Dana Mentink - Secret Refuge

“So,” she said, forcing the words out around the serrated edge in her throat. “Are you here to kill me now, too?”

He didn’t answer, just stared at her with eyes that gleamed reptilian in the dim light.

She took a small step back toward the open car door. The motion seemed to jar him loose from his thoughts.

He moved fast, coming at her straight on. She had just enough time to get into the car and slam the door, jamming the lock down. His eyes went wide as he tried the handle, banging his palms against the glass. She started the engine and he backed off. Lurching forward, she lost sight of him and then she realized her mistake. She had not locked the passenger-side door.

Tucker’s face loomed in the darkness, fingers yanking at the handle. Though she jammed the accelerator down, the wheels found no traction on the muddy ground, spinning grit and squealing their helplessness. She tried Reverse with no better luck. Tucker dived into the seat, hands grabbing at her forearms. With a scream, she threw an elbow as hard as she was able into his face and felt the give of his cheek. Momentarily, he released his grip, grunting in pain.

She pressed the gas again and the car shot forward, tumbling him to the floor. He tried to right himself, and she took her foot off the gas pedal long enough to kick out at him. He shoved her off.

“I want what’s mine...” he began, and then suddenly he was pulled from the car. A tall stranger with a crew cut had Tucker by the shoulders. He looked vaguely familiar. Tucker whipped around and threw a punch, which glanced off the stranger’s chin, sending him slightly off balance, but he straightened quickly. Through the open door, over the sound of her own shuddering breaths, she heard the guy say, “You’re done, kid.”

Then there was a glint of metal, a shine of a blade in Tucker’s hands. A knife.

“I’ll die first, Mick,” he hissed. “I’ve got nothing more to lose.”

Keeley realized she’d taken her foot off the gas. Now, with a flood of crazy energy, she cranked the car forward then into a tight turn and stepped on the accelerator. The open door bumped and banged, but she did not take a moment to close it. Both men jerked their heads in her direction.

Tucker yelled something. She did not stop.

The car zipped forward, pinging gravel and dirt up. She was gratified to see the men scatter, running. Her front wheel hit a depression, causing the wheels to buck, and she fought to stay the course.

He would not win. Not again.

* * *

Mick saw the blur of the moving vehicle bearing down on him. The shock loosened his grip, and Tucker slashed with the knife, cutting into Mick’s biceps. Fire rippled through his arm. Then the Jeep was upon them. Tucker leaped aside. With no time to do the same, Mick dived for the trees.

Too slow.

For a moment, he was airborne, cartwheeling over the hood of the car and tumbling headfirst onto the hard ground. The breath rushed out of him in a painful explosion. He tried to get to his feet, stumbled and fell, finding himself planted palms first in the dirt.

Where was Tucker? His nerves screamed. He looked up in time to see the flash of a T-shirt as the kid took off for the trees. Forcing his legs into motion, he made it to his feet.

Keeley got out of the car. She was slender, her hair chin length, cut in a careless bob showing under the knit cap. The same blue eyes as her sister. She looked older and more tired than he’d seen her the last time at LeeAnn’s funeral, the lines more pronounced around her mouth. At least, he thought they were more pronounced. Blink as he would, her face blurred in his vision. He heard her speak as if from far away.

“Who are you?” she said.

I’m the man who let Tucker Rivendale kill your sister , his mind said.

She hugged herself, waiting for him to respond.

Mick struggled to speak. Get back in the car and drive before he comes back. Don’t let him hurt you like he did LeeAnn . But his mouth remained stubbornly closed. “I think I know you. Tell me who you are,” she demanded again.

“Mick,” he said aloud, or maybe it was only in his mind as his sight bled off into darkness and his knees buckled under him.

TWO

Spider.

He swam back into consciousness, staring up at a ceiling upon which sat a fat black spider, motionless on the cracked plaster. Then he was assaulted by memories of Tucker and his own body impacting the front of a Jeep. A vulnerable woman’s face, eyes round with shock, materialized in his memory. Keeley. He jerked upright, head spinning, sliding a little on the sheet draped over the couch.

Keeley stood, motion arrested midstride, in the middle of the room, a roll of gauze in one hand and a phone in the other.

“The police are on their way,” she said. “Ambulance, too.”

He planted both feet on the floor, willing it to stop moving. “Don’t need an ambulance. Are you okay?”

She nodded. “I was the one driving, remember? You’re the guy who got run over.”

He felt his lips curling into a painful grin against the scratches on his face. “Yeah. Why did you do that anyway? Women usually need to get to know me better before they want to run me over.”

She shrugged, unsmiling. “Adrenaline.” She set the gauze on the fruit crate that served as a coffee table. “Your arm is bleeding. Sorry to ask, but could you try not to drip on the couch? It’s thirdhand, but it’s the nicest piece of furniture I own.”

He dutifully wrapped his wound as best he could. She did not offer to help, and that was just fine with Mick. His stomach knotted now that he was here in the same room with her, the woman who had circled the edges of his mind for almost two years. The place smelled of toasted bread. Warm, cozy, worn furniture and a bookshelf crammed with photography magazines and old VHS tapes. On the tiny kitchen table was a stack of multihued paper and three pairs of scissors in varying sizes.

“I remember who you are,” she said softly. “I looked through your wallet. You’re Mick Hudson. Tucker Rivendale’s parole officer.”

He swallowed. “I was, yes. I don’t do that job anymore.” He felt the pain of a deeper injury throbbing. And what should he say now? “I’m sorry” seemed a little thin. “I made a terrible mistake” came off even weaker.

“You met with my sister often.”

Each word cut a fresh wound. “Yes. When she and Tucker began dating again, I got to know her on some of my visits. She...she was a great lady.” Great lady. Was that all he could offer?

“Yes.” She stared at him and the moment stretched long and taut, like the anchor line holding tight to a storm-tossed boat.

A slight smile quirked her lips. “I thought you would be uglier when I first met you at LeeAnn’s that one time.”

He blinked. “What?”

“LeeAnn only spoke of Mick the parole officer. I pictured you as a gorilla type, with a broken nose and slicked-back hair. And younger. I thought you’d be younger than you turned out to be.”

He shifted. He’d only seen Keeley a handful of times when he supervised Tucker, and usually it was only for a brief moment. “I suppose the ugly part is relative, but I’m forty.” Forty going on ancient. He searched her face, unable to read below the calm that he imagined was a front. She was thirty-four, he knew, like he also knew where she and her sister had been born. And that they had a mother living in a retirement home in Colorado and a father deceased, thanks to the ravages of lung cancer when the girls were young. A head full of information that lingered along with the memories.

“I...” He cleared his throat. “Did you see which direction Tucker went?” Lame, but at least it filled up the silence.