Phoenix Legacy Read online

  Dedication

  For Toni, Liv and Kate, who insist on the very best. They bash me over the computer when the writing isn’t right and celebrate with me when it is.

  Chapter One

  I have the right to do this.

  So why did she feel so rotten about it?

  Delilah Sefton hit the brakes at the entrance to the Ledgewood traffic circle and put her hand over her stomach. She didn’t feel that much different. Except the test had told her that something was very different.

  Maybe she’d have made another decision if she remembered the act that led to this damned conception. She clenched the steering wheel tight. One minute she’d been closing up her bar, the next minute it was morning and she was waking up on the floor.

  She knew she’d been drugged, but that was it. The lack of memory was worse than knowing exactly how she’d been violated. Her imagination supplied all kinds of horrible details. For all she knew, it’d been more than one man too.

  Bastard. She had no intentions of having any reminders of that night. Certainly not one that would last nine months and then the rest of her life.

  It wasn’t wrong to want that.

  Soon, she’d be back to normal. It was no use going to the police. Even if she trusted the cops—which she hadn’t since she was a small child—she had nothing to give them to investigate. At best, they’d take her statement. At worst, she’d get a lecture about closing the bar alone at night or told she must have drunk too much. As if she’d drink on-shift.

  Del nudged her car into the traffic circle, cursing as someone cut her off to the left. Stupid New Jersey. The circle should have been replaced years ago, but no, it remained a crash magnet. And it was delaying her. She needed to be on time and get this over with.

  She saw a flash out of the corner of her eye. A dark blue van crashed into the minivan just ahead of her. Tires screeched. Metal crunched. Del slammed on her brakes, praying to avoid the car that had slammed on its brakes in front of her.

  The dark blue van pushed the minivan over the curb. Unbalanced, the minivan tipped and fell on its side with a great thud combined with the crunch of crushed metal and broken glass. The blue van with blacked-out windows that was responsible for the accident backed out, tires squealing.

  Assholes!

  Del swerved her car onto the grass in the middle of the traffic circle, near the overturned minivan. With her window down, she could already hear crying coming from inside it. She sniffed and smelled gas. Shit.

  She grabbed the hammer she always kept in her glove box and rushed to the minivan. She used the exposed front tire to clamber up on the van and closed her hand around the handle of the side door, which was now facing up at the sky.

  The crying had stopped. The screaming had started. Del pulled at the door handle but it was locked tight. Jammed. Del looked at the ground. A small flame licked at the vehicle, down near the front driver’s side tire that was wedged into the muck. The smell of gas was much stronger. Not much time.

  She glanced around. No police or first responders yet. The van that had caused the accident sped away, down Route 10 east.

  The world was full of people who didn’t give a crap about the mess they’d left behind.

  She slapped the window of the overturned minivan. There were two kids inside and one guy, all pushed to the far side by the force of the crash. She’d no idea how hurt they might be.

  “Cover your eyes!” she yelled at them.

  The man—probably the dad—repeated her words at a yell. The screaming stopped. She raised her hammer and brought it down on the window. The hammer bounced back without any damage to the glass. Shit. She braced herself better atop the minivan to get maximum leverage and swung again. A crack appeared. On the ground, the flames started to grow.

  Crack, crack, crack. When she had a fist-sized hole, Del stuck the head of the hammer inside the opening and bashed at the edges, enlarging the hole.

  She glanced down again. The whole bottom front of the minivan was on fire. Black, acrid smoke filled the air.

  “Give me your hand!” She stuck her arm inside. Her jean jacket snagged the edge of a glass shard and ripped. A small, sweaty hand closed around her wrist. She pulled and the kid’s head and chest appeared in the opening. A young girl, about ten.

  Del grabbed the girl and pulled her free. “Jump down!” she told the girl. She was old enough. She could make it.

  “My brother and dad are inside!” she wailed.

  “Get out of my way so I can get them.”

  The girl jumped down, close to the flames. Someone (another motorist?) hustled her away.

  Her little brother was lighter and easier to pull up. But he held tight to Del and wouldn’t jump down. She needed to get him out of the way to make room for his dad. But the poor kid was scared to death. She didn’t blame him.

  “I’ve got you, son!” The offer was from an older man wearing a Yankees hat. Something about him must have pleased the little kid because he jumped into the man’s arms.

  Del could feel the heat from the fire already. The metal of the minivan was growing hot.

  “Out! Now!” she yelled to the dad. She helped him scramble out of the hole she’d made in the window. He cursed, and she guessed he’d been cut by the glass. Better that than being burned up in the fire.

  Between her pulling and his pushing, they managed to get him out, though he was cut in several places. Blood was streaming down his arms. He took one look at the smoke and flames, and his eyes went wide. He froze.

  “We have to get down!” she yelled to get through to him.

  They jumped together. She hit the ground shoulder-first and rolled several feet on the grass before stopping.

  As she struggled to her knees, she saw the entire minivan engulfed in flames. She flexed her hand. Damn. She’d dropped her hammer. It must be inside the car. She’d never get it back.

  She liked that hammer.

  A cop put an arm around her waist and led her farther away from the flames. The traffic circle was full of emergency vehicles now. She almost snapped that they’d taken their time getting here, but she realized they must have arrived in mere minutes. It had only seemed like a long time.

  The dad was sitting on the back bumper of the ambulance. His kids had their arms wrapped around him.

  Okay, she would trade the hammer for that scene.

  “You hurt, ma’am?” the officer asked as he pulled her closer to the ambulance.

  She shook her head. “Just ripped my jacket. I’m okay.”

  The father caught sight of her. He was about forty, she guessed, balding with a little paunch. But she liked him. He’d made sure his kids got out first.

  He stared at her, still holding onto the kids. “Thank you,” he whispered and then coughed.

  “Um, sure,” she said.

  “If I’d only seen the damn blue van before—”

  “He cut you off,” she said. “He came out of nowhere, and it looked like he deliberately slammed into you. It wasn’t your fault. Ask anyone.”

  The father nodded and then turned away when the little girl asked him something.

  “Ma’am,” the cop said, “sorry to bother you but I need to see your license and take your statement about what happened.” He cleared his throat. “You did a heroic thing, ma’am.”

  “Stop calling me ma’am.” Of course, the cop was young, in his early twenties. She wasn’t much over thirty but, hell, anyone over thirty was probably old to him. She likely didn’t look her best either, with a ripped jacket and her long brown hair frizzed out from rolling on the grass.

  She led the cop over to her car. She opened the door and noticed not only was her purse missing but so were the medical forms and papers she needed to bring with he
r to the appointment.

  Son of a bitch. She slammed the car door shut and resisted an impulse to kick the tire. This wasn’t her car’s fault. “Got a little problem here, officer.” She gritted her teeth and explained the missing purse.

  Her opinion of the officer rose, as he not only sympathized with her loss but appeared as angry as she was about the theft. He left her for a few minutes while he walked the crowd that had gathered, asking for witnesses.

  Her plans in flames like the minivan, she put her head down against the side of the car. Jesus tap-dancing Christ. Now she had to reschedule the appointment.

  Del turned around and watched the firefighters douse the car fire. At least her car was in one piece. A missing purse was nothing compared to what that family had gone through. In seconds, their lives could have been over. Replacing the paperwork and her driver’s license would be a pain in the ass but it could be done. But, damn, she wanted to stop feeling so low and move forward, not be stuck in this limbo. She wanted this alien out of her.

  Why had the driver of that other van caused a crash? She’d swear it was deliberate. Who’d want to hurt that family? She shook her head. There were just too many lousy people in the world. Like the bastard who’d drugged her and left her pregnant.

  The officer returned.

  “Any news?” she asked.

  “Some.” He grimaced. “Seems someone jumped out of that blue van that caused the accident, went right for your car, grabbed the purse and some papers on the front seat, then got right back in the van.”

  “The guys in the van that caused the accident ripped off my purse?”

  “According to the eyewitnesses, yes.”

  “Did you guys find the van yet?”

  “No, ma’am, most of the responders came straight to the accident scene. The involved vehicle disappeared in that time.”

  “Why the hell would they cause the accident and take my stuff?”

  “Most likely drugs, ma’am,” the officer answered. “Probably they intended to work the crowd after the accident but were mostly scared off after the minivan flipped over.”

  She sighed and let the anger flow away. The officer’s explanation didn’t sound right, but she had no better theory. Now if the cop would just stop calling her “ma’am”.

  “If you’ll come with me to the office, ma’am, we can write up the theft and I can take your statement about the accident.”

  “It’s just Del,” she said. “Okay?”

  He nodded. “I’ll pull out with the patrol car and you can follow.”

  She had no better place to go. She couldn’t keep her appointment, not without her identification and the insurance card. If she called and pleaded, the doctor should let her reschedule before it was too late. She was working against a time limit to get this done.

  She followed the officer back to the police department, filled out several forms for her stolen purse and gave a statement about the accident. Several cops walked by as she and her young officer sat at a conference table and told her “thank you” for what she’d done at the accident scene.

  It was far too weird, cops thanking her. She wished she could shrivel down into her chair or somehow vanish. She couldn’t do that, so she instead insisted to the officer that he keep her name private.

  “I just happened to be closest to them. It was no big deal.”

  He tried to talk her out of it and said there were awards for citizen heroes. She wanted none of that. She’d had a hammer, she’d been close by, and she’d used it. That was it.

  Del sat on the edge of her dock watching the sun set over the mountains surrounding Lake Hopatcong. Her toes dangled in the green water of the lake. Biggest lake in New Jersey, she mused, and not many people really knew it was here. Probably because it had such an odd shape, its little branches reaching every which way. And the lake itself was ugly, the relic of a lost canal system.

  But she liked it.

  The bar and grill she owned on its wooded shore was home now. Once, it had had a name. But by the time she had bought it five years ago, everyone just called it Bar & Grill. So that was the name she’d put on the deed and the sign.

  She hugged her knees to her chin. She had called the doctor to reschedule, explaining what had happened. The receptionist had promised to call her back tomorrow with a new time. Life would soon be back to normal.

  Behind her, she heard someone walking down the dock. She turned and saw it was her assistant manager, Tammy, carrying a tray with some baked goods. Del took a deep breath and smelled cake. Trust Tammy to show up with cake.

  The older woman sat down carefully and offered her the tray.

  Not cake. Cupcakes. Del grabbed one and started gobbling it up. She knew one thing. She was hungry.

  “Heard you were a hero today, Del,” Tammy said.

  “Not really.”

  Del licked the frosting off the cupcake. Always better to eat the frosting first. Tammy had come in on her day off. But then, she’d known about Del’s doctor’s appointment. Tammy had not been judgmental but it’d been clear she hated the idea of Del getting an abortion.

  “I’m just someone with a hammer. And to think, you teased me about keeping it in my car.”

  “It always seemed odd to me.”

  Del shrugged. To explain the hammer would mean explaining her whole messed-up childhood, complete with paranoid, radical parents convinced the government was out to kill them. Turned out, they had finally attracted the attention of the government because of that paranoia.

  “I heard you got your purse stolen for your trouble,” Tammy said.

  “Yeah. It’s going to be a pain to replace the license.”

  If Del were paranoid like her parents, she might think the guys in the blue van had deliberately targeted her. Or her purse. But that was ridiculous. There was nothing of real value in the purse, and she certainly wasn’t of value to anyone.

  She would not go over the edge to insanity like her parents by giving in to the slightest paranoia. She would not.

  Del looked over at Tammy. If you looked up sane and stable, Tammy would be at the top of the list. Del’s chief cook/bartender had lived on or near the lake her whole life. Her skin was weathered from years of being outdoors, and her gray-streaked hair was pulled back by a bandana. She had a good life. A long marriage, good kids and work she liked.

  Del bet Tammy never had parents who taught her to always have a hammer in the glove box and a shotgun in the trunk.

  “Where’d you hear about what I did, anyway?” Del asked.

  “My brother-in-law’s brother is with the fire department.” Tammy bit into her own cupcake. She didn’t lick the frosting off first.

  Philistine, Del thought.

  “I lost the hammer,” Del said. “I’ll have to get a new one.”

  “I’m thinking of getting one for my car now too.”

  Del grinned. “See, I told you it was useful. My dad was always worried about ending up in the water with no way out.” Among other things.

  She didn’t tell Tammy that besides the hammer, she also had rope, a shovel and a shotgun in her trunk. You never knew when those would come in handy, her father had said. Stupid that she still listened to him, even though he was long dead.

  Tammy offered another cupcake, this one with chocolate frosting. Del took it. It lasted about as long as the first.

  “Did you make your appointment?” Tammy asked in a low voice.

  “No.”

  “Did you reschedule?”

  “I called. They said they would fit me back in before it’s too late.”

  “You could cancel altogether,” Tammy said. “It’s a lousy way to get pregnant, I know, but motherhood might work for you.”

  “I seriously doubt it.” Del had no expectations that she could do any better than her crazy parents. And this kid’s father was a rapist and who knew what else.

  That was a lot stacked against anyone before birth.

  “Just because the father’s bad
doesn’t mean the kid will be,” Tammy said.

  “Tammy, I know you mean well, but I was raped. I want this over with. Why are you arguing with me about it?”

  Del would never have told anyone about the missing night, but Tammy had found her that morning on the floor of Bar & Grill, still groggy. Del had blurted out what happened before she was fully herself. Tammy had urged her to go to the police, but Del had refused. She wished she’d listened. The hospital probably would have run a rape kit, found out she was pregnant and given her a morning-after pill.

  Instead, it had taken over a month for Del to realize what was wrong with her. Too late for anything but an abortion.

  “Children are a blessing,” Tammy said.

  “Maybe that’s true for some people. It’s been my experience that lousy dads produce lousy sons.” Exhibit A on that was Hawk, her childhood companion, the son of the other crazy couple who had been on the run with her parents after they’d blown up a federal building.

  There had been seven years between them but Hawk had been her best friend.

  At least, she’d thought he was her best friend. Until he had killed her parents.

  She looked out over the lake again.

  “The kid’s got one good parent. You,” Tammy said.

  “I don’t want that. Not this way.”

  Hawk had seemed sane too, despite the repeated pummelings he endured at the hand of his stepfather. Then came the day the government assault team had cornered them all, and Hawk had gone over the edge and turned his rifle on her parents. He’d killed his stepfather too, just for good measure. Her mom and dad had been screwed up, but they’d been nice to her, in their way. They hadn’t abused her like Hawk’s stepfather did to him.

  She loved them, and Hawk had killed them. So much for overcoming nature.

  “Del, think,” Tammy said. “You were a hero today. You’d be a good mom.”

  Del shrugged. “Again, why are you so opposed to the abortion?” Tammy had never been particularly religious.

  “I was adopted.”

  Oh. “I didn’t know.”

  “Adoptions were kept mostly quiet in those days,” Tammy said. “Not many people know. And it doesn’t really matter because the family that raised me is my family. I mention it because if my biological mother had had an abortion, I wouldn’t be here.” She cleared her throat. “My oldest son is adopted too. I thank God every day that his mother carried him to term.”