His princess had finally come home.
Part 3
Chapter 45
Luke awoke not sure where he was. His head throbbed and things kept swimming in and out of focus around him. Voices penetrated his fog and he could make out things like, ‘bed 23’ and ‘I.V.’ and ‘hydrocodone,’ but none of the voices he recognized. Then, Deana, his sister, spoke in his ear next to him.
“Luke? Luke? Can you hear me? Your eyes are open.”
Luke turned his head toward her voice and the world spun crazily. It settled after a few seconds and Deana’s face swam up from below. She smiled at him.
“There you are,” she said. “Are you ok?”
He had no idea. He didn’t feel much except for the throbbing in his head and the sickening spinning of the room. He tried his voice. “Where?”
“Where are you?”
He started to nod, but stopped because the room started spinning again.
“You’re in the hospital. Mom and Dad are here too.”
“What happened?”
“You got knocked out,” she said.
He couldn’t remember. Were he and John doing something stupid, like the time he fell jumping over ramps with his bike? He thought hard, but nothing surfaced.
“Mom’s on the third floor and is doing great,” Deana went on. “Dad’s still in I.C.U. but will be moved out today. He’s doing a lot better.”
Mom on the third floor? Dad in I.C.U.? He crawled back through his memory and fought to sort things out. It seemed like just yesterday, he and Ellie were playing Monopoly in the living room and she was beating the crap of him. Or was that last year? He remembered giving her cookies in a bag Mom had fixed up, but couldn’t fit it into any time frame. Was it summer? Winter? Did he slip on the driveway and crack his head? The Monopoly game kept swimming up to his consciousness and he saw his hand moving the racecar to Boardwalk over and over again. Every time there was a sound like water crashing or waves breaking over the sand whenever he landed on the spot.
“The police are right outside too, so don’t you worry.”
Police? What the hell happened? The racecar slid across the board and stopped on Boardwalk. ‘Splash!’ Ellie’s face looking scared.
“Katy and Christopher are with Grandma and Grandpa, but they’ll be back up here in about an hour. We sure were worried about you.”
Racecar. Boardwalk. ‘Splash!’ Ellie scared. Racecar. Boardwalk. ‘Crash!!’ Ellie terrified!
His eyes opened wide. Not a splash of water. A crash as glass broke. Ellie’s face scared. Then the killer! In his house!
“Where’s Ellie?!” Luke tried to sit up. “Where’s Ellie?! Where’s Ellie!?” The room started spinning again and he felt Deana’s hands on him and her voice, soothing, trying to calm him down.
“Lay back, Luke. Lay back. Everything will be ok. Calm down.”
Her voice was irritating to him. He didn’t want to calm down. He wanted to know where Ellie was.
He stopped struggling and sat back in his bed and closed his eyes. The spinning seemed to slow. He kept his eyes closed but spoke. “Deana. Tell me where Ellie is.”
Nothing happened for a minute and he thought Deana left, but then he heard her sigh.
“They don’t know.”
“They?”
“The police. They haven’t found her and they haven’t heard from her father.”
“Her father? What does he have to do with anything and where is she?”
“Her father took her. They thought he was dead, but he’s not. He broke into the house and knocked you and Mom out, shot Dad, and left with Ellie. He’s the killer, Luke. I’m sorry, but the pool dummy killer took Ellie and it’s her dad.”
Chapter 46
Jaxon was on his eighth shot of Crown and feeling no pain. At least he kept telling himself that. He was probably in the most pain he’d been in since his son was killed. He was done. It didn’t mattered one way or the other. The killer had beaten him again and made it look easy.
Jaxon had turned his badge and gun in the night everything went bad and had been locked in his apartment for the past two days. He hadn’t been able to save the girl and the bastard had won. The phone was unplugged and his cell turned off. Someone had banged on the door once, but had left after he would not answer. He had been too drunk to remember who it was.
After the frantic drive to the Harrison home, Victoria working the phones trying desperately to get someone, anyone to the house, they had arrived to find the officers from the Pemberton home at the scene, trying to get things under control. Three of the Harrison children were hysterical in the yard as they watched their father bleed from a wound in his chest. The ambulance arrived shortly after, and got Luke and his mother and father loaded up and stabilized. Ellie was nowhere to be found.
The two officers who had been rendered unconscious by Worthington, described the man as ‘big.’ They remembered little else. One said he had horrible dreams of a big purple unicorn trying to suffocate him.
The neighbors had seen very little. One man had witnessed a green Ford Fusion leaving the area after what sounded like a gunshot, but the man had only seen one person in the car. He didn’t get the license plate.
Mrs. Pemberton and her son had shown up, hearing the commotion in the neighborhood and noticing their protectors missing. She had been frantic at the disappearance of her daughter and when she saw Jaxon, lashed out at him, screaming he was a murderer.
“You killed my baby!” she screamed, slapping at his chest as another officer held her back. “You killed my baby! You promised! You promised to keep her safe! You promised!”
By then the news crews had arrived and the whole scene went out live to all the local networks. Jaxon slumped under the weight of her accusations. What could he say? She was right. Victoria stood silently next to him, tears rolling down her cheeks. She had been as devastated as he.
Later, driving to the station, Victoria said two words.
“I’m sorry.”
He didn’t respond. Arriving at the station, he left her sitting in the car and walked up to the chief’s office. He looked the man in the eye and said, “I’m done.” Placing his shield and gun on his desk, he turned and walked out, leaving the chief’s protestations fading behind him. When he got to his car, Victoria was gone. He drove home and got drunk.
Now, as he sat in his chair, the Crown Royal doing its job, he couldn’t get the sound of Worthington’s voice out of his head. ‘That’s what I told Michael, but you never came.’
A pounding sound slowly brought him out of his stupor. Then a familiar voice followed the hammering. For a moment he mistook it for his dead partner Sally, but then he realized it was Victoria. He didn’t want to talk to her, so he poured another shot and slammed it down. The pounding went on for a bit longer and then it stopped. At least she had gotten the point.
Closing his eyes and leaning his head back, a vision of Michael and Victoria swam up from the depths. They had been at Bethany Beach in Delaware. Michael was seven. Jaxon had rented some fishing poles for the day and was showing his son how to use them. The boy couldn’t cast the big rigs on his own so Jaxon would wade into the surf, cast as far as he could, and then walk it back to the beach for Michael to hold. He had gotten a bite on the first cast. They laughed and howled as they reeled the fish in, but when he could see the fishing line drop off into the surf, Michael thought he had lost the fish. He looked so disappointed. Jaxon told him he’d catch another.
When Jaxon walked up to look at the leader and hook, he had been pleasantly surprised. He called Michael over and showed him the flat fish lying hidden in the surf. It was a flounder and Michael had jumped with joy. The fish had almost fooled them. Victoria had been so excited for Michael and she took a ton of pictures with him proudly holding up his catch. That had been a good day.