“That other basket, the one for SB...do you know who that is?”
Brit’s gaze went distant as she continued to eat the sundae. “Mom gives away a lot of vegetables, but the baskets only go to the regulars. The people who will bring them back. Everyone else gets theirs in plastic sacks. Mrs. Lewis always gives hers to Dad at work, and Coach Adams brings his to practice.”
“And SB?”
“Theo and me have never met her. He thinks she’s not real. He says it’s like when Mom moved that silly Christmas elf every night after we went to bed, or when she put that rabbit in the yard on Easter morning and said he’d filled our baskets and left them on the porch.”
The rabbit, paused in his hop across the Mueller yard, had been pure coincidence, but that hadn’t stopped Lolly from taking advantage. Yashi had seen firsthand the awe and astonishment on little Theo’s face. Brit had been delighted, too, but had known that even her mom couldn’t make a rabbit hop by on cue.
“Where does your mom say SB lives?”
Her enthusiasm for sugar waning, Brit took a smaller bite of the sundae. “I don’t think she really knows. She says she’s an old woman who lives in the woods. People don’t just live in the woods. That’s so...” Her vocabulary didn’t seem to have a word to describe what it was. “But wherever she lives, Mom puts little treats out by the Christmas tree for her, like a bouquet of flowers or some applesauce or cookies, and they disappear. And that’s where the basket comes back.”
Her nerves knotted, Yashi stood and scooted the stool back to the counter. She wanted to run out of the house, race out to Will’s house and search every acre of the property for this woman, but she forced herself to remain calm. “Did your mom ever call her by name?”
Brit pushed the dish away, the spoon balanced on top, and restlessly turned to face Yashi. “Yeah, a few times she did, but—” Like any teenage girl, she hadn’t been overly interested in a strange old woman who claimed to live in the woods. “It was something silly. I don’t know. Sugar? Sweetheart?”
“Hey, I have a silly name all my very own.” Besides, she and Lolly had had more than a few laughs over some kids’ names in use. With parents’ imaginations running wild, it seemed there was no such thing as a silly name these days.
A troubled expression came over Brit’s face. “I should have told Officer Bear about this Saturday, shouldn’t I? I just didn’t think... I mean, sometimes I think maybe Theo’s right that she’s not real. Maybe she’s someone Mom made up to, I don’t know, try to keep us believing. You know, in magic. Mom loves magic.”
Yashi’s hand trembled as she brushed blond hair from Brit’s face. “You know what she says the three most magical days of her life were?”
“When she married Daddy, when I was born and when we moved into the house.” After a moment for impact, Brit relented. “Okay, yeah, maybe when Theo was born. It certainly changed my life.” Then the bleakness returned. “Did I screw up? Officer Bear asked me about neighbors, and I didn’t tell him.”
“How could you tell him when you don’t know her name or where she lives or even for sure that she’s real?” Yashi herself wondered if the gifts went to a neighbor who lived west of the Muellers, and the rest of the tale was made up for the kids’ entertainment. It was on the fantastical side.
Besides, if it was true, could an old woman who lived alone in the woods have kidnapped an entire family all on her own?
Not unless she was all sorts of crazy.
And violent.
Brit gripped both of Yashi’s hands. “Will you tell Officer Bear? And tell him I’m sorry I didn’t think of it Saturday?”
Yashi pulled her in close for a hug. “I will, sweetie. I’ll do it right now.”
Chapter 6
When Ben glanced over his right shoulder to make sure the lane was clear so he could change for the upcoming turn, he got a full-face blast of doggy breath, something worse and two large brown eyes as innocent as a babe’s. He grimaced, made the lane change, then rolled his window down a few inches. Beside him, Daniel’s nose twitched, then his entire face screwed up. “Did your dog just fart?”
In the rear seat behind Ben, Dusty Smith snorted. “Oh, like you haven’t done it yourself before.” Then she tried to surreptitiously lower her own window a few inches. “Don’t listen to the mean man, Booger. It’s okay.”
The rearview mirror reflected the hound’s impassive face. With his long ears, saggy jowls and sad-looking eyes, he wasn’t a classically pretty dog, but there were a lot of pretty dogs out there who couldn’t begin to measure up to Booger when he was working.
“If he’s got such a great sense of smell, how can he stand that?” Daniel asked as his window lowered all the way down. Hot air rushed through, replacing the gassy smell with exhaust, pollen and dust.
“If you keep insulting my dog, he’s going to show you why people call bloodhounds slobber hounds. Nobody can scent like Booger, and nobody can drool like him, either.” Under her breath, Dusty muttered, “City boy.”
“I heard that,” Daniel muttered back.
Ben shook his head. The plan had been for Dusty to meet them at the Mueller house, but the air-conditioning had gone out in her truck, so she’d hitched a ride with them. He didn’t mind. He’d had bigger and stinkier dogs than Booger in his truck before. Just not with Daniel, who still retained come of his big-city ways despite living in Cedar Creek.
And not one whose noxious smells were quite so noxious.
He made two quick turns onto his road and, within a couple of minutes, was pulling into the Mueller driveway. His jaw tightened when he saw Yashi’s car was already there. He’d figured she would spend as much time with Brit as possible this morning, but apparently he’d been wrong. She got out of the car as he shut off the engine and waited impatiently.
After his passengers unloaded, he rolled up the windows, though he hated to capture any remaining essence of Booger inside, and locked the truck. As he walked around to join them on the other side, Daniel’s phone rang, and he answered on speakerphone.
It was Sam. “Did Yashi get hold of Ben? I told her you were heading out to the house.”
“She beat us here,” Daniel replied. “We just got here ourselves.”
“Good. I told her I’d ask Lois about the old woman in the woods, and she just came in, too.”
Ben suppressed a snort. He’d heard tales of the woman from his great-aunts, some of whom claimed to have met her, some who insisted they’d been having a little tipple when they saw her. That had been years before he bought his house, probably twenty. He’d figured the odds of it being true back then were slim, and after twenty years, it seemed even less likely.
“Sweetness Brown.” Lois’s voice came from the phone. “She’s Kenneth Brown’s mother, so she’s not really old—probably eighty, maybe eighty-five. Wipe that skeptical look off your face, Ben. I know what you’re thinking. I’m in my sixties myself, but I can still keep you under control. I’ve known Sweetness for years, long before she moved into the woods. If I had that ungrateful pig for a son, I would have put myself in long-term time-out, too.”
“Sweetness?” Booger’s handler echoed. “What kind of name is that?”
“Says the woman named Dusty who’s standing with the woman named Yashi and the dog named Booger.” Lois humphed. “I don’t know exactly where her cabin is, but it’s on Brown property, so the other side of the tracks from the Muellers’. I doubt Kenneth would be able to give you any better directions, lousy bastard son that he is.”
Her last remark made him recall something Brit had told him Saturday when talking about Kenneth Brown: Mom says he’s a bad son. In all his dealings with Kenneth, Ben had never considered that the man had a family of his own. It was his wife’s family he was always getting into trouble with, and Ben had assumed his family was dead or wanted nothing to do with him.
But obviously,
Lolly had known his mother was alive and that he treated her badly. And, of course, being Lolly, she’d included Mrs. Brown in her world, at least as far as the old lady had welcomed inclusion.
“What’s the story on Mrs. Brown?” Daniel asked. “Is she likely to give us trouble when we find her?”
“Oh no, she lives up to her name. She’s...” It wasn’t often Lois had to search for a word, Ben thought. Like Morwenna, she usually had more than enough to fill any silence. “I guess the correct term today would be intellectually challenged. She has a rather simple outlook. She likes routine—change scares her, and chaos freaks her out. As long as her husband was alive, she was fine. She stayed home, raised Kenneth, took care of the house and the garden and the chickens, and Frank did everything else. I bet she hasn’t set foot off the property for thirty years or more, except for Frank’s funeral.”
Ben gazed at the tree where Yashi had found the tomato. The old trail he’d remembered that led to the creek down there also led straight to the tunnels where the train tracks crossed. Someone as hermit-like as Sweetness Brown might feel more comfortable passing through tunnels—narrow, contained, hidden from casual gazes—even though there were easier routes climbing fences and crossing the open hundred feet of tracks and railroad right-of-way.
He felt someone watching him and shifted his gaze to meet Yashi’s. She’d known to ask Sam about Mrs. Brown, which meant Brit must have told her something. He raised one brow, and she drew a breath.
“Brit said to tell you she’s sorry she didn’t mention it sooner, Ben,” she said, directing her words at him even though her gaze rested on Daniel’s phone. “She and Theo have never seen Sweetness. They thought maybe Lolly had embellished the story—turned a regular neighbor into a sweet old woman who lived in the magical forest.”
Sounded reasonable. Lolly loved magic and innocence and wonder. Yashi thought it was just her own imagination soaring. Ben agreed but also thought she wanted to give Will some of the magic and wonder that had disappeared from his life when his parents, Yashi’s parents and Yashi herself had. Lolly’s upbringing had been idyllic, while Will’s had been tough.
And Yashi’s even tougher.
“So how did she end up living in the woods?” Dusty asked as Booger sat on his haunches and leaned his upper body against her, a thin line of drool running down her pants leg.
“Kenneth,” all four cops said in unison. Sam carried on with it. “He used to live in Tulsa, but when his father died, he inherited—”
“More likely stole,” Lois muttered.
“—the family property. He and his wife are definitely scary. I bet he muscled in and took over, and the only way for Sweetness to find any peace was to move out of the house.”
“Booger is welcome to fart on him any time he likes,” Daniel muttered.
“I’d rather see him bite him,” Ben added.
Dusty rubbed the hound’s long ear. “Booger doesn’t bite. He’s very gentle. And he came here to work, so unless there’s something more we need to know, why doesn’t somebody show me this cedar tree?”
Lois added one needless warning. “You guys be gentle, too. Don’t hurt Sweetness.”
Ben and Daniel both snorted. As if they needed a reminder not to manhandle an eighty-some-year-old mentally fragile woman. After the goodbye, Daniel hefted the backpack Ben had brought, and they headed to the shade of the porch. Ben dropped behind to walk beside Yashi. “You’re not going with us.”
“I know. I’m not dressed for it.”
He didn’t mean to let his gaze skim the length of her body. Didn’t mean to notice that the orangey-pink color of her top looked particularly good against her golden skin. Didn’t intend to appreciate the snug fit of the white pants that ended midcalf or even look at the whimsical flip-flops bearing orangey-pink flowers and sparkles. He didn’t mean to let himself notice that she looked as appealing on this hot summer day as a long, tall iced tea and a sweet breeze.
Damn.
“Do you think Sweetness Brown has anything to do with what happened?”
It took effort to pull his brain back from its reverent wandering and concentrate. “I doubt it. My great-aunts used to tell us stories about her, how she roamed the woods at night and was always watching little kids who weren’t doing what they were told. Great-Aunt Norma said she was a spirit. Great-Aunt Beatrice said she was a fairy. Great-Aunt Opal said she was a leprechaun, and Great-Aunt Weezer said she was a figment of their elderberry wine.”
“I thought most of you Little Bears were teetotalers.”
“Just Mom, Weezer and me.” Yashi knew his father had been a drunk—everyone who’d ever met David Little Bear had known that—and that Ben’s younger brother had followed in his footsteps. She also knew neither of those were the reasons Ben didn’t drink. He didn’t like the taste, and he liked being in control.
Sometimes, in his months with her, he hadn’t felt like he had much control. How had he never guessed, in all his life up to that time, that giving up control could actually be a good thing?
His gaze slanted toward her, cool and blonde and beautiful, and he thought of a few specific instances when she’d been totally in control, and heat began spiraling inside him that put the outside temperature to shame.
It had been a very good thing.
* * *
They caught up with the others at the back side of the porch. Daniel had delved into the backpack, removing cans of bug spray and bottles of water. Yashi stopped a distance back, having no desire to let the repellant mist drift over her until the bugs had come calling, and watched their preparations.
All three of them wore tactical pants and long-sleeved shirts that were tucked in. While the others sprayed for bugs, Ben unrolled his sleeves and buttoned the cuffs. It was a shame to hide those gorgeous muscles, but likely Sweetness Brown wouldn’t be impressed by them, and it would be a bigger shame for him to come back covered with chigger bites or poison ivy.
Apparently bored, Booger wandered down the steps, sniffed his way to the garden, then stopped to watch a hawk soaring overhead. He didn’t look like Superdog to the rescue. Truthfully, he seemed to be contemplating sinking down right where he was and taking a nice long nap while those pesky humans tramped through the woods.
But appearances were deceiving. Ben often wore a similar contemplative look, but it was entirely opposite of what was going on inside him.
Finally, after putting on gloves and ball caps, Ben, Daniel and Dusty were ready to go. Ben directed Dusty to what remained of the tomato, then hesitated at the bottom of the steps. “Do you want the keys to my house?”
She shook her head, appreciative of the offer but unwilling to go so far away, and he joined the others with a nod. When they had moved with a rustle past the Christmas tree, she sighed. Sat in an old rocker near the back door. Breathed too deeply of bug spray and coughed. Moved to a chair farther away. Listened to the bees and thought about Lolly’s admission that she wanted to get bee hives even though she was sensitive to their stings. But think of the incredible honey I could give you, she’d tempted.
Think of using the epinephrine pen you already carry, Yashi had responded.
And that was all in the first five minutes after they left. How long would it take them to find Sweetness? Would she be home or off wandering? Would she talk to them, or would the sudden appearance of three strangers and a dog be too disruptive for her to cope with?
It didn’t take long for stillness to settle. Not silence, not like the last few times. She was aware of the traffic on the turnpike, and the chimes hanging from various tree branches tinkled with the occasional whisper of a breeze. Someone’s dog was barking in the distance, and someone’s cow mooed a response. A lazy rooster whose concept of dawn was a little off crowed a time or two.
But the stillness was there, heavier than those distractions, the emptiness of a house that routinely bub
bled with life. It was as if the very boards and bricks were aware that their family was gone, that violence had been visited upon them and things might have changed forever.
Will and Lolly, Brit and Theo might never come back.
Yashi’s heart stopped beating for a long, painful moment. Her breath wheezed, anguish releasing before she rejected it, denied it. Will and Lolly were strong, and no one would protect Theo more fiercely than them. They would survive this, and they would come home, and this house would be happy again.
That was the only outcome her wounded soul could accept.
* * *
Sweat rolled down Ben’s face, and every part of his body was either sweltering, stinging or itching. Daniel and Dusty weren’t faring any better, and Booger’s tongue was hanging as he picked a path down the steep incline to the creek.
“Why couldn’t Miz Brown live in the middle of a nice, cleared pasture?” Daniel muttered, followed by a grunt when he tripped over a rock hidden beneath knee-deep dead leaves.
“Aw, what’s the fun of that?” Dusty asked. She gripped a clump of sumac branches in one hand to steady her as she half jumped, half slid down a vertical boulder.
Ahead, Daniel slipped again, and Ben caught him by the strap of the backpack. While he had hold, he pulled out a bottle of water, let him go and took a deep drink. He was pretty sure the sun was reaching inside and leaching out the moisture even as it rolled down his throat. He should have insisted Yashi go to his house to wait. Granted, she would be sitting in the shade on Lolly’s porch and not exerting herself, and she would have the advantage of the light winds that they’d lost once they started descending.
But she was alone, and alone at the Mueller house these days was on the far side of creepy. What if the kidnapper got impatient and decided to snatch another family member to let the police know he was serious?
But why would he get impatient? The lack of movement on his proposed trade fell on him. So far, he’d given them two messages, neither including information on where and when he wanted to conduct the trade. He hadn’t given them a way to get in touch with him, hadn’t contacted them in more than twenty-four hours. Even if they were willing to play along with his outrageous demand, they couldn’t play without him.
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