Shattered Secrets (Cold Creek #1)(56)
“And are you going to talk to Reese Owens?”
“Thank God you’re all right. We just have to keep drugs and booze out of your system. Stay right there while I fix us some juice and coffee. Oh, yeah, I’ll talk to Reese,” he said as he stretched his big frame, then went into the kitchen. “He’s in Cincinnati until tomorrow morning, and I’m not doing that over the phone.”
“I hope I feel better by tomorrow,” she said, rubbing both eyes. “I’d like to go to the farmers’ market. I want to see my family if they come with the Hear Ye people.”
“Let’s just see how you do with food and walking on your own today—you need some rest. Doc Nelson thought you might have ingested something like a date rape drug. They’re short-term but made worse by being mixed with any kind of alcohol. I’ll take you over to your house to pack up some things but you’re staying here.”
He came back with two huge glasses of orange juice. A date rape drug? And then she’d spent the night here with him....
Thank God she could trust Gabe. Because there was obviously someone in Cold Creek who’d been watching her, who wanted her out of here one way or another. That terrified her but made her angry enough not to leave until they found Sandy Kenton.
*
After breakfast, Gabe shaved and changed into his uniform, they picked up some things at her house and he checked everything there again. Nothing else seemed amiss. He called the hardware store to order new locks and a window. He took her back to his house and left, returning for lunch, still stewing he didn’t have his search warrant yet.
“You’d think there’s someone pulling the strings for Dane, just like for Reese,” he groused as he quickly ate the lunch she’d made, before heading back to the office. She felt as if she was married to him—and spending most of the time on her own. He said Vic was going to want to talk to her, but right now he was busy trying to locate a housekeeper who had recently worked for Reese Owens and his wife.
Tess locked up after Gabe left each time. She’d asked his permission to go up to his war room to look it all over again, hoping, as ever, to recall something useful. But she sat up there, studying the walls for an hour, while the wind kicked up and the house creaked. Feeling haunted, not by the house or even what had happened to her yesterday, but by the faces—her own and her family’s included—staring at her from the walls, she went back downstairs to wait for him.
He called and said he’d be there in a while, just a little late. It got dark so early now. Though she hadn’t heard his car, she jumped up to greet him when she heard him at the back door. She started to open it for him, then hesitated. No footsteps, no key turning in the lock.
When she tried to look out the window in the door, she saw it was blocked by a piece of cardboard or paper. She wondered if Gabe had done that to keep someone from looking in. But no, a crude drawing and printed words faced inward. Done in crayon, it depicted figures of three girls. Big tears dropped from the eyes of the smallest one. It looked so familiar. Suddenly she was certain she had drawn it. Was she hallucinating again? Were more memories coming back?
She read the words under the figures. YOU BAD GIRL! YOU CAN’T HIDE FROM ME!
She heard a voice from the past. She wanted to hide, had to hide! She rushed toward the closet in the hall, opened it to throw herself behind the hanging coats before she realized where she was. She took a deep breath. She was an adult, not a terrified child! She tried to recall more than her terror, but nothing else came, and she collapsed to her knees in tears.
*
Tess and Gabe stared at the drawing with the note he’d brought inside. “At first, I thought I might be hallucinating again,” Tess said. “But I’m okay now, and I’m positive I drew that. I do remember drawing Kate, Char and me many times, but since I’m crying here—I must have drawn that during my time away or just after.”
“So you did drawings like this while you were in captivity?” he asked as they huddled over the paper at the kitchen table. “Your abductor evidently let you draw, gave you crayons and paper.”
They had both collapsed in kitchen chairs. He’d scooted his so close to hers that their heads almost touched. She could hear him breathe, feel his deep voice when he spoke.
“Yes, I think so. But this possibly could have been done when I got back home. Mom got me some counseling through the church, and they had me draw what I remembered—which was only this. Me so sad and scared and missing my sisters.”
“I didn’t know about the counseling. Maybe we can find out who worked with you, contact them for memories. Can you recall anything else connected with this?”
“I sure as heck didn’t write that message. Mike’s going to have to get prints off this too.”
“And I’d bet we’re dealing with someone who’s too clever to leave prints. Mike found none on the wine bottle but yours.”
“And to think I could have seen who it was if I’d just looked outside at the right time!”
“Or if I’d driven in earlier. But it was already dark outside. Tess, don’t keep beating yourself up,” he said, putting an arm around her shoulders, “because someone else is trying to do it. I’m just grateful you didn’t open the door when you thought it was me.”
“Whoever it was probably comes out of the cornfield, does his dirty work in your backyard or mine, like he did twenty years ago, then runs back home, maybe with that light I saw moving through the corn the previous night. Can we beg or demand that Aaron Kurtz cut the field early?”