Final Call

by Rachel Ann Nunes

  “And it might break the case.” Tracy sighed. “I’ll talk to the officer I assigned to do the background checks and make sure they include the father angle for everyone connected to the theater.”

  Shannon laughed. “Don’t keep lover boy waiting.”

  “Lay off. We both want to break this case.” She looked at me. “The captain has threatened us both with forced vacations if we keep volunteering for overtime.”

  I laughed. That, I believed.

  The hour’s drive to the cabin went faster than I’d hoped. I kept going over the “father” comment Tawnia overheard and wondering how it connected to the case. Had they been referring to Rosemary’s father? Maybe he’d paid someone to help him take care of Rosemary after he hurt her. Or maybe he’d somehow convinced Rosemary to help him plan for Cheyenne’s murder and cover it up—though she didn’t seem to have that kind of relationship with him. And why would he want Cheyenne dead anyway? Because she was a bad influence?

  Wait. The women looked somewhat alike. Maybe the connection was that Cheyenne was Mr. Taylor’s daughter, too, born from a past relationship with an actress. That might explain why he hated the profession so much. If so, Mr. Taylor might be responsible for murdering both women.

  But to murder one and maybe two girls to cover up an indiscretion? That would take a coldhearted freak of a man. Was Mr. Taylor that cold? Besides, how likely would it be that the girls would meet by chance and discover a connection—if one actually existed? Tracy would have to do her research, but I didn’t consider it likely at all. My entire theory was seriously flawed.

  The more likely suspect was Rosemary’s boyfriend. Because of that threatening note, he couldn’t be discounted. He had to know more than he was telling.

  “Did you ever check to see if Grady Mullins is still in custody?” I asked Shannon.

  He nodded. “He made bail, but if he was out there at the theater, he’d have had to sprout wings. The officers are searching for him now to check his alibi.”

  The easy thing would be to pin everything on Grady. He could have hurt Rosemary and taken her somewhere and then repented of his act and killed Cheyenne to keep the part open for Rosemary. Maybe his plan backfired when Rosemary died of her hammer wound.

  I didn’t much care for that scenario, and besides, I trusted Shannon when he said Grady didn’t know where Rosemary was. I made a mental note to call Rosemary’s grandparents when things calmed down. It was a long shot, but maybe they knew something.

  We were in a wooded area now, about an hour northwest of Portland, and every so often we drove past cabins illuminating the early darkness that had fallen over the area. We were high enough in altitude that the rain had become snowflakes, but they were wispy, halfhearted things that lent themselves more to postcards than inconvenience.

  “Should be right up here,” Shannon said. “There. I think that’s the one.” He pointed to a dark A-frame cabin settled in a backdrop of trees and brush. “The officer said he left the key under the mat. We’re supposed to give it back to the neighbor we just passed when we leave. Apparently, they live here most of the year and keep an eye on the place.”

  The cabin wasn’t as large and sinister as I’d anticipated, but rather quaint and homey-looking and would be even more so in the summer. A long covered porch ran along the front of the house, bringing to mind long lazy summer nights when darkness was the only bedtime clock one needed. It didn’t have that austere, wealthy appearance of the other vacant cabins we’d passed. Not what I’d expect from Mr. Taylor, who seemed more concerned with appearance than with the welfare of his family.

  Shannon found the key and let us inside. A fine layer of dust covered the furniture, but there was no trash or rodent damage. Obviously, the Taylors cared enough about the cabin to keep it up. The room was colder than outside, if possible, and I bet they had to winterize their pipes to keep them from freezing.

  “Go ahead.” Shannon indicated the room. “Touch whatever you like. I’m going to do a once-over myself.”

  “Don’t trust the locals?”

  He snorted. “Remember those cellars at the commune? Even we didn’t find those until we knew where they were.”

  I shivered at the remembrance. I’d been locked in one with a dying woman and two others. Entombed alive. We’d had to dig our way out.

  “I want to look at everything, just in case.”

  I was glad for Rosemary’s sake that he was taking this seriously, but my gut ached with the need. A father should take care of his daughter, not be a suspect in her disappearance.

  Clenching my jaw, I went to work, holding my hands above objects to see if they radiated an imprint. Many did, but most were faint. Memories of days gone by. Of laughter. The Taylors hadn’t left anything of real importance to them here, nothing except these faint memories that painted quite a different picture of Mr. Taylor than the one I knew. Apparently, this had been the one place away from it all where he had at least played the part of the loving father and husband.

  Quite unlike his usual role of an austere man who would cut his in-laws from the lives of his wife and children and cause his family to live in fear.

  I checked the two bedrooms, the kitchen, the single bathroom, the living area, the front porch, and the small back patio. Shannon had found a miniature door behind a dresser in one of the rooms, and that led to a child’s playroom stocked with tiny chairs, a table, a plastic kitchen, and a plastic tool station. There were even two tiny beds crammed into the corners. I could imagine that Rosemary and Liam had loved playing here as children. In here the imprints were even more faint. It had been a long, long time since anyone had entered the tiny playroom.

  All the imprints in the house weren’t pleasant, as they wouldn’t be in any family, but even the negative ones were fleeting and fading. Either the family hadn’t imprinted anything of value on the objects of the cabin or nothing out of the ordinary happened here.

  I removed a white sheet covering the love seat and sat down to consider this new information. Judging by the objects, Rosemary hadn’t been here for years, and the family only once sixteen months ago. The locals were right: The cabin was a bust.

  Shannon still hadn’t returned. He’d searched the cabin thoroughly, including an attic that made him choke from the dust, and then gone outside with a flashlight to walk the surrounding area. I could almost imagine him shoving huge boulders aside looking for entrances to secret cellars and might have laughed if I hadn’t lived through that experience. I knew Shannon still felt responsible for how I’d almost died.

  Rosemary, I thought. Think about the case. But I didn’t want to. I wanted to think about Shannon. I wanted to finish what we’d started at the theater. I wanted to know.

  A noise on the porch shook me from my reverie. Someone was coming inside. I hoped it was Shannon, though he’d gone out the back door and I’d expected him to return the same way. Standing, I peeked outside and saw another car.

  Someone else.

  The door opened slowly, and I saw the barrel of a gun. Definitely not Shannon. He knew I was here alone.

  I’m not normally one to jump to conclusions, but I’d been attacked twice in the past three days, and I wasn’t anxious to repeat the events—especially not with a gun-wielding murderer.

  Of course, I still had my own gun, and I was a good shot.

  Who was I fooling? I wasn’t going to shoot someone. I’d been taught that life was sacred, and I wasn’t prepared to live knowing I’d taken something so precious. I’d have to depend on my other skills.

  I stood frozen by the curtain waiting, hoping my clenched muscles were ready.

  The door creaked open wider, and the gun moved forward.

  Chapter 14

  Who’s here?” came a deep voice. The intruder still wasn’t all the way inside the door, but I could tell whoever it was didn’t
wear the uniform of a police officer. In fact, he was wearing a suit coat, and some of the most dangerous criminals I’d encountered cloaked themselves in expensive suits that hid a world of sins.

  I rushed from the side, sprinting along the window. In a fluid motion, I chopped down on the arm with the gun, sending it to the ground. I had only a second to be grateful it didn’t fire, before grabbing the man’s arm, pulling him and leaning forward so I could roll him over my back and onto the floor. He was taller and heavier, but I had training and the element of surprise.

  I just hoped he was alone.

  I jumped on him, making a fist to deliver a blow, when I recognized the man. He lay there, eyes wide with fear. I hesitated. “Mr. Taylor?”

  Recognition dawned. “You!”

  “Autumn Rain,” I said.

  He struggled under me. Before I’d come to the cabin tonight, I would have been safe and hit him anyway, but the imprints hadn’t indicated that he was dangerous.

  “Wait.” I jumped off him, picked up his gun, and stepped away. “Okay, you can get up now.”

  He swore, his fear turning to anger. “What are you doing in my cabin?”

  I couldn’t answer. Grabbing the gun without a glove or using a piece of cloth hadn’t been the smartest thing I’d ever done. An imprint rippled over my consciousness.

  The lights were on. Who was in the cabin? The police should have long gone. She didn’t have the right to allow the police to come here looking for Rosemary. He/I hated the idea of anyone violating a place that had been his family’s haven. The memory of the children growing up here was precious. He/I had loved walking through the woods and talking to them, teaching them. They’d listened then. This had been the happiest place. Nothing had intruded.

  Must be a burglar. But what if Rosemary had come here? Maybe she was hiding in the secret room. Wait. Or maybe someone had taken Rosemary and was holding her hostage. Maybe they wanted a ransom. Careful now. I didn’t want to shoot Rosemary. For all the pain she’d given me, I didn’t want her hurt.

  I didn’t want her hurt.

  Another imprint, an older one, followed. Pleasure at hitting the paper target. The imprint faded.

  Taking a deep breath, I shoved the gun in my coat pocket before more imprints could come. It was a large gun, a .45, and the hilt stuck out of my pocket and would have even if I hadn’t placed it on top of the Ruger.

  Mr. Taylor stared at me. “Are you listening? I want to know what you’re doing here. And give me back my gun.”

  I took another step back, prepared to defend myself if necessary. He was bigger, but I was younger and better trained. “I’m here with the police,” I said. “Detective Shannon Martin came to check out the place himself. That’s his car out there. Unmarked police vehicle.”

  “How do I know you’re telling the truth?”

  “Because I have better taste in cars,” I retorted. Truth was, I couldn’t afford that Mustang if I’d wanted it. “Detective Martin will be back in a minute. In fact, let me give him a call.” I fished in my other pocket for my phone, but it had no service.

  Great. I was alone with a man who was a suspect, if not for Rosemary’s disappearance, then maybe for Cheyenne’s death, and I had no phone service. Some smart phone it turned out to be. At least I had the guns—for the moment.

  “The question is,” I said, “what are you doing here?”

  “What? It’s my cabin.”

  “That your wife gave us permission to search. You almost never come up here. Why tonight?” It was barely seven-thirty, so he must have come directly here after work. “We’re investigating your daughter’s disappearance and a murder, so anything you do is of interest.”

  “Judith told me she’d given the police permission to come here. Look, can we sit down? It’s been a long day.”

  I nodded. “You take the love seat.”

  He obeyed reluctantly, poorly concealing irritation at being told what to do on his own property. I moved toward the window, taking out my phone again. Ah, service here. I pushed Shannon’s number and sent a text: visitor.

  Sitting down on a wooden chair that had no sheet cover, I indicated that Mr. Taylor should continue.

  “I was angry at first, but then I started thinking that maybe Rosemary had come here. She knows it well. There are places she can hide.”

  “You’re angry that she might be pulling a joke on you.”

  He blinked. “Maybe I was, but she’s not really like that. She’s always frank about things. I taught her that.”

  “Well, she’s not here.”

  “There is a place here she might be.”

  “We found the playroom.”

  Disappointment touched his face.

  “The police who were here earlier didn’t find it,” I clarified. “But Detective Martin is thorough. By the layers of dust, no one’s been in there for years.” I waited a few breaths before saying, “Tell me what happened at the theater. Please.” I added this last to make it seem like a request, though truthfully, I was nearly ready to pull his own gun on him and force him to spill the information. “We need to find her. The smallest thing could be important.” Sometime during my search of the cabin and experiencing the imprints on his gun, he had fallen in my list of suspects. Not completely off it but almost as far down as the producer Walsh.

  Shannon appeared in the doorway that opened into the kitchen. He had his gun ready, but he relaxed when he saw I had the situation in hand. He stayed silent, waiting, and I was glad he knew when to keep quiet. If I needed additional pressure, he could step forward, but maybe Barry Taylor would be willing to talk with me now that he wouldn’t lose face around his family—or anyone else.

  “I went to that theater,” he began. “That dive. She’d told me she wanted to see me, and I agreed to meet her, but I didn’t know it was there. I thought she wanted to come home and would be ready to come on my terms. But there she was, sitting at a vanity brushing her hair, and I knew right away that she had no intention of leaving.”

  I perked up at the mention of a brush. “Was anyone else in the room?”

  “A brunette. She was standing over by the wall. I could only see part of her since half of her was hidden by the vanity. She said something like, ‘Maybe you should listen to the note. Maybe it’s serious.’ But Rosemary exploded. She said no one was going to take this chance from her, that she was finally going to Broadway. Rosemary turned and saw me then, but before either of us said anything, the girl rushed up to her and grabbed the brush from Rosemary’s hand, throwing it down on the vanity.”

  I leaned forward. “Did she say anything?”

  “She said a lot of people had been waiting for that chance and that it wasn’t fair for Rosemary to waltz in and take it away.”

  “Away from her?”

  “That’s the impression I got. Then she saw me. She told Rosemary they’d talk later and stomped from the room.”

  “Did Rosemary tell you about the role?”

  He shook his head. “Not directly. She told me she’d seen her grandparents, that they were wonderful people, and that they’d been the ones to tell her about this company and the connection the producer had with a relative on Broadway. She said they believed she was good enough to make it.”

  I imagined that didn’t go over well. “What did you say to that?”

  “I told her what she did was an embarrassment to our family and that she should come home and get a decent education.”

  “And?”

  He shook his head. “Nothing. She turned her back on me and started to leave the room.” He hesitated.

  “That was when you pulled her hair?”

  He stared down into his hands. “I didn’t mean to. I tried to grab her shoulder, but she was too fast.”

  Show some respect for once in your life�
��or I’ll make you show it! he’d said. I remembered the scene well from the imprint on the princess rock.

  “Did she stop?”

  “No. She whirled around to face me. One hand was in the pocket of her jeans, and I remember how frightened she looked. I—I let go, and she turned and left. I followed her, but that other girl was in the hall, and she ducked behind her. She yelled at me to leave. So I did.” No emotion showed on his face, but his broad shoulders drooped. “I haven’t seen or heard from her again.”

  Shannon pushed off the door frame where he’d been resting. “Do you know who the other woman was?”

  Taylor started slightly, but he met Shannon’s gaze and answered. “Yes. I saw her in the newspaper this morning. She’s the one they found dead.”

  My mind whirled with these new developments. Because of the imprints I’d experienced here, I believed Mr. Taylor, though I still disliked him. I could be wrong.

  “Your son thinks you had something to do with Rosemary’s disappearance,” I said, fishing for a reaction.

  He blinked. “What?”

  “Maybe your wife does, too.”

  “I had nothing to do with it! I’ve told you everything.”

  I shrugged. “We’ll see.” I wanted to go on, to tell him what a jerk he was for cutting his in-laws from his children’s lives, from his wife’s, but it wouldn’t matter. They had to find the same backbone Rosemary had found before things could ever be right in that family. The only way I could help them was to find her.

  “Thank you for your cooperation,” Shannon said. He knew how to walk the walk when he needed to, but I nearly screamed at the fake politeness. I shut my eyes to hide the emotion, feeling abruptly exhausted—and also feeling that I was missing something.

  “Are you finished here?” Mr. Taylor said.

  Shannon nodded and handed him the key. “We were supposed to give it to the neighbors, but since you’re here, you might as well take it.”

  I stood and pulled my coat sleeve over my hand before retrieving Mr. Taylor’s gun and giving it to him. I really needed to buy new gloves. Shannon’s eyes widened at the sight of the .45, but I gave him a smile and preceded him to the door.