Pamela Tracy - Holding Out For A Hero

“Everything okay?” Oscar asked.

“No, nothing is okay, but if you’re asking if my dad and son are all right, then I think so.” She sat on the edge of the bed, looking from her dad and Ryan to him. “What do you really want?”

He recognized the tone of voice. She was trying to sound brave.

“Just for you to share what you might have seen in the neighborhood yesterday,” he said as he sat down.

Chief Riley appeared in the doorway.

Oscar watched as Shelley tensed. Thanks to her ex-husband, she probably knew that now started the questions, and more questions, and then a million more, and a file and reports to go in that file.

“So, Shelley,” Riley began. “Looks like you found trouble again.”

Actually, Oscar thought, trouble had found her. He watched as emotions danced across her face. She felt some kind of pull, a connection that he couldn’t tell whether was good or bad.

Probably bad.

It resembled the longing he’d felt ten minutes ago, wanting to pull her into his arms.

Riley glanced at her father, his face softening. “Is there someplace private we can talk?”

Oscar stood. “I noticed a few vacant rooms earlier. One of them should do.” He needed to ignore the connection between himself and Shelley and act like the professional that he was. He didn’t blink, didn’t give her a chance to say no. He stepped toward the door, expecting her to follow.

Except she didn’t move. Instead she asked, “What makes you think I know anything?”

“You want us to start with you leaving the scene of a crime and then fleeing the city?” Riley said.

She looked from Riley to Oscar, and he had to give her credit. She kept her voice steady. “I didn’t flee. I took Ryan to Santa Fe for an adventure. I had nothing to do with that girl’s death, nothing.”

“I hope that’s the case,” Riley said.

Shelley looked up sharply. “It is.”

“I didn’t like it there,” Ryan mumbled. “Mommy forgot to pack Pooh.”

“I hate when that happens,” Oscar told the little boy. “My mom once forgot my stuffed Spider-Man. I cried for an hour.”

Ryan nodded.

“I had to hold on to a pillow.” Oscar smiled. “It made it a little better.”

Ryan nodded again and clutched his cushion tighter.

Oscar sat back down, facing Shelley. “We pretty much know your every step starting early yesterday morning.”

“Because you knew who I was yesterday morning.”

He heard accusation as well as an edge of disappointment thread through the question. “Yes, I did. But—”

Luckily Riley interrupted. “We didn’t start looking for you, Shelley, until your landlord told us you’d packed up and left. With a murder just across the street, and a witness putting you at the victim’s window and looking in, you became a priority.”

She grimaced. “I don’t want to be a priority.”

“Good,” Riley said calmly. “Tell us what you know.”

“I don’t know anything.”

“Shelley Wagner, you know plenty,” Riley accused her.

“I’m Shelley Brubaker,” Shelley corrected him.

“I knew a woman named Shelley Brubaker.” Shelley’s father spoke up from the couch. “Can’t remember if she was a relative or a neighbor. But she was a good girl.”

* * *

SHELLEY WANTED TO tell her father that Shelley Brubaker was no longer good, but if she did that, she’d start crying. No way, not in front of the cops. “Dad, I’m taking Ryan to Cara up front, and then I’m going to go down the hallway and talk to these gentlemen. I won’t go far.”

Then she looked at the two cops, the ones ready to escort her away as if she were a criminal. Bad enough to deal with Riley, but Officer Guzman was the man from yesterday, the nice one with the German shepherd. She’d thought he was just a guest at Bianca’s bed-and-breakfast.

She took Ryan by the hand. He came willingly, holding the cushion and looking up at Oscar somewhat in awe.

“I ’member you,” he said. “You have dog.”

“Peeve,” Oscar supplied.

“I like dog,” Ryan said.

Shelley silently agreed. She liked the dog, too; she didn’t, however, like the cop. She followed him, determined not to cry, noting how Riley brought up the rear, in essence trapping her.

She’d known Riley all her life. He was a good cop. He’d been the officer she’d called just six months ago after the first frantic phone call came from an irate friend who’d just been notified by her bank that she no longer had any money.

Shelley’d already been gathering the proof that her husband had taken her for every dime. She hadn’t, however, known the full range until she’d heard the shrill voice. “I went to buy Christmas presents and my bank card was rejected!”

Shelley still remembered holding her cell phone tight, letting the truth of the words sink in and knowing the black hole of her life had just gotten blacker.

“The bank says,” the caller continued, “that the money was withdrawn by your husband. The check I wrote him was for six hundred dollars, and the check he presented was for six thousand dollars. All I had!”

Shelley’d mumbled an apology, followed by a promise to find out what had happened, and then tried Larry’s cell number: disconnected. Before she could move off the couch, three more calls came from friends experiencing the same thing. Then the bank president had called. Seemed Larry had been busy that morning. The bank president deemed it suspicious activity. Soon the whole town knew.

By the time Chief Riley arrived, Shelley had checked the dresser where Larry kept his things. His clothes remained, except for a few favorites. She’d have never noticed them gone if she hadn’t looked.

She’d been so upset, she’d thrown up.

Once the story broke, Shelley became the scapegoat. No surprise—she’d been the one left behind with no money to start over. She’d changed her phone number and email address, but still the calls and emails came. Most were from people who wanted her to pay them back. Not possible. Riley couldn’t offer any meaningful advice except that she “wasn’t the only one it had happened to.” Not what she needed to hear, but she’d seen it in his eyes. She was just one more victim: not a role she desired and not one she intended to keep forever.

Now here she was again, walking down the hallway with Chief Riley, curious glances aimed her way and an unsettling feeling of guilt warring with the flutter of the baby’s movements.

A shout came from her father’s room. “I think Shelley Wagner was a neighbor!”

Shelley blinked hard. She would not cry.

Riley offered, “Maybe it would be better if we headed to the station and—”

“Not an option, unless you’ve got a warrant for my arrest.” She wasn’t heading anywhere. Thanks to Larry and the myriad of police officers who had taken over her life six months ago, she knew her rights.

“That can be arranged,” Riley said.

Shelley rolled her eyes and led them down a hall. After turning Ryan over to Cara, who worked the front desk and always had time for the little boy, Shelley headed for the piano room. On weekends sometimes it held as many as forty people: patients, staff, visitors. During the week, it was usually empty unless Mr. Vaniper was in the mood to play.

He was and doing a perfect rendition of “Send in the Clowns.” If she hadn’t been on the brink of tears, she’d have laughed. Who were the clowns? The cops? The people her ex-husband had ripped off? Her?

Mr. Vaniper, who had the room next to her father’s, wore his black tux. He played music he no longer remembered the words to in front of an audience he didn’t know wasn’t there. The tune came to a crescendo and ended. Mr. Vaniper wandered from the room.