Glory looked over at Coleman. “Consider yourself deputized in George County. Cuff her and put her in the back of my pickup.”
“Is that legal?” Tinkie asked.
I shook my head. “I don’t know and I don’t care. Glory can sort it out at her office.”
When both prisoners were in the bed of the pickup and Raylee had been loaded into his trailer, Glory asked us all to stop by the sheriff’s office before we left town.
“What about Cosmo?” I asked. “He’s still missing. He may be in trouble.”
“I know where he is,” Daniel Reynolds said. “He’s not hurt. He’s just … out of trouble for the time being.”
“Where is he?” Glory asked. “Don’t beat around the bush. Spill it.”
“I’m not telling where he is. He was going to poison the plants around the springs that feed the Dead Sea and River Jordan. He was going nuclear on total destruction. Snaith had cooked up something for him that would have left this area completely barren for years.” He looked at me and Tinkie. “We fixed him so he can’t do anything bad.”
“Get Cosmo and bring him here,” Glory said. “Now. And bring the poison.”
“Go on with the horse and your prisoners,” Coleman offered. “I’ll find him and bring him along to you. Since I’m deputized, it shouldn’t be a problem.” He grinned at her.
“Thanks,” Glory said. “I’m glad this case is wrapped up.” She looked around at us. “I’ll need statements from everyone. Now I have a hungry horse to feed.” She climbed in the truck and took off.
Tinkie and I had done everything we could do. There were loose ends that needed sorting, but all could wait until daylight.
Tinkie put her arm around my waist. “I’m going inside to talk to the Reynoldses. Seems to me you and Coleman might have a few things to say to each other.”
* * *
Coleman and I found a private moment, and I was in his arms in a flash. I’d never been gladder to see anyone in recent memory. For the hundredth time I realized what a haven his arms were, how the feel of his chest pressed against mine was a comfort I craved as much as I needed air and water. Only a few weeks earlier, I’d come so very close to losing him. Doc Sawyer, the sawbones in Zinnia who’d spent his career patching Coleman, Tinkie, Cece, and me up from our misadventures, refused to say how Coleman had survived a gunshot wound that should have killed him. Magic elixir, extraordinary constitution, or just a plain miracle, the only thing Doc would say was, “Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, Sarah Booth. Take your miracle and say your thanks.” And I did, every single day.
“Thank God you’re here,” I whispered against the damp cotton of his uniform shirt. Saving Cece had left him a little soggy, but so was I.
“I’ve been worried about you and your posse,” he said, forcing a lightness into his voice. I appreciated the effort it took for him not to give in to the sweeping emotion—generally aggravation at being so afraid—that always followed relief. He held me back from him so we could stare into each other’s eyes. “I couldn’t come down here, Sarah Booth, because of Gertrude. I knew she was in Sunflower County. She was spotted and I thought twice that I had her in a trap. I meant to have her behind bars as my welcome home gift to you.”
“Did you catch her?” I was afraid to hope.
“No. The day you and Tinkie were shot at, I had a roadblock out for her. A reliable source reported the car and an older woman driving it. I knew it was her.” He sighed and tightened his arms around me a little. “We did stop a Chinese-red Roadster of the same vintage as yours, and there was an older red-haired woman driving it. When we pulled her over, she confessed she’d been paid to drive the car along a particular route. She had a map. Someone, namely Gertrude, had given her very good instructions for showing up and then disappearing. While I was distracted by that, Gertrude was down here trying to kill you.”
“She’s getting crazier and crazier.” It was a fact. To go to such extraordinary lengths to harm me and my friends—it was psycho. “Do you have any idea where she might be now?”
“The last report was Memphis. The city cops there found another antique Roadster, Chinese red, dove interior, abandoned in a parking garage. I don’t know where she’s finding these cars, but it can’t be cheap. She was registered under an alias at the Peabody. She’s living life large.”
“She is.” The true horror of Gertrude was that she would disappear for weeks and then show up when my guard was down.
“When the officers staked out the hotel room, she never appeared. The only evidence there was the Roadster, which was a rental. The paperwork at the rental agency listed the car in the name of Libby Delaney, your mother.”
I was going to kill Gertrude. To use my mother’s name to terrorize me. That was the final straw. It was all-out war now, and I would kill her if I got the chance. “But no one has a clue where she is?”
“No one. And the better question, Sarah Booth, is who is funding this. Renting those antique cars, and there were four of them counting the one down here—we arrested a second driver, same story—the cost of hiring actors, the cost of Gertrude running around the state and keeping tabs on you enough to be able to pinpoint where you’ll be, this is expensive.”
“She sold the B and B. She has that money.”
“Not enough for all of this elaborate scheming. This little operation of diverting me and a number of law officers up in the Delta while she was running amok in Lucedale—that’s costing someone big bucks.”
I gave it some consideration and he was right. “If we can find who is funding her, we can find her.”
“Exactly. And why they’re funding her. Why would someone have it in for you?” Coleman’s hands moved from my shoulders to my waist. The look in his eyes changed, too, from cool anger to hot anticipation. “Enough about that for now.” He drew me toward him.
When he kissed me, I stopped fretting and worrying and fuming—I simply gave myself to the kiss. He was a master at it, and I loved the way his lips could bring me to a place outside the worries of the world. The heat that followed was swift and completely inappropriate in the parking lot of a miniature Holy Land. The rumors that the garden had once been called the Devil’s Bones made me smile as we eased back from each other before the heat consumed us. Another few seconds and we would have burned past the point of return. Coleman just had that effect on me.
He gave a weak chuckle. “Sarah Booth, I swear. You go off for a girlfriends’ weekend and you get in more trouble than an egg-sucking hound dog. I guess I’m going to have to put you on a leash and keep a tight hold on the end of it.”
“I wouldn’t try that!” Even when my body was trying to rebel and jump on him, I had to defend my independence. Speaking of hounds, Sweetie Pie sat at our feet and gave her little yodel of affection. She made it clear she liked Coleman, but she loved me. “Good girl.” I broke away from Coleman to kneel beside her and give her the praise she deserved—and to give me a chance to gather my wits.
“She’s a good dog,” Coleman said.
“The best.” Sweetie Pie and Brutus had helped me get Cece to land before Coleman stepped in. My respite of doggie kisses had given me enough time to gather my self-restraint. Coleman and I couldn’t go at it like wild monkeys in the parking lot. Well, we could, but it would be bad form. And I didn’t trust Tinkie not to make a video to use for blackmail purposes at a later date.
When I stood up, Coleman laced his fingers through mine. “Let’s get Tinkie and make sure Cece is going to be okay. The paramedics seemed to think hypothermia was the worst of it. Then maybe you could show me your room at this B and B I’ve been hearing so much about.”
“Sounds terrific.”
“We have to find Cosmo first.” Erik Ward stepped out of the shadows not the least bit embarrassed that he’d likely been spying on our little passion session.
“Cosmo is your problem, Erik.” Of all the times I’d needed Erik to stay close so he had an alibi, now, when the case was
over, he chose to stick to me like lint on Velcro. Cosmo was not my worry. I’d been hired to prove Erik innocent. Tinkie and I had done so. Now, I needed some time with my man. Alone time. “And don’t you even think about coming to my room at the B and B and sneaking in the window again.”
Erik cleared his throat and I realized Coleman was giving me a long stare. “It isn’t what it sounds like.”
“I should hope not.”
Coleman was not a jealous man and he had no reason to be. “I thought the Reynoldses knew where Cosmo was,” he said.
“They won’t tell me.” Erik was annoyed. “I’ve been accused of every heinous crime in Lucedale for the past twenty years. Now that I’m proven innocent, I just want to find my friend and make sure he’s safe.”
Coleman waved me toward the office where everyone was gathered. “Go talk to the Reynoldses. See what’s what. I’d like a word here with Erik.”
Now that was a conversation I’d like to be a fly on the wall to hear. The lawman and the dancer. It could be a romantic comedy. I was grinning when I went into the office where Tinkie sat with Daniel and Paulette Reynolds. There wasn’t any tension in the room, but so far no one had given up the whereabouts of Cosmo. Tinkie arched her eyebrows when I walked in, a signal that she was still on the job.
“Any sign of Cosmo?” I asked, directing my question to everyone.
“He’s somewhere on the grounds,” Tinkie said. “I just have to either figure out where or maybe Daniel or Paulette will tell me.”
The married couple remained silent. They wouldn’t even look at us or at each other. Something was definitely going on.
“I already know that Cosmo was going to poison the plants on this property,” I said. “He had Snaith mix up the herbicide he was going to use. You said you had ‘fixed him.’ Now I need to find him and Glory needs to charge him with whatever laws he’s broken.”
Silence. Tinkie only rolled her eyes.
“Would you care for some hot tea?” Paulette asked. I’d never really met her but she was a pretty woman with upturned lips and beautiful, glossy hair. “You look a little damp and a lot done in. Tea would warm you up.”
Something hot would have been lovely, but I preferred my heat packaged in a brown sheriff’s uniform and in a candlelit room. “Please, just tell me where to find Cosmo so I can put an end to this bloody night.”
Her lips shut and she said nothing else. I looked at Daniel, who was petting Brutus. Sweetie Pie had followed me in and she gave Brutus a come-hither look and a soft little yodel of temptation. My dog had fallen in love! Brutus, with his pirate look, was indeed a handsome rascal.
Daniel and Paulette could remain close-lipped, but I had a secret weapon. “Sweetie Pie, Brutus, let’s go.” The dogs were instantly out the door. Sweetie Pie could track Cosmo. She had a nose on her that could run to ground even the most delicate scent.
Tinkie stood up. “Last chance. If you’ve done something with him, you’re going to be in a lot of trouble. Helping us find him might make it easier for you.”
“The man was going to poison these gardens I’ve worked on for most of my life,” Daniel said. “He had to be stopped.”
For the first time a glimmer of real concern for Cosmo swept over me. Surely the Reynoldses had not harmed him. They were religious people. They weren’t killers, unless I’d sadly misjudged them.
Tinkie nudged me. “We need to find him, and fast.”
Tinkie and I followed the dogs out the door. Daniel and Paulette stepped into the night that would never end. Coleman and Erik were sitting companionably on the tailgate of his truck. “Did you find Cosmo?”
“They won’t tell us, but Sweetie Pie will find him. We need to get something for her to sniff from his cottage. We’ll find him eventually.”
Coleman slapped the tailgate of the truck and Sweetie Pie and Brutus jumped in. They were obviously a team, like me and Coleman. Erik, Tinkie, and I climbed in after them. “Erik can direct you to Cosmo’s house through the woods. Save some time.”
“Wait!” Daniel came forward. “I left him on a little island in the middle of the springs.”
Tinkie and I had plowed through there. The water wasn’t deeper than our knees. He could leave whenever he wanted. So why hadn’t he wanted to leave? “What did you do to him?” I asked.
Paulette came forward. “We lied to him. We told him the concoction he was going to dump was already in the water. He’d have to wade through it to get away. He’s just sitting there, because that stuff was obviously so toxic that he’s afraid it’ll kill him.”
“But you didn’t put the poison in the water?” Tinkie wanted to be sure and I didn’t blame her. The Reynoldses could be facing charges of attempted murder if they’d actually put Cosmo on a hillock surrounded by deadly poisoned water.
“We did not. We would never do that. Heaven forbid, we wouldn’t poison our own property and that stuff he had would have laid this land barren for at least three generations. We just wanted to teach him a lesson.”
And they’d done a masterful job of that. “Let’s go get him. Glory will want him down at the jail. Attempted environmental poisoning surely is some kind of felony.”
“Good luck convincing him to step into that water.” Daniel chuckled and his wife started to laugh. “Smote by his own hand.” They both laughed harder, and I couldn’t help it, I joined in.
“I’ll get him.” Erik was still shaking his head as he jogged off to find his friend.
It didn’t take long for Erik to return with a chagrined Cosmo. He went directly to the Reynoldses. “I’m sorry for what I almost did. You should know that I would never have forgiven myself. I love this land. Thank you for stopping me.”
“If Cosmo will agree to simply live and let live, we can work this out,” Daniel said. “He loves this land as much as I do. To be pushed to the extreme of poisoning it—he had to be in complete emotional distress. I think we can find common ground. I don’t want to press charges.”
I didn’t know what to say, but Coleman did. “You’ll have to sort that with Sheriff Glory. Perhaps Cosmo can agree to counseling or some community work here at the gardens. If he understands what this place is, maybe he will treat it with respect and love.”
“Great idea,” Reynolds said. “Cosmo and I have a lot more in common as friends than we do as enemies. And that’s what the good book teaches. Forgive.”
“We should head out,” Tinkie said. She’d taken a seat on a bench and she did look exhausted. “I’m buying a new wardrobe and new shoes when I get back to Zinnia,” she said. “Vanity be damned.” She made a face and turned to the Reynoldses. “Apologies for the cursing.”
“No apologies necessary. A dark cloud of evil came over us here, and you’ve chased it away. We owe you thanks.”
“Put Cosmo in the back of the truck,” Coleman pointed out.
“You guys go to the B and B,” Erik said. “I’ll take Cosmo to the sheriff’s office and sort it out with Sheriff Glory. I’ll tell Sheriff Glory what the Reynoldses have offered. I’m pretty sure she’ll release him to come home, so I’ll return him here.”
“I do thank you,” Cosmo said to Daniel and Paulette. “I almost did a terrible thing. It made me realize how easy it is to step into the shadow of evil. I’d be happy to work here to help you with the miniature Holy Land and the gardens, if you’ll have me. I need to change myself and this is a good place to start.”
“No need for Erik to bring you back, Cosmo,” Daniel said. “I want to speak on Cosmo’s behalf. If the sheriff listens to me, I’ll bring him home.”
Coleman opened the truck door. “Let’s load up and get moving. I have some business that is pressing urgent.” He winked at me as I put Sweetie Pie in the backseat and made room for Tinkie in the front. Our duties were done for the night.
* * *
Donna insisted on making a round of martinis for us and bringing it into the garden where the fairy lights twinkled and a magnificent moon commanded the s
ky. I only wanted to leap into Coleman’s arms and renew our passion. But first Cece.
“Coleman, have you had any word on Cece?” I knew Sheriff Glory, though she seemed genuinely fond of Tinkie and me, would share more fully with another law officer.
“She’s doing fine. Glory said the doctor would release her in the morning to go home.”
That news cheered me immensely.
“Glory wanted it clearly understood that you three are to head home immediately, as soon as Cece is released. They have her car down at the sheriff’s office, and Glory had a mechanic check it over. It’s fine.” He grinned. “She said it would take her the next two years to rejuvenate Lucedale’s reputation as the safest small city in the nation.”
“That wasn’t exactly our fault,” I told Coleman. “We had nothing to do with Hans O’Shea’s, aka Charles Brooks’s, obsession with revenge.”
“Nor that same obsession coming from our local fruitcake Gertrude Strom,” Tinkie said with some vehemence.
“Don’t talk bad about fruitcake. Sarah Booth makes a pretty good one.” Coleman put his arm around me.
“Any word on Gertrude?” I asked. I was hoping they’d somehow run her to ground in Memphis.
“She vanished into thin air.” Coleman was a little grim, even as he thanked Donna for another drink.
“Is she even alive?” I had to ask it. Gertrude, with each attempt she made to hurt me, was becoming more and more mythic. “I mean she seems to be more Ringwraith than human.”
“True that,” Tinkie said. She was sipping a very tall sweet tea and sighing with pleasure. “But she’s going to slip up, Sarah Booth. And then we’ll have her and Coleman will lock her up and throw away the key.”
“I will.” He picked up my hand and rubbed the back of it with his thumb. “If I don’t get her, old age will soon.” We laughed, but deep in my heart, I wasn’t laughing at all. Gertrude had to be stopped. She was going to hurt or kill someone I loved, and I couldn’t continue with that hanging over me. Once I had Tinkie and Cece safely back in Zinnia, I intended to hunt for Gertrude. The prey would become the hunter. I’d been willing to leave her alone, hoping she’d grow tired of trying to kill me. That wasn’t going to happen. Whatever wires had short-circuited in her brain, time wasn’t going to uncross them.
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