The Kate Nash Series Boxed Set

by Keene, Susan

  “No, you take a glass to the terrace and I’ll run through the shower. I could use a lighter weight shirt and shorts.”

  The walk to the cantina took less than five minutes. A cool evening breeze tickled our faces as we strolled. We ate on the patio. Our meal included fish tacos, Dos Equis, and Sopapillas for dessert.

  The difference in temperature once the sun began to set and the vivid colors of the sky were mesmerizing. After dinner, we took a walk around the square before we headed back to the hotel.

  Ryan excused himself to take a business call from Nathan. I put on a gown and laid on the bed to think. I didn’t remember anything else until morning.

  I woke to the smell of coffee. “Hi, sleepy head. I have coffee here but I couldn’t scare up anything to resemble a bagel. I brought you a Concha.”

  “Um, smells good.”

  “Are you up for a forced vacation?”

  I sat up. “Why? What happened?”

  “Actually, nothing. The only place I could find at the San Ignacio Lagoon that had a vacancy is Camp Pachio. They have a room available tomorrow but it involves sharing a bathroom with several other people. If we wait three days, we can get a small room with a king bed and our own bathroom.”

  “So your plan is to sightsee on the way, right.”

  “Right. The drive to the Lagoon is about one hundred and seventy-five miles. I thought we could drive to Mulege first. It’s eighty-four miles. We can have lunch there and see the sights. Santa Rosalia is thirty-eight miles farther. We can make a reservation there and spend a couple of days. It’s another forty-five miles to San Ignacio. We can stay there a night and then head for the Lagoon. What do you say? Up for the adventure?”

  “Always.”

  He sat next to me on the bed and kissed me. One kiss led to another and we whiled away the morning and most of the hottest part of the day.

  We arrived in Mulege in time for dinner. The hotel sat on the bank of the Rio de Santa River. Before we checked in we ate Chiles Rellenos at a local restaurant.

  The view from our room took my breath away. The Mulege lighthouse sat high above the city. The shadow looked as if it had spilled down the hill in front of it. It was a forty-five-minute walk. In the dark, with our recent history, it didn’t seem like the thing to do.

  Ryan bought a bottle of Adobe Guadalupe. In Mexico, they call their wine, The Drink of the Gods. We enjoyed the view, relaxed, sipped our wine and went to bed early.

  After years on the job as a homicide detective and all the callouts I answered to in the middle of the night, I slept lightly. A presence woke me in the wee hours of the morning. I sat up and hit my head on an object above me. The lamp on the bedside table had been moved. I jumped off the bed to turn on the light in the bathroom and tripped over Ryan’s body. He didn’t move when I kicked him on my way down. My panic level rose as I landed on his cold damp body.

  The lights flashed on and off several times. The light had come from outside since we were on the second floor, the person had to be on or in a building. I tried to get up, but I had hit my knee on the edge of the bed when I fell. It had swelled twice its size in the minute. I hesitated and watched the light.

  I took a deep breath and forced myself to scoot to the bathroom door. I used the frame as leverage to help myself stand. I reached for the light switch and flipped it on.

  A broken wine bottle lay next to Ryan and I could see the dampness on his body came from the wine. He had been hit so hard the bottle had broken.

  “Ryan, Ryan. Can you hear me?”

  Nothing.

  I dialed 0 on the house phone. A Spanish speaking woman answered. “Police! Police!” I screamed. I didn’t hang up.

  While I waited for help I rubbed Ryan’s back and spoke softly to him. I turned my attention to the object over the bed. An oar. The kind you buy a child as a souvenir. In red, the words― Want to take a boat ride? were painted across its length.

  Ryan began to stir and moan. His hair dripped with sweat, his skin was too grey. I tried to turn him over, but couldn’t. Tears ran down my face. I tasted the salt in my mouth. We had underestimated our opponent once again.

  An officer came into the room. “Did this man try to attack you?”

  “No, no. Someone broke into our room and hit him. They also hung that oar over the bed. I patted Ryan’s back. “This is my fiancé Ryan Mead. I’m Kate Nash.”

  The policeman didn’t take his eyes off mine. “Do you know anyone in this town?”

  “No.”

  “Do you know why someone would do this?”

  Yes, I did, but I didn’t intend to tell him anything. Something told me to act as though the intrusion happened to be random.

  I shrugged my shoulders. “Nothing I can put my finger on.”

  “Do you remember having a run-in with any of the locals on your trip?”

  I knelt beside Ryan “No. Can you get him some help? I don’t know how long he has been unconscious and bleeding.”

  “An ambulance is on the way. Things don’t move here as quickly as they do in the US.”

  When I tried to stand for the third time, my leg didn’t want to hold me up.

  The officer, his name tag read, Captain Rodrigues, helped me sit on the bed. “You need to go to the hospital also.”

  Two men came into the room with a stretcher and put it next to Ryan. One of them bent over him, examined his head, turned him over, listened to his heart, and said something in Spanish to his partner. The other man handed something to the medic. He waved it under Ryan’s nose and he stirred. When he did it a second time Ryan slapped it away.

  He had his mouth near Ryan’s ear. “Can you hear me?” Ryan tried to sit but fell back to the floor. “We need to take him to the hospital where we can rule out a skull fracture and observe him.”

  They didn’t wait for permission. They loaded him on the cart and headed for the door. The captain walked over toward me. “Before you take him, have a look at his lady’s knee.”

  “No, no. I can follow and have it looked at later. Just get him to the hospital. I’ll be right behind you. I hated to cry. I couldn’t hold it back. I started toward the door. My knee buckled but Rodrigues took my arm and helped me back to the bed. “What are you doing? I want to go now so I can find out if my fiancé is okay.”

  “I don’t have a problem taking you there, but it would be best if you had more clothes on. My thought is that you would be embarrassed dressed as you are.”

  I had forgotten I’d gone to bed in one of Ryan’s tees and some short shorts I brought for the beach. I slipped on jeans and my own shirt.

  Other police officers came while I dressed. I heard him give them orders. I could only pick out a word here and there.

  The captain drove me to the hospital in his police car. It looked like an ice cream truck with its red bubble twirling and blinking in the middle of the top. All it needed was music.

  He let me sit in the front seat. “Do you want to tell me what is going on? I know it is more than you want to say. The message on the oar was personal.”

  I gave him all the pertinent information about both of us, but I gave him no details on the case we were trying to solve.”

  His next comment didn’t surprise me. “I would like for you to stay in town until we sort this mess out.”

  “I hope Ryan is okay and this doesn’t take long. We have a reservation at Camp Pachio in two days.”

  “So you are here to whale watch?”

  I looked out of the window and didn’t answer. My main objective was to see Ryan. When we arrived at the hospital, he laid in a hallway on the same cart they had put him on in our room.

  Officer Rodrigues guided me toward a row of folding chairs. “Wait here while I find out what they have learned about your fiancé’s condition.”

  I didn’t sit. I limped in behind him. When he stopped I pushed into the back of him. He turned my way and glared at me. “I asked you to wait.”

  I gave him my best flat-eye
d stare. “I know.”

  Ryan looked my way and smiled. The bed held him at an upright angle from which he could see his surroundings. I walked over and took his hand. “I didn’t protect us very well last night, did I?”

  He took my hand in his. “Who was supposed to protect who? They want to do a C-scan on my head. If I don’t have a fracture I can go.”

  I squeezed his hand. “I didn’t wake up. Anything could have happened.”

  “The doctor said he thought whoever did this used chloroform. Not much defense against it. You were out, and I was fuzzy. I heard a sound. I thought maybe an aerosol can had fallen on the valve. The man hit me from behind.”

  “I guess our friend found us.”

  The officer overheard us. “Who is this friend you speak of?”

  We looked at one another. Ryan nodded yes to me. “A young lady’s body, someone presumed dead for the last ten years, showed up on our doorstep.”

  He nodded. “And you believe the same man who hit Mr. Mead on the head and drugged both of you placed the body there?”

  I sat on the edge of the hospital gurney. “Yes, we do.”

  “And do you know the name of the dead girl?”

  “Ivy Tucker.”

  His previously dark face lost some of its color. “I know this case. Your FBI and Coast Guard, as well as the Mexican Police, investigated for months. They declared all persons on that ill-fated journey― lost at sea.”

  He had my interest. “Had you met any of the Tuckers or Michael Mannes and his wife?”

  “I didn’t have the pleasure of meeting the family, but I knew Mannes by reputation.”

  “Can you tell us about him?”

  “Mr. Ryan, Miss Nash. I am supposed to be the one to ask the questions. Let’s get this medical emergency handled, after, we will visit.” He looked at me. “Let me get someone to look at your knee.”

  Ryan pulled me toward him. “This’s getting more serious than ever. He doesn’t have to follow us. He knows what happened, and the where and when. Our nameless man knew the boat came from Smith River, the family was last seen at the lagoon, and he knows what happened to them, maybe not Ivy until he murdered her. Think I should send Jackson back to pick up a few of the men?”

  “The answer lies in how we have approached this. We have been all hush-hush and sneaky. We should bulldoze our way to the lagoon and let everyone along the way know why we are here. Let’s make it difficult for him to get near us. We’ll demand too much attention.”

  The officer came back into the room with a woman in a white coat. “I’m Doctor Martinez, an orthopedist. I’d like to look at your knee, perhaps get an X-Ray.”

  Thirty minutes later we knew Ryan had a concussion, and I had a hematoma under my knee cap. It was the cause of my pain. “Before I release you, I’d like to drain the fluid off your knee. You won’t do any whale watching with the pressure. Trust me, the thought of the needle in your leg hurts much more than the actual procedure. Once we relieve the fluid, the pain will subside. I do suggest you ice it down in the evening.”

  An hour later we were back at the inn. There were no other rooms and the proprietor wasn’t happy about the damage to the one we had been in. Ryan paid him for his trouble, the loss of the room, and a little more. He smiled at us when we left.

  They reluctantly let us have one of the cabins near the beach. The captain assigned two men to watch over us. It was daylight by then, but we needed sleep and had nothing better to do.

  I broke open one of the instant ice packs the hospital gave me and laid it on my knee. I had Ryan turn over and put the another cold pack on the back of his head. We were the walking wounded.

  Officer Rodriguez said he would come back in the evening to talk to us. He emphasized again the need for us to be there when he returned.

  When we awoke several hours later we took hot showers, drank a glass of wine, and Ryan talked to Nathan. I laid on the bed but sleep evaded me.

  Ryan laid next to me with his front side to my backside, which usually made me feel safe. This time it didn’t help. Even though he remained still and didn’t talk, I knew he wasn’t asleep either by the sound of his breathing. I wanted to go over the events of the past two days in my mind. To do that, I needed quiet. His breath magnified in my ear. Instead of slow even breathing, he sounded like a chain saw.

  I fell asleep somewhere in my process of reliving the earlier incident. When I awoke, the darkness of the room signaled the day had moved on. I turned over but Ryan no longer laid beside me. “Ryan. Ryan, where are you?”

  A voice answered me. “Your boyfriend is fine. I gave him a sedative. You and I need to talk.”

  “Who are you?”

  “You know who I am. I am the worst nightmare the Tuckers ever had. I don’t want to be your worst nightmare, but if you don’t go back where you belong, it could happen.”

  “Will you tell me what happened to the Tuckers?”

  “They were whale watching. Three days after that, the boat caught on fire, everyone was either burned or drowned.”

  I so wanted to flip on a light. I had no idea where to find a switch, and I feared if I moved I would not live to tell my story. “How did Ivy survive?”

  “I have no idea. I bet my life she was dead. I am only going to say this once. I know where you live, who your friends are, how much you love that cute little dog of yours, and every other detail I need to put an end to this and go back to my life. This is my last warning. Stop immediately.”

  I didn’t hear another sound, and the heavy weight on my chest eased. For several minutes I sat still. My eyes had acclimated to the dark. No one was there but me.

  Ryan walked in happy and healthy a little while later with a large bag of take out food. “Hi, you look pale, are you okay?” He put the food on the table and came toward me. Tears welled in my eyes and slid down my cheeks. “Did something happen?”

  I didn’t answer him. I ran to him, gave him the biggest hug and slapped him lightly on the chest. “How dare you leave without telling me. After all we have been through, didn’t you think I would be worried?”

  “Honey, when I left you were sound asleep. You didn’t stir. One of the guards went with me to pick up dinner. The other stayed here to watch over you.”

  I stepped back and took a deep breath. “The killer came to see me. He told me he gave you a sedative and threatened to kill all of us if we didn’t stop pursuing him. Are you sure the second guard is out there?”

  “He is. I passed him on my way in. Your guy must have picked the lock on the sliding door. The policeman who went with me was stationed at that door. No one hurt me. I didn’t see anyone out of the ordinary. Sit and let’s have dinner while it’s hot, and tell me all about it. What did he look like?”

  I sat, opened one of the boxes but didn’t take any food. “I didn’t see him. His voice sounded like it came from the bathroom.”

  “What did he sound like? Did he have an accent?”

  “I don’t know. It was a male voice but it was distorted as if he talked through paper or maybe had tape over his mouth. He was hard to hear, but his meaning was crystal clear. He threatened me, you, Amy and Nathan and even Chili.”

  Ryan put both hands on the table and leaned toward me. “Did he mention the murders?”

  “Yes, he said if they didn’t die when the boat caught on fire, then they all drowned. When I told him Ivy lived, he said, I'd bet my life on the fact she was dead. I will not let it be the end of me.

  Ryan leaned back in the chair, and ran his fingers through his hair. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I left you alone. Do you think we should go home and let sleeping dogs lie?”

  “No, but I take back my earlier idea about letting people know what we are doing here. Let’s be your ordinary happy vacationers off on a great adventure to see the gray whales.”

  “Kate, what’s your idea for after we find this man and have him arrested? Do you think you can prove any of it? Most of it is a theory.”

  �
�I have spent my last day without my weapon. I know they are on the plane. Can you have Jackson bring them to us?”

  He stood and stretched. “You can't have a gun in Mexico. If you get caught, they'll say you're guilty and throw you in jail.”

  “Okay, then let’s buy flare guns. I saw it in a movie. They can save your life if you’re lost and will do great bodily harm to your enemy if you shoot him with it.”

  Ryan sat down and pushed the food my way. “That’s positively gruesome. You should eat. You’re not thinking straight. Our best course of action would be to go to the lagoon, join a whale watching tour, discreetly ask if any of the older captains remember the Tuckers, find out what we can, and move on.”

  Initially his comments angered me. I didn’t want to back down. Then I realized it wasn’t only me my decisions affected. “You’re right. Could you call Nathan and tell them to be extra careful and to never leave the dogs alone?”

  “Sure, do you want to speak to Amy?”

  “Not right now, I need to think.”

  He kissed me on the forehead and went into the bedroom to make his call.

  Captain Rodrigues came by early the next day and said there were no clues as to who assaulted us. No one saw the culprit, he left no fingerprints, and the workers and guests, where we stayed, had been accounted for. “You can continue with your whale watching trip. Be careful. Please stop on the way back and check in with me.” He shook both of our hands and turned to leave. He stopped at the door and turned toward us. “The gun laws are strict in Mexico. If you are caught with one, the penalties are dire. I believe it’s why your nemesis uses such strange methods to try to scare you. I trust you are as smart as he and will not bring guns into our country.”

  It was as though he had heard our conversation from the night before. Ryan took a step closer to him. “Captain, we intend to follow your rules. Our goal is to be more aware of our surroundings and the people around us. We will see you when we get back from our adventure at the lagoon.”

  “Vio con Dios,” were his last words to us.

  I turned to Ryan. “He told us to go with God, should we be more worried than we were before?”