Chapter 20 #3
Rafe gave a chilling smile. “Busy enough for you not to remember anything other than she was driving a car and wished she’d died in a river? Or how pretty she is and how much you wanted to let her stay at your place? Or what? So you could take advantage of her?”
The man’s mouth opened. “Listen, I would never...”
“Oh yeah?” Rafe slid off the bar stool and leaned on the counter. “Tell me exactly what she said. It’s either here or at the police station.”
Blanching, the bartender gulped. “Um, you a cop? But I can see your bike outside.”
“There’s several of my friends in town who are cops and bikers.
I know your business, Andrew Raine. I checked with a few people I know.
Your liquor license on this dump expired two months ago and you’re known for hiring illegals to work under the counter and work cheap.
You skirt the law, but know this. Unless you start talking, I’ll have all my cop friends storm in here and shut you down faster than you can pour another beer. ”
Impressed, Allison wanted to applaud.
“Okay! I’ll talk, just don’t shut down the place.”
The man held up his hands. “There were a few guys bothering her at the bar while she was trying to eat. I told them to get lost, and she thanked me and said she only wanted beer and a club sandwich. She barely ate, was crying too much. When I asked her what was wrong, she said her life was in ruins and she didn’t know what to do next. I was trying to help!”
“By offering to let her stay at your place,” Rafe said flatly.
Andrew grew even paler. “I was only trying to help her.”
“Did she say where she was headed?”
“No. She only said she wished she could return to a happier time in her childhood when the only secret she had was in the tree house where she used to hide to eavesdrop on her sister. I guess that’s you.”
Allison narrowed her gaze. “You’d better be telling the truth, and if my friend here obtains a search warrant, you had better not have Diana bound and gagged in your bedroom.”
“No, no, never! I’m not like that. Sure, I like to hit on a pretty woman, but that’s not my scene.”
“What exactly is your scene?” Rafe asked.
“I’m just a businessman...”
His voice trailed off as Allison walked to a security camera on the wall above a tall cardboard box near the entrance.
“Mind if I check your cameras to see if she left with anyone?” she asked sweetly.
“The cameras don’t work. They’re a decoy. I fell behind in the rent and couldn’t pay for the upkeep.”
She peered inside the box. At least ten tan teddy bears stared back at her. She wrinkled her nose. The bears smelled like stale beer and cigar smoke.
The kids would love those. Not.
“Hey, get away from those. They’re a donation,” Andrew protested.
“A donation for who?”
But the man’s face grew pale. “Someone’s picking them up later. Donating them to the local hospital I think. I just offered to be the pick-up place. Look, you’d better leave. I don’t want trouble.”
Rafe looked Andrew up and down. He plucked a twenty-dollar bill from his wallet and tossed it on the counter.
Outside, Allison felt her first surge of hope. “We know she was alive last night, at least when she left here. But where did she go?”
Rafe picked up his black helmet. “What did Diana mean by wishing you had let go of her hand? What gives?”
Allison’s throat tightened. He might as well know now, because sooner or later, she’d have to tell him about that horrible day. If it provided even a slim clue to finding her sister, she’d take it.
“When I was twelve and Di was eight, I saved her from drowning during a family vacation up here. We were in a kayak, took it out against our parents’ wishes.
I was paddling downstream, but the current was ripping.
It tipped and Di was swept downstream. I grabbed her hand and got us to the shore.
I told her if she was going down, so was I. I wouldn’t let go for anything.”
Tears clogged her throat. “She was my sister, Rafe. My baby sister. And now she’s talking like that? Wishing she would have died instead?”
He put his hands on her trembling shoulders. Even through the material of her denim jacket, she felt the warmth of his caring touch.
“Hold on,” he soothed. “People say all kinds of things they don’t mean when they’re upset. Sometimes it’s the only way they can cope with terrible news. They exaggerate. And create drama.”
Allison shrugged off his hands and wiped her eyes with an angry fist. “Didn’t sound like drama to me. Sounded like she’s giving up.”
“If so, why would she leave you those clues?”
She scowled. “I don’t know. Everything is so complicated, and every minute we don’t find her means she’s slipping away from me.”
“We have a lead,” he pointed out. “She did say she wanted to return to her childhood and her secret tree house where she spied on you. Where is this tree house?”
Pressing a finger against her temple, she tried to think. “It was by the barn on land my father bought years ago. But Dad tore it down years ago because the wood was rotting and he didn’t want Di to get hurt falling through the floorboards.”
“What about the barn? Still here?”
“I think so.”
“Let’s go, then.”
* * *
A short while later, they parked their motorcycles along the gravel road leading to the barn.
A barbed wire fence separated the roadway from a pasture.
Sunshine warmed them as they walked up the road.
As their boots crunched the stones under their feet, Allison lifted her face to the clear blue sky.
Green fields, rolling mountains in the distance and a thick forest made for a bucolic scene.
Ordinarily she’d enjoy a stroll in the country. Not today.
The stone barn had been rebuilt after her father purchased the land twenty years ago with the intention of building a home and moving. The move never happened. He rented the barn to a local farmer who also rented the pasture, but the lease expired last year.
Rafe stopped. His harsh intake of breath followed. “Look. Is that your parents’ old sedan?”
Her heart dropped to her stomach. Parked near the driveway leading from the road to the stone barn was an older model sedan. Rafe jotted down the license plate.
“I don’t know. Could be.”
But she knew it wasn’t necessary. Her sister was hiding inside.
They waded through the knee-high grasses to the double doors. One was wide open. Smells of animal scat and hay filtered through the musty air. Dust motes danced in sunbeams streaming through the single grimy window. In the southern end of the barn, a hay pile nearly reached the loft.
It didn’t feel right. Something was off about this place.
Chills raced down her spine as they entered the darkness. “That door should have been closed,” she murmured. “Di would never leave it open. Our dad drilled it into us that we always left the door closed so stray animals can’t get inside.”
Rafe gently pushed her in back of him. “I’ll check things out. Stay back, just in case.”
“It’s my sister.” Allison pointed to the eastern corner of the barn. “If she sees you, she may not come out. Dad used to store water there and horse blankets. See if anything’s been touched.”
She climbed the rickety wooden ladder to the barn loft, the creak echoing through the abandoned building.
The sweet smell of a hay pile below the loft mingled with the musky scent of abandonment and animal scat.
Dust motes floated in stray beams of sunshine coming through the grimy window.
Anticipation and worry raced through her.
Di surely had to be here. As a child, her sister adored playing hide-and-seek in the barn.
As she climbed high enough to see into the shadowy loft, she spied farming equipment and old furniture. Something moved in the shadows.
“Di? Please don’t be scared. It’s me, Ally, jellybean. I’ve been so worried about you.”
Allison climbed a little higher, her eyes adjusting to the dim light.
Suddenly, a figure lunged from the shadows, and something kicked her in the head. Yelping with pain, she managed to hold on to the ladder, but the dim figure pushed the ladder over. Falling, she managed to aim her trajectory at the hay bale, where she landed with a poof.
Vision blurred, she heard boots on the wooden floorboards of the barn, and Rafe’s deep voice yell out.
As she struggled in the musty hay, Rafe freed her. He brushed hay from her hair and face.
“Ally, you okay? Did you get hurt?” he asked, voice thick with concern.
“I’m okay. My pride is hurt more than anything.” Wincing, she touched her head where the attacker kicked her. “Good thing I have a hard head.”
He gently touched her head. “You may have a concussion.”
“Doubt it.” She started to stand, but he put his hands on her shoulders. “Easy. Sit for a few minutes.”
“You should have run after the guy,” she told him. “He got away.”
“I’m more concerned about you.”
The proclamation made her heart beat faster, even as she winced from the pain. “Get a look at that son of a biscuit?”
“Medium height, build. Dressed in black. Stay here. I’m checking the outside.”
He returned shortly. “Found a ladder under the loft window. He must have used that to get away.”
“That car we saw was probably his, not Di’s.”
Rafe examined her head. “You’re not bleeding, but that was a nasty fall. You sure you’re okay?”
“I’m fine.” Allison swallowed her distress as she touched her head again. “Help me up, please.”
At his frown, she sighed. “Look, I’m a nurse. I know I’m okay.”
Rafe helped her to stand and put his hands on her shoulders. His touch warmed her and felt reassuring. Calm and collected, he was good in an emergency.
Good in everything, actually. The feel of his strong hands on her trembling shoulders reminded her of exactly how good he’d been when they’d made love.
Here she was, thinking of sex when Di was still missing. In danger. Allison trembled inside.
Rafe backed up. “I’ll have Jase run the plate on that sedan, see if it belongs to your family or someone else.”