by Gayle Wilson
“With Maddie?”
She could hear concern in his voice. He had promised to protect her daughter, and she had learned even in the short time she’d been back that Cade took his promises seriously. And he would that one. Even if he didn’t buy into what he considered her harebrained theories about what was going on.
“Do you know a woman named Tewanda Hardy?”
She could tell by Cade’s hesitation that he recognized the name. His answer, when it came, seemed carefully noncommittal.
“Let’s say I know of her. Why?”
“She was here when I got home. Delores asked her to come over and see if she could help Maddie.”
“Did she?”
“I don’t know.”
At the time, she’d believed the session had frightened the little girl, but she could no longer make that claim. Maddie had seemed perfectly normal the rest of the afternoon.
“Then…?”
“You were right about the tapping. That’s how he called Sarah to come out of her house. But he never came when she was at her grandmother’s.”
“The Wright place?”
She nodded. “Maddie said she loved being there.”
“Maddie?” Her unthinking jump from one little girl to the other had obviously confused him.
“Sarah,” Blythe clarified. “Sarah loved being there because he didn’t come for her at her grandmamma’s. She was safe.”
“But you heard the tapping there.”
“I did, but…I’m not sure that wasn’t some kind of message.”
“A message? A message from who?”
“From Sarah. Maybe to let us know that’s how he signaled to her that he was outside.”
“So now you think the tapping you heard was Sarah.”
She had known this wasn’t going to be easy, despite what Cade had said in the park. His belief system was as deeply ingrained as Ruth’s.
“Think about it. If someone was haunting the Wright house, it certainly wasn’t him. It’s now pretty obvious that whoever was abusing Sarah isn’t dead.”
Another hesitation. At least Cade was thinking about it rather than dismissing what she was saying out of hand.
“Maddie told you all this or the Hardy woman?”
“Maddie. Tewanda just…” Blythe shrugged. “She just asked questions.”
“She charge you?”
Although she was shocked by the suggestion, she probably shouldn’t have been. It was a perfectly reasonable question under the circumstances. After all, she, too, had been suspicious of Tewanda’s motives.
“I would never pay for something like that. To be fair, she never asked. I almost told her to stop. To go home and leave us alone. But…despite my doubts, Maddie seemed to be remembering things she hadn’t remembered before.”
“What else did she tell you?”
“Maddie? That he was here that night. The night I thought she’d disappeared. That he’s big. I know that isn’t any help, considering the information is coming from a four-year-old’s perspective.”
Or a nine-year-old’s.
She didn’t bother to pass on Tewanda’s belief that Maddie had only seen him through Sarah’s eyes. Cade would probably dismiss that as he had the rest.
“Anything else?”
“She asked about his eyes. That’s when Maddie seemed to…I don’t know. She became really frightened. Almost paralyzed with fear. The same reaction she has during the nightmares.”
“She has a nice little business on the side, you know.”
“Tewanda?”
“Tells fortunes. Reads the cards. I don’t know what all.” Cade’s voice expressed his opinion of those who would pay for those things as well as those who provided them. “It’s a job to her, Blythe. A way to make money.”
“That doesn’t mean she doesn’t have some ability. I wouldn’t think she’d be able to stay in business very long if she didn’t.”
“In the first place, the people who go to her are gullible enough, and susceptible enough, to make whatever she says fit their situation. And she’s figured out how to be vague enough that what she says will work most of the time.”
“She didn’t tell fortunes or read cards this afternoon,” Blythe denied, holding on to her temper. Cade was trying to protect them. That was his job. “She also didn’t ask for money. She tried to help Maddie remember. And I think she did. At least about Sarah.”
“With enough information it wouldn’t be hard for anyone to put that particular two and two together.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You said Delores asked her to come. Don’t you think she would have told Tewanda everything she knows? The nightmares. The noises. Your interest in Sarah’s murder.”
“I don’t know what she told her. I can ask, but it wasn’t anything like you’re making it out to be. We weren’t victimized. She didn’t plant ideas in Maddie’s head. She asked questions, and Maddie answered them. At least until she asked for a description of the man who tapped on her window. On Sarah’s window,” she amended quickly.
“A description might have been helpful, but I guess that was too much to ask.”
Although Cade’s tone had been mild, the comment infuriated her. As if she didn’t understand the importance of that.
“That’s the only reason I didn’t kick her out as soon as I got home. I thought maybe Maddie would say something that would put an end to this. Don’t you think I know how much a description would mean? There’s no one in this town who has a bigger stake in finding Sarah’s killer than I do. Who the hell do you think—” She hadn’t realized the tears had started until Cade took a step forward to put his hands on the outside of her upper arms again.
“Stop it.” He shook her once, hard enough to put a stop to the words that had seemed to pour out without her volition.
She obeyed, closing her mouth. She sniffed, a reaction to the cold as much as to her runaway emotions. Releasing her shoulders, Cade took a handkerchief out of the side pocket of his overcoat, taking time to unfold it before he handed it to her. She wiped her nose with it, turning away from him to look out on the front yard as she did.
“You want to try it again with me there?”
She turned her head, meeting his eyes. “Try what?”
“Whatever the Hardy woman did.”
She recognized this for the huge concession it was. She had said she was the one who had the biggest stake in finding Sarah and Abel’s killer. Cade would undoubtedly be next in line. That was his responsibility. Just as was protecting Maddie until he’d identified the murderer.
“I don’t know that it would help. If you could have seen her…” She shook her head, remembering Maddie’s eyes.
“The forensics lab didn’t give us much to go on.”
“With Abel?” she clarified, trying to follow the shift in topic.
“We’ve got a couple of bullets, but no weapon to match them to. No footprints.”
“Why would he kill Abel, Cade? I know what you said, but after all this time—”
“I told you. He believes something has changed. You. Maddie. Sarah. How much have you told your grandmother and Delores about what’s going on?”
“They know about the nightmares. They have almost since the beginning. The fire, of course. And that you believe it was arson.”
She shook her head, trying to remember what else she’d said to them. She had tried to protect her grandmother from the most troubling of her suspicions, but you had to get up very early to pull the wool over Ruth Mitchell’s eyes. And whatever Ruth knew, Delores would be privy to.
“I honestly don’t remember whether I told her what I believe about Sarah, but she may well have figured it out. My grandmother is nobody’s fool.”
“And she loves having a good story to tell.”
“I can’t deny that,” Blythe said tiredly.
Everything she’d said to her grandmother and her housekeeper had undoubtedly been repeated to the ladies of the quiltin
g circle and the women of the missionary aid society and wherever else she and Delores had met their friends. It would never have crossed Ruth’s mind to do otherwise.
In this closed society, those women had shared every family trauma with one another since they were young. Births, deaths, divorces and maybe even the occasional straying husband had all called for prayer and shared comfort.
Why would a little girl’s nightmares be any different? Or even the possibility of a haunting?
“I think it’s better if I take tonight’s shift.”
Another change of subject. Another delay while she tried to process what Cade had just said in the context of their conversation. “Here?”
She lifted her eyes, finding the cruiser at the end of the drive. One of his deputies had been stationed there since she had agreed with Cade’s assessment that running away wouldn’t necessarily put an end to what was happening to Maddie.
“Inside. If that’s okay with you and Miz Ruth. I’ll leave the patrolman out here, but…I’ll feel better if there was somebody in the house as well.”
It wasn’t that she objected to a police presence inside. And there was no one she would trust more than Cade. The fact that he felt the extra protection was necessary frightened her, however. A fear that ate at the sense of safety being in her grandmother’s house had always provided.
“Ruth won’t mind. Not when she understands the reasons.” She was pleased her agreement sounded normal, despite how much Cade’s concern had added to her anxiety.
“And you? Will you mind?”
“I told you. I’ll do anything to protect my daughter. If you think someone needs to be on guard inside, then believe me, I have no objection.”
When Blythe reentered the den, her grandmother was stacking the children’s books that had been scattered over the couch and the coffee table. The little girl she’d been reading them to was nowhere to be seen.
“Where’s Maddie?”
“I told her I thought there were some of your dolls where you found these.” It was obvious the pronoun referred to the books she was still straightening, which had come from a shelf in the basement.
Despite the steepness of the stairs leading down to what had originally been the root cellar, there was no real reason for the rush of fear prompted by the realization that Maddie had gone down there alone. It was the same reaction she’d had to Cade’s announcement that he intended to spend the night here. A response to the unexpected. To the possibilities it suggested.
“You let her go down there by herself?”
“You used to spend hours down there when you were little. I expect, cold as it is, she won’t stay long. Where do you want these?” Her grandmother held out the books she’d stacked, her eyes innocent of the horrors Blythe was imagining.
“Anywhere,” Blythe said. “It doesn’t matter. I’m going to check on Maddie.”
“Oh, dear. Did I do something wrong? You said we should keep her in the house, but the basement is part of the house, isn’t it?”
Blythe was halfway to the kitchen by the time Ruth’s plaintive question was completed. She didn’t bother to answer. Instead, she hurried across the sunlit room with its ever-present fragrance of coffee. She avoided looking at the table where the medium had held hands with her daughter this morning.
“I’ll pray for her,” Tewanda Hardy had said.
Please God she is.
The door to the basement was inside the utility room. Blythe jerked it open and flipped the switch at the top of the stairs. Its light pooled at the bottom, leaving most of the basement in shadows, despite the half window on the opposite wall, a window that had been put in place of the original door to the cellar.
“Maddie?”
No answer.
“Maddie, are you down here?”
By that time she had descended the top three steps, far enough to see the shelf where she’d found the books. The little girl wasn’t there. She turned, her eyes frantically searching the other side.
Her heart leaped in relief. Maddie squatted in the shadows, peering at the shelves that lined the other wall.
“Why didn’t you answer me?”
The little girl turned, her eyes luminous in the dimness. “I was looking for something.”
“It’s too cold to be down here. Come on upstairs.”
“Miz Ruth said there were dolls.”
“Well, there aren’t,” Blythe snapped.
Her terror had been replaced by an unreasoning anger. Anger at Maddie for frightening her? Or at Ruth for not understanding the depth of her fears?
Why should she, when you’ve done your best to keep them from her?
“But Miz Ruth said—”
“If there were any more toys down here, they’d be over where the books were.”
“But they aren’t.”
“Then they aren’t down here. Come upstairs.”
“We could look.”
Blythe descended another few steps. The shelves where Maddie stood were filled with Mason jars, both full and empty. This was her grandmother’s winter pantry, filled with the canned vegetables and fruits and jellies she’d put up last summer.
“Those are Miz Ruth’s. I told you. Any toys would be on the other side. Come on. I’ll show you.”
She came down the rest of the stairs, holding out her hand. Reluctance clear, Maddie finally moved away from the pantry. She put her fingers, which were cold to the touch, inside Blythe’s. With that contact—solid, familiar, flesh-and-blood—a wave of almost physical relief swept through Blythe’s body.
She squeezed the small hand reassuringly. “Let’s look together.”
There was no reason not to satisfy the child’s curiosity. Now that she knew Maddie was all right, Blythe was more than willing to do that. Maybe it would keep her from coming down here again.
There were no toys on the shelves where she’d found the books. Certainly no dolls. Whatever Ruth remembered had at some point been thrown out or given away.
“But she said they were down here,” Maddie argued, despite the evidence of her own eyes. “She said they were the ones you used to play with when you were little.”
“Well, they’re not here now. But you know what? If I played with them all that long ago, they were probably not in very good shape when Miz Ruth put them here. I was pretty hard on my babies.”
“Miz Ruth said you just loved them to death.”
The regionalism jarred. Of course, right now any reference to death would have seemed inappropriate. Used in conjunction with babies…
“Would a new doll do?”
“Do you have a new one?”
“No, but I know where they sell them.”
Something she should have done before now. Despite how tight money was. Despite her original plan to borrow as little from her grandmother as possible. A four-year-old needed more than the bare necessities to provide a sense of normality. She needed things to be normal. And for a little girl Maddie’s age, that meant toys.
When Blythe had selected the few items of clothing she’d bought to tide them through until her next paycheck, she had also picked up a small stuffed bear to replace the one Maddie had slept with. She knew now that she should have added a few more things to her shopping cart that day.
“At the store?” Maddie asked, the hope in her voice heartbreaking.
“You want to go? We’ll have to bundle up.”
“A baby doll just like you had when you were little?”
“With a bottle and everything,” Blythe promised.
The Wal-Mart out on the highway would surely have something that would fill the bill. The deputy on duty in the driveway could follow them. Or he could take them.
First she would have to call Cade and tell him what she planned. Maybe he could come pick them up and take them himself. Or at least meet them.
He wouldn’t understand the necessity for this, but she thought he would acquiesce if she explained. And just the thought of having him there—<
br />
She deliberately pushed the pleasure generated by that to the back of her mind. There would be time enough to deal with her newly discovered feelings for Cade Jackson when this was over.
“But first I have to make a phone call,” she hedged.
“Will it take long?”
“Five minutes. You go get your coat, and I’ll be done by the time you get back. And then—Then we’ll go get you a baby.”
24
“I promised her a doll.”
“You have to know this isn’t worth the risk.”
Cade had tried to be low-key this afternoon, but he’d thought she understood. Whoever killed Abel seemed determined to put an end to any threat of discovery. He couldn’t take the chance the murderer didn’t still see Blythe or Maddie as a danger as well.
“She’s four years old. She has lost everything that ever mattered to her—”
“Except you,” he broke in. “How do you think she’d deal with losing you?”
He heard her exhale, but he couldn’t tell if that had been done in anger or frustration. When Blythe spoke again, however, her voice was less demanding.
“All I’m asking—”
“Is to take her out in a crowd. Wal-Mart will be working, alive with shoppers. You know how fast a kid can get away from you in that kind of situation.”
“I promised her, Cade.”
If he had believed the little girl was spoiled, he might have continued to protest. But Blythe was right. Her daughter had lost everything. Wanting her to have a doll wasn’t unreasonable. He just needed to make that happen without putting either of them in danger.
“What kind?” he asked.
“What?”
“What kind of doll did you promise her?”
There was a small silence. “A baby doll. With all the accessories,” she added quickly.
“What accessories?” He pulled the notepad on his desk closer, writing baby doll at the top of the page.
“You know. Bottle. Blanket. Booties. A sleeper or gown. A passy.”
He struggled to keep up, using his own form of shorthand. He had a vague idea about booties and a sleeper. “What was the last?”
“A pacifier. Doll-size. Usually all that stuff comes in the box with the baby. Are you going to look for one?”