GIRL JACKED (Crime and Punishment Mystery Thriller Series) Read online

  Her hand attempted to smash him across his face. He grabbed her around the waist. Her punches rained down on his hands, but he held on. She kicked at his shins and clawed at his arms.

  “I don’t believe you. I want to see her.”

  Jack just gripped her tighter.

  “You were supposed to come back. You were supposed to watch out for us. Why didn’t you?” She continued to hit him and try to break free. Jack just held on. “Why? What did we do?” She collapsed in the mud, but he didn’t let go.

  Jack dug into his pocket for his phone. Cindy was working dispatch, but he couldn’t seem to make out what she was saying. “Officer Jack Stratton.” His voice sounded far off to him. “I’m on Reservoir Road. Send a car and the coroner.” He hung up as Cindy was frantically calling out to him.

  They sat in the mud; Replacement sobbed until she shook uncontrollably from the cold.

  As he closed his eyes, he realized how alone he’d become.

  It was me. I pushed people away. I wouldn’t leave, but I made them get out of my life. I only lived an hour away, and I never went to see Michelle. I always blamed it on Chandler’s death. I always made excuses.

  He stared off into space, and he realized how broken he was. He had parents now, but he’d brushed them aside. Aunt Haddie was like his mother, but he’d turned his back on her. He’d said he loved Michelle yet she lay dead on this hillside for a couple of weeks, and he hadn’t known.

  “Jack.” Replacement’s voice was quiet and soft. “Jack, I’m sorry,” she whispered.

  Jack turned to her, and her muddy, tear-stained face was strained with fear.

  “No, you got it right.” His mouth twitched, and he stared down as he shook. “I’m such a rotten bastard I can’t even remember your real name.” He expected to see a look of disgust but instead her eyes filled with concern. “Please tell Aunt Haddie I’m sorry.” Jack felt the cold metal press against his temple as he put his gun to his head.

  “Jack.” Replacement held a trembling hand out toward him. “Please give me the gun.”

  He felt as if he was watching what was going on but was not actually there.

  “No, please.” She was crying. The tears cut channels through the mud on her face.

  Jack could hear the sirens now. When they came, everything would be over anyway. You can’t have a breakdown as a cop. “They’ll know.”

  His chest hurt. His heart hurt. He was so tired of pain.

  Replacement shut her eyes, and when she opened them, she was transformed. She spoke calmly and firmly. “If you do it, I will too.” She looked straight into his eyes.

  As the sirens grew louder, they stared at each other. Jack couldn’t seem to think. He lowered the gun. “I’m broken,” he whispered.

  “Me too, Jack.” Her hand came around to lie softly on his. “Don’t leave me all alone.”

  She seemed so young and yet so old at the same time. She slid forward and placed her shaking hand over his hand that held the gun. Jack shut his eyes. When he realized how he’d just acted, a fresh wave of shame washed over him and dragged him back toward the abyss.

  He turned his head to look at the approaching vehicles. He could see Cindy had pulled out all the stops. Two fire trucks, an ambulance, and three cruisers now rushed down Reservoir Road.

  “Jack. Please.”

  He let go; she pulled the gun away and hid it in her jacket.

  The fire trucks pulled up, and Replacement sat next to him and watched the men scramble up the embankment toward them. She took his hand, and Jack pulled her close. They sat in the mud, and he gently rocked her as she cried.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Sometimes…We All Do

  The last few hours were a blur. The cops and firefighters coming up the hill, someone covering Michelle’s body, the pained looks… Now he was sitting in a hospital, a thick blanket over his shoulders, and a bunch of medicine clouding his brain.

  He hated hospitals. They reeked of death. They tried to mask the smell with cleaners, perfumes, and disinfectants, but Jack could still smell it. He looked down at the bed he was on and wondered how many people died in it.

  Normally he’d never allow them to take him to the hospital. They should have interviewed him at the ambulance and then allowed him to go home. Instead, the EMTs checked them both out, mentioning something about shock, and insisted they go to the emergency room. Jack had been so defeated he just climbed in the back of the ambulance and let them take him there.

  He shrugged the blanket off, burning with shame. He tried to shut down his emotions as he always had in the past, but they smoldered. He felt as if something had broken inside him. The pain was too intense, and it cracked the prison within him, hidden for all these years. That pain now burned unabated.

  He jumped off the bed and reached for his jacket. He heard someone clear his throat and the curtain pulled back.

  “Hey.”

  Jack froze at the sound of the deep voice. He turned around slowly. Sheriff Ethan Collins. Collins came from Texas. He was tall and a little lanky, and even though he’d been up north for years, he always had a tan. He was nearing sixty, but he wore the years well. He was a by-the-book cop’s cop, and he followed rules and procedures to the letter.

  He held his hat as he looked at Jack. “My condolences for your loss, Jack.” Collins was also a good man, and Jack knew he meant every word.

  “Sheriff Collins.” Jack straightened up. “I want to apologize, sir.”

  “We’ll cover that later.” Collins stiffened. “You need to take some time, okay?”

  Jack relaxed, and he swayed like a deflating balloon. He hated drugs, but whatever they gave him had mellowed him.

  Collins shifted uncomfortably. The older man cleared his throat. “I talked to the girl you were with. She seemed convinced it wasn’t an accident. I read over the missing person’s report, and I read that Michelle was getting ready to transfer schools. It looks like she went for a ride, but something happened.”

  Jack stared at the floor. “I know that something is wrong. I have no hard proof, but I know that she just didn’t go for a ride and…die.”

  “Jack, right now you need to think about you.”

  “I know it wasn’t an accident.”

  “Jack, are you looking for my answer as a sheriff, or as a man?” Collins looked at him, and Jack couldn’t read him. Maybe there was nothing to read because he was so black and white.

  Jack swallowed and stared back at him. Something about a Texan accent added weight to the question.

  Did it matter what Collins answered? It wasn’t an accident.

  Jack nodded but didn’t say anything.

  “Jack, if it’s all right with you, I can handle the notification.”

  Jack’s legs wobbled, and he put his hand on the bed for support.

  Aunt Haddie.

  Jack nodded his head.

  “Take your time coming in, Jack.” He turned around but stopped again. Keeping his back to Jack, he added, “You need to talk. If you don’t talk to me, then talk to someone, okay?”

  Jack wanted more than anything not to talk—not to him, not to anyone. He thought back to the burning inside him. Some anger had burst out, and he could no longer contain it. His jaw clenched.

  “I will. Thanks.”

  Jack and Replacement got a ride back to his apartment from Cindy Grant, the police dispatcher. Jack’s call had upset Cindy so much that she came out to the reservoir herself. She was part of a cop family. The joke was even her dog was a police dog. The whole station loved her, and she doted on them all. She made cakes for every birthday and reminded every cop of their spouse’s, parents’, and kids’ birthdays, anniversaries, and anything else.

  Cindy was in her sixties but still looked young. It may have been her round, chubby face or her constant smile but Jack wondered what she must have looked like as a little girl every time he saw her. She had short, light brown hair that was cut in a bob and wore a modest dark blue skirt and
a blouse with a bright green tree brooch.

  The whole ride back Cindy talked. She talked nonstop about nothing in particular but Jack was grateful for the distraction. His chest still hurt. There was a dull burn due to the medicine, but the pain was raw. Replacement sat a few inches away from him. She gripped his hand. Her face was very white. She constantly watched him but tried to do so without him noticing.

  He wanted to tell her he was okay, but he couldn’t. He wasn’t. He wanted to comfort her, but whenever he tried, he began to break down himself.

  Cindy took them both to the apartment. Mrs. Stevens came out into the hallway. She took one look at Jack and Replacement’s ashen faces and stopped. Mrs. Stevens bowed her head and retreated without a word.

  Cindy hugged them and whispered to both of them. Jack didn’t hear what she was saying, but her being there was comforting. When she shut the door, the silence was oppressive. Jack felt his chest tighten and a knot formed in his stomach.

  Replacement leaned against the counter, and Jack noticed the plates from breakfast behind her.

  Was it just this morning she was laughing?

  The girl in front of him was a shell of the girl from the morning. He clenched and relaxed his fingers, forcing blood into his hands.

  He walked over to her and gently led her to the bedroom. He tenderly lowered her down onto the bed. She lay still as he removed her shoes and pulled the comforter over her. He stood there, looking down at her. Her hand reached out for his. It looked so small as she grabbed his fingers.

  She moved over and softly pulled him to sit down on the bed next to her. Jack lay back and stared at the ceiling. He turned his head, and Replacement watched him as she cried.

  Jack closed his eyes and sighed.

  “Alice,” he whispered.

  Her name was Alice. Jack finally remembered it. Chandler and he had cracked up laughing and had made jokes about rabbits and Wonderland when she first arrived. That was until Michelle told them to be nice. Michelle reminded them what it felt like when they first came into foster care. How scared they were. That’s when Chandler gave her the name Replacement. Alice immediately liked it. Maybe because she just wanted a new start. He could picture her now.

  When he opened his eyes, she was still searching his face. “I’m sorry. I couldn’t remember your real name.”

  “I know.” She looked hurt.

  “It’s nothing to do with you. Something is wrong with me. I can’t remember names.”

  She looked at him, but his eyes drifted off as he struggled to remember. He inhaled and held his breath. He exhaled little by little and then stared at the ceiling.

  “I was seven, but I still couldn’t remember it.”

  “What couldn’t you remember?”

  “It’s stupid.” He put his hands behind his head. “My name,” he whispered. “I didn’t know my real name. How’s that for a joke,” he scoffed.

  His eyes followed along the cracks in the ceiling.

  “She just called me kid or brat or moron, usually with swear words attached to the front and back.”

  “Your mother?”

  Jack cringed and then nodded.

  “After she left me in the bus station, I went into the youth system. It was like a whirlwind.” He glanced at her. “Everyone was asking me questions. They kept asking me my name, but it was just beyond my reach. It’s such a basic question, but I couldn’t grab it.” He shook his head. “They brought in a woman with an armful of stuffed animals and she talked to me like I was a baby. ‘This is Freddy Bunny and his friend Suzy Squirrel.’ She danced the stuffed animals around. ‘And they want to say hi, but they don’t know what to call you.’ She pretended to speak in a cartoon boy’s voice. ‘What should I call you, buddy?’ She smiled at me and held up the bunny. I wanted to die. I was so humiliated. Who doesn’t remember their own name?”

  “You were seven.”

  “What’s my excuse now? I didn’t know your name, and I still don’t know mine.”

  “I don’t understand. Your name’s not Jack?”

  Jack shook his head. “No. That’s not my birth name.” He hesitated. “I just wanted to get out of there and get away from that lady with the puppets but she kept asking. All I could think of was my mother getting on that bus, and the last thing she said to me, ‘You don’t know jack, kid.’”

  Replacement inhaled and looked at him. A tear hung off her lashes and fell onto the bed.

  “I named myself. I just told her my name was Jack. To me it meant nothing. You know the expression? You don’t know jack. It means you don’t know anything. That’s what I was…nothing.”

  “You’re not nothing.”

  He looked over at her.

  “That’s how I feel…sometimes.”

  Replacement slid up next to him. “Sometimes, we all do.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  First Dibs

  Replacement and Jack had spent the morning in silence. It wasn’t the awkward silence Jack had expected nor was it the type of silence that follows a fight. This was the kind that comes between two people who have known each other for years. It was oddly comfortable. In the stillness, they seemed to console each other. The crushing pain of Michelle’s death had fused them together.

  As they entered the Well’s Meadow Nursing Home, the woman at the front desk and an orderly smiled sad, knowing smiles. The well-dressed woman came out from behind the desk and rushed to comfort Replacement. Jack watched as she held her close and the orderly walked away.

  “There, there, precious.” The woman consoled her. “Sheriff Collins came out last night,” she explained to Jack as she looked over Replacement’s head. “He was extremely kind. He stayed with Haddie for quite some time.”

  As they walked down the hallway, Jack realized why the orderly had departed. He felt as if they were on a solemn funeral march as staff and nurses came out into the hallway and hugged Replacement or reached out their hands. Some hugged him too or touched his shoulder. Jack tried not to look around.

  Aunt Haddie sat in the corner in a large, comfortable chair in a private room. She hadn’t noticed him yet, and he was glad because he gasped. He couldn’t believe how much she’d aged. She looked so vulnerable that tears burned his eyes. He remembered how hard she worked. She had two jobs, took care of a house full of kids, kept them spotless, and taught Sunday school. She was a tornado.

  Now he looked at a frail old woman with thin salt-and-pepper hair and a bent back.

  Sorrow and shame grabbed him, and he wanted to run for the exit. She turned and looked straight at him. Their eyes met, and she smiled the smile he so often saw in his sleep.

  He started to rush forward but remembered his selfishness and guilt. Today was not about Jack. It was about Michelle. He walked forward as Replacement moved to Aunt Haddie’s side and took her hand.

  “Alice, honey.” She looked over to Replacement and reached out her arm. She gave her a big hug.

  Jack walked around, and Aunt Haddie looked up at him. He bent down, and Aunt Haddie lunged forward and pulled him close to her. After a long time, he pulled away and glanced at her. Her face was full of concern for him.

  “Aunt Haddie…” Jack tried to look at her but he couldn’t. “I’m so sorry about Michelle. She was such a good person; she didn’t deserve this…to die so young…I just wish I could have brought her home.”

  “Jackie, Jackie.” Her voice was still rich, and she held him close. “Michelle is home. Michelle’s at home with Chandler. I knew it the first week. I knew God had taken her home.”

  Replacement patted Jack and Aunt Haddie.

  “I knew something had happened.”

  It was all Jack could do, not to break down.

  “She’s at peace now. She’s happy. You remember how happy she always was?”

  Jack nodded.

  “She’s happy now.” She squeezed Jack’s hand and tried to smile, but her chin trembled.

  Jack inhaled sharply and held the old woman’s han
ds in his. He looked into her face. She was still the same wonderful woman.

  He whispered to her, “I’m sorry I never came back.”

  “Me too, Jackie. You’re one of my babies too,” she looked at him, “but you remember, no matter where you are, I love you, and I know you love me. Do you think I forgot that? I didn’t. Neither did Michelle.” She rubbed his hands.

  Jack loved Aunt Haddie’s honesty and straightforwardness.

  They hugged and talked as if they’d never been apart. The nurses brought them a tray of cookies and some water as they mended the gap of time.

  “Alice, I need to talk to Jackie privately for a moment, please.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Replacement obediently replied before she walked away.

  Aunt Haddie leaned closer to Jack. “Alice took it very hard, Jackie. She loved Chandler like an older brother. I know Alice is not your sister but she’s one of my babies, too. She can be a little hard to handle.” She squeezed his hand. “Remember some people had it harder than you, and I appreciate you watching out for her.”

  Jack paused.

  Aunt Haddie knows the hell I went through, and Replacement had it harder than me…

  Jack looked across the room at Replacement. She leaned against the wall and looked out the window. She had her arms crossed. She looked even smaller, younger.

  What did she go through?

  “She’s a little spitfire but deep down she’s been wounded too.” Aunt Haddie said.

  Jack nodded.

  “I understand how you hurt, honey,” Aunt Haddie continued. “When I lost my Alton, all I wanted to do was keep running. You shouldn’t have stayed away, but you have to get over that now. Michelle would have forgiven you, and so would Chandler. I’ll forgive you now, too, but let me be clear, I expect you to visit from now on.” She lifted up his chin so he could look at her. Her eyes were filled with concern and love for him. “I need to know something. You’ll tell me straightaway, right?” She held his chin and peered into his eyes.