A Gift of Bones--A Sarah Booth Delaney Mystery

by Carolyn Haines

  The bar door opened and Cece came in, searching the dimly lit interior until she saw us in the corner. She signaled a waitress as she headed to join us. When she sat down, the lighting emphasized the furrow between her eyebrows. She looked tired and unhappy.

  “We have reason to believe Eve is perfectly fine,” Tinkie said.

  “What?” Cece almost stood up, but I signaled her back into her chair. “How do you know? What did you find?”

  “Hold your horses, Cece.” Tinkie put a hand on her hand. “The waitress is here for our order. We’d like another round, and she’ll have a tequila and grapefruit juice.” Cece looked like tequila was exactly what she needed.

  When we were alone again, we leaned in closer so we could whisper. Tinkie told Cece all about our meeting with the Bromleys and what we’d learned.

  “You should have detained them.” Cece glared at us.

  “Honey, they weren’t going to tell us anything, and I truly believe they don’t know where Eve is. They do know she’s okay.”

  “How do they know that?” Cece asked.

  “Because I believe they know the kidnapper,” Tinkie said. We’d come to the exact same conclusion. “Eve is with someone they know and care about. And to be honest, Tinkie, if we’d detained the Bromleys, it could have gone badly for Eve. It was clear to me they knew about the threat of going to the police. They pretty much dared us to call the law. We could have forced them to stay here, but…”

  “No, you did the right thing.” Cece’s entire body slumped. “I’m not second-guessing you. It’s just that I want her back so much. I have such guilt that I let her slip out of my life and I didn’t fight to keep her in it.”

  I remembered when Cece was going through her surgeries and the changes that had taken such courage. She’d been part of the Delta elite families and heir apparent to the Falcon land and money. When she’d decided to transition, she’d lost everything, including her family. “You had all you could manage just to get through each day, Cece. You can’t blame yourself for this.”

  “But I do.”

  There it was, the guilt we all shouldered even when we shouldn’t.

  “Cece Dee Falcon, you stop this right now.” Tinkie was hot under the collar. Her face was beet red, and she was almost hyperventilating she was so angry. “Eve made her choices. She was in a bad place with those scoundrels she calls her parents. They’re about as loving as cornered honey badgers. But that wasn’t your fault. And it wasn’t Eve’s fault that she lost touch with you because her parents disapproved. It’s just a fact. And she moved on with her life the best she could—just as you did. No one is to blame. The important thing is that we are all here, right this minute, doing everything we can to see that Eve and her baby are safe. That’s the only thing that matters. The past is done and gone.”

  I wanted to applaud, but I settled for holding up my glass for a toast. I took a swallow of the fresh drink and stopped. “This is tea,” I said. “It isn’t Jack.”

  “I know,” Tinkie said calmly, reaching over and taking it from my hand. “I’m driving, remember? I’ve been in enough hot water with Oscar. If he has a clue I’m drinking and driving he’ll have a conniption fit.”

  I couldn’t argue with her logic, so I kept my lip zipped and took a long swallow of Jack from my actual glass that burned nicely going down. I was glad Tinkie was a responsible driver. “Cece, you had some news,” I said. “Spill it?”

  She looked so miserable, I wondered what could have gone so wrong.

  “I got the ransom call. They want me to deliver the goods tomorrow at ten o’clock in the evening.”

  * * *

  “Coleman, Oscar, and Harold will all be busy at the church Christmas pageant,” Tinkie reminded us and gave Cece a big smile. “See, it’s going to work out. We’ll deliver the money and get Eve and go straight to the hospital. I’ll have Doc on call for us.”

  Doc always had our physical health in the forefront, but I doubted he would be so agreeable to being manipulated. I blew out a breath of air. “Where’s the drop?” I asked.

  “Upriver from here,” Cece said. “I used Google Earth to find it and it’s pretty isolated. We won’t be able to pull any tricks. It’s a narrow road in and only one way out.”

  “Which shows the kidnappers know this area like the back of their hands. They’ll have the advantage. What we have in our favor is that if we get Eve back we don’t care about the money,” Tinkie said. “They can have it. We just want her and the baby to be okay.”

  “It’s a lot of money.” Cece was clearly upset. “A lot. How will I ever repay Oscar?”

  “Some things aren’t worth worrying about right now, so let’s not worry. Will they call you with instructions tomorrow?”

  Cece nodded slowly. “How can I be sure Eve is even still alive? I know to ask for proof of life, but what would that be?”

  “A photo holding today’s paper,” I suggested. “Or her saying something that happened in the news this morning on the phone. Or if they let you talk to her, have her answer a question only she would know the answer to. They couldn’t fake that. She’d have to be alive.”

  “She is alive,” Tinkie said with such certainty. “Look, the Bromleys went to a lot of trouble to try to alleviate your worries. The whole purse thing was a ruse to let you know she was still alive. I know this may sound radical, but they seemed to be following a good impulse. They didn’t have to call you about the purse, but they did, to let you know Eve was okay.”

  What she said was true, but assigning noble motives to kidnapping conspirators seemed like a risky business. Those who abducted people for ransom were not good people. The goal here, though, was to reassure Cece. “Tinkie could very well be right. So the money drop is tomorrow. How are we going to manage that without alerting Oscar, Coleman, and Harold? The only reason they’re playing a part in the production is because we pushed them into it and insisted. If we aren’t at the church for the Christmas pageant, they’re going to know we’re up to something.”

  “Good point,” Tinkie said. “But we can’t let Cece make the drop by herself.”

  That was out of the question. “Anyone have a plan?” I asked.

  12

  Silence settled over the table and I heard an old classic country song I’d loved for years. “Put your sweet lips…” Jim Reeves sang. “We’ll Have to Go” was the title. It brought back a lot of memories of winter nights when Cece was Cecil and we’d gathered in the enormous third-floor ballroom of the big Falcon home for get-togethers and high school gossip fests. Even then, Cecil had been one of the girls, a friend who had real elegance in helping us dress and do our hair. No one knew what to call his difference—or cared to call it anything. He was Cecil Falcon, a little eccentric but so smart and always kind. He was merely our friend. While his mother made pizzas or coke floats, we’d raided his father’s record collection for those golden oldies. Good memories.

  “Earth to Sarah Booth!” Tinkie waved a hand in front of my face. “Are you formulating a plan or tripping through a daydream.”

  “Memory Lane,” I said. I reached across the table and grasped both their hands. “We’ve been through a lot and survived. All of us. We can’t forget that or let despair stop us. Together we can make this right.”

  “What memory are you visiting?” Cece asked. “The time you and Coleman blew up the high school chemistry lab with some wild ass concoction you’d made? Everyone knew it was you but the teachers didn’t want to believe Coleman was involved with it. Funny how no one really came to your defense.” She grinned wickedly. “You were trouble from the get-go.”

  “We didn’t blow up the chemistry lab,” I corrected. “There was only a slight explosion. Yes, some beakers were broken, there was a small fire, and Mr. Bryant evacuated the entire school because he thought the mix of chemicals and flames would blow everyone to Mars.” I had to defend myself, and Coleman, though it had been his idea to make sure we got out of school a few days early for Christm
as holidays. “No one was injured.”

  “Not true! Not true!” Tinkie crowed. “Mrs. Bradley, the Spanish teacher, had heart palpitations and had to be rushed by ambulance to the hospital. The principal called all the students that took chemistry into his office, one by one, and gave them a spanking.” She skewered me with a look. “And not a one of them tattled on you and Coleman.”

  That school year I was on my last chance. If I’d been reported, I would’ve been expelled. My friends had stepped up for me. “It wasn’t that bad. It was a minor explosion.”

  “You singed Betty Sue Olty’s hair completely off. She was bald for weeks.” Tinkie was trying not to laugh. “Who knew Coleman would grow up to be the sheriff and you a private investigator?”

  “The explosion was an accident. We honestly didn’t plan it.” They all teased me about deliberately blowing up the lab, but in truth, that hadn’t been my intention. I’d meant only to generate a lot of smoke so that we could rush out of the building like in a fire drill. The ultimate goal was to avoid a test just before the holidays and to start the holidays a few days early. For the last day of school before Christmas holidays and before I was expelled, I’d been a high school hero. Then I’d been caught. Expulsion loomed, and worse than that Aunt Loulane would have been heartbroken. Luckily I’d negotiated a deal for leniency before I admitted my sins.

  “You never let on that Coleman was involved,” Cece said. “You loved him even then. You took the whole rap for him.”

  I smiled. “I don’t know that I loved him. His father would have hurt him. I knew Aunt Loulane would be ‘disappointed’ but not violent. I’d survive with little cost. The same couldn’t be said for Coleman.”

  Tinkie looked dreamy eyed. “Cece is right. Even then you had a thing for Coleman and everyone knew it but you two. I remember that Christmas. Squatty Mayfield had that big Christmas party and her friends smuggled in a lot of liquor. Folks got really drunk. She’d set her cap for Coleman, but he escaped with his honor.” Tinkie laughed. “She offered to pay me to get you drunk and out of the way.”

  “Coleman wasn’t…” I didn’t finish. The truth was, I’d shared a slow dance with him that left me tingling and disturbed. I was innocent and hadn’t known what to make of my reaction. And he’d lurked in the background after that dance. He watched me, but he didn’t ask for another dance. He didn’t try to talk to me. I’d flirted with some of the other boys because I didn’t understand why he was so stand-offish.

  “And remember that night we all went caroling.” Cece grinned wickedly. “Coleman was your shadow, and you didn’t even notice. He followed you everywhere you went, like he was guarding you.”

  “It was a long wait, but now she’s making his Christmas bells jingle!” Tinkie cleared her throat. “Fa-la-la-la-la, la-la-la-la!” She hit the last la with a high note that stopped all conversation in the bar. “Sorry, my friend was remembering a Christmas encounter with the man of her dreams,” she said to a lot of cheering and clapping. “She’s really learned how to ring her boyfriend’s holiday bells.”

  Cece stood up and lifted her glass. “To good friends and hot sex.”

  As much as I wanted to throttle them, I couldn’t help laughing along with them. It was the first time I’d seen Cece happy since Eve had gone missing. There were possibly some hard days ahead, so it was good enough to just let them have their fun.

  We’d strayed far afield from a plan to go with Cece to make the money drop. And I motioned them back to their chairs. “Okay, here’s the plan. Cece, if you’re determined to do this without Coleman’s help, which I advise against, here’s what we can do.”

  They both drew closer, and I lowered my voice. “We’ll meet at the Christmas pageant, and we’ll each leave to go to the ladies’ room about ten minutes before it begins. The men will be busy with makeup and costuming, and that’ll be our best chance to leave without them. They’re going to dim the house lights while the pageant is being performed. The men won’t know we’re gone until the show is over and the lights come up. By then we’ll have Eve.”

  “They’re going to be very angry.” Tinkie was solemn. Oscar put up with a lot from her, but this was a straw that would weigh very heavy on the camel’s back.

  “I know.” Cece’s features had fallen back into the lines of worry that had drawn harsh furrows between her brows and at the corners of her mouth. “I’m so sorry to put you in this place. I am.”

  Tinkie shook her head. “This is part and parcel of friendship. Don’t be sorry. You’d do the same for me or Sarah Booth. The men would do it for their friends. It’ll just take a little while for them to see that.”

  I wasn’t so certain Coleman would forgive me, but as Tinkie noted, it wasn’t a choice for us. Love was a peculiar beast, and life tested it all the time. I didn’t want to deceive Coleman. My fondest wish would be to spend the evening at the Christmas pageant watching the three most important men in my life pretend to be wise men in the telling of the birth of baby Jesus. But my friend Cece was in a desperate place, and the least I could do was be with her. Torn between two loyalties was a truly unpleasant spot to be in. We left Odell’s with the outside Christmas lights pulsing red, green, and white to Brenda Lee’s rendition of “Rocking Around the Christmas Tree.”

  On the way home, I called Coleman to let him know I was headed to Dahlia House and to invite him for a sleepover. I couldn’t stop the excitement that swept over me when he agreed. After my breakup with Graf, I’d really thought I’d be alone. If not for the rest of my life, at least for a good long time. Now, I would celebrate Christmas with a man who was as deeply rooted in the Delta soil as I was. My mother had never really talked to me about true love or marriage. I was only twelve when she died. But she had shown me about the things in life that were real and how even when she was mad at James Franklin, as she called my daddy, that she always respected him. “Respect is what lives through the hard times,” she’d said. I’d always respected Coleman because he had no bluster, no need to be the big man in anyone’s eyes. He owned the ground he stood on. I wanted him to view me the same way.

  In half an hour, I pulled into Dahlia House with Sweetie Pie and Pluto. The night was crisp and my breath fogged when I exhaled, but it wasn’t a bitter night. The damp had stayed behind near the river. Instead of going in the house with Pluto, Sweetie bayed her long, mournful howl and set out around the house. Slightly concerned, I followed.

  The light in the barn was on.

  The hair all over my body stood on end. Who the hell was in my barn with my horses? I slipped back to my car and got my gun out of the trunk. I’d started carrying it only a few cases back—after I’d come close to death. I wasn’t a terrific shot, but I was good enough to protect myself. If I had to.

  I eased from shadow to shadow, edging closer to the barn. I heard nothing from inside except the snuffling of the horses and the stamping of their feet. They should have been out in the pasture, though. Not in the barn. They only came in to eat unless it was raining or snowing. I moved to the crack in the doors and peeped into the interior. All three horses were in stalls munching hay.

  I hesitated, trying to decide how to handle this. Before I could do anything, an arm slipped around my waist from behind and a hand went over my mouth. “Be very still,” a man whispered in my ear in a strange raspy voice.

  I wanted to ask him what he wanted, but I couldn’t force words past his palm. And he held me very tight. Too tight. So tight that I felt something quite alarming pressing against my hips. I tried to turn around, but he wouldn’t release me.

  “Be still,” he whispered.

  Not a chance. I stomped his foot as hard as I could. Because I was wearing my paddock boots, I could put a lot of force into that maneuver.

  “Hey,” he sputtered, turning me loose.

  I whipped around, gun drawn, ready to plug the deviant. “Coleman!” I was surprised. “You were disguising your voice!”

  “Just a little fun,” he said, hopping o
n the foot I hadn’t stomped. “Damn, I didn’t think you’d cripple me.”

  “You molested me!” I saw the humor in our peccadillo, but I wanted to keep him on the hook a little longer.

  “No, I merely apprehended you. It’s not my fault you’re a sexy beast. Your body communicated with my body, and … well … nature took its course.”

  “What are you doing out here in the barn?” Coleman was an accomplished equestrian, but he didn’t hang out in the barn on dark winter nights.

  “I thought we might go for a midnight ride. Maybe go to some nearby houses and carol.”

  “You have heard me sing, right?” No one ever wanted me to carol. Even humming was forbidden by my crew.

  “It’s the thought that counts, Sarah Booth. You don’t claim to be Judy Garland.”

  That was an odd choice of singers. She’d been one of my father’s favorites. “Over the Rainbow” was a song he often sang walking around the farm. I looked at the horses. Reveler and Lucifer were already saddled and waiting. Coleman wasn’t playing around.

  I whistled up my hound. Sweetie Pie would be devastated if I left her behind. “Let’s ride!”

  The moon was full and bright as we led the horses out into the yard. I climbed up on Reveler while Coleman mounted Lucifer. The fiery Andalusian was a perfect match for the wicked glint in Coleman’s eye.

  The farm fields were fallow. Away from the pastures I’d cut out for my horses, the land was wide open, without fencing. There were trails around the fields that farm vehicles traveled when the lease holder, Billy Watson, plowed and planted. The heavy equipment had packed the earth so that the trails were solid footing for the horses, and the moon gave plenty of light—enough to cast shadows. As we set off at a trot, our black silhouettes followed, giving me a sense of how so many things in my life were like shades that followed behind me.

  As Coleman leaned into Lucifer’s mane, giving the signal to gallop, I had no time to worry about the past tagging after me. I embraced the moment, leaning forward in two-point and giving Reveler his head. He surged forward, taking the lead from Lucifer and Coleman. And the race was on. As Lucifer drew abreast of me, Reveler shortened his stride.