Looking for Miracles (15 page)

She could be as calm as possible. And to do that, they needed to plan out what she would do and say
on the phone with Hughes. “So explain to me just how to do this,” she told Hank. “I want this particular chapter in my life closed as soon as we can get it that way.”

“Consider it done.” He leaned over the notebooks and spoke quietly. “Now this will be the last time I can see you in public for a while without stirring up that weasel’s suspicions. So let’s get it all worked out…”

Why had he ever agreed to this? Mike paced around his apartment, two-way radio still in hand. He was going to wear a path in the carpet if he didn’t slow down. He’d go into the main house and wear a path in his mother’s carpet, but he didn’t want her to know how deeply he was involved in this whole mess.

How could she have let Lori get involved with a plan to catch scum like Hughes? Mike knew that if confronted, his mother would not see things the same way he did. In her eyes, Lori was a competent young woman, able to take care of herself in almost any situation. Gloria’s growing trust in her regarding the business showed him that.

She was probably right. But it made Mike sweat to think of tiny Lori, alone in the world, taking on a powerful guy like Hughes, even once, to spring a trap. Why didn’t he tell her not to do it?

He stopped pacing. Because he had no right to tell her anything of the kind, that’s why. One kiss and one date did not give a guy enough say-so in a woman’s life to forbid her to do something like this. He should be grateful that she agreed to the two-way radios. “Still awake over there?” he couldn’t resist asking into his.

There was a crackle of static, and then a soft laugh. “Of course. I just put the kids down for the last time not ten minutes ago. It’s only nine o’clock. Do you think I go to bed with the chickens?”

Mike was tempted to tell her what he really thought: he wished she could be with him. Not for the pleasure it would bring them, but for the protection he could give her. He didn’t dare say that, however. “I still wish we would have tapped the phone over there.”

“Not legal. Hank said there was no way he could get an order for a wiretap, and we couldn’t use one in a court of law any other way.”

“Yeah, but I’d like to have it in hard evidence if that guy threatens you or comes on to you or anything.”

“He might threaten me, but I doubt he’d do anything. Mike, he’s old enough to be my father. And he’s a very successful man in this community. Why would he risk all that over somebody like me?”

It was on the tip of his tongue to tell Lori just how precious “somebody like her” could be. But Mike had no idea how to say what he wanted to, so he left it for now. “You keep that radio where I can hear your end of the call, at least.”

“Will do. Now tell me good-night so I can go make the call. And pray for me, will you?”

“Sure.” He didn’t know if he could. Didn’t know what good it would do if he did pray for her, or even for himself. But Mike wasn’t about to tell Lori that over this two-way radio, or even in person. So he put things on standby mode to listen in while she called Hughes. And he sat down in his favorite leather recliner to listen.

Dogg padded over and put one huge front paw on his knee. “Later,” he told the beast, rubbing his head. “We’ll walk, as soon as this is over.” The dog gave a gusty canine sigh and dropped to the floor. He knew the word
later
and wasn’t too fond of it. But he didn’t argue.

Mike told himself that if he had Lori’s mind-set he’d call that a little miracle. Maybe the first one in a series, if this call went okay. But he wasn’t far enough along to call anything a miracle yet. He was sure God had a few of them up His sleeve, but he hadn’t shown many to him yet. Time would have to tell.

One ring. Two rings. Someone picked up the phone at Hughes’s number. “Hello?”

“Mr. Hughes?”

“Yes. Who’s calling?” His voice was smooth, cultured. Lori was ready to hang up right then and call it a night. Surely she couldn’t do this.
Help, Lord!

She took a deep breath. Time to concentrate. Time to steady her hands and her voice. “This is Lori Harper. Gary’s wife?” She tried to sound even more breathy and scatterbrained than she felt. In her half-panicky state, it was easy.

“Right. What can I do for you, Lori?”

Here it went. She wished she’d written everything down, like a script, once she and Hank planned it all in the office. But then it would probably sound rehearsed. No, this was better, even though her heart was racing and her hand was almost too damp to hold the phone. “I, uh, seem to have something of yours. Or at least something with your name on it.”

There was a short pause. “I don’t know how that could be. Unless it’s something you found at the trailer, perhaps, that I’d left there.”

He was taking the bait. “No, that’s not it, Mr. Hughes. You see, I was cleaning out our storage space yesterday. The rent on the space was due, and I decided I couldn’t afford it anymore.”

“I suspect money is rather tight for you, even working at Martin Properties like you are.” He sounded so smooth, so positively
oily
. Lori’s stomach flipped while she planned out what to say next.

“You know it is. Anyway, I found some of Gary’s old things. One batch of papers seems to be from work. They certainly mention your name often. I thought you might want to have them, uh, for your records.”

“And naturally you intend to just pop by the feed store tomorrow and give them to me for free.” Hughes’s voice had a cynical edge now.

“Well, like you said, things are kind of tight. And if I’m going to move down to Sedalia with the kids like I’ve planned, there’s a few things I’ll need.”

“Naturally. These papers… How often do they mention my name?”

Hughes was getting more interested. This wasn’t a direct admission that he was doing anything illegal, but if he was totally innocent, why would he care what kind of paperwork Gary Harper had left behind?

Lori felt a pang of remorse for ever thinking Gary had gone back on his promise to her that he wasn’t involved in illegal drug trafficking. From his perspective, he hadn’t been involved. He probably
even saw this all as a favor to the police and the county, getting a drug lab shut down.

“Well, you do seem to be in there a lot. Gary even said something about your plans to expand the business.”

“Oh?” Hughes’s intake of breath was sharp. “What kind of expansion?”

“It looks like pharmacy work to me, Mr. Hughes. That or somebody in your family certainly gets a lot of bad colds.” Lori let out her breath, trying to remember to focus and feel less light-headed. This was going just the way Hank had said it would. And Hughes wasn’t denying the link to the other ingredients for the meth lab.

There was a pause on Hughes’s end of the line while Lori held her breath. “I’m sure I could convince you of the perfect legality of all those purchases.” Good. This was getting closer. “And you say you have the paperwork there with you?”

“I do now.”

“You haven’t shown it to anybody, have you? I’d hate for something like that, which could be misconstrued so easily, to fall into the wrong hands.” Did Hughes sound nervous, or was it just a slightly bad phone connection?

“Of course not. Why would I show it to anybody but you, Mr. Hughes? I can’t think of anyone else who would be interested. Unless, of course, this
is something else besides just a list of business supplies…”

“Which it isn’t,” Hughes was quick to reply. “Perhaps we could go to lunch together tomorrow. Maybe even with your delightful children. Would you like that, Mrs. Harper?”

“We can leave the kids out of this.” Her response was natural, but quick. “This just involves the two of us, Mr. Hughes. And I look forward to hearing from you again. Soon.” She hung up, willing her hands not to shake.

It only took about thirty seconds after the connection was broken for her radio across the room to crackle to life. “Okay, fill in his end of the conversation,” Mike growled. “I want every detail. There is no way I’ll get to sleep tonight unless I know what’s going on first.”

Lori picked up her handset. “Fine. For once I’m glad you’re worried about me. Let me run it all by you and see what you think.”

Mike found himself tossing and turning. He had dozed off several times, only to wake up and listen to the night sounds around the place. Lori and the kids should really be back in his mom’s guest room in the main house. Or he and Dogg ought to be over there. Granted, either situation would blow everything
if Hughes or someone working for him came nosing around.

But it was hard to justify the sheriff’s investigation of Hughes as being more important than Lori Harper and her kids. They were becoming more precious to him every day, and he didn’t want to jeopardize their safety even for a moment.

How had that happened? He didn’t think of himself as a family man, exactly. Yet, here he was with a beautiful young woman often by his side, and her with two small kids. It boggled the mind. The roughest part of the whole situation was that even though he had a good job, more money than he knew what to do with and could meet her every need financially, she probably wouldn’t have anything to do with him in the long run because he wasn’t a Christian.

That was not exactly true. He believed in God, just not in the intensely personal way Lori seemed to. It was beyond his understanding to trust the way she did. Suddenly chilled, Mike pulled up the blankets.

His being cold was only partly due to the open window. His mother would skin him alive if she knew he was sleeping with the window open this early in March, even to hear what was going on outside. Still, he wasn’t comfortable doing things any other way, so it was a good thing his apartment
was on zoned heating and away from his mother’s bedroom.

Having the windows open made him happier with the fact that his apartment was probably as far as you could get from that little green house and not leave the property. For once he wished he had a good, direct view of the place. There was always another check-in on the two-way radio. He could see it outlined on his bedside table.

Mike couldn’t quite bring himself to turn it on again. Surely he was the only one worrying like this. Lori was asleep, with those kids down for the night hours ago. He would only disturb her if he called again now.

Before he could reach for the radio, Dogg whined on the floor at his feet. “Come on. Come tell me all about it.” Mike patted the side of his bed, expecting the dog to pad up to the head of the bed and complain. Instead, the beast’s ears perked up and he stood. This wasn’t a particularly good sign.

Dogg stayed focused on something outside. Mike got up and looked out the window. It took a moment for his eyes to get used to the dark. He couldn’t see anything different at the one corner of the green house he could see from this angle. But then…from the bushes near the corner of the house
it seemed a deeper shadow detached itself from the shadows there for a split second.

Everything happened at once. Dogg’s whining gave way to a full-throated growl, and the shadow definitely became the shape of a person. There was the crash of glass and a woman’s scream, and a roaring whoosh as the darkness was lit by flames.

The radio on his bedside crackled to life as Mike struggled into jeans, groping for shoes. “Mike. Help. Something just happened. I think the house is on fire.”

“I’ll call the crew and I’ll be right there. All of you get out of that house, now!” Mike shut off the radio and reached for the phone to get his 911 call made.

He had to make the call to get the trucks here as soon as possible. But that meant losing the chance of catching whoever threw the device that caused the fire. He swore under his breath. Catching the bad guy was key, but getting Lori, Tyler and Mikayla out of that house was far more important.

Dressed now, with shoes on, he barked instructions into the phone. Once she knew who it was, the dispatcher told him to hang up so he could go be more useful at the fire scene instead of staying on the line until the fire-and-rescue vehicles came. That was good, because Mike wouldn’t have stayed there anyway. He threw down the phone and bolted
from his apartment. Every second counted, as he knew all too well. He’d faced a lot of situations like this before, but not with people he cared about battling the flames. Not for a very long time. Running toward the green house, he broke out in a cold sweat.

Chapter Fourteen

T
his was a waking nightmare. Smoke billowed in the hall as Lori ran with the screaming baby. “Tyler. Come on now. I need you with me now,” she called into the dark hallway, which was growing darker as the smoke grew.

“Mama?” Tyler was coughing. How awful for a little child to be awakened from a sound sleep by fire and smoke in his own home. That horrified Lori more than her own experience. It was hard to remember which way to go in all this confusion.

“Here I am, Ty. Come out in the hall and hurry. We need to get out of here.” In a moment his solid body ran into hers and Lori nearly burst into tears of gratitude. Clutching his hand, she groped her way down the hall to the kitchen door. There would
be no going through the front door. Whatever had started the fire had begun in the living room. The furniture was burning and the drapes had caught. Going into that room was impossible.

The kitchen wasn’t burning yet, but dense smoke had begun to fill the room. After struggling with the unfamiliar locks for a moment, they were out in the fresh air, gulping it.

What had happened back there? One moment, everybody was in bed, asleep, and the next there was a horrible noise of shattering glass and the living room was on fire. Someone had to have thrown something through the window. That, or someone had actually been inside the house and set the fire. Either possibility made Lori light-headed. It was hard to think of even Clyde Hughes as being that coldhearted when small children were involved.

Tyler was wide-eyed and Mikayla was still sobbing. Lori jostled the baby on her shoulder, grateful that they were all in one piece and outside. “Let’s move away from the house and go toward Mike’s house, okay? I don’t want smoke to get in our eyes,” she told Tyler, tugging him gently away from the house.