Death Comes Knocking (The Thea Kozak Mystery Series, Book 10)

by Kate Flora

  I led him into the kitchen, pointed to a chair, and said, “Coffee?”

  “Please.”

  “Toast and eggs?”

  He smiled faintly, and nodded.

  I got out the eggs and fired up the frying pan while I put some bread in the toaster.

  He hadn’t asked his question but I knew what it was. “I haven’t heard from her,” I said. “Though there have been a few calls from a number I don’t recognize.” I handed him my phone. “When I call back, no one answers, and there doesn’t seem to be a voicemail box set up.”

  He scrolled through the phone like there were secrets there only he could find while I cooked his eggs, put a few slices of leftover bacon and the toast on a plate, and gave him a fork and knife. Now all we needed were Fred and Alice to make the morning complete.

  “I don’t know this number,” he said.

  “Maybe it’s a burner phone the Marshals Service gave her.”

  “You think they know where she is?”

  “After the inspector in charge got killed? I doubt she’d trust them again. And anyway, if they knew where she was, why would Fred and Alice keep hanging around here like we know something. What do you think?”

  I put the eggs on his plate and set it in front of him. He began eating automatically like it was instinct and he didn’t know he was doing it.

  I refilled his coffee and put more bread in the toaster.

  “I checked out the places in that brochure,” he said. “No joy there.”

  I wished he hadn’t shown up, because there had been some joy here this morning, a peaceful, in the presence of good friends joy. I almost told him that, but he already knew his visit was unwelcome, and anyway, it didn’t help. He was still anxiously searching for his missing sister and clung to the belief that I could somehow help her. Find her. Or that she’d reach out to me because I’d met her and we’d connected. I couldn’t deny the fact that I’d come close to finding her.

  Honestly, I wished she would reach out, because I would try to help her, and there were people here—like Andre—she genuinely could trust to keep her safe. But when two people are murdered in the house where you’ve been stashed for your safety, you naturally become distrustful. And she didn’t know about Andre.

  As I was pulling toast from the toaster, my phone rang. Kinsman was holding it, so he answered. He said, “Charity. Don’t hang up. It’s Malcolm,” and waited. Then he said, “Sorry. She’s right here,” and passed me the phone.

  “Who was that?” Suzanne said, when I answered.

  “Oh. Guy who’s here for breakfast. He thought you were his sister.”

  “I don’t think I want to hear this story,” she said.

  “You don’t. So what’s up? Don’t tell me one of the kids is sick.”

  “Nope. Alive and raring to go. They can’t wait to visit you and see Uncle Andre. Paul, Jr. wants to know if he can see Andre’s gun. The little one isn’t talking yet, but when I say ‘Thea’ she grins, so I guess you’ve done something right.”

  Suzanne’s little one was a perfect Gerber baby, wispy blonde hair and china blue eyes and chubby cheeks and an infectious grin. Even her name, Emily, was perfect. I figured MOC would be tall and rangy, with impossible hair like mine, and probably born with cold cop’s eyes and a cynical world view. From birth, such a child would scare delicate Emily. But I could be wrong. For all I knew, MOC and Emily would be best friends forever, and Suzanne and I would share sleepless nights and calls to the principal’s office.

  “Just calling to see what I can bring?” she said.

  “Well, we’ve got steak for the big people and burgers and dogs for the little people and lots of corn and brownies and ice cream.”

  “Sounds like you’ve got it covered, but if you don’t mind, Paul is dying for a homemade potato salad.”

  “Like anybody ever says no to that.”

  “Sure they do. There are the vegans and the keto folks and the gluten-free crowd, never mind nuts and…” She paused. “Food has gotten really complicated.”

  “Here at Chez Kozak-Lemieux, we are omnivores.”

  “Delighted to hear it. It’s no fun to make a decent meal and then have people push food around on their plates.”

  “We’ll eat, I promise. See you at five?”

  “With bells on.”

  I put down the phone. Kinsman looked so dejected he could have appeared in one of those ads where you can adopt some waif for only pennies a day. He’d probably bristle at the notion that he was a forlorn waif. After all, he was one of America’s finest, most highly trained, deadly soldiers. But I saw what I saw.

  “I don’t know how I can help you,” I said.

  “I know.”

  “Yet, you keep coming back here.”

  He nodded. “You’re my only lead.”

  “Pretty frustrating,” I agreed.

  “There’s no place left to look?” he said, his tone accusing, like I was hiding something from him.

  I thought of that isolated A-frame Jeannine the librarian had mentioned. It had been empty when I checked it, but what if it had been a place of last resort?

  “There’s one place,” I said reluctantly.

  Instantly, he was on his feet. “Let’s go,” he said.

  I made a “slow down” gesture. “I’ve got company, Malcolm, and more coming this afternoon. I can’t just take off. I can tell you where to go…”

  “No. You have to come. What if she needs you? What if those phone calls were because the baby is coming? What if…”

  I made the gesture again. “If it were an emergency, she would have left a message.”

  I got a local map from a drawer and spread it out on the island. “Okay, so we’re right here, and…”

  I thought of how odd it was that he’d been able to follow me to those cottages when I was looking for Charity. “Do you have a tracking device on my car, Malcolm?”

  “Of course.”

  “Can those devices be hacked?”

  He looked embarrassed and didn’t reply.

  “Do you have one on Andre’s car?”

  He shook his head.

  “What about your car? Have you checked?”

  Another embarrassed silence.

  “Malcolm, you’re supposed to be smart about this. You’re supposed to be protecting your sister, not leading bad guys to her door.”

  He didn’t say anything, but body language said all. Give him a team and a mission, and he was an expert. Send him out on his own in friendly territory, without the gadgets, the weapons, or the intel, and, well, he wasn’t lost, but it was all a lot harder. It should have been easy. Just call Charity, connect, and take her somewhere safe.

  “What I don’t understand is why she doesn’t just call you. She has your number, right?”

  Another long silence. “She…uh…she’s not speaking to me,” he said.

  Seriously? The man screws up my peaceful summer days with his damned mission, and he’s without the necessary information because he’s fighting with his sister? This was ridiculous.

  He sighed and sat back down.

  I breathed more easily when he wasn’t looming over me with that desperate intensity. I retreated a few steps and waited for his explanation. Just steps away, Lindsay and Jonetta read and chatted. Out in the barn, a saw buzzed and hammers banged. Here in the kitchen, things felt far from normal.

  “She thinks I should be down in Mexico, rescuing her husband. She doesn’t believe me when I say I was sent here. That David asked me to protect her. She thinks I’m a coward who’s shirking my duty. Even after that Marshals Service inspector, Jessica Whitlow, was killed, she still doesn’t realize how much danger she’s in, and how she puts David in greater danger if she’s not safe somewhere.” He threw out his hands in a gesture of frustration. “If I could find her. Sit down with her, talk to her, I could make her understand. But not over the phone. So you see…if I can bring you with me, maybe you can convince her?”

  How ma
ny times had people asked me to take on impossible missions like this? And no, I didn’t want to think about my successes. Too many of them had come at a high cost. I lacked his training or experience, but life still sent me on dangerous missions. This felt like another one, just when I was supposed to be reforming.

  “Take Andre,” I said. “Sweep his car for trackers and then use it. I’ll give you directions.”

  Kinsman sighed and rose, heading out to the barn like a man going to his execution. I didn’t understand his certainty that I was necessary to convince Charity of his sincerity. They were twins, with a lifelong connection, and her husband was his best friend. Besides, if there was any danger there, I’d be no help. I was not putting MOC at risk. We’d already lost years off our collective lives yesterday with that dumbass Jason and his gun in the kitchen. I could have used some of Kinsman’s skills there. Or not. I had had Andre, Fred, and Alice.

  I wondered what Fred and Alice were doing today and whether they’d already located Charity, mooting this entire conversation. Located her and, of course, failed to let me and Andre know. We were just more tools to be used. There were a heck of a lot of unreciprocated acts in my world. Not that I was keeping score or anything. Mostly I was just happy they weren’t here.

  I got some coffee and went outside to join Jonetta and Lindsay. In the short time they’d known each other, they seemed to have become good friends. Of course, Jonetta is an earth mother, and Lindsay was in need of some mothering.

  They lifted their heads from their reading material and looked at me in such perfect synchrony they might have rehearsed it. “Everything okay?” Jonetta asked.

  “Kinsman wants me to join him on another search for his sister, and I don’t want to. I suggested he take Andre.”

  “They make a pretty awesome pair,” Lindsay said.

  “Yeah,” I agreed. “They both have chests that are bigger than mine.”

  They burst out laughing. Then Jonetta said, “I’ve got ‘em both beat.”

  Which made us all giggle. I don’t giggle very often, and it reminded me of my shopping trip with Charity and how silly we’d both gotten. I wanted her to be okay. I just didn’t want to go on any more rescue expeditions.

  We lounged in our chairs and watched Andre and Kinsman leave the barn, get some things from Kinsman’s car, put them in Andre’s, then come over to us. More particularly, to me.

  “Can you show us where this place is, on the map?” Andre asked.

  “I’ve got the address in my phone, if you want to use your map program,” I said, getting out my phone. “And you can take the topo map to get the lay of the land.”

  Andre loved maps, which is why I had this particular map in my kitchen drawer. Andre put the information in his phone, then he and Kinsman bent over the map. Evidently, they were plotting approaches and looking for places to park the car. Fine with me. They could guy bond over operation strategies and I could sit in the sun and read. I’d be reading client work, it was true, but this was an excellent place to do it.

  I left them to it and went back outside. I settled in a chair in the shade of the umbrella and pulled out some work.

  “Do you ever just relax and read for pleasure?” Lindsay asked.

  “Sure.”

  Lindsay looked at Jonetta. “Is she telling the truth?”

  “Lindsay girl, when you do something you love, and something that matters, it’s not a hardship to work long hours.”

  “That reminds me, Lindsay,” I said. “Emmett Hampton called. They love your video and think it will go a long way toward diffusing the situation. Now they want us to work up a presentation on the dangers of using social media. You up for that?”

  She smiled. She had a lovely smile. “You’ll help me?”

  “Happy to. You’ll probably be mostly working with Bobby.”

  “That’s great. He’s so nice to work with.”

  Once again, I repressed the desire to beg her to skip that last semester and come right to work. It wasn’t likely that she’d work for us forever. She’d need her degree.

  “Uh, would it be okay…” Lindsay hesitated. “If I invite my boyfriend for the cookout? I told him what happened and he’s in kind of a state.”

  “Sure,” I said. “The more the merrier.”

  My phone rang. Lulled into a sense of contentment, I didn’t check before I answered. “Thea? Is that you?” A panicked woman’s voice.

  “It is.”

  “It’s Charity. I’m all alone and the baby’s coming. I need your help.”

  Her voice was so faint I could hardly hear her. I sat up, pressing the phone to my ear like that could make her speak up. “Where are you? How will I find you?”

  “Up on Morse Mountain. Don’t know address. Look for my car, it’s…”

  And she was gone.

  Thirty-Two

  Andre and Malcolm came out, clutching the map and heading for Andre’s car. I jumped up and ran after them. “Wait!” I said. “That was Charity…on the phone…just now. She needs help. She’s in labor.”

  They stopped and turned, staring at me like I’d gone mad.

  Then Malcolm said, “Where?”

  “I don’t know. Her voice was very faint and she said she didn’t know the address, just that it was on Morse Mountain. Then the connection failed. When I called back, she didn’t answer.”

  “Morse Mountain,” Andre said, spreading the map on the hood of the car. “Is that where we were heading anyway?”

  “I think so. She said to look for her car.” I realized they might not know what she was driving. “It’s a gray Volvo with Virginia plates.”

  I studied the two big men bent over the map and tried to imagine them delivering a baby while fighting off bad guys. In truth, Andre, being a cop, probably had delivered a baby or two. It happened. But I felt as though she should have a woman with her. I also worried that her directions were so vague that it would be a challenge to find her at all. Maybe she’d call my phone again. I could just give it to them, but then I’d be here without a phone in case something happened on this end.

  “Wait,” I said. “I’ll come with you.”

  I looked at Andre, our limited expert here. “What should I bring?”

  “Scissors. Blankets.” He shrugged. “Do you think she has baby gear?”

  “She does. She bought it when we went shopping that day. Except a crib. The crib is still in the cottage.”

  “Anything will do. Even a cardboard box.”

  I had a Moses basket I’d gotten as a shower gift. I gathered up the other things, put them in the basket, and gave them to Andre to put in the car. I took a moment to tell Jonetta and Lindsay what was happening.

  “There are cold cuts and a corn and black bean salad in the fridge. And if you two would like to go to the lake and swim, our family swim pass is tacked to the bulletin board in the kitchen. Beach towels are on top of the washing machine, and there’s a beach blanket on the shelf above the dryer.”

  Malcolm was shifting impatiently from foot to foot like a kid who needs the bathroom. Then his phone rang. He listened, and when he was done looked more distressed than ever.

  “The operation’s underway to rescue David,” he said. “They wanted to know if Charity was secure.” He shook his head in frustration. “Dammit. Let’s get going!”

  My gun was tucked under baby blankets in the Moses basket. I slid into the backseat beside it. I was not getting into a gunfight, but I also needed to be able to defend myself and MOC.

  “Should we contact Alice and Fred?” I asked, as Andre drove out.

  His sharp “No way” was a conversation stopper, so I didn’t ask why we could invite them to dinner but not on a mission to rescue Charity. I was sure he had some logical reason. We’d both sensed something off about them, and hadn’t he said he was checking some intel? Maybe last night’s fax had given him some answers. God. Cops could be so cryptic.

  I rarely see Andre when he’s mission-driven like this. Between
my husband and Kinsman, the air in the car felt electric. Charged. All edges and intensity, a sharp contrast to the soft summer landscape we were driving through. Andre and I are so intertwined it was jarring to see him like this, so focused and intense, with the kind of unspoken communication between him and Kinsman he usually has with me.

  Neither man had to say that they didn’t want me there, nor that I would be a huge distraction if anything bad happened. What I didn’t know was whether they understood that I was on a mission, too, an ancient mission of sisterhood that neither of them could truly imagine. Running and hiding might have been poor decision-making on Charity’s part, but now there was another life involved—that of Baby Amy.

  I had pulled up the map I used once before to find the A-frame that Jeannine at the library had mentioned, and whether they wanted my help or not, I gave them directions. It was kind of a maze and I’d driven it before.

  Ridiculous, right, me, giving directions to a member of the state police SWAT team and man who could find his way through the mountains of Afghanistan in the dark? I couldn’t leave it alone, though. That’s not who I am. I am as used to being in charge, albeit of different situations, as they are.

  My stomach was in a knot. Those Braxton-Hicks contractions had given me some sense of what Charity was going through. What if something went wrong and no one was there to help? What if the bad guys managed to find her? What if she wasn’t at the A-frame and we ended up driving endless backroads on Morse Mountain, looking for a gray Volvo? It was hot in the car but I felt clammy, gripped by a sense of urgency and unable to make things happen faster.

  From time to time I glanced out the back, looking for one of those menacing black SUVs, or someone else following us. The road was empty. Morse Mountain wasn’t where people wanted to be spending a hot August weekend day.

  Fine with me. I wasn’t looking for a fight.

  “Turn here,” I said, though the side road was so shielded by trees it was nearly invisible.

  Andre swung onto the smaller road and we wound our way uphill on a road badly in need of repair. I watched their heads swivel as they scrutinized the houses along the road, a lot of broken down trailers and some optimistic new construction that had never been finished. No gray Volvos. Fancy new houses tended to be built on the tops of these hills, so the owners could look out over the land below like lords in their castles. We hadn’t gotten to the top yet.