Dead for the Money

by Peg Herring

  “We will.” Scarlet shifted back to Brodie’s past. “How did Mr. Dunbar not know that his daughter-in-law had a child and a drug habit?”

  Bud looked at her in confusion for a second before realizing her mistake. “Brodie is not really Gramps’ granddaughter. She’s the child of a distant relative, a third cousin or something. She knows that, but he wanted her to call him Gramps.”

  Scarlet sighed. “No wonder she feels she doesn’t belong anywhere.”

  “I tried to make her understand that she is part of this family,” Bud said miserably. “I’m not very good with kids.”

  “But Bud, Brodie thinks you are good at everything. You’re the perfect heir, and she is the one who is always wrong.”

  “Really?”

  Scarlet nodded. As one the sheriff’s men approached with a dog, Bud said, “When we get her back, she and I have a lot to talk about.”

  THE END OF BRODIE’S unplanned journey was a hard wooden surface, where she was dumped with a great sigh of relief from the man who carried her. Unable to break her fall, she bumped her head painfully, letting out a muffled “Umph!” before pride could withhold it. Sounds echoed, odd and hollow, and dankness permeated the fishy bag’s smell.

  She felt a tug, heard a sawing sound, and the tension loosened around her feet. Soon the side seam of the bag was sliced open with a pocketknife, and she could see again.

  She knew where she was immediately—an old boathouse on her grandfather’s property. It sat below the bluff, a few hundred feet down from the viewing point, although the canopy of trees blocked the view from above. The original cabin had been here, on a little inlet the owner thought would provide shelter from the harsh winds off Lake Michigan. What those winds had done, however, was fill the inlet with sand so that it took constant effort to keep it clear. Gramps had chosen to build in the open, accepting the winds in return for a spectacular view.

  The boathouse was the only structure left on the original homesite, and it was pretty much a wreck. The roof was gone toward the back, and the walls had gaping holes where boards had fallen away. Thirty feet long and fifteen feet wide, the building’s center was open so that a boat could be brought inside and hoisted up on pulleys for repair or a new coat of paint. There were walkways on either side and Brodie had been dumped on the one on the right, which was in a little better repair than its counterpart. An ancient block and tackle that would have been used to lift a boat hung overhead. A few shapeless mounds in the corners suggested once-useful tools, probably broken or obsolete. Below her, the water was greenish and murky.

  Brodie had been here lots of times. Gramps often muttered that the place was unsafe and talked about tearing it down. But it was far enough removed from the present house, and therefore from his attention, that he’d never gotten around to it. For Brodie, it was the perfect place to be alone. Getting to it was inconvenient, so nobody bothered her.

  But she was not alone now. Beside her crouched the supposed bird watcher she’d met on the bluff a few days ago, smiling as if they’d just bumped into each other at the post office. He removed the tape from her mouth, gently pulling strands of her hair away from the adhesive. She worked her lips and jaw, savoring the ability to breathe in clean air.

  “Hey, Brodie.” His voice echoed off the walls and water. He was a bigger man than he’d seemed at a distance two days ago, tall and wide shouldered. When she did not return his greeting, he did not seem to be offended. “Can you walk?” He took her arm and helped her to her feet. “Let’s get you inside.”

  She looked around to see what “inside” meant. In the water below them was a sailboat, a little bigger than the one she and Bud had taken out the day before. The bow was draped with a camouflage tarp. The boat looked old, maybe because it was made of wood. It looked perfectly seaworthy, though, floating gently in the shallow water. The mast had been lowered and lay along the length of it. This guy’s secret visit had nothing to do with birds, she concluded. He had sailed right onto Gramps’ property and taken up residency in his boathouse. Why?

  Glancing out the open doorway, she could see that a downed tree blocked the shallow channel from the boathouse to the lake. “It’s not as permanent as it looks,” her captor said with a casual gesture. Tracing the line of the tree’s trunk, Brodie saw the raw stump, bright among the darker wood around it. “The tree shields the view from the lake. The tarp hides what planes and helicopters might see from the air.”

  Her heart sank. He had planned this, had known the existence of the old boathouse, known it was unused and obscured by years of neglect and overgrowth. He had cleared the narrow channel that led into the trees, concealed himself and his boat here in the half-rotten boathouse, and waited to kidnap her. She didn’t know why, but it couldn’t be anything good.

  Responding to a gentle push, Brodie boarded the boat. It was a beauty, although not as well-maintained as Gramps would have required. The man opened the hatch cover and gestured toward the companionway. Even more fearful than before, Brodie regarded the steps down to the cabin. She knew why men took girls, knew what they suffered. Whatever he did to her, she told herself, she would live through it. When she was able, she would escape and go home. She would tell the police all about him so they could put him in jail for a long, long, time.

  When she reluctantly made her way down the four steps to the cabin, there was another surprise. A woman sat on one side of the tiny table, smoking a cigarette and working on something with a pen. As Brodie got closer, she saw that it was a word find puzzle.

  The interior was a mess, with musty clothing in one corner, used paper plates and cups on every surface, and stale cigarette smoke hanging in the air like bitter fog. Brodie’s presence seemed to make the man take note. “You could clean up a little down here, Cher.”

  Looking up, the woman noticed Brodie for the first time and turned a cold glare on the man. “What is this?”

  He seemed to shrink from large to medium. “It’s the girl I told you about. Brodie.”

  Taking in Brodie’s frightened demeanor and tousled appearance, the woman said accusingly, “You kidnapped her.”

  “Cher, we will talk about this later.” Something in his reply reminded Brodie of one of her vocab words from the month before: bravado.

  “We already talked about it. I said it was a stupid idea.”

  He drew himself up. “It’s done now. We need to get ready.”

  Cher rolled her eyes and went back to the puzzle she’d been doing when they arrived, making angry circles as her chest heaved and her jaw clenched. The man’s tone became pleading. “Cher, I promise, it will all work out, just like I said.”

  Brodie stood there, unsure what to do. Should she run? The woman, Cher, obviously did not want her there. Maybe Cher would stop the man from chasing her. But he blocked the path of her retreat. She waited. Maybe Cher would insist that he let her go.

  Unable to decide what her part was in this little drama, Brodie looked around. Cher sat at the sort of down-sized table common to boats, with bench seats that folded out to make bunks for sleeping as well as providing storage underneath. A tiny sink off to her left looked unused except for a few beer cans set in it. If this boat was like others she’d seen, there was a commode under the steps. Not much here.

  What did the man mean about getting ready?

  “I want to go home.” Geez. She sounded like a little kid. But it was how she felt.

  The birdwatcher seemed glad to have someone to talk to other than the angry Cher. Clapping a hand on her shoulder, he moved in front of her and squatted down until they were eye-to-eye. “That’s exactly what we want for you, Brodie. You are going home.”

  That was some relief. Apparently he didn’t plan to kill her. “But first I need to talk to you.” He glanced at the woman, whose disapproval was obvious. “I will explain all of this, but I had to get you away from Bud and his little girlfriend, the teacher. You know they’re screwing each other.”

  That was a crock. She would
know if anything like that was going on between Bud and Scarlet. Although…she forced her mind off that topic. She needed to figure out what this guy wanted. She knew they could be deceiving, the men who hurt kids.

  “Sit down,” he urged, indicating the bench opposite Cher. “We’ve got some things to do.” Brodie obeyed, and the man began emptying his pockets. From the large side pocket of one pants leg he took her sneaker. “You can have this back now.” She took the shoe and sat there, holding it and feeling lost. When the man unzipped his pants she froze, but he did not even notice. She relaxed a little when she saw that he had swim trunks under the jeans he’d been wearing. “Cher?” It was half an order, half a plea.

  The woman sucked on her tongue and then said in a tone of defeat, “You’re nuts.”

  “We’ve got an hour, maybe a little more, before the cops get involved. Once we’re out of here, we’re just another boat on the big lake.”

  “And slower than a turtle,” Cher commented. “They could stop us anywhere along here.”

  “But they aren’t thinking water. And who would suspect this old tub of being a getaway vehicle?” The man grinned at his own genius. Then he turned serious. “If we get going.”

  “It’s supposed to storm. You said we’d take off in the morning, after it clears.”

  “That was the old plan. This is the new one. They’ll be looking for her, and someone might remember this place and check it out. Besides, a storm is a perfect cover. They’ll be busy helping boats in distress and won’t even notice us.” He spoke more forcefully. “We have to hurry to beat the weather, though, so let’s move.”

  “Whatever you say, Captain.” Slamming her pen down to underscore her objections, Cher rose and stamped up the steps. As she retreated, Brodie saw that below the waist she was huge, like someone’s size eight top had been grafted onto a triple-X bottom.

  The bird watcher looked relieved that Cher complied, however unwillingly, with his request. “Stay down here, Brodie,” he said. “I’ll explain everything as soon as I can.”

  Brodie stared after him until the hatch closed over her and she heard the latch click shut. Tears threatened as she surveyed the messy, cramped cabin. She saw no hope of escape from the bird watcher, no possibility of kindness in the taciturn Cher. Despite her despair, she heard the crazy voice inside her head say, “Okay.”

  She was a kidnap victim. She was probably going to be raped, possibly murdered. And her mind wanted her to believe things would be all right? Now that was crazy.

  THINGS HAD BEEN GOING SO WELL, Mildred thought to herself, and then everything fell apart. She had been trying to bolster Brodie’s self-confidence, and she really believed it had been working. The child had no idea how lovely she was, and Mildred could tell she was intelligent too. With Scarlet working from the outside and her own efforts, Mildred was sure the girl would become self-confident in no time, and all her experiences with that awful mother would be forgotten. It was not easy, though. Brodie seemed to be upset at times by the encouraging words in her head.

  Seamus had said hosts might think they were losing their minds, but that was a warning they probably had to give to every cross-back. It was, she told herself, like the admonition on hair color instructions: do an allergy test forty-eight hours before dying one’s hair, every single time. No one really did that. It was something the manufacturers said, just in case. She agreed that talking to a host had to be done carefully, but surely a young person who was unsure of herself could benefit from the experience of someone older. Mildred was beyond worrying about everyday things, and she knew she could help Brodie worry less too. Seamus did not understand how gentle Mildred could be. She was not pushy, not at all.

  But when the kidnapper entered the picture, everything changed. It was the absolute worst thing for Brodie, and a total surprise to Mildred. She’d panicked briefly. She would admit that. Now she was trying to remain calm. She had to reassure her host and then find out exactly what this man had in mind. She hoped it was not more pain for poor little Brodie, but all she could do right now was assure her that things were going to be okay. Even if they might not.

  Chapter Fourteen

  DETERMINED NOT TO GIVE IN to either despair or inane hopefulness, Brodie looked for something that might help her escape. She could hear the two of them on deck, moving things. Even if she could open the hatch, it was unlikely she would get past them. The boathouse was not easy to get to—or get away from. The bluff rose steeply behind it, and the lake was marshy and overgrown around the inlet. Any direction she took would be tough going, and the bird watcher had long, strong legs. He would chase her down before she got anywhere.

  As she sat there, still holding her shoe, he came down the steps with a garbage bag and began picking up the trash around the cabin, dropping empty beer cans and limp bits of bread into the bag. As he worked, he talked, apparently trying to put her at ease.

  “Go ahead and have something to eat while we get the boat ready.” Brodie noticed that he spoke softly, as if he did not want the woman to hear. He took three sealed deli sandwiches and several kinds of pop from a cooler, laying them out before her on the table as proudly as if he’d made them himself. “They say kids are always hungry.”

  Brodie took one that said “Ham/cheese” and a soda, although she had no appetite. Maybe if he thought she was cooperating, he’d lower his guard.

  “Great,” he said approvingly. “Now relax for a few, okay?” Taking his bag of trash, he went up the steps again. The hatch slid downward, ending with a wooden thud. It was like the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party, because, like Alice, she had been offered a friendly reception, even refreshments, but not a clue what was going on.

  AN HOUR AFTER THE POLICE ARRIVED, they were no closer to finding Brodie. The dog, shown her hat, put its nose to the ground, trotted off through the trees, circled several times, and then came back, looking confused.

  “Could she have climbed a tree?” Reiner asked the handler. Bud did not hear the answer, but the man’s body language suggested a negative response. “Well, keep looking.”

  The tenor of the search changed when Briggs came looking for them. “Shelley got this message a few minutes ago.” He handed Bud a phone. The message read, “Gong 2 live w/my dad. Dn’t wrry abt me. Wll cll whn trn gts in2 Chcgo. Brodie.”

  Bud handed the phone to Reiner, who had a hard time concealing a smug expression at confirmation that Brodie’s disappearance was voluntary. “At least now we’ve got an idea which direction to look.” His brow furrowed. “Who’s her dad?”

  “I don’t know,” Bud said with a shrug. “I’m pretty sure Brodie doesn’t know, either. At least she didn’t yesterday.”

  The new developments led to Reiner making more phone calls. Bud and Scarlet moved away, standing close together as if to draw support from each other.

  “If some man came along and said he was her father, would she stop to ask herself if he was telling the truth?” Bud asked.

  “Brodie doesn’t trust easily. Still—”

  Bud thought of his mother, appearing at his door and offering the one thing he’d never had, a parent. “If the guy knew which buttons to push, she might go for it.”

  Reiner closed his phone with a snap and approached. “I’ve called the state police. If she’s on the train to Chicago with some man, they’ll find them. I’ll leave two men to continue the search here too, in case this was meant to throw us off.”

  Bud got Reiner’s meaning, and apparently Scarlet did too. “Brodie did not do this to get attention,” she said firmly. “If she sent that text, she thinks the man she is with is her father.”

  “Oh, she sent it. It’s from her phone.”

  “Anyone who has a person’s phone can send a message,” Bud argued. “It doesn’t have to be Brodie who did it.”

  “That might be true, but she has kind of a reputation, doesn’t she.” It was not a question, and Reiner didn’t wait for an answer. “From the time she came here, she’s played tricks on pe
ople. If I remember right, Bud, you didn’t find them very amusing when we were in school.”

  “She’s outgrown that.” Bud hoped it was true.

  “What was it, two years ago that she drove her aunt’s car into the woods and left it? We spent quite a while thinking it was stolen. That wasn’t funny.”

  “That was before Scarlet came. Brodie’s been a different kid the last few months.”

  Reiner’s lips pulled inward as if he wanted to say more. Instead, he turned away.

  Half an hour later, one of the deputies reported finding a spot where someone had pulled a car off the road. Reiner was enthusiastic. “See? She planned to meet the guy out here. He waited in the car, and she went to him.”

  “Why bring us along if she was planning to run away?”

  Reiner considered. “You have a set schedule for lessons?”

  “Usually,” Scarlet admitted. “Nine to noon for classroom studies, and then something educational but not necessarily book-related in the afternoon.”

  “Who decided you’d come out here today?”

  Scarlet hesitated before answering. “We’ve talked about doing it for some time, but it was Brodie who first suggested it be today.” She raised her voice in unconscious defense of her pupil. “She needed to get her mind off what’s happened.”

  “And who suggested that Bud should come along?”

  Scarlet glanced at Bud. “Well, Brodie did. But he needed to get away too.”

  “And having him here kept you occupied so she could get a head start.”

  Reiner’s inference was obvious, and Bud could not meet Scarlet’s eyes. How long had they ignored Brodie while they talked about themselves? He joined the argument, knowing it was useless. “Shouldn’t the dog have been able to follow her scent to where the car was parked?”

  Reiner sniffed. “Scent dogs aren’t perfect.”

  The dog handler, who had come up beside them, rose to the defense of his animal, which sat down beside him, panting but alert and willing to obey a new search command. “Someone could have stopped in that spot to look at deer or take pictures. We don’t know the girl left in that car.”