The Ruth Valley Missing (20 page)

Jack put two fingers to my lips.
“You talk too much, James.”

As his lips replaced his fingers, my
phone started to ring, a rare occurrence since I moved to Ruth Valley.

I pushed back from Jack with an
apologetic smile and answered.

“Jameson?”

My breath caught in my throat.

“Dad?”

I looked at the clock next to the
bed and dragged myself to the shower. After a long night obsessing over the
call with my father, I was exhausted even though I had slept in way later than
usual.

The call itself was brief. Dad knew
where I was and was calling to get me to come home. He didn’t order me. He
didn’t threaten to cut me off. It was all very odd. My normally temperamental
father was calm, almost nervous, pleading for me to stay with him and his wife
for a little while.

When I asked how he knew I wasn’t in
Brooklyn, he changed the subject. Finelli wouldn’t have betrayed my trust. I
guessed it could have been Dylan, but there was no reason for him to sidestep
the question if that had been the case.

There was a knock downstairs as I
pulled a shirt over my head. I vaguely remembered hearing Jack’s Jeep leave
earlier, so I grabbed my bat before heading downstairs. Peeking through the
window I spotted the blurred figure pacing outside the door and caught sight of
the black and white collar.

I tightened my grip on the baseball
bat at my side and opened the door. “What do you want?”

“Why are you still here?”

“I live here.”

“Not for long you don’t.”

Father Mike pushed his way inside, slamming
the door behind him.

“Don’t take another step forward,
I’m serious.” I raised the bat in a white knuckled grip above my shoulder.

“Come on, James, put the bat down.
You’re gonna hurt someone like that.”

“That’s kind of the idea.”

“Let me rephrase. You’re gonna end
up hurting yourself.”

“Don’t be so sure. You know, my dad
really wanted a son, but ended up with me. Fixing cars, hitting a ball,
throwing a punch; I do it all. Really well.”

“Look, I’m sure you’re tough, now
will you put the bat down so we can talk?” He took a step forward and I swung.
He jumped back, rolling his eyes. “Really? Do we really have to do this?”

He stepped forward again, this time
grabbing the bat at the end of my swing, yanking it and me with it toward him.
He spun me around, tossing the bat out reach, both arms wrapped around me,
pinning my arms against my body.

I struggled, but he was strong,
surprisingly so. My upper body was useless. I found myself facing a wall and
tried pushing off of it with both legs, hoping to throw Mike off balance and
break free. We both toppled, the Father still holding on as we crashed into the
floor.

He quickly rolled on top of me. I
was face down on the floor now, in a worse position than before. My legs were
pinned, his knees digging into the back of mine, his hands pressing my arms
against the cold, wood floor. I squeezed my eyes shut.

His face was next to mine, his voice
calm in between labored breaths.

“I am not here to hurt you, do you
understand me? I’m trying to protect you.”

“This isn’t a very convincing
approach,” I groaned.

“Well, you aren’t giving me a whole
lot of options right now. You just tried to bust my head open with a baseball
bat.”

“I gave you fair warning.”

“True. Look, this really isn’t the
most comfortable position for me and I’m sure it’s not doing much for you
either, so I’m gonna let go. I need you to promise you won’t try to beat me
with a lamp or anything when I do. I swear to you, I’ll tackle you the second
you make a move.”

“Fine.”

The pressure on the back of my legs
eased off, his hands released my arms, then the entire weight of his body
lifted. I quickly rolled away, pushing myself into a sitting position. Father
Mike sat across from me, catching his breath.

“Lord, girl, you don’t make things
easy.”

“I’m pretty sure you’re not supposed
to make it easy for someone to attack you.”

“That wasn’t an attack, that was
self-defense. You attacked me.”

“You came into my home, uninvited.”

“You came at my head with a baseball
bat!” Father Mike started to grin, then broke into a laugh, shaking his head.

“This is funny to you?”

“No. It’s really not.” He pushed
himself off the ground, then walked over and held a hand out in front of me.
“Come on, let’s get you packed while we talk.”

I slapped his hand away, and got up.
“I’m not going anywhere.”

“You get that stubborn streak from
your dad?”

“What did you say?”

“Must make family get-togethers a
blast. How’s the old man doing these days?”

I looked around for something to throw,
furious. “What do you know about my father? How did you...did you call him?
Threaten him? I swear, if you did something—“

“You always assume the worst about
me. No, I didn’t threaten your father. I didn’t even speak to him. Not directly
anyway. Called in a favor to a friend, who let him know I was worried about his
little girl’s safety. I thought, mistakenly it seems, there might be one man on
this earth you’ll listen to.”

That explained my father’s demeanor
on the call. Calm. Pleading. He was afraid for me. And my dad didn’t scare
easily.

I sat down on the coffee table next
to me, defeated and sore, my head in my hands. I looked over as Mike sat next
to me, leaning forward, hands folded, arms propped up on his knees.

“I need to ask you something. Something
you said about those photos has been bothering me.”

“What?” I grumbled, exasperated.

“How do you know what the floors
inside the convent look like?”

“What?”

“When we were talking about the
photos, you mentioned the stains on concrete reminded you of the floors in the
convent.”

Jack was right. I did talk too much.
Father Mike didn’t wait for an answer.

“That day I caught you in the garden
behind the church, had you been in the convent?”

I shrugged. “Maybe.”

He rubbed his forehead then
scratched his head, messing up his already tousled hair. “James, we really need
to get you out of here. I’m sure you know something about this town is off, the
church more specifically, but you are in way over your head. It’s more
dangerous than you know.”

“That’s what you think.”

I shifted to one side and rolled up
my shirt, exposing the slashes across my side.

Mike leaned forward and whistled.
“Just like Andy.”

“And this was no hunting accident.”
I rolled the shirt down and sighed. “Look, let’s say you are looking out for
me, albeit in a weird way. I still can’t leave. There are people here I care
about. Trusting people, who think that everything is fine when that couldn’t be
further from the truth. Horrible things are going on in the place they trust
most. I have to do something.”

“I can’t make you leave.” Father
Mike shifted and rubbed the back of neck. “You’ve made that painfully clear.
And I know you have no reason to trust me, but I need you to believe me, I have
nothing to do with what you saw in those photos. I have nothing to do with what
happened to you or Andy. I’m trying to figure it all out too, trying to help.
I’m on your side.”

I stared at him, trying to determine
if he was telling the truth. He was calm, his tone sincere and if his goal was
to hurt me, he could have done it by now.

He continued, “If you won’t leave I
think the smart thing would be for us to work together.”

“So, just like that, you go from
trying to force me out to wanting to join forces?” I frowned, skeptical.

“You do have more invested in this
than I realized. Plus, sneaking into the convent by yourself? That was, well…”

“Ballsy? Awesome?”

“I was gonna say ‘stupid’, but
whatever makes you feel good about yourself. Either way, I think you’re better
off with back up.”

“Jerkface.”

“Hey, respect the collar.”

I let a smile escape.

“There we go. Speaking of back up,
what does your boyfriend think of all this?”

I shook my head. “I never showed him
the photos. He knew about the attack, but he thinks I got in the middle of
something Andy was involved in. Wrong place, wrong time sort of thing.”

“And you let it go?”

“He would have worried too much.” I
looked toward the door. “Speaking of which, you should go. If Jack gets back
and finds you here…”

“Go on.”

“He doesn’t like you much.”

“Well, the feeling is mutual.
Something about him doesn’t sit well with me.”

“Says the creepy priest.”

Father Mike held a hand to his
chest, as if he was taking offense. “I’m not creepy.”

“You kinda are.”

“I’ll work on that. And since you
asked, I’ll get going. See? Not creepy. But we need to talk more soon. Very
soon. I think it goes without saying to keep this to yourself.”

“And yet, there you are, with the
saying.”

“I like to be thorough.” He made his
way to the door and turned to face me. “By the way, watch the PDA with Sheriff
Jack.”

“Is this for my protection?”

“Of course,” he grinned.

“Creepy.” I turned him back towards
the door. “Go.”

He peeked out the window before
opening it. “Confession. Tomorrow morning.”

I nodded. “Fix that mop of yours. You
look like you’ve been in a fight or something.”

Father Mike ran his fingers through
his hair as he walked away, calling over his shoulder. “This is going to be
fun.”

My pace quickened as I neared the
house. I had been to the diner to grab dinner and visit with Emma. Jack was
gone most of the day and I didn’t feel like cooking for one. The day started
out cool and crisp, but as it went on, the temperatures dropped drastically,
and practically running home was all I could do to keep the food and my body
from turning to ice.

I opened the door to my little
place, wishing that it had a better heating system than the wood burning stove.
It did its job, but it took forever to get the place warmed up. I flipped on
the lights, setting my food on the kitchen counter when I saw drawers in the
kitchen open and dumped. My bat was still lying on the floor from the morning’s
encounter with Father Mike, so I grabbed it and crept slowly up the stairs.

As I peered into the room, there
standing by my dresser was Jack.

“What’s going on?”

Jack jumped back and put his hand to
his chest. “Geez, James, you about gave me a heart attack.”

I stood there, still holding the bat
above my head, staring.

Jack explained, “I pulled up and saw
a light in your place. Found the door was cracked open. Came in to make sure
you were ok and found your place like this. I’m assuming this isn’t your mess.”

I let the bat fall to my side, and
looked around. I ran for the closet and stepped inside, feeling around the
floor.

“What are you looking for?”

“My camera. It’s pretty much the
only thing of any real value in here.” I sighed as my fingers curled around the
handle of my camera bag, unzipping it and feeling the cool curves of the body
and lenses inside. Copies of the photos I gave Father Mike were buried in the
bottom, still there. “That’s a little bit of relief, I guess.”

“Well, you can’t stay in this mess
tonight. Come on up to the house.”

“I should probably stay and clean
up.”

“But if these thieves or whoever
didn’t find what they wanted, they might come back. I’ll take a closer look in
the morning, dust for prints, and see if we can’t find a clue as to who was
here.”

I shrugged. “Let me grab some
clothes.”

As we walked into his kitchen, he
flipped the light switch. Nothing happened.

“That’s odd. Wait here, let me go
check the breaker.”

I stood in the kitchen, tapping my
foot and feeling more anxious as each minute passed. I jumped as something hit
the ground in the living room with a thud.

“Jack?”

I walked into the living room,
slowly, hoping my eyes would adjust enough that I wasn’t tripping over
furniture. My hand brushed against a side table and searched for the lamp. The
power might not be on, but I figured I could at least use the lamp as a weapon.

I swiveled around towards sound of
fabric being scratched together, but saw nothing.

As I opened my mouth to call for
Jack again, a rag was shoved against my face, being held over my mouth and
nose. I breathed in, catching a hint of a sweet smell.