by Alexie Aaron
Mia watched in disgust as Beth all but shimmied into the hall towards Whit who recoiled. Tom stepped in front of her and took the ear mics off her hands. “Thank you, I’ll take care of this.” He handed one to Whit and put his in. He maneuvered his body to keep Beth from touching the green-faced Whit.
Mia’s heart hurt as it looked like Whit was definitely the victim in Beth’s little charade. He looked at Mia, and she softened her gaze.
“Well I’ll be in the kitchen, honey, if you need anything,” Beth said to Whit before leaving.
Mike put a hand around Mia’s arm and pulled her back. Burt observed all of this and filed it in his memory. He would deal with this after the investigation.
“Team, let’s get moving. It isn’t going to get any warmer out there,” Burt said. He touched his com, “Ted what’s the ETA on the lights?”
Ted burst through the door. He handed two mega lights to Burt. He gave Mia a handful of tiny Lego-covered devices. “If all hell breaks loose, smash this with your foot or against a rock or wall. But close your eyes first. It will blind you. I suggest warning the others.”
“Thanks,” Mia said, pocketing the little flash bombs in the bib front of the waders.
She let the others walk through the kitchen. To Mike it was clear why she wanted to create distance between her and Whit. Ted stood there looking down at Mia. Mike shut the kitchen door, giving the couple privacy.
“You’re going to be alright,” Ted said before Mia could tell him so. He leaned down and brought his lips to hers. The kiss was brief but more communication passed in those few moments than could be said in a year.
Mia opened her eyes and stared into his brown ones. “I promise.”
He held out his hand and dropped a chain with an interesting looking charm on the end of it. “It’s so I never lose you again,” he said. She turned around and let him put the necklace on her. She let it fall next to Murphy’s axe - a previous gift from Burt.
“It’s a GPS, isn’t it?” she guessed.
Ted’s face lit up. “I made it myself if that helps.”
Mia laughed. “Oh, I’ll treasure this always.” She pulled him down and kissed him hard. “For luck,” she said and rushed down the hall and opened the kitchen door.
Ted waited a beat, savoring the kiss. He looked at himself in the hall mirror and touched his nose which he was sure going to receive a punch from Whitney before the night was over.
Mia breezed through the kitchen ignoring Beth who got up and said, “Mia, I have something to tell you.”
Mike stepped in and ushered Mia out the door.
Mia heard Beth protest as the door shut behind her.
“Okay, this is Ted, I’ll be your DJ for the evening. I need to get a com check from all of you.”
“Burt, over.”
“Tom, over.”
“Whitney, hearing you loud and clear.”
“Mia, running to catch up to the gentlemen, over.”
“Okay, please keep chatter to a minimum,” Burt requested.
“Mike, headed to the second floor, over.”
“All your com links are live. No swearing, Cooper, we may use this for the show.”
Mike watched from the window as the four approached the ruins and disappeared one by one into the depth of the foundations. He sat back, keeping his vigil and thinking about how great his life was, how brilliant his friends were, and how a little smart-mouthed sensitive had touched and changed them all.
Chapter Thirty-one
They followed Burt until the flooded area. Burt cautioned the others that he was going to turn on the mega light. He did so, and horror filled their eyes. Suspended against the wall across the slush pit by rusty chains was what was left of Jeff Harbaugh. He had been relieved of his outer clothing and deep slashes were cut into his flannels, leaving his skin falling in folds, exposing his gutted body.
Mia turned around and threw up. She forced herself to look again, taking in the symbols cut into his face and hands.
“This is now a crime scene,” Whitney said in his deputy voice, taking control. “Mia, please do not touch anything. Mr. Hicks, I will have to ask you to back up and stand with your colleague. Tom, call it in.”
He didn’t respond. “Deputy Braverman!”
Tom shook himself and answered, “Yes, sir?”
“Call this in. We need to rope off the area.”
“Where’s the other guy?” Mia asked stunned.
“If he did this, I expect he hit the road not long ago. Better put a BOLO out on Macy - what the fuck is his name?”
“Harold,” Tom supplied. He walked back and dialed the Sheriff’s Department.
Mia went to lean against the wall but stopped herself. “Deputy Martin, I’m going to be ill again, may I leave the premises?” she asked woodenly.
“Mr. Hicks, take Miss Cooper into the house. No one leaves that farmhouse until I say so. Leave the lights and the camera.”
Burt nodded and picked up Mia who was too distraught to move and carried her up the ramp. As soon as she hit the fresh air she said, “You can put me down now. I’ll be alright, Pa.”
“Mia, someone has to take care of you,” he said repeating her earlier words. “Look at it this way. At least we didn’t have to get wet.”
“There’s that.”
“Burt’s in view carrying something. It’s Mia,” Mike announced.
“Lord in heaven, doesn’t the girl have legs?” complained Beth.
Ted turned to her, turned off the com and said, “Shut the fuck up.” He turned it back on ignoring the stunned Beth. “Deputy Martin, do you need anything from us?”
“It’s going to get busy here soon. Notify the owner that her house is now a crime scene. We will need to interview her so she’s not to leave the area. We need copies of the tapes and time stamp them.”
Ted typed his instructions into the computer. Cid was impressed at the speed in which Ted was moving, considering his one true love was being carried over the threshold by her former lover.
Beth walked off into the den and slammed the door. Burt set Mia on her feet, and both of them began to shed their muddy outer clothing.
Cid got up and pulled open the refrigerator door and extracted some ginger-ale he had seen, poured a glass and handed it to Mia explaining,” My mother gives this to us when we have upset stomachs.”
“You heard?”
“Cooper, we all heard. I about lost my supper along with you,” Ted said with his eyes on the console. He was busy extracting feeds from all the minicams and stills from the trap cameras. One of them caught two white blurs. Another caught a full shot of Jeff Harbaugh walking bold as brass past the garage door. There was the deer and the black wall of nothing too. He printed them just in case.
Cid sat back down, leaned in and said, “Give it a rest, now’s the time that Batman soothes Vicki Vale. I’ll pretend I know what I’m doing here. Trust me.”
Ted took off his headset and handed it to Cid who put it on and gave him a thumbs up. He walked over to where Mia sat staring at the glass of ginger-ale. With tender hands he extracted the ear com. He knelt down and lifted her chin. “I think you need to lie down. Mike’s in the guest room. I don’t think Martha would mind if you used her bed under the circumstances.”
Mia looked at Ted. His voice was soft and soothing. She let him lead her upstairs and into the bedroom at the front of the house. He pulled back the coverlet and helped Mia off with her soiled clothing. “I’ll bring up some PEEPs sweats,” he said.
Mia lay down.
Ted pulled the covers over her, cooing, “Let, Teddy Bear take care of this.” He kissed her forehead and before he left said, “I’m proud of you, Cooper, most girls would have fainted.”
She managed a smile and closed her eyes.
Mike whistled at Ted as he walked by the door. Ted backed up and entered the room. “You did good. I’ll keep an ear out for her,” he promised.
“Anything going on?” Ted asked, looking out
the window.
“Just Tom pacing while on the phone and some flashes. I take it Whit’s taking some pictures. How’s Burt doing?”
“I don’t know, he’s next on my list.”
“He looked pretty impressive carrying Mia. You better look for a heating pad, the dude’s back will be out,” Mike said seriously.
“You can take off the com.”
“Not until the cops notice they still have theirs on. I’m going to be listening to whatever they have to say.”
“As my mother says, eavesdropping made her rich,” Ted said and hurried down the stairs and out the door in search of some clothes for Mia.
Mia fell asleep and dreamed. She was with Angelo again, but this time she declined his invitation to dance. She walked away when he offered her his food. She rejected his conversation starters. “How dare you take my feelings of Whit, Burt and Murphy away,” she said. Instead she walked into the lake until she could breathe no more.
Sherriff John Ryan arrived with two other patrol men. He instructed the deputies to copy down the license plate numbers and check out any vehicles that didn’t belong to the people inside. He nodded to Burt Hicks who stood on the front porch watching the proceedings.
“You want to give me the blurb on what you guys are doing here?”
“Little girl is frightened by shadows. Parents call PEEPs. We trace the shadows to her grandmother’s house.”
Ryan nodded. “But it’s not that simple. This Cid Garrett abduction, care to give me your take on that?”
“Cid was hired to drive one of our vehicles from Kansas to here. He was then hired by the grandmother to take what we considered a source of the shadows out of her daughter’s house. He was working there when he was tasered and abducted. The rest you know.”
“Yes, big mess. Major’s wife is causing a stink. Why are my deputies here?”
“We were burning the bad wood out back when a flare went off. Mia Cooper and I went to investigate but were stopped by water of indeterminate depth. She called Tom, who I believe was off duty, to borrow some waders. Whit came along for the ride.”
“To your knowledge did any one of your crew, Miss Cooper included, kill this man?”
Burt was shocked by the question but manage to answer, “Mia, Mike and I were all in view of each other at the time. I believe Ted and Cid can vouch for each other and maybe Beth. There were cameras rolling. I believe Whit has instructed Ted to get your people tapes and camera stills with time stamps.”
“Owner of this property?”
“She’s on her way. Martha was at her daughter Julie’s house in Wheybridge when she was called.”
“Thank you, Mr. Hicks. Keep your crew here for the meantime.”
“Will do.”
Ryan walked around the house, past a smoldering fire pit and over to where Tom had set up some floodlights.
“Deputy, what do we have?”
“Jeff Harbaugh, recent escapee from the county hospital, under our watch,” he added. “Found mutilated and strung up twelve feet in the air on the east side of the barn’s foundations. As far as we can tell without the coroner, it looks like he was disemboweled. Organs are yet to be found.”
“What is the reason for your waders, son, and body armor?”
“There’s at least three feet of snow melt inside. Harbaugh and Macy were reported by my uncle Archie to be armed with a compound hunting bow. We suspected they may be the ones that shot off the flare.”
“Your impression. Did anyone from that house…”
“Sir, I think there is a small possibility that Macy killed his partner, but unless the PEEPs group has recently hired a ten-foot tall cannibal, I would say that they are in the clear.”
“Cannibal?”
“Go have a look at the body and tell me you don’t see bite marks.”
Ryan broke into a cold sweat. “Thank you, Braverman.” He turned and entered the foundations of the barn.
Whit was busy taking pictures and didn’t hear Ryan approach. Ryan watched as the deputy moved methodically and captured the corpse from every angle possible.
“How deep is the water?”
“Three feet after the ramp ends. I’ve been pulling out various detritus and taking a picture of each piece. So far, I’ve found no organs, intestines or, for that matter, blood spray. He’s a big guy. I don’t think Macy’s big enough to lift the dead guy let alone transport him here from a kill zone. Look at those carvings in his face and hands. They were definitely done while Harbaugh was alive. Gruesome stuff,” Whit commented.
“Find the bows?”
“No.”
“Where’s his coat?”
“Not anywhere I can find.”
“Looks like this was left as a message,” Ryan surmised.
“Yes, but for who?”
Beth laid her head on the desk. She was frustrated, tired of being bounced around as if she were a mere toy instead of petted and praised. Look at all this research. The answers were all here. Books didn’t lie. Well, fiction did, but in her hallowed halls of the academic world, truth was to be had. Sure it depended on who wrote the history, but there were ways of finding the truth. All you had to do was look.
And then there was Mia. What kind of plague was she upon the house of Bouvier? Beth had been able to discredit the other women that were in the group. True, most of them were Mike’s bimbos, and given his penchant for moving on, it was easy. Mia from the start was a challenge. She actually was a sensitive, could bilocate and was an asset to the group. Mike liked her because she had no aspirations of being in front of the camera. Burt slept with her, proving to Beth that Mia was just another bimbo to be worked out of the group. But Mia had friends, powerful friends, people who handed PEEPs jobs that launched their careers and gave them the reputation as viable paranormal investigators.
But in the meanwhile, Beth was fading into the background. Ted who always seemed to be available for a brotherly pat on the back wasn’t interested anymore. He was driven with his inventions and distracted by Mia. Burt was tired of Beth’s whining and told her to take some time off. She did so and came back to PEEPs with an all new attitude and a plan to unbalance Mia enough to get her put away. She already sent off letters to Mia’s parents, letters of concern for the sanity of their offspring, letters that explained how a scandal could hurt Amanda Cooper’s reputation in the academic world. Now all she had to do was wait until Mia blew her cool.
Mia’s Achilles heel had been her attraction and obsession for Whitney Martin. Whit and she had hooked up, but Beth doubted Mia could hold on to him. When she saw Whit at the bar, inspiration hit and a new plan formed. Mia was way too calm right now. It seemed like Whitney Martin hadn’t confessed to Mia yet. Well Beth wasn’t going to sit back and see a night of bad sex go to waste. She was going to tell Mia herself. Why not tell her now when she was vulnerable and in shock from what she had seen in the barn? This would tip the sanity scale, Beth was sure of it.
Ted stopped in to see Mike, on his way to Mia, to drop off the sweats he had procured from the PEEPs promotion supply. He found Burt there watching the activity through a pair of binoculars the two of them had found in Henry’s stuff. They heard footsteps in the hall and were surprised to see Beth pass their doorway and continue down the hall to the room Mia was resting in. Curious, Ted moved stealthily along the hall behind her.
Beth entered the room. “Mia, it’s time to get up. Wake up. I’ve got something to tell you.”
Ted stopped his progress, and Mike bumped into the back of him. Burt stuck his head out of the room to see what was going on.
Mia opened her eyes and faced Beth. “Is there a problem?” She looked around for her clothes and started to pull on the mud-spattered cargos. “Are the guys alright?”
“Yes. But obviously you’re not.”
“I’m sorry, what are you talking about?”
Ted could hear confusion in Mia’s voice.
“Whitney and I are together. You’re never around for h
im. We slept together last night,” Beth said and waited for the tears.
“Excuse me?” Mia said, forgetting her clothing. “Say that again.”
Mike moved to go in and get between Mia and Beth. Ted blocked his way. “She’s got to do this on her own.”
Burt put a hand on Mike’s shoulder. “He’s right. Mia’s been putting up with this shit from Beth for the sake of PEEPs for too long now. It’s time.”
“Whit and I fucked all last night. Laughing about how ‘spooky girl’ couldn’t satisfy him. You’re a loser, a victim and a freak,” Beth spat.
“How dare you?”
“It wasn’t just me in that bed.”
“How dare you take advantage of a man who was from all accounts too drunk to walk? You’re no better than a rapist, Beth. If it was one of us and a guy did this, we could haul his ass in front of a judge and jury.”
“He was very interested when I told him about you and that Italian freak.”
Mia didn’t rise to the bait instead she spoke in a calm even tone. “Whit has recently lost a wife in the most horrible way imaginable. He just got on his feet, and sure I was overjoyed that he wanted to be with me awhile. I knew it wasn’t going to last, but I thought we’d take it slow and see what happened. What you did with him was done in vengeance. If you so had a problem with me, why not call me out? This sneaking around spitting venom isn’t right. You used a kind trusting man to what end?”
“To show you that you can’t have everything you want. You have so much. You can’t have Ted. You can’t have PEEPs. You belong in a mental asylum not be lauded around as god knows what. You’re a freak and a virus that has infected Ted, Burt and even Mike. You need to be put down.”
“Are you threating me? Explain put down.”
“You’re defective.”
Burt pushed past Ted and walked into the room.
Mia saw him and held up her hand to stop him. “Burt, please.” She turned to Beth. “I’m different, true. I’ve done nothing wrong in regards to Burt, Mike and Ted. With them, and I thought, wrongly of course, with you, I found acceptance. I found a way to come out of hiding and help people plagued by the paranormal and help the ghosts move on. I’ve had some problems. Burt helped me through most of them. We had a good time together, and then, as our fate wasn’t to be together, we moved on and eventually were able to work together. Mike and I fought it, but I think we like each other. Ted, what I feel for him snuck up on me. Yes, you were right to hate me for his attraction for me. It wasn’t one sided, but we never acted upon the attraction. I wouldn’t do it to Whit, and Ted’s too much a gentleman to force the issue. So we come full circle to you.”