by H L Bur
Quinn eyed me a warning to calm myself down. I knew she was right, I had to keep a cool head or this surely meant the grave. The thought of whether Gigi would be the one to usher me across flitted briefly through my mind.
Quinn spoke up once more. “How does Elias Rhodes play into this? He bought the sawmill property so that’s not exactly getting it back into your hands,” she reasoned.
“Oh ye of little minds. There’s more than one way to skin a cat, as they say.”
“Meaning?” Quinn ventured.
Jake turned onto the dirt drive that led to the sawmill. At least they were predictable. My hopes of Fletcher finding us increased dramatically.
“Meaning, Elias Rhodes works for me. He does what I want, when I want. And besides, pretty soon, the Rhodes’ and the Robersons will be family.”
“How is that?”
“Ugh, gosh you two are annoying! Always with the questions, it’s giving me a headache.” Rose reached up and massaged both of her temples, gun still in hand, pointing up to the roof of the car.
“Because our cousin Cliff is going to marry Rhodes’s little brat Happy…Jolly… whatever her name is.”
“Joy?” we both yelled in unison.
“Yeah, that little witch.”
“But wait, how are you related to Cliff?”
“Did I not just say he was my cousin? Lord, give me patience.” She raised her head skyward.
I wanted to point out that I didn’t think the Lord would be granting her any favors any time soon…or for eternity…but again, I didn’t think now was the best time.
“But how do you have another cousin? He wasn’t in the photograph?” I suddenly realized how dumb that sounded and how naïve we had been. Of course just because that was a family picture didn’t mean that was the complete family. I could kick myself for missing this.
“Oh is it all coming together now? You should’ve kept the detective work to your boyfriend. Yes, Cliff is Katherine’s brother, son of Uncle Darryl. Now, if you two could zip it I would really appreciate it,” she said with finality.
Instead of parking in the dirt lot that Quinn and I had a few nights ago, Jake took a narrow two track that curved off to the right of the small lot. I hadn’t even known that trail existed. I assumed it crossed the small inlet at some point and circled back around behind the sawmill.
We bounced along in silence for a minute before another thought crossed my mind. “Does Joy know about Cliff and this whole operation?”
Rose let out a loud snort followed by a long sigh. “That twit? She is dumber than the two of you put together.”
I couldn’t fault her logic.
Jake stopped the SUV behind the sawmill as I suspected and hopped out. If we had known about that second trail, it would have saved us a whole lot of trouble a few nights ago, I mentally chided myself. He opened the back door and pulled Quinn out first, then me. He hauled us across the railroad tracks, one in each arm like two struggling sacks of potatoes, and headed for the sawmill.
He set us down in front of the stone steps leading to the building and unlocked the door. He then shoved us one at a time up the steps and into the sawmill. It looked much the same as it did the other night, the same buckets and rope rested in the corner with the shovel propped up on the wall behind them. The only thing different was that it appeared the bloodstains had been cleaned up. I looked around the building and caught sight of something behind the workbench.
I had to will myself to remain stone-faced and pretend not to see anything when Gigi stepped out. One glance at her face and I knew she was pissed.
I caught Quinn’s eye and she gave me a quick nod, so I knew she had already noticed Gigi as well. I smirked in spite of myself, but I couldn’t help it. Our rescuer was here and these two didn’t know what was about to hit them.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Ξ
Rose sauntered into the sawmill behind us with a big grin on her face, looking as though she had just won the grand prize at the county fair. Jake was stooped over the log feeder where the saw blade was once housed and it looked like he was packing some bags of white powder into a large waterproof box.
Although my hands and feet were bound, my mouth was not and I quickly developed a plan to throw the crazed killer off. Quinn shot her eyes quickly toward the corner where the buckets and shovel stood as she slowly started to inch herself that way. I knew I had to distract Rose and Jake.
“So, Rose…Drachen…whatever your name is, what exactly is the big plan here? You’re going to kill us because we were getting too close? The police are still onto you, you know. You’re not going to get away with this.”
“Oh, sweetie.” She shook her head. “How wrong you are. I have one more shipment to get out and then we are getting out of here for a while. The police won’t find anything here, Elias and Cliff will make sure of that and by the time Cliff and that harpy get married and the property is back in the family, everything will have died down again…no pun intended ‘died down’.” She laughed at her own joke.
“I see you’ve already cleaned up the bloodstains. Is this where you killed Sofie?” I asked, arching my eyebrows high.
“Aww, Sofie.” Rose appeared to be reminiscing. “She was such a good girl. Always so willing to sit and listen to my grandfather’s pathetic stories. It’s like she thought he was her grandfather. It was really quite pathetic. She walked around these woods like she owned them.”
“Yeah, and she figured you out, didn’t she? She was going to expose you for the psychopathic criminal you are!” I was starting to lose my temper and knew I needed to pull it together.
“I am a girl boss! I run a successful multimillion dollar company, thank you very much.” She once again pointed her gun in my direction.
“Why dump Sofie in the woods? You could’ve dumped her in Lake Huron and she might never have been found.”
“If you must know, she wasn’t supposed to die. I always liked her sweet nature. I thought I could reason with her and convince her not to go public with the story. It was her own fault really, for not agreeing to my more than fair terms,” she scoffed.
“Despicable,” I snorted.
“Oh stop acting like you are so much better than me. You probably would’ve done the same thing in my shoes.”
“Hardly, but whatever you say…so how does the smuggling work? You just put the cocaine in a waterproof box and send it on its merry way down the straits?”
“Actually, we utilize the most up to date underwater technology. We are the proud owners of not one, but TWO autonomous underwater vehicles.” She beamed.
“What does that mean?” I had actually heard of these, but wanted to keep her talking. They were sturdy enough that you could easily store a couple hundred pounds at a time in them, but small enough to easily evade detection, and they didn’t require any manpower. Essentially, you punched in the location and the automated computer used satellites and GPS to reach the end destination and then they automatically return to their starting point after drop off. “And what about your scarf on the beach behind our property? And the tripwire over the path?” I continued my barrage of questions without letting her answer.
She took a deep breath and focused intently on my gaze. “I’ve been watching you two for longer than you know. Your little beach would have been a prime location for our little operation. We were scoping it out as a secondary site. It’s secluded and nobody knows about it - except you two - but, that’s an easy problem to take care of.” She threw her head back in a laugh. “But, to be honest, there was something about it that gave me the creeps.” She shuddered. “And I don’t know what tripwire you are talking about, but it is time to shut up now, okay dear? Jake, gag them, I can’t listen to their nagging and whining anymore.”
Now was the time to put my plan into action.
I turned to where Gigi was standing beside the workbench. “What’d you say, Gigi? Oh, you said you are going to make these murderers wish they were never born?
”
“What are you doing?” Rose asked, a look of confusion on her face. “Who are you talking to?” She looked around the sawmill.
Gigi gave me the thumbs up and twirled her finger in a circle as a sign to keep going.
“Oh Gigi, that sounds a little harsh don’t you think? I mean I know they are killers and all, but I don’t know if anybody deserves that sort of punishment.”
Rose laughed nervously. “You’re crazy. Who are you talking to?” she asked again.
“Our grandmother of course. Can’t you see her? She’s right there,” I said as I pointed to Gigi. “Oh that’s right, you probably can’t see her because she’s a ghost. Well let me warn you, she’s not very happy that you’ve kidnapped her granddaughters. In fact, I’d say she’s down right pissed. You want to know why our property gave you the creeps? It’s because Gigi here guards it from criminals like you,” I spat.
She glanced toward the area that I had pointed to and I could tell she didn’t know whether to believe me or not, but she was nervous and she was taking turns holding her pistol with each hand while she wiped her sweaty palms on her pants.
“Do you think I’m stupid? I’m not going to fall for that. There are no such things as ghosts. Jake, get over here and gag them. I’m not going to tell you again.”
Jake looked up from his packing and started walking towards us. That’s when Quinn made a break for it. She had slowly been inching her way to the corner where the shovel was propped up. She had worked her hands free of her bindings, but her feet were still tied. As Jake made a start towards me, Quinn shifted her weight and jumped the last couple feet over to the corner. She steadied herself with one hand against the wall, grabbed the shovel and pivoted back to face our attacker. I also made several small hops backwards to back away from Jake’s approach.
Jake changed directions and reached out to grab Quinn as she swung the shovel up and around, landing a blow to his right shoulder. The edge of the shovel tore his jacket and must have sliced into his shoulder. He instinctively held his left hand up to his shoulder and when he pulled it away it was covered in blood. Quinn’s momentum during her first swing had caused her to twist and fall in the opposite direction. She was able to steady herself by bracing the shovel on the floor. She then pushed off of the floor going back the way she came, arcing the shovel on a backswing and connected once again with our attacker. This time, the curved bottom of the shovel made direct contact with the side of Jake’s face and he staggered backwards before slumping to the ground.
“That’s it, you bitches! Nobody messes with my family but me!” She pointed the gun at us and slowly started to squeeze the trigger. I lunged at Quinn and tackled her to the ground as the shot was fired. I quickly checked myself and Quinn to make sure neither of us had been shot.
I glanced up to see Gigi swinging one of the bright orange buckets over her head. “Nobody calls my granddaughters bitches but me,” she yelled as she launched the bucket in Rose’s direction.
Rose screamed and dropped the gun, instinctively pulling her hands up to protect her head from the flying bucket. I could only imagine what she must be thinking, seeing an orange bucket swinging around in the air by itself before suddenly flying warp speed directly towards her head.
I was still bound by both hands and feet, but I spotted the gun resting a few feet away from Rose. “Quinn, get the gun,” I whispered to her. She started to push herself up and hop over to the gun when we both heard the unmistakable sound of another gun cocking. I whipped my head toward the sound and was utterly shocked to see Beverly standing in the doorway.
“Beverly?” I asked.
She trained her gun on Rose. “Cady, Quinn, Grace,” she nodded at us in greeting.
My shoulders slumped in relief, then my head whipped back around to focus on Beverly as I registered what she had just said. “Wait, you can see Gigi?”
“We’re old acquaintances,” Gigi said as if that explained it all.
Quinn worked her feet free of the bindings and came over to me to help me with mine. I went over to Jake to check his pulse. “He’s alive,” I announced.
“What is wrong with you people?” Rose shouted from her position on the ground. “You are all crazy,” she huffed.
“We may be crazy, but we’re not the ones who will be spending the next twenty-five years to life in prison,” I countered.
Rose started to get up off of the floor, when Beverly loomed over her. “I wouldn’t try that if I were you. You killed my granddaughter and now you’re going to pay.”
I pointed for Quinn to get Rose’s gun and she went and picked it up. I could sense the shift in Beverly and was concerned she was going to take justice into her own hands. I slowly approached her. “Beverly, you don’t want to do this,” I said, trying to keep my voice calm. “I know you want revenge, but think of Sofie. She wouldn’t want her grandmother to be locked up in prison for avenging her death.”
She started to waver and lower her gun, but then she yelled out. “YOU TOOK HER FROM ME! You were supposed to be her friend! What kind of monster are you?” She retrained the gun on Rose’s head, who stared up at her in defiance. For a moment, I wanted Beverly to wipe that smug look off her face for good.
“Bev,” Gigi said soothingly. “You know you can’t do it. We have worked too hard for you to throw it all away. You still have plenty you need to do and you can’t very well do it from behind bars.”
A single tear fell from each of Beverly’s eyes and she nodded in acknowledgement, not bothering to wipe the tears away. I wasn’t sure what Gigi could have possibly been talking about, but obviously Beverly knew, and it had hit home. Her shoulders relaxed, although the gun remained trained on Rose. Quinn stood over Jake with the gun she had retrieved from Rose and had it trained on him as he started to stir. We bound his hands and feet before he could regain full consciousness and then did the same to Rose, despite her name-calling and vows of revenge. I did the honors of putting the gag in her mouth. If looks could kill, I would be in the grave right now…but in all fairness, so would she.
Finally, the roar of sirens could be heard coming up behind the sawmill. I walked outside with my hands up so as not to get shot by accident and flagged down the officers as they hurried up the path. “It’s clear,” I yelled to them. “We’ve got them secured.”
A few officers raced past me as Beverly handed over the perps. I noticed her gun was no longer drawn and realized she must have tucked it into the waist of her slacks.
Fletcher ran up to me followed by Chief Kowalski and Kyle.
Fletcher pulled me into a tight hug. “Cady, I’m so sorry I wasn’t here for you. I’m so so sorry.”
I pulled back from the hug to assure him I was fine. I could tell he didn’t buy it, but he squeezed my shoulders before heading over to the building to take charge of the situation.
I met Chief Kowalski’s gaze and could tell he was also beating himself up over this. I could see the tears welling up in his eyes, but he blinked several times and willed them back into their ducts. It was the chief’s turn to pull me in for a hug and I felt certain he might choke the life out of me right then and there.
“I let you down, too, Cady.”
“Nonsense. Chief, you’ve done nothing but try to protect us and keep us out of it. It’s our own fault that we kept throwing ourselves into the middle of this thing.”
“Well, now ain’t that the truth if I’ve ever heard it.” He gave me a weak smile before donning his professional no-nonsense chief of police mask again. “Okay, Cadence. Why don’t you start by telling me what happened here today?”
Quinn came out to join us. I couldn’t help but notice the relieved look on Kyle’s face when he saw for himself that Quinn was unharmed. Together, Quinn and I filled the chief in on the events of the day. This was the first time I had heard what Quinn had been up to earlier in the day that had led to her capture, so I was fully engrossed.
“This morning I realized that only someone who kn
ew the property extremely well would see the potential of the sawmill as a base for a drug smuggling operation. It only made sense that it would be someone from the Roberson family who started this operation. That’s when I went to find Kyle. I knew Kyle was about the same age as the older Roberson grandsons, Jacob and Joseph, so I wanted to see if he remembered anything about them from when they were younger. All Kyle said was that the three of them were inseparable. At the time, I didn’t think anything of it, but when we found out about Cliff, I realized the three he was referring to were Jacob, Joseph, and Cliff.”
Kyle nodded in agreement. “I didn’t realize that would have been such an important piece of information or I would have specified.”
Quinn smiled at him. “Well, it’s not like I took the time to explain to you why I was asking anyway, so really it’s my own fault.”
“I should’ve known you were on to something and tried to stop you.” Kyle looked ashamed.
“Don’t go beating yourself up, boy. These two have minds of their own and can’t be tamed. Believe me, I’ve tried,” the chief joked.
“What I don’t understand is why Cliff goes by the last name Clay? Was it just for cover?”
“Most likely,” the chief responded, “but that was his mother’s maiden name if I remember correctly.”
I nodded in understanding. “How did you end up bound and held at gunpoint at our house?” I asked Quinn, still wanting more details.
“Well I had caught up with Kyle at his office and he told me that Rhodes had pushed the start date of the new construction back a day, so I figured something big was happening at the sawmill today and he didn’t want any prying eyes. I ran back home to get Cady, not even thinking she would’ve been at the store, and when I walked into the garage, I stopped dead in my tracks when I noticed the black SUV parked in our garage. I turned to run, but Jake had crept up behind me and he grabbed me and dragged me into the house.”
I shuddered at the thought of her being ambushed like that. I had finally come to the decision that, as unfortunate as it was, it was time to get an alarm system, complete with video.