Secret Refuge. Dana Mentink
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into the bedroom and found Aunt Viv snoring softly. June was rolled into a ball sleeping next to her. Something warm and soft settled into Keeley’s heart.
“Thank You, God,” she said for the millionth time. Nothing would ease the pain of what Tucker had done to LeeAnn, but there was June, sweet June. Each word she spoke was balm to Keeley’s broken heart, every boisterous laugh salve to the pain.
Keeley knew that every job brought her closer to being the mommy that LeeAnn would have wanted for her precious child. Keeley closed the door quietly. She packed up her gear while the chicken finished cooking, and left it cooling on the counter with a note.
“Job! Wild parrots. Back in a couple of hours. Save me some chicken. K.”
She sent a text to John, telling him she would not volunteer at the clinic that evening. It gave her a sense of relief, she was ashamed to admit. She’d taken over LeeAnn’s volunteer role of tending to the wild birds John rescued. LeeAnn had loved the birds so much, but being around John meant Keeley would feel both his pain as well as her own. It was too much.
She tiptoed out the door and hustled to her Jeep, stopping short as she saw Mick Hudson leaning on her front bumper. He straightened as he saw her approach.
Her stomach somersaulted. How had he known to find her here? She forced a calm pace until she reached him.
“I thought you’d left town,” she said.
“Came back.” His gaze made her squirm, as if he knew all her secrets.
“What do you want?”
“Tucker did say something to you out there on the mountain, and you kept it to yourself.”
Her cheeks burned. “Things happened fast. I can’t really recall exactly...”
“Do you have reason to think Tucker knows the child is his?”
The words sucked the breath right out of her, and cold gripped her body. She tried to go around him. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
He put a hand on her shoulder, heavy, strong.
“Yes, you do. The little girl your sister gave birth to. Tucker’s the father, isn’t he?”
“Who do you think you are?” she said, fear sparked into anger as she yanked out of his grip. “Coming into my life and spouting accusations and prying into private information that you have no right to. June is mine, I’m her legal guardian and her biological father is none of your business.”
“It’s Tucker’s business. He’s come back to take her and punish you.”
Coming for you.
Ice spread throughout her body. “June is my daughter.”
“You need to tell the police.”
“Tucker’s gone. He’s taken off.”
“Sure about that?”
The flat brown eyes, the arms folded across the broad chest infuriated her. “You have no right to interfere. You’re not a cop.”
“I’m trying to help.”
“The time to help was when Tucker should have been under house arrest. You helped then, didn’t you? You made sure he was a free man, and then he killed my sister.” The wide river of anger flowed out of her and caused him to flinch. He looked away. She would not, could not, stop. “The one thing I want more than anything else in this world is my sister back, but you can’t help with that, can you?” Her throat thickened.
“I...don’t want to cause you any more pain.”
“Then go away.”
He bent down and picked up a penny-size round bead. “This looks important.”
How did he know that black bead was super important to a certain little girl? “It belongs to Junie’s toy cow, Mr. Moo Moo.” She quickly snatched the bead and stashed it in her pocket. “Thank you,” she managed.
“I don’t think Tucker is leaving until he gets what he wants.”
She rekindled her anger. He was not about to push his way into her life or parenting decisions. “Why should it matter what you think, Mr. Hudson?” She stalked to the driver’s-side and got in, pulling away without looking in the rearview mirror, though she could feel him standing there, watching. Her hands were clammy as she gripped the steering wheel.
He’s come back to take her and punish you.
Mick’s ominous words would not leave her mind as she drove to the old warehouse in the industrial part of town. Could he be right? Could Tucker have figured out that June was his child? Why would he care anyway? When LeeAnn had told him about the pregnancy, he’d pushed her to end it immediately. He had not wanted a baby then. And now? That he was a fugitive with a target on his back?
Oh, why had her sister ever come back to Silver Creek? She and June might be living a happy life together if LeeAnn and Tucker had never rekindled their deadly relationship.
Her worries only increased with every mile until she finally called the police. It reassured her to hear that they had instituted roadblocks and had their eyes on train stations and the bus depot, and that the frequent neighborhood patrols would continue. Should she tell them about June? She’d promised LeeAnn never to reveal the truth about June’s parentage, but if Mick was right, Keeley was putting the child at risk by not breaking her vow. She had to trust someone with the truth. Her stomach churned.
She made arrangements to meet with Chief Uttley at seven, leaving her just enough time to do her job. Was it the right choice or wrong? She had no idea, so she squashed the whirling anxiety and focused on the task at hand.
Her quarry would be best photographed at the top of the empty six-story building, once the home of the Oregon Weekly Tribune. The building stood resolutely against the sinking sun, as if guarding the colony of bright green Quaker parrots that had set up residence on the roof of the neighboring storage facility. The ingenious avian builders had infiltrated every nook and cranny, stuffing each crevice with a mountain of twigs to build their enormous communal nests. From her vantage point, with the zoom lens, Keeley could get incredible shots of the master builders at work.
Keeley climbed up the fire-escape ladders of the newspaper building, one arduous flight after the other, until she arrived, panting, at the top. Cold wind assaulted her cheeks. The rooftop was littered with detritus, broken branches, feathers that had been carried by the breeze and deposited against the ventilation boxes and piles of weathered pallets, stacked in six-foot piles in haphazard fashion. A flicker of motion made her jump.
She heaved out a sigh as a parrot waddled out from behind a crate, a long stick held in his beak. “Wrong building, bird,” she said, snapping his picture anyway. He took off, flying toward the communal nest.
After one more cautious look around, Keeley settled herself onto her stomach, her camera steadied on a tiny tripod. She zoomed the lens and took a couple of test shots to check the lighting.
Perfect. She reveled as she always did in the privilege of being able to peek into a hidden world, a secret place, and document the wild lives burgeoning around her.
A parrot with puffy white cheeks and brilliant emerald feathers alighted to preen on the ledge of the adjacent building. Keeley readied her camera.
“Hold still, birdie. One more second,” she whispered.
The scuff of a shoe behind her made her whirl around, heart thundering in her chest.
“You sound just like your sister,” Tucker Rivendale said.
Mick called Reggie on the way.
“I just got word from my source that