by Leona Karr
“If Stacy was in town I didn’t see her.” He touched Josh’s arm. “Don’t worry, I expect there’s some simple explanation. Sometimes women get crosswise about some darn thing and throw a hissy fit.”
“Stacy is not the kind to throw a hissy fit.” Josh ran an agitated hand through his hair. “I’ve come at this every way I can, Abe. One thing I know for sure—this isn’t her doing.” He swallowed hard. “And that’s what scares me.”
Josh started down the row of booths. Almost everyone listened attentively, but no one offered anything helpful. He turned around when someone touched his shoulder.
“Can I buy you a drink?” Marci asked, her hand poised seductively on one hip.
Josh mentally groaned. The last thing he needed now was a bitter hee-haw with her. “Sorry, I’m busy.”
“Whatcha doing? I’ve been watching you bouncing around like a—”
“I’m after information,” he said curtly, cutting her off. “Stacy was supposed to come into town last night, but nobody’s seen her.”
Marci’s eyes narrowed. “Really?”
“Yes, really.” Josh started to brush by her when she caught his sleeve.
“Don’t be in such a hurry, big boy. Why don’t you have a drink and listen to what I have to say?” She chuckled as if secretly amused. “I may be able to tell you where your little birdie has flown.”
“I’m not in the mood for games, Marci,” he answered coldly as he removed her hand from his sleeve.
“Who’s playing games? If you’re serious about finding her hiding place, I might tell you—with a little persuasion, that is.”
Hiding place? Josh searched Marci’s face. He didn’t know whether she was in earnest or just using the situation to torment him. “Tell me now.”
She shook her head and purposefully slid in an empty booth. With a commanding wave of her hand, she motioned him to take the seat opposite her. “One drink and I’ll tell all.”
Josh’s first impulse was to jerk her out of the booth and shake her until she talked. His second choice was to just walk away. Something inside him defied him to do either one.
He knew Marci had never been good at bluffing. The challenge she had thrown at him had a ring of authenticity to it. One he couldn’t ignore. Maybe she did know something.
“That’s better,” she cooed as he sat down. “Would you like something to eat? I can always tell when you were hungry. You get that tightness around your mouth. I know you pretty well, big boy.”
“Well enough to know that I’m going to throttle you in about a minute if you don’t start leveling with me.” The feeling that he was wasting precious time churned Josh’s stomach. “I’m not in the mood for any of your flirting shenanigans, Marci.”
“Jeez, she really did get her hooks into you, didn’t she?” Marci taunted. “Are you thinking about dragging her back to the hotel, caveman style? If it’s over, it’s over!”
He brought his fist down on the table. “Dammit, have you seen Stacy? Tell me what you know before I ram that drink, glass and all, down your throat.”
She went white at his unexpected viciousness. “Don’t take it out on me because you had a lover’s quarrel and she packed up and left you.”
“That’s not what happened!”
“Then why did I see her with that suitcase last night?”
Josh’s heart began to thump, and he fought for control. “You saw Stacy with a suitcase last night?”
Marci nodded. “I was just driving past the Pantry about seven o’clock, when I saw her, suitcase in hand, opening the side door of the stairway leading up to Ted and Alice’s apartment. That’s where she’s hiding out,” Marci finished with spiteful satisfaction.
Even before the full implication of Marci’s revelation hit him, Josh was on his feet. He didn’t even question if she was telling the truth. Somewhere, deep in his gut, he knew she had.
Ted and Alice had lied to him. But why?
Raging with fury, he charged out of the bar and started down the sidewalk toward the restaurant.
“Hold up, boss,” Chester yelled to him from across the street and hurried to catch up with Josh’s long stride. “Rob and I were talking with some fellows who live at the bottom of Logger’s Mountain a couple of miles out of town. They said they came across an old Jeep this morning while they were out looking for a runaway heifer. Do you think it’s the one we’re looking for?”
“Go check it out,” Josh told him. “I need to talk to a couple of…friends.” He almost choked on the term. “I think I know who hid it there.”
But why?
The restaurant was busy when Josh stormed in. Ted wasn’t anywhere to be seen and he found Alice in the kitchen.
“We could use an extra hand,” she greeted him lightly.
“I want to talk with you, now,” he said, pulling her away from the counter where she was cutting up French fries. “Where’s Ted?”
“He’s not here. We’re nearly out of the milk we’ll be needing for the breakfast crowd. I don’t know how we got so low. Ted decided he’d better drive out to the dairy farm and get some tonight.” She frowned as she searched his face. “Did you find out something about Stacy?”
“Come with me.” He grabbed her arm. “We’re going upstairs.”
“Why? What’s got into you, Josh?” She looked bewildered as he propelled her out a side door.
“We’re going to have a little talk, you, me and Stacy. I want to know what in the hell is going on, and why you and Ted have been lying to me.”
“Lying? We haven’t been lying,” she protested. “Why in the world would you say that?”
“Because Marci saw Stacy come here last night,” he lashed out as they climbed the stairs to the apartment. “She’s been here all the time while I’ve been frantic to find her. I want some explanations and I want them now!”
“Marci must have been mistaken. I swear, Josh, she never showed up.”
Josh flung open the door to the apartment and yelled, “Stacy! You can quit playing hide-and-seek. The game’s over!”
Alice cowered away from him as if he’d lost his mind.
Josh waited for a moment in the heavy silence, and then marched down the hall and threw open the door of the spare room.
Empty.
“She’s not here, Josh. We told you that,” Alice said, almost in tears. “I don’t know what’s gotten into you.”
He looked around the empty room in frozen disbelief. He had been totally convinced that what Marci had said was true. He even went over to the closet and jerked open the door as if he expected her to be there.
He froze as the lingering scent of Glenda’s perfume invaded his nostrils, and he saw a tumbled pile of her old clothes in an open box.
Alice whimpered behind him. “Ted wouldn’t throw them away. And I didn’t want you to know the truth.”
He swung around to face her. “What truth, Alice?”
“Oh, I almost died at what went on between them, Josh,” she wailed, her eyes pleading with him to understand. “From the very first, Ted was taken with Glenda. I tried to pretend that he was just being kind and loving, but—” She sobbed. “I knew what was going on.”
“Why in the hell didn’t you say something?” Josh exploded, sick at his stomach.
Ted and Glenda!
“By the time I knew it was too late,” she said tearfully. “I knew that if I made a fuss, Ted would kick me out and…and I don’t have anything or anybody besides him and the restaurant. When Glenda moved out, I thought it was over. She took up with Renquist and I thought that was that. Ted seemed to accept it, and then it happened.”
“For god’s sakes, Alice!” he exploded.
“I’m sorry, Josh, so sorry, I should have stopped Ted. He’d been drinking and was like a madman filled with jealousy when he took his gun and stormed up to the hotel.”
The truth hit Josh with the force of hurricane winds. “He killed Glenda! And Renquist!”
Alice nodded a
nd covered her tearful face with her hands.
Ted, a murderer! The fear that had been building in Josh burst full-blown. He’s got Stacy!
Josh grabbed the phone, dialed the dairy farm and cursed impatiently as he waited for someone to answer.
“Home Ranch Dairy,” an easygoing voice responded.
“Is Ted Macally there?”
“Not now. He was, but he left a few minutes ago. Don’t know where he was headed.” The dairy farmer paused. “Not back to town, I reckon.”
“Why do you say that?”
“When I came out of the barn, I saw him turn his van in the other direction—toward the old logging road. Don’t know what in the hell anybody would be doing up there this time of night.”
The Jeep had been spotted on Logger’s Mountain. Ted was heading in that direction.
Josh raced out of the building. There were a hundred places Ted could have taken Stacy on that mountain before or after he stashed the Jeep and walked the two miles back to town. Josh’s head resounded with terrifying fears. Was he in time to save her? Or was it already too late?
STACY FELT the night chill creeping into the darkened cabin. Her resilience had been ebbing all day and the fear she’d struggled to control had defeated her. Ted had warned her that she could yell all she wanted to and no one would hear her.
Now, at the end of a long day without food or water, she was beginning to drift in and out of a blessed state of unconsciousness. No longer were her ears tuned to catch the expected sound of approaching footsteps. Somehow she knew the waiting was almost over. It was just a matter of hours, or maybe minutes, until Ted would be back as he had promised. He was going to kill her as deliberately as he had murdered Glenda and Renquist.
Thinking about Josh was the only reprieve she had during these last few hours. Life had not passed her by, after all. At last, she had experienced a love that could fill her heart and soul. She drew on memories of his touch, smile, kisses and caresses.
AS JOSH HEADED UP the rutted logging road, there was no sign of Chester or the sheriff. If the men were checking out the Jeep’s hiding place at the bottom of the mountain, they weren’t visible from the road. A mantle of shifting shadows played over darkened hillsides where young trees had been felled and only old trees and decaying logs remained. Josh hadn’t been up this far on the mountain since the logging company pulled out several years earlier. He bent over the steering wheel, peering ahead, hoping with every turn in the road that a pair of taillights would come into view, but there was no sign of Ted’s brown van.
When he reached the end of the road where the logging company had established their base camp, he saw only a few abandoned campers and tumbled-down structures half-hidden in the shadows of giant granite rocks.
STACY WAS FLOATING in a blessed, numbing haze when the crunch of footsteps jerked her back to reality.
Ted was here!
“No, please,” she croaked with a dry throat and mouth as he came into the darkened shack. He’d thrown Glenda to her death. Shot Renquist. And prepared a more lingering, horrifying death for her.
Ignoring her plea, he picked up a can of gasoline and turned away from the door. She could hear the crunch of his footsteps as he circled the old shack, pouring the gasoline. Another perfect crime for him. A burned-down shack where the charred bones inside would remain unnoticed for years.
Even though he’d warned her that yelling was useless, Stacy filled the night with feeble cries.
JOSH HAD JUST spied Ted’s brown van and was hurrying toward it when he heard faint cries coming from the old cabin perched below on a shelf of granite rocks. When he saw a dark figure circling the structure, he raced across the rutted ground. As Josh bounded down the incline, he smelled gasoline. Desperately he tried to reach Ted before he could drop a match, but he was too late.
The dry old timber caught fire!
Josh leaped at Ted, and with a fierce blow to the chin sent him reeling backwards and crumbling to the ground.
Smoke filled the shack like a rolling fog. Gasping for breath, Stacy writhed in a spasm of coughing. Her lungs burned. Her vision blurred and she knew the end had come.
When fresh air touched her face a moment later, she dared to open her stinging eyes. Josh’s face swam into focus. Carrying her a safe distance away, he set her down on the ground, untied her hands and feet, and cradled her protectively in his arms. “It’s all right, darling. I’ve got you.”
In the bright light of a flaming shack, Chester and the sheriff arrived, taking Ted captive between them, and Stacy knew, by some miracle, the nightmare was over.
Chapter Sixteen
Hushed sounds of early morning greeted Stacy as she was treated for severe dehydration and exhaustion in the Pineville Hospital. She didn’t remember much about the ride from Timberlane, only that Josh held her in his arms and the sheriff drove at breakneck speed with his lights flashing.
Everything about the terrifying ordeal floated in her memory like disjointed pieces. Rope-raw wrists and ankles were still rings of smarting pain. The confined position she’d endured for so many hours created muscle spasms every time she tried to move. Her chest burned from smoke inhalation.
Josh kept speaking to her in tender soothing tones, and she could see him standing close by as the hospital personnel began hooking up IVs and monitoring machines. He held her hand when she slipped away into an exhausted sleep.
Like a tortuous nightmare, she lived the horror over and over again. Ted’s fist crashing against her chin. His calm face as he talked of murder. The long haunting hours of waiting. The smell of gasoline, and searing smoke filling her nostrils.
“You’re going to be all right,” Josh said as he gently smoothed the damp hair from her forehead. “You’re going to be all right.” He kept repeating the assurance as much for himself as for her.
The race to locate Ted on Logger’s Mountain had been a nightmare in itself. There hadn’t been any assurance that the clues they had about the kidnapping were even valid. Josh would always be grateful to Mosley and Chester. After they had identified the hidden Jeep as Stacy’s, they’d headed up to the abandoned camp road.
Just as Josh bolted from his pickup, Stacy’s frantic cries and the sight of fire consuming a nearby shack had created a horror he would never forget. As he carried her to safety, Mosley and Chester saw the flaming shack and leapt out of the car in time to wrestle Ted to the ground.
Even now, sitting beside her hospital bed as she slept, Josh drew on the doctor’s assurance that she just needed a couple of days of recuperation. After a long night, she awoke and smiled lovingly at him. Relieved, he squeezed her hand and kissed her forehead as a hint of grateful tears spilled into his eyes.
The following afternoon, Stacy was able to leave her hospital room and visit Josh’s grandfather. She was a little worried that just the sight of her might upset him. Even though he’d been fairly accepting during her last visit to the house, the memory of his first explosive reaction remained. She’d never forgive herself if she caused him any discomfort. Since she was being discharged the next day, this would be the last chance to visit him.
He wasn’t in his room, and the nurse said he was sitting on the sunporch. She’d hoped to have a nice quiet get-acquainted talk with him.
What if he created a scene with a lot of people around?
Maybe she should wait until Josh got back from Timberlane? He was meeting with some law officials to support charges against his sister’s murderer. She was grateful that Glenda’s murderer had been brought to justice. Now Josh would find the peace he’d been seeking.
Stacy hesitated in the sunroom doorway. She could see Gramps sitting in a wheelchair in front of windows that overlooked a pretty, natural park.
Taking a deep breath, she walked across the room and casually sat down on a window bench near him. The old man turned his head in her direction, scowling as usual.
She had tied back her hair and was wearing a simple yellow sundress that Josh had
brought from the apartment.
His forehead furrowed as he squinted at her. She just smiled and made no effort to speak to him. He looked her up and down, and she couldn’t tell if he was going to ignore her or explode.
“The cat got your tongue?” he demanded abruptly, after a long moment of scrutiny.
She chuckled. “How are you doing, Mr. Spencer?”
“Oh, it’s Mr. Spencer, is it?” he retorted. “I hear you’ve got a thing for my boy.” He closed one eye as if he could see her better. “Serious, like, is it?”
“Yes,” she said, simply and honestly.
“Then you’d better call me Gramps.” He closed his mouth as if he’d said all he was going to say on the subject.
She didn’t know where to take the conversation from there, but he started talking about Pineville and how it used to be in the days when the logging industry was booming.
When the nurse came to take him back to his room, Stacy walked down the hall with them. She could tell he was tired and ready to get back in bed.
“Maybe I’ll see you in the morning before I leave?”
“Josh tells me you’re not going back to that damned hotel.”
“I…I’m not sure.”
“He’s thinking you might take one of our nice two-room cabins. Special rate.” His lips turned up in a way Stacy hadn’t seen before and she suspected he was secretly smiling.
When Josh came to see her that evening, she told him what his grandfather had said about her renting one of their cabins.
“I wanted to talk it over with you first, but it sounds like Gramps jumped the gun. While you’ve been in the hospital, I’ve ordered Chester and Rob to finish up remodeling the front room and move your uncle’s contraptions down from the attic. That should do it. You’ve met the stipulations of your uncle’s will and created The Willard Museum.”
“Do you really think his lawyer will agree?”
“There’s only one way to find out. Call him and arrange for a visit in a couple of weeks. Everything should be in order by then. In the meantime, you can spend some leisure time getting acquainted with Gramps and giving my horse, Ranger, some exercise.”