One Last Breath by Lisa Jackson (8)

Chapter 8

At the Buzz, Connie cut the engine, the headlights of her Outback catching the abandoned pickup before dimming in the dark parking lot. Under her breath she muttered an oath about her uncle’s damned truck, one that she knew, deep in her heart, she would eventually have towed to an auto salvage yard. The rusting, useless vehicle and Uncle Ira’s disinterest in moving it was a constant source of irritation. She had a feeling she was going to have to take matters into her own hands.

Sighing, she hankered for a cigarette for the first time in two weeks. She ignored the craving, grabbed some groceries from the back seat, and made her way into the little coffee shop. Without Heather, she would have to double-up on her shifts.

Heather . . . What was her secret? And why did Connie feel the need to protect her? Probably because of the kid. No matter what kind of trouble Heather had gotten herself caught up in, it wasn’t little Charlotte’s fault and Connie, married three times herself, knew about lousy, and at the very least emotionally abusive, ex-husbands. “Losers,” she muttered. Every last one of them.

This morning, against her better judgment, she’d called in her backup barista for the early shift. Debbie was her niece, her brother Bob’s youngest child, who at thirty-two had yet to launch and leave home and oftentimes smelled of marijuana smoke, seeming to be drifting through life. Debbie couldn’t hold a steady job, was forever late, was rarely able to make correct change, but was friendly enough and sweet, if that counted for anything in today’s world.

Half an hour later Debbie rolled up in her canary-yellow Volkswagen Beetle and, dark braids swinging, hurried into the shop. “Hey!” she called cheerily and went about finding a clean apron as Connie switched on the lights to indicate the shop was open.

“You’ve got the drive-up,” she yelled, and Debbie nodded as she emerged from the small alcove where the supplies were kept. Head bent, Debbie was tying the apron strings around her slim waist and yes, there was a distinct odor of Mary Jane hanging around her. At five thirty in the morning? Hadn’t she heard about coffee and caffeine to get the day started? Hell, she was coming to work in a coffee shop!

But Connie held her tongue as she drizzled icing over warm cinnamon rolls. She didn’t care what Debbie did, not really, as long as it didn’t affect her job.

Debbie smiled at her. “The window? Oh. Sure. Whatever.”

Connie had already set up the computer and made certain the till was loaded. All Debbie had to do was hand over the drinks and collect the money or debit or credit cards. And, oh yeah, make change. It wasn’t rocket science.

The door opened and Carlos swung in. He greeted them all with a smile just as the bell sounded and the first customer rolled through the drive-in lane. “Here we go,” Connie called out. “Remember, the amount of change is listed on the screen.”

“I know, I know.” Debbie was already turning on the mic. “Welcome to the Buzz, what can I get started for you this morning?”

“Medium coffee, black,” was the response.

Connie glanced at the screen to see a black SUV. The man placing the order through the open window of his vehicle was the same person who’d come through yesterday, the one who’d made Heather flee in panic. Obviously he was back, checking for her. Connie’s heart pounded, and while Debbie prepared the order, Connie said to Carlos, “Take over the cinnamon rolls, will ya? I forgot something at the house.”

“Sure,” Carlos said with a quick nod, his dark, netted hair glinting under the bright lights illuminating the back of the counter.

Connie was already stripping off her apron and heading for the back door to the parking lot. Her plan was half-baked; she didn’t even know exactly what she was doing, but she hurried outside where the sky was starting to lighten. She didn’t think twice, just jumped into her little car, flicked on the ignition, and threw it into gear. Then she waited until the Tahoe nosed its way from the lane used specifically for the drive-through and turned onto the nearly deserted street. She followed, at a distance, just like in the movies. With so little traffic in this small town it would be easy for the driver to spot a tail, but then a strange thing happened. As she slowed, another car sped around her, then backed off, as if it was following the same vehicle. She considered that it was someone on his way to work, but when the black Tahoe stopped for gas, the gray car slid into a spot against the curb where the driver waited, not turning off his engine.

Connie did the same, three blocks farther back.

Was this a coincidence? It sure didn’t read that way.

She wished again for a cigarette and nearly drove to the mini-mart at the gas station for a pack of Salem Lights, but was afraid the driver of the Tahoe would recognize her, so she held back until he’d filled up and pulled out of the station. The gray sedan with Washington plates held off for a beat, allowed another car to enter the road, then pulled away from the curb. She did the same, lagging back, wondering what the hell she was witnessing.

At a distance, still following, she watched both vehicles pass through the border crossing into Canada. She followed them, nervous, feeling as if she were in some made-for-TV mystery, as she waited impatiently for the guard to let her pass. It felt like forever, but was in reality only a few minutes, until she drove into British Columbia, too.

She expected the two cars she was following to take the road into the U.S. as soon as they were off the peninsula, but instead of heading east onto the highway that would eventually curve south toward the U.S. and Washington State, the SUV with the gray car behind it continued northward.

“Uh-oh,” Connie said aloud. The man in the Tahoe, Heather’s louse of an ex-husband, must have located her. Still driving, ignoring all safety laws regarding cell phones, she snatched up hers and punched in Heather’s number, hoping the call would go through without problems, a dicey proposition whenever you crossed the border. She heard it ringing, which was a good sign, but Heather wasn’t picking up. “Come on, come on,” Connie muttered, squinting a little as the sun crested the eastern horizon. Frustrated, she hung up, waited two minutes, dialed again.

“Hello?” Heather answered, sounding groggy.

“Heather, it’s Connie,” she said tersely. “That guy who’s looking for you? He’s heading north into Canada right now, doesn’t appear to be going back to the States.”

Heather inhaled on a gasp. “You’re sure?”

“Yep. And I think he’s going to Vancouver.”

“Oh, no!”

“I figured you’d want to know.” Connie had guessed that Heather would head into the large city. “Look, I don’t know where you are and I don’t want to know, but if you’re in that area, he’s probably not just driving blind. Someone or something must’ve tipped him off.”

“I think you’re right.”

“And there’s something more. I think maybe he’s being followed. Another car, a gray sedan with Washington plates that were obscured with mud, kept a tail on him.”

“He’s being tailed?” she asked, sounding incredulous.

Connie nodded, though Heather couldn’t see her. “That’s what it looks like.”

There was a long pause, then Heather seemed to rouse herself. “Thank you, Connie.”

“No problem. You be careful and take care of that little girl,” Connie said as she looked for a place to turn around.

“I will.” Heather promised. Then she was gone.

* * *

As the sun rose, Liam drove northward. The word he’d gotten from Jacoby, just after he’d stopped by the Point Bob Buzz in hopes of spying Rory, was that she was indeed in Canada, and possibly Vancouver. Jacoby had said he’d found out through some relative of Rory’s that a man named Kent Daley was a close personal friend of the family’s and that Rory, as a teenager, had considered him more of a father figure than Harold Stemple. Daley spent a lot of his time in Vancouver, B.C., and because of the city’s proximity to Point Roberts, it seemed a connection, if a weak one. But since Liam was this close, he’d decided to check it out.

He tried to imagine that meeting and couldn’t.

“I’m going to ask her for a divorce,” he said aloud. “Clean that up. Move on.”

He heard his own words. They hung in the air over the hum of the SUV’s engine, mocking him.

He took a corner too fast, braked hard, and brought the vehicle under control. The car behind him nearly rear-ended the Tahoe. He slowed down, raked a hand through his hair, and wondered why it had always been this way with Rory, why she’d always gotten so deeply under his skin. From that first moment when he’d nearly knocked her down on the rainy streets of Seattle, she’d affected him way more than he liked.

Traffic was increasing, commuters driving into the city of Vancouver. He glanced at his phone, hoping Jacoby would call with a definitive address. When the cell didn’t ring, he saw the sign for a diner advertising breakfast and pulled into the lot. Rather than drive without direction in the unfamiliar city, he would order breakfast and do a little research himself. He’d start by Googling this Kent Daley guy, then do Internet searches of all of the members of Rory’s family, double-checking if any one of them had links to Canada, British Columbia, or Vancouver.

Briefly he thought again of the retired detective who’d been so on top of the investigation immediately following the wedding shooting. Mickelson had been after a single perpetrator, hot on the man’s trail, at least in the beginning, but that trail had gone cold very quickly. The detective had not been particularly focused on Rory’s disappearance, believing it to be separate from the shooting, which had both frustrated and relieved Liam. He didn’t want Rory to be involved, so he was glad the investigation seemed to lead away from her. Still, he’d wanted to be kept abreast of every twist and turn, but Mickelson wasn’t interested in keeping him that well informed. It hadn’t helped that Stella and Geoff had seemed more than glad to be left out. They’d wanted to sweep the whole thing under the rug, embarrassed and fearful as the terrible attack had splashed across the papers and every news cycle for days and weeks on end. The shooting that had taken his father’s legs, and Aaron Stemple’s life, had played hell with his parents’ status with their rich, so-called friends, and though they’d given lip service to wanting to find the killer, the larger truth was they just wanted to put it in their rearview and move on. It was only recently that Geoff occasionally spoke of the incident that had changed his life and showed some interest in pursuing justice.

Part of the reason Mickelson had left the police force was because of his single-minded pursuit of one man, Pete DeGrere, when others in his department weren’t as convinced. DeGrere was currently serving a term in prison for an unrelated crime, a convenience store robbery, and Mickelson’s superiors felt the crimes were too disparate to point to DeGrere as the shooter. At least that was the gist of what Liam had learned. Mickelson had become a private detective and Liam had briefly considered using him in his search for Rory. The man was already obsessed with the case and it seemed that if anyone could find her, he could. Except he was an ex-cop, and Liam sensed that there could be unforeseen complications if he actually ran Rory to ground. Mickelson might want to “do the right thing” in that by-the-book cop way, and Liam wasn’t sure that’s what he wanted. So, he’d gone with the Van Horne’s investigator, Jacoby, and the man had delivered.

Now, Liam exhaled heavily, his pulse racing a little as he got out of the car and headed into the diner, wondering if the pies the place advertised as the best around could compete with Connie’s cinnamon rolls. He’d eaten one on the way over, and it had been pretty terrific.

He wondered idly if Rory had ever helped with the baking at the coffee shop, wondering also if today could be the day he actually met up with his runaway, soon-tobe-ex-wife.

* * *

Rory stared into space, frozen where she stood. Her pulse had skyrocketed, her anxiety level to the max. Even though she didn’t want to believe what was so blatantly obvious, she had to. Liam was here. Looking for her. She’d seen him with her own eyes.

Finding her feet, she stepped to the window at the front of the town house and peeked through the blinds. At this hour there was little traffic, dawn’s light creeping through the streets, the buildings still lying in night-shadow. Swallowing hard, she studied the landscape. Was there someone lurking in the shrubbery near the sidewalk, hidden eyes staring up at her from the crevices between apartment houses? Her heart rate ticked up a beat as she noticed movement, a shadowy figure. Oh. God. He was here!

Then the figure moved into the light and she saw it was only a man in his late twenties walking a small dog.

She exhaled heavily. Get a grip, Rory.

How had Liam found her? Why now? What had changed?

She threw on fresh clothes and wondered if he’d sent someone else, a private investigator of some kind, to locate her. Was that why she’d experienced such cold certainty that someone was following her? Because they had been? She’d thought she’d seen Everett, but maybe it was someone else, someone on Liam’s payroll all along.

It didn’t matter how he’d located her. He had. This was happening.

Galvanized by a sense of urgency, she started packing while Charlotte lay snuggled beneath the rumpled covers on the bed. Heart thudding, Rory carried one bag down the stairs and found Uncle Kent at the kitchen table, reading glasses propped on his nose, the morning paper strewn over the tabletop.

“Coffee’s on,” he said without looking up.

She smelled the warm scent of a fresh brew. “Liam’s on his way here.”

Kent looked up in surprise, crumpling the paper. “What?”

“Connie called me. She followed him and he’s heading this way.”

Kent was on his feet. “You’re certain? How did he find you?”

“I don’t know. He came to the drive-through at the Buzz this morning, just after Connie opened the shop.” She gave him a quick rundown of her short conversation with Connie.

“Oh, dear.” Maude appeared in the doorway to the kitchen. She’d obviously heard most of what Rory had said. “You can’t stay here then.” She was shaking her head sadly as she walked to the coffeepot gurgling on the counter, pulled out a couple of mugs from the cupboard and filled them both. Handing a ceramic cup to Rory, she asked, “You’re sure about this?”

“Yes.” It was a lie. She wasn’t sure about anything. Not one solitary thing.

“Why now?” Maude asked, voicing Rory’s thoughts as she laid a hand on her arm.

Rory shook her head.

Kent said, “If he found you, he probably found us. Or vice versa.”

Rory took a swallow of coffee, not really tasting it. Her mind was already spinning ahead, plotting her escape. “I have to wake Charlotte and leave. Now. He could show up at any second. I just needed you to know what was going on.”

“We’ll handle it if he shows up here,” Kent said. “If Liam asks about you, I’ll say I haven’t heard a word.”

“What if he knows you were the one who helped me get away from the wedding?”

Within his goatee, Kent’s lips twisted into a wry smile. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll stonewall or something.” He was always up for a challenge, a chance to match wits with an opponent or, if necessary, elude the authorities. He hadn’t been dubbed The Magician by Rory’s family for nothing. Her mother had joked once that “Kent could make bodies disappear if he wanted to.” Rory had remembered that line when she’d called him in desperation at the wedding.

“Okay, then. Thank you.” She had to trust him.

Maude slid into one of the chairs at the table, her eyes troubled. “So where are you going?”

“Good question . . .” Rory hadn’t thought that far ahead. All she knew was that she had to flee immediately.

Kent took off his glasses and regarded the lenses critically, looking for smudges. “I know you don’t want to hear this, but—”

“Don’t tell me to talk to the police, okay?” Rory interjected, even though she’d suffered the same thought. “I just need to get somewhere safe.”

“And where is that?” Kent asked.

There’s nowhere safe. “I don’t know yet, but I can’t stay here. I’ve involved you both enough.” She took another swallow of coffee, felt it burn in her stomach, and left the cup on the counter. “I’ve got to go.”

Where? Where? The question followed her up the stairs and into the bedroom, where she found Charlotte had roused. “Hey, sweetheart,” Rory said in a strained voice. She sat down next to her on the rumpled bedclothes. “How’re you feeling?”

Her daughter’s lower lip extended. “Not good.”

“No?” Worriedly, Rory eyed her daughter closely, pushing the girl’s mussed hair from her face. “How about breakfast?”

Charlotte shook her head. “Not hungry.” This, in and of itself, wasn’t unusual. It took Charlotte a little while after she woke up to want food.

“Okay, we’ll take something with us.”

“Where are we going?” Charlotte asked, perking up a bit.

I wish I knew, Rory thought, but said, “Somewhere interesting. It’s . . . a surprise.” For both of us.

“Disneyland!” her daughter guessed, and Rory’s heart sank. “Silas was there! He saw Mickey!”

“Nooo, not Disneyland this time.”

“Where?” Charlotte demanded, her little brows slamming together, disappointment radiating from her.

“You’ll see. Come on, get dressed, and you can help me pack.” Rory was already off the bed and retrieving a pair of shorts and a T-shirt for her daughter from their hastily packed bag.

“Are we going home?” Charlotte pulled off her nightgown and picked up the shirt.

“Not right now.” Rory felt a pang of regret. Point Roberts was the only home Charlotte remembered, the place Rory had once considered a sanctuary.

She’d been wrong.

The question made her go cold. Had he somehow learned about Charlotte? If a PI had tracked her down, wouldn’t he have discovered that she had a child? Oh. God. Would he try to take Charlotte away? And what about the would-be assassin? The man who had attacked her at the hotel and had whispered terrible threats in her ear. The one who may have shot and killed her stepbrother.

Those thoughts propelled her. Throat dry, she scooped up her daughter’s stuffed rabbit and handed it to her. “Come on, Charlotte. We’re outta here.”