Chapter 17
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Betsy flung her hand out to push the snooze button.
How could it be time to get up already? With all the police questions and the coroner’s removal of the body, she hadn’t made it home till after midnight.
Hadn’t crawled into bed till almost two.
She pounded the snooze button again. Why the heck wouldn’t the noise stop?
The noise stopped and was immediately replaced with the distant sound of her outgoing message on her answering machine.
Guess the noise had been her phone. She glanced at the dial on her clock.
Who the heck would be calling at five in the morning on a Sunday?
The phone on the nightstand rang anew just as the cell phone which she kept next to her pillow at night vibrated.
Without looking for caller ID, she flicked the cell phone on to speaker phone. “Leave me alone. I need some sleep.”
“So do I. Not gonna happen any time soon.”
“Cain?”
Betsy rolled to her back and stared at the ceiling. He sounded wide awake and agitated. As he’d said yesterday when she’d hung on his doorbell, this better be good. She wasn’t in the mood for any more of his questions. “What do you want?”
The phone on the nightstand stopped ringing.
“Throw some clothes on and meet me at your front door in five minutes.” A phone in Cain’s background rang and he answered. “I’ve got her on the cell. We’re on our way.”
She closed her eyes, tugging the blanket over her shoulders. On their way? She wasn’t going anywhere right now except back to sleep. “This will have to wait till later. Bye.”
Click.
She snuggled deeper into the covers. Her cell phone rang again…once more, she pushed the speaker phone button. “What? What do you want?”
“Don’t you dare hang up on me again, Betsy.” Cain barked the order loud and clear. “Every burglar alarm at your car lot is going off full blast. The police called me when you didn’t answer.”
Her feet hit the floor a second after her eyes popped open. Every nerve in her body was awake now. “Why would—”
“No time for questions. Just get dressed. I’ll pick you up in five minutes.
” A door slammed behind Cain’s voice. “I’m heading out now.
Wait inside. By the way, Crayton Police has already checked your security camera footage from yesterday.
A gold Honda Accord had pulled out of Peyton’s lot about a minute before you arrived. ”
Quick and to the point, she dressed, gargled, and zipped her jacket into place.
Grabbing a couple small bottles of orange juice from the fridge, she headed to the front door and stepped outside.
She set the alarm and pulled the door closed behind her.
This way she’d be ready to run to the end of the driveway as soon as she saw Cain’s truck lights round the corner.
She wrapped her coat tighter and shivered with the morning cold. The crisp air flared through her nose as the memory of another night flashed in her mind. Another time she’d stood on her front porch waiting.
Waiting for the police. Waiting for protection. Waiting to survive.
A cold tremble overtook her as she rubbed her gloved hand back and forth on her coat-covered forearm. Her breaths barrel-rolled out through her parted lips and into the cold, fogging the air around her face. At least she wasn’t in pain tonight.
The pine tree at the corner of the house creaked as a hunk of leftover snow from last week’s storm tumbled to the ground.
Where was Cain? He’d said five minutes. Her watch showed that was six minutes ago.
Of course, he’d also told her to stay inside, but she figured the sooner she ran to the truck, the sooner they’d get to Peyton’s.
She jumped at the sound of a thud against the side of the house. Then another thud closer to the front of the house. A footstep-like crunch shivered through the night along with more falling snow from the pine.
“Who’s there?” What a thing to ask. If someone was there, which they weren’t, would they have answered? Not likely.
She should have done what Cain said. Stayed inside. Kept the doors locked. But just like years ago, she’d run outside. That time she’d had no other option than to leave the house and hide in the dark.
A scrape of pine branches sounded against the siding. Strange. There wasn’t any wind. Why had it moved this time? Maybe someone was there after all. Did she stand a chance at unlocking the door? Getting back inside?
She glanced at her keys. At the lock. Where are you, Cain? Where are you?
A crisp, closer, crunchy step pulled her back to stay-alive mode. She clutched her keys in her palm, one key pointing outward between her fingers. Where was the mace? Where was the canister she always carried in her purse?
Her warm insides shivered. “I said, who’s there?”
Another crunch. And another. And…
The roar of a truck’s motor barreled down the street, coming in her direction. Cain? Please be Cain. She stumbled down the steps and ran to the curb, waving her arms in the glare of the headlights.
Reaching for the door handle before the truck even stopped, the jolt of her panic attack reached the crest and began a fast free fall back down.
She sucked in a breath as she climbed into the truck cab before glancing back at her front porch.
Counting to ten, she slowed each breath, then closed her eyes and focused on the dashboard.
Strange to think that even after being panic free for over a year, the stress of darkness and the danger happening at her car lot had triggered an attack.
Should she tell Cain what she’d heard? No, make that what she thought she’d heard.
Panic had got the best of her, but no one had been there. She was sure. Absolutely sure.
Nothing but memories of a night years ago. Memories she refused to let take hold of her life.
* * *
Cain felt his brow bunch as he spotted Betsy running to the curb.
She looked like a woman scared for her life.
He slammed on the brakes, but before he could jump from the truck cab, she flung the passenger door open and climbed inside.
Glancing back over her shoulder, she slammed the door closed, then popped the seatbelt in place.
“What’s wrong?” He braced his arm across the back of the seat, narrowing his focus to try and see whatever had her spooked.
“Nothing. Nothing’s wrong. I’m just cold.” She shook her head. “Let’s go.”
“I told you to stay inside.” Cain flicked the heat to high. Something told him she had been scared. Scared as hell. Of what? “You’re trembling.”
Shucking her gloves, she rubbed her palms back and forth in front of the vent. “You’re late.”
He pulled away from the curb with one final look over his shoulder.
She scrounged in her oversized purse and produced the two bottles of orange juice, opening his before handing it to him. “Why would all the alarms at Peyton’s be going off at once?”
Evading another explanation about information he’d withheld, he chugged the small bottle dry. He’d kept her in the dark this long, what was two more minutes.
“You’re ignoring me.” Swallowing the last drop of juice, Betsy stretched her neck, straining to catch the glow of Peyton’s lights above the Main Street business district.
Her place sat across the street from Davis Hardware, at the opposite end of town from Joanie’s Pizza, Pub and Pool Room.
Cain took the last turn on a dime, and the dealership lights came into full view along with an armada of local police and highway patrol cars.
He doubted this was normal procedure for an alarm call in Crayton, Missouri.
Something must have happened between the last time he talked to Deputy Evans and the time it took him to get here.
A cop waved them through the roadblock. Another stopped them at the lot’s perimeter.
“Why are there so many police cars?” Betsy unbuckled her seatbelt before the truck even stopped.
He didn’t answer because he didn’t know. And he didn’t plan to lie to her again.
She slid from the truck and ran toward Deputy Evans and Patrolman Kennett.
Cain stayed right beside her, his gaze scanning the lot.
The sight of flashing ambulance lights behind the service center didn’t bode well for everything still being status quo.
Betsy started in that direction, but the deputy grabbed her by the shoulder as he ended his call.
“Let me go. This is my business. I’ll go where I please.” She jerked to pull away.
Evans released his hold but stepped in front of her as Kennett angled to one side. Cain stepped up enough to pin her in on his side. He didn’t like the feel of the situation. Didn’t like putting Betsy in a box either.
“What’s up?” Cain cringed inside.
Betsy peered over the shoulders of the men. “Why the ambulance? Has someone been hurt?”
Deputy Evans clenched his jaw as he nodded. “Papa Carrington.”
Cain had spent the last few weeks getting to know the previous owner better on the few occasions the man came into the service center.
One day he’d said he liked having a place to go when he woke up early or couldn’t sleep.
The older man mentioned he liked to come in and piddle around, as he’d called it.
Could be Carrington might have stumbled and fell.
Injured himself on equipment. But from the lit-up version of the dealership’s lot, Cain figured that wasn’t the case.
“Let me see him. How bad is he hurt?” Betsy begged. “You know he’s not as steady on his feet as he used to be. Not as young. Now he’s gone and got hurt.” She sniffled, blinking back her emotions. “At least he had sense to pull the alarm.”
“There’s more to it than that. Evidently, Mr. Carrington walked in on someone who hadn’t counted on anyone else being there,” Evans said.
“Didn’t he know better than to walk through a cordoned-off crime scene?” Cain wondered aloud.
He hadn’t liked Deputy Evans telling him to stay behind earlier in the evening to protect Betsy, but in that case Cain had understood.
He wasn’t part of the Crayton Police Department.
He was just a consultant, he’d reminded himself.
Not the lead agent, investigator or whatever was needed.
He grumbled under his breath. Not being the lead would take getting used to. Or not.
But things had evidently been overlooked earlier. Carrington got hurt because Cain hadn’t spoken up. Well, his silence had ended. He would keep living his life the same way he always had. Up front and in your face when need be. “Well? Wasn’t there a patrol car watching the crime scene tonight?”
The deputy winced in a half nod, half shrug.
“We only taped off the back half of the car lot. Once we narrowed the trail of blood from the dumpster to the point of the attack, the patrol car parked around back, too. Besides, everybody in town knows Papa C doesn’t stop until after church on the Sundays.
” Evans glanced at Betsy. “And no one...”
“And no one called to tell him about last night because I said not to worry him.” Looking upward, Betsy puffed her cheeks in a self-blaming sigh. “Told you I’d talk to him this morning before church.”
Cain didn’t buy this one bit. “Still doesn’t explain why he wouldn’t have seen the yellow tape when he pulled around back to park his car. Why wouldn’t he have called you? Asked what’s going on?”
She sighed again, clearly frustrated with herself and his questions. “Because, Papa C doesn’t drive much in the dark any more. So most times when he has trouble sleeping, he calls an Uber to drop him off. Then one of us take him home later in the day.”
The howl of whooshing winter wind blew through the pathway of the cars and trucks and motorhomes lined up for sale.
Mid-Missouri in January and February could mean everything from freezing rain and snow to shorts weather and a warm breeze.
From the looks of this morning, the weather forecast for a light wintery mix might be right.
Betsy scrunched her shoulders against the cold as she pushed to get past the group, but the deputy stood his ground. “Let’s go inside where it’s warmer.”
Like a barricade against the enemy’s charge, Cain and the police didn’t give an inch to her demand. This might be her property, but his priority number one was keeping her safe.
“So, what have we got? A robbery?” Cain hoped for a simple explanation more than he hoped for a profit on the sale of his house. He doubted he’d get either any time soon.
Deputy Evans pulled his notepad from his pocket. “From what we’ve seen so far, robbery wasn’t the mission.”
The paramedics emerged from the service center building, pushing the stretcher toward the back of the ambulance.
Betsy slipped around the men and took off running in the direction of her injured father-in-law.
Cain figured there was no stopping her, so he followed in her footsteps to the other end of the lot, Deputy Evans close behind.
The paramedics slammed the ambulance door closed a moment before she got there.
“Open that door.” Betsy reached for the handle. “I need to talk to Papa C.”
“Ms. Peyton, we need to get him to the hospital.” The ambulance driver gently pushed her away from the vehicle, then jumped behind the wheel.
“Besides, he’s not even conscious. Lucky to be alive from the hit he took to the side of his head.
” The driver shifted into gear and sped away, sirens blaring.
Betsy pulled her cell from her pocket, then stared at it as if not knowing what to do.
“I’ll have the office call Uber to see if we can get a better idea of timeframes.” Evans stepped up beside her, blocking her path to the service center. “Now, there’s just a few questions I need to ask about the lot.”
Kennett walked in front of Cain, motioning toward the service center door. He followed the patrolman while the deputy kept Betsy busy with his unnecessary questions. Going to be a long day.