Chapter 3
The pair of them looked very familiar with each other. It was in the way their bodies leaned in across the small table, the way she smiled at him with the tip of her tongue poking out between her white teeth. The way she bounced her high-heeled foot and swept her shoulder-length blonde locks behind her.
Hobbs, handsome as always, his beard trimmed to perfection, smiled back at her in a way I knew all too well.
I fought to catch my breath and avoid being seen, but my eyes were glued to them as I tried to process what was right in front of me.
That was the moment I decided I didn’t want to process this at all. Of course, I didn’t know what it meant, and I was trying not to jump to conclusions. I knew Hobbs was a good guy and he hadn’t just run off to the arms of another woman the first chance he got because I’d freaked him out by telling him I’m a witch.
At least I didn’t think so. But I didn’t have time to find out. I had an errant, sulky teen waiting on me and some pear trees that deserved an end to their suffering.
I decided to turn back, but the crowd from the bus swarmed the café all at once, and there was no getting around passing Hobbs’s table.
Unless I could duck behind the really tall guy with the rainbow knit hat, heading toward the counter.
Crouching, I inched around some tourists, shadowing the tall man’s movements when I heard, “Hal?” above the hum of the crowd.
I only froze for a second before I kept it moving, pretending I didn’t hear anything. And yes, it was childish. I should have simply walked up to them like an adult and asked who this blonde goddess was.
But I couldn’t. My feelings were still a little raw after last night when Hobbs had left so abruptly. Besides, I wasn’t even sure I wanted to know who this blonde goddess was.
Believe you me, I knew all about the classic romance novel misunderstanding. Goodness knows I’d read hundreds of them, and we weren’t going to have one of those. Not today, Satan.
Today, I was going to run out of here like I was on fire and deal with the repercussions later. That’s what I was going to do.
Immature? Maybe. But I like to think of it as being cautious and prioritizing by not making Hobbs the sole purpose I existed.
As I was making my way to the back exit directly behind the tall guy, passing the gorgeous creature Hobbs sat with, I heard her say in a sexy voice, “Have you told her yet, Digby? It’s long past time.”
If I wasn’t motivated to get the heck out of Dodge before, I sure was after hearing her words.
And as I skipped out the door as fast as I could without looking back, I wondered what exactly Hobbs hadn’t told me…
In fact, I wondered that the entire way back to the house while Troy followed behind in the lodge’s van, and all while I waited for him to hop out and follow me to the pear trees.
The ocean to the back of the house roared, and I could hear the frothy waves crashing on the cliffs at the end of our property. That almost always meant more snow.
“Hey, Miss Valentine?” Troy said as he made his way toward me, his lanky legs eating up the space between us in my driveway.
Tucking my freezing nose into my thick scarf, I kept trying not to think about Hobbs and the beautiful woman. “Uh-huh?”
“I’m real sorry about this. I promise to be more careful, but I can’t afford to lose this job. I’m savin’ up to buy a new board and I’ll never make it if Uncle Saul fires me.”
“You’re a snowboarder?”
Suddenly, he beamed, his entire face lighting up. “Yep. Love it.”
Now I felt worse. “I’m sorry, Troy. I didn’t mean for Saul to take such harsh measures. I don’t want you to pay for the pear trees, and I’ll talk to your uncle about that and firing you. I just want you to be more careful when you take out the tours, okay? Maybe impress upon them that this is someone’s home and hard work?”
He grinned wider, his lean cheeks brightening. “That’s cool. You’re cool. Promise I’ll pay closer attention and it won’t happen again on my watch.”
I smiled at him, hoping to reassure him. “Then follow me, and be careful, the snow’s pretty deep over here. You can take the picture your uncle wants you to take and then go off and do your thing.”
He bobbed his head with another small smile.
December in Marshmallow Hollow was beautiful, but freezing cold with sometimes feet of snow. I loved it, but I didn’t want to get stuck in it. Unlike Troy, I was no skier, cross-country or otherwise. Tubing and sledding were the extent of my winter sports.
As we neared the trees, I noted there were some discarded tissues, what looked like a receipt, and an empty cup from the lodge’s café, making me sigh in distaste, but Troy bent and picked them up, detouring to drop them in one of my garbage cans by the garage.
The bitter cold of the day and the threat of more snow didn’t deter me as I made my way toward the pear trees. I was determined to solve this problem and move on to the next one.
Hobbs.
If we were dating exclusively, who was that stunning, sunshiney blonde?
Ugh. This was ridiculous. I had to do the big girl thing and simply ask. I wasn’t going to project or let my overactive imagination take over.
As we walked, I noted drops of something in the snow, but it was covered and muted by the light dusting we’d had last night. Maybe it was coffee drips from the discarded cup?
Ski lifts passed by overhead, and I cupped my hand over my eyes and looked upward at all the dangling feet, remembering how Stiles and I had taken lift after lift to tube down the slopes until our legs wobbled and we had no choice but to go home from sheer exhaustion.
I also remembered how our Christmas lights looked from all the way up there, and it gave me great pride to think the returning tourists could see I’d kept my family’s tradition alive.
I stumbled while looking up, my legs still a little sore after last night’s rumble in the field.
Was that only last night? It felt like a hundred years ago.
“Hang tight, Miss Valentine, and grab onto me. I’ll help you,” Troy offered with a smile.
I hooked my arm in his and we trudged through the deep snow until we were about fifty feet from the tallest of the pear trees—one that had been around since my nana was a new wife and mother to my mom.
As I was about to explain where the line for my property began, Troy stopped dead in his tracks, gripping my arm. “Miss Valentine, I don’t think we should get any closer.”
I squinted. “Why?”
He swallowed hard, as though he had a huge lump in his throat. “Don’t you see what I see?”
“Huh? No, I don’t see what you mean,” I mumbled, letting go of his arm and moving a bit closer to the trunk of the tree.
“Wait, Miss Valentine—”
I gasped.
Oh. Oh, yeah. I saw it now.
Man. To have the eyes of the young, huh?
“Is that…is that what I think it is?” Troy stuttered, his voice becoming high and uncharacteristically squeaky.
“You mean blood? I think so, Troy.”
In fact, as I crept a bit closer, I knew it was blood. All over the trunk of the barren tree and on the ground, rusty now from the light snow, and above it were some deep gouges in the tree, with what looked like hair stuck to them.
It looked as though someone had stabbed the tree trunk with something sharp and pointy, tearing at the bark.
What in the world had happened here—and for that matter, when?
I swung around, a chill racing up my spine as though someone might be watching me. Which was silly. I shook off the notion and held up my hand, hoping Troy understood he should stay back, because I was at a loss for words right now.
Maybe an animal had been injured? Or in a fight? But the gouges didn’t look like scratches from an animal’s nails, they looked like round holes in the bark, as though someone had poked at it over and over.
And if it were an animal, would it h
ave been wearing a Marshmallow Hollow Ski Lodge plaid shirt…like the ones the waiters and waitresses wore?
And would it be torn and bloody at the base of the tree?
Though, there was no body. At least not in plain view—and you can bet I wasn’t going deeper into the woods in search of one, either.
Nope. I’d had enough dead people for a while, thanks much.
Funny how I simply assumed there’d be a body when there was no actual proof someone had been killed. Evidence? Sure. A body? No. I was all murder and mayhem these days, wasn’t I?
Though, why would someone’s torn, bloody shirt be on the ground…?
The closer I looked, the more that pit in my stomach grew, and I knew what had to be done. There might not be a body, but there’d been carnage for sure, and it needed investigating. On shaky legs, I fought to keep my voice steady when I all but ordered Troy to call the police.
“Call 9-1-1, Troy. Call them now and don’t come any closer. We don’t want to contaminate this if it’s a crime scene.”
“A crime scene?” he squeaked again.
“Call 9-1-1, Troy. Please!”
I heard him shuffle around behind me as I inspected even further, pulling out my phone to take pictures.
My sister Stevie, ace crime solver from the Pacific Northwest, said to always take pictures of the scene and never share them with anyone. Not even Stiles. If I wanted to amateur sleuth, I had to learn how to collect evidence on the sly, away from the prying eyes of the police.
It rather made me feel shady, but if I had a vision—which seemed to be the way every time there was a crime as of late—I wanted to understand what it was about instead of feeling my way around in the dark the way I had the last three times.
This last murder, I’d had visions of my new kitten, little Barbra Streisand, in a red sled, covered in blood, but I didn’t necessarily relate it to the crime that occurred. Now, of course, seeing as everything was solved and tied up with a neat little bow, naturally the pieces of the puzzle of my vision fit, but at the time, nothing made any sense.
This time? This time I wanted to be prepared and have a reference point. If Stevie said pictures could help, pictures I’d take.
As I clicked away as fast as I could, I heard the sirens from the police cars and then Stiles, calling my name.
“Hal?” he shouted, and I heard the panic in his voice.
As he ran toward me as best he could in the deep snow, three other officers followed, along with Sherriff Ansel Peregrine.
When Stiles stopped short in front of me, his burly body blocking out the glare from the gloom of the day, he grabbed my shoulders. “Are you okay? What’s happening?”
I gripped his wrists to keep from shaking not only from the cold, but from such a gruesome scene. “I don’t know.” I shook my head and started over. “I mean, yes, I’m fine. My pear tree? Not so much.”
He sighed a long sigh, the condensation from his breath making a puff of a cloud. “Did you have this poor kid call 9-1-1 because of a pear tree?”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Stiles. You know me better than that. Of course not. Something happened here. Something bad. I just don’t know what. I mean, take a look at the tree.”
His eyes followed my finger to the tree and the bloody, torn shirt at the base. Stiles whistled. “That’s a lot of blood…”
“And look at the holes in the trunk of the tree. And that shirt on the ground? It’s a uniform from the lodge, Stiles. It’s the same one all the waiters and waitresses wear. Maybe even the gift shop staff, too.”
That sent a shiver along my spine. A shiver of cold, ugly dread.
“The shirt has a nametag on it,” he muttered distractedly as he pulled out his notepad and began scribbling notes.
I squinted against the glare of the snow. “Can you read it from here?”
Maybe I wasn’t as paranoid as I’d first thought. What would a shirt from one of the employees of the lodge be doing here, bloody and torn, if someone hadn’t been murdered?
But who? And why?
His sandy-brown eyebrows mashed together. “I can’t, and even if I could, you know I can’t tell you, Hal.”
Ansel and the other officers ran up behind Stiles, looking at the surrounding area as they approached, their hands on their guns in their belts.
Ansel tipped his campaign hat at me, his face somber. “Hal,” he said with a nod of acknowledgement. “What’s happening?”
As I explained why we were here and what we’d come upon, Stiles furiously took notes and Ansel nodded a lot, only occasionally grunting, his big arms crossed over his chest.
“Anyway, I have no idea what happened. I didn’t hear anything last night, if it happened then, and this morning I was at the lodge early. I guess whatever this is could have gone down while I was away.”
I could always ask Atti or Nana if they’d heard anything during the night, but I’m pretty sure they would have mentioned it this morning.
Ansel nodded again, pulling his cell phone from his pocket. “I’ll get a team out here as soon as I can, Hal. In the meantime, I’ll have the guys cordon this area off.” He looked at Troy. “That means no tours today, son.”
Troy’s face, shocked a moment ago, fell in disappointment, but he nodded and averted his eyes from the tree to look at Ansel. “Yes, sir. I’ll tell Uncle Saul.”
“Do you think someone was murdered?” I asked rather bluntly, the word sending another shiver along my arms.
We’d just finished wrapping up a murder and here we were again? It just didn’t seem possible that our little town had turned into Grand Central Murder.
His muddy brown eyes scanned my face from under the brim of his hat. “I can’t speculate, Hal, and you know it. Listen, I know you’ve become pretty durn good at solving mysteries these days, but not every case means murder.”
That was fair, but also a little misguided. I mean, there was a torn shirt with blood on it at the base of the tree. I wasn’t conjuring up a crime for the sake of having something to solve. Obviously, something had happened here. Something that involved blood and a sharp object, if the gashes in the tree were any indication.
“But what about the bloody shirt, Ansel?”
“A shirt with no body in it,” he reminded me, and I wasn’t sure if he was saying it out loud in order to keep me calm or if he was really convinced no crime had been committed.
I’m not sure why I was so adamant about proving he was wrong; of course he’d investigate either way. I think I needed something to focus on…anything that would take my mind off Hobbs.
I looked up at him, his face stern under the cloudy gray and purple sky. “So bloody, torn shirts show up and it’s no big deal? C’mon, Ansel.”
“I said I’d send a team out, Hal, and I will. I’ll be sure they canvass the area and I’ll send someone to the lodge to see if anyone’s missing. Until then, I’d sure appreciate it if you’d go on inside and let us do our jobs.”
“Like the good little girl I am, right? Go inside and shut my mouth and stop trying to play detective?” I asked, knowing it was huffy and I was lashing out in my frustration.
Ansel was a good guy, and he supported all of his wife Emmy’s endeavors. All of them. He was all for equal rights for women, and I darn well knew it, but it appeared I was looking for a fight.
“You know what, Hal, I’m going to ignore that comment and ask you again to please go back inside the house—”
The next second or two that cut off Ansel’s reply will forever remain as vivid in my mind’s eye as one of my visions.
From out of the sky, to the tune of the screams of the people on the ski lifts, a body fell into the most mature pear tree, knocking limbs every which way, which flew at our heads and faces.
The crack of the tree echoed in my yard, overriding even the crash of waves, crunching as it creaked with the weight of the poor unfortunate soul who’d fallen from the sky until it split down the middle and broke, dumping the body at our feet.<
br />
The body.
Well, I guess we had one of those now.
“Is that enough body for you, Ansel, or do you want it to rain arms and legs?”
Chapter 4
After that, we were all so stunned into silence, there was a moment when the only sound I heard was the beat of my heart and my pulse racing in my ears.
The person crashed through the limbs and fell, hitting the ground with such force, the impact virtually kicked up some of the solidly packed snow.
As the body slapped the earth, laid out like someone had hurled a frisbee to the ground, I thought my eyes might fall out of my head from shock.
My immediate reaction was to run to the poor person, thinking they must have fallen off the lift. At that point, I wasn’t quite myself.
But Stiles stepped in front of me and stopped me with his big hands, gripping my shoulders. “Hal, don’t.”
Yet, I struggled against him. “What if they need help, Stiles?”
His tone was deeply grim when he spoke. “I don’t think that’s the case, Hal.”
That’s when I really studied the body and realization hit. A young man, his upper body naked, his eyes wide open and glassy, his mouth slack and sagging as though he’d screamed before dying.
His legs were bent and crooked, likely from the impact of the landing, and his arm was twisted so far behind his back, I was surprised it was still attached to his torso.
“Hal?” someone yelled. “Hal, are you okay?”
I turned to see Hobbs frantically digging his way through the deeper snow, each crunch of his steps making me more nervous.
I had just seen him with another woman and he’d left my house abruptly last night after I’d confessed some intimate details of my life. And now, there was a dead body in my side yard.
What was the definition of okay?
Suddenly, I didn’t know what to say to him when he scooped me up in his arms and looked at me with concern in his bluer-than-blue eyes. “Hal?” he pressed.
Carnage in a Pear Tree Page 3
