Changing Fortune Cookies

by P. D. Workman

  “Then… you don’t think she planned to hold Joshua for this long?” Mary Lou asked.

  “No. She had it all planned out. We know it wasn’t a spur-of-the-moment thing, because she called in the change order to the Quiki before she took him. She had a plan, and she followed through on it. Only… he should have been released by now. Two days, three, you don’t plan to kidnap and hold someone for any longer than that, right?”

  Cam’s words echoed in her ears.

  The longer you hold someone, the more dangerous it is.

  Campbell looked at the hospital. “So why are we stopped here? You don’t think Joshua’s in there, do you? That she’s a nurse, or that she would bring him here if he got sick? Kidnappers don’t do that. If something happened to him… she would just run.”

  “Without her money?” Erin shook her head. “We thought it wasn’t about money, because she didn’t ask for a ransom. But she’s waiting for the money. She thinks that Deidre is going to die and she’s going to inherit.”

  “You don’t get money the day after someone dies,” Mary Lou said dryly.

  “No. And if you’ve been through a death in the family like that, you know that. But does Kim know that? Or maybe she’s gotten Deidre to put everything in their joint names, so that they don’t have to probate. So as soon as Deidre dies, it is automatically Kim’s. She can cash out and run, and send us a message about where to find Joshua.”

  If she was smart enough to figure out that the contest had been laundering money, then she was smart enough to know how to get around waiting for weeks or months while Grandma’s estate was probated.

  “And you think her grandma is in there?” Campbell finally made the connection. He looked at the lights still on in the hospital. “And Kim is just waiting for her to die?”

  “Or maybe trying to help her along,” Erin agreed. It happened. People did things to speed up the inheritance process.

  “But there wasn’t anything wrong with Deidre,” Mary Lou dismissed. “If she was dying, then how would she make the ice cream that won one of the prizes?”

  “It only took a day. She wouldn’t have needed a lot of energy for that. Or maybe she didn’t get sick until after she won the prize money. After Kim decided that she wanted it.”

  They traipsed into the hospital. Erin was sure that visiting hours were probably over. But she had a few tricks up her sleeve. She had worked in hospice before.

  She approached the main reception desk and spoke very quietly to the nurse situated there. “We’re here to see Deidre Robinson. Is she…” Erin raised her eyebrows and hesitated awkwardly.

  The nurse recognized the signals. Rather than objecting that she couldn’t give them any information, she tapped the name into her computer and glanced over the records. “Deidre is still with us,” she relayed back in a whisper.

  “I’m sorry we’re so late. We just got the call yesterday that she might not make it… we’ve been driving for seventeen hours…”

  The nurse nodded understandingly. She picked up a slip of paper and a pen and wrote the unit and room number. “You just go down that hallway,” she explained. “Take a right and go all the way to the end. There’s another desk for the unit nurse there. She’ll show you to Deidre’s room.”

  “Thank you so much.”

  Erin turned to Mary Lou and Campbell and whispered to them. “We got here in time. It isn’t too late.”

  They all hoped that it wasn’t too late for Joshua too.

  Erin led the way down the corridor. When they reached the Palliative Care unit, the lighting was dim, as Erin had pictured it. There was an air of quiet expectation about the place. A portal between life and death. Erin didn’t usually believe in an afterlife. But when she was in a place like that, when she watched a soul transition from life, that was when she really wondered if there was a place for the person’s consciousness to go afterward.

  Erin flashed the slip of paper with the room number on it at the unit nurse. “We’re here to see Deidre. Do we just go in? Is it okay?”

  Neither nurse had even bothered to ask if they were related. Anyone who came to say goodbye to a dying patient was family.

  “Just over there.” The nurse in a pink smock smiled and pointed. “Third door down. She’s sleeping comfortably right now.”

  This time it was Mary Lou who took the lead. Erin and Campbell followed.

  Chapter 44

  Erin could vaguely remember the white-haired woman smiling on the contest poster. She had seemed bright and vibrant. Matronly, friendly, the kind of person that would have made the perfect grandma in a commercial or family movie.

  That woman was gone.

  Deidre’s hair had yellowed and thinned, as had her face. Her wrinkled cheeks were sunken in, and there was no evidence of the warm pink blush she had worn the day of the contest. Her eyes were closed, the sockets around them appearing bruised. No machines were beeping loudly or monitoring her vital signs. Her breathing was shallow and somewhat labored. Stopping and starting again in an irregular rhythm, so that Erin didn’t know when to expect the next breath, if at all.

  Mary Lou sat down in the chair right next to the bed. She took Deidre’s hand and squeezed gently. “Deidre? Mrs. Robinson?”

  Deidre stirred. Erin was surprised. She had thought that Deidre was too far gone, that she was in the last sleep of her life and they wouldn’t be able to rouse her again. She had seen that state enough times.

  “Deidre? It’s Mary Lou Hensley, Mrs. Robinson. Do you remember me?”

  Deidre’s head moved back and forth and her breathing seemed to grow louder and more strained. Erin bit her lip, worrying that waking Deidre now was going to be too much of a shock to her system and they would only hurry her demise.

  “Deidre.” Mary Lou gave the older woman’s hand a little shake. She patted Deidre’s cheek. Not slapping it, just patting it, hopefully enough to arouse her one more time. “Deidre, I need your help. Please.”

  Finally, Deidre’s eyes cracked open. Her irises were dark, it seemed like her eyes were very distant. Erin didn’t know if she could see Mary Lou.

  “Who is there?” she asked unsteadily.

  “My name is Mary Lou. I went to school at the same time as your daughter Rosalie. Except I went to Bald Eagle Falls. We played Whitewater in the girls’ basketball playoffs. Do you remember that?”

  “We won,” Deidre recalled, her mind much sharper than Erin had expected. “Rosalie was on the team that year. She got twelve points in that game.”

  Mary Lou laughed. “Yes. She did. Well, I wasn’t on the Bald Eagle Falls team, but I was watching. I remember Rosalie.”

  Deidre licked her lips. Her mouth stayed partway open and Erin knew it was dry. She was dehydrated. They hadn’t put her on an IV—no lifesaving measures. There was a cup on the side table. Warm water that had probably been sitting there the whole day. Erin reached around Mary Lou to pick it up and gently put the straw to Deidre’s mouth. “Do you want water?”

  Deidre sucked. Just a little sip of water. Not enough. Deidre nodded her thanks. Erin went into the tiny bathroom and found a washcloth. She got it wet and squeezed it out, then returned to the bed. She sponged Deidre’s dry lips gently. Deidre smacked them together a few times.

  “Where is Rosalie?” she asked.

  “Rosalie isn’t here,” Mary Lou told her. “Has Kim been in to see you?”

  “Oh, yes.” A little nod. “Kim has been here. She’s a good girl, Kimmy.”

  “I’m glad she’s been visiting you. Does she take care of you?”

  “Yes. Yes, Kimmy is a good girl.”

  “Does she give you your medications?” Erin guessed. “Or bring you food?”

  “Sometimes she brings me soup. Like the chicken soup I used to make her when she was a little girl.” Deidre’s mouth moved, remembering it. “She’s a good cook, but she doesn’t get the soup quite right. Not quite right.”

  Erin wondered what Kimmy was putting in the soup.

>   “Is she coming back today?”

  Deidre’s head moved as she looked around the room. Trying to orient herself as to date and time, probably. Or looking to see if Kim were already there.

  “No, it’s late,” she said finally. “She must have gone home to sleep.”

  “Where?” Mary Lou leaned closer. “Did she go back to the farm?”

  “No…” Deidre’s voice was soft. Not uncertain, exactly, but trying to remember the details. “We left the farm a few years ago. We needed to be in town. Here.”

  “What street? Do you know the address? We should go and see her.”

  “She’ll be back in the morning.”

  “But we should see her tonight. Can you tell me where she is?”

  Deidre closed her eyes and snored slightly. Talking required too much energy. She had done well to even wake up and remember those details in the first place. Very well.

  She was holding on better than Kim had expected her to.

  They went back out to the unit nurse’s desk. Erin put down the piece of paper with the unit and room number, and snagged a pen from the nurse’s pen cup.

  “I’m so glad we got here in time. We should go see Kimmy, see how she’s holding up. I wrote down the address when she called me, but everything has been so crazy in the rush to get here.” Erin opened her purse and pulled out a stack of notes written on various types of paper. Her purse was always a mess. “It’s in here somewhere, but…” she paused, blinking rapidly, leafing through the notes. “I just can’t find it. Maybe I threw it out. I honestly don’t even know how we made it here…”

  The nurse took the pen and paper and handed her a tissue from the box strategically placed on her desk. “There, dear, let me just write it down.”

  “Thank you. I think right now I would forget my head if it wasn’t screwed on tight.”

  “It’s a very difficult time for family members. Don’t be so hard on yourself.”

  “Is she okay?” Erin looked back toward the hospital room where Deidre was once more sleeping peacefully. “She didn’t look like she was in a lot of pain.”

  “No, that’s all managed. We don’t let them suffer. Our goal here is to make them as comfortable as possible until the end. It’s very important for our families.”

  Erin nodded. She remembered what it was like. Once an elderly person reached a certain point, it was more important to give them painkillers than to extend their lives.

  The nurse slid the paper back to Erin. “There you are, now. Bless you for coming to see her. I’m sure she knew you were there, even if she didn’t wake up.”

  Erin didn’t tell her that Deidre had woken up, and even talked to them.

  “Thank you for taking such good care of her. Nurses are guardian angels without the wings.”

  The nurse smiled appreciatively. “You take care now. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  Chapter 45

  They went back out to the truck and got in. Mary Lou looked at Erin.

  “Guardian angels without the wings?”

  Erin hesitated. “Do guardian angels not have wings? Did I mess that up?”

  Mary Lou chuckled. “Just don’t expect to hear something like that from an atheist.”

  Erin shrugged. She could feel herself blushing and was glad that it was now fully dark so that Mary Lou couldn’t see it. “People still like to get compliments. As long as it makes her feel good, I don’t see the harm.”

  “I just wouldn’t expect you to use that form of compliment.”

  Erin glanced back at the hospital. “I’ve worked in end of life care before. People say lots of religious things, even if they don’t believe it. It’s kind of expected. I guess being there just brought it back.”

  Mary Lou nodded and didn’t say anything else about it. “So… are we going to Kim’s house?”

  Erin looked at her and glanced back at Campbell. “It wouldn’t hurt to drive by there, would it? Just get the lay of the land? I know Terry wouldn’t want us to talk to her, but we can look, can’t we?”

  Erin remembered visiting Theresa; she, Vic, and Willie going out there to see if she could answer some questions and find out if she had seen Terry and Detective Jack Ward. That had been a mistake.

  It had been terrifying and led to their being held at gunpoint and Erin being injured, but they wouldn’t have found Terry or been able to save Jack if they hadn’t done it. So in the end, that had been more important than what they’d had to go through. She couldn’t imagine what life would be like if Terry had disappeared and never been found. Or if they did find his body later.

  So she knew she could be wrong about checking out Kim’s home. They might be walking right into the barrel of another gun held by another crazy person. But they had to do what they could to find Joshua. Kim may have initially intended to release him once Deidre died and she could claim her inheritance and run, but it was taking much longer than expected. It was dangerous to try to hide someone for long.

  Mary Lou and Campbell both agreed that it was perfectly reasonable to go over just to make sure everything looked fine. They wouldn’t go in and question Kim. But there wasn’t any harm in just driving by.

  “Should we call that deputy?” Mary Lou asked.

  “We can go over to the police station after. I know where it is. Then we can tell him face-to-face what we’ve been able to sort out. He’ll be much more likely to act if we talk to him directly, right?”

  “We may as well wait until we have some more evidence,” Campbell agreed. “If we can find anything else. If not… well, he already knows everything we know or have guessed. We don’t have anything new to tell him yet.”

  “Except about Deidre being at death’s door,” Mary Lou said dryly.

  “Except for that,” Cam agreed.

  Erin decided that they were all on the same page. She tapped the address into the GPS navigator and waited for the highlight line to appear on the map. The town seemed very small when reduced to gridlines on the LCD screen.

  After waiting what seemed an excessively long time with so few streets to choose from, the short line appeared, directing them a few blocks away. It was quiet enough that Erin could flip a U-turn in front of the hospital, and they were soon at Kim’s house. Erin removed her key from the ignition and took her foot off the brake pedal so the truck’s lights would shut off. They all sat there in the dark, staring at the house.

  It was a little, old house. Not as big as Clementine’s house, where Erin lived. A dollhouse, a real estate agent might call it. She would be surprised if there was more than one bedroom. It was on a fair-sized lot, land being cheap in a small town. Erin could see the shapes of dark trees around it.

  “Is there a shed?” Erin asked, “Any garage or outbuildings?”

  “I see the roof of a garage,” Campbell offered. Erin could see little in the dark. “Let’s just… walk around and see.”

  Even though Erin had told Campbell not to bring anything illegal along with him, he still managed to open the garage door. Erin had already tested the doorknob and found it locked just a moment before. He was obviously pretty quick with the lock picks. It would have taken her several minutes of fiddling to encourage it to open. Erin pretended not to notice. Mary Lou said nothing. Campbell entered first, his tennis shoes silent as he moved in. After a glance around, he took out his phone and thumbed it on, using just the screen’s glow to light up the space in front of him.

  As with most garages, there was all manner of parts and equipment around the perimeter of the inside, one car instead of two, and very little clear space for walking. It was pretty obvious from the start that Joshua was not being held captive in the garage. But Campbell didn’t retreat. He circled the car, looking in the windows and shining his phone screen inside. He used his t-shirt like a hot pad to open the driver’s door without getting his fingerprints on it, then pressed the trunk release button inside.

  Erin was nervous about looking in the trunk. She didn’t think they were going to fi
nd anything horrible and gruesome in it, but…

  Mary Lou hung back, and Erin and Campbell advanced to have a peek inside. There was no smell of decomposition as they approached, but Erin still took a deep breath before looking into it to brace herself.

  Let it be empty.

  They looked in at the same time. There was no body in the trunk. Erin breathed back out. Campbell lowered his phone for a better look. When he still couldn’t see very well into the shadowy depths, he turned it around and turned on the flashlight LED.

  He ran it over the items in the trunk, moving things carefully without touching any surfaces that might take a print. There was some clothing, not recognizable as Joshua’s. As Campbell shifted stuff around, Erin saw a large roll of silvery duct tape and an opened plastic pocket of large zip ties. She felt acid rising in her throat and looked away, swallowing. It took her a moment to get her composure back, and she looked again. Campbell disentangled a headband from a dark hoodie, and Erin saw that it was a pair of hefty-looking goggles like would be used to play a VR game. She looked at Campbell, frowning.

  “Night vision,” Campbell whispered.

  Night vision? So that someone could walk through the woods without a flashlight? Hunting? What innocent reason could Kim have for needing night vision goggles, duct tape, and zip ties? Erin tried to puzzle through it, and settled on hunting, though everything in her screamed that it was not. There was no innocent explanation. Kim had to be the kidnapper.

  She wished that she had been able to find something about Kim online. What she looked like, so they would recognize her when they saw her. Whether she was big or small. How old she was. If she could have physically overcome Joshua or whether she had an accomplice.

  They could be in the house now, Kim, Joshua, and a big, menacing man.

  “We have to call the police,” Erin told Campbell.

  He ignored her, carefully moving the clothing and the items he had looked at to the side to see what was underneath. Erin tried to memorize the positions everything had been in when they opened the trunk. He was messing with everything, and they didn’t want Kim to know it when she next came out to the car.