though, she was scared.
His key turned in the lock, the door opened and she knew she had to decide. Now!
As he came through the door, she saw his expression and felt her heart drop like a rock. He knew. Somehow he’d found out that she’d lost the baby. That she’d been lying. Why else was he grinning at her like that? She couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe. He stalked toward her, grabbed her and spun her around.
“Harp, I can explain,” she said, just wanting to get this over with. But she was getting dizzy, her head swimming. Why hadn’t she told him months ago that she’d miscarried?
He was laughing and she could feel a current running through him. “Explain what?” he asked as he set her down on her feet again.
“I feel like I’m going to throw up,” she said, meaning it.
“Oh, sorry. I forgot. The baby.”
She looked into his face, expecting to see sarcasm.
“You all right?” he asked when she didn’t make a run for the bathroom.
Her head was still spinning, but her earlier nausea had passed. Was it possible he didn’t know? Her tongue was glued to the roof of her mouth. Confess, she screamed inside her head. Just get it over with.
“Sit down. You look green around the gills,” he said, taking her arms in his big hands and gently settling her on the edge of the couch. “I’ve got a surprise.”
She hated surprises since she’d yet to get a good one. Worse, he was nervous, making her even more jittery.
Harp swallowed, rubbed his hands down the thighs of his jeans and took a breath. He let it out slowly as he dropped to one knee.
She stared in shock as he reached into his pocket and pulled out a small red box. This was his surprise? She wanted to scream. She couldn’t marry him with this lie between them.
Vicki looked into his handsome face and her heart broke.
“Will you marry me?” he asked, his voice breaking as he popped open the box to reveal the prettiest little diamond engagement ring she’d ever seen.
* * *
IT DIDN’T TAKE Flint long to find the location of the Duma lake house. After all, he was still sheriff. He pulled out his cell phone, then reconsidered calling Mark after reminding himself that he was on paid leave. He knew what Mark would say. That was if he didn’t try to stop him.
Mark would want to call someone in Flathead to check out the lake house. Flint didn’t trust anyone to do this but himself. If he found anything, he would call Mark.
The problem was that the department was short staffed under normal circumstances. With him on leave, it would only put more pressure on manpower. Add to that the winter storm still putting down snow...
Again, Flint reminded himself that he was on paid leave. He’d been pulled off Maggie’s case because he was a suspect. Not to mention, he was too close to it. He’d proved that earlier when he’d attacked Celeste. He still couldn’t believe he wasn’t behind bars. Investigating on his own was a fool thing to do.
For years he’d always gone by the book. He was a straight-arrow guy who didn’t believe in cutting corners. But now the woman he loved had been taken. It almost scared him to think what extremes he might go to. But he had no choice. He had to find Maggie. Wherever she was, he worried that she was cold and afraid, hurt and possibly dying. He shoved that thought away, refusing to imagine her in some horrible basement somewhere.
Not that the basement at the Duma lake house would be horrible. Unless there was no heat.
He pocketed his phone, knowing that Mark would try to talk him out of this or, worse, try to stop him. He’d go, he’d check out the lake house and then... And how exactly are you getting in?
Flint wasn’t going to worry about that now. He had a long drive ahead of him. He’d always gone with his gut instinct partnered with sound evidence, and it had never let him down.
But this time, he couldn’t count on it. This was the woman he planned to spend the rest of his life with. He had to find Maggie, and the one thing he felt soul deep was that the clock was ticking down.
* * *
MAGGIE WOKE TO find a paper bag beside her. The smell alone had her sitting up and reaching for the contents. She was starved and couldn’t remember the last time she’d eaten.
She ate the burger and fries as if she hadn’t eaten in weeks. Maybe she hadn’t. She’d lost all track of time and had no idea how long she’d been here since most of the time she’d been drugged.
Her stomach groaned and for a moment she thought she might be sick to her stomach. She closed her eyes, wishing she hadn’t devoured the meal so quickly. After a few minutes, it seemed the food would stay down. She was relieved since she didn’t know when she would get fed again.
Not just that. She needed to get her strength back if she ever hoped to get out of here. That thought surprised her since a part of her knew there was little chance of that happening. Whoever had taken her had been planning this for some time.
She pulled herself up and tried the bars again, hoping that she would find them not as sturdy as she had before. But they were just as strong, just as secure. She moved around her prison, looking for a weakness somewhere in the design. The bars definitely rattled more on the side where they opened.
Maggie stopped rattling the cage around her as she heard a sound beyond her room. At first she couldn’t distinguish what it was. It sounded like a woman crying.
She wasn’t the only woman being held here? Every horror story she’d heard about women captives being held for years against their wills came to her in a rush. Terror filled her.
The effects of the drug still made her lethargic and muddled her thinking. She had no idea where she was or even who had taken her. She felt as if she’d been drugged for days, but there was no way to tell time here.
As she took in her prison, she noticed that the walls were concrete. No windows. Reaching through the bars of her cage, she touched the concrete wall. It was ice-cold. Drawing back her hand, with a horrible start, she realized why. She was underground.
Her legs felt like rubber. She sank to the mattress, dropping to her knees as she clung to the bars. As she felt a full-blown panic attack coming on, she sat back and tried to calm herself. She had tried screaming and crying and pleading. She’d suspected that she wasn’t alone, wherever she was, but she hadn’t seen anyone. How was that possible since clearly someone had come in to leave her food, water and to drug her? She looked at the half-empty bottle of water at her feet and recalled the chalky taste of it as she felt her eyelids already growing heavy.
Fear sent her pulse pounding. She tried to stay calm, but it was impossible. Who had done this to her? There was only one person who wanted her away from Flint so badly that she would do something this crazy. Celeste.
Just the thought of the woman made her angry. Her pulse slowed some. She caught her breath. If she had any chance of getting out of there, she had to think. Panicking would get her nowhere. Panicking was exactly what Celeste would want.
And yet she could feel the drug working through her system. She dropped to the bed even as she tried to fight the drug, tried to think. Why a bed that looked like a child’s? Why a cage that, when she thought about it, looked like an adult crib? Maybe Celeste was crazier than even she thought.
She felt rising panic again and pushed it back down. Eventually Celeste would show herself.
“I know who you are!” she yelled. “Show your face, you coward!” She listened and thought she heard the sound of footfalls overhead. Bracing herself, she prepared to face her abductor, but the drug was too powerful. She lay over on the bed and was asleep when her door opened again.
* * *
CELESTE JERKED FREE of the undersheriff’s grip as he tried to get her to her feet. “I’ll tell you. But you aren’t going to like it.”
He would bet on that. Celeste was beginning to look as tired as he felt as she dropped back into her chair and met his gaze head-on. “You want the truth, right?”
Mark sighed, and without sitting back down, he crossed his arms and leaned against the wall, waiting. “I’m all ears.”
“It was just like I said. I drove past Flint’s house, actually the house that I once shared with him. I saw her car. I even saw her digging around in the back of her car and coming out with a bag. She was moving in.” Her voice broke. “Yes, I hated her. I didn’t want her with Flint. The truth is...I’ve never gotten over Flint.”
The admission seemed hard to make and yet Mark wasn’t going to be taken in by this woman. Celeste was one hell of an actress and a consummate liar. He waited, wondering what she was up to.
“I think I made a huge mistake.” Tears welled in her eyes. “I know I’m the one who left him,” she said quickly. “But I needed...more, and Wayne...” She ducked her head as if embarrassed. He thought she should have been.
“You mean money.”
“Money. Things. Status,” she snapped. “I hated being a sheriff’s wife. I thought once I had those things I’d be happy.”
“But you’re not.”
She shook her head without looking up. “I’m miserable and I can’t bear the thought of Flint moving on. Especially with Maggie.”
“Why especially with Maggie?”
Silence. Then in a small voice, Celeste said, “Because I can tell that he’s in love with her.”
Mark felt his heart begin to race. “So you stopped when you saw her moving in.”
Celeste licked her lips and looked up at him with those big luminous green eyes, and he thought, oh hell, here it comes. She’s finally going to confess. He couldn’t wait to get her behind bars in one of their orange jumpsuits. This woman—
“I wanted to stop, but like I said, I knew it would go badly. Just think, though, if I had, maybe I could have saved her.”
Mark let out a bark of a laugh. “You could have saved Maggie?”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “Yes, because as I was driving past, I saw a man come out of the pines and head toward the back door.”
“And you didn’t think this was an important tidbit of information to tell us before now?” He wanted to shake the woman until her teeth rattled. How had Flint put up with her as long as he had?
“No, I didn’t think it was important because I recognized him. I’d seen him with her before. He was an old boyfriend who was trying to get her back. I thought if he was this persistent, maybe he’d succeeded this time.”
“Why wouldn’t you have told us this right away?” Mark demanded.
“I wanted to give them time together.”
He shook his head, fighting to control his temper. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done keeping this from us? We’ve lost valuable hours on this case because of you.”
Celeste flipped her hair back and looked impatient. “How do you know even now that Maggie didn’t run away with him?”
Mark shook his head. “Because she was injured in a struggle.”
“They could have made up,” she argued stubbornly.
“Wait—what do you mean, maybe he succeeded in getting her back this time?”
“Because like I said, I’d seen him with her before.”
He gave her a disbelieving look. “Where?”
“In Billings. About three weeks ago. It was at this seedy bar on the wrong side of the tracks.”
Did he believe this story? “If it was that seedy, what were you doing there?”
“I was with friends, a bachelorette party. We were hitting all these awful bars...” She must have seen that he didn’t care about that. “Maggie was sitting at the bar with this man. It was clear that they knew each other well, if you know what I mean.”
“No, I don’t. How is it that she didn’t see you?”
“It was incredibly dark in there and I was sitting with friends in a far corner and they were at the bar. Also, Maggie wasn’t looking around. She and the man had their heads together, trying to keep their voices down, but anyone could tell they were arguing. At one point, he grabbed her and kissed her hard. She slapped him and he slapped her back. It got uglier and the bartender told them to leave. The man refused, so the bartender called the cops. Maggie talked the man into leaving before the cops came. They went outside to the parking lot.”
“You followed them?”
“No. The bartender went to the door and held it open to watch. I guess to make sure that the man didn’t hurt her before the cops arrived. I could see them still arguing. It was clear that there was history between them.”
“Did you hear what they were arguing about?” he asked, still questioning whether he believed this.
“He wanted her back. That he’d changed, that he didn’t want to live without her, that sort of thing. She was saying she couldn’t, that she’d moved on, that he needed to leave her alone. But it was obvious that they knew each other from before.”
“Before Maggie came to Gilt Edge?”
Celeste shrugged. “That’s my guess since I’ve never seen the man before.”
“You’re sure she didn’t see you?”
“She had her hands full with her old boyfriend.”
“And you never told Flint?” He had a harder time believing she wouldn’t have gone straight to Flint with what she’d seen.
“I thought about it,” she admitted. “But I don’t have the best track record with him.”
“Or with the truth.”
She mugged a face at him. “I thought maybe this man might win her back, so I kept quiet. But I was prepared to tell if Maggie and Flint moved in together.”
“Did Maggie leave with the man at the bar?”
“I was watching through the open door. She left in her own car. The man was furious over whatever was going on between them. I didn’t see what he was driving just then. But he spun out when he drove away because I heard gravel pelting the side of the bar right before I could hear a siren in the distance. So he’d probably heard it too.”
“But you saw what he was driving later?”
“After we heard his tires throwing gravel, I looked out and I saw an older-model van go by.”
Mark blinked. “What color?”
“Brown.”
* * *
NETTIE LISTENED AS the story came out in starts and stops. A terrified Dana Terwilliger Stevens kneaded her hands as she talked, her gaze often going to the window as if she thought her brother might appear at any time.
“You have to understand. Clark always had...problems.” She looked away, shame and guilt marring her features. “My mother tried to protect him, refusing to believe there was anything wrong with him.”
“What was wrong with him?” Frank asked.
“He was...different. He would lie and make up stories. If he didn’t get his way, he would be furious and mean. He liked to hurt things, hurt people.”
“Did he ever hurt you?” Nettie asked and saw the answer in the way the woman’s gaze shifted away. “Did you tell your mother?”
Dana let out a laugh. “Like she believed me. Clark said I was just trying to get him in trouble. She said he was special and that I needed to be nice to him. She thought I was jealous and maybe I was. Mother loved him more.” She shook her head.
“Did he hurt Jenna?” Frank asked.
Dana’s head came up. Tears filled her eyes. “I tried to protect her, but I couldn’t. He became obsessed with her. He said she was his and always would be. He made up stories of how their life would be. It was crazy. He followed her, went into a rage if she talked to anyone, especially a boy at school.”
“How old were you and Jenna when this happened?” Nettie asked.
“Thirteen. But he’d been crazy about her since she was little. He said she was his little baby doll. He...he was always touching her. I thought he wouldn’t hurt her, but...” Her voice broke.
“Did he rape her?” Nettie asked.
Dana nodded, head down as she stared at her hands in her lap. “I was at school. I had detention. Jenna forgot and stopped by the house. My mother...left them alone.”
“Did Jenna tell anyone?” she asked, knowing the answer.
“No. But shortly after that, Clark got into trouble with the law and was sent away.”
Nettie saw a revengeful satisfaction in Dana’s expression that told her Clark’s run-in with the law hadn’t been bad luck. He’d been set up by his sister. She’d put up with him abusing her, but when he’d hurt her best friend...
“So why is he after Jenna now?” Nettie asked.
Dana chewed at a cuticle for a moment before she answered. “He’s been locked up for years. When he’d get out, he’d look for her, but get in trouble and get sent back up. When he was released the last time, he came back here looking for her and I could tell that he’d gotten even worse. He had this idea that she was his wife and...” She shuddered. “He went crazy when he couldn’t find her and got locked up again for a while.”
“But he’s back out,” Frank said.
“There’s more to the story, isn’t there?” Nettie said.
Nodding, Dana said, “I’m afraid that he’s heard somehow.”
“Heard what?” Frank asked when she didn’t continue.
Dana swallowed. “That Jenna had a baby nine months after... That she’d had his baby all those years ago and kept it from him. Kept it from everyone.”