Special Delivery (Mountain Meadow Homecoming 1) (27 page)

Sam’s cruiser approached the house with the lights on, but no siren. She was grateful. Even though she had no close neighbors, sirens attracted bystanders. They didn’t need anyone witnessing this… for her sake and for the sake of Mike’s family. Jenny met Sam out front. He touched her arm.

“You okay, Doc?” he rumbled in his deep drawl.

“Mostly,” she rasped. “He hit me in the head and tried to choke me, but I’ll be okay.”

“You want someone to look at your throat?”

“I’ll see to it myself. Sam, did Jake tell you who it is?”

“Yes.”

“Well, you should know something else as well. When I took his mask off, I started remembering what happened twelve years ago. Mike Saunders is the one who videotaped the other six.”

Sam’s relaxed posture disappeared. “You’re saying he was in on the gang rape?”

Jenny brushed shaky fingers across her face. “He was first. The tape didn’t start until after he’d finished.”

“That’s a lot to absorb, Doc. You want me to call Evan so he can be here with you?”

“No. I’m afraid he’ll go ballistic.” Jenny frowned into the darkness. “He’s only held on by a thread as it is. I don’t want to push him. Right now, Evan’s been doing a wonderful job of doing what needs to be done and keeping his head about it. I’ll tell him tomorrow, after you make the other arrests.”

Jenny desperately wanted him there with her, holding her, just holding her, but this was the right thing to do. Her whole body shook. Sam Barnes pulled her against his thick jacket and his broad chest and simply held her for a moment.

“He’s a lucky man to have you,” Sam reassured her.

* * * *

Jake couldn’t settle back down. After a while, he gave up and eased out of bed, careful not to wake Holly. She lay curled on her side, one palm lying curled near her cheek. Her hair spilled around her head in a tangle of curls. Jake’s body stirred. He couldn’t get enough of her. He resisted the urge to touch her. She needed the rest. She was a bundle of energy when she was awake, but he saw the weariness at night. She slept like the dead, and very often Jake awoke and brought Noelle to her.

After pulling on sweats, Jake padded downstairs to wait for Sam and Jenny. He heated milk for hot chocolate, stirring it before taking the first sip. A soft creak of the floorboard made him look up. Holly leaned against the door frame.

“Why didn’t you wake me?” she inquired softly.

“Jenny called. Mike Saunders attacked her after she returned to her house from the party at Evan’s parents.”

Holly straightened and moved into the room. “Oh no! Is she all right? Is Evan with her?”

Jake shook his head. “She was afraid to call him for fear it would ruin the arrests in the morning.”

“We should bring her here, Jake,” Holly stated. When she paused with one hand pressed against his chest, he smiled and touched her cheek.

“Sam’s doing that. He’ll take care of Mike too. I figured I should stay away with Mike being the mayor.” He cupped her chin and gazed at her with concern. “You should be sleeping, Holly. You need your rest. I’ll wait up.”

Holly’s mouth tightened. “I’m not fragile, Jake. I won’t break.”

He sighed, afraid he’d explained himself badly, but wanting her to understand. “I don’t think you’re fragile, honey, but you do have a lot on your plate.”

Her brows drew together. “Nothing I can’t handle…” She would have said more, but a quiet knock sounded on the door.

Jenny stood on the threshold with Sam next to her. Jake didn’t like how pale she appeared, her golden eyes wide and shocked.

“She’s a little hoarse,” Sam said in his deep bass. “Saunders choked her. I can’t stay. I still have him in the car. Just wanted to drop Doc first.”

Holly stepped around Jake and pulled Jenny inside. “Come on. We’ll get you fixed and find you a place to rest. You can stay and keep me company when Jake has to leave.”

Holly kicked back into high gear, her arm firmly around Jenny’s shoulders as she led her down the hallway toward the kitchen. He worried about Holly trying to do too much, but it was who she was. Jake could no more stop her nurturing instinct than he could stop…himself.

“Don’t worry about Doc, Sam. We’ll take good care of her until Evan can get here. When it comes to mothering, no one beats Holly. Sure looks like Jenny could use some TLC right now.”

Sam arched a brow. “Holly’s a might young to mother y’all, isn’t she?”

Jake grinned. “You’ll understand once you know her better.”

* * * *

Evan slept very little. He stood at the window of his room as the sun came up. His shirt collar was open and his tie stuffed into his tuxedo jacket. These last few days had shown him he no longer belonged in the house in which he’d spent his childhood. Sam’s car turned into the drive with a crime scene unit behind it and an additional marked patrol car following. Evan hoped that would be where his father would ride, so he would be able to catch a ride to Jenny’s house with Sam.

He wanted this over with. All he really wanted was to concentrate on Jenny and their future, but they first had to shut the door on the past. As the cars halted out front, he ran his fingers through his hair and absently rubbed a hand over beard stubble before he walked downstairs.

“What’s the meaning of this, Sheriff?” Stoner Richardson’s tone was arrogant and affronted. He’d known Sam and Sam’s father. They were neighbors, if not friends, so addressing him only as sheriff was a deliberate slap in the face.

“We have warrants for your arrest in connection with the felony sexual assault on Jennifer Owens twelve years ago.” Sam Barnes’s farm might sit right next door to Richardson Homestead, but right now, he was all business.

Evan stepped forward and removed the papers from his coat pocket. “I also have a search warrant, allowing us to look for additional copies of the DVD which you gave to me last night, and any record of payments made to Jennifer Owens’s father.”

As the deputy cuffed the former Senator, Sam Barnes stepped close to him and said, “Before you say another word, Stoner, I think you should know Mike Saunders was arrested last night for attempted murder at Jenny’s house. He’s spent the rest of the night singing like a canary. Deputies and members of Mountain Meadow’s police department are in the process of arresting six other people in connection with the original crime.”

Sam spoke to his deputy, “Read him his rights and get him out of here before anymore people awaken.” His gaze swiveled to Evan. “You want someone to attend to your mother?”

Catherine Richardson stood at the base of the stairs, her face pale and shocked. “Evan?” she choked. “What’s going on?”

He took her hands as his father was led from the house. “I’m sorry, Mother. I’ll explain everything in a few minutes and help you deal with the guests.” He looked impatiently to where Sam directed his detectives toward Stoner Richardson’s inner sanctum. “I need to speak to the sheriff quickly, and then I’ll be right back.”

Sam stood at the threshold of Stoner’s study when Evan put a hand on his arm. “What’s this about Jenny’s house? Is she all right?”

“Sorry to spring it on you, Evan,” Sam said. “Jenny’s okay. She’s at Jake and Holly’s. I dropped her off as I took Saunders in. Look, once you get stuff squared with your mother, I’ll run you by Jake’s. It’s probably better if she explains it all.”

Evan nodded, concern for Jenny and his mother warring within him. His face was probably as pale and strained as his mother’s but for very different reasons. After he took her into her sitting room he shut the door behind him. This wasn’t going to be easy.

“Did you know about this, Evan?” his mother asked tightly. Always so in control, but this time cracks were obvious in the quiver of her chin that she couldn’t quite hide. Each tremor was like a knife to his heart. He would have spared her this if he could.

“Yes.” He met her gaze calmly.

“You came into our home last night knowing this was going to happen this morning?” She shook her head as if she couldn’t understand it. “Surely you can’t be implicating your father in a rape from twelve years ago? Or any rape. We’re talking about a former United States senator.”

Evan fisted his hands in his pockets. “I am aware of that, but I have to tell you, if I didn’t have very strong evidence, I would never take the step of having my own father arrested.”

“You’re destroying our family!” she snapped. Her normally composed face was even more tightly drawn with the strain of controlling her emotions. He wanted to deny her words, but he had known going in what the results would be.

Evan sighed. “I don’t have a choice. A crime was committed. I’ve seen evidence of it. It’s my duty to see justice is done.”

“You would prosecute your own father?” His mother was incredulous.

“No, Mother. I will recuse myself from the case and request a special prosecutor. But I think it fair to warn you I may be called as a witness.”

Her composure crumbled. “I don’t understand this. You are no son of mine.”

Evan’s gut twisted. He focused on the one good thing that had come out of this whole mess: the restoration of his relationship with Jenny. “I’m sorry you feel that way. I had hoped you and I would be able to salvage something out of this.”

“I notice you don’t mention your father.”

Evan regarded his mother with a cool, even stare. “Stoner Richardson quit being my father the day his actions killed my unborn daughter.” His mother gasped, but Evan refused to acknowledge the shock she’d just received. “Would you like me to help you with your guests?”

She looked at him blankly. “No. You do what you need to, Evan, then leave. I can’t talk about this with you.”

Evan accepted her condemnation with a nod and left the home he’d grown up in. He waited on the front steps, with the collar of his black wool overcoat raised against the December chill. He was cold, but the cold went far deeper than the freezing air; it went to his heart. He was leaving a chaotic mess behind him, but his focus was already shifting. He was impatient to get to Jenny, worried about what had happened after she left last night. Sam said his father was now also implicated in attempted murder. God! Would it never end? All he wanted was to marry Jenny, settle down, and raise the family they should have started years ago.

Another half hour passed before Sam and the other officers reappeared. They carried with them several file boxes, a handful of DVDs, and his father’s computer.

“Hop in, Evan,” Sam said quietly, “you look half-frozen.”

* * * *

Jake processed three of the six suspects through his office, all of them protesting their innocence. They would go over to the courthouse where the county jail was. Mountain Meadow’s police department had only one holding cell, not designed to house anyone for more than an hour or two.

He was empty. He had forced himself to bury his own emotions as he processed the arrests of men with whom he’d grown up. They weren’t just suspects. They were former classmates, businessmen, and members of a community harboring a lot more secrets than he’d ever suspected.

The situation with Jenny and Evan, begun so many years earlier, was affecting him in a way he’d never expected. Coming home had seemed like returning to a sanctuary, a place where he could hide from the horrors of his last years in the Middle East. Now he understood, Mountain Meadow had problems as serious as any area. He’d just been lucky so far.

All he wanted was Holly. He wanted to touch her and be warmed by her love and her optimism. At a time when it was almost impossible to believe in the goodness of man, he needed her faith in her adopted town. She made him clean. She made everything clean. And she believed when doubts consumed him.

After making sure they were read their rights, Jake swept his gaze over them. “Gentlemen, I advise you to say nothing else until you’ve talked to your attorneys.”

He spoke to Officer Brandt. “Call over to the jail, see if we can bring them over.”

“Jake,” Bob Summers called. “Surely you’re not going to walk us through the square…”

Jake spun on him but then forced himself to relax. Innocent until proven guilty, that was the law.

“We’ll walk you around back.”

All three heaved a sigh of relief, but Jake wondered how long that would last once court proceedings actually began.

Once the call was made and the jail said they were ready, Jake helped Brandt walk the suspects over to their new temporary homes. He was silent as they returned to the station. He glanced at the clock. His weekend off, and it had turned into a series of arrests he’d never forget. He needed Holly, needed to feel her innate goodness.

“I’m headed home, Brandt. Call me if there’s any problem and you can’t reach Ernie.”

He had just turned into the driveway when his cell phone rang.

“Jake! It’s Evan. How’s Jenny?”

“I’m just getting back. When I left this morning, she was more pissed than scared, but that could be a front. She needs you. Are you about wrapped?”

“Sam’s giving me a lift there now.”

“See you in a few minutes then. Jenny will be relieved. I’m not sure she slept all night.”

Jake saw the relief on her face when he walked inside and told her he’d just gotten off the phone with Evan. He said gently, “Jen, he’s going to be livid when he sees what Saunders did to your face and throat.”

“I know,” she rasped. “If you don’t mind, I’m going to wait on the front porch for him.”

“Go. I need a cup of decent coffee. When y’all are ready, come in, we’ll eat a big breakfast.”

* * * *

Jenny watched him go inside. She leaned against the porch railing waiting. She was exhausted and at the end of her rope. She had managed to hold it together all night, but she ached for Evan and the warm comfort of his arms. When Sam’s car stopped in front of the house, she was already halfway down the walk before he could get out. Evan shook Sam’s hand before getting out of the car. As soon as he did, he opened his arms to Jenny.

They held each other silently for a heartbeat, and then he eased her away. His eyes darkened as he took in the bruise high on her cheekbone and the bruising along the slender column of her throat. “Ah, Jenny!” His voice was hoarse. “What happened? Why didn’t you call me?”