Changing Fortune Cookies

by P. D. Workman

  “Should we—” Mary Lou started, and then stopped.

  Erin could only imagine how excruciating it must be for Mary Lou. Knowing that her son was in one of those buildings, tied up, maybe hurt. Maybe dying. But she wasn’t able to rush in and find him and give him everything he needed.

  “Soon.” Erin said. “They’ll be here soon and we’ll find him.”

  “Thank you for doing this, Erin. I know it has been at risk to yourself. And your relationship with Officer Piper.”

  Erin’s mouth twisted into a grimace. She wondered how upset Terry was going to be with her for going ahead and doing what he had said not to do. Would he be able to forgive her? Or was that it for them?

  She didn’t know how long he could stay with someone who wouldn’t do what she was told. He would be putting his own reputation and job at risk.

  “I just want to find Joshua and for him to be okay.”

  “Me too,” Mary Lou agreed.

  “Me three,” Campbell chimed in.

  They waited. Erin stared up at the stars. It was a clear night, and it seemed like she could see every star in the Milky Way. The tiny pinpricks of light were so brilliant out in the middle of nowhere. Amazing to someone who had spent most of her life raised in urban neighborhoods.

  Finally, lights were coming down the gravel road toward them.

  Erin caught her breath and held it. There were no rotating police lights. Were the police arriving without lights, or was it someone else? Kim or an accomplice realizing that they were made or there to check on Joshua to make sure he was settled for the night?

  The vehicle got closer and closer. Erin couldn’t see any light bar on the top of it. She ducked down, as if the driver might not see the big black truck if Erin were low enough. She saw Campbell mirror the movement beside her. But whoever was driving clearly saw the truck parked there. The headlights came straight at them, swerving off at the last moment as the car pulled up beside them. It was a long, dark sedan, with rust, dents, and scratches around the lower portion—an old car, driven for years through all kinds of weather.

  Erin grasped the steering wheel tightly, her body looking for a way to defend herself or to escape. She reached for the key. If it were somebody threatening, she could start the truck and drive away before he could reach them. If she waited until right before he reached the truck, he would be delayed getting back into his own vehicle.

  Unless, of course, he rolled down his passenger window and shot them from there. But the sedan was much lower to the ground than the truck; he probably wouldn’t be able to get a good angle on them from there.

  The door of the car opened, and a dark figure climbed out. Stocky, not moving quickly. Erin blinked her eyes, hoping they would adjust to the dark faster. The light from his headlights left bright afterimages in the center of her vision. He was nearly to the truck before she could make out the figure clearly enough that she started to relax. As he covered the last few feet, she could finally see his face. The creased, leathered visage of Detective Coleman of the Whitewater Junction police department. Erin buzzed her window down.

  “Miss Price.” Coleman glowered. “Can I ask what the hell you are doing here?”

  Erin swallowed. “Did Terry—Officer Piper—tell you about Joshua Cox?”

  “I am aware that he is missing, yes. We received those reports when he disappeared. Piper said that he has not yet been found and you are off on some wild goose chase trying to find him, causing no end of trouble.”

  Erin wondered how much of that was Terry’s actual words.

  “We think the kidnapper was Kim Brandon,” Erin said evenly. “And she has been coming out here every day for the past week. Kind of strange, don’t you think?” Erin looked out at the abandoned buildings. “Why would she be out here?”

  He shrugged. “I have no way of knowing. There’s no law against going for a hike in the woods. She could be prospecting, sketching wildflowers, looking at buying the place. Fishing. She could be distilling moonshine. Lots of reasons other than kidnapping.”

  “Well… I suppose. But with night vision goggles? Duct tape and zip ties?”

  Campbell gave her a warning look. She realized he didn’t want her to give away that they had been snooping in Kim’s trunk.

  “I have only your word for that,” Coleman said. “Hypothetically, that would be suspicious, but not conclusive.”

  “You could look into it.”

  “What would the evidence on the warrant be?”

  Erin searched for words. “I… she has motive. She wants to inherit her grandma’s prize money. Joshua was on the verge of showing that the contest had just been a money-laundering scheme. She might have lost everything.”

  “And your proof of this is…?”

  “Officer Piper is putting that together. They’re building the case right now.”

  “As they should be. And when they have it built, they can put in a request for us to get a warrant to search Miss Brandon’s property. Until then, I don’t have anything to show that she might have been involved in anything criminal. Even though she drives out to an abandoned property regularly.”

  “So you’re just going to wait? When Joshua could be on this property now?”

  Coleman patted his pockets and came up with a cigarette and lighter. He turned away from Erin as he lit the cigarette and looked at the abandoned buildings.

  “If he’s not going to go in, I am,” Campbell said.

  “Just wait… see what he decides.”

  After a few minutes of contemplation, Coleman went to his car to retrieve several items. Erin couldn’t see what he was doing very well in the darkness. He switched on a powerful flashlight that made her wince and turn away. When she looked back, Coleman was shining it at the ground. He looked down for a long time, walking a step or two and studying the ground. Eventually, he straightened up and shone it around him. The strong flashlight reached all the way past the trees that encroached on the edges of the clearing. He swept it around 360 degrees, methodical. He shone it on the various buildings. A big barn. Other sheds and outbuildings that Erin wasn’t sure of. Storage for tools? Maybe a dairy? There was a little cabin, probably one bedroom, a living room, and a kitchen. Tiny, but big enough for a family of a hundred years ago, especially if they’d only had one child. Or one who had survived to adulthood. There was no sign she could see that any of the buildings had been used for decades.

  Coleman returned to Erin’s window. “You folks stay right here. If I hear someone coming up on me, I’m going to shoot first and ask questions later. If you follow me in there, you’re gonna get plugged.”

  Erin nodded. Coleman looked past her to Campbell. “Is that understood, young man?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Good.” His eyes went to Mary Lou in the back seat, and he decided he didn’t need to repeat the warning.

  Chapter 48

  They all sat there while Coleman walked toward the buildings, his flashlight on the ground. He picked his way along slowly, and Erin wondered if he were following someone else’s footprints in the dirt. At least she and the others hadn’t rushed in and obscured that evidence. Coleman really couldn’t criticize her for sitting in the car, calling it in, and then waiting for him to show up. He and Terry might not like her following up on leads on her own, but she hadn’t done anything dangerous. And they hadn’t destroyed any evidence. They had left everything just as they had found it.

  Erin wanted to go in with him.

  And she didn’t.

  She remembered only too clearly following Willie into the barn that day at Theresa’s farm.

  Moving restlessly beside her, Campbell was apparently even more eager than she was to get in there. Erin didn’t imagine he would stay put, but for Coleman’s warning that he would shoot anyone who came up behind him.

  Had Coleman called for backup units? Or did he think that she was off her rocker and that there would be nothing to find?

  He was at least armed. Erin had
seen the gun on his hip when he had approached the truck the second time.

  As they watched, Coleman detoured around one of the buildings. In a few seconds, he was out of sight.

  “Why did he go around there?” Campbell demanded. “Why didn’t he check out any of the buildings? Does he think there is a car back there? Or something else?” His voice was higher than usual, pulled tight like a rubber band.

  “He was following a trail. I guess Kim went around another way. Maybe the front doors are booby-trapped.”

  “Huh.” Campbell accepted this, maybe deciding that Coleman knew what he was doing more than Campbell did. Campbell would probably have just run in through the front door. And who knew what would have happened then. Kim had clearly prepared for the abduction. She had managed to capture Joshua without raising any alarms. She had somewhere to transport him to that was out of sight of anyone else. She had not been caught removing medications from the hospital. And hospitals were usually really uptight about that kind of thing, with lots of security protocols in place.

  Erin was on the edge of her seat. How long was it going to take for Coleman to find Joshua? How long before he was back out, confirming that they had found Josh?

  And that he was safe.

  Erin couldn’t imagine having to tell Mary Lou that they were too late. Coleman would have made notifications like that before, but it couldn’t be easy. Death notifications were bad enough when the person was at the end of their life and expected to die. A kid like Joshua, just starting to come into his own…

  She couldn’t help the little twitch that her brain responded with. An involuntary shake of her head. She couldn’t do it. But she didn’t have to.

  And hopefully, Coleman wouldn’t either.

  It seemed like they were sitting there for hours waiting. Erin was starting to get cold. Her butt was sore from sitting for too long. She needed to get out and get some fresh air and the chance to stretch her legs. They were all so twitchy, reacting every time one of them had to shift position or looked in a different direction.

  Erin checked the road again for any new arrivals, but couldn’t see any more headlights approaching.

  When she looked back toward the buildings, she could see a slight halo of light. Coleman was returning.

  He kept his flashlight on the ground and made an arc around the clearing to where the vehicles were parked. He made a grim nod to Erin.

  “He’s in there.”

  Mary Lou clutched at Erin’s arm, holding on for dear life. Erin expected more details from Coleman, but he wasn’t wasting his time talking with them. He reached into his car and grabbed the mike of a radio. They couldn’t hear his words as he called for backup and described what he would need from them, what they were going to find when they got there.

  He spoke for two minutes? Five minutes? Ten? Erin couldn’t parse the time period anymore. She couldn’t even hold the current time in her head when she looked at her phone. She didn’t know how long they had been there or how long Coleman spoke to his people on the radio. Eventually, he replaced the mike in its holder in his car and returned to Erin’s window.

  “You folks have water?”

  Erin looked into the back seat, where Terry normally kept a go bag and emergency rations. She pointed to the black soft-sided cooler. “In there,” she told Mary Lou.

  Mary Lou tried to unzip it, her hands shaking so badly that it took several tries to pull the tab back, keeping the zipper track straight so it wouldn’t jam. She reached inside and felt the water bottles. She handed one forward to Erin, and Erin passed it to Coleman.

  “Is he okay?”

  Coleman just looked at her and didn’t answer.

  But he didn’t crack the water bottle open and take a swig himself, so Erin had to assume it was for Joshua as he headed back around the buildings, out of their sight.

  Mary Lou was sniffling. Campbell put his hand over the seat to hold hers. “It’s going to be okay, Mom. They found him.”

  Chapter 49

  Erin hoped Cam was right. All of them stayed put in the car, following Coleman’s instructions, but it felt like they had been trapped there forever. Erin was like a wild animal pacing back and forth, looking for the opportunity to escape. Her heart hammered in her chest. She wanted the reassurance that Cam was giving Mary Lou. Joshua would recover and return home. Everything would go back to the way it had been before. The Cox family could, once again, start the healing process. And maybe this time, nothing bad would happen to them.

  There were flashing lights on the road. Lots of flashing lights.

  Even though they hurt Erin’s eyes, she watched them eagerly, mentally encouraging them to hurry. Joshua needed the paramedics. Coleman needed the policemen to secure the scene. And somebody had to go back and arrest Kim before she knew that Joshua had been discovered.

  Mary Lou was crying more freely as the ambulance pulled off of the road into the clearing. Even Campbell was wiping away tears.

  Coleman emerged from the buildings once more. He motioned for the paramedics to stay where they were, and talked to the men in the police cars, gesturing as he spoke. Then he went to the ambulance and spoke with the paramedics. They got out of the ambulance and removed the gurney from the back.

  “They’re going to take care of him, Mom,” Campbell assured her. “They’ll get him all fixed up. Everything is going to be fine.”

  “Can’t I go see him?” Mary Lou begged. Though, of course, he was the wrong person to ask. Coleman was the person to ask, and he clearly did not want anyone else contaminating his crime scene. He led the paramedics in, keeping them to the edges of the clearing.

  The other policemen got out of their cars and were putting up big lights, marking evidence, and cordoning off the area with tape.

  The paramedics appeared around the buildings, carefully navigating the gurney through the gravel and grass toward the ambulance. Erin and the others all leaned forward, straining to see what kind of shape he was in. Coleman appeared behind them, then walked quickly past them and toward the truck.

  He pointed at them and then held up one finger. His meaning clear: only one person was allowed out of the truck to see him.

  “Cam, do you want to…?” Mary Lou asked.

  “Mom, he needs you. You go.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Go.”

  She struggled to release her seatbelt and fumbled for the door handle, scrabbling at the door in the dark. She managed to open the door to get out of the car. Erin held her breath, worried that Mary Lou’s legs would give out the instant she hit the ground, but Mary Lou was strong. She steadied herself against the truck and waited until Coleman and the paramedics were close enough to talk to, then walked alongside the gurney as it was pushed over the bumpy ground to the ambulance.

  She leaned over Joshua, getting very close to his face. She found his hand beside him and held it as she walked with them to the ambulance. Erin watched Mary Lou’s face, trying to read everything from it. Was Joshua awake? Was he okay? Or was he gravely injured or ill?

  Erin wanted desperately to get out of the car and see for herself, but she stayed where she was, watching and waiting.

  Campbell was watching and waiting with her. He wiped at tears and tried not to sniffle in front of her. Erin gave his shoulder a squeeze.

  “Quit being such a rock,” she told him. “Your mom is with him now. You don’t need to be strong for her.”

  He cleared his throat.

  “And I, for one, don’t care if you cry. I promise I’ll never even mention it.”

  Campbell looked at her for an instant, uncertain.

  Then he put both hands over his face and let go. He was, in the end, an eighteen-year-old boy who had just been through a terrible ordeal. Being the man of the family and supporting his mother through something that few people would ever experience or understand. He was just a boy.

  Erin pulled him against her shoulder with a sideways hug. He put his face against her and sobbed
.

  In a few minutes, it was over. Campbell wiped his face the best he could with his shirt, sniffled a few times, and sat upright again. His throat worked, swallowing hard a few times.

  “There’s more water back there,” Erin said, jerking her head to indicate the back seat. “Get yourself one and hand me one too, would you?”

  He reached his long arm into the back and snagged a couple of bottles. They sat in the car, sniffling, watching the paramedics finally loading Joshua into the back of the ambulance and Mary Lou climbing in beside him.

  “Erin!”

  She hadn’t seen Terry and the sheriff arrive, but there had been a lot going on to distract her. Terry hurried up to the truck, and Erin did the best she could to hug him through the window. K9 was beside him, and broke ranks to put his paws on the door, whining. She wasn’t sure whether he wanted to get into the truck or was worried about her.

  “Get out,” Terry told her, “I want to make sure you’re okay.”

  “I’m fine. Coleman told us to stay put, so…”

  “Sure, him you’ll listen to?”

  Erin laughed weakly. “Well, he did threaten to shoot us.”

  “Is that all it takes?”

  They watched the ambulance pull away.

  “How is he?” Terry asked soberly.

  “I don’t know. No one has talked to us. Still alive. That’s all I know.”

  “I’ll see what I can find out.”

  He circulated among the other cops, talking to them and seeking out Detective Coleman, who shot several poisonous glances in Erin’s direction as they talked. Eventually, Terry returned.

  “He’s not in great shape. Dehydrated and weak. Has been bound the whole time. But no serious injuries, so hopefully…”

  “He’ll get better,” Campbell filled in. “He can get over all of that.”