by Kym Roberts
“The second and third place runners-up will receive an autographed book from Ms. Barton and the fourth and fifth place runners-up will receive a piece of book art from the Book Barn Princess.”
Liza Twaine dug her heels in. “What kind of book art?”
“I’ll have to leave that up to my daughter Charli Rae and her partner Scarlet, they’re the artists behind the pieces.”
Fuzz buckets.
Two cameras turned in our direction, Liza wasn’t about to turn more than her microphone since she was using a tripod. I waved, Scarlet smiled, and then put on the show she was so good at. She oozed Southern charm. My charm never developed.
“O.M.W. Y’all, we’ve got an incredible selection and the winners will be able to choose which piece they would like. If you’d like to see some of it, walk into the Barn and get a taste of the world of books.”
Penelope took charge once again. “If I could have everyone’s attention up here. The important thing about the Book Seekers, is that it gets our young people interested in books. They’re looking for and getting a taste of how books relate to the things and places in their lives. What could be better than that?”
Several people in the crowd who were regular customers at the Barn nodded, and some of those who weren’t seemed to agree. It was encouraging.
Penelope continued. “Now, on the count of three, we’re all going to download the app and become Book Seekers. Is everyone ready?”
Several people dug out their phones from pant pockets, purses, and backpacks and located the app on their device. They appeared to be ready to download the app. I was amazed that they all wanted to participate. Including Liza Twaine and Oscar Sanchez.
Penelope started the countdown. “One.”
“Two,” Jamal counted off.
Penelope and Jamal paused and smiled as everyone looked up in anticipation. “Three! Download the Book Seekers now…and look out Hazel Rock, the Seekers have arrived.”
Everyone in the crowd began to chatter, the noise rising and signaling an end to any questions the media may have had. Then suddenly they scattered in all different directions. Scarlet and I looked at each other and headed for the Barn.
Only time would tell if the Book Seekers would come in and purchase the books they sought.
Chapter Eight
I used to eat lunch surrounded by a bunch of five- and six-year-old kids who knew nothing about manners. After leaving my job as a kindergarten teacher, I found I didn’t miss watching kids pick their noses for dessert. I liked sitting across a table from an attractive man who didn’t talk a lot, but was a great listener.
Lunch at the diner was becoming a habit for me and Mateo. Scarlet had her appointment book at Beaus and Beauties filled beyond capacity with all the women in the county trying to look their best for the upcoming holiday parties. She was going in early and working late to cover the demand, and hadn’t been able to meet us for the past couple weeks. Dad had been insisting I needed time away from him and the store, and today, my aunt and cousin had insisted on working at the store with him. So, it was just the two of us munching down the homestyle cooking at the diner.
Make that one of us eating the greasy, fried, and completely delicious food. Mateo had a salad and a glass of water while I worked on meatloaf, mash potatoes, creamed corn, and warm cornbread with honey butter dripping down the sides. It was enough food to feed me for lunch and dinner.
“Have you learned anything about the shooting or Jamal getting run off the road last night?” I asked.
Mateo shook his head, then took a drink of water before he answered. “We know it was a forty caliber handgun, and from the way you described the smoke inside the barn, the shooter had to be standing right outside the store.”
“There’s no video?”
“Scarlet’s camera system is down. It’s the only one in town that gets the front of the Barn. Maybe you should consider installing a set of your own.”
I was about to answer when my phone buzzed and I grabbed for it, hoping it would be Ms. Barton’s assistant, agent, or, if luck were on my side, Ms. Barton, herself. The last thing I needed was for our bestselling author to back out of the book signing after she heard about the shooting at the Barn.
“Hello?”
“Charli?”
“Yes.” I didn’t recognize the voice or the unknown number on my phone.
“This is Penelope Calloway. I know this might sound stupid, but are you acting out scenes from Waxing Moon?”
“Excuse me?”
“Do you have actors recreating some of the scenes of the books at the locations of the clues?”
“No, you just gather each clue and let it lead you to the next location. Why?”
Penelope’s breath hitched. “You’re sure?”
I wasn’t quite sure why Penelope was confused since Jamal had explained everything about the Book Seekers and the promotion before she agreed to do it. “I’m sure, Penelope. There’s no way we could keep up with that. Why do you ask?”
“You’re not playing a joke? A hoax? You wouldn’t trick me, would you, Charli?” Her voice sounded desperate, almost like she was hoping I would say it was all a big game. But it wasn’t. This was Jamal’s baby and he took it very seriously. There were no jokes when it came to his Book Seekers app.
“Penelope, what’s going on? The app is a business venture for Jamal, and he’s got it geared toward helping the Book Barn Princess bring in a profit.”
“Holy mother of God.” Penelope’s voice became ragged with panic. Branches broke in the background, her footsteps heavy, and I suddenly wished she were the one playing a joke. But she obviously wasn’t.
“What’s going on, Penelope?” I asked as I held up a finger to Mateo who’d suddenly lost his appetite for grilled chicken salad.
“I…need…help…”
“Where are you?”
“I…was…just following…the clues…”
“Penelope, where are you? Mateo’s with me.”
A scream filled with terror and panic echo through my phone, so loud it hurt my ear and put me in a panic. Was I listening to Penelope being attacked, hurt, injured…or worse, killed?
Mateo grabbed his phone and started talking to someone on the other end, something about triangulating Penelope’s phone.
“Penelope? Penelope!” I tried to maintain my composure, but my voice was going into kindergarten teacher mode, demanding Penelope listen to me no matter what her distraction. It worked.
“Charli…” she panted.
I hoped her heavy breathing was from exertion, not a heart attack or a dying breath. “Where are you, Penelope?”
“I’m…down at…Rock Creek Park.”
Bless her heart, she was trying to sound calm and collected, but the sounds she was making made me want to jump through the phone and grab her.
“Are you all right? Is someone trying to hurt you?”
“I…I fell, but I’m…okay.”
I started to sigh with relief, but Penelope grunted like she’d just lifted a tree off her body and I knew she wasn’t okay. She was far from okay.
“Has she given her location yet?” Mateo asked.
I shook my head. “Just that she’s at Rock Creek Park.”
“Push her for more.” Mateo turned back to his phone, relaying the information to someone on the other end.
I kept my focus on Penelope. “I need to know where you are.”
“I’m…at clue number…nine.”
“Clue number nine?” I had no idea what clue number nine was, or where it was located. I grabbed my purse and pulled out my iPad to look up my Book Seekers app. When the screen flashed open, my hopes dropped. I hadn’t gone past clue number 3. “Where’s clue number nine, Penelope?”
“Rock Creek Park, behind…oh, Lawd…I can’t remember the shelter house number.”
She was moving, but not as quickly as she had been before she fell, yet her breathing seemed to be getting worse. I covered the mouthpiece to my phone and updated Mateo. “She doesn’t know the shelter house number.”
Mateo grabbed my arm and yanked me from the booth. Somehow, I was able to grab my purse and my iPad before we ran for the door of the diner. This was Cade’s mom, a woman who was always kind and thoughtful, not to mention a pillar in our community. She’d taken her given name of Penelope Southwark Allerton and turned it into her calling before she’d even married J. C. Calloway. The woman had invented the PSA for the residents of Hazel Rock. From early on in her teens, she’d recognized her status in the community as a wealthy heiress and had used it to improve social awareness on so many public behaviors and issues.
It’d been Penelope who listened and used her position as the mayor’s wife to give me a voice when I was a little girl pushing to have all kittens brought into the local pet shop to be spayed or neutered before they were sold. Together, we’d reduced the stray cat population in Hazel Rock. That was when I became a blip on Cade’s radar. At the time, I was just a pushy little ten-year-old girl, but he’d noticed me.
Her husband, however, thought I was a pain in his backside. A pushy little girl who had no right to put her nose in our town’s government business. He’d put on a show of compassion for his wife and son, and even the public. But I’d seen his eyes roll like marbles in his head one too many times that summer. J. C. Calloway did not like me one bit.
Penelope, on the other hand, adored me, and she was loved community-wide. She was the Barbara Bush of Hazel Rock in looks, manners, and the respect she received. And at the moment, I was the one listening to that strong, forceful, but warm-hearted woman, who sounded weak and scared out of her mind.
The car doors had barely slammed closed when Mateo revved the engine and roared west down Main Street toward Rock Creek Park.
“Put it on speaker so I can hear what she’s saying,” he ordered.
I didn’t argue. I pushed the button. “Penelope, we’re on our way, okay? Stay on the line with me. Can you sit down and rest? Just stop moving and catch your breath?”
“I can’t.”
“Why can’t you?”
“Because he’s…he’s dead.” The pause in her speech wasn’t from trying to catch her breath, it was a sob that threatened to break her.
I hid my fear for her and tried to make my voice sound steady, while at the same time fearing she was talking about Cade’s dad being dead. J. C. was getting up there in age and he was high-strung. It wasn’t out of the realm of possibility that he’d had a heart attack. “Who’s dead, Penelope? Talk to me.”
“I don’t know who he is…just some man…with an ax in his chest.”
“An ax in his chest?”
I caught the quick snap of Mateo’s head in my direction out of the corner of my eye, as he tried to convince someone on the other end of his phone to track Penelope’s location.
“Yes, there’s a man with an ax. In. His. Chest.”
“Are you sure he’s dead?”
“Of course, he’s dead, Charli!” Her voice was muffled, as if she was cupping the phone and her mouth with her hand.
“Who killed him?”
“I don’t know…that’s why I’m running…for my…life!”
“Okay—”
Mateo interrupted. “Penelope, it’s Mateo.”
“Sheriff? Oh, thank heavens!”
“Listen to me—did you see any other cars parked near the shelter house?”
“No. No I’m sure there weren’t…any. I was excited…I thought I was getting the Book Seeker clue…before anyone else.”
“Can you see your car now?”
“Yes…but it’s still a little way off.”
“You don’t see anyone around it?”
Penelope began whispering. “Oh, my Lawd…you think he’s…waiting there for me?”
“Chances are, whoever did that has left the area, but I want to make sure,” Mateo explained.
“Oh, okay…” A tinge of resignation registered in Penelope’s voice, as if she was prepared to meet her maker.
“Penelope, I want you to get in your car, and drive to the ranger station. I’ve got two deputies headed in your direction, and I’m about five minutes away.”
“Oh, my…”
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“My car…my car has been—” Penelope’s voice suddenly disappeared. No more heavy breathing. No more sobs. No more crunching leaves in the background. Just silence.
“Penelope?” My heart lurched with her silence.
“Penelope, can you hear us?” Mateo asked, but the buzzing sound of the line going dead filled the patrol car, and Mateo flipped on his siren.
There was a killer on the loose, and Cade’s mom was out there—alone with an ax murderer.
Chapter Nine
Mateo pulled onto the road to the park, gravel spraying and rebounding off the wheel wells, the siren blaring so loudly, I could barely think. Which was a good thing, I didn’t want to think of the possibilities.
The police radio squelched, “Radio 233 to Radio 1.”
Mateo grabbed his mic. “Go ahead for one.”
“She’s not here, boss. The car is in the lot…it doesn’t look good.”
Mateo’s face hardened as we traveled through the park. The trails we passed were empty. The playground abandoned. Everyone was in school or work…except Penelope, and she was nowhere to be found. Mateo turned off his siren and we pulled into shelter house number seven—lucky seven.
It didn’t seem so lucky now.
Another police car was parked in the lot with a white, four-door Cadillac I recognized immediately. It’d always been pristine. Today, however, the shine was overshadowed by a huge spiderweb crack snaking across the windshield and the rear window. Dark jagged edges could be seen on the side windows where the tinted glass had been broken. Tiny crystals of broken glass scattered across the parking lot reflecting the sun. Even the hood and trunk hadn’t gone unscathed. Dents littered the body as if an angry mob had attacked the empty car.
Mateo pulled to a stop next to the uniform officer who I’d seen on numerous occasions. I didn’t know him, but I knew Mateo thought highly of the young man barely old enough to wear a badge.
“No sign of her at all?” Mateo asked as he got out of the car. I closed my car door and scanned the area, hoping to see a glint of white-gray hair peeking from the woods.
“Sorry, sir. I haven’t had a chance to start a canvas yet. I just got here and found the car.”
“Let’s get three more cars out here. We’re going to start a search. We know that she was close so we should be able to find her. But she also said there was a dead body in the woods. If you see any kind of sign of a struggle, I want the scene protected. We don’t know what we’re going to run into, so we need to watch our backs and make sure we use our officer safety. I don’t want anyone else getting hurt. But our first priority is to find Penelope Calloway. Understood?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Charli, I’m going to give you some crime scene tape. I want you to block off the entrance to the shelter house. I don’t want any other cars coming into the lot. Understood?”
I lifted my chin. “Then I’m going to help you search for her.”
“No, you’re not. She said there was a dead body in these woods. I’m not taking a chance with you getting hurt.”
“You can’t stop me from searching for Cade’s mom. I’m going to help.”
“Charli, please don’t become part of the problem. I need the tape up. And I need you back in the car where you’ll be safe. You can use the radio to communicate with me if you need to. But otherwise, I need you to stay off the airwaves so we can get the search going.”
“But—”
“No buts, Charli.”
Mateo went around to the trunk of his vehicle, grabbed the flashlight, and handed me a roll of yellow crime scene tape, the same kind that had been wrapped around the posts in front of the Barn the night before.
I seemed to be a magnet for crime scene tape since my return home—like it was part of my destiny in Hazel Rock.
I heard Mateo order a canine unit along with several other cars to come help with the search. Then he and the young officer headed into the woods. Within sight of each other but off the main path, they searched the woods while calling Penelope’s name. Between their calls silence filled the air. I hate silence.
I did my job and blocked off the entrance to the shelter house, which really wasn’t a shelter at all. It was four posts holding up a roof over a slab of concrete that had four picnic tables, which were in turn chained to the posts so thieves wouldn’t load the eight-foot tables in the back of their pickup trucks. I wrapped the yellow crime scene tape around the base of one tree on one side of the drive then crossed the driveway to attach it to the sign that said Shelter House Seven on the other. My line was uneven, and my tape was twisted, but there was no doubt that it blocked off the scene of a crime, and I wondered how long it would take before it attracted the attention of the media. There was no doubt in my mind they’d heard the radio traffic. It was only a matter of time before they came knocking on Mateo’s crime scene door. I turned around and headed toward Mateo’s car but found I couldn’t open the door.
Not because it was locked, it wasn’t. I just couldn’t make myself sit idly by while Penelope was out there—somewhere—and it was my fault. My fault that she’d stumbled across a dead body. My fault that she’d ran and became a target for a killer. My fault that her car was completely destroyed. I could not sit by and wait for them to find her. I had to help.
Conscious of the fact that Mateo did not expect me to be in the woods and not wanting to get shot, I began shouting for Penelope just as Mateo and the officer were doing. I took the path that was leading east and the first time I called out to her, there was silence throughout the woods. I knew Mateo was cussing me, infuriated by my need to help. He waited the allotted amount of time before he called out to Penelope and then the young officer called. All our calls were met with silence and my fear began growing. I couldn’t help but think of Penelope with an ax in her chest.
