Page 86 of Desperate Justice
The kids would love those. Not.
“Hey, get away from those. They’re a donation,” Andrew protested.
“A donation for who?”
But the man’s face grew pale. “Someone’s picking them up later. Donating them to the local hospital I think. I just offered to be the pick-up place. Look, you’d better leave. I don’t want trouble.”
Rafe looked Andrew up and down. He plucked a twenty-dollar bill from his wallet and tossed it on the counter.
Outside, Allison felt her first surge of hope. “We know she was alive last night, at least when she left here. But where did she go?”
Rafe picked up his black helmet. “What did Diana mean by wishing you had let go of her hand? What gives?”
Allison’s throat tightened. He might as well know now, because sooner or later, she’d have to tell him about that horrible day. If it provided even a slim clue to finding her sister, she’d take it.
“When I was twelve and Di was eight, I saved her from drowning during a family vacation up here. We were in a kayak, took it out against our parents’ wishes. I was paddling downstream, but the current was ripping. It tipped and Di was swept downstream. I grabbed her hand and got us to the shore. I told her if she was going down, so was I. I wouldn’t let go for anything.”
Tears clogged her throat. “She was my sister, Rafe. My baby sister. And now she’s talking like that? Wishing she would have died instead?”
He put his hands on her trembling shoulders. Even through the material of her denim jacket, she felt the warmth of his caring touch.
“Hold on,” he soothed. “People say all kinds of things they don’t mean when they’re upset. Sometimes it’s the only way they can cope with terrible news. They exaggerate. And create drama.”
Allison shrugged off his hands and wiped her eyes with an angry fist. “Didn’t sound like drama to me. Sounded like she’s giving up.”
“If so, why would she leave you those clues?”
She scowled. “I don’t know. Everything is so complicated, and every minute we don’t find her means she’s slipping away from me.”
“We have a lead,” he pointed out. “She did say she wanted to return to her childhood and her secret tree house where she spied on you. Where is this tree house?”
Pressing a finger against her temple, she tried to think. “It was by the barn on land my father bought years ago. But Dad tore it down years ago because the wood was rotting and he didn’t want Di to get hurt falling through the floorboards.”
“What about the barn? Still here?”
“I think so.”
“Let’s go, then.”
* * *
A short while later, they parked their motorcycles along the gravel road leading to the barn. A barbed wire fence separated the roadway from a pasture. Sunshine warmed them as they walked up the road. As their boots crunched the stones under their feet, Allison lifted her face to the clear blue sky. Green fields, rolling mountains in the distance and a thick forest made for a bucolic scene. Ordinarily she’d enjoy a stroll in the country. Not today.
The stone barn had been rebuilt after her father purchased the land twenty years ago with the intention of building a home and moving. The move never happened. He rented the barn to a local farmer who also rented the pasture, but the lease expired last year.
Rafe stopped. His harsh intake of breath followed. “Look. Is that your parents’ old sedan?”
Her heart dropped to her stomach. Parked near the driveway leading from the road to the stone barn was an older model sedan. Rafe jotted down the license plate.
“I don’t know. Could be.”
But she knew it wasn’t necessary. Her sister was hiding inside.
They waded through the knee-high grasses to the double doors. One was wide open. Smells of animal scat and hay filtered through the musty air. Dust motes danced in sunbeams streaming through the single grimy window. In the southern end of the barn, a hay pile nearly reached the loft.
It didn’t feel right. Something was off about this place.
Chills raced down her spine as they entered the darkness. “That door should have been closed,” she murmured. “Di would never leave it open. Our dad drilled it into us that we always left the door closed so stray animals can’t get inside.”
