Safe Haven Page 22

  “You see, I have that covered. Dawson here thinks he’s getting a cut. But he’s the one who’s going to jail. He’s the criminal. I’ve set it up so that it looks as if he’s been blackmailing me all along. And when I refused to pay him anymore, he killed Daria.”

  “You’re finished, Carlisle. You’re going down with Dawson whether you like it or not.”

  “Me? Oh, no. My twin brother will take the fall.”

  “You’re twin.”

  Of course. It all made sense. The blood spilled at Daria’s house was matched by type, not DNA. There’d been no time. Because of his rare blood type, they’d assumed it had all come from George Carlisle. But at least some of it must have come from Terry Dawson, who was George’s identical twin brother.

  “You’re going to let your brother take the blame for what you’ve done?”

  “I haven’t done anything illegal. Terry Dawson is the criminal. He’s been extorting money from me to keep his identity a secret for years. It was his plan to kill Daria for the money. The bitch wouldn’t listen. If she’d stayed with me, we could have put Dawson away together. She would have been angry to learn the truth. Disappointed and ashamed as I was at the despicable person Terry Dawson had become. But she’d have gotten over it. Instead, she was too interested in…” He gave a hard look to Kevin. “Other things.”

  “Yeah, like staying alive.”

  George’s smile was vile. “I have to admit you played the game well, Gordon. I just didn’t expect that you’d be so moral and watch over Daria yourself. You see, you were just a pawn. Dawson was always going to be the one to kill Daria. But I needed to cast doubt first. I needed the police to harass me enough to watch my every move. You were going to be my alibi while Daria left town and Dawson killed her somewhere else. Sure, I’d be a suspect. The husband always is. But the evidence would show that I was only an innocent bystander in an extortion scheme Dawson set up to get money from me.”

  Realization of the part he’d played in George’s plan burned in his gut. “Daria didn’t leave town.”

  “No, she didn’t. I didn’t expect her to be so attached to that dump she lives in. Or to you, for that matter. But I did count on Dawson being stupid. He thinks he’s getting paid.” Carlisle chuckled, a trickle of blood spilling out of his mouth where Kevin had hit him. “For all his brains, he’ll take the fall. Daria will be dead. And I’ll get my money. The public will be outraged that you allowed Daria to die on your watch.

  “You know, it would have been a whole lot easier if you’d just left her leave. I knew she was going to want to stay in her house. But sooner or later she would have gotten scared and left on her own. By that time, my story would have been cemented. The police department would have been suspect for harassment. You would have Dawson’s prints on file. But you wouldn’t leave her alone. So you see, it’s your fault she is where she is right now.”

  “You were at her house. You threatened her.”

  “Who is going to be around to tell a jury that? Certainly not Daria. I went to Daria’s house and then left. The neighbor saw me. I made sure her nosey neighbors saw me.”

  Kevin felt his gut twist. “Who killed Ski?”

  “Why Dawson, of course. Like I said. He’s the cold-blooded criminal. Not me. There isn’t a jury in the world that will believe I did this.”

  A vile smile crept up Carlisle’s face.

  They were wasting precious time.

  “Tell me where she is or—”

  “You’ll pull the trigger? No, you won’t. If you do, you won’t get what you want from me.”

  Jake must have called for backup, because Kevin could hear the sirens in the distance coming closer.

  A cruel smile crept up Carlisle’s face. “Wonderful. The cavalry is on the way. Go ahead and arrest me. I have set it all up beautifully. I have proof that Dawson was extorting money from me. Your bank records will show that you hired police officers to watch me and Daria. You would never lie about seeing me in the parking lot while Daria’s house was being broken into. A jury will believe that the only reason I am here right now is to save Daria when I found out that Dawson was trying to kill her.

  “You see, I have a letter that poor Dawson wrote to me upon my request while he was…under the influence. It states his intentions to kill Daria if I don’t pay him a certain amount of cash.” Carlisle laughed. “The poor fool doesn’t even remember writing it. But with that evidence, coupled with police-department harassment, my lawyer will have no trouble getting me out of jail inside of an hour. You’ll be investigated for your actions by Internal Affairs and you still won’t have your precious Daria. When it all blows over, me and my money will be gone. I call that sweet justice.”

  Kevin grabbed him by the collar, lifted him off the ground and slammed him back to the dirt again. “Tell me where she is you monster!”

  “You’re just going to have to find her. But I warn you, when you do, it won’t be pretty.”

  Realization slammed hard into him as he heard the roar of a tractor in the far corner of the salvage yard. He stared down at Carlisle. The maniac’s eyes were bright and glowing. Kevin glanced over his shoulder to where George was looking. It was hard to see in the dark, but he managed to make out the outline of a compact car being suspended in the air by the arm of a crane.

  “Bye, bye, my sweet little Daria,” George muttered, before blowing a kiss to the wind.

  Kevin’s grip loosened and George dropped to the ground like a log.

  He swung around and watched the car dangling from the cable, swinging back and forth in the air. He knew the destination was the steel walls of the car crusher. “Dear God, no!” he screamed. “No!”

  *

  The ropes wouldn’t budge. A cold dread started out small in the pit of Daria’s stomach and grew until it seemed to suck the air right from her lungs. She was going to die. She didn’t have a clue where she was or what the engine noises directly outside the stripped down vehicle were, but it didn’t take a genius to know it was not good.

  How could she have been married to a man for almost five years and not known him?

  The nausea that had enveloped her when she first woke up had subsided some. Daria inched her body forward, pushing at the opposite side of the car to get closer to give herself leverage to lift. She was just about able to rise onto her elbow when a screeching noise, followed by a bang on the roof of the car startled her. As the car was lifted into the air, she lost her balance and smacked her head against the steel floor beneath her. Her cheek slammed against the metal beneath her and exploded with pain.

  *

  Kevin couldn’t see who was running the crane, but he had a good idea it was Dawson. The guy’s mind was about as twisted as the metal parts strewn about the junkyard. Terror ripped through him thinking about what kind of hell he’d put Daria through already. And now she was probably lying helpless in one of these cars ready to be crushed like a tin can.

  The words echoed in his head like a throbbing headache that wouldn’t go away. That was her fate. Kevin didn’t want to think of Daria dying that way. If she was still alive at all, he thought with utter dread.

  As he sprinted through the junkyard, dodging piles of scrap metal and boxes that used to be cars, he gauged the distance between the crane and car crusher and knew he would have to either be super human or granted a miracle from God to make it in time. He wasn’t superhuman and he was fresh out of miracles, but there was no way he could keep his feet from moving forward. Blood pumped through his veins as he saw the car lifting into the air, saw the sneer in Dawson’s eyes as the cold-blooded bastard ground gears to moved the mammoth arm of the crane to position the car above the crusher.

  Kevin ran, his eyes darting from the car to the man in the seat of the crane to the ground he had left to absorb. He wasn’t going to make it. Sweet Jesus, he had to make it in time. The magnet holding the car released and the compact dropped into place between the thick walls of steel. His
lungs burned, his chest pounded. Daria. His sweet, funny, crazy Daria.

  “No!” he screamed from somewhere that sounded outside his body. A shot ran out and then another just as the walls slammed in around the car. “Daria!”

  Jake appeared, pushing a limp Dawson out of the driver’s seat. He took the controls, but it was already too late. Metal squealed as it compacted into an object nearly one-third the size of its original form.

  There was another scream, harsh and loud and deafening that was his. He knew this. He could hear it and felt it rip itself from his lungs and then explode into the night as he fell to his knees.

  “Oh, God,” he cried. “No, please, God. No. This isn’t happening.”

  Kevin vaguely heard the sound of feet running as he stared at the mangled metal, listening to the far away sounds of sirens and tires burning rubber. Somehow, after all the noise and destruction the world had gotten eerily quiet except in his head, which felt as if it was about to explode.

  Kevin pushed forward, vaguely aware of something holding him back.

  “Don’t do it,” he heard Jake say.

  “I’ve got to help her. She’s in there, Jake. Get out of my way. I have to get to her.”

  “She’s gone, Kev. If she was in that car, there is no way in hell she could have possibly survived.”

  “No, I have to help her. She’s in there. What are you doing?” He pushed at his partner until he stumbled. But Jake held on tight. He heard the emotion in Jake’s voice and the determination to keep Kevin from moving forward.

  His face was wet and Kevin knew it was because of tears he couldn’t hold back. His body convulsed with the sobs as he dropped back to the ground, pushing his way forward on his hands and knees.

  “She’s not dead,” he said again, with his face to the ground. “She can’t be dead!” He wouldn’t, couldn’t believe it had ended this way.

  “Don’t do it, buddy.” Kevin glanced over at Jake, who was still hanging on to him. He saw the tears in his partners eyes, and heard the pleading in his voice. “Don’t do it to yourself. You don’t have to see it.”

  He shook his head. His whole body felt numb, his legs like rubber, and his arms so achingly empty.

  “No,” he said against the painful throbbing of his heart. “I have to know for sure. If I don’t see it with my own eyes…” He swallowed a sob but it managed to break free. “Damn, I loved her. I won’t believe she’s gone until I see it.”

  The yard was suddenly full of police officers. Carlisle was on his feet being ushered into the back of a police car. From somewhere near the crane, Kevin heard another officer shout that Dawson was dead of a gunshot wound. The Calvary had arrived. Too late to save his Daria.

  *

  Daria didn’t think beyond the pain in her body. The fall from the car hadn’t seemed all that long until she was actually airborne. And what choice did she really have when looking back at the compacted steel blocks around her, knowing she was horrifically close to being crushed inside one of them.

  She must have blacked out for a moment upon impact. She didn’t know for how long. All she knew now was that her face hurt as well as her shoulder and hips. Her body screamed at her to the point that she really didn’t want to open her eyes or move for the next hundred years. But the pain meant one thing. She was alive.

  “God, please! No.” It was Kevin and with the sound of his voice, Daria couldn’t hold back the choking sob that was lodged in her throat.

  She tried to roll over, tried to move, but with each attempt pain shot through her. There was commotion around her on the other side of the pile of metal. The night sky flashed with blue and white lights, but inside her little corner of the yard, she lay undisturbed.

  The soul-gutting sobs from Kevin had her wanting to cry out to him to tell him, no, she was not dead. She was here. Find me, I’m here! But she couldn’t form the words.

  A beam of light swept over her as she rolled over.

  “I’ve got her!” the officer yelled. “She’s over here!”

  She heard what sounded like boots pounding on the ground. Within a minute or two, she saw faces above her. She searched them until she found the one face that would make it all right. And then she saw Kevin.

  “It’s okay, baby,” he said. “I’m here.” And then she slipped into darkness. *

  Kevin had never gone from such utter despair to such complete elation in the span of seconds. He’d thought he’d lost Daria forever and it leveled him until his lungs constricted and he couldn’t breath.

  But his sweet Daria wasn’t dead at all. She was here and she was very much alive. His tears of rage transformed to tears of joy as he knelt beside her.

  Jake was behind him. “The ambulance is on the way. Is she okay?”

  “I don’t know,” he said, carefully brushing the dirt from her face, afraid to touch her and wanting to blanket her in his arms. “She’s alive. For now, that’s all that matters.”

  “Man, that fall alone could have killed her.”

  And then Kevin did lean down and brush his lips against her scraped forehead. He closed his eyes to shut out the images colliding in his brain of what could have been, of how he could have lost her. He only wanted to feel the relief that this nightmare would soon be over.

  He rode with her in the ambulance to the hospital. She’d come in and out of consciousness, calling his name.

  “I’m right here,” he said. “I told you I’m not going anywhere, lady.”

  “Thank God,” she whispered, drifting in and out of the haze.

  *

  Daria was going to be okay, the doctor had told Kevin after the initial examination. With those few tiny words, relief shot through him, quick and strong.

  “Is she conscious? I need to see her,” Kevin managed to say.

  “Like I told your captain, she’s not ready to answer questions about what happened. If this can wait at all, I’d prefer you come back in the morning after she’s had a chance to rest.”

  No, it definitely could not wait. Kevin had to see with his own eyes that she was alive and going to be for a very long time. He needed to hold her in his arms or else he was going to go insane.

  “I won’t be long.”

  The doctor sighed. “Only for a few minutes.”

  This wasn’t police business. Kevin didn’t give a damn about asking Daria anything more than to never leave him like that again. Ever. How does the next fifty years sound? It was too short for him. He realized pretty quick tonight that he was desperately in love with the woman. If he didn’t know it before, he sure as hell knew it the moment he thought he’d lost her forever.

  He pushed through the hospital room door and found Daria lying on the bed and he knew the nightmare was really over. They could move beyond this and be just the two of them.

  “How do you feel?” he asked, pushing back the stray strand of hair that had fallen in her face.

  “The pain meds haven’t quite taken effect yet.”

  “They will soon. No more pain, I promise.” And no more fear. He’d make sure of that.

  She shook her head. “All those years I never knew.”

  “What?”

  “George. I knew he’d had a bone marrow transplant when he was a child,” she said, her words starting to slur. “I knew his parents had searched the country for a donor because George had a rare blood type. But I never knew they were searching for a twin brother who had been adopted by someone else. They used Terry Dawson for his blood to save George, and then they just walked away. Terry didn’t even know he was adopted until the bone marrow transplant, or that he had a brother. They paid off the family to get Terry’s blood and then they just left him. That must have hurt him terribly.”

  Kevin sighed at the cruelty of it all, wondering if that rejection had been the catalyst that shaped Terry Dawson into the man he’d become. It amazed Kevin that Daria could have empathy for a man who’d been trying to kill her.

  “H
e’s not going to hurt you anymore.”

  Daria sighed and closed her eyes, moving her head restlessly from side to side on the pillow. The meds were taking hold, Kevin realized. Soon, she’d be asleep. And when she woke this time, she wouldn’t wake to her nightmare.

  “Are you going to be there?” she asked quietly.

  “I’ll stay as long as you need me to.”

  “No, I mean when I get back to the house. Things aren’t going to be the same anymore.”

  “You finally have your life back the way you wanted.”

  “Oh.” Daria clumsily reached for him. “That’s too bad.”

  Kevin chuckled. “I thought that’s what you wanted?”

  “I didn’t want you sleeping in your SUV anymore.” She sighed. “But it was kind of nice being engaged to you. Even if it was only pretend.”

  His lips lifted to a grin. “Who said I was pretending?”

  Daria turned to him. “What are you saying?”

  “We could make it real, get married and have a family. All you have to do is say yes.”

  Tears filled her eyes and she blinked. “But what about sailing around the world.” As if she just remembered, she gasped and said, “Kevin, you sold your boat for me. You loved that boat. It was your dream. I don’t suppose you can get it back now.”

  “No. But I can buy another one. A bigger one that will fit a whole brood of kids. How does that sound?”

  To him, it sounded like heaven.

  “Do you mean that?”

  “Absolutely.”

  She swallowed, turning to her side. “If you want to buy another boat, we can do that. We can sail around the world together.” She laughed. “As long as we stock up on a case of sea sickness pills, we can.”

  “You’d do that for me? Leave your home?”

  “As long as we can come back to it. You were right. And so was my mother. I finally understand why she’d packed her bags and moved around the country with my father. When I was a kid, I thought it was so insane. But he was her home. As long as they were together she had a home. She loved him as much as I love you.”