Amanda frantically hit the horn on her steering wheel, trying to warn the car in front of her, her heartbeat leaping in fear. The dark landslide swept down the slope, accelerating with sudden speed. The lead car must’ve finally seen the mudslide, but the frantic brake lights of the sedan were too late. The roiling mud slammed into the side of the car, skidding it sideways and off the road. With horrible force, it pushed the small car over the embankment, the brake lights still desperately blinking as the driver tried futilely to keep from going over the edge.
Amanda gasped and slammed her car into reverse. She hit the gas as hard as she could, grateful no one was behind her as she rocketed backward, trying to keep from being engulfed by the tons of earth pouring down the hillside. By the time she was far enough away to jump on her brakes and put her car in park, the landslide had mostly stopped. Small rocks were bouncing down the hill, but the bulk of the huge, muddy mass was settling into heavy stillness. Peering at the deadly mass, she could barely breathe in fear.
She jerked her door open and ran as fast as she could toward where she’d seen the sedan disappear. Wiping the pelting rain from her eyes as she ran, she could just see the right doors of the car, the rest completely encased in unstable mud. Breathing a silent prayer, she eased her way down the slope toward the car, grabbing at small shrubs and tall grass as she did her best to keep from falling down the incline. She tried to keep watch for movement or bouncing rocks as she peered in the passenger side window but the pouring rain and dimming light made it difficult.
The passenger, a man, had his face turned away from her and was loudly groaning. She could see that part of the roof near the man’s head had caved in a bit and there was a flat, tinny taste of fear in her mouth as she realized that they probably only had seconds before the landslide moved again and crushed the entire car.
Desperately, she grabbed the door handle and tried to wrest the door open, frantically pulling while trying to keep her feet under her on the slippery grass.
“HEY! Kick out the glass! Can you open the door from your side?” she frantically shouted, nearly dislocating her wrist as she struggled with the stuck door.
The driver seemed to hear the shouting, and rolled his head toward her. Amanda gasped. It was James’ brother, Ethan Landon. His eyes didn’t look focused, and a cut on his head was streaming bright red blood down the side of his face.
“Ethan! Open the door!”
He blinked his eyes, running a hand across them to try to clear the blood from his right eye. Amanda could tell he was still dazed from the impact.
“Ethan! Kick out the glass!” Her words seemed to be having some impact on him, and he unbuckled his seatbelt. Amanda could hear the metal in the car groan as the weight of the sodden earth and rocks continued to compress it. There was no time to waste. If she didn’t get him out, Ethan was going to be crushed to death, and the wall of mud would sweep farther down the slope, taking her with it. She briefly wondered what it would be like to die by landslide.
“ETHAN! I SAID MOVE, MISTER!” she shouted in her best drill sergeant voice, still yanking on the door handle futilely. The passenger side window, flexed by the extreme weight on the car roof, finally shattered like an exploding bomb, spraying brilliant shards of safety glass outward as it broke. The sound seemed to awaken Ethan, and he moved to the window and put his head and shoulders outside, trying to lean forward and push with his elbows enough to escape. Amanda frantically grabbed him under the armpits and pulled with every bit of strength she had, desperately hoping that she’d be able to move a full-sized man in time. Ethan pushed with his feet and he finally slid completely out of the car window, Amanda still grabbing onto him as he rolled to the ground.
“This way!” she ordered, trying to steer him toward the road. The dazed man scrambled along with her as she pulled him away from the landslide and up the sodden embankment, slipping repeatedly as they moved as quickly as possible. They could hear the metal creaking as Ethan’s car was slowly pushed and crushed by the landslide, the mud still shifting as tons of dirt and rock above it pressed downward. With a final, last-ditch heave Amanda and Ethan pulled themselves onto the edge of the road, the solid pavement an incredibly welcome sensation.
The climb had been strenuous, and Amanda felt herself gasping for air as she pulled herself to her feet. She could see that Ethan’s scalp wound was still bleeding copiously, the scarlet blood being washed down his body by the driving rain. She kept a firm grip on his upper arm as she pulled him toward her car. The headlights were still on, the radio cheerfully singing Christmas carols, the driver side door still open from when she’d sprinted toward the sedan. She opened the passenger door and gently eased Ethan into the seat. Digging around behind him, she grabbed a clean sweatshirt she had stowed in the back seat and showed him where to press it against his head wound. Shutting his door, she raced around to her side of the car, plopping into the seat, her fingers scrabbling around inside her purse. Her heart was racing as she dug out her cell phone. She clicked off the radio.
“Who are you calling?” Ethan was leaning back in the seat and peering at her with one eye, the other covered by the gore-soaked fabric he had pressed to his head.
“Nine one one. I seem to call them a lot. You’d think they’d know my voice by now,” she babbled, desperately hoping that she’d get cell reception.
Two bars. That would be enough.
As she punched in the first number she looked up through the foggy windshield. The headlights were shining on something at the base of the landslide. It was striped. Definitely not a rock or tree. She squinted and leaned forward, swiping a hand over the damp glass, trying to figure out what it was.
It couldn’t be.
She must be seeing that wrong.
Her heart caught in her throat.
“Wait here.”
She got out of the car, not feeling the cold rain pelting her as she slowly walked down the road toward the white object.
It wasn’t one object. It was two.
Two feet, one with a dark tennis shoe and one only encased in a striped yellow and green sock.
Someone was lying on their back on the asphalt, covered by tons of mud, only their feet sticking out of the rubble piled on top of them.
Amanda took a deep breath and knelt just far enough away that she could touch the feet. Trying not to gag, she slowly pulled one sock down a bit. As soon as she’d moved it just a couple of inches she could immediately tell that she didn’t need to check for a pulse. The dark lines of a bird tattoo just above his ankle were mottled and smeared, in the way only decay could make them.
Whoever this person was, they hadn’t been alive for quite some time. No one living would look like that.
Even though she’d only touched the sock, she carefully wiped her fingertips off on her sopping-wet jeans, trying to suppress a shiver. Stumbling quickly back to the car, Amanda squinted against the glare from her car’s headlights. The body that was under that landslide was beyond help, but Ethan needed an ambulance and he needed one fast. Sliding gratefully into her seat again, she pulled out her phone.
“Nine one one. What’s your emergency?”
“Dead body who won’t need an ambulance, and a hurt man who will. Please hurry!”
Chapter 3
“You’re in shock.”
Amanda looked up at the young paramedic. She was trying to make sense of his words but even though she knew she’d seen him before, she was having trouble focusing enough to remember where they’d met. She vaguely recalled talking to him at the Harvest Festival, and that he had a dog named Rosebud, but she couldn’t quite remember the man’s name. Leaning back in the reclined front seat of Grace TwoHorses’ car, she was grateful that the owner of her favorite toy store, Kazoodles, had been the next person to drive down the road to Likely. Grace was hovering behind the paramedic’s shoulder, obviously concerned, as the young man checked Amanda for injuries.
“Your name’s Leo Carpinski.” It had taken her a
bit, but she remembered, and that made her feel a bit better.
“We need to get you warm right away,” Leo said, as he listened to her heartbeat with a stethoscope. Amanda gestured wordlessly toward Ethan, who was already in the ambulance with a paramedic attending to him. She could see an IV set up beside him and the paramedic shut the back doors as the ambulance slowly pulled away, finally turning on its lights and siren to get Ethan to the closest hospital.
“He’s okay?”
Leo looked her in the eyes, and she had the feeling he was using small, clear words to talk to her.
“He’s going to be fine. He’s gonna need some x-rays and to get examined, but he’ll be okay.” He put an oxygen meter on her finger. “Let’s worry about you now, all right?”
Grace was still standing nearby, her face showing her worry. “I’ve got a Pendleton wool blanket in the back of my car. Will that help?”
The paramedic pulled two hot packs out of his medical kit. “I’m going to get some of the wet clothing off her. Let’s get these going for some heat, and we’ll put the blanket over the top of them. Is that heater turned up all the way?”
Grace quickly checked the car dashboard and nodded. “All the way. It takes a bit to get warm but it should kick in here pretty quick.”
As Leo was carefully pulling off Amanda’s rain jacket, she looked at her concerned friend, now carrying the wool blanket. “I’m sorry I’m so muddy. I’m getting dirt all over your nice car.”
Grace patted her awkwardly. “I’m just glad you’re okay, honey. Don’t worry about a thing.”
It didn’t take long for the police to arrive and block off the scene. The huge mudslide had completely covered the road to Likely, but a cordon of yellow crime tape made sure that no one would get too close to the two feet sticking out of the mud. George Ortiz, the police chief, stopped by Grace’s car to see how Amanda was doing, but after a quick conversation with the paramedic, held just out of Amanda’s earshot, he went straight to work. Several people in town had a hobby of listening to the local emergency channels, using their scanners to find out what was going on in the area, and it was obvious that word had spread quickly. A crowd slowly gathered, keeping a respectful distance from the tape and talking quietly amongst themselves as they speculated who was buried under the tons of wet earth and uprooted trees.
A very familiar unmarked police car pulled up just as the second ambulance arrived, and Amanda sighed. She already knew that James would be concerned, but also knew that he’d probably have something to say about the fact that she was the one who discovered the body.
Again.
Looking at the world sideways because of her reclined seat, she tried to think of what to say as James strode quickly toward her.
“You’ve got new boots,” she commented idly, ignoring the look of concern on his face.
“I’m not going to talk about my boots. Are you okay?”
She opened her mouth to reply but Leo answered for her. “Shock, maybe a sprained wrist, a few small cuts from glass. We’re going to take her to the hospital just to make sure, but she should be fine.”
James nodded, his face relieved, and the paramedic went to talk to the driver of the second ambulance, which had just arrived.
“Seriously, how are you?”
“Well, I’m covered in stinky mud, and I’ve touched a dead body.” The heat packs and the blanket were doing their work, and she was starting to feel a bit better. “I can tell you that I won’t need to use the treadmill today. I’ve definitely reached my target heart rate.” She tried to sit up but he put a gentle hand on her shoulder, obviously wanting her to stay still. Amanda could see the worry in his eyes.
She flashed back to the image of James’ brother leaving in the ambulance. “How’s Ethan? Did you see him?”
“I called and talked to him. He seemed more concerned that he’d lost his wallet when he escaped the car than about being hurt. Lucky he still had his phone, before the paramedic wrestled it away from him.” Amanda smiled at the mental picture of Ethan arguing with the paramedic while the siren was wailing on the ambulance.
James continued. “He told me he’s fine, but I’ve seen him get kicked in the shoulder by a horse and say that.” He laid a warm hand on her cheek. “I’ll be going to the hospital in a bit, to check on you both.” His smile was meant to reassure her, but she could see how stressed he was.
His voice was thick with emotion. “Thank you for saving my brother. George called and told me what you did.”
Amanda felt almost embarrassed by his praise, and quickly changed the subject. “Do I get an award for being the first person in Ravenwood Cove to touch more dead guys than the medical examiner?”
“No, but you’re getting dangerously close to earning our Frequent Flyer discount. How in the world do you get involved in so much trouble?”
She looked at him ruefully, a thin trickle of muddy water running down her neck. “Just lucky, I guess.”
“Well, we don’t usually give a trophy for that, and it’s not exactly something you can put on your resume.”
She bit her lip, thinking over the events of the last hour. “Any idea who that is?”
Her words were vague, but he knew instantly what she meant.
“Not until we dig him out. The crime scene team’s on their way.” Before she could ask, he answered her question. “Looks like a man’s feet, and that’s all we know right now.”
“Is this normal, finding dead people like this? I mean, how often do people die in this town?”
James smiled and shrugged. “More things happen around here than you probably want to know about. How do you think I keep my job as a detective? I’m not just a pretty face, you know.”
Chapter 4
“We don’t have any guests arriving until tomorrow morning. I’ll bet we can decorate the whole downstairs this afternoon.” Meg looked giddy at the prospect, and Amanda could almost see what her bubbly friend must’ve looked like as an excited little girl.
“Everything but the tree,” Amanda commented as she plopped a cardboard box on the sofa. “James says he’ll bring me a beauty in a few days, but he won’t have time to go up to his folks’ ranch and cut one before that.”
She brushed her hands together briskly, glad to be done with the dusty boxes they’d dragged down from the Ravenwood Inn’s cavernous attic. The old-fashioned Christmas decorations had included everything from metal tinsel to an elaborately-carved wooden nativity scene. The heavy velvet Santa suit, carefully packed in tissue paper and folded in a bag at the bottom of the last box, was an unexpected treasure to find. As soon as Amanda pulled out the luxurious costume she began brainstorming who would make the perfect Santa. There were several men she knew who carried around their own padding and wouldn’t need any pillow to have a proper Santa belly.
Amanda had tirelessly questioned Mrs. Granger for every detail she knew about the Ravenwood Inn’s past, and her tales of the legendary parties that the Inn used to throw on Christmas Eve were amazing and inspiring. It seemed only fitting that the new owner of the Ravenwood Inn would throw a party for Christmas Eve this year, and being able to continue the tradition of a using the Santa suit just felt right.
Meg was untangling a long string of large lights, a look of concentration on her face. “It’s a lot easier to just buy new ones,” she finally said in frustration, tossing the jumbled mess into a spare box. “This thing is beyond help.”
Amanda smiled at her impatient friend. “We’ve got time. Here, hand it to me.”
Meg watched Amanda carefully untangling the lights. “So, when did you become the Queen of Patience?”
Lights fixed and looped carefully over her arm, Amanda grabbed a small metal hanger. “This is fun, all of it! Even the tedious parts.” She pulled the stepladder over to the front window. “You have to understand that when I lived in LA, my boyfriend didn’t even like Christmas trees.”
Meg looked appalled. “What sort of creep doesn’t like Christm
as trees? Were you dating Scrooge?”
Climbing up the stepladder, Amanda couldn’t help but laugh. “Ken said they were too messy, so we just hung up stockings and went out to eat at a nice restaurant on Christmas Eve. You know how long I’ve wanted a Christmas tree?” It was nice to finally be able to talk about Ken and not wince at the memory of him. Maybe her new life in Ravenwood Cove was starting to soften some of her bad memories.
Amanda glanced over at the wide area they’d cleared in anticipation of the huge noble fir that was going to go right in front of the main parlor window. She could almost picture it there, lit up and covered with ornaments. In the week since she’d pulled Ethan out of the car, she’d been busy getting ready for the holidays. The front porch of the Inn had already been decorated, with fresh cedar garlands looped between the circular columns holding the porch railing, and wide red ribbons tied in festive bows at every window. A colorful wreath hung on the front door and Amanda had taken the extra effort to hang candle lanterns from the porch ceiling next to the house. With the electric porch light turned off, the gentle glow of the Christmas lights and the flame of the fat pillar candles was beautiful and calm. Amanda had recently started an evening habit of taking a thick quilt and sitting on the padded white wicker sofa out on the porch. The light was too dim to read but she just loved being bundled up out of the weather, listening to the wind in the trees and watching the night sky.
Meg was putting the packing material back in the box. “Where is everybody? I thought Lisa and Jennifer were coming, too.”
Amanda gave the hanger a final whack with a hammer and carefully hung the lights inside the window. “I gave Jennifer the rest of the day off. She’s got choir practice at the church, and then later she’s got another one with the Dickens Carolers.” She climbed down the stepladder, slipping the hammer into her belt loop. “Seems like everybody in town’s got something to do for the Hometown Holidays coming up. Lisa said she’d be by later.”
Ravenwood Cove Cozy Mysteries Books 1-3 Page 31