Piece of My Heart (Under Suspicion #7) - Mary Higgins Clark Page 0,96

rang out. A gun. It had to be the man’s gun.

Johnny unlatched his seatbelt, opened the car door, and ran.

Chapter 66

Aside from her time in nursing school, Gretchen Harper had lived in Lewes, Delaware, all forty-three years of her life, born and raised on this same ten acres of land, only two miles away from Cape Henlopen State Park, where her father had been a beloved park ranger.

Since she had moved back into the family home alone, she had even come to enjoy the property chores that had once fallen to her father. She pulled another zip tie through the chicken wire and snapped it tight around the metal pole she had just replaced. She gave the fencing a good tug and it stayed intact. “That should do the trick, you two.” Her miniature goats, Ernie and Bert, bounced around in the grass together near her feet. They wouldn’t be running out to the road again anytime soon, but she’d add a few more zip ties to be safe.

She was securing her last loop when a green minivan made its way past her house. She threw up a wave to be friendly, but wondered where the car was headed. The only other lot on the street was the Garney property. She wondered if that oddball Daniel Turner was finally going to sell it, which would mean months if not a year of construction on a new house. Even so, the new neighbors would have to be better than those Garney brothers.

She had gathered up her supplies and was tucking them back into place in the barn when she heard the sudden crack of an explosion. She hadn’t heard a sound like that since she’d had to call the sheriff on the Garneys for shooting targets on their land.

She was replaying the sound in her head, wondering if it was a gunshot, when she heard two more blasts. Boom! Boom!

She ducked low, scurried to the house, and grabbed the kitchen phone.

9-1-1.

“This is Gretchen Harper on Bonner Road. I just heard at least three shots fired nearby. Tell Chief Turner that it sounds like they came from his brother’s empty lot!”

Chapter 67

Laurie pressed the rental car key and heard a chirp chirp from the next row of cars in the lot. A small gray SUV waited in the spot they were looking for.

She hesitated a few steps from the car and looked to her father.

“Want me to drive?” Leo asked, a small grin on his face.

She broke into a smile. “Yes, please.”

“I was wondering when you were going to remember that you barely know how.”

Growing up in New York City had many advantages, but comfort behind the wheel was not one of them. “Well, I’m an excellent navigator.” She entered the town of Lewes, Delaware, where Daniel Turner lived, into her phone’s GPS system and then propped the screen on the dash where her father could see it. “Or at least, my phone is.”

They were halfway there when Laurie reached for her phone again. “Marcy was going to find a good spot for us to meet up. Let me get an update.” When she clicked on the telephone icon, she saw she had a new message from Marcy. She hit the speaker button on her phone so Leo could hear.

“Hey, Laurie. I’ve called a few times, and it kept going straight to voicemail. It’s ringing now, at least. Hopefully that means your plane has landed. A Detective Eddie Miller called me from East Hampton. He works with Detective Langland and told me where to meet the FBI. I assume you and Leo have the same info. I don’t want to jinx it, but it feels like this is actually going to work. Say a little prayer, okay?”

Laurie hit a button to return Marcy’s call, but after four rings, they heard her outgoing message.

“Eddie Miller?” Laurie asked as she hung up.

“Never heard of him. Let me call Langland.”

Detective Langland didn’t bother with a greeting when she answered. “Leo, I’m pulling every string I can find. The problem is there’s no FBI field office in Delaware. It’s covered by the Baltimore office. Two agents who’d normally run any kidnapping investigation were going to head out to Daniel Turner’s house, but they decided to pull in the local satellite office instead. It’s in Dover, about forty miles away, so I think we’re almost there.”

The news would explain Marcy’s excitement.

“And you had a colleague named Miller reach out to Marcy?” Leo asked. “We’re trying to figure