Hazardous Homecoming Read online

  Ruby brushed off her jeans. “You’re sure...” She stopped the question as it emerged.

  “That Peter wasn’t the one who snatched her?” She nodded, looking at him. “It wasn’t Peter.”

  “How can you be certain?”

  “I just am. My father’s never believed Peter was guilty either. Peter’s a good man, and he was destroyed by what happened. He’s rebuilding his life now and I’m happy he’s getting a second chance. When we find out all the pieces to the story, Peter is finally going to be able to stand up and show this town how wrong they were about him.”

  Ruby knew in Heather’s mind the Hudsons topped the list of people who distrusted Peter. “My dad investigated and handed the facts over to the police. There was not enough evidence to charge Peter with a crime. We weren’t out to get him.”

  “Yet he was still hanged in the court of public opinion.” She jerked her chin. “Even you. For all your careful words and apparent open-mindedness, you believe he’s guilty, deep down, don’t you?”

  Ruby found herself momentarily speechless. What did she think? Who should she believe?

  Heather smiled. “That’s what I thought. I’m going to go finish my lunch date with Peter before he has to go back to work.” She paused. “You know Alice’s abductor wasn’t a stranger. It was someone in this town who everybody knows, maybe even respects. Someone living right out in the open as if they have nothing to hide.”

  Something cold slithered down Ruby’s spine. “Who do you think it is then, if Peter is innocent?”

  Heather shrugged. “That’s what I’m going to find out.”

  Ruby watched her go, shoulders straight, chin thrust out.

  Heather Bradford would not stop until the truth was revealed.

  Every last bit of it.

  ELEVEN

  A half hour later Cooper drove them to a grocery store where Ruby purchased a dozen carnations. He took the road to the hospital, trying to fight off the heavy weight on his heart. He’d distrusted his brother. Again. Only this time Peter was on track, sober and doing all the right things.

  “Do you want to talk about it?” Ruby offered in a soft voice.

  “Not much to say.” Fatigue weighed down every part of him, and his ribs throbbed a maddening tempo. “I can’t seem to allow myself to believe in him, and I’m the one guy in the world who should.”

  “He’s given you reasons to doubt.”

  “Yeah, he has. Once he had me convinced he was working a job in an airport café. Even had the uniform and everything.”

  “It wasn’t the truth?”

  “No. He got fired after two days, but he knew I’d kick him out of my place if I found out he’d been drinking again.” He blew out a breath. “It hurts him that I expect him to fail, and I don’t want to be that way, but the doubt always creeps back in.”

  She put a hand on his shoulder. He was grateful for the gesture and for the fact that she did not say anything. The touch was enough until she voiced the next question.

  “When did he start drinking?”

  Cooper slowed to allow a motorcycle to pass, an old Softail that reminded him of the banged-up model whose engine his brother had spent summers unsuccessfully trying to coax life back into.

  “Flirted with it as a teen, after my dad died. Mom punished him, had Sheriff Pickford talk to him, all that. Seemed to scare him straight for a while. Then after Alice...well, his drinking got out of control.”

  “Could you trust him back then?”

  It suddenly became clear where her mind had gone. Stupid he hadn’t seen it sooner. He’d been too distracted by the comfort he gleaned from her physical presence. He pressed the accelerator. “Ruby, Peter lied about his drinking, not about what happened to Alice. He doesn’t know. He didn’t do it.”

  She looked away and it was as if he could hear her thoughts. How can you trust a liar? His reaction today behind the restaurant had shown him he didn’t, not about the drinking. Did his love for Peter blind him to other lies? Bigger lies? You know your brother, Coop. Ruby doesn’t. At least now he could understand where she was coming from. She had her own doubts and family secrets to contend with.

  He breathed a prayer for wisdom to navigate the troubles he knew were just ahead and finished the drive faster than he should have.

  Ten minutes later as they checked in at the lobby, he found himself asking in spite of the turmoil in his gut. “Do you want me to go with you to see Josephine?”

  “No,” she said, before blurting out, “yes.” Her cheeks pinked. “Sorry. I’m not usually so flaky.”

  “No sweat. These are some strange times.” Strange indeed, that he should somehow be happy about spending more time with Ruby, even under such harrowing circumstances. They rode up in the elevator, the pink blooms shaking in Ruby’s hand. He marveled at her courage. As a kid he’d always thought courage was something heroes possessed, an absence of fear. He’d come to realize courage wasn’t the absence of fear, it was acting anyway in spite of it, braving the hardships of this world knowing that there was a loving God in charge of it all.

  What kind of courage did it take for this woman to face the unstable mother of her lost friend, knowing there would soon be no hope left to shelter Josephine from the terrible truth they’d found in the cave?

  He held the door open and followed her in. Josephine was asleep, long silver hair fanned out on the pillow. Ruby slid the flowers onto the bedside table next to another vase holding a trio of yellow roses. “Alice would have wanted you to have these,” she whispered.

  Cooper squeezed Ruby’s hand as Josephine’s eyes fluttered open.

  “You came back,” she croaked. “Come here where I can see you.”

  Ruby bent over the bed. “Hello, Mrs. Walker. How are you feeling?”

  Josephine smiled. “Fine, just fine, baby. I’ve been waiting for you for so long.”

  Ruby shot him a horrified look.

  Cooper’s stomach contorted. “Mrs. Walker, it’s Ruby Hudson and Cooper Stokes. We stopped by to wish you a speedy recovery.”

  Josephine appeared not to hear, staring at Ruby.

  “So glad you’re here,” she whispered. “So glad, baby. I’m sorry for all the things I did. You forgive me, don’t you? Say you forgive me.”

  “Mrs. Walker.” Ruby leaned closer. “I’m Ruby.”

  Josephine cocked her head, peering closely. She reached up to finger a section of Ruby’s hair. “Soft. You brushed a hundred times like I taught you. It shines in the light. Didn’t I always say that, Alice? One hundred times.”

  Ruby whispered. “I’m Ruby.”

  Josephine clutched Ruby’s hand, kneading the fingers in her own. “I was a good mother, most of the time. Good. Wasn’t I?”

  Ruby gasped. “Josephine, I’m so sorry, but I’m not Alice.”

  Josephine kissed Ruby’s fingertips. “Never mind, honey. I left it in the hiding place, like I told him. You remember?”

  “Him?” Ruby said.

  “What did you leave, Mrs. Walker?”

  “The locket. Your locket,” Josephine whispered, bright eyes fixed on Ruby. “It’s in the hiding place in the hollow. The one you showed me and Daddy. That’s where I put the locket to keep it safe until Daddy comes back. I didn’t want that girl taking it away from you again. Shouldn’t be too long now.”

  Ruby stared at Cooper.

  He reached in to free Ruby from Josephine’s tight grasp as a nurse came in. “I’ve got to help Mrs. Walker tidy up. Would you mind stepping out?”

  “We were leaving anyway,” Cooper said. He pulled Ruby into the circle of his arm, felt her shivering against him, guiding her out the door into the quiet hallway.

  “Come back soon, baby,” Josephine called. “You’ve been away too long.”

 
Ruby was breathing in little pants. “She thought I was Alice, and she thinks she’s been talking to a man.”

  His own breathing was a little unsteady. “Lester hasn’t shown up at the hospital. Maybe she’s dreamed that she’s been talking to him? Probably her medications. The confusion will clear up.” Hollow words. How could knowing Alice’s body had been found help Josephine face reality?

  “Why did she keep saying she was sorry?”

  He had no answer. “Do you know where this secret hiding place is she’s talking about?”

  Ruby closed her eyes in thought. “There was one place in the woods, the remnants of a mill where we used to play. Dad took us and let us poke around when he did surveys up there years ago. We pretended it was an old pirate ship and we found a place for our booty. It wasn’t much of a secret hiding place, because I’m sure we told everyone about it. I think we even showed my Dad and Lester Walker one time.” She gasped. “Could Josephine have put the locket there to keep it safe?”

  “Let’s go find out.” They hastened to the elevator and Cooper stabbed the button. “Should we call Pickford?”

  Ruby frowned. “I want to check it out ourselves first. He’s got his hands full right now.”

  He certainly did. Soon Pickford was going to make his own visit to Josephine’s hospital room and he would not be bringing flowers, just some news that would be the cruelest words a parent could ever hear.

  * * *

  In any other circumstance, Ruby would have hiked to the old mill, perhaps made a day of it even, journaling about the birds she saw on the way. This time, she opted for the easier route. Rounding up some loppers and leather gloves, she placed them into the back of Cooper’s double cab pickup.

  “Why do I feel like Indiana Jones?” Cooper said with a smile.

  “The sanctuary has no snakes or angry natives, that I know of.”

  “Except Lester Walker. He might turn up again.”

  She steeled her spine against a shiver. “If he does, I’m prepared this time.” She patted the loppers.

  Cooper laughed. “He could probably use a little pruning.”

  The easiness between them was a balm. What was there about Cooper that he was able to make her remember that she really did have a sense of humor buried down deep? Since she’d found the locket, there had been so little cause to smile, but Cooper found humor in the oddest of moments. Sunlight broke through the trees as he leaned against the car door, and he turned his face to it.

  “That feels good.”

  She stopped and allowed the sun to warm her, too, accepting the gift that had been offered at that moment, sun in the midst of the storm that was brewing all around them.

  Shoulder to shoulder with him, something rose inside her that felt like gratefulness—to Cooper for relishing the sunlight, and to God for sending the man to bring it to her attention. Gratefulness? It tickled at her insides along with the delicious warmth.

  “How can you be peaceful? In the middle of all this?”

  He sighed. “I’m not always. I’ve got plenty of defensiveness and a heap of anger, still. A friend of mine told me long ago when things with Peter were at their worst, that if you look for God, you find him in places you’d never expect.” He waved a hand. “Like in some good old-fashioned sunshine.”

  Peace. What a light and lovely trail it left inside. “I haven’t been looking. Not since Alice.”

  “I stopped looking for a while, too. Got lost in myself and my problems.” He placed his arm around her shoulders. “He waits anyway while we stumble around.”

  For one precious instant, she allowed the idea to clatter through her soul. No matter how dark, He was there waiting.

  Then she recalled the purpose of their mission.

  To find proof to convict Alice’s killer.

  Alice, the girl who vanished when God hadn’t lifted a finger to help.

  She pulled away as her brother banged out of the house.

  “Going somewhere?”

  “To the old mill. We think Josephine may have hidden the locket there.”

  True to character, Mick did not ask unnecessary questions. “I’m going with you.”

  Ruby caught the expression on Cooper’s face, halfway between amused and exasperated. Instead of arguing, Cooper made a show of opening the door with a sweeping gesture and a courtly bow. “My humble conveyance is at your disposal, Master Hudson.”

  Mick climbed into the back as Ruby took the front passenger seat. With Ruby’s direction, Cooper drove them along the graveled road. At times they had to stop to clear away the dense shrubbery that had swallowed up the path.

  “Not someplace you visit often?” Cooper said.

  Ruby cleared her throat. “Not anymore.”

  Cooper took her hand, and she let him. Mick shifted in the backseat. With a sly glance in the rearview mirror, Cooper kissed her fingers.

  The seat cushions complained as Mick continued to settle and resettle his big frame.

  “Uncomfortable, Mick?” Cooper inquired, an innocent arch to his eyebrow.

  “Keep your hands on the wheel. Get’s treacherous in through here,” Mick growled.

  Ruby thought she saw a smile on Cooper’s mouth as he grasped the wheel with both hands. Cooper may have matured into a man, but he retained a whiff of the mischievous boy he had been long ago. She remembered the kid with the scraped knees and dirty face who presented her with a single wildflower and an invitation for a date. If things had been different...

  Maybe they could be, her heart whispered. When the truth came out and Cooper’s deepest desire was realized as his brother’s name was cleared. Could the locket be the answer to the past and the key to a brighter future for all of them?

  Cooper felt her looking and beamed a smile so dazzling it made her catch her breath. “Don’t worry. I’m an excellent driver. Mario Andretti’s got nothing on me.”

  She laughed. The engine growled up the slope, pinging rocks and loose gravel under the chassis.

  Mick stiffened. “Did you hear that?”

  Ruby peered around, seeing only the dense thicket that smothered the road on all sides. “What?”

  “I thought...” He shook his head. “Must have been a rock hitting the car or something.”

  Cooper eyed him in the rearview mirror. “What exactly did you think it was?”

  Their gazes locked. “Gunshot.”

  Cooper stopped the car and rolled down the windows. They listened for a long while.

  “I don’t hear anything,” Ruby said, finally.

  Mick nodded. “Could be I’m paranoid.”

  She understood. After fighting in a war as a marine, Mick lost his biggest battle at home as a parole officer whose misjudgment had cost a woman her life. The bitterness had raged inside her brother like a cataclysmic wildfire. “Do you want to listen for a while longer?”

  “No. My mistake.” Mick continued to stare out the window as Cooper drove on.

  They reached a small hollow at the base of the windswept peak and piled out of the truck. Ruby tried to stop the memories from flooding back.

  I brought some yarn so we can pretend to fish, Alice.

  Will we catch anything?

  Laughter filled the dusty space as two children transformed a ruined mill into a ship, heaving on the open ocean.

  I think I hear the bad pirates coming, Bee. Should we hide?

  No, we’re safe. We’re pirates, too. No one can hurt us.

  “Oh, Alice,” Ruby whispered. “Why did I not hear those bad pirates coming that day, twenty years ago?”

  Mick strode toward something on the ground under the pine trees. He lifted the mass in his hands, feathers draping his palms.

  She cried out and ran to him. That pile of white and brown. It could not be
. It must not be. “What happened?”

  Her brother gently turned the little bird so she could examine it.

  A kestrel, one of her kestrels, a female, lying broken and bleeding. The bird’s eyes were opened, sightless, fixed forever on the sky from which it had plummeted. So small and fragile, it barely filled Mick’s palms. She noted the wound through the bird’s breast. Round, a bullet hole.

  “Who would have done this?” she whispered, throat clogged with horror. “For what purpose?”

  Cooper peered closer. “She’s so small.”

  “Only four ounces or so,” Ruby answered automatically, as if she was conducting one of the plethora of guided nature hikes. “About the weight of a candy bar.” Her eyes traveled up to the nesting box, nailed to the top of a sturdy thirty-foot pole.

  Mick shook his head, scanning. “Probably babies in there.” He peered at the wood structure that their father had built over a decade before. “Something must have startled her. She flew out and...”

  Another shot rang out.

  TWELVE

  Cooper dived into the shrubs, carrying Ruby with him. He managed to roll so he didn’t crush her with his body and she came to rest on her side, staring at him with eyes so wide he could see his own shocked reflection.

  Mick was on his stomach, peering out through the branches. “Came from up high, behind that peak of rock,” he whispered. “I’m going to circle around.”

  “No, Mick,” Ruby insisted. She tried to grab for him, but Cooper kept her pinned. She wriggled with all her might, but he held her tightly by the arms.

  “Mick’s a marine. He knows what he’s doing.”

  “A former marine, and he needs my help. Let me go.” Her thrashing did no good.

  “There’s no such thing as a former marine, I’m told. We’re going to use a little common sense here and stay put.” He sat up, keeping a firm grip on her forearm, peering through the bushes as he crouched.

  She jerked to her knees. “You can’t keep me here.”

  “Yep, I’m pretty sure I can.”

  Glaring, she yanked again. “You’re a coward. We should be helping Mick.”