Winnie sniffed and Sadie snorted, while the rest of the women rolled their eyes at the reaction of one or the other of the injured parties.
Emma swept the inside of the henhouse with her flashlight just to be sure they hadn’t missed anyone. Any little green men in there? Sasquatch? She grinned and stepped back to push the door shut again. Some things never changed. Winnie and Sadie are still fighting, and I’m still living in the strangest town on earth.
I had a pounding headache and things were getting worse by the second. I witnessed the ladies’ noisy introduction to Sophie and their realization a few seconds later that there was a second man, one of the ghost gang, tossed in there with her. And Delbert made three.
“Okay, Bristol, let’s do some counting here. Sherman said there were four men with Jackson, right—five total? So with Jackson and the guy who jumped me both in the shed now—and one guy wounded— that leaves us with two men who are still armed and unhurt, I assume, that we have to find and take down.”
“Take down? You shoulda been military, Pastor.”
“I was, remember?”
“Yeah, but a pastor. That doesn’t count.”
“Oh, right.”
“Anyway, you’re right. Counting the wounded guy, there are still three of ’em out there, and I gotta think they’re peeved at us. At least the guy I shot is.” Bristol leaned against an oak tree and took a second to peer around to his left. He turned back. “Can’t forget that Sherman’s wandering around out there somewhere, too.”
“Oh good grief, I forgot about him.” This was getting too complicated for me. I thought Bill Manning’s fried chicken death was bad. Now I had guys shooting at me, at Bristol, at the church ceiling. And maybe my wife and the other ladies and Sherman, if he didn’t get himself back where he belonged. “Well, we’ve got to get those women back in the house first.”
“Not to worry, Pastor,” Bristol said, pointing. “There they go now.”
He was right. They were almost to the back door, still wielding my tools. Melanie brought up the rear, scanning the surroundings constantly. Behind her, the Hummer fire had simmered down, pieces of it still smoldering and steaming in the snow. The air was filled with that acrid scent of burning tires. While we watched, the women reached the steps of the back door and one by one, disappeared inside.
Thank You, God. Please place a hedge of protection around Bristol and me—and Sherman, too, if he’s wandering around out here.
If the ghost gang hadn’t brought a nuclear device with them or called in reinforcements from some Apache gunship hovering overhead, I figured we had a decent chance of slipping undetected through the tree line between my property and Emma’s and approaching the inn from the east side without dying. Of course, there was always freezing to death, but I had a feeling that was the least of our problems. The snow made it hard going, but within five minutes, we’d slogged our way through the drifts and the tangled tree branches scattered on the ground concealed by the deep snow, and stood at the end of the line of trees.
I nudged Bristol and pointed to the side of the house. “Why don’t we make a run for that back corner then edge along the east wall to the front of the house? We should be able to get in through the front door…”
“If we don’t get a pitchfork through the gut …”
“Good point.”
Bristol turned to me and said, “That was a scary sight, wasn’t it? Winnie with a pitchfork? Where on earth did she get a pitchfork, anyway?”
“From my library—part of my collection of old farm tools. Never thought I’d see the day a gang of senior ladies used ’em to fight off gun-toting guys whose Hummer just got blown to bits.”
“Don’t imagine you did, Pastor. Can’t say as I’ve ever given that any thought, either.”
“Strange things happening in this town, Bristol.”
Bristol looked toward the house then nodded. “Yep. Unique bunch of folks live here in Road’s End, Pastor. You’re just getting to know ’em a little faster than most folks do. Different circumstances, too.” He looked back at me and grinned. “For the most part, they’re a harmless enough bunch. ’Course, you don’t want to get in their way.”
“Too late for that, my friend,” I said. “Let’s get this over with, okay?”
“I’m with you on that. Want me to lead the way?”
I grinned and slapped him on the back. “Naw, I’m the one with the military experience, remember? I’ll take the point.”
“Take the point … ha! Good one, Pastor. Let’s see you put all that military lingo into action.”
With one final look around the area and a thumbs-up to Bristol, I crept from the cover of the trees and crouching as low as I could, dashed through the snow. The wind blasted me from all sides and the snow pelted me relentlessly. Despite falling into deep drifts a couple of times and getting my right foot caught in the downspout of the eaves trough, I stood next to the house in less than a minute. I scurried a few feet along the wall until I was directly under one of the windows that flank the living room fireplace. The faintest glow emanated through the glass. I knew Melanie would have lit candles around the room the minute the power went out. I wouldn’t be able to see much inside the house from my vantage point out here, but I stole a quick look.
I was right. There wasn’t much visible at either end of the room, but there seemed to be someone sitting in one of the chairs beside the fireplace. I squinted, as if that would help any, and realized I was looking at the floral arrangement I saw on Hat Lady’s head earlier today. Was that just this morning? Seemed like six weeks ago. Beyond the open doorway to the dining room beyond, I could see only the specks of four more candles and the small glow that puddled around them. I’d need to get to the front of the house before I could see much in that room.
I motioned to Bristol that it was safe to follow. For a big fellow, he was amazingly agile, and thirty seconds later, he tapped me on the shoulder.
I nearly fell to the ground in a dead faint. Some military guy I am.
“See anything?” he said.
I shook my head. “Not yet. I’m surprised I don’t see the ladies. They should be taking off their coats or high-fiving one another or beating someone senseless. Something. No sign of them, though. We’ll have to get to the front of the house.”
“Don’t worry. They’re probably handing out the grenades Sadie made in her henhouse or plotting an invasion of some unsuspecting third-world country.”
“I pity that government.”
Bristol snorted and motioned for me to move over. “Me, too.” We sat beneath the window on a bricked path that ran between a small flower garden along the side of the house and a boxwood hedge that also ran the length of that wall. “Let me take a look.” He raised his head slowly and stood in a low crouch beneath the window. “Odd. Nothing. Where could they be? I don’t even hear anything. I know for a fact that Winnie and Sadie can’t go sixty seconds without sniping at one another. We should at least be able to hear them arguing.”
“Poor Mel.”
“Yeah. Frankly, I think we’re better off out here in the cold.”
Bristol slid back down and sat on his haunches next to me. “Think we can get inside without scaring them half to death?”
“Good question. If I could just reach … wait a minute! My cell phone.” I smacked my forehead. “Why didn’t I think of that before? I’ll call Mel. Good grief, where’s my brain?”
“Don’t worry about it. I didn’t think of it either. Besides, if you’d tried calling her earlier, she’d never have heard it in this weather. But it’s worth a try now.”
I pulled my hand out of the glove and reached into my inside coat pocket. I flipped it open—the screen radiated a bright blue haze. I cupped my other hand around it to shield the glow from the prying eyes of would-be killers and hit the autodial number for Mel’s phone that she’d programmed into mine. I waited for a connection and some time into the next century, it finally rang. One, two, three rings. Wh
ere was she? I leaned over to Bristol. “It’s ringing. Can you hear anything in there?”
“No, but unless she was just on the other side of this window, I doubt we’d hear it, anyway. Just let it ring. Maybe she left it somewhere and she’s looking for it.”
Seven, eight, nine. Finally! A connection. Relief flowed over me like a warm shower. “Mel? Honey, are you okay?” Silence.
“Mel? Mel, it’s me. Where are you?” Nothing. “What room are you in?” I waited. Still nothing. “Honey, say something. You’re starting to scare me.”
That warm shower feeling I’d had a moment before turned sickeningly cold and a greasy, heavy dread crushed the breath from my lungs and sank to the pit of my stomach. I wanted to throw up.
“She’s tied up right now, Mr. Foster. Can I have her get back with you?” That deep voice—one with a sneer so palpable I wanted to reach out and slap it right off the leering face I could see in my mind’s eye—wasn’t Mel’s. And it didn’t belong to any of the other ladies, either.
It belonged to a man. And he had my wife.
Chapter Thirty-One
Emma couldn’t recall ever being as happy to get inside a warm house as she was the moment she stepped into Melanie’s kitchen. Even with the wind swirling around her ankles and bits of snow blowing in the door behind her as if to get in its last licks, the warmth of the crackling fire in the hearth enveloped her in comfort. She could get used to this.
Standing in the kitchen, the ladies chattered over one another as they removed their coats and hats, gloves and scarves. Much boot-stomping and hand-blowing followed as each one piled her outwear on the top of the pile that grew in Melanie’s arms.
“I’ll be right back, ladies,” Melanie said, her voice muffled behind the pile of wool that rose past her mouth. “I’ll just go hang these up in the hall closet. Why don’t you all have a seat at the table—Hazel, you’re closest to the cupboard. Would you mind getting down some mugs while I do this? Then I’ll heat some water and we’ll be drinking something hot in no time.”
Hazel nodded, turned to the cupboard behind her, and started to remove mugs and set them on the countertop. The others pulled out their chairs and amidst the clatter of wooden legs scraping across the stone floor, they took their seats.
Lorena leaned over and pulled back the chair next to her and gestured to Emma to sit down.
Emma smiled and sat. It had been a long time since she’d felt a rush of—what was it, happiness?—at being with the other women. Particularly this bunch. But odd as these women were, and as much trouble as she’d had with them over the years, she still couldn’t deny it felt good to get out of the storm and into the warmth and relative safety of the inn—not to mention away from men with guns—with these people.
Lorena reached across the table and slapped it with the flat of her hand to get Winnie’s attention over the noisy conversation. “How’s your chest feeling, Winnie? Better now that we’re inside?”
Winnie rubbed the left side of her chest. “Yes, I think so. With all the commotion lately—first poor Wilford dying and this storm and the vandalism at the church and now these horrible, horrible men—well, you can imagine what that would do to a person who has a weak heart.”
Sadie sputtered at the far end of the table. “You don’t have a weak heart, Winnie Wyandotte. You’ll outlive the whole bunch of us. Mark my word.”
“I most certainly will not, Sadie Simms. I’ll be dead long before you. You just watch.”
“Will not.”
“Will too!”
The other ladies—Ruby Headley, her daughter Grace, Martha Washington, Hazel, and Lorena—had heard this argument many a time. Earlier that evening, Hazel Parry had recounted the whole thing to Emma. According to Hazel, Winnie was bound and determined, despite her doctor’s reports to the contrary, that she had a faint heart and was in imminent danger of falling over dead. Sadie was just as adamant that the only thing wrong with Winnie Wyandotte was that she was so full of hot air she might accidentally jet off into the stratosphere. It was Sadie who reported to the others what she heard the doctor had found upon repeated examinations of Winnie’s heart, as if Sadie were privy to that personal information, yet few people openly called either one of the ladies on their claims. As a result, the town was divided into two camps: the faction that was convinced Winnie was going to drop dead at any moment and those who claimed she would live darned near forever, but make everyone else wish they were dead.
Ruby sat on the same side of the table as Winnie and had to lean behind her daughter to address her neighbor. “Winnie, you just take it easy, okay? No sense askin’ for trouble.” She turned to Sadie at the end of the table to her right and winked. “And Sadie, I’m sure you’re being optimistic that our dear friend is going to be just fine. Why don’t we find something else to talk about right now?”
Emma watched the interaction between the women at the table. These two women were friends? They sniped at one another constantly and yet considered themselves to be devout Christians, faithful to their God, and loving brothers and sisters in Christ. She didn’t get it. After their mother died, the girls’ father had told them time and again that Christians were nothing but hypocrites—loving and well-meaning on the outside, but conniving and mean through and through. And these two women didn’t appear to be the least bit loving toward one another—even on the outside. Where did they get the nerve to call themselves Christians?
And where were all these Christians—people like these women and their parents, for that matter—when her mother died? When her sister died? When her father abandoned her to the calloused care of her aunt and uncle? When Uncle George ranted and raved and made her life a living hell? When Aunt Louanna turned a blind eye to his ravings? Where were they then?
Emma snapped out of it when Lorena said something about Melanie. “Where do you suppose she went off to?” Lorena pushed back her chair—Emma cringed at the screeching noise—and said, “Well, I’m going to put that water on to boil. She must have gotten distracted and gone upstairs for a moment.” At that, Lorena wiggled her way past the other women sitting around the table and walked to the stove beside the fireplace. She lifted the tea kettle from the burner and passed it to Emma. “Emma, dear, would you mind handing the kettle to Martha? And Martha, would you please add a little water to it? Oh dear, no matches. Anybody know where Melanie keeps her extra matches?”
Emma stood to grab the kettle then handed it across the table to Martha, who stood and turned around to the sink behind her after the hand-off.
“I think I do,” Emma said, turning back to Lorena and holding up a finger. “Let me get them.” She picked up a candle from the table and walked over to the pantry—until just recently the holding cell for Delbert T. Jackson. “Last I knew she had some right behind this door.” She walked in, closed the door behind her, and rummaged around the shelf, moving some cans of beans and black olives that stood in her way. A few seconds later, she had a new box in her hand and was reaching for the door handle when she heard a shriek.
Winnie. Oh dear, another heart attack.
“Who are you?” Ruby Mae demanded.
“Let go of her, you … you thug!” That was definitely Martha Washington.
Emma put her ear against the crack between the door and its frame. “Shut up, old lady. She’s just fine for the time being. You ladies keep your traps shut, and she’ll stay that way.”
“Don’t you dare do a thing to hurt her, mister.” That was Sadie. Emma would recognize that voice anywhere. “I mean it, buster.”
Emma heard a chair go screeching across the floor then clatter against the granite tiles. Whoever had Melanie must have kicked it over. “Did you hear me, woman? I said shut it. See this gun? I can either point it at you or shoot her with it. What’s it going to be?”
Silence. Emma held her breath and hoped she didn’t faint and give herself away. She blew out the candle and hugged herself in the faint light coming through the cracks under the door an
d waited.
“That’s what I thought. Now get in here. All of you.” They apparently didn’t move fast enough for him. “I said now!”
Emma heard some stumbling, chairs moving, the women talking among themselves.
“Shut up!” the man yelled. “I hear something. Whose phone is that?”
Mel’s voice was barely audible. Emma guessed she and the gunman were over by the doorway to the dining room. “Mine.”
“Hand it over.”
“It’s nothing,” Mel said, her voice stronger. “I’ve been getting a lot of those telemarketing calls on this phone. No one else even has the …”
“Give it to me, lady!”
The ringing stopped. Emma pressed her ear closer to the doorframe and closed her eyes to concentrate. The man said nothing at first, then, “She’s tied up right now, Mr. Foster. Can I have her get back with you?” And then he laughed.
Just like that, they were gone. Emma let her breath out slowly and leaned her head against the door. Oh my, what was she going to do now?
Chapter Thirty-Two
Emma didn’t give herself any time to think. She had to get out of that house and over to the church as quickly as possible. She could hear footsteps on the staircase above her head and knew that whoever had Melanie and the ladies was taking them to one of the rooms upstairs. She had no idea if there were more men than just the one she’d heard in the house, but she couldn’t take the time to figure that out. He had a gun, she knew that much, and she couldn’t be certain he wouldn’t use it on Melanie—or on any of the other ladies.
She couldn’t get to her coat or hat, but she had no choice in the matter. She opened the pantry door just a crack. The light from the candles on the table cast a faint amber glow over the empty kitchen. But what about the dining room? She couldn’t take the chance of venturing beyond the kitchen and out the front door. Besides, she assumed they had to have come in that way while she and the others were outside. Good grief, they’d all clamored in the back door right into their trap. So it was out the back door or nothing. And there was no way she could do nothing at all.
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