Love Inspired Suspense July 2015 #2 (26 page)

There was a slight pause before Johnny said, “What's his name and address? I'll stop by and talk to him.”

Kaylee rattled off her boyfriend's information, relief evident in her posture. “Don't tell him I sent you, okay? He'd be really mad.”

* * *

“I'll take you home first.” Johnny pulled onto the main road, his focus on the yellow paved line illuminated in his headlights. He wanted to put off seeing this Collin kid, Kaylee's boyfriend, but something told him he should reach out to him tonight.

If only someone had reached out to my mother in time...

Ellie shifted in her seat. “No, I want to go, too. He's more likely to talk to me. I know him from our church. Collin's one of the kids who helped me paint the shop. With Kerry.”

She let that little nugget hang out there. Collin and Kerry—the young man who was clinging to life after an overdose—were friends.

“He trusts me.” Her voice turned shaky. “I have a hard time believing this kid is caught up in drugs.” She tugged on her seat belt. “I wouldn't have pegged Kerry for using, either.” She sighed heavily as if to say, “What do I know?”

“Even good kids make bad decisions.” Johnny scratched his head. “I have to take you home. I can't put you in danger.”

Ellie groaned. “Danger? He's a seventeen-year-old kid. A kid I know. He's not going to hurt me.”

He shook his head, deciding not to fill her in on his experience with violent kids far younger than seventeen.

Apparently sensing her misstep, Ellie said, “Please. If you sense any danger, I'll go back to the car. Lock myself inside.”

The image of shattering glass from the other night scraped across his brain. Locked in his car wasn't exactly Fort Knox. Johnny sagged into the seat and slowed at the stop sign. Collin lived in the trailer park on the other side of town. A sense of urgency made his leg twitch.

“Okay.” It would save time, but he didn't like it.

A few minutes later they pulled into
Cedar Heights
, a name far too fancy for the ill-tended trailer homes, many with rust stains on their once-white walls and spare car parts decorating their postage stamp–size front lawns. His assessment was overly critical, but he realized he came upon it honestly. It was in a trailer park like this one in a suburb of Buffalo where his mother had hit rock bottom. Even before his mother had met her fate, he'd felt his had been sealed. The kids in school had teased him relentlessly. Trailer-park kids didn't rank high on the popularity scale.

Kids were ruthless.

Drugs even more so.

“Kaylee said he's in number 34—the last one in this row.” Leaning forward, Ellie tugged on her seat belt and angled her head to read the numbers—if there were any—on the sides of the trailers. “There it is.” Just as Kaylee had said—the last one.

Johnny slammed his car into Park and grabbed Ellie's hand as she pulled the door release. She smiled up at him under the dome light, understanding in her eyes. “Anything weird, I get back in the car and lock the doors.”

Johnny gave her a curt nod.

He walked around and met her by the front of the car. They headed toward the metal platform that served as the front stoop. Just as Ellie's foot hit the first step, Johnny noticed a handlebar poking out from the side of the trailer. He gently touched the small of her back and whispered, “Look.” Grabbing her hand, he led her to a motorcycle. Ellie glanced up at him, an expression of shock moving across her face.

“Do you think...?” she whispered, glancing over her shoulder toward the stoop.

“I never got a good look at the make and model of the motorcycle, so maybe it's a coincidence.”

The front porch light flipped on, making them both spin around.

A young man Johnny assumed was Collin pushed open the screen door and dragged his hand across his mussed hair. “Hey, get away from my bike.” He blinked a few times and his features seemed to soften a bit when he recognized Ellie. He coughed in his hand and cocked his head. “What are you doing here, Miss Ellie?”

Ellie let go of Johnny's hand and stepped forward, even though Johnny had the gut feeling he should stand in front of her, protect her. “We wanted to check on you. We heard Kerry's in the hospital.”

Collin twitched and scrubbed a hand across his face as if they had woken him. “Kerry's messed up.”

“How are you doing?”

Collin crossed his arms and rolled up on the balls of his feet. The crickets filled the silence.

Johnny finally spoke. “This your bike?”

“Who's asking?”

“This is my friend, Johnny Rock.” Ellie spoke up before he had a chance to.

“What's it to you?” Collin braced his hands on the metal railing and glanced over his shoulder at the front door.

This boy was hiding something.

Johnny stepped forward, his nerve endings on high alert. “I'm Special Agent John Rock of the FBI. Is this your motorcycle?”

The boy's gaze swung to the bike, then to the darkened road. As if on a springboard, he vaulted down the steps and sprinted between the trailers.

Ellie gasped.

Johnny groaned and took off running. Why did people think running away from a federal agent was a good idea?

Johnny bolted between the trailers, his eyes adjusting to the heavy shadows. He slowed as he approached the corner of the trailer and listened.

Nothing.

He grabbed his gun from his shoulder holster and eased closer to the side of the trailer. When he reached the corner, he stuck close to the cover of the building and sneaked a peek. Collin was crouched down, looking as if he was ready to tackle Johnny if he had blindly chased the kid.

Not a bad idea, kid,
if
he hadn't been a federal agent who knew better.

Johnny pivoted around the corner, his gun aimed at the crouching teen. “Don't move.”

* * *

“Don't shoot him!”

Ellie blinked a few times, her eyes adjusting to the darkness. Adrenaline made her blood run cold. Johnny had his gun trained on a hunkering Collin. The boy had his hands up, but seemed frozen in an awkward position. In the moonlight, terror glinted in his eyes.

“I'm not going to shoot the kid,” Johnny said, a mix of frustration and disgust lacing his voice. He tucked his gun in its holster. “But I don't like surprises. If I had run around this corner, your friend Collin here would have tackled me.”

Without the gun aimed at his head, Collin stood and seemed to regain some of his swagger. “Why did you pull a gun on me?” The tone suggested Collin might actually have had the nerve to call Special Agent Johnny Rock “dude,” but somewhere deep down the young man had mustered some of the manners Ellie knew he had been taught, and refrained.

“Why did you run from me?” Johnny widened his stance, ready to take on Collin if necessary.

Ellie's pulse thrummed in her ears. Now what had Collin gotten himself involved with?

Collin's shoulders sagged and he sat on a beat-up wicker chair, perched precariously on uneven aqua indoor-outdoor carpeting. His body folded like a crushed pizza box and he jammed his hands into his unruly hair. To Ellie's surprise, his shoulders began to shake. Was he crying?

An outdoor spotlight flicked on and a sharp pain jabbed her in the eyes. The harsh light illuminated the yard, unmasking its truly depressing state of disrepair. A broken umbrella stood sentinel over a worn picnic table. Collin, a boy whose preschool Sunday school class she had assisted, sat broken and confused, on the cusp of being a man, but obviously not ready to step with both feet into the adult world. A shadow crossed the window below the spotlight and Ellie knew her opportunity to talk to Collin was fleeting.

Ellie crouched beside Collin and placed her hands on the arm of the wicker chair. A broken piece of wicker pricked her finger. “What is it, Collin?”

He looked up, his face tearstained. “I didn't mean for you to get hurt. It was just a BB gun.”

Ellie slowly stood, a cold chill skittering down her spine. An understanding stretched between her and Johnny. She swallowed hard. “What did you do, Collin?” Her voice held a distant quality, as if she were outside herself watching the situation.

“What's going on out here?” A brassy-voiced, disheveled woman shouted at them as she stormed around the side of the trailer. Ellie barely recognized her as the young mother, lines creasing her eyes and mouth, who used to show up in church with her husband and son in a neat sweater set. That all seemed a million years ago.

“I'm sorry, Mom.” The pain in Collin's eyes broke Ellie's heart.

Anger and confusion fought for dominance on Mrs. Parker's tired face. “Who...?” Her tone was uncertain. “What's going on?”

Johnny was the first to speak. “I'm Special Agent John Rock. I'd like to talk to your son if I can.”

Mrs. Parker rubbed her eyes and tried to muster some of the anger that had brought her storming outside only moments ago. “Does he need a lawyer?” Her voice shook. “I can't afford a lawyer.”

“I need to tell them,” Collin said, sounding more like a little boy than a teenager. “I need to shake this guilt. I can't stand it anymore.” He looked up at his mother with all the conflicting emotions of a son who was about to come clean and accept his punishment.

This was the same young man who, when he was just a boy, had cried when he'd skinned his knee on the playground and clung to Ellie's waist. Ellie was like a big sister to a lot of these kids. Something in her heart shifted. Anyone—
anyone
—could take a step off the right path and land in a world of hurt. If she had learned anything today, it was that stark reality.

“We want to help your son, Mrs. Parker, before something happens that can't be reversed.” Ellie placed her hand on the woman's crossed forearm. Mrs. Parker looked as though she wanted to run like her son, but instead, she slowly sat in the chair next to Collin's. Her chair wobbled on the uneven earth as she leaned to clutch his hand. “What did you do?”

“I took the BB gun Dad gave me and shot out a window on Main Street.”

Ellie's stomach hollowed out. A million thoughts shifted through her brain, none of them making sense. Collin Parker had shot at her.

“I didn't know you'd be there. I thought the store was closed...” His voice shook. “All the other stores were closed. And it was dark.” He scrubbed his hand across his face and his whole body shuddered as if he had tasted something sour. “I didn't mean to hurt anyone.”

Ellie was only vaguely aware of Johnny making a phone call over the sounds of Collin's sobs and Mrs. Parker's quiet questions. “Why would you do that? What were you possibly thinking?”

Collin stood and his mother rose along with him. He grabbed his mother's wrists and flung her away from him. She stumbled back and turned her ankle. Johnny steadied her. “Easy, Collin.” Then to Mrs. Parker, “Are you okay?”

She nodded; a confused look in her eyes. She seemed to have aged beyond her years. The cigarette lines around her eyes and mouth didn't help. “Collin needs his father. He ran off with that—” Her face crumpled in distaste as she struggled to get the right word out. “He hasn't been the same since his dad left. We had to move here.” She held up her hand to the trailer. “He's hanging around the wrong people.” She looked at Johnny, imploring him with her eyes. “You can't hold him responsible.”

“How old is your son?” Johnny asked.

“Seventeen.”

“I've called the police. They'll be here soon to take Collin in and question him,” Johnny said.

Panic lit Collin's features and he bounced on the balls of his feet. “I can't go to jail.” In an explosion of energy, Collin bolted. This time Johnny was faster. He stepped in front of the boy and blocked him with a shot to the chest with his shoulder.

“You have to stop doing that.” Johnny gritted his teeth and spun Collin around, yanking his arms behind him. “I didn't want to do this.”

Ellie winced as Johnny snapped handcuffs onto Collin's wrists.

Mrs. Parker paced the small space. The spotlight highlighted a face filled with regret. “It's all my fault.”

Ellie reached out, but Mrs. Parker jerked away.

Johnny shoved Collin down on the picnic bench. “Hang tight. Officer Bailey's on his way.”

Ellie brushed past Mrs. Parker, who stood with her arms wrapped around her middle as she rocked back and forth. “Collin—” Ellie envisioned the little boy who couldn't sit still during Bible study “—why did you shoot the front of my shop?”

Collin lifted his shoulders and wiped his nose on the sleeve of his T-shirt. “Some guy paid us. I needed the money.”

“What are you talking about?” Mrs. Parker pushed Ellie out of the way so she could get in Collin's face.

“I needed the money. Okay? I
needed
it!” Collin's words exploded, spittle flying from his mouth. “It's not like you're going to give me any money. You're always complaining you don't have any.” He scrunched up his nose as he threw a disgusted look at the trailer he called home. Then, as if contrition had slammed into him, he bowed his head. “I'm sorry, Mom. I'm really sorry.” He shifted awkwardly and pleaded to Johnny, “I can't go to prison. I can't. I'll die there.”

Ellie took a chance, wrapped her arm around Mrs. Parker's shoulders and guided her away from her raging son.

Mrs. Parker wiped at the tears streaming down her face. “I should have done a better job. I let my son down.”

Ellie made shushing sounds, her heart racing in her ears. Her mouth had gone dry.

Johnny placed his hand on Collin's shoulder. “Who paid you to shoot out the front of Ellie's shop?”

Collin hung his head. “The guy paid Kerry. He said he had to make it look like he was going after Ellie.” The words rushed out. “Kerry wasn't feeling good, so he talked me into it. Gave me fifty bucks. I thought it was no big deal. A broken window. Nothing more. I was so pumped up on adrenaline I couldn't think straight even when I noticed someone standing near the door.
You
weren't supposed to be there.”