“In case you get any smart ideas to take off before we’re in the lake,” she explained.
I felt my plans to escape slip through my fingers. As we headed through the front door I tried to find my footing on the steps in the dark. I tripped only to be yanked back by Ebba, causing another gasping fit as I clawed at my neck to loosen the chain.
“Slowly,” she ordered. “The canoe’s on the shore directly in front of the house. Maybe fifty feet. Don’t try anything. I know this land like the back of my hand.”
Except I was the one in front leading the way and I could hardly see anything beyond what was right in front of my face. I thought about the scrabble of shrubbery that had obscured a lot of the house from the trail. We were in bush now and I knew from seeing the area in daylight that the trees and shrubbery thinned as we got closer to the lake, and the last few feet would be sandy shoreline. I needed to try to break loose before we were in an area where she’d have a clearer shot at me.
“Just keep going and don’t stop,” Ebba said.
“There are lots of low branches,” I pointed out.
I had one hand up around my neck, my fingers tucked between the chain and my throat to guard it from being pulled tight. A cool breeze licked off the lake and helped clear my wine-soaked brain. It had clouded over and the moon and stars were hidden, so there was little light at all. With me walking in front, Ebba couldn’t see what was directly in front of me. When we pushed through some tree branches I pulled one away and then warned her before it swung and hit her in the face.
“Branch,” I called out.
I felt a slight pull to the collar as Ebba stepped to the side to avoid a twig in the face. I didn’t want to take the chance she’d get thwacked by a tree limb and shoot me when startled.
“You know, I’m really going to enjoy living out my final days here.” Ebba sighed. “Sure it would’ve been nice to have Ava here with me, but she might decide to come around once she stops being all pissy about Ron.” She huffed a little as we walked. “In fact, I bet she hasn’t even left the country to get the money yet. She’s probably just waiting for things to calm down and I’m betting she’ll want to spend some time here with me before she leaves.”
She was rambling and going on about how peaceful it was around here and how proud she was that she’d managed to work hard enough to buy the cottage. I wanted to point out that all that hard work had cost her a relationship with her daughter, who’d turned her back on her now that she was dying. I kept my mouth shut because it wasn’t going to win me any points while the woman held a gun pointed at my back.
“Branch,” I announced.
When I felt the collar shift as Ebba sidestepped right, I deftly whirled and reached behind me with my right hand to grab the leash. I tugged her toward me with a furiously hard yank and, with my left hand, pulled the collar over my head. She let out an oomph when she slammed into me.
In a deft move that defied the wine in my system, I brought one leg behind both of hers and simultaneously pushed her chest with both my hands. She was off her feet and landing hard on her back in the time it took me to break free. I could hear her scrambling to her feet and screeching in rage as she struggled to come after me, but I was younger, faster and, sadly, had a lot of experience escaping people meaning to do me harm.
The temptation was to run back in the direction I’d come but I had no keys for my Jeep and that would be exactly the direction Ebba would assume I was going. Instead I took a sharp left at one point hoping that the sound of her own footsteps as she ran after me would cover up the stomping of mine going through brush off the trail. I knew from looking in Ron’s trail book that a creek fed the lake, and a quarter mile north along its banks was a small community of older creekside cottages. I’m sure there was a separate road unaffected by the spring water that would access that community. Maybe I’d get lucky and find someone home there who could help me or a car driving by.
The clouds began to roll in, and for the first time in weeks it would be a starless night. I tried to move quietly through the thick brush but whenever I slowed my pace I could hear Ebba’s footsteps also crunching on twigs. The wine made me feel clumsy and slow, and for an older sick person, Ebba seemed to be keeping up because whenever I’d pause I could hear her thrashing through the bushes.
Abruptly I was in a clearing, and to my left was a walking bridge that crossed over the creek. I could see more cottages on the other side and some had lights on but I stopped short. The bridge was at least fifty feet long and in the wide open. I’d be a clear target if I began walking across and Ebba caught up. The bushes were rustling nearby and she would soon be on top of me.
Instead of crossing over I decided to duck underneath the bridge. Thick blackberry brambles with long thorns poked and scratched at me but also made a perfect cover. I sat there, my bum on the damp creek bed and my arms wrapped around my knees. I curled my lips over my teeth, fearful that Ebba would hear them chattering. Footsteps sounded approaching the bridge. She was coming. I held my breath as the sound of her feet could be heard on the wood planks over my head and then they stopped there.
“Goddamn little bitch,” Ebba muttered.
She stomped her feet directly above my head before walking forward on the bridge a few feet and then changing her mind and coming back. My heart pounded so hard that I was sure she’d be able to hear it even as I could hear the sound of her footsteps walking away.
After what felt like an hour I thought about breaking free from my hiding spot but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I debated waiting until daylight. It would make it so much easier to see where I was going but it would also make it easier for Ebba to see me and put a bullet through my chest. Hours went by and there were two other times I heard Ebba’s footsteps nearby and at one point she crossed the walking bridge only to return quickly on a run as if she realized I hadn’t made it across. She wasn’t giving up.
Mosquitos snacked on my skin as the temperature dropped, and the first cool breeze in days began to raise goose bumps on my body. Frogs and crickets serenaded me as I strained my ears to hear the sound of feet in the bush. I was listening so hard that I was sure I was beginning to hear things. With my hands on my knees I took deep breaths and calmed my drilling heart and then forced myself to listen again. Voices. Male voices. And they were coming closer. I slowly made my way out of my thorny hideaway and crouched low as I moved around to the bridge side. I hunkered down behind a bush and stared down the road to my right. A glow of flashlights moved side-to-side scanning the road and ditches as a group of three men walked purposely in my direction. The stride and gait of one of those men was achingly familiar. I bolted from the bushes.
“It’s me! Julie!” I called and my voice broke into a tearful cry.
Garrett ran to meet me and had me fully engulfed in his arms. My swollen cheek was being crushed against his chest but it didn’t matter at all. Nothing else mattered.
“It’s Ebba,” I sobbed. “She killed Ron.”
Garrett and the other two officers talked in hushed plans about circling the area. Suddenly the sound of a shot rang out, and I felt a sharp searing pain in my thigh. Garrett dragged me back into the woods where he searched for my wound with a flashlight and told me it wasn’t bad.
“You’re fine,” he said. “You’re okay.”
He squeezed me tight against him and I sobbed quietly against his chest, breathing in the goodness of him. Over the next few minutes we heard the other officers searching and more gunfire sounded. Garrett covered my body with his and pushed me to lie flat in a bed of damp leaves. I shook violently against him and knew he could smell the wine on me.
“She made me drink. It wasn’t on purpose. I didn’t mean to—”
“Hush,” he murmured into my neck. “It’s okay. I’m here. You’re okay. I’ve got you.”
And the weight of his body on mine and his calming voice in
my ear stripped the terror that shook my bones. We lay like that for what felt like an eternity. The sun was teasing the horizon by the time the officers came to us and announced they had Ebba in custody. I did not want Garrett to let me go.
* * *
The wound in my leg only required a couple of stitches but Garrett still insisted I spend a couple nights in the hospital for my mental health. He contacted Dr. Chen and told her what had happened and the next morning she came to visit me in the hospital. The overwhelming sense that I’d failed by drinking was a dark cloud of despair over me. Sure, I was forced to drink the wine but my body betrayed me by hoping someone held a gun to my head on a daily basis so I could have more. I reached for the pendant around my neck and clutched my father’s wedding band for reassurance.
“And so you start over. Today is day one,” Dr. Chen said gently. “Life is always about starting again and not giving up.”
“I can do that. I can start counting again.”
“Of course you can.” She placed a hand on my arm. “You’re a lot stronger than you think.”
I didn’t feel strong swathed in a hospital gown with my backside exposed.
Garrett brought Tracey to visit me in the hospital and they both stood at my bedside.
“She was the reason we were able to get to you as quickly as we did,” Garrett explained. “When you were late and didn’t answer your phone, I contacted the grocery store and got her number. She told me about the hiking book and the lake. We knew Ebba had a cottage there.”
“Your old man here did all the real work,” Tracey said. “I just told them where I thought you might be and he went into all hero mode.”
“Thanks so much,” I told her. “Guess you’re my sidekick after all. We’ll have to think of a nickname for you. Maybe something like Deputy Green Sprout.”
She snorted. “No thanks.”
Garrett stepped out of the room to take a phone call, and once he was gone Tracey drew her splinted fingers through her green hair in a nervous gesture.
“There’s something else I need to tell you and you won’t be thanking me for that. On the way here, your man talked to me about everything that happened to you. The break-in with your stolen laptop and your tires slashed and then he mentioned someone putting a bottle of wine in your car and how it freaked you out. That’s what made me realize I mighta saw something that’s important.”
She took a breath and the suspense was killing me.
“Spit it out already,” I told her.
“Okay, okay.” She held her hands up. “So one time I came by to visit you and your dog was nutso in the window and I could hear him from the road. I slowed my car down as I drove by and saw this woman in your driveway. She opened your Jeep and stuck a bottle of wine in there. I figured it was a present from a friend, like a birthday gift or something, right? So I kept on driving.”
“Woman? It was Ebba Johansson, wasn’t it?”
“Nah, I saw Ebba’s face on the news and it wasn’t her. This gal was younger. She was about our age with a cheap blond dye job and driving an old brown four-door sedan.”
“Oh my God.” I exhaled loudly in disbelief. “Katie! How did she...and why would she?” Words failed me as I was slapped with a dose of disbelief and betrayal. She’d hurt me before and now, given a tiny window of opportunity, she’d lashed out again.
“This Katie a friend of yours?” Tracey asked.
“No. Definitely not. She’s no Deputy Green Sprout.” I took her hand and squeezed.
Garrett came back into the room then and I filled him in on what Tracey told me and he just kept shaking his head in disbelief. “I’m going to her place right now and—”
I stopped him with a raise of my hand. “You’re not going to her place. I am.”
I was discharged in the early afternoon after Dr. Chen paid me a visit and pronounced me mentally healthy enough to go out into the world. Garrett had taken the time to discreetly place some calls. He found out Katie wasn’t working at her mall job or her fast-food place today and an officer had recently driven by her house and seen her vehicle in the driveway.
We dropped Tracey off at home on our way.
“You sure you don’t need me to come along and bitchslap this ex-friend for you?” she asked as I walked her to her door. “I’m stronger than I look.”
“I’m sure you are, Sprout, but I gotta do this on my own,” I told her.
“Okay. Shoot me a text and let me know how it all went.”
I nodded and then, abruptly, I leaned in and hugged her. “Thanks for everything.”
“Aw-w-w. It’s what friends do for friends,” she replied, hugging me back.
I returned to Garrett’s sedan and once we were close to Katie’s I began to feel more confident. “I’d like to confront her by myself.”
“Not a chance,” he replied.
“But—”
“No. You don’t know what she’s capable of.”
We pulled into the driveway of a dilapidated old house with a weed-choked yard and Garrett walked beside me to the door. Even as I rapped my knuckles against the peeling paint part of me wished she wasn’t going to be home, but she answered almost immediately.
“Oh hey-y-y.”
Katie stood there in a ratty bathrobe and looked from me to Garrett and back again. “I’d invite you in but, as you can see, I’m about to get in the shower, so-o-o...”
I pushed my way past her into the living room. There on the coffee table was my laptop. A ball of fury in my gut had me putting fists on my hips and raising my voice.
“So you drugged Wookie just for a stupid frigg’n laptop?”
“That’s not yours!” she protested. She ran to the coffee table and closed the lid on the laptop. “It’s mine. You’re not the only one that can afford a newer computer! I work two goddamn jobs, you know!”
She stood there straightening her bathrobe and attempting to look at me with righteous indignation but she only looked weak and pathetic. I was finally seeing Katie for the person she really was.
“It’s mine and not only did you steal from me, you put a bottle of wine in my Jeep. Why? Because you thought that would bring me down?” I shook my head. “Don’t even try to deny it because it was all on camera.” I hooked a thumb in the direction of Garrett. “He had cameras installed everywhere on my property.”
“And the cameras at the shopping center showed you were the one who slashed her tires,” Garrett piped up. “You popped the trunk and then climbed inside and got her address from the insurance papers in the glove box.”
“You think you’re such hot shit,” Katie yelled, running her fingers through her greasy bottled blond hair. “If it wasn’t for me you woulda had no one growing up! No one! I was your only frick’n friend. When my life went to shit last year because of you, you were nowhere to be found. Too busy living in your new house, driving your new Jeep and screwing your FBI boyfriend. You owe me, Delma.” She drew out my old name on her tongue as a taunt, and then sneered. “You owe me big-time.” She tucked hair behind her ears. “So what ya gonna do now?” She stuck her arms out, wrists up toward Garrett. “If you’re here to arrest me, just do it already.”
“I’m not going to have you arrested. You say I owe you? Now we’re even,” I said quietly. “Just stay away from me and mine, you got that? Stay away. Forever.”
I stomped out of the house in a whirl of anger that was mostly all tears and raw hurt.
Garrett joined me in the car a few minutes later.
“You won’t be hearing from her again. I guarantee it.” He turned and kissed my tear-stained cheek. “You okay?”
I nodded. “Just take me home, please.”
* * *
Wookie greeted me like I’d been gone a year. He’d been well cared for by Garrett in my absence but he needed to give me a hundred licks and needed tw
o hundred head pats to make everything right again. It was my pleasure to give him all the attention he needed and I didn’t get annoyed with him when he climbed in bed with Garrett and me for a snuggle that night.
The next day I insisted on a road trip with Garrett.
When he parked in the boat launch parking lot near the spot I’d left my Jeep before, he asked, “Why are we here?”
I could hear the anxiety in his voice as he covered it with an exasperated sigh. Maybe part of him thought I was some masochist wanting to relive the terror.
“Just humor me.” I hoisted my pack from the back seat of his car. “If nothing else, it’s a beautiful day for a walk around the lake and it’s a very easy hike. So easy—” I elbowed him in the ribs “—even a soft federal agent like yourself can handle it.”
He mumbled something under his breath about not being soft and I giggled. I smiled sweetly as he insisted on carrying my pack after I’d retrieved my dowsing rods.
He leaned forward and kissed me chastely on the nose. I wrapped my arms around his neck and brought my mouth to his kissing him deeply until we were both breathless.
“Have you ever done it in the woods before?” I breathed against his mouth.
“Certainly not while someone was poking the back of my head with dowsing rods.”
I laughed and we trudged down the trail. “Yeah, so as you know I forgot my pack that day and made myself a divining rod out of a branch.” I walked ahead holding the rods out in front of me. “Using a branch isn’t exactly my thing. Sure, that’s how I learned but it isn’t as...well, the vibe isn’t as strong.” I glanced over my shoulder. “Does that make sense?”
“Nothing you do makes sense but carry on.”
“Right well, I remember there was a spot where I felt the branch offer a tremor. Barely a shake but it was...something.”
“And what was it?”
“That’s the thing.” I glanced back. “I was determined to get to Ebba’s cottage and thought I had more than enough time to check the trail a little more thoroughly on my trip back to the car.”
A Grave Search Page 22
