Leslie Parrish - Fade To Black

Stacey’s brow rose. “Maybe you should go to work for the FBI as a profiler.”

He shrugged. “Common sense. If he’s as vicious as you say he is toward women, he obviously hates them.” Frowning darkly, he mumbled, “That Warren Lee, somebody sure dropped him in a whole barrel full of crazy somewhere along the line.”

“But he hates everybody, not just women. When he goes…”

“He’ll go postal,” he said, finishing her sentence.

“He did act strangely yesterday, though,” she mused, more to herself than to him.

“Stranger than usual?”

“Good point.”

Her father fell silent for a few moments, gazing toward the lawn. Then, in a low voice, he said, “That stepfather of hers is a mean son of a bitch.”

Stacey concurred, but she’d rarely heard her dad use foul language and always made a point of cleaning up her own around him. “Did you ever think, ever wonder…”

“If he abused her? Hell, yes, I wondered. Something made that girl change right after he moved into her mama’s house.”

“I sometimes see bruises on Winnie’s arms,” Stacey admitted. “Whenever I ask her about them she says they’re from work.”

He sneered. “Yeah, those laundry carts have big fists on ’em, don’t they?”

Deep in thought, she whispered, “I never saw bruises on Lisa. But maybe the abuse was different.”

Dad’s hands clenched into fists, though it must have pained him terribly. “I asked her once when she was a teenager.”

Stunned, Stacey felt her mouth fall open. “You’re kidding.”

“Nope. You were with the VSP when the worst of it happened. She went so wild, and I had to haul her in for dealing. When she begged me to let her off, saying she was pregnant and desperate, I flat out asked her if Stan was the father.”

“Oh, my God,” Stacey mumbled, never having heard this part of the story.

“She denied it. Told me if I went to Winnie about it, she’d run away forever.”

Which just made it more likely.

“I knew by the look in her eyes that she wasn’t lying about the pregnancy, but I guess she miscarried, or went out of town and took care of it. Never saw her have any baby. She was probably, oh, fifteen at the time.”

The story stunned her and broke her heart all over again for Lisa. By the time Stacey had come back to Hope Valley, she’d simply accepted the girl as the town tramp and druggie, not even recognizing her. If she hadn’t left, if she’d moved back after college, might she have been able to do something? Lisa had looked up to her once, had treated her like a big sister. If she’d been around, could she have helped her escape the nightmare her life had become?

A nightmare that might have included sexual molestation by her stepfather?

She couldn’t even bear to think about it, that poor little girl slowly turning into the helpless, desperate young woman she’d become, so hungry for escape and for love that she sought them both from any man who’d show her a little attention.

The dark thoughts churned in her mind; her stomach clenched and heaved. And in the darkest corner of her brain the images anchored and took root. Bloody images.

“Could he have wanted to shut her up?” she whispered. “Or maybe she was older, strong enough to turn him down, and he snapped?” Had that sent the man on the path of savagery the Reaper had let loose upon the world?

Her father said nothing, continuing to rock, slowly, absorbing the possibility just as Stacey was. Finally, though, he mumbled, “It’s a damn tragedy. I can’t imagine how different things might have turned out if her daddy hadn’t died in that accident.”

Stacey didn’t even want to think about how Lisa’s world had blown to bits with her father’s death and her mother’s remarriage to a complete bastard, one in a long line of mean men, if the stories about the Freeds were true. Lisa’s life might have been very different, indeed.

“I know.” Reaching over, she took her dad’s hand as gently as possible, thinking not for the first time how lucky she and her brother were. Her life might have gotten just as screwed up as poor Lisa’s had he made some different choices. Lord, when she thought about how Tim and Randy used to scheme to get their widowed father together with Randy’s widowed mother… She shuddered at the very thought of having grown up with that wicked witch of a stepmother. But her father obviously had much better taste. He’d steered well clear of Alice Covey, and all the other divorcees and widows who’d set their eyes on the handsome widower, devoting himself just to her and to Tim.

Which was one reason she was so happy he’d finally reached out and grabbed some personal happiness with Connie.

Thinking about her brother, she said, “Tim came to see me the other day.”

His mouth turned down at the corners. “I heard.”

Oh, she’d just bet. She doubted the news had come from Connie, who tried to avoid upsetting Dad as much as possible. Her brother had most likely come out here screaming at the injustice that his bitch of a sister wouldn’t help him out in his time of need. As if she and everyone else hadn’t been doing exactly that since the day he’d come home two years ago, injured and so messed up in the head that she barely recognized him.

“Dad, he’ll never help himself if we keep bailing him out. He doesn’t need his family to keep rescuing him, or his buddy to keep dragging him into trouble.”

“Randy’s been there for him.”

“I know. But a friend who encourages him in his anger and resentment, who takes him illegally out-of-season hunting, or drinking seven nights a week, is not what he needs right now. He needs to get back over to the vet hospital and talk to that shrink. He shouldn’t have stopped going after only a couple of months.”

He met her stare evenly. “I know you’re right. Logically, I know that.” His free hand dropped over hers, covering it. “But he’s my boy. I look at him and I see those scars and I think about what he’s been through and…” He didn’t ask her. Didn’t make the request out loud. But he made it just the same, with his pained eyes.

Shaking her head, knowing tough love would be the first thing her father would suggest for anybody else’s kid, she pulled her hand away. “I’ll see what I can do.”

“Thanks, sweetheart.”

She wondered if he’d be thanking her if Tim never got his shit together, never emerged from the dark cloud of anger that had swallowed him up and eradicated any sign of the guy who used to play football and bass guitar. The one who used to smile.

He sure wouldn’t if he kept hanging around with Randy, the two of them getting drunk and raising hell like a pair of teenagers. Randy had gotten Tim into enough trouble when they were growing up, for stealing and fighting. She truly wished her brother hadn’t renewed the friendship when he got home.

“I should run. You’ll think about the case, won’t you? And let me know if you can come up with anything you think could help?”

“I will.” Rising, he put his hands on her shoulders and, staring at her with worry in his eyes, he said, “You be careful. Let those FBI guys take the lead on this. The last thing I want to even think about is you going head-to-head with someone so evil.”

Evil. Yes. That described the person they were after. Could Stan Freed, while a mean and possibly degenerate brute, be that evil?

“I know this isn’t what you bargained for when you came back here to take over for your old man,” he murmured, staring into her face as if looking for signs that she might break. As if he feared the violence that had followed her here to her small hometown had assaulted her personally and she’d be unable to bear the strain.