Chapter Five
A black Volkswagen Beetle trundled up the driveway. Roxanne frowned. “What is she doing here?” she asked.
The car stopped and Debra climbed out. She swept her long hair over her shoulder and assessed the home, a closed-mouth smile forming dimples in her cheeks.
“Are you two friends?” Dalton asked.
“No. We met at the coffee shop. But I don’t want to talk to her.” Had she come to ask about her sister again? Roxanne couldn’t help her. Worse, she didn’t want to help her.
Debra strode to the door and knocked.
“I’ll get rid of her,” Dalton said. Before Roxanne could object, he opened the door.
Debra took a step back, surprise transforming her face for a moment, making her look more vulnerable and older. But the sly expression soon returned. “What are you doing here?” she asked Dalton.
“What are you doing here?” he asked.
“I heard Roxanne was in an accident. I wanted to see how she’s doing. Is she in there?” She looked past him. “Hi, Roxanne. Are you okay?” And then she shoved a startled Dalton out of the way and came to stand in front of Roxanne. “I figure us newcomers to town need to stick together.”
“Thank you for your concern, but I’m fine,” Roxanne said.
“What happened? I noticed your car isn’t out front. Was it totaled? Were you hurt?”
Roxanne stepped back. “I don’t want to talk about it.
How did you find out where I live?” She had welcomed Dalton’s sudden appearance, but now that Debra was here, she was questioning her choice of new home.
True, Eagle Mountain was a small town, but she hadn’t realized it would be so easy for anyone at all to track her down.
“Oh, I overheard someone say you were in one of the tiny houses,” Debra said. “They weren’t hard to find.”
Roxanne felt sick, but tried to hide it. Debra moved farther into the house. She picked up a small ceramic vase from a table, examined it and put it down. “You have some nice things,” she said.
Roxanne said nothing. Dalton cleared his throat. “Was there something you wanted?” he asked.
Debra turned to face them. “I wanted to know about Roxanne’s accident,” she said. “What happened?”
“It’s over now,” she said. “It doesn’t matter.”
Debra pursed her lips and sighed. Roxanne half expected the other woman to scold her for not sharing the details of her ordeal. Instead, she said, “I’m afraid I have some bad news.”
Roxanne glanced at Dalton, who was frowning at Debra. “What is it?” she asked.
Debra’s gaze shifted to Dalton. “It would be better if I told you when we were alone.”
She didn’t want to be alone with this woman. She couldn’t even say why. Debra was annoying but harmless, surely. “Tell me now,” Roxanne said.
“It’s about Billy.” Another glance at Dalton.
Dalton moved closer to Roxanne. “What about Billy?” he asked.
Debra’s eyes widened. “You told him about Billy?”
“I never call him that,” Roxanne said. “But yes, he knows about William Ledger.” She rarely told anyone but revealing her past to Dalton had been surprisingly easy.
“Well, well. You two certainly have gotten close quickly.” Debra smirked—that really was the only way to describe the look.
Roxanne fought the urge to fidget. “What do you want to tell me?” she asked.
“They let him out of prison. Can you believe that? After what he did to you and Alice. And to Betty. Betty is my sister,” she told Dalton. “I’m sure Billy Ledger kidnapped and kept her before he took Alice and Mary. Even if Roxanne won’t admit to knowing anything about Betty.”
“I don’t know anything about her,” Roxanne said. “I wasn’t lying.”
Debra shrugged. “Anyway, Billy is old now. We’ve all moved on. Here’s hoping he has, too.”
“Why do you call him Billy?” Dalton asked.
“That’s what Mary and Alice called him,” Debra said. “I read that in the newspaper stories about the trial.”
Billy was the name Ledger had made them call him. A friendly name for a man who was not their friend.
“Anyway, I doubt you have anything to worry about,” Debra continued. “He’s not likely to find you, anyway, since you changed your name and moved around so much.”
“You found me,” Roxanne said.
Debra nodded. “I did. But I worked at it. You didn’t make it easy.
But I was able to find the record where you changed your name, and I have a friend who could look up driver’s license records for me.
Then I went to your last address and talked to people.
Someone there told me you were moving here.
” She shrugged. “I’m really good at talking to people.
And I’m smart and persistent. From everything I’ve read, Billy wasn’t all that bright.
Just mean. Dumb and mean. A nasty combination, for sure. ”
Roxanne shuddered.
Dalton’s arm was around her again, steadying her. “Thanks for stopping by,” he said. “Roxanne needs to rest now. Doctor’s orders.”
Anger flashed across Debra’s features but was quickly masked. “I hope you’re feeling better soon,” she said. “See you.”
Dalton walked Debra to the door. Roxanne followed more slowly. They stood together at the window and watched her get into her car and drive off. Only then did Roxanne turn away, hugging her arms across her stomach.
“What was that about Betty?” he asked. “Or would you rather not say?”
She liked that he always gave her the option of not talking.
“Debra cornered me in the coffee shop last week,” she said.
“She knew who I was. She knew about William Ledger—he insisted we call him Billy. I didn’t even know his last name until after he was arrested.
Anyway, Debra’s older sister disappeared when she was thirteen and the family thinks Ledger took her.
Debra wanted to know if I knew anything about that, but I don’t. ”
“Is it possible there were other children he kidnapped?” Dalton looked as if the idea pained him.
“Anything is possible. I was only with him for three months. If Debra could find Alice and talk to her, Alice might know something. She was with Ledger for three years.”
“What happened to her?” Dalton asked.
“I don’t know. Both of us were in the foster system, without families to worry about us.
I think Ledger targeted us because of that.
We went back into the system after we escaped.
I was lucky enough to end up in a good situation, with caring foster parents.
Not everyone is so lucky. And I never knew Alice’s real name.
The police and the attorneys made it a point to keep our identities secret.
So even if I had wanted to, I couldn’t look for her. ”
Not that she had tried that hard to find Alice.
“After the trial, I wanted to put everything having to do with those months behind me,” she said, “I wanted to forget.” Though, of course, she never could.
But she had worked hard to build another reality, one in which those three months with Ledger were only a small part of a much bigger, fuller life. For the most part, she had succeeded.
“That’s certainly understandable,” Dalton said.
“I really am tired now,” she said. “I think I need a nap.”
“Then I’ll leave,” he said. He pulled out a phone. “Let me text you so you’ll have my number.”
“All right.” She rattled off her number and moments later, her phone pinged with a message.
“Call me anytime,” he said. “I don’t have a brown belt in jujitsu but I can act intimidating when I have to. And I’m a good listener.”
“Thanks.”
She walked with him to the door and locked it behind him, then watched him drive away.
The warm feeling he had kindled in her lingered, comforting.
She liked Dalton. She felt closer to him that she had anyone in years.
But being with him felt dangerous. She had always been careful to not involve others in the ugly side of her life, yet here he was, ankle-deep and ready to wade in further.
After the last tour every afternoon, Dalton and Carter had to wash the Jeeps and get them ready for the next day’s tours.
After a brief lull at the beginning of September, business was picking up again as tourists signed on for drives through forests of golden aspen in the high country.
Tuesday afternoon, Dalton did the work methodically, his mind on what always occupied him these days: Roxanne.
Was she really safe by herself, so far from town?
Had William Ledger really been the man who ran her off the road? Where was he now?
A blast of cold water hit him in the back and he jolted upright. He whirled and scowled at Carter, who held the hose, water directed off to the side now. “Watch what you’re doing!” Dalton said.
“You’re the one who’s in la-la land today,” Carter answered. “You’re a thousand miles away. I asked you four times to hand me the window cleaner and you completely ignored me.”
Dalton shook his head and passed over the bottle of window cleaner. “I was just thinking, sorry.”
“Are you thinking up a new computer program?” Carter squirted fluid on the Jeep’s windshield, then attacked it with a cloth. “Imagining how you’ll spend your riches?”
Dalton began wiping down his Jeep with a chamois. “Not that.”
Carter stopped and stared, eyes wide in an exaggerated imitation of shock. “Don’t tell me it’s a woman!” He grinned. “Has the boy genius been struck dumb by Cupid’s arrow?”
“What are you blathering on about?” Dalton turned away.
“I’m just saying it’s about time. And I can relate.”
Dalton thought of Carter’s fiancée, teacher Mira Veronica. It was true that during the early days of their relationship, most of Carter’s attention had been focused on her. Maybe his brother did understand, at least a little.
“I met someone I’m interested in, but she’s not really ready for a relationship,” Dalton said.
“Is she on the rebound?” Carter asked. “Sick? Tell me she’s not married.”
“She isn’t any of those things.”
“Then what is it?”
She may be being pursued by her former kidnapper. But that wasn’t Dalton’s story to share. “It’s complicated and I don’t want to talk about it.”