by Ellen Parker
“Shed.” He slammed the transmission into park and jerked on the parking brake.
“Flashlight.” Gertrude handed him the heavy-duty light.
Jackson glanced at the authoritative woman. Determination and the expectation that he’d obey without question were etched on her features. He eased out of the driver’s door and walked into the headlight beams.
Horse. He swallowed back a curse as he spotted the animal on the edge of the light. The beast stood under a pair of pines, hunched against the cold and snow, between Jackson and the shed. He started toward the small structure, his dress shoes slipping on the uneven ground.
The horse snorted and swung his head toward Jackson.
His hands, already cold inside thin gloves, stiffened.
Woof. Woof. Grrr.
“Dancer. Beth.” He walked an arc around the front of the horse and played the light over the metal shed’s side. The instant he spied the pried hole, he stepped toward it. “Beth.”
Woof. Woof. Thump.
Hope grew in Jackson’s chest at the sounds from the shed and the brief sight of a canine nose at the ragged opening.
Snort. The horse complained.
Jackson bent over and addressed Dancer, playing the light into the opening. He sucked in his breath and felt his heart drop to his toes. A figure lay curled tight on a plywood floor. “Beth.”
Gathering a few wits, he played the light around until he located the shed door, directly opposite the air hole.
“What’s the problem?” Gertrude called.
“Need tools. Pry bar or tire iron.” He hurried the few yards to the Jeep, opened the tailgate, and rummaged under the mat.
Snort. Warm horse breath bathed his neck.
Jackson jumped back, his shoes slipped on the snow, and he fell on his butt. Plop. Huff. He swallowed back a curse as he looked up at the beast.
“You okay back there?” Gertrude opened her door but stayed in the Jeep.
“Will be.” Jackson scrambled to his feet.
Gathering courage from as far away as his toes, he reached for the horse’s halter. On the second try, his fingers closed around the narrow leather. The horse stretched his neck to sniff the edge of the open hatch, pulling Jackson forward.
“Don’t scare me like that. Understand?” He reached into the vehicle, searched a moment, then snapped a dog leash onto the halter ring. “Beth’s in there. You will not stop me.” Muttering, he cursed the animal and his ancestors. “You are not going to bite me. One scar from your kind is more than enough. No rearing either. Leash is too short for that nonsense.” He guided the horse to a tree and tied the leash around a low branch. “Stay.”
He turned his attention back to his vehicle, found his tire iron, and headed back to the shed. “Beth. Answer me.”
“What do you see?” Gertrude got out and stayed close to the vehicle.
“It’s them.”
He went to the shed door, discovered a padlock through the hasp, and raised his tool. She’s hurt. Cold. He pressed his lips tight, prayed that she was breathing. Jamming the tire iron behind the hasp, he pried. Again. On the third try, the entire latch and lock assembly tumbled to the ground. Hang on, Beth.
Grrrr. Grrrr.
Jackson ignored Dancer’s verbal warning and stepped inside the shed. Playing his light around, he revealed a plywood floor scattered with tipped shelving and scattered tin cans spilling unknown liquids. Dancer held a protective stance.
“Easy, girl. I’m a friend.” He tugged off one glove. “Sniff test.”
Dancer’s growl ceased, but the dog remained standing over Beth’s curled form, watching every move in the uncertain light. Jackson squatted and brushed his bare fingertips across her cheek, past her jaw, and to the pulse point in her neck. A soft, slow echo of her heart met his sensitive pads.
“I have to do this.” He pushed one arm under her knees and the other below her shoulders and staggered to his feet.
Woof. Woof.
“Come along, Dancer. I can’t stop you anyway.”
Gertrude had the back door open and a blanket spread across the seat before he reached the vehicle. “Is she—”
“Alive? Yes. Cold and hurt. I don’t know how bad. Is Templeton the nearest medical service?” He swallowed down fear at the sight of blood smeared across her forehead and matting her hair. How many injuries would they find under her clothes?
“No phone service.”
“Monitor and call on our way. No choice. And get the sheriff out here. They didn’t go into that shed on their own.” He rested Beth’s head and upper body on the seat before he squeezed into the small space beside her.
Dancer appeared at his elbow, poking her nose against Beth’s still form.
While draping more blankets over her, Jackson studied her pale face. The need to protect her surfaced within him, overpowering the helpless dread of a moment before. He shivered in empathy as he tucked a soft, yellow blanket under her chin. Please live. We’ve only just found each other.
Chapter Twenty-Four
The voices are back. Beth drifted toward awareness on a gentle wave. So tired.
“Good evening, beautiful. Miss your smile. And your laugh.”
Beth opened her eyes to a slit and tried to bring the owner of the voice into focus. It was male. Not her father, yet familiar.
“That’s a girl. Look at me.”
Her eyelids opened, flipped closed, and gently raised again. She darted her tongue across parched lips, working on getting a firm connection between eyes and brain.
“I’m Jackson. Just in case you forgot. You mother tells me you’ve been responding a little better today. The docs are weaning you off some of the drugs. You’ll be carrying on a normal conversation in a day or two.”
A few of his words made sense. She was sick—no, wrong word. Injured. Her head felt as if it were stuck in a slab of concrete with a jackhammer pounding at the other end. “What day?”
A moist sponge skimmed across her lips. “Friday. Eight in the evening. I intended to get here a couple hours ago, but it didn’t work out. Too much work at the office.”
“More.”
“More words or another pass of the glycerin swab?” He rolled the soft wand across her lips.
“Both.”
“Dancer’s fine. I stopped in on my way. Lottie’s puppies are causing all sorts of mischief. Anita wants kennel advice. Your freckles are gorgeous. At the moment, I’m thinking of them as cinnamon sprinkled on a handkerchief. Your mother stepped out of the room. She needed a break. Weather’s good. Frost this morning but sun this afternoon.”
Her eyelids drifted closed. How many of his words were new? Some sounded familiar. Did they tell her before about Dancer? Or did she only know in her heart that her favorite bitch was safe?
“Do you still hear me? Squeeze my hand if you do.”
“Thank you.” She tightened her fingers. His skin felt so good, she squeezed a second time.
“Now, where was I in the daily report? By the way, it’s Friday. An entire department of police want to talk with you. Most of it will be routine. Some good news mixed in. They refuse to tell me details. I swear, a few of them make our friend Daryl appear chatty.”
“Tomorrow.” She startled at the vitality of her voice. “Police tomorrow.” She searched for interior strength to place the words in the right order. “Boots. A man? Was it Kevin?”
“That’s one of the many things they stay silent about.”
“Mr. Dray, you’ve stayed long enough.” A brisk, familiar, female voice entered their conversation.
“Good evening to you too, Gertrude. When did you get into town?”
“Persuaded Celeste to bring me in. She and Carla are speaking in some private nurse language with the girl at the desk.”
Beth felt her lips curve upward. Then a cloud of doubt moved in. Was Gertrude the designated Morse to watch her die? She pressed her fingers against the hand holding them.
“It’s okay, Beth. Ger
trude helped me find you.”
“How?” She attempted once more to bring their faces into focus. It was useless. Letting her eyelids lower, she settled for a sigh.
“Later.” Jackson rubbed a thumb across her hand. “After the police talk with you.”
Mysteries. Secrets. She didn’t have the energy at the moment to tally them all.
* * *
Jackson backed away from Beth’s bed and allowed Gertrude room. “I’m not going far. We’ll talk more tomorrow.”
Gertrude nodded and picked up Beth’s hand. “You had a close call. Scared a year off my life. And I don’t have many left to spare.”
Jackson left the room, aware that Gertrude ranked closer to Beth’s parents in the family hierarchy. Heck, he didn’t officially make the list. He wanted to. With every visit, every memory of their brief acquaintance, he yearned for more.
“So?” Beth’s mother looked up from her crocheting project a few minutes later.
Jackson shrugged as he entered the small waiting area on the fifth floor. Outside, they had a view of the Eau Claire Regional Medical Center parking lot and rows of streetlights beyond. He stared at the lights for a long moment before facing Beth’s parents. “She managed two words in a row. Seemed better than the grunt she gave me yesterday.”
“Doctor expects rapid progress as the medicine flushes from her system.” Beth’s mother continued her handiwork.
He perched on the edge of a vinyl padded chair and directed his words to Beth’s mother. One or the other of Beth’s parents had spent nearly every moment since their arrival Tuesday afternoon at their daughter’s side. He didn’t envy either the long hours or dealing with the committee of doctors caring for her. “And her feet? The frostbite?”
“As of this morning, they were still uncertain about the one toe. The others are doing fine.” She pulled yarn from the skein. “There’s general agreement that Dancer’s body heat prevented catastrophic damage.”
He wiggled his toes inside his sneakers. It was odd how something seldom thought about could suddenly become important. Until this week, he’d taken the toes on his feet for granted. Now bits and pieces of medical articles stressing their role in balance and proper gait drifted in at the oddest times. Like between clients at the office.
The biggest concern remained the skull fracture. The doctors had put her into a drug-induced coma almost as soon as the helicopter deposited her in Eau Claire. And now she was coming out of it. Only then would they learn the extent of the damage. And it would be weeks, perhaps months, before permanent and temporary consequences would be apparent.
“Jackson.” Carla strolled into the group carrying two bottles of diet cola. Handing one to him, she commanded in her nurse voice, “Walk with me.”
He waited until they were in the elevator to speak. “Did you lose the lottery?”
Carla shook her head. “Volunteered.”
The ball of dread he had carried with him since early Tuesday hardened into an ice sculpture. He’d been expecting the Cosgrove clan to banish him from their midst like the intruder he was. “Have I been condemned?”
She led him out of the elevator onto the first floor, across the lobby, and stopped at a bench outside the gift shop. “Absolutely not. I decided it was time you got some background. And the family’s vote was in unanimous agreement.”
“Past time on my watch. Spill.” He pressed his lips tight, aware this situation put Carla under stress also.
“I’m assuming by this time you know Beth married Bruce Morse, Gertrude’s grandson. And that he disappeared on a camping trip three and a half years ago.”
He nodded. “I understand Gertrude and Beth started some sort of investigation recently.”
“Yes. Thanks to new efforts, bones were found. As well as Bruce’s favorite belt buckle.”
“Who’s doing the DNA testing? On the bones.”
“Illinois State Police lab.”
He reviewed his calculations of Beth’s sketchy timeline and spliced it into internet information. “Let me get this confirmed. He disappeared in Northern Illinois? Camping with his brother in rough terrain?”
“Yes, it was the end of March during his final semester of law school. Think back on how hectic life is at that point. Bruce said he needed a break to make some decisions. He arranged a long weekend camping trip with his brother, Kevin, plus two of Kevin’s friends. Something came up last minute that prevented the friends from arriving until Saturday. Kevin reported Bruce missing that evening when he never returned from a walk.
“They did the usual search parties. Bruce’s father spent money on an investigator to keep it active longer than average. Beth was a mess, as you might imagine. My father and I persuaded her to move to Crystal Springs that September. The active search was ending, and the arrangement suited all of us.” Carla shifted her gaze to the floor. “Beth suspected Kevin from the beginning.”
Kevin. The older brother. “Any specific reason?”
“At least a dozen. First on the list was Kevin was the last person to see Bruce alive.”
“And the police? Certainly they questioned him.” Jackson couldn’t think of a police department worthy of the name which wouldn’t put a fellow camper on the list, at least for a time.
“They interviewed him. And the two others on the trip. As far as I know, they spoke with everyone who had checked in at the park station.”
“Let me guess. No body. No solid evidence.”
“Add rough terrain, caves, and abandoned mines. Heavy rain two days after they reported him missing didn’t work in our favor either.”
Jackson lined up the events he was aware of as if he were Kevin’s defense counsel. Missing adult cases were difficult. There was always that sliver of doubt that the person was dead—what if they walked away, stayed off the grid for a time, and surfaced with a new identity? But everything changed when the bones were discovered. If the DNA matched, they could declare the man dead. Would the body parts reveal the manner of death? Or would it remain ambiguous?
With his next breath, the edges of his internal ice block rounded as the mass of dread vaporized. Beth’s oblique comments over the past month aligned in a new understanding of her world. Learning of the existence of Bruce Morse made all the difference.
Carla recapped her drink. “Tread carefully, Jackson. None of us want to see Beth hurt again.” She sent him a half-smile. “And her dad’s an expert marksman.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
“Hiking boots. Large. Tan.” Beth concentrated to bring the detective’s face into focus. At the moment, there were two of him. She blinked. One large man in a dark suit came into view. Short hair. Round face. Blinking again, she saw three fuzzy figures. This vision problem confused her as much as the official questions. At least she remembered the stop at the picnic area. Once more, she regretted not taking better heed of Dancer’s brief warning. “All I remember is hiking boots.”
She held an ice chip in her mouth and allowed the cool liquid to trickle down her throat. Squeezing her fingers without turning her head or saying a word, she drew a little courage from her mother’s hand. Her mother had requested to stay, and reluctantly the police had agreed.
The longer the interview lasted, the more grateful Beth became for her mother’s quiet presence. And it felt as though this would never end. But much of the delay was due to her need to pause after nearly every word and spend long seconds searching for even the simple answers.
The tallest of the law enforcement trio led the interview. “Anything about the voice? Did he talk to you?”
“Mumbled. Muffled. He put some sort of hood over me while I was in the car. I could taste it. Yarn? Old stocking cap? I’ll never be sure.” She drew a quiet breath in an effort to slow down her mind. A piece of her life was missing. All night, as the drugs left her body, the dreams and worries moved in. What had he done? How had she gotten from the roadside rest area to a shed near Templeton? The two places were eighty or ninety miles apart.
“Sick. Sweet. Slightly familiar. From school or some part of my past. That was when I woke up next to Dancer. She vomited. I wanted to.”
“The lab identified traces of chloroform on gauzes in the shed.” The tall detective volunteered a scrap of information. “Do you have enemies? Unhappy business clients or others in the kennel business?”
“Not in the dog world. Kevin. Never got along. I think he killed Bruce.” She rested her voice and gestured for more ice chips. If she were talented enough to draw a caricature of her brother-in-law, it would be a lawyer with shark features targeted on money and ignoring justice and truth. “No body. No proof.”
“Anyone else? What about old boyfriends? Or current ones?”
She started to shake her head but halted as soon as the world swirled. After a pause to let things stabilize, she sighed. “No other enemies.”
Half a dozen more questions later, Beth closed her eyes during one of the longer pauses. “I’m tired. Can we finish later?”
One of the officers cleared his throat. “I’d like to make a statement before we leave.”
She started to turn her head toward his voice, remembered the pain last time, and blinked. “I’ll listen.”
“Testing has confirmed that the bones found in early October are those of your husband, Bruce Morse. The lab’s unable to determine if the death was caused by a fall or other blunt force trauma.”
A soft gasp reminded her she wasn’t hearing this alone.
“You found a skull?” She opened her eyes again. One blurry man within her limited range of vision.
“Approximately half a skeleton. It’s assumed wild animals have either scattered or destroyed the missing bones.”
“Tell Gertrude. His grandmother. She’s in the building.” She closed her eyelids, yielding to the remnants of the sedatives. “No, that was yesterday.”
“We’ll talk about it after the detectives leave. Follow your wishes regarding who and when to tell.” Beth’s mother rubbed her daughter’s hand.