Shay walked as quickly as she could along the slippery, snowy railroad tracks and onto the treed path that would take her to the back of Mr. Fletcher’s barn. She regretted not taking the time to get a bigger flashlight; the path was only barely visible and she had to be careful to find a safe footfall on the snow and ice covered ground. Shay didn’t want to sprain her ankle. It would take forever for anyone to find her and she didn’t even want to think about how much trouble she would be in if she was caught going to Fletcher’s barn. Still, Shay knew this was her last chance to do something that might save the horses and she wasn’t about to let this opportunity go by. Shay felt as everything in her life happened because somebody else made a decision about her. At least now she was making her own decisions and taking control of her life, even if it didn’t work out the way she wanted.
Shay trudged along the path, wrapping her woollen scarf around her face as she pulled her thick collar as far up her cheeks as it would go. The late day was still and settling in colder than she had expected, which could only mean that a snowstorm was imminent. Shay shivered at thought of being caught outdoors in a snow fall; it would make it very hard to get home if there was a strong wind. The line of trees along the beach thinned and Shay came out into the open pasture on the far side of the barn. Through the dark she could just make out the silhouette of the barn and she headed toward the back side of it, hoping to sneak around and see if Ginger was still there. Shay walked slowly and carefully across the field, around the shrubs, and finally she reached the back of the barn. She could hear the movement of the few horses that were still outside in the front pasture, but there was another noise, and slight shreds of light filtered out through the old barn wall.
Shay crept along the side of the barn and came around the corner to the front of it. There were only two horses outside. The rest of the small herd, having sensed the oncoming snow storm, had retreated to the relative warmth of the barn. As Shay neared the barn door, she noticed that there was a car parked a few feet away. It looked old and battered and she thought she saw a crack across the front of the windshield. She knew she had seen the car around Proctor but she couldn’t recall who owned it.
She shut off her flashlight and with her back flat against the barn wall, Shay moved closer to the open barn doors. She chose her steps carefully, trying to prevent the crunching noise her boots made in the hard crusted snow. Shay could hear the voices better from this position. A man was yelling at someone and she could hear loud crying, too. The large barn door was only open part way, and Shay, wanting to get a look inside, crept to the inside of the door, hoping the dark outside and the dim light inside would not show her form as she moved slowly into the barn itself.
As far as Shay could tell, the voices were coming from the back of the barn, likely near the ladder to the loft. If she could get into the barn without being seen, she could hide in the shadows of the machinery at the front and from there she would be able hear and see whatever was going on. Shay suddenly heard something that sounded like a boat motor cutting through the frigid air. The motor slowed to a stop amid the sound of lapping waves hitting the shore, and then a moment of silence, followed by a heavy thud and then the crunch of heavy feet stomping through the snow. She realized that a boat had landed on the beach and the driver was walking toward the barn. There was no time to think, Shay ran as lightly as she could to the machinery and slid down behind the big front tire of an old tractor. She knew the tractor didn’t fully conceal her, but as long as no one was looking in her direction, she could remain hidden in the shadows until they left.
A figure appeared in the doorway and the overhead lights went on. Fear made Shay’s heart beat so fast she thought it might pop out of her chest. She focused on her breathing, trying to calm her intake of air so that the no one would hear her.
“Hey,” she heard the man shout. “Kill the lights! We can see well enough with my flashlight.”
“What are you worried about?” a woman’s voice replied. “We’re too far from the main road to be seen and there weren’t any other boats on the lake when I came over. Even if anyone did notice a light, they’d assume you’re just here to feed the horses.”
Shay’s mouth dropped open in surprise. The man must be Tom Jacobs. No wonder he had offered to help with the horses.
Tom Jacobs walked to the front of the barn with Ginger trailing a few steps behind him. Shay couldn’t see them very well though the machinery, but she recognized Tom Jacobs as the man who was talking to Ginger outside of the Club. He had the same weird hat with the pulled down ear pieces. And, from the blond hair sticking out beneath the toque on the woman, Shay thought it must be Barbara Gillies, the woman in the pictures.
“How come you’re so late?” Tom asked. “We were supposed to meet here at four.”
“Yeah, well, I had to wait for one of my older boys to get home to take care of the girls. I can’t just leave them on their own, you know,” Barbara said.
“Right, after all, you are the Mother of the Year,” Tom said sarcastically. “Well, we’ve been here a while and we’ve already searched the loft. I can tell you there’s nothing up there. Whatever they found, they took it all.”
“Well how are we going to find out who has the camera?” Ginger was talking, and she was still crying slightly. “If my dad finds out about this, I’ll be dead for sure.”
“Your old man’s a drunk who doesn’t give a damn about what you do,” Tom said, cruelly.
“I know, but he’s a drunk with a fist, and it’ll be on me for this,” Ginger was crying even harder now. “How could you have dropped the camera? How could you get us into this mess?”
“Look kid, I didn’t force you to do this. And don’t blame me for dropping the camera. That was Barbara’s doing,” Tom was mad and almost shouting.
“Don’t blame me either! When you hit that old man I thought for sure you’d killed him. I just grabbed the lights and ran, like you said to do,” Barbara’s voice was shrill and edgy. Shay couldn’t tell if she was mad or afraid. “I thought I had the camera in my pocket.”
“Well, you didn’t have it in your pocket, did you,” Tom said. “And now we have to find out who has it and shut him up.”
“What do you mean by that?” Ginger asked.
A rush of fear-fuelled heat flooded Shay’s face.
“You might get beaten up by your dad, but bruises heal. It’s worse for Tom and me. We’ll go to jail. Tom’s already done a stretch and he isn’t interested in going back there again, and I’ll lose my kids to child protection and maybe even do some jail time myself,” Barbara said. “I’m not about to sit by and let that happen, I can tell you.” Barbara pulled off her gloves and put her hand in her pocket, pulling out a cigarette and lighter. She lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply. As she exhaled, the smoke filled the air around Barbara’s head, like a grey halo.
“Come on, we’ll do another check of the loft. That’s where we were when the old guy came in and we had to clean up in a hurry. I don’t trust that you guys found everything, I want to look myself,” Barbara said. She headed toward the back of the barn, with the other two following.
As she reached the ladder, Tom said “I already told you, we’ve been up there and there’s nothing left. Whoever found our stuff took it all,”
“And I already said I don’t trust you two. Neither of you have a full set of brains,” Barbara said as she dropped her lit cigarette and crushed it out under her foot.
“You can spend all night here as far as I’m concerned but I’m leaving,” Tom said. “I sure as hell don’t want to be out when the snow starts, and you should get your butt back over to Balfour before the winds get any worse or you’ll be stuck on this side of the lake till tomorrow.”
“But how are we going to find out who has the camera?” Ginger wailed. ‘”You don’t know what my dad will do to me if we get caught,” Ginger went on. “You just don’t understand how bad it will be for me.”
“Shut up!” Tom said sharply, and withou
t warning, he raised his arm and hit Ginger fully in the face. She fell back a step and put her hand to her check, surprise and shock registering on her face.
“Oh” Shay exclaimed in alarm and she clamped her hand to her own mouth, as if she could magically take back the sound that had just escaped from her.
“What’s that? Who’s there?” Tom said as he turned toward Shay. He walked toward her, with Ginger following. “Hey Barb,” he shouted over his shoulder. “We have a visitor!”
Shay backed as far as she could against the wall, but there was no escaping Tom as he reached down and grabbed her shoulder. Shay could smell the odour of stale tobacco on his body and stale beer on his breath as his large, gnarled hand grasped Shay by the shoulder and yanked her roughly out from behind the tractor wheel. He looked skinny, even under his winter coat, but he moved so fast that it made up for his lack of strength. She could see his face, grey and drug hardened like her parents, and Shay knew immediately that there would be no kindness in a man like him.
“What have we got here?” Tom said. “A little snoop, I think.”
“I know her! She hangs out with that goody two shoes Grace Norton. I think she lives at the Halliwell’s,” Ginger said. “What are you doing hiding in the barn?”
“Yeah, what are you doing here, kid?” Tom Jacobs asked.
“I just came to see if the horses were okay,” Shay said shakily.
“Then why didn’t you just walk in,” Barbara asked. “You didn’t have any reason to hide,” she paused a moment and then a look of understanding came over her face, “unless you had some reason to spy on us.”
“Are you one of the regulars?” Tom asked.
Shay couldn’t think of any reason to deny this, so she nodded her head, too afraid to speak.
“And that means you were probably here on your own, after Fletcher was hit, and I bet you did some looking around, checking out the place,” he said.
“You found the camera didn’t you, kid,” Jacobs said, his low voice menacing and fearsome.
“Of course, that makes perfect sense!” Barbara Gillies smiled through her thin, lipstick coated lips.
“Are you the one who took the camera and left the note?” Ginger asked angrily. “Do you know how much trouble you’ve caused me?” She had stopped crying, but her eyes were moist and Shay could see a red welt forming on her cheek where Tom had hit her.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Shay said, squeezing the words out through her fear.
Barbara had joined the group and she looked at Shay, staring into her eyes. “Yes you do, kid,” she said. “No point in lying to liars; you’ll get caught every time.”
“You have to let me go,” Shay said. “Jolene Halliwell will be looking for me! She knows I’m here.”
“No, she doesn’t,” Tom replied. “She’s in town. I saw her drive onto the ferry a few hours ago and I heard that Dave had an accident at work. She’ll be gone a few hours more, at least until eight o’clock or later.”
“I told you not to lie to us, kid,” Barbara said as she lit another cigarette. “So, what are we going to do with her?” Barbara said to Tom. “It was bad enough she has the camera, but now she knows you’re the one who hit old man Fletcher.”
Shay knew that if she was going to get away, it had to be now, while Jacobs and the woman were focused on each other. Hoping to take them by surprise, Shay twisted her shoulder and kicked, hitting Tom Jacobs squarely in the shin with the hard toe of her winter boot. He let go of his grip on her shoulder and Shay pushed Ginger out of the way and ran for the door. Before she could reach it, Barbara Gillies was fast behind her and she grabbed Shay’s arm and pulled hard, sending Shay to the ground.
Tom walked over to Shay and yanked her roughly back up on her feet. He turned her away from him, holding both of her arms roughly behind her back. “Jeez kid, now I’m going to put you where you can’t get away while we figure out what to do with you.” He pushed her toward the barn door.
“What are you going to do with her?” Ginger asked hysterically. “You aren’t going to hurt her are you?”
“She isn’t leaving us much choice,” Tom Jacobs answered harshly. “I think we might have to take her out in the boat and dump her in the middle of the lake. Nothing that goes into the lake in winter ever floats up again, especially if we tie a good size rock to her leg. That way there won’t be any tracing her back to us. She’s just a foster kid, isn’t she? Everyone will all just think she ran away. No one ever looks for those kids.”
“No,” Shay screamed and she twisted as hard as she could, but Tom was ready for her this time and his grip on her arms was firm. “The Halliwell’s know I wouldn’t run away, and my friends know that too. They’ll look for me,” Shay said, her voice was shaky from the terror she felt overtaking her body.
“Oh no,” Ginger cried out. “You can’t do that! You can’t hurt her, she’s just a kid. Nothing like this was supposed to happen! You said it was just pictures, you never said anyone would get hurt!”
“Well, that changed when Fletcher caught us in the barn,” Tom snarled at Ginger. “Me and Barbara aren’t going to jail, and you don’t want to get beaten up by your old man, so the kid has to be shut up.”
“Let me GO!” Shay yelled as she stumbled along. The snow was falling heavily and the cold wind tore at her face. Tom Jacobs had her arms firmly bent behind her back and the pain was so intense she thought her arms would break.
Jacobs pushed Shay ahead of him, in the direction of his car. He pulled his keys from his pocket and opened the trunk. His rough hands padded against Shay’s side, feeling the coat pockets. Then he reached into the right pocket and pulled out her small flashlight.
“You won’t be using this any more,” he said and pushed Shay into the dark opening. She gasped from pain as she landed on her side and something hit the back of her head. Jacobs grabbed her legs and shoved them in the trunk before she could kick at him.
Shay tried to look up at the man, but her tears blurred her vision so that all she could see was Jacob’s dark shape against the moon lit sky.
“Please don’t do this,” she begged. “Please, I won’t tell anyone,” Shay pleaded.
“Shut up, kid,” Jacobs replied heartlessly as he slammed the trunk lid down above Shay, cutting off all light.
“No!” Shay screamed into the darkness that surrounded her. The space was small and it stank of oil and filth. She couldn’t see anything; it was like being trapped in a grave. Shay kicked against the trunk lid and gasped for air through her sobs. Shay felt the panic rising in her like a tidal wave, and knew it would engulf her mind and shut off all her senses, except fear.
“No,” Shay said again. She breathed in slowly, trying to control her panic, forcing herself to calm the sobbing. “I’ve survived creepier people than these stupid weirdos,” Shay said aloud, “and I can survive this, too.” As Shay began to feel more in control she found she could move around more and so she wriggled as much as she could to reduce her discomfort. There was very little room in the trunk and she couldn’t raise her head or stretch her legs. The bottom of the trunk underneath her was filled with junk that stuck painfully into her side through her thick jacket.
Shay moved her arms around, trying to get whatever she was laying on out from underneath her. Shay tugged and wriggled some more and pulled on an old blanket, stinking of oil. There was still something hard pushing into her ribs and she shoved and tugged and wiggled until she had the object in her hands. She pulled off her gloves so that she could get a better grip on it. Finally, she had a firm grip on the cold plastic and she yanked it out from underneath herself.
“A flashlight!” she cried out. It was a large flashlight and Shay felt around the handle until she found the on/off button and pressed but nothing happened. “Please work,” she prayed. “Please,” she said again as she pushed the button harder. Suddenly, the trunk was filled with light and Shay breathed a sigh of relief. The light didn’t make the space
any larger, nor did it make her any safer, but it made her feel more in control and even a little bit hopeful. Something on the flashlight caught her attention and she brought it close to her face so she could see.
“Oh,” she aloud as she made out the letters M-A-R-I-N-E in yellow letters along a black stripe. It was the flashlight from the barn, and near the top of the light she could see some kind of dark substance. “Oh gross,” she said aloud again as she quickly moved it away from her face. Shay knew that the dark substance was dried blood and skin, probably from Mr. Fletcher’s head wound. It likely stuck to the light when Tom Jacobs hit Mr. Fletcher.
Seeing the evidence of Tim Jacob’s violence brought an even deeper level of fear to Shay. The panic threatened to swallow up her thoughts again and she had to force herself to re-focus on the task of getting out of the trunk. I can do this, I can do this, I can do this.
Shay directed the light toward the end of the trunk, near where the back lights would be located. When she was about ten years old, her father had told her how to check for a release handle in case she was ever kidnapped and locked in a car trunk. At the time, Shay had been mortified that her father considered that to be a good piece of fatherly advice. After all, she had thought, only the children of drug dealers needed to worry about being kidnapped and if he would just clean up his act, she wouldn’t be at risk. Well, she thought now, that just might turn out to be the most useful thing my father ever taught me.
She shone the light around until it landed on the trunk handle. It was near her feet and she had to almost roll herself into a ball and stretch her arm to grasp it, but finally she was able to wrap her fingers around the handle and pull. The trunk popped open and Shay crawled out quickly. She peered around the trunk lid to see if anyone in the barn was looking her way, then she pushed the lid down quietly so that they wouldn’t immediately notice that she was gone if they looked out of the barn.
Shay switched the flashlight off, pulling on her gloves while running as quickly as she could down the road. The snow had started to fall during the few minutes she was in the trunk and now the wind was blowing so hard she could barely see one step ahead. She got about twenty feet and stopped as she realized that with the weather this bad, the ferry would be docked at the night landing on the other side of the lake, and no one would be driving on or off. There would be no help from that direction. The few houses that ran along the beach on either side of the ferry landing were empty summer cottages. She knew she could easily break into one of them, but it was well known in the community that most of the cottage owners had installed loud security alarms that would go off if the property was breached, and that kind of noise would quickly alert Jacobs to her location. Shay turned and trudged back toward the pasture in front of the barn while sticking close to the tree line so that she wouldn’t be easily spotted. She knew the heavy snowfall would help hide her as long as she didn’t venture too close to the open, horse trod pasture.
Shay trod carefully through the unbroken snow, staying just inside the first line of trees. The trees sheltered her from the worst of the wind, but Shay found it difficult to walk in the almost knee deep snow which was beginning to leak into her boots. It took Shay almost ten minutes to get around the pasture and back onto the path that would take her to the railway tracks and back to the Halliwell’s where she could call the police. Her feet were cold and wet, and Shay’s legs were starting to hurt from the chill of the wet snow that soaked her jeans.
Shay turned on the flashlight but she fought the urge to run as she knew the exertion would make her inhale too much freezing air and that would wear her out too fast. Although it was hard to see in the blowing snow, she kept up a steady pace and was almost to the end of the path near the rail road tracks when Shay saw a flashlight waving in the dark and fragments of friendly and familiar voices carried through the air.
“Grace?” she called out in disbelief, trying to peer through the wind-driven snow that was falling all around her.
“Hi Shay!” Grace replied cheerfully as she and Larissa rounded the twisting turn in the path and came into full view.
“What are you doing here?” Shay asked incredulously, raising her voice to be heard above the wind.
“Larissa called and said you went to the barn by yourself to check on what was going on with Ginger. For goodness sake, you didn’t think we’d let you do that alone, did you?” Grace shouted back happily, shifting her body from one foot to the other to keep the cold from settling in.
“Come on, we have to get help and call the police,” Shay said urgently. She pushed Grace’s shoulder and pulled at Larissa’s arm to get them to start walking back the way they came, along the tracks. “We can’t stand here and talk, there isn’t time!”
“What’s the matter?” Larissa asked, raising her voice to be heard above the wind. “Did something happen?”
“Ginger wasn’t alone at the barn, she was with Tom Jacobs and that Gillies woman. They caught me spying on them and they were planning to kill me. They were going to take me out onto the lake and throw me in, with a rock tied to my leg to keep my down!” Shay’s voice shook from the fear and the cold.
“WHAT?” both girls replied at the same time.
“You can’t be serious!” Grace said as she hurried along to keep up with Shay.
“It was Tom Jacobs who hit Mr. Fletcher, and Barbara Gillies and Ginger and Sharon were in on the whole thing. They’re in the barn now and they caught me hiding in the equipment. They were going to kill me,” Shay repeated, “they really were. I’m finished playing detective. Those people are serious and crazy.”
The girls walked as quickly as they could and Grace pulled out her cell phone and took off her thick gloves and then punched in the button for ’Home’. Nothing happened. “My phone won’t work here,” she called to Shay. “It hardly ever works this close to the lake, and this weather doesn’t help.”
“Do you really think they’ll come after us?” Larissa asked as she puffed behind Grace, trying to keep up
“They don’t know about us,” Grace said. “But they’ll come after Shay for sure.”
“That’s right! They don’t know about you two. Grace, you take Larissa to your house and I’ll go a different way. I don’t want you to get killed either,” Shay said.
“You really think that I’m going to leave you?” Larissa said through teeth that chattered from the cold. “’Cause I’m not leaving you to get killed all by yourself!”
Grace giggled, as much from the near hysteria and fear as from Larissa’s remark. “No such luck, girlfriend, we got into this together, we get out of this together” Grace said bravely through her wind bitten lips. “Anyway, we have to get out of the weather too, so it’s smarter if we all try to get to the closest place together.”
Shay started to argue, but even in the dark and cold she could see the determination on the faces of her friends. And Grace was right, they all needed to get out of the cold and that meant going to the closest house. Splitting up would only get one of them frozen, and it wouldn’t save the others.
“Thanks, you guys,” she said. “I don’t know how soon they’ll notice I’m gone. Jacobs will think that I can’t get out of the trunk so he won’t be in a rush to check on me, but they won’t stay in the barn arguing forever. We have to hurry. It’s faster if we go to the Nedsmith’s than if we go home or to your place”.
“No, there’s no point in going there,” Grace said. “My mom mentioned to me that the Nedsmith’s went to Mexico last week for the rest of the winter. Their house and the greenhouses will be locked up and their phones are probably shut off.”
“Well, at least we’d be safe there. We could hide in the greenhouse or the barn or somewhere,” Larissa said.
“Nope, that won’t work,” level-headed Grace replied. The road in won’t have been ploughed in a week, so we might not be able to get through the snow to the house and we can’t risk all that time and energy just to find out it’s blocked. The Halliwell�
�s house is way closer than mine so we should go there and call my parents and the police.”
The girls reached the end of the railroad tracks and they were able to walk faster on the main road that would lead them to the foster home. Still, the wind tore at them and the road was slick with ice under the new covering of snow. Shay’s feet were suffering from the cold. Painful bolts of lightening streaked through her feet and up her legs, and she found each step forward harder than the last,
Grace was wearing ski pants, thick and warm, that kept her from getting chilled. Even Larissa was wearing heavy snow pants, sent by her grandmother for Christmas. Only Shay, dependant on a clothing allowance paid by the government, was under-clothed for the weather.
The girls were silent as they trudged along, hunched over to protect their faces from the wind-blown snow that threatened to envelop them in a blanket of freezing cold. Shay hoped they would be able to flag down a passing driver and car, but none passed by. No one would be on the road in this worsening weather unless it was an emergency, or unless it was Tom Jacobs out looking for them. Shay looked at the snow covered ditch on the side of the road and knew that there would be no place to hide and no place to run to if he drove up while they were still walking.
Finally, the girls reached the end of the long driveway that led to the Halliwell’s house. They trudged through the snow and made their way up the road and quickly entered the dark house. Shay hit the light switch, but nothing happened.
“Oh no!” Shay exclaimed. “The storm has killed the power. There’s probably a tree down on a power line, or else the lines have frozen and snapped,” she said. “We’ll have to find some more flashlights and get the fire going.”
The girls took off their coats and boots and entered the kitchen. Shay was cold and wet, and she sat at the kitchen table and stripped off her socks, tights, and jeans. The house was still warm enough from the heat that was left in the wood stove even though the power outage had shut off the furnace, but Shay couldn’t stop shivering.
“Give me the flashlight and I’ll get us some dry clothes and towels,” said Larissa. As the light flicked across the younger girl’s face, Shay could see that she had been crying. Shay wanted to get up and hug her, but she was too cold to move just yet.
Larissa left the room, stomping her way up the stairs to the girls’ bedroom.
“It’s probably better if we don’t use any more flashlights, that way we don’t advertise that we’re here,” Grace said through chattering teeth.
“They’ll come here sooner or later whether the lights are on or not,” Shay responded. It was hard for her to speak through her snow chapped lips. “They know I have nowhere else to go.”
“What about Ginger?” Grace asked. ”If she was arguing with them, do you think they’ll hurt her?”
“Yes, I do,” Shay nodded. “She’s in real danger. Tom Jacobs and that lady are both really crazy, and they’re desperate. They don’t seem to think more than a minute ahead. All they think about is shutting someone up, but they don’t think about getting arrested for murder. Just like they didn’t think about getting in trouble for the pictures or for attacking Mr. Fletcher.”
“Oh, Shay,” Grace said. “We’re in such a mess. We were so stupid to not to tell our parents and call the police as soon as we found those photographs,” Grace said shakily. “I’m going to call my parents and the police right now.” Grace went to the telephone and picked it up, listening for a dial tone. She slowly put the phone down. “It’s dead. The phone lines must be down too,” she said, turning to Shay, fear written in her face. “How are we going to call for help?”
“Try your cell again” Shay said, trying to quell the panic that was filling her. Grace nodded and went back to her jacket hanging in the entry hall and pulled it out of the pocket. She flipped the phone open but the service bars were non-existent.
“Now what do we do?” Grace whispered into the dark, cold kitchen.
Chapter Eleven
Danger for All
Good Enough: A Shay James Mystery Page 10