by Jessa Archer
“Then lead with that,” Ed said.
✰ Chapter Fourteen ✰
“I’m not a medical expert, though. And sometimes, even medical experts are wrong on these things. Blevins could be right, and I could be wrong.”
The built-in shelves in the Martin family’s living room were filled with photographs of their three children. Many of them were a family of four—mom, dad, and two kids close to the same age. Then there were the newer baby pictures and group photos with a chubby little toddler at the center. It was pretty clear that he had all of them wrapped around his little finger.
The oldest son was away at college. Tessa had been the baby until the family received a surprise addition just before her thirteenth birthday. I hadn’t gotten a good look at her in the flickering candlelight from the night before, but her friends were right. Tessa was very pretty, with hair the same golden shade as her baby brother. But you could almost sense nervous energy in every picture of the girl, even when she was younger. Most of the portraits of her were in sports uniforms—baseball, cheering, soccer, basketball. Never the same sport twice, which could mean that whoever decided which pictures to put in a limited number of frames had wanted to show her at different ages. I suspected, however, that this was evidence of the personality her friends had described, and she’d grown bored with one sport then moved on to the next.
Brenda and Jeff Martin were sitting next to each other on the sofa across from me and Ed. The two of them exchanged a look, and then she said, “But…you don’t think so, do you?”
I glanced over at Ed. This was the moment I’d been dreading. “I…I hope I’m wrong.”
The fuller, more direct answer to her question hung in the air between us, though, and I could tell both of them understood what I believed but couldn’t bring myself to say. My sense was that Brenda was moving toward that same conclusion herself.
Jeff’s face, however, was closed. Angry. His eyes were bright with tears. “Tessa could be somewhere out there. Hurt, but still alive. And Blevins is treating this like it’s some sort of big joke. Billy’s a good guy, but he can’t really act until Steve gives him the go-ahead. Mason’s only part-time, and he ain’t even from here. You’re both investigators—”
Ed shook his head. “I’m…just a writer, Jeff. Not a detective. Given the bad blood between me and Steve, I try to steer clear of any law enforcement matters.”
“But you know how to look. Where to look,” Brenda said. “Jeff and I can find a cavity in someone’s molar even without an X-ray, but this isn’t our area of expertise. You did this kind of thing most of your life, and Ruth here seems to have uncovered a few things people were trying to keep hidden since she came back to Thistlewood.”
Jeff nodded. “Plus, we’ve been waiting for Blevins to put together an official search party, and I’m tired of waiting. I’ve got people I can call, people who’ve asked what they can do. You know even more people. I can’t just sit here—”
“Mama? Can I come down now?” a little voice asked plaintively. Kirby Martin, who was now sitting at the top of the stairs, had lost some of the baby chub that was evident in the photos scattered around the room, but he was still a cute little guy.
“No, sweetie,” Brenda said. “You can play on my computer, though. How about I come up and get a game started for you?”
Judging from the kid’s expression, he was smart enough to know that there was something going on. But he nodded.
Brenda rested one hand on Jeff’s shoulder. “Keep it down, okay, hon? No sense in upsetting Kirby until we know something for sure.” He nodded, and then she turned to me. “Why don’t you come up with me, Ruth?”
I followed Brenda up the stairs, even though I wasn’t sure exactly why she wanted me to go with her. To be honest, it made me a little nervous. Did she just want to give Jeff some space and a few minutes to talk to Ed? Or did she know about the book Cassie had loaned Tessa? I hadn’t mentioned it, mostly because it never really came up. But now I was sort of wishing I had said something. There was nothing wrong with what Cassie did. It was just a book. The book didn’t kill Tessa Martin. Nor did I believe for a moment that she’d been killed by something she’d summoned from beyond the grave.
Brenda got Kirby’s game started while I waited in the hallway. Then she came back out and nodded toward the door at the very end. “I’ve looked through to see if I could find any clues. But like I said, we’re not professionals. I thought maybe you might find…something.”
“I can try,” I told her. “But first…I should let you know that there’s probably a book in there that belongs to my daughter, Cassie. Tessa came into the bookstore a few weeks ago asking about ghosts and séances.”
“There was a book with somebody’s name in it. Didn’t know that was your daughter, though. I think it’s in the stack by her bed.”
She opened the door and flipped on the light. The room wasn’t what I expected. Not that I’d had any specific expectations, but I’d have guessed either the typical teenage girl’s room or maybe something with black walls and a pentagram on the floor. But the walls were a vivid orange, with a bedspread and curtains in a bright batik cloth that reminded me of the artwork in this Thai place I used to eat at in Nashville. It was a pretty room. Bright, yet kind of peaceful.
“The room was Tessa’s project last summer,” Brenda said with a deep sigh. “When she was into yoga and meditation. I wish that phase had lasted longer.”
The books on the floor and the nightstand didn’t really fit the ambiance of the room, however. Cassie’s book, A Paranormal Compendium, was off to the side. It was by far the largest of the bunch, and the cover was fairly tame compared to the others, which were almost entirely nonfiction—or at least not novels. Shirley Jackson’s We Have Always Lived in the Castle was the only novel in the bunch—a paperback version with New Century Schoolbook for the title font on the cover. There were also several collections of “true” ghost stories, which would also be fiction depending on your perspective, I guess. A stack of computer printouts was next it. The one on top looked like biology homework, with anatomical drawings of a lizard and a snake with their parts labeled in a small, barely legible font. She’d circled one area and written a single word in all caps: VENOMOID. It sounded kind of like the name for a supervillian in one of the comics at Wren’s yard sale.
“Yeah,” Brenda said, following my gaze. “The ghost stuff, that’s been her main interest lately. Well, that and this weird reptile fixation. She told me last week that she was thinking about becoming a herpetologist—which I had to look up. It wasn’t actually what I thought at all. Do you know what it means?”
“A scientist who studies frogs and snakes?” I guessed, looking down at the drawings.
She nodded. “Turtles, too. I wish she’d shown that much interest a few years back when she struggled to get a C in the subject, but biology just wasn’t her thing back then. And Tess always has a thing. Jeff is the same way. He’ll latch on to a subject and have to learn absolutely everything about it, and then before you know it, he’s off on something else. It’s a miracle he stayed focused long enough to get through dental school. And between Jeff’s mom dying a while back and us having a close call with Kirby this past winter, I wasn’t too surprised that Tessa was a little fixated on life and death. Wondering what comes after. I guess in some ways we all were.”
The second stack included a copy of the Bible and a few other religious texts. A book on the anatomy of amphibians and reptiles. Then my eyes fell on the thin volume on top of the bed— Hallucinogens and Religion.
I pulled out my phone. “Do you mind if I take some photos? Of the books, I mean.”
“Go ahead. That one on the bed has me a little worried. It wasn’t with the others. I found it under her mattress. Do you think maybe she was on some sort of drug?”
“I don’t know,” I told her. And that was true. I really didn’t know one way or the other. All I knew was what Kate, Julissa, and Sawyer had told me. If t
hey chose to tell the Martins on their own, that was one thing, but I didn’t feel like it was something I could discuss without breaking their confidence.
Brenda sighed. “I really didn’t think she’d get involved in anything like that, but you never can tell, I guess. I’d already spoken to Jeff about maybe getting her an appointment to…talk to someone, you know? About all of…this. But he said she’d move on. That it was her way of dealing with the stress…”
She bit her lip and sat down on the edge of the bed. “That’s the main reason I wanted you to come up here, really. So I could talk openly. Tessa’s our only daughter, and Jeff is like a lot of daddies. He can’t handle the idea of his baby girl being all grown up, and she was kind of rebelling against him wanting her to stay a kid. Which is probably natural. He called the police a few months back when we found out Tessa wasn’t actually at her friend Julissa’s house. She came back in the next morning with some cockamamie story about how she’d decided to go for a drive, and she ran out of gas. No cell coverage, so she couldn’t call. Had to sleep in the car until a nice lady came along the next morning and gave her a ride to the gas station. I don’t know if Jeff actually believed her or just didn’t want to admit she might be up to something she shouldn’t be. She didn’t fool her mama, though. The two of us had a little talk, and I put a GPS tracker on her phone. And then Tess promptly stopped carrying it.”
She nodded toward the dresser, and sure enough, a cell phone was there on top of a pile of folded laundry.
“But…she had a phone with her last night. In fact…” I reached into my bag and pulled out the phone. “I’d almost forgotten about it. I think it was in Julissa’s car.”
Brenda took it from me, turning it over in her hand, and tears started to slide down her cheeks. “Maybe the guy she’s seeing gave it to her.”
“Do you know who?”
She shook her head. “I know who it wasn’t, but that’s about it. Tessa never seemed interested in boys her age. Two summers back, she started seeing this boy who was in town on vacation. Jeff had a tizzy when he found out the guy was a junior in college. After that, any time Tessa went out, she made it sound like she was going with Sawyer Jackson, probably because it was clear to anyone with eyes that he was smitten with her. But she wasn’t dating him. I know my daughter, flaws and all. I know when she’s lying. If I had to guess, I’d say it was someone she met up at that crazy church.”
I stopped in the middle of photographing the reptile drawing. “What church?”
“Little place up in the mountains. Tessa had been going at least once a week. Usually twice. I went with her to one Sunday service. Couldn’t see the appeal, myself. The preacher yelled a lot—”
“Abel Davenport? Was that his name?”
“Yeah. Do you know him?”
“Sort of. He has a son, too. Early twenties. Not bad looking.” I didn’t add that he was currently out on bail on drug charges. If what I was beginning to suspect was true, there would be plenty of time for Brenda to learn that part later.
It took a second, but she made the connection. “But…Tessa stopped going to that church. About a month ago. She told me she’d figured out that the preacher was a fraud. That’s when she shifted over to this interest in séances and the afterlife. I tried to get her to go talk to my preacher over at Shepherd’s Flock, but she’s always been too much like her daddy to settle for your everyday religion. Tessa always had trouble with faith. She always wanted proof.”
“And you’re sure she’d stopped attending Davenport’s church?”
She shrugged. “I’m wondering now if I can be sure of anything.”
“Did you know they used snakes in their services?” I asked.
Her eyes grew wide, and she stared down at the printout with the snake diagram. “Not when I went. After that first week, I told her I wanted to check the place out. I’d heard they had some odd practices—I was raised Presbyterian, and we never really believed in the speaking-in-tongues stuff. The place seemed a little odd, but I never saw anything that looked at all dangerous. Still, I’ll admit I was a little relieved when she came back from a Friday night service a week or so before school started and called that preacher a con man. She said she felt sorry for anyone who believed his nonsense.”
I glanced down at my watch. It was 7:20. The poster in the diner had said eight p.m., and it was a good half-hour drive to Pender’s Gap. Plus, I’d need to run home and change. The revival tent would probably burst into flames if I showed up in these shorts. I’d definitely be late, but I’d seen how long-winded Abel Davenport could be at Edith Morton’s service. He’d probably just be warming up.
“Do you think that place had anything to do with Tessa’s…disappearance?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” I told her. “But I think it’s worth checking out.”
Brenda and I went back downstairs to join Ed and Jeff, both of whom were on their respective telephones, apparently trying to get a search party together. Cassie’s book was under my arm. Brenda had insisted on me returning it to her, and I didn’t argue, although if Blevins ever got around to treating this case seriously and asked about it, we’d have to admit Cassie had loaned it to Tessa. Too many people knew for that to stay hidden.
Whoever Ed was talking to, he seemed annoyed. He listened for a few seconds and then said, “Okay, then. I was just trying to give you one last chance to do your job. If you think there’s something more important—”
Ah. He was talking to Blevins. I couldn’t quite make out the words, but the voice on the other end was definitely yelling. Ed let him go on for a moment and then said, “You go right ahead and do that, Steve. Be sure you bring plenty of handcuffs, because I plan to have fifty or sixty people out there within the hour. You come on and arrest us all for trespassing. I double dog dare you to do that when we’re trying to find a missing girl. Because I can promise you that a whole bunch of the people we have out looking will be registered voters. They’ll also have families and friends who vote, and not a single one of them is gonna forget your failure to do your job come election day.”
Blevins was saying something else, but Ed ended the call and began scrolling through his contacts again. I went over and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek. “I’ve got something I need to check out, okay? I’ll join you later at Woodward Mills. Don’t overdo it, or you’re going to be hurting tomorrow.”
“No need to worry,” he said. “I’ll mostly be managing things. Dean offered to close up shop tonight and see if he could get his customers to come out and help, too. Said he’d offer them credit for free play at eBuzz. So we’ll have plenty of young’uns out to do the actual legwork.”
“Are you still going out to The Stump to talk to Meredith? I could stop by and let them know about Eli and that little alien if you need me to.”
He grinned, clearly picking up on the fact that I’d rather walk across broken glass barefoot than deal with Meredith Tucker again. “No need. I’ll run by before we start the search. If they’re not back yet, I’ll just leave a message for them at the bar.” His eyes narrowed slightly. “Exactly what is it you’re going to check out?”
“Just following a lead. Yes, I have my phone, and yes, it’s fully charged.”
“Call if you need me,” he said. “Like I told you, I’m mostly just helping organize people.”
“Will do.”
I grabbed my purse and told the Martins goodbye. It was about a five-minute walk back to the parking area behind the Star where I’d left my Jeep. I pulled out my phone and sent Cassie a text as I walked, tripping over a crack at one point and nearly going face first into the sidewalk. Once I’d filled her in and let her know I might be home late, I called Wren.
“How tired are you?” I asked.
“Bone tired,” she replied. “As I’m pretty sure you are, after the morning we had. I was going to have a long soak, a glass of merlot, and then curl up with a book before bed.”
That sounded absolutely wonderful, an
d I was sorely tempted to follow her lead. But I pushed temptation aside.
“Make it a quick shower and put on a pot of coffee,” I told her. “We’re going to a revival.”
“Okay,” she said a little dubiously. “Any particular reason why? Did Davenport manage to convert you this morning?”
“Not in the slightest,” I said.
“So…we’re going sleuthing,” she said, and I could hear the smile in her voice.
“We are indeed. And even though it’s hot, you might want to wear your boots. There could be snakes involved.”
✰ Chapter Fifteen ✰
“Somebody sank a whole lot of time and money into this,” Wren said. “These videos weren’t shot by some amateur in Davenport’s congregation.”
“I don’t know,” I said, keeping my eyes on the road. “Cell phones do a pretty good job these days. And you can get decent video editing software for a few hundred bucks.”
“Yeah, but I’m not talking about the quality of the shots alone. It’s more the camera angles and close-ups. These are fairly polished. I wouldn’t say Hollywood polished, but sort of what you might put forward as a proof of concept.”
“So…an audition tape of sorts?”
“Exactly,” Wren said, tapping the screen of her tablet. “This latest one, for example, was clearly shot with one of those little body cams. I’m guessing it’s on a hat or something, because it’s almost like you’re seeing through Davenport’s eyes. But then the video seamlessly cuts to the congregation. That way, you get not just the reaction of the crowd, but also his perspective as the snake strikes him.”
I suspected she was focusing on the technical aspects of the video for one simple reason: the actual subject of the video was freaking her out. Both of us have a bit of a phobia where snakes are concerned.