Love At Peace (Hometown Heartstrings #3)

Chapter 7

Heather

I didn’t need to ride with Marty into town, but I did. It made no sense to take two cars. I was sure he could take me back to the ranch so I could pick up my car. I also tried not to mind riding alongside him for the sake of not feeling alone and out of control.

It was on the tip of my tongue to ask Roarke to be with me. I wanted to blurt out a question if I could ride with him and Gavin. That would’ve been backtracking on what I’d demanded of him. I couldn’t tell him that we were done and that I wanted him to leave me alone, then in the next moment, ask if he could give me some support.

I refused to send mixed signals like that. I wouldn’t. Yet, I hated this panicky feeling that something was wrong with Eric.

Why would he not have his phone with him?

My cousin wasn’t a man of many words, but everyone kept their phones on them. The first thing that came to mind was that he’d struggled with someone and dropped it in the thick grass.

Why would he want to go to an apartment?

Because he was a man of few words and consistently socially awkward, it seemed plausible that he didn’t have many friends. Sure, he went to the bar with his coworkers from the Grand River, but he didn’t seem to have a big circle of acquaintances—he hadn’t when I was younger and I didn’t suspect he did now.

Who would’ve picked him up?

That pressured me to think more on if he had a close friend or some kind of an arrangement with someone in town, but I doubted it. He just wasn’t that social. Perhaps keeping to oneself and lying low was just a James family trait as far as our generation was concerned.

As the questions bombarded me, I paid attention to Marty driving into town and speaking on his radio piece. It seemed that an accident had happened near the expressway, but other units were closer to the site. Once he’d settled that correspondence, he turned to me.

“I’m going to check out that place near the bowling alley first,” he told me.

I nodded, familiar with the tall building. In fact, that was the one that stay-at-home mom lived at.

The one where she saw Nevaeh and David together...

I swallowed hard and tried to find my voice. Dread snaked through me again, and I hated how easily I could be rendered an emotional mess because of that damn man.

No. Come on. Stop this. Be rational and think.

Just because David was there didn’t have to mean anything. Eric wouldn’t know David. I couldn’t see him tracking him down because he’d bothered me at my cabin. Eric didn’t seem like that sort of a guy. And I couldn’t see any other reason why Eric and David would know each other otherwise.

And just because that woman said she saw David there, that doesn’t mean Eric would’ve been going to his apartment. If David has an apartment there.

Picking at my thoughts made me realize that I was riding on all these rumors and bits of secondhand information.

I had no actual connections to rely on. Until I did, I wouldn’t speak up about speculations.

“Jerry owns that place, right?” I asked.

“Yeah,” Marty replied. “One of a few. Does Eric deal with Jerry often?”

I shook my head but stopped midway. “Not that I know of. When I was moving back here, I was supposed to rent an apartment above the bakery. Jerry owns that one, and Eric arranged for me to rent it. But the night I got here, it was broken into.”

“Ah. I remember that now.”

“Did Jerry file a report?”

“Not at first.” He huffed a faint laugh. “But I heard about it. He was causing a big scene, trying to say you or Eric had to pay for the damages of the break-in. We did go there and file a report eventually just so it was documented. We think it was some teenagers from the next town over that had been causing trouble like this.”

“He did try to say I was responsible for damages, but I wasn’t. I hadn’t even signed a lease or anything. It was just word of mouth, that Eric told Jerry I wanted the place to stay.”

“You think that could be it?” Marty asked. “If Jerry holds a grudge against Eric for that, or feels like he can stick someone else with covering the costs of that break-in...”

I shrugged, scanning the streets as we drove further into town. “I doubt it. Besides, I can’t see why Jerry would honestly think he could get anything from Eric. Nothing had been signed for that apartment on Main Street.”

It was a flimsy connection linking my cousin and that conman.

“Well, let’s look here,” he said as he parked in the parking lot behind the tall structure. Burton was mostly flat, with the multi-storied buildings primarily lining Main Street. Here, the shadows of the sunset were almost fully obscured as evening turned more into nighttime.

Shadows showed everywhere in this alleyway, and it didn’t help my mood.

Car doors closed behind us as Gavin and Roarke exited the other truck.

“Todd said he’d hang back and wait for answers,” Gavin said.

“He didn’t want to make it a crowd,” Roarke added.

“Smart,” Marty replied as he walked to the rear entrance of the building. “We don’t need to make a big entrance here.”

Or at all.

“But we’re concerned,” Gavin added.

I appreciated that. I really did. Eric was just a coworker, not exactly a friend of theirs, but it helped to have all hands on deck with this matter.

I didn’t make eye contact with Roarke. I couldn’t. Not now. Every time I felt his attention on me was another test of me not bending to want his comfort. To seek his company. But it wasn’t lost on me that he wasn’t sitting out on this little investigation like Todd had.

Because he cares.

He told me that he did, and I wanted to believe that he held my interests at heart. Until he could stand up to his niece though, I wouldn’t risk it.

“Is the back door locked here?” I asked Marty as he approached it.

He put his hand on the door and pulled. “It used to be,” he replied, pursing his lips a little. “Jerry claimed he’d fix it but he obviously hasn’t yet.”

“Do you know who lives here?” I asked him as we walked into the foyer.

It seemed like this central opening spanned up all four floors. An elevator was built in at one side, but stairs and open hallways lined each floor going up.

“Sure,” Marty replied. “I’ve met most of everyone in Burton by now.” His smile wasn’t smug, but I could tell that he was amused with that question. I got the impression he was trying to get me to lower my guard for the sake of being more lighthearted and preventing me from worrying too much. Until there was a reason to, at least. I couldn’t take offense to that. He wasn’t being a jerk or dismissing me about this.

“I’ve dealt with a few of the renters here. Previous renters.” He lifted his head, looking up at all the floors. “And I know the residents on that side of the building have been here longer than Jerry’s been managing it.” He gestured at one end of the squarish building. “I can’t see how any of them would be picking Eric up to bring here. Most of them are senior citizens who wouldn’t be driving at the time that text was sent to his phone.”

“Can you unlock his phone if you need to?” Roarke asked.

I hated that on the principle of it being such an invasion of privacy. David used to employ all kinds of tactics like that on my phone in Chicago.

“If need be,” Marty said.

“There’s a woman who lives here—” I stopped myself short when Roarke swore. He and Gavin had started to walk around the perimeter of the lobby space, but something had snagged his attention. He stood at the railing blocking a stairwell that led to the basement.

“Marty,” he said, stern and serious as he jumped over the railing to get down into the stairwell faster.

I jogged over, my heart lodged in my throat as it thundered faster. His tone, his somber expression, and his urgency to move couldn’t mean anything good.

This was no longer a concern. It felt like an emergency.

“Eric?”

As Marty and I rushed over together, we clambered onto the stairwell.

My cousin lay at the bottom. His face looked swollen and his leg was bent at an awkward angle. But he blinked his eyes open. He was breathing, if wincing in pain.

“Eric!”

We weren’t close. We never had been and likely wouldn’t ever be best buds. But he was family, and I freaked out at the sight of him in pain.

“Easy, easy,” Marty warned as we all got close. “Eric, are you all right?”

He couldn’t speak well, indicating his jaw. “I thun I bro ma ja,” he slurred.

Marty spoke into his radio piece for an ambulance as he assessed him. While he couldn’t talk well, he was slightly cognizant to point at where he hurt. “I thun ma anku ith ained.”

Sprained ankle. Broken jaw. I wrung my hands together and watched as Marty continued to assess him. It cracked my heart to see him in pain, but I wouldn’t get in the way and try to move him.

Within minutes the officials were there to take over that. EMTs came in to transfer him onto a stretcher, and I got all the information about where I could see him. I almost decided to ride with Eric in the ambulance, but I worried I’d be in the way, too.

“What is going on out here?” someone asked as Eric was carried out of the bottom of the stairwell.

Numb with shock and gripped by panic, I watched Marty scan the basement area where Eric had been found.

Looking up, I spotted that woman, the mom of the toddler. She had her propped at her hip, drinking from a sippy cup as they peered down the stairwell.

“Hey, Marty. What’s going on?” she asked.

“Someone seemed to have fallen down the stairs,” Marty guessed.

The woman walked down, holding her toddler. “Are they okay?”

Marty nodded. “He was awake. We’ll have more details later.”

As she reached us on this floor, she shook her head and indicated at the other half of the stairwell that led down to the point of the V where we were. “I bet he came from that unit.” She huffed, looking at me. “That’s the one I saw her at. And that man.”

“Who?”

“Well, that apartment,” she said, pointing up, “has been empty for months. There was a heating and mold issue, I think.” She grimaced. “And I swear Jerry’s being stingy on fixing it. I’m so glad my unit is way across there.”

“Who’s in the other one?” Marty asked, pointing at where only one other door stood at that landing where Eric could have come from.

“No one now.” Again, she looked at me. “That man was renting it.”

I tensed. “Which man?”

“The one I was telling you about. The smartass guy with the slicked-back blond hair.”

“Him?” Marty showed her his phone with a photo of David on it.

“Yep.” The woman nodded. “I heard him being a huge deal with Jerry the other day about rent fees and such. Jerry told him to get out of here.”

So David was here recently... My stomach clenched with anxiety. It was so knotted that I swore it would never unravel again. And Eric was too...

Maybe Eric did go after David despite me warning him not to. I hated that thought even more. I didn’t want to be the cause of anyone in pain.

As soon as he was more awake and able to talk, I’d get to the bottom of this.

Her toddler started to fuss, squirming in her arms, and she backed up a step with a heavy sigh. “Oh, hush. I know. I know. We’ll get back to your bedtime story in a minute.”

The little girl continued to fuss though, and the mother winced. “Okay, okay. We’ll go. We’ll go.” She nodded once at Marty. “If you have any more questions, you know where to find me. Don’t hesitate to ask me anything else. I’ll do whatever I can to make sure this building stays safe.”

“Thanks,” Marty told her, clearly familiar with her and her concerns.

“Want me to drive you to the hospital?” Gavin asked as she walked away.

I nodded, but Marty held up his hand. “I can take you. I’ll be needing answers from him or the doctors about why he was lying there all day or night.” But he furrowed his brow at me in such a manner that made me want to cringe.

“Heather, if David Kenning is responsible for this, if he’s involved with any circumstance of Eric lying down here like he’d been assaulted...”

I swallowed hard, hating that it’d come to this.

“That’s serious business.”

Like I don’t know that. Like I don’t know how seriously bad things can be with David Kenning.

“You’ve got to speak up. Please,” Marty said. “Before anyone else could get hurt. Can you please talk to me?” He shook his head. “There’s no record on him. There’s nothing to find on him, but I’m not convinced that doesn’t mean he’s not a threat around here. And I’m not referring to him driving recklessly and speeding.”

He didn’t have to twist my arm. I nodded, hating that I’d need to open up and share things I wanted to tuck away and lock into my past. Eric was hurt, and if it was David’s fault, I wouldn’t sit back. This was beyond me now. This wasn’t just a something done to me .

“Okay,” I said, hanging my head so I wouldn’t have to face Roarke and let him see the utter defeat on my face. “I’ll...explain.”