Stevie rubbed her tired eyes. “Well, wait a second. Why the heck would she drop the baby to you and then come here and leave you a clue? To what end? Maybe I’m just clouded by my grief about handing over Hardy, but I don’t understand where you think she wanted this thing to go.”
As the wind picked up and the pampas grass bent, blowing back and forth, I knew in my spy gut we were on the right track. “I’m betting she left the baby at our door because she had a plan, Stephania. Maybe she’d drop the baby with me so I could look after him until she could figure out the next half of her journey? Maybe shake her father and his goons from her caboose long enough to hatch a getaway plan? So, she drops baby Hardy with who she thinks will be me, assuming I’m alive and well, and then she comes here to leave me the next clue to her whereabouts, avoiding traceable calls, computer use, etcetera.”
Now Stevie’s eyes opened wide and she began to pace in the way that had become all too familiar to me when she put things together in her brilliant mind. “Now, that does make sense. But how does the bald goon fit in? Why did he tackle me when we went to talk to Sunflower and Leaf Blower? Did he catch Inga before she had the chance to drop the baby? Because that can’t be right, Win. They saw them in the Moo Barn just a couple of days ago. If he was a goon of her father’s, how did she get away from him?” And then her face went pale and chalky with fear. “Did she get away from him? Oh, Win…”
“Let us look at timeline, malutka. Inga drops baby off that night after she and big bald man go to Moo Barn. Maybe she is crying because he’s captured her—”
“But would he take them out for a burger if he was supposed to bring Inga and the baby back to Von Krause? Being out in public is surely a big risk, don’t you think?”
“Good point,” Arkady said. “Okay, so maybe he is not bad guy after all? Maybe he helps Inga and baby make getaway. Let us consider this. Maybe bald man brings Inga and baby to burger house to eat. Maybe Inga is upset because she will have to leave baby with Win. Maybe she drop baby at door and come here to put clue for Zero somewhere. But! She is caught, but bald man manage to get away? This explains why he is in Seattle and brings car back?”
Stevie nodded as she walked her way back over the rocks and grass toward the old mill with a determined stride. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but that makes total sense, Arkady. Total and complete sense. So, c’mon. Let’s go back to the mill and look again. Maybe we missed something—some corner, some nook or cranny.”
Upon entering the darkened mill, crumbling in areas, Stevie looked around. “Okay, if I were a clue from Inga, where would I be?” she asked, kneeling on the ground and looking under a heavy, charred table with only two remaining legs. She blew a strand from her hair. “Do you suppose she’d write a note, or would she leave some other kind of message? Anything you can think of that she might leave here, like an object, or a personal item that would help you figure out where she meant to go after she’d dropped off Hardy?”
“I can think of nothing, Stephania.” Yet, my chest grew tighter than tight. I knew we were onto something.
Stevie rose and continued along the long length of the burned mill. Truthfully, there really wasn’t much to see. There was no equipment left, nothing that said this had once been a wood mill; the ceiling had missing portions of the roof where the sun peeked in, as did the walls. The floorboards were all but gone in most areas, leaving nothing but a dirt floor littered with old timber, beer cans and takeout boxes from the local teens who must come here to party.
Still, as Arkady and I followed, Stevie walked the floor carefully, pushing the dirt and debris around, while her eyes scanned everything.
Circling back, she heaved a sigh and shook her head, walking backward and looking up as she did. “This place is virtually wiped out, Win. Like, there’s nothing here,” she complained, her arms spread wide. “Believe me, I’d like for something to be here as much as the next person. Then I could keep my sweetface from the system—”
“Stephania!” I yelled as she tripped over a dip in the ground and fell square on her backside, directly beside an old length of wood.
“Ugh!” she yelped as she smacked the hard dirt, kicking up dust, but she leaned forward instantly to examine what had tripped her.
She cocked her head as she looked at the piece of old wood. “Guys…” she murmured before moving the wood with a grunt and using the heel of her sandal to kick at the spot it had partially covered. Instantly, she was on her knees, brushing the dirt away, her eyes wide. “Look!”
Arkady and I both looked at the spot where a very clear outline of a circle appeared. “What is it, malutka?”
Stevie rapped it with her knuckle and yelled, “It’s made of wood! Like a trap door!” Bracketing it on her hands and knees, she banged on the surface with the heel of her hand. “Is anyone down there?”
“Maybe it’s just a cellar of some sort, Stephania?” I suggested.
She looked upward and bobbed her head. “You bet it’s a cellar, and what might be hidden in a cellar?”
“Vodka?” Arkady asked.
She rolled her eyes and wrinkled her nose. “No! Maybe there’s a clue from Inga down there, Arkady. I should have paid better attention to see if the dirt had been disturbed. Now I need something to pry this open.” She looked around at the abandoned space, and then her eyes lit up. “My umbrella! It’s in the back of his stroller in the car. I brought it to Carmella’s the other day when the forecast called for rain.”
She ran to the car and got the umbrella, yanking it out with a triumphant smile. “Hah! Now hang on just a second while I try to pry this thing up.”
Taking off her pale blue sweater and dropping it on the ground, she stuck the silver tip of the umbrella under the round piece of wood and jammed the handle with her hands, smiling when the wood stirred. “Just a couple more tries,” she grunted, as she dug the tip of the umbrella in farther, “and I think I’ll have it.” The moment she said the words was the moment the round disc popped up. “Flashlight. I need some light. My phone!”
“Stephania, do be careful. From here, it looks quite cavernous.”
She flapped a hand at me, impatient because she had a mission. “Yes, yes. I’ll be careful,” she said, digging her phone from her back pocket and pressing the app for the flashlight. “Here we go. Now, let’s see what’s down there.”
We all leaned forward at the same time, curious to see if there was any merit to her thought, when Stevie gasped. “Holy cats, Win! Do you see? Arkady? Do you see what I see?”
My jaw swept to the floor.
Right there, on the dirt floor of the cellar, was a lump slumped against the wall, tied up with rope and duct-tape.
Stevie’s hands shook when she asked, “Is that her, Win?”
I couldn’t tell with any surety. This was definitely a woman, and she was definitely in quite a predicament, but I couldn’t see her face well enough to make a positive identity. “It surely looks like it, but I can’t tell for certain, Dove. It matters not who it is, we must get them out!”
Stevie was already on it, putting one foot into the dark hole.
“Should we not call police, buttercup? This is looking bad, don’t you agree? If that is Inga, why is she tied up in hole? The police can help, da?”
“No! If this is really Inga, case solved and no one has to know anything. She can take Hardy and run and Von Monster will never know. I just don’t know what’s going on yet. I don’t think this is the kind of clue she meant for us to find, but I have to find out. Maybe the bald guy’s on a break from hostage watching? Went to grab lunch? I don’t know, but no police just yet if we can avoid it. Just let me get her out of there. It’ll be over in a jiff and we’ll put her in the car and get the heck out of here.”
Neither Arkady nor I liked her answer, but which one of us can use a phone to call the police ourselves?
Neither of us. That’s who can use a phone.
I’ve only just recently been able to open the fri
dge and shut a door—and even those acts are iffy.
Stevie sat back down at the rim of the hole, put her toe on the first step and shone the light into the darkness. “Inga? Inga, is that you? I’m coming. Just hang tight!”
As Stevie descended the narrow, rickety stairs, their creaking and moaning making both Arkady and I wince, she gasped again. “Inga? Inga, answer me! Oh, good gravy!” She paused, and there were rustling sounds before she said, “She’s really tied up here, guys! Hang on, Inga! I’m coming.”
As Stevie moved to the shadows, we saw only her hands holding the phone for light, and then we heard her feet scurrying about as she worked to untie the woman, talking to her the whole way. “It’s going to be okay, Inga. If that’s who you are, anyway. Just let me get…this!” she yelped on a grunt.
Then we heard a patting noise as Stevie presumably tried to rouse the woman from an unconscious state. “Please, please, pleeeease wake up, lady. That’s it!” she shouted in triumph. “Open your eyes and look at me. Look at me. No, don’t—!”
We heard the hard smack of fist connecting to jaw and then a shriek of pain. “Get away from me!” a female voice cried out.
Then we heard Stevie groan. “Staaaahp! Stop hitting me! That hurt! I’m trying to help you here! Put your dukes away!” she bellowed as she scuffled about to a spot where we couldn’t see her. “Just let me explain!”
“Who are you, fraulein? What do you want?” I heard the hysteria in the woman’s voice, and I also heard the faint German accent.
My ears perked and my smile grew. Inga! Finally! I realize it’s only been a few days, but it feels as though a bloody eternity has passed.
“Listen to me!” Stevie demanded, moving closer to the steps where we could now see her once more. “I’m here to help get you out of here. I’ve been caring for Hardy…er, your baby, since you dropped him off at my doorstep.”
“Your doorstep?” Inga shouted, hysteria in her tone. “That’s not your house! That’s the home of Crispin Winterbottom. What are you doing in his house?”
Now Stevie groaned again, and I knew she’d have to come up with some kind of story to tell Inga regarding how she knew me, and about my past with Inga.
“Please, if you’ll just come up those stairs with me, I’ll help you get away from your father. That’s whom you’re running from, right? I know all about it from some letters and phone calls Winterbottom and I shared a while ago. He left me his house. So please, come with me. I promise I’m not here to hurt you.” Stevie held out her hand and offered it to Inga.
Inga’s face appeared in the light of the phone, clear, beautiful as always, her wild eyes taking in the scene. “Who are you? Where is my baby?”
Stevie gulped, and I knew tears weren’t far. We’d met our objective, but that objective meant Hardy would leave. “Please. Come up to the mill with me. I’d never hurt you or the baby. I swear it. You have to believe me.”
Tears slipped from Inga’s eyes as she took Stevie’s hand and allowed her to lead them up the stairs.
And that was when everything went off the rails.
Chapter 15
As they rose upward, Inga climbing out first, her sundress in red and gray covered in mud, the residue of duct-tape on her mouth and at her wrists, she blinked, adjusting her eyes to the light.
Stevie popped up afterward, her eye black and blue from Inga’s fist. She winced, pushing the slab of wood back over the hole before she turned to Inga, her eyes imploring. “I’m Stevie Cartwright. I live in the house that was once Win…er, Crispin’s.”
Inga’s dark eyes went wide as she backed away. “Did you purchase this house from him?”
Stevie brushed the dirt from her clothing and shook her head, tucking her phone in the back pocket of her shorts. “No. We were…old friends.”
Inga’s eyes went wider still. “Were?”
Ah, my sweet Inga. I’m so sorry I wasn’t there for you. I wanted to speak, but I knew it would only make this harder for Stevie.
Stevie reached out a hand and squeezed Inga’s shoulder, her eye getting more swollen by the second. “I’m sorry to tell you, but Crispin is dead, Inga. He died more than a year ago, and because we were such good friends, and I needed a place to stay, he left me his house.”
More tears slipped down Inga’s face. “No,” she whispered, her voice shaking. “No. I can’t believe he’s gone. He was going to marry that woman he loved so much and live in that house. He was so…in love. He was going to leave the…” She paused, as though catching herself before spilling a secret. Then she refocused a tentative gaze on Stevie. “Did you know he was a…”
Stevie folded her hands in front of her and looked directly into Inga’s chocolate-brown eyes. “A spy? Yes. And I know about you, too. He told me just before he died that he’d brought you to see the house. It’s quite different, now that I’ve remodeled. Anyway, he said you had a hand in his decision to leave MI6 forever. He called me just afterward, and said he’d made that very decision when the two of you came here and took a walk along the cliffs and argued over spinach—which, if you’ll recall, he despises.”
“Well done, Dove,” I praised.
“I didn’t know,” Inga whimpered, closing her eyes and taking long breaths. “I’m so sad I didn’t know.” Then she really looked at Stephania, as if seeing her clearly for the first time. “Where is my baby? My Sebastian?”
“He’s safe, I promise you. I’ll bring you to him right now, if you’d like. You just have to trust me, and I know that’s a crazy thing to ask of you at this point. But all I have is my word I knew Crispin and your baby’s as perfect as the day you left him on my doorstep.”
Still, Inga hesitated, but Stevie smiled with her warm grin. “Win—that’s what I call…er, called Crispin—he once said your husband wasn’t a very nice man, and your father was—”
“An ungeheuer! He is a horrible, horrible man, and I was running away from him. With—with—Olaf… As her words drifted off, she seemed to realize she’d forgotten something as horror spread over her face. “Oh no! What’s happened to my Olaf?”
“Olaf?” we all asked out loud.
Inga began to crumple again, her eyes refilling with tears. “He is my lover,” she said quietly, her gaze pointed at her feet, but only for a moment before she looked at Stevie, her eyes full of pride. “Olaf is the father of my little Sebastian. We were running away from my husband and my father. We had a plan, but one of my father’s men almost caught us. So we became afraid for his safety. Then I remembered what Crispin said to me before he…died. What he told me to do if I needed him.”
“Yes. Win mentioned that, Inga. He told me he said you could count on him if you ever needed anything,” Stevie said in that warm way she had with people that always left them reassured.
Inga swiped at her tears, lifting her chin. “Late that night, I bring the baby to Crispin with the note to watch him so we can have time to make a new plan. But they caught me here when I was leaving another note for Crispin, and shoved me down there—they left me to die! Die as though I wasn’t his flesh and blood! But my Olaf got away! He promised to get the baby and run as far away as he could if we were separated.”
I can’t tell you how thankful I was the baby wasn’t Gerhard’s. Forgive me, but it makes it so much easier to continue to despise him.
“Inga, listen closely. Is Olaf bald and really, really big? Wears a leather jacket?” Stevie asked, her eyes hiding the concern I knew she felt.
She pushed her heavy hair from her face, a surprised look in her eyes. “Yes! Yes, that is him. How do you know him? I don’t know where he is or if they catch him like they catch me!”
“I don’t know where he is either, but he was here in Ebenezer Falls for sure. He was also in Seattle, but never mind all that. Let’s get you back to the house and see what we can do to find out what happened to Olaf, and to keep you and the baby safe while we do it. Okay?”
But Inga began to back away again in fear, clearly unsu
re if she should fully trust Stevie.
Stevie held up her hands and stayed rooted to the spot. “It’s okay, Inga. I swear, I’m a good guy. Win would want me to help you. Let me help you and the baby. Please?”
“Inga!” someone roared from the entry to the mill.
All eyes swung around to see who was stomping their way into the space when someone else yelled, “Inga! Run away!”
“Olaf?” Stevie muttered under her breath.
Just as Gerhard Nurnberger and Heinrich Von Krause appeared, the former holding a gun to Olaf’s head.
Inga cried out, turning to run, but tripped on the round disk of wood she’d been hidden beneath in the cellar. She stumbled and fell to the ground on her knees.
“Stephania! Tell her to stay put. Don’t run. Please tell her not to run!” I ordered, looking to Arkady, who went exceptionally pasty for such a hardy fellow. Von Krause wouldn’t hesitate to gun her down. I’d seen it many times before, and it was ugly.
Stevie had nothing but her grit to keep Inga safe. No weapon, nowhere to run. It was open hunting season for Von Krause if she tripped his very loose trigger.
Stevie scrambled to the ground and helped Inga to her feet, touching her arm. She fiddled with something for a moment, something I didn’t quite catch, her back to Von Krause.
“Don’t move, Inga. Stay behind me and don’t move,” she whispered. Then she tucked Inga behind her, turned around, and stared at one of the evilest men I’ve ever known as though her were nothing more than an annoyance.
Lifting her chin in that “you can’t keep a good woman down way,” she stared at Heinrich Von Krause. “Hey, you heathen! Pipe down!” she said with clenched teeth and wild eyes as Inga trembled behind her.
“Who are you?” Von Krause asked in slow, enunciated words, his eyes narrowing to dark slits in his large, almost square head.
“Who are you?” she retorted, pushing Inga farther back toward the entrance to the mill, driving her thumb into her back pocket.
Ain't Love a Witch? (Witchless in Seattle Mysteries Book 6) Page 15