Hazardous Homecoming. Dana Mentink

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       TWO

      Ruby registered two things—the cool wet towel being applied to her head and the worry creases on the forehead of her brother who was taping some sort of bandage to her side. She sat up with a hiss.

      “Ouch. That hurts.”

      “You were stabbed. Not deep, just long,” Mick said. “Taking you to the doctor anyway.”

      She shook the hair out of her face. “No, you’re not. I’m fine, and we don’t need to go to the doctor. We need the police.”

      “I didn’t catch the lady,” said a voice from the open front door. “Sorry, but your well-being seemed more important at the time.”

      Ruby blinked against the sunlight which rendered the speaker no more than a blurry silhouette. “Who...?”

      “Cooper Stokes,” said the tall man.

      “Cooper? You’re...”

      “Peter’s brother, yes. We haven’t seen each other in a long time. I think I was seven to your five when Alice was snatched, if memory serves.”

      Mick’s eyes were cold steel. “You have no business here. Your mother called my sister a liar all those years ago when Alice disappeared.”

      “And your sister accused my brother of kidnapping. Peter’s life was ruined and it seems to me that you all are doing just fine, so who has the bigger right to a grudge, I wonder?”

      “Do you want him to leave?” said Mick to Ruby, “because I don’t have a problem throwing him out.”

      “It would be harder than you think,” Cooper said quietly.

      Ruby was about to answer, but instead she cried out as Mick taped the bandage to her side. “Sorry, Bee.” The tone was gentle until he turned back to Cooper.

      “My sister’s hurt. She needs to be left alone right now. No offense.”

      “None taken,” Cooper said. “I’ll be happy to go with you to the police if you need me. I’m what you call a witness, I think. I didn’t see the attack, but maybe I can tell them about the lady with a bloody knife.”

      “The lady was Josephine Walker, and I’m not pressing charges.” She heard Cooper suck in a breath. From the corner of her eye, his crew-cut blond hair glimmered in the light, and she could feel him tracking her every movement.

      “That was Alice’s mother?” Cooper shifted, eyes darting in thought.

      “Of course you’re pressing charges,” Mick said. “Lady tried to kill you.”

      “She’s not in her right mind. She’s been following me for months, and she saw me find...”

      Both men stood stock still.

      She forced a businesslike tone. “I found Alice’s locket. It was tangled in the branches of the abandoned eagle’s nest.”

      Two sets of shocked eyes stared at her.

      “Are you sure it belonged to Alice?” Cooper demanded, moving closer, hands on his waist. Stylish jeans, she noticed, well-cut shirt that molded to his trim body.

      “I’m pretty sure, but she took it before she stabbed me. We need to talk to the police and get it back. It could prove...” What? Who had taken Alice? Where she had wound up? Or nothing at all.

      Cooper’s lips thinned into a tight line. “Maybe there’s DNA on it that will prove finally that my brother was not the kidnapper.”

      “Your brother was never even charged,” Mick said.

      “Didn’t have to be. He was a fifteen-year-old kid. The accusation, the looks, the way he was shut out, turned him into an alcoholic.” Ruby looked at the floor.

      “It wasn’t an accusation. Your brother was in the woods that day. I saw him. It was a fact.”

      “He denies it, and he didn’t kidnap that girl, but not one person in this town believed him, especially the two of you. The police questioned you also, Mick, didn’t they? But people believed your story.”

      “Because mine wasn’t a story, it was true.” Mick shook his head. “I had a fight with Alice’s father the night before. I left in a huff. End of story. If Peter was innocent, then he got a bum rap, but turning to alcohol was his choice.”

      “Maybe you should try being convicted by everyone who used to call you friend and see how you deal with it,” Cooper snarled.

      He was face-to-face with Mick, and both looked as though they could easily throw a punch.

      “Enough,” Ruby said. She stood so quickly her head spun and both Mick and Cooper put steadying hands under her arms, which she shook away.

      “Sit down, Bee,” Mick said. “Please.”

      “No. We have to go to town to talk to Sheriff Pickford so he can get the necklace from Josephine. It may finally be the clue that tells us what happened to her.” Ruby was irritated to find that her eyes were wet. After so many years of fear, sorrow and a crushing weight of guilt, the answer might be at their fingertips, the answer to the question that had tortured her for two decades.

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