Whispering Pines Mysteries Box Set 3

by Shawn McGuire

  River placed his hands on my shoulders and stared into my eyes with his black-brown ones. That same aura of calm encircled me like a forcefield, centering me almost as well as holding Meeka close did.

  “Proprietress, I will stay with Tripp, but we need to know that you will also be safe. We are not doubting your abilities, but you should not be alone either.”

  “I won’t be alone. Atkins is coming back with a team and they’re going to search the village for Donovan. I’m going back to Reed’s cottage and demand he comes back to work and partner with me.”

  Tripp laughed like this was a crazy idea. “You’re going to put your safety in the hands of a man who’s mentally unstable?”

  “Reed isn’t mentally unstable.” I remembered the months after I’d ended things with Jonah. I could barely function. Of course, I’d quit my job, too, which was equally upsetting. “He suffered a devastating breakup. Haven’t you ever had your heart broken that way?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Tripp,” River scolded instantly.

  If he would’ve punched me in the gut, it wouldn’t have felt different. The breath left my lungs, and my vision narrowed for a second.

  I looked to River and mumbled, “Keep him safe, please.”

  I spun and started for the stairs, but a hand on my upper arm turned me around. Tripp wrapped his arms around me.

  “I’m sorry. God, I’m sorry. What a stupid thing to say. I’m just frustrated and scared something will happen to you.”

  I’d seen enough people in highly charged situations to know really stupid things could come out of their mouths when scared. Then again, words spoken when emotional were sometimes the truth.

  “Remember how Donovan thinks,” I told him. “Physically harming someone isn’t his method for taking revenge. Emotional, long-lasting trauma is how he operates. He knows that hurting you would damage me for life.” I looked up to see his eyes glistening, and my strength returned. “I’m not going to do anything stupid. I promise. If Reed still refuses, I’ll stick close to Atkins. Okay?”

  He hesitated before nodding. “Okay.”

  I pulled away from him, went directly to our bedroom, and to the nightstand on my side of the bed. I reached all the way to the back of the drawer to get to what I was looking for.

  First, I found a small purple muslin bag, about the size of a deck of playing cards. Inside it were bits of basil, bay, cedar, thistle, lavender, and pine. Also in the mix were a golden pentacle charm, a small piece of quartz, and a shard of black tourmaline. This wasn’t what I’d come for, but I shoved the protection bag Morgan had given me six months earlier into my front pocket anyway.

  I patted around the back of the drawer until I felt a chain. Hanging from that chain was a small glass vial filled with tiny pieces of amethyst, black tourmaline, quartz, and amber. A small round apple-green peridot stone dangled from the bottom of the vial. Joining the amulet on the silver chain was a pewter pendant from Morgan’s talisman collection. She’d called the quarter-sized pendant an Algiz and claimed it was a powerful protection rune.

  As I slipped the chain over my head and then dropped the amulet and talisman beneath my shirt, I couldn’t help but laugh. Six months ago, I’d looked at Morgan like she was loopy when she insisted this pretty necklace would protect me from the nastiness going on in the village. Perhaps it was time for me to put a little more faith in some things I didn’t fully understand.

  The hag stone Mallory had given me at the pub lay in the front of the drawer where I’d tossed it the other night. As far as I knew, the stone didn’t offer protection for anything, but it would be good to know if people were telling me the truth. How exactly I was to determine that, I didn’t know. Mallory never explained that part.

  I added the stone to the other two items on my chain and slipped it back around my neck. When I turned away from the nightstand, Meeka was looking up at me with a curious expression.

  “What? It can’t hurt.”

  Time to go back to Reed’s cottage. Surely once he understood what was going on, he’d come back to work.

  Chapter 24

  As I walked the short distance from where I’d parked to Reed’s front door, Meeka headed for the woods to explore. This time, I called her back.

  “Sorry, girl. There’s a crazy man wandering the village. You need to stay with me.”

  I got to the door, but Reed opened it before I could knock.

  “I saw you coming,” he said. “And I heard you. Might want to look into a new muffler for your Cherokee.”

  “I need a whole new vehicle. This one’s slowly dying. Can I come in?”

  He held the door open and stepped aside for me to enter. He’d started hanging drywall since the last time I’d been there.

  “Got all your electrical done?”

  “Yep. Mr. Powell signed off this morning.” He sighed. “Drywalling takes forever.”

  “You don’t have to tell me that. I didn’t think Tripp would ever get done with the attic walls.”

  “Was there something you wanted, Sheriff, or did you just stop by to check on my home improvement skills?” He clearly didn’t want me hanging around any longer than necessary.

  Since we were being blunt, I didn’t bother with a warmup. “Time to be done with your leave of absence. I need you to come back to work now.” He started to object, but I talked over him. “Donovan is back in the village, and he’s making threats.”

  I handed Reed the four evidence bags with the cards. He inspected them closely, his brow creasing as he did.

  “What do you want me to do?” The statement was more dismissive than concerned. He held the bags out to me as though passing me a rag with which to wipe up a spill.

  I looked at him, dumbfounded. “I want you to help me look for him.”

  “Have you gone door to door?” The statement was innocent enough, a deputy inquiring about the progress of an investigation. However, his uninterested tone made it obvious it was a recommendation, not a question, and was all the help he was going to give me.

  “You do recall that this man is responsible for my grandmother’s death. Now he’s threatening Tripp. My own life could be in danger as well.”

  His response was to change the topic. “How did this last case turn out?”

  Why was he being so cold to me? “You mean the stabbing? I closed that case this morning. Deputy Atkins took three people off to county.”

  “That’s great. Seems you handled that one fine without me.”

  “Actually, I had help.” I explained how I had recruited Jagger, Emery, Tripp, Gino, and other villagers to get it all done. “Atkins is coming back with a team to search the village.”

  “Sounds like you don’t need me, then.” He poured drywall screws into a suede pouch clipped to his belt.

  “Others can do the legwork, Reed. You help me in a different way. You work through the cases with me. Rather than simply following instructions, you know to question some things and to do other things without me needing to ask. I’ve come to count on and trust you a great deal.”

  He didn’t respond.

  “I’ve mentioned my old partner Randy Ketchum before. He and I started out a little rocky, almost as rocky as you and I did, but we got to the point of knowing each other’s thoughts almost as well as we knew our own. I feel that kind of a partner connection with you too.”

  Reed picked up his cordless drill and ran a few screws into the drywall. “Didn’t Randy end up shooting a civilian? Did you know that was going to happen? Is that how well you knew him?”

  He was trying hard to pick a fight with me. Morgan, Briar, and Tavie all told me I needed to deal with my demons before I could help others. Maybe this was part of that.

  “You know what?” I said, my patience starting to wane. “That was on me, I admit that. I knew Ketch was struggling with relationship problems, just like I know you’re struggling. His wife didn’t want him being out on the streets anymore. They had a toddler at home and a bab
y on the way. She was pushing him to quit the job he loved.”

  “Might want to reconsider your relationship with Tripp, then. Seems even in this dinky village, this job and relationships don’t go together.”

  Considering the arguments I’d had with Tripp lately, Reed had no idea how close to my truth he was.

  “Do you blame me for what happened with Lupe?” I asked. “Is that what this attitude is? Are you somehow mangling the facts and making it my fault that you ended up with a broken heart?”

  He shook his head and turned away without offering a reply.

  Is this how it would always be? By taking on the responsibility of being sheriff, would that mean I also had to accept a good deal of the blame for things that went wrong?

  “You’re far from the first to put everything on me,” I told him. “Your mother has formed her own villager vigilante group. Did you know that?”

  He paused for half a second before shaking his head again.

  “When I took this job, I figured it would be an easy transition. Sure, things might be busy during the summer, but I’d dealt with Madison, which has approximately three hundred times as many people as Whispering Pines. I figured the non-tourist times here would be a cakewalk.” I laughed and paced from his living room into his kitchen as I ranted. “That’s what you’d think, but no, things just keep coming up. If it’s not tourists picking fights and stabbing each other, it’s villagers creating chaos instead of joining together to fix problems.”

  He drilled in two more screws, ignoring me.

  “You know what, Reed? I’m done being patient.” I gestured around his new home. “Not to sound like an old fogey, but you’re entering the adult phase of your life now. That includes doing things you don’t necessarily want to do. You made a commitment to the village and me. When you’re not away at school, I expect you to honor that commitment.”

  He faced me, expression neutral, arms hanging at his sides.

  Without begging or becoming emotional, I stated, “I need help. If you can’t come back to work and do your job, then turn in your badge. I don’t want to start over, but I’m getting pretty good at that. Jagger has expressed interest in helping me when you’re not able to.”

  “Are you threatening my job?”

  I guess I was, but I didn’t mean to. Like Tripp’s had not even an hour ago, my mouth had taken over my brain.

  “I told you how much I value you as a deputy and that I want you to come back to work. I meant both of those things. But I can’t put my life and the life of the man I love in jeopardy while you keep moping around over the breakup of a two-month romance.”

  Dammit. The words were true, but I hadn’t meant to say them. So much for not getting emotional. Before anything else stupid fell out of my mouth, I stormed out of his house and over to my vehicle. I sat with my hands on the steering wheel, so upset I was shaking.

  I entertained the idea of going for a drive. That sometimes relaxed me. Driving while this upset wasn’t a good idea, though. Besides, Atkins was on his way. I needed to get back to the station and wait for them.

  The drive from Reed’s place took six minutes, only because there were people shopping in the village today and the highway was a little congested. When the highway was clear, the drive took three.

  Once at the station, I needed to do something useful while I waited for Atkins. I grabbed the fingerprint set from the crime scene kit and pulled on a pair of gloves.

  Working on the stainless-steel table near the evidence locker in my office, I slowly and methodically dusted every inch, front and back, of each of the four cards and envelopes with black fingerprint powder. I even dusted the picture of Tripp. Donovan must have worn gloves, as had I, because there were no prints on the first one. I found my prints on the edges of the card delivered to my table at Triple G—I hadn’t worn gloves when handling that one. The third one, the one he’d dropped off at the station when Tripp and Gino were doing guard duty, held a different set of prints. I could test them to be certain, and would if necessary, but it was a safe bet that those prints were Gino’s. Donovan had handed the envelope to him when he dropped it off, and Gino had set it on my desk. The fourth card had no prints.

  I’d just returned the cards to their respective bags when the back door opened and a flood of people entered my station.

  Chapter 25

  Atkins had returned with a team of a dozen women and men. An additional six deputies were also on their way to Whispering Pines. The variety of uniform colors told me they’d come from different locales. Either it was a slow day or they were all frustrated over Donovan eluding them for so long and were ready to bust him.

  “We’ve all seen pictures of Page so know who we’re looking for,” Atkins addressed the deputies gathered in a half moon around Reed’s desk. He was taking the lead since I was too close to the situation. “We all also know the details surrounding this case. Sheriff O’Shea, why don’t you show us the cards you received and tell us what’s been going on.”

  As the evidence bags with the cards circulated through the group, I gave a rundown on my history with Donovan, specifically the details of how we were related and what I believed happened with my grandmother.

  “You all know he assaulted Deputy Atkins and escaped custody, which prompted the APB. There isn’t much more to tell. I prevented him from getting what he wanted, and now he’s taking revenge.”

  “Have there been any specific sightings of him in Whispering Pines?” Atkins asked.

  “No, but there is a man wandering the village wearing a brown jacket, aviator sunglasses, and a white stocking cap with a Minnesota Vikings logo. I’ve only seen this man in passing, not face to face, but believe he’s Donovan Page.” I paused to think if there was anything else that might help them. “Oh, there’s a very unusual looking building almost directly north of here. It looks like a bunch of small buildings cobbled together and is called the un-church. I saw someone with white hair in the upper window of the tower although it could have been a white hat. Donovan has white hair.”

  “Un-church?” one deputy asked as another said, “Tower?”

  “The woman who lives there used to be a nun.” At their blank stares, I added, “She says the church excommunicated her, but she still considers herself to be a nun and calls her chapel the un-church.” Unable to stop myself, I started giggling. “Sorry. She conducts un-masses and counsels people.”

  “Or does she un-counsel them?” someone asked.

  “Around here,” I said, laughing again, “that’s entirely possible.”

  The group chuckled with me until Atkins cleared his throat.

  I brought out a large map of the village and pointed out the location of the un-church. As I reviewed the layout of the rest of the village, I couldn’t help but think of the search for Jacob Jackson last month. The hunt had brought the villagers together for a while. Now, they were pulling apart.

  “You’ll stay here?” Atkins asked.

  “I’ll stick to the immediate area.”

  Atkins shook his head before I could say more. Quietly, so the other deputies wouldn’t hear him scolding me, he pulled me to the side and said, “Either stay here or go home. Or you can tag along with one of the teams. I don’t want you wandering the village by yourself. We’ll be out there for hours, and I won’t check in with you until the end unless we find him. No news means we have nothing to report.”

  “I understand.” As much as I wanted to help, it was best to let Atkins and his teams handle this. “I’ll stay here.”

  It turned out, sitting in the station for hours with nothing to do except wait for the teams to report in was really boring. Meeka slept, inspected every corner of the station, slept again, went outside to do her thing, and then slept some more. I ordered lunch from Triple G, played a little online Solitaire, dozed in my chair for a while, then called my sister. When she didn’t answer, I left a voicemail.

  “Just checking in. We haven’t talked in a couple weeks. How’
re you doing since the breakup?” She’d said when she left the village after Samhain that she would be ending things with her boyfriend, James. Turned out, she meant it and broke things off as soon as she saw him. “As usual, we’ve got a little drama going on up here.” Damn. Why did I say that? It would just freak her out. “Nothing I can’t handle, of course. Anyway, talk to you soon.”

  A minute later, she texted: At a community Christmas play with Mom. I’m so bored! Points to the performers for trying, but only one of them can sing.

  I responded: Why are you listening to voicemail and texting? You should be paying attention to the show.

  Told you, I’m bored!!!!! And if you want me to pay attention to the play, why do you keep texting?

  I hated it when she was right. Brat. Have fun. Talk later.

  She responded with a row of hearts and kissy lips.

  Not knowing what else to do, I scrolled through the FBI’s and then Wisconsin’s Most Wanted lists. There were some scary dudes wandering the country.

  Finally, after searching the village for six hours, Atkins returned with nothing to report.

  “We went door to door.” His voice held a combination of frustration, exhaustion, and annoyance. “The nun at the, uh, un-church let us in to search her place when I told her you reported seeing someone in that window. There was no one but her and a white cat with blue eyes.” He dropped into one of the chairs across from my desk. “Are you sure it was Page who left the cards?”

  “No, I told you we didn’t have an actual sighting. You’ve got to admit, it makes sense. Activity relating to him was reported in Duluth. That’s only ninety minutes away.” I twisted to the left and then the right to ease the tension in my back. It popped five times. “Maybe he’s hiding in one of the cottages?”