Poisoned Ground

by Sandra Parshall

  None, she decided. This situation was too serious, too dangerous, for her to risk angering any of the people involved. She would stay out of things that didn’t concern her and let Tom do his job without interference.

  But she knew that every second she was in Hollinger’s presence, she would be thinking about the past, about the man he once was and the young woman whose affair with him ended in her father’s death and her own suicide.

  She was about halfway to her destination when her cell phone rang. With no other vehicles in sight, she slowed to a crawl as she dug the phone from her shirt pocket and answered.

  “Hello, this is Rachel Goddard.”

  “Dr. Goddard—Dr. Goddard?” The woman’s voice sounded breathless, high-pitched, familiar but so distraught that Rachel couldn’t put a name to it.

  “Yes, this is Dr. Goddard. Who’s calling, please?”

  “You have to promise me—” The voice rose toward hysteria.

  Alarmed now, Rachel steered the Range Rover onto the weedy shoulder of the road. “Who is this? Tell me who’s calling.”

  The name came out on a trembling exhalation. “Summer. Summer Jones.”

  “What’s wrong, Miss Jones? Has something happened?”

  “You have to promise me—” Summer paused, drew a couple of gasping breaths, and when she spoke again she sounded calmer. “Please promise that you’ll take care of the cats. Please don’t put them to sleep. They haven’t done anything to deserve that. And the rabbits. Don’t forget the rabbits.”

  Full-blown panic seized Rachel. “What are you talking about? What’s happening?”

  “Do you promise? I want you to promise.”

  “Yes, yes, I promise. What’s happening? Miss Jones? Summer? Answer me!”

  Dead air. She had disconnected.

  “Oh my God,” Rachel said in the sudden silence.

  She checked the screen to make sure Summer had truly disconnected, then with trembling fingers punched the speed dial button for Tom’s cell number. Before he could say hello, she blurted, “Something’s wrong at the Jones house. I got a strange call from Summer. Send somebody over there, please. Now.”

  “What do you mean, a strange call?”

  “Don’t ask me questions I can’t answer. Just send somebody.”

  A moment of silence.

  “Tom!”

  “Okay, all right. I’ll head out there myself. Talk to you later.”

  “Thank you, thank you,” she whispered after he’d disconnected.

  She leaned her forehead against the steering wheel and took several long, deep breaths, in and out, in and out, until she felt her heartbeat slow, felt the band of tension around her throat loosen. Probably nothing, she told herself. The Jones sisters were odd women with a sad history, and Summer seemed the most fragile of the three, the one most likely to bow under the weight of their history and the fear generated by the murders of their closest neighbors.

  Rachel eased her Range Rover back onto the road. She had an appointment to keep with Jake Hollinger and his sick cat. And that would take her near the Jones house, so maybe she’d be able to find out what was happening there.

  ***

  Tom and Brandon jumped into Tom’s cruiser and tore out of the lot.

  “What do you think?” Brandon asked. “You think Winter’s done something to her sisters?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t want to guess. But I’ll tell you, nothing can surprise me at this point.”

  “They don’t have any guns, do they?”

  Winter’s angry words earlier in the day came back to Tom, but this time he heard a different meaning in them. “Winter told me I could search and I wouldn’t find any guns anywhere inside the house.”

  “But you think she’s got some stashed—”

  The dispatch radio crackled to life, cutting Brandon off. The department’s young dispatcher sounded like a frightened child. “Sheriff Bridger? Are you there?”

  Brandon pulled the mike from its hook and held it up for Tom.

  “This is Sheriff Bridger. Go ahead.”

  “Joanna McKendrick called and said she heard gunshots, then right after that Jake Hollinger called and said the same thing. They both thought the shots were coming from the Jones sisters’ house.”

  “We’re on our way,” Tom said as he sped past the Mountainview city limits. “Get all our men over there. On duty and off. And send an ambulance.”

  ***

  Rachel was tempted to drive on past Jake Hollinger’s driveway to the Jones house, but she forced herself to turn in. Tom didn’t need her underfoot.

  But what on earth was going on over there?

  Put it out of your mind. Concentrate. Do your job. Let Tom do his.

  Medical bag in hand, she walked to the front door of the brown-shingled house.

  Jake didn’t answer her knock.

  She knocked again, harder, and tapped her foot as she waited. “Come on, come on,” she muttered. She strained to pick up sounds in the distance but heard nothing. Even the birds had gone silent.

  When she got no response to her knock, she retraced her steps to the driveway, then cut around the side of the house to the back. He might be in the yard, unable to hear her knock on the front door.

  She didn’t see Jake out back, so she mounted the steps to the porch. Despite the chilly autumn air, the main door into the kitchen stood open and the storm door wasn’t fully closed. Not good. She would have to warn him about the danger of the cat pushing his way outside and getting lost. Tater wasn’t exactly equipped to cope with the great outdoors.

  Shading her eyes, she leaned into the glass in the storm door and peered inside. The fat orange tabby was there in the kitchen, sitting up in his bed and looking alert. When he saw Rachel, he meowed.

  She pulled the storm door open and stepped inside. “Mr. Hollinger? Are you here?”

  She thought she heard movement, somewhere to her right.

  “Mr. Hollinger?” she called again. “It’s Rachel Goddard.”

  She walked over to the doorway that opened off one side of the kitchen. It appeared to lead to a hallway that ran alongside the stairs.

  Turning left into the hallway, she found her face inches from the barrel of a rifle.

  She yelped, staggered backward, and dropped her bag. Her back slammed against the door frame. Dragging her eyes upward, away from the black hole at the end of the barrel, she saw the tear-streaked face of Summer Jones.

  “What are you doing here?” Summer cried. She sounded grievously disappointed with Rachel. “You shouldn’t be here.”

  “What—What’s—” Rachel couldn’t catch her breath.

  “It will all be over soon.” Summer sounded as if she wanted to reassure and calm Rachel. “I’m the last one left, and I’ll be gone soon. Then it will be over.”

  “Where’s—” Breathe, breathe. Stay calm, stay calm. “Where’s Mr. Hollinger?”

  A faint smile curled her lips. “In the basement. He fell down the stairs.”

  Chapter Forty-three

  Tom pulled off the road and parked in a spot where several evergreens would hide them from anyone looking out of the Jones house. He and Brandon didn’t speak as they pulled Kevlar vests from the trunk and fitted them over their jackets.

  Ten or fifteen minutes at a minimum would pass before backup arrived. Tom didn’t think they could afford to wait. They had to go in now.

  He met Brandon’s eyes, knowing he didn’t have to speak the question aloud. The young deputy nodded. He was ready.

  His pistol drawn, Tom crossed the drainage ditch and moved into the small patch of evergreens to take a good look at the house. The afternoon sun sat low in the sky, its glare reflecting off the house’s front windows and making any glimpse of the interior impossible.

  Tom signaled for Brandon to
move to the left. At the same moment, they both broke cover and ran for the nearest trees. Tom didn’t breathe again until he pressed his back against an ancient, gnarled maple. Brandon, shielded by another maple, looked to Tom for direction.

  Tom listened, heard nothing. He took a quick glance around the tree trunk. From this angle, the windows looked blank, all the curtains drawn, no one in sight. Wind shook the tree branches overhead.

  He gave Brandon a hand signal and they peeled away from their tree cover, Brandon to the left, Tom to the right, and bolted for the house. When they reached opposite corners, too close for anyone inside to see them or get off a good shot, Tom indicated that Brandon should stay put and watch the front door.

  Tom moved around the house, staying close, ducking under windows. When he rounded the corner to the rear, he saw Winter Jones sprawled face down at the bottom of the back steps, a bloody wound between her shoulders.

  “Aw, Christ,” Tom said under his breath. He’d expected Winter to be the one with the gun, not a victim.

  The shooter could still be in the house, or concealed somewhere nearby. Tom’s gaze darted from the tool shed to the hen house, both a good fifty yards from the house. He saw no one, no movement.

  Did he dare go to Winter? Could he do anything for her if he risked his own life to reach her?

  Hugging the wall of the house, he edged toward the porch. He stopped next to a basement window and glanced in sideways without exposing himself. He saw only dark space. The window into the main floor of the house was elevated, and the best he could do was peer in over the sill. A light fixture glowed in the kitchen ceiling, but he couldn’t see much of the room.

  Abandoning the safety of the wall, Tom rounded the side of the porch and took the steps as quietly as he could. The main door stood open, but the storm door, with glass in the top half, was closed. With his back to the wall next to the door, he angled his head to look in.

  Spring Jones lay on her side on the kitchen floor, a pool of blood spreading below her ribcage.

  ***

  With her back pressed against the door frame, Rachel remained perfectly still and let Summer talk.

  “Someone was knocking on the front door—I didn’t know it was you—and I was afraid he would call out and you’d hear him, but he just backed away from me, and then down he went, without making a sound.” Summer’s eyes appeared unfocused, almost dreamy, but her steady grip on the rifle never faltered. “Father didn’t either. It’s so strange, that they both died without crying out. Just fell, down and down and down.”

  Rachel stayed silent, her eyes fixed on the rifle barrel. Where was Tom now? She had sent him to the Jones house. He had no idea she was in Jake Hollinger’s house. Would he see her Range Rover when he passed the driveway? Was it parked too far up, obscured by trees between the house and the road? Would Tom even glance this way as he drove by?

  “It was Lincoln Kelly’s fault,” Summer was saying, “with those dreadful pictures he took. And Jake, seducing our poor little sister. Those two men played with her life, they made her do things she would never have done otherwise. It was their fault that our father died, you know. Not ours. We may have pushed him, but Lincoln Kelly and Jake Hollinger were to blame.” Now Summer focused on Rachel. “You see that, don’t you?”

  Summer stared at her, expecting an answer. What was she supposed to say? “Yes, I think so—but I don’t really understand what happened.”

  Summer blew out an impatient sigh. “I just told you what happened. Lincoln showed Father those pictures and told him Autumn was in the barn with Jake at that very moment. Father went over there with a gun. If I hadn’t gone after him, if Autumn and I hadn’t stopped him, he would have killed Jake, and then what would have happened to all of us? We were trying to prevent anyone from getting hurt. We were doing the right thing.”

  “Yes, you were doing the right thing.” Rachel focused on keeping Summer calm. “So you…you pushed your father, to keep him away from Jake? I don’t see how you could have done anything else. You had no choice.”

  “Yes, yes, that’s right, there was nothing else we could have done.” Summer’s head bobbed up and down several times. “But he fell, and—well, he died. And Jake took charge and made us leave and take the gun with us, and he told us never to let anyone know we’d been there.”

  “But your sister—” Rachel bit off her words. She couldn’t ask about Autumn’s suicide. That would only provoke Summer.

  Summer’s eyes had filled with tears. “It didn’t bother me that we pushed Father and made him fall. I was glad he was dead. He was always so mean to us, and he was even worse after Mother died. But Autumn was too sensitive. She felt guilty, and she couldn’t live with it. She thought she’d done something wrong. But those men, Lincoln and Jake, they were the cause of it all. And they never gave her another thought after she was dead and buried. They simply went on with their lives, as if she’d never lived. How could they do that?”

  Again Summer seemed to demand an answer. Rachel shook her head. “I don’t know.”

  “She was so very dear to me. We were very close, you know. When we were little, she always wanted to pretend we were twins.” Summer’s brief smile faded into sorrow. “Spring and Winter were jealous of us. None of us had any friends—Father wouldn’t allow it—but Autumn and I had each other. When she died, I lost the only friend I’ve ever had. And I’ve felt like a prisoner all these years, with Winter and Spring constantly telling me what to do. They’re as bad as Father was. Worse.”

  “I’m sorry.” How long, Rachel wondered, had she been standing here, frozen, listening to the ramblings of a crazy woman? Half an hour? Longer? No one was coming to rescue her. She had to find a way to get out of this alive. “It must have been terrible for you when Lincoln dug out those old pictures and started showing them to people.”

  “Oh, you can’t imagine. You can’t imagine the pain it caused me. Winter told me I had to put it out of my mind, I had to be strong, I couldn’t let it hurt me. But how could I simply brush it aside?” The rifle barrel bobbed in her hands, moving downward, away from Rachel. “Jake didn’t care either. He was going to move away with that awful Tavia Richardson and start a new life. He was going to be happy.”

  “Is that why—”

  “Yes,” Summer broke in. “Now he knows how it feels to lose someone dear to him. He didn’t care when his wife died. He had Tavia waiting for him. But now he knows what grief feels like. And I shot her with one of my father’s guns that I took from her house. You know, she never locked her back door. I simply walked in while she was out and helped myself to as many guns as I wanted. I knew it would confuse the police if I used different guns.”

  Rachel’s cell phone rang, a loud buzz from her shirt pocket. Hope flared inside her as she grabbed for it.

  “No!” Instantly Summer’s sad, dreamy mood vanished and she was alert to Rachel’s movements. “Don’t do that, Dr. Goddard. I like you, and I’m sorry that you’ve involved yourself in this, but I can’t let you talk to anyone.”

  The ringtone stopped, and the flame of hope died.

  ***

  Tom stood on the Jones sisters’ back porch, cell phone to his ear, and listened to Rachel’s recorded voice asking him to leave a message. “Where the hell are you?” he said. “I hope you’re not headed over here. Call me back.”

  In the yard, the medics moved Winter Jones onto a gurney. She was alive, drifting in and out of consciousness. Spring was dead. Tom and Brandon had searched the house, and now other deputies were searching the property. They had found a stash of rifles and ammunition in the tool shed, but they hadn’t found Summer.

  Tom called the animal hospital and spoke to Shannon, the receptionist. “Where’s Rachel? Is she there? She’s not answering her cell phone.”

  “Oh, no, she’s not here,” Shannon said. “She picked up her bag and some antibiotics and went out
to Jake Hollinger’s house to take care of a sick cat.”

  ***

  Tater had left his bed and waddled over to rub against Rachel’s legs. “Mr. Hollinger thought the cat was sick,” Rachel told Summer. “But he seems to feel better. He’s probably hungry. Maybe I should put down something for—”

  “He cared more about that woman’s cat than he cared about my sister. He was an evil man. You know that, don’t you?”

  “I know that he hurt your family.”

  “I wanted to make him suffer. I wanted him to die slowly and painfully. But he wouldn’t eat anything I brought him. I think he threw all of it in the trash.” Summer seemed outraged that Hollinger hadn’t cooperated in her effort to poison him. Her gaze connected with Rachel’s again. “I didn’t mean to make you sick. I hope you don’t think that was deliberate. That was Winter’s fault. She knew I was angry with her, and she thought she was being so clever, switching the pastries around when I wasn’t looking. I was furious. She had no right to make you sick that way.”

  I have got to get out of here, Rachel thought. Summer was coming apart in front of her, and the longer she stood here doing nothing, the more likely the woman was to turn on her. She was casting about desperately for something to say or do when she saw a movement down the hall, ten feet behind Summer.

  Jake Hollinger had appeared in a doorway, one side of his face covered in blood from a gash on his forehead. Pressing his back to the wall, he inched forward.

  Rachel caught his eye but quickly shifted her gaze before Summer could notice and wonder what she was looking at. Talk, Rachel told herself. Say something.

  “You wanted me to take care of the cats. And the rabbits. I promise I will. But your sisters—”

  Summer gave a sharp laugh that veered toward hysteria. “They won’t mind. They won’t be here, you see.”

  “Oh.” Dear God. What had Summer done to them?

  Tater moved away from Rachel, meowing, and hustled past Summer, headed for Jake.

  Distracted by the cat’s cries, Summer looked down. “Where is he going?” She turned and saw Jake. “No!” she screamed. “You’re supposed to be dead!” She swung the rifle up and aimed it at him.