The Getaway

by K. J. Emrick

  Don’t let it happen again. The message from the ghost. Not that I was going to tell James that the driving factors behind me wanting to stay here were a phantom hand scratching messages to me in frosted glass and a personal plea from a dead woman. For some reason this trip had put a real strain on our relationship. I didn’t need it to get worse. “I’m still here, James. I’ve been here, while you and your buddy were on your date.”

  “Very funny,” he said, not sounding the least bit amused. “Actually, Alistair’s been worlds of help. He even knows where that American bloke with the earring is staying. I think he’s worth an interview, don’t you?”

  Exactly what I’d been thinking. “You know we aren’t the police, don’t you?”

  He popped the cap off his longneck by using the edge of the bureau. “Not being police has never stopped us before. I’m going to go talk to the man tomorrow. That whole scene in Felon’s bistro with that heavy black bag…”

  “You noticed that too?” I asked.

  “Uh huh. Tell ya this, too. That bag’d be just enough to stuff a body into. If he… you know. If he cut her up first.”

  “I know.” The gruesome image of what that would mean flashed through my brain again, and then I purposefully let it go. “Do we even know when the girl disappeared?”

  “Yup. We found that little tidbit in the news reports.”

  We, he said. Meaning him and Alistair. I tried not to let it annoy me, but it was like trying to hold back the wind with my own two hands.

  He slipped his ever-present notebook out of his back pocket and flipped a few pages, careful not to slosh his beer out of the top. “She went missing between noon and one this afternoon. Told her friends she wanted to visit the Memorial Garden by herself, and she never came back.”

  I thought through the timeframe of everything that had happened. “So, we stopped for lunch around eleven-thirty. We were there for about an hour…”

  “Which fits into the timeframe she went missing. Gives the American time to do whatever he did, hide the evidence in his bag so he could get out of the grounds without attracting attention, and then show up for us to see him in Felons Bistro.”

  “You think he did it,” I said, not exactly as a question.

  “I think it’s a fair bet he did, yes.”

  It made sense, I suppose, but still… carrying around a kidnap victim in your bag? Right through a crowded visitor’s center? At least I knew that the scream I heard in the Lady’s Room really had been a ghostly wail. The girl hadn’t been taken from right next to me after all. That was a load off my mind.

  It’s a weird world when hearing ghosts makes you feel better.

  Still, I had my doubts. “I think our neighbor has something to do with it. At the very least she’s hiding something.”

  I swear to you, he rolled his eyes. I wanted to bean him but the only thing I had to hand was my beer bottle and the pizza. I could end up going to jail if I hit him with the bottle, and I would go hungry if I hit him with the pizza.

  Sometimes life isn’t fair.

  “Dell. What makes ya think that young girl out there had anything to do with it?”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” I snarked. “Maybe because she seems a little too interested in it. Or maybe it’s because she sat here with me after I asked her to leave several times just so she could ask me if I thought she was a nice girl or if you’d ever been married!”

  For a few triumphant seconds, he didn’t know what to say. Silence is golden, but the silence of a man who’s been outsmarted by a woman is just priceless.

  “She asked about me?” he said, setting his beer aside. “If I’d ever been married?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s odd.”

  “You could say that.”

  He rubbed his fingers over his forehead. I had his attention now. “So she delivered the pizza, came in, and sat down to chat? Plain as that?”

  “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.”

  “What else did she say?”

  I thought back over the conversation we’d had, and while it was definitely odd there was nothing in it that specifically pointed to her as a suspect in the kidnapping. It was just everything about her. “Think about it, James. She comes over and asks us to be quieter so she can sleep, because she has to work nights. Then she just happens to deliver a pizza to our cabin and asks me a whole bunch of crazy questions? I swear to you I feel like she’s spying on us.”

  His eyes got wider as he came over and took hold of me by my arms. “Dell. If she’s the one who… you could have been her next target. That could be exactly why she was over here.”

  “I thought of that, too.” A shiver ran up my spine, and I know he could feel it. He pulled me into him and held me tight while I held my beer and pizza aside. I didn’t hate the way it felt to be in his arms. “I’m all right, James. She had time to do something if she was going to.”

  “Unless she wanted to play with you first. Like a cat with a mouse.” He let go of me to take out his notebook, and grab a pen off the table by the beds, and start writing things down. “She did run out of here pretty quick once I showed up.”

  And, I thought to myself, when she stopped by earlier and saw the two of us here together she might have decided to wait until later. Like tonight, when I was here alone.

  Did Stevie seem the type to do something like that? My gut was saying no, but my mind was putting up all sorts of red flags and caution signs. I needed to know more about her, that was for sure.

  “I want to talk to her again,” I told James. “Tomorrow, in the daylight.”

  Not that daylight had helped Rory Hunter. She’d been snatched in the middle of the day from one of Tasmania’s biggest tourist attractions. How does that happen?

  “That’s fine,” he told me. “Just make sure you do it in a public place. A restaurant, maybe. Something like that.”

  I’m sure I made some sort of noise in my throat that was less than polite. “You’re not coming with me?”

  He looked up from his notes. “I already told ya, Dell. Alistair knows where our big mouthed American is staying. Me and him are going to interview the bloke tomorrow.”

  “James!”

  It was the same thing all over again. Every time I thought we were moving past whatever wall we’d managed to put up between us since coming here, whenever I thought we were getting closer… something drove us apart again. And it always, always, always seemed to involve Alistair. No wonder I was hating on the man with a passion.

  “Dell, I need to do this. I’m a reporter.”

  This time I set my empty bottle down before the urge to throw it could become too much. “If I hear you tell me your profession one more time, James Callahan, I swear I’m going to take your pen and shove it up—”

  “Dell!”

  “I need you, James! Don’t you understand that?” I felt sudden tears stinging my eyes, and wondered how long I’d been holding them in. “I need you to be here for me. I just found my dead husband in my Inn. How do you think that makes me feel? Hmm?”

  “I understand. Really, I do.”

  “No, you don’t! I need to know that we’ll be all right. You and me. The two of us. Not you and me and your job!”

  After a very long silence, he slowly closed his notebook and set it down with the pen on the table in the corner. Then he started to unbutton his shirt. “Do whatever ya like, Dell. If ya want to investigate the girl in the cabin next door just because she’s odd, then go for it. I’m sure your years of running an Inn have honed your investigative skills to a fine point. I’m following this story where it leads, and for now it’s leading me to the American. But then, what do I know? I’m just a reporter.”

  He went to the bathroom, dropping his shirt carelessly to the floor. “You’re welcome to join me and Alistair tomorrow, if ya like. If not, well, then I’ll see ya when I get back.”

  The door to the bathroom closed a little harder than it needed to, and I was alo
ne.

  Shoving the pizza box off the bed to the floor I threw myself under the covers of the spare bed. I wasn’t hungry anymore, and I figured that at least for tonight, a little distance between me and James would be a good thing. He could have our bed. Maybe tomorrow we’d talk about it and close the distance again.

  I felt a tear streaking across my cheek to my pillow. I wiped it away with an angry swipe of my knuckles.

  Chapter 4

  When I woke up the next day, James was gone.

  The pizza box had been picked up and put in the trash. His bed was all mussed, so there was no doubt that he’d slept in the other bed without me. I let that little tidbit add up with all the other bits from our trip while I stripped down and got into the shower. The warm water hammering on my shoulders felt really good. I let it work at my muscles until I felt awake and alert, and then I stood there even longer. This was time just for myself.

  I wondered how much time Rory Hunter had.

  If she wasn’t dead already—stuffed into a black duffle bag, for instance—then she was still being held somewhere by whoever took her. The Federal Police were looking for her. James and his new best buddy were going to interview that American. Everyone seemed to be doing all they could. The ghosts had asked me to speak for them, so what could I do?

  Find Stevie. That’s what I could do. Find her, and make her tell me what she was really doing here in my cabin last night.

  Dressing in jeans and a purple top that I’d been saving for a dinner date with James, I put Jess’s unicorn necklace back on, holding the little wooden carving tight in my fist for a moment. It gave me strength to know it was here with me, even if her spirit was still back at the Pine Lake Inn.

  The cabins James and I were staying in were arranged in a row along the slope of a grassy hill a good four hundred meters from the shoreline. The one we had rented was pretty much in the middle of the group, which meant I had neighbors to either side. At the bottom of the wooden steps I stopped to look out at the gentle motion of the waves, and smell the sea air, and feel the warmth of the early morning sun on my face. Such a beautiful place, Australia is. We might be at the bottom of the world but God certainly didn’t skimp us on the beauty of creation.

  I tried to remember which cabin Stevie had told us was hers. She’d said the number but I’d been so riled up at the time… Right. There was only two to choose from. Pick one, I tell myself.

  At the left cabin, identical to all the others with its stucco sides and its shingled roof, I found a lovely older couple just getting up and ready. I apologized and wished them a good day and went over to the cabin on the other side. This had to be the one. I knocked, and then knocked again. No answer.

  Looking through the front window all I could see was curtains drawn tight. If Stevie was home, or not, there was no way for me to tell. If she wasn’t home, then this would be a great time to go through her things and search the rooms for any sign of the kidnapped girl. At least it would be, if the front door wasn’t locked.

  From staying in my own cabin, I knew a few things about their general design. The windows locked from the inside and the rectangular lower panes pushed outward. There was a back door that had a swing lock and a chain. The bathroom had a window, too, but it was far too small for anyone to get in and out of. What I needed was a way in.

  If Stevie was anything like me and James, then she probably didn’t notice that the windows in the cabins hadn’t been locked when we first got here. The doors hadn’t been either, but that was easy to see. The locks on the windows were hidden behind the curtains. I hadn’t noticed the whole first night that I was sleeping in a room that anyone could have gotten into.

  Looking up and down the row of cabins to make sure no one was watching, I took out my thin little wallet and then a credit card. My one and only credit card, but thankfully I don’t use it very much.

  Slipping it into the crack between the bottom of the sill and the frame, I worked it back and forth like a lever until the lip of the window was far enough out for me to grab with my fingernails. From there it was easy to get it open all the way and prop it up with the metal hinge rod. Getting inside by wriggling in sideways was a little bit harder. Thankfully I’m in great shape for a woman my age. It made the short fall from the window to the carpeted floor hurt that much less.

  It didn’t make it any less noisy, though. I jumped up immediately, ignoring the twinge that radiated through my left knee. There were no sounds other than me. No one in the main room here with the beds and the television. I was alone.

  For just a moment I allowed myself to think about how ridiculous this was. I was breaking and entering. I was committing a criminal act and if I got caught I could get arrested. What was I doing?

  The answer came to me quickly. I was doing my best to make sure Rory Hunter got found. That she got saved from whoever took her. If the kidnapper was Stevie, the police would forgive me a few misdemeanor offenses.

  If she wasn’t, then I was in big trouble and it would be in my best interests to look through the cabin fast as I could and get out again.

  “Ow,” I muttered softly as I took a step and felt my knee pop. I really torqued it getting in here. Guess I can scratch professional burglar off my list of fallback positions if I ever have to give up being the proprietor of an Inn.

  I went through the rooms first, to make sure there wasn’t any hysterical girls in here, tied up with duct tape across their mouths. Unfortunately, there wasn’t. Under the beds, behind the shower curtain, in the two closets. Nothing. I opened the drawers on the bureau even though there was no way for anyone other than a child to fit in there.

  Nothing. I even took the time to stomp around looking for loose floorboards that would signal a secret area under the rugs. Again, nothing.

  Unless I planned to take the walls apart with a hammer, that was the end of where I would find a kidnap victim, and I still wanted to look through Stevie’s things. Her papers, her clothes, everything.

  So I got started. There was luggage in the closet. Two pieces, cheap plastic ones with wheels and extendable handles. The first one was empty. The second was packed with clothes that were still folded. It was like Stevie had only just gotten into town and hadn’t had the time—or a reason—to unpack everything yet. So what had been in the first suitcase?

  Under a pair of folded khakis, I found a manila envelope. The stiff yellow package crinkled in my hands when I brought it out. I looked over my shoulder reflexively and found I was still alone. Hefting the envelope in my hand, I opened the flap and let several pieces of paper come sliding out.

  The top page was a cutout from a newspaper. It was an article, written by James.

  After reading a few lines I recognized the story. It was the one about the town coot Arthur Loren being attacked by his own daughter. My name was in there once or twice. James had played his own role in those events but he kept his name out of the story itself. His name was in bold under his photo as the writer of the article, prominent and proud.

  Underneath that was a black and white photo, printed from a computer it looked like. In the picture James was smiling as he sat and ate at a table. The snapshot had been taken through a car window. It took me only a few seconds to recognize the Milkbar in my home town of Lakeshore.

  The next few pages looked like handwritten notes, torn out with ragged bits on one side. It was someone’s idea of a timeline, with hourly notations on the movements of one James Callahan. The dates listed were the two days before we left for our trip here. The list was pretty thorough. Where he’d been, what he was doing, and who he was doing it with. The writing was messy in spots, like Stevie’d been in a hurry when she wrote them. In a hurry, or emotional.

  I blushed when I saw how extremely thorough the notes were, and what exactly me and him had been doing.

  Then it hit me. Stevie wasn’t after me. She was stalking James.

  She had more information on him than the Tax Office did and I was frightened to think abou
t what she could want all this for. Was she a private eye? Or was James on her hit list? First, Rory Hunter, next James Callahan? Maybe she had packets like this on everyone she planned on kidnapping.

  That seemed a little excessive, but sometimes criminals were just insane enough to put this much effort into their crimes.

  The sound of a key being put into the front door was ominously loud in what had been a very quiet room filled with only the sounds of my breathing.

  I zipped the suitcase back up, keeping the manila envelope out for myself. I wish there was more time to search. Under the mattress. In the little drawers in the bathroom. Who knows what I might find next. If I had time, I’d come back and search the room again. Right now, I had to get out.

  If Stevie was coming in the front, then my avenue of escape was through the back door. Racing there as quietly as I could I turned the lock on the handle and pulled.

  The chain was engaged, and the door jammed against it.

  I had to close it again and slide the chain off and then make my escape. Behind me, I heard a muffled sound of surprise but I didn’t look back to see if I’d been found out or if Stevie was just reacting to the sound of someone leaving her cabin in a hurry.

  Out the back, there was a short open area of grass bordered by pine trees that separated the cabins from the road and the car park. It gave the illusion of privacy. Right now, it gave me a way to hide and slip away.

  There. That was the beginning and end of the criminal career of Dell Powers. I obviously wasn’t cut out to sneak into people’s houses and steal their things. Although in this case, I was glad I made the exception.

  Walking further along the treeline, parallel to the road, I opened the packet again and started thumbing through the pages. There were a few more articles written by James, and a few more embarrassing details written down in those pages where Stevie had apparently followed James to the Pine Lake Inn and watched the two of us from my bedroom window. The creepy factor in that was too high to measure. Not that anyone could have seen anything we did through the drawn shades, but it was just the idea of this woman standing outside the Inn, among the Monteray pines, watching over James like a hawk and me by extension.