Barn Burner (Jubilant Falls series Book 1)

by Debra Gaskill

  “I’m praying, Addie. I’m praying.” Softly, Jaylynn hung up the phone.

  A couple hours later, Addison had fallen, exhausted, into bed.

  Now, red numbers from her alarm clock shone 2:13 a.m. and Isabella was standing like a shadow by her bed. The teen’s eyes were wide and her hands trembled ever so slightly.

  “What?” Addison asked sleepily.

  “I said I can’t sleep. “ Isabella repeated.

  Addison sat up, suddenly alert. The tremble was one of the Lithium side effects Dr. Fairfax had warned them about. Was her daughter starting a manic phase? What happens if she becomes manic and then crashes back into depression? What if there’s another suicide attempt? “Do you feel OK, honey? Have you been drinking your water? Are you taking your medicine like you’re supposed to? You don’t feel manic or anything, do you?” she asked worriedly.

  “No, Mom. I just can’t sleep.“ Isabella rolled her eyes in teenage disgust. “I slept in late and I’m just off schedule.”

  “But your hands!“

  “That doesn’t bother me as much as feeling like I want to kill myself.”

  “That’s one way to look at it, I guess.” Addison swung her legs over the side of the bed. Would every family occurrence now be measured by that once ghastly event? Addison thought. Everything would be classified as BSA (Before the Suicide Attempt) or ASA (After the Suicide Attempt). “What do you want to do?” she asked her daughter.

  “Can we do something? Go somewhere?”

  “Honey, it’s two in the morning.”

  Isabella shrugged apologetically. “I’m sorry. I just really need to go somewhere. I’ve been stuck here since I got out of the hospital. Let’s go get something to eat or rent a movie or something.”

  Addison looked over at Duncan, breathing deeply and rhythmically in the bed beside her. How many times before had she simply thrown this responsibility over to him, shaken him awake with a “Honey, would you see what Isabella wants?” This time, she’d take care of it. It was her turn. Addison stood up and reached for her jeans lying across the foot of her bed. Slipping them on under the tee shirt she’d slept in, she kicked around the dirty clothes on the floor until she found her tennis shoes.

  “OK. Let’s go. What sounds good?”

  A few moments later they were in the car, cruising down Plummer County’s empty country roads in Addison’s Taurus, heading into Jubilant Falls. Isabella’s hands were shaking noticeably and she tried hard to keep them still, alternately pressing them against her lap and clasping them to her chest.

  “Has Dad called that shrink that Dr. Fairfax referred you to yet?” Addison asked. If you were a good mother, you’d know that, a voice inside her said. If you weren’t off chasing leads on somebody else’s kid, you’d know this stuff.

  Isabella shook her head. “It doesn’t bother me all that much usually, but tonight I think it’s part of the reason I can’t sleep.”

  “We’ll call first thing in the morning. I’ll stay home from work. Meanwhile, we got all night.”

  “OK.” Addison’s perceived neglect didn’t seem to have any effect on Isabella. “You know what sounds good? Something crunchy and salty, like popcorn or chips.”

  “There’s a Jiffy Mart up here. They’re open all night and they’ve got to have bunches of junk food.” Addison turned into the convenience store lot. A lone car was at the gas island, the driver, a young black man wearing baggy jeans and a tee shirt, pumping fuel into his gas tank beneath the glaring lights.

  Addison pulled up to the front of the store, trying to avoid hitting a battered bicycle that lay at an angle against the curb.

  Nodding to the lone clerk, Isabella cruised the down the chips aisle, her mother following absently behind her. Isabella picked up a couple bags of chips and was heading toward the cooler for some soda when a familiar voice stopped Addison dead in her tracks.

  “Gotta eat. Gotta eat. Food. Food. Milk. Beans.”

  It was Talley Lundgren, busily loading canned goods into a red shopping basket, on the other side of the aisle. His speech was fast and disjointed. He was pounding in his chest and when he stood still, he rocked back and forth as he skimmed the aisle for provisions.

  “Quick! Choose something! We got to get going.” Addison grabbed Isabella’s arm.

  “What is it? We got all night—you said so yourself!”

  “Sshh!” Addison grabbed her arm and steered her toward the soda. “Get two bottles, one for me, one for you, then we’ve got to get the hell out of here.” She watched the tall hobo take his purchases to the counter and pay for them, peeling money from a dirty wad of bills.

  “What do you want? Pepsi or Coke?”

  “I don’t care! Just a diet something!” She watched Talley take his sack and walk outside. He mounted the battered bicycle, using a bungee cord to fasten the bag into a plastic box over the bike’s back fender. With a few uncertain wavers of the front wheel, the bike was moving and Talley was peddling away.

  “Hurry up!” Addison grabbed the chips from her daughter’s arms and dashed to the counter. “Add two sodas to that, would you?” she asked the clerk. “Izzy, show him what kind of pop you picked out.” She pulled a $20 bill from her jeans pocket and tossed it on the counter. “Let’s go! Hurry!” She dragged her daughter out the door.

  “Mom, what is with you?” Isabella flopped into the front seat.

  “That ratty-looking man that was in the store? His name is Talley Lundgren. He’s a suspect in the Lyndzee Thorn kidnapping. Police haven’t seen him since Lyndzee disappeared and they really want to talk to him.” Addison pulled into the street, scanning the horizon for the old man on the bike.

  “So call the police.” Isabella opened one of the bags of chips and stuffed a handful into her mouth.

  “I don’t know where he’s going. Besides, I think I left my cell phone on the kitchen counter. Shit, there he is. He’s going to know we’re following him.”

  “He’s going to know you’re behind him because you have your lights on and there’s no other car on the street, Mom. It’s not like you can be subtle when you’re tailing him in the middle of the night.”

  “That’s true. Thanks for the hint.” She pulled over and shut off her lights and watched Lundgren pedal up the street. When he got to the corner, he turned. Addison snapped her headlights back on and pulled back out into the street.

  “I can’t believe you’re doing this,” Isabella said.

  “Hush. If I could call the police, I would.” Once again, when she thought Talley was watching, she pulled over to the side of the road and cut her lights. She watched until the lone bicyclist was nearly out of sight, and then pulled back onto the road. For nearly an hour, mother and daughter followed Lundgren back into the county, down twisting turning roads, passing him with the lights on occasionally, then doubling back and, whenever possible, following with the lights off.

  Finally, down a dark road made even more so by thick arching trees, he stopped at an old gate that led to a deep-rutted lane. Leaning his bike against the gate panels, he removed the sack from the box and walked up a dirt path into the darkness.

  Addison pulled up behind his bike and cut the engine.

  “Mom! What are you doing?”

  “You stay here. Lock yourself in.”

  Before Isabella could protest, Addison jumped from the car and ran down the path.

  The path was wide and well used, with two deep parallel ruts, Addison surmised, from a car or tractor. Oaks and maples arched over the path, obscuring the moon. At the end of the path, the entangled trees gave way to an open field, lush with weeds. At the center, a collapsed farmhouse stood next to a battered old barn.

  Addison hung back behind a tree as Talley walked into the moonlight and, muttering to himself, walked around to the back of the barn. Swiftly, silently, Addison approached the window and peeped in.

  There, on old bale of straw or hay, covered in a tattered blanket, lay Lyndzee Thorn, her chest rising and fallin
g with peaceful sleep.

  An old camping lantern sat on a rickety table next to Lyndzee’s bed, providing the only light.

  Addison watched as Talley stacked his purchases on the table. He turned to look as Lyndzee turned over on the mattress, readjusting the blanket covering the girl. She didn’t look any worse for wear, really; her hair, disheveled on the pillow, looked like it had been washed. She wasn’t wearing the clothing she’d had on when she disappeared but the Old Navy tee shirt and jeans she now wore were thin in places but clean. Instead of the Winnie the Pooh tennis shoes she’d worn when she disappeared, she now had a pair of red canvas Keds. One shoe had a ragged hole where the big toe could come through. Her ankle was bandaged with clean gauze.

  Where had she gotten those clothes? And how did she get them?

  Someone had taken good care of her.

  Someone like Talley.

  It looks like the police were right all along, Addison thought. But what about Ripsmatta and Castlewheel? Why had they ended up dead? Why did Tina Andersen shoot them? Was it she who shot them?

  Addison thought about Rachel Wiseman and the good doctor’s penchant for married men. It was one thing to fall for a married man and want to get back at the bastard. But trying to take a man’s daughter, as revenge would have sent up red flags with anybody. She was obligated to tell the police anything she thought might be relevant.

  And what about that relationship with Tina Andersen? Had her story been true? Maybe someone really was trying to take her car. Had Wiseman simply acted as the college physician was expected to by first treating her at home? Addison had made some pretty outlandish accusations, if that was the truth.

  But why did both women run? What connections beyond the Second Chance Ministry did they have?

  Whatever it was, Addison just didn’t want this man to be the one she’d write about tomorrow morning as the one who police charged with Lyndzee’s kidnapping.

  Talley, Talley, Talley, why would you do this? Addison thought. I didn’t want it to be you. I really didn’t. She sighed—louder than she realized— and Talley Lundgren whirled around to face the window.

  “Who’s out there?” he demanded. He reached for a thick board, holding it in both his hands.

  “Talley, it’s me,” Addison stood slowly at the window. “You know me. I’m Addison McIntyre.”

  Talley raised the board again. “How’d you find me?”

  “I saw you at the Jiffy Mart, Talley. I followed you back here. I’m here to take Lyndzee back home.”

  Chapter 36

  Cautiously, Talley backed toward Lyndzee and shook her shoulder, never taking his eyes off Addison.

  “Wake up, Miss Lyndzee.” His words were tense and tightly controlled and his movements were those on the hunted. From her position outside the back barn door, Addison could sense his fear. “Wake up,” he repeated.

  The girl sat up and rubbed her eyes. “Mrs. Addie!” she cried as she scrambled to her feet.

  Confident now, Addison stepped into the barn and reached out her arms toward the girl. “Lyndzee, honey, I’m here to—“

  A loud thud reverberated throughout he floor above them.

  “You lied! You brought the cops!” Talley snatched the girl up into his arms and rushed past Addison, knocking her against a stall wall.

  “Talley, no! Wait!” She scrambled back to her feel and began to run.

  From Talley’s arms, Lyndzee reached back over his shoulder, her arms stretching toward Addison. Tears cascaded down her cheeks as she screamed in terror. Addison, her lungs gasping for air and her heart beating in her ears, ran hard behind them, cursing her cigarette habit for allowing her to only get within a few steps of being able to touch the girl’s hands.

  Talley cut sharply at the corner of the barn, sliding to a sharp stop in the dew-wet grass, nearly losing his balance, and letting Lyndzee slide to the ground abruptly. Addison stumbled into the tall man’s back, nearly knocking the three of them into a pile.

  Standing in the moonlight was Tina Andersen. Her eyes were hard, shining with a feral kind of light, separated as they were by her bandaged broken nose.

  Lyndzee screamed at the sight of her mother’s maid, cowering behind Addison.

  Slowly, Tina pulled a snub-nosed pistol from inside the sling holding her broken left arm and pointed the butt of the pistol at Talley’s chin. “You did this to me, you crazy old man,” she hissed. “You’re not going to get away with it again.”

  Addison leaped, trying to knock the pistol from Tina’s hand, but the young woman was quicker. Pain shot through Addison’s left arm as the shot echoed through the dark night. She fell to the ground as Lyndzee screamed. Talley leaped toward Tina. She pivoted and fired the pistol, striking Talley in the thigh, knocking him sideways. He howled in pain as he rolled on the ground, grabbing his bloody leg.

  Blood trickled through Addison’s fingers as she struggled to her feet, pressing her hand against her wounded arm to stem the bleeding, her head swimming. “You engineered all of this, didn’t you? You took this little girl away from her parents—”

  Tina pointed the pistol at Addison. “God doesn’t like fornicators, drug addicts, or abortionists,” she said flatly. “I was anointed of God to cleanse Golgotha of all those things.”

  “God chose you?” Addison asked, blood seeping through her fingers. “Seaford Thorn may be a fornicator, but you obviously chose a child molester—Harmon Ripsmatta—to do your dirty work for you. You met him at the Second Chance Ministry, right? You wanted Lyndzee’s kidnapping to look like a stranger abduction, didn’t you? And when he didn’t go along with the game, you had him killed, didn’t you?”

  “God told me to kill him! God will cleanse this place, through me, his chosen handmaiden!” Tina waved the pistol wildly.

  “God chose you to kill someone? To kidnap a little girl and let her parents suffer? Let them wonder every night and every day if she’s alive or dead?”

  “Jaylynn Thorn is a drug addict, her husband is a fornicator and Rachel Wiseman is a whore who aborted his child!”

  “What?” Addison was incredulous.

  With a roar, Talley again struggled to his feet, made another grab for Andersen’s gun. She whirled around, pulled the trigger back and fired. Addison squeezed her eyes shut, trying hard to keep Talley’s intact face in her mind, rather than the mass of blood, brains and bone that exploded in front of her. His body hit the ground, his right eye staring permanently in disbelief that Tina Andersen really would pull the trigger.

  Lyndzee’s horrified eyes locked with Addison’s, as she pointed to the upraised arm behind her.

  “Mrs. Addie! Look out!”

  Addison turned sideways to see the butt of Tina’s gun coming down on her. Pain shot through the back of her head as the dark night suddenly enveloped her.

  ***

  “Isabella,” Addison whispered to herself. Memories flooded back to her as the smell of smoke filled her lungs. Just a few feet away from her, flames engulfed the old barn, sending sparks and ash through the air, but Addison couldn’t move, her ankles had been bound with gray electrical tape. There was a stench of gasoline in the air. Is this what it’s like when you die? Her father in his Ohio State Highway Patrol uniform, June’s wild face, now calm and smiling, beckoned to her, visions of the day she and Duncan brought their daughter home. Calmness began to suffuse her soul, but she fought the feeling. She looked over at Lyndzee, who lay her side and curled into a fetal position, her ankles and wrists bound with the sane tape. Her eyes were closed and she coughed. Talley Lundgren’s body, his bony legs at strange angles, lay a few feet away.

  “Talley, I knew you didn’t do it. I knew you didn’t do it,” she whispered.

  Suddenly there was a light and men’s voices came through the smoke.

  “Over here! We got two, no, three victims!” someone said. “Get me EMTs, quick!”

  Addison moaned as she felt herself being swept up. Where was she going? Was she dying? “I can’t l
eave Isabella.I never said goodbye. I’m dying and I never got a chance to be a good mother to Isabella. ” She felt her constrained legs and arms come free and someone snapped a mask over new nose and mouth, forcing cool, clean air into her lungs. Another person pressed down on her shoulder. She blinked at the searing pain and Gary McGinnis’s familiar face came slowly into focus.

  “Oh for Christ sake, Penny, you’re not a bad mother,” he smiled as he pressed a wad of cloth against her wound. “Isabella found your cell phone in your purse and called us when she heard gunshots. She saved your life. Would she do that if you were such a bad mother?”

  Addison smiled. “I guess not,” she said weakly. She tried to raise up on her elbow but McGinnis shook his head.

  “You stay down until we get a medic to look at you.”

  “Where’s Tina Andersen?” Pain seared through her shoulder again but she grit her teeth, grabbing Gary by the shirt to hear the details.

  “She’s in the back of the feds’ car and spilling her guts faster than anybody I’ve ever seen,” McGinnis grinned. “She killed Ripsmatta the first night, when Lyndzee escaped from him and then got beaten up pretty pad by Talley Lundgren when he stumbled on the house out on Shellabarger Road. Castlewheel had Lyndzee there, chained to the wall. Tina Andersen shot Castlewheel and burned his body after she came to and found that Lyndzee had escaped again.”

  “Where’s Rachel Wiseman?”

  A female medic was suddenly on the other side of her. “I’ll take over from here sir,” she said. She cut the sleeve off Addison’s tee shirt and began to wrap a wad of gauze tightly against the seeping wound in her shoulder.

  “Gary, what happened to Rachel Wiseman?”

  Gary hung his head briefly. “She’s dead, Penny. Her body was found in the barn.”

  Addison swallowed hard and looked away. Behind the medic, coroner investigators were photographing Talley’s dead body. Four people killed, all in the name of God.

  “Where’s Lyndzee Thorn? Is she OK?”

  “She’s been transported, ma’am,” the medic smiled at her. “She’s going to be OK.”