by Edie Claire
What was the girl thinking?!
Leigh’s eyes roved the generous slope of grass—now mud—that stretched between the Brown’s back yard and Cara’s place. If she hurried, maybe she could cut Allison off before she reached the cellar. Frances said she had been gone less than five minutes…
Sheets of rain pelted Leigh’s face and eyes, making it difficult to see. She ran toward the creek bridge, stopping every few feet to scan the landscape for movement. Would Allison run across the open space, or would she make her way through the trees on the hill to be less visible? Leigh looked up into the woods, but visibility in that direction was even worse. The trees swayed and bowed in the wind; leaves not yet ready to fall were giving up and doing it anyway. A crack of thunder sounded.
Allison could not be out here. Had the child lost her mind?
Leigh reached the creek bridge. If Allison had come from Cara’s house, she would not need to cross it to get to the cellar, because Snow Creek Farm, like Frog Hill, was on the far side of the creek from the road. But even if Allison had come through the trees, she could not get to the cellar itself without sprinting the last hundred feet in the open.
Leigh saw something. She started to cry out—then stopped. Whatever she had seen moving in the woods directly behind her, it wasn’t Allison. It had been twice as tall.
She could have sworn it was a man. A man who, upon her notice of him, had ducked behind a tree.
Stay calm, she begged herself. The police are already on their way. She made no movement, but stood her ground. Her eyes were fixed on the tree, but the figure did not reappear. Had she imagined it?
She wished.
A vicious wave of chill bumps swept up her spine. Her clothes were soaked. Wet bangs drooped down over her eyes; her socks squished in her shoes. And clearly, she was not alone. But none of that mattered. All that mattered was stopping Allison from coming any closer.
She decided to go for broke. “Allison!” she called, cupping her hands and shouting against the wind. “Allison! Can you hear me?”
There was no response. The wind grew more forceful, whipping her wet shirt around her waist and flapping the hem of her capris at her calves.
It was no use. Allison could be fifty yards away and not hear her.
Leigh ran briefly in the direction of Cara’s farm, scanning the creek bed as far as she could see. There was no one. Had she already missed Allison?
Her jaws clenched. She turned, ran back to the bridge, and crossed it. Beneath her feet, the creek was already swelling. Were she not already soaked to the bone, its fast-moving depths might have looked threatening, but the swirling brown eddies hardly registered in her mind. She ran on until the tool shed was in her sights, and she kept running until she had surveyed every possible angle of approach to it.
She did not see Allison anywhere. If Leigh had been too late to intercept her by the creek, or if Allison had slipped behind her mother through the woods, she could already be in the cellar by now.
Meet me at dusk at Archie’s.
Leigh’s eyes fixed on the cellar’s wooden doors. They were closed. Her heart pounded.
She made another scan of the landscape around her. A flash of movement caught her eye, and her heart tipped into palpitation. Another man. Someone equally tall, ducking quickly behind the corner of the barn.
If she was not soaking wet, completely terrified, half-blind from rain and the other half from hysteria, she could have sworn she’d seen a Union soldier.
She drew in a breath, braced her spine, and clenched her teeth tight.
Whatever!
An entire forest of ghosts, real or imitation, could surround Frog Hill Farm and she wouldn’t give a fig—all that mattered was getting her daughter the hell out of that cellar. The police should be arriving at the Brown’s any moment now, and Adith and Emma would send them straight out. All she had to do was find Allison and keep the girl with her…
Leigh’s eyes fixed on the cellar doors. Her lids narrowed and her hands balled into fists. Stupid hole was not going to defeat her. She was going back in the damned place one more time and that was it.
Throwing any thoughts of careful entry to the wind, Leigh threw open the cellar doors and rushed down the steps like a charging infantryman. “Allison Harmon!” she shouted, none too affectionately, “You get yourself back—”
Leigh stopped at the bottom of the stairs and blinked. The cellar was dark. But at least the rain had stopped pelting her. And she could see well enough to know that at least on the near side of the cellar, there was nothing to see.
“Allison?” she said again, this time in a whisper. “Are you here?”
She could not see into far corners where the dim light from the stairway failed to penetrate. And of course, she had no flashlight.
Oh, to hell with it!
Launching herself forward like a child playing airplane, Leigh extended her arms and ran a blind sweep around the far corner of the cellar. In three seconds, she was back where she started. She had seen nothing, felt nothing. Neither along the walls or under her feet.
Allison wasn’t here.
Leigh thought no more. She put her feet into gear and charged up the stairs with the same speed she’d used coming down them. Just let somebody try to stop her now.
When in an instant she found herself safely above ground again, with the rain and the wind pelting her anew, she had to admit a certain surprise. She cast a glance at the still-open cellar doors and allowed herself a smirk.
You lose.
Once again, she scanned the landscape around her. It was growing darker, and fast. In a mere ten minutes there would be no light at all.
Knowing that Allison was not in the cellar was some relief. But it was hardly enough. If Allison hadn’t gone into the cellar, where had she gone? What if she had reached it while Leigh was still looking downstream, and what if she had run into—
No. Leigh couldn’t think that way. She just had to find her.
Lightning flashed. In the sudden burst of illumination Leigh could see a figure moving across the bridge. Not Allison… but someone. Someone who was walking straight toward her.
In a heartbeat, Leigh weighed her options. Then she moved slowly out from the corner of the shed and placed herself in a clearing that was within full view of both the approaching figure and—God willing—Adith Rhodis’s trusty binoculars. To her surprise, the slightly bent figure kept coming toward her. Not hurriedly. Not aggressively. But as if, for all the world, he or she were merely out for a stroll.
When the figure got to within twenty feet of her, another convenient stroke of lightning showed his face.
“Derrick?” Leigh exclaimed with disbelief as they approached each other. He was wearing dress slacks, business loafers, and a cardigan sweater—all of which were thoroughly waterlogged. His hands appeared to be empty, but his limbs were taut, as if he were prepared for flight. “What are you doing out here?” she asked.
Derrick looked at her quizzically, twitching his nose as if he were about to sneeze. The resemblance to a rodent was comical. “What are you doing here?” he returned anxiously.
Leigh considered. It was a fair question. “I’m looking for my daughter,” she answered. “She ran out of the house and I can’t find her. Have you seen her?”
For all his obvious nervousness, the small man looked slightly relieved. “No, I haven’t. Sorry. But it’s hard to see much on a night like this. Why did she run out?”
Leigh’s mind turned somersaults of confusion. Why Derrick was here, she didn’t know, but he showed no signs of intending any harm. If anything, the man looked frightened of her. “I’m not sure why,” she answered. “Have you seen Harvey?”
Derrick’s eyebrows rose, then knit together again in puzzlement. “No, I… is he missing, too?”
“Maybe,” Leigh answered, marveling at the absurdity of a conversation held by two people both equally determined to pretend that having a casual conversation in the middle of a drivin
g rainstorm was an ordinary thing to do. “And why were you out here, again?” she queried.
Derrick’s nose gave another twitch. “I just needed some air.”
Leigh tried to think of an appropriate response to that. She failed.
“Well, I guess I’ll be getting back now,” he said awkwardly. “I hope you find your daughter. It’s a nasty night.”
Leigh nodded. “Yes, it is. Thank you.”
Derrick returned her nod, gave a little wave, made an abrupt about-face, and headed back toward the bridge. Leigh watched him a moment, flummoxed. Then her fear set back in.
Where was Allison?!
She ran back over to the side of the tool shed, her nerves frayed to the breaking point. She felt as if she had fallen through the looking glass; nothing that was happening made any sense. It seemed as if she had been wandering around in the rain for an hour; in reality it had been only a few minutes. The thought of her daughter’s being lost in the same nightmare brought sheer terror. Stay calm, Leigh begged her beleaguered brain. Don’t be useless. Think!
Her phone buzzed in her pocket. She whipped it out so fast she dropped it. With a cry she squatted down and began rummaging through the muddy grass with shaky fingers. After what seemed an eternity, she retrieved it, quickly curling her body around it to protect the screen from the endless rain. It was another text from her mother.
Never mind. She was in the bathroom.
Leigh’s rear end collapsed onto the ground.
She remained sitting there, dazed, until she realized mud was seeping through her underwear.
Hang the fifth commandment, she resolved steadily. Frances Koslow is a dead woman.
“I think you’d better get up from there now,” a deep voice ordered menacingly.
Leigh’s head turned, with measured slowness, toward the source of the sound. Her predicament was so farcical, she could almost laugh. It did not surprise her, therefore—in fact, it seemed eminently fitting—that she would turn to find herself looking at the barrel of a shotgun.
“Hi, Joe,” she greeted with the unnatural calm reserved for the hysterical. “What’s up?”
Chapter 21
Joe O’Malley reached down a hand and pulled Leigh roughly to her feet. “What’s up is that you’re in the way,” he growled. “What the hell are you doing out here?”
Unruffled, Leigh blinked back at him. “You have no idea how complicated it would be to answer that question.”
He shook his head. “Forget it, I don’t care. But you’re not staying here. You’ll have to come inside.” He grabbed her by the arm and propelled her forward.
“Inside?” Leigh questioned, her tortured brain attempting to function again.
“In the house!” Joe spat out impatiently. Although Leigh was offering no resistance, the man seemed intent on half dragging her. “Before you screw up everything!”
Leigh’s brow furrowed. They were headed for the backdoor of the farmhouse. “What do you mean—”
Joe clamped a beefy hand over her mouth. “Shh! Will you just shut up and hurry?” He removed the hand and commenced dragging her again. As they moved to Archie’s back porch, Leigh caught sight of not one, but two other men doing a remarkably bad job of hiding behind trees. Realization dawned.
The reenactors. Why were they here?
“Go ahead,” Joe ordered, pushing her up the back steps ahead of him. “He’ll be in the living room.”
He?
Another crack of thunder split the air, a flash of lightning hitting simultaneous with it.
Joe swore. “Gotta get this damn thing over with or we’re gonna get ourselves electrocuted!”
Leigh put her hand on the doorknob. She was trying to be smart. Really, she was. But making informed decisions was challenging when one was floating upside down in rainbow pudding on the wrong side of the looking glass. Was Joe threatening her or not? He was hardly asking her to tea. But he wasn’t pointing his gun at her, either.
She turned the knob and opened the door. If Joe was out to hurt her, trying to bolt now would only ensure that he did so—most likely immediately. And if he was not? Either way, she’d at least be out of the rain.
Leigh stepped into Archie’s kitchen. The house had an unpleasant, stale smell to it. The mess that Wiley had left in his wake during the first days after Archie’s disappearance had been cleaned up, presumably by Emma, and Wiley hadn’t been free to roam in and out of his dog door since. Still, Archie’s house seemed close and unkempt. All the ceiling lamps were off. The room was lit dimly by a small beam coming from the next room.
“Go on,” Joe prodded, poking the butt of his gun into her back. “He knows you’re coming.”
Leigh took a deep breath and stepped forward. She walked through the doorway and out into the living room.
“For heaven’s sake!” the familiar voice said with surprise, shining a small flashlight up and down her bedraggled form. “Mrs. Har— I mean, Leigh, what on earth are you doing out here?”
The question was a popular one. “I could ask you the same thing, Harvey,” she retorted, her tone measured. “Everyone at the Browns’ is worried sick about you.”
His face puckered. “I’m sorry about that,” he said sincerely. “But I had no choice. It was too dangerous for me to stay. I’m not ashamed to admit it—I was afraid.”
Leigh was sure her head would spin 360 degrees at any moment. “Afraid of whom?” she pleaded. “Who sent you the note? Why on earth would you come? And why are all these men from the reenacting company hiding around in the trees?”
Joe let loose with an oath. “You saw them?” He groaned. “Amateurs!”
“Don’t worry,” Harvey told her, even as his own voice shook with that emotion. “It’s all perfectly safe. Joe has everything figured out.”
Leigh did not feel any better. “He has what worked out?” she demanded. “Harvey, talk to me!”
Leigh heard the buzz of a phone. Mercifully, it was not hers. Joe dropped a hand in his pocket and took a step away from them.
“Harvey,” she said in a whisper, wondering suddenly if his presence was no more voluntary than her own. “If you were scared, why didn’t you just call the police? Has Joe threatened you?”
Harvey’s wiry eyebrows tented. “Has Joe… of course not! I’m the one who dragged him into this.”
“But why?”
“Because I didn’t know where else to go!” he said plaintively. “Once I figured out who the descendent was, I knew I couldn’t stay in the house. But I thought I would have more time! I snuck over to Joe’s to call the police, but he… Well, he talked me out of it. He said we didn’t have enough evidence, and he was right. He convinced me we should go for a confession… with witnesses.”
The pieces of the puzzle were at last assembling in Leigh’s mind. But the process was painfully slow. “You wanted to catch whomever was offering to sell you the treasure,” she reasoned, “so you asked Joe to help you? But why would anyone want to sell the treasure to you in the first place? Was the note even for you?”
Harvey cast her a sympathetic glance. “No, no, no. You don’t understand at all!”
Joe gave them both a not-so-gentle push to the side. “Affirmative sighting at ten o’clock,” he said excitedly. “It’s time, Boss. Everyone to their stations!”
“Come with me!” Harvey whispered hurriedly to Leigh, guiding her in the direction of Archie’s bedroom. “We’ll have to hide you.”
“From whom?” Leigh pleaded again. “Harvey, whatever you’ve got planned, there’s no need to go through with it. The police are already on their way. They’re coming out to look for you!”
Harvey stopped a moment and stared at her, wide-eyed. “Oh, but no! That will ruin everything!” He hustled her the rest of the way into the bedroom and opened Archie’s closet door. “If they get here too soon, they’ll tip her off, and then we’ll never get a confession!” He spun Leigh around and attempted to push her gently backwards into the closet.
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br /> Tip her off?
“A confession from whom?” Leigh demanded, planting her feet.
“Places!” Joe whispered roughly.
Harvey groaned. “From the great-great-great granddaughter of Theodore Carr, that’s who!” And with a strength that was surprising for a man of his size, let alone his age, he shoved her backward and shut the closet door in her face. “And please try to be quiet!” he added.
In the next two seconds, Leigh became aware of three things. One, that the closet smelled of cigarettes, even though Archie didn’t smoke. Two, that some men’s breathing can sound remarkably like Darth Vader when heard in an enclosed space. And three, that she was not alone.
“Um…” the man whispered sheepishly in her ear. “Hi there.”
Leigh was proud of the fact that she didn’t scream. She had never been a screamer, but if she were so inclined, this would seem a valid opportunity.
“Hi,” she whispered back.
They heard the front door open. Leigh tried not to think about the fact that she was standing in a neighbor’s bedroom closet in soaking wet clothes pressed up against a strange man about whom she knew exactly nothing except that he enjoyed marching in parades and running around historic battlefields shooting off blanks.
She had been in worse predicaments.
While her ears strained to hear what was happening in the next room, her brain worked feverishly to decipher Harvey’s confounding comments. She had it all wrong, he had said. Had he meant that no one was trying to sell the treasure to him? That no one was selling the treasure at all? But the note said—
Of course. How stupid of her. No one had sent anything to Harvey, had they? It was Harvey who was in the driver’s seat. Harvey who had reasoned out, without ever laying eyes on her map, that the best way to finger Archie’s competition would be to find out who had their own copy. He had suspected from the beginning that a direct descendant of Theodore’s would be the most likely candidate. He had spent all day at the library—and perhaps a courthouse or two?—finding out just who Theodore’s living heirs might be. And evidently, he had found one.