Dana Lynn - Plain Retribution

Besides, after what she had gone through, after what she had seen, she needed security in her life. A policeman who put himself in danger every day, no matter how handsome he was or how great he signed, was not on her list of possible mates.

Forcing her mind to accept the reality of her situation, she read his text.

Be there at 7:40. Jackson coming, too.

It was seven fifteen now. The sun was just starting to come up. She had almost half an hour. She’d go crazy just sitting here. To give herself something to do, she set about cleaning her already spotless apartment.

The light in the hall flashed. Someone was at the door. It had to be Miles and Jackson. The cautiousness she’d learned as a teenager wouldn’t let her open the door without checking the peephole. Two men dressed in dark blue uniforms stood in the hall. She recognized the LaMar Pond uniforms. Miles and Sergeant Jackson. With a sigh of relief, she swung open the door.

The relief drained out of her when she saw how they looked. The tension emanating from the two men crackled like a live wire. She instinctively stepped back from them. Keeping her distance, she searched for clues in Miles’s expression as he entered the apartment. The morning sunlight streaming in from the windows emphasized his serious expression. The downward curve of his mouth. The set of his strong jaw. Both spoke of a man on a mission. And an unpleasant one at that. Something bad had happened.

Fear lay in a leaden ball in her stomach. Please, Lord, let everything be all right. Even as she prayed, though, she knew everything was not all right. Something had happened to Holly. What? Sweat slicked her palms. She was about to find out.

THREE

Her throat was dry. “We can talk in the kitchen.”

Miles nodded, then turned to say something to Jackson. She was fairly certain he was relaying her message to the other officer. In the kitchen, she grabbed a bottle of water from the refrigerator, then held it up with a questioning look. Did they want one? Both officers shook their heads. Fine. She uncapped it and took a long swallow. It made her throat feel better, but nothing else felt any relief.

Her stomach hurt. Not sick hurt. Scared hurt. The way it always had as a child. The way it had when she’d been held against her will ten years ago.

She scraped back a chair at the table and sat down across from Miles.

“Can you understand okay if I switch to pidgin? That will make it easier to keep Jackson in the loop.”

She nodded. Pidgin sign language used mostly ASL signs, but put them in English word order. This way, the signer was able to speak and sign at the same time. Not optimal, but she could follow along.

“Rebecca, I got your text this morning. I drove by the parking lot of the restaurant Holly works at. Her car was in the lot. But she was nowhere to be found. The manager said that she had left after she’d finished her prep work for the morning shift. That was around ten thirty. She never came back in. When he saw her car this morning, he thought she must have had car trouble and had someone pick her up.”

What? That was absurd. If she’d left her car, she would have let them know so it wouldn’t get towed. How could they not have realized something was wrong?

But she knew she couldn’t really blame the manager. Holly’s behavior at times was a bit erratic. She had already lost two jobs in the past for being unreliable. Mostly because she’d drop everything if her sister needed her.

“Her car was in disarray. Like someone had been shuffling through her things. Would she have left a mess if she was trying to find something?”

Judging from the skepticism scrawled across his face and seeping into his signs, Miles didn’t think so. And Rebecca agreed. Her heart sank.

“Holly would never leave her things cluttered or messy,” Rebecca informed him. His mouth was moving as he told Jackson what she said. She continued, “Disorder of any kind bothered her. I sometimes tease her that if there was a fire she’d make her bed before leaving the building.”

The joke had made people laugh before. Not anymore.

“I want you to look at this picture,” Miles signed. “Is this the vehicle she would have driven to work yesterday?” He tapped the screen on his phone, then flipped it around so she could see the picture he brought up. It was a white Jeep. He swiped his finger across the screen. A second picture of the back of the vehicle. The familiar vanity license plate came into view.

She swallowed. Nodded. Any hope she’d entertained that there might have been some mistake disintegrated. Something caught her eye.

“Wait, what’s that?” She pointed to a large blot of color on the side of the car. It was a dark smear. It hadn’t been there the day before. It looked like paint. Or...

A wave of nausea hit her, causing her to sway. “Is that blood?”

Miles hesitated. But the answer was on his face even before he nodded.

Holly wasn’t just missing—she was hurt. Why, Lord? Hadn’t she suffered enough?

She pushed back from the table, stood and moved to the sink. She gripped the counter with both hands, so hard her fingers hurt. Her control was slipping. The trembling started in her insides and worked its way outward. The view out of the window above the sink blurred.

A warm hand settled on her shoulder. Miles’s fresh scent washed over her a second later. Without thought, she turned and burrowed into Miles’s shoulder, fighting back tears. He patted her awkwardly on the back.

What was she doing?

Stepping away, she wiped at her moist eyes. More to give herself a moment to regain control than because she was crying. As she wiped her sleeve across her eyes, she gathered up the courage to face him. The compassion she saw in his expression was almost her undoing. Almost. But she was made of stronger stuff.

“Sorry,” she signed.

He shrugged. “Not a problem. It’s a completely natural reaction. Here’s what we need to do. I need to bring you into the station to ask—”

“But I’ve done nothing wrong!”

He raised his hands, made a calm-down motion. “I know. We just have some questions for you, and they should be answered at the station so that we can bring in a certified interpreter to make sure there’s no confusion or misinterpretation.”

What? she thought. “You sign. Your ASL is beautiful.”

She watched, fascinated, as his ears turned bright red. It would have been cute in other circumstances. “Thanks. But it’s the law. You need a certified interpreter. Unless you agree to accept me as the interpreter for now.”

She sagged back against the counter. “Fine. I accept. I don’t want to go to the police station. What do you need to know?”

Miles took his seat back at the table. Reluctantly, she moved to sit down again.

The conversation started very generally. Age, birthday, job. Then it got more specific. Where did Holly grow up? Who did she live with?

“How did you meet Holly?”

“We went to the same school for years. Holly was a year ahead of me.”

Jackson said something to Miles, who interpreted, translating it into sign. “You grew up in Spartansburg, right?” She nodded. “You lived in different districts. How did you go to the same school?”

She cocked her head at the officer. “Holly is hard of hearing. We were both bused out of district so we could attend the deaf program.”

“Have either of you had an issue with violent boyfriends, or threats? Anyone hold a grudge against either of you at work?” Miles again.

She paused. “No.”

But what about before? Was it relevant?

He waved his hand, drawing her attention back to him.

“If there’s something that might be related, we need to know.”