Missing Read online

  Janice screamed again. “And then you had the nerve to come back!”

  With a sinking heart, Lacey realized she wasn’t going to be able to reason with the woman, and focused on trying to figure out how to disarm her.

  But Janice said, “I found him looking at your pictures. The ones in the yearbook.”

  Confused, Lacey just kept her mouth shut.

  “Oh, yes,” Janice continued. “I found him. Six years ago, sitting on the sofa around Christmastime. He was looking at the yearbook. I asked him what he was doing and he just shrugged and snapped the book shut. I sat down next to him for a trip down memory lane, but—” she wagged a finger “—memory lane didn’t have anything to do with me. It was all about you!” The finger jabbed in Lacey’s direction and spittle flew from her mouth.

  Lacey felt compassion mix with her fear.

  Janice paced the floor, the pain on her face horrible to see. “I was so mad, hurt. Here I was, finally pregnant with his child and he was looking at pictures of you.”

  “Oh, Janice, I’m so sorry.”

  “You should be!” The gun waved wildly and Lacey cringed.

  “But I wasn’t there,” she stated softly. “I didn’t have anything to do with that. I didn’t have any control over that.”

  “You weren’t there?” Janice gave a laugh filled with disbelief. “Oh you were there, all right. You were everywhere. In the church, in the grocery store, in my own house!” She mocked, “Those are pretty flowers. I think they were Lacey’s favorite.”

  Oh, Daniel, what did you do? Lord, please…

  “I was never interested in Daniel, Janice. You know that! How many times did I say how much I wished he’d just leave me alone?”

  “That’s what you said.” Janice sneered. “But you never did anything to discourage him. You just kept letting him hang around you. And you loved it. All the attention you were getting from two of the best-looking guys in school. Don’t deny you ate it up.”

  “I did not!” Lacey protested, but for a brief moment, a little piece of her mind questioned whether or not Janice was right. She sputtered, “But he was Mason’s best friend and I didn’t want to hurt his feelings.”

  Skepticism twisted Janice’s features. “Right.” She stepped closer and shoved the gun at Bethany who flinched and gave a cry. Lacey held up a hand in supplication. “Don’t! She’s never done anything to you.”

  “No, she didn’t,” Janice said, her suddenly calm tone sending darts of terror through Lacey. “She didn’t, but her mother did. Because of you, I ran out of the house seven months pregnant, intending to get in the car and go to a motel. But do you know what happened? Do you?”

  Lacey refused to cringe. She had a pretty good idea of what Janice was getting ready to say and wanted to tell her to stop. She didn’t want to hear it.

  But she couldn’t. Janice had to say it. And if she stopped talking, she might start shooting. “What?” Lacey whispered.

  “I fell. I slipped on the stupid ice my husband didn’t scrape off the steps and I nearly bled to death at the bottom of my front porch.” Janice ended the sentence on a whisper. She raised the gun and pointed it at Bethany’s head. “And it’s all your fault. You, who had a perfect little girl after killing mine.”

  “No, Janice, don’t do this, please.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Mason felt his heart beat in a way that threatened to punch a hole in his shirt. Hand wrapped around his gun, he started for the door as soon as Catelyn pulled to a stop. Daniel simply sat in the backseat, defeated as his wife’s words sunk in.

  At the door, he felt a hand on his arm. “You’re too close to this. You need to hang back.”

  Mason hardened his jaw. “No way.”

  “If you jeopardize this in any way, you could get them killed.”

  He stared at her, her words impacting him. “I won’t,” he promised. “Professional all the way.”

  Catelyn drew in a deep breath and nodded. “Fine.”

  Mason had never told Catelyn that Bethany was his daughter. She must have figured it out. Either that or he didn’t hide his feelings for Lacey very well, and she’d realized he was in love with Lacey.

  It didn’t matter, he was going in.

  Daniel said Janice had an alarm on the doors leading in through the front. A SWAT team was on standby. From listening in on the conversation between Janice and Lacey, Mason knew they were in the back of the store.

  That door didn’t have an alarm, but according to Daniel would be visible from where he suspected Janice would be.

  Catelyn had snagged him an extra earpiece. He shoved it in deeper and listened closely. Lacey still had her phone on.

  From what he could tell, Janice had the gun on Bethany and planned to kill her.

  At the back door three SWAT members held the battering ram. On the count of three, they’d ram it down.

  One.

  Two.

  Three.

  A loud crash sounded and Mason rounded the doorway with Catelyn. “Freeze! Police!” she shouted.

  Mason took in the scene in a split second. Janice, her back to the front of the store, held the gun to Bethany’s head.

  Bethany had her eyes closed and Lacey looked frozen, eyes wide on the action before her. “Mason,” she whispered.

  He held up a hand to tell her to be still.

  She didn’t move.

  Catelyn stared down the barrel of the gun she now had trained on Janice. “Ma’am, I need you to please put that gun down.”

  Fury lit in Janice’s eyes. “Why? How…”

  A low beeping came from the direction of Lacey’s purse and she jerked. Janice screeched, “What is that? What is that?”

  Lacey reached in her purse and pulled out her cell phone in a slow, methodical manner. “Dead battery,” she monotoned. Then blinked and seemed to gather her wits. “Please, Janice, I’ll do anything you want, just let Bethany go.”

  The woman sneered and jabbed the gun harder against Bethany’s head. The teen winced and anger twisted in Mason’s gut. Soothing his voice so no hint of ire or emotion showed, he said, “Janice, there’s nothing you can do now except give up. Just set the gun down and no one has to get hurt, right?”

  “I’ve already been hurt. I’ve been hurt so much I don’t think I know what it feels like not to hurt anymore.” Her brow crinkled. “Where’s Daniel?” she asked suddenly.

  “We wouldn’t let him come in,” Mason answered immediately. “Protocol, you know. There’s no way he’d be allowed to come in.”

  “Liar!” she screamed at him. “I want him here. I want him to see what he’s done. Get him in here.”

  Catelyn held up a hand. “Calm down, Mrs. Ackerman, Janice. I’ll get him to come talk to you if that’ll help.”

  “Oh, it’ll help. I have a few things I want to say before all this is over.”

  Mason blew out a breath and watched Catelyn get Daniel on the phone.

  *

  Lacey couldn’t seem to take her eyes from Bethany’s scared face. Her breathing seemed labored, but Lacey decided it was just from the fear. She didn’t seem to be having any negative side effects to whatever drug had been injected into her system.

  “Where’d you get the drug?” Mason asked conversationally.

  Janice smirked. “I volunteer at the hospital, remember. I have access to a lot of places. And no one even looks twice at me. Now shut up, I have to think.” She looked at Mason, Catelyn and Lacey and blinked. Her breath started coming in pants.

  “What drug did you use?” Lacey needed the information. When she got Bethany out of here, she needed to be able to tell the doctor what was injected in her.

  Janice shifted, pulled in a deep breath and rolled her eyes. “Ketamine. It’s used in surgeries. All I had to do was sneak in the operating room after hours and snatch it from the cart.”

  The cart that held the medications used in surgery. Easily accessible to someone who knew her way around the hospital and where the
drugs were kept.

  Lacey shifted toward Bethany who seemed to be more conscious and taking it all in. Her eyes never stopped, bouncing between her mother and the woman with the gun. Then her eyes fixed on Mason and she frowned.

  A phone rang and Janice jerked, her finger twitching on the trigger. Lacey flinched, expecting to hear the sharp crack of the gun.

  It didn’t happen and she breathed a prayer of thanks. The phone rang again.

  “That’s Daniel,” Catelyn offered.

  Indecision flickered over Janice’s face, then she said to Lacey. “Answer it.”

  Lacey reached out a shaky hand to snatch the cordless handset from the wall. She held it out to Janice who snapped, “Put it on speaker phone.”

  Lacey pressed the button and Janice said, “So you had the guts to call.”

  “They said you wanted to talk to me.”

  *

  Mason’s gut clenched and twisted on top of itself as Daniel’s terse voice came over the phone. Mason had a hard time restraining himself from throwing his body at the woman who had a gun trained on his daughter’s head. But he promised. As Bethany’s eyes stared at him, questions flickered there and he gave her a slow wink.

  She blinked and tears sprang to her eyes. “Daddy,” she whispered, her voice almost no more than a whisper.

  But he heard her and his throat tightened.

  Then Janice said, “Do you see what you’ve done, Daniel?”

  “I haven’t done anything. Put the gun down and let’s talk about this.” Mason had to give the man credit. He kept his voice low, his anger tempered.

  “There’s nothing to talk about. This is all your fault. Now tell them to go away and leave me alone. You’re the big bad detective always bragging about your connections and power in the department. Now would be a good time to put it to use.”

  Mason heard a muffled sigh. “Janice, this is beyond the scope of my power. Please, just put the gun down and come out. No one has died yet. No one has to.” A pause. “Your father will get you out of this with just a slap on the wrist.”

  Mason saw Bethany’s eyes narrow and her nostrils flare. He raised a finger to his lips and she clamped her mouth shut. But he could see she wanted desperately to say something.

  She didn’t understand that Daniel was telling Janice anything she wanted to hear. Anything that might get her to drop that gun from Bethany’s head.

  “Daddy.” Janice snorted. “Daddy always hated you. I never understood why. But now I do. You weren’t good enough for me. Just a cop who thought he was a big man….”

  As Janice ranted her ire, her attention slipped from Bethany. But her finger tightened on the trigger.

  And Lacey acted a nanosecond before Mason was going to move. She dove at the woman just as a gunshot sounded.

  As though in slow motion, Mason watched it happen. Lacey’s outstretched arms rammed into Janice’s midsection. The air whooshed from her and the two women fell to the floor. Another gunshot.

  Mason grabbed Bethany and passed her to a fellow officer who hustled her from the room.

  “Mom! Mom!” The girl’s screams echoed behind her.

  Neither Lacey nor Janice moved and Mason felt like his heart might stop. “Lacey!”

  Ignoring the chaos around him, he bolted to her side and pulled her from on top of Janice.

  Crimson stared back at him.

  “Oh no. Oh no, please, God, no,” he whispered.

  “Is she hurt?” Catelyn knelt beside him.

  “I don’t know.” Frantically, he placed his fingers against the side of her neck. Relief filled him. “I’ve got a pulse.” But where was all the blood coming from?

  Catelyn looked at him. “Janice is dead.”

  “We need paramedics here now!” Mason hollered.

  “They’re on the way,” Joseph said from behind him.

  Heart pounding in his throat, Mason found the wound. Some of the blood was Lacey’s. She’d been shot in the side. He placed his hand over the area and pressed.

  He looked up, hoping to find help on the way, only to see Daniel in the doorway, gun lowered to his side. Who did he shoot?

  Before he could voice the question, EMTs rushed in. Mason moved out of the way and watched intently while they worked on Lacey. Please, don’t let her die. The prayer slipped from him and he realized he meant it, believed God heard it.

  But would He answer it the way Mason wanted?

  Soon, efficient hands fitted Lacey with an oxygen mask and lifted her onto the stretcher. She moaned and rolled her head, her eyes flickering for a brief moment. Mason’s throat tightened. “Is she going to be okay?”

  The younger EMT looked at him. “Her vitals are good. She’s breathing well, so it doesn’t look like the bullet hit anything vital like a lung, however, that’s up to a doctor to determine.”

  Mason felt slightly better. “I’m right behind you.” And he would be as soon as he introduced himself to his daughter.

  Watching Lacey roll away was one of the hardest things he’d ever done, everything in him wanting to be with her, but he knew she’d want him to take care of Bethany.

  In the care of two officers, Bethany didn’t see him approach until he was standing in front of her. She looked up and went still.

  They eyed each other for a long minute then her lower lip quivered and her eyes filled with tears once again. She stood and stepped toward him. Then hesitated.

  His heart clenching, he held out his arms.

  With a muffled cry, she threw herself into them, resting her head against his chest. She was slightly taller than Lacey and he lay his cheek against her hair for a brief moment. “Your mom’s on her way to the hospital.”

  “She was shot, wasn’t she?”

  “Yes.” His stomach churned at the thought.

  A sob hiccupped through her and her arms tightened around his waist. Then she pulled back and palmed her eyes like a two-year-old. “Is she gonna be okay?”

  “I think so, but I’m going to the hospital to meet her and they’re going to want to check you out, too.” An ambulance and two EMTs waited to transport her. “You want me to ride with you?”

  “Yeah.” A brief pause. “Are you my dad?”

  He nodded and his eyes misted.

  She sighed and said, “Good. I’m glad.”

  Mason gave a little laugh. “Me, too, Bethany.”

  “I’m sorry for all the trouble I caused,” she whispered.

  “You didn’t cause any trouble. That was all Janice.”

  “Who is she?”

  “A woman who used to be your mother’s best friend growing up.” He shook his head. “A woman with some serious mental-health issues brought on by a lot of things.”

  He watched a tremor wrack the girl. “I thought she was trying to help me. I told the police that someone came up behind me while I was on the phone with you and stabbed me with something. Almost immediately, I started feeling all woozy. I couldn’t stand up or—” She broke off and shuddered again.

  Mason nodded toward the ambulance. He was ready to check on Lacey. From the corner of his eye, he saw Catelyn nod to him. He gave her a thumbs-up and climbed into the back of the ambulance with Bethany.

  The EMT shot him a look and he saw the protest forming on the man’s lips. Mason flashed his badge and the EMT paused, shrugged and reached around him to shut the door. Bethany climbed onto the gurney and sat there while the EMT checked her vitals once more.

  “I’m fine,” she assured them.

  “It’s standard procedure, Bethany. Just let him check you over, all right?”

  She lifted a shoulder and nodded. “Fine.”

  His heart fluttered. How many times had he made that same gesture with that same shoulder? While she was occupied, he drank in her features noting the light reddish-blond hair, the blue eyes that matched his, the shape of her jaw.

  He was in awe. And a deep sadness stole over him at what he’d missed. But a rock-hard determination soon replaced it. He v
owed to make up for lost time. He wouldn’t live another day without being a part of Bethany’s life.

  His phone sounded, jerking him out of his musings and he grabbed it in the middle of the second ring. “Hello?”

  “Hey, this is Catelyn. Just wanted to let you know we found a name on a slip of paper in Janice’s purse. Billy Rose.”

  The name set off bells in his mind, but he couldn’t place it. “Who’s that?”

  “One of the more seedy shelter residents Janice bribed into keeping an eye out for Bethany. When he heard he was going to be charged with attempted murder, he had a lot to talk about.”

  “So he’s the one that injected her. So Daniel didn’t lie about that.”

  “Yep. He saw her at the phone booth, grabbed the drug Janice had supplied him with sometime earlier and went after Bethany. We found five hundred dollars in an old coat pocket he had stuffed up under his bunk.”

  “That must have seemed like a fortune to him.” Mason blew out a sigh and said, “All right. Thanks for keeping me updated.”

  He hung up and passed the information on to Bethany who bit her lip. “I don’t care about him. I want to know how my mom’s doing.”

  So did he.

  He dialed the hospital number from memory. He’d spent so much time there, he’d had no choice but to memorize the number.

  Lacey, no doubt, had been taken in through Emergency. After being connected to several different sources, he finally landed on the right one. “Lacey Gibson.” Impatience ate at him, but he kept his cool. “She was brought in with a gunshot wound probably about twenty minutes ago.”

  “She’s in surgery right now. That’s all the information I have.”

  It was enough for now. “Thanks.”

  He hung up and told Bethany, “She’s in surgery.”

  Her eyes closed for a brief moment. “She saved my life.”

  “I know.”

  “That woman was going to kill me.”

  “Yeah, she was.” He had no doubt, Janice had no intention of letting Bethany out of there alive. She’d been determined to make Lacey pay for having a child when hers had died. “Don’t dwell on that, okay? Think about all the good times we’re going to have catching up on fifteen missing years.”