Page 6 of Operation: Unify

A man in an auto service shirt with the nameTodembroidered on the front opened the door. “What do you want?”

She blinked, rapidly trying to think of something only Melinda would know, not her husband. “I’m with the Christian Mission Foundation and I was sent to find the local mission housing, with the church. They gave me the wrong address and I’m lost. Do you know where it is?” She tried to smile, but knew it faltered.

“Do I look like I know where a mission house is?” He glared at her.

Melinda gently pushed him to the side. “I can show you.” Her left eye was badly bruised, and she kept her head down.

“You ain’t going anywhere until we finish talking.” He pushed her back.

“I’m done talking for now.” She evaded him and stepped outside. Her feet were bare despite the 40-degree temperature, and she tugged a threadbare sweater closed tightly around her thin frame.

“Is it nearby or could you ride with and show me? I’d bring you right back. I would even be willing to buy breakfast for both of you, if you would be so kind.” She tried to sound genuine, but Tod’s glare left her shaken.

Teddy was bigger than that guy thought he was, and she’d never been scared of him. Not even when he’d come back from his time in the service with darkness in his heart and internal thoughts he refused to share.

“If she goes, I go too.” He stepped outside.

“Sorry, my husband won’t let me have men I don’t know in my car. She’ll show me where it is, we’ll get some food, and I’llhave her right back. Thank you.” She started rushing for her car and heard Melinda right on her heels.

“Go, go, go, he’s following,” Melinda muttered.

“You, stop right there!” Tod yelled.

The man across the street finally took notice and stood up, watching them closely. Melinda followed Lacy right to her red car and dove into the passenger side, then locked the door. Lacy did the same, shoved the key into the ignition and the moment the car responded, she raced away almost hitting Melinda’s husband as he threw himself toward the hood of her car.

“He’s going to call the police and say that you kidnapped me. He always lies.” Melinda covered her face in her hands. “You were my last hope of escape. Over the last few months, he’s been beating me up, then he’ll cut himself. He calls the police to report that I tried to kill him, and he tells them he used self-defense to keep me away. He claims that I refuse to leave the house even though he’s asked me to. The police never make me leave. I wish they would. I wish I could.”

Lacy shook her head and glanced in her rearview mirror, glad there wasn’t anyone following. “Why would he do that?”

She took a deep breath, but her voice remained quiet. “To give himself an alibi. He plans to kill me and make it look like self-defense. I have to get out of here and go into hiding. If I stay, I’m dead. It’s taken me a long time to realize that I need to get out or I’m done for.”

Lacy swallowed the bile in her throat. “Would it help if we called the police first? Could we talk to someone who specializes in this sort of thing? Someone has to believe you.”

Melinda heaved an exasperated sigh. “You don’t understand. Until about a week ago, I was convinced that he loved me. I really thought that after every incident, when he said he loved me and he’d never do it again, he was telling the truth. He’dget better. He’d do better. I wanted to believe him. I see happy people all the time. Why couldn’t that be us?”

Because the man Melinda had chosen had lied to her. He wasn’t the man he’d purported to be before she agreed to marry him. “You aren’t alone. I’ll help you get out of this. The first thing you need to do is to believe with everything in you that his actions against you are more truthful than the words he says. One hundred percent of the time. Can you do that?” Lacy finally breathed a sigh as she turned out of the neighborhood and back onto a busier street.

Melinda nodded as Lacy turned the heat on as high as it would go. She’d like to take Melinda back to her hotel room and then casually take Melinda back to Wayside with her husband none the wiser, but that would only make the problem worse. The police had no idea he’d been playing them. They’d file a missing person’s report and Lacy could find herself in trouble.

“First things first, you need something to wear and some food. Then, we’ll go talk to the Police. I want them to document what he did to you and why. I’ll tell them he had no injuries when I came to the door. In fact, he was able-bodied enough to try to jump on my car.”

Hopefully, that would give them enough pause to question the other reports. They needed to start a paper trail to confirm Melinda was in danger. Her life depended on it.

Chapter Three

After helping Ferd get settled in what Connor hoped was her temporary office, he headed back to his own. He situated himself behind his desk and opened an old book he’d had in his drawer since he’d taken over this office from his father. It was probably the one thing that hadn’t changed in ten years. An old address book.

He flipped to the letter K and saw all three of his brother’s names in there. All of them had cell phone numbers listed, ones they’d had before they walked away from Dad. If they hadn’t changed, he could still reach them. If they had, he knew where they lived. He’d just chosen to give them the space they seemed to want.

Paul was the oldest. At age forty, he was probably the most likely to come. Maybe all of them had changed. There was no way to know until he made the call. He pressed the numbers on his phone, suddenly saddened by the fact that he didn’t have his own brothers programmed into his long list of contacts.

“Hello?” Paul’s voice came over the phone, not the slightest bit apprehensive.

“Paul, this is Connor.”

He snorted. “I still know the phone prefix for Piper’s Ridge. I figured it was you or Dad. Is there something you need?”

He’d always tried to be direct, but in this case, direct would seem like he was going for shock value and that wasn’t the case. “There are a few things that have happened around here that I think you, Kevin, and Hunter need to know about.”

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