“Well, it gets boring if you use the same set up every time. I’d study a famous cryptogram and then use it.”
“And no one helped you with it? That’s amazing.”
“Nah. Solving some of them famous ones, that’d be amazing. Like the Beale ciphers and the Sweet Sixteen.”
“Your mom didn’t help?”
Once again he was confronted by Jamie, arms akimbo, face pinched. “Are you sayin’ I ain’t smart enough to do ’em by myself?”
Nick backtracked as an adult must when confronted with such an expression. “Not at all. I just wondered if anyone else had shown an interest in them. Like Grace and me.”
“That’s ‘Grace and I’. And only stupid old—Well, only one other somebody did. And he was the reason I had to redo ’em all again.”
“You had to—” Nick felt a twitch right between his eyes. “Why did you have to redo them?”
“Wait. We’re there. I mean here. We’re here.” Jamie was studying her GPS and their surroundings.
Nick took a deep breath as they hiked closer to the top of the ridge. She’s just a little girl, McKenzie. Take it slow. No rush.
“The answer to her puzzle was ‘the color of bananas’. I bet it’s that bunch of witch hazel over there with kudzu climbing onto it from the other side.” Jamie pointed at a tangle of bushes with unusual yellow blooms.
“Flowers in November,” Nick said.
“Yep. They’re something. Dr. Grace always picks out something unusual like that. Makes it easy to find.”
“So what’s next?” Nick undid his pack and dropped it on the ground. “Lunch?”
“Nah. We can have that after. As a reward. I need to take a picture of the ‘before’. Then we dig up the kudzu, or as much of it as we can, and then take an ‘after’ picture.”
“Great. Let’s get started then. Where’s your camera?” Nick asked. “We need to do it pretty fast. I think the temperature’s dropping while we stand here.” He looked up at the clouds, which seemed to be snagging on the tops of the trees.
Jamie fished around in her fanny pack and came up with a digital camera. “Birthday present from Dr. Grace. Found it in a cache.” She took a picture.
“So, who was the other somebody who made you redo all the puzzles?”
Jamie moved and took another shot. Nick shadowed her.
“Oh, he didn’t make me redo ’em. He saw me looking for a cache and asked me what I was doing. He seemed real interested, so I told him all about geocaching.” She peered at him over her camera suspiciously. “Like I did you. And I showed him my notebook, like I did you, and told him all about how it worked and everything. He even helped me find my next cache, but while I opened the box—”
“He took your notebook.” Nick felt a chill, and it wasn’t from the wind.
“Well, it was there then it weren’t. But he swore up and down he didn’t have it. I looked all over the place, and he helped me look too. But it was just gone.” Jamie looked mortified. “And then one of our caches disappeared, and it was a nice one too. So we had to move ’em, and I had to rebuild all my ciphers and keys and everything from scratch.” She glared at him. “Speaking of which, you gonna give it back to me today?”
“Absolutely.” He pulled off his gloves and stuffed them in his pockets, unzipping his jacket to retrieve the notebook. “Who was it, Jamie?” he asked.
She leaned over and said softly, “Well, Dr. Grace told me that I needed to be polite and not say everything I’m thinking all the time. But it was Mitch Taggart. And he is stupid.”
Mitch Taggart. Hearing that name justified every muscle ache this little hike might dish out. So, the county sheriff had missed the lab somewhere on Taggart property. Probably back in the woods so deep that no one could find it. They weren’t using, just as Grace said, so no one suspected them. And they employed “hunting trips” to disguise the delivery and pickup. He would bet old Evan had the most dangerous job of retrieving the money.
Damn. He was glad that cell tower had disconnected when it did. He could have the whole case wrapped up before he had to even mention Jamie or Grace and their lack of involvement. Even his boss would be happy with this one since it went nowhere near Capitol Hill.
“Dr. Grace phoned Old Annie about what Mitch did, but Mitch told her I had lost it and Old Annie believed him, of course. Dr. Grace said sometimes grandmothers can’t see past their noses, and I’ll say that’s the truth with Old Annie.” Jamie sighed. “I suppose I coulda dropped it between the two caches, but I didn’t.”
Nick needed to get down off this ridge and tell Grace everything. Or use the sat phone and call her. He left the notebook where it was and reached for his other pocket. The idea of her down there alone right now with the Taggart boys just over the ridge was unsettling. Then he remembered that she didn’t have a working phone.
Dammit. He’d never mentioned it directly, but he’d said enough to make those two suspicious. He’d seen the looks they’d sent his way.
But Grace had been taking care of herself for a long time. She’d been walking in and out of the Taggart house long before he showed up. She had her shotgun. And Pooka.
He took a deep breath. She was probably safe for now. And there was no need to scare Jamie.
“Well, what’s next?” he asked cheerily.
“I want one more picture from over there and then we start pulling and digging up this stuff for the ‘after’.” Jamie climbed through the thicket with its odd yellow stringy blooms and took a picture from that side, then looked behind her down the other side of the ridge. “Gross!”
“What?”
“There’s all kinds of junk over here. Boxes and plastic bags and propane tanks. It looks like a trash dump.” She turned and snapped a picture.
Nick clambered through the brush and looked down.
“Get up here, Jamie Lynn. Get over on the other side now.”
Apparently his tone of voice was enough. She moved without a word, coming to stand behind him.
“That stuff couldn’ta been there when Dr. Grace marked this. She woulda had a hissy fit for sure.” Jamie leaned in for a better look.
“I imagine she would.” Meth lab trash. He was surprised he hadn’t smelled it, but the wind was blowing strong, and the wrong way. He didn’t stop to itemize. He needed to get Jamie away from here, fast.
“Yep. You can see there, where it’s killing the plants. Oh, she’ll be—”
“You go on down. Get ahead of me. I don’t want you near this stuff, okay?”
“What is it?” she asked, picking up on the urgency in his tone.
“Very bad stuff. It can make you very sick. Now go, I’ll be right behind you.”
“Who’re you talking to? What’re you doing up there?” It was a familiar whiny male voice he’d only heard once before.
Nick froze.
Mitch Taggart was standing in the brush below him, a trash bag in one hand and a shotgun in the other.
“I was talking to myself. And I was looking at this witch hazel up here and spotted that trash.”
“You’re that fella that Miss Grace brung over this morning.”
Below Mitch’s eye line, Nick waved his hands for Jamie to get down and get away as fast as she could. He couldn’t look, but he heard the rustle as she crept through the brush behind him. He could only hope that Mitch was alone.
“You cleaning it up? That’s great,” he went on loudly. “I was going to take some pictures of it and go warn Grace that someone was dumping up here.”
Mitch dropped the trash bag and pumped the shotgun, aiming it right at Nick’s head.
Jamie was right. Mitch was stupid.
Nick stiffened when he heard a whimper from somewhere below. Damn. Jamie had heard Mitch rack the shotgun. He desperately hoped she wouldn’t just freeze. To be certain, he started moving toward Mitch and away from her. The whole time he kept on moving his hands, signaling her to leave.
“Hey, whoa. I didn’t say you could move
!”
“I thought you wanted me to come with you or something. You pointed that gun at me. Or were you pointing at something else?”
“Git your hands up where I can see ’em!” Mitch yelled, his voice shaking.
Nick knew if he dove into the brush and pulled his gun, he could stop this whole thing right here and now. But he couldn’t predict what Jamie might do and he wouldn’t take the chance. He lifted his hands slowly into the air.
From the corner of his eye, he saw a flash of bright blue further down slope. Run Jamie, run!
Chapter Eleven
Grace watched the propane truck disappear down the driveway and took a deep breath. She had been working non-stop since Nick and Jamie headed up the ridge: doing temporary repairs on the greenhouse cover that had been ripped by the wind last night, checking the solar panels, pulling one really big branch off the Trillium cabin roof and putting a tarp in place over the hole, putting away the grocery delivery, filling the birdfeeders—anything to stay busy.
But it hadn’t helped. She kept thinking about what she had sensed while she was working on Old Annie. And the more she thought about it, the more anxious she became. She didn’t trust this gift of hers enough to know if what she had felt was real—especially when she already thought she was losing her mind.
When she had reached in, trying to sense Old Annie’s arthritis just to see if she could, there had been no sign of the chronic illness that she had suffered with for years. Either Annie had been faking it all along or Grace had slowly cured the old woman with all her checkups. Before she could wonder why the woman would pretend to be disabled, there had been a horrible wrenching sensation, almost a slap, that had pushed her out. She had to fight not to react, thinking she was imagining things, but it felt angry and spiteful.
Perhaps Nick was right. Perhaps it was Boyd. He had been standing fairly close to her and he was certainly full of spite. Whatever it was, Grace had ended up with a sick headache and the strangest sensation of someone muttering and sniggering just beyond her hearing.
Old Annie isn’t what she appears.
Why would Annie pretend to be sick? Perhaps she liked the attention. Perhaps it was her way of manipulating her grandsons into doing her bidding.
Perhaps it was something much worse. “But the Taggarts have always used the line between legal and illegal as a jump rope.”
She couldn’t send the sheriff over there again on a whim. And she couldn’t tell Nick of her suspicions. How would she explain them? I healed you and oh, by the way, when I tried to diagnose Annie Taggart, she slapped me and shoved me out of her head. Then she poked fun at me and—
It sounded ridiculous.
It was just her imagination. It was all coincidence and too much champagne and not enough sleep.
Calm down, Grace. You need to slow down and be rational about this. This is what comes of just jumping in and experimenting with something you don’t understand. You’ll hurt yourself and anyone in close proximity.
Grace tried to adjust her hair, which was falling out of its messy bun, and realized her shaking hands were filthy. When had she pulled off her gloves? Taking a deep breath of the cold air, she scrounged in her jacket pockets for one of her wipes or something to clean her hands with, and came up with a folded square of linen.
Nick’s handkerchief. Just the thought of him loosened the cold knots in her stomach. She ran her thumbs across the soft fabric and lifted it to her nose—the vaguest hint of his scent. Maybe it would be all right to hang onto this after he left. Something to remember him by.
But the thought of him leaving made those cold knots twist even tighter. Damn the man and his gray eyes and gentle hands—
N.A.M. She ran her finger over the embroidered initials. M? But his last name was Crowe.
Was it possible Nick wasn’t what he appeared to be?
But Trish had done a background check on him. Probably even checked out his books online. No. This was probably someone else’s hanky. But N? A relative? His mother’s or his Nan’s? Or maybe Crowe was a pseudonym that he wrote under, and this was his real name. But why use your pen name to check into a place where you wanted some peace and quiet?
She rubbed at the tightness building in her forehead. Shut up, shut up, shut up!
Nick would explain it if she asked. And then he would leave. She clenched the handkerchief in her hand.
Damn the man.
Pooka’s ears suddenly went up, and he took off full speed in the direction that Nick and Jamie had left this morning.
Then every other worry in Grace’s head was replaced by one voice. Jamie’s voice. She was coming down the ridge fast, screaming something over and over again.
Grace scrambled toward the sound.
“Dr. G-Grace, he got Mr. N-Nick and he has a g-gun! Dr. G-Grace! M-Mitch got Mr. N-Nick!” She was sobbing so hard the words were barely understandable, but Grace heard enough before she caught sight of Jamie, red-faced with tears, running for the house and not seeing her at all.
“Jamie! Jamie, sweetie! I’m here!” Grace yelled.
Jamie nearly fell in the gravel as she spun around to run toward Grace, then plowed into her at full force. Pooka circled them and looked back toward the ridge.
Grace knelt in the grass with Jamie in her arms.
“It was the t-trash I found up there. R-right beside the kudzu on the other side of the ridge. M-Mr. Nick got real mad. He t-told me to head home. He told me it could make me s-sick.”
Grace managed to push Jamie back so she could see her face. “Are you all right hon?” She dabbed at Jamie’s face with Nick’s handkerchief and looked her up and down.
“I fell a couple times. I was s-so s-scared. Mr. N-Nick’s voice was all different and he t-told me to hide from Mitch. And I did ’cause he kept signaling at me with his hands to stay down and go—over and over. And then I heard the gun. Mitch loaded it! And then Mr. N-Nick raised his hands and walked off with him.”
What on earth had happened? Unless— “What was in the trash, Jamie Lynn?”
Jamie wiped at her eyes, then unzipped her jacket pocket and pulled out her camera, pushing buttons and holding it out to Grace.
“I took a picture. It was a lot of empty tanks and plastic bottles and spray cans, but mostly trash bags. Some of them had broke open and there was coffee filters and batteries and junk inside. It smelled real bad.”
Grace recognized the environmental destruction caused by the disposal of meth lab waste. On her mountain.
“The plants around was dying. I knew you’d be mad too.”
“There’s something wrong with our mountain, Gracie-girl.”
Meth lab. Nick was right. There was a meth lab on the mountain. And now the Taggarts knew that Nick knew. Her heart started pounding and she felt ill, but she managed to smile at Jamie.
“You did great, Jamie. Now, listen closely. This is important.”
Jamie sniffed and huffed, but settled down.
“I want you to put on extra clothes and take your bike and ride as fast as you can down to the Carters.” The Carters lived on the main highway at the base of the mountain, right at the turnoff.
“But I don’t wanna—”
“Ssshhhh. You have to do what I say, Jamie Lynn,” she said. “You have to take Pooka away from here. It’ll keep him out of trouble. I don’t want him around if people are being silly with guns. Okay? You’re responsible for Pooka being safe.” And Pooka would guard Jamie with his life.
Jamie thought about it, then nodded.
“The Carters will be down there because of the storm coming in. You tell them to get the sheriff up here.”
Jamie’s eyes went wide.
“Can you remember that? Just get the sheriff. You don’t have to tell them why or what or anything you don’t want to. So long as you get the sheriff and some of his men up here fast.”
Jamie nodded.
“Do not stop for anyone else, Jamie Lynn. Not the Taggarts or anyone. Go into the woods if
you have to. Just go down to the Carters and get the sheriff,” Grace repeated, her voice firm and steady. “If it starts snowing hard, get off your bike if you have to and keep walking. It’s not far beyond your house. You can make it.”
Jamie nodded again vigorously. “What’re you gonna do Dr. Grace?”
“I’m going to take my truck and go get Mr. Nick and bring him home. And I’ll be fine. Don’t worry. It’s all a misunderstanding. He’ll be fine.”
“Well, if my notebook caused it, you tell ’em I’m sorry. I told Mr. Nick that Mitch took—that I thought Mitch took it. He was real interested in that, I’m telling ya.”
“What does your notebook—” Grace stood up. “Never mind, it’s not important now. Just go, okay? And be more careful than you’ve ever been in your whole life.”
“Yes ma’am. You be careful too, please?”
“I will, sweetie.”
Grace watched Jamie run toward the house, and signaled Pooka to go with her.
“Pooka, go with Jamie. Now!” He circled for a bit and whined, but when she pointed again, he went. She didn’t need a protective hound to worry about in addition to Nick and everyone else on the mountain.
Looking down at Nick’s handkerchief still clenched in her hand, she gazed back up toward the ridge, then tucked it in the inside pocket of her jacket over her heart.
Everything she ever believed about the Taggarts was naïve and stupid. But if anything she had sensed in that room this morning was real then Nick was in real danger from one or all of them.
The first heavy wet snowflakes started to fall as she took off for the garage.
Mitch Taggart was proving to be as stubborn as he was dense. Twice Nick had tried to use the cover of slipping and falling to surreptitiously get to his gun, and twice Mitch had threatened to shoot him just for falling down.
The second time, Nick had faked an injury trying to get Mitch close enough for hand-to-hand, but the kid wouldn’t fall for it.
Mitch seemed to know the precarious position he was in, trying to handle someone alone using a shotgun. They don’t leave your hands free.
More Than Magic (Books of the Kindling) Page 19