Call when you can. xoxo
Still no reply but I could feel a squeeze of relief in my chest. My nerves had been pinging for no reason. A burst of laughter left my lips as I reread the message; giggling at the use of Sweet pea as a nickname. Something new and silly but I’d take it.
“He’s okay,” I told myself as I walked on. I would’ve liked to hear his voice but, hell, he’d reached out and said the service was bad.
By the time I was close to Tracey and Craig I’d pulled my phone out of my pocket a half dozen times to reread Garrett’s message and my head had picked apart every single word of his text. My thoughts kept getting hung up on Sweet pea. He’d never called me that before and I couldn’t imagine him even saying the word out loud. It was crazy of me to obsess over the word.
“You’re being stupid,” I muttered under my breath as I reached Tracey.
“Craig’s out front.” She pointed behind her with her thumb. “Cops just got here.”
I nodded and wordlessly dropped my pack on the ground, fished out a bottle of water and finished it.
“You okay?” She tilted her head at me.
“Yeah. I heard from Garrett. He’s in a bad cell area.”
“Oh good!” She put a hand on my shoulder. “You were worried for nothin’ and now you went and solved another mystery. It’s a red-letter day for you!”
“Right.”
Sweet pea.
I cleared my throat and nodded a chin in the direction of the front of the house. “How’d he take it?”
“He got teary, you know? And then he just hugged me hard and thanked me.” She rolled her eyes. “As if I’ve done anything at all.”
“You got it started,” I told her.
An officer was walking back toward us with Craig towering above him. I gave the police the information and location of the well.
“So, you opened up the well cap and you saw the body in there?” the officer asked me.
“No. I didn’t open it and I didn’t see it.”
He made a bulldog scrunched-up face and drew in a deep breath through his nose. I could tell he didn’t believe there was an actual body so before he could say anything else I told him about my dowsing.
“Check with your boss, if you need to. He’ll have heard of me.”
“Yeah,” Tracey burst in. “Everyone’s heard of her. She finds bodies all the time. Have you been living under a friggin’ rock?”
“Easy.” I put a hand on her arm. “The officer here is just doing his job, and he doesn’t want to walk with me to look in a well for no reason.” I turned to Craig, who still had a deer-in-the-headlights look about him. “You’ve got a couple of good flashlights in the house? Could you go get them?”
Craig ran off to get the flashlights and Tracey tagged along.
The officer stood looking at me with derision. “I’ve heard of you. Of course I have. Just thought it was bullshit.” When my only response was to shrug he added, “There’d better be a friggin’ body down that well.”
“Yeah, because nothing makes your day more than finding a dead kid, right?”
He looked away from me then with his arms crossed. As soon as Craig reappeared I tucked the flashlights into my pack and we all set off back in the direction I’d come. I led the way, followed by the cop, and then Tracey and Craig brought up the rear. Tracey’s brace made it hard for her to keep up, but she insisted on following along. It was completely quiet except for our feet crunching on the dried grass. Instead of walking in the fields, we kept to the edge of the creek. Before long we were trudging down into the ditch. I pulled out a flashlight, handed it to the officer and pointed a few feet ahead to the old well.
“You going to help?” he asked.
“Nope. That’s why you make the big bucks.”
He snorted and mumbled something unpleasant under his breath. Craig pulled up alongside him and together they hoisted the damp, rotted sheet of plywood off the well.
Tracey was panting next to me and I told her to sit. I knew her knee was killing her. She shouldn’t’ve walked all this way.
The officer crouched down on his haunches, shone the flashlight down the hole and leaned in.
“I don’t see nuthin’ except rancid water and—” The officer stopped himself short and then grunted. “Some kind of clothes or somethin’...”
“Pokémon!” Craig announced. “Derek’s favorite yellow Pokémon shirt. He loved to wear it. Oh God.” He gulped in air, stumbled toward Tracey and sat down hard on the ground next to her. “He’s really down there.”
“There. There.” Tracey took his hand as Craig leaned his considerably large head on her shoulder and sobbed quietly.
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.” The officer got to his feet and dusted off his pants. “Could be just some junk down there and—”
“You go ahead and do what you gotta do to figure that out,” I told him. “Call in whoever you gotta call. We’re heading back.”
“I wanna stay,” Craig said on a hiccup. “You can go, and thank you so much for everything.” He got to his feet and took my hands and shook them and then decided that wasn’t enough and crushed me in a bear hug. “Thank you. I’ll drive Tracey home if she wants to stay too.”
She nodded at me to leave her and told me she’d call me later. I slowly walked back to the farm, grateful to leave it behind me.
By the time I reached my Jeep I was sweating and out of breath. I’d jogged the last little bit of the trip and was glad to climb inside my vehicle, start it up and let the vent blow cold air in my face. I headed down the road and was a few miles out when I saw a marked police car coming from the opposite direction. I’d found a body today. I’d given someone closure. And Garrett had messaged me too.
So why did I feel like crap?
I drank another water as I drove and before long needed to make a restroom break. Once I was back in the Jeep I pulled out my phone and stared hard at Garrett’s message.
All the words felt wrong. I told myself he was obviously stressed, and I needed to cut him some slack. Even though there’d been no reply to my last two responses to him, I sent another.
Hope you’re ok. Love you xo.
I stared at the words to make sure they sent and, once I was sure they’d traveled across the ether to their destination, I headed for home. Before long I was pulling into my driveway and, at the same time, Preston pulled up into his drive, revving his fancy sports car. Phil came out of the house to greet him and they both smiled and waved at me.
I smiled and waved back through gritted teeth.
As I made my way to the door I noticed Wookie’s face in the picture window. He was howling at me like I’d been gone a week, which was odd.
“He sure missed you today,” Phil said with a laugh. “They’ve got the fence up and it’s even stained. C’mon around out back and take a look. I think you’ll absolutely love it.”
Absolutely love seemed like powerful words to describe my feelings about a fence. I murmured some kind of “maybe later” to them and let myself inside the house.
Wookie bounded over and jumped, putting his feet on my chest.
“What the hell, boy, you’re soaked! You been playing in your water bowl?” Even as the words left my mouth, my feet were sopping up water. A small spring of water was coming from under the kitchen sink and had spread to the living room and soaked the carpet where I stood.
“Shit!”
I sloshed over to the kitchen with Wookie on my heels and met Fluffy’s furious glare from his perch on the counter. Flinging the cabinet doors open, I stared at the pipe where water was pouring. There didn’t seem to be any way to turn it off. I straightened, looked around the drenched kitchen and living room and cursed vividly as I tried to come up with what to do. I knew there’d be a shutoff somewhere to the entire house but where? I could feel a bub
ble of panic in my throat that could be quenched with wine.
“Dammit,” I growled.
Making my way back to the front door I stepped outside and waved my arms at Phil and Preston.
“Help! I seem to have a bit of a flood here... I don’t know where the shutoff is.”
Both men ran inside, pausing only to leave their shoes at the front door before they took over. Preston sloshed over to the back hall while Phil made his way to look under the sink. After a couple minutes of chaotic shouting between them, the water stopped flowing and we all met back in the living room, where Wookie was bounding around thinking this was the best day at the beach he’d ever had. Fluffy hissed and puffed up angrily from the kitchen counter.
“Good news is that the water didn’t reach the back hall or bedrooms,” Preston announced. “Bad news is you’ve got a helluva mess.”
“Call your insurance company.” Phil slicked his hand through the tangled mess on top of his head. “They’ll take care of it.”
“Right.” I nodded. “Insurance company.”
“Happened to our place a couple years ago when we were on vacation,” Phil said. “Luckily my mother was checking on the house and found the mess before it made too much damage. We just stayed away an extra two weeks until everything could get sorted.”
“An extra two weeks?”
At the pained look in my eyes, they both started telling me that it would be okay and they offered for me, Garrett and the creatures to stay with them until it all got sorted. I thanked them profusely for their help but told them not to worry because I had plenty of options of places to stay. A blatant lie.
My phone rang as I was seeing them to the door. “Oh look, that’s Garrett now, he’ll know what to do.” I answered the call. “Hold on just a second, honey.” And then said to the neighbors, “Thank you both so-o-o much. Really!” and all but shoved them out the door.
Putting the phone back to my ear I said, “Sorry about that, Tracey.”
“You’re welcome, honey. Everything okay?”
“No.” I exhaled a high-pitched, near hysterical giggle. “I seem to have had a bit of a flood here at the house. I’ve gotta find our insurance papers and—and...” I took a step and skidded along the wet carpet, nearly falling on my ass. “Sorry, I’ve gotta go.”
I ended the call.
I wrangled Fluffy and received a deep scratch for my troubles as I dumped him into my bedroom, and then took Wookie to the den and brought some towels in to dry off his feet. Over the next few hours emergency restoration workers showed up with equipment to suck up the water, and giant fans to dry things out. An insurance adjuster also arrived and his face was so pinched it looked like it might implode on itself.
I took lots of pictures with my phone and sent them all to Garrett. It was a dumbass move since the last thing he needed when dealing with a difficult case was news of a crisis at home. But that was too bad. I needed him and I found myself resentful that he was unavailable.
Tracey showed up on my doorstep after I ignored a couple of her texts.
“You okay?” She pulled me into a tight hug.
“I’m fine. It’s just a little water.” I nodded and forced a smile. “I’m all good,” I repeated as if I said it enough times it would make it so. “Keep your shoes on if you’re coming in. It’s no longer ankle deep but still wet.”
“What happened?” She whistled as she looked around at the fans that were each the size of a large child.
“Some kind of pipe gave way under the kitchen sink.”
“Did you get a hold of Garrett?”
“No.” I pointed to the floor. “And you know what? He’s the one that wanted this house. I said it was too old and too close to neighbors, but he said it’s got good bones.” I snorted. “Apparently good bones mean that the plumbing is shit.” I surprised myself with the venom in my voice. “I’d offer you coffee or tea or water but, hey, there’s no water to the house until they fix the plumbing and who knows how long that will be?” I dragged a hand through my hair.
“The insurance will cover this, right?”
“Yes, but first we’ll have to pay the huge deductible.”
At least that part wasn’t such a worry. I’d made a profit selling the house I bought with my inheritance, and Garrett made a good living. Between the two of us we had ample savings set aside to tackle the home renovations on this fixer-upper, but we’d planned on doing it at our leisure.
“Gather up that mutt and cat. You’re coming to stay with me.”
I burst out laughing because the thought of me, Wookie and Fluffy staying in Tracey’s tiny one bedroom was hilarious. “Thanks, but no. The motel up near the Walmart is okay with pets and I’ve already booked a room there for a couple days.”
“I get it, you’re Miss Independent.”
I’d never relied on someone before, that was true. When you’d been raised with abuse you learned that the only person you could ever really trust was yourself. And even that wasn’t always true.
“I really want a drink.”
I realized I’d said the words out loud when I saw the alarmed look on Tracey’s face. “Don’t freak. I’m not going to run to the store and bring home the entire wine aisle.”
But I wanted to. Desperately. I licked my lips at the thought. “I’m fine.”
“You are so not fine. If you won’t come stay with me, at least let me help you pack up everything you need and help you get to the motel.”
I had to admit that it was easier with two people and soon I had Fluffy in the crate and Wookie in the back seat with a large duffel bag, my backpack and all the animals’ needs, and we were driving to the motel with Tracey following behind us. Once we were all settled in the motel room, Tracey went and got us burgers from a nearby fast-food place.
We sat around the small table in the room while Wookie chewed his favorite rope in the corner and Fluffy kneaded the bed, trying to get comfortable. Tracey told me about how what was left of Craig’s brother’s body had been pulled from the well and how grateful his mother was to finally have something to bury.
“The farmer who owns the property isn’t the same one who had it all those years ago when Derek went missing but he said that there’d always just been a piece of wood covering the well as long as he’d had the property.”
Decommissioned wells were a hazard, but few farmers wanted to incur the expense of having them properly filled and capped.
“Are you even listening to me?” Tracey asked.
“Yeah.” I slurped noisily from the Coke in my cup. “I’m glad Craig’s family got closure.” I crumpled up my greasy burger wrapper and two-pointed it into the trash. “Does Craig call you any nicknames?”
Her eyebrows went up.
“Like what?”
“You know...like honey, or sweetheart, muffin...things like that.”
“He calls me boo, remember?”
“Oh yeah.” I smirked.
“And he also calls me baby sometimes.” She tilted her head at me. “Why?”
I pulled out my phone. “This is the text I got from Garrett.” I cleared my throat. “‘Bad cell service where I am. I’ll call soon, Sweet pea. Love you.’” I put the phone down. “He’s never called me Sweet pea. Ever.”
“So?” She shrugged. “He’s stressed, tired and working too hard. If you hate that name, tell him to call you sweet cheeks instead, or honeybunch, or sex beast.”
“Yeah.” I drummed my finger on the table. “He never replied to any of my responses.”
“He said he was in a bad cell area.”
I nodded.
She picked up my phone and scrolled through the messages to Garrett. I didn’t stop her, but I felt myself blush.
“You thought sending him umpteen pictures of your flooded house was the best route to go?”
“He
’s a rescuer. It’s what he does...”
We looked at each other and burst out laughing at the silliness of it all. Then I grew serious and sighed.
“I think that if I don’t hear from him by tomorrow, I’m going to call the number he used to reach me on the landline and check in with whoever he’s working with to make sure he’s okay. I know he said he was out of cell range but still...something feels wrong.” Then I cringed. “Do you think that’s crossing the line?”
“You’re asking a person who once threw a surprise birthday party for a guy I’d dated twice. I’m not the best person to ask about boundary lines.” She smiled and then slow nodded. “You know what? Do it. Call that person. Garrett wouldn’t be pissed. I mean, if it was you who was MIA he’d be tracking you down like a hound dog.”
“You’re right. He would.”
Fluffy leaped from the hotel bed onto Wookie’s back with a loud hiss. The dog jumped up and growled, causing Tracey to jump onto her chair and scream.
After I’d separated the animals by placing the stupid cat in his kennel, I looked at Tracey.
“If you really want to do me a big favor, you’ll take this annoying hairball back to your place until I can get back into my house.”
“Really? I’d love to have little Mr. Fluffikins with me!”
“He’s like a gang member carrying a switchblade.” I held out my wrist to show the deep scratch he’d given me at the house. “You’re welcome to him and I’ll pay you back for all the bandages you’ll need to buy.”
A few minutes later Tracey’s car was loaded with litterbox, food and Fluffy, along with a couple of toy mice. I waved goodbye to her as she drove out of the motel parking lot.
When I returned to the room, Wookie was in the center of the bed, looking very pleased with himself.
“Don’t get your hopes up. It’s temporary.”
An uneasy quiet settled over the room, broken only by Wookie’s noisily licking himself. I opened my laptop but couldn’t bring myself to look at emails requesting help finding loved ones’ remains. I’d had enough of that today. I turned on the television and climbed onto the bed, nudging Wookie’s considerable form over to give me room. As a mindless sitcom played on, I scrolled through my phone and stared hard at Garrett’s earlier message as if the longer I stared at it the better I’d feel.
A Grave Peril Page 10