Chapter 2
The safe house was about twenty miles outside of Hot Springs, Arkansas. One of the burners was a smartphone, but I left it and took the flip phone, hoping it would be harder to track me without a data plan. Still, in case I ran into trouble, I had a shoulder-holstered handgun under my jacket.
On the way to town, I checked the voicemails on my real number, since it had been a couple of days. I wasn’t surprised to find two messages from my father. But the three from my friend Louise caught me off guard. Louise wasn’t supposed to be worried.
My father was desperate to talk to me and begged me to call, just like he had in the other five messages he’d left over the past week.
I was supposed to meet him the night we were run off the road by the Knoxes’s men, but obviously I’d never showed.
The next day, I’d called and told him I’d changed my mind and would be heading out of town for a while.
I had no idea if he knew I was in Gerald and Nicole’s sights, but I had no problem letting him stew.
Louise’s messages were shorter and more direct.
“Harper, I’m checking in. Call me.”
“Harper, stop screening my calls. Call me.”
“Harper, we need to talk. ASAP. Call me.”
Before James and I had gone on the run, I’d told Louise I was planning to spend some time with my grandparents in Jonesboro and wasn’t sure when I’d be back.
She knew I’d been estranged from them for years, and that I’d gone to see them the day after my mother’s funeral.
But I hadn’t filled her in on the details.
Not that I could share all of them.
Louise had no idea my mother had been murdered.
She believed it was an accident. And she definitely had no idea I’d partnered with James Malcom to find out who’d killed her.
She’d seemed satisfied with my explanation of visiting my grandparents—which I’d asked her to keep to herself—but after a week, she was probably starting to wonder when I’d be back.
I drove to a Walmart, which was a lot harder without GPS, but I’d been to Hot Springs a few times and remembered the general location.
After I bought sheets, bath towels, cleaning supplies, and food that wasn’t the processed crap Carter had delivered, I headed for the checkout, passing the wine and beer section.
I stopped the cart, my gaze snagging on the aisle. It took everything in me not to turn down it.
It had been a week since my last drink, and every day was still a struggle. If anything, the struggle was getting worse. The first few days, willpower had kept me on track. Now, the stress of running was chewing my nerves to the bone, and everything in me screamed for something to soften the edges.
I tightened my grip on the cart handle, fighting my internal war. Other than whatever I had going on with James, my life sucked right now, and for the past six months, drinking was how I had coped.
One bottle of wine wouldn’t hurt, right?
Or a six-pack of beer?
If I bought beer, I could drink it slowly—one at a time—instead of trying to pace myself with an open bottle of wine.
No.
I closed my eyes, fighting the pull to that aisle.
It was hard to accept I’d never have a drink again. No glass of wine with dinner. Or a margarita by a pool. No cold beer on a hot summer’s day.
No alcohol. Ever.
Alcohol was part of polite society, always there, and knowing I’d never have it again was a hard pill to swallow. No pun intended.
But I was also a realist. And the cold, hard truth was I could never drink again. The sooner I accepted it, the easier it would get.
At least I hoped it would be.
I headed for the checkout lanes before I could change my mind. After I paid in cash, I walked out into the warm spring morning and drew in a deep breath. I’d walked away from temptation. Maybe I’d cave next time, but this morning was a win.
One day at a time? More like one minute. Maybe even ten seconds.
After I loaded the bags into the backseat, I pulled out my phone, facing another temptation. Calling Louise could be risky, but she sounded concerned in her messages. I didn’t want to worry her, and considering she was a sheriff’s deputy, she might start digging into where I’d gone.
Leaning my butt against the trunk, I placed the call.
“Deputy Louise Brown,” she answered in her official deputy-sheriff voice, not that I was surprised. The number wouldn’t show as mine.
“Louise. It’s me.”
“Harper?” Her voice jumped an octave. “Why haven’t you answered my calls or texts?”
“Sorry. I’ve been on a tech detox.” It seemed as good an excuse as any.
“Your father is freaking out.”
My back stiffened. “What? How do you know?”
“He’s called me multiple times, telling me he thinks you’re in danger, but when I press him as to why, he won’t answer.” She paused. “Do you know what he’s talking about?”
I did, but I wasn’t about to admit it. “He’s probably just paranoid after my mother’s death. When I left for my grandparents’, he and I weren’t on great terms. I didn’t tell him where I’d gone. Did you tell him?”
“No, you told me to keep it a secret. But he told me you were supposed to meet him last week and you never showed.”
I pushed out a heavy sigh. “I already told him that I’d changed my mind. I called him the next day.”
“He’s about to file a missing person’s report on you, Harper.”
My father being persistent in tracking me down hadn’t been on my bingo card. “I didn’t tell him I was going to my grandparents’ place, but I told him not to worry. That I needed some space to process.”
“Funny thing, that,” she said, her voice tight. “I called your grandparents.”
I pressed my back into the car, panic swirling in my head.
“No response to that?” she prodded.
“Okay,” I said, “I didn’t go to my grandparents’ house. But I knew if I told you and my father that I needed time away, you’d worry.”
“So where are you?”
I hesitated. If there was anyone I trusted in law enforcement, it was Louise. But I couldn’t flat out tell her the truth.
Could I?
“Hot Springs,” I said. “I’m having a spa week.”
“You never struck me as a spa girl.” She didn’t bother hiding her skepticism.
“It’s beautiful here,” I said, my gaze scanning the Walmart parking lot. “I mostly spend time outdoors.”
“You know what’s also funny?” she asked, then didn’t wait for me to answer. “James Malcolm hasn’t been seen all week either.”
My panic flared again, but I was proud I kept my voice even. “So?”
“That seems like a coincidence.”
“What are you insinuating, Louise?” I asked with a laugh that sounded almost real. “That I’m having a torrid affair with James Malcolm?”
“Who said anything about an affair?”
I’d walked right into that one.
“Then what are you insinuating?” I asked, my tone still light.
“It’s odd timing,” she said. “And the day you supposedly first went to your grandparents, he wasn’t at the tavern. He’s always at the tavern.”
“Maybe he realized that all work and no play make a person boring,” I countered.
Her silence hung in the air like an anvil.
“And I did go to my grandparents’ place,” I said. “I found out that my mother lied to me and my father about why we stopped seeing them. That’s what I was going to talk to him about last week, but then decided it was water under the bridge. It wouldn’t change anything.”
“She lied?” The edge in her tone was gone. “Why?”
I hadn’t planned to get into any of this, but I had to tell her something. “She found out my father was having an affair, and she didn’t want her parents to know.” Not the full truth, or the order of events, but it was close enough.
“If they didn’t know, how did you figure it out?”
“I saw my aunt too. She saw my father with his mistress and told my mom.” I swallowed. “So, my mom cut them off.”
That one was closer to the actual truth.
“That’s messed up,” Louise said, disgust curling her words.
“What’s even more messed up is she told them I didn’t want anything to do with them either.” My throat tightened. “They sent me birthday cards for years and she sent them back without ever showing them to me.”
“Harper.” Her voice softened. “I’m sorry.”
“Yeah.” My voice cracked. “So I needed to get away for a while to process everything.”
“I can believe that,” she said, then her tone shifted. “You should know that I also got a call from your former partner, Keith Kemper.”
Shit.
“Why in God’s name would Keith be calling you?”
“He wanted to know if I knew why you’d contacted the lead counsel for the State Attorney General.”
She let the silence do the work.
Keith had called me about the same thing, but he hadn’t said whether Mason Deveraux had indicated why I’d placed the call. If Keith knew and had told Louise…
Was she giving me enough rope to hang myself?
She really was going to make a great detective.
Then something else hit me.
“Wait. How does he know we’re friends?” I asked. “We weren’t friends in Little Rock, and until he called me last week, asking the same thing, I hadn’t spoken to him in months.”
“I asked him about that,” she said. “He told me you’d mentioned it to him.”
“Again,” I said, “I haven’t talked to him since … probably last November.”
We were silent for a beat.
“He’s having you watched,” Louise said.
A chill slid down my spine. I suspected she was right, because how else would he know? “The question is why he’s having me watched.”
“I told you in Little Rock that I don’t trust him,” she said in disgust. “He was gaslighting you when someone kept breaking into your house. He tried to convince you that you were imagining it. What if he was behind the break-ins?”
I shook my head. “You think Keith broke into my house? Why?”
“What if he was looking for something?” She pressed. “Or, if nothing else, he wanted you to think you were losing your mind.” She paused. “Make you question your memory of the shooting.”
I let her words sink in. She had a point, only I knew for a fact Keith hadn’t been behind the break-ins. That had been a man named Drew Sylvester, who’d been hunting for something of my sister’s.