by Kelly Rey
"You're kidding, right?" I pushed him out of the way to get to the door, Eunice on my heels. "Did he tell you where she lives?"
He slammed the door behind us. "She's got a place at the Whispering Pines Mobile Park. He thinks she lives with her boyfriend, but she could be there. Her uncle takes care of the place for her."
Oh, no. Not there. I faltered on the steps and made a grab for the rail.
"What's the matter with you?" Curt snapped.
I turned. "Are you sure he said Whispering Pines?"
"Positive. Keep it moving, will you? We need to find this place so we can find Maizy."
I remembered too well how to find Whispering Pines.
I kept it moving.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
I'd tried Maizy's cell continuously until I'd run out of signal, to no avail. Eunice was silent in the back seat, her fingers twisted in her lap, her expression a study in anguish. The expression annoyed me since it spoke of something that might not have happened. Probably hadn't happened. Couldn't have happened.
Finally, after a lifetime of driving, during which I tried to convince myself that there were such things as coincidences, Curt veered onto the shoulder just outside the Whispering Pines property. No other cars in sight. No breeze. Nothing but the incessant drone of cicadas. At that point, the Jersey Devil could have tapped on the window, and I wouldn't have noticed.
"Hopefully she calls this place home," he said. "See if you can Google the address."
I shook my head in frustration. "There's no signal."
"What?" Curt snatched the phone from me and glared at it before hurling it onto the dashboard. He folded his forearms on the wheel, staring hard into the night. "What's her last name?"
"Bryn?" I tried to remember our introduction, outside the Pinelands, the night I'd picked up Maizy and more trouble than I could have imagined. There was nothing there, not even in the fringes of my memory. "I don't remember. I guess I wasn't paying attention."
"I have an idea," Eunice said. "Why don't we look for that Corvette?"
Yes! The Corvette! Of course, if I had a valuable vintage Corvette, I certainly wouldn't park it at the Whispering Pines. I'd rent a temperature-controlled garage to store it and keep it safe. Especially if I was a collector. Besides that, there was only room to park one car at each home.
A garage…
I turned to Curt. "The pickup!"
I didn't have to say anything else. Curt shoved the Jeep into gear. "I'll drive down Broadway here. You look to the right. Eunice, look to the left."
"It's hard to miss," I said. It had to be.
We crawled through the first intersection. No one spoke.
"How'd she get down here, anyway?" Curt asked, fury infusing his tone.
Another question I didn't want to answer.
"What do you mean?" I asked. I knew full well what he meant. And I knew how she'd gotten there. I'd been an accomplice to it. How would I live with that if anything happened to Maizy?
"I mean, she doesn't have a license." He held up a hand. "Yes, I know that's not important. But she doesn't have a car, either."
Now would be the time to offer platitudes, empty assurances that he was probably right, that Maizy probably hadn't disappeared into the Pine Barrens, that she'd simply been distracted by something or someone much closer to home and wasn't answering her cell phone.
But I couldn't.
"Well…" I bit my lower lip. "That's not exactly true."
"Brody Amherst?" he asked tightly.
I shook my head.
"Herbie Hairston."
I didn't want to be responsible for the maiming of Maizy's maybe-romantic interest or her delinquent–but-underaged purveyor of medieval weapons. As much as Maizy would hate it, it was time to come clean about Honest Aaron.
I'd just opened my mouth when Eunice yelled, "Is that it?" and Curt brought the Jeep to an immediate shuddering stop. We all looked to the left at a giant, hulking pickup truck parked outside of a mobile home.
"Is that it?" Curt asked me.
Why hadn't I paid attention when Maizy had written down the license plate number? The least I could have done was notice the color, or the model, something that positively identified it. Of course, I knew why. My inner chicken had distracted me. I'd been worried about Mechanic Yeti making a curtain call. Then Gilbert Gleason had shown up, and the truck had been forgotten.
I hated my inner chicken.
"It could be," I said. "I'm just not sure."
"One way to find out." Curt hooked a sharp left, and we roared down the street in a plume of dust and dirt. He was out of the Jeep almost before it stopped, banging on the door.
"It's after midnight," Eunice said. "Is that wise?"
"Let them call the police," I said. It could only help. I studied the pickup, trying to envision it as I'd seen it so many times, looming larger and larger in my rearview mirror or driving away on the opposite side of the highway after Maizy had dumped the Caddy.
Someone had opened the door to Curt's banging, and the two were in animated conversation. Gradually, the homeowner's gestures stilled as he seemed to comprehend what was going on, until at last they talked quietly before he shook Curt's hand and closed the door.
Curt hurried back to the Jeep and got in. "He doesn't know Bryn, but he said sometimes he sees a woman fitting her description at a home on C Street. We'll knock on every door if we have to."
A coldness settled over me. "C Street?"
"Yeah." He glanced at me. "Why? You know it?"
I knew it. I'd just hoped never to see it again.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
The trailer still looked empty. But I no longer believed it was empty. I cast a glance at the trailer on the other side of the street when we got out of the Jeep. All dark. Hopefully it stayed that way.
"Someone actually lives here?" Eunice whispered.
"Do you see her Harley?" Curt asked.
"It could be on the other side," I said and frowned, looking at the front of the home. So far as I could tell, the only improvements were that someone had shut the windows and removed the ladder. Neither of which made it more welcoming.
"It's completely dark," I said. "What do we do?"
"We get inside," he said. "Any way we can. Right now."
He made a move for the door. I grabbed his arm. "No. Let me."
"I can't let you, Jamie," he snapped. "She's my niece." And you're a ninety-eight-pound weakling was the silent addendum.
Let him, my inner chicken clucked. What could you possibly do against Bryn anyway?
I had no clue. But it was time I found out.
"I'm going," I told him. "You can follow me if you want. But I'm going first."
"We'll go together," he said.
"What about me?" Eunice asked. "I want to help."
Curt hesitated before pointing. "Go knock on doors, and see if you can find a landline to call the police."
"Don't go—" I began, but Eunice was hustling away toward Gilbert Gleason's door, and I didn't have time to go after her.
I reached for the door handle. Locked but hardly impenetrable. Besides, if I couldn't go through the door, I was prepared to go through the wall. Maizy was in there.
"Hold on a second," Curt whispered. He stepped in front of me and did something Emersonian, and a minute or so later, the door swung open slightly.
I slipped inside.
I was hardly aware of Curt behind me when I squatted, making myself small while my eyes adjusted to the darkness. I was intrepid, but I wasn't stupid. I didn't want to be an easy target.
The inside hadn't gotten any better, either, if the smell was any indication. It was musty with an underlayment of filth. I squinted into the blackness, trying to discern shapes. Especially moving shapes. With weapons. I saw nothing. It sounded empty. More than that, it felt empty.
I straightened up and stepped closer to Curt. "There's no one here."
That's when I heard it. The faintest shuffling
sound, from the bathroom, as if someone had readjusted her position slightly. Then silence.
We weren't alone.
I squinted in that direction. Was that a dresser in front of the door, blocking it?
Curt laid a finger against his lips. We stood frozen, listening hard. Nothing.
He pointed at his own chest then toward the bathroom. Several agonizing seconds later, he took hold of one end of the dresser and slid it away from the door. Then his hand was on the knob.
He opened it.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
"Thank God!" Archie Ritz squeezed through the opening, wild-eyed. "I thought it was him coming back to finish me off!"
Him? He had it all wrong.
"That's an easy mistake to make," I said. "But he was actually a she. She just has a lot of muscles. Put her in boots and a baseball cap, maybe a hoodie to cover up the girls, and you'd never know the difference."
"What girls?" Archie asked.
"You know." I did the time-honored palms-up hubba-hubba gesture in the vicinity of my chest. "The bozingas. The chicken cutlets. The girls."
"Please stop talking," Curt told me.
Probably a good idea.
Archie made a move to brush past us. Curt grabbed his arm. "Hold on a second. What happened? Who's this guy you're talking about?"
"I don't know who he is. I never saw him before, and I never want to see him again." Archie had swapped his clown clothes for dark jeans, a black shirt, and plain black Nikes. His stack of hair had de-poofed in the heat, but his tiny set of features were fully animated. "This giant broke in and locked me in the bathroom. Sounded like he ransacked the place."
I glanced around. Why would anyone ransack this place? And how would you know if he did?
"What was he looking for?" Curt asked.
Archie shuddered. "I don't know. He said I'd better be quiet, or he'd be back to make me be quiet. I've never been so frightened in my life." His lower lip quivered, and his eyes started to fill.
That giant had to be Hank. My heart fell for Eunice. At the same time it seemed curious that Archie had never seen Hank before. According to everyone with eyes, Hank followed Susan One to every performance, and he was hard to miss. Then again, by all accounts, Hank stayed outside in the parking lot most of the time, so maybe their paths had never crossed.
But why would Hank ransack Bryn's home? What was I missing? Besides common sense, good judgment, and a well-paying job?
"What are you doing here?" Curt asked him. "We were told this place belongs to a woman named Bryn."
"Bryn is my niece," Archie said. "I keep an eye on the place for her, but I had no idea this neighborhood was so dangerous."
Wait. What? His niece? He was Bryn's Uncle Doug? I flashed back to the pictures on his credenza. No wonder I'd felt the distant memory of sisterly compatibility. There'd been the wife, the man who looked like the wife's brother, and the two little girls, one frilly, one tomboyish. Bryn and…what was her sister's name? Brenda? No, Brianne.
Brianne…
"How did you get here?" I asked him. "There's no car outside."
"Oh, dear, he must have stolen it!" Archie clutched his bosom. What a drama queen. "Now I'm trapped here!"
I could practically hear the waterworks gearing up.
"We'll take you home," Curt told him.
Archie's eyes narrowed in my direction. "Aren't you the mother who's going to sue me?"
Curt's head swiveled around to stare at me.
"You must have me confused with someone else," I said lamely.
"I'm sure I don't," he said. "Your daughter was very—" He paused, groping for the right word. "—pregnant."
Curt's eyebrow shot up. I did a no-worries headshake. He met it with a headshake of his own.
"Do you know where Bryn is?" Curt asked him. "It's crucial that we find her."
"I have to get away from here," Archie said. "Before he comes back." He made a move to get past Curt.
Curt held his arm. "Don't worry about him. I need you to focus. We have to find your niece."
"She stays with her boyfriend," Archie said. "I can take you there. Just don't leave me alone again."
"We won't leave you alone," Curt said. "You'll come with us."
"That's very kind of you," Archie said.
Curt and I turned to make our way back outside when Archie said, "Just one thing."
We turned around and froze. Archie was wearing a baseball cap and holding a long, curved, lethal-looking sword. Holding it as if he'd held it before, and often.
A sword? Who had a sword, for Pete's sake? And where had it come from, anyway? The seat cushions? The most interesting thing I'd ever found in my seat cushions was some spare change and a few Alpha-Bits, and this guy was hauling out fencing supplies.
And why was he pointing it at Curt? And by extension, me?
"Is that what Hank was looking for?" I asked him.
I know one day I'd look back at that question and say, "Duh." I hoped.
"Who's Hank?" Archie asked.
"You know, the big guy who ransacked…" I suddenly forgot what I wanted to say because an epiphany had smacked me in the brain. I realized Archie's hair hadn't de-poofed from the heat. It had flattened under that cap, giving him a severe case of hat head to go along with his slipping-backstage-to-kill-Nicky-D ensemble. No wonder he'd raised no eyebrows at the Pinelands. As the band's agent, he belonged there as much as Bryn did. Maybe more. So long as he'd hid his ridiculous pompadour under a hoodie, he'd have been as unmemorable as me at a fashion show before he'd escaped out the side door.
But that was the least of my worries. The most of them was that at the moment he had the tip of the sword resting at the base of Curt's throat. I did a subtle sidestep until I was hidden behind Curt's back. I was sure he wouldn't mind, although it was entirely possible that sword was long and sharp enough to make shish kebab out of both of us.
Where was Maizy's pregnancy pad when I needed it?
"Thank you for releasing me from my little prison," Archie said, "but now I'm afraid I must ask you to take my place."
"You don't want to do that," Curt told him. Only he didn't say it in that empty threat kind of way you hear from people on television, right before they make an ill-fated grab for the weapon. Curt wasn't dumb enough to make a grab for a sword. Judging from his utter stillness and his deep, even breaths, he planned to go Jedi warrior on that sword and melt it with the searing heat of his stare.
He could leave the shaking and the hyperventilating to me. I'd gotten a head start.
"I think I do," Archie said, almost pleasantly. "I suggest you comply. I'm a kendoka, you see."
I peeked around Curt's shoulder. "What's that?"
Archie pivoted slightly, whipped his arm around, and suddenly Bryn's floor length drapes became valances.
Oh.
I swallowed hard. "Hank didn't lock you in the bathroom, did he?"
Yeah, I know. Again, "Duh." But Archie hadn't locked himself in there.
Irritation flickered across his tiny features. "Who is this Hank you keep talking about?"
"If you don't know, I'm not going to tell you," I shot back.
Archie and Curt did a simultaneous eye roll. It figured. The first time Curt moved anything besides his diaphragm, he was rolling his eyes at me.
When their irritating male bonding moment had ended, Archie jiggled the sword at Curt's throat again. "If you'll be so kind as to step lively, I really should be on my way."
"On your way?" Curt repeated. "It's a long, lonely walk to anywhere in the dark."
"But I have a car," Archie said. "Hand over your keys. Now, please."
Curt didn't move. "Don't have them."
He had them. Curt never forgot his keys. Would it be weird if I stuck my hand into the front pocket of his jeans and handed them over myself to avoid a skewering?
"Of course you do," Archie said. "Give them to me."
"I left them in the Jeep," Curt said. "Seemed like a sa
fe neighborhood."
Of course, since I was standing behind Curt, I couldn't actually see the front pocket of his jeans. I'd have to feel my way. And with my acute sense of direction, I might end up in unexpected places, doing unexpected things best done in the dark and without a witness. And that would definitely be weird. Right?
Archie's mini-face puckered and creased, and when it smoothed out again, his eyes were glassy with wetness. "I don't want to have to hurt you. Really, I don't. But I'm afraid this is nonnegotiable. I can't have you following me."
"We just want to talk to Bryn," Curt said. "That's all. We have no grudge with you."
I frowned up at the back of his head. Maybe he didn't, but I sure did. I had one whopper of a grudge with Archibald Dougal Ritz, going way back to his skepticism over my fictitious exotic dancing career all the way up to and including that condescending eye roll.
Archie looked at Curt through teary eyes. Did he have any other kind? "You seem like a nice person," he said. His gaze shifted momentarily to me. "You, I'm not sure about."
"Me? I'm a sweetheart," I assured him. "I foster small children and feed stray animals and belong to the Sierra Club. You couldn't find a nicer person than me, honestly." I dug out a crumpled tissue and waved it around Curt's arm like a tiny white flag. "Here, have a Kleenex."
Archie speared it with the tip of the sword and flicked it away. Unnecessary showmanship, if you asked me, since I'd already gotten the point with his seamstressing demonstration.
"Why'd you kill Nicky D?" Curt asked him with dead calm.
Good approach. Keep him talking until an opportunity for escape or attack appeared. Given the length and lethality of Archie's sword, my money was on escape. Of course, I was broke.
"That boy." Archie practically spat the word. "I had no choice. Someone had to do it. How many young women's lives could he be permitted to ruin?"
I went still. Brianne.
"Yes," Archie said, although I hadn't realized I'd actually spoken. "Brianne. I adored my niece. Such a beautiful, innocent child…before she met him. She was pregnant when she committed suicide." His lip began to tremble. His eyes began to well. "That darling sensitive girl was rebuffed by Nicholas, and it drove her straight to her grave. He didn't even care. He simply refused to take responsibility for his actions."
