My breathing was now so rapid I began to get lightheaded. The doorbell rang again.
“Kate, it’s just Sierra. I’m at your front door. Please open it. I won’t stay long. It’s just that I really need to read that journal. I’m so lonely for Gavin tonight. Please.”
To my horror, someone began to tug at the knob on my side door, at first gently, then wrenching it angrily. The phone pressed to my ear, all I heard was an end to the ringing and a recording telling me my party wasn’t answering. I was on my own. I dialed 911 and then set the phone on the counter.
“Would you open your side door, s’il vous plait? Return what is not yours?”
“It’s the evil Ignace Surette man.”
I whipped around. Minette was on the hutch, a look of pure fury on her face.
“Go back upstairs! If he sees you, he’ll trap you.”
“He must not come in! I will fight him!”
I yanked open a drawer, grabbed the biggest knife in it, and shouted into my phone that a murderer was breaking into my house. I swung toward the front door. Sierra was still hanging on the bell, ringing it incessantly. I swung toward the back door and took a wavering step in that direction.
Minette barreled toward me, landing on my shoulder and yanking my hair so hard it hurt. “You must not go in the back yard. He will find you.”
She was right. And I couldn’t go out the front or side doors. I was trapped in my house like one of Sierra’s caged birds, and at any minute, Surette would find a way in. He’d hurt me and take Minette. “Over my dead body! We’re going to Michael’s safe room.”
As fast as my shaking legs could carry me, I ran upstairs, raced down the hall, and pulled down the attic stairs. With Minette still clinging to me and me still clinging to my knife, I went up the stairs and hauled the door back up, locking it behind me by sliding a simple bolt across it. Michael had installed it years ago, and I’d chuckled at the time. When will we ever need that, Michael?
I exhaled, collapsed into a heap by the attic door, and began to pant like a hunted animal, all the while trying to hear what was happening over the sound of my own breathing. “Tell me what you hear, Minette,” I whispered. “I can’t hear anything.”
“They aren’t inside yet.” She flew from my shoulder to the attic lock.
I set the knife down. Think. Take deep breaths. Concentrate. What would Michael tell you to do? “Oh, God, I left my phone downstairs.”
“I hear something, Kate.”
I leaned closer to the door, listening. Something crashed and shattered to the floor. “God, help us.”
Inexplicably, Minette darted to the rafters, squealing with delight.
“Shh! Please, please.”
“No!” She shot back down and hovered in front of me, grinning happily, her eyes shining with joy. “It’s Laurence! It’s Laurence!”
Straining to hear my neighbor’s voice, I raised my hand to silence her.
“The Ignace Surette is gone,” Minette said softly.
“Is he?”
Footsteps sounded on the floor below. “Kate? Where are you? Are you all right? It’s Laurence. It’s safe to come out.”
I moaned in sheer relief, slid the bolt open, and pushed on the attic door. “I’m up here!”
Immediately, Laurence was directly beneath the attic door, looking up at me, smiling. “Come on down, you’re safe. The police will be here any minute.”
I gestured for Minette to hide, but before I could swing my leg onto the first step, she danced over my right hand—the one out of Laurence’s view—tenderly cradled my thumb, and then tiptoed away from the door. Three steps down, my head still in the attic, I leaned sideways and mouthed, “I’ll be back.”
CHAPTER 20
Emily and I finished our coffees in silence, watching a dozen small birds dive and tumble at the lights on the mast arm of a traffic pole across from Angelo’s parking lot. It seemed to me their acrobatics were a dance of joy for the first truly bright and sunny day in February. Or maybe they sensed the coming spring.
“Do you think Rancourt is awake now?” I asked.
Emily lifted her wrist. “My watch says nine o’clock. He’d better be.”
Safely tucked away under a light blanket on the back seat of my Jeep, Minette giggled, her laughter like a tinkling bell.
“The birds are happy,” she said.
“Don’t stick your head out too much.”
“No, Kate.”
I set my coffee in the cup holder and started the car. We were off to the police station to pick up my birdwatching backpack, give Rancourt some gummy vitamins I’d bought at Hannaford’s, and find out from Rancourt if Maine State Troopers had managed to capture Ignace Surette.
Last night Laurence had been watching—or patrolling, Emily said—Birch Street from his living room window when he’d seen a fancy white car turn up my drive, setting off his finely tuned spy-like internal alarm system. He had told Emily to stay inside and not answer the phone or door in case the intruder decided to pay a visit to their house too. Taking my spare house key with him, he moved in the shadows between our houses until he came to my front door.
Sierra was easy. He grabbed her at the door and she wilted like bad lettuce. He warned her into silence, took her inside, and caught sight of Surette as he was breaking through my side door. Hence the sound of something shattering on my floor. It turned out to be a ceramic canister on the kitchen counter. In his attempt to grab Surette, Laurence had to let Sierra go, but the police caught up with her at her house. There was nowhere else for her to go, really. The car Laurence had seen was Surette’s white BMW. He took off in it, leaving Sierra stranded.
“I should buy a cake while we’re downtown,” I said. “Something chocolate for Laurence. No, donuts. That’s it. When I think of what could have happened if he hadn’t shown up. It terrifies me.”
“Me too,” Emily said.
“Me three,” Minette said.
Emily shifted in her seat, facing backward. “I can’t believe Laurence didn’t see you. I still think he’d have a heart attack if he did. He’d keel right over. He has no problem traveling the world, even to dangerous places, but fairies? He’d die of fright.”
I wasn’t so sure about that. “I didn’t keel over, and Laurence’s world is so much stranger than mine ever was. Spies and—”
“Kate, seriously.”
“So how come he knows Ignace Surette, a government agent?”
“He knows tons of people.”
“Anyway, my world was plain vanilla ordinary before I met Minette, and I didn’t die of a heart attack. Laurence comes from a world I can hardly imagine. The kind of world you read about in spy novels.”
“Where are the gummy bears?” Emily said.
Any mention of spies and Laurence caused Emily to roll her eyes. If that didn’t work on me, she changed the subject.
I exited the parking lot and drove a few blocks south to the station. “What time is Laurence leaving tomorrow?”
“At eight o’clock.”
“A civilized hour for once.”
“We’ll have time for breakfast.”
Emily stayed in the car with Minette and I jogged up the steps to the station, gummy bears in hand, walked to the front desk, and asked for Rancourt. A minute later the detective came toddling down the hall.
“Well, Mrs. Brewer, I didn’t expect to see you so early.”
Not wanting to give him the gummy bears in full view of the desk officer, I asked if we could talk in his office.
“We haven’t caught him yet,” he said, waving for me to follow him.
He offered me a seat and shut his office door.
“I didn’t expect you to find him this soon,” I said.
“He’s probably out of the state by now,” Rancourt replied. He settled like an overstuffed sack of potatoes into his chair. “That should be some comfort. He’s not foolish enough to go back to your house.”
Not right now, I thought. But wh
at about later? “Is Sierra still locked up?”
“We let her go late last night, after questioning her. We can’t hold her for knocking on your door.”
“But she and Ignace—”
“Let me continue. I think you’re onto something with those two, and believe me, we haven’t finished questioning her. If she and this Surette or Comeau or whatever his name is, conspired to murder Gavin Dearborn, we’ll find the evidence. She was with him last night, pounding down your door, wasn’t she? That’s not the brightest move. She’s going to crack like an egg.”
Rancourt was trying hard to reassure me, and for the most part, he was doing a good job. I wasn’t afraid of Sierra. But Surette was another matter, and I prayed he would give up his hunt and I’d never see him again. What really set me on edge was I couldn’t tell Rancourt why Surette was likely to return.
“When we talked, Sierra was very intent on pointing the blame at Surette,” I continued, “even though I think they were working together. But she knew she could be found and he could disappear without a trace.”
“Not quite without a trace.”
“Then where is he? Where’s his paper trail?”
“We’ll find him. This is Maine, not Tajikistan. Did you hear Joel Perry confessed?”
“Yes, Laurence MacKenzie told me. Joel bought the carfentanil in Tijuana?”
“He was going to buy it online from China, but he was afraid we’d trace an online purchase, so he took a quick and innocent-looking family trip to San Diego with a side trip to Tijuana. Turns out Nadine Sullivan was sick of their arrangement. It was making her a nervous wreck, sure she’d be caught. She wrote favorable insurance reports, and he and his friends pocketed the money—giving some to her in return. He received a percentage. But she was about to blow the whistle, he knew it, and he panicked. Of all the dumb plans I’ve seen, his takes first prize. It was only a matter of time before the thing fell apart.”
“When did Joel put the drug in her backpack?”
“Right after she first boarded. He’d crushed it, put it in a small plastic bag, and when he distracted her by having her look at the map he’d taped by the steering wheel, he poured it in. He expected her to touch it right away, but somehow she didn’t touch it until later.” Rancourt rubbed his tired eyes and took a long drink of coffee.
“Oh, I’ve got something for you,” I said, setting the bag of gummy vitamins in front of him.
“What’s this?”
“Vitamins. Gummy bear vitamins.”
He squinted at me through puffy eyelids.
“You can even snack on them. Don’t overdo it, though. You don’t want a vitamin overdose.”
For a second I thought he’d laugh, or even rake me over the coals for being a flake, but his expression softened and his lips curved into a good-humored smile. “Well, I’ll be. Gummy bear vitamins—who’d have thought? I love gummy bears. Thanks.”
Victory! I settled back in my chair.
“I’ve got a question for you, Kate.”
“Sure.”
“You know they record 911 calls, right?”
“I never thought about it.”
“When you called, you didn’t hang up.”
“That’s right. I put the phone on the counter.”
“So the line stayed open.” He laced his fingers on top of his desk.
“I guess it would.”
“The operator had me listen to the tape. There’s you shouting that a murderer is breaking in, then something I couldn’t quite make out. A radio or the TV, maybe? Then I heard you say, ‘Over my dead body. We’re going to Michael’s safe room.’ Then there was more radio or whatchamacallit sounds. Who’s we, Kate? Was there someone with you?”
I had to think fast—and just as quickly, I needed to unfreeze my undoubtedly frozen expression. “You know it was just me and Laurence at the house when you came.”
“That doesn’t quite answer my question.”
“There wasn’t a single other human being in the house. Except for Surette, who was breaking in at the time, I take it. Did you pick up his voice?”
“Yep. And Mr. MacKenzie’s.” Rancourt wasn’t satisfied with my answer, but being a good man, and trusting me, I think, not to be a bad woman, he graciously let it go.
“Just one more thing,” he said. “Mrs. Dearborn chattered on about you taking a book or diary or something of hers. I asked her to explain, but all of a sudden she clammed up. Have any idea what she was on about?”
Shrugging, I said, “I don’t have anything that belongs to her.”
Technically, I was telling the truth. In reality, I was lying. But no good could come from Rancourt knowing about Ray’s journal or, worse, reading it. What a firestorm that would start.
“Well, I’ll leave you to your work,” I said. “Where do I pick up my backpack from the tour?”
“Front desk has it. We’ll talk later.”
Except for his broad and genuine smile, he might have been warning me that he was bound to find out what had really gone on in my house. Perhaps he was in a way. “You’ll let me know if you find Surette?”
“Will do.” He took a pair of scissors from a drawer and started to cut open the gummies bag. “Thanks again. This is my style of health food.”
I climbed back into my Jeep and recounted for Emily what Rancourt had told me about Joel, Sierra, and Surette. “Joel’s going away for a long time and Sierra’s not a threat, but Surette’s still a ghost in the wind.”
Emily didn’t try to talk me out of my worry. She too knew Surette would be back. Not soon, but he’d be back.
But I wasn’t going to wait passively for him to show up. I planned to do a little hunting of my own, and I was pretty sure Laurence would jump at the chance to help.
“Off to Hannaford’s to get donuts for Laurence?” I asked.
“And me,” Emily said.
“And me. Syrup too, Kate.” Minette flew to the Jeep’s console and I quickly shooed her back, afraid someone walking by would see her.
“You like to live dangerously, little fairy,” Emily said. “Kate, you need a box for her to hide in when you’re in the car.”
“You know what keeps her safe?” I said, sticking my key in the ignition. “It’s like Minette says. You can tell people they’re not seeing something even when it’s right in front of their faces, and they’ll believe it. If it’s not normal for them, it doesn’t exist. I was the same way, refusing to believe there was another world around me.”
“That’s true, you refused,” Minette said. “And you’re angry a lot.”
Emily gave a boom of a laugh and I angled back in my seat, glaring at Minette. “And you’re going to tell me about your past and your secrets, right? Ray’s journal is mine now. This is not a one-way street any longer.”
The picture of innocence and honey, Minette said, “Yes, Kate. I promise you.”
“Aww, how sweet,” Emily cooed.
“Sweet? You didn’t see her when Ignace Surette was trying to break through my side door. She was scary, let me tell you. A warrior fairy.”
Taking my words as high compliment—which was exactly as I intended—Minette hid her face in her hands. When she at last dropped them, she looked me square in the eyes. “We will talk soon, Kate, and I’ll tell you what happened to my family and friends.”
“You trust me enough?” Even to talk about Olc? I added silently.
She climbed up on the console again and dove into the folds of my coat. “Always, Kate. Always. Forever.”
FROM THE AUTHOR
If you enjoyed Drop Dead Cold, would you consider leaving a review on Amazon? Nothing fancy, just a sentence or two. Your help is appreciated more than I can say. Every review makes a huge difference in helping readers find the Smithwell Fairies Cozy Mystery Series and in allowing me to continue to write the series. I couldn’t do it without your help. Thank you so much!
MORE BOOKS BY KARIN KAUFMAN
JUNIPER GROVE MYSTERY SERIES
Death of a Scavenger
At Death’s Door
Death of a Santa
Scared to Death
Cheating Death
Death Trap
Death Knell
Garden of Death
Death of a Professor
CHILDREN’S BOOKS (FOR CHILDREN AND ADULTS)
The Adventures of Geraldine Woolkins
ANNA DENNING MYSTERY SERIES
The Witch Tree
Sparrow House
The Sacrifice
The Club
Bitter Roots
Drop Dead Cold Page 13