Killer Reads: A Collection of the Best in Inspirational Suspense

by Luana Ehrlich

  Thirty-two

  (Present Day)

  **********

  Dewey spent the afternoon on the airport’s Wi-Fi portal accessing the Internet for every bit of information he could find on Myra Mitchell. He didn’t think the girl had discovered the secret that Albritton so feared. Had that been the case, Mitchell and the girl would have flown to Raleigh to expedite the trip. Therefore, she had another reason for the trip and some clue to where she was heading had to exist in the writer’s history. Dewey kept running face-first into one solid obstacle: Myra Mitchell seemed to have suddenly appeared on earth in Taos with the release of her first book. To Dewey’s mind that meant only one thing. Since Myra Mitchell was not a pen name, then prior to Taos, she had to have been somebody else, from somewhere else.

  He glanced at his watch and saw that he needed to check in with the Senator. Albritton answered on the second ring.

  “So, are you ready to come home? I have work for you here.”

  Dewey explained his predicament. Albritton didn’t have to voice his displeasure. Dewey could feel the chill through his phone.

  After two minutes of deathly still air, Albritton said, “You have twenty-four hours to get back on track.”

  “What? You’re kiddin’, right? How am I going to find them across millions of acres? I’m playing a hunch by being here, but you’re crazy if you think I’m just gonna stumble across them on the highway. I’m one man. Use your nephew to check cell phone GPS or somethin’. I don’t got that kind of access.”

  “Twenty-four hours, Dewey. You’d better have something more to go on, or our working relationship will come to an unpleasant end. Call me when you’ve found something, preferably them.”

  Dewey had never had reason to fear the Senator. He was the man’s mentor. He held enough of the cards that Albritton could never act unilaterally without facing ruin. Yet, something in the man’s voice disturbed Dewey. Did he hold enough cards? He’d been outwitted by Albritton before, even as a schoolboy. For the first time, he actually felt fear of the man, his position, his wealth, and his power.

  The senator hung up in a huff. He didn’t like this sense of being out of control, waiting to see if the ax would fall – and where.

  Albritton began to dial his nephew’s cell number but thought better of it. Mike Jr. would balk at such an intrusion, even though the U.S. Justice Department recently ruled that there was no constitutional ban on the government’s acquiring cell GPS data from a wireless carrier. No warrant was needed on the Federal level, but state law was not so well defined. Several state high courts had recently ruled against suspicionless GPS tracking and now required state agencies to obtain warrants for such tracking of a car or handheld mobile phone. His nephew was like his brother, too straight an arrow to skirt the law.

  He dialed a second number.

  An answering machine picked up his call at the other end and Albritton left a message, as he had done numerous times before. “I need a GPS track on the following cell phone ASAP.” He repeated the number twice and hung up.

  Ten minutes later, the phone rang. “Usual fee and method?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. It would appear the target’s at the Santa Fe airport.”

  “That’s right. Please let me know where he goes over the next twenty-four hours. Next item, a GPS track on this number.” He didn’t have Myra Mitchell’s cell number, so he gave the man Alexia Hamilton’s cell phone number and waited for a response.

  “Hmm, let me try something else. Just a minute…” After a pause, the man returned. “No go. That number is off-line at this point. I can’t find a location. Do you want me to keep trying?”

  “Yes. Let me know if it comes on-line and where to find it.”

  Dewey Hastings had fast become a problem. He’d left behind a trail of broken bones and assaults. These people could and would identify him, eventually. Dewey had always considered himself indispensible, yet to Albritton they’d never been “friends.” From that first meeting on the schoolyard, Albritton had disliked the bully, and that persisted for the man. He was a tool, just a tool. And sometimes a tool broke and had to be thrown away.

  He dialed another number after disconnecting. “Got a job for you. Our friend Mr. Hastings might be a liability we can no longer afford.”

  Dewey tried to nap on the flight to Oklahoma City, but sat there in a fitful half sleep. His mind dwelled on his search, while holding onto a nagging worry about Albritton’s next action. Unable to doze off, he stared out the window and watched the light of the day fading to the west. Then a thought hit him.

  Upon landing, he emerged to the boarding gate area and quickly brought his laptop on-line with the airport’s Wi-Fi network. Why had the Mitchell woman been in Taos? The Luhan House was known as a writer’s retreat. So, she must be working on a book. Were there any other well-known writer’s retreats she could be heading to?

  He Googled the phrase “writer’s retreats” and came up with thousands of hits. She was heading due east, so he narrowed the search first to Oklahoma and surfed through a number of sites. He did likewise for Missouri, Arkansas, and Tennessee. There were still hundreds of places, most of which were rooms or cabins to rent. She could afford to do that anywhere in the world, he thought. Why here? That didn’t help much. Maybe she’s headin’ for Carolina after all.

  He took the time to call half a dozen or so of these places, those that seemed better suited to a writer of Mitchell’s caliber. Nothing. All said the same thing, “They’d love to have Myra Mitchell stay with them.” But she wasn’t and hadn’t made any plans with them.

  At one website, he stumbled across the term “writers’ colony” and decided to explore that possibility. From surfing a few sites, he learned that such places focused on educating and training writers, as well as providing rooms to work in. He reasoned that if she wrote her first book in Taos, but was someone else, somewhere else before that, maybe that someplace was a writer’s colony where she learned to write. To his way of thinking, where else would someone learn to write like that? Sure, that made sense. If he wanted to learn to write books, maybe he’d go to something like a writer’s colony. He scanned the search results page and saw a site, www.writerscolony.org. Maybe they had a list of these places he could use to narrow his search.

  But the website wasn’t a list. What he found instead was an organization, The Writers’ Retreat at Grotto Spring, in the Ozarks. Eureka Springs, Arkansas more precisely. The website announced a special guest speaker in two days, but made no mention as to whom that might be. With a quick consultation of a U.S. map, he realized the place was due east of Taos, a straight shot traveling U.S. Highway 412 almost all the way. The only fly in his sorghum was the place wasn’t around when she wrote her first books, much less before that. The colony was founded in 2000. He’d found no references to the colony in any of her books’ acknowledgement pages or press interviews. What tie could she have there? Maybe she’d been to the Grotto Spring House country inn that preceded the colony. Maybe she just wanted to go there as somewhere new for her. Maybe she was the special guest speaker. Yeah, that could be it. They would announce who it was unless they didn’t want paparazzi descending on the place like locusts on a cornfield.

  He vacillated. He had nothing else to go on, but might she be heading that way? Did he take a chance and drive there? He decided to let his fingers do the walking again, despite the chance they had caller ID and might get suspicious of an out-of-area call asking for the Mitchell woman. He needed a better story for this call. He’d met some resistance on a couple of the previous calls. He checked a few more websites to prepare his story.

  “Writers’ Retreat. May I help you?”

  “Hi, this is Tim at Enterprise Rent-A-Car. I have a car for Myra Mitchell and wanted to confirm her arrival there.”

  There was a pause. “Where’d you say you were calling from?”

  “Enterprise Rent-A-Car. I’m with the VIP services at the regional office in Oklahoma City
, but our agent in Fayetteville will deliver the car. I believe she asked for a Ford Mustang.” He’d read something about her collection of Mustangs in an interview. He hoped he sounded convincing.

  After a moment, the woman returned to the phone. “I’m sorry, but she hasn’t arrived yet. We will leave her a note to contact you. Can I have your number?”

  “Actually, she can contact our 800 number or the local agent in Fayetteville when she arrives and the car will be delivered within an hour. Guaranteed. Thank you for your help.” He didn’t wait for a reply and hung up the pay phone. He pumped his fist in the air, grabbed his carry-on case, and walked directly to the Hertz rental desk to use his Gold Plus membership to find something nicer than that Corolla he’d suffered with in New Mexico.

  Thirty-three

  **********

  Just north of Huntsville, AR, Alexia exited U.S. Highway 412 onto northbound Arkansas 23 towards Eureka Springs. Myra refused to voice her concerns about continuing on to the Writer’s Retreat at Grotto Spring, but she had agreed to speak to the authors in residence and, in return, the retreat’s director, Oni Prairieberry, would turn over to them several file boxes that had belonged to Betsy Weston. Myra felt confident that Alexia would need those files for her research.

  “Are you sure we should be heading to Eureka Springs? Maybe I could go alone and get what you want?”

  Myra looked at her assistant. No, she wasn’t sure.

  “We need to keep going. I told you last night I talked with Diana personally and she assured me she did not tell the man where we were headed. Short of tracking our cell phones, which I disabled, how could he possibly know where we are? It’s a big country. Besides, I promised to speak at the Writer’s Retreat and Ms. Prairieberry told me she absolutely would not relinquish the Weston files to anyone but me.”

  Alexia shook her head but did not reply.

  “But, as a precaution, we’re going to stay at a place outside of town. It’s only about half an hour away, just south of the city. I can call Ms. Prairieberry from there.”

  True to her estimate, the turnoff to the Pond Mountain Lodge & Resort came along thirty minutes later.”

  “Turn left, here,” said Myra.

  Alexia parked in front of the office and got out to stretch her legs while Myra went into the office. Moments later, Myra returned.

  “We have the Roadrunner Cabin. It’s that way.” Myra pointed toward a forested ridge. “We should have our privacy there.”

  Myra watched as Alexia scanned the surroundings, frowning. Although built up quite a bit since her one brief visit here years before, Myra still found it beautiful, and secluded enough to protect them. She couldn’t understand Alexia’s reaction.

  “Isn’t it beautiful?” she asked.

  Alexia turned back to her. “Sure, but it seems, I don’t know, so isolated. If someone is out to get you, he could do it and you, we, might not be found for days.”

  Myra looked about and her smile disappeared. Smarty-pants was right, again.

  “He doesn’t know we’re here. All he knows is that we took off by car. We could be anywhere in the country now.” Was she repeating that to reassure Alexia or herself?

  Alexia didn’t look assuaged.

  Myra continued, “This is where Betsy Weston got married the second time. The property was privately owned back then, not a resort. Five years later, something happened and she disappeared. Sold her rights to ‘Sweetie and George’ and preceded Elvis for some alien world, or the witness protection program, or something. Never heard from or seen since.”

  Alexis resumed her survey of the property. Myra could see that she was unsettled.

  “Tell you what,” said Myra. “Why don’t you walk around and get a feel for the place. I’ll drive the car to the cabin’s parking.”

  Alexia walked a bit and looked at the disposable cell phone. She walked another direction and repeated the action. Her face showed dislike.

  “We don’t have any cell service here.” She pulled her regular cell phone from her purse.

  Myra shook her head. “Please don’t use that. We can use the motel phones.”

  Alexia disagreed. “Not if we’re not here. I’ll just turn it on long enough to check for a signal and then turn it off again.”

  Myra began to protest again, but thought better of it. How could someone track them with just a quick use like that? Alexia seemed satisfied with the result and placed the phone back in her purse.

  “We’re good with those, if we need them.”

  As Myra began to climb into the car, a woman rushed from the office, holding two hardcover novels.

  “Ms. Mitchell, could you please …”

  The woman, who appeared to be around forty, stopped short of the Mustang. Her mouth gaped open and she reached out and grazed her fingers across the back bumper. She stood up and approached Myra, who was now standing next to the driver’s door. Her brow furrowed and she scrutinized Myra from head to toe.

  “My name’s Angela Thoms. I’m the manager here now. Have we met before?”

  “I-I don’t think so. Would you like me to autograph those?” She pointed to the novels in Ms. Thoms’ hands.

  “I don’t want to seem rude or forward, but where did you get this car?”

  Alexia moved next to and a bit in front of Myra, as if ready to protect her.

  “I know this car. This is Betsy’s car. I learned to drive in this car. That dent in the back bumper is where I backed into a streetlight in my first attempt at parallel parking. Where did you get this?”

  She didn’t seem angry. Anguish best described the emotion coming from the woman, and for Myra, it cut through her like a contagious twitch.

  “She bought it from a man in North Carolina,” said Alexia. “You knew Betsy Weston?”

  The woman resumed her caress of the car, as if it connected to some lost part of her. Myra noted the tears flowing down Ms. Thoms’ cheeks, and felt a sudden link to the woman, with Betsy Weston as the common denominator.

  The woman turned back to them. “Betsy rented our house. My mom and I lived next door in a place we usually rented. I thought my mom was crazy for giving up our home to this stranger, but it ended up being the most wonderful years of our lives. I still have cartoons she drew for me and my mom. They’re my most cherished possessions.”

  “Is, uh … does your mom still live around here?” Myra asked.

  The tears flowed more heavily now. “No.” Angela choked on her emotions. “Sh-she passed three years ago. Heart disease.”

  Myra choked, too. She could feel Angela’s pain as if it were her own.

  Angela pointed to the driver’s seat. “May I?”

  Myra nodded. “Sure.”

  The woman sat behind the wheel and closed her eyes, no doubt, reliving a past event.

  “I remember sitting behind this wheel for the first time. My mom was as nervous as a chicken with a fox in the henhouse and Betsy was laughing in the back seat, recounting her first attempts at driving, her first time on an Interstate. We had such good times in this car.”

  Myra didn’t know what to say, but Alexia stepped into the void. “We’re researching Betsy’s life for a book. We know she got married right here, at the pond. What happened?”

  The woman had calmed and the tears had stopped.

  “It happened right after the tenth anniversary celebration for ‘Sweetie and George.’ A bunch of us from town here, went to California with Betsy. My mom and me went to Disneyland, Hollywood, and Knott’s Berry Farm afterward. By the time we got home, she was gone. The keys to our house were in our mailbox with a short note saying she had to leave but she loved us and would miss us. She left everything behind except her clothes, personal items, and studio, anything to do with Sweetie. A month later, ‘Sweetie and George’ had a new byline. I couldn’t believe she’d given up Sweetie.”

  “Nico, her husband, was here for a few days afterward, but he wouldn’t talk to us. Rumor was she came home and found him cheatin
g on her, in her own bed. Some said it was with another man. Right before mom died, we found out a little bit more. Betsy used her friendship and influence with a local judge to issue a divorce the very next day. Rumor said he also granted her a name change, but Judge Atkinson wouldn’t confirm that and he had sealed the records. Only Betsy, if she ever comes back, can apply to unseal them.” She gazed wistfully toward the lake. “Every day for years, I prayed she’d come back, but we never heard from her. My mom took that note and tucked it into the frame with one of her cartoons. She’d look at it every time she felt anger at Betsy for leaving like that. Still have that note, too.”

  She turned back toward Alexia. “Gawd, I’d love to see her again. I forgave her years ago. Mom, too. I’d just like to hug her and thank her for giving us a life we wouldn’t have had if it weren’t for her generosity.”

  Alexia looked at Myra with a look that Myra couldn’t quite read, and said, “Now I think we know who Elise Kenwood is. Do –”

  Angela interrupted. “Elise Kenwood? Elise Kenwood was Betsy?”

  “We’re not sure. Myra owns another car that was supposed to belong to Betsy, but her research found the name Elise Kenwood on the title. How do you know her?” asked Alexia.

  Myra suddenly felt very tired and watched the exchange between the other two women, content to let Alexia take the lead.

  “Uh, we never met in person, but my mom received a check from an Elise Kenwood that let us pay off both houses, plus some for my college. She told us the money was from an anonymous donor. Everything was done by mail. Mom never talked to or met her. We figured Betsy was the donor, but you think Elise was actually Betsy?”

  “It’s beginning to look that way,” replied Alexia. She looked at Myra. “Do you think we’ll be able to track her down?”

  “Might be a long shot. Sealed court records usually form a serious roadblock. But as I said in Taos, she must be the key to the mystery.” Myra turned back to Angela. “Do you know Oni Prairieberry?”

  “Sure do. She was probably, no, she was Betsy’s best friend here. She runs the Writer’s Retreat.”