by K. J. Emrick
“You’ll see,” she whispered to him.
Then she dashed into the sparse growth of trees that bordered this side of the road, bringing Butter with her.
“I’m assuming there’s a plan here,” Kyle said, floating along with her, his glowing blue form phasing right through trees in a way that was making Miranda’s eyes bug out. “You have a plan, don’t you?”
“Sure, I have a plan.” Miranda was being careful not to step on any twigs or piles of dry leaves. It was making for slow going. “I’m going to sneak up to the van as close as I can, and then find out what they’re up to.”
“Just like that?”
“Just like that,” Miranda confirmed.
“That’s a horrible plan,” Kyle told her.
“No, it’s a great plan. Nothing can go wrong.”
“Everything can go wrong. Everything can always go wrong.”
She had to adjust her path around a jumble of pine cones and dead brush, but then she was within sight and earshot of the van, and a couple of heavy trees gave her good cover to kneel behind. She couldn’t see the driver inside the van, but the side window was down because of the heat and she could hear a man’s voice.
Who was he talking to? Himself? Or was there someone else in the van with him?
Risking a quick peek, she carefully stood up, sure to keep to the cover of the trees. She could see the outline of a masculine arm holding a mobile satellite phone. So, he was alone, then. Miranda could have used a phone like that right about now. Last time she’d checked her own ordinary mobile still had no signal.
“I know,” he was saying. “I know. What do you expect me to do? The place is crawling with police. No. Can’t get anywhere near the body.”
Miranda felt her eyes grow wide. Whoever was in there was talking about Caleb Owen’s body. He wanted to get to Caleb, but the police were stopping him.
Her eyes narrowed. The voice she was hearing was one that she recognized. It was so familiar. She just couldn’t remember why…
But then she could.
“That’s Josh Bates!” Miranda whispered to Kyle. She couldn’t believe it. He was here. Now. In the middle of this whole mystery.
Kyle looked from her to the van, from the van to her. “Who’s Josh Bates?”
She gaped at him. “Seriously? Think for a minute, Kyle.”
It didn’t even take him a minute. “Oh! The tour boat captain. That’s the Josh Bates you mean? The one who said he knew your Aunt Connie?”
“Exactly. The one who showed up on our doorstep just before that article arrived. My aunt might be alive, and Josh Bates might know where she is. He said he knew her. He said he knew about our family’s psychic ability.”
She couldn’t believe it. Josh Bates was someone she didn’t exactly trust, but he might have the answers she needed. The thing of it was, they hadn’t seen anything at all from him in days. Not since his tour boat had caught fire in Moonlight Bay and burned to ash. The working theory had been that he had drowned in whatever terrible accident had destroyed the boat. Officially, as far as the police were concerned, Josh Bates was a missing person.
Only, here he was.
“I don’t care!” Josh Bates was saying. He waved his hand wildly through the air, obviously annoyed at whoever he was talking to. “It’s too risky to try getting to the scene now. The police are there. Uh-huh. Well, you killed him. I know. We both thought the body would be submerged for days until we could get it out of there. The weather is against us, mate. What can I say? Nobody saw this heat wave coming. Bad luck, is what it is.”
A thought suddenly occurred to her. Holding on tightly to Butter’s leash with one hand, she took her mobile phone out with the other and pressed the camera icon. A photo of Josh Bates—or better yet, a video of him talking to Caleb Owen’s killer—was what she needed now. Jack needed to see this.
“Well, I’m telling you,” Josh snarled, “I can’t get near him. We’ll have to think of some other way to cover up what you did because there’s no way I can dispose of the corpse for you. Not now. You aren’t paying me enough for me to get arrested.”
Miranda couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Bates had made a deal with someone to actually remove the body. When they had first met, she wondered about the man. He hadn’t seemed like an ordinary tour boat captain. Now she knew why. He was a criminal. He probably only used the tour boat business as a cover.
“Obviously,” she muttered to herself, “he faked his own death.”
“What’s that?” Kyle asked her.
“Shh, I need to get a photo of Bates in the van.”
“What do you mean, shh?” He looked insulted at the very suggestion. “It’s not like anyone can hear me!”
That gave her another idea. “Kyle, do me a favor. You can get closer to that van than I can. See if you can get a look at the screen of his mobile to see what number he’s talking to. Can you do that?”
He gave her a quick salute. “Right-O, chief!”
Butter gave her a look, which she correctly interpreted to be a comment on Kyle’s humor. She wondered if dogs ever wished that they didn’t have to be blessed with the ability to see ghosts.
Carefully, she raised the phone up, checking the image on the screen against what her eyes were seeing. She was going to have to raise her arms way up above her head to see inside the van. Slowly, slowly, she got the camera angle up high enough, hidden behind the trees, and then she could see Josh Bates’ arm, and then his hand, as he tapped impatiently against the dash.
Kyle floated through the windshield to get a better angle to see Bates’ mobile. Her eyes could see him. Her camera couldn’t.
What she needed was to be closer. She didn’t dare move from where she was. Butter was lying still, too, like he knew that getting them spotted now would lead to all sorts of bad things. Instead, she used her fingers to swipe the screen and zoom the image in.
Almost there.
“Whatever,” Josh Bates grumbled, startling her so much that she almost dropped the mobile. “Look, you come up with a better plan and call me then. Otherwise, this is your mess. Clean it up yourself.”
He tossed the phone onto the passenger seat. Then he started the van’s engine and did a U-Turn and, drove up the road past the Blue Jay Bed and Breakfast, away from where Jack had said his cops had a roadblock set up at the crime scene. No one would even ever know Josh Bates had been here. And all she had on her phone as proof was the man’s hand and arm.
As an afterthought she clicked a picture of the back of the van, before it was too far away, capturing the license tag. There. At least she had that.
Kyle floated back to her, for all the world acting like he was out of breath. “He was gone too fast,” he panted. “All I saw was part of a name on the mobile screen. Mel.”
“Mel?” Miranda sat back on the ground, thinking back over everything they had heard and seen so far. It didn’t make any sense. “Who’s Mel?”
Kyle shrugged, and reclined back in midair. “I’m supposed to know that? It was the name on the screen. A little thank you for that amazing bit of spirit guide action would be nice, you know.”
“Yes, Kyle. Thank you. Really. I just don’t know what to do about this. Josh Bates is alive. Josh Bates is here. Now, he’s talking to someone named Mel about cleaning up this mess and making the body disappear.”
“Yeah. That’s really creepy.”
“Whuff!” Butter barked in agreement.
She looked down at her own mobile. She had to show the photos to Jack. Things had just gotten a lot more complicated.
Chapter 11
Miranda waited until the van was absolutely out of sight before she moved a muscle. With everything that she had seen and heard, she did not want to risk being seen in Josh Bates’ rear-view mirror and having him kill her or kidnap her, or worse.
Keeping in mind the idea that Josh Bates might return at any moment, Miranda ran hard, Butter keeping pace with her easily. If he had ever really ne
eded to relieve himself, he was over it now. They were moving quick and that might be the last they saw of Bates for a while.
She thought back over her interaction with the short, portly tour boat captain. He had been so unassuming when she first met him. He’d been running up from the beach, wanting to report a murder. Now she had to wonder if maybe he’d had something to do with that death… but no. They’d found the murderer in that case. It had actually been one of Miranda’s neighbors.
Of course, if he was in the business of disposing of dead bodies maybe that was what he had been doing there on the beachfront. Maybe that was how he ‘found’ the body in the first place.
Then his boat had burned and everyone assumed he was dead. What was his game?
Mysteries within mysteries. What was it Jack had said? One thing at a time. Only, if everything was interconnected, could they really just focus on Caleb Owen’s death and ignore Josh Bates?
She didn’t think so.
When she got back to the Blue Jay she threw the front door open, squeaky hinges and all, to rush in. She was surprised to see Sapphire and Jean-Paul standing there.
“Sacre bleu!” Jean-Paul blurted out in his native language when he saw her sweaty red face. “What has happened?”
“Oh no,” Sapphire lamented, holding up the amethyst shard in her hand. “What now? Tell us quickly, Miranda, because I don’t think I can stand to be in this awful place for one more minute!”
Taking her free hand in his, Jean-Paul patted the back of her wrist in a familiar way. “It is all right. We are here together. Nothing can hurt us, if we are together.” That actually seemed to calm her down. She relaxed and nodded her head as she bit at her lower lip. When she had taken a few breaths, he went on, “Besides, I’m sure that Miranda is only in a hurry to find Jack and give him, um, good news. Yes?”
“I wish I was,” she said, knowing the truth was more important to her friends than a comforting lie. “Josh Bates is here. I saw him, out in a van, when I was walking Butter.”
They both stared at her like she was crazy.
“Isn’t he dead?” Sapphire asked.
“Missing,” Jean-Paul corrected. “He was only missing.”
“Not anymore,” she told them. “Where is Jack?”
“Actually, I think he is a bit busy at the moment. He is interviewing Skye Rogers again. He said something in her timeline did not make sense. Yes, and then with her being in Caleb’s room, for my money, I believe that she did it. You can never trust a woman who flaunts herself like that.”
Miranda recognized the same thoughts that she’d been having about Skye in those words. The woman had that certain something about her that just set Miranda’s teeth on edge. It was her personality. The way she related to the world in general and men specifically.
It didn’t make her a killer, necessarily, but it did make her despicable.
Then again, maybe it did make her a killer.
“I have to show him the pictures of Josh Bates. Is he in Skye’s room?”
“Yes,” Sapphire told her. “It’s up on the second floor. Should we wait for you here?”
“Yes. Jack said he was going to have some police officers come here to assist. Tell them where Jack is when they arrive. Um. Can you keep Butter here for me, too?”
“Sure thing,” Jean-Paul said. “But you will be alone. Jack told us not to go anywhere by ourselves, remember?”
“I won’t be alone,” she said cheerfully. “Come on, Kyle. Let’s go find Jack.”
He smiled at being included for a change and walked right beside her as she went off to the stairs. Before she left the front room, she caught the eye roll that Jean-Paul tried to hide. He still didn’t believe in ghosts, or in Kyle’s presence in the room for that matter. He kept it to himself though, probably for Sapphire’s sake.
She found Skye’s room easily enough. All she had to do was follow the sound of Jack’s raised voice.
“This doesn’t add up, Miss Rogers. You’re telling me you haven’t left the Bed and Breakfast in a week but that car outside, with the mud on the tires, is registered to you.”
Ah. So, Jack had been busy while she had been out crawling through the woods. That car in the driveway was the one that had been on the lakebed. The one that had most likely been used to dump Caleb Owen’s body in the water.
Everything really was starting to point at Skye Rogers.
She went in without knocking, and both of them turned to look at her. Jack could see there was something wrong. He gave her a quick nod to tell her that they would talk in just a minute.
“Miss Rogers,” he said to Skye, “you’d better not leave this room without telling me first. You were interfering with a crime scene when you went through Caleb’s belongings. I could have you arrested right now.”
Sitting on her bed, Skye Rogers leaned back on her hands, accentuating the curves of her body and the smooth arch of her neck. Her smile set Miranda’s blood pressure on an immediate upward spiral.
“Hmm. You could always arrest me now, Detective. It might be… fun.”
Miranda bit back the snarling comment that came to her lips as Jack stepped forward with a menacing glare. “I can assure you, Miss Rogers, that if I come to arrest you, it will be anything but fun.”
Skye’s shoulders slumped, and Miranda had the great pleasure of seeing her swallow, hard.
Jack took Miranda’s elbow and led her to the door. Before they left, Miranda looked back over her shoulder. “Skye, what’s your middle name?”
“What?”
“Your middle name. What is it?”
Skye looked completely confused, but she answered. “It’s Cecelia. Why?”
“No reason.”
Outside, in the hallway, Jack made sure to close the door behind him and then led them away down the hall. “Actually,” he said when they were by themselves, “arresting her might be fun, for me.”
Kyle laughed out loud. “There’s the man I know and love.”
“Excuse me?” Miranda asked him sharply.
“Platonic love,” Kyle explained. “Like brothers. You know. Bros.”
“Uh-huh.” She smiled at him and let it go at that. “Jack, is she the killer?”
“I don’t know yet. What was with the questions about her middle name?”
“I wanted to know if it was Mel.”
“What? Why?”
“Because Josh Bates is alive, and he’s here, and he was talking to someone named Mel.”
All he could do was stare at her in blank disbelief. Miranda went through the whole story about what she and Kyle had seen outside. She handed him her mobile, flipping through the photos of Josh Bates and his van.
“Miranda,” he pointed out, “these are pictures of a guy’s arm. Are you sure it was him?”
“If she isn’t,” Kyle said. “I poked my head in that van and I saw that pudgy face. No mistaking that man.”
“Kyle is backing me up,” Miranda told him.
“Well, that’s great,” Jack told her, looking at the photos more closely. “Except I can’t exactly put Kyle up on the witness stand, now can I?”
“Why not?” Kyle wanted to know. “I’d make a great witness. People love me.”
Ignoring him, Miranda leaned in over her mobile and pointed to the screen. “See? I took a picture of the license plate. You can find out who the van is registered to, and then we can find where he’s hiding.”
“Maybe. I’ll definitely have someone look into it. Well, you’re turning into a regular little detective, aren’t you?”
“I’ve learned from the best,” she told him, and watched him squirm under the compliment. “Tell you what, though. I’ll stick to writing books. At least in that profession the only people who try to kill me are literary critics in their reviews.”
“So,” Jack said thoughtfully, handing her back her mobile. “Somebody has called in Josh Bates to get rid of the body. Someone named Mel. I don’t remember seeing anyone named Mel in the B
lue Jay’s register. Well. Maybe it’s the person the van is registered to. Either way, Josh Bates is alive. That clears up one matter off our desks. Let me call the station. They’re going to get sick of hearing my voice today, that’s for certain.”
She went with him and waited while he called it in on the landline, giving them the description of the van and the plate, asking them to keep a look out for it. “Josh Bates is to be considered dangerous, approach with caution. All right. Yes, I’m still at this Bed and Breakfast. The patrols can meet me here. Any word on the forensics? Uh-huh. I see. Thank you.”
He hung up the phone and checked his watch. Miranda knew they’d been here for a while now. The day was wearing on and she was getting hungry. She ignored her stomach when it growled at the thought of food, because this was far more important.
“Okay,” Jack said rubbing a hand over his tired face, “patrols are out and about now, looking for that van and the body. I can’t believe Josh Bates is involved in all this.”
Miranda had to agree. “I know, it does seem a bit out there. First he’s all over us with wild stories about my Aunt Connie, and then he disappears in a literal ball of fire, and now he turns out to be some kind of self-employed disposal engineer for dead bodies.”
His eyes widened. “You don’t think he found that dead body on our beach because he was there to dispose of it, do you? I mean, it’s a pretty big coincidence that he’s been at the scene of two dead bodies now.”
“That we know of,” Miranda agreed. “Yes, I was thinking it must be why he came to our door in the first place. He might have set the whole thing up, or just taken advantage of the situation when he knew the body was on our front doorstep, so to speak. The body provided his way into our lives, I mean.”
“Hmm,” Jack thought to himself. “That makes sense. Kind of paints Josh Bates as a very deadly person, doesn’t it?”
“Maybe Caleb’s killer?” Miranda asked.
Jack was already shaking his head. “No. That doesn’t track. Whoever killed Caleb was here, in the Blue Jay. Your sixth sense told us that. The murder weapon was in Caleb’s room. The vehicle that was at the lake is in the driveway. Detective work told me that. So. It has to be one of the residents here and I can’t see Josh Bates taking time to come check into a Bed and Breakfast when he’s hiding from the police.”