Whispering Pines Mysteries Box Set 3

by Shawn McGuire

Jola laughed. “Good thing the floor is carpeted.”

  “Right? I can only imagine the damage she’d do to the walls, herself, and the floor if it was hardwood.”

  Jola crossed the room to her patient’s side and whispered, “Leslie? Can you hear me? You’ve been in an accident, but you’re okay. You’ve got some bruises, Leslie, but you should be fine.”

  She repeated the woman’s name a few more times as she spoke, hoping to revive her. I thought I saw Leslie’s legs move a bit, so maybe it was working.

  “That might be a positive sign,” Jola said of the twitch. “Or it could simply be reflex movements. I wish I knew what was wrong with her.”

  “You said it before, the brain isn’t your forte. Do specialists even fully understand the brain?”

  She laughed at this, shaking her head and relaxing a little.

  “Don’t put so much pressure on yourself, Jola. You’re doing all you can. And I think you’re going above and beyond by staying at her side this way.”

  “Thanks. Would you mind if I—” She pointed at the bathroom. “Not that I expect anything will happen in the thirty seconds I’m gone. That’s the most she moved in hours.”

  “The moment you walk away is exactly when something will happen. Go ahead. I’ve got nowhere I need to be.”

  After Jola had closed the door to the toilet/shower room between the Jack and Jill rooms, I stood and stared at Leslie. “I wonder . . .” I went to the bedside and leaned close to her ear. Saying her own name hadn’t caused much of a reaction. What about saying Esther’s name? If she could hear me, the last thing I wanted to do was traumatize her with the awful details of what had happened to her . . . friend? I didn’t know what the relationship was between them. If there even was a relationship. Because of what had happened last night—Leslie’s night terror, calling out the name Esther, and the bruises on her body—I’d assumed Esther was an abuser. But dreams weren’t literal interpretations of events. Maybe Esther had simply offered Leslie a ride, and Leslie’s dream mind connected her with some other awful person. The possibilities were many, so I couldn’t make assumptions.

  I whispered, “Leslie, I found the wrecked car. I also found Esther.”

  Regardless of their relationship status, saying Esther’s name caused an almost immediate reaction. Leslie’s hands clenched the covers, her arms stiffened, and her eyes darted back and forth beneath her eyelids like when someone was in the REM phase of sleep.

  I stood and stepped back, panicking. I spun and looked for Jola. She emerged from the bathroom a few seconds later, and at the look on my face rushed to my side.

  “What happened?”

  I told her what I’d said. “What did I do? Was that too much? I didn’t say anything about how Esther died.”

  “I wish I could tell you.” Jola frowned at her patient who was quiet again. “Like a few minutes ago, it might be a response to hearing a familiar name, or it could simply be a muscular reflex.”

  Guilt racked me. This poor woman had already been through enough. The last thing I’d wanted to do was cause her any more trauma. “If you want to call that doctor you spoke with earlier, feel free to use the phone in the office downstairs.”

  Jola considered it but shook her head. “Without having the patient in front of him or even solid test results, he’d only be guessing at a diagnosis. Best to stay the course.”

  I nodded, hanging on to the guilt. Me opening my mouth that way might have been the wrong thing to do. “Dinner should be ready soon. Mac-n-cheese, I believe. We’ll bring a tray up for you if you want one.”

  “That sounds great. If I may ask, a green salad would be nice too.”

  “Not a problem. Say the word if you want anything.”

  She placed a hand on my arm when I turned to leave. “You didn’t do anything. It was a reaction, nothing more. Shake it off.”

  I smiled weakly and shook my whole body. “Be back in a bit.”

  Out in the hall, I pulled the door shut softly and slumped against the wall. First I yelled at my volunteers in an effort to motivate them. Then I caused a violent reaction in a head trauma patient while trying to wake her up. I realized there was a yin for every yang, but did it have to be quite so in my face lately?

  “You need to stay away from her.”

  I looked down the hall to see Tripp and Jonah having a discussion. More appropriately, a physical altercation since Tripp had Jonah pinned up against the wall with his forearm to Jonah’s chest.

  “What’s going on?” I called as I ran toward them.

  “I found him outside the room down there,” Tripp reported.

  Jonah tilted his chin in a defiant, challenging pose.

  “Again?” I asked.

  You dismissed the thump on the wall earlier as Meeka, Jayne in my head prodded.

  First she wanted me to give him the benefit of the doubt. Now she wanted me to think the worst of my ex? I mentally shushed her as Tripp’s attention spun from me to Jonah.

  “Again?” Tripp repeated. “Are you bothering our guests? A very sick woman is in that room.”

  Tripp had been annoyed with guests before. Our very first batch included a man so intent on harassing women all around the village, his chauvinistic ways ultimately got him killed. Many were far more demanding than we ever anticipated. One had the volume on her television turned up far too loud. When we knocked on her door at two in the morning, she insisted she couldn’t sleep any other way and since she paid for the room, she could do what she wanted in there and refused to turn it down. Through all of that and more, Tripp never lost his cool. Looked like the stresses of the day had finally caught up to him. Or maybe it was that it was Jonah in front of him. Or both.

  I stepped forward and pried Tripp’s arm free from my ex before Jonah pressed assault charges.

  “What is your fascination with the woman in that room?” I demanded. “Is it the patient? Do you have a thing for Jola? Lily Grace?”

  He shook his head. “Who are Jola and Lily Grace?”

  So it was Leslie. Not that I’d reveal her name. “What’s going on, Jonah?”

  “I need to talk with you.” He looked from me to Tripp and back. “Alone.”

  Tripp burst out laughing. “Not going to happen. You’ve got something to say to her, you’ll do it in front of me.”

  “Why?” Jonah challenged him and asked me, “Does he run your life? Is that why you’re staying in this godforsaken little village in the middle of nowhere? If you want to get out of here, say the word. I’ll take you with me when I—”

  “Stop it.” I sighed. How ironic for him to accuse Tripp of trying to run my life. “Tripp is not keeping me here against my will. I love it here. He loves it here.” I looked up at the man I’d fallen head-over-heels for. “And I love him.”

  Jonah squirmed. “Even though he doesn’t trust you? Why won’t he let you make your own decisions?”

  “It’s not her I don’t trust.” Tripp pushed his shoulders back in an obvious display of machismo. It was kinda cute.

  Jonah rubbed his hands over his face. “What reason do you have to not trust me?”

  Lying? Skulking around bedroom doors? Threatening my dog? And what was going on between him and Millie? Nothing surrounding this man who I’d known for so many years was adding up. Or had I been blind to the truth all along and this was exactly who he’d always been?

  “Maybe,” I suggested, “it’s because you obviously lied about why you’re here. You took a wrong turn on your way to Bemidji, or wherever you were going? Did you really expect me to believe that?”

  He looked down at his feet. “The reason I’m here is exactly what I want to talk to you about.”

  “You admit that you lied then?” Tripp demanded.

  Answering his question but looking at me, Jonah nodded. “Yes, and I’d like to tell you the truth.”

  A shiver skittered up my neck. Somehow, him backing down and being so conciliatory about the lie felt even stranger.

  R
iver rounded the corner of the hall then and paused when he saw the three of us standing there. “Is everything all right?”

  “Why,” Jonah blurted, “does everyone assume there’s a problem? Everything’s fine. I just need to talk to Jayne.”

  Despite Tripp and River acting as bodyguards, or maybe partially because of them, a sense of claustrophobia was setting in. The last twenty-four hours had been nonstop and high stress. All I wanted to do at that moment was run up to my she loft and be alone for a few minutes. But there was a dead body in the garage. Nothing relaxing about that place right now. “Did you need something, River?”

  “Yes. Lady Briar asked me to announce that dinner will be ready in two minutes.”

  Comfort food. That would help. And Oreos. I was pretty sure that package I was munching my way through earlier was still sitting on the coffee table upstairs.

  “I really do want to speak with you,” Jonah insisted.

  I held up a hand. “Food first. Check back after I’ve eaten.”

  Tripp cleared his throat. “Let me know—”

  I silenced him with a pointed stare. I seriously couldn’t deal with dueling boyfriends on top of everything else right now. While everyone else gathered in the dining room, I chose to sit at the kitchen bar. Alone.

  “Babe?” Tripp’s tone was cautious when he checked on me.

  “I’m fine. I promise.”

  Briar came to the kitchen seconds later to get another casserole dish full of mac-n-cheese and asked if I was all right. I gave her the same answer, then picked up my dinner plate and glass of milk.

  “Where are you going?” Tripp asked.

  “To the office. I need a few minutes of quiet to collect my thoughts.” I turned away and then back. “Someone needs to bring a tray up to Jola. She’d like a green salad with it.”

  I hadn’t even lowered my butt into the desk chair when I heard scratching on the outside of the door. Meeka. She was either overwhelmed with the strangeness—me going on a call without my K-9, Morgan and Briar cooking instead of Tripp, people in our house she had only ever seen in the village—or she was sensing my frustration. I opened the door wide enough for her to come in and shut it again. Fortunately she knew the last thing I needed was for her to climb into my lap when I was vibrating at this frequency. She lay on my feet instead, which was welcome because they were freezing and my slippers were two floors up in the apartment.

  I took my time eating, enjoying every piece of macaroni and every drop of cheese sauce. It was warm and gooey and completely satisfying. Considering how much more relaxed I was by the time my plate was licked clean—Meeka’s doing, not mine—I was sure Briar had added a little hocus pocus to the dish. Or maybe I’d just been that hungry. How long ago had I eaten lunch?

  Opening the door quietly and sneaking to the kitchen, I left my plates in the sink and slid up the stairs without anyone hearing me. The heat from Meeka’s body had only warmed my feet a little. I needed my slippers.

  Two minutes later, my feet were finally warming up, and I was inserting a third cookie into my mouth when I heard a voice behind me.

  “I love Oreos.”

  I spun to find Millie at the top of my stairs.

  Chapter 18

  Millie pointed down to the door at the bottom of the steps. “I knocked. Guess you didn’t hear.”

  “So you just came up?” I asked with a half-chewed cookie in my cheek. I swallowed before continuing. “This apartment isn’t a public space, you know. It’s my home, my private quarters.”

  I glared down at Meeka. Fine watchdog she was. The Westie crossed the apartment and settled into her cushion on the floor at the foot of our bed. Which neither Tripp nor I made today. At least there was nothing embarrassing lying around.

  “Did you want something?” After a few seconds and no reply, I nudged, “Millie?”

  She blinked at me, her foggy expression clearing. “Yes. Sorry. What?”

  Millie was an odd duck. She seemed nervous. Or maybe she was naturally spacey. Or like Morgan had said, she might be uncomfortable around me. But then why barge into my apartment?

  “I asked if you wanted something. You said you knocked, so you must’ve known I was up here. What did you want?”

  When she still didn’t answer, I gestured at the couch. It faced a wall of windows that looked out at the lake, a beautiful view even during a blizzard.

  “Have a seat. Would you like some cookies and milk?”

  “I’d love some cookies. And if you have anything stronger than milk . . .”

  I could go for a beer. Or a glass of red wine. Tripp, Pine Time’s wine expert, explained that red paired well with chocolate. And Oreos were chocolate.

  “Beer or wine?” I asked from the kitchenette.

  “Oh, a beer would be great.”

  I was already reaching for the wine. Totally misread her. I pictured her at high society and political functions and therefore pegged her as a wine gal. Not that there were rules. At least no one had ever balked when I asked for a beer at the events I went to with Jonah.

  “Spotted Cow or Sprecher Winter Lager?”

  “I’ve never had a Winter Lager. I’ll try one of those.”

  I could feel her relax from across the room as she slumped into the sofa cushions. Millie was a lot more stressed out than I realized. Why?

  Using my good hostess manners, I put some cookies on a plate and grabbed a couple of napkins. We didn’t have any mugs up here, so Millie would have to drink her beer from the bottle. She didn’t seem to care. I waited while she drank half the lager and nibbled three cookies. It appeared I wasn’t the only one in the house who self-medicated with sweets. Although it had been a long time since I’d done that. Not including this morning.

  “Millie,” I began, “is everything okay?”

  “Oh, sure. I wanted to check on you is all.”

  Really? “Check on me? Why?”

  “You had a rough day.”

  I snorted a laugh. “That’s putting it mildly.”

  She looked me right in the eye with her light-blue ones, and her face softened. “You mentioned that thing with the guys and the fishing hut. Then you said you found a car in a ditch.” She twisted the cookie halves apart. “Where did you find it?”

  There was something about this woman. Before I realized I was doing it, I said, “Just before the hotels on the edge of the village.”

  “Did the people make it?”

  “The passenger managed to get out and wander to the grocery store parking lot. One of the store’s employees brought her to the clinic, and then the power went out over there . . .” I shook my head as though to say, what else could go wrong?

  “The driver didn’t make it?” Millie asked.

  “The driver is—” I almost said in the garage.

  What on earth was I doing? Why was I telling her so much? Because I was trying to string the details together. If Reed was here, he and I would whiteboard everything. We’d come up with a timeline and list every possibility we could think of. The last thing Tripp needed was to rehash the events of the day. I could tell Morgan. If I needed to talk to someone other than Tripp, Morgan was my go-to gal. Rosalyn had gotten much better at keeping mum about these things too.

  Not only was Millie not the one I should talk to, she wasn’t up here because she was worried about me. For all she knew, this was a perfectly normal day in my life. She was really good at making small talk. A skill she’d surely learned by attending high-society functions and political gatherings. Pair her ability to get people to talk with the events of today and my ex-boyfriend lying to me about why he was here, and I became a babbling fool. At least I caught myself before letting anything important slip.

  I cleared my throat and tried again. “No, the driver didn’t make it.”

  She handed me a cookie. “That’s so sad.”

  I waved off the offer, and she shoved it in her mouth. “You didn’t come up here to check on me, did you? What do you really want?”<
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  She hesitated, nibbling the Oreo while twisting her dark hair around her finger. In body language, that meant she was either flirting with me or trying to calm herself. There were few things more relaxing than someone playing with your hair. Even if that someone was yourself.

  Finally she admitted, “I’m just not used to interacting with so many people, you know? I’m more of a one-on-one gal.”

  “I thought your family was part of the Madison social scene. And don’t you go to a bazillion political events with Jonah?”

  Her eyes went wide as she looked at me over her bottle. At the rate she was sucking on that thing, she’d need another one soon, especially if she was going to tell me whatever was on her mind. I grabbed a second bottle for her from our small refrigerator, opened it, and set it in front of her. I’d only drank about a third of mine so didn’t need a refill. More importantly, I needed to keep my wits about me.

  After one more cookie and a sip from the second beer, she blurted, “I didn’t know what I was getting into.”

  I had a pretty good idea what she was talking about. “You mean getting involved with Jonah? How long have you two been together?”

  Again with the wide eyes. Guess that wasn’t what she meant.

  “All right.” I shifted positions on the sofa to face her. “I’d like someone to start telling me the truth.”

  “What do you mean?” She reached for another cookie, and I pushed the plate to the far side of the coffee table with my foot.

  This was exactly why I didn’t give suspects anything to eat or drink unless I was leaving the interview room to get myself a snack. As soon as I asked a question, they stuffed food into their mouths or suddenly got very thirsty and wouldn’t be able to answer my question while they drank an entire bottle of water. And then they’d need to use the bathroom.

  “I mean, you and Jonah have been lying to me.”

  She folded her napkin in half three times. “Why do you say that?”

  “He hasn’t given me any details, but he admitted that story you two gave about how you ended up here was a lie. I assumed as much right away. Jonah knows the roads around Madison like he knows his way around his own apartment. He’d never take the wrong way when heading toward Bemidji or Brainerd or wherever it is your parents live. Or if he did, he’d course correct immediately. The only way he’d head into a blizzard was if there was something wrong.”