Chapter 9
Chapter Nine
D ark covered the sky blending to barely a thread of pink glow at the horizon. Soon, Connor would have to really concentrate on the road. He’d already seen elk and deer as he’d headed closer to the address Lacy had given him.
His brain, ever the taskmaster, created lists of things to remember when he reached town. He’d need to get gas right away so he could take Lacy wherever she might need to go without having to force her to stop and sit in his truck alone while he pumped gas. She’d also been sitting at the house all day alone, meaning he should bring some food.
A thump hitting the side of his truck pulled him from his mental list. He glanced in the rearview mirror, but there wasn’t anything in the road. Before he could slow to pull over, a loud rattling let him know he’d blown a tire. Not just a hole, he’d creamed it.
He pulled as far to the side as he could and turned on his emergency flashers. Hopefully, he could change the tire quickly and get back on the road. As it was, he would get there late. Now, he’d be even later. Lacy would worry.
Instead of jumping out, thinking he could power his way through, he called her.
“Hey,” she said, her voice calmer now.
“Hey, sorry I’m not there. I’ve been going as fast as I can, but I just hit a rock or something and I have to change a tire.”
“In the dark?” Her voice pitched higher.
“Yeah. Won’t be the first time and probably not the last. I wanted to let you know that I’m going to take a little longer than expected.”
“Okay, take care. I don’t want you to get hurt because of me.”
Was that a touch of resignation in her tone? “If I get hurt it’s not because of you. It’s because some fool decided it was okay to treat his wife like garbage. It’s not okay. Never okay.”
“Thank you, Connor.”
He wasn’t sure why she was thanking him, but he’d leave it at that. “I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
“I know,” she answered quietly. “I’ll be here but the door will be locked.”
“Good. Keep it that way.” He said his goodbye and hung up then turned on the flashlight on his phone.
Seeing the tire was a little shocking. He’d only seen tires do that when they were bald. His had been fairly new, but the tread had turn to confetti. There was no saving it. He’d worried that was the case when he heard the noise, but seeing was believing.
The spare was full sized because he didn’t believe in weak spare tires. After managing to get it out from the undercarriage, he got the truck jacked up and removed the flat tire. Behind him, something rustled in the brush.
His fingers were only just starting to get cool. New Mexico’s version of cold took longer to hit him than a person native to the area since Wyoming was so much colder that time of year. He took the flashlight and swept the area behind him. Even knowing the sound was probably an animal didn’t give much reassurance. New Mexico had bears in the northern areas.
He moved slowly, taking his time to look over the ground and deciding if each scrub bush and weedy area was safe. When he found nothing, he turned back to the tire. The longer he was out there, the more likely that something he didn’t want to deal with would come up behind him.
One of the lug nuts dropped into the dirt at his feet and he fought back the urge to curse. He hadn’t done that in years. Why was he suddenly dealing with all these things he’d overcome as a young adult?
Carefully, he stepped back once and glanced around by his feet. The nut had landed and rolled just slightly under the truck. While he trusted his jack to hold up the truck, he didn’t like the idea of reaching under it while it was up. He finished putting the other nuts on loosely, then lowered the truck to the ground before reaching for the one that had fallen.
As he did so, he heard a grunt behind him that sounded very bear-like. Then came the curious snuffling sound. He quickly turned the lug nut and tightened each one, tossed the wrench in the floor of the pickup and, instead of going around, he climbed in from that side. He was safer inside the pickup than out of it.
The bear made its way onto the road right in front of his truck and stood up in the beams of the headlights, then swiped its paws in front of its face like the glow hurt his eyes. He had no idea if the bear was a boar or sow, but that didn’t matter if it decided to climb on his truck.
He waited, watching what the bear might do. He didn’t want to try to drive around it and risk having the bear get hurt or swipe at his truck. “Come on, bear, keep going,” he muttered as he turned on the engine.
The noise made the bear fall back onto all fours then it moseyed across the road and down the other ditch. Connor took a second to breathe, then pulled back out onto the road. He’d heard rumors that the highway patrol in New Mexico was known for giving tickets to anyone going even a hair over the speed limit, but out on deserted roads, he felt safe pushing his truck faster than normal.
The GPS on his phone said he had another thirty-five minutes to go. He felt a heaviness on his shoulders. “Lord, I know that’s my cue to pray. Whatever the reason, I give it to You. If it’s Lacy, since I was thinking about her, I pray that You protect her and give me the strength to protect her once I get there.”
He pushed the accelerator a little harder and watched the road ahead, hoping he didn’t encounter any more wildlife. The faster he could get there, the better. His need to see Lacy and make sure she was alright was no longer quenched by just hearing her voice. He wanted to hold her close. He needed to feel her arms around his waist and her head resting against his chest.
The minutes dragged by until he made it to town, drove quickly through a drive through and headed for the address she’d given him. He pulled off the road and stared at an old Oldsmobile parked in the driveway. Lacy didn’t drive a car like that so who was with Lacy, and did she realize she wasn’t alone?
He flung open his door and quickly closed it, reaching for his gun that almost never left his side. He made it halfway up the walk before Lacy whipped open the door and raced toward him. He’d barely holstered his gun before she jumped into his arms.
He held her tight, relishing the feel of her. Even though they’d been friends for a long time, this part of their relationship had been missing since the divorce. She’d kissed him on the temple a few times when he’d healed in the hospital, but nothing like this.
He never wanted to let her go. At least, until he saw the man standing in the door that she’d left open.
Lacy felt tension coil in Connor. He gripped her tighter for a moment as he lifted her off her feet and settled her back down behind him, shielding her from the door. In a split-second, he released her and whipped around.
“Who are you?”
Randy quickly put his hands up. “I’m Randy. My dad owns this house. I’ve been trying to help Lacy keep watch for you. I didn’t want to leave her all alone. Don’t shoot me, man.”
Connor hesitated for a moment and Lacy gripped his arm, tugging it down. “He’s okay. He’s helped me a few times. Randy told me he feels terrible about what happened to Melinda. I need to get her back.” She let all her thoughts pour out now that she had someone near her who felt completely safe.
“Get her back? That’s not our job, hun. We need to gather all your stuff, report this to the police if you haven’t yet, and go home.”
“I’m not leaving her, Connor.” She’d been praying for Melinda all afternoon. Hopefully, Tod hadn’t done anything permanent. He’d wanted to get rid of Melinda pretty soon though and now that Lacy was here, he had to act quickly or risk losing his chance.
“Lacy, you know better than that. This is for the police.” This needed to go inside before they woke up neighbors and people started talking. He put his arm around Lacy and led her to the door.
Randy moved back out of the way and headed to the nearest recliner. He plopped down on it and flipped the footrest up. “So, what are we going to do?”
“Nothing,” Connor said as he watched Lacy take a seat.
“Connor, you can’t say that. You wouldn’t let this slide if she was one of our guests. This would eat at you until you went after her. You know you would.” Connor had to do something. If he’d simply come to whisk her away to safety, then he could turn around and go back. That wasn’t what she needed.
Lacy sat next to Connor on the sofa, and he handed her a bag from a takeout taco place.
“I’m also really good friends with the police force near Wayside. This is totally different. I don’t have any right to get involved here. If I go to jail because I’ve gone vigilante, what good does that do for Melinda?”
He had a point, but she couldn’t ignore the fact that the police were doing nothing to save her friend’s life. “He’ll kill her. Then he plans to make it look like self-defense. He’s already made it look like she has been the attacker all this time.” Why wasn’t he even trying to understand?
He rested his large hand over hers. “It’s not that I don’t believe you. I do. I’m just not sure what I can do besides save her from impending harm. If we take her physically from his house, that’s kidnapping. He could claim that we took her against her will.”
“I’m just asking for you to take me over there. He might listen to you. He treats me as less than dirt, but maybe he’ll listen to you.” She suspected he thought more of men than women, not only based on how he treated her and his wife, but even how he’d treated the female officers according to Melinda.
“We can try tomorrow morning. Eat now and we’ll talk about what we can do. Have you heard from her at all?” Connor asked.
“No. But last time she contacted me, she thought she’d deleted the information from her phone, but he still knew. Contacting me was a risk. I doubt he’ll let her anywhere near a phone now. I don’t know that we have until tomorrow.” She couldn’t even look in the bag of food, no matter how hungry she’d been a half hour before.
Connor looked over at Randy. “What’s your plan?”
He shrugged. “I’m usually at work now, but I can’t because the hotel is closed until they can clean up the water. Cal, my boss, sent me a text a few hours ago that said he’d been to look at the damage and it would probably take 48 hours once they got the right clean-up team to come. That could take a week. He’s really angry. He told me Tod claimed he didn’t trip the alarm, so now he wants an investigation into who pulled it.”
Lacy set the bag aside. “I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have asked for your help, but I was so terrified he would get through that door. I didn’t have any way to protect either of us.”
Connor frowned as he looked at her. “Might be time for you to start carrying again.”
Her insides squeezed at the thought. “I have my pistol with me. Maybe I would have the nerve if I had to act. I don’t know. I don’t want to be in that position. The only time I’ve come close is when Viceroy’s team attacked Wayside. Even then, I spent most of my time herding people to safety. I let the guys do the defense.”
He clasped her hand. “I would rather that you have something between you and someone wanting to harm you. It’s one thing to wish you had protection, but you don’t have it and another to choose not to use it because you can’t. Having a choice in that situation makes a difference.”
He wanted her to be able to protect herself so that in case he wasn’t there, she was still covered. “I couldn’t have used it at the hotel, even though I had it. There was a room right across the hall from me and one on either side. There would be no safe way to protect myself that wouldn’t put others in grave danger.”
“You make a good point.” Randy looked at Connor as if to ask permission to speak.
Connor nodded and Randy continued. “In this case, Tod and his brother are narcissists. They would assume Lacy and Melinda don’t know how to use a gun well enough to protect themselves, meaning they would have no fear of the gun. So, that would put Lacy in the position of being more likely to have to shoot than in a normal situation.”
Lacy chuckled. “I thought you were going into computer programing, not psychology, but that was pretty perceptive.”
He snorted. “Thanks. I’m pretty familiar with narcissists, unfortunately. I know their M.O. and Tod is spiraling because he knows he’s losing control of the situation. We need to get her out of there.”
“So you agree with Lacy?” Connor asked.
She hoped that didn’t pit Connor against Randy. She’d been worried Randy’s presence would be a burr in Connor’s skin. Just the fact that he was a man helping Lacy was enough to make him want to send Randy away, but siding with Lacy would probably tip the scale.
“I do. But I know the situation better than either of you because I’ve seen and heard what Tod says. He and his brother come to the hotel late at night and sit in the lobby to talk. They never realize how loud they are because they’re drunk or don’t care. Tod has never come right out and said he wants to kill Melinda, but he’s said enough that I knew she was in danger. Not just from him, but from his brother.”
Lacy felt a chill run down her arms. The stakes had just doubled. She’d assumed the only real danger was Tod, but if his brother was as connected to Melinda, they had more to worry about. “Does he own other properties? Or, what is the connection?” Those places were possibilities for either of them to take Melinda that they might think would be safe from Lacy.
“Yeah, he’s kind of a real estate king in the area. He’s buys up homes and turns some of them into rentals. Some of them are flipped if he has the money to hire people to fix them. He owns probably forty percent of the rental property in the city, which is how he knows my dad. My dad owns about three.” Randy took a deep breath. “Working for him is really good for me. His wages are good. That’s how I’m able to pay for school. I might not like or agree with the guy, but my bank account likes him.”
“If there are that many, then there’s no way we could look at them all. This might be a small town, but there are a lot more than a hundred homes, which means there are more than forty properties,” Connor said.
“I hadn’t considered that.” Lacy suddenly felt like a failure. She’d come all this way to help her friend, and she’d failed.
“Lacy is still in danger. Tod threatened her.” Randy stared at Connor, and it felt to Lacy like a challenge.
No one stood up to Connor in her life, except her. She was the only one who routinely stepped on the poor man’s toes, and she suspected it was because he let her.
“And if I take her back home, she won’t be in danger anymore,” Connor answered. “But I see your point. I may not care deeply for Melinda like I do for Lacy, but I can’t let her die just because I want to protect my wife.”
His wife. The word warmed something deep inside her. He hadn’t called her that in a long time.
“Don’t ask me to say sorry for that. I can’t do it and be honest,” He looked her directly in the eyes.
Her chest felt full. “I didn’t ask you to.” She kept her voice as strong as she could.
Connor waited for her to say more. When she didn’t, he continued. “Okay. I see where you’re coming from. We’ll talk about what we can do, but let’s eat first. Deal?”
She couldn’t help the grin that spread over her face. “Deal. Thank you, Connor.”
“Don’t thank me yet. The hardest part is yet to come.”