Chapter 17 #2
Jesse leaned forward, straining to hear what had captured Noah’s attention. At first there was nothing. Then her foggy brain realized that the gushing noise wasn’t coming from the outside gutters.
“Water. Crap,” she ground out. A flooded cellar was the last thing she needed. “A pipe must have burst.”
“Where’s the shutoff valve?” Noah demanded.
“Behind the water heater.” Jesse pointed toward the corner under the staircase. “Watch your head.”
Noah dashed to the side, bending low to avoid knocking himself senseless on one of the floor beams. Jesse headed in the opposite direction, following the sound of money draining onto the dirt floor.
She’d nearly reached the far wall when she felt her foot sink into the spreading mud pit. With a grimace, she stopped and glanced up, not surprised to discover a pipe hanging down, spilling out water at an alarming rate.
“It didn’t burst. It came loose,” she called out, her heart sinking.
She had no idea how long the water had been running, but she suspected her bill was going to give her a heart attack.
“Not on its own.” Noah’s grim voice was closer than she expected. Jerking her head to the side, she discovered him heading toward her, On cue, the water stopped gushing, although a stubborn drip remained. “Someone did it on purpose.”
“What?”
“Look.” Noah turned on his phone flashlight and aimed it toward something stuck in the mud.
Jesse hissed as she realized it was a wrench.
Probably stolen from her dad’s toolbox. She started to lean down, but before she could reach for the tool, Noah placed his hand on her arm.
“No, don’t touch it, Jesse. It might be evidence. ”
She sucked in a sharp breath, her teeth snapping together as anger seared away the clinging cobwebs.
“You’re right. Whoever knocked me out must have come down here and separated the pipes before they took off.”
“That’s the most likely scenario,” he agreed. “But why?”
“To drive me out of town.” Jesse furrowed her brow, a voice in the back of her mind whispering that there was more than one reason someone might have caused the damage.
What was the point in attacking her only to leave her alive?
And why sabotage her home? They had to be warnings.
“Or to stop me from looking into the past.”
Noah held her worried gaze before his jaw tightened, and he turned his attention to the mess the water had made.
As if searching for some clue that would reveal who’d messed with the pipes.
Walking along the edge of the muddy pit, he at last made a sound of disgust as he bent down to shine the light from his phone toward the wall.
“Unfortunately, I was also right about the damage a leak would cause,” he said. “The soft ground has collapsed part of your foundation.”
“Oh no.”
Ignoring the sodden dirt that clung to her shoes, Jesse moved to squat next to the pile of bricks that had crumbled to expose a large hole.
They would obviously have to be replaced once the pipes were repaired, she acknowledged with a burst of anger.
But right now she was more concerned about any damage that might have been caused to her neighbor.
Bracing her hand against the bricks that remained intact, Jesse leaned forward, peering into the hole.
Relief raced through her at the sight of the second wall, which remained solidly intact.
“At least it hasn’t hurt Bea’s side. At least I don’t think so.”
She leaned closer, trying to get a better view inside the hole. There was something sticking out of the mud. It was white and rounded on the top. Like a large stone, only it was too smooth to be natural. She inched forward. No, not a stone, she decided. In fact, it looked like a …
A scream of horror was wrenched from the depths of her soul as Jesse fell backward.
“What?” Noah demanded, swinging his phone to light up the hole. “Oh shit.”
Jesse screamed again as the soft glow surrounded the skull, as if bringing it back to gruesome life. Crabwalking backward, Jesse battled through the mud, desperate to get away. She thought she caught a glimpse of more bones before Noah was thankfully blocking her view.
He bent down, scooping her trembling body off the ground and racing toward the nearby stairs.
The next hour was a blur for Jesse. She had a vague memory of being carried out of the Tap Room and bundled into Noah’s truck. She shivered as she sank into the leather seat, not caring where they were headed as long as it was far away.
At last he stopped in front of the walk-in health clinic, demanding that she get checked out as he called 911 to report what had been revealed behind the crumbling foundation.
Enduring the checkup, which included blood work and an X-ray of her head to make sure she hadn’t banged it on the floor when she passed out, Jesse was at last released into the wild. Or at least she was allowed to step out of the clinic without being fussed over by Noah and the medical staff.
She blinked as she stepped through the open door and onto the sidewalk.
The late morning sunlight was blinding. She stopped to wait for her vision to clear, as well as for Noah to pull around and pick her up.
He’d insisted on staying with her while she had her checkup, only leaving to get the truck he’d parked around the corner.
Jesse didn’t like being treated like she was an invalid, but she was too tired to argue. Now she waited for the noise of his old engine to warn he was approaching.
“You need to come to the office with me.”
Jesse screeched, jumping a full inch off the ground as the words were spoken directly into her ear. Then, stumbling to the side, she turned her head to discover Sheriff Tillman standing beside her, as if he’d appeared out of thin air.
Or, more likely, he’d crawled out of the gutter, she told herself, glaring at him as a toxic combination of anger and fear churned through her.
“Adam. What’s wrong with you?” she snapped. “You nearly gave me a heart attack, sneaking up on me like a creeper.”
His round face flushed at her angry words, his hand reaching out as if he intended to grab her. “Let’s go.”
“Go?” She instinctively slapped away his hand. “No way.”
“Excuse me?” His face darkened to a deeper shade of red. “That wasn’t an invitation.”
“I’m not going anywhere with you. Not without my lawyer.”
His lips snapped together, his eyes bulging. She didn’t have to read his mind to know he was struggling to leash his urge to manhandle her to the courthouse. It was just a couple of blocks away and there was no one around to stop him.
Then, perhaps sensing a charge for police brutality looming in his future, he dropped his outstretched hand and contented himself with an evil glower.
“Why would you need a lawyer?” he snarled. “Only guilty people hide behind the slimy bastards.”
“Because I don’t trust you.”
He jerked, as if caught off guard by her accusation. “I’m the sheriff.”
“All the more reason for a lawyer,” she retorted. “I watched you break laws when you were just a deputy. God knows what you’re willing to do now.”
“Christ, you’re a pain in the ass.”
“Me? Are you serious? I just got out of the doctor’s office after being stalked, drugged, and traumatized by a skeleton in my cellar and you’re harassing me as if I’m some sort of criminal instead of the victim.” She met him glare for glare. “I’m not in the mood to deal with you.”
“I need you to make a statement,” he stubbornly insisted.
“Fine. I’ll contact my lawyer and he’ll call you with a convenient time for us to chat. Until then—” Jesse started to turn away, intending to discover what was keeping Noah.
“Do you recognize this?”
Moving with surprising speed considering his bulk, Adam was blocking her path, holding out a brown wallet wrapped in a plastic bag.
“It’s not mine, if that’s what you’re asking,” she snapped.
“I’m asking if you recognize it.”
On the point of stepping around the idiot to end the unwelcome encounter, Jesse abruptly froze, her gaze locked on the wallet. There was nothing special about it. Just worn brown leather. But as he tilted it toward her, the sun glinted off the small initials stitched in gold at the corner.
M.H.
A solid blow slammed into her heart, bringing it to a painful halt.
“Where did you get that?” she rasped.
“Did this belong to Mac?” Adam demanded.
“Yes.” She trembled, the image of wrapping the wallet in bright Christmas paper before sneaking it under the tree searing through her mind.
It was a running joke for her to buy him a new wallet and bottle of his favorite cologne for Christmas, and for him to pretend to be completely shocked when he opened them.
The tradition started when she was a child and stayed even after he married Victoria. “Where did you find it?”
“In your cellar.”
Jesse’s mouth was still dry, making it hard to form the words. “He could have lost it last time he was down there. Honestly, he was always saying he’d lose his head if it wasn’t attached—”
“It was found behind the bricks,” Adam interrupted. “With the skeleton.”
Jesse was shaking her head before he finished, as if she could somehow deflect the agonizing pain his words were inflicting.
“Are you … are you saying that it’s my dad down there?” she finally managed to gasp. “You’re sure?”
Something that might have been regret rippled over Adam’s round face, as if realizing he’d allowed his delight in tormenting her to overcome his pretense of professionalism.
“No, nothing’s confirmed,” he admitted, lowering his arm. “The DNA has to be sent off to the lab. You’ll need to give a sample for them to use.”
“But the wallet was with …” She couldn’t force the word “skeleton” past her stiff lips. “Him?”
Adam nodded. “It was.”
Jesse reeled beneath the avalanche of horror, her back slamming against the brick wall of the clinic. It was the only thing that kept her from collapsing.
Her dad. Her joyous, larger-than-life, devoted father was gone. Not disappeared. But vanished from this earth. Forever.
A kaleidoscope of memories flickered through her mind.
Her dad kneeling next to her as he braided her hair into pigtails. The two of them at the county fair, eating corn dogs and drinking lemonade. Sneaking down the stairs late at night to peer into the bar, where her dad was serving drinks and telling jokes to keep the customers entertained.
And at last … the sight of him kneeling on the floor as Victoria flounced away, his head in his hands.
“He’s dead,” she breathed. “Oh my God. All these years of wondering. Of telling myself he was out there somewhere. He was trapped in that awful cellar, just beneath my feet.” Nausea rolled through her as she struggled to squash the knowledge she’d been sleeping in a bed just above her dad’s corpse. “I’m going to be sick.”
Shoving away from the wall, Jesse stumbled around the corner to where a narrow alley separated the clinic from a flower shop. She dropped to her knees, bending over in an effort to fight back the waves of sickness.
She heard the approaching footsteps but, assuming it was Adam, ignored the form that bent down next to her.
“Jesse, what’s going on?” Noah’s warm hand stroked down her back, his touch soothing. “What the hell did you do to her?” he snarled, obviously speaking to the sheriff.
With a sharp movement, Jesse shoved herself upright.
As much as she appreciated Noah’s attempt to protect her, she couldn’t bear to talk about her dad.
Or the fact that his skeleton was no doubt being dug out of the cellar by some clueless deputy who had no idea who Mac Hudson was, or how much he’d meant to this town.
“Please, Noah. I need to get away,” she whispered, refusing to glance toward Adam, who was looming next to them like a vulture.
Noah studied her with a worried expression. “I’ll take you.”
“No, I want to be alone.” She flinched. She hadn’t meant to sound so sharp. “I’m sorry. I have to think.”
“Okay.” Noah’s expression was impossible to read as he reached into his pocket and pulled out a set of keys. He pulled one off and handed it to her. “Go to my house. I’m going to be busy taking care of something for a few hours. Lock the doors and don’t let anyone in.”
She released a shaky sigh of relief. The last thing she wanted was to go back to the Tap Room. She wasn’t sure she could ever step foot inside the building again.
“Thanks.”
She turned to leave, a shudder racing through her body when Adam grabbed her shoulder.
“Call your lawyer, Jesse. We need to talk,” he warned. “Soon.”