by H L Bur
“To be fair, I think he and the chief were just concerned. It’s kind of cute, in a way.” After seeing my scathing glare and feeling my wrath turn in her direction, she added, “In a horrible, deceiving, what a jerk sort of way.”
I nodded my approval of her amended statement.
“And on my birthday?” I was seriously ticked. I paced back and forth throughout the living room, trying to gather my thoughts and blow off some steam.
Finally, I paused. “What does Elias Rhodes have to do with this?”
“I don’t know, but there’s one way we can find out!”
“How?”
“Duh, ownership of property is public record. We should be able to look it up online and find out what properties Rhodes owns.”
“Genius. Pure genius!”
Chapter Twelve
Ξ
I was determined not to let Fletcher Collins ruin my day, so I shook myself out of my slump and decided to go for a short jog. I quickly changed into my black joggers, a black tank, and my black Nike’s. I felt like going dark this morning, still not completely over my confrontation with the Detective. Yeah, we were back to that.
I couldn’t bring myself to jog back by where I had found Sofie’s body, so instead of going my usual route, I decided to take the abandoned railroad bed that ran through our property and ended at the stony lakeshore. The trail was overgrown and stray branches clawed at my legs as I jogged by, slowing me down some. It was a short mile round trip so I would still have plenty of time to get ready for the second day of Autumn Fest.
The cool morning air felt good as it hit my lungs with each breath. The sun was already starting to peek out from behind the gloomy skies, so I knew it would shape up to be another beautiful day. With how warm it had been for late September, we Michiganders wouldn’t know what hit us once the snow started to fly.
I reached the stony shore fairly quickly and picked my way over the larger rocks to the small clearing of beach. This area was pretty heavily wooded and the way the shore curved inland, it was impossible to see farther up the shore in either direction. It was like our own little cove. I walked slowly, catching my breath. I reminisced about all the times I had walked with my grandpa down to this very spot as a child. I was lost in thought, focused on the thousands of small stones along the beach. My stepsister, Morgan (Kurt’s daughter), loved to collect beach glass and various stones, so sometimes I would keep an eye out to see if I could find a piece that would interest her.
As I walked along the small beach, something else caught my attention out of the corner of my eye. I neared the object and bent down to take a better look. It was wet and soiled with sand, so it was hard to make it out at first, but then I realized it was a woman’s scarf, plum in color with a small white and pale blue flower print. This beach was so secluded I had a hard time believing someone had been here, although the scarf could’ve easily blown in or washed ashore. Even knowing the latter was more likely, something was bothering me about the scarf, but I couldn’t place my finger on it. It was like something was trying to come forward from the back of my mind, but my conscious thoughts wouldn’t let it. I wasn’t sure why, but I picked the scarf up and wadded it into my hand. I glanced around one more time, but didn’t see anything else that felt out of place, so I started back home.
I was caught up in my thoughts on the way home, pondering about all of the different mysteries that were weighing on me. Were they all connected or just coincidences? The bottom line was that Quinn and I needed to do some research, but with how busy we were for Autumn Fest, it was next to impossible. We needed to find out more about Sofie Grant, the identity of the Mystery Man, what property Elias Rhodes owned and how he fit into all of this, who Rose and Dawn were and how they are connected to Mystery Man, and obviously what was going on at the sawmill. It was enough to make my head spin. I was so wrapped up in my thoughts that I initially assumed I had tripped over a branch. I went flying face first onto the narrow grassy trail, my head landing inches from a good-sized rock that definitely would’ve done some damage had I hit it. I pushed myself up quickly, rolled to a sitting position and looked around for the offending branch. That’s when I noticed there was a thin piece of twine tied taut across the trail, secured around two tree trunks on either side of it. I jumped to my feet and whirled around, scanning the woods. I didn’t see anyone. I walked closer to the twine to study it better. I was sure this hadn’t been there on my way to the shore, although it was tied low enough that it was possible I could have jogged over it without tripping if my steps were timed just right. I scanned the woods again, but didn’t see any movement. I untied the twine from one of the tree trunks and let it fall to the ground so no one else could get hurt. I hesitated and then decided to bring that home with me, too. For one, I didn’t want to litter, especially in my own woods, but there was more to it than that. The twine made me feel uneasy and something in my gut told me to take it with me. I felt like I was being watched. I quickly knelt to untie the second end of the twine from the other trunk, scanned the woods once more, wiped the mud off of my leggings, and continued on my way.
I entered the house through the back door, which opened to a small mudroom. I instantly smelled pancakes and bacon. My mouth started watering as I dropped the twine and scarf at the back door and made my way up the hallway toward the kitchen. Quinn was dishing up two plates of the mouthwatering breakfast as I walked into the kitchen.
“Oh my gosh, that smells amazing!”
“Thanks! It’s your birthday breakfast.”
“And that is why you are my best friend.”
“I know.”
Uncle Bernard had always made us monogrammed pancakes in the shape of the letter of our first name when we were little and Quinn had carried that over into adulthood, so I had a giant C-shaped pancake, while she had a giant Q.
“What happened to you?” Quinn looked me up and down, noticing my mud covered workout clothes.
“Let me go clean up, I’ll be right back,” I hollered back as I shot up the stairs.
I quickly rinsed off. The water stung my knee and I looked down, realizing that I had a huge scrape from when I had fallen. I finished showering and threw on my bathrobe and headed back downstairs, getting to my breakfast while it was still warm.
“Oh my God,” I said through my mouthful, “so good!”
I scarfed down my breakfast and took a long sip of my coffee.
I then recounted my jog to the beach, the scarf I found, and the twine tripwire that I fallen over. I took a bite of crispy bacon and got up from the table.
Quinn furrowed her eyebrows as I showed her the items I found. “Well I just walked that trail a few days ago and I can guarantee you there was no tripwire setup then. That’s definitely weird, but who would go out there? Wouldn’t someone have had to trespass on our property to tie that up out there?”
“Well there is Winterberry Lane. Someone could have entered from there, but they would’ve had to hike through some pretty dense trees to get to the trail that way.” When turning from Old Maple Way onto Elderberry Lane, you could curve to the right to stay on Elderberry, or go straight onto Winterberry Lane, a small dead end street that ended by the woods just west of our house.
“That seems like an awful lot of work for a stupid prank. I’m not convinced. But I can tell you that scarf looks like the one Rose was wearing yesterday.”
I inhaled sharply. “I knew it looked familiar! What the heck? How would her scarf have ended up way out there?”
“We have some serious digging to do,” Quinn reflected, “although, it could just be a coincidence.”
“Maybe Gigi saw someone on our property. Maybe that’s why she was grilling us last night,” I offered.
“Well, she’s M.I.A right now, and probably wouldn’t offer to help us anyway.”
“True.” I rolled my eyes. “Well, I suppose we need to get ready and go set up our booth. I have to say, for as excited I was about Autumn Fest this year, I can’
t wait until it’s over.”
“Same here,” she agreed. “Hey, maybe we can get Sam to run the booth today while we do a little digging.”
“I thought about that, too, but I feel like we already have her do so much.”
“I think she likes to stay busy. Besides, she’s always willing to earn some extra cash. I swear that girl is going to have her whole college paid for by the time she even gets out of high school,” Quinn remarked.
“Good for her! I’ll be paying on my student loans for the next ten years! Let’s ask her if she wants to work the booth and we can offer her extra, but if we get the sense she doesn’t want to, we won’t push it.”
“Deal.”
Twenty minutes later, we were dressed and headed into town. Apparently I was the designated driver until Quinn’s ankle healed, but I didn’t mind. In fact, I enjoyed driving; it appealed to the inner control freak in me. We parked behind the bookstore and entered through the back of the building. Sam had agreed to run the booth for us, but couldn’t get there until lunchtime, so we gathered up our cooler full of display items and made the three-block trek to the Town Center. Quinn must have been feeling a little bit better today because she didn’t ask me to drop her off at the park, although I could see that she was still limping.
We had no more than gotten to our booth when none other than Joy Rhodes strode up to us. Her nose was stuck slightly up in the air as she strutted toward us, swaying her hips exaggeratedly. She reminded me of the Siamese cats in Lady and the Tramp.
“Maybe if we pretend we don’t see her, she’ll just keep going,” Quinn muttered under her breath.
I didn’t reply, but immediately started playing along, refusing to make eye contact. A few very short seconds later Joy was standing in front of our booth.
“Ahem.” She cleared her throat in a desperate plea for our attention.
I refused to look up, but I knew Quinn had given in when Joy spoke next.
“Hi Quinn. How are you?” she asked in a high-pitched singsong tone.
She is seriously the worst, I rolled my eyes to myself.
“I’m great! How are you, Joy?” Quinn purposely raised her voice to a singsong octave to match Joy’s.
I risked a glance at her. Her short blonde bob with her round face, her watery brown eyes and her smug looking grin were enough to send me over the edge.
“I’m so good, thank you for asking. I’m sure you’ve heard I got engaged last month.” She stuck her left hand out to show off her ring.
This time I actually scoffed out loud in addition to my eye roll. What? It was an accident.
“Oh, I hadn’t heard,” Quinn lied. “Congrats.”
I was able to hold in my outburst this time, but just barely. I was fighting back a laugh thinking back to when we had heard the news of Joy’s engagement and Quinn spent a whole weekend eating ice cream and pondering what was wrong with the universe when a stuck up snob like Joy Rhodes could find someone to love her, but it seemed like we were both destined to be single and alone forever. She ultimately decided that Joy’s fiancé must be a sad, unsuspecting schmuck and we should feel sorry for him. Either that, or he was a martyr.
“Oh thank you! You know he’s a doctor,” Joy gushed, still wiggling her ring finger in front of us. “I picked out my wedding dress last week. It is the most beautiful gown ever made. I don’t think there is any dress out there that could ever top it.”
“Wow, that sounds great. So happy for you. Hey, how’s your dad, Joy?” Quinn switched tactics and I could see the gears turning in her head.
“I’ll be sure to get your invitation to you. I wouldn’t want you to miss it for the world. I’m sure you can guess it’s expected to be the social event of the year,” she rambled on, so wrapped up in herself that she either didn’t hear Quinn’s question about the welfare of her father or she had just decided to skip over it.
Okay, now I was seriously getting ticked. She said the like thee. I wasn’t sure how much longer I could take it.
All I could think about was the time a few years back when Joy was my patient in the ER. She was there to be admitted for a minor surgery and unfortunately for me, there were no available beds on the surgical floor, so she was being held in the ER until a room opened up for her. She was using her call light every two minutes for the most trivial things. A patient in cardiac arrest was taken into the room next to hers and my colleagues and I were performing CPR trying to save the patient’s life and she kept pressing her call light and hollering out for me. As soon as we had stabilized the patient, I went to see what she needed. “It’s about time,” she had said. “I need my pillow fluffed and a warm blanket. And for goodness sakes, can you guys keep it down over there? How am I supposed to get any sleep around here?”
It was all I could do not to strangle her with the cord of her call light. The memory infuriated me all over again and I was jolted back to the present. “Is there something we can help you with?” I suddenly cut in. Shit, I had lost it.
She had the audacity to look affronted.
“Oh…well…no dear, I was just stopping to say hi and see how Quinn was doing.”
“Really? Because it seems like you just stopped by to flaunt and gloat.” Shoot, once I got started there was no stopping me. “You’ve always thought you were better than us, Joy. Let’s just drop the ‘oh I’m so nice and innocent and perfect’ act, okay?”
A few people from surrounding booths started to stare in our direction, wondering what the fuss was about.
Joy’s mouth dropped open and she tried to say something, but inhaled at the same time and ended up making some guttural noise in the back of her throat. She bit her bottom lip in worry and it looked like she was fighting back tears. Crap, now I felt bad.
I was about to apologize when she turned on her heel and strutted back the way she came.
I went to call out to her, but now I was the one that made the guttural sound in the back of my throat.
“You’re brutal.” Quinn eyed me with surprised interest. “Don’t get me wrong, that was awesome,” she added.
Tears stung at the back of my eyes. I didn’t feel awesome. I felt hostile and frustrated and shameful all at the same time. I shouldn’t have gone off on Joy like that. No matter how infuriating and stuck up she could be, I considered myself to be above cheap shots.
I blinked my tears away and shook my head to pull myself together. What I needed to do was get to work. I busied myself setting up our display for our booth and set out our raffle box. It was then that I suddenly remembered Quinn’s idea to get Rose’s number off of the raffle ticket she had filled out. I quickly upended the small box and started digging through the tickets, looking for her name.
As I was flipping through the little blue stubs, I came across a folded piece of white paper. Thinking that was slightly odd, I unfolded the paper. Written in large black marker in all capitals were the words ‘STAY AWAY, THIS IS YOUR ONE WARNING’.
I gasped and dropped the paper.
“What’s wrong?” Quinn glanced my way.
I picked up the paper with a shaky hand and handed it to her.
“What the heck?” Quinn quickly snatched the paper out of my hand.
I looked around the festival to see if anyone was watching us.
“Who could’ve put that in there?” Quinn puzzled.
“Do you think Joy put it in there as a warning from her dad?”
“I think it’s too hard to say. There have been a lot of people around the booth. It could’ve been anybody.”
“Ugh, you’re right. I feel like every time something happens we’re just left with more questions and we aren’t getting any answers.” I let out my frustrations with another groan.
I dug through the remaining tickets until I finally came across one with Rose scrawled across the top of it with an out of area phone number. I let out a sigh of relief. Maybe we would catch a break after all.
Chapter Thirteen
Ξ
Sam showed up around noon to take over at the booth. We handed her an extra forty bucks for covering us, but she waved us off. She had brought a friend, so I felt better that at least she would have some company. I pressed her to let us at least buy their lunch so she begrudgingly accepted a twenty. Before Quinn and I left the Town Center, we stopped at the taco truck to grab some lunch for ourselves. We were both starving so we ate as we walked back to the bookstore. The shredded beef in my Mexican bowl was the perfect amount of tangy and sweet and I savored every bite. Quinn polished off her street tacos as we approached the front door of the bookstore.
I unlocked the door and we stepped inside. A chill went up my spine and I shivered. I felt like we were being watched, but there was clearly no one in the shop but us. I shook the feeling off as we each grabbed our laptops and settled into two overstuffed lounge chairs in the café. Henri quickly trotted over to me and hopped up next to me.
“Hi my little princess.” I gave her a quick head scratch. She let out a satisfied mewl and curled up next to me.
“Okay, we need to go about this as efficiently as possible. Do you want to start by digging up Elias Rhodes’s property records and I’ll try to find Sofie Grant on social media?”
“Yup, sounds good.” Quinn nodded.
Before pulling up my social media accounts, I decided to try calling the number Rose wrote down on her raffle ticket. I pulled the blue slip of paper out of my jeans pocket and punched in the number on my cell phone.
“Hmm, that’s weird.”
“What?”
“It rang once and then went right to voicemail. Aaannnddd the voicemail’s not activated…of course.” I sighed as I hung up the call.
I tried one more time and the same thing happened.
“Ugh!” I dropped my phone and rested my head in my hands out of frustration. I lifted my head up and typed the phone number into the search engine. I attempted to do a reverse phone search on the number, but all that came up was that it was a cell number from Grand Rapids area.
“Okay, so we know that Rose and Sofie, and probably Dawn, are all from the Grand Rapids area. Not a whole lot to go on, but maybe it’s a start,” I said aloud, more to myself than to Quinn, but she gave me a quick grunt in acknowledgement while keeping her head buried in her own laptop.
