“Why are you here as Hester?” I asked.
“You need to consider that to bear the shame, without naming Dimmesdale, is a different kind of courage.”
She had me there. I couldn’t deny it, even though it smacked of inequality, unfairness, and a woeful lack of responsibility and spine on Dimmesdale’s part. He could have spoken up instead of keeping silent. “He should have spoken up and claimed the child. You shouldn’t have had to rat him out.”
“In a perfect world.” Jitty was fading in and out of Hester’s form. Finally Hester was gone and Jitty stood in front of me, a sadder version than normal. “We share a lot with Hester, Sarah Booth. You lost your parents when you needed them most. Your Aunt Loulane gave up her life to take care of you. None of that was fair. My life wasn’t fair. I had no freedom. I lost my man in a war that meant nothing to us.”
“And yet you stayed with Grandma Alice. You took care of her.”
“We took care of each other. The lives we were born into were not of our choosing. Not either of us. But the bond between us was stronger than circumstances. Stronger than fair or unfair, just or unjust. We survived because of that. Neither of us alone would have made it.”
Jitty’s perspective gave me plenty to think about. I understood her point about Hester Prynne. Hester had acted in a way appropriate to her time, to her place in history. As we all must. She had displayed courage I’d never appreciated. I’d viewed her as weak because she hadn’t named names. Perhaps she’d had a different kind of courage to remain silent.
“Why are you here?” I asked.
“The past points to the future.”
I started to ask another question, but then I thought. Was she telling me that someone remained silent with details because they wanted to be strong? Or was she saying that someone innocent would be blamed? “Jitty, I—”
Her cloak whipped around her and she was gone in a whirl of gray.
“Are you bringing me a drink or are you having a conversation with nobody out here?” Tinkie asked. She’d sneaked up on me.
“Both,” I said, holding out the drink I’d bought her.
“Who do you talk to, Sarah Booth?”
“My subconscious.” It wasn’t a lie.
“One day I’m going to find out the truth. Until then”—she popped the top on her soda—“let’s head over to the inn. I need the internet. We have a lot of work to do on Johnny Braun’s background. He fell overboard and his body was never recovered. What if he isn’t dead? What if he’s the person behind all of this mayhem because he hates Erik?”
She had opened a door I’d never even seen.
28
I was ready to pull out of the drive to Glory’s farm when my phone rang. Ed Oakes was calling. I put the phone on speaker.
“Where the hell is Cece? You said she was coming back to Zinnia.”
“She left at daybreak.” I checked my watch. She should have been back in Zinnia by now. “Have you checked with Coleman so he can find out if there’s been any road trouble?” I tried to hold on to logical explanations.
“No accidents along the highway she would have taken. When did she leave?”
“She was gone when we got up. She headed north with Hans O’Shea trailing her. He was going on to Memphis so they probably took Highway 55.” Cece would have peeled off for Zinnia somewhere around Grenada and Hans would have gone straight up 55 to Tennessee.
“Did she seem okay?” He sounded worried and aggravated.
“We didn’t see her this morning before she left, but she was fine the night before. We were dancing and having a good time.”
“She’s not answering her phone.”
That was bad news. Cece was a phone junkie. She never let a call slip past her if she could help it. She had a nose for news and loved her job. “Keep calling. We will, too. There are dead spots along the highway.” A few, but not many. I was grasping at straws.
“I’ll check with Coleman again. There’ve been no reports of traffic accidents that I’ve heard.” Ed was over his anger. “This isn’t like her. She knows Millie and I are counting on her. She wouldn’t muck this up.”
“No, she wouldn’t. We’ll see what we can find from our end.” Glory would have good relationships with the adjoining county law officers. That was the best place to start. If something had happened on the highways, they’d know.
“Ed, please let us know if she shows up,” Tinkie said.
“She’d better be in serious trouble because if she’s not, I’m going to kill her.”
His threat was empty, but his sentiment was shared by me and Tinkie. “We’ll help you.”
I hung up and glanced at Tinkie. “Do you think this is serious, or do you think maybe she and Hans came up with a story idea and decided to take a little detour to get some video footage?”
“I don’t think Cece would do that.” Tinkie was deadly serious. “She’s taken with the opportunity Hans has offered her, but she wouldn’t put that ahead of her commitment to Ed, Millie, and the newspaper.”
“You’re right.” I turned into the B&B. “So where is she?”
“We’re both really worried about the same thing, aren’t we?” Tinkie didn’t look at me.
I said what we were both thinking. “We’re afraid Gertrude has somehow gotten her hands on Cece.”
She nodded. “We have to call Coleman.”
She was right about that. “Let’s check with Donna before we do anything. Maybe Cece told her something about her plans.”
We dashed inside to find Donna in the kitchen making a praline cheesecake. “When Cece left this morning, did she mention anything about stopping anywhere on the way home?” Tinkie asked.
Donna thought a moment. “Not really. She said she had a new celebrity column coming out Sunday and she was eager to get back to Zinnia to make sure the launch went off without a hitch.”
“Did Hans say anything?” I asked.
“No, only that Cece had done some incredible interviews and he was eager to get into a studio to edit the footage and prepare some shows. They seemed focused on their work.”
“They left together?” Tinkie asked.
“In separate cars, but at the same time. Why?”
“Cece never made it home to Zinnia. Her boss says she never showed up at the newspaper offices and he’s worried about her.” I had to ask. “Did she seem okay when she left?”
Donna frowned. “The only thing out of the ordinary was that she didn’t eat anything, and I have come to understand that you Zinnia girls can pack away the grub. She didn’t even want to take coffee.”
That didn’t sound like Cece. Donna was a terrific cook, and even if they could grab something on the road, she would have taken one of Donna’s biscuits to eat along the way. Tinkie and I exchanged worried glances. “And Cece seemed okay. Not upset or agitated?”
“She was fine,” Donna said. “Or at least she didn’t say anything to the contrary. She was in a really big hurry to get on the road.”
“Have you noticed any strange cars around?” I asked. I didn’t want to think that Gertrude might have struck again, but I had to ask.
“There was a woman here yesterday. Older lady. Very polite and knew a lot about gardening. She said she was driving through, saw the road sign to the inn, and she wanted to tour the gardens. She said she used to have a B and B.”
Tinkie couldn’t suppress the gasp that escaped. I know I went pale because Donna looked immediately distressed. “What is it?”
“Did she say anything else, this woman?”
“No. She was very pleasant. She seemed to be touring around the South visiting gardens and such. I told her about the Garden of Bones, and she said she’d been there already.”
That much we’d suspected, but the implications were ominous.
“We have to call Coleman,” I said. I should have done it the minute I knew Gertrude was around this area.
“Can I get anything for you?” Donna asked.
�
��May we look through Cece’s room?” Tinkie asked.
“I haven’t cleaned it yet so help yourself,” Donna said.
We hurried to the suite Cece had used and stopped inside the doorway. The bed was unmade but that was the only disarray in the room. There wasn’t a trace of her luggage or belongings. Not a tube of lipstick left in the bathroom. No evidence that my friend had ever been there. And nothing left for us that might indicate she was leaving under duress.
“If Gertrude has her, she took her after she left here,” Tinkie said.
“Cece is too smart to let Gertrude pull her over.”
“Maybe Hans would, if he thought she was an older woman in distress.” Tinkie was biting her lip to keep from crying. Pregnancy made her hungry and emotional.
“If Hans stopped to assist an old woman broken down on the side of the road, Cece would go back to help him.” That was just how our friend was. She’d never leave Hans in the clutches of a madwoman.
Tinkie was too right. But if that was the case, it was likely a car had been left somewhere along the highway headed north. I called Glory and put our problem to her.
“I’ll check with dispatch and see what the other counties nearby report.”
She was as good as her word and not five minutes later she called back. “No accidents. There’ve been no reports of foul play at any of the area sheriffs’ offices. We’ll keep looking. There are a lot of little roads into the woods. I don’t want to alarm you, but it could take some time to find a car if it was hidden.”
“Thank you.” I was disheartened.
“We’ve positively identified the shooter as Gertrude Strom, as you suspected. I sent a photo of her over to the car rental place in Mobile, and the leasing agent positively identified her.” There was a pause. “Why is she so determined to harm you?”
I gave her a quick rundown of the events, as I understood them. “She blames my mother for a past sin that never happened.”
“Mrs. Reynolds told me she was the nicest old lady anyone would want to meet.” She laughed. “Sociopaths can be such tricksters.”
“I wish she’d disappear and leave me alone.”
“I hear you. We’ll be on the lookout and we’ll find your friend if she’s had car trouble.”
“Thanks, Glory.” I hung up. Tinkie had followed the conversation without any need for a speakerphone.
“Something bad has happened, hasn’t it?”
“Maybe not.” I put as much heart into it as I could.
“Bullshit, Sarah Booth. Gertrude is in town and has been bird-dogging us everywhere we go. Cece is missing and no one has a clue where she is. Cosmo is out of the hospital and gone. Something bad has happened. We can’t pretend it hasn’t.”
I feared she was right, but I wasn’t going to feed her fear. “Let’s see what Glory can turn up on Cece. I have to call Coleman. I have to tell him about getting shot at and about Gertrude. I’m sorry, Tinkie, but I think you should tell Oscar.”
She nodded. “You’re right. I’ll do that now.”
While she was calling Oscar, I bit the bullet and called Coleman. When he answered it was all I could do not to sob. I managed restraint. “I should have told you yesterday. Gertrude Strom has been in Lucedale. She tried to kill me and Tinkie twice. I didn’t tell you because Tinkie knew Oscar would make her come home. I’m sorry.”
“They say confession is good for the soul.” Coleman’s tone was droll.
Where was the fire? Where was the fury? Something was not right in this conversation. “What’s wrong with you? Didn’t you hear me? Why aren’t you more upset?”
“I already knew.”
Sheriff Glory had called him. The brotherhood of brown! They’d stuck together as sheriffs. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I had a secret of my own, Sarah Booth.”
This did not sound good. “Okay.” I hesitated. Sometimes it was best not to know secrets. They could be hurtful. And dangerous. “What is it?”
“I knew Gertrude was around. That’s why I didn’t come down to visit the other day. I had a report that Gertrude had been seen in Zinnia, and the deputies and I were trying to set a trap.”
“Has anyone been hurt? Are the animals okay?”
“Everything is fine. She’s just on the loose. I thought for sure we had her with a roadblock but she got by the Leflore County officers.”
The mix of emotions I felt weren’t easy to sort through. Mostly, though, there was relief. Coleman wasn’t mad at me. Maybe disappointed, but not mad. And he’d withheld info from me as well. I had to admit, no matter how good his reason, and it was as good as mine, it didn’t feel great.
“She shot at me and Tinkie. Twice. She went to an elaborate scheme to lure us out into the woods so we’d be sitting ducks. Do you think she has Cece?”
“What do you mean ‘has Cece’?”
I closed my eyes for a moment. “Cece left this morning with Hans O’Shea, the TV documentary and entertainment filmmaker. She should have been home by now. She’s not in Zinnia and she’s not here.”
“Cece is too smart to fall into Gertrude’s trap.”
“But Hans isn’t. And Cece wouldn’t have left Hans.”
“Look, why don’t you and Tinkie come home, where you’re safe. Oscar will take care of Tinkie and I’ll look out for you. We’ll put our heads together and find Cece pronto.”
“And what about Erik Ward? Who’ll look out for him?” I didn’t want to argue this point. I wanted nothing more than to turn the car to Zinnia and never look back. “What if Cece is still here in George County? Maybe a prisoner or something?”
“If Gertrude has her, don’t you think you would have heard by now? Gertrude would do whatever she could to extract the maximum amount of pain.”
He was right about that, though the reality of what he said was pretty harsh. My phone beeped, and I saw I had a call from Sheriff Glory. I told Coleman that I’d call him back.
“Sheriff Glory?” I said.
“We found your friend’s car.”
“Where? Was there an accident?”
“No accident. The car was pulled down a wooded trail on Sixteenth Section Land here in George County. There wasn’t any sign of a struggle, but the car was definitely hidden.”
“And Cece?”
“No trace of your friend.”
“What about Hans O’Shea?”
“There’s no evidence he was ever there,” she said. “Is it possible they could have split up? Maybe he went on to Memphis?”
“It’s possible.” At this point, I didn’t have any clue as to what might have occurred. “Can you call KDT Studio in Memphis? He was looking to lease some Memphis office space. I think he’s worked with KDT in the past, and they may know more about his whereabouts.” I checked my watch. It was possible he hadn’t had time to drive all that way.
“I’ll check and get back to you. Where are you and Tinkie?”
“At the B and B.”
“Stay there. I’m sending Deputy Mixon to keep a lookout.”
“Thanks.” We couldn’t just sit at the B&B. If that was all we were good for, we might as well go home. I needed some time to put together the things that had happened. Somewhere, there had to be a clue to Cece’s whereabouts. “Where is Cece’s car?”
“I had it towed to the sheriff’s office. It’s right outside my window.”
“Please let me know if you track down Hans. Otherwise we may have two missing people, not to mention Cosmo.”
“Will do.”
“Any word on how Betsy Dell is doing?” If I could focus on my case, I wouldn’t go nuts with worry. “If Betsy was talking, she might have information that would help me.”
“She’s improving. She came very close to dying, and she said she didn’t see who attacked her, only that they approached her from behind, grabbed her around the throat, and forced something into her mouth. She said she struggled and her attacker hit her in the head and knocked her unconscious. Ironically, t
hat may have saved her life because she didn’t ingest the full dose of poison.”
“What was Betsy Dell doing out in the gardens?”
“She refuses to say. But she’ll come around. They always do.”
“Thanks, Glory.” I hung up and called Coleman back. After I’d given him the updates, he had one for me.
“Hans never made it to Memphis. He should have been there by now.”
“I have a terrible feeling Gertrude has them both.”
“You can’t know that, Sarah Booth.”
I couldn’t. And I didn’t. But it was what I feared. “If you find out anything, Coleman, call me.”
“I’ll be down there as quickly as I can, Sarah Booth. You have my word.”
29
Tinkie drank the hot tea that Donna prepared for her and nibbled at some cranberry scones. I had Jack on the rocks. I was frustrated, anxious, and ready to take action. Only there wasn’t any action I could take. My common sense—and everybody in authority—had told Tinkie and me to stay here at the B&B. A deputy was patrolling the grounds.
After I finished my drink, I claimed a headache and went to my room. My plan was to slip out and drive to the hospital. Betsy Dell owed me an explanation. And I wanted to also check Cece’s car at the sheriff’s office, when it was dark. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust Glory to do a great job, but I knew Cece better than almost anyone else. I might see something others overlooked.
I waited until I thought Tinkie, exhausted by the activities and the emotional trauma of the day, had likely gone to lie down, and I slipped out the door of my room. Only to find Tinkie sitting on the floor in the hallway.
“Going somewhere?” she asked.
“I was trying to.”
“Without me?”
“I thought my pregnant partner might need a nap.”
She held out her hand and I pulled her to her feet. “Where are we going?”
It was pointless to argue. Tinkie would never let me leave without her. And I couldn’t really blame her. We tiptoed past the dining room. Donna was in the kitchen cooking something that smelled heavenly and talking to the deputy that Glory had sent over to protect us. We slipped right past them both and out the door. Luckily I’d parked the Roadster fifty yards away under a tree for shade.
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