Thirty-Six and a Half Motives: Rose Gardner Mystery #9 (Rose Gardner Mystery Series)

by Denise Grover Swank

  He scowled. “So Neely Kate’s granny suddenly got chatty, huh?”

  “Not much, and I think it was unintentional. She was worried about the woman her visitor threatened.”

  “I think we should get you to the safe house.”

  “What? Why?”

  “Because Kate Simmons threatened you. As crazy as she is, it’s a wonder she didn’t kill you in the diner and be done with it.”

  “I suspect she’s a lot like her daddy and likes to toy with her prey. But in this instance, I think she’s after Hilary.”

  He took a step backward. “What?”

  “Kate practically said the same thing when she left Merilee’s, but she said it specifically about Hilary. I need to call Joe.” I started digging for my phone in my coat pocket, but Jed grabbed my arm.

  “Whoa. What are you gonna tell him?”

  “I already told him that I think his sister is after Hilary. I’ll tell him I have more proof.”

  “Text him. You can say all of that in a text.”

  Good point.

  I checked the screen and saw that Mason had called and left me a message. When I retrieved it, I was surprised by how relieved I was to hear his voice in my ear.

  “Rose, I’m about to go into a meeting with the state police, and I don’t know how long I’ll be. You’re onto something with Nick Thorn. He was shot in his car in a parking lot outside a bar. The police determined it was a robbery, but no one was ever caught. He was murdered two years ago, last September, so it fits with the timeline of Kate taking off. I’ll keep digging, but I’m not sure what else there is to find.” He paused, and his voice lowered. “If you change your mind, my offer to come stay in the courthouse still stands. Be careful, Rose.”

  I relayed Mason’s message as I typed off a text to Joe. When I finished, I looked up at Jed. “We have to go check on Hilary.”

  Jed’s mouth dropped open. “Have you lost your mind?”

  “No. I’d call her if I could, but I don’t know her number.” When he didn’t answer, I said, “Come on, Jed. We’ve still got a few hours to kill. Let me do this good deed, and maybe karma will be on our side. Besides, I suspect Neely Kate needs to eat. You two weren’t gone long enough for her to get dinner and break into the office.”

  “She said she wasn’t hungry.”

  “I didn’t eat much while I was talking to Joe, and we need all the energy we can get to face J.R. How about we pick up some food, then stop by Hilary’s?”

  Rather than answer, Jed turned around and got into the car. As soon as I climbed into the front passenger seat, he pulled away from the Rivers’s property.

  Unbelievably, Neely Kate had fallen asleep and was stretched out on the seat. As soon as Jed got onto the highway, I asked, keeping my voice low, “Any word from Skeeter?”

  He nodded. “He’s scouting out the barn with a dozen men. So far nothing.”

  “I guess that’s good, right?”

  “I have a hard time believing that Simmons Sr. is gonna show up at an unfortified site. I suspect he’s taking a play from our playbook.”

  “You think he’s gonna change the meetin’ spot?”

  “We’re positive. We also suspect he’ll change the time. Anything to throw us off our game.”

  “Well, crap.” Everything he said made sense. “How soon?”

  “We’re not sure, which is why I don’t want to waste any time checkin’ on the wicked witch of the south.”

  “If we don’t, I’ll deal with it, but I could never forgive myself if something happens to her because she wasn’t warned. But how about I have a vision to see if I can figure out where we’re meeting?”

  “Good idea.”

  I put my hand on Jed’s arm and closed my eyes. The vision was slow to come, and when it did, the image was in slow motion and grainy. I tried to focus on the background, but I didn’t recognize where we were. It looked like a barn.

  After I relayed the vision to Jed, he asked, “What does it mean?”

  “I think it means things are changing and the future hasn’t sorted itself out yet.”

  We went through the drive-through of the Chuck and Cluck because it was Neely Kate’s favorite place and I was desperate for anything to make her feel better. Neely Kate’s head popped up as soon as Jed pulled up to the drive-through menu board and the maniacal sound of clucking broadcasted over the speaker.

  “Chuck and Cluck?” she asked in a sleepy voice. “You hate this place.”

  “Hate is a strong word,” I said, grinning back at her. “I’ll make do.”

  “You love me,” she teased.

  “You know I do.”

  “I hate to break up the lovefest,” Jed grumbled, “but the chicken wants you to order.”

  True enough, there was a plastic chicken head mounted next to the menu board, and its mechanized mouth opened and closed whenever the attendant spoke over the speaker.

  “Arly,” the person on the speaker drawled. “Is that you messin’ with me again?”

  I could only imagine all the pranks the guy on the other side of the speaker had faced.

  Neely Kate ordered fried chicken and mashed potatoes while Jed and I both got chicken strips and fries. When we got to the takeout window, Neely Kate squealed with delight. “He’s dressed as a chicken! That’s new.”

  Sure enough, the employee at the window was wearing a chicken costume. When he leaned out to tell us our total, he had to repeat it twice since the chicken head muffled his voice.

  Jed had to practically toss the money inside the window since the chicken’s hands were shaped like claws.

  “Whose ridiculous idea was this?” Jed asked, getting grumpier by the minute. He glanced over his shoulder at Neely Kate. “You know this shit will kill you, don’t you?”

  “Ha!” Neely Kate barked. “Says the man who’s about to meet a deadly killer. Might as well have fried chicken before you meet your maker.”

  “No one is meetin’ their maker today,” I said. “We’re all gonna survive this and annoy the crap out of each other tomorrow.”

  Neely Kate laughed, but her spirits seemed to lag again as we drove across town toward Hilary’s. While we ate, I filled her in on Mason’s message and my worry about Hilary.

  “Part of the reason I’m indulging your request is because I think the woman’s perfectly safe.” Jed shot me a sideways glance. “So I’m gonna park around the corner and let you two go check on her.”

  “I really want to argue with this plan,” Neely Kate said, licking her fingers. “But I’ve been kind of worried since we talked to her this morning.”

  A ball of anxiety knotted in my stomach. My gut told me that something bad was going to happen. Maybe I could get close enough to Hilary to have a vision and make sure she was safe from Kate’s clutches.

  When I suggested my plan to Neely Kate, she whacked my arm. “Why haven’t you been having visions today? You could have had one of my granny!”

  “And what good would that do? It might work if my visions searched the past instead of telling me the future.”

  “You could have had visions of me or Jed or Skeeter to see if we survive the night.”

  I shivered. There was no way I was going down that road unless I was desperate. I had died in visions before, and while I’d changed those deaths, it was always terrifying to go through. Now I wondered if I was being selfish. But tonight felt different. Heavier. A feeling of hopelessness clung to this meeting, and the truth was that I was scared to face it head-on.

  But I didn’t have time to dwell on it. Jed pulled up to the curb and put the gear shift in park. I could see Hilary’s house around the corner. “Why are you parking so far away?”

  “I sure as hell don’t want to be seen parked outside her house.”

  “Really?”

  “Get this done so we can get out of here,” Jed grumbled as he pulled out his phone. “I’m gonna check in with Skeeter.” He shot me a glare. “I should let you be the one to call and tell
him what you’re up to.”

  I opened my car door. “That’s my cue to leave.”

  He emitted a low rumble, so I clambered out of the car with Neely Kate hot on my heels. I threaded our arms as we crossed the street and tugged her close. “How are you really doin’? You’ve had one shock right after the other.”

  “I’m still processing it all, but I’ve decided that it’s not the worst thing in the world. At least I know now.” She grinned. “Can you imagine what Joe’s gonna say when he finds out?”

  “So you plan on tellin’ him?”

  She lifted her eyebrows. “I don’t see any reason to keep it a secret, do you?”

  I smiled. “No, after all the crap Kate’s pulled, I suspect Joe’s gonna be happy to have a mostly normal sister.”

  “Mostly normal?”

  Hilary lived in the biggest house in town. It was a turn-of-the-century Victorian that hadn’t been on the market when she’d acquired it. Rumor had it that Hilary had approached the owner and convinced him to sell.

  Jed had parked close to the back of the house, but as we rounded the corner to the front, I caught sight of a dark sedan idling at the curb. It took me a second to figure out what felt off to me—the back door was open, but no interior lights were on. In fact, a man stood next to the car’s open back door. A woman was scooting into the backseat, but the man gave her shoulder a push.

  “Let’s go!” he said, speaking none too gently.

  His gaze swept over me, but Neely Kate and I had skidded to a halt and she’d tugged me deeper into the shadows of a tall oak tree at the side of the house. While he didn’t seem to notice us, I got a good look at him, and it was as plain as day who he was.

  “Oh, my word, Neely Kate!” I whispered as I pulled out my phone. “That’s Sam Teagen!”

  Teagen got in behind her, and the car sped away before he even got the door shut.

  “Come on,” Neely Kate said, then ran for the front door. “Don’t call Joe yet.”

  “Why not?” I asked as I followed her, surprised she knew who I was calling. “We just saw Hilary Wilder get kidnapped by Sam Teagen. I bet you money his friend Marshal is driving.”

  “Let’s make sure it was her.”

  “We’re outside her house, Neely Kate. And he’s getting away! We should be following them!”

  “By the time we get back to Jed’s car, it will be too late. We’ll never catch up.” She’d already climbed Hilary’s front steps and now stood on the wraparound porch, knocking on the front door. The door swung in a few inches.

  “Neely Kate, her door’s open. I can’t see Hilary doin’ that.”

  She put her hands on her hips and sighed. “I’m afraid you’re right.”

  “Now, I’m calling Joe.”

  Only Joe didn’t answer, so I hung up and called 911. Unfortunately, the call went to the Henryetta police dispatcher.

  “I’ve just witnessed a kidnapping. The man was Sam Teagen, and the woman was Hilary Wilder.”

  “So they knew each other, ma’am?”

  “I’m not sure if they did or not. What difference does it make? I saw him stuffing her into the backseat of his car, and then he got in behind her and they drove off.”

  “And how could he drive off if he was in the backseat?” the dispatcher asked in a bored voice.

  “He had a getaway driver.”

  “Uh huh . . .”

  “Why aren’t you taking this seriously?”

  “Because you’re Rose Gardner, and we have memos posted everywhere to watch out for you.”

  I had no idea how she knew who I was, but I had bigger things to dwell on. “What on earth does that mean?”

  “It means trouble follows you wherever you go, and sure enough, you’re stirrin’ it up now.”

  “Do you think I’m lying?” I asked in disbelief. “Why would I lie?”

  “That’s not up to me to figure out. You just wait there. I’m sendin’ Officer Ernie to talk to you.”

  I hung up, madder than a wet hornet. “They’re sending Ernie to talk to us, and we’re supposed to wait here.”

  “Are we really gonna do that?” she asked in disbelief, looking down the street after the car.

  “Shoot, no. We need to tell Jed and Skeeter.”

  We hurried back to the car. Jed was on the phone when I slid into the passenger seat and Neely Kate got into the back.

  Jed gave me a grim look as he hung up. “And that was the official change of plans. We have thirty minutes.”

  I took a slow breath to fight my sudden nausea. “Where are we going?”

  His eyes narrowed. “That’s the irony of it. We’re goin’ to the Atchison plant.”

  I shuddered. I hated that ruined warehouse.

  He put the car into drive. “We have to meet up with Skeeter, but he’s a good ten minutes south of town.”

  I shook my head. “Whoa. Slow down. Who did you just talk to on the phone?”

  “Skeeter.”

  “Why didn’t J.R. call me, too?”

  “He didn’t call you about the meeting place this afternoon, so why is this a surprise? Besides, it wasn’t J.R. who called him. It was Kate.”

  “Kate? Why would she call Skeeter?”

  Jed took off before I could get my seatbelt fastened, and I had to put my hand on the dashboard to brace myself.

  “We just saw Sam Teagen stuff Hilary into the back of a car,” I said.“That is too coincidental.”

  “Agreed. But is Kate workin’ with her daddy, or is she helpin’ lead us to him?”

  “This is nonsense,” I said, pulling out my phone. I called Skeeter and put him on speaker. “Skeeter,” I said as soon as he answered. “What did Kate say?”

  “She said the timetable had been altered. She told me to bring the Lady in Black and meet her at 7:45—at the Atchison plant, outside Henry Buchanan’s office. I take it you know where that is?”

  I cast a glance at Jed. Considering that the Atchison plant was where he’d been shot in the arm, he probably didn’t have warm and fuzzy memories of the place either.

  “Is she working with her dad?” I asked. “Or does she have her own dog and pony show goin’ on?”

  “I don’t know,” Skeeter said, “although it would certainly appeal to his sense of drama. What I do know is that there won’t be a meeting at this barn south of town. There’s no way J.R. Simmons would be stupid enough to announce the location so far ahead of time. He likes the element of surprise, and he knows any meeting we have won’t end well. He’s gonna stack it to his advantage.”

  “Well, we just saw Sam Teagen stuff Hilary Wilder into the back of a car and speed away, so I can’t help thinking Hilary is part of this meeting, too.”

  “None of this makes sense,” Skeeter said. “Why would Hilary be involved?”

  “I don’t know, but I have a terrible feeling about all of it.”

  “You need to have a vision,” he said.

  “I had one of Jed earlier that was fuzzy and indistinct. I couldn’t tell where we were or what was goin’ on. The future was uncertain.”

  “Well, have one of Jed now.”

  I knew this. I’d had dozens of them the week before, but I’d resisted them all day. I suddenly realized why I was being so resistant. I didn’t want to see the future because I wasn’t sure I could change it.

  “Is she forcing a vision?” Skeeter asked over the speaker.

  “No,” Jed said, then grabbed my hand. “It’s okay, Rose. Just do it. We need to know.”

  Taking a deep breath, I closed my eyes and focused on the meeting tonight and felt variations of darkness and cold and heat and bright lights. My vision was blurring as though I was in a sand storm, only there wasn’t any sand—the vision was too obscured.

  “You’re caught between darkness and light.”

  I opened my eyes, and Jed was staring at me. “What does that mean?”

  “It felt like two very different futures were at war with each other. One was dark and cold
—a lot like the visions I had of Mason for a time period he would have been dead in the unaltered future, but the other was all heat and bright lights, like a fire. And I was surrounded by sand, only there wasn’t any sand.” I paused. “I think it was fire.”

  “So two choices,” Skeeter said. “One choice leads to Jed’s death. The other one ends in a firestorm. Which one is the path to Kate? Which one do we choose?”

  And wasn’t that the biggest irony of them all? I’d finally harnessed my visions to make them work for me, but when I needed them the most, they failed me.

  Deep down, I’d known that the outcome of this night would ultimately rest on my shoulders, that I couldn’t rely on my visions. I could only rely on me.

  But I glanced over at Jed, at Neely Kate in the backseat, and then down at my phone, knowing Skeeter was there waiting for an answer.

  I wasn’t facing this alone. As much comfort as that gave me, maybe that was the problem.

  Chapter 31

  My friends were waiting for me to answer, to decide our fate, so I finally sighed and said, “I’m gonna be honest, I don’t want to go out to that place, but I still think we should meet Kate. I want to know what she’s up to with Neely Kate and what she plans on doin’ with that gun.”

  “What gun?”

  Crappy doodles. I hadn’t told him about our meeting with Neely Kate’s grandmother. I took a minute to fill him in on everything. As I rehashed it all, I snuck glances at Neely Kate, but she remained silent, her face a blank mask.

  “Well, shit,” he grumbled.

  “Any idea who J.R. killed with it?” I asked.

  “That was twenty-five years ago. It could have been anyone.”

  “Jenny Lynn must have known, though, don’t you think?” I asked. “Otherwise, why would she have taken it?” I paused. “Maybe it was a stab in the dark.”

  “She must have seen or heard something.”

  “Neely Kate’s granny said that Allen Steyer was killed the week before Thaddeus Brooke showed up asking for the gun, and that was after Jenny Lynn told Dora she was runnin’ off with the musician. What if she saw J.R. kill Allen Steyer? What if he was one of his Twelve?”