Page 77 of The Hanging Dolls
His face burned. Her niceness was a machete to the gut. He gripped the steering wheel and punched the button to speed-dial Travis. As he waited for Travis to answer, he bobbed his knee and rubbed his lips.
“How long is thisunofficialsuspension going to last?” he demanded as soon as Travis picked up.
A sigh. “Scott, I gave you a chance to control yourself. Instead, you got drunk. I can’t risk this investigation.”
He caught a reflection of his face in the side mirror. The angry scar that ran down his face was still far from healing or turning white and there was mild swelling on his right temple. He looked like a monster; he felt like one too. “I made a mistake. It won’t happen again. But the big picture is this case. You can use me. You’re wasting a resource?—”
“You have become a liability,” he said sternly. “And you have a personal connection to the case with your history with Carly!”
“She’s mine! Lucy’s mine!” he growled.
Silence. A thick, pregnant silence.
“What?” Travis asked.
Scott rested his head back, exhausted by Carly’s lies and drama. “She didn’t tell me until Lucy went missing. But the timing makes sense.”
“Holy crap.”
He felt like a fool. Once again Carly had caught him in his drama, and this time it was by keeping his kid away from him. “Come on, Travis. Are you really that surprised? You were with her too. You know what she’s capable of.”
“I wasn’t until now,” he admitted softly. “But I’m sorry, Scott. This doesn’t change the fact that your behavior has been erratic.In fact, you’re even more involved now. You’re off this case but you can report to duty next week.”
Scott gritted his teeth when the line went dead. A sharp spike in anger and he slapped the steering wheel with the palm of his hand. It throbbed, turning red. He threw the phone on the passenger seat and floored the gas, peeling out of his driveway.
He was on a mission. He didn’t care that he didn’t have Travis’s permission. This was his case. This was his kid. He was going to solve it. He had told Terri to get a few patrol officers to keep an eye on Bella—Lily’s defensive, drug-addicted sister who knew the dealer they’d found at that abandoned building.
There was a loose end there. He could feel it in his gut. It didn’t take him long to find Bella at her high school. She was a senior and hanging out in the parking lot with some friends.
Scott observed her from a distance, trying to memorize the faces she was talking to. None of them looked suspicious. They just looked like kids. She got into her red truck—a clear hand-me-down—that had peeled paint and an engine that coughed loudly when it roared to life. She peeled out of the parking lot and got on the main street.
And then Scott followed her. He had tailed people before—mostly Carly when she used to lie about where she was going. He maintained a distance and he wasn’t surprised when she didn’t go home and instead headed to one of the town squares. With her backpack slung over her shoulder, she walked to the pharmacy. He killed the engine and followed her in.
Scott blended into the few people milling about inside the pharmacy just as Bella approached the counter. The conversation was quiet, muffled by the ambient noise of the store.
The pharmacist handed over a small paper bag, and Bella mumbled a quick thanks before turning to leave. As she did, the bag tipped slightly and fell from her grasp, spilling a bottlewith the familiar logo of Tylenol. Scott frowned. It was over-the-counter stuff, nothing unusual. But something wasn’t right.
Once Bella left, he approached the pharmacist. He knew the old, stout woman with round glasses and graying hair. Luckily, it wasn’t hard to make friends in a small town like Harborwood.
“Hey, Liz, how’s it going?” He placed his hands on the counter, giving her a crooked smile.
Liz looked up from her notepad, her eyes widening both in surprise and then concern. “Scott! Oh my goodness. I saw the news. That crowd did a number on you.”
He touched the scar. He’d forgotten it was there because his mind was too crowded with more important things. But now he realized, a patch of his face was in pain. “Yeah…”
“You want anything for that face, honey? A cream to prevent scarring or extra strength Tylenol?” She jumped into her mamma bear mode, ruffling through the shelves of bottles and tubes. “Ah, darn it! Bella took the last Tylenol I had. I’m going to have to place an order.” She shook her head, flustered, and went to the computer. “How do you work these things?”
“Is Bella okay? You know, considering…”
“She is as good as can be expected.” Liz pressed a hand to her chest and clicked her tongue. “She’s being more responsible. Her mother used to pick up the kidney medication, but Bella tells me that Mary doesn’t want to leave the house anymore. Worst nightmare for a parent, Scott. Worst one.” Her gazed fixated on the screen. “Now, how should I place an order?”
Scott helped Liz place the order. But what she just said left him with jangled nerves.
FORTY-THREE
The room was plunged into darkness, the only light coming from the occasional flash of lightning that briefly illuminated the space, casting long, eerie shadows on the walls. The storm outside raged with ferocity, rain pelting against the windows and thunder rumbling ominously in the distance. Regina sat in a chair near the corner, her hand wrapped around a glass of Scotch.
It was her late father’s preferred drink. She turned the glass around in her hands, the liquid glimmering at different angles. Today she needed her father’s cruelty—she’d despised it growing up. She’d always been looked down upon because he had wanted a son. Only men had the stomach to live with hard decisions, or so he had often told her.
