Tiffany Snow - Point of No Return

“Kade!”

The voice was familiar and Alisha jerked around to see Blane enter the room.

“Kade, for God’s sake!” Blane exclaimed, hurrying to where Alisha knelt beside Lewis. “What the hell are you doing?” he practically screamed at Kade.

Kade ignored Blane, his hard gaze focused on Alisha. “Where’s Kathleen.” It wasn’t a question anymore. It was a statement of his intentions if she didn’t answer.

“Kade, we’ll find her,” Blane interjected. “You don’t have to do this.”

“Tell me now,” Kade said. “You have three seconds.”

“I-I don’t know. I swear I don’t—” Alisha babbled, panic twisting inside her belly.

“Kade, stop!”

“One . . .”

“Please, no—”

Blane pulled a gun from the back of his jeans and pointed it at Kade.

“This has to stop. Kade—listen to me!”

“Two . . .”

Alisha couldn’t breathe. “I don’t know. I don’t know! I—”

“Kade!”

But Kade didn’t even look in Blane’s direction, and his gun was steady and pointed at Lewis, who lay unconscious and bleeding on the floor, and Blane was going to shoot Kade, but Kade was going to shoot Lewis, and—

“She went home!” Alisha’s scream cut through everything and silence fell.

Kade slowly lowered his gun.

“Sh-she went home,” Alisha repeated, closing her eyes in dismay as she realized she’d just given up her best friend’s whereabouts to a madman.

“Now that wasn’t so hard, was it?” Kade said.

“I swear to God, Kade, I’m going to fucking kill you,” Blane threatened. His gun was lowered, too, but his body language screamed anger.

“If I don’t find her soon, she’ll be dead when we do,” Kade said, causing Alisha to jerk her head up in alarm.

“What? Who’s after her? Kade, what’s going on?” Blane’s frustrated questions echoed in the room, but Kade was already turning to go.

“You shouldn’t have let her leave,” Kade said. “You were the only thing keeping her safe.” Then he was gone.

“Goddammit!” Blane exploded.

Alisha could tell he really wanted to go after Kade, but he turned back to her instead. “I’ll call 911,” he said, guiding her hand to the wound in Lewis’s shoulder. “Keep pressure on the wound. And, I’m really sorry about this, but we have to get our stories straight. My brother was never here, understood? It was an intruder, but it was dark and you didn’t get a good look at him. He shot Lewis, but I was at Kathleen’s and heard, so I came over and he took off. Got it?”

Her entire body was racked with tremors, and the relief Alisha had felt when Kade left faded. Blane’s eyes held the same cold implacability she’d seen in Kade’s. She realized she had no choice. She’d have to do what Blane said, say what he told her to say, because the price for not doing so would be one she wasn’t willing to pay.

And Alisha finally saw the resemblance between the two men.

Kathleen, can you get me another?”

I looked up from where I’d been crouched down loading bottles of beer into the fridge below the bar.

“Sure, Pete,” I answered. Standing, I grabbed another frosty mug and filled it from the tap, tipping it to the side so the golden liquid hit the side of the glass rather than the bottom as it filled. The head wasn’t quite as thick and you could get more beer in the glass if you poured it that way. When the white foam had reached the rim and spilled over just slightly, I set the mug in front of Pete. “Here you go.”

“Thanks, sugar,” he said, his worn, suntanned face creasing in a smile. I smiled back.

Pete used to work with my dad, once upon a time. He’d retired from the force a couple of years ago, and now spent his days outdoors, tending his extensive garden, lawn, and flowerbeds. It seemed he had a habit of stopping by the one and only local pub for a beer around midday. If the Cubs were playing, he’d stay and watch the game on one of the televisions in the bar, though I teased him that rooting for the Cubs was bound to end in disappointment.

“I’m a perennial optimist,” he’d reply. “Sooner or later it’s bound to pay off.”

I’d been back home now for almost a month, and in some ways it seemed like I’d never left. Although technically I didn’t need the money since what Kade had left was more than adequate for my needs, I’d wanted a job so I had something to do. Sitting around feeling miserable and sorry for myself wasn’t an option.

Once I’d had time to recover from the shock of Kade’s “parting gift,” I saw the logic in what Blane had said. If it was just me, I wouldn’t have touched a dime of that money. But it wasn’t just me. I had our baby to consider. I had to buy things—things a baby needed—and eventually there’d be braces to pay for, and college, maybe a wedding if the baby was a girl. It would be foolish of me not to use the money, so I set aside my pride and did what I needed to do.

I’d returned to my old job at O’Sullivan’s, an Irish pub where I’d worked when my mom had been sick. The owner, Charlie, was a wizened older man of indeterminate age who had owned the place for as long as I could remember. He’d been glad to see me. I think. It was kind of hard to tell with Charlie, but he’d sort of smiled and then asked when I could start. I’d put on an apron the next day.

The sounds of the pub were familiar and comforting to me as I worked—the televisions broadcasting the baseball game, the clink of dishes and the sizzle of the grill from the back, the low rumble of conversation from the dozen or so patrons in the middle of the afternoon.

I’d been lucky when I’d shown up in town. One of the first people I’d run into when I stopped in the little café on the town square for lunch had been Jan, an old friend from high school.

“Oh my God, is that you, Kathleen?” she’d exclaimed, wrapping me in a hug. A cloud of perfume descended. “Are you back or just visiting?”

When I’d confirmed I was, indeed, back in town, she’d wasted no time in telling me everything going on with her, ordering a cup of coffee, and sitting with me while I ate my chicken salad sandwich and chips.

“So I’m a Realtor now,” she said, after a monologue about how she’d married Brian, a guy I vaguely remembered from high school who now sold insurance. She waved a manicured hand as if it was nothing, but I could tell she was real proud of her new job. “I can help you find a place to stay, if you’re looking to stick around.” Her shiny platinum blonde hair bounced around her shoulders as she spoke.

“I am,” I said, and her eyes had lit up like fireflies.

“Wonderful! I know just the place for you! The owner is a widow who’s moved to Florida in one of those, you know, retirement communities. Anyway, she’s looking to sell her house. It’s out by the old Miller place, remember?”

And I did. Jan had taken me to see it right then and I knew instantly that it was perfect. About three or four miles out of the town proper, it was in the country and the last place on a long gravel road. The nearest neighbors, the Millers, weren’t within shouting distance but were within walking distance.

An older home that had been built in the forties, it was a two-story white house with a deep porch that spanned the front, complete with a swing. In the back, another porch was screened in and overlooked a vast yard dotted with big oak trees. Roses climbed a trellis, their blooms perfuming the air, and it seemed they’d been allowed to grow a bit wild and hadn’t been trimmed back in a while.

The downstairs had a living room, kitchen, bath, and bedroom. Upstairs were another two bedrooms and a bath. The place was even furnished, and though the pieces were older, they looked like they’d been well cared for.

I bought it immediately and closed within ten days. It was amazing how fast things could be done when you paid with cash, and thanks to Jan, I’d been allowed to start staying in the house right away, so I hadn’t even had to spend one night at the old Covered Bridge Motel on the outskirts of town. Jan was so pleased and excited with the sale, I thought her perfectly applied cosmetics might crack with the huge smile she sported whenever I saw her in town.

I hadn’t yet gone back to Indy for the rest of my things, and thought I might just get a company to move the stuff into storage for me. Kade had bought all the furniture when he’d had my apartment redone after the fire, and I wasn’t sure I needed the reminder. My personal things I’d brought with me, so the only real reason for me to return was to visit Alisha.

I needed to call her, I decided as I cleared the empty glasses on the bar left by two customers. I hadn’t talked to her in a couple of weeks, not since I’d told her about the house and reassured her that I was doing okay.

And I was. Mostly.

Rushville was a small town and everyone had known me and my family. People I’d grown up around greeted me with open arms, genuinely glad to see me back. Old Mrs. Johnson had even stopped by my place to bring me a casserole she’d made and welcome me home.

No one asked why I was back or inquired too deeply as to what I’d been up to while I was gone. My family was part of the town’s tragedy—my dad’s death hitting the community hard when it had happened nearly ten years ago now, then everyone had known about my mom’s battle with the cancer that had eventually taken her life. No one had batted an eye when I’d moved away. I think most people understood that I’d needed time and space, but they also knew that there was no place like home, so it hadn’t seemed a bit strange when I’d turned up out of the blue.