22

“Get help. Get help.” The voice in Tilly’s head kept repeating, but fear muffled it and it grew fainter and fainter.

Tilly wrestled with herself. She knew that her friend needed more help than she could provide, but if the police didn’t believe her and she was taken to jail in Medford, even if they let her right back out, it would take her forever to get back to the Hollow. That would not help her friend.

The angel was gone, and no matter what she said or did, she couldn’t bring it back. After doing everything she could—tending wounds, changing clothes—Tilly ventured out. She scored some meth and it calmed her jitters and made her bold enough to believe she could handle everything on her plate by herself.

She tried to think of what Glen would have done if he were still alive. Glen didn’t trust many people. Tilly had been hurt enough in her life to believe that “trust no one” was a good overall philosophy. She was positive he wouldn’t have gone to the police. He might have gone to Pastor Mac. But Tilly was in a place where she couldn’t even trust a man who’d only been kind to her. Glen was the only person she could trust, and he was dead.

But her friend needed her and she had to help.

She returned and checked on her friend. There was no change. She made sure she drank some water, then pulled on Glen’s hoodie and left her hiding place one more time.

Maybe she couldn’t go to the police or Pastor Mac, but she would do something.

–––

After breakfast Oliver walked back to his house, debating whether he should call Chief O’Rourke or work on his Sunday sermon notes. The text from Anna still troubled him and he was deep in thought. But the minute he reached the porch, he knew something was wrong. His door was half-open and he clearly remembered closing it. He rarely if ever locked the door, but he had closed it.

Through the opening he saw chaos. Anger flared as he shoved the door wide and stepped into the house.

He heard a crash and realized the burglar was still in the house. Without thinking, he rushed toward the noise coming from Anna’s sewing room.

“Who’s there?” He burst into the room and saw a blur of movement and blue color on his left.

As he turned, he had a brief view of the person, a woman, but before he could react, she lowered her head and charged, ramming into his midsection.

Oliver’s breath fled and he fell backward, stumbling over a pile of something on the floor, even as he tried to grab the woman. A split second before she was in his grasp, she raised her head and gave him a solid head butt, catching him under the chin. The impact made him bite his tongue, and as he fell onto his backside, he saw stars.

When his mind cleared, he found himself on the floor, entangled in a pile of Anna’s fabrics. Rubbing his chin, tasting blood in his mouth, and sucking in air, Oliver sat up to get his bearings. After a second he pushed himself up to his feet and found his legs a little wobbly. He’d not been sucker punched in ages. The last time had been when he was a new pastor and an abusive man had gotten angry that Oliver had counseled his wife to leave him.

This woman’s ram to his midsection had caught him totally by surprise. He hurried to the front door in time to see a flash of blue disappear into the bushes at the far end of the property. He did not feel up to giving chase. He steadied himself in the doorway before turning to take total stock of his messed-up house.

It was trashed. He moved back into the living room and saw that books and papers littered the floor, along with the contents of a chest Anna used to store fabric and small blankets. As he walked around, he could see the vicious ransacking extended through the living room and Anna’s sewing room. His thoughts cleared and the identity of the woman who attacked him popped into his mind. He had to stop, the shock of recognition almost as sharp as the head butt. But in that brief instant when he’d seen her, he knew who it was. Tilly Dover. And Oliver knew she was Glen’s friend.

Glen is dead. Does she know that? Did she know Glen had given Anna a bag of money? Even though it was a week ago, that had to be what she was looking for. He and Anna didn’t have expensive possessions. There was no reason for anyone to break in here.

His balance returned and he made a quick survey of the downstairs before rushing upstairs. There was damage there as well, but mostly to Anna’s stuff. All their drawers were open, but it was Anna’s clothing that was strewn about. This gave Oliver pause. Was Tilly looking for something to wear? Fuming and feeling the unpastor-like desire to grab Tilly and shake her and ask her why she’d had to tear his home apart, he slowly walked back downstairs, breathing deeply and counting to ten. He stood scratching his head, debating his next step: to figure out if anything was missing, or call the police?

The flashing message light caught his eye. The phone had been knocked to the floor but not before someone had left a message. It was the landline that demanded attention first. He picked the phone up, set it back where it belonged, and played the message. His anger fled, replaced by naked fear, and his legs turned to water. The personal attack on him lost all importance.

He had to sit down and play it again and then sit and think about the significance of the call before he realized what he had to do.

He phoned the police station, surprised when the chief herself answered.

“Ah, Chief . . . O’Rourke, I . . . uh, I guess I expected someone else to answer.”

“I’m here working, might as well answer the phone. What’s the matter, Pa—Oliver?”

“I got . . . I . . . well, I received a disturbing phone message. I think you need to hear it.”

“At your home or at the church?”

“Home.”

“I’ll be right there.”

–––

Tess hesitated for a second at her cruiser and then kept going. Pastor Mac’s residence was on church grounds, right across the street from the police station. There was no reason to take the car. In Long Beach she would have taken the patrol car in case she got a priority one call and had to leave in a hurry. That was common in the big city, but here in Rogue’s Hollow, just about everything was within walking distance.

Besides, she’d not been keeping up on her workouts, the excuse being she needed to spend time familiarizing herself with the new job. The walk through town this morning had reminded her that she better start running again. Workouts usually helped clear her mind, helped her to think logically, but recently Tess didn’t want to stop and think logically. She was afraid her thoughts would revolt and dwell on the shooting that brought her here to this small town.

Tess crossed the street and started off at a brisk pace and reached the pastor’s house in a few minutes. She knocked on the door, taking a deep breath and putting on her game face. This was a police matter now and she knew how to handle police matters.

“Come in,” Pastor Mac’s deep voice bellowed from inside.

Tess opened the door but stopped short when she saw the devastation. She looked around the entire room, saw broken glass, ripped papers, and fabric and blankets. The mess was extensive, and Tess surveyed all the disorder until her gaze came to rest on the pastor, seated on the bottom stair, phone in his lap, glazed expression on his face.

“What in the world?” Tess asked.

He shook his head. “This happened while I was at the men’s breakfast.”

Tess continued inside, stepping over debris to get to where Macpherson sat. His chin looked bruised, she thought but didn’t mention.

“They were looking for the money,” she said.

He nodded, his brow furrowed in worry, maybe a hint of fear. “I can deal with the mess, but this message . . .”

“What is the message?”

“First, I want to show you the text I just received.” He held up his phone and showed Tess the brief message.

I’m fine. I’ll call you later.

Tess looked up, an optimistic comment dying on her lips when she saw Macpherson’s face.

“I was relieved as well, until I heard this.” He punched the button on a landline answering machine.

“Hi, Anna, it’s Cora. Where are you, my dear? We were planning to work on the bedspread today. We wanted to finish it before fall. If we’re going to do that, we have to get moving. Call me.”

“The call came while I was at the men’s breakfast this morning. That’s Anna’s best friend, Cora. She lives up the road in Prospect. Anna never would have missed that engagement. Never.” The pain in his eyes radiated to Tess and took her breath away.

But why the text message? Tess thought but didn’t say. If she went down that road, it would lead to speculation that the text message was fake, and if the text message were fake, then Anna was in serious trouble.

She realized then that though she’d dealt with many crime victims in her career, delivered some awful news, more than she cared to remember, and always protected herself with a steel wall of professionalism, it was different now. She’d been here only two months, and wasn’t even sure she’d stay, but this small town, the place she wasn’t certain she could handle, had become more than a job. Pastor Mac was a big part of a larger family. She felt his pain maybe because she’d developed a certain amount of respect for him and not a little affection for Anna. And now the odds were high that Anna was most likely not coming home, and it broke Tess’s heart.

Retreating behind her uniform, Tess pulled out her notebook. “I’m going to need some information.”

Oliver nodded and Tess asked him all the questions she needed to have answered in order to complete a missing person report.