They couldn’t afford for me to contact the sheriff. Which meant they’d do everything they could to stop me.
Everything.
I knew the land. I’d ridden Reveler, Miss Scrapiron, and Lucifer through the fields and brakes, along the straight and narrow country lanes. If I headed due north, I could make it to a neighboring plantation. They’d let me use their phone and give me a ride into town.
I’d covered a hundred yards when Arnold and his friend realized I was gone.
“What had hold of you, man?” the other guy asked.
“Some kind of hell cat. It musta been in the backseat or something. We got to find that Delaney bitch,” Arnold said. “If we don’t get her back, the boss is gonna make us suffer.”
I forced my legs to move faster. The farther away I got, the less caution I had to take about making noise, and I could run. Sweetie felt the same way. We tore through the field, panting but never slowing down.
“Go home, Pluto. Go home and be safe.” I spoke aloud though Pluto couldn’t hear me. Still, I used my words as a prayer to send him safely back to Dahlia House.
I tried to ignore my panic and the natural questions that arose and spurred me on. What did those men want with me? More important, what had they done with Graf?
I came to a small irrigation ditch that marked the south boundary of the McCauley land. I wasn’t far from help now. I didn’t know the new owners. The plantation had changed hands two years ago in a foreclosure, but the name would take decades to change. The McCauley family, who had farmed the land for several generations, had lost hard in the stock market crash. When they couldn’t pay their mortgage, a national bank had foreclosed on them. I’d watched them pack and leave with sadness. Somehow, I’d never connected with my new neighbors. Now I’d meet them under pressing circumstances.
The cry of night birds and the constant chorus of insects told me no one followed me. Once I gained McCauley’s, I’d call for help. I put on a final burst of speed and crossed the last wide fields to the front porch.
The house was old, like Dahlia House, built before the Civil War. A light glowed in an upstairs room, and when I peeped in the window of the front door, I saw the glow of a television in a back room. They were home and they were up. My hopes soared as I lifted my hand to knock.
Headlights jouncing down the long driveway made me pause. Sweetie’s growl was all the warning I needed. We sprinted across the porch and dove into shrubs as a new-model pickup slewed to a stop in front of the house.
“Get out,” a familiar voice commanded. “I can’t tell how bad you’re hurt. I need some light.”
“Don’t tell ’em it was just a cat.” Arnold sounded mortified.
“The boss won’t care what sliced up your head. Our problem is the private detective got away. This ain’t gonna be pretty.”
The truck doors slammed and both men stomped up the steps and onto the porch. They knocked three times, then twice. The porch light snapped on and the door opened.
“What the hell happened to you, Arnold?” Jeremiah Falcon asked in his arch, educated tone. “You look like you stuck your head in a meat grinder.” There was a pause. “Where’s Sarah Booth?”
The two men stumbled and fumbled over their explanation of how they lost me. I peeked over the edge of the porch. Arnold’s face and head were shredded. One ear was barely hanging on. Pluto had surely done a number on him. The other man I didn’t recognize but wouldn’t forget.
“She’s in the cotton fields?” Jeremiah was livid. “We have to contain her. If our plan is to work— She has the potential to ruin everything.” He walked out on the porch. “Did you hear something?”
Sweetie and I huddled around the base of a big azalea.
“No, sir,” Arnold said. “I didn’t hear anything. I need to see how bad my face is damaged.”
“Screw a few scratches. If you can’t handle one little girl, you’re worthless to me.”
“Mr. Falcon, she had a critter in the car with her. It nearly clawed my eyes out.” There was a tad of heat in Arnold’s voice. He might be a Heritage Hero foot soldier, but he didn’t cotton to condescension.
“You’re a bagful of excuses, Arnold. You let my crazy bro-ster snoop through our plans. We moved our planning session to the river and they found us there. Now you let a half-starved girl best you.”
Half-starved? Jeremiah thought I was thin? He did have at least one good quality.
“Look at my head!” Arnold had been pushed too far. “It was dark. I was attacked by something with claws. Might have been a wolverine.”
“Cat,” the other man said, barely able to hide his mirth. “It was a fat cat, to be sure, but just a cat. It ran in front of the headlights.”
“Shut up!” Arnold said. “The damn thing was vicious and it meant to put my eyes out.”
“Shut up, both of you!” Jeremiah thundered. “You’re incompetent. I have half a mind to court-martial each of you. Organize a search party for Ms. Delaney. We have to find and contain her. Arnold, get inside and have Rob stitch your ear back on. Make it fast. We have work to do.”
15
Jeremiah cracked orders left and right. “Get back in the field and search for her. She can’t be far. She’ll likely head toward Dahlia House. Get between her and her plantation and stop her.”
“I think we should call the other members. We may need help subduing the detective.” For such a big, strong man, Arnold had the whine down pat.
“You need to find Ms. Delaney. Now. This disaster is your fault.”
The silence told me Arnold was balking. But at last he said, “Yes, sir.”
“Good. I’ll round up the other men on the premises. We’ll load up in your truck and head out to the place where she wrecked. She has to be around there. Was she injured?”
“She hit the steering wheel pretty solid.” This was the older man I couldn’t identify. “She was pretendin’ to be unconscious, which is how she got away.”
“You assumed she was unconscious. Only idiots assume. Now you’d better find her and make this right.”
The door slammed and in a few minutes boots tromped out of the house and onto the porch. Harsh laughter and a few ribald comments accompanied the men clambering into the pickup.
“Are you coming, Jeremiah?” Arnold asked.
“I am indeed. I’ll follow in my car.”
The pickup cut a sharp U-turn and sped out the drive. Another vehicle followed. The heat-soaked night settled over the fields.
I needed a telephone, and the closest one was likely in the house. I waited as long as I could, listening for anyone left behind. Worry for Graf and Pluto was eating me alive. Even if entering the house unleashed danger, I had to risk it.
“Ready, girl?” I asked Sweetie.
Her reply was a sprint around the porch and up the stairs. When I caught up with her, she was standing on her hind legs peering in a window. A television’s glow illuminated the back room in a wavering blue light. It put me in mind of ghosts and creepies. My fear, though, centered on flesh and blood—men armed with guns. Ghosts I could handle.
The only sign of life came from the television, so I tried the doorknob. It turned without complaint. Sweetie was Velcroed to my leg as we entered. The house was mostly unfurnished. When the McCauleys lost their land, they took the family antiques and gracious décor that made the house such a warm memory. I’d come here with my mother on several occasions to share the garden’s bounty or to have a cup of coffee. Libby Delaney looked out for neighbors, no matter how busy she was. She made it a point to stop and talk with the older folk who lived around the county, and I had often accompanied her. I’d learned a deep appreciation for the ties binding us to place and home.
Those times had passed. Now the beautiful old hardwood floor was scarred by careless misuse. Dust clouded the once burnished wainscoting that had given the foyer such a mellow glow. The beautiful ceiling medallions that centered light fixtures and crown molding handmade from plaster
and horsehair had begun to crack and fall due to humidity and lack of care. In a matter of months, Jeremiah and his crowd had corrupted an antebellum beauty. He was truly a man determined to destroy anything of merit that crossed his path.
Especially his sister. And anyone who defended her right to be herself.
Sweetie and I didn’t linger. We moved through the rooms as silently as ethereal spirits. My quest was simple—a phone to contact Cece and Coleman. They’d come and get me, and we’d hunt for Graf. Something had detained him. Something bad.
The empty rooms depressed me. They even worked on Sweetie. She moaned softly in her throat, letting me know she shared my emotion. When we entered the TV room, a blond bimbo on an entertainment network read the news with the startled expression of a possum in the headlights. But she was giving it all she had, trying to whip her audience into a frenzy.
This was the only room with furniture and the best bet of locating a phone, if one existed. The odds were fifty-fifty. Many people had forgone landlines. I searched every flat surface without result. Strangely, there were no computers or electronics.
“Let’s head out the back and start toward town,” I told Sweetie. We couldn’t walk along the road for fear of being discovered by Jeremiah’s militia. It would be a long, hard hike through the fields, but there were other plantations along the way where I would be received with friendship. While I might not be well known, folks remembered my parents with great fondness. Libby and James Franklin Delaney, though long dead, were still respected.
A strong impulse to check upstairs came over me. What if Graf was there, held hostage or injured? But the upstairs could also be a trap. If I went up there and the men returned, I would be caught. One foot on the first step and my hand on the rail, every impulse in my body urged me up the stairs.
“Graf?” I called softly.
Only silence.
“Graf!” I notched up the volume. If he could hear me, he’d respond.
But there was nothing, just the pounding of blood in my ears and Sweetie’s soft panting. She snagged my shirt in her teeth and tugged me toward the door.
“I can’t leave without making sure Graf isn’t here.” I wasn’t being stubborn; I was terrified what they might do to him.
Sweetie gripped tighter and growled, shaking her head so hard her ears flapped. Then I heard what her keen hound ears had already picked up—a vehicle approaching.
No choice. I had to leave. Immediately.
As soon as I found Coleman, he could get a search warrant and determine if Graf was a prisoner. All I had to do was escape and get to town. I would be no good to either of us if I was captured.
I was moving to the back to vacate the premises when a small chirping noise drew my attention. On the floor beside a ratty old recliner was a small electronic tablet. Technology! Thank goodness Tinkie had insisted I learn to operate electronic devices. I could email Cece! She would alert the cavalry and come to the rescue.
I grabbed the tablet and slipped out the back door, ducking into a huge wisteria. The tangle of leaves and vines offered the perfect cover as I wasted precious time figuring out how to get into the tablet. At last I accessed the Web and sent Cece, Tinkie, Oscar, Coleman, and DeWayne SOS messages.
“Have been waylaid by right-wing militia. At old McCauley plantation—one of their headquarters. Walking toward town. Find me! Graf is missing. Urgent.”
I hit the Send button and started to drop the tablet in the dirt when I realized I held solid gold—at least potentially. I shoved it in my shirt and crawled out of my hiding place like my pants were afire. If I had to hoof it, I might as well haul boogie.
The night was like walking into lukewarm soup—hot, clammy, and unpleasant. Insects hummed so loudly I could have sung the Hallelujah Chorus and been drowned out by the busy little crickets. That was good, though. Using my best internal compass, I found a row of cotton and walked straight down it.
With her keener sense of direction, Sweetie took the lead. My dog would lead me to town. She had an insatiable love for ice cream cones from the Sweetheart Café, and I had more faith in her than I did in most people. It was going to be a long, sweaty night.
* * *
Forty minutes later, I drew close to the main road to town. Danger lurked here. But also possible rescue. The trick would be telling them apart. Approaching headlights could be Coleman or Cece, or it could be Arnold or Jeremiah. I wouldn’t really know until the vehicle was too close to escape if I picked wrong.
Almost as if I’d conjured them, a pair of headlights blinked in the distance. Sweetie and I dove into the cotton. I got down on my stomach and elbows and watched the approaching lights. The vehicle crept forward at a pace that told me a search was in progress.
The pickup loaded with men cruised by so slowly I could make out Arnold illuminated by the dash lights. Several men with rifles were in the truck bed. They’d given up searching for me in the cotton fields and figured I was walking to town. They were smarter than they looked.
The red taillights disappeared just as another set of headlights came up on the horizon. This vehicle, too, cruised at a leisurely rate. It could be one of my friends, or it could be Jeremiah.
I couldn’t risk it.
As much as I wanted to jump into the middle of the road and wave my hands and hope I would be rescued, I couldn’t.
When the car was a good fifty yards away, I heard music. A song with personal history for me. The Dixie Chicks belted out “Goodbye, Earl.”
I jumped up and ran screaming into the road. “Stop! Stop! Here I am!”
Cece’s Prius halted right beside me. “Get in quick, Sarah Booth. Coleman said people are all over the place. He thinks they’re looking for you.”
Sweetie and I needed no second invitation. My hound jumped in the backseat and I climbed in the passenger side. Cece was already rolling before I shut the door. And a good thing. Approaching headlights blazed in front of us.
“Get down,” Cece said. She rolled up the windows and pressed the accelerator harder.
I ducked onto the floorboard and held my breath as we passed the other vehicle. Cece stared straight ahead, never acknowledging the other car.
“I should just kill that bastard,” Cece said vehemently. “I should.”
“Was it Jeremiah?”
“It was. Dirty lowlife.”
She might call her brother names—and mean them—but he was still blood. I understood this. When the time came, she would stand for him even as he spit vitriol at her. His actions hurt her—had hurt her for many years—but he was her brother.
“Any word from Graf?”
Cece sighed softly. “No, Sarah Booth. Coleman and DeWayne are on it.”
“And Olive?”
“It’s a long story. I’m taking you to the courthouse. Olive is in jail.”
It was the first bit of good news in a long time, but I had better things to do then probe Olive’s legal issues. “I need to go home. Pluto is somewhere in the fields between the place where I wrecked and Dahlia House.”
“I can’t take you there. Jeremiah has men on the lookout for you. We’d be sitting ducks.”
As much as it dismayed me, I couldn’t argue. Her logic was … logical. “What if Graf is at the old McCauley house? I should have checked upstairs. I didn’t have time. Someone came back.” I was working myself toward a righteous case of hysteria and guilt.
“Snap out of it!” Cece didn’t backhand me, but she brought me around to my senses.
“Where could Graf be? I just have this horrible image of him bleeding out and thinking I’ll be there to save him—and I don’t find him.”
“You’re letting your imagination render you useless. Stop it this instant. I think you’re right. He’s been taken hostage by the Heritage organization. He’s useful as a pawn to control you. So calm down. The best thing you did was to escape. Had they gotten their hands on you, they’d have no need to keep Graf.”
Put that way, I felt better.
“I still should have searched.”
“And if you’d been trapped? At least now Coleman, DeWayne, Tinkie, Oscar, Madame Tomeeka, and Millie are all looking for him. And for you.”
All of my wonderful friends were beating the bushes hunting for me and my man. If something bad had happened to him because of my work … I couldn’t even finish the thought. Of all the times he’d been mad at me because I put myself in danger, I finally understood the emotional load he carried. An intellectual understanding of fear and worry couldn’t compare to the visceral emotion I now felt. Emptiness and dread shadowed my every move, and the sensation was debilitating.
“Where have they hunted?”
“Graf isn’t at Magnolia Grove. That’s the first place Coleman tried.” She cleared her throat several times. “They found his Range Rover hidden on the grounds of The Gardens.”
Graf had been abducted before he even left The Gardens. He was taken only moments after he left me. His vehicle was moved so no one would notice. He’d been captive for hours, and I’d never suspected a thing. I’d gone about my business feeding and grooming the horses, futzing around with my leads, oblivious to the danger hanging over the man I loved.
“Do you have your phone?” Cece asked. “We haven’t called it for fear they had it. We didn’t want them to know we were on your trail.”
“It’s either on the floorboard of the car or in the cotton field. Unless they have it.” I wouldn’t be guilty of underestimating Jeremiah and crew ever again. What I’d learned about their willingness to harm people had given me a whole new respect for their lawlessness.
I shifted in the car seat and a sharp jab in my gut reminded me of the tablet I’d picked up in the house. “And I have this!” I pulled it from between my torso and shirt.
“That’s what you sent the email on.” Cece eyed it. “Anything good on it?”
“We’re about to find out.” Except we had no Internet connection in the middle of cotton fields.
Cece drove straight for the courthouse, where there was a strong high-speed, public Wi-Fi. I booted up the device. This was obviously Jeremiah’s personal tablet—who would guess the old coot had the latest technology. Then again, he had a highly trained brain—he just didn’t bother to use it.
Smarty Bones: A Sarah Booth Delaney Mystery Page 22