Page 43 of Fortune’s Control (Fortune’s Creek #1)
Lilah’s phone went straight to voicemail. I sent a quick text letting her know we were on our way back, and started the truck engine.
“Thanks for helping with this project,” I told Jack as we left Gainesville behind.
“Yes, you’ve thanked me several times.” He gave a humorless laugh. “Let’s head back to your house and start fresh on the work tomorrow. I want Aiden’s help.”
I didn’t respond. Aiden’s lackadaisical approach to construction pained Jack, and if he wanted some lighthearted revenge, I wouldn’t stop him. “You have other plans later today?”
“Are you checking up on me?” he asked, and I didn’t miss the sour note in his voice.
“You and Sophie had a big blow-up. She’s my sister, and you’re my oldest friend. It’d be nice if you two could at least be polite.”
“I’m not the one you need to convince, Shane. If I had a choice…”.
“What did you do to her?”
“That’s rich coming from the guy who sent her to live with strangers.”
Fair point. “I want you to try again. For both your sakes.”
“Sure. I’ll try again. I always try again, don’t I? One more apology should solve the problem. ”
Jack crossed his arms, and I gave up. We drove in familiar silence until reaching Fortune’s Creek.
“Stop the truck.” Jack pounded on the dashboard. “Stop it.”
I slammed the brakes and looked around, alert for any hidden danger. “What’s wrong?”
“The sign moved.”
“What sign?”
“On the gray bitch.” Jack’s unspoken dream. “Someone moved the for-sale sign. It sat next to the sidewalk, facing the road so passersby could see it. Now, it’s right up next to the resort, so you can’t read the phone number or the real estate agent’s name. Someone moved it.”
“Buy the damn thing, and be done with it.” He drifted from job to job, rather than pursuing what he truly wanted. I spent a year in stasis, waiting for Lilah to show up, so I knew how painful it was. “It’s what you want to do.”
He didn’t respond, which was not unexpected, so I tried Lilah again. No answer.
Lilah had sent a text letting me know her work with Aiden ended earlier than planned, and to meet me at home. My response was still marked unread, so I sent her another.
I planned to take her to dinner tonight, somewhere fancier than the Creekside Diner.
“You heard from that cop yet?”
I put the truck in park and let it idle. “Not yet, and don’t expect to.” I knocked on the steering wheel, deliberating. Concern won out, and I dialed again with the same result. “Call Aiden and see if he picks up.”
Jack didn’t push back; instead, he pressed a button and put it on speakerphone.
“Hi, this is Aiden. I don’t know how to check voicemail, so call my brother. He’s a friendly fellow.”
“Where are you guys? Call me.” Jack typed out a message and pressed the send button. “It’s possible they left their phones in the house.”
“No, she always carries it, just in case.” Lilah took constant pictures of the cat or whatever caught her eye, often sending them to me with emojis or other commentary.
I tried her phone one last time, with the same result. “Something is wrong. We need to go. Right now.” Intuition roared in my ears as I put the truck in drive and pressed on the throttle. “Keep calling. Take turns.”
Jack called as I sped past one stop sign and another.
My phone rang. “Can you check who it is?”
He picked it up. “Out of state.”
“Send it to voicemail for me, will you?”
He did, and it rang again almost immediately.
“You need to get a call blocker.”
I didn’t get enough calls to warrant one. Less than a half-dozen people called, and most saw me every day. “Answer it for me.”
Detective Moore wasn’t one for niceties. “You at home?”
“Where is my wife?”
“She’s not with you?”
Unease pricked me. “I wouldn’t ask if she were here, would I?”
“Sandy Cooper’s killer may be in Fortune’s Creek.”
I swerved off the road, causing Jack to grab the steering wheel and right the vehicle.
“He has her. He took Lilah.” My voice failed, and I couldn’t explain further. I slammed on the brakes, almost missing the long driveway.
*****
Aiden’s red truck rested farther from the front door than where he usually parked it. I checked the hood. “It’s warm. They aren’t here.”
Or maybe the killer ambushed them, and all I’d find were two bodies.
I refused to go there. Lilah and Aiden needed me, and that’s where my focus belonged. Years of training took hold, and I wallowed in it, choosing its coldness over any threatening panic.
“How do you know?” Jack asked.
“She’d be here to greet me. We always do that when the other comes home.” I’d be busy kissing her again.
“How are we playing this?”
I wanted to toss caution to the wind and barge in. We needed speed more than we needed any discussion. “You take the back, and I’ll enter from the front. Get a knife from the kitchen.”
“What about you?”
Lilah wasn’t inside. Her presence transformed our house, enveloping it in warmth and affection, but the outside walls had returned to their sterile, white appearance.
“I don’t need one. Phones at the ready.” I checked mine and realized Detective Moore was still on the line, screaming for an update.
“Come to my house.” I hung up without giving him a chance to respond.
“Meet you in the middle.” Jack gripped my arm and left.
One of the newly installed cameras was missing. Glass shards from an outside light lay on the ground. A quick peek through the nearest window revealed nothing unusual, and no voices leaked outside.
The door wasn’t closed tight, either. Lilah checked and double-checked locked doors ever since the night Pirate went missing. I turned the knob and stepped inside to find an empty foyer. Dirt created a partial footprint on the wood floor.
I cleared the first guest bedroom, checking the closet and bed, and found no one. Next came the front sitting room, Sophie’s most disliked room.
“Aiden.” I sprinted the few steps to where his body lay on the floor.
A phone rested on his chest, with another in his loose grasp. Blood soaked his light gray shirt, with more around his ears and along his hairline. I called his name one more time, but his eyes stayed shut.
“Jack! Get down here!”
Grabbing the small knife from my front pocket, I sliced the bottom of Aiden’s shirt, cutting through the cotton to avoid further harm, and assessed his wound.
“How bad is it?”
I didn’t hear Jack enter when I should have. “Bullet to the chest.”
“Calling an ambulance now. Shit.”
I applied pressure with his shirt’s remains, hoping to slow the bleeding.
Jack gave out the location after 911 responded. “I have an unconscious gunshot victim. Single wound.” I lifted Aiden’s body and shook my head. “No visible exit wound.”
“He’s breathing, and a heartbeat detected.”
Jack relayed the info before lowering himself beside me. “ He’ll make it. Aiden loves annoying us too much to give up like this.”
“I know.”
We found Aiden, so where was Lilah?
*****
“How is he?” Detective Moore stood over us, and I never heard his arrival. That’s twice in a short period of time.
“He’s still unconscious,” Jack said.
“I called your local sheriff’s department. They’ll be here soon,” Moore said.
We heard sirens, faint at first, and then louder.
Jack kept pressure on Aiden. “It’s his left shoulder, not his chest. I think his head banged the table on the way down, knocking him out. That explains all the blood.”
Aiden promised to protect Lilah with his life, and his injury was the result. My parents died, and my friends stepped in, caring for me when I needed them most, and now Aiden offered his life. I took back all my deprecating jokes and pranks and promised him I’d do the same if ever he needed it.
“His breathing is steady,” I said, feeling a strange urge to speak. “Lilah isn’t here.” Detective Moore hadn’t believed Lilah when she first tried to tell him the truth about Wilson Skane, and she might pay for that with her life. “You know who took her, don’t you? I want answers.”
The ass frowned down at me before answering. “You’re not going off half-cocked to save your girlfriend. That’s how innocent people get killed.”
Aiden’s wound was evidence that Moore’s failure to go off half-cocked got people killed. I glared back. “If you’ re going to threaten me, say it outright. Otherwise, it’s time to talk.”
“I think my partner’s younger brother killed Sandy Cooper and the other girls.”
If they took Lilah, that gave me hope. They didn’t want her dead, not yet, and that meant I had time.
A pair of EMTs entered and prepped Aiden for a transfer.
“I’ll call Sam,” Jack volunteered.
“Where is she? Where would they take her?” Fortune’s Creek didn’t offer many hiding places, and traveling back to Atlanta struck me as risky.
“I don’t know,” the detective admitted.
Aiden’s eyes fluttered as he lay on a stretcher. His right fingers flicked toward me as his mouth opened. His thick voice, garbled and rough, mumbled a word.
“You’ll be okay. We have you taken care of, so concentrate on getting better,” I said.
He tried again, and this time I understood.