Carla Neggers - The Carriage House

Harl wasn't answering his phone, but he did that on a regular basis.

But not today. He'd answer today. He had to.

Andrew hit redial on his cell phone one more time. A little farther and he'd be there.

Dolly.

He jumped on the brakes and was out of his truck before the picture fully registered in his brain. His daughter. She was running down the side of the road, red-faced, her sturdy little legs eating up pavement.

He scooped her into his arms. She was sweating, unable to talk or cry.

"I've got you, baby, I've got you."

"The bank robber," she choked out. "The bank robber."

"I know, I know."

She gulped. "Tess."

He wanted to tell her it would be okay, but he didn't know it would be. He carried her to his truck, kept her on his lap as he climbed behind the wheel and pulled the door shut.

"Are they at the carriage house?" he asked softly, trying to sound calm, in control, to hide his own terror.

She nodded, holding on to him tight.

Then his house was safe.

He dialed the police and told them Richard Montague might have hostages at the carriage house.

His truck moved forward, down the road. Dolly's sweat soaked into her shirt. And his own.

She began to cry openly. "Daddy, Daddy, Tippy Tail's gone. "

"She'll come back, Dolly. She won't leave her babies."

And his heart wrenched, Joanna's voice playing back to him. "I'll be back, Dolly. I would never leave my baby."

Ah, Joanna, he thought. You died too young, and I'll be forever sorry for that.

But every fiber of his being, right now, with his daughter in his arms, was with Tess. He couldn't lose her.

He pulled to a stop in front of his house.

Harl staggered in front of the truck. A baseball bat dangled from one hand. He was ashen-faced, his entire front covered in dirt, his face smeared with it.

And blood. It was on his hands and arms, and Andrew saw the dark, wet spots on his jeans and black POW-MIA shirt.

As Andrew opened the truck's door, Harl grabbed Dolly. "Go," he told Andrew. "I just crawled out of the carriage house bulkhead. Montague's there. Go before the son of a bitch-" But Dolly was staring at him, wide-eyed, and his voice softened instinctively. "I've got you, sweetie." His eyes, pain-wracked but totally focused, leveled on Andrew. "Don't wait. Go."

Andrew took the baseball bat and went.

"I think that cat wants to move her kittens back here." Tess spoke matter-of-factly, ignoring the panic that was trying to work its way through her, ignoring the gun. Richard had told her it was a Walther.9 mm. She'd told him she didn't know guns. "Did you shove Harl through the trapdoor the way you did Ike?"

Richard had quit his it-was-Harl act. He was think-ing-plotting his strategy, she knew-before he killed her rather than after. He had the trapdoor open already.

"Don't you think you should make sure Harl's dead first?"

She thought that would buy her some time. If he wasn't dead-and she prayed constantly he wasn't- he might have a chance to do something to help their critical situation. And if he was dead, she knew he wouldn't want Richard Montague to get away with another murder.

If he did, they could haunt the damn carriage house together. Her, Harl and Jedidiah.

Don't get giddy. Stay focused!

"Tess! Montague!" Andrew was yelling from the driveway in that hell-to-pay voice. "The police are on their way. For God's sake, Montague, cut your losses. Harl's alive."

In that split second between thinking he had the upper hand and realizing he didn't, Richard Montague gave Tess the opening she'd been waiting for. It was a gesture, a momentary loss of concentration, but she saw it, knew it.

And she gave him a slicing, unequivocal kick to the testicles, just the way Davey Ahearn had taught her.

Montague dropped the Walther down the trapdoor and sank forward in agony, and Tess followed with another kick, throwing him off balance. He stumbled, falling into the dark opening, grabbing the ladder with one hand as he cursed and spat.

She stomped on his hand.

In a fight, her godfather had always told her, you don't show mercy. But you fight to get away, period.

Montague let go, but before he could regain his balance, Tess slammed the trapdoor shut, latched it and ran out through the kitchen.

The police were massing in her driveway, lights and sirens off.

But she landed in Andrew's arms. "Perfect timing," she said, her voice catching. He managed a ragged smile. "Always."

It was chowder night at Jim's Place.

Davey Ahearn was on his stool at the end of the bar, and the Red Sox were playing an away game with an expansion team he didn't consider worthy of the big leagues. Tess didn't even know who it was. She was concentrating on her chowder and her argument with her father.

"The carriage house is on the state historic register," she said. "I can't do a deck with a giant hot tub. Besides, that's tacky."

"Almost getting yourself killed-that's tacky."

It had been a month. Four weeks of no skeletons, beautiful spring weather, and time with Andrew and Dolly. First, they'd made sure the six-year-old was okay. Rita Perez was a huge help, and Tess could see Harl was falling in love with the ex-nun. She'd done her part, too, because she'd once been a traumatized six-year-old girl and could talk to Dolly in a way the little girl understood.

But Dolly was resilient and creative, and a step in her healing, Tess thought, was moving from the world of royalty to oceanography. She was loading up on stuffed penguins, whales, dolphins and sea otters. But cats were still her favorite, and she'd even managed to talk her father and Harl into keeping one of the kittens, the gray one, Cement Mixer. Tippy Tail had settled in and no longer ran off for long stretches.

Tess had settled in, too, if not in Andrew's house at least in his life, and that both scared and excited her. It meant walks on the beach with him, wine on the back porch, fixing dinner together, working in the yard together, coming up with ideas for the carriage house together. And dates. Once Dolly was in good shape, Tess had pointed out that uncovering a murder and stopping a murderer didn't count as a date.

She'd spend nights in the guest room or at her apartment, never at the carriage house, never in Andrew's room, not until one night when Dolly was off with Rita Perez, Harl and the rest of the Thorne family in Gloucester, celebrating his release from the hospital.

Tess remembered every slow, delicious move Andrew made that night in his bed as they made love, the feel of his rangy, muscular body, the heat of his kisses, the look of his eyes in the dark of his bedroom. She remembered quaking with him, losing herself with him.

But thinking of such things in her father's bar could only lead to trouble. "If not for Davey, you know," she said, "I might have ended up dumped through that trapdoor myself."

Her father shook his head. "Damn, I never thought I'd hear my daughter tell me she was alive today because Davey Ahearn taught her how to kick a man in the balls when she was twelve years old."

"Best time to learn," Davey said.

Jim Haviland took her empty bowl and refilled it, not waiting to be asked. He'd also made chocolate cream pie, her favorite, because he knew she'd be here tonight. Tess understood. It was his way of telling himself she'd come through this mess intact. She was alive. Richard Montague was awaiting trial, and Lauren, both shattered and relieved by the truth of what happened to her brother, had her lawyers working out a plea bargain for her role in covering up Ike's murder.

A slim, yellowed volume had turned up in Tess's mail at work. Adelaide Morse's diary. There was no note, but Tess knew it must have come from Lauren. She'd read it in one sitting. Jedidiah Thorne was innocent. He didn't kill Benjamin Morse, yet he'd refused to mount a defense at his trial-because the evidence against him was too overwhelming and he couldn't win without a confession from Adelaide? Or because of that peculiar sense of Thorne honor Tess had come to know so well? She'd given the diary to Andrew. He could correct the public, historic record. Or not.