“We can’t back out, the police are involved and the whole town knows what’s happening.”
“Who gives a rip? We’re talking about our lives, for God’s sake!” His fist curled angrily and the muscles of his forearms flexed with rage. “All of this has got to stop!” Pounding the table and making the dishes rattle, Keith pushed his chair backward and stood beside the door. Leaning heavily against the frame he turned pleading gray eyes on his sister. “You can make him stop, y’know. You’re the only one he’ll listen to.”
“Not when he’s set his mind to something.”
“Then unset it, Tory!” He turned his palms upward and shook his hands. “What does it take to get through to you?”
Tory looked down at the note lying face up on the table and she trembled. For a moment she considered Keith’s suggestion, but slowly her fear gave way to anger. “I won’t be threatened,” she said, “or compromised. Whoever sent this must have a lot to lose. I wonder what it is?”
“Well, I don’t!” Keith nervously pushed his hair away from his face. “I wish this whole nightmare would just end.”
“But it won’t. Not unless we find the truth,” she said.
“Oh, God, Tory, you’re such a dreamer. You always have been. That’s how McFadden tricked you the first time and now you’ve let him do it to you again. You’re so caught up in your romantic fantasies about him that you don’t see the truth when it hits you in the face!”
Tory leaned against the refrigerator. “Then maybe you’ll be so kind as to spell it out for me.”
“He’s using you, Tory. All over again. I just never thought you’d be dumb enough to fall for it!”
With his final angry words tossed over his shoulder, Keith stalked out of the room leaving Tory feeling numb. Within a few moments, she heard the sound of the pickup as it roared down the lane before squealing around the corner to the open highway.
For the rest of the afternoon, Tory waited for Trask to return as he had promised. She tried to make herself busy around the house, her anxiety increasing with each hour that passed without word from him. As the day darkened with the coming of night, Tory began to worry. What, if anything, had he found out from Linn Benton and George Henderson?
Both men had to hate him. Trask’s testimony had sealed their fate and sent them both to prison. What if they were somehow involved in his beating and the threatening calls to Neva?
When the phone rang at ten o’clock, Tory felt relief wash over her. It had to be Trask.
She answered the telephone breathlessly. “Hello?”
“Tory? It’s Neva.” Tory’s heart fell through the floor. “I was wondering—actually hoping—that you’d heard from Trask.” All of Tory’s fears began to crystallize.
“I haven’t seen him since this morning,” she admitted.
“I see.” There was a stilted silence. “Do you know if he went to Salem?”
“That’s where he was headed when he left here.”
“Damn.” Neva waited a second before continuing.
“Maybe he went to the cabin,” Tory suggested hopefully, though she already guessed the answer.
“I was already there, about an hour ago. His Blazer’s gone and no one answered the door. I have a key and let myself in. I’m sure he hasn’t been there since early this morning.”
Tory’s heart began to pound with worry. “And I assume that he hasn’t called you?”
“No.”
“Have you called the sheriff?”
“Not yet.”
“What about the investigator, John what’s-his-name?”
“Davis,” Neva supplied. “He knows I’m worried. He’s already contacted a couple of his men.”
Tory slid into a nearby chair and felt the deadweight of fear slumping her shoulders. “So what do we do now?”
“Nothing to do but wait,” Neva replied. “You’ll call if you hear from him?”