In Place of Never (32 page)

Pru dove at him like a feral animal, but he deflected her with a backhand.

Had he hit me too? Confusion and pain tore my skull apart.

Sheriff Dobbs raised his light again and took aim at me.

My unfocused eyes created two of him. And one fell.

The truck rattled and wobbled around us. Footfalls pounded over the metal.

Someone yelled, “They’re in here!”

The small space filled with bodies and voices. The door opened and closed several times. Metal pinged and pounded around us.

I forced a word from my lips. The most important word in the world. “Pru.”

Strong arms lifted and moved me through the crowd.

“Shh. She’s right behind us.” Tom Lovell set me on my feet outside the trailer.

Anton’s voice burst through the now-open doorway. “It’s Sheriff Dobbs.”

Cross and my dad ran to my side.

Pru dashed through the little cluster of people and clutched me to her chest. “We need an ambulance. Mercy broke her arm and has a concussion.”

Cross lifted his phone from his pocket and dialed. Beside him, the acrobats hugged one another. Nadya and Nicolae watched with furrowed brows. Dad wrapped his arms around Pru and me until I screeched.

“Sorry.” He tested the skin of my arm with warm fingertips and asked me how many fingers he held up.

I had no idea.

My teeth chattered recklessly. “How…did you…find us?”

Cross moved closer. “Your dad went home and you were gone, so he came looking for me. I told him we were going to meet but you never arrived. We were worried, so I gathered the others and we spread out. Nicolae and Nadya saw the sheriff’s car outside the open gate. We thought…” Cross scrubbed a hand through his hair and looked at Dad. “We thought he was inside looking for you, and when we found him, he said he was. He said he got a distress call about two unidentified girls chased inside by a man in a hoodie.”

Anton shoved Sheriff Dobbs off the truck and into the dirt, restrained in his own handcuffs. “Citizen’s arrest.”

The bark of sirens in the distance closed in on us. Two ambulances, two deputies and a fire truck stopped several feet away.

My cry of relief burst through chattering lips. “Dad, Brady killed Faith. He told us.”

Shock registered on everyone’s faces as my words settled. The deputies took in Sheriff Dobbs’s condition and nodded. Maybe they already suspected. Maybe they were afraid to pursue their suspicions. Whatever the reason, a deputy started reciting the sheriff his Miranda rights without any questions.

Dad scanned the little crowd.

EMTs led Pru and me to the ambulances. They put me on a stretcher. I struggled to sit up. “What about Brady?”

The second deputy removed his hat. “I’ll find Brady Dobbs. That’s a promise.”

My eyes blurred with tears. I nodded and an EMT snapped an oxygen mask over my face. They loaded my stretcher onto the ambulance.

Cross climbed into the ambulance with me. “Your dad asked me to ride with you. He’s riding with Pru. I hope that’s okay.”

The ambulance door smacked shut and the engine rumbled to life. Moments later an IV dripped something cold into my veins. The pain in my arm subsided.

Cross gripped my good hand in his. “You’re soaking wet.”

I blinked. Fatigue tugged and pulled at my consciousness.

“He put you in the river, didn’t he?”

My hand lost its grip on his. I whimpered.

He pressed his lips to my temple. The intimacy of his whisper on my skin warmed my impossibly cold body. “Rest and you’ll feel better. You’re a fighter, Mercy Porter. An unstoppable force of nature. You taught my damaged heart to love. Healing a broken arm is nothing for you.” He kissed my head good night.

Anything is Possible

It was dawn when we made it home from the hospital. The car settled beneath us in the driveway. Gold and tangerine lines cut paths through the lavender sky. Another new day. My brain struggled to hold thoughts and my arm beat a rhythm inside my cast. Miserable, but crazy as it seemed, I’d follow the same path a thousand times if it meant justice for Faith. According to local media reporters and a couple attorneys who’d shown up at the hospital, Pru and I would probably have to testify about the Dobbs’ confession at Faith’s murder trial and again about what happened to us last night. Someday, we’d have to face Brady and Sheriff Dobbs, but for now, I needed sleep.

Dad opened the driver’s side door and gave me a long, pleading look.

“I’m fine.”

Pru needed his help more than me.

He sighed and climbed out.

Pru whimpered in the backseat. Her fingers twitched and her eyes raced beneath closed lids. She’d come unhinged at the emergency room when the deputy asked for a statement. They’d given her something to calm her down, but she cried in her sleep. She’d have to give that statement eventually. Hopefully, the nightmares would pass.

Dad opened the rear passenger door and gathered her into his arms, the way he had when she was small. They made their way to the house while I shut the car doors with my good arm. Whatever the nurse had put in my IV had dulled the roaring pain.

An overwhelming peace worked through me. I’d have a private breakdown later, but in this moment, I had satisfaction. Faith could rest now. Her killer was in police custody, along with his accomplice. The truth was out, and the details were filling in quickly. Mark and his mom had been taken in for questioning. How much they knew about that night was anyone’s guess, but I had a feeling they knew everything. It would explain why the Dobbs’ marriage fell apart after Faith’s death and why Mark became such a seething ball of hate. He’d directed his anger at me, but who else could he blame? Brady and Sheriff Dobbs were his idols back then, and we were just kids.

I inhaled the morning air and hurried to open the door for Dad and Pru. Her arms tightened around his neck when I passed. He carried her to her room. I don’t remember going to mine.

* * * *

Two days passed. My mind was a blissful smudge of painkillers and brain trauma. In some ways, the concussion was worse than the broken arm. On Wednesday, I stood up without collapsing, so I ventured down the steps to reality.

Dad shoved eggs around a pan and botched the lyrics to a goofy Bible school song. Pru hunched over a cell phone catalog at the table, dog-earing half the pages. A punch of emotion stopped me in my tracks. Tears popped up and flowed over my cheeks, but I wiped them away, determined to focus on the good that had come from our horrific experience and not on what could have been.

“Good morning, family.”

Pru smiled. “Dad’s getting us new phones.” She looked amazing. Happy. Content.

I shuffled forward. “Well, it’s nice to see you too.”

“Oh, we’ve seen you. You haven’t seen us, or you probably don’t remember seeing us since you’re always stoned and your brain’s rattled.”

“I’m not stoned.” I gave her a wink and a thumbs-up. Maybe I was.

She laughed.

Dad wiped his hands on a dish towel and frowned. He looked older than I remembered. “I suppose you want coffee. Is she allowed to have coffee with the concussion and the pills?”

Pru shrugged.

I slid into my seat. “Yes. I think it’s the rules.”

He set plates on the table and filled them with scrambled eggs. A moment later there was a stack of toast and a bowl of strawberries where the centerpiece usually sat.

I blinked. “Wow. Thanks, Dad.”

He stared at me as if I might vanish. “I’ve already said this to Pru, but I want you to know I’m sorry I wasn’t able to protect you.” His hands fluttered uselessly between us. “I want to make this easier somehow.”

“You can’t.”

“That doesn’t mean I don’t want to.”

I stretched my good hand out to clasp his fingers in mine. “We’re okay.”

His eyes brimmed with unshed tears. “I love you, baby girl.”

Pru flattened her catalog. “I thought I was your baby girl.” She shot a teasing look across the table. “Don’t forget, she’s leaving you soon, but I’m not going anywhere.”

Dad made the sign of the cross and laughed. “Just the two of us. What will that be like?” He poured me the promised cup of coffee. “I might need backup.”

She didn’t argue.

I sipped bitter coffee and the fog over my thoughts thinned. “I never got to thank you for rescuing us. I’ve been too zonked out to say it, but you saved our lives.”

Dad slumped into his seat and dropped his head forward. He rolled his eyes up to meet mine. “I had a little help from your friends. Cross and the Lovells whipped into action like the church ladies at a bake sale when I told them you were missing. I never could’ve covered that kind of ground so quickly without them.”

Cross. I set the cup aside. “Have you heard from them?” Without my phone, I was cut off from the world. What if he wanted to talk to me?

Dad forked a bite of eggs. “You mean the persistent young man who comes to check on you every day at lunch?”

I smiled.

“How’s your head?”

“Fuzzy.”

“And your arm? Are the meds keeping the pain to a minimum because the doctor said he can increase the dosage if you need it.”

I examined the monstrous hot-pink cast. “The pain is fine. My arm is obnoxious, but this is my first broken bone, so it’s also historical. How long does it stay on?”

“Eight weeks.” He set his fork down. “You don’t have to leave for college right away. You can take a semester off, or a year. Let this whole ordeal settle before going off on your own. Let us support you while you heal. How will you manage a new life with one good arm and a bruised brain?”

Pru’s eager eyes burned through me.

I looked at Dad and then my sister. “I’m fine and I will be fine. My brain will fully recover in a few weeks and the cast comes off in two months. You don’t have to worry about me. I’ll be home as often as possible, and I’ll e-mail every day.”

Dad looked doubtful.

Pru perked up. “Can I stay with you on holidays and spring break?”

“No.” Dad’s blue eyes bulged. Poor guy. What would they do without me?

“I’ll come home on holidays and spring break.”

Pru stuffed a strawberry between her lips and frowned.

Dad touched the fingers poking out of my cast. “What if you get hurt again? How will I know you’re okay?”

I smiled. “Just trust me to make good decisions and have a little faith.”

He tugged my swollen pointer finger. “When did you get so grown-up and wise?”

“Oh, this family’s full of surprises. Besides, it’s time. This is my new life adventure.”

Four Months Later

Frost dusted the ground outside my dorm room. My roommates stood stubbornly at my sides, determined to meet the guy I never stopped talking about. An enormous black pickup rolled to the curb and the driver’s side door swung open. My friends’ giggles dissipated in the wintery air.

The driver swept me into a hug that sent fireworks through my heart. I hadn’t seen him since move-in day.

“Girls, this is Will Morris. Will, these are my roommates.”

Cross had dropped his nickname the moment he parted ways with the Lovells. He’d returned the necklace Nadya had given me too. I’d survived without the help of her talisman, and I planned to make a habit of it. If anything had intervened to save Pru and me from the Dobbs’ and the river, it was in answer to my desperate prayers, nothing else. In the days since the Lovells left St. Mary’s, I’d added them to my prayer list. The life they chose was tough, isolated, and unfair to the children who worked so hard for Nadya and Nicolae’s approval. I counted my blessings that Dad had a change of heart about Will when he saw how much Will cared for me and how I cared for him.

He’d applied his sixteen thousand dollar summer winnings from Red’s to set up a new life in Memphis. He got a tiny one-bedroom apartment and a giant truck. Priorities, I guessed. The first song he’d sung at Red’s had been picked up by a record label before Halloween. His dreams were coming true.

The girls opened and closed their mouths like fish in a bowl.

I smirked. It wasn’t like them to be at a loss for words. Then again, around Tennessee, college girls knew all the hot new artists and Will was making a name for himself playing the honky-tonk scene across the state. He hadn’t intended to be a country singer, but someone had to sing his songs, and everyone loved when he did. His smoldering voice curled toes, and those dark, soulful eyes gave every girl happy dreams.

I longed to trace the curve of his shoulders and tangle my hands in his sexy raven hair.

Will extended a hand to each of my roommates. “How do you do?”

They mumbled hellos and blushed.

My grades sometimes struggled and I wasn’t the biggest party girl, but clearly I won at boyfriends.

“See you guys in a week.” I gave each of my roomies a squeeze good-bye and climbed into the cab of Will’s truck. He tossed my bags in the back and stopped to look me over before shutting the door.

“Are you sure you don’t want to move in with me? I could drive you to school.”

I laughed. “You live five hours away.”

He kissed my nose. “Say the word and I’ll move closer.”

I wrapped my fingers in the collar of his soft leather jacket. “Why don’t I finish school and you keep being a big rock star. We’ll see what happens in four years. You might not even want me by then. I’ll be a poor, nerdy youth pastor.”

Will braced his hands on the open door frame and leaned into me, heating my skin with his nearness. Cinnamon and aftershave dazed my mind. Why did I tell him no? Memories of his body on mine stole my breath away. He pressed his lips to mine and I sighed. Right there on the street, he kissed me like he was making up for lost time. I melted into the kiss like it was water and I was lost in a desert.

He pulled away with an ornery smile. “I accept your offer. Give me four years to make something of myself.”

My friends gasped and whispered behind him.

A blush burned my cheeks. “Oh, yeah? What do you have in mind?”

“I have big plans in mind. I’m going be the one true love of a poor, nerdy youth pastor.” He kissed my forehead and shut the door.