Chapter Twenty-One #3
Camden reached the end of the driveway that led to Lobster Cove and didn’t even slow down to look for oncoming traffic as he took the turn onto the back road.
The one that twisted and turned through a rural part of Maine along the coast. She worried that he was driving so recklessly, he’d end up in the water .
.. but maybe that wouldn’t be so bad. Britt would probably die from being thrown from the bed of the truck, but she’d seen Evelyn put on her seat belt, so chances were good she’d survive.
The truck sped up, going way over the twenty-mile-an-hour speed limit for the road. Britt prayed there was a cop somewhere that would pull Camden over, but it wasn’t likely, since she’d never seen any patrols on this road.
It was taking all her strength to hang on, to not get thrown out of the truck as Camden continued to swerve to try to knock her out of the truck bed and she stumbled over piles of trash.
Trees were whizzing by, and the air in her face made it difficult to keep her eyes open.
Britt wanted to pay attention to where they were going, but for now, she bowed her head and tried to hunker down behind the cab to block some of the wind.
She had no idea what was going to happen when they got to wherever Camden was heading, but he was going to find that when someone she loved and respected was in danger, she’d become more of a threat than a mama moose protecting her baby.
She just had to hang on until then.
Waiting to pull out onto the road, Victor Rogers frowned at the pickup speeding toward him.
“Damn kids,” he mumbled. People sped down this road all the time, and it pissed him off.
Hell, most things these days irritated him, but that truck was going way too damn fast for the curves.
The driver was probably drunk. Maybe the same person who’d thrown out all the beer cans he’d recently seen on the side of the road.
It was pathetic.
Stupid.
Irritating.
As the truck got closer, Victor’s eyes narrowed. He recognized the vehicle. It belonged to one of the Lobster Cove employees. He’d seen the man around now and then.
Figured. The Youngs were a pain in his ass, and it wasn’t surprising that someone they employed was acting like an irresponsible idiot.
As the truck sped past the road that led to his property, Victor caught a glimpse of something that had his eyebrows shooting up in surprise. He couldn’t have seen what he thought he saw. But he did.
In the back of the truck was a girl. He recognized her , as well. She was the new one ... the girl dating one of the Young boys. He wasn’t sure which. To him, they were all the same. Thorns in his side.
But the look on the girl’s face wasn’t that of someone on a joyride. She was terrified. And even as he watched, the truck jerked back and forth on the road, as if the driver was purposely trying to toss the girl from the vehicle.
And that wasn’t all. Evelyn Young had been in the front seat—and she’d stared right at him as they passed. Waving her hand as if to get his attention.
The entire encounter lasted only seconds, but there was no mistaking what Victor had seen.
Something was wrong. He felt it deep in his bones. The same way he’d felt it when his daughter had called and asked if she could come home to live with him.
He might have a reputation for being a grumpy asshole, but he wasn’t totally unfeeling. Even if everyone thought he was.
He thought about following the truck, but at the speed it was moving, it was already well out of sight, and Victor didn’t want to chance wrecking as he tried to catch up.
Instead, he reached for his cell phone.
He dialed a number, one he’d never called before, never had a reason to; it wasn’t as if he was going to invite the guy over for dinner and a chat.
But he’d programmed it into his phone all the same when Evelyn had texted it to him.
Because there was a chance someday he’d need help with something, she’d said.
And neighbors helped neighbors ... even if they didn’t like each other.
“Hello?”
“Chad Young? This is Victor Rogers. Something’s wrong. I just saw one of your employees driving down the back road going at least fifty miles an hour.”
“Are you kidding me? You called me to bitch about someone speeding on the road? Give it up, Rogers. We all know you’re an asshole, but this is going a bit far—”
“Shut the hell up and listen to me!” Victor yelled, feeling frustrated.
He knew he hadn’t been very nice to the boys since they’d moved home.
He actually approved of them coming back to Maine to help out their mom.
Even though he wanted Lobster Cove for himself, he’d been where Evelyn was.
Feeling lost after the death of a spouse.
“That new girl was in the bed of the truck, holding on for dear life while the driver swerved around, trying to make her fall out. And your mom was in the passenger seat.”
“What?”
“I don’t know the name of the driver. Never cared enough to learn. But since it’s your mom and that young woman with him, I thought you might want to know.”
“What direction were they going?”
“Toward town.”
“What color was the truck?”
“Brown.”
“Did it have a white stripe?”
“Yes.”
“Fuck! Camden. My mom was inside the cab? Did she seem okay?”
“I don’t know what you mean by okay, but she was waving at me like she was trying to get my attention. But they were going so fast, I couldn’t see much else.”
“Can you please go over to Lobster Cove and check on Walt? I’m gonna call the police and have them go out, but if he’s hurt, I want to get him help as soon as I can.”
“I don’t know anything about first aid,” Victor protested, not sure he wanted to get any more involved in whatever was happening than he already was.
“ Please , Victor. I know you hate us, but if Camden was able to take Mom, he had to have done something to Walt, because he never would’ve let that man get anywhere near her if he could help it.”
Surprisingly, Victor didn’t consider how he could use the situation to his advantage. Because suddenly, at that moment, all he could think about was how he’d feel if something happened to his daughter or his grandson ... and he asked for the Youngs’ help and they said no.
“Okay. I’ll go on over.”
“Thank you. Text me and let me know what you find.”
“I will. And Chad?”
“What?”
The boy sounded impatient and eager to hang up, which Victor couldn’t blame him for.
“I hope your mom and that girl are okay.” He didn’t know where the words were coming from.
He’d never officially met the girl, only seen her when he’d gone over to Lobster Cove after the storm.
He’d actually assumed she was probably a gold digger looking for a free place to live.
But that didn’t mean he wanted anyone to get hurt.
“Me too. Let me know about Walt.”
The phone connection ended.
Victor put his truck in gear and pulled out onto the road after looking both ways. The last thing he wanted was to get T-boned by the idiot driving like a bat out of hell if he happened to come back.
As he turned down Lobster Cove’s private drive, Victor’s hands tightened on the steering wheel. He began to sweat. Why had he agreed to this?
Oh yeah, because having the Youngs owe him wasn’t a bad position to be in.
Ignoring the voice in the back of his head that told him he wasn’t checking on Walt because he wanted the Young family to owe him anything, that he was helping because it was the decent thing to do, Victor drove slowly down the dirt road until he came to the huge open area around the house and all the businesses.
He turned right, toward the auto shop ..
. but not before he saw the door to the main house was standing wide open.
His gut rolled. Something bad had happened here, and he wanted nothing more than to turn around and leave. He could call the police. Hell, Chad probably already had. They could figure out what happened. But he’d promised ...
Victor parked outside the auto shop and got out. It felt eerie. No birds were chirping. No insects buzzing. The wind wasn’t even blowing, which was unusual for the coast. He walked toward the one open bay and called out. “Hello?”
He got no response.
Stepping into the shade of the work bay, Victor couldn’t help being impressed.
Lobster Cove Auto Body was obviously doing well.
The space was clean, not cluttered at all.
He supposed things could look a lot worse.
There could be dozens of rusted-out old cars sitting around the property, lowering everyone’s property values.
“Hello?” he called again, a little louder.
A sound around the back of a car in the last bay made the hair on the back of Victor’s neck stand up. Reluctantly and cautiously, he made his way toward the sound.
When he rounded the front bumper of the vehicle, he saw a man in a pair of blue overalls lying on the ground ... with a small puddle of blood around his head.
Quickly, Victor pulled his phone from his pocket and called 9-1-1. The man—Walt, if the name tag on his shirt was any indication—clearly needed more help than Victor knew how to give him.
“Nine-one-one, what’s your emergency?”
“I need help. I have a man down. Looks as if he was hit over the head with ...” Victor looked around and saw a tire iron lying on the floor not too far from Walt. “A tire iron. There’s blood everywhere.”
“What is your address?”
Victor gave it to the dispatcher.
“Is he breathing?”
“Yes. He’s moaning and in a lot of pain. I don’t know what to do!”
Victor hated feeling helpless. He’d felt this way when his wife died.
When his daughter was getting in trouble in high school and he couldn’t stop her destructive behavior.
When she’d called to let him know she was pregnant .
.. and then a few years later, when she called and begged him to let her move back home with her son.
Maybe that was why he was such an asshole. Because he couldn’t help the ones he loved the most. Because he’d let them down so badly. But he was who he was; he wasn’t going to change now.
The dispatcher walked him through some basic first aid, and the longer the young woman spoke, the calmer Victor became. Walt opened his eyes and stared up at him as he held a clean shop towel against the wound on his head.
“Evelyn,” he whispered.
“I called Chad. He’s on it,” Victor told him.
“Good . . .”
Then his eyes closed, and for a second, Victor thought he’d died. But his chest still rose and fell, and the relief Victor felt at seeing it was almost overwhelming.
Sirens in the distance were one of the best sounds Victor had ever heard.
He wanted to be done here. Wanted to be on his way, go to the store like he’d planned—twelve-year-old boys ate way more than he ever expected—and get back home.
He didn’t like when his world was upended, and he especially didn’t like to think about the Youngs as anything other than irritation.
He wasn’t ready to be friends with his neighbors ... but he couldn’t help but pray that Evelyn was all right. As well as the girl.