Chapter 6
Chapter Six
C onnor read the email for a third time to make sure he hadn’t missed anything, then he entered the address of the hotel into Google to see how far away Lacy really was. Hours. He’d have to drive hours to help her if she found herself in a terrible situation and she wasn’t close to any airports.
Part of him wanted to race off and be there at her side even without her asking him to. What would it hurt to be there? Then again, she’d indicated that her friend was in an abusive relationship. Having him around might make Melinda feel stressed and she’d be stressed enough.
Edwyn came in and laid a few printed pages on his desk. “That’s the report on the land you asked me to do. Taxes will go up this year because of the acquisition of the Homestead. In the spring, we’ll be able to check the fences over there, what’s left of them.”
His dad had been a cattle man up until Connor had wanted to start Wayside as a place for healing. Dad had gone along with it, but he’d always missed seeing the cows grazing and going to auctions. That was part of Connor’s childhood that he couldn’t get back as long as Wayside had the purpose it did.
“And will there be room for cattle?” Connor glanced at the pages, only skimming quickly over the numbers.
“Yes. Not the size herd your father had. It’s a smaller place. Probably closer to a farm than a ranch. Most of the buildings were burned down in the fire, but I got the impression they did more farming than husbandry.” Edwyn frowned. “Nadine was up late into the night, worried about Viceroy. She’s not a worrier. What can we do to take some of this stress off her plate?”
“I knew she’d be worried since she offered to testify against him. She might even be in danger. We’re keeping an eye on our perimeter.” He was concerned with everyone’s safety, but Lacy was his top priority.
“Any other news from the jail?” Edwyn pushed further back in his chair.
“No, it’s been quiet for the last twenty-four hours. But if they hoped to have the element of surprise, that makes sense. Security will be higher for a little while until they let it go back to normal.”
“I know, but they don’t have much time. What about the others who were arrested?”
There were many underlings arrested over the last year in connection with Viceroy. All but his wife Ramona were now dead. That left the list of people able to testify against him perilously small. That also meant those who could testify were in grave danger.
“There’s only Ramona and she has refused to testify. They even got to Evie. They found her hanging in her cell from a cord made of her jumpsuit.”
Edwyn’s brow rose. “And let me guess, the security cameras went down right before it happened?”
Connor couldn’t laugh, that was too morbid, but Edwyn was right. “It didn’t come back on until ten minutes after they found her. Are you shocked?”
Edwyn relaxed his face until it was completely emotionless. “This is my shocked face.”
Finally, Connor laughed. “Look, if you need to take Nadine and go somewhere she feels protected, then you should. It could be somewhere other than here, it’s fine. I get it. We’ll manage. Dad can come back and work security for a little while. Moira might want to get out, too. Her son didn’t want to testify about what happened to him, but if he changed his mind, he could be in danger. They might consider him a danger anyway. Evie had sworn to silence. She hardly spoke to anyone, and they still got to her.”
“It makes me wonder if they were trying to rescue him or kill him. What if he wasn’t the top dog?” Edwyn took a deep breath. “Maybe I’m just worried this will never be over, but I can’t help thinking this is a demon with more than one head.”
“You could be right. If he knows names above him, his life is in danger. I guess I just always thought of him at the top because that’s what Scarlet said, and she was in the inner circle. But she was also little more than a slave to him. Why would he tell her that he was less than the best?”
“He wouldn’t. He had no reason to. Just like Kelly thought Nathen was at the top, but it turned out he was barely a lacky. She wasn’t in a position to know any more.” Edwyn hung his head. “Do you ever get the feeling like there’s too much evil? Like we’ll never be able to do enough to combat it? Nadine doesn’t want to ever have children after what she’s seen. Why bring children into a dark world?”
After divorcing Lacy, that was one thing he could speak on. He wished he’d been able to have a child. That had been a dream of hers and he’d taken that from her because of his own fears. “Children bring light. They are accepting and easily believe in things that are good. Less children means more darkness. That said, I wouldn’t want her to become pregnant when she doesn’t want to be.”
“I’ll have to settle for her cat for now.” Edwyn laughed. “Maybe after the trial she’ll feel safe again.” He paused for a moment and tilted his head in thought. “I think she’ll want to stay here because she likes to do battle from a security point of view, but I’ll let you know if she changes her mind.”
“Sounds good.” He glanced at his phone and felt a pang of disappointment when there wasn’t another message from Lacy.
“When is she coming back?”
Connor laid down his phone. “Who?”
Edwyn snorted. “Lacy. Who else would have you so distracted that you would look at your phone during a meeting?”
“Sorry. She’s found herself in a situation. She says she can handle it and has promised that she’ll let me know if she needs my help, but that doesn’t stop me from worrying. Especially when she’s so far away. I can’t just drop everything and get to her within an hour.”
“That’s a tough spot to be in. You’re needed in two places. Wayside only ran well while you were in the hospital so long because Lacy checked in daily by phone.”
“And you were and are a good foreman that I can trust.” He’d already thanked Edwyn for doing that job.
“Except we both know that my main interest is in the animals. I don’t have the same intuition you have with people. I almost lost Kelly when she came. She still shies away from me. I guess what I’m saying is, Lacy will be back. We need you here. There’s a full roster of guests right now, meaning you can’t up and leave.”
“I may need to.”
“Is Ferd ready to do your job?” Edwyn looked him straight in the eyes. “Because she seemed mighty convinced she couldn’t even do Lacy’s.”
“No, not even close.”
“Might be time to make sure she does. Like I said, we’re full with guests and now Viceroy’s team is active either trying to get him loose or kill him. Those two things are enough to make more work than you could normally handle. Add distraction in and we’re in trouble.”
“I won’t let this distract me.”
“You already did.” Edwyn pointed at his hand.
Even though he’d already assured himself that there were no other messages, he had already picked up his phone again without consciously thinking about it.
“I . . .”
“You’ve got it bad.” Edwyn laughed.
“I have for years. That won’t help me right now. I know Dad is still recovering, but I’ll have to make sure he can take over at a moment’s notice. I can’t leave Lacy there if she needs me.”
Edwyn stood. “Sounds like you’ve made your decision. I just hope it doesn’t come back to bite you.” He left the office.
His phone lay on the desk, but he hadn’t released it yet. Even though he usually didn’t use his phone, today, he didn’t want to get too far away from it. Edwyn was right, he had to make sure everything was in order in case he had to leave. He didn’t want to get held up having to make those arrangements at the last minute.
He picked up his desk phone and called his dad.
“Morning,” Dad said as soon as he picked up.
“How are you feeling?” Connor asked, getting right to the matter.
“Finer than frog hair. I figured you’d be calling. I’ll be over there in a half hour.”
The room phone rang as Melinda pulled her chair out to eat the continental breakfast Lacy had brought to the room. Lacy hesitated for a moment before picking it up. “Hello?”
“Where is she?” a growly voice came over the line.
“Who?” She hadn’t said her name, and she wasn’t going to give away their location so easily, though whoever was on the line had to know the hotel name.
“My wife. Melinda. The one you kidnapped yesterday. I’ve already called the police.”
Her mind tried to work fast. How had he found them? “Your wife is an adult. She can leave whenever she chooses to. The police already knew where she was because we filed a report yesterday.”
“You did what?” he yelled. “Melinda has no business going into the police station. They all think she’s a lunatic there anyway. You couldn’t do anything to me.” His topics bounced around faster than a rubber ball.
“We filed a report. Against you. For all the bruises and for jumping on my car. You threatened me. I needed to make sure the police knew what you said and did.”
“It doesn’t matter. One report isn’t going to cover months of reports from me.”
“You can leave her alone now. She’s gone, not your concern anymore.” Though the longer she talked to him, the less she believed that.
“You think you know everything, but you don’t. She is my wife. Until we’re divorced, she will always be tied to me, and I won’t grant a divorce.”
“Why not? It’s not like you love each other.” Frustration made her say what she hadn’t wanted to.
“How do you know? You came out of nowhere and claimed to have all the answers for Melinda. I’ve cared for her for years. Where were you when she was grieving for her miscarriages? Where were you when her local friends walked away? You weren’t here. No one was except me.”
Melinda hung her head, and Lacy knew she could hear all that was being said. She headed for the other side of the room. “I don’t live here in town.”
He snorted. “I’m aware. I did some digging last night by looking up the area where Melinda came from. It didn’t take long to find you in an old church registry, Lacy Kincade.”
Somehow, having him know her name made the situation more terrifying.
“Oh, you’re speechless? That’s interesting.”
Someone knocked on the door. “Knock, knock. Is anyone home.”
Melinda burst into tears and slid down her chair and under the table. Lacy hung up the phone and quickly slammed the deadbolt home. She had relied on the door lock when she’d come back from gathering breakfast. The hotel had felt safe, far away from Tod and the police. Now, she wished the police were closer.
“Go away. You’re not welcome here,” she yelled out the door, hoping it would disturb someone nearby.
“Call the front desk,” Melinda whispered. “They’ll come.”
She wasn’t sure that was the best idea. If she were the one sitting at the desk, would she want to face an angry man? They probably didn’t get paid enough to deal with dangerous situations.
“Do you really want to make him angrier?” Lacy headed for the bathroom and grabbed a washcloth to thread through the loop lock at the top of the door.
“Open the door.” He banged on the other side.
Lacy bit her lip and looked at the phone. She called the police first and told them what was going on, that they were barricaded in the hotel room, trying to keep Tod out. Then, she called the front desk.
The voice from that morning answered, “How can I help you?”
“This is Lacy in room 310. There’s a man pounding on our door and telling us to open up. We don’t want him in here.”
The man went silent for a moment. “Is this part of the bad day you talked about this morning? The one that made you scared of me?”
He wasn’t going to help her, was he? The dread seeped into her shoulders as Tod pounded on the door again.
Someone in a nearby room yelled, “Quiet down, it’s six in the morning!”
“Shut up! This doesn’t concern you!” Tod sounded like he was leaning against the door.
“Please,” Lacy whispered into the phone. “I’ve already called the police. They’re on their way. Just tell them the room number.”
He banged on the door again.
“I’m going to pound this door down if you don’t come out of there.” His voice had gone quiet and steady. Somehow, that was even more threatening.
Lacy lowered herself to the floor where Melinda sat with her knees curled up to her chest. She’d wrapped her arms around her legs in a protective shell. “Melinda? You okay? He can’t get in here. We’ll be okay.”
A wire fished under the door, bobbing toward the door handle. Lacy crawled toward it. “Oh no you will not,” she whispered and yanked on the thin wire with a loop on the end.
She heard something hit the door on the other side and a grunt of pain. He jerked the wire from her hands. “Are you still there?” she asked the man at the front desk.
“Yes, I’m trying to get a hold of the police to see when they’ll be here. It’s a small station and they don’t always know when they can come.” She heard him tapping on the computer.
“Thank you, I hope they hurry.”
She heard him hang up another phone. “Hold on for just a minute, okay? I mean it. Don’t open the door. Stay by the window. If he tries to get in again, just stay back.”
She wasn’t sure what he had planned but she hung up the phone and gathered Melinda from under the table.
“How is standing over here going to save us? I don’t understand.” Melinda hung so tightly to Lacy’s hand that it reminded her of when Connor was in the hospital, fighting for his life, fighting to hold onto her.
“I don’t know. I just do what I’m told.”
A moment later, the fire alarm went off and the sound of water hitting the walls filled the room. Tod screamed on the other side of the door. Lacy waited, sure that a little water wasn’t going to stop him. Then the sound of the fire trucks blasted.
A light knock on their door came and the man from the front desk’s calm voice said, “You can come out now. He’s gone.”
Lacy rushed to the door and opened it. The man who’d scared her so badly just a few hours before now stood in the hall with an umbrella. He grinned. “My boss is going to flip when he finds out his brother pulled the fire alarm.”
“Oh, no.” Had he gotten himself fired and caused so much damage for them?
Melinda rested a hand on Lacy’s shoulder. “He means Tod, his brother owns this hotel. I was sure when he came to the door that he would have a master key card and be able to get into any room. I figured, as soon as we heard him, I was done for. Since the room was in your name and there’s nowhere else to go, I might be okay.”
The water stopped spraying and ran in rivulets down the wall. The man from the front desk closed his umbrella and shook it off. “He does and he would have except I had an eye on the cameras, and I kept switching the code to your room as he would try to use his card. Then he tried brute force. I know him. I knows he’s a rotten drunk and I knew you were in this room.” He nodded toward Lacy.
“Thank you for not holding my rudeness against me. I don’t know what we would’ve done.”
“You would’ve only had seconds to prepare. The lock makes that click sound as it disengages. That would’ve been your only warning. So, where are you both going now? They’ll have to clear out this hotel until they can figure out what caused the fire alarm to go off. It’ll take a few days to do the water cleanup too.”
Lacy looked at Melinda since she was from the area. “How in the world did I manage to pick a hotel owned by your husband’s brother?” If she’d known, she would’ve chosen another one.
“If you want to avoid hotels and stay off grid, so to speak, my dad owns one of those houses that he rents out by the day. It’s an Air BnB or something.”
Lacy got excited for a few seconds, then reality hit. “It’s the week before Christmas, there is no way his house isn’t rented out. I don’t know where we’re going to stay. I would take you home with me if it weren’t out of state.”
“Let me call my dad. Oh, I’m Randy, by the way. Nice to meet you.”
Lacy looked outside the room at the grumbling hotel patrons rushing to the empty front desk to check out after the fire alarm. The morning would’ve been so much worse if she hadn’t gone through a few minutes of discomfort to meet Randy. “I’m Lacy, and it’s nice to meet you, too.”