Next stop was the general store in our neck of the woods. I laid the list on the counter, and Etherea Titus ran her knobby finger down the columns of supplies written in Clarice’s big, loopy handwriting, nodding gravely.
“When’ll you be back?” she asked.
I shrugged. “A few hours.”
“Short of the plums and nectarines, I’ll have your order ready for you. You California transplants don’t realize that some fruits have actual seasons, and while they might be available at other times, they sure aren’t worth eating unless they’re tree-ripened.” But Etherea was smiling, and she performed her comical bushy eyebrow wiggle-waggle in Emmie’s direction.
We made a few interim purchases because our treat for the day was going to be a playdate with my friend Selma and her shy four-year-old granddaughter, Mindy.
Emmie was cautiously excited about meeting another little girl even though Mindy was a couple years younger. Since Emmie was surrounded by boys at Mayfield, I thought a simple tea party might be a nice change of venue for her. Coloring books, finger paints, cookies, black olives, cheese and crackers for mini sandwiches, and hot cocoa would provide a good chance for the two grown-ups in attendance to catch up. Come to think of it, I hadn’t lunched with ladies for a really long time either.
Selma welcomed us into her tiny house with a warm smile and a long, tight hug for me. To Emmie, she said, “Mindy’s in the back bedroom, and she has a blanket tent all ready for you.”
Emmie shot me a wide-eyed, hopeful glance, and I gave her an encouraging nod. And then she was gone, finding her own way down the dim hallway to the delights beyond.
Selma and I settled on barstools at her kitchen island and dug into the Nutter Butters without hesitation.
“Day off?” I asked around a mouthful.
Selma nodded. “Since the bank manager decided he needed to offer Saturday hours, Thursdays are my regular day off. No complaints from me. It means I get Mindy one day a week, which also saves Laney some money because she’s not in daycare preschool that day.”
“How’s Laney’s new job?” I kind of hated to ask, but not asking would have been just as obvious.
“They haven’t fired her yet.” Selma’s wry smile didn’t successfully mask the worry in her eyes. Laney had been canned from her last job for drug use.
I reached over and squeezed her hand.
“Shouldn’t your little one be in school?” Selma asked.
I screwed up my face. “I just got her,” I whispered. “I hate the idea of being separated from her any more than necessary.”
“What about the boys’ camp? Walt’s overseeing their education, isn’t he? Any reason he couldn’t add a girl to his enrollment?” she asked.
I’d been thinking the same thing, but had postponed the actual discussion with Walt. I was afraid he’d tell me no, although my supposition wasn’t based in fact. Most of the boys at the camp were eleven and older, but there was Eli, who was eight, and the recent addition of the Clayborne trio who were six, eight, and ten. And given their tumultuous history, it wouldn’t surprise me if they were a little behind academically. Walt would have to add elementary coursework to his curriculum as it was.
My face must have betrayed my noncommittal apprehension because Selma took the opportunity to switch the subject. “Have you heard from Skip?”
I shook my head, which was technically true. I wanted to spare her the morass of details. What she knew was only the tip of the iceberg. Emmie and Mindy helped by choosing this moment to barge into the kitchen, all hot and flushed and thirsty from whatever imaginative activities, accompanied by excessive giggling and whispers, had been going on under the blanket tent.
Selma clucked about, putting the kettle on and preparing tiny plates with finger foods the girls could take back to their hideout.
When the kitchen was quiet again, Selma picked up one of the coloring books I’d brought. “I’ve always loved coloring. It’d be a shame for this not to get some attention.” Her huge brown eyes sparkled.
I laughed and opened the box of crayons. We spent the remaining hour engrossed in our pages but also talking—the easy, companionable, oh-did-I-mention type of rambling exchange that I had so dearly missed. Selma was balm to my soul.
I hated to leave, and so did Emmie, but we had a few more things to do. The girls held a whispered conference which I was pretty sure included promises for several next times, and then we trooped out through the drizzly rain and climbed into Lentil, my dented but faithful pickup.
Emmie waved vigorously to Selma and Mindy who stood on their stoop while I turned around on the narrow, potholed road. Then we headed off into the early dusk.
Winter nights, at least the ones accompanied by heavy, overcast cloud cover, start falling around 3:00 p.m. here above the forty-fifth parallel. It’s a gloomy business, and makes one desire roaring fires on stone hearths and cozy slippers.
Instead, we shivered and waited for Lentil’s heater to kick in. I pulled up at the stop sign at the end of Selma’s street and fiddled with the knobs even though I knew the hot air would take its own sweet time arriving.
Emmie had her forefinger in her mouth, wiggling her first loose tooth. It was such a silly, simple thing, but the wiggling grossed me out. It had been going on for about a week now. If it wasn’t her finger, it was her tongue probing and poking, widening the gap at the base of her tooth. She’d already started lisping a bit, probably in anticipation of the coming monumental event.
I shook my head in silent exasperation and lifted my foot off the brake. Lentil began to roll onto Woodland’s main arterial road, and that’s when I saw the semitruck.
Too close. Far too close. With no headlights in the gray haze of road spray. A white and chrome mass of phantom metal hurtling at us in the gloom.
I did several things simultaneously, none of them fast enough. I shot my right arm across Emmie’s chest and pinned her against the seat; I jammed my foot on the gas pedal until it wedged against the floor; and I wrenched the steering wheel almost all the way around.
There was a terrible squealing screeching noise like a soprano stuck, excruciatingly, in high C, her vocal cords twisted in knots. The sound slammed into my rib cage and pierced through my skull, but I kept cranking on the steering wheel, kept Emmie smashed against the upholstery.
My heart stopped beating, and time stood still.
And then I became aware that there was a grinding, crunching, low register noise, and it wasn’t coming from us. And that we’d stopped spinning.
My eyes sought the rearview mirror, and I saw the semi folded in on itself, the truck part nestled up against the trailer, cheek to cheek.
I slowly lowered my arm from across Emmie’s little body—she was going to have bruises—and stretched out a trembling hand to brush her dark hair away from her very pale face.
“Nora?” Her voice was so tiny, and then she started to cry. Big, gulpy sobs, and tears streamed off her chin.
I unbuckled both of our seat belts and cradled her against my chest. “Baby, baby,” I murmured into her hair, “are you okay?” I was crying too. And shaking violently.
She burrowed into me, and I hung onto her for dear life.
I don’t know how long we sat like that.
But slowly the desperate fog in my head cleared, and I realized that I should check on the other driver.
“Emmie,” I murmured, “I have to go. But I’ll come right back. Do you understand? Stay here where it’s safe. Do not get out of the truck.”
She whimpered, but I caressed her head and shifted her onto the seat.
“I’ll be right back,” I whispered again and opened my door.
The cold hit me like a shock wave from an explosion. We must have been sitting in the cab for a long time to warm it up so much. I latched the door closed and gave Emmie a wobbly smile through the window. Then I staggered toward the incapacitated semi.
We were in the far reaches of Woodland, where taxpayer dollars had fizzle
d out and there were no street improvements like curbs or sidewalks, no streetlights. Gravel was strewn across the road, no doubt churned up by the eighteen-wheeler’s tires as the semi had swept down the shoulder in order to avoid me.
But he had missed me—Emmie and me. Talk about a miracle.
I hoped he wasn’t injured. I started to jog, unevenly, but quicker.
A sheriff’s deputy had beaten me there. He was standing on the running board on the passenger side of the semitruck, leaning in through the open window. A voice was answering him back, which meant the driver was at least conscious.
I leaned against the side of the truck to catch my breath.
The deputy dropped down beside me. “Nora Ingram?” He sounded both surprised and pleased.
“Do I know you?” I wheezed.
“Nope.” He grinned. “But we all know you. You’ve been featured in department briefings rather frequently of late. I’m Sergeant Pettigrew—Cole Pettigrew.” He grabbed my elbow and leaned in close, concern all over his wide, freckled face. “You’re not hurt?”
I gave him a quick shake of the head, and he blew a low whistle. “Amazing. There ought to be injuries, considering.” He swept his hand across the scene of crunched metal and mean rubber streaks on the pavement. “But it’s gonna be a while before we can get tow trucks in here. How about if you wait in your pickup? If it’s warm?”
I had a sudden, deep-seated affection for this man. So calm, so orderly, so in-charge, so kind. I couldn’t think of anything I’d rather do than return to Lentil’s steamy cab and hold Emmie.
oOo
The olive drab form on the other side of the condensation on my window turned out to be Sheriff Des Forbes. He’d brought a flashlight which he held clamped against the door frame over our heads to provide illumination. And his face was the gravest I’d ever seen, marked by deep shadows below his eyes.
I mutely handed him my insurance paperwork.
But he shook his head, and little droplets fell from the brim of his Stratton hat. “No charges. The other driver says he was going too fast for the conditions. His manager says their company insurance will pay for their damages, if you’ll cover yours.”
“I pulled out right in front of him,” I blurted.
“Then it’s your lucky day,” Des said. “In more ways than one. Nora, do you know how far you spun?”
I closed my eyes then opened them to refocus on the raindrops collecting, merging, and streaking on the windshield. An involuntary shudder shook me to my core, and Emmie anxiously glanced up into my face.
I squeezed her again. Poor thing. She probably felt like a rag doll for all the aggressive hugging I’d been putting her through. “No—I mean—I don’t know. That far—” I pointed a wobbly finger at the semitruck and trailer that were still blocking three-quarters of the road. The deputies must have set up a detour some distance away, because this stretch of road was deserted except for our respective disabled vehicles and milling emergency workers with red and white lights bouncing off the wet surfaces.
“State troopers are here taking measurements even though there weren’t any fatalities. None of us have ever seen a wreck as bad as this one where there wasn’t a collision, at least not a collision between two vehicles—or serious injuries.” Des reached through the open window and grasped my hand tightly in his big warm one. “I’ll take you two home.”
“I can drive,” I mumbled.
Des pitched his eyebrows at me as though he was questioning my sanity. I was so weak, feeble and quivery that I questioned it myself, but I didn’t want to impose on him. He clearly had plenty to do without providing taxi service.
“You have three shredded tires and the fourth is squishy. You aren’t driving anywhere,” Des announced firmly. “Gus is opening up a slot in his repair schedule to check your rims, and the tow truck will be here in about ten minutes.”
I was pretty sure the only other job Gus had at the moment was Clarice’s Subaru, which she’d bashed up while taking out the FBI video camera at Mayfield’s gate. For some reason, the idea that Clarice and I were now competing for mechanical attention struck me as funny, and I giggled.
Quite a lot, actually—in the same way two little girls I know had giggled away the afternoon under their blanket tent. I was suddenly exhausted—and faintly dizzy.
“Yeah. Okay,” Des said quietly, as though he was shushing a baby. He opened my door, rolled up the window, and then helped me out. “When was the last time you ate?” he asked as he picked up Emmie.
“Lunch,” she said.
“Well, I bet Clarice can fix that problem, right?” He took off his hat and settled it on Emmie’s head.
The hat covered her head down to her nose, but she beamed and nodded, her head clunking about inside the stiff felt like a dried bean. Des chuckled—and that reassuring rumbliness was exactly what I needed.
It turned out that Clarice already knew as many or more of the details about my vehicular mishap than I did thanks to the phone tree-slash-rumor mill that constituted the bulk of May County’s basic communications. Etherea had taken the very neighborly step of delivering the grocery order to Mayfield once she’d learned that I wouldn’t be back to pick it up and, in so doing, had provided all the juicy particulars.
Clarice was bustling around with a grim, pinched look on her face and a stern silence that forebode of a vehement but private lecture later. She also had the home fires blazing, so to speak, and invited Des to eat dinner with us, which he promptly refused. I had singlehandedly guaranteed that his evening would be very busy.
But Des did consent to taking packets of warm food and a couple Thermoses of coffee to share with his deputies at the scene.
Clarice must have known what his answer would be because she already had a basket on the counter full of dinners to go. “Just give me a few more minutes,” she muttered, wiping her hands on her ruffled apron.
A hard knock sounded on the kitchen door, and just as I turned to open it, it burst open—Walt, breathless and very pale under his knit hat.
“We’re fine,” I said automatically, thinking he’d also heard about the wreck.
He shot me a fleeting, confused glance, then said, “Have you seen Eli? Mason? The Clayborne boys?” He scanned our faces, and that’s when I realized he was extremely worried—an active, agitated worry so unlike his usual demeanor.
Clarice caught on faster than the rest of us. “No,” she grunted. “Not all day.”
“They’ve been missing since early afternoon, just after lunch. Dill said they were talking about searching for the Terminator. They didn’t return for dinner.”
“The goat,” I blurted before Des could ask the question. “The Terminator’s our goat, missing since the calving shed burned down.”
“Eli doesn’t get lost,” Emmie whispered.
“And he doesn’t miss meals,” Walt added.
CHAPTER 3
My priorities took a rapid U-turn. “You’ve already—”
But Walt knew what I was asking and interrupted with a nod. “Everywhere—the mechanics’ garage, all around here—” he waved a hand to indicate the mansion, “the other rundown buildings that are still standing. Dwayne’s already checked the natural shelters he knows about—the caves, overhangs, hollows that Eli frequents.”
And Dwayne would know. As our resident hermit and former clandestine bootlegger, he was familiar with all the dips and hillocks and streams and animal traces embedded in the old-growth forest on Mayfield property. If Dwayne couldn’t find Eli and the other boys, no one could. I just hoped the boys had stuck together and not become separated.
I pulled a phone from my tote bag and hit the speed-dial number for my FBI case manager, Matt Jarvis. I got his voice mail.
“I need Violet, now,” I blurted, kicking myself for not having asked for his partner’s direct number earlier. Special Agent Violet Burns wasn’t my favorite person, and I’d thought that the less interaction the two of us had, the better. But she wa
s in charge of my somewhat sketchy surveillance detail, and I now needed her desperately. “Five missing boys, ages six to ten,” I finished and hung up.
Matt would understand the seriousness and possible ramifications of any person gone missing in my close circle. I lived under the constant threat of bodily harm from Skip’s former money laundering clients. If the boys had stumbled upon a nosy mob enforcer or worse, I hated to think what might have happened to them.
In the short minute it took me to place the call, the kitchen had turned into a beehive. Clarice was bundling herself and Emmie into warm jackets and boots. Des was also on the phone. Only Walt was still, and he was staring at me with those intense blue eyes.
My fault. I knew it. I’d brought harm to his boys.
I reached out to him, but he brushed my hand away and shook his head. He asked Clarice for paper and pulled out a chair at the table.
Des’s words broke into my consciousness. “Bring both dogs. I can run Sadie while you run Max. Thanks, Trudy.” He slid his phone into his pocket and nodded to me. “Trudy Dyer, our county’s volunteer search and rescue coordinator. She’ll be here with the bloodhounds in twenty minutes.”
With deft strokes, Walt was outlining the boundaries of Mayfield with shadowy references for what lay beyond. Then he overlaid a grid—search parameters. Des hovered over his shoulder.
I called our immediate neighbors to the south, the Gonzales family. But around here, immediate does not mean close—their house was a couple miles away as the crow flies and more by road. Hank Gonzales was also my manager at the freight terminal I now owned thanks to not having had a prenuptial agreement before my husband went missing. Eli knew the family and knew they would provide safe refuge if he needed it.
Hank’s wife, Sidonie, answered the phone. I explained rapidly. “Please just keep your eyes open. Would you turn on all your outside lights?” I asked.
“Of course.” As a mother of three little ones herself, Sidonie couldn’t hide the tremor in her voice. “Hank’s gearing up right now. He’ll be there in a few minutes.”
Cash & Carry (Mayfield Cozy Mystery Book 4) Page 2