Tall Pines Mysteries: A Mystery/Suspense Boxed Set

by Aaron Paul Lazar

  I looked at the screen and my heart started to thump.

  Quinn.

  Chapter 16

  I pressed the phone to my ear. “Hello?”

  “Marcella?”

  I turned around and walked toward the window. “I’m here.”

  Quinn sounded worried. “Where are you? I just checked Tall Pines and you were gone.”

  “I’m up on the mountain, at Project Hope.” I glanced at Sky, who’d started to count the samples I’d had so much trouble with earlier. “Remember?”

  “Oh. Right. I forgot.”

  “Where are you?” I countered.

  “The Lake Pleasant Lodge. You know the one. Not too far from Callie and Copper’s, on the other side of the road.”

  “Oh, right. I thought maybe you’d gone home.”

  “Marcella.” He sounded tired of the games, almost worn out.

  “Well, I did.” I twirled a lock of hair around my forefinger. “You seemed pretty mad at me.”

  “I said I was going to a hotel.” He huffed into the phone. “And I seemed mad? What about you?”

  I sighed. “Okay, so I was mad, too.”

  Silence.

  Finally, he spoke. “I need to see you. We should talk.”

  I glanced at Ginny and Copper, who were still going at it with questions and answers in the break room. “I can’t. I have to help here. There’s been an…incident.”

  “What kind of incident?”

  “Um. A lady who works here lost her daughter.”

  “In the woods? How old?”

  “No. I mean, they think the serial killer took her. She’s fourteen.”

  He let out a long sigh. “Whoa.”

  “Yeah.”

  “This is getting too weird. You should come home right now, Marcella.”

  What? Like a good little wife? Trotting home to her husband because she was too weak to stand on her own?

  “No.”

  “It’s too dangerous. I don’t like you being up here alone.”

  “I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself.”

  “What about the break in? Are you planning to go back to the cabin alone?”

  I glanced at Sky. “Not exactly.”

  I could feel Quinn fuming on the other end of the line. “Then what? You and Sky gonna shack up?”

  My blood started to boil. I hadn’t planned on actually going through with it, but now he made me even madder. “Maybe.”

  “Damn it, Marcella. What are you trying to do to us?”

  I didn’t answer. For some reason, I just wanted to hurt him. Okay, so I knew the reason, and her name was Kimi.

  “Great.” He huffed into the phone. “All right, then. Well, when you come to your senses…” His breath hitched a little. “When you want to talk, call me. I’m going home. Someone’s gotta run the shop. And your mother needs her car.”

  I couldn’t believe he’d given up so easily. “Fine. Go home to your antiques.” What happened to fighting for your gal? “Tell Thelma I’ll call her.”

  “Seriously, Marcella?”

  I dug in my heels, but felt my throat starting to clench. “I mean it. Just go home, Quinn.” I hung up.

  I walked back to the area where Sky stood frowning at the computer, trying to control my emotions. My throat felt tight and I didn’t know if I could trust my voice.

  He glanced toward me. He must have heard every word I said. “You okay?” he asked, still peering at the screen.

  I walked to his side, clenching my fists. “Not really.”

  “I’m sorry.” He turned toward me, squeezing my shoulders and laying his forehead against mine. “You let me know what you need, okay?”

  I answered in a small voice. “Thanks. I will.” What I need is your big, strong arms around me, your lips on mine, your body pressed close to mine. I need you to make me forget. Take me away.

  “By the way, you were right. Something’s off here.”

  I looked over his shoulder at the spreadsheet on the computer. “You can’t get it to add up, either?” I felt ridiculously relieved that it hadn’t been my stupidity that messed up the counts.

  “No. It’s not that it doesn’t add up, exactly. It’s worse than that.”

  My heart started to knock beneath my ribs. “What is it?”

  “Some samples are missing. At least a dozen.” He ran his fingers fitfully through his hair. “I just don’t get it.”

  I sidled next to him, peering at the bottles labeled so carefully in their slots on the shelves. “Does that make any sense? Who would steal medical trial samples?”

  “I don’t know.” Sky turned to me, his green eyes very serious. “But I’m sure as hell going to find out.”

  Chapter 17

  We started another caravan, headed to Callie and Copper’s house. Sky in his Highlander. Me in my conversion van. Copper and Ginny in the patrol car. Callie had already left before us in her yellow Jeep, and she met us all at the door.

  Before we moved into the main part of the house, I held Sky back by the coat closet. Ginny lingered at the end of the hall, blowing her nose and wiping away tears.

  “Sky?”

  He unlaced and kicked off his leather boots. “Uh huh.”

  “I just wanted to say…” I touched his face with my hand, leaning up to place a small kiss on the side of his mouth. “I really appreciate how kind you’ve been these past few days.”

  He shrugged off the thanks. “It’s no biggie.”

  “No, really. You were a rock. And I needed that.”

  A grin spilled across his lips. “Tell the truth, I had ulterior motives. They weren’t all that noble, if you must know.”

  The intense heat in his eyes traveled through the air and down my spine. I trembled for a few seconds and a flush crept up my neck to my cheeks. “Sky.”

  He leaned down to kiss my forehead, and with a wink, disappeared into the living room.

  I hid my smile and turned to follow him, but Ginny stopped me in the hallway. She’d watched me kiss Sky, and probably saw him kiss me back.

  “So, you two have a history, huh?” She crossed her arms. Her lips thinned.

  “Uh. Yeah. A long time ago.”

  “I heard he asked you to marry him.” Her eyes narrowed. “And you said no?”

  “I was just a kid, Ginny. I wanted to follow my dreams.” I looked into the living room. “Shouldn’t we get you inside?”

  She ignored me. “Everyone says you really hurt him. That he never got over it. That he practically threw himself on bombs in the war because he was so destroyed.”

  “Who’s everyone?” I asked, feeling the first prickle of anger.

  “Nobody special.”

  I huffed, blowing a lock of hair up and out of the way. “Stuff gets blown out of proportion. You shouldn’t listen to that crap.”

  I wondered why she was latching onto this subject when her daughter had just been kidnapped. How could she think of anything else? I knew she had fallen for Sky, but I had a sinking feeling he’d never notice. Much as I wished he’d find someone to love.

  At least, I hoped I was that kind of a person.

  Was I really? Did I like knowing he still loved me? I told myself it made me uncomfortable, but in some primal, she-devil way, I think down deep inside, it made me feel good. Too good.

  “You were insane to give him up. He’s the perfect man.” Ginny threw her hands in the air. “And he’s downright gorgeous.” She snorted, then, as if giving up on the subject, headed into the living room and plunked down on the couch, clutching her cell phone close to her side. She picked up the remote and tuned to the news station.

  I wondered about the wisdom of that, since every five minutes they flashed Aria’s picture and repeated the facts about how many girls had been kidnapped and killed.

  One thing I hadn’t picked up on before was that several girls hadn’t been found yet. At least their bodies hadn’t shown up. The reporter said the authorities expected their frozen rem
ains to turn up soon. Hundreds of volunteers were out in the cold, scouring the Sacandaga River bed, and even more searched the woods on snowmobiles and four-wheelers, before the recent thaw. Someone would find them. And hopefully, I thought, praying extra hard, they would find Aria, alive.

  Another snowstorm was predicted by nightfall, possibly two to three feet. The urgency of the search was ratcheted up, in view of the fact that we were likely to be crippled by fresh snow in the hours ahead.

  Now Ginny rocked and moaned on the couch, seeming so out of touch with reality I wondered for a few minutes if she should be hospitalized. She went from hot to cold with me. One minute she hated me for breaking Sky’s heart. The next minute, she sobbed on my shoulder.

  Oh well. I guess any port in the storm, right?

  “It’s all my fault,” she moaned, covering her face with her hands and pitching forward.

  Sky was helping Callie in the kitchen, so we were alone. Except for Dak, who lay on my lap, his tongue lolling.

  “What do you mean?” I said. “How could it be your fault?”

  “I should never…have left…California,” she sobbed.

  “That doesn’t make sense. You couldn’t have known there was a serial killer lurking up here.” I patted Dak’s soft ears, asking a question I probably had no right to bring up. “Why did you move up here, anyway? California’s a long way off.”

  She looked at me, toward the kitchen, and back again. “I wanted to work on this project.”

  “Project Hope?”

  “Yes.”

  “May I ask why?”

  She seemed to pull herself together, gazing into the distance now with her eyes defocused. “I want to cure leukemia.”

  Well, she was in the right place for that. That was the whole point of Project Hope. It seemed they had a real winner in the oils they made from the curly pondweed. Now they were refining it and jumping through hoops via medical trials in Speculator and all over the country.

  “A very noble cause,” I said. “Is it personal?” I wondered if she’d lost a parent or sibling to the disease.

  “Yes,” she said, standing now to gaze out the window. “It’s very personal.”

  “Oh?”

  She didn’t speak for several minutes. Finally, she locked eyes with me. “Aria has leukemia.”

  My jaw dropped and I followed her to the window. “What?”

  “She’s out there. He’s got her. And she’s starting to get sick again.”

  “You said ‘starting to get sick’. Was she in remission?”

  “Uh-huh. Four years. But it’s coming back.” She wound her fingers through her long strawberry blonde ponytail, as if it comforted her.

  I just stood there. I didn’t know what to say.

  “She needs her medicine. She needs me. She can’t be out there. We have to find her.” With a wild expression in her eyes, she slumped into the armchair by the window, sobbing again. “This can’t be happening. It can’t be real.”

  I exchanged glances with Sky, who’d come into the room carrying a plate full of sandwiches. Callie followed with a tray of lemonade.

  I moved the magazines off the coffee table to make room for them. Callie glanced at Ginny with concern. I motioned them both back to the kitchen.

  “Guys?” I huddled close to Sky and Callie. “I think Ginny’s gonna need more help than we can give her. I think she needs to be seen by a doctor. She might need a sedative or something like that.”

  Callie pointed to the food. “Maybe she just needs to eat something.”

  Sky shook his head. “No. Marcella’s right. She needs something to help her calm down. Let’s rub some Rutavala on her wrists.” He drew a roll-on bottle with a lilac label from his pocket, then moved over to Ginny’s side. “Remember I told you about this one, Ginny? It’s made from rue, lavender, and valerian. Helps you relax. Soothes you.”

  Sniffing and gulping tears, she looked at him with the puppy-dog expression again and offered her wrists to him. “Um. Okay. I guess.” She seemed to melt before his ministrations; her big, pale blue eyes followed his every movement.

  He gently lifted her wrists one at a time, rubbing the oil over her skin. “There you go.”

  Watching him tend to her with such kindness made my own heart throb. Oh, God. I’d loved him so deeply. I wondered about the feelings that stirred and swirled within me. After all these years, did I still care about him that way? A little voice whispered yes. I didn’t want to listen.

  Callie went to the phone. “I’ll call Copper. She can help us get in touch with a doctor.”

  Ginny wept quietly now, not even trying to hide her tears. Not that she should, of course. She had good reason to cry.

  “Honey?” I asked. “Would you like to see a doctor? Go somewhere where they can help you relax?”

  I wasn’t sure if she’d bite my head off, but it had to be said.

  “Maybe that would be a good idea,” she said woefully.

  The Rutavala must have helped, because she seemed a bit less frantic.

  “Okay, good,” I said, exchanging a relieved look with Callie.

  Ginny jumped when her cell phone rang and dug it out of her sweater pocket. “Oh my God,” she cried, looking wildly about the room and then back at the phone. “It’s Aria.”

  Chapter 18

  “Hello?” Ginny pressed the phone to her ear with a shaking hand. “Aria? Is that you?”

  We huddled around her, listening to her end of the conversation.

  “What?” Ginny’s face drained of color. “Where?”

  She motioned frantically for a pen and paper, which Callie scrambled for and found in a side table drawer. She handed them to Ginny with shaking hands. “Here you go.”

  Ginny sat on the edge of the couch and scribbled down some numbers. “Where is that?” she cried, then listened some more. “Yes, yes. Okay. I know the place.”

  She turned her back to us and lowered her voice. “I want to speak to Aria. Put her on the phone.”

  A scream came from the receiver, loud enough for us to hear. The bastard had hurt the girl, and wasn’t about to negotiate with Ginny.

  “Stop! Please.” She leaned against the wall, facing away from us. “I understand. No, I won’t. No police.”

  With a grim expression, Ginny replaced the receiver and folded the paper into tiny segments, stuffing it in her jeans. “I’ve got to go.” She stumbled into the hall and flung open the coat closet.

  “Ginny, wait.” I followed her, but couldn’t stop her panicky movements.

  “I can’t.” Like a wild-eyed filly, she slipped on her coat and wound a scarf around her throat. “I need a car.”

  I stared at her. “What did he say?”

  She shook her head. “He said he’d…kill her, like the other girls, if I told anyone.” One hand flew to her mouth. “Oh, God. I just told you. You can’t say anything. Promise me.”

  I didn’t agree. “Listen. You’ve got to tell Copper. It’s too dangerous to go alone.”

  She practically screamed the next words. “Didn’t you hear what I said? He said no police! He’ll kill her if I contact them.” She reached into the closet again, groped around for a minute, and emerged flourishing a jumble of keys. “Whose are these?”

  I took a step forward. “They’re for my conversion van.”

  Sky skidded around the corner, followed closely by Callie.

  Ginny held out her hands as if to stop them from coming closer, then ran for the door. “I’ll get the van back to you. Thanks.”

  Before I could grab my coat, she was outside, racing toward my van.

  “We have to follow her,” I said breathlessly, stuffing my feet into my boots.

  “Right.” Sky laced up his Timberlands in a hurry. “Callie. Can you stay here? Tell Copper about the phone call.”

  “I…” Callie sputtered. “Do I have to? I don’t want to stay behind.”

  Sky flung a big-brother look at her that somehow made her relent.

&
nbsp; She made a face. “Okay. I’ll do it.”

  “Watch Dak for me?” I called over my shoulder.

  Dak barked furiously, as if to say I’d forgotten him.

  She leaned down to hold his collar, since he scrambled to follow me out the door. “Okay. Be careful, guys. It’s already starting to snow.”

  Sky and I ran out to his Highlander, with our coats half-buttoned and scarves flapping in the wind. I jumped into the passenger seat and he started it up.

  “That way,” I said, pointing south on Route 30 in the direction of Wells.

  He tore out of the driveway, squealing left on two wheels. We caught sight of the van disappearing around a corner about a mile down the road.

  “What were those numbers she wrote down?” I asked, cranking up the heat and defrost controls.

  “Maybe latitude and longitude.” Sky focused on the road ahead of him. Snow had already started to fall, and a slick coating covered the blacktop. He careened around a corner and we slid sideways, passing the hotel where Quinn had stayed overnight.

  I held onto the armrest and gazed at the parking lot. There it was. My mother’s car was still parked in the lot. Quinn hadn’t left for Honeoye Lake. Yet.

  I didn’t know how I felt about it. Relieved? Frustrated? Glad?

  I pushed the thoughts away and turned back to Sky. “Latitude and longitude? How does that work?”

  He gripped the wheel, focusing on the road. “Well, if you have a signal, you can put it into your phone’s map app.”

  “What if you don’t have a signal?”

  “You’re out of luck. Or you could use a paper map, of course.”

  Sky sped up on a straighter section of the road. “I see her!” After a few seconds, he turned to me. “You got your cell?”

  I nodded and fished it out of my pocket. “Right here.”

  Sky kept his eyes on the road, pushing the SUV hard. “Call Copper. We should talk to her before we lose the signal.”

  I knew the signal cutoff point was only a mile or two south of town, and with fumbling fingers I swiped the screen until I got Copper’s cell number. I tapped it and waited.

  “Put her on speaker,” he said.

  I touched the speaker button and the phone continued to ring. Finally, when I worried we’d never get through to her, she answered.