Rooted in Murder

by Emily James

  I flicked on my flashlight and directed it at the ground. In the fall, Mr. Huffman hadn’t been sure he was going to sell us the farm, so he’d plowed the ground. Ridges and furrows littered with the remains of corn stalks created a path I had to tread carefully if I didn’t want to twist an ankle out here alone.

  This was the only time I regretted not having a house phone. Without my phone, I couldn’t call anyone to tell them where I was headed. I’d swung by Russ’ house in the hope that he’d come with me, but he wasn’t home. With Stacey gone to Florida with her parents and baby Noah, no one else lived on Sugarwood grounds for me to tell.

  I would have to be careful not to trip. Even if I did, I could still crawl back to the warmth and safety of my car. It wouldn’t be fun, but I could make it before frostbite or hypothermia set in.

  You’re being silly, Nikki, I mentally lectured myself. You’re perfectly capable of walking through a field by yourself without a babysitter.

  I wove through our newly planted saplings, being sure to avoid the giant holes waiting for the remaining trees. The holes weren’t extremely deep, but they were big enough for me to fit inside. If I tripped into one, I could definitely break an ankle or a wrist.

  A light flashed up ahead, just inside the tree line.

  My fingers switched off my flashlight before I could even think about it. The other light continued to bob between the trees. Whoever it was either hadn’t seen me—they would have switched off their light if they had—or they weren’t worried about someone else seeing them.

  I was out here for a legitimate reason. It was my land, and I’d forgotten my phone. No one else should be out here. The chances that someone else had also forgotten their phone seemed slim.

  Which left me with two options. I could head back to the safety of my car, drive over to Elise and Erik’s house, and convince one of them to come back with me. Or I could sneak forward, grab my phone, and then hustle back to the safety of my car to call the police.

  The first option was safer, but it almost ensured that whoever was out here would be gone before we could figure out who they were. Too much had happened concerning this farm for me to believe that this was some random person. For all I knew, it could be the other buyer, intending to sabotage our newly planted trees in the hopes that we’d give up and sell the land at a loss. I couldn’t come up with a reason why they didn’t go buy a piece of land somewhere else, but they obviously had one. Someone didn’t want us to have this land. At least not peacefully.

  The downed tree where I remembered setting my phone was only ten to fifteen feet away. All the holes between me and it had already been filled. I could creep forward without light. I’d put on my Uncle Stan’s big jacket because it was the warmest thing I had. It was dark gray. The only pieces that could possibly stand out were my white mittens and scarf.

  I sucked my hands back into the sleeves of my jacket. One less bright color to show up.

  Get the phone. Get back to my car. Call the police.

  I kept repeating that mantra over and over to myself as I crept forward one tree at a time, moving as slowly as I could so that my movement didn’t draw the other person’s attention.

  I reached the tree and sank down into the dead grass beside it. I slid my hand along the trunk. My hand bumped something thin. It slid off the other side.

  Crap.

  This was still salvageable. I knew where it’d gone. All I had to do was carefully reach my arm over and hope I could get my hand around it.

  I leaned forward. The light bobbed closer, and I froze, one arm dangling over the side of the tree, my white mitten sticking out. If I stayed as still as a spooked deer, maybe they’d think the mitten was abandoned, dangling from a tree branch.

  The figure was too small and much too thin to be a man. The edge came off my tension. I’d taken self-defense classes. I could probably get away from a woman if she noticed me. Assuming she didn’t have a gun, of course.

  The angle of the beam shifted, throwing light momentarily across the face of the other person.

  Ashley Jenkins.

  18

  My arms felt numb, like my brain and body weren’t connected anymore.

  Elise hadn’t found a link between Ashley and the other buyers for this farm because there wasn’t one. She hadn’t been trying to stop the sale so that someone else could buy the property. She’d been trying to stop—or at the very least delay—the sale until she could find whatever it was she was out here looking for.

  I struggled to keep my breathing steady and low and inched my arm further forward toward my phone. I had to get my phone and call the police.

  There was only one thing that would be worth going to all this risk and trouble for. Ashley must have been the one who killed Lee Mills, and something out here could connect her to the crime. It hadn’t been a problem when the field was farmland. Mr. Huffman rode through the field in a tractor or a combine. Once Russ and I bought it, though, we’d have a half a dozen people walking all over out here to dig holes and plant trees.

  She must not realize that whatever was out here couldn’t be used as evidence. Tom McClanahan wasn’t a criminal lawyer. She wouldn’t have any reason to know the laws on evidence and chain of custody. Or maybe she did, but she also knew that whatever was out here was so condemning that, if the police ever got it, it wouldn’t matter that they couldn’t use it directly. They’d know she’d done it, and they’d keep investigating her until they found something else that could prove her guilt.

  If I could get my phone and get someone out here before she left, we might still be able to find what was out here. Case and Daphne would both be cleared.

  My fingers came up short of the ground. I’d have to move my torso further over the tree to get my phone.

  Ashley turned her back to me, her flashlight aimed at the base of the trees in front of her. She moved the dead leaves out of the way with looked like a rake or one of the shovels that we’d left behind from the trees—I couldn’t see for sure in the dim light.

  I leaned forward. The log moaned, and a branch snapped. I’d put too much of my weight on it.

  I ducked down behind it, phoneless. Crap. Big steamy pile of crap.

  Maybe she would think it was the wind or natural forest sounds.

  Her flashlight switched off. Not the action of someone who thought the wind did it.

  Now I had to decide whether to hunch here and hope she didn’t spot me or to crawl away until I put enough distance between us to make a break for my car. Running was out of the question. The ground was too uneven. I’d trip for sure. So did I think I could speed walk faster than she could?

  And if she recognized me, I didn’t have enough against her for the police to arrest her. She’d be out there and I’d be out there. If she’d killed Lee, she might very well start planning a way to kill me as well.

  I couldn’t let her see me.

  I waited, trying to both count to keep track of the time that had passed and pray all at once.

  Thirty seconds passed.

  The sound of leaves rustling and crunching reached my ears. It was soft, like Ashley was trying to move away quietly.

  The wind kicked up, and the trees around me groaned, their branches knocking together. It wiped out the sounds of the rest of Ashley’s retreat.

  I had to be sure she was far enough away, grab my phone, and walk-run to my car. I might be too late now to have someone catch her out here, but at least she wouldn’t know I’d spotted her.

  I counted another twenty seconds and then pulled myself up into a crouch. I peeked over the fallen tree. The wind made it impossible for me to hear anything, so I scanned the trees for movement or a shape that looked out of place.

  Nothing.

  She must have headed back to wherever she’d parked her car. It hadn’t been on the road where I’d left mine. Once she reached her car, she might try to drive around the field and see if she could spot the vehicle of whoever was out here with her. Even if she didn
’t recognize my car right away, she’d be able to write down my license plate and eventually put the pieces together.

  I had to get out of here before she got to her car.

  I laid belly-first on the tree and reached for where my phone had fallen. I was fairly certain she wouldn’t be back tonight and that she hadn’t yet found what she was hunting for. If I could get Erik and Elise back here, we might be able to find whatever it was first. Now that Ashley was gone, I’d call them on the way to my car.

  My fingers brushed something too smooth to be naturally occurring. Got ya.

  Fiery pain exploded in the back of my head, and everything went dark.

  19

  The air smelled musty, like old vegetation. And heavy.

  No, that wasn’t right. Heavy wasn’t a smell. My brain felt tangled up and knotted, like a five-year-old’s shoelace. The pain in my head was worse than the most severe migraine. I felt as if I were blinking my eyes, but nothing changed from opened to closed.

  The last thing I remembered I was out in the woods, trying to find my phone, so I could call Erik and Elise for something. What did I want them to look for? It’d been important.

  I closed my eyes—or at least thought I did—and drew two slow breaths. First things first. I’d been in the woods, and it’d been windy, so a branch must have fallen from a tree and hit me.

  That could be why I felt so heavy. Maybe it’d paralyzed me. Dear Lord, let me not be paralyzed. If I was, there were worse things, though. I was alive. Alive and paralyzed was much better than dead. People lived full, wonderful lives in wheelchairs all the time. They even competed in the Paralympics.

  Focus.

  I wriggled my fingers. Those still worked. I tried to move my toes. Nothing. No, wait. My toes were moving in my boots. I could feel them hitting the top. My feet just didn’t have room to move. They must be pressed up against the tree I’d been leaning over.

  The tree I couldn’t see.

  So I wasn’t paralyzed, but I was likely blind. Could you be blind and a lawyer? A lot of what I did required reading facial expressions.

  I dragged my mind back. Now wasn’t the time for that. Previous experience had taught me that, if I was lying out in the woods in the winter, I didn’t have long before hypothermia set in. I was warmer than I’d expected, probably because of my coat, but I couldn’t stay out here forever.

  If I was blind, I had to figure out exactly what direction I was facing. Once I did that, I could search the correct side of the tree, find my phone, and tell it to call 911. Thanks to ending up in an upside-down car in a ditch before my wedding, I now knew exactly what capabilities my phone had.

  Actually, I might not even need to find it. If it were near enough, I could simply tell it to call 911.

  “Hey, Siri.”

  My voice sounded too close to my head. On top of me somehow, like it had nowhere to go.

  My phone didn’t answer.

  Don’t panic, Nik, I told myself. You can pray, but you can’t panic. Panicking won’t help.

  I sent up a quick prayer. Maybe my scarf was muffling my words. I wriggled it down off my mouth and tried again.

  Nothing.

  I’d have to find it. I stretched my hand in the direction that the tree had to be based on my wedged feet. My fingers hit a barrier. It was cold and left something on my fingers that reminded me of writing with chalk. My mitten must have gotten caught on a twig as I fell and came off. This hand was colder than the other one.

  I touched the solid object again. Not a tree. It felt more like frozen dirt. Unless the blow to my head had destroyed my equilibrium, I couldn’t be lying on my side in such a way that it would both block my feet and feel like a wall.

  I tried to stretch my arms and legs out, but something blocked me on every side.

  Dear God, no. No no no. I had to be in the fetal position down in one of the holes we’d dug for the trees. It was the only thing that made sense.

  I moved my hand upward a few inches. My fingers connected with rough material like the burlap that we’d wrapped the trees’ root balls in to transport them.

  That explained why my lower body felt heavy, but I could still breathe. I was in one of the tree holes, and whoever threw me down here covered me in a piece of burlap before burying me alive. We’d had that one warm day where the snow melted a bit. The burlap we’d cut off the dead trees must have gotten wet and then froze solid again when the temperature dropped. It created a roof for me.

  If I couldn’t find a way out, it’d create a coffin.

  A flash of memory. Ashley Jenkins’ face in the glow of a flashlight.

  That’s what had been so important for me to call Erik and Elise about. I’d come out to the bush because I’d forgotten my phone, spotted Ashley, and figured it out.

  She must have sneaked around behind me, intending to check if she’d been seen. When she saw me, she bashed my head with the shovel. I hadn’t heard her because of the wind in the trees—wind I couldn’t hear now. I should have realized right away that it was too quiet.

  Maybe she didn’t even realize I was still alive when she threw me in here. She might have simply wanted to get rid of my body in the easiest possible method. She couldn’t exactly dig a better hole for me. The ground was frozen solid now.

  That frozen ground and the burlap she’d tossed over me would also prevent me from clawing my way out. I pushed on the burlap, but it didn’t budge. I wasn’t deep, but I was deep enough that I couldn’t shove the dirt off of me, either.

  Ashley had effectively buried me alive.

  20

  The hole felt like it shrunk down until it would crush me. My heart beat at twice its normal rate, and my breathing doubled. If I didn’t die from hypothermia first, my air pocket would soon run out, and I’d suffocate.

  I couldn’t let that happen. I had to hang on as long as possible. I didn’t know how long I’d been unconscious, but it’d been after dark already when I left home. Mark would be worried soon. He’d likely call Russ or Elise to check in on me. They’d find I was missing, and eventually someone would spot my car.

  All I had to do was conserve my air until that happened.

  The freaked-out I’m-too-young-to-die-like-this feeling in my chest was making me breathe too fast. I used to watch the show The Mentalist, and Patrick Jane once kept someone from bleeding out after a gunshot wound by getting them to slow their breathing down. The only problem was, I couldn’t remember how he did it. Something about getting them to focus on his voice. He’d coached them.

  My pulse kicked up another notch, pounding in my ears. My legs and back hurt so much from being tucked into a ball that they almost rivaled the pain in my head. How was I supposed to calm down? I didn’t have a coach. Women in labor got coaches. I was here alone, in a hole, with no way out. I didn’t have anyone to talk to me or to talk with.

  That wasn’t entirely true. If I believed what I said I believed, then God knew I was in this hole. Prayer had helped me calm down my anxiety attacks, and I knew that prayer had the same effects on the ability to cope with stressful situations as meditation did. I’d even read a study done by Bowling Green State University that showed that spiritual meditation or prayer could reduce the number of migraines their test subjects experienced.

  I’d pray. I’d pray until someone either found me or I was reunited with my Uncle Stan.

  I focused my mind on praying to get out of this hole, but also on Mark and on Stacey and on Russ and Elise and Erik and Mandy and everyone else I cared about. My breathing slowed, and I kept on praying.

  My feet went numb, and my hands tingled. My body wanted to shiver, but each time a shiver hit, pain arched through me.

  I was praying again for Mandy when a sound that reminded me of her voice came from above. Her voice and Russ’ voice. I couldn’t hear words. I wasn’t even sure I heard sounds. It was more that I felt like I heard the cadence of their speech. Mandy’s fast verbal diarrhea of words followed by the pause and slower stac
cato of a response that Russ would have made. It might all be in my head, the oxygen depleting around me and causing hallucinations. I couldn’t get enough into my lungs anymore. It wouldn’t be long now.

  I let my eyes drift shut. There wasn’t anything to see anyway.

  Scraping noises.

  My eyes popped open. I hadn’t imagined that.

  I couldn’t think of anything to say so I screamed, as loud and as long as my dry throat would let me. If there was someone up there, I needed to make them hear me, even if it burned up all my remaining air. If they didn’t hear me, I wouldn’t last long enough for someone else to find me.

  The answering yelp from above me definitely sounded like Mandy. The scraping noises sped up.

  My lungs started to burn like I was trying to hold my breath underwater for too long.

  How long could a brain survive without oxygen? It was six minutes, wasn’t it? That was how long you had to start CPR.

  I could make it six minutes. If whoever was up there kept digging, they’d reach me in time. Even if I’d passed out, they could do CPR.

  The sounds grew closer, and my lower body felt lighter somehow. The burlap tore back, and dirt showered down over me.

  I gasped in a full breath, so cold I almost choked on it. Then another. It tasted so good.

  Two hands grabbed my right arm and brought me to a sitting position. My legs didn’t want to work. Pins of pain shot through them, like they’d been asleep too long.

  Another set of hands grabbed my other arm, and then I was out of the hole. Warm arms wrapped around me, a dirty hand—like they hadn’t had a second shovel so they made do—pressing my cheek into a chest so soft it had to belong to a woman. And the smell of cinnamon and yeast dough.

  I hadn’t imagined Mandy’s voice. No one else smelled like that.

  “Ashley Jenkins,” I tried to say, but my voice came out in a squeak.