Ragan's Song (Fairfield Corners #2) (14 page)

He pulled a chair over and took a seat, deciding it was time to get everything out in the open. “About what happened that night at the house; I know you probably can’t forgive me for that, but maybe we could start over.” He glared at his lap, afraid to look up and see the condemnation in her face.

She stared at him with pain-filled eyes as she tried to figure out what he was talking about.
He can’t mean that night he came to my bed, can he?
“Adam, look at me,” she said as she squeezed his hand tighter. “Did you hear me say no? Did I fight you?”

“Well, no. But…” he stammered.

“But nothing. I was a willing participant that night,” she smiled.

“You were crying.”

“I was crying because I knew I had to push you away. My heart hasn’t been whole since the night I left. I never stopped loving you,” she beamed.

Hope dawned in his eyes. “You still love me?” he asked in a whisper.

“I’ll remind you of that after I explain the other reason I left; the real reason I’m not sure how much of it you’re going to believe,” she said with a yawn, grimacing at the pain in her ribs.

“Just rest, honey. We can discuss that later when you feel better. Whatever it is, we’ll deal with it together.” He bent down and kissed her as her eyes closed and she drifted off to sleep.

An hour later she woke up, with the memory of Adam’s face when she told him she still loved him making her smile. The squeak of a shoe on the tile floor caught her attention. Someone was adjusting her IV, pulling a syringe out of his pocket and injecting it directly into the line. When he turned and she saw his face, she realized that something about him was familiar. “Do I know you?” she asked as her eyelids grew heavy again. She fought the drowsiness, trying to stay awake, but it was no use.

He watched her sleep for a moment before answering, “Yes, you know me, but you never noticed me; you will now.” He turned and rolled the wheelchair over next to the bed and gently lifted her into it, making sure she was strapped in securely.

He pulled a wig out of the bag he had brought in with him and bunched the pillows and blankets to make it appear as if someone were still in the bed. Taking a step back to judge the placement of the wig, he decided it looked good enough to fool anyone looking in from the door. He turned and tucked a blanket around her legs before wheeling her out into the hallway.

Chapter 33

Adam whistled as he waited for the elevator to reach the fourth floor; happier than he had been since Ragan disappeared three years ago. He finally thought his life was back on track. For the first time in three years, the melody that he had heard since he was nine rang clearly in his head, begging for him to write it down and put the right words to it. If Ragan was still asleep when he arrived at her room, he’d find some paper and start working on it. This time, it would work.

His phone started ringing as he stepped off the elevator, and he was reaching for it when he turned the corner and noticed Logan on his phone, too. Nearby, James moved around stiffly, obviously agitated and talking to the floor nurses and a Fort Wayne police officer. A detective in a jacket and tie stood in front of Robbie, who sat in a chair outside Ragan’s room with his head in his hands. Adam glanced at the phone in his hand and saw Logan’s name on the screen, so he hung up. The expression on Logan’s face frightening, he wore his “cop face.” No doubt in Adam’s mind… something was seriously wrong.

“Adam, I was just trying to call you…”

“What’s happened? Is Ragan okay? What’s going on?” Adam asked frantically, getting more worried by the second.

“She’s not here, Adam. She’s gone.” Logan grabbed Adam as he tried to force his way into Ragan’s room to see for himself. “You can’t go in there, it’s a crime scene.”

“What do you mean ‘a crime scene’? What the hell is going on, Logan?” Adam’s loud voice trembled, afraid of what Logan was going to tell him next.

“Someone kidnapped Ragan,” his cousin enunciated succinctly.

“No, there’s got to be some mistake. You better be screwing with me, Cuz.” The fear that radiated on Logan’s face finally convinced Adam that Ragan was gone. The tune he’d been hearing in his head a few minutes ago had become a crashing of chords instead of a sweet melody. He turned around and slowly started walking away, talking to himself. “How many times do I have to lose her?” He reached the window and leaned his head against the glass, letting out a shuddering breath and barely keeping the tears from falling.

Logan walked up behind him and put his hand on his shoulder. “We’ll find her, bud. You’ve got to believe that.”

James followed. “Tell him, Logan. He needs to know.”

Adam frowned at James and then at Logan. “What do I need to know? What are you keeping from me?”

“Can you give us a few minutes, James?”

“Sure. Use the waiting room. I’ll make sure you’re not disturbed.” James walked back down the hall towards the nurse’s station.

Adam lowered himself onto one of the cushioned couches, trying to massage the stress from the back of his neck. “What’s going on, Logan? What don’t I know?”

Logan removed his hat and ran his hand through his hair. “A couple of weeks ago Cassie called me over to Ragan’s. I wasn’t happy about it, but when my darlin’ asks, I just can’t refuse.” He smiled slightly at the thought of Cassie. “It seems that Ragan was being stalked and had received threatening notes.”

“A stalker? You knew she had a stalker and you didn’t tell me?” Adam stood, holding his clenched hands at his sides. “Why in the hell didn’t you tell me?”

“Ragan asked me not to.”

“You let her make that decision? You son of a bitch.” He plowed his fist into Logan’s face, relishing the feel of Logan’s lips smashing against his teeth. “How long have you known about this? God, he could have tried something when Sky or Jenna was with her.” The thought of something happening to the kids made his breath lock in his chest. Backing up, he sat down heavily when the back of his legs hit the edge of the couch against the far wall as he struggled to breathe. “Dammit, you put my family in danger,” he yelled as thoughts of a life without Ragan in it ran through his mind.

Logan took a deep breath and continued, “It gets worse.”

“How the hell could it get any worse?”

“She received notes three years ago. That’s the real reason she left. She thought she was saving you by leaving. Finding out about your ex and Jenna was only a convenient excuse.”

“An excuse? Why would she need an excuse to leave me?” Adam asked, trying to make sense of Logan’s words.

“She left to keep you safe,” Logan replied, “because the threats were against you, not her. She thought that leaving was the only way to keep you from getting hurt.”

“She tore out my heart and stomped on it to keep me safe? Is that what you’re telling me?” Adam nearly shouted.

“Well, yes. But that’s not the whole story,” Logan said as he stood and started to pace. He knew the next part would be hard for Adam to believe. “Ragan had a vision of you being dead.”

“A vision? Like a psychic vision? What the hell are you talking about, Logan?”

“Yes, she had a vision of the future, a future where the stalker killed you. According to Cassie, Ragan has had visions since she was a kid.” Logan stopped in front of Adam and looked him in the eye. “She actually had two visions about you. In the first, the two of you had just gotten married and you were dancing at your reception to a song I was singing.”

Logan raked his fingers through his hair again. “She hummed the song I was singing. Adam, it was the song you were humming once when we were kids; the one you said would disappear if you focused on it. When I heard her hum that tune, I believed her.”

Reality sinking in, Adam’s blood boiled. “Why in the hell didn’t anyone tell me? Dammit, Logan, didn’t you learn three years ago what secrets can do?” Adam yelled, frustrated at the situation and angered that he had been kept in the dark.

James came in the room holding an evidence bag. “Steve found this at Ragan’s,” he said as he handed the bag to Logan.

Logan frowned at the letter, which was just as Ragan predicted, except it said,
Adam will die
instead of
he will die.
“Has anyone spotted the blue Toyota?” he asked James.

“What blue Toyota?” Adam cut in. “Does this piece of shit drive a blue Toyota?”

James answered calmly, “We believe so. Ragan sent Logan a picture of a car that she had seen for the last three or four days.”

“Show me,” Adam said with a sinking feeling in his stomach.

Logan pulled the picture up on his phone and handed it to Adam. “It was following her just before the tornado hit.”

“Jesus,” Adam said as he handed the phone back to Logan, his hand shaking. “He almost ran me down out in the parking lot earlier, when I was leaving the hospital to go shower.” He lowered his head and laced his fingers behind his neck. “He was probably on his way here to kidnap Ragan.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Logan asked.

“Because I thought it was just some moron speeding through the parking lot,” Adam countered hotly. “If I had known about the stalker situation, I would have called you and you probably could have caught him before he grabbed her.” Adam strode over to the door, needing to move around and do something. “Are the kids safe?” he asked as he pulled his phone out of his pocket. “I’m calling Will and Colt. I hope they can get here on short notice.”

Twenty minutes later, Adam paced the length of the waiting room and back again. Worry and fear for Ragan made his hands tremble every time he tried to sip the coffee sitting on the table. The thought of Will and Colt on their way to Fairfield Corners helped put his mind at ease about the kids.

Will Jamison and Colt LeBrea were bodyguards who specialized in the music industry. Longtime friends of Adam and Logan, they put their Navy Seal skills to good use as Adam’s security while he was on tour. When Adam stopped touring, they started to freelance, taking only the jobs they wanted. Adam had paid them so well over the years that they could have retired quite comfortably, but neither one was the type to sit still for long. Within twenty minutes, Adam had confirmation texts from them both that they would be in Fairfield Corners before the end of the day.

Adam prayed that Ragan would be home before they arrived.

Chapter 34

The hinges squealed in protest as he pushed the door open with his foot. “You belong with me, not him,” he said as he carried Ragan into the dilapidated house. The bedroom upstairs was ready for her; he had replaced the mattress and the bedding, knowing that she wouldn’t want to sleep on musty sheets and a worn-out set of springs. Only the best for her. He snapped the manacle around her ankle after carefully laying her on the bed. “I hate that I have to do this, but I have to make sure you won’t run away until I have a chance to win your heart,” he said as he caressed her cheek.

She opened her eyes slightly at his touch, but the anesthetic kept her in a semi-conscious state. Her eyes closed again.

An hour later, Ragan’s eyes opened, and she winced at the pain in her ribs. Looking up at the ceiling with its water stains and sagging plaster, she realized she no longer lay in the hospital. She had a vague recollection of a man in her room, injecting something into her IV, and then everything went blank until she woke up here. Moving only her head, she searched her immediate surroundings, wondering where she was and why. The fog in her mind started to lift and she remembered the notes.
The stalker.

She slowly sat up and swung her legs off the side of the bed, feeling the drag of a chain. “I can’t have you running back to him,” she heard a voice coming from the far corner of the room. “You belong with me, Ragan,” he said as he entered her field of vision.

“Mark?” she asked, realizing her mistake when he came closer to the lantern. “You’re not Mark.” His resemblance to Mark jogged her memory. “Billy? You’re my stalker?” She remembered how he had looked so lost at the funeral. “Billy, if you let me go, I won’t tell anyone it was you. It’ll be our secret,” she promised, hoping he would believe her.

“It’s too late for that. You’re mine now. We can fix up this big old house and be the envy of everyone in town,” he said with a childish grin on his face. “They’ll finally see that I’m the one who deserves their respect, not that rocker who stole you away from me.”

“But, I don’t love you, Billy,” she said, trying to reason with him. “I love Adam.”

“No, no, no,” he yelled, “You love me!” He stomped back and forth, mumbling to himself, “She loves me, she loves me,” over and over.

He stopped pacing. “He brainwashed you, that’s got to be it.” His eyes darted wildly around the room, searching for something. He turned his gaze on Ragan and she saw a different side of him, with his expression twisted with evil.

“I don’t know what he sees in you, bitch,” he said in a gravelly voice. “You’re nothing but a whore, giving yourself to that singer and having his bastard.” His eyes burned with hatred as he said, “He needs to die.” Without another word or gesture, he turned and exited the room.

Ragan tried to push herself up on the bed, the pain in her ribs becoming sharper. When it dulled slightly, she stood and walked as far as the chain would let her, searching around for anything that might help her escape. The tether kept her from reaching the windows or door, and the broken-down dresser stood just out of her reach. The pain in her ribs worsened, forcing her to lie back down on the bed as her vision went grey at the edges. Her hand went to her stomach as if to protect the life nestled there. “Don’t worry, little one. Your daddy will find us, I know it.”

The song Logan had been singing in her vision started playing out of thin air, the melody comforting her as she drifted off to sleep.