She said, “I’m glad you called. I had just been to the hospital to see you. They said you’d checked yourself out against their orders and it wasn’t the first time.”
“Please, sit.” I indicated the teak chair across from me. “Would you like coffee?”
“No thanks, I need to get back. What did you want to see me about?” She sat on the edge of the chair, hunching against the chill. Waves hit the shore in short slaps. “Pretty view, but cold out here.”
I couldn’t help playing with her. “What’s the latest on Emmaline?”
“We’ve got the airports covered and they’re watching for her at the Canadian border but she’s basically in the wind.”
“I think she’s close by.”
Barry wrapped her jacket tighter. “I doubt it, but don’t worry, we’ll find her.”
“Maybe I could help you with that.”
Barry’s lip twitched. “Thanks, but we’ve got it.”
A shriek came from the house. Barry swiveled, her hand on the weapon under her jacket. “What was that?”
“Someone needs a ride back to Branson. That’s why I called.”
This time the sound was a mournful howl.
“What’s going on in there?” Barry headed toward the cabin at a crouch, weapon ready.
“A noisy guest. I’ll introduce you.” I trotted behind her.
Barry stopped short when she saw Emmaline hanging in the doorway.
I said, “Robyn Barry, meet Emmaline Moreau aka Sarah Tucker.”
Emmaline whined, “She nearly broke my arm. I’m being tortured.”
Barry spoke into her phone, her tone modulated. “I have Sarah Tucker in custody. I’ll be bringing her in.”
Barry untied Emmaline and cuffed her, then focused on my workout room. She deadpanned, “This explains a lot about you.” Her head tilted toward Emmaline. “Fill me in here.”
“She planned to take me hostage and negotiate a trade for her nephew.”
Emmaline’s face crumpled. “What’s going to happen to him?”
Barry continued to ignore her. “Is that her weapon on the floor?”
“It’s hers. Looks like a prop from a movie set.”
She pulled plastic bags and gloves from her jacket pocket and sat on her haunches to check out the gun. “This antique is heavy for someone her size. It’s been discharged.”
I told her about the kettlebell glancing off Emmaline’s arm and showed where the bullet hit the wall behind me. I was thankful Emmaline hadn’t been able to hold up the gun. My weak body hadn’t moved as quickly as it would have if I’d had my full strength. I shuddered. She’d almost gotten me.
“I took it from her and set it down in that spot. It will have my prints on it.”
“I’ll send someone later to take your statement and photograph the scene.” She pried out the bullet, bagged it and the gun, then pointed out what a dumbass move it was for me to throw a kettlebell at someone holding a gun on me. “Good thing you weren’t standing closer or you’d have been hit.”
My photo of Barry, stern and competent, loading Emmaline into the BCA vehicle would play well in the paper and be picked up by other news sources. The story had gone national and this was the final piece, now locked down.
Before they left, I ran inside, searched through my camera pack for the leering devil tarot card Emmaline left in my SUV, went back and tossed it in her lap. “This fellow belongs with you.”
Emmaline hissed at me through tiny white teeth.
Barry stuck out her hand. “The BCA appreciates what you’ve done.”
“Your work with the FBI and Homeland Security uncovered the terrorist nest. That wasn’t me.”
“True, and I have to give myself credit for my good call in asking you to work with us following those local threads. It must be true, you can take the girl out of the small town, but you can’t take the small town out of the girl.”
“I’ve heard that.” She hadn’t as much asked me to work with them as given me a task to keep me out of the BCA’s way.
She got serious again. “Don’t go back in that workout room until I have my guy go over it. We want all the evidence we can find so Ms. Tucker stays locked up for a long time.”
The SUV pulled forward and she put her head out the window. “We’ll be in Branson a few more days wrapping this up. How about lunch at Little’s this week?”
“I’m leaving for the Middle East.” I hadn’t known I’d committed until the words were out. My heart beat fast.
Barry’s arms crossed. “You need to stop before you get yourself killed. PTSD and your attachment to your Spirit Lake family nearly ended you during that drone attack. You were lucky today. And now you’re going ten thousand miles away to tempt fate again? Seems reckless to me.”
The woman sounded just like Ben. “Everything you said is true. I’ve changed since coming back to Spirit Lake. Before that, it was all about the job, like you, but now everything matters, Ben, Little and Lars, Rock, my friends and my life in Spirit Lake. Call it being compromised if you like. I call it having a life.”
She offered a thin smile. “Let me know if there’s anything you need.”
I said, “I need my ‘boyfriend’ to get to his home at a reasonable time tonight.”
“Done.”
When they’d gone, I called Henry and told him what happened. “Do you think Edgar would mind coming back over here with his sage when he’s up to it?”
Edgar was right, Emmaline hadn’t been able to harm me, but she left a residue of evil wherever she went.
I opened my laptop and contemplated the photo I’d taken of Robyn Barry at Little’s when we’d had that first talk about her take on my mistake in caring about my family. She was a woman driven to achieve, who wanted what I had but was afraid to allow it into her life.
She didn’t know me enough to judge my actions. I reacted the same to strangers who were in danger as I did loved ones. It wasn’t a choice. Half measures didn’t work for me.
I lay in my tub soaking when the full impact of what could have happened sank in. Barry had dug a bullet hole from the wall of my workout room. I swallowed the lump in my throat. Better than having it dug out of me. My usual attempt at bravado wasn’t working. I submerged myself head and all under the water and stayed there until my air ran out. Holy shit.
*
Ben’s truck wasn’t there when I pulled into his driveway that evening. Framed by forest and lake, the cedar home he said he built with me in mind welcomed me. Once again, I thought about how easy it would be to fall into this life with him.
Tenderness welled up, my heart felt like it was breaking open or maybe just breaking. What had I done to show Ben how much I loved him? I’d taken him for granted too many times and demanded his attention whenever I was in Spirit Lake. I’d tried to talk him out of going to work for the BCA, but resented it when he didn’t want me to leave on my own assignments.
At the edge of the woods, a bush filled with red-orange bittersweet berries, lush against the stark branches beckoned to me. I broke off a few and took them to the house, lifting my face to snowflakes drifting down, a sliver of moon high in the sky.
The things from our camping trip were still in the hallway where they lay when we got the call about the explosion at Branson State. I set the branches in a birch bark container, then dragged the tent to the French doors and set it up. I left the doors open to the evening chill, spread a thick rug inside the tent and added throws and pillows.
When a fire was going in the fireplace, I poured apple cider in a pot, added cinnamon and set it on a low flame, its scent filling the room. I lit candles and dimmed the lights letting the firelight, candles, moon and stars illuminate the room.
Propped up on my elbows in the tent, gazing up at the moon reflected in the lake, I hoped I’d re-created that feeling of a remote island in the Boundary Waters, staring at the sky, nature all around, just the two of us. A key scraped against the lock.
“Britt?�
�
“I’m in here.”
His keys clunked onto the entry table, he crossed the room and crouched at the tent opening. “Weren’t you supposed to stay in the hospital another night?”
I hit the remote and a Marvin Gaye song with lyrics about sexual healing filled the room. “I’m going the homeopathic route.”
He ran a hand over his face. “I should shave.”
I pulled him inside and kissed the soft stubble on his chin. “It’s fine.”
He stretched out beside me. “Emmaline showing up at your place was one bone-headed move for a crafty woman like her.”
I said, “Her nephew is her Achilles’ heel. She wanted him back more than she wanted her own freedom.”
“You’re lucky she didn’t...” I stopped his work talk with another kiss.
He propped up on an elbow. “You did the tent, all this, for me?”
“For us. I couldn’t let the last thing be the chaos, the hospital.”
He flopped back against the cushions, his arms behind his head. “You’re leaving.” There was disappointment but no accusation in his tone.
“If I quit now, I’ll be a different person. I won’t be me anymore.” The entreaty in my voice turned to steel. “The bad guys don’t get to change me. They don’t get to determine who I am.”
Ben hooked his arm around my neck and pulled me close. “Coming home to you is what I wanted when I built this place. You bring warmth and life and love into it, and that’s worth waiting for.”
I pulled the patterned Ojibwe blanket around us.
Acknowledgments
Thanks once again to my dear friend, Julie Williams, for always believing in me, for her constant support, willingness to read and reread my manuscripts, and her excellent advice. I’m grateful for my talented and delightful critique group, Michele Drier, June Gillam, Sherry Joyce and Tarra Thomas; beta readers Pam Giarrizzo, R. Franklin James and Mark S. Bacon; editors Jennifer Fisher and Faye Roberts; cover artist Karen Phillips and formatter Rob Preece. Finally, I’d like to thank my husband, Gary Delsohn, for his loving support, and my children, Joseph and Amanda, who inspire me every single day.
About the Author
Linda Townsdin writes the Spirit Lake Mystery series inspired by her wonderful childhood in northern Minnesota. Focused on Murder (2014), Close Up on Murder (2015), and Blow Up on Murder (2017) have been called “complex murder mysteries with bone-chilling thrills and a little bit of romance.” Townsdin’s background as writer/editor for a national criminal justice consortium has been helpful in plotting her series, and her short fiction is published in several anthologies. She lives in California, adores her family, friends and pets and believes the true measure of success in life is your joy.
Connect with Linda Townsdin
http://lindatownsdin.com/
https://www.facebook.com/LindaTownsdinAuthor
http://twitter.com/ltownsdin
Table of Contents
Dedication............................................................................
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
About the Author
Table of Contents
Blow Up on Murder Page 24