My mind wandered from Van to Charlene to poor, dead as a doornail Ronald.
Was there a connection there? There had to be.
What if Charlene really was dead?
But how? How had Van successfully made her disappear? And if she was gone, surely police detective Handsome pants would have come back to talk to Van about it. That had to mean she wasn’t gone. Or that Handsome pants didn’t know about her being missing.
Sheesh, I really had to get some sleep.
The bass beat didn’t let up, however, and I couldn’t even manage a snooze in my chair.
The cabin in the woods. I bet that beast of a guy is in there right now and he’s probably got Charlene too. Tied up. Or he’s already shot her. Or he’s digging a hole and hiding the body.
Equal parts curiosity and fatigue sent me to my feet.
I traipsed to the front of the food truck, tucked my bag inside, and spotted Bee’s phone on the passenger seat.
Should I?
She would think I was crazy. Heck, she’d call me crazy if she found out about this.
I picked up the phone and turned it over in my hand. It couldn’t do any harm, just taking a walk and looking, right? The big guy was probably asleep. I’d be fine. And if anything happened… I could just call for help on the phone.
I yawned for what had to be the fiftieth time in as many seconds and shut the truck’s door. I walked around the outside of our tent and entered the woods behind the lot. The path down to the riverbank was one I’d walked two times, now, and it was relatively simple to navigate. A slight downward slope and the rush of water told me I was getting closer. The night air was chill but not too cold, and the darkness was spooky as could be, but the fear was overridden by the need to know.
What was he doing out here? Who was he? Where was Charlene?
I reached the trees that looked out on the cabin—a light flickered inside, but it was shut up tight—and I clapped a hand to my head. I’d forgotten to bring the mace! Or the Taser.
“Still, there’s no harm in looking, is there?” I whispered to myself as I set out for the creaking front steps of the mystery cabin in the woods.
15
I sneaked up the front steps of the cabin, my heart seated squarely in my throat and my thoughts running amok. Bee would freak if she found out I’d come here on my own. She’d want to be with me during the snooping. And she’d want to know what on earth I’d been thinking when I’d originally set out from our lot.
Trouble was, I hadn’t been thinking. Not clearly, at least.
The stairs didn’t creak under my tiptoed steps, and I reached the front door. I didn’t try the doorknob, opting to peer in through the windows, instead. The panes were dusty and broken in places, but the interior of the cabin was almost quaint.
A log fire crackled in the grate, and a coffee table had been placed in front of it. A neatly made bed sat in one corner, though its sheets were yellow with age. The window on the right side of the house appeared to be open, allowing a breeze to brush the tattered curtains.
That was my chance. I could get in. Figure out who the mystery guy was.
He clearly wasn’t around, begging the question… where had he got to?
I hurried around the side of the cabin and clambered through the open window. The warmth of the fire permeated the room, and I rubbed my arms, adjusting from the slight nip in the air outside. I was wide-awake now, my pulse skittering along at a furious pace.
I’m in the belly of the beast.
If I were the beast, where would I keep my incriminating evidence?
There were no computers or filing cabinets, but there was a stained cardboard box on the floor next to the bed.
I lowered myself to my knees next to it—didn’t want to leave an impression on the sheets for when the giant came back—and opened the box’s flaps.
The crackle of the logs in the fireplace, and the odd hoot of an owl or night bird outside, kept me company, but I listened for anything else, just in case the suspect decided to come back from wherever he was.
Hunting? Potentially drawing another defenseless victim into his murderous trap in the woods?
Charlene wasn’t here—the cabin had one room, a stove in the corner, no fridge or TV, a sofa and a chair, and the bathroom? Well, there wasn’t one that I could see.
I brought a stack of letters out of the box. Each of them was addressed to a Mr. Leon Covington. Was that the guy who lived here? They were all written in flowery handwriting. I opened the first envelope and brought the paper out, my hand trembling.
Dear Mr. Covington,
I’m writing to you on behalf of a good friend. This letter might come as a shock to you, and I apologize if it causes you any distress, but I thought you ought to know the truth.
Anyway, I should probably start at the beginning. I’ve never been good at writing, so this is going to be difficult for me to get through. Goodness, see what I meant? You didn’t need to know that.
OK. So, I should probably introduce myself first.
My name is Charlene Reed. I’m the co-owner of the Tomahawk Trail Campgrounds. We’re just outside of Muffin in Massachusetts. I recently befriended a man who has been staying here for quite some time. His name is Mr. Ronald Brink—you might have heard his name before. He’s the famous author of the Yuma Series. He writes crime books.
I paused to reread that last sentence. Ronald had been an author? And he’d never told us? No wonder he’d been so annoyed at Lulu trying to force her books onto him. And he’d seemed like such a ‘salt of the earth’ type of guy.
That explained how he could afford such a fancy camper. And if he was famous, did that mean he was rich too? I had already switched off the flashlight app on Bee’s phone, so I unlocked it and navigated to her browser.
A search for Ronald Brink told me his net worth was nothing to scoff at, and that he was a wildly popular independent author.
I returned to the letter.
He doesn’t have any family that he knows of, except for a brother. He said that this brother moved away with his mother when he was a young boy, and he was raised by his stepdad. He has been trying to reconnect with this brother for years.
I think you’re that brother, Mr. Covington.
I’d like to invite you out to Tomahawk Trail to meet with Ronald. I know this might be challenging for you, and maybe a little intimidating. Please let me know what you think. If you can’t afford to come out here, I’m sure Ronald will cover your expenses.
The letter ended there. I tucked it back into the envelope.
I had more questions than answers now.
Charlene had invited the mystery cabin man, who had to be Leon, here—the envelope was addressed to a home somewhere in New Orleans. Leon had come all this way and for what? Just to kill his brother?
Did he think that he’d get money out of it, or was there more to this than met the eye? And if he was so welcome here, why was he hiding out in this cabin rather than staying in one of the lots?
Think, Ruby. There must be a logical reason.
I rifled through the other envelopes and skimmed their letters, but they were similar in content. Begging Leon to come out, promising him a place to stay and so on. It was obvious he’d never replied to any of them. But he was here. That could mean one of two things: he’d finally written back and decided to come out here or, worse and scarier, he’d come without writing back and found a place to hide while he hatched a diabolical scheme to murder his brother.
But if he murdered Ronald there was no guarantee he’d get any of his money—so why do it in the first place?
I puzzled, losing myself in the letters for how long, I wasn’t sure.
The stomp of boots on the front steps brought me out of my reverie.
I tensed. The door thumped as Leon, the stranger, started his ritual of opening it up.
I dumped the letters back in the cardboard box, shut its flaps, then slipped under the bed. I held my breath.
&
nbsp; The door opened and a pair of muddied boots trekked inside. Leon stomped over to the fireplace, lifted a poker and stoked the fire, the logs spitting embers.
Please, don’t see me. Please, please.
Blood rushed in my ears, and I couldn’t move a muscle—the floorboards might squeak and give away my position. My nose itched in the dust underneath Leon’s bed, and a sneeze threatened. I screwed up my nose and tried banishing it. But it was no use. This was happening.
I shuffled my hand up and pinched my nose. The sneeze shook my chest. I managed to let out only the faintest squeak of noise.
The boots—they’d been halfway to the kitchen area of the cabin—stopped dead. They turned toward me. They walked over.
No, no, no!
“Ruby!” The distant shout drifted through the open window above the bed. “Ruby, where are you?”
Leon grunted and walked to the door. He slammed it open and marched outside.
“Hey, you!” Bee shouted. “Where’s my friend?”
16
This was typical Bee. Of course, she was confronting the potential murderer and looking out for me at the same time.
But this man… he was huge. He could easily overpower her.
I stole forward on my stomach and peeked out from under my bed. The guy was out on the porch, his back facing me, and his hand on his hip, where he had a gun holstered. I couldn’t make out Bee in the darkness beyond the cabin.
Move!
I shuffled out from under the bed and crept into the kitchen. Leon had a heavy copper-bottomed pan in the sink—the inside was crusted with heaven alone knew what, but it would work for my purposes.
“This is private property,” Leon growled, from underneath his bushy beard. He wore a camouflage cap. At night.
“I’m not falling for that one, buddy,” Bee shouted back. “This is a campground, not your personal property. You’d better tell me where my friend is right now or I’m going to report you to the police for kidnapping. And while you’re at it, you can tell me where Charlene is too.” Buddy’s bark came next, backing her up with doggy protection.
I adjusted my grip on the pan’s handle and made for the door.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Leon said. “You’d better get out of here before—”
I brough the pan down on top of his head with a terrific ‘bonk.’
Leon turned around and stared at me. “Hello,” he said.
“Get away from her!” Bee yelled.
“I’ll hit you again, mister,” I said—though, in retrospect, that wasn’t much of a threat. “You keep that gun on your hip and out of your hands.”
“You’re threatening me?” A silence followed that and then he broke into a series of chuckles that would’ve made Santa Claus jealous. “You’ve got a spine, I’ll give you that, Miss, but you’ve got no right. What are you doing in my house?”
I didn’t have an answer for that that wouldn’t get me into deeper trouble.
“Wait, you’re not holding her against her will?” Bee asked.
“Of course, I’m not,” the raggedy man replied, looking first at me and then at my friend. “Why would I do that?”
Bee’s lips grew thin. Buddy had stopped barking. She came forward and stopped at the base of the cabin’s stairs.
“Can someone explain to me what’s going on here?” Leon grumbled.
Bee gave me a pointed look.
I sighed. “I broke into your cabin because I was looking for evidence that links you to the murder of Ronald Brink.”
Leon’s face went from confusion to blank as a sheet of paper. “Ronald’s dead,” he said, slowly. “Ronald’s dead?”
I nodded.
He raised a shaking, nut brown hand to his forehead. “That explains it, then. Haven’t heard from him in a while. And Charlene? Where’s she? She didn’t tell me about any of this.”
“So, you do know Charlene,” Bee said, jabbing a finger in Leon’s direction. “Where is she?”
Leon walked back into his home and sat down on a worn armchair in front of the fire. The sofa across from it had seen better days too.
Bee and I stared at each other for a hot minute then entered the cabin, Buddy on our heels. It was warm in here, perhaps a little too warm now that the fire had been stoked, but Leon didn’t seem to care.
He’d swept his camo cap off his head and held it in his palms, turning it over and over, feeling the fabric under his fingertips.
“Dead,” he said. “Waste of time coming out here. Shouldn’t have come.”
“Mr. Covington.”
He looked up at me. “You know me? You a friend of Charlene’s?”
“I guess you could say that,” I said.
“You mentioned something about her being missing?”
“We haven’t seen her since yesterday. And Ronald’s been… well, I’m sorry to break it to you like this, sir, but he’s been murdered. My name’s Ruby, by the way, Ruby Holmes. And this is Bee. We’ve been independently investigating what happened to Ronald.” I paused, but there was no reply forthcoming from the grizzly nature man. “Your brother.”
“That’s what Charlene said.” Leon set the hat on the floor next to his feet and took to running his hands through his gray, greasy hair. “My only brother. She sent me letter after letter begging me to come out here. Tried to entice me with the promise of money, but I wasn’t interested.”
“What changed your mind?”
“Doctor told me I’ve got a couple years to live. Said I can spend ‘em in hospital or out, but it won’t make no difference as to what happens in the end,” Leon said, with the grim resolve of a man who’d seen the worst and faced it. “So, I figured now was as good a time as any to come out here and meet him. Never really had no family. Apart from my mother, but she… that’s a difficult thing to talk about. Anyway. I liked the thought of having a brother, I just didn’t believe it.”
“But you came out here, after all,” Bee said. “And you got to meet him?”
“A few times. Three, I’d say. Once out in the woods, another by the lake, another, we had some dinner out here. I don’t much like spending time around other folks. Prefer it out where it’s quiet. That was my one condition when I agreed to come out here—that I’d have a place to stay away from all the crazies.” He quit mussing his hair. “And now he’s gone. Came out here for nothing. You said he was murdered?”
“Shot,” Bee said. “We found him out in the woods.”
“Darn.” That was all. A ‘darn.’ That didn’t necessarily make him guilty, but boy, he had the motivation for it. Or did he? Did he genuinely want money or material things when he was so close to leaving them all behind?
I had nothing but pity for the man.
“And Charlene’s gone?” A flicker of worry crossed Leon’s face. “I like her. She’s a nice lady. Went out of her way to help both Ronald and me and she wasn’t getting nothing for it. No money or nothing.”
“Yes, she’s missing. Her husband—”
Leon grunted, his expression souring.
“Her husband said that she left him. Or that he kicked her out,” I said.
Quiet settled around the three of us, and Buddy snuffled around in Leon’s cabin before settling down in front of the fire with a groan and resting his furry head on his paws. If only dogs could talk—he’d have been able to tell us who had done this to his owner. He’d been so distressed on the night of the murder and after it, he had to have seen what had happened.
“I’d like to be alone now,” Leon said, suddenly. “I need time to, uh, to think about all of this.”
“Right. Sure. Sorry for breaking in and disturbing your evening.”
“That’s all right. It was better that I knew what happened. Better this way.” The last part of the sentence was said almost to himself.
Bee and I got out of there before he changed his mind and either decided to call the cops on us or whip that pistol off his hip and take aim.
&nbs
p; 17
The one good thing about the ongoing party and thumping bass was that I couldn’t quite hear every word Bee had to say to me as we walked back through the forest. She was in full-on lecture mode, but she hadn’t raised her voice yet. I could tune her out.
“—do something so irresponsible. You could have been killed. What if he was the murderer, hmm? What then, Ruby? I mean, seriously, you have to—”
She faded in and out the closer we got to the trail that led toward our lot. Were we headed in that direction? I wasn’t sure. It was too easy to get lost in the forest out here.
Maybe that’s what happened to Charlene.
“—leave the tent without telling me!”
“I thought you were asleep,” I said, raising my voice over the music. “I didn’t want to wake you.”
“That makes no sense. And you didn’t even take the Taser with you. Or the mace! What were you thinking?”
“I wasn’t thinking,” I replied. “I was exhausted, and the idea just popped into my head, and before I knew it I was out there at the cabin reading letters from Charlene to Leon.”
“Letters?”
That had distracted her from her lecturing. I told her what I’d found—it was just a repetition of what Leon had said, really, but he’d given more context. He had come for his own reasons, but Charlene had instigated the meetup in the first place.
“Why do you think she did that?” Bee asked. “She must have had some reason to want to help Ronald.”
“The affair?”
“Maybe,” Bee yelled. “Maybe. But we won’t know for sure until we find her. Let’s face it, Charlene’s the one who knows the most about what’s going on.”
“We have to consider her as a suspect too. She could be on the run because she’s afraid of being discovered.”
“True.” Bee fell quiet, and I got a reprieve from worrying about what could have happened to me out there.
It was ridiculous that I’d done that. I should have stayed at the food truck. But then you wouldn’t know what you know now. A trade off of sanity and safety for knowledge. But we weren’t any closer to the truth.
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