“I thought the same thing,” said Axel. “Why is this box so important? It could be the list of names. People willing to pay these high sums.”
“Hayden,” Axel said.
I winced at the harsh tone he put into my name and looked up from my file.
“Have you researched the names?”
“I have.” I took a breath and fought to control the quiver in my voice. “I was searching the names in the Observer database. I found a match yesterday. A dancer by the name of Claire-Marie Renavand. She owns a small studio in town. I went to see her . . .”
“Dear God, Hayden!” Grandmother’s voice filled the room. “You could have put yourself in grave danger!”
“Let her finish,” said my father. “This may be helpful.” He rarely spoke up against my grandmother, but I think his concern for Sapphire overrode his usual silence.
She nodded. “Proceed.”
“The dancer became defensive and angry when I asked about her mother. She said she was obsessed with the ferry, youth, and beauty. She said her mother disappeared and left her penniless.”
“Anything else?” Axel asked.
“No. She refused to speak to me after that.”
“The Gladstone possibility,” said Axel. “I’ll call Jaxson. He may want to send someone over to question her.” Axel turned his back to the room to make the call.
Everyone else returned their attention to their files.
“Hey. This is bizarre,” said Cobalt. “I’ve found another entry with Emily Caldwell’s signature. It also says ‘Denied.”
Cobalt had no idea how his words affected me. I pressed both hands to my stomach, closed my eyes, and sucked in a breath. I attempted to stay calm. My mother had tried to take the trip twice, and was denied both times. I thought about Oliva’s hint that she lived in Gladstone, but I didn’t know if these attempted trips were recent or from years ago. My ears were ringing, but I saw Cobalt hand the page to Axel, who added it to the other page with the note about Gladstone.
Axel sat down and we went back to silent shuffling. I was doing my best to focus on the pages in front of me, but feelings of fear, anxiety, and regret were churning inside me. I pushed the feelings down and pressed my fingers to my temples as I forced myself to read the pages.
Jaxson was walking around the table peering at the documents. As he came close to me, I noticed his expression change to one of anger. I started to explain, “Jaxson, I was going to tell you this morning, before you left --”
“Another one!” yelled Cobalt, as if he got Bingo in a game show. He waved the paper in the air. “Emily Caldwell. Denied.”
I glanced over at my father. I’m sure he was thinking the same thing I was. Three attempts? Were these recent or old history? My mother disappeared when I was two days old, and neither of us had ever heard from her again. Could she possibly have gone to Gladstone? Could she be in Gladstone even now?
Cobalt added the page to the stack that was set aside. The shuffle of papers around me sounded loud in the quiet room.
“Found something!” yelled Omar. He stood up. “A used receipt book. From the dry cleaner downtown. Used as scratch paper. Covered with names and numbers. And one copy has a date—from three weeks ago.” He handed it to Axel, who was already dialing Jaxson.
Through the loud whooshing sound that appeared in my head, I heard Axel’s voice as if from a distance.
“Possible location,” he said. “Island Dry Cleaners. West Avenue. Meet you two blocks from there, corner of 34th.”
While Axel was talking to Jaxson, my grandmother, always sharp in a crisis, began barking orders. “Cobalt and Omar. Go with Axel to meet the sheriff. The rest of us will continue to search the documents.”
I stood up fast, knocking papers to the floor. “Grandmother, please! Let me go with them!”
Axel grabbed his keys off the counter. The men were rushing out the door.
“Please. I need to do this.” I looked at her, my eyes wild with desperation.
My grandmother paused for barely a moment. Then she nodded briskly. “Go.”
35
We arrived at West and 34th just as Sheriff Jaxson was getting out of his car. Another officer, who I’d never met, climbed out the other side of the vehicle.
Jaxson pointed at the man. “Deputy Ryan.” They were both wearing gun belts, which increased my anxiety level.
Another car pulled up behind us, and I worried that we’d been followed. That made no sense even as I thought it, but I was jumpy.
The driver leapt out of the car. It was Han. He was holding a gun and looking far too comfortable in the situation than an insurance investigator ever should. Even with one arm in a sling, he looked awfully healthy for someone recovering from a fall off a cliff.
“Let’s move,” said Jaxson.
Cobalt, Omar, and I followed behind Jaxson, Han, and the deputy. From this viewpoint, the street was empty. It was just getting dark and the streetlights were on. Unlike the usual cozy glow that I felt when I saw them, they appeared like evil, yellow eyes today.
We slowed to a crawl two stores away from the dry cleaners. The building appeared dark. As we got near, I could see the ‘closed’ sign in the window.
Jax held up his hand to halt our movement, and he crept forward and peered in the window and checked the door, then returned to us.
“Door’s locked. Lights are on in a back room. Ryan, Han, Omar, come with me around the back. Hayden, Cobalt, you two stay out front. Hide against the side corner and watch. Text if you see anything. Put your phones on silent.”
I watched the four men sneak around toward the back of the building. It was only minutes, but it felt like hours.
A car pulled up in front. One of the ferry mechanics stepped out. He was wearing jeans this time, but it was him. He was unmistakable. He was holding several large Subway sandwich bags. He bypassed the front door to the dry cleaner and used a key to open an unmarked door just beyond the entrance. As he went inside, I slipped over to the door and put my toe at the bottom, preventing it from shutting all the way and relocking.
Cobalt was right behind me. He whispered, “I texted Jax.”
We looked at each other. I tipped my head toward the stairs and Cobalt nodded. I was thankful he was my watch partner, because none of the others would have agreed to follow the mechanic. But I was running on adrenaline and desperate to help Sapphire.
The door opened to a set of dark stairs. It appeared they went up to the apartment above the cleaners. We crept up, one silent stair at a time, until we were about halfway. We could hear voices and stopped to listen.
“Are we ‘spose to feed her?” said a man’s voice.
“Don’t think so,” answered a second. “We’d have to take the gag off. She could scream.”
“She’ll miss dinner.”
“Yeah. But she’ll be home by breakfast.”
“And we’ll be on a ferry. When this is over, I’m askin’ for a big raise.”
“Yeah. With the client list, they’ll both be rollin’ in the dough.”
“Some of that dough ought to be ours.”
“No kidding. I signed up for guard work, not to watch a murder.”
“Man, that was horrible.”
A third voice entered the conversation. “What’s so horrible about bashing someone over the head?”
“Are you kidding?” said the first. “The scream, the blood. Horrible.”
“You idiot. That’s ‘sarcastic irony.’ Remember what that means?”
“Ohhh. Yeah. Means the opposite. So even though you did it, you still thought it was horrible?”
“Shut up and eat your sandwich.”
I recognized that deep, gravelly voice. It sounded like Kerbie, the helmsman. It was possible that the third voice was the other mechanic.
I could not believe what I was hearing. This wasn’t a possibility of danger. This was real danger. Cobalt held up his phone to show me that he had sent another text to Jaxson. We crept
further up the stairs.
We remained still and quiet at the top of the landing. I was hyperventilating, so I tried to access my yoga breathing to keep it under control.
At that exact moment, the alarm beeped on my phone. A reminder to feed the cats their dinner. I fumbled to shut it off, but I wasn’t fast enough.
Kerbie Gomez flung open the door, the two mechanics, Gronk and Shrek, right behind him. Kerbie grabbed my arm and yanked me into the room. The mechanics grabbed Cobalt.
Kerbie snatched my phone out of my hand and threw it on the floor. Then he stepped on it with the heel of his boot.
The mind is a funny thing sometimes. My immediate thought was that I was glad I had purchased phone insurance. Then I snapped back to the reality of the moment.
We were outnumbered—three enormous men against me and Cobalt. One man continued to hold Cobalt with his arms behind his back. The other two pushed me into a chair and secured my arms with zip ties. Then they shoved Cobalt into another chair and tied his arms and his legs to the chair.
“Where is Sapphire?” I shouted.
“Dammit. She’s a screamer. Gag her,” said Kerbie.
The second man put a piece of duct tape over my mouth. Cobalt was sitting silently, watching.
Then the room was anything but silent.
The door slammed open. Jaxson, Ryan, Han, and Omar burst into the room. Three of them held guns, pointed. Omar was in a fighting stance, with his fists up.
“Hands up!” yelled Jaxson. “Now! Hands up!”
The deputy came around behind them and secured all three with handcuffs, then instructed them to stand against the wall.
Han and Omar began opening the doors to the other rooms.
“Found her!” yelled Han.
I was trying to turn my head to see inside the room where Han was yelling from. Jaxson had removed the tape from my mouth and was cutting the zip ties from my wrists. I got up and turned around just as Han was coming out of the room, with his uninjured arm—still gripping a gun—around Sapphire’s shoulders. She looked frightened but appeared unhurt. She ran over to me. I stood up and enveloped her in a massive hug. Her body was shaking and she started to cry.
The two mechanics were flustered. They were yelling at Kerbie.
“It’s all your fault!” shouted one. “If you’d of left the captain alive, we’d have found the box! We were close!”
“You’re such a damn hothead!” hollered the second. “Bashing her ruined the whole plan!”
“And stealing the girl was stupid! Didn’t you think they’d go crazy to find her? She’s a Caldwell, you idiot!”
“You cost me my raise!” the first man howled.
The mechanics were too worked up to realize that they were throwing Kerbie under the bus. He realized it though.
“You two shut up!” bellowed Kerbie. He was turning as red as his hair.
36
It had only taken me a week to write up the cover story and pull together the first issue of the paper. The story was so gripping that it was easy to sell ads to the local businesses. I was proud to release the first edition of the new online Observer so soon after taking over the job. Granted, it was just four pages long, and it was the only post on our new website, but the cover story was enough to carry the issue and launch the publication.
My camera had appeared around my neck after Sapphire’s rescue, and I was able to snap some exceptional photos at the scene. One shot in particular—of Kerbie Gomez glaring at the camera—was perfect for the front page.
I couldn’t help but read the story one more time.
Man Arrested for Ferry Captain’s Murder Meets Dramatic End
by Hayden Caldwell
Ferry helmsman charged with murder of ship’s captain dies in fiery car wreck
Kerbie Gomez, helmsman of the Destiny Falls Ferry, had been taken into custody and charged for the murder of the ferry captain that occurred one week prior. The body of Nakita Morozova Volkov, commonly known as Nakita Morozova, was found on the return voyage of the ferry by the cleaning crew. She is believed to have died of blunt force trauma to the head. A metal table leg found at the scene is suspected to be the murder weapon, according to the sheriff’s report.
Gomez, a professional ferry helmsman, had worked in the DF Ferry system for five years. He had originally escaped notice because of his position on the staff and his apparent friendship with Morozova. It has since been revealed that the two were involved in an alleged illegal transport scheme, the sheriff’s office said.
Morozova was in possession of top-secret vessel documents related to the scheme. It is believed that a fight occurred between her and Gomez over the material, a fight which led to her death. At the time of the argument, she had already shipped out the box of documents to an undisclosed location.
In an attempt to locate and steal the documents, Gomez hatched a kidnap and ransom plot. He and two other men, mechanics for the ferry system, Jared and Herman Serano, kidnapped a woman whose family was harboring the documents. They broke into the victim’s home and left a note for the family, demanding the box of documents in exchange for the kidnap victim. They held the woman at the apartment above the downtown dry-cleaning shop run by Gomez’s family.
Clues uncovered in the documents led Sheriff Jaxson Redford and a team of investigators to the dry-cleaning shop, where the victim was rescued unharmed and Gomez apprehended. The name of the kidnap victim is being withheld at the request of the family.
Miranda Spencer, identified as Gomez’s landlady, said that the Gomez family rented the two-story building, running the dry-cleaning business on the main floor and living in the apartment above. She’d had no complaints or issues with the family. Spencer was shocked to learn that Gomez was not the proprietor that she thought she knew. “He always said hello and chatted with me. He’d been quiet, polite, and paid his rent on time,” she said. She has been unable to reach other members of the Gomez family, and the dry-cleaning office remains closed.
Several members of the ferry staff had seen a different side to Gomez, calling him moody and a loner. He was known to spend time with the Serano brothers and the captain outside of work hours. The group kept to themselves and seldom socialized with any other members of the ferry staff or crew.
Statements made by the mechanics in exchange for plea bargains provided enough verifiable evidence to link Gomez to the crime. The Serano brothers claim little knowledge of details of the transport scheme, but verified that a criminal partnership between Morozova and Gomez existed. The combination of prior evidence plus their statements provided enough substantiation to place him under arrest for the murder of Morozova.
Sheriff Jaxson Redford took Gomez into custody at the time of the kidnapping, and he was held overnight at the Destiny Falls jail.
The morning following the arrest, Deputy James Ryan was transporting Gomez to the medium-security prison in Belfair Ridge when his squad car blew a tire, which spun the vehicle over the guardrail near the coastline. Ryan was able to exit the vehicle before it exploded and is recovering at Destiny Falls General Hospital. Gomez had been trapped in the back seat and perished in the flames.
The landlady and ferry staff have spoken to detectives and are cooperating with the investigation regarding the possible transport scheme. However, with the deaths of both Morozova and Gomez, a source tells us the investigation into the scheme has been stalled. It appears that the two criminals died taking untold secrets with them.
37
The Witch
The Jeannie-ized witch was painting her toenails pink when her doorbell pealed. It shocked her into spilling the pink goo all over her footstool. No one dared to sneak up on her! It was unheard of! If those idiot men had figured out a way to do so, she would make them pay for their error.
The doorbell rang again. Angered, she lifted her finger, poised and ready to punish them. She flung the door open.
The gale-force anger of her visitor flung her against the back wall of her cave.
She stood there, rubbing the back of her head in shock. Her eyes grew wide with fear.
“You will stop. Now.” The words echoed off the walls.
She had not heard her sister’s voice in many years. But it immediately struck a chord of terror. Her sister might fool others with her fancy appearance. But the witch was not fooled. She knew the power her sister held.
The witch attempted an innocent look. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Do not think me a fool, sister. I see right through your disguise to your heart. I have been watching you. Hoping your exile has been long enough to teach you a lesson. Father would be disappointed.”
“Do not bring him up in my home,” the witch growled.
“This home?” Her sister waved her hand around the room, and the genie bottle décor melted into the ground, leaving only the bare, ugly cave.
“Eh. I was tired of that ridiculous bottle anyway.” She flipped her long, blond ponytail over her shoulder.
“Really sister? Jeannie the genie? You have always been so vain. Have you learned nothing? Perhaps returning to the ancient crone’s body is necessary.”
The witch looked down at her freshly-painted, pink toenails. She helplessly watched them change back into the old, gnarled feet she’d been forced to wear these past forty years. Ugh.
“Alright.” Her shoulders sagged, and she scuffed her unpainted toes in the dirt. “What do you want of me?” she asked.
“You know what I want. Stop manipulating the citizens. Suffer your punishment as it was intended. Learn something. Perhaps you will find yourself liberated.”
“In the meantime, what should I do?”
“Meditate? Read? Plant a garden? Write a book?”
The witched laughed at that. “Once upon a time, in a dark and dreary cave . . .”
Her sister looked irritated, not amused.
The witch tapped her knobby fingers on her arm. “If I promise to be good, can I have something better than this bare cave to live in?” She tried to look innocent. It didn’t work.
The Disappearance of Emily: Destiny Falls Mystery & Magic Series Book 2 Page 17